The 600 Pound Gorilla, page 4
part #2 of Jimmy Flannery Series
"Wasn't nobody watching her?"
I look at No-Nose and Jefferson and Dugan. I look at Captain Pescaro, who's the Chief of Detectives in the neighborhood, and his two best homicide dicks, O'Shea and Rourke, who are watching me from the doorway of the dry room.
Nobody wants the potato.
"The ape getting a beating ain't all," Jefferson says. "Go ahead have a look."
I go toward the dry room. O'Shea likes to ride me every chance he gets. He don't say any thing, just grins like a cat what ate the bird.
Rourke, who plays good cop because it's his nature, lays his hand on my sleeve a second. "You had a good notion." he says.
I step inside the dry room. It smells worse than any cage in the zoo. There's straw and dung on the floor. There's a chrome-plated chain like rough queers use for belts laying like a shiny snake in the straw with the gorilla crap. There's a bunch of sticks and twigs—Baby's nest, which she makes for herself every night—on the top bench. The naked bodies of two men is sprawled across the wooden benches. There's blood spattered on the cedar slats and one wall, which comes from their noses, ears, asses, and busted mouths. They've been punched to death.
TEN
There's five of us in the office of the Paradise. O'Shea and his partner, Rourke, Captain Pescaro, No-Nose Riley, and me. Baby's on the way over to the mayor's garage—which he's volunteered in front of the television cameras down to City Hall—where No-Nose will catch up to her when the police is done with him.
"He's got no reason to be here," O'Shea says, thumbing at me.
"Everybody's tossing me the baby—you should excuse the pun—so I got a right," I say.
"You making a complaint?"
"It's like somebody asks me to recommend a hotel and they find cockroach in the toilet. Does that make me the man to hang?"
"Who gives a rat's ass, Flannery?" Pescaro says. "We got to get mad at somebody, so until we clear this mess up, why shouldn't it be you? You want roses?"
"Mr. Riley," Rourke says, "have we got it right?
Did you make the request to make a bed for yourself at the Paradise Baths so Baby shouldn't be frightened if she woke up in a strange place In the middle of the night?"
"That's right."
"Where did you make your bed?"
"On the couch in the office."
"Which is thirty-three feet down the hall from the dry room."
"I don't know is it that far."
"Thirty-five feet eight inches, to be exact."
"That's how far I was away from Baby, then."
"What time did you turn in?"
"One-thirty this morning."
"What did you do before you turned in?"
"I took a piss."
"I mean what did you do by way of seeing about Baby's well-being."
"I looked through the window in the door."
"Could you see Baby?"
"Sure."
"This ain't a courtroom on television," says O'Shea. "You don't got to answer with one-word answers."
"Mr. Riley," Pescaro says as smooth as olive oil because he sees No-Nose is feeling intimidated by so many. human beings in one room with him, "you tell us what happened before you went to bed in your own words."
"I went to look in the room in which Baby is being kept. She's made her nest on the top tier, which is a good sign because gorillas go into trees and make a nest when they feel safe and want to sleep. I go back to the office and spread the. . .No, first I take a piss, then I spread out the blankets on the couch and set the alarm on my wristwatch an hour."
Pescaro holds up a hand. "It's your intention to check on Baby. . ."
"Every hour."
"Go on."
"That's it. Something goes wrong with my watch and it don't wake me up. I sleep right on through until eight o'clock, when them two faggots come to open up."
"Why do you sleep right on through?" I say.
"I just told you. My watch don't buzz me awake."
"When was the last time you used your watch alarm to wake you up?"
"Who the hell can remember a thing like that?"
"You don't usually need it to wake you up?"
"I got a regular alarm clock at home."
"So, you set it, but you don't test it?"
No-Nose looks at the cops for help.
"You wake up at eight o'clock, Mr. Riley," Rourke says. "So what do you then?"
"I go take a piss."
