Late Payments

by Michael Z. Lewin

  “Tell me something else before I cry myself dry. Despite all the sterling work your analyst has done for you, you still can work up a froth about Arnie. Yet the guy that killed Arnie has got legs to stand on here in your very own place. How come you didn’t stuff and mount him, and then get the relax religion? I’ll tell you what I think. I think Earle is a great employee for you. I think he did such a great job first time around and stayed so stumm while he was doing time that you’ve been having him do other great little jobs ever since. I think that the real contribution your analyst has been making for you is to say, Jimmy, don’t do it yourself anymore. Get Earle to pull the arms off. OK, James, my lad, that’s what I think. Today you get my opinion for free, but if you want more you better phone ahead because my appointment book is pretty full.”

  Husk’s face grew red with rage, but his eyes were closed. “Get the scumbag out of here, Earle,” he whispered. “And send Eileen up. Now!”

  Chapter Twenty

  Powder woke in the night, his mouth dry. He rose and walked to the kitchen and ran a glass of water.

  He carried it to the living room and felt for the side table next to his old, comfortable chair. He left the glass on it and went to his front window. He opened the curtain. He stood for a time, looking into the deep waters of darkness, then at the few harbors of light.

  As he stood, he ran his fingers around the edge of the boarded pane which awaited replacement glass. Opacity in place of transparency. In his mind’s eye an unaccustomed majority of the squares in his field of view were dark, boarded on the high sea of certainty by pirates of doubt.

  Suddenly Powder stepped back from the window and closed the curtains with snaps of the wrist. He returned to his chair. He sat. Feeling for his water he found the brochure for the Campaign Against the River Project. He turned on a light. He sipped. He read the leaflet through, absorbing its cares for the poor of Indianapolis and, implicitly, the world; its attack on physical materialism, the heart of what makes America gross.

  Powder drank his water. He went back to bed.

  At nine thirty he drove to Biddle Street.

  There was no bell. Instead he found a heavy, finely wrought iron knocker which seemed out of place on an ordinary dull-green door.

  Powder pounded hard. Waited a minute. Pounded again.

  He heard a human voice from inside but could not make out what it said.

  He pounded again.

  The door was opened by a woman in her twenties with a puffy pink face and matching eyes. She had yellow-brown hair pulled to and protruding from the left side of her head, isolating a small lobeless ear on the right. Powder was uncertain whether the style was by accident or design. She wore a long flannel nightgown and she was annoyed to be called to the door.

  “So what’s so important?”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Now?” She spoke exaggeratedly, as if she were about to pitch to the cleanup hitter with two out in the ninth and the bases loaded and Powder had interrupted her on the mound.

  “Yes.”

  She blinked uncomfortably several times. “Do I know you?”

  “I don’t know you,” Powder said.

  She shook her head, as if to sort the pieces of the situation into a more intelligible whole. “What the hell is this all about?”

  “I want to know why you’re giving me a hard time.”

  “You mean about the parties? Are you a neighbor or something?”

  “My name is Leroy Powder.”

  A wave of visible piece-fitting passed through the woman. She focused and became interested. “No shit!” she said.

  “May I come in?”

  She frowned, seeming to think deeply about the question. “I don’t know,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “I said what I want.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she decided.

  Powder pushed at the door and the woman floated easily back with it. “Yes you do,” Powder said. He walked in.

  The room he entered was painted black and was strewn with cardboard boxes, pottery ashtrays, paper plates and empty bottles. On the wooden floor, a yellow puddle flecked with green and brown and red looked of suspiciously organic origin, digesting itself in public. Two black couches and a hi-fi completed the furnishings. Three doors led off to other rooms.

  “Don’t mind me,” the woman said sarcastically. “Just barge right in and make yourself comfortable. I’m only the owner of the place.”

  “Owner?” Powder asked.

  “Yeah.” Defiant. “Look, what you think you’re doing, forcing your way in here? Maybe I better . . .” She stopped.

  “Call the police?” Powder asked. “What’s your name, young woman?”

