Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery (28 page)

"Another soda," I said to the bartender, and when he brought it and I reached for my wallet, he shook his head. "This one ain't on you.”

"Thanks," I replied.

"Oh, I didn't do it," Louis cackled, nodding over my shoulder. "He's been paying for them since Deuce left."

Leaned back in a chair was Leland Brickmeyer's right hand man. Somehow, in here, he looked more ragged than the last time I’d seen him. He raised his beer, held it there for a second, and then tilted his head back like he wanted me to come sit with him.

I checked the length of the bar. Could be some kind of set-up. But I didn't see anything. Nobody even seemed to notice I was there, except the one guy, Brickmeyer's heavy hand, whose name was Bodean Driscoll, Deuce had told me.

I couldn't say now what made me do it, but I did go and sit with him. I felt a little woozy, but I attributed that as much to being in a bar as anything else.

He said, "Drinking cokes, huh? Better watch it. Makes it hard for people to be charitable and buy you a beer."

"What do you want?"

"Grab a seat, big guy," he replied. "I got no beef with you."

"What the fuck are you doing motioning me over here?"

He smiled. "Hey. Whoa. I just bought you a drink, man. Doesn't that entitle me to a few sentences? Just give me something to work with."

My muscles were so tight I thought I could feel my bones clenching. The way he smiled just begged for me to deck him; I don't know why. I guess I was tired, ill, grasping for anger. And something was spinning in my head. "Did Brickmeyer send you here?"

"Which one, the boss or the fairy?"

I stared.

"All right," he said, laughing about his little joke. "Yeah, the big man sent me out here. Figured I'd be able to calm the tide a little bit, seeing as every time the two of you were in each other's presence, you tend to go goddamn nuclear."

"Were you the one chasing me that night, after I left the bar?"

He didn't react. I expected something. Jesus, even if it was ridiculous, I expected him to laugh at me, but all he did was give me that smile, that all-knowing grin. He reminded me of a crocodile.

Finally, he said, "Boy, you sure don't disappoint, do you? Leland said you'd bring the crazy, and I had seen it some myself, but he didn't tell me you were this fucking nutso. Je. Sus. No, I ain't had a part in people fucking with you. I come here to make amends."

I stared at him. He said, "I ain't shitting you, man. I'm an honest guy. Got to work for Mr. Brickmeyer because I've got a security background. I just happen to have a head for numbers, too, so I fit in real well with his model for running business. That not make much sense to you? Probably shouldn't. But with guys like you sniffing the air around him, especially with the way you're staring at me, Leland has no choice but to have people like me around."

"What was Jeffrey doing at Laveau's funeral?"

However tough his facade, this last comment elicited a reaction. His flesh-colored eyebrows twitched. "I didn’t see him. Didn't know he would be there, actually."

Something in the man's eyes betrayed him, like a light flickering after an electrical surge. I looked away, careful not to let on that I knew he was lying.

"No, no. He came out to the graveside and pretended not to look interested. Know anything about that?"

"I done told you I didn't know shit. You think I'm just an errand boy. Why go and ask all these questions?"

"Somebody's got to answer them. Why not you? Plus, and I think this is the more related point, you strolled in here and started buying me
drinks
." I gestured at the Coke.

"I am like the, uh,
intermediary
between you and my boss."

"So you're giving me the polite shine-on. Buying me flat Coca-Cola and showing off your personality. Forgive me for being skeptical."

He leaned forward, resting one elbow on the table between us. "No offense taken. Brickmeyer wants to see to it that you give up this personal mission to ruin his name."

"A bribe? That what you here for?"

"It won't help to use that language.” He paused, perhaps to think of the exact way of easing himself back into his former point. “You're looking at some jail. Not a lot, mind you-"

"Bare minimum's a day in county. I can swing that."

"One word from the big man himself, and your problems could be washed away. He’s got some influence with the DA."

I thought it over. "And all I'd have to do is give up on my investigation?"

"That's it, chief. Just head back out to the country and don't make a peep for a while."

I thought of Emmitt Laveau and Janita. I thought of my dreams. I thought of my mother. "Forget it. I'm sticking with it, but don't let that get between our newfound friendship," I said. "I'm liking these free drinks."

"Personally, I don't give a damn what you do. You're an alcoholic in complete denial. I suspect you’ll probably end up tripping over your disease.”

"Sounds like a broken record, that idea. Let's get on something fresh, like Jeffrey Brickmeyer."

"Go ahead."

"What gives with his attendance at the funeral?"

