The Man Offside

by A. W. Gray

He adjusted his cap on his head and returned his attention to the road, swerving once more and this time nearly sideswiping a Dodge mini-van. “Tell you what, then, maybe I can help. There’s a thirty-eight revolver, a Siebrig longnose. Son of a bitch is a hog-leg, but it shoots. Cost you pretty good.”

  “Just how much is pretty good?” I said.

  He cracked his window open and flipped his cigarette outside, fished in the ashtray, found a soggy toothpick, and poked that into his mouth. “Well, I could let you have it, maybe, for four hundred.” The sign on top of the Ramada Inn was now visible in the distance; the lights on the motel’s roof winked on in the gathering dusk.

  “Sold,” I said.

  Pete’s chin moved slightly to one side. He removed the toothpick. “Say, bud, this here gun’s registered in my name. It’d be my ass if there’s any trouble.”

  “There won’t be, unless somebody besides me starts it. Protection, just like I told you.”

  He braked, then wheeled underneath the Ramada Inn awning. The motel was built in three sections, which were strung out to the north behind the lobby and restaurant. Just across the highway was a sign pointing to Disney World. Inside the lobby a girl in a black and gold clerk’s uniform was helping an old woman sign the register. Pete slung an arm over the seat back and said to me, “Here we are, twenty-four eighty on the meter.”

  I dug in my pocket. “What about the gun?”

  “It’s right underneath my seat,” he said. “You stand outside and hand me the money through the window, and I’ll hand the pistol out to you. Then I’ll throw in a box of shells, the gun’s empty. I ain’t handing no loaded gun to no stranger. Shit, I ain’t a raving lunatic.”

  The Siebrig was a hogleg, all right, a real Dirty Harry weapon. I stood in the motel driveway, made certain the wall shielded me from the desk clerk’s view, and looked the gun over.

  I’d never heard the brand name before, but then I wasn’t any kind of gun expert. I now decided that this was some sort of gimmick pistol. It was a huge revolver with an ornamental handle straight from the cowboy movies, and had a barrel that was at least eight inches long. The size of the gun made the .38-caliber bore appear tiny, like a piece of copper tubing encased in a foot diameter of concrete. Along with the gun had come an honest-to-goodness, Wyatt Earp quick-draw holster—only if Wyatt had tried to draw this gun on anybody, he would probably have wound up by shooting himself in the foot. I rolled the cylinder, click-click-click, then inserted five rounds in the chambers and left one empty. I glanced toward the lobby to make sure the clerk hadn’t noticed me, then went about trying to hide the gun.

  I tossed the holster into a nearby trash can and stuck the Siebrig into my pants pocket. The result was a joke; the barrel was doing its damnedest to poke a hole in the bottom of my pocket and the handle was on a level with my belt. Next I tried shoving the gun inside my waistband and covering the handle with my shirt. The result was even more comical; the knit fabric molded around the handle, and the barrel made an obscene bulge in the front of my pants. There was a news rack nearby, and finally in desperation I bought an Orlando Sun and folded the Siebrig inside the newspaper. Then, carrying my bundle under my arm, I took off in search of Donna’s room.

  I came to the first building, went through a breezeway, and entered a huge courtyard. Beads of sweat were on my forehead; I wiped them away with a handkerchief. I didn’t think that it was any hotter, temperature wise, in Orlando than it was in Dallas, but this Florida humidity was something else. It was getting dark fast, but didn’t seem to be cooling off. My shirt was sticking to my back.

  The building was three stories high and surrounded the courtyard on all sides. Inside the courtyard fifty-foot palm trees grew around a swimming pool the size of a football field. Underwater lights in the pool made aqua shadows that danced on the exposed aggregate walks.

  I stopped to check a first-floor room number: 1128. The room directly overhead had a balcony with an iron railing; I stepped back and looked at the second floor. Donna’s room, 3340, would be in the third building, on the third floor, and at the back. I left the courtyard, went through an iron gate, crossed a small parking lot, and walked through another breezeway.

