Plainclothes Naked (8 page)

Fayton picked a scrap of paper off his desk and studied it impor tantly. “And what about this Marvin Podolsky thing? Any theories?”

“Straight suicide,” said Manny. “I’m still writing up the report, but it looks like our guy took himself out with a slug of Drano in his breakfast cereal. He’s got a history of attempts. I tracked down a doc tor who treated him. Plus his wife said he’d had some financial set backs.”

“So you’re not looking at her for possible homicide?” “All that broad’s guilty of is bad luck in men.”

The chief frowned. “You’re saying he gave
himself
Drano?”

“For the fourth time,” Manny sighed, shaking his head, as if con templating the depths of hell that lived inside such a soul. “Once he went with lighter fluid. But outside of that, he was strictly a Drano man.”

Manny paused while his old nemesis, Officer Chatlak, now in his

golden years and semiretired, rattled into the chief ’s inner sanctum with a tray of coffee and cinnamon buns. Fayton eyed the baked goods with longing as Manny plunged ahead.

“Confidentially, Chief, I wouldn’t advise going after the girl. On top of everything else,” he lied, gripped by sudden inspiration, “she’s pregnant. The papers would crucify us. Police hassling a widowed mom-to-be? Not good. Especially when hubby punched his own ticket.”

Fayton harrumphed. “I really don’t think bad press should be a consideration.” Meaning there wasn’t any
other
consideration, but bet ter a lowly dick like Manny Rubert should say it than him. “Detec tive,” he added, “I don’t have to tell you, I want those men. Especially McCardle. A hundred thousand dollars would go a long way toward improving the station.”

“Amen,” said Manny, leaning in to speak man-to-man. “But between us, I’d stay mum about the
AMW
deal. Word gets out Big Mac’s on the street, every bo-bo with a phone’s gonna be gunnin’ for the reward. I say we call the show when we make the collar. It’d look bush-league for a cop to give ’em a tip and have somebody else arrest the guy. You want the cash
and
the glory, right? This could put us on the map.”

Chief Fayton puffed himself up in his uniform and fingered his Windsor. “Agreed,” he said. “But make sure you bring him to me before you lock him up. I want to get some pictures.”

Tina could still smell her dead husband’s garlic breath on their telephone. For months, convinced that con stant garlic-chewing could boost his sperm count, he had been walking around in a reeking gust. The result, ironically, was that his sperm count became irrelevant. He’d become so saturated his skin began to give off fumes, and Tina had told him, more than once, that the only way she was going make love to him was wearing a gas mask or through a hole in the wall. What she had not told him was that she’d had her tubes tied at nine teen. There was no need to be mean. Next to making a killing in money mantras, squiring a brood of mini-Marvs had been the man in her life’s number one dream.
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Tina wondered if the people on the other end would ever pick up. When someone finally answered, and said “Good afternoon,” her own words came tumbling out. “Is this Martino and Sons Funeral Home?
Hello?
Do I have the right number?”

Tina spoke through a wadded up hanky soaked in Scope, which muffled her voice. The funeral human said a few words, and Tina replied rapidly. “Yes, yes ...I do have a recently departed. That’s why I’m calling.”

Oddly, it sounded as if the man at the mortuary was also speaking through a rag. Maybe all those dead people gave off fumes of their own. Maybe talking on mortuary phones was as unpleasant as talking on a receiver marinated in Marv-breath.

“It was all very
sudden,
” said Tina vaguely, after Mister Edward, the “grief representative” handling her call, asked how her husband had “passed.” He then asked how she happened to select Martino and Sons. When she told him she remembered their ad from the bus bench by the minimall where she took Jazzercise, he sounded slightly hurt. Still, things didn’t get really awkward until the mortician inquired about “transporting the deceased.” Tina had to explain that she wasn’t sure when that could happen, on account of the police were holding the body.

“The police,” Mister Edward repeated, his voice clearing suddenly. Tina pictured an acned, prematurely bald fellow in pinstripes. She often had these clairvoyant moments, and often as not her creepier pre

monitions proved accurate.

“To be honest, my husband took his own life.”

She let her voice trail off, and Mister Edward seemed relieved, almost upbeat, when he replied.

