The Subtle Art of Brutality, page 2
“I will cut your name in two.”
He turns around and begins to walk away from us, bathing in the shadows that line this neighborhood. “You’ll understand that when I said I forgave you, I lied.”
Alisha McDonald’s broken father strides away from us to go unearth his dead child to give her some dignity. I told Ken as soon as he hired me the answers would come, but not without a price.
Ken steps up and off the street, past the lights and into the gloom and darkness. But then he stops. Stands bolt still.
All that emerging callousness doing its work. Ken doesn’t fight it; just welcomes it. It’s armor. The best kind. Transforms his core just past the edge of shadow where the light cannot reach him.
Eventually Ken turns back towards us. Walks forward from the shadows a different man. Just like that. Flashes of his little girl and whatever horrors his mind played for him, flashes of his kid brother and the sins Ken committed to protect Francis, coming back now to stab him in the back. Betrayal lodges deep. Past bone and into the soul.
The decision Ken has just made, bathed in the ink from a night here in country that God has overlooked, he becomes someone else. Something else.
He walks up, holds out his hand. Now we’re talking.
I pull a drop gun I took from a gang-banger months back. He didn’t need it anymore; he was quite dead. The drop gun goes to Ken’s open palm, then it goes to Francis’s head and my .44 doesn’t have to worry about being traced.
A gunshot later and I am heading home to wash the brains off of my face. Contact shots are bad about that kind of thing.
2
My name is Richard Dean Buckner.
People call me either Richard or Mr. Buckner. No one calls me Dick.
No one.
3
An overflowing ashtray.
The air is blue with so much smoke. I crush another butt into the glass dish after using it to light a new cigarette. Two old, yellowing cigarette carcasses shift in the pile like demolition rubble. They almost cause a landslide. I drag deeply, exhaling through my nose like a raging bull snorting heat into a crisp morning.
I rub my neck where several years ago I was assaulted with a hypodermic needle loaded with a lethal dose of the Big Fry. Hit attempt. To kill an elephant you have to hit it with a missile. I guess I’m something more than a typical elephant because the missile failed. Not without cost, though.
The PD called me unserviceable. I think that bitch Flemming picked the word on purpose. The PD retired me unceremoniously with a pension check just big enough to legally argue they gave me something.
Black and white photographs are scattered across my desk and ink blots like square leaves falling off a zebra tree.
My desk’s far edge is lined with origami. Two swans, with their flat heads and triangle beaks, tread water on the wooden surface and swim without moving an inch. A sailboat with so many imperfect folds it would do better as an anchor. It sails in the empty sea along my desk, prow facing the swan, invisible waves rolling and hitching it to nowhere. A paper rose, a table with two chairs. A whale. All so imperfect.
A half-dead fan spins above me. Two dim bulbs dangle from it, casting light in search beacon fashion. It, being tossed around by the fan’s wobbly spinning, jumps and bobs and dives and swings, throwing light here and there and back here again. Trying to read by the lone fan’s erratic behavior gives me headaches.
The blinds behind me are drawn loosely, allowing grated, wedge-on-top-of-wedge blocks of waning sunlight to fall over the room. A fake plant rises out of a cheap, wicker pot and leans into the corner; a drunk using the wall to hold himself up while he searches for his next step.
I blow smoke rings up at the fan and watch them get thrown about and torn into thousands of small gray strips. I rub my face and sandpaper lining my jaw grits under one palm.
The phone rings.
“Hello?”
“Richard?”
“Hello, Abe.” Abe Baldwin is my main man. He is a terrible trial lawyer who has a crusader complex bigger than a movie star’s ego. He spent a few years in the city’s district attorney’s office, but he is horrible at research and even worse at arguing. The sign of a good cook is if they are fat. If Abe were as bad a cook as he is a lawyer, we would have lost him a long time ago.
