Graves' Retreat

by Ed Gorman

  Amused, Neely said, “You don’t imagine it would be the first time, do you?”

  “I s’pose not.”

  Neely followed the man’s gaze to the back of the place where T.Z., who was dressed in his usual riverboat gambler attire (ruffled shirt, string tie, colorful red silk vest, severely cut black coat), sat wooing a working girl who looked just like all the working girls T.Z. usually wooed-pretty and troubled. But then that could describe T.Z., too. Because, despite a small scar beneath his right eye, he had the sort of handsomeness that was almost beauty. And he certainly was troubled.

  As he watched T.Z., Neely thought that when the time came to kill him, he might actually be doing T.Z. a favor. For one thing, the man's consumption was getting worse (he’d seen a doctor just last week), and for another, his addiction to the bottle had robbed him of what little common sense he’d had to begin with.

  No, Neely needed T.Z. for only one more job, this one. And then…

  “She’s Mike Dougherty’s girl.”

  “Who’s Mike?” asked Neely.

  “Just the meanest bastard that comes in here.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Home probably.” The worker nodded toward the girl with T.Z. “He goes home to his wife and kids, then sneaks back to see her.”

  “Sounds like an honorable man.”

  The worker scowled. “You wouldn’t take that tone with him.” And then, curiously, he broke into a smile. “And to prove it, here’s Mike now.”

  If you judged him by looks alone, you would have to side with the worker that this Mike did appear to be, anyway, the meanest bastard in the bar.

  He stunk of the preening bully. He was well over six feet, muscled in a fleshy but still firm way, and imposed himself on the scene around him by swaggering, glaring and carrying his right hand fisted, as if he were ready for anything instantly.

  Everybody in the bar knew him and so they watched with inordinate interest as he made his way to the table where his mistress currently sat with T.Z.

  The piano player stopped and the bartender started reaching for the ball bat bartenders always kept on hand.

  “Just who the hell is this?” Mike said.

  The girl, who was pretty in a sickly-kitten sort of way, said, “He’s my friend.”

  “You’re drunk,” Mike said. “You know I hate it when you’re drunk.”

  “I was just telling him how lonely I get.”

  At that, Neely had to smile. That, along with his looks, was one of the ways T.Z. had insinuated himself into so many beds. He loved sad tales-hell, he’d cry right along with his conquests-and so women always thought of him as a sympathetic listener.

  “It’s none of his damn business whether you’re lonely or not.”

  T.Z. said, in a good rich baritone, "You shouldn’t talk to her that way.”

  “You get the hell out of here and right now,” Mike said.

  “Maybe you’d better,” the girl said.

  “I won’t have you talked to that way.”

  By now the crowd was fascinated. T.Z., slender, with long dark hair and the sleek manner of a big-city man, did not look like the kind of man who should be talking back to Mike Dougherty. (If any man should be talking back to Mike Dougherty.)

  And Mike proved the crowd’s assumption correct.

  Faster than a big man should have been able to move, Mike reached down and grabbed T.Z. and jerked him to his feet.

  He had cocked his fist and was about to let go when T.Z. sprang his own surprise.

  He shot the sleeve of his right arm and in so doing placed a derringer right in the face of the meanest bastard in the tavern.

  At this point, Neely moved fast.

  They had work to do tonight and he didn’t want it ruined by some tavern brawl, where the police got dragged in and T.Z. and Neely became familiar to them.

  “You make one more move and you’re dead,” T.Z. said. T.Z.’s voice had the same kind of swagger in it that Mike’s body had had a few minutes ago. T.Z. always felt very good about himself when he had a gun in his hand.

  Neely went over and slid his arm expertly between the two men. He pushed them apart.

  “Now, is this really worth pain and suffering for?” Neely said, sounding not unlike a priest. (Before he’d lost his faith, the year his three-year-old sister died of typhoid thanks to the Chicago sewer system, he had seriously considered being a priest.)

  “He’s with my girl.”

  “Merely talking to her,” Neely said easily. “Merely talking.”

  “Then why’s she bawling?”

  Neely smiled. Looked about. “Is there a man here whom liquor has not turned into a melancholic?”

  No man could deny Neely’s truth.

  “And that’s all that’s happened to your girl. The liquor saddened her heart.”

  “I’m going to sadden her face,” said Mike. This got a laugh from the crowd.

  “Can’t I kill him, Neely?” T.Z. said.

  Neely put out a hand.

  Snapped a finger.

  Put out the hand again.

  T.Z. handed over the derringer.

  “Wait outside,” Neely said to T.Z.

  “But-” T.Z. started to protest.

  “Outside,” Neely said.

  As T.Z. left, reluctantly, Neely watched Mike Dougherty. The man obviously couldn’t wait to get his hands on the girl. Neely could imagine those fists on the delicate bones of her face.

  Neely, who had boxed for two years, stuffed the derringer in his jacket pocket and then ground a fist deep into Mike's solar plexus, followed it with a crashing punch to the man’s temple and then finished things off by raising his knee brutally to Mike’s groin.

