The Erection Set (20 page)

“Dog ... he's scared to death. He looks at you like ... like you're going to explode or something.”

“You know Lee.”

“Not that well, but enough to know he's never been like that before.” She stopped a moment, then: “It has to do with the other day, doesn't it? I mean, about those two men. There was a piece in the
News
...”

“Coincidence.”

“It was on television, too. They said they were attacked and... mutilated. The police were following up leads.”

“I know. They contacted me.”

“And?”

“I couldn't help them out. So they left.”

“Dog ... they contacted me, too. I ... told them we were there ...”

I reached over and squeezed her knee. “You did right, honey. What's there to hide? New York's a big town. Anything can happen. We just happened to be there when it did.”

“Dog...”

“Look, you know how long I was -gone ... about a minute and a half. You think I could attack and mutilate two big guys and come out of it without a scratch?”

Her answer was a long time coming. She was remembering the blood on my shirt. “I don't know,” she said softly.

I let out a laugh. “You flatter me, baby.” Sharon grinned back and flopped back against the cushions.

Up ahead the outline of Linton showed above the tree-line, and the quadruple smokestacks that marked the Barrin factory reared their fingers toward the sky. Three of them were dormant. The fourth was gasping out a thin wisp of gray pollutant. If Linton reflected the economy of the Barrin Industries, it wasn't a very thriving town.

We cut through the center of the city and took the road that circled the vast factory site. The old-fashioned brick, the archaic tower and the climbing vines made the place look more like a college than a commercial complex. The one-hundred-fifty-year-old clock still kept the right time and the acres of land inside the low wall were well trimmed, but empty of the stacked materials that used to clutter the place. A steady throbbing came from inside the place and occasionally a figure would cross behind one of the windows, otherwise activity was at a minimum. About fifty cars were aligned in the parking spaces. One was directly in front of the main office entrance, even with the
No Parking
sign. The make and color were familiar and I looked at it again, but the question was answered when Cross McMillan stepped out of the doors, two others trailing him, and glanced around with the air of a person about to take possession.

“Your friend,” Sharon said. “I wonder what he's doing there.”

“He thinks he's going to take over the joint.” I laid on the gas and pulled out of sight of the entrance. “He'd better not get too smug about it.”

“Maybe he has reason to be. The McMillan family never was known for their humility. They always were pirates.”

“They never went up against big guns before.”

Again, a furrow appeared between her eyes and she took the edge of her lower lip between her teeth. “What's happening, Dog?”

“The bastard wants it all. He's always wanted Barrin ever since the run-in with the old man.”

“He's forced out everybody else around here.”

“Not everybody, kid,” I told her quietly.

“You think he can't get”—she swept her hand toward the factory site—“... all this?”

“Not without one hell of a fight ”

“Your cousins aren't capable ...”

“I'm not talking about my cousins.”

“Who are you, Dog?” Her voice had a quiver to it.

“Just a guy who wants to come home.”

“Is that all?”

“Nobody wants to let me,” I said.

“But they can't keep you out.”

“Not anymore, kitten.”

I turned onto the intersection that angled back into town and crisscrossed the area until I came to the comer of Bergan and High streets. Time had washed over the section leaving the scars of fading paint and crumbling bricks, but Tod's Club still stood defiantly, one of the earlier buildings structured with materials and skill old-fashioned enough to withstand the deteriorating effects of season after season and almost total neglect.

Once it had been the hub of nearly all the poltical and social activity that went on and twice the site where heavyweight contenders trained for the big bout. One of them even won the crown. Now, half the ground floor frontage was occupied by neighborhood stores to pay the upkeep and a shoddy frame warehouse took up the space where the half-acre picnic grounds used to be.

We parked outside the entrance and I helped Sharon out of the car. She looked around, glanced up at the grimy windows and the dirt-streaked brick. “What's this place?”

“Don't you remember?”

She squinted at the building again and nodded. “My father used to come here, I think. Some kind of a club isn't it?”

“More or less.”

“The name sounds familiar. Tod's. Yes, Dad even brought us here one time. There were games and barrels of beer and they had a sprinkler going for the kids someplace.”

“In the back.”

“That's right.”

“What's here now?”

“I don't know,” I told her, “but it's a starting point.”

We walked inside and down a familiar corridor lined with ancient stuffed fish and mounted deer heads. The brass plates beneath the trophies were tarnished and the names unreadable. Most of those names would be engraved now on the local tombstones, I thought.

An old man in dungarees was washing the floor of the west meeting room, the old cigar-burned tables and captain's chairs pushed to one end. The restaurant that once was the pride of Linton had been sectioned off into office space. Three sections were empty. The other two held a construction company and a real estate outfit.

Voices came from the far end, competing with a televised soap opera and we walked down to the pair of half opened paneled doors and pushed through.

This room hadn't changed. The great fifty-foot bar still stretched its length to the sliding serving windows in the wall, the gilt-framed mirror behind it reflected the hundreds of antique sporting weapons mounted on wooden pegs and the same six grinning bear heads taken by the long-dead Hiram Tod. When I was a kid the moths had eaten away most of the fur, now the toothy grimaces seemed to be coming out of mummified skulls, strangely livened by bright glassy eyes that lay loosely in dried sockets.

The pair of seedy customers drinking from schooners of beer had their feet propped on a gleaming brass rail while they argued about baseball. The skinny old bartender in the too-big shirt ignored them, polishing already shiny glasses to crystallike brilliance.

When we propped ourselves on the stools and called for a beer the two at the end stopped talking long enough to look us over, then went back to their argument. The bartender set down our glasses, rang up the money and pushed my change toward me. I looked at him carefully, studying his face, remembering the towering man with the huge gut that could bounce off full half kegs of suds onto the cellar chute, and the deep voice that used to make us hustle for the quarters we earned when we cleaned up the picnic tables.

