Stone Shadow (11 page)

“Exactly. That's just one possible deal of the cards. Let's say—and I don't know the statutes for sure and I don't know the law that well—but let's say a judge gets a wild hair and issues a denial of her motion, and she slaps a supersedeas I think it's called on the court so that it stops the execution of the denial—some kind of goofy writ bullshit—and then blah-blah-blah, and there's a fucking mistrial. Or she loses and appeals endlessly. Or she gets a jury that loves beautiful women. I mean the scenarios are endless."

“You're saying a lawyer has a shot with the most improbable clients, that the facts of a murder case don't matter?"

“In a way I think that is precisely what I'm saying. Want some proof? Would you have bet money that the most famous lawyer in the country would have taken the case of a man who murdered the most famous assassin since John Wilkes Booth, and correct me if I'm wrong but didn't he shoot the fellow on TELEVISION? I mean, we are talking about the most flamboyant and publicized defense lawyer living and he JUMPED at the case. And if I remember right he won the sucker. I think he got a reversal and people were going, ‘If you want to prove it rolls uphill call HIM,’ and he was Mr. Magic. That's got to be a heady magnet for these big-star lawyers. Look at the size of the egos involved."

“Yeah. I know. But Noel Collier didn't seem ... Aw, hell, I dunno. I just didn't read her that way. I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. It's just hard to see her in that kind of situation. She's so pulled together from my impression.” He wasn't saying half of what he really felt.

“I don't know, Jack. You remember that kid that shot the old woman in the store? The boy named—what was it—uh, Ivey-yeah. The Ivey kid. Noel Collier took that and won it. Jones-Seleska couldn't have made five dollars off it. But that's the case that really put her name out front. And, like we were saying, may be these rich lawyers just say to themselves once in a while, ‘It's the right thing to do. We owe the public this one.’”

“Maybe so."

The phone rang and Wally Michaels reached over and answered it, “Michaels.... Okay. Right now? ... ‘Kay, I'll tell the man.... No, he's right here.” He covered the mouthpiece. “Ukie Hackabee's hollerin’ for Jack Eichord. Says it's real important. Want to see him now?"

“Sure,” Eichord said and gestured with a shrug. “Why not? Can't dance."

Eichord felt like he looked, and he looked like week-old tacos. He remembered his old pard Jimmie Lee telling him how he resembled the ole nasty brown stuff and how he was boozing too hard. How he wasn't getting enough sleep. How he was irritable and apprehensive about nothing and just generally felt and looked awful. Thing is, he hadn't been boozing lately and he still looked like shit and be thought he felt worse. He still wasn't sleeping. He was still irritable and apprehensive about nothing and he felt worse than ever.

And his cheerleader fantasy wouldn't let go of him. He refused to see it for what it was. One of those no-way-Jose deals that he couldn't face. Noel Collier was his housewife fantasy, his movie-star fantasy, his nun fantasy, his teenybopper fantasy, and his—to use her sophisticated word for it—headfuck all wrapped up in one strong, overachieving, Dallas-dyno-mite knockout of a lady.

Most really choice women—the top-of-the-line beauties—they have something, some small flaw you can concentrate on that helps take the sting out of the fact you'll never possess them for your own. You see the obvious cap job, or they wear a mask of makeup that stops at the throat giving them that orange-and-white look, or their limbs are too thin—to the point of anorexia—or they're stupid when they speak, or the voice grates, or the lips are not quite right, or ... You can find something.

Not Noel Collier. Lady was A-1 USDA prime from top to bottom, he thought, and I do mean bottom. She was what they call out on the Coast your real QUIM. This was Nastassia Kinski, full-lipped, hi-hipped, leggy, juggy, double-bongo super-zongo finger-lickin’ good Dallas quim, and quim just flat don't get no better.

He still saw her as a possible. And tonight, when he slipped back into his bathrobe of humiliation and fell asleep in front of a flickering, bolted-down TV set in the Lido, he would show her what a man she was missing.

But he was getting too old for these hot, steamy love affairs. You can take that shit when you're a kid but when you get a few gray hairs up there you don't need all the fast elevator rides up and down and the general Chinese fire-drill effect of going nuts over somebody. And then, on the other hand, he thought as he smiled to himself, who can say where this might lead? Anything is possible, right?

