The Man Offside

by A. W. Gray

  He nodded slowly. “Look, Bannion, ten years ago I wouldn’t have gotten involved in this. Times have been hard.”

  “They damn sure have, you asshole, but not near as hard as they’re going to get. What was it, cocaine? How much?”

  “It was . . . yeah, it was coke. Three kilos it was supposed to be. Four, it turned out. And Skeezix wasn’t involved. We, well, they made over half a million dollars on the deal, Bodie and Jack. But Jack was living too high. Hell, you know that, you’ve seen his house. Jack’s deal with Skeezix came later, and you know that story. The feds and all.” Cassel removed his I’m-smart glasses and suddenly didn’t look so smart anymore.

  As I carried the file over and sat across from him, I thought over what he’d said. It was beginning to jell. I didn’t like it, but it was. I crossed my legs and opened the folder across my thigh, all the time holding the pistol pointed loosely in Cassel’s direction. “I’m pretty dumb, Fred, guess I always have been. I’ve been thinking all along that somebody killed Jack so he wouldn’t talk about his drug connects, nothing more. But there’s a lot more to it. Hell, Jack didn’t even have any drug connects, except for Skeezix and Breaux. And Skeezix is on the federal payroll; telling about him isn’t going to scare anybody. It was a lot more than the dope, wasn’t it? I’ll bet the dirty-picture business is even better than the dope business. And the filthy-picture business is one where you can kill two birds with one stone. You can blackmail people and sell the pictures to boot. Where you sell ‘em, on the playground? You’re a real shit, Fred.”

  He’d been watching me with a sort of resigned expression on his face, but now he lifted his chin and said, “Now, wait a minute. Not me, I’m just a lawyer.”

  “Oh, Bodie’s a shit, too. But he doesn’t represent himself to be anything but a shit. You’re different. Stay tuned, I’ll get back to you.” I thumbed through the papers in my lap, the copies of Jack’s stock—IBM, Placid Oil, a few shares of Xerox—and found the loan application. The loan document itself was underneath the application in the folder. Beside Jack’s scrawl, Donna’s signature appeared even more round and feminine. I paused with the file open to the note from Jack and Donna to Northpark National Bank. “What the hell is Waterproof, Inc.?” I said. “That’s the name the loan is under.”

  He shifted nervously. “Oh, it’s just a corporation, to limit personal liability. You’ve been around enough to know how it works.”

  “Waterproof, Inc.,” I said thoughtfully. “Hell, I know. That’s Bodie’s hometown, isn’t it? Waterproof, Louisiana. You forget we were cellies. He kept a newspaper headline up at El Reno for laughs. It was from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and it said, ‘Three Waterproof Men Drown.’ Ha, Ha. What’s the matter, Fred? You’re not laughing. Don’t you get it?”

  He shifted again and ran his index finger around underneath his starched collar. He put his glasses back on. “You’re not going to be able to make anything out of it. That corporation’s a legitimately registered entity.”

  I snorted. “Legitimate? Jesus Christ. Let’s see, Jack was a pretty weak guy underneath all the bullshit. He might’ve gotten into a few dope deals, little stuff, but he never would’ve had the nerve to put together anything of the size you just told me. So that’s why the picture of Jack diddling Connie Swarm. Gave you a hammer on him. If he doesn’t post the stock as collateral for the loan, then Donna gets the pictures. How many different loans did he have to make? And now I see why Jack was making dope deals even though he had all that money stashed in the mini-warehouse. Hell, the money wasn’t even Jack’s. He was holding the money for you and Bodie, from the dirty-picture business. What else you into, Cassel? Pimping young boys, what?”

  Cassel removed his glasses once again, this time cleaning them with a spotless white hanky from his back pocket. His confidence was returning; now he spoke directly and barely glanced at the Smith & Wesson. “So what are you going to do about it?” he said. “You can make yourself a pretty good finder’s fee, Bannion, if you know where that money is. There’s quite a bit of it.”

  “Yeah, I can make a fee. Or I can make all of it, if I don’t give you any. You’ve set me up pretty good. Nobody’s going to pay much attention to me with my record. But I might just have an out. Skeezix, though I hate to have to depend on that fat son of a bitch. But just maybe between me and him we know enough for some prosecutor to put a case together on you.”