The writing on my office door says I’m a private investigator. In between jobs for Abe I take pictures of rich housewives banging the pool boy, rich husbands banging the maids, dirty cops taking pay-offs, blah blah blah. The usual, makes-ends-meet fare. There’s plenty to go around.
Abe will call me with a special case every now and then, and I look into it for him. He called me a few weeks ago about Ken McDonald and his daughter.
“How did it go?” Abe asks.
I sip my bourbon and coffee and say, “His brother did it.”
“Francis? He confessed?”
“Yes.”
Abe sighs with relief. “Good. Because Ken McDonald went to his brother’s house last night. He made a huge scene. Cops and media huge. Smacked around his sister-in-law.”
“I saw on TV.”
Abe keeps on anyways. “Fucked that house up like he was a bull on ’roids. He pummeled every square inch of that house.”
TV had some on this morning’s broadcast.
“Dug up his kid,” Abe said.
“Saw it.”
“They’ll be looking for Francis, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. Dubberly was the investigator on that one?”
“Yes.”
Detective Mickey Dubberly is a fat, shining example of the police department’s inability at quality screening. Dubberly is about as dirty as a cockroach trudging through pig shit, and what I really need to do is just plug him full of lead.
The one thing about scum cops: if they are given a way out that doesn’t involve something ugly, they’ll take it. No doubt Dubberly, the head detective on the missing Alisha McDonald case, was the one taking the biggest cut from the pervert’s in-laws.
“Dubberly can be dealt with easy enough,” I say without a true worry.
“You think?”
“Yes. Dubberly is a squirmer. He’ll run straight to the captain and blabber on and on about how he always thought Francis was the real threat...blah blah blah. He’ll pass the buck.”
“What if they find Francis’s corpse?”
“They’ll see that his brother shot him. If Kevin hasn’t already confessed everything.”
“Do you think McDonald will talk?” Abe. Cautious. Worried about his ass.
“Not about us.”
“You sure?”
“We shook hands on it if that means anything anymore. He said what he wanted. He got it. He pulled the trigger. I doubt he’ll talk.” Abe breathes in and out from his nose. I know Abe; that’s his nervous breathing.
“But, just in case I took the usual precautions.” Cash. No paper trail. No phone records. “All he could prove is he called you for help. When we first met he told me he spoke to several lawyers that day. You’ll be lost in the shuffle. Deny. Stick to it. You’re out of any real trouble.”
“Just deny it? What about the girl’s body? How’d he find it then?”
“Just because the police let go of their prime suspect doesn’t mean McDonald had to let go of his as well. Alisha was last seen with Francis. The brand-new garden planted the same time his kid disappeared, probably as big as a child’s coffin. McDonald also knew his brother had hurt another kid. It all adds up to him solving this on his own.”
“I hope so. I don’t need that kind of heat right now.”
“Pussy.”
“You know, I like that—” and I can’t hear Abe’s words because the colors smear in my mind, running like a fresh oil painting drenched in water. Red cascades down and peels away to an orange which becomes yellow before my brain seizes for just a moment and I know my teeth grit so hard it’s audible. The last runner of liquid horror traces down across my vision and my skull clears up.
Just like that. Why I am unserviceable. Big Fry Smear.
My voice groggy and choked up: “I said I’d find his kid, not have his back later.”
Abe said, “Anyways, I sent a guy your way. Friend of a friend of a friend.”
“You don’t have friends, Abe.”
“My wife keeps saying that. Friend of a friend of a friend of a former client. He needs you to look up his daughter.”
“Great. Another father-daughter case. Is he legit?”
“Sure he is. Why not?”
I installed a light outside my office door for one reason: security. There is a panel of frosted glass in my door, shoulder height. The light limns anyone who shows up knocking, and the glass frames their heads in case I answer the door with a gunshot.
It’s been known to happen.
A man’s silhouette appears from the murky grayness of the textured glass and I say to Abe: “I’ll call you back.”
Abe says something about having me over for dinner, and before I can tell him I won’t eat the slop his English-immigrant wife cooks, my doorknob turns.
