Mike Reuther - Return to Dead City (14 page)

“The gay bar? She worked there?”

“Shit. We both worked there. Hey. Don’t get me wrong. Me and Jeannette’s both straight. Hampton’s the one who swings both ways.”

“Hold it. This is getting complicated.”

“What. You thought he was after all those sexy asses up there at the college.
Whew man.”

“Maybe you better start over.”

“Okay. He come in Jay’s one night about half in the bag. Went on about being this teacher at the college. Insisted he wasn’t gay, even though he was in the place. Me and
Jeannette heard that stuff before. Anyways, he stuck around till closing time and then invited us to his place to smoke some weed. Next thing you know, I’m this guy’s gofer and Jeannette’s playing house with him.”

“I see where you fit into the picture. But Jeannette?”

Scarface shrugged. “I told you. The guy swings both ways. He was nutty about her. Still is as near as I can tell. Besides, a guy like that having around a woman looks like Jeannette. The way he had it figured, everyone had him pegged as a stud.”

“Jeannette. I take it she and Hampton weren’t exactly making it in the bedroom?”

“Not that the guy didn’t try. Hell. He’s horny for her all right. Hell. He’s horny for everyone. He’d put the moves on you if you gave him half a chance.”

“Never mind that. I want to know what Jeannette was doing for amusement.”

“What do you mean?”

“For grins and giggle
s
. No. For sex limp dick?”

“Hey. Don’t worry about Jeannette.”

“What about Lance Miller. Did she mention anything about getting together with him?”

Scarface’s good eye began to dart about.

“Well … “

“Don’t know anything about that. And that’s the truth.”

For a few moments we stared at each other in that dark alley. Finally, he stuck out his hand.

“What’s that?” I said.

“My money. How about it.”

“No money.”

“No?”

“No.”

He began moving away up the alley. “Okay Jack. Just remember. I know people.
You’re going to wish you paid.”

Back at my apartment I checked the messages on my answering machine and changed out of my pants. During the tussle with Scarface and Hunchback I’d gotten the pants wet and dirty, and I’d ripped a hole in the knee the size of a first baseman’s mitt. There was a call from Emerson asking me to meet him over at the ballpark at nine o’clock. I looked at the clock. It was well past nine, nearly ten. I placed the call and let it ring seven times before hanging up. I poured myself a few fingers of Scotch and went over to the couch where I sat staring at the blank screen of my broken television set. I suddenly felt restless as hell. After an alley scrap I should have been ready for a collapse. But that was the way it was with me. A little action always put me that much more on edge. That old feeling of walls closing in gnawed at me. The apartment felt lonely. Too lonely. Outside the wind began making a fuss. A stray leaf smacked up against the window. A cat whined out on the fire escape. I sipped slowly from my glass, not wanting to get drunk or anything close to it.  I figured to finish off this one drink, maybe have another, then climb into bed.

I slipped off my shoes and reclined on the couch, balancing the drink on my chest as I stared up at the ceiling. I began thinking of Pat. Our relationship, or whatever the hell you called it, wasn’t perfect. And in a lot of ways. That was okay. The last thing I needed was a woman with three kids to worry about. The question is:
D
id I love her? Who in the hell knew? More and more she had been crowding into my thoughts. She took the edge off things for me. That was for damn sure. But then, so did alcohol. I did know I wasn’t looking for anything long term. I’d been married once. And though it had been a brief marriage, I’d been in it long enough to know that chasing the bad guys didn’t mix well with maintaining a loving relationship. Maybe I needed her. Maybe we needed each other.

Again, who in the hell knew?

I drank off the rest of my drink and poured another, then, thinking better of it, poured it right back into the bottle. I walked over to the window and peered out. The street was empty. All the riffraff had been chased inside by the rain. The wind was moving around the branches of trees across the street; back out on the fire escape the cat let out a
God-awful
whine. I turned away from the window. Over on the coffee table the bottle of Scotch cried for attention. I stared it down for a moment or two. Then I headed for the kitchen. As soon as I hit the kitchen I knew I wasn’t alone. Sometimes you can smell the trouble coming. This time though, my instincts were just a moment slow to kick in. The next thing I knew I was on the floor.

Chapter 9

When I woke up everything was dark. The back of my head felt like someone with a jackhammer was drilling away. I sat up, and the dark kitchen began to revolve. I thought the hell with that noise and fell back to the floor. My world was spinning as if I was reliving my worst hangover. I just stayed there on the floor trying to get a grip on this crazy merry-go-round. After a while, my brain called a halt to this bad ride, and I managed to get to my feet.

My eyes weren’t ready for the rude wakeup call they got when I hit the light switch. Whoever had skulled me had done a job on the apartment. What little food I had around
was
scattered about the floor. The refrigerator was on its side, and my stove had been pulled away from the wall. Plates and cups were strewn about everywhere.

Out in the living room someone had spit out and had for lunch the sofa. Stuffing from the thing was scattered all about. I was lucky I didn’t have much in the way of possessions. Other than the sofa there was little else disturbed. A table in the corner had been left untouched, some chairs merely overturned. My lousy television set rested on its side with the back panel torn off. A lamp from the table was knocked over but apparently undamaged. Someone had been looking for something. For what
,
I didn’t know. It wasn’t money apparently. The contents of my wallet were scattered across the living room floor including an expired credit card and a pair of tens I’d been carrying around. I still had my Scotch too. There it sat on the coffee table, like a lone sentry amidst all the chaos. Now I really needed a drink. And I figured I had a pretty good excuse this time. By the clock on the wall it was 11 o’clock. Amazingly, I had only been lost to the world for about an hour.

