So damned close this time.
Chapter Fifteen
Just before five o'clock, my phone rang. The receptionist said, "There's a man on line four for you."
"A man?"
"I'm sorry, Robert. He wouldn't give me his name."
"Thanks, Doris."
I picked up.
"Payne?"
"Yes."
"This is Tommy."
He sounded pissed. "Yeah, Tommy. From the mo-tel. The Palms."
"Oh, right. What can I do for you, Tommy?"
"You know those gift books the Grant Cafeterias give out?"
Grant Cafeterias were a big Midwestern chain. Good food, though of the old style, lots of heavy gravy and sugarcoating.
"You bring me one of them gift books, and I'll tell you something you'll want to hear."
"Giving you money would be a bribe, but this—"
"—is just a gift."
"Right," I said. I smiled to myself. Circumstances or fate had forced Tommy to scuttle across the floor of our silent social seas. He'd learned how to be shrewd.
"So I give you a gift book and—"
"—I give you information. It's called barter."
"Yeah, I guess that is what it's called, isn't it?"
"I'll be here for another hour and a half, you want to come over."
There was a Grant's on the same side of town as the Palms Motel so I stopped there. They had two gift book prices, $25 and $50. Grant's didn't sell booze, so Hubbard wasn't going to drink it up. And they didn't sell drugs, so he wasn't going to drug it up. And you could purchase the kind of gift book that you couldn't hand in for cash. He was going to have a few healthy meals. I bought him the $50 book.
The voices of newscasters drifted from every open motel window. Meal-time. Battered cars and battered people hunkered down for whatever repast the begrudging gods had laid on for them, this particular evening.
Late afternoon sunlight cast the Palms into long, deep shadows that actually made the place look a lot better.
I knocked on Tommy's door less than half an hour after he'd called.
The clothes were probably Salvation Army but it was the intent of them that moved me. He was all dressed up, Tommy was. Sport coat, slacks, white shirt, necktie. That all these clothes were a few eras out of date didn't matter. Nor did their slightly rumpled condition.
Tommy was all dressed up and he was going to take his Grant's gift book and have himself a good meal.
"Here you go," I said, and handed him the certificate book. We were having our usual meeting in his doorway. Apparently, Tommy had never heard of inviting people into your room.
He fanned the certificates the way he would have fanned a wad of money.
"You got the fifty-dollar one," he said. "That's damned nice of you."
I get sentimental. I can't help it. Poor old bastard struggling along and barely making it and then a bit of luck falls into his hands. It's nice to think there are at least a few happy endings in this life of ours.
"So," I said, "you're all dressed up to go and use your Grant's certificate book, huh?"
"This, you mean?" he said, pointing with his right hand to the book in his left.
"Yeah."
"Nah. I'll save this for a special occasion. I've got a meeting to go to right now."
"Oh yeah, a meeting?"
"Yeah. I belong to the Midnight Rangers."
I saw the humor in it but somehow I didn't feel like laughing. Here I'd been thinking I was helping some nice old guy out with some food certificates, but—
But.
The Midnight Rangers were one of the new fascist groups we're getting out here on the prairies. They hate, in no special order, Jews, blacks, gays, feminists, and liberals of all stripes. Their local heroes are two guys who doused a black man with gasoline and then set him on fire. Despite a lot of evidence to the contrary — including the victim's identification of the two men — the Rangers insist that their buddies were framed by the Jews.
Tommy smirked. "Take it you don't like the Rangers, huh?"
"Most of them are just thugs and grifters."
The eyes sparkled with malice. "Well, you better get used to us because we're gonna be here for a long time. The white man needs to take his country back."
I wanted to punch the bastard. And then I wanted to punch myself for being so naive about people.
Nice old man.
A good solid Midwestern meal in his good solid Midwestern belly.
And then he turns out to be a creep of the worst kind. "So what did you want to tell me?" I said.
"About the guy I seen leaving his room the other night."
"His being—"
"—that priest who got killed. I seen him on TV this afternoon."
"The priest?"
"No, the guy."
"The one leaving his room?"
"Yeah."
"Can you describe him?"
"Hell, I can give you his name."
"Really?"
"Yep. Bob Wilson. He was on the news with this other priest. I saw you talking to him yesterday when you first came out here."
"Other priest? Monsignor Gray?"
"Right. Monsignor Gray. This Wilson guy was with him on television. And he was here that night."
"You're absolutely sure it was Wilson?"
"Absolutely."
I thought of my conversation with Ellie Wilson. I'd had the sense that there was a lot she hadn't told me. Now Tommy here had put her husband in Father Daly's motel room.
"You'd be willing to tell the police this?"
He shook his head. "No way. No cops. That'd bring those bastards down on the Rangers and I wouldn't want to do it to those boys. They're my friends."
"How did you happen to see Wilson leaving Father Daly's room? It was pretty late."
"Can't sleep lately. We're talking about buying an old house and fixing it up so the Rangers can have a kind of permanent place."
"I don't understand what that has to do with your being up so late."
"Excitement. I was just smokin' a cigarette in the doorway here, the way I sometimes do when I want to get a breeze, and I seen this man leavin' the room."
