A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames (popular books to read TXT) 📗

a smell from another time, camphor, maybe, and closed the hidden panel back up.

For no logical reason, I thought the diamond should be hidden somewhere else—like it shouldn’t mix with the riffraff of the other items, which meant my logic was stoned logic; everything I was doing was smart if you were stupid—and so I hid the square blue piece of paper in the freezer, in the ice cube receptacle, and didn’t think of the irony of hiding a diamond under ice until after I had done it.

Then I put Lou’s gun, keys, notebook, and all his other crap back in his pockets and stood there. Like a dumbass. I was trying to think if I knew my story, but I wasn’t feeling good at this. I was too high and didn’t know what to cover up and what not to cover up. I couldn’t think like a cop or a criminal, but then I realized that Lou’s notebook had the Belden address and that wasn’t good, and so I got the notebook out of Lou’s pockets, got the bag out from the ironing board, put the notebook in the bag, and put the whole thing back into the secret compartment.

Then I calmed down for a second, like maybe I had covered everything, and I took off my jacket and shoes. This way I’d be in the same state of dress I had been in when Lou first came to the door.

But then I started thinking I didn’t want them testing Lou’s gun and wondering where he had fired it, all of which could lead them back to the house where I had killed a man.

So I took the Glock out of Lou’s pocket and put that in the ironing board.

I was now all set to welcome my guests, which was good because George had just started barking. The cops were here.

4.

I handled the first six uniforms pretty good. They came boiling up the stairs, with their guns out, and George, whom I had quickly stashed in my bedroom, was barking his head off.

I met the cops at the front door and they yelled at me to lie down on the floor.

They frisked me and asked me if I was armed and I said I was not. They asked me if I shot Lou and I said I did not. They asked me this three times and I gave the same answer every time. They asked for my ID, and I directed them to my wallet, which was in my jacket and held two crucial IDs: one that identified me as a licensed private investigator and the other as an ex-cop.

They looked at these things and then let me sit up and get in a chair.

Two of the uniforms took over: a Latina woman, midthirties, named Maria Cole, and her Black male partner, Bill Randle, also midthirties. Cole was small and quiet but looked tough. The strong and silent type. She was also very beautiful, with eerie blue eyes, and just from her bearing she seemed destined to make detective sooner rather than later. Randle was also detective material and movie-star handsome: flawless dark skin, chiseled features. The two of them would have made a beautiful couple, but I sensed no chemistry, no warmth between them.

Randle asked me a two-part question: Did I know who shot Lou and was that individual nearby? I said I didn’t know who the shooter was or where it happened; I said Lou showed up at my door, bleeding, out of it, and then he died.

Then they had me tell it from the beginning.

Which I did. And I kept my story real simple:

Lou showed up a little after two a.m., didn’t say anything comprehensible, and died on the couch. I went to call 911 but my phone was dead. I returned to the body and lost track of time. I was stunned and in shock. Then my phone was charged and I called.

That’s all I told them. I didn’t want to fudge the time of death—coroners can be very precise.

By now the house was filled with even more cops and firemen and paramedics, and wrapping up my story, I stood up and said to the two cops, “I really need to take my pain pill: it’s been more than six hours, and the face has a lot of nerves,” and I pointed to my bandage and headed for the kitchen before they could say anything.

Cole and Randle followed me into the kitchen, and I swallowed a pill dry. I held up the bottle for them to see: “Dilaudid,” I said. “They say it’s like heroin.”

Cole glanced at her partner and then said: “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Sorry,” I said. But I didn’t mean it. I had done it on purpose. For when the detectives showed up, I wanted to plant the seed with these two that I was confused and in pain, and I wanted them to report that to their superiors.

Then if the detectives, who were going to grill me a lot harder than Cole and Randle had, perceived something off in me, I wanted them to think that maybe it was the pills and shock and not the fact that my story was full of holes and lies. It was more of my crazy logic: get fucked up to cover up.

And I looked at Lou in the other room, dead on the couch. If I had just said yes when he came to my office, maybe none of this would have happened. Had he been selling the diamond to raise money to buy a kidney from someone else? And where did he get the diamond?

“If you don’t need anything more right now, I’ll be upstairs,” I said to the two cops. “I got to lie down a second.”

Randle said: “The detectives will be here in less than ten minutes. They’re going to want to hear everything again.”

“I know,” I said, and I went upstairs and lay on my bed, and George lay