by Mike Reuther
“That’s assuming it was a guy.”
Gallagher drank off the rest of his whiskey and leaned in toward me. His face had become more flush; his eyes were as droopy as a bloodhound’s.
“I think the drunkenness becomes you,” I said.
He turned away and lifted his empty glass away from him “The lad thinks I’m drunk,” he announced in a thick Irish brogue. “Imagine that. A drunken Irishman.”
He looked to Red who was talking on the phone at the other end of the bar. “Say Red. Come drink with us lad.” Red cradled the phone to his ear and turned his back on us.
“Ah the hell with you Red. I got me friend Crager here. Me drunken friend Crager.”
“Tell your drunken friend Crager who murdered Lance Miller.”
Gallagher grinned like a baseball manager riding a seven-game winning streak. “Oh I get it. Get your cop friend good and oiled then pump him for information.”
“Bad idea huh?”
“The worst sort of brainstorm me detective friend.” He gave me a sly wink and grabbed the bottle. It was still a good two thirds full, and I knew Gallagher wasn’t planning on leaving until we finished it off. He grabbed my glass and refilled it. “What do you say we really get to work on this stuff?”
If I thought I was going to get anything out of Gallagher I was wrong. As we continued drinking in that barroom he had little more to say on the subject of the murder. I wasn’t sure if he was holding out on me or if indeed the murder had his department stumped. You never knew with Joe Gallagher. He could play dumb, and he could play games with you. At any rate, the conversation turned to other topics: baseball, the price of supermarket food, and ultimately marriage, a subject of which he considered himself somewhat of an expert. Gallagher had been through three marriages and never tired of recounting the emotional and financial wreckage each woman had wrought upon him.
“You know what the worst part is?” he said.
“I don’t know Joe. What?”
He was wearing one of those heavy-banded rings on the third finger of his right hand. A bulldog’s mug was plastered on the front of the ring, and a pair of ruby-colored stones served as the canine’s eyes. He made a fist with the hand and considered the ring for a few moments before gazing up at me, his eyes appearing weary and more glassy now from the drinking. “When they take your pride too.”
He shook his head and finished off his drink.
I turned my attention to Red who was doing battle once again with the television.
It was either that or listen to Gallagher go on about how his third wife had run off with the state trooper from Harrisburg.
“Ah lad,” he said. “Tis no sadder sight than a man who’s been left on his own to die.”
A cold chill ran though me. “You ain’t dying,” I said, forcing a grin. Somehow the words sounded strange to me though, as if I didn’t quite believe what I’d said. I watched Red pound away at the television like a medic trying to restart a stubborn heart. He was having little success with the thing though. Finally, he turned the set off and joined us at the other end of the bar.
“Gallagher thinks he’s dying,” I said.
With a nitwit smile Red looked Gallagher up and down. “You do look like a sack of potatoes in that uniform at that. But nah. You ain’t dying.”
“Sack of potatoes my ass you red-headed bastard.”
“Hey Cozz,” Red said. “Why do flies have wings”
“Beats me.”
“To beat the Irish to the garbage cans.”
That brought a roar from Gallagher. And with that he filled our glasses with more of the whiskey. For the next couple of hours, that’s how it went. We’d talk awhile, and Gallagher would suddenly retreat into one of his dark, self-pitying moods, and then Red would come up with some inane observation or witticism to lift the big guy’s spirits. As he drank, Gallagher’s voice became louder, his tongue looser. I was sure I could get him to spill some information about the murder. But he turned out to be harder to crack than I thought. Each time I brought up the murder he’d wave me off with his hand. There was too much other inside stuff about city hall and his work he wanted to share instead. I had allowed him to have most of the whiskey for a while, not even attempting to match him drink for drink. But then I found myself gulping down shot after shot. It was a mistake. The room began to sway. I knew I was creeping past my limit. Still, I pushed on. Gallagher called for another bottle, and by the time we were well into that one, I was plastered but good, and he knew it. Gallagher, for his part, was like a racehorse, raring and ready to go for the stretch run.
