The Spoiler

by Domenic Stansberry

  He gathered up his clothes, clean and dirty, and stuck them in an old duffel bag he had taken around the country with him. He put what was left of his papers and correspondence into the bag, everything except the most worthless scraps of paper. The pictures he had taken in the warehouse were gone, his camera, too, even his fountain pen. They had taken it all.

  “Five hundred dollars,” the clerk shouted. “Or you take nothing. I call the police now.”

  “You call the police?” Lofton yelled. “I’m the one who is going to call the police! I leave my room and come back to find it destroyed. What kind of place is this? And what do you mean, five hundred dollars? For the door? The mattress? This whole fucking hotel isn’t worth five hundred dollars.”

  The blood rushed to Lofton’s face. He clenched his fist. The clerk clenched his fists, too, but he backed up as Lofton came forward. Lofton could see the man was afraid of him. He imagined how he must look to the clerk: the bloodstained, dirty bandage; the rumpled clothes from the night of the attack; the half-drugged, glinting eyes. He enjoyed the fear he inspired and took a menacing step toward the clerk. For a second he thought he might grab the man and hit him; but the clerk had a scrappiness about him, and Lofton did not really want to fight. Instead, he pulled out his wallet.

  “Paid, you want to be paid?” He took out a Redwings’ schedule that had small, mugged pictures of the owners and a ticket office phone number.

  “You want your money, you call this man.” Lofton pointed a finger at Brunner’s name. “You tell him one of his pigs tore up this room. You call the police on him.”

  Lofton pushed past the clerk, feeling a real flush of anger, a good feeling, a powerful swagger in his step, a happy rage he could barely contain as he brushed past the people in the hall who had come out, attracted by the noise.

  Outside, the daylight made him wince. He squinted down the sidewalk at streets, his sack of clothes and paper slung over his back. The anger had not left, but now he felt foolish. The clerk was no enemy, not really. He was just an easy target. He thought, again, how the intruder had even taken the old silver fountain pen, tarnish and all, that his brother had given him.

  “Gutless,” he hissed out loud, not at the clerk but at himself, as he walked past a drunk on the street. “Taking it out on the smallest, the weakest you can find. You want to smash Brunner, you want to smash Golden, but you’re afraid. Fool.” His heart beat raggedly in his chest and he reached first for another cigarette, then for another painkiller. Who is it that you really hate? he thought, and looked down at his gnarled hands.

  He stood still on the street. He wasn’t going to give up on it this easily. He pushed open the pawnbroker’s door.

  “Una pistola?” asked the pawnbroker.

  “Sí,” said Lofton. “Una pistola.”

  The clerk showed him a cheap one, an H&R .32, something small that could kill from across the room.

  Golden lived in a neighborhood south of MacKenzie Field, away from the tenements. The houses were small but clean, at least for the most part, and the yards well trimmed, the bushes flowering, the sidewalks free of garbage. The neighborhood reminded Lofton of the one he had grown up in, tucked between the business district of San Jose and that city’s railyards, back before the city had boomed, the orchards had disappeared, and the suburbs had grown. Here, as there, you did not have to walk the streets long to see how modest the neighborhood really was, how thin the prosperity. On each block a few houses needed paint, their yards were overgrown, and if you looked closely, you could see that many of the houses, built without real foundations, had sunk and shifted with the earth. He touched the gun he carried in his suit coat pocket. The practical reason for coming here, Lofton told himself, was to see if Golden still had Brunner’s papers.

  Golden’s door was open. Lofton stood on the porch step and looked through the screen. The television was on in the far corner of the living room. He could see the back of a wheelchair and a woman’s head tilted to the side. He rapped on the screen door, pulled the handle, and stepped in.

  The wheelchair’s motor whirred, and the chair turned. Mrs. Golden looked up at him. A thin-faced, blonde-haired woman, she wore a brightly colored blouse, slightly faded, drawn at the collar, the kind hippie girls used to wear in California. She controlled the chair by pressing her palm against a small disk on its arm.

