The Spoiler

by Domenic Stansberry

  The morning was hot. “The hottest one yet, you ask me,” the cabbie told Lofton as they drove down Brunner’s street in South Hadley. Lofton put on his sunglasses and loosened his collar. These clothes—a faded pink shirt, a black tie, a rumpled suit jacket—seemed to make it even hotter, but there was not much else in his old duffel. Maybe the outfit would help give Brunner the impression of someone transient and shabby, someone who would take his money and leave. The cabbie pulled over, and Lofton paid him. He went to Brunner’s door and knocked.

  “I heard you wanted to talk to me,” he said when Brunner came to the door. Brunner looked Lofton over as if a circus con man had just shown up on his stoop. Up close the man’s face seemed tremendously large, the features exaggerated.

  “Come in.”

  He guided Lofton across the thick carpeting to a room in the back, a study. Here a picture window looked across Brunner’s yard to the Connecticut River, drained, this time of year, by upriver mills and tobacco farms. Lofton looked across the river to Holyoke, the church spires, the tenements, the redbrick mills, all tinted green, cooler, more serene, through his sunglasses. He could feel Brunner’s gray eyes on his neck; the idea of Brunner behind him made him nervous, but he did not want to show it. In the backyard a handsome older woman, with silver-gray hair—Brunner’s wife, he guessed—appeared, wandering toward the rose hedge. She wore a blue day robe of a shining, almost elegant material. Lofton watched her until she disappeared around the hedge.

  “Looks like you’ve gotten yourself into a bit of trouble,” Brunner said. He sat down behind his desk and motioned for Lofton to sit as well. Lofton hesitated. Finally, he sat, and when he did, Brunner stood up. Holding his hands behind his back, Brunner headed toward the window, then continued around the back of Lofton’s chair, talking as he walked.

  “I’ve heard a little about you, Lofton, and I admire your intelligence. Or maybe I should say cleverness. I’m not sure, yet, how smart you really are.” Brunner’s voice was dull, flat, so devoid of depth, so calm that Lofton was not sure of the sarcasm. “Obviously, as a writer, you’re much sharper than many of those I have to deal with.”

  Brunner appeared from behind Lofton, still circling. He gave Lofton a hard look, which Lofton returned. The sunglasses, Lofton thought, give me an advantage. Brunner can’t see my eyes; he can’t read me.

  Brunner stopped, put his hand on the desk, and picked up an envelope.

  “Wasn’t Randy Gutierrez sharp enough for you?” Lofton asked. “Or Einstein? How about him?”

  “Don’t distract me.” Brunner’s voice was cold, irritated. He shook his head. “I would like to settle this matter. And I would like to do it easily, painlessly. But if we can’t do it that way, then it will be settled another way. Everything is always settled.”

  “Sure, let’s settle,” Lofton said. “Go ahead. Shoot.”

  “You talked to Ray Nassau, my representative, when you were in the hospital, so you know I am a generous man.” Brunner smiled, the first smile Lofton had seen from him. He tapped the envelope against his palm as he spoke. “Murder. Leaving the scene of a crime. Withholding information.”

  “Prove it.”

  “A vial of pills. Randy Gutierrez’s letters. A medallion. Why were these in your apartment? Where did you get them? Officer Ryan, homicide, will find you suspicious, Lofton.”

  “I’ve heard this story. But how did you get these things, this evidence, from my room? Who did you hire? Or maybe I shouldn’t be asking you? Maybe Kelley pulls the strings here?”

  A small glint flowered in Brunner’s eyes, like the glimmer on his wife’s robe, and then was gone.

  “No one works for Kelley; they work for me. Don’t fool yourself, Lofton. Be clever.”

  He could tell the suggestion that Kelley might be in control irked Brunner, however momentarily. But then Brunner eyed him, calm again as a hog in a wallow, and Lofton felt himself sweating profusely despite the air-conditioning.

  “Now, being clever, you probably have noticed this envelope in my hand. And being clever, you probably think you know what’s in it.” Brunner stood directly in front of him. “You probably think I am going to hand this to you. You probably think I am going to say, ‘Take it, my compliments, leave town, best wishes.’”

