The Gypsy

TWO
The Wolf and the Gypsy

The city is a cesspool,

my apartment is a mess.

You say you got a problem,

just give me your address.

STEPDOWN

"Hell of a thing," said the hotel manager. He wiped his shining forehead with a dirty hanky, dragging it roughly across two ripely swollen pimples. He shifted around, glancing at the body, and away, shying like a nervous horse. Guy was too young to be managing a flop house. Stepovich could tell the kid felt ill, but that being here made him feel so important he couldn't stand to leave. This poor old woman leaking blood onto the hotel's cheap carpeting was probably the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

"Think they raped her?" The kid scrubbed at his forehead again, scratched at one of the zits, then absently squeezed it. Stepovich looked away. He'd rather look at the body.

"Sure," Durand said, heavily sarcastic. "What man wouldn't get it up for her? I mean, the streets are crawling with granny bangers, aren't they?"

"Shut up." They made him tired, both of them.

Someday, when Durand had seen what elderly women looked like after they'd been raped, he wouldn't joke about it anymore. "Leave the kid, uh,witness alone. Homicide will want him first."

"Yeah. They'll have a lot of questions for you. And they like their meat fresh. Hope you don't have any plans for the next twelve hours or so," Durand said cruelly.

The kid stared at him, not sure if Durand was serious or not. Durand cop-stared at him. "I, uh, I should be down where I can answer the phone, shit like that," the kid muttered uneasily. "If I'm not right at that desk, you'd be surprised how many people try to sneak out without paying."

"Probably not," Durand said.

"No, really, they do," the kid insisted righteously."They…"

"No. I mean I wouldn't be surprised. Go ahead,get back to your phone, kid. We want you, we'll call you." Then, "Try not to touch the door as you leave,okay?"

Stepovich wondered why Durand bothered. The kid had already smeared it up once, coming in here,and then again when he led them up here. Besides,it wasn't like homicide was going to get all worked up and dust the whole place. The department's funds were limited; right now all of them were going toward that child mutilation case and the Exxon Basher. Media loved those. Some old gypsy woman getting herself killed wasn't exactly the Manson murders. What was it Durand had said as they came in?"Mighta known. A gypsy. They're always killing each other."

He'd already phoned it in. Now there wasn't much to do except wait until homicide arrived to take over.He and Durand had taken the call as a domestic violence. Well, maybe it had been. But the kid manager hadn't seen anything, and wasn't even sure who the room had been let to. Stepovich glanced back to the body. It pissed him off. Dying bloody in a cheap hotel room, that was something to happen to a pimp or a pusher, not to an old woman. Anybody who'd lived that long deserved a better death.

She'd fought it. He had to say that for her. There would be skin under her fingernails, he'd bet, and it was obvious it had taken more than one blow from the knife to take her down. The last one had been as she lay there, a driving jab into her back and out, to make sure of her. Her legs were flung wide, one shoe half off. An intricately patterned blue shawl led from her body to the door. Had it snagged on her killer's watch? No one would ever know. Her face was turned away from him but her hair, thick as a young girl's,though grey, had come half undone. A pink edge of ear and a silver hoop earring peeked out of it.

Durand was crouched over her, staring at her face. His head was cocked, like a puppy staring into a stereo speaker at a recording of wolves howling. Puzzled.

"What?" Stepovich demanded.

"Gypsy told my fortune, once. I was wondering if it might have been her."

Stepovich frowned. "You saying we should call bunko, that she's been working scams lately?"

"No. Naw," Durand seemed embarrassed. "It was a long time ago, at a fair when I was a kid. In a little white trailer covered with dust, hooked to a battered old Caddy. She said that thirty-two was my number,and that foxgloves would be important to me."

"Foxgloves?"

"You know, kind of a pinkish flower, grows by the roads some places."

Stepovich stared at his partner, waiting.

Durand stood. "So." He cleared his throat, folded his arms. "Maybe we should call bunko, maybe they'd recognize her."

