Lone Star Noir

by Bobby Byrd

  That evening Monty came home late. I’d left him a Pyrex pie plate of food covered in tinfoil, warming in the oven.

  “You’re late, son.”

  “I lost track of the time.”

  “What were you doing?”

  At that question, he raised his eyes just for a piece of a second. If he had said it was none of my business or even looked like he’d say it, I’d have backhanded him. But he didn’t.

  “I’m learning a new piece of music. I lost track of time.”

  “What’s the phone number of that teacher of yours?”

  His slouch turned into an alert posture. “Why?”

  “I don’t have a mind to keep wasting hard-earned money on someone who’s late for dinner.”

  His dark eyes found me immediately and he almost wrung his pale hands. “Oh no, I got to keep going to voice lessons. They’re … they’re … the only thing I got.”

  This was the most he’d said to me at once in recent memory.

  “I want to get my money’s worth. Your mother’s medicine costs plenty. I don’t earn a lot of money.”

  He looked like he was going to cry—something no man should ever do. Hell, I’d made it through island after stinking island fighting Japs in the Pacific without crying, as my platoon was killed one by one. On some days, we were killed in vast numbers. None of us cried, not one single damn time. Not even the seventeen-year-olds who’d lied about their age to enlist. Or me, the oldest, balding even then and nicknamed “Pops.”

  Later that evening I sat on the front porch. The cicadas’ latesummer droning had started this first week of August, like every other year.

  I thought about that voice teacher. He made my skin crawl. What was it? His haircut was sharp. He had clean nails. Each time he was in the store, his shoes were fully shined, his jawline a little red from razor burn. All these should have added up to a regular Joe. But I didn’t trust him. His slacks fresh from the cleaners, his dress shirts starched and new, long-sleeved even in Houston’s humid heat. And the wicker picnic set the voice teacher had bought today? It carried an ice pick. Standard item, along with forks and knives.

  Before I went to bed to sink into the deep sleep I’d been fortunate enough to have since childhood, I peeked in to see if Rosalie was awake. A board in the hallway must’ve creaked because she opened her eyes. I entered and sat on the bed.

  “Good night, dear,” she said, looking worn, as she always did.

  “Listen, Rose, I’ve decided. Monty can’t keep going to voice lessons.”

  “Montgomery.”

  “I’ve decided.”

  She lifted her pale hand to mine. “Dear, you have to let him. It’s his biggest dream. Ever since he and I listened to the opera broadcasts on Saturday afternoons from the big radio in the hallway. You remember? For my sake … please.” A tear trickled down from one eye.

  I didn’t want tears; I didn’t want a scene. “That’s it. I’ll tell him tomorrow.” She probably kept looking at me with those sad eyes as I left her room, but I didn’t hear any more words from her.

  In the morning Monty didn’t come to breakfast. I knocked on his bedroom door and he yelled out that he felt sick. I left for work with my first headache in a long time.

  Linehan didn’t come in until around noon. “Hell. It’s a Houston-humid version of hell—standing in a back alley in Montrose for six hours swatting at mosquitoes because some runaway gets herself bludgeoned over there off Avondale.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Same old, same old. Back of the head. Only this time he left it behind. Looks brand new—except for the brains, bone, and blood. Twenty-four-inch pipe wrench.”

  I flashed back to the day voice teacher Nichols had bought his wrench. Residential work, he’d said. One-inch pipe. But the first one he’d picked up had a scratch in the handle’s finish. He’d picked out another one, saying he liked his tools perfect. What kind of man says something like that about household tools?

  When I got home I went to my tool room in a sectionedoff part of the garage. All my tools were arranged on pegboard by type and size. Cleaned, oiled, ready to go. I picked up the hammer I’d tried to teach Monty how to use, the circular saw he couldn’t control. He’d never been able to learn to rewire sockets or even a table lamp, what was positive and what was negative. How a ground worked. He hated it all.

