The Man Offside

by A. W. Gray

  I did know. I nodded. He went on. “So we’ve got to come up with the perpetrator. My first thought is somebody involved in drugs, somebody that was afraid of the cats Brendy could let out of the bag. It’s a strong possibility.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” I said. “So why don’t you blow and go? Hell, you’ve got ten million cops running around.”

  “I said a possibility, Mr. Bannion. But there’s another option, maybe even better than a druggie.” He watched his folded hands for a moment, then looked directly at me. “You and Mrs. Brendy are quite a bit closer than friends, aren’t you?”

  There it was. My stomach dropped a foot and my insides were suddenly cold. “I’ve known Jack and Donna for a lot of years,” I said. My voice cracked slightly. I couldn’t help it.

  Pierson didn’t change expressions, leaned over and flipped through his legal pad. Inserted between two pages was a dot-matrix computer printout with lines in alternating shades of green. The paper rustled between Pierson’s fingers. He read aloud from the printout.

  “‘Donna Sue Morley, born nine-two-fifty-six. Birthplace, Corpus Christi, Texas.’ That’s your hometown, too, isn’t it? In fact, you and Mrs. Brendy attended the same high school.”

  I shrugged. “Small world. Corpus Christi Ray’s one of the biggest schools in the state, or it was back then. Look, Donna’s a lot younger than I am. We never went to school at the same time.”

  Pierson slid the printout back inside the legal pad. “Eight years younger. But she had older brothers. One in fact who was in your graduating class.”

  They’d really been checking up. The first time I’d gotten laid, Buddy Morley and I had driven to Matamoros and spent the night in a joint called the Rhumba Casino. Our folks had thought we were in San Antonio playing a baseball tourney. Funny, I hadn’t thought to ask Donna about Buddy and what he was doing now, we’d had too many other things going on. I said to Pierson, “She might’ve. Yeah, seems like I remember some Morleys.” Across the table, Aycock was showing a crooked grin.

  “Let’s don’t waste time,” Pierson said. “Like I said, it’s Saturday. You were playing pro football when Donna got out of high school and moved to Dallas. You got her a job at Wilson Drilling; Wilson was a buddy of the team owners. You and Donna got to be an item during the same time you were sharing an apartment with Jack Brendy. Your apartment was at the Corners, on Southwestern Boulevard. How’m I doing?”

  They had too much of it. I let a long rush of air escape from my lungs. “Actually, it’s on Shady Brook Lane, a half block from Southwestern. The leasing office is on Southwestern, I guess. You’re doing okay.”

  Pierson laughed without humor. “Nothing to be ashamed of, Bannion. You make guys like me jealous. Hell, I’ve been married all my life, never got much of a chance to swing.”

  “So okay,” I said. “So I had a thing with Donna. Then we didn’t have one. Then she married Jack. So what?”

  Light reflected from Pierson’s gold ballpoint pen as he played with it, exposing the point, retracting it. “Mr. Bannion doesn’t want to own up, fellas. Go ahead, Toby, show him.”

  Detective Atchley looked more like a Toby than the others, so I looked at him expectantly. But it was Thompson, my FBI buddy, who reached under the table and produced a Ziplock plastic bag. He took out some color photos, thumbed through them, tossed two pictures in front of me. I didn’t want to look, but picked them up anyway.

  The first picture didn’t really surprise me. It was a shot of me by Jack’s swimming pool, talking to Donna, taken from a slightly overhead angle, probably from atop the wall that surrounded the pool area. Jack had been a government target, and I guess it would have been surprising if the feds hadn’t had a picture taker lurking in the bushes. My gaze lingered for a second on the image of Donna. She could have made a living as a swimsuit model. I shrugged, flipped the photo back to Thompson, and picked up the next one. I froze.

  Considering the time of night and the circumstances, this guy had been a hell of a photographer. In the background behind Donna and me was the east side of Turtle Creek North, some tall elms, ivy crawling up a brick wall. We were standing beside her Mark VI with the door open. Her face was upturned to mine. The shadows on my face made my silly grin look more like a snarl; just seconds after this picture had been taken she’d kissed me. Then she’d driven away. I laid the picture on the table and gently closed my eyes.

  Thompson tapped a finger on the stack of remaining photos. “There’s more. I’d have to get the censorship committee to rate them before I could show them to you.” He showed me the standard, I-work-for-the-government smirk.

