by Ed Gorman
Standing behind him, out in the street with a few other onlookers, I saw the large, glowering shape of Roy Davenport. He saw me watching him. He rubbed his nose with his middle finger. A subtle man. We’d tangled verbally many times at city council meetings when Lou was using his surrogates to push through something that was good for him and bad for everybody else.
It was while I was staring at Davenport that it happened, so I can’t say I was an eyewitness. But I sure heard the screams. I may even have heard the whoosh when Cartwright a) poured way too much gasoline on the goodies and b) stood way too close to the sudden explosion when it came.
I turned just in time to see the holy man’s robes go up in flames while a wild, flailing pack of his believers flung themselves on him like jungle animals on a fresh carcass.
Even the sneerers shut up. Somebody shouted “Get an ambulance!”
The crowd broke into small groups, the way the crowd had at the anti-war rally the other night. I saw two or three women tip their foreheads to their Bibles and begin to pray.
The rain now came with enough force to pop when it hit. Umbrellas and newspapers and scarves went over heads at the same time that a cry went up from the people who’d rushed forward to help Cartwright.
I tried to push my way through a phalanx of believers, but they pushed and shoved back. They knew a pagan when they saw one. There was a sob, and I was pretty sure it came from Cartwright.
“God has prevailed!” somebody in the tight circle surrounding the religious man cried.
And damned if he wasn’t right.
The circle opened so the rest of us could see Cartwright standing upright in his tattered and blackened robes. His smile was positively beatific. He waved to us with papal majesty. Into the crowd, into the day, he shouted: “God loves me! The only thing that got burned were my robes!”
I have to admit the son of a bitch looked pretty good to me right then. Sure he was a con artist and a showboat, but he’d been around us so long now that he was one of us. And I was happy to see he was all right, if only because he was a lot funnier than most of the comedy shows on the tube.
Voices shouted prayers of gratitude to the surly skies, and flock members rushed forward to touch him.
My elation lasted only about forty-two seconds before I was back to seeing him for the snake he was. Besides, I wanted to talk to Roy Davenport.
I didn’t see him. I was already wet, so I decided I might as well get soaked. I rushed among the parked cars in the lot, gaping into windshields. I had no idea what kind of automobile he was driving. Then I saw him across the street and down the block about a quarter of the way. He was walking toward a big-ass black Pontiac. The rain was at the slashing stage now, blinding me as I ran down the middle of the street. Everywhere people were running to get away from the suddenly furious deluge, ducking into shop fronts and under awnings. But not Davenport. Head down, he walked slowly toward the sleek black Pontiac Bonneville. Even parked, the new car seemed to throb with power.
I called his name a few times, but he didn’t turn around to see who was chasing him. I caught up with him, splashing across the pavement. I grabbed his arm. He jerked away and gave me a shove that pushed me back two feet.
“I need to talk to you,” I said above the pounding rain.
My shoes were filling with water. So were my eyes and ears. My clothes were heavy with water. “When was the last time you talked to Lou Bennett?” I shouted at his back as he bent over to unlock his car.
He didn’t answer me. He just started to open the door. I probably wouldn’t have done it if I’d had to think it through. I rushed at him, slamming the door shut before he could stop me.
He moved so fast I wasn’t sure what he was doing, until an enormous hand clutched my throat, started choking me. I could hear people shouting as they realized what was going on. I managed to hit him hard on the side of his eye. His hands loosened enough for me to pull out of his grasp. Then he shoved me again. The wet surface of the street worked like ice. I skidded backward several feet, doing a silent comedy routine of wheeling arms and stumbling feet as I tried to stay upright. But it didn’t work. I landed on my butt, landed hard enough that I was stunned when my body slammed the concrete. I just sat there then getting wetter and wetter, watching him get into his Bonneville. My throat was raw from where he’d choked me.
I could have stayed there awhile, I suppose, but the cars honking for me to get out of the way made me change my mind. Getting soaked and choked was enough for right now. I wasn’t quite ready for getting run over.
