Kissing Carrion (20 page)

I'm the best you ever had, the last you ever will. I love you so much I'd kill for you, die for you. I love you too much to let you live.

You leave me, mock me, turn me down, and I'll eat your beating heart.

I knew the impulse, intimately.

Wished to—Christ Jesus, Aphrodite, who-fucking-ever—that I didn't.

* * *

Back at my place, too drunk to sleep, too late for much else. Eyes closed: The Temple.

Mrs. Silas.

Beck.

Records had the Temple owned by one Adonis Herson, born Graham M. Knowlton. No priors, nothing outstanding. Beck favored the direct route; I agreed. More chances to get into something.

Long story short—she wouldn't come. They wouldn't make her.

“We don't interfere,” Herson told us. “The heart wants what it wants.”

Beck shot me an eyebrow. Gently quizzical: “Didn't I hear somebody else say that?”

I snorted. “Yeah—Woody Allen, when Mia asked him why he was bonin' the kids.”

Mrs. Silas and her guy, some unnamed cult member, standing arm in arm behind Herson. The rest of them in a supportive U around them: Red-robes/low-cleavage. Fresh flowers everywhere you looked, huge holiday wreaths and bouquets—massy, dripping, belled cups of fragrance, spilling sickly-sweet. Red candle shadows flickering on the walls, filtered through taped-together star displays of candy-heart lollipops. Too many smiles,
waaay
too much smug, quiet tolerance. As though they could read all the pain and rage I ran on at once, but didn't care enough to give it much cred—just had me tagged as kind of old, kind of sad, and kind of ineffectual, even with my gun bulging out the side of my jacket for everybody to see. Worth a warm and sticky slice of their sympathy, if not their full attention.

An offhand mental group hug from everyone in the room: There there, big man.

It made me so mad my teeth hurt.

Beck watching me, sidelong. My partner, looking for a cue to follow.

No probable cause. No legal grounds to do anything but leave, and tell the Cap we blew his choice assignments—back in the shithouse for another ten years plus, this time with Beck to keep me company. All that energy and effort, gone to waste; all right for me, sure. Par for the course.

But not for him.

To Herson: “You don't interfere?”

“Never.”

Well, okay.

I nodded, turned to Mrs. Silas. Said, conversationally: “So how about I let you make up your own mind, lady? 'Cause here's the options. You come home. Or this piece of beef—” I pointed out the Cyprian stud—“eats the rest of his Valentine's candy through a straw.”

“David,” said Beck.

I started rolling up my sleeves. “Look the other way, college boy. You wanna make Chief by thirty-five, you gotta start getting good at that.”

Beck: “
Dave
, I don't—”

“Shut up, Beck,” I said. And I hit Mrs. Silas' guy full tilt boogie, so hard I popped a vein in his cheek with my high school ring: Pure black/red boom, spurt, all over my nice new tie.

Mrs. Silas was tough. It took cult-boy coughing teeth through his nose, liberally slimed with bloody phlegm, before she finally stiff-legged it over. Telling Beck: “I'm ready now.”

Beck, to me: “We're leaving.”

A last kick to the stud, flipping him—black/red ebbing, but slow. I gave him one more stomp to the gut, just for luck. Blood on my shoes: I scraped them clean on the floor-mosaic Aphrodite's bare breasts.

To Herson: “Nice religion you got there, shitbird. Stand back, do nothing. I could get used to this.”

He looked at me then, at last, full on. Light blue eyes—cerulean, they call them. Water on white stone; submerged Greek ruins.

“I'll remember you said that, Detective Proulx.”

* * *

Beck made Lieutenant two months later, after they threw me off. A week of all-night drunks got me crazy enough to connect the dots—camped outside the Temple, straight-up begged Herson to take this thing off me. His only answer, just what you'd expect: He wouldn't interfere. Ever.

Mrs. Silas' curse. Mrs. Silas' call. I would have crawled ten miles on broken glass to eat her pussy all day, if I thought it'd do any good.

Except I knew, because Beck told me—Silas had already thrown her down the stairs an hour after we took her home, for talking back. Broke her little neck like a twig.

* * *

Lying here. Burning. Tonight and every right.

