The Man Offside

by A. W. Gray

I was ready to admit to myself that I’d just used the names as an excuse to talk to her, when I remembered the name that Ace the Book had first called Connie by. Her real name. “Lorraine Daley,” I said.

  There was sudden tension in her voice. “Who?”

  “Lorraine Daley.”

  “Well, yes. Not in person, but the name. I signed some papers for Jack. Something about a house he was financing, using some of our stock to collateralize a loan. He said the deal would bring more interest than CD’s were paying, and that it was just as safe. Lorraine Daley was the name on the loan, I’m sure of it.”

  I thought, Jesus Christ. I said, “Where was the house located?”

  “I’m not sure. Jack handled everything. Wait, I remember now, it was on Lake Bruce Alger. He said that if she defaulted on the loan we could keep our boat up there.”

  Thoughts were swimming in my head like the piranhas in Catfish’s apartment. I said, “I need to look through your house, Donna. Can I get in?”

  “Sure. There’s a key under the mat, by the back door. You’d better climb over the gate, you’ll trip the alarm if you try to open it. Take a ladder with you. I’ve given the maid the week off, so nobody’s there.”

  “I’ll go this morning, as soon as I get some sleep,” I said. “Listen, be in your room about noon, I may need to call you. Sleep tight, we both need some rest.”

  “Rick?” The sexy crackle was back.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m dying to see you. Is that wrong?”

  I closed my eyes. “I hope it isn’t, ‘cause I want to see you, too, puddin’. You get some sleep.” I hung up. Fast. Even as tired as I was, I didn’t doze off for a while. I was picturing her wealth of dark hair, framing her face on the pillow as we made love.

  11

  I couldn’t remember having had the dream in a long time, not since the endless nights in the cell at El Reno. Those nights had been part sleep and part semi-consciousness, interspersed with long stretches of lying awake staring at the bunk springs overhead, and of listening to Breaux’s gentle snoring and the monotonous tick-tick of the windup Baby Ben alarm clock, sold for an inflated price in the prison commissary.

  In the dream I always caught myself. Up to the point where I caught myself, the dream was a replay of what had happened for real: Craig Morton’s sweat-streaked, handsome face framed by a silver helmet with a blue star on its crown; Morton’s face attentive as he listened to the play call from the sideline shuttle—a wide receiver that particular year, for Landry had a habit of changing the shuttle man from season to season. Morton in the huddle, screaming to be heard, sixty-five thousand leatherlungs creating an impossible whorl of sound. The play, Power Thirty-four. Jack’s number, my hole. Jack winking at me, hissing, “Blow ‘em out, bigun,” slapping my rump. The spongy feel of the Astroturf underfoot as I jogged up front; the yawning hole in the Texas Stadium roof through which, in those days, it was said that God could watch America’s Team. The mob on its feet in front of the end zone Scoreboard, waving thousands of arms, splitting the air with rabid screams. The Scoreboard lights showing forty-two seconds, Forty-Niners twenty-one, us seventeen. The come-ahead sneer from the red-jerseyed defensive tackle—Charlie Krueger was his name, a Texas Aggie transplanted to Frisco. On my left the nose of the ball a foot from the goal line, Dave Manders encircling inflated leather with big, brawny hands, readying for the snap. Then the sudden sinking in the pit of my stomach as I jumped too soon, legs driving, unable to stop; the grunt of surprise from Krueger’s lungs.

  But in the dream I caught myself. A simple move it was, balancing my weight with one hand on the Astroturf, shoving off, scuttling beetle fashion back into position, lowering into my three-point stance for the required one-count. At the dream snap I blasted into Krueger, rammed him backward, arms flailing helplessly, beyond the goal line, and Jack took the handoff from Morton and waltzed in through a hole big enough for a forty-foot rig. Then in the dream I was hugging Jack, we were jumping up and down, he was slapping my helmet, joyous slaps like plastic tomtoms ringing in my ears.

  I woke up. Suddenly. My eyes were at once wide open, and for seconds I listened for the clunk of the hack’s boots in the hallway, the sound that had awakened me for three years at El Reno at five in the morning. But this wasn’t El Reno. I rolled onto my side. Sun rays slanting over the carpet, the sliding glass door, beyond that the balcony, beyond the balcony the gently waving treetops in Lee Park. I shifted onto my back. My buddy the zebra, still up there on the wall. I stretched my stiff, aching muscles and sat up, then squinted at the illuminated clock radio on the nightstand: ten-thirty. I yawned and scratched my head. A familiar sinking sensation hit me.