  At the breakfast table the next morning, Monty chewed slowly, his large Adam’s apple bobbing an unreasonable amount. I couldn’t put it off any longer. “Son, you’re not going to voice lessons anymore.”

  “What??” His Adam’s apple pumped furiously.

  “That’s sir to you.”

  “What did you say, sir?”

  “I can’t afford to pay for your lessons. Call that guy and tell him.”

  “But … but … I love my voice lessons. Dave—Mr. Nichols—says I have the voice of an angel. It’s the only time …” his voice trailed off.

  “The only time what?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. I just … just …” The air whistled through his front teeth.

  “Your mother isn’t getting any better. I don’t see you working to help support the family. By the time I was your age, I had me one job in town, and helped Dad with the farm before the sun was up, and I had to go to school.”

  He ran from the table, slamming the front door, then across the yard. I wondered where he’d go. Growing up, I’d had a place in the three-part junction of a huge oak tree’s branches out by the slaughtering tables. It had been good to get away from everyone and look from afar on the dogs and cattle. I hadn’t shown it to Lilly, who was too little to climb it by herself.

  As I spread the white slices of bread with French’s mustard to make my lunch for work, I dreaded the moment when Rosalie’s door might open and I’d see the accusation in her sunken eyes. The slab of bologna smelled faintly in the early-morning heat. But her door didn’t open, and I hoped she hadn’t heard the jarring anger in Monty’s slammed front door.

  I waited all morning for Voice Teacher to show up, straining my ears for his girlie whisper. For the first time in my life, I hoped I was wrong.

  Just before six, when we closed, he came in. I didn’t wait on him; I disappeared to the back, so I wouldn’t queer the deal. As soon as I saw his huge shoulders disappear into a sporty white Corvair, I asked the guy up front what he’d bought. Pipe wrench, twenty-four-inch. A strong man like him wouldn’t need the leverage of the longest pipe wrench we carried. No, not a strong man like him.

  That night Rosalie was up. To my surprise she had halfway cooked me dinner. She even sat at the kitchen table with me.

  “Otto, Montgomery told me what you said.”

  I kept chewing on the fish sticks. There was no hurry. “I’m listening.”

  “He needs to sing. It’s his only happiness.”

  “We can’t afford it any longer.”

  “Why not to the end of summer? It’s coming up soon. He’ll start college. He’ll meet young people his own age.”

  “There’s plenty of young folks around Montrose. Look at all them hippies. Our neighborhood used to be respectable. Look at what it’s become now. Love beads, hip-huggers. Long hair on girls and boys. You can’t even tell for sure which is which most of the time. Rock concert posters glued to every storefront at night.”

  She sighed. “His only friend is Mr. Nichols. They have a lot in common.”

  “Like what?” I didn’t like the suspicion suddenly forming in my mind.

  “They both love music. They’ve learned some duets. Montgomery has something to be proud of—for the first time in years. He says their souls join when they sing together. He could be an opera singer. He’s that good …”

  “I’ll think about it. That’s all I can say for now, Rose.”

  She smiled her exhausted half-smile. “I promised him I’d ask you. You sleep so hard, Otto. He can’t wake you to talk at night.”

  After dinner, I sat in the glider on the front porch as the ev
ening darkened and I waited for Monty to get home. I searched my memory for what Linehan had said about the killings. All were teenage girls. All untraceable. No one cared if they disappeared. Linehan said no one at HPD was trying to solve the murders because no one cared about little whore-runaway hippie chicks. Was that why my sister Lilly never even sent a three-penny postcard? Had her body decomposed somewhere we’d never heard of, with no police officer caring enough to bring her killer to justice?

  I must’ve fallen asleep sitting up because the noise of the screen door opening at Monty’s touch woke me up from a bad dream of 1943 in the Pacific.

  “What you doing coming home late, son?” I hadn’t turned on the porch light earlier, so I could only see the outline of his head and the thin body that Rose called “elegant” against the screen.

  He lifted his shoulders before replying, “I didn’t know you were waiting up for me.”

  “Where you been?”

  “Just walking.”

