Plainclothes Naked (25 page)

“His name was Carlos,” Hector managed, between weeps.

Louie nodded and swiped tears out of his eyes. “He disappeared, like, four years ago. We thought he was dead.”

“It’s okay,” said Tina, giving the brothers a hug. “This happens more than you’d think. They have support groups.”

It took a second for this to sink in, and then Hector, his voice parched and weak, asked her quietly, “How did he ...I mean ... how did my dad die?”

Manny started to say something, but Tina held up her hand. “It’s better you hear it from us,” she said. “Your father was found dead in a motel room.”

Both men shuddered, and Tina paused before going on.

“I want you both to know right now, only one thing is for sure.

Whatever else may have happened, he died like a man.”

Before the boys could react to that, Tina led Manny out the door

and down the stairs. The noises emanating from the apartment were more animal than human.

“That was insane,”
said Manny, fumbling for his keys on the way to the car. “I was so freaked, I forgot to tell them they have to come down and identify the body. Can you imagine what
that’s
going to be like?”

“They’ll deal with it,” said Tina. “People can deal with anything, if they don’t have a choice. I think I helped, though, don’t you? They’d have killed you if you’d gone by yourself.”

“I’d have deserved it. That’s one of the worst things I ever had to do.”

“You’ve led a charmed life, sailor.”

Manny didn’t even try to respond to that. The whole experience had left him shaky. He tapped his codeine pocket to see where he stood. Three and a half. But he didn’t want to pop them in front of Tina. Not yet, anyway.

“I should have known,” he said suddenly. “I mean, how fucking stupid can I be? Her vagina looked like a bad science project.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m telling you, the labia was all fucked-up. One side was like a piece of beefsteak, the other looked like a rubber Frito, all twisted up. I’m sorry, but it’s not something you forget. Her clit was the size of my thumb.”

“Oh, so you two dated.”

“That’s funny.” Manny stopped on the torn-up sidewalk. “I pulled down her pants at the Pawnee Lodge. She was already dead.”

Tina sighed. “I wondered what you were into. I guess that explains why you never put the moves on me.”

“It was a
crime
scene, for Christ’s sake! I was seeing if she’d been raped.”

“Whatever, it’s okay. Bad enough I did that horrible thing to my husband—
I’m still alive
. That’s two strikes against me right there.”

“Tina,” said Manny wearily, “do me a favor?” “What?”

“Don’t fuck with my head, okay? Not now. You can do it all you want later. But right now, I can’t deal.”

Back in the Impala, Manny steered without seeing the street.

“Oh, Detective,” Tina said after they’d been driving a few minutes, “I think you’re buzzing.”

“Huh? Oh yeah. . . .” He’d been thinking about the look on Gordo’s face and hadn’t noticed.

He grabbed the cell phone off his belt and checked the readout. “It’s Dr. Roos. The guy we gotta see next.”

Tina rolled her eyes. “Not now,
please.
I’m starved.”

“You’re
starved?
After what we just walked out of ? You scare me.”

Tina leveled her eyes at him. “Listen, Manny, you ever get bad news in your life? I mean,
really
bad news?”

“Nothing but.”

“Hey, I’m not joking.” Tina touched her hand to her mouth, as if to keep the words from escaping, then gave up and continued. “Some thing awful happens to you, you don’t want to hear about it from some asshole, okay? That makes all the difference when you’re trying to get over it. If an asshole gives you bad news, then
you
kind of feel like an asshole. But if somebody all right, somebody
decent
is the one to break it to you, whatever it is, then at least you have a chance to recover. On top of whatever nightmare your life just turned into, you don’t have to feel like there’s something fucked-up about you because some fucked up, insensitive jag-off was the one who knocked on your door.”

Manny stared at her. “Something tells me you’ve had a lot of bad news.”

“Enough.”

Manny started to say something else, then stopped when another thought came slamming in. Tina, catching his hesitation, said, “What?”

“You knew about Carmella, didn’t you? You just never told me.”

Tina rolled her eyes. “
Please
. She got a little five o’clock shadow when we worked late, but I figured it was menopause. Weird things happen to older women. I had a great-aunt whose voice got so deep, by the time she was forty-five she sounded like Barry White. Carmella never seemed particularly masculine, but it’s not like I peeped up her dress. Besides, what difference does sex make when you’re dead? You

think they have His-and-Her restrooms in heaven? My mother always told me, angels don’t sweat, they don’t burp, and they never have to go to the bathroom.”

