The Angels' Share

by James Markert

  “It’s burned down. I told you that.”

  “I want to see it.”

  “Suit yourself.” Barley relaxed in his seat. “Your mother refuses to.”

  She knows? William found Portland Avenue, bordered on both sides by narrow brick homes, clipped yards, driveways with parked cars, and porches festooned with hanging baskets and wind chimes. And then he saw it: a huge gap, a missing tooth in a line full of strong ones. He coasted past the blackened brick wall and charred half chimney surrounded by ash and rubble. Saplings had already sprouted from the tarry heap. Only the unattached garage in the back of the property had been spared.

  Seeing the burned house where he’d lived for much of his childhood didn’t sadden him as much as he thought it might. But now that they were there, Barley insisted on idling while he smoked a cigarette.

  “This wasn’t in the newspapers,” William said.

  “I didn’t want it to be.”

  Just like Wildemere said about the booze on the road.

  William stared at the garage they had never used except for storage. “Did you ever bring Tommy Borduchi here? You know, when I was little?”

  “He may have been around a time or two.” Barley pointed toward the road, and William gave the house one last look before pulling out. He drove toward Clayton Street, slowed over the railroad crossing at Fulton, and parked atop a hill overlooking the coal yards—a sea of blackish rock and dust splayed out before the river. To the right stood the old coke ovens, a row of fifty brick beehive domes standing roughly ten feet high and sharing common walls.

  “You should have seen these ovens when they burned all in a row.” Barley held on to his hat as they descended. He was being careful not to get gray dust and mud on his white suit. “From a distance it looked like the city was burning. The fires raged day and night. Blackened the sky to soot.”

  Now they’d become convenient dwellings.

  A woman sat against one bricked dome; her bright red hair was unmistakable. William took off toward her. She turned and his heart sank. She was in her forties, not her late teens. She was not Polly. And she had a devious smirk.

  “Can I help you lads?” the redhead asked as Barley joined up. “You’re not the first father to bring a virgin down to sweet Delia. A dollar and I’ll take you into my hive. Ten and I’ll marry you.”

  Barley made as if to retrieve money from his jacket.

  William’s face turned hot pink to the neckline. He had no hat to hide behind, so he took off running up the hill, and he didn’t look back until he reached the car. He got in the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and started the engine, hoping the sound of it idling would hurry his father up the hillside. But it didn’t.

  Barley’s fedora was easy to follow as he stopped to question one person after another. Five minutes passed, then ten, and then three cop cars drove in from the west, bleating their sirens. Dozens of squatters hurried off toward the river, but many stayed, unfazed. Barley sprinted as if chased, holding his hat and grinning as if enjoying a sudden thrill.

  William backed the car up as soon as his father took a seat.

  “Hold your horses, pal.” Barley slammed his door. William started forward, then immediately hit the brakes. A squatty man stood in front of the car with his hands up.

  Barley rolled down his window. “You want to die today?”

  The man had ferret eyes. Hands still up, he approached the window. The cuffs of his suit were so long, only his fingers were visible. “Let me in. There’s coppers!”

  “Run him over,” Barley said.

  William drove around him, but the man grabbed Barley’s open window and ran along with the car. “Stop. I’m Kane. Solomon Kane.”

  William hit the brakes, and Barley opened his door and jumped out. “Get in.”

  Solomon Kane slid into the passenger’s seat beside William, and Barley jumped into the back so he could point his Colt .45 at Kane’s head.

  “What do you want?” Barley asked.

  “You’re the ones looking for me,” Solomon said.

  He reeked: a mixture of body odor, opium, and beer.

  William didn’t know whether to stay parked or drive, so he moved at a slow roll.

  Solomon said, “What are you waiting for? Go. I can’t afford to be arrested again.”

  “Find the first alleyway and park, William,” Barley said. “He’s smelling up my car.”

  Solomon lifted his arm as if to smell himself. William navigated a few street corners and spotted an alleyway he’d rather not go into, but Barley said, “Perfect,” so he pulled in, sidling up next to trash and a light post decorated with a woman’s deep-cupped brassiere.

