Ranger shrugged. “You were looking for something, weren’t you?” Sandy asked. Ranger didn’t answer. “What were you after?”
“He’s a douchebag. He doesn’t get it. He’s an evil person. Everyone really hates him. He writes stuff and does stuff.” He reached for the headphones again. “He deserved what he got.”
“You are not an easy house guest,” said Sandy. “No pancakes for you in the morning.” Ranger shrugged again.
“How did you dislocate your shoulder?” I asked for the second time in two days.
He stared at me. “I fell. After the symposium.” This time he clapped the headphones to his ears and turned away.
We weren’t the police. We couldn’t coerce him into talking or whatever the police do to suspects. He didn’t need a lawyer with us or Miranda warnings. He could have used a little more civility, but I’m not sure civility has much place in Ranger’s world.
“Is there anyone left who wants to get in there?” asked Sandy when we went back downstairs.
“We’ll find out if there is,” I said. We did.
Ranger drove away the following morning before the police arrived, taking with him his iPod and headphones but not his backpack. I’m not sure how he managed to steer his car.
The police were curious about the broken window. “You didn’t notify us?” asked Detective Captain Romano.
“I didn’t know I was supposed to.” He looked at me with a combination of scorn and muted anger that I hadn’t seen since my father caught me and some friends incinerating Japanese beetles in lawn mower fuel. I thought he wanted to take my bicycle away for a few days.
We went inside the guesthouse. “We’re done with these things,” he said, indicating a cluster of stuff in front of a chair.
Of course they were done. There was nothing left to do. They’d slashed open the lining of Marty’s valise, his computer bag, and his travel kit. They’d kicked the contents into a pile and stacked the useless bags next to it. His laptop was under the bags. The rest of the place seemed undamaged except for the bathroom. Glass from the broken window had shattered on the floor and, worse, into the toilet bowl. I wondered how we could get Ranger to clean the mess up.
“How did this happen?” asked the detective.
I surveyed the debris. “I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t know whether he believed me or not, but I didn’t care. I didn’t know why I was shielding Ranger; at the moment I would have been pleased if the police carted him off.
I didn’t understand what had happened or why, and I didn’t understand what was happening now. I was being used, we were, both of us, used and disregarded, our home and our lives a convenience—or inconvenience—for Marty’s killer, for Alyse, and for Ranger, and either one of them might have been the killer. It didn’t matter to any one of them how they affected us. I would not let this continue if I could help it, and I intended to try. The state police were no help. They dismissed us as “gentlemen.”
When I said all this to Sandy, he said: “Stop with that ‘gentleman’ stuff! Let it go! You’re a crazy old man. What do you want them to call us?”
“Mr. Bridgman, maybe, and Mr. Lisle. ‘Sir’ would also do. And I’m not much older than you are.”
“Ten years. That’s plenty.”
I opened the Bridgman Art Gallery that afternoon, and I was very busy. No one bought anything. That wasn’t why anyone was there. They came to gawk at the place where the man had been killed. They looked around the gallery politely then went outside and pointed and scuffed the ground with their feet to see if they could uncover any traces of blood under the new snow. My sense of being used did not improve. I should have sold tickets.
My gallery had acquired an unexpected identity. The kids of today’s visitors could drive by forty years from now and tell their friends, “That’s where some painter or something was murdered. The place was owned by a guy named Tony, but he was eaten by polar bears.”
In the middle of the afternoon Egan Swift appeared. He was in a jocular mood for Egan Swift. Maybe he had a thermos of something strong in the car. “Well!” he said. “Your business is booming.” He wanted to go outside and view the murder site too. There were people in front of him which he found annoying, but he went anyway, peered around, ignored the other people, and came back. He didn’t scuff at the frozen soil. He looked around the gallery and managed to mutter “nice, nice” at several things he saw. “How do you stay open in a world of junk art?” he asked. “Non-art?”
“I don’t handle non-traditional art very often.”
