The Drifter (9 page)

W
hile the cops combed through his truck, Peter talked to other detectives who asked the same questions in different ways, over and over. Peter gave them more or less the same answers. This wasn’t his first rodeo. He knew to vary his answers enough to be believable.

And all the while, his heart beat too fast, the white static buzzed and crackled in his brain, and his feet twitched for a lonely mountain. Breathe in, breathe out.

When they were finished with their questions, they left him alone to sit. He thought about the last time he had an official interview. He’d been back in the States for three days, and he sat in the small cluttered office of a Navy shrink.

It was part of the discharge process. The Pentagon wanted every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine to have at least one session with a mental health professional before returning to civilian life. The idea was to make sure that veterans weren’t emotionally or mentally disturbed, or if they were, to get them into treatment. But in reality, almost nobody admitted to problems. It was part of the culture. Man up and keep going. And you sure as hell didn’t want anything on your record.

The Navy shrink was a stout, friendly lieutenant commander with soft hands but a strong grip. He asked Peter why he didn’t eat in the officers’ mess, why he slept outside on the wild part of the base. Was there something wrong with his quarters? A thick folder open on the desk before him. Peter’s service record.

Peter said he liked the open air. It was a way to get some time to himself. He didn’t mention the way his lungs got tight and the walls closed in and his heartbeat would accelerate inside a building. Especially an institutional building, like the vast office complex where the shrink sat behind his steel desk under flickering fluorescent lights. Peter could barely keep himself in the chair.

The Navy shrink looked at him with a kind smile, and Peter knew the man could see it in him, the pressure in his head, the way the sparks crackled up his brainstem.

“It’s a nice day out,” said the shrink. He closed the folder and set it aside. “How about we go for a walk?” And he watched Peter’s breathing slow in the open air as the static subsided.

“How bad is it?” the man finally asked as they walked the manicured paths. “I’m not writing anything down. This is just you and me.”

Peter told him it was fine if he stayed outside.

“That’s gonna get in the way of civilian life,” said the shrink. “Was it worse during fighting, during downtime, or both?”

“It didn’t start until I got off the plane here,” said Peter. “End of the tour.”

The shrink nodded like he’d heard it a thousand times before.

Maybe he had.

“What you’re experiencing is called a panic attack,” he said. “It can be triggered in many different ways. For you, it shows up as an acute claustrophobia. When you were in combat, was there a lot of fighting inside, clearing buildings?”

“Yes,” said Peter. “Fallujah. Twice. But now I can barely go inside the dining hall. That’s not a combat zone.”

“Your body is reacting to an environment that was very stressful over a relatively long period of time. It was a useful reaction in Fallujah. It helped keep you alive. But now it’s too sensitive. It’s overreacting to a perceived threat, and your fight-or-flight reflex goes into overdrive.”

“Well,” said Peter. “Shit.”

“I have to ask this,” the man said, watching Peter closely. “Again, this is just you and me. But I need a brutally honest answer. Do you feel like you’re a danger to yourself? Or to anyone else?”

“No,” said Peter. He drank in the fresh air. “I don’t want to hurt myself or anyone else. I just want to solve this problem.”

The Navy shrink nodded again.

“A lot of combat vets are changed by war,” he said. “Some of them are physically changed, wounded, missing limbs. That’s very difficult. But some have other effects. Stress effects, which are no less real. And for some vets, they’re harder to live with, because you can’t see them.

“Sometimes those effects diminish over time,” he said. “Sometimes they go away entirely. Sometimes they don’t. But there are things you can do to help.”

“Like what?”

The shrink said it depended on the individual. “For some people,” he said, “the solution is to stress yourself in a controlled manner, a little more each time, and allow your unconscious to realize that in the civilian world, nothing bad happens. Like curing fear of flying by getting on a plane.

“And sometimes,” he said, “you do the opposite. You back away, reduce the stress, and allow the brain to reorganize itself to a life where people aren’t shooting at you all the time. Sometimes it’s a
combination of the two. You work with a therapist to find the right course of treatment. That’s the best way to get better.”

Peter nodded, thinking that sitting in a shrink’s office was going to drive him crazy all by itself.

Reading his face, the shrink kept talking. “Not everyone wants to work with a therapist,” he said. “Some people can learn to just listen to themselves and pay attention. Find someone to talk to, and work it through.”

“What if it doesn’t go away?” asked Peter.

The shrink gave him the same kind smile. “Then that’s just who you are now,” he said. “If there are limitations, there are also benefits. That’s your life. Learn how to live it. Find something to do. Someone to love. Get on with things.”

D
etective Sam Lipsky returned two hours later, flipping through his notebook. Peter still sat in the back of the cruiser, his legs out the open door. He couldn’t get comfortable. The white static buzzed and crackled. He worried about Dinah.

