Bloody Bokhara

by Gault, William Campbell

  “You don’t know him like I do,” she said. She put meaning into that, and I didn’t miss it.

  “I never will,” I said. “There are laws against it. But I know how he sells.”

  Silence from her. We went through a cut in the hills and there was snow on the shady side of the road, and the cut soil was a wet and sticky tan.

  “We’re even, now,” she said. “I was nasty and you were nastier, and we’re even.” She reached over to put a hand on my knee. “Lee why do I — why do we — What’s wrong?”

  “You want to own me,” I said. “Loving me isn’t enough; you want me to jump through your hoops — like the others probably did.”

  “The — others,” she said quietly. “Did you have to say that?”

  “No, I didn’t have to say that. I don’t even like to think that. But I do think it, all the time, night and day, even though I don’t talk about it. Happy, now that you know I’m miserable?”

  “No. Oh, damn it, maybe I am, a little. That’s rotten, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m no psychiatrist.”

  I was on a straight stretch, now, and way behind me I saw a black dot in the rear-view mirror. It disturbed me. I’d seen it, off and on, more or less unconsciously, ever since we’d left town.

  I poured it to the Cad and the hundred and sixty horses answered my foot.

  The motor murmur rose; there was some whine to it, now. The speedometer swung up to eighty and past, to ninety. A scarcely perceptible vibration period, and we were all out — at a hundred and two miles an hour.

  The black dot grew smaller, and ahead was a curve and a hill. I let the compression brake her, and hit the brakes about halfway through the curve.

  Just around it, in the lee of the hill, I stopped, and pulled away over, onto the gravel shoulder of the road.

  Claire said, “Now what’s happened? Did the spring finally get to you?”

  I leaned over to kiss her. “It did.”

  Then I turned to watch the road behind. It came barreling around the curve, a black Buick sedan with two men in the front seat. I got a glimpse of them this time, and they got a startled glimpse of me before the big job hurtled past. One face was broad and blunt-featured, the other was bleakly bony. Both faces were tanned with what looked like a sunlamp tan.

  “Dykstra’s men,” I said to Claire. “Sam’s killers, probably.”

  Her eyes searched mine. “Lee, you’re joking. What kind of joke — ” She broke off. Her voice had started to tremble.

  “They came out of Dykstra’s driveway, this morning,” I said, “after I’d left. I’m almost sure it’s the same car.”

  “Dykstra? You saw him, too, this morning?”

  I didn’t answer, watching the Buick ahead. I couldn’t tell from the rear whether they had slowed down or not. I edged the Cad back onto the highway.

  “Lee, you’re not going the same way. They — ”

  “They know where I live,” I said. “What difference does it make?”

  “You had to get mixed up with Dykstra,” she said softly. “You had to hunt trouble.”

  I thought of Sam’s battered face and felt the sweat roll down my wrists. Ahead, the Buick grew no bigger. And to the left, here, was a gravel road, and a sign that read: Wickenburg — 2 Miles.

  I could get to Badger Junction through Wickenburg. And Claire was with me. I had to think of Claire — I told myself.

  I swung the Cad onto the gravel road to Wickenburg.

  “Where did you meet Dykstra?” Claire asked.

  “I went to his house. Don’t ask me why.”

  “Where are we going, now?”

  “Taking a different road to Badger Junction. I’ve got to think of your safety. Anyway, that’s a good excuse.”

  “You wouldn’t be frightened, of course.”

  I goosed the Cad, and didn’t answer. I rode the crown of the road, and poured it to her.

  On a bend of the Winnecon River, in a dairy farming county, fifty miles in any direction from a town of mentionable size, the Village of Badger Junction. We drove past the reason for the town’s existence, The Gendron Dairy, makers of the world-famous Gendron cheddar cheese.

  L. R. Gendron no longer was active in the company, but he’d never left Badger Junction, except for the two months he spent each winter in Bermuda.

  His house was a Wright creation, low and flat, shelved out from the slope of hill overlooking the river. The drive was green concrete, leading to the four-car garage on the lower slope of the hill. The entire wall over the garage was window, double-pane plate glass, with a dead-air space between the panes. He had a view of the town and the river, a view that extended to the horizon.

