The Scarred Man (6 page)

    "No."

    "Then where do you get your information?"

    "Well, it's in all the papers. You read about it all the time. Everybody knows about the Hell's Angels and all like that."

    It was enough. I had established both unreliability and bias. Bubba the Gut got thirty days for leaving the scene of an accident. The Beaks snickered openly when they heard the sentence. The judge, however, was not quite finished. He still had a few words for me.

    "Mr. Shaw, I don't really know why a New York lawyer like you would feel it necessary to interest himself in a case like this, but as far as this Court is concerned you are a disgrace to your profession."

    "Yes, Your Honor," I said.

    

    

    For twelve days I tried to control my impatience.

    On the thirteenth day after the trial the Beak's paid me a visit, running in formation, gunning their H-D47s, ripping the air.

    Pedestrians hit the sidewalk, motorists pulled off onto the shoulder. No one wanted to mess with them. The effect was roughly the same as that of the Younger brothers slashing through some peaceful country town.

    Stud was in the lead. He gunned twice around the marina driveway with six Beaks eating his dust. Heads popped out of boats all around and as quickly withdrew. I played it as cool as possible, sitting quietly in my cockpit while the review passed. Finally Stud cut his engine and called out, "What do you say, Billyboy?"

    "Welcome aboard," I said.

    They secured their gleaming choppers and tramped aboard, scarring my clean decks with their boots.

    "You got any beer, Billyboy?"

    "I'll get some."

    "Give Cooney the dough and let him get it."

    I gave Cooney five dollars and he went across the street to the 7-11 store and came back with a half-dozen six-packs. The Beaks killed a can each in two swallows.

    "Some tub you got here, Billyboy," Stud said.

    "Thanks."

    "Where's the action?"

    "I'm afraid there isn't much."

    "You got no mamma on board?"

    "No."

    "Are you a queer or something? You don't look like no faggot."

    I grinned at him. "I like living alone."

    He gave me a sharklike flash of yellow teeth. "You're a freak, Billyboy. Everybody is some kind of freak. I ain't figured out what kind of freak you are yet. You smoke, Billyboy?"

    I nodded.

    He threw back his head and laughed. "I don't mean cigarettes."

    "I know what you mean."

    "Gimme a joint, Cooney."

    Cooney withdrew a soiled cylinder from his jacket pocket, lit it, and sucked in deeply on the smoke. He passed the joint to Stud, who demolished half of it with one puff and passed it on to me. I drew in the bitter marijuana smoke, held it as long as I could, and passed the butt to the Beak on my right. There was a glint of amusement in Stud's eyes as he watched me.

    My neighbors on the adjoining boats were mastering their fears, emerging from their holes like rabbits in the presence of wolves. On the 34-foot Chris-Craft to starboard two young women in bikinis had spread themselves on towels on the foredeck. Cooney gave them time to settle down before suddenly offering in a very loud voice to perform a staggering series of perversions upon their persons.

    The two young matrons drew themselves up in attitudes of outrage while their husbands rushed from the cabin and glared aggressively in our direction. I hoped their sense of discretion would triumph over their valor. It did. They looked across at the half-dozen outlaws and elected to remain where they were. But not without what they hoped would be a last word.

    "You guys cut that out," one of them said.

    "What?" asked Cooney with an air of innocence.

    "Talking to my wife that way."

    "Is that your wife?" said Cooney. "That mollyfock. Why she likes what I'm sayin' to her, don't you, baby? She wants some of what I got right here, what you could never give her, you mother. Or maybe you'd like some yourself.

    Come over here and bend over, Charlie. Let me see your fucking little…"

    "Cool it, Cooney," Stud said in a lazy voice.

    There were shouts of "Call the police!" One of the two men had already jumped down onto the pier and was starting toward the dockside phone.

    "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Charlie," Stud informed him. "Not unless you want that tub at the bottom of the river tonight."

    The irate husband hesitated. In his hesitation, he was lost. He retreated to the boat and all four of them went below, slamming the hatch behind them. The Beaks returned happily to their beer. It was one up for them in the endlessly enjoyable game of fucking up the straights.

    "You ain't gonna be so popular around here from now on, Billyboy." Stud said with a grin.

    I shrugged. The game had been largely for my benefit. It had been a test, like dragging on the joint.

    "You don't care?" Stud said.

    "Not much."

    "Ten bucks says they throw you out of here tonight."

    "If they do they'll have a lawsuit on their hands."

    "Yeah?"

    "They would have to prove that I invited you here in the first place and that I encouraged or condoned your language in the second. Even if they were able to establish that, which they couldn't, I would still be in a position to offer into evidence the. bathing suits those two women were wearing."

    "What about them?"

    "Provocative. They were nine-tenths naked when the incident took place."

    "Like they was askin' for it?"

    "More or less."

    "You kin me, Billyboy."

    "Have another beer."

    Stud took the can and bit straight down into the aluminum. He chugalugged the contents. When he had come up for air he said, "You guys split. I want to talk to Billyboy alone."

    The Beaks mounted their chromium-plated steeds and gunned them into life. All except Cooney. Cooney walked down to the Chris-Craft and hurled his beer can against the closed hatch. The hatch remained closed. He made a final obscene gesture with both hands, worked around his sissy bar into the saddle, and roared off.

    "Those H-47s must come pretty high," I said, watching all that chrome magnificence vanish around the bend.

    Stud looked interested. "You ever ride a hog, Billyboy?"

    "No."

    "Then how'd you know they were H-47s?"

    "Harley-Davidson 1947s. When the police impounded them at Islamorada, they were so listed."

    "Yeah, well, you got it a little backward. A bike like mine there is an H-D 47 with the knucklehead engine. That means a seventy-four cubic inch displacement. The rest of it's all bullshit, but it costs. Like that seat is a minestrone highback, and it's got those MCM pipes and fishtail mufflers. I've got like maybe four thousand in that chopper."