  Brunner extended the envelope toward Lofton. Then, just as Lofton moved, almost imperceptibly—as if he were going to reach out and take it—Brunner pulled back and restarted his circling.

  “The intelligent man, of course, would wait a bit more patiently. Down in the little dark part of his heart, he would wonder what small favor he could do for me. This man, he might think: What are my skills? What could I do?”

  “You want me to write a story,” Lofton said.

  “Oh, good. We are not merely clever.”

  Brunner held out the envelope, and Lofton took it. Inside, he found a check for ten thousand dollars. He held the check between two fingers and touched it to his cheek. The stakes were going up.

  “The clever man, my friend, would take that check, cash it, and leave town. He would say to himself, ‘Brunner won’t bother, Brunner won’t follow.’ And the clever man might be right. But the intelligent man, he would make the extra effort. The intelligent man would repay the favor.”

  “A feature?” Lofton asked. “The man who loves Holyoke? Who struggles to bring baseball, business, and progress to this town that burns all around him?”

  “There’s a rally at Hillside this afternoon, and a game tonight. I want something sweet in tomorrow’s Dispatch. Then leave Holyoke, Mr. Lofton. Go back to your wife in Colorado.” Brunner stopped. He smiled. “Or if you have somebody else in mind, take her. Take the money and go.”

  Lofton swallowed. His face hurt, and so did his chest. So far Brunner had done everything the way Amanti had said he would: offered him money; asked him to write a story; promised him an easy way out of town. And now that he had done so, there was for an odd moment the look of the patriarch about him, a sort of gentleness that implied that the rest of what he had done had been a stern act, for Lofton’s benefit, but that Lofton had better pay attention. In another instant, though, the gentleness was gone.

  “A hack feature? That’s all you want?”

  “Timing,” Brunner said. “It’s all timing. You’re a baseball fan, you know that. I want it in the Dispatch tomorrow.”

  “Why trust me?” Lofton asked. “Arson is great copy. So’s bribery. Maybe I’d hang you.”

  “You’d hang yourself. The people at the Dispatch are my friends. And Kirpatzke, he’s had a hard life. He’s sympathetic to me. We’re buddies, you might say.”

  “I knew Kirpatzke had to be friends with somebody, might as well be you. But I have other contacts. I know other editors.”

  “So do I.”

  Brunner smacked his hands together. Lifting his sunglasses, Lofton took a closer look at the check, then threw it back on the desk. “I’ve already written out the real story, the truth,” he lied. “Anything happens to me, and the story’s printed, no questions asked.”

  “If you believe that, good.”

  “I want more money.”

  Brunner circled out from behind Lofton. He gave the reporter a long, brutish look which Lofton did not quite believe.

  “Maybe the amount needs adjusting,” Brunner said. He reached for his checkbook and drew up another draft. The check was for fifteen thousand dollars.

  Lofton held the check in his hand. “Maybe it’s not a question of money?”

  “Tell me, Mr. Lofton, is it a bad thing to give money to be distributed to the poor, money which—if not helping them find a better place to live—gives them a little food? Is it bad to destroy the slums; is it bad to give landlords the money to tear down their buildings, to rebuild; is it bad to give a beaten man a chance, to help him take care of his dying wife? And if the government does none of these things, is it bad to do it our own way?”

  There was the slightest trace of a whine in Brunner’s voi
ce, a misery that the man himself did not recognize.

  “But people died in those fires,” said Lofton.

  “That couldn’t be foreseen.”

  “What about Gutierrez, did he have to die? And is Mendoza really giving that money to the poor, or is he keeping it for himself? From what I hear, he’s using it to buy drugs and push them around town. I don’t see the saintliness in that.”

  “The minor players, the bit actors, cannot always be controlled. They have visions of their own. I would like to know your vision, Mr. Lofton?”

  “My vision is cash.”

  Brunner smiled now. “Ah, a pragmatist. But I am a pragmatist, too. I like to keep these checks. They act as receipts later, you know, in case I need a record of your involvement, for whatever reason.”

  “Considering everything …” Lofton added slowly, smiling, “considering the moral dilemma … this still isn’t enough money.”

