Pretty Girl Gone (18 page)

“Beth was pretty,” Axelrod said in reply to one of them. “Only she wasn’t very bright and she took herself way too seriously. At least that’s what I always thought. ’Course I think everyone takes themselves way too seriously.”

“How about Coach Testen?”

“Him most of all. He pretends that winning the championship ranks as one of the greatest sports achievements of all time. I can understand. I mean, it’s the only thing he’s ever done. Only you know what? It wasn’t nearly as exciting or earth-shattering as Coach and some
others make it out to be. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind that he’s nurtured it, made a legend outta it. Around here some people treat me like I’m a celebrity cuz of it. It helped me make a go out of this place.” He gestured at the restaurant. “So, believe me, I don’t mind.

“What you gotta remember, small towns are different from big towns. The past is more important to us. We tend to live there longer. That’s why Coach gets nervous when he thinks someone might tarnish the legend he’s created. Have you seen his museum? Good God.”

“Yes, I’ve seen it.”

“So you know what I mean.”

“Tell me about the night Elizabeth Rogers died,” I said.

“You’re not gonna let that go, huh? Okay.”

Axelrod added very little that I didn’t already know except this: The Seven, all of them, had left the party an hour before Elizabeth had.

“We’d been hoarding beers all night without the parents or Coach catching on. Especially Coach. The man woulda freaked. When we had enough, we left and went to drink them.”

“Where did you go?”

“Josie Bloom’s basement. His parents were gone and we went down there and just got wasted.”

“Was Jack Barrett with you?”

“I don’t know where Jack was.” Axelrod seemed serious for a moment, or as close to it as he could manage. “I never asked him where he was.”

An instant later, he was back to his jovial self.

“I heard Jack was angry with Beth,” I said.

“Nah, it was the other way round. Beth was getting all paranoid on him, accusing him of things, saying how he was sleeping with another girl, stuff like that.”

“Was he?”

“If he was, none of us ever found out about it, and being as how Victoria was such a small town back then, we probably would have.
I figure Beth saw the writing on the wall. She knew Jack was going to leave her for the U and this was a way of saving face. You know, dump him before he dumped her.”

“They broke up?”

“Well, sure. It was inevitable. I mean, God, they were kids. If Jamie got involved with someone at that age, I’d whack her upside the head.”

I flashed on Tapia, but said nothing.

Axelrod was laughing loudly again, or at least he increased the volume on the laugh that seemed never to end. I glanced about. No one was looking at us. I guessed that Axelrod’s patrons were used to his outbursts.

“Jack left the party,” I said.

“Yep.

“Then you and the others left.”

“Yep.”

“Sometime after that, Beth left.”

“I guess.”

“That’s all you know?”

“That’s it.”

“Were you ever questioned by the Chief?”

“Chief Bohlig? No, why would I be?”

Before I could answer, a man appeared just inside Nick’s heavy wooden door. His hair was parted crookedly and in need of shampoo. His complexion looked blotchy under a two-day growth of beard, and while he was clearly underweight, he was as doughy as unbaked bread.

“Nick,” he brayed, suddenly the loudest man in the restaurant. “You no-good sonuvabitch.”

“Hey, Josie, how are ya, man?” Axelrod called out. His voice was still loud and cheerful, but something had changed. There was an edge to it that hadn’t been there before.

“I need a drink,” Bloom announced, scratching first his hands and then his cheeks.

“You look like you’ve already had plenty, partner,” Axelrod said.
I agreed. Bloom seemed like a man who had been to hell and back and remembered every step of the journey.

“What’re you, my mother?” Bloom said. “A drink. Rye.”

“How ’bout something to eat first. We’ve got a great special tonight. Jace,” Axelrod called.

A moment later the young woman was standing there with her pencil and pad.

“Good evening, Mr. Bloom,” she said. “What can I get you? The special?”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Bloom chanted. He stopping scratching long enough to wrap an arm around Jace and hug her shoulder. I don’t know why I was annoyed by the gesture, but I was.

“Judith Catherine,” Bloom said. “How’s my sweetheart?”

“Just great,” Jace replied.

“Atta girl.”

“How ’bout that special?” Jace asked.

“If’n that’s the only way I’m gonna get a drink in this dump, yeah, why not?”

“Sure thing, Mr. Bloom. Good to see you again.”

