Plainclothes Naked (18 page)

“Nice of you to drop by.” Merch honked, blowing his nose at the same time he talked. “There’s a goddamn crime spree, in case you haven’t noticed. Latest thing, a priest gets one-eighty-fived and left on the sidewalk. Goddamn
priest,
Manny. Some sick fuckos pancaked the sky pilot and left him for dead down in Butt-town. Front of the old Smooty’s Donuts. Christ, I miss Smooty’s, don’t you? They had a choco-sprinkle-cream make you come in your pants.”

The memory, apparently, was too much for Merch, who ka-banged the defecto candy machine and dug out a Chunky with a satisfied sigh. “Don’t get sentimental,” Manny told him, stopping by his own desk to swipe an arm’s length of memos into the trash. “Those weren’t

sprinkles. That was fly shit. But what about the priest?”

Manny knew about the accident from Fayton but let his old partner fill him in anyway. Virgin ears got everybody more excited. So he pre tended the news was new and shocking.

“I talked to him,” Merch huffed. “I like my job so much I thought I’d do yours, too.” With six months to retirement, Merch was indig

nant about ever actually having to leave the station. It was all he could do to issue a parade permit without bitching about having to lift a pen cil. “Humped all the way over to the damn hospital. And lemme tell you, that Christer looks like he crawled out of a cement mixer. Says it was two guys, a salt-and-pepper.
Entertainers,
” Merch sneered, rolling his baggy eyes. He took a bite of his candy and spit it on the floor. “
Yecch!
When’d they deliver this shit? When Nixon was president? They still even
make
Chunkies?” He slammed his snack in the basket. “Where was I?”

“The priest was run over by entertainers.”

“Right, right. You’ll love this. They told him they were on their way to Pittsburgh, to do dinner theater. ‘I’m starring in
The Dean Mar tin Story
.’ That’s what the moolie told him.
The Dean Martin Story
. Guy’s black as James Brown’s asshole and he’s playing Dean Martin.”

“Zank and McCardle,” Manny said.

Merch perked up. “Tony Zank? Guy who dropped his mommy?”

Manny nodded. “The very same.” He noticed the slight palsy in his ex-partner’s hands. When he’d first met him, the man had a punch that could shatter Plexiglas. One more reason not to get old.

Merch brushed a Chunky crumb off his trouser leg and whistled. “And McCardle, he’s the one did a guy with a shovel, right? Some kind of sissy-fit? Got him on
America’s Most Bullshit?
”

“That’s him,” said Manny. “These two’ve been busy. I make ’em for the party at Pawnee Lodge, too.”

“That ties in. Carmella Dendez’s car was found on the scene. A Gremlin, no less. I tell ya, there’s a lot goin’ on around here.”

“Yeah. Good thing you’re elderly, huh? You’ll probably have a stroke and die before things get bad.”

Merch frowned. “You take asshole lessons, or does it come natu ral?”

“On-the-job stress,” Manny replied. “I’m not myself. So when did these bo-bos talk showbiz, before or after they ran the priest over?”

“Before, okay?”

Merch was still pissy from the stroke line. He’d been convinced he was about to die from one for as long as Manny’d known him. But delight in detailing the saga at hand blew out his anger. Next to insult ing him, there’s nothing a cop likes more than sharing a truly sick war

story with another cop. Who the fuck else could you tell? Manny felt it would be wrong to deny his ex-partner such pleasure.

All but cackling with glee, Merch forged on. “Wait’ll you hear this. Ol’ Father Bob’s minding his own business, rolling through town on his way to Wheeling to visit an aunt with TB or some shit, when who does he drive by but El Negro Deano, standin’ there rifling the dead lady’s wallet.”

“What dead lady? They killed a lady before they ran the collar over?

These guys must be taking their vitamins.”

Merch slapped a hand on his girly mag, spanking the squaw. “If you’d stop bein’ such a lop and let me finish. . . . Reason the priest stopped is ’cause there was an accident. The two clowns bashed up the Gremlin. But that’s not the big news. The big news is Dee-Dee Walker.”

“The reporter?”

“Yeah, that bitch. May she rest in peace. The one who nearly got me canned with her little exposé.
Graft,
she called it! What’d I take? A goddamn ham at Christmas? A fucking Thanksgiving turkey? Come on, Manny, you can’t tell me that’s
graft.
”

“The turkey was stuffed with twenties, way I heard it.”

