The Wrong Case

  “Been watching him already,” he said, sighing bravely, a man who could hold his liquor, who could kill. “But it’s my time.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It’s nothing. Say, you carrying a backup gun?”

  “No. Why?”

  “When you’re hunting a man, Milo, always carry a backup gun. Anybody who would kill a worthless old fart like Simon is liable to be looking for his friends. You still got that derringer?”

  “Sure,” I said, lifting it out of the sack on the table.

  “Strap it to your leg or stuff it in your shorts.”

  “I’d feel silly.”

  “Better silly than dead.”

  “Okay,” I muttered, looking for some tape, thinking I would rather have a loaded gun on my leg than in my shorts. I found some electrical tape and strapped the derringer to my left calf. “How’s that?”

  “It looks okay.”

  “Hell, I don’t know what I’d do without all these drunk advisers,” I said as I straightened up, grinning at Freddy.

  “I don’t either,” he said without a trace of a smile. “Watch yourself, Milo.”

  I nodded and followed him out into the throng of mourners.

  Out in the bar, it looked as if Meriwether was finally going to have a riot. A geriatrics ward had gone insane—an old folks’ home in revolt, or maybe the faces had climbed down off the wall, grown flushed and grossly swollen, shedding dignity and good humor like old clothes. The air stunk of smoke and rotten teeth, cheap whiskey and thin sweat, wine puke. Lorrie—resident hooker to all the old men whose erections hadn’t completely retired, a short fat old woman, nearly bald beneath her gray curls—was dancing, her skirt lifted to expose thighs once meant to drive men mad, fish-belly white, pitted, jiggling thighs rising and falling to the rock beat. The crowd made room for her dance, not to watch but to protect themselves. A shrunken Indian, wrinkled and weathered in bars, joined her in the cleared space, dancing the dance of his grandfathers, his toothless mouth wide with lost songs.

  And there was Billy the dummy and Arch the railroad engineer, and Duke Meadows who had once been hairdresser to the stars, and his constant companion, Buddy Wells, who had almost been a cowboy star at Republic. And a brace of retired supply sergeants loading Army crap on Skipper, the retired bosun mate who hadn’t made chief in thirty years. And Olinger, the failed mortician who watched with a professional eye as if he still had a business. And there was Alf the swamper, who swept bars for drinks, and his ex-wife Doty who had divorced him but hadn’t left yet. And they were all there but the dead, who were hanging on the walls, smiling in approval and looking like they wanted a drink.

  But that was the pretty part.

  As I pushed through the crowd and the grabbing hands, which offered consolation or begged for drinks to bear their sorrow, the drunken arguments and fights had already begun. Classic wino fisticuffs at the bar: one punch every five minutes until one opponent or the other could no longer rise from his stool to totter into the ring. And classic wino arguments: political discussions over men who had long since left office and died, personal grievances twenty years past. Rivers of angry tears. Leo was stretched out on the bar, sleeping and grinning like a man who meant to rise again. The drunk I had heaved into the parked car held his head at Leo’s feet. A puddle of vomit, flecked with blood, blocked the doorway. As I stepped over it, a long-haired kid who was peering into the bar said, “Them old farts is weird.” I hit him on the shoulders with the heels of my palms, and he stumbled down the street, inquiring what was wrong with me. But I couldn’t tell him.

  Armed and advised and ready, I headed north on Dottle searching for a junkie, until I realized that I didn’t know what a junkie looked like, so I went back to the office to call Muffin to see if he knew anybody who was hooked. I thought I might need some more of Nickie’s money too, just in case there was trouble. The front doors were always locked at night, so I went down the alley to the side door, all the steel hanging off my body feeling suddenly heavy and foolish.

