Last Ditch (15 page)

"The
papers are making like my father killed him. Like it's cut and dried.
No
question about it."

He
rolled his
eyes. "It's what they do," he said. "They sell papers."

'"The
SPD
has officially reopened the investigation." "So I heard."

"The
Price
family is going to bring big-time pressure. They're gonna play this one
for all
it's worth."

"No
doubt
about it," he said. "So the question becomes how're you gonna handle
it?"

He
was leading
me down a familiar and unwelcome path.

"I
can't
stand around and do nothing, Bermuda. It may
be the smart thing to do, but it's not the Leo thing to do. One of the
things
I've learned along the way is to recognize what I can and can't live
with, and
I've got some serious doubts about living with doing nothing here."

He
showed
another grin. "Then you do what you gotta do, Leo."

He
reached over
and put a hand on my shoulder.

"You
always hung in there, kid. It was your gift. Didn't matter whether your
team
was way ahead or way behind; you were always givin' it your all. Full
bore till
the final bell." He licked his lips. "With you, it never had anything
to do with the score. It's why I liked watching you play."

I
put my hand
on top of his hand and then leaned over and gently rested my forehead
on his.
We stayed that way for a moment.

"Thanks,
Bermuda," I said. "For all of it."

"Don't
mention ft, kid. It was my pleasure. Not everybody gets the pleasure of
watching somebody that hardheaded."

I
sat back.
"So you know me, man. You know, I'm gonna have to thrash around in this
a
bit. Like you said, it's my nature."

He
folded his
arms across his narrow chest. "Which is, I presume, how come I am now
blessed with the honor of your company . . . after all these years."

I
ignored the
dig and plowed on.

"I
figured
if anybody would know anything it would be you, Bermuda.
You guys spent most of your waking hours together."

The
rain ticked
like gravel on the window. As he turned his head toward the sound, the
light
streaming through the glass highlighted the wispy texture of his hair
and the
indefinite line of his profile. He spoke without turning my way.

"And
what
if I did know something, kid. What then? Suppose I could say to you
that I knew
how Peerless Price ended up planted in your father's backyard." He
leaned
back in the chair and caught my eye. "Are you sure you'd really want to
know? You ever think of that? What if the truth was something you
didn't want
to hear about?"

"Like
what?"

He
put his
index finger to his temple and cocked his thumb. "Like how about if old
Peerless pissed your father off one time too many and how about we took
him
down in the tide flats and put one in his ear." He dropped his thumb.
"What about that?"

"Is
that
what happened?"

"Nope,"
he said. "I'm just trying to make a point here, Leo."

"What
point is that?"

"That
what's
done is done. Peerless Price is gone. Your father, God rest his soul,
is gone.
Even if I knew something, what could I do now? You think I'd show your
father
so little honor as to violate his trust?" He spread his hands in
disbelief. "After all these years?"

"No.
I
don't figure you would."

He
smiled.
"I worked for the man for eighteen years, Leo. It wasn't for him I'd
have
ended up on a creeper selling pencils." He swept a hand about the room.
"He had a part in everything I got, kid. I got nothing but good things
to
say about. Bill Waterman."

"And
you've got no idea how Peerless Price ended up in my old man's
backyard?"

"None,"
he said. "Damnedest thing I ever heard of." He wagged a finger at me.
"Tell you one thing, though, kid . . ."

"What's
that?"

"Your
old
man had wanted to pop a cap on somebody, believe you me, he'da done it
right.
Whoever it was sure as hell wouldn'ta ended up planted in Bill's own
backyard,
and wherever he was planted, they wouldn'ta found him." He cut the air
with the side of his hand. "Not ever."

"That's
why I came to you, Bermuda. I never for a
second thought you'd sell my father out. No way. But this thing doesn't
make
sense to me, either. Like you just said, nobody pops his worst enemy
and buries
him in his own backyard."

Bermuda
shook his big head.

"Peerless
Price had a lot of enemies, kid. So did the Boss . . . your father. But
Price,
now, that son of a bitch had a real knack for making enemies." He
straightened himself in the chair. "Could be somebody was looking to
kill
two birds with one stone. Everybody knew about the bad blood between
them.
Everybody seen that picture they ran yesterday in the PL The one where
your dad
rearranged Price's mug for him. Wouldn't take a genius to put two and
two
together, pop Price and try to pin it on Bill Waterman."

"So
why
not wait a month and then call the cops? How come the body ends up
there for
almost thirty years?"

"You
got
me, Leo. I knew that ... I'd sell it to the National Enquirer. Move to
the Bahamas."

The
old house
creaked and groaned from the onslaught of the wind. Somewhere in the
back of
the building, a tree branch was sweeping back and forth across the roof
like
long fingernails.

I
sat back in
my chair, ran a hand over my face and pulled my notebook from my pants
pocket.

He
had a
faraway look in his eyes as he began to speak. "Your father . . ." he
looked over my way. "Now there was a man, Leo. When I first met him, I
was
. . ."

I
tuned him
out. I'd heard all the stories before and none of them sounded like
anybody I
knew. The way I saw it, either they were exaggerating everything or
they
weren't making people like they used to anymore. I sat back, set the
notebook
on my knee and waited for him to finish. It took him about ten minutes
to work
his way up to the present

"I
was
going through my father's daybooks for nineteen sixty-nine," I began.

"Among
the
finest pieces of fiction ever penned."

"Everything?"
I asked. "None of it's accurate?"

He
smiled.
"Well, must be some of it's the truth. Only a fool would he when he
don't
have to."

"It's
about the car mileage."

