Gabrielle Taylor's "Cockluck"
March 11, 2002
Bertram opened the door. He saw blond hardwood stairs leading up. He climbed to a small square landing, then went into a large open room over the garage, with enormous windows covered by bent filthy blinds, and varnished hardwood floors with long scorch marks. Pine 2x2s were screwed high on the walls at an angle, depending from which, on twine, were Mason jars full of sticky black sludge. Three-foot high plastic flower baskets full of sooty and half-melted plastic flowers stood in each corner. The room was stale with smoke.
Bertram looked back at Lucille, who'd stopped halfway up the stairs. "You can clean in here too--"
Downstairs, someone screamed.
A Dolly Disfecter, tagged 'Doug', stood in the middle of the kitchen, howling, left hand outstretched. A broken syringe was stuck bloodily into the meaty part of his palm.
Lucille screamed and wrenched back against Bertram. "We don't dispose of hazardous materials! We're not touching this house any more! Murderer! Doug could get AIDS!"
Bertram pushed Lucille away, saying, "the phone is in the living room. Call the police." He took off Alexei's shirt and wrapped it around Doug's dripping hand. "Move," he snapped, shoving Doug toward the door.
By the time Bertram and Alexei returned from the hospital, the cleaners were gone, but now police were taking bags from the kitchen. "I'm afraid this is a crime scene, gentlemen," said a young blond cop flush with baby fat. "You'll have to move along."
"I am moving. I'm moving in here. I almost live here."
"You're Mr. Brooker? Hey, I heard about you. You found them cat burglars and your girlfriend killed herself."
"Not exactly in that order."
"Them Russkie babes sure aren't too stable I guess. Sorry about that. What's it like, like being a private eye? You get to beat up guys and nobody never says nothing about no civil--"
"OFFICER BURDON! Are you working?" This from a graying, square-built fortyish woman cop with speckled hazel eyes and blunt fingers.
"No sir. Nice talking with you Brooker. See you around."
"Sorry about that, Bertram. He's just a kid. Good morning, Alexei. Where's your shirt?"
"At the hospital."
"Hope it's nothing serious."
Bertram said, "is it true, Debra, that they decline cop applications where the IQ is over 110?"
"105. Their target this year is 102 but they might have to deficit spend to make it."
"Then how'd you get in?"
"Aren't you sweet today. My brother's the mayor. What's the story here?"
"My sister Judith owns the place. She evicted the previous tenants because they were on the way to jail and hence unlikely to pay rent. Find anything?"
"Looks like they were selling Mexican tar heroin. It's bad -- it's poisonous."
"Yeah, I saw the movie. Can you try someone that's already in jail?"
"Good time to find out."
"Judith's suing whoever's left because they owe her rent. Maybe you can arrest them if they show up in court next week."
"Nothing surprises me. Don't go messing around though, all right? This is official police business, just like on teevee."
"Come on, Debra. I'm not really a detective. I'm a bartender."
"Looks like you're going to be a cleaner for a while. After we let you onto the crime scene." She laughed coarsely, then bellowed, "come on, boys, move your asses! Let's get this shit downtown!"
"Well," Bertram said. "I might as well go to work."
Alexei drove him to work. "Have a cranberry juice for me while I toil in the Bliss Derringer mines."
"You're here already?" he said to Auntie. "Both of you?"
"I can't work," I said. "I can't get excited about the decline in printer prices when someone might poison the water supply."
"You don't have to come in until four or so," Bertram said to Auntie. "I can handle the lunch crowd with Neil and Jenn."
"Jenn broke her ankle hiking. She called me from the hospital and asked me to come in. Neil, as you may remember, is in Toronto. Craig isn't in until 4."
"Jenn called you? Why didn't she call me?"
"You're moving," Auntie said patiently. "You don't have a phone."
It slowed in the afternoon, leaving only a few people hanging around forlornly at the bar and a few couples hunched intimately at shadowy tables. I eavesdropped shamelessly but most of it was commonplace, office affairs and low-budget business deals.
Emerson came in for a minute or two and said hello and left. Around four in the afternoon, a pretty little redhead in black wandered awkwardly in and asked for a cockluck. "Gin and Seven-Up today," Auntie said. The redhead nodded.
"Haven't seen you here before," Auntie said.
"Haven't seen you here before either," the redhead said. "I'm Gretchen."
"Auntie Dynamite. Funeral?"
"Just came from one."
"Want a double? It's only an extra dollar."
"Yes. Thank you. It wasn't a funeral for anybody I knew. I was being moral support for a friend, who is sleeping with her boss. Her boss's wife's father died, so she had to go to the funeral. I got to her place late so she actually ended up going in the same car as the boss, the wife, and three kids, one of which is still in diapers."
"...so the boss is not claiming he's going to leave the wife?"
"Oh, he is, he says it's a loveless sham. The baby was an accident."
"He forgot he was screwing his wife?"
Gretchen shrugged. "When I left the funeral she was going to the wife's mother's house for the post-funeral whatever."
"Women," Auntie said in disgust, "I swear I'm not one of the species." Bertram approached from the far side of the bar with an empty tray. "What," she snapped at him. "What do you want? I'm not one of your species either."
Posted by gtaylor at March 11, 2002 11:17 PM