  “So how much do you want?” Solomon asked. “I have A-bombs, opium, dope, heroin.”

  “Tell us about Asher Keating,” William said hastily.

  Solomon started out of the car, but Barley pressed the gun to the back of his head.

  “Asher, he owes me money—”

  “Good luck with that,” Barley said. “He’s decomposing right now.”

  Solomon nibbled his fingernails. “It doesn’t change the fact—”

  “How did he pay you?” William asked. “He was a drifter.”

  “Doesn’t always mean no money. Just a matter of what they spend it on.”

  “Vulture,” Barley said.

  “Kidnapper.”

  Barley smacked Solomon in the back of the head. “You asked to get into this car.”

  “He didn’t pay, okay?” He combed his hair down in a slope toward his brow. “He paid me in prayers. Baptized me in the river. I had a bum knee and he put his hands on it.”

  “Then why does he owe you money?”

  “Because he went off and died on me.”

  “How did he die?” Barley asked.

  “I heard he was murdered. Also heard he had a heart attack. After he healed someone who had a heart attack. Then I heard he was walking across the Ohio and he slipped under.”

  “Close your head,” Barley said.

  “That’s what I heard.” Solomon looked at Barley. “What’s with the shoes? I’ve seen those before. Around Asher’s neck.”

  “Why did he wear them?”

  Solomon bit the index fingernail on his left hand. “Assumed it was because he didn’t have a scarf.”

  Barley hit Solomon on the back of the head again.

  “Cripes. I don’t know! Asher wasn’t proud of his habits. He prayed for forgiveness before he took the pipe. He tried to quit but he couldn’t. He smoked opium to forget.”

  “To forget what?”

  “To forget what he’d seen.”

  “In the war?”

  “In the war. On the streets. Smoked to forget who he was. What he was. Can I go now?”

  Barley said, “Get out.”

  Solomon opened the door and stepped out into the alleyway. Barley got out of the car to return to the front seat.

  “He owed me money.” Solomon held out his palm as if he expected Barley to pay.

  “How much?” Barley asked.

  “Thousands.” Solomon ran his chubby hand over his hair again. “Thereabouts.”

  Barley reached a hand into his pocket and left it there. “You holding out on us?”

  Solomon watched Barley’s buried hand. After thinking on it he said, “There’s a man who’ll know more than me. They were in the war together. Oliver Sanscrit. He’ll know about the shoes. Had something to do with the war.”

  “Where do we find this man?” Barley asked.

  Solomon smiled. “You don’t find Oliver. He finds you.”

  “Is he a bum?”

  “I don’t know what he is. But he’s always dressed in full military gear. Whenever Asher needed to talk to someone, that’s who he went to.”

  Barley removed the hand from his pocket and flipped Solomon Kane a penny.

  Solomon caught it and then threw it back at the car as William and Barley pulled away.

  Barley cackled. “William, yo
ur cheeks got red as tomatoes back there. Imagine if she’d opened her blouse.”

  William hit the gas hard in the direction of Twisted Tree.

  “The Twelve have moved on. Man, it stinks in here now.” Barley pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and rolled down the window. “Your apostles moved on. At least that’s what the whore said. Said they are traveling to spread the word of Jesus Christ.” He took a drag, exhaled. “The word of Asher. She actually said that. The word of Asher.”

  William drove on in silence.

  “Oh, come on, William. I was only needling you.”

  “Needle someone else.”

  Barley took a drag, exhaled toward the cracked window. “Did you get that guy’s name?”

  “Oliver Sanscrit. I got it.”

  The best place to find a war veteran was at the local post of the American Legion in Germantown. It was an eyesore on the corner of a dusty intersection littered with hogshead barrels: squatty and narrow, gloomy from the overgrown grass around the stoop to the American flag swaying at half-mast.

  “They opened it after the war,” Barley said as William parked. “Your mother talked me into going. Thought it might be good for my nightmares to talk to other vets. It’s where I met the other Micks. McVain was a former pianist. He was missing three fingers on his left hand and still angry about it. Blown off at Chateau-Thierry. Red hair. Hard face. I asked if the seat beside him was taken.”

