Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard

  The doctor was busy making notes, shielding the pad with his left arm. "How long were you on the Bomb Squad?"

  "Six years. I started out in radio cars, Twelfth Precinct. Sometimes I worked plainclothes. You know there's quite a gay community there, around Palmer Park, and when you have that, you have fairy hawks, muggers that specialize in gays. I'd dress up like a fruitcake and stroll through the park, you know, asking for it."

  "That sounds like entrapment."

  "It does, doesn't it. I transferred to Arson, I had some experience in that area from before. Three years I worked for an insurance company as a claims investigator. But I didn't care much for Arson. Walk around in water in burned-out buildings, your clothes smell all the time. I think that might've been the reason the second young lady walked out. I had to hang my clothes by an open window. So I transferred to the Bomb Squad."

  "Why did you do that?"

  "I just told you, to get out of Arson."

  "I mean why did you choose the Bomb Squad?"

  "I knew the guys there, I'd run into them."

  "Was there another reason, a motivating factor?"

  There might've been. Chris wasn't sure if it made sense or if he should bring it up.

  "Something you wanted to prove to yourself?"

  "Like what?"

  "Say a test of your manhood."

  "My manhood?" Chris looked over his shoulder at the doctor in the lab coat, head down, writing away. "Why would handling explosives be a test of your manhood? It can end your manhood in a hurry, blow your balls off."

  He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it.

  "That's why I suggest you might have approached it as a test, a challenge."

  Chris said, "You don't stay on a job six years to prove something. You have to like it. There's risk, sure. You accept that going in and you handle it, or you get out." Chris waited. The young doctor was hiding back there writing again, drawing conclusions, making judgments about him. Chris said, "I don't know what attracted me. . . . There was something I've wondered about that happened in Vietnam, if it had anything to do with it. You know, like in my subconscious mind."

  The voice said, "You were in Vietnam?"

  "It doesn't seem to have a direct connection, though."

  "What doesn't?"

  "See, when I was over there I was assigned to a Recon-Intelligence platoon, working with mostly a bunch of ARVNs. You know what I mean? South Vietnamese, supposedly the good guys. One of my jobs was to interrogate prisoners they'd bring in and then recommend their disposition."

  "Meaning how to dispose of them?"

  "Meaning what to do with them. Let 'em go, send 'em back to Brigade . . . but that's not what I'm talking about. Well, it is and it isn't."

  There was a silence. Chris tried to think of the right words, ways to begin. One sunny day I was sitting in the R and I hootch at Khiem Hanh. . . .

  "The day I'm talking about, I was sent out to question a guy the ARVNs believed was working for the Vietcong. An informer with a sack over his head had fingered the guy and they pulled him out of his village. I got there, they have this old man standing barefoot on a grenade with the pin pulled, his toes curled around to hold the lever in place and his hands tied behind his back. I never saw anybody so scared in my life. They have him behind a mud wall that used to be part of a house, in case his foot slipped off and the grenade blew. I had to talk to the guy across the wall with my interpreter hunched down behind it; he refused to stand up. The rest of them, the ARVNs, they're off about thirty meters or so having a smoke. Anyway, I ask the old guy a few questions. He doesn't know anything about the VC, he's a farmer. He's crying, he's shaking he's so scared, trying to keep his foot on the grenade. He can't even name his own kids. I tell the ARVNs the guy's clean, come on put the pin back in and let him go. By the time I cut him loose I look up, the fucking ARVNs are walking off, going home. I go after 'em partway, I'm yelling, 'Where's the goddamn pin?' They don't know. They point, it's over there somewhere, on the ground. I yell some more. 'Well, help me find the goddamn thing. We can't leave the guy like that.' One of them says, 'Tell him to pick it up and throw it away.' They didn't care. They walk off laughing, think it's funny. Some of those guys, they even knew the old man. They knew he wasn't VC, but they didn't care. They walked away." Chris paused. Man, just thinking about it . . .

