III

A Singular-Choice Question

Bettinger watched two grimacing members of a cleaning service mount a ladder and apply brushes to the suicide’s final remark. The young officer who had received a vomit crown and matching epaulets had departed early, shaken by his experience while the lobotomized corpse was taken to a place that had steel doors, an astringent smell, and digital thermometers that displayed low temperatures in both Celsius and Fahrenheit scales.

The detective opened the package that he had moments ago retrieved from the vending machine. Footfalls garnered his attention, and a man cleared his throat.

“The inspector wants to see you.”

“I’ll never eat these goddamn cakes.”

“I think you’ll have some time. The way the inspector said your name, maybe a great big heap of it.”

Bettinger faced Big Tom, whose nickname referred to his impressive belly rather than his altitude, which was that of a Chinese woman. At that moment, the detective realized how much the senior clerk’s head resembled an onion.

“The inspector’s upset?” inquired Bettinger, more curious than concerned.

“Right after he summoned you, there was a thunderclap.” The clerk motioned to a window. “But the skies look pretty clear.”

Together, the two men retreated up the hall and entered the central pool, where a dozen officers glanced at Bettinger. As he secreted the cinnamon cakes in his jacket, a heaviness pressed down upon his shoulders.

“Maybe you’ll have time to make pastries from scratch,” remarked Big Tom. “Knead your own dough. Monitor the oven. Harvest sugar cane.”

“I tried to help the guy.” Bettinger attempted to sound sincere. “Honest.”

“Don’t be offended if I remove you from my list of emergency contacts.”

A few more strides brought them to Big Tom’s desk, where the porcine fellow heaved his rump into a plastic chair. Bettinger continued to the door nearby, closed his right fist, and knocked directly below a plaque that read INSPECTOR KERRY LADELL.

“Bettinger?”

“Yeah.”

“Get in here.” The tone of the imperative did not engender positive extrapolations.

The detective took a breath, twisted the doorknob, and pushed, revealing an office that had more pine and oak than a forest. Sitting behind the desk in a brown leather chair was Inspector Ladell, long and saturnine, his lips pursed beneath his silver mustache and baleful eyes.

“What the fuck did you say to Robert Fellburn?”

The words flew at Bettinger like bullets, eliciting glances from the central pool. “Should I close the door?”

“Answer my fucking question.”

The detective shut the door.

“Don’t sit.”

“It’s that kind of conversation?”

“Fellburn came in here for help, walked into your office, walked out, killed himself.”

“Fellburn got squeezed by a black pro half his age. I illuminated the situation and offered some advice.”

“Was it, ‘Kill yourself’?”

“I told him to forget the money and move on.”

“He moved.” Inspector Ladell glanced up at the ceiling.

Bettinger sat in the chair that had been forbidden to him. “Why’re you coming at me like this? He was an idiot.”

“You know John Carlyle?”

The detective’s stomach sank. “The mayor?”

“Not the second baseman who struck out forty-one times during his brief stint in the majors back in 1932.”

Bettinger knew that this crummy conversation was about to get a whole lot worse.

Inspector Ladell popped a mint into his mouth. “Here’s a singular-choice question for you. Guess who was married to Mayor Carlyle’s sister up until a couple of months ago?” The boss sucked his confection. “Choice A. The man who came in here for help, walked into your office, walked out, killed himself.”

“Fuck.”

“That’s the right word. ‘Fuck.’” Inspector Ladell nodded. “Maybe if you’d said something nice to him, we wouldn’t be using all this profanity.”

“What does this mean?”

“Nothing good.” The boss gave the mint a tour of his mouth. “Most politicians don’t want to be associated with infidelity or suicide or hookers, and this Fellburn casserole’s got all three ingredients.”

“There’s stink.”

“When the mayor found out about it, he called the police commissioner directly.” Inspector Ladell clicked the mint against a tooth as if he were cocking a gun. “Please take a moment to imagine the nature of this call.”

Bettinger’s extrapolation was instantaneous. “Where am I?”

“Did you see these?” the boss asked as he opened a catalogue and set it upon the edge of his desk. A finger poked a glossy photograph in which a woman who was far too pretty to be a police officer modeled a bulletproof vest. “A good one saves lives,” the fellow remarked, turning pages until he reached a dog-eared photograph of a hunk who held a sleek assault rifle in his well-manicured hands. “And guns that don’t jam are helpful when people are trying to kill you.”

Inspector Ladell closed the catalogue, leaned over, and dropped it in a garbage pail.

“Because of you,” he continued, “we lost all of that gear—shit I’ve been lobbying for since the time when black presidents were science fiction. And incredibly enough, that’s not even the worst part. Commissioner Jeffrey is now no longer certain that the mayor will approve our new benefits package.”

“Christ’s uncle,” remarked Bettinger.

Inspector Ladell reclined in his leather seat. “The commissioner and I talked. He believes that the mayor would appreciate us getting rid of a certain detective.” The boss crushed the mint with his teeth and swallowed the shards. “Want another singular-choice question?”

No words came out of Bettinger’s mouth.

“Is there any chance that you might just disappear somewhere?”

“As in teleport?”

Inspector Ladell nodded. “Something like that.”

“Never learned how.”

“Anything you can overdose on? Some medication your wife takes?”

“No. She’s very healthy.”

“That’s unfortunate.”

Bettinger needed a solid answer. “Does all this mean I’m fired?”

“I called around. Said I had a bloodhound that does really good work, a top-notch sleuth that shit on a priceless rug and can’t stay in the house anymore.” Inspector Ladell opened a drawer. “You know anything about Missouri?”

Chills tingled the nape of the fifty-year-old detective. He hated cold weather and thought that people who chose to live in it were aliens. Reluctantly, Bettinger pushed the conversation forward. “It’s a place, right?”

“Achieved statehood a while back. Has a city in the northeast part called Victory. Heard of it?”

“Has anybody?”

“Part of the rustbelt. Had a future back when Asians were Orientals.” The boss hitched his shoulder, and a manila file slid across his desk, stopped, and overhung the precipice like a diving board. “When you flush a toilet in Missouri, that’s where it goes.”

Bettinger opened the folder and scanned the cover sheet, which told him that Victory had an alarming number of abductions, murders, and rapes. The city looked like a hunk of third-world flotsam that had somehow drifted into the middle of America.

“They want you,” stated Inspector Ladell. “They’re reorganizing and need a detective. If you transfer, we’ll pull the suspension.”

“I’m suspended?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” A shrug curved Inspector Ladell’s shoulders. “At this stage, I need to hurt you or the department, and I won’t even pretend there’s a dilemma. You’re an asshole. But I’m trying to give you something because you’re talented. Go to Victory. Finish your itinerary. In four years, you can retire, come back here, and throw eggs at the mayor’s house.”

“Five years.” Bettinger looked at a photo of a ghetto that resembled Nagasaki after the bomb, peopled by the black survivors of a concentration camp.

“You might be able to swing a transfer at some point, though I doubt it—they’re desperate for badges up there.”

The detective thought about his wife and children. Rubbing his temples, he looked at his boss, who had tented his long fingers.

“This is garbage.”

“It is,” replied Inspector Ladell. “And you earned it.”