“We have to fight back,” he said. “Fight back!” We? I wasn’t ready to sign up in that battle. Was I guilty of apathy? Of irresponsibility? Did I have to take sides as an ethical human being when both sides overstated their own virtues and the other’s witlessness? I didn’t think I did. Culture wars don’t lead to anything but self-righteousness and bad feeling. I had other plans.
“Last minute,” he said, “but why don’t you and the scholar come to dinner this evening? I’m certain Margaret would love to cook for more than me, and you must want . . .” His voice trailed off.
I had other plans for the evening too. “Art museum committee meeting. Evaluation of Saturday’s symposium. Sandy and I are both going.”
“Another time, then,” he said.
“It was an easy invitation to make,” I said to Sandy after I closed the gallery. “He knows we’re going to the board meeting.”
“Not we. You. I have to go over proofs for the Comp Lit Review article. They want it back tomorrow.”
We had a drink, though Sandy’s wasn’t strong enough to blur his mind that was correcting proofs of an article, which was mind blurring to begin with. Academics! Yikes.
“Why’d the police slit open Marty’s bags,” asked Sandy. “Do you think they were looking for drugs?”
“I didn’t ask, and they didn’t tell. After all, we’re—”
“Stop!” said Sandy. “Just stop.”
“I want to know what’s going on, but I don’t want it to include drug deals. That’s outside my expertise.”
“Murder isn’t? I want to find out who the murderer was by reading it in a newspaper.”
“And the police left his clothes and things behind. Why’s that?”
“And his computer.”
“And his computer. I think it’s bait,” I said. “I think they want someone to come back for it. Maybe that’s why they let Renee leave so easily.”
“And what happens then? We get killed when the killer comes back, but the police can figure out who did it? When did we volunteer for that?”
I swirled the scotch in my glass; ice cubes clinked against each other and against the glass. “Do we know whether Ranger’s right shoulder is really dislocated?”
“You could go upstairs and find out. He came back an hour ago.”
The board meeting was a much too civilized appraisal of an uncivilized brawl. We were in Craftsbury. No one was interested in questions about art theory. Everyone was very interested in questions about propriety. My mind wandered.
It wandered to the aftermath of Marty’s murder and mainly it wandered to the pile of clothes and the computer. The bait. No one had any use for Marty’s soiled, tattered clothing, or if anyone did, I didn’t want to know about it. But the computer . . .
Alyse wanted a document about her marital possessions. The document may have been on the computer, or she may have thought it was. Marty had damaged Ranger and Egan Swift in diatribes he wrote. They both loathed him, and either one of them would want to prevent a posthumous tirade. And Renee? Who knew anything about Renee? Could any one of them get a gun that shot a nine-millimeter cartridge? This was the U.S.A. Of course they could.
The museum board agreed that next year’s symposium participants would have to be screened very carefully, much more carefully than this year’s. Which pointed several fingers at me. Marty was my idea. The meeting droned on.
Suddenly I was afraid, afraid f
or Sandy. I didn’t know what was happening at home, but I had an overwhelming idea, and the idea scared me. I love Sandy; I couldn’t do without Sandy; I feared he was in danger.
I said something, I don’t know what, and left the meeting abruptly.
I expected to see an unexplained car in the parking lot, and I was right. I raced into the house, calling Sandy’s name.
No response. I ran upstairs. I couldn’t find him.
Ranger opened his bedroom door. “Where’s Sandy!” I yelled.
Ranger just shrugged. “Heard him a minute ago when I peed. What’s happening?”
I didn’t answer. “Wait!” said Ranger.
I ran downstairs and into the side yard. The lights were on in the guesthouse. I burst through the door.
“Mistake,” said Egan Swift. “Big mistake.” He was pointing a handgun at Sandy. It wasn’t a lady’s purse handgun. It was a good-sized automatic. Sandy was on the far side of the room. Egan gestured at me with his gun. “Over there,” he said. I went, and Sandy took my hand. “Touching,” said Egan.
