Lizard World (36 page)

      
“Anything you say can, and will, be used against you,” said a second cop, who now lumbered out from behind the furnace. “You have the right to consult with an attorney . . . and/or . . . to have one present when questioned by the police. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you.”

      
“I’ll take those dental records from you -- sir -- if you don’t mind,” snarled the first cop, who by now -- with his outstretched revolver -- was cautiously advancing toward Smedlow, squinting at him and chewing on his gum.

      
And then the younger cop grabbed the manilla folder and Smedlow got a strong whiff of aftershave and noticed the purple blotch of a hickey on his flaccid neck.

      
“Rufus Wilmot Griswold,” said his older, wearier, more phlegmatic-looking cohort, “I’m arresting you for the murder of Max Nathan Smedlow.”

And
then the younger and more hateful of the two cops (Guberman it said on the name-tag on his chest) frisked him -- pulled something out of his jacket pocket and shoved it in his face:

      
“Would you mind, sir, telling me what you’re doing with this?“

      
It was all happening so fast that, for a moment, Smedlow didn’t recognize what he was seeing -- his own cigarette lighter with his own initials, MNS, etched onto its tarnished silver surface.

      
“Hey, Sarge, looks like I found somethin’!”

      
“You can come on out now, folks,” said the Sergeant: “We’ve got him covered.”

      
And that is when (in the far corner of the cellar, beyond the washer and the dryer and the laundry sink) Agnes stepped out of the broom closet, wearing her ridiculous puffy pink slippers and a raincoat over her washed-out pink flannel nightie. A large man with a Roman nose and a great, unkempt shock of silver hair was shuffling out solemnly behind her.

      
“Ma’am,” said the Sergeant some seconds later, the muzzle of his gun in front of Smedlow’s eyes, “can you identify this old gentleman as the individual you saw stealing from your house and driving off with your little dog?”

      
“Yes,” sobbed Agnes, “yes, yes I can.” The ordeal seemed to be too much for her. For now the man with the silver mane placed his big, hairy hand on her shoulder, as if to lend his strength in the moment of her trial.

      
“Yes, that’s him,” repeated Agnes, only now appearing to find the courage to look straight at Smedlow: “Yes, I’m sure of it.”

      
“And can you identify this lighter?” said the younger cop, again displaying the tarnished silver lighter on his wide, pink palm.

      
Here Agnes nodded, covered her mouth and started making a succession of gasps that gave off wheezing sounds. Smedlow could see that she was seriously concentrating now, scrunching up her eyes and cheeks, forcing the tears out of herself the way she always did when she really wanted to get something -- a diamond ring, a Caribbean cruise or access to his bank account. “I . . . I,” she stammered, as if, in
the excess of her grief, she couldn’t catch her breath. “I . . . gave it . . .
to my husband,” she finally managed to say. -- ”And those,” she said, suddenly pointing, “those are Maxie’s shoes!”

      
“And, Mr. Silver,” said the Sergeant to the big man towering beside her, “will Mrs. Smedlow here swear to that in her deposition?”

      
“Certainly,” agreed the lawyer, “and that those are Dr. Smedlow’s dental records.”

      
“Then you’ll have to come with us, Mr. Griswold,” said the Sergeant while Patrolman Guberman took the handcuffs off his belt.

      
Smedlow could plainly see that this flat-topped gorilla was now doing his very best to hurt him, roughly grabbing his right hand, putting on the cuff and squeezing it closed just as tightly as he could.

      
“I bet,” he said, now putting on the second cuff and crushing it shut, “that when you’re as rich as you are, you figure you can do any goddamn thing you want. But you can’t, see. Cause you can’t escape the law.”

      
By the time Smedlow found himself being wheeled out of his basement, a small but ugly crowd had gathered on his front lawn. In the noisy, pushing confusion shutters clicked, neighborhood adolescents waved and clowned in front of the news cameras, TV news reporters stuck their microphones in his face and the Sergeant walked stolidly beside him, keeping them all back until the wheelchair at last made its way to the squad car.

      
Standing in the driveway, Agnes’ lawyer was being videotaped for the evening news.

      
“Mrs. Smedlow wants finality, that’s all,” he was saying. “She’s been through a terrrible ordeal.”

      
“All right, mister, let’s go,” barked Patrolman Guberman, lifting Smedlow up while the Sergeant reached to open the back door.

“Did
the NYPD get that search warrant yet?”

      
“Yeah, yeah, they oughta be here any minute now,” said the Sergeant, checking his wristwatch and then scowling back at Smedlow from the driver’s seat: “Lucky you: they’re comin’ all this way to get you cause you’re such a . . . BIGshot. The NYPD don’t mess around. They know just what to do with guys like you. ”

      
“Yeah, he oughta get the chair,” said Patrolman Guberman, shaking his flat-top with disgust and then stuffing his mouth with a virgin stick of gum.

      
“If it hadn’t a been for your chauffeur over there,” continued the Sergeant, “we wouldn’t never a cracked this case. But he tipped us off . . . played you like a . . . chump.”

