Hard Case Crime: Fake I.D. (17 page)

“If you don’t like the way I smell, there’s the door.”

She thought about it a second then said, “No, actually I’m starting to like the way you smell. You smell raw. It kind of turns me on.” She put the shopping bag down on the counter. “Now I have a surprise for you so close your eyes.”

I just stood there.

“You’re no fun. Come on, play the game.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest.

“All right, but it won’t be nearly as shocking.”

She opened her coat and, except for her shiny black boots, she was buck naked.

“Get out of here,” I said. I was looking away, trying not to see any more. “I’m serious.”

“Well,
that
wasn’t exactly the response I was expecting.”

She came up to me and put her arms around my waist, rubbing against me, then she kissed me on the lips. I pushed her away.

“Just put your coat on and get out of here.”

She took a few steps back. She was shaking a little bit too, maybe because she was so drunk.

“I only came here because I thought you wanted to see me,” she said. “Because I thought we—”

“Look, whatever happened the other day, let’s just forget about it, all right?”

“What’s the matter, you didn’t have a good time?”

“No.”

“I don’t think this is any way for you to treat your future wife.”

“Excuse me? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Frank wants a divorce. He wanted to make an out-of-court settlement with me. At first, I was thinking about trying to milk him for all he was worth, but now I’m thinking about just accepting it. He said something about how he wants to move to Arizona, open a bar there. If I accept the settlement I’ll get the apartment and enough money to live on comfortably, or for
us
to live on comfortably.”

“How the hell did you get the idea I’d want to marry you?” I said.

“Why wouldn’t you? Not only would you be getting a woman who’d pleasure you like no woman could, but with Frank’s money you’d never have to work again.”

I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it—it was just so damn funny.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Believe me,” I said, “if you were me, you’d be laughing too.”

“I really don’t think you should be treating me this way. I might leave here very angry at you and then there’s no telling what I might do. Maybe I’ll just tell everybody about your dirty little secret.”

“What do you mean?”

I wasn’t laughing anymore.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I saw you the other night—stealing that money.”

I stared at her, trying to figure out if she was lying.

“I think you’re drunk and you should go home,” I said.

“I was on my way to the bar to look for Frank and I saw you,” she said, “walking home with that garbage bag. I was wondering why you were taking garbage home from work with you, but the next day it all made sense.”

“You’re full of shit,” I said, but I knew she was telling the truth. There was no other way she could’ve known about the garbage bag unless Rodrigo had told her, and I didn’t see why he would have.

“It’s too bad,” she said. “We could’ve had a good life together.”

“You’re wrong,” I said. “I didn’t take that money.”

“Oh really? Then what’s that?”

She was looking toward the kitchen table where the money left over from the robbery—five hundred dollars, in twenties and fifties—was spread out.

“I bet you gambled the rest of it away in Las Vegas,” she said.

She was buttoning up her coat.

“Where are you going?”

“Where do you think I’m going? Obviously, you don’t want me here.”

“Hold up a second,” I said. “Come on—stay. I was just so tired from my trip I didn’t know what I was saying before.”

“I think you’re lying.”

“I’m serious,” I said. I opened the buttons of her coat and pulled her toward me. I smelled the Scotch on her breath. “I don’t want you to go—I’m glad you’re here. Why wouldn’t I be glad? You just can’t believe the shit I’ve been through the past couple days. Driving back from the airport I thought I was gonna pass out at the wheel. Come on, stay. I want you here. That’s the real truth.”

I kissed her hard, swirling my tongue around in her one-hundred-proof mouth.

After a while I pulled back and said, “So what do you say?”

“I don’t know. A second ago you sounded like you were really mad at me, like you
hated
me—”

“Forget about that. I’m telling you, I really didn’t know what the hell I was saying. If you wanna know the truth, I was pretty excited when I heard you and Frank were splitting up. I’m tired of being single, struggling, waking up alone every day. I’m getting to the age where I want to settle down.”

She held onto the edge of the table, trying to keep her balance.