I drank a beer and read about a third of Graham Greene’s It’s a Battlefield while I soaked in a tub of water so hot, they probably could have served me as an entrée to cannibals. My cat Tasha kept me company by dozing on top of the clothes hamper. I had a Gene Pitney album blasting in the living area.
The hot water had taken care of my scratchy throat. By the time I’d climbed the rear steps to my apartment, I was sneezing. The sneezing was gone now, too.
I finished by taking a brief cold shower before grabbing my terry-cloth robe and going into the kitchen area and shoving a TV dinner into the oven. Sometimes they tasted better with the aluminum foil on. I tried not to remember Jane saying that after we were married, TV dinners would be banned forever from that misty sentimental mythic home we’d be building.
I ate as always in front of the TV set. There had been small anti-war protests across the country, the only one of note being in Berkeley. The local channels would be running the stories about Lou Bennett’s murder and the anti-war meeting that had preceded it.
I was shoving myself into T-shirt and jeans when the phone rang. These days, a call had a paralyzing effect on me. Maybe my heart even stopped for a single second. Would it be Jane? And if it was Jane, what would she say? And if it was Jane, what would I say?
A woman crying: “Have you talked to him?” I wasn’t quite sure who it was until she said: “This book idea is insane.”
When I realized who it was, I almost smiled. Was she finally seeing him as I saw him? “I’m not his lawyer any more, Molly.”
“They’ll convict him. He doesn’t seem to understand that.” Then: “I just worked up enough courage to call you now.”
“Didn’t he tell you that I’d talked to him?”
“He said he’d fired you.”
“Of course he said he’d fired me. It’ll make a better story for the book. I quit, is what happened. He’s going to get in so deep, he’ll never get out. He lives in a fantasy world, Molly.”
“But I love him so much. I don’t care how much he lies or cheats or steals.”
“He steals?”
“Just cars. And not all that often.”
“Ah.”
“You’re so judgmental, McCain.”
“Yes, I even thought that Hitler wasn’t all that nice a guy.”
“You and your sarcasm. Now you have to help him. You just have to.”
At least she’d quit crying. I decided to try and make her feel better. “I’m still working on the case. I think he’s innocent. But I’m not doing this for him, Molly. He’s a jerk.”
“He’s not a jerk. He’s artistic, and most people don’t know how to handle artistic people.”
Not much I could say to that. If bunco artist was a synonym for artistic, fine, he was artistic.
“Will you tell me the minute you find something, so I know he’ll be all right?”
“Sure, Molly. But there aren’t any guarantees.”
“But you and the judge always prove that Cliffie’s wrong.”
“There’s always a first time, Molly.”
“But you know he’s innocent.”
“I’ll do what I can, Molly. The best thing you can do is visit him as often as Cliffie will let you and bring him cigarettes and any food you can.”
“He wants to be a painter and actor and symphony composer, McCain. And I know if I just support him for a few years, he’ll be able to be all those things
. That way he won’t have to, you know, steal stuff any more. We’ve already talked about it.”
Jamie had a bullshit artist who’d started a surfing band in Iowa, and now Molly had a bullshit artist who was going to rival Leonard Bernstein while also giving Brando and Gauguin a run for their money.
“I’ll get back to you, Molly.”
“I really appreciate this, McCain. I’m sure he’ll give you one of his paintings and it’ll be worth millions some day.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I can tell you’re sneering. But I’m serious. People will be falling all over themselves to buy his paintings.”
“That’s because they’ll be drunk. Blind drunk.”
“You’re so smug, McCain. That was probably one of the reasons I didn’t fall in love with you.”
“Because I’m smug?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I was afraid it was because I didn’t know Joan Baez.”
“God, you’re so childish. You don’t recognize a great artist even when you see one.”
“Molly—” But what was the use? I was just bitter because I looked on guys like Elmer Fudd and Turk as masterminds of a sort. Not only did they get women to give them sex and shelter; they got them to support them in their fantasy lives.
