Shotgun Alley

by Andrew Klavan

  So I chose my words carefully. I said, “I guess it depends, you know. It’s not just what one person’s making up in his head, after all. It’s what the other person’s making up, too. And I guess it’s what that makes up when you put the two things together.”

  I half expected Weiss to laugh, to snort and say, “For fuck’s sake,” and all the rest of it. But he didn’t.

  He swiveled away. He looked off beyond the lamplight again. He swirled the last of the scotch in his glass absentmindedly.

  It was funny—though, of course, I didn’t know it at the time—but at that moment, in a strange way, everything had just come together exactly as in a detective novel. I mean, it was the Brinks case that had led Weiss to his reflections about his feelings for Julie Wyant just as it had led me to my meeting with the grad students and Emma. And that meeting had led me to those philosophical musings, and they had given me a response to Weiss’s reflections.

  And it was those musings, believe it or not, those musings and that response, that eventually had their impact—their decisive and even cataclysmic impact—on the bloody and violent resolution of Jim Bishop’s adventure.

  Thirty-Nine

  When I left Weiss at the Agency that night, I stood a long while on the corner of Market and Third. The rain had tapered away to nearly nothing by then, a ripple in the gutter puddles, a shimmer in the sheen of the streetlights on the wet pavement. I stood while the crossing sign went from DON’T WALK to WALK. Then it went from WALK to DON’T WALK again and I was still there, still standing. I was holding my cell phone down by my side. It was off. I had turned it off while I was with Weiss. I was rolling it over and over in my hand.

  I felt—well, I felt a lot of ways. But more than anything else, I felt inspired. These ideas I had—all this palaver about the full and indivisible reality of the imagination—they had never been so clear to me before, so articulate, so exciting. And I knew full well the reason for it: Emma McNair. It was because of that conversation she and I had had at Carlo’s. Not just the things we said, but the way she let me rattle on without looking at me as if I were boring or insane. The way she had put her hand out to cover mine and the way she’d encouraged me in my ambitions. What would it be like, I stood there asking myself—how inspired would I be—if I could have conversations like that with her all the time? Especially if we could have them naked. What couldn’t a man accomplish with a woman like her to accept him and believe in him and pretend he was making some kind of sense?

  It came back to me now—I had pushed it from my mind, but now it came back—how she had written her phone number on the Carlo’s coaster, how she had said so touchingly, “I’m just a girl in real life, and I’ll be very hurt if you don’t use this right soon.” Almost two weeks had gone by since then, two weeks of nights with Sissy, and I hadn’t called. What had I been thinking?

  Then and there, determination flowered in me. I flipped the cell phone open. Turned it on. I had sat in my room and read the number on that coaster a hundred times. I knew it by heart. I was about to dial it. But before I could, the phone gave off a little tune. I had a message. It was from Sissy.

  “Where’s my little sweetie tonight?” her recorded voice whispered to me. “I’ve looked all over for him. Where can he be?”

  I was repelled. At first. But then she went on to explain at some length exactly why she was looking for her little sweetie and what she was planning to do with him when she found him. And holding the phone to my ear with one hand, I hailed a cab with the other.

  Thus, ignominiously and unworthily and a lesson to us all, my small part in this story comes to an end.

  Forty

  But my spirit may be said to linger on, I guess. Because Weiss was still upstairs in his office. Still sitting in the island of lampglow. Sipping his Macallan, a fresh glass of it now. Swiveling in that enormous high-backed chair. And still thinking—or so he always claimed afterward—about what I had said to him.

  It’s not just what one person’s making up in his head…It’s what the other person’s making up, too. And it’s what that makes up when you put the two things together.

  For Weiss, it had been a long, long day of love and lovers. Bishop brooding over Honey. Professor Brinks weeping over Arnold Freyberg. And me with that hunted look in my eyes, too obviously a booty slave to poor Sissy, whom he knew to be hungry for a husband, in turn.

