by Ed Gorman
Mary whooped a laugh. “Pamela!”
“Well, that’s what we said, wasn’t it?”
“That’s what you said.”
Pamela hiccoughed. “Oh, right. That’s what’s J said.” She tried to fling an arm in my direction but she didn’t make it very far. Then she just stared at her arm as if she’d never seen it before. Then—I wasn’t sure whom she was addressing here, maybe her arm—“Guy chases me ever since fourth grade and then I show up at his office one day and you know what he tells me?”
Mary looked embarrassed and sorry for her. “You know, maybe you should lie down for a little bit. Not long. It doesn’t have to be long. Just a little bit.”
Pamela was not dissuaded. “You know what he tells me? A) That he doesn’t love me any more and—” Paused. Had lost her place. “C) That he wasn’t even sure he wanted to sleep with me.” She leaned forward and tried to pet one of the cats. “What’s her name?”
“Tasha.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Yes, she is.”
“I’m going to get a cat,” Pamela said. “I’m going to buy a sports car and get me a cat.”
Then she turned vaguely in Mary’s direction and said, “Any man ever turn you down before? I mean when you offered him yourself? Just offered yourself, no strings attached? And he turned you down?”
“Our friend McCain here used to turn me down all the time.”
“See,” she said, her head trying to make a complete circle again, “I told you he was a dickhead.”
I swooped her up. Yep. As sure as Rhett swept up what’s-her-name, I swept her up into my arms. There wasn’t any grand staircase, of course, so I just carried her across the room to the double bed in the far corner and set her down on it gently.
“Hey,” she said resentfully. “Hey, hey.” The booze had apparently shortened her vocabulary.
I got her tennis shoes off and then her socks and then her jeans and then her blouse. “Hey,” she said again.
“Sleep, Pamela.”
“I came up here to have a romantic evening and look what I get.”
“Sleep.”
“Sit down here and hold my hand. My dad always used to do that when I was little.” I’ll spare you the dialect. She was slurring the words to the point of incoherence.
“Night, Pamela.”
“Mary’s so sweet.”
“Mary’s very sweet. And so are you.”
“Oh, don’t bullshit me, McCain. I’ve never been sweet a day in my life. I’m just what Stu said I was, a selfish bitch. Or self-centered. One or the other. Self-centered or selfish.” Then her head flopped dramatically to the right.
By the time I was draping her jeans and blouse over the back of a chair, she was snoring.
I went back to the table and sat down and poured myself a shallow drink. I sipped it.
“I’m scared,” Mary said.
“Yeah. I sensed that.”
“She had this whole dream-life all planned out. She’d be with Stu and everything would be great. But the way she and Stu got together, everybody in town sees her as a homewrecker and a whore. And when she actually got to know Stu, she didn’t like him at all, let alone love him.” She picked up a package of Viceroys and lighted one.
“You don’t smoke.”
“Sometimes I do. When I get—agitated.”
“And now you’re agitated?”
She nodded. Looked sad. “Worried about my two kids. They need a dad.”
“Wes just isn’t the type to cheat.”
She smiled. “You have to watch out for those moralizing types. He’s always so critical of everybody else. But he’s got it all rationalized. Said he thought I’d be more comfortable with his class of people. Said it wasn’t my fault. Said he couldn’t help it, falling in love with this woman. You know, the stuff you always say when you’re trying not to hurt somebody’s feelings.”
“He really said you weren’t comfortable with his class of people?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Black River Falls, Iowa. These people with their ‘class’ ideas make me crazy. There’s only one class of people in this town. Yokels. Hayseeds. Shitkickers. And I’m one of them and I don’t have a problem with being one of them. Like being a yokel.”
“I’m a yokel, too.” She glanced at Pamela in bed. “Boy, if you could only see down the road. I mean, isn’t it strange that the three of us would end up here together like this? I mean, if you would’ve predicted this, I would’ve said you were nuts. Pamela all passed out and not worried about her dignity or how she looks; and me with two kids and a husband who’s leaving me; and you—”
“Go ahead and say it.”