  “Right out of Bel-Air,” Claire said. “Some surprise, this is.”

  “You wouldn’t figure him for an oriental buyer, would you?” I agreed. “He’s got some of the finest Chinese rugs in the Middle West.”

  We took the wide, stone steps that ran along the side of the house, up to the landing about a third of the way from the top. He was opening the door when we got to it.

  A man servant was in the entry hall and he said to him, “Get the rug from the car, Charles. If you need help, I think Mike’s in the garage.”

  Then he turned to greet us. He was a short man and a handsome one, in his fifties, but with a youth’s complexion and a young man’s nervous drive.

  “Lee,” he said smilingly, and looked at Claire. And almost did a double-take.

  “Miss Lynne,” I said, “I’d like to present Mr. Lawrence Gendron. And don’t let him charm the rug from you.”

  “I’ll try not to,” she said. “What an impressive place you have, Mr. Gendron.”

  He nodded, still staring. “Thank you. Thank you, very much.”

  The rug was half sold.

  Scotch we had, with water. Talk we had. About the weather and the war and the administration and Gendron’s cheddar cheese. While this was going on, the rug was still folded in the dining room. Crummy old eleven-thousand-dollar rag; it could wait.

  Then Charles came in and I helped him unfold the rug in the living room. The sun was coming through the windows on the west, and the hazy pastel green seemed to shimmer liquidly.

  He walked around it slowly, studying the nap from all angles. He bent to run the palm of his hand over it. He flipped over a corner and studied the warp.

  He stood up, and took a deep breath. “You certainly weren’t lying about this piece, Lee. It’s beautiful.”

  Claire and I said nothing, letting him sell himself.

  He looked at Claire. “I hate to haggle but you wouldn’t take ten thousand?”

  “Let’s split the difference,” she said. “Ten-five, and it’s yours.”

  He hated to haggle. Not with me, he’d never hated it. What a nice way to do business; bring a blonde along.

  “Sold,” he said. “And you’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?”

  We stayed for dinner, and listened to the Gendron success story. He was a French-Canadian who’d left the logging camps and come to Badger Junction to work in the old creamery. It wasn’t completely his fault, the biographical monologue. Claire knew just how to keep him on the topic.

  Big business girl, my Claire. Listen to them and wear mink.

  When we left, he walked to the car with us. Claire got in on the right side, and then Gendron walked around to the driver’s side with me.

  He said quietly, “You certainly picked a winner, Lee.”

  “She’s just a customer,” I said.

  “Save it, lad. I can tell when a woman’s in love. Stay with her, boy. You’ll have some bad times, but she’ll make up for that, over and over again.” He gripped my shoulder. “Luck, Lee.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I — uh — Thanks, Mr. Gendron.”

  It was dark, and the Caddy’s headlights swung out over the town. Why do the big wheels always have to be above the town? Why can’t they get down to where the people are?

 
; “An interesting man,” Claire said.

  “Rich,” I said.

  “What did that remark mean?”

  “Nothing too nasty. All women seem to listen when a rich man talks. Except rich women. You are standard, dear.”

  “He didn’t think so, I’ll bet,” she said. “He’s more discerning. That’s why he’s rich.”

  Past the Gendron Dairy, the Caddy purred, over the bridge above the Winnecon River. Headlights came up from behind and I thought briefly of the Buick, but they went by and I saw it was a Chrysler, one of the big ones, a hundred and eighty horse.

  “We’ll buy one of those,” Claire said, “for the honeymoon.”

  Palm Springs, Miami, Bermuda, Honolulu — and New York in the fall, chasing the sun and the fast buck, moving in the lights.

  “How would you like to settle down here, in this state,” I asked, “and raise cows, or something?”

  No answer.

  “Or in my German-Polish home town?” I went on. “I could buy a part interest in Papa’s shop and we’d buy a G.I. job in Cudahy. Five rooms and forty-foot frontage and room to expand when the kids start to come. How would you sail for that, blondie?”

