Plainclothes Naked (17 page)

want him to hear.

The truckload of brew-hogs peeled out of the parking lot and Tina settled in to resume their conversation. “Sorry, where were we?”

“Tina,” was all he could manage, as he watched her tear the filter off a Viceroy and gaze benignly in his direction.

“Tina what?” she said, giving him a wave and a smile. “Is there some kind of problem, Detective?”

Furious, Chief Fayton gazed at his Honor Wall, focusing on the framed photo of himself and Mayor Marge.
‌

For ten minutes he’d pleaded his case, explaining till he cracked a sweat that what the city needed was a task force. The chief liked the sound of it. Task force. Which he, of course, would head up in his capacity as Whip Hand at the UMPD. (
Whip Hand.
He liked the sound of that, too.)

“Carmella Dendez and Dee-Dee Walker. Two women dead in two days!” he’d exclaimed, reading off the three-by-fives that Officer Chatlak had typed so he’d stay on point. At first the mayor didn’t seem to be lis tening, but the chief wrote that off as typical Marge. Her Honor always did ten things at once. She was prob

ably having her nails done and signing a law outlawing spittoons while talking to him. Marge was the original multitasker.

Knowing her tendencies, Fayton had plowed ahead with re newed determination. “Not to mention,
Mayor,
a priest has been run over and an old lady’s been dropped out a window. In a rest home, damn it!”

He’d gone back and forth with “damn,” but decided to throw it in, to show he meant business.

“If our citizens can’t be safe
in an old age home
”—he’d underlined for extra emphasis—“where can they be safe? We’re talking about the Golden Years,Your Honor!”

The chief paused, counting one-two-three, like it said in the
Ora tor’s Handbook,
for extra emphasis, then escalated his attack.

“What we’re looking at is a vicious serial killer, in our own back yard. This man Zank is a threat to every decent man, woman, and child in Upper Marilyn. We’ve got to act, for our loved ones, for our
con stituents.
”

Fayton was especially proud of that last part. The word “con stituents,” he felt, was his pièce de résistance, and he sat back in his chair after he’d pronounced it, waiting for the mayor to cave. “Con stituents” conjured up voters, which conjured up elections, which conjured up the fact that if she didn’t act he would damn well throw his weight to her opponent. Maybe he’d even run himself.
That
would show her! Of course, the city managers had yet to decide whether or not to actually
have
elections. They raised the issue every November, and the
Trumpet
ran pro-election editorials. But when push came to shove, the bastards preferred simply reappointing Marge, as they’d been doing every two years since handpicking her for the job. Which, now that he thought about it, probably cut his legs off, rhetorically speaking.

Fayton steamed. What was the point of being police chief if you couldn’t capitalize and run for higher office? He had a weird feeling Mayor Marge did not even
want
to catch Tony Zank. “For God’s sake,” she kept repeating, somewhat peevishly, “we don’t even know for cer tain it’s the same man.”

“Maybe not,” Fayton hedged. He was always nervous when he

strayed from his three-by-fives. “Dee-Dee Walker,Your Honor, was a reporter. You don’t think the
Trumpet
’s going to be all over that?”

“She was their
only
reporter, so if any paper’s all over it, it won’t be that one. What they’ll run is a nice obituary and a bunch of puff pieces full of testimonials about Dee-Dee. More important, do we even know for sure she was even murdered? No,” she snorted, “we do not.”

Mayor Marge let out a long I-have-more-important-things-to deal-with sigh, then continued in a tone that made him feel like a pest. “I’m no
police chief,
but I do think if we start alarming the public now with word there’s some kind of Son of Sam running around, it’ll do more harm than good. People will start to panic. Not to mention

the possibility of copycats.”

Copycats!
he wanted to shriek.
You think other people are going to start bouncing their loved ones out of rest home windows? You think that’s going to start a TREND?

He didn’t say this, however. He didn’t say anything, except “Thank you for listening” and “Have a nice day” before hanging up. His authority problem was something the chief was working on. No mat ter how much he prepped and three-by-fived, no matter how many hours of rehearsal and mirror-work he put in before talking to some one of Mayor Marge’s stature, the second he opened his mouth he heard himself doing everything but offering to wash their car to get them to like him. It was his own little Stockholm Syndrome. No mat ter how spunky he started out, he ended up agreeing with whoever abused him.