  The first time I’d felt it had been eight years ago when the indictment had come down; the sickening, gut-wrenching knowledge that what was happening was real, that it was happening to me and not some unknown someone in the newspaper. And here it was again, like a late-night rerun of a depressing movie. Jesus Christ, I was a target once more. I shook off the feeling as best I could and trudged in to take a shower. The steamy jets of water improved my disposition some, but not much. I shut off the nozzles, climbed out onto a green bath mat, rubbed my sopping hair with a towel. I finished drying off and stood naked in front of the lavatory.

  I wiped a clear circle in the mist and looked in the mirror. Except for the dark circles under my eyes I didn’t look too bad—square jaw, thin nose, a chin that I kept firm with a lot of facial exercise. There was a scab on my cheek where I’d scratched it during the night with a fingernail; such a scab generally appeared after I’d had the dream. The small wound itched slightly. I had a full head of thick and curly silver-gray hair; once when I’d been with the Cowboys an agent had tried to negotiate a TV commercial deal for me with Grecian Formula. If Joe DiMaggio could do it, why not me? When I’d gone to the Rams the deal had died on the vine.

  I spread and stiffened my legs, put my hands on my waist, and rotated my upper body from side to side. A slimming exercise. Two hundred reps a day, plus bench presses, curls, dumbbell shrugs, and a lot of jogging, had trimmed off fifty pounds during my stay at El Reno without robbing me of any strength. Overall I’d done a pretty good job on my body. Hell, it was about all I had left. I finished the exercise and shaved, my hand so steady that I cut myself only once. I plastered toilet paper on the cut and went back into the bedroom. After the hot shower, the air-conditioning gave me a sudden chill. I sneezed.

  I put on the same pair of jeans I’d worn the night before, along with clean white cotton socks, my Nike sneakers, and a red Lily Dache golf shirt with “GREAT SOUTHWEST G.C.” stitched on the sleeve in white thread. Great Southwest was a step below D.A. Pierson’s middle-class Lakewood Country Club. It was a haven for gamblers: bookies, poker players, gin hustlers, you name it. I was a couple of months behind in my dues, and as I rode the elevator to the ground floor I made a mental note to use part of the money I had left to catch up. To hell with food and car payments, I couldn’t afford to come up on the club’s delinquent list. Too embarrassing. I had a reputation to maintain. I went to the covered parking area and cranked up the ‘Vette. I had some housebreaking to do.

  The man at Rent-It-All, a skinny, sunburned guy wearing a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, had a ladder. It was a nifty eight-foot aluminum job. When he wondered aloud how I was going to carry an eight-foot ladder in a Corvette, he had me, so I wound up renting an old yellow Ford pickup as well. The guy even waived the deposit for the truck, as long as I left him the keys to the ‘Vette, probably hoping that I wouldn’t come back. I tossed the ladder in the bed and rattled off in the pickup, out the Dallas North Tollway to Donna’s place.

  Bent Tree wasn’t really a neighborhood, at least not the kind of neighborhood I’d known growing up, with dogs trotting about and crapping on yards, and kids playing football with driveways as goal lines. Bent Tree was more like a Camelot: automatically watered lawns, clipped and manicured, spreading about high-roo
fed houses that were more like ski lodges; exposed aggregate drives, trashless streets, mind-boggling views of the rolling, tree-lined fairways of the kind of country club where everyone fixes their divots and no one yells, “Fuck!” after missing a short one.

  Donna’s house—Jack’s house, too, but a woman like Donna seemed to me more to belong here than a guy like Jack—was a pale brown brick Gothic, homier-looking than most of the new-money shrines on the block. I parked in front, then carried the ladder up the drive and around to the side of the house. It was nearing twelve and the heat was stifling. I edged the ladder past a honeysuckle bush and leaned over to smell the flowers. A bee whined angrily by my ear. The temperature dropped sharply as I entered the shade at the side of the house. The ladder didn’t weigh much, but the sweat was pouring down my face and sticking my shirt to my back.

