The Walkaway (19 page)

“It was Rusty,” the man in the houndstooth jacket said.

“Prince o’ Chincoteague,” the bartender replied, shaking his head.

The voices started again, and on the scoreboard and monitor the words photo finish flashed. The crowd groaned collectively and then grew silent at the frustrating realization that the results and their accompanying emotional release would be delayed for a few minutes.

Eric turned back to his drink and his tipsheet, vaguely recalling having bet an exacta—or was it a quiniela?—on Rusty and Prince o’ Chincoteague that afternoon. He tried to remember how much he’d bet, and as he jubilantly calculated his projected winnings a simultaneous wave of cheering and booing drew his eyes to the monitor, where the words “Results Official” blinked on and off. Prince o’ Chincoteague was the winner. He stared dully at the results and ordered another drink. This wasn’t a good start; maybe he’d put down a single bet on the next race and call it quits.

He looked the field over and saw a long shot that was worth risking five bucks on. He wondered what the exacta had paid; he glanced up at the infield monitor and the message it was flashing:

HAVE YOU SEEN GUNTHER? $12,000 REWARD FOR INFORMATION

Next to it was a picture of the naked old man from his nightmare.

Eric sat there for a second, genuinely afraid that he was losing his mind. “He looks a little old to be robbing banks,” he said to the bartender, who looked at him with open disdain.

“That poor old guy walked away from an old folks’ home yesterday. Hope that never happens to you.”

The image was gone from the monitor, replaced by the odds for the next race. The old man had really been at his house, God knew why, and had really beaten him and locked him in the closet.

“You got a phone I can use?”

“There’s pay phones over by the men’s room. They cut ’em off at post time, so you better hurry up.”

Eric headed for the phones. He had no idea where the old man had gone after he left, but it couldn’t hurt to put in a claim on the twelve grand. He’d already dropped two dimes into the slot when he saw the taxi company’s ad next to the phone. He called the number and got the same dispatcher he’d talked to that afternoon.

“This is Eric Gandy again. Where’d that cab take me this afternoon? The first one. I lost the address.”

“Just a second, Mister Gandy, 518 Control Tower Place.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said, and he headed out for his car.

Ed knocked on Dot’s door and found her with Tricia eating dinner. Tricia was eating what looked like a Caesar salad and Dot was well into a second pork chop, and at Tricia’s invitation he poured himself a glass of iced tea and sat down with them.

“You want something to eat? There’s more salad. That’s the last of the pork chops, though.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Any progress?”

“Some. Wait until your grandmother’s done eating.”

At that Dot looked up suspiciously, her mouth full of pork chop and mashed potato. “I’m done,” she said, swallowing. “What’d you find?”

“Where do you bank?”

“That’s none of your goddamned business.”

“Sorry.”

“Moomaw.” She turned to Ed. “They bank at the Third.”

“Who handles your account?”

Dot snorted. “You mean who’s my favorite teller?”

“I mean who handles all that money Gunther got hold of?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ten years ago Gunther gave Sidney twelve grand for a down payment on that club.”

She’d lost a little steam. “You’re out of your goddamn mind.”

“You’re going to tell me who I need to talk to or I’m going to take it to Lester Howells, and old Lester might just find that money more interesting than I do. He might want to look into where it came from.”

“That’s got nothing to do with finding Gunther,” she said, her voice rising, and she slapped her palm down on the tabletop.

“You’re wrong about that. Now are you going to tell me the man’s name or not?”

16

GUNTHER FAHNSTIEL
June 20,1952

It had been a busy summer night of bar fights and wife beatings, and I hadn’t had a chance to go and talk to Sally. When I got off duty I went home and slept for three hours, then drove over to her house. The sunrise was pretty and birds were chirping and the drive over was nice, even though I knew I was going to catch hell when I got there.

Sally was in the kitchen drinking coffee, getting ready to leave for her shift. She wasn’t happy to see me but I didn’t care. It wasn’t a social call. Her little girl Loretta was there, eating breakfast, and I teased her for a minute about how tall she was getting. Then her baby-sitter came in the front door and the girl ran into the living room to see her.

“So what do you want, Gunther? I’m running late.” Even dressed in pants and a plain blouse and flat, crepe-soled shoes for work, with her hair pulled up in a bun and her big brown eyes cold and angry, she was still about the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I hadn’t been laid in a month and right then I felt like the stupidest man in the state for not picking her up right then and carrying her back into the bedroom and doing what she wanted me to.

