I didn’t believe this story, though I’d no reason not to, became seized with the impression this was a cobbling together of information in a manner meant to have me slip up, say something peculiar, so I just nodded, again.
The caller, the officer went on, said that the man had not asked the police to be called, the caller was concerned, however, just wanted it on record, had emphasized that the man in the apartment said they’d felt in a safe situation, imagined the mess could have been caused by some acquaintance who had a key and who likely had been over in their absence.
I swallowed and the officer pricked up, leaned in, seeming to take it that I was going to interject something, so I said No, I don’t know, I wasn’t going to say anything.
-Say anything?
I smiled, even breathed like the sound of a little Heh heh and shook my head never mind.
-Were you in the apartment next door, at any time tonight for any reason?
-No.
-Was the man from next door in your apartment tonight, for any amount of time, for any reason?
-No.
-Not that you are aware of, the second officer added, like he’d spotted a word in a puzzle printed backward, diagonal.
-I said No, but so much under my breath that might just be what it was taken for.
***
Expansively, I just asked what it was exactly was going to happen, emphasized my fatigue, asked if I needed to give some statement, finally all but cringed What are we doing? used-car salesman, as though we were all acting like idiots, like I wanted the officers to be fed up, bored with it all, wanted them to rather be elsewhere, aggravated that I even existed.
I was told that the man who’d made the initial telephone call to the police was on his way, a friend of the man who’d been staying in the apartment and who also sometimes stayed there, the explanation furthering that this man would be in a position to know with some exactness if anything was missing from the apartment.
I could’ve mocked up an innocence, been astonished at the implicit tick that something might be in this apartment, but the whole thing was probably only half true, was bait to squirm me further out.
Purposeless, the second officer said the name Jarding, Dimitri Jarding—no context, let it hang.
I puzzled over whether I should respond, say something like Is that the man coming over or the man who was in the apartment, the missing man? My impulse was that it was alright to ask, but my impulse was also to second guess this. I wondered how to behave like myself, didn’t trust myself, realized I’d never trusted myself, always fundamentally reconsidered my every action, thought four or five permutations of everything I did, no more fond of the choice than the choices, no more committed to my actions than my thoughts. I could just as well turn to the officers and say some other name—say my name, Jervis Tidmouth, ask them their names—I had as much impulse to do that, obviously, as I was standing around thinking it, thinking I wouldn’t do it, but in thinking that I was thinking about doing it.
The silence of the room surrounded me. I found I was standing at a bit of a swivel, mouth open on some half-formed subvocalization, the officers looking at me, concern to their mouths, their brows.
-I really haven’t slept, I said, rubbing my face, nodding the comment out to both of them.
I opened the faucet tap, filled my hands with water, let it spill over, couldn’t make myself drink.
***
After a moment or two of going through the papers on his clipboard, the first officer asked me would it be alright if he used my toilet and I shrugged a wiggle of my fingers, indicated it was just behind him, though of course knew he already knew that. The door shut, the fan went on, as did the sink, a slight whisper of water, more than a trickle, a steady line, exactly a line, stiff, not a flow.
I picked up the burnt pizza and went to drop it in the waste basket, paused, looked to the second officer and told him—he looking down at the clipboard now—that I was going to do so. He nodded and his tongue slipped across to moisten his lips while he did, didn’t quite retract fully as he glanced back down.
I was about to ask if it was alright if I sat on the sofa, prepared a sentence or two about how I felt poorly, but as I thought about it I drifted past the officer, not even getting a glance, a flick of eyes as far as I could tell, found myself on the sofa, leaned forward, shoulder top rubbing an itch on the side of my face, clicked the television on, the volume set low.
There was a flush of the toilet, the overhead fan went off, the intensity of the faucet water increased for half a minute, a minute, shut of. The officer came out, rubbing a spot on the side of his head, making a quiet remark to the other officer how it was not getting any better.
My eyes transfixed, bore into the images on the television screen—I felt I was witnessing actual flesh and cloth, nothing glass, nothing harsh illumination, old recorded, inane. I hardly even thought about what else I might do. There was nothing else I might do.
I briefly calmed down when I realized the message that had come through on the telephone likely wasn’t a set up, it couldn’t have been known I’d stolen Dimitri’s telephone, that wouldn’t even be reasonable to suspect.
So no one thought he was dead, maybe. Yet.
Even if someone thought I’d killed him, it was odd—they might think I’d killed him, but not really even think he was dead.
***
I heard some stirring from the officers, but didn’t want to look up, even scratched at my forehead with my left hand so that my palm obscured any possibility of getting a look at what was going on.
My apartment door opened, closed.
I’d still not glanced over, was having some debate with myself about when I should, couldn’t hear any movement, when the first officer, generally, explained that his partner was going to the lobby to meet the man we were waiting for, I was to remain in the apartment. There was a delay of a few moments—due to my getting a dryness in my throat, clearing it, this building into a crisp cough—in my saying I understood.
