Landsman grinds the papiros out against the side of the building, then flicks the butt into the rain. Tabatchnik and Karpas are really kicking the asses of Landsman and Shemets; it’s not even close.
“Even when I have good luck,” he says, “it’s bad luck.” He sighs. “Has there been anything out of Verbov Island?”
“Not a peep.”
“Nothing in the papers?”
“Not in the Licht or the Rut. ” These are the leading black-hat dailies. “No rumors that I’ve heard. Nobody’s talking about it. Nothing. Total silence.”
Landsman gets up off the windowsill and goes to the phone on the table beside the bed. He dials a number he memorized years ago, asks a question, gets an answer, hangs up. “The Verbovers picked up Mendel Shpilman’s body late last night.”
The telephone in Landsman’s hand startles, chirping like a robot bird. He passes it to Berko.
“He seems fine,” Berko says after a moment. “Yes, I imagine that he will need some rest. All right.” He lowers the handset and stares at it, covering the mouthpiece with the pad of his thumb. “Your ex-wife.”
“I hear you’re fine,” Bina tells Landsman when he gets on the phone.
“So they tell me,” Landsman says.
“Take some time,” she suggests. “Give yourself a break.”
The import takes a second to register, her tone is so gentle and unruffled.
“You would not,” he says. “Bina, please tell me this is not true.”
“Two dead people. By your gun. No witnesses but a kid who didn’t see what happened. It’s automatic. Suspension with pay, pending a review by the board.”
“They were shooting guns at me. I had a reliable tip, I approached with my gun in my holster, I was polite as a mouse. And they started shooting at me.”
“And of course you’ll get the chance to tell your story. In the meantime, I’m going to keep your shield and your gun in this nice pink plastic Hello Kitty zipper bag that Willy Zilberblat was carrying them around in, okay? And you just try to get yourself all nice and better, all right?”
“This thing could take weeks to sort out,” Landsman says. “By the time I’m back on duty, there might not be a Sitka Central. There are no grounds for a suspension here, and you know it. Under the circumstances, you can keep me on active duty while the review goes forward, and still be running this case totally by the book.”
“There are books,” Bina says. “And there are books.”
“Don’t be cryptic,” he says, and then in American, “What the fuck?”
For a long couple of seconds, Bina doesn’t reply.
“I had a call from Chief Inspector Vayngartner. Last night. Not long,” she says, “after dark.”
“I see.”
“He tells me he just had a call. On his home phone, this is. And I guess the esteemed gentleman on the other end of the line was maybe a little upset about certain behaviors that Detective Meyer Landsman might have been exhibiting in this gentleman’s neighborhood on Friday afternoon. Creating public disturbances. Showing grave disrespect for the locals. Operating without authority or approval.”
“And Vayngartner replied?”
“He said you were a good detective, but you were known to have certain problems.”
And there, Landsman, is the line for your headstone.
“So what did you tell Vayngartner?” he says. “When he called to ruin your Saturday night.”
“My Saturday night. My Saturday night is like a microwave burrito. Very tough to ruin something that starts out so bad to begin with. As it happens, I told Chief Inspector Vayngartner how you had just been shot.”
“And he said?”
“He said that in light of this fresh evidence, he might have to reconsider long-held atheistic beliefs. And that I should do whatever I could to make sure you were comfortable, and that for the next little time, you got plenty of rest. So that’s what I’m doing. You’re suspended, with full pay, until further notice.”
“Bina. Bina, please. You know how I am.”
“I do.”
“If I can’t work-You can’t-”
“I have to.” The temperature of her voice drops so quickly that ice crystals tinkle on the line. “You know how much of a choice I have in a situation like this.”
“You mean when gangsters pull strings to keep a murder investigation from going forward? That the kind of situation you mean?”
“I answer to the chief inspector,” Bina explains, as if she’s talking to a donkey. She knows perfectly well that there is nothing Landsman hates more than being treated like he’s stupid. “And you answer to me.”
“I wish you hadn’t called my phone,” Landsman says after a moment. “Better you should just have let me die.”
“Don’t be melodramatic,” Bina says. “Oh, and you’re welcome.”
“And what am I supposed to do now, besides be grateful for having my balls cut off?”
“That’s up to you, Detective. Maybe you could try thinking about the future for a change.”
“The future,” Landsman says. “You mean, what, like flying cars? Hotels on the moon?”
“I mean your future.”
“You want to go to the moon with me, Bina? I hear they still take Jews.”
“Goodbye, Meyer.”
She hangs up. Landsman cuts the connection on his end and stands there for a minute with Berko watching him from the bed. Landsman feels a last surge of anger and enthusiasm blow through him, like a clot of dust being cleared from a pipe. Then he’s empty.
He sits down on the bed. He gets in under the covers and turns his face back to the Balinese scene on the wall and closes his eyes.
“Uh, Meyer?” Berko says. But Landsman doesn’t answer. “You planning to stay in my bed a whole lot longer?”
Landsman sees no percentage in answering the question. After a minute Berko bounces himself off the mattress and onto his feet. Landsman can feel him studying the situation, appraising the depth of black water that separates the two partners, trying to make the right call.
“For what it’s worth,” Berko says finally, “Bina also came to see you in the ER.”
Landsman finds he has no memory of this visit at all. It’s gone, like the squeeze of a baby’s foot against his palm.
“You were doped up pretty good,” Berko says. “Talking many kinds of shit.”
“Did I embarrass myself with her?” Landsman manages to ask in a tiny voice.
“Yes,” Berko says, “I fear that you did.”
Then he withdraws from his own bedroom and leaves Landsman there to puzzle out the question, if he can muster the strength, of how much further he can sink.
Landsman can hear them talking about him in the hushed tones reserved for madmen, assholes, and unwanted guests. All through the rest of the afternoon, as they eat their dinner. Through the uproar of bath and ass-powdering and a bedtime story that requires Berko Shemets to honk like a goose. Landsman lies on his side with a burning seam at the back of his skull and drifts in and out of consciousness of the smell of rain at the window, the murmuring and clamor of the family in the other room. Every hour that passes, another hundredweight of sand is poured in through a tiny hole in Landsman’s soul. First he can’t lift his head off the mattress. Then he can’t seem to open his eyes. After his eyes are closed, what happens is never quite sleep, and the thoughts that plague him, though atrocious, are never quite dreams.
Sometime in the middle of the night, Goldy careers into the room. His tread is heavy and lumbering, a baby monster’s. He doesn’t just climb into the bed, he roils the blankets the way a wire whisk roils a batter. Its like he’s fleeing something, panicked, but when Landsman speaks, asks him what’s wrong, the boy doesn’t answer. His eyes are closed, and his heart beats steadily and low. Whatever he was running from, he found shelter from it in his parents’ bed. The kid is sound asleep. He smells like a piece of cut apple that’s starting to turn. He digs his toes into the small of Landsman’s back with care and without mercy. He grinds his teeth. The sound of it is like dull shears on a sheet of tin.
