Like every other question that came to mind, he didn't have an answer. The questions were dots that needed connecting, and beyond hoping to find the truth, Jordan hoped to find the one thing that had eluded him: a clue leading to the identity of the shooter. He really needed to get ahold of the Cordova file, refresh his memory—see if he could find more details about Esperanza. The details Holister had kept hidden, even from him. And, the hard part: finding out if Buddy Mozel was truly Tito Cordova's father. Somehow it made sense, and for some reason, Jordan felt in his gut that that was where the motive existed to the shooting. He had to see that file to make sure. And he had to get Hogue off his ass.
He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and uncupped his hands. Spider was right, now was not the time to shift through the ashes. He needed to get ahold of himself. In an odd way, he was beginning to feel refreshed. Fuck Johnny Ray. Fuck the Town Board. He could prove his innocence with the note and medallion. The ballistics test would exonerate him. There was no way the timing of the fire could be traced to him. He was in Morland, in the hospital, and on his way home. Hogue was grabbing at air, making something out of nothing to make himself look good, to ease the fears of everyone, assure them that there wasn't a madman running loose in Dukaine shooting policemen and setting houses on fire. Hogue was wrong, and the sheriff had known it from the beginning.
The arson van pulled away. Jordan reached for a cigarette and lit it. Sweat rolled off his forehead. He grabbed a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his face, and took a deep hit off the cigarette. He exhaled, focused on relaxing.
A helicopter thumped in the distance, growing closer. The laughter of the cicadas was drowned out, and a brief wind whipped the leaves as the helicopter passed overhead, flying south, toward Indianapolis, at high speed. The chopper was painted bright red, a white stripe down the side with the number 8 plastered on the tail. A television news helicopter rushing back to the station with a story. An update at noon? Or was their work done? There was no way to know, but the chopper looked like a dragonfly fleeing a kingbird. Whatever the news, Jordan sensed it was urgent, not good. Perhaps the perky little bitch that interviewed Hogue finally got her scoop.
The county cruiser and unmarked sedan backed out of the driveway and followed the van. He watched them drive slowly down Harrison, in the opposite direction from him, and turn left on Tyler Street, probably taking the back way out of town, the shortcut to Morland.
A siren warbled in the distance, far away, to the south. He couldn't tell if it was coming or going. Jordan decided to go back to the tavern and get Spider. He took another puff of the cigarette and ground it out with his boot. Going to the house seemed to be a stupid exercise that would only bring more pain. It was no longer an option. He could see from here that there was nothing left. The time would come to shift through the ashes, but it wasn't now. Answers from the arson investigation was all he needed.
It was time to find Hogue. José would have to wait.
He stood up a little too fast, his vision blurry, a little dizzy. A car stopped on Lincoln Street at the stop sign behind him, the engine rumbling. The car was loud, like it had a hole in the muffler, and the driver revved the engine to get his attention.
His throat was parched. A grasshopper lit on his shoulder. Jordan brushed the insect off and caught a glimpse of the car out of the corner of his eye. It was an old El Camino, mid-70s, dark brown with the wheel-wells rusted out, the rear-end jacked-up with air shocks. Ed Kirsch was sitting behind the steering wheel. “I've been looking for you, McManus.”
“Looks like you found me,” Jordan said. “How's Holister?”
Ed put the car in park and left the engine idling. Wisps of blue smoke trickled upward out of the tailpipes, dual-exhaust with chrome extenders.
“I don't know, and at the moment I don't fucking care,” Ed said. He opened the door and pulled his lanky frame out of the El Camino. A ten-inch metal pipe dangled from his right hand.
Jordan tensed when he saw the pipe, realized Ed's intent. For a fleeting moment, he thought about running. He looked beyond Ed, considered bolting to Corney Lefay's house and beating on the door, but he doubted he could make it, that he could outrun Ed. The thought vanished as quickly as it came. Running never ended anything. Running only prolonged the eventual outcome. He knew this was coming. “I take it you got a problem with me,” he said.
“Yeah, you're my problem, McManus. You always have been,” Ed answered, walking toward him. His eyes were glazed, a wildness in them Jordan had seen before when busting a meth house.
