Angel With a Bullet (3 page)

“Yeah, the place was real cold when we first entered,” agrees saggy pants.

“To keep the scene fresh,” Frank muses.

“Also makes time of death more difficult to pinpoint,” I suggest too quickly.

Frank's mouth twitches again. “Waking the neighbor with a shotgun blast might help with that.”

“Mr. Chino was no fool,” Blymouth pipes up irritably. “The cool air naturally helps to preserve his work. And if you do not possess the olfactory senses to—”

“Christ!” Frank snaps. “This is why I post officers on the Goddamn door.”

Blymouth gulps.

“Did Chino's note say how he wanted the canvas cured?” I ask quickly.

Blymouth nods. “Air dried and then sealed with several coats of high-grade, matte lacquer. I have several artists available who can do the job.”

“They'll need to wait.” Frank's face turns hard. “Right now it's evidence, and I need you out of here while I do my job.”

“I must protest! I have—”

“Protest all you like. Just do it outside.”

The beet-faced officer rushes forward in an effort to redeem himself. He clamps a firm hand on Blymouth's shoulder and yanks him roughly out of the apartment.

“And Colin,” Frank yells at the retreating officer.

The officer turns around, his seasoned face stoic as he holds onto the squirming man.

“Sir?”

“Bag his cell phone,” Frank says. “I want to see that text.”

Blymouth opens his mouth to protest, but Colin isn't going to mess up twice. He drags the art dealer down the stairs.

“You, too, Dix.” Frank releases an audible sigh. “You've seen enough.”

“Well, that's whacked,” I say cheekily but quickly take the hint when Frank's mouth fails to twitch.

Three

I should have headed
straight home and crawled back into bed. It was late, I was tired, and Bubbles was likely pining. But that's one of the troubles with the night crew: we're not too bright.

The Dog House is a cramped dungeon of a pub two blocks from the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street. Originally built as a coal cellar and storage for a turn-of-the-century boardinghouse, it was converted into a speakeasy during Prohibition and became an unorthodox street church for hippies in the Sixties.

Abandoned for decades, it was quietly reopened in the late Eighties as a place for cops and scoundrels to hide from prying eyes. The owner, bouncer, bartender, and occasional bookie is an ex-wrestler who had a slippery headlock on fame in the Seventies as the Biting Bulgarian Bulldog. In the newspaper archives, he was regaled as every wide-eyed kid's favorite Friday-night villain.

Ask him about it now and he'll tell you his loyal fans cheered the loudest when he regularly bit off his opponent's ear and spat it at the ineffective referee.

“Kids back then were less cynical,” he told me once. “None of them questioned how the wrestlers all magically grew their ears back for the next match.”

When boxer Mike Tyson did it for real in a heavyweight bout against Evander Holyfield, Bulldog shook his head and muttered, “Where's the magic? Dumb prick.”

Nowadays Bulldog goes by Bill, but his eyes still dance when an old fan recognizes him and asks for an autograph. He even has a Hasbro action figure of himself in full costume perched on the till.

After wiping hairy hands on a black apron with the angry green face of the Hulk silk-screened across the front, Bill hands me a sweaty bottle of Warthog Ale and a shot of tequila, slice of lime hanging off the rim. I use the beer to connect a few wet rings on the scarred mahogany of the L-shaped bar before taking a sip.

“You OK, Dix?” Bill asks. “Kinda quiet.”

“Tough gal like me? Couldn't be better.”

“Got a story?”

“Dead artist,” I explain. “Old friend, actually. Blew his fool head off with a shotgun.”

“Ah, the Hemingway solution. Grim.”

“You have no idea.”

I pick up the lime wedge, squeeze its juice into the shot glass, and watch the tequila turn cloudy.

“Frank there?” Bill asks.

I nod and take a small sip of tequila.

Bill waits, his hands continually busy drying glasses or refilling marquee bottles from bar-brand gallon jugs.

“You think there's something wrong with me, Bill?” I ask after another sip.

“Let me think.” His voice is the steady rumble of a subway train. “It's one in the morning; you're alone in a dingy bar, drinking tequila and courting advice from a mug so ugly he would give your mother palpitations.” He pauses. “Nah, you're doing just fine.”

“Thanks,” I say dryly. “You're a sweetheart.”

Bill grins. “Don't let that out, I have a reputation to uphold.”

“You too, huh?”

