The Last Bender, Chapter 38

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

          Linda drove a bulbous hunk of metal golden rod. The engine purred and rocked beneath its shining hood. The view from the seat was of some luxuriously painted moon rising against a bleak planet. She gripped the enormous calfskin steering wheel and glided into traffic. People overflowed the sidewalks, danced between cars stilled at stoplights. Around all-night omelet stands they stood and pushed. Waited for a fix in patient lines outside Spenser’s Galaxy of Shooting Stars. Disembarked in sullen mobs from XXX squeakers. We passed crap games and cardboard tables set up for dominoes and three-card monte. The crowds thickened. Workers waiting for the bus begrudged the sidewalk to adrenalinized youths. A woman blew homely tunes on an alto sax. They tossed their dimes in and listened. They were dim, clotted, close. It was sluggish, nocturnal movement, easily arrested by a man with a snake. Sometimes a face came alive in the flames of a grill or oil lamp. Then the whites of their eyes burned briefly.

          “It’s time to come clean Jack.”

          “I don’t know where to start.”

          She gave in to her uniform. “You can start,” she said in a voice more beat cop than buddy, “by explaining why it is you got to drag me out midstride?”

          “Look at me. Tell me what you see.”

          She looked at me. “You don’t look good. How long you been boozing?”

          The theater district ended and we were in a nondescript residential area with a lot of iron window gates and brightly lit showrooms of pianos and big antiques. There were no food hawkers. Small groups of well-healed middle managers walked hairless dogs and entered quiet bistros. “I’m in a mess, Linda.”

          She checked the rearview. “Are we in the same one? That’s what I want to know.”  

          We smoked cigarettes. “Yeah. You got one end of it and I got the other. But things are complicated.”   She bit her lip and shut her eyes. They were slicked with tears. “I thought I could keep it down, keep it under control.”   I choked and swallowed. “But it’s a bottomless pit. I keep throwing everything in. I didn’t mean for you to get fucked. I’m sorry.”

          “Who’d you kill, Jack?”

          “Three stiffs in the warehouse, before it blew.”

          “That was you?”

          “They had my partner Stronghole down. It was self defense.”

          She looked suddenly worried. “Did you say something about a yellow car?”

          “That’s who killed Braque.”

          “Braque? The private dick you put Helen on to?”

          “Yeah that one. We were tailing the Cut The Rug van. They had killed Clara Turback. Stronghole was in the back but they didn’t know it. Braque died in my arms. I came out of the store and shot the one guy–“

          “That makes four. Plus Clara Turback. Who ever she is.”

          “Yeah, I shot him in the face and that’s when the yellow car drove up. I had Braque’s gun. That’s why he died.”

          “Well, that yellow car’s behind us.”

          “There’s more. Braque, see, was looking for Padraic Stanislau, St. Claude’s partner. Braque was the only witness left. He was watching Monozone the night the murders went down. He saw them leave Monozone and go to the Pechardine. No one but Braque had any idea about the murders, except in-house, in-house I knew, Laraby knew, we all knew. That’s what Stronghole and I were supposed to be working on. And of course then Helen figured it out. That’s why I gave her the scrap. Out in Guernsey. She went with me to meet David Watts. He wasn’t there but his sister Wanda, that’s who got me drunk and fucked me tonight, she set up a meet. They want six million bucks to sell out St. Claude. Laraby’s gonna double them up too. The motherfucker’s cheap, I’ll hand him that.”

          “Maybe we can pin it on Laraby. Look, I got his yellow car right between my legs.”   It was two cars back. “If I don’t fuck it up, we should have it all to ourselves.”   She drove along as if she hadn’t a care and they dogged us to the freeway. “Whodya think it is?” she asked.

          I popped a few smoke rings. It was like riding a bike. “You’re not gonna like this part. It could be a lot of different people. First, Laraby’s got this guy named Church hushing up witnesses. I didn’t see his face, but word is he’s hired outside help. Juice said to watch out for him. Then it gets kinda steep. Cause you got Hubble Watts mixed up in this and a guy that rich can buy what he needs. Finally there’s the DOD. Seems they have an interest in St. Claude and may be a little nervous about their investment. For my money it’s Church, or one of his guys. So who was that tenderizing your steak in the bar there?”

          “Oh, I dunno. I didn’t feel like going home, so I asked her out. I get so tense, you know? And Mac, he never wants to do anything, he never wants to dance. He won’t even eat me, Jack. Just rolls on and off like a ten minute oil change. It wouldn’t be so bad if he talked to me once in a while but it’s like, unless he’s angry he doesn’t say anything. All he does is drink beer. I need more than that.”   She nodded at the rear view and said, “Willya look at that? That’s no DOD guy, Jack. Let’s take ’em somewhere quiet.”