Merch cleared his throat. “Can we stick to the story here? Dee-Dee Walker, the
late
Dee-Dee Walker, is lying on the ground, dead, her Toy ota wrapped around a utility pole. No, not true,” he corrected himself. “Her
head
was on the ground. Her body was pretty much still in the Toyota. Anyhoo, she’s worm bait. The Afro-American
entertainer
is cooling his heels, going through her wallet, and the white guy—Zank, I guess—is knocked out behind the wheel. Until he perks up, sees Father Bob hassling his partner, and gets the bright idea to run him over.”

“Who says crackheads don’t know how to have fun?”

“Yeah, right. In case he ain’t suffered enough, Our Father has to lie there with two broken shoulders, half his teeth smashed, and a busted ass-bone and watch these fucks steal his ride. Apparently he’s some kind of car freak.”

“Who, Zank?”

“The priest! What’s wrong with you? He collects classic cars, God’s okay with that, so he’s driving this cherry ’Sixty-six Mustang, which

his new pals take off in, and nobody’s seen since. Father Bob didn’t say a lot more than that, on account of flying twenty feet up in the air and landing on his tongue. Did I mention that? He bit his tongue off. They had to sew it back on. So getting him to chat was no picnic. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Fayton called. Said it was urgent. Didn’t he tell you?”

“How could he? He won’t come out of his office. Must be relievin’ himself in a desk drawer. Haven’t seen the old fart, either.”

“Chatlak? I’m guessing you won’t,” Manny said, and headed in to see his esteemed superior.

The expression
on Chief Fayton’s face was so pathetic, so I’ll-do-any thing-to-cover-my-ass abject, Manny fought an urge to just walk up and bitch-slap him. Normally, he felt compassion for the helpless. Dalai Lama–level empathy. But not when the helpless in question had been acting like God’s Own Smug Prick for the past five years. Not when it was Fayton.

“Oh Christ,” whined the chief. “Oh Christ, Ruby, it’s awful. He just . . . he just ... went
crazy.
That’s what happened. Really. He just went off,
attacked
me, and when I tried to protect myself, I don’t know, he just kind of spun around and fell. Hit his head on the desk. See? Right in the corner. That’s what happened. That’s really what hap pened. . . . It’s such a
tragedy
. I mean, I did everything I could, I swear! One minute he was standing there, the next—”

“Shut up!”

Manny’d been waiting years to say it, and the look Fayton gave him made it worth the delay. He savored the moment as he tugged a fresh pair of plastic gloves out of his jacket. He met the chief ’s eyes as he blew into each glove before putting it on.

Fayton was in shock. “Wh-what did you say?”

“I said ‘shut up.’ There’s a man dead on the floor, and all you can think about is covering your ass. So yeah, you heard what I said.”

Fayton tried to puff himself back up to chiefly splendor, and Manny bumped him on his way to the corpse. Chatlak lay on his back, blood shot eyes still open. He wore the same expression he wore twenty years ago, when he knocked on Manny’s door to tell his parents their son

had been seen smoking “that maryjane” in the high school parking lot. The old goat had made his young life a living hell. But in retro spect, Manny realized, he’d done him a favor. Chatlak could have shipped his ass to juvey, or off to some work farm where the cons would have eaten him with a spoon. Instead he amused himself by tor menting him.

Manny kneeled down beside the body. He could never stand Chat lak, but he knew he owed him. He whispered, “Rest in peace, you bas tard,” and closed the old cop’s eyes. Then he straightened up and turned his attention to Fayton. The chief had put on his tailored blue police coat and stood fingering his badge. The whole setup had
wrong
all over it.

The chief stepped behind his desk, sat down in his power chair, and leaned forward. “You’ve got a real problem with authority, Rubert.”

“You think so?”

Manny dropped carefully into the metal chair opposite the desk— its legs had been sawed short two inches, so whoever sat there would be lower than the chief—and slowly pulled out his notebook and pen. With elaborate deliberation, he bit the top off the blue felt-tip and stared blandly across the desk at his boss.

The chief chewed a cuticle. “Wh-what do you think you’re doing, Detective?”

“It’s not about
me,
” Manny said. “Guy locks himself in a room with a dead body, doesn’t let anybody in, doesn’t even call the para medics, I think you’ll agree, that doesn’t look good, Chief.”

“What are you implying? This was a police officer!”

