And still there was this fellow.
This fellow sat, with his hands in his lap, naked in the visitors’ chair.
Sam shook his head, which was thinning on top, and said a single word. “Coffee?”
The naked fellow looked up at Sam. “Did you say ‘coffee’?” he asked.
“I’m asking you, do you want coffee?”
“I’d rather have a pair of underpants.”
“Don’t be foolish, boy,” said Sam. “You cannot drink underpants. Unless, of course …” And Sam’s mind returned to something he’d done recently at a club on the East Side, which he really shouldn’t have been at, and wouldn’t have been at if he hadn’t been so depressed about his dog getting stolen and everything.
“Could I have my clothes back, please?” asked the naked fellow. He was a young naked fellow, rangy and tanned, spare of frame and wiry of limb.
“Are you cold?” asked Sam.
“No,” said the fellow, “but it’s pretty humiliating sitting here naked.”
“You’ve got nothing that I ain’t seen before, fella,” said Sam, almost instantly regretting that he had. What was it his therapist kept telling him?
“Well, if men’s genitalia are so commonplace to you,” said the fellow, “I can’t imagine what pleasure you will have viewing mine.”
“Pleasure don’t come into this,” said Sam.
“I do so agree,” said the fellow.
“But anyway, your clothes are with forensics. We’ll soon see what they have to tell us.”
The fellow, whose name was Jack, thought suddenly of Wallah. Suddenly and sadly too thought he.
“My clothes will have nothing to say to you,” said Jack.
“On the contrary.” Sam rose heavily from his chair to fetch coffee for himself. “They’ve told us much already.”
“They have?” Jack asked as he watched the large black police chief worry at the coffee machine.
“Oh yes.” And Sam kicked the coffee machine. “A great deal.” And Sam shook the coffee machine. “A very great deal, in fact.” And Sam stooped heavily and peered into the little hatchway where one (such as he) who had pressed all the correct buttons above might reasonably expect to see a plastic cup full of coffee.
No such cup was to be found.
Sam peered deeper into the little hatch. “A great deal of Aaaaagh!”
“A great deal of what?” asked Jack.
But Sam didn’t hear him. Sam was wildly mopping boiling water from his face with his oversized red gingham handkerchief.
“Goddamn useless machine!” And Sam moved swiftly for a heavy man and dealt the machine many heavy blows.
The glass partition door opened and the attractive face of a feisty young policewoman smiled through the opening. “Chief,” said she, “I’ve just cracked the case that’s had you baffled for months. I –”
“Get out!” shouted Sam, returning without coffee to his desk.
“Stressful job, is it?” Jack asked. “The American Dream not working out?”
Sam, now once more in his chair, leaned forward over his desk. Two little flags fell onto the floor along with an overfull ashtray. “Now just listen here, fella,” said Sam, “don’t go giving me no lip. I don’t like a wise guy, understand me?”
“Yes,” said Jack. “About my clothes.”
“Ah yes, your clothes.” And Sam leaned back and Sam took up a folder. And having opened same, examined the contents therein. “Fingerprints not on file,” said Sam. “No ID. No record, it seems, that you even exist.”
“I’m from England,” said Jack, “and I’m a friend of the Queen.”
“Is that so?” Sam nodded. “And your name is Jack, no surname. Just Jack.”
“Just Jack,” said Jack.
“As in Jack the Ripper?” asked Sam. “English psycho, said to be in league with the royal household?”
“I think we’re going off on a bit of a tangent,” said Jack, uncomfortably shifting from one bottom cheek to the other. “Could I please have my clothes back, please?”
“No,” said Sam. “Those clothes of yours could well be my passport out of here.”
“I’m certain that if I listen long enough,” said Jack, “I will be able to learn whatever language it is that you are speaking. But I do not have time. I must be off at once.”
“You’re going nowhere, fella. Nowhere at all.”
“But I’ve done nothing. I’m innocent.”
“Innocent?” Sam laughed and loudly, too. And then he coughed, because laughing too much always brought on a touch of the malaria he’d contracted whilst fighting U-boats in the jungles of South-East Asia. “Cough, cough, cough,” went Sam.
“If you’ll unlock these cuffs,” said Jack, “I’ll gladly pat your back.”
“I’m fine.” Sam reached into a desk drawer, drew from it the bottle of bourbon that he’d promised his specialist he’d poured away down the sink, uncorked it and poured away much of its contents down his throat. “I’m fine. Goddamnit.”
“Can I go, please?” Jack asked.
“No, fella, you cannot. You and your girlfriend held a crowd of managers and chefs at gunpoint, beat a chef called Bruce to within an inch of his life –”
“We never did,” said Jack.
“Took two hostages. Famous movie stars – Sydney Greenstreet and Marilyn Monroe.”
“Well …” said Jack.
“Beat poor Sydney nearly to dea –”
“Hold on.”
“Sexually harassed Marilyn –”
“I did what?”
“And we caught you with your chopper in your hand.”
“Cleaver, please,” said Jack. “Let’s not sink to that level.”
“Resisting arrest, et cetera, et cetera.” Sam closed the file. “You’re looking at twenty to life, if not the chair.”
“The chair?” said Jack, looking down at the chair. “This chair?”
“The electric chair, Old Sparky.” Sam mimed electricity buzzing through his own head and then death. And well he mimed it, too, considering that he’d no formal training in mime. Although there had been that incident that the department had hushed up, regarding that female mime artist, the raspberry jelly and the bicycle pump. That could always blow up in his face if he sought further advancement.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Jack.
“You won’t like the feel, either, or the smell as your brains boil in your head.”
“Listen,” said Jack, “you don’t understand. I’ve been trying to explain.”
“Explain to me about the clothes,” said Sam.
“Well,” said Jack, “it’s pretty basic stuff, really. The shirt is worn much in the way that you wear yours, although mine doesn’t have those large sweat stains under the arms. The trousers, well, that’s pretty basic also – you put your left leg in the left-leg hole and –”
Sam brought his fists down hard on his desk. Inkwells rattled, things fell to the floor. Jack was showered with paperclips. Jack ceased talking. And the glass partition door opened once again.
A young male detective stuck his head through the opening; he had a cigarette in his mouth. “Any trouble, Chief?” he asked. “Only I’ve just solved that other case that has had you baffled for months. I –”
“Get out!” bawled Sam. The young detective removed himself, slamming the door behind him.
“Now listen, fella, and listen good,” Sam said unto Jack. “The clothes, your clothes, the ones with forensics – I have a preliminary report here. Let’s deal with the labels first.”
“The labels?” And Jack shook his head.
“The Toy City Suit Company, Fifteen Dumpty Plaza. Explain that if you will.”
“It’s the shop where the trenchcoat came from. It’s not my trenchcoat.”
“So you stole it.”
“No, it belongs to someone who was murdered.”
“You took it from their corpse. Do you wish to make a confession?”
“I’d like to see a solicitor,” said Jack. “I believe I am entitled to one.”
“Ah, yes,” said Sam. “As I recall, your girlfriend shouted that at you when we had to have her carried down to the cells after she injured several of my officers.”