The Day I Died

by Lawrence Lariar

  The Day I Died

  Lawrence Lariar

  CHAPTER 1

  The sadness began for Tom Coyle on the way out of Camberton. At the end of the last street, the familiar corner lampposts disappeared and the road up through the hills was dark and shadowed. In Coyle’s mind, all things were either black or white these days, and the blackness ahead of him rose up beyond the edge of the sharp light from the headlights, so that the convertible seemed to be plowing through an endless pocket of gloom. And the dark and unknown distances depressed him.

  To make it worse, Coyle was forced to keep talking to Joey, responding to Joey’s exuberant promises about the riotous night ahead of them.

  “You ready to live it up tonight, Tom?” Joey laughed. “You all set for the time of your life?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “How many dames you think you can handle?”

  “At least a gross.”

  Occasionally there were gaps of quiet, during which Joey whistled a popular jive tune, and the sound added an incongruous, flat, empty feeling to the ride up to Valdido’s. Coyle closed his eyes against the irritants; the winding highway and the cloudless ebony hole that was the sky. He struggled to join Joey in the zany tunes he whistled. More than anything else, he wanted Joey to know that he was living it up tonight. Yet, Coyle’s feeble whistling died as soon as the tires hissed on the pebbled road to Trentville. The little town opened another door into Coyle’s past, and beyond the door were grim memories. Anything and everything within ten miles of Camberton would always depress him. He was too close to home and the recent disturbances. The little familiar things could stimulate his morbid mood: a house, a tree, the quick flash of a street corner, a sign, a light, the flutter of a curtain in a lit window.

  It was no relief to skim through Trentville at last, and gain the winding road again. Coyle was aware of the effect of stimulating sights and sounds and smells. There were a thousand and one things in this neck of the woods, any one of which could set off the spark of his memory and sink him deep into the tight pit of melancholy. Would it be the same tonight? Would it fade and die at Valdido’s?

  Coyle continued to talk to Joey on the way up, but his eyes were closed for the rest of the trip. There was nothing he could do to wipe away the mounting tension, the sickening sadness, not until they reached the summit and saw the sign ahead that meant they had arrived at Valdido’s.

  Joey Bader wheeled his yellow convertible through the main gate and around the pebbled drive under the tall trees. There were five cars parked in the small lot and Coyle saw that they were all high-priced buggies. Caddys and Lincolns. Joey killed the motor and they sat there for a short pause, looking across the garden at the entrance to the club. Nothing had been done to alter the gracious façade of the Phillips mansion, not even a solitary neon sign. The great old house seemed to slumber against the wall of trees, asleep and dreaming of its past.

  “Pretty fancy dump,” Joey said.

  “It doesn’t look changed much, Joey.”

  “How would you know?” Joey laughed.

  “I was inside, a long time ago,” Coyle said. “You remember when I used to deliver for Kelso’s Drug Store? Well, one night Kelso sent me up here with an emergency delivery, a package of medicine for old man Phillips himself. He had some kind of heart ailment and needed the stuff in a hell of a hurry. I remember I borrowed Andy Olan’s motorcycle and made it up here from Camberton in a little under fifteen minutes.”

  “Don’t tell me the old bastard’s butler let you in?”

  “Only as far as the inside hall,” Coyle smiled. “But I’ll never forget it, Joey.”

  “Let’s see what Valdido did to it,” Joey said.

  Valdido had done plenty to it. The surprises began when a tall man in a monkey suit stepped out of some invisible hiding place and crossed the broad porch to beat them to the front door, where he bowed and grinned as he let them in. Joey flipped the man a coin and stepped through the big door with Coyle right behind him. Joey was calm and casual about his entrance, as though he had been doing this sort of thing all his life.

  Coyle reacted at once to the subdued richness of the lobby. The place clawed at his memory, reviving an ancient confusion in him. He felt alone and unwanted here under the Phillips roof, a stranger among the stiff and starched aristocrats who lounged at the bar. Valdido’s catered to the upper class only, the moneyed residents of the broad valley, the estate people; the landed gentry.