"Maybe. And maybe we should let homicide do it,so we don't have to repeat everything bunko says to us to them." Most homicide cops Stepovich knew got bent out of shape if they thought a regular cop was trying to muscle in on their work. No, it was better to just take it easy and wait here, protect the scene until the homicide dicks got here and took over. Then it would be time for their afternoon break, and then there'd be another couple of hours of riding around,and then he could go home. He walked to the room's single window and stared down at the street, wondering how long it would take for homicide to arrive.And how many questions they'd ask, and how long they'd keep him and Durand here. It seemed to Stepovich that time had stopped, and wouldn't start again until they got here. It would never start again for the old woman. But when the detectives got here, it would be the end of the "waiting by a body" time and the beginning of the "waiting for the shift to be over" time. He wanted to go home. And then he could get rid of that knife. The thing was sticking in his brain, bugging him.He wished he'd never seen the damn thing. Just touching it made him feel crawly. He should have left it on the sidewalk, he should have gone ahead and booked the gypsy for concealed weapon. He thought of all the times he'd leaned switchblades up against the curb and stomped them so he wouldn't have to book a kid for concealed weapon. Well, the gypsy's knife wouldn't have yielded to that sort of treatment.Thick blade, at least two inches across at the hilt. And a weird hilt. On the surface of the hilt, toward the blade, there were these three little pins or pegs,shaped like stars. All three stars were enclosed in an engraving of a crescent moon. He'd never seen anything like it. He had it at home, in the bottom drawer,with his socks. It had been there since that night he'd gone to the tank and the gypsy hadn't been there. No one had sorted that out yet; all the paperwork said he should still have been there. What the hell. Stepovich was betting he wouldn't see the gypsy again.

So maybe the best thing to do was to take the knife back to the cemetery gates where they'd rattled the gypsy. Dump it there, kick it under the bushes. He sure as hell didn't want to keep it. He'd thought about tossing it into a dumpster or slipping it down a sewer. But those solutions didn't feel right either. No, he'd take it to the cemetery, and toss it in the bushes,where it would have ended up if they'd overlooked it when they shook the gypsy down.

"Step?"

"Yeah?" He didn't look away from the street. He was kind of watching their car, and kind of watching the loungers in front of the motorcycle shop down the street. Were they lounging, or were they watching?Looking out for what? Protecting what? And was it worth his while to make an effort to find out?

"Step. you think maybe this dead gypsy's got anything to do with the one we booked last week?"

He shrugged. "City's full of gypsies this time of year. Come in from God knows where, renting old storefronts, selling cheap tapestries from Japan in rundown bars, making up futures for people who don't have any. A week or a month from now,whoosh, they're all gone to God knows where. Makes you wonder if they were really here in the first place. And that's why we'll never know who killed this one,or where the other one went."

"Step?"

"No, I doubt if they're connected." He sighed and turned away from the window.

"Wish we knew what happened to that one we dragged in. I got a gut feeling he was the one blew away the liquor store clerk."

"Yeah? Well, I got a gut feeling he wasn't."

"How come?"

"Just because." He turned back to the window. An unmarked car pulled in behind theirs. A man in a, for God's sake, trench coat got out. He didn't know him,but the other detective was Scullion, Good. Scullion was fast and thorough. They'd be out of there in no time. A meat wagon was turning the corner.

"You know," said Durand softly. "I really think she was the same gypsy. The one that told my fortune."

Walkin' down an empty street

In a city I don't know,

Whistlin' something catchy

As I make my way through snow.

Ain't got no gloves so

I keep my hands

Balled up in fists;

I'm trying not to think

How it all came down to this.

"NO PASSENGER"

The Coachman awoke, realizing that he'd been drunk again. This made him laugh, until it came to him that he was no longer drunk, and yet he was awake. This puzzled him. Next to him was a bottle labeled Mr. Boston Five-Star Brandy. There was about a third of the bottle left. He started to unscrew the cap, then closed it again. He blinked.

He remembered that he had dreamed that he'd had a passenger.

And now he was suddenly, inexplicably sober. He stood up, looked around the shabby room he could afford from money he begged and what he didn't drink, and suddenly laughed. Something was happening, somewhere.

He unscrewed the cap, smelled it, and decided it wasn't good enough. If it had been, he'd have poured a shot into a glass and drunk it that way, to celebrate,but it wasn't so he didn't. He checked his pockets and found almost three dollars in change, which would be enough to get him coffee and a Danish.Good. He whistled as he showered, no longer minding the low water pressure and he wondered how and where he would find his coach.

I haven't seen or heard from them

In far too many years,

But banging from the copper pans

Still echoes in my ears.

"RAVEN, OWL, AND I"

The Gypsy went walking, as he had so often before,not so much looking for anything as just looking, only he was walking where there was nothing to see and nowhere to go. He wore yellow, but it was brighter than he thought it should be, and his boots felt softer,although it was too much effort to look at them.

