Song of Suzies

by Dave Balcom

  Fusco nodded. “Mr. Stanton, will you be reporting this in your newspaper tomorrow?”

  I looked at my watch. “We’ll be working on a story. If you’re going to have a press conference, Cindy Shaul will be there; you can count on it.”

  “I’ll give you a call personally as soon as we have our plan worked out.”

  “I’d rather you just called Cindy or Randy Patterson, the city editor. I’m probably not the guy to call this time.”

  “That makes sense,” he said, “and, again, on behalf of all of us here in City Hall, please know how sorry we are that this has happened. I just can’t conceive that it involves more than a few people, but we’ll know everything in due time.”

  I only nodded. “We’ll be watching, and hoping you’re correct.”

  “Good day.”

  56

  It turned out to be anything but a good day. The press conference was called for noon, and I appreciated the city’s desire to get this behind them. I became aware of the conference when my home phone started ringing – the major difference between big-city journalists and the community variety may well be the unlisted phone number. Nobody who wants to be part of the community on every level hides his home phone.

  The calls were non-stop and came from everywhere – the Associated Press in New York, National Public Radio in Washington, and the five-thousand-watt church-sponsored radio station down the lake all had the same question, “Why?”

  I had no answers, and, because of the constant interruptions – both on the phone and in our lobby – I had no time to even consider the question that was fighting for top-of-mind-awareness.

  The whole weekend turned into a blur of family time interrupted. By Monday I was eager to get to the office, but nothing had really changed. I tried to get busy with my own chores as staff started trickling in for the day.

  Each one had to stop by my seat at the universal desk and greet me, check on my mood and attitude. They didn’t have much to say, just wanted me to know they were thinking of me, and I appreciated it. It was the kind of thing you’d expect if you’d been out sick for a period of time.

  The calls kept coming all morning, and, as soon as the paper was out – again with my name in the lead story – Randy came to my office with his hand out. “Gimmie,” he said, rubbing his fingers. I looked at the smile on his face, and wondered, “What?”

  “The edit page stuff. I’ll handle it; you get out of here.”

  I sat back and shook my head. “No, I’ll do my stuff.”

  “Man, you don’t get it. You need some room. You look shell-shocked and you’re not to blame – hell, there goes your phone again...”

  I turned to my phone, answered it and listened as the caller told me how sorry she was that her city had tried to make a scapegoat out of me. I thanked her for the call, and hung up with her “prayers” echoing in my ear.

  I didn’t say a word. I just gathered up the copy for the Tuesday editorial page and handed the package to Randy. “And I’ll handle the staff meeting. You get out of here.”

  I nodded, realizing how right he was and then I walked into Doug’s office and announced that I was going to go home and take a few days off.

  Doug sat back in his plush office chair and looked me up and down. “That may be the best idea you’ve had since that cop pulled up behind you.” He smiled. “I don’t know what you can expect to accomplish here until this all simmers down.”

  “I just need some time to process.”

  He nodded. “I just want everyone in the building to understand that you are making this decision. I don’t want anyone to think that I’ve suspended you or some bullshit.”

  “Thanks, Boss. I’ll make sure of that.”

  “I’ll be checking on you behind your back, so you might as well tell Sandy that she’ll be hearing from me.”

  I chuckled and started for the door.

  “Jim?”

  I stopped with my hand on the knob.

  “I’m so glad you’re the guy at the helm. You take care of yourself and come back as soon as it makes sense. There’s a lot of work still to be done, and I don’t want it done without your leadership.”

  I nodded, “I’ll be in touch,” and walked out, closing the door quietly behind me. Harriet looked up and I asked her, “Did you get all that?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “I’m just as sure you do. Did you get all that?”

  “Take care of yourself, Jim. I don’t want to go back...”

  “I’ll be back, but you get to be the proof when people – especially when the news people – start making up their own history. Okay?”

  “I have never repeated...”

  “I know that; and I respect it, but that door is as good as a tin can and a string.”

  She actually blushed, and I loved her for that, too. I gave her a little smile and a wink, “I’m going to go talk to my staff and key others who I know can retell the story with accuracy if they choose to do so.”

  “Be careful with yourself, okay?”

  “Thanks.”

  I grabbed Randy off the desk, told him my decision and then whistled up the rest of the available newsroom staff as Randy herded the composing room workers in to hear me first hand.

  Then I went to the press room and talked with those guys before visiting the circulators and the ad reps. Cecily and Knewal were out, but I left each of them a note.

  When I got home, Sandy had already had a call from Doug, and made a great effort at acting surprised to see me. I hugged her, checked in on Jeremy and watched Sara who was watching television before going to our bedroom and changing into workout clothes appropriate to the season.

  “You going to be gone long?” Sandy asked.

  “As long as it takes...”

  “Takes for what?”

  “Takes what it takes, I guess.” I stopped as I started out the door, walked back to her and held her close to me. “I’ll be fine, I just need to think a bit, sweat a bit; you know, get everything into some kind of perspective so I can discuss my feelings with you. Okay?”

