Freaky Deaky Page 6

  "I'm surprised you didn't."

  "I almost did, I came close. Esther wouldn't let me. I'm telling you the truth, this guy must've had twenty martinis. One right after the other. Stopped to mess up the buffet table and went back at it. I don't know why he wasn't laid out on the deck."

  "Fun on the river," Chris said.

  "We had a nice time. . . . The guy was harmless, I shouldn't let it bother me."

  "Who was he, you know?"

  "No, and I see all these people coming up to him, shaking his hand, being very pleasant. This guy gives 'em a stupid grin, like he has no idea who they are. Acting goofy. I ask Esther, she can't believe I don't know who it is. So she tells me his name. . . . Now I can't think of it. Buddy? No, that's not it. I said to Esther, 'Where've I been? I must've been out blacktopping parking lots all my life, I never heard of this guy.' I said, 'What's he known for, outside of being a horse's ass?' Esther says you have as much dough as this guy you can do just about anything you want. Well, you can't argue with her there, you see the way these rich guys park in front of the Detroit Club. You or I, we double-park in front of a Coney, run in for a hot dog, it costs us forty bucks. And this guy also I find out never worked a day in his life. Anyway, what'd you do yesterday? You break down and call Phyllis?"

  "That's over with."

  "You feel okay about it?"

  "I'm fine. I brought some case files home with me. Start reading up on sex crimes."

  "How's it look?"

  "There some weird people out there."

  "Woody," his dad said, "that's the guy's name, Woody something."

  Sunday afternoon Robin sprayed a circle around the Ricks brothers on the wall and began to fill it in, sweeping the surface with layers of red paint, gradually closing in on the names to take out WOODY first, then paused to look at

  MARK

  in the white center. Mark in the bull's-eye. The new Mark revealed last night at his brother's weird swimming party.

  Mark doing lines at poolside in his wet silk undies. Mark getting high, talking about Goose Lake, playing tapes of groups they used to listen to in the sixties and early seventies. That was still the old Mark. The new one emerged as Mark came down from his high, sort of crash-landed and began to whine and roll his eyes, Mark trying to dramatize what it was like to have an idiot for a partner. (Interesting, Woody was an actual partner.) Robin, at ease in her black panties, began to frown and sympathize.

  "But Mark, you're the one who makes it happen. You're the name, the star."

  Of course he was, he admitted it, glancing at her breasts, telling her what it was like to feel his talent smothered. "What a waste," Robin said, noticing that as she continued to sympathize, Mark's gaze remained on her breasts. Before long he seemed to be speaking to them as Robin listened, telling her breasts he could be doing rock concerts at Cobo Hall and Joe Louis Arena. The money was there, all kinds of it. The problem was the immovable 250-pound moron sitting on it. Mark, before her eyes, presenting a new possibility, a different approach.

  Monday afternoon Skip phoned from the bar in the Yale Hotel, Yale, Michigan.

  "This town, I don't think it's changed a bit, except I couldn't find the goddamn dynamite place. I drove up and down M-19, I came back, went in the feed store and they said, Yeah, that's where it is, how come you couldn't find it? Shitkickers love to get smart with you, if you don't look like one of them. See, there isn't any sign on the place. I guess the house is the same, but there are a lot more trees than I remember and they have a big new red barn with a white roof."

  "Trees grow," Robin said.

  "Is that right? Well, see, I didn't know that. So I got the guy's phone number and called, but nobody answered."

  Robin said, "You're not going to buy it, are you?"

  "No way. Michigan, I find out, you have to get permission from the State Police. No, I'm gonna wait till some farmer with ninety dollars and stumps to blow comes along and buys a case. He gets it home, then I'll lift it off him. Otherwise, if nobody comes along by tomorrow evening I'll have to bust into that barn. It's riskier, but then I know I'll get exactly what we need."

  "Tomorrow," Robin said. "You're going to spend the night in Yale?"

