The Canal (8 page)

"I'm talking to you, Lombardi!"

Joe was already out the door. He had no time
for the Bleeckers' of this world. People like him and Alan; they
thought they had it figured. They thought they knew the answers.
They didn't.

Halfway down the hall, something poked Joe in
the back of the shoulder. He spun around to find Alan, Jesus,
prodding him with a stick? A pencil, Joe realized. The sharpened
end. Alan didn't say anything at first.

"What the hell are you staring at?" said
Joe.

"So," said Alan. "Rose, is it?"

Joe shrank back for a moment. Had they been
watching? He should have been more careful. Had they heard?

But Alan, the way he stood there; he was
trying to look like he knew more than he did. The expectancy in the
eyes. The tension in the grin. Alan was pushing for information.
He'd heard a name, and that was all he'd heard. A name that meant
nothing to anybody.

"Give me your gun," said Joe.

"I wonder," said Alan, enjoying this, "is
there anything you're not telling me? Because these secrets of
yours, Joe -- of all your faults, the entire long list, that's at
the top. And secrets are dark things, Joe. Yet, here you are,
sitting on a whole stack of them."

"Give me your goddamn gun."

"Who is she, Joe? Answer me. Tell me or I
swear I'll fucking bury you."

Joe didn't have time for this. He was
suddenly in Alan's face, deep inside the man's vector of
cleanliness. He reached around Alan's waist and yanked the gun out
of its holster.

"Joe! What--" Alan looked warily at the gun
in Joe's hand. But Joe was already forgetting about Alan. He had a
bigger, more pressing crisis: the past. Joe left Alan behind, and
continued down the hall.

"You're done," Alan shouted after him.
"You're just too dumb to see it. Change is coming, asshole. CHANGE
IS COMING."

*

The moment Alan walked back in, Bleecker was
screaming at him. "What the hell was that?"

"I have to apologize for my partner,
sir."

"Joe, he runs hot sometimes," Womack chimed
in.

"We all run hot," said Bleecker. "My fucking
leased Porsche runs hot. That's no fucking excuse."

It wasn't an excuse. It was no fucking
excuse! Alan wanted to shout it. On a megaphone, on a mountain,
into a bottomless trench: Joe Lombardi is a soil, a stain, a grease
spot. He's an antique, he's a throw away, a past tense. Joe is a
bane to manicured men.

"That's your partner?" asked Bleecker,
summoning a very righteous wrath, almost evangelical in nature; the
high priest cursing the devil, curing grandma's hip with a
Hallelujah! and a roundhouse.

"I don't trust him," he said flatly. "I mean,
the way some guys talk, you'd think he was the second coming. But
he's-- That's fucking Lombardi? Him? The guy, he doesn't respect
his superiors. He's a loose cannon. You, D'Angelo, you're not a
loose cannon are you?"

"No," said Alan, with conviction. "No, sir."
I'm the good guy and I've got the pressed pants to prove it. I use
anti-perspirant. I shave.

"Are you gonna go around, pissing me
off?"

"No, sir. Never."

Bleecker was getting incrementally louder and
redder, building, in Alan's imagination, toward something almost
mythological in scope, toward a crescendo involving thunderbolts
and, possibly, a war hammer.

"Have you picked up any of his habits, Alan?
Insubordination? Disrespect? Those can be contagious, detective.
Have you caught that germ?"

"Absolutely not," said Alan, defiantly. This
was becoming alarming. I'm on your side, sir!

Womack quickly waded between the two. "Boss,
boss, Alan here, he's your guy."

In one brief beat, all of Bleecker's
hostility was gone. From Hyde to Jekyll in the turn of a page. From
mad, tendons bulging, to regular, yawning. He put the whip to his
emotions, this man, and when they were no longer of use, he threw
them in a vat of acid.

"You're right," he smiled. He looked at
Womack, "You. Guy. Coffee. Now."

"Yes. Yes sir!"

"Sorry," said Bleecker, zeroing in on Alan.
"That Lombardi character got my goat. I need guys I can trust, guys
who play by my rules. Based on what I just saw -- Lombardi is not
one of those guys. Obviously. The man looks like he rolled out of a
gutter. I mean, we're professionals here.

