by James Ellroy
"No way you could die from hitting your head like that," Neil said.
"Sure you could," Mike said. "You hit it just the right way."
"He can't be dead," Neil said. "I'm going to try his pulse again."
Bob, who obviously took Neil's second opinion personally, frowned and rolled his eyes. "He's dead, man. He really is."
"Bullshit."
"You a doctor or something?" Bob said.
Neil smiled nervously. "No, but I play one on TV."
So Neil tried the pulse points. His reading was exactly what Bob's reading had been.
"See," Bob said.
I guess none of us was destined to ever quite be an adult.
"Man," Neil said, looking down at the long, cold, unmoving form of the burglar. "He's really dead."
"What the hell're we gonna do?" Mike said.
"We're going to call the police," I said, and started for the phone.
"The hell we are," Mike said. "The hell we are."
3
Maybe half an hour after we laid him on the kitchen floor, he started to smell. We'd looked for identification and found none. He was just the Burglar.
We sat at the kitchen table, sharing a fifth of Old Grand-Dad and innumerable beers.
We'd taken two votes, and they'd come up ties. Two for calling the police, Bob and I; two for not calling the police, Mike and Neil.
"All we have to tell them" I said, "is that we tied him up so he wouldn't get away."
"And then they say," Mike said, "so why didn't you call us before now?"
"We just lie about the time a little," I said. "Tell them we called them within twenty minutes."
"Won't work," Neil said.
"Why not?" Bob said.
"Medical examiner can fix the time of death," Neil said.
"Not that close."
"Close enough so that the cops might question our story," Neil said. "By the time they get here, he'll have been dead at least an hour, hour and a half."
"And then we get our names in the paper for not reporting the burglary or the death right away," Mike said. "Brokerages just love publicity like that."
"I'm calling the cops right now," I said, and started up from the table.
"Think about Tomlinson a minute," Neil said.
Tomlinson was my boss at the brokerage. "What about him?"
"Remember how he canned Dennis Bryce when Bryce's ex-wife took out a restraining order on him?"
"This is different," I said.
"The hell it is," Mike said. "Neil's right, none of our bosses will like publicity like this. We'll all sound a little—crazy—you know, keeping him locked up in the basement. And then killing him when he tried to get away."
They all looked at me.
"You bastards," I said. "I was the one who wanted to call the police in the first place. And I sure as hell didn't try to kill him on purpose."
"Looking back on it," Neil said, "I guess you were right, Aaron. We should've called the cops right away."
"Now's a great time to realize that," I said.
"Maybe they've got a point," Bob said softly, glancing at me, then glancing nervously away.
"Oh, great. You, too?" I said.
"They just might kick my black ass out of there if I had any publicity that involved somebody getting killed," Bob said.
"He was a frigging burglar," I said.
"But he's dead," Neil said.
"And we killed him," Mike said.
"I appreciate you saying 'we,'" I said.
"I know a good place," Bob said.
I looked at him carefully, afraid of what he was going to say next.
"Forget it," I said.
"A good place for what?" Neil said.
"Dumping the body," Bob said.
"No way," I said.
This time, when I got up, nobody tried to stop the yellow wall telephone.
I wondered if the cozy kitchen would ever feel that a dead body had been laid upon its floor.
I had to step over him to reach the phone. The sour now.
"You know how many bodies get dumped in the up?" Bob said.
"No," I said, "and you don't either."
"Lots," he said.
"There's a scientific appraisal for you. 'Lots.'"
"Lots and lots, probably," Neil said, taking up Bob's argument.
Mike grinned. "Lots and lots and lots."
"Thank you, Professor," I said.
I lifted the receiver and dialed o. me. I walked over to the same to me now smell was even more river that never wash "Operator."
"The Police Department, please."
"Is this an emergency?" asked the young woman. Usually, I would have spent more time wondering if the sweetness of her voice was matched by the sweetness of her face and body. I'm still a face man. I suppose it's my romantic side. "Is this an emergency?" she repeated.
"No; no, it isn't."
"I'll connect you," she said.
"You think your kids'll be able to handle it?" Neil said.
"No mind games," I said.
"No mind games at all," he said. "I'm asking you a very realistic question. The police have some doubts about our story and then the press gets ahold of it, and bam. We're the lead story on all three channels. 'Did four middle-class men murder the burglar they captured?' The press even goes after the kids these days. 'Do you think your daddy murdered that burglar, son?'"
"Good evening. Police Department."
I started to speak, but I couldn't somehow. My voice wouldn't work. That's the only way I can explain it.
"The six o'clock news five nights running"' Neil said softly behind me. "And the DA can't endorse any kind of vigilante activity, so he nails us on involuntary manslaughter."
"Hello? This is the Police Department," said the black female voice on the phone.
Neil was there then, reaching me as if by magic.
He took the receiver gently from my hand and hung it back up on the phone again.
"Let's go have another drink and see what Bob's got in mind, all right?"
He led me, as if I were a hospital patient, slowly and carefully back to the table, where Bob, over more whiskey, slowly and gently laid out his plan.
The next morning, three of us phoned in sick. Bob went to work because he had an important meeting.
