Thin Walls: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  I USED THE PHONE in the living room to call for help. I requested an ambulance as well as the police, even though I knew the ambulance wasn’t necessary. Part of me wanted to be wrong, to have misjudged with that simple look in that dismal room what my heart knew to be true.

  Everything seemed to take a long time. I waited with her, wishing she hadn’t been alone in the end. Wishing that her sister and I had remembered to call the day before. Wishing that I had listened more closely on Monday when I’d visited her in the hospital.

  The ambulance arrived first. The attendants came in the open door. They didn’t look around the apartment, as I had—not a single glance. Instead, they went straight into the bedroom, and knew without touching her that she was gone.

  They treated me like a friend who had been too blinded by grief to realize she wasn’t breathing any more. They didn’t even seem to notice that I had done nothing to revive her. They used the radio to request police presence again, and this time, it came within minutes.

  The patrolmen might have seen this as a drug-related hippie death, despite her sutures, if I hadn’t told them about the attack on her the weekend before. She still had the hospital bracelet on her right wrist, giving credence to my story, and most of the pills had come from the hospital pharmacy.

  I didn’t tell them my role the Sunday before. In fact, I told them little about myself, except that I had spoken to her sister because I was worried about her, and got even more concerned when I realized that she had lied to both of us about who was going to care for her. I gave the police Kit Young’s phone number in Detroit.

  They didn’t ask for my phone number or my full name, and I gave neither. If someone figured out later who I was, then fine. I would say I’d forgotten to give them my name because I had been in shock.

  After the questioning was done, I asked if I was needed any longer. One of the cops said I wasn’t, and promised to call me if they had any more questions, apparently not realizing they didn’t really know who I was.

  I stepped into the hallway, saw Elaine’s neighbors—college students mostly—staring into the apartment as if they could understand what was going on. I didn’t look at any of them as I walked down the stairs and exited the building into the growing darkness.

  * * *

  I didn’t say anything when I got back, but I must have seemed shaken. Marvella didn’t try to cheer me up. She didn’t even flirt.

  The apartment smelled of roast pork and fresh biscuits. Sweet potatoes steamed on the table and green beans were boiling on the stove. Jimmy was watching the news on television, the sound turned up so that Marvella could hear.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked me as I closed the door.

  Of course it wasn’t. But I didn’t know how to tell her what had happened. I wasn’t certain how to deal with it myself.

  “It was what I expected,” I said and heard the defeat in my own words. I had known it deep down from the moment I realized that Elaine wasn’t with her sister. Maybe I had even known it sooner.

  What was my responsibility to a woman I had met only three times? I had thought she would be well taken care of, but if I had known her family situation, perhaps I would have made other choices. I hadn’t, and I felt guilty, even though when I looked at this logically, I doubted I could have prevented her suicide.

  Elaine Young had been determined to kill herself—perhaps from the moment in the ambulance when she stared at Saul Epstein and wondered if he would live. She had been an intelligent woman, and she had used all of that intelligence to guarantee her own success. There wasn’t even a phone in her bedroom. Once she had taken all the drugs she’d been given and chased them down with Scotch, she couldn’t have called for help if she wanted to.

  “Smoke?” Jimmy twisted on the couch, his arms resting on its back so he could face me. “What happened?”

  For a moment, I debated telling him. Then I remembered what Althea had said to me, that Jimmy was afraid I would die. He didn’t need to know how closely death had touched us yet again.

  “Tough day,” I said. Then I made myself smile at Marvella. “Sure smells good. You didn’t have to do this, you know.”

  She smiled back. “Yes, I did. I don’t get the chance to cook for people very often. Go clean up. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

  The situation seemed oddly surreal to me as I walked to the bathroom. For perhaps the first time in my life, my homecoming mimicked the ideal American one—I came home from my demanding job to find a beautiful woman cooking a sumptuous meal in my kitchen, and a bright, good-looking child interested in what happened in my life. It was a Norman Rockwell moment, if you didn’t look at what was underneath it.

