Hose Monkey (19 page)

She sat up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just need your help with the clicker.”

She sneered, but dutifully took the remote from him. “What?”

He explained about needing to advance through the DVD until Blondie showed up. Within two minutes, Marla had advanced the video to the point Joe wanted and handed the clicker back to him. He hit play. On screen, the two woman were going down on each other, black hair on top. Then they reversed positions.

“There!” Joe said. “Freeze it!”

“There what? All I see is her fat ass.”

“Not her ass. What’s
on
her ass.”

“A tattoo? What about it?”

“Can you make out what the tattoo is?” he asked. “Writing.”

“Yeah, but it’s not English, is it?”

Marla got up close to the screen. “No, I think it’s Cyrillic.”

“Like Russian?”

“Like Russian,” she agreed. “I could probably get it translated for you by someone in my family. We’re Russian Jews on my mother’s side.”

“What, are you going to bring this video to an old age home? You’d kill half the residents. What would you say: ‘Hey, anybody know what the Russian on the chubby hooker’s ass means?’”

“What am I going to do with you, Joe Serpe?” she wondered, leaning over and kissing his cheek. She got up and went into the bedroom. When she came out, she held a sketch pad and a charcoal pencil.

The cops didn’t have as much trouble finding the spot as Healy anticipated. Within ten minutes of the first blue and white’s arrival, it seemed like half the official vehicles in the county were there. The first cop had a little difficulty grasping what he had walked into and, upon reflection, Healy understood why. Even in New York City, cops don’t usually show up at crime scenes that involve a homicide, a suicide, and two other victims with gunshot wounds.

Healy was forced to repeat his version of the evening’s events so many times to so many people that the story started taking on a life of its own. He felt as if he were repeating folklore and not detailing things to which he had actually been a party. With each telling, the things he described got further and further away. At least the EMT didn’t seem particularly interested in anything other than bandaging his earlobe and raw hands.

Thursday
March 4th, 2004

 

IDIOTS AND THE DEAD

 

M
arla had never been to a motel so early in the morning, nor had she ever blown off work two days running. She wasn’t quite certain which dubious accomplishment she was most proud of. At the moment she was leaning toward the former, because she had the added honor of being the one to rent the room while Joe kept his head below dashboard level in the front seat of her car. He wasn’t willing to risk being spotted.

“Room 113,” Marla said, tossing the key on his lap. “Great, my lucky number. Can I use your cell phone? I want to check in with Healy and see how last night went.”

“I knew I forgot something. Where’s yours?”

“When I got Tina’s message about Frank, I ran out of my house. Then when the car service came, I just forgot it. I guess I was still a little discombobulated.”

“Whatever happened, I’m sure it can wait.” Marla had actually never been more wrong about anything in her life, but because Healy’s excitement had happened so early in the morning it didn’t make
Newsday
or any of the city papers. And because Joe wanted to make absolutely certain Marla understood exactly what he was up to, they hadn’t listened to the car radio on the way over to the motel.

“Describe the desk clerk,” Joe said.

“A tired looking bottle blond in her late forties. She was pretty once, but hasn’t come to grips with the aging process. She’s the type of woman who thinks that another inch of makeup will undo in a moment what it took cigarettes and gravity decades to create. I guess I shouldn’t be too critical. My mother wears so much makeup you swear you could peel it off in one piece like a latex clown mask.”

Joe shook his head. “Did she have an accent?”

“Accent?”

“What did she sound like?”

“Like blinis and borscht,” Marla joked.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“She sounds like Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

“Now
that’s
an answer, I think.”

The moment they walked into Room 113, Joe’s suspicions were confirmed. No two motels could possibly purchase the same hideous orange top quilts. This was definitely the place where Frank had made his porn debut and all the sequels. Now to find the right room.

“Okay, time to go hunting for a chambermaid,” Joe said as they slipped out of the room. “You’re sure your Spanish is good enough to make yourself understood?”

“How many times are you going to ask me that?”

“Sorry.”

There were very few cars parked in front of the four rows of rooms. That they hadn’t spotted the maid’s cart in the first three rows was of no worry to Joe. They had the room for three hours and he was sure he and Marla could figure out something to do to kill the time until they went looking again.

“Over there, at the end!” Marla shouted, and then realized she had been too loud. “Sorry.”

When Serpe peered into Room 420, he recognized the woman he and Healy had spoken to the previous afternoon. She was drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup and eating the last bite of an egg sandwich. At first, she didn’t seem to remember Joe. When she did recall his face, she didn’t exactly leap up and give him a big kiss. No one likes you when you are a cop and that doesn’t change when you’re only pretending to be one. He didn’t waste time and got Marla involved.

“Her name is Maria,” Marla said, smiling. “And she says she has a green card.”

“I don’t care if she’s got a pair of jacks. Just describe the two women to her and ask if she’s seen them around. If she tells you she’s never seen the black-haired one, she’s full of shit.”

