Rough Justice

by Brad Smith

  Carl smiled. ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘I do say. We went fishing for a pig farmer and landed a big city councilor instead.’

  ‘Could be an interesting couple days in Rose City.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Frances pointed her chin to the west. ‘I could’ve sworn I met Kate on the road.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘She was here?’

  ‘Yeah. We had coffee together.’

  ‘You had coffee together,’ Frances said. She smiled. ‘Is there any left?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then come on and tell me about it.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When The Mayor came downstairs from his shower, Louise was at the kitchen table, the day’s edition of the Times in front of her. As he walked toward the refrigerator, The Mayor could see the picture of Bud on the front page. He poured himself a glass of orange juice and stood looking out the window to his yard and the ravine beyond. There were rumors of coyotes in the area and he had awakened in the night, thinking he had heard yelping.

  ‘This is a mess,’ Louise said.

  ‘What’s a mess?’ he asked without turning. He watched outside as the pup came trotting around the corner of the house, a tennis ball in its mouth. It was raining and the dog’s feet were muddy from its travels. Louise could clean the animal up.

  ‘This business with Bud.’

  He turned. ‘Isn’t it?’

  She pushed the paper away from her. ‘This is so obviously a set-up. A hidden camera, for crying out loud. It makes no sense whatsoever to even suggest that he would bribe somebody. He’s a city councilor, for God sakes.’

  The Mayor drank the orange juice and put the empty glass in the sink. ‘I’m going to take a drive up to the lake house. I want to be sure that the lines have been drained and that the place is secure. All the break-ins last year.’

  ‘You’re not going there today?’

  ‘I am.’

  Louise indicated the newspaper. ‘How can you think of leaving the city in the middle of all this? Your name is connected to that landfill.’

  ‘Not for long,’ he told her. ‘I’ll make a statement in a day or two.’

  ‘Well, you have to support him.’

  ‘Bud? The hell I do. He’s finished. He’ll resign before the week is out. And that landfill project is toast. Environmental will have no choice now, with this all over the newspapers. They’ll have to call for an assessment.’

  ‘Bud is my sister’s only son. And your friend.’

  ‘Bud is an idiot who got caught on video tape. I’m supposed to feel sorry for him? I don’t think so.’

  He turned and walked out.

  Bud Stephens, who as a point of pride never wore a hat, was wearing one today. It was a baseball cap his wife had picked up somewhere, pink with NYC across the front. Bud also wore sunglasses and a London Fog raincoat, the collar turned up. He left his building through the back entrance at seven thirty, daylight just showing, and was both grateful and yet somewhat surprised that there were no reporters around. They might have been in the lobby, though, or in front of the building. The phone had rung constantly the night before, until Bud finally unplugged it. Deanna saw the video of Bud and old man Cumberland on the six o’clock news and left shortly thereafter to stay with a friend. She didn’t even say goodbye. She didn’t say anything at all. Bud had sat up half the night drinking Scotch in the dark before finally falling asleep on the couch.

  He made his way through the alley to the next block and then walked quickly to the park on the waterfront. With the sun just showing, there were joggers here and there but they were, typically, into their own thing and never gave Bud a glance. He walked over to the benches along the waterline and waited for Hofferman to show up.

  It was less than twenty-four hours ago that Hofferman had called to tell Bud that he needed to meet him out in Talbotville to deal with what he had referred to as the ‘Cumberland situation’. Bud had been tempted at the time to tell Hofferman to take care of the Cumberland situation himself, but he hadn’t, primarily because Bud didn’t trust anybody to attend to details.

  How had that turned out?

  He heard the Hummer’s noisy approach and turned to see it pulling into the lot at the far end of the park. Hofferman sat there for several minutes and Bud realized that he, too, was wary of any media types that might be in the area. Finally he got out, his black cowboy hat on his head and a take-out coffee in his hand. When he was a few feet away, he smiled.

  ‘Up with the chickens.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Bud said.

