Freaky Deaky (8 page)

Chris said, “Well”—taking his time—“what’s gonna make it difficult, you report a one-on-one type of situation two days later, there’s no evidence, nothing to use against him outside of your testimony.”

Greta was frowning. “What do you mean, evidence?”

“See, ordinarily, if the complainant calls us right away a radio car goes to the scene, the woman is brought to Detroit General for a physical exam and usually her panties are taken as evidence.”

“Her
pan
ties?”

“They might be torn, they might have traces of semen. Or they find semen, you know, inside the complainant. It’s checked for blood type to match against the suspect’s. But we don’t have any evidence like that, nothing.”

“So you aren’t gonna do anything.”

“I’ll call him, have him come in . . .”

“When, next week sometime? I just saw his limousine over at the theater, but you’re gonna call him when you feel like it.”

“I’ll call him as soon as we finish,” Chris said,
willing to be patient with Greta Wyatt, have a reason to look at her, listen to her talk. “I’ll have him come in, ask him if he wants to bring a lawyer. . . . You understand, we can know beyond a reasonable doubt the man’s guilty, but if we violate his rights in any way he’s gonna walk.”

Greta said, “Well, thank you very much,” getting up, pulling at her short skirt. “I already tried to see his brother, Mark. ‘Greta who?’ the girl in the office wants to know. ‘What is this about?’ I work up my nerve to come here, you’re worried about Woody’s rights being violated. Hell with mine. I wish you’d taped this so you could play it back and hear what a pathetic little weenie you sound like.”

Chris said, “Wait, okay? If I type up your statement, will you sign it?”

It didn’t seem likely. She was walking out.

“Greta, if you’ll cooperate we can at least bring him in. See if we can get him to admit it.”

That turned her around at the door.

“Woody put it a little different. He said if I’d cooperate we could fall in love.”

Chris left his dad’s Cadillac
in the lot on Macomb, across from 1300, and walked down to Galligan’s, thinking:

What kind of an impression was he making lately? There was the St. Antoine Clinic doctor accusing him of being a macho fraud if not bisexual. There was Phyllis practically calling him a pervert for going to Sex Crimes. His own dad looking at him funny, wondering why he was having so much trouble with women. Now a rape victim, a really good-looking one, had accused him of being a weenie. Walking along Beaubien in this old downtown section, past Greektown now, cars jammed into the narrow street, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Back when he was driving a radio car, a drunk, some guy being restrained from knocking the shit out of his wife, might look at Chris’s nameplate on his uniform and call him a dumb fucking Polack. But no one had ever insinuated he was a pervert or
called him a weenie. Jesus. He had never met a girl named Greta before, either.

He walked with his head down, serious, looking at the sidewalk, telling himself, Well, you go through shitty periods, things happen, you get your car stolen. . . . Things build up and you see everything at once instead of taking them one at a time. You start looking into the future and then you have doubts. The fuck are you doing? You should’ve gone into something else, computers, robotics. Right, get into something guaranteed to bore the shit out of you. Deal with
things
. Get a boat. He thought of times when he was a uniform, and kids, every once in a while, would do that number, “Your old man work? No, he’s a cop.” His dad had his own version of it. “You could’ve taken over the business, lease a new Cadillac every year.” Estimating how many yards of “ashphalt” to do a shopping center parking lot. He’d say to his dad, “What I always wanted, a new car every year,” and his dad wouldn’t get it. Except he had to admit his
dad’s Cadillac Seville wasn’t bad, sitting in there in all that quiet, effortless luxury. It beat the shit out of his Mustang that was now down south somewhere, repainted. Chris looked up and it was strange, in that moment, the way his mood suddenly changed and he came to life.

Parked at the curb next to Galligan’s, on the
Beaubien side of the two-story building, was a gray stretch limo.

He knew who the car belonged to even as he approached, walked past, and there it was confirmed on the rear end, the vanity plate that said
WOODY
. It was a nice day for a change, about 68 degrees, late-afternoon sun hot on the glass towers of the Renaissance Center, right there across Jefferson rising up seven hundred feet against a clear sky. A nice day to be out. Chris put his hands in his pants pockets and stood looking at the car with a feeling he liked. Being on the edge of something about to happen. At least the possibility. His dad had said one time, “You guys, you walk into a situation you get to quit thinking and act like cops.” Maybe there was some truth in it.