  "I crawled around looking for the pin, finally gave up. The old man's crying--there was no way he could handle that grenade. The only thing I could think of, have him step off, I'd pick it up quick and throw it. But I couldn't tell him what I wanted to do, my fucking interpreter was gone. I did try, I went through the motions; but you could see he didn't understand. The poor guy couldn't think straight. The only thing I could do was walk up to him, push him aside and grab it. But I had to keep him calm. I walk up to him, I'm going, 'Don't worry, Papa. Nothing to get excited about.' I'm about as far as that door from him he can't do it anymore. He comes running at me, lunges and grabs hold, and in the five seconds we had I couldn't get the guy off me. I could not get him off. I tried to drag him out of there. . . ." Chris stared at the doctor's diploma hanging on the bare institutional wall.

  "The grenade blew with the old man hanging onto me. It killed him and tore up both of my legs. I was in-country fifteen weeks and out of the army."

  There was a long silence followed by faint sounds, the serious young doctor tapping his ballpoint pen on the desk, clearing his throat.

  "As you approached the old man, Sergeant Mankowski, were you aware of being afraid?"

  "Was I afraid? Of course I was afraid, I was scared to death."

  "All right, but you also felt, I believe, a deep hostility toward the ARVN soldiers."

  I have to get out of here, Chris thought.

  "So that, in effect, it was your intense anger that enabled you to overcome your fear."

  "That must've been it," Chris said, "my hostility."

  "But now, in comparable high-risk situations, your fear is no longer dampened, let's say, by acute feelings of anger. It's out in the open and you have to deal with it. A fear which you equate, specifically, with the loss of your hands."

  Chris turned in the chair, quick, and caught the sneak looking at him, saw his eyes there for a moment in round glasses.

  "I'm not worried about my hands, Phyllis is."

  The doctor had his head down again, checking his notes. "You said, quote, 'I started thinking about my hands. I'd be looking at them without even realizing I was doing it.' "

  "Because of Phyllis."

  "You're looking at them right now."

  Chris put his hands in his lap, locked his fingers together and stared straight ahead at the asshole doctor's diploma. The thing to do was just answer yes or no, don't argue. Finish and get out.

  There was a silence.

  "I'm told a fatality occurred yesterday, a bomb exploded. What was the circumstance of the man's death?"

  Chris said, "We believe the deceased attempted to outrun a substance that explodes at the rate of fifteen thousand feet per second and didn't make it."

  There was another silence.

  "You did everything you could?"

  "I'll get you my Case Assigned report if you want to read it."

  The silence this time was longer. Chris began to think maybe they were finished.

  "Are you aware of other fears?"

  "Like what?"

  "Are you afraid of animals, insects?"

  Chris hesitated, giving it some thought before saying, "I don't like spiders." That would be safe; nobody in the world liked spiders.

  The doctor said, "Oh? That's interesting, a fear of spiders."

  "I didn't say I was afraid of spiders, I said I didn't like them."

  "Do you think you might be trying to minimize, substitute dislike for fear? I pose the question, Sergeant Mankowski, because a fear of spiders can indicate a dysfunction in the area of sexual identification. Or, more precisely, a fear of bisexuality."

  Ch
ris stood up. He turned his chair around and sat down again, facing the doctor.

  "You trying to tell me if I don't like spiders it means I go both ways?"

  The young doctor looked up. For the first time his gaze in the round glasses held.

  "You seem to feel threatened."

  "Look, they send me over here, it's supposed to be a routine exam. Has my job been getting to me? I feel any stress? No, I just want a transfer, on account of Phyllis. Now you're trying to tell me I have a problem."

  "I haven't suggested you have a problem."

  "Then what're you trying to do, with the spiders?"

  The young doctor kept looking right at him now. "I'm suggesting the spider is a symbol--if you want a clinical explanation--that externalizes a more threatening impulse. One that quite possibly indicates a pregenital fear of bisexual genitalia, usually in the form of a phallic wicked mother."