“Oh, Sam.” She looked at me with sudden tears in her eyes. The booze. “You just sort of drift along. I saw you on the street the other day—and I almost cried. You’re starting to show your age a little bit. That boyishness is starting to go. You seem—harder, I guess. I can hear that in your voice now. You’re a lot more cynical and angry than you used to be. And lonelier, too. I always used to think of us—you and me—as innocents. Not like other people. That’s why I always loved you. But we’re different now. Both of us, I mean. You’re still a lot of fun and you’re so bright and everything. But I see a kind of meanness in you now, just every once in a while. But it’s there.” She reached over and took my hand. The touch shocked me in the literal sense. I think the hairs on my arms stood up. I know they did at the nape of my neck. “I’m sorry I said that. That’s why I shouldn’t drink. I always say such stupid stuff.”
I didn’t want to look at her the way I was looking at her but in that moment of melancholy and raw carnality it was the only way I could look at her. If you’re following me.
She must have felt the same way, or sort of the same way, or at least a smidge, a bit, an iota of the same way because when I stood up, she stood up, too, and then she was in my arms and I remembered in that instant how good a kisser she was. She had been talking about how things could turn out so strange sometimes and right now I couldn’t think of anything stranger than the former love of my life sleeping in my bed in her bra and panties while I was making out with the second love of my life in the middle of the floor.
But we weren’t in the middle of the floor for long. Soon enough we were on the couch and firing our clothes every which direction. No chance Pamela was going to wake up and interrupt us.
The first time was quick and explosive. We found out just how lonely we really were. We had to grab it before it got away. Like those first times back in high school when, in the middle of it, all you thought was McCain, you dipshit; you’re actually having sex. Real live sex with a real live girl. No more brief visits to the john with a sheet torn from Mr. Hefner’s magazine jammed in your back pocket. Yes, McCain. Real live sex. The second time was gentler and slower. And then we lay naked under a blanket on the couch and watched part of an old movie—something with Jean Arthur—and she said, “I should feel terrible about this.”
“Why?”
“I’m married, Sam. I’m the faithful type.”
“He has another woman.”
“Yes, but still—”
“Catholic school. It never lets you go. There’s no reason to feel guilty.”
“I s’pose you’re right.” Then, “You think I could come back sometime?”
“I’m sorry. We’re closed for the summer.”
“You’re joking but you’re not joking. Do you really want me to come back?”
“Sure.” But I knew I sounded unsure.
“Don’t worry, Sam. I don’t have any—you know, expectations. I’m lonely and you’re lonely and that’s all it has to mean.”
“I care about you.”
“I know you do. And maybe some day—”
But she didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence because somebody was coming up the back stairs. And then pounding on the door frame. If he’d have pounded on the glass, he would have smashed it.
&nb
sp; “Who’s that?” Mary said, as alarmed as I was.
I quickly rolled off the couch and started throwing her clothes at her. I jerked my clothes on, doing a one-legged job so I could get my trousers on faster.
The thunderous knocking.
So thunderous that the cats were jumping off the table and heading for cover.
Mary rushing to the bathroom.
Me grabbing my .38 and jamming it into my back pocket.
Him getting in one more rock-crushing knock before I reached the door.
He was bigger than I remembered. And he was angry. Jealous-angry. No man, however meek, is more dangerous than when he’s jealous of his woman and suspecting she’s with another man. He’d never been meek. And even now in his gray topcoat and blue suit and white shirt and blue-striped tie, he looked as if he could get twenty yards from scrimmage with the Bears.
“Where’s Pamela?”
I raised my hand and pointed. Moses couldn’t have done it more dramatically when he pointed out the promised land.
“You sonofabitch!” he said.