  “Peggy Zertz. I want you to go, mister. If I want you to go, you ought to go.”

  “First tell me why you’re picking on me, Peggy.”

  Zertz’s face showed thought again, but she was released from the process when a voice called from outside the room. “Peg? You done? Hey, Peg? You sucking somebody’s cock out there or what?” The voice was male and it was followed by a Mozartian cascade of giggles.

  Thought was replaced by indecision. Zertz turned away from Powder, then turned back. But the agonies were short-lived. A stocky, hairy man in his late twenties and underpants wandered into the room.

  “What the hell do you want?” Ricky asked.

  “A cup of coffee,” Powder said. “I prefer decaffeinated, but any will do.”

  Ricky stood, mute. Anger swelled within him.

  But Zertz said easily, “I think we got some coffee in the kitchen. You want to come in there while I look?”

  “That would be nice,” Powder said. “Thank you.”

  The pair of them left Ricky and the room.

  The kitchen was as orange as the living room was black. Food-soiled crockery and pans and plates and trays covered almost all the surfaces.

  “You have a lot of kitchenware,” Powder said.

  “I see stuff I like in the store and I gotta get it,” Zertz said. “It’s my one vice.”

  She looked in several places before she found a jar of instant coffee. “Hey, we have lift-off!” she said.

  From an orange wooden chair Powder picked up a bowl partly filled with cereal and put it on top of a piece of garlic bread already on the table. He sat down. “Some little shindig you had last night.”

  “Tell you the truth,” Zertz said as she emptied a pan and filled it with water, “it started Thursday night. Only it kind of dragged on and on. You know, the way parties do. You got a match?” She faced him.

  “Sorry.”

  They both scanned the room. Zertz found a box of matches under a cookie tray and lit a ring on the stove. “It’s got a pilot light but I don’t like the buildup of carbon dioxide ’cause it gives me headaches, so I had it turned off.”

  Powder nodded.

  “Hey, why are you such a prick to Ricky?” Zertz asked, after putting the pan of water on the stove.

  “It’s just the way I am,” Powder said.

  She shrugged. “I suppose we can’t help the way we are. I sure can’t help what I am,” she said. “Not that I would want to. All in all, I think I’m pretty great.” She laughed, quick little sounds.

  “How long have the two of you been together?” Powder asked.

  Zertz faced him with pink eyes wide open in mocking amusement. “Coming on the curious father all of a sudden? Where have you been all his life?”

  “I’m not the one who’s been difficult to find,” Powder said. Then, “His mother will want to know.”

  “I think he got fed up of his mom. He says she kept nosing into his things.”

  Powder nodded again.

  “He’s a big boy now,” Zertz said.

  Powder continued nodding.

  The water in the pan began to spit and she turned to it.

  “So why vandalize my house?” Powder asked.

  “It wasn’t really
my idea, but he hates you so much and he’s been kind of down lately. It made him laugh, so . . . I like him to have a laugh now and then.”

  From behind them a roaring angry voice said, “What the hell are you telling him, you stupid bitch? Don’t you know better than to open your mouth to a . . . a . . .” Ricky struggled for an exact invective. “A Rule Book like him?”

  “I’m just making a cup of coffee, honey,” Zertz said. “Do you want some?”

  Powder turned to the doorway. “Come on in, son. Sit down. Make yourself at home.”

  The three of them sat in silence looking into their mugs.

  Powder asked, “So, how you doing for money these days?”

  “Great,” Ricky said sarcastically.

  “Frankly,” Zertz said, “I think not having money is depressing him. I mean, I have the house and a little allowance from the insurance when my step-folks were killed, but it doesn’t give us much for extras. A little hash maybe, but that’s about all the joy we run to.”

  “Stupid bitch,” Ricky said.

  “Aw, he’s all right,” Peggy Zertz said. “I don’t know what you’re `bitching’ me about. Rick. You know I’m a pretty fair judge of character. I know he’s a cop, and I know he ignored you as a kid and had you sent up but I get OK resonations.”

