Blackburn

by Bradley Denton

  As Arthur and his admirers sat down, Blackburn entered the shop and walked past them, taking a booth in the back. He unzipped his coat, and his copy of The Guy Who Killed People fell onto the table. He stared at the book to keep from staring at its author. Now was still not the time for them to meet, and he didn’t want to draw Arthur’s attention.

  “Weren’t you in a while ago?” a voice asked.

  Blackburn looked up. A hairnetted waitress was standing beside the booth.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Decided I wanted some dessert. Banana cream pie.”

  The waitress scribbled on her pad. “That a good book?” she asked, nodding at The Guy Who Killed People.

  “It’s okay.”

  The waitress waved a thumb at Artimus Arthur’s group. “One of those people writes books. At least, that’s what they told me. If you’re interested.”

  “Thanks.”

  The waitress left. Blackburn opened the novel and reread Chapters Three and Four, and half of Five. Then he glanced up and saw that his pie was on the table and that Arthur and his entourage were leaving. He closed the book and wolfed down three bites of pie, then dropped money on the table and went out.

  Outside, the entourage was disintegrating. Some of the people were walking toward the bus stop, and others were getting into cars parked along the street. Artimus Arthur was still hanging on to the arm of the attractive woman and was speaking to two young men.

  “I appreciate the offer, gentlemen,” he said, “but Stephanie has offered to see me safely to my hotel, and I have full confidence in her abilities. Thank you for coming. I enjoyed our conversation.” He didn’t sound drunk anymore.

  The two young men turned and left Arthur with the woman. They passed by Blackburn.

  “Think she’ll fuck him?” one of them whispered.

  Blackburn didn’t hear the reply. He followed Artimus Arthur and Stephanie. There weren’t many people on the sidewalks tonight, but there were enough that Blackburn didn’t think he’d be noticed.

  Arthur and the woman walked five blocks east to 4th Street and then down three blocks to the Clarion Hotel. Blackburn had dropped back until he was almost fifty yards behind them, and he ran to catch up when he saw them enter the hotel. If they were going to get on an elevator, he wanted to be sure he was on it with them.

  They were still in the lobby, standing between a row of pay phones and the elevators, when Blackburn came inside. Arthur was leaning toward Stephanie and murmuring something, and Stephanie was leaning away, smiling and shaking her head. Blackburn went to the pay phone closest to them and pretended to make a call.

  Stephanie kissed Arthur on the cheek, then walked past Blackburn and out of the hotel. “If you change your mind,” Arthur shouted, “I’m in Room Twenty-one Fourteen!” But Stephanie was already outside. Blackburn was glad to see her go.

  Arthur stepped into an elevator with three other people, so Blackburn didn’t try to get there before the doors closed. He wanted to meet Arthur alone, and now that he knew the writer’s room number, he could be sure that he did. He went to the elevators after Arthur’s car had gone and pushed the UP button.

  The door to Room 2114 opened on the fourth knock, and Artimus Arthur stood there grinning. Then he saw Blackburn, and the grin disappeared. He leaned out and looked up and down the empty hallway. “Oh,” he said. “I was expecting someone else.”

  Blackburn smelled liquor. He didn’t like it. “Hello, Mr. Arthur,” he said. “I can’t tell you my name, but I’ve read your novel, The Guy Who Killed People, and I wondered if you would sign the title page for me.” He unzipped his coat and pulled out the book. “I’d also like to talk a while, if you have time.”

  Arthur stepped back. “You have the wrong room,” he said, and started to close the door.

  Blackburn put a hand on the door to hold it open. “I really think you’ll want to talk to me,” he said.

  Arthur glared at him. “I’m doing a signing tomorrow at a Waldenbooks in St. Charles. Talk to me then.” He tried to shove the door shut, but it didn’t move.

  Blackburn shook his head. “I was at your signing today,” he said. “It was awful. None of those people knew your work, or what it means. And you … were drunk. Probably so you wouldn’t have to think about those people.”

  “If you don’t leave right now,” Arthur said, “I’ll yell for help. There are a lot of people on this floor, and they’ll call hotel security. Or the police.”

