Mean Business on North Ganson Street (2 page)

“Are you drunk?”

“No,” lied Robert. “I was told to come in and talk to…” He looked at the name that he had written upon his left shirt cuff with a permanent black marker. “Detective Jules Bettinger.”

“What's your name?”

“W. Robert Fellburn.”

“Wait there.”

“Okay.”

The receptionist dialed a number, spoke quietly into the receiver, returned the phone to its cradle, looked up, and stabbed the air with an index finger. “There.”

Robert stared at the digit.

“Look where I'm pointing.”

The businessman traced the invisible line that led from the Hispanic fellow's finger to a nearby trash basket.

“I don't understand.”

“Pick it up and take it with you.”

“Why?”

“In case your breakfast decides to do some sightseeing.”

Rather than contradict the rude appraisal of his condition, Robert walked over and claimed the receptacle. The Hispanic fellow then motioned to the hallway that ran along the front of the building, and the businessman began his journey across the linoleum, carrying the basket. In his mind, he saw the beautiful woman's face. Her eyes slowed time.

“Mr. Fellburn?”

The businessman looked up. Standing in the open doorway that led to the precinct's central pool of desks was a lean black man in an olive suit who was about two inches under six feet. The fellow had a receded hairline, sleepy eyes, and extremely dark skin that swallowed the light.

“You're Bettinger?”

“Detective Bettinger.” The policeman motioned through the portal. “This way.”

“Do I have to carry this?” Robert lifted the bucket.

“It's for the best.”

Together, the duo walked down the middle alley of the central pool, between desks, officers, clerks, steaming coffees, and computer monitors. Two men played chess with pieces that were styled in a canine motif, and for some unknown reason, the sight of the crowned dogs greatly disturbed Robert.

A desk corner slammed into his hip, knocking him sideways.

“Stay focused,” remarked Bettinger.

The businessman nodded his head.

Ahead of them was a faux wood wall that had eight brown doors, all of which were adorned with teal plaques. The detective motioned to the far right and followed his charge into the indicated room.

Morning sunshine bathed the office, poking Robert's brain like children's fingers.

Bettinger closed the door. “Have a seat.”

The businessman sat on a small couch, rested the trash basket beside his six-hundred-dollar loafers, and looked up. “They said you're the one I'm supposed to talk to. You do the missing persons.”

The detective seated himself behind the table, plucking a pencil from a ceramic cup that had an illustration of a smiling sun. “What's her name?”

“Traci Johnson.”

The graphite fang moved four times. “That's with an
i
or a
y
?”

“An
i
.”

Bettinger struck a line, dotted it, and continued writing.

Robert remembered how Traci had drawn a circle above the letter
i
whenever she signed her name, as if she were a sixth grader. It was an endearing affectation.

“When did you last see her?”

The businessman grew anxious. “They said I didn't have to wait forty-eight hours.”

“There's no rule.”

“Night before last. Around midnight.”

Bettinger wrote,
Saturday the eighth. Midnight.

“You don't put that in a computer or something?”

“A clerk does that later.”

“Oh.”

“Traci's black?” asked the detective.

“African American. Yes.”

“How young?”

Robert looked at Bettinger's dark, square face, which was an inscrutable mask. “Pardon me?”

“How young?”

“Twenty-two,” admitted the businessman.

“How would you describe your relationship with this woman?”

Filling Robert's mind was Traci's bare, caramel body, prone upon a bed of maroon silk, her lush buttocks, thighs, and breasts warmly illuminated by an array of candles that smelled like the Orient. Light glinted in the woman's magnetic eyes and upon the many perfect surfaces of the diamond that adorned her left hand.

“We're engaged.”

“She lives with you?”

“Most of the time.”

“Did you notice anything unusual on Saturday?”

Robert's heart raced as he recalled the evening. “She was scared—her brother was in trouble and … and she needed help. Didn't want to ask me, but…” His throat became dry and narrow.

