For the first time I noticed that Marzipan had breast buds showing through his yellow linen shirt.
"I've been reassigned plenty myself," Zangota nodded. "Salem, Saugus, now Lynn. I know how you feel. It's a big adjustment."
"He means sexual reassignment, Angel," I said. "Mercury is becoming a woman."
"Congratulaciónes," Zangota said flatly.
"Zorro won't let me put on my hair," Mercury said, pointing to the mantel. A brown, flowing wig sat atop a ceramic head. The white face was speckled with blood.
"They need it for evidence," I said.
"I need it, too. I feel naked."
"Why did you say you're
supposed
to become Ms. Marzipan? Are you reconsidering?"
"Not for a nanosecond. And seeing a fine male specimen such as yourself only confirms what I know about myself." He gave me the once-over. "You really could model. You know that, don't you?"
"Thank you. But if you aren't reconsidering, why the doubt about becoming a Ms.?"
"Circumstances beyond my control," he said, shaking his head.
"Such as?"
"Such as Monique being dead."
"Why does that change anything?"
"She was part of the deal."
"What deal?" Zangota asked.
"I'm not saying another word, unless I can put on my hair. I'm the one standing here exposed for your pleasure."
"You're right. Put it on," I said.
Marzipan headed for the mantel.
"He'll contaminate the—" Zangota started.
"Look, this isn't the O.J. case. He's worn the thing a hundred times. Let's not get jammed up over nothing."
"OK. But I didn't see him do it."
"No problem. I'll tell Court TV you were too coked up to know what the hell was going on."
I could see Marzipan fixing himself up in the bathroom mirror. I walked over and stood just outside the open door. He was putting on mascara. "So what deal was Monique part of?"
He leaned close to the mirror to check his lashes.
I waited.
"It won't go in the newspaper or anything, will it? My parents would absolutely drop dead."
I figured he was doing a bit of wishful thinking. "There are leaks in every investigation. I can't promise anything."
"It would embarrass the whole family. They're very conservative people. Dad's the commandant of the Essex Yacht Club in Marblehead." He reached over for the blush. "When I was arrested for possession last year, he had a mild heart attack."
"If what you're about to tell me is as sensitive as you say, I'm sure it could devastate them," I said. "Him especially."
I noticed the hint of a grin on Marzipan's face as he twisted open a pink lipstick. He covered his lips, then rubbed them together to even out the color. He turned to me.
With his hair and makeup in place he looked every bit a woman. Pretty, even. "You make a very convincing Ms.," I said.
"That's kind of you to say." His voice was softer. He seemed calmer. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub and crossed his legs. They were shaved. "It was surgery for sex. My doctor could have me or Monique whenever he wanted, in exchange for his work. But now, with Monique gone, I don't know if he'll honor the deal. I think he liked her better."
"Why do you say that?"
"No reason," he frowned.
"C’mon now, Mercury. You're talking to a shrink."
He shrugged. "He only had sex with me in the apartment, with the bedroom door locked, like he was ashamed of me or something. But he had Monique here, there and everywhere. Even in his car."
I stood there in silence for several seconds. "What kind of car?" I asked finally.
"His substitute cock, if you ask me. The man's built like a sparrow."
"What kind of car?"
"Talk about showy. A red Ferrari."
I tried to keep my breathing even. "Why would Monique sell herself so you could become a woman?"
"Surely you jest. That little bitch wouldn't sell a French kiss if my life depended on it. No disrespect for the dead intended." He reached over and knocked on the wood trim around the door. "The deal was for both of our surgeries."
"Both? What surgery did she want?"
"She
got
hers. She had itty-bitty titties before the implants." He looked down at his chest. "I was hoping mine would come out half as nice. You couldn't see her scars at all."
"This doctor — was his name Trevor Lucas?"
"He's not a friend of yours, is he?"
"No."
"But you know him."
"More and more."
"Could you put in a good word for me? So I don't get left hanging?"
