The Autumn Dead

by Edward Gorman

  "You didn't go to the reunion?"

  "No, I didn't. Why?"

  "Curious."

  "Jesus, you think I had something to do with Karen's death?"

  "Possibly."

  "Christ, Dwyer."

  I touched the manuscript again. The parts I'd read detailed how a middle-aged man falls miserably in love with a beautiful woman from his past and pleads with her to run away with him. "You were in love with her."

  "Yes. In a very positive way." He exhaled blue smoke. "We were going to go away together."

  He said it so easily, so confidently, that it wasn't half as funny as it should have been. She'd been with many men, good and bad, but they'd had one thing in common, and that was the power of their money to protect her from her demons.

  She and Gary Roberts would have lasted maybe three months.

  "You don't believe me?"

  "I believe you," I said.

  "I gave Karen things nobody else ever had."

  "Tell me more about Larry Price."

  "What about him?"

  "He ever come around again?"

  "No. But he called."

  "When?"

  "A few weeks after he came over. She was very upset, sobbing, when she hung up. Then she went out to see her brother."

  "She didn't say why?"

  "No.

  "I need to say something here and I'm going to come off sanctimonious," I said.

  He looked at me with his middle-aged eyes and said, "I know."

  "'You've got a fine wife."

  He nodded. "Don't you think I feel like shit?" Then, "So you're not going to tell her?"

  "Of course not."

  "Thanks."

  "You can still patch it up."

  "I want to. It's just—" He shrugged. "It was like being a teenager again. It really was. I mean, we made love everywhere possible. Wrote notes—" His laugh was sour. "While all the time Susan was at home being a good wife."

  I set my hand on his shoulder and thought of us as young boys playing ball one summer, and how I could never have predicted that thirty-five years later we'd be standing here having this conversation. We were part of the same generation, falling away now, some of us, to be joined later by the rest of us, our moment on the planet vanished, the sunlight on baseball grass shining for different generations.

  I felt sorry for him and angry with him and even half-afraid for him, a marriage being not so easy to put back together again, and at last I said, "You're a goddamn good teacher, you know that?"

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. I stood in the doorway watching you with that last woman. You're really good."

  "Well, thanks. I mean, I'm not sure I'm ever going to sell anything as a writer. But as a teacher—"

  I said, "Why don't you go home and take her out somewhere nice."

  "Tonight?"

  "Hell, yes, tonight."

  "Why will I tell her we're going?"

  "Tell her because you just realized all over again how much you love her."

  He laughed. "You should write sappy greeting cards, Dwyer. That's a great idea."

  "Nobody's ever accused me of that before."

  "What?"

  "Having great ideas."

  Chapter 29

  "So who has the suitcase and what’s in it?"

  "That's the trouble."

  "What?"

  "I don't know."

  We had been in bed for close to an hour now. My shoes were off but that was it. Donna was in her blue thigh-length football jersey with the big 00 on the front. She looked attractively mussed and I wondered what she saw in me anyway.

  "You want a back rub?" she said.

  "No, thanks."

  "You want some underwear inspection?"

  "I wish I did."

  "You want some herbal tea?"

  "Sorry."

  "You going to let me help you?"

  "I guess not."

  "Is it okay if I turn on the tube then?"

  "Sure."

  "Will you at least take off your clothes?"

  So I got out of my clothes and got under the fancy blue-andwhite grid work comforter and tried to watch David Letterman.

  "He's such an ass," Donna said.

  "I know. So why are we watching him?"

  "Nothing else on."

  "You pay fifty-one dollars a month so you can have thirtyeight cable channels and you say there's nothing else on?"

  "You want to argue? Will that make you feel better?"

  "Apparently."

  "All right," she said. She picked up the remote dial and clicked off Letterman and then sat up Indian-legged with her container of Dannon banana yogurt in one hand and her handful of raisins in the other. A white plastic Dairy Queen spoon stuck out of the Dannon. She always kept her Dairy Queen spoons and she went to the Dairy Queen a lot. "All right," she said.

