The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living
Page 33
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him you killed my wife?”
“Yes. I told him that.”
“Signed a confession?” Evers nearly shouted.
“Sort of.”
“Sort of? Pascal, this isn’t a game or a joke. Do you want to go to jail? Wear a jumpsuit and get butt-fucked? Play cards for cigarettes all day?”
“Evel Knievel and Elvis did all right in jumpsuits. And the Godfather of Soul looked pretty smart in that TV commercial we saw.”
Evers didn’t speak.
“Evers?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t worry about me, okay?”
“Why in the world would you confess to killing my wife? Is this another lark or stunt or prank? This guy, dolt and clown that he is, is still a policeman, and he’s going to arrest you if he already hasn’t.”
“They haven’t yet. I’ve been gone.” Pascal’s voice was grainy and nasal, laced with indolence, backed up in his head.
“God.”
“Don’t worry, Evers. Don’t worry about taking care of me.”
“Do you have money for a lawyer?”
“Maybe I’ll get a court-appointed lawyer. I figure my case will be pretty easy to handle.”
“Meaning what?”
“Let’s talk about it, Evers. I’ll come up and see you. I’ll get Dr. Rudy to come, too. Be there soon.”
Evers was impatient. “Pauletta came down yesterday. She came to talk with you and to get this straightened out. She stayed until lunch, but she had to go back. You need to call her.”
“I will,” Pascal said. “It was nice of her to do that.”
“Where have you been? And what’s all this about taking the shrine to some creek?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. It’s nothing important.”
“By the way, did you take a check out of my book? I’m missing a check.”
“No. What brought that up?”
“I got to the last check in my book, the last one in sequence, number two ninety-nine, and it’s not there. I thought you might have taken it.”
“No.”
“So you didn’t get it?” Evers demanded.
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure, Evers. Though I’m certainly getting blamed for a lot recently. You want to grill me about Amelia Earhart? Hoffa? Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? Original sin?”
“I’ll just call the bank and have it stopped.”
“Whatever. I’ll see you soon.”
Evers went into his bedroom, sat down in a chair, and began watching his fish and trying to think. The water in the aquarium was purple and glowing. Evers got up and sprinkled food across the top of the tank, and the fish popped and darted at the flakes. The phone rang and Evers debated whether or not he should answer it. He didn’t feel like talking, but thought it might be Pascal calling him back or perhaps Pauletta. When he picked up the receiver, Aimme was on the line, and he could hear the rest of Jo Miller’s family in the background.
“Mr. Wolf contacted us today, Evers.” Her voice was taunting, almost singsong.
“What, Jo Miller still owes him money?”
“It seems like that test you took a while ago didn’t go so well. Mr. Wolf is mailing us a copy. Looks like it was positive for marijuana.”
“Those tests aren’t reliable. They’re wrong. Anyway, what’s it to you?”
“We plan on letting your employer know, the bar know, the media know and the district attorney know.” Aimme sounded like she was reading from a script.
“Okay, good. The tests are wrong. I’ve had them done here, and they’re clean.” Immediately after his hearing, Evers had avoided dope for several days and had drunk herbal tea, goldenseal and lots of water to clean out the THC residue in his system. When the next test was done, he ended up with urine as clear as Perrier and a negative drug screen from Dr. Rudy and the hospital lab. Rudy had initially suggested simply swapping samples, but that plan stalled when Evers couldn’t think of anyone whom he trusted and who could also piss clean.
“If you let us have her house and farm and belongings, we’d drop everything.”
“No thanks.”
“Wolf said we’d have a good chance of winning a civil suit against your brother, even if we can’t get anything from you or hold you responsible for what happened.”
“Wolf just wants a fee.”
“Do you really want all we know to come out?”
Evers laughed. “Pay your money, get your lawyer, go to court, do your best.”
“You know, the policeman told us about Pascal. He thinks you’re involved, too. So do we. I know it. He’s got a good case against Pascal. It’s just a matter of time before he gets you.”
