by Ed Gorman
She said, “C’mon in. But I better warn you, McCain. My period started today. And you know I just don’t like to do it when I’m menstruating.”
I tried my best to sound hurt. “You think the only reason I come over here is for sex?”
“Sure,” she said. “And that’s the only reason I let you in. I mean, I get my jollies, and you do, too.”
I guess this was the brave new world Hugh Hefner talks about all the time. You know, frank and open discussions between the sexes about s-e-x. In some ways, I like it. It’s nice coming over here and spending a couple of hours in Maggie’s bed and then just leaving and going back to my own little world. I usually make it over here once or twice a week. She has a great body. She says I’m the only “civilized” person in town except for Judge Whitney, whom she says is a “fascist.” That’s why she sleeps with me, she says, me not being: one, a dope, or two, a redneck. She won’t accept compliments or anything remotely like affection. One time I said to her, “You really are beautiful, Maggie.” She said, “Can the crapola, McCain. You’re here because you need sex. That’s all that’s going on here.” I always felt cheated. I want to say lovey-dovey stuff, maybe for my sake as much as hers. The lovey-dovey stuff is nice to say even if you don’t mean it—or sometimes even if it’s being said to you and you know she doesn’t mean it. It’s like having a smoke afterward.
She said now, “I’m in sort of a hurry. Pete Seeger’s in Iowa City tonight. I was just getting ready. My ride should be here any time.”
I tried very hard not to look at the sweet smooth curves of that body packed into the black sweater and black jeans. Why not combine a little sex with detection? Hadn’t Mike Hammer shown us the way?
The apartment consisted of a large living room that looked surprisingly middle-class given all the jazz musicians and literary heroes on the walls; a small bedroom with a very comfortable double bed and a kitchen and bathroom big enough for only one person at a time.
“I didn’t know you hung out with Susan Frazier,” I said.
She was opening her purse, checking her billfold for money. “Oh, I never really ‘hung out’ with her. She was interested in art so we went to Leopold Bloom’s a few times and I explained Picasso and Chagall and Van Gogh to her. I mean, not that I know all that much myself. God, the guy that runs that store is such a pretentious asshole. You ever notice that?”
“No, I never did,” I said deadpan. “He’s one of my favorite people.”
She whipped her head up and giggled at me. “McCain, you’re a certified nut, you know that?”
Now, she was at the closet, digging out a heavy coat.
I said, “You know much about her personal life?”
She put her coat on. Looked at herself in a mirror by the door. “What’re you going to do tonight, McCain? Stay home and watch Father Knows Best?”
I’d made the mistake of telling her that TV shows like that were necessary to society because, corny as they were, they gave us a sense of right and wrong. I believed that. She didn’t.
A car horn sounded.
“My ride,” she said. “Gotta hurry.”
“Hey,” I said. “Just one question.”
“I really am in a hurry, McCain,” she said, grabbing her purse from the coffee table.
“She ever tell you she was in any kind of trouble?”
“Just once,” she said, as she opened the door and ushered me out onto the tiny porch.
“What’d she say?”
As she was locking the door from the outside, she said, “She called one night pretty drunk and said it was going to be all over town very soon.”
“What was?”
Maggie turned and faced me. “She never got around to telling me. She passed out. She couldn’t drink worth a damn.”
Then I was following her down the stairs two steps at a time, asking her a few more questions.
I half ran after her to the waiting car. Inside was a slim, balding guy who wore sunglasses and a black turtleneck. I hadn’t known that Maggie was dating vampires, but I was happy for her. A mordant jazz song could be heard when she opened the door and slid inside. Then song, Maggie and vampire were gone.
I sat in the library until five-thirty. Every ten minutes or so I’d go over and try Debbie Lundigan’s phone number. I wanted to find out if Susan Whitney had ever talked to her about the blackmail. There was no answer. I finally gave up on the phone and drove over there. Debbie lived in an old house that had been converted into two apartments, one up, one down. It was actually a big house, but then you needed the extra space to share with all the rats and cockroaches.
Winter dusk. The sky a moody rose and black with bright tiny stars and a bright quarter moon. Frost already glittering on the windshields of parked cars. To reach Debbie’s place you had to climb rickety stairs up the north side of the green-shingled house. You could smell the dinner from the ground-floor apartment, something homey with a tomato base.
I was just about to start up the steps when somebody came from the shadows and said, “Who the hell’re you?”
At first, I couldn’t see him. He was more shadow than substance. He came a few steps closer and I saw him a lot better. He was imposing. The uniform was regulation army but the decorations were anything but. He was a paratrooper, all spit and polish, caged energy and rage. Then he said, “Hey, McCain, you little bastard. I didn’t know it was you!”
Finally, I recognized him, too. Mike Lundigan, Debbie’s older brother. He’d been a year behind me in high school. He’d enlisted in the army two days after graduating.
“Hey, Mike! How’s it going?”
“Just got back stateside last week and came home here fast as I could.”
“Where you been?”
“South Vietnam. Ever hear of it?”
“No.”