  "All right what?"

  "All right your face is sort of messed up from somebody hitting you. And all right your high-school girlfriend is dead, presumably murdered. And all right a crazy, sad woman named Evelyn got blown over her motorcycle by somebody probably equally crazy. So, all right, start talking"

  "About what?"

  "About how you're feeling."

  "I'm feeling like shit."

  "So tell me about feeling like shit, Dwyer. Tell me all about it because I can't stand it when you get quiet like this. You just sit there and suffer and it's terrible. For both of us."

  "I feel like shit is all. Doesn't that sort of say it?"

  "Are you feeling like shit because maybe you sort of got a crush on Karen Lane again?"

  "I knew that's what you were thinking. And the answer is no."

  "Are you feeling like shit because you don't know what's in the suitcase?"

  "Partly."

  "What are you guessing is in the suitcase?"

  "Something that will explain what really happened to Sonny Howard and will also explain why Forester and Price and Haskins are willing to pay so much for it."

  "And who are you guessing has the suitcase?"

  "That I don't know yet. That's why I'm going to the park—"' I glanced at my Timex. It was well after midnight. "Tonight."

  She dropped some raisins into her yogurt and said, "You're kind of menopausal, you know that? I mean the way you deal with things."

  "Gee, thanks."

  "No. You really are. You kind of go through these hot flashes and do irrational things."

  "Such as what?"

  "Such as going to the park."

  "That's irrational?"

  "Of course it is. That's the kind of thing you should call Edelman about. If there's going to be an exchange of the suitcase for money, then the police should be there, not you."

  "This is different."

  "No, it's not. It's menopausal."

  She clicked David Letterman back on. He was being coy as usual because the topic was sex, a subject he seemed to find disgusting.

  I lost it then. It all came down on me and I lost it and I grabbed the remote bar and thumbed through several other channels and as the channels flipped by—pro wrestling, an Alan Ladd movie, William Bendix, a severely hair-sprayed man discussing Wall Street—as the channels flipped by, she moved over to her side of the bed and put her face in the pillow.

  It took me two or three long minutes to say it. "I'm sorry."

  "'Right." She started to cry softly.

  I leaned over and kind of kissed her arm. "I don't mean to take it out on you."

  She kept facing the wall. "I get so damn discouraged about us when you push me away like that. You've been doing it since you walked through the door."

  "I want to ask you something."

  "What?" Sniffling now.

  "I want to know if you'll let me inspect your underwear."

  "You bastard," she said.

  But she laughed. Or at least she sort of did.

  Several times the next morning I thought of calling Edelman. Once I even got into a phone b
ooth. Dialed. Waited while they put me on hold. Ready to tell him what I knew. But then I hung up and got back in my car.

  In the afternoon I went into the American Security offices to pick up my paycheck.

  Bobby Lee gave me some fudge that she'd made for Donna, and Diaz, the kid who'd put the choke hold on the Nam vet, gave me some grief.

  In the back room, Diaz said, "You ever seen these?"

  His smirk said it all. He was going to pull something out of his windbreaker pocket that was going to irritate the hell out me and he was going to love it.

  "Diaz, I'm really not up to it today. All right?"

  "Here," he said.

  He brought his hand out. Over his knuckles were the metal ridges of brass knuckles.

  "No more choke holds, man." He looked proud of himself. "Just these babies."

  I put my hand out, palm up.

  "Give them to me."

  "What?"

  "I want them, Diaz, and right now."

  "Bullshit. They're mine. I paid for them with my own money."

  I didn't say anything more. Just went over to the intercom phone and picked it up.

  "Hey, what're you doing?"

  "I’m going to fire you, Diaz."

  "Hey asshole."

  "Don't call me asshole, Diaz. You understand?" I punched a button. "Bobby Lee. Is he in?"

  Diaz grabbed my shoulder. "Jesus, all right, here they are."