See what happens and react. There was no way to make an arrest. But the guy who’d raped the girl who called him a weenie was close by. In Galligan’s or in the car, hidden behind the black windows. Chris was standing there with his hands in his pockets when the driver appeared, rising from the street side of the limo, the driver saying, “The man should be back presently.”

“Is that right?” Chris said. “What’re you telling
me
for?”

“Say up there on the sign No Parking,” the driver said, “and you the police, aren’t you?” The guy
politely offhand about it in his tailored black suit, his white shirt and black tie. Neat mustache, hair lacquered back. . . .

But also with a dull threat in his stare, a look Chris recognized, knew all about, though he said to the guy, “I don’t know you. I remember times and places and you’re not in any of them.” Chris walked up to the limo to get a closer look across the pale gray top.

The driver shook his head back and forth, twice. “No, we never met.”

“Then it must be my sporty attire caught your eye,” Chris said. He was wearing his navy blazer with tan corduroy pants, a deep blue shirt and tie. “Is that it?”

“Must be,” the driver said. “Or how you got something wrong with your hip, make your coat stick out funny.”

Chris said, “Where’d you do your time, Jackson? Or they send you to Marquette?”

“Man, what’re you coming down on me for?”

Chris said, “Because you’re about an inch away from fucking with me, but now you know better. You’re gonna watch that attitude your parole officer told you about.”

The driver said, “Oh, man,” shaking his head. “You right out of the book. Old-time dick like all of ’em, dumb as shit.”

Chris laid his hands on the round edge of the car roof. “Where do you want to go with this?”

The driver said, “I don’t want to take it no place. I don’t want to take
nothing
. You understand what I’m saying to you?”

Chris said, “Why don’t you get in the car and drive around the block. You’ll feel better and I’ll feel better.” Chris already felt better. The driver was a stand-up guy and wanted him to know it, that’s all. Okay, Chris knew the guy and now the guy knew him, the guy still giving him the look but with a little more life in his eyes. The look with the heavy lids would be a natural part of him, his style, to warn people he was bad and they better know it. That was okay, it was probably true. But it wasn’t something between them that had to be settled. Chris said, “We’re too old and mature to get in a fist fight,” and saw the guy’s expression give a little more. The guy seemed about to say something, but then his gaze moved. Chris looked over his shoulder.

A beefy guy, his sportcoat open, trousers riding below his belly, was coming along the sidewalk from Galligan’s corner entrance. And now the driver was at the back of the car, coming around to this side to open the door. Chris had to step away. Now he saw, beyond the guy, Greta Wyatt coming, trying to run in her heels, grabbing the strap of the
handbag slipping from her shoulder. She was swinging it at the fat guy now as she caught up with him, yelling, “Chris, it’s Woody!”

Look at her, hanging on to the guy, fighting him. But what amazed Chris more than anything—she remembered his name. Yelling it again, “Chris, help me!” He was moving toward them now, hurrying as he saw Woody grab hold of her wrist in both hands and slam her, hardly with an effort, against the side of the building. Chris saw her head hit the wall, got there and caught her bouncing off, stumbling into his arms, as Woody walked past them to his car.

Chris held her against the wall now, his hands gripping her shoulders. He said, “Look at me.” Late sunlight in her face; he could see freckles beneath her makeup, her cheekbone scraped. “Can you see me?” Greta nodded, brown eyes staring at him. She seemed dazed. “Can you stand up by yourself?” She nodded again. “You better sit down.” She shook her head. “Okay, but don’t move.” He took his hands away slowly, making sure. “I’ll be right back.”

Woody was inside the limo, the driver closing the door as Chris walked up.

“Open it.”

“Nothing happened, man. Let it go.”

“Open it.”

“The lady was bothering him.”

“Lean on the car,” Chris said. “You know how, with your legs spread. You got two seconds. One . . .”

Woody’s driver said, “Let me tell you something.”

“Two . . .”

Woody’s driver said, “All right. But don’t touch me. You understand? Don’t touch me.” He turned to the car.

