Kindness Goes Unpunished

by Craig Johnson

  Lou really looked at the photo this time. “Yeah, I seen him.” The old man tipped his hat back and looked over toward the fountain. “’Bout ’n hour ago.”

  Vic was first. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Crossed the street against traffic and sat over by the fountain for a while, then moved on.”

  “An hour ago?” He smiled at Vic and nodded. She turned back to me. “Why the fuck would he do that?”

  I looked at the Logan Circle noble savage in profile. “He changed the note.”

  I thanked Lou, and Katz gave him a card and told him that if he saw the young man again to give the police a call immediately. We crossed with the traffic and pulled up in front of the Indian that represented the Delaware River. Vic walked a little past us and placed her hands on her hips. “Christ, it does look like Henry.”

  I sat on the bench. Katz sat beside me, his suit looking better than it would have on a mannequin. “So?”

  “I would imagine it’s taped to the underside of the seat. Why don’t you look?” He stooped down, reached beneath, and pulled something off.

  Vic walked back. “Why this bench?”

  “It was the one your mother and I sat on after I questioned the guard at the Institute.” She nodded and didn’t say anything, and I started wondering how far the competitive mother/ daughter thing went. “I think he’s been following me since I got here, the night Cady was hurt.” I looked at Katz. “Aren’t you going to dust that?”

  He ignored me, thumbed a fingernail under the flap to break the seal, and opened it to reveal the same stock as the others.

  I leaned over for a look, but Vic kicked my boot. “You and my mother come to the park a lot?” I raised an eyebrow and kicked her back.

  Katz handed me the note. “I’d say your assessment that he changed it after we took the ledgers is correct.”

  It was typewritten with the same dropout “O.” SEE PAGE 72. LOOK WEST, YOU CAN FIGHT CITY HALL.

  12

  Katz said he would catch up with Gowder and then meet me with the ledgers at the Academy later so that Henry could have a look at them. I wanted to get over to the hospital, but it was late in the afternoon and I had run out of time. I needed a shower and could get dressed at Cady’s for the reception, thereby killing two magpies with one stone. When Vic and I got there, Lena was gone and so was Dog. There was a note on the counter, along with a roasted chicken and a six-pack of beer in the refrigerator.

  Vic sat on the stool. “You don’t think we’re looking for William White Eyes.”

  I pulled two of the longnecks from the refrigerator. “No, at least not as a killer.”

  “Osgood?” I opened both of them and handed one to her.

  “I don’t think so, but I’ve been wrong before.”

  “Diaz?”

  I took a sip of my beer. “He’s a killer.”

  “You don’t think that he and Osgood could have kissed and made up?”

  “Toy Diaz does not strike me as the forgiving type.”

  She took a sip of her own beer. “The assistant DA could be a pretty convenient partner in crime.”

  I thought about it. “I think they’re in cahoots.”

  She laughed. “Cahoots, Jesus…” She slugged down the rest of her beer. “It is pretty convenient that Toy Diaz appears to be flying around under the radar, and all the inconvenient people in Osgood’s life are meeting with the pavement.”

  “Including Cady?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me it didn’t cross your mind.”

  I shrugged. “Devon was very convincing.”

  “I would be too if somebody was trying to tear off my head and flush it down a public toilet at Citizens Bank Park.”

  “I was a little more civilized than that.”

  She nodded and placed the tip of her tongue at the bottom of a particularly pointed canine tooth. “Yeah, I’ve seen you in those moods; I bet the meeting was very civilized.” She stood and stretched, her black T-shirt rising and exposing the flat, toned muscles of her midriff. I looked away, but I was pretty sure she’d seen me looking. “I need a shower.”

  “Me too, but you go first.”

  She had taken the second bedroom upstairs, so I collapsed on the sofa and noticed the blinking light on the answering machine. Vic had stopped on the landing and was looking through the glass of the cupola at the cables that rose from the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. “Cady’s not involved with this.”

