Only Make Believe (20 page)

Bud found the pint, unscrewed the cap, swigged and dumped a heavy shot in my glass. “Don’t make no difference what you want, Mr. Civilian. The government can call me up tomorrow and I got to go.” He handed me the drink. “We got to quit all this. I mean it. Why don’t you tuck in your shirt there? Zip up your pants?”

I drained my glass, stood up, put my hands on his shoulders to steady myself. “We’re not quitting anything. We’re a pair. We’re an army of two. The admiral’s on our side, him and his investors. The sheriff is taken care of, whatever he says. They’re not—we’re not—gonna let the hypocritical bastards defeat us. I love you, goddamn it. Don’t you know that?”

I tried to kiss him. He pulled away. I reached for his belt, undid the buckle and tried to caress the crack of his butt the way I knew he liked. His pants slipped down his legs, puddling around his feet.

He shook his head. “Take that someplace else, Lieutenant. I ain’t interested. Probably you ought to carry them pretty words on home now. Back to the—your—hotel.”

I felt like I’d been kicked in the gut. “Are you not interested
now
,” I half-whispered, “or just not interested? What happened?”

He raised his hand as if he intended to grab my shoulder and give me a shove. “The Diva might still be alive if I’d been doing my job, patrolling the halls. Not mixing it up with you.”

He turned toward the window. His shoulders were shaking. “Just get on out, Dan,” he whispered, not looking at me. “Been too much a that moony stuff around here already. Let me alone.” He reached for his pants and pulled them up.

“No,” I shouted. “Hell no. There hasn’t been nearly enough. You’re staying here. Screw Korea.”

Behind me, a sudden, sharp knock. The door slammed open. There stood an unsteady Larry Doolittle, now fully dressed for hunting, shotgun in hand. He stared at the two of us for fully ten seconds. “Christ,” he finally said, his voice slurred. “Queerin’ each other. Accusin’ me of doin’ something dirty with that fairy wop. Like I ever would. And it’s you doing the queerin.’ I wanted to talk serious about lettin’ me go on home, leave my gun here like, as bail. It’s worth, say, eight hundred dollars.”

“Put that weapon down, now,” Bud barked. “Put it on the floor and raise your hands over your head.”

Doolittle paid no attention. “Sister was right, perverts is what you are. Hardy Boys—you, you with your pants open. Look here.” He raised the shotgun, his hands shaking but his eyes wide open. He took aim and then, as he began to squeeze the trigger, whispered, “Not worth shootin’, but—”

Bud, though drunk, hadn’t been drinking all day so he was in better shape than Doolittle. He was experienced in battle and on home ground. In half an instant he’d snatched up the pint of Bacardi with one hand, pushed me aside with the other and hurled the bottle at Doolittle’s eye.

The former all-state baseball player scored. Doolittle cried out, dropped the gun and clutched his cut face with both hands. But both barrels went off, destroying four panes of window glass, a pair of cotton-print curtains and the Venetian blinds that shaded the room. Within seconds, Bud had Doolittle face down, right arm in a hammerlock, and was riding his back.

“Cuffs,” Bud shouted at me. “Right there, top drawer. Hand ’em here. On the double.”

I’d been trying to tuck in my shirt. I quickly turned, snatched the cuffs out of the bureau and positioned them over Doolittle’s wrist.

Bud snapped a bracelet on the right wrist. “Grab his other paw. Yeah, there, right there. Watch it. OK, I got him, I got him. Fuckin’ drunk. Ain’t leaving Myers any time soon. Got more questions to answer now. Charges to answer for. Attempted assault on an officer of the law, destroying private property, discharge of a firearm within city limits.”

I stepped back. Bud’s pants had fallen down again, his shirt was open, his eyes wild. Adrenalin and anger were masking the fact that he was too drunk to process an arrest, much less drive Doolittle to jail.

Bud’s landlady, a plump, white-haired figure in a cotton housecoat, appeared at the door. “Bud Wright, you know I don’t allow such foolishness in my house. You’re inebriated again, aren’t you?”

“Almost got killed, Mom. Hell of a—”

“You’re responsible for those curtains and the window, young man. Pull up your pants, now. You’ll freeze your brass monkeys.”