  Cassel looked straight at me as though he was going to laugh. I suppose he’d made up his mind that I really wasn’t going to shoot him, and that except for the gun I wasn’t particularly dangerous. “Yeah, well, you just talk to Skeezix,” he said. His eyes did a funny little dance in his head, and then he stopped watching me and looked out the window.

  Suddenly I got it. Not anywhere near all of it, but enough to raise goose bumps along my spine the size of mothballs. I said, “Christ, how did y’all keep Skeezix’s killing out of the papers? The little toad never got on any plane to Minneapolis. What’d Bodie do, tell him they just had enough time to go in the John and take a leak? Then pop old Skeezix while he was standing there with his dick hanging out, I’ll bet. I’ve got Skeezix’s brother’s phone number in Minneapolis. What do you think, Fred? Think I ought to call him?”

  Cassel put his elbows on the armrests and his fingertips together in front of his nose. Now he was actually crowing. “No, actually we were worried about the word getting out as soon as somebody found the body. But we had to chance it. Skeezix was simply too hot and knew too much. An attendant found him around three in the morning when he was cleaning out the crapper. No, all along I expected headlines, ‘Government Witness Executed,’ something like that. We didn’t have any way to hush it up. Aycock did that for us. The egotistical old fart couldn’t stand for anybody to know his witness went and got himself popped. He must have had about fifteen cases hanging fire that went out the window with Skeezix. Or in this case, under the toilet. How many witnesses do you think the feds would have if word got around how they protect their boys, huh? I’ve got a few spies down at the county, and Skeeze is still on ice down at the medical center. The coroner’s under orders not to talk to anybody about him but Aycock. Jesus, the only difference between Aycock and the people he’s prosecuting is where their money comes from.”

  It figured. So now the only guy with the answers, excluding the people mixed up in the deal, was me. Fresh from El Reno and a suspect myself. Hell, if I tried to take the story to County D.A. Pierson he’d have me committed, just as soon as he could stop laughing and get a grand jury together. Not against Cassel or Breaux, against me. I’d be a lot easier to convict. Hell, when Bodie had taken a shot at me over at Connie’s—and come to think about it, she’d probably been his main target—he was probably hoping he’d miss. No way did these people want me dead. With me out of the way the law might start an investigation in another direction.

  For want of anything better to do, I riffled absently through the rest of the file in my lap. The sheet that followed the loan document was a form with oak leaves printed around its margins and “PRUDENTIAL” in bold script across the top of the page. It was a key-personnel, decreasing-term life policy, with the named insured as Jack Brendy. The beneficiary was Waterproof, Inc., and the face value was seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I said, “You collect on Jack’s policy yet? Jesus, what a bloodsucker.”

  He shrugged. “It’s in the works.” He sounded a little proud of himself.

  His answer didn’t even register. I’d turned to the final page in the folder, and was gripping its edge. Another policy, identical to the first, same amount, same beneficiary. Only on this one, the name insured was Donna.

  Hands trembling, I raised the pistol. This time I was ready to shoot him. Eager to, in fact. I said tonelessly, “Where’s Breaux now, you fuck?” I pictured the scene yesterday, upstairs in Donna’s bedroom, phone in my hand, as someone downstairs hung up the extension. Bodie, or someone who was going to report to him. Hell, I’d called the m
otel; the operator had given the name of the place. And Donna had told me her room number. “Where is he, Fred?” I said. “I’m not fucking around with you.”

  His expression said that he knew I meant business. He said, “I haven’t . . . well, he could have gone out of town.”

  I got to my feet, let the file slide to the carpet, walked firmly around the desk toward Cassel. His expression was doubtful at first, then fearful. I put the barrel of the gun against his forehead. He closed his eyes.

  I said, “I’m not going to kill you right now, Fred. But if anything happens to Donna, and I mean to one single hair on her head, there aren’t enough cops in Dallas to keep me away from you. You’d better hope to fuck I get to her before Bodie does. You’d damn sure better.”

