Nameless Night (8 page)

“So?” he snapped.

The desk officer handed him the ID case. Ramey looked it over like there was going to be a test, then, seemingly satisfied, handed it back to the man in the gray suit, who made another show of feline grace as he stashed it inside his jacket.

The cop’s thick black eyebrows met in the center of his face like ardent caterpillars. “So?” the sergeant said again.

“Sergeant . . . ?”

“Ramirez,” the cop said. “Sergeant Hector Ramirez.”

Gray suit opened his mouth to speak, but Ramirez cut him off.

“And you need what from us?”

With an air of bemused forbearance, gray suit went through it again.

“And you want the SPD to lock them up for you?”

“Yes.”

“On what charges?”

“Interfering with a federal officer.”

Ramirez held out his thick hand. Gray suit looked down into the leathery palm and cocked a quizzical eyebrow in an almost comical gesture that was from hours of practice before the mirror. Ramirez answered the silent question. “Paperwork,” he growled.

“We don’t require paperwork,” the little guy said. The two cops shot each other a quick glance. Ramirez’s eyebrows ended their kiss. “The prisoners are foreign nationals?” Ramirez ventured.

“No.” Gray suit pulled a couple of pieces of plastic from his pants pocket and dropped them on the desk. Photo IDs. Driver’s licenses. Ramirez picked them up, shuffled from one to the other and back before handing them to the desk cop, who extracted a pair of half-glasses from his uniform pocket before reading the documents, front and back. Another glance flew from cop to cop.

“They’re outside, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Bring them in,” Ramirez said.

Gray suit hesitated for a beat, as if testing the wind for irony. Discerning none, he tried to read Ramirez’s face but found himself looking into the unblinking gaze of a stone idol. The little man put on an air of bemused resignation as he turned and headed out the precinct door. On either side of the double doors, filthy windows ran from knee to ceiling. On the right, the windowsills were black, blistered by long-ago cigarettes and littered here and there by half a dozen magazine carcasses, twisted and torn, separated from their once-glossy covers, pages dog-eared and cemented together by substances best left unimagined. On the left, a thirty-year-old jade plant meandered, long and leggy, out of hand, its arid stalks twisting in every imaginable contortion, filling the grimy windows with its thick leathery leaves, furry beneath a quarter inch of dust.

Sergeant Ramirez spoke into his collar radio. The desk cop stifled a smile. A minute later, a trio of uniformed officers arrived through the door behind the desk. Two men and a woman, their eyes full of questions that didn’t have to wait long for an answer. Both front doors opened. The sounds of the street mingled with the dust and the desperation as a pair of men in dark overcoats led a pair of manacled prisoners into the precinct. The man in the gray suit brought up the rear. He was wiping his hands with a crisp white handkerchief as he shouldered his way through the double doors. The prisoners were middle-aged. A Japanese man and a Caucasian woman, both in their late fifties or thereabouts. Both looking defeated. Her hair had come loose from the clip at the back of her head and was blowing about in the breeze. The man tried to pull away from his captor but failed. Both looked up at the same time. Both of them tried to speak. The cops behind the desk flinched in unison. Both prisoners had a piece of silver duct tape sealing their mouths.

Ramirez blanched. His hand shook as he pointed. “Take the prisoners to separate interview rooms,” he said. “And get that goddamn tape off of them.” He turned his attention to gray suit. “Keys for the cuffs.”

Nobody moved until it got real awkward. Finally the little guy gave a nod and one of the overcoats stepped forward to drop a set of keys into the female officer’s outstretched hand. After that, everything happened at once. Two of the officers led the prisoners away. Gray suit and his minions turned to leave but found the doorway filled by a pair of massive SWAT officers, boots, helmets, body armor, and all. A futile attempt to flank the pair made it plain: nobody was going anywhere, anytime soon.

“Have a seat, gentlemen.” Ramirez gestured to the battered collection of chairs lining the room. “Nobody’s going anywhere until we get this thing sorted out.”

Gray suit’s face was the color of oatmeal. His voice was a whisper as he began to protest, “We are federal officers and pursuant to the Patriot Act of—” “Have a seat,” Ramirez repeated, louder this time. “I’m calling for an A.D.A. We’ll let the D.A.’s office work their magic on this thing.”

“I had an officer shot this afternoon. At this moment we are—” Ramirez stiffened his spine. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Was one of them the shooter?” he asked.

