Superbia 3 (5 page)

Donoschik shot forward,
jabbing a finger in Frank's face, "You piece of shit!  Everything I heard about you is true.  You mark my freaking words, O'Ryan, you're about to enter a world of misery!  A
world
of
misery!
"

Donoschik's voice had risen to near-hysteria and Frank looked at the doctors and nurses standing by their doors,
all of them staring at the scene with increased concern.  Frank smiled sheepishly at them and lowered his voice as he leaned closer to Donoschik and said, "At least it's a world where I know how to properly secure evidence, right?"

Anne Iolaus opened her mouth to talk, but Frank
squeezed her wrist to keep her quiet.  They both watched the red-faced highway corporal slam the wet shirt into the paper bag and spin on his boots, the fast-paced
squeak-squeak-squeak
diminishing in his wake.  "Do I even want to ask what the hell that was about?"

"Nope."

"Am I going to be in any trouble?"

"Nope."

"Are you?"

Frank s
ighed, "Yeah, well.  What else is new?"

In the world of strip
clubs, there's a sliding scale that ranges from upscale joints to low-rent dives.  Upscale joints charge door fees and offer things like discounted buffets to their clientele.  They bring in porno actresses for special promotions.  Mostly, their girls are stuck-up escorts dressed in gaudy specialty outfits who think guys are actually there to watch them swing around a pole and show off their fancy dance moves.  That, or for some poor sucker to get lured into the Champagne Room for a clumsy rub-and-tug, thinking the guy is going to wet himself at the chance to even be close to such an exquisite goddess.   

Screw that,
Frank thought.  He preferred the dives.  Sure, in a place like
Stretchmark Sally's
you had to deal with the odd forty-five-year-old biker chick with frosted hair and faded tattoos swinging around the pole like a man in a monkey suit, but hey, at least they were friendly.  They tried harder.  He threw down a fifty on the bar and said, "Two shots of Jack and a Miller Lite."

You knew you were slumming when the bartender poured shots into small plastic Dixie cups.  Frank watched him pour Jack just to their rim and
as soon as it was set in front of him, Frank picked it up and swallowed it down.  "Again," he said, swallowing the second one even faster.  The warmth of the liquor spread throughout his body, instantly helping him relax.  It allowed him to turn in his seat and look across the room to where the girls would emerge from the dressing room to head to the stage.  The door opened and there she was, all of Heaven and Hell in one small, olive-skinned package. 

The guys in the bar instantly alerted on the change
in quality of the merchandise, turning away from the biker chick as she paraded up to them one by one and clapped her sagging tits together for a dollar bill.  They ignored her and watched Ophelia grab the pole and start to rotate her hips, swinging her long dark hair in a wide circle as she caressed her chest.  Frank watched her too, and waited, knowing it wouldn't be long. 

Every stripper in the world knows you're supposed to make eye contact with the guys in the bar.  It helps foster a connection they can exploit later, a way of making the slobs think she's interested and
loosens their wallets. 
Most guys aren't interested in actually going home with a stripper,
Frank thought. 
Not after actually talking to them for more than five minutes.  But every guy wants to be the one she wants to go home with. 

Ophelia wrapped her leg around the pole, giving the audience a clear view of her satin-covered crotch, and bent down just enough to see Frank staring up at her.  Her head fired up as she spun away, and after that, she
refused to look in his direction again.

Frank drank his beer and waited for the song to finish.  He watched the guys all stare and drool and adjust themselves, waiting hungrily for their turn with her.  Ophelia came down from the stage and walked right past him, heading for the next closest customer.  Some kind of contractor.  She wrapped her hands around his burly, flannel shirted neck and kissed him lightly on the lips, pre
ssing herself close to his body, cooing as she reached down to squeeze his package through his jeans. 

Frank looked away and held up his hand to flag the bartender.  "Another shot and a beer please.  It's gonna be a long night."

He was bleary-eyed and tired.  Cigarette smoke felt painted on the insides of his eyelids and soaked into the pores of his skin.  He waved the bartender off as he came up and said, "Just water.  I'm done." 

Someone wrapped her hand around his shoulder and he turned in his seat.  It was the biker chick.  Frank picked up his last crumpled dollar and said, "Here. 
Take it."

