by Tom Larsen
“Stick ‘em up.”
Took a while to figure out how to unload the damn thing, not so big but heavier than it looks, a gun that could do damage. What did he read? That getting shot doesn’t hurt, not like you’d think. It hurts later, but not right then. Like a punch to the face doesn’t hurt, just impact and stars going off, but no pain. Until later.
Harry pokes himself in the face, just can’t resist. Not that hard but, oh Christ, now he’s bleeding. Stumbles to the bedroom, grabs a towel, sits on the toilet, gun in one hand, towel to his nose. Soaks it in bourbon and ow, bad idea! The taste of blood like when he was a kid, always in one scrape or another, all of it wreaking havoc on his stomach, oh man, an ulcer or something in there eating him alive.
And then he’s heaving yet again, turned inside out, nothing coming up but battery acid. The drinking! It’s killing him! Slumped with his head on the toilet tank, knees popping when he tries to stand. Sort of shoves himself up the side of the shower then turns to the mirror, God! Jesus! Run some water here; clean yourself up, for Christ’s sake!
Good. Oh, that’s good. Cold water splashes his face, getting warmer, then hot. Then too hot – woah – then cold again, until he’s wide-awake for the first time in days. Like a layer of something has been peeled away and he can breathe again, gulping in a mouthful of air, once, twice, until his head gets fizzy. Feels like he’s floating then it’s head down in the sink when the next wave hits, the world’s weight, the whole mess. Hours until he feels a little better. Pale from puking, but the bleeding stops and he’s okay. Why people splash water on their faces. Because it works! Not that he’s sober, Harry’s not kidding himself, a fifth of Jim Beam and it’s not even dark yet. Makes another drink, stretches it with water, what’s left of the ice, passes another mirror, full-length, wasted and naked like that. Why is he naked?
Porno! That’s where he was going when he saw the gun in the bathroom. Where he left it last time he was playing with it. Fucking gun.
“What the fuck are you lookin’ at?” he says to his reflection.
***
Lena meets once with the lawyers in a posh downtown office close to city hall. So close she can see the pigeons living on Billy Penn’s hat. Now that it’s come Lena likes this part of it. The men defer to her, the view is terrific, and the coffee! She can’t help asking where they get it, Cherry Street someplace. They sit around a polished wooden table and the men tell her what to sign and where, like in the movies when they meet with their lawyers. And she knows it’s silly, but Lena likes having a lawyer, likes the idea of meeting in a posh office to sign papers relating to large sums of money. And it goes off without a hitch. The papers get signed. They take in the view and finish their coffee. The rest is all faxes and registered mail.
Road crew finds another body on a Thruway pull-off and the media goes with serial killer. But this one’s solved quickly, a hitchhiker it turns out. They charge him with Frank’s murder too, but drop it for lack of evidence. Meanwhile a nationwide search is launched to find a donor match for Lilly Winslow’s transplant. Oprah gets in on the deal, and Ellen, and all of them pushing for her. Even Shock Jacque takes a turn, offering to donate his own organs to transplant listeners with the saddest story, a sort of Queen for a Day with strippers and sound effects. Lena stops listening.
***
“What’s that noise?”
“There’s a fire on Washington Avenue. You sound funny, Harry.”
“Broke a tooth,” on the toilet seat, caught his chin last night on the way down.
“Not the front one.”
“That’s the one.”
“Harry, where are you?”
“Albany.”
“You’re still in Albany?”
“I’m leaving soon. Tomorrow.”
“Did you hear about Oprah, Harry?”
“Oprah?”
“They’re searching for a donor for the little girl. Lilly? And they’ll find one, too. I just know it, Harry.” A chance in a million but, hey. ”Did you hear me?”
“Donor?”
“For her transplant. You’ll see. Oprah can do anything. She’ll find one.”
