Kiss Of Evil

43

The ice on the back of his head melts during his fourth cup of coffee, but the hangover does not. He had stayed up until almost dawn, finishing the final three inches of four different kinds of booze he had found lurking in his cupboards. Scotch, rye, schnapps, Cuervo. He had also found a pair of Lynchburg Lemonades loitering in the back of his fridge.

What had he been thinking?

He had been thinking about not thinking, that’s what he had been thinking.

Paris Is Burning is what he had been thinking.

He had watched old movies, he had smoked old cigarettes, he had poured his booze carefully, adding ice until every drop was gone, shooting for blotto.

He arrived.

He has most of the day off and has at least ten errands to run before his tour starts. He pours himself another cup of coffee, promising movement soon, and scans the Plain Dealer, pleased by not seeing a huge headline, above the fold, with the words voodoo and killer in it.

Paris inserts the VHS tape. It is a low-angle shot of himself standing in front of the Justice Center. He is younger in the shot, wearing a dark suit, burgundy tie. He looks heavier than he remembers being, which is one of the reasons he had not watched the tape for more than a year. The reason for the tape to begin with? Pure vanity. He had worn his best suit that day, in the hope he would be interviewed, in the hope that Beth would see it and it would impress the hell out of her. Only the interview part happened. He had caught it on the eleven o’clock news that night.

“This was a cold-blooded killing of a police officer in the line of duty… I think the evidence will show that the defendant, Sarah Weiss, pulled the trigger.”

This statement is followed by a barrage of questions shouted from the dozen or so reporters in front of him. Although he doesn’t remember hearing it, one of the questions must have been about Mike Ryan’s own investigation, the Internal Affairs inquisition as to whether or not Mike had extorted protection money from a man who owned a chain of adult bookstores.

“Mike Ryan was a good cop… Mike Ryan was a family man… a man who woke up every day and chose-chose-to strap on a gun and jump into the fray… Mike Ryan died in the line of duty protecting the people of this city…”

Here is the part Paris hates. He shouldn’t have said any of it, and took plenty of heat from the brass for opening his mouth. He had been to dinner, had had a few drinks, and should not even have been back at the Justice Center. But that’s where he went, and that’s where the cameras surrounded him. Even though he had come within a hair’s breadth of a reprimand, he doesn’t regret a word.

“So the next time you find yourself picking through a pile of garbage, or hiding in the bushes like some pervert, or running down the street with a video camera just so you can invade the privacy of a heartbroken little girl in a wheelchair, I want you to stop, take a deep breath, and ask yourself what the hell it is you do for a living… Mike Ryan took a bullet for the people of this city… Mike Ryan was a hero…”

Another shouted question.

Then, his answer. The part he does regret saying.

“Sometimes, the monster is real, people,” his video voice says. “Sometimes, the monster has a pretty face and a perfectly ordinary name. This time, the monster is called Sarah Weiss.”

“With that, the younger, heavier video Jack lifts his hand, waving off further questions, trying to salvage a little cop macho from the encounter. The tape then cuts back to Stefani Smith, the infoblond anchor on Channel 3 at that time, and, within a few seconds, the image fades to the movie that was on the tape originally.

Two o’clock. Paris shakes out four or five Tylenols, wiggles them down with cold coffee. He grabs his coat and keys, deadbolts the door, descends the steps, stops.

Someone is standing on the platform at the bottom of the stairs.

It is Mercedes Cruz. He had forgotten to call her. They were supposed to meet the previous afternoon and he had forgotten to call her.

Shit.

“Hi,” Paris says, his tone landing about three miles short of innocence. “I was just going to call you.”

Mercedes’s ever-sunny demeanor is now clouded with gray. Even her barrette is gray. “The Plain Dealer is working on a story about a ritual killer in Cleveland,” she says. “A ritual killer who carves up his victims with a Santerian symbol.”

Fucking leaks, Paris thinks. The department had not officially released the information that Willis Walker and Fayette Martin were mutilated. Nor anything about the Santerian angle. “Yeah. There’ve been a few calls from the paper.”

“So, let me get this straight. I ride around with the lead detective on this case and I have to overhear the details in a booth at Deadlines?”