  The courtyard in Building Two was identical to the one I’d just left; here one palm tree had been cut down to a three-foot stump and stood out like a missing tooth. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, were wrestling and giggling in the shallow end of the pool; as I passed by, the girl twisted in the boy’s grasp and shrieked, “Stop it, Dickie. Stop it.” The way she was laughing, if Dickie stopped it he was a fool. I left Dickie and the girl to their whatever and went on to Building Three.

  This patio was different. The pool was small and in the shape of a parabola, and had no diving board. On the far bank, about twenty feet from the pool’s edge, was a circular bar covered by a pointed bamboo roof.

  The bartender, a jolly-looking gent who must have weighed over three hundred pounds, and who wore a flowered Hawaiian shirt the size of a tent, was free-pouring light rum into a tall glass. He had one customer, a woman with long auburn hair who was a whole lot older than she was trying to look. She was wearing a French bikini and she didn’t look very good in it, fleshy hips bulging at the sides and rolls of flab sticking out beneath the snug top. She was drinking a hurricane in a tall, bell-shaped glass and sitting unsteadily on a wooden stool. The bartender lifted his sirloin of a hand and waved at me. The woman lifted her glass in my direction in a toast. I nodded to both of them. An iron staircase ran up the side of the building in a zigzag pattern, and I climbed the stairs to the third floor. On the way up I passed a square-shouldered young man who was wearing red swim trunks and had a towel draped over his shoulder. He barely glanced at me. My Nikes made rubbery squeaking noises on the steps. As I neared Donna’s room I felt a chill of anticipation, accompanied by a nagging dread. She should be here by now, actually should have been in her room by the time I’d called from the Orlando airport. What if I’d been wrong? What if Bodie had somehow beaten me here? Jesus, what if . . . ? I reached inside the folded newspaper and touched the handle of the gun.

  Using the third-floor walkway, I skirted around to the exterior of the building and found Room 3340. The door was painted a dull red and the numerals ran in a diagonal pattern. Far below and behind me, headlights moved in slow motion down the freeway. I steadied myself, took a deep breath, and knocked twice.

  Silence, no sound from within, just the faraway rushing noise of freeway traffic. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Still nothing.

  I knocked again, three quick raps with my knuckles.

  A full minute went by. From inside the room, nothing. My spine was a row of prickly icicles. I tried the knob. It turned easily and the door swung inward with a feathery sliding noise over thick carpet. I went inside.

  Donna had taken a suite. I was standing in a small sitting room, maybe ten by twenty, with a couch, two easy chairs, and a console TV. There was muted light from a small lamp beside the couch. On my right was a kitchenette complete with a miniature stove and a porcelain sink. Directly in front of me was an open doorway; through it the foot of a bed was visible. The bed was covered with a green quilted spread. Beyond the bed was a sliding glass door that led to the balcony overlooking the pool and patio.

  I took two hesitant steps in the direction of the bedroom.

  Donna stood up behind the couch and leveled a derringer at me. “Don’t dare move,” she said. The lamplight illuminated the creases of determination across her forehead.

  My heart plummeted into my belly, and for just a second I thought I was going to be sick. Not Donna. Sweet Jesus, not Donna, anyone but her. I was looking down the pistol barrel, and right then I wouldn’t have cared if she shot me. She was holding the little derringer in both hands, her arms extended, and even standing there holding a gun on me, an all-business air about her, the lady simply took my breath away. I opened my mouth, tried to speak. I couldn’t.

  Her features soft
ened at once and she let the derringer hang loosely at her side. “Rick. Oh, Rick, I’m . . .”

  She came around the sofa and buried her face in the hollow of my shoulder. She was shaking. I stood there like a store window dummy for a second, then let my bundle, Siebrig .38 and all, slide to the floor as I threw my arms around her and hugged.

  She felt warm and alive and smelled of lilac. She was wearing a rose-patterned cotton shirt with pale blue shorts and white sandals. Her hair was soft and downy against my cheek as she moved her head and whimpered against me. I took her chin and lifted her face to mine, kissed her eyes, tasted her tears, placed my mouth on hers. Her lips yielded, pliant at first, then demanding as she darted her tongue between my teeth. She slid her arms around my neck. The derringer’s handle pressed gently against my collar.

