Cripple Creek

by James Sallis

  "Ambulance on the way?"

  "Call's in."

  "Could take some time. Rory ain't always easy to rouse, once he's got hisself bedded down for the day. Damn it all, we're looking at a major goddamn crime scene here."

  "Afraid so."

  "Ever tell you how much I hate court days?"

  "Once or twice."

  "There're those who'd be pleased to pay for your ticket back home, you know." He leaned heavily against the wall, reeling down breaths in stages, like a kite from the sky. "But you ain't going away, are you, boy?"

  "No, sir."

  "You sure 'bout that?"

  "I am."

  He pushed himself away from the wall.

  "Good. Things been a hell of a lot more interesting around here since you came."

  Doc Oldham and I packed the two of them off to the hospital up Little Rock way, then he had to demonstrate his new step. He'd recently taken up tap dancing, God help us all, and every time you saw him, he wanted to show off his latest moves. This from a man who could barely stand upright, mind you. It was like watching a half-rotted pecan tree go au point. But eventually he left to make another try at his goddamn lunch, and I went to work. I'd barely got started when Buster arrived. Buster filled in as relief cook at the diner, cleaned up there most nights, snagged whatever other work he could. I never could figure what it was about him, some kind of palsy or just plain old nerves, but some part of Buster always had to be moving.

  "Doc says you could use help gettin' th'office cleaned up," he said, looking around. When his head stopped moving, a foot started. "'Pears to me he was right."

  "You don't have to do that."

  "Well, no sir, I don't," he said, grinning. Then the lips relaxed and his eyes met mine. A shaky hand rose between us. "Sure enough could use the work, though."

  "Twenty sound okay?"

  "Yessir. Sounds right good. Specially with my anniversary coming up and all."

  "How many years does this make for you and Delia?"

  "Fifty-eight."

  "Congratulations."

  "She the one deserves congratulations, puttin' up with the likes of me all these years."

  Buster went back to the storage room to find what he needed as I sank in again. Buster could clean the stairs at Grand Central Station during rush hour without getting in anyone's way. Someone once said of a Russian official who survived regime after regime that he'd learned to dodge raindrops and could make his way through a downpour without ever getting wet. That's Buster.

  Don's desk tray held his report, with a photocopy of the original speeding ticket stapled to it. In the ledger he'd logged time of arrest, reason for same, time of arrival at the office, booking number. The column for PI (personal items) was checked, as was that for FP (fingerprinted) and PC (phone call).

  Just out of curiosity, I paged back to see when we'd last fingerprinted or given a phone call. We rarely had sleepovers, and when we did they were guys who'd had a little too much to drink, bored high school kids caught out vandalizing, the occasional mild domestic dispute needing cool-off time.

  Four months back, I'd answered a suspicious person call at the junior high. Dominic Ford had offered no resistance, but I'd brought him in and put his stats in the system on the off chance that he might be a pedophile or habitual offender. Turned out he was an estranged father just trying to get a glimpse of his twelve-year-old daughter, make sure she was okay.

  Six months back, Don Lee responded to a call that a man "not from around here" was sitting on the only bench in the tiny park at the end of Main Street talking to himself. Thinking he could be a psychiatric patient, Don Lee printed him. What he was, was minister of a Pentecostal church in far south Memphis, out towards the state border where gambling casinos afloat on the river have turned Tunica into a second Atlantic City. He'd only wanted to get back to the kind of place he grew up, he said. Touch down there, feel it again. He'd been sitting on the bench working up his sermon.

  The previous entry was for that time, a year ago, when Lonnie, Don Lee, and I discovered how Carl Hazelwood had been killed—the day the sheriff got shot.

  All these years, I'd never seen anything remotely resembling a jailbreak and assumed they only happened in old Western or gangster movies. But it was obvious this crew had come here specifically to spring Judd Kurtz. Goombahs, Don Lee had said. Even among the most hardassed, there aren't many who'll step up to a law office, even a far-flung, homespun one like ours, with such impunity.

  I sat looking at that tick underneath PC. Then I made my own call, to Mabel at Bell South.

  "Don Lee and Miss June gonna be okay?" she said immediately upon hearing my voice.

