Freaky Deaky

Chapter 25

The part Greta played in the movie they shot in Detroit was GIRL IN BAR, filmed in an actual bar, Jacoby's, on Brush Street. The camera follows an actor playing a detective as he enters and comes over to the bar where she's standing with another actor. (Both of them had familiar faces, but she didn't know their names.) The one at the bar says to the one that comes in, "She's trying to figure out what I do for a living." GIRL IN BAR: "Don't tell me, okay?" The guy is wearing a tie with a plaid wool shirt and a suitcoat that doesn't match the pants. GIRL IN BAR: "You teach shop at a high school, right?" Then there's the sound of a beeper going off. As the one that comes in takes the beeper from his belt, she sees his holstered gun. GIRL IN BAR: "You're cops. That's the next thing I was gonna say."

When she told Chris about the scene he said, "Yeah, then what happens?"

Nothing. That was all she did in the movie, theone scene. Every once in a while she'd imagine being in Jacoby's and wonder what might happen next if it were real life. If for some reason she's there alone and the guy with the wool shirt and tie comes up to her and starts talking. . . . It still wouldn't go anywhere, because she wasn't GIRL IN BAR. Played by Ginger Jones. She wasn't either of them.

She was Greta Wyatt, resting on her elbows at the kitchen table, the only place in the empty house to sit down, outside of her bed, and she didn't want to go upstairs yet. The idea of being alone was to have time to look at her situation: see where she was in relation to her goal in life, if she had one, and figure out why she was confused--if it took all night.

As it turned out, she had a revelation in less than half an hour.

Dance Fever appeared on the black-and-white TV her folks had left for her on the kitchen counter. Dance Fever was a talent contest judged by semi-well-known names from the entertainment world. Greta watched couples come out and perform acrobatic dances in sequined costumes that would catch the studio lights and flash on the black-and-white screen. She watched the girls especially, studied each one and thought, Oh my God, she's a Ginger Jones. Four part-time Ginger Joneses, one after another, with their huge thighs and show-biz smiles locked in place, throwing themselves into their routines and trusting their muscular little partners to catch them. She had even said to Chris the other night, "You know how many Ginger Joneses there are just in Detroit?" Talking about if she had talent or not. And he said, "There's only one Greta Wyatt that I know of."

She realized now a revelation could be right smack in front of you all the time, but so simple you miss it.

Why use a fake name that makes you think of yourself as a third-rate performer?

The movie director had told her she was really good, a natural, as GIRL IN BAR. Greta Wyatt acting, playing a part that wasn't anything like her. Why give Ginger Jones the credit? Someone she didn't respect. She'd call up the movie company in Hollywood and tell them she'd like her credit changed to read: GIRL IN BAR, dot dot dot; Greta Wyatt. How many Gretas were there in Hollywood these days?

Next. See Woody and relieve her mind of that part.

Settle with him fairly; accept his original offer. Even if he did rape her, or try to, it didn't mean she should take advantage of him. Twenty-five thousand was plenty. She didn't need a car anymore. Or need to get mixed up in what could become a mess, his brother already dead, and find herself caught in the middle. End up being one of those girls that gets her hair done, then opens her door for the news people, the TV cameras, and acts innocent, holding a hanky to her nose. . . . Or open the door wearing sunglasses and act mysterious, escorted through the crowd to a big car, and the next thing you know Farrah Fawcett wants to play you in the movie.

New rules to live by. One, be yourself. No more Ginger. Two, see Woody and get that over with. Three . . .

Three was still up in the air but seemed okay. What to do about Chris Mankowski. His voice on the message recorder said, "Greta, I haven't changed one bit," and it made her feel good, the way seeing him walking around in his underwear made her feel good. She was herself with him, or she could play around acting cute with him and he loved it. Now she missed him and wanted him to hurry up and call. But then thought of the scene in Jacoby's again and wondered what she would look like on the screen.

She thought of Woody and saw him handing her a check.

