Past Tense

by Stephen Greenleaf

  We did horsy and bumblebee and itsy-bitsy spider and that was half my repertory. We did peekaboo and piggy goes to market and soooo big and that was the other half. As I was casting about for further entertainments, Millicent looked at her watch. “I like to take her out while she’s still alert enough to notice things. You’ll come with us, won’t you, Marsh?”

  “Sorry. I don’t have time.”

  She didn’t take her eyes off Eleanor. “Then maybe we’ll just stay in today. Since we have a special guest.”

  “No, you go ahead and take your walk. I just wanted to stop and say hello.”

  “Well, we’re very glad you did. Aren’t we, Elliepooh?” She tickled our child under her chin. I stood up and handed her back to her mom.

  “Have I told you how impressed I am with the way you’re raising her, Millicent?”

  “Yes, but it’s always nice to hear it.”

  “Well, you’re doing a good job. You’re a great mother.”

  She smiled and patted Eleanor on the shoulder. “Thank you. She’s an easy child to mother. And you’re a great godfather. I still see you as that, you know, even though you said you didn’t want to be one.”

  “Thank you.”

  “She knows you, you know. I can tell.”

  “So can I. I hope.”

  “Well, she does. And it’s obvious how much you care for her.”

  “That’s good. I mean, I wanted to be sure you both knew that. How much I care.”

  Millicent frowned. “Are you going away, Marsh?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “You sound like you’re planning a trip or something. What I’m saying is, we’ll miss you if you go away. We’ll miss you very much. Both of us.”

  Our eyes met long enough to convey deeply felt and complex messages. “I’m glad,” I said, and kissed both of them on the cheek, then hurried to my car and drove off before they could see that I was crying.

  When I got back to the office, I phoned Clay Oerter. “You can call off the dogs,” I said when he came on the line.

  “Why?”

  “I found him.”

  “Where?”

  “The cemetery.”

  “You mean he’s—”

  “Not his. Flora’s.”

  “Oh. How’s he doing?”

  “Not good. His body’s a mess from the tumor. He can’t stand up straight; his speech is slurred; he can’t walk very well.”

  “He should be in the hospital, not running around …”

  “Shooting people,” I said to complete the thought. “Anyway, I’m going to see him later tonight. He’s got some project in mind. After that, I’m going to try to make him come in from the cold. I’ll let you know how it comes out.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I’ll need it. You might put Jake Hattie on alert.”

  “Will do.” Clay paused. “You sound frightened, Marsh. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard you sound frightened, I think.”

  “I guess maybe I am.”

  “Frightened of what?”

  “I seem to be afraid that I’m going to have to kill him.”

  CHAPTER

  33

  CHARLEY WAS WHERE HE SAID HE’D BE, AT THE CORNER OF Illinois and Twentieth, fifty yards from the impoundment lot where I’d been beaten and broken by the big guy. He was slumping in his truck, looking more like an inebriate than an avenger, obviously on stakeout. I parked a ways away, then walked to the truck and tapped on the window.

  “I hear there’s a fugitive from justice around here somewhere. Seen anyone that fills the bill?”

  He opened the door and let me in. The air was cold and the seat was colder—he must have been waiting a long time.

  I canted against the door and looked him over. He was still wearing his hunting coat and boots, a chambray work shirt and a Norm Thompson rain hat. All three seemed too large for him, making him look slightly comical. It was the first time I’d had that reaction to Charley and it depressed me.

  “You’ve seen better days,” I said, just to start things off.

  “Who hasn’t?”

  “When I saw you at the cemetery, it looked like you were in pain.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not pain.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Neuritis.”

  I laughed. “They haven’t called it that since Anacin ads in the fifties. Why aren’t you letting them treat you?”

  “For what?”

  “The tumor in your fat head.”

  “Who says I have a tumor?”

  “Your doctor.”

  Charley swore, emitting a puff of white mist in the frigid truck. “He’s not supposed to gossip about his patients.”

  “He didn’t.”

  Charley smiled weakly. “Then you must be a detective or something.”

  “And you must be one pissed-off cop. Is the number still three, or are there some I don’t know about?”

  “It’s three.”

  “Are there going to be more?”

  “Probably.”

  “How many?”

  “Three or four.”

  “Minimum or max?”

  “Max.”

  “Are you expecting me to kill some of them for you or are you going to handle it yourself?”

  “I’ll handle it.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “You’re the second front.”

  “As I recall, the second front didn’t fare too well in the big number two.”

  “It turned the tide, is all.”

  “A lot of dead Russians probably didn’t give much of a shit about tides.” I gestured toward the bar. “Who’s inside?”

  “Cops.”

  “The same ones who took me here and beat me up?”

  “Probably.”

  “What are they doing in there?”

  “Getting ready to divide the spoils.”

  “What kind of spoils are we talking about?”

  “Money, drugs, contraband—whatever they’ve managed to filch this month.”

  “Cops?” I repeated.

  “They call themselves the Triad.” He gestured. “The old power station down Twentieth is sort of their clubhouse.”

