Peeper (19 page)

He looked down at himself. “That reminds me. You got any shoes my size?”

Chapter 25

Ralph took off his hat to fan away the stench. “Richard, I thought you was going to stop feeding that mutt cabbage.”

“I tried. He won't eat nothing else.” As the one-armed black bartender spoke, Coleman the Doberman stretched himself on his rug behind the bar and passed gas in both directions. Richard squashed out a cigarette butt smoldering in an ashtray on the bar. “Can't be too careful. Say, I heard you was wanted.”

“You going to turn me in?”

“Far as I'm concerned, this bar is Switzerland. Usual?”

“Make it gin, straight up. Over there.” Ralph pointed to the booth farthest from Coleman—he had had enough of dogs for one night, flatulent or otherwise—and headed that way, shuffling in April's fuzzy pink slippers, which were too small for him.

“Nice shoes.”

“Fuck you.”

But for Ralph, the bar contained only three customers: Andy the retard, guzzling Pepto-Bismol in his customary booth and marking up his antebellum copy of
TV Guide
, and two girls in their late teens with orange and magenta hair, sharing a table by the door and blue stories over green drinks with yellow flowers floating on top.

“Place is quiet,” said Ralph, when Richard brought Ralph's gin to his table. “Ain't the graveyard shift at the
News
getting out about now?”

“The scribes don't much come in here no more. Say the place is too smoky.”

“You're shitting me.”

Richard shrugged.

“How about the four-to-midnight down at the steering gear plant?”

“Strictly club soda and spinach pie in the Capistrano Lounge.”

“Jesus.”

“Face it, Ralph. In a Waterford world, you're a Dixie cup.”

Ralph drank off half his gin. One of the teenage girls left money for their drinks from a roll the size of a shot put and the two went out. “You still got that sawed-off behind the bar?” Ralph asked Richard.

“It ain't worth shooting yourself over.”

“It ain't me I want to shoot.”

“That don't matter neither. I still got to mop up the blood.” He snapped the bar rag at a cockroach on the table. “You in trouble besides what I know about?”

Ralph laughed, took off his hat, ran his fingers through his thinning hair, and put the hat back on. “A few days ago, the world wasn't so stinking. I went to work, got yelled at by the boss, spent the day doing a job a chimp could do if the pay was decent, got drunk, went home to an apartment the size of a belly button, passed out. One morning I answered the phone. Since then I been doped, chased, busted, fucked, stuck guns at, almost burned, and throwed to the dogs. I'm out of a job. I'm wanted for murder, so I can't go home. I got an appointment with a killer. I don't even own a pair of shoes. My life's always been shit, but lately there's blood in it. What makes you think I'm in trouble?”

“You're complaining 'cause you got fucked?”

He sighed. “Richard, you're a piss-poor bartender. You never listen. You got any idea why I keep coming here?”

“'Cause you been throwed out of every other bar in the greater metropolitan area. You want another hit?”

“What I want is the sawed-off. If you won't give it to me, I wish you'd stand next to it and keep an eye on this joker I'm meeting. You can't miss him. He looks like Vincent Price with AIDS.”

Richard scratched his stump. “You ain't dealing no drugs in my bar.”

“How long you know me?”

“You want me to check your tab?”

“No drugs. No white slavery.”

The bartender grinned. “Hell,
white
's okay. Just don't bleed on my floor.” He returned to the bar.

Ralph nursed the rest of his gin. He wanted to finish it and order another, but wanted a clear head more. He wished his revolver weren't in police lockup. More than that he wished that the next time a hooker found a priest dead in her bed she'd call anybody but him. He watched the cockroach Richard had exiled drag its bashed body back across the table and pull itself laboriously up the side of Ralph's glass. Its wings were broken and two of its legs weren't working. Ralph let it get to the rim, then snapped it away with a forefinger and swatted it with his hat when it landed on top of the seat opposite, flattening it. He wasn't quite so far gone he had started to feel any kinship with bugs.

“Poteet.”

