Plainclothes Naked (36 page)

“Uh-huh. You’re gonna do that, with the reward they got hangin’ over my dusky butt.”

“Well technically, no. Only the chief can let you go. He’s the one hung up on the reward. Though personally, I think the whole thing’s bunk.”

McCardle rehurled himself against the seatback. “See, there you go.
Fuckin’
with me. This whole time, gettin’ my hopes up, talkin’ ’bout ‘maybe this, maybe that,’ this whole damn time, you just
fuckin’
with me.”

“McCardle, I’m not fucking with you. You do me one favor”— Manny snapped his fingers—“I can make it all go away.”

“Oh yeah? And what
I
gotta do? Maybe I did smoke somebody, which I
didn’t,
that don’t mean I meant to. And it sure as shit don’t mean I’m gonna smoke somebody for you. You wanna hit, you come to the wrong nigger.You wanna play that way, talk to Zank. He’d shoot a motherfucker just to see which way he bleed.” Mac banged his bound hands off his knees for emphasis. “That man is plain
amoral
.”

Manny caught Tina’s eye and winked. He wasn’t usually a winker, but lately it seemed called for. He cocked his finger for Mac to lean forward, then whispered in his ear. McCardle let out a gasp and shrunk to a far corner of the backseat. “No way, man! No
way
I’m gonna do that!”

“Come on, just one kiss,” Manny said, catching the prisoner’s eyes in the rearview. “How bad can that be? I’m sure you’ve done worse for less. I know
I
have.”

McCardle lowered his eyes, going for his “pleading-Dino” look, and Manny ignored him. He picked up the phone and punched out a number. “Fayton? It’s Rubert. I’m coming in with McCardle.... Hey, spare me the faux-surprise, I know about the tap. That’s not why I’m calling. I just want to make sure you remember the deal. ... No! No, no,
no!
We talked about this. No press. Nada....
Because I fucking say so, that’s why!
”

Manny threw the phone down on the Impala’s floor and grinned happily. Tina had to ask. “Isn’t Fayton the chief of police?”

“That’s what it says on his door.” “And that’s how you talk to him?”

“We have an understanding. So what’s it gonna be, Mac?”

McCardle scrunched up his gigolo’s face, conflicted. “A thing like that could ruin a man’s reputation.”

“Is that right?” Manny hit the brakes so suddenly Tina fell forward and McCardle, who wasn’t wearing his belt, was thrown face-first into the back of the front seat. Ignoring him, Manny opened the glove compartment, selected one of the eight-by-tens Roos developed from the dildo-cam, and tossed it over his shoulder.

“While you’re thinking, Macho Man, take a peek at this.”

“Shee-it,” said McCardle theatrically, acting put out until he picked the glossy off the floor. Then he shrieked. “Oh man, this is . . . this is
inappropriate!
” He began to breathe rapidly, switched to sniffly weeping, and worked his way up to full-blown sobs before Tina dabbed his tiny nose with a Kleenex. “We didn’t wanna do this,” McCardle blub bered. “She made us. That big lady, from the home. The one with the beehive.
Carmella
. She pulled out a gun and said I had to do Tony or she’d blow my
pinga
off.”

“Your what?”

“What do you
think?
My
bone
phone ... my
love
-thang ... my manhood, okay? She had a gun on it. Lord, I didn’t even
see
no camera! Musta been somebody under the bed.” His sobs grew plaintive. “You gotta believe me!”

“Whatever.” Manny smiled sympathetically into the rearview. “
I
believe you, Mac. But that’s just me. Once this picture starts showing up places, who knows? What I hear, a lot of your finer homosexual

magazines pay top dollar for a shot like this. You bein’ such a beefcake and all. ... Of course, the worst thing would probably be if copies of this got in the joint when you were in there. Imagine if the fellas on the yard had a chance to check it out. ... Now
that
could fuck up a man’s reputation. But hey, no pressure, brother. You do what you gotta do.”

Massive shoulders hunched, a copy of
Mademoiselle
raised in front of his face, McCardle did the perp walk from Manny’s Impala to the sliding doors of the police station. The
Mademoiselle
was Manny’s idea, and they’d stopped at a 7-Eleven on the way down to pick one up.
‌

“Keep ’em guessing,” he explained, when McCardle asked why he couldn’t go with
Muscle and Fitness.

