Firing Line td-41

by Warren Murphy

  door, then stopped again. "But I would have done it for

  nothing," he said.

  This, then, is a notice to everyone I interview from

  ¦how on. I have given up asking easy questions. Let

  somebody else buy the drinks.

  Remo read the column twice, then found Purchkie's Bar listed in the phone book, and a helpful policeman told him how to get to LaDoux Street.

  When Remo got to the bar, there was a television truck in front. A line of people stood outside the bar, and a young man in a Spanish leather jacket and designer jeans was pushing people away from the front door.

  Remo walked up to him. "Sorry, pal," the young man said. 'The bar won't be ope'n for a couple of hours."

  "Why not?" Remo asked.

  "Shooting a commercial inside."

  "Good," said Remo. He seemed to drift away. The guard turned slightly to chase off someone else, and Remo, watching the guard's eyes, waited until he was turned just enough so Remo was out of his peripheral vision, and Remo moved in behind him and through the door of the saloon.

  "Sorry, you can't go in yet," the guard told another man, a workman in plaid jacket and blue jeans by Farmer Brown.

  "Why'd you just let that guy in?" the man asked.

  "What guy?"

  'That skinny guy."

  "Go 'way. I chased him, too," the guard said. .

  "You're a dope."

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  "Come back in a couple of hours," the guard said.

  The old wooden floor of the tavern was crisscrossed with thick electrical cables, and the lighting was as bright as a ballpark at night.

  A man was standing at the bar. He was a thick and heavy man, wearing a suit that looked as if it had been mailed to him in a paper bag. Remo recognized him as Joey Geraghty from the picture that had accompanied his column.

  Behind Geraghty stood a man and woman, two models dressed neatly to look like customers. Behind the bar stoo'd a bartender, who looked authentic, perhaps because his apron was wet.

  Remo sat at a table to watch. The director was standing at the camera, listening to Geraghty complain.

  "We ever going to get this done?" Geraghty asked.

  "As soon as you get the lines right."

  "If I have to drink any more of this slop, I'll puke."

  "Don't drink it. Just wet your lips. Now let's try it again."

  He nodded to the cameraman, and Geraghty turned around to face the bartender.

  The two people next to him started to talk loudly. Canned jukebox music started up. Geraghty began telling the bartender why he thought Shi-ite Muslims were really good people and how the world would be safe in their tender, loving hands.

  The director waited until the sound mixer looked up from the tape recorder and nodded that the mix of background sounds was just right. "Now," the director said.

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  Remo could see Geraghty's shoulders hunch up in tension. He wheeled on the director and whined, "This suit itches. Why do I have to wear this suit?"

  "Because it fits in with your image as a man of the people."

  "People, my ass. Some people wear Pierre Cardin suits. Why can't I?"

  "People who wear Pierre Cardin suits don't drink Bunco beer," the director said.

  "Nobody drinks Bunco beer," Geraghty said.

  "Come on. Let's just do the commercial and get out of here," the director said. Geraghty turned back to the bar. He began to tell the bartender about the vicious discrimination against the Spanish-speaking in St. Louis. The bartender looked bored.

  The director waited for the sound mixer, then said, "Let's do it."

  Geraghty slowly turned from the bartender and looked at the camera, as if he were surprised to see it there.

  "Hello," he said, 'Tm Joey Geraghty." He stopped and looked at the director. "When do I get my check? My agent told me to be sure to get my check."

  "I've got it here," the director said. "Now will you do this damn thing?"

  "AH right," Geraghty said.

  They set up again, and when the director called "Move," Geraghty again turned to the camera, again feigned surprise, again said, "Hello, I'm Joey Geraghty, and I'm not an actor, I'm a newspaper-

  man.

  'Tm here at Purchkie's Bar with a couple of friends." He waved over his shoulder at the two

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  models behind him, who dutifully smiled at the camera and made believe they were listening to Geraghty.