Chris opened the rear door. He had to stoop, lean in to see Woody in the dark against gray upholstery, the man’s size filling half the seat. Chris said, “I’m a police officer. Will you step out of the car, please?”

Woody wasn’t looking at him. He had a remote control switch in his right hand and he was watching television, the set mounted next to decanter bottles on a corner shelf behind the facing seat. Woody said, “What?”

“I said I want you to step out of the car.”

Woody frowned, his tongue moving around in his mouth. He said, “I just got in the car,” still not looking at Chris. “Didn’t I just get in? Yeah, I’m watching ‘People’s Court.’ It’s good. See, this woman says her boyfriend borrowed eighty bucks and won’t pay her back.”

Chris could smell salted peanuts. The guy was eating them from a can wedged between his fat thighs, raising his hand in a fist to his mouth, then wiping the palm of his hand on his pants.

“Sir, are you gonna step out of the car?”

Woody glanced at Chris now as he said, “I told you, I’m watching TV.”

Chris said, “You don’t get your ass out of there right now I’m gonna pull you out,” and couldn’t believe it when the guy put both of his hands over the can of peanuts, turned a shoulder to Chris and yelled, “Donnell! Who is this?”

Chris said, “I don’t want your peanuts, I want
you
.” He stared at the guy another moment before coming out of the car to see the driver looking past his shoulder at him.

“Gonna pull the man out? I have to see this.”

“He’s resisting arrest. Explain it to him.”

“You asking me to help you?”

“You’ll feel better,” Chris said. “Citizen cooperation being the key to a safer community. Tell him, he behaves I won’t cuff him.”

Donnell said, “Shit,” and smiled, showing himself for the first time. “You never gonna bring him up. Print that man, his lawyer will sue your police ass.”

“I’ve got assault on him, and that’s just for openers.”

Donnell said, “The man watches ‘People’s Court,’ on the TV? Now and again I take him to Frank Murphy, see felony exams, see a guy standing on first degree cut up his woman, it’s the same as TV to him, you dig? It’s a show. That’s the only
time, the only reason the man will ever be in a court. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Where’d he get you, Donnell?”

“We go way back.”

“Donnell what?”

“Hey, you want me or you want him?”

“I can’t make up my mind,” Chris said.

He looked over at Greta. She was watching him, holding a Kleenex to her face, her red hair on fire in the sunlight. He could see the way it winged out straight on both sides and made her slim neck look vulnerable. He could see it clearly against the tan-painted wall. Her hair, her legs in the short skirt. . . .

Chris turned, stooped and reached in for Woody, sitting in his limo eating peanuts, watching TV; said, “Come on, get outta there,” and Woody raised one leg without looking and kicked at him until Chris came out of the doorway.

Donnell said over his shoulder, “You gonna need your SWAT team.”

Chris went over to Greta holding the Kleenex to her face. She looked stoned. He brought her to the car, motioning Donnell out of the way, and opened the passenger-side front door. “You ride up here,” Chris said. “Don’t say anything to Woody, okay?”

“You’re asking a lot.”

She said it just above a whisper, looking at him. He held on to her arm, feeling a slender part of her
in his hand beneath the sweater, until she was inside, closed off behind the black glass. Donnell was waiting for Chris to look at him.

“You expect me to drive you?”

“I think you’re gonna give me some shit,” Chris said, “but in the end, yeah, you will. So why don’t you save us some time?”

“Man, I could see you coming,” Donnell said. “I say to myself, There’s one, look at him. See, even if I have any doubt, like you knew how to dress, you open your mouth you give it away.”

Chris said, “Is that it? You through?”

“Play the hard-nose dick with me. Nothing ever changes, does it? Not if you like the way it is, you the
man
, huh? You call it. Well, you fuck with that man in there, you have something to learn.”

Chris said, “Now are you through? You gonna get in?”

“I’m not driving you
no
place.”

Chris said, “Okay, don’t. When he asks me where you are, what do I tell him? You got tired and went home?”

Donnell kept looking at him but didn’t answer.

“See? You really want to drive,” Chris said. “You just didn’t know it.”

