by Ed Gorman
I couldn't take any more. I just kept thinking of Roy and how eternity had talked back to me. I said to Clarence, "I'm going home."
I was about to say something else when people started turning their heads to the old white Buick ambulance slowly making its way around the far edge of the town square.
It was headed to the hospital. With Roy inside.
If Cushing saw it, he didn't let on. He still stood at the top of the stairs, showing his gun to reporters and letting them get close-ups of it. The chief just walked around shaking everybody's hand as if Cushing had given birth to a fifteen-pound baby or something. Just then Cushing did look up. He stared right at me. Ordinarily, what I saw in his eyes would have frightened me. But right now I didn't care. Right now all I could think about was Roy.
He held my gaze for a long time, giving me a full dose of his threatening look. Then he went back to a reporter who was snapping yet another picture.
More people kept coming. By now all the parking spaces around the square had been taken up. Some people didn't even seem to know what was going on. They'd just heard the noise and seen the lights and drifted over from their humid summer beds. It all reminded me of the scene in Invasion of the Body Snatchers where all the people in town come to the square so they can be made into pod people. I guess I was pissed off enough at the moment to think of Somerton that way—exulting in Detective Cushing's bravery without questioning it for a moment. Or wondering how it was that an already badly wounded man had needed to be shot to death. No, they didn't know these things but in their frenzy to have a hero, they wouldn't listen to them, either, even if I'd brought them up.
I went down to my bike and rode home.
Mom and Debbie were up in the living room. I went over and kissed them good night and started up the stairs. "Aren't you going to tell me what happened?" Mom asked.
"Dad'll tell you," I said. "I just really don't want to talk."
In my room, I turned off the lights and sat next to the window and smoked a Lucky. This way I could blow the smoke out the screen. Mom was less likely to notice the smell.
I used Roy's lighter to get my cigarette going and then I just sat there a long time, three or four cigarettes long, and thought of how much I hated Cushing. I could still see him smiling for the cameras. I could still see him pointing the gun dramatically for the reporters.
I Shot Jesse James. There was a film made with that title once, a good film as I remembered it, and Cushing was just as much of a fink as Bob Ford—the man who shot Jesse in the back—had ever been.
Roy hadn't needed to die. Hell, he'd been unconscious. But if he'd lived, he would have been able to tell Chief Pike that Detective Cushing had stolen the money.
Finally, I went to bed. I tried to stop thinking about Cushing by thinking about the new girl everybody said was coming to school this fall. I'd always had this dream that this really elegant girl, like Audrey Hepburn say, would come to our school from some real sheltered background, a convent or something like that, and she wouldn't judge boys by the standards the other girls used—good looks or money or status or muscles—she'd just judge them by what was in their hearts. And so guess who the new girl, at least in my dreams, always fell madly in love with? Right.
I lay there a long time that night thinking about the new girl.
A long time later, the three of them came up and went to sleep. I waited until I thought it was safe and then I went into Debbie's room and put a silver dollar beneath her pillow. She snored in a cute little way and muttered something far below my ability to hear. I kissed her on the forehead and went back to my room, done with my job as Tooth Fairy.
When I got up in the morning, Clarence was there.
Usually, Clarence would have been at work by now but this morning he'd waited for me.
I had Wheaties and wheat toast and orange juice (or "Or" as Debbie called it) and a vitamin and half a cup of coffee. I felt exhausted. Coffee helped sometimes.
"The governor's coming next Tuesday."
"The governor?" I said.
"The governor," Clarence said. "There's going to be a picnic for you and Barney and Cushing in the square and then the governor's going to give you each some kind of award."
"You know Cushing's got the money?"
"I know."
"And you know he killed Roy in cold blood?"
"I know."
"And you're not mad?"
"Son," he said, glancing up at Mom. "Son, your mother and I had a good long talk last night."
Whenever Clarence and Mom had a "good long talk" about anything, it always meant that I would have to do something I didn't want to.
