Red House Blues

by sallie tierney

  “Not by half.”

  “So the guy I talked to told her I was there asking questions about Sean.”

  “That’s what I got from what she said.”

  “And she didn’t like that I was there because? I still don’t understand what the problem is.”

  “I can’t speak for her but I can see why she’s suspicious,” said Marla. “Back at the Comet you asked about Nick’s accident. This is where it happened. Right here on this hill. That’s why we’re here. I wanted you to see it. What happened was he was heading home down this street last night when a wheel flew off his ride and he flipped sideways into a truck at the bottom of the hill.”

  “I’m not getting your point. What has this accident to do with me?”

  “I wish I knew, princess. But Alexis hears someone has been sniffing around Nick and suddenly he has a nearly fatal accident. It smells bad even to me.”

  “Nick? The guy who had the accident was the guy I talked to? Are you sure?”

  “Hard for me to believe you didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t, I swear to God.” Suzan couldn’t get her head around it. Could it really be the cute guy with the rusty Vespa? “How is he doing?”

  “Not good but Alexis says he’ll live.”

  “I can’t believe it’s the guy I talked to. He didn’t tell me his name but he had an old Vespa?”

  “That’s the guy.”

  “He was the only one home when I went to the house. He told me he moved in after Sean and didn’t know anything so I left. That’s the whole story, not that it’s Alexis’ business or anyone’s business but mine.”

  “Can you see how she might disagree with you?” said Marla. “In fact I disagree with you, come to think of it. I think it’s my business when bad things happen to people I know and you seem to be right in the thick of things.”

  “I didn’t know you knew any of them until just now, Marla. And I only met Nick that once.”

  “And I can believe that why? You’ve lied to me six ways to Sunday since I found you sleeping in the shower stall.”

  “Suit yourself, Marla. Personally I find it pretty weird you know the very people I came here to see. What am I supposed to think about that? More coincidences? Maybe we mark it down to you and Sean gravitating toward the same sort of people.”

  “What sort of people?”

  “Musicians, artists, independent creative types. And as you pointed out, the Central District is like a small town.”

  Suzan had been careful not to add junkies to the list. She doubted Sean stayed clean after he left rehab. No one would confuse the crowd at Jax’s or the Comet with a church choir. If she missed the signs of drug use in Sean why would she pick them up in Marla? Those tattoos could be concealing any number of scars.

  “Okay, for now I’ll pretend I believe you,” said Marla. “But as I say, Alexis is no friend of mine. She’s a good painter, I’ll give her that, but she’s a stone cold bitch when it suits her. We’ve had our run-ins . . . ”

  “Would she talk to me about Sean, do you think? If she was his landlady she must have known him pretty well.”

  “Doubtful now that she’s seen you with me.”

  “I have to try. I want to find his notebooks, the journals where he wrote down his thoughts. It might help me get beyond all this if I knew what was going through his head. At least I’d have something of his to remember him by. I could live with that.” I wonder if that’s true? Or am I lying to myself again?

  But who should she ask? Despite what Nick had said, Sean must have had a friend in the house. It just didn’t seem likely to have been his landlady.

  Marla started the car and pulled away from the curb.

  “Are you up for a side trip, Suzy-Q?”

  “What have you got in mind?”

  “I was thinking, with Alexis at the Comet we might drive by the house and see if anybody’s home.”

  “Isn’t it kind of late to drop in on people?” Knowing as soon as she said it that Marla’s crowd might not consider midnight too late for visiting.

  “It’s Saturday night. They’re still up if they’re home.”

  “So, you know the others who live there?”

  “Not all of them.”

  Marla, not waiting for and answer, made a jog off Yesler onto Fir Street. They drove at a crawl past the house studying the windows for signs of life. The porch light was on but that meant nothing. The upper windows were dark.

  At the base of the hill Marla made a right hand turn in front of the Pentecostal church.

  “Pull over,” said Suzan.

