The Shaft (23 page)

    
Boom-cha.

    He remembered coming out of the bathroom and seeing the black cat with fresh blood dappling its muzzle.

    Jamaica was going to be coming out the door any second. He had moved quickly, snatching up the cat.

    
Hey! Now wait just a dam…

    Move fast. He ascertained that it had not injured itself. It was not in pain. The blood had come from somewhere else. Probably a rat or other small vermin of the sort cats relish torturing prior to killing.

    'You little fuck.' Jonathan's pleasant nighttime interlude was in jeopardy of being ruined by the innate sadism of a lower life form.
Wunderbar. No mewling,
he thought.
You start meowing and I'll slam your face in the doorjamb
.

    Rub, rub.
Want some?

    'You don't fool me, you fucking little parasite.'

    Rub, rub. It got blood on Jonathan's shirt.

    
I wuvw you… feed me. C'mon.

    He booted it out the first door.

    Sigh.

    It smoothed its ruffles and began to rub against the wall of the cramped interior hallway.

    Jonathan popped a button rushing his shirt off.
Great
.

    Jamaica will come out and see me stripping. Wrong ideas all around. Life could be such a sitcom.

    She emerged from the bathroom turbaned and swaddled in towels, deep heat radiating from her exposed shoulders, her racing-fine legs, the coltish weave of muscles at her neck. Naturally, the first thing she requested was the cat. Jonathan made a pretense of finding her a T-shirt to wear and she made a joke about him giving her the shirt off his back.

    He lamely explained that the cat had wanted to go out. After all, he was not sure whether it was owned by someone else in the building already. He was certain that any second he would stumble over a half-eviscerated carcass in the middle of the floor. Then Jamaica would want out.

    No miniature corpse turned up. Things stabilized. They fell to sleep surprisingly fast.

    Now Jamaica sighed and burrowed closer, maneuvering her ass into his lap, seeking his warmth the way a plant phototropically leans toward light. He had been conscious only scant moments. He became aware that the button fly on his jeans was restraining a heroic erection from the world at large. He had to disengage himself to take a leak.

    The bathroom had gone clammy in the steam's feeble aftermath, and Jonathan felt moving air as he pulled the light chain above the sink.

    The shower curtain stirred weakly. Not exactly a gust; most like a deflected breath. He swept it aside and discovered the cardboard square slightly dislodged from the window frame, its top edges bent as though it had been slapped through from the outside. He considered this quizzically, the light from the bathroom's bare bulb stinging his eyes. Too early for this shit. He leaned in and gave the cardboard a tug. It resisted. He had pressured it in nice and tight. From the colder face his fingers collected minute smears of the brownish gunk he'd had to deal with in pools earlier; the crap the cat had tried to lap up, dry and pasty now. It reminded him of vomited bile, of fresh hot bone marrow, of an encyclopedia of things revolting.

    He washed his hands. He repeated when he found the stink was tenacious and clinging. After the rinsewater gurgled down the drain, he thought he heard the heartbeat of the building again.
Boom-cha-cha
. Then an upstairs toilet flushed, the pipes awoke, and the ghost noise hid out again.

    The air was fetid, sulphurous and chilly. With care he bent the cardboard and pushed; it snapped back into the windowframe grooves willingly enough.

    He thought of swinging by Rapid O'Graphics when his business at the jail was completed. Capra had everything. Jonathan could probably borrow one of the big battery lamps, the six-volters racked in the garage. As for the airshaft, it certainly smelled as though some leprous creature had been half-eaten, then discarded to molder in the soup of freezing sewage and drowned fauna. Maybe he could spotlight physical evidence for some sort of complaint. For now it was sufficient that the ominously sagging bathroom ceiling did not collapse and inundate him in a downpour of watery shit.

    Tomorrow, he reminded himself. Tomorrow was now.

    It was light outside, and still raining. The snow smoked. Dense fog rose to swirl in the steady sprinkles. 207's steam coil labored, leaking heat like a running nose. Thank the gods for Bash's space heater.

    He'd have to ask to borrow the truck again tomorrow. Today.

