Black Widower

by Thomas Laird

  She also tells me the old guy is not happy that she got hitched in Las Vegas. Her mother, who never talks much at all to her, is also displeased with the haste in our relationship. But Carrie thinks of herself as a maverick, as independent, and they don’t have the heart to cut her off.

  I look across the candle-lit table and see that gorgeous face and those two perfect orbs of soft flesh that are jutted upward with a slice of shadow between them, and I want to jump her here and now. But propriety demands otherwise.

  I order the biggest cut of sirloin I can find on the menu, and Carrie doesn’t blink. She chooses the petit filet mignon—when I look at the price of hers alone, I feel staggered. But she’s picking up the check tonight, so Daddy must’ve come forth with another chunk of inheritance.

  I could wait her old man out, I suppose. Get the whole thing when Carrie departs in an untimely fashion. But there’s only so much I can tolerate when it comes to her utter, overall banality. I’ll never be able to stand even another year with my fresh, virginal bride. I know it. I’ll get the overwhelming impulse to do to her what I did to Jennifer.

  I’ll have to carefully orchestrate my second trip south. The weather will need to be less iffy. So I figure early summer, late spring will do. I’ll have to look at the weather reports, of course. It won’t do to be driving all those hours if there’s a hurricane brewing there or if there’s a blast of tornadoes in the Midwest. Clear and calm. I’ll be looking for a nice, clear corridor to make the move.

  I only regret that Jennifer was already dead when she went into the water with the alligator. It would’ve been far more satisfying if she were conscious and aware of what was happening to her. I suppose I could’ve gagged her to muffle the screams.

  I’ve recently read about a drug called curare that paralyzes its victims to the point they can’t move or talk. It shuts them down totally without killing them. I haven’t been able to locate the drug yet, but I know some people who might. In my business you come across all types of players, and certainly drugs of all kinds are not in short supply in Chicago. The Mexicans have opened a highway from Latin America to the City with the Broad Shoulders. The drug deals have made a supermarket out of our streets.

  Curare might be unusual and exotic, but there’s a way to find anything illicit if you’re willing to pay a premium.

  There are numerous street thugs who owe me favors, and they’re not the type to talk out of school. If I come up with the cash, which will likely come from Carrie, I’ll find this rare dosage.

  The drive to Louisiana ought to be very amusing. Her eyes will be open, but she’ll sit like a stone, next to me on the passenger’s side. I won’t tell her where we’re going. She’ll see the signs on the highways and she’ll begin to get the picture. And when we approach that dock and when I heft her, naked, over my shoulder and deposit her by the edge of the bayou, I’ll retreat to the shore side and wait. Maybe I’ll bring a flashlight so I can see her being ripped off that pier and dragged down into that black murk where Jennifer wound up.

  It ought to be interesting, as I say.

  She hasn’t let up on her torrid desire since we got back from the Sands. It’s got to the point that she’s rubbed me raw. I have to beg off, at least for a third and fourth repeat performance. I show her the raw member.

  “We’ll give it a rest until you heal up,” she smiles. “But you can take care of my needs, can’t you?”

  I have to keep her happy, so I accommodate her.

  I have to drag myself, literally, into work. I took all my vacation time to get married and for the brief honeymoon thereafter, so I have to haul my tired ass in. I don’t want to be docked. I don’t want to lose my job, either. Being a policeman is about the safest thing I can be. The Italians know it is very bad practice to kill cops. They know that the Department will close ranks and payoffs be damned and they’ll come after the Outfit. The wiseguys will suffer losses financially, so they won’t be enthusiastic about purchasing a contract for the life of yours truly.

  No, the police force is my own life insurance policy, and I think I’ll hang around here for a while.

  Chapter 8

  Then the storms hit the South. Ice and hail and even snow where it hadn’t snowed since 1897. The highways were skating rinks, and many of them are being closed. The onslaught is supposed to continue into the next week, the third week of January, 1989.

  Leonard Tare wants to take the chance to try the Interstate, but Joellen will have none of it.

  “It’d be suicide, Leonard,” she tells him as they lay in bed in the rental home in Plank.

  “I have to go.”

  “And so you go and get killed and she doesn’t get your version of justice, now does she.”

  It’s hard to argue with Joellen when she gets her back up.

  “What’s wrong?” Leonard asks her.

  Suddenly she turns pale.

  She runs into the bathroom and shuts the door, but Tare can hear her heaving. So he gets up and opens the door.

  “You don’t want to see this,” she tells him.

  “I’m worried about you, is all.”

  “If you were really worried about me, Leonard, you wouldn’t be taking off on this damn fool’s errand, now would you?”

  Then she faces the toilet and lets loose with another mighty heave.

  “Jesus, Joellen, maybe we ought to get you to a doctor or to that clinic thing on the highway.”

  When she is able to halt her churning stomach, she looks up at him.

  “This is very embarrassing. Would you give me some privacy?”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  He turns and walks out into the bedroom after closing the door behind himself. He lies on top of the sheets. It is cold enough, the last month, that they have to turn the heat on. But he likes the feel of the cool in the house in the morning because she keeps the thermostat low, at 62.