“We understand! Completely. And we want you to know we can certainly assist you with any...
special arrangements.
”

Tina was trying to absorb this—and at the same time suppress the image of Marvin writhing on the floor with bleeding eyeballs and lip foam—when she heard the call-waiting beep. She asked Mister Edward to hang on and hit Flash.

“Tina, it’s me,” said Manny immediately. “What are you wear ing?”

“Manny, really, I’m on the line with the funeral home. Is this one of

those
calls?”

“One of what calls? I just heard there’s a reporter coming to your house. I wanted to make sure you look like a grieving widow.”

“Well, I usually answer the door in hot pants and a
SPANK ME

T-shirt, but if you think that’s a bad idea, I’ll change.”

“Change back when I come over. Meanwhile, I’m just telling you, I got the word. A woman from the
Trumpet
is on her way.”

“Don’t they call first?”

“Not after a death. People might tell them to fuck off. Anyway, you should try and look, I don’t know... .”

“Sad?”

“Start off sad, then get angry. Those people love it when you throw them out. It shows you’re sincere.”

He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation, and silently thanked himself for making the call from the Thrifty Drugs pay phone. Fayton loved to tape calls from the station, and the transcript of this one would be hard to explain.

“You want,” said Tina, “I can throw myself on the floor and rent my hair, then hit her with a table leg. But right now I gotta go.”

“No, wait.” Manny swallowed and paused. “Just one more thing. I have to ask, what about insurance?”

“What about it?”

“Did Marvin have any? You know, is there anything coming to you?”

“He didn’t believe in it,” she answered. “His theory was, if you really believed in eternal life, life insurance was a waste of cash.”

Manny was beyond relieved. Now there really wasn’t any press ing motive. One more reason to let it ride as suicide.
A pregnant widow left with nothing
.... Who’d want to make her life any more miserable?

“Wait,” Tina said, in a tone he hadn’t heard before, something harder and tougher fortifying her words. “Do you remember what I showed you in the car?”

“That’s not something you forget.” “Well, that’s my insurance.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said, and plunged on before he could summon one of the eight zillion reasons for stopping before things went any further. “You’re going to need some.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re pregnant,” he told her. “And you’re going to name the baby Marvin, in case anybody asks.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” she said choking up on cue. “Now I wish I had told him. Maybe then, he could have found a reason to live.” She sounded so convincing, Manny got a chill. “You’re scaring me.”

“I scare myself,” Tina said.

She clicked off without saying good-bye, and Manny wondered just what it was he thought he was doing. This woman had just murdered her husband, and now he was conspiring with her.
Oh well
.... He sighed and checked his watch. Que sera fucking sera.

For an extra second, Manny hunkered in the phone booth and took in his fellow losers milling around the prescription window. He made two home boys for stone dope fiends—the fellas liked to take the edge off with Tussionex, cough syrup of the gods, when smack was scarce— and made a jumpy young skeleton with a boob job as a mommy speed freak, no doubt stealing Ritalin from the hyperactive twins pounding the shit out of each other with Tonka toys while she fine-tuned her eyeliner. Manny’s own scrip was under a name he’d momentarily for gotten. He had a few different ones, in different parts of town. If this was Thrifty’s, he was Martino. That was it. The name of the mortuary advertising on the bus bench in front of the Thrifty minimall.

“I apologize,”
Tina was saying to Mister Edward, who’d been on hold, “there are just so many loose ends to tie up. I’ve forgotten my manners under all this stress.”

“That’s understandable,” he said, a man of studied intonation. “Under the circumstances, I think you’re bearing up beautifully.”

“Thank you,” she said, and announced, by way of trying it out, “I’m actually expecting. This is all such a terrible blow.”

Mister Edward said nothing for a moment. Tina pictured him star ing in a hand mirror, rubbing ointment on his problem skin. Then he

spoke into the phone, if possible, with even more professional sympathy than before. He’d begun to sound like the butler in a thirties movie. “Rest assured, Mrs. ... ?”

“Podolsky.”

“Mrs. Podolsky, yes. Rest assured, Mrs. Podolsky, I will do every thing in my power to make the transition process a smooth one. It’s never easy, but you have a friend at Martino and Sons.”

