The Last Bender, Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

            “I’d like to suck his cock,” she said, looking very fem in her lowcut, black dress, drop earrings, and gold necklace. “Look at those ass cheeks. Shit, they show right through.”   She kicked off her burgundy suede pumps. “I wonder what his fingers look like.”   She stretched and wiggled her toes, coral tipped and blurry through the stockings. “Most men rub me wrong, but I bet not him.”

            “Another French fry, love?” I asked.

            “It’ll have to do,” she sighed.

            “So, what, you’re not gettin’ any?”

            She watched the waiter, who was behind the bar examining juice jugs against the light, as if they were test tubes of foaming bacteria.

            “Oh, Mac gets it up all right. But married life, it’s–” she lit a cigarette. “Man, I could be his vacuum tube. Just for variety.”

            “Isn’t that what a goat’s for?”

            “Pleasure then. A boy for pleasure.” I looked at her cigarette. My erotic dream is to suck on one of those; to take the smoke into my lungs and hold on tight, till my whole body quivers in a thousand streams of light.

            Linda fingered the air and the waiter came, apron ties bouncing off his butt.

            “Whuddya got besides these French fries?” she asked.

            “Why don’t I bring the menu.”

            “No, I wanna hear you say it.”   You would never know she was a hardball homicide dick the way she flashed her tusks and turned doe, looking off, her brown hair rat and short, bent nose in hieratic silhouette.

            He looked at the ceiling and then down at his feet and bit his lip. “We have a menu.”

            “Give it a whirl, babe. Give us whuchya got.”   She stabbed the lipsticked butt out and lit another, this time bolting down his face with her coldest, interrogative stare.

            “Well, we got burgers, with cheese, bacon or bacon and cheese; wild boar chili, three bean vegetarian chili, all the usual fixin’s; and let’s see, skate wing in brown butter with frisee and lardons tossed in a clementine vinaigrette, and shoestring parsnip fries; then we got gumbo;  all kinds ‘a’ Po Boys; and pecan battered cat fish with jalapeno mango chutney and three mustards.”

            “No dessert?” she asked.

            “Yes ma’am. Key Lime pie. Chess pie. Double fudge surprise. Ice box cookies with freezerchurned sorbet, your choice of kiwi, rosemary or cardamom.”

            “Well, I gotta think about it. I’ll take another Cajun bloody, extra Worcestershire and Tobasco–”

            “Me too,” I said.

            “Virgin?” he asked.

            “Yeah.”   I watched him make the bloodies while Linda rubbed off lipstick with a napkin, balling it up and dropping it in the ashtray, where it slowly caught fire off her smouldering butt.

            “I’m so hungry I could eat shit,” she said.

            “It’s early for that.”

            “Oh c’mon Jack, have something.”

            “Well,” I said, to keep her quiet, “maybe a bite or two.”

            She leaned across the table and said, avidly, “Let’s share. Whuddya want?”

            “Whatever. Doesn’t matter.”   I hated to put the kibosh on her like that but I just wasn’t hungry. The place was annoyingly cheap and annoyingly fancy all at once. It wanted to be turned inside out. I looked out the window at a bum taking a piss against the wall across the street. A newspaper blew by. I focused first on the newspaper, then on the bum, then on the metal grill covering the window.

            “Well,” she said. “I could go for a Po’ Boy or a gumbo.”

            “I dunno. Last time it was squirrel. Squirrels sure look scrawny and nasty to me, even the big fat ones. It’s not like eating a rabbit.”

            “Yeah, but the taste Jack.”

            “What’s it taste like and how do you know?”

            “Like liver and onions but wild, you know, like wet bark.”   I didn’t say a word. “I vote gumbo. If it’s not deep fried. A lot of these places deep fry first.”

            “I’m watching my weight,” I said. The boy put the finished bloodies down on a tray and stuck a red swizzle stick in mine, next to the straw. Then he slid the tray onto his left palm and picked up a check book. On the way to our table he kicked a used napkin under a chair. As he plunked down our drinks he asked, “Are you ready to order?”   His knuckles were thick and grey. I wanted to cut and clean his nails. They made me nervous. I wondered if Linda still wanted two or three of them poking around inside of her.

