Promised Land (4 page)

“Draft beer?” I asked.

“Schlitz,” he said. He had a flat nose and dark coppery skin. American Indian? Maybe.

“I’ll have one.” He drew it in a tall straight glass. Very good. No steins, or schooners or tulip shapes. Just a tall glass the way the hops god had intended. He put down a paper coaster and put the beer on it, fed the check into the register, rang up the sale and put the check on the bar near me.

“What have you got for lunch,” I said. He took a menu out from under the bar and put it in front of me. I sipped the beer and read the menu. I was working on sipping. Susan Silverman had lately taken to reprimanding me for my tendency to empty the glass in two swallows and order another. The menu said linguica on a crusty roll. My heart beat faster. I’d forgotten about linguica since I’d been down here last. I ordered two. And another beer. Sip. Sip.

The juke box was playing something by Elton John. At least the box wasn’t loud. They’d probably never heard of Johnny Hartman here. Rudy brought the sandwiches and looked at my half-sipped glass. I finished it—simple politeness, otherwise he’d have had to wait while I sipped— and he refilled the glass.

“You ever hear of Johnny Hartman,” I said.

“Yeah. Great singer. Never copped out and started singing this shit.” He nodded at the juke box.

“You Rudy,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Deke Slade told me to come talk with you.” I gave him a card. “I’m looking for a woman named Pam Shepard.”

“I heard she was gone.”

“Any idea where?” I took a large bite of the linguica sandwich. Excellent. The linguica had been split and fried and in each sandwich someone had put a fresh green pepper ring.

“How should I know?”

“You knew Johnny Hartman, and you add green peppers to your linguica sandwich.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know where she went. And the cook does the sandwiches. I don’t like green pepper in mine.”

“Okay, so you got good taste in music and bad taste in food. Mrs. Shepard come in here much?”

“Lately, yeah. She’s been in regular.”

“With anyone?”

“With everyone.”

“Anyone special?”

“Mostly young guys. In a dim light you might have a shot.”

“Why?”

“You’re too old, but you got the build. She went for the jocks and the muscle men.”

“Was she in here with someone before she took off? That would have been a week ago Monday.” I started on my second linguica sandwich.

“I don’t keep that close a count. But it was about then. She was in here with a guy named Eddie Taylor. Shovel operator.”

“They spend the night upstairs?”

“Don’t know. I don’t handle the desk. Just tend bar. I’d guess they did, the way she was climbing on him.” A customer signaled Rudy for another stinger on the rocks. Rudy stepped down the bar, mixed the drink, poured it, rang up the price and came back to me. I finished my second sandwich while he did that. When he came back my beer glass was empty and he filled that without being asked. Well, I couldn’t very well refuse, could I. Three with lunch was about right anyway.

“Where can I find Eddie Taylor?” I said.

“He’s working on a job in Cotuit these days. But he normally gets off work at four and is in here by four-thirty to rinse out his mouth.”

I looked at the clock behind the bar: 3:35. I could wait and sip my beer slowly. I had nothing better to do anyway. “I’ll wait,” I said.

“Fine with me,” Rudy said. “One thing though, Eddie’s sorta hard to handle. He’s big and strong and thinks he’s tough. And he’s too young to know better yet.”

“I’m big-city fuzz, Rudy. I’ll dazzle him with wit and sophistication.”

“Yeah, you probably will. But don’t mention it was me that sicked you on to him. I don’t want to have to dazzle him too.”

It was four-twenty when Rudy said, “Hi, Eddie” to a big blond kid who came in. He was wearing work shoes and cut-off jeans and a blue tank top with red trim. He was a weightlifter: lots of tricep definition and overdeveloped pectoral muscles. And he carried himself as if he were wearing a medal. I’d have been more impressed with him if he weren’t carrying a twenty-pound roll around his middle. He said to Rudy, “Hey, Kemo Sabe, howsa kid?”

Rudy nodded and without being asked put a shot of rye and a glass of draft beer on the bar in front of Eddie. Eddie popped down the shot and sipped at the beer.

“Heap good, red man,” he said. “Paleface workem ass off today.” He talked loudly, aware of an audience, assuming his Lone Ranger Indian dialect was funny. He turned around on the barstool, hooked his elbows over the bar and surveyed the room. “How’s the quiff situation, Rudy?” he said.

