Chapter 4 - The Body at the Bottom of the Bottle

CHAPTER 4

I woke with a start. Pete was shaking me.

“Wake-up-wake-up-wake-up are-you-okay?” He honestly sounded concerned, which made me concerned.

But I felt okay. I shoved him away and sat up. My usual surliness upon waking seemed to convince him I was fine.

My head felt better than it had all day. Assuming it was the same day. The curtains had been pulled aside slightly and the dark sky outside the window seemed to indicate that night had fallen. I still had a dull pain in my head, but it was a familiar pain.

Since the gun and severed hand were out of sight, I decided to play nice.

“Caffeine.”

“You trust me?”

“No, but I haven't had any caffeine since before noon and I've apparently taken two naps, so if you don't want me to turn into a bad hostage, bring me some caffeine.” I was fairly certain that would assuage my headache.

He went behind the curtain and I heard a cupboard open and close. He came back with a bottle of diet cola. It was sealed, so I took a chance and drank it.

“Where's the hand?” I asked.

“Hidden.”

I pointed to the floor.

Pete said, “No, somewhere else.”

I pointed to the knapsack now at his feet. He shrugged assent. He checked his watch. It hung loose from his wrist.

“We gotta go.” He held out his hand.

There was still some of the old Pete in his face. Behind the panic. I took his gloved hand and let him help me stand. I was barely wobbly. Once I was stable, he dropped my hand and led me through the curtain. As I'd presumed, it was a dinky, typical Brooklyn walk-through apartment. We exited its front door, down the stairs.

Halfway down the stairs, the suspense got the better of me. “Where are we? Where are we going?”

He turned, with childlike excitement. “You'll see.”

I might have been more receptive to his infectious glee if the gun hadn't been poking out of his waist band, under the hoodie he'd pulled on.

Two floors down, we were at the building's front door. I hadn't heard a peep from any of the other apartments and was pretty sure the building was empty.

Pete cracked the door and peered out. Then he closed it again. He reached behind, under his hoodie and pulled the gun out of his waist. He stuck it in his pocket, pointing it at me. Suddenly he wasn't so childlike. “I don't want to use this. But I need to show you something. And I can't risk you running as soon as we're out the door.”

“I won't run, I promise.”

“I can't take that risk, Claire. You'll understand. C'mon.”

He opened the door again, and took my hand, not waiting for my approval. We stepped out onto the sidewalk.

The sky was dark and clear but the streetlights were on. It was chilly, and quiet, though. After many a night waiting for Pete to close up Marlowe's, we'd gone home on nights like this.

On streets like this.

On this exact street, actually.

I yanked my hand out of his grasp and pointed to the corner. “Is that Marlowe's?”

“Shhh!” He pulled me into the next doorway over. “You have to be quiet!”

I couldn't believe it. We'd been in one of the apartments two floors above Marlowe's the whole time.

It struck me then that, hours ago when the bar was still open, if I'd yelled loud enough, Len or Aimee or any of the regulars smoking right outside the bar's entrance might have heard me – and if Pete was serious about not wanting to use the gun, I might have been rescued. I felt so stupid.

Before I could be too hard on myself, Pete interrupted, deep-seated anger in his voice. “All these apartments are empty now. Remember that Indian family with all those kids? And that electrician guy who used to come by the bar, the one with the full-sleeve tattoo with the first verse of Dante's Inferno? And Greg Mickels who you always called Michael Gregs?”

I did. And I could think of two dozen other neighborhood characters I either knew by name or sight.

He continued in a whisper. “Their landlords all sold out to the TST, and this whole block is abandoned now. Marlowe's is the lone holdout.”

He pulled me around the corner, but instead of the front door we slipped around the edge of the building. He used his key to let us directly into the bar's backroom exit.

I felt slightly safer when I wondered if he'd traded his fingerless gloves for full gloves to avoid leaving prints here rather than on the gun, as I'd originally feared. This possibility made it more likely that he had no real intention of using the gun at all.

He left the back door propped open, letting in only a sliver of street light into the pitch-black room. “Now, Len is a bad negotiator. I assume the boys – ” that's what he'd always called Rob and Jenkins, even though they had more than twenty years on him, “ – filled you in on poor George's bladder control incident.” Likely comforted by the familiar scene at his former place of employment, he laughed at the memory. For real. It was the most relaxed I'd seen him all day.

He recovered. “So I pretended to negotiate. Len and Aimee didn't even want to hear their offers, so I'd just make some mouth noises, read through them, sure, but just set them aside. The bar is doing great, and there's no reason for them to sell – except the eminent domain ruling forcing them to.”

He took my hand again and led me through the dark by memory to the basement door. Away from windows, he felt safe enough to reach above his head for the shoestring light pull. The sudden brightness brought spots to my eyes. He headed down the stairs.

