Deadline (14 page)

“Turned over a new leaf,” I said.

Vigue folded the printout and attached it to the report with a paper clip.

“He's a minor-league dirtbag,” he said. “Gets drunk and mouthy. Used to like to beat on people, if I remember correctly. May have taken our attitude adjustment course once or twice.”

“Needs a refresher.”

“He doesn't think so. Mr. Cormier says you cold-cocked him. He asked you about some story about the mill and you cold-cocked him. He informed us that you want to shut the mill down.”

“He what?”

“Shut down the mill. A wise-ass New Yorker, I think was the way he put it. Guy from the paper trying to shut down the mill.”

“Is that what this is all about? St. Amand stories?”

“I'm just telling you what he said. You called him a moron and took a swing at him. I think, personally, you're running with the wrong crowd.”

Vigue stopped and lit a cigarette.

“You shed any light on this?” he said, talking smoke.

I thought for a second.

“I'm writing a story on the mill and the tax-break deal. Just looking at other cases where towns did the same thing with the parent outfit. Not that big a deal.”

“Maybe Mr. Cormier thinks it is.”

“I don't even know how he'd know about it. He doesn't work there anymore.”

“Small town. Hard to keep a secret.”

Vigue got up and left the room. I heard a filing cabinet drawer sliding in the booking area. I slumped in the metal folding chair and slid straight again. It hurt no matter how I sat.

My face and head ached. The chair was torture. They probably used it to extract confessions from prisoners who couldn't be broken with rubber hoses and cattle prods.

Vigue came back and I thought I caught a faint smile before he sat down. He was enjoying this, watching the reporter, the know-it-all who was always pestering him for information, squirming, at his mercy.

“I'll tell you what I'm gonna do,” he said, feet on his desk, hands on his hips. “I'm not sure you did everything you could to prevent this altercation, but it is a first offense. I think you've learned a lesson.”

“Give me a friggin' break.”

“What do you want? Special treatment?”

“I think I'm getting it already.”

“Maybe you haven't learned that lesson.”

“What? Turn the other cheek?”

“Just walk the hell away. Leave the tough-guy stuff to the guys on the TV.”

“Yeah, right. So what does he get? Cormier.”

“He's been charged with disorderly conduct. That's ours. If you want to file an assault complaint, he'll get that, too. That means you testify as to his actions in the incident. You want to do that?”

“Hell, yes,” I said, and winced as the cut on my lip started to open.

“Well, Mr. McMorrow, you can come in here between eight and five tomorrow and fill out a complaint. That complaint is reviewed by the DA, and then we most likely would serve a summons. He would be required to answer the charge in court.”

He smiled.

“I testify?”

“That's the way it works, chief. You come to court and say what happened. That's sort of important, since you're the one alleging the offense. We could ask around at the bar, but we don't do real well in getting volunteer witnesses out of that place.”

“So if I don't show up, he walks,” I said.

“No. He probably pleads on the disorderly, unless he gets a total bozo for a lawyer, which is a pretty good chance. He gets a hundred-dollar fine. You come and play witness and he gets a week in jail, six months chitchatting with probation and parole. He gets one of those good-lookers and he may even thank you.”

He gave me a big smile.

“Welcome to the system, friend.”

I got up stiffly.

“Yeah, right. I'll let myself out.”

And I did, stepping out into the hall, where Vern was reading
WANTED
posters.

“See anybody you know?” I said.

“Hey, you out?”

“I tied sheets together and crawled under the desks. The car running?”

“And pointed toward the border.”

We went outside to where the car was waiting like a faithful spaniel. I got in and reached across to unlock the door for Vern. He reached in and took a box off the backseat and handed it to me. Four slices of cold, congealed pizza.

We drove through town to Vern's in silence. I couldn't think of anything to say. He apparently couldn't either, until we pulled up in front of the apartment house, big and dark with old-lady curtains silhouetted by dim lights on the first floor.

“Myrtle's in bed,” Vern said. “Rev this thing and let's watch the curtains move.”

I smiled, barely. Vern looked over.

“So when's your next bout?” he said.

“I'm retired. I want to get out now. No lingering Ali decline.”

“He retired and then declined. But you took less punches. And that guy was no hack. Hey, Jack, he was the heavy favorite. An upset. Bookies hate it when this happens.”

“Yeah, right. Hit him in the eye by accident. I don't even … The whole thing is crazy.”

I shook my head, felt almost like crying, which would have been awkward. Vern cleared his throat, then reached up to wipe a porthole out of the fog on the inside windshield. Goddamn feeble defroster. Goddamn friggin' town.

“Hey, Jack, don't be so hard on yourself,” Vern said, his sympathetic face turned toward me. “It isn't like it was your fault or anything. Guy picked a fight. You weren't hitting on his wife or mouthing off or
whatever. Whaddya supposed to do? Stand there and let some meat-head punch you out? Guy could have killed you, you know? It's true.”

“It sucks anyway.”

“Suck a lot more if you got all your teeth knocked out. Try that on the
Review
dental plan.”

“There isn't one.”

“Right. Hey, come on. You won. What's the matter with that?”

I shook my head and looked toward my window. It was foggy and I wiped it with my hand. The hand was cut on the knuckles. Vern reached out and squeezed my shoulder, then popped the door and swung out. The pep talk was over. The windshield was fogged. Myrtle's bathroom light came on, then the light in Vern's living room. I'd only been in his place once or twice, just a quick stop while he put on his jacket. It was neat but in a transient sort of way, with a chair, a table, a bed, books in wooden crates. That's all I'd seen.

For a friendly guy, Vern was very private.