  "I don't have a choice. I don't want to drive all the way back to Detroit, I'm tired. We worked late to finish, then had to pack up. I'm suppose to go to the wrap party tonight but I'll be right here at the Sweet Dreams Motel. Honest, that's the name of it."

  Robin said, "So I probably won't see you till tomorrow night."

  "The latest. But it could be anytime, if the dynamite guy ever gets a customer."

  "Whenever it is," Robin said, "call me here. Then I'll meet you at Mother's."

  "You gonna stay with me?"

  "You know I can't."

  "Man, it's gonna be lonesome."

  "Skip . . . ?"

  He said, "Uh-oh. What?"

  "Nothing's wrong. Listen, we may change our game plan. I ran into Woody."

  "I was gonna ask you."

  "I even got invited to his house. It looks exactly the same, all the heavy furniture, the life-size painting of Mom in the front hall, the only time she's ever appeared sober. . . . You know what we did?"

  "I'm dying to hear."

  "We went swimming. Woody makes you take your clothes off and go in the pool before you can have a drink or a line or whatever you want, he has everything. He cranks the stereo way up and everybody gets zonked. Donnell sort of lurks, the way their mom used to."

  "Well, did you get Woody aside?"

  "It wasn't the right time. The whole scene, it was too loud, confusing. Woody disappeared after a while, I don't know what happened to him." Robin paused. "I think we'll be taking a different approach anyway."

  "Like what else you getting me into?"

  "I have to work it out. But I will, don't worry."

  "I'm not worried," Skip said. "I'm up here in Yale, Michigan, trying to rip off a case of dynamite in a rented Hertz car. What've I got to worry about?"

  "I'm just about convinced we should go after Mark."

  "He was there, huh?"

  "Mark and Woody were together, but I don't think it was Mark's idea. Mark puts on his suave act, he still does that, wants you to think he's cool. And Woody still comes off as the lout, sort of an offensive Poor Soul. Only now Woody's got Mark by the ass for the rotten way Mark used to treat him. I have a hunch Mark even pimps for him."

  "Well, you said Woody's got all the dough."

  "Yeah, but I didn't think he had the brains to use Mark. That's what he seems to be doing."

  "I guess you don't need brains if you're rich."

  "Woody comes up with these shlock ideas--he loves those big Broadway musicals, Oklahoma, you know, Fiddler on the Roof. The next one they're doing is Seesaw."

  "Never heard of it."

  "Full of hit tunes like 'Lovable Lunatic' and that show-stopper 'It's Not Where You Start It's Where You Finish.' Meanwhile Mark's dying to put on rock concerts. Remember 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'?"

  "Sure, old Iggy and the Stooges."

  "Mark wants to sign Iggy Pop and make him a superstar."

  "I'd go for that."

  "Woody wants to get in touch with Gordon Macrae and see if he'll do Carousel."

  "Who's Gordon Macrae?"

  "Remember Savage Grace? Ten Years After? The Flying Burritos? Mark dug out these old tapes Woody has--Iggy doing 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'--all the groups we heard at Goose Lake, the summer of 'seventy."

  Skip said, "That rock concert? I wasn't at Goose Lake. They had me in the Washtenaw County jail for littering, passing out all your pamphlets everybody threw away and I got blamed for. I think ever since we met I been doing the heavy work and you been having all the fun."

  "I'm going to look it up," Robin said, "but I'm pretty sure Mark's in my Goose Lake journal. Something I wrote I think was like a prophecy."

  "Goose Lake, sounds like a kiddie show."

  "It wasn't bad. Woodstock without the rain and
mud."

  "Get laid by strangers. Was that your trip?"

  "I knew everybody I slept with," Robin said. "You should've been there."

  "I should've been anywhere but in jail. Hey, I got one for you. You remember Dick Manitoba and the Dictators?"

  "Never heard of them."

  "See, you don't know everything, do you?"

  "I miss you," Robin said. "Anyway, if Mark's in my Goose Lake journal I'm going to take it as a sign."

  Skip said, "Does that make sense? If Woody's in charge, what do we want to go after Mark for?"

