Plainclothes Naked (38 page)

“You mean, you’re not going to arrest me?”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Manny. “Not unless Mac here wants to press charges.”

Still dazed from the blast, McCardle just stared at the two men. “See,” Manny said, “he’s not going to do that.”

“And you won’t. . . .” The chief raised his face to Manny, his eyes haunted.

“Tell?” Manny gave his commanding officer’s arm a manly squeeze. “Of course not.” He seemed, of late, to be in the manly squeeze– dispensing business. But what the hell? He felt strangely tender toward the two stricken characters before him. He’d induced them both to behave exactly as he’d wished. And the best part was, nobody got hurt. Not physically, anyway. Fayton
did
have that haunted look in his eye. But that only made sense. Adding to the chief ’s shame at being in the center of a sordid, nonhetero sex crime, he was now exposed as a cop who couldn’t hit a stationary target ten inches away in perfect light. Which had to hurt.

Fayton kept staring at his own hand as if it belonged to somebody else. It was his hand that had picked up the gun and pulled the trigger, not him. . . . But Manny’s real concern was for McCardle.Young Mac, God bless him, had played his part beautifully. Beyond his Dean-alike charisma, he was an absolute natural as an actor. When things settled down, Manny planned on encouraging the young man to pursue a career on-screen. Of course, the height thing might work against him, but lots of big stars were tiny guys. Tom Cruise wasn’t exactly strap ping. And it hadn’t slowed down Hoffmann or Pacino over the years, either.

“I want him out of here,” Fayton declared, speaking in a shell-shocked monotone. “Let him go. Now.”

Manny blinked back from his tiny superstar reverie. “Can’t do that,” he said.

“Why not?”

“For one thing, Armand Putella isn’t the only treat on the table. There’s the little matter of Carmella Dendez, and the priest. Plus, even though the evidence is still circumstantial, I’d make him for the Dee-Dee Walker thing, too. And let’s not even get into Felipe Garcia. Better known to friends and customers as L’il Pepe. That one bled to death after his foot was ripped off. Crack brings out the best in everybody, don’t you think? He was fourteen.”

McCardle jumped. “I didn’t do
none
of those!”

“Any,” Manny corrected. “Don’t go homey on me. And I didn’t say you did. But you were there with Zank. Even if you weren’t actu ally stabbing, driving, or foot-ripping, it wouldn’t take Clarence fuck ing Darrow to prove you were an accomplice.”

“Clarence who?” “Forget it.”

As if no one else had spoken, Fayton set his jaw and repeated him self. “I said, I want him out of here.”

Manny aimed his gaze at the water-stained ceiling. A dozen of the dirty beige soundproof tiles were either missing or curled partly off.

“Okay, listen, both of you. If Tony Zank sees his partner walk the same day he was brought in, he’s going to think one thing. You under stand me?” Manny turned to McCardle. “He’s going to think he’s been snitched off. No way in hell Mac hits the street without giving

something up. And the only thing he got to give is him.You with me?”

McCardle wilted in his chair, and Manny shifted to Fayton. He spoke slowly, to make sure what he had to say sunk in.

“If you want to release this man, on the condition he stops talking about your—” Manny feigned discomfort, just to see the chief squirm—“about your alleged
relationship,
that can happen. But we have to make it look good. We gotta hold McCardle for at least a week. It’ll be our little secret.”

Hearing this, Mac began to sniffle, as though he’d just been sent to Attica for forty years to break rocks.

“Look on the bright side,” said Manny. “Three hots and a cot. All you have to do is tell us where he is.”

“You
know
where he is. Your boy Lipton gave you the address. I heard you and the lady talking about it.”

Manny balked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I
tried
to,” McCardle whined. “Check out the Bundthouse Arms. Number Three. That’s Tony’s place. He ain’t hard to find ’cause he’s the only one living there. He’s the only one who can stand the smell.”

The hooker took one look at Tony Zank’s blood-pulped face and backed away from the door. She was a whip-thin, sloe-eyed brunette in six-inch heels. Her fishnet stockings sagged under her red leather microskirt, but the cutoff Metallica T-shirt she wore under her chin chilla jacket was so tight her nipples stood out like knuckles. A tiny heart dangled out of her pierced belly button, which looked infected.
‌

“What the hell happened to you?” she shrieked, clutching her car keys to her chest.

