The Last Bender, Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

          “Lemme see goddamn it,” I said.

          “All right,” We ducked into the laundry and sat on a steel folding table. I stared into the dark washer windows. They were like the eyes of giant, industrial goldfish. The sheet of paper he gave me had a crude drawing of what looked like a scissors. Next to it were specs–24″ blades on the shears and surgical steel, self-sharpening. “It’s a requisition order to the machine shop,” he said. “A scissors. A lab tool.”

          “Not even. They’re hedge clippers. I saw ’em out at Stanislau’s house. See? Here’re his initials. Hedge clippers.”

          “All that for this,” he said.

          He looked so down I felt the need to console him. “Maybe it’s not a wash,” I said. “Maybe the person who made these will know something.”

          “Whoever does is dead.”

          Now I felt as bad as he did. “Like the Zamboni guy.”

          Stronghole stopped looking at his feet and squinted at me. “What’s with you and that Zamboni guy?”

          “Relax. The pigman touched me is all. He was grotesque. I like that in a person. Someone who works hard to clean up some big disgusting mess. Then they pop him in the head.”

          “That’s a loser Jack, not grotesque.”

          “You think? What would you call the mail room guy and the security guard who drowned?”

          “The one who drowned was a loser. And Paul Torvino is a lucky son of a bitch. His wife got a job at Duke teaching Contemporary Inanian History. They’re movin’ south in one piece.”

          I was all done for the night. It was time to go home. “Let’s go home, Stronghole. Tomorrow we’ll deal for St. Claude and let it go at that. Let’s throw ‘im to the cops.”

          He hopped off the steel table and started to pace circles. He blinked and rubbed his mustache and bit his lips and rolled his big shoulders.

          “Oh,” he said. “Maybe you mean the cops that kicked your ass all over your own house. Then the three zips who couldn’t fit us for a black suit and got one on themselves instead. Why’d you let that anarchist dick take your gun and feed you cotton candy which you lapped up like pink? You could look at the more law you reaped when the suburban long arm shot you up with skinny and let you air dry for a day and a half, till your girlfriend springs you. Last we got that Ivy League battle-ax who dealt you five from the bottom, and who buys all the way. Why are you still looking for a side?”

          We drove on in silence. I asked him to drop me off a mile from home, on Kennedy Avenue, the main drag. I wanted to get an ice cream and some air. It was late–everything was closed but Duran’s and the convenience store. I didn’t want to check in at Duran’s for Linda and Mac. But when I saw Linda alone at the bar I had to go in.

          Her face was worn. Her eyes swelled up out of her head. She was staring down an ice cube in a rocks glass and pushing some quarters around. I studied the beer taps. The bar maid had short, red fingers, raw from dipping in the ice. She was nodding her head to the music and laughing to herself over something she had just said. The foam rode up the glass and ran down her fingers before she shut the tap. The beer looked so wet. I turned to Linda and swallowed hard.

          “I saw you in the window,” I said. “Thanks for sending in Helen.”

          She smiled drunkenly and looked up at me. “I don’t think you should talk to me without a lawyer. Mhm.”

          “I swear to you Linda, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

          “Tell it to Helen. She’s going after Monozone and Watts tomorrow.”

          “On what charge?”

          “Murder.”

          “You have to stop her.”

          “Why do I have to do that Jack?”  

          “Or else one of us gets hit.”

          She lit up a cigarette and scratched her cheek. She wouldn’t look at me. I realized what I said came out all wrong. But what could I do?

          “So that’s how it is now. Threats between us.”

          “Not threats, a warning. I’m trying to protect you.”

          “Protect me? How come you never called me up, to tell me what was going on?”

          “I meant to call. But then I got sapped out in Guernsey.”

          “What about before? Protect me. That’s how you protect me, by lying. When I protected you, you were dying of dysentery. I gave you water. And it was me who took you out west to look for that bitch Corrie Wein.”

          “She said she was pregnant.”

          “Pregnant. You don’t care about anything.” She shook her head and yawned. Her eyes were creased; the skin clung to her high cheekbones. She worked her lips back and forth over her teeth. “I’ll see what I can do. But ya still need ta get a lawyer Jack.” She turned to her drink and wouldn’t talk anymore.

