The Prisoner of Vandam Street (13 page)

L
ater that same evening I started to feel decidedly “crook,” as Piers or Brennan might say. Ratso would probably say “fucked-up.” I’m not sure what McGovern would say. He and Piers had been on the piss all evening. They’d gone out to the Monkey’s Paw to plot some strategy about how to catch Tana Petrich and deliver her to the loft while avoiding assault and kidnapping charges if possible. When they returned that night I don’t think they even noticed that my condition had deteriorated and, to be fair, I hardly noticed that theirs had as well. For his part, Kent Perkins had been last observed by me, before I’d retired to my sickroom, sitting stalwartly at my desk, tip-tip-tapping away at his little laptop, trying to run down background information on our mystery woman. There was something almost poignant about the big man who’d come all the way from California to sit patiently with his little laptop, working long into the lonely hours of the night to help his shivering, chattering, delirious friend resolve what was most likely a common domestic violence case, the very hardest to ever resolve, the least likely to ever, indeed, have a happy ending. Even as Ratso accompanied me into my bedroom, helped me into bed, pulled the comforters over me, and pulled a chair up for himself, I still had a lingering image in my mind of Kent Perkins, stoically sitting at the desk under the lamplight, ferreting for information and spiritual trivia from the Internet and PallTech, all to get the goods on a woman that only I had seen. He was doing this tedious, unrewarding, very likely futile labor, I knew, only for me. And, like Atticus Finch, I knew he would still be there in the morning.

So I lay there shivering in bed, watching Ratso eat a huge, cold roast beef sandwich, watching the cat watching Ratso with a visage of pure feline loathing, and wondering why it was so important to me to see this particular, rather singular affair to its conclusion. Was I trying to prove my own sanity? That was always an impossible proposition. Was I trying, as Kent presumably suspected, to “save” this woman? In moments of malarial lucidity, I realized with a thudding finality that it was not possible to save anybody in this life, not even myself. All you could ever hope to do was to lead people to the light, which, like Luke the Drifter, you couldn’t even really see yourself. The malaria helped me in a way. I could watch myself walking on this lost highway of life. I could see that there was no light to see.

“Thank you for your company, Watson,” I said. “How does it feel to know that there is no light?”

“There’s always a light, Sherlock,” said Ratso between bites. “It’s waiting there for you at the end of the tunnel.”

“That is death of which you speak, Watson! You’re with a sick man in a sick room in a sick world and it is death of which you speak!”

“I missed a hockey game for this?” Ratso rather rhetorically asked the cat.

The cat, as I believe I told you, hated rhetorical questions. She hated Ratso even more. She was, in fact, so overwhelmed with hatred that, quite perversely, she suddenly chose to ignore Ratso completely. You can always learn something from a cat. If nothing else, you can learn to trust your instincts. If you don’t, you could wind up a caricature of whoever you truly are, like a self-hating Jew driving a Mercedes.

“Watson,” I said, through chattering teeth, “we know that the Internet is the work of Satan.”

“Of course we do, Sherlock. Satan or Bill Gates. Same thing.”

“So why are we allowing our private investigator friend from California to toil long into the dark night of the soul on the Internet to solve this case when we could just walk across the street like normal men in a normal world and knock on the door of the woman’s third-floor apartment?”

“Because, Sherlock,” said Ratso with what I detected to be a slight degree of irritation, “the woman’s third-floor apartment doesn’t exist.”

“How do we know, Watson, that it doesn’t exist?”

“Because the cops have already checked and it doesn’t exist.”

“Ah, Watson! But what if it’s the cops who don’t exist?”

“What if it’s this conversation that doesn’t exist?”

“Watson, Watson, Watson! Your whimsical nature is ever a cause for joy in this unhappy world!”

Having spoken these words, I was wracked with a ruthless, unforgiving bout of the shaking chills. The affliction was of such intensity and duration as to momentarily cause Ratso to stop eating his sandwich.

“Sherlock!” he cried. “Are you all right?”

“Do I look strange, Watson? By the way, those were Robert Louis Stevenson’s last words to his wife just before he died. It was in his kitchen in Samoa. He didn’t, of course, call his wife Watson. That would’ve never done. Now would it, Watson? However, the question remains: ‘Do I look strange, Watson?’ ”

“You don’t
look
too strange, Sherlock. You’re
acting
a bit strange, but I think that’s normal behavior for the course of the disease. Are you comfortable, Sherlock?”

“I make a living.”

“Look, Sherlock. I want to talk to you about this investigation you and Kent are getting everybody involved in. I think it’s good for you to be doing something while your doctor has confined you to the loft. Taking on a case like this may actually be therapeutic for you. It’s certainly healthier for you than in the old days when all you used to do was hang around the loft taking cocaine and playing chess with the cat.”