  After I’d locked Cassel, along with Beautiful—thinking it over, I decided I had to put her out of commission, and I noticed as I closed the door that she looked a whole lot unhappier about being locked in there with Cassel than he did about being with her—into the supply room, I used Cassel’s phone to call Donna. No answer. A call ten minutes later from the building lobby yielded the same result; I watched the fountain send glistening sprays of water into the air, gripped the receiver until my knuckles whitened, and let the phone ring six extra times while blood pounded in my temples. I was too late for the eleven o’clock Delta and was going to have to hump it to make the American flight at one.

  As I steered the ‘Vette out of Texas Bank Plaza parking lot and took the northbound access road alongside Stemmons Freeway, I briefly considered stopping by my place at Turtle Creek North and packing a bag. No way, I couldn’t chance it. The time factor was one problem; another was the likelihood that someone—FBI, county cops, Dallas police department, or somebody on Cassel’s payroll, you could pretty much take your pick—would have the place staked out. I switched on the radio, clutched the wheel, and gunned the ‘Vette through the entry ramp and up onto the freeway. Immediately I eased across four lanes of traffic and jockeyed for position on the center rail; the left-hand curve leading from Stemmons onto Airport Freeway wasn’t that far ahead.

  As I watched the bulk of Texas Stadium grow larger over the hood, I mentally went over the airplane schedules. There had been one midnight flight last night, on Continental, and Breaux couldn’t have made it. It was around midnight when he’d been spraying Connie Swarm’s front yard with machine-gun bullets. The midnighter had been the last flight until the eleven A.M. Delta, which meant that if I had caught the Delta I would’ve stood a pretty good chance of running into Breaux. Assuming he’d caught the eleven o’clock, Bodie had a two-hour head start. If Donna and Jacqueline spent the day at the amusement park and I could somehow get to Ramada Inn Disney World before they returned, Breaux’s head start wouldn’t mean a thing. If, if, if. I gave it the gas and the ‘Vette’s speedometer inched past seventy-five.

  As I passed by the Mac Arthur Boulevard exit, Irving Mall on my right and the Irving Bank Tower on my left, someone called my name. I looked around. Hell, it was the radio. My hand trembled slightly as I increased the volume.

  A mellow-voiced female newscaster was saying, “... and Assistant District Attorney Tom Pierson offered no further comment. The indictments, returned shortly after nine o’clock this morning, name Bannion along with Donna Morley Brendy, the dead man’s wife, as alleged conspirators in the murder. Both are still at large, bond having been set on the two at one million dollars each. Informed sources close to the DA’s office told KVIL news that Bannion is also a suspect in two other slayings, the most recent the midnight killing of Lorraine Daley, also known as Connie Swarm, a local stripper. Miss Daley’s bullet-riddled body was found by police around three this morning on the porch of her lakeside home. Bannion, who has served a federal prison sentence for cocaine trafficking, is best remembered as the Cowboy lineman who was called offside during—”

  I turned the knob, and a pop from the speakers cut the newslady off in mid-sentence. So Pierson hadn’t waited until Tuesday. I felt as though a bucket of ice water had just been dumped in my lap. My throat constricted, my spittle dried up. The traffic in front of me slowed without warning, and I barely had enough of my senses left to jam on the brakes. The traffic gradually picked up speed and I followed along as though in a trance.

  As the initial surge of adrenaline cleared—what the hell, I thought, I’ve known the indictment was coming down sooner or later—I thought about Donna. I’d hidden it from her on purpose. What in hell was she going to think of me? Would she already know when I saw her—Jesus, if I could get to her before Breaux—or was I going to have to lay it out for her? And if I did have to spell it out, how was she going to take it? After what she’d been through, this just might set her off. And Jacqueline . . . Jesus Christ.

  The midday lull had thinned the traffic quite a bit by the time I went through the ticket booths at the entrance to DFW. The machine spat a ticket at me; I took it through the window, gunned the ‘Vette down the interior freeway and into American’s covered terminal parking. One lone jet streaked away on takeoff as I drove underneath the steel and concrete awning. I parked and checked the time; I had forty-five minutes until takeoff. With the packet of hundred-dollar bills from the glove compartment jammed into my pocket, and with the Smith & Wesson along with Cassel’s Walther locked in the ‘Vette’s trunk—I was going to need a gun, of course, but I couldn’t fly with a piece and was going to have to figure a way to rearm in Orlando—I went inside the terminal. Just inside the door a young girl in a yellow dress handed me a lapel pin in the shape of a rose and told me that she was taking a survey. I said that I was in a hurry, gave the pin back to her, and hustled up to the ticket counter.

