Spencerville (12 page)

Keith stood and began walking. A boom box blasted somewhere, rap music, a few teenage boys sat in a circle on the grass playing handheld electronic games, and a few old men sat on the benches. A young couple lay side by side on the lawn, grappling in fully clothed frustration.

Keith thought back to that summer, then to the autumn of that year. He and Annie had become perfectly matched lovers, reveling in their experimentations, their discoveries, their adolescent enthusiasm and stamina. There were no books on the subject, no X-rated videotapes, no guide to the mysteries of sex, but in some incredible instinctual way, they'd discovered oral sex, the sixty-nine position, the erogenous zones, erotic undressing, a dozen different positions, dirty talk, and playacting. He had no idea where all that came from, and they would sometimes jokingly accuse the other of having long sexual histories, or watching illegal blue movies made in Europe in those days, or of getting information from their friends. In reality, they were both virgins, both clueless, but they were inquisitive and surprisingly uninhibited.

They had made love every chance they had, every place they could, and kept it secret, as lovers had to do in those days.

Away at college, they could be more open, but the dorms were segregated by sex and tightly policed. The motels refused that sort of trade, so, for two years, they made love in an apartment off campus that belonged to married friends. Eventually, Annie rented a single room above a hardware store, though they still lived in their dorms.

Keith wondered again why they hadn't married then. Perhaps, he thought, they hadn't wanted to destroy the romance, the mystique, the taste of the forbidden fruit. And there seemed to be no rush, no need, no insecurities, while they were in the cloistered world of college.

But then came graduation and the draft notice. Half the men he'd known then regarded the draft notice not as a call to arms, but as a call to the altar. It didn't get you out of the Army, but it made life easier if you were a married soldier. You got to live off post after training, got extra pay, and being married reduced your chances of being sent into the meat grinder.

Yet they never really discussed marriage. Ultimately, he thought, we had different dreams. She liked campus life. I was itching for adventure.

They had been soulmates, friends, and lovers. They'd shared thoughts, feelings, and emotions. They'd shared their money, their cars, and their lives for over six years. But for all their openness with each other, neither could broach the subject of the future, neither wanted to hurt the other, so in the end, he'd leaned over her bed, kissed her, and left.

Keith was nearly at the other side of the park, and he could see the Posthouse across the street.

He heard loud voices to his left and turned. About thirty feet up an intersecting path stood two uniformed policemen. They were shouting at a man lying on a park bench, and one of them was tapping the man on the soles of his shoes with his nightstick. "Get up! Stand! Stand!"

The man stood unsteadily, and, in the illumination of a postlight, Keith saw that it was Billy Marlon.

One of the cops said, "I told you not to sleep here."

The other cop shouted, "You're a goddamned drunk! I'm sick of seeing you here! You're a bum!"

Keith wanted to tell the young men that Billy Marlon was an ex-combat vet, a onetime football player for Spencerville, a father, a man. But he stood there and waited to see if the incident was finished.

But it wasn't. Both cops had Billy backed up against a tree now, and they were face-to-face with him, hurling verbal abuse at the man. "We told you to stay out of town! Nobody wants to see you here! You don't listen real good! Do you?" and so on.

Billy stood with his back to the tree, then suddenly shouted, "Leave me alone! I'm not bothering nobody! Leave me alone!"

One of the cops raised his nightstick, and Billy covered his face and head with his hands. Keith stepped forward, but the cop only hit the tree above Billy's head. Both cops laughed. One of them said to him, "Tell us again what you're going to do to Chief Baxter. Come on, Rambo, tell us." They laughed again.

Billy seemed less frightened now and looked at both of them. He said, "I'm going to kill him. I'm a combat vet, and I'm going to kill him. You tell him I'm going to kill him someday. Tell him!"

"Why? Tell us why."

"Because... because..."

"Come on. Because he fucked your wife. Right? Chief Baxter fucked your wife."