Twenty minutes from the time
Robin arrived at Mark’s apartment they were in bed. Robin’s feeling was that if you ball a guy in a limo, in a tent and in the woods your first weekend together seventeen years ago, you could be taking off your clothes as you walked in, it was going to happen. But why hurry? They planned to spend the evening together. She wasn’t surprised by Mark’s serious look—the little guy was nervous—or the way he’d gone about setting the mood with cool bossa nova and chilled wine, lamps turned low, maroon silk sheet turned back. . . . This was the drill with successful guys his age, proud of their technique but, my God, so studied with the prolonged toying, the toe-sucking, all the moves they learned in magazines to bore the shit out of the poor bimbos they picked up in singles bars. Robin went along, writhed, moaned, finally asked him, “Mark, are we gonna fuck or not?” and was happy to see the old spunk still turned him on.
Toward
the end Robin gave him authentic gasps, came down gradually as Mark twitched and shuddered, opened her eyes as she heard him say, “Wow. That was dynamite.”

Robin said, “It wasn’t bad.” She took her handbag from the bedside table into the bathroom, freshened herself and flipped the tape in the Panasonic recorder. She liked the way he referred to dynamite off the top of his head, but doubted that she had anything useful on the tape. Not yet, anyway.

Mark came out of his walk-in closet with two identical black silk robes, checked the size of one and gave it to Robin: phase two of the young executive drill, his-and-her shorty robes, playsuits worn over bare skin. They went into the living room and became part of it, Robin realized, blending with the silver and black decor, chrome and glossy black fabrics, black and white graphics on the wall she believed were nudes. Robin moved toward the big window, an evening sky outside, and Mark, pouring wine, said, “You’ve seen the river. It hasn’t changed.” He looked up and said, “You haven’t either. Come here.” Robin obeyed, joined him on the sofa, placed her handbag on the floor close between their bare legs, and let him study her profile as she stroked her braid and gazed out at the black and silver room.

He said, “You really haven’t changed.”

Robin remained silent.

He said, “You turn me on.”

Robin said, “Maybe it’s the robe.”

“You like it, it’s yours.”

“Thanks, Mark, but it feels used. If I want a robe I’ll get my own.”

He liked that, shining his brown eyes at her. He liked her attitude, she began to realize, because he wanted some of it to rub off on him.

“I’m not kidding, you really turn me on.”

She said, “That’s what I’m here for.”

“I don’t mean just in bed.”

She said, “I know what you mean.”

He told her she made him feel different, got him worked up again the way she used to during the movement days when they were raising hell, running a campus revolution. He told her he felt the same way now, he could look at her and get high.

Aw, that was nice. It softened her mood. She said, “I missed you, Mark.” She said it was weird, the feeling that she had to see him again. “Why now, after so many years?”

“I could feel it too,” Mark said. He told her it was like some kind of extrasensory communication. Like they were thinking of each other at the same time and the energy of it, like some kind of force, drew them together. He told her that when he
walked into Brownie’s his mind had flashed instantly on everything they did together during that time. And now when he thought of her he’d feel a rush, like he could do anything he wanted.

“You can,” Robin said. “What’s the problem?” Making it sound as though there wasn’t one.

“I told you: Woody.”

Mark said that at this point in time she was the only person he could talk to, because she knew where he was coming from, the way it used to be with Woody, Woody always there but sort of tagging along, never part of the action. He told her this was the reason he’d brought it up the other night, his situation, Woody holding him down, smothering him.

“I felt you reaching out,” Robin said.

“People don’t understand. Guys I have lunch with at the DAC, they’re into investments, venture capital, they don’t know from rock concerts. That’s what I want to do, produce concerts. But why should I have to bust my ass, go out and borrow money when it’s right there, in the family? When it’s as much mine as his?”

“It’s a matter of principle,” Robin said.

“Exactly. You know how long I’ve been carrying him?”

“Forever,” Robin said. “But why doesn’t Woody want to do rock concerts? Why
Seesaw?
”

“Yeah, or
The Sound of Music
, for Christ sake,
Oklahoma!
He’s the one comes up with these dinosaurs, but I’m the producer, it’s my name goes on the playbill.”

“Not exactly hip,” Robin said. “It looks to me like he’s trying to get you to quit.”

