“One guy and one guy alone can make a presentation to Senator Mackay.”
“The hell with him. We want the governor.”
“The governor’s not here today. Mackay is all you get.”
“Who’s going in?”
“Send the writer in; he can speak good.”
Hands pulled at Lyon and pushed him in front of Captain Norbert. The state police captain glared at him. “What in hell are you doing here, Wentworth?”
“Afternoon, Captain. I have been chosen to represent the Angels and the Krauts in order to make a formal protest to the State of Connecticut.”
“Follow me.” Lyon followed Norbert back across the drive, up the capitol steps, and down a marble hall. “You know, Wentworth, I always knew my brother-in-law had crazy buddies, but you win hands down.”
“Doing my thing, Captain.”
They stopped at the senate majority leader’s office. Captain Norbert stepped aside as Lyon entered the office and walked toward Ted Mackay’s desk.
Surprised, Mackay looked up and extended a hand. “Hello, Lyon. If you’re here about the altercation, I’m sure we can work something out.”
“I am here on behalf of the Krauts and the Angels.”
“Sit down.”
“Consider that I have formally protested the state’s helmet law.”
“You have done so.”
“Is that right, Senator Mackay?”
The clubhouse floor had begun to tilt. In some dim recess of the frame building someone retched. The Breeland supermarket had been pleased to accept Lyon’s check for several additional cases of beer—and almost the full complement of the club had aided in the task of finishing every can. Lyon felt bloated and knew he was half-smashed on the infinite number of beers he had consumed.
“You did fine, Wentworth,” Wiff said from his prone position on the floor. Turning, he tilted the dregs of a can into his mouth and gave Lyon a wide, sloppy grin. “Just fine. We might even make you official.”
“Mackay didn’t say much.”
“Didn’t hardly say a word to Junior.”
Something had just passed—a lead, and he strained to grasp it. He put both feet firmly on the floor, and the room began to steady. “Junior Haney? The one who was killed?”
“Yeah, he went in last time. He saw Mackay but didn’t get nowhere. Junior never got nowhere except dead.”
“They say Rainbow killed him.”
“That’s what the cops kept asking when they pulled us in. You’re all right, Wentworth. You know that?—you’re all right.”
“You wouldn’t tell them about Rainbow?”
“I don’t know nothing to tell.”
Lyon tried to think about that. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep under the pool table—but he couldn’t do that, because Fizz Nichols was already curled up under the pool table. He fought for control and sobriety. It wasn’t only the beer—a couple of members had brought bottles of rye, and the drinking had really become serious at ten when Wiff insisted that everyone drink boilermakers … a shot and a beer … a shot and a beer … it seemed to go on endlessly.
What time was it? It was late, and most of the club had either left or were asleep in various parts of the building. Only Wiff, curled near Lyon’s feet, had any semblance of consciousness.
Lyon kicked Wiff in the side until he turned over.
“What?”
“He was wearing his colors when he was killed.” That wasn’t quite true, but it would do.
“What you talking about?”
“Junior Haney had his colors on when he was killed, and you guys don’t give a damn. Let the cops bumble along, you just don’t care that a Kraut was killed with his colors on.”
“Like hell!” Wiff lumbered to his feet, lost his balance and caught the edge of the pool table. “We take care of our own.”
“Not Junior.”
“This Rainbow knocked him off?”
“That’s what Junior said.”
“We’ll take care of the bastard. Can’t kill a Kraut, especially when he’s wearing colors.”
“Someone knows about Rainbow?”
“That’s what the cops kept asking.”
“No club member would talk to a cop,” Lyon said.
“Right.” Wiff looked at Lyon with a dim recognition of what that meant. “I’m half-drunk.”
“I think we all are.”
“Okay, let’s start.”
Wiff led Lyon to a galvanized stall shower behind the barroom. The hot water didn’t work, but the cold water was quite cold. Turning the nozzle on as far as it would go, Wiff stepped into the shower fully dressed and let the cold water run over his body. After five minutes he stepped out, bowed, and pointed to Lyon.
