Michael Lister - Soldier 01 - The Big Goodbye

by Michael Lister

  “Jimmy,” Pete said. “Get in the car.”

  I took a breath and tried to calm myself.

  The two men in the car looked like complete opposites. Pete, with his bright, clear blue eyes, had a face that was boyish and open. Butch, his dark eyes hooded and wary, had a face with a hard history etched into it.

  “What’s with all the orders, boys?”

  “There’s two ways we can do this,” Butch said.

  “Yeah?” I said. “Can I guess what they are?”

  “Jimmy, it’s me, Pete, your old partner,” he said. “Just trust me and get in the car.”

  I got in the backseat.

  “What’s going on, Pete?” I asked.

  Butch said, “You tell us.”

  “What are you mixed up in, Jimmy?” Pete asked.

  “Not much at the moment,” I said. “I’m—”

  “Why’d you kill her?” Butch asked.

  My heart seemed to stop beating, my suddenly cold blood standing still inside my veins. Lauren’s dead and they think I killed her.

  “Hey Pete,” Butch said, “your old partner don’t look so good, does he?”

  “Take it easy, Butch,” Pete said.

  “You better not throw up in our car,” Butch said.

  I calmed myself, focusing my attention on the anger I felt at Butch, determined not to let him rattle me.

  “Who’d I kill this time?” I asked. “I forget.”

  “Come on, Jimmy,” Pete said, “don’t be sore. We’re just doing our jobs.”

  “Who’s dead?” I asked, my voice flat, demanding.

  “As if you don’t know, you sick fuck,” Butch said.

  “Margie Lehane,” Pete said.

  “Yeah,” Butch said, “and we found your card inside her pussy.”

  Like Margie herself, her place had been ravaged. Her killer had obviously been searching for something. Every room in the house had drawers open, their contents spilling out, overturned furniture, ripped and torn pillows, cushions, and mattresses, emptied closets, and opened books.

  “Wonder if he found what he was looking for?” I asked.

  “You tell us,” Butch said.

  The livingroom was like all the others, except that joining the other items on the floor was the naked body of Margie Lehane. She had been beaten, but good, especially her face, which was unrecognizable. Her beauty-shop blonde hair had blood-red highlights, two of her teeth had been knocked out, and judging from the positions they were in, at least one of her arms and one of her legs was broken. Her blue gown and housecoat were still draped over the arm of the davenport. One of her mules was still partially on her foot, the other on the floor about a yard away.

  Her phonograph was still on. It was playing Tommy Dorsey’s “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You.”

  As I stood there taking everything in, Butch came up beside me.

  “You must have ice water in your veins,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “How can you just stand there admiring your handiwork without it bothering you the least little bit?” he asked. “How could you even do that to a dame in the first place? I mean that Freddy faggot was one thing, but how could you do this to her?”

  I nodded. “That’s a good question,” I said. “How could I?”

  At first he didn’t get what I meant, but a moment later, his eyes widened slightly in comprehension.

  “How could a guy with one arm—not his good arm at that—do all this?” I held up my left hand, made a fist and showed it to him. “Where’s the blood, or bruising, or at least swelling?”

  “Who’s helping you?” he asked. “He’s turnin’ on you, stickin’ your card inside her like that.”

  I turned to Pete. I was surprised he wasn’t saying more. “You think the same person killed Freddy?”

  “They were both beaten to death,” he said. “Ain’t somethin’ you see every day. Plus, they both got a connection to you.”

  “Pete,” I said, “you even entertaining the possibility I did this?”

  “How’d she get your card up her … you know, inside her?”

  I told them—about being here this morning, about giving her my card, and what she had done with it. The more I talked, the more worried Pete looked.

  “That don’t tell us why you was here,” Butch said. “Or who you was working for.”

  “I’m lookin’ for someone,” I said. “I thought Margie might know where the person is.”

  “Who?”

  I shook my head.

  Butch let out a harsh, humorless laugh and shook his head.

  “Did she?” Pete asked.

  “Said she didn’t, but I don’t know.”

  “And when you left, she was alive?”

  “When I left, she was naked and had just stuck my card inside herself, she was drinking a martini, and without even trying she was breathing in and out all on her own.”

  “Wonder what the guy was looking for?” Pete asked, then turning to me added, “Any ideas?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry I can’t be more help boys, but I didn’t have anything to do with it, so I don’t know anything.”

  Butch was rubbing his crooked nose with his index finger. He did that a lot when he wasn’t busy terrifying me.

  “What happened to you?” Butch asked. “Pete says you was a good cop. What made you so bent? You bitter—mad at the force ’cause you lost your arm and got canned? That it?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Withholding information from real cops is a crime,” he said.

  I still didn’t respond.

  “You better watch your step, gumshoe,” he said. “Just ’cause you maybe didn’t do this don’t mean you can’t go down for it.”

  I looked over at Pete. “Things have changed a lot since I left,” I said.

  “Not so much, Jimmy,” he said. “He’s just saying we know you know more than you’re telling us and we don’t like it none.”

  “Well, you don’t have to,” I said. “I wouldn’t like it either, and maybe I’s you I’d keep an eye on me, but I wouldn’t set up an innocent man, not if he was my worst enemy.”

