by R.J. Ellory
He stayed there in the diner for a while, seated in the booth, the pressure of Sheriff Wheland’s gun in the back of his waistband and beneath his jacket, the feeling of money in his pockets, and a dull ache in his groin every time he saw a pretty one go by the window. Some of them glanced his way, and every once in a while he’d get a smile in return.
After a while he went to the restroom. He sat in a stall for a while, just sat there on the seat, and he thought about stuff. Then he went out, and even though he had not taken a piss or anything, he still washed his hands. Cleanliness was next to godliness an’ all that jazz.
He looked at his reflection in the mirror above the sink.
He tried to smile, but for some reason he could not. Smiling just seemed to hurt the muscles in his face.
In the mirror he saw the man he would become. He did not see the boy he was.
In his eyes he saw depth and character. He saw self-possession and the grim determination to survive that had carried him thus far, a determination he believed would carry him all the way. Where it would take him, well, it didn’t matter. He did not have to choose now. He did not have to ever choose. He was alone, and yet never lonely. He could have company whenever he wished. He could have any company he chose.
Elliott knew he was special. He’d known this from the first day he’d ever conceived a self-aware thought. He knew he was important, that there was a reason for his existence. These things, these recent diversions, were not his purpose. They were merely things with which to occupy himself while he waited for the clarity that he knew would come. Where it would come from, perhaps more important, who it would come from, he did not know. It would not be God. God was a weak man’s answer to a weak man’s problems. No, the clarity would not come from God. There had been a point where he believed the clarity would come from the spirit of Earl Sheridan, but so far Earl had kept himself to himself.
Everything that had happened thus far had been a trial. He had been found wanting, but he had persisted, and through persistence he had found his inner strength, and now he was not afraid to hit back, to take what he wanted any which way he wanted it. That was what life was all about. If you didn’t take it, well, someone else would. Earl had known that. Hell, he’d known that himself even before he met Earl. It had just taken some real-life situations to bring that awareness into reality.
Digger looked at his own reflection and he tried to remember something his ma might have told him about his father. Anything at all. Good, bad, important, irrelevant—anything at all. There was very little to remember, and he struggled for a while. He believed that once he located one thing then others would follow.
He remembered a dog. The sound of a dog barking. He remembered the smell of dirty bodies. He remembered the smell of sweat and liquor and the taste of something salty in his mouth. He remembered being hungry. Oh, how he remembered that! He remembered holding a bird in his hands, and holding it so tight it stopped moving and how he put it in a box and hid the box somewhere. He couldn’t remember where he hid the box, or what the box looked like. He could not now even remember the feel of the bird as it had tried to escape from his hands.
He remembered the sound of his mother’s voice. He remembered her going away one time. He remembered how she looked when she returned. He remembered the last time he saw her alive, and then the time he thought she was alive and she was not. He remembered when Evelyn came, and how he knew—even at that age—that something had happened that was a bad thing. The first of many bad things. He remembered the policeman. He remembered the man who came in the car with a stretcher, and the way they carried her out of the house and how her arm suddenly appeared from the edge of the stretcher, her hand hanging down, and how they didn’t see that her hand was banging against everything as they made their way out of the house with her. He remembered someone laughing, and someone smoking a cigarette, and someone asking if he was hungry. He remembered crying.
And then there was nothing for a long time.
After that he remembered the first home, and then the second, and how scared he felt for so long, and how the only person in the world he knew was Clarence.
He remembered corridors and dormitories and other boys and people who shouted, and always the heavy footfall of unnamed people who meant him harm.
And then the talking. Endless talking. People with flat, gray eyes talking forever and ever and ever about things that meant nothing. “Why this, Elliott? Why that, Elliott? Why the other, Elliott? Elliott. Elliott. Elliott. Why are you so violent? Why are you so bad?”
“Because I want to be,” he said. “Because I fucking want to be, okay? I don’t need any other kinda reason. I fucking well want to. Now fuck off and leave me alone.”
