Razzamatazz

by Sandra Scoppettone

  The shakes were beginning to crawl up his body into his arms. He had to get out of there. "And if I don't leave?"

  She shrugged. "I guess I'll have to give out the story."

  Colin pushed back his chair, got unsteadily to his feet. "You know what you are, Babe?"

  "Before you tell me, let me say one more thing. I don't think Annie Winters would really like going out with a murder suspect, do you?"

  He wanted to throttle her, instead he clutched the back of the chair.

  "Steady there, big guy."

  There was no use trying to hang on so he could tell her what a shit she was. He forced himself to walk through the restaurant and out. When he got to his car he grabbed the handle, wrenched open the door, and fell inside.

  Leaning back, head against the seat, he tried to regulate his breathing. But the roof began to crumble and crack, the doors closing in on him. He shut his eyes. Immediately Nancy's cut and bleeding face swam round in the blackness, the sounds of his children calling for help surrounding him. He opened his eyes. Black and yellow spots danced in his line of vision. Dizziness overcame him and he gripped the wheel for support, his knuckles growing white.

  A knock made him jump. He turned to see Babe bent down, her face separated from his by the window. "I'm not fooling around," she said. "If you don't quit I'm giving this story to Newsline. You have until noon tomorrow." She left.

  Slowly Colin's breathing became regular, the car interior returning to its original shape. He felt exhausted. He had no doubts that Babe would carry out her threat and that once the story appeared he'd have to leave Seaville. Despite the murders he'd grown fond of the town and wanted to stay. Most of all he wanted to get to know Annie better. If ever he needed Mark to be there for him, he needed him now, he thought. And then he wondered why that made him uneasy.

  LOOKING BACK-75 YEARS AGO

  Elisha Congdon of Seaville, who claims to have great power from the Almighty, is in the public eye again. He returned recently from Atlanta, Ga., where he went to the federal authorities in a vain attempt to secure the release of Mr. M. Silver, who is in the federal prison there, serving a term for his religious acts. Elisha says Mr. Silver is all right except for a dent in his forehead.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Fran said, "What're you doing, Waldo?" She was watching him throw socks and underwear into his beat-up old suitcase.

  "I'm packing," he answered. He was wearing a green polo shirt she'd given him for his birthday, worn jeans, and high-topped Keds. His gun was on the bed next to the suitcase.

  "Packing for what?"

  "I'm leaving." He opened a drawer and pulled out some shirts.

  "I went down to the station looking for you when you didn't come home. I wanted to be with you. I was driving around looking for you, hon'."

  He slapped the shirts into the case. "We've had it, Fran."

  "Meaning?" She put a hand on the suitcase lid.

  Hallock glanced at her hand, went back to the bureau, grabbed a bunch of T-shirts. "It means just what it says." He wouldn't look at her.

  "I don't understand. Explain."

  "Ha!"

  "Ha?"

  "Yeah, ha! I should explain? That's a good one."

  She slammed the suitcase shut and sat on it. "Waldo, what the hell is this? Are you leaving because of what happened today at the meeting?"

  "Now you're getting smart. Get off the goddamn suitcase." For the first time he looked at her, the grooves under her slanting, sad eyes deeper.

  "Oh, Waldo, that didn't have anything to do with me."

  He crossed his arms over his chest. "Then what the hell were you doing there with those gals, right in the row with Julia Dorman and the rest?"

  "I came to support you, Waldo."

  "Funny way of showing it."

  "I had no idea Julia was going to do what she did."

  "I've put up with your being on this committee and that, marching here, there, everywhere, embarrassing the bejesus out of me, but this time you've gone too far. Get off the goddamn suitcase, Fran."

  "Waldo, you're not listening."

  "I hear you. Get off."

  "No, I won't get off, not until you listen."

  Hallock suddenly had a sense of deja vu, then remembered that fight years before when he'd threatened to leave. But this time he was serious. "What do I have to listen to, huh? More bullshit?"

  "It's not bullshit. I came down to the meeting to support you, Waldo. Naturally I sat with my friends. Nobody said anything to me about speaking against you because nobody knew. Julia did that on her own, and you can bet we've had it with her."

