Fire Lake

by Jonathan Valin

  Karen parked in the White Castle lot and went inside—into that stainless steel and porcelain birthday cake. A few minutes later she came back out with three big cups of coffee in a sack.

  For the next ten minutes I drank coffee, watched the colorful White Castle traffic, and jabbered drunkenly. I’m not sure what I jabbered about, but it seemed to amuse Karen.

  “You know what I don’t understand?” she said, pulling a paper napkin out of the sack and blotting up some coffee that I’d spilled down the front of my shirt.

  “I don’t understand a lot of things,” I said. “I don’t understand why I’m sitting here with you right now.”

  “I mean about what Sonny said.”

  “What don’t you understand about what Sonny said?” I asked.

  “If Cal and Jenkins ripped Lonnie off, why didn’t LeRoi know that?”

  I swallowed some more coffee and said, “I don’t follow you.”

  “Well, LeRoi must have suspected Jenkins, right? I mean he had him murdered, didn’t he?”

  I nodded slowly.

  “From what you told me, Bo and his friends...they tortured Jenkins before he died.”

  I nodded again. “Yes, they did.”

  “So why wouldn’t Jenkins have talked?” Karen said, looking perplexed. “Why wouldn’t he have told them everything—about Cal and Lonnie and you too?”

  I stared at her for a long moment. Either the coffee was beginning to burn a hole in my stomach or what she’d said had had the same effect, because I started to feel sick.

  “He would have told them,” I said uneasily.

  “Then why didn’t he?” Karen asked.

  “I don’t fucking know.” I glanced at my watch and then looked up the block, toward the Delores. “Christ,” I said out loud, “we may be in big trouble.”

  “LeRoi wouldn’t try anything in your apartment. Not twice in a row.”

  “Probably not,” I said. “It’s what happens after that, that worries me.”

  “All we can do is tell him the truth.”

  “If we know the truth,” I said grimly. “If Sonny wasn’t bullshitting us.”

  “I don’t think he was bullshitting, Harry,” Karen said. “He wasn’t smart enough to think up a story like that. And we didn’t find the drugs on him.”

  I sighed. “Something’s missing, then.”

  Karen started up the Pinto and backed out of the parking spot. “Let’s go find out what it is.”

  35

  THE POINT that Karen had made sobered me completely. Why hadn’t Jenkins told LeRoi’s boys about the way he and Cal had double-crossed Lonnie? A man would have to be made of a lot sterner stuff than Claude had been to hold out on Bo with his razor. Moreover, I couldn’t see why someone like Claude would have felt any loyalty to Cal in the first place. They’d run a dirty little double-cross—nothing worth holding out about under torture. All of which left me feeling uncertain about the scenario I’d spun on the way back from Miamiville. And even more uncertain about what I was going to tell LeRoi. As we pulled into the Delores’s lot, I asked myself if I really wanted to go through with this meeting. Then I asked Karen.

  “Do we have a choice?” she said. “If we don’t go through with it, we’ll be in even worse trouble.”

  “You’re getting to be awfully goddamn logical,” I said testily. But I knew she was right. Not showing up was just going to invite more visits from Bo.

  Karen parked the Pinto by the stairs leading to the courtyard. After giving each other a nervous look, we got out into the cold and snow and walked slowly up to the lobby. The dogwoods were tinkling icily in the stiff breeze. The lobby itself was empty—just a warm yellow room with its brass mailboxes, its hissing radiator, its muddy tile floor. The dimly lit stairwell looked empty too. There was no way to see beyond the first landing, though, where either Bo or Maurice could easily be concealing himself. As Karen opened the lobby door, I put my hand in my coat pocket and grasped the gun.

  I stopped Karen with my left hand before she could start up the stairs. “Maybe you ought to stay down here,” I said to her. “Better yet, maybe you should wait in the car.”

  I realized I was whispering.

  Karen shrugged resignedly. “Harry, what’s going to happen to us is going to happen—whether I’m here or there. I’m with you now, babe. For better or worse.”

  I smiled at her impromptu vow, although there was nothing funny about the situation. She knew it, too, in spite of her bravado. Her pretty, pouty mouth was set; but her pale blue eyes were restless with fear.