But such an answer didn’t seem answer enough. And so on and on they went with the questions.
A Mormon came. He was a tall man with white hair and he wore glasses. He said that if Elliott didn’t curb his ways and come to the Lord then he would wind up in hell.
I think I’m there already, Elliott said.
The Mormon smiled and shook his head. “You have no idea, child. You have not the slightest idea of what awaits you if you don’t turn your face to the Lord and pray for his forgiveness, and ask for him to come into your heart and bless you with the peace that is His love.”
“Is that so?” Elliott asked.
“It is,” the man said. And then he went on to say that there were sins that could be atoned for by an offering on an altar … and then there were sins that the blood of a lamb, or of a calf, or of a turtle dove, could not remit. And he said that sins such as those must be atoned for by the blood of a man. If Elliott went on doing these terrible things, and thinking these terrible thoughts, then it would be his blood that would be taken. He would find himself carrying a sentence of death over his head, not only in this life, but in the life ever after.
“Go fuck yourself with your life ever after,” Elliott said, and the man fell quiet and then he seemed to cry, and then he left the room and Elliott never saw him again.
And after that they stopped asking questions, as if they’d decided that Elliott Danziger was too powerful to break. Whatever mold might have been used, whatever material he might have been cast from, they possessed nothing with the strength to break it. That was the simple and incontrovertible truth. Elliott Danziger was tougher than all of them combined, and—if he had needed it, which he didn’t—there was all the proof you would ever need that he had been made for better things.
For a while there was nothing of significance. He hurt a boy one time. He was a bigger boy and he tried to fuck Elliott in the ass. Elliott said he would rather suck his dick. The boy said okay, and when the boy put his thing in Elliott’s mouth Elliott bit it so hard it almost came off. For that they put him in a room by himself and left him there for six weeks. He never told Clarence why he was in solitary. He never said a word about that. They put his food through a slot low down in the door. He didn’t see sunshine or breathe fresh air the whole time. When he came out he had to see a man called Lansford. He remembered Lansford’s name because Lansford made him repeat it several times, and he made him say “Yes, Mr. Lansford, sir” every time Lansford told him something.
“You are a bad person. Through and through to the very core of you, you are a bad person.”
“Yes, Mr. Lansford, sir.”
“I do not see that you will ever be free from some sort of institution, Danziger. I think you will see walls and bars for the rest of your life and when your life is over, probably because we will execute you, then you will go to hell and burn forever for your sins.”
“Yes, Mr. Lansford, sir.”
“I know that you think I am a fool. I know that you think you’re better than all of us. I know that you believe yourself smarter and more capable, and you think you have all the answers to everything that needs an answer … but let me tell you, and this I want you to hear good and proper. You are an evil child. You are an evil, evil, wicked, de
structive child. Your mind is poisoned and perverse. You are sick and cruel and desperately insane, and there is no cure for the likes of you. You are mentally disturbed and there is some sick disease in your brain, and there is nothing that can mend how broken you are.”
“Yes, Mr. Lansford, sir.”
“See, even now you are smiling at me. Even now you think this is a joke. You take that dirty little smile off your face.”
“Yes, Mr. Lansford, sir.”
“I said take that dirty little smile off your face, Danziger! Get rid of that smile right now!”
“Yes, Mr. Lansford, sir,” he said, but apparently that wasn’t good enough because Lansford started beating him then, and Elliott took the beating and he never said a word, and he never averted his gaze from Mr. Lansford, and he never stopped smiling.
And when Lansford was done—sweating, breathless, still angry but too exhausted to hit Elliott any more—he stood over Elliott and said, “So boy, what do you have to say to me now?”
And Elliott, still smiling his dirty little smile, said, “Go fuck yourself, Mr. Lansford, sir.”
Lansford kicked him then and broke one of his ribs, but it was worth it.