Thought of Chris in bed wearing his dad's glasses.

Thought of the director, the way he looked at her when she finished the scene, the way he put his hand on her arm.

She saw Woody, he was making her take a check for a hundred thousand, insisting, and saw herself coming out of his house putting on sunglasses.

Greta smiled.

She thought of Chris, his body, the scars on his legs.

And now she was in a dark movie theater, watching titles appear on the screen, waiting for her name . . .

It was after seven by the time Chris got hold of the building manager, back from somewhere with his toolbox, and told him Miss Abbott didn't answer when he buzzed her apartment. The manager, grim as ever, said when that happened it meant the person wasn't home. Not trying to be funny. Chris came close to grabbing him by the throat. He held on and said in a fairly nice tone, What he was about to ask, would it be too much trouble to look in her apartment and make sure? The manager said he was already late sitting down to his supper. Standing in that dingy hall by the manager's apartment Chris said, "I better inform you, you could be charged here with creating an improper diversion, in violation of ordinance 613.404. Carries, I think, up to a year."

The manager, frowning, thinking about it, said, "Creating a what?"

Chris hunched in close to the guy's flashing bifocals and said, "Get the goddamn pass key."

Robin wasn't home.

He got back in his dad's car and drove out to Bloomfield Hills. Northbound traffic was light on the freeway and he was able to go seventy or better, feeling an urgent need to get Robin and Skip nailed down, located, under some kind of surveillance. He knew where to find Donnell.

No more fooling around in the gray area, the first one. There was a second gray area now: a white '87 Cadillac sedan, license number JVS 681. He was thinking about asking Jerry Baker if he'd check with the First Precinct, see if the owner had reported a blown-out windshield and fifteen 9-millimeter rounds in the backrest of his front seat. Or through and through, into the back seat. There might even be a couple in the trunk. At this point Jerry Baker, the gray area expert, might ask, "What's gray about it?"

It was something to think about driving up the freeway, eight o'clock and still light. Chris imagined a conversation as sort of a rehearsal for conversations to come, a chance to get a few answers straight in his mind, starting with Jerry asking what's gray about the guy getting his car shot up.

CHRIS: Let's say it happened in the line of duty. The city pays for the damage, right?

JERRY: But it didn't.

CHRIS: Looking at it retroactively, it could turn out that it was in the line of duty. That's the gray area.

Jerry doesn't understand that. No one would.

CHRIS: Look at it this way. While holding evi-dence until Monday, I've put myself in a position to observe the perpetrators, aware of the possibility they could, A, show their hand, B, fuck up, or C, as it happens sometimes with these people, they have a disagreement and go after each other instead of the intended victim, Woody.

JERRY: Or they could go after you.

CHRIS: That's right. You could get a leg broken. But when the attempt fails and a Cadillac sedan, JVS 681, is damaged in the process, there are two ways to look at it. One, it was a matter of a private citizen defending his life.

JERRY: Who's the private citizen?

CHRIS: Me. Or, another way to look at it, the car was damaged by a police officer in the performance of his duty.

JERRY: But you're not a police officer.

CHRIS: I am if they'll reinstate me retroactively, in consideration of the undercover work I've been doing, lining up the perpetrators. All right, that's done. Or it will be. Then Monday, Homicide throws a full investigation at them. Get them with dynamite in their possession. Then I bring out the evidence I've been holding over the weekend, five sticks of Austin Powder. We match it to their dynamite, same lot number and all, and we're on our way. Maybe Homicide'll want to go about it a little different, but here's hard evidence that could lead to a conviction. Get 'em for one homicide, one attempted.

JERRY: You produce the five sticks of dynamite--that's all? Not the check for twenty-five grand?

CHRIS: I don't know. That's still in the gray area all its own, isn't it?

Jerry doesn't answer. The gray area expert doesn't know either. Or won't say. . . .

