The Last Page

by David J. Walker

  Calvin felt his stomach pitch. The black hole was opening up again, and all he wanted to do was jump in and let it consume him. He stubbed out his cigarette, letting the window fan clear the smoke. Jeanine ran it all the time, even though it didn’t do much cooling. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.

  “I still miss her, son.”

  Calvin swallowed. “Pop, don’t.”

  “I ain’t got no regrets.” His father said. “At now, in a little while, if the good Lord is willin’, I’ll see her again.”

  Calvin’s throat got hot. He felt tears gather at the back of his eyes. He tried to blink them away hoping his father wouldn’t notice. But he did.

  “Why you crying, Calvin? You’re a good son. And Jeanine is a good woman. She been taking good care of me.”

  “It’s not that.” The words spilled out.

  His father cocked his head. The slight movement seemed to require more energy than he could muster.

  “I—I got to tell you something.”

  His father’s body might be wasted, but his soul seemed to expand. His eyes grew huge, taking over his entire face. “What’s that, son?”

  The black hole widened. Calvin had to take the plunge. “That—that night...” Calvin’s words were heavy and sluggish, as if the hole was already sucking him down. “The night mama died....” Calvin whispered. “It was my fault. I killed Mama.”

  An odd look registered on Jimmy Jay’s face.

  “After you left...” Calvin’s voice was flat and hard.”... Mama sang to me. And hugged me. It felt—so good... So right.”

  “Your mama had the voice of an angel.”

  Calvin held his hand up to stop him. “Then Billy Sykes come back. He was pissed when he saw me. ‘What’s that kid doing here?’ He yelled. He and Mama—well, she told him she wanted to take me with them. Sykes wouldn’t have none of it. ‘Are you crazy?” He said. ‘It’s bad enough that you’re a hillbilly. And part Injun. I ain’t taking your nigger kid, too. Get rid of him.’

  “Mama begged him. ‘He won’t be no trouble,’ she kept saying and looked at me. “Will you, sweet man?”

  “But Sykes kept saying no. ‘I put too much of my money in you to throw it away. What are people gonna think when they see you with a nigger kid?’

  “Mama and me were on the bed. She was hugging me real tight. ‘I want my son,’ she said.

  “‘He’ll be in the way,’ Sykes said. “You want to be a star? You got to make a choice. Me or the kid.’”

  Jimmy Jay didn’t say anything.

  Calvin shuddered. “Mama said, ‘Don’t make me do that. I’m his Mama!’”

  “‘Then I’ll make the choice for you.’ Sykes says. And he pulls out a gun and aims it at my head.’” Calvin looked at the floor.

  “What happened then, son?” Jimmy Jay asked, his voice almost as flat as Calvin’s.

  Calvin covered his eyes with his hand. “Mama got up from the bed. She looked scared. ‘All right. All right. Put that gun away, Billy. I’ll send Calvin back to his Daddy. Just put the gun away. Before someone gets hurt.’ Then she looked from me to Sykes. She didn’t say nothing more.”

  Calvin pressed his lips together. He couldn’t look at his father, but he knew his father was staring at him.

  “Sykes started to put the gun away, but then—I don’t know, Pop—something came over me. I jumped up and tackled Sykes. Right there in the room.” He hesitated. “The gun went off. And Mama dropped off the end of the bed. Just dropped dead right in front of me.”

  His father whispered. “And then?”

  “Sykes was like a crazy man. It was like he couldn’t believe what happened. He started screaming, first at mama. Kept telling her to get up and stop foolin’ around. But she didn’t, Pop. She never got up.” Calvin’s voice cracked. “Then he dropped the gun and started for the door. He was gonna take off! Just leave her there.” Calvin paused again. “I just couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t. When he was half way to the door, I picked up the gun and shot him in the back.”

  Calvin felt tears streaming down his face.

  Jimmy Jay, his eyes veiled, let out a quiet breath. Calvin heard the hum of traffic through the window above the fan.

  After a long time, Calvin said haltingly, “I guess it’s time to go to the police.”

  “You won’t do nothing of the kind, son.” His father raised himself on one elbow. “I already done the time. For both of us. And...” His features softened. “... I figured out what happened a long time ago.”

