Shotgun Alley

by Andrew Klavan

  After a moment, his hands went into his pockets again. He flashed a smile down at her, a kindly smile. For all she was dressed up as a man—so he thought of it—he found her compellingly feminine this time. Again, it was probably the effect of those e-mail raptures floating around in his brain. I will pour wine into the hollow of your throat and drink it as it spills down between your breasts and over your belly…Anyway, he felt very tender toward her.

  “I just wanted to consult with you before I followed up on this,” he started. “I just wanted to confirm that you were…well…certain about going on.”

  There was a hitch of silence. “Well, of course,” she answered then. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  He didn’t answer. They strolled together slowly, big figure and small, he, in his wrinkled houndstooth jacket, as disheveled as she was crisp. The lush summer trees pressed in on either side of them. The path became a narrow green gallery under a strip of sky.

  “Well,” he fumbled on. “There’s the money, for one thing. There’ll be expenses, more expenses, involved and…” His voice trailed off. “Uh…”

  “And what?” said M. R. Brinks, her nervous, serious little face turned up to him.

  “Well, you know. And the consequences,” said Weiss. “I wanted to make sure you had a good idea of the consequences, of where this could go.”

  The professor’s laugh was a surprisingly fluty trill. “Oh, what’s the matter, Mr. Weiss? Are you afraid I’ll kill him?”

  “No,” said Weiss firmly—this was the point he’d been trying to get to. “I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed in him. I’m afraid he’ll…well…you know: break your heart.”

  She stopped laughing, stopped in her tracks, stopped on what seemed the edge of a reply. She gaped up at him. Weiss gazed over her head, into the trees, studied the empty distance so as not to embarrass her. All the same, he saw her moisten her lips with the tip of her tongue.

  “These cyber relationships…” he went on gently. “We’ve handled a few of them. They tend to end up badly in this sort of circumstance. I mean, when one of the people doesn’t want to be found.”

  “What are you implying?” snapped Professor Brinks. Her voice dropped to a hiss as an ancient man and wife hobbled by on the path, going arm in arm. “What are you…Why are you saying this to me?”

  And Weiss did look down at her now. His heavy features seemed all the heavier with the weight of his sympathy.

  The professor seemed unable to bear his gaze, unable to bear the fact that, clearly, he had guessed the truth. She began to protest, but it petered out in a series of choking splutters. Finally, miserably, she just managed to say, “What business is it of yours? What business?”

  “None,” Weiss told her. “But since you were concerned about publicity and so forth, I thought it was my responsibility to warn you before I go ahead. I mean, if you think you’ve fallen in love with this man—”

  “Stop! Ssh! Stop!” Panicked, she looked every which way around her. But the old couple was gone, and there was no one else in sight on the tree-lined corridor.

  Still, for another moment or two, M.R. Brinks kept looking here and there—all over, only not at Weiss. She avoided looking at Weiss. Then—in a gesture that squeezed the detective’s romantic heart—she brushed a fingertip quick as quick against the corner of her eye. Before a tear could fall there, before it could even form. She shifted round that huge briefcase of hers. Unzipped it. Rooted in it, her nose twitching.

  Weiss, of course, being how he was, would’ve probably slayed a dragon for her at that point. But the best he could do was fish out the little Kleenex packet he kept in his jacket pocket; offer her a tissue. She took it and tamped fiercely at one nostril, then the other.

  “How did you know?” she asked him. “Did you talk to him? Did he say something about me? How did you know?”

  He shook his head. “To be frank with you, the whole story wasn’t all the way believable from the start. Why would you let it go on for nine months like that and then suddenly hire me? Why was he the one who changed his address—unless he was the one avoiding e-mails from you? But basically, it was the letters—once I understood what they were. I mean, the first time you read them, sure, all the sex stuff sort of jumps out at you. But if you really go over them, it’s pretty obvious they’re half of a conversation or dialogue or what-have-you. You know? ‘Why do you cling to your grand theories? Don’t try to sell your cant to me.’ It’s one side of a…philosophical discussion, I guess you’d call it. It’s pretty obvious that someone was answering back.”

