Saratoga Payback

by Stephen Dobyns

  Bad Maud handed him a Budweiser. “Great, isn’t it,” she shouted. “This is where we get to howl.”

  “Charming. So who did you find?”

  “Give me the money first.”

  Charlie gave her a hundred-dollar bill.

  “More.”

  He gave her another.

  “More.”

  “No more, and this better be worth it.”

  Bad Maud inspected her fingernails, which were chipped and needed cutting. “I don’t guarantee the merchandise. He’s over there in the booth by the potty. He’s the one with the black motorcycle cap.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “You can call him Sharkie.”

  Again Charlie pushed his way through the crowd. Someone tromped on his foot; someone else elbowed him in the back. Sharkie watched him approach with a grin. He had black hair down past his collar and seemed thin all over; even his nose was narrow. He looked about forty. A man and two women were also in the booth. Tattoos and motorcycle gear gave them a family resemblance.

  “Can we talk in private?” said Charlie, raising his voice over the noise. The band was like a semi-melodic traffic accident: all crashes and screams.

  A dark-haired woman with a facial landscape of piercings snickered. She was pretty except for the missing teeth. “Don’t you like us, Pops?”

  Sharkie jerked his thumb toward the room. After looking briefly defiant, the man and two women picked up their drinks and headed for the bar.

  Charlie sat down. He felt he’d already had too much of the Greasy Mattress. “What do you know about Matthew Durkin?”

  Sharkie stretched out his hand and brushed his thumb over his fingers a few times. Charlie put a hundred-dollar bill on the table and Sharkie reached for it.

  Charlie drew it back. “Not till you tell me.”

  Sharkie’s face tightened and slackened in a mix of defiance and desire, both wanting the money and wanting to keep silent. At last, he said, “We were cellmates for a while. He was a chump. Guys took his food, cigarettes, made him run errands. If he whined, they slapped him around.”

  “You help him?”

  “It wasn’t my business.”

  “What were you in for?”

  “They said I’d swiped some bikes. It was just bullshit, all bullshit.”

  Charlie nodded sagely. “Were you there when Durkin was murdered?”

  “I’d been transferred downstate about two months before.” Sharkie’s voice had the wavering buzz of an electric razor.

  “You think he was dealing drugs?”

  “Shit, no. If Durkin had drugs, who’d buy ’em? They’d just take ’em. They even took his shoes once.”

  “You think he snitched on guys who sold drugs?”

  “That’s what they said, but he didn’t have the guts. He just wanted to keep his trap shut, serve his time and get out.”

  “What about Mickey Martin, was he dealing?”

  Sharkie rubbed a thumb across his scarred knuckles, as if feeling nostalgic for battles gone by. “Maybe. Or that’s what I heard later, but Mickey was out by then.”

  “How long after Durkin had been killed?”

  “A few months. Guys said a deal’d been made.”

  “You knew he was murdered last fall?”

  “Who the fuck didn’t? It was about time, wasn’t it?”

  “What about Rodger Toombs?”

  “He hung out with Mickey. They looked out for each other, you know? I never talked to Toombs. I’m not a big talker. Open your mouth and flies get in.”

  A waiter brought two beers as a treat from Bad Maud. Charlie took a drink; Sharkie let his stand. Other than rubbing his knuckles, he was totally still. There was more broken glass and shouting. A bouncer dragged a guy out of the bar by his feet. The laughter made Charlie think of dogs barking.

  “What did you and Durkin talk about?”

  Sharkie looked scornful. “Like fuckin’ discussions? We didn’t have any.”

  “Well, what did he talk about?”

  Sharkie cracked his knuckles and studied them some more. “He talked about horses; he liked horses. Not the racing part, the stable part. He said there were all different types: some friendly, some not; some stupid, some not; some high-strung, some not. Shit like that. He said if you looked hard, you could tell what they were thinking. I told him to shut up more’n once. What the fuck do I care about horses?”

  “Anything else?”