“Wayne’s in town.”

“Wayne? My husband Wayne?”

“Ed spotted him at the hospital. Somebody cracked his head open outside a roadhouse.”

“Ed doesn’t know him. He’s made a mistake.”

“He still sending you half his pay?”

“Not for a while now. I don’t give a goddamn anymore. I’m making plenty.”

“Might be a good idea to give the boys a rain check for this weekend.”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Because Ed mistook some other guy for my lying shitheel husband?” she said, a little too loud, and she glanced over at the door. She always took care not to bad-mouth Wayne in front of the little girl.

“Ed’s not mistaken. He’s checked in at the Bellingham downtown under another name.”

“And why would Wayne be using a fake name?”

“I don’t know. I just think it’d be smart to be on guard.”

“Rain check. You know what that’d cost me? For one thing I’d have to set things up on one of my very few free weekends. And the girls’d have to be paid for an extra week.”

“Not if they’re not working this weekend.”

“If I cancel on short notice I pay the girls anyway, that’s the deal. I’d pay you, too, if that makes you feel better. The answer is no.”

“All right, then. You want me to stick around and watch the place tonight?”

“You mean here?” She shook her head. “If you’re not sticking around for me I don’t want you sticking around. Ed’s wrong, that’s all.”

“No, he’s not. There’s going to be trouble. Otherwise Wayne would have let you know he was coming.”

She closed her eyes and the tendons in her neck stood out a little, but her voice was even. “It’s not Wayne, and I don’t have time to worry about it anyway. I gotta go.”

Outside a horn honked, and we went through the living room where Loretta was reading a book out loud to her baby-sitter. She jumped up and ran to Sally. “Bye, Mama. See you tonight.” She kissed her mother’s cheek and then mine, yelling “Bye, Gunther,” as she raced back to her book. The baby-sitter, a plump old woman whose name I didn’t remember, gave her a sweet smile in a way Sally almost never did.

In Sally’s driveway Frieda sat behind the wheel of a brand-new Cadillac convertible wearing sunglasses and a bright red scarf over her hair. Her lips were the same red and with a cigarette holder she would have looked a little bit like a homely movie star. Her cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth, though, and it flapped up and down comically when she talked.

“Well, Gunther, imagine meeting you here at six-thirty in the morning. You two got anything to tell me about?”

If Sally needed another reason to be surly that sure was it. She got in and didn’t say anything, just looked straight ahead.

“Nice car, Frieda,” I said.

“Thanks. I keep telling this one she should spend a little bit of all that dough she’s raking in, but she won’t.”

“Can we go, please?” Sally said, and Frieda waved at me and pulled away. I watched them go to the end of the street and turn, feeling mean for being so glad I didn’t love Sally the way she loved me.

I went over to the King’s X and had some bacon and eggs, then around eight I went over to Glenn and Sonya Bockner’s house. Sonya was up but still wearing her dressing gown.

“Come on in. Glenn’s not here. You want some coffee or something?”

Glenn was the one I needed to talk to, and I would have said no but I could smell it perking. “Sure,” I said, and I followed her inside.

When she put my cup down on the kitchen table she leaned forward enough so I could see her right nipple. She was a pretty girl when you weren’t looking at her standing right next to Sally. Her hair wasn’t done up, but without my seeing it she’d put on some lipstick in the two or three minutes since I’d walked in the door. She smelled nice, too. Now that I thought about it, the last time I’d seen Sonya she’d slipped me a scrap of paper with her number and the words “CALL me.”

“To what do I owe the honor?” she asked, hands on her hips.

“I wonder if Glenn might be free for a security job this weekend.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not on this weekend. You knew that, right?”

“Right.”

“You think there’s gonna be trouble? Who won the raffle this week, anyway?”

“It’s not them I’m worried about, it’s another fellow. Better if there’s two of us.”

Glenn was a big fellow and he wasn’t afraid of a fight. In fact he seemed to like them. He liked to hang around when Sonya was working, and once he’d come in handy when both fellows decided they wanted Sally instead of Sonya. One of them already had a bloody nose when we pulled them apart, and if I’d been on my own I might have had to draw my weapon.

