Authors: Laurence Gough
He heard the elevator slow down, stop. There was a pause, and then the doors jerked open. Willows walked into the elevator and found himself standing face to face with Shelley Rice.
Rice was flanked by a couple of chunky six-footers from Narcotics, Ralph Kearns and Eddy Orwell. Rice’s eyes darkened as he recognized Willows. He shifted his weight, and the steel on his wrists glinted under the harsh light from the quartet of naked hundred-watt bulbs in the ceiling fixture.
“I’d introduce you two guys to each other,” said Orwell, grinning, “but I believe you’ve already met.”
“They busted you?” Willows said to Rice.
Rice’s face contorted with rage. He lunged forward, his knee coming up hard and fast. Willows twisted sideways. The knee hit him in the thigh, right on the bone. He grunted with pain. An elbow caught him flush on the nose. The back of his head bounced off the sheet metal wall of the elevator. He staggered into Kearns, who went down. Willows fought to regain his balance. Orwell was cursing imaginatively, fumbling under his coat for a sap or his gun. Rice clasped his manacled hands together and raised them high over his head. The four lightbulbs exploded in a shower of glass. For a fraction of a second the filaments glowed like a handful of incandescent worms, then the elevator was plunged into absolute darkness.
Willows heard the sharp metallic click of a revolver being cocked. Instinctively, he went for his own weapon. The elevator jerked to a stop. The doors slid open and the elevator was filled with light Orwell was pointing his gun at Kearns. Willows lashed out. His fist thudded into Rice’s stomach, and Rice sighed wistfully, and doubled over. Willows resisted the urge to hit him again. There was something warm and wet on his upper lip. His nose was bleeding. He yanked a pale green handkerchief from the breast pocket of Rice’s jacket, and pressed it against the flow.
“Will you put that thing away?” said Kearns.
Orwell holstered his gun.
The doors started to slide shut. Willows stopped them with his foot. He gingerly wiped his nose. There was lace on the handkerchief. He took a closer look, and saw that he had wiped his nose with a pair of panties. He dropped the bloodstained panties to the floor.
“You okay?” said Orwell.
“He didn’t break it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Man, you sure congeal fast. Means you got a lot of red blood cells, that you must be eating right.”
Shelley Rice was still bent double, looking a little like a failed comedian taking an undeserved bow. Willows grabbed him by the lapels, pulled him upright and held him against the wall of the elevator.
“Why did you hit me?”
“What the fuck do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” said Willows. “That’s why I asked you.”
“You gave me your word you weren’t interested in dope, and then you turned me over to the narcs.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then what are you doing here, asshole?”
“Watch your mouth,” said Kearns, and punched Rice in the kidneys.
“Hey,” said Willows. “Don’t do that again.”
“First it’s your nose that’s bleeding,” said Kearns. “Now it’s your heart.”
Willows turned to Orwell, “What have you got on him?”
“Coke, about fifty grams. Possession with intent. Not exactly the crime of the century, but enough to make his parole officer do some heavy thinking.”
“Who turned him in?”
“You’re asking me?” said Orwell, looking surprised.
Kearns was making a noise like somebody shaking a tin can full of rocks. Willows looked at him, and saw that he was laughing.
The phone rang eleven times before the hospital switchboard answered. By then Willows had figured out that it had to be Claire Parker who’d turned Rice over to Orwell and Kearns. A gift bust was always good for interdepartmental points, future cooperation from the beneficiaries. But it wasn’t the way Willows liked to play the game. Worse, he was sure that Parker had heard him promise Rice they weren’t interested in the fact that he was dealing.
No doubt about it, Parker had made a mistake. The question was, what was Willows going to do about it?
