Wolfman - Art Bourgeau (18 page)

Outside, he sat in the car for a few minutes. At
least Rashid felt more right to him for the murder than the kid, no
matter what Sloan thought. The kid, he reviewed, panicked and ran
after shooting him without even getting his wallet, which was what
the holdup was about. That wasn't how it happened with Hightower.
Whoever shot him was first of all inside the car, not outside like
the kid. Second, after he shot him he took the wallet, and then
proceeded to mutilate the body.

Teeth marks, that's what the Medical Examiner said.
And a word came to his mind, one no one ever wanted to use. .
.cannibalism.

No question, someone who would do something like that
was out of control, over the edge. Not true with the kid. He was a
street punk, that's all. Otherwise Mrs. Mercanto’s boy would have
wound up like Hightower. Was this Rashid that much out of control . .
. or could it have been some sort of ritual? A message to others?
Rashid was Jamaican. Maybe it was something like voodoo or that movie
he’d seen about Haitian zombies. It was a possibility to consider .
. . Or was it just the work of a certifiable madman? Stories like it
were already leaking out about the house of death in North Philly
that Sloan was investigating.

His chest was starting to hurt again. He started the
car and headed for home. At the rate he was recovering it was going
to take the whole six weeks of convalescent leave before he was
normal again.

Inside his apartment he put on a tape of Miles Davis'
softer stuff like My Funny Valentine and Flamenco Sketches and went
to make a fire only to discover he was out of wood. All he had was
one of those damned chemical logs.

"Better than nothing," he muttered as he
placed it in the fireplace and lit the paper it was covered in. He
took two painkillers and stretched out on the sofa but couldn't
sleep. He was too worn down from the pain and too keyed up by the
case.

He got up and went to the kitchen table. Stanley
Hightower’s checkbook and address book were there. He went through
the checks again, wishing they could somehow tell him more than they
had so far. They must have been for Rashid, there was no other
explanation. No one gives away fifty thousand dollars, even generous
Stanley Hightower. He went to the address book. What if Rashid’s
phone number was there? He turned pages. Nothing under "R,"
maybe it was by his last name with a first initial. He started at the
beginning, went through it page by page. Nothing — until in the M's
he stopped cold. Frank's phone number was there. He looked at it for
a long moment, shook his head, went to the phone.

Frank answered on the fifth ring. His voice sounded
weaker than last time. "Feel up to some Italian? You always
liked that?"

"Yeah, sure," Frank said. "What have
you been up to lately? I haven't seen you."

"Working on a case . . . Listen, Frank, how do
you know Stanley Hightower? Your name's in his phone book."

"
That the case you're working on? I’ve been
reading about it. Sounds like a rough one. Yeah, I used to work on
his car . . . a black BMW. I tinted the windows for him. Remember he
wanted them real dark. Seemed like a nice guy."

Mercanto pulled on his coat and walked to Mama
Yolanda’s on Eighth Street. It wasn’t five yet and the place was
empty except for Dee, who was setting up tables, and John, the owner.
When John saw him he smiled broadly. "Hey Nate, what'd you say?
Come on in here, have a beer. . . on me."

Mercanto followed him into the bar. John opened a
bottle of Moretti and put it in front of him, opened a bottle of Lite
for himself. When he saw Mercanto looking at it he patted his
stomach. "Gotta watch my weight. Guess what, pasta'll put it on
you."

Mercanto smiled, and John leaned across the bar. "I
hear you got shot. Something to do with that case in the park . . ."

"Where’d you hear that?" Mercanto said,
taking a sip of his beer

"
Well, you know, people talk. How's Frank?"

"He’s in a pretty bad way . . . That's why I'm
here. He isn't eating. Thought some of your good chow might cheer him
up."

"
Know what you mean, my uncle had the same
thing. Tell you what. We’ll make him some nice Zuppa Pavese with a
little cheese, some poached eggs, chicken broth. Good for the
stomach. Then a little Penne allarrabbiata with some bacon and
tomatoes. He doesn't need a cream sauce. It won’t hold up, you’ll
see. A little red sauce will be better. It's hardier, stay with him.
We’ll make enough for you, too."

He called Dee and gave her the order. When she'd gone
he leaved across the bar. "That fellow who was killed . . . used
to be a customer here. Nice guy, fixed my glasses for me once . . .
Understood whoever did it did him up pretty badly."

"People talking again . . ." Mercanto said.
There were no secrets in the Italian community. Everyone you went to
school with was either a restaurant owner, a cop, a judge, a
contractor, a Mafioso or a doctor, and they all kept in touch.

Mercanto filled him in, including the mutilation John
had heard about.

"So what do you think?"

"
Right now, I don't know," Mercanto said.
"It's the mutilation that makes it so tough. I keep coming back
to it. Either it's crazy, or some sort of ritual . . ."

John took off his glasses and wiped them on a towel.
"Ritual . . . you mean like in that movie Serpent and the
Rainbow . . . God, that picture made me want to throw up."

"That was Haitian. I’m thinking more in the
neighborhood of Jamaica, but you've got the general idea."

"Jamaican, Haitian, it's all the same to me.
I’ve been to Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, that's all I know. Maybe
you ought to check it out."

Mercanto took a pull on his beer. "I am, but
it's going to be tough. I’m no longer officially on the case, I’m
on sick leave so I have to be sort of careful. And anyway, this isn’t
the sort of thing I can waltz into headquarters and start mouthing
off about. People are sensitive these days."

