Missed Connection, page 18
“Peter…” A woman’s voice from behind me.
I turn and lo and behold Officer Molloy is walking toward me, parting Lerner and Murphy like they’re the Red Sea, and I’m thinking: if I’m going to get cuffed, let it be Molloy, because under the most stressful of circumstances, my mind needs distraction.
(…from six-seven-eight…)
She shows me a slip of paper with lots of small print. “We just received the search warrant for your apartment, and we expect the warrant for your building to come through very shortly.”
My heart leaps, but outwardly I remain steadfast and calm. “Are you coming by now? I…I just wanted to grab a quick bite first, but afterwards…”
“We’ll come as soon as we receive the warrant for the building.”
I nod. “Two birds, one stone?”
She smiles, just a little, but not enough to distract. “Something like that. It would be helpful if you were there to let us in.”
“Understood.” Deep inside, a faraway echo, the angel counting: one-one hundred, two-one hundred, three one-hundred.
When I turn to leave, she adds, “Oh…and just one more thing.”
I face her and she steps in close as if to whisper something in my ear. She’s so pretty, pale, lightly-freckled face, emerald eyes with red curls tied neatly into a bun. She says, “Your camera.”
I put both hands on it, as if to protect it. “What about it?”
“Your hobby?”
“My passion.” Is she flirting with me?
She utters slowly, “Can I see it?”
Okay. Lerner and Murphy watch on curiously; they appear as perplexed with this line of questioning as I am. My fingers and toes are crossed for her being genuinely interested in me, but…the mood quickly changes, her interest not the kind of interest I’m interested in. Something like that.
I open up my attaché and remove the camera and she calls a young cop over. “The camera. Bag it, and the contents.”
Within seconds, and for the first time ever, my camera is in someone else’s hands…
(…he took the Polaroid from you, and you never saw it again…)
…and it feels as if my heart was just ripped free of my chest, still beating in the hands of my assailant. “What do you need my camera for?”
Scribbling a note in her stupid pad, she says, “We’re going to examine the contents, then dust it for prints and test it for DNA. Once we’re done, you can have it back.”
“No one other than myself has ever touched that camera. The only prints you’ll find are my own.” I bullet my gaze back and forth between Molloy and my camera, feeling alone, disconnected, a refugee whose child was just taken away.
Molloy smiles. I don’t. She can take her pretty smile and shove it up her ass. “Then you have nothing to worry about, right?”
“Right,” I say.
But I do.
Not only did they take my camera, but they also took the envelope, filled with pictures of Lily.
The woman I denied knowing in the security cam stills.
Chapter 49
Connecting the dots in this drama has been an arduous task. I’ve jumped over hurdles, knocked down roadblocks, and managed to construct a believable series of events in my head leading up to this point. But now? With the presence of someone previously insignificant playing a role, an extra in passing now a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit, I’ve taken a step backward.
What the fuck was the bulgy-eyed bouncer from Peepshow doing in my building?
The devil: He was with Greg Strand. They’re all connected. Lily and Jolie too.
I exit the 19th Precinct into the Upper East Side’s manic flow. Without my camera, my security blanket, I feel lost, the urge to whisper one one-hundred nagging my subconscious. But…I remind myself that for the first time since (…six-seven-eight…) I was a child, my need to count vanished today. That has to count for something, no?
A central part of me for as long as my memories go back, the intensity of my tic has always been directly proportional to the nerve-racking situation driving it. The worse the experience, the more intense my counting. Earlier today, pressured above anything even remotely akin to my everyday anxieties, it peaked, and then unexplainably vanished, imploded, changing me into the person I am now, the now me, the person that always lived inside of me but I never knew existed. Hello me, nice to meet you. At an intersection, I pause with my hands on my knees, taking in deep controlled breaths while staring into the gutter and begging myself not to count. Please don’t count, please don’t count. REPRESS and take control. REPRESS and take control. I am the NOW me…
The numbers fade. Okay. Better.
