Fast Lane

by Dave Zeltserman

  “He was a very careful man,” Mrs. Minnefield said, her raisin-like eyes brightening with pride.

  With half a dozen boxes to go I found the Williams’ adoption papers. Mary was obtained from the Oklahoma City Baptist Hospital on July 30, 1977. It didn’t list her birth parents. It also didn’t list the date of her birth.

  I thanked Mrs. Minnefield for her help. She seemed disappointed I was leaving. “Would you like lunch? I could make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Or if you like, I could heat up some soup?”

  “No thanks, ma’am. I have to get going.”

  I stacked the boxes back in place and helped Mrs. Minnefield up the stairs. At the door she told me if I needed anything else to be sure to call her.

  After stopping off at my hotel to shower and change into some clean clothes, I headed for the Baptist Hospital.

  * * * * *

  I asked the woman at the records office if she could get me the birth records from May through July 1977. She looked annoyed but she made her way over to one of the file cabinets, walking as if she had pebbles in her shoes. After a few minutes she came back with a folder and handed it to me.

  I went through the folder and started copying down names, putting asterisks next to the ones where the father’s name was blank. I had about twenty reasonable candidates. As I read over the names a funny feeling hit me in the stomach. Kind of like I’d swallowed a peach pit.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  I steadied myself against her desk, not knowing what the hell had come over me. “I’ll be all right in a second,” I said.

  * * * * *

  The next two days I crossed off all but one name from my list. There were a few cases where the daughter couldn’t be accounted for, but in none of these was there any physical resemblance between Mary and the mother. The last name on my list was Rose Martinez. Something about the name troubled me, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  I found her address in the phone book and drove out to a small clapboard shack on the outer edge of Oklahoma City. There wasn’t much to it and there was almost nothing to the little strip of land that made up her front yard. Nothing more, really, than a pile of dust with a few wild thorn bushes growing out of it. Standing in front of her house, I felt that same odd feeling in my stomach. I waited until it passed and then walked up to her door and rang the bell.

  I stood there trying to figure out what it was about that name. Rose Martinez . . . Rose Martinez. Why did it sound so damn familiar? All of a sudden I remembered. A panic overtook me as I cleared the lawn and dove headfirst over one of the thorn bushes, bouncing off my left shoulder. I felt a tightness in my gut suck my breath away and realized my back wasn’t going to be right for days.

  The door opened and a smallish, dark woman peered out. It was the same Rose, older of course, but there she was.

  At that moment a man driving past the house spotted me hiding behind the thorn bush, and seeing Rose standing there looking puzzled, decided he was going to slow down and stick his nose into things. I caught his eye and let him know he’d better not try it. He looked away and kept driving.

  I turned my gaze back to the house as Rose picked something off her walkway, and realized I had dropped Mary’s picture. As Rose studied the photo, her puzzlement slowly dissolved into a kind of pained blankness. I could see the resemblance between the two of them, and I was sure Rose could see it too. It was funny, though. She didn’t bother calling out to see who had rung the doorbell and run off. She turned back into the house and closed the door.

  Rose Martinez. Rose Martinez Murphy. She must have gone back to her maiden name after her husband’s death. I didn’t really know her— only met with her that one time years ago. I guess it must have seemed crazy, me reacting the way I did, but I couldn’t help it. After what had happened all those years ago . . . .

  Standing on Rose’s doorstep and realizing who she was, I felt as if my heart had dropped to my feet. I just didn’t feel it was right to bring back what had to be hell to that poor woman. Not with all she must have been through and me being somewhat to blame. After all, I was the one who killed her husband.

  Sometimes you look back at something that happened in your life and you swear it couldn’t have happened. The more you think about it, the crazier it seems. And you just about convince yourself it was something from a movie you once saw or maybe from a story you heard. The same is true with people you once knew. A name might pop into your head and you start wondering whether or not you ever knew that person. And after thinking about it you realize at one time in your life the two of you were drinking buddies or worst of enemies or lovers or whatever. But when you think about it some more, it doesn’t seem possible.

  That’s the way it is when I think about Walt Murphy and that afternoon all those years ago. The thing is, I have newspaper clippings to prove that we did meet up once. And that I ended up shooting him to death.

  That day Walt Murphy had called me to arrange an appointment. Over the phone he told me he thought his wife was cheating on him. There’s not a whole lot someone like me can do about a thing like that, except maybe confirm his suspicions or provide evidence for a divorce trial, and that’s all I assumed he wanted. When he showed up at my office he seemed normal enough, a little wild in the eyes maybe, but I wouldn’t have guessed him for a lunatic. Just an average guy who was down on his luck. He started telling me about his problems and when he got to his wife, something snapped.

  Whatever edge he was balancing on crumbled away. He started ranting that he wanted his wife dead and demanded to know how much it would cost to blow her brains out. I should’ve taken him more seriously. I got him to be quiet but I should have known the craziness that had taken him over was too far gone. There was a fire raging in his eyes and I should have known better than to turn my back to him. All hell broke loose when I did. My legs were knocked out from under me and I did a headfirst tumble. As I lay there, tangled up with my chair and the phone, he kicked away at my head like it was a tree stump he was trying to turn over.

