The Wrong Case

  “Don’t go away,” I said. “I’ll be back.” But it was a weak and empty threat.

  “I live here,” he answered as I walked away.

  I wasn’t mad, and the whole thing suddenly seemed a foolish waste of time better spent in a mellow bar hustling cocktail waitresses, so I was willing to leave it that way. But I forgot to switch off the alarm before I fumbled the key into the door lock, and the fancy air horns started blaring and the lights blinking wildly in the crepuscular air. And Lawrence laughed too loudly behind me. Enough is enough. So I unlocked the door and reached into the back and unracked the twelve-gauge automatic, wishing it loaded with goose-loads but knowing they were just skeet-loads. It wouldn’t matter, though, even loaded with rock salt, the three-inch magnum loads would blow down a house.

  “All right,” I shouted over the horns as I walked back up the sidewalk, “you cocksucker, we’re going to talk now!”

  He didn’t even stand up, but I sensed rather than saw movement away from the living-room windows, small animals slipping off into the dusk. In an upstairs window, a faceless voice said “Jesus” between the bleats of the horns.

  “I don’t think so,” Lawrence said. “I don’t talk to people who call me dirty names.”

  “Either we talk, asshole, or you’re going to be damned unhappy,” I said, keeping the shotgun barrel pointed at the ground.

  “I’m already unhappy, cunt,” he said, flipping the joint away, the bright spark glittering as it arched toward the grass.

  “Wonderful,” I said, “I’m looking for a kid you used to hang around with—”

  “I don’t hang around with anybody.”

  “—named Raymond Duffy.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Talk to me, you son of a bitch!” I shouted, raising the barrel at his face.

  He looked at it, then at me. “You’re not going to kill anybody, cunt,” he said, then stood up and headed toward the door, his back toward me.

  I’d never known that the ability to kill people was such a necessary asset in my business, but I didn’t like being accused of it twice in one day, so I pulled the trigger. The left porch pillar exploded into a cloud of splinters and dust. A window crashed behind it. Lawrence flinched but he didn’t run. He glanced up as the porch roof sagged toward him, creaking loudly.

  “Missed,” he said, facing me. “I’ll send you the bill.”

  So I blew up the other pillar, which turned into dust and splinters even more nicely than the first one. That made him mad. He started for me, and either I would have blown his leg off or he would have torn my head off, but the decision was taken out of our hands.

  As the second pillar buckled, the porch roof creaked again, mightily, old nails squealing like lost souls and joists cracking like dry bones, as the porch roof swung down like a trap door, ripping off most of the front of the house and slamming shut on him. It knocked him right through the screen door. Suddenly, alert faces appeared in the void upstairs, then vanished. Two bare butts vacated the downstairs bedroom, bobbing and bounding away toward the back of the house. A disembodied voice tolled through the debris: “Far fucking out.”

  “Amen,” I said, grinning so hard that my cheeks cramped. The day hadn’t been completely wasted.

  Four

  By the time Reese recovered from the blow his porch roof had given him and began wading through the wreckage, the police had arrived, and, considering the reception he had given me, he was amazingly polite to them, which made me certain that he was an ex-con. I had thrown the shotgun on the grass as soon as I saw the flashing lights, raised my hands and tried to stop grinning. One patrolman cuffed me while the other put the shotgun in their unit and called Lieutenant Jamison, who I knew would be glad to hear that I was under arrest. Because the patrolman knew who I was, he cuffed my hands in front, but he still locked me in the back seat of the unit. Then he kept the crowd of spectators moving down the sidewalk, and his partner questioned Reese, who was busy dusting his clothes and combing splinters out of his long blond hair. Once he glanced over at me, shook his head and seemed to grin. The patrolman moving the crowd paused long enough to open the hood of my rig and rip off the horn wires. In his absence, the people bunched like cattle in a storm until he came back and prodded them along.