  “I’m a reporter,” Lofton said. He smiled—an old habit, an interviewer’s trick. “I’m looking for your husband.”

  “Yes,” the woman said. Her head was still tilted, and her hand had slipped off the control disk. Footsteps came from the hall. He touched the gun in his pocket, thought of taking it out, but changed his mind. No, not in front of the woman.

  A second later Golden appeared. He did not seem surprised to see Lofton; he looked him over carefully, studying the way he held his hand in his pocket.

  “I think we should talk,” Lofton said.

  Golden looked to his wife. Lofton looked, too.

  “All right. In the front yard.”

  “No,” said Lofton. “In the back.”

  Golden sighed. He was not the same man he had been the other night. His anger seemed to be gone. “All right.”

  Golden walked to his wife. He straightened her head, put his cheek against hers, and pushed her back to the television. Then Lofton followed Golden into the backyard. They walked past a small garden and stood behind the shed.

  “What are you doing at my house?” asked Golden. His anger was suddenly back, his cheeks red and shiny. “And what have you got there in your pocket?”

  “I want back what you took from my room.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Lofton looked up at Golden. He was a good-looking man, eyes gray like the ocean—the sort of man whom you did not believe would do anything wrong unless backed into a corner. His hand was bandaged.

  “Hurt your hand the other night?”

  “No worse than you hurt your face.”

  Despite himself, Lofton laughed.

  “Nothing’s funny, Lofton. And you might as well take your hand out of your pocket. That gun’s not going to do you any good.”

  Golden said the words coolly. Then his eyes watered, his lips turned downward, and Lofton remembered the bizarre look of Golden’s face through the mask. His anger then, his frustration had seemed too personal to be mercenary. Now the man regarded him dispassionately, as if Lofton were of no importance, just another cog in the deaf-and-dumb, thoughtless universe. Lofton feared, however, that Golden’s emotions might swing the other way again. What will I do if he rushes me? Lofton thought, and then realized he was holding the gun tight, pressing the barrel against the fabric of his pocket, like a thug in a movie. Did I come here to kill him?

  “I’ve got all the evidence I need. The police and the newspapers are on my side.” Lofton bluffed. He was talking nonsense, he knew, but he went on with it. “If you talk, if you say what you know, the justice system will go easier on you. People know your situation. They’ll have compassion.”

  “You’re a blood-fucking-fool.”

  Even so, Lofton thought he sensed a hesitation in Golden, a willingness to let go of everything he knew, to get it off his conscience and hope for the best. Before that could happen, he needed to get Golden’s trust. He decided to take a chance. If Golden were going to kill him, he would have done it the other night.

  “I’m going to put this gun on the ground.” Lofton took the gun out of his pocket. He held it by the barrel.

  “Suit yourself,” said Golden.

  He laid the gun on the dirt. Golden looked at it for a long moment, then walked over and picked it up. Lofton felt his heart leap crazily. I made a mistake.

  “Anything that’s happened, I won’t use it against you. We’ll work together. I’m not out to get you.”

  “Who else has been snooping around the ballpark lately? Gutierrez?” Golden sneered. “Felipe Alou? Jesus of Nazareth?”

 
Golden pointed the gun at him, pulled his finger tighter on the trigger. Lofton thought of the woman inside. Golden took care of her—how could the same man kill me? Then Golden raised the gun over his head. He fired straight up, into the sky.

  “I should have killed you the other night. But I lost my guts. I couldn’t do it. I waited for you outside the woman’s house. I waited for hours, and somehow the whole time I knew I would lose it, that I would fail.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Join the human race,” said Golden. “Join the fucking human race. I have a crippled wife. A bum job. And once I was every-goddamn-thing. The world sang when I shat. Who Jesus-hiding-in-the-wall understands anything? I don’t even know what I’m doing staring at your ugly face.”

