by Jeff Povey
“You’ve always got a theory.” Tony looms over, and as I realize that they are all studying me intently now, I can’t get this image of hungry animals out of my head.
“C’mon, Dougie, spill.” Chuck’s earlier nerves have been replaced by a more determined, almost accusative look.
I don’t like the way they are all homing in on me.
“We’d sure like to hear it, Gob. . . .” As James adds his unnerving presence to the proceedings, I realize I have just bitten my tongue.
I can’t speak. Agent Wade never gave me any more than the animal bite theory. I’m floundering.
“Uh . . .”
“Uh? What’s ‘uh’?” Tony’s face seems to be pressing closer to mine, his eyes bulging, and I can see his cheeks are flushed with the beginnings of rage.
“Um . . .”
“He’s umming now.” Chuck also leans forward.
I swallow, heartbeat quickening. “Well, uh, um, uh . . .”
“Maybe Richard was the one who ran that ad asking the Kentucky Killer to join and felt too guilty to come in.” I look over at Betty.
My savior!
She gives me a half-smile, and I feel like kissing her full on her thin-lipped mouth.
The others immediately look her way. She gives them her beautiful shrug. “It kinda makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Richard couldn’t spell VD, let alone write an ad.” Burt is quickly in with this, and I look back to Betty. She stalls, loses her way, falls silent.
“You don’t need to be able to spell to dictate something over the phone.” Nice going, Chuck. Nice going.
“So that’s how you run these ads, is it?” Cher leaps in.
Chuck faces her off. “What are you trying to say here?”
“You seem to be a bit of an authority on ads, Chuck.”
This comes from me and is out before I even know I’m ganging up on my all-time favorite member.
“An authority? What are you talking about, you runt?” Chuck looks questioningly at the rest of the group. I can’t help but shake my head somberly. I then give a big and unqualified shrug of the shoulders.
“Just seems like you’re the expert on posting ads.”
“You little shit.” Chuck gives me a seriously unsavory look.
Tony belches as he speaks. “Look, forget the fucking ad.”
“What about Richard, though?” Burt pushes his plate of fried fish away from him and instead reaches for a strong-looking cup of coffee. “Are we just going to write him off? Like the others?”
Tony takes a long moment, rubs his face with his hands, and then yawns, revealing some fairly gruesome-looking teeth. “I’m looking into it, okay?”
“’Fraid that’s not good enough, Mr. Curtis. We have a right to know what’s going on here.”
“And when I know, I will freakin’ tell you. Okay?”
Tony absentmindedly blows his nose in part of the tablecloth. He finishes, lets the tablecloth drop, and then looks at the anxious faces of the Club members. He plays it calm, keeping whatever clever scheme he has devised under wraps. “Let’s just ease off the throttle. Everyone’s getting a little jumpy.”
“What’d you expect?” Again Chuck reveals more of this previously unknown jittery side of his. “Where have they gone? I mean, someone must know something. We know William was killed, maybe the others were, too.”
I’m starting to wonder if maybe Chuck isn’t a bit of a coward underneath it all.
Tony gives him a dark look. “Listen, worrywarts, I said I’m lookin’ into it.”
Chuck gives a sour look in return and then takes a monumental toke on his cigarette. “Who else knows about this Club? I figure someone musta said something to someone, maybe a friend in passing. That’s what I figure. That someone got wind of these meetings and decided they don’t like it. Not one bit. Someone’s blabbed. Who was it?”
“I’m gonna slap you across the lips if you don’t shut up.” Tony belches this out, then yawns again, and before he closes his mouth he crams half a lettuce from Betty’s plate into it.
Chuck turns away, looks entirely pissed off. “Something ain’t right. Truth is, everything’s starting to stink.”
Chuck’s somber dark words hang in the air for the rest of the evening, and not even Burt Lancaster telling a funny story makes anyone feel any better. The Club is dying, and inside I feel like crying.
Sure, I want to be a hero, but there’s still a big part of me that will forever be the Club.
I catch sight of Betty’s profile. She must be aware of my looking at her because she turns and our eyes meet. We stay that way—looking at each other silently—for what seems like eternity. I am drowning in her gray blue eyes and want never to come up for air.
