Death Angels

20

BOLGER WAS AGHAST. “I THOUGHT YOU’D BE PAlNTlNG THE TOWN in Soho by now.”

“Another time,” Winter said.

“You obviously weren’t grounded by the weather.”

“Something came up.”

“Have one on the house.”

“Mineral water in a glass, please, with ice and a slice of lime.”

“Sure you don’t want something more daring?”

“Bring me a mineral water and tell me what you think of Bergenhem.”

Bolger fixed Winter’s drink by the rack under the mirror behind the bar.

“He seems a little green.” Bolger put a glass down in front of Winter. “But he’s got a pair of eyes that could serve him well if he learns how to use them in the dark too.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What I mean is that he needs to get his act together.”

“He’s young, but that’s not always a disadvantage.”

“It usually is.”

“But not always.”

“No.”

It was almost midnight. Three of the seven tables were taken, and the voices of the customers seemed muffled by the smoke.

Two women sat at the far end of the bar with cigarettes between their fingers and expressions on their faces that suggested they had finally discovered the meaning of life and concluded it didn’t make any difference.

One of the women gazed at Winter out of the corner of her eye. The lines on her face tightened. She said a few words to her companion, put out her cigarette and lit a new one. She fingered the package in front of her as if to assure its dwindling contents that she hadn’t forgotten about them.

“I’m not sure Bergenhem wants to get his act together,” Bolger said.

“Depends on who explains it to him.”

“Who else but you?”

Winter felt like lighting up a cigarillo, but a glance at the chain smokers to his right made him think better of the idea. The woman who had eyed Winter earlier motioned to Bolger. He walked over and took her order. After fixing her drink at the bar, he put the glass down in front of her. A look of disappointment passed over her face as she drank.

“She asked for the same thing the gentleman over here was drinking. I’d bet she was expecting a gin and tonic.”

“I could have been living it up in London tonight.”

“You’re married to your job.”

“My theory is that there are things just beneath the surface that we don’t know are there.” Winter broke down and lit a cigarillo.

“Absolutely.”

“Sometimes all you have to do is blow away a little dust and it appears.”

“And that’s Bergenhem’s job. Is that what you’re saying?”

Winter smoked and glanced at the women but turned his head away when they reciprocated. “Maybe more than a little dust,” he said. “I have a feeling you know a few things that you haven’t told us and maybe don’t want to talk about.”

“What kinds of things?”

“About the industry.”

“What industry?”

“Give me a break; I’m a little tired.”

“Okay, okay, the industry.”

Winter took another sip of water. Sinatra’s voice came over the speakers. That song is from the fifties, he thought. I hadn’t even been born.

“The restaurant and porn industries aren’t one and the same,” Bolger insisted. “They’re light-years apart.”

“Of course.”

“I know a little about the porn scene because of the late hours I stay open.”

“It doesn’t sleep during the day, I assume?”

“No, but it thrives under the cover of darkness.”

“You know your way around the city pretty well. How has it changed the past few years? It’s not the same, right?”

“Colder and more callous, but I can’t say exactly how.”

“It’s all society’s fault.”

“No doubt.”

“I’m not being totally facetious. People are moving to the cities like never before and that creates problems.”

“Let me tell you a little story.” Bolger leaned forward. “More and more girls are coming here from the countryside, and it’s not to go to school. There aren’t any jobs for them on the west coast or wherever the hell they come from, and it isn’t long before they find out that things are no better here.”

“But they come anyway?”

“Yes, and guys are waiting for them on the platform with open arms-literally. An innocent little farm girl steps off the train and there he is.”

“Sounds like something out of the former USSR.”

“These girls hardly have time to put their suitcase in a locker, much less settle in with their aunt or get a cheap hotel room, before the guy springs his proposal on them.”

“Hmm.”

“And it’s not just girls.”

“Why is that?”

Bolger’s gesture suggested that Winter may as well have asked about the key to eternal life or the path to inner peace. “But I can give you some names,” he offered.

“Names of whom?”

“Names of people who know more about this kind of thing than I do.”

“Good.” Winter flicked his cigarillo in the ashtray that Bolger had slid across the bar.

“I don’t want anybody to get hurt.” Bolger went over to the women, who had begun to wave again. One of them said something and Bolger returned to Winter. “They’re wondering if they can buy you a drink.”

Winter swiveled around on his bar stool, bowed gratefully, gave a little shake of his head and pointed at his glass of water as politely as he could.

“Might be worth a go,” Bolger said. “Happy-go-lucky girls, but not fresh from the countryside.”

“It’s more the other kind who interest me right now. The ones you seem to know something about.”

“The whole thing’s innocent enough if you ignore a few details. A girl is offered a job as a hostess at a strip joint, which means she keeps the Coke glasses of the customers filled and gets up on a table, or a little stage, and gyrates to the music.”

“Or in a glass booth in one of the inner rooms.”

“Right.”