  Add all that to his own dilemma—his weird and impotent obsession over Julie Wyant—and it was no wonder that his brain felt overloaded with affairs of the heart. They were all starting to become sort of intermingled in his mind at this point. His experience of Brinks’s heartbreak was becoming confused with his fear of searching for Julie Wyant, which was becoming confused with his concern—and, in truth, his jealousy—over me and Sissy, which was becoming confused with his sense, his haunted sense, that there was something, something urgent, he was missing—refusing to see—in the Bishop-Honey Graham equation.

  That last—that’s what he kept coming back to. That missing piece. The presence of urgency, even of danger. He could feel the danger, feel it right there, right beyond his consciousness, beyond the screen of his resistance. Its unseen presence was eating at him. At least, he thought that’s what it was—because it was all eating at him, the whole long day.

  He swiveled round slowly to contemplate the view through the high windows. The rain spatters on the glass, the blurred city behind them, its lighted spires woven with mist. Absentiy he began to raise his glass again. He thought: It’s not just what one person’s making up in his head…It’s what the other person’s making up, too. Not just what one person…

  And his hand hung still, the whiskey halfway to his lips. Later, he would often tease me about that moment of revelation. He would say it was my “words of wisdom” that guided him in his time of need, that lighted his way to understanding. For days, the entire Agency gave me good-natured hell about it. Even one of the lawyers from the firm upstairs began calling me the Philosopher Dick.

  But, for all the hilarity, I confess to a measure of pride in the business. It really does seem to me fair to say that my words were in Weiss’s mind at the turning point. It really was in that second when he recalled them that he began the process of solving two murders: one that no one even knew had taken place—and another that hadn’t happened yet.

  Forty-One

  The process led Weiss the next day to question a man named Mr. Munarolo. Mr. Munarolo, in turn, questioned Weiss.

  For instance, he asked Weiss, “How about I punch you in the fucking head?”

  You couldn’t have made this guy up. A slab of granite with a sneer on top. A stained Grim Reaper sweatshirt with the sleeves scissored off above the shoulders. Muscles bulging on his arms under tattoos so vast and complicated Weiss couldn’t tell what the hell they were—a lot of snakes and skulls, was all he could make out. Plus the guy’s treegnarl of a face. Plus the fires of apish rage and stupidity so bright in his dead stare that it was as if his eyes were windows onto the savage past of humankind.

  Weiss, standing across the desk from him, remained mild. “I don’t care about your role in it, Mr. Munarolo,” he said quietly. “In fact, I don’t care about you at all.”

  Mr. Munarolo cursed in wonder—he wondered how it could be that Weiss’s fucking head didn’t contain enough brains to keep itself from getting punched. He was on his feet now behind his gunmetal desk, his green chair shoved back out of his way. He had his hands on his hips. He had his head down like a bull. He was all aggression, ready to charge.

  They were in the office at the China Basin Storage warehouse: the same office through which Bishop had chased Cobra three nights before. The place had been pretty much put back together, but there was still the bullet hole in the wall by the door where Ketchum had fired on Cobra and missed.

  There was another man here, too. He was sitting at a desk in back pretending not to watch the confrontation. The woman, the secretary, who had been here when Weiss
first came in had scurried out into the bay when things started getting unfriendly.

  Disgusted, Mr. Munarolo shook his head. “You fucking cops.”

  “I already told you,” said Weiss. “I’m not a cop.”

  “Well, the fucking cops think they can just come in here like storm troopers and take over the place. I got bullet holes everywhere. I got blood on the floor out there. You whack some fucking dude in my loading bay. Christ. And then you come in here, you think you can push me around like I’m the bad guy?”

  “I’m not a cop,” Weiss repeated quietly. “That’s what I’m telling you. I don’t care whether you’re the bad guy or not.”

  “A bunch of fucking extortionists, that’s what you are,” said Mr. Munarolo. He seemed a little confused about this cop/not-cop issue. “Now I’m not gonna say it again: I am advising you to get the fuck outta here before you get your head handed to you, you understand me?”

  Still, Weiss and his head remained where they were.