  Twelve

  They must have been waiting outside Mahoney’s because they followed me into the alley and took me just as I stepped out of the light into the shadows. I must have heard something, a sole scraping on brick, perhaps, or a grunt as the one in front raised the length of two-by-four. I ducked and went to the left and back, trying to get inside the swing. The board missed my head, but his forearms caught my neck at the shoulder and knocked me into the building wall. The force took the board out of his hands, or everything would have ended right there, but I heard the wood skipping off the paving bricks with loud, flat smacks and I shoved off the wall, trying to stay close to them until I had room to run. I got one with an elbow, but the other caught me with a kidney punch, and I bounced off the wall again. The fight went on, but I had already lost; all the butting and scratching and biting afterwards just made them mad. Except for falling down, it was over quickly, as quickly as they let me fall down, which took a long time.

  When I came to, they were still there, standing about five feet from me. One was counting my cash, the other wondering painfully if his nose was broken. I didn’t have his problem: my nose was all over my right cheek. The one counting money paused, telling the other that there was supposed to be more money, but the other was more interested in his nose, so his partner stepped over to examine it. I watched their silhouettes against the lighted street, watched them as best I could from where I lay curled against the wall. The automatic wasn’t beneath my left arm, but I didn’t mind. The derringer was still on my leg, but I didn’t think I could reach it. That didn’t bother me either. All I wanted to do was lie very still and hope they weren’t going to kill me. If they hadn’t already.

  “I reckon it’s busted, Bubba,” I heard one say to the other, and Bubba began to breathe hard and sob, saying, “I’m gonna kill the motherfucker.” I edged into a tighter ball, my hand reaching for my leg. “No, Bubba,” the other said, but Bubba pushed against his outstretched arm. “We ain’t supposed to kill him,” the first one argued, but then he added gleefully, “But we can damn sure put him in the hospital for a long time, break his goddamned leg or something.” Bubba agreed happily, but when the first one reached into the shadows to pull me out, he found the nickle-plated glint of the derringer in his face.

  “Freeze,” I whispered. Maybe he heard me, maybe not. He tried to back up, to stand up and grab an automatic out of his belt. But he didn’t make it. At two feet, even half blind and whipped senseless, I couldn’t miss. I blew his face off.

  The muzzle blast knocked him over, splashed blood and flesh all over me, blinded and deafened me for a moment. When I looked for Bubba, he was twenty yards away, streaking for the street, but I pulled off the other barrel anyway. Brick dust bloomed in his wake as he turned the corner, and the large lead slug flattened, singing across the street. A department store window exploded and fell into the display. Mannequins tumbled from their studied repose, hanging upon each other like the victims of a natural disaster. The store’s alarm bell began gonging, deep and unhurried, as patiently regular as a fog horn. In the distance, sirens answered. A timid crowd formed at the window, peering inside then all around, trying to understand what had happened. Then a bolder soul moved, and within seconds, winos and freaks were fleeing down the streets with the display clothing and furniture, two wildly ambitious drunks staggering off with a wicker couch.

  I knew better than to leave a gun in the hands of a dead man, since sometimes they only look dead, so I crawled over to the body, wrenched my bloody money out of his hand, jerked the automatic out of his waistband, trying not to look at what remained of his face. But I did. When the police came to answer the store alarm, they found us eventually, heaped like garbage in the alley.

  —

  “You oughta see your face,” Jamison said when the doctor finished.

  “You oughta feel it,” I mumbled.

  Jamison grinned, then followed the doctor out of the emergency room. Throug
h the open door, I could hear them arguing over where I should spend the rest of the night, the doctor insisting on the hospital, Jamison on a cell. My face didn’t feel too bad, not nearly as bad as it would the next day when the Novocaine wore off. When I sat up on the table, my head was light and my taped ribs sparked with slivers of pain, but I didn’t faint. I could see fairly well, out of my right eye, around the tape on my nose and cheeks and forehead, and I thought I could walk. Actually, I was fond of the pain; it kept me from thinking about the dead guy in the alley.

  “He should check in for observation,” the doctor maintained loudly.

  “He should check into a home,” Jamison said, “but he’s going to jail.”

  “You have to clear it with the supervisor,” the doctor answered, and I heard their footsteps echo down the hall.