“Are we talking about prostitution?”

“Eventually. Not for all of these little angels, but some of them.”

“Boys too?”

“Yes.”

“Dancers?”

“A dance for angels,” Bolger said.

“Dance with an angel.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“When it comes to murder,” Winter said, “there are lots of ways to look at it.”

“You know more about that than I do.”

“What can you tell me about the movie business?” Winter considered ordering another glass of mineral water but remembered the women at the end of the bar-he didn’t want to seem like he was snubbing them.

“Not much.”

“Think harder.”

“Not a hell of a lot more than you do,” Bolger said. “You know so much about everything.”

“It’s no secret there’s more than appears on the racks when you walk in.”

“An awful lot can appear on the racks, we’re so permissive nowadays.”

“But not child porn.”

“Where do you draw the line?”

“Somewhere in the deep dark recesses of a store or a warehouse is a line that somebody can step over.”

“Let me ask you something, Erik. Have you ever rented a porn video?”

“No.”

“Seen a porn flick at a theater?”

“No.”

“So you really don’t know what you’re up against.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you’ve never had the slightest urge to rent or buy a movie that shows people engaging in various kinds of sex acts. You don’t know what it feels like.”

“So it’s a different kind of feeling from what somebody like me might have?”

“I don’t know. You’ve always been fascinated by sex. But you’ve been able to satisfy your needs the way God intended.”

“Interesting theory.”

“I’m serious. The point is that the second or third choice takes over, and pretty soon they’re just as satisfying as what you can’t have.”

“Hmm.”

“Physical gratification isn’t what’s most appealing-maybe just the opposite, in fact. It’s more pleasurable without physical contact, because nobody is making any demands on you.” Bolger brought him another glass of mineral water. The women had left without looking their way. “Some of the poor bastards who hang out in the screening rooms would be scared to death if they could get their paws on a living man or woman.”

“That makes sense.”

“But their appetite grows and grows-a naked body or ordinary sex isn’t good enough anymore. And I’m not even talking about the most extreme customers.”

“So there aren’t any limits-is that what you’re trying to say?”

“What I’m trying to say is that some people want to get as close to reality as possible without actually being part of it. Their need for entertainment can grow to monstrous proportions. Monstrous-do you know what I mean?”

“You said you had some names.”

“Not when it comes to what we’re talking about now.”

“You never can tell.”

“True enough. Not when it comes to you.”

“I’ve never been able to figure you out either.”

The customers at the table in the middle of the room had gone, waving briefly to Bolger. The place was empty.

Bolger put on an album. The tones of a tenor sax filled the room like a watchful spirit. New York Eye and Ear Control, Winter thought. Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, John Tchicai, Roswell Rudd, Gary Peacock and Sonny Murray recorded it on July 17, 1964. I was four years old.

“We didn’t know what you were up to when you started that jazz club at Rudebecks,” Bolger said.

Winter had arranged little concerts for jazz aficionados at the private high school they’d attended. The whole thing came to an abrupt halt when he graduated.

“Do you hear John Tchicai’s alto sax?” Winter asked.

Bolger closed his eyes. “I never understood what made you tick. All that money went to your head.”

Winter smiled and glanced at the clock. “Do you think about those days very much?”

“High school? Only when I see you.”

“Liar.”

“Could be.”

“I never miss it.”

“Depends on what part of it you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about all of it. Everything was unpredictable, and you didn’t know from one day to the next what the hell was happening all around you.”

“Hmm.”

“You had no control over your own life.”

“And now you do?”

“No.”

The walls and tables vibrated with the music. The smoke had swirled to the floor once the last customers were gone.

“Knowing what’s happening all around you,” Bolger said. “That sounds like a good description of your profession.”

“It’s only a job.”

“Like hell it is, not for you.” He reached back and dimmed the overhead light. The dishwasher clattered in the kitchen.

“Somebody always slips up,” Winter said.

“The homicide division, for example?”

“Sooner or later, it comes to our attention and we do what needs to be done. That’s what we’re trained for.”

“But by that time it might be too late.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Too late to do anything about it.”

“Too late for whom? The victim, the police or the public?”

Bolger shrugged.

“We discover every blunder eventually,” Winter said. “Not only our own, but other people’s. That’s how the police work-at least that’s how I work. One little mistake and you can bet that we’re going to find out about it.”

Bolger clapped his hands at Winter’s spiel. The sun had been up for a long time. He yawned and looked at his friend. “You ended up in the career you’d always dreamed about.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“So what happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

“When do you go to London for real?”

“Day after tomorrow, I think.”

“I haven’t been there in ages. Longer than I care to remember.”

“I’ve heard you say that before. Why don’t you just pick up and go?”

“You’re there pretty often, aren’t you?”

“Not as much as I used to be.”

“You’re always buying tailor-made shoes on that exclusive street. Don’t tell me you’re not different, Erik.”

“Everybody’s different.”