  “Didn’t I tell you not to come home late again?”

  “I needed to think.”

  I was beat, too beat to put up with someone living in my house and not paying me any mind. Before I even knew what I was doing, I backhanded him. Hard. He didn’t stand up any straighter; he didn’t move at all. He stood a hunched black silhouette against the humid glow from the streetlight half a block down. “Go to sleep,” I told him, and he walked silently into the house.

  I too finally walked into my bedroom, not even pulling down the bedspread. If I closed my eyes, the dream might return. The dream that had begun after that first time, and the pounding I’d given the nameless other Marine in late 1943. My unit was going island to island, taking them from the Japs one bloody inch at a time. We were on a nameless atoll, at night, after a day of fighting. The area secure and half of us cleared for shut-eye by the sergeant. Me, in a foxhole alone, sleeping. The dream was of the little honey I’d had back home. I felt her light touch on my crotch, and felt blood rushing to respond to her caress. Half-asleep, I drifted into the warmblooded excitement of it. Suddenly, I remembered where I was and woke up. I saw his face close to mine. I pushed him away and went crazy. I pounded his face until it was a bloody pulp and hightailed it out of there, almost getting shot for a Jap by Morrison over in another foxhole. Sometimes, like tonight, in a dream he comes for me again, with his soft touch and softer lips, and I awake sweaty but chilled, with an erection so hard I think I’ll die, just like the one he coaxed out of me in my sleep. Sometimes, too, I thought that maybe I had those dreams because … well, Rosalie had been sick for so long. I couldn’t ask her for what she couldn’t give.

  The forbidden images of the dream lingered the next morning as I drank coffee. Voice Teacher’s face and clean, manicured hands flashed in my head. And I knew what had gotten under my skin about him all along. He was one of them. And he was after my son.

  Linehan’s uniform was already drenched with sweat when he came in for his early coffee. “How’s the old man today?” he laughed, slapping me on the shoulder.

  “Fair to middling.” No point reminding him that I’d lost my hair but not too much else.

  “Man, we got number four last night. This guy is bad news. I can’t believe homicide hasn’t found him.”

  “Where was this one?”

  “At least it wasn’t in Montrose. It was downtown near Allen’s Landing. That place Love Street Light Circus. Used to be an old warehouse. The freaks pay to go in there, flop on cushions, and listen to music. I’d kill my daughter myself if she ever set foot in there.”

  “The weapon?”

  “Baseball bat to the back of the head. Even left the bat, it’s a good ’un.”

  “Any chance they’ll find who did it?”

  “Naw. There’s no prints on any of the weapons he’s left behind. With all the front-page ruckus in the papers, the whole department is catching grief because we haven’t found the killer.” He lowered his voice, “I’d like to find him myself,” and I could see his large hand on the butt of his revolver. “All of night shift is itching to put him away.”

  Sure enough, Voice Teacher came into the store that afternoon. But he didn’t come to buy a baseball bat. When I looked up from a repair, he was staring at the needle-nose pliers in my right hand. His posture was erect and the creases in his pale blue dress shirt were impeccable.

  “I’m hoping you can repair this toaster,” he said, removing the early-’50s stainless beauty from under his elbow.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “The slide won’t stay down. Can’t toast the toast.”

  “Show me exactly what you do with it.”

  He gently rested a strong pink hand on the curving body of the toaster. Then he placed a powerful thumb from his other hand on the slide and pushed it down.

  “You always do it like that?”

  “Yes. I guess my thumb is too strong.”

  “No problem. I can replace the catch. Real simple, if you can spare it for a few days.”

  “Sure can.”

  I nodded and reached for the Sunbeam and placed it on a shelf behind me. When I turned back around, he was still standing at the counter.

  “Do I need a claim ticket?”

  “Nope. I’ll remember you. I don’t get too many vintage toasters in.”

  He looked like he wanted to argue, but changed his mind. He flipped out a card from a breast pocket and wrote something on it. “Here’s my phone. Call me when it’s done.”

