Sixty-seven-year-old Tiffany Hine didn’t look a day over sixty-six and a half. Bryan thought her apartment smelled exactly the way you’d think an old lady’s apartment smelled — stale violets, baby powder and medicine. She had a high, soft voice and frizzy silver hair long past a glorious prime. She wore a yellow flowered robe and worn pink slippers. Her eyes looked clear and focused, the kind of eyes that could see right through the bullshit of any child (or grandchild, for that matter). Those eyes sported deep laugh lines. At the moment, the lines on her face showed real fear.
She was old, but she looked sharp. She looked sane, and that was what Bryan desperately needed to believe.
Pookie and Tiffany sat next to each other on a plastic-covered couch. Bryan stood by, looking out the living room window to Geary Street below — and across the street, to the van where Jay Parlar had died. Bryan’s sour stomach threatened to twist him in knots. His head swam so bad he had to keep a hand on the wall to stop from swaying. It was usually best to let Pookie do the talking; now, it was a necessity.
“Just take it from the beginning, ma’am,” Pookie said.
“I already told the other man, the one with the uniform,” Tiffany said. “You don’t have a uniform. And I might add it’s time for you to get a new jacket, young man. The one you’re wearing probably stopped fitting you twenty pounds ago.”
Pookie smiled. “I’m a homicide inspector, ma’am. We don’t wear uniforms. But I still eat lots of donuts, as you can tell.”
She smiled. It was a genuine smile, although halfhearted and a bit empty. What she had seen affected her to the core. “Fine, I’ll tell you. But this is the last time.”
Pookie nodded.
“As you can see, my window looks out on Geary. I look out on the street a lot. I like to watch people go by and imagine what their stories are.”
Outside the window, morning sunlight was just beginning to hit the blacktop. This woman had really been staring out the window at such a convenient time? Bryan wanted Pookie to get to the point, get to the part with the snake-face, but Pookie had his own way of doing things and Bryan had to be patient.
“At three in the morning?” Pookie said. “Kind of late for people watching, isn’t it?”
“I don’t sleep well,” Tiffany said. “Thoughts of mortality, you see. Of how everything is just going to … end. Don’t worry, young man, if you aren’t thinking about it already, you will soon enough.”
Pookie nodded. “Thoughts of mortality come with my job. Please continue.”
Tiffany did. “So I’m looking out the window, and I see this young man across the street, wearing a crimson jacket. I’ve seen him before. He and three other boys wander the streets at all hours. I recognize them because they all wear the same colors — crimson, white and gold. But tonight, it was just the one boy.”
Pookie made a few notes on his pad.
“The boy was walking fast,” Tiffany said. “That’s what caught my attention. He kept looking behind him, like he thought someone was following him, perhaps. Then the bums dropped down.”
Bryan turned away from the window. Dropped down?
“Dropped down,” Pookie said, echoing Bryan’s thoughts. “You said bums dropped down? Dropped down from where?”
Tiffany shrugged. “From the roof of that apartment building across the street, I imagine. It was like they … like they fell, from windowsill to windowsill. But not an accident. On purpose.”
“I see,” Pookie said. “And you got a good look at them?”
She shrugged again. “As good as I could, considering the light and how fast they moved. They dropped down, grabbed him, then went up again.”
Pookie scribbled. “And how did they go up? Fire escape?”
She shook her head and stared off to some spot in the room. “They went up the same way they came down. Window to window. I’ve never seen people jump that high. It wasn’t as if they stuck to the walls like Spider-Man, mind you — it was more like watching a squirrel scramble up an oak tree. They went up four stories so fast I couldn’t believe it.”
Bryan looked to the building across the street and tried to visualize what she had seen. Even if someone could climb from windowsill to windowsill, some acrobat or whatever, no one could climb those four stories with any kind of speed.
Pookie nodded and wrote, as if hearing about someone scrambling up the side of a building were an everyday occurrence. “That’s fine,” he said. “And could you describe the men, please?”
Tiffany cleared her throat again. “They were big, maybe a foot taller than the boy. Maybe even more. They both had these dirty blankets draped over their shoulders.”
“You called them bums?” Pookie said.