  "It's too late, Fran."

  "That's just dumb." She reached out to touch his cheek and he pushed her hand away, hard. She was knocked off balance and slipped from the suitcase to the bed, then onto the floor, cracking her head against the wood.

  Hallock was beside her in a second. "You okay?"

  "I think so," she answered, sitting up, rubbing the side of her head.

  "Jesus, Fran, I didn't mean to-"

  "I know. Don't worry about it."

  He helped her up. They stood close to one another.

  She put her arms around his neck. "Waldo, you've been hurt bad, and you've got to take it out on somebody. Don't make me the enemy."

  "Can't help it, Fran." He pulled her arms from around his neck and went back to his packing.

  "Didn't you hear anything I said?"

  "I heard. Doesn't much matter what you meant, it's what happened, what everybody saw."

  "Since when do you care what people think?"

  "I always cared about your damn causes. You don't know the crap I took about it." He removed some shirt stays and cufflinks from a hand-carved box that had been his grandfather's.

  "I felt I was doing some worthwhile things, not just being a housewife and mother."

  "What do you mean, just a housewife and mother? That's a lot."

  "Sure it is. I don't mean it that way. Oh, hell, Waldo, I don't know how to explain it. But if people were giving you a hard time about it, you should've said something. It's no good keeping stuff like that inside. It has to come out, explode. Like now."

  "You knew, Fran. How about that time you got thrown in the clink for picketing the nuclear plant?"

  "Are you going to go into ancient history? I told you then I'd never do anything to embarrass you again and I haven't."

  "Until today."

  "You're not listening."

  He closed the suitcase, snapped shut the catches, lifted the case from the bed. "I have to go."

  "Where?"

  "I dunno. Motel, I guess."

  "What should I tell the kids?"

  "Whatever you want."

  "How long will you be gone?" She sounded frightened.

  "Long as it takes."

  "Long as what takes?"

  "I don't know." He started through the door, turned around. "Make sure you lock up at night. And don't go anyplace by yourself-anyplace you're not familiar with, especially at night. Don't let the girls go off by themselves either. That sucker's still out there and nobody knows who's next. Least of all Special Agent Schufeldt." A flicker of a smile crossed his lips.

  Fran said, "Don't you do anything dangerous either, okay?"

  "I won't."

  "Will you call me?"

  "I don't know. I need some time, is all."

  She nodded. "I love you, Waldo."

  His eyes met hers and for a moment she thought he might stay, take her in his arms. But then he was gone.

  – -

  Colin had asked Annie to meet him at seven-thirty at the Anchor Inn on the water. He'd blamed his failure to pick her up on having to work late, and she accepted what he said without question. As he drove to the restaurant he reviewed his two conversations with Mark. One on Friday, the other only a few minutes ago. Friday's conversation had been unsettling at best.

  "She probably has her period or something," Mark said about Babe.

 
; "Come on, Mark, that's absurd. Are you living in the Dark Ages?"

  He shrugged. "Sarah always gets weird around her period."

  "Believe me, Babe's behavior has nothing to do with anything but her goddamn twisted ambition."

  "Don't you think you're being a little hard on her?"

  Colin was stunned. "No. No, I don't. Are you sure you understood what I told you? She wants my job or else she's going to give the story about me to Newsline."

  "I heard you, okay? I just don't think she'll do it. She knows I'd fire her if she did."

  "Would you?"

  "Of course." He looked surprised that Colin would think anything else.

  "Even so I'd rather not wait and see what she does, Mark. I wish you'd tell her that now."

  "Why borrow trouble, pal?"

  Colin was losing his patience. "I'm not borrowing trouble. I'm telling you what the woman is going to do, and I believe she will unless you talk to her."

  "Okay. I'll talk to her."

  "When?"

  "When I see her."

  "When will that be?"

  "She'll be in on Monday."

  "Christ, Mark, she's given me until tomorrow. What the hell is wrong with you?"

  "I'm sorry, I've got things on my mind."

  "Don't we all."