Around noon—a sunny day when a softball game and a cold six-pack of beer sounded good —Neil and Mike came over. They looked as bad as I felt, and no doubt looked, myself.
We sat out on the patio eating the Hardee's lunch they'd bought. I'd need to play softball to work off some of the calories I was eating.
Birdsong and soft breezes and the smell of fresh-cut grass should have made our patio time enjoyable. But I had to wonder if we'd ever enjoy anything again. I just kept seeing the body momentarily arced above the roaring waters of the dam, and dropping into white, churning turbulence.
"You think we did the right thing?" Neil said.
"Now's a hell of a time to ask that," I said.
"Of course we did the right thing," Mike said. "What choice did we have? It was either that or get our asses arrested."
"So you don't have any regrets?" Neil said.
Mike sighed. "I didn't say that. I mean, I wish it hadn't happened in the first place."
"Maybe Aaron was right all along," Neil said.
"About what?"
"About going to the cops."
"Goddamn," Mike said, sitting up from his slouch. We all wore button-down shirts without ties and with the sleeves rolled up. Somehow there was something profane about wearing shorts and T-shirts on a workday. We even wore pretty good slacks. We were those kind of people. "Goddamn."
"Here he goes," Neil said.
"I can't believe you two," Mike said. "We should be happy that everything went so well last night—and what're we doing? Sitting around here pissing and moaning."
"That doesn't mean it's over," I said.
"Why the hell not?" Mike said.
"Because there's still one left."
"One what?"
"One burglar."
"So?"
"So you don't think he's going to get curious about what the hell happened to his partner?"
"What's he gonna do?" Mike said. "Go to the cops?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe? You're crazy. He goes to the cops, he'd be setting himself up for a robbery conviction."
"Not if he tells them we murdered his pal."
Neil said, "Aaron's got a point. What if this guy goes to the cops?"
"He's not going to the cops," Mike said. "No way he's going to the cops at all."
4
I was dozing on the couch, a Cubs game on the TV set, when the phone rang around nine that evening. I hadn't heard from Jan yet, so I expected it would be her. Whenever we're apart, we call each other at least once a day.
The phone machine picks up on the fourth ring, so I had to scramble to beat it.
"Hello?"
Nothing. But somebody was on the line. Listening.
"Hello?"
I never play games with silent callers. I just hang up. I did so now.
Two innings later, having talked to Jan, having made myself a tuna fish sandwich on rye, found a package of potato chips I thought we'd finished off at the poker game, and gotten myself a new can of beer, I sat down to watch the last inning. The Cubs had a chance of winning. I said a silent prayer to the god of baseball.
The phone rang.
I mouthed several curses around my mouthful of tuna sandwich and went to the phone.
"Hello?" I said, trying to swallow the last of the bite.
My silent friend again.
I slammed the phone.
The Cubs got two more singles. I started on the chips, and I had polished off the beer and was thinking of getting another one when the phone rang again.
I had a suspicion of who was calling and then saying nothing —but I didn't really want to think about it.
Then I decided there was an easy way to handle this situation. I'd just let the phone machine take it. If my anonymous friend wanted to talk to a phone machine, good for him.
Four rings. The phone machine took over, Jan's pleasant voice saying that we weren't home but would be happy to call you back if you'd just leave your number.
I waited to hear dead air and then a click.
Instead, a familiar female voice said, "Aaron, it's Louise. Bob—" Louise was Bob's wife. She was crying. I ran from the couch to the phone machine in the hall.
"Hello, Louise. It's Aaron."
"Oh, Aaron. It's terrible."
"What happened, Louise?"
"Bob—" More tears. "He electrocuted himself tonight out in the garage." She said that a plug had accidentally fallen into a bowl of water, according to the fire captain on the scene, and Bob hadn't noticed this and put the plug into the outlet and—
Bob had a woodcraft workshop in his garage, a large and sophisticated one. He knew what he was doing. "He's dead, Aaron. He's dead."
"Oh, God, Louise. I'm sorry."
"He was so careful with electricity, too. It's just so hard to believe—"
Yes, I thought. Yes, it was hard to believe. I thought of last night. Of the burglars — one who'd died, one who'd gotten away.
"Why don't I come over?"
"Oh, thank you, Aaron, but I need to be alone with the children. But if you could call Neil and Mike—"
"Of course."
"Thanks for being such good friends, you and Jan."
"Don't be silly, Louise. The pleasure's ours."
"I'll talk to you tomorrow. When I'm —you know."
"Good night, Louise."
Mike and Neil were at my place within twenty minutes. We sat in the kitchen again, where we were last night.
I said, "Either of you get any weird phone calls tonight?"
"You mean just silence?" Neil said.
"Right."
"I did," Mike said. "Tracy was afraid it was that pervert who called all last winter."
"I did, too," Neil said. "Three of them."
"Then a little while ago, Bob dies out in his garage," I said. "Some coincidence."
"Hey, Aaron," Mike said. "Is that why you got us over here? Because you don't think it was an accident?"
"I'm sure it wasn't an accident," I said. "Bob knew what he was doing with his tools. He didn't notice a plug that had fallen into a bowl of water?"