  “He was angry at the people who fired him. The last place beat him up and called the cops. I mean, he’d been stealing stuff to buy dope. What’d he expect? His head wasn’t straight. At least he didn’t snore.”

  “You know where he was from?”

  “South of Kingston—Port Ewen, on the river. He worked on boats down there as a kid. So’d his old man. He’d jabber about it. Sometimes I’d shake my fist in his face to make him shut up.”

  “He still have family down there?”

  “Maybe. His folks were born there, but they were dead. Maybe he had some uncles and cousins. His ex-wife was out west. He mentioned some kids, but none were nearby. I forget.”

  “Anything else about him?”

  Sharkie stared down at the hundred-dollar bill. “He had a temper, the slow-boil kind. A crazy thing for a wimp to have. It got him beat up more’n once. He lost it with me one time. I smacked him around till he quit. He said it ran in his family.”

  —

  First thing Monday morning, Charlie took the Northway downstate. It was rush hour and cars streamed toward Albany. Piles of old snow bordered the road. It always amazed Charlie to see these people he’d never see again. To his left, a gray-haired guy was shouting into a cell phone; to his right, a young woman was saying something to the guy next to her and laughing. Then they disappeared. Often their likes and dislikes were spread across their trunks and bumpers. This one was a Christian; that one believed in Darwin. This woman’s son was an honor student in Milton High School; that man said something about peeling his .45 from his dead fingers. Team insignias, names of politicians, names of vacation spots and the news that this particular Jeep had climbed Mount Washington—the vital minutiae of people he’d never know.

  It wasn’t that Charlie wanted to meet them. It was the size of it. Over the years he’d seen hundreds of thousands of people pursuing their separate paths with different degrees of passion. Some were crooks, some not; some were truthful, some not. Somebody once said that if you knew the deepest, darkest secrets of the strangers around you, you’d hate them all. But Charlie didn’t believe that.

  One of his pleasures as an investigator had been going into a strange place, finding a person he’d never met, like Sharkie, and asking questions. And surely some of these people rushing toward Albany were people he’d seen before, seen so briefly that he couldn’t recall them, as if he were surrounded by the swirls of overlapping currents of air. Maybe it wasn’t a pleasure, maybe it was only interesting; but maybe it made him feel more alive, maybe it made him feel lonelier.

  Port Ewen was on a triangular poke of land wedged between the Hudson on the right and Rondout Creek on the left, with the Kingston lighthouse at the tip. It was a small town, a hamlet in the town of Esopus about five miles to the south. Charlie knew the distance because he had driven down to the Esopus Library on Canal Street to get help in finding anyone named Durkin. The librarian had located two, a man and a woman at separate addresses. “You could have easily found these on the Internet,” said the librarian.

  “Hmm,” said Charlie.

  Janet Durkin lived on Browne Street, just past Broadway and half a mile west of the river. Some houses were from the turn of the century, some older: simple, house-like houses, like the miniature houses in Monopoly sets. It wasn’t a rich place, though along the river rows of contemporary condos faced the water.

>   One of those Monopoly houses belonged to Janet Durkin. A chest-high chain-link fence surrounded the small, snow-covered front yard. There was no car in the drive; the curtains were drawn.

  Charlie opened the gate, climbed the steps and rang the bell. He heard no noise from inside. He knocked on the door and waited. After a moment, he knocked harder. The door rattled in its frame. He walked around the house on the crusty snow, trying to see around the curtains. He knocked on the back door. Nothing. As he walked back up the drive, he glimpsed a face in the window of a house next door. The image came and went so quickly that he couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman.

  He walked over to the neighboring house and knocked on the front door. The door opened a crack. In the shadow, he still couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman.

  “Do you know anything about Janet Durkin?”

  “She dead, been dead since May.” The person had either a low voice for a woman or a high voice for a man.

  “What happened?”

  “She lived eighty-five years and dropped dead in her driveway; lay there over an hour before the cops showed up.”

