“So you taught school,” Dave said, “and married a cop.”
“But when I’d spent a couple of years with Louise Orton and a dozen other police wives and their children”—she lifted her cup at him wryly—“you see your husband never”—she drank and her look traveled the room—“I began to miss the way I’d grown up. I started painting, making lampshades, dressing up in garage-sale rags. Ben Orton ordered Jerry to divorce me. His wife and her friends cut me dead. I don’t miss them. Especially not that fat backwoods Hitler, Ben. All I need is Jerry. I counted on his not minding, and he didn’t, he doesn’t. I have advice for women seeking husbands—with a law-enforcement officer, what you see is what you get.”
“Including indifference to laws that don’t suit him,” Dave said. “Minor ones, like fishing with cormorants or slashing the tires of an unwanted stranger in town. Or major ones, like burning down the local radical newspaper.”
She cleared her throat and gave a recitation. “The courts don’t understand the problem. The legislators don’t understand the problem. The police officer has to deal with the problem, face to face, day in, day out. It’s often a matter of his life, a split-second decision. The judgment as to what he has to do can’t wait for laws to be written and passed and a string of courts to make up their minds. He has to protect himself and the public who depend on him. Whether they like it or not.” Her mouth twitched. “End of creed.”
Dave grinned. “I can tell your belief runs deep.”
“His does,” she said grimly, “as his father’s did before him.” She sighed, shook her head. “Mine doesn’t matter. What did you want me to tell Jerry? What’s Anita done now?”
“Why wasn’t she at the funeral?” Dave asked.
“What? Why—she had the flu. That’s what Louise said. She was sick in bed. At college. Sangre de Cristo.” Frances Orton blinked. “Wasn’t she? Anyway—what does it have to do with her father’s death?”
“She was in bed but not sick and not at college. With a boy named Lester Green in his mother’s house up the canyon across the highway.”
She frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I warned you it was complicated,” Dave said. “You don’t know who Lester Green is?”
“No. Wait.” She looked thoughtful and gulped wine. “A black boy—right? Motorcycle? Arrested for dope?”
“On one of those split-second decisions you mentioned,” Dave said. “When Anita’s father learned she and Lester had taken out a marriage license.”
She put her feet on the floor. “You’re joking.”
“You don’t really think so,” Dave said. “You’re a young female relative. She must have told you how badly her father was treating her? Not only framing and locking up her boyfriend but disowning her—taking her name off his insurance policy. I don’t know what else.”
“Nothing else,” Frances Orton said. “Not even that much. What I heard, I heard from Jerry. And it wasn’t anything about any boyfriend.” She emptied her wine cup and went to the jug. “Just that Ben was furious with Anita again and wasn’t buying her the car he’d promised.” She tilted wine into her cup again, looked at him eyebrows-up, and, when he shook his head, recapped the jug. “She kept away from me.” Frances Orton laughed briefly and without amusement. “Thought I’d betrayed my class. If only she’d known how my father twisted himself into knots inside with envy for the poets who made it, while he failed in back rooms of funky bookshops with beer cans and sleeping bags on the floor and everyone too stoned to listen while he read. What he really wanted was to write a sleazy best-seller and have sex all day long by a swimming pool in Bel Air with starlets. He was always being praised for his integrity. He’d have sold it in a minute, only no one wanted to buy.” She’d been staring out the window at the inlet. She turned to him. “Sorry. No. I didn’t know. Jerry didn’t know either, I suspect. His father was always keeping things from him.” She dropped onto the couch again, tucked up her feet again. “I thought that was strange in a man with no sensitivity whatever.”
“Keeping things such as?” Dave asked.
“His women,” she said.
“He wasn’t protecting Jerry,” Dave said, “he was protecting his image, the myth of Ben Orton, champion of law and order, the family, the flag—the things, as his wife told me this morning, that make America great. Which did not include adult movies, homosexual police officers, and most specially not an underground paper.”
“You keep coming back to that,” she said. “It burned, that’s all I know.”
