'She probably threw him out when he tried to rape her,' Louis said.
'Naw, he's harmless. He got all that shit up there, all the guns, but it's all he's playing pretend, thinking he's a big Nazi motherfucker, but it all stays there in his head,' Ordell said.
Yeah, well they could beat it to death, they were stuck with the guy. Forget it. Louis said, 'When you stop home, remember to bring some tapes.'
'I will.'
'The Lonnie Liston Smith. You know what he's got here, his records? He's got Rosetta Tharpe.' 'He likes gospel,' Ordell said.
'He's got James Cleveland. He's got Rosie Wallace, man, and the First Church of Love Choir. If we're gonna be here awhile--You get the phone number yet?'
'I'm still waiting on Mr. Walker.' Ordell was looking at Richard's big RCA black-and-white TV that was a piece of furniture with a pink and white bucking bronco statuette on it. 'Here it is,' Ordell said. 'News is on.' He sat up in the maroon chair and leaned on his knees. Then sat back again. They were anxious, both of them, but didn't want to show it.
There was a wreck on the Lodge Freeway. A tank truck had jackknifed and exploded. The driver had been rushed to the Ann Arbor Burn Center and northbound traffic had been backed up for hours.
There was something about a farmer having to shoot his dairy herd because of PBB poisoning ... and pregnant mothers being interviewed, worrying about their milk ... something on about PBB every evening but neither Louis nor Ordell knew what it was.
The sports editor, trying to sound like W. C. Fields, said the Tigers gave the Sox the Bird Sunday, Fidrych holding the Beantowners to five scattered hits.
Louis said, 'Why don't they just say it, without all that cute shit?'
Sonny Eliot jumped around his weather map with his magic marker and his snappy weather reports. 'High of ninety tomorrow, that's as welcome as a blowtorch in a firecracker factory, and no relief in sight.' They waited through it in silence.
Coming up after about eight commercials would be Channel 4's latest crime report. Louis thought, Here we go. He noticed Ordell sitting forward again.
There was a quick run-through of current crime headlines with brief stories: Teens rob, shoot disabled freeway driver, proclaim, 'We own the city' ... Two stand trial in death of bartender ... Witnesses finger more teen gang leaders ... Gunmen shoot up Boys Home, staffer fired ... Mayor Coleman Young says press too critical ...
Louis seemed puzzled. 'What's all this with the kids?'
Now a TV reporter with a swirly hairdo was interviewing members of a teenaged gang, the Errol Flynns. Louis saw a bunch of skinny black kids standing around in their fifty-dollar Borsalinos like cowboys, grinning at the camera. Ordell grinned with them, saying look at them little Earl Flynns, hey, bullshittin' the man. Gonna eat him up. There were interviews with black neighborhood residents who said the police had to start hooking the kids up and throwing them in the clink ...
In the clink? Louis thought.
... so the other kids would see them doing hard time and quit taking off the grocery stores and the old peoples' social security money so they could buy those Bosalinis and support their scag jones.
Louis said, 'What's he talking about?'
'It's cool,' Ordell said. 'Listen to the man.' 'Why don't they get to it?' Louis said.
There were more commercials, a preview of the top national and international news stories, but no more crime. Nothing about a suburban woman being kidnapped or abducted. Nothing about two dudes in Halloween masks breaking into a Bloomfield Village home. Nothing about a big dude holding two martinis getting hit in the head.
Ordell said, 'You think the man's still in the closet?'
'You hit him,' Louis said.
'I didn't hit him that hard.'
'You hope you didn't.'
They watched TV commercials and didn't say anything for at least two minutes, until the world news was coming on with John Chancellor.
Louis said, 'I think somebody better get in his sporty uniform and go out there and investigate an alleged assault with the intent to put a guy to sleep and hope to Christ it hasn't turned out to be murder.'
Chapter 12
'WHAT IS IT?' Mickey asked.
'Chicken and noodles cooked in chicken soup with onions and some other things, a biscuit in it. You'll see a biscuit in there, but I don't think it'll kill you,' Louis said, standing in the doorway with the tray. 'You got your mask on? I can't tell.'
'Yes.'
'Okay, you can turn around. It doesn't matter.'
Mickey turned and saw him through the uncovered eye in the mask: the white one with dark curly hair and a mustache, in the shaft of light from the hall. Mickey stood on the side of the bed away from the door, in shadow.
'Where do you want it?'
'I don't care.'
'I'll put it on the bed.'
She watched him place the tray near the edge, draw his hands away, then move the tray with its bowl of chicken and noodles and mug of coffee toward the middle of the spread, on top of the peacock's fanned filigree tail. He straightened and looked at her. He stared, then began to shake his head. He said, 'Aw, come on--' and walked around the bed to where she was standing to touch the mask with the tips of his fingers. He pulled the mask off, up over her head, turning her around with his other hand on her shoulder.
'I used the tape to cover the hole in the door,' Mickey said. 'You'll have to get your kicks some other way.'
'Yeah, well, you don't have to worry about that. We'll cover the holes.'
'What's the matter with him? Why doesn't he bathe?'
'I'll ask him.'
'He smells.'
'He's got a few problems, but who hasn't, right? Eat your dinner,' Louis said. 'You want something else, knock on the door.'
'What's gonna happen to me?'
'We'll talk about it after.'
Louis took the mask with him to fix the eye hole. Jesus, it was a dumb idea. What're you doing? I'm fixing this Halloween mask. The whole thing-- what're you doing here anyway? Answer that. But there was always a time like this when you thought it was going to blow up. Then it passed. Usually it did.
Richard had walked out nodding, rubbing his eye, not asking any questions. He walked back in exactly an hour and a half later still rubbing it. He said, 'You know what that puss did to my eye?'
'Tell us about the other, Richard,' Ordell said.
'Well, what I did,' Richard said, shoving his policeman's hat to the back of his head, 'I made sure there was no surveillance first. I cruised the street and the street back of the residence, the residence being dark, not any light on, but which didn't mean anything.'
Jesus Christ, Louis thought.
'So then I went to a pay phone in the Kroger's, the corner of Maple and Lahser'--he pronounced it 'Lasher'--'and phoned the residence, letting it ring twenty-five times.'
'Twenty-five times,' Ordell said.
'There being no answer I returned to the residence and pulled into the backyard and turned the car around
