The Sixth Commandment (26 page)

Immortal.

I
DON’T KNOW WHAT
your life is like, but sometimes, in mine, I just don’t want to get out of bed. It’s not a big thing, like I’ve suddenly come to the conclusion that life is a scam. It’s a lot of little things: Con Edison just sent me a monthly bill for $3,472.69; a new shirt was missing when my laundry was returned; a crazy woman on the bus asked me why my nose was so long; a check from a friend, in repayment of a loan, promptly bounced.
Little
things. Maybe you could cope with them one at a time. But suddenly they pile up, and you don’t want to get out of bed; it just isn’t worth it.

That’s how I felt on Friday morning. I looked toward the light coming through the window. It was the color of snot; I knew the sun wasn’t shining. I wasn’t hung over. I mean my head didn’t ache, my stomach didn’t bubble. But I felt disoriented. And I had all these problems. It seemed easier to stay exactly where I was, under warm blankets, and forget about “taking arms against a sea of troubles.” Hamlet’s soliloquy. Hamlet should have spent a week in Coburn, N.Y. He’d have found a use for that bare bodkin.

But why the hassle? There was no reason, I told myself, why I
should
get out of bed. What for? No one I wanted to see. No one I wanted to talk to. Events were moving smoothly along without my intervention. Corpses were getting shoveled into the ground at two in the morning, old geezers were disappearing, young wives were cuckolding their husbands in the back seats of police cars, cancer cells were reproducing like mad. God’s in His Heaven; all’s right with the world. What could I do?

It went on like that until about ten in the morning. Then I got out of bed. I wish I could tell you it was from stern resolve, a conviction that I owed myself, my employers, and the human race one more effort to tidy up the Thorndecker mess. It wasn’t that at all. I got out of bed because I had to pee.

This led to the reflection that maybe the memorable acts of great men were impelled by similarly basic drives. Maybe Einstein came up with E=MC2 while suffering from insomnia. Maybe Keats dashed off “Ode on a Grecian Urn” while he was constipated. Maybe Carnot jotted down the second law of thermodynamics while enduring an attack of dyspepsia and awaiting the arrival of Mother Tums. It was all possible.

I record this nonsense to illustrate my state of mind on that Friday morning. I may not have been hung over, but I wasn’t certain I was completely sober.

Breakfast helped bring me back to reality. A calorie omelette, with a side order of cholesterol. Delicious. Three cups of black coffee.

“Another?”
the foot-sore waitress asked when I ordered the third.

“Another,” I nodded. “And a warm Danish. Buttered.”

“It’s your stomach,” she said.

But it wasn’t. It belonged to someone else, thank God. And my brain was also up for grabs.

I came down to earth during that final black coffee. Then I knew who I was, where I was, and what I was doing. Or trying to do. Caffeine restored my anxieties; I was my usual paranoiac self. Stunned by what I had seen and heard the previous evening. Wanting to put the jigsaw together, and looking frantically for those easy corner pieces.

I signed my breakfast tab, then wandered through the bar on my way to nowhere.

“Hey you, Todd,” Al Coburn called in his raspy voice. “Over here.”

He was seated alone in one of the high-backed booths. I slid in opposite, and before I looked at him, I glanced around. Jimmy was behind the bar, as usual. Two guys in plaid lumberjackets were drinking beer and arguing about something. I turned back to Al Coburn. He was drinking whiskey, neat, with a beer wash.

I jerked my chin at the booze.

“Taking your flu shot?” I asked.

“They killed my dog last night,” he said hoarsely. “Poisoned her.”

“Who’s ‘they?’ Who poisoned your dog?”

“I come out this morning, and there she was. Stiff. Tongue hanging out.”

“You call a vet?”

“What the hell for?” he said angrily. “Any fool could see she was dead.”

“How old a dog?”

“Thirteen,” he said.

“Maybe she died of natural causes,” I said. “Thirteen’s a good age for a dog. What makes you think she was poisoned?”

He tried to get the full shot glass up to his lips, but his hand was trembling too much. Finally, he bent over it and slurped. When he straightened up, whiskey dripped from his chin. He hadn’t shaved for a few days; I watched drops run down through white stubble.

