The Arx (7 page)

“Shit, it’s not my fault,” Bob drawled, almost sliding off the bar stool. He wrapped his hand around his beer like it would hold him in place. A patch of drool tinged the corner of his mouth.

The bartender nodded.

“He wants to drink, that’s his lookout,” Bob said. “I drink,” he laughed, like he’d said something clever, and held up his beer. “But I can handle it. Yeah, maybe I got him started, but nobody put a gun to his head to keep goin’.”

“He hit the skids pretty bad,” the bartender said. “I saw him passed out in the alley a couple of nights ago, lying in his own puke.”

“He’s a grown-up,” Bob said. “‘Least he is now.”

Frank ordered another round. He almost knocked it over again – the glass rocked precariously sideways but he caught it before it fell. He ordered another shot of scotch.

Bob and the bartender talked about Bob’s alcoholic buddy. It turned out that Bob had encouraged, even coaxed, the other man, who turned out to be his younger brother, to drink when the brother was only a teenager. With each new detail Frank felt the pressure in the room intensify. An overwhelming rage boiled up inside him.

“I don’t owe him nothin’,” Bob drawled.

“But he
is
your little brother,” the bartender said.

“Yeah, so?” Bob said. “Don’t get on your high horse with me. I’m not my brother’s keeper…” Bob laughed and nudged the bartender’s elbow. “Get it?” he said. “My brother’s keeper.”

Frank slammed his empty glass on the bar. Bob and the bartender stared over at him.

“What the fuck’s your problem?” Bob said.

“You scumbag,” Frank said. He scowled at Bob’s reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

“You talkin’ to me?” Bob said. “I’m a what?”

Frank turned to face him. “Your partner looks up to you, you’re his role model, and you ruin his life.”

“Partner?” Bob said. “What fuckin’ partner? You some kind of mental case? Anyway, who you think you’re talkin’ to, asshole?”

He slid off his stool, almost collapsing, and took a step toward Frank.

“Come on, guys,” the bartender said. “Settle down. Let’s be friends.”

“There’s a special kind of Hell for scum like you,” Frank said.

“And I guess you’re the one that’s gonna teach me a lesson,” Bob said.

Frank slid off his own stool.

“Okay, you’re cut off,” the bartender said to Frank. “Drink up and get the hell out of here.”

“You’re the scumbag,” Bob said. He grabbed an empty bottle, smashed it against the bar, and jabbed the glass weapon at Frank. “I’ll teach you to mind your own fuckin’ business.”

Frank side-stepped the bottle and swept his leg behind Bob’s feet. The already staggering drunk collapsed and fell backward, dropping his weapon. Frank jumped on top of him and smashed at Bob’s face with his fists.

“Get him off me!” Bob screamed. The bartender jumped over the bar and tried to haul Frank off. He was joined by one of the bikers. Together they pulled Frank away and the biker held him down. Bob struggled to his feet and kicked Frank in the head.

“Get the hell out!” the bartender yelled to Bob, and he staggered out the front door. Frank still lay on the floor, held now by both bikers. The bartender picked up the phone. A few minutes later the squeal of a siren approached and a spinning red and blue light filtered through the windows. Two cops strode in, their hands on their weapons.

“What’s going on here?” the larger of the two said.

“Just get him outta here!” the bartender yelled. “He’s outta control!”

Frank struggled against the bikers’ grips. They held him long enough for the cops to get the handcuffs on, then they took over.

“Settle down,” the smaller of them said to Frank.

Frank was quiet as they marched him, one on each arm, out of the bar and toward the police cruiser. As they reached the sidewalk Frank head-butted the larger cop, broke free, and took off down the street, wrists still handcuffed behind his back.

They caught up and tackled him, driving him to the pavement face first. Both men jumped on top of him and each drove a knee into his back.

“Are you going to behave?” the larger one said into his ear.

Frank nodded. They hauled him to his feet, dragged him back to the cruiser, and shoved him roughly inside. He passed out. When he woke up they were hauling him out of the car. They propelled him through the front doors of the station and up to the booking desk.

“Let’s see some ID,” a cop at the desk said.

Frank swayed as he struggled to reach the wallet in his back pocket with his cuffed hands. The larger cop grabbed it for him and plunked it on the desk.

“Frank Langer,” the desk cop said, reading the driver’s license. “Do I know you?”

Frank leaned on the desk but said nothing.

“Morton,” the desk cop crooked his finger at the one who’d handed him the wallet. The two drew aside. “This guy’s a cop,” Frank heard him whisper. “A detective – you remember – the Mastico thing?”

“That’s the guy?” Morton said.

“I’ve seen his picture,” the desk cop said. “I recognize the name.”

Morton shook his head slowly. “Christ – no wonder he’s out getting hammered.”

They returned to the booking desk. Morton took Frank’s watch and ring and handed them to the desk cop, who slid them and the wallet into a brown envelope.

Morton whispered to his partner for a few minutes. They returned and walked Frank, more gently this time, to one of the holding cells. Frank put up no resistance.

They took his belt and shoe laces.

“Why couldn’t they do that for Gloria?” Frank mumbled as they removed the handcuffs, took off his jacket, and shoved him inside. He collapsed on the cot.

“Sleep it off,” said Morton. He slung the jacket over his shoulder. A thin, rectangular object fell from one of the pockets and floated to the cement floor. Morton reached down and picked it up. It was a business card.

When Frank woke up he couldn’t remember everything that had happened the night before, but he was pretty sure he shouldn’t be where he was – at home in his own bed. He rolled out and, after a failed attempt to stand, collapsed to the floor. His head throbbed; each pulse threatened to split his skull apart. The left side of his face stung with pain. He reached up and felt crusted ridges of dried blood on his cheek and forehead.

