Innocent Monster (14 page)

As I drove out of Sea Cliff, away from the fussy Victorian houses and the quaint little shops on the main street, I thought about what must have been going through McKenna’s mind. He couldn’t have been any more confused by what had happened to my car, the hog-tied and headless teddy bear, and the cryptic warning than I was, because it didn’t seem to make any sense at all. I still had no idea what had become of Sashi Bluntstone or who had taken her or why. My stumbling around had only just begun and it had netted me very little in the way of progress. I hoped that was about to change.

When the earpiece to my phone beeped that I was getting a call, I felt myself getting more than a little aroused at the memory of holding Mary Lambert in my arms. I imagined I could still smell the intoxicating scent of her sweat and perfume and I rubbed the tips of my fingers together, recalling the feel of her hardened nipples beneath the lace of her bra and silk of her blouse.

“Hey, there,” I said in the best bedroom voice I could manage.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you, you sick or something?” It was Brian Doyle.

“Or something, yeah. What’s up?”

“The Bluntstones are broke, Moe.”

“Broke broke or just broke?”

“Broke broke. They’re mortgaged to the balls and their only assets are the kid’s paintings.”

“How about the house?”

“The thing cost two million and my bet is they’re still paying off the closing costs. I got more equity in my baseball card collection.”

“You collect baseball cards?”

“No, but I’m just saying.”

“How about available cash?” I asked.

“Less than ten grand and that ain’t gonna get them too far. Maybe the next time you’re over there, you should check if they’re hiding scratch in coffee cans or flour jars ‘cause they ain’t got shit elsewheres.”

“Thanks, Brian, and thank Devo for me.”

“No sweat, boss.”

“Fax the stuff over to my house, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Look, just send me the bill...” He was gone.

Declan Carney’s studio was in an old loft building within shouting distance of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge on Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City. This Queens neighborhood, just across the East River from Manhattan and Roosevelt Island, had undergone tremendous change and gentrification in the last decade or so. As Manhattan became even more unbearably expensive, people looked for places to live where they could still have a short commute to work and ready access to the city. Like Williamsburg before it, Long Island City was now an increasingly hot part of town. The thing about LIC, though, is that it was more industrial in its previous incarnation than Williamsburg, and not all of its factories and warehouse buildings had been converted into fabulous living spaces for expatriate Manhattanites.

Carney’s building was as yet untouched by the shifting tides of the churning real estate market. It was covered in a coat of soot and dirt so thick that it was nearly impossible to tell the exact shade of brick that made up its exterior walls. Carney was probably afraid to have the place cleaned for fear it might crumble without the filth to hold those walls together. I pressed the doorbell and waited for a voice over the old call box, but the door just buzzed and clicked open. I thought about taking the old-style freight elevator up and reconsidered when I saw the ratty shape it was in. At least the stairs were solid. I found Declan Carney on the top floor in a studio that looked like part sci-fi movie set, part photo lab, part artist’s loft, and it seemed about as well organized as a bowl of spaghetti. Once I saw the man himself, I quickly forgot about the disorganization and remembered Rusk’s warning about the man’s idiosyncrasies.

Dressed in a blue, red, and yellow Hawaiian shirt, red tartan kilt, white tube socks, and Earth Shoes, his weird looks didn’t stop with his attire. He had a bleached platinum Mohawk hairdo, brown and gray Hasidic sidecurls, a soul patch that grew five inches past his chin, and a Fu Manchu mustache that was braided at the tips. Then I realized there wasn’t a tattoo or piercing on him. I guess he saw the question in my eyes, or maybe I asked it. I don’t really remember.

“Tattoos go against all of my culture’s beliefs and I am afraid of pointed objects. I grow faint at the thought of an injection. You do not think I would permit some untrained technician to drill me with a machine that your Thomas Edison invented to make print copies.”

“Huh?”

“You did not know that the mechanism used for tattooing was a retrofitted Thomas Edison invention? Some fellow just added an ink reservoir, sharpened the point, and adjusted the cycling of the machine and, as some of your kind say, voila!”

“Sounds barbaric.”

“I will not disagree.”

I wanted him to speak a little more because he had a peculiar accent that wasn’t, as his name suggested, Irish. Actually, I’m not sure I had ever heard any English speaker with an accent like it. And then there was his oddly referencing things like “
your
Thomas Edison” and “some of
your
kind.”

“Where are you from?”

“Skajit,” pronounced ska-JEET, “a planet four hundred million light years away from earth in the galaxy we call Plasnor.”

He answered with a disconcerting nonchalance and a straight face. It was as if I’d asked him the time and he said three o’clock. Before I could utter another sound, he pointed to the bubble-wrapped paintings at my side. Paintings which, once I’d beheld Declan Carney, I’d nearly forgotten.

“Those are the artworks you wish me to authenticate?”

“They are.”

“Sashi Bluntstone’s, correct, Mr. Prager?”

“How did you—”

“Wallace Rusk telecommunicated with me about the possibility of your arrival. Please leave the paintings.”

“How about a receipt?”

I thought Carney was going to break into tears. He was not only insulted, but wounded by my request. Apparently honor was meaningful to the people of Skajit.

“I meant no disrespect,” I said, playing along. “It is customary to ask because the paintings aren’t mine.”

That seemed to make him feel better. “I will do as you ask.”

