by John Straley
“Anything else?”
“Only crazy stuff.”
“Tell me.”
“I thought that Louis was a bear and he was going to kill me. And that his children were half-bear, half-human and they wanted me to kill him so they could eat him. The voices said that this would please God.
“I know that this is crazy stuff. I know it was only because I was dirty then and the bacteria in my hair was screwing up all of the signals. You see it’s very complicated.”
“Where did you see his kids?”
“I never saw them. The troopers told me they were afraid to come to the beach.”
I phoned the guard station and I told them I was done. I knew that they would take their time. I folded up my notebook and stood up as if I were going to take a short walk around the room. I leaned up against the visitors’ door and Hawkes leaned against the prison door.
“What do you think, Alvin? You angry that you’re in here?”
“It doesn’t matter much. I’m different from everyone else.” He stood up and looked out to the prison side of the door. “You ever pulled down a barn?”
“A barn? No, no, I haven’t.”
“I used to do that for a job back in Illinois. Lots of these old barns have to come down. You know the old wooden ones? I was the rat man. They called me the ‘rat man’ anyway because my job was to cut away at the beams and the supports. I’d weaken the whole building. Just nibble away at it with my saw and then set the chain to a center support and pull it down. I’d stand there and watch and listen, just before the last pull. I’d make sure everyone was out. I’d look around, you know, and it was really quiet. The sun came through the cracks in the wood and there were webs across the doors and stuff. It was as quiet and spooky as the inside of my head. Then they’d pull it down.
“I’d stand near the door and the air would blast past me, like a wind, you know. It smelled like dust and bird shit and dry hay. I could hear the nails screaming, being wrenched out of the wood, and timbers breaking. I’d stand there and listen and smell … and then it was flat. It was gone.
“I don’t know … prison’s not so bad. You know what I mean?”
He picked up his glasses from the table. The buzzer sounded on Alvin’s side of the room, and a guard stood on the other side of the window. Alvin fished in his pockets to make sure he had his tinfoil cups and he nodded a good-bye.
“Good luck,” I said, and he smiled at me, as if there were something ironic about the expression.
SEVEN
IT’S NOTHARD to find people in Juneau. The suspects are drinking in bars on one side of the street and their lawyers are drinking on the other. I was in the North Pole Bar and I would bet fully half the clientele in the North Pole that night were in violation of the terms of their releases. Some were keeping a low profile, hunched over their drinks like bulldogs over their last bits of food. Emanuel Marco wasn’t keeping a low profile. He was wearing his broad-brimmed hat, and as he walked he was weaving like a dancing bear. He was wearing a full-length leather coat and I knew that he was carrying a gun in the deep inside pocket and had a Balinese throwing knife tucked into his boot. Corny, but I think Emanuel thought it added to his aura as a-man-not-to-be-taken-lightfy.
“It was just a voice on the fucking phone, man. It rang here, man said he was trying to get me since nine this morning. Some guy asking what it would take to have you killed. You, man, Cecil fucking Younger.”
This struck him as incredibly funny. He wheezed out a tobacco-breath laugh that ended in a mucus gag and a swallow. Then he tried to focus on me.
“He must have had the wrong guy. I mean, first of all, you’re nowhere near important enough to have killed. I mean, who in the fuck is going to pay the five grand it takes to have you whacked? We were just sitting around trying to figure it out, Cecil. You don’t know anyone important. All of your enemies are either cops or scumbags. The cops can do you anytime they want, and the scumbags can’t afford to.”
A round of laughter went up around the bar. The bartender, chuckling, continued to wipe the bar with a damp rag.
“I feel safer all the time.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it, man. It was somebody just jerking me off. Let me get you a drink.”
He turned his back on me and shouted down the bar at the bartender, who was now leaning across the counter under the TV set trying to talk to a blond lady who was crying and stirring her drink with her finger.