Beck across town, somewhere. Working, maybe—maybe doing the same. But not like me. Not for me.

I made damn sure of that.

Valentine's Day night, I woke up at 3:00 a.m., thinking:
I gotta apologize. Gotta go find Beck, and apologize for the whole Silas thing. He thinks I was out of line, and he's right; I gotta tell him. 'Cause he's my partner, my only friend. And because . . .

. . . I love him.

It swept up on me, then and there—this painful need to kiss him till his lips were one big bruise, bite his tongue and drink his bloody spit. Slap him barely conscious, then go at him till he opened those narrow eyes wide—do him so rough he fought me back, fought me with everything he had, then keep right on and do him some more. Hurt him like I hurt. Break him down.

Show him I was his, and make him mine.

The truth, plain and simple, a razor in my heart: That's love, to me—all I know, all I'm capable of.

I could get used to this.
And I guess I have, in my own way. Got used to this love, like insects swarming in and on me, everywhere at once—this love, a cage of sick shivers. This love, the stink of my own quick rot. Gangrene hot flash, indistinguishable from envy, from anger, from anguish. This Goddamn love I bear for the fine fellow officer whose head I slammed against the tiles, whose ribs I broke to hold him still, who I fucked hard up the ass till he screamed out loud, clawing and squirming, smart mouth gone dumb with pain. No lube, no finesse, no climax for anybody but me—no respect, no dignity. No mercy.

Just love, love, love.

I lay there, thinking it. Wanting it. Which was bad enough, all told.

But then I got up, drove to Beck's house. And actually did it.

* * *

Morning came, barely. Too early for Lee Earle—I leaned back against the alley wall, collar up. Caught a flashing red light from the corner of my eye: Cheap cop symbology, a jolt to the spine, reflexes obviously still in the process of dying hard. Two radio cars, one unmarked—Beck's, probably.

Ritual Crimes, parked outside the Cyprian Temple.

I followed along, made myself scarce. Saw him come out, flanked by uniforms—Herson and company hanging back at the top of the steps, a shadowed red mass. Watching.

Not interfering.

Beck gave orders, headed for his car. Then stopped, as I stepped from the shadows.

Five paces left between us, give or take. My hands cold, palms wet; heart a stroked lesion, a ticking caffeine fit.

His dark eyes turned on me for the first time in six whole years. One look, one single glance—watchful fear vs. barely-controlled hate, with only a slight procedural correctness chaser—and I was already up and running, aching to fuck or fight. Or both.

Staring him down, hair-trigger; a potential breath away from death, and just about ready to come in my pants.

Quiet: “I have a gun, David.”

“Well, good. Wouldn't want you on the job without one.”

He looked at me. I waited. Got no response. Took another step, tentative:

“Beck, I—”

He pivoted down, drawing quick—safety off, locked and loaded. Two-hand stance, held steady. Voice shaking, just a little bit.

“You just—stop. You . . . just stand right there.”

My own hands up, empty. “Okay. See? I'm doing it. This is me, standing. See?”

“
There
, David. I
will
shoot, believe me.”

“Baby, I'd probably thank you if you did.”

We looked at each other again. Me still, him calmer. After a moment: “Mind if I ask some questions?”

“As long as you don't call me baby.”

Glance back at the Temple—doors shut, now. A soft red light in every window.

“They got your guy in there, hidden. Claiming some kind of religious sanctuary, am I right?”

“You're right.”

“Got a warrant yet?”

“It's on its way.”

Conversation at its curtest. Like pulling teeth, only a lot less fun.

“You talked to Herson.”

“Yes.”

“So—what did he have to say? ‘Bout your boy, I mean. Or is he still playing it strictly non-interference?”

Beck lowered his eyes, raised them. Gave me a stare, stretched long and level. Contemplative, almost.

“This is the last time I ever talk to you directly, David,” he said finally. “Ever. Unless I'm reading you your rights.”

“I know.”

A sigh. “The murderer's name is Luther Louvin. He's been with them for five months. Herson said they all knew what he was going to do—knew it long before he did it. Apparently, he talked about it all the time.”