  Her face was in the crook of my neck, and I felt her eyelashes against my skin and then felt her nod a bit before she gave my shoulders a squeeze. “Then you better get busy.”

  It was a raw and windy autumn day, and I started at a brisk walk, stopped at the corner to stretch, and work forms for a few minutes before turning north out of town at about a fifteen-minute-mile pace. About fifteen minutes later I was chugging along at my ten-minute pace and the sweat was streaming from under my stocking cap as I focused on my pulse, my breathing and my center.

  I stopped for work on my forms at the abandoned barn I often used for the purpose. I was so focused on the progression of moves that I didn’t hear the car until it turned into the abandoned driveway.

  I came out of a duck move, and found two men roughly my size getting out of the black sedan; both were wearing sunglasses and gloves. One was holding an aluminum softball bat. The two were so alike they might have been cloned, or at least blood relatives.

  “You don’t listen, do you?” The man who appeared unarmed asked with a sneer in his voice. “That’s not smart even for a guy like you.”

  He spoke as he walked to me. His stride and his body language were confident, self-assured. His voice was conversational.

  The other guy, “Batman” I thought of him, was walking an arc between the car and me, as if he thought I might try to run away in that direction.

  Mr. Confident was about three feet from me. I was still in the “duck” position, bent at the knees and over at the waist. It was a simple move to put my hands on my knees as if I were trying to recover from my exertions or was resigned to what was about to happen. I let my head hang down, watching as Mr. Confident’s feet came into view.

  Mr. Confident reached out with his left hand, apparently intent on grabbing me by the hair on my head. I glanced at Batman and saw he had stopped to watch. Just as
Mr. Confident’s hand touched my head, my right hand shot out and grabbed him in the crotch while at the same time my left arm went forward and up to block the punch he was throwing with his right. I felt the punch glance off my forearm just as I straightened my legs in a burst of quick energy which forced my right shoulder and arm up, thus increasing my leverage on Mr. Confident’s testicles and taking his pain off the chart. He screamed, but I wasn’t done.

  Even as I lunged up and forward, I planted my left foot just behind Mr. Confident’s right heel, and started a counter clockwise spin around that pivot, forcing him back and over my left leg. My momentum carried my right leg in a two-hundred and seventy degree arc that brought my right foot into direct contact with Batman’s chin. I didn’t try to pull that kick, either.

  Batman had drawn his bat back over his right shoulder in preparation of leveling me, but the speed and flow of the three moves found him unconscious before he could belt me or even before he hit the ground.

  I released Mr. Confident’s package as my momentum carried me back to a two-footed landing in front of him, my hands ready in the defensive position, but Mr. Confident had lost track of his original intent, and was hugging his privates as best he could in the fetal position on the ground.

  I approached him, put my foot on his throat to make sure he wasn’t a resilient type, and patted him down as best I could without trying to straighten him out. I found his weapon in a hip holster; his wallet was in his hip pocket. I left him to his own miseries, and went over to Batman.

  He was breathing, but more like panting. It wasn’t a good sign. I disengaged the bat from his left hand, and searched him. I found his weapon also in a hip holster and his wallet too in a hip pocket. I found a pair of handcuffs in his jacket pocket.

  I dragged Mr. Confident over to Batman’s side and cuffed them together. I then went to the car, found the keys still in the ignition, and drove it home.

  When I got to the house I found a note from Sandy saying she was at the store. I quickly went to the kitchen desk and dug out our phone list and looked up Max Hennessey’s home phone from the DU Committee section.

  He answered on the first ring, and I actually took a second to thank the stars – nobody had worse luck with the phones than I, a bane of my newspaper existence. “Max?”

  “Hello?”

  “Max, this is Jim Stanton. I’ve got a problem. Two guys attacked me out on county road five, north of town at an old abandoned barn, during my run. I disarmed them and left them handcuffed.... I couldn’t think of who else to call...”

  “Slow down. Who are these guys?”

  “I don’t know. I left them cuffed there and drove their car to my house to call you, and now that I’ve done that, I think I should have called that new nine-one-one number...”

  “Never mind that; get back out there. I’ll get patrol there, and then I’ll be right behind them. Now move!”

  I had only put the car in park at the abandoned barn when I heard the patrol’s siren coming behind me. Batman was trying to drag Mr. Confident who had come to, but was showing no desire to straighten up and walk.

  “You better sit down,” I said as I walked up to them. “That’s the police coming.”

  “They better have an ambulance for Fritz here,” Batman mumbled. “I think I need help too. I think you broke something,” he had put his hand to his jaw and from his look, talking was painful.

  I had no sympathy for them, but I said as quietly as I could, “Just sit down. I’m sure if they haven’t called one, they will.”

  “Whatthafuck did you do to us?”

  I shook my head and walked out towards the road as the city cruiser slowed to turn into the driveway.

  The officer rose out of the vehicle, “You Mr. Stanton?”

  I nodded, and pointed to the other men, “They may need medical attention.”

  He reached back inside and grabbed his radio and requested the ambulance and backup from the Sheriff’s department.

  “We’re out in the county,” he said to me. “We’ll wait for them. Hennessey said you called him?”

