The Dallas Handshake

By A.M. Scheitlin

It is 1968, and most of America is thinking about the upcoming presidential election. Not Agent Richard Cox. His only concern is getting out of Ohio.
Richard hates his life and career as an investigator at the Bureau of Responsible Masturbation. Filling out reports on auto-erotic asphyxiation is not what he signed up for when he became an agent. And it is certainly not anything as glamorous as the lives of the investigators in the pulp detective novels he loves.
However, his life takes a turn while investigating the death of a naked psychiatrist. What starts off as a simple murder investigation turns into an odyssey across America. Throughout his journey, Richard discovers some dark secrets both about his family and his country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A.M. Scheitlin
• Release date: Sep 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732862012

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THE DALLAS

HANDSHAKE

A.M. SCHEITLIN

2018

Copyright © 2018 by Alexander Heeren

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

First Printing: 2018

ISBN 978-0-692-14280-6

Merced, California 95348

Dedication:

For Stacey

CHAPTER 1

On such an overcast day any other city would have smelled like rain; Cleveland smelled of a burning river. More like petroleum than of petrichor. Dark clouds of chemical smoke hung over the Cuyahoga adding to the oppressiveness of the morning rush hour. I sat hunched over, in the passenger seat as my partner, Agent Cohen, piloted the car through morning traffic.

I closed the detective novel on my lap that I’d started the previous night. I hadn’t slept well, and I was much too tired to pay attention to the book. Normally, I devoured such stories, these hard-boiled, hard-drinking shamuses had inspired me to become an investigator. Even though six years on the job had dispelled all the glamor of the novels, I still clung to the romantic image. In the books, a beautiful, young, but troubled, dame would burst into an eye’s office desperately seeking help in handling a deranged lover, overbearing father, or in some of the darker novels, an overbearing father-lover. Regardless of incest, the detective never suffered from hang-ups or hang-overs. He would set aside his drink and rise to the occasion, often to his own financial and sexual advantage.

These novels bore no relation to my life as a government investigator at the Bureau for Responsible Masturbation. My job does not make for pleasant reading. Indeed, most of the stuff that happens at the B.R.M. does not even make for polite conversation; not that I get much chance to bump jaws with high society. Contrary to what the movies and pulp novels would lead you to believe, the life of a government investigator consists mainly of paperwork. We are little more, and paid much less, than actuaries. We fill out forms about people who’ve committed dangerous acts of self-abuse, mainly instances of autoerotic asphyxiation. We compile those forms into reports and fill out more forms about the compiled reports. Rarely, we get the satisfaction of sending one of these reports to our headquarters in Washington. Even more rarely, someone at headquarters reads the report.

When my older brother, Charlie, got me the job back in 1962, the primary service that the B.R.M. offered was employing the otherwise unemployable relatives of prominent politicians, campaign donors, or other citizens of note. Such was my case; under Charlie’s influence, I was assigned to a desk at the bureau office and my main job was to keep out of the way. It was a solution that pleased everyone. As my bad luck would have it, everything changed November 22, 1963.

I can still remember where I was when I heard the news that tragic Friday. I was planning on passing that dreary morning drinking with my partner Cohen at the Sultry Lobster, the bar just down the street from headquarters.

Two more, Kimberly, Cohen said pointing to our empty glasses. Agent Cohen was a quiet, heavy-set man with thinning brown hair. I’m not sure if he had any friends or hobbies outside of work. In that regard, and in that regard only, he and I were the same. After being liberated from a concentration camp by the Americans, Cohen immigrated to America and ended up working for the C.I.A. helping the agency navigate post-war Eastern Europe. However, as the focus of foreign affairs shifted to East Asia, Cohen had been transferred to the B.R.M. where he stood out like a sore thumb among all of the bureau’s misfits.

Two more for me too! I added chuckling.

Really, Dick? the bartender, Kimberly, asked. Why don’t you pay for your last two first?

Don’t call me a dick, you twat. Just put them on my tab, I replied.

Cohen has a tab, you don’t, Kimberly snapped back. Maybe pace yourself instead?

Pace myself? I said indignantly, and a little drunkenly. More like place yourself. As in know your place, by which I mean--

Richard, just shut up, Cohen suggested before I could continue down the slippery and misogynist route I had set for myself. It was just as well since I was rather sleepy. Indeed, I must have started counting sheep because the next thing I remember was Cohen was shoving me awake and Kimberly sobbing.

What the hell happened? I asked. No matter how often I wake up to a woman sobbing, I never get used to it.

There’s been an accident, Cohen explained hurriedly getting his hat and coat on. We have to get back to work.

An accident? What kind of accident? I asked the only problem I could see was that my beer was now lukewarm.

A terrible accident! sobbed Kimberly.

Well, of course, it’s terrible, you dumb bitch. Have you ever heard of a happy accident? I said.

It is a common idiom, Richard, Cohen pointed out.

Whatever happened can’t be important enough to involve us, I said making one of the biggest understatements of my life. Kimberly, pour me a cold beer!

The president! cried Kimberly. They’re calling it the Dallas Handshake.

