That morning Bernie showed up with a five-o’clock shadow and another of his thousand yard stares. It turned out his wife had finally served him divorce papers. Alex tried to convince him to take the day off and relax, but Bernie said that all he really wanted was to catch this cocksucker before he sliced and diced another girl. Annie said it would be a relatively easy day, since our next task was to check out Miriam’s uptown suspects.
“No way,” Bernie said tiredly. “Her list is a fucking joke. It’s only been a few days since Caty’s death, so I want to go back to the King’s Court and see if we can find any witnesses.”
“We already canvassed the hotel,” Annie pointed out. “And we looked at all the surveillance footage.”
“Somebody must’ve seen something,” he insisted.
“Why don’t you two go ahead and do that,” Annie said. “Alex and I can finish up the Williams list ourselves.”
Bernie and I spent the day interviewing staff and tracking down the guests who were still occupying rooms on the floor where Caty stayed, but it was all a big bust.
As we were walking down a street back to the precinct, I caught Bernie staring at an older homeless man sitting in a doorway.
“The older you get the less desirable, more avoidable you become,” he announced. All the little systems in your life start breaking down like you’re an old appliance—the emotions, the love, the ability to socialize . . . And don’t get me started on the failures of the body.”
“Hey, they’ve got drugs for all those things.” I tried to lighten his mood. At that moment, a sexy girl walked by and the comment assumed a connotation I hadn’t intended.
“Sex went from being ten times a day to maybe once a year, if I begged my wife enough. But even that one night made me feel like a million bucks,” he said as he eyed her. “All gone forever.”
I gave him a sympathetic smile, then headed to yoga class to process my own stress. Much to my chagrin, the Renunciate was away on some Buddhist retreat in the Catskills. even though his life seemed like one big vacation to me. A wide-eyed yogarexic named Penrose conducted the class. Apparently she was not fluent in Sanskrit, because she used boring animal names for the old positions—pigeon pose, crow pose, camel pose, dolphin pose. Although I worked up a good sweat, I sort of felt spiritually cheated by her American narrative.
Before going home, I stopped at the Rite Aid to pick up some more concealer, so I could cover my bruises before Miriam’s party that night.
When I entered my place, on the floor I found the same page from the Post that Bernie had waved at me. Maggie must’ve slipped it under my door. The headline read COPS OUT ON SEX SOCIALITE. The quarter-page article loosely described my near-arrest of Venezia at the Rocmarni show. I didn’t so much mind the unflattering photo of me trying to keep Venezia’s slippery arm pinned behind her fat back. What pissed me off most was that we were described as rivals for Noel Holden’s affections. I guess at least I hadn’t received any visits from Internal Affairs.
I tried to push it all out of my head as I showered, tended to my face, squirted on perfume, Visined my eyes, and changed into affordable elegance. I made it downstairs just as Noel got tired of waiting in his car out front and was about to ring my doorbell. He kissed me on the lips instead.
“I missed you, dear,” he said as he helped me into the back seat.
“I miss you too.”
“How’s the crazy neighbor?” he asked as we drove away.
“I’m more than a little pissed at her.”
“Why?”
“Do you know what she said to me the other day? She asked me if I would mind if she slept with you.”
His eyes widened and for a moment he was dumbstruck. “I told Crispin she was a starfucker from the very start,” he finally said as we arrived in front of Miriam’s urban chateau.
The guest of honor at tonight’s dinner, Noel told me, was Martinique Doll, the French writer/director Miriam had brought back with her from Cannes. He had just won the prestigious Palme d’Or for his latest flick, The Doppelganger, which was about two nearly identical women who coincidentally are in love with the same man. People from his production company, and other figures from the worlds of finance, film, and fashion were already there when we walked in, hobnobbing and knocking back drinks.
Initially all the talk was focused on the young filmmaker; I spent most of the time trying not to think about whether Noel would attempt to bed me again tonight, and how I would respond if he did. Several skimpy courses were eventually served and guiltily nibbled on. after which conversation broke into small, swirling groups. I was sticking to ginger ale, intent on staying sober as the evening progressed. If we did have sex again, I wanted to remember every detail.
I listened attentively, but I only participated in the conversation when I had something to add, which was seldom. At one point, though, I overheard someone refer to one dapper blond youth as Zeus. I discovered the young man was an aristocrat from some duchy in northern Europe, and when his conversation companion moved on, I asked him, “Is your name really Zeus?”
“That’s me, king of the gods,” he kidded.
“What do you know about Hercules?”
