A Perfect Life

by Mike Stewart

  “Do you think he shot this Reynolds fella?”

  “I can't really comment—”

  “Goddammit!”

  “Mr. Walker, I don't really think cussing me out is going to solve—”

  Cannonball was on his feet, but didn't remember standing. “Listen to me, Mr. De-tective. Scott Thomas is a good boy. I'm doin' my best to help him out, and I got assholes from Boston to Birmingham sayin' they can't tell me this and can't tell me that. But, all the time, every one of 'em tellin' me just exactly what he wants me to hear but not a goddamn word about what I need to hear.” The old man stopped to catch his breath. “You want me to help you, then you help me. 'Cause as far as I can tell, you're more interested in tryin' to screw over this boy than in findin' who killed that poor lady in the hospital.”

  A few seconds ticked by. Finally, Cedris asked, “Are you done?”

  “Done and 'bout ready to hang up the damn phone.”

  “Okay. Slow down.” His voice was calm. “Tell me what you need.”

  Cannonball plopped down into an occasional chair beside the window. “I'll tell you what I need. I need to know what you got on Scott. I need to know what you know about this John Pastings at the bank down here claiming the Birmingham cops are after Scott for a fire that happened fifteen years ago. And, mostly, I need to know how much of this mess you got figured out, 'cause I'm findin' out everything that I don't need to know and nothin' that I do.” The old man hesitated. “And, finally, I need to know everything you got on a woman named Natalie Friedman.”

  Long-distance static sizzled in the earpiece. Cannonball was just about to ask if Cedris was still on the line when the lieutenant began to speak. “Okay, here it is. I've come to believe that you're trying to do the right thing, Mr. Walker; so I'm going to tell you some things. But, if I'm going to do this, I expect you to fill in some holes for me when I'm done. Does that sound fair?”

  Cannonball looked out the window at the Southern spring morning. “Sounds fair. But I'm still waitin' to hear what you have to say.”

  Cedris sighed. “You might want to grab a pencil. This gets complicated.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Virginia was a logical stopping place. A little town called Havenswood looked right—one main street of businesses, maybe a couple of thousand residents, and one hotel. Whoever had taken Natalie's billfold could still be following. Or it could be that the nameless thief knew everything and had gone ahead to the Carolina coast. No way to tell. But Scott Thomas had no intention of spending the night in a big city with bars and alleys, flophouses and whorehouses—not in any place with a thousand nooks and crannies where a violent soul could hide and wait.

  Click would stand out like a sore thumb in Havenswood, Virginia. Bobby would frighten small children and old people.

  Dusk hung heavy in the air as Scott turned Cannonball Walker's black Caddy into the parking lot of the Havenswood Arms. Natalie waited in the car while he went inside to register. The night manager peeked out and grinned. Natalie saw the look and smiled. When Scott came out, she said, “That guy thinks we're here to sweat up the sheets.”

  Scott looked over. “That's pretty much what I told him.”

  “I guess that's part of our cover.”

  “Nope,” he said. “Just bragging.”

  Scott smiled and Natalie laughed—each of them trying to keep up a brave front, each wearing a mask betrayed by the fear in their eyes.

  Click waited a half mile outside Havenswood's police jurisdiction, napping in the reclined driver's seat of his blue Lexus. Earlier—driving through unfamiliar territory just after dark—he'd found an old logging road that was grown up underneath with vines and tight from side to side with buggy-whip pines. He'd parked there just a couple of hours after Scott and Natalie had checked into the Havenswood Arms.

  The pale hacker unscrewed the cap on a sticky-sweet grape soda and chugged a quarter of it. He wadded up greasy waxed paper that smelled of cheeseburger. He looked and felt contented. Darryl Simmons had a plan.

  At exactly 2:00 A.M. he would drive into that pissant town and enter the hotel room where Scott Thomas and Natalie Friedman lay sleeping. That asshole, Scott, would die immediately. Click had decided he would use a knife. Quiet and fast. Messy, but that was fine, too. The woman could take longer—a lot longer if she didn't scream. If, he thought, I can just get a towel in her mouth . . .

