Last Ditch

by G. M. Ford

  Several calls to Jed's answering service had failed to turn him up, so I was on my own. If things kept up the way they'd been going, Rebecca was going to cripple me, so I decided to put an end to the banter.

  "I want to make a statement," I said. "And then you can take Wessels here back to the zoo." Nobody moved.

  I pointed at the pencil on the table by his elbow.

  "You might want to write this down, Sparky," I said. "I'm not going to be fielding questions afterward."

  Reluctantly, Trujillo picked up the pencil.

  "You ready?" I asked. "I'll try not to use any big words."

  I opened my mouth to speak but stopped. An intermittent yellow light pulsed around the room. Wessels noticed too. He bumped himself off the wall, and we walked out through the archway and across the huge living room, with Trujillo and Rebecca in hot pursuit. I opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. Not one, not two, but three mobile TV units were parked nose to tail out on Crockett Avenue in front of the house. I quickly stepped back over the threshold and slammed the door behind me.

  "What in hell is this?" I demanded.

  Trujillo grinned and shot his cuffs. "What did you expect? This is the story of the century, Waterman. You're about to have your fifteen minutes of fame. You're lucky Sixty Minutes isn't out there. The man who found Peerless Price."

  Wessels began humming "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."

  "We don't even know for sure it's Peerless Price," I countered.

  I knew it was dumb the minute I said it, but I was way too pissed off to take it back. "It could be anybody," I added.

  Trujillo laughed. "Yeah, it's that other missing dude with the stainless steel hand."

  I started for him, but Wessels got between us. I could smell scotch on his breath. I leaned out around him, shouting at Trujillo.

  "Did you call those assholes?"

  Wessels pushed me out to arm's length and showed me his palms.

  "Lighten up, fuckhead," he said. "We didn't call nobody. You better talk to her." He inclined his head toward Rebecca. "You better talk to her boss about that. Anybody called the press, it was him."

  "Can we get on with this?" Trujillo whined.

  I stepped around Wessels-and put my face in his.

  "What you can get . . . is the hell out of my house." I walked back into the dining room, retrieved his suit coat from the back of the chair and handed it to him. He draped it over his arm.

  "Get out. I've got nothing to say to you. You want to talk to me, you call my attorney Jed James. He'll be back from Paris on the tenth of the month."

  I pulled open the front door. Wessels and Trujillo stepped out into the night. Wessels fixed me with a long stare that was supposed to make me soil myself and then headed for the street, but Trujillo couldn't stand it; he just had to have the last word.

  "We'll be back," he said.

  "Oooh, stop it now, Detective Trujillo; you'll have me in such a tizzy I'll have to sleep with a night-light."

  PAT BEGAN TO wheedle. "I'm sure Leo was under a great deal of strain. I mean it's not every day one makes that sort of grisly discovery in one's own backyard, so to speak." He flicked another look my way. "I'm certain that now that he can see the spirit of goodwill inherent in this meeting, he will be more than happy to cooperate in any way possible."

  Suddenly all eyes were on me. I took a deep breath.

  "I would be more than willing to cooperate in any investigation that starts out with an open mind."

  They all began to speak at once. I raised my voice.

  "I will not, however, have anything to do with an investigation which blandly assumes that my father is in any way responsible for the death of Peerless Price."

  Emily Morton's throat had begun to redden. "What other conclusion could possibly be drawn?" she demanded. "Considering the history of the two men," she continued, "considering your father's well-documented career as a professional thug ..."

  I held up a hand. "All we know for sure is when your brother disappeared and when he was found. That's it. As far as I'm concerned, everything else is purely speculation.''

  The four-part choral protesting began anew, so I got louder.

  "I will also refuse to cooperate with any investigation which is either unwilling or unable to respect the privacy of the people involved. This isn't a sound bite or a photo op. This is my life."