He looked around, peeking at some older couple in the corner, and then turned back to me. "Jeffrey's a private man. Got that from his daddy. And they aren't keen on the hive getting throttled around like this."

"I've never seen a more thin-skinned politician in my life."

His smile widened, but he shook his head. He took another swig of his Bud, finishing it off, and jangled it in front of him. "You want that soda topped off? I'm getting another brew.” He shrugged noncommittally. “Long as it's on the boss, you know."

I told him no, but he insisted. I shrugged, and he went to the bar with my cup in hand. No skin off my back; it wasn't like I was going to drink it, either way. He was basically wasting his time and his hospitality.

As he stood there at the bar, I felt a wave of groggy nausea wash over me. I leaned forward and placed my face on my knuckles. Something was making me woozy, like a Nyquil hangover. Being caught up in conversation with Driscoll had distracted me, I guess, and I hadn’t realized how sick I was.

At one point that evening, before I’d realized there were eyes on me, the bartender had taken a call, turning his back to the bar and stuffing one finger in his ear to hear the person on the other line. My mind was hazy, but I couldn't recall if I'd had a drink in front of me at the moment, or if someone Bodean's size had sauntered up to the bar, maybe to sprinkle something into my soda.

Or was this another manifestation of Uncle K’s punishment? It certainly reeked of his involvement, but I no longer cared, one way or the other. I felt punch-drunk, and everything around me was growing dimmer.

"Hey, you all right?" Bodean said, and I nodded unconvincingly. The spins hit me like the blunt end of a claw hammer, and I tried to stand, thinking maybe getting myself upright, getting some good ground underneath me, might help.

It didn't. I lurched forward, knocking the table sideways, sending both it and Bodean's glass to the floor.

"Hey, come on," cried someone in the bar. "The hell you doing serving somebody this hammered?"

"Shut up," replied Louis. He sounded like he was talking through water. "I haven't ever seen Coca-Cola do
that
to a man before."

I closed my eyes and expected the floor to rush up and meet me, but two hands caught me and propped me up instead.

"Easy now," Bodean said. He hefted me up, placing my arm across his impossibly broad shoulders, and carried me over to the bar. "Cup of water for my friend here."

I don't remember much after that. The water stands out as familiar, and Bodean patting me on the back, but after that, only moments are available to memory. A soothing voice. Vomiting. Bright lights. Angry voices. Then, darkness. Just. Darkness. I did not dream of dead men, and I suppose for that, at least once, I was thankful.

Ninth Chapter

I remember some parts of that night, the night my father took his revenge on my mother’s lover, but most of it as a narrative breaks up into indistinct parts.

I do remember seeing my father choking him, beating him, kicking him. I remember the sound of bones breaking like pieces of crackling over a fire. I remember how the hangman's rope glistened under the glow of headlights.

And I remember blood, spilling from a man both guilty and innocent, and I remember the way his eyes widened with knowledge of his own looming death. Those eyes...I'll never forget. The memories from that night are like a backlit manuscript, one I will be forced to carry inside me for the rest of my life.

It doesn’t always come back to me as a single, continuous event, like a movie running from beginning to end. Sometimes I catch only a snippet, but I am always beholden to it when it appears.

Often, I will be transported back to that night doing ordinary things. Once, while standing in line at the hardware store, someone stepped in beside me with a length of rope, and I had such a violent reaction to it that some people thought I was having a seizure. Instead of rope, I saw blood-stained twine being wrapped around a man's hands and feet to keep him from struggling, even then as he fought for breath, for his very life.

But, of those things, what I do not remember is what my father's accomplices looked like, not for the life of me. The single biggest shame of my life. I am only thankful that no one else knows that I saw what I saw, not even Vanessa. Just me and the shadows of the men who were there.

Whenever I am pulled back into that night, I am a child again, literally and figuratively, bound to the torture I witnessed. The men laugh and mock their captive, their faces obscured by gray smudges of the sort found in poorly-developed film. Only my father’s face stands out, and it is such a grotesque, misshapen scowl, a devil's mask of scars and wrinkles, that I can't help but be drawn toward it, afraid that breaking my gaze will somehow cause him to see me. And so I remain among the high grass and trees that hide me, dozens of feet away, and I watch a man die.

I never stepped forward. Never said a word, and so though I can’t carry the weight of his death - that would be co-opting his pain - I can’t unburden myself of it, and I guess maybe it’s why I had become obsessed with the Emmitt Laveau case.

Sometimes I see his face in a crowd, or in the corner of a dark mirror, and until this past week, I thought I was a little crazy. Maybe I still am. Maybe my dreams are not proof that I am sane but that I am even crazier than I thought. Or maybe he’s always been there, and I never realized it.