  “Yessir. Be glad to.”

  * * *

  That night Monty ate dinner with me, so I scrambled more eggs and set out two plates.

  “What you do today, son?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “Where’d you do nothing much?”

  “I went to tell Mr. Nichols I had to stop lessons.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “Nothing much.” He darted his eyes back and forth across the faded green linoleum Rosalie was always too tired to mop.

  “What else you do today?”

  “I helped him run some errands. Just to sorta say goodbye.”

  “That was nice, son. I’m proud of you.”

  His eyes flashed upward to my face, and I saw something hard in them. Something that reminded me of the D.I.s in boot camp in the early ’40s. The look of not giving a damn, not caring one measly iota. I got up from the table and walked to the refrigerator behind him to get the catsup.

  “He took me to lunch afterward at one of those new restaurants in the 400 block of Westheimer. After that I helped him carry everything upstairs.”

  I sat back down and shook the catsup bottle, then poured. “He’s a grown man, isn’t he? Why didn’t he carry them himself?”

  Monty stared at the red layers on my eggs, then looked away.

  “He’s coaching the intramural program this year. He had to replace some equipment. You know, basketballs, baseballs, mitts, volleyballs.”

  I passed the bottle to Monty. “I bet it was hard carrying those long packages with the heavy baseball bats.”

  He shook his head before answering. “I was careful with them. He doesn’t like his paint scratched.”

  I forked the hot eggs into my mouth before asking the last thing I needed to know. “I bet you were, son. Wasn’t there anyone else to help y’all carry the stuff into his house?”

  “Nope. He lives alone.”

  Working on Voice Teacher’s toaster was easy—like I’d told him. I replaced the bimetallic catch, reconnected the wires, switched out the original plastic push-down knob with a metal replica I’d painted the same glossy black. I also disconnected the ground to the stainless housing. Everything would go smoothly. He would plug it in, insert the bread, adjust the small dial for darkness, place his left hand on the elegant metal body, then push the knob down and his heart would know what it was like to burn in hell. I put on my work gloves and wiped it real good with a rag. Put it in a box and set them on the counter ready for him. His influenc
e over Rosalie and my son would evaporate as quickly as it had come—like a rainstorm through the Panhandle. Then the dreams of soft lips and caressing fingers would be washed away too. We could go back to the way things were before, all of us.

  When he came for the toaster, I took his cash payment and didn’t write out a receipt. He took it out of the box and left with it cradled under his pale pink starched shirtsleeve.

  About five days later, I saw the obituary in the Houston Post. Brilliant voice teacher, beloved professor of music. Graduate of the University of Indiana at Bloomington.

  Monty looked paler than I’d ever seen him. He stomped into his bedroom without speaking to me as he came through the front screen porch that evening.

  I went into Rosalie’s room after my dinner alone. I could hear the sounds of opera coming through the walls from Monty’s room. He’d been playing the same record over and over for hours.

  “Montgomery is devastated,” she said.

  “I noticed he looked peaked.”

  “His friend is dead.”

  “I saw the obituary.”

  “He was in the prime of his life. What a terrible accident.”

  “Monty’ll get over it. He starts college in a couple more weeks.”

  “I don’t know that he’ll ever get over it.”

  “That guy was just his voice teacher. There’s plenty more teachers around.”

  She looked at me all of a sudden, dark eyes focused and hard with emotion. “You don’t have the slightest clue, do you? They were in love. Do you understand me? They had a passionate, wonderfully exciting life together, and now it’s all over.”

  “Your son is a queer?”

  “He’s your son too.”

  “No, he’s not. He’s yours by your first husband, not by me. I haven’t been able to touch you for years because of the illness. Besides, how much of a so-called life together could they have in a weekly voice lesson?”

  She laughed, keeping her lips tight. “You sleep real heavy—remember? I let Montgomery meet Dave at night all the time. I wanted him to be happy and in love the way I was with his dad. His handsome, handsome dad.” Her mouth settled into a thin, hard line. “They were made for each other.”