“I was looking through the most recent TST offer when Len came downstairs. You know how easily his temper can turn. So I shoved the papers under the desk and then, when he was done telling me about how he'd just banged Aimee in the bathroom and it was like old times again – ”

“I don't need the details,” I interrupted.

We'd reached the bottom of the stairs. Twice in the sacred, stinky basement in one day. I felt like a lucky gal. Held hostage by her ex. I rethought the lucky part. I had a feeling I knew where his story was going, though.

As he spoke, he led me to the gated office and keyed it open. Apparently Len hadn't bothered to change any of the locks. Or trusted Pete enough not to. “Okay. So then when Len finally left, I had to climb under the desk to pick up the TST's offer,” he said.

I was nodding, but Pete didn't notice.

He was under the desk, loosening the panel I'd jostled myself a few hours before. “And this came loose.”

His back was facing me and his hoodie was riding up as he reached for the wall. Pete was too busy talking to notice any movement I would make.

This was my chance. Whether I trusted him or not, I needed to gain the upper hand here.

I reached down and grabbed the gun from his waistline. He rolled over on his back as I cocked the gun.

“We may have broken up two years ago, Pete, but I remember everything you learned from Uncle Jerry about guns and I'm not afraid to try to use it.”

Peter lay on the floor like a turtle flipped on his shell, hands and legs both frozen in the air in surrender.

“Now,” I said, inching towards the office gate, “I need you to toss me the key to this thing.”

“What are you talking about?”

The disbelief in his voice was such that I think he might have actually forgotten that, until a few seconds before, he'd been holding me hostage. Not anymore.

“Toss me the key so I can lock you in.” I didn't see the harm in telling him my plan. Turns out neither did he.

“If I give you the key, will you let me show you?” He indicated the wall under the desk.

“Just toss them to me.” I knew what he wanted to show me. I could still see it every time I blinked. Those big empty eye sockets staring at me.

“We don't have time for games, Claire! Look – ” he glanced at his watch, “ – Hermes will be here in a few minutes and – ”

“Then toss me the keys and convince me why I shouldn't leave you locked up in here for the authorities to deal with.” I noticed the safety on the gun was now on (very considerate of him) and I un-safetyed it with a click.

He reached for his pocket, slowly, like a suspect reaching for identification for a cop who thinks he might pull a gun instead. He knew I meant business.

He extracted a jangle of keys and tossed it to me. He might have hoped I'd falter and he could overpower me again, but I caught them single-handedly. I glanced at them briefly.

“Always one for order and labeling, Pete,” I said, smiling.

I thumbed through to the key marked Marlowe's Basement Office. I remembered labeling these keys with the label-maker I gave him for Christmas and was pleased he's left the labels on. I swung the gate closed and locked it.

With the locked gate between us, the stress left my body like a tidal wave. I lowered the gun (but kept it in hand) and grabbed a discarded bar stool with stuffing spilling out, dragging it a few feet from the grate.

Pete was already back under the desk. His lack of concern spoke highly to his insistence that the dead body he was about to show me would explain all his crazy behavior.

I almost felt bad for not telling him I already knew what was in there, but I didn't see why I should tip my hand to him.

He picked up his tale. “So I was under here and I knocked the backboard or something because it hit me in the head and I passed out for awhile.” He removed the panel completely and coughed as the stench hit him in the face. I wanted to scrunch my nose in disgust, but managed to keep my composure. Pete set the panel aside, reaching deep in the wall. “And when I came to, I found this staring back at me.” He held out the skull.

He and I both stared at it, then each other, then it again.

“It's a human skull,” I said.

Excited, “See, that's what I figured, too.”

He pulled himself up, standing straight for the first time all day.

“Then I started thinking,” he said, “This place was a speakeasy, right? I mean, that's what your book says.”

“You read my book?” I was surprised.

He stammered, “Well, I skimmed through it. Aimee had a copy, it's not like I ran right out to buy one.”

We both knew he was lying. Aimee would never have bought my book. Unless it was to make fun of me. She probably did buy a copy.

“Anyhow,” he said, “That's when I emailed you. I figured if this is from Prohibition times or something, and you had that whole chapter about the gangsters and police busts and stuff right up there in the backroom, you could help me figure out if this is a famous gangster or something, maybe we can get Marlowe's landmarked – ”

“ – and then the TST wouldn't be able to tear it down to build condos,” I concluded.

“Yeah.” He looked like I'd taken some of the wind out of his sails. Maybe I should have let him finish. He wouldn't like my first impression, then.

The skull wasn't fresh and almost all of the flesh was gone and what was left was dry, but it wasn't completely bare. I decided to make sure before I burst his bubble.

