Grimoire Diabolique

We got up to leave. That’s when I noticed two of framed pictures along the fireplace mantle; there were just a few.

I put my glasses on an looked.

A wedding picture of a much younger Jameson and his wife. Some snapshots of old people: relatives, I presumed. Aunts and uncles, grandparents and the like. A freeze-frame of a beautiful cheerleader wagging pom- poms and doing a split-it was obviously Jameson’s wife back in high school days. Then—

A framed picture of a dark-haired adult with his arm around a cock-eyed kid with a bad haircut.

Jameson, I thought. The kid’s Jameson…

“No kid yet, I see,” I said and took my glasses off. I suspected this might be dangerous ground but I had to go for it.

“No,” Mrs. Jameson peeped.

“Not yet,” Jameson piped in. “We’re still waiting for the right time.”

Man, you’re fifty and she’s gotta be forty-five, I thought. Better not wait much longer.

Jameson jangled his keys. “Come on, lib. Let’s go have some fun.”

I turned to his wife. “Mrs. Jameson. Thanks very much for the excellent meal. You could get a job at any restaurant in town; you’d blow all of those master chefs out of the water.”

The woman blushed. “Thank you. Come by again soon.”

“Later, babe,” Jameson bid and yanked me out of there. He guffawed all the way down the stairs to the parking garage.

“So where you wanna go?” he asked. “A strip joint?”

“And all this time I thought you were gonna take me to hear bald lesbians read poetry,” I joked.

“Aw, fuck that shit,” he answered, beer fumes wafting out of his mouth. “Let’s see some meat.”

“Pardon me if I’m misinformed, Captain, but there really aren’t any strip joints in Seattle. The girls all gotta wear bikinis via county code, and the only thing you can drink there is orange juice or sodas.”

Another loud guffaw. “Pal, you don’t know the strip joint I know!”

I’m sure I don’t, I thought. When we’d just stepped into the elevator into the parking garage, I slapped my breast pocket. “Oh, shit.”

“What’s wrong? You just shit your pants?”

“I left my glasses in your condo,” I admitted.

“Well go on back up and get them and I’ll get the car.” He elbowed me. “And no funny business with the wife…or I’ll have ta kill you.”

He burst more laughter as I jogged back up the stairs.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Mrs. Jameson when she answered my knock. “I left my glasses here.”

“Oh, come in,” she said. I could smell from her breath that she’d already had a stiff one since we’d left. “Were would they be?”

“The table, or maybe the mantle when I was looking at the pictures,” I said.

I scanned the table—nothing.

“Here they are,” she said, picking them up off the mantle.

“Thanks.”

“I apologize for the way Jay gets sometimes,” the words stumbled from her mouth. “He has a little to much to drink, and…well, you know.”

You ain’t kidding I know, I thought.

“But you should also know that your article really pumped him up,” she went on. “I haven’t seen him happy in years, but your article really made him happy. He’s worked hard for so long. It’s wonderful to see someone give him recognition in the press.”

I shrugged. “He’s doing a good job on the case. That’s why I wrote the piece.”

“Well, anyway, thank you,” she said.

The look she gave me then? Christ. She brought her arms together in front, pressed her breasts together. Her nipples stuck through her blouse like golf cleats. Fuck, I thought. Is she offering herself to me…for the article?

“If you don’t mind my asking,” I changed the subject. “What’s this picture here?” I pointed to the man with his arm around the boy. “Is that your husband, the child?”

“Yes that’s him with his father,” she told me. “Jay was seven. His father was killed a few weeks after that picture was taken.”

“Oh…I’m sorry.” My eyes scanned the photos. “Where’s his mother?”

“Jay never knew his mother,” she said. “She ran out the day he was born.”

««—»»

The facilitation of the mother’s nurturing touch, I thought as Jameson squealed his Grand Am out of the parking garage. Everything I’d observed so far backed up everything Desmond had told me…

“So how’d you like the grub? Better than the cafeteria at the Times?”

“It was fantastic. Your wife is one dynamite cook.”

“Yeah, she’s a good kid,” he said. “She’s hung with me through thick and thin, and believe me, there’s been a lot of thin. Too bad I can’t do more for her.”

“What do you mean?”

He steered down Third Avenue. “It didn’t help when you brought up kids. Last couple of years, it’s been like playing pool with a piece of string.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“But that’s my problem, not yours,” he perked up. “Let’s go have some fun!”

We rode a ways. The streetlights shimmered as the warm air roved down the avenue. We stopped at a red light at third and Marion, and several homeless people approached the car.

“Shine your windshield for a buck, mister,” a decrepit man said.

“Get the fuck away from the car!” Jameson yelled. “I just had it washed!”

“Hey, mister, relax. We was just askin’.”

A woman in rotten clothes approached the other side of the car. Toothless. Staggering.

“Tell that junkie bum bitch to get away from my car!” Jameson yelled.

Then he yanked his gun out of his shoulder holster.

“Are you nuts!” I shouted at him.

The two vagrants scampered off, terrified.

“Yeah, you better get out of here, you pieces of shit!” Jameson yelled. “Christ, you people smell worse than the bottom of a fuckin’ dumpster!”

“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” I said. “You can’t be pulling your gun on people for shit like that.”

Jameson reholstered his pistol, chuckling. “Cool off. I just wanted to put a scare in ’em. Bet they shit their pants, huh? See, I just saved the city a cleanup fee. Usually they shit in the street.”

.”They’re homeless, for God’s sake. They got nothing.”

“Fuck that pinko shit,” he said, then bulled through the red light.

It occurred to me then that Jameson had a harder load on than I thought. “Hey, look, Captain. You’re pretty lit. Why don’t you let me drive? You’re gonna get pulled over at this rate.”

Jameson laughed. “Any cop in this city pulls me over, he’s transferred to the impound lot in the morning. What’s up your ass?”

“Nothing,” I said. I knew I had to grin and bear it. But I still had a few more questions to ask. Just be careful, I told myself.

“Fuckin’ junkies, fuckin’ bums.” Jameson’s eyes remained dead on the street. “Everybody asking for a handout. I never asked for no handouts.”

“Some people are more fortunate than others,” I said.

“Oh, don’t give me that liberal pantywaist bullshit,” he spat, spittle flecking the