          We were on 17, the main highway on the Island. There were fewer and fewer houses. The air smelled less like burning garbage, more like water. My tongue felt like felt. I searched for a Lemon Drop sucker but found nothing of my own in this dead man’s clothes.

          Helen turned off 17, onto a rural route, past a forlorn looking gas station and then onto a single lane road. Ranch style houses gave way to sparsely scattered cottages with deep lawns. Then it was woods and finally swamp grass. Light fog drifted through the headlights. It got thicker and thicker till you could barely see the road.

          “Do you know where you’re going?” I asked.

          “Nah. Not really. This’ll be beach soon.”

          A peeling, reflective sign planted at an angle flashed through a break in the fog. It said ‘MUN CIPAL B ACH’. Linda slammed on the brakes, grinding steel and spraying sand and sending me all around the front seat. The car blasted by us. She backed into the parking area, alongside a dense stand of reeds. The yellow car stopped up ahead. Its reverse lights glared murkily.

          “Quick,” she said. “He’s backing up. There’s a gun under the seat.”   She tossed me an extra clip. “If it’s Church, what’s he packing?”

          “Hit Braque with a pistol. Big though. I’ve heard Church uses a shotgun.”

          “Shotgun. That outnumbers us.”

          “It’s a risk,” I agreed.

          We crouched behind the car. I peeked over the hood. The yellow car pulled up and stopped in the road. Two men got out, neither of them Church. “Bartell,” one of them said, waiving a long barreled revolver. The other held a shotgun at waist level. “I can shoot this car to pieces. We just want to talk to the cop.”

          “Talk from there,” I said. I didn’t have a good shot, not without exposing too much. “Who are you?”

          “Never mind about that. Give us your friend and our business is done.”

          “If I give her up, I walk?”

          “That’s right. Laraby wants to talk.”

          “Where’s Church?”

          No one said anything. There was a click and then, BOOM BOOM and the smell of sulfur and burning paint. Glass rained down. We ran for the reeds.

          At first, the racket from the shotgun was cover enough but then they paused and saw we weren’t there. Next thing I know I’m crawling in the wet sand, bullets whizzing and hitting the dirt.

          The reeds were dense and the ground spongy. Water welled up around my hands and knees. We made fast time, running in a crouch, sharp stalks cutting against the cheeks. Linda signaled to me and we split up. Then I got down and held my breath, waiting for a sign.

          Now they couldn’t leave us. But neither of them would want to brave the water weeds. I knew those guys, Laraby’s ducks. They weren’t afraid of anything. Except maybe the woods. Were they smart enough to be afraid, and that was as smart as they would get. They wouldn’t wise up to the harmless truth of waterweeds. They’d blunder in or they’d creep in like it was the jungle. But they didn’t come. They waited and we waited and no one breathed, and no one moved. It was early. It would be a long time before the sun rose. The fog solidified and condensed on my skin. I squatted till the chill and ache didn’t matter. Then the wind began to blow, gently breaking up the fog. A brilliant, deep blue moonlight stained the night. Linda’s face emerged from between the reeds.

          That was when my guy took a soft step that snapped a twig. A little after that came the sigh from Linda’s guy. I shot twice at the twig and Linda shot twice at the sigh and then we attacked, screaming and shooting.

          My guy moved out of the reeds and I was right on him, crashing out into the parking lot. He was on his hands and knees, scrambling to get up. I landed on his back, seized hold of his hair and coat and rolled him around to shield me from the bullets.

          The shot gun erupted once. The other man ran out of the reeds but Linda was on him. She grabbed his head and twisted him. He kicked against her and dropped the shotgun. “Lie down!” she shouted, pressing the gun into the base of his skull. He hit the ground but started to thrash and reach for the shotgun. He dragged the stock in with his fingertips. “Fuck you then,” she snarled and pulled the trigger. My guy started to whine and wheeze and shiver. Linda stood, took a few breaths and came over. She stuck the gun up his nose and said, “You got a problem?”

          “He’s worried,” I said. “He’s worried it might happen to him, what happened to his buddy.”

          Linda laughed. “He had a whole mess of brains and still wasn’t smart enough to keep ’em in his head.” The guy spluttered and shit his pants.

          “Get up,” I said. He stood. I brushed the sand off my clothes. They were clean soaked through with swamp water. I didn’t know who stank worse, him or me. The whole day I had been dressed all wrong. I should have worn a wet suit.