“Our side is fighting the commies over there. Ike’s been sending military advisers. I was over there for a year.” He grinned around the cigarette he’d just stuck in his mouth. “We’re gonna kick their yellow asses, man. In no time at all.”
A car swept up to the curb. The passenger door opened. Loud country music poured from the radio. Debbie got out, said good night, closed the door and the car took off.
Mike ran to her. She screamed his name when she saw him and then hurried into his arms. They’d been orphaned the year after she graduated high school; their folks were killed in a car accident. They had good reason to cling to each other.
After a few minutes, they looked back at me. I walked over to them. “Debbie, I’ve got a couple more questions I’d like to ask you. But how about if I call you a little later tonight?”
Mike shook his head. “Listen, I was going to run down to the liquor store before it closes and pick up a bottle. Why don’t you two talk while I’m gone?”
Debbie nodded. “Fine with me.”
Mike kissed her on the cheek then shook my hand. “Be right back.”
He hadn’t been kidding about running down to the liquor store. He took off at a trot, his heavy lace-up paratrooper boots slamming the sidewalk hard.
“You have a cigarette, McCain? Mine are upstairs.”
She always said that. Debbie’s favorite brand of smokes was OPs—Other People’s. She’d been that way since ninth grade. I gave her a Pall Mall and lit it for her.
“Did Susan ever mention blackmail to you?”
“Blackmail? Are you kidding?”
“No. Apparently somebody was getting money from her for quite a while.”
“God, she never mentioned anything like that.”
“Did Kenny know about the affair she had with Renauld?”
“No. She didn’t tell him.”
“Could he have found out some other way?”
“He could have. But I don’t think he did.”
She started stamping her feet a little to stay warm. “You want to go upstairs?”
“I’m almost done.”
“I’m starting to freeze, McCain.”
<
br /> “So she didn’t mention any blackmail to you?”
“Nope.”
“When she ended it with Renauld, did he ever threaten her?”
“Several times. She used to joke that he had a lousy bedside manner. He was in med school for a while, you know.”
“Renauld was?”
“At the U of I.”
“I didn’t know that.” I thought of what Doc Novotony had said about the abortionist possibly being a med student who knew just enough to be dangerous. Would that apply to somebody who’d dropped out of med school?
“You ever hear him threaten her?”
“No. But she wasn’t the kind to lie. And she was definitely afraid of him.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s not exactly the most stable guy in the world.”
She started slapping her mittened hands together. “Now I’ve got to pee, McCain. C’mon. Let’s go upstairs.”
“Actually, that’s all I needed.”
“Good. Because my bladder can’t hold out for long.”
She was already starting up the steps. “I still think Kenny killed her, McCain. He hated her and he hated himself—the booze had pickled his brains—and that’s what happened the other night.”
“Thanks again, Debbie. And tell Mike it was nice seeing him.”
I was two blocks from Debbie’s when I saw a red police light bloom into bloody brilliance in the gloom behind me. I pulled over to the curb.
Cliffie just about burst out of his squad car. His right hand rode his low-slung gun all the way up to my car.
He peeked in and said, “You happen to catch the news on the boob tube tonight?”
“No. Unlike some people I know, I have to work for a living.”
“And I’m talkin’ CBS news, McCain, not that local shit they put on around here.”
“So what was on the news?”
“The Whitney family was on the news. How shocked the East Coast part of the family is that Kenny went and killed his wife and then killed himself. The CBS news, McCain.” He grinned, his dip-shit mustache as obnoxious as always. “So that kinda makes it official, don’t you think? Kenny killed his wife and then killed himself. Case closed. And the poor judge—boy, I’ll bet she’s never been so embarrassed in all her life. You tell her how sorry I am for her.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that along.”
He smiled again. “I’d sure appreciate that, McCain. I sure would.”
He started giggling. And then he walked back to his car. The red light was still on. He was one for drama, our Cliffie was, no doubt about that.
I pulled into the driveway. There were no downstairs lights on. Mrs. Goldman was probably at a movie. Even with her new TV set, she still went to the movies regularly. TV just wasn’t the same. Besides, she sort of had this movie crush on Jimmy Stewart. She said she’d never liked him, or even considered him very manly, until he started making westerns. The Avalon had a double feature showing last year, the lonely night of the anniversary of her husband’s death, so I packed her off to a restaurant for some Chinese food and then we went to the movies, The Naked Spur with Stewart and Seven Men from Now with Randolph Scott. Great films and she had a grand time.
I went up the back stairs. Frost shone on the steps. I had to hold on to the handrail. I stopped and looked up at the moon and stars again. I thought of Sputnik and the space program that was going on at the University of Iowa. People like me didn’t look quite so foolish anymore, buying science fiction magazines. Except for the ones where green and many-tentacled monsters were ravishing earth girls in bikinis. We probably weren’t going to find a race of horny monsters in outer space, ray gun in one tentacle and a Trojan in the other.
I got the back door opened and reached around to flick on the light. A voice said, “Please don’t turn on the light.”
“Mary?”
“I’m smoking one of your cigarettes. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Since when do you smoke?”
“Since tonight, I guess.”