  Not for the first time, I studied her profile. “You mean in cahoots?”

  She grinned. “Yeah.”

  I took one of my shallow breaths. It didn’t hurt as much. “I think Osgood put the pressure on Devon, and Devon tried to put the pressure on Cady. I think Cady discovered Devon’s laundering scheme through William White Eyes and was going to drop a dime on them. I’m just trying to figure out why she didn’t do it.”

  “You still think Devon hurt Cady.”

  I nodded and watched her as she stood there looking at the flat light on the powder blue bridge. “I think if it’d been Toy Diaz, we’d have already been to a funeral.” I cleared my throat and voiced what had been on my mind since I had heard the message on her cell phone. “How could she let herself get involved in an abusive relationship like that?”

  “You mean the daughter you raised?” I didn’t say anything. “It can happen to anyone, that’s the point.” She still looked up at the skyline, and her hands slid across the railing as if she were petting the city. She nodded a sad smile, looked down and watched me for a few moments more, and then disappeared.

  I was left with the answering machine. There were people back in Wyoming who were desperate for information about Cady and me. I started to reach across and press the button, but the energy eluded me again. I slumped against the cushions and pulled my hat down, thinking that a short nap might do the trick.

  The water began running through the pipes, and it was like rain. I could feel myself drifting off. I sat like that, with my back crooked and my finger guard lying on the back of the couch and thought about what I was going to do about Cady.

  The water stopped after a while, and I heard Vic’s bare feet padding across the balcony above. I felt myself slipping away but woke a few minutes later because of pressure across both of my thighs. I started to push my hat up, but she took it from me and placed it on her head, an old western tradition. She straddled me with her strong legs and, since the hat was out of the way, I could see that her bathrobe was untied. I could smell the still-wet of her skin, smooth and full.

  I started to speak, but she put a finger to my lips and leaned in. “Just shut the fuck up.”

  She pulled my face forward with the fingers of one hand twisted into the hair at the back of my head, and I buried my face into her breasts as she reached to unbutton my pants. I could feel her taking the majority of her weight up onto her knees as her fingers quickly undid my belt and began working me through the opening in my underwear and jeans. Her fingers felt cool encircled around me, and it was all I could do to restrain myself from climaxing right then.

  I could feel her leveraging me, and I slid into her. She gasped and yanked my head back, locking her mouth over mine, her tongue sliding deep between my lips. I could feel her grinding her hips down onto me, the furious quality of hungry passion as if she might swallow me whole.

  I thought I heard a noise from behind her, almost as if the door had opened, but ignored it and slipped my hands under the robe, feeling the heat of her body as my fingers slipped beneath her breasts and cupped them. She broke from my mouth and gasped, a guttural growl coming from the back of her throat as she looked down at me and began pulling my face forward again.

  I stopped her. “No.”

  I watched as her nostrils flared and the pebbled surface of her nipples rose and fell inches from my face. “No what?”

  “I want to see your face.”

  Her eyes softened, and she smiled. She pulled my head back, her face a little above mine
, and we settled into a rhythm with our eyes locked. I slid myself to the edge of the sofa and for the first time was able to push myself all the way into her. Her eyes flashed again, and her breath caught in her throat as she stayed like that, her grip tightening.

  When I was able to think again, I was in the shower trying to wash myself with one hand, the other with a bread bag over it, secured with a rubber band. I couldn’t be sure if I was ever going to leave the water; it wasn’t safe out there.

  Vic must have been reading my mind because, after about fifteen minutes, I became aware of her outline through the opaque surface of the shower door. I turned off the water and stood there, dripping.

  “Walt?”

  “Yep?”

  She waited a moment and then spoke again. “It was just sex.”

  “Uh huh.”

  It was a longer pause this time. “You’re still who you are, I’m still who I am, and we’re still who we are.”

  “Right.”

  I watched as she put earrings on and applied lipstick. “The only difference is that we had sex.”

  “Okay.”

