The Remake (2 page)

“Cassandra would be your wife?” R.J. prompted.

The reverend looked away. “I’m sure it’s all very innocent. I just worry about her so very much. She is not too much of the world,” the good reverend said. “Many of us Baptists have the same failing, of being somewhat otherworldly,” he said with a modest smile. “My wife is one such. I should like to know that she is all right. That’s all.”

“That’s not quite the way I work it,” R.J. told him. “What I can do is keep an eye on her, and get some photographs of who she’s seeing and what she’s doing.”

“Photographs? I don’t—Is that really necessary?”

“Yeah, it is,” R.J. said. “Otherwise, you won’t believe me. You won’t know what I’ve been doing for your money, and you won’t like that, because it’s going to be a lot of money.”

“What do you mean by a lot?” he asked, and R.J. knew from the way he said it that the guy would pay.

Sure enough, the check had cleared, and R.J. had been tailing Mrs. Lake for a week. The reverend had been afraid Mrs. Lake might be seeing somebody, and after two days R.J. knew the reverend was wrong. Mrs. Lake wasn’t seeing anybody. She was, however, screwing everything that moved, including the albino dwarf she was with this afternoon.

It had taken R.J. two days of surveillance in his old-lady outfit before he could believe what he was seeing. The woman was definitely not normal. Either she was a full-fledged clinical nymphomaniac or—

Or what? Hell, it wasn’t any of his business, or what. He would take the pictures this afternoon and that would be the end of it. But if this daily afternoon orgy stuff had started recently, the woman was no nympho. That kind of thing didn’t start suddenly, like from a bump on the head or something. It was a lifelong pattern. No, if Mrs. Lake had suddenly developed a taste for sex—more sex every day than most people have in a month—it probably meant she had found the good reverend cheating and was getting her revenge. That’s just the way people were.

But Reverend Lake was the client, so it didn’t matter who or what
he
was screwing. Just so long as the check cleared, the reverend could be getting it on with the whole cast of
Tommy.
He wasn’t in this business to moralize or make people better. He was in this business to take a guy’s money for snapping pictures of the guy’s wife with no clothes on, doing the wild thing with a stranger.

Life was funny.

Maybe because it was so full of people.

R.J. stopped outside the small hotel in the East Twenties where Mrs. Lake had taken her “dates” every afternoon this week. A nighttime photo session was easier. He could just sneak in, flash the pictures, and be off. Everybody was half-asleep, a little stunned, confused by the bright flash.

But in the afternoon, just getting past the desk could be tricky. And then when he took the pictures people were more likely to object, try to grab the camera, hit him with a chair. Maybe they were more full of adrenaline in daylight. Who knew? Still, a lot of people seemed to check into cheap hotels with strangers in the afternoon, so there really wasn’t any choice.

To avoid the desk, R.J. took the service stairs in the alley beside the hotel. He had wedged a wad of tinfoil into the lock yesterday so the door would open. He waddled up to the third floor, holding his skirts out to one side. No wonder old ladies walked so slowly. How did they move at all dressed like this?

He got to the third floor landing and almost tripped as he dropped his skirts. He caught himself and staggered quietly down the hall, pulling his camera from his shoulder bag and checking it over one last time. He paused at 304 and listened. Yeah, that was passion going on inside. He’d heard it often enough. Even felt it once or twice. He moved on to the end of the hall, where through the window, he could reach the fire escape.

Glancing back to make sure nobody was watching—Look, mom, that old lady is jumping out the window!—R.J. slid the window up and stepped down onto the fire escape.

Room 304 was about halfway back the way he’d come. The fire escape was an old one, and rickety. The hotel was probably paying off the inspector. Cheaper than replacing the thing.

As R.J. made it about halfway to 304 the fire escape gave a terrible dry creak and swung out from the wall several feet.

It hung there, swaying like a spastic dinosaur for what seemed like hours, but was probably more like thirty seconds. R.J. held his breath, waited for it to hold still again, then moved on, swearing. Once he got to the next steel section, the thing behaved itself.