  Donna withdrew her arms from around me, pushed against my chest, and stood back. Her lips were parted and her breathing was slowing. She said, “God, I thought you were ...”

  I took the derringer, laid it on the table beside the lamp, then sat on the couch, and held out my hands. “What is it? Who’s been here?”

  She took my hands and sank down beside me. “Nobody. Nobody’s been here, it’s these phone calls.” She glanced toward the bedroom. “Shh. Jacqueline, in there.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We came in from the park around four, and the phone was ringing. A man ... he said, ‘Mrs. Brendy?’ I’m registered here as Donna Morley, just like we planned. God, I nearly dropped the phone.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “Guy with a husky voice, Cajun accent?”

  Her eyes widened. “You know him? Who is he?”

  I just didn’t want to drop all of it on her at once. “Tell you in a minute,” I said. “First you tell me. What’d he say?”

  She pulled her legs up underneath her and sat on her ankles. “Something about a key. I don’t know for sure, I was trying to get rid of him. I told him my name wasn’t Brendy and hung up, I was so petrified.”

  “Hanging up wouldn’t work with this guy. How long before he called again?”

  “Not over five . . . hey, who is he?”

  “Later,” I said. “What’d he say the second time?”

  “The key again. The key, that’s what he called it, as though I’d know. He said that if I hung up on him again he’d come over here and he’d . . . God.”

  “He would, too,” I said. “Whatever he told you.” I pictured Breaux, a sneer on his lips as he talked to her. I marked the image down and filed it away.

  “He said something about you,” she said. “Said you wouldn’t give it to him and he knew I must have it. I was shaking like a leaf and Jacqueline was standing there watching me with ... as though she was going to cry. This trip’s been so good for her, and then this creep. How do you know him?”

  I thought about lying to her, I really did, even opened my mouth, then closed it. I finally said, “I celled with him for two years. Don’t . . . he’s a full-blood horse’s ass, even more so than I thought. The key he was talking about is one Jack had hidden in your bookcase. It fits a storage locker where there was a lot of money. It’s lucky that you didn’t know about the key, because the fact that he thinks you might have it is probably the only reason he hasn’t . . . done anything. But he won’t wait much longer. Babe, you’re going to have to trust what I say. I’ve got to get you out of here. Tonight, to another motel, and then tomorrow, well, I’m not sure. Donna, besides me, are you positive nobody knows where you are?”

  A slight look of guilt crossed her face, then was gone. She said, “Mother. I know what we agreed on, but Mother? I had to let her know. If she didn’t hear from me she’d panic. She was barely up to Jack’s funeral, and I didn’t want to give her any more to worry about.”

  I’d stayed far in the background at the funeral, on purpose. Funny, but I hadn’t even looked for Mrs. Morley. I’d had too much else on my mind. I said, “That’s okay, sure. She’s still in Corpus, isn’t she?”

  Donna nodded.

  I said, “What about Buddy?”

  She looked down at her lap. “I never see him, and you know he’s right there in Dallas? Two Christmases ago, I suppose. He seems to be doing well, in investments or something. I think Mom talks to him, but we’ve drifted pretty far apart. My own brother.”

  Once I thought about it, that wasn’t really so surprising. Like most siblings, they hadn’t gotten along really well. It’s not like in the story books. I said, “Okay. Nobody else?”

  She shook her head firmly.

  I got up and crossed over to the kitchenette, looked around inside. There was a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red on the counter with the level of the whiskey an inch or two below the neck. Donna’s nightcaps, that was about the extent of her drinking. From this angle I now could see Jacqueline, lying on her stomach on the bed. She wore loose green shorts and a matching T-shirt with one of the Care Bears—the green one with the half-moon sitting on a cloud as its logo, Bedtime Bear I think—in a grinning cartoon across the back. Jacqueline’s face was turned to one side, her tiny thumb just inches from her mouth. She was breathing the gentle sleep breaths of children. I went back over and sat beside Donna.