And I’d thought Mom Peacock was the shy, retiring type.

“Call the station house, Dan.” Bud was on the floor on his back, trying to get his pants up. “Yes, Mom. It’ll get took care of.”

“Do you think I could get hold of Officer Hurston? The one that guarded the room over at the Caloosa? You trust him, don’t you?”

“The half-breed? Yeah, whyn’t cha call the desk? Hurston’s probably working tonight. Tell ’em who you’re calling for, that I’ve got an assault and attempted murder suspect and need Hurston to take him off my hands. Say it’s his kind of prisoner.”

“Colored, you mean?”

“If you have to. Desk sergeant prob’ly won’t ask.”

“Christ,” Doolittle cried. “You fairies are gettin’ a nigger down here to arrest me? I won’t have it. I just wanted to talk. Post bail. You’re in cahoots against me. Call my sister. You ought to be castrated. Just like steers.”

I tied a towel around his mouth.

Hurston and another officer arrived ten minutes after my call, took Doolittle and his shotgun into custody and congratulated Bud on a job well done. Lucille Shepherd bailed out her brother the next morning. She then informed the sheriff that Doc was already on his way back from the coroners’ convention in New Orleans, and that he was very unhappy about the misunderstandings and mistakes made by junior detective Bud Wright.

Once Doolittle, Hurston and the other cop were gone, Bud pointed at the open door. He needed sleep, he said. He had to write up a charge sheet first thing the next morning, he said. He would have to get up early to do it. Maybe, he suggested, I could do a security walk-through once I got back to the hotel.

Sometimes I think I should have stayed there with him, thrown him down on the bed, comforted him by force and let what happened later happen without me. That was my usual way of handling Bud’s despairing, angry moods. But I took him at his word. Pulling on my jacket, I headed for the street. Outside, I hardly felt the cold. I turned on the heater in the car but it didn’t help.

Back at the Caloosa, I was jumpy and sad and horny as hell. Sleep wasn’t going to come soon. I was damned if I’d take matters into my own hands. No matter how often I spilled my stuff down the drain, anger and frustration only increased my horniness. And it was too late to swim laps.

No, I figured Bud and I would work out our differences tomorrow or the next day. We’d mix it up happily, laughing and sweating and grunting, like always. I wanted to save my energy and pent-up passion for him. Two years with this inarticulate, complex man had taught me a lot.

So I pulled the old watch coat out of the closet, grabbed a sandwich and a beer from the room-service reefer and strolled out to the hotel dock. Along the seawall, the wind was hard and blustery. Lights from the hotel and nearby City Marina danced across the wavetops.

Boat driver Emma Mae Bellweather was hosing down the fish-cleaning stand. “More bad news, boss,” she called, turning off the water when I approached. “Or rather the same preacher-fucks-a-seagull news.”

Emma Mae was a local girl with a sweet face, three years’ wartime experience as a motor-pool mechanic and a tongue that could blister paint. “You want to know the truth, boss, you’re gonna lose me and a bunch a paying customers one a’ these days if this floating shit house ever hits two six-foot waves in succession.”

“Another leak, huh. Didn’t we just have her hauled out? I signed a check for four-hundred-and-something dollars for caulking, bracing, marine paint and complete engine overhaul.”

“Them cunt-lapping sons of diseased whores at Dipper Marine, they did a outstanding job, too. But they must have been jerkin’ their wieners the day they sealed the packing around the shaft. Boss, that hole leaks faster than a Brazilian sailor with a six-week case of clap.”

I set the bottle of beer on a post, unwrapped the sandwich, looked inside—chicken salad, lettuce and tomato on white—and took a bite. “Run her back to the yard. Tell them we paid for a tight fit, not sloppy seconds. Ask for a twenty percent refund for our trouble.”

“Just what I was about to suggest, boss.” She laughed and began rolling up the hose. “Speaking of tight fits. Have you and the house dick figured out who fucked our lady friend to death yet?”

I almost spit out the mouthful of chicken, celery and bread. “Fucked our what?”

“The queen of hearts they hauled out of here on a stretcher.”