What a mood he was in. If Ukie started that double-talk shit today he was afraid he'd haul off and let him have one right in the old turquoise turnips. Perhaps already in the back of his aging mind somewhere he was trying to prepare himself for the moment when he might have to deal with the baseball-bat-to-the-skull embarrassment of the dreams and the imaginary spaghetti and the, yes, dammit, the headfucking and the fact that he'd convinced himself he was a candidate for a “hot steamy affair” with Noel Collier. Maybe he already sensed the kind of dues he'd have to pay.

Eichord sighed, rubbed his face vigorously, ran a hand over his head to make sure it was still attached to his neck, and went in the room where they had Hackabee waiting. Only it didn't look like the same Ukie. This looked like Ukie after the Cowboys had used him for a tackling dummy for a couple of days.

T
he effect is misleading. The optical illusion typical of the surveillance cameras. Ukie appears to be sitting at the end of a long hallway. Eichord thinks how bad he looks when they play the tape back, as if Ukie had been pressed by a steamroller and slid under the door. He looked worse than Eichord, which surprised Jack.

“Ukie."

“I gotta get outta here."

“Hmmm?"

“You gotta get me outta here.” The face was drawn. The voice flat, none of the usual animation. He was slumped over. Dejected and drawn in the face as if he'd been crying. His eyes were reddened and lacked the usual nutsy sparkle.

“How do you propose we accomplish that, Ukie?” Jack had made up his mind that if he started up with the neohermetic regenerations and the post-Pythagorean regurgitations he was just getting up. Not getting mad. Just getting up. Leaving. Smack it.

“I didn't do it."

“Uh—huh."

“I know you know."

“I know you know what,” Eichord said calmly, waiting for the punch line to fall like the other shoe.

“You know I didn't off those mother-fuckers. I could see it in your face, man. You never believed I killed those people from day one. Right?"

“Ukie, what the hell are you talking about?"

“You gotta get me out of this.” The voice was so flat. Accentless. He sounded like he'd been tossed around by a front-loader and the rinse cycle had been a bitch. “I didn't do it."

Eichord sat still and waited. “Eh?"

“I...” Ukie let out a long stream of air. “I was bullshitting. It was all crap. That crap I laid on the cunt. I never killed a goddamn dog in my life. I mighta hit a few birds with my car. I ran over a possum on the road one night. Shit, I didn't do those murders, man, and you KNOW YOU KNOW I AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH.” He started bawling like a baby, first just going, Wahhhwahhh-wahhh, and then a fast screaming-hyena thing he did a couple of times too often.

Eichord shouted at him,
"SHUT UP,
DAMN IT.” And that did the trick temporarily, and he started talking through a stream of tears.

“Shit, I don't know why I did it I just went with it I know it was fucking crazy but goddamn mother-fucking shit cunt she was ... Oh, I don't know. I wanted to scare that stupid whore bitch and I had been seeing those bodies and had ‘em in a cigar box and I just put some up on the wall with naked centerfolds and shit. I mean, you can look in the box I must of had twenty more I never got around to putting up because I ran out of tape. It's the box of Tampa Nuggets on the bureau in my living room.” And he gave Eichord the house number where he'd had Donna Scannapieco like it was nothing.

Jack knew he'd be watching this over and over when they played the videocassette back and he straightened up and he could feel his concentration go into overdrive and he could hear the words and see the man across from him and he wondered what part Ukie's new lawyer played in this lame scheme, but the funny thing was he didn't really think it was a scheme at all. He thought it was real as fucking cancer.

“What do you mean you'd been seeing those bodies?” Jack was making himself speak as slowly as he could, feeling the excitement building as he looked into the expressionless eyes of the man across from him, “And you had them in a cigar box?"

“The clippings,” he replied with a sigh. Ukie looked too drained to even put down Eichord for being slow to pick up on his discursive narrative. “When I saw clippings about, you know, the
ones,
I'd cut ‘em out of the papers and—"

“Ukie, I'm having a lot of problems with this. What do you mean the ones? The people who were killed?"

“Of course, what the hell are we talking about, for God's sake? Jesus, you got to get me OUT of this. I didn't touch a hair on their fucking HEADS."

“You weren't involved in the killings yet you know where all the bodies are?"

“Yes."

“How do you know?"

“How do I know what? That I wasn't involved in the killings or where the bodies are?” He was glassy-eyed. Whipped.

“Where the bodies are,” Eichord said with all the patience he could muster.

“Because I saw him bury them."

“Saw what?"

“I saw where the killer buried the bodies."

