Wolfe: Devil in the Pale Moon Light

Part 1 of Just Right

The thing about Red was that she had a big heart. She had big eyes, too — “the better to see you with,” she said, and everybody laughed. But nobody was ever looking at her eyes. That wasn’t the point. With tits like that, her eye color was never in question, if you know what I mean.

Right now, though, nobody in the small crowd was looking at her eyes or her tits, and the size of her heart no longer mattered. She was face down in a pool of her own blood — as dead as the grandmother she’d put in the ground six years ago. Flat out in the alley behind Smiley’s Cabaret, a horrifying mess that I’d stumbled upon less than twenty minutes ago. It was two in the morning, and I was four shots in now…and that’s just since I came back around after our latest screaming match, which I’d lost only because I’d so thoroughly won it.

Hummel’s Piano Sonata №5 tinkled in my ears while I stood back, staring at the surreal scene that was laid out before me, staring at the body, afraid to touch it again. I’d already checked the scene, briefly checked the body. Two uniforms responded to the 911 call faster than I believed possible, and I’d sent them over to keep the gawkers at bay. Then I flopped down on that back step of Smiley’s, fumbling for my flask under the pale-yellow light, waiting on my boys. I sipped the bitter whiskey again, felt the emptiness in my hand. The alleyway swam in front of my eyes, threatening to upend the body, to show me the deep wound I’d discovered where the butcher knife had gone into her sweet, tender flesh. The weapon itself was lying guiltily only a few inches from the body, a stainless-steel ship in an ocean of blood.

I took another sip and tried to shut off my brain.

She was dead, there was a bloody knife nearby and there was nothing else to report. Nothing. Squat. Zip. Zilch. It wasn’t the kind of crime scene that I’d have hoped for, but I hadn’t expected to find a crime scene when I stopped by.

Just a little stroll, a last minute decision and a long walk back along Avenue A to Smiley’s with another in a long string of apologies dripping from my whiskey-soaked lips. I didn’t do the subway this late in La La Land, and it was better if I walked, let my head clear a little. Besides, the subway is brimming with assholes at this time of night, and when I’m off-duty, I don’t want to have to flash my badge or kick some punk’s ass. That was happening all too often as it was.

I lit a cigarette and flicked the match at the storm drain where the blood had leaked into the sewer. I saw a cigarette butt there, watched it teeter on the edge and then fall in. We already had a mess back here, but this one Homicide would have to clean up. New York’s Finest on duty 24/7. And even when we’re off-duty, we’re still on. It never ends when you’re a cop.

“On top of this one, eh, Wolfe? Like always. Big Bad in the house!”

I closed my eyes for a second, letting the Hummel and the unfiltered Ultra soothe my soul before I pulled out the earbuds and tapped the pause button on my phone. They’d taken their sweet fucking time, but I wasn’t surprised. Still I was waiting until they arrived one way or another. This was a crime scene, after all. Once a cop, always a cop. On duty, off duty, even suspended without pay. I half-turned, unwilling to even give the Three Pigs the respect of a full-faced reply. “I was in the neighborhood.”

“Under the hood, more like it, huh, Sparky?”

The three cops stepped into view on my left. Two of them were identical twins and the third just an older version of them, but all three had identical voices like cartoon mice from Brooklyn. I had trouble telling them apart when I wasn’t looking their way. I waited for the oldest to speak up and take the lead, like he always did, leaving the other two little bastards to squeal and scratch their nuts and play grab-ass on the side. Two asshats snickering to one another.

“Yeah, Jeep. Under,” said Sparky.

“Respect, boys. Be cool. What we got here is a possible murder. Where’s your respect?” The last voice belonged to Pie.

“It’s in my other garter belt. I left it at home.”

I didn’t call them the Three Pigs for nothing. Neither did anyone else.

“You mean ‘burlesque dancer’, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Burlesque. Vaudeville. All that. She’s got talent, that one. She’s going places.”

“Yeah, the morgue.”

When I stood, they could see the red in my eyes, the murder there, and all three took a step back.

