StoneDust

by Justin Scott

  “Beats me.”

  “Kept back half. Never cut it. Says it’s for a special customer. Guess who?”

  “The rich bitch.”

  “He’s givin her pure! For what? A lay? Enough stuff there for a hundred lays. You know what he says? ‘It ain’t the same.’”

  I asked him, “What tag were you selling, Knight Out?”

  “Yeah, that was us. Knight Out. How’d you know?”

  “Buddy of mine was partial to it.”

  “Can we go home? My leg’s hurtin’ like a bitch.” It was too dark to see his hands, but he seemed to be massaging his leg.

  “Let me ask you something, Spider.”

  “What?”

  “How’d you and Little John happen to break into my house?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Spider. You broke into my house and nearly killed me. Then you shot at a state trooper. ‘I don’t know’ implies you suddenly woke up in the midst of a terrible dream.”

  “I don’t. It was Little John’s score. He said he had something. I said, ‘Cool.’”

  It suddenly occurred to me that while I was lulling Spider into a conversation I hoped would produce information, he was lulling me into a fatal mistake. Spider wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore. I heard it in his voice. I’d forgotten the coathanger.

  I started to draw back. He whipped his arm out the window. I saw, too late, that he had used the time he’d been chatting so affably about the business problems of the dope trade to fashion a shank.

  An ordinary street fighter would have raked the broken wire across my gun hand. Only a stone killer would have tried to drive it through my heart. That, coupled with the fact that I was already drawing back, saved my life. The thing scraped my left biceps, tearing skin like a carpenter’s saw. I swung the gun blindly. The long barrel crunched his nose.

  Spider dropped the wire shank and clamped both hands to his face, gasping with pain. I took a deep breath, thanked God I was able, and tried to swallow down the adrenaline. When I stopped shaking, I cocked the Ruger. The metal click was so loud the bugs fell silent. It wasn’t hard to sound deadly.

  “No more games, Spider. You don’t play nice. Why’d you break into my house?”

  “You—”

  “Don’t tell me I broke your nose. I know I broke your nose and you know why. Answer me.”

  “Little John said he knew about this house in this hick town.” His voice was nasal, and muffled by his hands.

  “Newbury.”

  “Yeah, Newbury.”

  “How’d you find it?”

  “He had a map.”

  “Where’d he get the map?”

  “From a gas station.”

  “And what was in the house?”

  “Stuff. Anything we wanted.”

  “You mean, just walk in and take it?”

  “Said the guy was there alone. No locks. All we had to do was bounce him and then we could take anything we wanted.”

  “‘Bounce’ is like a beat down?”

  “Same.”

  “Were you supposed to kill me?”

  Spider looked up over his fingers. There was just enough light to see a glint in his eye. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

  “So the word was don’t kill me.”

  “Biggest mistake we ever made.”

  I said, “Wait a minute. I seem to recall that you stopped Little John from shooting me.”

  “Little John had a temper.”

  “What did you care?”

  “The deal was a thousand bucks to bounce you. Nothing if we killed you.”

  That was interesting. Obviously, I was glad to be alive. Grateful, even, to whomever had sicced these bozos on me, for working up an incentive system to keep them in line.

  “Where was the thousand bucks coming from?”

  “Little John didn’t say.”

  “But you guessed.”

  “It was easy. Who the hell did John know with a thousand bucks?”

  “I don’t want to put words in your mouth.”

  “The rich bitch.”

  “Thank you, Spider.”

  “Let’s go, man. My whole face hurts.”

  “Two more questions.”

  He groaned.

  “First: I spent two days in the hospital with two concussions and had a face for a week that frightened children. You’ve got stab wounds you better get disinfected and one broken nose. Are we about even?”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “I won’t come to your goddamned town if you don’t come to mine.”

  “No deal. I’ll stay out of your neighborhood. But you don’t own Waterbury.”

  “Okay. Okay. Let’s go.”