“I thought you were fresh off the plane,” said Lipsky. “But you got discharged over a year ago.”

Peter nodded.

“So for the last year, you’ve been doing what?”

“Working, here and there. Hiking out West.”

“Is this some kind of hippie dropout thing?”

“All due respect, Detective?” said Peter. “Fuck you.”

Lipsky smiled. “You won the silver star,” said the detective. “And a lot of other medals. You were a lieutenant for eight years. I didn’t know that was possible. You should have been a captain, even a major. But my contact says the details are sealed. So what happened?”

“I had a problem with the chain of command.”

“I can see that,” said Lipsky. “You and me both.”

He produced Peter’s keys and wallet from his coat pocket and handed them over, stepping back so Peter could stand.

“License expired five years ago,” he said. “Like I give a shit. Renew it tomorrow. Go get something to eat, find your dog. Then go home and see your parents. And stay out of neighborhoods like this one.”

Peter climbed out of the cruiser and stood in the night air. He felt the wind open him up. His shoulders loosened, and his hands unclenched. Then he asked the question he’d wanted to ask for the last three hours. “So who’s the dead guy?”

Lipsky’s smile fell away.

“I’m more interested in the guy who killed the dead guy,” he said. “One thing, he was a helluva shot. ME won’t say anything for sure yet. But probably a large-caliber handgun, a .45. Between the eyes, from a distance of fifty yards or more. While getting sprayed by an AK-47? That’s a shooter with some practice.”

Peter had been in a few target competitions in his time. That was probably in his service record, too. He hadn’t won any, but they hadn’t laughed at him, either. And he’d certainly gotten used to shooting back under fire.

He didn’t take the bait. “But who’s the dead guy?”

Lipsky seemed amused and world-weary at the same time. Peter knew he hadn’t fooled the man one bit. “Young guy, kicked out of the Army,” he said. “Dishonorable discharge, which was hard to do when they were desperate for warm bodies. Maybe a gang member, although it’s not on his sheet. And walking around with an assault rifle, a real model citizen. So I won’t lose sleep. Guy killed him probably did the world a favor. Probably self-defense, with that AK.”

“Must be a gang thing,” said Peter. “Didn’t I read in the paper that Milwaukee has one of the highest murder rates in the country?”

Lipsky didn’t seem to have heard him. “But I gotta wonder,”
he mused. “Who was he shooting at? And why? And when’s the next guy gonna show up? Because if he’s a gangbanger, this was some kind of deliberate hit, you know those guys take this shit personally.”

Peter had been thinking about that, too. Someone had tried to kill him. The kid with the AK was just the weapon. He tried to consider it progress. It meant he was getting closer to something. Maybe it would help if he knew what it was he was getting closer to.

“But you’re just an innocent bystander, right?” said Lipsky. “Not your problem.”

A dog barked somewhere, deep and loud.

“Sit,” called out a second voice, nervous. “Stay.”

The dog barked again. It was a familiar sound.

The voice called out again. “Hey, dog, sit your ugly butt down. Sit, dammit. Stay, all right? Hey, whose dog is this? Anybody know whose damn dog this is?”

“That’s my dog,” said Peter. “That’s my dog.” He pushed through the cluster of patrolmen to where Mingus stood, panting happily beside Peter’s truck, long, wet tongue lolling out past the wicked serration of his teeth. Peter was surprised he hadn’t brought back the Impala’s rear bumper.

A patrolman had his pepper spray out, arm extended. He spoke without taking his eyes off Mingus. “Mister, take control of your dog.” This wasn’t the cop who’d met Peter at the tape line, but a young guy, his uniform still crisp from the box it came in. The dog probably weighed more than he did. “Put that damn dog on a leash or I’ll put him down.”

“He won’t hurt you, but I will.” Peter’s anger rose like the tide, surprising him. “You spray my dog, I’ll break your head.” It was the aftermath of the white static, a pale fury. And Mingus was his dog.

The patrolman lifted his thumb from the trigger of the pepper spray and half turned to eyeball Peter. He had the nervous swagger of a new recruit. “Mister, that’s threatening a police officer. You want to spend the night in jail?”

But Mingus saw the opening, leaped forward, and snatched the pepper spray from the young cop’s hand, rupturing the pressurized metal canister with his teeth in the process. A dense cloud of aerosolized oleoresin capsicum pepper dosed the patrolman hard before dispersing into the crowd of policemen, who backed away, coughing and swearing.

Mingus just licked his chops, dropped the bleeding canister at Peter’s feet, and resumed panting with what looked suspiciously like a smile.

Lipsky hooted with laughter, wiping away the pepper-induced tears. “That monster is your dog? Jesus Christ, you are a fucking jarhead.” He handed over his business card. “You decide to confess, give me a call. Now get your ass and that fucking dog out of my crime scene.”

