by Mike Reuther
The barrel suddenly came up at me. “I’ll shoot you. Oh yes I will.”
With an open hand I knocked the gun across the room. He started to lunge for it, but by that time I had a healthy grip on the front of his bathrobe. I backed him up and bounced him down in the chair. He didn’t like that at all and attempted to rush me, but I knocked him back down into the chair again and fed him the back of my hand.
The gun rested on the hardwood floor behind him near the hallway, but he didn’t have it in him to go after it. He was slumped in the chair covering his face with his hands. About then his girlfriend, wearing this long bathrobe, appeared in the hallway. I recognized her as the same woman who’d been with him at the ball park. She had on those dangling wind chime earrings and that same bored, haughty look that made me long to slap her a good one too. Almost immediately she spotted the gun.
“Don’t even try it honey,” I said.
She didn’t. With a shrug she settled herself into a nearby chair. Hampton, meanwhile, remained slumped in the chair. When he raised his head, his hand went to his mouth. If it was blood he was looking for, he found it all right. For the longest time he sat there staring at his bloodied hand in fascination. Then, quite suddenly, he began to sob.
“You happy now?”
It was the girlfriend. I gave her the cold eye and turned to him. “Come off it Hampton. I didn’t hit you that hard.”
And then he did stop crying. He brought up his head and narrowed his angry, wet eyes at me.
“This is an outrage. An utter outrage. How dare you break in here and assault me.”
I went over and picked up the gun from the floor. I checked the chamber. There were three bullets in it. I emptied it and handed it to him. “Don’t hurt yourself with this thing.” He snatched it from my hand, and I left him to sulk in the chair. That’s when I went to work on her.
She seemed to have a bit more mileage on her than I’d thought. Still, she was considerably younger than Hampton and probably a bit more than he could handle if my guess was right. And in more ways than one. Hampton had no doubt rescued her from some truck stop or sewing machine plant, elevating her social status by making her his secretary-mistress. God only knew just how happy she was with this little arrangement though.
“What the hell do you want?” she said.
She was tough all right. I’ll give her that. She was leaned back in the chair with her legs crossed and that bored, defiant expression. I threw my card at her. It landed on her lap. She didn’t move an inch, but her eyes went to the card.
“So?” She said.
“I’m investigating a murder. Lance Miller. Word has it you were familiar with him.”
She didn’t say anything right away. But she bit her lip for just a moment, blinked a few times and stared across the room. Then she turned back to me with those cold eyes.
“We were married. But that’s all over now.”
“Is it?”
I could tell she wanted to leap like a cat from that chair and sink her claws into me. I was kind of sorry she didn’t. A tussle on the floor with her might have been fun.
“Why don’t you go nab some dog snatcher or whatever it is you detectives spend your time doing.”
“Answer the question.”
“Go to hell.” She looked past me at Hampton. “This is your house. Tell him to leave.”
Hampton sat rubbing his head. “Jeannette’s quite right. It is time you show yourself to the door.”
I looked from Hampton to her. “I’ll be back.”
“I’m sure you will,” she said.
A steely gray sky greeted me when I rolled out of bed the next day. When it’s August in Centre Town you can’t win. If the hot, humid crap doesn’t leave you feeling like a dishrag, dark clouds the size of continents block out the sun. And that’s when it’s not raining.
It was just starting with the wet stuff when I hit the streets that morning. Not heavy. But enough to make you lose faith in the glory of the good ol’ summertime. I grabbed a paper down the street and hit a coffee shop called Myrna’s around the corner from my apartment. It had been a couple days since my last drink - not very long to go without the stuff - and I could feel my body screaming for something stronger than caffeine as I sat down with my coffee and paper.
