Marine Corpse (18 page)

I nodded.

“If he gets that fancy place he wants, he’s got the name all picked out for it.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said.

“The Silk Purse,” she said. “The owner says you can’t make a silk purse out of this dump, see?”

“So it’s the Sow’s Ear.”

“Cute, huh?”

I thought of the fatal wounds Stu and Altoona had received, and wondered idly whether the owner of the Sow’s Ear had some sort of ear fetish. “Where’s the owner?” I said.

“Vegas,” she said. “Been there all winter. He’s got half interest in a joint down there. He don’t like the cold.”

So much for that theory.

The bartender wandered off with my ten dollar bill, and a minute later Zerk and Trixie came over and sat on either side of me.

“Darlin’,” he said, his dark face solemn, “this is my good friend, Mr. Coyne.”

She extended her hand. I held it briefly. “Pleased to meet you,” I said.

“The pleasure is mine, I’m sure,” she said in a low husky voice.

“Trixie was here on New Year’s Eve,” said Zerk. “She says she might be willing to look at that photograph.”

I took it from my pocket and handed it to her. She picked it up and squinted myopically at it. The pink tip of her tongue showed between her teeth. She nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Yeah. I remember this guy.”

“He was here New Year’s Eve?”

She gave the picture back to me. “Yeah. He and the other guy were sitting right over there. In that booth.”

She pointed across the room toward the corner booth.

“Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. He was wearin’ a beard, but it was him. The eyes. I recognize his eyes. I sat with them for a few minutes.” She grinned. “Shoulda known, though. Pair of fairies.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, they were nice enough. Even bought me a drink. But I could see there was no future in it. Like, I was interrupting them, you know?”

“Interrupting?”

“Xerxes, honey, would you pour me another glass of champagne, please?” Zerk did, and she downed it. “A lover’s quarrel, you’d call it. Not screaming and pulling hair, understand, But the other one—not this one here in the picture, but the other fella—wanted this one here to leave with him, and he wouldn’t. Something like that. That’s all I got out of it, really. I left them. Waste of my time.”

“What did the other one look like?”

“Older. Pudgy. Glasses. Not all that good-looking.”

“So you sat with them, and they were arguing. Can you remember anything they said?”

She bit on her thumbnail and frowned. “Not exactly. The fat one kept saying how he missed this guy, he wanted him to come home. And the guy in the picture was saying how he couldn’t, he was into something—yeah, that was it. He kept saying how he was into something—or maybe he said he was
onto
something—something important. He couldn’t leave it, he said. The fat one wasn’t buying it, but, see, they were trying to be polite, I guess because I was sitting right there. When I got up to leave they didn’t ask me to stay. I guess they wanted to be left alone.”

“What were they drinking, do you remember?”

She frowned. “Scotch, I think. Yeah, it was Scotch. They ordered a round while I was there. The young one, he was getting pretty sloshed, actually. Really puttin’ ’em away. The other guy was nursing his.” She nodded several times, as if to emphasize the accuracy of her recollection.

“Can you remember anything else?” I said.

“Well, the fat one was dressed nice. Too nice for this place. Like you boys. The other one fit right in. Grubby, that beard, kinda rough looking. Good-looking, though. I wouldn’t of pegged him as a queer.”

I nodded, encouraging her to go on.

She shrugged. “So, that was it. I left them. Few minutes later I remember looking over and the fat one was gone. The younger one stayed a little longer. Left after midnight, I remember, because everybody yelled and stuff when midnight came. You know, the new year and all, and I remember seeing him, still sitting there by himself, not looking real happy. Pretty drunk, is what he was.”

I smiled at her. “I appreciate your help, Trixie.”

“Oh, that’s okay.” She turned to Zerk. “You ready, sweetie?”

He reached across in front of me to touch her hand. “I don’t think tonight, Trixie.”

She frowned. “Something wrong?”

“No. Another time, okay?”

“But…?”

He got up and moved to the empty stool on the other side of her, kissed her cheek, then whispered something into her ear. She pulled her face back and smiled at him. “Okay, honey. See ya, Mr. Coyne.”

She moved back to her stool at the far end of the bar.

“Nice kid,” observed Zerk.

“She seems to be.”

“Barmadam,” he called. “Another Schlitz, if you please.”