  Coyle could not bring himself to examine Valdido’s customers too carefully. He was afraid that one of these people might recognize him and remember him. He shied from the bar and pretended to study the small framed pictures on the wall near the door. But he was examining the lobby as he stood there. What had happened to the great hall? There was a bar along the right wall now, brightly lit and glittering with an aura of polished refinement. Some big city decorator bad redesigned the place, and the décor worked to exaggerate the noble lines of the old house. There were well-dressed people sitting on delicate stools and engaging in quiet conversation. There were delicate young women, bare-armed and radiant under the subdued lights. Coyle hung back from contact with them. It was hard to believe that he could follow Joey Bader to the bar and feel welcome here.

  Yet Joey didn’t seem to mind the lush trappings at all. He swaggered to the bar and leaned over to grab a handful of nuts and chatter with the bartender.

  “Where’s the boss?” Joey asked.

  “Who?” said the bartender, smiling at Joey with a frozen, professional grin. Only the black eyebrows moved slightly, up a fraction of an inch.

  “Valdido, my friend,” Joey said, this time a bit louder.

  “Oh, Mr. Valdido. The boss.”

  “Get him for me,” Joey told him

  “For who?” the bartender polished a glass.

  “Tell him Joey Bader is here, friend.”

  Joey threw a peanut high into the air and made a feeble attempt to catch it, but he didn’t reach quite far enough. It bounced on the fixture and hit the bartender on the jaw. The bartender put down the glass he was polishing and his face reddened and he opened his mouth to say something. But Joey didn’t give him any time.

  “You want another job, maybe, friend? If I have to ask you again, you’ll be working a crumb joint in Pittsburgh tomorrow.”

  The bartender backed off and slid away toward the rear of the lobby. Joey’s throaty voice had jarred people into turning and staring at him. But Joey stared back and his eyes were hard and cold and a challenge to the inquisitive souls around the bar. They looked away from him, pretending a sudden interest in affairs of their own. Coyle envied Joey his brashness and his confidence, but he admired the effect of Joey’s behavior on the snobs around them. In the moment of Joey’s victory, Coyle began to enjoy himself at Valdido’s, no longer awed by the environment. It was as though they were sitting in a small bar back in Camberton and the people around them were ordinary townspeople, cut down to a standard size and pattern by the cocky bravado of Joey Bader.

  Valdido appeared out of the deep shadows at the far end of the bar. He stood for a moment, frowning at Joey Bader, weighing him, fixing him into the pattern of memory. And when Valdido remembered Joey, his whole face tightened as though reacting to a deep and gnawing pain. He came forward slowly, his hand extended.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Joey.”

  “Gus the goniff,” Joey said. He stared at the oily countenance of his old friend with the regard a small boy might have for a trapped animal. “Long time no see, Gus.”

  “Jesus, Joey—two years?”

  “Closer to three. Shake hands with a pal of mi
ne, Tom Coyle.”

  Valdido gave Coyle his warm, moist hand, not looking at Coyle. He was suddenly concerned with the problem of isolating Joey Bader, finding a place for him beyond the ears of his important customers who were watching the little tableau with the slyly attentive gestures of the politely curious.

  “Come on into my office, Joey,” Valdido said, his hand on Joey’s elbow and making the maneuver seem natural and friendly. He gave Coyle a small share of his attention, not really seeing him, but anxious to show Joey Bader that any friend of Joey’s was important to the Valdido establishment.

  He led them inside a small room, paneled in a dark wood and rich with bookshelves that sang with fancy bindings. Coyle wondered whether this was one of the original Phillips rooms. The library? There was an ancient desk against a delightful bay window and the desk seemed old enough to be an original piece. A heavily framed picture hung on the one bare wall and Coyle stood under it, admiring the primitive portrait.

  “Came with the place,” Valdido said.

  “This must be the original library,” Coyle said. “It’s a beautiful room.”

  “Phillips said this place was over a hundred years old.”

  “It’s closer to a hundred and fifty,” Coyle said.