“And natch, they didn't feel this meant they had to do anything to stop him.”

“Herson said, and I quote: Love comes the way it comes. All its forms are equally valid.”

An echo in his voice, almost familiar. Four years ago, he would have given me that crooked smile—shared insight acknowledged, the whole partner thing at work. But not now.

Never now.

Love comes the way it comes.

“But you . . . don't share that view.”

“You know I don't.”

The barely-veiled implication:
And both of us know why.

Then, briskly: “I don't have a lot of time, so here's the rest. Herson only said one other thing, that if I couldn't understand why they gave Louvin shelter, then I didn't know what real love was. The kind of love that's the purest expression of who you are.” A pause. “But that I would . . . and soon.”

“He said that.”

“That's what I said.”

“I guess—” slowly—“you probably wouldn't believe me, if I told you that was a threat.”

This time, Beck really did smile: All thin and straight, these days—not wry, so much, as bitter. Replying, with deceptive ease: “It wouldn't surprise me. Although, to be fair, the only person who's ever threatened me with love . . . is you, David.”

Fever, rising fresh. Glass cough shattering on impact, lodging deep; black ice splinters of night air in the back of my throat, unmelted. Beck saw, and opened the car door. He sat down, gun still kept on me—one-handed, so he could turn the key. The ignition roared, caught.

But before he could shut it, I said, quickly: “Beck—I won't say ‘I love you' any more, okay? 'Cause I know you don't believe me. But what I did—to you—”

“Yes?”

His dark stare, waiting for some kind of easy answer. The name of the puzzle: Human evil. The proof: His rapist ex-partner, drunk and crazy, straining to explain why he broke every bond of trust imaginable—to make it all clear and clean, somehow. Wash it away with a few choice words, if nothing else.

Trying. And failing miserably.

“Like Herson says: ‘It's just . . . the way I am'.”

Beck shut the car door in my face. Then rolled the window down, just a crack—enough to be heard through. And replied: “Then that's a pity, David. Because I always wanted to think you were something more.”

* * *

The Cyprians say Love, capital “L,” is whatever you make of it—is
you
, to the infinite. You outside of you, loving someone like you love yourself; more than, actually.

In my case, it'd have to be.

I wish you love, Detective.

Real love.

Love the way you are.

Love, my emotional brain tumor. Love, my habit, my jones. My uncontrollable urge. My will to power. Love, my unscratched itch—my addiction, with all the word entails:

Ecstasy, mania, withdrawal. My suicide in progress.

I couldn't have love soft and sweet if I tried—I know, believe me, because I have. I really have.

And suffering Christ! Just look what happened then.

* * *

Valentine's Day night, four years ago: Rang the doorbell twice, three times. Beck answered on four. Had his pyjamas on already, 1950s slippers like my old man used to wear—sitting around the house, drinking beer till he passed out. Before he ate his gun, and we found out his pension wouldn't even cover our utility bills.

“David,” Beck said, squinting out at me through the screen—more puzzled than anything else. “It's very late.”

Not cold, not then. Cold would come later.

With me just nodding, moronically. Panting, so hard I could barely shape the words:

“Back there, with Mrs. Silas—that made you pretty sick, huh? Not too moral, right?”

Gently: “You're drunk, David. Go home and sleep it off.”

The way his lips moved as he said it—oh, my.
Those devil lips that know so well the art of lying . . .

Singing in my head, my groin. Georgia above the belt. Blood below, hissing—pure red/black, just like in the Temple, washing up on an endless tide.

“I did it for you,” I told him, “like I always do. The stuff you won't. The dirty work, to keep you clean. Doesn't that count for anything?”

“Go
home
, David. We'll talk tomorrow.”

His tongue, flickering—oh my, God damn.

And the words rising through me, voicing themselves for the very first time ever. The first, and worst, time.

“I love you, Beck. Doesn't that mean anything to you?”

And did I see a little revulsion in his eyes, perhaps? A little bit of fear, even then? Surprise, at any rate.

Repeating, simply:

“Tomorrow.”

Already shutting the door, firmly, stopping just shy of an outright slam. I stuck my foot in the jamb; barely felt the impact, as it rebounded.