When Old Men Die (18 page)

What happened was that a door opened and shut, leaving me alone in the warehouse with the body of Ro-Jo lying not six feet from me.
 
I knew that the killer was getting away, and I wished there was something I could do besides lie there on the floor, but I couldn't think of a thing.

My head didn't feel as if it were attached to my body, and I wondered if that was a bad sign.
 
I didn't want to think about it, so I thought about fishing and how good it felt to hook a flounder in the bay or a speck from the dock.
 
My head began to hurt a little less.

I kept on thinking for a while about fishing, about Cathy Macklin, about Harry, and eventually I discovered that there was something I could do besides just lie there and think.
 

I discovered that I could go to sleep.
 
So I did.

I
don't know how much time passed before I woke up.
 
Probably not long, maybe fifteen minutes, maybe a little more.
 
I was feeling much better.
 
My head was feeling attached to the rest of me again, which was good in one way, but bad in another
 
It made me aware that I was feeling pain in a lot of places that I had never felt pain before, from my hair to my toenails.
 
I told myself that the pain would pass.

Most of it did pass after another fifteen minutes or so, and I was able to sit up.
 
I was even able to find the Mauser, which I stuck back in my waistband.

After that I crawled around the wall, trying to find the door.
 
I was slow, but I was careful, and I finally found it.
 
I pulled myself up on the frame, opened the door, and stepped outside.

I
stood in the cold air and took stock of myself.

There was a knot on the back of my head, but it was hard, not soft.
 
I took that as a good sign.

My head was pounding sort of like the drumbeats in "Peggy Sue."
 
That wasn't a good sign, but it wasn't a bad one.

My ear was painful to the touch and seemed to have fever.
 
That wasn't so bad either.
 
At least it was still attached to my head.

My little finger looked like a cup handle.
 
I grabbed the end and pulled as hard as I could.
 
It popped back into place with no more pain than I might have felt if someone had hit it with a hammer.

I congratulated myself for not yelling and told myself that I had nothing to complain about, at least not compared to someone in Ro-Jo's condition.

Thinking of Ro-Jo reminded me of something.
 
Leaving the door open, I went back inside the warehouse.
 
There was enough light coming in from the outside to allow me to locate the Maglite.
 
I pocketed it and left.

T
he trip back over the fence was a lot harder than the first one had been, but I was walking more or less normally by the time I got back to the Jeep.

There was a pay phone beside the convenience store, and I used it to call the police.
 
I didn't ask for Barnes or mention my name.
 
I just reported the body in the warehouse.
 
I could talk to Barnes later.
 
Maybe.
 
Hey, what had he done for me?
 
I certainly didn't have time for him right at the moment.
 
There were places to go and things to do.

L
awrence Hobart, aka the Hammer, lived in a house that was typical of those in its neighborhood:
 
peeling paint, bad roof, more dirt in the yard than grass. It was up on blocks in case of flooding, and the porch was a good four feet off the ground.
 
I could see a light through one of the front windows, so I supposed Hobart was home.

If I was lucky, he'd be panting and at least a little bruised, but I didn't think that would be the case.
 
I'd hate to think that a man in his seventies could run over me like that.

I climbed the tall steps and knocked on the door.
 
It was opened by a man who looked a little like
Braddy
Macklin must have appeared before he was killed, sort of like Charles Atlas gone slightly to seed and wearing a bad hairpiece.
 
Hobart had less gray in his hair than I did, but at least my hair was my own.

"What do you want?" he said, looking at me with narrowed eyes.

"Lawrence Hobart?" I said.

"Who wants to know?"

"Truman Smith.
 
I have to talk to you."

"Bullshit you have to talk to me."

He was shutting the door as he spoke, but I put my shoulder into it and slammed it open, knocking him backward a step or two.
 
He definitely wasn't the guy who'd run over me.

"Get your ass outta here or I'll call the cops," he said.

"Good idea.
 
Ask for Gerald Barnes.
 
Tell him to put a little hustle in it."

He thought about that and decided that calling the cops might not be such a good idea.

"I was a few years younger, I'd whip your ass," he said.

"I don't doubt it.
 
Right now, your grandmother could probably do the job with one hand."

"Yeah, you don't look so good.
 
What the hell you want, anyhow?"

"You know who I am?"

"Hell yes.
 
You're that snot-nosed little fart used to hang around with Dino.
 
Still do, from what I hear."

"Could you shut the door?" I said.
 
"It's cold in here."

"Don't like to waste money on heat," he said, but he shut the door.

"Thanks," I said.
 
"I've had a rough night."

"Yeah, it looks that way.
 
What happened to you?"

"I tripped on a rug.
 
You wouldn't happen to have an ibuprofen tablet would you?"

"What's that?"

"Never mind.
 
How about an aspirin?"

"Never touch the stuff."

"I have a pretty bad headache," I said.

"Big deal.
 
You're a young guy.
 
You can take it."
 