            “Well, dear,” Linda began, and then she cleared her throat, “maybe you can help us here. What’s the gumbo?”

            “Mixed game. Mostly squirrel.”

            “I told you!” I said.

            “Don’t listen to him,” she said, putting on a big show of irritation. “Is it deep fried or sautéed first?”

            His eye went blank. “The meat is dredged in seasoned flour and browned in lard. They make a roux, add stock, okra, herbs and sausages, ham, tomatoes. It comes with rice, collards and corn bread or biscuit.”

            “You want corn bread or biscuit?” she asked.

            I didn’t care about her boy, her gumbo or her blow job. I said, “Whatever,” and looked out the window. The sky was iridescent, like a pigeon neck. Two helicopters crossed back and forth. Across the street, all the window shades were pulled down. The bum, done peeing, started to wave his joint around so pedestrians had to cross the street to avoid piss burns. Already his urine had bitten a few inches into the mortar around the bricks and wisps of smoke wafted into the air. Finally a couple of beat pigs came along and phoned in for medical back up. Meanwhile, Linda and the boy were deep into conversation.

            “I don’t see why you have to butt fuck to be gay,” he was saying.

            “It certainly is unfair of people to think so,” she said amiably.

            “That’s what I keep telling my therapist, but he says its easy to bump bellies. Anyone can suck a cock. To make the grade you have to dive the muff or pack the fudge. I’m no good if I don’t.”

            “Well, if you ever wanna chow on me, call. I bet you never had a homicide dick come in your mouth before.”

            “Put that away,” he said. “I just might quit ball park franks for a cheeseburger. I just might.”

            “Well sweetie, you just tell that shrink rapper to pack his own fudge, I’ll even give him the night stick. Now run along and get us that gumbo and bring me another drink. But make it a Maugham, up.”

            “What kind of gin?”

            “Doesn’t matter. But put in the real absinthe. I’ll know if you use Pernod.”

            “And what do you want sir?”

            A quarter gram of pure heroin. Like that, I’m in this single room in a flop, on a thin, striped mattress lit by streetlights. A fourteen year old girl stands in the window with that dead eye look. She’s trying to fuck me but I nod out. Next thing I’m in some bar sipping a cola and watching the news. They come in front and back. I don’t realize what’s happening at first, and when I do it’s too late. I’m knocking over chairs and tables but the big guys tackle me and drag me off to detox. Now go bark at the cook.

            “You really think that guy’s gonna spit jiz to suck your twat?” I asked. She didn’t respond. I went on. “What if Mac finds out. What then.”

            “He won’t. Mac’s so scared he sleeps with his head between his knees.”

            “Not between yours then?”

            “Thank god no. It’s like getting licked by a dog.”

            “Doesn’t he smell it on you?”

            She dismissed that with her hand. “They never come inside me.”

            “So whuddya do, shake down street trash and take it in trade?”

            She lit a cigarette. We watched the medical team surround the cock-waiving bum with restraint cloth, while the beat pigs menaced him with tasers and billy clubs. At a distance, a small crowd gathered. They looked like children in the elephant house. I wanted to kick them all in the ass.

            “I get it where I can, hun. So you and Helen hit it off.”

            “She’s a riot,” I said. “Good cop?”

            Linda looked tired. She rubbed her hair so it stood on end and played with the earrings in her left ear. “She’s tough tits. You don’t fuck with her and walk away. She sticks her foot in bad but that’s just the rough she got in the joint. I trust her on my back. Helen Stark is cool.”

            The medicals managed to wrap him up in the blue cloth. One of the beat pigs pushed him to the ground, another had his boot on his throat, while a medic shot him up with liquid restraint. “Look at that,” I said.

            “What?”

            “Across the street. What a bunch of fucking idiots. Helen said she walked into that Slaughterhouse Five case the press is going nuts about.”

            “It’s nasty Jack. That place was covered in blood. And nobody home.”   She stopped and made a face. “There was so much blood, it ran through the floor and into the wine warehouse below.”

            I whistled wow and felt like gum in an ashtray. “Any clues?”