  “There are limits.”

  “Yes, but aren’t you up against one yourself? How long can you wait to burn American Paper? Aren’t the insurance companies ready to pull out? Isn’t that why you want me to write a sweet story about you now, something to deflect the attention away from the buildings you’re about to burn?”

  “The story’s just icing. I don’t need you that much. Don’t get too convinced of your own importance.”

  “No.” Lofton drummed his fingers on the table. He stalled a bit longer, smiling faintly, deliberately to himself, then put the check in his pocket. “I’m intelligent, remember. And reasonable. I’ll take what I have here.”

  “Good.”

  Lofton felt his sweat growing cold now on his skin, in the air-conditioned room. Even so, he was pleased with himself. Brunner believes he bought me, Lofton thought; I acted the thing well.

  “I’ll call the bank and tell them to cash that draft for you. No waiting. No questions. They’ll cash Nassau’s check, too. That way I get my receipts, you get your cash.” Brunner opened the door. Lofton stood, and the two men looked at each other.

  “Kelley found out about your arson scheme, didn’t he? He tried to use me to put pressure on you to switch sides in the primary. Did it work? Are you going to switch sides?”

  Brunner glowered; his pupils were ice white, it seemed, and his neck was red. The anger was genuine. “No,” Brunner said. Lofton decided to go on, to press whatever advantage he had while Brunner was angry. “All right, I’ll write the story in a way that makes you look good. But there’s one thing I want to know. For a while someone’s been on my tail. Someone contacted Golden, got him all worked up, and told him where to find me. And somebody trashed my room. I want to know who that person is.”

  “You’re talking too much, Mr. Lofton, and asking too many questions. It makes me doubt your sincerity.”

  “No, like I said, this is something personal.” Lofton gestured at his face. “I want to know who set me up for this bruising.”

  “I can’t help you with it.”

  Getting up, saying nothing, Brunner walked behind him and opened the door. Though he knew Brunner was telling him it was time to go, Lofton stood there for a few stubborn seconds. Then he followed Brunner down the hall. Mrs. Brunner stood on the front stoop, perspiration dampening her silver hair.

  “Mr. Lofton, this is my wife, Helen. She always enjoys meeting young men on their way up.”

  The woman smiled demurely. She was tall, handsome, big-boned. “Are you in construction, too, Mr. Lofton?”

  “Yes. I’m working on something for your husband.”

  “Profitable, I hope.”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Brunner laughed. “But I’m afraid Mr. Lofton’s going to make his killing and leave us. Back to Colorado. He was just telling me how the simple life is the best.”

  Lofton looked at Brunner for a sign of sarcasm, of mockery. He could not find it. He headed down the walkway. Halfway down the street he turned and looked back. Brunner stood in his front yard with his wife, the two of them bending over, tending to some late-summer flowers.

  The old steel bridge over the Connecticut River vibrated all around him, rumbling and wailing as the cars rushed over its grating. Toward the Holyoke side of the river, water spilled over the milling dam and rushed southward through the weeds. On the South Hadley side, not far from Brunner’s, a wider, shallow channel swept around the dam, or appeared to from this angle, carrying the water not needed for the mills. The center of the river was dry, an island of gray rock, mostly, river grass, and rusting metal. Lofton walked toward the Holyoke side, studying the line of the city. Upriver were the flat roofs, tenements—gray, brown, and dirt-colored buildings, porches streaming with laundry—which had housed Holyoke’s immigrant families since before the turn of the century. Closer by, new steel and concrete apartments—the projects—towered over the mills. Already graffiti covered the new buildings.

  Lofton reached the edge of the bridge. He looked back toward South Hadley and the houses along the other bank: weeping willows, wide green lawns, picture windows. He kept walking, taking a road that wound along one of the old canals. There were more canals, he knew—or so he had heard—underneath the city, a system of tunnels and gates that moved the water from place to place.

