The Jake Helman Files Personal Demons (5 page)

In the bathroom, Marc selected a pair of green contact lenses, but as he tried to insert them his hands trembled.

He needed to see the Needle Man.

J
ake slipped his NYPD calling card into the last door on the ground floor of Shannon’s apartment building. He had started at the top and worked his way down, and had conducted eighteen interviews. Few of the tenants knew Shannon or Meg, and they offered only ambivalent comments about them. He glanced at his watch: 11:30 a.m. Edgar would not be back for another hour. Snapping his coat shut, Jake stepped outside. The temperature had risen with the sun, which cast long shadows over the empty playground across the street.

“I have to run an errand,” he told the patrolman stationed outside the door. “If Detective Hopkins shows up, tell him I’ll be right back. Keep the press out.”

“Yes, sir.”

He lit a cigarette and headed up the sidewalk toward Eleventh Avenue. Passing the parked white van used by the Crime Scene Unit, he pictured the forensic team, dressed in blue jumpsuits and yellow latex gloves, combing through the crime scene behind him. So far, the DNA detectives had been as befuddled by the lack of evidence left behind by the Cipher as Special Homicide had been.

As he turned the corner, the smell of burnt toast and coffee filled his nostrils. He passed a bagel shop and Kearny’s Tavern, a popular cop hangout owned by a retired arson squad detective, and crossed the street. As he neared Twelfth Avenue and Forty-sixth Street, the cacophony of traffic sounds faded behind him.

A black prostitute stood on a shadowy stoop ahead of him, gyrating her hips as she balanced on high pumps. Clad in a tight, one-piece bathing suit the color of midnight, she ran her large hands between her muscular thighs and shook her taut ass for him. She wore a wig with straight black hair, and gold hoop earrings.

“My pussy itches,” she said in a deep voice. “My big pussy.”

Jake smirked. “You can’t scratch what you ain’t got, darlin’.”

The transvestite placed his hands on his hips. “You cold.”

“I gotta call them how I see them, and I see baggage where I shouldn’t. The Halloween Parade was yesterday.”

“Suit yourself.” The transvestite scanned the sidewalk for another mark. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“I think I do. Aren’t you out a little early?”

“You Vice?”

“Nope. Homicide.”

“You never heard of overtime? I like working the lunch crowd.”

Chuckling, Jake took a final drag on his cigarette, flicked it at a rusty trash can tied to a low, black metal fence, and walked on. He reached his destination a few doors later, a brick building painted battleship gray, with a fire escape crisscrossing its white trimmed windows. Through the front door he saw a brunette flight attendant struggling to get her rolling suitcase through the vestibule. Darting up the steps, he held the outer door open for her.

“Thank you,” the woman said in a friendly Texas accent. “It’s nice to encounter a gentleman.”

Jake caught the inner door behind her before it could latch. “You’re welcome.” The overpowering stench of her hairspray and perfume made him dizzy.

“Have a nice day—”

Jake slipped into the bright lobby without answering. The door shut behind him, terminating their conversation. He took the carpeted stairs two at a time, and when he reached the second floor, he heard the dull throb of rap music above him. He followed the cacophony to the third door on the third floor and pushed the doorbell.

The gray metal door opened and a heroin-chic girl with glassy eyes peered across the chain lock. She had skin as pale as a fish’s belly, and her long, straight blond hair needed washing. Jake estimated her age to be eighteen—barely.

“Yeah?” she said in a groggy voice. The music throbbed behind her.

“Tell AK he’s got company.”

She looked him up and down and he could tell she smelled cop. “Who wants him?”

Her accent betrayed her midwestern origins, but if she had ever possessed any wholesome appeal, she had shed it like snakeskin. A green football jersey with the number thirty-two emblazoned on its front reached midway down her naked thighs, and Jake zeroed in on a pink heart tattooed on the inside of her right ankle.

“Tell him it’s the IRS.” He projected restrained anger at the girl, hoping to unnerve her.

“Just a minute.”

She closed the door and Jake glared at the peephole. When the door reopened, minus the chain lock, a brown face stared out. AK wore baggy jeans with a white muscle shirt that made his skin appear darker than its true shade. The whites of his eyes had turned yellow and a grin cracked his face.