  The big man collapsed, smashing a pine chair on the way down. To the girl, Neely said, “Do you have parents?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then go there. Stay there. Otherwise he’s going to hurt you.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  "Hurry. Get home.”

  Neely waited till the girl had rushed out the door. Then he went to find T.Z.

  “That wasn’t smart,” Neely said, jogging to catch up with T.Z., who walked down the street, in and out of the pools of lamplight.

  “I get sick of you running my life.”

  “I figured you’d be mad.”

  “As I said, Neely, I’m tired of you running my life.”

  They came to a comer. You could hear and smell the river. From here you could see May’s island, where the municipal buildings were.

  Neely grabbed T.Z. by the sleeve and spun him around. “You forget. Thanks to your screwup on the train last April, they’ve got a description of us now.”

  “Of me,” T.Z. snapped. “Of me. Not of you.”

  “I’m traveling with you. They might as well have a description of me.”

  “Anyway,” T.Z. said, “it wasn’t my fault the bandanna slipped off.”

  “No,” Neely said, “it never is your fault, is it, T.Z.?”

  Neely pulled his pocket watch out and held it up under the streetlight. He sighed, getting hold of himself. He needed T.Z. for this one last job. Then it would be finished between them.

  “It’s time," he said.

  “I hate to do this to the kid.”

  “It’s already been settled, T.Z.”

  “He’s changed. He’s-”

  Neely said, and his voice brooked no argument, “It’s time, T.Z. It’s well goddamn time.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Les Graves lived in a boardinghouse on the west side of the city in a section called “Time Check,” so called because a bankrupt railroad paid many of its workers here with checks that took a long time to become cashable. People here came to be known as Time-Checkers.

  The boardinghouse was a two-story, white-frame place with seven roomers in all.

  As usual on summer nights, most of the roomers, four men and two women, were on the front porch. There was a table in one corner of the porch with
a Rayo table lamp so you could play cards or read. Or you could join in the conversation, which usually ran to reminiscences of “older and better times” back on the farm, which is where most of the people came from, or about “newfangled inventions” (this being Mr. Weiderman, who worked at the three-story Grand Hotel downtown), or about Cedar Rapids history (if Mr. Waterhouse, who was an accountant at the Hawkeye Lumber and Mill Company, was talking; Mr. Waterhouse, it was said, was doing nothing less than writing a history of the town).

  You could hear somebody stirring lemonade in the pitcher when Les reached the steps and you could hear Mr. Waterhouse saying, almost like a disembodied voice in the night, “Yes, sir, this town had its own steamship built back in 1858 and it docked in Cedar Rapids soon after. I can still remember the night-Roman candles and cannons firing and a brass band playing.”

  Les wished he could stay and hear the whole story because, the longer he was in Cedar Rapids, the more he loved the place and all the good high historical tales Mr. Waterhouse had to tell about it. (As Miss June Dodge, one of the other roomers, always said, “Mr. Waterhouse is the best entertainment in this town.”)

  But after muttering a hello he went directly inside and up the steps to his room to wash up and lie down.

  Les had a Rayo lamp in his room, too, and when he got it lit, it revealed a fairly large space with a sturdy single bed with a colorful spread, a desk and chair, a shelf of books including virtually everything ever written by Sir Walter Scott, an outside photograph of "Cap” Constantine, and a bureau with a mirror, a pitcher and a washbasin. Les went down the hall, got some fresh water and then came back and washed himself off, and then went and lay down on the bed, closing his eyes so he could relax.

  Night sounds came to him; a bam owl, a distant dog, a train headed west with a lonely wail, the soft murmur of voices below in the summer evening…

  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been half asleep before a knock came. A special gentle knock. So he knew it was the boardinghouse owner, Mrs. Smythe, who was a widow.

  “Les?”

  “Yes?”

  “You decent?”

  “Just a minute, Mrs. Smythe.”

  He still wore trousers, so all he needed to do was grab a shirt. “Come in.”

  She crept through the door. She bore in her fingers a small white envelope. A note.

  Les’s heart pounded.

  Mrs. Smythe, plump, dressed in her inevitable gingham and white lace apron, said, “She left this for you earlier.” Mrs. Smythe was a very pretty woman with melancholy blue eyes that made her seem younger than her fifty-some years.

  “She?”

  Mrs. Smythe looked at him. “You know who I mean, Les.”

  “Can I-can I see it?”

  “Of course. It’s your note.”

  She handed him the envelope.

  Before he could open it, she said, “She’s very beautiful.”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “I-” She started to say something but stopped.

  “What, Mrs. Smythe?”

  “Well, it’s really not my business.”

  “We’re friends, Mrs. Smythe. You can say what you like.”

  “Well, we had a talk, the lady and I.”

  “You and Susan?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Well, apparently, there’d just been some kind of blowup at her house and she’d come right over here to see you.”

  “What kind of blowup?”

  “She wanted her fiance to stand up for himself to her father but-”

  “Oh, is that all?” Les said, relieved. “I thought maybe it was something between her and me.”

  At this point, Mrs. Smythe gave him a most curious look, and one Les would not forget for a while.