“What’s wrong with taking cocaine and playing chess with the cat? She’s a very conservative player, of course. Quite finicky. Sometimes she takes nine lives to make a move. The temperaments of cats are simply not well suited for chess, Watson, I’m afraid. Just as the temperaments of people are not well suited for living together in peace. I’m not criticizing the cat’s game, mind you. She’s a cautious player and a bad sport sometimes but if you don’t pay attention she’ll pounce on you every time. She could polish her end-game a bit. But really, Watson, so could we all.”

“Fuck a bunch of cats and fuck a bunch of chess, Sherlock. All I’m saying is that while a bit of intellectual exercise may be therapeutic for you, an investigation of this nature may be harmful all around. It appears to be a common domestic abuse situation which even I, Watson, can diagnose. You’ve got Kent Perkins out there trying to prove to the world that California is the crime-solving capital of the universe. You’ve got Mick Brennan right now trying to focus that ridiculous spottah scope on an apartment that may not even be there. You’ve got Pete Myers taking time off from Myers of Keswick to feed what reminds me vaguely of the cast of
Bonanza.
Good sandwiches, of course. You’ve got Piers and McGovern attempting to work a supposed rescue mission that they probably couldn’t even perform if they were sober. It’s a fucking disaster, Sherlock. They’re all just humoring you because you’re ill. But just remember what your own chosen Dr. Watson tells you! It’s a domestic violence case! It will end the way they always do! The man and the woman involved will end up loving each other and living happily ever after and they’ll both wind up hating you!”

“Not as much as I hate you, Watson.”

“I know you don’t mean it. You’re just delirious, Sherlock.”

“Right.”

“The question remains. Why have you become obsessed with what is in reality a common circumstance of domestic violence?”

“Is it common, Watson? I think not. Malaria has caused me, or shall we say
permitted
me, to see reality in such a manner as never before. Watson, I tell you, I have not lost my powers of observation! Far from it, my dear friend! My powers have been honed to a degree of spiritual sharpness previously unknown in the foggy bathroom mirrors of men! A common circumstance of domestic violence! Ha! Ha! Ha! I’m afraid not, Watson! These are deep waters, indeed, Watson, as I’m sure our private investigator friend shall soon confirm.”

It was a shot in the dark, of course. I knew Kent would undoubtedly come up with some background on Tana Petrich whether indeed she was alive or dead. Though the Internet existed, as far as I was concerned, to decide who was everybody’s favorite
Star Trek
captain and to connect a short, fat, fifty-eight-year-old pedophile from New Jersey who was pretending to be a tall, young Norwegian chap with a vice cop in Omaha who was pretending to be a sixteen-year-old girl in San Diego, it was nonetheless not without some degree of functionality. I also knew that once Kent found some shard of peripheral information, he wouldn’t be keeping it himself. And he realized I was a sick person in a sick room in a sick world and I wouldn’t be popping out to check on him every five minutes. So it stood to reason he’d be making an appearance fairly shortly in my bedroom to announce some tissue of horseshit proclaiming his own abilities and the vital importance of the Internet. Therefore, it wasn’t that much of a stretch that he’d soon be confirming my “deep waters, Watson” scenario. What was remarkable was that Kent’s entrance occurred almost perfectly on cue.

“We’re on to something big, boys!” Kent Perkins ejaculated, as his large Aryan form filled the small sickroom. “I’ve been busy reverse tracing the last known address of Tana Petrich. I’m looking for another woman of around the same age who might’ve blipped off the screen around the same time then resurfaced two or three years later. I can tell you one thing for sure. There’s more here than meets the eye. Whoever took Tana’s name went to a lot of trouble. There’s a deep secret hidden here. Much deeper than just a woman changing her identity to avoid an abusive spouse.”

During Kent’s little speech, Ratso’s eyes had become bigger than the saucers at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Now that a real private investigator had backed me up with the help of the Internet, he was once again a true believer in my cowboy intuition. His Doctor Watson had returned to form. He was ready to follow my Sherlock through the fires of hell.

“Justice rides a slow horse,” Kent intoned, “but it always overtakes.”

“Who said that?” asked Ratso.

“My great-grandfather,” said Kent. “His name was Lorenzo Dow Posey and he was born in Winnfield, Louisiana. He was a Baptist circuit preacher and he married a Jewish girl from Philadelphia. When they moved back down South, as was rather common back then, she kept her religion a secret. On her deathbed she asked the whole family to gather around, she had something to tell them. To the family’s abject horror, her last words were: ‘Ah’m a Jeeeeeew!’ ”

“That means you’re Jewish,” said Ratso.

“I’m only Jewish from the waist up,” said Kent. “But at least now I know why we only tithed $9.95.”

“It’s a curse,” I said. “Like my father’s old joke about the curse that comes with the Horwitz Diamond.”

“What’s the curse?” asked Kent.