“You ask him for money, you know how he gives it to you? He hands you the check, only he holds onto it and it’s like a tug-o’-war until he decides to let go.” Mark was starting to whine.

“He resents you,” Robin said, “your looks, your personality, everything about you.”

“I know it, he’s jealous, he’s always been. Now he’s getting back at me. It’s all he cares about. But if I weren’t there to run the show, you know what would happen? He’d fall flat on his ass.”

Robin said, “But would it hurt him?”

Mark hesitated. He said, “No,” sounding resigned, at low ebb. “Not with his hundred-million-dollar cushion.”

Now Robin paused. “That much?”

“Close to it.”

She watched him drink his wine and refill the glass. Poor little guy, he needed a mommy. She reached out and touched his arm. “Mark?” Felt his muscle tighten and took that as a good sign. “Let’s get down to what this is all about. The reason you have a wealthy two-hundred-and-fifty-
pound drunk sitting on you is because he happened to get the estate and you got screwed. But you stay close to Woody, you put up with him, because at least half that hundred million should be yours. Am I right?”

“That’s right.”

“Do you ever talk to him about it?”

“He thinks it’s funny. I tell him it isn’t fair and he grins at me.”

“So there’s no chance he’ll ever cut you in.”

“Not unless he dies.”

“I was about to ask,” Robin said. “If something happens to Woody, are you his heir?”

Mark nodded, sipping his wine.

“You assume that, or you know it for a fact?”

“That’s the way it’s set up, the trust succession. A couple of foundations get a piece of it and some aunt I don’t even know, but I get most of it. At least two-thirds.”

“Sixty million,” Robin said.

“Something like that. The trust keeps making money.”

“So now you’re waiting . . . hoping maybe he’ll drink himself to death?”

“You see how he was the other night? It could happen.”

“Yeah, but Mark, who do you think should decide your future, you or Woody’s liver?”

“That’s good,” Mark said, grinning at her. “That’s very good.”

Robin watched him look off, nodding, thinking about it. She said, “Mark?” And waited for him to come back to her, eyes shining, hopeful. “You want to hear a better one than that?”

A woman detective named Maureen Downey asked if she just happened to run into Mr. Ricks at Galligan’s. Greta said she went in when she saw his car parked there. The woman detective, Maureen, had nice teeth and appeared to be a healthy outdoor girl. Greta could see her teeth even in this dark end of the lobby that seemed like part of an empty building. The others were across the room at the counter, under the fluorescent lights: Chris Mankowski—who seemed to know what he was doing now, if he didn’t before—Woody Ricks, his driver, Donnell, and three uniformed officers, not counting the ones behind the counter. Woody Ricks had not shut up since they brought him in, but Greta could not hear what he was saying. Maureen Downey asked if she felt all right. Greta said her head hurt a little and she kept swallowing, afraid she was going to throw up, but didn’t feel too bad outside of that. Maureen said they were going to take her to the hospital. Greta said,
Oh, no. Maureen said it was just
across the street on St. Antoine; make sure she was okay. There was a commotion over at the counter. Greta saw two of the uniformed officers taking Woody by his arms, Woody trying to twist away from them. She saw Chris Mankowski pull a gun from under his coat, stuck in his pants, and hand it to the black policewoman behind the counter. He then took hold of Woody’s necktie and led him to what looked like a freight elevator at the end of the counter, the two officers still holding on to Woody’s arms. They went into the elevator and the door closed. Greta asked Maureen where they were taking him. Maureen said up to Prisoner Detention on nine. She said Mr. Ricks was not helping his case any: he’d be held overnight because of the way he was acting and be arraigned in the morning at Frank Murphy. Greta said, Oh, boy. Not too happy. She lowered her head to rest it on her hand. Maureen got up from the bench they were sitting on, saying she’d be right back, and walked over to the counter. Not a minute
later Greta looked up to see Woody’s driver, Donnell, standing in front of her. Donnell said, “You in trouble now, if you don’t know it.” Greta said, “Why don’t you go to hell.” He stood there looking down at her until she heard Maureen coming, Maureen calling Donnell by name, telling him to keep away from her. Donnell left and Maureen
said, “Did he threaten you?” Greta shook her head, swallowing. She didn’t feel like talking, not even to Maureen.