  “You knew?” Calvin’s stomach turned over. “How?”

  “There was no way your mama could do anything to hurt you. Or you her. I knew it had to be an accident. At least with her. And Sykes... well...” Jimmy Jay shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

  “You knew? All these years?” Calvin felt his features contort with anguish. “I killed them, and you took the rap for me?”

  Jimmy Jay nodded. “And I’d do it all over again.”

  Calvin searched his father’s face for an explanation. The silence pressed in.

  “You were just a boy,” Jimmy Jay finally said, gazing at him with an expression of infinite sadness, compassion, and love. “I done the time for you both... so you would grow up and turn into her sweet man. Now...” He paused. “We got to get back to that plannin.’ The Lord ‘ll be givin’ Inez back her other sweet man, and I needs to be ready. We still got a lot of music to make together.”

  THE END

  A WEEKEND IN THE COUNTRY

  Patrick Mulhane was working the desk, third watch, at the Twenty-fourth District. At 2200 hours exactly, he turned to Sanchez. “Gotta run,” he said. “The old lady’s sick. Nothing’s going on here, anyway.”

  Sanchez, who was on the phone trying to talk his brother-in-law out of tickets to Sunday’s Bears game, covered the mouthpiece and nodded. “Yeah, fine,” he said. “Take it easy, Mull.”

  Three minutes later Mull—he didn’t much like it, but that’s what everyone called him—was out the station door and limping through the parking lot. It was October, and the night was cold, and a constant slow rain had been hanging around all day. Most of the beat cops weren’t even back to the station yet, but Mull was meeting Jake Patterson and Karl Krachek—two robbery dicks working Area Three—and he wanted to be sure to get a booth at Malarky’s. When he reached his Tahoe he hoisted himself in and fired it up and turned on the heater. The damp cold had his leg stiffened up, and it ached like hell. He sat for a minute to let the throbbing pain ease and catch his breath, then pulled out of the lot.

  Mull hadn’t worked in uniform in years and he’d had to dig out an old one for the desk job, but what with the leg and his increasing shortness of breath, he’d put in for the assignment temporarily, greasing his request with the right promise to the right guy. After the accident and the compound fracture that never really healed right, he probably could have gotten disability status, but he hadn’t put in for it. The fact was he had nearly enough years in to take full retirement, but he wasn’t ready for that either. He told everyone that if he spent his time moping around with the old lady all day they’d be divorced in no time and he couldn’t afford that. The truth, though, had more to do with something else. Gambling. Poker mostly. With people you didn’t want to owe money to.

  He knew better, but he kept falling into debt and having to crawl out again, which was why it was the job, not the old lady, that he couldn’t afford to be divorced from. The job, and the access it gave to the unreported cash he’d come to depend on. Plus he was developing what he called his “catering” business, and cops—at least the ones that still had the balls to take advantage of a good time—were the biggest part of his customer base. In the old days there were “watch parties” where guys used to let off steam, but with the new watch system there weren’t the same opportunities. So Mull offered something else, a little like an old-fashioned watch party—but with the excitement level kicked up a notch or two.

  “I don’t know
,” Jake Patterson said, and downed his second shot of Stoli. Jake was way overweight and had the droopy eyes and sagging face of a Basset Hound, and whenever he shook his head from side to side—like he did now—his jowls lagged behind and then, trying to catch up, got caught in a whiplash. “I don’t know,” he repeated, and poured a third shot. “I don’t think you’re gonna get enough guys to go way the hell up there.”

  “Jesus,” Mull said, “it’s not that far. You shoot up I-94, hop off just short of the Wisconsin line, go west ten minutes to Angle Lake and—”

  “Forget the sales pitch,” Karl Krachek interrupted. Krachek had a perpetual sour look on his face and everything he said came out like he meant stop wasting his fucking time. He must have weighed as much as Patterson, but was six-four, and not a gram of fat on him. “Jake’s in,” he said. “He’s just gotta put in his usual depressing two cents is all. Right, Jake?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m in.” Patterson struggled to heft his bulk up and out of the booth. “Gotta hit the pisser,” he said, and waddled away.