"He see you?"
"Don't think so. He went the opposite direction."
"And you don't have any doubts it was Wilson?"
"No doubts at all."
He tapped the gift book.
"If I didn't have that Rangers meeting, I'd go right to Grant's now and have me some of their pecan pie. You ever have their pecan pie?"
"Guess not."
"Great stuff." Then: "You shoulda seen your face when I told you I was a Ranger. That's how most people look when they find out."
He snorted and grinned. "They hate our guts, all those niggers and fags and kikes, and we like it just fine."
He wanted to rile me but I wasn't going to give him the pleasure.
"You take care of yourself now, Mr. Payne," he said, his voice exultant. He was a canny old bastard and he figured he'd just put one over on the rube who'd given him the food certificate book.
The hell of it was, he had just put one over on me. Sometimes I really was a rube, the proverbial small-town Iowan. It's just part of my nature by now, I guess.
I started across town but then stopped and turned. I just kept seeing Felice's face. I'd never seen her this angry or disappointed in me.
When I opened up my apartment door, I stepped into a very dark room. The only light came from far down the hall near the bathroom.
As I drew closer, I heard Vic say, "I can't say he's wrong, Felice. His dad was a real good guy. Played baseball with him and took him camping and fishing all the time. You know, stuff like that."
"We're not all alike, Vic. It wasn't your fault you weren't the outdoorsy type."
"Oh hell, Felice, I wasn't any kind of a father to him at all. All I ever did was hang around the house and drink martinis with my drunken advertising friends. He really hated them, Robert did, and I
suppose they were pretty bad people. Mostly drunks, I guess."
By now, I was at the door to the room and could see what was going on.
Vic was packing his suitcase.
He saw me before she did. "Hey, Robert, how's it going?" This was the hearty, social Vic. Or that's what he was trying to be. He didn't sound real hearty or social at the moment. "Hi, Felice," I said.
She looked at me but didn't speak. The rage was gone from her eyes but now there was just a sorrow that was a whole lot worse to see.
"Packing up, huh?" I said stupidly.
"Yep. Packing up," Vic said. "That nursing home of yours has a waiting list a mile long, but I found another place. A hospice. They said they could take me the day after tomorrow."
"I hope it's a nice place, Vic," I said, speaking more gently to him than I probably ever had before.
"Yeah. I made a couple of calls tonight," he said, dropping a pair of balled-up socks in the open suitcase on the bed. "Asked a few of my friends what they thought of the place. They said it was real nice, and that I was real lucky."
He was coiling up a belt when he stopped suddenly and said, "You think I could talk to you a minute, Robert?"
I looked at Felice. "Uh, sure, Vic."
"I'd appreciate it."
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek and then walked out of the room. She didn't once glance at me. She closed the door behind her.
He stood by the open suitcase and said, "I'm not worth a damn at saying stuff like this."
He looked at me directly. "I just want to thank you, Robert."
Thank me? I thought. I'm throwing you out and you're thanking me?
"I know this is going to take a lot of money, you putting me in the home and everything and I just wanted to say—"
Then he choked up, shaky tears in his voice and eyes, and then he started hacking.
"Just give me a minute," he said between coughing spells.
I wanted to feel sorry for him but I couldn't. Every time I saw him I was fifteen years old again, and he was stealing my mother from me, and dishonoring my father's name. Vic and Mom, Mom and Vic, it was as if my dad had never existed. Mom and Vic, Vic and Mom, always hanging out with those advertising people, and rushing off to parties and awards banquets and more parties. Mom and Vic, Vic and Mom.
Finally, the coughing got so bad that he had to sit down on the edge of the bed.
When the spasm was over, he said, "I hope you don't hate me as much as you used to."
"Oh hell, Vic, listen—"
He held up a hand. "I want to tell you one thing before I start coughing again, Robert."
He was panting now, breathless, but he gathered himself and said, "Your mother was the love of my life. She really was. But I always knew that she'd never love me as much as she had your father. I guess that's why I always tried to make sure that we had plenty of booze and parties and noisy friends in our life. So she wouldn't have time to realize that I could never live up to your father's memory."
"Look, Vic—"
He held up his hand again, started to cough, swallowed it down. "And in the process of keeping your mother busy all the time, I fell down on the job of being your stepfather. I didn't pay any attention to you and I realize now how wrong that was." The tears were back in his eyes and voice again. "I always thought you were a pretty good kid, Robert."
He started crying then, an old dying man, a man that I'd happened to know for all but fourteen years of my life, an utter stranger.
"Thanks for paying for the hospice, Robert," he said, trying to snuffle up his tears and dry his eyes. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate it."
"You don't owe me any thanks, Vic. You really don't." I made a show of glancing at my wrist-watch. "Guess I need to get back at it."
Some more snuffling, and he said: "You're a damned good man, Robert. You really are." Then: "You know what you could do for me sometime?"
"What's that?"
"Take me up in that bi-plane of yours."
She was in the kitchen making two cups of de-caf tea.
I came up behind her, took her slender shoulders, but she shrugged me off.
"For what it's worth," I said, "we had a very nice talk in there. Probably the best talk we've ever had in our lives. He's very grateful that I'm paying for the hospice."
