by Thom Whalen
* * *
Mrs. Everett gave me a key to Elsa’s Grill. I didn’t know if she had retrieved Randal’s from the police station or had a new one cut. It looked old, but she could have kept the new one for herself. “You’ll be opening and closing now,” she said.
That was but one of my new responsibilities now that Randal was in jail.
Saturday night, I was waiting for Gwen to finish in front. That was strange. Usually she left before I mopped out there. Tonight, she returned to the front and was doing something with the drink dispensers while I was mopping the back.
As soon as I had dumped the dirty water and put the mop and bucket away, she stuck her head in the kitchen and said, “You in a hurry to get home?”
“No.” I was, but I was curious to know what she wanted.
“I was wondering if you wanted to have a cup of coffee with me.”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“A soda, then. I can’t pull a shake. The machine is cleaned out already.”
“Okay. Coke.”
She pulled a couple of chairs off a table in the corner and we sat down.
“This is going to keep me awake all night,” she said as she sipped her coffee.
“Coke doesn’t keep me awake.” I knew that there was caffeine in it.
“This and Randal’s arrest. I haven’t been sleeping well since they put him in jail.”
“Me, neither,” I said.
“You think he did it? Killed Billy?”
“No.”
“Me, neither,” she said.
We sipped in silence for a minute, then she began talking, softly, introspectively. “Randal saved me. I married Billy when I was nineteen. Three years later, I had a three-year-old and an infant and he ran out on me. Ran off with a stripper that he’d met in some bar. If I could have spared the expense, I would have sent the stripper a bouquet of roses and a thank-you card.
“Billy was no husband. He never held a job. Drank up every cent we could get. Sometimes I couldn’t afford food for the kids. He was a mean drunk and he hit me more than once. I knew that he had been sleeping with any tramp that would have him since the day we married. I would have kicked him out earlier, but I was afraid of what he might do to me and the kids if I tried.
“After he left, I didn’t hear from him again until this summer. I lived on welfare until my youngest could get into kindergarten, then I started waitressing. I was living in Akron then. I figured that Billy had forgotten about me and that was good. But an old friend from Jamestown – that’s where I grew up – called and said that Billy had dropped by asking about me. She’d told him that I was in Akron because he said that he had some of my stuff and needed to return it to me.
“That was a lie. He didn’t have anything of mine. When I was married to him, all I owned was two changes of clothes and my toothbrush. I didn’t hang around, waiting for him to show up. I moved to Wemsley the next day. This time, I didn’t tell anyone except my parents where I was.
“I’d been working here for a couple of years when Randal came. He’d been discharged from the army and gotten into some kind of trouble in Buffalo. He said that it was his fault. Some loudmouth said the wrong thing and it set him off. He never said, but I’m guessing that it was some crack about Vietnam. Randal’s got a problem with ‘Nam. Sometimes something reminds him of ‘Nam and he goes right back there in his mind.
“I hadn’t had much to do with men for a long time after Billy. Two small children and no money was as much as I could handle. I didn’t need to be taking care of some guy on top of all that. But Randal didn’t come on to me like other guys. He was just there, always helping, never pushing. Anyone else, I would have ignored, but Randal has a presence. I don’t know how to explain it. He can’t be ignored like most men.
“After a few weeks, we started dating. After a couple of months, he met the kids. He likes kids. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he gets along like gangbusters with them. The kids asked me if Randal was going to move into our house. Crystal was only eight and it floored me when she asked that. I don’t know where she got the idea. Kids grow up so young these days.
“Randal lived with us for half a year but it wasn’t meant to be. He and I both had issues and neither of us could commit to the other all the way. He…” She paused, looking for a way to say something that she’d never put into words before. “He struggles to manage his life. He needs to make rules for himself to keep on the rails. He never tells anyone else what to do. Never asks anyone else for a thing. But he makes demands on himself that you can’t see until you know him well.
“He was taken prisoner in ‘Nam. I don’t know much about that, but I know that it must have been hell. Demons moved into his brain back then and they still live deep down in there.
“We were both relieved when he moved back to his own place. But we stayed good friends. There was never a question that he’ll be there for me when I need him. After he moved out, he kept coming around a lot because the kids were attached to him and they missed him.
“Then Billy showed up back in June. He stopped by my parents’ place and laid on the charm. Told them how much he wanted to be a father to his kids and help us out.
“It was my parents who told him where to find me.