In the next hour and a half Chris arrived at Robin's mother's house, off Lone Pine Road, pressed close to the windows in all three garage doors and saw a Lincoln and two clean, empty spaces; no red VW. He pressed close to windows along the back of the house, came to a door and rang the bell. If he had I.D. he'd get the Bloomfield Hills cops to go in. Just checking. But he didn't have I.D., so he poked his elbow through a pane of glass, reached in and opened the door. Right next to it on the wall was the panel of buttons you punched as soon as you entered, to turn off the silent alarm system. Shit. So he got in his dad's car and drove back to Robin's:

Buzzed her apartment and got no answer. Buzzed the manager. . . .

From 9:30 till 3:00 A.M. Chris sat in the car parked across the street from 515 Canfield, in the dark. He pictured Robin and Skip in a bar, two ex-cons talking past their shoulders, scheming, grinning at each other as they had fun getting smashed. Seeing them in a bar because he would love a drink. Go somewhere to have a few and get something to eat. He hadn't had anything since breakfast. A box of popcorn in the show. He should've called Greta. He caught a glimpse of Phyllis, the cotton between her toes. . . .

Then saw Greta in her T-shirt now, bending over the stove.

Saw her sitting at the desk in the squad room. Saw her walking, her thighs moving in the skirt. Saw her in his dad's car, in profile.

And saw Mel Gibson playing the burnout and saw Juicy in the Cadillac, the Glock going off, Jesus, and saw Juicy's gray tongue in the pink interrogation room.

Greta was alone in that empty house, the phone and message recorder on the bare floor. He should've called.

He wasn't different.

He saw Donnell in the library, that dismal room, it seemed dusty, a gray area of figurine lamps and leather chairs, Donnell getting the checkbook out of the desk, holding it close to him.

Greta, he liked her name. He liked her red hair against the pillow, her mouth. . . .

He saw Donnell and Skip and Robin standing slack, not moving a muscle. They better not. He was covering them with the Glock auto. But where would it happen?

Donnell kept waiting for the man to fall asleep so he could go downstairs a while, have some time to himself. The house would be quiet and Donnell in his room listening would think, Finally. Then would hear the man's voice from down the hall.

"Donnell?"

And he'd move through the dark to the master bedroom, light showing inside. Three times now, walk out of the room dim, the night light on in the bathroom, come back to it lit up.

"I'm right here, Mr. Woody."

"I can't sleep."

"You keep turning the light on, how can you?"

"But I can't see."

"That's the idea. You close your eyes and you have sweet dreams. Think of like you lying in a hammock and this lovely woman, has a flower in her black hair, is holding a banana rum daiquiri, big, big one, kind you love, and you sipping it through a straw." Give the man some kind of shit his wet mind would recognize and accept. Patient with the man, kindly, that new page for the will downstairs in the desk drawer.

"Put the light on in the bathroom."

"The night light's on in there. You see it?"

"I want the light on."

"You got it."

Donnell stepped over to the bathroom. As he came back the man, the mound under the covers, big curly head against the pillow, said, "I thought I heard you go out."

"Ain't I right here?"

"You went out last night. I woke up, I didn't know where you were."

What the man meant, he didn't know where he was.

"I told you I had to go out, Mr. Woody. My mother had a dream I died and I had to show her I was fine. Then I had to look in the Dream Book for her, see what number it meant to play."

That quieted the man. Either give him some shit his mind would accept or, the other way, confuse him, shut him up. "You be fine now," Donnell said and reached down to touch the man's toes under the covers, about to tell him good night. What he said to him instead was, "Mr. Woody, you forget to take your shoes off, didn't you?"

Picking the knots out of the man's shoelaces woke him up some more. One thirty in the morning he believed maybe a drink would help him go to sleep. Donnell said, "Yeah, that's what you need"--on top the fifth or more of scotch, the fifth of gin, the half dozen cans of beer the man'd had today--"a nightcap. Why don't I bring it to your bed?"

And if that didn't do it, hit him over the head with something.

