Mating Season Page 4

  Dance music blared from a boom box. Bobby Cavalo was kneeling on the futon sofa, energetically sodomizing the young woman crouched on her knees and elbows in front of him. She was blond and naked except for a pair of pink over-the-knee socks. Her hips were raised receptively, and her face was buried between the thighs of a second young woman, a brunette, who wore only a black lace camisole and lay propped on a pillow, half-facing the door. A slender young man, clothed, was filming them—a small silver video camera in his hand.

  “Look,” the brunette said, eyelids drooping, left hand still firmly in place on the back of the blonde’s head. “Is the police.” She had a heavy Eastern European accent.

  Cavalo turned, eyes wide. “Fuck me,” he said.

  “Police?” the blonde said, looking blearily over her shoulder. Her hair was in pigtails.

  “Bobby? Minka? Zelenka?” Coffin said. “Is this a bad time?”

  When the girls had gotten dressed and the young man with the camera had agreed to give them a ride home, Bobby Cavalo sat on his futon-sofa, wearing a bathrobe and smoking a cigarette. A jade necklace and a man’s Patek Philippe watch sat on the coffee table in front of him. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s all I took. I swear.”

  Cavalo appeared to be in the process of packing for a trip. Clothes and shoes were strewn everywhere; an empty suitcase lay open on the bed.

  Coffin picked up the watch. It was gold, with diamonds around the face. It felt heavy in his palm. “What is this, like, a twenty-thousand-dollar watch?”

  “Fifty,” said Cavalo. “Retail. Look, she was going to give me that watch.”

  “Sure she was,” Coffin said. He put the watch back on the table. “The necklace, too, right?” The necklace was made of twelve large jade beads, all intricately carved. Coffin held it up to the light. Each of the beads depicted, in tiny relief, a woman having sex with an animal: a tiger, a horse, a bear.

  “I don’t know, Bobby,” Lola said. “We’re talking felony theft. Even for a first offense, you’re looking at pretty serious time. Of course, if you’ve got a record . . .”

  “There’s also the two girls,” Coffin said. “They looked pretty young. Are you sure they’re both eighteen?”

  “Okay,” said Cavalo. He held up his hands, palms out: Stop, already. “I shouldn’t have taken them. It was a mistake, okay? I was in a total state of panic.”

  “Of course you were,” Lola said. “Who wouldn’t be?”

  Cavalo frowned and tapped his cigarette ash into a coffee mug. “What do you want, really?” he said. “You’re not here about the watch, are you?”

  “We need the names,” Coffin said. “Of Kenji’s boyfriends.”

  “Fuck,” Cavalo said. “I knew it.” He stuck a hand out in the direction of the open suitcase. “Too goddamn slow. Story of my freaking life.” His hands shook a bit as he lit another cigarette.

  Lola took out her notebook. “You don’t want to help us catch Kenji’s killer?” she said. “How come?”

  “Look,” Cavalo said. “Remember when I told you people were looking for me? I wasn’t fucking kidding. I can’t be a witness in a murder trial, and I can’t have a bunch of reporters snooping around. If I stick around here much longer I’m going to get killed, is what’s going to happen. Plus, some of these boyfriends are going to be pissed if they find out I gave them up.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Cavalo took a deep drag and blew the smoke out through his nose. “Kenji had kind of a thing for married guys—guys who were established, successful.”

  “I thought you said she was rich.”

  “She wasn’t after their money. She just liked guys who were kind of older alpha types. She told me once she wasn’t interested in fucking busboys.” Cavalo picked up the jade necklace and stroked the carved beads with a manicured fingertip. “I think part of it was that they had something to lose if they got caught, you know? It gave her a charge, having that power over them.”

  “Names,” Coffin said.

  “I’ll give you the names I know, but then I’m out of here.”

  Lola wrote fast as Cavalo rattled off a list of names: Stan Carswell, Ed Ramos, Tommy McCurry, Nick Stavros, a couple of others. When he was finished, she said, “You must have been close, the two of you.”

  “What,” said Cavalo, “because she told me a lot of personal stuff?”

  Lola tilted her head but said nothing.

  “She was like that,” Cavalo said. “She was a truth-teller. She always said exactly what she was thinking.”