Joe had used that phrase on purpose. It was another one of those lines that usually didn’t require translation.

“The blond, Maria says, she doesn’t know. The one with the black hair … Maybe.”

Joe again decided not to waste time. He knew that maybe meant ‘more money, please.’ He took out the roll of cash he had stored in his pocket just for this purpose. He snapped off a ten. Maria sneered as if he had insulted her honor. He added a twenty. Maria seemed less hurt, but still wasn’t having any. When he added a second twenty, she licked her lips. When she went for the money, Joe yanked it back. Now she just looked angry.

“Tell her the money is hers, but I want to hear everything she knows about the black-haired woman, including what room she always takes her men to.”

Although Serpe understood only enough Spanish to facilitate oil deliveries, he could read the disdain on the chambermaid’s chubby brown face.

“She calls herself Tatiyana. Maria says she’s a real bitch, but that the motel management treats her like royalty, almost like they’re frightened of her. She always gets Room 217. That’s all she knows.”

The chambermaid held out her hand. Joe gave her the fifty bucks as promised. She stuffed the money in the pocket of her silly pink polyester uniform without bothering to thank him. But instead of taking offense, Joe peeled a fifty dollar bill off the roll and waved it at Maria. There was no translation necessary now. Without prompting, Maria began pushing her cart towards room 217.

Even though his moms hated it, living so close to Kennedy airport was a ceaseless source of excitement to Jamal Maybry. Walking to school was the best part of his day. Always out of the house early so he could take a detour through the off-airport cargo area, Jamal enjoyed the rush of the big jets swooping low over his head. In his opinion, the whine of the engines, the suck of the backwash, the smell of spent kerosene were the greatest things a boy could experience. He never tired of it, some days cutting school just to stand at the edge of the runway for hours on end.

Today, however, he had to get to school. They were giving one of those grade level achievement tests and he knew his moms wouldn’t stand for his missing it. So when the JetBlue A320 whooshed past and its tail disappeared over the border fence, Jamal took his special shortcut through the abandoned lots.

He guessed he was in too much of a hurry when he stumbled over some ratty-assed roll of carpet. They dumped all kinds of shit in these lots.

“Damn!”

He stood up, brushed himself off, kicked the carpet roll in anger. But something wasn’t right. When his foot connected, it felt like the stupid thing was filled with jello or some shit. He bent over and gave the carpet a push.

Fighting both the urge to scream and vomit, Jamal ran towards his house.

The chubby blond girl landed flat on her back. The shadow of an inbound Delta 767 passed directly overhead, her fixed blue eyes too dead to notice.

Bob Healy slid the coffee cup across the table to his brother. George took a sip.

“Jesus Christ!” He ran to the sink and spit it out. “The milk’s curdled.”

“Is it? I’m sorry.”

“And look at this place. It’s a mess.”

“I know,” Bob confessed. “It’s not only the emotional things you lose when your wife dies.”

“At least get a cleaning lady in once a week.”

“Okay, George.”

“So like I was saying before you tried to poison me, the lab’s going to do that second set of tests on all the blood samples from the Reyes crime scene. You’re sure the Strohmeyer kid did him, right?”

Bob hesitated. “Well, no. I think maybe he did. But I’m not sure. Last night before he … In his state of mind he might’ve done anything that would have gotten Cathy’s attention.”

“Cathy?”

“Forget it.”

George pulled his attache case onto the table, opened it up, removed a manilla folder.

“Here are those police reports you wanted.”

“What reports?”

“The Highway Patrol logs for the L.I.E. from—”

“Oh, right. Sorry. Thanks, little brother.”

“That’s it from me, though, bro. Go back to being retired before you get something more vital shot off than the bottom eighth inch of your fucking earlobe.”

“Maybe I’ll take up painting.”

“Very funny. Remember how well that worked out for Van Gogh.” George stood, leaned over, and kissed his brother on top of the head. “Go find somebody to love.”

It wasn’t a half-bad idea, Bob thought. Besides, he’d never been much of an artist. He went to the phone and tried Serpe’s numbers again.

Maria parked her cleaning wagon directly between Rooms 217 and 218. She checked over both shoulders one last time to make certain neither the desk clerk nor the motel manager was around. She slid her passkey into the lock, gave it a twist, and shuttled Marla and Joe inside. Maria held up her right hand to indicate they had five minutes. Joe nodded his head that he understood. Maria closed the door behind her. They waited. They heard her knock on 218. No answer. They listened to her step inside and close the door behind her.

Joe turned to Marla. “Get on the bed.”

“What?”

“Come on, I need to see the angle so I can figure out where the camera would be.”