  She laughed and turned toward the shower. “Are you all right?”

  I took a deep breath and winced a little. “Yep.” She waited, and I finally heard her let out a long sigh. I wiped the water from my eyes. “Vic?” I stared at the shower control and tried to stay focused. “We can’t ever do that again.”

  She chuckled as she went out, not closing the bathroom door behind her. “Speak for yourself, big guy.”

  I didn’t have any clothes upstairs, so I had to go down with a towel wrapped around my middle. She sat at the counter with another beer and the two-day-old Daily News that had the story about Devon Conliffe’s death on the front page.

  I memorized every detail of her appearance with just one glance: the wife-beater T-shirt; the brown, pebbled leather jacket with studded conchos; the belt with green copper studs; a dark green lace skirt which stalled out at midcalf; and a pair of clunky-heeled alligator packers.

  She had blown her hair dry so that it feathered down and covered her eyebrows, and she wore a turquoise choker and earrings, with my hat sitting ludicrously large on her head. I had known her for three years and, as good as she had always looked, she had never looked this good. “You want your hat back?”

  I clutched my towel and pulled my only suit jacket and tie from my bag. “Eventually.”

  She took a sip of her beer. “You’re being weird.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are.” She smiled.

  “Look…” I wondered about what I wanted her looking at. “I’ve got a lot of things going on in my life, and the last thing we should be…”

  She cut me off with each word as a statement of its own: “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” She tried to continue, but the urge to laugh was too much. I waited while she laughed at me. “Jesus, Walt, you’re acting like some fucking prom queen the morning after.”

  I stood there in my towel and felt ridiculous.

  She got up from the stool and dangled the bottle from her hand like she had on the bridge and walked toward me, slowly. “How about I make it easy for you? We’ll just call it rape. I raped you. There. Do you feel better?” She was very close now, and she smelled like our sex, which she hadn’t tried to cover up. She gave me a long look from toe to head, where she replaced my hat. “And, if you don’t get dressed, I may do it again.”

  It’s hard to scamper in a towel.

  Vic said she’d meet me at the Academy with Katz and Gowder and had left me to my own devices and the hospital. We had taken the same cab for a while; Vic’s attention stayed out the window as the city rushed by. I kept trying to detect a weirdness in her, but it just wasn’t there. It was quite possible that she had more experience than I did. Since the end of her marriage, she’d been briefly involved with a dentist and had had a ferocious weekend with some rodeo cowboy who’d then showed up at the office and been treated to a reenactment of the Battle of Benevento; Ruby and I had desperately tried to pretend that we weren’t listening.

  “I’ve only had sex with six women in my entire life.” It came out before I had a chance to edit it or make any additions, and I said it like I was talking about heart attacks.

  She turned her head and looked at me, with a little bit of sadness. “Oh, Walt…”

  When I got to the ICU, the head nurse told me they had been trying to call me. Cady had opened her eyes. Michael had been in the room. He was by her bed, standing easily on the one unwounded foot. “How ya doin’, Sheriff?”

  I looked at her, but her eyes were closed.

  “She had them open for about an hour and a half, and she closed them no more than ten minutes ago.”

  I sat down in the chair by the bed and stared at her motionless face, at the ceremonial Cheyenne trappings still surrounding her, and started to cry. I couldn’t stop. All the pent-up emotion of the last week found fissures in my stalwart act and began cracking like ice dropped into hot water. I could feel the strike of tears dripping onto the two-fisted grip of my hands. I wasn’t aware of Michael moving, but I felt his hand on my shoulder. The wretched, cynical husk that had written Cady off and had prepared me to let her go was dying. The transition from malice to relief was quick and, when my eyes could refocus, I noticed that I’d crushed the finger brace.

  Michael and the nurse kneeled in front of me, both of them looking at the twisted aluminum wrapped around my broken finger. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

  I tried to catch my breath and noticed that my ribs weren’t aching either. I looked past the nurse’s head and could see that Cady had opened her eyes again. I smiled. “Not anymore.”