  She sniffed harshly. Tartly, she said, “Well, I’m gratified you took the time to make such a close textual analysis, Mr. Weiss.”

  He couldn’t help but lift one bushy eyebrow. She had no idea how close.

  “I’m sure this is all just…very funny to you,” she said. “I’m sure all the boys in your office got together for a good patriarchal laugh…” But the end of this faded away to nothing. Because she looked up into his face. His weary, ugly, hangdog face. And it must’ve been hard for her to imagine him laughing like that. The curses she brought down upon her own head in the dark watches—that she was a hypocrite, a fool, a masochist, whatever—none of that would’ve echoed back to her from Weiss.

  “Oh!” She broke finally under the weight of his compassion. She had to dab at her eyes for several moments before she could go on. “I don’t know why I ever answered him in the first place. That first letter he wrote me—well, it was just hate mail, wasn’t it? I get letters like that all the time. I never answer, but…but there was something in it…something…out of the ordinary. I don’t know.” She frowned, shook her head fiercely. “It was harassment. Pure and simple. I told him it was harassment. I told him to stop right then and there. I did. But he wouldn’t stop. He wrote back. And then I wrote back. And then, after a while…I didn’t want him to stop anymore.”

  Weiss nodded. Sad-eyed, hands in his pockets. Hanging over her like some kind of great old tree.

  “And it just snuck up on me, I guess,” she murmured. “I thought I was being so clever, you know. Deconstructing all the sexist assumptions behind the things he wrote. But all the while I was deconstructing, the things he wrote made me feel…well…”

  “Sure,” said Weiss. “I understand.”

  She brushed this off impatiently. “Anyway,” she said. “After nine months of correspondence, I thought…well, I thought it might be nice if we could meet, you know, in person. But he wouldn’t. I tried to convince him, but he became…adamant. He threatened to break it off. To stop writing. Change his address. That made me…I panicked, I guess. Got confused. I was afraid of losing him, but at the same time…I wanted more, you know. I wanted to go beyond just…just words. At one point, I actually had a friend—a friend who knows computers—try to trace him, but…” Her voice failed her here a moment. “Finally, I just…I pleaded with him.” She used the word purposely, glanced at the detective to see if he disdained her for it or pitied her. But there was just that face, that Weiss. And she found herself confessing to him: “I pleaded with him. These long…truly pitiful letters. Begging him. Literally begging him to please meet with me, to let me feel…anything…his hand on my face…anything. I guess that’s what did it. Scared him off or whatever. Suddenly—without even saying good-bye…” She finished the sentence with a forlorn gesture: He was gone.

  Weiss began to speak, then stopped. It was a young couple passing this time, he a reed in faded jeans and a torn T-shirt, she bursting like fruit out of her halter top and her cutoff shorts. Weiss waited till they were well out of earshot before he said, “Look, Professor Brinks, you’re obviously a very smart woman—”

  Professor Brinks snorted.

  “You must’ve thought this through,” Weiss went on. “If he doesn’t want to meet with you he probably has a reason—I mean, it probably doesn’t even have anything to do with you. He may just be—”

  “Married,” Brinks said. “Or
gay or a woman or deformed or ten years old. Believe me, yes, I’ve thought of everything. And if anyone ever found out I was doing this…I mean, if, as you say, he ever made my letters to him public…” She stared down at the path, seemed to stare right through the pavement into the earth. “The things I’ve said. The things I’ve promised to do. My reputation…my work would be…” She pressed her lips together. Her whole narrow frame quivered like a plucked bowstring. “God, God!” she burst out, lifting her eyes now to the sky. “It’s all so fucking pathetic!”

  Weiss shrugged. That’s all. As if to say, We are what we are. Then he paused for a moment. To let her settle herself. To let her run over again in her mind the consequences of going forward, the possible consequences to her work, to her life, to her dreams, the potential for catastrophe. Then, when he felt certain she had considered it all, held it up to the light, he asked her, “So what do you want me to do, Professor?”