  Marla double parked beside a pickup truck but kept the engine running.

  “What?”

  “I think I just saw a light on in the kitchen.”

  “I can’t see anything from here,” said Marla. “Let’s go check it out.”

  She whipped the Toyota around a traffic circle at the end of the next block and returned to the house, slipping into a vacant parking space behind a beat-up Ford van.

  “Come on,” she said, shutting off the ignition and getting out of the car.

  “Now?”

  “Getting cold feet? Haven’t you done enough snooping and sniffing around? Time to shit or get your dainty butt off the pot.”

  “It’s midnight, for God’s sake.”

  “So? Listen, the kitchen light probably means Ferlin is awake. His room’s off the kitchen. If anybody can tell you what you want to know it’s Ferlin, especially if Alexis isn’t around. He’s certifiable, but he’s been here since the Big Bang. He knows everything. Maybe he knows something about those notebooks.”

  “I don’t know . . .,” said Suzan as she followed Marla up the mossy concrete steps to the side garden.

  Her insides performed an annoying roll when she saw the scooter and tarp were missing from beside the back porch. If there wasn’t enough of the Vespa to tarp, what was left of its rider? A few days earlier he was offering coffee and she was nervously turning him down. If only she had the chance to take him up on it now.

  “Let’s go back to the car,” she said. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “Keep it down.”

  “No, I’m going back.” Suzan turned toward the street.

  Before she got two steps on the slick walk Marla caught her jacket sleeve and spun her around, pulling her off balance.

  “You’re coming inside with me. I’m sick of this crap,” she said, through her teeth. Suzan tried to wrench herself free as Marla frog-marched her for the porch.

  “What are you doing? Get your hands off me!” She twisted and ducked out of her grasp, ready to bolt into the tangled garden, when the back door flew open and a shaft of light stunned her dead still on the bottom step.

  Chapter 18

  Ferlin exhaled a curse. Where was Gonzalo? If he didn’t show up soon it was his loss, he thought. Not going to stay up all night waiting on him. Should go to bed and let the dude stand out in the cold empty handed. What he deserves, the little shit.

  He felt the house tighten around him, coil like a steel band, as it did sometimes late at night. It was never good when it did that. Another reason to go to bed with the last half bottle of J. Beam.

  Too many memories on a night like this, he thought. That other night, over a decade ago, it was like this - the night Kiki died. Didn’t seem that long ago, but Alexis and the rest were talking about it tonight before they left for the Comet. About how they remembered where they were when they found out, as if they were talking about Kennedy or Lennon. But they were all too young to remember either one of those. It struck Ferlin as slightly comical.

  I know what they think of me - all but Alexis - that I’m a weird old wino, a museum piece you’d find stuffed, propped next to an exhibit of tie-died Woodstock tee shirts. They don’t know it but time’s catching up with them too - not kids strung out on coke and Punk any more. There they were in the living room, reminiscing like a bunch of geriatric Buddy Holly fans. Remember this? Remember that? H
ad to laugh.

  Yes, it was like this that night - quiet, the house holding its breath. As if a house had breath to hold. Like it was waiting for some deal to go down. Thoughts like that get you locked up, man. Place is a big pile of dry wood, cracked plaster and rat nests. For two cents I’d move but where would I go? And there’s Alexis to consider. She likes the setup the way it is. Alexis loves the old place. It excites her the way a side show fun house excites. Always seeing ghosts in the damn thing, or so she says. “You can always fill the rooms if the place has a rep as a haunted house," she told him.

  But Ferlin suspected she half believed her own hype. Her paintings were crowded with the dead bodies and ghosts she said she’d seen or “channeled” - paintings she hung all over the damn house. She’d told her spook stories so many times he could almost feel the cold spot at the top of the stairs himself though he’d never seen any white lady on the stairs or heard moaning in the attic. Alexis had a good imagination - what you’d expect of an artist - but there was such a thing as getting carried away with the dark side shit.