“What do you think happened?” Zank had found her number in the Yellow Pages, under Escorts, and when he called up she asked if he was a police officer. Tony’d ordered up before. He knew that only pros asked if you were a cop when you gave them your address. “I was in

a bus accident,” he told her. “On my way to work. Fucking bus driver drove into a phone pole when a possum ran across the road. You believe that? He saves a goddamn possum, now
I
got a mug like road-kill.”

“You lie,” said the girl.

“Hey,” he shrugged. “You don’t gotta touch me above the neck.” Zank glanced over the girl’s shoulder to see if anyone was looking.

He wasn’t officially checked in, if you wanted to get technical. But he liked the Pawnee Lodge, despite what happened there with Carmella and McCardle. More important, he still had the key to Number Two, the room he never used.

Zank pulled the girl inside. “Just come in and we’ll talk about it. It’s uncool standing here. You don’t exactly look like a Jehovah’s Witness.” “You should talk,” said the girl, eyeballing the room where Tony’d made himself at home. Clumps of Chore Boy dotted the dresser top, scattered around his glass pipe, some empty vials, and the five rocks he still had left. Zank didn’t know for sure whether McCardle had ratted him out. But he knew enough to know he might be taking a risk going home. Which was a drag, for all kinds of reasons. Not the least of which being that Mac had dug up the phone numbers of some big timey Republicans, party stalwarts who’d be willing to pay plenty for snaps of W.’s bubble, to put the kibosh on a potential scandal. “First we tell ’em we have the nut-shots,” McCardle’d explained, in one of his rare take-charge moments. “Then we tell ’em there’s a happy face painted on them,
then
we tell ’em they’re superbloated two inches from the mayor of Upper Marilyn’s mouth. Once that sinks in, all we gotta

do is make sure the money’s in cash.”

Assuming McCardle could still move his lips, Zank had to figure he’d already fingered him. Which meant they’d have his apartment scoped, if they hadn’t already tossed it. No,Tony had to come up with something on his own. Which was why he decided to call
Time
. He was hitting the pipe and thinking about what to do next when a rock popped out on the carpet. Thrashing around for it, he’d discovered the old news magazine under the bed. Bill Gates was on the cover, looking very NAMBLA. Tony took this as a sign. It was
Time
! But when he tried calling their office in New York, the snotbag who answered the phone hung up when he told him his business.

What kind of dude worked as a telephone operator, anyway? Had to be some kind of pud-monkey. “Time Warner,” the operator’d said, “how may I direct your call?” “Well,” Tony explained, “I’m sittin’ here looking at some Polaroids of President Bush’s testiculars, and that’s not all. He drew a smiley face on ’em, in Magic Marker. Guy must have a lotta free time. Who do
you
think I should talk to?” There was a long silence after that, before the puffwad just clicked off. Tony called right back, and this time got a friendly lady who connected him to the photo department, where he tried a different tack with a young-sounding girl who said she was the assistant photo editor. “This is your lucky day!” Tony told her, trying to come on upbeat and professional right out of the chute, “I have pictures of George Bush Junior’s geni talia.” “I’m sorry?” the girl said. “Don’t be,” Tony continued, “you’ll probably get a raise. This is the type of thing your editor in chief is going to want, especially when you see what they’re doing.” “What who are doing?” the girl asked, in a tone Tony couldn’t quite get a bead on. “The president’s testicles,” Tony said. “I didn’t know they
could
do anything,” the girl giggled. “Well,” Tony persisted,
“that’s
why you need to see these pictures.”

He was proud of himself for the editor in chief angle, but in the end it didn’t matter. At least the assistant photo editor said good-bye before slamming the phone down....

Metallica Girl snapped her fingers in his face. “You gonna stand there or you wanna do something? I got my kid in the car.”

“Okay! Keep your tits on.”

Ignoring his guest,Tony tamped at the filthy Band-Aid flopping off his earlobe, then stretched out his upper lip and stuck his finger in his mouth. He poked around until he found what he wanted, a loose chunk of gum flesh that had been driving him crazy since Pepe pistol-whipped him. He ripped out the bloody morsel and smeared it on his pants. His missing tooth hurt like fuck, but he was amazed how little pain his sliced-up ear caused. The blade must have missed his lobe nerves.

“That’s better,” Tony said, having finished his little surgery. He plopped down on the bed and patted the spot beside him. “So how much?”

The girl hung back, playing with the tiny heart in her belly button.

