Cul-de-Sac (5 page)

He didn’t say anything.

“I was a sweet little piece of ass, wasn’t I?”

Camel kept quiet.

“That’s what you told me.”

He remembered.

“When I wanted to marry you, that’s what you told me … instead of saying yes, okay, Annie, I’ll marry you, you said I was a sweet little piece of ass.”

“What kind of trouble you in?”

She looked surprised then focused her attention on tearing the label from the beer bottle. “Do you remember something else you told me … you said if I was in hell and you could find your way there, you’d come get me.”

He remembered.

“It’s my husband.”

“He hurt you?”

“
No
. But he’s … I think Paul’s having a mental breakdown and I think the reason is, he’s involved in something illegal.”

Camel waited for her to tell him about it.

She did … the building they bought in this area, her surprise visit up from North Carolina, Paul’s wrecked condition, the intruder, Paul pleading with her not to contact the police. Then she started crying but so softly if you were watching her from across the room you wouldn’t know it.

He brought out a clean white handkerchief.

“Sorry,” she said, accepting the handkerchief which was ironed and neatly folded. “No sleep last night.”

He nodded. “You want me to go out and talk with your husband, try to find this other guy, the one with the big teeth?”

“I don’t know what I want you to do. I didn’t have anyone else to go to, don’t know anyone in the area …” After using the handkerchief on her eyes she refolded it. “This was in your left back-pocket wasn’t it. A sharp pocketknife in your left front pocket … carbon blade, lockback. A few hundred dollars cash in your right front pocket. Am I right?”

He said she was close enough.

“I knew how you’d be dressed too. Old jacket, something tweedy and formerly expensive, faded blue oxford shirt, tan slacks, white socks, heavy black shoes. Same haircut from when you were what, thirty years old? I bet if I came over there I’d smell bay rum wouldn’t I?”

He thought of telling her come on over and find out but instead said, “All I’ve done for the past fourteen years was get older.”

“Still armed?”

“Always.”

“I remember everything about you like it was yesterday.”

He felt the same way about her. Everything … but most especially the ocean. For him Annie would always be the ocean.

She leaned forward. “Teddy—”

“This building you and your husband bought …”

“Cul-De-Sac.” She drew back in her seat. “I had no idea until last night it was so big, so dilapidated. A massive square building, three stories of rooms arranged around an open center. Paul told me that originally there was a huge skylight illuminating the building’s entire interior but it’s been covered over and now the interior’s so dark you can turn on all the lights and it still seems like you’re in shadows.

“All I know about renovation is what I’ve learned being married to Paul for three years but just walking through Cul-De-Sac you can tell it would take a fortune to restore … some of the doorways have been bricked up, walls torn down, corridors full of junk, there’s been vandalism, fixtures torn out, the plumbing would have to be replaced, new wiring. No way could we ever get our money back and it’s too big of a job for one man anyway.”

“You have any idea what your husband and this other guy might be involved in?”

“No. He kept mentioning
elephant
, is that some kind of drug term … like,
gimme an elephant of heroin?
”

Camel smiled in that peculiar way of his, as if squinting from the sun. “Not that I know of … your husband ever been involved in drugs?”

“No, Paul’s a super-straight arrow. I was with him once when he was stopped for failing to signal a turn, the cop was very nice about it, issued a written warning … but Paul was a nervous wreck, like he was being arrested for murder.”

Camel went back to wondering what it was exactly that Annie wanted him to do.

She emptied her beer bottle. “You think I could get something stronger to drink?”

“Sure.”

“Large vodka?”

“How you want it?”

“In a glass.”

Up at the bar, Camel asked Eddie for a double vodka rocks.

“I assume it’s for your friend.”

“Yeah.”

When Eddie brought the drink he said, “You’re happy.”

“What?”

“Suddenly you’re a happy man.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I ain’t saying you got a big shit-eating grin on your face but you’re definitely a happy man.”

On the way back to the booth Camel realized Eddie was right.