  The high stone fence surrounding the back portion of the property was designed like an ancient castle wall, miniature guard towers and all. I propped the ladder up, climbed up to vault one-handed over the top of the wall, and dropped into Jacqueline Brendy’s playground. The tent on top of the swing set was drooping; one flap was torn and one wooden support was broken. I pictured Jacqueline and her merry band of little girls, and wondered that the poor old tent was still standing at all.

  I hesitated before the waist-high cyclone fence that separated the playground from the backyard and pool area. I picked a leaf from the nearby hedge and chewed on it thoughtfully. Donna had warned me about triggering the alarm by opening the gate in the main wall, but she hadn’t said anything about this little wire fence. I decided I’d better not take any chances, swung one leg up on top of the gate, and vaulted over. My pants leg caught on something; there was a soft, ripping sound. I stood inside the yard and examined the damage. A patch of hairy leg showed through a small triangular tear in my jeans. I murmured, “Shit.”

  The hot wind had picked up, now rustling the trees and hedges and sending small ripples over the surface of the pool. The water in the teardrop-shaped pool seemed bluer than when I’d sat there with Donna. The furniture was still in place, the cedar chaise longue on which Donna had reclined in the same slightly angled position that I remembered.

  The trip across the front yard with the ladder and the climb over the two fences had kept my adrenaline pumping. But now, standing relaxed beside the pool, I was just a tad spooked. My rented ladder stood against the outside wall in plain view of anyone who happened by. “But, Officer,” I’d say, “Mrs. Brendy told me to go right on in.” “Sure, Mac,” he’d say, “and I suppose she told you to climb over the fence so you wouldn’t mess up the front porch any. Well, while we’re at it, why don’t I just run you up on the computer and see if you got a record or something.” I suspected that if I were to get hauled downtown again, Detective Atchley would lock the door to the interview room, close the porthole, and take great pleasure in helping the city cop beat the everloving crap out of me. I took a deep breath, crossed the yard, climbed the two steps onto the redwood deck, stood in the shade beside the stained glass windows, and looked around. I didn’t see anyone.

  There was a straw woven welcome mat by the door; I lifted one corner. A gold brass Yale key lay shining in the sun, just as Donna had said. I grinned, picturing Donna hiding the key and thinking that she was being pretty slick. Under the mat is the first place that the bad guys look for keys; the second place is on the overhead ledge. I was still grinning as I picked up the key and went over to unlock the door. My grin faded. I wasn’t going to need the key after all; someone had already been here.

  The line that separated shade from sunlight was splitting the doorknob just about in half, and if it hadn’t been for the sun rays I probably wouldn’t have noticed the round hole in the pane, just to the left of the knob. I bent for a closer look. It was the work of a pro: a glass cutter used to make the hole, then the section of glass lifted carefully and silently away, probably with suction cups. I dug in my back pocket. As usual, I’d left the Smith & Wesson in the ‘Vette, and I briefly wondered why I’d bought the damned gun in the first place. I tried the knob. It turned easily and the hinges creaked slightly as the door opened. I walked quietly in with a thousand tiny pinpricks parading up and down my spine.

  I stood in the entryway and blinked a couple of times. I couldn’t hear a sound, only the distant ticking of a clock. My gaze lingered for a moment on the Dimitri Vail painting over the mantel, and just looking at Donna’s image in riding breeches astride the palomino started a rumbling in my breastbone. Jack’s image seemed to be staring at me with a hands-off-my-girl look in its eyes. I thought, Yeah, buddy? Well, how ‘bout you and Connie Swarm, huh? I made the journey through the den, past the long, low couch and baby grand piano, and leaned on mine and Jack’s old pride and joy, the hand-carved bar. There was a faint odor of lemon Pledge, and I made a mental note to tell Donna that from now on the maid should use only real polish on the dark wood. Lemon oil would eventually ruin the bar’s finish—at least that’s what the Mexican guy we’d bought it from had said. I drummed my fingers on the surface, briefly thinking about fixing myself a drink, then changing my mind. The odds were that the burglary had been a random, nighttime affair, but if someone was still here in the house I’d best not be stumbling around having a toddy. A sudden flashback came to me, a recollection about an old habit of Jack’s, so I went behind the bar and clicked open its lower cabinet.

