Harlot's Moon

by Edward Gorman

  "You're really going to put him in a home?" Felice said after we were in bed later on. I had my western novel and jammies. She had her Dean Koontz novel and jammies.

  "It's what he needs."

  "Maybe it is. But not in these circumstances."

  "You're really mad, aren't you?"

  "Damned right, I am."

  "I'm trying to do the right thing, Felice, whether you think so or not."

  "You know something, Robert?"

  "What?"

  "Right now I don't like you very much."

  "Well, right now I don't like you very much, either."

  "Tough titty," she said and rolled over on her side and began reading.

  But I was too upset to read. I said, "You're always taking his side, Felice. The same way my mother did."

  She looked over at me. Her eyes glistened with tears. "He's dying and he's all alone, Robert. And you don't seem to give a damn at all."

  And with that, she shut off her reading light and slipped on her sleep mask.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I spent two hours that afternoon at the law offices trying to persuade the key witness in our vehicular homicide trial to testify. Her name was Beverly Wright and she was having some second thoughts. She was going to be in the news a lot and that frightened her. The reporters would try to make her look like a bad person and a liar - as if she were fabricating her story.

  Brad Doucette talked to her for a while, got frustrated, sent me in as kind of the second team, and when I didn't seem to be getting anywhere, put himself back in the game. He spent nearly a half an hour with Ms. Wright and still got nowhere, so then it was back to me.

  I couldn't honestly blame her. Prosecuting attorneys are very skilled at making unfriendly witnesses look stupid and venal. The press, too, especially in its ambush journalism mode, can easily do the same.

  All you have to do is walk to your car with a number of reporters trailing you and firing questions, and the public just assumes you're hiding something.

  But without her testimony, our client had very little chance of proving his innocence. Was our client an arrogant, pushy, self-absorbed bastard? You bet. But, in this case anyway, I believed he was innocent.

  "My folks just don't want me to get involved," Beverly told me. "Neither does my son. He's fourteen. He likes Aaron a lot. My son's one of the few people Aaron's nice to. But he still doesn't want me to get involved. Because of the, you know, the publicity. I mean, you know what they're going to call me when they get me up on that stand."

  "What're they going to call you?"

  "A whore. Right?"

  How could I disagree? They might use a cleverer word than that to convey their meaning, but the meaning would be the same nonetheless.

  Aaron Grant was a local manufacturer. He was also a prominent Republican, having served as State Chair a few times. He was also married and the father of three, and a lay minister at his church. He was noted for his angry sermons on family values.

  Beverly Wright was a member of the same church. She was divorced, with the one son.

  Aaron and Beverly had had a thing going for nearly a year now. Aaron went through one of those idiotic transformations middle-aged men sometimes do. This stalwart Republican and family-values man started wearing his graying hair in a tiny pony tail, driving around in a Mercedes sports coupé, and spending a lot of time and money on the riverboat casinos up on the Mississippi.

  He was also hopping into bed with Beverly whenever he got the chance.

  One more thing about Aaron: while he wasn't an alcoholic, his taste for alcohol had certainly increased this past year. He'd even taken to having a few drinks at lunch, something he'd always frowned upon, both for himself and his employees.

  The trouble started with alcohol.

  One night, after getting back from the riverboat, Aaron was driving down a dark street when a man suddenly appeared in his headlights. Aaron's car struck the man. Aaron's car killed the man.

  An interesting fact: the dead man's blood alcohol content was even higher than Aaron's.

  The incident became a scandal — couldn't help but be, given Aaron's standing in the community. Aaron insisted that he had not been speeding, that the man had simply wandered directly into the path of his car.

  Here was the part that gave me my first inkling of respect for Aaron: even though he knew that Beverly's testimony as to how much he'd drunk that night could probably save him, he didn't press her to appear in court for him.

  Some of his family—values sermons had apparently rubbed off. Aaron was going to save Beverly's family — not to mention his own family — from scandal.

  Brad Doucette knew better, of course. Aaron was the kind of guy juries sometimes liked to hang. Too much money. Too much loose living.

  He needed a witness, and badly. He needed Beverly. "We've still got three days before the trial, Beverly," I said. "Will you at least please think it over?"

  She was a pretty woman rather than a beauty but with great dignity and poise.

  "Are you kidding?" she said. "It's all I do think about." Then: "How's Aaron?"

  Everybody involved had decided that it would be better if Aaron and Beverly no longer saw each other. So they both asked us frequently for reports on the other person. I felt sorry for Aaron's wife and family, for Beverly and her son, and even for Aaron to some degree. Nobody involved was really a bad person.

  She stood up, trim in her white ruffled blouse and blue skirt.

  She put out a hand and we shook.

  "You're nice," she said. "I appreciate that. Your colleague Brad's a little pushy for my taste."

  I smiled. "Brad? Pushy? I don't think I've ever heard anybody say that before."

  I spent the hour after that going through some of my notes about Father Daly. I also added the other newspaper clippings to the file.

