Good to the Last Kiss (20 page)

‘Sounds plausible. How much do you need?’

‘Who knows?

‘You should. Aren’t you the prosecutor?’

‘I doubt if I’ll be on this one. Too close. The lieutenant says the guy could be good for it, but the cops say it’s not ready. If it’s him, the murders will start again. The cops will be looking out for him this time. On the other hand, Gratelli’s partner says a guy with the intellect of a Falwell wouldn’t be able to get away without leaving something. Pubes or something. The murderer is too savvy. Too clean. They dusted the car, vacuumed. Nothing. Aside from the IQ factor, the Quantico profile doesn’t paint him out of the picture or in the picture for that matter.’

‘What do they say?’

‘White male, not sure about age. Lonely. The usual. Can’t help himself. Maybe he wants to, maybe he doesn’t. Probably in awe of women, worships them. Doesn’t want to want to do the dirty thing. Not like you at all.’ Seidman laughed. The sound was hollow and he cut it short.

‘Can’t you just run a photo of this guy by Julia? You suppose she could identify him?’

‘They did. Faxed it out to the Iowa City Police. No I.D. She might not have seen him. A ski mask. If he ever took it off, she doesn’t remember. Maybe something will come to her.’

‘You think she might eventually remember him?’

‘Possible. With time. Maybe with some help,’ Seidman said, looking into Teddy’s eyes. ‘Since you’re so interested, it’s not uncommon for there to be some amnesia – even in accidental cases. Victims can’t remember anything immediately, then after a time they often remember everything except that which actually preceded the trauma.’

‘Really, never?’ Maldeaux asked.

‘Sometimes never. Sometimes they get some of it back.’

‘So, maybe, right?’

‘An outside chance.’

‘At any rate, she’s in Iowa, right?’

‘For now.’

‘She’s coming back?’

‘Don’t know. She’s not cut off everything here,’ Seidman said. Was there hope in his voice? Dread?

‘All right, enough gloom. When are we gonna get you some women?’

‘Just pick one out of the herd, right Thaddeus?’

‘Don’t start using that high moral tone, OK? Women are equal to men. Superior in most cases. But let’s not forget sex is part of the human condition, not just the male condition. Men and women want it. So, David, it’s all right to have sex with women. Some of them even enjoy it.’ Maldeaux grinned. ‘And if you should ever have sex with a woman, remember you don’t have to marry them.’

‘I have sex with women.’

‘News to me.’

‘Oh c’mon, I just don’t talk about these things.’

‘Not even to me?’ Maldeaux asked, slipping on a pair of boxer shorts. ‘You pay for it, right?’ When Seidman didn’t say anything, Maldeaux said: ‘That’s it. Bingo! Mr Holier than Thou puts the cash on the nightstand.’

‘Not so loud.’

‘Assistant Prosecutor. Going to run for mayor some day.’

‘Hey, that’s enough. You know now. You never heard me say prostitution should be illegal. So shut the fuck up.’

Maldeaux sat down next to his friend. ‘Talk to me, David. I’m concerned, really.’

‘No, let’s just move on to another subject.’

‘C’mon, David. You’re acting like you did when you were a senior in high school and refused to take your turn with Cindy what’s her name.’

‘It’s all very clean, very quiet and very safe and very pleasant. Not at all like what’s going through your jaded little mind. So shut up.’

‘Were you doing this when you were seeing Julia?’

‘Yes. It was a separate thing.’

‘I bet. Quirky, kinky stuff with the girls you can’t bring to charity events.’ Maldeaux laughed.

‘Enough. You know . . .’ Seidman was flustered. ‘I’m a guy . . .’

‘So it appears.’

‘I have needs. Julia and I are . . . were working on romance. It wasn’t there at the time. In the meantime, I can’t play monk. I don’t feel the need to be celibate. But what I do is my business. Unlike you, I don’t want my private life public knowledge.’

‘You ever read Genet?’

‘Not my cup of tea.’

‘
The Balcony
, remember. The judges needed to do penance for all the punishment they’d dished out. They’d go to prostitutes and humiliate themselves in front of them, kiss their feet, beg for the rod?’

‘I didn’t read it.’ David’s face was in full blush.

‘Here, you, Mr Prosecutor, punish the guilty and those who can’t afford to be innocent,’ Thaddeus said, putting on his shirt. ‘You try to be fair, I know. But you win most of the time. Still some criminals go free, some innocents are punished. You must be punished. The riding crop, or whip?’ Maldeaux’s laugh continued.

