He’s at the end of a corridor very much like the one on the sixth floor. At the other end, the hotel lobby. It looks calm. The uniformed police are probably upstairs now, about to discover the bodies he just left behind. He might be able to get out of here with no trouble, get out of here and get to his milk truck and drive away. He can worry about what happens after that once he gets there, because if he doesn’t get there, there won’t be any after that to worry about.
He walks down the corridor, hoping there are no cops at the front.
Nervousness and fear begin to take him over. He was not made for this sort of thing. There are born soldiers, and their home is the battlefield. There are born spies, and their home is Moscow. He’s a born dreamer, and his home is nowhere in this world. He doesn’t know how to tolerate this sort of stress, and though he tries very hard to maintain a placid expression he can feel small muscle twitches on his face and throughout his body. He imagines he must look like a man being electrocuted while simultaneously trying to walk.
He steps into the lobby, barely maintaining control, and looks left to the front door. He can see sunshine. A bellhop standing just inside the door, hand on a rolling cart. A doorman outside. But no cops.
He heads toward sunlight telling himself to just act normal despite the fact he feels jerky and stupid and unnatural. Just stay calm and wear a blank expression. Blank faces are forgettable as unmarked paper.
He’s halfway there. Then he cuts the distance in half again.
He thinks of something he heard once, about a philosopher who supposedly proved it was actually impossible to reach a destination because to do so you must cut the distance there in half, and in half again, and in half again, infinitely, and since there’s no limit to how small the distances can be cut, you arrive nowhere. You end up forever cutting distances in half. He’s always before thought it a bit of ridiculousness, but now he wonders if there isn’t some truth to it. He certainly feels now that he will never reach the door. He must have been walking for several minutes now, for hours, days. It must have been days. The sun must have set and risen again many times by now. His mouth is incredibly dry. How long has it been since he’s had a glass of water? It was only fifty feet from the start, how is he not out yet? How is he not escaped?
How is the door still ten feet away?
Now it’s five.
He’s nearly upon it when the doorman opens the door and a man in a gray suit and a fedora walks in. He’s in his fifties and sweaty but walks with purpose, his glassy eyes on something in the distance, the elevator perhaps. He bumps Eugene’s shoulder, sending Eugene spinning around.
The man stops and catches Eugene by the arm. The gun falls from Eugene’s waistband. He watches it flip end over end on its way down and swipes for it with a sweaty hand but misses.
The man says, ‘Sorry about that, buddy, I-’
The gun hits the floor with a thud and a rattle.
Eugene looks down at it, can’t I catch a single fucking break, and then looks up at the face of the man in the fedora.
His grip tightens on Eugene’s arm.
‘What’s with the weapon, son?’
Eugene pulls away from the man in the fedora, pulls hard, gets his arm out of the grip, though it feels bruised and sore, and rushes the front door. He bangs through it, tripping over the doorman. He falls forward, peeling skin off the palms of his hands as he catches himself on asphalt. Doesn’t even feel it. Doesn’t feel anything. Simply struggles to his feet, glancing over his shoulder to see the man in the fedora pull a revolver of his own from a holster. Sees a police badge clipped to the man’s belt. Then he’s looking forward again, stumbling along, looking for escape, a way to get away.
That’s all he wants in this moment: away.
2
Carl Bachman, in wrinkled gray suit, lies in bed and stares at the ceiling. The ceiling doesn’t stare back. He thinks of his wife and smiles and doesn’t long for her but simply enjoys the mental images. She was so beautiful. Her face was effervescent. When she scrubbed herself free of makeup at night and her skin was pink and clean she was at her most beautiful. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever known.
The mattress beneath him is very comfortable.
The telephone in the hallway rings. It’s probably for Langer.