  "We hope so. Meanwhile, I need a favor."

  "Whatever I can do."

  "How much do you know about what went down over here?"

  "Just someone stormed in and beat crap out of the two of them's all I heard."

  "That someone came to town to break out a man Don Lee had detained on a traffic violation."

  "Take safe driving seriously, do they?"

  Known for her biting wit, Mabel was. Not to mention the choicest gossip in town.

  "The man made a phone call from this office just after Don Lee booked him in, around one a.m. I know it's—"

  "Sure it is. Now ask me if I care. Just give me five, ten minutes."

  "Thanks, sweetheart."

  "For what? I'm not doing this."

  Never mind five or ten minutes, it was more like two.

  She read out the number. "Placed at one-fourteen." A Memphis exchange.

  "Any way you can check to see what that number is?"

  "Like I haven't already? Nino's Restaurant. Two lines. One's the official listing, looks like it gets almost all the calls. The other—"

  "Is probably an office or back booth."

  "Must be a city thing," Mabel said in the verbal equivalent of a shrug. "That do it for you?"

  "I owe you, Mabel."

  "You just be sure to give Miss June and Don Lee my best when you see them."

  "I will."

  "'Scuse me, Mr. Turner?" Head bobbing, Buster stood in the doorway. "'Bout done here. S'posed to go wash the mayor's car now. One or two more besides, I s'pect." When his head went still, an arm rose. "Came upon this back in there."

  A business card. I took it. Put a twenty and a ten in its place.

  "Much obliged, sir."

  "When's your anniversary, Buster?"

  "Thursday to come."

  "Maybe you could bring Delia over to my place that night, let Val and me fix dinner for you both. We'd love to meet her."

  "Well now, I'd surely like that, Mr. Turner. 'Predate the asking. And forgive me for saying it, but Della'd be powerful uncomfortable with that."

  "I understand. Maybe some other time."

  "Maybe so."

  "A shame, though."

  "Yessir. It surely is."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LATTER-DAY CITY CONSTABLES, we seldom know the outcome of our efforts. We take on the end runs and heavy lifting, fill in paperwork, testify at trials, move on. It's not Gunsmoke, not even NYPD Blue. Occasionally we hear on the grapevine that Shawn DeLee's been sent up for life, or, if we care to check computerized records and have time to do so, learn that Billyboy Davis has been re-renabbed by federal marshals on a fugitive warrant. To others our talk is forever of justice and community standards. Among ourselves it's considerably baser.

  I'd been out of the life a long time now. But weeks back, Herb Danziger up in Memphis had somehow tracked me down and called to tell me that Lou Winter, having exhausted appeals, was scheduled for execution.

  Danziger was pro bono lawyer for Lou Winter at his initial trial. He'd put in thirty-some years making certain that big rich corporations got bigger and richer, then one day ("No crisis of conscience, I was just bored out of my mind") he gave it up and started taking on, in both senses of the phrase, the hard cases. Another six years of that before an unappeased client stepped
out of the doorway of Danziger's apartment house one evening as he returned home. Damndest thing you ever saw, the paramedic who responded said. We get there and this guy is sitting on the sidewalk with his back against the wall and his legs out straight in front of him. There's the handle of a hunting knife sticking out of his head, like he has a horn, you know? And he's singing "Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight."

  He survived, but with extensive brain damage. His hands shook with palsy and one foot dragged, paving of his memory gone to potholes. He'd been in an assisted-living home ever since. But old cohorts showed up regularly to visit, bringing with them all the latest courthouse gossip.

  "Early September is what they're saying. I'll keep you posted."

  "Thanks, Herb. You doing okay?"

  "Never better. Occupational therapist here would adopt me if she could. Who'd ever have suspected I had artistic talent? My lanyards and decoupage are the best. Others look upon them and weep."

  "Anything you need?"

  "I'm good, T. You get up this way, just come see me, that's all."

  "I'll do that."

  Lou Winter had killed four children, all males aged ten to thirteen. Unlike other juvenile predators, he never molested them or was in any way improper. He met them mostly at malls, befriended them, took them out for elaborate meals and often a movie, then killed them and buried them in his backyard. Each grave had a small garden plot above it: tomatoes above one, zucchini above another, Anaheim peppers above a third. From the ground of the most recent, only a short stem with two tiny leaves protruded.