  He reached down to tug at the crotch of his pants as the thought of what lay ahead started to give him an erection.

  “That man. He come back with a git-tar. I tole him to leave you be, but . . .”

  Cannonball couldn't make out Nancy Thomas's response, but seconds later he was ushered into the same back room on Roseland Drive. Tonight, Scott's mother wore a gold, quilted dashiki with a black turban and soft black house shoes.

  Her feet began to bounce against the carpet when he entered the room. “You can sing. ‘Amazing Grace,' ‘May the Circle Be Unbroken.'” Her eyes lighted up. “Scott and Bobby. Tom and Huck. One calm, one wild, and you in the middle like chocolate filling inside pure white divinity.”

  “How are you this evening, Nancy?”

  She didn't answer.

  “Mind if I call you Nancy?”

  “That's my name. ‘Come here, Nancy.' ‘Do this, Nancy.' ‘Do that, Nancy.' ‘You're gonna die, Nancy. You're gonna die.'”

  Cannonball sat in the same chair he'd used before. “We're all gonna die. When and how are all that matter.”

  She waved her shiny claw in the air dismissively. “You come here to sing or what? You said you would. Didn't believe you.” She smiled, and it was awful.

  Cannonball set out his guitar case on the floor at his feet and flipped the chromed clasps. Folding back Gibson's trademark dark-pink satin, he picked up the battered Les Paul, balanced the heavy body on one knee, and fingered the opening to “Worried Life Blues.” Nancy clapped her misshapen little hands together, and the old bluesman began to sing. “Oh, Lordy Lord, Oh, Lordy Lord. Hurts me so bad.” As he sang, Cannonball watched the crazy woman bounce and sway, and he could see something of Scott in her. Her boy was a nice-looking man, but this woman had been a beauty. His eyes stayed on her face as he sang. There were hard questions to be asked, and he was looking for . . . something. “But someday, baby, I ain't gonna worry my life anymore.” He picked out the last two bars.

  “What's the matter with your guitar? It's quiet. Sounds good, but it's quiet.”

  “It's electric.” He smiled. “Don't sound like much without an amp.”

  “Get it fixed.” She chirped like a bird. “Get the damn thing fixed, I say. Too pretty not to hear.”

  “Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “We were talking about your boy Bobby when I was here last time.”

  Nancy's head cocked to one side. “Were we? That's funny. Not much to tell. Smart and hard—he's the quick and the dead.” She leaned back in her chair. “I'm just dead.”

  “I've seen Bobby. I saw him in Boston, Nancy. He was standing outside a restaurant where I was eating. He . . . the boy seemed to be watching me.”

  “Run!” Nancy Thomas cackled with glee. “Run for the hills! I told you, ‘the quick and the dead.' Bobby's quick and you're dead.” She cackled again. “Don't worry. You can sing. You sing to his momma.” She slowed down and spaced out her words as if explaining something. “You sing to his momma.”

  Cannonball nodded. “What happened to Bobby? Why is he the way he is?”

  “Fire.”

  The old man began to pick out the classic blues structure of “Ten Long Years.” He tapped the toes of one pointed black shoe in time to the music. “Tell me about it, Nancy. Tell me what happened to Bobby.”

  She grew quiet, her eyes ticking from side to side in perfect rhythm with the song as if jerked by a wire tied to the toe of Cannonball's shoe. After a time, her head began to bob and a quiet hum started in her throat that morphed into words. For the better part of an hour, Nancy Thomas spoke quietly, and mostly with ch
illing clarity, about her sons. Convoluted, out-of-nowhere quotes from the King James Bible occasionally snapped sentences and thoughts in two, but even then she made a kind of sense to an old man raised in the Baptist churches of Mississippi.

  Nancy Thomas told what had happened to her young sons and why it had happened. And, all the while, Cannonball Walker never missed a note on that battered old guitar.

  His footsteps made no noise in the dew-drenched grass along the back of the Havenswood Arms. The air felt cool. The pine and sycamore woods to the south seemed to sigh every so often, bathing the hotel in the scents of grasses and leaves.