He knocked over the glass, but caught it before any of its contents could spill out. He hadn't noticed when Carpenter came in from the street and lowered himself into the other seat. He looked gaunter than ever in the same black overcoat buttoned to the neck; not unlike the roach lying in squashed state just behind his head. His ears stuck out slightly and his skin had a yellowish cast. Ralph noticed that his hands were torn and bleeding.

“You ain't chewed up so bad.” Ralph, seeking nonchalance, picked up his drink and swirled it. A drop flew into his good eye and burned there.

“Pit bulls are overrated. A grown man in good condition can overpower almost any number of them if he keeps his head. Your friend did not, but he'll be okay. I stayed with him until the ambulance came.”

Ralph rubbed his eye. “I didn't know you mechanics cared.”

“Mechanic?”

“Let's cut the crap. How'd you find me?”

“I called all the cab companies and offered a reward to the driver who remembered picking up a fare near Lake Shore Drive at about the time you left the mansion. You shouldn't have had him drop you off right in front of the place you were staying.”

“I didn't feel like doing a whole hell of a lot of walking in just one shoe. What'd you do, call every apartment in the building?”

“Fortunately, you answered on my third try.”

Carpenter's deep tones chilled Ralph; they were like clods of earth striking the lid of a coffin. He drank some gin. “Where's the grand?”

The gaunt man drew a long envelope from inside his coat, lifted the flap, and showed Ralph the thick sheaf of bills inside. When Ralph reached for it he pulled it back. Ralph subsided into his seat.

“You want to talk, talk,” he said. “Can I get you a drink? I bet it's cold in Alaska this time of year.”

“I imagine it is. But why should I care?”

“Have it your way, Alvin. Okay if I call you Alvin?”

“Who's Alvin?”

Everything about the man made Ralph's balls wither. He fortified himself with another sip, put on his crooked grin. “I said no more crap. I know all about you, Alvin. You're a file clerk for the Justice Department, and you're supposed to be in Anchorage. But then a shooter's gotta be somewhere, and he can't put down ‘hit man' on his income tax form.”

“Peter is my Christian name. I've never known anyone named Alvin. And I don't work for the Justice Department.”

“CIA, then. What's it matter to a hitter who pays his bills or what name's on the check?”

“I don't work for the CIA. I'm not connected with the federal government at all.”

“Freelance?”

Carpenter reached inside his coat again. “Richard!” shouted Ralph, and ducked under the table.

Life was peaceful there. He saw that the linoleum was torn and that forty-seven people who chewed gum had used the underside of the table for a parking space.

“Poteet?”

Carpenter's features upside down were no less unnerving. Ralph had no place to go from there. Cautiously, he crawled out into the open. Andy, in his booth, was finishing his Pepto-Bismol over an article about Mary Tyler Moore. Richard was reading the
Free Press
classifieds behind the bar. There wasn't a weapon in sight. Ralph took his seat.

“What was that about?” Carpenter asked.

“I thought you was going for that piece of yours.”

“You mean this?” Carpenter took the automatic out of his pocket.

This time, Ralph stayed under the table until the gaunt man joined him. Squatting, he handed him the gun. Ralph turned it over. It was blue plastic, a water pistol.

“What was you going to do, shove it up my nose and try to drown me?”

“I don't like guns. As a matter of fact, they frighten me. I only used it before because you're a hard man to pin down.”

“You're scared of guns?”

“Terrified.”

“You ought to look for another line of work.”

“I'm not a hit man.”

“What the hell
are
you?”

“If you'll sit still a minute I'll show you.” Again he reached inside his coat. This time he withdrew a brown leather folder and opened it under Ralph's nose. It contained an impressive-looking card identifying Peter Paul Carpenter as a correspondent for the
Washington Post
.

Chapter 26

“Where's Alvin?” Ralph asked after a moment.

“In Alaska, I suppose.” Carpenter put away the folder. “Who gave you that information?”

“A fucking computer.”