  Rissman had been called; he had left a message that he wanted to talk with me when I arrived. He was trying to keep my attention as I watched Cady’s eyes and counted how long it took her to blink. He said that most comas end with the patients opening their eyes and regaining consciousness, but that 10 percent of those who do fall into the category of Apallic Syndrome and don’t respond to environmental stimulus.

  I squeezed Cady’s hand, but she didn’t respond. Her eyes looked into the distance to places I could not see. The color was clear, and the whites as bright as I’d ever seen them.

  He said that for her to regain consciousness, both reactivity and perceptivity would have to be present.

  I bit my lower lip and could feel the heat returning behind my eyes.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” He looked at the ceiling, the floor, and my left shoulder.

  I looked across the bed at him. “She’s going to make it.”

  He shook his head. “Please don’t get your hopes too high. Even in the best of circumstances…”

  “She’s going to make it.” I sometimes underestimate the vigor of my statements, and I’d imagine it has to do with having to deal with the law on a continual basis. I rarely let emotion get a strong grip on me or have an influence in my responses, but this was different. I’d been waiting so long for hope that I wasn’t letting it slip away. I’d seen what the hopeless approach was like, and I was never going back there again. “She’s going to make it.”

  Rissman said that he was ordering some more tests now that she had opened her eyes and that I had at least a few hours. Michael said he’d be happy to stay and wait for Cady while I went to the reception. I tried not to concentrate on the features he shared with Vic.

  “This section tells the story of the Autumn Count; it is a legendary buffalo robe inscribed by Crazy Horse that supposedly had the ability to tell the future.” He looked up at us. “I have never heard it mentioned outside the tribal council and certainly never by a white man.” He looked back at the ledger and turned the page. “This is the most comprehensive history of the Notame-ohmeseheestse I have ever read outside of the reservation.” He shook his head. “I would very much like to meet this William White Eyes.”

  Katz pulled out a chair and sat down across from Henry, while Gowder leaned again
st the table with his arms folded. Vic stood beside him. “Welcome to the fucking club.”

  The Academy staff was setting up the finishing touches on the reception that was scheduled to open in less than an hour, and it promised to be quite the wingding. The main hall was festooned with billboard-sized enlargements of the Mennonite Collection, as it was now called, and it was a little odd to have a gigantic Lonnie Little Bird looking at me from behind the table where Henry sat. I could almost hear the “um-hmm, yes, it is so” drifting across the marble-floored hall.

  “What about page seventy-two?”

  He flipped the pages, placed a hand gently in the corner, and held the book open. “It is a record of business dealings, numbers, but there is a code that I do not understand.”

  I glanced at Katz, who nodded. “Money laundering accounts.”

  “So, this ledger possibly gives us the numbered accounts of Toy Diaz’s operation?” Katz shrugged, probably weighing the evidentiary value of a prosecuting attorney holding up the ledger in a court of law. “But I guess without William White Eyes’ corroboration, these things are pretty much useless?”

  Henry looked back at me. “They are incredible works of art.”

  I reached over and took the ledger from him. “You’ve been hanging around in museums too long.” I handed the book to Katz, who stacked it on top of the other one. “I guess we need Billy Carlisle.”

  The detective dropped his head. “I’ve got a wife and kid who’ve forgotten what I look like.” He scooped up the ledgers, placed them under his arm, and glanced at Gowder. “I’ll head back to the Roundhouse and get Meifert on a search for Carlisle. You?”

  “I might hang around.”

  I put my hat back on, and we all stood. I made the general announcement. “Cady’s eyes opened.”

  The Cheyenne Nation was the first to respond, even if his expression stayed the same. “Of course they have.” He reached out and thumped both paws on my shoulders. “I wondered why you were acting strangely.” I glanced at Vic, who covered her mouth. Henry had followed my look and then added. “We will retire to the hospital after the reception.”