Later, in the men’s room, I am relieved to relieve myself. The awkward darkening atmosphere of the Club is weighing down on me and giving me a migraine. Tony Curtis walks in, midbelch, and stands right next to me. He is surly, and I know his blood pressure is rocketing.
“Burt’s about as funny as a pulled sphincter muscle.”
I stick to my gambit of immediately agreeing with any viewpoint Tony has.
“Absolutely. He peaked the other night, you ask me.”
Tony lets rip with a hot and hard torrent of urine.
“Of course, you know why he’s not so funny tonight.”
Tony looks across at me, raises a querying eyebrow. I have said this on purpose, because I intend to stay alive despite everything.
“Whyssat?”
“Well, I don’t want to say anything . . .”
“Yeah, you do.” Tony crashes through life in a spectacularly blunt and tactless way. I really admire that about him.
“Well . . . and this is between me and you, okay? But I think we’ve got a rat in the Club.”
The washroom goes deadly quiet. Tony pauses an awful long while before he shakes himself, then zips up. He wipes his hands on the front of his shirt. He looks at me, runs a hand over his mouth and chin as he contemplates words that he himself originated. “A rat, huh?”
“Yeah. A rat.”
Tony looks around suspiciously. He is weighing me up, and I know he is connecting with me.
“You finished?” He motions to the urinal.
“Uh, yeah . . . yeah. . . .” I zip up. I turn and walk past Tony to the sinks. I start washing my hands, all the time feeling his eyes boring into the back of my head.
“And you think this rat is affecting Burt’s performance tonight?”
I look up, and in the washroom mirror I can see Tony looming over me, staring straight into my eyes. I blink, feel the beginnings of an anxiety attack. But I hold it all in as I nod, slowly and quite purposefully. “It has to be.”
“How come?”
I pause, blink again. “Burt is the rat.”
As soon as I’ve said it, I feel a slow release of tension. Five seconds after that, I want to hang myself. The repercussions of what I have just said may well signal the end of me. I have no proof, no FBI pictures, nothing. It’s my word against Burt’s.
Tony remains calm. He then takes two steps over to the cubicles, pushes open one of the doors. He looks at me, starts to belch.
“Step into my office a moment.”
I truly don’t believe I can move a muscle. The cubicle door seems to open into complete darkness, a never-ending night. Tony steps aside to make way for me.
I wish this were on tape and I could press rewind.
Somehow or other, I manage to get my legs to move. I am very stiff, though, labored, and the floor seems to be made of molasses. The cubicle door awaits me, the darkness calls to me, and I know there is no way back.
“Take a seat.” Tony bolts the cubicle door behind us and then turns to face me. The cubicle is half the size I remember it, and his huge, gassy body looms over me, his giant thick head bending forward, his dark, soulless eyes staring deeply into me.
“Go on. Siddown.” Tony lifts a giant foot and knocks the lid down. It bangs har
d behind me, and I realize he wants me to sit on it. I do so and find that even though I’m probably a dead man, I feel just a tad silly.
“You a faggot, Junior?” I don’t know why he asks this; surely it’s obvious to anyone that I’m not. “Coming into the john with a stranger. . . .” He makes a big fist, raises it, and then laughs and knocks my shoulder playfully with his fist. “Joke.”
I laugh my hyena laugh. And this is a star turn. This laugh is so big and enthusiastic and false, even I recoil at the horrendous depths of fawning I am plumbing. But Tony laughs heartily as well, enjoying his joke so much that he farts. I pretend not to hear it but do close my laughing mouth in case I end up eating the fart.
Tony leans back against the bolted cubicle door. “So . . .” He lets the laughter settle.
“So . . . ,” I echo, but not with half as much resonance.
“Burt’s a rat.”
“Total vermin.”
Tony starts to nod, musing to himself. He isn’t smiling now, and all joviality is at an end. “How’d you figure this?”
How indeed? I brace myself, trying hard to think of something. “I uh . . . well . . . it’s kind of a long story.” Or it would be if only I could remember what I’d planned to say.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Come on, Dougie, think.