  “Second question.”

  “What?”

  None of my suspects owned a Mercedes Benz. I said, “Is it possible that Little John might have exaggerated about the rich bitch?”

  “How you mean?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t that beautiful.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or that rich.”

  “Rich enough.”

  “Maybe didn’t drive a Benz? Maybe a Toyota?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or wasn’t that good a lay?”

  Spider laughed at my naivete. That made him yell in pain as the laugh rattled his nose. He gasped, caught his breath, and explained to the Newbury hick, “Listen. If Little John wanted a bad lay, he coulda stayed in the neighborhood.”

  I drove Spider to his car in the Yankee Drover parking lot, advised him again to get his wounds looked at, and watched him leave town. I went home, showered, and poured hydrogen peroxide on my arm. It stung like fire. But nothing like it would sting Spider when he poured it into those punctures. Consoled by that thought, I slapped on some Band-Aids and a long-sleeved shirt.

  I rolled the cuffs for relief from the heat and took a walk on the old streets of the town, where the streetlights were smothered by maple leaves and tree roots had heaved the sidewalks. I stopped at Ted and Susan’s cottage at midnight.

  Their lights were still on. I arranged an apologetic expression and knocked on the screen. Ted came, flipped on the front light, and let me in. “You okay, Ben? It’s kind of late.”

  “I saw the light.”

  “Oh, we’re up. Just having a nightcap on the porch.”

  “I don’t want to intrude.” Actually I very much wanted to intrude.

  “Come on, come on.” He led me through the little house, calling, “Ben’s here, hon.”

  “Hi, Ben. Come on out. Get a drink.”

  Ted poured me a beer and led me to the porch. Susan was dressed in summer pajamas. That dandy old word “fetching” came to mind. “I’m sorry. I saw the light.”

  “Don’t worry. School’s closed and I’ve a week off. It’s fun to stay up late.”

  The little screen porch was crowded, with wicker furniture from bigger houses. It overlooked a tiny backyard that Susan had transformed into a flower garden. She’d even found room to plant an herb maze, and the scent of lavender drifted through the screen.

  When I complimented her on the garden, she complained it was a struggle in the shade of the neighbors’ trees—a perennial in-town problem they’d never suffered in their former homes.

  Ted said that Connie had invited Susan to tea. He talked about the Mount Pleasant project, subtly feeling me out on the subject of challenging the four-acre zoning requirement. I listened politely, refusing to be led, while I reviewed in my mind what I had learned that afternoon.

  Neither Sherry, nor Georgia, nor Rick, nor Bill had been in the kitchen before Reg died. Rick and Sherry were out on the lawn—despite Georgia’s belief that they had gone upstairs. Later they had rejoined Georgia and Bill in the Jacuzzi, after each of the men had groped the other’s wife, unsuccessfully.

  Michelle had taken Reg into the kitchen for coffee. Duane had joined them after declining to partake
of a rape among friends with Bill and Georgia.

  I had two questions: Were Ted and Susan in the kitchen with Reg? And who had Vicky overheard screwing in the guest room? Ted and Michelle? Or Reg and Michelle? Or Reg and Susan? (It seemed a safe bet that whoever was upstairs had not killed Reg. Unless, of course, Reg was the lucky guy upstairs. In which case, I longed more than ever to know who had stood him up at Brassée.)

  “Duane,” said Ted, “suggested that prominent real estate brokers speaking in favor of three-acre zoning might carry some weight with the board. Do you think Fred Gleason would be interested?”

  “I hope not.”

  “You can’t stop progress, Ben. There’s pressure to build. It comes from people.”

  “We’ve got one two-lane highway from the south. That holds off the people pressure. The pressure you’re talking about comes from developers.”

  “How about real estate agents? They stand to profit too.”

  “Speaking for myself—and, I think, Fred—I’ll take my profits from quality, not quantity. Besides, if you think we have school budget problems now? Wait ’til you launch a housing boom.”