He rummaged around for a piece of paper and found one under a can of turpentine. He scribbled on the paper with a pencil and handed it to me. It wasn’t much, but it was something and I sensed it was all I was apt to get. I accepted it gracefully.

“Thank you for understanding. How long do you think it will take?” I asked, pointing at the three paintings.

“At least several days, depending on the tests, but by the Holy Doctrine of Thalmador, my conclusions will be beyond reproach.”

“Wallace Rusk said you were good.”

“A strange man, Wallace Rusk.”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

“Well, thank you, Declan.”

I offered my hand and he shook it. As he did, he stared unflinchingly into my eyes so intently that it ached. Still I did not, could not turn away. He wasn’t so much looking through me as into me. Then he broke eye contact.

“You do not think the child is still living,” Carney said.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Yet you continue the search?”

“It’s my job.”

“It is more than a job for you, Mr. Prager, is it not?”

“It’s always more than a job for me, even when I don’t want it to be.”

“Yes, it is your future and your past.”

“In a way.”

“You would be much honored on my world.”

I ignored that. “For whatever reason Sashi was taken, there’s a beast out there somewhere.”

“There are monsters everywhere,” he said. “We are all monsters in our way. But on Skajit we say that it is the innocent monster we have most to fear.”

“The innocent monster?”

“I do not think you need it explained. We have all known such creatures.” He finally let go of my hand. “Beware the innocent monster, Mr. Prager, for it need not hide itself and lives closely among us. In your Nazi Germany there were many monsters, but not enough real monsters to make a Holocaust. No, it was the innocent monsters that made the Holocaust.”

I handed him a card. “Thanks for the warning. Call me when you have an answer.”

“Good day to you. Please, let yourself out.”

He gathered up the paintings and disappeared into another room. I did as he asked and let myself out.

David Thompson, the ex-cop doorman, was there in the lobby in all his empty glory, standing guard over his piece of turf. Although I’ve crossed paths with many powerful and influential people in my life, I don’t think I will ever fully understand the appeal of power. Little men, small-minded men like Thompson, thrived on it even if their kingdoms were so tiny they could fit three-fold inside a paper cup and the subjects over whom they held sway were barely human themselves. It was enough that they not be at the bottom of the totem pole. But that was just it; in the scheme of things, no matter how much power you wield or think you wield, you’re always near the bottom of the pole.

“Looks who’s back,” he chortled when I walked in. “Is that your tail between your legs or are you just happy to see me? Martyr told me you tried to play hardball with him. Looks to me like you’re the one who took it up the ass, pal.”

“You seem pretty familiar with that look. You must see it in the mirror a lot?”

“Yeah, you keep talking like that and see where it gets you.”

“You and Martyr seem awfully cozy. Strange pair, the two of you: the artiste and the doorman.”

“Security, pal, I’m no doorman.”

“And I’m the Emperor of Ice Cream.”

“Huh? You fuckin’ with me now? You don’t wanna do that.”

“Whatever. Forget it. In any case, Martyr seems to tell you all sorts of stuff.”

“He trusts me,” Thompson said, thrusting out his chest proudly.

“Either that or he must talk in his sleep.”

“Fuck you, shitbird. Go ahead, say one more thing.”

“He trusts you, okay, I get it.”

“Yeah, he trusts me. His world ain’t like when we was on the job. His world is full of hangers-on and liars.”

“And you’re straight with him?”

“Dead straight.”

“That’s why he trusts you?”

“I guess. All I know is he takes good care of me.”

“Good enough care for you to lie for him?”

“That’s it, motherfucka! That’s it!” Thompson turned, flicked a switch on the desk, then, with amazing dexterity, reached under his blazer and snapped out an ASP, all in one motion. The twenty-one inch long, telescoping steel baton may not have looked like much, but I knew that in skilled hands it could break bones with a single blow or knock your senses halfway back to the birth canal. Although my.38 was less than a foot away from my hand, I wouldn’t have gotten near it before he broke my fingers. “I just shut the lobby camera off, so it’s my word against yours. I’m gonna t’row you a beatin’ like you never had before.”

“No, you’re not, you dickless piece of shit,” Jimmy Palumbo said, holding a 9mm Sig Sauer aimed squarely at Thompson’s chest. The pistol looked like a toy in his huge hand, but it was no toy.

“Get the fuck outta here, you wouldn’t dare shoot an ex-cop.” Thompson sounded less than convincing.

“You wanna bet? Now there’s two of us and one of you. It’ll be our word against yours and you’ll be dead.”

Thompson was an asshole, but not a stupid one. He dropped the baton and it bounced off the terrazzo floor with a sharp clink. He then about-faced and made to quickly turn the lobby camera back on. Too late. Jimmy had already holstered his 9mm. To the camera we would look like three guys talking football or exchanging recipes. Sashi Bluntstone’s last painting rested against Palumbo’s big leg.

“I’ll borrow this,” I said, scooping up the ASP. I pressed its tip against the floor and it folded up into itself. I placed it in my pocket. “I’ll mail it back to you. Now ring your boyfriend and tell him we’re coming up. And do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Just let it alone. This is about a missing kid. I got no beef with you. I want to do my business and get out of here.”

He said fine, but I knew he was lying. I’d made an enemy. Everybody makes enemies, most of the time without really trying. Most of the time circumstance has more to do with it than anything else. Still, I knew better than to ignore the enemies I made. I’d done that once and it got Katy murdered.