Saratoga Payback

by Stephen Dobyns

  The room was a small efficiency apartment in a motel on Route 9 on the way to Glens Falls. In the summer it would rent by the day, but in the off-season you could rent by the week or longer. It had the appearance of a room last decorated in the 1960s, with faded green walls and a painting of a racehorse over the double bed, a racehorse painted by someone who’d probably never seen a racehorse. The man had rented the room for a week, hoping he wouldn’t need it any longer, but already he knew he’d need it for a second week, if not more. The room was neat and the man’s few clothes had been carefully put away. A pair of shiny black shoes stood side by side, half under the edge of the bed. On a table by an armchair was a stack of Saratogians. The man went to the small refrigerator, poured himself a glass of milk, and then walked to the window and looked out at the parking lot. It was raining and the wind whipped the tree branches back and forth. Now and then a car hissed by, but there wasn’t much traffic.

  The man felt if he wanted, he could finish his work in a week, ten days at most. But that had always been his problem. He tended to rush things, which got him into trouble. Planning and patience, that’s what it took; so even two months would be okay if that’s what the job required. Yet he wanted to be done with it; he wanted to be gone. He just had to make sure that what he called “patience” wasn’t a matter of being scared. But he knew he wasn’t scared; he wasn’t scared of anything.

  Four

  The packed shelves rose up twenty feet on either side of Charlie, bringing to mind the Valley of Death in the Twenty-third Psalm or the walls of the Red Sea towering over Moses and the Jews, but it was only Charlie’s local Home Depot. Yet the very narrowness of the aisles and ascending mountain of merchandise gave him a mild sense of peril, as if the whole business might collapse. But maybe his sense of danger came from his talk with Eddie Gillespie and Charlie’s realization that it hadn’t been Parlucci who had told Mickey Martin where he lived. Possibly Parlucci’s question to Victor had been innocent and in some dim moment years before, Charlie had actually lent him a hundred dollars. Perhaps Parlucci had joined some twelve-step program—there were at least half a dozen for which he qualified—and was making amends by trying to return forgotten money.

  On the other hand, maybe Parlucci had wanted Charlie’s address in order to give it to someone else. What if he had given it to the murderer who had wanted to intercept Mickey Martin before he had a chance to talk to Charlie? Was this possible? And so the Home Depot’s high shelves took on a morbid quality: the high walls of the Valley of Death, even prison walls.

  As for Charlie’s presence in Home Depot, that, too, was a result of Eddie’s visit. Eddie had inserted the idea of Home Depot in his head and Charlie had decided this afternoon was a good time to buy that screwdriver he’d been thinking about, along with an assortment of screws. There were chores at home he had been avoiding—a bookcase to put together, a table to dismantle. It was another result of Charlie’s advancing age, or so it seemed, that each day he fell a little further behind in doing what needed to be done, so that greater and more heroic efforts were required to catch up with life’s minutiae. The screwdriver fell into this category. But today, in a very small way, he had triumphed.

  For nearly sixty years Charlie had struggled with screwdrivers, panting, puffing, twisting and getting blisters on his palms. These were what he now saw as old-fashioned manual jobbies only fit for the garbage dump. What he presently carried under his right arm was a blue plastic case containing an 18-volt cordless drill-and-driver combo—Japanese and flashy—while under his left arm he held a 90-piece drill accessory kit, including nut setters, titanium nitride twist drills, hex shank spade bits, masonry bits, brad-point drills, Phillips and slot insert bits, and five round saw-like things whose purpose Charlie couldn’t imagine. But they were bright red and he liked them.

  Charlie felt if he were suddenly called upon to take apart his entire house, he was ready for the job. He itched to unscrew something and he glanced at the surrounding shelves, seeking out the bolts and screws that kept them in place. Surely the removal of a single screw would do no harm.

  It was then that his name was called, leading his guilty desires to scatter to their cheerless inner caverns.

  “Aren’t you Charlie Bradshaw? I must say, you’ve aged.”