  It’s a street drug, he thought, the crap people talk themselves into to rev their clogged engines. Some people use God, some use ghosts and auras - pure New Age bullshit. When you come down to it, whatever you do to feel alive, it’s all the same damn bullshit.

  Still, though he’d never let on to Alexis, Ferlin knew with dead certainty that the Red House had its moods - a kind of internal weather that kicked up something fierce once in a while, like the pain that plagued his joints when it rained. And tonight a storm was brewing, that was for damn sure. A good night to go to bed and not get up till the next afternoon - not that he’d sleep. He didn’t sleep much any more. Maybe he was afraid he wouldn’t wake up. Or maybe the dreams weren’t as interesting as they used to be. He rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin, and went to the fridge for some juice.

  That was when he heard the voices on the porch. About time Gonzalo got his sorry ass over here, thought Ferlin. He better not have brought his homeboys with him. Ferlin slid open the hydrator at the bottom of the refrigerator and removed a plastic zippered bag. Unzipping it, he lifted out its contents, chambered a round and went to open the back door.

  “Whoa, Ferlin, stash the hardware,” said Marla, pushing past him, dragging someone after her.

  “Marla. Might have known,” said Ferlin. “I was expecting someone else.”

  “Must be someone special, considering the reception.”

  “Just some dude. Thought I heard more than one out there. Looks like I was right. Who’s she?”

  “Suzan, Sean Pike’s grieving widow,” said Marla. “I need a favor.”

  Looking more closely he recognized the blond in the green jacket. The chick he’d seen watching the house. Taking pictures. The one Nick let into the house.

  “You know I don’t do favors, Marla. We could talk a trade. Depends on what you need. Sit.”

  Ferlin motioned with his gun hand toward the breakfast nook.

  Marla shoved Suzan onto a bench seat and slid in next to her at the table, pinning her next to the window. Suzan wasn’t going anywhere unless she dived over the tabletop. Ferlin remained standing in the shadow cast by the lone bare bulb glowing above the kitchen sink.

  “Alexis won’t like you being here.”

  “She’s not here. Just saw her at the Comet.”

  “She still won’t like it.”

  “She won’t know if you don’t tell her, Ferlin. Anybody in the house tonight besides you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Hear anything more about how Nick is doing?”

  “Holding his own.”

  “Glad to hear it. We want to go through his stuff upstairs.”

  “You want to search his room?”

  “He won’t know.”

  “Like hell he won’t. What do you think you’re looking for anyway?”

  “Something that belonged to Pike.”

  “Whatever it is it’s not there. I cleared his room myself after the cops got through. Boxed up everything he left in that room before Nick moved in.”

  “What about the rest of the house, Ferlin? Must be some of his stuff still around somewhere.”

  “Anything up there I sent to the address the cops gave me last month. Even a guitar I probably could have sold. Probably should have for my trouble. You tell me what it is you’re looking for and I’ll tell you if I saw it.”

  Suzan studied the old man from her vantage point behind Marla - scrawny as a feral cat, unshaven, his greasy gray hair twist-tied into a waist-length ponytail. She couldn’t imagine this person carefully laundering, and almost lovingly packing Sean’s belongings any more than she could imagine the woman at the Comet doing the honors. It had to have been someone else. But why would anyone lie about such a thing? Unless, thought Suzan, he was covering for the one who actually shipped Sean’s things. Unless he knew what was removed from Sean’s belongings and why.

  Marla shifted on the bench and leaned toward him.

  “Could anyone have gotten into the boxes after you stored them away?” she said.

  “Possible,” he said. “But hell, Marla, it’s late. You don’t want to say what you’re looking for? Fine. As I say, I got somebody coming so unless you give me a reason I’d want to do business with you, you need to take your friend here and shove off.”

  Suzan opened her mouth to say something then shut it as Marla’s nails dug into her wrist under the table.

  “Ronny Jonson,” said Marla.