“You’re full of shit, Aimme.” Evers hung up the phone. Almost as soon as he turned away from the table, it rang again.
Evers grabbed the receiver before the first ring ended. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Evers?”
“What? What? Pascal?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, I thought it was somebody else.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re not quite that pissed at me.”
“What’s up?” Evers watched a piece of fish food begin to sink through the lavender water. “I thought you were coming down here. What are you doing? We’ve got a lot to do. You need to quit fucking around and get down here.” An angelfish dived after the falling food.
“That plan isn’t going to work. The police are here now, and they just arrested me. They tell me I’m going to need a bond to get out of jail.”
“Shit.”
Later that night, Evers picked up Pauletta at the Raleigh-Durham airport; it was her second visit to North Carolina in two days. It had been raining hard since noon, and Evers saw several jagged flashes of lightning right before he got out of his car at the terminal, like orange, bony fingers stretched out in the downpour. The sky and roads and cars in the parking lot all seemed gray, as if every other color had been washed away by the storm. Pauletta’s was one of the last flights to arrive at the airport, and her plane was an hour late.
“Thanks for coming down again,” Evers said after he put Pauletta’s bags and CD case in the backseat.
“You’re welcome. I’ve never been to Durham. I understand it’s a nice area. And I’d like to go through Chapel Hill if we have time—maybe on the way back here.”
“It’s not too far out of the way.”
“Sorry about the delay. The storms really set us back. I hope you didn’t have to wait too long.”
Evers shrugged, switched on the ignition and started out of the airport. “It’s not a problem. I’m just glad you got here safely.”
“It was a pretty nasty flight.”
“In the face of all the shit in my life, I have some more good news,” Evers announced.
“What?”
“My in-laws are threatening to tell the world about a drug test I failed.”
“Why did you have a drug test? What exactly are you talking about?”
Evers told Pauletta about his support hearing with Jo Miller. “If word gets out, you’ll lose your job, won’t you? You guys are elected, right?” she said.
“Probably. I do have a second test, and that one’s clean.”
“How do you explain the first one? The one you failed?”
“It was one of the really quick piss tests the court service units do. It’s my feeling that I got a false positive.” He winked at her. “The one administered at the hospital by the infallible Dr. Rudy just a few days later is correct, of course. The bottom line is that I had another one done as soon as I found out from my attorney that I allegedly failed the first one. At least that’s what I’m going to say.”
“Any problems with the bar or the state and your license?”
“I don’t think so. I might have to go to a seminar or write an essay or something. It’s not a ‘moral turpitude’ crime, so I’m okay, I think.
Maybe they’ll make me pee in a jar occasionally.”
“If they find out.”
“I’m sure my in-laws will see to that.”
“You’ll lose your job,” Pauletta said again. “How do they do that in North Carolina? Impeach you? A recall election or something?”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. It’s not something that happens a lot.”
“Maybe it won’t get out.”
“Well, at any rate, I figure I need to just stare the beast in the face. That’s what I think; I’m going to be sloppy and stubborn about it, like the guys who show up falling-down drunk in court to enter a guilty plea for DWI. I’ve got a small bag of dope that Pascal gave me, and you said one time that you might sample some with me. What do you think? It should make the trip more pleasant. And it should help your counterculture bona fides at the next march.”
“How long will it take us to get where we’re going?”
“It’s twenty or thirty miles. It’ll take a while in this weather.” The windshield wipers were slapping, and there was a swoosh of water whenever a truck passed them. “Anyway, thanks again for coming. I guess you have better things to do with your free time.”
“I canceled a trip with a very fine man, as a matter of fact.” Pauletta opened her CD case. It was dark, so she switched on the interior light.
“The slick, Billy Dee Williams type? Sharkskin suit and a Cadillac filled with Asti Spumanti?”