Billy suddenly sank to his knees and put his hands over his face. He began sobbing. "Tell him to stay away from my wife. Tell him to stop. Stay away from my wife. Stop, stop..."

The men laughed. One of them said, "Get up. We're taking you in again."

But Billy had curled up into a ball on the ground and was crying. One of the cops grabbed him by his long hair. "Get up."

Keith walked up to them and said, "Leave him alone."

They turned and faced him. One of them said, very coolly and professionally, "Please move away, sir. We have the situation under control."

"No, you don't. You're harassing this man. Leave him alone."

"Sir, I'll have to ask you..."

The other cop poked his partner and said, "Hey, that's..." He whispered in his partner's ear, and they both looked at Keith. The first cop stepped up to Keith and said, "If you don't leave, I'm going to arrest you for obstructing justice."

"I haven't seen any justice here. If you arrest me or him, I'll tell the district attorney exactly what I saw and heard here, and I'll press charges against both of you."

The two policemen and Keith stared at one another for a long minute. Finally, one of them said to him, "Who's gonna believe you?"

"We'll find out."

The other cop said, "Are you threatening us?" Keith ignored them and went over to Billy. He helped the man to his feet, got Billy's arm around his shoulder, and began walking him toward the street.

One of the cops yelled to Keith, "You're gonna pay for tonight, Mister. You are definitely going to pay."

Keith got Billy on the sidewalk and walked him around the park toward the car.

Billy was staggering, but Keith kept him moving.

Finally, Billy said, "Hey, what's happening? Where we going?"

"Home."

"Yeah, okay, not so fast." He broke free of Keith and navigated the sidewalk on his own. Keith walked behind him, ready to catch him if he fell. Billy was mumbling to himself. "Goddamn cops always bustin' my balls. Hell, I never did no harm to nobody... they got it in for me... he fucks my wife, then..."

"Quiet down."

A few people on the sidewalk looked and gave them a wide berth.

"That son-of-a-bitch... then he laughed at me... he said she was a lousy lay, and he was finished with her..."

Keith said, "Shut up! Damn it, shut up!" He grabbed Billy by the arm and propelled him up the street and pushed him into the Blazer.

Keith drove out of town and headed west. "Where is this place? Where do you live?"

Billy was slumped in the front seat, his head lolling from side to side. "Route 8... oh, I'm sick."

Keith rolled down the passenger-side window and pushed Billy's head out. "Get sick outside."

Billy made a gagging sound but couldn't get it out. "Oh... stop the car..."

Keith found the old Cowley farm, which had the family name painted on the barn. He pulled up to the dark farmhouse and parked behind an old blue pickup truck, then wrestled Billy out of the car and onto the front porch. The front door was unlocked, as Keith suspected it would be, and he half carried Billy inside, found the living room in the dark, and threw Billy on the couch. He walked away, then came back, arranged him a little more comfortably and pulled off his shoes, then turned to leave again.

Billy called out, "Keith. Hey, Keith."

Keith turned. "Yeah?"

"Great to see you, man. Hey, it's great..."

Keith put his face in front of Billy's and said in a slow, distinct tone, "Get your act together, soldier."

Billy's eyes opened wide, and, in a moment of forced clarity, responded, "Yes, sir."

Keith walked to the front door, and, as he left, he heard Billy call out, "Hey, man, I owe you one."

Keith got in his Blazer and pulled onto the county road. Parked on the shoulder was a Spencerville police car. Keith kept going, waiting for the headlights to start following him, but they didn't, and he wondered if the police were going to finish their business with Billy. He considered turning around, but figured he'd pushed his luck enough for one night.

About halfway back to his house, Keith picked up another Spencerville police car that followed him with its bright lights on.

Keith approached the turnoff for his house and stopped. The police car stopped a few feet behind him. Keith sat. The cops sat. They all sat for five minutes, then Keith pulled into his driveway, and the cop car continued down the road.