ATKINSON STRAIGHT-ARMED his way past the bevelled glass doors and into the lobby. A mock-bamboo stand full of dusty plastic plants stood beside the steam radiator. He ran his fingers across a broad green leaf, and it fell away from the main stem and spiralled to the carpet. Unbuttoning his raincoat, Atkinson kicked the leaf under the radiator. Behind him, Franklin hurried up the short sidewalk from Eleventh Avenue. Pushing his way through the glass doors, he stamped his feet and shook the rain from his hat.
Directly in front of them a narrow carpeted hallway ran the length of the building, twin rows of polished brass doorknobs shrinking into the distance. To the left a staircase led to the second and third floors. Atkinson started up the stairs, taking them two at a time, always in a hurry. Franklin followed at a more sedate pace, but by the time he reached the second-floor landing he was having trouble with his wind. He paused with his hand on the railing, his chest heaving. The unending overtime, junk food, constant pressure — they were all part of the job and they all conspired against good health. And he had to admit he wasn’t getting any younger. There was that. Glancing up, Franklin saw Atkinson looking at him with what might almost have passed for an expression of sympathy. It made him feel even worse.
Atkinson was standing on the second-floor landing, next to a child’s bicycle that was chained to the banister. Someone not too handy with a brush had painted the bicycle midnight blue. The seat had been patched with electrician’s tape. A squat and badly rusted bell was fastened to the butterfly handlebars. Atkinson rang the bell twice as he walked past the bike, as if signalling an official end to Franklin’s rest period.
Franklin had his hand on the newel post at the turn of the stairs when the apartment door closest to the landing swung open. He and Atkinson both turned as a young Chinese woman, a sleeping infant in her arms, stepped silently into the hall. Atkinson paused. He stared at the woman, making no pretext of waiting for Franklin to catch up. The woman was no more than eighteen or nineteen years old. She was tall and slim, and wore a colourful orange and red cotton skirt and a thin black turtleneck sweater. Her long black hair fell in a heavy mass to her narrow waist, fanned artfully around the gentle swell of her hips. Moving lightly and gracefully despite the burden of the child, the woman turned and shut the door.
Atkinson watched her, his eyes busy on the round fullness of her breasts as she turned her key in the lock, tested the door to make sure it was secure. As she moved towards the stairs, he tried without success to catch her eye. Using the banister for support, he leaned far out over the stairs to watch her descend. She glanced up, pursed her lips in disapproval, and looked away.
The two detectives walked down the landing and began to climb the final flight of stairs. Despite the short respite offered by the landing, Franklin once again found himself running short of wind. He loosened his tie and slipped the top button of his shirt. Atkinson grinned at him. He had a one-step advantage, but their eyes were almost level.
“She really started the old heart pumping, eh George?”
“What’s that?”
“Got a thing about Oriental girls?”
Franklin shook his head. “Give it a rest, Dave.” He took out his handkerchief and pushed back his hat to wipe his forehead.
Atkinson laughed harshly. “It doesn’t need a rest,” he said, “it needs all the exercise it can get.”
Franklin looked down at his handkerchief, carefully refolded it and tucked it away in his pocket. Atkinson was thirty-seven years old and he was smirking like a schoolboy. Unbelievable. Franklin brushed past his partner, taking the steps one at a time, pacing himself.
At the top of the stairs there was another long and narrow hallway. At the end of the hallway a window had been propped open with a hockey stick. The breeze coming in through the window was sweet and cool. Franklin took several deep breaths, gulping it in. Feeling a little refreshed, he followed Atkinson down the hallway, past a series of identical anonymous doors.
Phasia Palinkas’ apartment was the last one on the left. Atkinson took a key ring out of his pocket. There were seven keys on the ring. The third one he tried slipped easily into the lock. He pushed the door open and they went inside.
The front door opened directly on to the living room. The room was small, and not quite a perfect square. It was furnished with a cheap two-piece Chesterfield suite in a blue floral pattern, a pair of mismatched veneer coffee tables and a portable colour television. Against the far wall there was an antique gas fire made of cast-iron and chromed steel. Franklin went over to it and turned it on. He heard the hiss of escaping gas.