  A skinny young guy behind the counter, wearing a pale blue shirt and navy tie, sold me a one-way ticket and asked if I had any luggage. I shook my head and counted out three crisp hundreds, then watched two men in the airport bar put the make on a slick-looking woman in a leopard dress while I waited for my change. Visible beyond the bar, past rows of waiting-room chairs and beyond a huge plate glass window, an American 707 stood ready at the boarding gate. I took my change and went through the metal detectors, fidgeted in the waiting area for what seemed an eternity, boarded the jet, and flew to Orlando. I sat in the smoking section, went through a half pack of Pall Malls, and landed with a taste in my mouth as though a bird had crapped in it.

  In the Orlando terminal I dodged two panhandlers, another girl in a yellow dress who was handing out pins and taking a survey, and called Donna’s room once more. Still no answer. I hailed a cab and told the driver to take me to Ramada Inn Disney World.

  I hadn’t ridden in a whole lot of taxis in my life, but it seemed to me that the same guy had been driving every single one of them. Guy around sixty who needed a shave, and who talked to me from the side of his mouth, over his shoulder, while a filterless cigarette waggled between his lips.

  “This ain’t the tourist season,” he said. “That’s in January and February. Summer business ain’t for shit. Next year I’m taking the summer off if that old lady of mine can keep from charging everything in the fucking store. You vacationin’, or you got business?” High, leafy trees lined either side of the highway. A billboard featuring a cartoon drawing of a lion advertised Circus World; another sign showing a dolphin jumping through a hoop and clapping his fins touted Sea World. A hundred yards from the highway, two pink flamingos circled lazily, landed, and drank from a swampy pond. The sun was an orange ball sinking gradually below the horizon.

  I said casually, “Oh, a little of both.”

  The cabbie plowed ahead. “Well, if you’re of a mind to do some sightseeing, give me a call.” He reached above the visor and handed me a business card over the seat back. He said, “Lotta ripoffs around here, lotta bullshit traps. You got to watch yourself. Take that fucking guy.” He indicated a big sign on our left. The sign was pitch black with some really spooky ghosts and fanged monsters outlined against the backdrop in luminescent paint. House of H
orrors, bold white script read. My cabbie said, “I’m going to guarantee you he spends more money on that billboard than he does on his whole fucking horror show. You ever . . . well, been to a March of Dimes haunted house, like on Halloween? Now I like ‘em, don’t get me wrong. The kids that run ‘em got a lot of enthusiasm. But this fucking guy, the House of Horrors? He’s got his old lady running around in the dark dressed up in one of those paper costumes like you buy in the grocery store and jumping out from behind doors and hollering boo at people. Only thing scary ever happened in that joint was when one of the kids over to Orlando Junior College reached up inside the costume and pinched his old lady on the tit.” He threw back his head and cackled. “Took over an hour to get the broad to turn loose of the kid. Anyway, that’s what you got to look out for around here, that kind of shit.”

  I noted that my driver’s name was Pete, that he was the owner of Pete’s Cab Service, and that his business card had a ketchup stain along the edges. I thanked him and put the card away. Then I leaned back against the cushions and watched through the window while we passed Wet ‘n’ Wild with its giant water slides and its concrete beach and pool with simulated rolling breakers. Strutting around inside were teenage girls in tiny French bikinis, muscular young guys in boxer swim trunks, and middle-aged women in one-piece jobs who held children by their hands. I said to Pete the cabbie, “Listen, is there anyplace a guy can buy a pistol this time of day?” I did my best to sound offhanded about it.

  He threw on his brakes, swerved to avoid an old man who was driving a camper, shook his fist at the old guy. Then he turned around and squinted at me. “Look, you ain’t no holdup man. I just dumped my money at the house before I picked you up, ‘case you are.”

  “No, no way am I,” I said. “You know, staying alone in a strange town I might feel better with some protection.”