I closed the door and came into the living room. I could see her now, sitting in the overstuffed chair. She looked small and young. The alley light cast everything in stark patches of wan light and brilliant shadow, like a Humphrey Bogart movie.
I took my coat off and sat on the couch. She took another drag on the cigarette and then started hacking. “I guess I don’t know how to smoke.”
“Good. It’s not good for you.”
“You smoke.”
“I know. But you’re a lot smarter than I am.”
“Oh, shit, McCain.”
“What?”
“It was awful.”
“What was?”
“Tonight. With Wes. At the pharmacy.”
“What happened?”
“People told him about you and me. You know, last night. Out in the woods and everything.”
“Oh.”
“I know you think he’s a jerk, McCain. But the way he was raised—his father’s a real Bible-thumper and beat him all the time. You should see him in a swimming suit. You can see these old scars and old welts all over his back. He’s got some of that Bible-thumper stuff in him. That’s the part I hate. But the other part—”
We sat there and didn’t say anything for a while.
“You want anything to drink?” I said.
“No, thanks.”
We went silent again. I heard cars passing out on the street. A couple of times, light trucks went by and the windows vibrated. The cats came out and looked us over and apparently didn’t find us particularly exciting. They went back into the bedroom.
She said, “He cried.”
“Tonight, you mean?”
“Yes. After I got done working, he was waiting for me out in back. He was in his car. He told me to get in. Usually, when I make him mad, he kind of shouts at me. But tonight he was quiet. Real quiet. He kind of scared me a little bit, in fact. The way he just kept looking at me. So I got in the car. I was afraid not to. And then he took me for a ride. I don’t think he knew where he was going. He was just driving, you know how you just drive around sometimes. And then when we were out in the park and driving by the duck pond, he started crying. Just sobbing. I didn’t know what to do.”
She frowned. “Then we got out of the car and walked on the hill above the swimming pool. It looks real strange in winter, like ancient ruins or something. Then he finally talked. He told me how much he loved me and that he knew I loved you and knew that you loved Pamela and that he didn’t know what to do about it. And then he said that even if I didn’t love him now, he was sure I’d love him someday, and that we should still go through with the marriage and pick out a house and plan to have a kid and everything.”
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“You’ve succeeded in doing the impossible.”
“What?”
“He’s one of the most pompous, arrogant bastards in the valley and now you’ve got me feeling sorry for him. His dad beats him, you and I damned near crushed him and now he’s willing to marry you even if you don’t love him.”
“I feel terrible.”
“So do I.”
“Maybe I love him, McCain, and don’t even realize it.”
“Maybe.”
“God, McCain, what should I do?”
“I don’t know.”
“I shouldn’t be here.”
“No, you shouldn’t.”
“I feel like a whore.”
“Oh, c’mon.”
“I don’t even know if I love you anymore, McCain.”
“It’d be easier if you didn’t.”
“Easier for who?”
I paused. “For all three of us. You and him and me.”
“I guess you’re right.” Then, “I really do feel like a whore, McCain.”
I thought of Ruthie saying that. Ruthie and Mary were about as far from being whores as you could get. And yet they didn’t seem to believe
that.
The phone rang. In the shadows, the rings were loud, ominous. I didn’t get it until the fourth ring. The phone was on the cigarette-scarred coffee table along with the new issues of Playboy and Manhunt.
A voice said, “He wants to talk to you, McCain.” No amenities. Lurlene Greene.
“Where is he?”
“Here. Home.”
“Why didn’t Darin call me himself?”
“I had to talk him into it.”
“I see.”
“He’s waiting for you.”
“He sober?”
Mary was on her feet, pushing her arms into her coat. She gave me a wan little wave and went to the back door. I waved her off, pointing to the chair, indicating she should sit down. I didn’t want her to leave in the mood she was in. I felt a surge of affection for her. I wanted to hold her, smell her hair, feel her mouth on mine. Sometimes, I felt just as confused as she did.
“Are you coming out?” Lurlene asked.
Mary left quietly. I went back to the phone conversation.
“As soon as I can. Half an hour, say.”
“I don’t know how long I can hold him, Mr. McCain. You best hurry.” She hung up.
23
I WAS HALFWAY DOWN the stairs before I realized there was a car in the alley. I recognized the new Buick. It belonged to Wes, the pharmacist. Mary’s Wes. The engine was running, the parking lights were on. As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I could see two people sitting in the front seat, Wes and Mary.
I felt sick. I wasn’t afraid of him, but I was embarrassed for him. I’d followed Pamela to all kinds of unlikely places over the years. Sometimes, when I needed to see her, it was like a fever coming over me. I wasn’t quite aware of what I was doing. I was all raw need. And then I’d see her and it would be all right. Just seeing her was enough.
There’s a kind of symmetry to love affairs ending in cars. That’s where most of them start and have since the days of the Model-T. You start out necking and then it gets more serious and then pretty soon you’re going all the way. You read a lot of magazine articles about how men are always walking out on women, but I know an awful lot of men who’ve been walked out on, too. Whenever I hear one sex or the other trying to stake a claim on virtue, I generally leave the room.