Last Call

by Matthew Nunes

  “You must be a great bartender. Isn’t that what drunks do? Tell their problems to their bartender?”

  “I think that’s more in the movies and on television, and you aren’t drunk.”

  “No, I’m not drunk. Still, spilling your guts to your friendly bartender must have some basis in reality. Anyway, are you a friendly bartender? Could you be my friendly bartender for just a little while?”

  She was looking upwards, as though searching her own mind. I couldn’t think of anything to help, so I kept my mouth shut. I often thought that I should do that more. It worked well for my father and grandfather.

  “When I was a freshman in college, I was an innocent, you understand?”

  I nodded, thinking I didn’t, but she had to be kept going.

  “I went to an all-women’s school in New England. Graduated Magna Cum Laude, but that first year was hard for me.” She grimaced.

  I wondered if there was anytime that wasn’t hard for her.

  “I doubted my orientation, I guess. Anyway, I fell in love with a sophomore, and we became lovers. Another woman, I mean.”

  I nodded, hoping that my expression was neutral.

  “Later on, I realized that I’m not gay, but she was gentle and caring and understanding. I’d never been close to someone who wanted me to be more and better than I was. Can you understand how that felt?”

  I nodded.

  “Somehow, Adam or Jason or my father found out. Doesn’t matter, it amounts to the same thing. My father.”

  “One night, when he was drunk, he showed me a professionally edited video, with fades and background music and all. First Heather and me, then Heather with Jason. I think for the one with Jason she was drugged, or drunk. Jason was pretty rough,” She was talking fast and quietly, looking straight down at the bar. “Being the frightened little nothing that I was, I was afraid to confront him, or Jason, so I went to my mother. Then I went to Heather and blamed the whole thing on her. My mother just held me and cried and had a couple of drinks. Heather sat and stared. I just kept shouting at her, telling her about all of the hurt that was done to me. To me.” She smirked a little.

  “She dropped out, and I never heard from her again. My father still had the DVD when he died. I finally got up my nerve a couple of days ago, and threw it in the trash, after I broke it in two.” She was petering out after all of that, uttered in a fast monotone, like a poorly rehearsed recital. But she wasn’t quite done.

  “Maybe I’m my father’s daughter,” she said softly.

  I started to speak, but she kept shaking her head.

  “No, you don’t understand. My father has a whole closet full of videotapes, DVD’s and flash drives; floor to ceiling. I only took the ones of Heather and me. I left all of the rest. They’re all in his house up north. I drove up and got rid of the ones that concerned me. All of the rest, all of the people he screwed up are still there.”

  I thought about that, and all of the potential suspects on those recordings. I wondered if DaSilva and Dana had seen them.

  “The closet is hidden in the basement. If you don’t know how, you’d never find it.”

  “How do you open the closet?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t pushing too hard.

  She gave me detailed instructions, “I need your word that those videos won’t hurt anyone else. I want them to hurt no one but my father.”

  I thought he was beyond being hurt. “I promise to do all I can to protect the people on those tapes. I hope that’s good enough.”

  “It will have to be.” She handed me a key and a card with the Congressman’s address on it. On the back of the card, she scribbled a note giving me permission to enter. No wonder she’d graduated Magna.

  It wasn’t happy, but there was some animation on her face. “I hope that those tapes really screw my father. I really hope so. I want you to find a way to destroy what’s left of him. Can you do that? Can you?” She was talking like a small child, begging to be taken someplace nice. Her forehead was shiny, and she tossed her head. There was an unhealthy heat coming from her, like a low-grade fever, and she was smiling and crying all at once.

  “I can’t wait to see what those tapes do to his precious legacy. I want to see whatever nice things people had to say about him just blasted away. I want to get even for me and Heather. Is that wrong? Is it? Can you do it?” She was crying, but there was a grin on her face she couldn’t control.

  “Easy, we need to slow down here,” I said with my throat as open as I could make it. Voice deeper than usual, and calm, slow, and gently commanding. The shy young woman who came in might never have existed. “First things first, Charlene, okay?”

