“But what?”
“But he’s not here anymore, Marlowe. You are. And this was never … I don’t know how to do this, but you … you’re not the same man that you were when you left.”
“I know,” I said.
“I don’t think you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here now. What exactly happened that got you sent home, Marlowe?”
I sat down across from her on the other couch. “We were surrounded by snipers. They were picking us off like flies. I thought I got shot, and I blacked out. All the men were dead when I woke up, and I was the only one that made it out of there. I can’t remember what happened, but the brass didn’t want me out in the shit anymore, so they sent me home. Case closed.”
“Without a scratch,” she said. “Don’t you think that’s a little odd?”
“I don’t know.” That was the exact same kind of question the military had asked me. “I’ve tried not to think about it,” I said, grinding my teeth.
“Maybe you should. That wasn’t the only time you’ve blacked out, was it?”
I wanted to ask her how she knew that, but I was too fucked up, too angry. I walked away. If she had told me the truth that night, I think I would have killed myself. I was younger then, more rash. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Instead, it was still a secret, and bad things were to come. It was that rashness that led me to move out just as quickly as I had moved back in. The way the family had treated Doris in my absence was inexcusable. I didn’t want any part of that household anymore.
The next morning I got a suitcase together and moved into a cheap motel with the money I had. It was one of those kinds of places where you pay by the end of the week, or they took your stuff and beat the living hell out of you. There weren’t any families in there or anything like that. Mostly drunks and men who’d gotten kicked out of the house for whatever reasons men do things they shouldn’t do.
I made a promise to myself not to get a haircut for at least a month. The promise ended up stretching on for years. Doris and I made plans to go away for a while, somewhere nice, just her and me, but that was still a few weeks away.
I was not a pleasant man at work on June 3. I had not slept at all that night, even though I got home by five. I was so upset about what had gone down with Alice that I couldn’t sleep a wink. Then all of a sudden the sun was up, and I had to be at work. There was nothing new in the papers, just the same old public outcry to the authorities, who, according to some of the op-ed pieces, were resting on their laurels. I was highly agitated, tired, and I needed a drink. It was scaring me how much I felt like I needed a drink. Abe did what he could to make me feel better, but there was nothing short of a magic potion that could have worked. I guess I was teetering on the edge of an abyss.
I was in the kitchen, using a wet towel to clean off the grill. Steam blasted up, and I could feel my forearm getting burned, but I didn’t care. I usually didn’t because there would never in a million years be a lasting mark, but this was different. This was penance.
The phone rang. I never answered it because of my tendency to casually curse during conversation, or sometimes even when no one was around. Abraham answered the phone. I heard him ask who it was, and then he came back to the kitchen through the double doors.
“Phone’s for you,” he said.
“Who is it?”
“Some dude.”
“Did you get a fucking name?”
He shrugged. I swallowed. Took the phone.
“Yes?”
“Hey, killer,” said the voice.
I hung up.
Abraham saw me grinding my teeth. I told him to get the fuck out of the kitchen. A second later the phone began to ring again. I picked it up.
“Be seeing you,” said the voice.
I hung up.
I grabbed my pack of cigarettes and walked out of the kitchen. I had to get out of there. “Hey,” shouted Abe, “where the hell are you going?”
“I gotta go,” I said.
“But Carlos ain’t here yet.”
“I gotta go,” I repeated. I got in the truck and took off.
Like old Bill Parker I was circling Old Sherman Road. I couldn’t stop myself from doing it because it felt right. I knew it felt right for him too, and that’s why he did it.
When I got home it was after six. The second I walked in, the phone rang. It was with this phone call that I stopped teetering on that edge and finally fell. I picked up the receiver, and the voice said, “I’m sure Frank won’t be happy that you left early.”
“I’ll see you in hell,” I said.
“I’m counting on it, because I’m going to make you pay for what you did.”
“Who the fuck is this? Why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m the tooth fairy, Higgins.”
“Why don’t you come on over, then. I got something under my pillow for you.”
“Well,” said the voice, “I’ve already left something there for you.”
I hung up and rushed into the bedroom. My heart was beating in my ears. Everything looked the way I had left it in the morning. I walked over to my bed and lifted up the pillow. There was a note, folded in two.
“Oh my God,” I said out loud.
I lifted the piece of paper and unfolded it with my shaking hands.
It read, “IT’S OVER.”
I ran into the bathroom, where there was a small window that I had never wanted to nail shut because when I take a dump it is truly deadly. The window was halfway opened, the tiny little lock on the top of the frame was hanging on by one screw. Probably jimmied from the outside by a fucking flathead screwdriver. I clutched the doorframe for balance and screamed. A second later, the phone rang.
I pulled my truck into the parking lot of the first bar I came across. I couldn’t take it anymore. There was a time for being a stoic motherfucker, and a time for getting trashed and beating someone’s head in. This was a time for the latter.