  Malarky’s was full of cops and it was noisy enough to make a conversation in a booth private, and when Patterson got back Mull filled him and Krachek in on the deal. He’d been up to see the place, he explained, and rented it right away. Cheap, because it was out of season. The once elegant two-story summer home was pretty bare bones, and not very well insulated. But it had a wrap-around porch, a partial basement, a big kitchen, a huge living-dining area, two toilets, and six tiny bedrooms—four up, two down. It was remote and private, on wooded lakefront property, well in from the road and with a mowed field around it for plenty of parking—although the ground sloped downward and was pretty uneven and rough. There was a cable hook-up, but no TV, so Mull would bring one from home. He’d booked the place from Thursday morning till midnight Sunday, for a “fishing weekend.” In fact, there were two rowboats available, and if it was warm enough a few of the guys might even try their luck on the tiny lake.

  It was Mull’s operation, and nothing illegal, except for the prostitutes and some private gambling, and even if these did cross the line a little they were offenses commonly overlooked, except by wives. This was the most elaborate event he’d organized so far, and he’d cut Patterson and Krachek in because he trusted them and he needed help fronting expenses and hauling up supplies—booze and food, the TV and some space heaters, plus the hookers. These last weren’t total bottom sludge, and were guaranteed clean; but they weren’t exactly Gold Coast, either, and couldn’t be trusted to get to the cottage from Chicago on their own. To them, anything north of Howard Street might as well be the goddamn Yukon. Mull was getting them in a package deal from a pimp who was in no position to charge him market rates.

  “I saw ’em in person,” he said, “and picked five. The two youngest are fresh from Lithuania and speak about three or four words of English, enough to know what the customer wants. There’s an Asian—Thai, I think—who’s a little over-the-hill, but still has some good miles left on her. The last two are two jungle bunnies from the West Side. Only way to tell ’em apart is one’s got her hair dyed blonde and the other one red. Oh, and if guys wanna ante up an extra fifty bucks per girl, those two’ll stage a cat fight with each night.”

  “How about they go at it with knives?” Patterson asked. “My precinct captain threw a party after the election last year, and had these two banshees who—”

  “Yeah…well…maybe for a little extra cash.” Mull drained his third Heineken’s. “We charge five hundred a day, based on noon to noon, or twelve-fifty for the whole three days if you pay in advance. Everything’s included: hookers, booze, food. By noon Sunday it’s all over but the cleaning up. “

  “No broads but the hookers, right? So who’s gonna cook?” It was Patterson again. “You?”

  “No way. Everyone’s on their own in that department. We provide lots of steaks and A-1 Sauce…potatoes…bacon and eggs…I don’t know. I’ll figure that out. Half those guys’ll be too drunk to eat, anyway.”

  “Forget cooking,” Krachek said. “The problem’s getting enough people. We all gotta recruit paying customers.”

  “Right,” Mull said. “It’s invitation only. Ask anyone you want, but for chrissake tell ’em no drugs and no cameras or picture phones. Stick to people you can trust to keep their mouth shut. If you’re not sure, don’t ask. I can get ten or fifteen easy—most of ’em coppers. But even if we only get twenty at the minimum five hundred, that’s ten grand. Expenses’ll be less than half that, and we split the rest…with a great weekend for ourselves tossed in. And we’ll get more than twenty. Believe me.”

  The “fishing weekend” took place two weeks later, and Mull was right about getting more than twenty guys. It helped that great weather was forecast all week, and that the forecast came true: sunny and in the sixties daytime, fifties night. By Saturday evening they’d collected forty-one guests. Guys showed up and left whenever they wanted, with usually no more than about ten at any one time, not counting a couple of three-dayers who actually came for the fishing as well as the drinking and whoring, and who were given the room in the basement to sleep in. Things went well, as loud and nasty and disgusting as anyone could hope for.

  One of Mull’s predictions, though, the one about the “great weekend for ourselves tossed in,” turned out to be very wrong. The three hosts were on their feet almost non-stop. No booze for them, and very little sleep, with people arriving and leaving at all hours of the day and night.