  “We’re going to move, right now,” I said. “You won’t even check out of here, we’ll just find another place and register under ... I can’t use my own name, but I’ll think of something. You’ll have to call your mother again, and tomorrow she’s going to have to fly here from Corpus and pick up Jacqueline. You and I have some traveling to do, and we don’t need to be putting a child through it. Your mother’s going to have to keep mum about where we are, too, but unless she’s changed a lot in the last twenty years or so, she won’t have any problem with that.”

  Donna was watching me with a doubtful look in her eyes. I avoided meeting her gaze. She said, “I wish I knew more about what was going on.”

  I took her hands in mine. “You will. I’ll fill you in on the whole bit, just as soon as ... as we get the arrangements made, with your mother and all. Wake up Jacqueline, babe. Trust me.”

  I selected the Radisson because it was over in Orlando, pretty far removed from Disney World and away from the area where Bodie was likely to search for us. Donna had rented a car, a blue Ford Taurus. I thought briefly about ditching the rental car, then decided against it. Breaux wouldn’t have any way of knowing what she was driving, and even if he did know, finding the car over in Orlando would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Besides, we were going to need transportation.

  Waking Jacqueline was a job. The child had worn herself completely out at the amusement park and was sleeping as though drugged. Donna shook her, gently at first and then harder, but the only response Jacqueline gave was to curl up into a tight ball and murmur something about Mickey and Donald. Finally I told Donna to pack her things—which she did in a wink; thank whoever that she’d traveled light—while I carried Jacqueline to the car. As I slid her tenderly in the backseat of the Taurus, Jacqueline opened one eye and looked at me. “Daddy’s friend,” she said. Then she snuggled down among the cushions and was fast asleep once more. Donna carried her things down, I loaded them in the trunk, and away we went. I stayed well within the speed limit and drove with one eye on the road and the other on the rear view mirror.

  No one followed us and, surprisingly, I thought, no one shot at me.

  The Radisson had seen better days. It was located on a four-lane thoroughfare along a row of tourist-trap T-shirt shops. Directly across the street from a shopping mall that had given up the ghost and apparently closed for good. The motel lawns needed mowing, and runners of grass had infested the sidewalks. The guests standing about the lobby and sitting inside the restaurant were families: men with executive paunches whose white legs showed that they didn’t wear shorts too often, and harried-looking housewife types who chased unruly kids about the lobby or rescued squealing toddlers who were about to plunge headlong into the deep end of the swimming pool. I liked the idea. With Jacqueline in tow, Donna and I w
ould fit right in.

  I hesitated for a moment with the pen poised over the registration card, then filled in the blanks as Morris Tyler, Athens, Texas. It was the name on a phony driver’s license that Sweaty had furnished me as a tool for chasing bail-bond skips. I paid cash in advance and didn’t have to show the license after all.

  We parked in a lot directly across from the deserted shopping mall, and with me carrying Jacqueline and Donna struggling along with the suitcase and overnight bag, we found our way down the sidewalk, through a maze of corridors, and located our room. It was a closet-sized arrangement with one king-size and a couch that converted into a double daybed. I hesitated, then placed Jacqueline on the king-size. “You can sleep with her,” I said to Donna. A smile played on her lips as she turned down the covers. When she finished, she sat on the sofa, crossed her legs, and said, “Okay, double-oh-seven. What’s the story?”

  I’d known I was going to have to tell her sooner or later, but knowing it didn’t make things any easier. I glanced at her luggage. “The scotch. I’m. afraid you’re going to need it.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “That bad?”

  I picked up her suitcase, opened it on the foot of the bed, found the scotch, hefted it up. “Worse,” I said.

  I went down the hall, found an ice machine, filled a styrofoam bucket with ice cubes, and came back to the room. The two glass tumblers on a small stand didn’t appear very clean, and I washed them out in the bathroom sink. I dropped in the ice, poured two fingers in both glasses, hesitated, and added another shot to one of the drinks. Then I added water and gave Donna the stronger of the two.

  She sipped and made a face. “God, that’s a real Cardinal Puff.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Oh, you know, Cardinal Puff. It’s the old drinking game where everyone says a limerick and if you don’t say it right you have to chugalug.” She took another sip. “Mother still asks about you. When you didn’t marry me, she was more disappointed than I was, I think.”