    He ran the sink tap until the water warmed again, and dabbed his face, prodding nuggets from the corners of his eyes. A tubful of mystery diarrhea, then cops, then the cat had come back bloody. A kid had gone missing and a bust had gone down. Now he was awake, having slept maybe a grand total of forty-five minutes, with a hooker snoozing not fifteen feet away on a borrowed cot, on borrowed sheets, after having absorbed a Mason jar of other men's semen in one night. He nibbed his face to scare up circulation; the tip of his nose was cold. He tried to visualize Amanda's face, in the mirror, superimposed over his own reflection saying…

    
Look at you. Some victory. Some life you're building. Just look at you. Baby, you're so fucked up you don't even know that you ARE fucked up.

    'Hell with you,' he said to the mirror, whose edges were blotched from where the silver backing had gotten wet, then blossomed into mildew and decay. He thought of thick comeal scars.

    'Jesus, you're freezing,' Jamaica said when he returned to bed. She snuggled, grabbing his arm and pressing his frigid fingertips to her sternum, near her heart. He felt the tempo in her chest, racing, then relaxing as she eased back into slumber. He felt her heartbeat, and heard no other. He tried to imagine he was back with Amanda, that she was touching him in this receptive way, that things had levelled out through some unguessable alchemy. And soon, lying to himself, he achieved fitful sleep.

    

    

    Cruz had to be signed for.

    The circumstances might have been amusing, but Jonathan was jumpy and flying solo. Jamaica had zero desire to cross the threshold of the Oakwood police station again, and Jonathan realized he had never been inside one of these places his whole life. He had never even phoned the police before, and now he was compelled to visit their brightly lit lair. All he knew of the trappings and procedures of police had come from two - count 'em - speeding tickets. And television. Most of what he thought he knew was tame or mistaken.

    Jamaica 's camisole was truly stale, and Jonathan had lent her an Overkill T-shirt and muffler to wear beneath her car coat. She provided explicit directions and they took the Eisenhower Expressway downtown. He was told to circle the block while she ducked into a brownstone near Van Buren and Wells. Ten minutes later she was out, with Cruz's bail enriching her saddlebag.

    The Oakwood station had plenty of exterior lighting and an abundance of parking. The lots and walks were clear of snow. Salts and chemicals had been sprinkled like Parmesan cheese on the pathways. It crunched underfoot.

    He took in the heavy glass doors, the security cameras and bulletin boards. Flyers featured feted officers and down-home updates on specially organized social soirees. The waiting benches were comfortless. There was a revolving pamphlet rack. JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS. TEN WAYS TO PREVENT HOME INVASIONS. RAPE IS A FOUR LETTER WORD. The room's centerpiece was a semicircular desk, laminated like the countertop at a McDonald's in a queasy hospital orange, and resembling the throne dais of some Martian monarch. Within were all manner of weird police buttons and phones and consoles. Beyond it was an eight-by-four window whose sickly tint tipped it as a one-way mirror. Jonathan saw himself, fingers steepled on the counter, wondering what in hell to do next.

    He glanced behind himself. Nobody home except for him and the payphones. He could be sealed in, no doubt, by the touch of a hidden switch.

    A buzzer razzed and a big door behind the dais opened. An identical door was set flush with the brick wall outside the dais. Both had massy aluminum lock knobs and matched the doors Jonathan remembered from college classrooms. Both doors had inset squares of shatterproof, wire-mesh glass at eye level.

    'Something you want?'

    It was a fully uniformed officer of at least seven inches shorter than Jonathan. He had a bald spot for which a handlebar moustache fought to compensate. His eyes were red-rimmed; brown like a Labrador 's. Eyes unwilling to consider chat about the weather. His tags read MALLORY but for Jonathan it was too late - this man was the Doggie Cop.

    He felt as though his thought transmissions had been time-delayed. Voyager calling Jonathan. He consciously aborted the uh command from his speech center.

    'I'm here for Cruz.' It was out of his mouth. 'He was arrested yesterday.'

    'Charge?'

    
I didn't bring my MasterCard
. He shrugged noncommittally.
Not my job
.

    The Doggie Cop shrugged too, then riffled a card file with supreme disinterest. His tongue worked at his incisors, dislodging stubborn food. He turned to a stack of yellow flimsies on the crescent of desk and paged through. The carbon sandwiches left smudges; they were probably the source of the smeary fingerprints Jonathan noticed on most of the other paperwork.

