“You want me to take off all my clothes?” Murray Fern asked, looking from one policeman to another as Elwood Banks reached roughly into his pockets, removing his wallet, keys, handkerchief, cigarettes and chewing gum.
“Turn em inside out,” Elwood Banks said, and Murray Fern obeyed, trying to beat the jailor to the pockets, fearing he would rip them.
“Satisfied?” Murray Fern asked, when everything including his Patek Philippe wristwatch was on the counter.
“No way baby” said Elwood Banks. “Get them fancy threads off that chubby body and on the counter. I mean strip and do it now!”
Thirty seconds later, Murray Fern stood before the three policemen wearing only ninety dollar boots of imported Swiss leather, knee length blue silk socks, and silk boxer shorts dotted with tiny hearts.
“Satisfied?” he asked again, but now his authoritative baritone was a tenuous rasp and his eyes darted past the men to the corridor outside.
“I said strip, damnit!” Elwood Banks ordered. “Now get them boots and britches off before I rip em off!”
In a moment Murray Fern stood utterly naked before them, turning his body to one side and another, his composure breaking to pieces before their eyes, the rolls of textured fat shaking as he squirmed and wriggled with nowhere to hide.
“Turn around and bend over and spread your cheeks, Murray” Elwood Banks said, for the first time using the fat man’s name.
“Bend over?”
“Bend over and show me that round brown,” Elwood Banks said. “I gotta see if you’re hiding a machine gun in there.”
When Murray Fern timidly did as he was told Elwood Banks said, “Humph, my kid’s basset hound got better makins than that. Okay boy lift your feet up one at a time and show me the bottoms.”
Murray Fern obeyed quickly and quietly.
When he was finished, Elwood Banks said, “Okay, Murray now turn around and face me and open your mouth and lift up your balls. We don’t want you ratholin twenty bucks in some little crease down there. You can’t be no better off than Mr. Reilly when we lock you in the tank together.”
As Murray Fern opened his mouth for inspection he unconsciously held his hands over his shriveled penis, which was lost in the hair and layers of overhanging fat.
Elwood Banks then delivered the coup de grace. “Okay Murray now take your hands away and skin your wee wee back. I once knew a bookie kept bettin markers hid under his foreskin.”
When the search and booking were finished, Murray Fern was docile, tamed by the jailor who knew that this soft wealthy white man could be subdued as easily as a black pimp could be mastered by the threat to book his flash money as evidence. As easily as fighting derelict could be pacified simply by calling him “sir” and “mister.” Elwood Banks had never set foot in a college classroom, but life had made him a psychologist.
“Wanna use the phone now, Murray?” Elwood Banks asked when he finished the fingerprinting and offered Murray Fern a cigarette.
“Yes sir,” said Murray Fern, who was ever so grateful to the black jailor for giving him his silk underwear with the little hearts, a cigarette and a dime for a phone call.
After booking Murray Fern, Spencer longed to get up to Wilshire Boulevard and eat liver pâté and poached turbot with sautéed cucumbers. But Father Willie made the mistake of clearing on the radio and they were given a call at once. “Seven-A-Thirty-three, Seven-Adam-Thirty-three, see the woman, Eleventh and Ardmore, possible DB.”
“A dead body at eleven fifteen! Goddamnit, Padre, how many times I told you about picking up that frigging mike and clearing?”
“I know, Spencer, I know,” Willie answered.
“You’re too goddamn conscientious!”
“I know.”
“Wait’ll you been on the job awhile. You think the sergeants care we bust our balls? You think that cunt Lieutenant Finque cares?”
“I know, Spencer, I know.”
“Christ, I got a headache already. All that jawing from that fat prick, Murray Fern. My head aches and I’m sick to my stomach.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t get my vichyssoise tonight, for chrissake.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t get my veau à la crème.”
“There’s nothing I can do …”
“And I had my heart set on maybe some Coquilles St. Jacques Parisienne!” Spencer cried.
“Is that the one with scallops, garlic and herbs?”
“No that’s Provençale. This is the one with scallops and mushrooms.”
“In a white wine sauce?”
“Yeah.”
“I like that one.”
“And I had my heart set on some artichoke hearts and truffles!” Spencer continued. “Oh God!”
“I’m really awful sorry, Spencer,” Father Willie said.
“When you started working with me you thought all menus were printed on the wall. I trained you!” reminded Spencer Van Moot.
“I know, Spencer, I know.”
“And this is the thanks I get. All because you’re so goddamn gung ho and have to pick up the mike and clear. Now I gotta smell a dead body instead of a soufflé au chocolat! Oh God!”
“I’ll make it up to you, Spencer,” promised Father Willie, wondering when he was going to learn to act like a veteran.
A wizened crone in a black dress and dirty sweat-socks was drinking beer on the porch of a two story frame house just south of the corner. She waved as Spencer flashed their spotlight around, hoping not to find the caller.
Spencer lagged behind disgustedly as they parked, and gathered up his flashlight and hat slowly He always put the hat on while looking in the rearview mirror so as not to disturb the hairstyle.
“Yes, ma’am?” Father Willie turned his light on the porch steps as the old woman drained the can without getting out of her rocking chair. She steamed like dank mulching weeds.
“Think my tenant’s dead in the basement,” the old woman grinned in triumph.
“What makes you think… uh, oh,” said Spencer as he got to the top step of the porch and smelled the tenant who made them forget the old woman’s putrescence.
“When did you discover him?” Father Willie asked, as Spencer sneered, thinking he would have to endure this instead of peach Melba.
“Ain’t seen him in about three days. Thought he moved out without paying the rent. Sort of discovered him, you might say, about an hour ago when the wind started stirring things around.”
Spencer sighed and nodded and led Father Willie through the musty hallway of the boardinghouse which was partitioned off to accommodate seven single men. They found the basement door slightly ajar.
“Wonder if that witch is drinking beer or bat milk?” Spencer remarked.
“He’s down there all right,” Father Willie said, almost retching as they tried the stairs.
Then Spencer found the light switch and led Father Willie down the ancient wooden stairway where next to a gravity-heat furnace they found the tenant hanging from the ceiling joists, his knees almost dragging the ground.
“Kee-rist!” Spencer said, forgetting the overpowering smell for a moment.
The neck of the hanging man was almost ten inches long and the dragging legs formed a bridge for a column of ants which trooped up his legs to his face and ears and nose where they nested and fed with a velvety spider. And there were wounds on the man’s neck which Father Willie realized were rat bites after he saw the mounds of droppings on the floor beneath the hanging man.
“Wonder how long he’s been hanging around here?” Spencer quipped to his little partner who had a handkerchief pressed to his nose.
“He probably reached the end of his rope,” Spencer said, but Father Willie didn’t hear Spencer’s gags.
Willie Wright had not seen that many dead men in his three year police career and he was struck by the youth of this man and by the swollen hands darkened by draining blood and by the gray face which looked as if it belonged in a wax cabinet. And though the elongated neck shocked him, because he did not dream it could happen like this, he was almost shocked because for the first time in twenty-four years Father Willie Wright realized something. He looked at that one dull eye open and truly believed that he would join the waxen hanging man. That they were brothers going somewhere. Or nowhere.