  “Stupid bitch,” Ricky said.

  “This here is a real fine girl you’ve found yourself,” Powder said.

  Despite herself, Zertz smiled with pride.

  “Stupid bitch,” Ricky said.

  “Hey!” Zertz said impulsively. “Lasting relationships are like when the girl resembles the guy’s mother. Am I like his mother?”

  “Not a lot,” Powder said.

  “Oh, well. He’s too moody for me anyway. I’m quite a cheerful little body.”

  “And you make a mean cup of instant coffee too.”

  “Yeah,” she said reflectively, perhaps thinking of the great cups of instant coffee in her past.

  “So,” Powder said, “money’s a problem. What say I help out there. A hundred a week? Cash, no paper work. Would that help?”

  Ricky raised his eyes in sour, unaccepting disbelief as Peggy Zertz said easily, “Oh that would be nice. Just until he gets on his feet again.”

  “And you know, he’s in trouble with the parole board. They’re about to issue an arrest warrant and have him carted away again. What say I put in a word there to take the heat off.”

  “Good one,” Zertz said. “He talks tough about doing time, but he didn’t really like it there much.”

  “He is going to have to go see the probation officer. He’s missed a lot of meetings.”

  “He’ll go.”

  “I’ll try to fix it so he doesn’t have to show for a few days. To kind of work up to it. And then maybe he’ll only need to check in every couple of weeks instead of every Thursday.”

  Zertz nodded her approval.

  “You need anything,” Powder said, “you give me a call.” He took out a card and wrote on the back. “Home phone,” he said.

  “Great.”

  Powder stood up. He faced his son, who remained seated. “I just want to say, Richard, that I’m sorry. I know I can’t make up for the mistakes I’ve made in the past, but I’ll do what I can to help you from here on in.”

  “I can’t fucking believe what I’m hearing,” Ricky Powder said quietly.

  “Forgive and forget, that’s what I say,” Powder said. He extended a hand to Peggy Zertz. “Real nice to meet you, Miss Zertz.”

  They shook hands and Powder walked to the front door. Zertz followed him and as he left she said,“Hey, come for a feed sometime, OK?”

  “I’ll look forward to that,” Powder said.

  Powder sat in his car for several minutes, eyes closed. He forced himself to think only about his breathing.

  His concentration was finally broken by a small girl with a muddy round fade who banged on his car door.

  “Mister. Mister.”

  Slowly Powder attended to her.

  “Are you dead?”

  “No,” Powder said.

  “You looked dead,” she said. “You looked like my gram-maw and she was dead.”

  “Not yet,” Powder said.

  “Mommy says she’s in heaven but she won’t tell me where that’s at. Daddy says she’s someplace else.”

  “How long has she been gone?”

  The little girl looked at a toy watch on her wrist. “I don’t know. I can’t tell yet. It wasn’t yesterday.”

  “Do you miss your grammaw?”

  “Nope. I play with Leon. He lives next to us. His mom hits him but my mom doesn’t hit me.”

  “You’re a lucky girl,” Powder said.

  “Would you like a piece of my candy?” She held up a bag.

  “No, thank you. My mother won’t let me take candy from strange children.”

  “My mom says that too,” the little girl said. She took a piece of candy and began to unwrap it. “See you,” she said, and walked away.

  Chapter Twenty One

  Powder arrived at The Promised Land just before noon. He knew where he was because a sign told him. The sign was painted in flowing, even letters on a jagged piece of board. The board was nailed to two stakes at the side of a gravel road. There was no fence, no gate, no people. A promised land indeed.

  Half a mile up the road Powder found a village of mobile homes and tents. Before one of the tents a huge iron pot hung over a fire. Two men sat beside it on flowery plastic garden chairs. They were cleaning and chopping vegetables. Some distance behind them Powder saw a man and two women jumping rope and laughing in the rising summer heat.

  Powder parked next to two other vehicles, a Rabbit and a van. He walked back to the pot.

