Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (6 page)

    "Oh, God, McCain," she said, "it's so awful. He died in your office?"

    I nodded. "Though he was pretty much dead when he got there."

    "I understand he drove. How could he have?"

    "He kept his Jaguar in a garage a block away - whenever he came downtown, I mean. He was always afraid somebody would run into it. My guess is somebody was waiting for him in the garage."

    "That damned car of his." Shook her head. "A hick in a fancy car like that." She glanced over at the black professor. "Nigger rich, if you know what I mean. Same difference."

    "I guess I never thought of him as a hick."

    "You never really get over the circumstances you were born into. I can't. Nice middle-class Irish Catholic girl from Long Island. I keep trying to leave all my prejudices behind and be more sophisticated, but it's never easy." She smiled. "Parents are like Jesuits. Once they get ahold of you, they never let go." Then: "Oh, Jeez, got to run. My little one's at the baby-sitter." People figured, her being a college prof and a divorcee at that, she'd be easy to get into bed. I've got two bottles of wine and a whole lot of begging to say otherwise. I guess I've never had much luck with the so-called "easy" ones, but then, come to think of it, I haven't had much luck with the "hard" ones either.

    I drifted down the hall. Nobody paid any special attention because the men's room was down there around the corner. So was Conners's office. I figured that Cliffie, being Cliffie, probably hadn't thought to seal his office for evidence. That would be too much like actual modern-day law enforcement. And I was right. The short hall had two offices on one wall, an office and a men's room on the other. There was an exit sign above the door ahead of me. The ideal office setup. You could sneak out without anybody seeing you.

    I saw a very pretty young Negro woman slowly twisting a knob on a door. She was unaware of me at first. She gave the impression of sneaking in. I wondered why. When she saw me, she jumped back from the door and said, "Oh, poor Dr. Conners." She wore a white frilly blouse and a tan skirt with argyle knee socks. With her tortoise-shell eyeglasses, she looked modern and imposing. "I'm Margo Lane. I am - was - his student assistant." Her dark eyes glistened with tears; her perfume gave off an intoxicating heat. "I'm sorry. I need a cup of coffee and a cigarette." She gave a startled little cry and pushed past me.

    Between the offices on the west wall was a bulletin board thumbtacked with a variety of colorful brochures offering student scholarships, study vacations, summer jobs, and enlistment in all the armed forces. The draft hung heavy on every young man's mind. It was why I'd joined the National Guard. Ike was sending advisers to a place called Vietnam, but it didn't look like it would become anything serious. It was probably a good time to enlist and get it out of the way.

    I heard a chair scrape against the floor on the other side of Conners's closed door and knew something was wrong. Could be his wife or mother, but I guessed otherwise.

    I needed some of Helen Grady's hard-boiled talk to get me in the mood for what I was about to do. But I figured the best - probably, only - weapon I had was surprise.

    The door was unlocked, which helped. I flung it inward and there he was, hunched over Conners's desk, pulling out a drawer.

    He managed to look totally unperturbed. "Hi," he said. "Help you with something?"

    "Yeah," I said, "you can tell me who you are and what you're doing here."

    "Oh, I'm sorry." He slid the drawer closed and stood up. He was a city fellow, vaguely military. Even with the gray Brooks Brothers suit, the white oxford shirt, and the red-gray-black regimental striped tie - military. He had a lean, angular, feral face. The mouth was too thin and the ears were slightly pointed. He had great teeth. They sparkled. He was thirty or so. "I'm a cousin of the Conners family."

    "I see."

    "And you are?"

    "I'm Sam McCain. I was working for Conners."

    "Good for you."

    He didn't make a fuss of it. Simply brought it out of a very secretive shoulder holster. A Luger, for God's sake. "If you've got half a brain, hayseed, this gun should be scaring the shit out of you."

    "It'd make a hell of a lot of noise."

    "Yeah, but you wouldn't be around to hear it."

    "So who are you?"

    He had a nice grin. Like on TV. But it was a cold grin, the same kind of cold amusement as in the gray eyes. "You fucking farm boys. Whaddaya think I'm gonna do? Hand you my ID and write down my home phone number?"