  “Here we go,” she said quietly. “The nasty streak is coming out, again. You couldn’t stand it any more than I could.”

  “Oh, yes I could. All my life has been spent here, and I never regretted it.”

  “Are we going to fight again? Haven’t we enough trouble with those two men in the Buick after you?”

  “I suppose. I’ve been thinking, though, that all I know is rugs, really, and we can run out of rugs, big money rugs.”

  “You know how to sell, and you’re handsome. Don’t worry about that. There are plenty of ways to make a legal dollar without having to beat your brains out.” She paused. “Finesse and confidence and style and front, that’s all we need.”

  The road curved to the left and we came to Villiers — Population 372. A gas station and garage combination, a small restaurant and a general store. The Caddy’s lights glanced off the small, huddled houses, the denuded shrubs and trees, the gray lawns.

  “We could move to Villiers,” Claire said, “and buy everything out of catalogues.”

  “With you, it would be all right,” I said.

  Her hand was on my knee, again. “Easy, sailor. I can be sold, you know.”

  Berjouhi, I thought of, standing in the store, giving me hell. Berjouhi and a ranch-type house in Whitefish Bay and pilaff every Sunday and the AGBU Junior League. Papa, I thought of, and Mom and Ann and all my cousins, aunts, uncles, in-laws. What was I doing on this country road with this blonde in this Caddy? How long would she stay with me? If I didn’t make the heavy sugar.

  Handsome, she called me. Would I be handsome, poor? Nasty I could be, and how much of that would she take?

  “Why does that Gendron man stay in Badger Junction? With all his money, and retired — ”

  “Roots,” I said. “Identification with his youth.”

  “A sixty-year-old adolescent.”

  I didn’t answer. Rootless, you’ll be, Papa had said. Nothing, you’ll be…. But he hadn’t stayed in Armenia, in the mud house in Sivas. He’d followed the dream to America, and why shouldn’t his son follow the American dream — the fast buck?

  Sam followed it to his death. Had Ducasse? A Bokhara will bleed, Levon, but not blood it won’t bleed.

  “What are you thinking of?” Claire asked.

  “Blood,” I said.

  “My God — ”

  “All my relatives, my blood relatives. Sarkis and Aram and Armin and Berge and Carnig and Araxie and Azniv and Var-ton, all fine people whose last names end in i-a-n.”

  “Do all Armenian names end that way?”

  “Mmm-hmmm. My mother tells me that when she first came to this country, she thought it was full of Armenians. You know, optician, musician and that family that was always getting run over — pedestrian.”

  She chuckled, and then, “Will I ever meet your mother, Lee?”

  “I think so. She’s more — modern than Papa.”

  Silence. Brown Deer, past the golf course. Hampton. Capitol Drive to Prospect and down Prospect to the Towers. It was a clear night, and fairly warm and the cars were still thronging Prospect.

  I stopped in front of the Towers, and Claire said, “Coming up, aren’t you?”

  I shook my head. “Not tonight.”

  “Regrets, again, tonight? Sorry you met me, again, tonight?”

  “No. I’m tired.”

  “Lee — those men — ?”

  “To hell with them. I’ll phone you, tomorrow.”

  She patted my hand. “Too many things have happened. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  I picked up the hand and kissed it. “Sure. Good night.”

  I slid over, and she got behind the wheel. I said, “Be good, baby,” and climbed out.

  When I pulled away, in the Chev, she was still sitting behind the wheel of the Cad. Maybe she was going to take it to the garage; and maybe the night was still too young, for her.

  Prospect to Eastern and Eastern to Terrace. It had been a bad day, despite the weather. All days were generally bad, this year, but this one had been specifically bad and the nervous tension had drained me to a sullen, sodden nothing.

  A ten thousand, five hundred dollar sale in which the customer had sold himself. How could that be a bad day? Money isn’t everything, Lee Kaprelian. Only about ninety-nine percent.