“Crazy old man,” Sandy said softly and squeezed my hand.
Egan seemed distorted, a caricature of himself. The fine gloss of respectability, the cumulative mannerliness, and civilized, well-spoken restraint that came as naturally in Craftsbury as the change of weather, all this gentility had hardened into something else.
The computer was open on a table next to Egan. “Where’s the hard drive? Where’s the backup disk?” he asked.
“We don’t have one,” said Sandy. “I told you—”
“I didn’t ask you! I asked your friend!”
I said, “How would we get either one?”
“I don’t want to know how! I want to know where! Where, where, where!”
“We don’t—”
“I don’t believe you! The computer’s blank! The hard drive’s gone!”
“Egan,” I said. “I thought you were a good person—”
“There’s a greater good than Marty Levin, a much greater good! Good people have to protect it however they can!”
No one would call Sandy strong. No one would call him fearless. No one would call him dumb. He sat down in a chair and slid it toward the window as he sat.
“What are you doing?” asked Swift.
“Sitting down.” I saw why. I took a casual step in the opposite direction. Egan couldn’t point the gun at both of us. It might not matter, but it made life more difficult for him. Life and death.
“The police must have the hard drive.”
“What do the police want with Marty Levin’s hard drive? Answer me! They don’t care! You have it!”
“You’re crazy, Egan.”
“I am not crazy! The world is crazy! Do you know what’s being murdered? Do you? It is not Marty Levin! Marty Levin is one of the murderers! Art itself! Do you know that, gallery owner? Do you? Art! Culture! Mr. Scholar in your cocoon? Do you know that? Art and tradition and goodness! That’s what’s being murdered! And I will not stand by and let it happen! Those of us who still know what Western culture stands for have to act! Where’s the hard drive?”
“Why would we have the hard drive and not give it to you?”
“Because you’re fools! You don’t understand the stakes!”
He had a gun pointed at us. That was stakes enough for me.
“Move next to your friend!” said Egan.
Before I could move, I heard rapid running on the gravel outside. The door burst open and Ranger tumbled into the room, holding his right shoulder and yelping in pain.
Egan turned his upper body and pointed the gun at Ranger, lying on the floor. That was opening enough. I raced the few yards across the room and slammed into Egan. He tumbled backward, sprawling over Ranger like the victim of a ninth grade prank, but he held onto the gun. He tried to point it at me. He fired it. The bullet passed me and shattered some plaster on the ceiling.
Sandy was there. He stomped on Egan’s right wrist with his heel. Egan screamed. The gun spun a yard away, and Egan lunged for it. But I was quicker. I kicked it farther into the room and got hold of it before Egan could.
Egan didn’t think I knew how to use a gun, and he was right. I learned fast. It’s not hard. He came at me. I fired it twice. I wanted to scare him, and I did. The bullets didn’t hit him. They weren’t supposed to, and they didn’t have to. He fled.
“My shoulder’s killing me,” said Ranger from the floor.
The police arrived fifteen minutes later. They believed what we told them. There were three of us, after all, and even if they were inclined to doubt Sandy and me, Ranger was nobody’s idea of a “gentleman.”
Detective Captain Romano arrived after the state troopers. “Are you all right?” he asked me. I was—trembling a little but all right. “You were fortunate, Mr. Bridgman,” he said.
It was a start.
Copyright © 2011 Christopher Welch
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FICTION
SWEET THING GOING
PERCY SPURLARK PARKER
Officer Bob Rycann climbed out the back of the squad car adjusting his uniform. He’d driven deep into the alley, the night shadows covering his activities. He looked around to see if he could detect any onlookers, but the shaded windows of the surrounding buildings were as dark as the alley itself. It really wouldn’t have mattered anyway if he’d had an audience or not. He owned this part of town. He did what he wanted to do.
“Okay, Sally, get your rump moving.”
She scooted herself off the back seat, a pat here and there to her short blonde locks as she stood up. The body was still good, but too many men and too much booze had taken a toll. She wore a ton of makeup trying to hide the lines and crow’s-feet, but a ton wasn’t quite enough.