  After a wait of maybe five minutes, he can hear her gargling in the john. And then she emerges.

  “I’m sorry for talking so mean to you, Leonard.”

  “You’re sick. I understand.”

  They both lay atop the blanket and sheets.

  “Don’t go. I’d be sick with worry.”

  She touches his cheek, and then she kisses it.

  He holds her close.

  “Am I holding you too tight?” he asks.

  “Never. Don’t ever stop, either.”

  “I’d feel better if you’d let me take you to that clinic.”

  “I don’t have insurance.”

  “I’ll pay.”

  She looks him in the eyes.

  “We’ll go if I’m still sick and we’ll go when they salt those roads and this ice storm stops.”

  He can’t argue with her, especially since he knows it’s crazy to drive to Chicago in this mess.

  “As soon as it stops, we’re going to that clinic.”

  “All right, Leonard.”

  “And we’re going to get you some insurance, goddammit.”

  She laughs.

  “I’ll negotiate with that cheap shit Tony.”

  “That doesn’t work, I’ll negotiate with him.”

  “Oh no you won’t. Then I’ll lose my job. It isn’t much, but it’s all I have, Leonard.”

  “You got me.”

  She touches his lips with her fingertips. It makes him shiver.

  “You’re too sick,” he says when she touches him lower down.

  “I’m not that sick. It’s passed. I’m all right.”

  He doesn’t look convinced, she thinks, but he’s easy to persuade.

  *

  The ice relents the next morning, and the temperature rises, and the roads are becoming passable, they see and hear on the TV.

  She throws up that morning, again, and Leonard holds Joellen to her word. They head out to the clinic on Route 16, and he sits in the waiting room for her. She is inside for forty-five minutes, and then she comes out and he sees she’s in tears.


  She will not explain anything until after he pays the bill, and they’re both shocked that Leonard has to lay out $75 in cash.

  Outside, she braces him at the pickup before they get in. The sun is out, and they can both feel the day heating up. The roads are wet, but the ice has disappeared, and it looks like the normal Plank in the winter time, once more.

  “I’m pregnant,” she whimpers.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?” she snorts.

  “Are you certain?”

  “He gave me the test. They took blood. I’m knocked up. You managed to do what nobody else seemed to be able to, Leonard, and I thought I had enough close calls in my checkered little love life.”

  She tries to smile, but the tears dribble down anyway.

  “You aren’t mad at me, are you?”

  “I thought you were using-”

  “The diaphragm ain’t foolproof, obviously. I stopped taking the pill.”

  She embraces him, suddenly.

  “So what’s next?” she whispers into his coat, chest high.

  *

  They’re married by the Justice of the Peace in Plank. The JP’s wife is their witness. They don’t have time to fetch a proper ring, so she wears Leonard’s pinkie ring. He’d bought it in Saigon on R and R, back in the day.

  Their honeymoon meal is in the diner in town, at the Crossroads. That is its name and its location. She’s hungry, now that the retching has ceased, at least temporarily. He tells her he hopes it is done, the puking, but she says the doctor told her it might linger for a few weeks. He said she was about seven weeks pregnant.

  “This has been an expensive day for you, Leonard.”

  “I’m good. I saved a lot of money up when I was overseas, and combat pay wasn’t bad for the two tours I was there. I never blew a nickel on whores and booze, like everybody else.”

  “No, you’re definitely one of a kind…You aren’t going to go north, are you?”

  He watches her eyes glisten. She is expecting the worst.

  “I’m a married man, now, and I’m going to be a daddy. I got responsibilities to the living, presently, so that old gal on the dock will have to wait on the Chicago Police Department. Like I said. I have responsibilities.”

  They lean over the booth’s table and lay a wet one on each other’s mouth.

  “I love you, Leonard Tare.”

  “You’re gonna take my name, now, aren’t you?”

  “We need to go to the Social Security office in town and get it done directly.”

  They return to their double cheeseburgers and fries.

  “This isn’t the fine meal you deserve,” he tells her.

  “It’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

  “Tastes pretty good to me, too.”

  She smiles like a sunburst, he thinks, and they lean into each other one more time. Everyone in the packed diner is getting a free show.

  *

  He went out to do his night fishing at midnight, and there she was. He was carrying the sawed-off because of the gators, not because of the Lady in the Lake. She hovered mistily and then came to form before him.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’ve got a wife, now, and she’s expecting. I can’t leave her and that baby-to-be. I just cannot. I was going to go and then this weather blew in and I was going to wait until it blew over, but now this is something I just can’t turn my back on. You understand? You were a wife. I know it wasn’t the marriage you wanted. That’s pretty obvious, ain’t it? But you know what it was like to be in love. It was like that at first with you, wasn’t it?”

  The mist slowly swirls.

  “You can stare at me all goddam night, but it doesn’t change anything. I got two dependents, now, and I can’t leave them, and you’re gonna have to wait on that Chicago cop for whatever it is you’re waiting for. I’m not your personal avenger! You’re no blood of mine, but I have a family, now, and I have to back off on that bastard who got you here. You understand?”