He fought the urge to be sick long enough to make it to the bathroom. After voiding everything he’d eaten the day before, he struggled from his position over the toilet, stood shakily, staggered to the sink, washed the vomit from the corners of his mouth, and did his best to clean up the diagonal scrapes across his face. He stumbled down the stairs to the living room. On the couch was a shape under a blanket. Several strands of long brown hair hung down past the blanket’s hem.

Still half asleep and confused, he headed for the kitchen, where the automatic coffee maker had just started bubbling. He was going to light a cigarette, but changed his mind and decided to take a shower. Feeling better after the shower and a couple of Ibuprofen, he went back downstairs. In the living room, the blanket was now neatly folded and lay on the coffee table. He moved to the kitchen.

"Hi Frank," Rebecca Hanon said, as she tilted the decanter over a cup. “You look like shit. Coffee?”

“Sure, thanks,” Frank said, surprised at how pleased he felt seeing her again. Fragments of what had happened the night before came back to him and he felt a rush of warmth on his cheeks. He fought off a sudden wave of nausea.

“You brought me back here?” he said.

“The cops found my card in your coat pocket,” she said, pouring coffee into the cup and handing it to him. His hand shook as he reached for it. “They thought I was your therapist,” she continued, “and I didn’t say anything to contradict them. I heard what you did. You’re lucky they figured out who you were. They didn’t want to charge you with anything. I convinced them to let me take you home.”

She leaned back against the kitchen counter. “One of the cops said you mumbled something about going back to your old squad room. I could have told you how that would turn out. It’s probably one of your biggest psychological triggers.”

“Don’t start with that psych-” A sudden throb of pain expanded into his skull. He thought better of what he was going to say. “Sorry about the place,” he said instead. “I’ve been meaning to clean it up.”

“Yeah,” she said, scanning around the room. “It’s got that classic Downtown Eastside crack-house ambiance. I hope you won’t fly off the handle if I tell you that it’s standard for someone with your condition.”

Frank’s hands were still shaking. He pulled a kitchen chair out with his foot, flopped down on it, and sat his cup on one of the few clear patches on the table.

“I’m still working on the case,” he said. He looked up at her. “I know it’s not really a case – I know I’m not really a cop at the moment…”

“I’m sorry, Frank,” she said, smiling. “Maybe I was a bit hard on you. I’m still upset about what happened to Gloria and her baby. Counselors can have emotional problems too, you know.”

“But you should be able to cure yourselves.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” she laughed and her face seemed to light up.

“I guess I kind of overreacted,” Frank said. “I’ve been on edge for a while now, with the drinking, and not getting enough sleep…”

He patted the pile of debris on the table for his cigarettes. Rebecca tapped him on the shoulder. He turned. She was holding the pack.

“On the counter,” she said, nodding toward it.

Frank’s hands shook as he extracted one, lit it, took a puff, and exhaled a large blue cloud. Rebecca screwed up her nose.

Neither spoke for a few seconds. Finally Frank said, “I've got some new information, if you’re interested.”

“Of course I’m interested.”

“Maybe you should sit down,” he said. She poured herself a coffee and sat on a chair opposite him.

"Gloria's baby isn't the only one missing," he said.

“What?”

“You’re going to think I’m paranoid, but something’s going on here – something beyond one kidnapping.”

He took a puff on his cigarette. “What kept bugging me was the plausibility of the case against Gloria. I never believed she was guilty, but she
looked
guilty – almost like it was planned; like it was a setup. And then there was the thing with the baby in the car not being hers.

“She didn’t seem to have any enemies. My nose kept coming back to some kind of conspiracy. I got ahold of the statistics on children under the age of two that disappeared in the past fifteen years.”

“And?”

“There’s at least five I’d put in the same category as Gloria’s. Funny thing is, they’re all similar, but at the same time all different – almost like they were planned to be that way.”

“What do you mean?”

He told her about the case he’d been involved in, with the mother and children on a picnic.

“In another one,” he said, “the mother murdered her own baby then committed suicide.”

“That sounds more like Gloria.”

“Yeah, only this time it all happened at once. The baby’s body was never found, but there were traces of blood around the apartment. They figured she’d disposed of the body somehow, then felt remorse and did herself in.”

“Were all of the women single mothers?”

“The one at the picnic – she was married, though I don’t think the husband was there. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern that way. Another mother was pushing her baby daughter in a cart through a crowded fairground. She turned around for a second and the baby was gone, and again, it was never found.”

Rebecca’s hands tightened around her coffee cup.

“They all could have happened according to the official line,” Frank continued, “but there’s a thread of similarity. If you were in the business of kidnapping babies and you wanted to make sure the kidnappings went under the radar, you’d arrange them to be different enough that nobody would connect the dots.”

Frank took a sip of coffee.

“There’s another explanation,” Rebecca said.

Frank looked at her.

“That the disappearances really aren’t connected,” she said, smiling. “That you
are
paranoid. But let’s assume you’re right and there is some kind of conspiracy – do you have any theories about why?”

“I haven’t gotten that far – yet.”

Frank put down his cup and ran a shaking hand through his hair.

“Frank,” she said, “I appreciate what you’re doing, but take it from me – it was my business for years. You need help. You seem determined to pursue this no matter what I say, but I’m worried about what it’ll do to you.”

Frank opened his mouth to say something, but changed his mind.

“The past few weeks have been a nightmare,” she said, her voice breaking. “I want to clear my sister’s name. If you’re right and it’s possible Ralphie is still alive, I want to find him.

“The police have already tried Gloria and found her guilty. I contacted the lead detective, Stocker. I see what you mean about him. I tried to convince him to do a DNA test and he dug in his heels. He’s more pig-headed than you, and not half as intelligent.”