A hand halted him, and he, oddly, recognized the ring on it; he couldn't remember from where. A pair of familiar dark eyes locked with his, but then the light in them went out. The thought came to him that he'd just been saved from something.

He walked further, and there was a wolf, growling and bristling. He paused, and looked closer; the wolf's foot was trapped. He thought that he would release the foot, but the wolf snapped at him. He stopped then, puzzled. "Why snap at me?" he said."Am I your enemy? No. I'm the one who is trying to help you."

The wolf stared at him with old, intelligent eyes.He continued, "I will let you go, but you must not attack me; you must find your proper prey. Will you do that?"

The wolf studied him carefully, suspiciously, and it occurred to him that the wolf wondered, not if he could be trusted, but if he were capable of releasing him. The Wolf is no fool, he thought to himself, staring into its eyes.

The eyes contracted and became one, against a field of darkness, then they resolved until they became a single pinpoint of light, which became the universe,and it pulsed a very pale blue. His concentration was total, his questions, none. A moment ago, it had seemed, he could hear that pinpoint, that blue, that pulsing. A moment ago it had been the beat of the tambourine, zils laughing merrily, head thrumming. It had been that way forever, a moment ago, and now it was a pinpoint of light, and had been that, too,forever.

There was the smell that came from cars, and it was stifling. The pinpoint grew into a flower as sound returned, and he opened his eyes to the dryness of his mouth and gravel against his cheek, and a beam of evening sunlight striking his face, as he tried to remember what he had just escaped. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. Visions came at his bidding, and then wouldn't leave: something scary chased him,then became his brother with a knife, then became his other brother, crying, yet he knew it was not from his brothers that he had fled.

One vision was of an old woman, who pointed her finger at him and said, "Do not squander my gift,"to which he had replied, "It was not just to me you gave it, Mother, yet I'll make the best use of it I can."

Another was of a small girl, who seemed to be the old woman with brown eyes at the same time, only she laughed as if she knew it were only a game. Another was of a man in an apron asking his name, and he being unable to remember. That was strange; he knew who he was. He was.,. Charles? No, that wasn't right. What did they call him? Umm… "Cigany," he said aloud, and began coughing from the dust. He swallowed several times, but was still very thirsty.

Overhead, a cement bridge held up a freeway; next to him a street passed below it, and around him was a retaining wall, which had kept him hidden, in the open, in the middle of a large city. He smiled at this,in spite of his discomfort. The day seemed to be ending. He realized that he had lain there for more than a day, perhaps several. Could he have died from exposure? Why not? He needed water, a toilet, and food, in that order.

He almost relieved his bladder in his protected cement grove, but this felt wrong, as if by doing this he would be sacrificing something he couldn't afford to lose, now that he lived in the wilds of the city. He pulled himself to his feet, braced himself against the wall, and began walking. He saw a filling station just across the street and knew that he would live.

I look for troubles all over town,

My nerves are shot but it don't get me down.

"STEPDOWN"

He wanted chicken and biscuits for dinner. Like they used to have, the chicken braised and then cooked in a gravy, and Jennie's white biscuits with the crispy brown points on top, and Jennie laughing as she told Jeffrey and Laurie that by God she never wanted to see them sopping up gravy with biscuits like their dad did. And then he'd laugh and tell her his manners were her fault, for making the gravy so good he didn't want to waste a smear of it.

Maybe that's what he wanted, more than the food. The laughing around a table.

He dumped the can of Dinty Moore stew into a pan and put it over a burner. It smelled like dogfood, cold. Hell, it looked like dogfood, but heated up it was okay. A little too peppery, but okay. And the peas came out the color of an old fatigue jacket, but it was okay. It was okay. It was all okay, just take it easy,don't get worked up.

He took his beer to the couch, turned on the television. News. He clicked through the channels, not wanting to hear about an old gypsy woman found stabbed to death in a cheap hotel. He found the Jetsons, a quiz show, "Sesame Street," more news, and a Jesus for sale program. He went back to the quiz show, A woman was jumping up and down and screaming while holding onto the host's arm. She'd just won a refrigerator. It was frost-free, with a no-fingerprint surface, a drink dispenser, and an ice maker.

The Gypsy said, "Too bad there wasn't a no-fingerprint surface on the knife."

"Yeah," Stepovich agreed. He took another pull off his beer.

"You bring me the message from the old woman?"

"Yeah. I got it here somewhere." Stepovich slapped his pockets for the letter, but he couldn't find it. He found a rock crystal and pulled it out instead."Scullion found it in her scarf. Inside her bag. It was addressed to you." Stepovich held it out, but the Gypsy wouldn't take it from him.

