‘Yes, sir.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘You start tomorrow.’
‘Thank you, Daddy. Sir.’
5
He wasn’t lying when he told her the business got ugly. In the years since she first began working for Daddy she has gone from an innocent-if-spoiled Jersey girl to. . to something else altogether.
Good wholesome boys might be able to drop bombs from a thousand feet above the human suffering, but she can’t afford to be good or wholesome.
She doesn’t have the luxury of distance.
Before you do certain things you think you have mental boundaries, places you would never go, but those boundaries are like smoke, only thinner, and as you approach them they vanish on the air.
When she began working for Daddy his boys considered her something of a joke. They thought she was a little girl playing at being grown-up. They thought she would dip her toe into the waters of this business and find them much too cold. They don’t think that any longer. They know now she’s colder still than the waters in which she’s expected to swim. When she has to be she’s much colder.
6
She picked up a newspaper from the table and flipped through it, looking for something of interest. On page three she found a piece on Alvin M. Johnston, a pilot for Boeing who, according to the paper, was preparing for his first test flight of a new bomber called the Stratofortress. It was designed to carry 70,000 pounds of nuclear weapons, nine times what was dropped on Hiroshima. According to the article, it would take only one round trip to Moscow to turn the city into a mere divot.
After reading that piece, she flipped the page again and came across a news item out of Los Angeles. Her brow furrowed as she read and a frown touched the corners of her mouth. But before she could finish the article, Daddy’s office door swung open, and she looked up. Louis Lynch stepped out. He wore a black pinstriped suit that accentuated his thinness and stood with his back very straight. To Evelyn he always looked like he should be standing near a casket.
‘The Man will see you now.’
Evelyn got to her feet.
‘Will I be taking a trip to the West Coast?’
Lou cocked an eyebrow at her.
‘Something in the paper.’
‘We have to be at Idlewild Airport in two hours.’
‘We’re flying?’
‘Time is of the essence,’ Daddy said from the office. ‘Come in.’
She walked past Lou into Daddy’s office.
‘Close the door behind you.’
She did.
7
‘You have an accent yourself,’ she says.
‘I do.’
‘Where’s it from?’
‘Kentucky.’
‘I like it,’ she says, ‘you sound kind of like a cowboy.’
They talk for another hour and half, and throughout it all Eugene can see she’s trouble. It’s in the sensual way she touches herself when speaking — her own earlobe, her neck, her thigh — and in the way she purses her lips, and in the way she looks at you with eyes behind which there are no nos. But mostly it’s in her beautiful-ugly reptilian features. He wouldn’t be surprised by a forked tongue. And she’s not the kind that’ll shake her rattle before striking either. One minute she’ll be coiled up beside you, the next her teeth will be gum-deep in your throat.
Yet Eugene finds that attractive. There’s something in him drawn to trouble, always has been. He likes fire in the eyes and a knowing smile. He wants to grab onto something wild and hold on as long as possible.
He finishes his seventh or eighth drink, more than he’d planned on having tonight, and sets his tumbler on the bar. He smiles at Evelyn.
‘How’d you like a dinner companion tomorrow night?’
‘Why, do you know someone less annoying than yourself?’
‘Ouch.’
She laughs and says, ‘That sounded meaner than I thought it would. I’d love dinner.’
‘There’s a place on 8th Street I think you’ll like,’ he says. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘At the Fairmont across the street.’
‘And you didn’t go to the Palm Frond?’
‘Too cheery for me. Like sex, drinking should be done in the dark. It adds mystery to the whole experience.’
‘God,’ he says, ‘are you sure you don’t just wanna get hitched?’
‘Do I look like a horse to you?’
‘All right,’ he says. ‘I’ll settle for dinner. Pick you up around seven?’
‘Are you leaving already?’
He taps his empty glass. ‘One more drink and I’ll be crawling home.’
‘Hey, Jerry,’ Evelyn says, ‘pour one more for Gene. He’s promised a show.’
Jerry glances toward them, but Eugene waves him away.
He gets to his feet, bowing slightly. ‘It was lovely meeting you.’
He takes her hand in his and kisses the back of it. It’s cool and dry and soft and he can smell perfume on the inside of her wrists, something light and flowery and unlike the woman herself.
‘I look forward to tomorrow night, Evelyn.’
‘Room three twenty-three,’ she says.
‘Room three twenty-three.’
He turns and heads for the door, pushes through it, staggers into the night. He blinks at his milk truck parked by the curb and feels a moment of internal conflict. He knows he’s had a few too many, probably shouldn’t drive, but he knows too that he doesn’t feel like walking despite the fact it’s only a few blocks.
He lights an Old Gold, inhales deeply, exhales through his nostrils. He spits tobacco from the end of his tongue. He pulls his keys from his pockets and looks at them in his open palm.
‘Fuck it.’
Five minutes later he’s parking the milk truck in front of his building. He steps from his vehicle and tosses what remains of his cigarette into the street. A car passes by. He waves at it for no good reason and when the man behind the wheel doesn’t return his wave he wishes him an early death, or at least a sprained ankle. He walks into his building, up the stairs that lead to his front door, and as he walks up the steps he sees that something has been nailed there. A white envelope. The nail pierces its center, making it look to Eugene — perhaps because he’s drunk — a bit like an insect specimen.
