A Killer’s Kiss

18

I went straight back to my apartment after leaving the Inner Circle offices, with a file of desperate letters, all copies, in my briefcase and a single original folded up in my jacket pocket. I wanted to wash the gel out of my hair, sure, but what I really wanted was to figure out what to do with that one original I had swiped. Examine it, hide it, immolate it, I wasn’t quite sure, but I was quite sure I wanted to figure it out on my own, without anyone looking over my shoulder.

Which was why the sight of Detective McDeiss leaning against the side of a car parked right in front of my apartment building was so distressing. He was on his phone, staring at me as I approached.

“What’s that on your head?” said McDeiss when he clicked his phone shut.

“Gel,” I said.

He stared at my hair for a long moment.

“It’s stylish,” I said. “Quite hip.”

“It’s quite something. You look like a mortician I know named Prentice.”

“Handsome guy?”

“Not really. You want to take a ride?”

“No.”

“Excuse me. My sentence was phrased indelicately. It is a statement of fact and not a question. You want to take a ride.”

“So that’s it, huh? Where to?”

“The Roundhouse. Sims was waiting for you at your office. Hanratty was waiting for you at the Denniston place in Chestnut Hill, in case you happened to show up there again. I had nothing going on, so I volunteered to wait a bit at your home. I just got hold of them on the cell, so now they’ll be waiting for you at headquarters.”

“Why didn’t they just call me?”

“They want to talk, and Sims had the sneaking suspicion that you wouldn’t show up on your own. Let’s go.”

“Can I go upstairs first and wash this crap out of my hair?”

“No.”

“It will only take a minute, but it’s starting to feel a little-”

“Icky?”

“Exactly.”

He pushed himself off the car, opened the rear door for me. “Get in.”

“Unless you have a warrant, Detective, I’m going upstairs to wash my hair. The Constitution gives me a right to clean hair.”

“You’re already a gelhead, don’t be a dickhead, too. Get in the damn car.”

I got in the damn car. McDeiss was right, I was being a dickhead. I had my reasons to squawk, first to get that gel out of my hair and second to ditch the incriminating fake letter before I showed up at police headquarters, but to start asking about warrants and bitching about the Constitution with McDeiss was all wrong. He was a Philadelphia homicide detective, he had a caseload to choke a goat, when he said he had nothing going on, he was lying. He had volunteered to wait at my apartment on the odd chance that he could get to me before Sims did. He was trying to help, he had something to say, and I was being churlish by giving him lip before he said it.

“Do you have any idea what the hell you’re doing, Carl?” he said as we drove toward the Roundhouse. He was in the driver’s seat, I sat in the back. I felt weirdly like an old Southern Jewish lady.

“Not really,” I said.

“It certainly shows,” he said, glancing at me through the rearview mirror. “Because you are screwing yourself big-time. I thought I advised you to stay the hell out of this until Sims finally charged the wife.”

“You did.”

“So that’s why you’re rushing all around town with a blackjack in your pants and a bottle of gel on your head?”

“Er…”

“Just so you know, questions are being asked about you. And not just by Hanratty.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Spare me the tears. It doesn’t matter what you say or if I believe you or not. Right now what matters is what Sims believes, and what he can convince the D.A. of. You’re making things too easy for him. And he’s not pulling this crap out of thin air.”

“What does he have?”

“That’s not my place, Victor. It’s his case, he discloses what he needs to disclose on his own time. But I’m telling you not to be a fool. The focus of the investigation is shifting. The wife’s lawyer has been whispering in Sims’s ear.”

“Clarence Swift is an eel.”

“Maybe, but that only means Sims has found a fellow member of the species. And he’s been listening.”

“He’s right to be listening. She didn’t do it.”

“Now, see, there you go again. How do you know? How do you know anything, you fool? How do you know you’re not being set up by a spider with dark hair and nice legs?”

“Because I found her alibi.”

McDeiss shot me a look through the rearview mirror. “Is this an alibi she manufactured and pushed you to find?”

“No,” I said. “I found it on my own, and she made me promise not to tell anyone.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. But it’s tricky, because the main alibi witness himself was committing a crime at the time, and so he won’t want to testify either.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Do me a favor and grab a look at the coroner’s report on the dead man. I’m wondering specifically about the toxicology findings. And on the wife, too, if you can manage it.”

McDeiss drove on in quiet for a moment. “Drugs?”

“Just take a look.”

“You talk to this witness personally?”

“Yah, mon,” I said, with an island lilt.

“Where? Jamaica?”

“Closest thing we got.”

He glanced again at me through the mirror. “You understand, Victor, that if she has an alibi, that makes you the more attractive suspect.”

“With this gel in my hair, I don’t think so.”

“You should have just walked away when I told you.”

“It’s not so easy.”

“Why not?”

I didn’t answer, because in truth I didn’t have an answer.

“What is it, Victor?” said McDeiss. “You think you love her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shouldn’t that tell you enough right there, son?”

“Maybe we both changed. Maybe it will work out this time.”

“And in your experience we all get better as we age?”

“No.”

“But still you’re willing to gamble your life because you think if only everything will go away – the dead husband, the cops, the suspicions, the fear – if everything can disappear, maybe that old love will blossom anew and save your stinking life, is that it?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“Past performance.”

“She’s not a horse.”

“You gave her your love, and she stepped on your face when she left to marry someone else. Then this someone else, he gave her his love and his name, and he ended up with a bullet in his head. There’s something wrong with her. There’s a hole in her heart. It’s what ruined the thing you had in the past, and it’s only gotten deeper. She’s not going to save your life, she’s going to tear it apart for good, if you let her.”

“So what should I do?”

“Give Sims everything you have, give him the alibi if you insist on trying to save her life, and then stay the hell away from her.”

“It won’t be that easy.”

“Why not, Victor?”

“Isn’t love worth risking everything for?”

McDeiss was quiet for a long moment, and then said, “You’re an ignorant son of bitch.”