Slob (17 page)

"What?"

W H A T ?

T
he word explodes into the stillness of the room, shocking him awake like a pitcher of ice water thrown on the naked body of a sleeping human. He is jarred awake physically but remains deep inside the clinging and impenetrable covers of one of those unbearably realistic-to-the-last-detail nightmares that some people seem to visit in lieu of confessionals.

Jack Eichord was an ardent and longtime fan of the movie genre known as
film noir;
dated, dark, night time guided tours of forties and fifties urban underworlds. He loved the old black-and-white late-show procedurals, full of seedy PIs in search of elusive Maltese falcons. One of the early ones was a thing with Victor Mature and Betty Grable called
I Wake Up Screaming
and he thought the title to himself as he woke up screaming the word what.

W H A T ?

He is screaming the world
WHAT?
at the top of his brain's lungs, just as the room explodes in noise and he penetrates the curtain of the bad dream enough to snatch the ringing telephone off the cradle and whisper through a sleep-parched mouth the hoarse, cracked greeting:

"Wha'?"

"Jack? Are you awake?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"Is this Jack?"

"Huh? Yeah. Yeah. Edie?"

"Were you still asleep? It's after ten. I'm sorry. You got in late, I shouldn't have called. I'm sorry."

"'S okay."

"Jack! Congratulations!"

"Huh?" What, he thinks, I wonder what time it is? He is totally befuddled.

"It's all over the television and newspapers this morning. You're a celebrity. Except the one paper got your name as John Eichord instead of Jack, but on TV they didn't have your name on the one channel; they referred to you as 'the famous expert on serial murders' or something like that and— "

"What?"

"Huh? Pardon?"

"Edie, can you hear me all right?"

"Yes, honey. You sound like you've got a cold or something. Have you got a bad connection? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, I think so. Listen, what are you talking about? What's in the papers and on TV? What are you saying?"

"You, my darling. You're a big cop star now." She laughed happily. "Oh, Jack, was he the one,"—her voice took on a cold edge—"you know, responsible for Ed? Or is it too soon to know that yet?"

"Edie, I just don't have the faintest notion of what you're talking about. Start from the beginning."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah. What is it?"

"You solved the Lonely Hearts killings."

"I'm not believing this. What in the
hell
are you talking about?"

"Well . . . didn't you?" She is confused now. "They said the man you arrested last night was the one who did all those . . . crimes. The Lonely Hearts murders. What are you telling me? Are you saying you don't know what any of this is about?"

"Edie, listen, this is very important.
Who,
exactly now, who says I solved the murders?"

"Channel Four, the American, ABC-TV had it on their—uh—"

"No. I mean who—what official—name the names. What . . . Where did the TV and newspaper reporters get the story? Was it from Lieutenant Arlen or who?"

"The police commissioner, I don't know. It's all in the papers, Jack. Didn't you arrest someone last night in the killings?"

"Yes. A suspect. But he didn't do the other murders. This was an isolated homicide. Who said it was the Lonely Hearts? Did the commissioner actually say it? Can you find it there in a paper and read it to me?"

"Hold on." He could hear the phone make a noise. "'The announcement of the arrest was made by Chicago Deputy Chief Samuel F. X. O'Herin, who attributued the quick capture of the killer to the fine police work of the Chicago police force and to the outstanding direction of Special Investigator John Eichord, a consultant from the national Major Crimes Task Force. Deputy Chief O'Herin announced the arrest at a special news conference during which— ' "

"Oh, those dumb bastards."

"What is it, Jack?"

"Those stupid sonsofbitches. What in God's name do they think they're doing? They're not going to be able to put this over on the public. The next time he kills they'll know it was all so much bullshit." But even as he said it he knew that wasn't necessarily true. No one had clout like law enforcement. And in certain localities—like Cook County, Illinois, Tarrant County, Texas, isolated pockets of California, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri—the clout was unreal. There was one notorious area of New Jersey where a badge was an absolute license to kill, and the truth was . . . Hell, the truth was he was beginning to wonder if he knew
what
the truth was. He finally got the squad room on his second attempt to dial, so sleep-befuddled he was.

He'd almost gone all the way down into it last night, standing there in that smoky cop bar with those fucking flake homicide dicks and those worn-out groupie retreads, laughing loud, plastic laughs at cruel cop wit, almost falling off the edge of his glass down into that sweet, bitter, stinging, intoxicating piss-colored liquid world he loved so much. Almost let it take him. No special reason. Just the power of the moment. A juicer never needs an excuse,- you just go with the flow. It had been close. He'd pushed his tolerance right to the wall. Very stupid.

His hand was shaking a little as he waited for Arlen.

"We tried to phone you,- you were either asleep or out," they said to him.

"I was right here, Lou," he told the lieutenant.

"You sleep sound. A clear conscience."

"What's the story?"

"Yeah. Well, it's out of my hands, as you can imagine. This is right from the chief's office. It's a whole big number and you're it. They've talked themselves into going that route with it, going public with you, and they're going to make our boy downstairs for Kasikoff, right or wrong."

"That's the craziest fuckin—"

"No," he went on bitterly, "don't even bother. I've already told everybody who'd listen including that asshole I work for that this is a wrongo play. My opinion or your opinion is of zero consequence here. You are going to have it laid in your lap and that's it. You're to take a meeting with the brass at eleven this morning. Which means you have some forty minutes to get the cobwebs out of your brain, the sleep out of your eyes, and have your heroic ass down here for the pleasure of the big boys. I'll see you after your briefing—'kay?"

"Yeah. I'll see you. And I don't fucking like any bit of this."

He was there in half an hour, scraped face and yesterday's suit, clean shirt, prepared to wait in the outer office for the requisite four-and-a-half-to-six minutes, but getting the red-carpet treatment and being ushered right in to The Presence.

