Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go (26 page)

“Booked where?”

“I went south. I never liked the cold. Still don’t. Lived in Atlanta for a while, Miami after that. I had a degree in criminol
ogy, so I picked up work for some of the security agencies. But, you know, you tend just to come back. I’ve been looking for answers, and I thought I might find out more about myself the closer I got to home.”

“You’ve talked to your father?”

“No.” LaDuke took in some smoke, crushed the cherry in the ashtray. “I guess you think I ought to hate him. But the truth is, I only hate what he did. He’s still my old man. And he did raise me and my brother, and it couldn’t have been easy. So, no, I don’t hate him. The thing is now, how do I fix my own self?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe in this victimized-society crap. All these people pointing fingers, never pointing at themselves. So people get abused as kids, then spend the rest of their lives blaming their own deficient personalities on something that happened in their childhoods. It’s bullshit, you know it? I mean, everybody’s carrying some kind of baggage, right? I know I was scarred, and maybe I was scarred real deep. But knowing that doesn’t straighten anything out for me.” LaDuke looked away. “Sometimes, Nick, I don’t even know if I’m good for a woman.”

“Oh, for Chrissakes, Jack.”

“I mean it. I don’t know what the fuck I am. What happened to me, I guess it made me doubt my own sexuality. I look at a man, and I don’t have any desire there, and I look at a woman, and sometimes, sexually, I don’t know if it’s a woman I want, either. I’m tellin’ you, I don’t know
what
I want.”

“Come on.”

“Look here,” LaDuke said. “Let me tell you just how bad it is with me. I go to the movies, man. I’m sitting there watching the man and the woman makin’ love. If it’s really hot, you know, I’ll find myself getting a bone. And then I start thinking, Am I getting hard because I wish I was him, or am I getting hard because I wish I was her?”

“Are you serious, man?”

“I’m not joking.”

“Because if you’re serious, LaDuke, then you are one fucked-up motherfucker.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” he said. “I am one seriously fucked-up motherfucker.”

Both of us had to laugh a little then, because we needed to, and because we were drunk. LaDuke’s eyes clouded over, though, and the laughter didn’t last. I didn’t know what to do for him, or what to say; there was too much twisting around inside him, twisting slowly and way too tight. I poured him another shot of bourbon, and one for myself, and I shook him out another smoke. We sat there drinking, with our own thoughts arranging themselves inside our heads, and the time passed like that. I looked through the transom above the front door and saw the sky had turned to gray.

“You know, Jack,” I said, “you were right about everybody having some kind of baggage. I never knew my mother or father; they sent me over from Greece when I was an infant. I got raised by my grandfather. He was a good man—hell, he
was
my father—and then he died, and my marriage fell apart, and I thought I was always gonna be alone. And now I’m fixing to blow the best thing that’s ever come my way. But, you know, I’ve got my work, and I’ve got this place and the people in it, and I know I can always come here. There’s always someplace you can go. There’s a whole lotta ways to make a family.”

“So, what, you’re sayin’ this place is like your home?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“But it’s a shithole, Nick.”

I looked around the bar. “You know somethin’? It
is
a shithole.” I smiled. “Thanks for pointing that out to me.”

LaDuke smiled back. “Yeah, you gave it a good try.”

We had some more to drink, and after awhile his eyes made their way over to the money heaped on the bar. I watched him think things over.

“It’s a lot of cash,” I said, “you know it?”

“Uh-huh. What are we gonna do with it?”

“I don’t know. You want it?”

“No.” LaDuke shook his head. “It’s dirty.”

“It’s only dirty if you know it’s dirty.”

“What’s your point?”

“I was thinkin’… why not just take this money, put it in an envelope, and mail it off to Calvin’s mother. I’ve been to her place, man, and she sure could use it. There’s a couple of babies there—”

“What, just put it in the mail?”

“I’ve got an envelope around here somewhere.”

LaDuke shrugged. “All right.”

I found a large manila envelope in Darnell’s kitchen. There was a roll of stamps back there, too, in a file cabinet next to Phil Saylor’s logbook. I ripped off a line of stamps and took them and the envelope back to the bar. Then I grabbed a D.C. directory that was wedged between the cooler and the wall and put that on the bar, as well. I looked through the Jeter listings while LaDuke stuffed the money into the envelope.

“There’s a shitload of Jeters,” I said.

“You know the street?”

“I think so.”

“You think so? We’re gonna mail out ten grand on an ‘I think so’?”

“Here it is,” I said. “Gimme the envelope.”

I used a black Magic Marker to address it, then applied the stamps and gave it a seal. LaDuke had a look at my handiwork and laughed.

“It looks like a kid did this,” he said. “Like it’s first grade, and you just learned how to write and shit.”

“What, you could do better?”

“Man, I can barely see it.”

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I set the alarm, locked the place up. The two of us walked out the door. Dawn had come, the sun was breaking over the
buildings, and the bread men and the icemen were out on the streets.

“Shit,” I said, shaking my head as we moved down the sidewalk.

“What?” LaDuke said.

