Murder by Candlelight (4 page)

Crossing the jogging track, veering
left on the park's patchy grass, Z found himself in the company of
older folks, the others headed in the same direction, the men
balding, the women fixed-up, but with wrinkled faces.

It was another ten yards
before Z realized these other people were headed straight for the
open-sided pavilion in the center of the park. His
own
destination.

My God!

These faded people around him were his
classmates at Northtown High!

Z was suddenly embarrassed.
Embarrassed to be a witness to the decline of these ...
others.

Z, himself, had grizzled
gray hair, sure, but at least had a full head of it. He
also
had lines in his
face. Had to admit that. But
couldn't
look as ... bad ... as
these unrecognizable others.

Trying his best not to limp over the
people-scarred grass, Z (and five or six others) entered the
open-sided pavilion to wander through the press of summer-clothed,
tag-wearing men and women, Z knowing none of them.

At least Z seemed to be dressed right
for the occasion: few of the others in clothes more formal than
his. The women were mostly wearing lumpy-leg-concealing slacks; the
men in their "goin' to the Royals' game" garb.

Looking for a familiar face, Z saw a
portable table set up at the center of the long house, a man and
woman seated behind it, paper name tags laid out on the table's
surface. Beyond the sign-in pair was a trestle board covered with
white butcher's paper, the far end spread with cheap, white paper
plates, stacks of foam cups, and white plastic tableware. The rest
of the table's surface was crowded with crock pots, bowls, shallow
metal pans, chip packages, and beverage dispensers, folks already
in the food line.

But first things first.

Shuffling to the center table, waiting
his turn while a faded pair of oldsters got their name tags, Z
stepped up, the neatly dressed man seated behind the table beaming
up at him; Z getting a shocked stare from the woman. (Always the
female reaction to big and ugly.) The man wore brown slacks and a
tan shirt, the woman -- a stupid expression.

"Bob Zapolska."

"Bob ...," the man began, starting to
paw through what was left of the stick-on name tags, the tags on
the table in alphabetical order.

Suddenly, the man looked up at Z
again. Squinted.

"Bob Zapolska? Big Bob Z?" The man's
voice rising in pitch and volume, others turned to see what was
wrong. "Hey, everybody," the man announced. "It's Bob
Z!"

Turning to Z, the man said, in a
lowered voice that begged for absolution, "I never played football,
so you wouldn't know me. My name's Harry Jenner. This is the
wife."

Z nodded to the woman, a clown face of
cosmetics.

By the time the happily smiling little
man had handed Z the proper tag, other men had crowded
around.

"Remember me?" said a big-boned,
completely bald giant in out-sized jeans and orange tank top, the
man a head taller than Z's six-foot-plus.

There
was
something familiar about the
man's heavy face, but ....

It was then that Z remembered the
tags, a tactful glance at the man's thick chest solving Z's
problem.

"Otto Warner," Z mumbled, shaking
hands with the colossus.

"Your left tackle," the man boomed,
grinning. "We gave 'em hell our senior year, didn't we? I laid 'em
out, and you ran all over 'em." Otto had already been at the beer.
Just like the old days.

"Hey, Z!" said another larger than
life hulk, this one with a fringe of white hair at the edges of his
dark-spotted scalp. Below, the man had a gut big enough to jam a
doorway. "Larry Holt. Center." The fat man laughed, his belly
jiggling. "Don't look so embarrassed, Z. I didn't recognize you,
either."

Didn't recognize ....? Z
hadn't changed
that
much. He'd gained a little weight; but a lot less than Larry.
An extra inch or two on the waist was to be expected with the
passing years, Z gaining ... maybe ... thirty pounds. And Z had his
hair, still clipped short like he wore it in high
school.

"Hi, Big Bob, remember me?" said a
short woman with painted-blond hair. Younger looking than the rest,
she was shoe-horned into a red, size-12 miniskirt. "Angie. Angie
Roberts."

Angie Roberts.

Every high school boy's wet
dream.

Angie Roberts, cheerleader.

Swing and sway the Angie way, they all
yelled when Angie took the field.

Z managed a smile. Hoped, for Angie's
sake, she'd take it as lustful as in the old days.

"Remember our special cheer?" she
said, snapping her orthopedic shoes together, fists ready to punch
the air. "End! Center! Tackle! Guard! Hit 'em! Hit 'em! Hit 'em!
Hard!"

Horrible!

Z
knew
it would be bad, but
....

"Over here, Z!"

At
last
, someone Z recognized! Teddy
Newbold. Dressed in a blue and green and gold ... and black and
pink ... flowered shirt, over black and white, zebra-patterned
pants.

Nodding to his former fans, Z murmured
his way through the knot of people who'd gathered around him,
managing, as he did so, to "lose" his name tag in a wastepaper drum
on the way to the "goodies" table, arriving to find Ted nearly
through the food line, Ted's never-popular wife beside him, the
woman's personality revealed in her selection of apparel:
unrelenting black.

Though Z wasn't hungry, he got a plate
and speared himself a couple of melon pieces and two small
wieners-in-barbecue-sauce, the latter rescued from a
dangerous-looking crock pot.

A can of coke from an ice-filled
plastic cooler, and Z was ready to follow Ted to one of the
aluminum-and-steel park benches under the shelter's wood
canopy.

Ted looked the same, at least. Of
course, Z had seen Ted from time to time over a lot of years. Like
the others, Ted had put on weight, most of it in the fatty inner
tube he carried around his middle. As for the rest of him, Ted,
like his mind, was nondescript. Suspiciously brown hair, brown
eyes, brown skin, brown ... teeth.

Ted's triangular-faced wife was
younger. Thin as an assassin's dagger, she had all the warmth of a
sack of broken glass.