  Chris kept staring at the young doctor, who stared right back at him and said, "Does that answer your question?"

  Chris said, "Yes, it does, thank you," and felt some relief; because all the guy was doing, he was playing doctor with him, showing off. Little asshole sitting there in his lab coat with all those words in his head to dump on the dumb cop, giving him that pregenital genitalia bullshit. There was no way to compete with the guy. The best thing to do was to nod, agree. So when the doctor asked him:

  "What's your feeling about snakes?"

  Chris said, "I like snakes, a lot. I've never had any trouble with snakes."

  The doctor was still looking at him, hanging on, not wanting to let go. "You understand that your previous assignment could be psychosocially debilitating?"

  Chris said, "Sure, I can understand that."

  "Then there's the correlation between your fear of spiders and your desire to prove, through the handling of high explosives, your manhood. I believe you suggested the work could be emasculating. It can, quote, 'blow your balls off.' "

  "That's an expression," Chris said. "You don't have to take it literally." He watched the sneaky doctor nod, thinking up something else.

  "By the way, have you ever experienced impotence?"

  Chris took his time. He didn't see a trap, so he said, "No, as a matter of fact, I haven't. Not once in my life."

  "Really?"

  "I've got witnesses."

  "Well, it's not important."

  Chris stared at the doctor's lowered head, the thin, carefully combed hair. "You don't believe me, do you?"

  The doctor tapped his pen without looking up. "I suppose you could be one of the rare exceptions."

  "To what?"

  "Well, in a study made at the University of Munster--that's in West Germany," the doctor said, looking up--"tests showed that assertive, self-confident, macho-type males, if you will, were found almost invariably to have a low sperm count."

  "That's interesting," Chris said. "We finished here?" He got up, not waiting for an answer, said, "I have to get back, clean out my desk . . ." and saw the guy's innocent young-doctor face raise with a pleasant expression.

  "Yes, you're leaving Bombs and Explosives. What we haven't yet discussed is where you're going. How did you put it, 'Up to the seventh floor and down at the other end of the hall'?"

  The doctor waited as Chris sat down again.

  "You seem somewhat agitated."

  "I'm fine."

  "You're sure?"

  "I'm supposed to meet Phyllis at Galligan's." Chris looked at his watch: it was four twenty. "At five."

  The young doctor said, "We shouldn't be too much longer," and smiled. He did, he smiled for the first time, looked right at Chris and said, "What I'm curious about, and perhaps you can explain, why you've requested a transfer to Sex Crimes."

  Chapter 4.

  Skip swallowed the tiny square of blotter acid, smaller than the nail of his little finger, dropped it with a sip of beer and got comfortable to wait for the cleansing head show to begin. The seams of the plastic chair were coming apart but it was fine, deep and cushy. The only thing that bothered him was the light, it was so bright in here facing that bare white wall and no shade on the lamp. It smelled like Robin had been painting, trying to make the dump presentable.

  Here she was back in their old neighborhood, a low-rent apartment on Canfield near Wayne State, where they'd hung out years ago in their elephant bells, got stoned and laid and would slip off on dark nights to mess with the straight world. Back when this was the inner-city place to be.

  That naked lamp was flashing now, pretending it was lightning, streaking across the bare white wall. Sometimes when he dropped acid everything would become suspended and float in space. Or things would come at him, like a person's nose, clear across a room. Robin came out of the kitchen with two cans of Stroh's and sure as hell her arm extended about ten feet to hand him one. It was pretty good blotter. She was speaking now.

  "I've missed you. You know how long it's been?"

  Only she finished before all the words got to him. This was something new. Skip raised his hand, waved it in front of him and felt water. That's why the sound of her voice was slowed up. She asked him what he was doing. He said, "Nothing." It was like being in a swimming pool lined with bookshelves full of books and a ton of old underground newspapers she'd saved; Robin now sitting against the desk piled with folders and notebooks and shit, the bare white wall behind her. Her lips moved. Now he heard:

  "When was the last time we were together?"