  Even though Meriwether is a city of nearly fifty thousand, it often seems like a small town. Almost every face that passed was familiar, and I could put names to most of those. There were a few long-haired kids I had never seen before and one retired brakeman whom I had known by sight for years but whose name I’d never learned. Most of the crowd knew my face, too, and some my name, but only the strangers were crass enough to stare at me, cuffed like a killer, in the back seat of the police car. One came back several times, glancing covertly into the car as if to make sure that it was really me. His face was mostly hidden behind a thick black beard and dark glasses, but in spite of the shoulder-length black hair he was obviously middle-aged and too well dressed to be a working-class hippie. He smiled once, I thought, and seemed vaguely familiar, perhaps a professor from the college I’d met at Dick’s, drunk, or an undercover policeman working narcotics. But before I could hang a name to the oddly familiar face, Jamison pulled in behind the patrol unit.

  Jamison and I, as they say, go way back. We had been raised in Meriwether—same age, same grade in school, all that—and even when we were children, I had been his project: he intended to make me a better person, no matter what. And for years I’d paid him back with small nips and little jokes at the expense of his implacable seriousness, his elevated sense of morality. Small but mean things. Wintergreen in his jock the night he was supposed to lead the homecoming queen onto the football field before the game. His socks wrapped in condoms and soap in his rifle barrel our first inspection in basic training at Fort Lewis. He owed me lots of small pain, and one big one. He had married my ex-wife, and she made more money off my settlement and child support than he brought home at the end of the month.

  But instead of being amused at my predicament, he seemed damned serious as he tugged me out of the back seat and trundled me back up the sidewalk. Lawrence was slapping shoulders and explaining that he didn’t want to press charges because it had been as much his fault as mine.

  “I’ll decide that,” Jamison said grimly. “What happened here?”

  One of the patrolmen started to tell him, but Jamison hushed him and repeated his question to Reese.

  “A private beef,” Reese said.

  “How would you like to take an obstruction fall, Mr. Reese? Or maybe have me walk into your house to search for injured occupants?” Jamison asked.

  “Okay,” he answered. “It’s no skin off my ass.”

  “Thanks, Lawrence honey,” I said. “I thought we were buddies.”

  “Shut up, Milo,” Jamison said, and I did. “What happened?”

  “This dude,” Reese said, pointing a thumb as big as a shotgun barrel at me, “came around looking for somebody—”

  “Who?” Jamison asked, taking out his notebook.

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Who?” Directed at me.

  “A kid named Raymond Duffy,” I said.

  “Runaway?”

  “Nope. His family just hasn’t heard from him in a while,” I answered.

  “How long?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Then what’s the fuss about?” he asked. I shrugged, then he asked Reese if he knew the Duffy kid.

  “I knew him. He used to hang around the house. Crashed here for a while—”

  “How long?” Jamison asked.

  “Who keeps track?” Reese answered.

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know. Five, maybe six months.”

  “And where did he crash-land after he flew away from here, Mr. Reese?”

  “The Great Northern Hotel. He was shacked up with an old faggot, Willy Jones.”

  “What’s the matter, Reese? The kid leave you for a better pi
ece?”

  “No, sir. I asked him to split,” Reese said softly.

  “What’s the matter? Too butch for you?” Unlike me, Jamison didn’t seem frightened of Lawrence Reese.

  “No, sir. I got tired of him. I get tired of people, you know. Some people quicker than others.” Reese didn’t like being pushed around, either.

  “I hope you don’t mean me, Mr. Reese. I hope you aren’t getting tired of me.”

  “Lieutenant, sir, I been tired of the man all my life but I ain’t ever been able to do anything about it,” Reese said, almost sadly.

  “Just don’t forget that I’m the man, Mr. Reese. Don’t forget that.”

  “I’m sure I won’t.”

  “Good. What happened after you wouldn’t talk to this creep here?”

  “I asked him to leave, he wouldn’t leave, so I helped him. He came back, so I helped him harder. I guess I pissed him off,” Reese said, smiling. “He got a shotgun and offed my front porch.”

  “Did he threaten you with the shotgun at any time?” Jamison wanted to know.

