by Tim Hennessy
Before the discussion got going, Burch stood up and called for attention.
Burch is tall and super skinny, and he’s like fifty or sixty with long, white stringy hair and crooked teeth that you see all the time because he never stops with his shit-eating grin. But for all that, women still dig him. I heard one of them say he’s a David Bowie look-alike. Maybe in an alternate universe.
Anyway, after he stopped the discussion, he reached into the woven wool bag that he always carried instead of a backpack or briefcase. He pulled out a water bottle that he’d filled with some kind of red liquid.
“I realize,” he said, “this isn’t the consistency of blood, but for the purposes of our demonstration . . .”
He proceeded to take a big swig, and then he tilted his head back and, like he was gargling with mouthwash, he said, “Farewell to Fie! Farewell to Fie!” Only he didn’t say it; he fucking gargled it!
The red liquid sprayed all over, and of course the class cracked up. And let me tell you, in a workshop, once they laugh at your fiction, you’re fucking done for.
Naturally, after Burch’s demonstration, there wasn’t much in the way of discussion. A couple comments on whether the female crypto’s behavior was sufficiently motivated. Noah Duggins wondered why the cycles had wheels if they could fly. Noah. Yeah. Who Jenny left me for. I should have seen all that coming with the fucking wheels remark.
Burch wasn’t done, though. After the discussion gasped to a close, he looked around the table. He wasn’t smiling. And sure as hell wasn’t gargling. “The sensibility behind this piece is appalling.” All around the room people nodded, like, Yeah, just what I was going to say. Right.
But there was still more to come. Burch gave me a C- in the course. A fucking C-! In a course where everyone was sure they’d get an A or, at the very worst, an A-. That pretty much finished me off in the program. Especially since I wasn’t exactly tearing up the track in my other classes. And the classes I was teaching I’d canceled a bunch of times. The way I saw it, I was in the program to write, so that was what I was fucking doing—I was writing! I lost my teaching fellowship and the tuition waiver that went with it.
So, adios MFA program, hello to the Whitcomb.
But I swore I’d get back at that fucker. And I knew exactly how I’d do it. I’d keep writing, and I’d push my fiction even further. Darker, bloodier, sexier. I didn’t need his goddamn class. I didn’t need any class. When my first novel came out, all the articles would say, Veller wrote most of his best-selling novel during the night, when he worked the midnight-to-eight shift at a hotel. I’d leave out the part about the Whitcomb being a residential hotel. Let readers think I work in a bulletproof cage.
Except I couldn’t. I couldn’t fucking write! Every time I tried, I kept hearing Burch. Appalling sensibility. I had no idea what the fuck that meant. I mean, I knew what the words meant. Okay, okay, I had to look up sensibility. But I didn’t know what they meant together. Or how to write another way. So I didn’t do it. It’s been almost three years since I put a word on a page. Who did I want to see dead? What took me so long to come up with Burch’s name?
* * *
A couple nights later, when the elevator doors sigh open, and Dying Man strolls out, he comes right over to the desk. He holds out his palm and asks, “You got the information I need?”
I reach into my backpack and bring out the list I’ve written on the Whitcomb notepad. A pretty fucking long list, all under the heading, Professor J.G. Burch.
He takes a long time reading it. Then he nods, folds the paper in half, and puts it in the pocket of his fleece vest. “Where do I find him?”
“Where? Shit, he was my teacher! You can take him out in the fucking classroom, for all I care.”
He gives me this long, baleful look. “Maybe you’d rather do this yourself?”
“Okay, okay. You know where the Black Star is? A bar on Brady Street? Burch always invites students to join him there after class. He buys pitchers for anyone who shows up.”
Dying Man shakes his head. “Never heard of it.”
“Brady Street?”
“Nope.”
“Come on, man.”
“What night does he usually have class?”
“I’ll look it up for you.”
“I got a better idea,” he says. “Scouting expedition. We go to this bar together, and you point him out to me.”
This is too much involvement for me, and I ask, “And then what? You take him out on the spot?”
