Ronald Tierney - Good To The Last Kiss - Crimes of the Depraved Mind Series

‘Not any more. Nothing fucking bothers me.’

‘Why don’t you put your pants on?’ Gratelli said, getting up and grabbing the pants that had been carelessly tossed on the floor. As he handed them to McClellan, the wallet fell out.

‘Why?’ McClellan said. ‘We going somewhere?’

‘No.’

‘The President going to pay us a visit?’ McClellan tossed the pants on the other side of the bed. ‘I spilled something on them.’

‘Then take off your coat and tie, for Christ sakes,’ Gratelli said.

McClellan smiled big. ‘What’s this to you.’

‘You look silly,’ Gratelli said.

McClellan laughed. ‘I am silly. Fucking silly.’

‘Your kid?’ Gratelli said, picking up a small, faded color portrait of a young blonde teenage girl. An old photo.

‘No, I bought it in a museum. Who the hell would it be?’ McClellan said, his big grin getting smaller. ‘Look, what is this?’

‘Nothing,’ Gratelli said. ‘Just seemed like you needed somebody to talk to.’

‘About what?’

‘I don’t know. Things.’

‘I can go to confession.’

‘Good for you,’ Gratelli said. ‘I don’t want you doing anything stupid.’

‘That’s the way I do everything,’ McClellan said.

‘You want to talk about it?’

‘It?’ McClellan shook his head. ‘It? It what? What it?’

‘Your life. Your marriage. Something’s going on.’

‘I haven’t paid attention to my wife in fifteen years. She decides to leave me and I’m all fucked up about it. Figure. I got two kids, moved out of the house long time ago. I’m not even sure I said goodbye or good luck. I feel deserted, sad. Figure that! I ignore my entire family forever, and I feel deserted because I’m not close to any one of them. I don’t know them. I got nothing. I got no life.’

‘Wait a…’

‘No you wait. It gets better. I make good money. There’s people in India begging. I got more than enough to eat. There’s hundreds of thousands of people starving in Africa. I’m healthy. There are people sick all over the world. Name it. Cancer. AIDS, diseases they ain’t even got names for. I’m fucking sorry for myself. Why? What right…?’

‘No, you’re angry because you can’t do anything about it.’

‘I can’t do anything about anything. We got this killer. Seems like we got killers all over the place.’

‘Do what you can.’

McClellan stood up, went to the window. ‘It’s a dump, Gratelli. A fuckin’ dump.’

‘You all right?’

‘You thinking of leaving now? I had a perfectly good drunk going on and you come in here, get me sobered up. For what? There’s this world and then there’s nothing. Do you know how fucking frightening that is?’

‘I thought you were Catholic.’

‘Thanks a hell of a lot. That helps. Something worse than nothing. You find it.’ He turned. He was grinning. ‘Gratelli, you’re a real pisser. What in the hell are you doing here?’

‘You want to grab a bite to eat?’ Gratelli asked.

‘What are you doing here. You don’t even like me.’

Gratelli winced.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What do I mean? That’s a laugh.’

‘I know you are trying to do your job.’

‘You don’t like me.’

‘There’s a lot about you I don’t like,’ Gratelli said. ‘That’s true. But I’m here aren’t I? Doesn’t that count for something? Maybe I don’t want to go steady with you Mickey, but since I’m here, do you want to go out for a bite to eat?’

McClellan came back to the bed, shaking his head. He seemed amused.

‘No. What I’d like to do is get on with my drunk. Short of that… forced to accept your Boy Scout efforts to help an old lady across the street whether she wants to go or not, I’d like to sober up, shower, change my clothes. I could use a pack of cigarettes. I’ll put some coffee on,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you wouldn’t mind going out and getting me a pack of Camels?’

Gratelli thought his partner looked relaxed for the first time. Oddly, he seemed suddenly sober. Suddenly lucid.

E arl Falwell woke up for the third time that night. For a few moments after each, he thought he was still in the cell with Cobra. The little asshole had got to him. More ways than one. Each time Falwell woke, not sure he was out of the dream, he sighed in relief, letting his head drift back into the pillow. He’d glance at the tiny but constantly burning night light for reassurance and close his eyes.

But this last time he couldn’t get back to sleep. Earl was troubled by the idea that the cops connected him to the girls’ deaths. Those thoughts put other thoughts in his head, starting with the girls. The killings. The time after the killings. Earl searched his mind for better pictures. Clearer pictures.

He had the same problem in prison. He could not bring them into his mind clearly. The faces were no longer distinctly separate. He felt empty. There was nothing to feed his fantasy. He wasn’t ready to go out; but he was ready to settle his mind – to reconstruct, to excite himself, to satisfy himself, to sleep. To make all of these confusing thoughts go away. To stop all of this from eating him alive.

There was nothing he could do tonight. He hadn’t been able to pick up his Camaro. Tomorrow was the earliest. If he could get the bucks.

He would try harder. He lit the candles, put on the CD. He slipped off his underwear and slid into bed, uncovered, trying hard to clear his mind. He didn’t like the feel of his body. It was softer. Too soft.

Earl Falwell could tell. He couldn’t get it, couldn’t get the thing going that would bring him rest. Must be because it’s his first day out. The cop questions. Got him all jumbled up inside his head. Got him thinking about things he didn’t want to think about. He got to thinking about his sister and about what his dad did to her. And what he did to him. About jail. About Cobra. Earl didn’t want to think about this shit. If he couldn’t get it off his mind lying there, he’d have to get out.

He slid over the edge of the bed, dressed. It would be cold outside. He couldn’t remember a warm, San Francisco night. And there had been precious few dry ones.

Even so, he wasn’t prepared for the hard rain.

It was still dark in San Francisco. Five a.m. Earl Falwell had not yet slept. He dressed in the near dark, faced the dark outside when he opened the front door. He walked north on Stanyan, past Haight and the entrance to Golden Gate Park, to Page Street, then headed east. It was cold. The rain angled at him. Pellets stung his face. It felt good. He walked through the darkened street.

Most of the homes and buildings were dark; but there were lights on here and there. Earl wondered what was going on in all those rooms. He attempted to imagine all the rooms in the city, in the country, in the world and how many different things were going on. People eating, sleeping, pissing, bathing, working, watching TV, fucking, killing. He wondered if anyone was being killed now. He was sorry he did not have his car.

He cut over to Oak Street, then headed east again. He saw someone on the grassy strip known as the Panhandle, which, if you looked on a map, was a kind of rude finger of Golden Gate Park sticking back into the city between Oak and Fell. Earl moved toward the figure. It was hooded and hunched against the rain, but facing Earl as he approached.

At first Earl thought it was a girl. The figure was slight.

‘What’s up?’ Earl asked.

‘Not much. How about you?’

‘Bored. Just walking.’ The face was young, male. So was the voice.

‘Yeah, me too. Bored.’

‘And lonely?’ Earl asked.

‘Who isn’t?’