“No.”

The cop waved disgustedly. “Then have a goddamn seat.”

“ME AND MY MOTHER never got along,” she said. She caromed a gaze off the mirror and caught Paul’s eyes. “Two strong personalities, I guess,” she added with a wan smile. “That’s probably how come Mona and I always get in each other’s faces.” She waved a safety razor in the air. “Mona owns the shop. Her daughter, Sue, and I . . . we run the place. Mona just comes in every afternoon to collect the cash and bitch about anything she can think of.” She waved the razor again. “Her and me go at it like cats and dogs. Good thing I’ve got some vacation time coming. It’s been getting bad lately. Another week or so and I’d be telling her where she could put her shop and then I’d need to find another job, which wouldn’t be easy since I wouldn’t have a reference from my last job.” She pretended to check the room. “I use Mona’s certificate number,” she said in a low voice, and then stepped back to admire her work. “Soon as I close up tonight, I’m out of here. Gonna go back home and try to recon-nect with my parents. Already got the car packed and ready to roll. Good-bye.”

Paul watched her from the corner of his eye. Her hair was three separate shades of red, none of which existed in nature. She was dressed like a cartoon character, something between Raggedy Ann and the Cat in the Hat. All kinds of multicolored beads all over her, some of which looked like they might be made of candy, an impossibly short denim skirt over red-and-white-striped leggings, kneelength boots laced up the front. She bent close again, working her way slowly around Paul’s left ear. “I never shaved a guy’s face before,” she said. “I’ve like, you know, shaved myself in all the . . . you know, all the places where girls do that kind of thing.” She wiped a spot of shaving cream from his cheek with a small pink towel. “Hell . . . I even shaved my head once back in high school . . . back when Sinéad O’Connor was all the rage, but . . .” She rinsed off the razor and stepped back again. Satisfied, she pulled a larger pink towel from a shelf beneath the counter, wet one corner in the sink, and used it to remove the remaining daubs of white foam.

“Okay now,” she said. “Gonna turn you round here and we’ll see how your hair came out.”

She swung the chair in a one-eighty, then pumped one of the chair’s handles several times, lowering the chair until Paul’s neck slid into the indentation in the sink.

“Your neck was any bigger we’d have to wash your hair in the back room, like we do with some of the real big girls.” She pulled his hair out from beneath his head. “You’re gonna need to slide down a little.”

Paul grabbed the arms of the chair and pushed. When he opened his eyes she was looking down at him. “You’re not much of a talker, now, are you?” She smiled and turned on the water in the sink.

“Depends,” Paul said.

“On what?”

“On who I’m talking to, I guess.”

“I’m Brittany.”

Paul closed his eyes. The silence rose above the rush of water. She put her hand on her hip, waited a moment, and then leaned in close.

“This is the part in the conversation where you tell me your name,” she whispered in his ear. His eyes popped open.

“Hi, Brittany,” he said. “I’m . . .” He hesitated. “I’m Paul, I guess.”

“You guess?” She started to laugh, but caught herself.

“It’s a long story.”

“You don’t know who you are?”

“Not exactly.”

She began to run his hair under the rushing water. “How’s the temp?” she asked.

He said it was fine. She began to rinse the excess dye from his hair, separating the strands and holding them under the running water, keeping at it until all traces of dye disappeared and the rinse water ran clear.

She wrapped a pink towel around his hair and sat him up. “I used to think I was adopted,” she said. “I just couldn’t believe I was part of that family of mine. I thought I was like a princess or something, got sent down the river and got lost, got picked up by this crazy bunch of farmers.”

She spun the chair again. This time she left him facing the mirror. She rubbed the towel around his head and then pulled it away. “Whoever you are . . .” she began. “Whatever your name is . . . you sure don’t look anything like the mountain-man type who walked into the shop an hour ago, I can sure tell you that.”

She was right. The clean-shaven young man in the mirror was a complete stranger to him. She’d cut most of his hair off and dyed what was left black . . . jet black . . . raven’s-wing black. She ran a comb through it, working out the tangles.

As she moved around to his right side, she felt him stiffen.

“You don’t like it?” She sounded hurt. She put a hand on his shoulder. “We could do something else.”