  Emily Price Morton began a point-by-point recitation of my father's career. Pat began to make excuses. Forrester blabbered about the public's right to know. Things got so bad I wished I was doing yard work.

  McColl waited for the din to subside. "I am given to understand that you have already had an altercation with a member of the local media. Is that so?"

  "I invited a couple of them to get off of my property."

  "I understand that you invited them . . . er . . . rather manually."

  "I thought they were thieves. I was defending my property." Forrester couldn't resist

  "And what was it you imagined they were stealing?" Neither could I. "My privacy."

  Two SECONDS AFTER I slammed the door on Wessels and Trujillo, the phone began to ring. I picked it up. She didn't wait for me to speak.

  "Leo, it's Bonnie Hart at KOMO. How about we—"

  "Bye, Bonnie," I said as I depressed the button.

  Bonnie Hart was the afternoon host on KOMO 1000, Talk Radio Seattle. She was a nice gal and damn good at what she did. She'd had me on the show a couple of times. I'd never realized how difficult radio was until I got a chance to see it for myself. Anyone who thinks it's easy to stay spunky while conducting two-hour interviews with amateurs, all the while fielding phone calls from listeners who sound like they're talking with rented lips, ought to try it sometime. Believe me, it's an art. I felt bad about hanging up on her, but not bad enough to take my finger off the button. Didn't matter anyway; the phone began ringing in my hand. I lifted my finger, counted to three and pushed down again. Rebecca stood in the dining room archway.

  "I take it we're going incognito," she said.

  "Big-time," I said.

  I unplugged the phone in my hand and then made my way around in the front of the house, upstairs and down, dropping the Levelors, closing the drapes and unplugging the rest of the telephones. The phones were easy to find. They were all ringing.

  When I got back downstairs, Rebecca hadn't moved. "This is going to be a mess," she said. "They're going to hound us."

  "I know," I said. "I don't know why but I feel like I ought to apologize."

  She shook her head.

  "It's me who should apologize, Leo. I'm the one who wanted to live here. I'm the one who insisted. You never wanted any of this."

  I walked over and gave her a long hug. I was still holding her when the darkness at the back of the house gave way to a bright white light She felt me pull back and then read the expression on my face.

  "What?" she said.

  I took her by the hand, pulling her through the dining room into the kitchen. We stood in front of the sink, looking out into the backyard, where a TV cameraman stood in the middle of the area testing his lights. Closer to the house, on the near side of the old greenhouse, stood some guy with his back to us, a microphone in his hand, adjusting his sport coat and patting at his hair. I dropped her hand and started for the back door, muttering, "Son of a bitch."

  "No," she said. "Don't go out that way. If you go out that way you'll walk right into the camera. Go out the side door."

  She had a lot more experience ducking newsmen than I did. She was right I'd end up on the morning news red-faced with steam coming out of my ears, which was pretty much the last thing on earth I wanted. I reversed field and headed back toward the living room and the side door. "Leo," she called after me. I stopped and turned back.

  "Stay calm. Okay?" When I didn't answer, she said it again.

  "Okay," I said.

  "Promise."

  I took a deep breath. "I promise to stay calm."

>   The lights in the street cast long shadows over the south side of the house. I stayed off the walk, instead moving as far to the right as possible, keeping my right shoulder against the hedge. I walked quietly until I was behind the cameraman and then crossed to his side in a hurry. No matter. The way he was squinting into the eyepiece, I could have been driving a bus.

  "All right," I said. "This is private property. You're trespassing, both of you. I want you ..."

  The kid flipped on the bank of lights mounted on top of the camera and started to turn my way.

  I straight-armed the lens back in the other direction, nearly knocking the camera from his shoulder.

  I shook a finger in his face. "You point that goddamn thing at me and you're gonna need a proctologist to get it back."

  He hesitated, looking over at the other guy who stood slack-jawed, looking like he was about to swallow the wireless mike.

  "Get off my property. Now."