  The two men glanced tip momentarily. One said, “Welcome.”

  “I’m looking for a Gale Heyhurst.”

  The other man said, “We’ve only got the one. And that one is over by the stream.” He pointed a carrot.

  “It’s not a stream, John,” the first man said. “It’s a crick.”

  “Right. Over by the crick.”

  “Big Eagle Crick,” the first man amplified, helpfully.

  Heyhurst sat cross-legged at the edge of the water. Powder approached slowly, thinking the man was meditating, but as he came close he heard the words of what sounded like an old pop song, “Poison Ivy.”

  For a moment Powder listened and watched the man pound a simple rhythm on the ground.

  “Mr. Heyhurst?”

  Heyhurst rose directly out of his sitting position, uncurling to face Powder. “The Missing Persons policeman,” he said immediately. “Welcome.”

  “I’ve come to see the Beehler girl,” Powder said.

  Heyhurst spread his hands.

  “Let me guess,” Powder said. “She’s out.”

  “Not at all. We had a talk and decided it would be best for her to stay on Land territory till this business with her parents got resolved. She’s on crèche duty.”

  “Oh,” Powder said.

  “Not the devious misdirection you expected?”

  “No,” Powder said. “It’s not.”

  Heyhurst spread his hands again. “We’re special people. We’re carving out a special place for ourselves in society. Clear thinking. Plain expression. We acknowledge human nature and plan accordingly.”

  “Oh,” Powder said.

  “I understand your skepticism,” Heyhurst said disarmingly. “I have the same attitude approaching any other religious, political or social group.”

  He began to walk and led Powder back to the village, where they entered a small trailer. There, a girl read from a book to five rapt children. Heyhurst gestured to Powder to be quiet. They stood and waited as Piggy-Pig Pig survived two more perilous adventures and found his mother.

  “Jacquie, this man would like to talk to you,” Heyhurst said. “You want to step outside?”

  The girl rose. Heyhurst sat, picked up another book, and bega
n Piggy-Pig Pig II. Powder and the girl went out.

  “Welcome,” the girl said. They stood in front of the trailer.

  Powder opened his ID wallet, displaying his badge and photograph. “I am Lieutenant Leroy Powder, Indianapolis Police Department,” he said. “Do you have any identification?”

  The girl blinked.

  “What is your name please, miss?”

  “Jacqueline Amanda-Jane Beehler.”

  “Do you have identification?”

  “I guess.”

  “May I see it?”

  The girl shrugged and then led Powder past the vegetable men to a large green tent. She unzipped the front door and Powder followed her inside. There were four rooms. The girl went to one where there was a single sleeping bag and a suitcase.

  She opened the case and fished around. She withdrew a few pieces of paper, one of which was a driving license. While Powder studied it, she located a book.

  “This is as good as any ID,” she said.

  Powder took the book, a Broad Ripple High School Yearbook. He thumbed through the individual pictures until he found Jacqueline Amanda-Jane Beehler.

  “It’s me, see?” the girl said, smiling, a pose.

  “I see.”

  He read that she had been secretary of the Debate Club, wanted to become President of the United States, and had the prettiest shoulders in the class.

  “Thank you,” Powder said. He gave her back the book and the documents and he went outside.

  When she joined him he said, “Your parents have reported you as a missing person.”

  “Dumb clucks,” she said.

  “They say that they’ve not been allowed access to you.”

  “Did they say that I told them to stay away?”

  “No. They seem to be afraid you are being kept against your will, or have been brainwashed.”

  The girl made an exasperated sound. “That’s good from them! I’ve never thought more clearly than since I split from home.”

  “Are you free to leave here whenever you want to?”

  “Of course!” she said disgustedly. “People are so narrow-minded!”

  “Do you not understand their concern?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I understand they want me to go to college and I don’t want to. I understand that they want me to become a primary-school teacher and I don’t want to. I understand that they want me to marry Sandy Cragen and I don’t want to. I understand that I am happier here than I have been at home for the last six years.”