  Valdido studied Coyle, impressed by his knowledge of architecture and flattered by the extra fifty years he could now claim for his night club. Joey Bader sat in the big leather chair near the edge of the desk, one leg over the chair arm and a cigarette hanging from his hard mouth. Something about Coyle’s appearance seemed out of focus to Valdido. These two didn’t go together; they didn’t match. Yet, there was a warmth between them that he could not credit to Joey Bader. Coyle had class and a quiet charm. A local boy? Valdido listened to his talk about the picture, but his probing eyes were digging into Coyle and trying to catalogue him. Where had he seen this one before?

  “You ever been in here before, Coyle?” he asked.

  “Not as a night club guest,” Coyle smiled.

  “I’d swear I’ve seen your face before.”

  “The poor man’s Gary Cooper.” Joey laughed. “That’s what all the dolls tell me back in Camberton.”

  “Camberton?” The name rang a bell for Valdido. His mental machinery was geared for the filing of names and faces, a trick of all successful night club owners. He could now recall Coyle clearly; the small photograph over a feature story in The Camberton Leader, only a week or so ago. One of the waiters always brought the hick paper from Camberton that specialized in social gossip and rural small talk. Coyle’s story was front page stuff, complete with an account of his personal dilemma as related by his rescuing neighbor. It was hard to believe that this kid had tried to kill himself.

  “Now I remember you, Coyle,” he said. “They wrote you up in the Camberton paper, how you tried to knock yourself off. Right?”

  “Forget it, Gus,” said Joey. He was watching Tom at the window, fumbling for his cigarettes and holding his eyes into the blackness outside.

  “I never forget a face, Joey,” said Valdido. “Am I wrong, Coyle?”

  Joey got up and moved close to Valdido. “I said to forget it. A head like yours could get you into trouble, Gus, my pal.”

  “It was in the papers,” Valdido coughed.

  Coyle suffered in the building tension. Joey was hardening and tightening to make Valdido forget about the suicide incident. Over Valdido’s shoulder, through the open door, a small part of the main room was visible. People laughed and joked and drank, but the scene seemed remote and unreal. Something had happened to the big evening, a mounting gloom that would soon sour into depression. The burning memory of that awful night rose up to fill Coyle’s mind, so that he seemed to be living in unreality now. There was a little silence as Joey faced Valdido, so close that the night club owner backed away and balked under the impact of Joey’s suppressed rage. And when Joey spoke again, his sanded voice helped bring Coyle back into the scene.

  Because Joey was almost shouting now. “You never could read English straight! My friend Tom was in an accident, understand? He came home and put some java on the stove and fell asleep because he was tanked. Is that clear? He turned the gas on for the coffee, but he forgot to light it and that was why the hick papers played it up to read like a suicide try. You see it now, Gus, my pal?”

  “Okay, Joey,” Valdido said, sweating. When he looked at Coyle he was a mask of apologetic confusion. “No hard feelings, Coyle?”

  “Skip it,” Joey snapped. “You going to show us to a table now, or do we stay in this library all night?”

  Valdido bounced into sudden activity and led him through the hall and into the main room. He waddled ahead of them across the floor to a ringside table and snapped his fingers for a waiter and sat down with them.

  “The best seats in the house, Joey.”

  “They’ll do,” Joey said.

  “Just like the old days, isn’t it?”

  Joey looked around. “Better. You have a nice trap here, Gus. Much classier than that overgrown closet you had down in Greenwich Village.”

  “It’s a living.”

  “Rich,” said Joey, not listening to Valdido. His keen eyes raked the room. “These hicks are loaded. You’ve got the fancy folks, Valdido. I’ve got to hand it to you, a goniff from Greenwich Village smart enough to quit New York and open up in this neck of the woods.”

  “I like it fine,” said Valdido. His little chubby hands were clasped on the table and he appeared to be counting the house, nibbling at the customers with his eyes, as though they were all his private property, personal dummies he could set up at these tables every night in the week. “This kind of business is for me, Joey. No troubles at all.”

  “A regular country gentleman,” Joey said.