  Blackburn held out The Guy Who Killed People. “This book is about me,” he said.

  Arthur’s eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”

  “The man in the book,” Blackburn said. “The guy who kills people, but only when they deserve it. I’m him.”

  Arthur’s hands slid from the door, and he took another step back. “You don’t say.”

  “If you’ll give me a few minutes, you’ll believe me,” Blackburn said. He entered the room and closed the door. “You’re the first person I’ve told about this. You can imagine why.”

  Arthur’s grin was creeping back. “Oh, yes,” he said. He went to the nightstand and picked up an open fifth of Jack Daniel’s. He grasped the bottle by the neck and took a drink. Then he looked at Blackburn. “So you’ve sprung to life from the pages of my book, is that it? Must have been an easy birth. No water breaking, no straining. No blood.”

  “That’s not what I mean, sir,” Blackburn said. “I’m not a lunatic.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting you were.” Arthur went around the bed to the window, taking the bottle with him. He opened the drapes. The Gateway Arch was visible on the far side of I-70. “To believe you’ve been given life by words isn’t lunacy. But to try to parachute down to land on top of that thing—” He pointed at the Arch. “Now, that’s lunacy.”

  Blackburn didn’t know what Arthur was talking about. “What I meant to say, sir,” he continued, “was that I share the values and behavior of your nameless protagonist. I am a real-world analog of The Guy Who Killed People.”

  “Oh,” Arthur said. “Well, in that case, you are a lunatic. Go parachute onto the Arch.” He took a swig from the bottle.

  “Please listen,” Blackburn said. “Once I saw a man beating his wife, so I shot him. Another time I saw a man run over a dog on purpose. So I shot him. Another time I caught two mechanics cheating an old lady, so—”

  “Let me guess,” Arthur said. “You shot them.”

  “No. I would have, but I didn’t have my gun with me. I crushed one of them under a hydraulic lift and blew up the other one with an air compressor.”

  “That was very resourceful.” Arthur took a long drink. The bottle was almost empty. “Now get out of here before I call hotel security.”

  “You still don’t believe me.”

  Arthur laughed, and it became a cough. He bent over and hacked, then spat and straightened up. His face had turned red. “You want to know the truth?” he asked.

  Blackburn stepped toward the writer, holding The Guy Who Killed People before him like a holy icon. “Yes,” he said. “I found truth in this book, so I know you’re a man who understands what truth is.”

  “You bet,” Arthur said. He drained the bottle and coughed again.

  Droplets hit Blackburn’s face. He breathed bourbon, and his lungs burned. He was glad the bottle was empty. Maybe things would go better now.

  Arthur pushed Blackburn aside and returned to the nightstand. He set down the bottle and put his hand on the telephone. “The truth is that I don’t care whether you ever killed anybody, or whether you’re using my book as an excuse to hallucinate. Either way, you’re nothing to me but a pain in the ass. I’ve met you a thousand times, and I only put up with you for the first hundred. So you can walk out of this room, or I can call someone to drag you out.”

  Blackburn was beginning to despair, but he had to keep trying. “I’m not like those others,” he said, coming around the bed. “They want your fame to rub off on them. I don’t. I only want to let you know that your
vision isn’t in vain.”

  Arthur looked puzzled. “What vision is that?”

  “The vision in this book,” Blackburn said, holding out The Guy Who Killed People again. “The vision of a man who understands the meaning of independence and justice, and who isn’t afraid to act on that understanding.”

  Arthur picked up the empty bottle and tried to take another drink. Then he brought it up to his right eye and peered through the glass at Blackburn. “You are not only a lunatic,” he said, “but a lunatic who can’t read his way out of a wet paper bag.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Blackburn said.

  “Of course not.” Arthur lowered the bottle and shook it at Blackburn. “That’s because you’re a lunatic. Just like the man in my book. He’s worse than a serial killer, worse than evil. He’s stupid, which is the worst lunacy of all. The reader isn’t supposed to sympathize with him. The reader’s supposed to loathe him. I sure as hell did.”