“Twenty-five.” “For what?” “Blowjob.”

“What if I want somethin’ else?”

“You should’ve thought about that before you stuck your face in a fan.”

Tony smiled. “I am having one fucked-up day,” he said, spreading his knees wide over the side of the bed. “Pull down my zipper and say hi to Mister Rogers.”

“Money first.”

“Come on, I’m just tryin’ to get some love here!”

He tried to reach under her leather skirt and she smacked his hand. “No cash, no gash.”

Tony tugged a crumpled twenty out of his pocket. “That’s all I got.”

“Bigshot.” The girl snatched the bill and squeezed it into a crum pled ball. “Okay, unpack.”

Sighing—he didn’t want trouble, just some honest relief—Tony laid back and fished himself out of his pants. The girl’s scream jerked him up again.

“What?” he yelled, fumbling for the gun under the pillow. “You’re
bleeding!
No way am I gonna do you.”

Tony checked himself. Sure enough, his wrinkled organ was dabbed with blood, and clumps of his patchy pubic hair were dyed bright red.

“Relax,” he said, “it’s not dick-blood. I must have touched myself.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, I probably rubbed my face or something, then held my doggy when I went to the bathroom. It’s no thing.”

“It’s blood,” said the girl. “I knew you were a sick shit the second I saw you. Fucking crackhead!”

She turned to go, and Tony caught her hand. “What’s your hurry? I don’t even know your name.”

The girl glared at him. “If it’s Tuesday I’m Cherry. But I don’t know if it’s Tuesday, okay?”

“You took my money, you can’t walk out now.”

The girl bounced the balled-up twenty off his forehead. “Keep your money, cock-breath. It’s probably diseased anyway. Now lemme the fuck go!”

Tony wrestled her close, keeping one hand on her throat and shov ing the other between her skinny legs. She went for his eyes and missed. He tried to jam a finger inside her—sometimes that got girls hot—but it was no go. “How come you’re dry?” he said hoarsely. “You some kind of dyke?”

Tony yanked her hair, and the girl whipped something out of her coat. It looked like a skinny deodorant can, and for one happy second he thought,
Nice, she wants to freshen up
.... But when she raised the can to his face and pressed the nozzle, his skin exploded in scalding pain. His eyeballs felt scorched in their sockets. Tony yelped and ran for water. But his pants were around his knees. He made two steps and tripped. Picking himself off the carpet, he began to crawl, gasping up at her.
“You peppered me, you bitch! I’m on fire . . . ! I’M ON FUCKING FIRE!”

The hooker drove a stiletto heel in his ribs as Tony struggled to tug his pants over his shoes. It was like some demented IQ test. When he finally managed to get his pants on and stand, he staggered straight into a wall. Feeling his way to the bathroom, he found the sink and started to splash water on his face. When suddenly—
What the fuck?
—there was a hand on his ass cheeks. She was spreading him.

“Hey, Hey! No! Cut that out! Hey, NO—”

Screams tore out of him as she pepper-sprayed his sphincter. It felt like he’d shit a barbecued chicken.

Tony spun around to grab her but she tripped him. He crashed hard off the toilet. Brain-dizzy, he pushed himself up. All he could think of were glaciers. If he could just get to Alaska and sit on a glacier. Then something banged—it all happened fast—and she shoved him forward, down, crunching his throat on the rim of the bowl. She slammed the seat on the back of his head and his face hit liquid.
Fuck!
From now on he’d flush.

Zank’s anus felt napalmed, his face sautéed, but in spite of the agony at both ends, he smiled into the rust-stained bowl. He mouthed words underwater, chuckling bubbles.
Just leave my coke, bitch, I’ll only rape you a little before I suck your eyes out and fuck the holes
....

. . .

When Tony
came to, he realized he was alone and dragged himself out of the commode. His eyes still burned. He blinked a few times and made out the blurry forms of the sink, the door, the wastebasket.
Not blind
.

He lurched out of the bathroom to the dresser and checked his sup plies. He shoved a rock in the pipe, fired up, smoked it wet-lipped, and staggered to the bed. Lifted the pillow. The .357 was still there.

Zank collapsed on the mattress, exhaled, and let the jagged rush overtake him. His nerves were screaming in Siamese. He sped back to the bathroom, stood over the toilet, and flushed. That echoey
WHOOSH
always calmed him, like Niagara Falls in Sensurround.