The North Pole is a room for serious drinking. It is long and narrow with a high ceiling that holds the thick smoke above the patrons like a summer fog. There is a mirror and a lineup of bottles. There are no stuffed animal heads or pictures of ships foundering on reefs. There is one beer company sign that has shimmering lights behind a scene of a hunter getting ready to shoot a stag just cresting a hill. The only artifact of honor is in the center above the bottles: an eight-inch basketball trophy. The inscription is tarnished; none of the bartenders know who won it or when. The single leather booth near the bathroom door has been slashed across the bottom so that anyone sitting there sinks awkwardly into the stuffing. The bathrooms are in the rear, and the closer you get to them, the stronger the smell of the round deodorant bricks that are in the bottoms of the urinals. I woke up in one of the bathrooms once in broad daylight and saw some kind of tobacco-colored stalactites hanging from the ceiling. The North Pole doesn’t serve mineral water, and the bartenders don’t give out information about any of the patrons to outsiders unless under subpoena.
Seated next to the blond woman was a woman with raven black hair. She was wearing a blue North Pole Bar wind-breaker. Her head rested on the bar and her arms were folded over her head. She held a lighted cigarette in one hand, a five-dollar bill wadded in the other. She had the hiccups. The bartender took a slice of lemon and doused it with bitters and then a pinch of salt. He placed it in front of her.
“Lucille? Eat this.”
She looked up at him in confusion as if he were standing at her door at four in the morning. Without a glimmer of recognition, she ate the lemon. “Fuck it,” she said. She took a deep breath and sighted down her cigarette, then stubbed it out.
The key to life in the North Pole was to avoid the sunlight and to survive until the night crowd came in. Once that happened anything was possible.
Over in the corner nearest to Lucille was the bar’s only icon. It was a small religious painting. One of the old owners of the bar had been Russian Orthodox and he had put a Russian icon in there but it caused such a stir that the bishop himself came down to see that it was taken out. The owner then found a picture in a library book and ordered a copy of it for the far end of the bar. It was embossed and then mounted behind unbreakable glass and bolted to the wall underneath the hot dog rotisserie. There were scratches on the glass but no writing. The bishop heard about the new image but understood it was a page torn from a book and as long as it wasn’t really an icon he couldn’t muster the energy to go down to the bar again. Besides, he had heard the painting was by an Italian.
It was a little reproduction of the Crucifixion by Anatello da Messina. I had once watched it for the better part of a day, and it was one of the best reasons to drink in this bar. Griinewald had painted the torture of the Crucifixion and the ecstasy of the Resurrection in two separate paintings, but Messina’s Christ was caught in the middle: tired, with his head to one side, beautiful and expectant … but sad nonetheless. The hills beyond Golgotha were sprinkled with the sizzling green light of the olive trees and the sky was the milky blue of an ascending morning. Why would anyone want to leave such an earth?
The ceiling of the bar was painted black yet the smoke still seemed to stain it. The cushions on the stools were red leather and the electric beer sign illuminated the patrons’ skin like a lamp designed to kill bugs. Lucille sat with her head slumped down in front of the Messina, with the five-dollar bill still wadded up in her hand. And she still had the hiccups.
“Fuck it … fuck it.”
>
Emanuel Marco put the bourbon and water on the bar in front of me. I looked at my watch and it was 2:30 P.M.
“So why in the fuck would somebody want to kill you?”
“Don’t know. Maybe somebody trying to get back at my old man.”
“They sure as fuck wouldn’t kill you if they wanted to hurt his feelings.”
Again, the snot-sucking laugh. Marco was the kind of guy I hoped wouldn’t grow on me. “Hey, I heard about the Judge. I’m sorry, man.” The laugh became a stifled smirk.
“What do you know about Louis Victor?”
Emanuel sighted an imaginary rifle down the bar. “Man, he was the best. ‘Boom.’ The Indian motherfucker could shoot. Best I ever saw. Best my old man ever saw. He used a 45–70. An old army round. I heard that crazy guy who killed him was one huge motherfucker. Huge. Thought he was a bear. Revenging all the lost souls of his brother bears or some shit like that. Anyway, you’d have to be awful big and awful crazy to take on Louis Victor.”