  “What is it, Mrs. Smythe? What’s wrong?”

  “Oh-nothing. Just maybe we should have a talk sometime.”

  “About what?”

  “About women.”

  “You mean about Susan?”

  Mrs. Smythe smiled. “No. I’d say about women in general, Les.”

  “Can’t we talk now?” Les was interested in what she might say. “That note. She gave me sort of a hint as to what might be in it. She wants to meet you. In about a half hour.

  Mrs. Smythe turned back to the door. “I’d better be going now.”

  “I’d really like to have that talk.”

  Mrs. Smythe said, “She’s a real lady, Les. You be good to her.”

  Then she was gone.

  ***

  Forty-five minutes later, on the comer of Second Avenue and South Second Street, sat a black carriage just beyond the glow of the streetlight. As he approached the carriage, Les could see a big sign that said, F. A. SIMMONS REAL ESTATE BROKER.

  He went up to the carriage and peered in.

  “Hello,” Susan Edmonds said. “Would you like to go for a ride?”

  “Sure.”

  As always when he saw her, he felt that uncomfortable mixture of excitement and fear-glad to see her, afraid that he would someday lose her.

  He climbed aboard.

  There had been no rain recently. The streets were dusty but very smooth. She handed him the reins and they set off. He’d been on such rides before and knew where to go. The edge of town.

  He got glimpses of Susan in the moonlight. She wore a white summer dress, lacy and with a high collar, and brooch at her throat. The brooch, he knew, had belonged to her maternal grandmother, her favorite.

  “Mrs. Smythe said there was a scene at your house tonight.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, there was.” She sounded worn.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  She started to cry.

  “Is it-your father again?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t know what else to say. He repeated, “I’m sorry.”

  The horse moved smartly as the carriage rounded a bend filled with moonlight on dewy grass and pine trees. The smell was rich and deep and sweet, so much so that you wanted to get out and hold the pine in your hand and inhale it even deeper.

  “He’s so mean to Byron.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “I’ve seen him at the bank,” Les said. “He makes Byron jump.”

  “Byron doesn’t deserve to be treated that way.”

  “Byron’s a good man.”

  She looked at him. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Some people would see Byron as their rival. I mean-our relationship and all-”

  “Whatever our relationship, Susan, it doesn’t alter the fact that Byron’s a good man. He is.”

  “I think Daddy takes special delight in bullying Byron.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, because Byron’s family is old money. His people came here at the time when the original setders did from the East and the South. They had money before they got here, really, many of them. Daddy can’t forget he’s from the farm or that he wouldn’t own a bank at all if there hadn’t been that bank collapse back in ’57 and he got it when it went into receivership. That’s the funny thing. The wealthy people here have accepted Daddy and been very nice to him-it’s Daddy who can’t accept them-or himself.”

  “So he takes it out on Byron.”

  “Yes.”

  They reached a point where they always stopped and strolled along the river.

  He sensed that tonight was not a good time to take her hand. That she was too troubled for romance.

  They walked. On the air floated silver particles of fluffy dandelions and fireflies and pieces of dust motes in moonbeams. To their right the Cedar ran peacefully along and on the opposite shore a stand of white birches were like sentries in the night.

  They came to a pavilion used for picnicking. He put his hands round her tiny waist and helped her up to sit on the edge of the cross beam so she could look down at the r
iver.

  “There’s something I need to say.”

  Something in the way she said it made him pay special attention.

  He was so afraid of her impending words that he could scarcely breathe.

  “All right,” he said, barely able to talk.

  Ever since he had held her note in his hands he had sensed she was going to say something terrible. Something-final.

  “I’ve spent the past week thinking about us, Les.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I thought back to how we met. At that bam dance last spring. And how ever since we kept running into each other and how-without anything ever really happening-we seemed truly drawn to each other.”

  “I know.”

  “And I know I love you and I know you love me, but I think it’s-”

  And then she stopped.

  And he almost seized her to shake her so she’d find her thought.

  "It’s what?” he said finally.

  “I think it’s just loneliness.”

  “And not real love.”

  “Oh, no, real love. But a friendship kind of love, Les.”

  “Then you love-Byron-still?”

  She took his hands and brought them together as if in prayer and then touched them to her cheek. “Yes, I do, Les.” Then she frowned. “Or I would if he’d ever stand up to Daddy.”

  But he could hardly hear her.

  His ears filled with the finality of her words.

  He walked away from her, over to where the river rushed and shone silver. He stared at the water and thought how fine a dream it had been-his dream of somehow marrying Susan-but how he’d never been able to convince himself that it would ever actually happen.

  He wanted to blame her but he couldn’t. When he thought about it, all she’d ever talked about was her father and Byron, and how she wanted Byron to take his stand against his powerful would-be father-in-law. Only once had Les ever kissed her and that had been fleeting. She had needed someone to listen, a friend, and while that did not flatter his image of himself, he had to admit she had not led him on.

  She came up and touched his shoulder. In the moonlight her small features and raven hair were lovely. “Have you seen May lately?”

  He turned back to her. “No.”

  “You’ve been my friend, Les. Now let me be yours.”