  "I'm making this commercial because they paid me to. But also because who knows more about beer." On cue, the two pseudo-patrons laughed. The bartender tried to smile. He was missing his two front teeth, Remo noticed.

  "So let me give it to you straight," Geraghty told the camera, "the way I try to give everything to you." He raised the glass and wet his lips with his beer. Remo could see he kept his lips pressed tightly together. Geraghty reached down and picked up the can from the bar.

  "Bunco beer is good beer. That's the way I'd put it." He looked over the director's shoulder at the girl holding the cue cards. "It's a beer for all night. A beer for friends. So when you're spending all night with a friend, drink Bunco beer. Say Bunco and you'll be a winner."

  The bartender laughed, and so did the two customers as Geraghty turned back to the bar and again raised the glass of beer to his closed lips.

  "Okay," the director yelled, "that's a wrap." Geraghty said, 'Thank God," and poured the rest of his beer over the bar. "I hate this stuff. It tastes like horse piss."

  He waved at the bartender. "Purchkie, my usual."

  Purchkie poured a precise ounce of Courvoisier brandy into a snifter. He put it in front of Geraghty, who swiyeled it around in the snifter, smelled it, and said, "Thank Jesus for something a human being can drink." He sipped it and yelled at the director, "Don't forget my check."

  He told the bartender, "Purchkie, I'm making you famous."

  "You're making me broke," Purchkie said.

  "My columns make you famous."

  "Famous don't hack it, Joey. You bring me people in here and they don't spend nothing. They just stand around gawking at the regulars. Can't you get me fifteen beer drinkers?"

  "The only place you can find fifteen beer drinkers together is in jail," Geraghty said. "Besides, beer drinkers sweat. I'm going to go change."

  He left the bar abruptly for the men's room. The camera crew was already dismantling and moving toward the doors. Remo went to the bar. He passed the two models who had been in the commercial.

  He heard the woman say, "That Geraghty. What an asshole."

  Remo stood at the bar, and when Purchkie appeared, Remo ordered a beer.

  "So that's Joey Geraghty?" he said.

  Purchkie nodded.

  "Good customer?"

  "Naaah. I never even seen him in here and then he started writing about the place. He picked it out of a phone book. When he kept doing that, I invited him down. But he don't come much, which is good."

  "Why?"

  '"Cause I got working people hanging out here. If he hangs out with his fancy French suits and his patent leather booties and his brandy, for Chris-sakes, brandy in a snifter, and starts talking about police oppression and civil rights and like that, my good customers'11 leave him in a spitoon."

  "What about all those people he writes about?" Remo said. "What about Irving the Matchless?"

  "He makes that crap up. But I'll tell you. Some people are like real dopes and every day there's a column like that, you watch. I get a dozen guys in here. You can tell they run shirt stores and they're going bust. And they sit at the tables and look around waiting for an arsonist to come talk to them. But they don't drink worth a fart." "They ever find an arsonist?" "I don't know," Purchkie said. "Some days, there's a lot of guys coming in with pinstripes. They ain't my regulars. There's a lot of conversations I don't want to know about."

  Joey Geraghty returned to the bar, wearing a light gray plaid suit, nipped at the waist, with straight-legged pants. The jac
ket's lapels were within M inch of what Gentleman's Quarterly had advised would be the season's hottest style. His tie was two inches wide at the base, down from last week's three inches. He looked at Remo.

  "What do you think about Islamic destiny?" he asked Remo.

  "It's okay," Remo said, "as long as it don't make colored folk uppity."

  Geraghty looked at his brandy. "I should've known. In this place."

  "What do you think about Islamic destiny?" Remo asked.

  "I think it's the wave of the future," Geraghty said.

  VWe all going to march forward to the fifteenth century?" Remo asked.

  "You can't judge what a movement is going to be

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  like after the revolution, when it's in the middle of a revolution."

  "When people eat each other, you can be pretty sure they're not going to turn out to be vegetarians," Remo said.

  "You're a racist," said Geraghty. He took another sip of his brandy.