  When the kid swung the camera back my way, I reached out with both hands. With one I grabbed the plastic carry strap on top of the camera and jerked it from his shoulder. With the other, I took ahold of his hair, bending his head down by his knees.

  He began to scream. "Owww owwww Jesus owwww . . ."

  I kept him in that position as I backed him up the walk and out toward the street The brilliant lights bobbed all over the landscape like there was a prison break as I pulled him along. Rebecca was standing in the side door shaking her head. I pretended I didn't see her.

  "Jesus . . . owwwww owwww . . . ""

  By the time I slung him over the curb by the hair, he was a mezzo-soprano, emitting notes high enough to open garage doors. He rolled over once and came to rest in the sitting position. I got both hands on the camera and made a perfect two-handed basketball pass. It bit him right in the chest, bowling him over backward, driving the wind from his lungs. Even as he lay gasping like a tubercular mule, he never let the camera hit the ground. Good training, I figured.

  Mr. Newscaster in the lovely black cashmere blazer was about halfway up the walk, level with Rebecca and heading my way. When I got close he began to babble into the microphone.

  "We're here at the home of—"

  I reached over and nipped the little black button on the side of the mike and then jerked it from his hand.

  "Wait a minute now ..." he began.

  I jammed the microphone down into the pocket of his blazer so hard that four inches of it protruded from the bottom. When he looked down at his jacket in horror, I reached out and grabbed him by the hair. The hair was thick, lustrous and easy to grasp. Unfortunately for him, however, it wasn't connected to his head.

  The guy was both smarter and faster than he looked. Before I could decide what to do next, he hotfooted it up the walk and disappeared into the darkness. I turned to Rebecca and smiled.

  "Good thing you stayed calm," she said.

  I held the toupee out like an offering.

  "Look what followed me home. Can we keep it?"

  EMILY PRICE MORTON dabbed daintily at the comers of her mouth and then pushed herself to her feet. McColl, Forrester and Pat came up out of their seats like they had strings attached, standing now in front of their chairs like good little soldiers awaiting inspection. I stayed put.

  She swept her eyes about the room and cleared her throat.

  "Gentlemen," she began. "We've been at this for the better part of an hour to little or no avail. I can see no practical purpose to further discourse. As far as I am concerned, this meeting is concluded."

  She saved her final comment for me.

  "Young man. On one hand, I find your loyalty to your father and his memory to be quite laudatory. Such old-fashioned notions as loyalty and family are all too often missing in this modem world."

  When I nodded my agreement, she continued.

  "On the other hand, however, I find your unwillingness to allow the facts to speak for themselves to be quite childish and vain."

  "We don't have any facts," I said evenly. "When we do, I'll be sure to let them speak for themselves."

  I think that if she'd had a pitcher and a bowl, she'd have washed her hands of me. Instead, she gave me a long stare, more of pity than of disdain, and then rustled off toward the door.

  H. R. McColl and Mark Forrester trailed her across the room like a brace of dogs trained to heel. When the door clicked behind them, I turned to Pat. "What in hell is the matter with you?" I asked.

  "Me?" He looked incredulous. "What's the matter with me?"

  "Yeah. You. What in hell did you think you were doing?"

  He stepped in closer. I could smell his breath mints.

  "What I was—for your information—trying so desperately to accomplish was to get a handle on this thing. If you'd kept your big mouth shut ..."

  "If I'd shut up and let you handle it, you'd have copped a goddamn plea."

  We were nose-to-nose now. He spread his arms.

  "What did you expect? Your father's ... my brother's worst enemy is found buried in his backyard with a bullet in his head ..."

  "I expect you to be defending my father . . . your brother, that's what I expect. Period. End of discussion."

  "On what grounds? For pity's sake . . . what do you imagine I might claim? Coincidence? Syncronicity? Divine intervention? What sort of rationale did you have in mind, Leo?"

  "You claim whatever it takes, man. You do whatever you have to do. You make sure a bunch of strangers don't get away with pissing on your brother's grave."

