The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of (13 page)

They had cups of coffee too, and Franklin smoked a slim cigar. He leaned back in his chair, paying her grave attention. She read aloud from a typed list open on the cloth where her plate had been. Dave heard her say “museum” and “curator” and “Arkansas.” There was no way to the door but past them. He hoped they were too busy to notice. Franklin raised his odd blue eyes and jerked a nod but swung his attention back to the woman right away. Plainly he wanted an encounter as much as Dave did. Then she looked up. And drew a sharp breath. And pushed back her chair. A patchwork knitting bag slid off her lap and spilled on the deck. Envelopes. Institutional checks.

“Oh, wait, please.” She came after him.

“He’s all right,” Dave said. “Safe in his trailer.”

“I owe you an explanation,” she said, “after this noon. You see, when I found him, he was sick, helpless—”

Franklin said, “Time comes when the only smart thing is to cut your losses. Mona—the nice man knows that.”

“Is he—?” she began. “Did he—?”

Franklin said, “She means, he talks too much.”

“He’s had quite a life,” Dave said.

“I’m afraid he’s angry at me,” she said, “but—”

“He’s grateful to you,” Dave said.

She studied his face, mistrustful, looking for irony.

“What did I tell you?” Franklin said. “Drink, Mr.—?”

“Brandstetter. No, thanks. I’d better eat while the kitchen’s still open.” He went inside.

The kitchen was closed. By folding a twenty-dollar bill into the palm of a tailored and unsmiling maître d’ he got the kitchen opened again. He also got a smile, a table, and a roomful of silence. In a corner, a spotlight shone on a microphone, a tall black stool, and a closed guitar case. A waiter in a red jacket began bending at the empty tables, blowing out the candles. With a glance at Dave, the maître d’ made him stop. Dave ate lettuce with oil and tarragon vinegar, a slab of grilled swordfish with lemon butter. He drank half the icy Chablis from a slender green bottle and, when he left, carried the bottle along.

This meant to him that he was drunk. That he was drunk meant to him that he was very tired. His knees told him the same thing when he climbed the steps to the motel deck. Then he pushed the door with the broken lock and felt awake and sober—because he saw himself reflected in the glass of the television set, and he had left the television set lying on its back. Not much light reached here from the clear glass globes on posts along the waterfront below, but it let him see that the chest drawers were back in place. He hadn’t told the motel office. If they’d found out for themselves, they’d have fixed the lock. And the lights. He slid a hand inside and moved the switch. Nothing happened.

He didn’t feel brave. He felt annoyed. He changed his grip on the bottle and took a step through the doorway. The bed jounced and he saw eye whites, a gleam of teeth, a form coming at him.
Lester Green,
he thought.
I could have slept in the car.
And he swung the bottle. At the head. But the bottle surprised him with its weight. It didn’t get that high. Also it was slippery. It glanced off a shoulder and left his hand. Someplace in the dark it struck a wall and the floor. There was a yelp. A black sprawl twisted and whimpered at his feet. He ran to the bathroom and switched on the light. Hard white enamel covered the door. The light glared off it into the room.

From beside the bed, Cecil Harris looked at him—the skinny black college boy from
KSDC-TV
. His eyes were round. He clutched his shoulder. “Shee-it, man,” he said reproachfully, “what did you do that for?”

“I can’t imagine,” Dave said. “I don’t, usually.”

“I thought you’d be glad to see me.” Cecil pushed to his feet, grimacing, moving the arm to see if it worked.

“I guess you did,” Dave said. “Otherwise you’d have your clothes on.”

Cecil looked down at himself and looked up, smiling shyly. “We did the signals, didn’t we? This morning. I knew and you knew and you knew I knew—right?”

“It happens,” Dave said. “I’m still surprised.”

“That’s what I meant it to be,” Cecil said. “A nice surprise.” He glanced at the bed. The red, white, and blue spread held the long, narrow imprint of his body. “Found the door open and it came to me to wait.” He passed Dave and crouched. “Had the loaf of bread.” He came up from the corner with the bottle. “Now I got the wine.” He smiled. “And thou.” He rubbed his shoulder.

“How bad is that?” Dave asked him.

“I’ll be black and blue for life,” Cecil said. “Man, you are no housekeeper, I had a lot of tidying up to do.”

“People keep helping themselves to my room.”

