Dave Zeltserman - Bad Thoughts

He put the receiver down and stared expressionlessly at Pig Dornich. “I have to go,” he said, his voice dead tired. “Police work. Give me a call in a few hours. Maybe I’ll drive around with you and fill you in some more. Maybe we can even find the sonofabitch.”

February 12. Midday.

The first thing he felt was the throbbing in his fingers; next he felt the cold. Shannon lifted his head and found himself squinting against the sunlight. As his eyes adjusted to the light he realized he was lying in a basement of what was probably an abandoned building. The sunlight he was squinting against was coming through a broken window.

The overall effect was disorienting. After all, one second Shannon had been in the Black Rose working on a bottle of bourbon the slow way, shot by shot, and the next he was lying on a hard, cold floor in some foreign basement.

He knew what had happened. That he had been gone since that second at the Black Rose. He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked over his hands, making sure there were no gashes or cuts. He quickly checked his fingers, feeling for frostbite and then felt over his body probing for any injuries or broken bones. It brought to mind a story he once read about a leper who was constantly checking himself for cuts, always worried about gangrene setting in. That was what it had come to for Shannon also, being unaware of what damage, if any, he had been doing to his body. For all he knew he could’ve been sitting there bleeding to death.

But he wasn’t. His skin felt cold and raw but there were no cuts or broken bones. He ran a hand over his face and felt that his skin was intact; a few day’s growth but no damage. His nose and ears felt numb but they didn’t feel frostbitten.

He pulled himself to his feet. Other than the throbbing in the fingers of his right hand, he didn’t feel that bad. Kind of dry in the mouth and his legs a little wobbly, but other than that, not that bad.

He was still wearing the same clothes as when he was drinking at the Black Rose. They were pretty much a mess. With some relief he found his wallet and badge were still in his pockets. He pulled out his wallet. There was still money in it.

The basement had a dank, musty smell. It was, for the most part, empty; a few broken bottles and some bags of garbage but not much else. He walked over to the broken window. There were pieces of glass lying along the floor underneath it.

Shannon walked up a small flight of stairs and found the door nailed shut. The wood, though, was rotting. He braced himself and then kicked it down. A couple of crack heads were sitting in the hallway smoking some stone. One of them was completely oblivious to him, the other one looked up from his pipe, kind of surprised.

“Hey, man,” he asked, “what were you doing down there?”

“Hell if I know,” Shannon said. He walked over them. The oblivious crack head never looked up. The other crack head started swearing.

“That’s right,” he sputtered out, indignant. “Just walk over us like we’re trash.”

Shannon ignored him. He heard some more crack heads upstairs arguing about who owed who for what they were smoking. The front entranceway had been boarded up but some of the boards had been pulled loose. As Shannon was squeezing through the opening, he heard the indignant crack head yelling at him.

“Just kick down other people’s doors like they’re your own,” he was yelling. “No respect for other people’s property. No goddamn respect.”

It turned out he wasn’t that far from home. The abandoned building was in Roxbury, a section of Boston located only a few miles from Cambridge. He bought a newspaper and was relieved to see that he’d only been gone five days. Five days was better than a week. Still, it was five days that were lost to him. Five days of doing God knows what. A chill ran through him. Like usual, whatever he was doing, he wasn’t eating a hell of a lot. His clothes felt loose on him. At least this time, though, he wasn’t sick. At least he made it past February tenth in one piece. He had to be thankful for little favors. When he tried hailing down a cab, the driver attempted to swerve past him, but Shannon stepped out in front of the cab and held out his police badge. The driver pulled over and Shannon climbed in and gave him his address.

As they approached the triple-decker that his apartment was in, Shannon saw the squad cars lining the street. DiGrazia was standing in front of the house next to his talking with a uniformed cop. Their eyes locked on each other. DiGrazia started moving in a trot towards the cab. He was at the door as Shannon stepped from it.

DiGrazia was breathing hard from his run. “Well, well,” he grinned. “The prodigal son has returned. And looking kind of ripe at that.”

Shannon couldn’t help returning the grin. DiGrazia was looking worse than him. Along with the dark circles under his partner’s eyes, the little hair DiGrazia had left was streaked with dirt and his clothes looked like they had been slept in.

“At least I have an excuse,” Shannon said. “What’s yours?”

“What’s mine?” DiGrazia sputtered. “You sonofabitch. I’ve been out every goddamn night looking for you. I haven’t slept in five days. That’s my goddamn excuse.” DiGrazia hesitated and then lowered his voice. “What have you been up to?”

“I don’t know. I just woke up, so to speak.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t look like your rest did you much good.” He paused, considering Shannon. “At least you’re back in one piece.”

“It looks that way. About spending your nights looking for me, I’d like to thank you.”

“Yeah, sure you would. You really don’t know what you’ve been doing?”

Shannon shook his head. “No idea. About an hour ago I came out of it in a crack house in Roxbury.” He hesitated. “How’s Susie been?”

“She hasn’t left you yet. My ex sure would’ve.” Exhaustion passed over DiGrazia’s thick face, giving his flesh a wasted look. “I’m glad to see you, pal. I’ll tell you, after the last week being run ragged both on the job and looking for you, I’m having a tough time thinking straight. Did you know Rose Hartwell?”

“Ah, shit. What happened to her?”

“You did know her?”

“Yeah, I know her. I know everyone on this street. What happened?”

DiGrazia started to say something and then stopped himself. For whatever reason he got cute. “You better look for yourself.”

“All right. Let me wash up first-”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. You’re fine. Fresh as a goddamn daisy.” DiGrazia had an arm around Shannon’s shoulders and was veering him away from his building towards the triple-decker Rose Hartwell lived in. As they walked, DiGrazia asked whether Shannon knew if the Hartwells were having marital problems.

“Yeah,” Shannon said, “I think things had kind of hit bottom for them.”

“That’s what I’ve been hearing,” DiGrazia said.

There were about a half dozen plainclothes cops milling through Hartwell’s apartment, all grim-faced, all wearing beige or maroon sports jackets. Shannon didn’t recognize any of them. Rose Hartwell was waiting for them in the kitchen. She was lying on a small table, fully clothed, a knife sticking out of her mouth. She was dead. Gary Aukland was standing off to one side while a thin man with a short marine-style haircut examined the body. The man had an unnaturally pale complexion with lips that were way too red. His facial bones seemed to shine through colorless, translucent skin. Shannon didn’t know him, either. DiGrazia murmured in his ear, “FBI.”

There was no shock as Shannon looked at the body. He was surprised how calm he felt. Almost serene. It was as if he’d been expecting this for a long time. Maybe not Rose Hartwell, but someone. He asked the FBI examiner how long the woman had been dead. The man sniffed in the air as if he smelled something and then muttered about them having to wait for a report. Aukland cleared his throat and said it probably happened early in the morning. He moved his head to one side, signaling towards the living room. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go talk.”