Lawrence Block - In the Midst of Death

I suppose our original relationship had constituted a form of police corruption. I hadn't been acting as Elaine's protector, nor had it been my job to arrest her. But I had seen her on the city's time, and it had been my official position that earned me the right to share her bed. Corruption, I suppose.

She brought me my drink, a juice glass with around three ounces of Scotch in it, and sat down on the couch with a cup of tea with milk. She curled her legs under her compact little behind and stirred her tea with a demitasse spoon.

"Beautiful weather," she said.

"Uh-huh."

"I wish I was closer to the park. I take long walks every morning. Days like this I'd like to take my walks in the park."

"You take long walks every morning?"

"Sure. It's good for you. Why?"

"I figured you'd sleep until noon."

"Oh, no. I'm an early riser. And I'll get visitors from noon on, of course. And I can get to sleep early because it's rare I have anyone here after ten o'clock at night."

"That's funny. You think of it as a business for night people."

"Except it's not. The guys, you know, they have to get home to their families. I'd say from noon to six-thirty is maybe ninety percent of the people I see."

"Makes sense."

"I got somebody coming in a while, Matt, but we got time if you feel like it."

"I'd better take araincheck."

"Well, that's cool."

I drank some of my drink. "Back to Portia Carr," I said. "You didn't come up with anybody who might have had some kind of a government connection?"

"Well, I might have." My face must have changed expression because she said, "No, I'm not hustling you, for God's sake. I learned a name, but I don't know if I got it right and I don't know who it is."

"What's the name?"

"Something like Mantz or Manch or Manns. I don't know it exactly. I know he's somebody connected to the mayor, but I don't know what. At least that's the story I got. Don't ask me the guy's first name because nobody knows. Does that give you anything? Mannsor Mantz or Manch or something like that?"

"It doesn't ring a bell. He's connected to the mayor?"

"Well, that's what I heard. I know what he likes to do if that helps. He's a toilet slave."

"What the hell is a toilet slave?"

"I wish you knew because it doesn't especially thrill me to discuss it." She put her teacup down. "A toilet slave is, well, they'll have different kinds of kinks, but an example would be that he wants to be ordered to drink piss or eat shit, or to clean out your ass with his tongue, or clean out the toilet, or other things. What you have to tell him to do can be really disgusting or it can just be sort of symbolic, like if you made him mop the bathroom floor."

"Why would anybody — never mind, don't tell me."

"It's getting to be a very strange world, Matt."

"Uh-huh."

"Like nobody seems to fuck anymore. You can make a ton doing masochist tricks. They'll pay a fortune if you can fill up their fantasy for them. But I don't think it's worth it. I'd rather not have to contend with all that weirdness."

"You're just an old-fashioned girl, Elaine."

"That's me. Crinolines and lavender sachets and all those good things. 'Notherdrink?"

"Just a touch."

When she brought it I said, "Mannsor Manch or something like that. I'll see if that goes anywhere. I think it's a dead-end street anyway. I'm getting more and more interested in cops."

"Because of what I said?"

"That, and also something some other people have said. Did she have somebody on the force that sort of looked out for her?"

"You mean the way you used to for me? Sure she did, but where does that get you? It was your friend."

"Broadfield?"

"Sure. That extortion number was pure bullshit, but I guess you knew that."

I nodded. "She have anybody else?"

"Could be, but I never heard about it. And no pimp and no boyfriends, unless you count Broadfield as a boyfriend."

"Any other cops in her life? Giving her a hard time, anything like that?"

"Not that I heard about."

I took a sip of Scotch. "This is off the subject a little, Elaine, but do cops ever give you a hard time?"

"Do you mean do they or have they ever? It's happened in the past. But then I learned a little. You have somebody regular, and the rest of the guys let you be."

"Sure."

"And if I get a hard time from somebody else, I mention some names or I make a phone call and everything cools down. You know what's worse? Not cops. Guys pretending to be cops."

"Impersonating an officer? That's a criminal offense, you know."

"Well, shit, Matt, am I gonna press charges? Like I've had cats flash badges at me, the whole number. You take a green kid who just got to town and all she's got to see is a silver shield and she'll curl up in a corner and have kittens. I'm supercool myself. I take a good look at the badge and it turns out to be a toy thing that a little kid'll get to go with his cap pistol. Don't laugh, I mean it. I've had that happen."

"And what do they want from you? Money?"

"Oh, they pretend it's a gag after I pick up on them. But it's no gag. I've had them want money, but mostly all they want is to get fucked for free."

"And they flash a toy badge."

"I've seen badges you'd swear came out of crackerjack boxes."

"Men are weird animals."

"Oh, men and women both, honey. I'll tell you something. Everybody's weird, fundamentally everybody is a snap. Sometimes it's a sexual thing and sometimes it's a different kind of weirdness, but one way or another everybody's nuts. You, me, the whole world."

It wasn't particularly difficult to discover that Leon J. Manch had been appointed assistant deputy mayor a year and a half ago. All it took was a short session in the Forty-second Street library. There were a variety of Mannses and Mantzes in the volume of the Times Index I consulted, but none of them seemed to have anything significant to do with the current administration. Manch was mentioned only once in the Times Indexes for the past five years. The story dealt with his appointment, and I went to the trouble of reading the article in the microfilm room. It was a brief article, and Manch was one of half a dozen people treated in it; about all it did was announce that he'd been appointed and identify him as a member of the bar. I learned nothing about his age, residence, marital status, or much of anything else. It didn't say he was a toilet slave, but I already knew that.

I couldn't find him in the Manhattan telephone book. Maybe he lived in another borough, or outside of the city limits altogether. Maybe he had an unlisted phone or listed it in his wife's name. I called City Hall and was told that he'd left for the day. I didn't even try for his home number.

I called her from a bar on Madison and Fifty-first called O'Brien's. The bartender's name was Nick, and I knew him because he had worked at Armstrong's a year or so ago. We assured each other that it was a small world, bought each other a few drinks, and then I went to the phone booth in the back and dialed her number. I had to look it up in my notebook.

When she answered I said, "It's Matthew. Can you talk?"

"Hello. Yes, I can talk. I'm all alone here. My sister and her husband drove in from Bayport and picked up the children this morning. They'll be staying out there for, oh, for a while, anyway. They thought it would be better for the children and easier for me. I didn't really want them to take the kids, but I didn't have the strength to argue, and maybe they're right, maybe it's better this way."

"You sound a little shaky."

"Not shaky. Just very drawn, very worn out. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

"I wish you were here."

"So doI."

"Oh, dear. I wish I knew how I felt about all of this. It frightens me. Do you know what I mean?"