I haven’t eaten all day and I’m famished. Lightheadedness is kicking in and if I don’t put something other than coffee into my system, I’ll hit the ground hard. I stop by a random salad bar, one of those get-whatever-you-want kind of eateries exclusive to NYC, and decide on breakfast for dinner. I sink into a back corner seat and devour a wrap bursting with eggs, potatoes, and sausage. It’s hell on my constitution, but heaven to the rest of me. Interesting people come and go and I want to capture them on film, but I can’t, and it hurts. It’s as though part of my soul has been torn away, the urge to count continuously pressuring me behind the scenes like an itch that can’t be scratched.
I exit the eatery and walk in the direction of my home. Smiling people come and go, oblivious to the news-worthy injustice tearing me apart. Tears fill my eyes, not of sadness, but of anger and frustration. In less than a week, almost everything I’ve ever identified with has been stripped away: my family, my nanny, my finances, my camera, my lover. I do still have Rachel and Nick, and of course my job, but could easily lose them too—along with my freedom—if things don’t go right for me. What did I do to deserve this?
The angel: You cheated on your wife.
The devil: Everything would’ve happened anyway.
I turn the corner and pass the entrance to the Central Park Sports Club, Jolie’s home away from home. I try her cell again and again it goes to voicemail. She has her phone turned off so it won’t ping, smart; the cops won’t be able to pinpoint her location—guidance from Greg Strand, no doubt. It’s cool out now and the second-floor row of windows is steamy, making it difficult to see the queue of treadmillers. I consider stopping in to look for her, but in my heart of hearts know she’s not there. She’s got bigger fish to fry than to squeeze in forty-five minutes of cardio.
It’s getting dark and the time for me to make my move in the storage area is fast approaching. I can do it too. I know I can. All I need is ten minutes of alone time, and the promise of getting there before the cops do.
The angel asks: What are you planning to do with the body?
I answer aloud, “That, I have no fucking idea.”
In minutes I’m back in my building and can’t help but peek at the camera in the lobby. I do the same in the elevator as I ride up to the fourth floor, knowing that they’re watching my every move. When the doors open, Garvin the ancient man from 4F is in my face.
“Well, hello there!” he says, smiling broadly as if tooth-gaps were something to be proud of.
I say, “How are you?” Are we pals now?
He leans in close as if to divulge a secret, ugh he smells, and whispers, “They told me not to say anything, but the cops were at my place this afternoon.”
True Crime lesson number one: question everyone in the building. The devil called it. “What did they say?”
“They were asking about that little lady who watches your daughter. Told me she was missing, and that they were speaking to everyone on the floor.”
The devil: See? The cops didn’t tell you that. They also didn’t say anything about watching the security footage from the storage area. They are withholding information.
The seconds pass like minutes. I really need to make my move downstairs, and soon. I change the subject. “Heading out for dinner?”
He nods vigorously, ear-to-ear grin stuck as if his batteries just ran out. “Gettin’ some breakfast for dinner! Sometimes the body needs a good omelet to hit the spot, you know?” I give him a thumbs up as the doors close, thinking how easy it is, despite appearances, to have something in common with just about anyone.
(…even HIM…)
I enter my apartment. It’s way too quiet, so I put the TV on to a local spot from The Bathroom Buddies, who promise to be my “buddy in the business,” whatever the fuck that means. I empty my pockets and put my phone and Jolie’s burner on the charge pad. The kitchen is exactly how I left it, wiped clean, but the bedroom is still a mess, Jolie’s things yanked from drawers and half the closet’s contents strewn on the floor. I need to tidy up before the cops get here.
I put in a call to Nick to check on Rachel—she’s doing great, they had Chick-Fil-A for dinner—and provide him with an edited summary of my visit to the 19th Precinct. After our call, I open the fridge and see the last three bottles of Porch Rocker on the top shelf. I’m fairly certain I only drank two, and could’ve sworn there were four left this morning, but I’m too tired to think past I must’ve had three and am thankful they’re not screw-tops, meaning I don’t have to worry about them being Ambien-infused. I hope.