“I’ll be damned,” I muttered.

“That help you any?” he said.

“Yes. Yes, it did. How the hell did you do that, anyway?”

Zerk widened his eyes. “Trick of the trade.”

“I never taught you anything like that.”

“Not
that
trade, man. Trixie’s a hooker, been around a bit, and she assumed we were cops. Naturally. I mean, a white guy and a black guy in suits come into a place like this, we gotta be cops, right? So if you’re a hooker, you don’t want to talk to us. You sure as hell don’t want to get yourself into a position where you might be soliciting. So you steer clear of cops. However, if one of those cops should proposition a girl, then she’s in the clear, dig? Matter of fact, she’s got him right by the short hairs, since the last thing a cop wants to get caught doing is propositioning a hooker.”

“So you propositioned her?”

“Even better. I paid her in advance. Forty bucks. Which I assume will be reimbursed.”

I nodded. “Sure. I’ll reimburse you. Business expense.”

Zerk’s beer arrived. I paid for it, too.

“Any idea who the other guy was?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “I have a very good idea who it was. Listen. I have to go to the men’s room. Be right back.”

I maneuvered my way among the tables to the back corner of the place, where I found a door labeled “Men.” I pushed it open. There were two urinals, a stall with the door missing, and a sink. The empty frame of what had once been a mirror hung over the sink. I eased myself into position in front of one of the urinals, trying to avoid breathing through my nose. The urinal had not been flushed for some time, and the sharp odor of stale vomit hung in the air.

I heard the door open and close behind me. Then I felt a prick of pain over my right kidney. “You just keep on doing what you’re doing, friend,” whispered a harsh voice in my ear, so close that I could smell the whiskey on his breath. “You just keep your hands full, there, and don’t turn around.”

The sharp pain in my back increased a notch. It was penetrating my skin, and it hurt. A sharp, pointed instrument. A switchblade. Or maybe an icepick.

“That hurts,” I said.

“You just keep ahold of your pecker, there, or you’ll lose it.”

He found my wallet in my hip pocket and removed it deftly. Then he patted my jacket pockets. “Put your hands up in the air,” he said.

I did, feeling vulnerable and exposed.

“Take off the watch.”

I did, and he took it from me.

“Thank you very much,” he whispered.

Then the lights went out.

It was probably only a few seconds later that I found myself sitting on the damp floor of the men’s room, trying to decide whether the back of my neck hurt worse than the wound over my kidney. I decided it was the neck, and I wondered if he had hit me with his bare hand, or had used something heavy and hard. I rubbed it until the pain began to subside into an ache. I pulled myself to my feet, brushed off my jacket and pants, zipped up my fly, washed my hands and face, and went back to join Zerk.

When I sat beside him, he looked at me and said, “You lookin’ a bit rumpled, my man.” He noticed that I was rubbing the back of my neck. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

“You didn’t happen to notice anyone go into the men’s room right after me, did you?”

“No. Why?”

“I just got mugged is all. Guy stuck a knife or something into my back while I was taking a leak, took my wallet and my new watch, and slugged me on the back of my neck.”

“It’s these threads, man. I told you. We’re dressed all wrong for this place. Might as well wear a sign. Rob Me.”

“Your sympathy is touching,” I said. “Take a look at this wound, will you?”

“Swivel around this way,” said Zerk. “Gimme a peek.”

I rotated so that my back was to him. He hoisted up my jacket and pulled up my shirt. “Hmm,” he mumbled.

“What’s it look like?”

He let go of my clothes. “Just a scratch. Stop whining. It’s a clean little incision, not a round puncture. In case you were thinking about icepicks.”

“That’s the thought that occurred to me, yes.”

Z
ERK AND I WERE
back in my apartment. He had me draped over the back of my sofa like a blanket over a clothesline. He was swabbing the little wound on my back with a wad of cotton batting soaked with cheap vodka. I had told him I couldn’t spare any good bourbon. He seemed to be enjoying the poking and prodding.

“How’s it look, Doctor?”