Harold Langer is a college student who stays in the next room. He’s studying mathematics. Carl’s talked to him some but they don’t have many overlapping interests so their conversations are short and halting things. Still, seems like a good kid. But he’s been seeing a high school girl, a little paper shaker who calls him at least five times a day, and the ringing phone sometimes gets on Carl’s nerves. Now, however, isn’t one of those times. He likes the sound. Like singing. He listens to it ring and ring.
Until Mrs Hoffman picks it up, choking off the sound. He can hear her voice but cannot make out what she’s saying. Then she stops saying anything. A moment later, a knocking sound. It’s very loud in his ears. She must really be pounding on Langer’s door. The pounding goes on and on, nothing like song. He wants to yell, answer the door, Langer, but he also wants not to yell it, and he guesses he wants that more because he says nothing. The ceiling is stained yellow from cigarette smoke.
The banging continues.
Then: ‘Mr Bachman, are you in there?’
The name sounds familiar.
After a while he sits up. ‘Yeah.’
‘Telephone.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
He gets to his feet and looks around the room. He picks up various items — foil, bindle, pen casing — and shoves them into a brown paper bag. He shoves the brown paper bag into his dresser’s top drawer and slides the drawer closed. He walks to the door, unlocks it, and pulls it open. Mrs Hoffman stands on the other side, hands on hips. Looks at him with disapproval.
‘What took you so long to answer?’
‘I was taking a nap.’
‘It’s the middle of the day.’
‘That’s when naps happen. If it’s nighttime you’re just sleeping.’
He walks past her to the telephone stand.
‘Hello?’
Captain Ellis tells him there’s been a report of a murder. A man under LAPD protection might have been killed. No answer in the room, no word from the protecting officer at the scene. Two radio units are already on the way and hotel staff have been told to stay clear. By the way, do you know where Friedman is? We can’t get hold of him.
Carl says it’s Saturday, he’s probably at synagogue, keep trying till you get him. Then he requests the address. Ellis gives him a number on South Grand Avenue and he scribbles it down, hangs up the telephone, tears the paper off the notepad. He walks to the bathroom and splashes water onto his face and looks at himself in the mirror. Some sad-eyed old man with a face like melted wax looks back. He touches the bag under his right eye. It’s tender and hurts when he touches it, stings with pain. He wonders if he accidentally did something to it to make it hurt.
He turns away from the glass, steps into his room and grabs his fedora from the bed, trudges downstairs, walks to his car.
He drives beneath an overcast sky, wondering if there isn’t going to be rain today.
Less than fifteen minutes later he’s stepping from his vehicle, walking past two radio cars toward the Shenefield Hotel, a gray block building on the corner of 5th and Grand, in the heart of the city.
A doorman sees him coming and pulls open the glass door. He gives the guy a nod and makes his way into the lobby. A couch, two chairs, a table with today’s paper on it and an ashtray. At the back of the room, a desk with a bell on it, and a desk clerk flipping through a magazine.
As he walks he bumps into someone, a young man in a white shirt and a black bowtie with tortoiseshell glasses on his face, and sends the poor fellow spinning. He reaches out and grabs the guy by the arm to help steady him.
‘Sorry about that, buddy, I-’
But the sound of something heavy thudding to
the floor cuts him off. He looks down at the carpet and there sees a revolver, a black revolver with a long barrel and a wooden grip. He looks from the revolver to the man standing beside him, the man whose arm is gripped in his fist.
Fear is written across the man’s pale face and guilt flickers in his eyes.
‘What’s with the weapon, son?’
The man yanks away from Carl and runs for the door, pushes through it. He trips over the doorman, hits the ground hard, scrambles back to his feet without slowing down, looks over his shoulder as he runs.
Carl pulls his service revolver, feeling detached from this moment but having some sense that he needs to act, and runs after the guy. He gives chase, shouting stop, goddamn it, and only caring because then he could stop running himself. But the man in the bowtie doesn’t stop. He makes a sharp right turn, pivoting off his left foot, and cuts down an alleyway instead, vanishing behind the brick corner of a building.
