by Ed Gorman
"She would be," I said. "To her you're one of the exploited masses."
"I feel like that sometimes." Then: "You ever consider that either Margo or Natalie might have killed them?"
"Why would Margo kill Conners? He was on her side."
"Maybe he was dangerous to her side all of a sudden."
"Dangerous how?"
"Maybe he was going to talk to the FBI or HUAC. People have been doing that a lot lately."
And they had: professors and scientists and actors worried that their time as thirties leftists might get them in trouble someday. Better to go to Washington and tell your tale - and name names - than have the House Un-American Activities Committee come after you.
"And Natalie would kill him - why?"
"The opposite reason. He wouldn't come through for her. He had something she wanted - information - but he wouldn't let her have it. You sleep with her, Sam?" she asked suddenly. "No, no, don't tell me. I know you did, but if you say so it'll just make me feel worse." She went back to speculating. "Maybe Rivers got his hands on it, whatever it was, and that's why he was killed."
"I can see why Margo would kill him. But not Natalie."
"Maybe Natalie and Rivers had a falling out of some kind. Or maybe she wanted the credit all to herself."
"You're fishing now."
"I can only be brilliant so long."
"But I like your idea about one of them being the killer. They have the only real vested interest."
She shook her head. "I feel sorry for poor Dana. She was so proud of Richard."
"I suppose she had reason to be. I didn't always agree with his politics, but he had a pretty amazing career."
She made a face. "He wasn't much of a husband."
"Why do you say that?"
She took a box of straws and started refilling the plastic cylinder on the counter. "He was in here late one night and asked me if I wanted to have a drink with him. I thought he'd be interesting, and I was flattered. We had a few drinks over at Tilly's and then he gave me a ride home. He nearly raped me."
The story seemed illogical at first. You marry a lovely woman thirty years your junior and you run around? Didn't make any sense. But with his grand ego and ambition, conquest was probably his forte. He'd had the young and lovely woman at home. Now it was on to other conquests.
"Did you tell anybody?"
"When Mom died last year, Dana sent me a little essay she'd read on mourning. It really helped. And I'd never even met her formally. It was just so thoughtful. I'd misjudged her. She gives the impression of being a very cold, arrogant woman, but she isn't at all. She even called me a few days later to see how I was doing."
"He ever bother you again?"
"No. The few times I saw him afterward, he had the good grace to look embarrassed."
Three young women came in from the shops down the block. They lit cigarettes and giggled and parked their nice trim bottoms on the upholstered counter stools.
At the register, as I was paying my bill, Mary said, "There's a Robert Ryan picture at the drive-in tonight."
She knew the way to my heart, sweet Mary did.
***
I went into Leopold Bloom's only when it was absolutely necessary. Stephen and Eileen Renauld had gone to the university in Iowa City, where they learned how to speak French well enough to impress yokels, and to write and compose and paint and sculpt so well that they were beyond sharing their work with the public. The public, coarse philistines, could never properly appreciate such beauty. So instead they ran one of those little bookstores where you suffocate in all the good taste: Persian rugs, Debussy on the record player, and every picture of James Joyce ever taken except maybe for the rectal X-ray he had in later years. Oh, and you also got their opinions on what was All Right to read and what Was Not. Those who can't, teach, is true enough - and they also own bookstores.
Fortunately, the Renaulds must have been off saying their daily prayers to D. H. Lawrence. They weren't in the shop. One of the local beatniks was, a skinny girl in pigtails with a beret. "I'm afraid we don't sell your kind of books in here," she said with practiced disdain. Apparently, the Renaulds kept a list of people who didn't belong there.
"Don't worry," I said. "I won't touch anything and contaminate it."
"I just meant I know what kind of books you read. Those - paperback things."
Having once made the mistake of special ordering The Collected Stories of Erskine Caldwell in here, I'd been a marked man ever since. But I figured if Caldwell was good enough for old Bill Faulkner, he was probably good enough for old Sam McCain. I didn't bother to point this out. This was their store and they were the unchallenged king and queen of all they surveyed.