  He watched a band of kids disappear into the weeds behind an old warehouse and thought of the Latinos. He had not seen them since the day they confronted him on the street in front of his hotel. No doubt they were still searching out Mendoza; the street war was continuing. If he wandered around the streets of Holyoke long enough, he could find the Latinos. This was their territory. He did not know if he wanted to find them. Even if by some chance they could help with the story, the gang was still dangerous. Lofton also wondered how much real chance he had of getting his story into the Dispatch. Was Kirkpatzke really in Brunner’s debt? If so, Lofton might have to forget the Holyoke paper altogether and go see his old friend Warner at the Globe. When you got down to it, he thought, what real difference did it make if he wrote the story? Who cared if Holyoke burned, if Brunner made money destroying buildings that no one should live in anyway?

  Brunner is right, Lofton thought, I should go home.

  He went into Brunner’s bank to cash the checks. It was welfare day, and people were lined up at the windows for food stamps: old men who spat on the bank floor; women with too many children; young men, who stared at the well-dressed tellers with glazed eyes.

  “I was told you would cash these for me,” Lofton said. He handed the teller both checks: the one Brunner had given him and the one he had gotten a few days back, in the hospital, from Nassau. For good measure, he handed her a third check also, the one Liuzza had written in Northampton. “Ask your manager if there’s a problem.”

  The woman came back after a minute or two. She said there was no problem. She counted out the money in big bills, a thousand at a flip.

  “Break one of these up for me,” Lofton said. “And put the rest in an envelope.”

  Lofton put the small bills in his wallet. He tucked the envelope with the big bills into his inside jacket pocket and left the bank. The rally up at the Hillside Mall, the one Brunner wanted him to see, was scheduled for three-thirty. He had some time, so he walked over to the small park in the center of town. Across the street from the park a fireman sat in front of the station, arms folded, waiting for a call. An old man dozed on one of the green benches, and pigeons skittered along the hot concrete.

  The Hillside Mall was brightly lit, full of color, its windows decorated with back-to-school displays, manikins in plaids and sweaters. Out in the white stone corridors, teenagers clustered in groups, drinking Cokes, smoking cigarettes, and staring sullenly at the passersby.

  At the center of the mall three tiers of shops came together. Lofton stood on the top tier, staring down at a platform which had been set up at ground level and decorated with balloons and crepe paper. An awning was stenciled:

  RICHARD SARAFIS AND THE HOLYOKE REDWINGS MAKING HITS IN WESTERN MAS
S

  He walked down the concrete spiral. At the bottom of the platform, arranged at angles, were glossy black-and-white photos: Richard Sarafis and Senator Kelley and Tony Luizza, all standing together, grinning; Mayor Rafferty throwing out the first ball; a panorama of MacKenzie Field, a mill stack rising in the background.

  He went back up to the second tier and waited. The TV crew arrived, including the young woman reporter who had been at MacKenzie Field interviewing Dazzy Vance, the old Hall of Famer. A young white girl wearing a baseball cap and a Sarafis sweat shirt handed Lofton a leaflet. A Puerto Rican boy followed behind her. Very dark-skinned, cleanly dressed, loose-hipped, he reminded Lofton of those young men who hung around in the squares in Mexico waiting to meet American women. He looked at Lofton with piercing eyes, as if Lofton were trash.

  A crowd started to gather below. Lofton saw a reporter from the Springfield Post milling with the shoppers. A mall employee drummed his fingers against the stage microphone.

  Not too long after, no longer than it took to smoke another cigarette, Brunner & Co. appeared at the platform. Amanti was there, dressed in a straight skirt and a high-collared blouse that might have seemed demure on another woman. She wore the collar open and the sleeves rolled high. Senator Kelley walked beside her. Except in photographs, Lofton hadn’t seen the senator before. He was smaller than Lofton expected, just slightly taller than Amanti, a surprisingly fair-skinned man with a smile that seemed shy, at least in this crowd, today, and disarming eyes, even from a distance. Walking just behind was Brunner, not quite the malevolent presence he had seemed earlier but simply a tall, heavyset man, obviously in the circles of power. Glancing from Amanti to Kelley to Brunner, you could feel the tension among the three; it was a kind of electricity that the crowd felt, too, Lofton thought; at least they drew the crowd’s attention more completely than Richard Sarafis, the gubernatorial candidate who walked a little farther back, alongside Tony Liuzza.