  It was as if Blackburn had been slugged. “But the people he killed all deserved it,” he said. The words hurt his throat. “They were horrible.”

  “We’re all horrible!” Arthur yelled, waving the bottle. “I’m horrible, you’re horrible, the President of the United States is horrible! Mother stinking Teresa is horrible! A newborn baby will be horrible as soon as it gets a chance! Trying to fight that isn’t noble. It’s futile. Why do you think I killed him off at the end, anyway?”

  “To … make him a martyr?”

  Arthur came close to Blackburn and bellowed in his ear. “BECAUSE HE WAS A PAIN IN THE ASS, THAT’S WHY!”

  Blackburn flinched away. He was angry now. “I see,” he said. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Arthur.”

  “Drop dead,” Arthur said. “But get out first.”

  Blackburn went to the door, but then turned back toward the writer. “You know what I think?” he asked.

  Arthur stood beside the bed, his shoulders slumped. The Jack Daniel’s bottle dangled from his hand. “Not only do I not know,” he said, “but I don’t give a shit either.”

  “I think,” Blackburn said, “that you’ve lied to me. I think you know you’ve written the truth, and you’re afraid of it. I think you’re so afraid of it that you have to get drunk to be brave. And then you lie to fight off your own truth.”

  Arthur’s eyes opened wide. He raised the whiskey bottle over his head. “I said get—” He lunged forward. “—the FUCK OUT!”

  Blackburn dodged, and the bottle clipped his shoulder. He came up against the wall and dropped The Guy Who Killed People. Arthur swung again, and the bottle bounced off Blackburn’s skull. Blackburn saw a white burst like a flashbulb. He dropped to his hands and knees and scrambled. He didn’t know which way he was going until he ran into the bed. He turned around and saw Arthur coming at him.

  “You’re not like the man in my book,” Arthur said. His voice was thick with contempt. “But I am.”

  Blackburn got onto the bed. “I thought you said that you loathed him.”

  Arthur grinned. “Sure. Any man who doesn’t despise himself hasn’t looked close enough.” He charged toward the bed and swung the bottle.

  Blackburn lurched away, and the bottle missed him. He fell off the bed on the far side, landing on his rump.

  Arthur bounced on the bed on his knees and glared down at Blackburn. “I’ve always wanted to kill people,” he said. He hefted the bottle. “I’ve just never had the guts. So I write about it instead. But maybe I can at least hurt you.”

  Blackburn stood and reached into his coat. He opened the Velcro flap over the Python’s pouch, then pulled out the pistol. He didn’t point it, but he cocked it.

  “I can’t let you hit me again,” he said. “No matter who you are or what you mean to me. Nobody hurts me.”

  Arthur lowered the bottle. His face sagged. “All right, then,” he said. “Take your blue-metal dick and leave me alone.”

  Blackburn looked at the Python. “This isn’t a dick,” he said. “It’s justice. That’s in your book. It’s what The Guy says about the rifle he uses to kill the school board.”

  “I know what’s in my book,” Arthur said. He came off the bed and stood facing Blackburn. “You don’t have to tell me what’s in my own goddamn book.”

  Blackburn stared into the black depths of Arthur’s eyes. “I think I do. I think you’ve fogged your brain so much that you can’t remember your own wisdom.”

  Arthur sneered. “Screw you,” he said. He gripped the neck of the Jack Daniel’s bottle with both hands and swung it at Blackburn’s face.

  Blackburn raised his arm to block it, and the Python fired. The bottle exploded.

  Blackburn stumbled backward and slammed against the window so hard that it cracked. He turned toward the glass and saw two reflections of his face, one on either side of a snaking silver line. Then he noticed that each face had a fragment of whiskey bottle stuck in its cheek. He reached up to brush the fragment away. It stuck to his fingers for a moment before falling.

  “My hands,” Arthur said.

  Blackburn turned toward him. Arthur was lying on his back on the bed, holding his hands above his face. The fingers were curled into claws. Blood welled out everywhere. It was soaking Arthur’s sleeves.

  “My hands,” Arthur said again.