  “Triad?”

  “It’s some medieval crap. Three levels of honor, or something. Funny how racists always look for some sort of myth to support their habit.”

  “Funny how often they’re able to find one.”

  Charley grunted, then grimaced in pain.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  “Not really.”

  “What is their habit?” I asked after a while.

  “Preying on innocent people.”

  “Extortion?”

  “That’s the least of it.”

  “What’s the most?”

  “Drugs. Whores. Whatever turns a profit.”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  “Years,” he said. “Most of the guys in there now are second generation. Including Hilton.”

  “Gary Hilton’s in there?”

  “Yep.”

  “How many all told?”

  “In the Triad? About thirty. Some are more active than others. Only four showed tonight.”

  “How active is Wally Briscoe?”

  Charley chuckled drily. “Not very, since he got married.”

  “But some of his buddies are.”

  “Yeah. Wally has a tough time saying no.”

  It started to rain. The windows steamed up, the traffic thinned to a sputter, the truck became a vinyl igloo, hermetically sealed, impervious to its environment. “Can I ask a question?” I said.

  “Sure.”

  “What’s going on in your head, Charley?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. You used to worship the system. For all of its faults, you used to believe it was the best we could do and close to
infallible. Now you’re thumbing your nose at it.”

  “Only where it failed.”

  “Over time.”

  “Right. Over time.”

  “And you’re taking action yourself because you’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “Something like that.”

  “How about your reputation? How about your integrity? How about your friends?”

  His laugh was mocking and dismissive. “Clay and Al pretty pissed at me?”

  “Not pissed. Mystified and perplexed and worried. But not pissed.”

  “Good.”

  “The one who’s pissed is me.”

  He laughed. “Why so?”

  “Because you didn’t tell me a fucking thing. Not about the woman; not about the cancer; not about the cop; not about the child; not about anything. You didn’t let me help; you didn’t let me talk you out of it; you didn’t let me stop you.”

  “Which is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

  “Hell, on the best day I ever had I couldn’t stop you from snapping your fingers.”

  “You could now,” he said wistfully. The words wafted toward me from a weary, tired man, weak and getting weaker, terrified of his deterioration. This was clearly his last stand: I was going to try for as long as I could to regard it as noble.

  “The cancer’s a tough break, Charley. But it may not be all bad. It may be your way out.”

  “In court, you mean? Some sort of insanity nonsense?”

  “Jake thinks it might fly.”

  “That’s not the kind of out I’m looking for,” he said, then watched as a black Explorer pulled up in front of the bar. The driver went inside, then emerged a minute later with four of his buddies in tow. They strolled down Twentieth toward the bay, swearing and swaggering in their civvies, but cops all the same. One of them was huge and especially vulgar. It was nice to have a face to match the body that had mauled me.

  Charley looked at his watch. “I think they’ve got a quorum,” he said.

  He opened the door and got out. I followed suit and joined him by the roadside. “You going to tell me the plan or do I just follow your lead?”

  “You don’t need to know the plan, you just need to know your part.”

  “Which is?”

  “The powerhouse is the white building with the curved windows and tile roof. I’ve already paved the way for you. Give me ten minutes, then slip in the front door and get behind cover and make a nuisance of yourself.”

  “What kind of nuisance?”

  “Say you’re from customs, or DEA, or the feebs—the ineffective bureaucracy of choice. Tell them to freeze. Use pompous lingo. I’ll take care of things when they totally ignore you and start running out the back.”

  “Sounds like the way you and Roberto Sánchez tried to take care of things thirty years ago.”

  “You know about that?”

  “I know about a lot of stuff.”

  “Well, this time there’s backup.”

  I looked around. “Where?”

  He opened his coat. Beneath its drape was a sawed-off riot gun, a Tech-9 assault pistol, and the Ruger that used to be in his nightstand.

  “Jesus, Charley,” I said. “Is even one of them street-legal?”

  “Nope.”

  “You could wipe out the Chinese army with that stuff.”

  “They deserve it, Marsh. They deserve as bad as I can give them.”

  “We must not read the same Bible.”

  “If the Bible had anything to do with anything, I’d have a wife and a son. Ten minutes,” he repeated, then walked toward the powerhouse, the shotgun a terrible stunted tool in the crook of his arm.

  I could have left, of course, got in my car and disappeared, and spent the rest of the evening in bed. But that would mean Charley would die. I could have called the cops and hoped enough good ones were still around to break it up, but that would mean Charley would be humiliated. So I tagged along, silently, reluctantly, nervously, not knowing whether I wanted the operation to succeed or fail, which in most cases is a recipe for disaster.

  When we reached the building, Charley pointed to a car parked across from the entrance. I interpreted it as my staging area. When I was in position, he pointed at his watch, flashed five fingers two times, and continued around toward the rear of the powerhouse.

  I looked at my watch—12:32. Unless I exerted myself, ten minutes from now someone would die. Unless I became a counter-terrorist, in ten minutes there would be a miniature holocaust. Unless I improvised brilliantly, I was going to become an accessory to mass murder. Armed with that knowledge, I sat where I was and waited.