To calm down after his debacle with the mayor, the chief decided to review some notes for his screenplay. That’s when he had another brainstorm. There was
one
way to go above Her Honor. If it worked he’d be the hero, and not just in Upper Marilyn, either. Nationwide! Rubert had said as much when they discussed McCardle and the
Most Wanted
thing. Manny’d also suggested they wait until they’d actually caught the guy before calling the show. But damn it, some things couldn’t wait! Besides, how did he know Rubert wasn’t going to double-cross him? Maybe phone in a tip-that-leads-to-arrest himself and snag the reward money. You couldn’t put
anything
past a character like that. No, if anyone was going to look heroic, it was he, Chief Fay-ton, the man with a plan. And after that, who knew?

For one, lovely second, the chief let himself daydream about hob knobbing with James Woods when they shot the movie of his life. Sure, James was older, but he had the same kind of cockiness, the same kind of
Outta-my-way, I’m-in-charge!
quality the chief liked to see in himself. Or, more accurately, that he’d like to see on-screen when somebody played him.

“Fayton—The Story of a Small-Town Lawman.”
Just saying it made him feel taller.

He chuckled to think about Mayor Marge’s face when she saw Kathy Bates or Roseanne playing her. He’d slap that in the contract, too. Iron-clad!

Then again, if he could get his script to the networks, it might be better to go for a series. Like the
Homicide
guy. Or what’s-his-name, Bill Clark, the ex-cop who got that executive consultant credit on
NYPD Blue.
That had to bring in a chunk of change. But would James Woods do TV? If he wouldn’t, he decided, he’d settle for Tom Selleck. Or that young handsome guy, from the
Law and Order
reruns. Ben jamin Bratt. The one who dated Julia Roberts. The chief read
TV Guide
religiously. He liked to keep up with show business, so he’d know his way around when he got there.

Fayton hit the intercom. “Chatlak, get me John Walsh!”

“You mean,” asked his sluggish assistant when he shuffled in with his container of takeout potato salad, “the
America’s Most Wanted
guy?” Chatlak could never get his dentures to fit and pretty much lived on potato salad, a gob of which now dotted his lower lip.

“Of course that’s who I mean. And wipe your mouth! Tell Walsh it’s Lyn Fayton, chief of police in the town of Upper Marilyn, in the glo rious state of Pennsylvania, in the United States of Kiss My Ass!”

Oh, he
was feeling Alpha Male now. It was a smart move, not men tioning Mac McCardle to Mayor Marge. He’d save the spade gay-killer for himself. To heck with Rubert! This was going to be
good!
This was going to show everybody. Oh
yeah!
Now he was cooking with gas.

Unfortunately, it took nearly an hour for Chatlak to find the
AMW

phone number and another forty minutes to get through to a human.

By this time Fayton’s adrenaline had drained significantly. Once some body from
WANTED
actually picked up, things got worse.

“John Walsh? Chief Fayton,” Fayton barked into the phone when Chatlak handed it over.

The elderly cop tried to signal
“No!”
but it was too late. The man on the other end spoke in a tone that was beyond patronizing. “Walsh doesn’t take the eight hundred calls,” he said curtly. “What is this regarding?”

“Regarding? Oh, well, I’ll tell you,” Fayton sputtered, spilling his cards in his lap. He waved for Chatlak to leave the office but the doddering prick just stood there, stooped over and grinning his cadaverous grin. He absolutely
had
to get the city managers to authorize a real secretary.

Damn!
Fayton thought. He could feel prickly sweat in his armpits. Somehow his perspiration smelled different when he was nervous. Kind of like smoked salmon. He could smell himself now, loxing up. “I’m, uh, really sorry to bother you, but, well, I’m chief of police here in Upper Marilyn... .”

“Where?”

Was that a laugh? Was the man
laughing
at him? Fayton felt suddenly tired. More than anything, he wanted to take a nap. Right there. Just drop the phone and go fetal under the desk. Instead, curling his toes in his brogans, he sputtered on.