I got to hand it to Dying Man, he sees right through me. “Don’t worry,” he says with a grin. “All you have to do is point. You can keep your hands clean.”
* * *
A week later, Dying Man and I are at the Black Star on a school night.
It’s a decent bar, one of a shit-ton on Brady, the street where the 1970s refuse to die, a few funky blocks of coffee houses, bars, cafés, and twenty-first-century versions of head shops—used clothing, posters, bongs, glass pipes, incense, tobacco, and vape. And the Black Star fits right in. It’s got about a hundred beers on tap (but the college kids and the hipsters drink PBR), and the TVs are more likely to have soccer on than baseball or football. Like I say, a decent bar. Dark and lots of good-looking women.
But here’s the thing. Burch thinks the Black Star’s some down-and-dirty dive bar and he’s living on the edge by going there. When he meets the class there, he all but tells the students to hold hands and stick close to him. Shit, there’s a bar over in the Riverwest neighborhood I’d like to see him walk into. The first time he asked for a drink in that fake accent of his they’d pick his bones clean.
While we’re waiting to see if Burch and his little ducklings show, Dying Man and I sit at the bar and nurse a couple of taps.
“Let me ask you a question,” I say. “Have you ever done something like this before?”
“What?” he says, holding up his tulip glass. “Belgian beer?”
“Come on, man. You know.”
“No. Never.”
“What did you do before . . . you know.”
“Before I took a room at the Whitcomb? I was on the legal staff for an airline.”
“Legal staff? Like a fucking lawyer?”
“Just like.”
“So if anything goes wrong, you could handle your own case?”
“I could,” he says. “But I won’t.”
“No shit.” I turn back to my beer. “A lawyer. A lawyer and a fucking assassin.”
“Not anymore. I haven’t paid my bar association dues.”
“I suppose you can just say fuck it to just about everything, can’t you?”
He sips his beer. “That’s right. Dying doesn’t have a hell of a lot to recommend it, but it’s good for that.”
I’d told him that Burch and his fiction seminar would probably show between nine thirty and ten, and Dying Man keeps looking at his watch—gold number about the size of a hockey puck. Keeping track of the time. Yeah, I bet dying’s good for that too.
Just when I’d started to worry that maybe Professor Burch had changed his ways and no longer took his students out for drinks, he walks into the Black Star, a posse of four adoring students trailing close behind. They make their way to a table in the back like they have a reservation.
“Okay,” I say to Dying Man, “that’s him.”
Dying Man swivels slowly on his stool and, like an old gunfighter, watches Burch. Then he turns back to his Belgian beer, satisfied, I bet, that he could take that skinny son of a bitch without a problem. Shit, I felt it myself every time I sat in his fucking classroom.
He says, “All right. I know his type.”
“And what type is that?”
“Victim.” He drains his beer. “I’ve seen enough.” He pulls out a money clip, peels off a twenty, and drops it on the bar. When he heads for the door, everyone steps aside.
Then he stops on the sidewalk right outside the Black Star. The poet might have thought the fog came in on l
ittle cat feet, but here on Milwaukee’s East Side it rolls in like smoke from the fucking artillery. In a few minutes, you can’t see anything above a building’s third floor. Dying Man lights up a cigarette and exhales his own little cloud.
For the first time he offers me one from his pack, but I wave it away. “Let me ask you something,” I say. “Why’re you doing this? If you want to go out in a blaze of glory, why don’t you get yourself an AK-47 and start blasting away?”
“How do you know I won’t? And then your professor would just be collateral damage.”
I don’t say anything. We’ve started walking now, on our way to the Whitcomb and our nightly ritual. He smokes. I watch.
He finishes his cigarette and flips the butt into the street. “If you think this is about the killing,” he says, “you obviously don’t understand a goddamn thing. I’m doing you a favor. You still don’t get that? You want something done, you can’t do it yourself, so I’m doing it for you.”
“You plan to do anyone else a favor?”
“That remains to be seen.”
* * *
That night, he doesn’t come down to the lobby. Damned if I don’t miss the bastard.