  “Do you know why you picked me to beat on? You must have some idea about that. And how did you know where to find me? You were waiting outside Amanti’s in your car; then you tailed me up the hill. How did you know where I was going to be that night, that I was even planning to go anywhere near Amanti?”

  Lofton wanted the answer to that last question. He could see Golden was thinking it over, wondering if he should answer. Though Golden seemed calmer now, more reasonable, it was partly only because he could afford to be; he was the one holding the gun.

  “Listen, it didn’t take too much brains to see you were up to something at the ballpark, not just writing about fly balls. Then I got word you were trying to put this whole business on me, Gutierrez’s death, everything. I’m not a murderer.” His voice was insistent now. “If I was, I would’ve killed you.”

  “Who told you where to find me that night?”

  “Give it up. I’m not going to tell you. You should just give this up. There’s no way you can beat them.”

  “Beat who?”

  “Shut up.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Lofton could hear kids playing in the yards nearby. They yelled and played in English; it sounded strange almost, with all the Spanish he’d been hearing. Golden sat down on an old tree stump. His eyes were wet, luminous, and he studied the revolver.

  “That was clever, trashing my room and planting Gutierrez’s things in my car. Trying to make it look like I was the murderer. Was that your idea or Brunner’s?”

  “I didn’t trash your room. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Did you give the papers back to Brunner? Or do you still have them? I’d like to take a look.”

  “What papers? I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I didn’t go anywhere near your room. The only thing I wanted was to scare you off. Now get out of here,” said Golden. He raised the tip of the revolver.

  “There’s no point playing stupid. I’ve figured things out.”

  “If you’re so smart, why am I holding the gun?”

  “A lot of people died in those fires. Your best way free of this is to let me see the papers.”

  “Get the fuck out.” Golden did not shout; his voice was calm, miserable.

  “Tell me what you know about the fires.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Leave me alone.” Golden pointed the gun at Lofton’s head.

  “All right,” said Lofton. “All right.”

  He left Golden sitting on the stump. Mrs. Golden had gotten her wheelchair through the back door, somehow, and onto the porch. She did not look at Lofton. She stared out at her husband. Tears ran down her cheeks; they left furrows, or seemed to, like rain across the infield dirt.

  Brunner’s house stood on the other side of the Connecticut River. A picture window ran the length of Brunner’s den, overlooking the river. At the moment Kelley stood by the window, looking toward Holyoke. Amanti sat in a thickly cushioned chair across from Brunner. On the desk between them were the papers she had taken from his office.

  “How did the reporter happen to have these?” Brunner asked.

  Amanti shifted uncomfortably. Kelley approached her. He walked in a way that at first glance made him seem at ease despite the situation. However, his eyes, always chameleon in nature, were brighter than usual, melancholy, and his skin seemed coldly, sadly beautiful, the color of marble in famous statues. He touched her on the shoulder while Brunner watched.

  “Listen, Jack,” Kelley said. His voice was as bright, as sad, as his eyes. “You’ve got this whole thing wrong. That reporter’s been calling my office. He has this thing in his head about arson, and he wants a little cash to keep his mouth quiet. I only told you about it because I was concerned.”

  He was lying, of course. The reason for the lie, Amanti guessed, was that Kelley’s plan to pressure Brunner had gone wrong. She didn’t know the details, but she had known something was wrong earlier that day, the instant she had heard Kelley’s voice on the telephone telling her to meet him at Brunner’s in South Hadley. When she’d walked into Brunner’s study and seen the papers stacked on the desk, her heart had sunk. She hadn’t seen or heard from Lofton for days, since she’d given him the papers, and now here were the papers again, back in Brunner’s possession, sitting on his desktop.

  “I don’t know how you got the idea I was trying to use the reporter against you. Maybe in the heat of the moment it sounded that way, but I was concerned,” Kelley was saying now.

  Brunner cut him short. “Save it. You thought you had me by the balls.”