            “Sure. But nothing makes the papers, Jack. Don’t think of selling what I tell you.”

            I decided not to press her. “Why they got to wrap that guy up in blue and dope him?” I asked.

            “What, them again? Beats me,” she shook her head.

            “And we just sit here and watch.”

            “What is it, Jack? They’re on the job. The guy’s crackin’ his whip in the street.”

            “Yeah, I know. But this street’s a toilet. Where else can a bum go and take a piss if not here?”

            “It ain’t law and order to have bums pissing and squeezing their pud on the street. People get itchy. Cops gotta stop it.”

            “But you’ll admit it’s brutal.”

            “Why don’t you go out and do something?” she asked, her voice becoming shrill.

            “Will you back me up?”

            “Not over this I won’t. You get jammed up on something big and I will, but not for no pud peddler or piddler whatever.”   We sat and watched in silence. Then she said, “We know they worked with chemicals. We found traces in the blood. The forensics say it’s a waste product from another compound, one they’ve never seen before. Then we found lots of ragged skin. Clothing fibers from several different kinds of uniform, none police. We also found a receipt from a Copy Cat shop out in Guernsey.

            “We figure it for a mob hit or maybe military. Dirty up the victims as a kind of warning. Maybe the victims worked in a lab or factory making that stuff they found in the blood.”

            The food arrived all at once. Greens, with a slippery pink chunk of smoked ham hock, triangles of crumbly cornbread, a plate of rice smothered in brown gravy and chunks of meat flecked with peppers. Linda drank her martini up and ordered a bottle of imported beer.

            I didn’t want to lie to her. It wasn’t right, she was my best friend. But that’s what I did. I guess I thought I was protecting both of us. Cause otherwise, she would have to bust me and Laraby would have her whacked. I felt bad, broken joints, when I wanted to be like cold metal. Smooth, like vodka spilled on a spinning cube of ice, the biting splash of lime.

            I picked up a piece of cornbread and dipped it in the hot, smoky gravy. “You figure a lab?” I asked. “What, drugs? Legal? Illegal? Or was it cowboys working at a university?” The door opened. A woman in a large yellow sun hat tentatively surveyed the room through violet sunglasses. She had on a wide-collared, flamingo blouse with flouncey sleeves; a tight, knee-length skirt, lawn green with white polka dots; white tights; and black puddle boots. Satisfied in some impenetrable way, she smiled and opened the door wide, to admit two others just like her, one obviously male. Each carried a suitcase. Another business lunch. Either real estate or television people. Maybe interior design. The waiter dropped his girlie magazine and put down the hash pipe to seat the two grand dames and hitchhiking penis.

            “Well,” she replied, “we’re working on it. It’s hard to trace chemicals. One company sells to another. They all got different names in different countries. You spread enough green around, lips are still tight. We don’t have a budget, so it’s the crowbar. That takes time too. You don’t want to bust the wrong pair of balls.”   She buttered a piece of corn bread and crumbled it up into the greens. “What about you Jack?” she asked. “So far, you’ve squashed my horny and pried a few details of the case loose, a case I’ve been told not to bark about by the Chief herself. You’ve ripped my lip, now it’s your turn. Let hang, sweet one. It won’t kill you.”

            “Check mate. Besides the Glory Hole?”

            “Well hun, you could give good detail about that in exchange for the bloody warehouse news. But Helen already filled me in. It was like a coroner’s inquest, if you have to know. Not that she thought you were a stiff or anything. Only the bottom feeder on the other side of the hole knows  that for sure. She just has a way with personal facts.”

            “So you know all about it.”

            “And I’m not the only one in the papers either. What gives?”

            “A whole lab full of people don’t report to work. They’re missing without a trace.”

            She threw up her hands and said, “That’s just what the t.v. and papers said. Don’t expect me to believe that’s it. Not at Monozone, no.”

            “We’re just contacting the families.”

            She picked at her nails. “You’re making me suspicious Jack. What about Special Investigations?”

            “Them,” I said, bending the word with suitable derision. “They’re busting to talk to us. But we got to control this thing.”

            “You think another company nabbed them?”

            “Yeah, or he’s a break away. It happens.”