“Well, I know he wasn’t actually a god.”
“Do you know anything about his death?”
“I know that his wife unwittingly caused his demise.”
“Anything else?”
“And she felt so bad about it that she subsequently killed herself.”
Detective Kelly’s wife had died before him, so that detail didn’t fit into my pattern.
“But why are you asking me this, please?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I was the goddess Diana.”
“I thought you looked familiar,” he said with a grin.
“I’m joking, but I did actually see a divine sign.” When Zeus looked at me pityingly, I added, “but maybe it was just something I ate.”
“You shouldn’t shortchange signs,” he said. “Some great events in history only happened because of signs.”
“Like what?”
“The one that comes to mind involved the Roman Emperor Constantine. As he was about to go into battle, he supposedly looked up and saw a cross of light above the sun, and because of this sign, he wound up converting the Roman Empire and subsequently the Western world to Christianity.”
Suddenly Zeus’ entourage. who seemed to have been scattered throughout the party, all converged on him; they were bored and wanted to go to yet another fabulous party. He bade me farewell, said he’d see me on Mount Olympus, and was gone.
I sidled up to Noel, who was putting a lot of effort into charming another flamboyant young director, who in turn was trying to interest Miriam in producing a biopic of Montgomery Clift. Noel was clearly laying the groundwork for an exciting audition.
Not wanting to interfere with his business, I stood by quietly and listened in. As their talk progressed, though, it became increasingly obvious that the filmmaker had neither money nor connections—nor, for that matter, did he have a script. He was just another bullshitter in the land of bullshit. When Noel realized the silliness of it all, he politely extricated himself from the conversation and the guy grabbed his coat and left.
All the gourmet food had long been eaten, so the other posers and frauds began defecting as well. And the VIPs were long gone. Soon Noel, Miriam and I found ourselves alone. When Noel asked Miriam whether she had succeeded in snaring the young French director for her latest project, she said she didn’t know. He was in demand, however briefly, and fielding other big offers. After an interval of silence, she seemed to suddenly awaken, saying she had just read that I had been attacked while arresting a serial murderer.
“It was nothing,” I didn’t want to go into it.
“Nothing!” Noel replied. “He nearly blew her brains out!”
“Really!” Miriam replied. “How modest.”
“It’s sounds a lot worse than it was,” I replied.
“Show her your bruises!” Noel said excitedly.
“They’re really nothing.”
As if I were a life-size doll, Noel and Miriam proceeded to pull up my shirt and spun me around so they could see the welts on my stomach and the bright scratches along my belly, as well as the colorful bruises on my back.
“Oh, Gladyss!” Noel impulsively changed the subject. “Because of you, Crispin and I are doing another fashion show.”
“Me?” I asked, rearranging my clothes.
“Yep. The Venezia incident got us even more press than the runway fist fight. Another designer called Crispin’s agent and asked if we would strut our sexy stuff on his runway.”
“Who is this?” Miriam asked.
“Loot. He’s a gangsta rap producer but he has a hot new winter line. He’s premiering it on the last day of Fashion Week.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Not only am I not kidding, you’ve got to come too. Everyone will want to see the fashion policewoman who keeps the drugged-up models in line.”
I thought about telling him I was awaiting possible disciplinary action over the incident, I simply moaned.
“We can go to his party at Cithaeron’s afterward,” Noel added, namedropping the latest hot downtown club.
Miriam asked the question that was upper most on my mind. “Is Venezia going to be there?”
“She’s gone into hiding. The sex video was bad enough, but the negative publicity from almost being arrested for drug abuse on the runway . . . Well, her family are really pissed. Her grandfather has threatened to re-inherit her just so he can disinherit her again.”
“Poor kid,” she said with a sneer.
“Did you see the sex tape?” Noel asked me.
I shook my head as Miriam asked, “So when’s this rap fashion show?”
“Thursday at five. It’s going to be big.”
“And he’s doing it to publicize Fashion Dogs?”
“Kind of. It’s called Fashion Dogs on the Catwalk,” he repeated. “In addition to showing his debut line, Loot is having us walk actual dogs down the runway.”
“Is he getting any other stars out there?”
“Oh yeah, he’s paying Beneathra twenty-five grand to sit in the front row, to help him gain visibility for his clothes.”
“Wow, I’d sit there for twenty-five bucks,” Miriam joked.
Noel turned to me. “You really have to be there.”
“Actually, my boss ordered me to break up with you.”
“I’m not kidding!”
“He can’t do that,” Noel said.