  William followed Barley across the near-empty lot. “What did he say?”

  “‘Does it look like it’s taken?’ Called me a blind baboon. I didn’t trust the meanness in his eyes, so when he told me his name, I surprised even myself; I don’t know where ‘Dooly McDowell’ came from. Two weeks later he introduced me to Gio McShane. He liked to smoke two cigarettes at a time, one for each hand. Four weeks later Fop McDougal came into the fold. For a time, our only relationship was the Legion Post, drinking . . .”

  “Until Prohibition?”

  “Yeah, and then things changed in a hurry.” Barley opened the creaky door. The building was poorly lit and smelled of stale beer and cigar smoke. American flags festooned the walls, and around them hung framed pictures and old military uniforms from different wars. Including the bartender there were only six men inside, a table of three and a table of two. They all had beers. Barley breathed in the smoky air like he missed it. He claimed he hadn’t been to the post in years, but the bartender called him by name and the patrons watched as if they not only knew Barley McFee but feared him.

  “Where is everybody, Skip?” Barley asked the barkeep.

  Skip’s yellow hair was thinning up the middle. He wiped crumbs from the bar top. A sign behind him caught William’s attention:

  What We Hated from the War

  1.The composer who wrote the reveille song;

  2.The contractor who made the field shoes;

  3.The packer who concocted the “Canned Willy”;

  4.The underwear manufacturer who left the sheep burrs in those pants;

  5.The outfitter who tied those knots in the toes of the socks;

  6.The rubber dealer who used a sieve instead of a sole for those boots;

  7.The uniform buttons.

  To William, Barley said, “Buttons were made of pasteboard.”

  Skip said, “And sewn with invisible thread.”

  A man yelled from the back of the room, “Don’t forget the girl who told us we’d never stand a chance unless we enlisted. We hate her too.”

  Another man: “Yeah, Skip, you were supposed to add that one months ago.”

  Skip stared at the shoes around Barley’s neck. “What do you want, Dooly?”

  William looked at his father to see if he’d waver upon mention of his alias.

  Barley didn’t skip a beat. “I’m looking for a vet named Oliver Sanscrit.”

  Skip spoke to the tables of men across the room. “Gentlemen? Oliver Sanscrit?”

  They all resumed drinking.

  “What do you want with Sanscrit?” asked Skip. “You in trouble?”

  “Does it matter?” Barley asked.

  “If you’re in trouble it does. You need a lawyer?”

  “No. Is Sanscrit a lawyer?”

  “Of sorts.”

  “Either he is or he isn’t.”

  “Not sure if he’s fully fledged.” Skip poured Barley a beer even though he’d declined. “He represents veterans who need help in court. That’s why I asked if you were in trouble.”

  Barley took the mug and downed half the beer. “I just need to speak to the man.”

  “Regarding?”

  “Not sure it’s any of your business, Skip. Are you his secretary?”

  “Of sorts.”

  “Then can I see him?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Where is he? Does he have an office somewhere?”

  “No.” Skip wiped the bar again. “Just shows up in here from time to time.”

  A white-haired gentleman in glasses spoke from the far table. “You don’t go to Oliver Sanscrit. He comes to you.”

  William jumped to the heart of the matter; Barley was getting nowhere. “I’m the reporter who wrote the article. Did anyone here know Asher Keating? We were told that Mr. Sanscrit was his friend. From the war.”

  By their reactions William surmised they at least knew of Asher. A man with thick hair spoke from the table of two. “Are you going to write more nonsense in the papers?”

  “This isn’t for the papers.”

  “Then I met Asher Keating once. He had issues. They didn’t need to be wrote about.”

  “This isn’t for the papers,” Barley repeated.

  “Then what’s it about?” asked another man from the table of three.

  Barley touched the shoes around his neck. “It’s about finding out why Asher Keating is buried in my backyard. And why he had my baby boy’s shoes in his bindle.”