  I said evenly to Thompson, “Fuck you.”

  “That’s probably an appropriate comment,” Pierson said, “but we’re doing our best to keep personalities out of this. We’re simply working hand in hand, our county people and the feds. The federal matter is the drug business, and we’re interested in the shooting. One case goes along with the other. Probably when the feds get their hands on the drug folks we’ll have the shooter as well. But not for certain.” He blinked. “I think you’re getting my drift.”

  “Yeah, I’m getting the drift,” I said. “Either I can help the feds or you’re going to railroad me for Jack’s killing. Since you know goddamn well that I didn’t have anything to do with it, that’s exactly what you’re saying.”

  Pierson took out a cigarette, a Vantage, and fumbled in his pockets. The young FBI agent, Whittington, produced a butane mini-flamethrower and lit Pierson’s smoke, then got an ashtray from a bookcase, and set it on the table. Good job for the kid. Pierson said, “Do we? Do we know it goddamn well? You’re sleeping with guy’s wife, he gets popped. You would have known it would look like a drug killing, plus you’re connected. You know people that would do the job, and some of them might even owe you favors. Oh, yeah, and Bannion. Not just you alone. It takes two to tango.”

  I didn’t get it for a couple of seconds, then I did. I sat up straighter. “Yeah, you bastards would charge Donna, wouldn’t you?”

  On my left, Thompson said, “Well, he damn sure couldn’t charge Liz Taylor.”

  Aycock cackled like Walter Brennan. “You should watch out who you’re sticking the pork to,” he said.

  “I think I’ll sleep in the sewer tonight,” I said. “The smell is better.”

  “Cute, Bannion,” Aycock said. “But cute won’t get it. Not this time.”

  I got up, went to the door, then faced the room. “I’m not saying one way or the other. Give me some time.”

  “Sure,” Pierson said. “I couldn’t get a grand jury together before Tuesday anyhow. Call us before then, Mr. Bannion. If you would.”

  Donna’s face softened as she said to me, “I’ll be so worried.” She was holding Jacqueline’s hand. The child was wearing a spotless white lace dress, her face was scrubbed, and she had on black patent leather shoes with tiny buckles across the insteps. Behind mother and daughter, a long line of men in suits and women in business dresses paraded by a uniformed Delta flight attendant, showing her their boarding passes. Visible through the big plate glass window, a 747’s hull blocked the view of the runways beyond.

  I said, “I can’t tell you not to worry. I’m not even sure this is the right thing to do. I just have this gut feeling that you should be a long way from here. The Ramada Inn, just outside the gate to Disney World.

  Prepare yourself, Florida’s one hot sucker this time of year.”

  Jacqueline did a little hop-skip and said, “I’m going to see Mickey Mouse.”

  I knelt before her. “Sure you are. And Donald and Goofy and whatever other guys are around.” I kissed the tip of her nose.

  “You still won’t tell me what’s wrong?” Donna said.

  I stood. “Not now, babe. You just make sure that nobody, and I mean nobody, knows exactly where you are except me.”

  I was conscious of Jacqueline’s gaze on me as I gave Donna a brotherly kiss on the cheek and turned to walk away. Over my shoulde
r I said, “Bring me one of those golf shirts with Mickey on the pocket. Extra large.”

  On my way home I decided to begin with Muhammed Double-X. It seemed as good a place to start as any.

  8

  If it’s rats you want, you go to the sewer. Muhammed Double-X’s personal sewer began somewhere around the intersection of Martin Luther King Boulevard and South Central Expressway. Its network of streets and alleyways sprawled from there to the southeast; its southeast boundary was near the intersection of Oakland Avenue and Hatcher Street. On a lucky night a guy could walk all the way from South Central and Martin Luther King to Oakland and Hatcher with his wallet intact, and without someone sticking a knife between his ribs. The odds were against it, though.

  It was after dark, about nine-thirty, when I steered the ‘Vette through South Central’s exit ramp, made a left on Martin Luther King, and tooled on over to Oakland. I passed a theater that was showing Hot Thrusts. An old black man with a snow-white fringe of hair glanced furtively around as he stepped up to the ticket booth. Martin Luther King’s a wide boulevard, and that’s not its original name. Decades ago it was Forest Avenue, and the stately, pillared houses on both sides had been the homes of Dallas’s upper crust: the Neimans, the Marcuses, the Stanley B. Woodalls. Those people don’t live there anymore.