  “Well,” Butch said, “that’s the difference in you and me, and I’s you, I’d keep that in mind.”

  Chapter 14

  When we stepped out onto Margie’s porch, Butch waved one of the uniformed officers over. “Take Mr. Riley back into town for me, would you?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  We all turned to see Frank Howell, the current mayor and Harry’s opposition, walking toward us. A large man in every way, Howell was tall and thick bodied, his fleshy face tanned, the center of his cheeks pocked with acne scars.

  The yard was filled with Panama City Police and Bay County Sheriff’s Deputy’s cars, an ambulance, and a couple of reporters. Howell had stepped out of the crowd.

  Howell had an odd walk for such a large man. It was light-footed and feminine, and looked to be the walk of a former dancer.

  “Mr. Mayor,” Pete said. “We’ll take him. We didn’t mean—”

  He shook his large head. “I need to speak with Mr. Riley,” he said. “This’ll give us the chance.” He turned and looked at me. “That okay with you?”

  I nodded.

  “I would ask you boys what you’ve got in there and how it’s going,” Howell said, “but it’s out of my jurisdiction and I don’t want to appear to be overstepping my bounds.”

  As we talked, a cameraman with one of the reporters snapped our picture. I attempted to position myself so I could use Howell for cover, but the photographer just continued altering his angle.

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor,” Pete said. “That will let us keep working our investigation.” He turned to me. “And Jimmy, don’t you worry about anything. We’ll get this all straightened out real soon.”

  As Howell and I walked away, the reporters shouted a couple of questions at us. I ignored them, and to my surprise, Howell did too.

&nbs
p; We got into the back of his large red Packard Clipper and the driver eased out of the yard back onto the dirt road.

  Though it had been Howell who honored me with a ceremony after I was shot, pinning the commendation on my coat himself, we had never spoken, and I had always thought the presentation was far more about a photo op for him than anything having to do with me.

  “I hope our officers didn’t go too hard on you,” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “Hero last year, homicide suspect this year,” he said. “It’s amazing how quickly things change.”

  I nodded.

  “And how quickly people forget,” he added. “You’re one of the few bonafide non-war heroes we have around here. How can they possibly think you’re capable of what was done to that poor girl?”

  The enormous backseat of the Packard was made more so by the double recessed front seats. I had seen houses with less head and leg room. Of course, a guy the size of Howell could use it. It probably didn’t seem roomy to him at all.

  “You know why politics are so dirty?” he asked.

  “The people they attract?” I said.

  He smiled, his enormous face spreading even more.

  “I think you’re being set up,” he said. His voice matched his build. It was deep sounding and forceful even when he was speaking softly. “Are you working for Mr. and Mrs. Lewis?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I don’t expect you to divulge the names of your clients,” he said, “but if you are, be careful. Harry Lewis will stop at nothing to be mayor of our city, and with all the growth and changes—the military bases, the shipyard, the government contracts, the real estate boom—well, in the wrong hands a lot of bad things can happen.”

  He paused, but I didn’t say anything.

  “Harry’s up to something,” he said. “He may be using his wife and some quack named Rainer—calls himself a doctor. I just hope he’s not using you.”

  “No one’s using me,” I said, as if I actually believed it.

  “Glad to hear it,” he said. “I just hope you’ll keep it that way.”

  “I will.”

  “The reason politics are so dirty,” he said, “is because there’s so much at stake. Now, I’m no saint, and I’m not saying I am, but I’m not tempted by money and power. I have all I need of both of them. I don’t see the mayor’s office as a stepping stone to county, state, or national positions. I love Panama City. It’s my home. My family helped to build it. And right now it’s going through the biggest and most important changes it ever will. It’s no exaggeration to say our small town can actually win or lose the war. That’s what people like Harry Lewis don’t get. They’re too busy planning their next move, they don’t see the damage their self-interests are doing.”

  The driver turned off Highway 231 onto Harrison.

  Howell withdrew a card from his vest pocket and handed it to me.

  “You may not know it yet,” he said, “but we have the same enemies. My home number is on this. If you need me for anything, you be sure to let me know.”

  I nodded. “Thanks,” I said.

  The driver pulled the big Packard up in front of our office door, Howell and I shook hands, mine momentarily disappearing in his, and I got out. As soon as the door was closed, he rolled down the window.

  “Oh, and Jimmy,” he said, “as long as I’m mayor you will not be harassed by the police or set up for murders you didn’t commit.”

  He didn’t say it, but the implication was clear. It was in my best interest to do what I could to help keep him mayor.

  Chapter 15

  The next morning, July walked into my office and dropped the Herald Tribune on my desk. I looked down at it. There I was on the front page right next to the latest war news, above the fold, surrounded by police in front of Margie’s house. The headline read: Former Detective Suspect in Murder of Local Socialite.

  “When you get mixed up in something, you don’t do it by halves, do you, soldier?” she said.

  I smiled at her, but only a moment, as I quickly scanned the article.

  “Does Ray know what you’re involved in?”

  Nodding to the paper on my desk, I said, “It looks like all of Panama City does now.”

