Ticket to Ride

by Ed Gorman

  We were still ten yards apart. His legs were spread, and he was punching a fist into the palm of the opposite hand as if he was ready for a brawl.

  “I want to talk to you about Lou Bennett.”

  “Then you wasted your trip. I’ve got nothing to say.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  He had a good big theatrical laugh for me. “Sure. You got a confession I can sign?”

  “From what I hear, you had a good reason. I think her name was Sally Crane.”

  “You’ve been hanging around that little newspaper girl, Molly or whatever her name is. She wouldn’t let go of it either, when Lou and I parted company. Good thing she’s got some nice tits, or I would’ve been a whole lot rougher with her.”

  “Hate to disappoint you. She wasn’t the one who told me.”

  The door from the breezeway opened, and a vision in a white bikini appeared. She was ridiculously blonde and ridiculously voluptuous. And tanned. She did the kind of runway walk a girl can learn only from a small-town modeling school, way too stiff and way too self-conscious. She came bearing a large glass jar of what appeared to be pickles.

  Unlike the master of the place, she had a smile for me. She held the jar up with both hands and said, “I can’t get the lid off. I don’t know why they put these on so tight.”

  I had to retrieve my eyes from somewhere deep inside her bikini top. She probably hadn’t read much Chaucer, but what the hell.

  She carried the jar over to Davenport. He was swelling himself up to play the hero here. He put out a big paw and then closed it around the jar as she handed it to him.

  He had a he-man chuckle for her. “Good thing I’m around, or you’d be in a hell of a fix.”

  “I sure would be, Roy.” She was a supplicant now, worshipping this godlike being with a look of wonder in her empty green eyes.

  Elmer Fudd, Turk, Roy Davenport—did they know the real true secret of getting and holding women?

  I have to say I enjoyed it. The big man set upon the jar with scorn and purpose in his eyes. He even glanced at me as if to say Watch, this is how one tough sumbitch takes care of a jar lid.

  The first time he tried to open it, nothing happened. He lifted it up and glared at it as if it wasn’t what it appeared to be. Somebody had obviously given him a ringer. This lid must’ve been welded on. This must’ve been one of those gags they pulled on unsuspecting strangers on Candid Camera.

  He tried again, of course. No luck this time either. The third time he went at it, his face got red and his eyes began to bulge.

  “Are you all right, Roy?” the girl said.

  “Shut up, Pauline.”

  The fourth time he vised the jar between his knees. I could have pointed out that this would make getting any kind of serious grip on the lid just about impossible, but that would’ve spoiled my fun. I just watched.

  He had no luck with the knee approach, nor with the next one, the under-the-arm routine. “What the hell are you lookin’ at, McCain? Get your ass off my property.”

  “You’re not going to fight again, are you, Roy?” She sounded nervous, maybe even scared.

  “How about letting me try it?” I said.

  The distant sounds of trucks on the highway, of birds and dogs and a hot breeze pushing the abundant leaves of the oaks and hardwoods of the windbreak.

  “I guess you didn’t hear me, McCain. You get the hell off my land.”

  I didn’t blame him, really. Most men, me included, want to look competent and cool and strong. A person of the female extraction hands you a jar with a tight lid and you want to John Wayne it. You want to hear that pop when the jar opens and you want to feel the moist lips on your cheek when she retrieves the jar from your outsize manly hands and gives you a kiss of eternal feminine gratitude.

  “Maybe he can help us, Roy—”

  “You shut the hell up and get back in the house and take this damned jar with you. You hear me?”

  “But you always want pickles on your burgers.”

  “Well, maybe this time I don’t.”

  There was real pain in her dark eyes. She’d failed her master. She took the jar from him and lowered her head in shame.

  When she turned to walk back to the house, she cut a wide path. I don’t think she intended to. I think she was feeling so rejected she wasn’t paying any attention to where she was walking. But she came so close to me that I didn’t have any trouble lifting the jar from her hands.