          I wanted to get out of there. Linda was my best friend. My only friend. I felt like there was this big dome of dead air around me. I was struggling to connect through the air but everything between me and the world was gone. All that intervening shit was wiped out, and nothing had taken its place. But where I was, wasn’t void at all. I didn’t know whether to hate my only friend or get down on my knees and beg her to forgive me. So maybe the void was some sort of weird indecision. I turned to go but then, between me and the door there was more of it, more nothing staring back at me. I guess I had seen something I wasn’t supposed to see. I had seen myself through someone else’s eyes. I was looking at myself, out there, and there was nothing to see or say. But I couldn’t watch her any longer. Cause I knew she was looking into that glass and finding an ice cube, and on the ice cube, seeing her face.

          It was cold for a summer night and the empty, poorly lit streets sucked the numb out of me like poison from snakebite. The only sound was of wind in folded awnings. Plastic bags blew into trees and fences. The concrete was crumbly but clean. Old people swept their stoops. Garbage was stacked neatly on the curb. It was all worn out. They were done with this place. Everyone was marking time. The air had the tang of hot tar and dog shit.         

          In the convenience store they stared at me without interest, the young woman in a pink sweatshirt that said in yellow puff letters, SINGLES ANYONE, and her father, who looked like a horned demon. His ass was so big there was hardly any room for both of them behind the counter. They’d owned the place for years and still they looked at me like I might stick them up.

          The ice cream melted down my throat. There was a chill night breeze. I began to feel like one of those oysters in the Glory Hole. There you are, relaxing on your bed of ice when the knife pries you apart and they squeeze the lemon juice in.

          There was too much memory there. I turned down Teller Park Rd. It was a long block. A couple of young women shot craps on a stoop. Straddling a bicycle on the corner was a young guy in a white, button down shirt tucked into tight black jeans. He bobbed his head up and down, moving his lips. Between throws the two girls paused to look at him. It was strange. While they played they were smiling and their eyes glistened. They shook the dice and threw with grace and attitude. But when they looked at him all the spark died out of them.    

          A car drove slowly up to the corner and stopped. The boy talked in through the window. Then the car turned and drove down the wrong side of the street, pulling up to the crapshooters. The tough one in the ragged tank top took the money and cracked wise while the other one, the one with the long blond braids and pleated black skirt went down the alley. I guess they had two faces each, one for business, one for pleasure.

          I didn’t stay to watch.

          At Conklin I hung a left and my block was in view. Shouts echoed from across town, someone saying, “Girl, you got to party!” and then laughter. An old man with a face like a coconut did dishes in the semi dark of an ivied kitchen. Dogs snapped and the cats stopped fighting. Before reaching the house I had my keys out. But I was too tired, too unconscious to anticipate a thing. Shit passed before my eyes and I noted it. Either it was threatening or not. My formulations were primitive. So I wasn’t surprised or angry when I opened the door and found him sitting in the living room. In fact, I startled him. All I could think was, Is Braque gonna stay long? Or is he gonna let me sleep?

          “Oh! Hello Bartell. I came in through the back. It was easier that way. Attracts less attention.”

          I looked into the kitchen. The door was torn off its hinges. I looked at him. “What the fuck did you do to my door, man?”

          “Fix it over the weekend. I hear you’re that kind of a guy.” I didn’t know what to say or do. I stood there playing with the soiled napkin. The one I had twisted and unwadded the whole way home. “You don’t look so hot pal,” he went on. “What is it, an iron deficiency? Eat more liver. Like in the war.”

          I took a deep breath and tried to look at him murderously.

          “That’s about the worst face you’ve pulled yet.”

          “Mind if I sit down?” I asked. He said sure and made room on the couch. I asked him what he wanted.

          “Just a coupla things. You seen the news?”

          “Yeah, I’ve seen it.”

          “They didn’t work for Monozone. It’s not an internal matter.”

          “How do you know?”

          “Cause while you were screwing around in Guernsey I followed Clara Turback.”

          “Followed her? Where? To the opera?”

          “You act so surprised. Don’t you ever follow anyone around? Oh, I forgot, Jack Bartell prefers a desk. Yeah, I followed her to the opera and the library and a florist where she sneezed at all the pansies. Then she met David Watts at a swank eat joint where I managed to pick up this–” he gave me a pamphlet. “David Watts’s been handing these out at shopping centers in Spartan County. Go on, read it. I got time.”

