Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery

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Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery Page 23

by T. Blake Braddy


  * * *

  I woke when daylight broke through the sterile white blinds. Squinting, I prodded my body with trembling fingers. My veins felt like someone had injected them with radiator fluid. I was shaking. It was as bad as any hangover I had experienced. As bad as one anybody in any lifetime had suffered, I was willing to bet.

  I tried to turn over. Something tugged at my arm. I found myself neither shocked nor surprised to be in a hospital room.

  When my eyes could bear it, I looked up. Sitting across from me, under the wall-mounted television, was D.L. Vanessa’s dad. My old boss. A shadow lay spread across him, his eyes staring unblinkingly at me. I said, "I didn't do this."

  "Goddamnit, Rol, what the hell is wrong with you? You are missing court. The judge is likely to have you stoned to death - on a DUI charge, no less - for being caught drinking and driving."

  I didn't even want to think about court. "Listen. Ugh. Hear me out."

  "Have at it. Knock it dead." The wide-brim hat he'd worn every day since I had met him lay on his knees, and he spun it nervously as he waited.

  Not only did attempting to talk hurt, it made me look guilty, so I settled for awkward silence. Thankfully, the doctor saved me from having to explain myself. What was I going to say? Hey, boss, I got witnesses can say I was definitely just drinking soda...down at the bar.

  The doctor gently opened the door and smiled, padding right over to the edge of my bed. He smiled but didn't mince words. He said, "It was a mixture of Antabuse and Rohypnol. Whoever did this wanted to make sure you looked quite stupid last night."

  Behind him, D.L., fiddling with his hat, said, "Thank God." As if that actually helped anything.

  The doctor ignored him. He said, "Now, your liver activity is way up. Has anyone prescribed Antabuse to you?"

  I maintained steady eye contact. It seemed necessary, somehow. "I don't even know what that shit is."

  "I'll take that as an absolute no, then. Let me explain. Antabuse is prescribed to people with extreme alcohol dependence. It's medical name is disulfiram, and it basically causes you to get very, very sick when you drink alcohol. When the beer, wine, liquor, whatever, is metabolized, the disulfiram blocks the body from converting the acetaldehyde - which usually gives you hangover symptoms - into acetic acid - which prevents them - so the effect of the hangover is magnified. Somebody really got you good, too. That's why you feel like you’ve been thrown out of a building."

  I listened to D.L.'s boots click on the hospital room floor as I considered this new information. I said, "Seems a bit harsh, doesn't it?"

  The clicking stopped. I looked up. Both the doctor and D.L. were giving me awfully discouraging stares.

  "The Antabuse," I said, "it seems a bit harsh on alcoholics, right?"

  "Truth be told, Rolson, you shouldn't be drinking in the first place."

  "I wasn't."

  "In a bar."

  Exactly what I was expecting. "I didn't have a drop. I drank Coke the entire time. It can be verified, I swear. I was just meeting Deuce there."

  I couldn't help but notice his eyebrows bunch up and his mouth droop. He sighed.

  "They also found alcohol in your system. Point one-oh. Enough to get you put in the tank. Officer Walton said he brought you here because you were acting like the Bogeyman had got after you. We ran some tests, sedated you, and now here you are."

  I couldn't remember much after the Coke Bodean Driscoll brought me. A connection was forming, though, if Ricky Walton brought me in. He and Driscoll could have gotten me sauced after they roofied me. I said, "If they talk to the bartender from last night, he can vouch for me. I don't remember much but that shouldn't matter, should it? Hell, talk to Deuce. He can vouch for me."

  D.L. sucked his teeth. "Well, I think this is damn good evidence that you're pissing somebody off. I hope you know this means it ends here."

  "Mmm-hmm," I replied. The doctor was pretending to find something interesting on his clipboard.

  "I'm serious, Rol. This is about as deep as the shit can get before I put you in jail just to keep yourself safe." He pulled a chair to the hospital bed and clasped his hands between his knees. "Listen, I'm right there with you. You feel like you've got something to prove, and I can't blame you for trying to make up for what you did to Janita Laveau. It was a shitty thing, and even if you've got some enemies over at the force, they know you're a pretty good man. The problem is, I cannot go up to Leland Brickmeyer and make these kinds of accusations. It just cannot happen."