“Hmm,” he said. “Merely a flesh wound. Fortunately, you have an abundance of flesh there. It could do with a couple sutures.” He whacked my fanny. “However, I stuck a Band-Aid on it. You can pull your pants up.” I did. “Interesting, wasn’t it, old Trixie placing Stu Carver right there at the Sow’s Ear on New Year’s Eve? And you think you know who was with him. I’ll bet the same thing occurred to you that occurred to me,”

“Probably,” I said, tucking in my shirt. “That the guy with Stu was the one that killed him. And if he wasn’t the one who actually icepicked him, that Stu said something to him that would help.” I went over to the cabinet where I kept my bottles. “I’m going to have a shot of Jack Daniel’s and a cigarette. I figure I earned them. Join me?”

“Scotch. Hold the cigarette.”

I poured our drinks and we sat at my kitchen table. I lit a cigarette. “I think I’ll invite David Lee to my office for a little chat.”

“David Lee. That the guy who was with Stu?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“What about getting mugged and robbed? What’re you going to do about that?”

“I don’t know. That was a new Rolex he got. Not to mention my credit cards. Plus the humiliation of it all. Any suggestions?”

Zerk sipped his Scotch and frowned. “Nope. Guess not. Something occurs to me, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Pretty easy for a guy to get himself killed, sometimes. Happens a lot. In alleys, men’s rooms.”

“You mean Santis might be right? Just a random act with no logical explanation?”

“After what happened to you, I’m beginning to think it makes sense.”

I nodded. “Me too. I’m still going to talk to Lee.”

“Don’t you think you ought to inform the authorities?”

“I probably should give Gus Becker a call,” I said. “Think I’ll talk to Lee first, though.”

After Zerk left, I snapped on the eleven o’clock news and sprawled on the sofa. The lead story reported that “sources close to the White House” had released a trial balloon hinting that the President was contemplating sending “military advisors” into Haiti. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, known to be close to the Administration, commented to an interviewer that the American people should be wary of drawing close parallels between Haiti and Vietnam. Haiti, he declared solemnly, was different. He invoked the Monroe Doctrine, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and, in what I could only interpret as a telling slip of the tongue, the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. He refrained from mentioning the attempted assassination of Thurmond Lampley in Boston a month earlier.

Scary stuff, I thought.

There had been a big drug bust in Revere. The television camera lingered on a tabletop in police headquarters, where glassine bags of white powder, sets of scales, assorted firearms, and stacks of high denomination bills were displayed. I wondered if Gus Becker had finally hit the jackpot.

A giant blizzard had paralyzed Chicago, and was heading our way. The Celtics won. The Bruins lost.

Nothing, I decided, snapping off the set, was new.

I showered, letting the hot water splash against the back of my neck, where a hard little knot had formed. The incision over my right hip stung. I remembered my feelings when the knife had pricked my skin. Humiliation, I had told Zerk. That, yes. But fear, too. I had been acutely aware that a quick, easy thrust of that razor-sharp weapon could have killed me. I wondered if Stu Carver and Altoona had felt the same sphincter-tightening fear the moment that icepick touched the skin inside their ears. Perhaps they had been too drunk to contemplate clearly the imminence of death. I hoped so.

I toweled myself dry and slipped into my ratty old flannel pajamas. I poured two final fingers of bourbon into my glass and brought it to bed with me. I was drinking too much, I thought idly. Smoking too much, too. Somehow, the thought of sudden, unexpected death in a dirty men’s room put Surgeon Generals’ warnings and actuarial charts into perspective.

That thought led me to the next one. I picked up the phone beside my bed and tapped out Heather Kriegel’s number.

“Hmm,” she answered after two rings. “Whozit?”

“You were sleeping. Sorry.”

“Mmm. S’okay.” She yawned. It sounded like a moan of pleasure. I imagined her springy muscles stretching and flexing, her hair tousled, her bedclothes rumpled. “Wha’s up, friend?”

I resisted the impulse to answer, “Me.”

“Wanted to say hi is all,” I said.

“Miss me?”

“Yup. Guess I do.”

“Hey, now,” she said. “Don’t go getting all mushy and sentimental with me. Hang on a sec. Let me sit up.” A moment later she said, “There. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“You have?”

“It’s—annoying, is what it is, I guess. Kinda scary, in a way, too. It’s Meriam. She called me this afternoon.”

“What did she want?”

“She wants Stu’s notebooks. She stopped a little short of calling me a whore and a thief, but the implication was clear enough. She practically accused me of killing Stu.”