“But
Mademoiselle
’s not me,” he protested, and Manny had to launch into his my-way-or-the-highway rap all over again.

Tina walked behind them, ready with the story Manny’d supplied in case Fayton asked what the hell she was doing there. “Get teary,” Manny’d told her in the car. “Get all new widowy and distraught. Tell him

you’re so grief-stricken about Marv you were gonna do yourself, then you found my card and I swung by to pick you up, get you into some grief counseling down at U. M. General. But we had to make a stop.” Chief Fayton, meanwhile, waited just inside, hopping from foot to foot like a nine-year-old who had to to go the bathroom. Merch was theoretically desk sergeant but rarely bothered to man the fortresslike desk that flanked the entrance, preferring to hang out in back by the candy machine. It wasn’t like the station did a lot of business. Whole days went by with no more than the odd bar-thug or bus-flasher. See ing Fayton in such high dither, however, brought Merch up front.

Krantz, too, had rolled in to check out the action.

These were the moments the chief lived for, and Fayton intercepted Manny the second he came through the door. After glaring at his outfit—somehow, the yoga-wear seemed more
orange
under police sta tion fluorescents—he edged in front of Manny, next to the suspect.

“This him?”

Fayton grabbed McCardle by the arm. He loved to get tough with perpetrators. To show what he was made of. Manny noticed a photog rapher from the
Trumpet.
He leaned in close to the chief and whis pered.

“I told you, no pictures.” “Officer, I don’t think—”

“You don’t think what? You wanna fuck everything up?”

“Well no, but ... but can we at least
call
now?” Fayton could not keep the greed out of his voice. “Ruby, we don’t want to lose that reward.”

Tina sized up the situation and pulled herViceroys out of her purse. Fayton stopped pleading long enough to nail her. “This station is a smoke-free zone, young lady.”

“Fine with me,” she said, announcing to anyone who cared. “I’d rather catch cancer outside anyway.”

She planted a smooch on Manny’s cheek and sauntered off with an extra twitch in her walk. Fayton and Manny both watched her move, McCardle hovering uncomfortably between them. His huge bicep had begun to tire from holding up the magazine. It was the Fall Fashion Issue, and it was bulky. He switched hands as Krantz, Merch, Mindy the

Dispatcher, and a moody ex-con named Melvin who delivered sand wiches crowded in for a peek.

“Very nice, bringing a date to an interrogation,” the chief huffed. “You’ve got some explaining to do, Detective.”

Manny stepped past McCardle, so close to Fayton he barely had to whisper. “My days of explaining anything to you are over. You wanna pretend you’re the Man to the rest of the world, fine. I
know
what you are.”

Fayton glowered. “Very well. But I still think we should lock up that reward money before it’s too late.”

“You call now,” Manny lectured him, “they’re gonna take all the credit. You want that? No! What you want is for everybody to know it was Chief Lyn Fayton’s superior police work that snagged this guy.You want the money
and
the props. You want it all, or am I wrong?”

“No, no,” said Fayton. “You’re right.”

“Good. I’m glad we agree. So do the right thing for once. The

smart
thing.”

Manny gave the chief ’s arm a knowing squeeze, amazed all over again at the power of greed and ego to render a human stupid. In fact, he knew exactly what would happen if the chief called the
AMW
peo ple. They’d send down a crew, do an interview, have the chief swear that it was seeing the killer’s face on
America’s Most Wanted
that led to his capture, and make Fayton famous for a week. The downside, of course: It would fuck up Manny’s personal plans.

Fayton grumbled but had to concede; when it came to scheming, nobody could outdo Rubert. The bastard had him licking his boots in his own station. All because he’d bumped off Chatlak, who was noth ing but a dandruff factory anyway. He’d done the old guy a favor. It was all so unfair. So
unenlightened!
A person could only take so much....

Catching Manny before he could step back to the prisoner, Fayton stammered sotto voce, “There’s no harm in a couple of photographs!”

Manny pretended to scowl. “I’m telling you, don’t do it!”

The chief ignored him and waved the shutterbug over, and Manny gave McCardle the nod. They’d rehearsed it all on the ride over. The photographer swooped forward and assumed a crouch. Fayton shoe

horned himself beside McCardle, fixing his face in a crime-fighting scowl. The five-four felon glanced in panic at Manny, who nodded again.
Now.