“Two nights ago,” he said, “someone fired off a rifle, through my windows.”

“Joy-riding kids,” I said.

“That hound,” he said, choking. “The best.”

This time he got the shot glass to his mouth, and drained it. I went over to the bar and bought him another, and a beer for me. I carried the drinks back to the booth.

Grief must have mellowed him; this time he thanked me.

“You tell Goodfellow about this?” I asked him.

He shook his head. His rough, liver-spotted hands were still trembling; he gripped the edge of the table to steady himself.

“You tell any cop about it?”

“What’s the use?” he said despairingly. “They’re all in on it.”

“In on what?”

He wouldn’t answer, and we were back on the merry-go-round: vague hints, intimation, accusations—and no answers.

“Mr. Coburn,” I said, “why would anyone want to poison your dog?”

He leaned across the table. Those washed-blue eyes were dulled and rheumy.

“That’s simple, ain’t it? A warning to me to keep my trap shut. A sign of what might happen to me.”

“Why you?” I asked him. “Because you were Ernie Scoggins’s best friend?”

“Maybe just that,” he said. “Or maybe they looked for that letter, couldn’t find it, and figured Ernie give it to me. Listen, maybe they
hurt
him, and he
told
them he give me the goddamned letter. Ernie, he wouldn’t do anything to cause me harm, but maybe he told them I had the letter, hoping it would keep them from killing him. But it didn’t. Now they’re after me.”

“What are you going to do?”

He sat back, folded his twitchy hands in his lap, stared down at them.

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “Killed my dog. Shot out my windows. I don’t know what to do.”

“Mr. Coburn,” I said, as patiently as I could, “if you feel your life’s threatened because of the Scoggins letter, why don’t you do this: put the letter in a safe deposit box at the bank. Then tell it around town how Scoggins gave you that letter, and it’s in a safe place, and it will only be opened in the event of your death. That’s a good insurance policy.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t trust the bank. That Art Merchant. How do I know them boxes are safe?”

“They can’t open the box without your key.”

He laughed scornfully. “That’s what
they
say.”

I didn’t try to argue. He was so spooked, so irrational, that compared to him, my paranoia seemed like a mild whim.

“All right,” I said, “then show me the letter. Let me read it. Tell everyone in town I’ve seen it. They’re not going to kill both of us.”

“What makes you think so?” he said.

I didn’t even have sense enough to be frightened. All I could think of was that I was drinking beer with a psychotic old man who kept talking about how “they” poisoned his dog, shot holes in his windows, and wanted to kill him. And I was going right along with him as if what he was saying was real, logical, believable.

“The hell with it,” I said suddenly.

“What?” he said.

“Mr. Coburn, I’ve had it. I’ve enjoyed our little chats. Interesting and instructive. But I’ve gone as far as I can go. Either you tell me more, or I’m cutting loose. I can’t go stumbling along in the dark like this.”

“Yeah,” he said unexpectedly, “I can see that.”

He took his upper denture from his mouth, wiped it carefully on a cocktail napkin, slipped it back in. A jolly sight to see.

“Tell you what,” he said. Then he stopped.

“What?” I asked. “Tell me what?”

He went through the same act with the lower plate. His way of gaining time, I suppose. I would have preferred finger-drumming or a trip to the loo.

“Maybe I can get this whole thing stopped,” he said. “If I can, then there’s no need to worry.”

“And if you can’t?”

He looked up sharply. Bleached lips pressed tighter. That elbow chin jutted. Resolve seemed to be returning.

“You figuring on being here tomorrow?” he asked.

“Sure. I guess so. Another day at least.”

“I’ll see you. Here at the Inn.”

“I may not be in.”

“I’ll leave a message.”

“All right. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me now what this is all about?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said evasively. “I’ll know by tomorrow.”

I wanted to nail it down. “And if you don’t get the whole thing stopped, like you said, then you’ll show me Ernie Scoggins’s letter?”

“You’ll see it,” he said grimly.

Later, when it was all over, I realized I should have leaned on him harder. I should have leaned on all of them harder, bulldozing my way to the truth. But hindsight is always 20-20 vision. And at the time, I was afraid that if I came on too strong, they’d all clam, and I’d have nothing.