The man walks in unannounced. That will get you killed around here. He looks distinguished by way of his IQ or academic accomplishments. He is rather unremarkable, but the snooty air about him immediately puts a bad taste in my mouth. I do not like being around people who think they are better than me. I do not like it at all, Sam I am.
Under the desk, my revolver comes out and aims in his direction. If he knows he’s covered by a large bore revolver he doesn’t act like it. My eyes go to his hands. Without patience: “You knock first.”
“I do apologize, sir.”
“Don’t apologize.” I say. “Knock.”
“Mr. Buckner, may I call you Richard?” He says, smoothing the front of his suit jacket.
I say nothing. After an uncomfortable minute he takes the hint, nods like a spoiled child and walks back out my door. He stands there for a second, clearly not used to bending to someone else’s will. Knocks. Hard.
“Come in.” I say, pleasantly enough. I do not re-holster my iron.
Irritated: “Mr. Buckner, how are you?”
“Oh, just fine. What were you saying?”
“Well, I—” He stares at my swans and sail boat. “Your origami are...unique.”
“The good ones are at home.”
“Your mother must be very proud of you.”
“Even if she were alive I wouldn’t give a shit.”
“Hmmm. Well, anyways.” He looks around. Smoothes his jacket again. “Is it Mr. Buckner or Richard?”
“Depends on who’s addressing me.”
“A paying client?”
“Well, anything but Dick. Do not call me Dick.”
“Understood. I am Dr. Windslow, and I need you to find a certain young lady for me.”
“Your daughter?”
An uncomfortable chuckle. Then, “Absolutely not. As it were she was a...mistress.”
“Abe send you over?”
“No. I don’t know an Abe.”
“Why do you want the mistress?”
His eyes slink about. Serpent. His throat clicks at the speed of light. He needs to think of something. If he is going to lie he should have concocted it before now.
“To rekindle, I suppose.”
“Marriage not work out?”
Incredulous: “I beg your pardon, but you cannot seriously—”
“Yes or no. Has your marriage failed?”
“Why must you assume I am married? I have no wedding band. I am not fat as so many married men are. I—”
“Only a married man has a ‘mistress.’ Single men have girls, girlfriends, bitches, baby mamas. A distinguished man like you uses the correct label for everything. It would be an insult to your superior self-perception to do otherwise.”
Angry. Seen-through.
“Very well. My marriage has ended. Quite abruptly.”
“Because of your affairs?”
“None of your business.”
So yes.
“And now you want to rekindle an extramarital affair? Correct? Why did the affair end in the first place? Wife find out?”
“The wife and I spent our time in therapy trying to salvage our marriage. Now it is over and I want my old girlfriend back.”
His throat clicks again. A tell.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want her back?”
“So we may continue, as I stated earlier.”
“Does she want to be found?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, why do you need a private detective to find a woman whom you think will still want to be with you? If she’s that in to you she shouldn’t be hard to find.”
“Will you take the case or not?” Cut to the chase.
“What’s her name?”
“Denise Carmine. White female, age thirty-two. Brown and blue. Five-foot-eight, one hundred and thirtyish. Divorced, no children. Drives a white Toyota sedan.”
Impressive. And dangerous.
I lean forward, one elbow on the desk. That hand I rest my chin into, the other hand still holds him unwitting, inches from death. “Let me tell you about a common theme running through my office.”
“Very well.” Impatient red rising up his collar. The throat clicks. I already know my answer.
“I need to make this clear. Dudes come in here asking me to find the ex-girlfriends they’ve been hiding from their wives. It happens. For some reason man will court a woman, spend money on her, make plans with her, propose to her, marry her, live with her, make children with her, and then cheat on her and risk everything. Much like yourself.
“Some of these guys get away with it. Some don’t. But they all hide their affairs. Some want to hide them deeper than others. Those are usually the guys who have something to lose and they decide that whatever it is, they don’t want to lose it. So they come in here and hire me to find these girls.