  “She have family around here?”

  “I make a point of not knowing stuff like that.” The door closed.

  Charlie considered knocking again just to see if the person was male or female. Instead, he walked back to his car.

  The other Durkin, Robert Durkin, lived two blocks west of the river in a more prosperous area of small Victorians. The yard was neat and a car was parked in the drive, but here, too, the curtains were drawn. Charlie rang the bell.

  He was about to walk to the back, when a voice called, “Bobby’s not home.”

  Charlie turned to see a heavyset man bundled up in a red parka taking down Christmas lights from a small spruce. “You know when he’s coming back?”

  Before the man could answer, a barking dog jumped up with its paws on the window. It was a low bark; a big dog’s bark. Its jaw was open so wide that Charlie could count its teeth from ten feet away. The dog scratched at the glass as if it meant to break through.

  “Don’t mind him; he’s a sweetie. Anyway, Bobby won’t be back till April first, leastways that’s how it was last year. Him and his wife’s got a trailer in Sarasota. Me, I love snow, as long as it behaves itself and I don’t need to plow, you hear me?”

  Charlie walked to the fence separating the two yards. The dog’s barking increased. “Is Bobby related to Matthew Durkin?”

  The man held a string of colored lights. In his red down jacket, he looked like a tomato. “Yeah, they’re brothers. That used to be Matty’s house till he passed. Then Bobby got it. Matty’s wife moved out west a long time ago. I don’t want to tell tales, but Matty and his wife fought like cats and dogs. Once I was mowing the lawn and a frying pan came flying right through that window.” He pointed at the window and Charlie turned. It was just a regular window.

  “Wow,” said Charlie. “They have kids?”

  “Three—two sons and a daughter. The girl married a guy in the City and moved down there. I don’t know what he did; I wasn’t invited to the wedding. And I don’t know much about the boys: One moved west like his mom, and one joined the army right outta high school. Then he re-upped. He went to the ranger school, his uncle told me. Probably the army was the best thing for him. He could be wild.”

  “How so?”

  “Fights, mostly. And he stole a car or two, though it didn’t get to court. He wasn’t someone you’d want to testify against. He’s got his dad’s temper, but he’s not a bad guy. Helped me paint my house once and he’d take care of the dog if we went someplace.”

  The dog kept barking with its paws on the window. Spittle dribbled down the glass. Its only wish was to turn Charlie into pulled pork.

  “What are their names?”

  “Luke and Paulie. Paulie was the soldier. I haven’t laid eyes on him since before his dad passed.”

  “They have relatives around here?”

  “Nope, that’s it as far as I know. A great-aunt died last May.”

  Charlie could hardly take his eyes off the dog. “What do they look like?”

  “You know, just regular guys, neither this way or that. Both have light brown hair. Both about six feet, a little over.”

  “Any obvious scars, missing teeth, broken bones?”

  “Oh yeah, Luke got his nose busted in high school football. So his nose’s got a wiggle; Paulie’s is straight.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Not really, just regular-looking guys.”

  “What d’you mean ‘not really’?”

  “I mean ‘not at all.’”

  “The boys have friends around here?”

  The man thought a moment. “Luke might of, though I don’t recall any names. Paulie was pretty much of a loner.”

  Charlie wanted to ask more about the fights, but he let it go. He felt he had all the information he needed. Once he was back on the turnpike heading toward Saratoga, he called Shawn Smith’s cell phone.

  “Matthew Durkin had two sons, both are in their late twenties. The older son, Paulie, has been in the army and maybe still is.” Charlie heard a sigh.

  “Tell me, Charlie, what have these guys got to do with the horses?”

  “One of them might have killed Mickey, Parlucci and Toombs. They were all involved with horses. Not the boys though, as far as I know. But their dad worked with horses. He was murdered up in Adirondack and—”

  “Hey, Charlie,” interrupted Smith, “I’m interested in the stealing part of horses. Any of these guys involved with that?”