“Now lad,” he said, leaning closer to me with a smile. “All this business about a murder. You seem to be a mite curious about it.”
By now, my bladder had begun to ache. I didn’t much care about a murder or that Gallagher was taunting me. I just wanted to piss out the whiskey and get my head to stop spinning.
“Think I’ll hit the can.” I took one step from off the bar stool and went down. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor staring up at both Gallagher and Red.
“I say Red. Call a cab for the lad.”
I was in no position to fight it. The two of them managed to get me on my feet and outside into a cruel August sunshine. The sun’s rays were like drills boring into my skull, and the explosion of afternoon heat nearly blasted me into sobriety. I closed my eyes. My head was spinning like a revolving door at quitting time as I let them stuff me into the cab.
“Next time you try to out drink an Irishman bring a friend lad,” I heard Gallagher say. He and Red roared. I felt the cab lurch, then pull away, and then the streets of Centre Town swallowed me up.
The aroma of sausage and eggs sizzling aroused me from my dreamless state. My stomach groaned like a tree bending in the wind. But not from discomfort. I was hungry. Funny thing. When I’m hung over, my head often screams for mercy, but I never get sick to the stomach.
Pat was across the room in a chair watching me. She was wearing my favorite outfit: the sundress that showed more than a modest bit of cleavage. It was obvious she had spent time fixing herself up. Her hair was pumped and had a golden shine to it. Then it hit me. Today had been our rain date to hit the kiddy park.
“You’re lucky I even talk to you after today,” she said.
I got myself to a sitting position on her couch. My head hurt only a little. Most of the wooziness was gone.
“What time is it?”
“Way past time for you buddy,” she said.
“I guess so,” I said.
Pat sat eyeing me. Just take it easy, I told myself. She’s only a woman. A woman you stood up.
“I guess this calls for an explanation,” I said.
“I give you all the space you need.” She rose from the chair before turning on her heels and heading to the kitchen.
“The food smells good,” I called out.
Pat had cooked up one of my favorite post-drinking meals: ham & cheese omelets with side orders of German sausage rolls, and slabs of French toast lathered in butter. There was freshly squeezed orange juice to top it off. All in all, the perfect breakfast for an early evening. I hadn’t eaten since the morning, and I was hungrier as hell. I had the nagging suspicion Pat was gonna make me ante up somehow for cooking me this feast.
We were back on the couch later. I was massaging Pat’s toes - my penance for showing up silly drunk and partaking of her food - and watching the brats do battle over the video tapes. A pretty normal evening for us. Both of her long legs were poking out of that sun dress and across my lap. God. I wanted to take her right there. To hell with the kids. But I knew this was no night for me to call the shots. No way. Pat knew it too. Every once in a while, when the kids were busy bouncing tapes off each other’s heads, she’d use the big toe of her one foot to prod me significantly in the groin area. This playful little torture scene went on a little too long for my taste. But that’s what you get for hooking up with a woman who can throw back even harder all the cra
p you hurl at her. It’s hell trying to make love to a single mommy.
“So tell me about your case.”
And I did. Everything from my suspicions about Mick Slaughter to my break-in of Giles Hampton’s home to my questioning of Lance’s brother and his wife Reba. It was Reba Miller who raised Pat’s always active curiosity. I could feel every muscle in each of her long, lovely legs tighten. “You know her?”
Pat nodded and looked away. She began biting hard on her lower lip. “The bitch,” she added.
“I take it Reba Miller’s not on your Christmas card list?”
She frowned. Then, quite suddenly, she began to giggle.
“After all these years,” she said, shaking her head. “After all these damn years.”
“Okay. You want to let me in on it?”
“Reba Miller. Jesus. She was a classmate back at Peabody.”
“Peabody High School?”
Pat nodded. “A cheerleader, a homecoming queen. Miss All American princess bitch.”
“Whoa. Is there a food fight coming?”