"For Christ's sake," O'Shea explodes. "We don't want to know every time you water your horse or wipe your ass."
"You said tell it in my own way," No-Nose protests.
"Did you look into the dry room on the way to the bathroom?" Rourke says.
"No. not then. When I come back. I look in and I see Baby cowering like she's scared to death way over in the corner farthest away from the door. I go right in. She's so scared she shows her fangs at me like she don't even know me, and for a minute I'm afraid she's going to attack me. Then I see what she's afraid of and I go tell the faggots they got two dead gazoonies in the dry room. One of them calls the cops. I call my boss over to the zoo."
"You say you go right in," I say. "Wasn't there a padlock put on the door to the dry room?"
He looks at me like I'm trying to trick him into the gas chamber.
"You can answer Mr. Flannery's question." Pescaro says, leaning forward a little in his chair.
"Yeah, there was a padlock " No-Nose says like his throat's clogged with mud.
"But it wasn't locked in the morning?"
"No."
"Who had the key?"
"I had one and one of the queens had the other."
"Why did you have a key?"
"In case I had to get into the room with Baby, of course."
"Did you ever use the key?"
He unbuttons his hip pocket and takes out his wallet. "No, I never." he says, taking out the key he's got tucked in there.
"Not even the night before when you looked to see if Baby was comfortable?"
"No. I never take this key out of the wallet."
"Not even once during the night?"
"I told you I slept right on through."
I'm trying to figure out how a man what has this valuable animal in his care, a man what is concerned enough about the gorilla to want to sleep near her, ain't touchy enough in a strange place to wake up at the least sound, whether his wristwatch alarm is working or not. I want to know how a man could sleep through the screams of two men getting beat to death. No body asks the question.
"I didn't use this key and I didn't wake up during the night," he says like he's spitting tacks.
"You're excused, Mr. Riley," Pescaro says. "We may be calling for your cooperation again. You going to stay with Baby over to the mayor's house?"
"Where she goes, I go," No-Nose says.
I'm thinking that maybe where she goes he goes because he's got no better place to stay because he drinks up his wages.
Pescaro nods and Rourke goes out with No-Nose Riley.
I go sit by the wastepaper basket. I rummage through my pockets like I'm reading notes I write to myself, and toss what pieces of paper I got into the trash. Then I bend over and take a piece back like I decide it's still useful. There's an empty pint of cheap whiskey near the bottom and a fifth wrapped in a brown paper bag on top of it. I keep it to myself. I figure, what'll it get me to blow the whistle on No-Nose?
Shimmy Dugan and Princess Grace come in.
Grace won't look at me.
"Jesus, I'm sorry for what happened, Princess," I say.
"Is that supposed to be an apology?"
O'Shea doesn't like me, but he likes gays and lesbians even less, so I'm not totally flabbergasted when he defends me.
"What the hell you want Flannery to do, get down on his knees and kiss your ass?"
Princess Grace is mad at me, but he hates O'Shea, so he looks at me like I'm fancy, too, and says. "Ooh, dear, the brute is an unimaginative pervert, isn't he?" And we're almost friends again.
"Could you tell us your real name Princess Grace?" Pescaro says. "Just for the record."
"Roosevelt Modeste. For real. But don't you dare call me Rosie or make jokes about being on the rag."
"We'll just call you Princess Grace like we always do," Rourke says. "You see the padlock put on the door?"
"Of course. We were right there making sure everything was satisfactory."
"You see it locked?"
"That little black dude from City Hall locked it and rattled it."
"Barker Jefferson?"
"Whoever. He handed me a key and gave an other one to the animal keeper with the flat face."
"He take the keys from one of them little wire rings comes with the lock?"
Princess Grace shakes his head, saying he can't remember.
"No, he handed them out one by one." Dugan says. "He had them loose in his pocket."
"Where did you put your key? On that ring on the wall?"
"In the desk drawer, which we then locked."