  “Hey—” she started to object.

  “You son of a bitch. You give her that jar back.”

  My dad has a trick. It doesn’t always work. And it only works after you’ve tried to open the jar a few times by conventional means.

  I raised my knee. I banged the jar once against my kneecap, then kept turning it so that I hit it on different sides, just the way my old man does. I did this very quickly. And just as quickly, I clamped the jar into one hand and started wrestling with the lid. It popped open.

  She started to smile but realized what that would get her. It would get her Roy. She swiped the jar from me and said, “You shouldn’t ought to have done that.” Then she stomped away. She wanted to make sure that Roy understood how much she hated me.

  Roy picked the hose up again. He held his thumb over the tip so it wouldn’t spray.

  “She’s right, asshole. You shouldn’t ought to have done that.”

  “Bad for your image, huh?”

  “Nah, bad for your health.”

  “I think I heard that one on Dragnet last night.”

  “Lou and me had our problems. I hated him, but I didn’t hate him enough to kill him. And that’s all you need to know. And if you think I’m shittin’ you about it bein’ bad for your health, just keep pushing and you’ll find out.”

  I smiled at him. I couldn’t beat him in a fight, but I sure could have the pleasure of irritating the hell out of him. “First you choke me and now I bet you’re going to spray me when I walk back to my car. I don’t think a real tough guy would do that—it’s kind of a sissy thing if you ask me—but it’s your call. Roy. You want to be a sissy and spray me, it’s up to you.”

  And with that I started the trip back to my ragtop, congratulating myself on my use of reverse psychology. By telling him it was a sissy thing to do, I’d ensured he wouldn’t spray me. Who wants to get wet?

  When I was about ten feet from the ragtop, he started spraying the hell out of me.

  15

  AFTER GETTING INTO DRY CLOTHES, I WALKED OVER TO THE library.

  Trixie Easley was explaining the Dewy Decimal System to an impatient-looking high-school girl wearing a Stones T-shirt. I was hoping Trixie would explain it to me when she finished with the girl. I waved to her and walked to the back of the library where the newspaper files are kept in outsize bound books.

  Lynn Shanlon’s words about the fire that had taken her sister’s life had stayed with me, at least enough to make me want to read up on it.

  I had no trouble finding the story. Coverage spread over four days, ending with a photo of the funeral service. Each piece included a reference to smoking in bed. There was no mention of the fact that she rarely smoked.

  There was a sidebar with a photo of the man who had the final say on the origins of the blaze, Fire Chief Ralph DePaul. Sight of him made my stomach clench and my jaw tighten. I’d had many run-ins with this self-appointed protector of All That Was Right and Good in our community. He was always hinting that there were Communists teaching our children and pornography being sold under the counter in two different stores. A few times, he came close to naming Kenny as a Commie pornographer, but backed off. He was smart enough to know that Kenny would sue him.

  His conclusion was that the fire had been accidental due to smoking. He then started into his stump speech about American values. He made it sound as if we were the only country that tried to do anything about fires. Apparently, foreigners just let their homes burn down without trying to stop the flames in any way. DePaul wa
s always announcing that he was planning to announce that he was running for mayor, but somehow he never got around to it.

  There was very little about Karen Marie Shanlon. She lived and died without making much of an impression on the town; that was the sense of the biographical material. Born, graduated high school, worked as a secretary, never married, died. The cold statistics that define most of us. No mention of her gracious beauty, the limp that had always kept her an outsider, the love her sister felt for her.

  I closed the big book and sat there for a time. I should have been thinking about poor Karen. Instead, I was thinking about how much I despised Fire Chief DePaul.

  The temperature was July, but the slant and quality of sunlight was autumn, the golden color thinner and not as burnished. I used to hike in the woods, and I became aware of how different the sunlight is season to season. I once tried explaining this on a first date. Can you guess why there wasn’t a second date?