I came in through the door and was greeted with honky-tonk music playing a bit too loud—just the way I used to like it—and the warm glow of a dozen neon beer signs. Sawdust littered the floor in mounds. It helped with the ambience by taking your attention away from the drunks passed out in the corners. I sauntered up to the bar, and the bartender came on over.
“Howdy,” he said. “You look pretty down. What’s going on, partner?”
“Oh, you know, lost my best friend, lost my whole way of living … all very Old Testament kind of bad things going on.”
“Sorry to hear that.” He chuckled, as if I was kidding. “Gimme a shot of whiskey and a pint. Whatever’s cheapest,” I said.
“I’m sorry, partner, I can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“I can’t serve you any alcohol.”
I was flabbergasted. “Why the hell not? This is a bar, ain’t it? Ain’t that what gets done in these fucking places? Gimme a drink, goddamn it. I got cash money, just like every other sonofabitch in here.”
My attempt at getting wasted was not working out as planned.
“I’m sorry, I just can’t do it.”
“Well … why, man?”
“Last time you was in here, you fucked this place good and proper, and we can’t go on and let that happen again, can we?”
“Oh, you prick. What is this, a joke? Where the hell did I set foot in?”
“This is Cowboy’s Cabin.”
“No shit.”
“No shit. No, sir.”
“Well,” I shouted, “I guess I’m just gonna have to get one of these slim motherfuckers at the bar to buy a drink for me. What do you say, boys?”
Four younger guys in designer outfits sat down the bar from me, a few other guys filled up some tables behind me, and I was in the mood to rumble. More than anything else, I wanted one of these boys to do their best to kill me in hand-to-hand combat. The four guys looked at me, shook their heads no about buying me a drink, and looked down, then went back to drinking.
�
��Well, fuck each of you and all of you, then,” I shouted.
“Sir,” said the barkeep, “I think I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”
“You know, it’s been a while since I’ve heard that. Let’s hear it again.”
“Will you please leave?”
“Don’t ask, pissant. Do it. Or try, if you think you can.”
I put my dukes up.
All of a sudden, I saw bits of wood flying past my head from behind me. A second later, I felt pain, and I realized someone had just busted a pool stick off my head.
I turned around, and the guy there looked awfully familiar. Someone, some time, had broken that nose of his good and proper. I tasted blood in my mouth, coming from somewhere up high on my head.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Did I ever fuck your sister?”
His two friends grabbed me from all sides and dragged me outside.
“Was it something I said?”
They went to work on me out in the parking lot, all of them. Bounced me off so many cars, I knew what flies felt like on country roads. They even incorporated a belt and a tire iron into the beating.
“You like that?” one of them shouted as he jammed his boot into my stomach.
“I like it like your mother likes it,” I grunted. “Do your fucking worst, faggot.”
The next thing I knew, I was handcuffed to a metal rod running along a gray cement wall. I was lying on a wood bench. A bright light burned overhead, and two of the guys that had vandalized my ass were cuffed to another rod on the wall to my right. They were immaculate. All I could see of myself were my hands, which looked like they had been run over by a pair of dirt bikes.
It had been a long time since I was behind bars. It didn’t bother me, being behind bars, but it bothered me that it had to happen in Evelyn, and not some other hick place that I could pass a fake name off in.
I looked at the two men and said, “Hey, I know where I know you guys from. You’re Moe and Curly. Where’s Larry?”
“He runs like a jackrabbit,” said Curly.
“How you boys feeling?”
“Fuck you,” said Moe. The other spat at me.
“That’s not very civil.”
“You broke my nose a few years ago,” said Moe. “The dang thing never healed right, man. I’ve been waiting years to get my hands on you, and by the grace of God that time finally came.”
I laughed, though it made my head hurt some.
A uniformed cop came to the bars and banged his nightstick against them. Behind him stood Van Buren in a suit with his detective’s shield pinned to a black holder fastened to his belt. The suit was no work of Italian finery, but cost a hell of a lot more than the brown layer of shit I’d worn to his partner’s funeral.
His shoes were shined and creaseless. New. He was wearing a wedding ring, and a gold watch was apparent at his wrist. He had close-cropped hair and was a little younger than me. Instead of a cop, he looked like a tax collector. He didn’t have the kind of face that made you feel either scared or comfortable. In fact, it made you feel like taking a wild swing at it just to get it out of sight.
The uniform opened the cell door, and the suit stepped in behind him with his hands in his pockets as if he were the coolest, most dangerous guy in the world.
“Get up,” said the uniform to the two other men.
They stood, and were forced to lean forward since they were cuffed to the wall.
Their cuffs were removed. The uniform then removed the cuffs from the rail and put them in his back pocket.
“Get out of here,” said the uniform. “Get your shit at the desk.”
They began to walk past the detective.
“Hey,” I said, “those pricks assaulted me. You’re letting them
go?”
“You gonna press charges?” asked the uniform. “You bet.”
“Too bad,” he replied.
I looked at Van Buren. His eyes smiled.
The two little fighters left the cell and disappeared down the hallway. The uniform turned to Van Buren and asked, “You need me here?”