“What's his name?”

“Larry.”

Bettinger wrote this down. “What kind of trouble was Larry in?”

“He owed some people money—a lot of it. He had a gambling problem.”

“Was this the first time Traci asked you to help out her brother?”

“No.” Robert looked at his hands. “It happened before.”

“How many times?”

“Three, I think.” The businessman expelled a tremulous sigh. “She thought he'd stopped gambling after that last time—he promised—he swore that he had—but … well … he hadn't.”

Bettinger returned his pencil to the coffee mug.

Robert was confused. “Don't you need to write?”

“How much?”

“Excuse me?”

“How much money did you give her on Saturday?”

“Seventy-five.” The businessman cleared his throat. “Thousand.”

“And the other times, the amounts were smaller—two to five thousand.”

This was not said as a question, but still, Robert nodded an affirmation. A terrible feeling expanded in his stomach, spreading throughout his guts. He thought of his ex-wife, his two children, and the house that all of them had contentedly shared before he had met Traci at the VIP party last March.

“The guys her brother owed were in the Mafia,” said the businessman. “She told me that … that they'd kill him—maybe come after her—slash her face if—”

“Want anything from the vending machine?” Bettinger asked as he rose from his desk. “I'm partial to cinnamon cakes, but I've been told—”

“Hey! This is serious!”

“It isn't. Yell again and our conversation is over.”

“I'm—I'm sorry.” Robert's voice was small and distant. “She's my fiancée.”

“After I get my cakes, I'll pull some binders for you to look through. See if you can identify her.”

“What kind of binders?”

“Prostitutes.”

The businessman flung his head at the trash basket, and the frothy contents of his guts splattered the bottom of the receptacle. Convulsions that resembled orgasms wrung out his digestive tract.

“Thanks for containing that,” remarked Bettinger. “Wanna come back another day?”

Dripping into the basket, Robert offered no reply.

“Let me educate you, Mr. Fellburn,” said the detective. “Traci's probably skipped town by now. She has money that you gave her—willingly—which isn't the kind of thing that compels a national manhunt. And if we do happen to get her, it'll go to court, where you'll have to explain to a judge—maybe a jury—how you were driven around like a fancy golf cart by a black hooker half your age.”

Robert was appalled by the thought of further embarrassing his ex-wife and children.

“Traci's beautiful?”

Inside the trash basket, the businessman nodded his head.

“And that's the glossy—a rich white middle-aged predator and some pretty young black girl. I don't think seventy-five nuggets and a diamond ring are worth going on stage for that kind of theater.”

Robert raised his head and wiped his mouth as Bettinger walked across the office.

“You really thought you were going to marry Traci with an
i
?”

The businessman cleared his throat. “We're very different people … but it could happen. Stuff like that happens all the time.”

“Not honestly.”

A ponderous silence filled the room, and the detective opened the door. “We're done?”

Robert nodded his pathetic head.

“Take the bucket.” Bettinger motioned outside. “And don't be such a goddamn idiot.”

Ruined, the businessman rose from the couch, walked through the door, and crossed the central pool, a forty-seven-year-old bachelor who had lost his family, his money, and his dignity not because of a beautiful young whore, but because of his own weaknesses—his ingratitude, his lust, and his incredible capacity for self-deception. Robert imagined himself standing before a priest, looking into Traci Johnson's eyes, exchanging vows, and in an instant, he knew that he was a deluded and ridiculous fool, no different from the chess piece that he had seen on the policeman's desk—the dog that wore a crown on its head and thought it was a king.

It was a good thing that the businessman knew how to end his humiliation.

Resolved, he approached the front desk, slammed the trash basket over the receptionist's skull, and seized the fellow's semiautomatic pistol. A warning cry sounded within the receptacle as the officer toppled backward, blinded by puke.

W. Robert Fellburn swallowed the steel cylinder, thumbed the safety, and squeezed the trigger until his shame covered the ceiling in gray and red clumps.