Skip remembered Robin’s mom’s house, big country place made of fieldstone and white trim with black shutters, off Lone Pine in Bloomfield Hills and worth a lot. The kind of house important executives lived in. He liked the idea of staying here but arrived bitchy; he’d been ready to come last night and Robin wasn’t home.

“I was working,” Robin said, bright-eyed, glad to see her old buddy, “and I have a tape to prove it.”

“Full of grunts and groans,” Skip said. “I know what you were doing. Me, I’m looking out the window of the Sweet Dreams Motel at car headlights. Did the farmer see me sneaking out of his barn? Shit, I don’t know. Hey, but you know what else I got, sitting right there? A sack of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. On the way back I bought a couple alarm clocks. They’re not the kind I wanted, but they’ll do.”

“When you’re happy, I’m happy,” Robin said. She showed him the way: in the side door from the attached garage and downstairs to the basement bar-recreation room, Skip with the case of Austin Powder,
Emulex 520
written on the side,
Used in 1833 and Ever Since
. Robin had his luggage, a
hanging bag and a carryon. She told him he’d have to stay down here, not wander around or fool with any of the lamps that were on timers. The Bloomfield Hills cops could know which lights were supposed to be on. “Some fun,” Skip said.

She had taken the shelves out of the refrigerator so he could slip the whole dynamite case in. Skip told her it wasn’t necessary unless she wanted it out of the way in a safe place. Robin said it was how they’d stored it back in the golden age, shoved the sticks in there with the Baggies of grass and the leftover brown rice dishes. Remember? She said, “We’d sit at the kitchen table and you’d wire the sticks to the battery and the clock while I read the directions to you out of
The Anarchist Cookbook
.”

“Like a couple of newlyweds,” Skip said. “I also picked up a lantern battery, I forgot to mention, hanging around Yale with my finger up my butt.”

“You’re ready to go,” Robin said, “aren’t you?”

“Depending what we’re gonna blow up.”

“Woody’s limo.”

“Not the theater, late at night?”

“The limo,” Robin said. “With Woody in it. And Donnell too, his driver.”

“What’ve we got against Donnell?”

“I don’t like him.”

Skip said, “I bet you said hi to him and he didn’t remember who you were.”

“If Woody’s in the car, so is Donnell,” Robin said. “How about when he turns the key?”

“Woody could still be in the house.”

“You’re right. . . . Maybe some kind of a timer then.”

“We’ve used timers. We used ’em at the Federal Building, the Naval Armory, that bank downtown, but it was when nobody was in those places.”

“Time it to go off while they’re driving along.”

“If we knew he went someplace every day.”

“He does, he goes out all the time.”

“But we’d have to know exactly when. I don’t think it’d be good if it blew in traffic, take out some poor assholes going home to their dinner.”

“You want to do it at his house.”

“Yeah, keep it neat,” Skip said. “Lemme think on it.”

They went upstairs to the kitchen Skip said would make Betty Crocker come, one look at it, man, all the spotless conveniences, the copper pans he bet cost more than new tires. He told Robin Betty Crocker was the best-looking woman he ever saw and would like to meet her sometime, while Robin fooled with the tape recorder, stopping and starting, listening to voices, until she said, “Okay,” and they heard Mark’s voice say,
“You really haven’t changed. . . . You turn me on.”

Skip said, “Jesus, he’s serious, isn’t he?”

Robin said, “Wait.” She stopped the tape and ran it forward, stopped and listened to bits of conversation until she was ready for Skip again. “Here we are. You have to understand Mark wants help but is afraid to come right out and ask. He’s just told me that if Woody dies he gets about two-thirds of the estate. Something like sixty million.”

Skip said, “You mean it?”

“Listen.” Robin punched the
ON
button and voices came out of the recorder.

ROBIN: So now you’re waiting . . . hoping maybe he’ll drink himself to death?

MARK: You see how he was the other night? It could happen.

ROBIN: Yeah, but Mark, who do you think should decide your future, you or Woody’s liver?

Skip grinned, listening, fooling with his beard.

MARK: That’s good. . . . That’s very good.

Skip said, “You had that one ready.”

Robin said, “Listen.”