‘And here,’ he says to nobody, ‘is the rare paper moth of Peru.’
He walks the rest of the way up the stairs and stands facing his door. He looks at the envelope nailed to it. There’s nothing written on the outside; it is just an envelope. It could contain anything.
After a moment he grabs the nail between the pad of his thumb and the side of his index finger and wiggles it back and forth and, once he has it loose enough to pull it from the door, does so. He turns the envelope over in his hand, but doesn’t open it. Instead he unlocks his front door and steps into his small apartment.
The kitchen is just inside the front door, tiled in blue. Cabinets hang over the counters. To the right of the kitchen is the living room, with only a counter between them. Next to the counter, a small table with two chairs sitting in front of it. On top of the table, a black case containing a portable typewriter. Beside the typewriter, a stack of blank paper beginning to yellow with age.
Eugene shuts the door behind him, looks at the typewriter, and thinks maybe he should try to get some writing done. He walks to the table and sits down, setting the envelope aside unopened. He pulls the typewriter toward him, unlatches the case. He looks at the typewriter, a green Remington with white keys. He bought it for five dollars when he moved to New York. The keys look like grinning teeth to him. He doesn’t like the grin at all. It’s full of contempt.
You’re really gonna do this again, eh?
‘Shut up.’
If you wanna pretend you’re a writer, go ahead. No skin off my nose.
‘I said shut up.’
He rolls a piece of paper into the machine.
He stares at it, blank.
Th
e machine stares back, but says nothing more.
He’s just drunk enough to write the first sentence of his novel. He will dream this doorway into existence and he will walk through it. He’s done it before. He puts his fingers on the keys. They’re cold to the touch. He types.
CHAPTER ONE
I wasn’t supposed to be in the car when it went off the cliff.
He stops. He stares at the sentence for a long time. He blinks. He tears the paper from the machine, crumples it up, tosses it onto the table.
I knew you couldn’t do it.
He closes the typewriter case to shut the thing up. It only speaks when he doesn’t want it to, when he wishes it wouldn’t.
He pushes it away. He gets to his feet. He looks to the envelope on his table.
It can wait till tomorrow.
He walks to the back of his apartment and falls into bed, still clothed. He imagines he can hear the typewriter’s muffled voice mocking him from within its case. Eventually, though, he hears nothing at all.
Soon after the typewriter goes silent he’s snoring low rhythmic snores.
On the table, the envelope waits.
ELEVEN
1
A dark hardwood desk sits near the back of Seymour Markley’s large office, and Seymour himself sits behind it in a brown leather chair, his back straight, his hands clasped before him. He faces three chairs, one of them occupied.
He pulls a white rag from his pocket and gives it a quick snap to remove all lint, then takes off his glasses and cleans them methodically. He thinks about this situation, this bleeding of his personal life into his professional; he doesn’t like it one bit. He sets the glasses back on his nose, folds the rag into quarters, and slips it out of sight. He looks across his desk to Barry Carlyle, his chief investigator.
Barry is cue-ball bald, with a black mustache on his lip about the width of his nose, which is itself blade-thin, granny glasses resting on it precariously. His narrow shoulders give way to a large belly and backside before he dwindles down once more to skinny legs. He’s shaped a bit like an egg, and like an egg looks as though he may topple at any moment when standing upright. His legs are currently crossed, calf on knee, a pale bit of one ankle visible between his garter-clipped argyle sock and the hem of his gray slacks. He wears a poorly knotted red bowtie.
It’s nearly six o’clock in the evening on the seventh of April, the day after his meeting with those two whores in that San Fernando Valley diner, the sun’s hovering over the sea, threatening to sink into it hot and sizzle out, and Barry has just arrived. Seymour’s been nervously awaiting this meeting all day. He made phone calls, talked to Chief Parker about a few cases, spoke with his chief deputy about a troublesome witness, and more, but he did it all with the absent confidence and knowledge of a professional who can do his day-to-day work without full attention. Eighty-five per cent of his mind was on this bit of blackmail which has threatened his career and marriage. He awaits what Barry has to say with the same palm-sweaty dread with which he awaits a verdict in a case he’s unsure of.
‘Well?’
‘I’ve looked over the boy’s file, talked with the detectives covering the case, and done some other digging besides,’ Barry says in his nasal but toneless voice. ‘I think there’s a smart way to handle this, a way that might, with a little luck, even help to advance your career. Let me give you the facts and we’ll go from there, but they seem to me to suggest a fairly straightforward approach.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Okay.’ Barry opens a folder in his lap and studies it a moment. ‘Okay. Here are the facts. One,’ he says, counting off with a finger, ‘the boy killed his stepfather and was inspired by a comic-book story to carve a star into the man’s forehead. Two, psychologists such as Frederic Wertham have done research into comics and believe they damage young minds and turn normal boys to violence. Three, the comic book that inspired the boy was published by E.M. Comics, which utilizes the Manning Printing Company of Newark, New Jersey, to do all of its comic books and magazines. And four, said printing company is owned by none other than James Douglas Manning.