“Jake!” AK embraced him in what Jake liked to call the Bronx Brothers’ Hug. “The fuck is up?”

Stepping past AK, Jake entered the apartment, which reeked of stale marijuana smoke. “The tax man cometh.” “That goddamned tax man.” Shaking his head, AK closed the door and locked it. “He just won’t cut a working brother any slack.”

They entered the living room of the one-bedroom apartment. The girl sat coiled on the sofa, a half-smoked Newport burning in an ashtray on the coffee table. She stared at the plasma screen television with unblinking eyes as Scooby Doo and Shaggy fled from a spectral figure with flaming hair, its shrieks punctuating the rap music coming from the MP3 system by the window. Over the speakers, a deep voice described a shoot-out that left “three pigs drowning in their own blue blood” while a monotonous beat hammered at Jake’s synapses. AK lowered the music.

“This is Karen,” he said, gesturing at the girl.

Jake offered the girl a strained smile. “How do you do?”

“Hi.” Karen’s eyes remained focused on the screen.

“You remember me telling you about Jake, don’t you? He’s my main man with NYPD.”

“Yeah.” She seemed unimpressed.

AK stepped over to the couch. “Go watch TV in the room so Jake and I can talk business.”

Sighing, Karen picked up the pack of Newports and shuffled toward the bedroom. AK swatted her ass as she passed him and she closed the bedroom door behind her.

AK flopped down on the black leather sofa and propped one leg on the coffee table. Admiring his spotless white sneaker, he picked up a remote control and switched off the television. “Fucking cartoons, can you believe it?” He set the remote down. “But with titties like those, who needs the Discovery Channel?”

Saying nothing, Jake sat in a chair perpendicular to the sofa.

AK took the cigarette from the ashtray, flicked away its long ash, took a single drag, and stabbed it out. “She from Minnesota,” he said, smoke shooting through his nostrils. “Land of milk and honeys. Her pops would have her ass on a plane back to the heartland yestidday if he knew a brother was all up in that. She gonna be a model.”

She gonna be strung out before she’s twenty
, Jake thought.

AK leaned closer. “You wanna fuck her?”

“I only fuck my wife.”

AK nodded at the bedroom door. “She’s good. Do you like a pro as long as she’s flying.”

Jake didn’t smile. “I guess we just have different tastes, Lester.”

AK cocked his head. “How you gonna diss me like that, Jake? You know I don’t go by no slave name.”

“I thought your moms named you, and I don’t remember any Mandingo warrior named ‘AK’ in
Roots.”

AK burst into exaggerated laughter. “True, true.”

Jake stared at the young man. “I missed you on Friday.”

AK’s eyes did not blink. “Oh, on Friday?” He sat up, clapped his hands, and aimed a finger at Jake. “You know what? Check this out. I had to make a buy from my wholesaler.”

“You forget my cell phone number?”

“Ah, come on, Jake. You know I’d never do you like that. Matter of fact, I was gonna call you tonight.”

Jake gave him a subtle nod. “I’m real glad to hear that. Makes me feel like I’m an important part of your life.”

“You my man, Jake. I need you watching my back.”

Let him pretend that’s what’s going on
, Jake thought. Lester had been his snitch back in Alphabet City. “Then we still have an understanding.”

“‘Course we do. Whatchoo think?”

“I think you should give me what I came for so I can get back to work.”

“Oh, yeh-yeh-yeh,” AK said as he stood up. “How you want it?”

“Half-and-half.”

“Coming right up.” AK strutted across the room, stopping at the bedroom door. “I’ve got all the serial numbers on this shit written down, so don’t make me call Five-Oh on your ass.” He laughed at his own joke, then entered the bedroom and closed the door.

Jake leaned back in the chair and wondered how Edgar was faring on the case. Another song about thug life in the projects came on. AK returned before it ended, carrying a plastic baggie filled with cocaine in one hand and a wad of cash in the other.

“Fucking bitch is a human vacuum cleaner.” He sat down with a beleaguered sigh. “I don’t know which one of you is costing me more.”

“Haven’t you heard? It’s expensive doing business in Manhattan.”