“So what does that leave?”

Tina slid closer in the seat. “If you weren’t such a tight-ass, you’d figure it out.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m gonna spend mine on a pleasure boat. Fifty, no, a hundred feet long.”
‌

“What the fuck’s a pleasure boat? You mean a yacht?”

“Pleasure boat’s bigger than a yacht,” said McCar dle. “Yacht’s like a little ol’ kayak compared to a pleas ure boat.”

“What the fuck’s a kayak?” “Forget it, okay, Tony?”

McCardle pouted and rooted in the sopping baggie, feeling for a rock that wasn’t mushed from the malt liquor he’d spilled.

Once they’d waited out the cop parade without killing the mayor, Mac stopped paying attention to where they were. He kept his eyes shut until he had to open the window on account of Tony’s belching. The jerky fumes were enough to curdle milk. When Mac rolled down the tinted glass, he saw the street sign with Carmichael on it and shouted. “Shit,Tony, we’re here!”

“Where?”

The Lincoln swerved crazily, and Mac had to cover his eyes when a kid on a bicycle slammed into the curb and flew over his handlebars. “Careful!” he shouted.

“Don’t tell me how to drive,” Tony snapped. “My head feels like a bull took a dump in it. I swear, man, it even smells funny. I can tell. Lean over, sniff my head.”

McCardle balked. “Naw man, no way I’m sniffin’ your head. That’s fucked-up. Listen—”

“
That’s
fucked-up?” Tony interrupted. “
That’s
fucked-up. After what you did you’re givin’ me that?”

“I can sniff your head later, okay? We’re at the chick’s house.” Tony slammed on the brakes. “You fuck! Why didn’t you say so?”

McCardle flew forward, trying, and failing, to grab the crack bag before it spilled on the floor. He tried to scoop up the mess and smeared a swath of beery crack-paste over the car rug. When he straightened up, he saw they were stopped in the street.
Now what?

“No disrespect, T,” he said cautiously, “folks won’t be able to get around. You either gotta park it or keep goin’.”

Tony lashed out with a front-seat jab, tagging Mac on the shoulder. “You’re gettin’ bossy, bitch.”

McCardle stepped quietly out of the car. Times like this it was bet ter not to engage. That’s what the prison therapist who helped him with his Little McCardle always told him:
Don’t engage.
To Mac that meant act cool and get the motherfucker later. But he never told that to the shrink.

Tony dropped
the torture kit and tried the lock, then jumped back. “What the fuck?” he cried, holding his stained palm up to show
McCardle. “Shoe polish! At least it
better
be shoe polish!”

“I see it,” said McCardle, glancing nervously at the other crapped

out houses up and down Carmichael. “But somebody’s gonna see
us,

we don’t get our asses inside.”

A minute later, after fish-pinning the lock, Tony tripped over the guitar string Manny’d slung over the threshold and landed on his hands. “Ouch,
shit!
” he cried, plucking shards of lightbulb out of his palms. “It’s a fucking booby trap. This chick’s playing games!”

McCardle helped dust Tony off and stepped into the living room, glass crunching underfoot. Then he spotted the hanging rabbits.
“Oh Lord!”
His shriek caught in his throat. The furry creatures’ eyes seemed to follow him. Their bloody bunny mouths formed winsome smiles. This was worse than the rock-goblins. This was
real
.

Tony grabbed McCardle’s wrist. “Something’s fucked-up,” he whispered, then realized they were holding hands and quickly let go.

“Voodoo,” McCardle whispered back. “Those bunnies look
fresh!
Maybe she’s a priestess. This could be some kind of Marie Leveau shit.”

“I don’t give a fuck if it’s Marie Osmond. We find the photo and we split.”

Sneaking further inside, breathing hard, Mac and Zank made a tacit decision to stick together. They got as far as Tina’s bedroom when something bumped Tony’s forehead.

“Ahhh-
EEE . . . Get off me!
” Without thinking,Tony snatched the thing and yanked. He fell backward clutching Tina’s tampon. “Take it,” he squealed, tossing the tainted item to McCardle.

“Yeeech!”
Mac flicked it away. “This look like some
Blair Witch
thing, man. Like them women who grow thigh hair and throw oat bran at the moon.”