‘I don’t want this kind of talk.’

‘I’m just having a little fun with you. Learn how to laugh, David. It makes life much more bearable. Enjoy life. Live.’

‘You’re such an ass.’

‘Aren’t you at all curious about what makes us tick? Look at that preacher. What was his name? Swaggart. Preaching hellfire and damnation during the day and then has some woman in black lingerie whip him. Gets his butt in a sling, more or less, with some dominatrix. You know what a dominatrix is, don’t you?’

‘Will you get off it?’ Seidman said. He stood. ‘You don’t see what I see every day in court. You, in your fairy tale life know nothing about what really goes on out there. Just because you’ve seen the Ganges, Teddy, doesn’t mean you suddenly know what it’s like to be an Indian.’

Maldeaux smiled. ‘I don’t think you quite get it.’

‘Get what?’

‘What I do, how I live. I do live, David. That’s where we’re really different.’

‘I’ll see you around, Teddy.’

NINETEEN

‘
H
ow about dinner?’ Gratelli asked McClellan.

‘We can go shopping first. I know this little boutique on Maiden Lane.’

‘All right, all right. I make a friendly gesture. I just thought we’d grab a bite. On me.’

‘Now I know there’s something wacky on this fucking planet.’

‘Well?’

‘Sorry Gratelli, me and Jack Daniels got a date this evening.’

‘I know it’s not Friday, but I’m in the mood for stew at Joe’s. And I hate eating alone in that place,’ Gratelli said.

‘Let’s stop by our boy’s abode first,’ McClellan said, waiving a warrant, ‘while he’s still filling out papers.’

‘Eerie, huh?’ McClellan said. ‘How can you live without windows? Fucking bat.’

‘Vampire maybe,’ Gratelli said, going through the drawers of the bureau.

‘No teeth marks, but definitely a neck fixation.’

‘Kid’s got a lot of underwear, but all of it appears to be his.’

‘The place is fucking strange,’ McClellan said, looking at all the half-burned candles. ‘No books, no letters, no dirty magazines. Nothing. Just candles. Fucking candles everywhere.’

‘Candles in the john,’ Gratelli said from inside. ‘Body oil of some kind. Oh, here are some magazines. Some muscle magazines.’

‘Naked guys?’

‘Half naked guys. Not porno. Muscle shit.’

‘Sheets, lots of sheets, sheets and towels,’ McClellan said, opening a door and examining the shelves. ‘The kid’s clean enough. His mother would be proud of him.’

‘No pictures, you notice that?’

‘No nothing. Oil, lots of oil, and candles and sheets, towels and some magazines.’ McClellan looked under the bed, lifted the mattress. ‘These guys are supposed to keep something.’

‘Not a trophy in sight. No locks of hair, no panties, no newspaper clippings.’

‘Like I said, this guy’s not bright enough to be as smart as he is.’

Gratelli laughed. ‘OK, Yogi.’

The restaurant was in the Tenderloin, on the corner of Limbo and Hell. There was a crowd, but it was really too early for dinner. The dinner crowd at Original Joe’s didn’t get there until eight.

McClellan, slipping across the leather seat of a booth, recognized a few judges. There were some District Attorneys and lawyer types and some cop types as well, but there were no friendly waves of recognition. No one thought a whole lot of Mickey McClellan.

Even so, the crowd was more to his liking. He wasn’t uncomfortable. Here, no one sampled the latest release from Napa. No one was asking for some strange beer from a microbrewery in Oregon. This was the hard stuff the guys were sipping on. Vodka. Scotch. Gin. Later, it’d be rack of lamb or stew like your momma made.

‘Hey!’ the waiter said. ‘Don’t tell me it’s Friday.’

‘It isn’t,’ McClellan said. ‘Gratelli’s feeling sentimental.’

‘Jack Daniels?’ the waiter asked McClellan.

‘Right. Double.’

‘How about a martini?’ Gratelli asked.

‘You want that huh? A martini?’ the waiter grinned.

‘A sudden wave of nostalgia along with the sentiment,’ Gratelli said. ‘You still know how to make one.’

‘Sure, why not?’ the waiter said. ‘It’s all the rage. Everybody wants a Martini now. A Martini and a cigar. Regular Dean Martins. So you want a Martini? Absolooootly. Whatever you guys say.’

‘That’s Gratelli, Mr Trendy,’ McClellan said. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Whatever,’ the waiter said.