“Um... Upper Marilyn, Sir. It’s a ...a small town here in south western Pennsylvania. There’s a few thousand of us, and, well, uh, I think one of your
Most Wanteds,
I guess you’d say, has been seen here in the last day or two, so—”

“You think?” the man cut in. “You
think?
Buddy, you know how many calls we get a day? Try fifteen hundred. You wanna be a hero? Give us something real. Or better yet, get a real job. Upper Marilyn, Kee-
rist!
”

Chief Fayton clutched the receiver with both hands, listening to the dial tone after the man hung up. It was hard to believe, five minutes ago he’d been so...
there.
So on top. Making
moves!
And now, some glori fied boiler room hack had treated him like a joke. Well, he’d take care of that. Lyn Fayton was no quitter! He’d take care of that
fast
.

“Chatlak,” he hollered defiantly, “make another call!” “Sure thing, boss.”

The ancient policeman was still smirking, and when he caught his superior’s eye, he started giggling all over again. To Fayton, at this cru cial juncture, Chatlak had never seemed more repulsive: crooked gray teeth, face full of gin blossoms, yellowing hair so riddled with dandruff it looked like confetti. And
he
was laughing at
him!

“It’s not funny,” Fayton said, sounding schoolmarmy even to him self. “I said, it’s not funny!”

Unable to stop, Chatlak waved his hand helplessly. The sickly vet eran’s laughs turned to wheezes. He yanked out a stained hanky, blew his nose, and tried to compose himself. But the hacking giggles per sisted.

“Chatlak! Settle officer!”

While authority cowed him, the chief liked to think he
ruled
his underlings. Mayor Marge and the
America’s Most Wanted
man were one thing, but Chatlak . . . Chatlak worked for
him
.

“I am not a joke!” Fayton yelled, pounding the desk, his voice going high and quivery with rage. “Chatlak, do you hear me!
I am not a joke!
”

But the old man was past hearing. He reeled in the center of the room, holding his sides, tee-heeing into his handkerchief, literally weeping, until Fayton, squeezing more police action into a single sec ond than his previous thirteen years on the force, scooped up his cord less telephone and hurled it at him.

Two minutes later, scared out of his wits, Chief Fayton retrieved the phone. Fighting a twitch in his finger, he punched out a number.

“Ruby? It’s Fayton. This is important. I need you at the station.
Now!
” He panted into the mouthpiece, saw it was dotted with blood, and wiped it off on his sleeve. “I think,” he babbled on unsteadily,
“I think Officer Chatlak just had an accident.”

At the station, Merch sat wheezing behind his desk, thumbing through a girly mag as Manny breezed past on the way to the chief’s office. Merch had a thing for girly mags but preferred those published in the halcyon days before Larry Flynt came along and things went pink. The ones Merch liked had names like
Wink
and
Tit ter,
and featured smiling carhop types posing in leopard-skin bikinis, or tied up Betty Page–style on white leather sofas. His current mag, Manny noticed, was called
Vixen
. The cover sported a busty brunette done up in skimpy squaw-wear, holding a bow and arrow and blowing a kiss.
‌

None of these magazines had been published since the midsixties. Merch, however, had somehow acquired a bottomless trough, and no amount of prodding would

reveal his source. It was weirdly comforting, after the tense ten minutes Manny’d spent with Tina before getting Fayton’s call, to walk in and see a world that was still halfway normal. As soon as he was through here, he was going back to meet her, ostensibly about their next move with the photo. But they both know the real reason was something else entirely.

The whole deal was insane, at the very least, if not completely self-destructive.
But,
Manny kept hearing himself think,
when you hate your life, what do you care about destroying it?
Especially if there’s a chance you won’t: A chance, if you don’t end up behind bars or tied off for the lethal fix, you’ll end up in bed with a bent, beautiful, edge-of-your-seat genius female who sees right through your eyeballs to the dark room in the back of your brain, the one you never let anybody into because you didn’t know it was there....

From Guru Marv to Carmella Dendez to Dee-Dee Walker to God knows who else, there was a stack of bodies around Tina, which made a powerful argument for steering clear of her. There was a bigger stack of reasons to bring her in for questioning, if not jail her outright. But Manny, busy as he was counting the milliseconds until he could see her again, couldn’t come up with any at the moment.