Lyon gasped as the water ran down the collar of his jacket and over his back. He bent his head back and let the cold spray play across his face. Finally, he felt Wiff tugging on his sleeve impatiently.
Wiff’s interrogation of his fellow club members was direct, incisive and brutal. The preliminaries began with a bucket of cold water across the face, and a little face-slapping to catch their attention. A slam against the wall emphasized the immediate necessity for answers.
“You hear of Rainbow? Junior say anything to you?”
They proceeded to question all of the Krauts in the clubhouse. Fizz Nichols, placidly sleeping under the pool table, was the last. Lyon and Wiff each grabbed a foot and pulled him out onto the open floor, where Wiff applied water and slaps until he bent Fizz back over the pool table.
“Rainbow mean anything to you?”
“Leave me alone, mother fucker.”
More slaps. “Rainbow?”
“Yeah, yeah. Now leave me alone, I’m tired.”
“Who is he?”
Lyon found a small jar of instant coffee and a propane burner in a back room. He boiled water and made black coffee. When he returned to the barroom, Fizz was sitting on a straight chair with his head in his hands. He drank the coffee more out of fear than desire.
“Okay, buddy boy,” Wiff said. “Junior was knocked off wearing colors. Wentworth here thinks some joker named Rainbow did it. Take it slow and easy, and tell us what you know.”
“Quit leaning on me, man.”
“Just tell us.”
“Okay, okay. Some guy calling himself Rainbow telephoned Junior and asked if he wanted to make a few bucks. You know Junior; he was all for it. This guy wants Junior to meet him at a bar in Hartford for details … no names, nothing like that. Gave Junior a time, place, and booth in the bar. Junior asked me to go along, stay out of sight, follow the guy and act as backup, case things got rough.”
“So, what happened?”
“I don’t know. Nothing. Junior went to the place like he was told. I sat at the bar so I could have a look at the booth where he was to meet this guy. I carried a sock full o’ bird shot, case Junior gave the high sign. This guy came in, sat with Junior twenty minutes, maybe half an hour.”
“What did he look like?” Lyon asked.
“An ordinary working guy. Tan pants, wind-breaker.”
“Height, weight, color of hair?”
“Built like most guys, you know. Maybe thirty-five, brown hair—just a guy.”
“Then what happened?”
“When he left, I tailed him, like Junior asked. He went to a fleabag hotel about six, seven blocks away and went up to a second-floor room in the front. I saw him in the window when he turned the light on. I go back to the bar where Junior is swattin’ down brandy, like he was loaded, which he was. He slips me fifty and says he made his deal and to forget everything I saw.”
“And you did?”
“Hell, yes. Like Junior was a fellow Kraut, right?”
“Yes, he was,” Lyon said softly.
7
The early-morning sun was beginning to burn off the tendrils of fog rising from the river. The sun’s rays rose over the hills and pierced the windshield of the small car. Lyon pulled down the sun
visor and pinched the bridge of his nose to exorcise the massive headache. There is nothing worse than a beer hangover, he thought as he turned up the drive to Nutmeg Hill.
A young patrolman was leaning against a pine tree playing mumblety-peg in a patch of dirt. Lyon slowed the car to a halt. The officer looked up and smiled.
“Hi, Mr. Wentworth.”
“Hello, Jamie. Everything quiet?”
“Yes, sir.” Oh, Lord. The family homestead protected by an adolescent with six weeks’ experience.
“Want some coffee?”
“Mrs. Wentworth gave me some a few minutes ago. She’s in the back working in the garden.”
Bea Wentworth, wearing shorts and a floppy shirt, was kneeling in the garden below the back patio. She carefully placed a plant in a small hole, watered it, pushed dirt around delicate stems and began to trim back leaves.