"To be honest, Alan, in my mind's eye, I had
figured him as looking otherwise. Rather more like you. Neat. All
business. This was a mistake on my part, and that's already one
mistake too many. Hence my previous line of questioning, D'Angelo.
If I can't count on Lombardi, will I be able to count on you?"

"Yes, sir. I'm on your side."

"My side...that's good, real good. I mean,
there is no other side, but that's good. HEY GUY, GET D'ANGELO A
CUP. How you want it?"

"One cream, one sugar," said Alan.

"ONE CREAM, ONE SUGAR."

Womack waved from the coffeepot. "Ahoy
that."

"Then Alan, are you gonna solve this thing?
Because when I say to the people of this city, 'You can sleep safe,
we're on the job, nobody's gonna stuff you under no bridge,' I've
got to mean it. I've got to know that I've got guys I can trust to
do the job. Am I right?"

"Right."

"Golden. Then all I ask is that you make this
case gone. However you do it, whatever you do, I don't care. And as
far as Lombardi goes... Just remember, you're the one I trust.
You're the one I'm gonna count on to do as I require and bring this
thing home."

"Yes, sir."

Bleecker smiled. Teeth so white! Capped! Gums
so fine!

"Good man, good man." He placed one of his
royal hands on Alan's shoulder. "And let me just add that, well,
you do this thing for me, and... When I say the word 'promotion'
down at City Hall, they tend to listen."

He had said... The man had said promotion.
That word. And it had heft, substance, like you could pick it up
off the floor and roll it around in the palm of your hand. You
could drop it in your pocket and feel it jangling there, like
change.

It felt strange to Alan, in that moment. Like
he was looking at himself from across the room. So much of his
ambitions had seemed so elusive, for so long. And now, here it all
was. All that he'd thought he ever wanted, delivered as mandate,
inscribed on holy tablet. All he had to do was act.

Womack returned with the coffees, passing
them out. Bleecker drained his in one go. It had to be scalding,
but he didn't seem to notice.

"I'm leaving now," Bleecker said. "Gentlemen,
its been a laugh." He thought about that. "No, not really." Then he
carefully wiped his lips with a napkin. "Now make yourselves
useful."

"Thank you, sir," said Alan.

"Please," said Bleecker, "call me Bob."

Alan averted his eyes as the man exited. Alan
wasn't worthy, in the most cosmic sense. How must people appear, to
such a man? Inferior, surely. Like a vast tribe of gaggle-toothed
natives, come across on expedition, with rods through their penises
and snorting zebra dung.

"Bob," said Womack, slowly. And there wasn't
anything more to say than that.

Alan looked in on the woman. Pavement
sleeper, trashcan digger, missionary meal'er. No rose was she. You
had to wonder about these types. These untouchables. Out in the
mud. Out past the frontier. They were to Alan as grit was to gold,
these types. Plotters. Schemers. Usurpers. Lazing in the damp with
their good buddies, Disorder and Disarray.

And if she was as sick as Joe said, well,
Alan wasn't going in that room. He could just imagine the germs --
big-bellied, bleary-eyed, forbiddingly Slavic.

No, he was not going in that room.

"Get her to a hospital," said Alan. "Let them
clean her up. I'll deal with her later."

"Hope she's not contagious."

"Wear gloves if you go in. Don't
breathe."

"No breathing, got it. Anything else?" asked
Womack. "The autopsy..."

"The autopsy..." Alan had been planning on
going to the autopsy. It was an ideal process -- the private body
made public, its secrets weighed and measured, notes taken, reports
filed. The coarse and mysterious flesh transformed into cool
numerals and diagrams. He should be there. He should be dismantling
that body into its component cellular parts, into slurry, looking
for answers.

But...

But Alan couldn't ignore what he'd seen --
that wobble in Joe's sad clown disguise, the tremor at the mention
of this woman's name. Joe knew something. And when it came to these
cases, he always knew something. How did he always know? And why
was he always hiding it? Why was he always so vague? That's what
got Alan outraged. That's what made Alan burn, a slow simmer of
indignation. This was data we were talking about. This was
information. The truth deserved better.

"Vincent goes to the autopsy," said Alan. It
wasn't an easy decision to make. But Alan had an opportunity that
couldn't be ignored, a chance to possibly neutralize Joe's
maddening advantage, all those fucking secrets.

"And you?" said Womack.

"Me, I've got to see some people."

But first Alan needed a gun.