“It’s like this, Tony. . . . Burt, uh . . . Burt tried to behead me.”
Tony’s eyes widen in surprise; he is momentarily taken aback by this. This wasn’t quite how I’d rehearsed it, but it’ll have to do.
“What?!”
“He tried to cut off my head.”
To my surprise, Tony laughs. “He did? Fuck. This a personal thing?”
I frown. “I don’t follow.”
Tony is as blunt as ever. “It’s just I know how irritatin’ the members find you.” Those bastards. He laughs quite blatantly. “I never knew one guy could fit so many different killers’ victim categories.”
I can feel a red mist descending slowly over me, and all I can think is, I’m going to kill those—
“I don’t think it was personal. He looked to be in a real bloodletting mood. I mean, for chrissakes, I woke up to find him kneeling on my chest with a big ax in his hand.”
Tony studies me. He is curious, suspicious. But I think that if I can just remain calm and levelheaded, I can get through this.
Maybe.
“He was foaming at the mouth . . . saying things, really evil things. I’d never seen so much hatred. I kept asking him, ‘Why? Why are you trying to behead me?’”
“And this is why you think Burt’s a rat?”
“It is kind of a strong indication, isn’t it?”
Tony gives a rippling shrug of his big, flabby shoulders. “How’d he even know where you lived?”
“He obviously followed me. Like he . . . like he followed the, uh . . . the others. . . .” I lick the sweat from my top lip. I lay the palms of my hands firmly on my thighs, pressing them in hard, to try to stop my legs from shaking.
“And what others are these?”
“The, uh . . . the others. You know. The dozen or so Club members that, uh . . . well, that don’t attend anymore.”
Tony studies me, purses his lips. I feel I have to continue, to get the point across.
“You know . . . that, uh . . . that Burt has . . . you know . . . has killed.” I manage to stammer all of this out, but it’s hard to talk when my tongue keeps darting out to lick my top lip.
Tony has a hugely imperious look on his face. “Lemme get this clear. You say Burt’s been killing members of the Club? My Club?”
Tony’s eyes bulge as his anger starts to boil. He lets this question hang in the air. And it hangs around long enough for me to realize that I couldn’t plan a walk in the park.
“Why, June? Why d’ya think Burt’s doing that?”
Did Tony just call me June? As in June for Junior?
“Huh, June?”
Oh Christ.
I really believed Tony’d buy the story straight off. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I can’t do anything but stare dumbly back at Tony.
Quarterback builder, quarterback builder . . .
“C’mon, June. You know something I don’t?”
A tiny little voice somehow scratches its way from between my lips. “He told me . . . he said it outright. ‘I killed the others, Dougie, me, little ole wiry-haired Burt, I did them all.’ It was like a boast. You know how bigheaded Burt can be.”
“He came straight out with it, just like that?”
“Yessir. That’s what the rat said. . . .” I nod, possibly too hard and for too long, but Tony doesn’t seem to notice this.
“So you’re saying Burt Lancaster sat on your chest braggin’ about murderin’ everyone and then damn near gave you a southern haircut?” I nod feverishly. “That doesn’t really fit the killer’s MO, does it?”
I immediately shake my head as hard and as fast as I was previously nodding it. If I’m not careful, my head will fall off.
Then I stop. “It doesn’t?”
“You see, June, I’ve been doin’ some investigatin’ of my own, and it just don’t tie in.”
Where’s Agent Wade when you need him? Why’s he stretched out on my sofa when he could be here arresting Tony?
“Uh . . . tie in to what, exactly?”
Tony doesn’t bother answering, preferring to reenact an interrogation scene instead. “How come he didn’t manage to kill you?”
“I, uh, I fought him off.”
“But he’s here tonight? And so are you. And nothing’s been said. Not even a murmur between you. Whyssat?” Tony is getting real aggressive, playing good cop/bad cop with me. Keeping me on my toes, not allowing for a single moment’s relaxation.
I’m going to blow this, I know it. The quarterback’s just been crushed to death, and the builder is hurtling toward the sidewalk.