  Skip said, "You kidding?" Saw dates flash in his mind and had to pick the right one. "April of 'seventy-nine in federal court."

  Robin shook her head and the water became sparkly, fizzed up like club soda.

  "I don't count that. I mean the last time we were alone together."

  "Well, that was in L.A.," Skip said. "Sure, that motel on La Cienega where Jim Morrison and the Doors used to stay."

  "That's how you remember it?"

  "Right off of Sunset. You walked in I didn't know if it was you or some light-skinned colored chick, your hair was all frizzed up in a natural. I go, Who is this, Angela Davis? Once I saw it was you underneath all that hair I couldn't get my clothes off fast enough." Skip grinned at the motel scenes popping in his head until he heard Robin say:

  "You were Scott Wolf then and I was Betsy Bender. And five days later we were picked up."

  "I'd gone to Venice," Skip said, "to get some dope. . . . I don't know how anybody could've recognized us, you especially, with that 'fro." And heard her say:

  "I didn't either, at the time. I thought, Well, maybe it's just as well. You think it's going to be fun living underground, thrills and chills. I was never so bored in my life."

  "I wasn't," Skip said. "I got into different gigs, some a little hairier'n others. I robbed a bank one time."

  He heard Robin say something he believed was "Far out." Impressed, but calm about it. Not too surprised.

  "Just the one, I didn't like those cameras they had looking at you. I held up some other places, grocery stores, Seven-Elevens. I liked Seven-Elevens except they don't pay much."

  He watched her fooling with her braid. As she stroked it the end curled up and came toward him from across the room. Skip reached up to touch it.

  "What're you doing?"

  "Nothing."

  He dropped his hand to the back of his head and felt his ponytail hanging there, behaving itself. He watched Robin take a sip of beer. Saw her eyes raise from the can; not wearing her glasses now. Saw her tongue touch her lips and waited for it to come at him, flick out like a snake's tongue. There was a little snake in her. She could hit you quick with a word or throw something when you least expected. She looked fine, not another one like her. The tongue slipped back in her mouth and Skip said, "You ever get laid underwater?"

  "Not lately."

  She looked like she was waiting to see if he remembered a time. The same as at the restaurant yesterday, it was like she was giving him a memory quiz, going back to things that happened during the past
almost twenty years. She was asking him now:

  "Were you zonked when you pulled the robberies?"

  "You think I'm crazy? 'Course I was."

  "Did you use a gun?"

  "Not in the bank, it was spur of the moment. But after that one I did." He watched her take another sip of beer.

  "Did you ever kill anyone?"

  The sparkling water settled and he could see her waiting for him to answer, then smiling a little, holding the smile on him before she said:

  "You have, haven't you?"

  "I almost killed a guy with a sword one time. I had it in mind."

  "Working in the movies?"

  "Over in Spain. But the one you want to hear about--how I rigged a guy's car with a bomb, huh? Blew when he opened the door. I never met the guy or even saw him, outside of his picture in the L.A. papers, after. It was a dope business thing, this guy pissing on somebody else's territory."

  Robin kept watching him. Interested but not the least bit excited.

  "It was when I was using that safe house in Venice. I'd take a trip some place, come back, and there'd be a new bunch of freaks crashing there. I didn't think anybody knew me, except one time I'm there this geek keeps staring at me like for a couple of days. Finally he goes, 'You aren't Scott Wolf, are you? You're Skip Gibbs. You blew up the army recruiting office in the Detroit Federal Building, September whatever-the-date-was, 1971."

  "September twenty-ninth," Robin said, "my birthday."

  "The geek says he was in the Weathermen at Ann Arbor, but I didn't remember him. He'd fix me up with weed, all I wanted for nothing--see, he was dealing--and then he put me in touch with this Mexican dude that worked for the guy that paid me to do the job. Only I never saw the guy. Only the Weather geek and the Mexican dude."