Bill walks to the far side of the bar to serve his only other patrons, two arguing retirees with matching ill-fitting dentures who look like they can barely afford to split a beer between them.

From my stool, I have a clear view of the entire room. Eight feet to my left is the lone washroom that breaks every health regulation in the book and makes me determined to learn levitation; two feet to my right is the bricked-up doorway that once led to a boardinghouse of ill-repute above; and sixteen feet directly behind me is a steel door complete with Prohibition-era peephole that, contrary to fire regulations, is the only way in or out if you don't know about the trapdoor behind the bar that leads to a dank cellar and a maze of forgotten tunnels that are said to cover most of the block. If you put thirty people in the room, it's five too many.

Frank usually sits to my left and, as a house courtesy, the wooden stool to my right is reserved for Al Capone, the dead Chicago mobster.

According to local legend, Capone was known to be a regular of the speakeasy whenever he ventured west on business. The bar had a waitress back then whom Bill claims was Capone's one true love. When she mysteriously disappeared one day, Capone made a decree that no one was to be hired to replace her. And to this day, no one has.

To be fair though, with the way cops and reporters tip, it wouldn't be a job anyone would clamor for either.

After Capone was convicted of tax evasion, he requested to serve his time in Alcatraz, where (Bill claims) he would sit in his cell, look across the water, and dream about this place and his missing sweetheart. Of course, Bill also claims Capone still visits regularly, which is why the stool is reserved.

Personally, I have yet to meet the man's ghost, but it'll be a hell of a story when I do.

The door swings open behind me and I hear Frank's heavy feet slap the concrete floor. I glance in the mirror behind the bar to see his usual bravado lost between hunched shoulders and a slouched back. He slides onto the stool beside me and runs thick fingers through thinning hair.

Bill pours a tall mug of O'Doul's Amber—a dealcoholized draft made by Anheuser-Busch with a caramel color, malt taste, and thin head—and slides it to him. Frank sighs with pleasure as he takes a long, slow pull.

“To the blue,” Frank says, lifting his glass to the ceiling.

“May the good Lord watch our backs,” answer the two old-
timers.

Frank nods at Bill to pour two fresh mugs of draught and deliver them to the far side of the bar.

_____

Frank stopped drinking
regular beer two weeks after his wife died. The fortnight in between was a time he's only talked about once, and for some reason, I was the one he trusted to tell it to.

Despite rumors that the public outpouring garnered by my story saved Frank's career, I didn't pull any punches. Frank was falling down drunk the night his wife was murdered. That's a weight only he can carry, but anyone who follows the daily news knows
anyone
—drunk or sober—can be absent when needed the most.

The medical examiner confessed it took a long time for her to die, the murder weapon being a wire brush like you would use to clean cast-iron pots or a greasy barbecue grill. The killer used it to scrape away her skin until the blood loss, pain, and terror became too much for her heart. Evidence at the scene pointed to a “person known to police” with a record reaching back to junior high and a hard-on for Frank.

Ten days after the murder, the suspect was climbing out the window of a second-story apartment (a laptop emblazoned with a Hello Kitty sticker under one arm, and his pockets stuffed with cheap jewelry and a pink Swarovski-crystal iPod) when a bullet punched through his kidney and dropped him to the alley below. Several witnesses said they were sure he was still screaming after he hit the ground, but the M.E. was unable to determine if immediate medical attention would have saved his life.

When the squad cars arrived, they found Frank leaning against the alley wall, sipping from a flask, smoking gun dangling from his fingers. More witnesses said he refused anyone entry to the alley while he silently watched the man bubble and froth, drowning in his own blood.

A well-oiled snub .38 was discovered nearby with the corpse's prints on its trigger and grip.

Rumor naturally said Frank planted the gun, but there was never any evidence to back it up.

The daily newspapers and broadcast news delivered the facts plain and true, but that's not what I'm paid to do.

Instead, I told a story about a young woman from Kansas who loved to bake apple pies with a brown sugar crust, volunteered at the library teaching adults how to read, and married a handsome, young cowboy who took her on a journey to the craziest city in America.

The killer's background, unfortunately, was tougher to unravel; despite knocking on doors in his neighborhood, talking to social workers and parole officers, and making a hundred phone calls, I couldn't find a single person with a kind word to say. His father probably summed it up best when he told me, “That boy was born dead.”

A month after the story ran, Frank moved to the stool on my left and Bill began carrying O'Doul's.