They'd had Z over to dinner a couple
of years ago; Z had taken them to a restaurant as payback; both
meals filed under "enough's enough."

Ted and his wife began
eating, Ted shoveling in a wide variety of items Z hadn't
even
seen
on the
food table: potato salad, bread slices, spaghetti with meatballs,
pasta salad, fried chicken legs. Ted's wife was taking tiny bites
of a forked-through wiener -- the very image of a praying mantis
delicately dissecting an impaled bug.

Practically everyone arrived, the
party was settling down to a conversational buzz, people splitting
off in the same cliques they'd formed in high school.

There were the "circulaters," of
course, men dressed in tailored, tasteful summer suits and handmade
shoes. Dropping by table after table to say a pleasant word about
how well they'd done in life. A couple of doctors, one retired in
the Bahamas. Several lawyers. All worth millions, to hear them tell
it. Asking polite questions about Ted's and Z's occupations in the
pretense of showing concern for the welfare of the less
fortunate.

"Outrageous," said Ted's wife, a
celery stick grasped in the pinchers of her short, front legs, the
woman chewing steadily with her powerful mandibles.

"Wot?" Ted asked, his mouth full of
sliced turkey sandwich.

"What we had to pay
for
this
." She
nodded sullenly at her plate. "Get better stuff at Shoney's salad
bar -- at a cafeteria, for Christ's sake."

It always hurt Z to hear a woman
swear. His Mother's influence.

"The fifty bucks also pays for the
dinner!" Ted -- defending the honor of his class.

Never what could be called
a tower of intellect, Teddy could be
loyal
... provided it didn't cost
him.

"Rubber wieners," the woman said
scornfully.

"Wha' 'bout 'em?" Ted asked, chewing
fast, swallowing. "What you want, caviar? It ain't ... isn't ...
that kind of party."

"As if we get invited
to
that
kind of
party."

"What?"

"A caviar party, is what. We're not
exactly on the A-list in Gladstone."

"There isn't no A-list in Gladstone,"
Ted said with some dignity.

"We're on the shit list."

"That's not true."

"Because of your job."

"What's wrong with my job?"

"You get no respect is
what."

"What you mean I got no
respect?"

"A crummy cop."

"What you mean, a crummy
cop?"

"Crummy."

"Not a cop, neither. A
detective."

"Same as!"

"Is not!"

As for Ted being a detective, Z was
the one to blame for that, Teddy unable to "detect" his dick with
his fly unzipped. It was Z who'd passed Ted enough tips to cause
Ted to advance, Teddy sometimes favoring Z with information only
the cops could get.

It was then that Z was aware of
someone behind him, hovering, a situation Z tried to avoid by
sitting with his back to a wall -- when possible

Carefully, Z turned. Saw ... Bud Izard
... Z recognizing Bud because Z had recently been in Bud's Tavern
on Oak. Z wasn't much of a drinker, but had been feeling down that
day.

Back in high school, Bud had been the
senior right tackle when Z was a junior. Since then -- like so many
here -- Bud's impressive muscles had sunk to the bottom of a tub of
lard.

Like other big men Z had known, Bud
was quiet, almost shy, as if apologetic for taking up so much of
the world's space.

"Hey Bud," Ted said, Ted also getting
a drink at Bud's from time to time.

"Teddy."

"Join us, boy. The more the merrier."
With a wife like Ted's, "the more the merrier" made a lot of
sense.

"Can't."

"Can't? Where you goin' in such a
rush? The party's just started."

"Got to get back to the
business."

Bud was dressed as Z had seen him at
the tavern: black slacks, white shirt, black "bolo" tie with a
turquoise and Indian-silver clip.

"What about your counter man?" Ted
shrugged, at the same time managing to stab a slice of barbecued
beef into his mouth, a dribble of sauce dripping down to be forever
lost in the jungle of Ted's shirt.

"Sick," Bud said. "Got to clean up
before I open."

"Yeah. Tough. See you at the dinner
tonight?"

"Maybe," Bud said
uncertainly.

After that, Bud just stood behind Z,
swaying, shifting his massive weight from one foot to the other.
"Actually," Bud began again, looking pained, "I need ta talk ta
Z."

Seeing that the big man was serious, Z
nodded; scooted painfully to the end of the bench seat; swung his
legs out; stood up.

Good old Bud to the rescue, was what
he was thinking!

Z taking the lead, they headed for the
nearest way out of the steel and wooden "tent," soon on the mostly
bare ground beyond.

Sprung from the trap of auld lang
syne, Z took a calming breath. Smelled: flat beer, rotted banana
skins, stale cheese puffs, cigarette smoke, urine of dogs and kids,
hamburger, sunburned skin, dust, bruised grass, baked beans, old
catsup, plastic plates, strawberry pop ....... After losing his
sense of smell for a time as a teenager, Z like to smell ...
everything.

Away from the crowded pavilion, they
lost themselves in the park's other "doings": teenagers throwing
frisbees, dads rattling charcoal into braziers, bare-topped little
kids running, falling down, wrestling, throwing dirt.

Finally within the sheltering privacy
of complete strangers, the two of them sat on a blue, fiberglass
bench.

"First, a question," Z
said, picking up on something "detective" Ted should have noticed,
but didn't -- no surprise there. "You're a year ahead of me. So,
how come you're at
this
reunion?"

Bud nodded soberly. "Heard talk of it
at the bar. I came, hoping to find you here."

"So?"

"I got a problem, Z." Bud's voice as
soft as the rest of him.

"Yeah?"

"Want to hire you."

Z nodded.

"I don't know how much you charge, or
when I can pay. Things are a little short right now. You know how
it is."