And damned if she doesn’t, some no neck welder in Texas. And the media loves it, brave little Lilly and the welder with the goatee, part-time football coach and instant celebrity. The procedure is scheduled for three weeks and Oprah’s transplant team looks like they could handle anything, best in the business, hang the expense. And Harry follows closely and soon he’s cleaned himself up and starts eating, cuts down on his drinking, then stops completely, just to see if he can. And he can.
He gets his tooth capped, nothing to it. Picks a dentist out of the phone book, Indian fella, laughs at every thing Harry says. And since Lilly’s in the news a lot, they daily update the search for the father, the lack of progress on that front not escaping anyone’s notice. Ditto on Frank’s killer, though the diamonds keep ‘em guessing, no one near hooking A to B. So that’s good and Harry can feel the pressure ease a little, and then it’s a week until the operation and he’s really zoned in, the kid’s chances, the high drama. The kind of story that could really grab the country only there’s another tsunami somewhere and Oprah gets distracted and the momentum doesn’t build quite like it should. Though it’s still news, Page 2, but hanging in there and as the day draws near Harry feels the scales come into balance. He’s done some very bad things, but he’s not a bad man and he’s certainly suffered for what he’s done. Feels genuine remorse for Stevie and even worse for Frank, and he’s been through bloody hell over it really. No excuse for murder, but there was a reason. Not a good reason, but not like this, a little girl.
So he gets caught up and it helps him. He buys some new shoes, eats regularly and stops playing with the gun fifty times a day. But he’s not getting carried away or anything. He’s back to the beer and still smoking, but in control, nothing crazy, his old self, more or less. Gets good at shaving his head and the look starts to grow on him. Scholarly, especially with the glasses, good with the turtlenecks he picked up in town.
“You sound better, Harry.”
“That kid’s a trooper, Lena. It’s gonna work for her, I know it.”
“They said the operation was a complete success.”
“It’ll be weeks before they know, for sure.”
“Well yeah, but they think it looks pretty good. I mean there’s real hope.”
“Are you coming up next weekend, Lena?”
“With bells on. I told everybody I was going on retreat. My mother thinks I’m getting religious.”
***
They meet at a chalet in the Adirondacks, nice place with a view and a hot tub. Harry looks better than he has in months. years really, once you get past the skinhead. And such a head, with little ridges and fissures running through it and so shiny!
“You look like Mel without the fringe.”
“I like it. Gives me an edge.”
“So the first check should come this month, $200,000 after taxes. Can you believe it, Harry? We’re freaking rich!”
“Did you get your passport?”
“It’s coming. You’re still hot to go to Paris?”
“Definitely. Get away from this circus for a while. Aren’t you?”
“Yeah! In the spring, like you said.”
“I never said spring. We should go right away. Why wait?”
He’s right! It’s Carlos who was set on spring. Lena can’t think of a reason why Paris should wait so she sticks with the standby, the neighbors wondering. But Harry’s tired of worrying about the neighbors and shows her brochures from fancy hotels on the Champs d’Elysee. Makes her watch a video of a walking tour with a jolly Parisian guide, Harry found it in the library. Lena doesn’t know why she doesn’t want to go, but she doesn’t, not just yet. Too many things up in the air, and the neighbors are a problem. And her mom! What would she tell her? But Harry’s psyched about it so she lets him go on, yessi
ng him to death. Flips through the stupid brochures, sits through the video and tells herself it’ll never happen.
Other than that the weekend goes well. Harry’s funny and attentive and doesn’t get drunk once. They make love a few times, dine out every night and even shop a little. She leaves Monday afternoon and the long ride gives her a chance to think. For the first time since she flew back from Mexico she’s thinking they might just get away with it.
***
He takes up jogging in the morning. Not to get in shape, but to forge a routine, something to get him out of the room every day, a regiment. Jogging, then a big breakfast at the local House of Pancakes, the two canceling each other out for the most part, but that’s not the point. The point is to get involved in the world again, re-establish contact, put some God damned weight on and clear the lungs a little. Afternoons he reads. Updike novels, Stephen King, old New Yorkers filched from the barbershop, anything he can get his hands on about Paris. Tracking the sun’s progress from the bed, head propped in his hand until his wrist starts to hurt or his fingers go numb.