"More Wheaties, hon?" Mom said.
I shook my head.
"We think you should go along with everything, Tom," Clarence said.
Mom came over and put her hands on my shoulders. "If Cushing had told the truth, you'd be in a lot of trouble, dear. A lot of trouble. This way—"
"This way, Cushing gets away with murder and gets to keep all the money!" I pushed back from the table and stood up, looking at them in disbelief and disgust.
"You aren't any better than Cushing! You're willing to go along with lies, too!"
"Tom, listen—" Clarence started to say.
But I was already on the far side of the banging screen door off the kitchen.
I got on my bike and rode over to Barney's. About halfway there I started feeling badly about yelling at my folks the way I had. They weren't perfect, true, but then I'd heard rumors to the effect that I wasn't perfect, either. Hard as that was to believe.
People always call Barney's area "the poor section" but I actually like it better than where we live. I guess it's the bluffs, all the woodsy hills that run right up to the backyards of most of the houses. Of course, the houses themselves aren't the best—old frame jobbies long in need of paint and roof shingles and uncracked window glass. But I would happily have traded our fancy new carport for just one of those bluffs.
Barney sat on the porch. He wasn't reading or eating. He was just staring.
When he saw me, he said, "You hear about the governor?"
"Yeah."
"God."
"Yeah."
"I'll bet Cushing buys a new suit."
"I'll bet he does, too."
I went up and sat next to him on the porch.
"You tell George the truth yet?" I said. Obviously, he hadn't told his father the truth last night.
"Not yet."
"When you going to?"
Barney didn't say anything for a long time. We just watched the traffic.
"I've been thinking," Barney said.
"About what?"
"About maybe not telling George the truth."
"What?"
He looked over at me. "Who'd believe us, anyway?"
"That's not the point."
"Sure it's the point. My mom says the governor's probably going to give us a reward or something. Wouldn't you like to get a reward?"
"Not this way. God, Barney, we owe it to Roy."
"I've also been thinking about Roy."
"What about him?"
"Now, don't go getting pissed."
"I'm going to sock you right in the mouth, Barney. You wait and see."
"All I mean is—"
"All you mean is that you're a chickenshit little bastard with no principles at all."
And then I hit him, and hard enough to bring forth some blood from his nose.
And right away I was sorry. And said so: "I'm sorry, Barney."
"Fuck yourself." He sat there dabbing at his nose with a finger.
He looked like he wanted to cry.
"Maybe I'd better go," I said.
"Yeah. Maybe you'd better."
"You wanna go to a movie this afternoon?"
"No."
"You wanna—"
"I don't wanna anything, Tom. You're a spoiled prick is what you are. Maybe you don't need the reward but I do. I don't live in any fancy-ass hou
se the way you do."
"Our house isn't fancy. It's plain."
"Plain hell."
Every time we got in a fight, no matter what it was about, it ended up about where I lived and where he lived. I tried to understand but I couldn't. Where I lived didn't make any difference to me; and I sure didn't care where Barney lived.
I went down the stairs and got on my bike. "I'm sorry I hit you."
"Yeah."
"I am."
"Just go, Tom. Just go."
"Okay. And if you change your mind about going to the pool tonight—"
"I won't."
Everywhere I went that day, people kept stopping me on the street and congratulating me for helping brave Detective Cushing capture the notorious bank robber.
When I couldn't stand it anymore, I went home and sat on the screened-in porch reading Double Star and thinking about how Barney looked just after I'd slugged him.
A couple times I got up and went inside and called Barney but his mom very carefully told me that he was out somewhere, which meant that he was hanging around the house but that he didn't want to talk to me.
After I finished Heinlein, I picked up a Rex Stout novel. I really liked Nero Wolfe, which is to say that like a lot of mystery readers I really hated Nero Wolfe . . . but I thanked Rex Stout for giving me so many opportunities to hate the fat man in such a pleasant way. I hoped I could be just like Archie when I grew up—acid-tongued and really successful with women.