“And you’re in a police station—911’s down the hall, so why the hell sit around waiting for me? Not that I’m not flattered. But, call me controversial, that smells a little like last week’s haddock.” Fayton had used the line on Manny frequently—it was one of his favorites—and Manny relished the chance to lob it back at him. “Quite frankly, I’m surprised, Chief. Surprised and disappointed.”
Surprised-and-disappointed
was another Faytonism. This would have been fun, if it weren’t for the dead old man on the floor.

The chief cringed indignantly and spoke like a slandered martyr. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Detective. If you’re saying I wanted to bend the rules a little to protect the good name of an officer who, per

haps, crossed the line before he died, who, if the story got out, would lose that good name and, quite possibly, the benefits due his family for his years of good and faithful service, well, all right, sir! I’m, uh, I’m—” Fayton glanced quickly down to his left, to the drawer where he kept his “notes,” then raised his eyes again—“guilty as charged! Book me for wanting to preserve the honor of a friend. For trying—”

Manny was out of his chair and behind the desk before Fayton could slam the drawer. He grabbed the chief ’s hand and plucked it, finger by finger, off the three-by-five card he was trying to cover. The man’s palm felt soft as a debutante’s.

“For trying,” Manny read aloud, “to maintain the dignity of a man who gave his entire life to the service of his community. Who saw no shame in wearing the uniform of an officer of the law, who—Jesus Christ, Fayton, I’m impressed.You work fast. Did you just write this, or did you have it sitting around in case the old guy keeled over on his own?” Fayton gaped, red-faced, as Manny pocketed the card.

Manny couldn’t help but smile. Right now, it occurred to him, Fayton was exactly what he’d always been: a man playing police chief. Badly.

He could have watched for hours. Until he noticed the blood. A red swath smudged the left sleeve of Fayton’s jacket, just over the cuff. The chief, watching him, dropped his arm to his lap. Then he leaped out of his chair and faced his Honor Wall.

“All right, Rubert, if you have something to say, say it.”

“What’s there to say? You said Chatlak attacked you. So you
had
to do him. Self-defense. I mean, no disrespect for the dead, but I never liked the guy. He used to hassle me when I was a kid. And he wasn’t exactly efficient as an assistant, right? Just between us girls, maybe you can get a real hottie in here. Get yourself some of that knee-pad dicta tion. Or am I out of line?”

Fayton bristled. “If you’re trying to manipulate me, Detective, you’re a lousier cop than I thought. In fact you’re a disgrace.”

“I agree,” said Manny. “Really. I hate myself all over the place. Thing is, I’m not the one who killed an unarmed seventy-two-year old in my office. ’Cause let’s face it,
Chief,
your story has more holes than a bum’s underwear. Even if Chatlak did come at you, which I

seriously doubt, he’s so fucking old, you blow on him he’d keel over.”

“He fell,” said Fayton. “I told you.”

“Right. What was it again? Hit his head on the desk? After he attacked you?”

“That’s right.”

“So why’d you wipe it?”

“What?” Fayton’s left eye began to twitch.

“The blood. On your cuff there, from when you wiped it up. Too bad you didn’t take the time to get a tissue. It’s gonna take a little more than club soda and Clorox to get that out.”

Fayton stared at his sleeve, trying on expressions. He finally settled on contempt, and aimed the look at Manny. “So what?”

“So, an innocent guy isn’t gonna go around wiping blood off the furniture. He’s gonna call an ambulance. And if he’s a cop, if he’s a
real
cop, he’s gonna know enough not to touch anything. So guess what, Chief, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you’re lying right through your capped teeth. And I’ll tell you something else,
Lyn
—may I call you Lyn? I mean, I feel so
close
to you right now—I write this up, get it to your friend and mine, Mayor Marge, she’ll yank you out of that desk so fast you won’t stop spinning till you’re wearing a muumuu in County Jail.You’ll be popular, too, bein’ an ex–police chief and all. I bet the fellas inside’ll be pretty much killin’ each other to bunk with you. I might consider arresting myself, just for the chance to share a cell. Why not? A guy could get rich quick, peddlin’ tickets. Even if they don’t want to rape you—not
all
of them, anyway—they’d proba bly enjoy just fucking you up for an hour or two. What the hell, huh? I could probably make more turning you out in the joint than bein’ a cop—even, like you say, a lousy one.”

“I always knew you were dirty, Rubert. I could never pin anything on you, but I always knew.”