Pat smiled and allowed herself to fall back against me. “She had most of the guys fooled, but I knew her game. In gym class one day I saw her stuffing her damn bra with toilet paper.”
“Gee. They looked kind of real the other day.”
Pat dug her nails into my arm. I let out a yelp that caused Timmy and the twins to pause from their tag team wrestling and stare in our direction.
“Reba Miller. What a piece of work. They broke the damn mold creating that woman.”
“What happened to our little princess after high school?”
“What happens to all those little ball breakers? She went off to college and married the campus stud.”
“I got news for you honey. Ron Miller ain’t exactly the campus stud.”
“That marriage came later. She was still in college when she married Roger Reynolds.” Pat got a faraway look in her eyes. “A guy much too good for her. Anyway, she got married here in Centre Town at Ocyl Chapel, and they had a big reception at Foxboro Gardens Country Club.”
“Foxboro Gardens. Hell. Her old man must have mortgaged the farm for that.”
Pat made a face. “Let me tell you, little expense was spared in making it the social event of the year.”
“Wait a minute. You went?”
“I didn’t have much choice. The caterer I was working for prepared and delivered all the freakin’ food.”
“How lovely.”
“Tell me about it. I had to serve up escargot to that snooty crowd.”
“But we were a perfect lady now weren’t we?”
“I didn’t say anything. I had a job to do, and God knows I needed the money. I was working two other jobs and going to school at night to become a hairdresser. So I just went about shoveling the escargot onto the plates of the bluebloods when lo and behold Miss Princess Bitch herself comes through the food line.”
“Let me guess. She commented on your striking wardrobe?”
“Hell. The bitch refused to even acknowledge me. Piled her plate with snails and moved right past me.”
“Tsk. Tsk. The brutality of these class wars.”
“Class wars shit. It had more to do with the man she tied the knot with.”
“Er. The Reynolds chap.”
“You got it. Roger Reynolds. Law school graduate. Ex-football star. Talk about a hunk. Ha. It figured someone like Reba would end up with him.”
“Heh. Heh. You don’t mean to say you and the future counselor …”
Pat allowed herself the slighest of grins. “Let’s just say ol’ Reba wasn’t the only one who got to know him in the biblical sense.”
“You little slut.”
Pat’s kids had tired of the wrestling. In fact, each member of her tireless, terrible tribe was stretched out motionless on the small quilt rug in front of the television.
“I was waitressing at the old White Horse Inn the night he and a group of his buddies came in,” she said. “The place was a dump but always drew good rowdy crowds.
He was looking pretty good that night I first saw him. Well dressed. At least a lot better made up than most of the goons who came into that place. He had a real swagger in his walk. You could tell he thought he was a pretty hot commodity. Don’t ever let a woman tell you that stuff isn’t a turn-on.”
“Sweetheart. You’re talking to the king of swagger.”
“I managed to wait on his table,” she continued. “He was no different than a lot of young guys. Get a little alcohol in them, and they start thinking with their dicks. He tried the usual lines on me and then asked for my phone number.”
“Hmmm…Let’s see. You shot him down?”
“You better believe it. No one gets me that easy.”
“That’s what I like about you honey.”
“Besides he came a couple of nights later. Sober and with a bouquet of flowers.”
“What a guy.”
Pat gave my arm a pinch. “Hey. It was kind of out of left field. But sweet too. Know what I mean?”
“Come now. He didn’t have ulterior motives?”
“Don’t they all? That was okay though.”
“So you let this saloon Sam win and woo you before dumping him like a bad habit.”
Pat was staring past me out the window that overlooked the park across the street.
“I don’t know who dumped who really. That was what? Ten years ago. I was just nineteen. He was twenty-six, damn near through law school at the time with this wonderful future. We really didn’t have a thing in common. I think we both just saw it for what it was - a short fling. To tell you the truth I don’t remember losing any sleep after it ended. It was only about a year later, when I saw him with Reba coming through the buffet line at their wedding reception that I really felt I’d lost something pretty good.”