  I waited at the light at the Oakland intersection, the ‘Vette’s padded steering wheel vibrating under my fingertips and Gladys Knight on the stereo moaning heavily through “Midnight Train to Georgia.” At a sudden rapping on the passenger-side window, I tensed, my hand moving automatically toward the Smith & Wesson on the floorboard. A young black girl, not over twenty-five, milk chocolate skin, wearing a skin-tight mini and knee-length boots, peered at me from outside the window. She wore a long blond wig and heavy lip rouge. She winked at me and wrinkled her nose, then pointed a glistening silver fingernail at the door lock. Open up, sugar. I shook my head. She stuck out her tongue, then retreated to the curb with her bottom jiggling. A black dude in a T-shirt and jeans said something to her. She pointed at the ‘Vette with one hand and gave me the thumbs-down sign with the other.

  I made a right on Oakland and steered carefully through bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic, fifteen blocks south to the Green Parrot Lounge. The locals were back to back and belly to belly on the street corners and in between. I made the block and drove past the Parrot a couple of times before I located a parking slot nose-on to the front door.

  I hadn’t been to the Parrot in fifteen years or more, and I couldn’t see that its exterior had changed any. Same neon green and yellow parrot’s outline over the door, more neon, some of it not working, forming script letters that read, “G een Par o.” In the old days we had come to the Parrot to hear good rhythm and blues and listen to Louis Armstrong clones blow red-hot jazz. That was in a different world, when gay meant happy and a joint was the place where you were hanging around. I cut the engine, got out, and took a couple of steps down the sidewalk. There was a kid of about eighteen lounging against the wall with a toothpick dangling from one corner of his mouth. He wore dirty jeans and a blue stocking cap, and his gaze darted from me to the ‘Vette’s Fiberglas nose. I doubled back and locked the car, then went inside the Parrot.

  Inside, rows of long tables surrounded a scarred hardwood dance floor that was maybe ten by twenty. Marvin Gaye was blasting “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” on the juke—an ancient Wurlitzer with a clear plastic cover through which you could watch the forty-fives spin. Cigarette smoke mixed with the odor of grease-cooked meat. The place was about half full; it was early yet. There was one couple on the dance floor, a young guy in a sleeveless leather vest with a red bandanna tied around his head and a gold ring through one pierced ear, and a light-skinned, mulatto chick in tight designer jeans and a white body shirt. They were getting after it. I wound my way between the tables, past the edge of the dance floor, and leaned my elbows on the bar.

  A pudgy, ebony-skinned guy yelled over the music, “Whatcha want?” He was carrying an empty glass mug, wiping it off with a dirty towel. He glanced carefully behind me, then looked relieved. One honky generally meant a man after pussy; two honkies usually meant the law.

  I said, nearly straining my vocal cords, “Bud. In a bottle if you got it. If it’s in a can, gimme a glass. A clean one.” I glanced at the grimy towel. Now he was wiping down the bar with it. “If you got a clean one,” I said. “Jesus Christ, how do you hear in this joint?”

  “You don’t. You want to hear, you go to a movie. Or find a motel room. Shit, who wants to hear?” He slid open a rolltop cooler and fished out a longneck. Its brown glass was frosting over. As he popped it open, he said, “You in luck, we got bottles. If it was me I’d drink straight from the can ‘fore I’d use one of them glasses. Filthy mothafuckahs. Listen, you looking for action, you got to change you style.”

  I took a swig of the beer. Pretty good, though not as cold as it looked. The Marvin Gaye song ended and the arm on the Wurlitzer searched mechanically for another platter. I took advantage of the break in the noise to say in a normal tone, “What’s wrong with my style?”

  “Man, you kidding? You look too hip. You got nice knit shirt and tailored jeans, ain’t no fat around you middle. Ho, she gonna think you too nice-lookin’ to pay for no pussy. She think you the Man. Pimp, too, he think the same.” He had to raise his voice as Tina Turner howled suddenly over the juke.

  “Yeah? Well, maybe I want a colored broad and I don’t know any to ask for a date, you know, take her to dinner.”

  “Change you luck? Shit, ho don’t fall for that, either. She convinced you the Man, you start that shit.”

  I bent closer to him and motioned. He leaned and turned an ear toward me. I said, “Well, really I—hey, what’s your name?”

