A Dead Issue

by John Evans

  “We scamper out of the house, and the guy upstairs waits for the coast to clear. We drive off. He figures we aren’t coming back, and we sure as hell aren’t going to report being shot at because we had no business being there. Now he has plenty of time to go over the house. It’s dark, so he turns on a light just as we return on foot. Surprise! We’re back, peeking in windows, yelling for Jonah. The guy has to hide. Maybe he goes to the basement, or the parlor, but probably he goes upstairs.”

  I remembered my gut feeling that Jonah had gone back upstairs.

  “Jonah comes to and hears voices,” Dusty continued. “Maybe he can’t make out words, but he hears voices, and he knows he was pushed down the stairs. He picks up his gun and goes into the parlor to hide, or maybe he went to the door after we saw his hand move. We come into the den and Jonah starts blazing away, throwing lead all over the place.”

  So far, the story Dusty was telling sounded plausible and I found myself nodding in agreement.

  “When Jonah drops over, we hang around trying to figure out what to do, and the guy upstairs—he don’t know what to do. He has to wait until he’s sure we leave before he stirs again. He’s been burnt once by us returning. Then Billy and Ray show up with their shotgun. Now we’re all stuck. You’re stuck in the mudroom barring the door, I’m stuck in the kitchen, and the guy is stuck upstairs wondering who has the gun and how many bullets are left.”

  Dusty gave me a look. “How am I doing so far?”

  “Keep going,” I said.

  “OK,” Dusty said flicking his eyes from the road to me. “This is were it gets sticky. While we are hiding in the kitchen, the guy comes down and sees Jonah on the floor and the gun next to him. He picks up the gun because he don’t want Jonah coming to again and grabbing it. After all, he done it before. He knows we’re going out the back door, so he goes into the parlor to slip out the front door. That’s when Billy and Ray come around and try the door. It’s locked. The guy backs into a corner and hides in the shadows. Billy and Ray kick the door in and go right past him. They’re too worried about Jonah. We scoot out the back door. When Billy and Ray see the mess Jonah made, they run out the back door to get the shotgun. The guy sees his chance and slips out the front door.” Dusty gave a single nod of satisfaction.

  I shook my head. I had to admit, it was perfect.

  CHAPTER 12

  Dusty pulled up to the curb in front of my apartment, the upper floor of a double house converted into four units. He waited for me to jump out, and when I didn’t, he looked over at me.

  “Some night,” he said with a wink and a tired smile. He popped the black plug from his right ear lobe and slipped his pinky finger into the hole, stretching it. He shook his head as if amazed that we got through it. “I’m going to sleep till noon—if I ever get to sleep,” he added.

  “We’re not done,” I announced quietly.

  He slowly swung his head around until his eyes, unfocused, rested on me. Then he froze in deadpan disgust.

  “Look,” he said at length. “I’m beat, half drunk. I want to go home.”

  “We need to talk,” I said firmly. “There are way too many loose ends.”

  “Like what?” he squeaked.

  “The big one—are you going to run off and let me hang?”

  Dusty replaced the plug in his ear and worked at the other. “I’m staying.”

  “Then we have to face this one,” I continued. “How long do you think it’s going to take for them to find out we weren’t at work on time? It looks like we were covering ourselves. Christ, that makes us look guilty—paying someone under the table to take our shift. Punching us in so we could be late. Now we have to explain what we needed the time for. We’ve got to come up with something.”

  “Maybe it won’t come to that,” Dusty said. “The cops will be looking for somebody that Jonah shot at. Do you think they’d believe he’d shoot at us? We work for him, remember? They’ll talk to us. We say we were at work at McDonald’s and they look somewhere else. Or they look at the time cards to check our story and then move on.”

  “But he did shoot at us,” I said. “That’s the point.”

  “Yeah, I can’t hardly believe it myself.”

  “That’s not the point. The point is they won’t stop until they find out who he was shooting at! It all comes back to us!”

  Dusty was gearing up to roll his eyes, but I continued.