  She’d been right about one thing. Whether she stayed in the car or came with me, she was still vulnerable to LeRoi. And alone, she wouldn’t have a chance. I decided I wanted her with me.

  “All right, Karen,” I said, patting her cheek gently.

  She pressed my hand against her cheek and smiled at me with everything but her frightened eyes.

  “Ready?” I said.

  She swallowed hard and nodded. “Ready.”

  I pulled the Gold Cup from my coat pocket and started up the stairwell, with Karen right behind me. We took the stairs one at a time. When we reached the first landing, I peeked around the corner—both hands on the grip of the gun, my finger on the trigger. There was no one there.

  We went up the second flight of stairs, at the same snail’s pace. When we got to the second-floor landing, I put my hand across Karen’s chest, touching her breasts the way I had days before. We smiled at each other nervously.

  “Let me take a look,” I whispered.

  I peered around the corner and down the second-floor hallway—the gun still tight in my hands. There was no one on the landing or in the hallway. I listened for a long moment, but I couldn’t hear anyone moving around on the floor above us, either.

  “Let’s go,” I said, giving Karen a little push.

  We walked quickly down the hall to the apartment. I fumbled with the keys for a moment, cursed myself anxiously, then put the key in the lock.

  “Stand over there,” I whispered, pointing Karen away from the doorway.

  Karen took two steps to her right and huddled against the doorway. She looked terrified, hugging herself tightly, as if she was trying to hold herself together by main force. I pulled the Gold Cup out and leaned against the jamb. With my left hand I turned the key in the lock and gave the door a gentle push, keeping the pistol at the ready in my right hand.

  The door creaked and fell halfway open. From where I was standing by the jamb, I could see through the crack at the door’s hinges. The living room looked empty. But just to be safe, I waited a long moment before putting both hands on the gun, easing around the jamb, and stepping into the living room. If someone had shown his head at that moment, I would have shot him without hesitating. I was that keyed up.

  “It looks all right,” I whispered to Karen. “Let me check the bedroom before you come in.”

  I walked down the hall to the bedroom, plastered myself against the jamb again, and, reaching around the corner with my free hand, flipped on the bedroom lights. The room was empty. I checked the bathroom. Then the kitchen. Then I called Karen into the living room.

  I glanced at my watch—it was exactly twelve.

  “We’ve only got a few minutes before he shows,” I said.

  She nodded and bit nervously at her lower lip.

  I went over to the rolltop and unlocked the file drawer. There was a .357 Magnum inside the locked box—a little item that Bo and his friends had apparently missed when they’d searched my rooms. I unlocked the box, took out the pistol, and handed it to Karen. She held it up by the butt, as if it were a dead animal.

  “Wait in the bedroom,” I said. “If there is any trouble, protect yourself with that. Just cock it and pull the trigger.”

  She stared at the gun. “Am I supposed to save the last bullet for myself?”

  “It’s not funny, Karen,” I said, giving her a look.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m just scar
ed.”

  “It’ll be all right.”

  Karen walked down the hall to the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  I sat down in the armchair and waited.

  ******

  Around twelve-fifteen, I heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs. Whoever he was, he was wearing rubber boots, because I could hear them squeaking like frightened mice on the hall floor. He paused for a moment at the second-floor landing. I got up off the armchair and went through the archway into the kitchenette. I flipped off the kitchen light and settled in behind the archway wall. In the darkened kitchen, no one could see me and I would have a clear shot at anyone coming through the door.

  I stood there for a long moment, listening for the sound of the guy in the boots. A minute later, I heard him start down the hall. He came up to the door and stopped again.

  “Stoner?” a man said softly.

  It was LeRoi. I recognized his choir bass voice.

  I raised the Gold Cup and trained it on the door—both hands on the grip.

  “C’mon in, LeRoi,” I called out.

  LeRoi opened the door slowly.

  “No tricks now, man,” he said as he took one step into the living room.