“Put this in.” Pauletta handed Evers a disc, Handel’s Water Music Suites. “Do you like classical music, Judge Wheeling?”
“Fantasia’s about it.”
“Figures.” Pauletta put her CD case behind the seat. “Where’s the dope?”
“In the glove box.”
“We won’t be able to see your brother tonight, right? It’s already after eleven.”
“Right. We’ll get a room and see him in the morning. We won’t get to Durham until after midnight. Can you roll a joint?”
“I haven’t since college,” Pauletta said.
“Well, try. I’m not very good at it either, and I’m driving. Let’s get out of this traffic and all the lights just a little bit more, too.”
Pauletta opened the glove box. “Do you think that your chances of having sex with me are improved since I’m smoking dope with you?”
“Are they?”
“Nope.”
“Are you angry about missing your date with your slick black prince?” Evers looked at her, then back at the highway. He grinned. “I’ll bet you really didn’t have another trip.”
“Of course I did. Why would I lie to you?”
“Before I get stoned, I want to ask you something, okay?”
Pauletta didn’t answer.
“Did you like having sex with me?”
“It was adequate. It wasn’t like fucking the Tin Man or something.”
“Adequate?” Evers laughed.
“In the top twenty percent of all white men. Top fifty of all men generally.” She smiled. “Maybe someday you’ll get a chance to improve,” she said in her deliberate way, then smiled again.
“What is a tin man, anyway? I mean, a lion is a lion, a scarecrow I know, Toto’s a dog, but what the hell is a tin man?”
Pauletta looked across the car at him. “How smart is it of you to be using drugs right now? Sort of self-destructive, isn’t it?”
“Who knows.”
Pauletta rolled a joint, and she and Evers passed it back and forth between them. The end was orange, and the marijuana burned unevenly and too quickly. Evers and Pauletta cracked their windows. The smoke hung in the air for an instant and then skipped outside, into the rain and dark. After about fifteen minutes, she said, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“We are.”
“Let’s check out a McDonald’s or something. I’m starving.”
“I am, too, but that’s a lot of effort and interaction.”
“No it isn’t. We need to eat.”
The marijuana shortened Evers’ sentences to rudimentary phrases. “Drive-through, then.”
“Okay.”
“Who pays?”
“I’ll pay,” said Pauletta.
“My sentences are short.”
“Mine, too.”
They both laughed.
“Drive-through,” he said.
“I’ll pay.”
“That was a tiny sentence.”
“Yes.”
“Will you order?” Evers asked.
“I’m too high.”
“I can’t.”
“Tell them we’ll have whatever they select for us,” Pauletta offered.
“Too complex.”
“Just do it.”
“What if it’s a McFun pack or some other kid’s thing?”
She tossed her hands up. “I can’t taste anyway.”
“Don’t you feel stupid talking to the fucking sign?”
“What sign?”
“The menu with speech you order from.”
“It’s probably—”
“Yeah. It’s not the menu that talks. Someone inside.”
“An employee.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
They ate in the restaurant’s parking lot, and it seemed to Evers that they took a long while to finish.
By the time they got to Durham, Pauletta had turned quiet and walleyed, and Evers had started to even out his buzz. The world in front of him began to appear less and less like an eight-millimeter movie projected onto a white bedsheet. People moved without jerks and twitches, colors were not overbaked, and background and foreground finally seemed to separate. Pauletta was travel-and-dope drained and fell asleep in her pants and silk blouse on one bed. Evers took a shower and brushed his teeth and slept in the other bed, the one closer to the air conditioner.
At the Durham jail, Pascal was practically giddy when he came out to meet his brother and Pauletta. He was clean shaven, his hair was combed, and he walked quickly and relaxed when he sat down.
Pauletta and Pascal were glad to see each other again. They talked for a few minutes about music and movies while Evers held his sunglasses by the earpiece and flipped them around in lazy circles. Pascal was going on about a CD—Cabaret Mañana—that reminded him of cocktails and narrow ties, and he suddenly stopped and started talking to Evers.