  "Never mind, Bobby Lee," I said.

  Diaz threw the knucks down on the table. They clanged.

  "Enough people are getting hurt and dying these days, Diaz. We don't need to help it along."

  I heard it in my voice and so did he. The same tone I'd heard in Evelyn Dain's voice. A kind of keening madness.

  Diaz surprised me. He said, "You okay, man?"

  "Why don't you just get out of here?" I sensed tears in my voice.

  But Diaz, bully-proud in his bus driver's uniform, just stood there and said, "Man, listen, we have our arguments, but they don't mean jack shit. I mean, you're a decent guy. You know?"

  I sighed. "Thanks, Diaz. For saying that."

  "You let shit get to you all the time. You shouldn't. I worry about you. Everybody here does, man. The way it gets to you."

  He came over and patted me on the back. "Can I tell you something?"

  "All right."

  "You look wasted. You got the flu or something?"

  ''No."

  "Bad night?"

  "I'll be all right, Diaz. I appreciate your concern."

  But it hadn't been concern at all because as he pushed between me and the table, I saw his right hand go behind his back and lift the knucks and start to slip them into his back pocket.

  I brought my fingers up and got him hard by the throat, hard enough that he couldn't talk.

  "You got ten seconds to get out of here, Diaz, you understand?"

  He nodded.

  "And if I find you're using any weapons, including knucks or choke holds on the job, you're out. You understand?" He nodded again.

  When I let go, he said, "You need some nooky, man. Or something. You need something, man, and you need it fast."

  He said this in a raspy voice. I'd dug into his throat pretty hard.

  When he got to the door, he said, "Some night, Dwyer, you and me are going to face it off. You know that?"

  But I didn't say anything to Diaz. He was young and hot and worried about his honor. I was thinking of Karen Lane and Dr. Evans and Gary Roberts and wondering if there was any honor left that was even worth worrying about.

  Chapter 30

  In my apartment I clean and oiled my .38, checked the snap on the shiv I'd once lifted off an extremely successful pimp, and then slid on Diaz's knucks just to see how they felt. They felt good. They really did, and I knew I wanted to use them, in just the same eager bone-smashing way Diaz wanted to use them.

  It was five o'clock then and I watched "Andy Griffith" on cable and wished there were a real Mayberry and Aunt Bea and Opie and Floyd the barber and Ang and Barney because I'd go down there and see them all and maybe stay a year or two. And then it was six o'clock and the news came on, AIDS and teenage suicide and crooked local politicians, and I started staring out the window at the spring rain, chill and silver on the window, and the whipping night trees beyond. And then it was seven and cable ran a "Three Stooges" episode before the ball game started, and I just sat there staring at Shemp's face, a face that even as a kid had made me sad, the gravity of the eyes, the frantic deals he tried to make with a world that needed to make no deals at all with his kind. Then I picked up Karen Lane's copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's and looked through it for the fifth time, hoping to find something enlightening in it. But it was nothing more than it seemed to be—the favorite book of a girl from the Highlands who saw in Holly Golightly the perfect escape, the one person who seemed to do exactly what she wanted—lie, cheat, steal, care about no one but herself—and be loved for it. Holly might be fine for gentle little books and arch romantic movies, but I'd known a few Hollys in my days and they weren't forgiven or indulged forever. They were punched or even killed or they just moved on, and by age thirty-five the things in them that had been cute or fetching just looked silly and empty, and a meanness overtook them then. Go into half the bars in this town and you'll see women who used to be Holly Golightly. Now they're just drunks with evil mouths and sour memories. "She ought to be protected against herself," said a character on page 104, and I thought about that, about how Karen had needed that. And then I started wondering about the suitcase again and what was in it and thinking that maybe she was trying to protect herself with whatever it held. Then it was eight o'clock and I put a bowl of Hormel chili on the hot plate and crunched up about ten saltines in it. Then it was eight-thirty and I had two cold generic beers and went back to checking my .38 and my shiv and my knucks and knowing I was ready, knowing I needed this. Then it was nine and I went down and got in my Toyota and drove out to Pierce Point.

