The Black Marble (22 page)

“Well, I gave it a try, Captain,” Natalie said, “but it isn't going to work out and I have something important to tell you. About Valnikov.”

“Yes, yes, what is it?” Hooker said, leafing through the papers on his desk.

“He's crazy,” she said simply.

“Yes, what else?” Captain Hooker said absently.

“What else?”

“For God's sake, what's the problem?” Captain Hooker finally demanded.

“I just told you. He's crazy. Bats. Whacko. Do you understand? I'm not saying zany, balmy, or goofy. I'm saying he's psycho. A mental case. Bugs. Loony. A candidate for a pension, a gold retirement badge, and a canvas blazer with wraparound arms!”

“That is the dumbest gud-damn statement I ever heard you make, Natalie,” Clarence Cromwell said, coming around and sitting on Hooker's desk, totally blocking him from view, letting Natalie know with whom she must deal in
this
room.

“Clarence, you don't really know Valnikov!”

“What the hell you mean? I worked downtown at robbery-homicide for years and …”

“You don't know him
now
. I tell you he's gone nuts. For
real
.”

Captain Hooker was trying to listen, but he suddenly found a document on his desk which caused him great displeasure. “Bambarella!” he yelled, forgetting the door was closed, causing Clarence Cromwell to leap from the desk.

“Problem, Captain?”

“Bullets was driving one of our cars sixty miles an hour!”

“But, Skipper,” Clarence reminded him. “The speed limit's fifty-five. That's only five miles over. Sixty miles an hour ain't too bad.”

“In a subterranean garage?”

“Listen, Captain,” Natalie Zimmerman said testily, “you just gotta hear me out on this Valnikov matter.”

“Natalie, please!” Captain Hooker said. “Get to the point!”

“You only worked with him one day,” Clarence Cromwell said. “He's a little quiet and standoffish, and you say he's gone round the bend. Okay, name
one
crazy thing he did.”

“It's not that easy, Clarence. It's a combination of …”

“
One
thing,” Clarence challenged. “Just one is all I ask.”

“One thing?”

“
One
thing.”

“Okay, one thing is he said he was going to make a Christmas dinner when we parted on Friday. I believe you'll notice that today is January tenth.”

Clarence Cromwell chewed on that one for a moment, then he started giggling. “Well, I'll be gud-damned! Is
that
all it is? Jist sit yourself down and wait a minute, Natalie. I wanna check on somethin.”

Natalie was greatly relieved to see Clarence Cromwell charge out the door. Now was her chance to get through to Hooker, if she could get him to stop reading the reports on his desk.

“Captain, there were
lots
of things. Little things. It's hard to get specific. You just put them all together and they spell nut. N-u-t.”

“Yes,” he said, looking up for a fleeting instant. “I know Valnikov is strange, that's why we put you with him. But, Natalie, really, can't you just work with him for a little while longer … God, look at this! Bambarella gets stopped by the security guard while he's speeding around the subterranean garage of an apartment house chasing some blonde in a convertible, and the security guard sees his shoulder holster and says are you a cop and Bambarella says, quote, no asshole, I'm a member of the cozy nostra! End quote. Oh, God! The cozy nostra!”

“Captain, you've got to listen to …”

But it was too late. His head was hurting too much. And Clarence Cromwell came flying through the door triumphantly. He slammed the door and said, “Natalie, do you know what last Friday was?”

“It was January seventh. What the hell do you mean?”

“I mean it was only January seventh to
you!
To him it was Christmas! It was Russian Christmas!
Now
how do you feel?”

“For heaven's sake,” Captain Hooker said, actually smiling a little, another crisis averted. “Is
that
all it was! Natalie, why don't you just go to work now …”

“I don't give a goddamn if it
was
Russian Christmas. That wasn't the only thing.”

“Yes, well, Natalie, this is very juvenile for an officer of your years and experience. I just … God, I've got a headache, Clarence!”

“I'll get you some aspirin, Cap,” Clarence said, glaring at Natalie Zimmerman, who was looking at her Friz, pushing her oversized glasses back up on her nose. “I'll git you some aspirin, Captain, after Natalie goes back to work with her
partner
, Valnikov.”

“Yes, yes,” Captain Hooker said. “Look, I know you don't like burglary detail and you don't like Valnikov, but try to get along for a while. And if there's any evidence of, oh, bizarre behavior, report to me and we'll take further action. But do some investigating first, Natalie. Russian Christmas. God! Don't make rash accusations, please! I've got
enough
trouble!”

Clarence Cromwell started massaging the neck of the captain again, while he stared Natalie Zimmerman out of the office.

When Natalie returned to the squad room, Valnikov was sitting, drinking his third cup of tea. Why did he have to drink tea? Why couldn't he drink coffee like every other goddamn cop in the station? She plopped down in the chair beside him in utter frustration and looked at the tea bag on the saucer. She looked at Valnikov. His eyes were red and watery. He wore the same necktie Clarence Cromwell had loaned him. He'd changed his suit from Friday. This one was gray, but even so, it looked just like the other. He
never
looked any different Watery bloodshot eyes. A faint boozy smell early in the morning. Hair growing every which way, sometimes stuck down by a wet combing, sometimes springing up in a clump of cinnamon cowlicks. He was smiling amiably, that dumb patient smile. Natalie could think of only one thing at the moment She said, “Valnikov, do you mind opening your suit coat?”

“Pardon me, Natalie?”

“I said, would you please just unbutton your coat, and hold it open?”

“Of course,” he shrugged. “If you're afraid that I forgot my gun, no, I'm very careful about such things.”

She reached over and flipped open the coat. As she suspected, the inside pocket was repaired like the other suit, not with thread but metal staples.

“I figured.”

“Figured?”

“That you'd do all your tailoring with the stapler here on your desk.”