>> CHAPTER SIX <<

Zzzzzerttt...Zzzzzerttt.

Paul was. He was confused.

Zzzzzzzzerttt...

A couch. His couch. And there was
something...something above him. On the ceiling, a stain, spreading
like a jellyfish, a billowing skirt with stingers and poison. There
it was on the walls. And on the carpet, a trail of it leading to
the back door.

Oh thank God. Now he remembered. Thank God,
it was only blood.

Zzzzzerttt...

Now he remembered. Wanting to rest. Taking a
nap to let the dizziness pass. But it had been morning then and it
was morning now, the day still early, still ungrown. Was today,
tomorrow? Had he lost an entire day?

His strength, it was still...erstwhile. It
waved to him from the back seat of a cross-country bus, shrinking
in the distance. And what remained, what remained was barely
anything at all. Even his sweat had a finality to it -- a tar,
yellow and tacky, almost an amber. Some deep substance. His soul,
maybe? Finally escaping in physical form? Could the soul be a
juice? Or a dew, even? He hoped so. And Paul didn't mind it getting
wiped on the couch. He figured he'd be better without it, he'd be
lighter, able to make more moves.

Zzzzerttt... And that sound. Now it made
sense. It was the doorbell.

The doorbell. The doorbell urged him onto his
feet. He may have felt broken, wasted, but Paul could still think.
He could still plot. And New Paul sensed an opportunity worth
getting up for, worth hurting for. Something that couldn't be
missed.

Zzzer-- Paul opened the door just wide enough
to let his head creep out. He blinked. A caller.

"Morning, sir." A man on Paul's doorstep. He
was holding something for Paul to examine. Perhaps this was
important, although Paul needed time to be sure. Wait, don't put it
away, not yet... Stop. What did he say? The man was tall. He was as
big as, as...could feed a family. Yes, an opportunity indeed.

"I'm with the police."

Now that, that did it. That brought the old
Paul around. Here he comes -- couldn't pass this up, could he. The
p-p-police, whined Old Paul. Did you hear?

"The neighborhood..." said the policeman.
"Last night. Can I ask your name? Yesterday... Anything of note?"
Anything strange. Strangers. Catch your eye. The canal. Suspicion.
Noises. Voices. Missing persons. Everything okay? What was he
saying?

The police, hissed Old.

Shut up, thought New Paul. I'm trying to
listen! And he was, but the policeman's words were escaping in a
thousand different directions, losing themselves down the corridors
of Paul's ears. And if Paul did manage to grab hold of one, a
victorious verb or noun, well by that time the man was already
moving on, onto new questions and new confusions.

Time of day. Yesterday. Whereabouts. Been
upriver? Do you like the water? Name please. My name is New Paul.
You haven't heard? Murdered. Seen it on the TV? Scared by anything
at night? Loners. Motors. Where were you? Anyone else home? Just
you? Just us. Name, please.

"My name is New Paul."

"Paul, huh?" The policeman leaned back on his
heels. "I have an uncle named Paul." He clicked his pen and tucked
it in his pocket, then folded his notebook shut.

Paul had to say something, he had to save
this opportunity -- there was dinner to consider.

"Arrryewwuhhhlownn..." The words came out all
stuck together, a verbal smear. Are you alone. New Paul scolded
himself -- he couldn't even speak properly. Now his body chooses to
quit? Not all those years ago when he'd actually wanted it, but
now, just when he needs to keep going, to keep feeding.

"I think I missed that."

Paul tried to repeat it, but the breath
wasn't coming, the lips weren't moving...he couldn't, he just
couldn't manage it. Even if he could say the words, he couldn't do
what would need to come after. Not now, not in this state -- he was
just a husk, every heartbeat ending in a cliffhanger. He couldn't
accomplish the job. Not like he'd done with the last gentlemen who
came to his door.

The police, wailed Old. You're in
trouble...

The man handed him something. Paper. Stiff
and small. Then, "Think of anything, you can call me." He looked at
Paul, a long time maybe.

"Thank you," Paul said at last.

The policeman went away. Paul turned to the
card the man had given him -- its print was elusive, every letter a
mess of slashes and squiggles. A business card. Detective. Vincent.
Burnham. 76th. Precinct.

They know, said Old.

Paul shut the door and the floor came up to
catch him, almost gently. It was better on the ground.

If they knew, thought New Paul, they would
have taken me away.