R.J. counted windows along the wall, hoping not to be seen but not really caring, until he came to 304. Then he flattened himself against the wall to the side of the window and reached into his shoulder bag. He pulled out a kid’s toy, a small plastic periscope made of bright yellow plastic. The thing made him look and feel stupid, but it worked.

He poked the head of the periscope around to peek into the window. The window looked unlatched—why not? It was on the third floor. And they’d want to let some air in between rounds.

Over on the bed there was a dim shape and R.J. squinted through the cheap lens to make out the details. Sure enough, the beast with two backs. Except one of the backs was small, white, and stuck up like a camel’s. The dwarf.

R.J. tucked away the periscope and got the camera ready. Holding it in his right hand with one finger on the trigger, he slid the window up with his left hand, swung around into the room, and started shooting.

“Hiya, folks,” he called out cheerily, snapping pictures. “Everybody ready? Okay, remake of
The Wizard of Oz,
take one.”

Long experience had taught R.J. not to try to guess how people would react when they were caught, literally, with their pants down. Even so, he hadn’t expected trouble. Not from a preacher’s wife and a dwarf.

But at the sound of his voice the dwarf had jumped straight into the air as if he’d been burned with a branding iron—and came down on the run, headed straight for R.J.

Mrs. Lake, too, had come off the bed, grabbed the lamp from the bedside table, and yanking it from its socket, began swinging wildly, apparently trying to take off R.J.’s head, since she was swinging too high to hit the dwarf.

Instead of a smooth, quick retreat out the hotel room’s door, R.J. was instantly snagged into a fight with a naked dwarf and a Baptist. The dwarf started winging wild haymakers, right at crotch level, and R.J. was hard put to fend him off and duck the lamp at the same time.

But more through luck than skill, R.J. managed to swing his heavy shoulder bag and connect with the side of the dwarf’s head, and the little man went down.

At about the same time, though, the lamp caught R.J. on the cheek. He could feel the skin split, and then he got a hand up and yanked the lamp away from the outraged Mrs. Lake.

“How
dare
you,” she said in her genteel voice, in spite of the fact that she was standing there stark naked after trying to decapitate what looked like an old lady.

“I was wondering the same thing,” R.J. said. He nodded to where the dwarf was struggling to a sitting position. “Your friend could use a hand, sister,” he said, and as she turned to look, R.J. bolted for the door.

Hurrying down the stairs, he tore a strip from his dress and held it to his cheek. It wasn’t too bad, might not even need stitches.

He pushed out onto the street and the cold air slowed the bleeding. After a block or two he didn’t feel too bad at all.

“Jesus, lady, are you all right?”

R J. turned to see a black man in a nice suit, holding a small girl by the hand.

“I’m fine,” said R.J. “Just a scratch.”

The man looked startled as he heard R.J.’s male voice.

“You’re not from here, are you?” R.J. asked him.

The man shook his head numbly. “What the hell—” he said.

R.J. grinned. It made his cheek hurt, but he grinned anyway. “It’s a New York thing,” said R.J. “You wouldn’t understand.”

CHAPTER 3

Angelo Bertelli was waiting for him in his office when he got there. Wanda, his secretary, sighed and said, “I tried to stop him, but he lit one of your cigars.”

“Thanks for trying,” R.J. said. “He probably has a warrant for the cigar. Nothing you could do.” R.J. looked toward his office and sure enough, the blue fumes of one of his Cubans were trickling out the door of his inner office.

R.J. hadn’t smoked in a lot of years, but he kept a supply of good stogies in his desk. When he was thinking, chewing on a cigar helped him think. Besides, no matter how much he hated the smell of burning tobacco, a good cigar-
un
lit—smelled great.

Bertelli was the only person who smoked his cigars, and it pissed R.J. off, but Bertelli just smiled with his shiny white teeth and earthy Guinea charm. When it came down to it, he could do what he wanted. He was a cop, and he had become a damned good friend. A guy in R.J.’s business needed friends on the force.