Cohen said more forcefully, Come on Richard, we have to get to the office.

Since Kimberly was sobbing her eyes out, I grabbed my warm beer and followed Cohen out the door. It wasn’t the first time I took a drink down the street with me and Kimberly was riding my ass about all the missing glasses.

The atmosphere outside was oppressive and depressive, even more so than what was normal for Ohio. People were wandering around the street dazed. Cohen and I were the only ones moving with a sense of purpose. Well, Cohen was, I was just trying to keep up. It was difficult as I had trouble following a straight line.

Say, Cohen, I finally asked finishing off my beer. What’s going on?

Two Secret Service agents-- he began.

Oh! Don’t get me started on those pansies! I snapped and for added effect, threw my glass onto the sidewalk. They think they are all better than the rest of us just because they protect the president instead of chasing masturbators.

Richard! Cohen snapped. But I was too upset and lit to listen. Like many at the B.R.M., I had a bit of inferiority complex when it came to other agencies, especially the Secret Service.

They aren’t so different from you and me! I exclaimed to Cohen. All of Washington is just a giant circle jerk, and the president is the biggest jerk-off of them all!

I illustrated my subtle assessment of the current political situation by making an inappropriate, although very demonstrative, gesture and almost fell over onto my broken glass. By this time, we were getting a lot of dirty looks from the others on the street.

What are you plebs looking at! I shouted at the bystanders. You’d think I was George Wallace dressed in a Zoot Suit the way they were staring at me.

Shut up and listen! Cohen grabbed me and hissed, The president is dead.

What! I gasped. Eisenhower finally kicked the bucket?

Eisenhower? Richard, Eisenhower hasn’t been president since--never mind. It’s Kennedy. Two Secret Service agents--

Those motherfuckers! I began again before Cohen slapped me across the face.

The two agents found Kennedy tied up and strangled in a Dallas hotel room, explained Cohen.

Shit. He was bumped off? I asked.

More liked rubbed out if you know what I mean, said Cohen.

What? I asked. I was too drunk to follow the conversation.

Well, the initial reports suggest no one else was in the room when it happened, Cohen explained. If you know what I mean, he repeated.

I did not know what he meant. At least not at first. A moment later, the full implication of his words set in. SHIT ON MY TESTICLES! I shouted sobering up instantly.

Yeah, said Cohen pushing me inside the doors to the Federal Building and towards the elevators to the third floor where the B.R.M. was located. There’s going to be hell to pay.

And a hell of a lot of paperwork, I added.

We listened with the rest of the department to the radio as the facts about the incident emerged. The new bird in charge in charge, Lyndon B. Johnson, tried to handle the circumstances of his predecessor’s death in a way that would not tarnish J.F.K.’s memory. He did so brilliantly. In fact, too brilliantly. Kennedy’s death glamorized the old choke and jerk. Soon, hundreds of copycats across the country began to off themselves, both literally and figuratively, using the Dallas Handshake.

In the five years since Kennedy’s death, Cohen and I had our work cut out for us. Ohio did not have a lot of entertainments. It seemed that whenever the Cleveland Indians started to do poorly, a rash of men would begin to experiment with other pastimes. The country was soon gripped by an epidemic of auto-erotic asphyxiation and Ohio became its epicenter.

* * *

Kacken zee ahf deh levanah ku fartzer, Cohen’s oaths at the rush hour traffic brought me out of my reminiscences.

That fucker, I offered sympathetically. I didn’t know the language but presumed it was Yiddish, which I did not know. I figured my reply was generic enough. After all, that fucker is the little black dress of rejoinders and is appropriate for all occasions. I was glad that Cohen insisted on driving after my unfortunate, but memorable, accident with a septic truck outside Sandusky the previous year. Even before the accident, I was prone to horrible motion sickness. After the accident, the connection between automobiles and human waste was even more cemented in my mind and bowels.

Even thinking about Sandusky got my stomach acting up. I had hoped the heavy traffic would give me time to catch up on sleep. I tried to settle my stomach by looking out the window. Instantly I regretted the view; the only thing I could see was the dead river. The surface of the Cuyahoga was a macabre rainbow of oils, filth, and flame. A single dead fish floated in the middle of the river, slowly drifting out to Lake Erie.

Lucky bastard, I thought. At least the fish was on his way out of Ohio. The sound of Cohen striking a match drew my view from the window back to Cohen.

Cleveland smells like shit, Cohen muttered using the match to light a cigarette while at the same time swerving between a school bus and pickup truck full of department store mannequins.

Hmmm, I muttered back non-committedly as the cigarette odor mixed with that of the city. The mixture did not improve the aroma. I agreed with Cohen’s assessment of the city but was feeling too ill to risk opening my mouth.

I’m glad I’m almost done with this, Cohen mumbled. At twenty years my senior, Cohen was set to retire from the department with a government pension at the end of the year. I was apprehensive about Cohen’s retirement. Cohen was by far the most competent person in the department and I, being far from competent, depended on him.