“Horwitz,” I said.

I
n the morning, Brennan came into my quarters with more good news. Pete Myers had brought me a British breakfast in bed, English breakfast tea, fried eggs, fried tomatoes, fried potatoes, fried toast, fried streaky bacon, and beans. Maybe I was off the lost highway and back on the road to recovery because everything tasted killer bee. Mick Brennan looked on approvingly for a moment, made a few solicitous remarks, then launched into his report.

“Top o’ the mornin’, ol’ bean,” said Brennan jovially. “Good to see you eating a proper English breakfast. I’ve photographed the girl.”

“Fine, Watson, fine,” I said. “Please give me the details.”

“I don’t have any details yet, mate. Film’s being developed. But I can tell you this. The girl’s for real. She’s not a figment of your fevered, malarial fantasies. Seen her meself, mate. First independent sighting, in fact. She lives! She walks! She takes off her clothes in front of her window!”

“Can you describe her, Watson?”

“Can I describe her? That spotter scope of your mate’s leaves very little to the old imagination, if you know what I mean. She’s a tasty bird. Great big Bristols. Large, wild, unpruned hedgerow.”

“That may be a bit more information than we need, Watson.”

“One more thing, mate. Let’s jet this Watson shite, will you? Makes us sound like poofters. Anyway, Ratso’s your Watson, innit he?”

“Any Watson in a storm, Watson.”

“Bollocks!” said Brennan. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have the prints.”

“Fine, Watson, fine. Keep me in the picture, Watson. No pun intended.”

“Hold on a tick, mate. I saw the bloke as well.”

“You saw the bloke?”

“That’s what I said, mate.”

“Where was the bloke?”

“On top of the bird.”

“You mean—”

“That’s right, mate. They wasn’t playin’ Parcheesi.”

“These are deep waters, Watson.”

“Don’t call me Watson.”

With that word of admonition, Brennan goose-stepped back to his gaseous domain of chemicals in a darkroom somewhere, or possibly back to the spotter scope, or, quite conceivably, back to a pint of Guinness waiting to be poured. Everything was falling into place on this ship of fools we foolishly call the world. Now all I had to do was avoid the horse latitudes, the rocks, the sirens, the icebergs, the shipboard romances, the tyrannical captains, the pirates, the projectile vomiting caused by shipboard viruses, the projectile diarrhea caused by shipboard viruses, the projectile ennui caused by other shipboard passengers. And through the lonely, checkerboard night of the soul at sea, through another lighted porthole, could be seen the lithe form of the blithe woman making love to the dark form of the man who, very possibly, might soon murder her.

Later that day I emerged from my sick quarters for the first time in what seemed like decades. The loft looked like it’d been caught in the middle of a collision between a ship of fools and a garbage truck. The last man standing appeared to be Pete Myers, who was busily at work upon some arcane creation in the kitchen.

“What would you like, my lad?” he said. “Good to see you up and about. But you’ve got to keep putting food in you in order to sustain your body’s energy level. So what’s your fancy? Squeak and bubbles? Blood pudding? Spotted dick?”

“Nothing right now,” I said. “I had a pomegranate on the New Delhi freight train. By the way, where the hell is everybody?”

“Well, Brennan’s developing his prints from the spotter scope. Ratso’s developing his Freudian theories about how investigating a bit of domestic violence may enhance the sex life of those who happen to view it vicariously. I’m developing a blister on my right hand from preparing the blood pudding. And Piers and McGovern are developing into two large pains in everybody’s arse. They’ve been arguing apparently about your doctor at the hospital. McGovern wants to know if his name is really Dr. Pickaninny. He says if it’s not, the name could be offensive to people of color and he wants to know why the rest of us continue to call him that. Piers tried to explain to McGovern that no one was calling anyone Pickaninny, that the man’s real name is Dr. Skinnipipi and that McGovern is deaf and can’t hear a sodding thing. McGovern insisted that he could hear people calling him Dr. Pickaninny and that it was alarmingly racist. Piers said that was good and then he called McGovern a pickaninny and that set the whole thing off again. Fortunately, they both appear to have taken a French leave at the moment and hopefully it will develop into a beautiful friendship.”

“Where’s Kent?” I asked, standing by the kitchen window and studying the fateful third-floor window across the street. The table was still there but the vase with the flowers was gone. Maybe she’d thrown it at the guy’s head.

“Kent said he’s developed a few promising leads. He said he was going out to do some old-fashioned legwork. He said he knew you’d be doing it yourself if you were able.”

“Drink of my blood and eat of my body,” I said.

“We do have the blood pudding,” said Myers.

“We’re going to have blood on Vandam Street if we don’t resolve this matter soon, Watson.”