  “Don’t you get it? We tell the little lie about being at work, and they go looking for someone else. When that someone else doesn’t surface, they’ll take a closer look at us. And when they find out we were not at work—and they will find outit becomes the big lie.”

  As if on cue, a patrol car slid around the corner. We froze as it cruised by. Only our eyes traced its movement as it passed. Dusty watched it disappear into the distance in his side view mirror. When he resumed breathing, I knew it was out of sight.

  I continued. “They’re going to want to know why we had to lie to them—in a murder investigation! What were we afraid to tell them? What are we hiding?”

  Dusty’s eyes flicked to his side view mirror and I looked over my shoulder. The street was clear.

  “Drugs,” he said.

  “We’re going to tell them we were hiding drugs? Are you completely nuts?”

  “Not hiding them—buying them.”

  It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Now we’re buying drugs,” I said to myself.

  “Now you’re not getting it,” Dusty said. “We lied because we didn’t want to get in trouble.”

  “We are in trouble.”

  “Not because of Jonah. We lied because we don’t want the cops to find out about the drugs.”

  “The drugs we were going to buy,” I said.

  Dusty let the idea sink in a little bit, and I started to get it.

  “We skipped work because we went to score some weed. That’s why we didn’t tell the truth.”

  It was beginning to make sense, and that scared me.

  “We don’t want to get busted for drugs, so we lie—even during a murder investigation. Hell, we’re not even thinking about that. We didn’t have nothing to do with it. Why should we up and tell them we was trying to buy some weed that night? We’re so worried about getting busted for pot we lied. Who wouldn’t believe us?”

  This was so absurd that it might just work. Dusty saw me nodding and continued enthusiastically.

  “They’re not interested in busting us for going after some weed. Christ, they’re looking into Jonah’s death. They have better things to do.”

  “What do I say when they start asking questions—pushing for details? I don’t know anything. I don’t know anyone who sells drugs or uses them—except you.”

  “You’ll look like a liar just like everybody else they bust for drugs.”

  “If I want them to believe I’m trying to get high while Jonah was getting killed, I better be able to come up with something to back it up.”

  Dusty stared at me for a moment and started nodding decisively. Then he started his car and dropped it into gear.

  “Where are we going?”

  He gave me a smile, a wink, and a shit-eating grin. “For a walk on the wild side.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Dusty made a few quick right turns, and we headed back toward Miller’s. He was in no hurry and drove looking into his rear view mirror as if he expected DiNuccio to pull up behind him, lights flashing, siren wailing, but the road was empty all the way to Miller’s. Billy and Ray’s pickup truck was still there—the only one left.

  “Where are we headed?” I asked.

  “Easton. I know a guy.”

  The road twisted and turned next to a stream that eventually joined the Delaware River. Route 611 ran next to it all the way to Easton. On the far bank, a campfire sent sparks up into the night.

  “This guy . . .” I said, and stopped, letting Dusty pick up the rest and go with it.

  “Stemmy, AKA Stemcell,” he explained. “He�
��s a creepy little weasel who dabbles.” Dusty smiled at his word choice. “His real name is Eric Stem, which is kind of funny because in high school he sold some weed to this kid and it was mostly seeds and stems. That earned him a black eye, some broken ribs, and the nickname Stemcell—selling stems? Anyway, it stuck. In tenth grade, he sold oregano to some dimwit. That’s the kind of crap he does. Now he plays amateur pharmacist. Nothing big time—just enough to keep himself high. We’ll see if we can hunt him up, ask around—leave a trail of people that will remember I was asking for him. We’re covered. When cops ask Stemcell, he’ll say, ‘Yeah. I saw Dusty that night—him and some squeaky-clean doofus.

  “Give me a break,” I said, smiling because the description was right on target, at least the squeaky-clean part.

  “He’s not going to admit he was selling—we’re not going to admit we were buying—but it puts us where we said we were.”

  I looked over at him. “At the wrong time.”

  “Don’t matter. We say we couldn’t find him before work and decided to hunt him up after. The important thing is that people will remember we was asking. Don’t matter if it was before or after work. We can’t help it the cops didn’t run into nobody we asked before work. They can’t talk to everyone.”