  I took note of this as I stood on the courthouse steps watching the black Lincoln four-door sedan pull into the parking lot on the east side of the building. This was the official Lou Bennett mobile. There was a new one every year. The driver was William Hughes. I couldn’t remember ever seeing Bennett drive it.

  Hughes wore a tan summer suit and a crisp Panama hat. He had always been smooth and quick in indulging his employer, but now his age seemed to have slowed him. Or maybe it was just the heat. He didn’t see me until he was halfway up the broad staircase. He peered at me from under the brim of his Panama. A frown formed on his lips, and his eyes showed a sudden irritation. I had the sense that of all the people in town, I was the one he least wanted to see.

  I walked three steps down to meet him. “I’d really like to talk to you, William.”

  He had a manila folder in one large hand. He held it up as if he was going to demonstrate it, like a product on TV. “I have business with the county clerk inside here, McCain, and that’s the only business I intend to do today. I’m supposed to file some papers since Mr. Bennett was killed. Linda said she needs me back home as soon as possible. She’s not holding together real well.”

  “Linda and David are two of the people I want to talk to you about.”

  “I don’t have to talk to you and I don’t intend to.”

  I followed his gaze. He was trying to figure out what it would take to get around me and hurry up the stairs. But his dark face was sheened with sweat and the way he’d come up the steps told me he wasn’t capable of hurrying. He was no longer a young man.

  “You won’t make it, William. I’ll follow you inside and then I’ll wait outside the county clerk’s office and I’ll walk you to your car and be a real pain in the ass. That doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?”

  This time he glanced all the way up the stairs to the three glass doors leading into the shadowy interior that was cooled by air conditioning. He sighed. “Let’s get some iced tea at that stand in there.”

  The stand inside served hamburgers and potato salad and drinks. I had coffee and he had iced tea. There were four small tables where visitors and courthouse employees could sit and talk. People of every kind passed our table—fancy lawyers reassuring clients that everything would be fine, working-class men obtaining different kinds of permits, frightened mothers guiding their sullen boys into juvenile court—the footsteps of all of them melding and echoing off the high marble walls of the courthouse that dated back to FDR’s Depression money.

  Hughes took off his Panama, wiped his forehead with a folded brown handkerchief. “So what is it you want, McCain?”

  “I want to know who killed your boss.”

  “According to Chief Sykes, we already know.”

  “Chief Sykes is usually wrong.”

  “Not in this case. This Doran was out at the house at three A.M. We don’t usually get visitors that late.”

  “And that’s about all Sykes has got as evidence.”

  “If you say so.”

  I offered him a smoke. He shook his head.

  “How did Linda and David Raines get along with Bennett?”

  “I never talk about the family. Never.”

  “If I was a cynic, that would make me think you’re hiding something.”

  “I can’t help what you think, McCain.”

  He paused to wave at somebody who passed by. He was good at what he did. He had the voice and manner of a good physician. He put you at ease. He reassured. But he was lying. I was sure of it.

  “So you pretty much think Doran killed Bennett?”

  “Who else would have, Mr. McCain? It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Of course not. You’re his lawyer. You have to say that.”

  “Technically, I’m not his lawyer. I’ve resigned.”

  For the first time the wise brown eyes studied me. I’d surprised him, and he didn’t care for surprises. He seemed to be one of those men whose life was laid out like a map. He knew the land and he knew what to expect. “Now, that I haven’t heard. Do you mind if I ask why?”

  I smiled. “I never talk about my cases. Never. Sound familiar?”

  He waved to somebody, then leaned toward me. “You’re making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be, McCain. We know who killed Mr. Bennett. There’s no need to go into Mr. Bennett’s life looking for trash. He lived as an honorable man. Let him die that way, too.”

  “What’re you afraid of?”