"Jack Eichord, is it," the older man effused, bathing the room in peppermint-flavored mouthwash, good cologne, and the memory of old cop sweat that lingered in the carpeting and draperies from a thousand such meetings. "Congratulations on solving our big whodunit!"

"Thank you, sir, but I don't believe it's solved yet."

"Sit down here, Jack. How about some coffee?" He buzzed and a male secretary came in with a tray even as Eichord said no thanks.

"Two sugars, is it." It wasn't a question. "Jack, of course it isn't solved yet. Of course not. But that's what
we
know. And that's for our official ears and eyes only. The public. They're going to get a slightly different view of the Kasikoff case." A younger man came in without knocking or being announced. Jack had seen him before. The division PR man.

"Rolly, you know our famous Jack Eichord, don't you." Again, it wasn't a question. "Rolly Margulies is our liaison man with media. Our public information officer and all-around fixer," he said the last with a cold chuckle.

"Absolutely."

"Gladaseeya."

"Rolly, Jack is naturally concerned about the problem of our misrepresenting him as having solved the Kasikoff killings."

"Jack, if I may, I know what you must be saying to yourself this morning, but believe me, we've all thought this one out and it's the best route to go. We need you to go along with us on this one hundred percent. It's the only way. We have to put up a solid front to the media people. We're in bad trouble with this one. The fact that Charles Maitland was slaughtered right outside his own penthouse and we didn't, quote, do anything about it has got us up to our balls in the hot wax. There's people can use the Lonely Hearts thing to make the PC and the whole force"—he gestured to take in Deputy Chief O'Herin who glowered across the desk at them—" look bad. Tar us all with the same brush. Inept, all the usual criticism, totally unwarranted, but the public is scared to death right now and they're buying it. This is a way to take the heat off the whole department."

"I can understand that much. The problem is, when this guy murders again, when he takes another heart, you're back in the soup. In the hot wax, rather. And now you're going to look like not just inept cops, you—we're going to come off as lying, inept cops. I don't see this buys us anything but lots of trouble. There's no way— "

"Let me cut through," O'Herin said. "We've got a handle on it, Jack. When the perp hits again, who's to say that it isn't a string of copycat killings?" The deputy chief's rosy cheeks shone with scrubbed, talcumed innocence. Smooth as a baby's ass, Eichord thought.

"It's a trifle thin, to me."

"Well, we're asking you to live with it." Eichord shrugged a response. "This is right from the PC himself. So let's play it this way and take it as it goes from there."

"What we need you to do, Jack," Rolly said, "is to be our mouthpiece on the thing. You're technically not one of us and it will be much more credible coming from you. You need to tell the press how we narrowed down this lead, and that lead, good solid police work, blah-blah-blah, and finally homed in on our suspect. You can sell it easily. You were in on the arrest of Mr. Triarnicht last night, and enough reporters know that so it will be plausible that you were directing the apprehension of the perpetrator. You know he did the boy, so that part will play easily too."

"Have you forgotten that when the lab reports come back they're not going to match that hunting knife to the other Kasikoff killings?"

"Well. That's a shame about those lab findings. It seems something happened over there. They're so busy, you know. Buried in work alla time. I hear the lab work got—misplaced for the time being. So I wouldn't worry too much about any confusing findings interfering with the position you'll be taking."

"I don't think it'll fly. That's my opinion." He gestured minimally with his hands tightly in front of him.

"Fine, Jack," O'Herin said, "and we respect that opinion very highly. But with respect to the public facade you'll go along with us on this, right?"

"Sure." He seethed.

"We're going to want you to do an interview. There's a talk show that is watched by all the media people called 'Chicago Sunrise,' you may have seen it. Little gal named Christa Summers does it over on Channel Thirty-one. They have a local celeb of some kind, a political figure, athlete, whatever—and usually at least one guest journalist to ask questions. Nicely moderated show—no hatchet jobs or any of that—very uptown, upscale kinda' thing. We want you to go on the show and let her interview you about the killings."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"That or you sit and give interview after interview to every big paper and radio and TV reporter in the Chicago land area. Or hold a big ball buster of a press conference where you'll have to field all kinds of cheap shots from the hardballers. Nail yourself to a cross. You don't want to do that. This is the best way, by far. Nice safe interview. You do it one time and cover all the bases. Then it's all old news and nobody's on our case anymore."

"Until the next time he kills somebody and rips the heart out."

"We face that problem at that time. Okay?"

"You're calling the shots."

"Good man. Now let's go over a few points about how you solved the Sylvia Kasikoff case. . . ."

The interview, which would be played back on videotape the following morning around eight A.M., was recorded in a large studio over at the television station that night at seven. Eichord rode to the interview with Rolly Margulies. He resisted being made up by the makeup lady and went to the greenroom to be briefed a final time on some of the questions that Christa Summers would be asking him. He was the focus of twelve eyes as he sat listening to the woman read off a clipboard taking him through some of the Q&As. There was a floor-director type, a station executive of some sort to whom he was never introduced, Christa herself, Rolly, a "gofer" who waited in attendance, and the woman who took him through the basic questions until he had somehow satisfied the twelve eyes that there were going to be no unpleasant surprises.

The greenroom was actually beige. The main studio where he was taken for the taping was blue. It resembled a huge, bright blue warehouse, the floor a litter of cables, cameras, cigarette butts, and the other garbage that a tide of humanity had washed up to the riser on which the show "Chicago Sunrise" took place. As soon as he stepped up on to the riser, a large wooden platform containing the set for the show, a bank of piercingly hot spotlights blinded him, instantly drenching Eichord in fear sweat.