“You better just stop right there.” The tone of Jordan's voice dropped an octave into cop mode. Everything, his body, his thoughts, turned to forming an exit strategy, apprehending the suspect without getting hurt.
“Looks like you're on your own, now. No badge, no radio, no backup. It's just you and me, McManus.”
Jordan backed up onto the curb. “Why don't you drop the pipe and fight like a real man?”
“Why don't you shut up? You been fucking my wife. What do you know about being a real man?” Ed said, his teeth clenched, his breathing heavy. Five feet from Jordan, he took a swing at him with the pipe and lunged at him at the same time.
Jordan jumped out of the way. But he felt the breeze off the pipe, could smell Ed's sweat. “You're making a big mistake, Ed.”
“You made the mistake by messing with Ginny.”
“Good thing I didn't mess with your little waitress friend at the truck stop then, isn't it?” He got his footing, planted his feet.
Ed stopped.
“Who's been fucking who, Ed? You think Ginny doesn't know what's going on when you're supposed to be out on the road?” Jordan said.
Ed Kirsch's face turned red. Jordan could see the anger rising from his throat up to his beady brown eyes. He knew he only had a second or two to put things on even footing, so he reached behind him as he took another step backward, and pulled the .38 from the holster.
“Now, motherfucker,” Jordan said, aiming the gun at Ed's forehead. “Lose the pipe. Lose the fucking pipe.”
Ed laughed. “You ain't gonna shoot me, McManus.”
Jordan pulled back the hammer with his thumb. Click. “I told you you were making a mistake.” Sweat rolled over his eyes, the salt stung. A mosquito bit the back of his neck. He was numb. Any pain he had before Ed showed up was forgotten, lost in the moment of trying to survive.
The only thing Jordan could hear was his heartbeat thumping a million beats a minute.
“Leave her alone, McManus. Just leave her alone.”
It was a concession and Jordan knew it. Ed's shoulder slumped an inch, his breathing lessened. Rock, paper, and scissors: a .38 beat a metal pipe every time.
“Not a problem, Ed, I'll leave her alone as long as you pay her some attention and quit fucking around on her.”
“You don't get it, do you, McManus?”
“I'm a little hard-headed.”
Jordan blinked, wiped his eye with his free hand.
Ed threw the pipe at him. Jordan dodged it, but the tip of the pipe caught him on the shoulder. Pain shot through his arm, and he staggered backward with a gasp. Ed rushed him, tackled him. As they fell to the ground, the gun fired.
The bullet hit the sidewalk, missing Ed. The retort echoed in Jordan's ear. Ed grabbed his wrist, trying to wrestle the gun from his grip. They rolled on the ground, Ed on top of him. Ed punched him in the stomach, knocking the air out of him, but Jordan held onto the gun.
Never let go of your weapon. Never. Or you're a dead man.
Jordan kneed Ed in the crotch, elbowing him in the face at the same time. Blood exploded from Ed's nose. He could hear the cartilage snapping, a thousand little bones stabbing the inside of Ed's face at the same time.
Ed screamed and rolled off Jordan.
Jordan bounded up to his feet and staggered back, pointing the .38 at Ed's chest, holding his shoulder at the same time, panting heavily. “You move another inch, fucker, a
nd you're a dead man!”
Ed groaned, his hands covering his face, blood gushing between his fingers, like his jugular had been cut, the nuts cut off a pig. Rage filled Ed's eyes. “No, you're the dead man.”
Jordan backed up, bumped into a tree. He pulled the hammer back again, lining another round up with the barrel. The line had already been crossed. He had no choice but to shoot Ed Kirsch. A breath escaped his lungs as he put his finger on the trigger.
“Put the gun down, Jordan!” a voice behind him yelled.
Everything went silent. The cicadas had stopped their taunting song. No sirens or helicopters made any noise in the distance. Only the reverberation of the voice bounced inside his head. It made everything inside of him stop, made everything inside of him go cold.
“I said, put the goddamn gun down, Jordan!” Big Joe McManus yelled. “Put it down now!”
CHAPTER 17
September 21, 1991, 2:15 P.M.
Jordan sat in the backseat of Charlie Overdorf's car, the door open, smoking a cigarette, occasionally taking a swig of beer from the bottle he hid between his legs. “Come on, man, let's go,” he yelled to Spider. Time was ticking. Weekends were short when you were still in high school.