“You better turn that off,” said Atkinson.
Franklin struck a paper match, and the gas caught with a soft
whuff
. Franklin lit a cigarette, warmed his hands at the flames. Steam drifted from his raincoat and the brim of his hat. He closed his eyes.
“Hey,” said Atkinson. “Rise and shine. You forget Bradley’s pep talk already? Let’s get to work.”
Atkinson pushed open a pair of sliding wooden doors and walked through to the dining room. The room was sparsely furnished. There was a chrome and formica table, four matching chairs, an oak sideboard that had seen better days. Atkinson opened the top drawer of the sideboard and began to shuffle through the contents.
Franklin reluctantly left the fire and followed his partner into the dining room. He looked out of the window at the stucco wall of the neighbouring apartment, less than ten feet away. The wall was made of white stucco that had turned green with mildew. In the narrow space between the two buildings an abandoned refrigerator lay on its back in the weeds and grass. It was still raining.
Franklin yawned, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. Behind him, Atkinson slid the drawer shut and opened another one. Paper rustled in his hands.
And there was another sound, too, a thick and mucous bubbling. Franklin drew his revolver. Atkinson looked at him, surprised. Franklin put a finger to his lips and pointed at the swing door at the far end of the room. Atkinson dropped a handful of cancelled cheques, reached under his jacket and pulled his Colt. The two detectives converged on the door from opposite sides of the formica table. Atkinson pressed his ear against the wood. There was a sound coming from the far side of the door that was exactly the same as a sound he had heard five years earlier, in a warehouse doorway on the fringe of Chinatown. The sound had come from the red froth of a throat that had been slashed from ear to ear. The body had never been identified, and neither had the cutter. He was still out there, somewhere.
Atkinson renewed his grip on the Colt. He took a half-step back and then lunged forward, giving the door such a ferocious kick that the bottom hinge tore loose from the frame. There was a high-pitched scream of bent metal and splintering wood. The door flew open, gouging a pale scar across green linoleum.
Franklin was first through the door, first into the kitchen. Following the sound to its source, he saw a piece of three-quarter-inch plywood spiked to the sill of a double hung window overlooking the parking lot and lane at the rear of the building. The plywood supported a rectangular ten-gallon fish tank inhabited by three plump goldfish. The fish hovered just below the surface of the water, motionless except for the gauzy shimmering of pectoral fins, the occasional flick of a tail.
There was a small electric pump hanging from a hook screwed into the plywood. From the pump a length of flexible plastic tubing led to a clear plastic box half-buried in the brightly coloured gravel that covered the bottom of the tank. The box was full of charcoal. Air pumped through the tubing was purified by the charcoal and then released, the endless cloud of tiny silver bubbles oxygenating the water as they rose to the surface and burst. This was the source of the sound that had reminded Atkinson of the man in Chinatown, the man with the big red grin.
“Shit,” said Atkinson. His shoulders sagged. He stared out the window, down at the parking lot. There was a fourteen-foot Peterborough on a trailer in the corner stall. A rusty thirty-five horse Johnson outboard motor hung disconsolately from the stern. The boat was carrying five or six inches of oily water; the iridescent surface pocked with rain.
Atkinson suddenly felt hot, feverish. He was afraid that he was going to be ill. He went over to the sink and ran the cold water. As he bent to drink, he saw that someone had dropped a jar of strawberry jam on the counter next to the dishrack. The glass jar had shattered, the bright red jam spreading across the counter like an exotic, morbid flower. He picked up a shard of glass, put it back.
Franklin leaned over Atkinson’s shoulder and stuck his finger in the jam. It felt hard and rubbery, a bit like Silly Putty. He pushed harder. His finger broke through the exterior film and sank into the oozy mass right up to the middle joint.
Franklin pulled out the dripping finger and plunged it into his mouth.