  I didn’t want to spend the night either place, so I tried standing, then walking. My shirt was too much of a mess to wear. I tossed it into the trash and wrestled into the bloodstained windbreaker, picked up the empty shoulder holster and left. Jamison wanted to charge me with carrying a concealed weapon and first-degree manslaughter, neither of which he could make stick. He just wanted me in jail so he could talk to me while I was in no condition to resist. I needed a lawyer and some sleep, and Jamison wouldn’t let me have either until it was too late. I didn’t think he’d be too angry if I split, particularly if I could stay away from him for a few days. And I knew just where I wanted to lie down.

  Outside, Amos was waiting for Jamison, and rubbing his hands together briskly, as if he wanted to wash them again.

  “Jamison in there?” he asked.

  “No, he left a half-hour or so ago. Said he was going home to get some sleep.”

  “He probably needs it. You look terrible too. You ought to be in the hospital, boy.”

  “I been in twice today, Amos, and it didn’t help.”

  “I know how you feel, boy,” he answered as if he really did. “I guess I’ll go on home and catch him tomorrow.”

  “Do the autopsy yet?”

  “No. We’re going to wait until tomorrow. I got everything ready, but I just couldn’t handle it tonight. That’s what I wanted to tell Jamison. But I guess it can wait.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Say, can you give me a lift to Mahoney’s?”

  “You don’t need a drink, boy.”

  “Just want to pick up my car and go home.”

  “Can you drive?”

  “I can walk, can’t I?”

  “Not too well,” he said, then helped me around the corner to his car. “They give you anything for the pain, boy?”

  “No.”

  “Here,” he said, rummaging in his bag and handing me a small bottle. “Take two every four hours, son, and you won’t feel anything.”

  “Thanks. I don’t feel anything now.”

  “Wait, boy, just wait,” he muttered as he pulled out into the traffic. He dropped me beside my rig and drove away jerkily, like a man who wasn’t going to sleep much that night.

  Inside the rig, I sat behind the wheel trying to sort out things in my mind, listening to that unfamiliar voice in the alley saying, “We ain’t supposed to kill him,” and wondering what it meant. If they meant to take me out of action, they had succeeded. I was through. Helen Duffy would have to live with what I knew about her little brother, and although I was fairly certain I had killed the wrong man, that was going to have to pass for vengeance this year. If Simon couldn’t rest easy with that, then that was his problem, because I was tired and old and not nearly as tough as I thought I was, and I was through. As I drove away through the bursts of pain that came in bright flashes, I could see his laughing face, but his voice was still.

  —

  Maybe she heard my rig bounce off the curb or the sound of the slamming door. Maybe she heard me stumble, cursing the rain as I stepped across the curb and sidewalk. Or maybe she had just come to the door to check the weather. When I knocked she opened the door so quickly that she must have been standing behind it, waiting. Fresh from another bath, warm and flushed and sweetly damp, she seemed draped in steam, which seeped from her body through the green robe. Curls of wet hair looped against the freckled skin of her neck. In the pale light, her scrubbed face glowed, and her mouth was slightly open, as if in passion, or grief.

  “You spend more time in the water than a fish,” I said, trying to joke so she would know I was still among the living.

  “Oh my God!” she breathed. “What happened to you?”

  “Hard night,” I said. But the smile I managed cracked, and I fell, tilting toward her like a falling tree.

  Her arms caught me, strong arms held me upright, clutched the blood and filth to her body, her hands smooth and rubbing and holding me beneath the damp windbreaker, her lips murmuring questions and concern.

  “Easy,” I said as she found a bruise beneath the tape.

  “What happened?”

  “Lie down,” I mumbled. “I’ve got to lie down.” As I moved into the room, she still held me, her hands on my neck tugging my ruined face to the soft curve of her neck, her gentle shoulder, bumping my left ear with her chin. She felt the stiff spines of the stitches and jerked away before I could complain. “Got to lie down.”

  “Oh, no,” she moaned, “no.”

  Thinking that she meant to deny the damage, I moved against her again, heading into the room, but she pushed back.

