Usuality

by Thomas Mueller

  “Betsy?” asked Garrett. “You named your van?”

  Reagan paused in the buttoning of her top to gather her purse. “The man with the glasses found you? Where is he? What happened?”

  “We talked,” said Johnson. He crossed to the minibar, opened the door, took out one of the Mr. Pibbs, and pulled the tab.

  “Please, by all means, help yourself.”

  Johnson drank down the soda without any apparent enjoyment and then tossed the empty can into the trash. “I do,” he said. “That’s the difference between me and you.”

  Reagan picked up her shoes but couldn’t stomach the thought of putting them back on. She went to the door barefoot. Garrett reached out and she laced her fingers through his. He did have such lovely hands. Smooth and cool, and so unlike Nick’s.

  Johnson took out his cell phone. “Email me the photos,” he told Reagan. “And before you say it, yes, I heard what you told Polito. But your friend here never emailed the photos to himself. You did. Lying to your ex-fiancé might well have been the only smart thing you two did tonight.”

  “You don’t need to be so abrasive,” said Reagan.

  “That’s a big word. Let me go find a dictionary so I can be properly insulted. In the meantime, mail me the photos. I think I might have an idea what’s going on.”

  XXV: NOTHING BUT A STETSON

  They were in the van, Reagan in the front, Garrett and Marin sitting uncomfortably beside each other on the bench in back. Garrett was staring at Reagan’s phone and trying to understand how he’d managed to miss the man lurking in the background of Bill Silverman’s photographs.

  The man in question was tall and round about the middle, with a body that had probably been impressive in the not-too-distant past. He was wearing nothing but his birthday suit and an enormous tan Stetson. One hand pressed a pair of binoculars to his eyes. The other hand was occupied elsewhere. The two panes of glass separating the man in the far penthouse from the scene going on in the foreground of Michelle Lyon’s bedroom made him seem faded and two-dimensional, like a poster on the wall. The room was dark behind him, but ambient light from the city reflected on his smooth white-whale belly, giving him away.

  “Do all four of the penthouses face each other like this?” asked Garrett. “That’s not a lot of privacy.”

  Nobody answered. Garrett glanced at Marin but she didn’t look back at him. He fought off a yawn, wishing he’d had the chance to make more coffee before they’d left. The night was getting colder and the camper van was drafty. At least traffic was thin. Ahead of them the city glowed, enshrouded in fog and malignant.

  He tried again. “So the guy’s a Peeping Tom? So what? Do we think the man with the glasses is working for him?”

  “Everybody has their secrets.”

  Johnson spoke loudly to be heard over the freeway noise. He’d patched the holes in the windshield with duct tape once they were a few blocks away from the motel. It kept out the wind, but even so there was still the machine-gun chatter of the VW’s engine to contend with. “Doesn’t matter what we think of those secrets. They could be CIA-grade intel or horse shit. It wouldn’t change a thing. If it matters to the person whose secret it is, they’ll do whatever is in their power to keep it on ice. How long have you two been in love with each other?”

  Garrett studied his hands. Reagan found something of interest outside the window. Neither looked at the other.

  “Okay,” said Johnson. “Bad example. You were keeping it a secret from yourselves, too.”

  He signaled with his blinker and got on the ramp to the Bay Bridge.

  Garrett leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I don’t get it. Michelle Lyon drugging guys, Cowboy Hat maybe having people killed just because he got caught with his pants down. What’s the big deal? Nobody except the tabloids care what the rich and famous do in the privacy of their own homes. If the man with the Glasses is working for the Cowboy Hat guy, it’s a stupid thing for people to die over.”

  “Weren’t you listening to a word I said? They care, that’s reason enough to make anybody dangerous.”

  Dark water was all around them. Bridges at night made Garrett nervous. He got it, what Johnson was saying, it just didn’t make sense. Sex scandals were a dime a dozen. Compromising photos often did a career more good than harm.

  “Sex is the oldest secret worth keeping,” said Marin. “And still the best.”