  "No, I'm not," Remo said. "I just like to be able to tell one wide receiver from another. When they all start calling themselves Mustapha, I'm in trouble."

  "Racist," said Geraghty.

  "Aren't we all?" said Remo.

  "Right. We are. All of us. What's your name?"

  "Remo."

  "Don't tell me your last name. I don't like last names."

  "How about Irving the Matchless?" asked Remo. "He have a last name?"

  Geraghty looked defensive. "Sure. Who wants to know?"

  "I was just wondering. He come in here?"

  "Sure," said Geraghty.

  "Introduce us?"

  "Well, if he comes in. And if I'm here. But I'm not staying. And he's not usually here today."

  And Remo knew the bartender was telling the truth. Irving the Matchless was a figment of Ger-aghty's imagination.

  Remo left a five-dollar tip and took his beer to a table. The bartender had been right. Within a half-hour, the bar, even though it was still before noon, was filling up with nervous men who ordered Olivas on the rocks, didn't drink it, and sat around looking at each other and at the door whenever it

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  opened. Half the men wore hairpieces. The others needed them. Remo wondered if there was a correlation between dwindling retail sales and hair loss. Maybe it came from scratching one's head each month when the bills came due.

  A man came in the door. His hair was his own, but his suit looked as if it were on loan from Alcoa Industries. The man looked around the room at the tables.

  The men at the tables looked up hopefully like hookers in a Honolulu brothel. Remo stood up and walked over to the man at the door. "Come talk to me," he said softly. "Why?"

  "Because if you don't, I'm going to fry your eyeballs," Remo said. He took the man's right elbow between his fingers and squeezed. "Owww. Well, if you put it that way . . ." "Let's go."

  They sat at Remo's table. Remo released the man's elbow, and he ran his hand through his bushy dark hair.

  "What's on your mind?" the man said. "Let's do it just right," said Remo. "One. I'm not a cop. Two. I understand you know something about fire for hue. Three. I want you to talk to me about it." "Why should I?"

  "I thought we settled all that just now," said Remo. "You want me to remind your elbow?" "All right. What do you want to know?" "First, how's business?" asked Remo. "Punk," the man said. "But Geraghty's column always brings out people with things to burn. Everybody around here."

  "Okay. Why's business bad?"

  "Same thing with my business as theirs. Too much competition. You know, there's only so many shirts you can sell and so many fires you can set."

  "I'm looking for a guy named Solly. His last name's Martin but he calls himself something else maybe."

  Remo looked at the man's eyes, which blanked out. "Solly? I don't know any Solly."

  "He's from out of town. He travels with a kid . . ."

  The man's face erupted with interest. "The kid. Sure."

  "You know them?"

  "No, but I heard about them. They're in town here selling. I heard about them. That's why business is bad. They're taking all kinds of jobs."

  "Where'111 find them?" Remo asked.

  "I don't know."

  Remo looked down at his untouched glass of beer. He picked up a pack of matches and lit one. , He used it to light the remaining nineteen matches. The matchbook flared into flame. Remo wrapped his hand around the burning matchbook and extinguished the fire with his palm. "I hoped you'd be more help than that," he said, with sincerity. He dropped the charred matchbook on the table. "So did your elbow."

  "Truth, mister, truth. I don't know. I just heard about them. They got into town yesterday, and somehow they been getting to merchants."

  Remo waved around the room. "They didn't seem to get to these guys."

  "I just heard about them from the grapevine. Solly and Sparky. They're around."

  "How can I find them?" asked Remo.

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  "I don't know."

  "Think about it. Ill make it worthwhile," said Remo.

  "Yeah? How?"

  "I'll leave you with two working elbows," Remo said.

  "All right, already. I'll give you a name."

  "What's the name?"

  "John Barlin."

  "Who's he?" Remo asked.

  "He owns the Barlin Sports Emporium on Quimby Street. I know he was shopping for a fire. Then when I was going to call him, friends of mine said never mind, he already made his deal with this Solly. Goddamn carpetbaggers."