“Not until I miss,” Spider said. He was in his wheelchair at the free throw line, eyeing the rim, the square of the backboard, dribbling the ball without concentration, without looking. He wore a red plaid flannel shirt, unbuttoned, over a white T-shirt. Kitty had bought him the shirt for his twenty-first birthday, which was the day before.
“We could be here all day,” Jordan answered.
“So? What's the big fuckin' hurry?” In a swift, flawless motion, Spider aimed the basketball, released it into the air, and watched it glide perfectly through the rim, swishing the net. He raised both arms up in the air, clenched his fists, and yelled, “Yes. Nothin' but net, fuckers. How many is that?”
“Forty-two,” Charlie Overdorf said as he grabbed the ball from behind the goal and tossed it back to Spider.
“A new world record!” Spider said, catching the ball, spinning the wheelchair in a circle, the front wheels off the ground.
A cool autumn breeze whipped up a pile of scarlet oak leaves and scattered them across the basketball court at the elementary school. The afternoon sun beamed overhead. Hard skeins of light poked through cumulous clouds in the distance, spotlighting distant tomato fields. The quietness of a normal Saturday was evident beyond the continual bounce of a basketball as Spider lined up for another shot.
“Charlie said he'd let me drive,” Jordan said, climbing out of the beat-up Electra 225. He'd got his driver's license a year before, just after he turned sixteen, and always wanted to drive. He loved it. It didn't matter if all he did was drive up and down the streets of Dukaine in Kitty's Oldsmobile, there was no way he could ever be bored driving. The freedom he felt behind the wheel was akin to riding his bike the first time, when he could go anywhere in town he wanted to go. Only now the distances were farther, the means quicker, his taste for speed unquenchable, restrained only by his lack of wheels, his lack of a car of his own, that he wanted desperately. According to Kitty, Jordan was not going to get a car until he graduated from high school.
Spider stopped dribbling the ball. “Are you fuckin' nuts, Charlie? I'm not ridin' with him.”
Charlie scrunched his shoulders as a goofy look crossed his face. Charlie's eyes were set a little far apart on his face and any time he tried to smile, or show an expression, his eyes looked like they were staring sideways. Other than that, he was a normal, tall, brown-haired kid with a good complexion. But he blamed his eyes for his continual lack of a girlfriend.
“What're you afraid of, Spider? I'm a good driver,” Jordan said. He tossed the cigarette, chugged the remainder of the beer, and walked to the center of the court.
“How many beers you had?” Spider asked.
“Two,” Jordan said.
“Liar,” Charlie said. “He had three.”
“Like I said, I'm not ridin' with him. I ain't got any legs, I sure as hell don't want to lose my arms, too. What time is it?”
“Almost two-thirty,” Charlie said.
“Shit. We better go. I'm supposed to be at the tavern by four,” Spider said. “My record will have to stand until another day.”
“I'm going home then,” Jordan said.
“You better not let Kitty smell beer on your breath or my ass is grass,” Spider said.
“She hasn't got a clue about what I do.”
“Yeah, right.” Spider wheeled himself to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. He hoisted himself up with the strength of a gymnast doing an iron cross and flopped into the seat. Jordan folded up the wheelchair and hoisted it into the trunk. He staggered backward before he sat it down, drawing laughs from inside the car.
“You're in great shape to put one over on Kitty—I think you better just stay with us for a little while,” Spider said.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jordan said, slamming the trunk.
“You're not man enough to make me.”
“Would you two knock it off?” Charlie said.
“Chill out, we're just fuckin' around,” Spider said.
“One of you is.”
Anger hardened Jordan's face, and stiffened his walk. He got in the car, slammed the door, and hit the button to lower the electric window. Some days he wished he and Spider could go at it, throw some fists, and get their fucking fight over with. But that was never going to happen.
“Time to roll,” Charlie said, digging in the ashtray for a roach.
“I'm tellin' ya,” Spider said, pulling a tiny joint out of his pocket. “Last one. We need to go see if we can score another bag before I go to work. Bad thing is, there's only one place to go right now.”