  Hofferman walked to the railing above the beach, leaned back with his elbows on the top rail.

  ‘This is a major cluster fuck,’ Bud said.

  ‘It’s all of that.’

  Hofferman took a sip of the coffee and looked into the park. There were more joggers out now, a few roller-bladers with dogs on leashes. Hofferman watched them for a moment. He was as calm as Bud was not.

  ‘That fucking old man sat across from me at his kitchen table—’ Bud began. He stalled there.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And?’ Bud repeated. He took a moment. ‘He sat across that kitchen table and proceeded to shove that landfill right up my ass. And I walked in of my own accord and let him do it. Stupid, stupid …’

  ‘No point in me arguing with you on that.’

  Bud turned an eye on Hofferman. ‘Thanks a lot. The question is – what are we going to do about it?’

  Hofferman walked over and leaned down to Bud’s level. ‘Who is this we you’re talking about?’ he asked. ‘You got a mouse in your pocket?’

  Bud hesitated and then got to his feet. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Hey, you got your pecker caught in a thresher,’ Hofferman said. ‘You’re gonna have to get it uncaught by yourself. If you can.’

  ‘You should be on that fucking tape with me and the old man,’ Bud snapped. ‘You would have been, if you hadn’t rubbed him the wrong way—’

  ‘Rubbed who the wrong way?’

  ‘The old man.’

  ‘Cumberland?’ Hofferman asked. ‘We got along just fine. Matter of fact, he personally asked me to deliver the money to him. I told him I was busy.’

  Bud stared at him. ‘You sonofabitch. You set me up.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ Hofferman asked. ‘But I had no intention of setting myself up. You always need a buffer, councilor.’

  ‘You prick.’

  ‘I’m only going to take so much of that name calling.’

  Hofferman’s tone backed Bud up a bit. ‘OK. What about the landfill?’ he asked.

  ‘I suspect the landfill is a dead duck,’ Hofferman said. ‘And even if it’s not, your involvement with it is. You realize I’m going to have to make a statement saying how shocked I am at your behavior.’

  ‘Not so fast,’ Bud said. ‘You forgetting about the deposits you made to my account?’

  ‘You won’t find my fingerprints on a nickel of that money,’ Hofferman said. ‘Did you miss that part about the buffer? Now I have to get going. I have business to tend to.’ He tipped his Stetson and started to walk away.

  ‘You’re going to be stuck with all that property!’ Bud called after him.

  Hofferman replied without stopping. ‘Haven’t you heard, Bud? You never lose money on land. They don’t make it anymore.’

  Carl’s ribs weren’t up to installing drywall yet so he took the next day off. He told Frances he would give them the rest of the week and the weekend to mend.

  In the morning he went down for breakfast and then returned to his room, where he took more aspirin and lay down on the bed. Just the act of walking up and down the stairs of the hotel aggravated the pain in his side. He wished he could sleep for a couple of hours but he was not tired in the least. He replayed the conversation he’d had with Kate in his head, as he’d already done countless times since he’d seen her. From there his mind wandered to the thought of Frances’s legs again, a t
hought that had been increasingly present in his consciousness of late.

  Even though Carl had married Suzy, he had oddly enough never really developed anything resembling a friendship with her. She’d been great to party with, and to have sex with, and even interesting to fight with because of the sex that usually followed. But he’d never really shared anything else with her – which was why, of course, they had broken apart. Carl had been twenty and Suzy eighteen when they got married. There really should be a law against that kind of behavior.

  But he had become friends with Frances these past few months and if that surprised Carl, he was pretty sure that it shocked the hell out of Frances. Carl had come looking for Kate and found Frances. He’d never considered the possibility that he and Frances would become friends and yet that was what they were, at least in his mind. And now he was thinking about having sex with Frances. He had no idea if she was thinking the same. But when he had kissed her, there had been no resistance. And maybe even a slight encouragement.

  While he was thinking about kissing her the phone rang. It was Frances, and she was in a panic.