"That's your name on there, not mine," said the Gypsy. He was carving on a stick with his knife, and the shavings were going all over the floor. Jennie would be mad. Stepovich held the crystal close to his eyes, trying to see whose name was really on it."Don't bother," said the Gypsy, making long curling shavings. "All it says it, 'Find out who killed me.' " A raven hopped up and pecked at the shavings. The Gypsy shooed him away with a wave of his knife.

"Not my job," said Stepovich, taking another pull off his beer,

"No one's job," agreed the Gypsy. "No one gives a shit anymore." He got up and took the blackened coffee pot from the fire. It was made of that old blue enameled ware, the kind that has black speckles on it. Stepovich wondered why it didn't burn him. The Gypsy poured himself coffee into a heavy china mug.He stirred it with his finger. He sipped at it, and the rising steam from the mug floated up toward the crescent moon. He pointed at the coach, where a dark figure waited, holding reins that drifted off into fog. Or was it a knitted scarf? "You just want to leave?"

Stepovich frowned, wondering. Did he want to leave? "What about the old woman?" he asked.

"Not your job. Remember?" The Gypsy smiled kindly. "We can leave any time you want. How about now?" He scratched his chest through his yellow shirt. Stepovich could see that a few threads of the blue embroidery were coming undone. Jennie could fix that in a minute. He knew she could, but she wouldn't. She didn't fix things anymore.

Something else was cooking on the fire, something that boiled over the lip of the old kettle and fell in slow drips into the fire. The flames leaped up to catch the drips, eager to devour, and a terrible stench and smoke arose. The smoke stung Stepovich's eyes."Where does the coach go?" he gasped, rubbing his eyes and trying to see the Gypsy through the smoke.

"The one place you can't get to from here," the Gypsy said. He stood up and put his knife away. "Do you want to go?"

"It's the only place I want to go," Stepovich said,and stood up.

The corner of the coffee table hit him on the cheekbone, and the sharp pain almost stunned him. He got slowly to his hands and knees, staggered to the kitchen, dragged the pot off the stove and turned the burner off. He clicked on the fan in the range hood. It squealed annoyingly, but he let it run. The stew that was left in the pot looked disgusting, thick and stringy. He scraped it into a bowl and got some bread to go with it. And another beer. He set it all out on the coffee table, turned off the fan and went to look in the bathroom mirror.

Well, it was going to swell, but at least it wasn't going to be a black eye. He looked at himself. Square jaw. Blue eyes. The kind of hair they called sandy,just starting to slip back at his temples. He'd lost weight in the last two years. Steadily. At his last cop physical, the doctor had complimented him on it."Looking fine, Stepovich," the man had said, prodding his belly muscles. "You'd put a lot of younger men to shame. Work out regularly?" Yeah, he'd told the doctor. Sure. Real regular. For a while, it had been the only way he could stop thinking. Now even that didn't work.

He went back to the couch. The quiz show was gone. Three people were in a living room, and the studio audience was laughing uproariously while one of the characters struck an offended pose and the other two simpered. Stepovich opened his beer,drank, had two spoonfuls of the burnt stew. He reached to the other end of the coffee table, dragged the phone toward him. He punched in the number,then hung up before it could ring.

He wondered what she'd do if he ever really did it.Just called her up and said, "I'm sorry, it was a big mistake,1 love you, can I please come home?"

He ate more stew. Probably get another restraining order. Probably send the kids to her mother.

He drank some beer. It hadn't been a mistake. They both knew that. The divorce had been right. And he didn't love her. He loved something else, the idea of being married and having the kids and all. That's what he loved. If he went home right now, they'd probably have a fight before two hours were up. No. He'd screwed it up too badly. Screwed it up once by walking out when she dared him to. Screwed it up again by following her everywhere, always trying to talk to her, phoning her up at midnight, being outside the building when she got off work, by following her as she drove home each day. She'd thought he was going to hurt her, had gotten the restraining order, had filed harassment charges, had nearly made him lose his job.

So now it was this. Send her a check, talk to the kids on the phone. Eat alone, sleep alone, because you're too damn tired to go through all that dating shit. So zone out on the tube, after exercising for three hours so you can sleep, then fall asleep and dream about goddamn gypsies.

He set down the empty bowl. Well, he was through with the last part. He was going to take the knife back to the cemetery, tonight. Somehow he was sure that would get the Gypsy out of his mind.