Charlie shot Spider a sideways glance. “Gotta do what you gotta do.”
“I hate buying off that motherfucker,” Spider hesitated, stared out the window for a second. “Let's go.”
“Excellent,” Charlie said. He slapped in a cassette tape, Honeyboy Edwards, Devil's Train, into the player mounted underneath the dash. A slow four-note riff thumped the speakers, and Honeyboy Edwards's bluesy voice sprang forth, promising a good time as the riff rounded off in a bend and flurry of quarter notes. The smell of pot immediately filled the car.
“Yeah, man, now that's what I'm talking about,” Spider said. “Where'd you get that tape? I can't wait to start playing the kind of music I like, once the old man turns over the tavern to me.”
“When's he leaving?” Jordan asked.
“He's packing. Soon, I guess.”
“Not soon enough,” Jordan muttered under his breath.
“My cousin in Chicago sent me the tape,” Charlie answered. “I can hook you up with him. He knows a lot of the old dudes who still play in the clubs.”
“Cool.”
Charlie eased the car out of the parking lot and headed west on Lincoln Street. He held the joint between the seats, offering it to Jordan. “You want any of this? Bogart here'll smoke it all if you don't take it now.”
Jordan shook his head. He preferred beer. Pot made him sleepy, and it was something he knew he just didn't like. His mind wandered aimlessly, he obsessed over hopelessly small things, grew sad quickly. With a couple of beers he felt lighter, relaxed; the recipe worked for him, it tasted good, and sometimes it seemed as if he could never drink enough to quench his thirst. Spider was always good for a couple of beers, but he was also leery of getting caught providing beer to Jordan—Spider's only rule was that he had to be around when Jordan was drinking.
“I'll have another beer,” Jordan said.
“You're done, pal.” Spider turned around from the front seat and gave Jordan his “I'm the big brother . . . and you'll do what I say,” stare.
Jordan gave him the finger. Spider slapped the universal fuck-you sign away. Jordan reached back and smacked Spider upside the head. He hit him a little harder than he'd intended, and pulled bac
k immediately, then fell back into the seat out of Spider's reach.
Charlie exhaled loudly. “Would you two knock it off? Jesus! You're worse than two four-year-olds.”
“I ought to beat the shit out of you,” Spider said.
“How you going to do that?” Jordan laughed.
“Pull the car over, Charlie,” Spider demanded. “I've had enough of his shit. It's time the little punk learned a lesson.”
“How you going to catch me?” Jordan persisted, grabbing hold of the door handle, ready to flee.
“You can't outrun Charlie. He'll hold you down, and I'll do the punching. Think about that, fucker,” Spider said.
“Shit,” Charlie said suddenly, in a tone that drew Spider's attention away from Jordan.
“What?” Spider asked.
As Charlie turned left on Kennedy and headed toward Main Street, he slowed the Electra to a crawl. “It's Holister.”
Jordan rose up in the seat, peered between the front seats, and saw the white police cruiser sitting at the corner of Kennedy and Main.
Charlie turned down the music, Honeyboy's voice fading to static, and hit the button that rolled down all of the windows. “Be cool,” he said, pushing the Buick back up to normal speed. Cool air washed the pot aroma out the window.
Charlie stopped at the stop sign, pulled right up next to the police car, and waved at Holister. Holister nodded. Charlie hit the turn signal and slowly turned right onto Main Street, heading west toward the plant.
“Oh, man,” Charlie said. “He's following us. What should I do, Spider?”
“Just keep driving,” Spider said, watching the rearview mirror closely.
Jordan's heart was beating rapidly. It was difficult to resist the urge to look behind him, to see Holister following them. A million scenarios jumped through Jordan's mind. Getting caught drinking was one thing, deep shit for sure, but getting caught with pot in the car was another. Holister had little tolerance for drugs. And at the moment, he had little tolerance for Jordan—a week earlier Holister had caught Ginny and him in the basement making love. Holister damn near kicked Jordan's ass, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him up the stairs. Jordan's big mistake was taking a swing at Holister—he caught the marshal right under the chin and sent him tumbling back down the stairs. Holister broke his wrist in the fall and had a cast on his arm—and the marshal still hadn't decided if he was going to press charges, but he did write up a report.
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