Page 82
Story: Kissing Carrion
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 . . .
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82 (Reading here)
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102