  "Grow up, Leo. This isn't never-never land. We're never going to know what your father did or didn't do. That's the past. This thing is here and now and it's going to be played out on the field of public opinion. It's bad enough that you've been plastered all over the front page with this Brennan thing."

  "What's bad about that?" I demanded.

  He made his disgusted face. The one where it looks like sheep dip has just been passed beneath his nose.

  "The press," he scoffed.

  "I see your picture in the society pages about twice a week; you don't seem to have any objection to that."

  "I don't suppose it's occurred to you that Brennan and your father used to do quite a bit of business with each other. Brennan knows where the bodies are buried, Leo. Lots of them. What if he reads the papers and decides he can trade a little inside information on your father's dealings for a plea bargain? What then?"

  "He's a convicted murderer, Pat. His testimony and a buck will get you on the bus."

  "Whatever lies he tells will still be on the front page."

  "So what?"

  He took several measured breaths.

  "We have to appear reasonable. Possibly even contrite. If we do that, this thing will fade. Something else will catch the public fancy. Unreasonable denials will merely add fuel to the fire."

  "Who says denials are unreasonable?"

  "Denial merely prolongs the agony."

  I poked him solidly in the chest with my index finger.

  "Maybe you're willing to give him up as guilty, but I'm not" I had a terrific urge to poke him again but instead lowered my voice. "You make one public statement that even sounds like you think he's guilty and Emily Morton and that shithouse newspaper and your precious social position will be the least of your fucking worries. I'll completely redefine agony for you, you little prick. If you don't feel like you can bring yourself to come to your brother's defense, then just shut the fuck up. You hear what I'm saying here, Pat?"

  He took a short step backward and put his hands on his hips.

  "Are you threatening me?"

  "You bet your ass," I said.

  He sneered. "Like father, like son."

  Chapter 7

  I SUPPOSE that if you wanted to be a fanatic about it, you could maybe say I bed. But just maybe. And only a little. Technically speaking, I had kept my act together during the meeting. I hadn't yelled at anybody. I hadn't cursed or threatened. What happened with Pat afterward . . . well ... the
way I saw it. . . that was sorta like a whole different meeting altogether. Something more akin to private therapy than public theater. You know what I mean. Anyway, that's what I'd settled on for my story, and I was sticking to it.

  Rebecca, possessed of that nurturing instinct found only among the fairest of the fairer sex, knew precisely what to say next.

  "Pat's probably right," she offered. "Mucking around in this thing will just stir it up."

  As far as I was concerned, the only thing Pat was right about was how I was more like my old man than I generally liked to admit. Mood I was in, though, I wasn't about to admit to that either.

  "Et tu, Duvall?" I said in mock despair. "How sharp as the serpent's tooth the ungrateful significant other."

  She brought her hand to her bosom and narrowed her eyes.

  "Oh, Gomez . . . you know what poetry does to me . . ."

  "It's not funny," I protested.

  "Listen to yourself. Mr. Irrepressible telling me something's not funny." She walked over and threw an arm around my waist, drawing me tight against her. "Besides that, big fella ..." She rubbed her breasts against me. "... who says I was kidding." She nuzzled her face into my neck and began kissing me.

  "I'll give you a half an hour to stop that," I said.

  When she redoubled her efforts, I gently pulled away.

  The fact that I could practically hear my blood redistributing itself merely served to heighten my sense of gloom. Lately, the smug assurance of women as to the predictability of my reactions gives me the occasional urge to demur, as, if nothing else, a symbolic means of reclaiming some long-lost territory of my soul. At least, that's what I tell myself. Truth be told, however, despite my best intentions, even the slightest physical entreatment, real or imagined, sets into motion within me an urging engine, which drags my best intentions along in its wake like a rusted chain of burned-out cars. I used to beat myself up about it, but have come to see it as inevitable and merely an accident of the blood.