  ‘Was Kate in the house yesterday?’

  ‘In the house? Yeah.’

  ‘My father’s gun is gone,’ Frances said, the words tumbling from her.

  ‘Slow down. What gun?’

  ‘He had an old police issue Smith and Wesson. It’s always been locked in the desk drawer. I think Kate took it.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘It’s always been locked in my father’s desk. It was there on the weekend and it’s gone now. The key’s above the book shelf. She knew that – she grew up here, Carl. That’s why she came here yesterday.’

  Carl was on his feet now, trying to think. ‘What would she do with a gun?’

  ‘Nothing good.’

  ‘I’ll head to the city,’ Carl said. ‘I can get there before you.’

  ‘Where you going to go?’

  Carl took a moment. ‘David said she follows him to Fisher Park. I’ll go there. You go to the house. Get moving.’

  When she got to Fisher Park she parked in the Millburn Street lot and turned the ignition off. She sat there a moment, pressing the palm of her hand against her forehead with great force, as if the effort might clear her thoughts. Her head had been pounding since she woke up that morning, although she could hardly describe what she had been doing before that as sleeping. She had taken the last of the Percocet about an hour ago. She was going to have to find the pink-haired woman again.

  Or quit, one or the other. It wasn’t something she could think about right now.

  She had no notion how it would end but she knew with certainty that it would. She couldn’t continue like this. He hadn’t shown at the park yesterday and neither had the girls, with the weather. But he was coming back, she knew. Maybe today or maybe a week from now. The thought of a week made her head hurt even more. She didn’t know if she could last that long.

  Kate knew nothing about the blond girl Lindsay. But she did know what it was like to live a life with the memory of The Mayor lurking. Still, Kate wouldn’t say that what had happened to her defined her. She had always hoped that she was stronger than that. On the other hand, she had no way of knowing what her life would have been like without it. Certainly she wouldn’t be here today, wired on painkillers and vodka, looking for a delete button that didn’t exist. She couldn’t deny what had happened and so she would have to live with it.

  But she had decided that Lindsay wouldn’t.

  He left the puppy at home. He would tell the girl that the dog had taken sick, was throwing up, and couldn’t ride in the car. He’d arranged to meet her, not in the Millburn Street lot where he usually parked, but in the lower lot off Nash Road, out of sight of the shabby townhouses across from the park.

  The rain had stopped and the clouds to the west were breaking up. She was not yet there when he parked the Lincoln. He got out and walked over to the edge of the ravine, still thinking of the coyotes. He’d never seen a coyote, except in pictures or on film, and it surprised him that it was so. He had an old .30-30 Remington in the attic at home, his father’s gun. Perhaps later that day he would take it down and clean it. Maybe he’d get a shot at one of the wild dogs before the city brought trappers in to take care of them. He imagined the Times carrying a picture of him and the dead animal. After all, they had run the picture of Bud that morning and he was as dead now as the coyote would be. He just didn’t know it yet.

  He walked a hundred yards or so, looking down into the overgrown gully, and when he turned he saw the girl coming over the crest of the hill. He started back toward the parking lot. She was smiling, wearing a red toque and a quilted vest and track pants. She had a backpack hooked over one shoulder.

  ‘Hey,’ she said when she drew near.

  ‘Hello there,’ The Mayor said.

  ‘I brought a pack to put the books in.’

  ‘Good idea,’ he said. They met by the front of the Lincoln. ‘I think the rain has finished. Be a glorious day for a drive.’

  ‘How far is it?’

  ‘An hour and a half each way. You’ll be home for supper.’

  ‘Where’s the puppy?’

  The Mayor told her the story of the dog falling ill as he walked around and unlocked the passenger door and opened it. He watched as the girl unslung the pack from her shoulder and moved to put it inside. He reached out and touched her hair, felt it clean and soft in his fingers.