  Remo stood up. "Thanks."

  "Thanks for my elbow," the man said.

  The Barlin Sports Emporium on Quimby Street was a long, low frame structure with apartments overhead. It was packed into a long block of buildings that all shared the same basic frame building. The sidewalks in front of the store told the story of the neighborhood, littered with dirt, unswept by the merchants. The Sports Emporium and its commercial neighbors had folding extension screens out front, which pulled over at night and locked shut to protect their display windows against vandals. If Remo had been looking for a textbook example of a failing business ready for burning, he realized he could have used the Barlin Sports Emporium.

  As he had expected, the owner was not at the emporium. A very helpful clerk told Remo that Mister Barlin had flown to Chicago on business and would be back the next day.

  •94

  That meant the fire would be tonight, Remo realized.

  He decided to kill time by going to the movies. There were three theaters in a row. One was showing "Hong Kong Fury" and "Fists of Steel." The next was showing "Hong Kong Tyranny" and "Fists of Iron." The third was showing "Hong Kong Holocaust" and "Fists of Stone."

  Remo saw them all. He regarded it as a very entertaining afternoon and evening. He learned that movies are ninety minutes long, that black men are always millionaires who travel the world doing no apparent work, despite which they own their own apartment buildings and private jets. He found that these same black men, in striving to bring peace-and justice to an imperfect world, always join with an Oriental martial arts expert who can beat anyone in the world in hand-to-hand combat, except the black man, because both of them were trained by the Oriental's father. Together they kill a lot of bad people, all of them white and most of them fat. These fat white men are all cowards, corrupt, control the governments wherever they live, and abuse blacks and Orientals. The two heroes also do not like doors, except to kick down while they are flying through the air. They fly a lot.

  White women are all prostitutes, lusting after the black man's body. Black women are all noble and they won't give it up, until the end of the movie, and then only because it's true love.

  There was a lot of cheering in the theater whenever a white man bit the dust. Remo decided if there was ever going to be peace between the races, all these films would have to be burned first. He wondered if, when he left the theater, he should

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  fly through the air
and kick down the front door of the movie house. He decided against it. Symbolic protests were not his cup of tea.

  He left the third theater just as it was getting dark. The iron grates had been pulled closed across the front of the Barlin Sports Emporium.

  Remo stood in front of the closed store, and when the small line at the theater box office had gone inside and the street was again deserted, he grabbed the padlock on the iron grating between his thumb and index finger. He felt across the surface of the lock for the slightly raised spot under which the tumblers were located. When he found the spot, he squeezed. The top hasp of the lock popped open. Remo quickly removed it from the grate, slid behind the iron fence, and then relocked the grate.

  He worked his way to the front door of the store. The lock was a simple double-action deadbolt. Remo looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching, then slammed the heel of his hand against the wood near the lock. The door flew open. Remo stepped inside the darkened store, closed the door, and reattached to the door frame the lock receptacle that his blow had loosened.

  In the back he found the steps leading to the basement storeroom, and as he expected, the storeroom had shown signs of being cannibalized. It was filled with large cartons and boxes, but the boxes were not filled with sports supplies. They held junk, newspaper, old shoes, broken equipment. What the owner obviously had done, in anticipation of his fire, was to sell off all his equipment. After the fire, he would claim it was all lost in the blaze and file an insurance claim. A double dip.

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  Remo sat against a box in the dark. For the arson to be a commercial success, the cellar' would have to be set afire. It would be the right place to wait for Solly and Sparky; the right place to pay them back for the life they had taken from Ruby Gonzalez.

  As he sat there, something gnawed at his mind. There was something he should do; something he should do now. But he could not think of it.

  Time slipped by slowly in the dark basement. It had been almost three hours, and Remo realized why: the two arsonists would wait for the theaters down the block to close before they struck. It was just too dangerous to try working in a crowd. He decided to nap, but he had slept only another hour when he heard footsteps overhead. They were soft, almost brushing sounds, but unmistakably footprints.