“You know what I think?” she said. “I think you’re just saying all this to shut me up because you’re afraid I’m gonna call the police.”

“No, I’m saying this because I want you to get into bed with me.”

I took off her coat completely and let it fall onto the floor. I started kissing her again.

“Tommy, can I ask you one more thing?”

“Shoot,” I said.

“Before, when you laughed about us getting married, you didn’t really—”

“Of course not,” I said.

“—because I didn’t mean it the way I sounded. I guess I’ve just been drinking and...I mean that’s what I’d like to happen someday, but it doesn’t mean it has to happen right away...I mean we can let it happen naturally and—”

“Forget about it,” I said.

She smiled.

I kissed her some more, then she said, “Do you have anything to drink in this apartment?”

“There’s beer in the fridge,” I said. “Help yourself.”

While she went to get a beer, I went into the bathroom. Standing over the bowl, I felt like the floor was moving and I had to hold on to the shower door to keep my balance. Then I caught another whiff of myself. I smelled so bad I didn’t know how Debbie could stand to be in the same room with me.

When I came out of the bathroom, Debbie had pulled open the couch. She was lying on her back naked. I turned out the light. It wasn’t totally dark outside yet so I could still see the outline of her body. I didn’t know how I was going to go through with this. I got into bed and climbed on top of her. I was holding her down with my arms, taking it nice and slow at first, then speeding up. She started to moan and then I decided to just get it over with. I picked up a pillow and pressed it down over her face. She fought back awhile, kicking and swinging her arms like a maniac, but I kept pushing down. Finally, she stopped squirming.

I turned on the light and lifted the pillow slowly. Her mouth was halfway open and her glassy brown eyes were looking at the ceiling.

I got out of bed quickly. I started pacing my apartment, deciding what to do next. I knew I had to figure out a way to get rid of her body. It was probably stupid to put that pillow over her face without thinking it through first, but what choice did I have?

Sitting down again, I started to doze off next to her and I knew this was a bad idea. I couldn’t go to sleep now—what if Debbie was wrong and that detective
had
followed her to my apartment? He could be outside right now, waiting for her to leave.

I stood up out of bed and went to the kitchen sink and splashed my face with ice-cold water. Then I leaned out the window, looking for the detective. But I just saw a couple of people, on their way home from work, and a black guy across the street, looking in garbage cans.

I had to come up with a plan. I was shooting blanks, then, thinking harder, I decided that I had to get the body into my car somehow and dump it someplace outside of Manhattan. But there was no way I could do that now, with so many people around. I’d have to wait until the middle of the night—midnight at least. In the meantime, I’d just have to hope that detective wasn’t watching me.

It was twenty past five. I decided to go into work tonight after all. I had to act like it was a normal night. If the cops came around asking questions I’d have to be able to explain where I was all night. Besides, I knew that if I went to sleep now there was no way I was getting up in a few hours.

I took a shower. It felt good, getting clean again, but I was afraid I was going to pass out and I held onto the soap rack the whole time.

It seemed like a bad idea to leave the body just lying there, so I covered it with a blanket and then I piled up the couch cushions on top.

I finished getting ready for work, putting on my usual jeans, black crew-neck, and motorcycle boots, but I missed my gold barbell chain. I realized I was starving and then I saw the two containers of hot-and-sour soup that Debbie had brought over for me. I drank the lukewarm soup straight from the containers, then I put on my leather coat and left the apartment.

Outside my building, I looked around, but there didn’t seem to be anybody watching me. There were still some flurries coming down, but the snow was pretty much gone from the sidewalks. It was getting cold again—the wind whipping down First Avenue like a motherfucker—and I missed the eighty or whatever the hell degrees it was in Las Vegas.

I was glad it was a Wednesday night and the weather was bad because the last thing I felt like doing tonight was checking a lot of IDs. Gary was supposed to work tonight, but Gil was behind the bar, so I figured Gary was still pissed off at Frank or maybe he had quit for good.

“Hey,” I said to Gil.

