Peeper (18 page)

Leaving Waverly to hold the door shut, Ralph placed a shoulder against the big butcher block in the center of the room and started pushing. “Help me get this thing in front of the door.”

The tall man gestured and two liveried servants put their hands and shoulders to the task. When the door was blocked, Waverly and Ralph collapsed against it. The noise on the other side was fearsome.

“It was the fucking rum balls,” Ralph explained. “They do the same thing every time.”

“You were supposed to serve them, not eat them,” said the tall man. “Do what?”

Waverly said, “He makes cat noises.”

“Cat noises?”

“You know, meowing and spitting. It was the best imitation those dogs ever heard.”

“Pit bulls got no sense of humor,” Ralph said.

The tall man glared at the serving staff. “Who is responsible for these idiots?”

Nobody spoke.

“This is a disaster. Nothing like this has ever happened at the annual convention of the F.A.N.A.P.B.B. and T.”

“What about two years ago?” Ralph asked.

“That was nothing. Mrs. Chubwallader was chased into the pool by Prince Albert. A really first-rate animal, but he couldn't stand the smell of Giorgio.”

“That'd be
Mr
. Crumwallader?”

“
Chub
wallader. Giorgio is a perfume. Mrs. Chubwallader has been widowed for forty-seven years. She owns this house. You should know that. Where are your copies of the work order?”

“I think Prince Albert ate them.”

“Indeed. Collier's Domestics will hear of this.”

“What's that, a kennel?”

“Collier's Domestics is your employer. Or perhaps not. Who are you?”

Ralph drew himself up, trying not to stand lopsided on his shoeless foot. “I'm Bruce Wayne and this here's Dick Grayson. We're with Animal Control. We got a tip you folks was exceeding your pit bull capacity and we came here undercover to find out was it true. Ain't that right, kid?” He nudged Waverly, who jerked upright.

“Down! I mean, yes sir.”

“
What
pit bull capacity?” The tall man's brow was puckered.

“Grosse Pointe City Ordinance number ex-ex-eye-eye-eye, subparagraph B: ‘No residential establishment shall be in excess of one pit bull per square yard.' On account of they get pissed in crowds. You can look it up yourself.”

“And what did you find out?”

“You squeaked by this time. Well, we got to go file our report. Let's go, kid.”

The tall man gestured again. One of the kitchen staff, a large black man in an apron and chef's cap holding a cleaver, stepped in front of the back door. “Where are your credentials?” asked the tall man.

“Man wants credentials.”

Waverly made a sickly grin. He appeared on the verge of hysteria.

“What's funny?” asked the tall man.

“Us guys on pit bull detail leave our badges in the office when we go undercover. You don't want to startle no dogs by flashing something shiny.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

“It does? I mean, sure it does.” Ralph pointed a stern finger. “Remember what I said. One dog per square yard, no more.”

“Just one moment.”

Ralph paused in front of the man with the cleaver. He and Waverly were leaning on each other.

The tall man wrung his hands, something Ralph had never actually seen anyone do before. “What about those?”

As he said
those
, something heavy hurled itself against the swinging door on the other side, buckling the edges. A copper pot fell clattering off the wall.

“Throw 'em a maid.” Ralph jammed his heel down on the black man's instep. As he stooped, gasping, Ralph shoved him off balance, seized Waverly's arm, and hustled outside.

There was no sign of the station wagon. Ralph put Waverly into the passenger's seat, for the young man was in no condition to drive, and slid behind the wheel. The accelerator felt cold under his stockinged foot. As he turned the key, something just as cold touched the base of his skull.

From behind the seat, Carpenter said, “Drive.”

Waverly laughed.

“Shut up, kid,” Ralph said. The laughter stopped. “How'd a beanpole like you scrunch himself into that teensy backseat?” Ralph asked.

“Just drive.”

“I ain't too good with these foreign jobs.”

The gun nudged him. “Learn.”

Ralph started the engine. “Where to?”

“Straight to hell if you don't put this thing in gear right now.”