 

III

A Singular-Choice Question

Bettinger watched two grimacing members of a cleaning service mount a ladder and apply brushes to the suicide's final remark. The young officer who had received a vomit crown and matching epaulets had departed early, shaken by his experience while the lobotomized corpse was taken to a place that had steel doors, an astringent smell, and digital thermometers that displayed low temperatures in both Celsius and Fahrenheit scales.

The detective opened the package that he had moments ago retrieved from the vending machine. Footfalls garnered his attention, and a man cleared his throat.

“The inspector wants to see you.”

“I'll never eat these goddamn cakes.”

“I think you'll have some time. The way the inspector said your name, maybe a great big heap of it.”

Bettinger faced Big Tom, whose nickname referred to his impressive belly rather than his altitude, which was that of a Chinese woman. At that moment, the detective realized how much the senior clerk's head resembled an onion.

“The inspector's upset?” inquired Bettinger, more curious than concerned.

“Right after he summoned you, there was a thunderclap.” The clerk motioned to a window. “But the skies look pretty clear.”

Together, the two men retreated up the hall and entered the central pool, where a dozen officers glanced at Bettinger. As he secreted the cinnamon cakes in his jacket, a heaviness pressed down upon his shoulders.

“Maybe you'll have time to make pastries from scratch,” remarked Big Tom. “Knead your own dough. Monitor the oven. Harvest sugar cane.”

“I tried to help the guy.” Bettinger attempted to sound sincere. “Honest.”

“Don't be offended if I remove you from my list of emergency contacts.”

A few more strides brought them to Big Tom's desk, where the porcine fellow heaved his rump into a plastic chair. Bettinger continued to the door nearby, closed his right fist, and knocked directly below a plaque that read
INSPECTOR KERRY LADELL
.

“Bettinger?”

“Yeah.”

“Get in here.” The tone of the imperative did not engender positive extrapolations.

The detective took a breath, twisted the doorknob, and pushed, revealing an office that had more pine and oak than a forest. Sitting behind the desk in a brown leather chair was Inspector Ladell, long and saturnine, his lips pursed beneath his silver mustache and baleful eyes.

“What the fuck did you say to Robert Fellburn?”

The words flew at Bettinger like bullets, eliciting glances from the central pool. “Should I close the door?”

“Answer my fucking question.”

The detective shut the door.

“Don't sit.”

“It's that kind of conversation?”

“Fellburn came in here for help, walked into your office, walked out, killed himself.”

“Fellburn got squeezed by a black pro half his age. I illuminated the situation and offered some advice.”

“Was it, ‘Kill yourself'?”

“I told him to forget the money and move on.”

“He moved.” Inspector Ladell glanced up at the ceiling.

Bettinger sat in the chair that had been forbidden to him. “Why're you coming at me like this? He was an idiot.”

“You know John Carlyle?”

The detective's stomach sank. “The mayor?”

“Not the second baseman who struck out forty-one times during his brief stint in the majors back in 1932.”

Bettinger knew that this crummy conversation was about to get a whole lot worse.

Inspector Ladell popped a mint into his mouth. “Here's a singular-choice question for you. Guess who was married to Mayor Carlyle's sister up until a couple of months ago?” The boss sucked his confection. “Choice A. The man who came in here for help, walked into your office, walked out, killed himself.”

“Fuck.”

“That's the right word. ‘Fuck.'” Inspector Ladell nodded. “Maybe if you'd said something nice to him, we wouldn't be using all this profanity.”

“What does this mean?”

“Nothing good.” The boss gave the mint a tour of his mouth. “Most politicians don't want to be associated with infidelity or suicide or hookers, and this Fellburn casserole's got all three ingredients.”

“There's stink.”

“When the mayor found out about it, he called the police commissioner directly.” Inspector Ladell clicked the mint against a tooth as if he were cocking a gun. “Please take a moment to imagine the nature of this call.”