“How’s it going, Tommy?”

Gil didn’t look up from his book when he was talking to me. There were about ten people in the bar and a reggae CD was playing on the stereo.

“Frank around?” I asked.

“He went out for a second. He’ll be right back.”

I went to hang up my coat. Kathy came by with a tray of mozzarella sticks.

“Hey, how’s it going, Kath?”

“Fine,” she said, walking past me.

I was still hungry, but I didn’t feel like dealing with Rodrigo in the kitchen. I figured I’d just order a pizza or something later on. When I came back out front, Frank was just coming into the bar.

“What’s this?” he said. “You growing a beard?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Like it?”

“It’s okay.” He looked at me closer. “You feeling okay?”

“I just didn’t get too much sleep last night.”

“It’s gonna be a slow night. If you want, you can go home. Gil’s gonna take off soon, but Kathy can cover the bar.”

“It’s all right,” I said.

Frank went to the back. The room was starting to spin and I felt like I was going to pass out for real. Without my coat on, I jogged down the block to the Korean deli. I bought a large coffee, a couple of those little carrot cakes, two Snickers bars, and two packs of Starburst. I figured that filling myself up with sugar and caffeine might be the only thing to keep me awake.

When I got back to the bar Frank was sitting at a table across from a fat man with curly brown hair. I’d never seen the guy before, but I knew right away that he was the detective Frank had hired.

The guy was wearing a big black winter jacket, jeans, and work boots. He looked over at me for a second, then he looked back at Frank. Over the reggae music, I couldn’t hear everything he was saying, although a couple of times I heard him say “Debbie.” But I wasn’t worried. If the detective saw Debbie going into my apartment today, he would have come to talk to me by now. I sat down at the bar with my coffee and opened one of the carrot cakes. Looking straight ahead, I was watching Frank and the detective in the mirror behind the bar, and there was a break in the music so I picked up on more of their conversation.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” the detective was saying. “I went back to the building and the doorman said he didn’t see her go in. I hung out awhile, for maybe an hour, but she didn’t come back.”

“Well, what can you do?” Frank said. “You’ll just have to try again tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch her,” the detective said. “I just need another day or two and tomorrow I’m gonna wear a disguise so she won’t see me.”

“Do whatever you have to do,” Frank said.

After they bullshitted for a little while longer, Frank and the detective stood up and shook hands. Then the detective left the bar without looking in my direction. Frank came over and sat down on the stool next to me.

“That was the guy I told you I hired to follow Debbie.”

“He find anything out?”

“He saw her leaving the building this afternoon, probably on her way to meet one of her lover boys, when she stopped and told a cop that some guy was following her. So the cop stopped Fred—that’s his name—and by the time Fred explained what was going on, Debbie was gone—in a cab.”

“That really sucks Easter eggs, huh?” I said.

“I just hope this guy Fred knows what he’s doing—Gil, lemme get one on the rocks—I mean he’s a professional so he should know.”

“I don’t think you gotta worry,” I said. “Knowing the way Debbie gets around I bet he’ll get some good pictures for you to use in no time.”

Now Frank was staring off. I realized I’d probably said the wrong thing.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s all right. You’re just telling the goddamn truth.”

Gil put down Frank’s drink. Frank took a long sip then said, “You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but in a way I still love her. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

“No, I understand,” I said. “I mean she’s your wife, you share the same bed...”

“I know you’re right,” Frank said. “You’ve always been right, giving me good advice, but I never had the sense to listen to you. The shrinks have a name for what I’m talking about—Jesus, I swear, my fuckin’ mind’s going.”

“But you know what I think?” I said. “I think once she’s out of the picture you’ll forget all about her. You’ll be out there in Arizona with all those beautiful women—you’ll find somebody who’ll treat you a lot better than Debbie ever did.”

“You ever seen me in swimming trunks? It’s not a pretty sight.”

“Come on, I’m sure you look great,” I said. “And a guy like you, from New York, you’ll have no problem at all.”