“Same as always, Eddie. You don’t usually seem to have any trouble.” Eddie was staring across the room at two college-age girls drinking Tom Collinses. I got up and walked down the bar and slipped onto the stool beside him. I said, “You Eddie Taylor?”

“Who wants to know?” he said, still staring at the girls.

“There’s a fresh line,” I said.

He turned to look at me now. “Who the hell are you?”

I took a card out of my jacket pocket, handed it to him. “I’m looking for Pam Shepard,” I said.

“Where’d she go?” he said.

“If I knew I’d go there and look for her. I was wondering if you could help me.”

“Buzz off,” he said and turned his stare back at the girls.

“I understand you spent the night with her just before she disappeared.”

“Who says?”

“Me, I just said it.”

“What if I did? I wouldn’t be the first guy. What’s it to you?”

“Poetry,” I said. “Pure poetry when you talk.”

“I told you once, buzz off. You hear me. You don’t want to get hurt, you buzz off.”

“She good in bed?”

“Yeah, she was all right. What’s it to you?”

“I figure you had a lot of experience down here, and I’m new on the scene, you know? Just asking.”

“Yeah, I’ve tagged a few around the Cape. She was all right. I mean for an old broad she had a nice tight body, you know. And, man, she was eager. I thought I was gonna have to nail her right here in the bar. Ask Rudy. Huh, Rudy? Wasn’t that Shepard broad all over me the other night?”

“You say so, Eddie.” Rudy was cleaning his thumbnail with a matchbook cover. “I never notice what the customers do.”

“So you did spend the night with her?” I said.

“Yeah. Christ, if I hadn’t she’d have dropped her pants right here in the bar.”

“You already said that.”

“Well, it’s goddamned so, Jack, you better believe it.” Eddie dropped another shot of bar whiskey and sipped at a second beer chaser that Rudy had brought without being asked.

“Did you know her before she picked you up?”

“Hell, I didn’t pick her up, she picked me up. I was just sitting here looking over the field and she came right over and sat down and started talking to me.”

“Well, then, did you know her before she picked you up?”

Eddie shrugged, and gestured his shot glass at Rudy. “I’d seen her around. I didn’t really know her, but I knew she was around, you know, that she was easy tail if you were looking.” Eddie drank his shot as soon as Rudy poured it, and when he put the glass back on the bar Rudy filled it again.

“She been on the market long,” I said. Me and Eddie were really rapping now, just a couple of good old boys, talking shop. Eddie drained his beer chaser, burped loudly, laughed at his burp. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to dazzle him with my sophistication.

“On the market? Oh, you mean, yeah, I get you. No, not so long. I don’t think I noticed her or heard much about her before this year. Maybe after Christmas, guy I know banged her. That’s about the first I heard.” His tongue was getting a little thick and his S’s were getting slushy.

“Was your parting friendly?” I said. “Huh?”

“What was it like in the morning when you woke up and said goodbye to each other?”

“You’re a nosy bastard,” he said and looked away, staring at the two college girls across the room.

“People have said that.”

“Well, I’m saying it.”

“Yes, you are. And beautifully.”

Eddie turned his stare at me. “What are you, a wise guy?”

“People have said that too.”

“Well, I don’t like wise guys.”

“I sort of figured you wouldn’t.”

“So get lost or I’ll knock you on your ass.”

“And I sort of figured you’d put it just that way.”

“You looking for trouble, Jack, I’m just the man to give it to you.”

“I got all the trouble I need,” I said. “What I’m looking for is information. What kind of mood was Pam Shepard in the morning after she’d been all over you?”

Eddie got off the barstool and stood in front of me. “I’m telling you for the last time. Get lost or get hurt.” Rudy started drifting toward the phone. I checked the amount of room in front of the bar. Maybe ten feet. Enough. I said to Rudy, “It’s okay. No one will get hurt. I’m just going to show him something.”

I stood up. “Tubbo,” I said to Eddie, “if you make me, I can put you in the hospital, and I will. But you probably don’t believe me, so I’ll have to prove it. Go ahead. Take your shot.”

He took it, a right-hand punch that missed my head when I moved. He followed up with a left that missed by about the same margin when I moved the other way.