  He laid his hand on Colin's shoulder. "No, listen, I really do. Amy's-"

  "Mark, this is important. Babe is going to blow my cover. I'll have to leave Seaville if this thing gets into the papers."

  "You don't think this thing with Amy is important? My marriage, my whole life might go down the tubes, pal, and you don't think it's important? Fuck that." He put his head in his hands.

  "Mark," he said softly, trying to pacify him. "I'm sorry. I know this thing with Amy is important, but there's not much you can do about it right now, is there?"

  No answer.

  "So what I'm asking you to do is to concentrate on my problem for a few minutes and-"

  "Mike Rosler called you. What's up?"

  "What?"

  "Rosler returned your fucking call."

  "I didn't see a slip about it."

  "I didn't write a slip. I'm telling you instead. I got the call by accident. How come you called him?" His bottom lip protruded like a sulky baby's.

  "I had an idea I wanted to check with him."

  Suspicion clouded Mark's eyes. "What idea?"

  "It's not important."

  "Important enough to call a big shot New York Times reporter."

  Colin quickly weighed the pros and cons of telling Mark, decided if he wanted him to take action on the Babe thing it would be smarter to let him in on his idea. "I thought Mike could tell me something about cult markings, symbols, stuff like that. I had an idea there might be some connection with the A's the killer was cutting on his victims."

  "What's Rosler know about that?"

  "Maybe nothing. I just thought I'd give it a shot. Mark, are you going to talk to Babe or not?"

  "Yeah, sure. I'll call her."

  "When?"

  He looked at his watch. "She's doing a story in Riverhead now. I'll catch her later. Okay?"

  He'd agreed but it hadn't felt okay at all. Then, today, Mark had been impossible to find. He'd finally reached him ten minutes before he'd left to meet Annie.

  "Did you speak to Babe?" he'd asked.

  "Yeah. She quit."

  "What?"

  "She quit the fucking paper, Colin. Now who the hell am I going to get to do the soft stuff?"

  Colin wanted to ram his fist through the phone. He'd never realized how self-involved Mark was. "What about the story she was going to write?"

  "She wouldn't talk about it, just said she was quitting."

  And that was it. Nobody had to tell Colin that Babe was going to carry through on her threat. She probably had a job at Newsline already. He didn't know what to do. Should he tell Annie the truth? Get out of town before the story broke? Run like he was guilty? But there was always the chance that Babe wouldn't give the story to Newsline. Slim but possible.

  Colin pulled into the parking lot of the Anchor Inn. Annie had said the place was very popular, the food better than most restaurants on the Fork. But by the few cars in the lot he wondered if it were really true. Annie's car was already there.

  The sun, like a red beach ball, was slowly slipping below the horizon. Colin stopped for a moment and breathed in the salt air coming off the Sound. In the distance he spotted two sailboats moving across the water toward shore. Despite the murders, there was a certain sense of peace here he'd never felt elsewhere. He would hate to have to leave this place. Crossing the lot he tried to shake his gloomy mood.

  The Anchor Inn had a predictably nautical theme-life preservers on the walls, surrounded by fishnets; ship's wheels for chandeliers; varnished hatch-cover tables.

  She was sitting by a window, her profile to him, looking at the Sound. He thought she was lovely. Her blond hair shimmered in the last light of the day. She was wearing a red cotton dress, scooped at the neck, with three-quarter sleeves.

  As he started toward her she turned, signaled him with a wave of her hand, her face breaking into a gorgeous smile. He felt giddy.

  "Am I late?" He knew he wasn't.

  "I was early."

  He thought her blue eyes were the color of cornflowers he'd seen as a boy. Or was it a sky somewhere? "Would you like a drink?"

  "I've ordered one. Isn't it a beautiful sunset?" she asked.

  "Do you always arrange for them to be like this?"

  She smiled. "I try."

  The waitress brought her a daiquiri. He ordered a whiskey sour.

  "We've practically got this place to ourselves," Colin remarked, looking around.

  Only a handful of tables were occupied. "It's still early in the season," she concluded.

  "Maybe. How was your day?" It had been three years since he'd asked a woman he cared about that question.

