Inherit the Dead

phone allowed so the figures filled the screen in Perry’s hand.
    Angel . Her face cupped by a beefy sandy-haired man. His hands made her look up at him. Perry thought: He’s older than me .
    “Who is he?”
    “A state assemblyman. Might be other guys, but he’s who I caught her with.”
    “They know that you know?”
    “I e-mailed her the photos to show her I wasn’t no fool.”
    Photos .
    Perry had owned this same phone two upgrades ago. He finger-swiped the photo to the next stored shot. The beefy politician was bent over kissing Angel. She stood with her hands at her sides. Athird photo showed the same kiss, only now Mr. State Assemblyman pawed Angel’s breast.
    Randy said: “That’s all I got of them— Hey! ”
    Perry swiped to the next photo. The phone in his hand trembled.
    Angel. Naked. Standing in a steamy shower facing the clouded glass door. Blond hair blurred like golden light. Closed eyes. Her arms bent and vanished behind her head. The clouded glass made her wide mouth a blur of pink. Revealed epic, natural, handful breasts. Angel had a narrow waist. The photo ended where a bikini would have begun.
    She didn’t know the asshole was taking this, thought Perry.
    He finger-swiped to the next photo: her laughing at the camera, at Randy.
    All the other photos were of cars or auto work, except for one taken by a person who’d grabbed the phone to put her portrait in it: office Nora.
    “Give me my cell!”
    “After I fix it so it’s not rare enough to kill you for.”
    Perry e-mailed the photos of Angel and the political animal to his own phone. He sent her laughing portrait. Then the image of her naked behind clouded glass. Each e-mail vibrated the iPhone on his belt. He deleted the naked shot from Randy’s phone. Let Randy keep the others: Preserve your chain of evidence and back up what you got .
    “What’s his name?”
    “Tweed.”
    “Tweed who?”
    “Tweed is his last name.”
    “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
    “What’s funny about that shit? He’s Cyrus Tweed, some state legislature guy, got an office here in town. His name is his name.”
    Perry tossed the phone back to its owner. “Remember my name—Perry Christo. I programmed my number in there. You hear from, of , or about Angel, call me first, call me fast. Don’t make me figure you for a fall.”
    “I got enough trouble.”
    They both stared at the garage office where the closed door vibrated from a radio.
    Perry said: “That Nora being older and married wouldn’t stop a guy like you.”
    “You think I’m stupid?” Randy didn’t wait for Perry’s answer. “I know what I know. Gil’s war hollow. Just stands around their house. She thinks I got what she needs—that’s more than you know —and she lets me know what’s waiting for me. I hunger bad. But I do that, come later when she realizes who I’m not, my ass is tossed out the door. Or worse. I don’t dare even hint about if Gil was gone . What she might do then scares the shit out of me. She’s driving me crazy.”
    “There are other jobs.”
    “What planet are you from.”
    “Does she know about you and Angel?”
    “Nora figures my anybody else’s don’t count. Figures she’s where I’ll end up.”
    Perry shook his head: “Do your own math.”
    He walked away from that brick gas station/garage that felt like the 1940s, smelled of rubber, old gas, expensive perfume, cancer smoke. The chill of the gray-skied afternoon and the smell of the sea reclaimed him to here and now.

    The private detective unwound his woolen scarf, sat behind the steering wheel of his car. Worked his iPhone like his professional predecessors had worked the soles of their shoes. Google searches showed him New York State Assemblyman Cyrus Tweed’s gerrymanderedlegislative district twisted like a rattlesnake on Long Island but covered only a slice of this town. Perry found pictures of Mrs. Cyrus Tweed holding the hands of their two children. She was a pretty woman who knew how and when to smile.
    Cyrus Tweed’s legislature Web site listed his district office address on the other end of Main Street. Google Street View showed him its picture: a two-story brick building, offices above yet another trendy coffee shop.
    His investigator’s bones made Perry google the address for that building.
    Save Our Beaches listed its headquarters at that address. So did the Long Island Jobs Coalition Crew, Liberals United for Victory, Conservatives for American Values Endeavors,