"With a key on the ring? So there were two keys to the padlock on the premises. Yours in the drawer and Mr. Riley's in his pocket?"
"I'll only swear to the whereabouts of the key given to us."
"Why did you put it in the drawer? Why didn't you keep it with you?" O'Shea asks as if there's something very suspicious.
Dugan cold-eyes him. "What was it supposed to open in our apartment?"
"Somebody could of got to it hanging right there in the office."
"Somebody was supposed to get to it in case of fire."
"So why was it in a locked desk drawer?"
"Shimmy, I think these bastards are trying to pin this on us."
"You see the two men in the dry room?" Pescaro says, moving in along another track.
"I wish we hadn't," Dugan says.
"I'll have nightmares," Grace adds.
"You know them?"
"They're regular customers," Dugan says.
"And friends?"
"Not socially, no. Just good, regular customers."
"Cruisers?"
"I never asked them. It's none of my damned business.
"Don't use that tone with us," O'Shea says. "It's our damned business."
"I don't think either one just hit and run, but I can't know that for sure."
O'Shea's feeling against homosexuals is making the atmosphere very heavy.
"Please tell us their names," Pescaro says.
"The taller one's name is Spencer. The other is . . . was . . . Frye."
"First names?"
"Roger Spencer and Harold Frye."
"Street names?"
"Boo-Boo and Chicky."
Captain Pescaro stands up. "I'm going to ask you to come down to the station and go through your testimony for a police stenographer."
"I'm getting a headache." Grace says.
"What do you drink?" I say.
"White wine. It's the only civilized thing." Grace says. "If you're thinking about making up to me with a little present, Asti Spumanti is nice, dear."
"So you come down sometime today," Pescaro says. "It's as much for you as for us. We get it all down straight with no mistakes."
He's warning them if they don't keep on cooperating he could make things very unpleasant.
"One more thing, you don't mind." I say. "Are you missing two towels?"
"What's with you, dear?" Grace says. "You think we count tricks with towels the way they do in whorehouses?"
"What's on your mind Flannery?" Pescaro says.
"You see any towels in the dry room before the forensics team arrived? Well, there was no towels in there with the bodies when I walked in. You know what else?"
"What else?"
"There were no bite marks on the dead men."
ELEVEN
By the middle of the next week the autopsy shows that Spencer died of a ruptured spleen and Frye of powerful punches to the heart.
An inquest is held and a quick decision comes down that the two men died at the hands of an enraged animal.
"That was very quick, indeed," my father says a the supper table, "as crowded as the coroner's calendar is."
"Makes you think the mayor wants it shoveled under the rug."
"I always thought gorillas was timid creatures," Mary says.
"Anything'll turn wild you hurt it bad enough," Mike says. "Remember that Gargantua what was with Barnum and Bailey's circus? Hell, no, you wouldn't. You was too young. Well, when it was small some cruel bugger tosses a glassful of battery acid in its face. Made it the meanest goddamn ape in captivity. You can drive anything bad. One of them fairies slashed . . ."
"Don't say that."
". . . Baby across the eyes with a chain he was wearing for a belt." Mike stops and looks at me. "What do you mean, 'Don't say that?'"
"Why do you have to call them fags and queers?"
"I didn't call them fags and queers. I called them fairies, which is what we called them when I was your age."
"Why do you have to call them a nasty word?"
"What the hell is nasty about a fairy? We tell little kids stories about them all the time."
"You know what I mean."
"In fact, a fag's the end of a cigarette."
"Ah, Mike, now you're cracking wise," I say. "You know words mean different things according to how you say them. Calling someone a fairy or a fag is putting them down, and you know it. I mean, a dyke ain't a dam to hold back water in Holland."
"You really hit a long ball when you make a point," Mike says. "All I'm saying is, what's in a name?"
"So if it's all the same to you, why not call them gays just like people try to do what don't want to put them down?"