At this point, Pamela had pushed off the covers and was lying in her skimpies in a position that would drive subscribers to Mr. Hefner’s magazine insane.
He took a swing at me, which was a mistake because I pulled my .38 and stuck it in his face. “Good thing you didn’t connect, Stu, because I could mess you up pretty bad without firing a shot. And I sure as hell wouldn’t mind doing it. Now get hold of yourself and shut up while I tell you what’s going on here.”
Mary opened the bathroom door and peeked out. “Sam and Pamela didn’t do anything, Stu, if that’s what you were thinking.”
“What the hell’re you doing here, Mary? You’re a married woman.”
She came out of the bathroom. She had combed her hair, put on fresh lipstick. She looked pretty damned wonderful. “He left me for somebody else.”
“Wes? Wes Lindstrom?” he said. “My God, he was one of the most upstanding people in the whole town. What’s gone wrong with this place? Has everybody lost his sense of decency? My wife lying there in her underwear. And you Mary up here with—with McCain.” He made “McCain” sound very dirty. Stu was another local Brahmin. I was not fit for local society.
“Stu, before you get all set up in the pulpit up there,” I said, “let me remind you that you left your wife and kids and ran off with Pamela. That means you don’t get to judge people the way you’re judging Mary and me. Or anybody else, for that matter.”
“You didn’t sleep with Pamela?”
“I didn’t sleep with her.”
“It still pisses me off that she came running back to you.”
“She’s confused.”
He touched his hand to his head. I figured he either had a headache or was fighting back tears. “I never should’ve left my wife and kids like that. My kids haven’t forgiven me yet, I’m not sure they ever will. Of course their mother poisons their minds against me every day.”
“How do you know that?”
“I talk to them on the phone all the time. They tell me some of the things their mother tells them. Man, I’m Hitler and Stalin rolled into one.”
He gaped at the bed again. “You really didn’t sleep with her?”
“I really didn’t sleep with her.”
“But I’ll bet you wanted to.”
“Oh, Lord, Stu,” Mary said. “You practically break in here and start accusing Sam of all sorts of things when he tells you over and over that he and Pamela didn’t do anything. He’s telling you the truth. I was here the whole time.”
He walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re one of the nicest people in this town, Mary. Why McCain here didn’t marry you is beyond me.”
She laughed. “It’s beyond me, too.”
He saw the bottle on the table. “Mind if I have a snort?”
“Be my guest,” Mary said.
He had two snorts. Once, he sobbed. A single sob. It just sort of escaped. And then you could see him force himself to stop. He made a fist, he made a face, he said, “Shit, this is great, isn’t it?”
“Just calm down, Stu.”
“Calm down? I’m back in this town where everybody hates me. My wife wants to leave me. And I’m making an ass out of myself in front of Mary and you.”
“Stu,” I said, “I’ve made an ass of myself in front of so many people, they’d fill a stadium.”
His face showed surprise. “Really?”
“Hell, yes, if I don’t make an ass of myself at least twice a day, I can’t sleep at night. I just lie there and think of all the opportunities I missed.”
He gave me his courtroom smile. Before he’d wrecked his legal career by fleeing town with a woman named the beautiful Pamela Forrest, he’d been one of the highest paid attorneys in the state. There was talk of the governor’s mansion or at least a state supreme court appointment. “You’re being a lot nicer to me than you should be. One more?”
“Be my guest.”
He poured. He drank. He sighed. “And all this insane stuff with Ross Murdoch and his three buddies. Keeping a woman. Incredible. I knew it’d all catch up to them some day.” He took one more drink. “He said he’d nail them.”
“Who?”
“Little guy. They had a magic act. I met her when she first came out here, but I didn’t know why she was here. But her brother did. He found out what she was up to. I heard them arguing as I was leaving the courthouse one day. She’d been in the driver’s license bureau, I guess. Anyway, I was waiting for an elevator and just stood in the hall while they kept going. That’s how I found out what she was really doing about it.”