He didn’t answer. Beneath her hand, he was trembling. When she looked down, his eyes were fixed on the mirror. She turned and looked over her shoulder. The impending dinner hour had thinned the mall traffic. Coming down the central aisle were a pair of official-looking types in black overcoats, each working one side of the aisle, shouldering people out of the way as they moved from shop to shop, looking around inside for something and then popping back out.

“Coupla Nazis,” she said as they moved closer. For a second it felt as if he was going to rise from the chair, but it was too late. One of them poked his head in the door. He took in the scene, walked over and stared at Paul, and then checked the back room. “Hey, hey!” Brittany shouted. “No customers back there. That’s off-limits to . . .”

If he heard her, he didn’t let on. A single smirk and he was gone. They watched in silence as the pair made their way out of sight. The trembling beneath her hand began to subside.

“You know those guys?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

She eyed him sideways.

11

Fact of life number one: sooner or later, they all walked out. Men of all sizes and shapes, races, creeds, and political persuasions . . . no matter . . . next thing she knew, they were packing their things and heading for the door. Some took longer than others; some left angry; some left sad. Whatever . . . they left. The only constant . . . the only commonality among that collection of dismal departures was the parting salvo . . . that final selfjustifying line in the awkward seconds before the slam of the door. It was like they’d all gotten together and written the damn thing down. Like it was in some index somewhere where you could look it up under P. “Parting shot for Kirsten Kane.” Always include the word control.

Maybe that guy Artie Gold said it best . . . not surprising since Artie made a living writing speeches for the mayor. Artie’d lasted less than a week and was the only relationship Kirsten could recall that remained unconsummated. Not that they hadn’t tried, mind you. Problem was, they got off to such a bad start and never recovered. Partway through their first physical liaison, just about the time they’d moved from the couch to the bedroom, right about the place where most couples began to confuse love and lust, Kirsten and Artie’d gotten into a spirited screaming match, an unfortunate digression which had quickly wilted the ardor of the occasion. On his way out, Artie had opined to the effect that a few days living with Kirsten was like being swallowed by a beast.

Everybody knew it, too . . . the whole damn county building. Kirsten Kane sheds suitors the way lizards shed scales. What in hell is wrong with that girl anyway? Wasn’t like she was fat or ugly or anything. Matter of fact she was tall and seriously put together and altogether a dish of the first order, which probably explained why every new male hire felt a need to make a run at her prior to unpacking. What remained unexplained, however, was the rapidity with which they were expended.

Wasn’t like it was something new either. She’d been that way in high school. That’s how a beautiful woman got to be thirty-seven years old without ever having been married, a state that, if one were to judge from the attitude of her parents, friends, and coworkers, constituted a statistical anomaly of such rarity as to rival winning lottery tickets and two-headed calves.

Back in the day, she’d attributed the phenomenon to callow youth and her own overly developed sense of self. She’d told herself she just wasn’t needy enough for men her age and had consoled her wounded pride with the notion that she’d find her soul mate somewhere down the line, that Prince Charming was still out there somewhere, and all she had to do was go about her business and sooner or later their star-crossed paths would intersect.

Twenty years later was a whole different deal. The older she got and the further up the office ladder she climbed, the less appropriate her state seemed to be. By now, nearly everyone in her life had reached out and tried his or her hand at matchmaking only to pull back a bloody stump. Predictably, whispered allegations of dykedom still circulated. Women wondered if perhaps Kirsten’s affairs were not invariably unsuccessful because they were merely a ruse to throw observers from the real scent of her desires, a notion that, not coincidentally, provided both an easy answer to the whys of Kirsten’s curtailed love life and also, in some left-handed way, validated many of their own most oft-regretted and painful choices. Men . . . for some of them anyway, it was easy. It was an “ergo.”

Any woman who was crazy enough to reject their amorous intentions must surely be a lesbian. What other answer could there be? For others, the image of Kirsten and another similarly endowed woman rolling around naked and sweaty in the throes of passion was simply more than their repressed libidos could manage to encapsulate. For her part, Kirsten had decided to give the whole thing a rest. She was telling her friends she was “in remission” from men, making it sound as if the breed were a carcinogen from which she had, by extreme measures, temporarily been cured of men, all of which probably explained why she got the call . . . a call that normally would have fallen to a junior member of the staff, somebody fresh faced and eager to please on Sunday. But, face it, everybody knew she wasn’t going anywhere these days. Everybody from the custodians to the D.A. himself knew she’d be home watching the Nature Channel and not primping in the bathroom, readying herself for some big date.