  “No. I told you. The thing with the Holyoke project, the way the committee went, I couldn’t control them. I wasn’t trying to put pressure on you. I know better than that.”

  When Amanti glanced over at Kelley, she could see that he smiled with one corner of his mouth upturned, the look he had when he’d said something open to interpretation, to befuddle or belittle the person he was talking to or to show his own cleverness. Only now it was obvious that smile was just there by reflex, or to entertain himself, because he hadn’t said anything clever, and Brunner wasn’t paying any attention.

  “How did the reporter get these papers?” Brunner asked her again. He drummed his fingers on top of the stack, played with the edge of one of the papers. He looked at her in a way that was charged with anger but also, oddly, with sexual energy, too, as if he were not touching the papers at all but the buttons of her blouse. Kelley shifted on his feet.

  “I don’t know why you persist in this, Jack. She doesn’t know, and I don’t know either. It must’ve been inside work. Somebody in your organization; somebody you don’t suspect.”

  “That’s nonsense,” Brunner said. He looked to Amanti for confirmation. She felt trapped. It occurred to her that it made no difference what she said. The two men were playing a game with her, a battle that was a mere sideline to the one that had already taken place before she had come. Brunner had spoiled Kelley’s plan, Lofton had lost the papers, everything was back to where it had always been.

  “I gave Lofton those papers,” she said suddenly. “I did it on my own. I was sleeping with the reporter.”

  Both men were silent. They exchanged glances. Kelley’s eyes were very empty, very blue; Brunner smiled faintly. Then, as if from a point high up, removed from her body, she watched herself get up and leave the room. She abandoned the two men to their awkward glances. She did not realize, until she had closed the front door behind her and taken her first breath of the dim, sultry air, that she had left her purse, and her car keys, inside the house.

  The big door locked behind her; she could not get back inside even if she wanted. She walked into the heat, then back into the shade of the porch, before deciding to walk to town, to catch a taxi home. Just as she started, however, Kelley opened the door behind her. He held her purse in one hand, her car keys in the other.

  “It’s a good thing you forgot these. I want to talk to you.”

  Kelley did not give her time to argue. He handed her the car keys. “Just drive—I don’t care where.”

  “What about your car?”

  “We’ll come back for it. I’ve got to talk to you.”

  She was anxious to get away, so
she did as he asked. They drove along awhile in silence, Amanti taking the back roads that wound up into wooded hills. Though the hills were low, they were rugged, deceptively so, and the road switched back many times to circumvent the old, crumbling cliffs and twisting streams. Kelley put his hand on her leg. She gave the hand a deliberate look of contempt but let it stay.

  “Why did you give those papers to the reporter?” he asked.

  “I’d think you could figure that one out on your own. I’m tired of this game between you and Brunner. I want it over.”

  Kelley sighed, then put his head down between his hands. “I’m tired, too,” he said, and for a second his composure and his coolness were gone, and she saw the real weariness underneath, though you could never tell with Kelley, because that might also be an act. She remembered one time, back when Kelley’s father-in-law had discovered their affair. At that time Kelley had confessed to Amanti that he couldn’t break up his marriage, not for political reasons or for fear of the old man but because he loved his wife, as much as he loved Amanti. It was just a simple, confusing fact of life, he had said. He had been close to tears, it seemed, utter disintegration. A second later, though, Kelley had been smiling.

  She spotted a gravel pullout on the roadside ahead. She drove in and killed the engine. Through the trees and some hollyhock gone wild she could see a small valley, a pasture full of high brown weeds. In the middle of the pasture an old tractor sat sinking into the mud. Kelley raised his head. His eyes were red, weary-looking, but there was no sign of tears.

  “I’m sorry about the papers. I didn’t mean to ruin everything,” she said, though of course it wasn’t true. She touched his cheek where it was flushed. She hoped things were ruined even more than they seemed, that Kelley would give up politics, his wife. At the same time she knew it was an idle hope, that his involvement in that other world was what attracted her to him, besides.