  It was tough keeping track of who was there and whether they’d paid yet; and some people showed up who weren’t on the invited list, so they had to make several trips into town for more supplies: booze and food, mostly; and new sheets, too—he’d never thought about that; plus the whores used up rubbers faster than anyone thought they would. Patterson made the supply runs and Krachek handled the money-collecting. His prodigious bulk and forever-pissed-off attitude commanded respect. Meanwhile, Mull played host and tried to keep everyone happy and the place halfway clean, gathering dirty dishes and picking up the garbage that got tossed everywhere and—eleven times in two-and-a-half days by his count—cleaning up vomit.

  One weird thing happened late Saturday afternoon. Mull had gone to the basement to get sheets and towels out of the dryer—lucky there was a washer and dryer down there—and when he came back up to the kitchen he heard Krachek explaining the price to a couple of guys who obviously weren’t on the list. Krachek let them in, so Mull knew they must be coppers. One of them, a guy in a shiny black leather jacket, came into the kitchen. He said he and his partner worked Bomb and Arson, and had heard there was a party going on. They rode up on motorcycles. “We both got new BMW’s…mine’s a new one…and this may be the last good day of the year for riding,” he said. The guy seemed nervous, running on about what kind of bikes they had and all. “My partner’s in the bathroom,” he added, “but we both wanna know where the broads are.”

  Mull was explaining things when the guy’s partner, carrying a similar jacket over his shoulder, stepped into the kitchen. And that was the weird part. The partner was Mull’s own son, Johnny, who’d been a tac officer in the Fifth District the last Mull heard.

  Father and son stared at each other. Mull couldn’t tell who was more surprised. Then Johnny and the other guy got a refund from Krachek and left. Mull and Johnny never exchanged a word the whole time, which wasn’t too strange since they hadn’t spoken in years, anyway. Johnny was a big, husky guy, taller than Mull. Sneaky and sullen…and mean. Always had been, even as a little boy. God knows Mull had tried to beat that damn mean streak out of him. Time and again. The way Mull’s old man had done with Mull. But even the strap didn’t work with Johnny, and Mull had to stop when the boy got big enough to hit back. The kid wasn’t one to let bygones be bygones.

  Except for that little hitch, the weekend went smoothly. The hookers were pros and did their job. The Thai and the two Lithuanians never said a word that Mull heard, and did nothing but sit on their
asses whenever they weren’t on their backs or their knees. On the other hand, everyone heard from the black chicks. They were loud and low-down and short-fused, but they were also the only ones who helped Mull keep the kitchen and bathrooms halfway clean. And best of all, their bare-foot, near-naked “cat fights” were a huge hit.

  The fights weren’t as bloody as Jake Patterson was looking for, but both girls, besides being tall and strong, were well-endowed in the boobs and butt department. They had high enthusiasm, too, and there was plenty of screaming and cursing, slapping and grabbing, along with the obligatory dragging off of bikini tops and bottoms by the time they finished. It helped, Mull thought, that they were full of real aggression and anger, all of it so close to the surface that even their staged bouts had a reality that a WBC promoter could only dream of. The alcohol-stoked spectators loved every minute of it.

  And they loved it even more when, near the end of the finale Saturday night, one of the whores, the redhead, lost it completely. She slipped in a puddle of spilled beer, which made her slow to duck, and she took a truly hard whack to the side of her head. That shook her and made her turn the wrong way just as the blonde’s other arm swept through the air. Long red fingernails raked across the redhead’s face, and left two bright, bleeding gashes on her cheek.

  The blonde, clearly shocked at what she’d done, stopped short and stared at the damage. “Damn,” she said, and reached out as though to stroke the bloody cheek. “Girl, I didn’t mean no—”

  The redhead howled with rage and grabbed the blonde’s outstretched hand and pulled her close…and kneed her in the crotch. The blonde groaned and doubled over and the redhead grabbed her by the hair with two hands and swung her around, lifting her momentarily off her feet and then throwing her to the floor. The blonde ended up on her back, eyes open but the pupils rolled up under the lids. The redhead straddled her and dropped down and half-knelt, half-sat on the blond’s belly. She took the dazed woman by the ears and gave the back of her head a whack against the floor before Krachek and Mull could get over and pull her off.