  The woman standing before him had aged as well, which is why it took Charlie a moment to recognize her. She was thin and below-medium height, with dark hair streaked with gray, dark eyes and sculpted cheekbones. Her hands were on the hips of her calf-length burgundy coat and her determined chin pointed directly at him. “Artemis?” he asked.

  “At least you’re still capable of acts of memory. When I saw you no longer occupied that cute little house on the lake, I worried that one of your desperadoes had plunked you with a bullet.”

  “Not yet. Actually, I’m no longer a detective. I’ve retired. Not only that, I’m married.”

  Artemis raised an eyebrow. “Do you plan to raise a family?”

  “Nope, the children came in the marital package: three daughters mostly grown.”

  “Well, that was intelligent at least.”

  Charlie and Artemis continued to talk. It had been nearly eight years since he had seen her last and she bore the passage of time with more grace than he did, or this was his opinion, and retained such beauty as was available in late middle age. For many years she had been an equestrienne in Vienna, renowned for her acrobatics on a series of horses as they galloped madly about the ring while she cartwheeled and flung herself from horse to horse as easily as a lumberjack hopping across river-borne logs. Her off-season—a four-month period in summer—she’d spent on her farm outside of Saratoga, developing routines of greater complexity until gravity seemed something she could flick away as easily as a pebble. Then, about seven and a half years ago, Charlie learned that Artemis had decided to stay in Austria year-round, and her farm had been rented to a young couple who raised llamas. She had sent Charlie a postcard detailing the nuisance of transporting horses across the Atlantic and that she had rented a small farm in an idyllic alpine valley. There had been a return address, but Charlie had been unable to make it out. Now, as she explained, she had been back several months.

  “As a matter of fact,” said Artemis, “I’ve retired as well.”

  “You still look very fit.”

  “Perhaps, but at sixty I feel too long in the tooth to be hurling myself dressed in sequined halter top and tights across the backs of vigorous quadrupeds. I’ve come back to Saratoga to write my autobiography or memoirs, I can’t decide which.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Well, in an autobiography one reveals all one’s indiscretions, and in a memoir one can pick and choose, allowing me to focus on the crème de la crème of sin.”

  “And how far have you gotten?”

  “I’m still dealing with the virginity question. Such a bother. Losing it was like purposefully leaving a pair of ugly gloves behind on a bus.”

  “But do you have horses?”

  “Three codgers, and I spend some time each day doing flips on their backs. The exercise is useful. I also give lessons to several local girls consumed with foolish ambition. Those will continue till one of them breaks her neck.”

  Charlie tried to remember her farm. “Don’t you live near Fletcher Campbell?”

  “He’s a neighbor. I’ve known him for years and I met him again shortly after I returned. He said he was glad to ‘reconnect.’ I found the word moderately salacious and intend to keep the connection at arm’s length. But we’ve had tea several times and one evening there were cocktails with local folk. He’s a trifle hearty for my taste. Can’t carry on a conversation without breaking into shouts. But he has some lovely horses and he was kind enough to recommend a vet when Larry was sick.”

  Charlie looked blank.

  “Larry, the horse,” Artemis added.

 
“I was surprised when you left and sorry I didn’t have your address.”

  Artemis brushed back a wave of hair that had fallen at an angle across her brow. “Yes, you might have visited. That would have been a treat. But I’d been having trouble here getting adequate help for the horses. One fellow broke into my house and took various articles, including some pieces of jewelry, the gift of a departed great-grandmother. I had to fire him.”

  “You didn’t call the police?”

  “Well, he was an addict. I didn’t want to get him into further trouble.”

  “What was his name? Maybe I know him.”

  “I’ve been trying to remember. Matthew something. I think his last name was Perkins, or at least it was something like Perkins.”

  “Anyway, you should have called me.”

  “I did, but you were away at the time. Then, when I returned to Vienna, I decided to stay the year, and, inevitably, one year stretched into another. People over there may be mean, but they’re always very polite about it.”