“Victor ever get in trouble with the cops?”
“Nothing serious, you know. Maybe assault, DWI, but shit, nothing serious. Nothing dangerous. He was clean with the Fish and Game cops. Hunting was his life, man; he couldn’t afford to lose his license. I did hear that he was in some trouble when he lived up in Stellar.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, nothing big. Blew over quick and it didn’t follow him down here.”
“What are his kids like?”
“Mousy. More likable than Louis maybe. You know, normal. Lance can shoot, too. He’s really into guns. But he didn’t want to get his hands dirty with work, like his old man did.”
“You know anything about his friend Walt Robbins?”
“All I heard is the same old shit. People say that Robbins was fucking Louis’s old lady when they lived up in Stellar. Robbins is a hell of a hunter, too. He wanted to go into business here in Southeastern but couldn’t get the permit. I heard Louis had some pull with the game board and made sure that Robbins couldn’t get a guide’s permit. Why sweat the competition?”
“What caliber of gun did Robbins use?”
“Fuck, I don’t know.”
“You recognize the voice that talked to you on the phone this morning?”
“Naw, man, I told you—somebody just jerking me off. The voice was all husky and fake-like. It was one of my friends trying to hose me. Hey, don’t worry about it, bud. It’s pretty funny if you think about it.”
I put five dollars on the bar, told the bartender to put it toward Lucille’s cab fare, and headed across the street to see what the ruling class thought was funny. Emanuel was doing his dancing-bear routine as I left, his arms around two embarrassed tourist ladies who had obviously gotten directions to the wrong bar.
The rain had stopped and I could see the near slopes of the mountains that press in on Juneau. Juneau was built on a gold strike around the turn of the century, and the old downtown area still has the feel of a mining town. There are narrow streets and old frame houses that have the lines of Victorian affluence. The whole town clings to the side of the mountains. Of course, out on the highway there are malls and efficiently designed homes built around landscaped woods to accommodate the government workers who live in the capital city. The old downtown area is blooming with international cuisine and espresso shops. But still, down here late at night, you can hear the ore trucks that used to rumble on the planked streets. And sometimes you can hear the laughter of the Norwegian miners coming from the half-opened windows along with the practiced cooing of their whores.
The hotel across the street from the North Pole has been restored to a condition that people like to believe is authentic turn-of-the-century. There are thick carpets and English “antiques” and leaded-glass insets in some of the doors. The bar off the lobby is a power meeting place, where people who make deals and people who want to be perceived as deal makers like to drink. They definitely do serve mineral water at the bar, and the bartenders hug each other when they change shift. The jukebox has George Winston and Billie Holiday, featured but always low and in the background.
I sat at a corner table—oak veneer, with a blue hurricane lamp in the center. I ordered Maker’s Mark and water and waited for someone to come in who would be of some use to me.
Stellar. I’d been looking for a reason to go to Stellar for about six months. Two people who I wanted to see were now in Stellar. So I told myself that I might be able to find something there to explain the relationship between Louis Victor and Walter Robbins.
Edward was in Stellar. At least that’s what I’d heard. Edward and I had been friends in high school. He is Yupik Eskimo, from Stellar originally. He had gone to the Indian boarding school in Sitka but had gotten thrown out and come to Juneau to live with his uncle who worked in the legislature. We’d hunted together every fall. We’d meet on the docks in Juneau and load our gear into a skiff and make the crossing over to the islands off the mainland. We’d pack tarps and a tent, but often we’d move into different cabins scattered around on the homesteads or on mining claims.
We also packed whiskey. We sat in front of a rusted-out barrel stove blowing on the wet wood, passing the bottle back and forth. I think of: whiskey and drying wool, the water-stained wood in the corner of the cabin, the galvanized buckets on stumps holding the dishwater, the light smell of the kerosene lantern. With our rifles unloaded and slung over nails in the corner above the stove, we passed the bottle back and forth, talking about animals. As the bottle got lighter our gestures became wilder, our eyes widened and we imagined we were expanding into our own stories. The animals and the words combined and filled the cabin.