“Oh, Christ, I meant to tell you. I had a great idea this morning, something that could really pay off. We should market reproductions of ticks with gummed backs. Kids would buy them, stick them in their heads or on their arms and frighten the shit out of their parents. A gold mine.”
“We have other problems right now, Pascal.”
“Evers can be very focused sometimes,” Pascal said to Pauletta.
“Myopic, I’d say.” Pauletta answered without much thought. “Why do you have your sunglasses out in here?”
Evers was suddenly angry. “What’s wrong with you? Both of you? Pauletta flies two fucking hours down here, Pascal, and you stroll out here like some monarch, all carefree and smiles and record reviews. What the fuck is your problem? Perhaps I’ll just leave you in here and not bond you out. You can do Rex Reed for the crooks and pinheads in your cell.”
“Damn, don’t do that.” Pascal seemed concerned. He was wearing cheap blue jeans and a denim prison shirt with a black number stenciled onto it. “I’m sorry. I’m glad you came. I am. I just don’t want you to be so worried, Evers, so weighed down by everything. A little levity helps sometimes.”
“Amen,” said Pauletta.
“So what’s the story, Pascal?” Evers said, still cross. He jammed his glasses into his shirt pocket.
“Is it safe to talk here?”
“What do you mean?” Evers asked.
“Bugs, microphones. Whatever.”
“It’s safe,” Evers said.
Pascal lowered his voice. “The confession won’t do them a lot of good.”
Pauletta leaned forward. “Why?”
“Our father,” Evers explained to Pauletta. He was still irritated and ignored Pascal’s strange statement.
“Why did—?” Pauletta started to speak, but Pascal held up his hand.
“I signed it sloppily, but if you look, it will be pretty clear that it’s ‘Purvis,’ not ‘Pascal.’ When I handed it to Loggins, I knocked a beer over onto the paper. Spilled all over it.”
Pauletta started writing on a legal pad.
“Right after they left, I took Rudy’s old Toyota out and drove it into a ditch. Before I wrecked, I’d drunk a pint of bourbon and at least six beers. I had most of the pint and two of the beers after the cops left. Gulped the shit down. I called Rudy when I left, and he phoned the police anonymously a minute or so later. Guess what? Fifteen to twenty minutes after I confessed I’m arrested for DWI with a point-one-six blood-alcohol level.”
“No confession then,” Pauletta mumbled. “If you were drunk, the Miranda waiver wasn’t knowing and voluntary. If you’re convicted of DWI, that’s proof you were drunk. The state kills its own confession.”
“They’ll dismiss the DWI,” Evers said. “Greenfield will pick it up and dismiss it.”
“We can still use the blood test,” said Pauletta.
“I doubt he’ll find it. I drove across the line into Randolph County to wreck. It won’t be in court where I live, and these guys are down here in Durham.”
“What about the fibers and the credit card?” Pauletta was still writing. “Have you heard that news?”
“The cops mentioned that stuff when they were walking me out to their car, right before they did that classic move where they push your head under the door frame. Can’t help you with the fibers. Certainly, though, that’s not enough to convict me.”
“They have a credit card record that indicates you were in the area on the day she died.” Pauletta didn’t look up from her pad when she spoke.
“Yeah. For a while that really threw me, because I was … I couldn’t figure out how that happened. And then it dawned on me that after Evers left that morning, Rudy and I drove to Raleigh to buy some dope from a guy called Oscar. He’s an accountant, works on Saint Mary’s Street. He’s been selling us pot for a couple years. On the way down, we stopped to buy gas and bought some beer and doughnuts at a Shell station. But it was like ten or eleven in the morning. The police had come and gone, and Jo Miller was already dead.” He kicked the floor with the toe of his shoe. “It hardly seems fair that the police would use that. Is this the kind of thing they do—take things out of context?”