“Technically, he can. Apparently sleeping with you is unethical.”
He started laughing.
“I’m serious, you’re a s—”
Instead of saying suspect, I said “star.”
“It’s unethical to date a star?”
“That’s economic discrimination!” Miriam said.
It occurred to me that my thirty-day stint in homicide was effectively coming to an end on the very day of this show. I had an appointment to get my eyes measured that day, then on the Friday I was having the Lasik surgery, and the following Monday I’d be back in uniform with O’Ryan, the emotional snowman. “Look, I don’t even have a dress.”
“The girl definitely needs a dress,” Miriam said, “Last year some big actress was turned away for looking too grungy.”
“What’s your size?”
“I’m a four.”
“Perfect,” Noel said. “I happen to have an incredible Roberto Cavalli in a size four, just waiting for you.”
“You’re kidding!” I’d never heard of a boyfriend getting his girl a great dress.
“I hope you two aren’t running off,” Miriam fretted, apparently fearful of being alone except for the servants.
“Oh no, we’ll stay till dawn,” Noel soothed her. “There’s nothing like watching the sun come up over Central Park. The entire gorge just fills with copper light!”
“It’s true,” Miriam said to me. “Because of the surrounding high rises, Central Park resembles the Grand Canyon at that hour. We’ll have breakfast and watch.”
Miriam led us into her study, where Noel flopped onto her antique divan, and after a brief spell of conversation passed out. After a little while, Miriam excused herself, presumably to go to bed. So much for the dramatic breakfast. Softly I whispered to my date that I had to go home.
“Back to him, huh?” he said, his eyes still closed, half-intoxicated.
“Who?”
“What cop?”
“You know, that handsome brute who knocked me down when I first met you. Maggie said you two were dating.”
“I can’t believe Maggie told you that,” I said, pissed. “We went on one date and it didn’t go well.”
“Why not?” He asked earnestly, making me aware that I hadn’t revealed the two big secrets that had sunk my big night with Eddie—that I was a twin, and that I’d been a virgin.
“I’m still not sure,” I answered.
“So you were lovers?”
“Actually, we weren’t.”
“You can admit it, I don’t care.”
“It’s just not true! In fact . . .” I stopped just short of telling him.
“In fact what?” he pushed.
“Until you and I did it, I was a virgin,” I finally confessed.
His mouth fell open.
“It’s no big deal, I was glad to lose it.”
“Are you religious?”
“I sure am, and now you’ll have to marry me.”
He froze for a minute. When I broke out laughing, he didn’t join in.
“You know what,” he said looking at his wristwatch. “It’s late and I probably should get you home.”
“But I thought—”
“You’re not the only one that has to get up tomorrow. Hell, I’m not even going to sleep, I have a packed bag in the back of the car and I’m going straight to the airport. We’re doing a couple of days of preliminary shooting for a new film in Florida tomorrow morning.”
Noel hadn’t mentioned this before, and I didn’t believe him now, but I kept it together. He called the car, which was out front in a flash. The silence thickened as we went downstairs and the car sped south.
“I’m really sorry,” he finally spoke as we pulled up outside my building.
“For what?”
“I didn’t mean to sound cavalier. A lot has happened recently, with Venezia and all, and . . . I didn’t know you were a virgin.” I went limp as he hugged me and murmured, “That’s why you stopped me the first time, isn’t it?”
“Look,” I said, “you didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m not expecting anything from you.”
“Well maybe you should. You deserve someone a lot better than me.”
“Is this your gentle way of dumping me?”
“Only if you’re not joining me on Loot’s catwalk,” he said with a smile. “I’m getting you a really nice dress.”
“Why is everyone so freaked out about my virginity?”
“The truth is, I’m pissed at myself.”
“Why?”
“It’s just that . . . Well, call me sentimental, but to me there’s something sacred about the first time. I mean, all the other times in life are just other times, but the first time should be special. And frankly I was kind of shitfaced and I guess initiating sex with a woman who was technically unconscious isn’t very thoughtful.”
“Technically it’s illegal.”
“I just wish you’d told me up front that you were a virgin. I would’ve made sure and done it right.”
I assured him there was no need to feel guilty. Hell, he had done me a favor. He looked away, and I realized he was actually ashamed. I really didn’t understand the man at all. He got out of the car, saw me to my door, and kissed me tenderly on the cheek.