  Why had Father Daly collected clippings about unsolved murders that had taken place in the past few years? And who was he arguing with at the fishing cabin that night?

  The receptionist buzzed me and I picked up.

  Gilhooley said, "Thought I'd check in with you."

  "I was wondering what was going on."

  "I've just been doing my character sketches."

  That's what Gilhooley calls the reports he gives me, and that's what they sometimes read like. He supplies me with a one-page description of a person's life. Everything is there —family, education, employment, penchants — writ bold and large.

  "Anything interesting?"

  "Not much. Gray and Ryan served together in a small town called Holbrook right after getting out of seminary"

  "By any chance was Father Daly there, too?"

  "No. He first served in a place up near Dubuque. Same diocese, though."

  "You were checking out the rectory staff, too."

  "Right. Bernice Clancy, zilch. Raised four children. Husband has Parkinson's. Worked as a teacher's assistant at St. Mallory's grade school for eleven years then switched to the rectory and became the housekeeper."

  "And Jenny?"

  "Bingo."

  "Jenny is bingo?"

  "Junkie for one thing."

  "Right."

  "Fourteen months at Mitchellville for shoplifting and violating parole. Then she went to a halfway house in Cedar Rapids."

  "I pretty much knew that."

  "You know about the counselor at the halfway house?"

  "I guess not."

  "Here's where I earned my money, Robert. Jenny is one of these chicks who really get hung up on certain people. She developed an obsession for this counselor named Jim Robbins and just wouldn't let go of it. She even called Robbins' wife a few times and hinted that the guy was gonna leave his family and run off with her —Jenny, I mean."

  "Right."

  "According to the people who knew your Father Daly, Jenny developed the same kind of infatuation with him. She was really dependent— constantly following him around and telling him that they should be toge
ther."

  Are you really possessive?

  "And you want to know the zinger?" Gilhooley said.

  "The zinger?"

  "I talked to somebody at the halfway house, and guess what? Robbins wouldn't press charges. That's the only thing that kept Jenny from going to the slam."

  "Why should she go to the slam?"

  "Listen to this. One night when he was in his office, she snuck in and tried to stab him with a butcher knife."

  PART FOUR

  POLICE DEPARTMENT

  Ronald Dayne Swanson

  Age: 56

  Race: Caucasian

  Occupation: Insurance Company

  Executive

  Marital Status: M

  Military Service: 6 years USAF,

  1961-1967

  Swanson: It's something that people get very angry about. And it's just so irrational when you look back in history . . . particularly to the Greeks. As much as it seems to sicken people in our society . . . there were a lot of instances of adults and children having sexual liaisons. A lot of the most prominent Greeks and later Romans — did this quite openly. I see this as being very beneficial for the child . . . he begins having adult insights into the world that he couldn't have otherwise. And the Internet, of course, has made this all the more fun: it's like ordering from a menu . . . all the photos and videotape. I believe that when our world becomes truly civilized, we'll take the same attitude toward it that the Greeks and Romans had.

  Ronald Swanson

  A nice, sweet little black one.

  That's who he is after today.

  He's wearing his disguise as usual. The red baseball cap, the thick horn-rimmed glasses. And the limp. That's the master-stroke.

  If anybody reports him to the police, that's what they'll remember most. The limp.

  Pretty damned good, he thinks. He's only fifteen years old and he's already thinking on the genius level.

  The nice, sweet little black one is sitting under a tree on the small hill overlooking the swimming pool below.

  Hot August afternoon like this one, the pool is packed with screaming, laughing kids. A feast for somebody like him.

  The thing is, you have to be very, very selective in choosing the right one.

  The thing is, you have to be very, very careful in how you approach her.

  The thing is, sometimes the cops are the least of your worries. You run into a father or an older brother, you'd wish the cops had caught you.

  Guys like him get killed all the time.

  But of course, that's part of the fun, isn't it?

  The danger of it all . . .

  That's when he thinks of the double ice-cream gambit.

  It worked for him last week. Sweet little blonde girl. Age seven. And when he was through with her in the woods, he let her go. Safe and sound. No harm done.

  Yes, the double ice-cream gambit.

  He limps over to the concession stand, which is packed with kids, most of whom are at least partly naked, the boys just in swim trunks, the girls in skimpy swim suits.

  Takes him ten minutes to work his way up in line.

  "Two ice-cream cones. Vanilla."

  "Two scoops or one?"

  He pauses. Why not shoot for the moon? If one scoop snagged the little blonde girl last week, then two scoops now is certain to double his luck.

  "Two scoops."

  The thing is, it's so hot today that by the time he's starting to walk up the hill to the little black girl, the ice-cream is already melting.

  All over his hands.

  Sticky. Which means flies . . .

  The little girl sits under the tree in her pink one-piece bathing suit watching the white boy approach her.

  Next to her is the white towel she dried off with after the pool, and inside the towel are the two tokens her mom gave her for the bus ride home. Her mom also gave her two one dollar bills but those were spent on the Power Rangers comic she just finished reading, and on the Baby Ruth bar she just finished eating . . .

