Slice (6 page)

“What'd you buy him?” she said with a smile.

“Little sign for his desk.” He'd found a bumper sticker with the word on it and found some desk signs in a drawer upstairs at headquarters. He'd slid one of the signs out and the bright Day-Glo sticker word fit perfectly across the plastic insert. When he slid the sign insert back into its stand, it looked like it had been custom-made for it. Wordlessly he sat the sign on the kitchen table and she screamed with laughter.

“Perfect."

“I'm getting as fruitcake as he is."

“I love it.” Her smile wrinkles deepened and she said, “When you invite them over, be sure you tell Dana that your wife sent him a special invitation—from next door.” They both laughed.

He put the sign back into the sack. This domestic stuff was all right. He could get used to this real quick. They sat finishing breakfast leisurely and he thought to himself how much he'd missed sharing things with someone. Even a stupid joke. Just to have someone you genuinely cared for meant so much. He looked over at this lovable lady and couldn't feel anything but a boundless joy.

“Now whatcha grinnin’ at?” she asked him through a bite of toast.

“My luck, baby,” he said, and went over and had a taste. Crumbs, grape jelly. Donna Eichord—the whole works.

When he finally got to work he was carrying Dana's new sign in a little brown sack that looked like his lunch, and he could hear Chink's voice all the way up on the first landing.

“How come you wanna play
Hill Street Blues
again, dammit?” he could hear them arguing. “It's been off for a hunnert years."

“I liked it."

“Keerist. You liked the
Flying Nun
. You been sick since they took
Kojak
off."

“Go jack off? Go jack off yourself, you little kamikaze reject, if you can find that miniature gherkin you slopes laughingly refer to as a cock.” They went on like this all day. He always wondered how they could have kept it up all those years. After a while it made you tired to hear them. But he loved them, he supposed. And you overlook someone's faults when you love ‘em. He knew they had covered for him a thousand times over the years. Covered for him back when he stayed blitzed to the gills on the job. Of course, they never let up about it either. That was their style. Anything was fair game for these flaky friends of his.

“Good morning,” he'd say, and Lee would look up and shake his head, “Swacked again,” he would sigh, “Four hours late to work. Pathetic. All we ask is whatever you do don't breathe on the captain's shield. He just got it shined yesterday."

“Yeah,” Fat Dana would chime in, “and that heavy a concentration of alcohol will tarnish gold faster'n saltwater'll eat out the bottom of a ‘64 Olds Cutlass."

“Speaking of heavy concentrations of things that eat,” he'd say, and the thing that sometimes passed for witty repartee in Buckhead Station would begin.

Eichord's walk coming down the flight of steps was unmistakable to them and they made him halfway down, and he “overheard” them begin to discuss him at the top of their lungs.

“And another thing about that mother grabbing, headline-grabbing Jack Eichord, man, his EGO is so damn big he no longer thinks he has to shower or bathe. Have you noticed?
PHEW!
"

“Oh, shucks, yes,” Lee's partner could be heard to say. “Eichord stinks like a wet Saint Bernard's crotch. It's getting so bad—"

“The real question is how you assholes know what a Saint Bernard's crotch smells like,” Eichord said as he reached the door of the Squad Room.

“Hey,” Lee acknowledged his friend's presence. “Don't you love it when he talks dirty."

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” Tuny boomed in his announcer voice, “the Major Crimes Task Farce proudly prevents...” He cued his Oriental partner for a fanfare.

“Taaaah-daaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!"

“That Sherlock Holmes of winos, the old skid-row supersleuth himself, let's hear it for the boss of the Bourbon Street beat."

“Taa-daaaaaaaahhhhhhh!"

“Lovable, intoxicating, Blackjack Eichord, human distillery!"

They broke up as Eichord, who had moved behind Dana Tuny, reached over with both hands and gently squeezed the man's prominent chest, which bulged his shirt out to a noticeable degree,

“Up to about a fifty-two-C now, are we? These are getting ripe."

“A fifty-four-D-cup actually. Officer,” Dana told him, “and I wish you wouldn't stop. I'm getting kinda hot from that."

“A teacup?” Lee said incredulously. “Did you say a
TEACUP
? Hey, that's bullshit. You couldn't fit those baby blimpers into a teacup. You be lucky to squeeze one into a casserole dish."

“I'll squeeze you into a casserole dish, you little dink handjob. I'll fuck you over so many times you'll think you're the center on a Greek football team. I'll—"

“Hey, Big D."

“Eh?"

“Donna sent you something."

“No shit?"

“Yeah. Really, it's starting to bug me a little. I just don't like the way my wife's always thinking about you."

