Fast Lane (10 page)

I guess all this helps explain why I got so rattled when I found out about the anonymous letters. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

* * * * *

I spent most of the day debating whether or not to write about Debra Singer for my column. My deadline had arrived and I had nothing else. There wasn’t much Craig Singer could do except make some noise, and no matter how much he made he wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that he had sexually abused his daughter for years. If he sued me or filed charges for assault he’d have to explain why he waited until my column came out. Still, the way I was feeling, I didn’t know if I’d be able to handle even a little noise from him. I also didn’t want to risk making things tougher for Debra.

At four I headed over to the Examiner’s offices to ask Eddie to reprint one of my old columns. I made my usual walk around the city desk, meeting with folks and swapping stories. I had an uneasy feeling that something was wrong. In the past when I’d made my rounds, folks gathered around to shoot the breeze. This time people were avoiding me and I couldn’t figure out why.

I knocked on Eddie Braggs’ door and walked in. He was on the phone, and with his free hand signaled for me to sit down. He was only five foot four but must have weighed close to two hundred and fifty pounds. With his bald head and beard and the way he always seemed to be ready to bust out chuckling, he reminded me (at least when he wasn’t steamed and looking for blood) of one of Santa’s fatter and jollier helpers.

He got off the phone and reached out to shake hands. “You have a new ‘Fast Lane’ for me?”

“
That’s why I came down here,” I told him. “It’s been a slow month and I’ve come up empty. I need to ask a favor and have you reprint one of my old stories.”

He leaned back and pursed his lips. “That’s not good, Johnny, really not good at all. That’s the fourth time this year. And the timing couldn’t be worse.”

“
Why’s that?”

“
There have been some discussions recently,” he said. “We’ve been trying to decide whether to drop your feature. I’ll tell you, I’m one of the few supporters you have left.”

I had to swallow with the way my throat was drying up on me. “What’s going on?”

“
Probably no more than you expect,” he shrugged. “People are feeling you’ve been taking us for granted. That the last few years you haven’t been putting as much into your column as you should. And your popularity with our readers has been dropping.”

“
I’ve got to disagree. Plenty of folks stop me to shake my hand.”

“
I’m not saying you don’t have your share of readers. I’m saying you don’t have nearly as many as you used to. According to our marketing studies you’ve got almost forty percent less. We don’t know if we can justify carrying you.”

I took a deep breath. “Look, if you drop me there are going to be some unhappy people out there. My column’s a tradition in this town.”

“
Tradition or not, if we were to keep ‘The Fast Lane’, and you were to keep letting us down, where would that leave us?”

“
Well, maybe I haven’t been putting as much into my column as I should, but—”

“
No maybes about it, Johnny.”

My throat now felt as if I’d swallowed a cactus. “Okay,” I conceded. “Let’s say I’ve been taking things for granted. That doesn’t mean I can’t do better. What if I did more promotion? I haven’t been on a radio show in a long time and that would help get folks back into the fold.”

He was nodding, giving the idea some thought. “It would help,” he admitted. “At least it would calm some people down around here. I have an idea for this month’s column, so I’ll be generous and forgive you for now. You won’t let me down again, will you?”

I told him there was no chance of that, and I meant it. It wouldn’t happen overnight, probably take a few years, but if I was dropped from the paper, eventually my business would dwindle away to nothing. Without my column, folks would forget all about Johnny Lane. I would end up no better than Max Roth and I couldn’t let that happen.

“
Good.” Eddie gave me a false smile. “That’s what I want to hear.” He paused for a moment. “There’s something else,” he said. “We’ve been getting anonymous letters about you.”

At first all I could do was stare at him. After a while I asked him what they said.

He started to laugh. It choked somewhere inside him and came out as a wheeze. “Mostly that you have been blackmailing your clients. You haven’t been doing that, have you?”

I blinked a few times before the impact of what he said hit me. Then I was so mad I could barely see. I snapped at him, asking him what the hell he thought.

As he looked at me his eyes closed to slits and that gave me a start. He was sizing me up. Then he started chuckling, his eyes back to normal.

“
I’m sorry, Johnny. Just pulling your chain a little. Some people around here try to pull a story out from every piece of horse dung tossed against our door. I guess that’s part of working for a newspaper. Convicted until proven innocent.”

He laughed some more and again it died down pretty quick. “Let us hypothesize a little. If those letters are true, it means that we, the Examiner, have been promoting a common criminal, building him up into the public’s trusting eye for almost twenty years. I don’t believe I could have had my nose rubbed in it for that long without smelling anything.”

“
If I found out I had,” he went on, “I would have no choice but to destroy the bastard, or at least use all the paper’s resources trying. I would feel obligated to hound him incessantly. Publish stories to get the public so incensed they’d as soon hang him as spit on him. Of course, the courts would soon enough feel they had no choice but to go after this bastard, and I’d make sure they did so with a vengeance. In the end, his life wouldn’t be worth a nickel.”

He winked at me. “I’ll tell you, Johnny, it’s a good thing those letters are crap.

* * * * *

God only knows how I sat there. The pounding in my ears had gotten so bad I could barely hear above it. I guess we shook hands, but I couldn’t say for sure. All I really knew was I somehow got out of there without harming anyone. And I don’t think even God could’ve figured that one out.

Leaving the building, I was staggering, a red haze blinding me. Even with my eyes wide open I couldn’t see anything more than shadows. I guess nature works in miraculous ways, because if I could have seen any of those smug goddamned self-important faces, I would have turned them right back into the crap they really were. So I reeled down the street like a stinking drunk, bumping into people along the way, and lucky for all concerned no one made as much as a peep because that would have been all I needed. And in the long run that wouldn’t have done me any good.