And for some reason – who knows why – he gets hooked on nature documentaries, watches a few on PBS then starts renting them from the video place, the whole National Geographic catalogue, no commercials or pledge breaks. The Vanishing Wilderness it says on the box and Harry can’t get enough, loves the camera work and celebrity narrators. Movie stars, mostly, some deadly serious, others sad or whimsical. Costner and wolves, like he invented them and Willem Dafoe with the Indian elephants, Susan Sarandon and plankton, for Christ’s sake! One after another, evenings on end, all creatures great and small. Who knew the lowly ant could lift fifty times his weight or that monkeys kill for sport? Why is it only the pig who will eat while he’s being eaten? Harry learns something every day, starts a list for when he sees Lena. And the babies! Cutest little buggers, every one of them. Cubs, kittens, pups, even things that will soon be ugly, even snakes when they’re wriggly and all balled up.
So he watches them then watches them again and he comes to know a marsupial from a mollusk, what a gestation period is, the importance of fungus and the threat to the barrier reef. He laughs out loud at the courting dances, sobs at the carnage, the dwindling habitat, the relentless encroachment of man. It’s a learning experience, much better than porn, though some of that to break things up, a bare minimum.
A healing effect, no doubt about it.
***
When the first check comes Lena leaves it on the table unopened for three days. She gets a kick out of all that money waiting for her to get around to it, like she’s too busy for money. Though she really has been busy visiting Minna and her sister, neighbors and friends. And making phone calls, dealing with the paperwork of dying, a red tape process like getting divorced. But winding down, she can feel it. People still call or drop in but the shock has worn off. Some funny things she wouldn’t have expected. Ned stops by every Friday with steamed mussels and the kids come around to dodge their parents. There’s almost always someone here except in the evening, just her then, but not so bad anymore. Not that they’re out of the woods, she knows that. But Harry coming around like he has, it’s a huge load off Lena’s mind.
He’s been sending her letters, or poems, really, two last week with a Christmas card and again yesterday. In an envelope marked Hadley’s Grain and Feed, Martinsville, GA. God knows where he got it since the postmark said Poughkeepsie, long letters about the mountains and Paris and growing old with plenty of money. Harry always wrote good letters and she’s glad to get them, though writing back is a chore.
Dear Lena,
In my dream we’re old and gray, but we have a fine house in a small town and you can usually find us on the front porch. Friends gather in the evening, cats and dogs stop to visit. It’s a good life and we sleep like babies. Some of the neighbors wonder about us. Oh, we’re pleasant enough, even sociable, but we volunteer little and that makes us mysterious. I suspect it’s the berets but I could be wrong.
The weather makes me miss you, the rain here, so cold and lonely. When you close your eyes can you feel my love? Just know that everything I did, I did for us, so that we can be together, on that front porch, in that small town.
Forever Lena,
Harry.
I mean, really. What do you say to that?
***
Once the money’s in the bank Lena starts to spend it, a little here, a little there. Gets a new couch and that antique end table she saw in New Hope, some clothes, okay lots of clothes. Three times what she’d planned to spend, though it hardly makes a dent. And it’s okay to spend it. Everyone knows Harry had insurance and no kids and the mortgage whittled down, so she has the rugs taken up and the floors refinished, hires a handyman to fix the million things Harry couldn’t. A dry coat on the roof, gutters and caulking, bricks pointed, the sort of things you do with a windfall. Christmas rounds the corner, the neighbors help her deck the halls. The whole block is lit up, the kids giddy and the whole of Pennsport are putting Harry behind them.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I don’t know. He was sitting down the whole time.”
“So, white guy named Gerry, you don’t know how tall he was but he had a thin face. Thing is, for a bartender you’re not very observant.”