“He was mad because she was a concubine?”
“Hell, no. He was mad because she was cutting him out of the money. She’d done things like this in the past but he always got some of the proceeds. He kept shouting that he didn’t have a magic act or a woman to sell.”
“I’ll be damned,” I said.
“At this rate, McCain,” he said, pointing a final time to the bottle for permission, “we’ll all be damned.”
TEN
I WASN’T READY FOR SLEEP. They were half an hour gone and I sat in the easy chair with the warm remains of a beer and my little ten cent Woolworth notebook that fits just about any pocket you care to name.
I was making one of my famous lists, the way this cop had taught us in night school. He said there were two kinds of forms you should fill out for every incident. The official one, for which the state provided the form. And your own, which you provided for yourself. He urged us to make up our own form. He said, for instance, to use emotional words when you were conducting an investigation. I kept the example he gave us tucked into every one of my notebooks.
AL DUFFY
Arrogant
Evasive
Wife afraid of him
Say this was a fire investigation and you’re the detective assigned to liaison with the fire department folks. The first thing they’ll want to eliminate is arson, which is generally motivated by money or revenge. When you look at Al Duffy’s attributes (as you perceive them), you’ll look doubly close at the possibility of arson just because of his attitude. The way he bullies his wife with angry glances and interruptions may be significant here. Maybe she’s on the verge of confessing to what they’ve done.
I made my own list.
ROSS MURDOCH
Distracted
Depressed
Afraid
MIKE HARDIN
Angry
Frantic
Then I stopped myself. These little profiles were going to be essentially the same for all of them. Who wouldn’t be distracted, depressed, afraid? Who wouldn’t be angry and frantic?
I should be writing down motives instead of moods.
But why would any of them kill their hired woman and her brother? Their deaths guaranteed that the whole setup would become public and destroy them.
It was more likely that somebody who hated
one or all of them had found out about their concubine and decided to inflict the worst kind of revenge—public humiliation and the destruction of their reputations. Plus there was a good chance that one or two of them might even be tried for murder.
Men like these would have made innumerable enemies. Some deserved, some not. Successful people are targets.
But if it was revenge, then it was done by somebody who’d really thought everything through. He would have had to murder the woman, hide her body in a container and then get inside the house.
Daunting as this seemed, it certainly wasn’t impossible with all those workmen going in and out. The men would be working for several different companies, so what was one more man from one more company? He’d have to go in at the very end of the day, of course. If Murdoch was telling me the truth and really hadn’t gone down to the shelter between approximately five p.m. and the next morning (a fact I’d noted in my notebook), then all the killer had to do was sit back and wait. Think of Murdoch’s face when he saw the dead woman. Think of Murdoch’s panic. His shame.
I went to bed around three o’clock. I read fifty pages of the new Charles Williams Gold Medal novel which was, as always, well-crafted and fetchingly written. There was a darkness in Williams’s books that you couldn’t find even in Jim Thompson. Thompson’s darkness was the darkness of the insane. Williams’s darkness was the darkness of the sane. A subtler and ultimately more terrifying doom.
I lay in the luxury of Pamela’s various scents—sleep, body heat, perfume. I got a useless erection and then fell asleep, my second-to-last thought being that in the morning I needed to get a list of all the companies that had worked on the bomb shelter. My very last thought was to wonder if Mike Hardin’s financial loss in any way played into the murders. But I was too tired to puzzle it through.
I HAD BREAKFAST in the café down the street from my office. I had the waitress pour the coffee directly into my eyes. You wake up faster that way.
No need to wonder what the various conversations were about. There is nothing quite so pleasing as watching the mighty fall. And if they fall because of a sex scandal it’s really a lot of fun. Like hearing that John Wayne was really a transvestite. You know—that shadow between the public image and the private person. A few years ago Confidential magazine had made a lot of money with just such tales.