When he was twenty-seven, the garbage man unadvisedly flirted with junior high girls who passed him on the way to school. He was convicted of child molestation, though he had never touched anyone except himself. After six months of good behavior, he was released. He still bears the label pedophile – and the title Mister Strange. The people of Griffith watch him closely. They call the police on him as regularly as they call animal control on stray dogs.
Mister Strange is not a pedophile, though he is, indeed, strange. His true name is Ed Bolenski. It is time for the thirtynine year-old garbage man to die, and I think it would be fitting for Keith McFarland to do the honors. This snowy February evening, Ed sits in the InnTown Tap. The air is filled with smoke, crowd noise, a basketball game, and the inarticulate thumps of an old jukebox. Despite bad windows, the bar is warm and friendly.
Mister Strange always eats his dinner here. The door to his apartment goes up from the bar, not fifteen feet of greasy paneling away. A key to the tavern rests idly in his pants pocket. The buffalo wings make his fingers red and gritty. Crumpled napkins form a chaparral around his wings basket. Bones lie beside dripping, steaming meat. He bites into a wing and works skin and gristle free, swallowing the negligible flesh that had been strung along the bone.
You die tonight, Mister Strange.
They taste good. Real good. After this is the Wheel. Don’t worry about the time. That’s bar time. Time for drunks. Your time is twenty minutes behind. Drunks live twenty minutes ahead.
You sit. A belch is knocking. You straighten. Up it comes. Tastes good. More room for more. The people are loud tonight.
A little man sits there. He is at the table that has the busted leg. The folded napkins under one side aren’t under it. They’re kicked out near the ladies room. They get kicked out all the time. Charlie’s cheap for not fixing it. The little man eats. The table leans toward his burger. He picks up his drink. The table sways away.
“How you doing?” you say.
He nods. That means okay. He’s doing okay. You’re doing okay, too.
“You like the Wheel?”
He nods. That means, yeah. He likes the Wheel.
“You good at the Wheel?”
He nods. Bet he’s not as good as you.
“Bet you’re not as good as me.”
He nods. The bet’s on.
“Don’t mind the time. That’s bar time.” You suck the meat from the last two wings. Tastes good. You crunch a little on the wing tips and feel whatever that is – bone or feather or whatever – crunch under the coating. The holder is out of napkins. You use the old ones. You put them in your wings basket. Tastes good.
“Come on. We’ll see.”
He nods. You stand. Maybe he’d not nod if he saw how really big you are. You are really big. Too late, now. The bet’s on. He gives up his burger, halfway through. Some guys would ask for the rest. You don’t.
“Come on. I live upstairs.”
He nods. He’s really small. Maybe he’ll be good at the Wheel. Maybe not.
The stairs squeak. You know when anybody’s coming up because the stairs squeak. He’s coming up. He’s going to challenge you to the Wheel. He’s going to lose. There’s a little landing. To open the bathroom door, you have to step off the landing. It’s that little. Your door goes in, not out. You keep your deadbolt on. That’s a good name. Deadbolt. Stops them dead. You swing the door open. Home. The room is big. The window at the other end is big. You watch the cars there. That big gold chair is from Grandma’s. She’s dead. You flick on the tube. Color. Better than the old one. The couch is in front of it. Your cat is in the corner, brown and yellow like the couch cover. Lots of the stuff is from the curb. You don’t take stuff from the dump.
“You want something?” He nods. His hair looks uneven and greasy. He’s got acne. He looked better in the tavern. “The kitchen is there.” It is. The Formica table and the hot plate and the fridge are there. He sits down on the couch.
The music starts. Cartoons of Pat Sajak and Vanna White soar into your lives.
You get a root beer. You move the cat and the Snickers wrapper and sit next to him. Everything looks clean on the stage. The skin is a little green. The people are too thin and bend in the middle. What do you want for free?
“What do you want for free? It’s color.”
He nods.
“You don’t talk much.”
He nods. That is almost funny.
They have the first puzzle. Three-word title. Blank blank blank blank blank blank, blank blank blank, blank blank blank blank blank. The fat woman guesses R, and there are twothree. Blank blank R blank blank R, blank blank blank, blank R blank blank blank.
“You know it?”
He nods.
“Yeah.”
One T. Blank blank R blank blank R, blank blank blank, blank R blank T blank.
“If you know it, what is it?”
“M-M-Murder She Wr-Wrote.”
It doesn’t fit… it does fit! You look at him and see his gun and then there is hot fire and then nothing. It was fitting: the garbage man was slain on a couch from the dump (no matter what he told others, he had taken many of his furnishings from the dump) by a piece of white trash. Even Keith, not noted for his cleanliness, took the head and hands into the bathroom to wash them before he used them. He felt so comfortable in the dingy place that he stayed the night, never changing the channel or turning off the TV. He let himself out during the wee hours, walking beneath the ceiling tiles stained red from the leaking blood. Keith did all that on his own. I figured I’d let the artist work. Still, I made sure he signed my name to the masterpiece. He’d forgotten the last two times. This time he complied, writing on the belly of the body, using Mister Strange’s own bloody finger as a pen: Samael 5:2:356. You see, I wanted Detective Leland to show up. I wanted to see her at the crime scene.
Unlike Keith, I didn’t leave. Time for me doesn’t matter. I would wait until she came. I knew she would come. She was smart enough to use the NCIC. I could play catch-up on deaths once I had met her and found out what she was like.
I didn’t have to wait long. The Griffith cops were all over the place by noon that day, when the bar opened. I met a very fine fellow, a Sergeant Michaels, shift commander. I didn’t so much meet him, actually, but became him, implanted him in the memory of the rest of the department. I became the sergeant and sent for Leland.
She arrived that night. It was nice to talk with her.
SIX
Detective Leland ducked under the police line and walked slowly into the chilly Inn-Town Tap. A forest of tables and chairs stood derelict around her. She felt cold in the dark place despite the suit jacket she wore. Suit jacket, white shirt, and loosened tie – her uniform ever since she had taken over McHenry’s post as detective. No longer would she patrol. For the rest of her career, she would keep irregular hours and unwholesome company – though the cop who waited at the far end of the room seemed wholesome enough.
“He lives up here,” said Sergeant Michaels of the Griffith Police. “I mean, lived.” He blushed handsomely. The sergeant was tall, lean, and young, his eyes bright like a pair of new dimes. He had black hair and a supermodel’s body, but he moved like a kid at his first dance – awkward and unaware how beautiful he was. This work is getting to me, thought Leland. Michaels gestured up the dimly lit stairway, his breath ghosting between warped panels of pressboard. “The scene’s in okay shape but not exactly pristine.”
Detective Leland nodded. “They’ve sifted through it all?”
“Yeah, but they were careful,” said Michaels as he started up the stairs. He was supposed to be the shift manager from eleven to six but had gotten guard duty at the crime scene when his substitute patrolman and another officer were out sick. “They’ve taken away the body, of course, even in this weather. But aside from samples, nothing else’s been moved. They even wore surgical booties and hair nets.” His hand waved vaguely above his head. “You’ll see.”