Myrna’s was one of those luncheons that moonlighted as a bar. The place had all the charm of a landfill. Dark and grim and moldering, it served as a stage for the low-life denizens of my neighborhood. Toothless old men with hacking coughs sat by themselves mumbling, and welfare couples fought out their daily squabbles here. In the two short months I’d been coming to Myrna’s I’d seen them all come and go from the place - the losers and the bums, the drifters and the grifters, the insane and the weirdoes. One poor slob got carried out after he and his wife got into it, and she stabbed him with a broken beer bottle. Apparently, the two had battled it out after hubby gambled away most of the loving couple’s welfare check. Then there was the Jesus freak who wandered into Myrna’s holding a gun to his head and threatening to meet his maker if everyone didn’t put their drinks down and follow him up the street to the mission to repent. Myrna handled that one like the pro she was. Announcing that his drink was on the house, she served him up a shot of Wild Turkey at which point he laid down his firearm. The night Oscar checked out was another one of those incidents that could only happen at Myrna’s. Oscar had barely settled into his favorite stool at the bar for his first drink of the day when he’d fallen off his seat. After hitting the floor, he went epileptic before succumbing to heart failure. As ol’ Oscar’s body was stretched out on the floor, one of the crustier customers of the place found it fit to comment: “And I thought booze would kill the crazy bastard.”
Myrna’s was the end of the road for the misfits and those who were washed up or used up. Myrna’s was where you came when your days were numbered and even the booze could no longer sustain hopeless dreams. Myrna’s served up the best coffee in town though, and if I wanted to stave off the alcohol for a while a shot of java was my best hope.
Some scarface at a table near the men’s room door sat with a beer in front of him glaring at me. I ignored the guy and kept scanning the paper. I could find nothing about the Lance Miller stabbing. The Progress’s reporters were either lazy or unable to get any new information on the murder. I decided to turn to the sports pages.
Gooden was pitching well for the Mets again after his arm troubles earlier in the season. Any chance of pennant fever at Shea could be kissed off until next year though. Since early in the month when Howard Johnson and Bobby Bonilla had gone down, the Mets had been reeling. The Mets’ Double AA farm team, the hometown Centre Town Mets, were scheduled to play in town this evening. But with the rain still coming down it didn’t look good for a game tonight. I tossed the paper aside and put four bits on the bar for Myrna. Passing the men’s room on my way to the front door I could feel Scarface’s eyes on me. I wouldn’t have given the guy a glance if he hadn’t called out to me in a heavy whisper.
He was a sight all right. His one eye was either blind or damaged by some retina condition. That poor peeper along with the scar, which looked like railroad tracks running from the bridge of his nose to his cheekbone, gave him the look of some twisted madman. Cleanliness wasn’t exactly next to Godliness with the guy either. His pants and shirt were tattered and filthy with grease spots and God only knows what else. What little hair he had seemed to be pasted in greasy strands across the top of his head, and he smelled like the bottom of a laundry basket. His grubby little fingers held the tiniest stub of a cigarette.
“I hear you’re looking for some information Jack.”
He was looking up at me and smiling. Let’s just say what teeth he had would not have done his dentist proud.
“I might be,” I said.
Myrna was pouring some coffee and watching us. One of the geezers at the bar gave us a glance before going back to his beer. Scarface had me zoned in with his one good eye. He motio
ned for me to come closer. I weighed my options: heading out to the rain to get soaked or stimulating conversation with this yo-yo. Call me crazy. I settled on the latter.
I motioned to Myrna for another coffee and sat down. He seemed real pleased about that. For a few moments he just sat there across from me, his good eye giving me the once over. He was some package all right, like some creepy creature straight from hell.
“I’m not a bum Jack,” he said.
I nearly choked on that. “Yeah right. And I’m Jane Fonda in drag.”
That neither amused nor angered him. He merely sat there with that one-eyed stare. “I don’t panhandle unless I have to.” He suddenly reached under the table and brought out a plastic garbage bag. It was still wet from the rain. “I collect cans and bottles Jack.”
“Oh I get it. That keeps you outfitted in Rolex watches and Brooks Brothers suits.”