  “Oh, find him!” she answered without hesitation. Her eyes were blurry now, her face pinched, her mascara smudged. “Please, Mr. Weiss! I don’t care about the rest of it. I don’t care about anything anymore. I just have to find him. Please.”

  Twenty-Three

  She walked away unsteadily on the gray path between the trees. He watched her, standing where he was, hands in his pockets still.

  He envied her, the truth be told. He knew it couldn’t have been easy for her to confess to him—even to confess to herself—the things she felt, the way she had betrayed her own philosophy. But at least she had the courage to go through with it, to make her move. At least she’d plunked her money on her passion, and to hell with the usual human charade.

  The path curved in the middle distance. It vanished in the trees. Brinks, her steps dreamy and faltering, rounded the bend. Another moment, she was out of sight.

  Weiss straightened with a breath. He turned away.

  He drove back to the Agency, heavy-hearted. Letting his dull, gray Taurus coast through the swift flat avenues toward the denser traffic of the hills. There was M. R. Brinks, he thought, arched like a high-board diver in the oh-so-hazardous air, and here he was, earthbound, paralyzed. Sweating over his weird little obsession with a whore he’d never met, stewing in his helpless paranoia about a killer he’d never seen.

  All he had to do, he thought, was turn the steering wheel. Guide his car to the freeway. Point it north toward Paradise. Julie Wyant would be long gone from there by now, but it would be a start, anyway. It would be something.

  Sick of himself, he continued on into the city center.

  He arrived at the Agency silent and louring. Thumped down the hall toward his office. He passed me in my alcove on his way. There was Sissy, perched on my desk. Beaming down on me moonily. Picking lint off my shoulder with a proprietary air. I was trying my best to pretend she wasn’t there, or to pretend I was too busy stuffing invoices into envelopes even to notice her. Because how could I call Emma with her hanging over me like that? How could I call Emma at all before I’d extricated myself from this catastrophe?

  As Weiss came by, Sissy quickly slipped away. But Weiss saw her. Of course he did. He saw and understood it all, the basics of it, anyway. He groaned inwardly as he went past. Sissy now, too, he thought. Sissy, whom he idolized. Whom he could never have approached himself. Christ, the whole summer world was just one big fucking love song today, wasn’t it?

  He stepped into his office, shut the door behind him. Lumbered to his desk. Dropped into his swivel chair. Jabbed the Internet key on his computer. There was a three-note chime at once: a waiting e-mail. From Bishop. What now?

  He opened it up.

  Just one big fucking love song, he thought.

  Weiss, the e-mail began, something happened.

  Twenty-Four

  Bishop woke up that morning wrapped around a naked woman—but who? And where, come to think of it. Where the hell was he? All he knew at first was that the woman’s face was pressed to his face. And that her breath was stale and beery.

  He drew back. Tried to force his eyes open to get a better look at her. She was a coarse-featured brunette, it turned out. Maybe part Mexican. Her arms and legs were draped all over him. Their torsos were together, loin to loin, as if he’d fallen asleep inside her.

  He untangled their limbs. Rolled her onto her back. Watched her heavy breasts drop to opposite sides of her. Groggy, he cast an eye down over her thick waist, her broad hips, the lush patch of black hair between her legs. He wondered how much he’d drunk last night. Or smoked. Or snorted or swallowed.

  He gave a soft groan. Dragged his hand down from his forehead to his chin. But damn it, the woman was still there when he looked again. Sleeping on, snoring quietly, her mouth wide open. Well, there’d been worse, Bishop thought. He’d woken up with a hell of a lot worse.

  He propped himself up on one hand. Looked around. Yeah, okay, now it started to come back to him. He was on a mattress on the floor. And there was Charlie on another mattress against the opposite wall. Naked on his back. Like a statue of a dead guy with all those muscles. The blonde nestled on one side of him looked about fourteen. The dyed blonde curled in his other arm jutted her apple-round ass Bishop’s way. There were dark gray stains on the bedsheet under her. Motor oil. Sure, it was all coming back. He remembered the business with the motor oil.