  He walked around the fog and hopped into the boat. He rowed away, out onto the swamp and the black waters, and the mist soon disappeared from his sight.

  “This night fishing is going to have to stop,” she told him as he climbed in bed about four.

  “I know, but I have to catch a few gators for some show in Florida. The money’s too good to say no, and we’re going to need every dime.”

  He snuggled up and spooned with her, and she didn’t put him off or move away.

  “You need to get another line of work so you can keep regular hours, Leonard. I don’t need you off traipsing in the bayou in the middle of the night. You’ll wake me and the baby up if you keep on like this.”

  “I been thinking about it. There’s a farm available outside Plank, a good six miles from the swamp. No water, except for what falls from the sky. But the land is rich. I might try to grow some corn and beans. You can make a decent living, in these parts. Other farmers do. It’d be rough in the beginning. I’d have to take some loans, but I think the GI Bill might get us started. You might have to keep working for a while, but when we got it going proper, you might be able to stay at home with the child.”

  She turned over and looked at him incredulously.

  “Where’d all this come from? You never talked about a farm, before.”

  “The grandfather, the old man’s old man, grew a crop near here. I guess it’s always been in my blood. Hell, I know I can’t keep catching these reptiles, not with a family. When it was just me, I didn’t much care. About anything, to tell you the honest truth, Joellen. You changed all that. He changed all that.”

  “You might have a daughter.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Just that it’s got all the right parts. And that it looks like you.”

  She kissed him and held him close.

  “You don’t have to be a farmer. But this night fishing shit has got to stop pretty soon.”

  “It will. I promise.”

  “Go to sleep. I have to get up and vomit, directly.”

  His eyes widened as he looked into hers.

  “Just funnin’ you, Leonard. Go to sleep.”

  *

  The sickness stopped abruptly. It was February, now, and he felt closer to Joellen and the growing child inside her, day by day. He bought two gold wedding bands for her at the discount place in the mall in Clairmont, and he dug into his savings and purchased her a small but serviceable diamond ring to match the band. The stone was hardly more than a speck, but Joellen thought of it as her own, personal Hope Diamond. She displayed it for all the regulars at Tony’s, every night.

  Leonard went to the bank and asked a suit about available loans for veterans from the government, and the man said he’d look into it for him. Tare began to ponder alternative employment if the GI Bill screwed him and if that banker helped in on the fun. He wanted a Plan B, just in case it all fell through.

  For now, the dock and the critters in the dark drink were his livelihood, and he was going to catch enough gators to put a little something aside for the future. He’d never thought much about any horizon out there, but now his whole existence had changed drastically.

  There was guilt about the Lady in White, too. He told her why he was backing off, and he knew it hadn’t satisfied either of them. He still didn’t understand why she had latched onto him for some kind of justice with that son of a bitch Skotadi, that Vice cop in Chicago. The old military bullshit about it being his problem not his fault wouldn’t dissipate altogether. It weighed on him. It tasked him.

  But Joellen and the child canceled the debt, he figured. There was no clear-cut justice in this goddamned life, but there could be happiness, and she and the baby were his only two chances at it. The Lady would have to gut it out until that cop Parisi and the taller policeman, Gibron, got it done.

  Knowing all that didn’t make it any easier for Leonard to swallow the bile that rose when he thought about that Vice cop getting away with murder. Leonard had never been
a policeman, not in the war or in the life after the military, and he wasn’t about to—

  Then it came to him that he might just make a cop, himself. So that afternoon he drove to the State Police Headquarters in Clairmont and asked about his chances to become a state trooper. When he told the sergeant there about his service background, the statie began to take Leonard seriously, and he gave him a handful of paperwork to fill out and told Leonard they’d contact him if there was an opening. He would be expected to take all the training, but they paid a stipend to the men who went to the Trooper Academy. Since he was a vet, it would likely push his paperwork to the top of the pile, the Sergeant explained.

  Leonard Tare walked out a lot more optimistic than he’d walked into the Headquarters. Maybe all that shit in Vietnam would finally work for him instead of against him, Tare thought.

  There was always the dream about the farm, but he’d just told Joellen all that about the land near Plank to make her feel a bit easier about their future.

  When he got home, she was a bit irate about his absence, but Leonard explained where he’d been, and her face lit up in that sunny glow.

  “You sure you want to be a cop? You wouldn’t be able to take a trip up north, even if you do latch on with them. The Lady is Chicago’s business, Leonard. Not yours.”

  He nodded, just to make her feel better. He understood that a rookie State Police wouldn’t be called in to solve an interstate homicide, but it was as close as he could come to helping that poor, wandering soul in the swamp to find peace, finally.

  And the cop thing was a steady job with steady pay, and their scale looked a lot more promising than all the debt that beginning a farm from scratch would incur.

  That silver star on his shirt might make his youngster proud of him, Leonard thought to himself. It was better than being the son of a coonass alligator trapper who recently resided in a shithole of a cabin by the bayou.

  “I’m looking at the future, Joellen. I’m looking at you and the little one, and I’m not looking anywhere else.”

  Then he bent over and kissed her left hand, all bedecked in those two new rings made out of gold.