  Blackburn replaced the Python in its pouch and went around the foot of the bed toward the door. The meeting hadn’t gone at all the way he had hoped.

  “You’ll be all right, sir,” he said, picking up his copy of The Guy Who Killed People from the floor. “If you died, I’d have to count you as one of my victims, and I don’t want to.” He stared down at the black dust jacket. “You didn’t even sign my book.”

  “Open it.”

  Blackburn looked up. “What?”

  “Open it and bring it here.”

  Blackburn opened the book to the title page and took it to the bed.

  “Under my hands,” Arthur said.

  Blackburn held the book under Arthur’s hands, and a few drops of blood spattered on the paper. Blackburn closed the book and stepped back.

  “You are a great man,” he said.

  Arthur made a noise in his throat. “I’ve pissed my pants,” he said.

  Blackburn left the room. Despite the gunshot, the hall was still empty. He went down to the lobby and called for an ambulance from one of the pay phones, then got out of there. He wondered if Arthur had any children, and if so, whether they felt as much kinship for the man as he did.

  He was bruised and sore the next morning, and the cut on his face throbbed. But he forgot all of that when he turned on the radio. According to the newscaster, novelist Artimus Arthur had died the night before when he leaped through the glass of his hotel room window and fell to the street. A paramedic had told him that his wounded hands might be crippled for life.

  Blackburn wept.

  EIGHT

  BLACKBURN SINS

  The deadbolt wasn’t set, so Blackburn broke into the apartment with a six-inch metal ruler. A lamp was on inside. He scanned the living room, but wasn’t interested in the TV or stereo. This was a second-story apartment with outside stairs, so he couldn’t take anything big. The VCR was small enough, but he decided against it anyway. He wasn’t proud that he had turned to thievery, so he preferred to steal only those things that were of no use or pleasure to their owners. But that rule tended to limit him to class rings and junk, so he didn’t always stick to it.

  He didn’t bother with the kitchen. Apartment dwellers didn’t own silver. He pulled his folded duffel bag from his coat and stepped into the hallway that led to the bedroom. Bedrooms were good for jewelry. Houston pawn shops paid cash for gold chains and silver earrings.

  The bedroom door opened, and a man stepped out. Blackburn froze.

  The man closed the door behind him. He was tall. His face and most of his body were shadowed. His right hand was empty, but Blackburn couldn’t see his left. It might be holding a weapon.

  “Wh
at are you doing here?” the man asked. His voice was of moderate pitch. He didn’t sound upset.

  Blackburn was confused. He had watched this building for three days, noting the occupants of each apartment and their schedules. This unit’s occupant was a woman who had left for her night shift at Whataburger twenty minutes ago. He was sure that she lived alone. The man at the end of the hall should not exist.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the man said. “I just want to know why you’re here.”

  Blackburn took two steps backward. His Colt Python was in its pouch in his coat, but he couldn’t reach for it without dropping the duffel bag from his right hand. Then it would take two or three seconds to reach into the left side of his coat, open the Velcro flap, and pull out the pistol. If the shadowed man had a gun or knife, Blackburn might be dead before getting off a shot. So his best option was to leave, but he had to do it without turning his back.

  “Tell me why you’re here,” the shadowed man said, “and I won’t hurt you. But if you don’t stand still, I will.”

  Blackburn stopped. “I was going to steal things,” he said, “but I’m not going to now.”

  “What things were you going to steal?”

  “Jewelry. Rings, necklaces. Maybe a musical instrument, like an old trumpet or an out-of-tune guitar.”

  “Why out of tune?” the shadowed man asked.

  “A guitar that’s in tune is in use,” Blackburn said. “I don’t like to steal things people use.”

  The shadowed man gave a short chuckle, almost a grunt. “A burglar with a moral code,” he said. “But people use jewelry too, you know.”

  “It just hangs there,” Blackburn said. “It’s stupid.”

  “In your opinion.”

  Blackburn started to relax his grip on the duffel bag. He had decided to try for the Python. “Yes,” he said. “In my opinion.”

  “And that’s the only opinion that counts.”

  “Yes.” The duffel began to slip from Blackburn’s fingers.