She looked at the dollar and pouted, then pulled down the front of her g-string to show him the bare pad of wrinkled skin there.  "Doesn't daddy want to feed the kitty?"

No, daddy does not,
Frank thought.  He dropped the dollar into her crotch and said, "Thank you, dear."

"Thank you, daddy," she said.  She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek and Frank shuddered.  He was sick with himself for being there, for staying so long, for feeling so desperate. 
Fuck it,
he thought as he pushed away from the bar. 
I'm going home.

"Is this what you meant by not doing it anymore?  About being done?"

He stopped at the sound of her voice and looked at the door.  It was just a few feet away.  I almost made it, he thought.  He turned to look at her, no longer dressed in her stripper getup.  She was ready to leave, holding her imitation Burberry shoulder bag, wearing low-cut sweatpants and a sweatshirt.  All of the harsh makeup was scrubbed off her face now, and she looked more like a college student.  The natural, private kind of beauty that he preferred.  "No," he finally said.  "Not at all."

"So why did you come?"

"It's been a hell of a day.  I guess I realized that the only person I could really talk to about it with, or even wanted to talk to about it with, was you."

Ophelia took a deep breath, "Do you want to sit down and have a drink?"

"Could we go grab some food and coffee instead?  Go someplace normal?"

"Nothing about any of this is normal, Frank," she said.

"I know.  But maybe it could be."

She eyed him suspiciously, "What does that mean?"

"It means I've been thinking.  Really thinking.  About my life.  About you. It means I'm tired of lying."

He held the door open for her as they left the bar.  He carried her bag for her like some kind of school kid.  She reached for his hand and he thought, this is what it feels like to fall down the rabbit hole. 
This is what it feels like to let go.

Reynaldo Francisco parked his black-and-white cruiser in front of the apartment listed on his in-car computer and picked up his car radio to say, "On scene."  The ambulance two spaces down had its back doors open, but the metal gurney was sitting unused and unattended.  Reynaldo closed and locked his car door, already able to hear the victim's mother screaming inside.  Her wail was long and hoarse, clotted by years of tobacco.  Reynaldo wouldn't even have to ask.  The kid was dead and stiff.

One of the medics opened the front door carrying a heart monitor, trailing a long spool of white tape marked with flat red lines. 
A dark-haired Colombian mamacita whose rear-end looked like two plump casabas squished together in her tight cargo pants.  "Hey, Officer Rey," she said.

"Bonita Marissa," he purred.  "Ho
w old's the
nino
?"

"
Late twenties," she said, looking down at her chart.  "Name of Jessie Pincher."

"Oh," Rey said with a
sudden sigh of relief.  "I thought it was a little baby.  Dispatch just said the caller's child was found unresponsive."

"Mom's in there,"
Marissa said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder.  "It was all we could do to keep her out of the room while we went through the motions.  There was no chance.  Rigor had already started to set in.  Happened sometime over night. 
Drogas."

"Heroin?"

"Found the needle in his arm."

"
The junkies do not learn.
  Estupido.
"

She nodded,
"My partner is still in there talking to her.  I've got to start my paperwork."

"It can wait. 
Will you come inside with me while I look at the body.  Otherwise I might get scared."

She rolled her eyes, "It's nothing you haven't seen before, papi."

"You never know.  I might start having bad dreams and need someone to stay overnight and check on me," he called out as she walked away.  He stayed on her as she swung that bountiful ass into the back of the bus and found himself wondering if the other medics ever lured her into spending a few sweaty minutes during a slow night back there.  The ambulance bay was also equipped with cots and sofas and a kitchen.  He told himself that it might be smart to stop by and say hello on one of his own slow nights.  Maybe it wouldn't even take that much convincing.

Some of the neighbor
kids circled the area with their bikes, watching his every move.  He waved to them and called out, "Everything's all right.  Go and play."  They didn't listen.  Reynaldo nodded at the medic as he walked into the house.  H was crouched by the grieving woman, holding her yellowed fingers.  She was an alligator of a woman. 
Early fifties, yesterday's makeup, a face that had seen hard times,
Reynaldo thought. 
Nothing like this, though.  Any parent unfortunate enough to see their own child into the grave was cursed by God,
he thought.  The medic patted her hand delicately as he looked back, "She called her sister.  They're driving in from Jersey right away."