  I pulled the Chev into the parking area at the rear of the house and walked around to the front. Across the dinner table from Claire, I’d sat tonight, in that fine home in Badger Junction. That’s the kind of living she wanted for our future. What was wrong with it?

  Up the steps, and into the entry hall; through the French doors, and there was a dim glow in the big room, coming from a small table lamp.

  I had visitors.

  Chapter Nine

  ONE MAN sat in a pull-up chair near the fireplace; the other sat on the davenport. The man in the chair was short, with a dumpy body and an undistinguished, blunt-featured face. The man on the davenport was thinner and his bony face was gaunt.

  It was he who said, “Good evening, Mr. Kaprelian.”

  I was still in the doorway, and I wanted to turn, and run. But before I could make a decision on that, the thinner man said, “I hope you don’t mind our waiting here. The door was unlocked, and it’s more comfortable than the car.”

  “I didn’t notice your car,” I said. “A black Buick, isn’t it?”

  The thinner man nodded. “We parked it down near the beach and walked up. We’ve come to reason with you, Mr. Kaprelian.”

  I looked from the speaker to the other, and back. “I — ” I couldn’t think of anything bright.

  The stocky man coughed. He was frowning.

  The other man looked his way and then smiled at me. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

  “I was thinking of running,” I said.

  “No need to. This isn’t a movie, Mr. Kaprelian, and we’re not thugs. A friend of ours, through no fault of his own, has become involved in a rather complicated series of incidents. We thought you could help us straighten things out a bit.”

  “With words?” I asked.

  “What else?”

  “You follow me at ninety miles an hour and better. You park down at the beach and walk up — and walk in. And then greet me in a perfectly reasonable tone of voice. It doesn’t — it isn’t consistent.”

  The fat man coughed, again. The other man said nothing for a second. Above us, the baby cried — and was silent.

  “We followed you,” the vocal one said, “to see where you were going. We — wondered about your connections. By the way, where did you go?”

  “To a customer, upstate, to sell a rug.”

  “You wouldn’t want to mention his name?”

  I shook my head. “He’s just a customer, an oriental rug buyer.”

  “Horse manur
e,” the dumpy man said.

  “Easy, Art,” the spokesman said. “Sit down, Mr. Kaprelian.”

  I was still in the doorway; I could still run. I came in and sat on the other end of the davenport from the thinner man. He offered me a cigarette, which I took.

  His voice was mild. “You were kind of mean to the boss, today.”

  I said nothing.

  He settled back, smoke from his cigarette curling up from his hands, relaxed in his lap. “We’ve been with Mr. Dykstra a long time. All the time, practically, that he was in business in Gary, Art and I were with him. My name’s AI Hagen.”

  “A pleasure,” I said.

  He nodded, his smile thin. “Mr. Dykstra is no longer in business.” He paused. “Not anywhere. He came here to live a peaceful life, away from his former associates. Art and I came along. We’re attached to him, you see.” He paused again, and his voice took on a firmer tone. “And concerned with — with, oh, the preservation of his ego. He’s a sick man, and no longer young.”

  “And frightened?” I asked.

  “Shut up,” Art said.

  Al glanced at him, and back at me. “Art’s had a bad day. He doesn’t like motoring, especially fast motoring. How fast was that Cad traveling?”

  “A hundred and two. Does Mr. Dykstra know anything about Sam Sabazian’s death?”

  Al shook his head. “And his former associates wouldn’t like it if he should become involved with the law in this city.”

  “Isn’t he involved already?”

  “No. Not any more than any — out-of-towner of his history would be. It was a routine questioning by Sergeant Waldorf. We’re accustomed to that sort of thing. And to being overcharged by merchants.”

  I put my cigarette out. “I really came up there to try and salvage some money for him on that Sarouk. He’s the one who brought the name of my cousin into the conversation. And the police. That’s why I got the idea he was frightened.”

  “He might be,” Al said. “He’s old. He might be frightened.” He took a deep breath. “But — we’re not. We’re younger.”

  “I’m younger than either of you,” I said, “and I’m frightened.”

  Al laughed. Even Art smiled.

  Then Al said, “And about the trip?”