The Stout novel gave me the idea for the letter. Nero Wolfe was looking into some poison pen letters and I started thinking . . . what if somebody left the governor an anonymous letter on the podium next Tuesday? And what if the letter told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Roy Danton and how he'd come to be shot and where the money really was right now?
Wouldn't such a letter force the governor to look into the case more closely?
Around four that afternoon, the sunlight just starting to cool, I got up and mowed the lawn. Mom had been after Dad for two years to buy a power mower. Western Auto always has them on sale, she'd say. But Clarence could be real stubborn about some things and power mowers was one of them. I don't want to see any of Tom's fingers or toes getting ground up in those blades, he'd say. And when he put it that way, I wasn't sure I wanted a power mower, either.
That night I called Barney three times. He still wouldn't come to the phone. The next day I called him six times and the day after that I called him four—and he still wouldn't come to the phone. He was still mad at me for hitting him.
I spent most of Sunday cruising around on my bike and about two in the afternoon, I ended up at the Dairy Queen.
And who should be sitting on one of the benches, surrounded like two teenage rock-and-roll stars, but Barney and Cushing?
They each had tall twenty-five-cent cones and they each had their own little gaggle of admirers. Barney's were girls our age . . . and Cushing's were older women in their early twenties.
That's when I decided I wanted to punch Barney all over again. The way he was looking over at Cushing, it was easy to see they'd become friends.
Didn't Barney remember what Cushing had done to Roy? Didn't Barney care anymore?
Monday, the day before Labor Day, I didn't do much. I didn't call Barney because I was afraid that if he did come on the phone I'd start yelling at him. I went down to the drugstore and bought a Lionel White Gold Medal novel called Murder Takes the Bus and went home and read it. At the time, I had just started reading Gold Medals and this one was very, very good. Not as good as Shell Scott, who managed to be tough and funny and sexy, but good nonetheless.
I guess I should tell you that people were still stopping me on the street and pumping my hand and saying how proud they were and wasn't it neat that the governor was coming—and what else could I say? I said I was glad they were proud and I pumped their hands right back and I said it was indeed neat that the governor was coming.
Monday night, I wrote the letter. Four times I wrote the letter. I knew it had to be short and to the point but I also knew that it had to shake him up when he read it. Now all I had to do was figure out how I was going to get it up on the podium without anybody seeing me.
As I was sealing it, there was a tiny, soft knock on my door. I said come in and Debbie appeared. She wore her old faded WinkyDink T-shirt (remember the TV show where you drew on this plastic sheet you put over the TV screen?) and a pair of jeans and no shoes.
Her hair was done in pigtails.
"I've been thinking," she said.
"About what?"
"The Tooth Fairy."
"What about him?"
"Well, on Christmas Eve Santa Claus gets around on a sleigh and on Halloween witches get around on brooms—but how does the Tooth Fairy get around?"
"He takes the bus."
She giggled.
"Really," I said. "He's got one of those twenty-trip passes you can buy for two bucks."
She giggled some more.
"I think you left that dollar under my pillow."
"Me? Nah. Where would I get a dollar?"
"I just wanted to thank you."
"Thank him. Not me."
"The Tooth Fairy? The one who rides the bus all the time?"
"That's the guy."
She smiled. And then she said it: "Mrs. Kelvin at the church is having me carry some flowers up and set them on the platform just before the governor gets there."
"God."
"What?"
"You suppose you could do me a favor?"
So I told her about the letter and how I needed to get it up there.
"You'd have to be fast."
"I will be," she said.
"And you'll have to be crafty."
"I will be," she said.
"And you could get in some trouble if you get caught."
"It'll be neat," she said.
So we went through it a couple of times, how she'd set the flowers down and then look around to see if anybody was watching her, and then how she'd set the letter down on the podium and get out of there, fast.