I leaned back, the stretch to my lower back immediately raising the sensation of a coming bowel movement. I folded forward quickly, the officer asking if everything was alight. I grunted some affirmative, face practically between my knees, got myself standing, asked would it be alright if I took a moment to use my thermometer. He nodded with near enthusiasm, glad to help, vaguely doodled his index finger around, grazing points at the cabinets and drawers and I, still tense against the shrink of cramp, managed to say that it was just out on the counter, by the sink.
-It’s fallen in the sink, he said, asked if he should wash it, was already running the water so I didn’t answer.
I felt despicable, nonentity, the utter phoniness of this exchange grating. I was nearly startled by the glut of contempt scampering in me, bloating, my ridicule for what was about to happen to me and the people involved in orchestrating it. These were games, their ways of approaching the world, half questions, tiddly-winks.
If they weren’t right about me, I thought, thermometer slipping underneath my tongue, how would they ever condone their thoughts, their methods, the perversions they so obviously felt like they felt the weight of their tongues waking from poor sleep?
***
I remained in the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door after hearing the sound of the first officer’s voice moving down the corridor, past my door. I could make out the burble of movement even through the yawn of the coolant, the cold even amplified it as I made the whole thing fiction, elongated it, sharpened it in my thoughts.
I settled on eating a few more pieces of bread. Finishing the first, I instinctually went to drink water from my hands at the tap, but this suddenly struck me as an odd thing to do in front of the officer. Just as quickly, it struck me I’d already done it, before. I opened a cabinet, got down a plastic cup, filled it slowly, moved it to my mouth, no longer wanting it, letting the water lap against the out
side of my lips. I faked a few swallow, dumped the water all into the sink, just in the off chance the officer had either somehow noted how much I’d filled the glass with or else might just see how much was there, get in his mind it seemed a lot.
-A pathetic little squeak, I did my best playacted curiosity, asked the officer Aren’t they going to come over here?
Only the sternness, the rigid cage door of him apparent now, the officer said they would, added It depends, then like a scribble scrabble over this remark, a little louder, said They will.
It’d been a reasonable enough question, there was no cause to think anybody wouldn’t ask it. But still, it was another mistake. I wanted to laugh, just hold my hands up, kindergarten, say I surrender, Christ, forget about it, I surrender, do it with a smile on my face, one last chance that it might be taken as a joke, as an absurdity, wanted to believe the action would seem out of place if I took it.
***
A feeling of ink spilling, spreading, consuming the space of a paper warmed me, I felt dizzy, my mind violently biting on the words The padlock key is in your pocket. It was as though my mind was reminding my body, like I was still neither, just something near enough to overhear the alarm.
I was confined, absolutely wrecked, no thought of movement or charade of normalcy.
The key was in my pocket.
If I so much as tried to conceal it somewhere, I could never disguise the attempt, something would make it stand out, any motion glaring.
Beside which, if it was discovered hidden in my apartment—which it would be—wouldn’t that somehow be worse?
I squeezed my nose shut with both fingers, blew out, let the pressure fill me, then brought my hands to my thighs and collapsed out a blurting sigh.
The officer asked me if I needed anything. I waved him off, friendly, turned and leaned forward over the counter.
The necessity of being rid of the key was overwhelming. I couldn’t face the scenario of simply being told Turn out your pockets, had as easily as that.
Carrying on, only even slightly exaggerating, with my display of feeling ill, I massaged my ribs, as casually as I could getting my hand into my pocket, gripped around the key, got the key into my mouth disguised as touching at a wet sniffle, breathed burps out my nose. Then I refilled the glass I’d just pretended to drink from, brought it to my mouth, slipped the key out into the liquid, had an actual swallow, another, hardly could stop drinking but did.
I coughed into my hand, started running the water like to get more, but once a bit had filled the glass I dumped it out, wanting to cough but for some reason making a hiss instead to help cover any possibly sound that could overpower the rush of water.
Then, all at once, a thought of the officer’s face looking at me, his hand about to touch my shoulder, I tightened, had a sensation the back of my head had been jostled, smacked, bent forward from the nonexistent blow and vomited into the basin, horribly, moaning, the first retch liquid and sweet mash of bread, the following three like perverse ribbits, obscene, nothing but air out while at the same time it was like I was gobbling the same air in.
***
The officer had walked me to the sofa against my dull protests, I sat shivering, listening to him running the water at the faucet to force the mess down the drain, was certain he’d hit the switch for the disposal, the clatter would sound, he’d casually go to clear it and the key would be extracted.
Instead, the door to my apartment opened, the second officer entering, remarking something quietly to the first. Then, the sound of another voice, a wheezing like words, falsetto of a cowed animal. For two minutes a conversation before I slowly hobbled my face around to observe.