Pete Myers did not answer. He merely looked at me and shook his head. Then he went to see if something was burning in the oven. I continued to watch the window and the building and Vandam Street, but all I saw were garbage trucks and pigeons and a few people walking rapidly, stiff-legged, leaning forward into the rain. Did I mention that it was raining? It always seemed to be raining on Vandam Street, and its gray shroud of shabbiness always seemed to remind me of Baker Street. This, however, was not a particularly singular phenomenon. When it’s raining the whole world reminds you of Baker Street.

It wasn’t too long after that that Kent Perkins came into the loft, shook the rain off his cowboy hat, poured himself a cup of Pete Myers’s hot tea, and sat down in my chair by the desk. He continued to wear his wet clothes, but he was also wearing a big smile on his face.

“We’re closin’ in, Kink,” he said. “Closin’ in on the bad guys.”

“You mean you think there may be more than one of them?”

“That’s correct,” he said, sipping the tea.

“Ah, Watson, what you modestly call your ‘old-fashioned legwork’ has confirmed a long-held opinion of my own. Pray tell me more, my dear, loyal, hard-working friend.”

“I will,” said Kent. “But first, don’t you think you’ve carried this ‘Watson’ business a little too far?”

“What do you mean by that, Watson?”

“I mean that everybody can’t be your Watson, nor should they. You’re not being very polite to your friends and it’s not healthy for all of us to be humoring you like this. It’s kind of sad, really. At my firm in L.A., Allied Management Resources, I’d never treat my employees this condescendingly. I realize you were bit many years ago in the jungles of Borneo by a
Plasmodium
—”

“
Falciparum,
Watson. A
Plasmodium falciparum.
”

“Okay, so you were bit by a fucking mosquito. That doesn’t give you a license to treat everybody like shit. And speaking of licenses, at least I have a PI’s license and you certainly don’t. What you have is a nasty little Christ complex and Sherlock is your Christ and all your supposed disciples are your Watsons. I don’t like to see you this way, Kink, and, quite frankly, everybody’s getting a little tired of it.”

“What we have, Watson, is the country doctor, which is you, attempting to be the dime-store psychologist. Well, it won’t fly into my airport, Watson! The game is afoot, Watson! We have work to do and I am afflicted with this accursed malady or, I assure you, I would do it myself! Now what have you discovered, Watson?”

“I’ve discovered that working with you can be pretty tedious.”

“Watson, Watson, Watson. How very like you to bemoan the trivial frictions of day-to-day living when matters of mortal consequence pass by under our very window. How refreshingly human of you, Watson. But now we must turn our attentions to the affair at hand. What did you learn in your recent exploration of the living street?”

Kent’s eyes looked tired. The big smile was now gone from his face. That was fine with me. I hadn’t liked it that much anyway.

“Okay, Sherlock,” he said rather grudgingly, “if that’s how you want it. I did discover that the stories in the building across the street are numbered differently from this one. That building has a basement; this one doesn’t. The basement counts as the first floor over there so what appears to be the third floor is actually the fourth. Are you with me?”

“Of course I’m with you, Watson. Where else would I be? Certainly you are to be congratulated. Your simple, pragmatic mind has found the answer to a problem that the very complexity of my approach had not resolved entirely and one, that I might add, has totally eluded the cops. I’m referring, of course, to the phenomenon of my looking one floor down across the street, yet the floor is numbered precisely the same as my own. Damned fine effort, Watson!”

“Thanks, uh, Sherlock.”

“What else, Watson? What else have you for me?”

“I have this,” said Kent, making a rather obscene gesture with his right hand.

“Ah, Watson, how like you to add a touch of levity to matters of such grave import! What else did you observe?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. I did do a little bit of dumpster-diving behind the other building. It was loaded with all the usual shit you’d expect to find.”

“Yes, yes, Watson. Garbage in, garbage out.”

“Anyway, uh, Sherlock, I found this scrap of paper, which might hold some interest for your rapidly deteriorating brain.”

“Far from it, Watson! Far from it! I see reality now like never before! It is, my dear friend, a heady experience that I recommend highly to all seekers of the truth! It is a strange and singular experience, Watson, into which lesser men might not deign to delve! Seeing reality as it really is, Watson, is like making eye contact with a unicorn!”

“Maybe you ought to make eye contact with this,” he said, laying the paper down on the desk with a slight flourish.

I walked over to the desk, lifted Sherlock’s cap, and removed a Cuban cigar. I lopped the butt off the cigar, and set fire to the tip with a kitchen match. I took a patient puff or two, blew a plume of purple smoke toward the building across the street, and, at last, picked up the piece of paper. It was a rent receipt for apartment number 412, dated the previous month. The name on the receipt was Tana Petrich.

Suddenly, my eyes began swimming and I could not see the words on the paper. I could not see Kent Perkins. All I could see was a man with a gun walking slowly toward me through the foggy Baker Street of the mind.