I said, “Tod?”

The old man turned, his eyes focusing on mine. He nodded.

“You been on a diet?”

He grunted and a grin showed his false choppers. “I been on a cancer, son. Only that was a long time ago and hardly nobody remembers me fat. Who may you be?”

I stuck out my hand and waited until he took it. “Cameron Barrin was my grandfather.”

He pulled his hand away sharply. “You ain't ...”

Before he could finish I shook my head. “I'm the bastard one, Tod. Dogeron Kelly. Used to run errands for you when I sneaked out of the castle up there.”

His grin got big suddenly and he grabbed my hand again. “Damn, boy! Sure I remember you. Hell, I remember you and that Polack kid fighting to see who got the swamping job at the hunkie picnic. I put up five bucks for the winner.”

“That Polack kid sure could hit,” I said.

“Yeah, but you won.” He laughed again and pulled another beer for himself. “You know, I bet another five on the Polack.”

“Tough.”

“My own fault. I shoulda remembered you was your father's kid.”

The beer stopped halfway to my mouth. “You knew him?”

“Sure, and your mother too. But that was before all the trouble. What a wild-assed Irisher he was. He used to meet your ma right here in this place. Oh, nobody ever knew about it or anything. She used to sing when old Barney played the piano.” He stopped for a minute, cocking his head at me. “I ain't talking outa turn or anything, am I? Sometimes an old guy like me ...”

“No sweat, Tod. It was just something I didn't know but was glad to hear. I'm glad my mother had class enough to cut away from that bunch when she could.”

“Dead, both of them, aren't they?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Too bad. It ain't like before at all. What're you doing back here?”

“Looking the old place over.”

“Not much to see anymore. Except for her.” He nodded at Sharon, smiling. “This is your daughter?”

Sharon choked on her beer and grabbed for a paper napkin to wipe her chin. When she dried off she faked a sigh of exasperation and said, “Good griefl”

“We're not even married,” I told him.

“Made another- boo-boo, I guess,” Tod said.

“Nope, you just proved a point, Tod. I'd just better pick on somebody my own age.”

“Don't do it on my account,” Sharon told me quickly. “I'm starting to enjoy all this after putting up with my New York image.”

“Good thing she isn't my daughter,” I said.

“It would be a very incestuous relationship if I were.”

“I didn't mean that.” I gave her a poke with my elbow and Tod let out a chuckle.

“Me,” he told us, “I couldn't take the excitement you kids look for. I'm glad even the old pilot light's gone out. Now a woman is only something that goes to the ladies' room instead of the men's room.” He finished his beer, filled all three and set them down again. This time he didn't take my money. “You still didn't say what you're doing back. It ain't really to just look around, is it?”

“In a way. I'm looking for information.”

Tod folded his arms on the bar and nodded. “I see. Well, it ain't like it was, this being a place where you could learn anything, but I hear a few things now and then.”

“About Barrin Industries?”

“Shot to hell, is what. Maybe half working what used to work there. They ever get busy, they're going to have to import a labor force. No more young people around here if they can help it.”

“How about McMillan?”

“Shoot, man. He's the one that hired 'em all away for his factory in Aberdeen and the electronic plant outside Madrid. He even bought up a lot of property they owned so they could relocate.”

“Adjoining lots, probably, and all on the right of way to the water.”

“Correct. But who cared?”

“McMillan,” I said. “He knew what he was doing.” Tod shrugged again and spread his hands. “They was all glad to get out. They're probably still glad. This town hasn't improved none.”

“Ever hear anything about my cousins?”

“Dennison and Al? Them two patsies? All they do is toss parties out at the country club. Society crap, y'know? I got a niece that waits on tables out there and she tells me everything that goes on.”

“Wild?”

“Them old maids? All hankie waving and backbiting. Half the guys go only because their wives make 'em. They wind up talking golf at the bar and getting blasted. Sure not like the old days here.”

“You mean Al and Dennie are boozers?”

“Nah. They're as bad as the old maids. With all them relatives watching an' the way their sisters hang on ‘em, all they do is talk. Oh, they'd like to cut loose. That Dennie pinched my niece's ass once... sorry, ma'am... and Al, he took a short cut back to town with some lady entertainer they had out there and got stuck in a ditch by the river. Bennie Sachs was on night patrol and hauled them out. Old Al had some scratches on his cheek, but he said he got them from the bushes. The dame, she wasn't talking and never said nothin' anyway, so we made a few jokes about it, then it all died down.” Tod let out a rumbling chuckle again and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I still think he made a pass at her. It would take a blindman not to see that ditch in a full moon.”

“Lousy technique,” I said.

“You have a better one?” Sharon asked me.

“Later you'll find out.”

“Ah, you kids,” Tod muttered.

I finished the beer and pushed off the stool. “Where does that niece of yours live?”

“Over on Highland. White house at the top of the hill.” He gave me a shrewd look. “You figuring to hang something on those cousins of yours?”

“I sure would like to have something to prod them with.”

“Anything doing, Louise'll tell you. And good luck. I don't like them snotnoses. Just tell Louise I sent you.”

“Thanks, I'll do that.”

“You coming back?”

I nodded and pushed a pair of singles across the bar. “Hell, Tod, I'm already here.”

 

Sharon was beginning to enjoy the game. Linton had been her backyard too and she knew her way around the streets and rear alleys better than I did, pointing out familiar landmarks, making me pause to look at her old school and stopping in a few stores to say hello to old friends. Of the dozen or so people I spoke to, she knew several of them, but all we managed to get was a blank as far as the Barrin family was concerned. The aristocracy was safely barricaded behind their fortifications on the estate with their private lives well hidden.