After Lansford they left him to himself. He stayed out of the way, kept his head down, didn’t get involved in conversations or arguments or fights. He just stayed with Clarence. He needed to look after Clarence. He needed to make sure that no one did anything to hurt Clarence. He didn’t make friends. He didn’t make enemies. Sometimes he had people he took a shine to, people he figured thought the same way he did. Most often they didn’t. He tried to tell them a few truths, a few of the real facts about life, but most often they were too dumb to listen and appreciate the value of what he was telling them.
And then he met Earl Sheridan, and Earl understood. Earl knew exactly the kind of thing that Digger was talking about.
And as soon as he met Earl, well, Clay showed his true colors. He turned like the worm that he was. He became just the same as everyone else. Cocksucker. Motherfucker. Son of a bitch.
But Earl knew the deal, the real deal, the whole deal. Such a guy! A real man. A hero. And those assholes in Wellton had to gun him down! Motherfuckers! What he was doing now had to be some sort of retribution for that. What he was doing now sort of helped to rectify the balance. He was doing these things for himself, but he was also doing them for Earl. Earl Sheridan. Even his name sounded like something for a king!
And these motherfuckers, liars and betrayers and sons of bitches … with their stupid fucking smiles and trying to make him think that everything was fine, everything was all right, everything was going to be okay if he just trusted them …
Pleading and crying and sobbing like a fucking baby, goddammit he was mad!
Elliott stepped back from the mirror. He realized there were tears in his eyes.
He raised his hand—suddenly, almost surprising himself—and he slapped himself hard across the face. As hard as he could. For a second he felt nothing, and then the pain came, and his cheek reddened violently, and he could see the impression of his own fingers.
He stood there for some seconds, eyes closed, holding his breath, and just waited until the sensation subsided. Then, glancing once more at his own reflection, Elliott left the restroom.
As John Cassidy drove away from the yard beneath Deidre Parselle’s window, Elliott put two quarters on the table and left the Bayard Street diner. He headed back the way he’d come, back toward the girl’s apartment, but before he reached the corner he turned left down Holbrook and went looking for a car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
As overwhelmed by Tucson as Digger might have been, Clay was more so. It was the number of people that shocked him. Bailey had seen Scottsdale and Mesa, even Phoenix. She had taken the bus back and forth many times and spoken to strangers on numerous occasions. Compared to Clay Luckman, Bailey Redman was worldly and experienced. Turning the first corner as they came out of the suburbs they were besieged by a crowd of church folk. They were handing out leaflets and religious tracts and pennants and button badges saying Jesus Is Love and I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and their mouths were full of words and smiles, yet their eyes were flat and dull and doubtful. Bailey grabbed Clay’s arm and pulled him off the sidewalk. She hurried him across the road out of the melee, and he let her pull him because he felt awkward and naive and uncertain about where he was going.
Around the corner, on a stoop ahead of a tall house, a man waved both hands like a guilty politician, and he shouted something about the mayor and the republicans and a need for change at all levels of government. Watching him was a whole mess of dirty kids, tougher-looking than most adults. Clay paused. Bailey pulled him again and they were hurrying away.
“Where does this road go?” he asked.
“Goes to wherever it gets and every place on the way,” she said, and she laughed at him and he felt like a little kid.
Where the road went was the center of Tucson, and here they slowed down and she gave him a little time to absorb what he was seeing. Storefronts and street signs and advertising hoardings and newspaper vendors and lemonade stands and cars going this way and that at a hundred miles an hour. He felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He felt as if Shoeshine had given him a good kick in the seat of his pants and he’d landed in the future.
Jesus Christ, he kept thinking. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ Almighty.
“Come on,” Bailey said, and she took his hand once more and they were walking again. Left, right, left, right, he couldn’t see where she was taking him, and he soon forgot what was left behind them. There was too much to see, too much to hear, far too much to take in.