"Okay, that's good," Reynaldo said.  "How about the … did you call anyone else?"

The medic nodded, "He's on his way, too.  I explained to Mrs. Feeley that it's important to not go into the room until after the coroner is done."

The woman nodded, long lines of tears streaming down her face.  "He said … he promised that I could see …
Jessie one more time before you take him."

"That's right," the medic said.  "After the coroner's done, if the officer says it's okay."

"Sure, Mrs. Pincher," Reynaldo said.  "But are you sure you want to do that?"

The woman clenched her mouth and nodded, making little squeaking noises deep in her throat. 

"Okay.  As soon as the coroner is done, I'll let you know and you can have all the time you need." 

"Thank you." 

Reynaldo walked back out of the house to go to his police car.  He popped the trunk and pulled out his digital camera and a handful of brown paper evidence bags.  Marissa's ass was no longer at the forefront of his thoughts.  It was time to focus on the investigation.  When he walked back into the house, the medic pointed to the right and said, "Down there, on your right." 

The hallway stunk like pile
s of cigarette ash.  Reynaldo's family owned a bodega in Brooklyn and one of ways he made extra money growing up was to pick through the cigarette buckets outside for butts.  He'd walk around the neighborhood selling them to bums and addicts for a quarter each, sometimes getting fifty cents for ones that had more than a half inch of tobacco left in them.  The money was good, but he always stunk like an ashtray no matter how much he washed and it made him sick now to smell that same stale foulness in the hallway. 

He turned right into the bedroom and saw the body
of Jessie Pincher.  Jessie's thin form was turned halfway on its side atop a threadbare mattress sitting on the floor.  His hands were crumpled to his chest and his mouth fixed slightly open, the blue and red splotches across his marble white skin unmistakable.  He was dead.  He'd been dead long before they got there.  Reynaldo stepped back out of the room and snapped pictures from the doorway, photographing the scene from every angle.  He stepped into the room past the door and moved to his right, gaining a different perspective and fired away. 

He
shot as he moved closer to the body until he was bent over it, focusing the camera on a syringe sunk deep in the victim's left arm.  There were other needles scattered on the floor, sitting on the desk, even hidden on the mattress around Jessie where he'd slept.  None of them were capped. 

Reynaldo
looked around the room in disgust, suddenly filled with the revolting idea that every step he took was going to land on something razor sharp and AIDS infected. 
Increible,
Reynaldo thought. 
How much of a goddamn junkie do you have to be to sleep in bed with a bunch of needles sticking you every time you roll over?
 

The
room was a treasure chest of drug paraphernalia.  Discarded spoons caked with white residue.  Multiple empty blue wax baggies scattered across the floor like candy wrappers.  Reynaldo picked one up and inspected the bright red heart stamped across its surface. 
Heroin baggies were always stamped with cartoon characters or stupid logos,
he thought. 
Always the same dope, but by changing up the baggies, junkies were always willing to try the newest and latest, always chasing that stronger, better high.
  Renaldo listened to Mrs. Pincher's weeping in the living room and felt nothing but disgust for her.  There was no way she hadn't known of her son's habit, and if anything, she probably shared in it. 
It serves you right,
he thought. 
It serves him right and it serves you right, so stop blubbering. 

He
pulled the sheets down and photographed the body from every angle, making sure the bare torso and limbs were in focus.  He rolled Pincher over slightly to get a better view of the purpled line of fluids where all the blood in the body had settled to its lowest point. 

He
put on his black leather gloves and pulled a pair of extra-large rubber ones over them and looked around at all the syringes in the room.  There were a dozen more than he had containers for, but he found a two-liter soda bottle in the corner filled with brown water and cigarettes.  A ghetto ashtray.  That would do.  He picked up the bottle and carried it into the hallway bathroom, forced to turn his head and hold his breath as he dumped the sludge into the toilet and flushed repeatedly.     