“You're just wasting my time, Ukie. Sorry. Not goin’ to wash at all. The insanity thing ain't makin’ it—” He began to push back from the metal table.

“Wait a FUCKING MINUTE WAIT, I'M TELLING THE TRUTH. I didn't kill them. I'm not insane. I'm not trying to fake anybody out. I swear to God."

Eichord was leaving.

“WAIT GODDAMN YOU I SWEAR I'LL TAKE A POLYGRAPH OR SIGN ANYTHING I PROMISE
I WON'T LET THE BITCH PLEAD ME INSANE.
I DIDN'T FUCKING DO IT."

“You'll sign a waiver to that effect?” Eichord had no idea what he was talking about but he wanted the reaction.

“Yes. Right now. Or whenever you say. I may be stupid but crazy I'm not. Listen to me, he came and showed where he was burying them. That's how I knew about the murders in the first place. He comes and shows me."

“I don't have the remotest clue as to what you're talking about so you'd better start making some sense, and
NOW."

“It was sort of like headaches and nightmares combined. How the hell do I know how to explain it? It's a thing some people have. Like a way to communicate thought. I've always had it I guess but this ... He comes and gets in there and shows me the dead bodies and shit."

“Shows ... you ... HOW? Where do you see them?"

“INSIDE MY FUCKING HEAD I keep telling you."

“You see people killed in your head?"

“I see people BURIED in there. Yeah. He shows me how he gets rid of the bodies. I never see the killing part. The ones are already dead and he takes me there and tells me about the dead ones sometimes. Or he just shows me where it hides the bodies. Whatever."

“This is the killer you're talking about?"

“Yep."

“Who is he?"

“I—I don't know, man. I know how that sounds so please don't ask me about that part because YOU WON'T FUCKING BELIEVE ME that was I mean that's oh shit that was where I made my big see what I thought I could do was just get the attention I just did it to get people to shit I never could make anything happen for me and I came so close so many times I tried to work as a performer and I'd get up in these fuckin’ strip joints and the drunks would be so loud I couldn't even hear my own material and I have a 146 IQ. I'm no damn dummy, and great retentivity and I can remember what I read and I just never had the breaks, or the timing was wrong and I'd come so close and then the cocksuckers would take it away from me and people with ONE TENTH THE GODDAMN TALENT I HAD ONE FUCKING TENTH would become stars and big important sons of bitches and everybody I knew was successful and rich except me old goofy Ukie Hackabee and I was a smart, good-looking, some girls said I was sexy, sharp kind of uptown guy and nothing ever worked and I couldn't hold a job and I was always trying some scam and that wouldn't work and then this damn thing you fucking cops picked me up for the least little complaint shit if some flasher had his dick out to take a piss I'd get hauled in on some bogus bullshit and when the thing started showing me what it was doing on the new row or pathway,” Eichord had thought he was saying, “I just decided I'd make the most of it I mean what could I lose—right? He's showing me all this shit I, might as well make the most of it I mean I'd had these fantasies where I get a job as a spy or a hit man like some slick smooth paid assassin who works for the Cosa Nostra, all cool and collected, and I'm an actor so I figure I'll milk this for all it's worth and people who thought I was some wimpy zero some weak loser some nothing cipher they're going to get shaken right out of their fucking shoes, ya know?” He paused for air.

“What's the new row or pathway?"

“What?"

“You mentioned that the killer was showing you what he was doing on the new row or the pathway. What was that all about?"

“Now it's my turn to not know what YOU, ... Oh, neural pathway, I said,” he muttered, seeing Eichord still didn't have it. “NEURAL, you know, like up here—NEURAL PATHWAY. Jesus! Take your gun and blow the wax outtayafuckingEARS. Hey, I'm only kidding barrrrOOOM-boom.” The old Ukie Hackabee trying to get up for it but just trailing off like a sick tomcat. The eyes wide, glassy, empty of anything beyond pain and disease.

“The neural pathway. The place where he kills?"

“No, Christ. No...” An expulsion of air and mouthwash, “Not where he kills where he takes me. It's a mental thing. You see it, well first you see nothing and then you like go into this room or corridor in your head and it's a bare stone wall and a concrete floor and the place is like a tunnel under a river or something, big thick walls that are wet and clammy to the touch, and it's all shadowy and gray and cold and that's where he comes and gets me and—oh, shit, man.” And Ukie is forcing the tears back, blowing his nose loudly and breaking himself up.