  “New houses pay taxes.”

  “Never as much as it costs to educate their children.”

  Ted shrugged. “Fact is, if Steve wins, he’ll push to rewrite zoning. So it’ll be out of our hands. Right?”

  “Terrific.”

  “I agree with Ben,” Susan said quietly. “I like it the way it is.”

  Ted smiled, and I saw the wise, fatherly Gregory Peck quality that Georgia had alluded to—the leader, who knew best, the man above, apart, and ultimately in control. “Enough politics. How’ve you been, Ben? That was a good party before you snookered us.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed yourselves…Speaking of which…”

  “What?”

  “I’m not sure how to put this.”

  “Try straight,” said Susan, “for a change.”

  “Did you see Reg in the kitchen before he overdosed?”

  Susan looked at Ted. “No,” they chorused. “Except,” Ted added, “for a few seconds, when we passed through.”

  “Then you must have been the couple upstairs in the guest room.”

  Anybody can lie. Some do it well. Some botch it, shuffling feet or staring far more intently than a truthsayer would. But no one—not even the greatest actor in the world, not even Gregory Peck—could blush on cue.

  Susan turned red as a rose, covered her mouth with her hands, and looked beseechingly at Ted. Ted attempted to look stern, or outraged, but he couldn’t conceal a smirk of manly pride.

  “What about it?”

  “All I wanted to know. I’m outta here.”

  “Did they listen at the door?” Susan wailed.

  “No. Nobody knows it was you.”

  “Except you. I just want you to know, I didn’t want to go to that damn party in the first place. Boil in a Jacuzzi while Bill Carter drools at my bathing suit. Then Michelle opens her drugstore. Who needs it?”

  “We needed it,” said Ted. “We needed to be there.”

  “Excuse me,” Susan jumped up and ran from the porch.

  “Where you going?”

  She didn’t answer, but in a moment we heard water running in the kitchen and then the clatter of china.

  “You want to go—”

  Ted said, “No. Let her be.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “She’s very…” He shopped for words and came up with “…private.”

  We sat not speaking while Susan banged dishes. Finally I said, “I presumed it wasn’t news that you and Susan sleep together.”

  He smiled. “Oh, we do.” He shook his head. “I swear, after everything else went to hell, we got better. We used to be too busy working all day, and the books and the phone at night. We became like business partners. Now we’ve got a little time on our hands, we’re back to high school.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Yeah, it’s like I’m having an affair with my own wife.”

  “You must be the first married couple in a hundred years to grope each other at a party.”

  Ted laughed. “What happened was, the rest of them started doing lines. That’s not our scene. Susan wanted to go home. I didn’t want to leave ’cause I know that if Duane gets that Mount Pleasant project going, he’s going to need a major construction partner.”

  “In addition to the barn job?”

  “Oh, sure. That’s just one house. Chance for me to play contractor on the weekends.”

  “But what about Bill Carter? Wouldn’t he be up for the partnership?”

  “Well, that’s why I didn’t want to leave the party. Bill was cozied up with Duane. Let me tell you, he was drooling more for Duane’s borrowing power than he was for Susan’s bathing suit.”

  “Sounds to me like he’s got his priorities skewed.”

  Ted smiled. “Somebody once told me sex and money are the same thing. Point is, Bill’s tapped out at the banks and Duane’s not. If I walked in for a loan, they’d hit the alarm, but they’ll give Duane a blank check.”

  Ted formed a fist and gently pounded the arm of his chair. “Duane’s got that base with Newbury Pre-cast. The banks look at him and say, This guy’s real.”

  “Mainly they say, We’ll take a piece of Newbury Pre-cast for collateral.”

  “You think they’re still that tight? Even for Duane?” Ted looked disappointed. I figured he hadn’t been paying much attention lately, as if sick of news that would keep him out of the business.