Even joining the Lumber Junction Police Department at twenty-five, on my birthday, ten days after September 11, 2001, and after seven years of aimlessly working jobs I didn't care for, the roots dragging me downward had not loosened. I felt trapped in a limbo caused not by me but by a dangerous and humorless man, and if fate played any role in my life, it was playing one now.

*  *  *

I woke when daylight broke through the sterile white blinds. Squinting, I prodded my body with trembling fingers. My veins felt like someone had injected them with radiator fluid. I was shaking. It was as bad as any hangover I had experienced. As bad as one anybody in any lifetime had suffered, I was willing to bet.

I tried to turn over. Something tugged at my arm. I found myself neither shocked nor surprised to be in a hospital room.

When my eyes could bear it, I looked up. Sitting across from me, under the wall-mounted television, was D.L. Vanessa’s dad. My old boss. A shadow lay spread across him, his eyes staring unblinkingly at me. I said, "I didn't do this."

"God
damnit
, Rol, what the hell is wrong with you? You are missing
court.
The judge is likely to have you stoned to death - on a DUI charge, no less - for being caught drinking and driving."

I didn't even want to think about court. "Listen. Ugh. Hear me out."

"Have at it. Knock it dead." The wide-brim hat he'd worn every day since I had met him lay on his knees, and he spun it nervously as he waited.

Not only did attempting to talk hurt, it made me look guilty, so I settled for awkward silence. Thankfully, the doctor saved me from having to explain myself. What was I going to say?
Hey, boss, I got witnesses can say I was definitely just drinking soda...down at the bar.

The doctor gently opened the door and smiled, padding right over to the edge of my bed. He smiled but didn't mince words. He said, "It was a mixture of Antabuse and Rohypnol. Whoever did this wanted to make sure you looked quite stupid last night."

Behind him, D.L., fiddling with his hat, said, "Thank God." As if that actually helped anything.

The doctor ignored him. He said, "Now, your liver activity is way up. Has anyone prescribed Antabuse to you?"

I maintained steady eye contact. It seemed necessary, somehow. "I don't even know what that shit is."

"I'll take that as an absolute no, then. Let me explain. Antabuse is prescribed to people with extreme alcohol dependence. It's medical name is disulfiram, and it basically causes you to get very, very sick when you drink alcohol. When the beer, wine, liquor, whatever, is metabolized, the disulfiram blocks the body from converting the acetaldehyde - which usually gives you hangover symptoms - into acetic acid - which prevents them - so the effect of the hangover is magnified. Somebody really got you good, too. That's why you feel like you’ve been thrown out of a building."

I listened to D.L.'s boots click on the hospital room floor as I considered this new information. I said, "Seems a bit harsh, doesn't it?"

The clicking stopped. I looked up. Both the doctor and D.L. were giving me awfully discouraging stares.

"The Antabuse," I said, "it seems a bit harsh on alcoholics, right?"

"Truth be told, Rolson, you shouldn't be drinking in the first place."

"I wasn't."

"In a bar."

Exactly what I was expecting. "I didn't have a drop. I drank Coke the entire time. It can be verified, I swear. I was just meeting Deuce there."

I couldn't help but notice his eyebrows bunch up and his mouth droop. He sighed.

"They also found alcohol in your system. Point one-oh. Enough to get you put in the tank. Officer Walton said he brought you here because you were acting like the Bogeyman had got after you. We ran some tests, sedated you, and now here you are."

I couldn't remember much after the Coke Bodean Driscoll brought me. A connection was forming, though, if Ricky Walton brought me in. He and Driscoll could have gotten me sauced after they roofied me. I said, "If they talk to the bartender from last night, he can vouch for me. I don't remember much but that shouldn't matter, should it? Hell, talk to Deuce. He can vouch for me."

D.L. sucked his teeth. "Well, I think this is damn good evidence that you're pissing
somebody
off. I hope you know this means it ends here."

"Mmm-hmm," I replied. The doctor was pretending to find something interesting on his clipboard.

"I'm serious, Rol. This is about as deep as the shit can get before I put you in jail just to keep yourself safe." He pulled a chair to the hospital bed and clasped his hands between his knees. "Listen, I'm right there with you. You feel like you've got something to prove, and I can't blame you for trying to make up for what you did to Janita Laveau. It was a shitty thing, and even if you've got some enemies over at the force, they know you're a pretty good man. The problem is, I cannot go up to Leland Brickmeyer and make these kinds of accusations. It just cannot happen."