  “Elmo.”

  “No kidding. Hey, I had a cousin named Elmo. Grew up with him.”

  “Yeah?” He cocked his head. Artificial light reflected from his shiny cheeks. “Well, I don’t got no cousins name Honky. The fuck you lookin’ for?”

  I decided that Elmo wasn’t going to be my pal. I fished in my pocket and dug out two ten-dollar bills, then held them just above bartop level between my index and middle fingers. I said, “Three, four nights ago a friend of mine called a guy in here. I think the guy’s a regular, I’m not sure. I need to talk to the guy.”

  Elmo took a long, slow look at the money, then did a Stepin Fetchit eye roll. He reached underneath the bar, found a toothpick, and chewed on it. Then he motioned to me. I bent closer and smelled the garlic on his breath as he said, “You one I can’t figure. You ain’t no law or you be flashin’ hunnerds, talkin’ about buyin’ a load of twenty-five-dollar papers, shit like that. You ain’t lookin’ fo’ no ho’s. You ain’t no homosectual, but now you lookin’ for a guy. What guy?”

  “Muhammed. Muhammed Double-X.” I tried to put on a cagey, in-the-know expression. The couple on the dance floor must have been pretty close behind me; the floor vibrated with the slap of shoe leather. Elmo’s glance flicked over my shoulder, then back to me.

  “You ain’t no homosectual and you ain’t no law,” he said. “You jus’ crazy. Find you a ho, man. Worse she gonna do is roll yo ass.”

  “Muhammed,” I said.

  Elmo shrugged and plucked the two tens from between my fingers. “I goin’ to collect while you still kickin’. Don’t no Muhammed hang in here. I can call somebody, they come down here an’ take you to Muhammed. I tell you, though. Muhammed don’t like no honky bullshit. You better have you some business, man.”

  “I got business,” I said.

  “You sit in that booth at the front.” Elmo pointed. “Up there, right where somebody see you when they walk in. Try to look at home, baby. It won’t be long.”

  There was a pay phone at the end of the bar. Elmo opened the cash drawer and found a quarter, then motioned to me again. As he waddled toward the phone, I wound my way through the throbbing sea of noise and sat in the front booth.

/>   Things were really picking up inside the Parrot. They were drifting in in twos and threes, some of them already high and most of them getting that way if they weren’t already. One girl, a tall, lanky chick in a tight pink dress, glanced in my direction and curled her lip. A second couple, this one a jiggling fat woman and a tall, skinny mustachioed dude, joined the first couple on the dance floor and began to shuck and jive. Elmo came over and whispered, “Man on his way, be here in a minute.” I nodded, handed him my half-empty beer, and ordered a Coke. Elmo brought it. I sipped it through a straw and watched three guys at a corner table watch me. Just as their glances changed from mildly curious to openly hostile, Snakey came into the Green Parrot and sat down across from me.

  All of a sudden. It was as though he’d materialized. He said, “You maybe not doing the smartest thing, cowboy.” He adjusted the patch over his eye. Tonight he wore a white shirt with bright red flowers printed on it. The shirt was satin, with tight cuffs and puffed sleeves.

  “Maybe,” I said, sipping. “Hey, by the way, nice shirt, man . . . Hey, you want a drink?”

  Snakey said that he didn’t. Elmo had waddled around the bar and come halfway to the booth. I waved him away,

  “So maybe I’m not too smart,” I said. “What’s a better idea? Stay on my own side of town, wake up some night with you and Honeybear playing tag in my bedroom? With me as ‘it’?”

  He folded his hands on the table. Still the same look: no anger, no curiosity, just a mild amusement. I doubted you could shake this guy up if you punched him in the stomach. “Don’t guess it make any difference at that,” he said. “You might have a better chance on yo turf. But yo turf, our turf, you dead anyhow. I say this, you got better chance now than when you left us floatin’. We know some stuff now we didn’ know.” He looked toward the dance floor. The fat woman was really into it, belly jiggling. Snakey said, “I tell you, offside man, you don’t make no sense. You workin’ fo Brendy, you should have give us the fat man. Poof, Skeezix gone, no mo fedral witness for Brendy to fuck with. Plus you got no problem with us. Shit, you don’t make sense. Now Brendy, poof, he gone. Now you don’t work fo nobody an’ you got us thinkin’ ‘bout killin’ you.”