Fickle Read online

  He has another cop with him (middle-aged butterball—tight-rippled hair, moustache, pointy lapels), but that one hangs out in the stairway so I barely get a look at him. The office where I work—picture a big, once-elegant room with water-stained wall paneling, smelly heat, four oversized clunky desks, incongruously slick computers, clutter everywhere—anyway, the place is essentially deserted, so Burly-Bear and I are by ourselves out there in the open. We have the following conversation, him with his flat feet spread to shoulder width, me perched behind my desk with my crossed knees peeking over the rim:

  Burly-Bear: So, uh, how you holding up, there? Able to sleep last night?

  Me: I’m okay. And you?

  Burly-Bear: Me? I’m good. Good. (Nodding like people don’t usually worry about cops’ emotional responses and he appreciates my compassion.) So we’ve been doing some checking on the guy’s background.

  Me: Uh-huh?

  Burly-Bear: The jumper, I mean.

  Me: Yes. (Like who the hell else?)

  Burly-Bear: Yep. The department looks into all violent deaths, mattah-fact, which includes suicides. Most people don’t know that. Think suicide’s not a police matter.

  Me: (grave in the face of this inside information) But it is.

  Burly-Bear: Yeah, most people think that if a death’s a suicide, it’s just some psychiatric thing and therefore not something the cops are going to care about.

  Me: But you do care.

  Burly-Bear: Correct you are. (He snaps that out like a marine.)

  Me: So you investigate.

  Burly-Bear: Correct you are.

  Me: (wondering how the guy ever manages to pick up anyone at this pace) I see.

  Burly-Bear: So we have some information on our jumper and we’d like your help, again.

  Me: (a little thrown) My help?

  Burly-Bear: Correct. We’d like you to take a look at something, actually.

  Me: Not the body. (Then, after a blush) Sorry.

  Burly-Bear: No. Not the body.

  Me: Well, then what?

  Burly-Bear: We want you to take a look at the guy’s apartment.

  Me: (surprised) Why?

  Burly-Bear: (cagey) Something interesting there we’d like to show you.

  Me: (waiting for him to clarify. He waits, too, then finally gets that I have all day.)

  Burly-Bear: Last night you said that you didn’t know the deceased.

  Me: I said that, yes.

  Burly-Bear: Thing is, seems like maybe you did.

  Me: I knew that man in the tracks?

  Burly-Bear: That would appear to be the case. There’s evidence to the effect in his apartment.

  Me: (rather amazed) What kind of evidence?

  Burly-Bear: (backing off a step and dipping his head) We thought you should see it.

  Me: (the meaning behind all the pussyfooting dawning on me) You mean now?

  Burly-Bear: If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.

  Me: (indicating the POS I was doing a text verification on) Umm, I’m at work?

  Burly-Bear: (running a cool eye around the deserted office, then back at me) Y’know, I’m not so sure the boss man is going to miss you if you step out for a bit.

  Me: (automatically) Boss lady.

  Burly-Bear: (tipping his head) I stand corrected. I hope you’ll excuse my presumption of male dominance (this delivered too solemnly to be anything but sarcasm).

  Me: Excused (pushing my glasses up my nose). Besides, there are whispers that this particular boss lady stands over the bowl when she visits our unisex loo. Lord knows what’s up her skirt.

  Burly-Bear: (grim lip-spread, although he’ll be repeating that one back at the precinct)

  Me: Problem is there’s an editors’ meeting going on. (I tip my pencil at the ceiling.) Up there.

  Burly-Bear: (scratching his head) Excuse me, but ain’t you an editor?

  Me: (cute-ing him right back with a wry face) I’m an editorial assistant. That means I’m the office peon who takes calls and entertains walk-ins at these heady moments when “decisions” are being made behind closed doors.

  Burly-Bear: You can interrupt the big meeting for an emergency, I’m guessing? Maybe get the second-most lowly editor out here to babysit the big room?

  Me: (hesitating—then realizing that I’m not being offered an option. I text Noah that I’ve got a “thing” that I’ll tell him all about later. I stand and head toward the back to get my coat and check my hair. Just before disappearing, I turn around.) I’ll just…? (I point over my shoulder, sensing the need to seek permission to go out of Burly-Bear’s sight.)