“Uh. Well, what can I say? She knows a real man when she sees one.” Lee screamed with laughter at that one. “Shaddup ya fuckin’ pickleprong. Whatta YOU know about it?"

“Yeah,” Eichord continued, “she just can't get you out of her mind. Wanted me to give you a little something. What do you think we got for you? Huh?” He held up the sack the way you might do with a kid.

“I'm a genius now I know what's inna sack, for shit's sake. What do I look like, Bobbie Fisher?"

“You look like CARRIE Fisher through the tits there, but what's in the sack? Give up? Maybe something you can put on your desk so we'll all know what you are—eh?” He slipped the sign out and put it on Dana's desk. Lee started screaming hysterically as soon as he read the sign. He fell from his chair to the floor and began pounding it with his fists.

“Jesus, cheer up,” Dana told him. “It ain't THAT fuckin’ funny."

“Oh...” He could barely catch his breath he was laughing so hard. “Chunk, my man,” he roared, “oh, yeah, that's perfect—you are a fucking
CHOWHOUND
!” He went into another fit of screaming laughter.

“Fuckin’ flakes."

“
Chow
hound,” he said as he fought for air. “Oh, I'm gonna’ fucking
DIE
."

“...
S
o anyway, the bitch's layin’ there on the slab ‘n, you know, he's been boffin’ the good-lookin’ ones all along, right? So, shit, he pulls back the sheet and goes, Hey, check THIS out. ‘Cause you know, she's a stone bitchin’ fox, right? And he feels her up a little and, shit, she ain't even that cold yet. All fuckin’ RIGHT, so he's horny enough to fuck mud anyway, and he's got his skivvies down—"

“Uh, ‘scuze me, is Detective Shy here?"

“Hold it. Bud. So anyway, he's got ‘em down and he's climbin’ up in the saddle, right? And he puts it in and he's pumpin’ away at this dead bitch ‘n all of sudden she comes to"—the detectives laugh—"an’ he goes. Whoa, SHIT. And he pulls his razor outta his pants, he's gonna cut the bitch's throat and FINISH, right? And he gets so excited tryin’ to get the razor outta his jeans he slices the end of his own fuckin’ THUMB OFF!” Screaming in the squad room. “An’ that's when ole Elmer comes boppin’ around the corner of the hallway and here's this naked broad runnin’ out of the morgue with blood all over her and he thinks he's got the goddamn dee-tees.” Laughter.

“I want to report a—"

“And he goes. Hey, you ain't supposed to take ‘em in there before they're completely DEAD!” Screaming.

“I was told come in here to report this. Is Detective Shy here?"

“Yeah,” he said, laughing, “that's Scheige over there. The one with the magazine.” He pointed out a skinny detective looking at a centerfold, and the cop called out his name.

“Hey, Scheige?"

“Hey. Check out the bongos on this,” Scheige said, holding up the magazine.

“This guy wants to see ya.” The cop tilts his head in the direction of the hype.

“Yeah?"

“Detective Shy?"

“Whatcha need?"

“I was told to come in here and report this to you. I seen that guy in the papers. You know the big, fat murderer? They said if I give you the information you could—uh, you know, pay me money for being, uh, er, uh, giving you d’ information?"

“This oughta be good,” one of the detectives muttered under his breath.

“What big, fat murderer you talkin’ about?"

“In da paper dere. The one d’ cop killed."

“Oh. You saw the one the cop killed. Uh huh."

A couple of giggles.

“He was naked and taking a bath in the alley off West Erie."

Every cop in the room screamed with laughter as the hype stood there reddening.

“That's wonderful,” the one called Scheige said. The moon was full. The day before a guy had come in to “swear out a warrant” against someone called Voltan X, “swearing he had information the extraterrestrial was the head of an interplanetary kidnapping ring that was taking lawn elves and pink flamingos in the mistaken belief they were our children.

“I seen him ALIVE. Takin’ a shower in d’ rain, buck-naked right dere in d’ alley."

“Wonderful,” Scheige said, dissolving in hysterics.

“Hey, man, this is for real. I ain't shittin'. I seen him—” His voice was drowned out.

“Bernie, jew ever hear about the time me and Mac busted Sweet William Trace?"

“Huh uh,” a cop replied.

“Sweet William was sniffin’ a whole shit pot o’ glue back then, and he was in the back of his limo all glued up, ya know, ‘n he was naked, beatin’ his meat and wearing a German army helmet. You know those old time Kaiser helmets with the big spikes? So anyway, Mac and me made the limo and we was just gonna stop it, I forget—some bullshit probably—and we have ‘em pull over, and fuckin’ Sweet William comes outta the back, stone-naked, glued to the max, wearin’ a German army helmet—he weighed about three-fifty, you know, ‘n Mac'd never seen him and he said he liked to pop a cap on him when he come outta that back seat!” The cops laughed.