‘Now, I did some asking around, lined a few palms with silver, and while I don’t have any solid evidence of it at this point it looks like Manning controls and funds the publishing company as well, uses both it and his printing company to clean dirty money. To twice-filter it, so to speak.’ He pauses, glances down at his file, flips through the pages, looks up again. ‘Okay. Those are the facts.’
Seymour nods but says nothing. He licks his lips, shuffling and reshuffling the information in his mind to see what kind of hand he might deal himself. He taps his fingers on his desk. The clock ticks. After half a minute of silence he leans back in his chair and puts his hand over his open mouth, covering an unbelieving smile. Then, in a hushed tone, as if he might frighten the fact of it away if he speaks too loudly, he says, ‘This could make my career.’
Barry nods.
‘I mean, Kefauver’s all but guaranteed the Democratic nomination come July, and all he did was bring a bunch of gangsters down to various courthouses to plead the fifth on television. J. Edgar Hoover’s been trying to get to Manning since the days when his business was confined to breaking kneecaps in New Jersey, and I actually have a chance to nail the son of a bitch. Forget taking on Fletcher Bowron. If this goes right I could have the governorship.’
‘Oh,’ Barry says. ‘I forgot the most crucial part of all this.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The Sheriff’s Department arrested James Manning’s accountant last night. Picked him up in front of one of those gambling joints out there on Sunset Boulevard west of LAPD jurisdiction.’
‘What’d they get him on?’
‘Murder.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘I wouldn’t do a thing like that.’
Seymour shakes his head, barely able to believe it. Up until only a minute ago he’d thought his career might be finished.
‘I’ll talk to the accountant tomorrow morning. I want you to head over to the juvenile-detention facility and talk to the boy, see how malleable his recollection of the evening might be. Take the mother along if you think it will help.’
‘Right,’ Barry says, and gets to his feet. ‘I’ll take care of it.’
2
Next day Teddy Stuart is sitting at a metal table in a white room. His hands are cuffed. They rest like dead spiders on the table, only inches from a glass ashtray with three smashed cigarette butts in it. He doesn’t know why he’s here. There’s no reason for him to be in an interrogation room. The next step should be the arraignment, at which he’ll plead guilty. He’s already confessed to killing the card dealer. He’ll take what punishment they prescribe without argument.
Last night he dreamed about it: the murder. He believes he’ll be dreaming about it, red splashed across the walls of his mind, till the day he dies.
The door opens and a neat little bespectacled man in a blue suit walks in. He looks like the kind of man who’d use tongs to hold his own dick when taking a leak. Hanging from his right hand is a black briefcase.
The door closes behind him and as it latches he twitches slightly. Then he walks to the table and sits across from Teddy. He sets his briefcase on the table, nudging it so its edges are parallel to the table’s edges.
‘You’re Theodore Stuart.’
‘I am.’
‘My name is Seymour Markley. I’m the district attorney.’
Teddy doesn’t respond. He looks down at his dead-spider hands, brings them to life, pressing his fingertips together, pushing them until the skin beneath the nails is white. He doesn’t want to talk to this man. He knows prison will be difficult, knows he might not make it through, but he knows also that he could. Meanwhile this man, this district attorney, is here to suggest that Teddy commit suicide. Teddy knows it without needing to be told. There’s no other reason for either of them to be here.
Teddy regrets what he
did, but he wants to live.
It’s true there’s some small part of his mind, some biblical corner, where his being stoned to death is the only true justice, and that corner of his mind is sometimes given voice at night, when the moon is the only light in the sky and the shadows on the ceiling move like the living, but it’s morning now, and beneath the sun that part of his mind is silent as the dead.
After a while the man says, ‘Do you not want to know why I’m sitting across from you?’
‘I know why you’re sitting across from me.’
‘You do?’
‘Because we don’t know each other well enough for you to sit in my lap.’
‘You’re facing a long prison sentence, Mr Stuart. Do you want to know why I’m here or not?’
‘Like I said, I already know why you’re here.’
‘Enlighten me.’
Teddy shakes his head. ‘I’ve confessed to what I’ve done. I’ve signed my confession. I want nothing to do with anything else.’
‘I just want to talk.’
‘That’s exactly what I don’t want to do.’
‘Do you go by Theodore or Teddy?’
‘My friends call me Teddy.’
‘What would you like me call you?’
‘Mr Stuart.’
‘No, that won’t do. I think we can be friends. In the end I think you’ll want us to be friends, Teddy.’
Teddy knows a threat when he hears one and knows he’s hearing one now. It’s in the tone of the district attorney’s voice. He doesn’t need it spelled out. He’s confessed to murder in this man’s county; he owns Teddy. At least he believes he does.
‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘James Manning.’
Teddy blinks, but for a moment doesn’t respond. Then: ‘Who?’
‘You don’t know who James Manning is?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
The Last Tomorrow Page 9