CHAPTER 15
THE THREE MEN CLUSTERED AROUND WHATEVER IT WAS POCKFACE had in his hands. I glimpsed a slender blue-covered volume, so much like Julian’s copy of The Book of the Damned that for a moment I imagined they might be the same. I struggled to stand up, to go over and look at it with them. I’d forgotten I was tied into the chair.
“A book?” said Corky.
“ ‘The Case for the UFO,’” Snaggletooth read aloud, in a tone of disgust. “ ‘By M. K. Jessup.’ ”
“Look inside it,” said Corky. “Maybe she hollowed it out. You know, cut the pages out, put the stash inside.”
Pockface flipped through the pages. “Nah,” he said, “it’s all there. Somebody scribbled over it, is all. And doodled. Cripes, what weird pictures!”
“What’d she want to sew that into the lining for?” said Corky.
“Don’t know,” said Pockface, setting the book on the desk. “We’ll go through it later, figure that out. Let’s see what else is in this goddamn suitcase.”
A pile of what seemed to be clothes began to accumulate on the floor. “Hey, hey, hey!” said Snaggletooth. “Take a look at this!”
“Wow!” said Pockface. He turned to me. “This sister of yours is one hot chickee, Al! Got two boxes of Trojans in her suitcase.”
“Gonna have her a wild weekend,” said Snaggletooth.
“And get a load of these underpants!” said Pockface. He held up against his face something that looked like a vivid red cloth. Then a black one. “All perfumed too.” I could see his large body swaying as he began to chant, “All-the- girls-in-France, woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo . . .”
“Find any heroin yet?” I said.
“You shut up!” he yelled. He turned back to the suitcase and again began rooting through it. The pile on the floor grew larger. “Well, hey, hey, hey. What do you know? What do you know?”
“What?” said Snaggletooth.
“Envelope. Got all her receipts in it, looks like. Hey, now this is something! For you, Corky. Seems like this lady rented herself a car in Albuquerque. August the nineteenth. ’Bout three weeks ago.”
“Yeah?” said Corky. “What kind of car?”
“A 1963 Plymouth Valiant. So the little piece of paper says.”
Corky whistled. “That’s it all right.”
“And what the hell’s this?” said Snaggletooth. “A motel receipt. Monday, September ninth. Yesterday. At the Sunset Motel. Roswell, New Mexico.”
There were other receipts, for other dates, all of them in Roswell, New Mexico. The three men tore at the slips of paper. They fought one another to see them. For a moment I thought they’d forgotten about me.
Then Pockface moved toward me.
“Shit,” he said.
I saw the huge shape loom over me. I felt Corky’s arm tighten around my neck. His finger forced my left eye wide open. I wanted to scream. I bit my lip.
“Awright, Shapiro,” Pockface said. “You start talking, and you start talking fast. What was this cunt up to in Roswell?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You lying little kike! What was she doing in Roswell?”
“I tell you I don’t know.”
Pockface took a breath, lowered his voice. “Listen to me, Danny. I got the impression you don’t see too good, am I right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right.”
“You’ll see a hell of a lot worse with a needle sticking into your eyeball.”
“Don’t!” I screamed. “For God’s sake, please don’t! I swear to God I’ll tell you everything I know. But I don’t know anything. I don’t know what she was doing in Roswell. I never even heard of Roswell. I swear to God I haven’t.”
“Never heard of Roswell, New Mexico?”
“No!”
“Never heard of a disk that came down, crashed?”
“No, no!”
“Never heard of any little men found dead inside it? Or maybe alive, just almost dead?”
“No-o-o!”
“I count to ten,” said Corky. “Then in goes the needle.”
“You’ve got it all wrong!” I shrieked. “The crash was at Maury Island. That’s in Puget Sound. Not New Mexico. Never New Mexico. It was Harold Dahl who saw it. Only he didn’t see it, because it didn’t happen. Nothing happened. It was all a hoax. You understand? A hoax.”
I babbled on and on, at the top of my voice, about Harold Dahl and Maury Island and its all being a hoax. I was obsessed with the idea they were too stupid to know what the word hoax meant. And because they didn’t know what a hoax was, they were going to stick a needle into my eye.
Finally I ran out of breath. Corky didn’t start counting to ten. The others were silent too.