“That was my first reaction,” Tiffany said. “I mean, if I saw those men on the street, all bundled up like that, I probably wouldn’t even notice them. You see people like that all the time, the poor souls. But these men … well, the blankets seemed to … to loosen up, maybe. The blankets slid away from their faces a little.” She stared off to a corner of the room. She continued in a barely audible whisper. “That’s when I saw the one with green skin and a pointy face. Like a snake. The other one” — Tiffany mimed pulling at her nose, pulling it out a foot from her face — “had a long snoot, and it looked like he had brown hair all over it. I also saw he had brown legs, covered in hair, the same as his face.”
Bryan breathed slowly. Dirty blankets, just like in his dream. And brown hair. Like the brown hair Sammy Berzon had found on the blanket covering Oscar Woody’s corpse. If she had actually seen this, then maybe he wasn’t crazy after all.
“Oh,” she said. “There was one more thing. The one with the brown legs was wearing Bermuda shorts.”
“Bermuda shorts,” Pookie said, writing it down in his notebook. “The one that looked like a werewolf was wearing Bermuda shorts?”
Tiffany tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “I never said werewolf. I only got a glimpse when he grabbed the boy, when the blanket loosened up a little. The big snoot … it was like a dog’s, but the jaws didn’t line up right. He had a long tongue that hung off one side. People …” she stopped, looked down to her carpet, the fear now totally in control of her face and voice “… people don’t look like that.”
“Then what happened?”
She licked her lips. Her hands were shaking. “Then I didn’t see anything for a bit. Then there was this fireball from up on the roof. I saw the boy engulfed in it.”
“Did you see what caused the fireball?”
She shook her head. “No, it was too bright. I only saw the boy because he was silhouetted. Then he was burning. There were others on the roof, in the blankets. The boy … he was still on fire and he … he jumped. Whatever was up there with him, he chose to kill himself rather than face it.”
Pookie lowered the notepad. “Ma’am, this has been very helpful. Would you mind if a sketch artist came over?”
She shook her head violently, instantly. “As soon as you boys leave, I’m not talking about this again. Ever.”
“But this could be helpful to our—”
“Leave,” she said. “I did my part.”
The front door opened, and they all turned to look. No knock, no buzzer, just Rich Verde storming in, resplendent in a dark-purple suit. Where the hell did that guy shop? Behind Verde walked Bobby Pigeon, and behind Bobby came Officer Stuart Hood. Hood had a look on his face like he’d just been reamed out good and proper.
“Chang,” Verde said. “What are you doing here?”
Pookie smiled wide. Despite the horrible circumstances, Bryan knew Pookie wouldn’t pass up a chance to get under Verde’s skin.
“Just interviewing the witness,” Pookie said. “On account of how we were here first because you were probably getting your sleepy time.”
Rich glared at him, then walked up to Tiffany. He flashed a smile as fake as the fabric of his clothes.
“Ma’am, I’m Inspector Richard Verde. I’d like to ask you a few questions about what you saw tonight.”
Tiffany sighed and shook her head. “Please leave my home.”
“But, ma’am,” Polyester Rich said, “we need to—”
“I’ve told my story,” Tiffany said. She pointed to Hood. “I told him” — she pointed at Pookie — “and I told him. Hopefully, Mister Verde, your co-workers take good notes because I’m never speaking of this again.”
Tiffany’s voice carried the authority of a disciplinarian mother. She didn’t take shit from anyone.
Rich started to protest. Bryan saw Pookie tilting his head toward the door. Time to get out while the getting was good. Excellent idea.
Bryan quickly walked to the door, followed Pookie out, and the two all but ran down the stairs.
“Fuck Verde,” Pookie said. “He’ll get my notes, but when I’m damn good and ready to give them up.”
“Doesn’t work that way, Pooks. He’s the lead. Give him your info.”
“Yeah-yeah-yeah,” Pookie said. “He’ll get Hood’s notes, for starters. Of course I’ll give him mine, but I’ll make him say please first. That will drive him crazy.”
They reached the ground floor and stopped in the building’s entryway.
Pookie looked at his notepad, read something, then looked at Bryan. “You know that old biddy’s story is nuckingfuts,” he said. “She took the express train to Looney Land.”
Bryan nodded. “Totally crazy.”
