The Animal Hour (18 page)

The Animal Hour
and Other Poems

by Oliver Perkins

There was a streak of rust brown in the white space under his name. Another across the
r
in
Hour.
Blood. Christ. More blood everywhere. Perkins's tongue felt thick in his mouth.

“Where'd you find that?”

“On the floor next to the bed,” said Mulligan. “Next to the body. You don't know how it got there.” This was another trick of his. He didn't ask questions. He supplied your answers. It gave the answers sort of a sardonic tone even though his high voice never changed. It made the answers sound like lies.

“No,” said Perkins. His elbow on the desk, he pinched his nose with thumb and forefinger. He shut his eyes. It was getting hard to think in here. He had to find Zach. He had to break the news to Nana. It was late; it was after one already. They'd kept him waiting around the mews, and then around the precinct house, for hours. They'd been questioning him for hours. “No. I don't know how it got there.”

Mulligan went into his silent routine again. Perkins nearly groaned aloud.

He straightened. Opened his eyes. Avoided Mulligan's gaze. Looked over the cluttered corkboards. Up to the featureless light at the louvered windows. He was feeling better physically, at least. Puking had done the trick there, cleaned him out. Then, later, some detective had brought him a bagel and coffee. He'd managed to get some of it into him before the girl's head bobbed to the surface again.
Look what they
did
to me, Oliver.
Jesus!

Anyway, his hangover seemed to have ebbed away. So that was on the plus side. On the minus side, he was under arrest for murder. Life, he'd noticed, was like that sometimes.

“This house, this mews,” Mulligan said quietly. “You don't own it.”

Perkins puffed his cheeks, let out a long breath. “No. No, it's my grandmother's.”

“And her name is …”

“Mary Flanagan.”

The pug-nosed detective blinked a few more times. The fluorescent light flashed off his glasses. “Nice place,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“But she leaves it empty.”

“She's trying to sell it.”

“And you have a key.”

“That's right.”

“And she has a key.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“And no one else.”

Perkins hesitated. Some protective instinct almost made him lie. But the little balding man in the trench coat continued to blink down at him, and he strongly suspected that lying would be a bad idea.

“My brother has a key,” he said. “Zachary.”

Mulligan inclined his head, the slightest hint of a nod. “Your brother Zachary.”

“Yeah. The family. We all have keys. Hell, the realtor must have one too. Anyone could get in.”

“You got in this morning.”

“Yes.”

“Because you were …”

Again, Perkins hesitated. Again, Mulligan stood completely impassive, hands in his trench coat, pug features mild, set.
What does he need a trench coat indoors for?
Perkins thought bitterly. “Because I was looking for Zach,” he said.

“Your brother.”

“Yes.”

“He's missing.”

“No!”
Shit.
“No, of course not. I just … don't know where he is,” he finished lamely.

“And he wasn't at the mews.”

“That's right.”

“Just the woman upstairs.”

Perkins shook his head. He was getting sick of this. If the little weirdo wanted an answer, let him ask a goddamned question.

The detective blinked and gazed down at him. Perkins scowled, gazed back. He braced himself for the coming silence.

“The dead woman didn't have a key,” Mulligan said at once in his high monotone.

“How should I know?”

“That's right. You didn't know her.”

“I told you that before.”

“That's right. But there was a copy of your book by her body.”

Perkins's eyes flashed. “There was a copy of my book by her body.”

“And you can't explain that.”

“Maybe she was a fan. After all, she had her head in the toilet.”

He felt bad the minute he said it. And even Mulligan's expression seemed to change: his lips might've puckered a little with distaste.

“Look, I told you,” Perkins said quietly. “I didn't know her. I never saw her before. I don't know how the book got there.”

Which brought them to another suspenseful Mulligan silence. How, Perkins wondered, could he just stand there like that? Hands in his pockets. No expression. No movement. Perkins found himself gazing at him so intently, waiting for him so anxiously, that the little khaki figure seemed to stand out in relief. The light green walls, the scarred white floors, the deserted, paper-covered desks: all this began to seem flat and unreal behind him, like a Hollywood backdrop. Perkins gritted his teeth, his jaw working.

“Last night, Mr. Perkins,” Mulligan said at last. “Tell me what you did last night.”

“I gave a poetry reading at the café.”

“The café where you tend bar.”

“Right. I went home around one
A. M.
I had a girl with me.”

“And her name was …”

“I don't know. Milly. I don't remember her last name. I can find out. Maybe Molly.”

“Milly Molly.”

“No, her first name's Molly. Mindy maybe.”

“Molly Mindy.”

“Never mind. I'll ask at the café.”

Mulligan's chin may have inclined a little. “You know people there,” he said. “At the café. You knew people at the reading.”

“Sure. Yeah. Almost everyone.”

“Except Molly.”

“Well … You know.”

“Your brother wasn't there.”

“Zach? No.”

“Or your grandmother.”

“My grandmother is in her eighties. She has a bad heart. She never goes anywhere. Leave her out of this.”

“What about Tiffany Bernstein?”

The question came suddenly. It hit Perkins like a blow. He felt the blood drain from his face. The hair—he remembered the single silver hair on the bedspread. “How do you know Tiffany?” he said slowly.

“She's your brother's girlfriend.”

“Well, how do you know that? What's going on?”

“When did you see Tiffany Bernstein last, Mr. Perkins?”

Perkins swallowed. His stomach was going sour again. “Friday. Friday—why?”

“And your brother was with her.”

“Yeah, yeah sure. But …”

“Your brother's a magazine photographer, is that right?”