Snaggletooth said, “Maury Island, shit.”
Corky’s hand didn’t move from my eye. But his muscles relaxed, and I found I was able to blink. He seemed to be trying to keep himself from laughing.
Snaggletooth said, “Harold Dahl, shit.” And snickered.
“Come on,” said Corky. “We gonna waste the whole night here, or what? This kid doesn’t know shit about Roswell. He doesn’t know shit about shit.”
“Danny,” said Pockface mildly, “you don’t know shit about shit, do you?”
“No,” I said. “I guess I don’t.”
They were all laughing now.
“All you know is what Harold Dahl says, what Jack Shit says, what this other fella says. Isn’t that right?”
I said nothing. My face blazed with shame and relief.
“You don’t even know this Perlmann bitch, do you?”
I shook my head no.
“Just wanted to steal the suitcase, right?”
I nodded.
“Probably figured it was a girl’s suitcase, right? From the color. Figured, a suitcase like that, there had to be girls’ underwear in there. So you could try it on. That’s what you like to do, try on girls’ underwear. Am I right?”
I sat motionless, my eyes shut, my face flaming.
“Knew it the minute I laid eyes on him,” said Pockface.
“Lookit him sweat,” said Snaggletooth.
“Go ahead, Corky,” said Pockface. “Show him the picture. Let our little friend know what he’s getting himself into.”
“Danny,” said Corky, moving around to stand in front of me. “I want to show you a little something. Scenic photograph from Roswell, New Mexico. Think it might interest you.”
He held the photo right in front of my eyes for just a second. Then he pulled it away. I had the impression of a metallic vehicle like a flying saucer resting on the ground, with a humanlike creature lying inside it, in some contorted posture, presumably dead. Corky held the picture about three feet from me. Without my glasses it was a blur. The wire cut into my wrists as I strained against the chair, trying to get a little closer, see the photo a little better.
“Hell,” said Pockface. “Let’s give him his glasses.”
Snaggletooth picked them up from the floor and put them on my face. By some miracle they hadn’t shattered. There was a long vertical crack in the right lens, from the top almost to the bottom. But the frame seemed to be holding it together.
I saw how I’d misread the photo. Yes, there was a vehicle; yes, it was resting on the ground. But it was an ordinary automobile. And there was a humanlike being inside, in the driver’s seat, visible through the windshield, and yes, this humanlike being was plainly dead. He had died badly, his body twisted, his eyes practically bursting out of his skull with terror. But he was an ordinary human being.
He was Tom Dimitrios.
I blinked several times. I forced myself not to turn away.
“Looks to be a fella about your age, doesn’t he?” said Pockface. “Only looks like maybe he could see without his glasses.”
I said nothing.
“They found him first thing this morning, soon as the sun came up,” said Corky. “The car was parked to the side of a road, two miles outside Roswell town limits. He was in it. Recognize what kind of car it is, Danny?”
I shook my head.
“A 1963 Plymouth Valiant,” said Corky. “Same car this Perlmann rented in Albuquerque three weeks ago.”
“He was smothered to death,” said Pockface. “With a pillow, looks like. They must have gone out on the road, took a pillow with them. So they could fuck better. She must have killed him afterward. Then she walked back into town, or maybe somebody come pick her up. Took the pillow with her. It wasn’t in the car.”
I stared dully. The crack in the lens felt like it had always been there. Desolation blew through me like a desert wind. Of all the things I wished had not happened, I wished most of all I hadn’t seen that photograph.
“How do you know?” I said.
“How do I know what?” said Pockface.
“That she was the one who killed him.”
“That’s what happens, Danny. It’s the black widow spider. First she fucks, then she kills.”
“How could she have held him down? Look at that picture. He knew what was happening. He would have fought her off.”
“It was the fuck,” Snaggletooth said solemnly. “She gave him such a blowout fuck that all his strength went out through that fuck. Then she took the pillow and killed him.”
“He would have fought her off,” I said.
But I remembered how firm and strong Rochelle’s handshake had been the night we met, how weak and flaccid Tom’s was.
“She didn’t kill him,” I said.
“How you know that?” said Pockface. “You don’t even know her.”
“Wouldn’t know what to do with her if he did know her,” said Corky.