“And all Jerry knew too, I’ll bet. Let me tell you why.” He told her about his day and what he’d learned. It took time. He wound up with, “And, sure enough, this afternoon Louise Orton drove up to Ophelia Green’s to warn her I was in town and asking about Anita. Mrs. Green didn’t know I knew that. She kept on lying. But those kids have been at her place right along. They’re there now. Anita’s ears must have been burning behind the door when she heard what Mrs. Green said about her.” He frowned at Frances Orton. “Her father did give her that car. A Gremlin.”
“Lately. For staying in school and not making waves.”
“I don’t think so. Have Jerry ask her when he sees her tonight. It was a bribe to keep her away from Lester Green when he got out of prison. She must have promised. Only why would he believe her?”
“She’s a female,” Frances Orton said, “and he loved her. What’s so important about the car?”
“It’s hidden in a ravine,” Dave said, “across from the house. Under vines.”
She shook her head. “No. It doesn’t make sense. Why hide the car? Why hide themselves? A man’s in jail for the murder. The case against him is open and shut. They surely can’t enjoy being huddled up in some stuffy little house. For a stupid, adolescent prank that misfired? For how long, for heaven’s sake? Forever?”
“It misfired,” Dave said, “but not the way you mean.”
“Oh, no.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, surely not.”
“That’s why I’m here.” Dave pushed to his feet. The sunset light off the water struck his eyes. They hurt. He hurt all over. He tried to count to himself how many hours it had been since he’d slept. His mind wouldn’t do the sum. “Please tell him as soon as he gets back.” Dave stepped out onto the sand.
She called after him. “Where can he find you?”
“He knows,” Dave said.
She came to the door. “What if they’ve run away? What if you scared them off?”
“That car won’t go,” Dave said.
12
NOT EVEN AN EDGE of light showed the horizon when he got back. He left the rental car up a side street. Limping toward the glow above the shake roofs of the waterfront, he passed the Ford van that had bothered him on the hilltop behind Nowell’s and again down the dusty road near Ophelia Green’s. He craned to peer through the window. Nothing lay on the seats. In the rear, the cargo was darkness. He turned away. It didn’t matter now. It was over. It was certainly over for Lester Green. He wished that made him feel good but it didn’t. Frances Orton was right—something about it didn’t add up. He shrugged. Let Jerry Orton work it out. It wasn’t Dave Brandstetter’s business anymore.
The candle flames still flickered in the colored glass chimneys on the tables outside El Pescador. The breeze was soft, steady, cool. Beyond the white railings of the deck, the masts of the moored boats tilted shiny against the blackness of the bay. Pointing at what? He squinted and made out a few stars. They weren’t his business either. He wished all the tables were empty. Instead, at the farthest one, where they’d splashed the white cloth with red wine, college boys looked pale and laughed loud but not long and not together. Celebrating what—their first adult mistake? And at the nearest table, where he’d left them, Mona Windrow and Al Franklin nursed brandy snifters.
They had cups of coffee too, and Franklin smoked a slim cigar. He leaned back in his chair, paying her grave attention. She read aloud from a typed list open on the
cloth where her plate had been. Dave heard her say “museum” and “curator” and “Arkansas.” There was no way to the door but past them. He hoped they were too busy to notice. Franklin raised his odd blue eyes and jerked a nod but swung his attention back to the woman right away. Plainly he wanted an encounter as much as Dave did. Then she looked up. And drew a sharp breath. And pushed back her chair. A patchwork knitting bag slid off her lap and spilled on the deck. Envelopes. Institutional checks.
“Oh, wait, please.” She came after him.
“He’s all right,” Dave said. “Safe in his trailer.”
“I owe you an explanation,” she said, “after this noon. You see, when I found him, he was sick, helpless—”
Franklin said, “Time comes when the only smart thing is to cut your losses. Mona—the nice man knows that.”
“Is he—?” she began. “Did he—?”
Franklin said, “She means, he talks too much.”
“He’s had quite a life,” Dave said.
“I’m afraid he’s angry at me,” she said, “but—”
“He’s grateful to you,” Dave said.
She studied his face, mistrustful, looking for irony.
“What did I tell you?” Franklin said. “Drink, Mr.—?”
“Brandstetter. No, thanks. I’d better eat while the kitchen’s still open.” He went inside.