Ralph pressed down the accelerator and released the clutch. The little car shot forward, bumped up three steps, found traction on the back porch, and tore loose the kitchen doorframe heading inside. The tall man, the man with the cleaver, and the rest of the kitchen and serving staff scattered. The Volkswagen struck the butcher block hard and stalled. Carpenter piled into the back of Ralph's seat and fell to the floor of the car.

Waverly was sprawled in the passenger's seat, having stunned himself when the top of his head hit the windshield. Ralph left him where he was, tumbling out of the car and pulling himself grunting on top of the butcher block in front of the swinging door. Carpenter started out behind him, gun in hand.

There was a brief pause after Ralph pushed open the swinging door. Then the first of the pit bulls lunged through the opening, clawed for a purchase, and bounded over the top of the butcher block. Another flew over its back, and within thirty seconds half a dozen dogs had gained snarling, foaming access to the kitchen, with five more fighting for their turn. Big, square-muscled brutes with pointed ears and muzzles shaped like howitzers, they ranged in color from white to rusty brown and in temperament from casual bloodlust to uncontrolled rage. They reminded Ralph a little of his father.

As for Ralph, after shoving open the door he had curled both hands over its top and ridden it into the short corridor outside the kitchen. He shared it with a number of upset dog owners and a very old pit bull that had been introduced to him earlier as Emperor Maximilian. Too fat and ancient to take part in the frenzy, Maximilian lay in the middle of the floor with his white-whiskered chin resting on his paws, chewing unconcernedly on the leg of a Louis XIV occasional table.

“Nixon! Richard Milhouse Nixon!” called a buxom woman with blue rinse in her hair and wattles. “Whatever can that dog be after?”

“Probably a new name,” said Ralph.

Amid the confusion behind him, he heard a loud report, but whether it belonged to Carpenter's automatic or a car door as he shut himself off from the dogs, Ralph couldn't tell. He had a fleeting sense of guilt for having left Chuck Waverly behind; but this was how youngsters learned, and in any case nobody's skin was dearer to Ralph than Ralph's. On his way through the parlor, he helped himself to a handful of rum balls and washed them down with brandy from an abandoned snifter. Fuel.

Chapter 24

April Dane answered the door of her apartment wearing two towels. Unfortunately for Ralph's unpredictable libido, the one she had wrapped around her body was no larger than the one she wore turban-fashion on her head. Ralph's body reacted instantly. April looked down and smiled. “Glad to see me?”

He managed a crooked grin, which was the only kind he ever had. “How do you think I pushed the buzzer?”

“What happened to your left shoe?” Her gaze had flicked below his torn pants; he'd ditched the jacket before hailing a cab.

“I just came from a pit bull convention.”

“Okay, don't tell me.”

“No, really.”

“What were you doing at a pit bull convention?”

“Pissing my pants and running like hell. Can I come in?”

“With a line like that, who could resist?” She stepped aside and closed the door behind him. She smelled of fresh soap and warm skin.

“You getting ready to go out?”

“No, just taking a shower before bed.”

“You're kidding.”

“Don't you ever wash up before turning in?”

“Why waste soap if nobody's going to smell you?”

She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. Beads of moisture glittered on her bare shoulders. “You're smelling me.”

“I ain't in the mood.”

“Your lips say no, no, no, but …” She bumped him.

“Your
on
button's stuck, that it?”

“Let's see what happens when we push yours.”

“Jesus.”

Sometime later, Ralph lay hyperventilating in April's bed. April snored prettily with her head on his chest and one bare thigh slung across his groin. He wanted to check his pulse, but was afraid of waking her. He decided that Lyla the professional could not be like her sister the amateur, or she wouldn't be living in a crummy building like Ralph's.

Lying there in the dark, waiting for his blood to stop racing, he wondered how Chuck Waverly had fared with the dogs and Carpenter. It worried him more that he should wonder at all. The old Ralph wouldn't; but even he couldn't stand up to his pecker in dead landlords and clergymen for an extended period and not come away changed.

The telephone rang. He jumped.