  Reese glanced at me then smirked. “No, sir,” he said. “If he’d threatened me, I’d have gotten pissed off.”

  “And what would you have done, Mr. Reese, if pissed off?” Jamison asked sweetly.

  “Stuck it up his ass and pulled the trigger,” Reese said flatly.

  “Too bad you didn’t. Two creeps with one shot,” Jamison said as if he meant it. “Uncuff him,” he added, and the patrolman did. “Behind.”

  “Thanks,” I said to the patrolman as he tugged my arms behind my back and snapped the cuffs. “I was thinking of escaping and I’m glad you took the idea out of my head.”

  “Shut up,” Jamison said. “Mr. Reese, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to come down to the station in the morning. Let’s say nine o’clock. We’ll find somebody to take your statement.”

  “You’re the man,” Reese said.

  “Let’s go,” he said to me, jerking on my arm so the cuffs could grind merrily against my wrists.

  “Where?” I asked, smiling.

  “Duck Valley,” he said. “Two to five maybe, you dumb son of a bitch.”

  “I’ve been needing a vacation,” I said.

  “Ah, Lieutenant,” one of the patrolmen said behind us. “Ah, we didn’t read him his rights.”

  “That’s all right,” Jamison said. He read them to me on the way to the car. I didn’t have any.

  —

  Jamison had forgiven me for years, had even gone to the trouble to make up excuses for all the things about me that he couldn’t understand. Like not having school spirit and not playing for the team. He forgave me because I thought both silly. And in Korea, when he discovered that I didn’t think night patrols or frontal assaults on Communist-held ridges were life or death matters, he thought I was joking, and he kept volunteering the two of us. While I was tending to important matters, like staying alive and keeping warm and hustling booze, he tried to kill us. No matter how much I goofed off, he kept believing in me. The only time I’d ever known him to lie or even slightly bend a rule, he covered for me one night when I was too drunk to go on patrol, reported me present when I was three miles behind our lines, passed out in the back of a wrecked ambulance.

  In college after the war, I got away from him because we lived in different worlds. He was at the heart of things, an honor student working his way through school, student body president and all that. I was usually in a fraternity house, drinking beer and watching television, or drinking beer and reading, or drinking beer and playing poker. And I thought he had given up on me, but the day I joined the sheriff’s department, Jamison showed up at my house with all sorts of great affectionate ambition. Together, arm in arm, city and county, we would make Meriwether a decent place to live. I told him that I’d become a deputy because the sheriff was an old crony of my father’s and I sort of liked the idea of tooling around the county in a three-quarter-ton four-wheel-drive pickup and carrying a gun.

  “Listen, Milo,” he had said, “being a law enforcement officer will get into your blood, just like it has mine. You’ll love it.”

  “You see too many movies,” I said.

  “Hell, I’ve been so busy that I haven’t seen more than two or three movies since I joined the force,” he answered, his pride slightly damaged.

  “That’s too many,” I said, but he laughed and slapped me on the shoulder.

  I don’t know which was harder for Jamison: finding out that Meriwether didn’t care to be a decent place to live, or discovering that I was on the take, like every other deputy in the county, from the local boys who controlled the electronic slots, the pinball machines and punchboards, and the sports pools. Whichever, he never forgave me. And he nearly worked himself to death trying to clean up Meriwether.

  Sometimes I felt sorry for him. He had boy scout ideals in an adult world, and after it became clear to him that there were certain laws that were never going to be enforced, he began to look slightly dazed—like a Thermopylae freak without a pass—then old and tired. He had become, like most policemen, adept at selective enforcement of the law, but not corrupt. He couldn’t be bought for love or money. I didn’t have either anyway.

  —

  “How’s Evelyn?” I asked from the back seat as we drove downtown. “And the kids?” One mine, two his.

  “What the hell do you care?” he answered without turning around.

  “It costs me a lot of money every month to run your household. The least you can do is give me an occasional report,” I said, knowing he was willing to live like a pauper to stay out of my money—but Evelyn wasn’t.