“You’ll last about two minutes doing that,” I said. He rushed at me and I rolled around him. “Meanwhile,” I said, “if I wanted to I could be hitting you here.” I tapped him open-handed on the right cheek very fast three times. He swung again and I stepped a little inside the punch and caught it on my left forearm. I caught the second one on my right. “Or here,” I said and patted him rat-a-tat with both hands on each cheek. The way a grandma pats a child. I stepped back away from him. He was already starting to breathe hard. “Some shape you’re in, kid. In another minute you won’t be able to get your arms up.”

“Back off, Eddie,” Rudy said from behind the bar. “He’s a pro, for crissake, he’ll kill you if you keep shoving him.”

“I’ll shove the son of a bitch,” Eddie said and made a grab at me. I moved a step to my right and put a left hook into his stomach. Hard. His breath came out in a hoarse grunt and he sat down suddenly. His face blank, the wind knocked out of him, fighting to get his breath. “Or there,” I said.

Eddie got his breath partially back and climbed to his feet. Without looking at anyone he headed, wobbly legged, for the men’s room. Rudy said to me, “You got some good punch there.”

“It’s because my heart is pure,” I said.

“I hope he don’t puke all over the floor in there,” Rudy said.

The other people in the room, quiet while the trouble had flared, began to talk again. The two college girls got up and left, their drinks unfinished, their mothers’ parting fears confirmed. Eddie came back from the men’s room, his face pale and wet where he’d probably splashed it with water.

“The boilermakers will do it to you,” I said. “Slow you down and tear up your stomach.”

“I know guys could take you,” Eddie said. There was no starch in his voice when he said it and he didn’t look at me.

“I do too,” I said. “And I know guys who can take them. After a while counting doesn’t make much sense. You just got into something I know more about than you do.”

Eddie hiccupped.

“Tell me about how you left each other in the morning,” I said. We were sitting at the bar again.

“What if I don’t?” Eddie was looking at the small area of bar top encircled by his forearms.

“Then you don’t. I don’t plan to keep punching you in the stomach.”

“We woke up in the morning and I wanted to go one more time, you know, sort of a farewell pop, and she wouldn’t let me touch her. Called me a pig. Said if I touched her she’d kill me. Said I made her sick. That wasn’t what she said before. We were screwing our brains out half the night and next morning she calls me a pig. Well, I don’t need that shit, you know? So I belted her and walked out. Last I seen her she was lying on her back on the bed crying loud as a bastard. Just staring up at the ceiling and screaming crying.” He shook his head. “What a weird bitch,” he said. “I mean five hours before she was screwing her brains out for me.”

I said, “Thanks, Eddie.” I took a twenty-dollar bill out of my wallet and put it on the bar. “Take his out too, Rudy, and keep what’s left.”

When I left, Eddie was still looking at the bar top inside his forearms.

I had lamb stew and a bottle of Burgundy for supper and then headed into my room to start on the box of bills and letters Shepard had given me. I went through the personal mail first and found it sparse and unenlightening. Most people throw away personal mail that would be enlightening, I’d found. I got all the phone bills together and made a list of the phone numbers and charted them for frequency. Then I cross-charted them for locations. A real sleuth, sitting on the motel bed in my shorts shuffling names and numbers. There were three calls in the past month to a number in New Bedford, the rest were local. I assembled all the gasoline credit-card receipts. She had bought gasoline twice that month in New Bedford. The rest were around home. I catalogued the other credit-card receipts. There were three charges from a New Bedford restaurant. All for more than thirty dollars. The other charges were local. It was almost midnight when I got through all of the papers. I made a note of the phone number called in New Bedford, of the New Bedford restaurant and the name of the gas station in New Bedford, then I stuffed all the paper back in the carton, put the carton in the closet and went to bed. I spent most of the night dreaming about phone bills and charge receipts and woke up in the morning feeling like Bartleby the Scrivener.

I had room service bring me coffee and corn muffins and at 9:05 put in a call to the telephone business office in New Bedford. A service rep answered.

“Hi,” I said. “Ed Maclntyre at the Back Bay business office in Boston. I need a listing for telephone number 555-3688, please.”

“Yes, Mr. Maclntyre, one moment please… that listing is Alexander, Rose. Three Centre Street, in New Bedford.”

I complimented her on the speed with which she found the listing, implied perhaps a word dropped to the district manager down there, said goodbye with smily pleasant overtones in my voice and hung up. Flawless.