Even if I did see him at the rap fashion show, I had a sinking feeling that we were over. I watched him get back in his clean, rented car, and then he was gone. Feeling isolated, I called Carl to see how he was doing. As though he had eavesdropped on me, he immediately asked: “You don’t really think you’re the goddess of the hunt, do you?”
“Why would you ask me that?”
“I just spoke about it to my shrink, and he said he’s had clients who believed they were figures from history and mythology.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah—and he says it’s always a sign of some kind of psychosis.”
“I just meant that I’d found some weird similarities between me and Diana—fact-based stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Well, we’re both tall blondes, both twins, and . . .”—I was about to tell him about my lost virginity, but I couldn’t face it—“both guardians of females, in different ways.”
“Everything I told you about Bloomberg getting elected due to the 9/11 attacks was based in fact too, but you hung up on me.”
“Actually, I didn’t. I fell asleep.”
“Gladyss, I’m only saying that hallucinations, delusions . . . I mean, I’ve been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and those things are classic early warning signs.”
“If I experience any more of it, I’ll seriously consider getting help, but”— my voice took on a severe tone—“if you start nagging me about this, and that’s what you usually do, your calls will go straight to voicemail and your messages will get deleted.”
“Okay,” he conceded.
When I arrived at work the next morning, Bernie hadn’t come in.
Annie tried to reach him on the phone, but he didn’t pick up. Alex said he probably needed some alone time, so the three of us started working through Miriam’s oddball list of people who’d talked trash about Marilyn.
Without even leaving the office, we discovered that three of the eight suspects had died of old age. Two more might as well have been dead, insofar as they couldn’t possibly have committed the killings—one was suffering from second-stage Alzheimer’s, and the other had been an invalid for some years. A further suspect had moved to Montenegro twenty years ago, which left us with only two. The first fellow was a man named Glen Mueller, who according to Miriam was still in his seventies. As with Sam Wochenskil, we located him via the phone book. It felt kind of pointless, but Annie and I headed over to Mueller’s place while Alex remained at the precinct, tracking down the whereabouts of the last suspect on Miriam’s list.
Mueller lived in an Upper East Side walk-up. He was a semi-retired sports reporter. He opened the door wearing a loosely cinched terry cloth robe and filthy flip flops. He had a small cigar in his yellowish mouth and he seemed to have a speck in his left eye, which he kept tightly shut.
“I just got out of the shower,” he said, gingerly touching a towel to his thinning gray hair. “Come on in.” He turned away from us and walked to his medicine cabinet. A moment later he spun back to face us with both eyes wide open.
“Sorry ladies,” he said, pointing to his left eye, “I always take it out in the shower—it’s glass. So how can I help you?”
In his living room I saw that he had turned TV trays into his primary furnishing. Two televisions were on, both tuned to sports channels and muted. He didn’t turn them off, but he didn’t look at them either.
“We’re investigating a murder,” Annie began, “do you know a Mrs. Miriam Williams?”
“Miriam Williams?” he said, flipping through the Rolodex of his memory. “Oh yeah, I was married to a woman in the early Seventies who was a friend of hers. Was she killed or something?”
“No, she’s fine. Do you remember the last time you saw Miriam?”
“It had to be a while ago, because I remember meeting Jackie Onassis at her place.” Mueller took a seat in an old, over-upholstered leather chair and flipped off one of the TVs with a very small remote.
“Mr. Mueller, can you tell us where you were on the evening of February 23rd this year?”
He sighed. “Look, if I have to get up and find out what the hell I was doing on February 23rd, I’d at least like to know why?”
“That’s the date of a murder we’re investigating,” Annie said. It was the day on which Jane Hansen had been butchered.
“Good enough.” He went over to his desk, rubbed out his miniature cigar, and flipped through an appointment book.
“I was staying with my kid brother Louie and his wife, along with their three kids and their families, on Martha’s Vineyard from the 20th until the 27th,” he replied. “We sat around the fireplace, drank cognac and watched TV. If you want, I can give you his number.”
“That should do fine,” Annie said.
On the ride back to the precinct, Annie commented that ninety percent of this job consisted of colorful interviews that led to dead ends.
“Officer Chronou?” I heard as we stepped into the office.
I turned to see a pair of heavy-set, dark-suited men; they looked like pallbearers for a mafia funeral.
“I’m Lieutenant Lucas, this is Detective Paste, Internal Affairs,” he showed his shield. “You got a minute?”
Annie gave a tense smile. Silently they led me down a corridor into an empty interrogation room. O’Ryan had warned me that this day would come. And more than once, Bernie had told me to drop Noel Holden. The Page Six item must’ve been the last straw.