  Kate hurried toward the parking lot from the slope above. She’d watched The Mayor arrive and waited in her car as he’d walked along the ravine, looking into the brush as if he was searching for something. When she realized that he didn’t have the puppy with him, she knew something wasn’t right, that this wasn’t just another day in the park. A chill ran through her, a dark and frightening feeling of premonition.

  As soon as she spotted Lindsay walking across the grass to meet him, she jumped out of her car and started for them. In her haste she left the cane behind and she limped badly, trying to run on her balky knee. Up ahead the two of them were by the Lincoln, talking. As The Mayor opened the passenger door, he reached out and caressed the girl’s hair.

  ‘Hey!’ Kate called out.

  The old man and the girl both turned. Kate came forward, her hands thrust in the pockets of her windbreaker and her cap pulled low. Stopping, she pointed her chin at the blond girl.

  ‘Get the hell out of here.’

  The girl looked at The Mayor, who held his hand out to reassure her. ‘It’s OK,’ he said, his tone more curious than anything else.

  ‘Get out of here,’ Kate said again, her frustration rising. She waited a couple seconds more and then pulled the revolver from her pocket and pointed it at The Mayor. ‘Run, you stupid girl,’ she yelled. ‘Run!’

  The girl ran. Dragging her pack in one hand, she turned and sprinted up the hill. She did not look back, not even a glance. The Mayor watched as she disappeared over the rise before turning to Kate. She saw the recognition come to him.

  ‘You,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’

  ‘I think you can count on that,’ Kate said.

  ‘You look like something the cat dragged in,’ The Mayor said.

  He was still amused, it seemed, not threatened in the least. Kate felt suddenly light-headed. She put the gun back in her pocket. ‘Well, I’ve had a rough time of it,’ she said.

  ‘It’s about to get rougher,’ he said. ‘You realize that I will have to press charges against you this time. This is more than just a case of false accusations.’

  ‘There won’t be any charges,’ Kate told him. ‘Go home, old man. You’re finished.’

  He grew irate. ‘How dare you tell me what to do?’

  ‘It’s time somebody did,’ Kate said. ‘Where were you taking the girl?’

  ‘I don’t answer to you,’ he said. ‘But you’re going to answer to the police. You can make up whatever
story you want. Nobody believed you before and they won’t believe you now. I’ll be going now.’

  He turned but she moved with him, cutting him off. She reached into her other pocket and brought out her cell phone. ‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘I got something for you.’

  She stepped closer and held out the phone. Showed him the picture of the eight-year-old boy from Cleary Avenue. ‘Say hello to Bobby Horvath. You know his mother. You raped her nine years ago at your cottage. Remember – the girls who got caught in the storm? Or were there so many you can’t recall them all?’

  Almost against his will, The Mayor looked at the screen.

  ‘Truth is, he’s a nasty little prick, but what can you expect?’ Kate asked. ‘That’s genetics for you.’

  Who would have thought that after all the decades of deceit and unchecked brutality, the reckless assaults and the denial of the same, the sheer arrogance – who would have thought that a picture on a tiny screen would finally cause him to crumble? Not Kate, and presumably not anybody else. He was the epitome of self-control, in everything he did, and it seemed impossible that anything could change that. Maybe the effort of maintaining that self-control was what did it. Until this point his reprehensible history had existed only in the abstract. He had made false any allegations merely by declaring them so, by convincing himself, even. Maybe the strain of that finally caught up to him.

  Or maybe it was something simpler than that. Maybe it was just that he was finally face to face with who he was.

  He lunged forward, seizing the phone and tearing it from her hand before grabbing her by the neck and spinning her around, slamming her spine against the front fender of the car. Kate attempted to pry the fingers from her throat but he held on, squeezing. All along she’d been thinking he was an old man, spent, and now she was stunned by his strength. His full weight was on her and she could not push him off. He was grunting, animal-like noises from somewhere within.

  Kate attempted to knee him with her good leg but the other leg would not support her. She tried to scream but couldn’t make a sound, her throat constricted. She realized she was being strangled. Squirming beneath his weight she managed to turn sideways from him.