    "Are you trying to sell it to me?"

    "A straight like you? You'd kill yourself the first time out."

    "Probably."

    "A hundred miles an hour that close to the ground is living, man."

    "Or dying."

    He shrugged. "It's like all the same, man. You want to try it?"

    "Sure."

    "When?"

    "Anytime."

    "Tomorrow?"

    "Why not?"

    "I'll come by for you."

    "Okay," I said. "Have another beer."

    He was getting loose and lubricated on the combination of beer and pot. We talked the drug scene. He said he had been a pothead from way back, and he didn't mind dropping a little acid now and then, but he wasn't into anything harder. Sometimes he would drop a few cartwheels or bennies, but no heroin. No way, man.

    "Could you beat a drug rap, Billyboy? Like you did in Islamorada with the Gut?"

    I shook my head. "I doubt it. It would depend on the time and place of course. Possibly here in Miami where they're accustomed to processing hippies and school kids on drug charges it might be a little easier, but I don't think there would be much I could do for you. If you want to stay out of the slammer, keep away from murder, rape, and drugs."

    Head lolling, he giggled foolishly, "Are you kidding, man?"

    "Not particularly."

    "I mean about the rape. Rape is going on all the time."

    "Is it?"

    "What other way is there?"

    "I can think of a few."

    "It's what the chicks dig."

    "Do they?"

    "Billyboy, where you been livin'? Like when we break in a new mama. We turn ten, fifteen, maybe twenty guys loose on her. It's a gig."

    "I'll bet."

    "Hell, just a couple months ago out in the boondocks…"

    "Yes?"

    "Nothin'."

    I handed him another beer. He bit into it with a crunch.

    "It's all ginch," he said. "Anyway you cut it."

    "I suppose."

    "You married, Billyboy?"

    "Was."

    "That's a bummer. A guy gets hung up and wrung out and wasted with one chick. Like we had this brawl one time out in Hialeah in an empty warehouse. The chicks and the beer and the acid rock. Guy brought his wife. What kind of guy would bring his wife to a gig like that?"

    "I don't know."

    "Kinky. She asked where was the ladies' room, and two of us took her out back and showed her. We had her on an old mattress out there with her skirt up around her neck and all the guys comin' and goin' and takin' their turns, and then a lot of them comin' around again for seconds and thirds, and all this time her old man is in drinkin' beer, and he thinks maybe his old lady is just out for some fresh air or somethin', and finally some guy says to him we got some ginch out there and he should go take his crack, and it's dark out there and he's half smashed anyway and he gets in the saddle and that's when we throw on the light. That was some scene."

    "I can imagine."

    "Now if that come to court what would you call it? Was it rape or what?"

    "An interesting point."

    His voice had grown fuzzy. "Three…"

    "Yes?"

    "Three of us one time… This guy and his old lady on a Honda… like out in the fuckin' Everglades, man. We… Ginch!"

    I sat very still. Sweat was running down the back of my neck, but my hands felt as though they had been dipped in ice water. He stood up, lurching a little. "Sheet. All this pussy talk. Mama waitin'. Gotta split. Tomorrow then, huh?"

    I nodded, watching him as he climbed up onto the dock, unzipped his fly and urinated defiantly in the direction of the two young women who had emerged again onto the foredeck of the Chris-Craft.

    When he had mounted his machine, he gave us the full benefit of his tailpipe once around the turn and dusted off. I watched him go, hoping he would not break his neck.

    Quiet settled once more over the marina. I went below and dug out the survival kit that was designed to be attached to the inflatable life raft. What I wanted was in the kit, well greased and wrapped in plastic. I had thought it might be useful against sharks. I unwrapped it and hefted the cold dead feel of the .38. I spun the cylinder and took out the cartridges and tried the trigger. It was working smoothly enough, but I oiled it again and reloaded.

    

    

    He picked me up next morning, and we bombed out along the Trail. He was hitting ninety or better, hoping to draw some reaction. I hung on grimly but said nothing. At the Shell station below Forty Mile Bend he turned off onto the dirt road. He was still doing seventy, and we raised a plume of dust half a mile long. In five minutes we were at the place where it had happened.

    I reached inside my jacket and took out the Colt and shoved it into his back. He turned his head for a moment and glanced down. I felt him go rigid under the gun.

    "Pull over!" I yelled into his ear.

    He did as he was told. There was a sandy trail down through the scrub into the trees, and I told him to follow that. When we were well-hidden from the road, I told him to cut the engine. Keeping him covered, I slid off.

    "Get down," I said. "Set the kickstand."

    "What the hell is this?"

    "Just do as you're told."

    "What are you, a nark? Some kind of fuzz?"

    "You'll see."

    "Put the piece away, man."

    That was when I shot him. I blew his left knee off. I had always been good with the .38, and although I had not used it in many years, I was still good. He went down. I watched the blood drain out of his face as the shock hit him. I was counting on his being tough enough not to black out; I didn't want to waste time bringing him around again.

    He made it through the first wave, and although his face was cheesy he was with it. A puddle of blood had formed under his leg and was being sucked into the sandy soil. The real pain had not yet begun. He could still hardly believe it. His muscles and nerves knew he had been shot, but his brain was having difficulty processing the information.

    "You shot me, man! You crazy or somethin'?"

    He was beginning to feel it now. He clutched his leg and moaned.

    "Help me! Help me!"

    "The way you helped her?"

    "Who?"

    "The girl on the Honda?"

    "What's it to you?" he gasped. "What the mollyfock business is it of yours?"

    "She was my wife."

    His face had gone the color of soiled bedsheets. I raised the pistol and pointed it at his head.