Obviously, the game was heating up. He didn't bother to put the Blazer behind the house, but parked it near the porch and went inside through the front door.

He went directly upstairs and took his 9mm Glock from the cabinet, loaded it, and put it on his night table.

He got undressed and went to bed. The adrenaline was still flowing, and he had trouble getting to sleep, but finally entered a state of half-sleep that he'd learned in Vietnam and perfected in other places; his body was at rest, but all his senses were placed on a moment's notice.

His mind took off in directions that he wouldn't have allowed if he'd been in full control of his thought processes. What his mind was telling him now was that home had become the last battlefield, as he always knew it would be if he ever returned. That was the great subconscious secret he had been keeping from himself all these years. His memories of Cliff Baxter were not as dim as he'd indicated to the Porters, nor as fleeting as he'd told himself. In fact, he remembered the bullying bastard very well, remembered that Cliff Baxter had jostled him more than once, recalled Baxter's heckling from the stands during football games, and very clearly remembered Cliff Baxter eyeing Annie Prentis in the halls, at school dances, at the swimming pool, and he recalled the incident at an autumn hayride when Baxter put his hand on Annie's butt to help her up into the hay wagon.

He should have done something about it then, but Annie seemed almost unaware of Cliff Baxter, and Keith knew that the best way to enrage a person like Baxter was to pretend he didn't exist. And, in fact, Baxter's rage grew month by month, and Keith could see it. But Cliff Baxter was smart enough not to step over the line. Eventually, he would have, of course, but June came, Keith and Annie graduated, and they were off to college.

Keith never knew if Baxter's interest in Annie was genuine or just another way to annoy Keith, whom Cliff Baxter seemed to hate for no reason at all. And when Keith had heard that Cliff Baxter and Annie Prentis had married, he was not so much angry at Annie or Cliff Baxter as he was shocked by the news. It had seemed to him that heaven and hell had changed places, that everything he believed about human nature had been wrong. But as the years passed, he came to understand the dynamics between men and women a little better, and he thought he understood the processes that had brought Cliff Baxter and Annie Prentis together.

And yet, Keith wondered if things would have been different if he'd called Baxter out, if he'd simply beaten the hell out of the class bully, which he was physically capable of doing. He thought about doing now what he'd failed to do in high school. But if he chose a confrontation, then a fistfight in the schoolyard wasn't going to settle it this time.

At about midnight, the phone rang, but there was no one there. A little while later, someone was leaning on his car horn out on the road. The phone rang a few more times, and Keith took it off the hook.

The rest of the night was quiet, and he got a few hours of sleep. At dawn, he called the Spencerville police, identified himself, and asked to speak to Chief Baxter.

The desk officer seemed a little taken aback, then replied, "He's not here."

"Then take a message. Tell him that Keith Landry would like to meet with him."

"Yeah? Where and when?"

"Tonight, eight P.M., behind the high school."

"Where?"

"You heard me. Tell him to come alone."

"I'll tell him."

Keith hung up. "Better late than never."

Keith Landry shut off his headlights and pulled the Blazer into the parking lot behind the high school on the outskirts of town. The blacktop lot ran up to the back of the old brick school where bike racks, basketball courts, and equipment sheds stood. Keith saw that mercury vapor lights illuminated the area, but otherwise nothing much had changed since he and his friends used to meet behind the school on summer nights.

He stopped near one of the basketball nets, shut off the ignition, then climbed out of the Blazer. He put his Glock semiautomatic on the hood, took off his shirt, and threw it over the pistol.

Keith took a basketball out of the rear compartment, and, by the light of the mercury vapor lamps, he began shooting baskets, layups and jump shots, and the sound of the basketball echoed off the building in the quiet night air.

He dribbled up to the net, faked a pass, then jumped and put the ball through the hoop.