Three chairs were arranged around a small table, but I was the only one who sat down. Thoughts were racing through my head, and quickly a mitigating mea culpa came together: I’d met Noel Holden while on the job. Initially I considered him a suspect, but once I cleared him, I realized I liked him. Of course, I couldn’t say any of that. I wondered if I could bargain with them: Let me just go back to NSU and I’ll write parking tickets till I die.
“Officer Chronou, you’ve kind of become Detective Farrell’s partner over the last few weeks,” Paste began.
“Huh?”
“Since Bert Kelly died, you’ve probably been partnered with him more than anyone else.”
“Okay . . .”
“We’ve been getting a steady stream of complaints about him, allegations of abuse.” Lucas said. He seemed to be the lead.
“If you’re talking about O’Flaherty, the man had just tried to rape and kill me, so—”
“We are talking about O’Flaherty, yes,” Lucas interrupted. “Considering what he did to you, we’re prepared to let that one pass. But unfortunately there are half a dozen other complaints, too, apparently without any such mitigating factors. And they seem to keep on coming.”
“Like who?”
“For one, an entrepreneur from Brooklyn named Charles Barnett.”
Paste pulled out a Polaroid photo of a man with a black eye and a split lip. It was Youngblood, who Bernie had beaten up outside Port Authority.
“He just filed a law suit against the NYPD for half a million dollars.”
“Give me a break,” I said, trying to act like it was all utterly ridiculous.
“Look, we know you’re not going to turn him in,” said Paste. “And hopefully he still hasn’t done anything that he could lose his shield for. But when the time comes that he seriously hurts someone and is facing jail time, and loss of pension, not to mention a civil suit that takes whatever assets he has, you should remember this moment when we came to you and asked you to help your partner.”
“Bernie’s rough, but he’s not corrupt or anything. And there’s no way I’m going against him,” I said, feeling like a thousand cliché characters in a thousand crime films.
“We just need you to swear to a lesser charge, enough to get him off the street.”
“You want me to help you force him to retire?”
“You know what’s worse than living off your pension? Not living off of it.” Lucas said.
“And even worse than that,” said Paste, “Is spending your golden years in an eight by ten cell, surrounded by vengeful guys competing with each other to take out the cop.”
“Is that it?” I said, rising to my feet.
“Look,” Lucas said quietly. “Bernie has been around since the bad old days when this place was hell. No one wants to hurt him. But he’s sick. Physically and in other ways, we both know that. You might think we’re the bad guys, but we really want what’s best for the guy.”
I had nothing to say, so I walked out. My thirty-day assignment ended tomorrow, then this would be someone else’s nightmare. I returned to my desk and checked the voicemail on my cell. Surprisingly, I had seven messages. The first message was a tense one from Eddie O’Ryan asking me to call him back; no doubt he wanted to warn me yet again about the IAD interview, which hadn’t even targeted me. A relaxed message followed from Noel, telling me not to be shaken by the press and saying he was looking forward to seeing me back at Bryant Park for the big “Fashion Dogs on the Catwalk” show tomorrow afternoon. The other messages were from tabloid and TV reporters, including Access Hollywood and the National Enquirer. I couldn’t think how they got my private number.
The temperature had dropped precipitously by the end of the day, as I dashed across to the yoga studio, where I had a good workout with the skinny, dough-eyed substitute. Exhausted, I went home, showered, had a high-protein low-carb dinner, and dove into my layers of comforters and sheets. I had just fallen asleep when my cell chimed. The display said Angry Bastard, the name I’d assigned to Bernie’s number.
“What’s up?”
“I . . . I . . . not f-f-feeling too g-g-good,” I could hear his teeth chattering.
“Near . . . p-p-precinct.” He sounded drunk, but before I could ask him anything else, his phone cut out. When I tried calling back I got his voicemail. I was worried he’d freeze, considering his constantly congested lungs, so I called the station. When the desk sergeant picked up, I introduced myself and explained that Detective Farrell was intoxicated nearby in his parked car.
“Old Bern’s fine,” the sergeant replied. “He sleeps there all the time.”
“But it’s really freezing tonight. Can’t somebody just bring him inside. He can sleep on the sofa in his office.”
“See what I can do.”
Fifteen minutes later, I still couldn’t sleep, so I called the precinct again. The overpaid armed receptionist said he still hadn’t been able to get anyone to track Bernie down. So much for watching each other’s backs.