And thus begins the slow build of willpower toward moving Carmen’s corpse. The first beer goes down in five minutes, during which CNN bashes today’s political idiot in the crosshairs. I’m not much of a drinker (or a political guy), so two beers gets me good and buzzed. I pop my second, hoping the last one in the fridge will give me the balls I need to make my move.
In less than thirty minutes, I’ve downed all three beers. I never thought I could be that guy, you know, the one who uses alcohol to bolster his courage? But I’m changed now, my buzz (and balls) not game-ready yet, but getting there. I need something else, something a little stronger. I go through the cabinets and find a couple of unopened wine bottles that were gifted to us some time ago. Jolie and I aren’t wine people. We don’t even own a corkscrew. So I grab a steak knife and get to work. Half of the cork crumbles into the bottle. I drop the other half into the garbage pail…on top of an empty Porch Rocker bottle. I knew there were four bottles in the fridge this morning.
The devil asks: Who drank it?
I shrug my shoulders and take a swig, spitting out tiny pieces of cork, the warm and cloudy effects providing the determination I need to ignore the empty beer bottle and handle the unscrupulous task ahead. I check the time, 9:43, not late enough, but getting there. With at least another hour to kill before I can think about making my move, I decide to straighten up the bedroom.
Thump.
I startle and spin and nearly drop the wine bottle. It came from Rachel’s room. I turn off the TV, firm up my grip on the bottle, and take another gulp. Now I know why people like wine so much. It dulls the senses and provides the balls one needs to do something one wouldn’t normally do. Like move a corpse. It also makes walking in a straight line a challenge. I zig-zag to Rachel’s room and lean against the doorframe and flip on the lights. The room is quiet and empty. Of course it is.
I slur out, “Jolie?”
No answer.
From behind the closed door of my darkroom comes a light thud.
“Jolie…is that you?” Who else could it be?
The angel: Could be a water pipe delivering a hot shower to another apartment, or a…
Thump.
Louder now, definitely not a water pipe. The door shakes and my cheap do not disturb sign sails to the floor. I take another swig, warm and awful-tasting.
The door knob begins to turn.
The fuck! My breath quickens. This is it, no time for deliberation. I thank God for alcohol and decide that from this point forward, I’m a drinker. The door begins to inch open and with no hesitation, I take two steps forward and karate-kick it shut. The person inside—a male voice—goes oomph! A hidden ruckus ensues, someone crashing into the table, the clatter of metal developing trays on the floor, the door trembling as the fallen stranger flounders behind it.
I yank the door open. The overhead bulb in the darkroom is out, but the reaching glow of the bedroom light is more than enough to expose the two large bulging eyeballs staring up at me from the floor.
It’s the fucking bouncer from Peepshow. He tries to get up, but can’t, his arms and legs thrashing uselessly, failing to leverage his massive girth. He looks like a giant tortoise upturned on its shell. I’m drunk, in auto-self-preservation mode, do-or-die, kill-or-be-killed, everything inside of me begging me to react or lose.
The wine bottle is still mostly full, the red liquid spraying out as I swing it in an overhead arc down onto his skull. It shatters into an alarming burst of glass and wine, the upper half of the jagged bottle still in my hand as blood and purple liquid creates a hideous mask on the bouncer’s face, freakish eyes protruding from their sockets like a twin amphibious vocal-sacs. He emits a pig-like squeal and attempts to wipe them with his hands, but it’s too late. They’re wine-doused, and amazingly, still terribly wide-the-fuck-open.
I look at my hands. There’s blood on them, his blood, my blood, who the fuck knows? My head is hot and I’m charged with adrenaline and a surge of might compels me to drop the broken bottle and grab a steel developing tray from the floor. I don’t hesitate. With both hands, I raise it over my head and slam him in the face and dent the tray into an almost-L shape as I scream my tirade’s words between each strike, “How (whack!) dare (whack!) you (whack!) drink (whack!) my (whack!) beer!” When I finally stop, his reptile-egg eyes draw back into his blood and wine-sheathed face, and his eyelids close over them like membranes.