  Ferlin loomed over the table, his face inches from Marla’s, the gun still clutched in his hand.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Maybe you didn’t kill him, but someone dropped him like a dead rabbit at your feet. It brought the cops up here and we both know cops aren’t your favorite people. First Kiki, then Pike, then Jonson. The cops keep coming back to see you, Ferlin, because you’re never too far away.”

  “So? They know I didn’t have anything to do with that shit. If I was going to off somebody they wouldn’t be found around here. They’d never be found. Cops aren’t smart, but they’re smart enough to know that.”

  “True. Still, it’s not too good for business having people nosing around, is it?”

  “And you know who’s pointing in my direction, is that it? I let you toss Nick’s room and you tell me who my friends are? Don’t work like that, Marla. Give me a name and I’ll decide what it’s worth to me.”

  Marla let go of Suzan’s wrist and leaned her head back against the banquette. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly in a loud sigh.

  “We’re getting nowhere, Ferlin,” she said. “I’m thinking maybe I’m talking to the wrong person. Maybe we should wait 'til Alexis gets home and see what she has to say.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Ferlin. “She’d throw you and her out on your asses.”

  Suddenly Suzan knew she was in way over her head, in a nasty house with people she had no business being with. All she wanted to do was get out of there as fast as she could. Up until now she’d felt at least partially in control but this was real and a potentially deadly situation. To her surprise and humiliation tears stung her eyes.

  “Leave it, Marla, it’s over,” she said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “Sean’s notebooks are gone and even if they weren’t I don’t want to know what’s in them. It’s so stupid! All I wanted was to find out if he still loved me after he left. It isn’t worth upsetting everyone. Just let me the hell out of here!”

  She pushed Marla off the bench, ran to the kitchen door, wrenched it open and fled into the night. She had failed once again. It was over.

  Chapter 19

  Suzan scrambled across the back yard to the street as fast as she could manage without tripping in the dark, slowing to a choppy jog a few blocks away, listening for footsteps behind her.

  She wanted to put as much distance between herself and that house as possible. Linda’s place was too close for comfort. She couldn�
��t go there just then. Instead, she kept to the opposite side of the street from the streetlights, picking her way toward Twenty-third. She had no plan. It was after midnight but maybe there might be a coffee shop still open. She could sit down. Consider what to do next.

  It was panic, pure and simple. She had freaked out and bolted, which was not like her at all. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had come apart like that. Not even at Sean’s funeral. She wasn’t normally the weepy kind. What was happening to her, anyway? Was she totally losing her mind?

  Fir Street vanished into a fog bank that hugged the top of the hill like a gray wool watch cap. Suzan nuzzled into the concealing mist, satisfied that if she couldn’t see where she was going at least she would be concealed on the way. Social interaction had lost its charm for one night.

  As far as she knew Marla didn’t know for certain where Linda’s place was but she wasn’t willing to bet her life on it. The woman seemed to know more than was comfortable. Suzan wasn’t a great believer in coincidence so a few unpleasant suspicions were beginning to solidify in the back of her mind.

  That scene at the house had all the earmarks of having been staged for her benefit. To shake her up? Scare her off? Marla and Ferlin worked out their parts in advance, that much was clear. All that business of the gun and hints of illegal transactions . . . a bit over the top. A script straight out of The Sopranos. Surely there was no harm in letting them think they succeeded, for now. They were good actors but she’d played a few notable roles herself when necessary.

  She walked south on the dark side of the street toward the Paladian Shopping Center, placing one tentative foot ahead of the other, moving steadily through fog the constancy of roux toward a dim glow she hoped was a twenty-four hour laundry or coffee shop. On the other side, street lamps punctuated the night with amber halos, the fog swallowing their illumination before it reached pavement. How silent, how empty the street was, as if she were walking through a forest, not the core of a major city. Mist weaseled down her neck, beaded her lashes. One white car crawled by going the other way like a ghost, leaving a smudge of red tail light in its wake.