Besides, I doubt if what I did or did not do had much effect on what happened. Events had already been set in motion before I arrived in Coburn and visited Crittenden Hall. Perhaps my presence acted as a catalyst, and the Thorndecker affair rushed to its climax faster simply because I was there. But the final outcome was always inevitable.

Al Coburn went stumping off, and I went thoughtfully out into the hotel lobby. Millie Goodfellow beckoned me over to the cigar counter. She was wearing a tight T-shirt with a road sign printed on the front:
SLIPPERY WHEN WET
.

“How do you like it?” she said, arching her back. “Cute?”

“Cute as all get out,” I said, nodding.

The dark glasses were still in place, the black eye effectively concealed.

“I know something you don’t,” she said, making it sound like a 6-year-old girl taunting her 8-year-old brother.

“Millie,” I said, sighing,
“everyone
knows something I don’t know.”

“What will you give me if I tell you?” she asked.

“What do you want—a five-pound box of money?”

“I could use it,” she giggled. “But I want you to keep your promise, that’s all.”

“I would have done that anyway,” I lied. “What do you know that I don’t know?”

She glanced casually about. The lobby was in its usual state of somnolence. A few of the permanent residents were reading Albany newspapers in the sagging armchairs. The baldy behind the desk was busy with scraps of paper and an old adding machine.

Millie Goodfellow beckoned me closer. I leaned across the counter, which put my face close to that damned road sign. I felt like an idiot, and undoubtedly looked like one.

“You remember when someone broke into your room?” she said in a low voice, still watching the lobby.

“Of course I remember.”

“You won’t tell anyone will you?”

“Tell anyone what?”

“Tell anyone that I told you.”

It would have been laughable if it wasn’t so goddamned maddening.

“Told me
what?”
I said angrily.

“My husband,” she whispered. “I think it was Ronnie who did it.”

I stared at her, blinking. If she was right, that Indian cop had done a hell of an acting job when he came up to “investigate” the break-in.

“Why do you think that, Millie?”

“He took my keys that night. He thinks I didn’t notice, but I did. I told you I’ve got a passkey. And the next morning my keys were back.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

She lifted the black glasses. The mouse under her eye was a rainbow.

“I didn’t have
this
before,” she said. “You won’t tell him I told you, will you? I mean about the keys?”

“Of course I won’t tell him,” I said. “Or anyone else. Thank you, Millie.”

“Remember your promise,” she called after me.

The elevator door bore a hand-printed sign:
NOT WORKING
. That would do for me, too, I thought glumly, walking up the stairs. Oh, I was working—but nothing was getting done. Bits and pieces—that’s what I was collecting: bits and pieces. I wondered, if Constable Goodfellow
had
been my midnight caller, how he had learned of that anonymous note and why he was so anxious to recover it. Every time I got the answer to one question, it led to at least two more. The whole damn thing kept growing, spreading. Of course I made the comparison to cancerous cells
in vitro.
No end to it.

When I got to my room, the door was open, and I discovered why the elevator was out of operation: Sam Livingston was in 3-F, sweeping up, making the bed, setting out a clean drinking glass and fresh towels.

“Morning, Sam,” I said grumpily.

“Morning, Sam,” he said. He held up the quart vodka bottle. Maybe two drinks were left. “You have friends in?” he asked.

“No, I did that myself.”

“My, my. Someone must have been thirsty.”

“Someone must have been disgusted. Have a belt, if you like.”

“A little early in the morning for me,” he said, “but I thank you kindly. What you disgusted about?”

He kept moving around the room, emptying ashtrays, rearranging the dust.

“You want a complete list?” I asked him. “The weather, for starters. With this lousy town running a close second.”

“Nothing you can do about the weather,” he said. “God sends it; you take it.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t bitch about it.”

“As for this town, I don’t reckon it’s much worse than any other place. Trouble is, it’s so small, you see it clearer.”

“I’m not tracking, Sam.”

“Well, like in New York City. Now, you got a lot of rich, powerful people running that town—right?”

“Well … sure.”

“And maybe some of them, you don’t even know their names. Like bankers maybe, newspaper editors, preachers, union people, big property owners, businessmen. They really run the town, don’t they? I mean, they got the muscle.”