  A long hall ran along the front of rooms whose back windows looked out at the woods. He counted squares of silver moonlight reflected on panes of glass. Five matched pairs of shining eyes over, Scott and Natalie dreamed inside. He trotted forward, squatting with his back pressed against the cool concrete blocks beneath their windows. Somewhere in the woods, an owl hooted and was answered by some kind of bird that screeched.

  And he waited.

  Minutes ticked by, and he held up a pale hand in the moonlight to examine half moons of dried blood beneath three fingernails. Picking absentmindedly at the caked blood, he smiled a little and stood to try the window.

  The good ones plan ahead. It had been almost too easy to unhook the screen, slip the lock on the window, and squirt a little oil on all the contact points when Scott and Natalie were out having dinner. There's always a way if you plan ahead. Sometimes it's as simple as stealing a key card and going in to replace the safety chain with one six inches longer—one just long enough to be lifted off from the outside. Sometimes it's even easier, like hiding under a bed and waiting. And sometimes, like tonight, the people leave and there's a window facing nothing but grass and trees.

  The screen slipped out on oiled runners. The window slid open without effort or noise. He planted his palms wide on the windowsill and jumped up. The curtains were pulled, and he got inside with barely a ruffle or lump in the material.

  Stand very still. It was a matter of discipline. Nothing moves. Long seconds ticked by, and the deep steady breathing of REM sleep filled the room in stereo. Both of them were in dreamland.

  This was the part he liked best.

  “Scott?” A whisper from the bed. “Scott? There's someone in the room.”

  The soft, swishing sounds of sheets and comforters moving preceded the click of the bedside lamp.

  For a split second, bright light blinded everyone in the room. But it was only a second, and Scott was able to train Cannonball Walker's gun on the dark form of his brother even before his eyes had adjusted enough to know who was there. “Bobby?”

  This time there was no refusal or denial. Bobby Thomas nodded his head.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The scarred face tilted down as those empty eyes examined his fingernails. “Click followed you.”

  Natalie spoke for the first time. “And you did, too?”

  Bobby looked up. “Cover yourself.” He pointed to where the sheet had fallen away to reveal the soft round top of Natalie's left breast. She tugged the sheet up, and he nodded. “I killed him.”

  Natalie could feel the blood drain from her face. Her arms and legs suddenly felt weak and cold. “You killed Click?”

  Bobby switched his gaze to Scott. “He followed you. Here.” He tossed a Nike sports bag onto the bedcovers.

  Scott didn't move. Neither did the gun. “What's in there?”

  “Look” was all he said.

  Scott nodded at the bag and said Natalie's name. She leaned forward, taking care not to get between the muzzle and Bobby, and retrieved the bag. Holding the covers against her breasts with one hand, she worked the zipper with the other.

  Bobby motioned with his hand. “Careful.”

  She nodded and turned the contents out onto the bedspread. A serrated, six-inch hunting knife, a roll of duct tape, and a huge, black dildo a foot long spilled out. She looked up and squinted at Bobby. Natalie didn't get it.

  Bobby did not like talking. His words sounded sparse and wounded. “That stuff.” He pointed again. “That Click was coming here tonight with that. The knife was for you.” He motioned at Scott. “The rest—the tape and that rubber dick thing—he brought for her.” He nodded at Natalie, who sprang naked from under the covers, ran into the bathroom, and slammed the door. Bobby watched her go with those flat black eyes, then turned back to Scott. “I've got his hand in the trunk outside.”

  Scott was in emotional overload. “What? You've got what?”

  Bobby nodded as if thinking back on the rightness of his actions. “I've got Click's hand in the trunk. So you'd know it was him. You can check the fingerprints so you won't have to worry any more.”

  The handgun turned slippery with sweat in Scott's hand. “I don't want it.”

  “I understand.” His scarred brother nodded. “You're safe now.”

  “Why did you steal Natalie's billfold on the train?”

  “Identification” was all he said.

  Scott nodded, but it meant nothing. He did not understand his brother's reasoning.

  Bobby looked longingly at the open window. “I'm leaving.” He turned away, but then glanced back. “Don't worry. They won't find him. Probably not ever. But not for a long time and not anywhere near here.” Those blank eyes lingered on Scott's face for two more beats before Bobby placed a foot on the windowsill, pivoted, and dropped to the ground as if his body had no weight.