One by one he
plunked the dirty syringes into the soda bottle, shaking them out of the bedsheets and pulling them out from under Jessie's pillow.  They were tucked along the crevices of the furniture and walls, just waiting to spike someone.  The bottle was nearly filled by the time he set it on the dresser and thought,
this is the school trip kids should be taking.  Come right in boys and girls.  Take a good look.  This is not your brain on drugs.  This is your body rotting on a dirty mattress surrounded by needles while your mother cries. 

He searched the
scattered junk cluttering the nightstand.  A few unpaid traffic tickets.  Receipts for cigarettes.  Jessie's driver's license, and just under it, a green ACCESS EBT card. 
This is why we have junkies,
Reynoldo thought. 
The government gives them money instead of food. 
He'd seen it time and time again in Brooklyn.  Pipers came into the store and buy cigarettes and a Slim Jim with their welfare card and then go straight to the ATM to take out as much cash as they could.  The ones who made him sick were the ones who couldn't even read the words printed on the screen.  "Can you help me see what this says?" they'd mutter.

"No, I cannot read either," Reynaldo would say.

"That's bullshit, man."

"Sorry," he'd shrug.
  "Guess we both need to go back to school."

"Papi?" his mother would call out from the back of the store, shaming him into helping the wretched lowlifes get their free cash to go buy crack.  "You know we get a percentage of that money they take out, and you know anything they spend on their welfare cards goes in
to our pockets, so why do you be mean to them?"

"Because they are
cochambre,
" he said in disgust.      

"It is not our job to judge them, Papi.  Only God can do that."  She'd cross herself and head for the back of the store, telling him to restock the shelves but to also keep a careful eye out for whoever walked in.

Something buzzed beneath Jessie's body that vibrated the springs sticking up through the holes in the mattress.  Reynaldo rocked him sideways just enough to remove the black phone under his waist as a text message appeared across the screen from someone named Moses that read:

Yo
u fuckin nigger u still owe me 4 dat bundle. U sell it yet?

I swear to God if u
screw me on this I'm gonna fuck u wit a broomstick. I WANT MY MONEY.

Reynaldo scrolled through the text messages on the phone, following the thread from the earliest message sent to Moses at 4:08 PM the day before. 

Sent:
I need

From:
How much?

Sent:
Anythin

From:
How much $ u got? That's what I meant

Sent:
Broke! LOL

From:
Can't help u

Sent:
Come on Mos. Please.  I'm hurtin so bad.

From:
Tits or GTFO

Sent:
If I had tits I would

From:
Then I guess u gots to GTFO then

Sent:
Can u front me a few bags?

From:
Naw dawg. It ain't like that

Sent:
What if I take a bundle off u an sell it? I'll give u the $ as soon as I get it

From:
U just gonna shoot that shit

Sent:
I swear to God I won't. I'll just do 2 bags an sell the rest. I'll have the $ 2 u by tonight. Please.

From:
This is a dumb idea

Sent:
I won't let u down. I promise!!!

From:
Come by in an hour. My moms leavin 4 work soon.

The next text was received an hour later.

From:
Do not fuck this up, Jessie.  I better hear from u tonight.

Sent:
Everybody went 2 Philly 2 cop today. I'll sell it tomorrow when they r hurtin if that’s aiight? Unless u want me to bring it all back ova.

From:
Do u still have it?

Sent:
Yup

From:
Just keep it then. Sell it tomorrow an get me dat loot. U do good an we can make this a regular thing.

Sent:
Word

Reynaldo snapped the phone shut and dropped it into one of the paper bags, rolling the top down and stuffing it in his pocket as the apartment's
front door open and a man said, "Coroner's Office."     

Bill Lim
os was a retired Stygian Falls sergeant who hired on as a Deputy Coroner, trading in his badge and gun for a polo shirt and a station wagon with a cooler big enough for all the bodies he saw on a routine basis.  Limos made polite conversation with the mother and headed back toward the bedroom.  "Big Rey," he said as he came into the room.  "What do we got?"

"
Heroin overdose.  No signs of anything suspicious."

Limos
cocked an eyebrow at him, "Lividity?"

"
It's consistent with the body's position.  I checked.  You know I already checked."

"Just keeping you on your toes, my man.  The reason I like coming here is you guys make it easy on me." 
Limos picked up his large digital camera and snapped several photographs of the body where it lay, then said, "Help me get him on his back."