“Tell me about it.” AK tossed the coke to Jake, who caught the baggie with his left hand. “Check it out, baby. That’s Fish Gill.”

Jake didn’t believe AK had ever even seen Fish Gill, the street term for cocaine before greedy hands along the food chain diluted it to increase profits, and he flicked the baggie with one finger. The stuff looked potent, all right. He tucked it into the inside pocket of his coat, his heart already beating faster.

AK counted out twenty-five twenty dollar bills and handed them over to Jake, who recounted the cash before slipping it into another pocket.

“You’re doing okay for yourself,” Jake said.

“So are you.”

Jake stood up. “I’ll see you on Friday.”

AK blew air out of his cheeks. “No doubt.”

Pulling the glass paned door open, Jake entered the cool darkness of Kearny’s Tavern.

Hurry
, he thought, his pulse quickening as the aroma of beer-soaked wood filled his nostrils. He heard the deep voice of a television newscaster ahead of him. Tom Kearny stood behind the bar, polishing its nicked surface with a soiled rag. He looked up as Jake passed the picture window facing the street, its stained glass defusing the sunlight.

“Well,” Kearny said, drawing the word out. “Look who’s here: the hotshot Homicide detective. What are you doing in Midtown?”

“I caught a stiff over on Forty-Five.” Jake surveyed the empty bar stools and pool tables. “Where are your degenerate customers?”

“Out making arrests. What’s your excuse?”

“I’m chasing a ghost.”

“The Cipher?”

Nodding, Jake glanced up at the television mounted on the brick wall behind Kearny. The broadcast showed shaky images of police in riot gear patrolling a crowd of demonstrators outside an office building.

“The Anti-Cloning Creationist League staged a demonstration outside the headquarters of Tower International this morning,” a newsman said offscreen. “The ACCL opposes Tower’s use of human stem cells for therapeutic cloning and genetic enhancement. A spokesperson for Tower International stated that stem cell research has helped combat diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.”

“These chromophobes are getting out of hand,” Kearny said.

Jake agreed but didn’t say so.

The camera cut to the anchor at his desk in the newsroom: perfect skin, coiffed hair, zero personality. “In a related story, the Food and Drug Administration has postponed its decision on whether or not to approve the sale of Deceleroxyn-21, the controversial drug developed by Tower International to decelerate the aging process in humans by as much as thirteen percent.” A graphic of a medicine bottle with a blue DCL-21 label appeared beside the man. “While results in test subjects have been encouraging, critics of the genetic drug maintain it will be decades before potential side effects are known. Tower International is owned by reclusive billionaire Nicholas Tower.”

“‘Where’s Old Nick?’” Kearny said with a grin.

“I have to make a pit stop,” Jake said, turning and crossing the empty floor. “I’ll let you know if I see him.”

“Hey, that bathroom’s for paying customers!”

Jake waved a hand. “Set me up with a shot and a beer.” The men’s room reeked of Pine-Sol disinfectant. He inspected the stalls, all of them empty. Sliding the metal bolt on the door into the locked position, he stepped before the sink and gazed at the cloudy mirror on the wall. Instead of his own reflection, he saw the discolored face of Shannon Reynolds staring back at him with dead eyes.

Reaching into his inside coat pocket with trembling fingers, Jake withdrew the bag of cocaine. With shortened breaths, he dipped his right pinkie into the bag and scooped coke up his right nostril. Closing his eyes, he shuddered as the powder worked its way into his system. Opening them, he snorted the drug deeper into his skull, then scooped a hit up his left nostril.

Waiting …

Blast off
.

His mind turned numb and the world around him softened. Shannon’s countenance faded away, replaced by his bloodshot eyes. Perhaps she disapproved of his habit.

I’ll see ya when I see ya
. Dipping his pinkie back into the bag, he massaged coke into his gums and dabbed some on his tongue, which lost all sensation. The shit was potent, all right. AK must have dipped into his personal stash to make amends for dodging him. Jake closed the baggie and returned it to his pocket. Outside, voices rose above the television broadcast as customers arrived. White ooze trickled from his sinuses, and he snorted it back up his septum. He unlocked the door and returned to the bar, tasting the nasal drip in the back of his throat.