10
‘Smart crims are basically just cops who didn’t want to take an entrance exam,’ said the man. ‘You still got a partner?’
Breeze nodded. ‘He’s in the car, making calls. He woke up this morning next to a poisoned kangaroo and it’s messed with his head.’
‘So, the guy you’re after is an animal hater?’
‘Perhaps not. The kangaroo was the only victim he didn’t torture.’
Don ‘Tentative’ Jenkins was the man in conversation with Breeze. He grinned widely showing a wide gap at the front of his teeth and gold fillings at the back. He was the hard living manager of The Authority Exchange, a favoured watering hole for militant unions and gangs. Broken up from their previous centralised organisations by a mixture of incarceration, legislation and pension plans, the government had only succeeded in turning the clientele into shotgun pellets tearing through the community. Tentative, his nickname purely ironic, employed staff to keep the dark wood tables clean and a couple of heavier ones to keep the floors clean. One of them was standing guard outside the backroom office at this very moment. Breeze wasn’t sure if it was meant for his protection or Tentative’s or the giant simply didn’t have a better place to stand. Out of sight would have been out of mind if only he wasn’t continually bumping the door as he shifted his weight.
Tentative had a cigarette habit seemingly confined to toying with them in his long doughed-out fingers. His hair was thick, black and neatly groomed and his cheeks were choirboy soft and smooth. Still, the brooding gaze and harsh scar running along the jawline hinted at his menace. His exploits, however, existed mostly in the realm of rumour and yarns, the police file on him consisting of little more than a series of parking fines. Toying with that unlit cigarette, elbows up on a desk that had paperwork in the drawers and bottles of alcohol on top, he waited for Breeze to say something else.
‘Crims tend to hang out in the same places as celebrities,’ Breeze finally muttered. ‘It’s probably because the cops can’t afford it - at least, not the straight ones. That’s unless they have the good fortune of splitting the bill with someone like Jane Armitage.’
Tentative raised his eyebrows and casually flicked the fringe away from his eyes. ‘The newsreader?’
‘Last year she was still in radio.’
‘I see. Last year she was still gettable.’
‘She did an hour’s worth of makeup before going into the radio station each morning, so I knew the direction she was headed.’Breeze shrugged it off. ‘The point here is you and a certain recently deceased tattooist were a couple of times out in the same fancy nightspots, smooching around with singers and actors. Probably a basketball player or two as well.’
Tentative decided to light up his cigarette, after all. He did it contemplatively, the way cigarettes are lit at funerals.
‘Masoo Benzona was a friend. That’s an early warning before you start calling people suspects.’
‘You aren’t a suspect,’ said Breeze levelly. ‘A tattooist to the rich and famous is a hook you don’t come by every day. I’m surprised you didn’t take more care of him.’
‘He was angling Catlett for an investment in a new tattoo studio - the man gets jumped in a home intrusion, it’s only natural Benzona tried to sweeten the deal - after all, the service to be obtained was retribution.’
Breeze spared a thought for his creaking desk chair, suspecting it wouldn’t take much more than a yawn to spring the joints: someone as wily as Tentative might have deliberately kept such furniture in his office in order to thwart an unscrupulous visitor’s sudden lunges. More conventional methods of defense such as guns and knives were most likely hidden in the conventional places of desk drawers, bookcases and pot plants.
Ominously the grey carpet was just as worn as the chair. Crims knew better than to try shampooing blood out of carpet. You spill it, you burn it. So, you might as well buy it cheap.
‘I’m glad we’re on the same page,’ said Breeze knowingly.
Tentative’s outstretched fingers dug into the desk. ‘Not until you tell me what you want we’re not.’
‘Benzona had a nice little card autographed by the Sapiens in his possession. He made the mistake of trying to place it. What I want you to give up is the direction he took. And while you’re at it the direction you’re taking. That is apart from putting a bodyguard at your door.’
Tentative considered him carefully. ‘I’m going to break a long standing custom and tell a cop something real.’
‘Go on.’
‘Benzona found himself a customer. Some wild cop who got off every time he put a needle to her skin. Apparently the sessions never got far before she was straddling him and tooth tattooing him raw.’
‘You get a name?’
‘Her name was the only detail I didn’t have to sit through.’ Tentative plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and stabbed it into the ashtray. ‘And I definitely wasn’t pushing. Hot headed cops with satanic tattoos on their holy places isn’t my thing.’ He pulled out another cigarette and was back to playing with it. ‘She cut off his dick first, then slashed his throat. That’s a girl who shares her issues with others.’
‘Assuming it was her.’
‘Yeah, assuming it was her.’
Breeze’s chair groaned as he leaned forward attentively. ‘Catlett seems to think you’re out for some payback. Or are you just trying to keep him close until you can think of a better way to invest his money than in a tattoo parlour?’
Tentative flicked a knowing hand and produced from the desk’s top drawer a plain white card with Welcome to the Sapiens scrawled across it in thick black ink. A blood smeared fingerprint was upon it. ‘I ain’t about to go sniffing around cops’ privates for a name. I did, by the way, try Benzona’s studio and apartment for one. Unfortunately, tattooists don’t come much more dyslexic than him. And that’s Catlett’s fingerprint before you get too excited.’
Breeze put the card into his breast pocket and the chair groaned as he sat back again.
‘You’re the cop in the morning paper, right?’ said Tentative. ‘My bodyguard likes to read the newspaper aloud so these days I’m up on current events. Well, take my word for it, the Sapiens are like ghosts: you start talking about them and rooms automatically become colder. All those little bumps and creaks will suddenly take on life or death significance.’
‘You just make sure you ain’t behind any of them. Ever heard of Wragg Dokomad?’
‘Sounds kind of masculine. So, I doubt he was screwing Benzona. And therefore none of my business.’ Tentative stood up and offered out his hand.
Breeze looked at it like he was measuring up his handcuffs but stood up and shook it anyway. He left the Authority Exchange out the kitchen and through the back way, the Health Inspector’s gratuities sticking to the bottom of his shoes. Out in the back alley, he glanced at the giant bodyguard closing the door behind him. Big enough you couldn’t miss - that’s the sort of target Breeze preferred.
Breeze walked out of the alley and across the street. Furn seemed to have a knack, with or without dead kangaroos for company, of sleeping soundly in cars. It took some scuffed up knuckles on the window to get his eyes open. He unlocked the doors and yawned.
‘Did you get anywhere?’
‘We’ve got a suspect. A cop with an unfinished satanic tattoo.’
Furn nodded his head as if that sounded likely enough.‘The tattoo comes with a name?’
‘No, but apparently it comes with an interesting view.’
Breeze cajoled his cellphone out of an overprotective trouser pocket. A couple of clicks into call memory and half a dial tone later he had Riley on the line. ‘We’ve got a lead. Best not to go into details here. But it’s safe to say our lead is not going anywhere.’
‘Where shall we meet?’ came the reply, so animated that even Furn heard it.
‘I’ve taken a liking to that rooftop of yours,’ replied Breeze. ‘Same place and time.’ He snapped closed the phone.
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Furn smirked. ‘Is it the rooftop you like or the elevator companionship?’
‘Put it this way, I’m not going to complain if you want to sleep some more in the car.’
Furn shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got somewhere else to be. Drop me off at my car, will you?’
‘You ready for that? Did it occur to you that the poor kangaroo, locked in that car with prehistoric pizza boxes and God knows what else, bit on a cyanide table to spare itself?’
Breeze over-revved the engine to shield his ears from Furn’s blunt reply.