They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I’ve been wondering how you got so good at fucking old men. I—”

  “Don’t do this, Dylan, please.”

  “I’ll do what I want. Answer the question.”

  “Please, Dylan, don’t—”

  “Answer the fucking question!”

  “What did I do wrong?” she quivered. “Why do you want to hurt me like this?”

  “I’m not hurting you. I’m doing you a favor. Now do me one and get the fuck away from me!”

  There was silence. No more pleading. No footsteps. No sobbing. Then:

  “I hate you. I hate you for this!”

  That made two of us. If she hesitated for a moment or ran down the hall, I couldn’t say. I was far too busy gagging on my own self-pity to notice.

  Guilt

  I watched MacClough stroll out of the gate, carry-on bag in hand. And once again I was dismayed by his looks. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten how fatigued and bloated he appeared at my Dad’s funeral, but getting to the root of his sudden weight gain wasn’t exactly at the top of my punch list. Extra bulk or not, he was still a pro and followed my instructions to the letter. He did not look for me in the crowd, though he knew I was there watching. He confirmed his car rental and headed for the phone bank just to the right of the Riversborough Chamber of Commerce sign. I watched him slowly punch in a number as he read it off a slip of paper. About seventy-five feet away, on the other side of the terminal, another phone rang. I picked up.

  “You watched too many Hitchcock movies when you were a kid,” he said. “Are you sure this cloak-and-dagger crap is necessary in such a cockamamy little town? Jesus, Klein, the Sheepshead Bay Diner is bigger than this airport.”

  “And it has better cheesecake, but you could barely land a helicopter in the parking lot. Trust me, John, these precau tions are necessary. Like I told you on the phone last night, I’ve had these two clowns on my ass for days. I’m sure I lost them on the way here, but I can’t be certain they’re not bearding for someone I haven’t spotted. Did you make a reservation at the Old Watermill Inn?”

  “I did.”

  “Great. It’s good to have you around,” my voice smiled. “I’ve been tripping over my dick in the dark around here.”

  “I bet that’s not the only thing you’ve been doing with it.”

  I ignored that. “My room in an hour.”

  “Klein!”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll stay on the line after you hang up. If anybody follows you besides the two guys you know about, I’ll spot ‘em.”

  “Thanks.”

  I took a detour back to the hotel that led me past Cyclone Ridge. The chairlifts were pretty much idle and I could only spot a few lonely souls working their way down the ski trails. That was no surprise. Death on the slopes isn’t much of a selling point. With time, though, people would forget. The papers would move onto another story. People would return. Accidents will happen. But so will murder. And murder is what happened here. I could feel it in the marrow of my bones. I also felt responsible. For although I might never be able to prove it, I knew as surely as the sun burned in the sky, that if Steven Markum had never met me, he would be alive today. I wasn’t nearly as confident that I knew how to live with that kind of guilt. It was a long ride back down the mountain.

  I didn’t even look to see who was behind the desk when I got back to the Old Watermill. I went straight up to my room. As I stepped in, a strong hand grabbed my collar and pulled me to the ground. I had a mouthful of carpet and one armed pinned painfully against my back. Something round and very cold was jabbed into the soft spot behind my ear. Then, in one eternal instant, I heard the door lock snap shut and the metallic click of a gun hammer striking.

  I was lifted up, not by God’s right hand, but by MacClough’s.

  “Asshole!” He shook me. “You’re not paying attention.”

  “I am now.”

  We hugged. He pushed me back to arm’s length and stared through me. I could tell he didn’t like the view.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Oh nothing, John.” I pulled out of his grasp. “My Dad just died. My nephew’s missing. I crapped out in Hollywood. I’ve managed to get pepper-sprayed, arrested, and get somebody killed. And last night, because I was too busy beating the shit out of myself to notice what I might be doing to anyone else, I ruined the most exciting relationship I’ve probably ever had. So no, John, nothing’s wrong.”