  I could see him clearly from where I was standing—a tall, stocky black man with a gentle, big-eyed face. He was wearing boots, a tweed topcoat, and a navy blue sweater cap. He was not carrying a gun in his hand, although he could have had anything from a revolver to a shotgun hidden under the long-skirted topcoat. I was struck again by how healthy he looked compared to his help. Apparently, LeRoi was smart enough not to use the shit that he pushed—or, at least, not to use it regularly. There was nothing crazed about his eyes. They were wide open and alert-looking.

  He glanced around the room without spotting me. Then he saw the barrel of the Gold Cup, gleaming in the kitchen archway. LeRoi flinched and took a step back toward the door.

  “You keep pulling guns on people, you gonna get hurt,” he said nervously.

  “Close the door,” I said to him.

  He hesitated for a moment. And in that moment it dawned on me that I was as much of an unpredictable quantity to him as he was to me. All he knew about me was that I was a violent white man who had ripped him off and then pistol-whipped one of his best boys. He must have thought I could be reasoned with, or he wouldn’t have scheduled the meeting. Still, he knew I was dangerous. And he was treating me with due caution. I figured I could keep him off-balance by playing it as tough as possible.

  “Close the door,” I said again, coming out from the archway and pointing the gun at LeRoi’s head.

  LeRoi glanced nervously at the gun, then closed the door by leaning back against it.

  I said, “Stand away from the door. Put your hands up and clasp the top of your head.”

  “I thought we was gonna talk,” he said, without budging.

  “Do it, LeRoi!” I snapped. “Or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

  He scowled at me defiantly, but he stepped away from the doorway and put his hands on his head.

  I walked over to the door and locked it. Then patted LeRoi down.

  “You got some of your friends outside, LeRoi?” I said as I frisked him.

  “Man,” he said, giving me an icy look, “I told you I’d be alone. If I wanted you dead, homes, you be dead. And your bitch too.”

  “Yeah,” I said with some ice of my own. “Your boys are topnotch.”

  I put my hand in the small of LeRoi’s back and shoved him across the room toward the armchair. He didn’t like being pushed. But I didn’t care.

  “Lay off me, man,” he said, turning toward me angrily. “Don’t nobody lay hands on me.”

  “Sit!” I barked at him.

  He brushed the seat of the chair off with his left hand, then sat. “You gonna get burned down, fucker,” he said, eyeing me with hate. “You keep pullin’ attitudes on people.”

  I jerked the gun toward the door.

  “If I hear anything out there, I mean anything, you are dead.”

  “Shit, man,” he said, half rising out of the chair. “You know who you talking to?”

  “Yeah, the nigger who’s dumb enough to front crack to Lonnie Jackowski.”

  “Wha’chu talking about ‘front,’ sucker?” he said with outrage. “Your partner give me two grand for the lady. Say he give me the rest when he score.”

  “Where the fuck did Lonnie get two grand?” I said, giving him a disbelieving look.

  “From you, homes,” LeRoi said, throwing the same look back at me. “Who you trying to zoom, man? You jive-ass motherfucker! You fronted him the bread. Now, you lay the other ten on me, and we be square.”

  “He owes you ten?” I said.

  LeRoi shook his head. “Wha’chu act like you don’t know for?”

  “Because I don’t know.” I sat down across from him on the couch. “I’m only going to say this one more time. I’m not Lonnie’s partner, LeRoi. I’m just a friend.”

  “That’s not what he say,” LeRoi said coldly. “He say if anything go wrong I was to call you.”

  I stared at LeRoi for a long moment. I wanted to think that he was bluffing. But there was nothing about his face that suggested a bluff. Besides, I said to myself, what the hell would he be doing in my living room if he was running a bluff.

  “Lonnie told you to get in touch with me?” I said, feeling it fully—the betrayal, the double cross. Feeling it but not understanding the reason for it.

  “Bet, man. He say you be his partner.”

  “For chrissake,” I said, saying it out loud, “he fucking set me up!”

  LeRoi didn’t look impressed by my outrage. And it was obvious that he didn’t believe me. I couldn’t really blame him. If I’d been lying, I would have said the same thing. And, thanks to Lonnie, he thought I was lying.