“Did you ever hear about that sheep-fucker we nailed over in the twelfth?"

The hype turned around disgustedly and left the squad room and the flaky, laughing cops who didn't want to lay a taste on him for the good information. “Fuck it,” he said, sniffing and rubbing his arms.

“
H
ow ya like this jam, boy?” he said to John Monroe, meaning the car he'd borrowed.

“Fucker's tight. Cherry ride absolutely.” It was six-ten and there was already traffic inbound, but they were boogeying out Cypress Road.

“Boy, I can pick ‘em. Big ole Crown Vic. Shit. Be lookin’ for thirty-four hunnert.” He looked over at the dipshit next to him.

“This is, shit, 1900 ‘n somethin', Wend—uh, I mean Bo, they ain't got any numbers on the fuckin’ houses or nothin'."

“Whatjew call me?"

“Huh?"

“Jus’ now. Whatjew call me then?"

“Bo."

“Uh huh.” He gripped the wheel like he was strangling it. The voice starting out in almost a whisper, very softly, exaggerated sweet tone of voice, like to a baby, “Lissen up now, John, because iffn’ ya go an’ call me that when weuns inna house, or iffn’ ya go shoutin’ at me across the bank,” the voice changing to a column of steel sticking John in the ear like an ice pick, ‘HEY WENDALL I MEAN BO COMMERE ‘N KICK A COUPLE MORE HOLES IN MY DUMB SHITTER F'R ME.’ why, ya jes’ won't leave me no choice. Ya do understand that, doncha, John?"

“Sorry, man I won't—"

“I mean, there we'll be inna bank an’ shit I'll just draw down on ya and drop your goddamn fucking dumb ass right there in the fucker. DO YA GIT IT? Ya got to screw down your damn head, John, and concenfuckingtrate, all right?” Sorry cracker trash.

“Uh. That's the two thousand block so youuns goin’ in the right direction. Bo. I'm sorry, I won't forgit again."

“I'm sorry, I won't forgit again,” he mimicked him. “Man, ya can try a person's fucking soul with that shit. Ya
GOT
to git y'r shit together now."

“Okay."

“An’ don’ say NOTHING inna house or the bank. I'll do it. Ya just do what I tell ya."

“Right.” John Monroe nodded.

“Ya go in back and cut everything ya find like I tole ya. Jes’ like I showed ya yesterday with them bolt-cutters. Right?"

“Right."

“Cut ever’ fuckin’ thing. Phone lines, air-conditioner, the goddamn antenna thing, the fuckin’ copper water line. I don’ give a rat fuck what it is,
CUT
that sucker. Right?"

“Right."

“Then youuns come on back around real fast ‘n come right on inna door behind me. Got it?"

“Gotcha."

What a fuckin’ lamebrain. He looked over at the imbecile that bad luck had saddled him with in the joint. What a fuckin’ mistake.

“Twenty-one hundred block, Bo."

Shit, now the dumb fuck was a gonna call out the numbers of every goddamn block to him like it was the countdown f'r a fucking rocket. Well. Fine.

“Real good, pud. Jes’ keep callin’ out them numbers an’ thataway we might git lucky and not drive by the thirty-four hundred block, eh?"

Donald Fields had just looked at the clock. It was six-fifteen a.m. He missed Clara and little Bud. Usually he and Clara had coffee and chatted together in the breakfast nook while they woke up. He never saw the boy before he went to work because he got up so early, but with them at Earline's, he missed the kid's presence in the house and was glad they'd be home by the following night.

After Clara got her heart started, she'd make him another cup and fix them cereal and freshly squeezed orange juice all icy cold, and he'd read the paper until six-forty or so. He liked getting there about five-to-seven. Seven at the latest. Come in a full half-hour before anybody came to work. There'd be the maintenance man and the night guard there and he'd unlock and go on in and arrange his day.

He loved that time and always looked forward to that first half-hour when he'd be in his nice office and it'd be so quiet out front, and he'd sit there arranging the day, getting it all just so. Smooth and prepared. He was going to have to sit down with the boy this morning. “The boy” was what he called his top man. A young hotshot named Joe Gillespie. He was problems. Short-fused. Thought he was the only kid who knew anything about the banking business. He'd had an offer from that asshole at American Fed and he was pressuring Donald for a vice presidency and all the usual. Fields was chewing over in his mind how he'd handle it. He wanted to keep the boy. He was a killer in trust work.