“Molly, I’m sorry about being such a jerk. You believe in him, and that’s good enough for me.”
“Are you setting me up for a joke?”
“Nope. I like you. We’re friends. So I want to help you.”
“Jeez, that’s really nice of you, thanks. And I shouldn’t have said that about you being smug. I mean for the reason I didn’t fall in love with you.”
“That’s all right.”
“I mean, technically I didn’t fall in love with you for other reasons. But there’s no point going into them now, is there? We’re friends and that’s all that matters. Thanks again, McCain.”
I had another Hamm’s and sat with my bare feet on the coffee table while cats Tasha and Crystal slept on my outstretched legs. I tried not to think about the “other reasons” Molly hadn’t fallen in love with me. But of course I did. Not fall in love with me? How was that possible?
Around seven thirty, the phone rang again. I reached behind the couch to the small table where I’d dragged it.
“I had dinner out tonight, Sam, or I would’ve told you earlier.”
It was my landlady, Mrs. Goldman, the one who looks like Lauren Bacall will at sixty. If Bacall is lucky.
“You got six or seven calls this afternoon. I was hanging laundry in the back yard. Somebody really wanted to get hold of you.”
Not Molly: she said she’d just worked up the courage to call earlier. I thought of my father. Six or seven calls. Had my mother been trying to find me?
“Well, whoever it was hasn’t called back. But I appreciate you telling me.”
“I’m sorry I had to be in Iowa City last night, Sam. Otherwise I would’ve been with you at that rally.”
“How’d it go for your night out?”
“I met a man at the synagogue. A very nice man.” The warmth of her voice told me that she was smiling. She was a sixtyish widow, bright, beautiful, and great company. Many eligible widowers had courted her, but as yet none had won her. She was worth the effort.
“Remember, I get to sing at your wedding.”
She laughed. “I’ve heard you sing. How much would you need to not sing at my wedding?”
As soon as we finished, I dialed home. I heard a TV Western going strong in the background. My mother, after I asked if she’d tried to get in touch with me, said, “No, everything’s fine, honey. There are three Westerns on tonight and your dad’s enjoying every one of them.”
By eight thirty, I was in bed with the cats sleeping all around me. I dreamed of sleeping with Wendy Bennett. I’m not sure what the cats dreamed about.
14
TWELVE HOURS LATER, FOLLOWING ANOTHER SHOWER AND wearing a fresh short-sleeved white shirt and blue trousers, I pushed into the chambers of Her Most Sacred Excellency Esme Anne Whitney and stared in disbelief as she raised a glass of whiskey to her lips. All her struggles with sobriety, lost.
My impulse was to race across the long office, dive at her desk, and wrench the drink from her slender hand.
She had the newspaper spread out and was so taken with whatever she was reading, she apparently didn’t hear me come in.
“Morning, Judge.”
Her head came up slowly. She offered me her usual reluctant smile—be nice to the slaves, but not too nice—and then said, “What the hell are you gaping at, McCain?”
“Oh, nothing, I guess.”
“You’re giving me the creeps.”
“I’m giving you the creeps?”
“Will you please tell me what the hell you’re staring at?”
“What the hell am I staring at? Your drink. Your—whiskey.”
“Whiskey?” She raised her glass as if toasting me and then began laughing in a way that was almost bawdy and very much out of character for the pride of rich snobs everywhere. “My God, McCain. Are you really that stupid? This is ginger ale. I’m tired of Coke.”
I guess my skepticism was obvious.
“Here, you idiot. Come over here and smell it.”
“It’s really ginger ale?”
“No, McCain, it’s really bourbon and I’m about to jump up on my desk and start dancing. Would you be happy if I did that?”
“It just looked—”
“Oh, God, how did you get through law school?”
“I mowed the professor’s lawn every other Saturday.”
“I don’t doubt that. Now get over here and tell me more about this fool Cliffie’s got in jail.”