  “You can’t,” she whispered. “Oh dammit, I’m sorry but you can’t. Oh God, why do things have to be like this.”

  “What?” I asked, stepping back to look at her.

  “My mother—she’s here.” Behind her, the splash of the shower echoed from the bathroom.

  “What’s she doing here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, hell, tell her it’s all right, tell her we’re going to get married—my God, tell her anything. I’ve got to lie down.”

  “Oh, I can’t. Not now. Not like this.”

  “Like what?” I propped my hands on her shoulders and squeezed until she flinched. “Like what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she whispered, her face seeming to break into painful fragments. “Drunk and beat up.”

  “Lady, I’m always drunk and beat up. That’s why I need you,” I said as clearly as I could.

  She looked at me for a long moment, poised in that space between our lives, hovering like a hummingbird, the breath of her confusion and compassion so strong it blew kindly on my hot, tattered face.

  “It will be all right,” I said.

  “Oh no. Nothing is ever all right. You don’t know her,” she said, sobs laboring like stones from her heaving chest.

  “I’ll tell her we’re in love,” I said, brushing her cheek with my thumb, wiping away tears and a freckle of dried blood.

  “Not now.”

  “Now’s all we got, babe.”

  She groaned, brushed my puffy lips with hers, whispering “Later,” pushing at my chest with small fists as the bathroom noises gathered to some conclusion that only she understood, murmuring “Later, I’ll come later,” and she gently shoved me out the door, closed it in my face.

  “Someone at the door?” I heard a strong, vibrant voice ask.

  “No. Yes, Mother. They had the wrong room,” Helen answered, her voice muffled as if she was leaning against the door.

  “I guess so,” I said to myself and let my raised fist fall to my side. Then I walked toward the motel lobby and the bar beyond, letting the rain wash my face.

  —

  The urbane type who had been talking to Nickie that morning noticed the sudden hush of his customers and he came around the front desk quickly, inquiring in a carefully polite voice—the sort of voice that owns things and tells people what to do and how to do it—if he might be of assistance, but I walked right through him. Nickie was behind the desk too, but he hadn’t moved, his face white and his eyes wide, and he didn’t move until the polite voice said his name, then Nickie rushed aroun
d the desk. As I slowed, the man behind me grabbed my arm. The tourists and dinner customers hummed with confusion, moving away from the scene. But so far that they couldn’t watch.

  “Nickie, tell this fucking bellhop to get his hand off me,” I said, “before I tear it off.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Nickie pleaded, and his friend held my arm tighter.

  “Look, man, I need a drink real quick and real bad, then I’ll split,” I said. “I’ll even go out the back door so I don’t scare the tourists.” Then I turned to the man holding my arm, but he wasn’t scared, and I didn’t think I could survive another fight, so I ignored him.

  Nickie looked at him, his mouth moving without sound, and the man said, “All right. In a go cup.” Then he turned my arm loose, adding, “And I don’t ever want to see you in here again.”

  “Sure,” I said, shrugging, out of snappy lines and empty threats.

  The man smiled blandly, as if there had been no question, a confident glaze over his face, an arrogantly arched eyebrow, but I couldn’t even rise to that. If I didn’t get a drink in this bar, I wouldn’t make it to the next one. I let Nickie hustle me down a side hallway and through the kitchen to the back door.

  “What about the drink?” I huffed; his flapping trot had worn me out, made the top of my head ache.

  “I’ll get it, I’ll get it,” he grunted, sounding nearly as tired as I was. “Wait there,” he said, pushing me next to the huge steel garbage hamper, “I’ll be right back.” I waited, slumped against the cold, wet metal, my hands quivering, my throat hot with sobs held back. “Wha-what happened?” he stammered when he returned with a Styrofoam cup filled with ice and blessed whiskey, which I poured down my throat, over my chin and chest. “You, you all right?” he asked as I gagged. The son of a bitch felt sorry for me; that kept the drink down.

  “Another one,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Get me another drink, goddammit!”

  “Okay, okay, right back,” he said, then left at his pounding trot.