“Mr. DiGennaro, you mean?”

“That was an ugly story in the newspaper, boss.”

I sucked beer before I answered. “It didn’t actually name the Caloosa.”

“People know. Still, Ralph the Sponge wouldn’t have published that hooey about queer boys and foundation garments if it was local people involved.”

“Who told you Mr. DiGennaro was fucked to death? There was nothing like that in Nype’s story. It isn’t true.”

Emma Mae looked around, then dug in her pocket for cigarettes. “People just assume.”

“He wasn’t.”

“He was hurt in that area. So I hear.”

“That didn’t kill him. He had a heart attack in the emergency room. Local people saw him in the club wearing a dress, rode him up and down in the elevator, talked to him in the hall, served him in the dining room. Local people helped him with his makeup and wig. Local people applauded him when he sang. Local men asked him to dance.”

Emma Mae lit a Lucky Strike. “And one of ’em did him the dirty?” She sucked in smoke, blew it out and shook her head. “Or was it out-of-town trouble that sent him to the big whorehouse in the sky?”

“We haven’t found anybody local who saw anybody else go upstairs with him. Or approach his room. Nobody heard anything. Guests, club members, staff—nobody. Nobody knows who wrote those words on room 522’s door, either.”

Emma Mae smiled broadly. “Either somebody’s lying or you haven’t asked the right people. Good thing I don’t wear lipstick or you’d be after me.”

“We’ve asked everybody who was here Sunday night. They saw him, they were fooled or they weren’t.”

Emma Mae took another puff. “Little bird told me Larry Doolittle was seen putting the make on the, ah, victim.”

“Lucille Shepherd’s brother? He was falling-down drunk.”

Emma Mae liked to gossip. I decided not to mention that the homo-hating Doolittle was high on Bud’s short list of suspects. Or that he’d just been arrested for attempted murder, threats on an officer and assorted other charges.

“I had a girlfriend during the War that was raped by a drunk. He couldn’t get it up enough to get inside so he used a bottle a’ hair oil. He hurt her bad.”

“Jesus.”

“Jesus didn’t care—or he’d a’ stopped the son of a bishop before the bottle broke.”

“No bishops here Sunday night. Doctors, lawyers, widows, couple a twins.”

“Them two. They gave her they eye, too—or so I hear from Miss Carmen. And both of ’em a little less than stone cold sober theyselves.”

“The twins caught on quick and kept moving. Keep talking—widows, doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs.”

“Doc Shepherd, he’s a weird duck.” She tossed the cigarette butt into the river. The fast-moving current swept it away.

“They left here around midnight and Doc was with his wife the whole night. Lawyer? Indian chief? What about lawyer Barfield, you know him?”

“Wayne Larue? Local hero. Swapped part of his leg to the Germans for a chest full of decorations. They had a parade when he came back home. Mayor and the sheriff closed off First Street, Barfield he rode the old fire truck. My mama sent me the clippings. He sold war bonds. The high school band marched. They had some majorettes. His own mom was still alive in those days. Rest her soul.”

“You knew her?”

“The Barfields go back four or five generations. The lawyers in the family—the Barfields and the Newberrys—they practically own the court house. To this day.”

“What about the Fletcher boys, the nephews? One of them—big, with muscles, works at the Edison Estate—he was here Sunday night. Drove his uncle Wayne Larue into town from the beach and back home.”

I was trying to maintain a neutral tone. Emma Mae wasn’t saying much. But it felt good to run through the roster of possibilities. She knew more about the locals than Bud and I did, combined. No telling what missed detail might turn up.

“Oh yeah, me and Mary Nell Fletcher go way back. They came down here from Taylor County after the War—the first War. Fletcher men never amounted to much, you ask me. Mary Nell’s mother was born a Barfield. And she’s not herself these days, of course. Case of a inverted uterus, according to the doctors. Her last pregnancy did her in, you want to know the truth. It was a little girl, a mistake, and it died. Then all that upset about her boys. Both of ’em had to get married at the last minute, if you know what I mean. And their relatives had to support ’em, at first.”

“Uncle Wayne Larue, you mean?”