Pookie rubbed his chin. Bryan could barely breathe.
Pookie slapped the notepad against his open palm. “I mean, guys scaling down the wall, and back up again? I’m supposed to assume it was … I don’t know … stuntmen in Halloween costumes snatching a kid?”
Pookie stared at the notepad again. Bryan waited, letting his partner work through this. Tiffany’s testimony was close to Bryan’s dreams, too close for coincidence. After her description, if Pookie still didn’t believe, he probably never would.
“Pooks, she used the words snake-face. I didn’t prompt her — you know that, right?”
Pookie nodded, slowly. “Yeah. Kind of specific. Not the same thing as saying it was a black guy.”
Bryan needed Pookie to believe him, believe in him. If Pookie did not, Bryan would truly be in this all alone.
Pookie sighed, smiled, looked to the ceiling. “I’ve got the testimony of a senile old woman who was probably tripping on acid, who saw something for three seconds, and I’ve got your dreams. I’d have to be an idiot to believe you.”
“She’s not senile,” Bryan said. “And I didn’t see any Deadhead stickers in there.”
Pookie took a deep breath and let it out in a cheek-puffing huff. “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Maybe I need to take the short bus to work, but I believe you. This doesn’t mean it’s a guy with an actual face of a snake, Bri-Bri. These are dudes in costumes. I can’t explain your dreams, but the scaling the building thing? It was late at night, Tiffany could have missed cables, ropes, your general circus paraphernalia.”
Bryan nodded, but he knew there hadn’t been ropes. And he knew there hadn’t been costumes. That didn’t matter — what mattered was that Pookie believed he wasn’t crazy. For now, that was enough.
Pookie’s cell phone buzzed. He checked the caller ID, then answered.
“Black Mister Burns,” he said. “Why are you calling me at five-thirty in the morning?”
Bryan waited as Pookie listened.
“Yeah, almost done here,” Pookie said. “No, just tell me. For real? Sure, no problem. Know where Pinecrest Diner is? No, genius, the diner is closed and I want to hang out by its front door like a skater kid. Of course they’re open. Fine. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
He hung up.
“What’s happening?” Bryan asked. “He figure something out with those symbols?”
Pookie held up a just wait a second finger as he dialed another number with his thumb. He smiled as he waited for the other end to pick up.
“Hi, it’s Pookie,” he said, then paused to listen. “Oh please, you were probably about to get up anyway. Listen, Bryan wanted me to call. He’s on his way over for breakfast.”
“Hey,” Bryan said. “Don’t promise someone that—”
“Twenty minutes? Great. He’s looking forward to it. Bye-bye.”
Pookie folded the phone and slid it back into his pocket. “Black Mister Burns has something he wants to share. He doesn’t feel good broadcasting it over the police radio.”
“Cool, let’s go.”
Pookie shook his head. “Nope, just me. You need to chill out for a bit and get a bite to eat.”
“Pooks, I’m not in the mood for breakfast. I still feel like I got hit by a steamroller, and you think I can chill after all this?”
Pookie shrugged. “Whether you can or you can’t doesn’t matter. Mike Clauser sounded excited. He’s probably already cooking the kielbasa.”
Bryan’s teeth clenched tight. Sometimes Pookie thought he knew better than anyone else. “You told my dad I was coming over for fucking breakfast?”
Pookie shrugged. “You need a break, man. I know you didn’t do these things, okay? I know it. You need to stop thinking about all this for a couple of hours. You need to unplug for a bit. Go or stay, but you know how fired up Mike gets.”
Bryan’s father would already be excited to have his son drop by for a visit. If Bryan didn’t go, Mike Clauser would be crushed.
“Hey, Pooks,” Bryan said. “You suck cock.”
Pookie smiled. “All I can get.”
They heard three sets of heavy footsteps on the stairs a few flights up.
“Polyester returns,” Pookie said. “Seriously, man, just go hang with your pops for a bit. I’m off. Catch a cab.”
Pookie walked quickly out of the building and headed for his car.
Bryan thought about chasing him, trying to go with him, but Pookie was right — Mike Clauser would already be cooking the only dish he knew how to make.
“Asshole,” Bryan said once more, then walked out of the building.