—

Peter’s truck had an archipelago of bullet holes from the driver’s door to the mahogany cargo box. But the tires still held air and the engine compartment was untouched. He opened the driver’s-side door and swept the broken glass from his truck seat with the flat of his hand.

Trailing the ripe smell of pepper spray, Mingus jumped up past him and settled into the passenger seat like he’d done it a thousand times. The smell of the dog was powerful in the enclosed cab, even with the broken window. Peter leaned across him and rolled the passenger window down, too.

He had things to do, but food was the first priority. Driving
down Twentieth, looking for something to eat, Peter said, “You’re really something, Mingus. You know that?”

The dog didn’t take notice or show any sign that he’d heard the man. He just leaned out the open window, nose in the night wind, sniffing hard for a Chevy Impala with two bullet holes.

T
he Marines had rules of engagement, drawn up by military lawyers. Turns out you can’t shoot just anyone.

Some of the rules were pretty basic. Don’t fire at a mosque, a school, or a hospital. Don’t fire at an unarmed man; don’t fire into a crowd.

If a person in civilian clothes had an assault rifle in his hands and was firing it in your direction, that was pretty clear. Shoot the motherfucker. But if he was yelling at you, and his rifle was slung behind him or pointed at the ground, you were supposed to wait until he raised the rifle. He could be local police or a friendly militiaman.

Peter was no longer overseas. He could define his own rules of engagement. And one of Peter’s new rules was that if somebody provoked him, he was going to respond.

He didn’t know who was responsible for the shooter on Jimmy’s block. If it was the man with the scars, Peter had given Lipsky the plate number, and the detective might be persuaded to share that information. And the next time that black Ford showed up, Peter would take action.

But if it was Lewis, Peter knew where to find him. Or at least where to start.

—

Yellow light seeped from the apartment windows of the building on MLK Drive, but the windows in Lewis’s office were dark. The expensive vehicles parked outside earlier that day were nowhere to be seen.

Peter locked Mingus in the cargo box and walked around the corner to Shorty’s. The front door had steel bars and a thick Plexiglas insert starred with what looked like bullet impacts. Or maybe a javelin thrower was using it for target practice. The hinges screeched when he pulled the door open.

Peter took a deep breath and walked inside.

It was Peter’s kind of place, before the static had ruined him for bars. A deep, narrow room, with an exit on the side wall and another door behind the bar. Dark pine paneling lined the walls, the varnish turning a deep orange with age. A row of similar booths made against the outside wall, sparsely populated with neighborhood people, cracked red plastic cushions on the seats and high backs. At the long mahogany bar, a half-dozen older men in worn work clothes slouched on stools, knuckly hands curled protectively around their glasses, eyeballing the newcomer.

This would be a tap beer and boilermaker place, maybe some port wine or cognac for the big spenders. No goat-cheese appetizers, no weird martinis. Just a corner bar owned by a neighborhood warlord. Or whatever Lewis was.

The white static clamored for his attention, but not more than he could stand. Maybe it was the comedown from the shooting, or talking to Lipsky. Maybe it was the anticipation of seeing Lewis, and what that might entail.

Peter wondered what that Navy shrink would say. How fucked up was it that walking inside freaked Peter out, but the prospect of a fistfight or shoot-out calmed him down?

Peter went to the curved end of the bar where he could stand with the room in full view and his back to the wall. An ancient stereo played what sounded like Ray Charles.
Unchain my heart. Baby let me go.
The barman was built like a bulldog, complete with jowls. He dropped a bar napkin and lifted his eyebrows in a silent question.

Peter said, “I’m looking for Lewis.”

The bartender’s face was empty. “Don’t know who you’re talking about.” But he didn’t move down the bar. He had a fringe of gray on his head, but his arms and shoulders were heavy with muscle. There would be a baseball bat behind the bar within easy reach. Maybe a shotgun, too.

“Get him on the phone,” said Peter. “Tell him there was an accident. The jarhead wants to see him.”

“You want a drink or not?”

“Draft beer.”

“Pabst?”

Peter nodded. The bartender pulled a glass, minimal foam, and set it on the napkin. “Two bucks.”

Peter dropped a few singles on the bar. The bartender scooped up the cash, dropped it in the register, and disappeared through the swinging door into the back room.

The Pabst tasted better than usual.

There was definitely something wrong with him, thought Peter. He’d just been shot at, had killed a man and lied to the cops, and now he was drinking beer like nothing had happened. He thought it should bother him, but mostly it made him angry.

The Navy shrink had told him that being angry was a perfectly
normal response to Peter’s experience overseas. War
should
make you angry. But Peter wasn’t sure how to feel about that, either.