  For a moment it seemed the air had been sucked from the room.

  The first man said, “I’m sorry, McDowell. We all are. Apologies. We didn’t mean nothing by it. But Sanscrit . . . he’s been back from the war for a long time, but he’s not really back. You know what I mean? And it’s true that you don’t go to him. He’ll find you.”

  Barley downed the rest of the beer and touched Henry’s shoes—a nervous tick he was no longer aware of.

  The man had more to say. “I met Mr. Keating the one time, though. I didn’t get any indication he was who some people thought he was. But he was in here with Sanscrit one evening, the two of them drinking, and I recall a conversation they were having. About Asher losing his job. I took from their words that he was fired.”

  “Fired from where?” William asked.

  “The Ford plant. On the assembly line, I think.”

  “Why was he fired?” Barley asked.

  The man took a slug of beer. “I gathered it had something to do with the boss’s wife.”

  “Tanner Finn,” said the white-haired man. “That’s who runs the Ford plant. I think that’s who we’re talking about. Tanner’s wife. Don’t know her name.”

  “Sanscrit was talking sense to Asher. His boss wanted to rehire him. Sanscrit was talking Asher into returning. Asher Keating said he had better things to do than build cars.”

  William spotted a telephone behind the bar.

  Skip allowed them use of it but gave them the hinky eye from across the way. Were the men in the bar catching on that Barley was no longer who they thought he was? It only took a moment for the operator to put William in touch with the residence of Tanner Finn. But it was the wife who answered, cautiously saying her name was Bethany. As soon as William mentioned Asher Keating, he heard a nervous gasp. And then a click.

  “What’d she say?” Barley asked.

  “She hung up.”

  After they’d left the American Legion, Barley decided he needed a drink. They drove to Twisted Tree’s drugstore, called Melvin’s. It was owned by a man everyone called Juice. He sold m
ore booze than pills. During Prohibition, whiskey was his most widely scripted medicine.

  William parked the car. “How about I go in. I wanna see if Juice will sell to me. Can I have your hat?”

  “My hat? What for?”

  “Makes me look older.”

  “Don’t bend it. And don’t pull it down too far. Your head’s bigger than mine. You’ll stretch the band out.”

  William placed it on his head and checked how he looked in the rearview. The brim partially concealed his black eye. Juice didn’t even give him a second glance, counting out the change as if he’d sold William booze hundreds of times before. William left with a strut, the embarrassment from the coke ovens buried.

  A blue Model T with a bullet hole in the driver’s door had just pulled into the lot.

  Bancroft straightened the lapels of his coat and smoothed the sides of his trimmed black mustache as he got out of his car. “You’re the McFee boy. Didn’t recognize you under the topper. Your journalistic efforts are juvenile, by the way.” Bancroft started along. “Good day.”

  “Why haven’t you got the door fixed?”

  “Haven’t had the time.”

  “But you’ll do it.” The hat gave William some Barley-power. “My mom gave you cabbage. Make sure you’re not gonna be a wise guy.”

  Mr. Bancroft laughed pompously. “Look, sonny, I’ll fix the door when I fix the door. I’m a busy man.” He paused. “Expect a follow-up on all that potter’s field nonsense in the Post. And then you’d best turn to the Lord before the Devil pulls you asunder.”

  “She thinks you’re crazy,” William said. “You know that, don’t you? She was only being kind and didn’t know how to get rid of you.”

  “Your mother is a coquettish harlot.” Mr. Bancroft entered the drugstore.

  William went back to the car. He asked for Barley’s gun.

  “First my hat and now my gun?” Barley pulled the Colt .45 from the shoulder holster and handed it through the window.

  William approached Mr. Bancroft’s Model T. He pointed the gun at the back door on the driver’s side and pulled the trigger, plugging the middle with a fresh hole. He walked around to the other side and put a bullet in both of those doors.

  “Hey, you little scoundrel!” Mr. Bancroft yelled. He and Juice had run outside to see what was going on. William tipped his father’s hat as he moved past them.