"Looking after your ass will only mean you'll run face-first into something."

"That's inevitable, no matter which end you try to protect. I just ain't got the right amount of kindling to get this fire started. No offense, buddy, but you're unreliable. You hang out in bars, after what you did, and now you've got some crazy scheme to upend this town.”

“There is no balance in this town.”

He ignored me. “If all you got is conjecture, then I can't listen to it. In fact, I won't listen to it. If you can't produce any solid evidence to connect the Brickmeyers to that young man's murder, I'm afraid I'll have to turn a deaf ear. I've been patient to the point of parody with you. But this is it. Consider yourself warned."

I looked away from him, rather abruptly, and stared down at my feet, which stuck up underneath the white sheets of the bed like small, nameless headstones. I said nothing. What was there to say to that?

"What are we going to do about court?" he asked. He was in the process of standing up. He obviously understood I had no intention of talking to him today. I needed to think, and the longer he browbeat me, the longer it would take for me to get over it and move on.

"I'm not going to do anything about it today." I kept my attention focused on my feet.

"Okay, listen. I'll talk to Jarrell and Judge Monroe about all of this. Given the fact that somebody drugged you, perhaps he'll listen to me and move your court date." He pointed at me. "But I can't guarantee that, you know. I'll do what I can."

"Thank you, D.L." It was almost physically painful to say.

He walked over to the door and said, a bit weakly, "I might not be here, if you hadn't talked Vanessa into coming to see me. So, I guess, thank
you
."

I could have sworn I saw his lip tremble just before he walked out of the room. I tried to roll over but couldn't, so I just spent the next couple of hours staring at the ceiling, thinking of what to do next.

*  *  *

At lunchtime, as I tried my best to fork down a block of ground meat drowning in a thin brown substance, Jarrell Clements thundered in, briefcase in hand.

"Woo boy, it's a hot one out there today," he said, smiling. My predicament could not have bothered him less. "You're lucky you ain't out in it."

"And even luckier to see you in person, I suppose." I pushed away the plate of slop and instead sipped the Mello Yello I had bribed out of a rebellious nurse.

"Boy, they sure can't get you down, can they? Even when they're trying to put you under the jail, you're still holding strong. Shit, I tell you, I might've lost every bit of nerve if what has happened to you had happened to me."

"D.L. came by to see me this morning. He was here when I, well, when I woke up. I told him all about what happened, and he sort of believed the doctor, who more or less corroborated my story."

"I've heard."

"How?" I tried to see the evil of that man’s youth, but I couldn’t quite see it on his face. He really had changed in his old age, it seemed.

"Lawyers are priests who use black magic. If they revealed their secrets, they would fail to enchant the audience. Speaking of enchanting audiences, how much of this story is the truth?"

I considered it. "Of what I told him? Everything. I'm not that into trusting reality at the moment, however, so don't quote me. I've been told I left the bar with the bad guy."

His smile was humorless. "Which makes you sound like a whore."

He watched me impatiently, his fingers tapping on the briefcase. I imagined several defenses for myself but ended up listening to an unidentified machine hum somewhere in the room.

"I called up the good Judge, and he'd already had a conversation with the chief. We might have to make a formal appearance, just so you can show yourself to be sober and upright in public for once, but I don't think it will be a huge problem."

"It doesn't look good, though, does it?"

"Could be better, but, hell, you're making it interesting. With somebody trying to dispatch you, it will be impossible to convict you on this second charge of drinking and driving. I'll make sure of that. The prosecution will be more than willing to let you cop a plea on a single charge than risk dragging through a trial. Being a victim only gives you sympathy, which they would obviously want to avoid."

"D.L. doesn't seem to think that's the case."

"Aw, D.L.'s just pissed at you. He treats you like a son. That second charge wouldn't stick to my latest issue of Playboy." Jarrell squinted and did one of those half-smile things, tilting his right hand back and forth, like a DJ having a seizure. His age-old scar glistened under the light. "The first charge, not so easy. It's an uphill battle."

He winked, and his open eye glimmered with a strange mixture of emotions. "But you have me on your side, and if that don't make you confident, then I don't know what will."

*  *  *

They let me out later that day. Jarrell, going well beyond his capacity as lawyer, chauffeured me to the impound lot. He even put up the money to get my half-assed rental out. "Something your daddy would have done for my boy, if I had one," he said, assuring me. "I won't even roll that into what you owe me."

Before he drove away, he stopped me and decided to tell me the thing that had obviously been cutting at his insides.