The Marines had put a lot of effort into teaching him how to kill. They didn’t fuck around, they came right out and said it. Your job is to kill the enemy using any means at your disposal. And Peter was good at it. He’d had a lot of practice. He wasn’t complaining. He’d signed up for it. He’d wanted to serve his country. He was a goddamned Marine. He’d have that forever.

But it seemed strange, now that they’d all been to war, after all those years of fighting and killing and bleeding and dying, that they were just supposed to go home and get a job, or go back to school, or whatever.

Strange, definitely.

And even if you’d somehow made it home alive and relatively intact, you still carried it around with you, that powerful mix of pride and shame.

For who you were. For what you’d done.

Peter finished his beer while the static crackled in his head.

The bartender reappeared and filled a few drinks for the thirsty old guys down the way. Then he poured two fresh drafts, came back, set one in front of Peter and one on the rail for himself. “Stick around.” He had a tattoo on his forearm, a big blue anchor, but faded with years.

Peter put a twenty on the bar, drank some beer. “You worked with Jimmy, right?” The bartender didn’t answer. But he didn’t pick up the twenty, either. “We served together,” said Peter. “He was my friend.”

The bartender looked at him.

“That tattoo,” said Peter. “Navy, right?” The bartender nodded. “Well, you know what those survivor benefits are like, right? Not enough.” Peter drank some beer. At least the bartender wasn’t
walking away. “Jimmy was helping his family, doing what he could. But now he’s dead. I’m just trying to help, too.”

The bartender said, “Talk to Lewis first.”

Peter nodded. “I talked to Lewis. I talked to Nino and Ray. I know what they are. They know I’m looking. But they didn’t work with Jimmy. I just want to know what he was like before he killed himself.”

The bartender shrugged. “He was just a guy.”

“He did the work? No fucking the dog?”

That got a little smile. “No, he did the work. I tell him to change a keg, man got right to it.”

Peter nodded. Jimmy was never one to stand around when there was work to be done. “Sounds like you liked him.”

Another shrug. “Sure.”

“When he killed himself. Did he say anything to you, before?”

The bartender shook his head. “No.” Then pushed his mouth to one side, then the other, thinking. “But we got another part-time guy, showed up for Jimmy’s shift one day. Said he was covering. Said Jimmy told him he’d be gone for a while. Next thing I know, Jimmy’s killed himself. Weird.”

No more weird than Jimmy cleaning out his fridge, thought Peter. Or paying his landlady in advance. More evidence of the polite suicide.

Maybe he wanted the part-time guy to get the work. Or maybe just not bail on the job. Peter could see Jimmy doing that. He took his responsibilities seriously.

“Then this cop shows up,” said the bartender. “Wants Jimmy’s things.”

“What did they take?”

The barman shook his head. “Ain’t nothing to take. House rules, nobody leaves nothing. Lewis wants this place so clean it
squeaks.” He scratched his ear thoughtfully. “Jimmy did try to leave this ratty old suitcase here. Wanted me to lock it up in the liquor storage. Told him hell, no. Lewis would have my ass.”

The suitcase got Peter’s attention. He was willing to bet it was a black Samsonite. “Do you remember when that was? How long before he died?”

“Not that long.”

So under Dinah’s porch wasn’t Jimmy’s first choice.

“Did anyone else come looking for him, after he left? Maybe a big guy missing an earlobe, with scars on his face?” Peter drew the scars with his fingertips.

The bartender shook his head.

“What about before he left? Did he have visitors, maybe do a little business on the side?”

“Hell, no. Nobody runs anything out of here. Lewis owns the joint. Jimmy knew how it was.”

“But he came up with Lewis, right? Maybe he had a pass.”

A flat look. “Nobody gets a pass. Nobody.”

Then his eyes flicked past Peter, and in a single smooth motion he plucked up his glass and walked away.

Peter turned and saw Lewis coming in the side door, a black suede jacket over his crisp white shirt, trailing Nino and Oklahoma Ray.

Watching, Peter couldn’t think why Lewis needed them. The man moved with no visible effort, and in the dim light of the bar, he seemed almost to float across the floor. Stopping at the bar, his weight was balanced, his knees slightly bent. He was out of Peter’s reach but ready to change that. Ready for anything.

He looked Peter up and down. Calm, quiet, his voice just audible over the music. “You don’t seem no worse for wear.”

“The accident happened to somebody else.”

Lewis didn’t even blink. “And I give a shit why?”

“Because you’re going to have to call his mama. And tell her why her boy got shot in the head.”

Lewis turned to go. Over his shoulder, he said, “We’ll talk about this outside.” He said something to Nino, who led the way through the door, his right hand rooting in the pocket of his Packers jacket.

Peter went last, the taste of copper in his mouth, wishing he hadn’t left his .45 in pieces strewn all over town.