          It was crudely lettered on green paper, in a big hand: ARE YOU ALONE IN THE WORLD? There was a drawing of a bewildered, smiling sperm. Let Us Liberate You From Mind’s Tyranny. Long ago, Mind tyrannized Body into slavery. Liberate Body. Whorkers of the world UNITE. FREE LUNCH with every lecture. Call 1-800-273-3754.

          I tossed it on the table and said, “So he’s down so deep he gets the bends coming up for air. So what, you knew that.”

          “Then she meets with Evalyn St. Claude.”

          “Did they swap spit? Or maybe they felched each other before going to lunch.”

          “Jack,” he said. “You’re all off. This isn’t about that. I followed Clara Turback to the Merdoch Beer Club. She met with David Watts for over an hour. They left that pamphlet behind. It cost me twenty bucks. Twenty bucks. She went in carrying a manila envelope this thick and left empty handed. At The Jackpot she spends another hour watching Evalyn St. Claude eat schpielburgers and leaves looking rained on. Then she goes to a parking lot where this white van picks her up. Exactly like the one I saw that night at Monozone. Only this one says Cut The Rug on the side of it. They drive way the hell all over the place. Then they go to this uptown brownstone. Clara Turback doesn’t move the whole time. At the brownstone, two men in white jump suits get out carrying duffel bags plastered with the company logo. They come out a few minutes later with the same bags and hit the highway. I follow ’em out to Grassmear where they drop the truck and pile into this restored sedan. You know the kind. They toss the duffel bags in the trunk and drive on. To a beach house in Pine Point. The guys in the white jumpsuits are now in matching green T-shirts and peacock harem pants. Both guys are bald, real thin and very strong. You’d think they were brothers the way they looked, and they worked like they’d been doing it for years.”

          “Stanislau and St. Claude,” I said.

          “There they were. I had ’em in my sights. I’m not excitable but I gotta say my hands shook when I took out my gun and stepped from the car. Things don’t always go according to plan. Some rivers run north. Turns out they were brothers and they had worked together for years. Clara Turback had hired them to bring a bunch of carpets out to Evalyn St. Claude’s summer house.”

          “You son of a bitch,” I said softly.

          He laughed harshly and patted my knee. “Really had ya goin’ there, didn’t I? Now tell me, what happened in that lab?”

          This pissed me off. “Fuck you,” I said. “I haven’t slept in days.”

          “That’s normal for a murder case.”

          “That’s just a lot of romantic crap. And you can’t link any of the murders to Monozone. It’s still missing persons and espionage. Trade secrets plain and simple.”

          “Jack, you’ve got to have a limit. Beyond that, you’re just another piece of garbage. You wanna be a gun in some prick’s hand? A gun for hire, Jack? Cause that’s what’s next. If it hasn’t happened yet.”

          “There was no murder to cover up,” I said.

          “Sleep well my friend. And if you can’t, think of Lafferty.”

          “You aren’t gonna finish telling me what happened?”

          “That was on a strict need to know basis. A lie for a lie, a truth for a truth. What’ll it be?”

          I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I said, “Clara Turback pulled a switch, right? They picked up two bodies at that apartment and switched duffels in the truck. You follow the car to the beach while the bodies in Grassmear go someplace else. How’d you know I was in Guernsey?”

          He smirked. “You tipped me off to Watts. I looked him up and drove out to the house. David was leaving, so I followed him back into town.”

          “Why didn’t the cops stop you?”

          “Jack,” he laughed, “you just don’t look respectable.”

          “You mean I should go around in the same cheap pinstripe?”

          That hurt him. “I don’t have your money. I don’t even have your respect. But that cop was waiting for you. I think I’ll call on Mr. Hubble Watts next. See what he knows.”

          “I wouldn’t piss on his bush if I were you, Braque.”

          “That’s why I like having you around, kid. If there’s a place you won’t piss, I know it’s worth pissing on. And don’t forget, eat liver. But this time, remember to cook it first, with bacon and onions and a side of boiled potatoes. That and a slice of apple pie with cheese will perk your pecker right up.”

          I walked him to the door under protest. When I finally slept it was a sleep so deep that the phone, when it rang in the morning, felt like a kick in the ear.