I wasn't going to let that word sneak by me again. "You're not feeling desperate enough to do yourself in, are you, Mercury? You could tell me if you were."
"I seem that bad off to you?"
"No. But whenever someone mentions hanging..."
"It was a joke." He grabbed his crotch. "Don't you get it?"
"Yeah. I get it." I shook my head. "Here's my advice: Stay away from Dr. Lucas. It's a lot less bloody to change your mind than your sex."
"Easy for you to say, big shot. You're not trapped in the wrong body." He got up, walked back over to the mirror.
I watched him spreading more blush onto his cheeks. I felt like burrowing into his psyche to find out who had cleaved him from his manhood. I even came up with an opening line:
Your dick was cut off a long time ago
. That might get him mad enough to trot out a few of his demons. But then what? What was he supposed to do ten minutes later, when he was edging toward the truth, and I was finished with him? I sighed. "You're right," I said. "It would take me a long time to really understand what it feels like to be in your predicament."
He stopped putting on makeup and watched me in the mirror.
"So if you ever want to talk about it — you know, get deep into it — I'm listed in Marblehead and, uh..." I stopped myself. "I could probably find somebody, a therapist, for you to talk to. Somebody who'd good. Top-notch."
"Thanks," he said, tentatively.
"Not at all." I touched his arm on my way out. "Good luck, Mercury."
* * *
I stood with Zangota on the landing as he replaced the barrier tape I had torn away. My mind was racing. Lucas had been with Monique on the night of her murder. He had operated on her breasts, and I had a feeling he was also the one who had pierced her. Maybe she had held back on the sex she owed him, and he had decided to collect the body parts he had worked on. But that was still a theory in search of proof. "No trace of the murder weapon?" I asked.
"We've combed every inch of the place, including the yard." He nodded toward the apartment. "What did he — or she, or whatever — tell you in the bathroom?"
I wasn't ready to swing the formal investigation toward Lucas. I was afraid there would be no turning Hancock back, regardless of the evidence. And wasted time could mean more bodies. "He didn't tell me anything that made sense," I said.
Zangota squinted at me. "He took a long time to say nothing."
"Oh. OK, then. He confessed. He murdered Monique and Sarah. And JFK. And John Lennon."
"He was supposed to tell you about a
deal
."
"That was some silly thing about Mercury's landlord cutting him slack on back rent. He liked having a pretty girl like Monique around. With her gone, Mercury has to pay up, which puts his surgery—"
There was suddenly a great deal of shouting in Spanish coming from the second-floor apartment. "What the hell are they arguing about?" I asked Zangota.
"She's saying, ‘Leave him alone. Leave him alone.’"
The woman screamed.
I started down the stairs. Zangota followed. "What's the man saying?" I called back to him.
"He's gonna ‘
teach the little bastard a lesson
.’"
Halfway to the second floor I heard a slap. I picked up my pace. When I got to the door, a child cried out. My movements were automatic, directed by something deep inside me over which I had no control. I reared back and aimed my foot at the center of the door. It splintered free of its hinges with a single kick. I took in the scene as snapshots. A man about thirty was standing toward the far corner of the room. He turned to me, but I didn't look at his face, only his arms and chest. They were dark and muscular. The next snapshot was of a woman sitting cross-legged on a couch nearer to me, covering her face with her hands. My eyes flicked back to where the man was standing. A boy seven or eight years old was cowering on the floor in front of him. Blood trickled out of his nose. I instinctively began walking toward the two of them. My mind was clear of thought. The man stepped into my path. I kept walking. He flailed at me, but I grabbed his wrist, pulled his arm straight and drove the heel of my hand into his elbow. The joint popped. He backed up, cradling his unhinged appendage, then leaned over and charged me, like a bull. I waited until he was inches away, stepped aside and slammed my knee into his chest. He lurched forward onto the floor, gasping for air.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the woman rushing toward me. I grabbed her, spun her around and threw her back onto the couch. Then I started after the man on the floor.
