He lowered his head, smiled a little. She had a knack, didn't she? A knack for seeing through him. A knack for knowing him better than he knew himself. A knack for being right.
She sat up, looked at him sharply. 'Wait a minute. I know why you want me to move out.'
He began shaking his head no, even before she continued.
'You've been studying those files-studying those sick pictures-reading all that horrible 'Mad Butcher' material… you're going to ask the mayor to give you the goddamned case!'
How did she do it?
Carefully he said, 'Maybe I am going to be involved in something that… might make it dangerous for you to be around. Something that's going to require all my concentration… no distractions-'
'I'm a distraction now! It is the Butcher, isn't it?'
He sat forward, found himself almost pleading with her. 'Viv, look. These killings have been going on for years. Just a month ago we had number nine, for God's sake. Somebody's got to do something.'
'You.'
'It's ultimately my responsibility, after all. I'm in charge of the police department.'
'You're in charge of the fire department, too, but that doesn't mean you ought to go around pissing out every fire in town.'
'Viv, please…'
'I don't know whether to kiss you or toss you into the lake. You're protecting me, aren't you? You don't want me endangered, isn't that it?'
That was part of it. Part of it, too; however, was that he really was intimidated by her. By her strength of character, by the sexual dynamo she became between the sheets.
And after weeks of studying the Butcher files-with their descriptions of emasculation and sexual assaults upon dead, headless bodies-sex, particularly sex that in any way deviated from the missionary-position norm, made him feel… funny.
But he didn't say that to her. He said only: 'I have to do this. And I can't have you living with me while I'm taking an active role.'
'You dumb sap. It's the most dangerous case in the history of the goddamn world.'
'No, it isn't. He kills transients, this madman. He won't kill me.'
She shook her head, smiling tragically. 'A man who wants a conventional life with a wife and kiddies. Who wants to play it safe, he says, as he prepares to go toe-to-toe with the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.'
He shrugged. 'It's my job.'
'Oh, please! Spare me the Gary Cooper baloney! What does Matowitz say?'
'I haven't discussed it with the chief.'
'What about Burton?'
'I haven't discussed it with His Honor, either.'
'Do you really think he'll approve?'
'I don't know,' he said honestly. He was thinking about threatening to resign if Burton vetoed his wish to tackle the Butcher case personally; but he was afraid he valued his job too much to risk it.
'Shit!' she said.
He was about to scold her once more for her language when he realized fat raindrops were plopping down just beyond their umbrella, splashing on them.
'We better get inside,' he said, and took her arm and they rushed into the building. They watched the storm on the lake from a glass wall within the landlocked ship, waiting for it to subside so they could make their way to the car. But it finally became apparent the rain would not let up. They had to go out in it. They got very wet.
Rain beat on the roof of the boathouse as they made love through the night, not talking at all. It was still raining in the morning as Vivian packed her bags.
And in the coming days the rains continued, providing a damp Fourth of July for Cleveland and terrible attendance at the expo. The storms seemed as unrelenting as the Butcher himself. The heavy rains washed foliage and garbage and various other objects from the land into the Cuyahoga, and on the morning of the following Friday, the tender on the Third Street Bridge saw something floating on the oily river surface. The tender, John Haggerty, thought at first it was a dressmaker’s form, or a corset dummy like he'd seen in stores.
Then whatever it was took a roll in the current and Haggerty could see that it was a section of a human body- the lower half of a man’s torso.
Pretty soon a leg floated by, and Haggerety called the cops.
CHAPTER 3
The ride from City Hall began on Lakeside Avenue, then moved quickly to West Third, which jogged through the respectable heart of the city, turned into a hill, and fell to the Flats, where West Third leveled out, as did the respectability. The sleek black limo glided like an apparition of affluence through the shabby assembly of warehouses and saloons in the Flats, the bottomland area that was home to the crazily winding Cuyahoga River and the steel mills and factories that crouched there.
Faded brick buildings gave way to an open, overgrown field, alongside of which the limo pulled up. The uniformed police driver got out and was about to open the door for his passenger, but, as usual, that passenger beat him to it.
Mayor Harold Burton did things for himself.
He was a powerfully built, fifty-year-old, wedge-shaped man of medium height, whose broad brow, this sunny Monday morning, was creased in concern, his gray eyes half-circled with sleeplessness as he stood and contemplated the gray shimmer of the Cuyahoga, visible beyond the field. Beyond the river, beyond the industrial valley, fifty-two-story Terminal Tower loomed like a reminder of pre-Depression optimism. With a tight smile and a hand gesture, he indicated to his police driver to stay with the car. Then he started toward the river.
Burton wore a light brown suit, rather rumpled, and a battered gray hat; his wardrobe looked not remotely mayoral, with the possible exception of his dark brown tie and the gold stickpin, the latter presented him by the American Legion. He crossed the field quickly, the earth giving under his feet, still damp from the several days of rain that had let up just before dawn. The land here managed to look predominantly brown, despite patches of green weeds and wildflowers. The sun beat down harshly, though Burton-who had once done both farm work and lumber-jacking-did not mind it, in fact barely noticed it. His feet crunched the gravel and glass around the railroad tracks, which he stepped over, beginning down the very gentle incline toward the river's edge, where four men stood around a wicker basket.
One of the men was a middle-aged fellow in overalls and an engineer's cap; another was a young uniformed police officer. The other two, wearing suits and ties, might have been businessmen. Burton recognized one of them as Detective Albert Curry, who despite his youthful looks was ranked among the best investigators on the department and had for almost a year now been attached to the safety director's office.
The other man, a deceptively mild-looking individual in a smartly cut, dark gray suit and a blue and gray tie, was the director of public safety himself, Eliot Ness. Burton owed this man much-which, at the moment, made the mayor feel uneasy, even guilty, about the job ahead.
Working his way through the brush and the garbage-littered shore, Burton approached Ness, and the two men exchanged tight smiles and shook hands with a certain ceremony. Curry, nervous in the mayor's presence, smiled a little when Burton offered a hand to shake.
'Sorry I had to cancel our appointment,' Ness said to the mayor. 'But this came up…'
'Think nothing of it,' Burton said, waving it off.
In the midst of the small gathering of men, like a fire they might warm their hands at, was a wicker basket; in the basket was a human arm, obviously male, gray and somewhat decomposed, cut cleanly just above the elbow. The hand rested at the edge of the basket, as if about to grip it.
'Beautiful morning for such a grim task,' Burton said.
Ness glanced at the sky as if the beauty of the day hadn't occurred to him, nodded, and introduced the man in overalls to Burton.