  He must have guessed I had a gun because he broke off trying to kick in my teeth to start tearing my desk apart. In the position I was in, I was about as much use as a turtle flipped on its back. It was about all I could do to get to my knees. As he was taking the gun out of the drawer I threw myself at him.

  The rest of it, at least until the shots were fired, is pretty much a blur. All I can really remember is fighting like hell, thinking that I was going to die, shot to death for something that just didn’t make any sense. And then came the explosions. Two of them. If I had to swear on it, I would have said that bombs had been set off under me. But there weren’t any bombs. There were only two things under me—my gun and him, at least some of him. I jumped up and saw there was a lot less of him than there should have been. Most of his head was gone and a bloody mess remained where his belly used to be.

  The toughest thing I ever did in my life was to stay put and call the police. I didn’t think anyone could possibly believe me. The whole thing was so damn crazy, but I guess if you think about it, any other explanation for what happened would have been even crazier.

  As the police questioned me, I sweated bigger bullets than the ones that chewed up Murphy. I had convinced myself it was useless, and was more shocked than anyone else about how things turned out. Because in the end, three things happened: the cops believed me; my hair turned gray as a cigar ash; and my career shot off faster than the top of Walt Murphy’s head.

  All of a sudden I was a hero. At least that’s the way the media made me out to be. With all the newspaper stories and the radio and TV appearances, I became just about the best-known private investigator in Denver. Not only did I have clients lining up outside my door to hire me, but the papers were knocking down that door to get whatever piece of me they could. The Examiner paid me to write up my own firsthand account of the incident, which evolved into my regular monthly feature ‘The Fast Lane—from the files of Johnny L
ane’. It has appeared faithfully ever since, and, along with my smiling mug shot, has become an institution to the Denver public.

  I’m grateful for my success and I don’t want to sound as if I’m complaining, but I wish it had happened another way. I don’t like thinking of Walt Murphy lying dead on my floor. I don’t like to think I benefited from his death. Maybe if I’d tried humoring him that afternoon none of it would have happened. Maybe he would’ve been able to get some help and would’ve pulled his life back together. Or maybe not. Maybe things would have ended up worse, with him blowing his wife’s head off. You see, I don’t know whether I screwed up or not. I don’t have a clue.

  Chapter 6

  I had done what I was hired for and there wasn’t any reason to hang around. I went back to my motel and packed up. I was feeling empty inside so I stopped at a diner and had a second breakfast of steak and eggs. After adding a piece of pie I headed off to the station. I always like traveling by train if I can. When you’re sitting back in a train you can put your feet up and take time to sort out what’s troubling you. And I had quite a problem to sort out.

  I arrived at the station a little past ten and the next train to Denver wasn’t leaving until one, so I settled down to think things through. I didn’t like the way it stood. Mary hired me to find her birth parents and I did—at least her mother. It certainly seemed I should give her what she’d paid me for, but I also had an obligation to do what was best for my client.

  I knew Rose Martinez wouldn’t be too happy about meeting her daughter. When the media took the Walt Murphy shooting into its jaws and started shaking it, I landed pretty much on my toes, but they dumped Rose hard on her ass. And while she was flat on the ground they kicked the tar out of her. By the time they were through with her, she was the biggest tramp in Colorado—a cheating whore who drove her husband to the edge of insanity.

  Whether or not there was any truth in the accusation, the result was that Denver became an unwelcome place for her. It’s pretty easy to understand why she’d wanted to put it all behind her. The baby would’ve been a tough thing to come home to every day, a reminder of all the humiliation and pain she’d suffered. I guess putting little Mary up for adoption was her way of escaping it.

  I had to agree with Mary’s mother. I couldn’t see any good coming from Mary finding Rose. And I’ll tell you, I looked at it from so many angles I started to get dizzy. You could bet how it would hit Rose. Like a sucker punch to the gut. And of course, she’d take it right out on Mary. To let it happen would be sadistic.

  So there it was. I could do what I was paid for and ignore the right and wrong of it, but what the hell would that make me?

  An old man sitting nearby was giving me a cold stare and it knocked me out of my thoughts. With his round bald head and big rubbery face, he resembled a bloated bullfrog. I gave him a friendly smile; my Poppa always taught me that it never hurt none to be nice to folks.

  “Howdy. Anything I can do for you, sir?”

  He seemed a little startled. “Thank you, no. Where you heading?”

  “Denver, Colorado.” I extended my hand and introduced myself. “Johnny Lane. Pleased to meet you.”

  He ignored my hand and kept staring at me. “You live in Denver?” he asked after a long while.

  Now, when you go out of your way to be friendly, people should be friendly right back. There is no reason not to, and with the snub the old man gave me I started feeling a little hot. But you can’t always account for other folks. I pulled my hand back.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Maybe you’ve heard of me. I’m sort of a celebrity there.”

  He shook his head. “Never been to Denver. You from there?”

  “As far back as I can remember.”

  With that the old man leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.