  Chapter 31

  The small scarred houses of the highlands were dark in the rain as I followed the street leading to Pierce Park. The business district came next, and even in the rain glow of neon and wet pavement it looked shabby, the windows with beer signs and the porno shops with long posters of fat strippers promising the least redeeming of pleasures.

  Two blocks later I was up in the hills, driving on a two-lane asphalt road that cut through deep hardwoods. The trees looked slick with rain, as if they'd been varnished. On my right, in a clearing, I saw playground equipment yellow in the sudden jut of my headlights, and then a park pavilion with all its benches and tables piled up for winter. Nearby, I cut my lights and pulled off the side of the road, into a grove of timber, so that my car could not be seen from the asphalt. The radio was off. No kind of music could soothe me now. The rain banged on the metal roof. The windows steamed over immediately. Somewhere on the far side of the woods I could see the sprawling lights of downtown, a radio tower with soft blue lights as warning for airplanes a watercolor against the gloom. I checked everything in the big flap pockets of my green rubber rain jacket. Shiv. My .38. Diaz's brass knucks. From the flask in the glove compartment I took a long drink of Jim Beam. It felt hot in my throat but it felt good, and by the time it reached my stomach it felt wonderful. I put up the hood on my jacket and took another quick drink, not so deep this time, and got out of the car.

  Where I wanted to go was a quarter mile away. I kept to the timber. The night smelled of dead wet leaves and a skunk that had been killed within half a mile or so. I could see my silver breath. The most real sound was my breathing. I carried just enough extra weight that moving through undergrowth winded me. Twice more I took hits from the flask. To keep me warm, I told myself. A dog came up, some kind of collie whose coloration I couldn't tell because he was soaked. He looked me over and apparently didn't think I was worth bothering with. He went right, deep into the timber, and disappeared. A few times I glanced up at the quarter moon behind gr
ay clouds promising a continuation of the rain. It was a very bright moon, luminous enough to cast long shadows here in the timber. My heavy work shoes crunched pop bottles, beer cans, the plastic odds and ends left here by children playing on sunny days. Then I came to the edge of the timber and stopped, making sure to keep behind the cover of the trees. Here was Pierce Point.

  Lovers had moved on to other places these days, but back in the fifties, this was the preferred spot for making out. If you were a male you came to show off your girl, and if you were a rich male you came here to show off both your girl and your car, some of the fancier ones running to chopped and channeled black '49 Mercurys, the kind James Dean drove in Rebel Without a Cause, or red street rods with white leather interiors and soft white dice hanging from their rearviews, or customized '55 Chevys with glass-pack mufflers that turned motor sounds into symphonies of power and prowess. The times I'd come up here with Karen Lane, we'd come in my '49 Ford fastback, and once or twice I'd had the impression that she was vaguely embarrassed by the car, as if it marked us—which it did, I suppose—as being from the Highlands, when obviously the rest of the kids were from the better areas of the city.

  On the northeast corner of the Point was the edge of a cliff that was a straight quarter-mile drop to pavement below, a road used mostly by heavy trucks on their way to the power plant that squatted like a shining electric icon from a terrifying future. This was where Sonny Howard had dropped to his death.

  I held my Timex up to the moonlight. In ten minutes the exchange was to take place. I had no idea how it was supposed to happen, just that it was. I sat in the cold and rain of the timber and waited. In a few minutes I'd meet Karen Lane's killer.

  They came in Forester's new Mercedes.

  They came right up the muddy road to the middle of the clearing and stopped, leaving their headlights on.

  I got out my .38.

  The rain was heavier now, almost cutting with ferocity, and in the yellow headlights it was the color of mercury.

  The Mercedes just sat there for several minutes. I could see the shapes of three silhouettes through the steamy windows.