"He's coming after us," Neil said.
"Oh, God," Mike said. "Not you, too."
"He calls us, gets us on edge," I said. "And then he kills Bob. Making it look like an accident."
"These are pretty bright people," Mike said sarcastically.
"You notice the burglar's eyes?" Neil said.
"I did," I said. "He looked very bright."
"And spooky," Neil said. "Never saw eyes like that before."
"I can shoot your theory right in the butt," Mike said.
"How?" I said.
He leaned forward, sipped his beer. I'd thought about putting out some munchies, but somehow that seemed wrong given poor Bob's death and the phone calls. The beers we had to have. The munchies were too festive.
"Here's how. There are two burglars, right? One gets caught, the other runs. And given the nature of burglars, keeps on running. He wouldn't even know who was in the house last night, except for Aaron, and that's only because he's the owner and his name would be in the phone book. But he wouldn't know anything about Bob or Neil or me. No way he'd have been able to track down Bob."
I shook my head. "You're overlooking the obvious."
"Like what?"
"Like he runs off last night, gets his car, and then parks in the alley to see what's going to happen."
"Right," Neil said. "Then he sees us bringing his friend out wrapped in a blanket. He follows us to the dam and watches us throw his friend in."
"And" I said, "everybody had his car here last night. Very easy for him to write down all the license numbers."
"So he kills Bob," Neil said. "And starts making the phone calls to shake us up."
"Why Bob?"
"Maybe he hates black people," I said.
Mike looked first at me and then at Neil. "You know what this is?"
"Here he goes," Neil said.
"No; no, I'm serious here. This is Catholic guilt."
"How can it be Catholic guilt when I'm Jewish?" Neil said.
"In a culture like ours, everybody is a little bit Jewish and a little bit Catholic, anyway," Mike said. "So you guys are in the throes of Catholic guilt. You feel bad about what we had to do last night—and we did have to do it, we really didn't have any choice—and the guilt starts to prey on your mind. So poor Bob electrocutes himself accidentally, and you immediately think it's the second burglar."
"He followed him" Neil said.
"What?" Mike said.
"That's what he did, I bet. The burglar. Followed Bob around all day trying to figure out what was the best way to kill him. You know, the best way that would look like an accident. So then he finds out about the workshop and decides it's perfect."
"That presumes," Mike said, "that one of us is going to be next."
"Hell, yes," Neil said. "That's why he's calling us. Shake us up. Sweat us out. Let us know that he's out there somewhere, just waiting. And that we're next."
"I'm going to follow you to work tomorrow, Neil," I said. "And Mike's going to be with me."
"You guys are having breakdowns. You really are," Mike said.
"We'll follow Neil tomorrow," I said. "And then on Saturday, you and Neil can follow me. If he's following us around, then we'll see it. And then we can start following him. We'll at least find out who he is."
"And then what?" Mike said. "Suppose we do find out where he lives? Then what the hell do we do?"
Neil said, "I guess we worry about that when we get there, don't we?"
In the morning, I picked Mike up early. We stopped off for doughnuts and coffee.
He's like my brother, not a morning person. Crabby. Our conversation was at a minimum, though he did say, "I could've used the extra hour's sleep this morning. Instead of this crap, I mean."
As agreed, we parked half a block from Neil's house. Also as agreed, Neil emerged exactly at 7:35. Kids were already in the wide suburban streets on skateboards and rollerblades. No other car could be seen, except for a lone silver BMW in a driveway far down the block.
We followed him all the way to work. Nobody else followed him. Nobody.
When I dropped Mike off at his office, he said, "You owe me an hour's sleep."
"Two hours," I said.
"Huh?"
"Tomorrow, you and Neil follow me around."
"No way," he said.
There are times when only blunt anger will work with Mike. "It was your idea not to call the police, remember? I'm not up for any of your sulking, Mike. I'm really not."
He sighed. "I guess you're right."
I drove for two and a half hours Saturday morning. I hit a hardware store, a lumberyard, and a Kmart. At noon, I pulled into a McDonald's. The three of us had some lunch.
"You didn't see anybody even suspicious?"
"Not even suspicious, Aaron," Neil said. "I'm sorry."
"This is all bullshit. He's not going to follow us around."
"I want to give it one more chance," I said.
Mike made a face. "I'm not going to get up early, if that's what you've got in mind."
I got angry again. "Bob's dead, or have you forgotten?"
"Yeah, Aaron," Mike said. "Bob is dead. He got electrocuted. Accidentally."
I said, "You really think it was an accident?"
"Of course I do," Mike said. "When do you want to try it again?"
"Tonight. I'll do a little bowling."
"There's a fight on I want to watch," Mike said.
"Tape it," I said.
"'Tape it,'" he mocked. "Since when did you start giving us orders?"
"Oh, for God's sake, Mike, grow up," Neil said. "There's no way that Bob's electrocution was an accident or a coincidence. He's probably not going to stop with Bob either."
The bowling alley was mostly teenagers on Saturday night. There was a time when bowling was mostly a working-class sport. Now it's come to the suburbs and the white-collar people. Now the bowling lane is a good place for teenage boys to meet teenage girls.