He doesn’t show the next night either. Or the next. Or the next.
Naturally, I start to worry. Nobody told me anything about the guy in 322 checking out—or, you know, checking out—but what the hell.
On the fifth night, I ring his room. No answer. Now I’m thinking, Shit, he’s lying dead up there. Unless his body starts to stink, nobody’s going to notice anything unusual. That’s the thing about the Whitcomb. You live this close to your neighbor, you respect his privacy. Nobody goes knocking on doors without an invitation.
That’s when I resolve to do something that’ll cost me my fucking job if I get caught.
I take one of the pass keys and go up to his room.
Now, if you’re thinking this is all about Professor Burch and my lust to see him dead, you’re wrong. It’s not about him at all, not anymore. In fact, I’ve decided that if Dying Man is there, I’ll tell him, Fuck it, the deal’s off, it’s not worth it. You don’t want to spend the rest of what time you got left worrying about being busted for murder.
Before I put the key in the lock, I look up and down the hall. Plenty of the busybody old farts at the Whitcomb have nothing better to do than watch for someone breaking one of the ten thousand rules here.
I turn the key and push the door open. The first thing that hits me is the smell. No, no, not a body in decomp. Cigarette smoke. The son of a bitch hasn’t always been stepping outside for a smoke. He’s been smoking in here. I’m surprised someone hasn’t complained. The Whitcomb is damn near a hundred years old, and its ventilation system isn’t the greatest. Someone takes a shit in one room, you can likely smell it all the way down the hall.
The only light in the room comes from the street, but that’s enough for me to see. Nobody’s here. The bed’s made, but Dying Man hasn’t checked out. On the nightstand are a few magazines, Car and Driver, Wired, and a Playboy. Kind of sad. A fleece vest on the chair. Some empty San Pellegrino bottles by the sink.
Hasn’t checked out? Hell, maybe he’s in a hospital, dying faster or already dead. I had the impression that nobody’s looking out for him, so who’d let the Whitcomb know that 322 won’t be coming back?
I no longer think I’m going to trip over a body, but I go into the bathroom just to make sure.
Not much there. An open toilet kit on the back of the sink. I can see a couple prescription bottles in there, and I take them out, thinking maybe there’s something I can avail myself of, courtesy of Dying Man. Nothing there says it’s for pain, so I put the bottles back. I don’t need anything that’ll give me the shits.
There’s a smell here too. Old Spice. Sadder.
I check the closet. A suitcase and a duffel bag on the floor, and a suit and a white shirt hanging on the rack. Maybe those are what he wants to be buried in.
The room is chilly. I check the window, and it’s open a few inches. Probably Dying Man’s attempt to air out the room, so he doesn’t get caught smoking. On the other hand, what the hell does he care about getting nailed for some petty offense? After all, this is a guy who’s willing to murder someone just because someone else wishes him dead.
Outside, the fog has settled in again, and from the third floor it looks like smoke is trying to find its way back inside. I close the window.
I leave Dying Man’s room, still wondering where the fuck he might be.
Two days later I have my answer. Sort of. I don’t know exactly where he is, but I sure as fuck know what he’s been doing.
All the local channels lead off with the story on the nightly news. Professor found dead in parking lot outside his apartment building. Bludgeoned to death. No suspect in custody. No apparent motive. Not a robbery, police say. University releases a statement condemning the act of senseless violence and going on about how respected and well-liked Professor Burch was among colleagues and students. And just in case the locals aren’t hip to the fact that a real celebrity lived and died in their midst, the dean of Burch’s college blathers on about how the professor’s fiction has won a boatload of awards and how his reputation is not only national but international. Blah-blah-fucking-blah. And nothing a news anchor, cop, or colleague says is anything but a cliché, something I could have tossed off at a minute’s notice. Except I could add that I know who did the deed.
Dying Man. Jesus fucking Christ. Now I hope his room is empty, and he’s gone for good. Either out of Milwaukee or out of this life. I don’t care. Just don’t let me see you walk out of that elevator again. Though I’d sure as hell like to know what he did the bludgeoning with. Tire iron? Wrench? Golf club? Baseball bat? I personally like the idea of athletic equipment over tools.