The sun, midway above the horizon, slanted through the oak tree to the side and speckled light across the side of her face, giving her a diffused, gentle appearance. Lyon felt that his wife was a woman of many seasons, a multifaceted person whose appearance and personality could change in the various life guises she chose. Now, kneeling on the warm earth and holding a small plant made her look as if she had been nurtured and had bloomed in the warming early day. At other times, like that day on the green when she introduced Llewyn, her outward appearance was forceful and charismatic.
And yet, the day on the green had shattered into a thousand shards when a rifle cracked from the church, and she had missed death by inches. On another day, in their own kitchen, a similar weapon had been fired from across the river.
He experienced a surge of feeling that made him want to reach toward her in an unseen grasp. He wanted to kneel in the dirt by her side and hold her. He knew his wife was independent, at times prepared to battle the world if necessary; and yet now he saw and loved another quality.
He bent over and kissed the back of her neck.
“OH, MY GOD!” Bea leaped to her feet with the trowel extended in a parrying position. When she saw who it was, her body sagged. “You scared the living daylights out of me.”
“You looked so cute, I wanted to kiss you. Except now your knees are dirty, and what are you doing?”
“Propagating weeds.”
“I thought weeds were capable of propagating themselves.”
“KNOCK IT OFF, WENTWORTH. WHERE IN HELL WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?”
“Would you believe I was getting drunk with a motorcycle gang?”
“From you—yes. I am now the only member of the legislature whose spouse has protested the helmet law. I’ll believe anything.”
“Ted Mackay knew Junior Haney.”
Bea placed her trowel on the patio and brushed her knees. “That doesn’t make sense. I know he sometimes travels in strange company, but are you trying to tell me that the senate majority leader of this state was friends with a convicted felon who was a member of a motorbike gang?”
“I didn’t say friends, only that he had met Junior and was alone with him for at least five minutes during the last helmet protest.”
“Have you told Rocco?”
“Not yet. I’m going to phone him now.” As they started for the house he put his arm around her.
“Lyon, I’ve heard about those bike gangs, and how they have old ladies or debs, or whatever they call them, and they all go … and did they, or did you, or …”
“No, but after I call Rocco—your weed propagation has given me a great idea.”
He awoke to a heavy pounding on the door. “Who is it?”
“The man is downstairs and won’t go away,” Kim said from the hallway. “He says you two take an awful lot of naps.”
Bea moaned deliriously and turned to Lyon. “What’s up?”
“Rocco’s downstairs.”
“And pacing like a bear,” Kim said. “But tell Bea to wash the dirt off her knees.”
Rocco paced the long country-style kitchen as a glaring Kim sat on a stool with her arms akimbo.
“Damn it all, Kim. I haven’t used a rubber hose in weeks.”
“On the blacks or whites?”
“Only the blacks; the bruises don’t show so easily.”
“Comes the revolution, you’re going to the wall—if we can find a wall high enough.”
“Come on, you two,” Lyon said as he poured coffee from the electric percolator.
They squeezed into the breakfast nook while Lyon, balancing his coffee cup, paced. He recounted the previous day’s events. He started with the helmet protest and the fact that Mackay had met Junior Haney, and then continued with Fizz Nichols’s admission that he had acted as backup during Junior’s first meeting with Rainbow, and had in fact seen Rainbow and followed him back to the hotel.
“What are Fizz and Wiff doing now?” Rocco asked.
“They promised me that as soon as they were in shape they’d cruise Hartford to try to locate the hotel where Fizz trailed Rainbow. Then they’ll call me.”
Rocco drummed his fingers on the table as Kim stared icily at the thumping hand. “We have a motive for Mackay already, and now we have knowledge that Mackay knew Rainbow. We could probably find witnesses to that effect.”
“For the first time we have a living witness who actually saw Rainbow.”
“Now that we know that Mackay and Rainbow are one and the same,” Bea said.
“It’s possible,” Lyon replied. “It could be happenstance. After all, Mackay was the one the state police took me to see. Then again, it is a further step toward Mackay.”
Rocco brought his fist down on the table. “Damn it all, I think Mackay is Rainbow! But how do we prove it? You say Fizz saw Rainbow?”