    "I'd appreciate it if you would."

    Then he said: "Wait a minute. You're the lawyer he talked to. When you were seeing Khrushchev."

    "Were you there?"

    "No. And it's a good thing I wasn't. Would've taken every ounce of self-control I had not to shoot that sonofabitch."

    "Khrushchev or Conners?"

    He grinned. "Both." Then: "Take two steps back and close the door. Real easy. Then take two steps forward and put your hands above your head."

    "We going to do some calisthenics, are we?"

    "You're pretty bright for a shitkicker."

    "You're pretty friendly for a psycho."

    He laughed. He actually laughed. Then he motioned with the gun the way they do in the movies. I took two steps back and closed the door gently. I had no thought of escape. I had no doubt he'd shoot me on the spot and worry about his escape afterward. Then I took two steps forward and put my hands above my head.

    I had never been hit by anything so hard in my life. It did more than double me over, it felt as if it had tripled me over. One punch into my sternum. I went to my knees. I fell to my face. I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. I felt nauseated.

    He went back to searching through drawers. A couple times, he laughed and said, "How you doin', shitkicker? I figured you country boys could take it better'n that."

    Standing up took a lot of effort. I pushed through the pain. He kept glancing at me, making sure I was still sufficiently disabled. Now he was going through a closet. "You better hope I find what I'm looking for, hayseed. Because otherwise I start in on you again."

    I want to give you something tomorrow. Want you to keep it for me.

    In the chaos of the past few hours, I'd forgotten what Conners had said to me yesterday at the Khrushchev visit. Want you to keep it for me. Was this what the tough guy was looking for? And, just maybe, could it also be the same thing Conners might have been murdered for? And, if so, what the hell was it?

    I stood upright. My breathing was almost regular again. Watching him, I realized I wanted to kill him. Literally. I don't have thoughts like that very often and didn't know what to do with them when I had them. He was right, I was just a shitkicker, and shitkickers don't go around killing people. But in his case, I'd make an exception. He'd hurt my body a lot but even more he'd hurt my pride. The body heals; pride doesn't.

    He was just closing the closet door - "Looks like you 'n me need to have a talk, hayseed - " when the office door opened and there stood Cliffie.

    For the first and only time I was happy to see him. I wanted him to throw this bastard in jail and keep him there for a good long time. He'd broken into Conners's office, if nothing else.

    I'd just opened my mouth to tell Cliffie about him when the tough guy said, "Hey, Cliff, we still on for that steak dinner tonight?"

    "You're damned right we are," Cliffie said. "The missus went to the beauty parlor and everything."

    "Too bad I don't have my own missus along," the tough guy said.

    Cliffie said, "See you've met McCain."

    "Not exactly." The tough guy revealed his teeth again and pushed his hand out to shake.

    I kept both my hands at my sides. "Arrest this prick."

    "McCain," Cliffie said, as if I'd finally lost my mind, "do you know who this man is?" I heard something rare in Cliffie's voice. Reverence. This was somebody Cliffie actually admired.

    "Yeah, I know who he is. He's the guy who broke into Conners's office."

    "And got a little rough," the tough guy said. "I think I hurt his feelings. You know how sensitive short people are."

    Cliffie smiled. "Sorry I missed that part of it. I get a little rough with him every once in a while myself." Then: "For the record, McCain, the man you're insulting is an FBI agent."

    "Bullshit," I said.

    "What's that supposed to mean?" Cliffie said.

    "It means he's not an FBI agent."

    "Oh, no? Show him, Mr. Rivers."

    "Please. Not Mr. Rivers. I'm one of those agents who likes to work with local law enforcement as equals. Remember?"

    Cliffie looked mightily pleased. Gary Cooper couldn't have delivered that last speech any better. "All right, go ahead and show the little prick your ID."

    Which he did. I stared at the badge and the ID - Karl Rivers - and I still said, "Bullshit."

    "Bullshit what?" Cliffie said.

    "He's not an FBI man."

    "Then where'd he get the ID?"