  The detective was not surprised by Mr. Munarolo’s attitude. The warehouse manager had every reason to be upset. His warehouse had been commandeered by the police without his prior knowledge. Ketchum had arranged the raid on Cobra’s gang with the owner. Mr. Munarolo had been left out of the loop. And the reason Mr. Munarolo had been left out of the loop was that both Ketchum and the owner suspected that he’d been taking kickbacks in return for allowing drug dealers to use the warehouse to make their cash exchanges.

  Now, to add insult to injury, Mr. Munarolo was being questioned by the police about those kickbacks. Which put Mr. Munarolo in no small danger of losing his job, going to jail, and being killed by the drug dealers, not necessarily in that order. And that was probably why Mr. Munarolo’s temper—which, let’s face it, was not exactly saintly at the best of times—was particularly short just at the moment.

  But the thing was—as Weiss was patiently trying to explain—Mr. Munarolo’s personal fortunes did not conern him. “Look, Mr. Munarolo…” he began.

  “What did I just say to you?” said Mr. Munarolo.

  “You’ve got me all wrong. I know you’re a scumbag who takes payoffs from drug dealers, but I don’t give a rat’s ass. It doesn’t matter a damn to me, really. And I’m sorry you’re gonna lose your job and go to jail and get killed and whatever—or, okay, if I’m not sorry, tough shit—but what I want to know is—”

  Apparently Mr. Munarolo was not interested in what Weiss wanted to know. Because before Weiss could finish telling him about it, Mr. Munarolo started coming around the desk with what seemed the express intention of punching the detective in the head.

  Usually Weiss’s sheer size kept things like this from happening to him. That and the fact that he still carried himself with a certain coplike authority. But Mr. Munarolo had had an aggravating couple of days and was just feeling very tense and emotional about many aspects of his life and upcoming extermination. He probably figured that by expressing these feelings to Weiss he could both release his pent-up frustration and bolster his wavering self-esteem.

  This was an unfortunate mistake in judgment on the part of Mr. Munarolo. Now, on top of all his other problems, there he was, lying on the floor bleeding from the nose.

  The man sitting in the back of the room leapt to his feet under the impression he had to do something. Weiss gestured at him to sit down again, and the man realized his impression had been incorrect. He sat down again.

  Weiss perched himself on the edge of the gunmetal desk, flexing the elbow he had just driven into the center of Mr. Munarolo’s tree-gnarl face.

  “What I want to know,” he said, taking up where he’d been interrupted, “is who’s the drug dealer who paid you off. I’m not after him or anything—I just need to know his name.”

  Mr. Munarolo sat halfway up, propped on one hand. His eyes no longer looked like windows on the savage past of humankind. They just looked kind of comical, blinking very rapidly in turn, left eye, right eye, left eye, right eye, as if he were trying to catch up with the strobic flickering of the world around him. He drew his other hand across his upper lip. He examined it. He found a lot of blood and snot on it. He looked unhappy.

  Breathing hard, he glanced at the man in back, maybe embarrassed, or maybe looking for help. The man in back was now sitting with his hands folded on his blotter, placidly watching Weiss and Mr. Munarolo as if they were a show on TV.

  So Mr. Munarolo, finding no comfort anywhere, grimaced up at Weiss, who was waiting for an answer. He said, “Listen, you motherfucker, I’ve got a lawyer—”

  Weiss reached down and grabbed the front of Mr. Munarolo’s Grim Reaper sweatshirt. He lifted him off the floor with one hand and with the other slapped him so hard across the mouth that Mr. Munarolo’s eyes not only blinked separately but also started rolling around in separate directions. Weiss then deposited Mr. Munarolo back onto the floor with a certain amount of force.

  Weiss had a temper, too, and he hated being attacked.

  “I need to know the dealer’s name, Mr. Munarolo,” he said again.

  Mr. Munarolo held his jaw in his hand. When he could talk again, he said, “I didn’t tell the cops, and I’m not telling you.”

  “That’s only half right,” said Weiss. “You didn’t tell the cops, but you are gonna tell me.”