I tried to refocus. “Did you find anything else? I assume,” nay, hope, I thought, “The hand you had upstairs came from here too?”

“Of course it did and – ”

The front door slammed shut above us and we both jumped to attention. I felt the weight of the gun in my hand. Hermes was here.

“Let me out,” Pete said urgently.

“Why would I do that?”

He was frantic, but trying to keep his voice down. “Marlowe's is important. It's the neighborhood's watering hole, a gathering place, a place people meet and discuss and argue and fall in love and fuck and it's Len's life and it was my life and now it might be my death!”

I could tell he believed every word he said. “You really think you're in danger.”

“I know I am. And so are you. That's why I brought you upstairs. That's why I had to slip you the Ambien. So I could bring you here, now, to show you this. I need your help to make this happen.”

Footsteps upstairs. Still at the front of the bar. But Hermes could head down here at a moment's notice.

I don't know why, but I didn't have a choice. I just knew Pete needed my help – even more than he knew. I unlocked the door. Pete spun around and under the desk, pushed the paneling back in place, and we slipped upstairs as quietly as two people in a hurry can.

I noticed Pete stuffing the skull into his rucksack. We ran to the back exit. I turned to close the door and for a split second before Pete grabbed my hand to pull me outside with him, Hermes and I locked eyes.

He'd clearly seen us both. He gave me the most imperceptible nod as we slipped away.

*

Pete drew the last of the curtains in my apartment.

After we'd escaped through the bar's back exit, Pete had tried to take us right back to his hideout two floors up.

I put a hand on his arm. “Do you really think you're in danger? Because of something to do with those bones you found here?” He nodded. I went on. “Then we need to go somewhere close, but not this close.”

We'd hoofed it to my place, neither of us acknowledging the many other times we'd walked that same route, but I think he was thinking about it too.

My red kettle whistled and I poured us each a mug of tea. I didn't tell him, but it was decaf. It was 6am, and Pete looked like he needed some sleep, stat.

He sat on my couch, his rucksack at his feet. I didn't want to sit right next to him on my tiny sofa, so I perched on the ottoman. The gun was in my front waistband. The clip was in my pocket.

I gestured at the bag of bones. “Tell me.”

He burned his tongue on the tea and set it down on the coffee table. He pulled the skull out of his bag. “Not much more to tell. This guy was staring right at me.” The hand followed. “And this guy was waving at me.” He set them down next to his tea. I cringed at the sight of body parts on my coffee table.

I looked at them more closely. They were gruesome – not like archeological relics, which would be dry, brittle, almost statue-like. Even though they were literally dry, both the hand and skull still had color, flesh and bone and tendon color. They were like taxidermied examples of something way too familiar. Not sickening, but distancing. They forced me to look at them unemotionally. I suppose it was a defense mechanism.

I had to move to the couch to reach the remains more easily. I took the hand in mine. It was leathery. As expected, the fingernails were gone. As were the teeth from the skull.

But it wasn't from the 1920s.

I picked up the skull. I detached myself further. I pretended I was writing a story about someone handling human remains – it wasn't hard – I was so exhausted, I felt a little like I was in a dream.

I could immediately tell from the lack of weight that the brains and flesh had decomposed. There was a hole, a wound at the crown, at the very top back of the head. It gave off a weird odor. The smell of decomposition. I held back the bile rising in my throat.

“So how do we go about getting Marlowe's landmarked?” he asked.

“We don't,” I answered, rising to my bookcase and looking at the book spines. Absentmindedly, I dusted my hands on the front of my trousers, getting the human dust off. I pulled out one of my reference tomes.

He read the title out loud as I sat back down. “The Human Body And Its Decay? And you own that because...?”

“Sophomore effort.” Blank stare. “My second book.”

As I flipped through the pages, he said, “You wrote another book?”

“I'm writing another book,” I corrected him distractedly. I'd found what I was looking for.

“What's it about?” He never could remain focused for long.

Now I was the one losing my patience. Or being touchy. As of now, frankly, my second “book” was about nothing, blank pages basically. “That's not the point. The point is, these,” I indicated the hand and skull, “are not from the 1920s.”

“Are you sure?” His whole plan was falling apart.

“I'm no coroner, but,” I showed pictures displaying a time-progression of decay, “given the dry basement and that they were inside a wall, I'd say these are only about one to two years old.”

“That's not from a baby.”

“It's been dead for one to two years,” I clarified. I flipped to another set of photos. “And based on cheekbones, lack of brown ridge and the small hand bones but fully-grown head, I'd guess 'it' was a woman.”

We both stared at the remains. Suddenly they weren't relics. They were a person. A woman. A dead woman. We both stepped up and away.

I finished our collective thought. “And she was dumped and hidden in the basement at Marlowe's.”