  "Looking after your ass will only mean you'll run face-first into something."

  "That's inevitable, no matter which end you try to protect. I just ain't got the right amount of kindling to get this fire started. No offense, buddy, but you're unreliable. You hang out in bars, after what you did, and now you've got some crazy scheme to upend this town.”

  “There is no balance in this town.”

  He ignored me. “If all you got is conjecture, then I can't listen to it. In fact, I won't listen to it. If you can't produce any solid evidence to connect the Brickmeyers to that young man's murder, I'm afraid I'll have to turn a deaf ear. I've been patient to the point of parody with you. But this is it. Consider yourself warned."

  I looked away from him, rather abruptly, and stared down at my feet, which stuck up underneath the white sheets of the bed like small, nameless headstones. I said nothing. What was there to say to that?

  "What are we going to do about court?" he asked. He was in the process of standing up. He obviously understood I had no intention of talking to him today. I needed to think, and the longer he browbeat me, the longer it would take for me to get over it and move on.

  "I'm not going to do anything about it today." I kept my attention focused on my feet.

  "Okay, listen. I'll talk to Jarrell and Judge Monroe about all of this. Given the fact that somebody drugged you, perhaps he'll listen to me and move your court date." He pointed at me. "But I can't guarantee that, you know. I'll do what I can."

  "Thank you, D.L." It was almost physically painful to say.

  He walked over to the door and said, a bit weakly, "I might not be here, if you hadn't talked Vanessa into coming to see me. So, I guess, thank you."

  I could have sworn I saw his lip tremble just before he walked out of the room. I tried to roll over but couldn't, so I just spent the next couple of hours staring at the ceiling, thinking of what to do next.

  * * *

  At lunchtime, as I tried my best to fork down a block of ground meat drowning in a thin brown substance, Jarrell Clements thundered in, briefcase in hand.

  "Woo boy, it's a hot one out there today," he said, smiling. My predicament could not have bothered him less. "You're lucky you ain't out in it."

  "And even luckier to see you in person, I suppose." I pushed away the plate of slop and instead sipped the Mello Yello I had bribed out of a rebellious nurse.

  "Boy, they sure can't get you down, can they? Even when they're trying to put you under the jail, you're still holding strong. Shit, I tell you, I might've lost every bit of nerve if what has happened to you had happened to me."

  "D.L. came by to see me this morning. He was here when I, well, when I woke up. I told him all about what happened, and he sort of believed the doctor, who more or less corroborated my story."

  "I've heard."

  "How?" I tried to see the evil of that man’s youth, but I couldn’t quite see it on his face. He really had changed in his old age, it seemed.

  "Lawyers are priests who use black magic. If they revealed their secrets, they would fail to enchant the audience. Speaking of enchanting audiences, how much of this story is the truth?"

  I considered it. "Of what I told him? Everything. I'm not that into trusting reality at the moment, however, so don't quote me. I've been told I left the bar with the bad guy."

  His smile was humorless. "Which makes you sound like a whore."

  He watched me impatiently, his fingers tapping on the briefcase. I ima
gined several defenses for myself but ended up listening to an unidentified machine hum somewhere in the room.

  "I called up the good Judge, and he'd already had a conversation with the chief. We might have to make a formal appearance, just so you can show yourself to be sober and upright in public for once, but I don't think it will be a huge problem."

  "It doesn't look good, though, does it?"

  "Could be better, but, hell, you're making it interesting. With somebody trying to dispatch you, it will be impossible to convict you on this second charge of drinking and driving. I'll make sure of that. The prosecution will be more than willing to let you cop a plea on a single charge than risk dragging through a trial. Being a victim only gives you sympathy, which they would obviously want to avoid."

  "D.L. doesn't seem to think that's the case."