“I was just thinking of you sittin’ in a movie theater, not knowing if it’s the man or the woman givin’ you a hard-on. I mean, it’s really hard to believe.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have told such a sensitive guy like you. I know you’re never gonna let me forget it. But believe it or not, you’re the first person I ever unloaded this on. And I gotta tell you, just letting it out, I do feel a little better.”

“You’ll get through it, LaDuke.”

“You think so, huh.”

“It’ll pass. Everything does.”

I dropped the envelope in the mailbox on the corner. LaDuke slipped, stepping off the curb. I grabbed him by the elbow and held him up. We crossed the street and headed for the Ford, parked in a patch of clean morning light.

I
WOKE UP
a little after noon. I was spread out on top of the sheets, soaked with sweat, still dressed right down to my shoes. My cat was lying sphinx-style on my chest, kneading her claws through my shirt, her face tight against mine. Starved for food or attention, it didn’t matter which. I got up and opened a can of salmon and spooned it into her dish. The smell of the salmon tossed my stomach and I dry-heaved in the kitchen sink. I stripped, climbed into the shower, stood in the cold spray, going in and out of sleep against the tiles. When I stepped out, the phone was ringing, so I went into the living room and picked up the receiver. Boyle was on the line, thanking me for the previous night’s tip.

“You get anything?”

“Nothing human,” Boyle said. “All the warm bodies were long gone by the time Vice secured the warrant. They found a whole bunch of tools, some lighting and equipment, a camera
that had been blown to shit. Looked like someone had quite a party in there, from what I understand. I guess they were in a hurry clearing out.”

“I guess.”

“You sound a little tired,” Boyle said.

“It’s hot in here, that’s all.”

“Heat wave moved in this morning. Say it’s gonna be up around a hundred the next few days.”

“I’m working a shift this afternoon, so I’ll be out of it.”

“Uh-huh.” Boyle cleared his throat. “The porno operation in that warehouse—that have anything to do with the Jeter murder?”

“No. I thought it did, but it didn’t. I got in there, saw what was going on, and got out. Then I called you.”

“Right,” Boyle said after a meaningful pause. “Well, I guess that’s it. Take it easy, Nick.”

“You, too.”

I hung up the phone, got myself into shorts and a T-shirt, and headed down to the Spot.

Mai was behind the stick when I walked in. She gave me a wave, untied her apron, and walked out the front door. I stepped behind the bar. Happy, Buddy, Bubba, and Mel were all in place, snuggled into their stools, drinking quietly under the buzz of the air conditioner and the Sonny Boy Williamson coming from the deck. Buddy asked for another pitcher, his lip curled in a snarl. I drew it for him, placed the pitcher between him and Bubba. Happy mumbled something in my direction, so I fixed him a manhattan. I placed the drink on a bev nap in front of him, and he burped. The smell of Darnell’s lunch special drifted my way. I replaced the blues on the deck with an Impressions compilation, and the intro to “I’ve Been Trying” filled the room. Mel closed his eyes and began to sing. Looking through the reach-through to the kitchen, I could see Ramon doing some kind of bull-jive flying sidekick toward Darnell, Darnell stepping away from it with grace, the two of them framed beneath
the grease-stained Rudy Ray Moore poster thumbtacked to the wall. I knew I was home.

Anna Wang came in from the dining area, leaned on the service bar, and dumped out her change. She began to count it, arranging it in sticks. I poured a cup of coffee for myself, added some whiskey to the cup, and took it over to Anna. She reached into the pocket of my T and found a cigarette. I gave her a light. She exhaled and shook a bunch of black hair out of her face.

“Welcome back.”

“Thanks.”

She grinned. “How you feelin’, Nick?”

“Better now,” I said, holding up the cup. And I did, too.

“Phil came in first thing this morning. Said there were enough Camels in the ashtray to service the Egyptian army.”

“Yeah, that was me. And LaDuke. Was Phil pissed?”

“Not really. At least you set the alarm this time.”

Anna pushed the stacks of change across the bar. I went to the register, turned the coin into bills, took the bills back and handed them to Anna. She folded her take and stuffed the money in the pocket of her jeans.

She said, “So how’s Jack?”

“He’s fine.”

“Tell him I said hey, will you?”

“Sure, Anna, I’ll tell him.”

Happy hour was on the slow side, but I had plenty to do, restocking the liquor and arranging the bottles on the call shelf to where they had been before I left. Evening came and my regulars drifted out like pickled ghosts, and then it was just me and Darnell. I locked the front door and drove him back to his place through the warm, sticky night. He didn’t mention the warehouse affair, and neither did I.

Back at my place, Lyla had phoned, so I phoned her back. She wanted to come over and talk. I said that it was probably not a good idea, and she asked why. I said it was because I didn’t want to see her. She raised her voice and I raised mine back;
things just went to hell after that. The conversation ended very badly, and when it was done, I switched off the light and sat at the living room table and rubbed my face. That didn’t amount to much, so I went to the bedroom and lay down in the dark and listened to the purr of my cat somewhere off in the apartment. It seemed like a long time before I fell asleep.

Jack LaDuke phoned early the next morning. Roland Lewis had been found dead beneath the John Philip Sousa Bridge: one bullet to the head.