About halfway to the alleyway Carl gives up running. He holds his hand to his side and walks quickly, as quickly as he can, breathing hard, feeling dizzy, hating himself. By the time he arrives at the alleyway it’s empty. Of course it is. Murderer isn’t simply going wait for him, oh, I see you’re out of breath, I’ll give you to the count of thirty before I continue.
Trash bins line the alley, giving off the stink of old garbage. At the other end of the alley, an empty street. Then a car rolls by.
‘Fuck,’ he says, and leans for a moment on the brick wall to his left.
Once he has his breath again he walks back toward the hotel. He’s no longer a young man in uniform and is apparently incapable of doing the things he once did. It doesn’t matter. This was not a hoodlum, thug, or gunsel. This was a guy with a job, an address, and square friends who don’t know better than to talk to cops. That was clear by looking at him. Carl will find him, he’ll track him down to his front door and knock.
That’s what he tells himself, anyway.
He hopes he isn’t lying.
3
Eugene’s shoes pound the sidewalk. He feels scared and upset and absolutely drained. He doesn’t know what to do. He had to abandon his milk truck at the scene, and a single phone call to the H.H. White Creamery Company will tell the police that truck number twenty-seven is his. A police detective saw him in his milkman’s uniform with the murder weapon, which even now lies in the hotel lobby, unless it’s already been collected as evidence. And he ran rather than cooperating with the police. Not that he had a choice. They wouldn’t have believed his story. The obvious answer is often the correct answer, it usually is, and it looked like he killed those men upstairs, so he must have. No amount of protest on his part would have changed their minds. And every action he took only worked to smear more red across his hands. What he did seemed right in the moment but he finds it hard to imagine doing anything that would have incriminated him further. But there was no right thing to do in that situation. There was one wrong choice or another wrong choice. That there’s always a right thing to do is a lie you tell to children.
But now what?
The grand-jury investigation is an irrelevancy. For him it is. He’s now wanted for murder, real murder, actual physical murder, his thumb on the hammer spur, his finger on the trigger, and one of the victims was a cop. If the police don’t have his name yet they soon will. His only hope is that it takes them a couple hours to put it all together and get to his place. He wants to gather some clothes as well as a hundred dollars in cash he has folded into a sock.
He hops onto a streetcar at 6th Street and rides it west to Vermont.
In ten minutes he’s back on foot, and back on foot he lights a cigarette and makes his way to New Hampshire. He keeps his eyes on the street, looking for radio cars, wanting to make sure he sees any cops before they have a chance to see him.
He needs to get out of these clothes; they’re too conspicuous.
He walks up the stairs to his apartment, unlocks the front door. The place is empty but he doesn’t know how long he has so he must hurry.
His revolver, which he’s certain he left lying on the dining table, is absent, as he knew it would be. Evelyn. Goddamn it. He knew she was responsible, at least in part, but even so there was a part of him that hoped he’d walk in here and find the revolver where he left it. That would at least have cast some doubt on her involvement.
Stop bellyaching, Eugene. There’s no time for it.
He walks to the bedroom and pulls a cardboard suitcase out from under his bed, the same suitcase he used when moving here from the East Coast. He also finds a locket lying on the floor, a small gold locket with an intricate design etched into it.
With the suitcase in one hand and the locket in the other he gets to his feet. He tosses the suitcase onto the bed, examines the locket. A thin gold chain is strung through it, the chain’s clasp broken. He thumbs a button on the side of the locket and it opens. Inside, a picture of a teenage girl sitting beside her father. She’s in a dress, he’s in a suit and tie. He recognizes her despite the fact the picture is probably more than ten years old. He also recognizes the man, though he’s never seen him in person. He’s seen his scowling image on the front page of several newspapers over the years. A person of interest. Suspected of bribing public officials. Suspected of murder. Connections to the underworld in several major American cities. Then, months later, a different story on page three. No charges filed. Acquitted. Bad information. Lost evidence. Sloppy police work.