The man, shorter than both officers by at least a foot, shorter than me, had no nose, it was as though it’d been raggedly, purposefully removed, the gapes that would’ve been hidden by cartilage, curled up into nostril, seemed exaggerated, as though fingers had been plumbed and plumb through them, maybe scissors inserted and opened to pry the openings wider, make them mush into one flat hole. He was dressed in fine, tailored clothes—stripped shirt, fitted vest, no coat on, his trousers sleek down his legs into well weathered boxing shoes.
I was slack jawed, the apprehension I felt rending me from myself, I was nothing but my drained expression, the wides of my pulpy eyes.
I was being addressed, casually, and responded something—it seemed of no consequence that I didn’t know what I said, it must’ve been correct, elicited no odd reaction.
My attention had been so on the lack of nose, I only after several moments noticed that there was some deformation of the man’s left eye.
I was motioned to stand, the first officer helping me, soothing some words as I let most of my weight on him.
The man didn’t have an eye. There was a cavity there. Stitched into that cavity, pressed in, crammed, filling it, was what seemed a piece of cloth filled with rice granules, in felt-tip pen, dulled with time, a large black of ink dotted on, a few odd scraggles of lines away from it which were just how a talentless adolescent would doodle bloodshot.
***
There was no resistance to excusing me once again to the bathroom. The man held his gaze on me as I moved from the main room through the door.
Outside, I knew his sack eye kept its stuffed tight skin fixated on me. The three of them would just wait or would go about their business while I sat, breathing in whimpering quivers—likely I could be heard, was being listened to.
How could this be the man they were waiting for? How could this be the person who had telephoned them, whose word they were taking to traipse in and out of people’s apartments?
There was obscenity in it, yet the officers seemed unphased, treated this as a man concerned with the disappearance of a friend.
I wanted to drag them to the locked room, hammer at it with my arms until it fell open, remove the cloth from the dead man’s head, seize his hair, present his face, scream at them, scream pointing at the face of the corpse to the face of the man now strolling the carpet of my rooms, squinting, looking.
I was gripped with panic that just the evidence of the dead insect would be enough, the presence of such a detail, but got a hold of myself, knew that Dimitri hadn’t been alive to relate that—it’d been, for all intents and purposes, the man’s final action.
Still, there would be something. Not that what the police had already seen and knew wasn’t enough. They were just walking this perversion around, a cretin on a leash, their mongrel to use as they pleased.
I found no way to rationalize the way the officers behaved toward such an entity, to a man who’d done such a thing to himself, stood wheezing rags of speech out holes he’d carved in himself, looking to accuse me with evidence verified by one eye and as much by cloth and grain.
It was impossible to reenter the apartment without accepting it, accepting that such a thing was happening and it was the more impossible to confess, coward away behind what I’d done, make it simple, finite. I’d wandered into a world comprised of intestine and was being judged by digesting remains.
***
The three of them were in the bedroom when I caught up, the man touching his foot to my laundry, an action I didn’t understand should be allowed. He breathed at me, able to disguise it as just breathing, but faced his body in my direction so I’d know it was being done at me.
The second officer moved me a bit to the side, explaining that it would be preferable that I just answer any questions, allow the investigation to move along, but at the same time advised me that I at any time could request them to leave and maters would be investigated in another fashion.
Anger—genuine, something I understood but at the same time felt unaware of—had me snapping at him a demand to explain what it was he meant, was I to be arrested, was I being informed of my rights?
He explained that there was nothing to arrest me for and that it would be preferable if I could
calmly answer some questions, the emphasis pointedly on Calmly, as though he was reminding me.
-Were you in the neighboring apartment at anytime during the night or early morning?
-No.
-Do you have anything in this apartment or on your person that rightfully belongs in the neighboring apartment?
-No. Does he say I do?
I crumpled on the words, disgusted I’d called the man He—I felt I was being ridiculed, that they’d stood a road kill on stiff hind legs and dawdled it in jiggles, stuck it in a hat and glasses or that they’d brought in a pile of excrement they held in their hands, blew kisses to, guffawed each time they’d finally get me to go along with their insane.
Both officers were facing me now, the man behind them by my bureau. He was watching, with his thumb and third finger pinching the sack of his false eye, massaging some of the contents as though an ordinary a thing, nibbling a finger side, stroking a beard.
***
The officer said that a key was missing, a key to a room the owner of the apartment kept securely locked, reinforced.
-Reinforced?
He repeated the word, it almost odd that he was explaining so much, a rottenness of polite.
-This gentleman claims that Ginette, your neighbor, is somewhat neurotic, and has installed locks to the doors of her bedroom, interior and exterior, that the key to these locks is normally hung in a place in the kitchen while she is away, that it was there as early as this afternoon, when the gentleman himself claims to have been inside of the apartment and he further claims that he can produce evidence that illustrates his friend also saw the key, as late as midnight.
I stood, listening to every word, neither understood why I was being told this, the manner in which it was being explained, or how the man could be referred to so offhandedly as This Gentleman.