  “I don’t think so, but—”

  “So call that cop in Saratoga, Hutchins. He’s the guy to deal with. Or call the sheriff’s department. On the other hand, if it turns out it’s really tied to the horse-nappings, then call back. But right now I got too much on my plate.”

  Smith hung up before Charlie could say anything else.

  —

  One of the dubious benefits of living in a small city was that Charlie knew where Lieutenant Frank Hutchins lived, a modest Cape Cod in the northwest part of town. But knowing the house’s location and being invited inside were very different, and midafternoon on Monday, Charlie stood on the small front porch, while from the other side of the storm door Hutchins shook a finger at him.

  “I already said,” shouted Hutchins through the glass, “Mickey and Toombs had to be killed by their partners. The other two guys just got in the way. And the troopers already got a line on these partners. They’ll pick them up sometime this week. I don’t like you coming over here, Charlie. I got a bad cold and I need some sleep.” Hutchins wiped his nose on the sleeve of his white terry-cloth bathrobe.

  Charlie recalled Hutchins stamping up the stairs to his bedroom at seven fifteen in the morning back in October. He decided not to mention it. It was cold on the porch and the wind was blowing. Charlie smiled and pretended to enjoy it. “Can’t you try and get a photo of Paulie Durkin? The army must have one. All you need is to show it to the clerk at the motel and we’ll know one way or the other.”

  “Hey, Charlie, we’re not your personal helpers. We got jobs to do.”

  “So you’re refusing to help just because I’m the person who asked?”

  “Jesus, Charlie, I already told you. I’m out sick today. I’d say no to anybody.”

  Charlie was tired of shouting through the glass. “I’m sure you would.” He returned to his car, scuffing his feet through patches of snow in a little display of futile anger.

  He was cold and hungry. His main wish was to drive out to Rosemary’s diner and have a big, unhealthy, hot pastrami sandwich. Instead, he drove to the Tea Kettle Motel—a large and shiny brass teakettle hung over the front door—to talk to the man who’d talked to Mickey’s killer. Unfortunately, a sign out in front read: “Closed for the Season.
See You in May—Gene and Mary Lou McCarthy.”

  It took another hour to learn that Gene and Mary Lou had another motel in Saint Petersburg—the Tea Kettle, Too—which they closed during the summer months. Sitting in his car, he got the number from information and called. It was now five thirty and almost dark. The woman who answered had the high voice of a child. Charlie asked if he could speak to Gene or Mary Lou.

  “They’re around here someplace,” said the woman with the child’s voice. “I’ll look for them. Is it important?”

  “Yes.”

  Charlie was afraid he’d run out of battery before someone again picked up the phone. The wind was strong enough to shake his car. Me too, thought Charlie, I’m cold too. After ten minutes Gene answered. He apologized; he’d been in the pool. Charlie explained what he was doing and asked his question. Was the nose straight or crooked?

  “Straight,” said Gene. “Straight, and he had cold eyes, a killer’s eyes, but I don’t recall the color. You caught him yet?”

  Charlie said they hadn’t.

  “Then I’m sure glad I’m down here than up there. You got snow yet?”

  Charlie said they’d had some.

  “I hate snow.”

  Charlie opined that some people did and some didn’t. He knew that once Gene rang off he’d go back for another splash in the pool before cocktail hour. Then he and his wife might toss a couple of T-bones on the charcoal grill. Charlie glanced out at the highway. Flurries swirled in the lights of passing cars.

  “What’s the weather down there like?”

  “Quadruple glorious!”

  As he drove back to Saratoga, Charlie wondered why he was here in the cold, rather than someplace where it was warm. Then he wondered how many men in the country between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five had formerly broken noses. Maybe twenty million. Mentally, Charlie crossed them off his list of suspects.

  —

  Before he reached town, Charlie called Janey to ask if she needed anything.

  “Can you pick up Emma? She’s out at Artemis’s. Be a dear, will you? I’ve got dinner in the oven.”