Compared to Cohen, I had done little with my life. Just last month I turned thirty, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s promised decade of loneliness. I had spent the first two decades of my life primarily being known as a disgraced senator’s youngest, and ne’er-do-well, son. The third decade of my life I spent being known as the younger, less successful, and still ne’er-do-well, brother of the prominent businessman and aspiring politician, Charles Cox. Now after some unpleasantness in the family, hardly any of which was my fault, thirty seemed to be living up to Fitzgerald’s promise. Not only did I need Cohen to help me pull my weight on the job, at this point, Cohen was the closest thing to family that I had.

Shit, Cohen said wiping off the cigarette ash that had fallen on his rolled-up sleeves. I looked at the tattooed serial number on Cohen’s forearm, a tangible piece of evidence that there were worse places in the world than Cleveland.

Maybe it was the smell of the city or my apprehension about Cohen leaving, but what had started out as a gentle suggestion in my stomach was now approaching an urgent declaration.

Can we stop here? I’ve got to take a shit, I said pointing to an adult bookstore on the corner.

Really? Here? Cohen sighed.

From what Edna said it doesn’t sound like there will be much of an opportunity to use the facilities at the victim’s house, I replied.

What all did Edna tell you about the case? Cohen asked.

Not much, I replied thinking back to how Edna, the B.R.M.’s secretary woke me up this morning. Edna could not supply many details about the case, but from what she told me it sounded like a disaster.

What in the name of God’s glory hole are you doing here this early? Edna had asked me accusingly as I startled upright at my desk. Edna’s and my boss, and everyone else’s at the regional B.R.M. office, was Father Michael O’Sullivan. As a former priest, O’Sullivan did his best to ban profane things from the office; namely profanity. The rest of the department made it a principle to swear as often and vividly as possible when he was absent. Such language did not come naturally to Edna. But, during her tenure at the B.R.M., she had risen to the occasion admirably. Sometimes too admirably.

I just wanted to get an early start, I lied. Actually, I had been living in my office for the past few days since a romantic tryst with my sister-in-law went, as I should have expected, poorly. I’m grateful to my older brother Charlie and his wife Valarie for welcoming me into their home and to Charlie for getting me started at the bureau after my father disowned me. But fraternal gratitude has its boundaries and limitations especially when your sister-in-law is hitting on all eight. Besides, as I had tried to explain to Valarie, Charlie had died nearly four months ago, and she wasn’t getting any younger.

That’s a bunch of fucking bullshit, said Edna. The day a semen-clogged sphincter like you starts work early is the day my clit pops out, she added. This time, I think she surprised even herself. I was certainly taken a bit aback, it was too early in the morning for me to mentally process my own sphincter much less my co-worker’s popped clitoris.

But since you are here, she responded to my stunned silence, it saves me a phone call, O’Sullivan wants you and Cohen to go investigate a case up on Euclid.

Crapping Christ, I complained, both in response to having an investigation so early in the morning, and belatedly, to the mental image of Edna’s clitoris. Responding to such calls was a thankless job. Literally thankless as the victims are in no shape to thank you. Even if they could, you probably wouldn’t want to shake their hand. Not after where it has been.

This case looks especially troublesome, Edna added. It looks like he took out his wife with him.

Fuck! I exclaimed. Then remembering Father O’Sullivan was absent, Holy fuck!

In my six years on the job, I had never encountered an incident involving more than one body at a time. The types of accidents we deal with at the B.R.M. tend to be the results of solitary events.

How did he manage to do that? I asked, less concerned about the deaths than I was about the paperwork the investigation would entail. I didn’t even think our forms had spaces for multiple victims.

Golly, I don’t know. That’s your and Cohen’s problem, Edna replied, then almost reading my mind, You are going to be up to your sagging scrotum in paperwork.

* * *

Richard! Cohen said once again bringing my attention back to the pressing matter at hand. Do you want to stop or not?

Yes, I replied. As soon as humanly possible, if not sooner.

Cohen sighed, but was already pulling in under the large sign reading Euclid Erotica. He was well familiar with my sensitive stomach and, through experience, knew better than to test its limits. I did not wait for the car to come to a full stop, instead, I bounded out of the vehicle and pumped my getaway sticks towards the front door of the store.

Shit, I said trying the door, the word serving as an oath and as a premonition of what soon was to come. The door was locked. What self-respecting porno store is closed at eight in the morning?

Open up! I called pounding on the door.

Not open! Come back later! called a voice from deep inside the store.

Bureau of Responsible Masturbation! I yelled. Even I had to admit it sounded ridiculous. But I found it equally ridiculous that the man inside wouldn’t unlock the door for an emergency.

We are not open! GO AWAY! The voice, who I assumed had to be the porno proprietor, yelled again.

Shit! I said again, this time more forcibly. Fuck my tits to Tennessee! I added for good measure. The situation was becoming dire. I looked over his shoulder to see if Cohen was looking. The older man was quietly reading the detective novel I had left behind. It was the latest in the Detective Hancock series, my favorite series. No matter how adverse the situation in which he found himself was, Hancock always managed a way out of it.