April, still asleep, made a feline noise of protest and nestled her head deeper into the graying hairs on Ralph's chest. He knew it was the police calling; trouble had its own ring. They had traced him there from Grosse Pointe. He wondered if there was a penalty for impersonating an Animal Control officer, and if it would matter once they finished sentencing him for Vinnie's murder and the destruction of a Grosse Pointe kitchen.

“Phone's ringing,” he said.

April slept on.

His determination to ignore the bell eroded in direct relation to the number of times it rang. He wished he had a matchstick. Finally he freed himself from the naked girl's embrace and stumbled, just as naked, over to the low dresser where the telephone stood.

“Poteet?”

He felt his private parts shriveling. He had recognized the sepulchral voice instantly. He slammed down the receiver. After a pause the ringing began again.

“Get that, will you?” muttered April.

Ralph stood in a puddle of sweat on the floor. The noise was like the clanging of bells at his own funeral. He had to stop it.

“Don't hang up again,” Carpenter said.

“How'd you track me down?”

“That isn't important.”

“What'd you do, ice the kid?”

“If you mean your young friend, he's at Detroit General, getting a distemper shot. He was bitten on the ankle.”

“What'd he taste like?”

“Never mind that. I want to talk to you.”

“Who's your interpreter, Smith and Wesson?”

“No guns. I'll meet you wherever you like, as long as it's tonight.”

“That what you said to the bishop?”

“The bishop's part of what I want to talk to you about.”

“So talk.”

“Not over the telephone.”

Ralph said, “You can't see me, so I'll tell you what I'm doing. I got the phone in one hand and I'm pointing one finger of the other at the ceiling, and I ain't asking to go to the toilet. That clear enough, or should I send you a picture?”

“Pictures are what I want to talk about.”

“I ain't interested. What do I have to do, moon you from the top of the Renaissance Center?”

“I'll pay you a thousand dollars just to meet with me.”

Ralph scratched his butt. The gesture stimulated his thinking. “Cash?”

“Big or small bills?”

“Make 'em small. I like a nice fat wallet.”

“Will you meet with me?”

“The thousand's just to talk, right? I don't let no pictures go for no crummy grand.”

“Just to talk.”

“Somebody's going to know where I am. If I don't check in by a certain time, the pictures go to the cops.”

“When and where do you want to meet?”

“I know just the place,” Ralph said.

After giving Carpenter directions, Ralph hung up and called Neal English.

“Hello. Jesus.”

“Not even close,” said Ralph.

“It's almost two!”

“Thanks. Before you say go away, I want you to clear the pillow fuzz out of your ears and listen. I just talked to Carpenter.”

“You having some work done?”

“Not
a
carpenter, asshole. Carpenter. The file clerk that runs around filing people under DOA, remember?”

There was a pause. “Listen, if you're laying someplace bleeding, call nine-one-one. I got to go to work in the morning.”

“The conversation was over the phone. I'm meeting him in an hour to talk about the pictures.”

“What pictures?”

“The Loch Ness monster's dick, shit-for-brains. What pictures you think?”

“Oh, yeah, the monsignor. I almost forgot about those. What's he paying?”

“I don't know yet. He just wants to talk about them.”

“What's he paying to talk?”

“What makes it he's paying?”

“He kills people and you got a yellow streak as wide as the Rouge. But you'd sell your right thumb for a buck and change. How much?”

“Five hundred.”

“Bullshit.”

“Okay, seven-fifty.”

“I get half.”

“Sure, Neal. I'd never screw a partner.”

“Ex-partner. And I been screwed by you so many times I whistle when I fart. When you going to check in?”

“Say five o'clock.”

“Say seven. I told you, I got to go to work in the morning.”

“I could be dead.”

“You won't be any deader at seven o'clock than at five. Where's the meet?”

“Richard's. You know Richard.”

“He still got that fucking dog?”

“Yeah.”

“Better take along a can of Glade.” Neal hung up.

As Ralph replaced the receiver, April giggled. She was wide awake now. “Is that the way you always dress when you use the phone?”