  Coffin glanced at the list. “What about you? From what you’ve told us, I don’t see how you were her type.”

  Cavalo smiled. “I guess for me she made an exception.”

  “There’s something I’m having trouble with here, Bobby,” Coffin said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You say you’re in a big hurry to get out of town. Your bag’s half packed, even. But before you head out, you decide to shoot a little home video of yourself with Minka and Zelenka?”

  Cavalo pursed his lips, nodding. “I know, it probably seems goofy,” he said, “but it’s business. One of the ways I get paid is by auditioning new girls. My friend Jordan tapes them, then we send the tapes to my producer in New York. He has connections in L.A. They like what they see, next week Zelenka and Minka might be workin’ it out in SoCal, making some real money.”

  “Right,” Coffin said. “While your producer friend holds on to their passports for them.”

  “It’s a business,” Cavalo said. “I didn’t invent it. The girls make good money for not much work, and they don’t have to scrub toilets and sleep on the floor of some fleabag motel. Know what they’d be doing back home in Bosnia, or wherever? Picking turnips, that’s what. Or turning tricks on some street corner.”

  “Digging,” Coffin said.

  “What?”

  “Turnips are a root crop. You don’t pick them, you dig them.” Cavalo looked at Coffin, then at Lola. He seemed confused. “Are we talking about turnips now?”

  “There’s just one more thing,” Coffin said.

  “Oh, man,” Cavalo said, shaking his head. “Here it comes.”

  “Don’t leave town.”

  Cavalo threw up his hands. “I am so fucked. Do you guys know what you’re doing to me?”

  Coffin stood, walked over to the big front window, and gazed out at the harbor. The tide was out. A few small shore birds twittered back and forth in the puny surf, barely visible in the distance. “You’re the principal witness in a homicide investigation, Bobby. If you take off, I’ll have the state police bring you back. Then you can sit in jail for a few months until the investigation’s concluded and the trial’s over.”

  “You can’t do that,” Cavalo said, eyes flashing.

  “Try me,” Coffin said.

  Lola closed her notebook. “Think of it as doing your civic duty, Bobby.”

  “Civic duty,” Cavalo said, rubbing his temples. “Fuck me.”

  ______

  Outside in the Crown Vic, Lola flipped her notebook open. “Six boyfriends,” she said.”

  “Interesting list,” Coffin said. “Kind of an eclectic bunch.”

  “Bobby seems to have been minding Kenji’s business pretty closely,” Lola said. “I wonder why?”

  “Maybe he sensed an opportunity,” Coffin said. “Something he could use someday.”

  “He wasn’t too happy when we told him not to leave town.”

  “No,” Coffin said. “Not happy at all. What are the odds he skips before sundown?”

  “Six married boyfriends, six jealous wives,” Lola said. “I thought my life was complicated. I can’t even date two people at the same time, let alone six.”

  “This is just the six we know about,” Coffin said.

  “Breeders,” Lola said. She shook her head. “Fucking up marriage for the rest of us.”

  “Let’s start at the top,” Coffin said. “We’ll hit Ed Ramos and Stan Carswell tonigh
t, McCurry, Stavros, and the rest first thing tomorrow. If they all alibi out for the time of death, we’ll have to take a look at the wives.”

  Lola turned the key in the Crown Vic’s ignition. “Where to, then? Back to the office?”

  “I’ve got to go home first,” Coffin said. “Jamie’s probably wondering what the hell’s happened to me.”

  “How’s she doing?” Lola said, taking a right onto Route 6A. “I haven’t seen her since she decided to do the whole fertility thing.”

  Coffin touched his mustache. It felt spiky and coarse, in need of trimming. “The Pregnyl’s making her a little crazy, but otherwise she’s doing fine. I’m getting a little worn out, though. I’m too old for this spawning deal.”

  Lola grinned as she steered onto Commercial Street at the Commercial/Bradford split. “Poor you,” she said. “My heart bleeds.”

  “What,” Coffin said, “do I hear a note of envy? What happened to you and what’s-her-name?”

  “Jen,” Lola said. “She decided to get back together with her boyfriend.”

  “That sucks,” Coffin said. “Sorry.”