  Burly-Bear: (cocking his head)

  Me: I’m very quick for a girl. All my guy friends tell me so.

  Burly-Bear: (satisfied that I’m not going to cut and run down a fire escape) Absolutely.

  We pick up Burly-Bear’s partner on the way out, me twiddling my fingers at Noah and generally trying to act like I’m not being “asked to cooperate in a police investigation.” Burly-Bear’s partner turns out to be one of those dour career cop types—expressionless paunchy face with sad eyes under apologetic brows, a fat beauty mark on his cheek, feminine lips. He’s wearing a double-breasted suit, tie bar, and a knockoff Armani trench. He’s also Latino, so all he needs is a fedora to be a wiseguy out of Touch of Evil. He gives off the air of having a well-oiled gun strapped to some furry part of his anatomy. I never quite get his name (“Escroto” became his name in my head—you’ll see why). He doesn’t care for me—that I catch loud and clear—but I can’t tell if it’s personal or a thing he’s got against all snotty white cunts.

  Burly-Bear himself is cool enough. He drives a rust-trimmed seafoam-green Mustang, and he opens the door for me and even manages to check out my legs as I tuck myself in. I’m generally comfortable with silence, and I like that he doesn’t try to make time with me on our way across the city. Traffic is its usual shitty self, and I spend the time watching the back of his neck, the way his hair bristles out where the skin rolls over his collar. This is a guy who shouldn’t have a tie job. In spite of my surprise that his visit to my office hadn’t been just to make a pass, I can tell he’s planning to ask me out after I’ve seen whatever he wants me to see in Mr. Suicide’s place. Don’t ask me how I know.

  Mr. Suicide lives—or lived—in the warehouse district off South Station. It had never occurred to me that there are residences there, but there it sits, three broad metal stairways up, a marvel of ballbreaker minimalism with its steel-on-rollers front door and its exposed beams. One far-off brick wall is completely covered in fifteen-foot-high white bookcases, stuffed. Someone had dropped in a Formica-style kitchen area in front of the factory windows—you get the drift. It’s a night owl’s space, SoHo chic, although maybe not as successful on a nondescript January morning, with last summer’s bird dung shivering against the windows like dirty tear tracks.

  I wander a little, noting the upside-down glasses by the sink, the on light on the music system, the pile of unshelved books—then turn to find the cops watching me.

  Me: He didn’t close shop. Isn’t that peculiar for a suicide?

  Burly-Bear: (shrugging) Place looks clean. Smell the lemony stuff?

  Me: It’s not tidied, though. Look at his workspace (I walk over); there’s old coffee in this mug. (The guy was reading A Confession, I notice. How heady—unless, of course, he was just another affected lech who fanned his face with Russian lit in the neighborhood Peet’s as a means of trolling for Emerson chicks.) This apartment is waiting for someone to come home.

  Burly-Bear: (throwing a laugh at Escroto) What’d I tell you? (trying to give me the impression that he’d said something about my sensitivity to detail before they’d picked me up.) Check out the head, would you?

  Flattered in spite of myself, I try a door just past the kitchen. The bathroom’s tiny and smells of ammonia. I flick open the medicine cabinet and view a semiorderly clutter: prescription bottles, a bag of pink razors, some “designer” men�
��s products. Nothing but the wrinkle cream hints at desperation. I emerge to find Burly-Bear scratching between his nostrils as he gazes out a window. Escroto is on his cell by the front door. Burly-Bear raises his brows at me.

  Me: It’s a man’s bathroom. Clearly didn’t care too much about where he did his three esses.

  Burly-Bear: Three esses?

  Me: Shit, shower, and shave? (I feel myself blush.) I thought all guys used that one.

  Burly-Bear: (snorts—his sign of amusement) Catch the Lady Shicks?

  Me: You wear them out and they’re good for that stubbly look. So sez my brother.

  Burly-Bear: So how about the bedroom.

  Me: Look, I honestly don’t get the point.

  Burly-Bear: Humor me, huh?

  Me: (never a fan of patronizing bullshit) Fine.