State police superintendent Parker Gray suffered a terrific jones otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this, not here in the office where he could get caught. He’d tucked his tie into his shirt, now he was rolling the chair away from the desk and leaning forward so he wouldn’t get any of the white powder on his clothes … it was already smudging three fingertips and a thumb, had already dusted the blue cover of a statistical report Gray was using as a placemat … virtually impossible to eat these powdered-sugar doughnuts without getting the white dust everywhere. Gray had acquired his addiction back when he drove patrol and every once in a while just had to have one.

If the powdered sugar fell on your clothes and you tried to wipe it off, that just made the mess worse, created a greasy white smear. The key was to stay leaning over until you could … 
shit
, the telephone. Keeping his head forward and using his unpowdered left hand Gray picked up the receiver but didn’t speak just yet because his mouth was full.

“Superintendent Gray?”

“Mm-uh.”

“I hope you remember me … Kenneth Norton?”

Gray almost choked, quickly licking the fingers and thumb of his right hand before reaching for his coffee cup.

“Hello?”

After he got a gulp of coffee down, Gray said, “I remember you sure, what’s up huh?”

“Is Donald Growler out of prison?”

Gray felt his heart go funny. “Of course not … why?”

“For the past week someone’s been asking around for me … called a place where I used to work, showed up at one of my old apartments. People who’ve told me this, they’ve described the guy and it sounds a little like Donald … except he’s not giving anyone his name.”

Gray stood and moved away from the powdered sugar mess waiting like a booby trap on his desk.

Norton asked, “Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“If Donald’s out of prison—”

“He’s not.”

“You promised me … if I did what you said, you promised me Donald would never—”

“This guy you say’s looking for you, you don’t know it’s Growler huh?”

“No but—”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I
am
worried, I lied for you!” When Parker didn’t comment, Norton pressed the issue. “You and your partner said Donald was guilty but he’d get off on a technicality unless I—”

“You’re mistaken.”

Shocked into a moment’s silence Norton finally pleaded with the superintendent, “Don’t do this to me, you owe me protection—”

“Mr. Norton, I don’t owe you anything.”

“If Donald’s escaped from prison—”

“He didn’t escape, I would’ve been notified.”
Maybe
, Parker thought.

“Would you be notified if he was released?”

“He wasn’t.”

“But you don’t know that for sure do you … 
do you
? If Donald finds me, I’m dead—”

“He’s in prison.”

“I hope you’re right!” Norton becoming screechy. “I hope to God you’re right!”

After hanging up Gray moved quickly behind his desk to get to the computer terminal, unluckily catching the edge of the blue vinyl report cover he’d been using as a placemat, flipping it enough to puff up a mini-snow-cloud of sugar dust that powdered his pants just over the left pocket. “Fuck me,” he muttered … a sentiment that after five minutes with the computer he found himself repeating.

On Camel’s third trip to the bar for Annie, Eddie asked him was she drinking them or spilling them … by the time she finished that third vodka her eyes were shining wet and her smile had slipped a few degrees off horizontal.

“I don’t want to go back to a motel.”

“You can stay with me.”

Implications kept them both quiet for a moment, then Annie said okay. Camel suggested they leave now, get Annie something to eat and maybe she wanted to take a nap too.

She nodded but kept seated, holding onto the empty glass as if Teddy might try to snatch it from her. “Paul was talking about hearing things in that building … a piano playing, scratching in the walls.”

“He thinks it’s haunted?”

“He said Satan keeps showing up.” Annie stared at the glass and considered asking for another. “When I opened my eyes and saw that man standing there I thought it was the devil.” She glanced over at Camel. “I’ve never been more scared in my … then this morning I couldn’t think what to do, who to go to for help …” A strange stricken look came over Annie’s face just before she
turned sideways in the booth, lowered her head to the level of the tabletop, and vomited on the floor.

Teddy’s shoes got splattered, he went around to Annie who was apologizing even before she stopped throwing up.

“Come on, I’ll take you to my place,” he said, helping her stand.

