My palms were damp and I wiped them on my jeans.
I squatted, turning to face the roof, extending a foot tentatively down along the frieze. I glanced down, trying to find some purchase. Garlands of pineapple, grapes, and fig leaves formed a bas relief design that wound across the face of the building. “How’d you do this?” I asked.
“I didn’t think about it. I just did it. You don’t have to come down. It won’t help.”
“I just don’t want to talk to you hanging over the edge,” I said, lying through my teeth. I was hoping to get close enough to nab him, ignoring visions of grappling with him at that height. I steadied myself, tucking a toe into the shallow crevice formed by a curling vine. The niche was only four feet away. At ground level, I wouldn’t have given it a thought.
I sensed that he was watching me, but I didn’t dare look. I held onto the parapet, lowering my left foot.
He said, “You’re not going to talk me out of this.”
“I just want to hear your side of it,” I said.
“Okay.”
“You won’t try to kill me, will you?” I asked.
“Why would I? You never did anything to me.”
“I’m glad you recognize that. Now I feel really confident.” I heard him laugh lightly at my tone.
I’ve seen magazine pictures of a man who can climb a vertical cliff face in a pair of tennis shoes, holding himself with the tips of his fingers tucked into small cracks that he discovers as he ascends. This has always seemed like a ludicrous pursuit and I usually flip to an article that makes more sense. The sight of the photographs makes me hyperventilate, especially the ones taken from his vantage point, staring down into some yawning crevasse. Maybe, if the truth be known, I’m more anxious about heights than I let on.
I allowed my right foot to inch down again as far as the lip of the niche. I found a handhold, down and to the right. Felt like a pineapple, but I wasn’t sure. Pinning my safety to a phony piece of fruit. I had to be nuts.
The hardest part was actually letting go of the coping once my foot was resting safely in the recess. I had to bend my knees, turning slightly to the right, sinking little by little until I could take a seat. Tony, ever gallant, actually gave me a hand, steadying me until I eased down next to him. I’m not a brave soul. I’m really not. I just didn’t want him flying off the side of that building while I looked on. I locked my left arm around the torch, just below his, holding onto my wrist with my right hand. I could feel sweat trickle down my sides.
“I hate this,” I said. I was winded, not from effort but from apprehension.
“It’s not bad. Just don’t look down.” Of course I did. The minute he said that I had an irresistible desire to peek. I was hoping somebody would spot us, like they always do on TV. Then the cops would come with nets and the fire engines would arrive and somebody would talk him out of this. I’m an organism of the earth, a Taurus. I was never born of air, of water, or of fire. I’m a creature of gravity and I could feel the ground whisper. The same thing happens to me in old hotels when I’m staying on the twenty-second floor. I open a window and want to fling myself out. “Oh, Jesus. This is such a bad idea,” I said. “For you maybe. Not for me.” I tried to think back to my short life as a cop and the standard procedure for dealing with potential suicides.
Stall for time was the first rule. I didn’t recall anything about hanging your ass off the side of a building, but here I was. I said, “What’s the story, babe. You want to tell me what’s been going on?”
“There’s not much to it. Daggett called the house on Monday. Aunt Ramona made a note of the number so I called him back. I dreamed about killing him. I couldn’t wait. I had fantasies for months, every night before I went to sleep. I wanted to catch him with a wire around his neck and twist till it bit into his windpipe and his tongue bugged out. It doesn’t take that long. I forget what that’s called now …”
“Garroting,” I supplied.
“Yeah, I would have liked that, but then I figured it was better if it looked like an accident because that way I could get away with it.”
“Why’d he call?”
“I don’t know,” Tony said uncomfortably. “He was drunk and blubbering, said he was sorry and wanted to make it up to me for what he did. I go, ‘Fine. Why don’t we meet and talk?’ And he goes, ‘It would mean so much to me, son.’” Tony was acting out the parts, using a quavering falsetto for Daggett. “So then I tell him I’ll meet him the next night at this bar he’s calling from, the Hub, which didn’t give me much time to put together this getup.”
“Was that Ramona’s skirt?”
“Nah, I got it at the Salvation Army thrift store for a buck. The sweater was another fifty cents and the shoes were two bucks.”
“Where’d the sweater go?”
“I tossed it in another trash can a block away from the first. I thought it would all end up at the dump.”
“What about the wig?”
“That was Aunt Ramona’s from years ago. She didn’t even know it was gone.”
“Why’d you keep it?”
“I don’t know. I was going to put it back in her closet where I got it, in case I needed it again. I had it on at the beach, but then I remembered Billy already knew who I was.” He broke off, obviously confused. “I might have told my shrink about the whole thing if he’d been here. Anyway, the wig’s expensive. This is real hair.”
“The color’s nice too,” I said. I mean, where else could I go with this? Even Tony recognized the absurdity and he flashed me a look.
“You’re humoring me, right?”
“Of course I’m humoring you!” I snapped. “I didn’t come down here so we could have an argument.”
He did a half shrug, smiling sheepishly.
I said, “Did you actually meet him there Tuesday night?”
“Not really. I went. I had it all worked out by then, only when I walk in, he’s sittin’ at this table talking to some guy. Turned out to be Billy Polo, but I didn’t know it at the time. Billy was sitting in this booth with his back to the door. I saw Daggett, but I didn’t realize he had company till I was right there in front of him. I veer off the minute I spot Billy, but by then he’s had a good look at me. I’m not worried. I figure I’ll never see him again anyway. I hang around for a while but they’re really into it. I can tell Billy’s leaning all over him and isn’t likely to let up so I take a hike and go home.”
“Was this one of the nights you had a migraine?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, some are real and some are fake, but I have to have a pattern, know what I mean? So I can come and go as I please.”
“How’d you get down to the Hub, by cab?”
“My bike. The night I killed him, I rode down and left it at the marina and then I called a cab from a pay phone and took it over to the Hub.”
“How’d you know he’d show up?”
“Because he called again and I said I’d be there.”
“He never twigged to the fact that you’d showed up the first time in drag?”
“How was he going to know? He hadn’t seen me since way before the trial. I was twelve, thirteen, something like that, a fat boy back then. I figured even if he guessed, I’d do it anyway, kill his ass … and once he was dead, who would know?”
“What went wrong?”
His brow furrowed. “I don’t know. Well, I do. The plan went fine. It was something else.” His eyes met mine and he looked every bit of fifteen, the blonde wig adding softness and dimension to a face that was nearly formless with youth. I could see how he’d pass as a woman, slim, with a clear complexion, sweet smile on his wide mouth. He looked down at the street and for a moment I thought he meant to swing out into space.
“When I was eight, I had these pet mice,” he said. “Really sweet. I kept ‘em in this cage with a wheel and a water bottle hanging upside down. Mom didn’t think I’d take care of ‘em but I did. I’d cut up strips of paper in the bottom of the cage so they could nest. Anyway, the girl mouse had these babies. They couldn’t have been as long as this.” He was indicating the end of his little finger. “Bald,” he went on. “Just little bitty old things. We had to go out of town one weekend and when we got back the cat had tried to get in the cage. Knocked it off the desk and everything. The mice were gone. Probably the cat got ‘em except for this one that had been laying in all these paper shreds. Well, the water had spilled so the paper was damp and the little thing must have had pneumonia or something because it was panting, like it couldn’t breathe good. I tried to keep it warm. I watched it for hours and it just kept getting worse and worse so I decided I better … you know, do away with it. So it wouldn’t suffer anymore.”