    'Ah. A little nose candy action down at Kenilworth Arms,' the cop said - trying, convicting and executing in one sentence. His K9 eyes reassessed Jonathan in light of this new information. Jonathan read suspicion and dislike. He battled to look behind and see if anyone scummier had just entered, some alternate suspect for whom the cop's prejudicial glare was meant instead of him.

    'I don't know, man. I'm just here to bail him out.' Inwardly he winced. Man was obviously doper slang to this minion of justice.

    The Doggie Cop surveyed the room. 'No bondsman? No judge?'

    'Uh- no?' Jonathan had to wet his lips.

    Once more the glare, accompanied by a rueful shake of the head. 'Hope you brought your piggy bank, kid, 'cos bail for prisoner Cruz is going to run you a couple grand.'

    Jonathan was prepared for this one. Better than three thousand in Franklin notes padded the inside pocket of his parka. He feigned surprise. Jamaica had prepped him. 'How many grand?'

    'Coke's two thousand an ounce, give or take. I'm sure it ain't that much to your… buddies. Twenty-five hundred.'

    Jonathan felt an invisible dragnet constrict his epiglottis. Jamaica had warned him not to respond to baiting or taunts. Stay polite and neutral. Don't insult back or speak when not spoken to. Winning in a police encounter, she said, quoting Doc Stanley again, meant that at its conclusion you were left alone.

    'Excuse me, officer, but it's been nearly a whole day. I suppose Cruz has been booked, and I'd like to bail him out now, please.'

    That seemed to tighten the Doggie Cop's knob. He nodded, tongue still probing, scribbled on a form, then lifted a receiver and buzzed the jailer, dismissing Jonathan from his notice.

    The door behind him opened and Sergeant Barnett, the Robot Cop, lumbered through, recognizing Jonathan with open distaste.

    'Ahh, Christ.' He was tired; his voice was burry. 'See, Mallory? Told you this scumbag was a buddy of the pusher and the whore. Jesus H. fucking Christ.'

    Apparently he was unaware the Doggie Cop had not been in attendance at the Kenilworth bust. Or it just did not matter. Or all Oakwood cops shared knowledge through instantaneous telepathy. Cop logic.

    But harrowing was not enough for this guy. He was a veteran. 'Wantcha to do me a favor, sport.' He hoisted the hinged portion of the desk and squeezed through, his medals and equipment clanking. 'You want to lean up this counter here, and you want to put your feet back and spread 'em. Time for a little pat-me-down.'

    The Doggie Cop's eyebrows arched. He did not approve. Jonathan's mouth unhinged. 'Do I look stupid enough to waltz into a police station holding?' It was academic. He wished Jamaica had been inside to hear him say it.

    The Robot Cop snorted and kicked Jonathan's legs further askew. The search was thorough, professional, degrading.

    They made Jonathan wait another forty-five minutes. The clock in the police anteroom was exactly like the clocks he remembered from high school. The sweep second hand moved slower on the 6 to 12 crawl, faster on the 12 to 6 fall. Cruz was released to await arraignment, set about a month from the arrest date. He came out through the companion door to the one the Robot Cop had used.

    He looked as though he had been backed over by a bulldozer. He had trouble with the door. He held a heat-sealed plastic property bag in one hand, and did not recognize Jonathan at first.

    'Hey, neighbor,' Jonathan began, hurting already.

    The nod of acknowledgement obviously hurt Cruz. His left eye was welded into a puffy squint, hued like titanium jewelry. His lips were fat. He worked his mouth like a senile man chewing bland food; Jonathan realized he was keeping a running inventory of tongue and teeth. His stride was constrained and cautious. He held his left arm curled against his stomach as though supported by an imaginary sling. 'Thanks.' It came out
thankf
. 'For coming.'

    'Looks like I'm too late. You need help-?'

    'No. Just get me… out of here.' His eyes sought the EXIT door, his grail now within his grasp.

    Jonathan lowered his voice as they approached the push-bar. 'I've got the truck. Jamaica 's with me. Bauhaus arranged for the bail, but she picked up the money.' Okay, he thought: Favor performed, humiliation endured, sleep lost. Now came the chaser. 'Listen, Cruz. We've got to talk about some stuff-'