She patted Bloom’s arm and smiled before turning toward the kitchen.

“Hi, Mr. Bloom.” I extended my hand. “I’m McKenzie.”

He looked at my hand as though I had offered him the dirty end of the stick.

“Who the hell is he?” he wanted Axelrod to tell him.

“McKenzie’s been asking about the Seven,” Axelrod explained.

Bloom grinned, but there was nothing friendly about it. Maybe it was the teeth, I told myself. They were a ghastly shade of gray and his gums were bright red.

“Fuck the Seven,” he said. “Where’s the restroom? Hell, I know where the restroom is.”

Bloom spun in the direction of the kitchen and staggered away.

“Charming,” I said.

“Ah, that’s just Josie,” Axelrod said. “He’s all right. It’s just—I told you about Coach and the tournament? Same with Josie. Winning the championship was the highlight of his life. Ever since God’s dealt him nothing but slop.”

“Why would God do that?”

“Who knows why God does half the things He does? I’ll tell ya, He’s sure been good to Jack though, huh?”

I remembered something my Dad used to tell me—“God helps those who help themselves”—but didn’t mention it.

“It’s this place, this town,” Axelrod said. “Josie should live in the Cities, Mankato; live where people don’t know or care that he stole the ball with eight seconds left on the clock and passed it to Jack so Jack could win the game at the buzzer. Only he can’t seem to get away.

“I’ve been told he suffers from what psychologists call dual diagnosis depression, meaning he’s not only clinically depressed, he self-medicates himself with alcohol, which makes it worse. Another guy, he told me Josie suffers from biological unhappiness, whatever that means. I think it’s just that he’s been unable to deal with the terrible fact that his life, his entire existence has been defined by something he did when he was only seventeen years old.”

“What’s he do for a living?” I asked.

“These days? These days he’s—I’m not sure what you’d call him. Not a gambler, anyway. What Josie does, he goes around to all the bars in the county, every place that sells pull tabs. In Minnesota, the winning tabs must be posted—it’s the law—so a guy can look at a box and determine how many winning tabs are still left to be pulled. Sometimes you can get a box that’s maybe a quarter full or less, except the big winners, they haven’t been pulled yet. What Josie does, he looks for these boxes. When he finds one, he determines if the total amount of the
winners still left in the box is worth more than the cost of all the remaining tabs. If it is, well then he just buys the entire box, guaranteeing himself a nice payday.

“Problem is, it’s expensive. A box, even a quarter box, might cost a couple of thousand dollars and it’s illegal to buy pull tabs with a check or credit card, so Josie has to carry a lot of cash with him. Two, three, four thousand.”

“Flashing that kind of money is dangerous,” I said.

“Tell me about it. And Josie, he’s not what you’d call retiring.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“People know him. They know what he does, and most people, the people buying the pull tabs, they don’t like it much when he just swoops in and grabs all the winners. This one time these guys jump him in his driveway—he’s got a place out on the county road, kinda isolated. One night these guys jump him, steal about a thousand dollars. Josie, though, he hid most of his money—as much as five grand he said—in his boots. Problem was, next day he goes around bragging about it, telling how he outfoxed the muggers. So, what happens . . .”

“Let me guess.”

“Same guys jump him again a couple nights later. Only this time they take all of his money
and
his boots.”

“Surprise, surprise, surprise,” I said.

“Ah, Josie. What a guy.”

“Where does he get his seed money?”

“Who knows? Hey, Josie.”

Bloom had returned. If anything, he appeared even worse off than when he left. His face was paler, his eyes flat and expressionless, and he continued to scratch his hands and face. He looked as though he had as much future as a lighted match.

“Whaddaya say?” Axelrod said.

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there Nick, ’cept when it’s the other way round.”

“I hear that.”

“ ’Bout that drink.”

“Dinner should be ready in a jiff.” Axelrod came around the bar and took Bloom by the arm. “I have a nice booth for you. Sit here and Jace will be with you in a minute.”

Bloom pulled his arm away. Axelrod nudged him hard and Bloom half sat, half fell into the booth. He leaned both elbows on the table and held his head.

“Christ, Nick.”