As he worked up a sweat, he reflected on the other game he'd come here to play, and it occurred to him that this was not a particularly smart move. He'd lost his temper and had thrown out a childish challenge. "Meet me behind the high school, punk." Sounded good. But given the circumstances, this could turn out to be a fatal mistake. He knew he could handle the class bully with no problem, but Baxter might not come alone as instructed.

Keith hadn't brought his M-16 rifle or his bulletproof vest, wanting to be evenly matched with Baxter. But there was no way of knowing what Baxter would show up with. In truth, it was possible that a half dozen police cars with a dozen men would surround him, and if Baxter gave the order to fire, it wouldn't matter what Keith was wearing or carrying. And Keith had no doubt that Chief Baxter would have a plausible legal scenario worked out for the death of Keith Landry.

Keith took a short break and looked at his watch. It was seven forty-five P.M. He tried to make an informed guess as to Baxter's response to the challenge. If it was true that the boy is father to the man, then Baxter would come, but not alone. However, the picture painted by the Porters was of an egotistical and conceited personality who might very well underestimate his enemy; the type of man who'd like to saunter into the station house with the news, "I just killed a bad guy out at the high school. Send a meat wagon."

He continued playing his solo game as the sky got darker. He decided that if Baxter did come alone, Baxter might never return to the station house. Keith had had a few homicidal rages in his professional career, and he was surprised at how badly he wanted to kill Cliff Baxter. No doubt this had been building in him a long time and had festered inside his soul.

Keith glanced as his watch. It was eight P.M. He looked toward the school, then at the open playing fields and adjoining streets, but didn't see any headlights or movement. He did a series of layup shots.

It occurred to Keith that Baxter's men knew, more or less, what the problem was between the chief and this guy Landry, and knew that Landry had said for Baxter to come alone. So what was Baxter going to tell his men? That Landry was bothering Mrs. Baxter, but he didn't want to meet Landry alone? In the world of male macho, this was about as sissy a thing as a guy could do. Keith realized that consciously or unconsciously, he'd put Baxter in a situation where he couldn't ask for help without looking like a total wimp, so he had to come alone, or not come at all and live with the consequences of his cowardice.

At five after eight, Landry knew that, by the unwritten rules of this game, he could leave. But he stayed, shooting baskets, dribbling across the court, but never getting too far from where the Glock sat on the hood of the Blazer. At ten after eight, he was satisfied that he'd lived up to his end of the dare.

As he walked toward his car, headlight beams appeared from around the side of the school, then a vehicle came around slowly and turned toward him, catching him in the beams.

Keith bounced the basketball casually and continued toward the Blazer.

The car, which he could now see was a police vehicle, stopped about fifty feet from him, the headlights still aimed directly at him.

The passenger door of the car opened, and a figure stepped out. Keith couldn't make him out in the glare, but he looked taller and leaner than Cliff Baxter. Keith put the basketball down, then took his shirt off the hood of the Blazer, and with it, the pistol. He wiped his sweaty face with his shirt and got his hand around the pistol grip and his finger on the trigger.

The man took a few steps toward him, then called out, "Keith Landry?"

Although Keith hadn't heard Cliff Baxter's voice in nearly three decades, he knew this was not him. He replied, "Who's asking?"

"Officer Schenley, Spencerville police." The man continued on toward Keith.

"Who else is in the car?"

"My partner."

"Where's Baxter?"

"He couldn't come." Schenley was about ten feet away now, and Keith saw he was holding something in his hand, but it wasn't a pistol.

Schenley stopped about five feet from him and asked, "You alone?"

"Maybe. Where's your boss? Looking for his balls?"

Schenley laughed, then said, "Hey, he wanted to come, but he couldn't."

"Why not?" Schenley held out the thing that was in his right hand, which turned out to be a folded newspaper. Keith said, "Why do I want that?"

"There's a story in here you should read."

"Read it to me."