“Once I found a married dude’s mistress. I told the guy where she was. He left my office, went to her place and beat the fuck out of her for talking about their affair in a bar.”
Dr. Windslow begins to shake his head in denial.
“So this mistress, it’d been few years since porking this married dude. She got drunk in Steamy’s Pub and blabbed that she slept with a guy who had a membership to some country club. I’m sure she bragged about him, said his name, the whole nine yards. The married dude must have had a friend in the bar, because it got back to him. How, I have no idea. Don’t care. She needed four reconstructive surgeries afterwards. I don’t know what she looked like before. But now, wherever in the world she goes she’s the ugliest thing walking down the street.
“I guess the married dude thought there was a quiet understanding that the mistress was not aware of. The affair was a secret, and she wasn’t being secret anymore.”
Dr. Windslow still shakes his head, but as an act. A knee-jerk response. No real reason behind it. Another tell.
Our eyes meet, mine dig into his. “No. I will not take your case.” Firm. Stolid. “But I will be keeping an eye on you. If Denise Carmine, white female, age thirty-two, brown and blue, five-foot-eight, one hundred and thirtyish, divorced, no children, drives a white Toyota sedan turns up beaten or dead, I’ll remember you.”
The good Dr. Windslow smoothes his jacket again and looks very uncomfortable. I should kill him now and spare Denise Carmine the looming threat.
“I do not hunt women for angry, jealous men.”
“You are mistaken about me, Mr. Buckner. But I can see there is no turning back from this point—you believe my motives are soiled—so I bid you farewell.”
I cock the hammer. He takes notice.
“I will be keeping an eye on you.”
His throat clicks again, but this time because he is swallowing hard.
“I do not sleep. And I see everything.”
He walks out.
I do not hunt women for angry, jealous men.
4
“I really ’preciate this, Mr. Buckner.”
Through tendrils of smoke I say: “It’s not a problem.”
Elam Derne sits before me. Abe’s referral. Mr. Derne: late fifties, early sixties. Bottle cap glasses. Coarse beard the color of bleached sand. A gentle air about him despite his hefty build. Thick. Stocky. He could have been saddled and pulled a cart in his youth. Maybe even now.
“Elam?” I drag. “Biblical, right?”
“Yes it is. My mother was extremely Baptist.”
“Catholic myself.” One hand goes to my Saint Michael the Archangel pendant. “Dated a Baptist girl once. She was a huge bitch.”
Avoiding my last comment, Derne clears his throat, then: “My mother was Evangelical. You can tell my by name, and I have six brothers and sisters. Jonah, Adam, Bethel, Daniel, Eden and Zachariah.”
“Impressive.”
He looks uneasy. Not the same way Dr. Windslow looked. I crush out my smoke and grab my notepad.
“Tell you what, just start at the beginning.”
“Sure. Here goes.” He says and readjusts in his seat. Breathes in. Exhales. Even across the desk I can smell the cigarette on his breath. Takes his glasses off, puts them back on.
His narrative: “Let’s see, I guess my wife and I bought the house on Madison back in...oh, ’71 or so. Nixon still had the office when we signed for it. Maybe in ’76 was when the Boothes moved in across the street. Newlyweds. Beboppers. Nice couple; the wife especially. Darla, her name. The husband, Benjamin, good enough fellow but he had a stand-offish quality I never trusted. Still childless at the time. Belinda was born first, not too long after they settled in. Maybe a year or two. Before Ronald Reagan anyways.
“About two years after Delilah came about Benjamin just got up and left. This must have been in ’82 or ’83. What a piece of shit, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. Piece of shit. I told Anne as soon as we met them—I said, Anne, watch that guy. You can tell by how he keeps his car and his yard he ain’t too keen on responsibility. And damnit I was right. A wife and two little girls depending on Benjamin Boothe and poof! Just leaves. I heard he was incarcerated up north of here some ways, but I never did ask much about it. Between us, I think he was queer.