Axelrod excused himself so he could tend bar. At the same time, someone had pumped a fistful of quarters into the jukebox. The music—some country hokum about the appeal of women who drove pickup trucks—filled the room, causing everyone to raise their voices. Bloom sat unmoving in the booth, supporting his head with both hands. I glanced at Axelrod. As soon as his back was turned I motioned to the other bartender and asked him to pour a shot of rye whiskey and a beer chaser. I took both to Bloom, set them on the table in front of him. He looked at me, focusing his eyes like I was someone he’d met before but couldn’t place.

“May I join you, Mr. Bloom?”

His little eyes blinked at me a couple of times without seeing me. Maybe he hadn’t heard me. Maybe I wasn’t there.

I sat across from him, setting my own drink on the table’s edge. He didn’t seem to notice. Instead he took down the shot in one long swallow and sighed like a tire with a slow leak. I had pounded them myself from time to time, only not like that. Never like that. I wondered what kind of pain would make a man drink the way Josiah Bloom drank? Or was it pain? Maybe it was just habit.

“I’d like to ask you about Elizabeth Rogers,” I said.

Bloom cupped both hands around the glass of beer, inhaled deeply, and drank. He drank half the beer and when he set the glass down again, he exhaled and coughed, as if the few seconds he had held his breath had nearly suffocated him.

“This can’t go on,” he said.

“What can’t go on?” I asked.

In reply, Bloom drained the beer and motioned for more. I caught the younger bartender’s eye and another rye and beer were served. Bloom guzzled the rye. I drank half my Scotch.

“You shouldn’t drink like that,” Bloom told me suddenly. “It’s not good for you.”

Like you should talk,
I almost said, but didn’t.

“You don’t want to end up like me, do ya?” Bloom asked.

“You could quit, get treatment.”

“I have. Many times. I once did 184 weeks and two days without a drink. I was younger then.”

I did the math—three and a half years of sobriety out of how many? Over fifty? I nudged the remainder of the Scotch away.

“You drink and sometimes, not always, but sometimes, maybe once outta ten tries it all becomes perfectly clear, you understand everything and then”—he snapped his fingers—“it’s gone. It just—It lasts a moment, then it’s gone. But that moment, what a moment. Do you know what I mean?”

I didn’t but said I did.

“It can break your heart,” Bloom said. He drank half the beer in one gulp and set the glass carefully in front of him.

“Beth Rogers,” he said.

“Yes.”

“What do you know about Beth Rogers?”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”

“What?”

“Tell me about Elizabeth. Tell me about that night.”

“The night when she—Oh, what did we do?”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

At that moment, Jace appeared. She set the platter of roast beef and garlic roasted mashed potatoes in front of him.

“Here ya go, Mr. Bloom.”

Bloom stared at the food for a moment, then at the girl. Jace patted his arm and Bloom recoiled in fear.

“No, no, you’re not Beth. You can’t be Beth. Oh, Jesus.”

Bloom hid his face in his hands. Jace set her hand gently on his shoulder.

“Mr. Bloom? Mr. Bloom? It’s all right, Mr. Bloom. You have friends here.”

Bloom dropped his hands from his eyes and looked hard at her.

He said, “You ain’t her. Little girl all shiny and new, ain’t got no scratches on you yet. Like you was, like you was—You ain’t pretty like her, you know. You think you are, but you ain’t. She was made of pure gold.”

“Are you talking about Elizabeth?” I asked.

“She was—perfect. I woulda done anything for her. Anything.”

“Mr. Bloom?” I said.

Bloom drowned a sob with the rest of his beer. When he finished, Jace took the glass from his hand. She looked at me then like she wanted to slap me. Jace gathered the shot and beer glasses onto her tray and took them away.

I leaned halfway across the table.

“It’s been a long time, Mr. Bloom.”

“Yes.”

“What happened that night?” I asked.

“I don’t remember,” he answered.

The glaze in his eyes seemed to extend over Bloom’s entire body. He slumped down and buried his head in his arms. I slid the roast beef clear.

“Mr. Bloom?” I nudged him. “Mr. Bloom?” I gave him a hard push.

A moment later, Jace returned.

“He’s asleep,” I told her.

She looked at the drunk with compassionate disapproval.

“Poor Mr. Bloom,” Jace said. “He drinks like this because—because he’s sad, I guess. The world isn’t what he wants it to be. But he’ll be all right. He’ll find what he needs.”