  "Aw, D.L.'s just pissed at you. He treats you like a son. That second charge wouldn't stick to my latest issue of Playboy." Jarrell squinted and did one of those half-smile things, tilting his right hand back and forth, like a DJ having a seizure. His age-old scar glistened under the light. "The first charge, not so easy. It's an uphill battle."

  He winked, and his open eye glimmered with a strange mixture of emotions. "But you have me on your side, and if that don't make you confident, then I don't know what will."

  * * *

  They let me out later that day. Jarrell, going well beyond his capacity as lawyer, chauffeured me to the impound lot. He even put up the money to get my half-assed rental out. "Something your daddy would have done for my boy, if I had one," he said, assuring me. "I won't even roll that into what you owe me."

  Before he drove away, he stopped me and decided to tell me the thing that had obviously been cutting at his insides.

  “You should know that your favorite local royal family is making the rounds on this,” he said. “D.L. called me and said an associate of the middle age fucker’s called and suggested you be put away for your own well-being.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “D.L. going to bite on it?”

  “You’re here and not in jail, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You got to wonder how long he’ll be able to go without caving though, Rol. That man is a saint, but there’s only so much he can do to keep your pecker out of the food processor.”

  “Brickmeyer ain’t the law,” I replied coarsely.

  “But he and Judge Stanton play a smokey card game every once in awhile, and if you think he don’t have some influence, you’re dumber’n that asshole thinks you are.”

  “He stepped over the line,” I said. “He comes any closer, and I’ll put him down myself. He won’t have to worry about a reputation.”

  “Listen,” he said. “You and I both know that D.L. is a good man, but he’s a company man. He’s been in the system so long that he’s become the system.”

  “He still knows what the right thing is.”

  “And that’s why no arrest has been made.” He smiled. “D.L. will do whatever is best for D.L., and though he’s taken a shine to you, it doesn’t mean he’s gonna put up with you poking the beast forever. Brickmeyer may not be doodley-shit on the national scale, but around here, he moves mountains. Don’t you forget that.”

  I got out, thinking about the issues Jarrell had brought up. It hurt to think of D.L. as anything but a centered, well-meaning man, but it wasn’t the only spur in my boxer briefs at the moment.

  Paying the impound fee was painful, even if Jarrell had lent me some money. This had to clear up quickly or else I was going to have to forget about playing detective. I thought about disclosing my financial situation to Jarrell but thought better of it. Instead, I told him goodbye and watched him leave. He threw one hand out the window as he sped away.

  I hopped in the ride and rolled the windows down. The world was full of pollen, and a breeze swept the hairs back on my arm as I passed the city limits headed into the country. The sweet-bitter smell of blossoming flowers and the way the sun glinted off the windshield sparked small brush fires of memory, which I stamped out in hopes of keeping myself in the present. I had found out that no good comes of being so wistful.

  I arrived at my destination and pulled to a stop, noticing the squeal of ever-deteriorating brakes. Leland Brickmeyer's pseudo-palatial estate loomed in the distance, and as I peered up at it, every window seemed to hide a differently menacing shadow. It now appeared more like an insane asylum than the home of the local well-to-do.

  Off to one side of the house, a van labeled Middle Georgia Pools & Spa was parked. One door was open, and a tube seven or eight inches around snaked around the side of the van and disappeared behind the door to the fence closing off the backyard area.

  Unlike before, I didn't have to go up to the door and beat on it until I was sent away. Someone was rushing down the driveway to meet me.

  I stepped in front of my parked car and leaned against the hood, crossing my feet at the ankles and my arms at the wrist, staring straight into the diesel's cab. Bodean glared red-faced at me through its dusty windshield.

  He didn't result to pleasantries this time. The way he got out of the truck told me he was ready for violence. "Don't you have any fucking better sense than this?"

  "Guess not," I said. "I tend not to watch my feet in a pasture. Might get some cow shit on my sneakers, but I always find a way to make it through. Judging by the last few days, I figured I'd be safer here than in a bar."

  He brought one hand up to his nose and snorted defensively.