"Well, there you have it. Gay used to mean happy and lively, you know? I mean we used to say after a picnic or a ball game that we had a gay old time. I can't say that anymore without worrying that some gazoony in the bar runs his hand up my leg. Whose rights are we talking about here?"
"Homosexual," Mary says.
"What?" both Mike and me say at the same time.
"Why not call them homosexuals and have done with it?"
The doorbell rings and Mary gets up to answer it.
"Exactly my point." Mike says. "So this homosexual hit Baby in the face with his belt. Probably walked into that there dry room with his buddy, ready for a little action, and there's this big ugly black beast squatting there. Enough to scare anybody. Takes his belt and lashes out with it."
I can hear voices in the hall, but we don't pay attention. We go on with the argument.
"If it was his belt," I say,"what was he doing wearing it in the dry room, where all you need is a towel . . . not even that if you don't care to use one?"
Mike puts his face down into his Irish stew and glances up and sideways at me.
"Well, you know," he mumbles.
"No, I don't know," I say.
"He could of been wearing it you know—the way hookers wear them little gold chains around their bellies to—"
"I don't think so."
"Or maybe he was going to whip his friend with it. You know, the way they do."
"You seem to know a hell of a lot about kinky sex," I say.
"Watch your mouth how you talk to your father."
Mary and Janet Canarias come into the kitchen. Mike gets up and shakes her hand. I start to get up but she says, "Don't let me interrupt."
"I think that chain was left by somebody to make it look like Spencer or Frye hit Baby in the face," I say.
My father reaches back and gets a clean plate off the shelf and dishes out some stew for Canarias.
"Point number two," I say, "there was no towels in there with them."
"There you go. They weren't in there to relax. Give Janet some bread, Mary."
"I've had my supper, thank you," Canarias says.
"Take a whiff and tell me you can resist that," Mike says.
"Three," I say, ticking off another finger. "you'd have to be blind not to see the sign what Shimmy Dugan put on the door telling people to stay out of the dry room. You could hardly miss it unless you walked in backward."
"Or was drunk."
"Nothing in the blood test. Nothing in the stomachs except a little wine. Begging your pardon, Miss Canarias."
"Hey," says Mary, "why don't you beg my pardon you talk about such things at the supper table?"
"You're a nurse," I say.
"And I'm a lawyer," Canarias says. "I've seen plenty of evidence that would make your hair curl." She has a taste of stew. Then she butters a heel of rye and settles down to eat another supper.
"So, what are telling me, Jim?" Mike says. "You saying some queer-bashers, begging your pardon "—Canarias says something under her breath—"took them two homosexuals in there and killed them just for the hell of it? What did you say, Janet? Did I miss something?"
"I said, 'Jesus Christ,' an outburst of mild disgust and frustration. You don't have to watch what you say around me. You're acting the way people act around somebody who's lost a loved one. Everybody's chatting away and somebody kiddingly says to another person. 'Oh, drop dead', and everything stops while everybody stares at the bereaved waiting to see if they'll go through the roof or drop down in a faint. I say 'queer-basher' and 'faggot' and sometimes, even, 'bull dyke.' Give me a break, for Christ's sake, and pretend I'm human just like you. Full of error, full of sin."
"My God, you got a silver tongue," my old man says. "What do you think about this tragedy?"
"I think the decision sent down by the board of inquest is not supported by the facts. I think Roger and Harold were murdered. I think nobody in government or law enforcement cares much about two gays murdered in a bathhouse. 'where they must have been for dirty purposes.' I think, if the power structure has its way, it's the last we'll hear about them. But I don't think the power structure is going to have its way. Roger and Harold were not only my chief supporters, but personal friends. They were a couple, a mated pair of lovers just like you and Mary. They didn't frequent bathhouses to have illicit sex or kinky sex. They didn't frequent gay hangouts looking for casual affairs. They shared an apartment and were what you'd call homebodies. They were sincere, affectionate, and loyal to their friends . . . to me."