  “She speaks,” said Johnson.

  Marin gave him the finger.

  “What happened?” Garrett asked her. “I thought you liked him.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Reagan put her hands over her belly. “We should go to the police now that we have an idea what this is all about.”

  Marin rolled her eyes, as if Reagan’s very existence left a bad taste in her mouth.

  “We don’t, actually. Yes, I think it’s more likely the man with the glasses is working for this guy, not Michelle Lyon, but I wouldn’t get the police involved just yet,” said Johnson.

  Garrett couldn’t see Reagan’s face, but he could tell by her voice that she was pissed. “Of course not,” she said. “Go ahead, tell us why it’s such a bad idea.”

  “For the same reason you haven’t simply posted the photographs online to some gossip magazine, hashtag: LesboPeeperExposed. The very thing that’s endangering your lives is the only bargaining chip you’ve got. You go to the police, the press, anybody, there’s no guarantee the threat to your lives goes away. Could be if you publicly embarrass somebody who’s willing to commit murder, they won’t see it so much as water under the bridge but reason for revenge. You want to be looking over your shoulders for the rest of your lives, go for it. But if you want to neutralize a threat, you need to apply leverage.”

  “You sound like Bill Silverman,” said Garrett. “That’s what he called the photos, leverage.”

  Johnson changed lanes again. “Then he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Compromising photos, that’s nothing but blackmail, plain and simple.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “With blackmail you’re trying to manufacture weakness, which is what makes it so dangerous. It’s unpredictable. You’re making up the game as you go along. Leverage is exploiting a weakness that’s already there.”

  “Wanting to remain in the closet isn’t Michelle Lyon’s weakness?”

  “I’m not so sure it is.”

  Reagan’s temper flared. “You’re so utterly full of it,” she said. “I suppose next you’re going to try and tell us that jerk-off photos aren’t necessarily this Cowboy Hat guy’s weakness, either? I can see how you duped my parents. You spin bullshit into gold better than any politician.”

  “Lady, I didn’t dupe anyone. My number is in the book. People come to me. As for the Carpet Czar’s weakness, no, I don’t think being caught choking the chicken is his number one priority. Look in the photos at the way he reacts when he notices Bill Silverman. He doesn’t try to hide. Your pal with the glasses did nothing to Lyon or her friend even though they’d likely seen the photos, too. That should tell you something.”

  “It tells me you’ve been wasting our time.”

  “Back up for a second,” said Garrett. “Who or what is a Carpet King?”

  “Cafferty Wade,” said Johnson, “the Carpet Czar.”

  The name meant nothing to Garrett, and he said as much.

  Marin, who was looking more and more sullen the longer they talked, said, “Where have you been? You’ve never seen the commercials? He’s like the Cal Worthington of discount carpet.”

  “Cal Worthington’s already the Cal Worthington of discount cars,” said Garrett.

  “Discount carpet. I said carpet.”

  Reagan took her phone back from Garrett. “Why are we talking about Cal Worthington? And where are you taking us?” she asked Johnson.

  Marin chewed a hangnail. “I don’t care where you three go, as long as you drop me somewhere else first. Preferably som
eplace where people actually know how to have fun.”

  “We’re going to see a librarian,” said Johnson.

  Marin laughed. “A library? It’s one AM. No library is open this late. And hello, libraries aren’t any fun.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Johnson, “we’re going to see a librarian. All of us.”

  Marin chewed finished chewing off her hangnail and spit it out. “Unfuckingbelievable.”

  XXVI: FIVE TWENTIES AND A CUBAN

  “I thought you said we were going to a library,” said Garrett.

  They were parked outside an all-night diner, on a corner of Downtown near the Bay Bridge where Garrett had never been before. A neon Open sign hummed above the door. The after-hours stoplight at the corner was blinking red, its reflection appearing and disappearing in the diner’s window like a bloody scab of moon.

  “Everybody heard him say library, right?”