  Scott made sure he'd gone, then walked to the bathroom door and knocked. “Are you all right, Natalie?”

  She opened the door. Her face was ghostly pale except for deep red circles around the eyes. Standing there naked, she looked impossibly small and vulnerable. “I threw up.”

  Scott reached out and gathered her up in his arms. “Pretty reasonable thing to do.” He glanced back at the window. “We need to get out of here.”

  “And go to the police.” Her words were muffled against his chest. She leaned back to look into his eyes. “Promise me, right now. We're going to the cops with this. I thought I could . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she started again. “I thought I could . . . manage this, but it's out of control.” Her eyes searched his face, and she repeated, “Promise me.”

  Scott stroked her bare back, but said nothing.

  CHAPTER 42

  “This is getting to be a habit for us.” John Pastings sounded jovial. He thought he'd won the tug of war with Canon Walker, and the fat banker was enjoying his victory.

  Cannonball leaned against a wall in the bank's first-floor lobby. “I'm downstairs.” He spoke into a stainless steel cell phone.

  “I'm sorry, Mr. Walker, but I have a full morning ahead of—”

  “I met again with Nancy Thomas last night.” He paused to see if Pastings would try to bullshit him, but the banker remained silent. “It's somethin' the way music can loosen up memory. What shrinks call a ‘memory trigger,' I think. Anyway, Nancy—we're on a first-name basis now, by the way—Nancy's got herself a pretty good memory once she gets started.”

  “I really don't see where—”

  “Her nurse was the tough part. But—what with Nancy raisin' hell and me hoverin' over the woman like the angel of death—even that old bat got on board and let me look at her paychecks.” Cannonball paused as a group of cloned bankers passed. “The money comes from you, Mr. Pastings.”

  “Of course it does.” The old banker's voice labored between heavy breaths. “I set up a trust. Scott knows all about it.”

  “The checks I saw ain't from any trust. They're from your personal account, which means that either you're runnin' the Thomas trust funds through your own account—and that makes you a crook—or you, Mr. Pastings, are payin' for Nancy's nursing care out of your own funds—and that makes you . . . what?”

  Pastings's voice grew shrill. “The last time I looked, there was no law against charity, Mr. Walker. Scott might do better to worry about the trouble he's in
up in Boston than about what I'm doing down here out of the goodness of my heart. I told Scott already that if he keeps messing around and not taking responsibility for whatever happened in that hospital . . . Well, believe me, he does not want the Birmingham police to get any more interested in his family's house fire than they are right now.” The banker's voice smoothed out as he spoke. This was a man used to having his bullshit believed. “Now, for Scott's good and for his mother's, you need to advise Scott—”

  That was enough. Cannonball interrupted. “Mr. Pastings? You wouldn't know the truth if it crawled up your pants leg and bit you on your saggy ball sack.”

  “Now see here!”

  “Shut the fuck up and listen.” The old bluesman was angry. “The Birmingham cops aren't interested in the house fire. I asked 'em. And not only did I ask 'em, I checked it out with a de-tective up in Boston named Cedris, and he called bullshit on the whole thing. Goddamn! The Thomas house ain't even inside the Birmingham cops' jurisdiction. If you're gonna lie your ass off, at least give the respect of shinin' up your bullshit with a fact or two.” Cannonball stopped to catch his breath. Both men were silent for a time. Finally, Cannonball said, “One more thing. Robert Thomas didn't leave a damn thing to his family. The fire investigator called it arson and said Robert did it. Insurance companies don't pay off on property coverage when a man torches his own house. And I don't think they pay out a lot on life insurance when a man burns his dumb ass up while settin' a fire to commit insurance fraud.”

  “Robert had investments . . .”

  “There you go again. You and me both know that Robert Thomas didn't have shit. That's why it was so easy for everybody down here to believe he'd been embezzlin' funds at the bank. I tell you what. Lots of stuff goin' on back then. Lots of stuff. Nancy showed me this pretty little stack of letters all tied up with ribbon. She's real proud of those letters, Mr. Pastings.”