I sat in the car and … just sat. The pizza box, white with grease spots, was on the passenger seat. I opened it and pulled out a piece of pizza, which was thick and cold and oily. I took a bite, then another, and with the rest of the piece clenched between my teeth, put the car in gear and drove down the block. At the corner, by the Androscoggin Elementary School, I turned right and headed back through downtown, left on Route 108, and then on into the darkness beyond the glare of the mill.

Four or five miles out, on the outskirts, where the house trailers were in darkness, I tossed the crust of pizza into the box and let out a long sigh that ended as a shudder.

10

W
hen I woke up, Roxanne was kneeling beside the bed.

“What time is it?” I said.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Why aren't you at work?”

“I called and told them I'd be in at noon.”

“Cushy government job.”

I closed my eyes and a bell rang in Roxanne's kitchen. She left the bedroom and I eased my way out of bed and went to the bathroom. I peered in the mirror at the scabs on my upper lip and the scrapes on my forehead and left cheekbone. My neck was sore to move and there were dark brown bruises on my upper legs and knees. There was a crusty cut on my scalp but that wasn't sore to touch.

My scalp burned when I stepped into the shower so I kept my head out of the spray. I stood and let the hot water run down my neck and back, moving my head in a circle until I could feel the muscles loosening.

I'd make a lousy linebacker.

The fight didn't seem real. Not here, in Roxanne's bathroom, with the dried flowers on the back of the toilet, the dappled Renoir poster,
the herbal shampoos and conditioners lined up on the side of the tub. Things were nice here. Safe. Soft. A different world.

I brushed my teeth with Roxanne's toothbrush and found a pink plastic razor in the cabinet. It was dull, and by the time I detoured around the scrapes, it wasn't worth doing at all. Still looking like hell, I searched for my clothes and couldn't find them. I went out into the kitchen in my shorts and stood there like an invalid while Roxanne, still in her bathrobe, finished scrambling eggs, grabbed English muffins from the toaster oven, and pulled the coffeepot from under the machine.

She put a plate down on the table.

“Don't tell me you want an invitation now, after barging in here in the middle of the night,” she said, grinning and pulling her robe tie tighter.

“What time is it?” I said.

“It's nine-thirty, and your watch is on the counter where you left it. What the hell happened to you?”

I sat down and she waited. I drank most of the glass of orange juice and put butter and jam on a muffin. Lots of butter. When you might be beaten to death any day, you don't worry about cholesterol. I took a bite and chewed. Roxanne was still waiting. I took another bite and she waited some more.

“I got in a fight,” I said, reaching for the juice. “In a bar.”

Her jaw didn't so much drop as sag.

“That's it. A fight. A guy tried to punch me out. This big guy.”

I drank the juice. Started on the eggs.

“Why do you go to bars like that? You're not in college,” Roxanne said, then cut herself off.

I kept eating, trying to chew without moving my upper lip. It slowed me down, but not by much. Roxanne watched me and sipped her coffee.

“You're proud of yourself, aren't you. Men.”

I shrugged.

“What'd you do, knock him out or punch his lights out?” she asked.

I smiled. Vern said it. Cormier was no pushover, and I'd won. For a second I pictured him with his hands over his eyes and the blood running down his chin like glaze on a doughnut.

“I don't know what's going on, Jack, but this isn't what I thought I was getting myself involved in. Is this what you do, or is something really wrong?”

I put down my fork. Felt worse instead of better. In the kitchen, there were teal-blue plates on a narrow shelf under the cupboard. Pottery stuff. Spices in jars and a nightlife section of the
Casco Bay Weekly
stuck on the refrigerator.

Normal.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Roxanne said, speaking more softly.

“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe we'd better.”

I talked for a half-hour and had the rest of the coffee from the pot. Roxanne nibbled a muffin and listened. I minimized the damage to the house and the shock of being in a fight.

“I don't think anybody would kill him over those pictures,” Roxanne said. “Not because he took pictures of them. I mean, that isn't their fault. They're victims. They might be mad, and if they caught him in the yard or something, maybe they'd beat him up or call the cops. But what does that have to do with that canal place?”

“I don't know. Maybe nothing.”

Roxanne shrugged, then got up and put the dishes in the sink and ran water over them. The pipes of the old house shuddered when she shut off the faucets.

“You know,” she said, still facing the dishes, “you could just go by the medical examiner's report.”

She paused.

“You're not a cop. You forget that sometimes, I think.”

“No, I don't.”

“Yes, you do. Sometimes.”

No, I don't, I said to myself.

“Sometimes,” Roxanne said.

She dried her hands on a dish towel and came back to the table. I pushed my chair back and she leaned on my lap and put her arms around me.

“Could you stop remembering you're not a cop long enough to relax for a couple of hours?” she said. “You're not hurt that bad, are you?”

Her hair glistened and her robe had parted enough to show the white skin of her breasts. I parted it a little more. She waited for me to answer.

“I've got to get back and hand out the checks, and I've got calls to make and—”

“You know the old saying,” Roxanne said, sliding into my arms. “All work and no play …”

I kissed her.

“I'm glad they didn't name you Leonard,” she said, and kissed me again. “Or Raymond. Or Alex. Or Ronald.”

It was later, much later, that I considered the rest of the day. We were up and dressed: Roxanne in jeans and a red cotton jersey, me in my jeans of the day before and a big white T-shirt she said had belonged to her brother. I didn't believe her, but I wore it anyway.

Roxanne suggested we go out for lunch in the Old Port, Portland's gentrified waterfront. They'd pushed the fishermen's bars out and replaced them with shops that sold wicker chairs and antiques and elegant clothes. The stores had names like T. Boothby Ltd. and Snap's. The streets were filled with new Volvos and Saabs and people from L.L. Bean catalogs.