I'd come in today because I saw Bill and Chris Tomlin through the window. I went back to them now. They were in the nonfiction section.
Chris wore sunglasses that looked especially dark and imposing against her pale medieval-virgin skin and short red hair. I wondered what the shades were all about. True, it was sunny outdoors, but inside here it was rather dark and a mite chilly. She wore a white sweater beneath a blue jumper. The supple body wasn't lost in the shapelessness of the garment, nor was the erotic face in the odd cant of her head. The angle looked uncomfortable. I wondered if she'd hurt her neck.
I said, "I wanted to see how things were going out at the Conners house."
Tomlin shrugged. He wore his usual European-cut suit. This one was double-breasted and blue and had traces of cigarette ash on one of the pockets. He was always mussed up somehow. A good thing he was so clearheaded when it came to organizing and chronicling the life of Richard Conners. The aging altar-boy face, the graying dishwater-blond hair, and the one blue walleye made me feel sorry for him as usual.
"Still in shock, pretty much," he said, in his quiet, southern-tinged voice. "Dorothy stares out the window. And Dana goes on her rampages" - he nodded to his wife - "that's why she's wearing the sunglasses."
"I didn't want you to think I'd gone Hollywood," she said.
"Dana gave Chris a black eye the other night. Made some stupid accusation and just started hitting her."
I was going to ask her about the accusation but just then the girl came by. "Could you please be a little quieter? This is a bookstore. There's a very nice cafe right down the street."
"We need to be going anyway," Chris said.
"There's a lot of work to be done now," Tomlin said. "Finish the biography. Harvard wants his papers. I have to start organizing them."
The girl came around to scowl at us again. We couldn't be disturbing the customers because there weren't any customers. Probably my mere presence in the store disturbed her.
We went outside and stood in the grace of the beautiful day.
He said, "Any word on Jeff Cronin yet?"
"No."
"That's the damnedest thing. Him not showing up at the school board meeting last night and then going missing."
"You think he's dead, McCain?" Chris said.
"I don't know."
"Neither does Cliffie," Tomlin said. "God, he's such a clown." He looked at his watch. "Well, we'd better go."
When they were half a block away, I realized I'd forgotten to ask them exactly why Dana would attack Chris. Then I thought again of the day when we'd gone to see Khrushchev, and the argument I'd seen between them.
I was standing on the corner, wondering what to do next, when a gentle voice said, "You look lost."
She'd changed into a crisp red blouse and black skirt and hose and black flats. The skirt was cinched by an outsize patent leather belt. Quite high-fashion for our little burg. She carried a small paper shopping bag. Men of every age paused to gawk at her. She was eminently gawkable, let me tell you, this dark-haired girl-woman with her big-city elegance out here on the prairie. She held up the shopping bag. "I like to pick up souvenirs whenever I can."
"I didn't know spies did stuff like that. Sounds pretty mundane."
"First of all, I'm not a spy. I just work for
the foundation."
"Ah."
"And second, of course spies do stuff like this. They're human too."
"You couldn't prove it by me."
"Spies are necessary."
"I suppose."
"You don't even like the spies on your own side?"
"All the lies you have to tell. All the innocent people you have to hurt." Then I said, "Say, all that Russian junk you told me. I know Rivers wasn't your brother, but were you really born in Russia?"
"New Haven, Connecticut." She touched my arm again. "Poor McCain. It's just not a very nice world, is it?"
The Best Part of Going to the Movies by Sam McCain
1. Coming attractions
2. Popcorn
3. Good 'n' Plentys
4. Milk Duds
This is when you go to a downtown theater. You know, indoors. The list changes considerably when you go to the drive-in.