“Thank you again,” said Tina, catching his formality like a bug. She was trying to think of a way of asking how much this bullshit will cost when Mister Edward addressed the issue for her.

“We have a number of burial packages, Mrs. Podolsky. You’re wel come to visit us here and select the casket and service you prefer. Or, if you’d like, I or one of my associates can come by for a home consulta tion. Whatever the method,” he continued delicately, “we recommend that the bereaved make arrangements at their earliest convenience. Is there, perhaps, a friend or family member we can contact? We find it wise to establish viewing hours and decide on the type of service that best suits your needs as soon as possible.”

“There’s just . . . just me,” she said, putting some quiver in it.

“I see. And did you and the late Mr. Podolsky have a cemetery you preferred? Have you selected a plot?”

“Not exactly. He was sort of Indian,” Tina said, fondling Marv’s turban, as if this would somehow explain everything.

Tina was
still clutching the turban when the knock came on her door. She peeped through the curtain to see a whip-thin, short-haired woman in a business suit speaking into a cell phone. By now, the new widow had changed into a black skirt and sweater, the closest she had to actual mourning-wear.

Oddly enough, Marvin’s face had shown up in the
Trumpet
two weeks ago, in the lifestyle section, as part of a series on Alternative Wor ship. He’d been interviewed over the phone. The headline read
COS
MIC CASH
-
IN
. Below that:
LOCAL MAN LEADS MOVEMENT TO

MONEY MEDITATION
. In the story, Marv explained that chanting the proper mantra was a way of not just creating prosperity but establishing a harmony with the cosmos that made possible a life without fear of

death overshadowing the joy of living. “If we find the right vibration of joy in the moment,” the reporter quoted him, “then we are guaran teed to live forever.”

Apparently, he’d been wrong.

Tina thought about that as she opened the door. “I hope this isn’t a bad time,” said the lady in the business suit, before Tina could get out a hello. “I’m Dee-Dee Walker, from the
Trumpet
?”

The way she left it, like a question, let Tina know she was supposed to recognize her, probably even be impressed. Tina remained noncom mittal. She decided to let the reporter do the talking, as though her own grief had rendered her mute.

“Is this,” Dee-Dee Walker wondered again, “a bad time?”

Tina thought of a few responses, none polite. But Ms. Walker answered her own question.

“Of
course
it’s a bad time! I know how it is. My Buddy died last summer. He was a St. Bernard, but you’d have thought he was human! He was my everything.” She sighed, then found the strength to con tinue. “Since your husband, your late husband, was recently profiled in the paper, my editor thought that we should get a few words, some thing about what happened. Whether you’ll be continuing his work, and so on. It would be, I guess you could say, a way for all of us to get closure.”

Tina found herself fascinated by the woman’s delivery, the way she kept looking around but pretending not to. Her eyes wandered over Tina’s shoulder, into the living room.
Looking for clues.

“May I come in?” Ms. Walker finally asked. “This won’t take more than a
mo,
I promise.”

An hour later, having duly recorded the details of Marvin’s tragic suicide, Tina’s heartbreak, and the difficulty of being left with baby Marvin due in a matter of months, Dee-Dee Walker seemed to expect the sudden mood swing.

“I can’t talk about this anymore!” Tina cried. She let her grief metamorphose into rage, just as Manny had advised. “How can you barge into somebody’s home and talk to them like this, when they’ve just lost someone they loved?
And I’m not talking about a fucking dog!
”

Dee-Dee chose this moment to request a picture, and snapped three

quick ones with her point-and-shoot before Tina could think about it. With luck, the photo would show a pretty woman crazed by grief.
Either that,
Tina thought,
or I’ll look like some heartless bim who pan-fries kittens
....

The whole thing made her so indignant, by the time she showed her uninvited guest the door, she wasn’t sure she was acting.

The Pawnee Lodge was pretty much empty this time of the week, and nobody seemed to notice the trio unload ing themselves from Carmella’s Gremlin. The motel con sisted of a dozen “cottages,” each more or less a cinder-block hut with an Indian headdress mounted over the door. Why the Pawnee people had decided to open up on a strip of auto upholstery shops and parts outlets was anybody’s guess. But Zank said he’d used the place before and the owner kept his mouth shut.
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