James Manning.
The Man.
Eugene would be willing to bet green money on Evelyn’s last name. When she told him she worked for her father she was telling the truth. She simply neglected to mention who her father was. Who he is. And what he is.
He tosses the locket into the suitcase, then piles clothes on top of it, pants and shirts and underwear. He opens his sock drawer, pulls out several pairs, throws them into the suitcase. At the back of the drawer he finds a lone sock folded over itself. He unfolds it and removes ten ten-dollar bills, all the money he has in the world. He sets the money on top of his dresser. He closes the cardboard suitcase, tries to latch it and finds the latch broken. He wraps a belt around it to keep it closed. He changes into a different set of clothes, a pair of khaki pants and a checkered shirt and a cardigan; fresh socks and a pair of casual two-tone shoes. He grabs the money from the dresser and shoves it into his pocket. He lifts the suitcase.
He has a motorcycle parked in the garage, a Harley-Davidson with a two-cylinder panhead engine. He hasn’t touched it in almost a year. Rode it often last summer, then garaged it and forgot about it. The milk truck is always right out front.
He hopes he can get the bike to start. He’s about to find out.
Without knowing where he might go, without knowing what he might do, having no idea what might be in store for him at all, he heads out the front door.
TWENTY-THREE
1
Seymour Markley sits at his desk in his home office, the door shut and locked. He doesn’t want Margaret to walk in on him, as she sometimes does, offering a snack or something to drink. He doesn’t want her to see what he’s looking at, dozens of potential blackmail photographs. He’s amazed by how many there are. But it makes sense. None of the men in these pictures would dare speak up about being blackmailed. If they did they’d have to reveal why they were blackmailed, and if they were willing to do that they couldn’t have been blackmailed in the first place. The numbers added up because no one would reveal himself as a whoremonger.
Seymour faces the same shameful problem. He’d like to use these pictures to some political advantage, but doesn’t want anyone to know he too was photographed.
Of course that evidence is bubbled black film in a trash bin now, and while some of these men might suspect something, he learned many years ago that suspicion isn’t evidence. It isn’t even close.
So how does he best use these pictures to his advantage? He doesn’t want to blackmail anyone. He wants these men on
his side. He wants these men in his corner come a political fight.
Perhaps the best move is to simply hand the pictures over to their subjects and suggest they remember the favor. But some of them might not even know the pictures exist. In fact, it’s certain. The pictures Vivian and her cuckold husband had of him were from over a year ago. They held onto them until they were useful. They were patient. Some of these men with whom he has old rivalries might even assume he hired someone to get the pictures himself, and that would only serve to make them mistrust him further. It could convince them that he should be buried, and there are those among them who could bury him.
So he’ll be careful. He’ll only give the pictures to those already on his side. He’ll put them in envelopes and hand them over and say, thought you might want these back. If the fellow responsible for them has been bothering you, that’s finished now. If not, I saved you some serious trouble. The rest of the pictures, he’ll hold on to.
In most cases he’ll ask for nothing in return, not until he needs help.
But there are a few people he needs favors from immediately. He believes he’ll start with Woodrow Selby at Monocle Pictures. He’ll hand the photographs to Selby and mention that he’s seen this background actor Leland Jones in several of his Western pictures. He’ll say he doesn’t like to recognize background actors, it pulls him right out of the action. He’ll ask Selby if he doesn’t find it distracting as well.
The telephone on his desk rings. He jumps, feeling guilty, grabs a handful of photographs and throws them into the box, then realizes how absurd that is and lets the others remain where they lie, spread out across his desk.
He picks up the telephone.
‘Hello.’
‘Seymour. It’s Bill.’
There are only a few reasons Bill Parker would be calling Seymour on a Saturday evening, none of them good. He and the chief of police have a fine professional relationship, but that’s the only relationship they have. They’ve not spoken a dozen words to one another outside the context of work.
The Last Tomorrow Page 17