Donnell went downstairs wishing he had a baby bottle. Fill it with booze and let the man fall asleep sucking on it. There was scotch at the bar in the library, but no ice left from the man's evening entertainment; the refilled trays in the fridge underneath the bar weren't half frozen. He'd have to get a couple of cubes from the kitchen. Always something, catering to or picking up after. He turned off the light in the library, walked through the front hall to the dining room turning lights on, pushed through the swing door to the butler's pantry and was in darkness again edging into the kitchen, running his hand along the wall. There it was. Donnell flicked the light on, turned and said, "Jesus!" loud, feeling his insides jump.

A man and a woman were sitting at the kitchen table.

He said, "Jesus Christ Almighty," sounding out of breath.

They were grinning at him now.

"How'd you get in here?"

Robin said, "It wasn't hard," and looked at Skip. "Was it?"

Skip let Robin handle it. When Donnell wanted to know what they thought they were doing, Robin told him they were here because he'd fucked up. Donnell said, "Wait now, I have to hear this." But first had to run upstairs, get the man settled with his nightcap. He left and Robin said to Skip, "Bring our stuff in."

"All of it?"

She said, "We're going to use it, aren't we?"

Skip went out through a back hall where there were two doors: one that went into the garage and the one he'd jimmied open with a screwdriver, nothing to it. (Coming in, Robin said, "No alarm system?" He told her maybe Donnell was afraid a burglar alarm might catch one of his buddies. Skip bet, though, the ex-Panther had a gun in the house.) He went out through the busted door to the VW parked in the drive by the garage. First he brought their bags in. Robin, still alone in the kitchen, was looking in the refrigerator.

When he came in the next time, lugging the wooden case of Austin Powder, Used in 1833 and Ever Since, Donnell was at the kitchen table talking to Robin.

He looked up, appeared to become rigid, and said, "You ain't bringing that in here."

In this moment Skip decided he wasn't going to have any trouble with Donnell. If the man was ever an ass-kicking Black Panther he must've forgotten what it was like. Skip put the case on the end of the table away from them and Donnell stood right up. Look at that. Made him nervous. Skip could tell Robin saw it, too.

She said to Donnell, "It won't hurt you," with a tone meant to soothe him. "All we want to do is stash it someplace. By Monday morning I promise it'll be gone."

Skip liked that. It would be gone, all right, along with whoever was standing nearby. He wanted to wink at her, but she wasn't through with Donnell yet, saying to him now, "You must have a gun in the house."

Skip could tell Donnell didn't want to say.

"I believe there might be one."

"I'd find it if I were you," Robin said. "You know why?" Talking down to him, making the guy ask, No, why?

Skip didn't care for her tone now, going from soothing to bored and superior. Or the way she said, " 'Cause your buddy the cop's going to come looking for you. The kids you sent to do a job on him blew it."

That wasn't right. She wasn't there, she didn't know what she was talking about. It seemed to antagonize the man, from his expression, more than it scared him.

Skip stepped in and said to the ex-Panther man to man, leaving the snotty woman out of it, "Actually it wasn't they blew it so much as they misread him, thought it was gonna be easy and it wasn't. What she's trying to say, Donnell, we don't want to make the same mistake."

Donnell said, "Mankowski is coming here?"

Skip said, "I 'magine he will. See, but I'm the one set him up with the brothers. He comes here with a wild hair up his ass--man, I'd like to have something to hold him off with. You dig?" Skip shook his head as though imagining that situation and then said to Donnell, "A long time ago I tried to buy a gun offa you. You didn't know who I was, you told me to take a hike. Well, I wouldn't mind borrowing one now, for my own peace of mind. What do you say? Or--I don't like to think about it, but if it does get down to the nitty-gritty and one of us has to take him out, well . . ."

Donnell went upstairs to find the gun, and now Skip had his chance to wink at Robin, giving him a cold look.

"Hon, that's how you do it with niggers that used to be Black Panthers. You don't talk down to 'em or you don't arm-wrestle 'em, either. You act like we're all created equal, got bussed to their school and loved it."