I got dressed and headed outside. When I exhaled, my breath was white. I caught a taxi, and five minutes later I was up by the precinct on Thirty-fifth and Ninth. I walked around the corner and there, in front of one of the few remaining 24-hour porn video arcades, illegally parked, was Bernie’s battered Buick.
He was curled up in the front seat, and didn’t wake up even when I opened his door. It was easy to see how he had gotten mugged. He was shivering beneath a polyester and cotton sports jacket. His lips had turned blue. I tried to turn on his car engine, but it wouldn’t start.
“What’s going on?” he muttered.
“Come on, stakeout’s over.”
I helped him to his feet, hailed a cab, and pushed him into the backseat.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
After fruitlessly interrogating Bernie for his home address, I ended up taking him back to my humble abode. He obediently staggered upstairs.
“Where was I when you were my age?” he asked drunkenly as I opened my apartment door.
I pulled out the pullout in my living room and pushed him onto it, then gingerly removed his shoes. Maybe because he was freezing, or because my nose was stuffy, his foot didn’t smell quite so bad. As I covered him with a blanket, I could hear Maggie in her apartment, laughing it up with her latest French tickler. I jumped back into my bed for the second time and fell asleep right away.
Around three in the morning I was woken by the delicate sounds of Bernie retching his guts out in the bathroom. Once he stopped, I went back to sleep.
When I awoke a while later, I realized he was in bed with me. Considering he was probably still more drunk than awake, and my bedroom door was next to the bathroom, it seemed like a genuine mistake. I tried to get him awake enough to move back to the sofa bed, but he seemed totally out of it, even more so than I had been with Noel. I peeked under the sheets and saw he was wearing his boxers and T-shirt. A gold Saint Christopher’s medal was around his neck. Every godparent in the outer boroughs seemed to loop one around their godson’s neck at confirmation.
There was plenty of space between us, so since he was already snoring away, I left him where he was.
A few hours later, when he flopped his arm over me, I woke up enough to push him back. As I was drifting back into sleep, I could hear little Maggie making noisy, squeaky love. I pulled the pillow over my head, ignoring the bumping and groaning, but slowly my sleep thinned out.
“Sueee—” I suddenly heard.
The cry was cut short, as if Maggie had abruptly covered his mouth. It couldn’t be Crispin. Both he and Noel were out of town, though they were supposed to return later today for Fashion Dogs on the Catwalk. Yet it had to be Crispin. Who else could it be? Then I remembered her asking about dating Noel. Maggie just didn’t seem like Noel’s type. But then I recalled her saying she was going to break up with Crispin and clearly remembered her confidently asking if she could sleep with Noel, as if he had already made advances.
As her bed hammered against our common wall, the fear was driven deeper into my skull that she wasn’t with Crispin at all. I recalled Noel’s astounded face when I mentioned that Maggie had asked me if she could sleep with him and suddenly realized it wasn’t outrage he was displaying but restrained joy. As her groans of ecstasy grew increasingly louder and shorter, I found myself bouncing between terror and fury.
It would explain why Maggie had told Noel about my brief encounter with Eddie O’Ryan. More particularly it accounted for her sudden change of style: until recently she’d been a shapely brunette who never made too much of it. Suddenly—voilà, she’d transformed herself into a flamboyant blonde, more in the Venezia Ramada mold.
What was wrong with me? Wasn’t I sexy enough? Or feminine enough? Too tall? Too tomboyish? If I got electrolysis and coconut-shaped implants, perhaps then I’d hold onto Noel.
I had a sudden impulse to clean and organize my clothes right now, but before I could act on it, I heard Maggie’s front door creak open. By the time I raced to my door and peeped through the eye-hole, her lover was gone. I rushed to my window in time to see a cab zoom off. I returned to bed pissed and lay there for about an hour, churning and stewing in my own angry juices. Finally I just tried breathing, Kundalini-style, in a series of short shallow breathes, to release my anguish. This must’ve been the reason that Artemis, who I’d learned was the Greek equivalent of Diana, had asked Zeus to spare her the temptations of the flesh and grant her a life of serene spinsterhood.
The hyperventilation must’ve stirred Bernie, because he suddenly turned over and pulled me firmly toward him. I was about to shove him away, but it felt surprising good to be held tight, despite the strong smell of cheap alcohol.
Bernie was a decent, sensitive guy masquerading as an asshole—most men were just the opposite. Although for some reason I trusted him, I couldn’t help but think that the IA boys had a point. Either he was going to wind up hurting someone, or he would get hurt himself. With his partner’s death and his own impending divorce, he must’ve felt humanity itself had left him high and dry. He was long overdue for a break. Maggie’s lusty moans were still ringing in my ears, which was undoubtedly one reason why I felt as sensitive as a blister about to burst.