      
Looking out his window past the crowd of neighbors still trespassing on his lawn, Smedlow first caught sight of the yokel’s dog humping an Irish Setter below the bathroom window and then of the yokel himself standing on the deck -- surrounded by TV cameras and by a host of reporters holding out their mikes. It was bad enough to see him standing there -- smirking and triumphant. But it was even worse to see something floating just above his head -- the dim mirage of a tricorn hat, the spectral steps and vaporous columns. He tried desperately, as they materialized and darkened, to keep seeing through them to the black roof and white aluminum siding and red cedar deck of his own split-level ranch house. He endeavoured, with all his might and main, to blink away the filmy women and the horses and the coach. And yet he could not chuse but see them most distinctly now -- my exquisite charmer and her tedious aunt and their ill-complexioned serving-woman, my gallant coach-and-four and this base, insufferable fellow Potter standing without the pillar’d front of Chommeley Hall. Nor could I in the leastwise divine why this shitten varlet was smirking most abominably as presently a second coach came wheeling post-haste up the avenue.

      
Indeed, standing there conversing with my charmer and near to swooning from the surfeit of her honeyed beauties, I could not have been more rudely interrupted -- nor withal more puzzled-- by this most unforeseen arrival. But I was not fain long to wonder why this raskall Potter was now so damnably a-smiling. For presently this coach did stop hard by me -- and disburthen itself of all the vile creatures pent within: and there before me stumbled out my pissabed Cousin Fawncey. No sooner had this blinded, groping asse uncoach’d, than my manservant Potter gan paying his attentions to him, murmuring syrupy courtesies and leading him about the whiles some fumbling, cringing constable with his staff of office and his pack of halbardiers had the face to approach my person.

      
And now (in the presence of my charmer) I must needs be charged with all the supposed crimes which this very rogue and whoreson black-guard Potter had laid at my door: the quite necessary bleeding of a chamber-maid, the unavoidable eating of one hag and sundry beggars, the well-deserved dispatch and harvesting of a meer whiffling bugger of a book-monger. These accusations would, by themselves, have been quite nettling enough. But now (whilst my charmer did look at me with much amaze) I must moreover be indicted of hiring the ruffians who had stolen her away.

      
When this constable had done with reciting of these charges, I did tell him, in the strongest terms, that I would not be served so and that I had a very great mind to whip him soundly. Nor would I for the least instant have tarried, had my charmer not commenced, on a sudden, most piteously a-weeping. I do confess that I was now, in some measure, at a loss -- the more for that she did smell most delightfully . . . and that she did presently contrive to say that she did, at the long-last . . . fully apprehend that I had never been aught more than . . . entirely detestable.

      
And now must I further watch her weep. And now must I suffer to be preached at and edified by my mole-blind Cousin Fawncey. Indeed now the very insects did have at me -- buzzing about the yellow primrose which my charmer had but lately given me. And then it was that I did see her weeping upon this shit-breech’d rimester’s shoulder. And just then I did feel the sting of the horsefly -- the which I had no sooner crushed upon my neck, than my charmer did declare that she now did mean to wed this blinded asse.

      
This shitten-ars’d milksop had now the effrontery to say that he did think -- the little munificent pismire -- that he might be willing, on my behalf, to crave His Majesty’s clemency -- and that I had best accept of exile or else I should be hanged. I might then, indeed, have most easily slit his vile weazon with my sword. But I dared not trust that my immortal distemper would able me to stand the noose. And therefore I did merely say that I would live to burn his wretched rimes and piss upon his grave. Whereupon I did suffer myself to be conducted away by this constable and full quietly take my leave.

      
And yet I must own that, in point of fact, I was most verily sicken’d with disquiet and vapour’d beyond measure. Indeed (taking coach with this constable and his sorry crew, suffering their abominable nearness and breathing of their stink) I did by and by fall into a melancholick feaver and a queasy-stomach’d delirium the which I could not shake off neither by smelling of my jessemy gloves nor by looking out at window. I do think, in good troth, that I did never find myself to be more exceeding ill. For thus to be cheated of my due by a confounded asse did put me most particularly out of humour. My giddy head did spin and my gorge rise at the thought of it. Indeed my adusted bile did beget such feaverish fancies that this close and stenchful coach, this scurvy constable and his creatures did commence to whirl about me like nauseous and fantastical apparitions -- which did begin by degrees to fade, so that Smedlow did ever increasingly see through them to the flat-topped cop taking off his seatbelt in the front seat.

      
“Okay, mister, we’re here,” said Patrolman Guberman as the Sergeant pulled the squad car to the curb, where a swarm of New York cops were already gathered on the sidewalk.

      
“NYPD,” said the Detective, flashing his badge and lowering his eyes to Annabel’s bosom. “Are you Mrs. Griswold?”

      
“Levy,” said Annabel and, as she always did when men were ogling her cleavage, instinctively leaned forward slightly in order to display herself more fully and amplify her power, “for professional purposes, I prefer my maiden name.”

      
“Ma’am,” said the Detective, trying not to stare and in spite of himself already stupidly apologizing while handing her the warrant: “I’m afraid we’re gonna have to take a look around. We have reason to believe, ma’am, that your husband here might’ve squirreled away a couple a . . . little souvenirs of his victims.”

      
Annabel hadn’t quite prepared herself for seeing the old man again. For some reason she had fondly imagined that they would just book him and lock him up in some delightfully tiny prison cell far, far away. But here he was again on the Kelim rug in his wheelchair -- wheezing, drooling, with that stupid, vacant look on his face. The best thing to do was to ignore him. Soon, very soon, they would take him out of here. Once they had found what they were looking for, she would be rid of him forever.
  

      
“It shouldn’t take us long, ma’am,” said the Detective, checking out her legs as soon as she had turned. “Your chauffeur told us where to look. It seems that, once he smelled a rat, he really kept his eye on things. We really couldn’t have done all this without him.”