The kitchen was closed. By folding a twenty-dollar bill into the palm of a tailored and unsmiling maître d’ he got the kitchen opened again. He also got a smile, a table, and a roomful of silence. In a corner, a spotlight shone on a microphone, a tall black stool, and a closed guitar case. A waiter in a red jacket began bending at the empty tables, blowing out the candles. With a glance at Dave, the maître d’ made him stop. Dave ate lettuce with oil and tarragon vinegar, a slab of grilled swordfish with lemon butter. He drank half the icy Chablis from a slender green bottle and, when he left, carried the bottle along.
This meant to him that he was drunk. That he was drunk meant to him that he was very tired. His knees told him the same thing when he climbed the steps to the motel deck. Then he pushed the door with the broken lock and felt awake and sober—because he saw himself reflected in the glass of the television set, and he had left the television set lying on its back. Not much light reached here from the clear glass globes on posts along the waterfront below, but it let him see that the chest drawers were back in place. He hadn’t told the motel office. If they’d found out for themselves, they’d have fixed the lock. And the lights. He slid a hand inside and moved the switch. Nothing happened.
He didn’t feel brave. He felt annoyed. He changed his grip on the bottle and took a step through the doorway. The bed jounced and he saw eye whites, a gleam of teeth, a form coming at him. Lester Green, he thought. I could have slept in the car. And he swung the bottle. At the head. But the bottle surprised him with its weight. It didn’t get that high. Also it was slippery. It glanced off a shoulder and left his hand. Someplace in the dark it struck a wall and the floor. There was a yelp. A black sprawl twisted and whimpered at his feet. He ran to the bathroom and switched on the light. Hard white enamel covered the door. The light glared off it into the room.
From beside the bed, Cecil Harris looked at him—the skinny black college boy from KSDC-TV. His eyes were round. He clutched his shoulder. “Shee-it, man,” he said reproachfully, “what did you do that for?”
“I can’t imagine,” Dave said. “I don’t, usually.”
“I thought you’d be glad to see me.” Cecil pushed to his feet, grimacing, moving the arm to see if it worked.
“I guess you did,” Dave said. “Otherwise you’d have your clothes on.”
Cecil looked down at himself and looked up, smiling shyly. “We did the signals, didn’t we? This morning. I knew and you knew and you knew I knew—right?”
“It happens,” Dave said. “I’m still surprised.”
“That’s what I meant it to be,” Cecil said. “A nice surprise.” He glanced at the bed. The red, white, and blue spread held the long, narrow imprint of his body. “Found the door open and it came to me to wait.” He passed Dave and crouched. “Had the loaf of bread.” He came up from the corner with the bottle. “Now I got the wine.” He smiled. “And thou.” He rubbed his shoulder.
“How bad is that?” Dave asked him.
“I’ll be black and blue for life,” Cecil said. “Man, you are no housekeeper, I had a lot of tidying up to do.”
“People keep helping themselves to my room.”
“The same ones that slashed your tires?” Cecil went into the bathroom and came out with two of the plastic glasses. He set them on the chest, uncapped the bottle, and poured the pale wine. He pulled the loaf of bread out of its sack and tore it in his hands. He passed a chunk to Dave and handed him a glass, looking at him with earnestness and pain. “Man, what I want is not to break bread and drink wine with you.”
“It’s a way to keep out of trouble,” Dave said. “Did you see who slashed my tires?”
“I even took a picture,” Cecil said. “A movie.”
“Lose it,” Dave said. “You know what happens to young blacks who cross the La Caleta police.”
“Honkies, too, look like.” Cecil lifted the plastic glass. “Here’s to that trouble you mentioned.” He drank and showed surprise. “Oh, that is good wine.” He bit into the bread and spat it out. “Christ, what is that?” He peered at the lump in his palm. He took away Dave’s chunk. “Don’t eat that. Bound to kill you.” He went into the bathroom again. The toilet flushed.
Dave stepped to the doorway. Cecil bent at the basin, noisily washing out his mouth. In the white dazzle of tile, paint, mirror, the detail of how he was made showed. Out of clothes, he didn’t look skinny. His face where he shaved was rough. The rest of him was smooth. He groped for a towel, scrubbed his face, caught Dave staring, and grinned. They hadn’t tamed his grin for the camera yet. It showed his gums.