  They talked for a little longer, discussing dinner invitations and exchanging telephone numbers. “I don’t e-mail,” said Artemis. “It’s like the remark by that French Symbolist, Villiers de l’Isle-Adam: ‘Living? Our servants can do that for us.’ I feel that way about e-mail.”

  Shortly, as Charlie made his way to the checkout line, he thought of the coincidence that Artemis should live near Campbell. Next he thought he was forgetting something. Was it another tool, a wireless saw or power hammer? But he’d already walked five miles within the vast store and his feet hurt. If a power hammer turned out to be necessary for a good life, he’d come back another day.

  —

  It was now midafternoon and the rain had settled into a steady drizzle. Men and women sprinted for their cars across Home Depot’s ten-acre parking lot. Charlie was no longer at an age where his knees would let him sprint with style, but he had a respectable hurry. Reaching his green Golf, he flung open the door and maneuvered himself inside.

  He had meant to go home and begin the chores that would benefit from his 18-volt cordless drill-and-driver combo, but instead he decided to visit Victor. After all, the very act of purchasing the tool was equivalent to half finishing whatever job needed to be done. It made sense to take a break. In addition, he wanted to ask Victor more about Parlucci. Before starting his car, he checked to see if his cell phone was on or if he had inadvertently pushed the silent or vibrate button. No telling when Campbell would call about his kidnapped horse.

  The wind shook the trees on either side of Route 29 as Charlie drove out toward Rosemary’s diner. Another day of such wind and the leaves would be gone. Then, in another week or so, the time would change and soon it would be dark by four o’clock. Maybe Eddie Gillespie was right with his dreams of a condo in Tampa, but Charlie felt the social life of self-satisfied septuagenarians held little charm. The grave or a nursing home would put him in their company soon enough. Besides, he didn’t play golf.

  He found Victor relaxed in a large semicircular booth, not quite like resident royalty but almost. This booth, as well as the others, was upholstered in gold plastic decorated with black squiggles. Victor was thoughtfully chewing a pencil stub and studying the day’s Racing Form. In front of him on the Formica was a pad on which to take notes. The Wurlitzer jukebox was playing Roy Orbison—Uptown, in penthouse number three / Uptown, just my baby and me. Nothing was unusual about this. Victor had packed the jukebox with thirty Roy Orbison numbers, causing some dissension among Rosemary’s regular customers. As for Charlie, he sometimes felt that if he ever again heard the five ascending guitar notes that began “Pretty Woman,” he would, as his stepdaughter Emma liked to say, lose it.

  Seeing Charlie, Victor asked, “You hear of a filly named Jamaica Lady?”

  “You know I don’t pay much attention to that stuff.”

  “Hope springs eternal. Coffee?”

  Moments later Charlie had a cup of coffee, a slab of blueberry pie and a bright red lipstick smudge on his cheek where Rosemary had kissed him hello. “I want to ask you about Dave Parlucci,” said Charlie.

  Victor took the pencil stub from his mouth. “Do we have to discuss that again?”

  “It’s different now.”

  “Hey, I already said I was sorry. I got a clean slate.”

  So Charlie told him of his visit from Eddie Gillespie. “The point is that Mickey Martin probably never talked to Parlucci.”

  “And you want to know who he talked to, if anyone.”

  “That’s about it.”

  “I thought you’d quit the detective racket.”

  “I’m not investigating anything. You said he was looking for me.”

  “Why don’t you tell the cops what Eddie said?”

  “He’s worried about his job with the city and doesn’t want the attention.”

  Victor gave Charlie a sardonic look from under his eyebrows. “You’re sly. You’ve got as many answers as a toad has warts. Tell me, does Eddie’s hair still look like the prow of the Titanic?”

  “Just about.” Charlie took a bite of blueberry pie. At the counter a couple of men were talking about football. The wind blew leaves against the windows.

  “So what d’you want from me?” asked Victor. “Remember, I’m retired as well.”

  “Anything else you can tell me about when you spoke to him?”