She carried the whistling kettle over to the two cups she'd set out on the counter.
"It's not an act of generosity," she said. "It's an act of selfishness."
"I'm really not up for this shit."
"Well, I guess I'm really not up for your shit either, Robert."
She fixed me with her lovely blue eyes. "You're not who I thought you were, I guess."
"I'm going now."
"Good."
"I don't have to justify myself to him. Or you, for that matter."
"You're right," she said. "You don't need to justify yourself to either of us."
"I didn't ask him to come here."
"I realize that, Robert."
She set about putting lemon slices and sugar cubes on the saucers.
"I just want to say one thing to you, one thing I've learned for myself."
"All right." I tried to sound like I was real interested.
"You're never going to be an adult, Robert, until you've accepted him and forgiven him. He's not a perfect human being but neither are you. He did love your mother. And even you've told me that he took very good care of her. And he understood that he would always be second-best in her eyes, and he accepted that and made his peace with it. He probably was a bad stepfather, but were you the perfect stepson? You were so wrapped up in your anger over your father that you didn't even try to accept him. So you weren't perfect, either, Robert. You weren't perfect, either."
She had the cups of tea ready to go.
"I just want you to think about that Robert."
I felt confused and lonely, and terribly sorry for myself.
I tried to kiss her but she moved away just in time to avoid me.
"I'd better get these in there before they get cold," she said.
Chapter Sixteen
The Wilsons lived in an expensive area of the city, in a formidable house of glass and brick with strong linear roof lines and three balconies. By now, I had my headlights on and all the time I was angling my way up the steep curving asphalt drive, I sensed eyes upon me. Probably somebody peering out from one of those wide but cunningly concealed balconies.
A new Mercedes Benz four-door sedan and a two-door BMW were parked outside the attached three-stall garage.
Twilight had turned the sky a purple color that I always associate with the Nevada desert. Birds cried intense and lonely songs in the hardwood windbreak on the west side of the house.
As I walked up to the door, I breathed in some of the expensive air. It smelled and tasted fresh.
Ellie Wilson opened the door. "Mr. Payne. I'm surprised to see you."
"I'd like to talk to Bob, if that's possible."
"Why, of course. But it probably would've been better if you'd called ahead. He's on the phone long-distance with his brother right now. Sometimes they talk for more than an hour. One time they talked two hours."
If she was nervous about me meeting Bob, she hid it well. She was dressed in a tailored black and white hound’s-tooth suit. Her blonde hair was swept back into a loose chignon. The effect of the hairstyle emphasized her long and elegant neck, and the fine classical bones of her face. The suit made me wonder if she was just getting in, or going out.
"Why don't I get you something to drink," she said, "and then I'll let Bob know you're here."
She stood back to let me into the house. "I should apologize for the scene at the restaurant."
"Thank you - but it really wasn't your fault."
"Are you here to talk more about Father Daly?"
"Yes."
"I just hope we can get this wrapped up soon. It's already hurting the fund-raising, according to Bob. He had lunch at
his country club this afternoon and several of the men there said they'd rather hold the checks they pledged. They want to see where this all leads."
"Where it leads?"
"You know, if there is some kind of scandal involved."
I shrugged. "A priest being found murdered in a motel room is already something of a scandal, I'd think."
We talked as she guided me through the house. The foyer led to a step-down living room with a dramatic sloped ceiling, a huge fireplace and three sliding glass doors. The air was even more expensive inside than it had been outside.
I sat in a leather armchair near the darkened fireplace.
"A beer for you, or a drink?"
"Diet Pepsi if you've got it."
She laughed. "Don't let my husband hear you say that. He doesn't trust people who don't drink. He says that they have something to hide and that they're afraid it'll come out."
"I'll still take a Diet Pepsi."
Losing points with Bob Wilson didn't exactly intimidate me.
She started to walk away and I said, "You never did explain how your earring got in Father Daly's room the other night."
"No," she said, looking at me bluntly. "I guess I never did, did I?"
She turned and walked out of the room.
I felt sell-conscious sitting in the armchair so I got up and walked around. The sunken living room was like a gladiatorial pit, the weapons of choice being the innuendo and insult and smirk favored by the country clubbers Ellie had mentioned earlier. Their weapons were every bit as deadly as the spears and knives and hand-axes favored by the Roman gladiators.
There was an antique table in one corner, covered with family photographs.
There were five Wilsons: Bob, Ellie and two girls and a boy. The kids all looked healthy and sane. Bob managed to swagger even while he was standing still to pose. All of Ellie's photos depicted a woman with a distinct air of melancholy about her. The most intriguing photo showed a sweet-faced Ellie at age five or six, two of her front teeth gone, being held up in the arms of a slight, handsome man in a DX service station uniform.
"That's my father," she said from behind me, "on the happiest day of his life. He came back from the Korean War with a badly fractured leg and nightmares about how he'd been tortured as a prisoner of war. He hadn't finished high school so his options were limited. He spent fifteen years working in gas stations owned by other people. Then on his fortieth birthday, he opened his own station. That's the photo you're looking at."
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