Part 9 - Wolfe: Blow Your House Down
There’s something to be said for being drunk all day. I couldn’t remember what it was; it didn’t matter. It was a truth without words. And what else is a suspended cop supposed to do when his life is shit, his job is on hold and his girlfriend is dead?
I was a walking cliché. It was as if I’d watched entirely too many movies and found the typical movie cop role to assume: single, down-on-his-luck, overtly violent and anti-establishment, smoker, drinker, overall lout. I stared at my reflection and saw what the big screen always wanted me to see.
And looking for my lover’s killer. How could it get more cliché than that?
I needed a star on the Walk of Fame for this portrayal.
I lit another Ultra, took a drag, watched the smoke curl around my head like the clouds that rolled in just after dark. They threatened me with rain. I didn’t take kindly to threats, usually ignored them. There were plenty when you worked undercover, and you learned how to deal. And as a detective, there were more because the bad guys knew who you were. Until you took a little on the side and they smiled at you like they had you. Until you put one of them through a second-story window, and suddenly you were the bad guy and IA had an investigation going. Threat eliminated. That’s what happened to threats around here. I blew them the fuck down.
This one blew back.
Archie’s was sitting heavy in my belly, another roiling storm about to hit. I didn’t give it a chance. I leaned around into the alley and pushed a long finger down my throat, dropped a load of foul chow mein and whiskey against the bricks behind Smiley’s. A few passers-by slowed at the noise, but no one stopped to stare, to check on me, to laugh. Eyes down; keep moving. This is New York; you don’t want to know. I was just another shadow, another drunk piece of shit in an alley, doped up on something, reeking of something, far enough away to be ignored.
I took a long drag on the Ultra, trying to clear the taste that fouled my mouth. The acid was burning my throat. Nothing a drink wouldn’t fix. Six drinks. Infinity. And Smiley’s had the drinks, the tits, and everything else I wanted…or had wanted. How had I wound up here? I stared down at the mess I’d made. To the left was the mess I’d witnessed the night before, or the aftermath of it. Yellow police tape still roped off the whole of the alley, and I didn’t dare look over — the chalk outline was there without me seeing it. The last surviving portrait of a human being in crude child-like scratches. The woman I loved just an empty shell that would be gone once the rain came.
I took another drag, watched the smoke waft away on the breeze, then tossed it in the pile of shit I’d left at my feet, watched the ember burn out and saw something I hadn’t expected. A sack wedged between the dumpster and the wall, almost out of sight. A brown paper bag — not unexpected in an alley in New York City, but that wasn’t what made it remarkable. What made it remarkable was that it wasn’t a wadded up piece of trash; it was in perfect condition, as if it was right out of a grocer’s hands and filled with vegetables and meats destined for someone’s table. If there was one thing I’d always had in mind as a cop — look for the things that don’t fit. Find the one thing that was out of place, and there you would have the piece that made the puzzle whole.
The bag came free easily — thick brown paper, coated to resist moisture, and creased over half-way down. It read “Arturo’s” on the outside. I knew the place — had heard of it anyway. Italian place just off 5th Avenue. High end pizzas and pasta. Artisanal cheeses. The usual bullshit, but who went to Arturo’s and came to Smiley’s? Nobody. No fucking body. This bag wasn’t supposed to be here. It wasn’t dumped. It wasn’t just tossed aside with a side salad and a few slices inside on the way home. It was neatly folded, and it was clean.
And it was half-full of crisp hundred dollar bills. Jesus Fucking Christ!
The door to Smiley’s office hit the wall so hard, two pictures dropped off their flimsy nails and crashed to the floor, spilling cheap glass onto the rough wood. I ignored it and slammed the door behind me, eyes riveted on Smiley as he climbed out of his chair, his mouth opening to some rebuke or other. Only I was around his desk in three steps, my hand clamping around his throat, driving him back against the same pictureless wall until his head thudded like the door against the dingy drywall. The only thing that came out of him was a squeak.
“What the fuck was she doing?!” I snarled, baring my teeth, my fingers beginning to squeeze as he searched for an answer, an escape, a breath. “No one is going to save you, Smiley. You better fucking answer me right now, or we’re going to see if you have as many lives as your cats, fat man!”
His face was turning red, the usual shit smile gone. No Cheshire smile, no smug eye roll, just a steady wheeze from his gaping gap, where I was sure my fist would be soon if he didn’t start talking. He managed one word — “breathe” — and then I let go, turning, hearing him collapse, all fifty tons of flab and flatulence, like a whale with a severe gastro-intestinal issue. I dropped into his extra-wide chair, smacked the sack onto the desk, and watched him propping himself up on all fours, coughing and wheezing and hacking as if someone had just tried to choke him to death. I noticed he’d just poured himself a little of the cheap shit Two-Timers whiskey he liked to drink, and I downed it in a shot while I gulped air and he found his voice.
“What? Who?” He coughed and sputtered a bit more, then looked up at me, his face still red like an angry zit waiting to be popped.
“Red, you fat piece of shit. What the fuck was she into? What was she doing the night she was killed? What did you tell those three turds who came to investigate the crime?”
“Top drawer,” he said, still wheezing, and I popped the drawer open, saw what he was looking for and tossed the inhaler to the floor between his hands. He scooped it up like a strawberry scoops up a dick when she needs another rock, took a long drag and it clattered on the floor between his hands as he struggled to get his breathing steady again.
I waited a little longer, feeling some of the rage seeping out of me, the rush of it subsiding like the tide going out. I’d shot my load, and I’d have to wait to recharge it. For now he was safe, shifting his girth around until he was sitting, back against the wall. “Red. And this.” I turned the bag over and dumped bound bricks of currency out onto the desk, watched his eyes grow big as saucers. “What the fuck do you know?”
He shook his head, his eyes riveted on the money like it was a pile of tits. I’d made it rain on his desk, and he hadn’t had to take a stitch off. “I-I-I dunno. I don’t. I have no idea. I swear.” His gaze finally shifted to me, but it didn’t linger. “She was a stripper, Wolfe, and you know it. A dancer. An artiste.” His words shifted after he stole another glance at me, saw the clouds brewing for another storm, thought better of his vocabulary choices. “You know as much as me. Where did you find that? Not her dressing room.”
“No, because you’ve already been through that, haven’t you? With and without the cops.”
He nodded.
“Where do you stash the worn panties?”
I almost laughed when I saw his eyes shift involuntarily and betray him. The second drawer in his desk was full of them, and I could barely breathe when I saw a black pair I recognized. I closed my eyes for a moment, swallowed and stood. It was either kill him now or walk away, and I wasn’t going to jail for offing this fat pervert. Instead I pushed the suspicious dough back into it’s not-so-pristine bag and walked out, but not before selecting the offending thong and pulling it over the fat fuck’s head. He didn’t make move or a sound, but I was sure I could hear him inhaling as I opened the door again.
“You better not be holding out on me, Smiley, or I’m going to blow your goddamned house down.”
When I hit the street, it was full-on raining, so I tucked the bag away and waved down a cab. I hit the seat with a sudden sense of relief and a feeling that I was on to something, something more than those worthless pigs could handle, something Smiley was totally clueless about, and something my angel had died over. I finally had something to do besides wallow in self-pity and self-loathing.
As the taxi pulled away, my eyes landed on a slender figure in the black jacket running out to flag a cab coming up. For a second it seemed like our eyes locked, and then he was gone.