“He was middle aged. They looked like brothers, maybe. I wasn’t wearing my contacts, okay?”
“Then how do you know the other guy was Winslow?”
“It was him, I know it, camp, sort of. He said he was from Phoenix.”
“Sure you’re not just sniffing around the reward money, Mr. Pittman?”
“Look, where’s Morales, he knows me.”
“Lieutenant Morales has been transferred. If you want to do a deal you talk to me.”
Fuck you, flatfoot. Never should have come here. Swore to himself he wouldn’t, but this is Oprah, for fuck’s sake! They’ve jacked up the reward to a hundred grand and Pittman could sure use a hundred grand. Now this fucking guy going all hard-ass and him, Pittman, with warrants out in Vegas and Atlantic City. Probably ship his ass back to Jersey, unless he can get a rise out of flatfoot.
“We were just talking, that’s all. I don’t think the gay guy was hitting on him, but what do I know?”
“Not much so far.”
“We had a bet going. Some cowboy was hustling a blonde and the guy, Gerry, bet he wouldn’t score. It was funny.”
“Sounds hilarious.”
“You had to be there.”
“But you were there and so was Mr. Winslow. At least that’s what you say.”
“Look,” Pittman starts to get up. “Let’s just forget I came in here, okay?”
“Sit down, Mr. Pittman. We’re not through.”
Fucking shit, now it’s going to cost him money. He’s supposed to be at the club in an hour and once those warrants come up . . . what the hell did he think would happen here? It’s been weeks since Pittman saw the guy. He’s got no head for faces to begin with and the next night’s cruise ship melee scrambled his brains for a week! Besides, he was paying more attention to the other guy, the one who’s missing, Winslow. Try as he might Pittman can’t recall a thing about the bettor but the shape of his head and even that’s iffy. Might have him confused with someone else entirely. How many faces does he see in a month?
“Listen Lieutenant, I know it sounds lame with the reward and all, but this is legitimate. I swear to you, I’m not lying.”
“Then why wait until now to come forward. That’s withholding evidence.”
“It’s the way you guys work. I mean look at this! Coming all the way down here to help and now I’m looking at the rubber hoses.”
“Tell me about the blonde.”
“There’s nothing to tell. She was way across the room. She didn’t even know we were there.”
“I’m going to ask Sergeant Rosario to help us with this. Rosario’s our sketch artist. He’ll help you put together a composite.�
�
“But I have to be at work!”
That flatfoot smirk. “It shouldn’t take long. I mean you wouldn’t want to walk away from all that reward money, would you?”
Composite! As if that will do any good! How do you describe a head with no features? Where are the mug shots they always make you go through? Pittman was counting on the mug shots; maybe one of them would click. No mug shots, that’s when he realizes they’ve got no suspects, nothing, which means the reward is all his if he can just convince somebody.
Flatfoot’s gone for twenty minutes and Pittman thinks about walking away. Just go home, forget about that night like he should have in the first place, and would have, if not for Oprah, running that street-smart game. Looking him right in the eye like it was just she and he and not every split-level and trailer park in the Western fucking hemisphere. Oprah appealing to his greed for Christ’s sake, close enough to see the sweat on her upper lip.
“If not for the money – one hundred thousand – for that sweet little girl,” Oprah teased. “If you know something or saw something get it off your chest. Do the right thing!”
That’s what kills him. Not that it worked, but that Oprah can do that, plug into whatever she wants and just take over!
“Maybe you’re all jammed up. You don’t want trouble and I can understand that. But honey?” All sass with the hands to the hips. “Oprah’s here to tell you trouble ain’t gonna happen! I will see to it personally!” To screams from the faithful fatsos, flailing and foaming at the mouth. Nobody should have that kind of power. It’s obscene!
Flatfoot returns with an older man in a suit, and if this guy’s a cop Pittman’s Popeye the Sailor. The Rolex alone puts him way up the food chain. The Suit gives a nod and takes the only other seat.