The whole scene with Tom back at the state morgue: what could’ve been more rigid and uncomfortable? The screw-up with the composite, and Olsher’s sudden lack of support only made it worse. And now I’m sitting in a boring-as-hell cop bar, next to a boring-as-hell cop named Nick, and I’m getting plastered. Talk about someone without a life.
“…and then those kooky rumors.”
Helen perked up. “What rumors?”
“Oh, yeah, I keep forgetting, you’re the gal whose name is in the papers every day but she doesn’t bother to read ‘em.”
“I hate newspapers, Nick.”
“Hey, I hear ya. Bunch’a liberal rubberneck schmucks who don’t know real life. Let ‘em get mugged once or twice, let ‘em get car-jacked by a crackhead at a traffic light. Let ‘em find out it’s their own sons and daughters getting addicted to rock by playground pushers. Then maybe they’ll sing a different tune. You know. When it happens to them.”
Helen didn’t care in the least with Nick’s sociological views. “The rumors, Nick. What’s that about the rumors?”
“Oh, yeah, guess I got off track, ya know. The evening Tribune says that guy Rosser died in his cell, you know, the guy—”
“The guy accused of killing Dahmer.”
“Yeah, but since it’s obvious now to anyone with half a brain that Dahmer’s still alive, the rumor mill is talking up this shit about Rosser being in on it. That Rosser did the face job on Dahmer because Dahmer asked him to, just to get Dahmer into the infirmary.”
“Let me ask you something, Nick. Do you think that’s preposterous or far-flung?”
“Me? Hell, how do I know? I mean, if I wanted to bust out of a secure detent like Columbus County, probably the only way is through the infirmary. Get real sick or something, and they transport you to the hospital. Then you escape because security’s not as tight. But, Christ, they’re saying Dahmer had no vital signs when they checked him at the prison infirmary, so how can that be?”
Because the part about the succinicholine sulphate wasn’t in the papers, that’s how, Nick. “But I mean the ‘conspiracy’ angle. Forget about anything else.”
“Well, shit, Helen—pardon my French—I ain’t exactly a Harvard grad, but Dahmer must’ve had help to get out. And it had to be several guys helping him, not just one.”
Helen looked into her beer. Even Nick buys it. So why doesn’t Olsher? Why doesn’t the Police Commissioner?
All of a sudden, her head seemed to roll. Christ, I’m drunk. Her fingers ached from squeezing the locket, and her mouth tasted like a malt factory.
“You’re empty,” Nick pointed to her glass. “Hey, chief, the lady needs another mug’a suds.”
“No, no, Nick—thanks for the offer, but—”
“What’s’a’matter?”
Helen shrugged. “I gotta go home. I’m drunk.”
“Ah, well lemme tell ya something. I’m not drunk—serious, I only had three beers, and you had five or six just since you walked in.”
Helen felt groggy, wobbly. “What are you saying, Nick?”
“Best to let me drive you home. I mean, that wouldn’t look to good in the papers for a state police VCU captain to get pinched on a DWI, would it?”
No, no it wouldn’t.
“So, hey. Can I drive ya home, Helen?”
Her brain, suddenly, was reeling, and she thought she might throw up. “Yes, Nick,” she said. “I’d appreciate it.”
««—»»
Why shouldn’t women be imprudent? Men were imprudent every day. Men slept around whenever they felt like it, marriages notwithstanding. I’m just letting some beat narc drive me home, she thought. It’s not like I’m going to sleep with him.
Nick, evidently, had some other plans. While he was driving her home in his unmarked Metro car, his right hand had somehow found it’s way to her knee.
And Helen didn’t even care.
She was not the least bit attracted to Nick—not that he was unattractive. He just wasn’t her type. He was pure-bread career cop, and that was no prize as far as she was concerned. She rubbed her locket further when she deliberated, Maybe a distraction is what I need. Some guy I’m never gonna see again? Who cares? Men don’t care. Why should women? Why is it that men can have indiscriminant sex and that’s cool, that’s macho, that’s just men being men, but when a woman does it, she’s a slut? It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
I don’t even give a damn any more, she thought.
When Nick’s hand had progressed to the point of the middle of her thigh, she pushed it back. “Let’s take things a little easier, huh, Nick?”
“Aw, sorry. I mean, I thought that maybe, you know maybe—”
What she said next astounded her. “You want to go to bed with me, Nick? All right.”
“Yeah?” he replied, his voice rung with enthusiasm.
“But one thing I don’t really need is a gynecological exam in the front seat of your unmarked. So cool down a little, will you?”
“Sure, yeah, sure…”
But even Nick, a stereotypical cop, when he parked in front of her apartment—even he had the rare decency to offer, “Hey, down to the wire huh? Well, look, Helen, I gotta tell you, I really think you’re a beautiful woman, and—well, you know—you turn me on, and I’d think it’d be great if we went up to your joint and, you know, had a good roll in the hay. But, you know, I just wanna make sure it’s all cool. I mean, you said you were drunk, and I’d hate for anything to happen, and then in the morning you hate my guts ’cos you think I took advantage of you. I don’t want you thinkin’ I’m just some rubberneck cockhound—er, pardon my French.”
Helen looked at him cock-eyed. “You know something, Nick? You may not be the best mannered guy I’ve ever met, but that’s pretty thoughtful.”
“Hey, can I help it I’m good-looking and thoughtful?”
Helen let out a long breath. “Come on, Nick. Let’s go upstairs.”
««—»»
It was some facsimile of anticipation that made her pulse race, she felt weak. I am weak, she thought, facing him in the dark murk of her own apartment now. Weak or stupid. She’d avoided involvements with cops for her entire career because she’d seen the stuff so many times. Cops made the worst one-night stands, and that’s exactly what this was. And they blabbed their bed adventures to every other tin in the squad room the next morning. Cops had sex the same way they lived: on the edge, tense, animal-like. Maybe that’s all this was—some primal flush, some need in her psyche that almost never popped up. At least he works for another department, she thought.
“How about some lights?” he said.
How about some diversity? she replied with her thoughts. Instead of turning on any lights, she lit some candles which threw their shapes onto the walls like flittering ghosts. Next thing she knew, they were embracing…
Talk about breaking the ice.
“I want you,” Nick said. Helen nearly laughed at the corniness of it. It all just felt so dumb. Light stubble whisked against her face when he kissed her. She could taste cigarettes and beer. She responded to the kisses only half-aware, the other half still trying to reckon this. This isn’t working, it first occurred to her, but then his hands began to change her mind. Intent and rather rough hands squeezing her body with hesitation. Any other time it would’ve been too fast for her, but maybe she simply didn’t care. He took off her skirt and blouse akin to a greedy kid opening a present. When his hands slipped up her belly to her bra’d breasts, an eruption of glitter seemed to fill her head.