‘That’s what I like about this place, Vincent,’ McClellan said when the waiter was out of earshot.

‘What?’

‘The waiter is a heterosexual. Where do you see that? Everybody in here is a fucking heterosexual. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. All is right with the world.’

‘What do you care? You think you’re some movie star, guys are gonna fall all over you if they see you?’

‘Oh shit, I don’t. I don’t. I don’t care. OK. Just an observation. I don’t care about fucking anything.’

‘Where did you move?’ Gratelli asked.

‘Found a little place around the Panhandle. Not too expensive.’ He was calming down again.

‘Good,’ Gratelli said. ‘I get a place to open up in my building, we’ll talk.’

‘Rent’s too high.’

‘I just said we’ll talk. That’s all. You got something against talking?’ McClellan shrugged. Gratelli continued. ‘So you got plans?’

‘Plans? Plans for what?’

‘You’re out of the house. Your life is changing. I was just wondering.’

‘Is that what this is? A little therapy for a deranged cop?’

‘You have to do something. You can’t just go home from work, drink the night away and come to work and that’s it?’

‘Sounds like a plan to me.’

‘It doesn’t to me,’ Gratelli said.

‘You’re not living my life the last time I looked.’ There was a moment of silence as the waiter brought back the drinks. When he was gone, McClellan leaned over the table. ‘So your life is so fucking exciting?’ McClellan asked, taking a gulp of the drink the waiter put in front of him.

‘I don’t say it has to be exciting,’ Gratelli said.

‘I don’t like opera.’

‘Doesn’t have to be opera. You could take up woodworking or a . . .’

‘Strangle some kid, go to prison, learn a trade. How’s that?’

‘Leave work at work.’

‘You know a fucking leopard goes off, kills one of those little gazelles. And you say that’s terrible. But you know that’s nature. And you bite the fucking bullet on that kind of shit. Gotta eat. But this isn’t nature anymore. It’s something else.’ McClellan’s face reddened as his voice rose. ‘I don’t know what it is. It’s not survival of the fittest. It’s survival of the sickest. What the hell did those little girls do to wind up naked and dead and rotting in the fucking sun? This isn’t nature’s balancing act. It’s fucking sick.’

He realized that everyone was looking at him. He let out a deep sigh, shook his head, fiddled with the menu.

‘One of them is found by a dog, a fucking dog. Another is discovered by some little kid in a backyard, the corpse being swallowed up by nature. Doesn’t that get to you?’ McClellan asked in an intense whisper.

‘I don’t dwell on it.’

‘You can do that. Just go off to the opera. Leave work at work, right?’

‘It’s always been that way,’ Gratelli said.

‘You always been around? You’ve been observing the human condition since the day Christ was born?’

The two were quiet for a while. Halfway through the stew, McClellan asked Gratelli what else he did when he wasn’t working.

‘I play my records,’ Gratelli said. ‘I read. On Saturday I catch a game or maybe a movie. Once a week I take the train to Colma.’

‘You visit the dead people? That’s all there is in Colma.’

‘I don’t know about that, but I go to the cemetery, yes. On a sunny day, I sit in Washington Park. Sometimes there are weddings at St Peters and Paul. Or maybe I watch the people. The sad people, the happy people. The dogs. The point is there is life there. Life goes on. It’s good. Sunday I go to Church.’

‘Church? You believe in God, Gratelli?’

‘I wouldn’t know how not to.’

‘You figure out the great mystery?’

‘I’m a little man, Mickey. I try to solve the little day to day mysteries.’

‘Well Vincent, I’m happy we had this talk so we could discover just how much we have in common.’

‘We’re both trying to stop this guy, aren’t we?’

‘Forget about work,’ McClellan said. ‘Isn’t that what you keep sayin’? Eat, drink and be merry, right?’

‘Right.’

‘And tomorrow?’

Earl’s lawyer had arranged things. Most things. Not the car. Earl had to wait until he got some money before he could wheel his Camaro out of hock. But the rent had been paid. Nearly anyway. He was only a month behind and he couldn’t be evicted on that. The money came out of his vacation pay at the store when he was terminated. The mail had been taken in by the landlord. Other than the stuff that went to ‘occupant,’ there wasn’t much of anything. But the lawyer didn’t want people to know the place was unoccupied.

There wasn’t enough money to keep the phone and to pay for the electricity, but, according to the lawyer, Earl should be happy he salvaged the living quarters.