  “What’re you gonna do if I don’t?” said Mr. Munarolo. He may’ve meant to sound defiant, but he actually sounded kind of curious.

  Weiss rolled a glance toward heaven. “For fuck’s sake,” he muttered. “What’re you, an idiot? What do you think I’m gonna do? I’m gonna kick you so hard in the ass you’ll be picking shoe leather out of your teeth, how’s that?”

  It seemed to do the trick for Mr. Munarolo. “Santé,” he said. “The drug dealer’s name was Santé. He didn’t come personally, but that’s what they told me his name was. If he finds out I told you, he’ll kill me.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Weiss with a laugh. “He’ll probably kill you anyway.” He shifted his seat on the edge of the desk. “So, then, was it you brought the robbers in?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Weiss sighed. “I mean Cobra and his gang. They came in here with the alarm codes, the locker number, the combination. What’d you do? Sell Santé out and let them in?”

  “No. Fuck no.”

  “Well, who was it then?”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “That’s the wrong answer, Mr. Munarolo,” said Weiss.

  Mr. Munarolo wiped his nose again, with another part of his hand, a dry part. Now there was blood and snot on that part, too. This was really not a good time for Mr. Munarolo. “Maybe Harold,” he said sullenly.

  “Harold who?”

  “Harold Spatz. He worked here—I don’t know, maybe three months, till about six weeks ago. Little pimply-faced fuck. But did his job, y’know? Good worker; good worker—then suddenly he wasn’t such a good worker anymore. He got—strange. I don’t know what. Creeping around like he had some kind of big secret or something. I figured he was just getting laid or taking drugs or who knows the fuck what. But then one day he just ups and disappears. Boom. Never even came in to get his last check.”

  “And did Harold Spatz know that Santé was storing cash in your warehouse?”

  “I don’t know. He could’ve. I don’t know.”

  Weiss nodded. He moved. Mr. Munarolo flinched—but the big detective was only standing up off the desk.

  “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Munarolo,” he said.

  Mr. Munarolo snorted sarcastically, sending a great sarcastic gob of blood and snot down over his chin.

  Weiss, hands in his pants pockets, walked from the office, shaking his head at the sad, sad folly of humankind.

  Outside, the sky was gray. The clouds were foaming in a cold wind that smelled of autumn and the sea. At the corner, up near the construction site, Weiss paused for a moment on the way to his car. He stopped shaking his head at the sad, sad foll
y of humankind and turned it so he could look along the water.

  Out by the ruined piers, the police, who had been dragging the Basin for days, were gone. For now, it seemed, they had given up the search. Cobra’s body had not been found.

  Weiss drew a deep breath, straightening his spine, squaring his broad shoulders. He turned away and continued walking toward his car.

  He wondered how Bishop was doing.

  Forty-Two

  Bishop was running. His legs pistoned hard, his arms pistoned steadily. His gray T-shirt was dark with sweat. His sneakers went quickly, lightly over the university track. They made a short chuck sound every time they landed in the dirt.

  The clouds boiled low in the big sky over him. The air felt heavy and wet against his face. His face was blank, his pale eyes flat, their gaze inward-turning. He hardly seemed to know that he was there.

  The track was a quarter of a mile long. He’d been around it now more than twenty times. There was no one else anywhere near. The silver bleachers rising high on either side of him were empty. He was alone with the sound of his breath and the chuck, chuck, chuck of his sneakers.

  He had been thinking things over when he started. He had been thinking about Honey. He had been thinking about how she’d wanted him to kill Cobra and how he had killed him, even though he had tried not to. Weiss had told him he wouldn’t have shot the outlaw if Cobra hadn’t fired first and maybe that was true. But maybe it wasn’t. He remembered how his finger had tightened on the trigger, and he remembered how he had smelled Honey’s perfume and had felt her as if she were a poison in him.

  Now she was gone. He would probably never see her again. And he missed her, he wanted her, the way an addict misses and wants his hit, his drug. But he felt good, too. He felt better somehow. Because he remembered his finger tight on the trigger, and it would’ve been murder if he’d pulled it when he’d wanted to most.