“I’m sorry.”

“Forget it.”

When Eddie came over, Annie said, “I’ll clean it up.”

He told her same as Camel did, forget it.

But she kept apologizing. On the way out she looked back at the people who were looking at her and just as Annie and Camel got to the door she said to the last person at the bar, “It’s morning sickness.”

By the elevator she leaned against Camel and kept her eyes on the floor. “All over your shoes,” she said.

“Not a problem.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Annie, forget it.”

When the elevator came she told him, “I don’t know why I said that about morning sickness, I’m not pregnant.”

“I know.”

“How would you—”

Then the elevator arrived and they got in. It was empty but stopped every few floors to pick up passengers, Annie holding onto Teddy as if she expected the ride to turn bumpy.

Half a dozen people were in there with them when Annie said, “I had my first orgasm with you, in your sleeping bag.” She was speaking softly against his neck but in the close space of that elevator everyone heard her plainly. “Only ten years old but I felt so grown-up that night.”

Camel stood stoically looking at his shoes.

The elevator stopped at the twelfth floor where two women got out, turning to get a good look at Camel so maybe they could pass on his description to the police. Up on Fourteen when Camel helped Annie from the elevator the other four people gave them plenty of room to exit.

Annie clung to him tightly, they made a clumsy time of it walking down the corridor to his office. While Camel was getting out his keys she raised up on her toes and whispered in his ear, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing, forget—”

“No I mean our baby.”

He stopped fumbling with the keys.

“I’m sorry about our baby,” Annie said just before collapsing like she’d been shot, falling so suddenly and heavily that Camel dropped the keys to free up his hands and barely managed to grab Annie’s shoulders before her head hit the hard tile floor.

Before putting her to bed Camel removed Annie’s shoes and helped her lift off the blue dress … she had on no underwear and seeing her naked aroused him with such urgency that he felt foolish, quickly covering Annie with a blanket. She said the room was spinning, he promised it would stop. Within seconds she either passed out or fell hard to sleep and Camel went into the adjoining office where he conducted business, Camel Investigations.

Mainly he worked for lawyers, collected evidence for divorce cases, checked on people to see if they were who and what they claimed to be. Camel also did a little business off the books, he’d hire out to go have a talk with someone, encourage the person to be reasonable. Maybe it was someone who’d been jilted then started harassing the ex and the ex’s new lover … Camel would go over and talk to the jilted party about self-respect, getting on with your life. Or maybe there’s a feud in the family and this guy won’t return some property belonging to his brother-in-law who then hires Camel to go over and talk with the guy, urge him to be reasonable and do the right thing.

In these endeavors Camel was himself eminently reasonable, he didn’t threaten violence or embarrass people in front of others … and neither was he always successful, though more often than not
he was. Something about Camel, his face, his demeanor, made people pay attention to him, encouraged them to comply with what he was asking them to do. His ex-partner Alfred Bodine used to say that when Camel talked to you in a serious way it was like the Voice of God, Old Testament.

His singular ambition had always been to be taken seriously. The highest compliment Camel’s father could give anyone was to say he was a serious man. Didn’t matter if the guy was a big shot or one of the grooms who hot-walked horses at the track where Camel’s father lost money on a regular basis … if the old man thought someone was worthy he’d tell Teddy, “Now that’s a serious man.”

Being a serious man meant you could be relied upon, your word had value, you knew your business. Crooks could be serious men, so could drunks and people the world might consider losers … if they followed the rules. A serious man didn’t claim more knowledge than he owned, he wasn’t a loudmouth or bully, and even if he was poor he always carried a few hundred dollars cash on his person because cash is serious in a way checks and credit cards and promises to pay you later never can be. When a serious man picks up a restaurant tab he goes over to the waiter and pays it discreetly, he doesn’t make a show of grabbing the check. If a serious man helps you out with a loan, he doesn’t mention it around. And if he has a low opinion of you he either keeps it to himself or tells you to your face.