Schenley shrugged. "Okay." He unhooked his flashlight from his belt and trained it on the newspaper. He said, "This here is the social column... here it is..." He read, " 'At the Elks Lodge this Saturday evening, Chief of Police Cliff Baxter will be honored by the mayor and city council in recognition of his fifteen years as police chief of Spencerville. Mrs. Baxter, the former Annie Prentis, will join Chief Baxter's friends and coworkers in relating interesting as well as amusing incidents of the chief's career.' " Schenley snapped off the flashlight. "Okay? He would have been here if he could."

Keith replied, "He knew about his party long ago. He could have rescheduled our meeting."

"Hey, don't push it, fella. The man's got obligations. Don't you got nothing better to do on a Saturday night?"

"I can't think of anything better than clocking your boss."

The patrolman laughed. "Yeah? Now, why would you want to do something stupid like that?"

"You tell me. Man-to-man, Schenley."

Schenley grinned. "Well... word is that you and Mrs. Baxter used to be an item."

"Maybe. Do you think that would make the chief angry?"

"Probably."

"Do you think he'll get over it?"

The patrolman laughed again, then said, "Hey, you know how guys are."

"I sure do. Do me a favor, Schenley. Tell the chief that the next time I make an appointment with him, he should notify me in advance when he knows he can't make it."

"I guess he wanted to see if you'd come."

"I already figured that out. He doesn't have to wonder about that. I'm here, and I'll be here, or anyplace he wants to meet me, anytime. His turn to ask."

"You're a cool customer. I'll give you some advice. Don't mess with this guy."

"I'll give you, Baxter, and the rest of you guys some advice — back off. I'm tired of your bullshit."

"I'll pass it on."

Keith looked at Schenley. He seemed a little less belligerent than the two guys in the park. In fact, Schenley seemed almost embarrassed by this whole thing. Keith said, "Don't get involved in the boss's personal squabbles." Keith put his left hand over his shirt, which still covered the Glock, pulled back on the slide and released it, cocking the automatic with a loud metallic noise that was unmistakable. He said, "It's not worth it."

Schenley's eyes focused on the shirt draped over Keith's right hand, and he seemed to stare at it a long time, then looked up at Keith. "Take it easy."

"Take a walk."

Schenley turned slowly and walked back to the car. Keith picked up the basketball and got into the Blazer. He kept an eye on the police car as it turned and went back around the school.

Keith drove across the playing fields and came out onto a road that bordered the school property. He turned toward town and drove past the Elks Lodge, noting that the parking lot was filled, then turned out into the country and headed for home.

"So, Mrs. Baxter will tell amusing stories about her husband. Maybe she can tell them about his wild weasel."

He got a little better control of his emotions and said, "Well, what do you expect in a social column?" He couldn't believe he felt a tinge of jealousy. "Of course she has an official life as the wife of a leading citizen." He remembered again how she'd looked at him on the street when they spoke. "Right. The wives of important men and politicians stand by their man and smile even when the guy is an adulterer, coward, and totally corrupt. Comes with the territory."

He discarded this subject and thought about what had just happened. Obviously, Cliff Baxter felt it important that he show Keith Landry why he hadn't come. Baxter cared what Landry thought of him. This was nothing new; the class bully was uniquely insecure, which was why he persecuted and belittled people around him while puffing himself up.

And then there were Baxter's own men, such as Officer Schenley. They knew something, and they wanted to see how the boss was going to deal with it. Keith suspected that unless they were corrupt to the core, they secretly hated their chief. But they also feared him, and, unless and until somebody bigger and badder came along to deal with the chief, they were going to follow orders. Loyalty toward a bad leader was conditional, but you couldn't count on the troops mutinying or running away. Men were profoundly stupid and sheeplike in the face of rank and authority, especially soldiers, cops, and men in government service. That's what had almost happened to him in Washington.

Keith saw the porch lights of his house ahead and turned into the dark driveway. Well, he thought, tonight was a draw. But somewhere down the road, one of them was going to score a point, and as far as Keith was concerned, the game was already in sudden-death overtime.