Mean Business on North Ganson Street by S. Craig Zahler Read Free Book Online Page A

the body. Then she brought the beverage to the dead woman’s mouth.
    â€œWait,” cautioned Bettinger. “You don’t want to crack—”
    Meredith Wong upended the cup, and the corpse hissed, fog billowing from its mouth and nostrils. The coroner then donned a latex glove, seized the tongue, and pulled. Frozen blood crackled.
    The detective leaned closer, shining his penlight. Tattooed to the underside of Elaine James’s tongue was a hairy phallus that squirted four teardrop-shaped bullets.
    Meredith Wong contemplated the penis as if she were a math professor. “Hmmm. Didn’t see this.”
    Bettinger looked at Dominic. “You’ve seen a mark like this before?”
    â€œNo.”
    The detective was not convinced that the big fellow was telling the truth. “Any idea what it might mean?”
    â€œDick was her favorite flavor?”
    â€œBe polite,” said Bettinger. “And take a picture of it with that phone you’re so excited about.”
    â€œWhatever.”
    The detective returned his attention to the coroner. “We’ll need to do an autopsy.”
    â€œBecause she has a tattoo?” asked Meredith Wong, annoyed.
    â€œBecause she was murdered.” Bettinger let his words settle inside the woman’s head. “We need to get evidence before you incinerate her.”
    â€œI already swabbed semen from her vagina and rectum, and the cause of death is known.” The coroner pointed to the iridescent, bluish-black indentation that encircled the corpse’s neck. “She asphyxiated.”
    The detective was surprised that the woman knew such a big word. “You’ve performed forensic autopsies?”
    â€œOf course I have. Who else would?”
    Bettinger thought, A qualified medical examiner, but did not voice his inflammatory response. “When can you have the body ready for autopsy?”
    â€œTomorrow morning.”
    â€œWhat time?”
    â€œTen thirty.”
    Dominic looked over. “There aren’t any movies?”
    â€œMuzzle that.” Bettinger returned his attention to Meredith Wong. “We’ll be here at ten thirty.”
    â€œMake it eleven.”
    *   *   *
    Bettinger scanned the Elaine James file as the elevator carried him and his partner toward the lobby. Locating the address, he said, “We’re going to six twenty-four Ganson Street.”
    â€œThat’s where they found the body?”
    â€œSo you were a detective.”
    â€œYou got any idea where that is? Ganson Street?”
    â€œMy driver does.”
    The elevator chimed like a bell in a boxing match, and the policemen entered the lobby, where an elderly black man kicked the vending machine in a futile attempt to free one of the fiber bars.
    Dominic pulled a few quarters from his pocket and gave them to the oldster, who was too angry to thank him.

 
    IX
    A Big, Educated Maybe
    The silver car sped west on Fifty-sixth Street. Twenty minutes later, it carried its two silent inhabitants from the edge of the lower-middle-class area into a dilapidated region that resembled the one through which Bettinger had driven earlier that morning. Poverty surrounded the policemen, and overhead, the sun hid behind dirty clouds.
    â€œWhat’s this part called?”
    â€œThe Toilet.”
    The detective saw an abandoned building that was covered with so much graffiti that its original color was now a fable. “This whole area’s like this?”
    â€œGets worse up north.”
    â€œThat’s possible?”
    â€œVery.”
    â€œWhat’s that part called?”
    â€œShitopia.”
    On the far corner, Bettinger noticed a dead cat that had been nailed by its head to a telephone pole. “Christ’s uncle.”
    â€œYou gonna object to some music?” inquired Dominic.
    â€œYou listen to that shit that glorifies violence, criminality, and