“He threatened me. Threatened to cut out my heart if I told anyone,” I say nervously.
Tony isn’t buying this. He frowns at me. “So he’s changed to hearts now?”
“Yeah . . . I guess he has.”
Tony stares into me, straight into me, and I keep getting this stupid rhyme in my head, “Demon Dougie, eyes are buggy.”
“At last . . . now we’re getting somewhere.”
The rhyme starts to fade.
“It’s obvious. . . .”
It is?
“Burt’s gettin’ confused.” Join the club, Burt. “Between his usual MO and his copycat MO. He’s losing it big-time.”
I sit there, dry mouthed, but with at least some color returning. I want to nod, but my neck aches like crazy now. “You know . . . I think you might have something there, Tony.”
“He’s gonna come back for you.”
“I’ve been taking precautions . . . putting extra locks on the door and stuff. Hiding all my work tools.”
“You should’ve told someone, June.”
Does he have to keep calling me that?
“He frightened me, really put the Indian sign on me.”
Tony guffaws, belches, farts, punches my bad arm with his big, bunched-up fist. Can’t he see it’s in a sling for a reason?
“You fag. . . .” Tony seems to revel in my simpering weakness. His whole body wobbles as he gives me a pitying laugh. He punches my arm again, and I wish he’d stop. It hurts.
“Well, well . . . I knew it had to be someone at the Club.”
“You did?”
“Didn’t figure on it being Burt, but there you go, you can’t be right the whole time.”
“So, uh . . . what, uh . . . what do we do now?”
Tony weighs this up for a moment, but I get the impression he has already made up his mind. “I’m gonna lop off his head for you.”
“That’s, uh . . . that’s very decent of you, Tony.”
“I don’t like people messin’ around with the Club, June. One thing guaranteed to make me mad is people fucking my
Club over. It took a hell of a lot of hard labor to get the thing this good.” He punches my arm again and laughs. “Jesus, you fag. . . .” Tony then turns and unbolts the cubicle door. “This’ll be our little secret.”
I nod vigorously, despite the agony of it. Tony stops at the open door to the cubicle and turns back to me with what amounts to a philosophical look.
“I always knew this would happen. Put enough killers in the same room, and sooner or later someone’s gonna get a crazy notion. Cops are the same.”
Tony slopes out of the cubicle. I sit there for a long time, just gathering myself, taking deep breaths while convincing myself that I am one of the most consummate actors of my generation. I start to get this swell in my heart, and a wave of warm euphoria starts to wash over me until I stand up and realize that I have pissed my pants.
It takes a full twenty minutes to dry my pants under the hot-air hand drier, and when I return to the meeting I discover that the Club is packing up. I see Burt chatting with Betty, making her laugh with a joke he’s probably told a hundred times, and then I see Tony pulling on his oilskins, all the time his eyes staring relentlessly at Burt. Chuck Norris is signing seductively to the deaf waitress, and she blushes demurely. Cher squirts a scented spray into her open, cavernous mouth, and James Mason finishes the last of his strong coffee before mumbling something to his dead mother, hearing something in response, and then giggling crazily.
I go over to Tony, and he notices me out of the corner of his eye. He nods imperceptibly to me, attempts to be discreet. “If this turns out to be the real thing, I’ll post Burt’s head to you.”
“Thank you, Tony. Thank you very much.”
“I still think it could be a personal thing. You coulda misheard him while you were panicking your balls off.”
I need to cover myself fully here. “And, uh . . . what if it is?”
Tony looks at me, gives me a big punch on my now badly bruised and near lifeless arm. “I’ll break in and kill you for him. The Club could do with a lift.” He gives a big belching laugh and goes, pausing to give the manager and the headwaiter a real mean look and then barging a customer—“Move it, sheep dip”—out of the way as he opens the front door onto the wild and wet night.
Betty’s laughter breaks my concentration, and I turn to see Burt bend to kiss the back of her hand and then twirl his wrist and hand like a member of British royalty, bidding her, “Fare thee well, my princess,” and I feel so nauseated by the sheer cloying desperation of this that I know for certain the world will be a better place without him.