_____

“We found something
weird in the artist's place after you left,” Frank says, tipping back his glass.

“After I was kicked out, you mean?”

Frank downs the beer, places the mug on the bar, and picks up a freshly poured second. A skin of ice slides down the glass.

I wait.

Nothing.

I roll my eyes, hating when he refuses to play.

“OK. What's so weird?”

Frank digs in the pocket of his coat and pulls out a Polaroid. The snapshot shows a colorful abstract painting that invokes the cold romance of the Northern Lights dancing above Arctic tundra, but as viewed through a child's kaleidoscope.

“We found that painting between the box spring and mattress in the bedroom,” Frank says. “It's signed ‘Adamsky'. ”

“Huh. Weird place to keep a painting.” I study the photo closely. “Was Diego trying to hide it?”

Frank shrugs. “If anybody knew it was in the apartment, that's about the first place they'd look. It's the only piece of furniture large enough to hide something like that.
Place was practically bare.
”

Bill moves in and plucks the photo out of my hand. “Maybe he hated it,” he says before tossing it back onto the bar.

Frank and I look up, twin frowns knitting our brows.

“Huh?” I say with my usual intellectual wit.

“It was something Al said.”

“Capone was in?” I ask.

“Yesterday.”

“Damn, I keep missing him.”

Bill continues. “Al was telling me how he liked to put pictures of all the women who ever crossed him under his mattress. He said it was fun to screw other broads right there on top of them.” He begins to chuckle. “Then he would sleep on his back so they had to look at his hairy ass all night.”

Bill cracks up and wanders away, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.

With a smile, I turn to Frank. “So what do you think of Capone's theory?”

“You never know,” Frank says seriously. “Maybe fat, old ghosts know more than fat, old cops.” He stares off into space for a moment. “After all, he's in a better position to ask the guy.”

I pick up the Polaroid.

“I've seen this artist's work mentioned on the international wires. He's European, I think, and bigger than Diego. Most of his stuff sells in the fifty- to hundred-thousand range.”

“
Dollars
?”

“Euros.” I grin. “Art is big business.”

Frank snorts. “Who sticks fifty-plus grand under a mattress?”

“Could be a motive for murder,” I suggest.

Frank's mouth twitches. “An art thief breaks into Chino's place, goes to all the trouble of staging a suicide, and then forgets to take the painting?”

“Well, when you put it like that.”

“Best leave detecting to the professionals, Dix.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I finish the tequila in one shot—the glass nearly colliding with my pouting lower lip—and chase it with a swallow from the bottle of ale.

“By the way.” I attempt to stifle a yawn. “What was that pink thing stuck in the shotgun's trigger guard?”

“A toe. Kickback must have sliced it off.”

“Is the body missing one?”

Frank's twitch blossoms into a grin.

“Yeah, Dix. It is.”

Four

The artist crawls across
burgundy carpet to dip ghost-white fingers into a pool of shimmering blood. His fingers are searching. When his hand emerges, it clutches a flap of skin with no recognizable shape. Using both hands, the artist stretches the skin over the shotgun hole where his face had been.

Flesh mask in place, he tries to grin. A white rip opens where the mouth should be to reveal pink tongue and sharp, pearly whites. Clenched between his teeth is a silky sable brush.

Wake up, Dix.

The artist dips the brush into the empty socket of his left eye, coating the bristles with crimson sap.

Gross. Wake up!

He paints ruby lips around the torn slit of his mouth as a deep bass drum begins to beat. Its pulse grows stronger, pulling …

I open my eyes with a groan.

On the nightstand, the neon display shining through the worn seat of my tartan pajama bottoms—where I must have tossed them in frustration after being unable to untie the knotted drawstring—shows it is only 7 a.m.

I have been asleep barely five hours.

“Get the door, will you,” I croak to Bubbles who is merrily swimming around in her bowl despite an advanced age of ninety-three days.

She ignores me.

The incessant pounding continues.

“If I ask nicely?“

Bubbles turns her back and flicks her tail before I can finish my appeal.

“Hold on,” I call as I throw off covers and head into the bathroom.

There, I splash cold water on my face, gargle with mint Listerine, and take care of necessary business. I am pleased to note that I had the presence of mind to sleep in my favorite green football jersey. A gift from a college boyfriend whose name I am no longer sure about, the over-washed shirt falls to my knees, has more holes in it than episodic television, and sports a frayed collar stretched so wide it barely holds on to my shoulders. It's like being wrapped in a hug.