  The funny thing is, the white boy is walking right toward her.

  She thought he was probably just going up over the bill to where the bus seats were.

  But, no.

  He's looking right at her . . .

  And he's walking right toward her . . .

  White people in general scare her — white folks put both her dad and her older brother in jail — but this one doesn't scare her for some reason . . .

  The limp, she decides.

  That's why he doesn't scare her.

  She's learned that people with arms missing or bad legs or faces burned . . . they generally treat little black girls a lot nicer. Because people don't like them much better than they like black people . . .

  She almost smiles when she sees how the two ice-cream cones are melting all over his hands.

  Kind of a dorky kid, like her little brother Leon.

  Dorky but sweet.

  When he reaches her, he says, "Hi."

  "Hi."

  "You seen a red-haired boy around?"

  "A red-haired boy?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Huh-uh. Guess I haven't."

  "Damn."

  "What's wrong?"

  "He must've taken the bus home without me. He forgets things sometimes. He got his head injured in a car accident and he hasn't been quite right since."

  "Oh."

  "I got this butter brickle ice-cream cone for him." Then, "You like butter brickle?"

  "Sure."

  "Why don't you take it, then?"

  "Me?"

  "It's melting. You might as well. Otherwise, I'll just have to throw it away. I can't eat two of them all by myself."

  "Well."

  For the first time, he sees suspicion in her eyes.

  He smiles. "Your mom told you not to, huh?"

  "Told me not to?"

  "Take stuff from strangers."

  The girl looks embarrassed, then, as if he's read her mind or something. "Yeah. Yeah, she did."

  "How old are you?"

  "Eleven."

  Couple years older than she looks. He doesn't actually like them this old. Not usually.

  "Well, then you're old enough to tell good people from bad people, aren't you?"

  She shrugs. "Maybe, I guess."

  "Do I look like a bad person?"

  She squints up at him in the sunlight. "I guess not."

  Even up here, you can smell the chlorine from the pool below. The cry of children is loon-loud.

  He puts out his hand. "It's melting fast."

  "Well," she says, her eyes filling with the cone.

  "Two dips," he says. "Nice and cold for a hot day."

  He pushes the cone toward her a few more inches.

  "Doesn't it look good?"

  "Uh-huh," she says.

  "Then you better take it."

  "Well," she says.

  And takes it.

  He gives her a few minutes to enjoy her cone.

  He stands above her, looking around for any sign of cops or park rangers. Bastards are everywhere these days.

  "How's it taste?"

  She grins. "Great."

  He watches the way she licks her cone, little pink tongue working.

  "You like ducks?"

  "You mean quack-quack ducks?"

  He laughs. "Yes, quack-quack ducks."

  "They're cute, I guess."

  "You know where the duck pond is over there?"

  He points to an area of forest about a city block away.

  "I went there once when I was a little girl," she says.

  "They're a lot of fun to watch. You know, swimming around and everything. Why don't we go there now?"

  "Well."

  "Your mom again, huh?"

  "She said I shouldn't ever go anywhere with strangers."

  "Gosh, I thought we were friends."

  "Well."

  "Guess I thought when you took the ice-cream cone, that meant we were friends. And trusted e
ach other."

  He's honed this particular melodrama down to a fine point. Little kids always go for his hurt-feelings speech. They get eager to make him feel better . . . and then they'll do what he says.

  "Guess I knew you couldn't trust me. . ." he says.

  Then he notices her gaze.

  Still squinting into the sun, she is, but no longer squinting at him.

  But at something behind him.

  He turns to see what she's staring at and - my God. He's at least six feet and 200 pounds and even from here he can feel the black man's ire.

  "Who's that?"

  "My brother Bobby. He just got out of jail for whupping his girlfriend's old boyfriend. Put him in the hospital."

  "Oh, shit."

  "Here," he says. "Why don't you take my cone, too?"

  "Don't you want to meet Bobby?"

  Panic. He can just imagine what this guy'll do him.

  "Here."

  And thrusts his own melting cone into her hand.

  And then he starts walking away fast up the hill. Forget the limp. Forget the disguise.

  When he crests the hill, he risks his first look-back.

  The little girl is standing up and talking to her brother.

  She's pointing up the hill.

  Oh, God. What if her brother comes after him?

  He runs the half block to where a bus is parked.

  He doesn't even give a damn where the bus is going. He'll catch the right one later on.

  He swings up on the steep bus step and drops his money in the coin box.

  Then the bus moves away from the curb and starts to take off.

  Which is when the little girl and her brother appear at the top of the hill.

  The brother looks angry, glaring around for sight of the kid who was fooling with his little sister.

  Faster, faster he mentally urges the bus driver. God, can't this thing go faster?

  He doesn't relax until he's downtown and changing on to the bus that will take him out to his nice white suburb.

  So close this time.

  Came so close to getting caught.

  He shudders and then looks over at the old lady who's watching him.

  He stares out the window.