  "That ain't entirely true," he said, and then he spat. It landed on the blacktop right at my feet. The smell of tobacco filled my nostrils, dirty and harsh, like rotted mint. I felt a fine spray against my face, but I did not wipe it away. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

  I laughed. It felt as though something inside me was unraveling, something that had been coming loose for years. The consequences of my actions seemed far away, like a silhouette in the distance of a fading sun.

  "I don't know what in the hell you think happened, but I can tell you for certain I didn't do it."

  "So I laced my own Coke? Yeah, that's how I take it. No ice, no bourbon, but a dash of Rohypnol."

  He shrugged. "We talked for a minute. You had a conniption on the floor. By the time you came back around, you were ready for a beer. I suggested you have one, and you did. Then you had another. And another. Free and clear, on your own will. I had nothing to do with that."

  "You're a liar."

  Bodean cut his eyes away from me. He said, "Listen, just get the fuck off the driveway and leave the man alone. He's done everything he's been asked to do. I don't think he's got anything else to prove to the townsfolk, and especially not to you. It's all done."

  "What do you think the Laveau family would say to that? That it's all done?"

  "I could give a fuck. Boy got himself in something he couldn't get out of. Not my fault. Not his either," he said, pointing a long, meaty finger in the direction of the house.

  I glanced up, thinking maybe I'd see someone staring guiltily through a parted blind. Wrong move. I should have kept my focus on the behemoth. I felt the impact of the fist before I had a chance to react. He had brought the pointing hand down like a hammer against my jaw.

  The ground jumped and caught me. Pain flared up the backside to my neck. Flat on my back, I looked up at him, with the sun glaring down, obscuring his face. But I knew he was smiling.

  Heat from the blacktop scalded my back through my shirt. I was dazed, and my jaw felt a couple sizes too big, but I wasn't hurt. Not hurt hurt.

  Bodean reared back, as if to kick, but I rolled sideways in time for the blow to miss. He looked like a big kid practicing field goals, and with one leg hiked up in the air, the other was left vulnerable. I kicked out, used both feet to try and break his fucking kneecap.

  I connected, and he seemed surprised by the force. Something underneath his pants sounded off, a pop that could have just as easily been the cork on a cheap bottle
of champagne. Bodean dropped, clawing sideways to pull himself away from me.

  "Ah, my knee. Shit!" he screamed. "My fucking knee!"

  His leg was askew, though I didn't think I'd kicked hard enough to break anything. He grunted and snarled, spitting into the dirt and blowing up little clouds into his face. I stood and rubbed my face. Blood made a bright smear on the back of my hand.

  I glanced up to see three men in white work jumpers holding pool equipment. They stared, wide-eyed, but did nothing to intervene.

  Driscoll pushed himself up and lunged forward, away from me, favoring the bad leg. I followed a couple of paces behind, watching him. As soon as he'd gotten some semblance of balance, I charged. He made for a big target. I lowered my shoulder and caught him below the shoulders, sending him sprawling once again into the dirt.

  Bodean screamed in unintelligible syllables, raising one hand, presumably in surrender. He was trying to roll over. I knelt and punched him square in the back of the head. His face bounced off the ground and then rested there. He moaned and spat into the dirt.

  I knelt so that he could turn his head to see me. Not that he did.

  "Come near me again, and I'll kill you," I said. "I don't have much of anything to lose, and bud, I bet I don't care half as much about that as you do. You can tell your boss the same damned thing."

  Tenth Chapter

  I drove home with my legs shaking so badly I could barely press the gas pedal. Coasting into the driveway, I saw Vanessa’s junker. She’d come back.

  I walked in the front door and pretended like nothing was wrong, but Vanessa waw right through that. “Something happened,” I said. “But maybe that’s not what you want to talk about.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “Let’s just forget that last thing. It was. Well. I reckon, shit, maybe there’s something wrong with the both of us.”

  It wasn’t difficult for me to agree to that. I’d spent my whole life pushing bad memories into the dark corners of my head.

  So I told her what happened. When I’d finished, she told me to calm down, but I couldn't.

 

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