“I’m sorry,” Paris says. And means it. Mercedes Cruz has been a trouper. “Things have been moving kind of quickly on this case.”

“I have a car. Two good legs. I move quickly, too.”

“I know. But that’s not it.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s just that I’ve never done this before. Had someone watching me think, okay? In case you haven’t noticed, the department is always nervous as hell that some fact will leak out about a homicide and the suspect goes to ground for good.”

“Look, I didn’t tell you about this before, because I didn’t want to involve her, but my grandmother used to practice Santeria. Okay? I can help, detective. Let me do this. Let me write the biggest story of my life.”

Paris thinks about it. “Come on. Walk me out.” They descend the stairs.

Mercedes Cruz continues to plead her case. “You think I want to write for a friggin’ west-side Latino newspaper the rest of my life? You think this is some kind of dream job? I’m as good as any writer in this town. I can do this, detective.”

Paris caves in. “Okay,” he says. “Tell you what. There is a task force meeting coming up. I’ll let you sit in on it. But you have to swear to me that nothing you hear in there will see print until this is all over. I don’t want to read sources close to the investigation say and have to wonder if it’s you. Okay?”

“Okay.”

For some reason, Paris can never find the deceit in Mercedes Cruz’s eyes. “I’m not kidding about this. Not a word in print.”

They are now standing in the parking lot behind Paris’s apartment building. Mercedes smiles and holds up her hand in a Girl Scout salute. “Promise.”

“Man,” Paris says. “Girl Scouts, too?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve got three cases of cookies in the trunk.”

“Not Caramel deLites,” Paris says, glancing at the blue Saturn. “Please don’t tell me you have Caramel deLites in the trunk of your car right now.”

“And only three bucks a box. I’m helping my niece.”

“Caramel deLites are my personal demon, you know. Had to enter a twelve-step once.”

Mercedes Cruz takes her car keys from her pocket, and jangles them. “Welcome to the nightmare.”

At three o’clock Paris’s head begins to clear, though his hangover still feels like a cast-iron walnut at the base of his skull. He scans the now-dwindled number of yellow Post-it notes that are stuck onto his refrigerator. One of them leaps out. He had promised Beth that he would get her mother’s ring from the safety-deposit box.

It was pointless to put it off further.

He grabs his coat and his keys and begins the process of chiseling off the last piece of his marriage.

After retrieving the entire contents of his safety-deposit box at Republic Bank, and closing out the account, Paris looks at the pile on his dining room table, items no longer worth safekeeping.

Among them, he sees the yellowed old police report, and his shame returns. He had all but forgotten about it. The incident report, which had been in his safekeeping for more than seventeen years, brings him back to that night so long ago, the night he and Vince Stella had come upon a middle-aged man fondling a sixteen-year-old runaway in an alley behind the Hanna Theatre on East Fourteenth Street. It was the much older of the two police officers who took charge that evening, recognizing the assistant county prosecutor immediately. God only knew how often Vince Stella had traded on that night in his years on the beat.

Paris decides he will get rid of it. The man is now a municipal judge and the incident, albeit sleazy, is ancient history.

On the way to meet Beth at Shaker Square at five o’clock, to give her back her mother’s ring, Paris makes every light on Belvoir Boulevard, every light on South Woodland. He arrives at the square ten minutes early. He trots across the parking lot and is just about to head through the stone breeze-way leading to the square when he spots Beth standing next to the ATM machine at the National City Bank. Paris is just about to raise his hand to draw her attention when he sees she is not alone. She is talking to a tall man in a tailored overcoat. Although the man has his back to Paris, Paris can see that he has dark, wavy hair. Certainly on the younger side of forty. Broad shoulders, gloved hands.

Paris is frozen for a few moments, watching his ex-wife talk to someone, as yet undetected. Should he stay? Go? Watch? Leave? Step in and make a fool of himself? He is enough of a voyeur to want to find a better vantage point from which to spy, to see how Beth acts when she’s not around him. But he is also enough of a sissy to not want to see Beth give this guy some kind of big sloppy soul kiss.

The sissy wins.

Paris walks to Yours Truly, grabs a booth, orders coffee. Five minutes later, Beth arrives, lipstick intact.

Jack Paris decides to take it as a positive sign.