  He lifted his pants leg and holstered his .38. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself or just go home. You’re not gonna do anybody any good if you’re gonna live inside your head. I can’t watch your back and mine at the same time.”

  “Why not, you got eye troubles?” I wondered.

  “My eyes are fine. It’s just that there seems to be a lot of people interested in your flat Jewish ass. I don’t know if I can keep track. Maybe we should just give out numbers like the deli counter at Waldbaums.”

  “I was followed?”

  “You were,” he confirmed. “The first guy looked like a surfer in a ski suit. You know the type, sunbleached blond, funky sunglasses, muscles from here to there. Didn’t you spot him?”

  “Half the population of Riversborough looks like that. The other half looks like the smartest kid in your third grade class, only bigger and with bad skin.”

  “The other guy was a Fed. I worked on task forces with a hundred guys just like him. From the way he dressed, he might as well have had FBI, ATF, or DEA printed on the back of his suit. The problem with those guys is, even though they’re trained not to advertise who they are, they can’t stand for the whole world not to know. One time I was on a surveillance and it was really late and we’d been in the car for hours. We’d told every joke, every bar story, every sex story we could think of. Finally, I turned to one of these FBI guys and ask him why he became a Fed. You know what he said to me?” MacClough started laughing.

  “No.”

  “He says becoming a Special Agent is as close to being a superhero as he could get. What a fuckin’ idiot, huh?”

  “Good thing he liked Superman cartoons better than the Roadrunner.”

  We both laughed at that. Then it got very quiet.

  “I love you, man.” He hugged me again, but very tight, almost desperately. “I just want you to know that.”

  “I know that, John. I know.”

  “Good.” He let me go. “Let’s take a look inside the mini-bar. We got a lot to talk about before our trip tomorrow.”

  “Where’re we going?”

  “To jail.”

  “Been there. Done that.”

  “Not this jail,” he said. “And don’t worry, we’re not staying. We’re just visiting.”

  “One of your relatives?” I teased.

  “No, shithead, Valencia Jones.”

  “How did—”

  “Don’t ask,” MacClough ordered. “Don’t ask.”

  And I didn’t. John was halfway to the minibar when someone knocked on the door. It was Kira. My heart was in my throat. MacClough whispered for me to get rid of her. I got rid of him instead, sort of. He fit nicely into the closet.

  When she stepped in, tears were running down her cheeks. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. There are certain hurts for which an apology is an insult. I dropped to my knees and pressed the side of my face to her belly. She ran her fingers through what was left of my gray hair. She kissed the top of my head before dropping down to her knees. Once we kissed, we could not stop. And not for a sec ond did I think of John Francis MacClough hiding there in my closet.

  The Baby Jesus at Christmastime

  She wouldn’t let me explain about the night before. Kira understood about demons. Most of the time, she said, we speak for them. Sometimes they speak for us. And when she swore she didn’t hate me, I nearly believed her.

  She got curious about my leaving town for the day, but I deflected her questions. If MacClough hadn’t been in the
closet, I might have told Kira about our day trip to meet with Valencia Jones. But MacClough could be a security freak. As he didn’t want me to tell my own brother details of what we were doing, I didn’t figure he’d be happy with me telling Kira. I held her for a moment and sent her on her way.

  Closing one door, I opened another.

  “I admire you, John. It takes balls to come out of the closet so late in life.”

  “Start running!” He took out his .38. “I’ll give you a five minute head start. It’ll take me that long to get the feeling back in my legs.”

  “Stop complaining. I’m going to take a shower.”

  “The only thing I’m complaining about is that I couldn’t watch. Next time,” he winked, “I’m hiding behind the curtains. She sounds unbelievable, but you disappointed me, Klein. You didn’t beg once or squeal like a pig.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “So,” he wondered, putting away his pistol, “what was that all about?”

  I handed MacClough the newspaper article about Steven Markum’s death. I stood by for a second as he read through it.

  “Mr. Vodka and I took it out on her. We didn’t quite tear her heart out, but it wasn’t for lack of effort.” I stepped into the bathroom.