  It was my fourth, maybe fifth catch as detective, just a missing-persons case at the time. I'd been kicked upstairs arbitrarily and had little idea what I was doing or how to go about it. Everyone in the house knew that—watch commanders, other detectives, technicians in forensics, patrol, probably the cleaning lady. I was a week into the case with no land in sight when I knocked off around six one night and went out to find a note tucked under my windshield wiper. I never did find out who put it there. It had the name of the missing child on it, the one I was looking for, followed by the number four. It also had another name, and the address of a pet shop at Westwood Mall.

  A buzzer sounded faintly as I walked in. Lou Winter came out of the back of the store and stood watching me, knowing even then, I think, who I was. When I told him, he just nodded, eyes still on mine. Something strange about those eyes, I thought even then.

  "I have a mother cat giving birth back there," he said. "Can you give me a few minutes?"

  I went with him and stood alongside as, cooing and petting, tugging gently with a finger to urge the first kitten out, the first of five, he helped ease her birth. No, not five: six. For, long after the others had dropped into our world, another head began showing.

  The last kitten had only one front leg, something wrong with its skull as well. Holding it tenderly, Lou Winter said, "She'll reject it, but we have to try, don't we?" as he pushed the others aside and placed the new one closest to her.

  "I'll get my things." A gray windbreaker. A gym bag containing, I would learn later, toothbrush and toothpaste, a Red Chief notebook and a box of Number 2 pencils, several washcloths, six pair of white socks still in paper bands, a pocket-size paperback Bible. "I'll just lock up." Taking a cardboard sign off a hook alongside, "Back in a Jiff," he hung it on the door. "Marcie comes in after gym practice. Be here any minute now."

  He never asked how I found him, never showed any surprise.

  Once we'd left the store, I noticed, he began to seem awkward or uncertain, staying close to me, face bunched in concentration. Macular degeneration, I'd learn later. Like many whose faculties decay slowly, he had compensated, memorizing his surroundings, working out ways to function. But Lou Winter was more than half blind.

  Outside the station house, a man in an expensive suit and shoes that cost about the same as the suit stepped up and introduced himself as Mr. Winter's lawyer. He and Winter regarded one another a moment, then Winter nodded.

  And that was Herb Danziger.

  Inside, waving aside Danziger's caution and counsel, Lou Winter told us everything. The four children, what they'd eaten together, movies they'd seen, the gravesites. Dr. Vandiver, a psychiatrist who did consulting work for the department, came over from Baptist there towards the end. "What do you think, Doctor?" Captain Adams asked. Vandiver went on staring out the window. "I've been trying to put it into words," he said after a moment. "The word I keep coming up with is sadness" It took the jury less than thirty minutes to come back with a verdict and the judge all of two to sentence Lou Winter to death. Herb Danziger carried on appeal after appeal in Winter's name, right up to the day of his assault. He'd even tried to represent him once afterwards. But when his time came, Herb sat there watching the blades on the ceiling fan go round and round, intrigued by the shadows they made. The judge put off proceedings till the following week and appointed a new attorney.

  I hung up the phone after talking to Herb. Clouds moved along the sky as though, having misspoken, they were in a hurry to get offstage. Across the street Terry Billings's legs stuck out from beneath his pickup as he worked on his transmission for the third time this month, trying to wring out yet another few hundred miles.

  I was thinking about Herb, about Lou Winter, and remembering what Dr. Vandiver had so untypically said.

  Sadness.

  Not for himself, but for the others, the children. Or for all of us. In some strange manner, Lou Winter was connected to humanity as few of us are, but the connection had gone bad. Small wires were broken, sparks dribbled out at joins.

  Once I had wanted nothing more than to see Lou Winter convicted, then executed. I understood why Herb held on: in a world all too rapidly emptying itself of Herb's presence, Lou was one of the few tangible links to his past, to what his life had stood for, what he had made of it.

  Was it really any different for me?

  Lou Winter had been a part of my life and world for as long. It was altogether possible that in losing him I would be losing some unexplored subcontinent of my self.