The photographer pressed his eye to the camera, finger poised to shoot, and McCardle jumped forward, thrusting his puckered lips toward the chief. He kissed Fayton hard on the lips at the exact instant the shutter clicked.

“You big stud, I’ve missed you
so much!
” Mac cried, before Fayton could react. “But sometimes you make me so
jealous!
You
know
you’re the only man for me! Have you told your wife yet?”

Fayton’s face collapsed in terror and McCardle moved in. He kissed him again, and the chief tried to slap him away.

“What the—?
Stop!
Stop the pictures!
Stop the fucking pictures!
”

But the photographer, sensing that this was his Ruby-shoots- Oswald moment, ignored him. He snapped away as Mac launched himself upward for another smooch, catching the chief square on the mouth.

Krantz and Merch were both snickering, until Mindy, who’d refound Jesus after a brief lapse, thrust the wooden cross she wore around her neck toward the chief and let him have it. “Abomination!” she exclaimed. “Adam and
Eve,
not Adam and
Steve!
”

“Shut
up!
” Fayton shouted, turning in desperation to his nearest underlings. “Goddamnit Krantz, get this pervert off me! He’s insane! Merch, use your stun gun!”

Shocked as they were, neither policeman could find the will to move. Finally Manny came to his boss’s aide.

“I told you not to bring in photographers,” he whispered. “I was trying to
protect
you.”

Manny faux-struggled to peel McCardle off Fayton, but the diminutive criminal continued shrieking, arms flailing as Manny tugged at him. “I love you, Poopy. I’ll always love you! I just want to feel your arms around me again!
Please!
I want to be your chocolate love-toy! How can you pretend you don’t know me, after all those nights of ecstasy? Lyn, please! You said you loved me! You said we were going to find a Unitarian minister and get married!You promised me a
gown!
”

Fayton’s face had gone ashen. For one bad second Manny thought

he was going to pull a Cheney, have a heart attack on the spot. “Get this man down to interrogation,” he ordered Krantz. The Mullet was eager to please after the dressing-down Manny’d given him for barging in when he caught Manny with his face between Tina’s thighs. (“Les son One, Rookie: No matter what it looks like, never question another officer’s tactics. It could mean the difference between life and death!”) Manny, guiding the still-stunned Fayton down the hall, called over his shoulder to Merch. “Do me a favor, get the photographer out of here.” Then he leaned back in to the chief. “We’re just going down to

question the suspect. It’s going to be okay. Trust me.”

In the tiny
Interrogation Room, Manny and Fayton watched through adjoining peepholes as Krantz unfolded a metal chair and shoved McCardle into it. They’d ordered a two-way mirror years ago, but it was installed backward and shattered when Merch cracked it with his forehead trying to get it out of the wall. He claimed shrapnel from the Tet Offensive made him pitch forward occasionally, but the city man agers thought he’d been drinking and refused to reorder. So they’d gone with peepholes.

“I want you to know, I’m not judging you,” Manny whispered, keeping a supporting hand on the chief ’s back. “I
understand.
”

Fayton blanched. “What are you talking about? This is some fabri cation! He’s deranged!”

“Of course he is.” Manny put on his most soothing voice. “And I’ll do my best to try and keep Mayor Marge from hearing about it.”

“Mayor Marge?”
Of the myriad hellacious consequences inflaming his brain, this was one Fayton hadn’t considered. “Why does Mayor Marge have to hear about it?”

“She doesn’t. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure nobody leaks it to her. I know how bad that would be for you.”

“But it’s all
lies!
I’ve never seen this man, except on TV. He’s mak ing it all up!”

“You know it, and I know it. But you have to admit, it doesn’t look good.”

“
What?
”

“Think of the headlines: police chief ’s secret tryst with ex

con homo-killer! How do
you
think it sounds? This thing goes national, I don’t even want to
think
about it... .”

Fayton sputtered as if his oxygen had been cut off. His eyes seemed to swim in his head.

“Gentlemen, we’re ready,” Krantz called from the Interrogation Room.

“Hold that thought,” Manny told the chief. “Let’s see if we can poke some holes in lover boy’s story. Why don’t you take a Valium or something?”