  She nodded, as if I said something profound.

  I remembered seeing something like this before. After interrogation, a Marine who’d killed a superior officer confessed, and all of the anger, hate and energy that went into killing him surfaced. It was as if he was still driving the bayonet into the second lieutenant, over and over again. She was like that. She was living a moment that she hoped for. Part of her knew that the moment wouldn’t come, but she still wanted it so badly that it seemed real to her.

  It took a half hour to get her calmed down and on her way home. She left looking as she had arriving.

  I drove to my motel and past it, about three miles to a gravel pit.

  I found a lot of well-ventilated cans of various sizes, lots of brass, and quite a few spent bullets. I had half a dozen cans up, each smaller than a human head. I paced off seven yards, and fired single shots at one of the targets, then pairs, then emptied the pistol, all fourteen shots into a can, making it dance.

  I backed off to ten yards, chose another can, and repeated the exercise, firing from eye level, with a Weaver grip, then from chest level, shotgun style, with both eyes open. At twenty-five yards, I was still hitting the target. I emptied one box of cartridges. It felt good to shoot and that the draw, fire and reload was comfortable and familiar. I tried a few one-handed, right then left, at seven yards, five hits out of five right handed, four out of five with the left.

  At the motel, I sat down with one of their towels laid out on the work surface. Between bites of fast food, I stripped and cleaned my pistol, laying the components on the towel, and thought about my next steps. I had to keep pushing, but it was time for Rhode Island.

  I would have loved to ask Isabel about the Morleys. Then I thought of Dana, with the same expertise.

  I jotted down some notes on my legal pad, so I could speak more intelligently with her about it and wrote a long report on what had happened in Washington. It surprised me that none of the local police had been in touch. I’d expected DaSilva to put them onto me.

  Unless I slowed down, I had some freedom of movement, but I didn’t like being a target for the Morley ménage. Stopping would present more danger than the reckless charge I’d been making. I called Sandra’s office and left a voicemail telling her how to reach me in Rhode Island. It was getting late, but I called home.

  I caught myself gripping the phone while I talked with ‘Sol. It was a little hard hearing her, since my ears still rang from gunfire. I was delighted that her social studies teacher had given her a special project, forcing her to use the library rather than the pre-digested pap in her text. “No internet,” she said, “can you imagine?” She was going to have to think. Mrs. Pina told me to hurry home. I hung up after a half hour, smiling for the first time that day, because I was going home soon.

  Dana was next. I took a deep breath, looked at my notes, and carefully turned them face down. Then I dialed. Eight for long distance, then one, six-one-seven, and her number. It rang twice before she picked up. Her voice was the same. She sounded cool and non-committal when she answered.

  “Dana? Hi, it’s Paul.”

  “Paul!” it was almost a shout, then she quieted, “Paul, how are you? I spoke with DaSilva.”

  “Which is not the conversation I hoped for.”

  I could hear the pause, and her voice seemed a b
it deeper, and lighter, all at once. “So have at me, Paul. I would love a less professional talk with you.”

  “I’m kind of rusty.”

  “You’re damned near seized up, But I’m the soul of patience.”

  I laughed, and started with what popped into my mind. “Are you aware of the affect you have on me?”

  “Yup.”

  “Until you came along, I hadn’t thought of a woman since my wife died. I mean as a woman, you know? You have touched me.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. See, you aren’t all that rusty, after all. Now, please get your ass home? I hope to take this conversation into some kind of concrete, hard reality.”

  “Dana, my reality is just fine, right now.”

  “It’s going to waste then. Unless the TV person that DaSilva mentioned is around?”

  “I’m kind of limited, I guess. One at a time, that’s me.”

  “I knew that. Otherwise, it would have shown before she slithered onto the scene.”

  “Slithered?”

  “Get home, Paul. Bring your information and all of that. Bring an appetite for me. Did I mention I’m a pretty good cook?”