Pie glanced down at the body, then back at me, and I could see the understanding crossing his jowl-like cheeks. When I took a step forward, he acted quickly, putting his hefty waistline between me and the porkers by the door. He half-looked over his shoulder and barked out some quick orders to clear his idiot brothers the fuck out of the alley. “Sparky, you and Jeep get inside and start talking to everyone. And I mean fucking everyone. Hey, but lay off the titties. Do police work; get your knobs waxed on your own time. I’ll wait for Mikey to get here with forensics, and then we’ll see about cause of death and whatnot. We got ourselves a crime scene, and we need to start gathering evidence.”

They snorted and scrambled through the back door, then he turned back to me. “What you got?”

“Nothing much. Maybe prints on this knife.” I pointed at it — standard butcher knife found in any kitchen — almost definitely from Smiley’s. He served regular bar fare; that is, he served dead shit that resembled food, but they’d have a butcher knife, and this was probably it. That meant there were likely a half dozen prints on it just from the night staff, some of whom would have already gone home at this hour.

“Stabbing, huh?” Pie said.

I swallowed, still unwilling to look directly at him. I was focused on the dark auburn of her hair and how it covered her pale face, as if she didn’t want me to see it was her, my angel. “Single stab wound in the abdomen, lower left quadrant. Messy. Lots of blood. Might have nicked the femoral around the hip. T-shirt torn at the neck; might be where the perp grabbed her collar to go for the kill. No other sign of a struggle. No footprints. My guess is no one saw anything.”

“You see anything? Anything out of the ordinary?” He stepped closer and I could smell his cologne. He must have inherited it from his grandfather. Too many Old Spice commercials, but it smelled better than bacon.

“No. Just got here. I was here about an hour or so ago. She did her thing on stage; had a drink with me. Then she was off to work the crowd. We talked again, then I left. Long walk down Soho. Came back. They said she was in the kitchen. Went through and came back here and found her. Sometimes she comes back here to smoke.”

“What you come back for? Private show? You got money to spend? Aren’t you still suspended for that beat down you put on the purse snatcher? Figured you’d be spending your dough on important shit like yoga and new age music and self-help books. Or you still putting down the dollar bills and the whiskey instead? She was a tight piece of ass, that’s for sure. Banging hooters. I’d have paid a cool hundred to have her take a shit on me.”

As soon as the last word came out of his mouth, I saw him stiffen as the little chipmunk on the treadmill struggled to keep up with his jabbering.

I stared at Pie, feeling the blood pulsing in my temples. It wasn’t the booze taking hold either. It was something much worse. His beady little eyes were fixed on the corpse, and they stayed that way as if he knew not to look back my way. His pie hole twitched under his turned-up nose and that shitty little Hitler caterpillar he had growing there. I waited, feeling the tension in my balled up fists building, waiting for just one more word from his yap. But he just stood there, fidgeting, his fat gut straining his cheap button down, the tie loose around his engorged neck so his face didn’t turn any redder than walking already made it. He was like a pimple I was about to pop. Just a little more pressure…

“Pie!” Mikey popped out through the back door, and I felt the tension go out of the room. Two more uniforms were behind him to seal off the alley, and I knew it was time to go.

“Big Bad.” Mikey nodded, and I nodded back. Good kid — young but really sharp, a hero in forensics. He’d find whatever needed to be found. That was all I could ask.

I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets. “You got this. I’m outta here.” I knew when to quit. I didn’t need to hit a cop; not tonight. I looked down at Red, suddenly felt the need to brush the hair out of her face.

“I’m gonna need a statement from you, Wolfe,” said Pie, finally turning back to face me. “Procedure. Dead bitch in the alley and you called it in.”

“Fuck you. I’ll come in tomorrow for a statement.” I flicked the butt of the Ultra at his shoes and turned away. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the whir-whir of the ambulance’s siren. Another body to collect in this shit hole they called La La Land, aka the Lower East Side.

I left her laying there, alone in a crowd of strangers, gawkers passing by and patrons that had gotten a whiff of the murder. Hands in pockets, I turned the corner — but not before looking back at the sad little scene: a dead woman under the spotlight of a dangling bulb. A woman I was in love with. Was.

You can read the first twenty episodes of this thirty-five-part neo-noir tale on my website right now for free: SJ Stone Author