  "Because he needs a friend," Robin said. "Mark has a major problem and could use some help. Trust me."

  "Hey, Robin?"

  "What?"

  "I got another one. You remember Manfred Mann's Earth Band?"

  " 'Get Your Rocks Off,' " Robin said. " 'Bye."

  She picked up the spray can from the desk, stepped to the wall and swept the surface with paint until MARK joined his brother, both of them now hidden beneath a brilliant socko design on the white wall, a sunburst, a bright red ball of fire, an explosion. . . .

  Robin closed the red-covered notebook, her journal labeled MAY-AUGUST '70, and sat staring at the design on the white wall. Several minutes passed in silence before she picked up the phone and dialed Mark's office, murmured quietly to the young woman who answered, keeping her voice low, and then waited. Mark came on the line and Robin said, "Hi, you want to hear something funny?"

  "Love to."

  "You know the journal I kept?"

  "Sure, I remember."

  "I was looking through it, I came to something I wrote on August tenth, 1970." Robin paused. "If I tell you . . ."

  "Wait, August 1970 . . ."

  "We were at Goose Lake."

  "Oh, right. Yeah, of course."

  "You promise you won't laugh?"

  "I thought you said it was funny."

  "It is, but I don't want you to laugh."

  "I promise."

  "I wrote on that day, August tenth, 'I think I'm in love with Mark Ricks.' "

  "Come on, really? Wow, listen, I don't think that's funny."

  Robin said in her low voice, "You don't?"

  Chapter 8.

  On Tuesday, four twenty in the afternoon, the young woman with short red hair entered the lobby at 1300 Beaubien and stopped, uncertain. She expected to see police officers. What she saw was a bunch of black people with small children standing by the two elevators and in front of the glass-covered directory on the wall. It could be the lobby of an old office building, all tile and marble, and seemed small with the people waiting, the women holding on to the children trying to pull free. An elevator door opened and two young black guys came off grinning, playing with shoelaces in their hands, and were all at once gathered in by these people, who must be family. The young woman with short red hair edged her way around them and through a short hall that opened into another lobby, this one dismal with deep shadows, until she came to a long wooden counter beneath fluorescent lights. The uniformed police officer behind the near end of the counter, a black woman, looked up and said, "Can I help you?"

  The young woman with short red hair said, "I want to report a rape."

  The policewoman said, "This's Prisoner Detention," and glanced down the length of the empty counter. "You want to talk to somebody's with the precinct. They be right back. . . . I'll tell you what, or you can go up to Sex Crimes on seven, save you some time. Get off the elevator and turn right and it's all the way down the end of the hall. There be somebody up there will help you."

  Chris was alone in the squad room, his desk piled with case folders he'd been going through for the past few days, learning about criminal sexual conduct in its varying degrees. At lunch he'd told Jerry Baker he didn't think he was going to like it. A guy throws a pipe bomb in somebody's house to settle a score, the guy could be wacko but at least his motive was clear. But why would any guy want to rape a defenseless woman? What was in his head? The interesting thing was that it didn't have that much to do with sex. Jerry Baker said, "Then what do you call it a sex crime for?" Chris told him the way he understood it, the rapist wanted to dominate or be destructive, or he gets off on somebody else's pain. So he picks on a woman he can handle. But the act didn't have that much to do with getting laid, per se. Chris said he wasn't sure he could interrogate a suspect they knew for a fact was guilty and not pound the shit out of the guy. It would require a certain amount of self-restraint. Or sit down and talk to the poor rape victim. That would be tough. He told Jerry the whole setup was different. Even the squad room. It was cleaner than other squad rooms, the desks were kept neater. There were even artificial flowers on some of the desks, if you could imagine, inside 1300. See, because it wasn't a twelve-man squad, it was a twelve- person squad, half the investigators were policewomen. Chris said he wasn't complaining, not at all, it was just different.

