I stand up, my legs like rubber. I wash my face and rinse out my mouth, but can’t get rid of the taste. I pick up one of the complimentary soaps and take a bite. A white lather mixed with blood foams from my mouth.
Tastes like chicken.
Actually it’s the vomit that tastes like chicken, and as I chew further into the soap, my mouth starts closing over and my throat starts to burn. My remaining testicle starts to throb, though more than anything it is itching. I wash the soap from my mouth and stumble back to the phone. Unbelievably, Mom is still talking.
“Okay, Mom, I’m glad you’re okay,” I interrupt. “And yes, I’ll come and visit Walt while he’s in the hospital, but my taxi’s just arrived. I’ve got a meeting with a client. Got to go. Love you.”
I glance at my watch as if she can see me, send a kiss down the phone, and have the phone halfway back on the hook when one of her words stops me from hanging up.
“What was that?” I ask, pressing the phone firmly against my ear.
“We had a nice talk. She really loves you, Joe.”
“Who?”
“Your girlfriend. I’m never that good with names. There was an s in there somewhere. Maybe it started with one.”
“You don’t mean Melissa?”
“Melissa? Yes, that was it. I remember telling her she had a beautiful name.”
“She came around?” I ask, deciding not to point out that Melissa has two s’s in her name.
“That’s what I was saying. Joe, you really need to clean out your ears.”
“She came around last night?”
“Joe. Do you ever listen to anything I say?”
I tighten my grip on the phone. I can hear my breathing getting out of control. “I listen, but Mom, this is important. What did she say?”
“Only that she was worried about you. And that she thought you were a really nice person. I liked her, Joe. I thought she was lovely.”
Yeah, well, she wouldn’t think Melissa was lovely if she knew what she was capable of. Why would she go and see my mother? Just to prove her control?
“I had no idea you had such a lovely woman in your life, Joe.”
“I’m just lucky, I suppose.”
“When will I see more of her?”
“I don’t know. Look, Mom, I gotta go.”
“Did you know her brother was gay?”
“What?”
“She told me.”
“What?”
“That he was gay.”
I have no idea what she’s on about. It’s as if she’s picking up on another conversation somewhere, perhaps a faulty phone connection.
“Seriously, Mom, I really have to go. I’ll talk to you soon.”
I don’t wait for a response. This time I hang up.
I walk to the window and look out at the city. I want to jump out and crash into the sidewalk below. My mind is churning with images of my mother and Walt, but they’re only shadows now. The day is winding down. Daylight is being replaced by streetlights and headlights. Hardly anything happens on a Wednesday night. Garbage trucks are rolling up and down the streets, taking away the trash left by shop owners and businesses. I wipe at the tears running down my face with no idea why I’m even crying. Finally I start to focus on why I’m here. I turn on the hotel room light, then start to make myself familiar with my surroundings, doing what I can to forget about my mother. It’s a distraction, but it works. I go back into the bathroom. I flush the toilet and spray some air freshener about the place. Only the distraction ends up pissing me off. It makes me think of what I have at home, or, more accurately, what I don’t have. It’s like being married, and then buying a swimsuit calendar. Thinking of my little apartment without the minibar and soft bed makes me want to start crying again.
I walk into the kitchen area-or kitchenette, as gays and hippies would call it. I rummage around in the drawers, searching for a knife that looks mean enough to do a rather mean job. I find one, walk to the bed with it, and study it beneath the bedside lamp. The blade isn’t long; it’s bigger than a fruit knife, but smaller than the standard issue given to horror movie directors. I sway my hand up and down, feeling the knife’s weight and the balance, learning its specifications and limitations. It isn’t something I’d pay for, and it’s the first thing I’ve seen in this hotel that doesn’t look horribly expensive. It will take either some serious amount of stabbing, or some serious accuracy.
I can do both.
I open my briefcase and take out a cleaning rag to remove my fingerprints from the knife. This isn’t essential, but it’s better to be safe than jailed. I slip on a pair of latex gloves, clean the knife once again, then slip it into a plastic bag from my briefcase.
I grab the list of phone numbers from my briefcase. Look up Detective Inspector Calhoun’s and dial it from the cell phone Melissa bought me. Since it’s a prepay, if the number shows up on Calhoun’s caller ID display, it can’t be traced back to me. Because of the latest break in the case, many of the detectives are putting in extra hours, and from what I can make out Calhoun is one of them. After six rings I’m beginning to doubt he’s there. If he isn’t at his desk the phone automatically switches through to his mobile, which these guys carry with them every moment of the day.
Finally he answers. “Detective Inspector Calhoun,” he says, and I can picture him standing on a street somewhere with the phone pressed tightly against one ear and his finger jammed in the other.
“Evening, Detective.”
“Evening, sir. How can I help you?”
“No, it’s how I can help you.”
“Who is this?”
“That’s not really important, but what is important is what I know.”
“I don’t have time for any games,” he says, and I picture him the same way as a few seconds ago, only now looking pissed off.
“This isn’t a game. I know something.”
“And what is that?”
I’m grinning, yet I’m also nervous. I can’t remember the last time I had a reason to grin. I can remember the last time I was nervous, though. “I know that you’re a killer.”
Silence. Then, later than he should have replied, he says, “What the hell are you on?”
“I’m not on anything.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Do you know who this is, Detective?”
“How the hell would I know?”
“I’m the person you’re looking for.”
“Look, if this is a joke, I’m not laughing.”
I’m nodding down the phone line, like people do even though nobody can see them. At least I’m not waving my hands around. “You know I’m not joking.”
“How did you get this number?”
“We’re getting off track, Detective. Now, let’s get to the point,” I say, scratching at my testicle. The itch is getting worse.
“What point is that?”
I walk over to the window. Look out at the city. “Tonight’s point, or moral, is that I know you have a sexual dysfunction that you attempt to put right by using prostitutes, and that that dysfunction has led to murder.”
Rather than denying anything, or abusing or threatening me, he says nothing. We both stay that way for almost half a minute. I know he’s still there: the sound of the open phone line hums loudly.
“This is bullshit,” he eventually says, but doesn’t hang up.
“That’s not what Charlene Murphy thought when you took her to the Everblue. And I’m sure Daniela Walker would say differently too. Well, if you hadn’t killed her.”
He’s silent for a few more seconds while he absorbs the fact that I know exactly what he’s done. “What is it you want?” he finally manages to ask.
“Money.”
“How much?”
“Ten grand.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Where?”
“Cashel Mall.”
“I can’t risk being seen paying somebody off. How about somewhere more secluded?”
“Like where?” I ask, knowing he would ask this.
I can imagine exactly what he’s thinking. His speedy answers are proof of that. He’s suddenly inside that game he told me he didn’t have time for. Like chess, he’s setting me up, but again like chess, I can see it coming. I’m half a dozen steps ahead of the guy. Nobody’s going to have ten thousand dollars on them, ready to make a payoff in thirty minutes, and nobody is going to want to make that payoff a few hundred meters from the police station in which they work. But he’s seeing an ideal opportunity to eliminate me as a risk. Because I’ve sprung this on him pretty quickly, he hasn’t had long enough to think it through properly. He thinks he’s doing a pretty good job. Being clever. Being smarter than me. But I’ve been thinking through this all day. He’s going to ask for somewhere way less public and much more secluded.