“Damn you, Rycann,” she said, rubbing her shoulder where he’d held her. “Why you got to be so rough? I’ll be marked up for a week.”
“Hazards of the trade,” he grinned. Then changed to a hard, forceful tone, and said, “Cut the act and get to work. I’ll be back on my last round.”
“You’re a real bastard, Rycann, you know that?”
“Yeah, people tell me all the time,” he said, reaching for her. She shrank back from him, but he was too quick, he grabbed her arm and pulled her close. “Just make sure you have my money ready.”
Her eyes watered slightly and her mouth became a stern red line. It was the familiar mixture of hate and fear he saw in all the whores and hustlers in the neighborhood. They hated him, but they were too scared of him to do anything about it. It was what he counted on, it gave him the upper hand, the control.
“Someday, Rycann—” She spat. “—someday you’ll get yours.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, getting behind the wheel and putting the squad car in gear. “In the meantime, get moving,” he ordered, then drove off, leaving her in the alley.
He really had a sweet thing going. There wasn’t a crooked deal happening on his beat that he wasn’t getting a piece of. From dopers to hookers, strong-arm punks to purse snatchers, they all jumped when he came around, they all gave him his share. Sally, Little Chuck, Cashew Tommy, Jan, Short Sister, Harv, and a dozen or so more were under his thumb. The key was fear and he knew how to use it.
He’d been assigned to the beat for almost four years now, and his safety deposit box had grown from day one. Another couple years or so and he’d be able to hang the badge up and get himself an island someplace. Well, maybe not an island, but he’d be well off for quite some time.
The next couple of hours were kind of quiet for him. There was a traffic accident, a minor fender bender, and he made sure he wasn’t the first responding officer so he didn’t have to do any paperwork. He rousted a drunk at Fig’s Bar & Grill, emptying the guy’s wallet before sending him on his way. Then he caught a guy slow-rolling through a stop sign.
“You’re suppose to come to a complete stop,” he said, when the
guy rolled his window down.
“Sorry, Officer, I thought I did.”
“You thought wrong. License and registration.”
The guy behind the wheel frowned. He looked to be in his fifties, gray taking over his sideburns. “Look, can’t we do something about this?” he asked, going through his wallet. “I’ve already got a ticket I’ve got to go to court on.”
“Hey, I’m not a bad guy, but the law’s the law.”
“Yeah, but a little thing like a stop sign,” the man said, folding a twenty and extending it to him. “I haven’t caused any trouble. Why don’t you get yourself some dinner and let me go with a warning this time?”
Rycann cupped the bill in his left hand. “As I said, I’m not a bad guy.”
“I appreciate that, Officer.”
“But . . . I occasionally like to take someone with me when I go to dinner.”
Another twenty got cupped with the first one.
“And, I usually like to give a decent tip.”
A third twenty and he wished the driver a good evening along with a caution to drive safely.
He spotted Cashew Tommy on the corner by Luxurious Curls Beauty Salon, wearing a wrinkled, lightweight suit and no tie. He was leaning against a lamppost, the butt of a cigarette dangling from his thin lips, just the fuzz of a beard on his thin cheeks. When he pulled up to the curb, Cashew straightened suddenly, his dull eyes scanning in all directions as though in search of a place to hide.
All Rycann did was gesture with his thumb. Cashew flipped the cigarette butt to the sidewalk and meekly climbed into the back of the squad car.
“G-good t’ see ya, Rycann. Been lookin’ for ya.”
“You got my money, Cashew?” Rycann asked, looking at the little weasel through his rearview mirror.
“That’s what I wanted t’ talk ta ya about.” Cashew licked his lips. He was a grade-A loser, a penny ante bookie who barely broke even every time the ponies ran. There were dark, droopy bags under his squinty eyes, adding to his sorrowful appearance. “I’ve been running into a string of bad luck lately.”
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 04/01/11 Page 6