  I cast about and see a set of metal stairs. Up them is a sort of suspended interior balcony with a barely-there pipe railing around its rim. The furnishings consist, basically, of an armoire and a queen-sized bed with a punched leather headboard. On the single wall, there’s a giant framed poster of a sphinx body with a very female head—it’s two pictures merged, actually, and it takes me a second to recognize it as that Clarence Sinclair Bull do-up of Greta Garbo. All in all, think pricey home furnishings catalog, but with the mess a little more authentic. The bed is unmade, the sheets and comforter a buttery knot. Next to the bed is a metal folding table, on it a little blood-colored leather-bound book. Over past the armoire are a bunch of good-looking shoes—apparently Mr. S did not dick around when it came to clothes. I look at Burly-Bear.

  Me: I see the same thing as downstairs. The same man.

  Burly-Bear: Lot less tidy, though.

  Me: It’s his bedroom. He let it go.

  Burly-Bear: Or maybe he shared it.

  Me: No signs of a mate, as far as I can see.

  Burly-Bear: Check out the his ’n’ her reading arrangement.

  Me: (glancing at the twin reading lights clamped to the top of the headboard) I’m not saying the guy never got lucky. I’m just saying I don’t see anything like makeup or women’s clothes. I should have counted toothbrushes, but I’ve only been a detective for ten minutes.

  Burly-Bear: Maybe she cleared her stuff out.

  Me: Without a trace? If she was anything to him, she’d have made a mark on his place. Now that you’ve got me focused on it, I haven’t seen one thing so far that smacks of a chick gift.

  Burly-Bear: Chick gift?

  Me: The little tchotchkes no man would buy for himself—the coffee table book, the platinum pen. Although that Garbo poster looks a little more obvious than the rest of his stuff. Cheaper, too. Could be a gift from a younger woman.

  Burly-Bear: A girlfriend’s going to buy him a poster of a woman?

  Me: (patiently) We don’t completely resent one another’s very existence, Sergeant.

  Burly-Bear: (carefully not responding, as if life has taught him differently) There’s these. (He opens the top drawer of the dresser and displays a plastic baggie in which are some panties—some flirty little floral ’n’ lace $150 bikini silks, to be exact.)

  Me: Well, they’re definitely for a female.

  Burly-Bear: So there was a girl in his life.

  Me: (facetiously) Unless he wore them himself.

  Burly-Bear: (dead straight) The elastic’s not stretched out. Maybe he cleaned his girlfriend’s stuff out after she left, like “good riddance” (glancing at the baggie) except for a memento.

  Me: Sure, why not? Although there hasn’t been a real clean-up here recently. Look at the bunnies. (I point a toe at the base of the armoire, where gossamer dust balls shiver.)

  Burly-Bear: (slowly, as if thinking aloud) Okay, so maybe she broke up with him some time back, and he lived with it, not forgetting (he bounces the plastic bag with the panties in his hand).

  Me: (helpfully) He brooded.

  Burly-Bear: Yeah. He brooded. Let the place go. Then finally he contacted her, wanted to meet up, see if they hadn’t made a big mistake, breaking up. Maybe she met up with him only to make it clear to him that she’d moved on.

  Me: So he killed himself over a woman. Is that the theory?

  Escroto: (from behind me) And maybe that woman’s you.

  Me: (turning, startled that such a prize hog had crept up the metal treads so quietly) Tidy, except for the fact that I didn’t know him.

  Escroto: You sure? Because you didn’t seem all that surprised when we showed up at your office. (His accent is pure Staten Island, now that he’s finally offered a sample.)

  Me: (definitely feeling intimidated, although I don’t tend to show emotion that much) I thought (I hesitate) I assumed Sergeant Malloy was just checking up on me.

  I glance at Burly-Bear and catch him watching me like back in my office. It strikes me just how much of a cop he is. It’s not the obvious physical strength or the at-ease, ready-to-spring way he stands. It’s more the…call it cynicism. He sees every scrap of deception that passes before him trying to put itself over as the stuff of natural life. This whole train of thought lasts less than a second—I don’t really articulate it to myself until later. All I experience right then is the realization of how utterly alone I am in that apartment.

  Burly-Bear: (snapping into role) Correct you are. I was checking in on you, just like you say.

  Me: (staring at him for a long moment) Look, what’s the evidence that you referred to back at my office, the whatever-it-is that got you thinking that the man knew me? Because it sure as hell isn’t that slutty lingerie.

  Burly-Bear: (throwing a thumb over his shoulder) Computer down there?