I was just pouring myself that much needed drink when the phone rang. It was
Emerson. He said he was still at the ball
park. Could I come? I wanted to know what was so important that it couldn’t wait.

“Give it to me over the phone,” I said.

He said that wasn’t possible, that I had to see this for myself.

Sometimes I forget I’m in
Centre Town
. In this burg the buses stop running at seven and getting a cab at night can be like trying to order a hamburger at a health food joint. When I called the city’s one cab company I was assured a car would be by in ten minutes. I waited twenty maybe thirty minutes for my ride that never came, the pain in my head getting worse. Then I popped a couple of aspirin, washed them down with another drink and hit the streets.

I got maybe a block along Fourth Street before a dark-colored Porsche pulled up ahead of me at the corner. Two black kids, each of them no more than fifteen, suddenly popped out from a store front and approached it. One of them leaned into the car’s window. After a few moments the Porsche pulled away, and the two kids disappeared down one of the dark, seedy side streets. The Porsche, meanwhile, continued up Fourth Street. Watching its taillights disappearing, I tried to recall where I’d seen that car before.    
             
Early in the summer most of the drug-dealing activity had been confined to a few blocks east of here near the river. What had once been a nice neighborhood was being surrendered to the punks. Concern gave way to action. Meetings were held. Finally, a small army of anti-drug combatants, a vocal and organized group of citizens, swung into action. Using bullhorns and some hired hands from Philly with experience in fighting street crime, they ridded the one neighborhood of the evil element. But what had been one neighborhood’s problem became another neighborhood’s headache. The dope peddlers had waited till the heat was off and set up shop here.

Just as I reached the corner where this last drug transaction had taken place, a cab pulled up beside me. Sitting behind the wheel was my old cabbie friend, a shit-eating grin pasted on his face.

“Didn’t know you frequented this part of town,” he said.

I was in no mood for stimulating gab with the guy. My head throbbed with each beat of my heart. I just wanted to get into that cab. Why I had even considered the long walk to the ball park was beyond me.

“To the ball park,” I said.

“Yeah,” he cracked, looking at a phantom watch. “If we hurry we can just make that doubleheader.”

The cab passed silently for a few blocks. I sat slumped in the back, letting it all reel past me: the boarded up storefronts, the street corner loafers, a drunk feeling his way uptown - all the crap that passed for street life. The cabbie, meanwhile, was stealing glances at me in his rear view mirror, that damn shit-eating grin still on his face.

“You got it figured out yet?” he asked.

“What? The meaning of life
?
Sure. Those who are good reach heaven. The other poor schmucks get to spend eternity riding around with one-horse-town cab drivers.”

“Come off it. I’m on to you. You’ve been trying to get the dope on that murder.”

“I’ll bet you got a master’s degree in criminal justice.”

“Save the sarcasm. I know some things that might be of use to you.”

“Yeah. What’s your price high roller?”

“Ain’t no price. Let’s just say I wanna help.”

We were driving into the ball park’s big unpaved parking lot. At night, with no game going on inside, it didn’t even look like a ball park. The big dark walls and sloping grandstands made it look more like some sort of forbidding fortress. The cab pulled to a stop, and the cabbie shut off the engine and the lights. No one said anything for the longest time. For some reason, he’d parked the cab on the very edge of the parking lot a good fifty yards from the main entrance.

“So why did you want to come here?” He was studying me in the rear view mirror again.

“As if it’s any business of yours.”

“Look pal. The ball
park’s closed. And I don’t think you want to go in there anyway.”

“No?”

“Absolutely not.”

He started up the car, and with the lights still off, put it into gear and drove forward very slowly a few yards. “Look ahead.” He shot a finger out the window. There, parked at the bottom of the dike just beyond the main entrance were the Porsche I’d recently seen and a police car.

“Still wanna go in there?”

“Okay. Talk.”

What my cabbie friend had to say didn’t surprise me. Not in a town the size of Centre Town where the power brokers can’t help but rub shoulders with the sleazy element. As if there’s any difference. Some of these power brokers, Miller being one, occasionally fed their drug habits through some of the teenage suppliers the cabbie knew. The cabbie was aware of this because he’d personally driven Miller on one occasion.

“That explains Miller’s Porsche at the corner a little while ago.”

He nodded. “Let me tell you. Miller ain’t the only guy with a love affair with the illegal stuff.”

I threw him a long, hard look. “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

The next evening I made a late night stop at Red’s. Just as I’d hoped, Gallagher was already there, a bottle of Scotch on the bar before him. Sober or drunk, Gallagher’s eyes didn’t miss much, and they didn’t fail to catch my entrance into the barroom.

“Crager me lad,” he shouted. “It’s been ages. Come now and have a drink with me.”

Red was several feet away from him on the other side of the bar rinsing glasses. As I took a seat next to Gallagher he reached above him for a shot glass hanging from the rack.

“Well now Crager. The last time I seen you, me and Red here was putting you into a cab.”

“The ravages of alcohol,” I said.

“Ah yes. The ravages of alcohol. I like that lad. How about it Red
?
The ravages of alcohol.”

Red grinned and put down the shot glass in front of me. “Play nice boys,” he said, giving us a wink.

“How about it Crager me boy,” Gallagher said, nodding at the bottle. “Shall we give this thing some attention?”

“Why not.” I said, allowing him to fill my glass.

It was a good sign. Gallagher, I could see, was well on his way to tying one on.

The bottle was better than a third gone so it wouldn’t be too long before his words became slurred and his tongue loose. Since I was starting out sober this time he was well ahead of me. It was going to be easier than I thought. After briefly touching on the usual subjects - sports, politics, women - Gallagher launched into another harangue on city hall.