Paper Doll

chapter seven

I MET LEE Farrell in a place called Packie’s in the South End. He was alone at the bar when I came in. He had a half-drunk draft beer in front of him and an empty shot glass.

I slid onto the bar stool and looked at the shot glass.

“Old Thompson?” I said.

“Four Roses,” he said. “You got a problem with that?”

“Nostalgia,” I said. “When I was a kid it was a Croft Ale and a shot of Old Thompson.”

“Well, now it’s not,” Farrell said.

“Jesus,” I said, “how old were you when you dropped out of charm school?”

The bartender came down and poured another shot into Farrell’s glass. He looked at me. “Draft,” I said. He drew one and put it on a napkin in front of me.

Farrell took in about half his whiskey, washed it down with some draft beer. Then he shifted on the bar stool and leaned back a little and stared at me.

“You got a reputation,” he said. “Tough guy.”

“Richly deserved,” I said.

“Smart too,” Farrell said.

“But modest,” I said.

It was a little past five-thirty in the evening and the bar was lined with people. Made you wonder about the work people did if they had to get drunk when they finished.

“Quirk says you get full cooperation,” Farrell said. His speech wasn’t slurred, but there was a thickness to his voice. “Says you’re pretty good, says you might come up with something, if there’s anything to come up with.”

I nodded and sipped a little beer.

“Sort of implies that I won’t,” Farrell said. “Doesn’t it? Sort of implies that maybe I’m not so good.”

“You got other things to do. I don’t.”

Farrell emptied his shot glass, and drank the remainder of his beer. He nodded toward the bartender, who refilled him. There was a flush on Farrell’s cheeks, and his eyes seemed bright.

“How many people in this room you figure are gay?” he said.

I glanced around the room. It was full of men. I swallowed a little more beer. I looked at Farrell and shrugged.

“Everybody but me,” I said.

“Pretty sure you can tell by just looking?”

“It’s a gay bar,” I said. “I know you’re gay. Quirk told me.”

“I’m not so sure I like that,” Farrell said.

“Why, is it a secret?”

“No, but why is he talking about it?”

“As an explanation of why you might be stuck on a dead-end case.”

“I never thought Quirk cared.”

“I don’t think he does.”

“Lotta people do,” Farrell said.

“True,” I said.

We sat for a while.

“You figure fags got no iron?” Farrell said.

“I assume some do and some don’t,” I said. “I don’t know enough about it to be sure.”

We sat some more.

“I’m as good as any cop,” Farrell said.

I nodded encouragingly.

“Good as you too,” Farrell said.

“Sure,” I said.

Farrell drank more whiskey. His speech was still fully formed, but his voice was very thick.

“You believe that?” he said.

“I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t care if you are as good as I am or not. I don’t care if you’re tough or not, or smart or not. I don’t care if you are gay or straight or both or neither. I care about finding out who killed that broad with a framing hammer, and so far you’re not helping me worth shit.”

Farrell sat for a while staring at me, with the dead-eyed cop that all of them perfect, then he nodded as if to himself. He picked up the whiskey and sipped a little and put the glass down.

“You know,” he said, “sometimes if I’m alone, and there’s no one around…”

He glanced up and down the bar and lowered his voice.

“… I order a sloe gin fizz,” he said.

“A dead giveaway,” I said. “Now that we’ve established that you’re queer and you’re here, can we talk about the Nelson case?” I said.

“You got the case file,” Farrell said.

“Yeah, and I’ve seen the house, and I’ve talked to the children.”

“Always a good time,” Farrell said.

The bartender came down and looked at Farrell’s drink. Farrell shook his head.

“They’re under stress,” I said.

“Sure,” Farrell said.

“Tripp and his wife had separate rooms,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Which doesn’t mean they didn’t get along,” I said.

“True.”

“Un huh.”

“What do you think?”

“Hers doesn’t look like she spent much time there,” Farrell said.

“What’s he do?” I said.

“For work?”

“Yeah.”

Farrell shrugged. “Runs the family money, I guess. Got an office and a secretary in the DePaul Building downtown. Goes there every day. Reads the paper, makes some calls, goes over to Locke’s for lunch.”

“Nice orderly life,” I said.

“Maybe it was just a random crazy,” Farrell said.

“Maybe. But if we assume that, we got no place to go,” I said.

“So you assume it’s not random. Where does that leave you?”

“Looking for a motive,” I said.

“We been over that,” Farrell said. “Me, Belson, Quirk, everybody. You going to go over it again?”

“Probably,” I said. “And then, probably, I’ll try it from the other end.”

“Her past?”

“If it’s not a random killing, there’s something in her life that caused it. You people have been all over the recent events. I’ll go over them again because I’m a methodical guy. But I don’t expect to find something you missed. On the other hand, you haven’t turned out all the pockets of her history. You don’t have the budget.”

“But you do?”

“Tripp does,” I said.

“Until he decides you’re just churning his account,” Farrell said.

“Until then,” I said.

We sat for a while in the crowded bar. It was full of men. Most of them were in suits and ties. Some were holding hands. A tallish guy with a thin face had his arm around a gray-haired man in a blue blazer. No one paid me any mind.

“You married?” Farrell said.

“Not quite,” I said.

Farrell looked past me at the bar scene.

“How about you?” I said.

“I’m with somebody,” Farrell said.

We were quiet again. People circulated among the tables. I watched them, and nursed my beer.

“You notice nobody comes over,” Farrell said.

“They know you’re a cop,” I said. “They figure I’m from the outside. They don’t want to out you in case you’re en closet.”

“On the money,” Farrell said.

I waited. Farrell stared at the crowd.

“I come on too strong about things,” Farrell said.

“True,” I said.

“You understand why.”

“Yeah.”

Farrell shifted his eyes toward me and nodded several times.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally.

“Okay,” I said. “But I don’t think I want to go steady.”