  That same day, I remember, I stopped Gladys Tate for driving drunk. She was in husband Ed's '57 Chevy and almost fell twice getting out. She'd already run into something and smashed the headlight and half the grille. When I mentioned that Ed was going to be damned mad, she grinned with one side of her face, winked with the other, and said, "Ed won't care. He's got a new toy." His new toy was a woman he met at the bowling alley up by Poplar Grove, the one he'd left town with. Gladys looked off at the old church, now mostly jagged, gaping boards and yellowed white paint, though a skeletal steeple still stood. Then her eyes swam back to mine. "My clothes are in the dryer," she said, "can I go home soon?"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE BUSINESS CARD was for a financial consultant in offices just off Monroe in Memphis. That consultant thing had always eluded me, I could never understand it. As society progresses, we move further and further away from those who actually do the work. Consulting, I figured, was about as far as one could get before launching oneself into the void.

  I came here with clear purpose. I'd be on my own, no attachments, no responsibility. Now I look around and find myself at the center of this community, so much so that freeing myself for a few days in Memphis took some doing.

  First call was to Lonnie. Sure, he'd fill in, no problem. Be good to be back in harness, long as he knew it was short-term.

  "I'll try to keep it down to a minimum," I said.

  "You're going after them, aren't you?"

  "You wouldn't?"

  "They hurt my daughter, Turner. For no good reason save she was there."

  "Figure they can do whatever they want out here on the edge, I'm thinking."

  "That's what they're thinking too. Just don't forget to give the local force a courtesy call."

  "I'm not sure MPD wants to hear from me."

  "Call them anyway. You still have any contacts there?"

  "Tell the truth, I
don't know."

  "Find out. And if you do, cash them in for whatever they're worth. Nickel, dime—whatever."

  Next call was to barracks commander Bailey, who pledged to send down a couple of retired state troopers to rotate shifts as deputies. "Believe me, they'll appreciate the chance to get out of the house."

  Then Val.

  "Let me guess. You're going to be away for a while." She laughed. "Commander Bailey told me." She was counsel for the barracks, after all. "Have to admit it came as no surprise. Any idea when you'll be back?"

  "I'll call, let you know."

  "You better."

  "I'll miss you."

  Another rapid burst of the laughter I had come so to treasure. "It's pitiful," she said, "how much I hoped you might say something like that."

  Forty minutes later I was heading up Highway 51 in the Chariot, Lonnie's Jeep, with an overnight bag of underwear and socks, two shirts, spare khaki pants just in case, basic toiletries. The gun I never carried, a .38 Police Special Don Lee insisted on providing me when I started working with him, lay swaddled in a hand towel, in a quart Glad bag, under the passenger seat. I imagined that I could feel it pulling at me from there, a gravity I was loath to give in to or admit.

  I hadn't been back to Memphis in, what, close to two years? At some essential level it never seems to change much. More fast-food franchises and big-box stores pop up, the streets continue to crumble from center to sides, there are ever-longer sc entire office buildings. When the economy goes bad, the first leaks spring at the weakest segments. The Delta's been hard hit for decades. You cruise the main street in small towns like Helena, just down the river a piece, or over by Rosedale, half the stores are empty as old shoes. The river's still impressive, but it ceased offering much by way of economic advantage long ago.

  Just inside the city limits, I stopped at Momma's Cafe for coffee and a burger. Place was all but hidden behind a thicket of service trucks and hard-ridden pickups. Even here in the South, central cities become ever more homogeneous, one long stuttering chain of McDonald's and KFC and Denny's, while local cafes and restaurants cling to the outskirts as though thrown there by centrifugal force. Nowadays I find I have to lower myself into the city environment, any city environment, by degrees, like a diver with bends coming up—but I'm going down. And Momma's was just right for it. From there I drove on in and dragged for a couple of hours the streets I used to run as a cop, feeling the city slowly fall into place around me. Drove north on Poplar where East High School once stood, now a nest of cozy aluminum-sided single-family dwellings with tiny manicured lawns front and back. Drove by Overton Square. Cruised down Walnut, took the left at Vance and crossed Orleans. Hit Able and proceeded north past Beale and Union. Swung by 102-A Birch Street where I'd shot my partner Randy.