I open the door to be greeted by …

“Ugh,” say the two women in unison.

“ ‘Ugh'? You wake me at seven for ‘ugh'?”

“No,” Kristy blurts. “It's just that you … you look kind of—”

“Ugh?” I volunteer.

“Yeah.” Kristy's smile brightens her already cherubically fresh face.

In a deliberate attempt to make me feel older than my years, Kristy is wearing her honey-blonde hair in a pink-bow ponytail and—though the sun has yet to burn off the morning fog—is dressed for a summer's day. Even standing still, she gives the illusion of dancing in an ink black, pleated skirt that shows off shapely legs in multi-striped knee-high socks. She tops this with a translucent silk blouse that reveals a nipple-proud pink tank top to match her bow. If she were to walk by a junior high school, every boy would spontaneously combust into puberty—acne and awkward hair growth everywhere.

Kristy's partner, Sam, goes casual in white sweatpants with the word BUM stenciled in soft gray across her seat, and an oversized T-shirt that reads, “Dip me in honey and feed me to the lesbians.”

She resembles Eighties Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor, only with a spiky black buzz cut, at least a half dozen piercings in each ear—one of which is a thin steel bar that cuts across the top of her left ear and contains five letter beads that she can rearrange at a whim. Today, it reads: BITCH. She is also fond of LEZBO, CRUEL, and FUCKU. A ruby stud sparkles in one nostril.

_____

Kristy and Sam share the apartment directly across the hall on the middle floor of our eclectic Painted Lady. Our other neighbors, Derek and Shahnaz (she writes cookbooks and has a perfume collection that attracts men faster than the incredible food she cooks), split the top floor with Ben and Saffron (no stranger to exotic scents himself), while Mr. French and his parakeet, Baccarat, have the misfortune to live beneath Kristy and her morning jazzercise. Mrs. Pennell and King William live below me.

“Did you at least bring coffee?” I ask.

“Um, no,” says Kristy with little hint of apology. “We like the way you make it in that bubbly pot.”

“Perfect.” I don't mean for it to sound as bitchy as it does, but lack of sleep will do that to anyone.

I head for the kitchen. There's no point inviting them in; they'll enter anyway.

Kristy and Sam close the door behind them and head for the mismatched couch and loveseat that take up most of the room. The only other furniture is a wooden rolltop desk stuck in the corner by the window.

The desk—a former resident of the post office and rescued from a yard sale for $20—doubles as my dining-room table and home office. It houses a widescreen iMac computer with TV tuner and an ancient printer whose only saving grace is that it consumes cheap, generic ink.

There are two pieces of art on the walls. Both are original mixed-media works, worthless and signed by the artist: me. Like all journalists, I often claim to be writing a novel. But when you spend every day working with words, it can be the last thing you want to do in your spare time.

Painting helps me relax. I'm just not much good at it.

As Kristy and Sam sit, I pull three oatmeal-chocolate-chip muffins from a box in the freezer and pop them in the microwave.

As soon as the soothing gurgle of the stovetop percolator begins, I return to the bedroom and slip into pajama bottoms and Godzilla slippers that, if the batteries haven't worn out, roar when I walk. I also manage to pull a stiff brush through my hair to offer the illusion there is a possibility that I give a bit of a damn.

Back in the kitchen, I place the warm muffins on individual plates and add a slice of aged white cheddar on the side.

“I was out late,” I call from behind the waist-high island that divides the galley kitchen from the adjoining room. “A friend was killed. An artist.”

“Oh, my goodness,” says Kristy “Are you OK?”

I shrug. “Yeah. We weren't close anymore, but still.”

“That's awful.”

“Anyone we know?” Sam asks.

“Diego Chino? He used to live upstairs.”

“Before our time. Not a friend of Dorothy, then?”

“No. He was straight.” I pause. “At least he was when I knew him.”

“We meet lots of artists at the charity events and gay fundraisers that Sam drags me to,” says Kristy.

“I don't drag you,” Sam protests. “You love an excuse to get dressed up.”

Kristy giggles.

“Of course she loves it.” I re-enter the room laden with muffins. “It's just difficult to be the center of attention with all that competition.”

Kristy opens her mouth in protest. “I don't need to be the center of attention.”

Sam and I exchange glances.

“I don't!” Kristy squeals. “It's just depressing sometimes when the most glamorous women in the room all have Adam's apples.”