  “I’ll tell you something,” said Valdido. “I like it here. It’s a different life from New York.”

  “I’ll bet it is. All you pay off up here is taxes, right, Gus?”

  “Only the taxes.”

  “You’re getting fat on it.” Joey was enjoying a private little memory. “You never looked so happy when you had the Grotto, Gus. Is that what’s putting the lard on you? Jesus, you doubled your weight up here, you were a skinny guy in the Grotto and now look at you—real lumpy around the gut. No more ulcers up here? Is that it, Gus? Give me the lowdown.”

  “It’s a quiet life here,” Gus Valdido said softly. “Very quiet.”

  What was Valdido afraid of? Coyle listened and watched. He was thankful for Joey’s quick and brittle conversation with Valdido, the sort of duel they were having. So long as they kept talking about Valdido, the spotlight was off Coyle and he could listen to them and sip his Scotch and enjoy the mounting fear that clouded the night club owner’s face. Joey was telling Valdido the story of his return to Camberton. Joey was talking slowly, and the speed of his monologue seemed planned and staged to add torture to Valdido’s listening ear. Joey’s speech was usually clipped and brusque, almost curt most of the time. But now he chewed each word, tasting the flavor of it before he spoke it, and all the time smiling at Valdido and teasing him with the details of the story Valdido did not want to hear.

  “You didn’t know I was a hick, did you, Gus? I’ll bet a couple of your old ulcers bounced when you saw me walk in the lobby out there. Sure, I’m a hick. I’m a Camberton boy, born and bred on the other side of the mountain, right near Tom Coyle. Tom’s the oldest friend I’ve got. We went to school together, Tom and I. And now what happens? Tom and I go into the army together, two of Uncle Sammy’s battlers, that’s what we’re going to be. The stinking draft board put the finger on me and called me back from New York to report. Tomorrow morning at ten, in Pittsburgh for our physical. Nice? Oh, we’re tickled to death. But when I came out of the big town, I ran into Casey Farran and Casey told me how you bought this dump out in the woods, so I figured my old pal Gus is the guy to giv
e Tom and me our last hot night before going into the service. You’re our boy, Gus. You can give us the treatment here, all of it, including the girls and the old-fashioned hospitality. Right?”

  On and on and on Joey talked. And Valdido listened and sweated, full of regrets about Joey’s dilemma and anxious to please. He snapped his fingers for the headwaiter and smiled mightily when he arrived.

  “Anything these boys want, Harry,” Valdido said, and pushed himself up from the table. “On the house.”

  “That’s my chum,” Joey said and winked at Coyle. He let the waiter light his cigarette. Then be put an arm on Valdido’s elbow and applied the pressure so that Valdido sat again. “You’re not leaving us, Gus, my pal? You wouldn’t want me to feel you were giving us the brush, now would you?”

  “Hah,” said Valdido stupidly. “Not you, Joey. I figured maybe you boys wanted to be alone now.”

  “We’ve got time. Let’s talk some more.”

  “Sure, Joey.”

  “Let’s talk about the boss, Gus. You wouldn’t want me to tell Masterson you forgot him already? Masterson would be terribly insulted.”

  “You’re going to see Masterson?”

  “Why not? Who can tell? Maybe I’ll be stationed in a camp near New York, near enough so that I can run in once in a while and say hello to the boss. Masterson, now, he’d be curious about you, Gus. He’d want to know how you’re doing up here.” Joey’s voice had returned to normal and the words were clipped and snapped and almost spit at Valdido now. And Joey was enjoying the fresh burst of nervous energy that seemed to render Valdido helpless and hopeless. The name of Masterson was acting like a hot flame, burning into Valdido’s consciousness and reminding him of the good old days back in Greenwich Village. “I’ll bet you’ve got a big enough take to interest the boss, Gus, my pal. Any wheels in the back?”

  “Masterson wouldn’t look at this place,” Valdido said weakly. “I got one wheel, sure, but there isn’t much gambling up here.”

  Joey grinned at Valdido, letting the silence build around the table.