“You followed me,” Dave said.
“And I’m not even a masochist.” Cecil hung up the towel, switched off the light, and reached for Dave. “Let’s get into trouble now, okay?”
Dave turned away. “I’m too old for you. I’m drunk. I haven’t slept in nearly forty hours. And I have a phone call to make.”
“It’s late,” Cecil said. “They’ll be asleep.”
Dave carried the phone to the open door where the deck lamps below let him just make out the circle of numbers. He held the receiver with a shoulder and dialed. In the dark room, the bedspread billowed up like a night sail and fell. The bed creaked. “You know where to find me, old man,” Cecil said.
On the phone the doctor said, “We’re doing our best.”
“They called you in, did they?” Dave said. “This afternoon they told me he was better.”
“He could rally again,” the doctor said.
“But you don’t think he will,” Dave said.
“I wish it were morning,” the doctor said.
“Don’t they die in the morning?”
“They don’t seem to. Not as often.”
“Once is all it takes,” Dave said, and hung up. He leaned in the doorway, hearing the water lap around the boats, seeing the masts sway. The bay was glassy black. Lonely lights were scattered along the curving shore. The hills rose dark behind them. There were more stars now. He carried the phone back to the stand and set it there with a faint jingle of its bell. He sat on the bed and tugged off the canvas shoes. “How’s your father?”
“How is anybody in Detroit?” The words came muffled.
Dave pulled the denim tunic off over his head. “You don’t miss him?”
“Man, I don’t remember anything about him.” The bed jounced. Warm hands were on Dave’s shoulders. Warm breath was on the back of his neck. A kiss. “Why should I miss anybody? Here. Now.”
Dave sighed. “Just a minute.” He hiked his butt and shoved the pants down. He kicked them away, turned, and took Cecil’s face in his hands.
All he could see of it were the eyes. But his mouth found the mouth he couldn’t see and kissed it. He said, “You have a long lifetime before you. I hope that during that long lifetime you never have occasion to be as tired as I am right now. To make the following announcement saddens me. I hope it saddens you, though I shouldn’t, and it shouldn’t. But when my head hits that pillow, there’s no way I’m going to do anything but sleep.”
Cecil’s laugh was soft and wicked. “We’ll see.”
The bed moved. The warmth went from beside him. He moaned and opened his eyes. Colors shifted in the night room. There was an electronic twittering. He pushed up on an elbow and winced at the ache in his muscles. Cecil crouched in front of the television set. On the screen, cartoon dinosaurs melted into a pool of crude oil. Bright rubber automobiles passed. A dinosaur peered from a gas tank.
“They figure out cute ways”—Cecil came back to the bed—“to tell us we’re all doomed.” He fell beside Dave, pulled Dave down, hung an arm across him.
“I’ve read about the need,” Dave said, “of today’s young for constant visual stimulation but this is—”
Cecil’s hand stopped his mouth. “Wait,” he said. “Coming up is the second part of my surprise.”
Dave took the hand, kissed it, put it lower where he wanted it. He turned onto his side, shut his eyes and fitted himself into Cecil’s angles. “I liked the first part,” he mumbled, and fell asleep again.
But not for long. Cecil was shaking his shoulder. “Wake up. Here it comes now. Your TV debut. You don’t know how beautiful you are.”
Daisy Flynn spoke his name. He sat up and squinted at the phosphorescent picture. A lean, blond man in blue denim walked beside Hector Rodriguez through the dappled leaf shadow of the nursery. Daisy Flynn’s voice was saying “… business partner of Cliff Kerlee, now awaiting trial for the slaying of La Caleta Police Chief Benjamin J. Orton.” Now Hector Rodriguez flinched alone in sunlight and kept rubbing his smooth brown chest. He said, “I told him the same thing I told the officers. Cliff didn’t do it. He was here with me when it happened.” The camera had shaken Rodriguez’s nerve. The lean, blond man in denim sat drinking beer on Richard T. Nowell’s terrace. The picture had fuzzy edges and it jittered. Dave looked at Cecil, who shrugged.
The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of Page 10