John nodded his head and reached for his cigarettes.
He started to put one in his mouth, then stopped. "That's the
Caribbean, right . . ." When Mercanto said it was, he snapped
his fingers. "Maybe I can help you. Bing, bing, bing . . . that
museum, you know . . . the Braddon, they’ve got a big exhibit on
the Caribbean. We're doing the food for a party they're having. They
love us. The whole schmear. . . clams, mussels, maybe four or five
kinds of pasta, antipasto, the works . . . I was talking to the
director the other day . . ." He rummaged around behind the bar
until he found a business card. "Real nice woman. An expert on
the Caribbean, I understand."

"Oh . . . ?" Mercanto took the card from
him.

"People talk . . . what can I say?"

Mercanto looked at the card. On it was the name Erin
Fraser.
 
 

CHAPTER 14

SOMEHOW MARGARET made it through the rest of the
afternoon after her lunch with Charles, delaying going home as long
as possible, and then finding the house dark when she got there. Adam
no doubt was "out" for the evening with his Twinkie.

As she went from room to room turning on lights, the
emptiness of the house spoke more tellingly than anything they could
say to each other. She poured herself a brandy and went to change.
Slipped on a long nightgown with an Empire line, but when she saw
herself in the mirror the sight repulsed her. The soft material and
lace covering her heavy breasts were too sexy. That sure wasn't how
she felt. Charles and Adam had seen to that. Tears began, she wiped
them away angrily. She chose a shapeless sweatsuit and pinned up her
hair. She made scrambled eggs, something her mother always fixed for
her when she was sick as a child, then went to a corner of the sofa
in the study where she spent the rest of the evening, a blanket over
her lap. Vivaldi played on the stereo. About eight the phone rang.
When she answered no one was there. The same thing happened a
half-hour later. When it happened a third time she turned the bell
off.

It occurred to her that her life was like one of
those tapestries Loring had described, only in her case a key thread
had come undone and the whole thing was unraveling around her. It
hurt like hell.

Could it be that good for Adam with his
nineteen-year-old? She had never denied him anything sexually. What
could this girl do that was so different, so much better? (Besides
being younger, she thought, and dismissed it.)

And how could Charles so cavalierly dismiss her
relationship with him, or at least seem to . . . didn’t the years
count for anything there either? Or was he like Adam, looking for
new, more desirable subjects . . .

Several times during the evening she had looked at
the phone, sure that it had rung again and again, even though the
bell was off. Was it a crank call, as Adam claimed? Was it the girl —
but Adam was with her, wasn't he? Was it Loring, was he trying to
tell her that she had somehow failed him, too?

Had she, in fact?

Around midnight she gave
up and went to bed but she couldn't sleep. Much later Adam came home.
She was still awake but pretended sleep. He got into bed, and she
waited, hoping that he was drunk, that that was why he was out. If
he'd only touch her, even roughly, that would be fine, just as long
as he touched her. He didn’t.

* * *

In her office next morning she heard the bell
announcing the next patient. Loring. She touched her hair, adjusted
the collar of her blouse, annoyed that she looked like she felt,
exhausted. When she opened the door Loring looked exhausted too.
Strangely, it made her feel better.

Loring caught her half-smile. just like his mother
when she'd come to his bedroom that night to try to explain what he'd
seen her doing — an it's-our-secret kind of smile. "Sometimes
men need to . . ." she'd said as she sat on the edge of his bed.
He remembered her smell. He thought he smelled it now as he went past
Margaret.

His coldness didn't surprise Margaret. After that
scene when she sent him away she expected it. What surprised her was
its intensity, almost like an aura around him.

She followed him into the office and sat down behind
her desk, automatically reaching for her cigarettes, lighting one as
sort of an unspoken communication between them. As usual, his eyes
followed her movements.

He said, "It's Marguerite, not Margaret."

Puzzled, she knew better than to ask. Wait, she
instructed herself.

He looked at her like he was seeing her for the first
time. Today her hair cascading down onto her shoulders, her gold hoop
earrings, the blueness of her eyes did not move him.

"Marguerite was the woman Faust sold his soul to
the devil for. . . not Margaret."

At least his words didn't signify outright rejection,
as in "I-don't-like-you-anymore,-I-don’t-want-to-see-you-again."
A more subtle shift was going on, more like she wasn't worth what he
had thought. And had betrayed him. . .

She tried to accept it professionally. It was
altogether natural after what had happened. "I understand that
you’re angry with me for sending you away. Shall we talk about
that?"

Loring looked around the room. It felt hostile to
him. No longer were the blues and grays their cave, their fort
together.

"
What's to talk about?"

"
How did you feel when I told you I couldn't see
you?" When he didn’t reply, she said, "Were you angry,
hurt?"

When he looked at her he drew back slightly like he
was farsighted and trying to get her into focus. "I don’t get
angry. I don’t make scenes. I just get things done."

She drew on her cigarette. An interesting response.
His denial of his anger again confirmed it, though he wasn't
unwilling to acknowledge it openly. "By getting things done, you
mean get even?"

He shook his head. Sometimes talking to her was like
talking to a child. "No, that's not what I mean. Getting even is
living in the past. By definition the best you can expect is to
regain status quo, but in so doing you waste a lot of time and energy
that could be directed elsewhere, so you never get even, you’re
always behind."

He was enjoying the lecture, she thought. Reversing
roles.

"
Go on," she said.

"
What I'm saying is that life is made up of
self-contained incidents, like a fight. When one incident is over you
add up whether you won or lost and move on to the next thing. The key
is to not look back."

She’d never heard a patient give a more telling
definition of sublimation. "Is that what you intend to do now. .
. move on, pretend that what happened between us never really
happened?"

He looked at the couch, again seeing her there with
that look on her face when he opened the door. "It happened,"
he said through clenched teeth.

"That’s right, it did. What's important is how
you felt when it did."

He turned to look at her. "You're starting to
sound like a nag. I'm trying to explain things to you. One
intelligent person to another. Why do you always insist on trying to
personalize things when there's really nothing between us to
personalize?"