The Best Part of Going to the Drive-in by Sam McCain
1. Home run in the back seat
2. Third base
3. Second base
4. First base
5. Coming attractions
6. Popcorn
7. Good 'n' Plentys
8. Milk Duds
I know I should use more sophisticated language here - I mean, first base and second base sound kind of dopey for a twenty-five-year-old - but it gets the point across.
The best time for the drive-in is the summer: Buck Night, the whole carload for $1, when you hide people in the trunk; Rock Night, when all the local bands take turns playing on the concession roof and you vote by honking; and Fright Night, when people dress up. But summer was past now.
We both dressed warm and got a car heater, too. We rolled the window up on the driver's side so that the only opening was where the cord from the speaker went. The drive-in was only about half full. The shows started early these days because dusk came right at dinnertime. The Robert Ryan flick was called Inferno. I'd seen it several times before, but I found new things in it every time. Ryan's wife and her lover leave Ryan to die in the desert and he has to make it back to civilization. I like Ryan because he's the only one of the tough-guy leading men who shows you his suffering. I think that's why he's never been the big star he deserves to be. He lets you see the sorrow and the confusion and the panic. Most people would rather see some boring sonofabitch like Clark Gable, who looks good even in a suit and talks like he knows all the answers.
Fortunately, Inferno was the only A flick on the triple bill tonight. You go to the drive-in because you can have sex, smoke cigarettes, drink beer, pee outdoors if you're in the back rows, and sit on the car hood and watch if you've had enough sex-cigarettes-and-beer for a while. And the movies should fit right in, too. The last two features were High School Hellcats and Teenage Caveman. Next week's triple "wham" feature was Riot in Juvenile Prison, Girls on the Loose, and Dragstrip Girls.
Halfway through Inferno, we were making out. I felt sorry for her and sorry for me. It was going to take a lot of lip-locking to make us feel good again.
Here goes McCain, he's rounding first and heading for second.
I hadn't kissed Mary in a long time. I'd forgotten how soft her flesh was. And how well she kissed. And how her breasts were just right: friendly but dignified. We steamed up the windows and then we were crawling into the back seat. Now we regretted dressing so warm. We had to take off both jackets and sweaters. We were high school hellcats, was what we were.
As I said, I don't talk much about my sex life, except with Maggie Yates, and I only talk with her because she says that having the kind of sex we have means absolutely nothing other than the fact that we're both horny. Maggie gets some kind of stipend from her New York fashion model sister, and this lets her keep writing her novel, which she claims is a combination of Peyton Place and The Grapes of Wrath. Your guess is as good as mine.
The thing with the car happened when I came up for air. We'd made it so warm that I was down to my T-shirt and I needed a break. It was becoming obvious that after all these years we were going to share a home run. I was ready and so was she. The noise the shocks were making was squeaky testament to our lust. And then, while I was kneeling on the seat next to Mary, who was shimmying out of her panties, I rubbed my hand against the steamy back window and saw it. Parked in the last row. At an angle you wouldn't choose unless the place was packed and you were forced to.
Jeff Cronin's black Studebaker, the futuristic-looking one.
"Wow," I said.
"Oh, no," she said. "Don't fink out on me now. I want this to happen, Sam."
"I know. So do I."
But we both knew I was seriously distracted.
"God, Sam, c'mon back down here."
"I just need to check it out."
"Oh, Sam. It isn't even that I'm so horny. It's just that it would mean something to me. It really would."
I lost it and she found it for me again and then we did it and it was great - but great as it was, the whole time we were thrashing around at least half my mind was on the black Studebaker. Cronin had been missing all this time. Now was he sitting at the drive-in watching a movie?
I held her afterward.
"If I start to tell you I love you, Sam, slap me, will you?"
"Upside the head or across the bottom?"
She laughed. "Both." Then she said, "God, I had this so built up in my head."
I couldn't help it. I kept staring out the back window I constantly wiped clear.
"It was going to be like a movie. And it'd be so wonderful for you, we'd be inseparable the rest of our lives."