  “I know him; it just popped into my head to call him.”

  “You know we got nine-one-one now, right?”

  I nodded, feeling foolish. “I know. I just didn’t think.”

  “That’s what we’ve got to do,” he said. “We’ve got to promote it so much that people become tuned in so it’s the first thing they think of when something goes wrong.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t want to discuss the promotional needs of emergency protocol.

  “Who are these guys?” He asked.

  “I don’t know.” I reached into the car and retrieved their wallets and walked them to him. “Joseph Gingrich,” he read from one of the IDs, “from Newark, New Jersey.” He opened the other wallet, “Patrick O’Brien, also of Newark. Which is who?”

  “I don’t really know, but the guy who came at me with the bat is probably O’Brien. He called the other one “Fritz” so that’s probably Gingrich who’s down for the count.”

  “You took these two on? Why?”

  “I was minding my own business, and they stopped to give me a lesson. I had been warned last week by somebody in a car like this one, that I needed to announce my plans to leave Lake City by the weekend or suffer some consequences. I guess they were the consequences...”

  “You want to give me more detail?”

  “I’d rather wait until everybody who needs to hear this is here. I don’t want to do it over and over again.”

  He shook his head with a small smile on his lips, “Good luck with that.”

  And he had it right. By supper time, I had related the story to Hennessey, the Sheriff, the District Attorney and Rick Jordan, who I had called as soon as we were all at the Sheriff’s office in Lake City.

  I had called Rick when nobody seemed to care that I hadn’t called Sandy, and nobody was showing any interest in my doing so. “I want my lawyer,” I said abruptly.

  It was as if I’d said “Open sesame.” Everyone went quiet, and I was escorted to a phone. I called home, told Sandy the short version, assured her I was all right, and asked that she track Rick Jordan down and let him know where I was.

  “Oh, Jim, I’m so sorry. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Actually, I’m better than that. These guys threatened me last week and I was worried that they might involve you or the kids, but now I know they won’t. So I’m pretty okay, really.”

  “Did you hurt them?”

  “Nothing that won’t heal, I think.”

  I heard her sigh. “Good. That’s good. I’ll call Rick right now, ’bye.”

  I hung up the phone slowly, thinking about her concern for the welfare of my attackers... then I realized and remembered she’d read my military file before I’d even met her. I accepted that concern with a shrug and made my way back to the interview room.

  57

  It was just Hennessey and me after everyone else had departed, and Max suggested he drive me home. “You might be safe out there walking around, but I fear for the rest of the citizens...”

  I didn’t rise to his attempt at humor, and he noticed that. As he started the car, he changed his tone, “You know I was pretty pissed over the way you handled the fact that we’d found Suzanne’s body, but I have to say I wasn’t entirely fair in my assessment...”

  “You were pissed. Nobody’s ever really fair when they’re angry.”

  He nodded, “And you really do care for what you do, just like me. I have to admit that I feel like we’ve been led around by our nose on this case. I started thinking you were doing some of the leading, and that really got me going...”

  He was turning onto Mission, and stayed silent until he’d pulled into our driveway. I started to get out, “Thanks for the ride, Max.”

  “Jim.” He stopped me with his voice. I looked at him and found his hand stretched out toward me, “I’m sorry, Jim. I am not proud of my behavior and I want you to know it.�
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  I shook his hand. “Can I interest you in a beer while we try to calm my missus down?”

  He started to decline, “I’m not sure my being there...”

  I interrupted, “It would do her a world of good to see you and me behaving like friends again. Come on.”

  He nodded in resignation, “Of course, a beer sounds good.”

  Sandy was waiting at the top of the three stairs to the kitchen as I ushered Max in ahead of me. “Hello, Max!” She said with just a hint of surprise.

  “Hello, Sandy,” he said, stooping to peck her cheek. “I’m here only to reassure you that Jim’s in no danger, no trouble, just home safe and sound.”

  “Don’t forget the beer I bribed you with.”

  “Oh, and the beer. I am, indeed, here for the beer.”

  Sandy wasn’t to be distracted by our banter, and as I reached the top step, she moved around Max and grabbed me in a bear hug. “Thank God, you’re all right.”

  I disengaged her gently. “I’m fine. I got a bit shook up. They scared me. I wasn’t expecting anything like that.”

  “Who were they?” She asked as I made my way to the refrigerator. “There isn’t any beer, we’re out.”

  I changed course and reached into the cupboard for two rocks glasses. Looking at Max with an arched eyebrow, I asked, “Bourbon?”

  He smiled broadly, “Makers?”

  “Rocks?”

  “And a little water, please.”

  I poured the drinks and looked at Sandy. “Nothing for me at this time; now, who were they?”

  Hennessey took over, “Two hoods from down by the city. One of them is not talking ’cause he’s been doped up for pain; the other’s not talking ’cause his jaw is broken. They lawyered up as best they could, so we don’t really know much about them. They both have records; both served time. They’re not innocent bystanders.”

  “But why would they want to hurt Jim?” Sandy kept after Hennessey.