He
chuckled.
"How he hated having to keep track of all that shit" He spread his
big hands. "But what was he gonna do? Price had every city agency
running
audits on him. Didn't want to go down for something stupid like
expenses."

I
flipped open
the notebook. "If I'm reading this right" I began, "you guys
operated pretty much like clockwork. You'd drop him off at night and
then pick
him up every morning before eight."

"Seven
forty-five sharp. Monday through Friday."

"Except..."
I flipped back a couple of pages. "Except for May eighteenth and June
first nineteen sixty-nine."

He
looked
confused. "Except what?"

"According
to his daybooks, on those nights he gave you cab fare and took the car
himself."

He
answered
quickly. "If you say so, irid."

"What's
interesting
is that those are the only nights in the whole year when he took the
car
home." "If you say so," he said again. "You mean you don't
remember?" He jerked his head back and pulled off his glasses. "I
told you, kid, I remember just fine." "Well?" I prodded.

"Well
what? Like I'm supposed to remember what I was doin' on a specific
night thirty
years ago? Gimme a break here, Leo."

"If
you
don't remember, you don't remember."

He
slid his
glasses back onto his face and pinned me with a stare.

"I
hope
that's not as subtle as you get, kid."

I
smiled.
"Like you said before, Bermuda, subtlety's
not my strong point. I'm more the balls-to-the-wall type."

"Your
father always had an angle."

"I've
got
one too. Straight ahead."

"I
mean,
you know, kid . . . you and me ... we gonna get into that amateur
psychology
stuff, we gonna have to stomp around in that Freudian crap about you
spendin'
your life trying to fill your father's shoes." Behind the thick lenses,
his eyes nearly disappeared.

"I'm
not
trying to fill his shoes, Bermuda, I'm just
trying to scrape a little shit off them."

He
folded his
arms over what remained of his chest and rocked all the way back in the
chair.
"You sure?" he asked finally.

"Believe
me, if I hadn't given up trying to live up to other people's
expectations, I'd
be dead by now."

He
thrust his
lower lip out onto his chin and nodded.

"He
did
cast a hell of a shadow," he said.

"Don't
I
know it, man. I spent about ten years getting myself twisted so I
wouldn't have
to look at it."

"And
look
at what a fine figure of a man you've become."

His-Lips
formed
a thin smile, but his tone invited me to take his words any way I
wanted.
"Thanks," I said.

He
pushed his
glasses back up on his nose.

"Old
men
like me . . ." he started. ". . . we're always stuck in the past,
lookin' at the world in the rearview mirror, 'cause there's not much
highway
left out in front of us no more." He sighed and waved his hand. "No
point in it for you, though. Your future is all out in front of you,
kid. Only
good thing about the past is it's over."

I
shook my
head. "It's over for him. Maybe it's over for you. But it's not over
for
me."

He
turned his
face toward the window and began to rock. A spring somewhere inside the
chair
groaned every time he moved forward. Above the squeaking of the chair
and the
hissing of the gas fire, a car door slammed and then came the sounds of
feet
slapping the water in the street and the screen door groaning open. A
head
poked into the room.

"Hey,
Ed," she yelled.

She
was about
twenty and very fair. A thickset girl in a bright yellow raincoat, she
stepped
inside and pulled the yellow hood from her head. She had thick, wiry
blonde
hair and a mouthful of bad teeth. She spotted me.

"Oh
. . .
I'm sorry . . ." She looked over at Bermuda.
"I could come back, Ed. No prob ..."

"Amy,"
he said. "No, don't go. This is Leo Waterman."

She
shook the
water from herself and came my way. I stood up and offered a hand.
"Nice
to meet you, Amy."

Her
grip was
damp but strong.

"I
come
over to make Ed some lunch." She eyed me. "Waterman . . . Waterman .
. . Wasn't that the name of the guy Ed used to work for?"

"My
father," I said.

She
kept
pumping my hand and nodding. "Cool," she said. "I think we got
some turkey and some pita bread left. Got some chips, too. How 'bout I
make you
a sandwich too, Leo? Won't be no trouble."

"Thanks,
Amy, but I'm gonna run here in a minute."

"You
sure?"

"Thanks
anyway."

Satisfied,
she
ducked through the swinging door into the kitchen beyond. I heard the
rubbery
suck of the refrigerator being opened and the clink of glass before he
spoke.

"I
don't
know what he was doing with the car, Leo. .All of a sudden he just had
a bug up
his ass that he needed the car. Both times on a Friday night, too, so I
was
stuck taking the bus all goddamn weekend. Seemed like every Friday
night there
for a while, he'd tell me to pull over on First Avenue in front of the old Chase Hotel.
He'd slip me a fifty, tell me to take a cab both ways and that he'd see
me on
Monday."

"He
went
into the hotel?"

"Nope.
I
know that for sure 'cause that's where I always went to have a drink
and call a
cab. Only place in the neighborhood." He closed his eyes. "Place had
a real nice bar those days. Real money. City tore it down back in the
early
eighties. Tore down the whole block. Put up a damn parking garage." His
eyes opened. "Your dad, he drove off."

"Which
way?"

"He'd
go
up one block to Marion
and then go down the hill. Toward Alaska.
Same thing both times." I knew he meant Alaskan Way, not the state. "And
you
have no idea . . . ?"

"Wasn't
none of my business, Leo. Wasn't like I was gonna ask him or anything.
The Boss
wants the car, he gets the car." He sat forward in the chair. "I'll
tell ya something else, kid. Whatever he was doing cost some scratch.
He always
had a roll on those nights."