Unaware that Earl Sheridan was already dead, Clay Luckman would have been even more surprised to know that Digger was right there in Tucson as well, just about finishing up his lunch in a diner on Bayard Street, not five blocks from where he stood. Digger’s intent now was to cross out of Arizona and get into New Mexico. Once out of the state he could make his way to Texas more easily. He knew they would find the sheriff’s car behind the house near Gila Bend, that now he would be a fugitive just like Earl Sheridan. What he didn’t know was that the federal authorities actually believed him dead, that they were even now looking for someone called Clarence Luckman. That would have humored Digger. That would have put a smile on his face as wide as the Mississippi.
It would be an hour before Gil Webster’s white pickup was discovered abandoned in a street in Tucson, another two hours before Garth Nixon and Ronald Koenig were informed of the discovery. They wouldn’t arrive in the city until late that afternoon, and by then the Tucson Police Department had been apprised of the identity of Clarence Luckman, that he was armed and dangerous, that he was sociopathic and potentially homicidal and more than likely planning to attack again. These were all parts of a jigsaw, and the pieces had yet to align. They would, but they needed time. Late that evening, when the pieces were drawing close, John Cassidy would resolve in his own mind that there was no connection between Deidre Parselle’s booking a day off work and her subsequent stabbing. He had questioned her work colleagues, the few friends she had in the city, and they’d all expressed the same reaction. A wide-eyed and disbelieving shock. Her parents were inconsolable, and this was something Cassidy could appreciate. The shock attendant to such an event was easily understood. Save the police themselves, the county coroner, the medical examiner, there were few people who ever experienced such brutality. Homicides, even attempted homicides, were rare enough in Tucson City. Cassidy hoped that such crimes would remain a rare and unusual phenomena, but he believed that they would not. Ever attempting to maintain an optimistic slant on things, he could not help but be aware of the fact that the social order was slipping. By inches, yes, but it was slipping. Coincident with the assassination of Kennedy the year before, there seemed to be a brashness and superficiality appearing in society. Television was consuming people’s lives. The quality of things seemed to be deter
iorating. People had less time for others. Perhaps it was his imagination, perhaps not. If the brutal assault that had been perpetrated against Deidre Parselle was anything to go by, well, he could see the direction in which things were headed. It was not good, not good at all. Made him wonder whether the world he was bringing a child into was really a world he would wish on anyone.
So it was that FBI Agents Garth Nixon and Ronald Koenig, also Elliott Danziger, Tucson PD detective John Cassidy, the parents and friends of Deidre Parselle, Gil and Marilyn Webster, the widow of Harvey Warren from the Marana Convenience Store & Gas Station, the staff of the Yuma County Trust & Savings Bank in Wellton, Laurette Tannahill amongst them, even those who discovered the body of Bethany Olson in the diner outside of Twentynine Palms, were all drawn into the drama as if attached by the fine threads of some unseen web. Had Earl Sheridan not plunged a boning knife through the heart of Katherine Aronson, had she in fact pressed charges against him for the earlier assault and beating he had given her, things might have turned out different. But they had not.
Clay Luckman and Bailey Redman arrived in Tucson in the early afternoon of Tuesday, November 24, 1964, and they found pictures of John F. Kennedy still hanging in stores and diners, a black ribbon tied across them. Only two days had elapsed since the first anniversary of his murder, and there had been memorials and words in church, and the mayor had made a statement to the press about his immeasurable sadness, a sadness he now carried with him each and every day of his public and personal life.
Bailey Redman, both perplexed and amused by Clay Luckman’s seeming naïveté of the world at large, merely steered him into a diner and sat him in a corner booth, saying, “Now we’re going to have lunch,” aware then that she was feeling that sadness herself, but not for Kennedy. The sadness she felt was for her father, before that her mother, and it seemed that she was so tangled up with emotions she didn’t know what to feel or how to express it. She had cried at the side of the road. She remembered that. She had tried to sob her broken heart out, but her heart was still broken. Perhaps it would come back again—a wave of overwhelming grief, and she would begin to reconcile herself to what had happened. Somehow she doubted it. Somehow she figured that these events would take a lifetime to recover from, and even then the recovery would be incomplete.