Atkinson looked wildly around. He crossed rapidly to the pump, reached down and yanked the electric cord out of the socket. The sound of the pump and bubbling water abruptly died away.
“Something wrong?” said Franklin, licking the last of the jam from his finger.
Atkinson shrugged irritably, not looking up from the tank. The three goldfish shifted laterally in unison, adjusting to the diminishing currents. He tapped the barrel of his gun against the glass and the fish panicked, darting off in different directions. Atkinson watched with a curious sense of satisfaction as they swam frantically and aimlessly about. After a few moments the fish regrouped, huddling closely together in the middle of the tank with their sleek bellies brushing against the gravel bottom.
Atkinson gave the tank another whack with his gun. The glass cracked diagonally from the bottom left to the top right corner. The fish bolted again, but with less enthusiasm. Atkinson wondered if they were tiring or merely adapting. Halfway along the crack a bead of water wriggled free, paused, and then dribbled hesitantly down to the plywood shelf. A second drop of water appeared, and then a third. The largest of the fish swam circuitously over to investigate. It followed the next droplet down the side of the tank, its round mouth opening and closing rhythmically. It must be hungry, Atkinson thought. He glanced up and saw Franklin staring at him, a quizzical expression on his bland and ponderous face.
The drops were coming more quickly now. They gathered on the lip of the plywood, fell in a thin stream to the linoleum floor.
Atkinson said, “You like fish, George?”
“Not much. When I was a kid we had to eat fish every Friday. You ever tried week after week of tuna picnic loaf and festive haddock fillets?”
“I’m talking about salmon, not fucking haddock. Thick slices of coho with lemon, a sprig of parsley on the side.”
“Parsley?”
“Always eat your parsley, George. If you’re in a restaurant and they don’t give you any, ask for it. You can’t find a better source of vitamin C.”
“If you say so,” said Franklin, his eyes fixed on the spreading puddle on the linoleum.
“All seafood is good for you,” Atkinson continued. “It’s packed with protein and low in fat content. Also, the oceans are relatively free of chemical fertilizers and insecticides, all that death shit your average Farmer Brown sprays all over his crops.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Franklin warily. There was no way he was going to argue with a guy who could pull the plug on an orphan’s pet fish.
“You are what you eat,” said Atkinson. “It’s a cliché, but it’s true.” He brought up his Colt and scratched himself behind the ear with the blade of the revolver’s front sight.
Franklin reached for the pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. He lit up, exhaled a cloud of carcinogens, flicked ash on the floor.
Atkinson led the way through another door to the narrow corridor that bisected the back half of the apartment. They were standing opposite the bathroom. Down the hall, open doors led to the apartment’s two bedrooms. Atkinson went into the bathroom and switched on the light. He rummaged through the medicine cabinet until he found a slim plastic vial of aspirin. Running water from the sink into his cupped left hand, he popped two of the tablets into his mouth, and swallowed.
Neither Atkinson nor Franklin seemed to notice the fourth goldfish as it floated on its side in the toilet bowl, one eye dangling at the end of a scarlet thread.
The first bedroom had obviously been Phasia Palinkas’. There was a big mahogany bed, an oak bow-front bureau with an oval bevelled glass mirror, and a writing desk where she had worked on her business accounts. To the left of the door there was a walk-in closet. Atkinson went into the closet, and Franklin heard the rattle of metal coat-hangers. He blew a plume of smoke into the air, stared thoughtfully down at the scuffed toes of his shoes. Five minutes with a brush and rag, that was all they needed. A dab of polish and they’d look as if they’d just come out of the box. The coat-hangers rattled again. Atkinson came out of the closet. He plucked a speck of lint from his lapel, scrutinized the bedroom with an expert’s eye. Something on the desk caught his attention. He went over to the desk and picked up the phone. The cord had been ripped from the wall. “I wonder how this happened,” he said.
“I can tell you always pay your bills on time,” joked Franklin.