  Dusty kept nodding like he was satisfied with his plan. I looked out at the river sliding by, cottages casting long reflections of light across the black water. In the silence that followed, it hit me. Jonah was dead—really dead. If I didn’t think about it, I could almost convince myself that we’d be driving down Jonah’s lane tomorrow and he’d greet us with a wave and some comment about Tuesday’s storm. But the fact of the matter was that we’d never work for Jonah again. We’d never sip iced tea in his yard or relax in his kitchen after work. We had cleaned up one storm, and now Dusty and I faced a big one brewing on the horizon.

  Dusty pulled into Easton where Route 611 becomes Larry Holmes Drive and we sat at a red light looking down an empty street while no one came through the intersection.

  “It’s late,” I said glancing at the time on the dashboard clock.

  Dusty gave me a look. “Trust me,” he said. “The night is young.”

  We turned right on Northampton Street, which ran through the heart of the city, from a bridge crossing the Delaware, over a hill, and into the suburbs. At the top of the hill there was an intersection where a cluster of neon signs marked the presence of three taprooms, each staking out its territory on a corner. The doors of all three were propped open and the crowds spilled out onto the sidewalk and milled about—taking advantage of a warm fall night to catch a smoke outside.

  Dusty pulled up to a place called the Down Draft and searched the crowd for a familiar face. When he found one, he shouted, “Pooch! Hey, Pooch!”

  A gaunt, bony giant with skin like black leather stopped and turned. He stooped down until he could see into the car and stooped lower still to get a look at me. “Hey! Dusty,” he smiled, showing white horse-like teeth, evenly spaced. He placed a hand on the door, and his long fingers draped inside the car. A gold death’s head ring covered the first section of his index finger. “What’s up?”

  “I’m looking for Stemcell. He around?”

  “Stemmy must be popular,” Pooch said. “You’re about the third person asked about him tonight.”

  “Must be running a special,” Dusty said with a laugh.

  Pooch laughed, too, and took another peek at me. “Don’t know nothin’ about that,” he paused. “He left ten or fifteen minutes ago. Might be across the street.” He aimed his index finger at the Belmont Hotel with its basement bar. Pooch bent down and checked me out again, “Said he had some business to take care of.”

  I felt out of place and tried not to act like a “squeaky-clean doofus.” I ended up feeling like one anyway. Dusty pulled away from the curb, and we found a parking spot halfway down the block. We parked and walked back, angling across the street to the Belmont.

  “Listen,” Dusty said without breaking stride. “Chances are good we’re going to run into Stomp.”

  “Who’s Stomp?”

  “He’s the unofficial bouncer. Lives at the Belmont. What you want to do is—if he’s looking at you—concentrate on the spot where his eyebrows meet. He can be a little sensitive.”

  We entered the Belmont, and my first impression was that the cast from The Road Warrior was having a reunion party. Dusty walked in like it was McDonald’s and went up to a hulking guy with bare arms sticking out of a leather vest. His head was shaved except for a thick queue of braided hair hanging halfway down his back. It was tied off with a leather strap and a hawk’s feather. This, I assumed, was Stomp.

  Dusty backhanded the meaty upper arm with its tattooed tourniquet of barbed wire, and the guy swung around slowly. His left eye was lazy and came around to join the other a second later.

  “You see Stemcell?” Dusty asked.

  Before Stomp answered, his left eye settled on me. He was actually making eye contact with both of us at the same time. I concentrated on the place where his eyebrows met like my life depended on it.

  “Who wants to know?” he asked in a low rumbling voice, and, with his left eye boring into me, I wasn’t sure if he was asking me or Dusty.

  “Me,” Dusty said with an easy smile. “He said he might have something for me.”

  Stomp seemed to shift focus, now concentrating on looking at me out of his left eye. It was that same feeling I had with Pooch out at the curb. I was being eyed suspiciously for a police academy diploma sticking out of my pocket. I tried to show no emotion.