  I was struggling to keep up, but I managed to remark on having an appetite already, and we hung up, laughing together. I missed laughing and talking with a woman. I felt fresh, despite the pain pills and beating that I’d taken. I called the airline and changed my reservation, and lay down to try to sleep. It took an educational program about the iguanas of some island in the South Pacific to put me under. I was glad that they didn’t talk about their mating habits.

  ***

  I showered, shaved, dressed and packed, putting Sandra’s file into my briefcase to finish on the flight. I figured I’d surprise Marisol, and maybe Dana. I was feeling rested and only a little sore. Even my tongue felt better. My first stop was a bus station. I had to get my new pistol home. It had been expensive and it had provided some comfort. I expected to need comfort again. Bus company freight was reliable and they did little examination.

  I spent some money on bubble wrap, and box and tape, went to the men’s room and packed the whole thing up, including the cleaning kit. I used their label and they weighed it for me. I’d pick it up at the bus station in Providence the next day.

  I turned my car in, picked up my tickets and checked one bag, keeping the briefcase with me. I was whistling when I got to my gate.

  Unless they were simply sadistic assholes, why had Jason and Adam gone to my motel to take the insane risk of beating me up? Why would they do that, and how could they be sure I wouldn’t file a complaint? Even with all of the political shelter in the world, they should have been worried. Why not wait until I was in New England? Why not set up an alibi? Charlene knew I’d taken the ass kicking, so would Camille. Some famous dead guy had said, “A secret shared by two is a secret no more.”

  There were people I cared about close to home. They had lots of ways to keep me quiet without coming near me. I had to control those thoughts, so I pulled out Sandra’s file and began to read what had happened to her four years before.

  New to the station, she had obtained an interview with the Congressman. Afterwards, he offered her dinner. I remembered how provocative she could be, and pictured her putting herself on offer for Morley. Not hard to see “a man of appetites” taking advantage of the opportunity.

  At first, with all of the sneaking around and sudden trips to Rhode Island, she thought that she was in love. The tone of her writing was self-mocking, but her feelings at the time came through. There was some rough sex and porn to help him along. There were even viewings of him having sex with other partners. She admitted to finding some of it intriguing at first, until she realized that he was watching it for himself. It started to dawn on her that she was an appliance to him.

  By then, she would leap out of bed, afterwards, to shower and cry. Often she found herself curled in the corner of the tub, with the shower beating hot water onto her. He alternated kindness with the rough power games that gave him more pleasure than sex. She couldn’t bring herself to end it. She described herself as sick, enjoying the treatment as if she deserved it.

  Apparently, it took him over a month to lose interest. I was impressed by her ability to hold him for that long. She had done a good job of degrading herself, and that made me sadder than I already was. The bond held, until she found herself with gonorrhea.

  When she told him about it, he blamed her and hung up. Her doctor prescribed antibiotics and warned her about her partners. Using her journalist’s contacts, she found out that he’d infected at least three other women, and hadn’t bothered to tell them or the woman who’d infected him. She didn’t explain how she found out, and there were no names mentioned.

  The woman who’d infected him was found next to a bicycle path in a park near Washington, alive, with broken elbows and knees, and a bottle of penicillin. She never saw her assailants. In the three years since her attack, she had recovered to the point of no longer needing a wheelchair for short walks.

  Sandra had to do something. She was a journalist and a researcher. She did research and compiled the file she gave me. She said nothing to anyone until she gave it to me. I wondered why I was the guy, until I found a note clipped to the end of her section. It was written on motel stationery. She must have done it while I was asleep or unconscious.

  “Dear Paul,” it said, “This may or may not be useful to you, but it’s been sitting in my desk at home. I still catch myself reviewing it. It really pisses me off that after all of this time, he is still fucking with my mind. It pisses me off that I hadn’t done anything to stop him.