Richard came over and squatted on his haunches to look at the pair of men under the table. “What can I get you gents? Gin? Scotch? Mop 'n' Glo?”

Ralph and Carpenter crawled out and took their seats. “Hit me again,” Ralph said. To Carpenter: “You?”

“I don't drink.”

“You ain't no reporter!”

“Hold it down.” Carpenter ordered a Coke. When Richard left: “Are we talking or not? If not, I can use the thousand.”

“Who shot the bishop?” Ralph asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Who strangled Vinnie?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“Who burned Lyla Dane?”

“I was going—”

Ralph raised the water pistol. “What
do
you know?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Their drinks came. Ralph waited until Richard was back behind the bar. “I got to know some things first. I figure I earned it.”

“Shoot.”

“Don't tempt me.” He put down the water pistol. “I called a phone number I found in the rectory at St. Balthazar. Willard Newton answered. Know who he is?”

“The U.S. attorney general.”

“You're the first one who got that right.”

“I should hope so. He's the man the
Post
is investigating.”

“Investigating for what?”

“I'll need to hear a lot more from you before I give that up.”

“When he found out I was calling from Detroit he said, ‘Carpenter, I told you never to call me here.' Which Carpenter's that, Alvin or Paul?”

“Peter.”

“Who's Peter?”

“
I'm
Peter.”

“I thought you was Paul.”

“Paul's my middle name.”

“I never had one.”

“Isaac,” Carpenter said.

“What?”

“Ralph Isaac Poteet. I looked you up. Why are you ashamed of it?”

“It ain't the name, it's the initials.” Ralph drank. “You was working for Willard Newton, not Bishop Steelcase.”

“I'm working for the
Washington Post
. I'm
investigating
Willard Newton.”

“Investigating for what?”

“What's Lyla Dane to you?” Carpenter asked.

“Neighbor. She called me to get Monsignor Breame out of her bed.”

“But not before you took pictures.”

“That was my idea. Hookers got no imagination. You picked up the body for Bishop Steelcase, only you ain't working for him.”

“Right. I'm a reporter.”

“What kind?”

“Investigative.”

“Investigating for what?”

“We did that twice.” Carpenter tapped the edge of his glass with the envelope full of bills. “Where are the pictures?”

“You didn't buy no pictures. That money's to talk.”

He flipped the envelope into the center of the table. When Ralph reached for it, Carpenter set his glass on top of it. Ralph sat back again.

“Let's see what we got,” he said. “You ain't working for Willard Newton, but he thinks you are. You wasn't working for the bishop, but he thought you was. That's why you picked up the body. But you didn't rig Lyla Dane's apartment to blow up in her face.”

“Right so far.”

“Who drugged me when I was at the bishop's, you or Steelcase?”

“I did. At his orders.”

“You went through my pockets and dumped me at Mt. Elliott Cemetery?”

“Yes.”

“You went to toss my apartment, found Vinnie already doing that, and squiffed him?”

“No. That was somebody else.”

“Who?”

“Maybe I should keep this money,” Carpenter said. “I've done more for it than you have. Did you really take pictures, or was that a bluff to blackmail the bishop?”

“I took 'em. I ain't handing 'em over for any lousy grand.”

“Do what you like with them. They're only of peripheral interest.”

“Okay, I'll just take my envelope and be on my way.” Ralph held out a hand.

“What's your hurry?”

“I like to drink and I don't jog. I figure I got twenty years to live if I don't get shot first and I sure ain't fixing to spend them here smelling Richard's fucking dog.”

“So that's what that is. I thought the wind was blowing up from Washington.”

“Junior, you sure don't say much for somebody that's paying to talk.”

“I'm paying to ask questions, not answer them.” Carpenter sipped his Coke and gazed in Andy's direction. “Does he look like a government man to you?”

“The vice president, a little. Around the ass.”

“They're always reading.”

“What's Absolution?”

Carpenter stared at him. “Where'd you hear about Absolution?”

Ralph felt his grin returning. He sat back and belched juniper.