  “The banks are back to making money the old-fashioned way: borrow from the Fed at three percent; lend it at seven, for real collateral like a finished house, a thriving business. Next time we get clobbered by a downturn, they won’t lose. Duane will—Who’s he with, Peebles?” Peebles Bank, a 1982 creation founded, rumor had it, by four drunken sailors, had avoided a Federal takeover by the hairs of its chinny-chin-chin.

  “No. I hear he got Newbury Savings.”

  “If that’s true, I guarantee you Newbury Savings has Duane’s balls in the back of their vault under a huge sack of quarters.”

  Ted shrugged. “That’s his problem. My problem is to convince Duane that I’d make a better partner than Bill.”

  “Maybe there’s room for both.”

  “There’s only so many ways you can cut the Mount Pleasant pie.”

  “Unless you guys slip through a three-acre variance.”

  Ted looked grim.

  I asked, “What did Reg bring to the pie?”

  “Reg brought Reg.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Duane would never cut a deal without Reg.”

  “Why was that?”

  “I don’t know. But he never did.”

  Thinking back, I couldn’t recall a Duane project that Reg hadn’t been part of. “Did Reg bring money?”

  “Not that I know of. But with Reg, Duane knew he had no worries about septic and drainage.”

  That made sense. A hillside project meant culverts for the roads and driveways; curtain drains above every house, all tied into storm drains; and septic fields that wouldn’t bubble up in the neighbors’ barbecue.

  “So you and Susan took a walk?”

  “We got as far as the kitchen. I found us some beer in the fridge. We’d had it with those damned Tombstones. Susan was wearing a terrycloth robe and it kind of fell open and I said, ‘Wonder where those stairs go?’ So we went upstairs.”

  I laughed. “You lucky bastard.”

  Susan walked in, calmer. “Who’s a lucky bastard?”

  “Your husband.”

  “Were you listening at the door?”

  “No. I left the cookout at seven.”

  “Wish we had. Damnit, I ended up playing morgue attendant because they didn’t call me soon enough.”

  “Could you have saved Reg?” I asked.

  “If I’d gotten to
him while he was still conscious, I would have walked him around and tried to keep him awake ’til the ambulance got there.”

  “No,” Ted said firmly. “That’s not true. You read the report—we got a copy from a friend, Ben. Once that stuff hit Reg, he was gone.”

  “I could have tried. Jesus. I thought when I started working at the daycare I was done with bodies. Ben, I really hope this is the last conversation we have on the subject.”

  “Same here,” said Ted.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell them that unless I got a lot smarter by tomorrow, their next conversation on the subject would be in the glacial presence of Sergeant Marian. So I thanked them for the beer and hurried home to a fitful sleep, and dreams of Spider sticking coathangers in my eye.

  Chapter 30

  I woke up worrying: Was I a sucker for a lovely couple? Had Susan Barrett blushed with embarrassment? Or flushed with anger?

  Maybe Vicky had a clue. I showered off the muggy night and walked to the General Store for breakfast. On the way, I lost my appetite. Every lightpole wore a poster:

  DEBATE DEBATE DEBATE

  THE SCHOOL BUDGET OR YOUR BUDGET

  BELIEVABLE STEVE

  VS

  SLICKY VICKY

  TOWN HALL

  8 O’CLOCK TONIGHT

  Slicky Vicky? It appeared that Georgia Bowland had sobered up sufficiently to recall a Bush trick or two. That Bush had lost was no consolation. He hadn’t lost by much.

  I bought a large container of coffee, tea for Vicky, and some fresh-baked shortbread that benefited the ambulance fund drive. Vicky was already at her desk. If Believable Steve’s posters were intended to rattle her, his people had miscalculated badly. Pope Alexander, when informed that Emperor Frederick wished to come in out of the snow, could not have looked more implacable.

  “I have a strange question for you,” I said, presenting tea and shortbread.

  “No, I have a question for you: You’ve been no goddamned help at all in this campaign. But right now I need your brain.”