He let that one go. “I don’t want you to get the idea I’m this street guy you can’t trust.” He leaned toward me and gave me a twisted smile. Myrna put down my coffee and gave us each a curious glance before heading back behind the bar.
“You got information. Let’s hear it.”
He held up a hand. “Not so fast Jack. My services don’t come cheap.”
“What kind of information are we talking about?”
“Information you could use Jack.”
“First of all. Let’s cut the Jack crap. I once knew a guy named Jack who got his kicks hanging around grade schools. He ended up doing time for child molestation if you get my drift.”
His looked turned hard. “Okay. Here’s the deal. You slip me some money, and I’ll give you some interesting dope on the stabbing.”
I shook my head. “I don’t work that way.”
“Yeah right.”
By now I’d had enough of the guy. I threw two bits on the table for the coffee and tossed a dollar on his lap.
“Use the bill to fit yourself for some new dentures,” I said.
I was to the door when he called out to me. But it didn’t matter. I had things to do.
Chapter 6
In Centre Town you’re better off walking. The cab drivers charge scalper’s prices, and the city buses run on a time schedule from somewhere out of the horse and buggy days. I waited for the bus at the corner of Fourth and Campbell until the bus showed up a good twenty minutes late. It wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the rain. The only shelter from the drops I could find was in the doorway of the Salvation Army’s Rescue mission.
Naturally, a puddle the size of Australia had found its way there from the rain, and my feet got good and sloshed - which in a sense was what I wanted to be.
By the time the damn bus brought me to Mick’s Gym I was ready to assassinate all members of the Centre Town City Transit Association. Mick wasn’t a candidate for the Happy Fellows Society about this time either. It probably had something to do with the sight of me trudging with wet shoes across the wrestling mats toward his office. I had no sooner darkened the doorway of the place when one of the gym’s exercise grunts dropped his weights and sauntered over to find out my business. As before, the gym was full of young and sweating muscleheads struggling with the iron or preening before one of the room’s many wall mirrors.
This particular Rock of Gibraltar was a real specimen. I have to say that. Very tall and very wide with this Max Headroom look. A creation from the cloning laboratory for Scandinavian Olympiads you might say. I don’t know if the clone even knew how to speak. For the longest time he just stood before me staring into my eyes as if unsure whether to attempt conversation with me or to bench press me.
“That’s all right Ingemar. I’ll take care of this.” It was Mick.
I think Ingemar grunted next. Either that or I’m not up on the mating habits of giant Swedes who wrestle reindeer in their spare time. Ingemar stepped aside, and I sloshed my way toward Mick.
He stood in the doorway of his office with his big chest stuck out and his thick tenderloin arms crossed, flexing the biceps. He looked like a bouncer in some night club ready to pounce.
“What do you want this time Crager?”
“I found something in Lance Miller’s room shortly after the murder.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Mick didn’t say anything. He just stood there still flexing his biceps.
“You know anything about steroids?”
“I might.”
“Interesting little pills,” I said. “Makes the muscles grow big.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
I followed Mick as he turned away from me and went into his office to go behind his desk. He threw open a drawer, grabbed some papers and tossed them onto the desk top. We both stood on opposite sides of the desk looking down at the document.
“What’s this? The Dead Sea Scrolls?”
He picked it up and threw it across the desk at me.
Steroids: The Wrong Approach to Body Building was the title of the thing, a 40-some-page manuscript authored by none other than Mick Slaughter. I took a few moments to leaf through it without really digesting anything. It was a double-spaced, typewritten manuscript with some of its pages given over to graphs and charts and tables. Really kind of impressive actually, and more than what I would have expected from someone like Mick Slaughter. Apparently, Mick had done this little bit of research for a class. Some brief comments had been scrawled in red ink in the back by a Dr. Robert Heberling, who had seen fit to give Mick a B plus for his academic efforts.