  “I’ve got other prospects,” Lola said. “Don’t feel sorry for me.” She patted Coffin’s belly. “Maybe you should start going to the gym. Work on the old stamina. You know, a little conditioning.”

  Coffin looked out at the darkening water as it slid between houses on the harbor side of the street. The moon was rising, emerging from Cape Cod Bay like a huge, incandescent head. “Christ,” Coffin said. “The gym. Now there’s an inspiring thought. Nothing like lifting weights to the disco version of ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.’”

  “A fate worse than death,” Lola said.

  “Right,” Coffin said.

  Even before Coffin stepped onto his screen porch, he smelled something burning. The front door stood open, and something was moving in the interior gloom. Someone. Two someones, maybe, tangled together on the couch in an awkward, squirming embrace.

  “Hello?” Coffin said, pulling open the screen door and stepping onto the porch. “Who’s there?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” said Coffin’s mother, sitting up. She wore a cotton bathrobe, a long wool coat, and a pair of green Wellington boots. Her eyes were bright and hungry as a crow’s, her long hair ratted, the color of galvanized steel.

  “It’s me, Ma,” Coffin said, stepping into the living room. “It’s Frankie. What are you doing here?”

  “Moron,” his mother said. “What does it look like I’m doing?” She sat half astride a man who appeared also to be in his late seventies or early eighties. He wore a Greek fisherman’s cap and had very bushy eyebrows. Coffin was grateful that both of them seemed to be fully dressed.

  “Hi, Frankie,” the man said. “Long time no see.”

  The low-ceilinged room was filling with smoke. Coffin strode into the kitchen and turned off the stove. Two eggs, burned to thin black wafers, smoldered in a cast-iron frying pan. The shells, he noticed, had been placed neatly into the cupboard, next to the juice glasses.

  “Hi, Mr. Tavares,” Coffin said, leaning his hip on the counter. “How’s things at the nursing home?”

  “Oh, you know,” Mr. Tavares said. He had to struggle a bit to sit up. He took off his cap, ran a hand over his bald head, and put his cap back on. “Can’t complain, I guess.”

  “Can’t get it up is more like it,” said Coffin’s mother. She fixed Mr. Tavares with a flat, glittering stare. “But the rest of the old farts up there are drooling idiots, so what choice do I have?”

  “What do you want from me?” Mr. Tavares said. “I’m eighty-three years old. I’m not a frickin’ machine.”

  “They’re looking for you up at Valley View, Ma. I imagine they’re wondering about Mr. Tavares, too.”

  “That’s their problem,” his mother said, tossing her hair. She had been beautiful once, but now, in the fifth year since being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, her face was gaunt and feral.

  “I think I should probably take the two of you back, Ma,” Coffin said. “Dr. Branstool called me at work. He sounded pretty worried.”

  Coffin’s mother scowled. “Fuck Dr. Branstool and the horse he rode in on. Fuck ’em all. I’m not going back.”

  “Ma,” Coffin said, “you can’t stay here.”

  “The hell I can’t. It’s my house. I’ll stay here if I want to.” Coffin rubbed his temples. His head was beginning to throb. “Ma. Give me a break, huh? We talked this over three years ago, and everybody agreed it would be best if you stayed at Valley View. Right?”

  “I was daffy then,” his mother said. “I’m better now. You like that mausoleum so much, you go live there. I’m gonna die in my house, when I say so.”

  “C’mon, Ma. You almost set the place on fire just now. It wouldn’t be safe for you here. You know that.”

  “He’s got a point, Sarah,” said Mr. Tavares.

  “Why don’t you stay here and take care of me, then?” his mother said, standing up and straightening her robe. Her eyes were as bright and blank as glass beads. “That’s what a good son would do, you ungrateful prick.” She turned on Mr. Tavares and jabbed him in the chest with a knotty finger. “And you—when I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it, noodle-dick.”

  “Sorry,” Mr. Tavares said, eyebrows squirming. He looked miserable.

  Coffin held up his hands, palms out. Let’s all calm down. “I can’t stay home and take care of you, Ma. I have to work. You know that. Somebody’s got to pay the bills.”

  His mother sat down on the couch again. “They’re trying to poison me up there,” she said. “The dirty sons of bitches.”

  “Nobody’s trying to poison you,” Coffin said, sitting in his father’s red easy chair. “You just don’t like the food.”