  “Jews can’t drink,” he shouted through the door. “Don’t you know that yet?”

  “Try explaining that to my Uncle Saul.”

  “Coffee and sponge cake, that’s how your people punish themselves. Besides, you didn’t get this kid killed.”

  I turned the water on full blast to drown out MacClough’s voice. I wasn’t ready to hear his “It wasn’t your fault” lecture. Not yet.

  I rolled over and looked at the clock. I cursed MacClough’s birth and answered the phone. It was one of those automated voices reminding me it was time to get up. I told the voice to stick something up its mechanical ass, but it insisted upon repeating itself.

  “Room 8, in accordance with your request, this is your 4:45 AM wake-up call. It has been our pleasure to serve you. Press the pound sign if you wish this call to be repeated in ten minutes. Room 8, in accordance...”

  It might have been my request, but it was MacClough’s idea. My only consolation was that John himself was already up, out, and on the road. I emptied my bladder, brushed my teeth, and struggled to get dressed. I threw on MacClough’s ancient peacoat and a ski cap and left the Old Watermill via a side exit. I found his rented car parked at the curb. There was a road map on the front passenger seat. MacClough had marked in red a rest stop along the interstate. I checked my watch. I had an hour and a half to get there.

  I was on my second cup of coffee when he walked up to my table.

  “You look better in that coat than I do,” I said. “Wanna trade?”

  I had asked him that question in one form or another at least once a winter for the last ten years. He always said no. He had kept his peacoat for over three decades, since his dis charge from the Navy. And like my motorcycle jacket, his peacoat represented something to him that wasn’t easily explained. It was more than nostalgia or aesthetics. It was as if part of his being was stored in the coat itself. I don’t know, it was sort of like how a kid feels about a baby blanket.

  “Keep it,” he answered. “Come on, we gotta go.”

  I nearly spit coffee through my nose.

  The trial was being held in Mohawkskill, NewYork, a funky little town just across Lake Champlain from Burlington, Vermont. Mohawkskill, NewYork resembled the part of the state I grew up in about as much as Bobo Dioulasso resembled Beijing. One thing I noticed right away, there weren’t many Mohawks in Mohawkskill. There weren’t many Blacks or Asians or Latinos either. And for some odd reason, I got the feeling that there wasn’t much of a push to place a menorah on the village green next to the baby Jesus at Christmastime. Go ahead, call me a cynic, but I was having some difficulty believing that a young African American woman, the daughter of a murdered drug kingpin, apprehended with a large quantity of hallucinogenic chemicals in her BMW, was going to find a jury of peers, let alone a sympathetic ear, in Mohawkskill.

  “So,” I spoke up, “how did our clothes and car swapping charade go?”

  “Fine. I felt like I was in a conga line,” he laughed. “They all followed your car like good little soldiers. Imagine their surprise when I pulled to the side of the road and took your coat off. I started stretching and turned right around so they could all get a good look at my face.”

  “They probably felt like they got caught jacking off in the bathroom by their mothers.”

  “Klein, you got a way with words.”

  We pulled into the county jail parking lot and headed-on upstairs. If the staff wasn’t exactly friendly, they were, at least, cooperative. They seemed less emotionally invested in Valencia Jones’ fate than the folks in Riversborough. But when we met the county prosecutor outside the visitors’ area, I realized I was wrong. This guy was out for blood.

  “Mr. MacClough, Mr. Klein, I’m A.D.A. Bob Smart,” he said, shaking our hands without enthusiasm.

  Bob Smart was a rotund little man with cruel eyes, thick lips, and a bad comb-over hairdo. He had pudgy, sweaty hands and a wardrobe that would have been tasteless in the ’70s. He would have been easy to dismiss, but I had seen his type operate before. He practically begged you to underestimate him and, if you did, he’d eat you for lunch.

  “Can I ask you gentlemen what this meeting is about?”

  “Well, Mr. Smart,” MacClough began, “it’s—”

  “Why,” I wondered, cutting Johnny off, “isn’t Miss Jones’ attorney here?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, Mr. Klein,” Smart dropped his friendly voice. “You’ll have to ask Miss Jones. Let me repeat my initial question.”