  “Yeah, he said he could tie a maraschino cherry stem into a knot with his tongue.”

  Charlie lifted his cup and blew across the surface of his coffee. “Anything of substance.”

  “I don’t think so. At first he didn’t want to say what he wanted to see you about, but it didn’t seem like any big thing, at least nothing to make me suspicious.”

  “And you wanted to get back to studying the waitress’s breasts.”

  Victor shot a glance toward the cash register to see if the Queen of Softness was settled into her usual spot and not close enough to overhear Charlie’s remark. “Cleavage,” said Victor. “Not breasts, cleavage. Vast and deep with her tits rising up on either side like mountaintops.”

  “That reminds me,” said Charlie, “I ran into Artemis about an hour ago at the Home Depot. She’s moved back to her horse farm.”

  “The last I saw Artemis, she had a somewhat shallow cleavage. A nice lady, but more of a snack than a meal.”

  “She’s come back to write a book. And she’s a neighbor of Fletcher Campbell.” Charlie didn’t plan to say anything about Campbell hiring him to deliver the money to the horse-nappers. Trusting Victor with a secret was like trusting water to a sieve.

  “I don’t know, Charlie, you’re getting a little deep for me. Oh yeah, I told Parlucci you were opening a bar.”

  Charlie paused with his fork upraised. “I’d never dream of such a thing.”

  “Well, I had to tell him something and I’d run out of regular conversation.”

  “Do you know where Parlucci lives?”

  “No idea. Didn’t Eddie know?”

  “I didn’t ask him.”

  “He drives that big city truck all over; he probably knows where everyone lives.”

  “I’ll find him.” Charlie took a sip of coffee and got to his feet. “I expect he’s still at work.” He set his cup on the table. “Tell me, why was Mickey coming to my house?”

  “Hey, what am I, a mind reader? Maybe he wanted to borrow a cup of sugar.”

  “Really, I want to hear what you think about it. What was he after?”

  “Well, if he’s coming to see you after midnight, it says he’s afraid of something or he’s got something to hide. Like he learned where you lived earlier in the day, so why wait till after midnight to visit? And if he’s going to you instead of the police, it’s maybe about something illegal or at least questionable. He liked to call you a sleazy detective; maybe he wanted a sleazy dete
ctive. It’s not like you were friends or anything. But he must have thought you could help and he must have been desperate. Most likely he was also scared and, you figure what happened, he had good reason.”

  “That’s a start,” said Charlie. “I’ll give you a call if I learn anything.”

  “Anything you want, you got it. And if you come back later, I’ve a movie you’ll like. I picked up the video of my colonoscopy at the hospital. On Rosemary’s sixty-five-inch plasma TV, my guts look like the insides of an anaconda in heat.”

  It took Charlie an hour to find Eddie. First he’d called the maintenance department, and because Eddie wasn’t supposed to consort with shifty characters like Charlie and Victor, he identified himself as an insurance agent, Henry Notley, who had to clear up a problem with Eddie’s home insurance by five o’clock or else Eddie’s policy would be canceled. He was told that Eddie was picking up leaves and lawn debris on the north side near Skidmore. As Charlie drove up Broadway, he took comfort in his falsehood. It was the sort of deception he’d practiced as a private detective. Lying to the clerk in the maintenance office had touched his heart with a little fillip of nostalgia.

  After fifteen minutes of crisscrossing the north side of town, Charlie spotted the city’s orange truck parked at a curb as Eddie and two other men loaded piles of leaves into the hopper. It was still drizzling and the men wore yellow slickers and rain hats. They worked slowly and methodically, like robots running out of juice. Charlie pulled up and called Eddie over to his car.

  “How’d you know where to find me?” asked Eddie, and when Charlie told him, Eddie grew upset. “Jesus, I’m not supposed to know you. They’ve warned me about that. For Pete’s sake, Charlie, a job’s a job.” Eddie’s rain hat was perched on his pompadour like a soup plate on a baked apple.