  “You save that shit for somebody else, motherfucker. Give me the dime, like he say you would, and we be square. Give me the lady back, and we be square. One or t’other. Don’t matter to me.”

  “I don’t have the lady,” I said with exasperation. “Didn’t Jenkins tell you what was going down when you took him off?”

  “Don’t know nothing about that, bro’,” LeRoi said, shaking his head.

  I stared at him again, with that same twilight-zone sensation in the pit of my gut. “You’re telling me you didn’t take Jenkins off?”

  LeRoi stared at me. “Wha’chu think? I just go ‘round killin’ folks for no reason?”

  “Jenkins had your crack,” I said to him. “A guy named Cal’s got it now. They took Lonnie off at the motel.”

  “Then you better get it back, homes,” LeRoi said, giving me a hard look.” ‘Cause you be the man I’m dealin’ with. I don’t want to hear you tell me that other shit. I don’t care. You get that crack back or you get me the bread. By tomorrow. Hear?”

  He got up from the chair.

  I pointed the gun at him. “What if I shoot you right now,” I said to him.

  He blanched, then smiled sleekly to cover his fear. “You ain’t gonna shoot me, bro’. Shooting me ain’t gonna do you no earthly good. Wha’chu think? I’m the man? Shit.” He threw his hand at me contemptuously. “The man live out in Indian Hill. He got him a mansion and a Ferrari. You shoot me, and he just gonna send some other nigger to take you off. And, homes, he gonna burn you down big. You dig?”

  He glanced contemptuously at the gun I was holding on him, then started walking slowly to the door. I stared at him dully as he walked by.

  “You still got a day, man,” he said as he opened the door. “You get the bread or the flake, and don’ nobody have to get hurt. Just talk to your partner, man.”

  I laughed dully. “You don’t know where he is, do you?”

  LeRoi didn’t answer me. “Call me at the chili parlor when you ready to deal.” He stepped out the door, then looked back in. “And, homes...don’chu make me call you.”

  36

  AFTER LEROI left I just sat
there on the sofa, the gun dangling in my hands. Karen came out of the bedroom and sat down beside me.

  “You heard?” I said, glancing at her.

  She nodded. “Most of it.”

  “He set me up, Karen,” I said. “Lonnie set me up.”

  “Maybe he didn’t, Harry,” she said gently. “Maybe he was just being Lonnie—playing all the angles, like a big shot.”

  “Big shot!” I said with a bitter laugh. “He told that bastard LeRoi that I was his partner. He signed my name at the fucking motel. He ran away from the apartment, after I’d saved his bacon, knowing that I’d have to take the heat.”

  “He also tried to kill himself, Harry,” Karen said with a sad look. “He couldn’t have known that all this was going to happen, before he went out to the motel—that Cal and Jenkins were going to take him off and that he’d end up owing his soul to LeRoi. He wouldn’t have gone out there if he did. He’s not that stupid.”

  “But why use my name?” I said, feeling the injustice like a biblical smoting. “Why tell LeRoi I was his partner?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe he wanted to think you were his partner. Maybe it made him feel safer. He didn’t really have a friend he could trust on this deal. He didn’t know Cal or LeRoi or the bikers; Norvelle’s been zonked out for years; and I wasn’t around anymore to hold his hand. Maybe he got scared, afraid that something could go wrong while he was dealing with all those strangers. Maybe he thought that he might need an old friend to get him out of trouble. Or to bail him out of it. You’re a tough guy, Harry. Lonnie always admired that. Deep down, I think he always wanted to be a man like you.”

  I didn’t say anything, although I was mystified by the fact that she was defending him.

  Karen stared at me for a moment. “Can you get the money?”

  “If I have to,” I said. “But I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to pay for Lonnie’s mistake anymore.”

  “Tell me about it,” Karen said, with a hopeless look.

  I suddenly felt embarrassed for the way I’d been grousing. I had a right to be mad, all right. But compared to Karen, I’d gotten off easy. She’d had fifteen years of Lonnie Jackowski. Fifteen years of Fire Lake. And in spite of all she’d been through, part of her still loved the amoral bastard.