“Of course not,” he replied in a calm voice. “We’re just going to talk. Isn’t that right, Mr. Higgins?”
“Sure,” I said.
The uniform left, and then it was just the detective and me. He came over and sat next to me on the bench, but not before methodically adjusting his pants around his thighs. “That’s quite a shiner,” he said, pointing at my face.
“I wouldn’t know,” I said.
“Are you in any pain?”
“Am I in any pain? Yes I am. I think I have a boo-boo or two.”
I laughed. He did not.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“Can’t say that I do,” I said, “unless it’s become a crime in this country to get the shit kicked out of you.”
“No, it’s not a crime to be beaten, Mr. Higgins.”
“What’s with this ‘Mr. Higgins’ shit? You know my name. Use
it.”
“You are Mr. Higgins,” he replied. “That’s what I’ll call you. In return, you will call me Mr. Van Buren.”
The man never liked me since the first day we met at the supermarket.
There was this beautiful woman in the produce section, feeling up the pineapples, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She smiled at me. Then her husband got pissed off. That was Van Buren. I was never forgiven for that.
“Mr. Higgins, it is not a crime to be beaten, but this matter is not as simple as that. As you see, the two men who attacked you have been released. Everyone who was at the scene of your latest incident has stated that you were the one who instigated this fight, and it would seem like the only difference between this incident and those in your past is that you didn’t get your little fists up in time.”
“Are you trying to be cute with me?”
“No.”
“Can I have a cigarette?”
“No.”
“Instigating something is different from busting a stick off someone’s head, cop.”
“Maybe, but this is my investigation …”
“What investigation?”
“Quiet. It is my investigation, and such matters that you discuss are merely semantics in this case.”
“Semantics? What happened to my face is semantics?”
“It would seem.”
“I don’t think I like you.”
“And Evelyn doesn’t seem to like you, Mr. Higgins. You see, some people around here seem to have some memory lapses, but I know you, and I know what you’re capable of, and I know how violent you can be when you drink.”
“I didn’t drink.”
“Says you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Didn’t you?” I didn’t say anything. “That’s what I thought. But I’ll be merciful tonight, Mr. Higgins. I’m going to let you go.”
“Well, in that case, you can go fuck yourself.” He laughed. “No, I won’t be doing that tonight.”
“Why, your wife ain’t gonna touch you.”
His eyes grew red with fire. He put his finger in my face and said, “You watch your mouth with me, you dirtbag.”
I lunged and bit his finger, to which he yelped and quickly drew away.
With the other hand, he slammed a fist into my jaw. I winced, and he grabbed a fistful of my hair. “You bastard,” he said.
“You’re going to go down for what you did, you hear me? I know exactly what …”
Just then, the uniform appeared in the doorway, and said, “Everything okay in here?”
Van Buren sat up and backed away from me, said, “Yes. We were just having a chat. Weren’t we, Mr. Higgins?”
“Yup,” I mumbled.
“I don’t think Mr. Higgins is ready to go just yet. Why don’t we keep him till five or so. Then, make sure he gets home okay,” said Van Buren.
“You got it,” said the cop.
“Give him the whole nine yards.”
; “You got it,” said the uniform.
Van Buren stalked out, but not before turning to me and saying, “We have an honest-to-God killer running around this town, Mr. Higgins. Big news. But don’t forget. I’ve got my eye on you.”
Then he was gone.
At five o’clock in the morning, the uniformed cop came to the cell door and unlocked it. He told me to stand, and then he undid the cuffs. He perp-walked me over to the desk, gave me back my stuff, and took me out to the parking lot.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked the cop.
“Home,” he said.
“I can walk.”
“Not in your condition. Get in the car.”
A black-and-white had pulled up to us. Inside were two young cops. He opened the back door.
“Watch your head,” he said.
Not a word was said the whole ride home. When they got to my block, they flashed the lights and sirens and came to a stop outside my home. Everyone was sleeping, but because of the ruckus, lights went on and people came to their windows to see what was going on.
This was a blatant tactic by the police to embarrass me and discredit me in the eyes of my neighbors. I didn’t appreciate it, but the two punks driving the car weren’t paid to be the sensitive ones to my situation.
I got out and walked to my front door quickly, dizzied by the fight and the blue and red lights bouncing off the front of my house.
The door locked automatically behind me once it closed. At that point, the lights and sirens stopped, and the police car disappeared in the dark.
Van Buren had it in for me. I couldn’t imagine it was because he still held a grudge about his wife digging the way I look in a pair of jeans. It had to be something else, but I didn’t necessarily want to stick around to figure out what it was.
The cruelty of all this was that I hadn’t even had the chance to have a drink before I got in a bar fight. I could have taken that as a sign that I shouldn’t be hitting the sauce again, but I’m nothing if not tenacious.
EIGHTEEN
I got out of the shower and combed my hair back in front of the mirror. All in all I didn’t look that bad. One of my eyes was a little puffy, like it was a little more tired than the other, and there was a cut at my hairline.
The Wolfman Page 17