I don’t know how I ended up where I did, but whatever self-preservation instinct had blinded and deafened me also delivered me right to that bar.

Of course, there was no truth to those letters. Eddie Braggs had sense enough to know it, and he could’ve asked each of my clients and they’d tell him that. Still, it was another burden to bear. If those letters were sent out to enough people they’d hurt me some. Maybe more than some. And it wouldn’t matter whether there was a word of truth in them. I was going to have to look into it. Sooner or later, I’d find out who was sending them and why.

* * * * *

The pounding in my ears had died down and the haze was all but gone. A glimpse of myself from a mirror behind the bar showed a hard smile frozen onto my face. I tried correcting it and a woman sitting a few bar stools away started laughing. I asked her what was so damned funny.

“
I’m sorry,” she said. “You must be having a real bad day. You’re spilling your drink all over yourself.”

I looked down at my hand and she was right. There was a shot glass in it and some of the whiskey was trickling out onto the front of my jacket.

“
What’s the matter, your best friend just die or something?”

I gave her a quick look, a real quick one because there wasn’t really much to look at. Nothing except a small redhead who had let herself get bloated from alcohol.

“
I just found out,” I remarked, “that I won’t qualify for this year’s Miss America contest. I guess you must have been told the same thing years ago.”

I was sorry as soon as I said it. I guess I was still too rattled to think straight, but that was no reason to be mean to her. She turned away from me, facing straight ahead with her eyes as blank as stones and a hurt look playing on her mouth. I apologized and bought her a drink.

She grudgingly accepted it. “Where have I seen you before?”

“
Probably in the Examiner.”

“
That’s it, must’ve been in the funny pages. You’re that talking dog who’s always getting dropped on his head. Arf arf.”

“
I can’t go anywhere without being recognized by my fans. You got a trick for an old dog?”

“
I know who you really are,” she said, slyly. “You’re Johnny Lane, the detective. You really think I’m that bad looking?”

“
Not at all,” I lied. “I was too wrapped up in some stuff to see straight. I should be struck dead for being so wrong.”

“
Well, in that case,” she said as she moved next to me. She held out her hand and introduced herself as Margo Halloran.

I took her hand and it felt small and warm in mine. Holding it started giving me ideas.

“
I was really named Marge,” she continued, showing an easy smile. “But Margo sounds so much more exotic, don’t you think?”

“
Doesn’t even begin to do you justice.”

She scrunched up her face and gave me a hard look, trying to decide if I was being insincere. I wasn’t, though. Not at all. I wasn’t trying to make up for before, either. Maybe it was the way she had held onto my hand a good deal longer than was decent. Or maybe after the day I had suffered I didn’t see how I could make it alone. Or maybe a vein had popped in my brain, leaving me witless. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t about to let her looks interfere with me.

She made up her mind that I was just being sweet and her face melted back into an easy relaxed look. “So,” she said. “You find me sexy and desirable?”

“
Now, darling, how in the world could I possibly not?”

“
That was a pretty nasty crack you made before,” she said, her mouth hardening a little with spite. “What makes you think I like the way you look?”

“
How in the world could you possibly not?”

She laughed. She didn’t want to, but couldn’t help herself. From below the bar, I reached over and started rubbing her leg. She froze for a moment and then her leg relaxed, and she put her hand on top of mine.

“
Well in that case,” she said, trying pretty badly to look shy, “you can buy me another drink.”

I did just that. Actually it ended up being quite a few drinks. And it didn’t take much convincing on my part to get her to leave with me. Nothing more, really, than raising an eyebrow.

I got my car and drove both of us back to my place. We didn’t say much during the ride, and I don’t think we said a word on getting there. We went straight to the bedroom and silently took our clothes off. And then we went at it. Half way through she fell asleep on me.

I didn’t really appreciate that, but I didn’t let it stop me. When I finished I rolled off and looked down at her; oblivious to the world, with her mouth wide open and snoring like a sick dog. I couldn’t help feeling insulted. What I wanted to do was dump her out into the street in all her glory and let the rest of Colorado take a crack at her. But what I did was put my foot against her side and push until she toppled off the bed. I closed my eyes and eventually felt myself sliding into something cold.

I woke the next morning feeling groggy and stiff. After a while I realized the low moan I was hearing wasn’t coming from me but from the floor on the other side of the bed. I remembered Margo. There was nothing else to do but wake her and get her on her way, so I leaned over and started shaking her. She opened her eyes and slowly sat up, rubbing her neck and grimacing.

She asked how she ended up on the floor.

I shrugged. “You must have tossed yourself over while you were sleeping.”

“
How did that happen? You have me bouncing off the walls or something?”

“
Yeah, you could say that.”

She made a face as if she were going to sneeze, and instead groaned. “Next time, be a little easier on me. I don’t think my neck could take that again.”

She stood up, all stiff-legged and awkward, and collapsed backwards onto the bed. Rubbing her head with both hands she said, “It looks like it’s too late to be bashful. How was I?”

“
Like a doll.”

She turned and gave me a puzzled look, but didn’t say anything. Maybe she picked up the sarcasm in my voice, but decided I was just talking goofy. Anyways, she collapsed back onto the bed and started with the moaning again.

Right then I got my first really clear look at her. The haze and the booze must have screwed up my vision before because I was all wrong about her. There was a lot to look at. Maybe the light in the bar wasn’t flattering for her, or maybe she needed to dry out some from the alcohol, or maybe I was just too damned mad to see straight. Whatever it was, lying there looking at her stretched out on my bed, I could see she was certainly something.