My shoulders are burning from the workout. From my lack of working out. I stagger back into Rachel’s bedroom, tripping over scattered darkroom supplies, slipping and skidding in the spilled wine. The bouncer isn’t moving, thank you, but his huge gut is still rising up and down like an air reservoir on a ventilator. He’s out cold, but in minutes could come to in a rage, so I improvise in the art of subjugation and collect what I can to restrain him, belts and purse straps and duct tape. I grab him by his filthy boots and try with all my might to slide him into the bedroom where there’s more room to work with (and heavier furniture to fetter him to), but my lifelong lack of faith in the gym doesn’t let it happen.
He begins stirring and I begin subduing, moving as quickly as my inebriety will allow. I slip and slide in the wine as I bind his right wrist to the shelving unit with a strap from one of Jolie’s purses. The shelf is anchored but it’s not that heavy and I’m worried he could use his bulk to wrench it free. There’s nothing close by I could cuff his ankles to, so I kneel alongside him and yank his right arm across his body, positioning the loose wrist next to the fettered one. Using the duct tape, I wrap them together as quickly and tightly as possible.
I move to stand…and lose my balance, treading in the spilled wine three times before falling right on top of the huge fucker (thrump!), face-to-face like lovers.
He comes to and his eyes pop out and they almost touch me and I startle and shout ahhhhhhhhhhh!, and he bellows too, his cry blooming not from a place of fear, but of anger. He starts squirming, and as soon as he realizes his wrists are trussed, begins thrashing like a shark out of water, feet slipping and sliding in the wine as they ineffectively attempt to gain purchase. I roll off of him and the shelf trembles and my very first Canon zoom lens tumbles onto his forehead, clunk! I scramble to my feet and step over his incredible bulk, then move in behind the fallen table and give his wrists another half-dozen layers of duct tape, just to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere. There.
He stops thrashing and glares at me, eyes not in full pop-out-mode but quivering like they want to be. He’s winded and snorting like a pig with every labored breath, fat face bloodied and swelling from the thrashing I just gave it.
I giant-step one leg over his huge gut and straddle him, hands on hips, drilling him with swagger. I stay like that while I catch my breath, savoring in the control I have over him now. Despite being winded, it feels great to be in a position of power. Like a million fucking bucks.
(…it’s how HE felt, every time…)
He begins to sob. Whether faked or in defeat, I can’t tell. Doesn’t matter. I lurch unsteadily into the kitchen, grab my cell phone from the charging pad, and race back in.
It’s not the same, but will have to do. I stand over him and recall his words to me the day we first crossed paths at Peepshow. “No one tells me I can’t take no pictures.”
Point.
Click.
Chapter 50
“Untie me! The fuck!”
“I ask the questions.”
“Fuck you.”
A moment passes in which the angel whimpers, what’s wrong with you?, but it already knows the answer. The devil is running the show now, and together, we’ve become the now me.
“Let’s start with how you got in.”
“Fuck you,” he replies, again.
I nod. Grin. Laugh, even. Being in control feels really fucking good (…YES this is how HE felt…). I lean down, reach into his front jeans pocket—black denims residing halfway down his ass—and unearth Jolie’s key to our apartment, still attached to the Coach keychain I bought for her back when she didn’t poison people. I jiggle it like a tiny dinner bell and flaunt a tooth-bearing smile: a simple little pose to make me look unhinged. As expected, he doesn’t like it, not one bit. His eyes bulge and a seizure-like dance ensues, filth-encrusted boots kicking surrealistic streaks into the puddle of wine and making squelchy “thwack” sounds. The shelf shakes and rattles, but remains anchored to the wall.
“Where’d you get this?”
“Fuckin’ let me go!”
“After we talk.” For now, I’m able to keep my cool, but the struggle is real. He blows out three times, then smartly follows suit with a scrunched face of resignation and a conceding relaxation of the arms.
“My hands. They’re fucking numb. Cut the tape, man!”