  The old habit had never changed. Jack had been squeamish about guns to the point of being silly about it. He’d refused to have a rifle or pistol anywhere on the premises where he lived, and even had once thrown away a pretty nifty derringer of mine when he’d found it tucked inside a kitchen cabinet. We’d almost come to blows over that one. But Jack had always kept a weapon of sorts, usually somewhere around the bar. I found the weapon on the second shelf, behind two unopened quarts of Jack Daniels Black Label and a jug of W. L. Wellers blended whiskey. It was a leg from a piano bench or small table, still with a threaded metal stud protruding from the fat end. I hefted it; the thing made a pretty good club. I carried it with me over to the hand-carved bookcases that ran the length of one wall. Surely, though, whoever had been here before me was long gone. Or if they were still in the house they’d turn out to be a seventy-pound midget without a gun. I stood on tiptoes and looked over the titles in the bookcase.

  Jesus, what book was it that I was looking for? When I’d visited him at the jail, Jack had told me that the key to the mini-warehouse was taped inside the cover of a book that nobody would ever read. Well, as far as I was concerned, nobody would ever read any of these books. I went down the line: Great Expectations . . . The Foxes of Harrow . . . Leaves of Grass. Jesus Christ, Jack, who were you trying to kid? You never read any of this stuff in your life. Oliver Twist . . . Hawaii . . . Texas . . . Moby Dick, the great white whale. Or was it a shark? The book had a navy cover with gilt lettering that had faded in spots, and it looked really musty and old. I reached for it, then froze as, somewhere in the house, a board creaked.

  It could have been nothing more than the house settling, maybe the wind causing the framing to shift. I wasn’t sure. I stood away from the bookcase and listened. Nothing. I thought, To hell with it, stretched out, and took Moby Dick down from the shelf. The volume beside it, The Great Gatsby, tilted sideways and toppled against the remaining books with a soft thud.

  I found the key taped inside the front cover, a small, flat little silver key like the ones that the post office issued. There was a number inscribed on the round end—14B. The key joined the door key I’d found under the mat in my right pants pocket. I softly laid the book on a nearby table and walked to the front of the house, holding the club in a death grip.

  The foot of the stairs was about three yards inside the front door, which was heavy, carved oak and held an octagonal leaded glass window at eye level. Just beside the door stood a full-length grandfather clock, probably a real antique, with a gold pendulum the diameter of a basketball swinging back and fort
h, back and forth, ticking and tocking. The clock showed five minutes after twelve with beveled golden hands. I ascended the stairs. They were carpeted in rich blue, and as I went up, my feet sank noiselessly into three-quarter-inch foam padding. The bannister was dark polished wood supported by curved wrought iron. I touched the bannister every couple of steps or so.

  Several pictures hung along the way in plain gold frames. Some were of Jacqueline, some of Donna, others of Jack, a few of the three of them together. One of Donna’s poses caused me to catch my breath: her long, supple legs, bare and tan, in a pair of tight white shorts as she stood on tiptoes and grinned a little devilish cheesecake into the camera. She was on the deck of a yacht with swelling blue waves in the background, and one arm was raised over her head. Her fingertips were touching the snout of a huge fish—a blue marlin; Jesus, I knew guys back in Corpus who would’ve died to have caught that beauty—which was suspended tail downward over the deck.

  Farther on down the line was a photo of Donna’s dad, and beside it a shot of her brother, Buddy. They were old pictures, dating sometime around when I’d been in high school, and both Mr. Morley and Buddy looked exactly as I remembered them. Buddy in particular, deeply tanned, a wide grin on his square, honest face, in jeans along with white socks and black penny loafers, leaning on the roof of his ‘62 Thunderbird. I remembered the car as well—did I ever. It had transported me and Buddy on many a wild weekend across the border, when our folks had thought we were in for some weekend fishing. Mr. Morley had passed away in ‘71—I was pretty sure of the year—and as far as I knew Mrs. Morley still lived in the same house where Buddy and Donna had grown up. Next to Buddy’s picture was a cuddly photo of Jacqueline Brendy, age about three, wearing a flowered party dress and giving a cute pixie smile over her shoulder. I went up two more steps, glanced at the picture just below the second-story landing, then did a double take, and stared hard at the photo. My mouth was hanging open like a fly trap.