He gave me a crooked smile.
 
"What'd you want to talk about?"

"Gambling," I said, hoping he was right about my ability to take the headache.
 
"Also
Braddy
Macklin.
 
And Patrick Lytle."

The smile disappeared when I said Macklin's name.
 
I was glad Hobart wasn't twenty years younger.
 
Or even ten.
 
He could have mopped the floor with me even if I was at my best.

"I don't know anything about those topics," he said.

"Sure you do.
 
I'm old enough to remember that fight you had with Macklin.
 
Anyone who's lived on the Island for over a month has heard that story.
 
And gambling?
 
I know what led up to that fight.
 
You had a habit."

His brow furrowed, and he looked at me as if he might like to dismember me.
 
I hoped he wouldn't try it.
 
I didn't want to get hurt.
 
After a second or two, his brow smoothed out, however, and the fire dimmed in his eyes.
 
I let myself relax.

"Damn right, I had a habit," he said.
 
"Now it'd get me a spot on one of those TV talk shows.
 
Gambling addiction, they call it.
 
Everybody would feel sorry for me and try to get me some help.
 
They even got a hotline number on the back of the lottery tickets.
 
You can call if you got a problem.
 
Back in the old days, nobody cared.
 
They figured if you couldn't control it, you were just stupid, or weak.
 
They didn't know it was an addiction.
 
They got twelve-step programs for that kind of thing now."

I wondered if he watched the same shows that Dino did.
 
It sounded like a distinct possibility.

"What about Patrick Lytle?" I asked.

"Don't know him."

I winced as a particularly good drumbeat split my head.
 
I'd switched from "Peggy Sue" to Sandy Nelson slamming the skins on "Teen Beat."

"Try again," I said.
 
"Lytle's wife was a good friend of Macklin's, a very good friend.
 
Don't tell me you didn't know about that."

"Maybe I remember a little about it, now that you mention it.
 
It's all ancient history."

"Not to me.
 
I thought maybe you could tell me a little about her."

He thought that one over.
 
"You wanna sit down?"

He didn't have to ask me twice.
 
The room we were in was furnished in early Salvation Army Thrift Store, and I sat on a sofa older than Dino's if not in nearly as good a condition.
 
The foam rubber showed through several holes in the fabric.
 
Hobart sat in a platform rocker that had a bed pillow in it in place of its original cushion.

"She was a real looker,
Miz
Lytle was," he told me after he'd settled himself.
 
"Red hair.
 
I always liked red hair on a woman.
 
And real white skin, with a freckle or two.
 
I don't mind freckles.
 
Lots of red-haired women have 'em."

That wasn't exactly an earth-shaking revelation.
 
I asked him about her gambling habits.

"She gambled, all right.
 
Her husband, too."

Sally West hadn't remembered about Lytle's gambling.
 
Or maybe she hadn't known.
 
What I was looking for was a way to explain how Lytle had lost his money.

"Big losers, were they?"

He shook his head.
 
I thought I saw the hairpiece move, but I could have been wrong.
 
My head still wasn't quite right, and it was affecting my vision.

"Nah," he said.
 
"They were big winners.
 
At least she was. I couldn't say about him."

"I didn't know there were ever any big winners at the uncles' tables," I said.

He got a faraway look.
 
"Sometimes there were.
 
It could be managed, especially if they were good-looking women that
Braddy
Macklin liked a whole lot."

I was shocked -- shocked! -- to discover that there might have been rigged gambling at The Island Retreat.

"Do you have any idea how much she might have won?"

The faraway look faded.
 
"That was a long time ago.
 
A damn long time."

"It was.
 
But I think you can remember."

"OK, maybe I can.
 
It was a lot.
 
Not all at once, but over a year or so she took a lot of money out of the Retreat.
 
Probably never spent a penny of it, either.
 
No need to.
 
She had two men taking care of her."

"But you don't remember about Lytle?"

"I didn't pay attention to him.
 
I always had a weakness for a red-haired woman, and if there's one thing I don't blame that son of a bitch Macklin for, it's for taking her away from her husband.
 
He was a spineless little bastard anyway."

I tried to get Hobart's mind off the woman.
 
"About Lytle's gambling . . . .?"

"Dammit, I told you I didn't pay any attention to him."

"He wasn't a winner, then."

That puzzled Hobart for a second, but then got my point.

"You're right," he said.
 
"If he'd been a winner, I'd have known about it.
 
There weren't too many of 'em."

"Would Macklin know?"

"You trying to get smart with me?
 
I know that asshole's dead, and I don't give much of a damn one way or another."

"Seen him lately?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You and he were both talking to people about bringing gambling back to the Island.
 
Except that you were on opposite sides.
 
You must've crossed paths."

"Well, we didn't.
 
I haven't seen that son of a bitch in thirty years.
 
Never wanted to.
 
I'll see him one more time, though.
 
Wouldn't miss his funeral for the world."