  I came back out to find the table set, the television off, and Jimmy already in his chair. I joined him, and Marvella put gravy-covered pork slices on the table, followed by a bowl of green beans.

  I had no stomach for food, but I ate anyway. To refuse would have been churlish, and would have called attention to my mood. Marvella carried the conversation, although I tried. Jimmy watched me from the corner of his eyes, as if he were trying to figure out exactly what I wouldn’t tell him.

  * * *

  Jimmy went to bed without a fuss. Marvella left after she finished the dishes—she insisted on cleaning up her own mess. When I told her I didn’t know how to repay her, she finally flashed her flirtatious grin.

  “I’ll think of something,” she said, but her heart wasn’t in it, and she left quietly, telling me that I could ask for her help at any time.

  Her departure left a gloomy apartment, and I was restless. The familiar opening chords to Dragnet ’68 sounded on the television and I shut it off, not wanting to watch the supposed heroics of white cops in the big city.

  Finally, I picked up the phone. I didn’t call Kit Young; I couldn’t face that conversation. Instead, I made one that was, in some ways, even harder.

  I called Ruth Weisman.

  It was after visiting hours had ended at the hospital, so I knew she would be home. She answered on the second ring, sounding breathless and worried.

  I introduced myself and she calmed immediately. She was probably still on edge, worrying about her grandson.

  “I have bad news,” I said, “and I thought I’d better tell you in case it airs on television tonight.”

  “The police didn’t let those hoodlums out, did they?” she asked with such ferocity that I could see her again, hunting rifle in hand, her eyes wild.

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “In some ways, this is worse. You might want to sit down.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Elaine Young,” I said. “She killed herself today.”

  “What?” Mrs. Weisman breathed the word, long and empty, her voice filled with disbelief. “She was such a vibrant girl. Are you sure she did it to herself?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I’m the one who found the body.”

  I didn’t want to describe it to her, and to my relief, she didn’t ask any more questions.

  “This will destroy Saul.”

  “I thought it might hurt him,” I said. “You might want to call the hospital and make sure he isn’t listening to the news. I doubt the death of a black woman will make the local channels, but sometimes they surprise me. If we count on their lack of coverage, they’ll break the story tonight.”

  “Yes, I’ll call,” she said, and I thought she was going to hang up. Instead, she said, “Mr. Grimshaw?”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “Will there be a service?”

  I hadn’t even thought about it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to attend a memorial. “I don’t know,” I said. “I can find out for you.”

  “I’m sure I can find out that information myself,” she said. “It’s just that—Saul loved her so. If I tell him, he’ll be devastated, and if I don’t tell him, he’ll be angry when he finds out, especially if he missed the service.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Mrs.
Weisman.”

  “Of course.” She paused, then changed direction. “What about you, Mr. Grimshaw? Certainly this can’t be easy for you.”

  Her concern touched me. Every once in a while things seemed so bleak to me, and then someone like Mrs. Weisman—or even Marvella, with her marvelous dinner—would remind me that there was compassion in this world after all.

  “It’s not easy,” I said. “But I’m okay. I just wanted to make sure that you and Saul would be, too.”

  “We’ll get through this,” she said. “No matter what. I promise you that.”

  EIGHTEEN

  I DIDN’T EVEN TRY to go to bed. I knew if I closed my eyes, I would see that stitches-covered body naked on the bed, hear Elaine’s voice saying I wish I could see Saul before I go. I want to apologize. I had thought she wanted to apologize for not seeing the attack coming. Now I was wondering if she wanted to apologize for leaving him for good.

  I was sitting on the couch, the Defender open on my lap and the television playing an old movie that I only had on for noise. I was trying to read an editorial on Black Christmas, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around the words.

  Awake or asleep, I was haunted by Elaine.