“He thought that he could just show up here and act like the last ten years had never happened. That I’d forget how bad it was when he was living with us and how he’d bailed and left us to fend for ourselves.
“Billy didn’t say what he had been doing, but it was pretty obvious that he was broke and needed money and figured that I had some. It was also pretty obvious that he was hiding from someone. Probably hiding from people that he owed money to. He was desperate as hell and he couldn’t hide that.
“He tried to be nice for a few minutes, but I was having none of his bull and he got mean pretty quick. You were here when he dumped my tray. He figured that he could bully me around like he did when I was nineteen and pregnant. I made it pretty clear, pretty quick, that I wasn’t nineteen any more.
“When I chased him out of here, I figured that he’d get the hint and blow town, but, like I said, he was desperate. He showed up at my house. Pushed his way in. Probably he figured that I’d have to treat him better if the kids were watching. That I wouldn’t want to be mean to their father in front of them.
“He miscalculated. The kids didn’t know him from Adam and they didn’t want him around. Randal was the closest thing they ever had to a father. They wanted me to kick Billy out.
“I could see him losing it so I told the kids to go to their room. It was bad. I tried to get him calmed down. To do whatever he wanted. Promise him anything. But he wasn’t having any of it. He knew that I didn’t mean it. My promises were lies. I would say or do anything to get rid of him.
“That was the night I got the black eye.
“When Billy left that night, he told me that he was going to give me a little time to adjust to him being back.
“I didn’t know if Billy meant it or if it was just bluster. Billy was big on talk but didn’t follow through.
“It turned out that he really meant to move back in. A couple days later, he showed up with a bag of clothes and said that he was staying. He… Let’s just say that it was bad again and it would have got a lot worse if Randal hadn’t shown up.
“When I was working, the kids were home alone too much and we worried about them. So we always told them to call Randal if they ever needed something. The kids were terrified by Billy so, when he and I were in the bedroom, Hannah snuck out into the kitchen and called Randal.
“Randal came over as soon as Hannah called. He didn’t say much to Billy. Just moved up close to him and told him that it was time for him to leave. Randal isn’t as big as Billy but he’s got this way of looking dead serious. Billy backed down. He could tell that if he took Randal on, he wouldn’t walk away to brag about it.
“Billy blustered to me about coming back to settle our business,
but he slunk out of there without giving Randal any backtalk.
“I never saw Billy again. When I heard that he was dead, I felt relieved. I sure didn’t shed any tears for him. But Randal and me both knew that the cops were going to suspect Randal. The more that they found out about Billy and me and Randal, the more they were going to be sure that Randal had killed Billy. He had all the reasons in the world to do it.
“I can’t swear that he didn’t. I wasn’t there when Billy was killed. But I don’t believe it. Randal wouldn’t kill someone unless it was self-defense and Billy wasn’t stupid enough to get into a fight with Randal. When I saw Billy slinking out of my house, I could see that Randal had beaten him without laying a finger on him. Billy wasn’t going to come back after that.” She looked at me with sad eyes. “Besides, Randal told me that he didn’t kill Billy and I’ve never known Randal to lie.”
I had. I had heard Randal tell Billy’s mother and brother and the Road Snakes and Warts Weber and Gus all kinds of lies. But I believed him when he said that he didn’t kill Billy.
“He’s my knight in shining armor,” Gwen said. “My Lancelot. He couldn’t do anything wrong.”
I wondered if she knew that in Arthurian myth, Lancelot had betrayed King Arthur by having an affair with his Queen, Guinevere.
“You were helping him find out who killed Billy, weren’t you?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Are you going to keep looking for Billy’s murderer now that Randal’s been arrested?”
I nodded again. If I wasn’t sure before, that moment sealed my commitment. There was no backing down. I was going to put everything I had into the search for Billy’s murderer.
“Good. If there’s anything that I can do to help, anything at all, you let me know, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You need money? I don’t have much, but you can have whatever I can give you.”
“No. Not now. Randal’s going to give me some money. That’ll keep me going for a while.”
“Okay. You remember, though. I’m here if you need anything.” She reached across the table and squeezed my hand.
I had to get Randal out of jail. If that meant that I had to be a drug dealer, then so be it. I would be a drug dealer. Right up until I got caught and sent to prison. Which was likely. Most criminals can work in secret but drug dealers have to tell lots of people what they’re doing – customers, suppliers, other dealers – and, sooner or later, someone’s going to talk.