I had called her about seven thirty to make sure she’d be in. I had given her a few sketchy details about Doran. I told her I’d tell her the rest when we met in her chambers.
“He really thinks he won’t be prosecuted and convicted?” she asked as I sat down.
The linen suit today was mauve with a silk bone-colored blouse. She was a damned good-looking woman, as she well knew. She was even better-looking now that she’d given up alcohol.
“His girlfriend thinks I’ll solve the case and by then he’ll have enough material for his book.”
“I want to solve the case—God, imagine if Cliffie actually beats us, what that would do to my family honor, a Whitney being bested by a Sykes—but there’s always a first time.”
“That’s what I told her.”
“He hasn’t confessed, I hope?”
“No. But he told them he doesn’t remember everything. And there’s a witness who puts him out in front of the mansion.”
“You Reds are certainly dopes.”
“I’m not a Red and neither is he. I’m a Democrat and he’s a con artist who’s using the anti-war movement to get girls and mooch room and board.”
“Admirable. Trotsky would have loved him.” She took a long drink and then smiled coldly at me. “Bourbon is so refreshing at eight thirty in the morning.”
“Very funny.”
She leaned back. The posture and the cold gray eyes told me she was all judge now. “Poor Lou.”
“You feel sorry for him, but not for all the kids he wanted to send to Vietnam. He was a warmonger.”
“I’m not going to let you get away with that, McCain. Whatever else he might or might not have been, Lou Bennett was a patriot. We don’t have any choice. We have to fight this war. And you and your beatnik friends aren’t going to stop us with your childish demonstrations.”
I would have clicked my heels, but I wasn’t wearing the right kind of shoes.
There are two kinds of relationships that get the most attention in Black River Falls. Divorces and the dissolution of business partnerships. The first is always juicier, because most of the time there is an extra lover involved. You get to scorn somebody and feel morally superior. That’s hard to beat.
Business partner break-ups rarely inv
olve sex, but they do sometimes involve extralegal activities such as fraud and embezzlement. Even without breasts and trysts being mentioned, such nefarious business practices can get pretty interesting. Three years ago, two men who owned the same bar got into a fight after hours, and one killed the other with a tire iron. That’s not as good as the high-school teacher who impregnated one of his students her senior year, but it’ll do on a slow night.
Roy Davenport had been partners with Lou Bennett in three businesses, all related to agriculture. A farm implement store, a dairy, and a trucking company that delivered cattle to slaughterhouses. Davenport and Bennett were distant relatives—I got all this information by calling Kenny as soon as I left the judge’s office—and the proper part of the business community was not happy that Bennett would choose to work with a man who had a criminal record. He’d served four years at the Fort Madison penitentiary for embezzling from the used-car lot where he’d worked over in Moline. Bennett defended his man by saying that he deserved a second chance, an odd comment coming from Bennett, given his belief that every citizen above age twelve should be tried as an adult.
I wanted to talk to Davenport about his relationship with Bennett. All I knew so far was that a woman named Sally Crane had come between them.
I thought of this as I pulled my ragtop up the slanting gravel drive that led to a green ranch-style house that spread all the way across the long hilltop. A man in jean cut-offs and a Cubs T-shirt was spraying water from a hose, obviously trying to raise the dead brown grass that covered the hill. The sun had scorched everything.
He had a cigar in his mouth, and when he glanced up from his watering, his eyes fixed on me with anger and malice. Roy Davenport was the scourge of Rotary and the scourge of city council meetings. He brooked no fools. The problem was that he considered everybody but himself to be a fool.
I parked and got out of the car. I started walking toward him. He aimed the hose at me. We played a little game. I’d jump aside just as he’d try to spray me. He could have splashed me any time he wanted to, but I guess this was more fun for him. He got the lower part of my trousers once. He laughed behind his cigar. Finally he threw the hose aside and said, “Hold it right there, McCain. What the hell’re you doing here?”