  “Anything in it?”

  “You asking if I killed Margie Lehane?”

  “No,” she said. “You didn’t, did you?”

  “Has Ray made it in yet?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “He may be going straight to the courthouse. I’m not sure. You know how he is. What’s that word you used?”

  “Taciturn.”

  “You gotta get a girl, fella,” she said. “That ain’t even the word you used last time.”

  I smiled.

  “He never tells anybody much,” she said. “Tells me even less.”

  “Why you think?” I asked, though I knew. I just wondered if she did.

  “Because I’m not a … a … peer—not that Ray really has any of those. I’m more a project. Speaking of … he had an old file open on his desk yesterday.”

  “Dorothy Powell?”

  She nodded. “She haunts him, but good, don’t she?”

  “If you’re a savior, the ones you don’t save always do.”

  “You two aren’t alike in a lot of ways, but in that you are.”

  I wondered what she meant, but I didn’t ask her. I didn’t have to. She went on to tell me.

  “Someone needs savin’—especially a woman, you two are the first guys to step forward, and you feel completely responsible for her the rest of your lives. It’s the way Ray is with me, and you are with Lauren Lewis.”

  It wasn’t quite the same with Lauren, but before I could say so, two men walked through my door without knocking.

  The first man was small and thin, probably nearing middle age, well dressed and smooth. The man who followed him was his muscle—big, bulky, powerful. I had seen and dealt with enough men like them to know the sort of men they were. They were here to deliver a threat, issue an ultimatum, give a warning. They were the kind of men who if you saw a second time meant someone was getting hurt or dead.

  The big man would have no problem tossing me around the room with one hand, snapping me in two with so little effort it wouldn’t raise his heart rate, but the little one was by far the more dangerous of the two. I knew it before he opened his mouth, before he delivered a single threat or made good on it. I could see it in his eyes. It wasn’t what was there, but what wasn’t. Behind his gray eyes there was no conscience, no empathy, no pity, no mercy, no remorse.

  The smaller man sat down in one of the chairs in front of my desk.

  “Excuse us a minute, doll,” he said to July.

  She started to protest, but I shook my head, and she walked out quietly and closed my door.

  “That was smart, soldier, you got brains,” the small man said. His voice was low and flat, with only occasional inflection. “No need to get the pretty girl mixed up in any of this.”

  The small man had a grayish tint to him. Perhaps it was that his gray pinstripe suit and gray felt fedora matched his eyes. Maybe it was the faint gray stubble on his face, but it seemed to be more than that, as if his little body put off the color of his core somehow.

  “Any of what?” I asked.

  The big man, who wore a slightly too-small black suit, remained standing and had yet to make a sound or an expression.

  “Complicated things like politics, medical treatment, and romance,” he said. “Things guys like us should stay out of.”

  “Brother, I’m about as far out of those things as a body can be,” I said. “Got no political interests—let alone aspirations, got no use for women, and not undergoing any medical treatment.”

  “Not yet,” the big man said.

  He sounded like a slow, mean kid, and I wondered how the little man put up with him.

  “Must be tough havin’ only one arm,” the little man said.

  “There’re worse things,
” I said.

  “Sure, soldier, but you’re in the tough-guy business,” he said. “Hard to be tough with only one arm.”

  “I do all right,” I said.

  “I’m sure you do,” he said. “But goin’ up against the locals what pass for muscle around here’s one thing. Takin’ on guys like us is another.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Doesn’t change anything, but it may be true.”

  “Okay, soldier, I understand,” he said. “I’m just wasting my breath here. Doesn’t matter what I say, we’re gonna mix it up ’cause that’s what guys like us do, but I still gotta give you the message I’s hired to just like there was a chance you might actually listen to it.”

  I nodded.

  “Man who hired me thinks it’s best you stay out of politics, away from other men’s wives, and away from hospitals.”

  The big man came to life again, his face showing his pride in himself and the pleasure what he was about to say would bring him. “If you don’t,” he said, “you’ll need a doctor and a hospital of your own.”

  “But not a politician or another man’s wife?” I asked.

  The big man looked confused. The small man smiled.

  “You ought not do that, mister,” the small man said. “That’s just low.”

  “According to you, I’m gonna have a short life,” I said. “Better get my fun while I can.”

  Chapter 16

  It cost me extra, but I had Clipper in a uniform. He was banging on the delivery entrance of Rainer’s place on Eleventh Street, a brown parcel in his left hand. A single-bulb light fixture above the door provided the only illumination, and from my position in the back of the delivery truck all I could see of him was his white uniform, the white of his real eye, and his bright white teeth.

  Clipper Jones was a young Negro who had been part of the 99th Fighter Squadron, 1st Tactical Unit before suffering the loss of his left eye. He picked up the nickname Clipper while training at Dale Mabry Field because of the way he would so fearlessly dive down toward the Gulf, fly in low and “clip” the tops of the north Florida pine trees.

  The back door of the private sanatorium opened, and Clipper began his routine.

  I was crouched in an old milk truck. One of Clip’s many brothers had converted it into a delivery vehicle. I was attempting to see and hear what was going on near the door.