Zangota stepped between us. "Enough," he said. "I'll take care of him."
I tried to shove past him, but he stayed right in front of me.
"I said
I'll take care of him
," he sputtered. "Help the kid, why don't you."
"Who?"
"The kid. He's a mess."
I turned around. The boy was standing up, shaking. There was terror in his eyes. I walked over, kneeled in front of him and wiped the blood off his lips. Then I took one of his shoulders in each of my hands. He leaned toward me and started to cry. I held him. I thought I felt his tears running down my cheek, but realized that couldn’t be. His head was on my shoulder.
The tears I felt were my own.
I waited in the back seat of Zangota's cruiser ten minutes or so before a Lynn Police Department van rolled into the driveway. Zangota came out a few seconds later with his prisoner. The man's dislocated arm was hanging limp at his side. His other hand was cuffed to his belt. Zangota shoved him into the back of the van, slammed the doors, then walked over to my window.
He pointed at the metal box next to me. "The best you'll ever have," he said. "And you look like you could use it. I know I could."
"What do you figure will happen to the kid?" I asked.
"We both know what's gonna happen. The Department of Social Services will investigate and make a recommendation."
"The mother's no use."
He shrugged. "So they'll yank him out of there."
"And put him in some foster home where some other lowlife can get at him."
"There are good foster homes."
"Yeah, right. Go live in one, then tell me."
"I did live in one."
"You were a foster kid?"
"My parents were a mess," Zangota chuckled. "Up and left one day, out of nowhere. Good people took me in."
"Where are your biological parents?"
"I don't know."
"Ever considered looking for them?"
"Sure. But I never have."
"Too much anger?"
"Listen," he grinned, "there's not enough room for me to lie down back there. Let's light up and lighten up."
I stared at the box. I could picture the little white rocks inside. I could smell the sweet smoke they give off. I was exhausted and full of anxiety — the worst combination. And I wanted relief. I reached over, opened the box and looked inside. There was as much cocaine as I had ever seen in one place, enough to erase the little boy from my memory a thousand times. But which little boy — the kind in the house, or me? I closed my eyes and thought about that.
"Hellooo... You still with me?" Zangota asked.
I nodded. "He doesn't need it," I said.
"Who doesn't need what? What are you talking about?"
I looked up at him. "Our murderer. He doesn't need coke or booze or anything else. He's got a drug: the kill. He avoids feeling pain by inflicting it. He turns his suffering inside out so he can feel powerful, instead of weak. It puts him back on top of the world."
"
His
suffering?"
"You don't leave victims lying around unless, deep down, you feel like one yourself."
"Spoken like a true liberal shrink from Massachusetts."
"Thank you."
"If he's been hurt so bad, why wait until now to vent? Why two bodies in three days?"
"I'm not sure. My guess is that he managed to keep himself in control, probably barely in control, until something pushed him over the edge — a chink in his armor. A slight of some sort."
"You think he'll stop?"
"If he can repair the damage to his ego, restore the balance of his psyche, he'll stop. Otherwise he has to keep going. It's the only way he knows to hold back the tide of self-hatred ready to drown him." I closed the box.
"What are you doing? How about my goddamn balance?"
"It's a free country. Sort of. Go ahead if you want."
"You telling me you don't?"
"Of course I want it. I'm just sick and tired of
needing
it."
* * *
I picked up Route 1A south, headed for Chelsea. Several hours had passed since I'd learned of Monique's murder. I hadn't spoken to Rachel and I didn't know if Monique was simply a coworker of hers at the Lynx Club or her friend. Halfway to her apartment, at the entrance to Route 16, I dialed Paulson Levitsky's lab.
"Levitsky, chief of pathology, City of Lynn," he answered.
"Big fucking deal."
"Where the hell have you been?"
"The hospital. Monique Peletier's apartment. Why?"
"We've got a preliminary report on Sarah from the folks in Quantico. I've been trying to reach you."