As I reached around into his boxers and felt his coiled masculinity, I knew I was making a massive mistake. Still I gently rattled it like a roll of quarters until it outgrew my hand.
“Huh?” he uttered as I rolled him onto his back. “What’s going on?”
I knelt and pulled my underwear to one side, then stretched over him and slowly took him in.
“You?” He squinted at me.
“If you don’t mind. . .”
“Uh, well . . .” He didn’t resist.
As I continued working him into me, he said, “Hold it a minute. If you keep doing that, I mean, I won’t be able to . . .”
“You want to . . .”
I shifted positions so I was on my back, and let him slowly assume the dominant position. Once his bad foot was carefully placed like a scaly tail behind him, so that he was safely on his knees, he started moving quickly, breaking out in a sweat like spring rain.
He pounded away for a few minutes then suddenly had to dismount. Before I could towel off all his sweat, he stumbled out of the room and quickly returned with his inhaler. He took three deep breaths from it, then got back to work as though he had just taken vaporized Viagra. In addition to enjoying the wonderful sensations, I loved the fact that the head of my bed was slapping against Maggie’s wall for once. I let out some retaliatory moans.
Given how much booze Bernie must have drunk, as well as his reduced lung capacity and sore hoof, I was really impressed with his stamina. As he hastened toward liftoff, I couldn’t resist shouting: “FUCK ME BABY!”
Then I suddenly realized I didn’t have protection: “Wait! Don’t come in me!”
He pulled out and, one jerk later, spewed his DNA all over my belly. Then he collapsed next to me, covered in sweat. We both lay still for a few moments as if after a car crash. Then, through the wall, I thought I heard the muted cry, “Fucker!”
I wiped off and listened intently.
“Everything okay?” Bernie asked, watching me listen to the wall.
“Glorious,” I whispered and went into the shower.
Afterward, as I toweled off, I felt reluctant to go back into the bedroom. When I finally took a deep breath and opened the door, wrapped in a towel, Bernie had pulled on his boxers and was sitting on the end of the bed.
“If the world wasn’t spinning, I’d hold you in my arms and tell you how gorgeous you are,” he said, which didn’t make me feel any better.
“I just figured we could both use a little pick-me-up,” I replied with my back to him, pulling on my bra and panties.
In another moment, he lumbered into the shower and I was already dressed.
I couldn’t make eye contact with Bernie as we put on our coats. He joked that it was “a good foot day” as I rushed us out the door and along the slippery intersections to a nearby diner on Seventh Avenue. Bernie grabbed a booth. Without looking at him, I asked the waitress for a black coffee, even though I always had tea in the morning. He ordered a full egg-and-sausage breakfast.
“Either you’ve inexplicably fallen in love with me and want to go to City Hall right now and get married, or you’d like to pretend nothing happened and never mention this again. I’d be fine with the former, but by the fact that you can’t make eye contact I’m sensing you’d prefer the latter.”
I didn’t utter a sound.
“Sooo . . . Since nothing interesting happened lately, what shall we talk about?” he said calmly.
“Actually there is something that’s been nagging at me for a while.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“How did you know it was him?”
“How did I know who was who?”
“We dragged O’Flaherty to the precinct, locked him up, checked his room, and got zilch. Then, based on a brief conversation with a Con Ed worker, you had us go over to his room, wait several hours, and stake it out. What made you do that?”
He shrugged. “Intuition.”
“See, that’s the kind of thing that drives me nuts,” I said. “I’ve been trying to sharpen my intuition, but all I came up with was this insane idea.”
“What insane idea?”
I knew I shouldn’t bring it up, but since this was our final day working together, it didn’t seem like I had anything to lose.
“Do you remember that postcard he had on his wall, of the goddess of the hunt?”
“Yeah, the not Evelyn Nesbit statue.”
“Well, the killer’s name, O’Flaherty’s first name, is Nessun.”
“So? It’s a typical Irish name.”
“Except there’s a Greek myth featuring a centaur called Nessus. He was responsible for the death of Hercules.”
“Oh God, you’re not going to say he went to the Hogwart Academy or some crap like that?”
“No, I’m just saying there was similarities between the Greek myth and—”
“Only I’m not Hercules and he didn’t try to kill me? No, wait!” He was mocking me. “He tried killing you, so that means you’re Hercules.”