I looked from one to another of the three laughing faces. Some broad, some narrow. All of them stained that strange artificial brown. Stupid beyond stupidity.
“You don’t know her either,” I said.
The three of them rested against the desk. They looked at me with what seemed to be curiosity.
“She didn’t kill him,” I said. “You killed him. You and your goddamn creepy friends. How do I know you didn’t?”
I wanted to gesture, point a finger, accuse them. My hands were still behind my back, tied tight with their wire. Corky sighed and walked around behind me. My stomach fell away in terror. I realized how very stupid I had just been.
“That’s a real good question,” said Pockface softly. “And I’m gonna answer it for you. It wasn’t one of us killed him, because if we’d have killed him, we wouldn’t have done it with a pillow. We’d have used the wire. Around the neck. That’s if we were in a hurry. If we had time, maybe around the nuts first, then the neck. Allow us to give you a small demonstration.”
“No. Please.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Pockface. “No trouble at all.”
I felt Corky slowly put the wire around my throat, begin twisting it, tightening it.
“No,” I said. “No, no, no.”
“Don’t worry,” said Pockface. “We’re not gonna hurt you. Not too much. Not this time.”
The wire tightened more.
“Danny,” said Pockface. “Lots of people talk bad about the Jewish. You know that, don’t you? Don’t you?”
I tried to breathe an answer. The wire was too tight. All I could manage was a feeble nod.
“But there’s one thing I got to say about them. Their families are real close. And that’s a good thing about them. This country’d be a better place if the rest of us were like the Jewish. That way.”
He paused. I could say nothing.
“Especially Jewish boys. They love their families. Isn’t that right?”
Another nod, barely perceptible.
“Do you love your family?”
I could not speak, could not move. The wire tightened again. I felt it slice into my flesh. I imagined the blood spurting from my throat. Images of red swam before my eyes.
“Do you, Danny? Do you love your family?”
“Yes, yes,” I whispered.
“Say it.”
“I love my family.”
“That’s right,” said Pockface. Snaggletooth nodded solemnly. The wire loosened slightly.
“You love your family,” said Pockface, “you ain’t never going to talk about what happened here tonight. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m never going to talk about it.”
“You’re not going to say a word about Roswell either, are you?”
“No. I promise. I won’t say a word about Roswell, ever.”
“ ’Cause you know, Danny boy, we can find you now. Whenever we want. Wherever you go, we’ll find you.”
Corky began to untie my wrists.
“Say one word,” said Pockface, “you’re up shit creek.”
“On my honor,” I said. “I won’t say a word.”
I stood up, shakily. Pockface put his arm around my shoulders and drew me aside.
“Danny,” he said. “I got a real special feeling for you. Just like you were my son. Know what I mean?”
I nodded.
“And I got a word of advice for you. Just like a dad for a son. You listening?”
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
“Don’t steal no more suitcases. You want to try on girls’ underwear, take your sister’s. Have you got a sister?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t.”
“Well, then you gotta have a mother. Don’t you?”
“Yes, but—I mean, she’s sick, she’s always been sick—”
“Then maybe you got a grandma. Ask her, she’ll buy you some girls’ underwear to try on. Have you got a grandma?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve got a grandma.”
“Good. You ask her. But don’t go stealing any more suitcases. You promise me that?”
“I promise,” I said.
“Good. Real good. And one more thing. You keep away from broads like this Rochelle Perlmann. Broad packs rubbers in her suitcase, she’s nothing but trouble. Remember that.”
“I’ll remember,” I said.
He took me by the shoulders, looked into my eyes, and smiled down at me. He began to sing, softly, with just a hint of an Irish accent. “Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling....”
I smiled back. I felt like I wanted to cry.
“Take care of yourself, Danny boy,” he said, gently slapping me on the back . . . and then I was out of the room, into the long white corridor.
They had my wallet. I didn’t care about that. I had taken the book from their desk; I had it safe in my hand. Only it wasn’t The Book of the Damned that I carried, but The Case for the UFO, with all the Gypsies’ markings.... From the room behind me, laughter erupted.
“Hey, Danny boy!”
I began to walk faster.
“Danny! You got the wrong book!”
Should I start running? If I run, I might be able to get away. But then they’ ll know that I know—
“Danny ! You come back here!”
I ran.