    "You're starting to make me angry, Mr. McCain," Rivers said. "It's one thing to dislike me. It's another to question my credentials. Cliff here is the law in this town, and if my ID is good enough for him, I'd expect it to be good enough for you."

    "He wants something of Conners, Sykes. He's up to something."

    Cliffie said, "Of course he wants something of Conners. That's why he's here. The Agency's been trying to nail Conners for years. The fucking commie." Not lost on my ever-sensitive ear was the term "the Agency." Rivers had turned Cliffie into a junior FBI agent.

    I knew there was no use arguing.

    No use arguing at all.

    "I hope I get a chance to buy you a drink sometime, Mr. McCain," Rivers said, as I walked out the door.

    

    

    I had a couple of beers. One thing you can say about our little town is you've certainly got your choice of taverns. This particular one had a lot of songs from the forties on the jukebox. I like hearing them because they remind me of my mom and dad and that time right after the war when he was always bringing her little gifts, as if he had to court her all over again. And in a way, I suppose he did. He'd been gone for a long time and several of his friends had been killed and the dad who went wasn't exactly the dad who came back. He bought himself one good suit at J. C. Penney's and by God from 1946 to 1948 that suit was on his back three nights a week. Their favorite night out was on the dance boat Moonglow: a big dance floor with a small bar, a couple of rest rooms, and an upper deck where you could sit and watch the stars. It was a special night when you went on the Moonglow. Women wore corsages and men wore shoes so new they squeaked.

    I was thinking about all this stuff because I didn't want to think about what I really wanted to think about. Namely how Rivers - and I doubted that was his name - had unmanned me. I don't mind losing a fight if I get in a few good punches. I've never been tough and I never will be. But I always make them pay for the privilege of beating the crap out of me. That way, they get the satisfaction of spilling some blood - mine - and I get the satisfaction of knowing I'm not a coward. So I had a couple of beers and thought about all the ways I could restore my manhood. I could drown him, burn him, hang him, disembowel him, suffocate him, run over him, throw him off a cliff, strangle him, stab him, shoot him, throw him in a snake pit, or make him listen to Liberace records. The trouble was, none of those alternatives seemed sufficiently nasty.

    Most of the talk at the bar was about Conners's murder. You have to admire that in small towns. They give murder its due. In big cities, most murders get reported on page 17, if they get reported at all. But here we give them proper respect. A life has been taken. The entire town knows and honors it by talking about it. It is a seminal and communal experience for the most heinous of sins.

    What surprised me was the goodwill these workingmen had for Conners. They didn't talk about his Jaguar or his philandering or his haughtiness. They talked about how hard he'd always stood for the common man. How he'd fought big business and how he'd seen to it that Iowa got drought relief and flood relief and medical care. And how his speeches stirred real passion at Memorial Day salutes to fallen soldiers. And how, when agribusiness started buying up small farms (in many cases, secretly arranging with city banks to pull loans that would force the small farms out of business), he had gone to the state legislature and whipped up the senators and representatives who wouldn't accept the bribes the big agribusiness companies were offering. And the same with strikes. He was despised by businessmen and they were always hanging the "commie" charge around his neck. He might drive a Jaguar but he never forgot where he came from.

    I'd planned on two beers. But I had three. And I felt better. Screw Rivers. No matter who he was or what he was after, he couldn't take Conners's legend away from him. I even started feeling sentimental about Conners, forgetting how much I'd despised him in some ways. Beer will do that to you. So will tales of a single man standing up against the power brokers.

    

    

    I'd never felt embarrassed about seeing Mrs. Goldman before. We were good friends. Two or three times a week, she'd have me down for supper and we'd usually end up watching TV for a couple of hours on her new RCA console. It was a honey. We liked detective shows - the Warner Brothers ones especially, like "77 Sunset Strip."

    But I felt pretty stupid tonight. This morning, drunk and all, I'd acted like a high school kid. Now I had a box of candy and six red roses in my hands as I came into the vestibule. I was about to tuck the chocolates under my arm so I could knock when the door opened up and there stood Mrs. Goldman. She had the figure of a much younger woman, and it never looked better than in jeans and a man's white button-down shirt. Especially when she wore a cute little red bow on the right side of her head.