  Maybe it was because Charley was my friend and I owed him one last favor. Or maybe it was because the guys inside had beaten me up and enjoyed it. Or maybe it was because I was frustrated with the system, too, and had been for a long time. Or maybe I was just a coward. Whatever the reason, the next time I looked at my watch I counted to twenty, then drew my gun and eased through the door and hid behind what looked to be a big brown turbine, made of cast iron or something similar. When my heart quit throwing punches at me, I started yelling.

  “Customs! Freeze where you are. The building’s surrounded and we have a warrant to search for contraband. Place your weapons on the floor and your hands on your heads. Move! You have no chance of—”

  The shooting started with a burst from inside the building, directed aimlessly at my perch. The sound was immense and painful but none of the rounds came close enough to do damage. I crouched as low as I could go and waited. In the next second, answering shots came from out back, and after that the firefight was on. Luckily, it was elsewhere.

  There were only four more exchanges, the last a single shot from a handgun. Then came the predictable cries and screams and threats of further harm. Then came silence.

  When it had been quiet for two minutes, Charley called my name.

  “What?”

  “Come on back.”

  “You all right?”

  “Fine. You got any ammunition left?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good,” he said. “Make sure there’s a round in the chamber.”

  CHAPTER

  34

  WHEN I GOT TO THE REAR OF THE POWERHOUSE, THERE WERE five men facedown on the ground, the spokes of a rough-hewn wheel with Charley Sleet at its hub. They were all spread-eagled, with handguns lying somewhere near their person but not near enough to do damage. Charley was looming over them, cradling the riot gun negligently in his arms, the Tech-9 sticking out of his pocket like a loaf of brown bread.

  All but one of the men on the ground were begging for mercy in various forms of entreaty. The exception was the smallest of them, Gary Hilton, the one, I was now sure, who had directed the assault on me two nights before. The rest of the men looked terrified, but Hilton seemed vaguely amused, as though Charley were about to try clog dancing for the first time.

  Charley was mumbling something to himself as he worked, applying those plastic strap handcuffs they use these days, one to a customer, stringing the men up like so many butterballs. When he was finished, he looked at me with a glint of triumph.

  “The bald guy’s still got it,” I said, giving him his due.

  “So it seems,” he agreed affably. “I understand you have a previous relationship with some of these gentlemen.”

  I looked them over till I came to the guy who’d broken my finger. In other circumstances, I’d have been inclined to rough him up a bit, but this time I made do with a quip: “You’re going to have to be lucky if all you get out of this is a broken bone.”

  “Bone, shit. He’s going to kill us.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “Fuck he isn’t,” the big guy grumbled.

  “No, he’s going to call Ingleside and get a paddy wagon out here and charge you with whatever crimes you’ve been committing in that powerhouse back there. Then you’re going to jail and Charley and I are going to Guido’s for a stiff drink.”

&n
bsp; “Bullshit,” the big guy repeated. “He’s going to waste us. Try to stop him, he’ll kill you, too.”

  I looked left. “Maybe you should disabuse him.”

  Charley’s smile had become as stiff as one of his victims. “Sorry. No can do.”

  “Sure you can. I’ll call it in myself. I’ve got a cell phone in the car.”

  “Don’t leave us, man,” the big one pleaded with me.

  “Yeah,” another one piped in. “The bastard’s psycho. He wants to pop us all.”

  “Just like he did Walters,” a third one offered.

  Hilton stayed silent and self-possessed. Even his clothes were still crisp.

  I gave them what solace I could. “I’m sure justice will prevail, gentlemen. In contrast to your normal practice.”

  Charley’s cackle was like hard wood split by a maul. “Now you’ve really got ’em scared.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what they’re afraid of most of all,” he bellowed. “That now I’m just like them.”

  When he’d finished snugging ten hands behind five backs, Charley issued an order. “On your knees, assholes.”

  When no one moved, he grabbed the guy nearest to him by the biceps and tugged him to his knees as easily as if he were made of papier-mâché. Apparently Charley wasn’t as frail as I thought.

  “It’ll hurt less if you do it yourself,” he said to the others as the guy who’d been jerked to his knees started whimpering about a separated shoulder.

  One by one, four men struggled to a kneeling position. One by one, four men looked to me for help. One by one, they began to cry, all but Hilton, who still hadn’t said a word.

  “Okay, Charley,” I said as my brow began to leak cold sweat. “I think they’re suitably terrified—they’ll tell you what you want to know. Ask your questions so we can get out of here.”

  Charley laid the riot gun on the ground and took his Ruger out of a belt holster and screwed a silencer onto the muzzle. It seemed to take him an hour; it seemed to make time a spectator that would wait for him to finish; it seemed to make my blood stop flowing through my veins.

  “I know all I need to,” he murmured as he worked in what seemed like slow motion. “I’ve known it for thirty years, which is how long some of these assholes have been feasting off the folk.”

  “Feasting how?”

  “In every definition of the term. Including murder.”