  “No need for that,” MacClough turned on the charm, “we have no wish to interfere with your case. I have all the confidence in the world that you’ll prove Miss Jones to be guilty as sin. We’re here because Mr. Klein is researching a book on Miss Jones’ late father, Raman Jones.”

  I improvised. “I’m going to call it The Iceman Goeth.”

  “I like it,” Smart approved. He nodded to the guard. “Go on in. You’ve got fifteen minutes.” We did the handshake thing again. He mentioned that he’d look for my book on the shelves. We watched him waddle down the hall.

  “You think he bought it?” I whispered.

  “Not for a second, but he couldn’t really stop us. And next time, let me do all the talking to the D.A. You almost blew it with that question about Jones’, lawyer.”

  “How?”

  “Later.”

  We were patted down and ushered into a drab room with barred windows. Everything, from the chairs to the ashtray on the table, was bolted and/or welded down. Valencia Jones was led into the room by a female guard through a thick metal door. She was pushed into her chair and her right leg was cuffed to the chair leg.

  “There is to be no physical contact with the prisoner,” the guard instructed. “I’ll be right outside that door. If you need me, there’s a call button under the table.” She checked her watch. “Fifteen minutes and counting.”

  Valencia Jones wasn’t beautiful nor was she as plain as her newspaper pictures. She was a medium girl: medium height, medium weight, medium. She had skin the color of dark coffee and sad, sad eyes. If I were facing ten to twenty-five years in a state prison, I, too, would have sad eyes. The rest of her face told no tales. Her expression remained blank until the guard was fully out of the room.

  “You look like Zak,” she smiled. Then, catching herself, went back into her shell.

  She had answered my question without it even being asked.

  “Your lawyer told you why we’re here?” MacClough half asked, half stated.

  “You the man?” Jones sneered at MacClough.

  “Yeah, I used to be a cop. I used to chase your father around.”

  “Fuck my father!” Tears poured out of her. “Do you think if my father had been a dentist or a Yale profes
sor that I would be here now, tethered to a chair like a wild animal? My father’s the reason I’m here.”

  “Your father’s not the one who got caught smuggling the felony weight drugs. You were.”

  “You know, Mr. MacClough, I spent my life trying to deny my blackness. But when you’re in here, that’s impossible. You told my lawyer that you were looking for Zak and that you might be able to help me. So far all I hear is that you sound like every other cop. You talk about my father and you think I’m guilty.”

  “You’re not guilty?” I asked.

  “No, sir,” she said to me, “I am not. But if you’re going to ask me how the drugs got in my car, I can’t tell you. If you expect me to prove my innocence to you, I can’t. All I know is that Zak believed in me enough to ask his father to represent me.”

  MacClough and I were dumbfounded. “Zak asked my brother to represent you?”

  “He did, but Zak’s dad gave him some nonsensical answer. Zak said that his dad was just afraid to handle my kind of case. I was the wrong color and drug defendants are politically unpopular. Bad for the firm’s image, you know. Zak told me he would never forgive his father. I can understand that.”

  “How do you know Zak?” I shifted gears slightly.

  “We met at a party during my first term. I was kind of over to one corner, drinking a beer by myself. I think he felt sorry for me. I didn’t care. I was just happy to have someone to talk to. He was really sweet and charming and funny. He was different, you know, not macho, not interested in impressing me or anything. We dated for a few months. We even lived together for a week,” she laughed. “That went kind of rough, so we chilled for a while.”

  “Did you get back together?”

  “Didn’t get the chance.” She tugged on her jail fatigues. “Zak and I thought it was a good idea to give it a rest for a few weeks. We agreed to talk about it as soon as we got back from Spring break. He flew back home a couple of days early and I went skiing before driving to Conn—”

  “Skiing!” MacClough perked up.

  “Yes, skiing.” She was indignant. “All the basketball courts were taken.”