  I looked him over, feeling a burning around my neck as I did so. Sitting there, looking at the old man’s toad-like features I felt the hotness spreading, tightening the veins in my throat. I got up quickly and found the men’s room. After splashing cold water on my face, I stood quietly and studied myself in the mirror. Slowly the hotness faded and the muscles in my jaws softened.

  There was no point in letting that old man upset me the way he did. You have to figure he was senile and didn’t realize how he was acting. It’s just that, well, forget it.

  * * * * *

  I’d spent most of the trip back to Denver worrying, and by the time I arrived home I was worn out. The problem was that I hadn’t been able to concentrate on what I needed to. For some reason I kept letting that old man at the station pop into my head. It bothered me that I let him get to me. But this picture of me holding out my hand only to be made to look like a jackass kept getting me more and more sore. It was so pointless letting that bother me that it just got me angrier. And what bothered me more than anything was how close I came to losing control.

  * * * * *

  By the time I laid myself out on my bed, I wasn’t any closer to figuring out how things needed to be handled. I tried again to think things through, but everything got more jumbled than before and soon I wasn’t making any sense out of anything.

  I had myself a beer and brought a bottle of whiskey back to bed. After a couple of shots, the muscles in my neck relaxed. I turned off the lights and closed my eyes.

  I had a restless time of it. Images of Walt Murphy and the shooting raced through my mind, and at times I was probably closer to hallucinating than dreaming. The whole incident played itself out as it happened, at least to the point where the police showed up. Then it got crazy. The cops wouldn’t believe me and kept laughing and poking at me. I tried to tell them how it had happened, but they were laughing too hard to listen. Before I knew it, they had me by the collar and were dragging me down a hallway, handling me as if I were nothing more than a rag doll—kind of the way Tiny had dragged Debra Singer from the back room of his peep show.

  They took me to a small windowless room that was empty except for a wooden chair that was bolted to the floor. As we got closer to it, I realized what it was. Before I could say a word they strapped me into it. Then they left, joking and slapping each other’s backs. The sound of the door slamming behind them almost shattered my eardrums.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened and Rose Murphy came in. It scared the hell out of me to see her. I tried explaining to her how I had done only what I had to, but she wouldn’t listen. She came over to me and pulled out a large razor. At first I thought she was going to cut my throat, but instead she grabbed me by the top of the skull and shaved my head. Then she attached wires to my scalp.

  I had my eyes closed, and when I opened them she’d moved to a heavy-looking wall switch. She hesitated before it, staring blankly at me. Then, using both hands and straining her body, she forced the switch down. For one heartbeat, there was nothing. All at once electricity burst through my body, jerking it. Smoke started to pour from my fingertips. The hum of the electric chair blasted through me—and I was screaming, almost as loud as Rose.

  I woke up with the phone ringing. At first I was too startled to realize where I was. With an overwhelming sense of relief, the disorientation lifted. I closed my eyes and listened to the phone, trying to slow down the pounding of my heart before something inside broke.

  The answering machine kicked on and after the beep there was a long silence. Then I heard Mary’s voice asking me to call her as soon as I got home.

  The machine clicked off and I lay there thinking. I hated the idea of disappointing Mary but it didn’t seem as if there was anything else I could do. Getting them together wouldn’t do Rose any good, it wouldn’t do Mary any good, and it sure as hell wouldn’t do me any good.

  Now I don’t want to sound selfish or anything but the idea of Mary knowing I’d shot her daddy made me uneasy. If she knew that, even if she understood that I had no choice, it would change things. And God knows what Rose would tell her.

  That one time I met with Rose,
she was as upset as you’d expect from everything that had happened to her. Maybe she didn’t believe what she was saying, but hell, her accusations were just too bizarre to repeat. I wouldn’t want Mary hearing them. Even though there was no truth in any of them, they would have some influence on her. I wouldn’t like to think of her hating me, even just a little.

  I got up and examined myself in the mirror. The last few years a vein along my left eye had started to expose itself. I tried to tell if it had gotten any bigger and decided it hadn’t.

  After taking a shower, I rubbed my hand over my face, testing whether I needed a shave. I’ve got one of those baby faces that can go past a week without needing to take a razor to it. If it wasn’t for the gray hair, folks would have a tough time guessing I’d hit forty-two.

  My skin was smooth enough to let the blade wait another day. I got dressed and headed off for work. As I drove towards the city, I could see the sun hadn’t yet risen past the cloud of brown smog which sits atop Denver. Sunlight illuminated the cloud, making it appear as if the city were about to be smothered.

  I didn’t have much of an appetite, but I guess I felt too off-kilter to jump right into work. After parking the car, I walked to the Corner Diner. Carol was in her usual place working behind the counter. When she saw me come in she gave me a wink and came over and started mopping up the area in front of me.

  “Hello, Johnny. Do you know how that girl’s doing?”

  It took me a few seconds to realize she was referring to Debra Singer. “I hear everything’s fine with her.”

  “I’m so glad I didn’t screw things up for you.” She gave me a playful smile. “I think I got a case for you. Some stiff walked away with a fifty cent tip of mine. How much will it cost to find him?”

  “Well now,” I said. “I usually charge four hundred a day, but for you, honey, I’ll consider it for a little extra hash browns.”