I looked at Pat. She was still staring out the window again, biting down on her lower lip, the forefinger and thumb of her one hand twisting a strand of her hair.
“Hey. I thought this guy didn’t mean anything?”
Pat suddenly rose from the couch and went over to where her kids were sleeping on the floor. She very quickly got them all to their feet and off to their beds. In about five minutes she was back.
“A couple months after the wedding Roger mangled himself up in an auto wreck,” she continued. “It was a pretty bad one out along the River Road. He’d been drinking pretty good that night at some bars.”
“Did he get killed?”
“It was touch and go for awhile. He pulled out of it though. But he was never the same. He ended up in a wheelchair.”
“Bad break.”
“Real bad break.”
Pat was usually tough as nails. She wasn’t one to shed tears over puppy dogs being run over by trucks. Few things really got to her. After all, if you took all the lousy stuff from her life and piled it up, it would come to one hell of a crap heap. Yet here she was crying - long, streaming tears running down her face. A part of me wanted to reach out and hold her. But it wasn’t my style.
“He can’t even practice law. I guess the accident just took too much out of him.”
“I take it Reba…er…found other diversions.”
Pat’s eyes turned hard. “It didn’t take the little gold digger long. If I remember correctly, she had Ron Miller before a preacher saying ‘I do’ right after the divorce went through.”
“Interesting. By the way, whatever happened between you and Reba later on at that wedding reception?”
“You know me too well don’t you?”
“All of the better parts anyway.”
“I thought about dropping a plate of food on her. But that would’ve created a scene. I decided to get her real good.”
“Let me guess. You gave her a mean right cross which led to a neato hair-pulling fight between the two of you.”
“Nah. That would’ve been no contest. Besides, it would have gotten the men all hot and horny. I went for the
throat.”
“Oh.”
“I strolled over to the groom and planted a good, long kiss on him.”
“How bold of you. Pray tell. Was it one of those wet ones?”
I moved closer up against her.
Pat gave me one of those suggestive, sidelong glances. “I think it’s safe to say there was some tongue involved.”
“Heh. Heh. Think some of that tongue is available?” I asked as I nudged her onto her back.
Chapter 8
The next few days crawled by without me making any kind of real progress on the case. August had the damn town in its death grip and with no sign of letting up. The days were damp, gray, and sweltering with humidity. By late afternoon, the haze would hover above the downtown like the fog of a bad horror movie drifting into a graveyard, and the street lights would come on to lend a yellowish, surreal kind of ambience to everything. God. It was enough to drive anyone to the bottle. Since my drinking episode of a few nights earlier though, I’d been a good boy, staying completely away from the hard stuff and tapering my intake to a few beers during some evening stops at Red’s.
At different times in my past I’d been able to all but sever my cozy relationship with booze. I’d gone as long as five and six weeks without even a beer. One stretch of sobriety - my all-time record - had lasted ten weeks, three days. But then the shit starts to happen. As a cop you see it all: the bullet-riddled bodies, the kids strung out on coke, all the crap of a patrolman’s job. You go to bed at dawn with it all spinning through your brain, a kaleidoscope of horror and gore that even Stephen King couldn’t serve up. The booze softens it a bit, but it’s all still there, waiting to be thrown up like all the vomit of a bad meal.
I entered Bradley Park on my way uptown from my apartment. Earlier in the summer, when the sun and warm weather was still a refreshing retreat from winter and the chilly, wet days of spring, the park had crawled with action. Kids had been everywhere - toting ball gloves and throwing Frisbees, zigzagging along the concrete walkway on rollerblades and skateboards, or just playing grab ass with each other. But on this early evening the park looked deserted. There was no one on the ball field tucked away in the corner of the park; the band shell at the park’s east end was empty. The city fathers had failed miserably at getting some use out of the band shell. Every Sunday night a church choir, a barbershop quartet or what was supposed to pass as a jazz band would take its turn playing to sparse audiences.