There is always a time when drinking and telling stories that the words begin to dissolve into vague discontent. Sentiment and romance for me … anger and history for Edward. Edward’s speech was a strong staccato when he was sober: musical and percussive. But as he got drunker he would affect the slurred diction of a hopped-up jazz musician. Lying in the bunk, we watched the phosphorescence that glowed on the wet alder wood. The fire sputtered and Edward smoked a cigarette, stretched out in his flannel sleeping bag.
“You don’t know shit about hunting. White men hunt like they’re looking for a job. Get it? Salmon come up the rivers, deer come down in winter. You think it’s like keeping an appointment. You work hard and all that shit, and buy expensive tools … you think you’re pretty good.”
He tried to sit up straight and I heard his elbows knocking against the planks of the bunk. “My brothers are hunters, man. Coldest place in the world. Cold … big … sooo big. You need your luck and, I don’t know … stealth maybe. My brothers know about luck … all of their senses go out into the air. They move through it like wind. They never say anything bad about the bear, or the moose. They keep their luck good. Warm blood out there somewhere, like everything can smell it. They know things about the bears, bears they don’t even see yet. Attention, you got to pay attention, and you take care of your luck. You don’t just bump into the motherfuckers no matter how hard you work.”
He lay back down, banging his head hard against his bunk, his eyes closed, bottle cradled in his arms. He was sick with bad luck, with sweat running down his neck, the wet wood in the stove hissing and popping with smoky flames.
As a private investigator I’m pretty much doomed to hunting by industry: checking records, going through files, interviewing every witness, putting myself in position for the information to come to me. But sometimes I like to fantasize about stealth, to try and understand the thoughts of my prey by smelling the air that he breathes and feeling the ground that he walks on. It’s a fantasy, like I say, and it’s impossible to maintain when I’m drunk. When I’m drunk my senses are blurred by vanity and pity. The perfume of the beautiful blonde.
There in the cabin we drank out of the Jack Daniel’s bottle until we went to sleep. Edward reached for the bottle and toasted the air. He said his teachers at the boarding school
really wanted him to be a drunk. He didn’t know why but he knew it was true. He said it wasn’t fair getting thrown out for doing what they wanted.
After I left college I wanted to learn something. I thought if I just filled my head with facts about music and sacred art, all the scary stuff I suspected about myself would be squeezed out, and my head and heart would lighten. Of course it didn’t work, and I knew it wasn’t working all the time I stood by the side of a road in north Africa with my thumb out, reed flutes and books by Henry Miller in my pack. I just ended up with more embarrassing stuff to cart around.
Edward went to college in Kansas and then went back to his village to try and live a life his grandfather would understand. He ended up on the North Slope, working in the kitchen making doughnuts for the work crews and drinking bourbon in the corner of the pantry. He didn’t get in trouble. His white bosses said it was just his disease. I heard a rumor he was turning it around and giving his disease back. I had heard he was sober.
Fuck it.
There were six people in the downstairs section of the bar. I read the paper and had several more cups of coffee. It was about 5:30. Soon the predinner crowd would be ambling in: healthy young professionals, looking good in their wool slacks and fleece jackets. It was a good bar for finding defense attorneys.
I compromised between my dream state and stealth and ordered another bourbon … but in my coffee. Soon I would go back to just bourbon because it would be too late for coffee.
Sy Brown made his entrance, in a raw silk sports jacket with narrow lapels and a thin red tie. He stood framed by the lintel and the doorjamb, scanning the crowd. He studied each person in the bar, and he tugged on his walrus mustache. His dark eyes paused at the woman in the blue blazer and white satin blouse, then they drifted to me. Our eyes met, then he went back to the woman. He studied her as he walked toward my table. He didn’t take his eyes off her as he sat down across from me. She hunted in her purse for a lighter. She wore a pearl necklace and had a pleasing shadow between her breasts.