I never understood why it didn’t bother him to have Sonya working for Sally the way she did, but from what she said it got him excited, thinking about other guys screwing her. Sometimes he’d have her bring guys home and he’d hide in the closet and watch.

“Write your number down and I’ll tell him to call you when he gets home from work. In the meantime, you got half an hour, forty-five minutes free?”

“I guess,” I said, not thinking about what she was asking, and I just about spit out a mouthful of hot coffee when she hiked up her robe and sat down on me. The robe fell to the floor, and Sonya was stark naked.

“You didn’t really come to talk to Glenn, did you? You knew perfectly goddamn well he’s on first shift again.” She leaned her face forward and kissed me, and I kissed her back. Through the coffee and the cigarettes her mouth tasted like she’d just brushed her teeth.

I shifted around in the chair, trying to get comfortable. I was already stiff as a hound dog and against my better judgment I was pretty sure I was just going to let things happen. Then I got a picture in my head of her getting screwed by Amos Culligan, and then one of her sucking old Lester Carswell’s dick. Even that didn’t manage to soften my pecker, but it sure did make me think a little clearer. I grabbed her under the arms and gently hoisted her off of me, poor old John Henry throbbing along to my heartbeat. I stood up.

“Sorry,” I said. “That’s just gonna make trouble later on.”

“Come on, Gunther, bend me over the kitchen table and give it to me good.”

Damned if the way she was talking wasn’t about to change my mind. I thought about the clap, about mercury treatments and sulfa drugs, and still I was about to go ahead and do it.

“Come on, Sally doesn’t have to know.”

That was it. “How about Glenn?” I asked. “How soon’s he gonna know?” The look on her face gave me the feeling that he might be there somewhere, watching and beating his meat. Or maybe she was just going to tell him about it later. Anyway, I was leaving. “Just have him give me a call, okay?”

Ed answered the doorbell looking surprised. “What do you know. Come on in,” he said, and he opened the door up wide. Daisy was in the kitchen, and Ed had been playing with Jeff on the floor, making a large castle out of wooden blocks. Jeff got up when he saw me and ran to me. “Gumfa!” he yelled. I picked him up and was surprised at how heavy he was now. I hadn’t been around in six months or more, which is a long time when you’re three.

Daisy came out of the kitchen. “Jeffrey, come with Mommy, I’m going to make you something.” She didn’t look at me. I used to be her favorite of all Ed’s friends, once.

“Jeff wants to see Gunther, Daze,” Ed said, and she gave him a sharp look but kept her mouth shut. If this was the reception I got, I wondered how she would have welcomed Sally. She stood there for a minute, then turned and went back into the kitchen. I hadn’t ever seen Daisy and Ed act like that; in front of other people they always seemed like newlyweds, and I was sorry to be the cause of the friction just then. I suspected it came more often these days, though, with her having gotten religion and a whole new set of rules for Ed to live by.

“Who’s a big boy?” I asked the little boy in the crook of my elbow.

“Me,” Jeff said. “Look, I’m making Fort Apache,” he said, and he dropped down to his blocks. I got down and helped for five or ten minutes, and we didn’t say much. When we were done we’d built a wall around the fort.

“All right, now, go see your mother,” Ed said. “Gunther and I need to talk about something.”

“Okay,” he yelled, and he ran into the kitchen, clomping with his cowboy boots.

“So what’s on your mind?” he asked.

I didn’t get up. “She won’t cancel or give the fellows a rain check. She says you’re wrong about him being back.”

“The hell I am.”

“I asked Glenn Bockner to come out and give me a hand but who knows if he will.”

“Maybe we should get Tommy and Rory to keep an eye on him over the weekend, starting tomorrow night. Keep him away from the quarry anyway.”

“On city time?”

“Unless you want to pay ’em out of your own pocket, yeah. They’ll only have to step in if it looks like he’s going to get violent.”

That sure came as a surprise to me from my straight-arrow friend, but I was glad to hear him suggest it. “Sounds okay to me.”

“But you know what, Gunther? This is the last time I help you out on this. It’s about goddamn time you made it clear to Sally she’s got to close up shop.”

“And she’ll say screw you, I pay Dan Hardyway every month to keep the cops out of my hair. When you come up with an answer for that one, you’re on.”

Still we parted friendlier than we’d been in months, and between the two of us I thought we had things under control. Tommy and Rory might get out of hand with this shithead the way they sometimes did, but I guessed I could live with that.