Besides, R.J. hated bullshit, and Angelo was a kindred spirit. Bertelli spent most of his career energy fighting it in the NYPD. “I go to work every day,” he had told R.J. one night over the best Italian dinner R.J. had ever eaten, “and I got to surf in the shit. Shouldn’t be that way. They should let a cop be a cop.”

R.J. agreed. Most of his run-ins with cops had swamped him in the same waves of bullshit Bertelli spoke of surfing on. They also found they both liked the Knicks, the Giants, and bad musical theater. Still, the cigar smoke was annoying.

R.J. swung the door wide and stepped in. “Jesus Christ, Angelo,” he said, waving a hand at the smoke. “Is this some kind of Sicilian peasant de-lousing technique?”

Bertelli was seated behind R.J.’s desk, his feet up, the stogie smoldering in his mouth. He glanced at R.J. and looked him over carefully before letting out a long wolf whistle. His tough but handsome features were carefully set in a poker face. “Well, well,” he said. “Spring is in the air. Is there something you need to talk about, R.J.?”

R.J. looked down at his dress. Bertelli was, in fact, sitting on his clothes, which he had stacked neatly on his chair. “This whole joint is going to stink like a pool-hall spitttoon for three weeks,” he said indignantly, “and all you can talk about is my wardrobe?”

Bertelli blew out more smoke. “I’d have to say it needs talkin’, R.J. Have you been doin’ this long?”

R.J. yanked his clothes out from under Bertelli and started to change into them. “About a month now,” he admitted. “Ever since that damned TV thing Casey did. I can’t show my goddamn face anywhere in town without some dimwit shouting, ‘Yo! You that TV motherfucka!’ Help me with this thing in the back, would you?”

Bertelli undid the snaps.

“Thanks, Angelo. You practiced that, huh?”

“Never on somebody with your physical charms, thank God,” Bertelli said, leaning back into the chair. He picked up
the cigar again and blew out a large purple cloud with a satisfied look.

“You’re ruining a perfectly good chewing stogie,” R.J. told him, pulling up his pants.

“These things are supposed to be
smoked,
R.J. Not chewed. Chewing is an abomination in the eyes of decent society. I’m just like restorin’ the delicate natural balance here.” He blew out more smoke, looking even happier. “Besides, I didn’t figure you’d mind, considering what I come down here for.”

R.J. sat in his client chair. “Jesus, don’t tell me. They finally caught Lieutenant Kates molesting a choirboy, and he shot himself rather than go to jail.”

Bertelli grinned. “It ain’t quite that good, but it’s all right.” He slid a hand into and out of his slick Italian silk suit and threw a small white envelope on the desk. “Knicks tickets.”

“Have another cigar, Angelo,” R.J. said scooping up the tickets. “When are they for? The Bulls?”

“For tonight, R.J. Phoenix, and it’s breakin’ my fuckin’ heart not to go see Charles Barkley. But I got a date who only likes indoor sports, if you know what I mean.”

“Aw, Jesus Christ, Angelo,” R.J. moaned, tossing the tickets back on the desk. “I can’t go tonight, it’s Casey’s birthday. Put that goddamned cigar out, would you?”

“Hey, you shoulda said. Now I gotta get her something quick,” Bertelli complained, ignoring R.J.’s request to snuff the stogie. “What you got planned?”

“I have reservations at Tavern on the Green. Then I figured a carriage ride through the park.”

“Sure, the whole tourist thing. Everybody should do that once” He took the cigar out of his mouth and reflectively dumped an inch of ash into R.J.’s pencil jar. “You two doin’ all right, ace?”

R.J. snorted. “What do you get when you cross an elephant with a rhinoceros?”

“Elefino.”

“Exactly. Hell if I know, Angelo. Sometimes I can hear the angels singing, and sometimes I think that’s just a trick of the acoustics, there’s no music at all. I don’t know. I just don’t know. I think we’re okay. She helped me with this disguise.”

“She dresses you up like an old lady—and you think that’s a good sign? R.J., you’re in serious trouble if she ever turns against you.”

“For all I know, she has turned against me. I just can’t tell with her.” He shrugged. “So, I take it for what it is, which is pretty damned good most of the time.”