I chuckle as I hand out muffins and return to get the coffee.

I pour each of us a large mug of No Sweat Peruvian brew with cream and no sugar and carry them into the living room.

The women used to take their coffee different ways, but my mind was always too scattered in the morning to remember. Now, they drink it the same way I do. It makes life easier.

“So why the wake-up call?” I lift the mug to my lips and swallow a large, fully caffeinated mouthful. It tastes all the better for knowing I'm not exploiting Third World bean pickers.

“Two things,” Kristy says. “One good, one bad.”

“Give me the good. I'm feeling delicate.”

Kristy beams. “Sam and I have come to a very important decision about our future.”

“Let me guess. You're moving to Montana and becoming gay cowboys?”

“No!” Kristy's eyes flash with irritation. “We're going to have a baby.”

Muffin-coffee goop sprays from my mouth, making Kristy shriek as she dodges the shrapnel.

“Dixie!”

“Sorry, sorry. It's just … OK, which one of you has been hiding the penis?”

Sam snorts and has to cover her mouth.

“There's no penis.” Kristy blots her splattered blouse with a tissue.

“Ahh, immaculate conception. Good choice. All the best people do it.”

“Be serious, Dix,” Kristy warns, her strawberry lips begin to swell into a pout.

“OK, I'm sorry,” I say gently. “Who's the father?”

“We don't know.”

I furrow my brow. “You didn't catch his name?”

“No. We haven't chosen anyone yet.”

“Ah.” The morning fog clears from my brain. “You're not
actually
pregnant.”

“Well, not yet,” admits Kristy. “But once we find the right man, we will be.”

“So congratulations here would be a touch premature.”

Sam snickers but stops quickly under Kristy's stormy glare.

“This is an important decision.” Kristy pouts and folds her arms across her pert bosom. Nothing wrong with her décolletage gene, and if I didn't love her so much, I might even be jealous.

I place my coffee mug and muffin plate on the carpet and cross to the couch.

“You're absolutely right.” I wrap my arms around her neck to offer a hug. “It's a very important decision, and I am thrilled for you guys.”

“Really?” Kristy asks.

“Really. I couldn't be happier.”

“Thanks, Dix. I knew you'd understand.”

I return to my chair and pick up my coffee.

“So who are the candidates?”

“We thought you could help us there,” Sam says.

“Sorry, I left my penis in my other pants.”

“No, I mean you have way more experience with men than we do. There's always someone coming or go—”

“Let me stop you there,” I interrupt, trying not to show my discomfort. “While I certainly know some horny bastards, I've yet to find Mr. Right, or as I like to think of him, Sir Right.”

“A horny bastard is OK,” says Kristy brightly. “So long as he has good teeth and a clean medical record.”

“Why horny?” Sam asks. “You're not sleeping with him.”

“I know.” Kristy rolls her eyes. “But with hands like mine, I could get a donation lickety-split.”

Sam shudders and I must admit I feel a little queasy myself.

“What about finding someone who would be excited about being a father?” I ask.

Sam shakes her head. “We don't want a man involved beyond the donation.”

“We certainly don't need one,” Kristy agrees. “Sam has a good job with the trolleys—”

“Cable cars,” interjects Sam.

“And I do most of my research from home—”

“Which reminds me,” I interrupt, recalling a strange incident from two nights before. “Who are you researching those awful chastity belts for?”

“You know I can't disclose that. Author-researcher confidentiality.”

“It was Janet Evanovich, right?”

“Not even close.”

“Robert Crais?”

“Quit it.”

“Karin Slaughter? Sean Black? Tess Gerritsen? Matt Hilton? Lee Child? Come on, give me a hint?”

Kristy giggles. “We're changing the topic.”

“To what?”

“The bad news.”

“You might not know this about me, Kristy, but I'm not a fan of bad news.”

“Then you're really not going to like this.”

I sigh. “Hit me.”

“Mrs. Pennell received a threatening letter this morning.”

“She what?” I blurt. “From who?”

“We don't know, but she seemed quite upset. Sam met her in the lobby when she was getting the mail.”

“Post,” Sam interrupts. “We're not calling it
mail
anymore, remember?
Mail, male
.”

“I'll pop in and see her after my shower,” I say. “Threaten one of us and you threaten us all.”

Kristy beams and leaps to her feet to give me a big hug. She smells like fresh daisies in the rain.