“Actually, it was your old partner I was thinking of.” No sooner had I said that than I remembered Annie had asked me to keep the story from Bernie.
“How’d you know that?” he said, surprising me.
“Know what?”
“Did you go through the boxes in my office?”
“No. You mean, the files from your old cases?”
“Not just my old cases. In fact, they were mainly Bert’s. The man always made copious notes. After we first interviewed O’Flaherty, I was going through the files and happened to find something Bert wrote about the son of a bitch long ago.”
“What did he say?” I wondered if Bernie had already learned what Daisy had told us about Juanita Lopez, whom his partner would eventually marry.
“He didn’t say nothing, he simply underlined the man’s name three times. But for Bert, I knew that was it. He knew the man was dangerous.”
“How long ago did he write that?”
“Decades ago, before O’Flaherty even went to jail. But Herbert Kelly was the real deal. Talk about intuition—that man had a super-human power. On that night when the Con Ed man mentioned him, I just thought this is worth following.”
“Amazing.”
“But he didn’t kill Bert,” Bernie said.
“Yeah, it just all struck me as odd.”
“But how did you know that Bert knew O’Flaherty?”
“I didn’t,” I said simply and sipped my coffee.
“Why do I sense that there’s something more to this that you’re not telling me?”
“Okay, there is,” I bullshitted. “But it’s not easy to talk about.”
“Just say it.”
“All right,” But there was no way I was going to try to launch into all the myth stuff again. I took a sip of coffee and said: “If you don’t cut the shit, you’re going to get into big trouble.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Two cops from IA interviewed me yesterday.”
“I warned you. Everyone saw that news item about you at the fashion show—”
“Actually, they were asking me about you.”
“Huh?”
“They said they’d racked up a bunch of complaints about you.”
Without looking at me, he slurped down the remainder of his coffee as though it were hydrochloric acid. He’d completely forgotten about Nessun and his old partner.
“I told them you were fine, but you’re not, and you know it.”
“Okay, my foot makes me a little cranky and—”
“It’s not just your foot, or your cough, or Bert’s death, or your wife leaving you . . .”
Without hearing another word, he dropped a crumpled ten on the table without even breaking his victory yolks and stomped out the door.
I pulled on my coat and ran after him. We walked together in silence for a while. After a few blocks, I was surprised to hear him listing a number of tasks he wanted me to finish up with Alex and Annie. I’d assumed he knew.
“Bernie,” I interrupted him. “This is it.”
“This is what?”
“Today’s my last day.”
“What?”
“I’m leaving in five minutes for my ophthalmologist’s appointment. And tomorrow I’ve taken a personal day to have my eye surgery.”
“Okay, when you come in on Monday—”
“My thirty days are over,” I interrupted. “Monday I’m back in Neighborhood Stabilization.”
“Oh fuck, I meant to extend your assignment,” he muttered. When I didn’t respond, he added, “Look, all the bullshit aside, you’ve become a significant part of this task force. And there’s still a killer out there.”
“Bernie, I know you’ve recently gone through a lot, and now your department’s trying to push you out, but I’m just saying, maybe if you considered going to AA or anger management—”
“Arrivederci, kid,” he said and limped away faster than I would have thought possible. It must’ve hurt like hell.
I watched him hopping north toward the precinct and felt bad that in trying to help, I’d only added to his pain. I headed east and caught a subway uptown.
Twenty minutes later I was at my doctor’s office. His assistant brought me into an examination room and told me to sit in an upholstered chair. The doctor put drops in my eyes to dilate my pupils, then swung a large black armature plate over my face that was fitted with a series of lenses. Through a tiny eyepiece he seemed to stare into my very soul, seeing all the guilty little secrets I had accumulated there. As he carefully measured the different parts of my eyes, I couldn’t stop thinking about the events of the past month.
“Try to take it easy,” he said. “Stay away from bright lights until your pupils have time to return to normal.” He gave me a pair of sunglasses to wear that looked like they were meant for welders.
I went home and lay down for a few minutes. Without intending to, I dozed off. I was briefly awakened by my cell phone’s chime, but I saw it was Carl and let it go to voicemail. When I awoke, it was six p.m. and I realized I was late for the fashion show.
I got the train to Times Square, then pushed through the busy midtown streets toward Bryant Park. Fearful that I wouldn’t be able to find him, I called Noel.
“I just arrived,” he said. “Meet me at the stone stairs on the east side of Sixth Avenue and Forty-first.”