“I'm going to sew it. I've been meaning to do that, in fact.”

“Doesn't matter,” she sighed. “Except you couldn't pass through a scanner to get on an airplane. Not with all the metal you have holding your clothes together.”

“Are we taking a flight somewhere?” asked the detective, blinking his watery eyes in confusion. “An extradition or something?”

I'm
taking a flight, you dingaling, Natalie Zimmerman thought. I'm flying right over Hipless Hooker's head to the area commander, if I have to. And you're taking a flight right to the police department psychologist. Then she got a pang of remorse as she thought of his heavy body shielding her, keeping her from being hit by flying lead when William Allen Livingston exploded. But goddamnit, he's crazy!

“I've got all our reports logged, Natalie.” Valnikov smiled, belatedly realizing she had been joking about the airplane. “I saw you had business with the captain so I got everything taken care of. We can go out in the field now if you like. We've just got one body in jail.”

“Let's go see him, get it over with.” She sighed.

“Okay, let's handle our case.” He smiled.

You
handle the case. I'll handle another case, she thought. And from that moment, as Valnikov was nearing what would be his most important case, Natalie Zimmerman decided that
her
case, the only case with which
she
would be concerned, was the case against Sergeant A.M. Valnikov. She was on her own investigation. And she would bring them irrefutable proof. The detective was not eccentric, not a “bit strange.” The detective was
mad
.

Just before they got out the door, Clarence Cromwell came laughing out of Hipless Hooker's office and handed Natalie Zimmerman a burglary report. “Here's another one, jist came in, Nat! Somebody stole eighty-three pounds a bat guano from a store in your area!”

“So what's funny?”

“The captain asks me, he says, Clarence, we got a fertilizer store that big in Hollywood? I mean eighty-three
pounds
a bat guano? I say, no, Cap, it ain't no big company or nothin. It's jist some fly-by-night outfit!”

Clarence had to lean against the door, ready to collapse. Even Hipless Hooker had his head on his arms, laughing uproariously. They were in a good mood now from talking about the Channel Island voyage next weekend.

Valnikov didn't get it until Clarence turned and screamed: “Bat guano! Fly-by-night outfit! Git it?”

Then Valnikov got it, and while Natalie Zimmerman talked to her Friz, Valnikov chuckled politely.

The body they had in Central Jail belonged to Bernie Mitchell, better known all over Hollywood Station as “Itchy Mitch.” So called, because he broke out in hives every time he got busted for a felony, which was, they said, only in the months with r's in them. Itchy Mitch went to jail a lot all right, but since he only stole cars he seldom got more than a few months of county jail time. As a matter of fact, Itchy Mitch only decided to switch to burglary because he was afraid some judge might finally send him to state prison. He had been told that burglary, like auto theft, rarely drew a state prison term, unless you had lots of priors. Itchy Mitch had no prior arrests for burglary, so he decided he might be able to get busted four or five times without getting some judge mad at him.

He was making Natalie itch just looking at him across the table in the jail interrogation room. He was six feet two and weighed less than Natalie, who weighed in very nicely for five feet nine. He had a long fringe of brown hair and only fuzz on top. He was broken out in hives on his arms and neck and on his fuzzy skull. His filthy white dress shirt was torn open from all the scratching. He was sitting across the table from Valnikov and Natalie, looking from one to the other. Both hands were moving ceaselessly. Scratching.

Itchy Mitch scratched his neck, his sunken chest, his back as far up as he could reach, deep in both armpits, his legs. He wanted desperately to scratch his balls, but in deference to Natalie, he didn't. Then he started all over again: the neck, his chest, both armpits …

“Never shoulda got hooked up with the broad, Sergeant. Never shoulda,” Itchy Mitch whined after they advised him of his constitutional rights, for perhaps the eighty-third time in his life.

“What broad?” Natalie asked mechanically, not really caring what broad. Valnikov had his case to work on, she had hers.

“Always a broad gets an honest man in trouble, Sergeant. Always a broad,” said Itchy Mitch, scratching.

“Do you want to talk about the warehouse you were arrested in?” Valnikov asked.

“Shoulda stuck to being a used-car salesman, Sergeant,” said Itchy Mitch, reaching clear down to his raw ankles. “Great job, great job. Then one day I'm sitting there looking at this limper. And I done it.”

“Limper?” said Natalie, scratching.

“You know, a lemon, a dog. This lousy lemon we took in trade on a Buick. I'm sitting there thinking, who'd miss it? It's just growing hair. A bum stove and organ. Phony white shoes.”

“I don't really get it, Mitch,” said Valnikov, scratching.

“What?”

“Stove and organ? White shoes?”

“Radio and heater, Sergeant! And whitewalls!”

“Oh, well don't get mad, Mitch, I never worked auto theft detail,” Valnikov apologized.

“So I drive it off to Arizona, but I never get there. I just picked the black marble. All my life I pick the black marble. Why me?” he demanded, reminding Valnikov of Natalie, the way he rolled his eyes back. “Why
me?
”

“About the warehouse, Mitch,” Natalie prodded, scratching.

“So I'm on my way to unload this limper in Arizona and I decide to stop at a carwash cause I got my girlfriend and I don't want her riding in no dirty car. Imagine that! Sadie's so cruddy I oughtta have
her
washed and polished and I'm worrying about mud on those phony whitewalls. Then up walks a spade, six feet thirteen or something, big moustache hanging down his mouth. I say who's this, Genghis Coon? He tells me who he is, all right. A cop! A goddamn detective, works that bad-cat auto theft detail. Puts the arm on me and I'm in the slammer and my boss won't believe I was just test driving it. All heart, my boss. That lemon wasn't worth five hundred bucks!”

“Uh, can you tell me what that's got to do with this burglary?” Valnikov asked.