  I might have dozed off. The television was playing a test pattern when I heard the front door to the apartment building slam open and someone shout my name. At first, I thought I was dreaming, but then the shout came again:

  “Grimshaaaaaaw!”

  It was a man with a voice I recognized, but couldn’t place. Footsteps sounded against the stairs, loud in the late-night silence, and my name got shouted again.

  “Grimshaaaaaw!”

  I set down the paper and went to the door, opening it just a crack to peer through. Sinkovich was on the stairs, swaying, his face red. He was wearing a T-shirt not suited to the cold, a pair of blue jeans, and sneakers.

  “There you are, you holier-than-thou son of a bitch!” He pointed at me, still shouting. “I hope you’re fucking proud of yourself.”

  “Shut up, Jack. It’s the middle of the night.”

  “What’re you going to do? Call the cops?” He laughed at his own joke, but I didn’t find it funny.

  “What do you want, Sinkovich?”

  He pointed at me again, the movement uncertain. He was drunk. I could smell him even at a distance.

  “I figure you owe me,” he said loudly. “It’s all your fault anyway.”

  “I don’t owe you anything, Sinkovich.”

  “Sure you do. I listened to your piece of shit advice, and now look at me. I don’t even got a fucking shirt.” He started up the stairs, slipped and nearly fell, catching himself at the last moment.

  “Go home, Sinkovich.”

  “I would if I could.” He laughed again. “Like a stinking Dr. Seuss book. I would if I could but I can’t so I shan’t.”

  His laughter had become raucous and obnoxious. A door opened upstairs. “What’s going on?” someone shouted.

  “Nothing!” Sinkovich shouted back. “Just some drunk in the hall. We’ll get rid of him.”

  Then he looked at me and said softly, “Right, Grimshaw?”

  I was always conscious of the burden my work put on my neighbors. Strangers coming in and out, occasional problems like the one with the notes. The last thing I needed was to get on my neighbors’ nerves.

  I held the door open. “Get in here.”

  Sinkovich didn’t have to be asked twice. He hurried up the stairs, swaying as he moved, but not falling like I expected, then belched as he came through the door. Beer. Lots of it, and something with onions as well.

  I closed the door behind him. “Now tell me quietly what’s going on. I’ve got a sleeping kid in the back room.”

  “I got a sleeping kid too, like anybody cares.” Sinkovich opened my refrigerator, the light making his face look sickly green. “Just like I thought. You’re not a real American, Grimshaw. No beer. You got any booze?”

  I did, but I wasn’t about to give it to him. “You don’t need any more.”

  “You never need booze,” he said, giving me a lopsided grin. “But you want it. And this is one of those times I want it.”

  He grabbed a piece of pork off the tinfoil-covered plate Marvella had put in the refrigerator, then let the door close. He chewed with his mouth open as he sank into one of my kitchen chairs.

  “So, you got a guest room?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s your fault. I can’t go home. None of my friends is talking to me. My mom says I’m a disgrace to the family, and my wife, well, she says she always knew I was a nigger-loving bastard.”

  I winced.

  “Neighbors, now they don’t like me much neither, considering a whole lot of them paid bail this afternoon. The judge said he understood the frustration, but he said arson ain’t the answer.”

  The picture was becoming clearer now. “Did they burn down the house?”

  “Damn near.” He leaned the chair back on two legs. I had the sense he wasn’t as drunk as he was pretending to be. “I figured the best way to get them was to catch them in the act. So I knew when it was coming down, and I got there, saw some folks with gasoline cans, and called for backup. It arrived soon enough, but everyone still knew I was the one who ratted on them. Makes me the most popular person in the neighborhood, next to that nice Negro family that nearly got burnt out.”

  “Smokey?” Jimmy came out of the bedroom, rubbing his eyes with his fist. When he saw Sinkovich, he frowned. “What do you want?”

  “You ever teach that kid to respect his elders?” Sinkovich asked me.

  “He’s not real fond of white people,” I said.