“The same ones that slashed your tires?” Cecil went into the bathroom and came out with two of the plastic glasses. He set them on the chest, uncapped the bottle, and poured the pale wine. He pulled the loaf of bread out of its sack and tore it in his hands. He passed a chunk to Dave and handed him a glass, looking at him with earnestness and pain. “Man, what I want is not to break bread and drink wine with you.”

“It’s a way to keep out of trouble,” Dave said. “Did you see who slashed my tires?”

“I even took a picture,” Cecil said. “A movie.”

“Lose it,” Dave said. “You know what happens to young blacks who cross the La Caleta police.”

“Honkies, too, look like.” Cecil lifted the plastic glass. “Here’s to that trouble you mentioned.” He drank and showed surprise. “Oh, that is good wine.” He bit into the bread and spat it out. “Christ, what is that?” He peered at the lump in his palm. He took away Dave’s chunk. “Don’t eat that. Bound to kill you.” He went into the bathroom again. The toilet flushed.

Dave stepped to the doorway. Cecil bent at the basin, noisily washing out his mouth. In the white dazzle of tile, paint, mirror, the detail of how he was made showed. Out of clothes, he didn’t look skinny. His face where he shaved was rough. The rest of him was smooth. He groped for a towel, scrubbed his face, caught Dave staring, and grinned. They hadn’t tamed his grin for the camera yet. It showed his gums.

“You followed me,” Dave said.

“And I’m not even a masochist.” Cecil hung up the towel, switched off the light, and reached for Dave. “Let’s get into trouble now, okay?”

Dave turned away. “I’m too old for you. I’m drunk. I haven’t slept in nearly forty hours. And I have a phone call to make.”

“It’s late,” Cecil said. “They’ll be asleep.”

Dave carried the phone to the open door where the deck lamps below let him just make out the circle of numbers. He held the receiver with a shoulder and dialed. In the dark room, the bedspread billowed up like a night sail and fell. The bed creaked. “You know where to find me, old man,” Cecil said.

On the phone the doctor said, “We’re doing our best.”

“They called you in, did they?” Dave said. “This afternoon they told me he was better.”

“He could rally again,” the doctor said.

“But you don’t think he will,” Dave said.

“I wish it were morning,” the doctor said.

“Don’t they die in the morning?”

“They don’t seem to. Not as often.”

“Once is all it takes,” Dave said, and hung up. He leaned in the doorway, hearing the water lap around the boats, seeing the masts sway. The bay was glassy black. Lonely lights were scattered along the curving shore. The hills rose dark behind them. There were more stars now. He carried the phone back to the stand and set it there with a faint jingle of its bell. He sat on the bed and tugged off the canvas shoes. “How’s your father?”

“How is anybody in Detroit?” The words came muffled.

Dave pulled the denim tunic off over his head. “You don’t miss him?”

“Man, I don’t remember anything about him.” The bed jounced. Warm hands were on Dave’s shoulders. Warm breath was on the back of his neck. A kiss. “Why should I miss anybody? Here. Now.”

Dave sighed. “Just a minute.” He hiked his butt and shoved the pants down. He kicked them away, turned, and took Cecil’s face in his hands. All he could see of it were the eyes. But his mouth found the mouth he couldn’t see and kissed it. He said, “You have a long lifetime before you. I hope that during that long lifetime you never have occasion to be as tired as I am right now. To make the following announcement saddens me. I hope it saddens you, though I shouldn’t, and it shouldn’t. But when my head hits that pillow, there’s no way I’m going to do anything but sleep.”

Cecil’s laugh was soft and wicked. “We’ll see.”

The bed moved. The warmth went from beside him. He moaned and opened his eyes. Colors shifted in the night room. There was an electronic twittering. He pushed up on an elbow and winced at the ache in his muscles. Cecil crouched in front of the television set. On the screen, cartoon dinosaurs melted into a pool of crude oil. Bright rubber automobiles passed. A dinosaur peered from a gas tank.

“They figure out cute ways”—Cecil came back to the bed—“to tell us we’re all doomed.” He fell beside Dave, pulled Dave down, hung an arm across him.

“I’ve read about the need,” Dave said, “of today’s young for constant visual stimulation but this is—”

Cecil’s hand stopped his mouth. “Wait,” he said. “Coming up is the second part of my surprise.”

Dave took the hand, kissed it, put it lower where he wanted it. He turned onto his side, shut his eyes and fitted himself into Cecil’s angles. “I liked the first part,” he mumbled, and fell asleep again.

But not for long. Cecil was shaking his shoulder. “Wake up. Here it comes now. Your TV debut. You don’t know how beautiful you are.”