  He remembered where he was now, too. In the gang’s clubhouse. A big old two-story pinewood cabin at the end of a tree-lined lane somewhere. He was in a room upstairs. Nothing on the floor but the mattresses and the women, him and Charlie, a couple of bottles of beer. Nothing on the walls but splintering wood panels and a winged Harley symbol and a forty-mile-an-hour speed limit sign riddled with bullet holes.

  Tequila, he thought. Beer and tequila, that’s what it was. And a pipeful of meth. And then the Mexican girl gave him a tab of something before leading him upstairs. Maria, her name was. Or maybe he just called her Maria.

  His head was starting to throb. His stomach felt liquid, churning. Slowly, he managed to sit up on the edge of the mattress. He massaged his temple. Squinted at one of the windows on the wall above his head. He saw treetops. Morning mist moving in the branches. Sunlight beginning to push its way through in misty beams. It was pretty. He forgot himself for a moment, looking up at it.

  Then he remembered that he’d killed Mad Dog and he felt like shit.

  He cursed under his breath. He wished that hadn’t happened. Not that he was sorry for Mad Dog or anything. The fat son of a bitch had needed killing. It had probably improved his personality. Plus it was self-defense, there was no question about that. Bishop remembered that bazooka of a pistol pointed at him while he was cruising the edge of the canyon at eighty per. So fuck Mad Dog. Death was too good for him.

  Still. He probably shouldn’t have let it happen. He probably could’ve stopped it somehow before it got out of hand like that. Weiss would be pissed. Worse. He’d be disappointed in that silent, enormous Weiss-like way of his. Don’t cross the line, he’d said. Don’t cross the line. Well, Bishop had crossed it, all right. There’d been all that beer and Honey stealing glances at him and Mad Dog staring at him in the gnarly corner. He had felt that fine, clear feeling that always came to him with the nearness of man-to-man combat, and he had crossed the line, no question, no turning back.

  He sat on the edge of the mattress, knees raised. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. And oh yeah. He remembered standing at the side of the road. Looking down the slope to where Mad Dog’s body lay. It had been quiet there for a few moments. There’d been crickets and cicadas, the dying fires from the crash. It had been peaceful in a funny kind of way. Then the thunder of motorcycles had risen again until it filled the woods. Cobra and Charlie—they had turned around and come looking for him.

  They pulled their bikes onto the shoulder next to him. Motors running, headlights on. He had to lift his hand to block the glare. He remembered how their dark figures had come out of that glare like walking shadows. When they came c
loser to him, he could see they were grinning like devils.

  Cobra went down the hill with a flashlight. When he came back up, his teeth glinted in the moonlight and his eyes gleamed.

  “Looks like the Dog had himself a little accident,” he said.

  Charlie chuckled. “You gotta be careful on these roads for certain.”

  Cobra chuckled also. “Fucking A,” he said.

  So that was it. Mad Dog was dead.

  Bishop said nothing. He watched the two others smirking and chuckling. He felt the pistol Cobra had given him pressed into the small of his back. He wanted to pull it out and put a couple of slugs into the pair of them. He would do Charlie first, one in the forehead so his grin froze on his dead face. Then he would put one into Cobra’s belly, low, so he would have a nice long time to get the joke.

  But that was just a pleasant fantasy. There was really nothing Bishop could do about this. He had let things go too far. He could’ve stopped it, but he had crossed the line. Shit.

  Here, in Cobra’s clubhouse, sitting naked on the mattress, he raised his face, shook his head. He remembered everything now. He remembered how, after a while, standing out there on the roadside, Cobra had reached out and grabbed his neck and given him a playful shake. Cobra had laughed, his V-shaped face creasing upward, and Charlie had laughed beside him.

  “Time to partay, my brother,” Cobra had said to Bishop there on the road above the canyon. “Time to celebrate, dude. You’re one of us.”

  Twenty-Five

  Bishop snagged a half-empty beer bottle by the neck. He took a swig. It settled his stomach. He worked his way to his feet. Found his jeans on the threshold. Pulled them on.