“All right, hey,” said Perkins. “I mean, just wait a minute. What the hell is going on here? Why do you know all this stuff about Zach?” The detective answered with silence and Perkins suddenly punched his own palm. “Come on, Mulligan. Damn it!”

The silence continued another moment. Then Mulligan took a breath: Perkins saw his trench coat rise and fall. Slowly, always watching Perkins, the detective reached inside the coat. He drew out a small manila envelope. He reached into the envelope and pulled out a photograph. Gently, he laid this on top of Perkins's book.

The poet looked at the picture. It was grainy, unclear. Two faces leaning toward each other in the dark.

“Recognize them?” Mulligan said.

Perkins shrugged. He didn't look up at the detective. He studied the face on the right. A jutting, Dick Tracy jaw. Honest, intent, all-observant eyes. He gestured to it vaguely. “That one looks like a cop,” he muttered.

Mulligan gave a soft snort. When Perkins looked up, he thought he saw a faint gleam of humor in that remorseless gaze. “Special Agent Gus Stallone,” Mulligan said. “Federal Bureau of Investigation, undercover.” And then, after a pause: “Clearly a master of disguise.”

Perkins managed a faint smile at this. But he knew what was coming.

Mulligan made the slightest gesture: tilted his head at the picture. “The one in the car, Mr. Perkins,” he said. “Take a look at the man in the car.”

Perkins shrugged again.

“Is that your brother?” said the detective. “Is that Zachary? Would you take a more careful look please?”

Perkins girded himself with a breath. He looked again. He hadn't noticed before that the man on the left was in a car: the photo was too dark. Now he made out the frame of the window. The man was leaning out the window to talk to the agent. The man's face was round like Zach's. He had a crew-cut like Zach did too. It was enough to make Perkins queasy, looking at him. But the features …

“It's all grainy. Out of focus,” he said softly. “Anyway …” What would Zach be doing talking to a fed? he was about to say. But he stopped himself. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “I can't tell,” he said. “It's too grainy. I'm not sure.”

Mulligan blinked at him hotly, but Perkins stood his ground. Well, it was true, he thought; he just couldn't tell. Mulligan stretched the silence a little. But finally, he reached into his envelope again. Brought forth another photo. Laid it down on top of the first.

“Jesus!” Perkins hissed it through his teeth. He felt a brief tingle of excitement in his groin.

It was a picture of a woman being sodomized. She was naked, leaning forward, both hands pressed to a desktop. Only her face was covered—covered completely by a black leather mask that zipped up the back. There was a leather leash around her neck. A naked man was holding it. He was yanking back on it so that the woman arched as he drove into her from behind.

Perkins's tongue came out and touched his lips.
Jee-sus!
The woman was thin, dark-skinned. There was a string of freckles along the trail of her spine. Some of her hair stuck out of the mask. It was black with strands of silver in it.
But maybe I didn't even see that hair on the bedspread
, Perkins thought.
Maybe I imagined it.

“Is that Tiffany Bernstein, Mr. Perkins?” Mulligan asked. “Is that your brother's …?”

“Christ, I don't know,” Perkins said sharply. “I mean, she's wearing a mask, for Christ's sake. I mean, for Christ's sake, Mulligan, how am I supposed …?”

Wham! Mulligan moved so fast that Perkins didn't even see him come. He slapped his hand down hard. Slapped a third photo down on top of the other two.

“How about her, Mr. Perkins?” His voice was still eerily mild. “Do you recognize her?”

Perkins turned and looked. “Oh hell,” he said. The woman in the photograph smiled out from under her mortarboard and tassel. Her smile was shy and proud, her cheeks high and round. Her brown hair tumbled to her shoulders in rich waves that caught the photographer's light. Perkins had to close his eyes a moment. Yeah, he recognized her, all right. When he looked again, her china blue eyes were still gazing up at him. Their expression seemed to him indescribably sweet and hopeful and sad.

“I told you,” he said hoarsely. He cleared his throat. “I told you I didn't know her, Mulligan.”

“Well, that really is a shame,” said the detective mildly. Perkins felt his eyes on him. Felt the weight of that impassive gaze. “I think you would have liked her.”

The poet nodded wearily.

“She was a sweet kid,” the detective went on. “One of those late bloomers. You know? One of those—they stay girls a long time. It's nice. They're very trusting. Like girls. They sort of look up at you …” His voice died away.

Perkins glanced at him. The detective's eyes were still expressionless, but he had pressed his lips together tightly. It was a moment before he could go on.

“I had a couple of talks with her, in fact,” he said then. “She was gabby; friendly; you know. She'd make jokes out of the corner of her mouth and roll her eyes. Laugh. Like a giggle. Like a girl. She said she wanted to be a dancer. She wanted to meet a guy. Have a family. She was a kid: she wanted a lot of things.”

Mulligan's gaze shifted to the photograph. Slowly, Perkins turned to it again. It was true, he thought. She had been alive. She had had a woman's voice and she had giggled and made jokes out of the corner of her mouth. She had been alive when they came toward her with the knife. She had been thinking and alive to the last moment …

“What …?” He had to clear his throat. He had to swallow hard. “What was her name?”

And Mulligan answered him almost in a whisper.

“Nancy Kincaid.”

“N
an … ceeee …” The doctor murmured it as he penciled the name in on his form. “Kinnnn … caaaaid … Good!” He smiled up at her. “Address?”

“Gramercy Park,” she said softly. “I live with my parents on Gramercy Park.”

“Gram-er-ceeee … Park! And what is your current …? Damn it!”

The phone on the desk had started breeping again, one of its lights blinking. “Excuse me,” the doctor said to her. With a sigh, he took up the handset.