Joe straddled Marla as Tatiyana had straddled blondie and he looked back over his left shoulder. It didn’t take more than thirty seconds to find where the camera had been. There was a television in the upper right hand corner of the room held in place by a metal bracket. Just beneath the bracket was a fresh patch of joint compound about three inches in diameter. The camera had been removed. This wasn’t a good sign. People were covering their tracks.

Truthfully, Joe had very little to go on besides the DVD, a wall patch, and his suspicions. Neither the wall patch nor the DVD proved a thing by themselves. With Frank still unconscious, Joe couldn’t even prove blackmail. As things stood now, the only thing Joe had viable proof of was that Frank had cheated on Tina with at least two women and that he might even have enjoyed having it filmed.

“Let’s go,” he said to Marla.

Joe put his hand on the door paddle, but he heard the sound of clickety-clackety heels coming their way.

“It’s the desk clerk,” Marla whispered, peering through a slit in the brown and orange drapes.

Joe turned to Marla, his index finger across his lips.

The heels stopped right outside their door. “Vere are you, you fat bitch? Maria,
vena ca!
” She pounded on the door of 217. Stopped. Pounded again. Stopped. She stepped to the right, pounded on the door of 218. “Maria! Maria!”

Joe looked over at Marla, saw her shaking. Caught her eye and mouthed, “We will be okay.” She smiled. Her smile convinced no one, least of all herself.

Maria wasn’t answering the door at 218. Now they heard the jingle of keys and the heels moving back to their door. A key slid in the lock, turned, the paddle pushed down …

“Lo siento, lo siento,
Ilana,” Maria was breathless in her apology and began reeling off rapid fire Spanish.

Joe caught the word
bano,
Spanish for bathroom, several times.

Though it was nearly impossible to understand Ilana’s perversion of Russian and Spanish, it was pretty obvious she wasn’t pleased with Maria.

Joe gave Marla the thumbs up and waved his palms at her to stay calm. The wheels of the cleaning cart squealed as Maria pushed it away. Ilana’s heels smacked the pavement, moving off in the opposite direction.

Letting another minute pass, they stepped out into what was turning into a sunny, if chilly, March morning. Neither the chambermaid nor the desk clerk were anywhere in sight. They walked back to their original room quickly, but not at a run. Marla was still shaking when they closed the door behind them.

Detective Jones opened his mouth to speak, but his partner, Detective O’Brien, put up his palms, then pointed straight up at the underbelly of the United 747 passing over head. They had quickly grown weary of screaming above the noise and then having to repeat themselves anyway once the jets passed.

“I wanna show you something,” Jones said, his hair blowing in the jets backwash. “Over here.”

They ducked under the tape back to where the dead girl’s body waited to be bagged.

“What, you notice something?” O’Brien asked.

“Yeah.” They knelt down over the corpse. “Let’s roll her over. Ready? One. Two. Three. See that tattoo?”

“Yeah, and so.”

“She was probably Russian. Maybe a pro or at least into S&M.”

“Who are you, Sherlock fuckin’ Holmes?”

“The tattoo means slave in Russian.”

“And a schmuck from the Bronx knows this how?”

“Spent four years in the bag in the Six-One Precinct.”

“Brighton Beach. Russia in Brooklyn.”

“Correct. Now let’s get outta here. These jets are giving me a fucking headache.”

As they rode back to Marla’s apartment, Joe tried waiting her out. Silent and ashen, she seemed completely spooked by what had gone on back at the Blue Fountain. Serpe could have kicked himself. He had let the job ruin his marriage. Now his single-mindedness about Frank and Cain had let him get someone involved in things she had no business being mixed up in. He resolved not to let her get in any deeper and was about to say so.

“How did you do it, Joe? All those years on the street, how could you not be scared?”

“Only idiots and the dead aren’t scared. I was scared all the time. The trick is not showing it. If the trick was not being scared, no one would ever step outside their house.”

“How do you learn not to act frightened?”

“You just do, but you don’t have to worry about it. You’re out of it now,” he said.

“Where are we going, Joe? My apartment’s that way.”

“We’re going to rent a car. You need to have your life back.”

“I don’t want it back, not the way it used to be.”

“Take it back, just for a few days. For me.”

Three weeks ago it took Bob Healy several minutes to recognize Joe Serpe. Now all he could do was worry about the guy. He couldn’t seem to get a hold of him and couldn’t believe Joe hadn’t somehow heard about last night. Healy resolved to try both of Serpe’s numbers one last time and to keep himself occupied until he finally heard back from the man. He looked around and decided George was right about a lot of things. The house
was
a complete mess. Healy picked up the police report logs and began thumbing through them.

He didn’t like having Marla use her credit card to rent the car for him, but he had little choice. Plastic is a luxury men with bad credit histories can’t afford. The divorce and the legal fees from his troubles had ruined Joe financially. He was better now, having been named Vinny’s sole beneficiary and working a job that paid him a nice chunk of change in cash, but until Marla he hadn’t felt the need to reestablish himself.