  “Yes, I said library. The diner sits atop one of a number of secret entrances to an old warren of smuggling tunnels that run beneath the city. Below our feet is a three-storey depository, shelves overflowing with books, on a hidden Main Street full of carnival escapees and displaced poets, with a tall clock tower at one end, shops, a black market emporium—”

  “Really?”

  “No.”

  “Then what are we doing here?”

  The big private eye unbuckled his seatbelt. “We’re here to see Dale Two Trees.”

  A Thunderbird with its windows down drove past on the street, the thump of its bass rattling the aging fixtures in the camper van.

  “Who’s Dale Two Trees?”

  “Do you believe in God?” asked Johnson. “Because if not, your next best bet for a miracle is inside that diner. We need information, and Two Trees deals information like some people deal blackjack.”

  “Meaning this is nothing but a crapshoot,” said Garrett.

  “Go on, then,” said Reagan, rubbing her eyes tiredly. “Lead the way.”

  The big detective stared.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” said Reagan. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  Johnson broke open his revolver and replaced the spent cartridges with fresh ones from the glove box. “I’m not your friend, and I’m not your employee. Your ship just ran afoul of an ex-black-ops iceberg in glasses and I’m the only hope you’ve got. Go inside, get something to eat, and let me do the talking.”

  The Thunderbird was attempting to parallel park between an ancient Jetta and a red Jeep a few cars down. Its tire hit the curb, sending the back of the vehicle lurching up. The driver squealed out of the spot and then tried again. Again the tire bumped up onto the curb. This time, gunning the engine, he forced the wheel completely onto the sidewalk, then set the brake.

  A police cruiser rounded the corner and drove by. The officers studied the Thunderbird as they passed but didn’t slow down.

  Reagan held her breath, waiting for them to be noticed, too, for the officers to see the duct tape on the camper van’s windows and the bullet holes in the rear bumper, but the patrol car didn’t turn around. The feeling of unease that had been gnawing at her all evening wrapped itself a little tighter around her chest and she had to force herself to breathe.

  Garrett was about to follow Reagan and the detective inside when he realized Marin was still in the van.

  “Are you coming?”

  “Take me home and I’ll let you stay the night.”

  She said it without looking up from her phone, and Garrett was struck by just how little she cared one way or the other. He could stay the night, they could have sex even, and it wouldn’t mean a thing to her. He could call a cab, beg a ride from the assholes in the Thunderbird, or steal Johnson’s van, just so long as she got where she wanted to go. She wouldn’t care about the consequences, not it if was a choice he made and consequences he had to face, whether or not the choice was made on her behalf.

  He had tried with her, he really had. Tried to achieve a similar apathy toward the hatred or love he inspired in the people around him. But the most he’d ever managed was a modest level of promiscuity that he had never truly owned. He liked both sex and women too much to ever possess the detachment necessary to be a one-hundred-percent, no-holds-barred Don Juan.

  And then there was Reagan.

  He looked at Marin and felt nothing. Where before her apathy had seemed to hold promise, now the power she’d had over him was already indistinct, the memory of desire and nothing more.

  He turned his back on her and went into the diner.

  Reagan and Johnson had taken a table in one corner, away from the windows and with a good view of the door. He joined them. A man in an olive-drab army coat came over with three cups in one hand, a pot of coffee in the other. His plastic nametag identified him as the man they had come there to find, but he didn’t seem very much at all like anybody’s hope for a miracle, much less theirs.

  The man’s jacket was faded and big on him. Stripes had been torn from the sleeve, their outline still visible. He wore a hoop in one ear that was the dull gold of an old wedding ring. He had a slight limp in his step, but he downplayed it in a way that said he had spent the better part of a lifetime refusing to let it define the way he moved.

  The man called Two Trees set the mugs down and poured coffee into each with mechanical precision. “Why is it you have come here?”

  Taking their cue from Johnson, they all stayed silent.