  Coffin’s mother smiled, foxy and malicious. “What’s-his-face was worried, was he?”

  “Very,” Coffin said. “I think he’s afraid I’m going to sue.”

  “Good. I hate that smug cocksucker.”

  “I don’t like him much, either.”

  “Somebody called here a while ago,” Coffin’s mother said. “Some woman. Said something about being late. I hung up on her.”

  “That was Jamie, Ma. You remember Jamie, right?”

  His mother pursed her lips. “She’s that pale girl with the big tits. Looks like Vampira.”

  “No, Ma.” Coffin didn’t quite smile. “That was Julie. We got divorced years ago.”

  “Christ on a cracker,” Coffin’s mother said, shaking her head. “I’m losing my frickin’ mind.”

  Coffin pulled his rumpled Ford Fiesta up to the curb behind Jamie’s Volvo, put the shifter in park, and turned off the ignition key. The Fiesta quivered weakly, farted a small, pale cloud of oil smoke, and died.

  Dropping his mother off at Valley View had been hard. Not that she hadn’t gone docilely enough, finally: She had, escorted back to her room by Natalie, the day nurse. Still, there was a part of Coffin that felt guilty for committing his mother—again—to the care of strangers, Dr. Branstool and the nurses, those stout Cape Cod ladies who knew nothing about his real mother, the tough, funny woman she’d been before Alzheimer’s wormed its thorny tentacles into her brain. It was almost as bad as that first day, when he’d moved her into the nursing home with her suitcase and TV set and box of family photos. She’d wept and accused him of taking her there to die. Which was the truth, Coffin thought—if you wanted to be honest about it.

  He climbed out of the car a bit awkwardly, unfolding his lanky frame. He barely fit behind the Fiesta’s little steering wheel; driving it was like driving a carnival bumper car. Between the mortgage on his ex-wife’s house, the alimony he still paid every month, his mother’s upkeep at Valley View, and the soaring property taxes on her house, the Fiesta was the best car he could afford.

  Coffin closed its sagging door. His postage stamp of a yard was studded with dandelions. A tangle of roses bloomed on the sagging trellis. Next door, Mrs. Rivera’s wiste
ria wrestled her porch. The big, muscular vine was in full bloom, lavender testicles dangling. It smelled like a funeral, Coffin thought. He shook his head slightly, as if to clear it, and went inside.

  “C’mon, big boy,” Jamie said. “Give it to me!” She was bent over the bathroom counter, jeans and panties around her knees.

  Coffin stood behind her, hypodermic needle poised the way the nurse had shown him—like a dart. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why this is so hard for me.”

  Jamie turned and looked at Coffin over her shoulder. “I know, I know—it’s not what you pictured when I asked you to poke me in the ass.”

  “Well, no,” Coffin said, wincing as he stuck the needle into Jamie’s backside. “Not exactly.”

  “Yow,” Jamie said.

  Coffin pressed the plunger with his thumb, then pulled the needle out. “All done,” he said. He dabbed a trickle of blood from her buttock with a square of toilet paper.

  Jamie pulled up her jeans. “There’s something very sad about this whole Kenji Sole business.”

  “Aside from the having been killed part?” Coffin said.

  Jamie put her arm around Coffin’s neck and kissed his cheek. “Her life seems kind of sad. All those boyfriends. All that porn. If you see other people as objects, aren’t you missing something important?”

  “She was in your advanced class, right?”

  “Yep. A very dedicated little yogi—in great shape. Came to class four or five times a week. She told me once it was her best hedge against getting old.”

  Coffin pursed his lips. “Careful what you wish for,” he said. “Let’s have a drink.”

  In the living room, the stuffed goat’s head stared down at Coffin with its clever yellow eyes. It had been repaired since Jamie shot it almost two years before, but its face was lopsided now, demented.

  “Are you sure you should be drinking that martini, Detective?” Jamie said. “Aren’t you on duty?”

  “Duty, shmooty,” Coffin said, taking a sip. The vodka was very cold, its medicinal bite very pleasant. He leaned back on his mother’s uncomfortable Victorian sofa and stretched out his legs. “Do you really think Kenji was missing something? I was kind of under the impression she was having a good time.”