  "Lousy, how was yours?"

  "The same. Why was yours lousy?"

  "It started off with-" Annie looked up at the man standing next to their table. "Hello, Otto."

  "Annie," he said, nodding in her direction.

  Otto Lien was a huge, overweight man. His thinning brown hair was cut short. A pair of tortoiseshell glasses sat low on the bridge of a bulbous nose festooned with broken veins.

  Annie introduced the two men.

  Otto said, "I know who he is. That's why I come over. Not that I wouldn't say hello to you, Annie, but hellos aren't what I got on my mind right now. What I got on my mind right now is my place." He swept his arm in a large arc, taking in a good portion of the room. What d’ya think?" he asked, looking at Colin.

  "Think?"

  "Yeah, think. About my place."

  "I think it's very nice." he answered.

  "'Very nice'," Lien repeated sarcastically. "He thinks it's very nice."

  "What is it, Otto? What's the trouble?" Annie asked warily.

  "You ever seen this place like this? Empty like this? Don't bother to answer. I know you haven't, because I never seen it like this. Twenty-three years I been in business. Best food on the Fork, bar none. June's not my best month but it's good, better than May or April. I should be doing a hundred dinners on a Saturday night in June. You know how many I'm doing? I'm doing thirteen. You know how many I did last night, a Friday in June? Nine. It don't matter how many dinners I do or don't do, I got to pay the help anyways. And the food goes begging. Can't keep a lot of it. I lose there, too. So it's costing me, and you want to know why? Because this fuck face, pardon my French, Annie, is writing stories and scaring the pants off everybody from here to New York City."

  "It's his job, Otto. He-"

  "Bad enough he's keeping the tourists out of here," he went on, ignoring her, "he's keeping the regulars, the natives hiding under their beds. Everybody's afraid to go out, leave their houses, go to dinner, a movie, buy a goddamn washer in the hardware store. Everybody's hurting, not just me. All
the stores, all the restaurants, everybody. Because this shithead, along with some other shitheads on that crummy paper, likes to write gory stories. So you know what? I don't need to do two more dinners, making a big total of fifteen, if you get my meaning?"

  They looked at him, not completely sure they did.

  Colin said, "I'm sorry your business is off but-"

  "I got to spell it out? Okay. I don't want you in here, Mister Reporter. Far as I'm concerned, you're the reason for a Saturday night in June being a bust."

  "Otto," Annie said, "don't you think that's a little ridiculous? You're acting like Colin killed those people, rather than just writing about it."

  Colin flashed on Otto reading Babe's story and he felt sick. "It's okay, Annie, let's go." He reached for his wallet.

  "Don't bother," Lien said, "I don't want your money. Just get the hell out of my restaurant."

  Annie picked up her handbag. "I'm shocked at you, Otto."

  "Yeah, well let me tell you something else. You're not going to do yourself no good being seen around with this guy. I like you, Annie, I'd hate to see anything happen."

  "Anything happen?" Colin asked sharply. "Is that a threat?"

  "Listen, pencil pusher, just scram, okay?" He made fists out of his hands and brought them slowly up in front of his waist.

  Annie moved between the two men, put her arm through Colin's and started walking.

  Outside Annie said, "Williams' Market's still open. Let's get some steaks and cook them at home. I have some baking potatoes, a new Boston lettuce, and I make a mean cup of coffee. Oh, Colin, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

  "I'm fine," he lied. He felt like hell, thought maybe he should just bag the whole evening, but didn't really want to. "You sure you want to do this?"

  "Why not? I'll meet you at the market, okay?"

  "Okay."

  "Good." She squeezed his arm then walked away.

  The sun was gone. He could barely see the shoreline from his car, but he could hear the water breaking against the sand. Only twenty-five minutes had elapsed since he'd pulled into this parking lot. In that short space of time, everything had changed.

  He was sure Otto Lien wasn't the only one who blamed him for their business failures. They didn't have Hallock any more, and they didn't know who the killer was. So now he was the target and by Monday morning, when Babe's story hit the stands, he'd be a walking bull's-eye.