            “He Jack? Not them?”

            “That’s who they talk about mostly. St. Claude is his name.”

            “See, that changes everything when we go from a they to a he. Maybe the guy blows for personal reasons.”

            “You mean, sex?”   We both laughed. “I don’t think so. Hey, what’s felching?”

            She spooned up the corn bread and collard mixture. “It’s stealing, right?”

            “I don’t think so. It’s something to do with fucking.”

            “Beats me then. I thought it was stealing.”   She looked at me and opened her eyes wide and trusting. Her moods flashed like light on water, always resting on something deep and steady. When she opened her eyes up wide like that they were fat blue circles. She smiled, looked down at her food and back at me. She could find me out like that. I was easy. Those people died for some reason, and I knew part of the why. It wasn’t right to lie to her. It went against what was good about us.

            Linda asked, “Aren’t you gonna eat? I ordered it for you, you know.”   That was the signal for her hunger to go to work, devouring the bony bits of meat, spitting out the splinters and slurping up the sopped gravy. She Spooned rice into her thin lips, the muscles in her long neck working as she chewed, and inclined her head slightly towards the plate, pausing only to dab at her glistening chin with the napkin.

            A small crowd outside moved in on the bum. The beat pigs hoisted him upright, like a blue mummy. People started to shout. They shouted louder and together as the medical team got back into their car and drove off. Then they started to kick and punch the bum. The beat pigs let them have a piece of him before pulling him out. Blood soaked through his bandaged head and face. A thin ribbon of acid surged into my mouth. I swallowed hard and drank a glass of water.

            Linda wolfed down everything in sight and guzzled the rest of her beer. Her dress was spotless but her neck and chest were flushed. Her lips hung open a bit and she was panting. As she stretched her legs out beneath the table her foot brushed mine. She flexed her toes and they audibly cracked. Then she let out a long, demur belch that seemed to curl like smoke from a chimney.

            “Man, I love garlic,” she said. “Where’s the boy? Tell him to get his ass over here, Jack!”   She snorted a laugh and lit another cigarette, pushing away the wreck of silverware, plates and napkins.

            The waiter caught my eye as he delivered an unstable tray of towering drinks. The door opened and a four foot man in a yellow beret and cranberry coat entered with a small dog straining at the leash. At this point, the waiter’s eye became somewhat wild, but only tipped over into madness when the man began to abuse him in Portuguese. He glided to our table, muttering something to the little man, who had struggled up on to a barstool, where he surveyed yesterday’s News with a sour eye.

            The waiter asked if we were all done and Linda sighed deeply, opening her beaming, Caribbean dinner plates. “Oh yes, and it was fabulous. Now, do you have an espresso torte?”

            “Not today we don’t.”

            “Then bring me that sorbet thing, and a black coffee.”

            “Would that be large or small?” he asked while scribbling and crossing things out.

            She scroonched up her nose and mouth and squinted at him, holding up two fingers pressed together. “Small, please.”

            He left and I asked, “So why’re you all dressed up today?”

            She fished through her large, black nylon shoulder bag and said into it, “Easier to get laid that way.”

            “Is that all you think about?”

            “Yes,” she said directly to me. “Why? What do you mostly think about?”

            “I dunno,” I said flatly. “One thing I wonder about is what it’ll be like when I’m eighty-five and working as a doorman, scraping up Mrs. Belchner’s shit from the back stair and getting cabs for men a quarter my age. Maybe some street punks will beat me to death for my gold fillings and save me the trouble of leaving the gas on. Another thing I do is try to estimate the number of times Corrie and I had sex.”

            “But that’s simple, Jack. All you have to do is arrive at a weekly average and multiply that by fifty-two and the sum of that by how many years you were together.”   She looked up and grinned. “Oh good, here’s dessert. Hey, what’s wrong?”

            “Whuddya mean?”

            She put her hand on mine. “Why’re we here, babe?”

            I wanted to just keep talking forever and never go back to work. “It’s nothing,” I said.

             She sipped at her drinks and spooned some of the grass green sorbet into her mouth. She looked at me very carefully. “We trust each other, right?”

            “Yeah,” I said.