  DO something about all of this. I thought about using it to ruin Morley, but it would have hurt other people. Would have made a hell of a story, though.” There was a happy face kind of drawing, only it was leering and winking, instead of showing the inane seventies smile. “I think that being your friend will be fun, but I think of you at night. Take care of yourself, Sandra. P.S., don’t forget that I get a twenty-four hour exclusive. S.”

  Smart woman, and smart to try to let go of her anger and hate and guilt. I stopped short. Time for me to get smart, too. The plane landed shortly after that liberating thought. Easier said than done, I supposed, but not the same as impossible.

  Chapter 12

  Baggage claim at T. F. Green is nicer than Logan, or any of the majors, and I was out, in a cab, less than twenty minutes after we arrived. After my ride into town, I paid my garage bill in Warwick. On my way home, I looked into my mirror a lot but didn’t see anything more than once. I didn’t care anyway, as long as I was going home.

  Then I was at the door with my luggage and my daughter flung herself at me. I dropped the bags and caught her up, swinging in a circle. There was no way to describe how much that hurt, but it didn’t matter. We were together and I couldn’t manage a word. I was kissing her cheek and her hair and holding her. I managed to tell her how much I missed her before she was off and running at the mouth. I heard about school, and her trials and tribulations. I heard about Mrs. Pina’s cooking and how early she made ‘Sol go to bed, and she missed all of her favorite shows. Finally, she got around to how much she missed me and how bad I looked. She braced herself on one foot with a hip cocked, folded her arms and reminded me that she wasn’t a baby anymore and I had to tell her.

  Mrs. Pina was standing in the door. “Paul, why don’t you come in. ‘Sol, you need to let your Papa come in and sit down. He will tell us all about it.” Marisol nodded and ran into the kitchen. I carried my bags to my room and dropped them on my bed. When I came out, I smelled coffee brewing and recent baking.

  The coffee was awful, but the blueberry muffins made up for it. Mrs. Pina told me that ‘Sol had made them with no help at all. I ate three, with butter, figuring that cholesterol wasn’t as tough as me, anyway. I got a cup of Café a la Marisol down, without making faces, but Mrs. Pina was drinking milk. When I sat back in my chair, there was my daughter, beautiful, intelligent an
d insightful. She was looking me over, “Daddy, you’re sitting like you hurt, your face is a mess, and you keep moving your mouth like it feels funny.” She wasn’t missing a thing. I edited it, but she got the gist of it.

  “Did the men who did this kill that other man?” she asked.

  “Maybe, honey, or he might have just kind of died.”

  “That isn’t what the papers and most of the kids at school think.”

  “He might have just died and he might not. I don’t think the men who roughed me up killed him.”

  “Why not, Daddy? If they could do this, why not kill him?”

  “It’s partly just a feeling, or maybe I know things that I haven’t really put together, yet. That happens, you know?”

  She nodded.

  “So if he just died, or somebody else did it, is everything okay?”

  “It’s fine, sweetie.” She smiled at me, and asked me about the coffee. I told her it was delicious.

  There was a knock at the door that made us all jump. “Hello Sergeant DaSilva,” I said, when I opened the door. He was alone, wearing a pair of dress slacks and a tee shirt with a picture of Porky Pig in a policeman’s uniform on it. Porky was smiling, cradling a nightstick, the caption read: “Pigs are cool.”

  I tried not to laugh, but Marisol couldn’t help it. It was impossible to contain it when she started, and shortly all of us were in the kitchen, letting the last few chuckles die out.

  “I don’t have much of a casual wardrobe,” said DaSilva.

  “Sergeant,” I said, “what you do have is in the way of being ‘classic.’”

  “Classic,” said Marisol, and started to giggle.

  “You should see what I wear surfing.” Marisol got him some coffee.

  “’Sol makes Cuban coffee for me,” I said quickly, to warn the detective. She handed him a muffin and the butter dish, while Mrs. Pina bustled around, pulling a dinner together.

  “Larry,” she said, quite casually, “are you staying for dinner?”

  “Please,” said Marisol. “We hardly ever have company.”