  He eased himself out of his chair. He picked his hat up, took one more swipe across his face with his handkerchief, and said, “What am I afraid of? I’m afraid that if I don’t get up to the second floor right now, I’ll be late for my appointment. That’s what I’m afraid of, McCain.”

  “You could’ve been killed,” Jamie was saying to the man in the chair. From behind, I didn’t recognize him at first. It was the blond hair. Turk’s hair had been dark. I hadn’t realized that he’d bleached it.

  He sat in one of the two client chairs in front of my desk. There was a mean-looking black-red circle about the size of a dime on the back of his head. Bright blood had coursed down from there, leaking into the edge of his white T-shirt.

  I walked around for a look at him, and that was when I saw the mess on the floor in front of the filing cabinets. Somebody had been in a hurry. Piles of manila folders lay on the floor.

  “Turk could’ve been killed, Mr. C.”

  “What happened?” I asked Turk, looking at the SURF BUMS logo on his T-shirt. I was pretty sure he’d drawn it on. It seemed to be a surfboard with a beard.

  He was too much of a punk to answer me without trying to sound tough. “I ever catch that guy, he’ll wish he’d never been born.”

  “Just tell me what happened, Turk.”

  He winced as Jamie dabbed at his wound with a wet cloth I suspected was her handkerchief.

  Turk had the looks and sneer of most teen idols. What he didn’t have was the talent. So he tried to compensate for it by mixing James Dean and Marlon Brando. We weren’t having a conversation. We were in Acting Class 101.

  “Jamie wasn’t here when I got here—”

  “I was out getting supplies like you told me to, Mr. C—”

  “So I decided to wait outside and have a smoke. That way I could hear the car radio if I turned it up. Brian has a new song out.”

  “He means Brian Wilson, Mr. C. You know, the Beach Boys?”

  “Ah.”

  “But it’s a funny thing, man. There I am sitting on the steps out there just groovin’ with the new Animals song—they’d be a lot bigger if Eric Burdon wasn’t so ugly—and then I hear it.” He meant to touch his ear to illustrate his point, but when he got his hand about halfway to his head he winced and said, “Shit, man.” He’d really been hit. “I got what you call 20/20 hearing, you know?”

  “Sure, 20/20 hearing. Got it. So what did you hear?”

  “Whaddya think I heard? I heard somebody in here. You know, your office. And then I put it together.”
>
  “Put what together?”

  “The scene, man. The scene and what was happening. He’d been tossing your office before I got there, but when he heard me coming he disappeared. He hid, is what I mean. So I go in and look for Jamie, and when she’s not there I leave. And then guess what he does?”

  “He goes back to my office and starts going through the file cabinets again.”

  “See, Turk,” Jamie said, “I told you Mr. C wasn’t stupid.”

  “So you come back into my office—”

  “Correction. I sneak back into your office.”

  “Ah, the old sneakeroosky. Then what?”

  “He faked me out.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “He hid again. Before I got into the office. He must’ve been hiding in the hall.”

  “He must have heard you coming.”

  “Yeah, it was probably when I tripped on the steps outside. I probably cussed or something.”

  “You tripped?”

  The insolent smile. “Me and Mary Jane got together a little while ago.”

  “Mary Jane is marijuana, Mr. C.”

  “So you’re smoking dope and trying to sneak in. But you’re stoned and you trip. You gave him plenty of warning.”

  “That’s your version, man. My version is I scared him off. He doesn’t want to tangle with me. He’s had a chance to see me, so he knows he’s dead if I ever get my hands on him. So he splits.” Not only was Turk’s bravado irritating, it was foolish. His arms had no definition, he had tiny wrists, and he was getting a small potbelly from all the beer Jamie’s money was buying. “You dig?”

  “He doesn’t split, he hides. And he lets you go into my office again and then he slugs you across the back of the head, and while you’re unconscious he goes back to trashing my office.”

  “You bet your ass he hits me from the back. He ever tried it from the front, I’d rip him apart.”