Under the Crescent Moon

Originally written Sunday, December 18, 2005

The woman in the trenchcoat saw us and unglued the cell phone from her ear for a moment to say, “Is this her?’ Patrick confirmed. She addressed me. “I let him in because he said you might know her. Is she a friend of yours?” I saw she had a keychain hanging from her wrist, gathered that the emergency exit was locked from outside, and concluded that she was an owner or manager of the place.

For Patrick to have said I knew the victim, whom he had no reason to believe I’d met before, meant that I didn’t need to examine the corpse for bite marks. “No, I don’t know her,” I said, fighting hard to keep my voice from taking on a hardened, angry edge. For a second I contemplated giving Moshe’s description, or even his name, telling them I’d seen her leave the club with him, but I followed that scenario to the best possible end—that they’d locate him and arrest him, and when the first time the light entered his jail cell he’d burn to a crisp, very complicated things could begin to reflect on me—and decided against it. All I said was, “But I did see her, and I saw the guy she came with. I think he’s downstairs, if you can let me back in.”

Once I’d indelicately interrupted Trudy and her boytoy, much as I imagine Patrick had done with me, and dragged them unsympathetically out into the cold midnight air, the look on Trudy’s face indicated that she was possibly even more shocked at the sight than I had been angry. At that moment, the police cars finally arrived, and officers emerged from each. One spoke with the manager, while another approached the skinny man, who was now on his knees beside his friend, staring and allowing tears to creep down his cheeks (he was wearing Trudy’s jacket, the collar turned up to hide his own neck punctures). A third polled the rubberneckers for any information they had to share. Some wore uniforms and others wore plain suits. From my years of avid cop and detective show viewing, I made the educated guess that the latter were detectives or forensics experts of some sort. Their plan seemed to be to avoid making a stir, probably for fear of causing the perpetrator to flee if he (or she) hadn’t already. They may have been hoping to secure a description from a witness—any witness—and scan the crowd as they left. They didn’t seem as concerned as they might have been that the killer would soon strike again. From what I could tell from a distance, Trudy’s pal seemed as reluctant as I’d been to help, and probably for the same reason.

In the meantime, Jeanine had retreated back inside from the cold and said she’d ask Joey to take her home if I didn’t come to find her. I was sad for our night to end so uncomfortably, but there was so much else to worry about now that I honestly didn’t think about it for long (except that every so often, for the next couple of hours, my skin felt imaginary fingers and lips cast a tactile shadow that would quickly dissipate a moment later). I was relieved that whatever story I’d have to make up later would not be a complex one.

“How’d this happen, Trude?”

She could only shake her head. She was completely speechless.

“Re-do your lipstick. You look like you’ve been drinking Hawaiian Punch.”

It didn’t seem to register at first, but slowly she seemed to put the instructions together and pulled out a black cherry-ish shade from her purse.

“Do you know where he is?”

“No, I—I went downstairs with Craig. I didn’t even….”

Seeing she wouldn’t be much help, I scanned the small cluster of onlookers in the alley to locate Patrick. Catching his eye across the crowd, I let him see me reach back into my bag for the charm. He watched as I held it against my chest, let its temperature pick up the pace of my slightly elevated heartbeat, and said, “Come here.” Patrick looked skeptical, but seeing as I hadn’t been wearing it prior to deciding to deliver the instruction, he would have realized I was at least not being controlled by it. I know he wanted to rush across and stop me, but if he had tried, I’d have a patronizing lecture prepared for our next lesson together. I was doing it under his watch on purpose so that there were no misunderstandings about my intent.

It took a few minutes, but eventually Moshe did arrive, appearing through the emergency exit in a daze. Trudy saw him at the same time as I did, and she started toward him. Before she reached him, I said through the charm, “You’re only here to speak with me.”
And indeed, the minute she began to speak to him, he said to her, “I’m not here for you,” and Trudy immediately looked as though her mind were wandering elsewhere.

“Follow,” I instructed. I relocated around the corner, and like a loyal pet, he obeyed. Once we were out of sight of the other key players in the drama, I backed him up into the concave entrance to a small shop, between the display windows. There were obviously limits to what the charm could do: it was not geared toward interrogation, for instance. Even though some of us have found ourselves carrying on conversations half-aware of ourselves while under its influence, we haven’t said in the process anything we wouldn’t ordinarily say, whether we were telling the truth or not. There was little reason to believe it would be any different for its primary object of control. I dropped the charm back into the shoulder bag yet again but drew out my other unconventional possession, the wooden stake. Once the crescent left my hand, Moshe appeared to come gradually out of his stupor.

“What did you do?” I asked, cutting right to the chase before he had time to become aware of his surroundings.

“Huh? Where are we?”

“Near the club.” Standing in between him and the sidewalk, weapon in hand, I wore my stern face. “Now, what the fuck did you do?”

The events of this day to be continued...