  Stomp’s eyes seemed to coordinate for a second, and he thrust his chin in my direction. The left eye drifted off.

  “This is Mark,” Dusty said in answer to Stomp’s eloquent question. “He’s my brother—along for the ride.”

  “Twins, huh?”

  “Two peas in a pod.”

  Stomp leaned his head toward the back of the bar where two guys were shooting pool. I thought one of them must be Stemcell, but I was wrong. Stomp was telling Dusty that Stemcell had just left by the rear exit.

  There was a parking lot behind the Belmont, and a white Cadillac convertible pulled out, top down, wind blowing the through the dirty blond hair of the driver.

  Dusty yelled, “Stemmy!” but the car wheeled out of the lot and sped away heading north.

  “That was Stemcell,” Dusty explained the obvious. “He must be heading to the Britz. We can catch him there.”

  “Do we need to?” I asked.

  “I’d like to,” Dusty said. “As long as we’re running around, it might be nice to pick up a little something.”

  “It might be nice to get home without being arrested—that would be something.”

  We went back through the Belmont and gave Stomp a nod. One of his eyes tracked us as we passed.

  “That is one scary dude,” I said as we headed back to Dusty’s car.

  “It’s that eye,” Dusty explained. “When he talks to you it’s like he’s looking for someplace to hide your body.”

  CHAPTER 14

  When Dusty started his car, I looked at the time on his dashboard and closed my eyes. Ten after two. The bars were closing, but I knew there were dozens of private social clubs that stayed open almost to dawn.

  The Britz was the kind of place my father could join, if he were so inclined. Stomp and Dusty Bates, however, would not be offered a membership unless they struck oil. It made me wonder why a guy like Stemcell would go there at two in the morning.

  “Everybody needs a source,” Dusty explained. “It may come as a shock to you, but some of the wealthiest people in town sometimes like to . . .” he paused and smiled, “participate.”

  He glanced over at me and winked. “Plus, Stemcell’s dad is a member, which gives him access. I don’t think he ever goes in. Does business in the parking lot mostly.”

  We cruised up to the stately building that was a hotel at one time. Unlike the other social clubs that dott
ed the city, this one was not tucked away in some back alley, but sat regally at the top of a hill in the moneyed section of town. The driveway curved up through ancient oak trees to the front entrance where it passed under a canopy and dipped around to the rear of the building; the parking lot was hidden from view. Dusty stopped, and I could feel his hesitation about driving up this grand entrance in his rusted-out Chevy. Dusty pulled out and went down the street.

  “There’s a back way,” he said without going into details.

  We went around the block turning right on Avoca. Another right brought us to a dimly lit parking lot with a half dozen cars in it. We waited for a car to pull out before we pulled in.

  Stemcell’s white Cadillac was parked way off by itself in the corner.

  “There he is,” Dusty said with some satisfaction. Our headlights swept across the empty Cadillac. “He must be in the club,” Dusty said uncertainly. “We’ll wait for him.” He pulled up to Stemcell’s Cadillac and backed his car in next to it and cut the engine.

  “How long we going to wait?” I asked. “I have that lunch tomorrow.” Thoughts about being questioned by the police had, for some reason, taken a backseat to my luncheon date with my father. Maybe our talk would lead me out of this insanity.

  “Hey, maybe your old man is getting married,” Dusty said. “You get to meet the new Mrs. Cameron.”

  I hadn’t considered that possibility. I didn’t think my father was dating, but that proved nothing. We hardly talked anymore. Maybe my father wasn’t so much setting me free as he was removing the clutter from his life.

  “You can be the best man,” Dusty continued. He looked over at me and ran the tip of his finger along the metal in his eyebrow. “I’ll be the ring bearer.”

  Dusty gave me a weak smile. His message was clear. Neither of us was likely to be part of my father’s marriage—if there was a marriage. Things change in life. Nothing is certain. My father could have a new family, leaving me with Dusty—in the same boat.

  “I don’t think it’s about marriage,” I said. “I think he’s just tired of the fight. He’s through with me.”