  “You’re a real bastard, you know that.”

  “At least I don’t gloat about my old friends doing time,” I said. Maybe he’d feel sorry for me.

  “You’ll be back on the street in an hour,” he said, then laughed. “But it will do my heart good just to see you behind bars for a little while.”

  “Glad I could help.”

  “Who’s this Duffy?”

  “College dropout,” I said.

  “Look, Milo, I’m tired and I’m busy and I got no time for your bullshit.”

  “That’s straight. The kid was a graduate student out at the college, and he dropped out of sight.”

  “For how long?” Jamison asked.

  “I told you once: three weeks.”

  “Right. Got other things on my mind, Milo. What the hell’s he doing hanging around with scum like Reese?”

  “Love at first sight, I guess,” I said. “Criminals and ex-cops are a heavy trip this year.”

  “Did it ever occur to you not to be a smart-ass?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “The kid ever been in trouble?”

  “As far as the family knows, he’s an angel.”

  “I’ll bet he is,” Jamison said. “I’ll just bet he is.”

  At the station I was booked and relieved of my personal effects and allowed my telephone call. Everything polite and perfect, by the book all the way. I called Dick, but Marsha told me that Simon had already called and Dick was on his way down to bail me out. On the way to my cell, I waved at all my old buddies in the drunk tank, and those who could still see waved back gaily.

  —

  “Well, you look okay, old buddy,” Dick said as the desk sergeant gave me back my effects, “but you ought to see Simon.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “He’s sober.”

  “Must be a frightening experience,” I said, checking the manila envelope, but the tape cassette wasn’t there. “Goddammit,” I said. “Back in a minute.”

  Jamison didn’t complain when I didn’t knock on his office door. He just looked up from the recorder on his desk and shook his balding head.

  “Enjoy yourself?” I asked.

  “If you weren’t so sad, you’d be funny,” he said as he snapped out the cassette and flipped it to me. “And you’re gonna be sadder.”


  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Get out. Drop by and see your son sometime. He’s a nice kid, in spite of you. That ought to make you feel better,” Jamison said, tilting his chair back and rubbing his eyes.

  “He’s not my kid,” I said. “He’s been around you too long—his head’s too big for his halo.” Jamison was right, though. He was a nice kid, but his face was already pinched with the same sad seriousness that crumpled Jamison’s. I don’t know which was more painful: for me to see my innocent face on the kid, or for the kid to see his face old and corrupt on me. Whichever, we stayed away from each other. “Hell, he’s even wearing your name.”

  “That’s something, Milo. You ain’t got nothing.”

  “I got a case,” I said, and for some reason that made me feel better.

  “You ain’t got nothing,” he said as I went out the door. “You poor sad fucker.”

  —

  Simon was a pitiful sight. Sober, yes, but trembling wildly, and he seemed to have aged ten years. Somewhere he had found an ill-fitting sleazy suit, an iridescent gray that shimmered like an oil slick beneath the mercury vapor lights, cheap colors rippling across the fabric as his skinny old frame quivered. His face was so pale and hollow that he might have been dressed for a burial.

  “What the hell were you doing at Lawrence’s house?” I asked. “And where the hell did you get that suit?”

  “Don’t, don’t be mad, Milo, Milo, don’t— I just—asked around…that’s all.” Without whiskey, his voice seemed as thin as his suit.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  He flinched, ducked his head and, muttering, backed away from me as if I’d slapped him.

  “What?”

  “Advice, Milo, legal advice. I’ve been—disbarred, but I can—can still give legal advice,” he whispered into the gutter.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, go have a drink and stop this crap,” I said. “You look terrible.”

  “Yes,” he answered vaguely, “yes…” Then he turned and drifted slowly down the street like a scrap of wrapping paper in a night wind, lurching and hitching the hip that had been broken the year before when he stumbled into the path of a pickup. I started to shout after him, but sober he was just too pitiful, so I let him go.