“Pursuing a little higher education? I didn’t know you could read let alone write.”
“Aren’t you a barrel of laughs. I was thinking about getting a degree in health and physical education. Maybe do some teaching. But then I opened this place.”
I tossed the manuscript on the desk. “So where did Lance get the pill?”
He fell down into his chair where he sat shaking his head. “You just don’t get it do you? I don’t mess around with no growth hormones.”
“Oh. I get it. And that little paper you wrote shows how you’re doing your part in the fight against drugs. Everyone in here just says No. Is that it?”
He got up slowly from his desk. “Come with me.”
I followed him across the wrestling mats to the bench press to two young men. One of them, stretched out on his back along the length of the bench, was in the midst of repeatedly lifting a bar of weights from off his chest, while the other one stood to the rear of the apparatus ensuring that the bar didn’t come crashing down on his buddy. The lifter was really grunting and huffing and puffing. After about the sixth or seventh time the guy pushed the bar up he bellowed out the sort of noise a dog makes while trying to rip off meat from a steak. He arched his back and wiggled beneath the bar, but he couldn’t get his arms to do any more work. It was like the damn bar was frozen.
Finally, the spotter and Mick rushed in to grab the bar and got it back up on the rack. The kid just remained there stretched out, the blood quickly rushing from his face.
“Don’t try to put up more than you can handle Billy,” said Mick, giving the kid a pat on the leg.
He was sitting up on the end of the bench, a lopsided grin creasing his baby-smooth, boyish face. God, he looked young. No more than eighteen probably. But he looked as if a few of those years had been used to build up his upper body. His buddy, on the other hand, apparently wasn’t out to transform his own body into a walking model for some muscle beach magazine. He was tall and lanky and even in his sweat pants and long-sleeved shirt you could tell he was no muscle head. He had a hard look about his face though, like he’d suffered knocks tougher than a long, minor league baseball season gives out.
“Crager,” Mick said. “I want you to meet Billy Hanson and Jack Walter, a couple of ballplayers with the Centre Town Mets. Walter looked me up and down like I’d just come up with four aces to beat his full house.
“Billy here has been coming to my gym all season. He’s put a littl
e muscle on his body too. Eh Billy.” He reached out with a hand to give Billy’s beefy shoulder a healthy squeeze.
Billy looked embarrassed if anything. “I been working out with weights since I was a wrestler back in high school.”
“What position you play Billy?” I asked.
“I used to be a second baseman, but the Mets organization switched me to third.”
He shrugged. “I’m a better hitter than fielder, especially now that I’m hitting with more power.”
“The weight-lifting do that?”
“Yeah. I’d say so. The program I’m on now has helped.”
“The program you’re on now?”
“Sure. Mr. Slaughter’s got me on a program that puts on the weight. That’s what I need to hit more homers.”
“But you’re the one who puts in the work Billy,” Mick said. He was staring hard at the kid.
“Ever do any steroids kid?” I asked.
The kid nearly choked on that one. He glanced quickly to Mick and back to me.
“No sir,” he said.
“Forget it Crager,” Mick said. “My boys are clean.”
I turned my attention to Walter. “No one is going to mistake you for some steroids project.”
Walter allowed himself a cool grin. He was everything Billy wasn’t: cocky, defiant, the kind of kid who’d probably given teachers at his high school the shits until they’d given him the boot.
“I’m a pitcher,” he said. “Too much weight-lifting knots up the arm.”
Just then a couple of young guys carrying athletic bags bearing the Mets logo entered the gym. “Yo, Stiles, Medwick.” The two stopped long enough to acknowledge Walter before moving off toward the locker room.
“Ballplayers?” I asked.
Walter nodded.
“Hell. Half the damn team comes here,” added Mick. “And why not? This is the best place in town for a good workout.”
“What do you got here besides some weight-lifting machines and a bunch of dumbbells?” I threw Mick a silly-ass grin. “Present company excluded, of course.”