Saint Oswald by Jay Bonansinga (always you kirsty moseley .txt) 📗

By the way, was that guy from County really serious about offing himself? I thought he might be bluffing. Most crazy people tend to be pussies, in my experience.

Oh and one other thing. I heard about something today down at Speigelman’s that you might be interested in. You said to me last week that you were also interested in any, you know, freelance jobs, or anything of that nature that I might hear about. Anyway some guy needs professional help with, you know, wife problems. Needs it right away. Says he’ll pay top dollar. Anyway, here’s the guy’s number if you got any interest in it whatsoever: (312) 755-0166. Guy’s name is O’Dell.

Have a great day and don’t forget to let me know when that 500 bucks is coming.

JP

“Praise Christ.” Oswald looks up from the out-moded iMac computer sitting on Gerbil’s coffee table, nestled in a swamp of litter, candy wrappers, rolling papers, and old issues of Tattoo World. The computer, one of those candy apple-red eggs with the crappy processor and dial-up modem, is covered with stickers of punk rock groups like Bad Brains and the Dickies and the Butthole Surfers. “This is exactly the kind of break we needed,” Oswald announces, pushing himself away from the computer.

“Calm down, Oz.” Gerbil goes into the shabby little kitchenette and raids the refrigerator. She’s got one Red Bull left, and a half-empty package of bologna. “You’re gonna rip out your stitches.”

Oswald paces the frayed rugs, rubbing the nubby scar above his left ear as he thinks. “We can pick up another save here, maybe more than one.”

“I got sardines,” Gerbil says, absently rifling through her cabinets. “God, I hate sardines. Do you like sardines? I think these expired, like, back when I got my first period.”

Oswald is digging out his cell phone, thumbing the number into it. “If you count Wachowski now, I got five down and three to go, and yes I like ’em with mustard.”

He glances out the front Venetian blinds at the deep indigo sky, darkening above soot-stained tenement chimneys. The pale ghost of a moon is peering out from behind a billboard for the Pussycat Gentlemen’s Club, the milky orb only five or six revolutions away from full.

It makes Oswald’s skin crawl, and the image of an old man sinking into the burning soil of a wasted forest flashes across his mind-screen, making him oblivious to Gerbil’s shrill voice from the kitchen.

“I got some ramen noodles.”

“Hello?” Oswald speaks into his cell with a business-like voice when a male voice answers on the other end. “Is this the party needs some assistance with a spousal issue?”

Gerbil is searching the shelf above the refrigerator. “I got some evaporated milk.” She adds under her breath: “For what, I have no fucking idea.”

“Spousal issues, sir, as in wife,” Oswald repeats a little louder into the cell. He listens to the guy hem and haw, and finally the guy asks him if he’s a cop.

Oswald laughs so hard it feels as though the seam along the lower part of his scalp is going to break open and spill his brains all over Gerbil’s thrift-store rug.

That night, Lieutenant Anna Marie Rigby burns the midnight oil at the precinct house on Grand, reading file after file on the Indian.

Nothing special about his background: born in a state hospital, meth-head mother, raised by his step-dad on the welfare farm, in and out of reform school for petty crimes, etcetera, etcetera. Yadda-yadda. Another child left behind. As a grown-up, after a nickel’s worth in Cook County for Assault and Battery, the Big Chief graduates to bigger and better things. Gets hooked up with the Ferri crew as a second-tier button-man, puts a cap in a few low-lifes, starts pickling himself with hooch. Ho-hum.

But what Rigby keeps going back to is a hastily scrawled note left on the bottom of a parole board form, written by a government shrink after a routine Q&A:

Subject exhibits a trace of latent doubt, maybe even guilt—perhaps linked to wife’s death—suggesting possibility of rehab(?)

Rigby finally shrugs it off and rubs her sore neck and looks at the clock.

It’s nearly 2 a.m., and most of the second shift is already on break, many of them down the hall, in the lunchroom, smoking and drinking and playing penny-ante. Rigby is all alone in the cluttered, dusty squad room, among the plastic ferns and steel desks and tattered armchairs. What a life.

She lets out a pained breath, turns off her desk lamp, hauls her ass out of her swivel chair, and waddles over to the hat rack for her coat, feeling her sour mood go from bad to worse.

She’s stewing in the juices of her own self-loathing, and it’s not just because of her recent dealings with the Ferri crew—a reminder of her years of being dirty, being on the take, being slimed by the Outfit. Nowadays her angst has something to do with this Indian—this scumbag enforcer rising from the ashes of his own brain-dead obscurity to save people, actually save people’s lives—and the fact that Rigby has just sealed the poor bastard’s fate.

“So what?” she mutters to herself as she shrugs on her raincoat. “What do I care some skell gets his comeuppance—”

She pauses.

A sound from across the deserted squad room catches her ear.

“Annabeth Marie Rigby?” She turns and glances across the dark Venetian blinds along the east wall, and sees a figure lounging in an armchair near the window, shrouded in shadow. Did the night-detectives slip back into the squad without her noticing? Three other figures stand like soldiers at attention nearby, their arms crossed. They’re all dressed in suits, and they’re all staring at Rigby.

“Help you boys?” She doesn’t recognize any of them as her eyes adjust to the darkness.

Click.

A tensor lamp snaps on, and the guy in the armchair leans forward into the pool of light. “Lieutenant Inspector Annabeth Marie Rigby?” he says, his lantern-jawed face illuminated