  Yesterday he'd walked down to six and stuck his head in at Firearms and Explosives to see what was going on. It reminded him of when he was in the eighth grade his family moved from the West Side to the East Side and all that summer he rode buses back to the old neighborhood to be with his friends. Chris was going to meet Jerry at Galligan's at five, have a couple before driving out to St. Clair Shores. Working Sex Crimes in his dad's Cadillac.

  It was almost four thirty. Maureen Downey had the night duty. At the moment she was off somewhere. Maureen had spent a few years in Sex Crimes, then was in Homicide for a while and came back, she said because she didn't like all the blood you found at the scene or going to the morgue to look at bodies and get the Medical Examiner's report. Chris heard that sharp, clean sound of high heels on the tile floor and looked up expecting to see Maureen.

  It was a young woman with short red hair, very attractive, maybe late twenties. She came in, Chris couldn't help notice the way her legs moved in her skirt: a short straight tan skirt that went from above her knees into a loose tan sweater. A soft leather handbag hung from her shoulder. She seemed calm, even as she said, "They told me downstairs to come here. . . . I want to report a rape."

  As though she were telling him she wanted to report an accident, something she had seen, but was not personally involved. Chris said, "Oh." He stood up, looked around and nodded toward a clean desk with blue flowers in a green ceramic bowl. He said, "I'm Sergeant Mankowski. If you'd like, we'll sit over there, have more room." Chris paused to watch the thigh movement in her skirt as she walked to the desk. He sat down again and opened and closed drawers till he found a yellow legal pad and a Preliminary Complaint Report form. Going over to the desk, where the young woman was seated now in a straight metal chair, Chris said, "This happen to someone in your family?"

  She seemed surprised, the way her head raised. "It happened to me. I was forced against my will to have sex. If that isn't rape I don't know what is."

  Chris noticed she had a slight southern accent, not much of one but it was there. She sat straight, looking up at him until he eased into the padded metal swivel chair behind the desk. Now they were looking at each other over the bowl of blue flowers. She had a long thin neck. Or it seemed long the way she was sitting upright or the way her hair ended just below her ears and stuck out on both sides, wavy red hair with a lot of body. Phyllis always had rollers in her pile of dark hair. Chris imagined this girl didn't have to fool with her hair much. He liked the way it ended and stuck straight out. She was holding herself rigid, showing him she was indignant, but didn't look as though she'd been beat up. Chris wondered if this was what they called in Sex Crimes a date rape.

  "When did this assault take place?"

  "Sunday morning, about two A.M."

  Chris said, "Sunday? That was two days ago. Why're you just now reporting it?"

  "What's the difference when it happened? I was raped."

  Chris had been told eight out of ten rapes weren't even reported; they hadn't said anything about the ones that were reported late. "You know the suspect?"

  Sh
e said, "Suspect? I don't sus pect he raped me, I know he did. I was there. Mr. Woodrow Ricks is his name."

  There was that accent, soft, unaffected. It made her seem natural but also vulnerable. A guy rapes her, she calls him "Mister." Chris pictured the guy older. Looking at the PCR form he said, "I don't have your name and address."

  She said, "I guess you want my real name. It's Greta Wyatt. My stage name I go by is Ginger Jones."

  "You're an actress?"

  "An actor; you don't say 'actress' anymore."

  "I didn't know that." She did look more like a Ginger than a Greta. He liked Greta, though, better. "Let me have your address, too."

  "I live for the time being at 1984 Junction."

  Chris said, "No kidding. I used to live around there. Right by Holy Redeemer till I was in the eighth grade and we moved all the way over to the East Side, near Cadieux. I never wanted to leave that neighborhood."

  "Well, you have a different feeling about it than I have," Greta said. "I can't wait to find a place and move out."

  He liked her dry way of speaking, looking right at him. He asked for her phone number, wrote it down, and then her age. She told him she was twenty-nine.

  "Married?"

  "I was, I'm divorced."

  "Children?"

  "Not a one."

  "You live alone?"

  "I have been. It was my folks' house. They sold it when my dad retired from Ford's and they moved back home, to Lake Dick, Arkansas. I'm staying there just till the new people move in or they turn it into a Taco Bell, I don't know which."