  “Well, well, well. Bigotry runs both ways,” Sinkovich said.

  “Go back to bed, Jim,” I said. “Officer Sinkovich was just leaving.”

  “You’re throwing a homeless man on the street?” Sinkovich asked.

  “You’ve got a home,” I said.

  “My wife changed the locks.” He kept rocking on the chair. The legs groaned. “Which is a real fu—” he glanced at Jimmy “—friggin’ piece of work if you ask me since the house has been in my family, not hers. So I call her and beg her to let me in. She says her folks are coming for her and my son on Sunday, and until then, I can go sleep with the—well, you know.”

  “So you thought you’d take her up on that.”

  He slammed the chair down on all four legs. “No, actually. I thought maybe you’d understand. I saved some lives last night, whether or not anyone cares.”

  Which was more than I had done.

  Jimmy was watching me. I sighed. “Does the family know what nearly happened to them?”

  “They know. I talked to them. They can’t move. They can’t afford it. They’re locked in. Dumb Polack that I am, I promised to help ’em if they had any more trouble. I was feeling magnanimous, don’t you know?”

  I did know, very well. “Do you think they’re going to be attacked again?”

  “Not by nothing illegal. The judge set normal bail for arson on these folks. Then he pulls me aside and says that next time I should maybe just, you know, tell people this ain’t done, because my actions left him no choice but to do this by the book—as if what they all done was my fault, not theirs. Then he says I’m damn lucky none of them had a precinct captain or an alderman in their pocket, because I’d be out of a job for arresting decent people that way. Decent people.”

  He snorted, then wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Decent people. You know, I’m beginning to think the definition of decent people ain’t what I was raised to think it was. Because to me, decent people is the people who have a nice house that they’re real happy with who don’t bother nobody and go about their business, not people who try to friggin burn out their neighbors. And then I’m the one who gets punished for it. I told my wife, the b—”

  He glanced at Jimmy again.

  “Jim,” I said, “could you get some sheets and a blanket for Officer Sinkovich? I th
ink he’s staying the night.”

  “Thanks, sport,” he said to Jimmy and winked. Jimmy rolled his eyes at me and headed down the hall.

  “I told my wife,” Sinkovich said, softer now that Jimmy wasn’t in the room, “that decent people do nice things. She’s a Christian lady, so she thinks. She goes to mass. She tithes ten percent whether we can afford it or not, and the things she said to me about what I done, it was as if I was the devil incarnate. Which she’s been thinking anyway because I been thinking, too, doing some reading. Wondering if things ain’t quite so simple, you know. And she hates it. She says I ain’t the guy she married. But she married a cop. Which is, by definition, I think, a guy who believes in right and wrong and doing things by the book. Not that most guys think that way.”

  He patted his T-shirt, then burped again. “What a friggin time to quit smoking. Got a cigarette?”

  “No,” I said.

  Jimmy came back, carrying sheets, a blanket, and a racecar pillow from his bed. He set them on the couch, then crossed his arms and looked at Sinkovich. “How come you think I’m a bigot, Mister?”

  “I didn’t say that, sport.”

  “Yes you did.”

  “Your dad said you don’t like white people.”

  Jimmy looked at me. “He just said that to make you mad.”

  Sinkovich raised his eyebrows. “Kid’s got your number.”

  “He’ll have yours inside of an hour too,” I said.

  “I don’t know a lot of white people,” Jimmy said, apparently stung by Sinkovich’s remark. “But I know one who’s the best person in the whole world.”

  “Really, sport? Who’s that?”

  “Laura Hathaway.”

  Sinkovich laughed. “Yeah, like you hang out in those circles, kid.”

  Jimmy just stared at him. After a few seconds, Sinkovich’s smile faded.

  “You really know Laura Hathaway, of the Gold Coast Hathaways? Dame who changed her name back to Hathaway when she gets divorced because that name has more clout than Godzuki or whatever the hell her husband’s name was?” he said.