Daisy Flynn spoke his name. He sat up and squinted at the phosphorescent picture. A lean, blond man in blue denim walked beside Hector Rodriguez through the dappled leaf shadow of the nursery. Daisy Flynn’s voice was saying “… business partner of Cliff Kerlee, now awaiting trial for the slaying of La Caleta Police Chief Benjamin J. Orton.” Now Hector Rodriguez flinched alone in sunlight and kept rubbing his smooth brown chest. He said, “I told him the same thing I told the officers. Cliff didn’t do it. He was here with me when it happened.” The camera had shaken Rodriguez’s nerve. The lean, blond man in denim sat drinking beer on Richard T. Nowell’s terrace. The picture had fuzzy edges and it jittered. Dave looked at Cecil, who shrugged.

“That hillside is loose. My feet kept slipping. I balanced it on a rock. But that’s a telephoto shot. I really held it steadier than that.”

“The whirring noise,” Dave said.

“I thought you had me in that shed across from Mrs. Green’s house,” Cecil said. “I nearly pissed.”

“The Ford van.” Dave stared without seeing at Dick Nowell’s tight little smile and didn’t hear the man’s words. He set his feet on the rug. “You little sneak.”

“Come on!” Cecil said. “You told me it was my beat.”

“No—you told me. I should have listened.” He stood up. Too fast. It made his head hurt. “There are some pills in my shaving kit,” he said. “Get them for me, please.” Grimacing, he bent to switch off the set, then changed his mind. He straightened up carefully and Cecil put a damp glass into his hand.

“How many?” he said, and, when Dave held up fingers, shook two into his palm. “How come antihistamine?”

“It’s a wine headache.” Dave put the pills into his mouth and washed them down with water from the glass. “Wine is rich in histamines. That’s why you get wine headaches. Easiest headaches in the world to cure.” He gave back the glass. “You, on the other hand—”

“It’s all true,” Cecil said.

“It would he just as true if you hadn’t taken pictures of it,” Dave said.

He stood among the drooping branches of the old pepper tree on the stoop at Ophelia Green’s, leaning a hand on the doorframe, talking to an old black screen. Then there was the stoic, high-cheekboned face of Ophelia Green. Then came her words: “Just an insurance man, is all I know. I can’t afford any insurance. Nothing about my son. I don’t know anything about it.” And the door with the cracked pane closed.

Daisy Flynn looked out at the naked pair of them and said something about a Channel Ten Latenews Exclusive. And there was a poorly lit shot of the little green car in its grave of green vines, and words about the car being registered to Benjamin J. Orton. “On tomorrow’s morning news,
KSDC-TV
expects to bring you an interview with David Brandstetter on the purpose of his—” Dave shut the set off.

“You want to take the tape recorder out from under the bed now?” he said. “Bending makes my head hurt.”

“Shit.” Cecil jerked his own head—so hard it made the whole slender length of him jump. “What kind of creep do you think I am?”

“The kind that only does his job,” Dave said.

“Like you,” Cecil jeered. “Oh, yes. Don’t try to—”

The telephone rang. Cecil looked at it scared. Young and bare-assed in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something else scared Dave. He saw the shadowy hospital room. He saw Carl Brandstetter’s big, handsome head over against the bars of the high bed. He saw a nurse untape the wires from the stilled hands, pull away the oxygen tubes from the face. He saw orderlies in rumpled white wheel in a shiny trolley. To make himself stop seeing, he went and picked up the phone.

“I didn’t know who you were.” The words came slurred. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did I have to see it on the news?” False teeth rattled. “Thought we were friends.”

“Smith?” For a second, Dave held the receiver away and stared at it. “Is this Tyree Smith?”

“I could have told you who killed the son of a bitch,” Smith said. “All you had to do was ask me.”

“You told me,” Dave said. “Mrs. Orton—remember?”

Something banged the phone at Smith’s end. A glass? Bottle, more likely. “You don’t want to pay”—Smith belched—“too much attention to my dramatic improv—” He backed off and tried the word again. “Improvisations.”

“You mean she didn’t threaten him?”

“Way I told you,” Smith said. “But, face it—she couldn’t step on an ant.” The banging happened again. He must have dropped the receiver. It swung on its wire against the glass of the lonely booth under the eucalyptus trees. Then Smith had it again. “My car’s missing. You come here.”

“That newscast was stale,” Dave said. “I’m off the case now. The police are handling it. Phone them.”