  Me: (I walk to where I can look down. The desk is made of two stubby wooden file cabinets and a slab of black-tinted glass.) I see it.

  Burly-Bear: You’re in it.

  Me: What does that mean?

  Burly-Bear: Guy had what’s called a flickr page. You’re pictured. Got you at Silvertone. Also at the Roxy, bunch of places. Talking maybe twenty shots over an eight-month period. Mostly candids, many close up. Got you smiling into the camera at Fenway.

  Me: (after staring at him for many seconds) It’s some other girl.

  Burly-Bear: Looks like you. In a couple of them the hair’s kind of (he makes a bumpy motion next to his head).

  Me: (involuntarily smoothing my hair) I was trying something. (Then, a tiny bit of shrill entering my voice as it dawns on me) I went to that ballgame with a client, ages ago.

  Burly-Bear: Remember who was playing?

  Me: (shaking my head) It’s the only time I’ve been to Fenway. It was cold. They lost.

  Escroto: (flatly) So maybe you do remember the dead guy, now you think about it, huh?

  Me: (keeping my attention on Burly-Bear) I did not know him. I don’t care if I’m in his flickr. People put whatever they want in their flickrs. If that’s your evidence of some connection between me and this…unfortunate man…I’d like to go.

  Escroto: See that right there? (gesturing with his head at the red-leather book by the bed)

  Me: (looking at it, then at Burly-Bear)

  Escroto: Guy’s diary. Believe it? By his bed and everything?

  Me: People write in them at the end of the day, so that would be the handy place.

  Burly-Bear: Oh? You keep one?

  Me: (wondering for the first time if this blog is a diary and, if so, whether it’s anyone’s business that I keep it) I had one that locked when I was ten. It had a shiny plastic cover with pink flowers all over. I wore the key (I draw a finger across my throat) around my neck.

  Burly-Bear: (I score a snort) So I find this thing, I’m thinking: a diary, how gay is that?

  Me: Men call them journals.

  Burly-Bear: Still…

  Me: (shrugging—why do guys care so much about whether one another is straight or gay?) You’ve read it; you should know.

  Burly-Bear: I’ve leafed through it, true.

  Me: And?

  Burly-Bear: Handwri
ting’s feminine.

  Me: Handwriting serves as far less of a gender marker than people tend to think.

  Burly-Bear: Oh?

  Me: I work with writers, so I’ve picked up the occasional tidbit on writing styles, handwriting, that sort of thing.

  Burly-Bear: Anyway, the thing’s all about a lover he calls “E.”

  Escroto: You know, like your name starts with.

  Me: (ignoring him) He never uses a full name?

  Burly-Bear: Not a once.

  Me: Could it have been a man he’s writing about, just to play out your gay theory?

  Burly-Bear: Calls her “she.”

  Me: A man might use female pronouns to refer to a male lover. It’s common.

  Burly-Bear: That so? And you know that how?

  Me: We’ve published some gay lit. I got to proof it. Lots of what we call “pronoun liberties.”

  Burly-Bear: If it’s a he, that puts a couple of passages in a whole new light, let’s just say.

  Me: Sounds like a good read. His estate should submit it, once this thing is cleared up. Look, why am I here? You could have told me about the flickr account and this so-called diary somewhere else. What’s supposed to happen—am I supposed to do something that reveals to you that I’ve been here before?

  Escroto: (stepping up off the top step, which puts him too close to me for my taste—he chews those old-fashioned violet tablets, from the smell) You mean like the fact that you didn’t have to ask about where the bathroom and bedroom was?

  Me: (coldly) It’s a loft. Any half-wit could have figured out the layout in about five seconds. Wonder how long it took you. (My delivery’s totally straight but I score a snort from Burly-Bear and a nasty eye flutter from Escroto.) Look, what does it matter whether or not I knew the man? I didn’t, but so what if I had?

  Burly-Bear: Well, then we’d need to know why you’d say otherwise at the death scene.

  Me: (suddenly irritated almost beyond words at his dogged cop-think) Well, that’s crystal clear. (I walk right at him and he steps back—not like he’s afraid but more like he gets how to handle women and you do it by letting them think they have some ability to intimidate. Anyway, I go by him and pick up the little diary from the bedside table. I squeeze it, then slap it back down on the table top.) Fingerprints, just for you. Can I leave now?