Tony clutched his skull. “I don’t care. I can’t take any more of this. You see what she did?” He bit his knuckle and pointed at the bedroom wall. “
Welcome Tony!
She wrote my fucking
name
. In
blood
.... This she-devil is trying to put a curse on me. I need something to drink.”

“Probably wine in the kitchen,” McCardle said, avoiding the wel come note on the wall. This was Manson shit, but he decided not to bring
that
up. “I had an aunt once into black magic. Them voodoo priestesses always drink wine. Sometimes chicken blood, too, so you gotta be careful.”

“Fuck! Don’t
tell
me that! What’s wrong with you?” “Sorry, man. I was just sayin’.. .”

Fearing that Tony was headed for a whiteout, Mac steered him gen tly out of the bedroom, past the dangling bunnies, over the crunching lightbulbs, and into the floral-print kitchen. It was the one room, as far as he could see, that was more or less normal—minus maybe the color snapshot of a man in a turban taped to the refrigerator. The strange thing, when Mac looked close, was that the turban guy wasn’t one of those Indians. He was a white man. A redhead. You could tell from his mustache. For a second, he thought it was Ned Beatty. (
Deliverance
again!) But why would Ned Beatty wear a turban? And why would Tina stick him on her fridge? Chicks liked Tom Cruise and Ben Affleck. Kevin Costner maybe. But Ned Beatty? Topless? What kind of strange-o would want a porky redhead as a pinup?

“I got period on my hands,” Tony babbled nervously. “I gotta wash.”

“It’s okay, the shoe polish’ll kill the germs.” “You sure?”

“Absolutely,” said McCardle, with no basis for the statement what soever. He just wanted to calm his partner before something awful happened. Something awful always happened when Tony got wound up. Mac started opening and closing cabinets, scoping out booze, while his partner talked to himself.

“Unclean . . . unclean,”
he kept repeating, struggling futilely to wipe his hands on the dishcloth over the sink. “That’s one of the Kosher Commandments, man. ‘Thou shalt not touch chicks when they’re packin’ the pillow.’ It’s a Moses thing!”

“Just relax, okay? Wine’s probably in the fridge.”

“I’m fucking hungry, too. See if she’s got any Slim Jims.” “Right,” said Mac, hesitant to point out that no one ate beef jerky except for ex-cons and truckers,White Trash peckerwoods, which this lady plainly wasn’t.

Before McCardle could scare up some alcohol,Tony began hopping up and down, clapping his hands in front of what looked like a brass cookie jar.

“You find it?” Mac asked cautiously. He hoped Zank hadn’t flipped out altogether. “You find Mister Biobrain?”

“Fuck that, Judah Macabee! We got rock, baby. This bitch got
beau-coup
rockaloo.”

By way of demonstrating,Tony plunged a hand in the urn, sifting a fistful of off-white chunks—what looked, to McCardle, like albino gra nola.

“I don’t know,T. That’s a stupid lot of crack, if that’s what it is.” “What
else
could it be? Maybe that’s why she’s into so much freaky shit. I had this much coke in my crib, I’d be hangin’ bunnies from the ceiling, too. Fuck,
I’d
be hangin’ from the ceiling. I’d be all-the-way buggin’!”

Zank cackled and sniffed a knuckle-sized chunk, then brought it to his mouth for a quick lick. “Oh yeah! It’s payday, man! We keep half this shit and sell the other half, we’re fartin’ in silk! We’ll be high
and
money! All we gotta do’s go out and get us some vials, and we’re in business.”

McCardle tried to catch Zank’s excitement but didn’t feel it. “That’s cool, but we still gotta—”

“Gotta what?” Tony was on a mission. “Don’t you get it? A chick lives in this dump, with this kind of weight—what’s that tell you?” He made a fist and knocked on McCardle’s head. “Hello? Anybody home? What that tells you, my short nigger amigo, is that she already unloaded the fucking photograph. She made a ton of cash and she spent it on rockareeno.” He rubbed his groin and leered. “Tell you the truth, I wish the slit would come back now. I’d love to blow some of this candy and go Rick James on her ass. Get freaky with the freak ette. You got the pipe? I’m gettin’ hard as Jesus’ forehead just thinkin’ about it.”

“Yeah,” McCardle said, “I got it, but I don’t know.... If we’re not gonna look for the picture, we should probably just book.”

“Chill out. Load some up, I wanna try this stuff.” “All right, man, but this feels kind of fucked-up.”