“It could be Mackay,” Lyon responded. “Except for an age discrepancy. He says Rainbow is about thirty-five.”
“But he saw him from a distance,” Bea said. “A little hair dye, a change of clothes …”
“Could be,” Lyon said. “Do we have any pictures of Ted in the house?”
It didn’t take long for Bea to find several pictures of Mackay. Ted and Bea during the signing of a bill, Ted at a political rally. On the assumption that the shot that killed Llewyn and the one that missed Bea were politically motivated, Ted stood to gain the most, Lyon thought.
“Fizz thinks he can I-D Rainbow?” Rocco asked.
“He thinks maybe.”
“Then we show him the photographs,” Bea said.
“As soon as they call me,” Lyon replied.
“He sure in hell has a motive,” Rocco said. “That is if he wants the nomination bad enough to kill for it.”
Lyon sat before his typewriter and bit a nail. The residue of the hangover was still sufficient to cast a dull film over his thought process, and his mind seemed to go in aimless patterns without coherence. How do you write for children about benign monsters when the true monsters of the world are sitting on your doorstep?
The phone rang. It was Rocco. “They’ve got your playmates in the Hartford jail,” he said.
“What in hell for?”
“Do you want to make notes?”
“Come on, Rocco!”
“Two counts of breaking and entering, possession of an M-16, two live hand grenades and a loaded flare pistol.”
“Oh, my God. They were going to kill Rainbow.”
“‘Burn the mother fucker’ is the exact quote.”
Detective Sergeant Pat Pasquale was leaning against the wall outside his office. He put his thumb on his nose and waggled his fingers at Rocco.
“How’s the angle of the dangle, Pasquale?” Rocco asked.
“Surviving, Rocco. Surviving. Do you know who I’ve got in my office? The beast has arrived.”
“Captain Murdock?”
“None other. The civil libertarians’ composite of police brutality.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“We called Breeland as a matter of courtesy when we picked up those two jokers. He was down here like a shot.”
They crowded into Pasquale’s small office, where Captain Murdock was already sitting with his heavy thighs straddling the small folding chair underneath a hovering cloud of cigar smoke. He waved the cigar at Rocco and Lyon as Pasquale sat down behind the desk.
“Now, will you all tell me what in hell is going on here?” Murdock rasped.
“I understand Pasquale has picked up Wiff Stamen and Fizz Nichols,” Rocco said.
“With a small arsenal,” Pasquale replied. “A little over an hour ago, a cruising unit was passing the Arriwani Hotel when the room clerk ran into the street yelling bloody murder. Your two friends were on the second floor, weapons in hand, kicking in doors. When we booked them, they kept yelling for you and Lyon.”
“This is all tied in with the killing of Junior Haney, and I want to know how,” Murdock said.
“Simple enough,” Rocco replied. “Fizz was with Junior the first time he met a man known as Rainbow.”
“Who paid for Llewyn’s murder,” Murdock said.
“Exactly.”
Murdock shifted his weight and stamped out his cigar on the floor. Sergeant Pasquale glared at the smudge. “All right,” Murdock said as he stood. “Let’s discuss the matter with those little bastards.”
Fizz Nichols bent double and crumpled to his knees when Sean Murdock’s extended fingers jammed into his solar plexus. Pasquale grabbed Murdock’s coat and spun him around.
“I’m telling you only once, Captain. Cut that shit out in this town. Understand?”
“I was just opening the conversation,” Murdock said as he backed across the interrogation room and leaned against the wall.
Still gasping for breath, Fizz glared at the fat police captain. “Get him out of here. We’ll talk to Wentworth, not pig face over there.”
“Fizz, you’re going to highly regret you said that,” Murdock said softly.
“Knock it off,” Pasquale said. “Murdock—out.”
“They’re from my town, Sergeant. I want to know the deal.”
“I said out.”
Murdock glared at the diminutive Hartford sergeant. “You’ll regret that too, wop.”
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