  “Drink your coffee and leave,” said Two Trees. He walked the coffee pot back to the counter, straightened it until the handle was aligned perfectly with the receptacle, and then returned to the booth where he’d been seated when they’d arrived. A pile of books sat before him, along with a brown paper accordion folder, a leather journal, and a clear plastic Coke cup half-full of soda.

  “That’s your friend, the librarian?”

  “He is not my friend.”

  “He’s a waiter.”

  “Dale Two Trees has lived three lives.” Johnson stirred sugar and creamer into his coffee. “The first was spent in Vietnam, the second as a librarian, which is how I will always think of him, and his third life has been lived here, at the diner.”

  “What about before Vietnam?”

  “For Dale Two Trees, there was no before Vietnam. Arturo!” called Johnson, raising his voice toward the kitchen. “Four specials.”

  A wide Cuban in a spotless, crisp, open-collared shirt poked his head out. When he saw Johnson he scowled and hiked a thumb toward Two Trees. “He hates you. What you doing here?”

  “Four specials,” repeated Johnson, raising four fingers. “To go.”

  “Gahhh,” the Cuban growled. He swatted the air in their general direction, then disappeared back into his kitchen.

  “How does he cook in that shirt?”

  “Very carefully.”

  Johnson sipped his coffee, relaxed as ever despite being less than welcome at the diner. At Johnson’s behest, Garrett began to recount all that had transpired up to the point the private eye had entered the picture. Reagan closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, hands wrapped around her mug even though she didn’t let herself drink from it.

  Garrett studied Dale Two Trees as he spoke, trying not to look like he was actually studying him. If the man had in fact been in Vietnam, he’d probably been in his late teens or early twenties then. That put him in his sixties now at least, but it wasn’t apparent to look at him. He was fit with a gaunt face, and he sat in his seat with his back straight and his elbows off the table. With his long, fine black hair and proud features he could have easily passed for being in his early forties.

  “Why are we here?”

  Saying it again, Garrett felt like a broken record, but it was late and he’d had it with everybody keeping secrets.

  “Dale Two Trees possesses a deep and abiding interest in anyone who served with him In Country,” said Johnson. “He is a diagnosed obsessive with a didactic memory, but most people cannot see past his charming disposition to p
roperly appreciate it.”

  “So he’s a creepy stalker,” said Reagan, “just like you.”

  “We are nothing alike,” said Dale Two Trees from across the room. He didn’t look up from his book.

  “You think he might know something about Cafferty Wade?”

  “Wade’s war record is public knowledge. He capitalized on it heavily to get where he is today. His Texan cowboy shtick went hand in hand with the gun-slinging war hero image he brought back with him, but he’s actually from San Jose, born and raised. Drafted in ’Sixty-Nine—”

  “Drafted in ’Seventy,” corrected Two Trees.

  Johnson hid a smile. “That’s right, drafted in ’Seventy. My mistake. But it isn’t Wade’s record we’re interested in.”

  “You think the man with the glasses knew Wade in Vietnam?” asked Garrett.

  Johnson nodded.

  “But he’s not that old.”

  “You’re an actor, right?”

  “Why’s that—”

  “You should know a movie star’s greatest role in life is playing themselves. Long after their shelf life expires, they continue pretending to be their younger selves. Swimsuit-worthy bodies at fifty, twenty-year-old muscles at sixty, style to spare, plastic surgery, you name it. This guy’s no different. I got a good look at him. He hides it well with the clothes he wears, the glasses, his hairstyle. Even his face is the face of somebody thirty years younger. But nobody moves like that nowadays.”

  “How did he move?” asked Dale Two Trees sharply, still listening in on their conversation.

  “Like he never left the jungle. Like he’s three shades past crazy but has spent the last thirty-odd years keeping it under wraps. Like he got a taste for killing that’s never gone away. You can’t hide that sort of thing completely. It comes out in the way you move.”

  Two Trees had put down his book and was walking his fingers through his accordion folder. He pulled out three handwritten sheets and arranged them carefully in front of himself, straightening them obsessively with his fingernails until they were perfectly even.