Now, ordinarily, a story like Burch’s would last through a few news cycles. Not because he was a murder victim. Shit, people are murdered in Milwaukee every day. But this victim was white, an East Sider, a university professor, for Christ’s sake. They never get themselves killed, no matter how much they might deserve it. You can almost see the drool as the reporters give us details about the tragedy. Yeah, a real fucking tragedy. You never hear that word when the victim is Devonte over on the northwest side. But then Burch gets elbowed off the news after only a day by just about the only story that could give the media a bigger hard-on than the good professor’s: murder and sex. A local cop busted into a motel room and shot his wife and her lover right in the middle of the act. And the wife was a mother too. Sordid and tragic. An unbeatable combo. Officer is now in custody.
That night I go up to Dying Man’s room again. Nothing seems changed from my previous visit. Open toilet kit and prescription bottles. Smell of cigarettes and Old Spice. Fleece vest. The bastard is either in hiding somewhere or dead, and at this point I don’t much give a shit.
When I come back down, I walk out of the elevator and see two men standing at the desk. One of them has my little Back in a Minute sign in his hand, and he’s examining it like it’s some sacred fucking text. They’re cops. I spot that right away. What other men go around in pairs, both of them wearing ugly sport coats that don’t fit and ugly ties that look like they’re choking them? (And don’t say Mormons.) I’m willing to bet that the white shirts under those jackets are short sleeved.
“What can I help you with?” I ask. “Officer,” I add, so they don’t think I’m just some vampire stooge who can’t do anything but a night shift.
But, of course, I know why they’re here. Dying Man fucked up somehow. A witness saw him, or he dropped his fucking driver’s license at the crime scene, or he left his fingerprints all over the lead pipe he used to bash Burch’s head in, and the cops traced him back to the Whitcomb. But what the hell am I supposed to do? Sorry, Dying Man, your name’s on the register.
It takes me about two seconds to suss out the cops’ play. It’s not good cop, bad cop; it’s yakky cop and silent cop. The one who
won’t shut up is short, bald, and has a little head that looks like a tennis ball balanced on a bowling ball. The tall dude has a Lurch-like jaw.
After all the Hey, how’s it going, isn’t that fog something, they’ve really kept this old place up, haven’t they? bullshit, the short cop gets to it. He takes an index card out of his shirt pocket, looks at it longer than he looked at my hand-lettered sign, and peers up at me. He pronounces my name slowly and then smiles like he just solved Fermat’s fucking theorem.
“That’s me,” I say.
“We’d like you to come down to our place,” he says. “Have a little chat.”
Our place. Cute. But I’m not having it. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m the only one on duty here. I can’t leave the desk. But I can stop in tomorrow.” I straighten a few card keys on the desk. “If you tell me what this is about.”
“No worries,” the short cop says. “We got it covered. Your manager will be here any minute, and he’ll watch the store for you.”
Walters? Walters is coming in? What the fuck? “Maybe,” I say, “maybe you better tell me what you want to talk about.”
Lurch has a manila envelope, and he reaches inside and pulls out a baggy. He holds it up carefully, like dog owners hold their plastic bags of dog shit. His voice is nothing like what you think it’d be. It’s high and flutey. “This your handwriting?” he asks.
Even through the plastic, I can tell what’s inside the bag. It’s a sheet torn off one of the Whitcomb’s notepads. And written across the top is J.G. Burch’s name . . .
Fuck! Dying Man, what have you done?
Just then, Al Walters, the Whitcomb’s manager, comes rushing through the front door, shaking his head all the way. He’s got his suit on but no tie, and his hair is pointing north and south. He needs a shave. The cops got him out of bed.
“Come on out of there, big guy,” the short cop says sweetly, a remark that doesn’t have a goddamn thing to do with my size. “We’ll go somewhere quiet and talk.”
Even if I want to run, there’s nowhere to go. I’m trapped behind the desk. Besides, Lurch has already got the cuffs out.