I wrenched my gaze from the back window.
"I'm too crazy now with everything to say anything you could rely on, Mary. But I love you. I don't even know what that means for us. Maybe I love you like a kid sister. Or maybe I love you just because you're such a good woman and I respect you so much. Or maybe I love you because of those wonderful breasts you have, or your bottom; that's very nice too. Or maybe all those reasons put together. Or maybe none of them. I mean, maybe I don't love you after all. Maybe love isn't the right word here. I just don't know. And I don't want to lead you on. But I want to start seeing you, I know that much. And I've never felt that before. So maybe that means something - or maybe it doesn't. Maybe it's just because - "
"Sam, will you shut up and go check out Cronin's car? That's what you want to do anyway, and you're starting to descend into gibberish, as Mrs. Fulton used to say." Mrs. Fulton was our tenth grade English teacher.
"Wait here," I said, pulling on my clothes. "I'll be right back."
She gave me a quick, lovely kiss. "You'd better."
There wasn't anybody in it. That was the first wrong thing. The second wrong thing was that the engine was running.
It took me a few minutes to find the third wrong thing. I took the key from the ignition and went around to the trunk and opened the lid and there he was.
I touched his forehead. It was colder than it had any reasonable right to be. And then I reached down for his wrist. It was as disappointing as all those signals we send into outer space. No response whatsoever.
PART 3
THIRTEEN
"You know, McCain, if you're not real careful, people just might mistake you for an asshole."
Now, there are many things people accuse Cliffie Sykes Jr. of - sloth, ignorance, duplicity, intolerance, smelling bad - but wit is not one of them.
So I couldn't help but smile, even though the barb was aimed at me.
"Cliffie," I said, "who's writing your material these days? That's actually funny."
He shrugged. "Actually, I heard this state trooper say it to some con he brought in. But I think of stuff like that all the time."
Ah, the world made sense again. For a moment I'd worried that it had gone off its orbit, Cliffie actually saying something funny.
I should have been in a somber mood. Every man's death diminishes me, and all that. But Jeff Cronin had been a special case. He'
d been bullying his way through life ever since he reached kindergarten. And in the past few years, what with the red scare and all, his bullying had taken an especially nasty turn.
The folks at the drive-in couldn't figure out which was more interesting, the juvenile delinquent movie on the screen or the real-life crime movie in the back lane. On the screen one juvie had stabbed another juvie to death and a couple of tough cops (whom I recognized from RKO Westerns) - were commenting on "youth run wild."
An ambulance, two police cars, four cops, Doc Novotny, and movie-goers-turned-gawkers now surrounded the black Studebaker. Cronin's body was still in the trunk. Only one of the cops had his uniform on. The others had been dragged from home and wore sweatshirts and jackets with large police badges in conspicuous places.
Cliffie went over my story twice. Then he said, "You're so smart, McCain, why would somebody put a stiff in the trunk and leave the motor running?"
"Panic."
"Huh?"
"Got scared. Thought maybe somebody spotted them. Ran off and left the key in the ignition."
He looked at me and shook his head. "My old man's on my ass."
"For what?"
"For what? For all the shit that's goin' on in this town. Personally, I think this place is crawlin' with commies."
"Black River Falls is crawlin' with commies?"
"You're damned right. I seen this movie on TV the other night, I Married a Communist, and that's the first kinda broad the Ruskies go for."
"What kinda broad we talking about?"
"You know, the teacher."
"Helen Toricelli."
"Hell, yes, Helen Toricelli. That's how the commies do it. They get these teachers to sneak in all this commie philosophy, and then before you know it your kids've turned red."
I'm sure he slept well, Cliffie. The world was such a simple, knowable place to him. Nothing to trouble his slumber.
"If you say so."
"So anyway, my old man says we need to find out who's been killin' all these people, because otherwise the state attorney general may send some investigator out here to start lookin' into things."