"You scared?"
"A little bit," she said.
"You won't tell Mom?"
"Huh-uh."
"Or Clarence?"
"Huh-uh."
"Promise?"
She held up her fingers in the Bluebird pledge. "I promise." That night, I actually got some sleep. When I woke up, the letter was the first thing I thought of.
Today it was all going to come tumbling down for Cushing. I couldn't wait.
The event was right at noon. The only problem I had was passing the hours till that time came.
I rode over town and watched the city hall people put the final touches on the town square. There was so much red-white-and-blue it was almost blinding. The bandstand was draped in bunting and already a couple of chubby guys in red sport coats from the Dixieland band were there sliding their trombones and walking around as if they were pretty hot stuff, butch wax on their hair and real loud heel clips on their shoes. I guess I don't like them because the time Clarence tried to get in with his clarinet they wouldn't take him. Clarence acted like it didn't bother him but I knew it did. Clarence is too nice a guy to get his feelings hurt like that. Anyway, they have a lousy band—every other song seems to be "Muskrat Ramble" and Clarence sure couldn't have made it any worse, even though, I have to admit, his clarinet playing is pretty lousy.
Then I heard somebody say, "Hey! Here comes the heroes!"
And when I turned to look over by the bird-shit-speckled Civil War statue, there was Barney and his new best friend Detective Cushing.
Barney saw me but he pretended he didn't. He just kept walking right up to the bandstand with Cushing.
I went home and lay down on my bed.
Debbie came in wearing a white blouse and red shorts and blue Keds. "Red, white and blue. Get it?"
I nodded.
"Where's the letter?"
"On top of the desk."
"You okay?"
"Not really," I said. "But I'd rather not talk about it."
She went over and picked up the letter. "You ever going to tell me what it says?"
"Maybe someday."
"Boy, everybody sure is excited about the governor coming to town." She smiled. "Everybody except Pop."
Governor Hamling was a Democrat, a fact that Clarence wasn't exactly crazy about.
She came over and stood above me. "You ever going to be all right again?"
"Someday."
"It's been a long time."
"Just a couple days."
"Well, that's a long time, isn't it?"
"I guess."
"Come on."
"What?"
"You can walk me over to the square. It's about time, anyway."
And so it was.
I went into the bathroom and got ready and then we went out to the garage and got my bike and Debbie got on the handlebars and we took off.
"Boy, look," Debbie said when we were two blocks from the square.
The highway runs right through town. Right now an entire block of traffic was crawling along with motorcycle cops at the front and back and this long black limousine right in the middle. Emergency lights—but no sirens—flashed. The motorcycle cops wore sunglasses and looked real mean.
I'd never seen—or felt—this kind of fervor before, not even for Little Richard.
Women stood on street corners waving handkerchiefs at the governor. Grumpy old men waved wrinkled old arms. And little kids jumped up and down and laughed and shouted and pointed.
And it was all for a lie, a damnable lie.
For the next half hour, people came to the square. They came from in town and the small villages surrounding the town and they came from the farms and they came from places as distant as Des Moines. The Dixieland band was already whooping it up and a guy with a torpedo-like tank of oxygen sold red and yellow and green balloons and Harvey at his little white popcorn shack didn't have enough arms to keep up with all the business and up on the bandstand itself the mayor was showing off his familiar pot belly and his brand-new Panama hat. It was just like the county fair only there wasn't any cow-shit smell floating on the breeze from the livestock barns.
I'd gotten there early enough to get a front row seat. I wanted to get a real good view of the governor opening that envelope, reading the letter and then announcing to everybody that he would have to call off the ceremonies—"And why?" he'd thunder. "Because this man—" And here he'd point like God with a lightning bolt shooting from his finger—"Because this man Cushing is a liar and a thief and a murderer!" And the crowd would ooooo and aaaaa and the chief would take out his gun and arrest Cushing and—