Fire Lake (31 page)

"Karen . . ."

I put my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it
off. "So you were right, Harry," she said, turning to me
with a sick, accusatory look. "You were right all along."

"I didn't want him dead, Karen," I said,
feeling guilty in spite of myself.

"Sure you did," she said with an eerie
look. "We all did. And now it's true. He wouldn't have left this
behind him, not unless . . ." Her voice trailed off and she sat
there staring at nothing.

I wanted to reach out to her again. To touch her. To
hold her. But she didn't want me to touch her.

Gearheart came walking through the front door
suddenly. Once again he didn't give us a look.
"Sophy?"
he bellowed.

"In the kitchen," Sophy Gearheart called
out.

We heard dishes rattling and then Mrs. Gearheart came
walking through the archway into the living room, carrying drinks on
a tray. She glanced at her husband.

"Do you want some coffee, Alex?" she said
to her husband. "I made plenty."

He nodded a little sullenly, took off his topcoat,
and hung it on a peg by the door.

Sophy Gearheart passed out the cups to each of us.
Glancing at Karen, she said, "Are you all right, honey?"

Karen focused her red eyes on Sophy Gearheart. "I'd
like to use your bathroom, if that's okay?"

"Sure," Mrs. Gearheart said with concern.
"Upstairs on your right."

Karen got up. The photograph slid off her lap and
floated to the pegged hardwood floor. She stepped over it,
carelessly, as she walked out of the room. Sophy and her husband
watched her leave.

"She's been crying," Gearheart said
brusquely.

Sophy gave him an angry look. "Do you have to
say everything that comes into your mind?"

"She's upset about her ex-husband," I said
to them.

"Why?" Gearheart said.

"It's none of our
business why," his wife snapped at him. "Just drink your
coffee."

***

We sat in the living room for about ten minutes. Sy
Levy tried to keep us amused with stories from the old days. But
neither of the Gearhearts seemed much interested in the old days. And
all I could think about was Karen.

After a time I excused myself and went upstairs. As I
got to the top landing, I could hear Karen talking on a phone in one
of the bedrooms. I stopped outside the door and listened. She was
talking to one of her kids.

"Of course I do, sweetheart," she said.
"I'll show you when I come home." She looked up and saw me
standing in the doorway. "I'll see you tonight, baby, if I can."

She hung up the phone and stared at me, guiltily.
"You hear?"

I nodded. "You're going home."

"If the cops let me. And it's okay with you."

"What do I have to do with it?" I said
bitterly.

"Oh, Harry," she said, her face falling.
"Don't be that way."

"I'm sorry, Karen," I said. "I just
thought we had something going here."

"We do," she said, with that same look of
pain. "But try to understand that I've been dreading this day
for almost eighteen years. Now that it's finally come . . . I need
some time to react. I need to see my kids again. My house. My job. I
need to visit my own life and put some distance between me and this .
. . nightmare."

"I understand."

"Do you?" She walked over to me and touched
me gently on the cheek.

Karen smiled at me sadly. It was a loving smile, but
there was nothing in it that said she might change her mind and stay.
Or that she owed me any more of an explanation than the one she'd
just given me.

She kissed me on the mouth, then walked out of the
room.

I stood there for a moment, thinking about that first
night in the hotel, and knew that the feeling we'd shared--that
larkish feeling of playing hooky from the decade, of going back to
some common ground in the past just wasn't there for her anymore.
Lonnie's murder had changed it. It had changed the way she looked at
me. It had broken the connection.
 

 
43

I went back to the living room and sat down again on
the couch beside Karen. The Gearhearts stared at us morbidly. A few
minutes passed, slowly, then a car came up the lane into the yard.

"That must be Leanne," Sophy said with a
vaguely troubled look on her face. She stared at her husband
meaningfully and he returned the look. I wasn't sure what the silent
communication meant until Leanne came through the door. Then I knew.

She was stoned. I could see it at once. I'd seen it
before--in her office. I just hadn't understood it then. Nor had she
been as stoned then as she was now. Her marvelous eyes were as sleepy
and glazed-looking as those of the junkies I'd seen in LeRoi's Silver
Star. Her mouth hung loosely open, in a grotesque parody of a
congenial smile. Even her movements were awkward and encumbered, as
if she were caught in the fur coat she was wearing. She tried to take
the coat off by the door, grew frustrated in the attempt, and gave
up. Walking tipsily across the room, she knelt down on the floor in
front of her father, and tried to embrace him.

"Daddy!" she said in a slurred voice

Gearheart pushed her away from him--hard. Sophy
Gearheart clapped a hand to her mouth. And Leanne looked shocked, as
if he had doused her with water.

Gearheart eyed Leanne coldly. "I'm going
upstairs," he said with disgust.

He got up and walked out of the room. Leanne watched
him from where she was kneeling on the floor. "That's my daddy,
folks," she said in a hurt voice. "You remember my daddy,
don't you, Karen?"

Karen stared at her sadly. Sophy Gearheart got up and
left the room, following her husband upstairs. In a moment we could
hear their voices--raised in anger.

Leanne stared after them, through the archway, as if
she wanted to cry. If we hadn't been there, I think she would have
cried. Instead, she pulled herself together with a visible
effort--standing up, rocking for a moment drunkenly on her feet, then
walking over to a chair and sitting down hard.

She didn't say anything for a while. Nobody said
anything. It was a scene that had probably been played out a hundred
times before--in front of her parents, her husband, her children. But
it hadn't been played out in front of guests, and Leanne must have
been feeling the humiliation doubly, because of me and Karen. Her
face had turned a bright red and her eyes had sobered up, as if the
high she'd been on had just escaped her.

"I didn't think you'd come to the farm,"
she said, staring dully at the floor.

"We had to," I said.

Both Karen and Levy jerked forward.

"Harry," Karen said in a sharply warning
voice. And Levy gave me a look, as if to say that now was not the
time. But I didn't really care about hurting Leanne Silverstein's
feelings. After what Karen had told me, I didn't care about anyone at
that moment. I just wanted to find out how much Leanne knew about the
drug deal-how deep the corruption ran. Most of all, I wanted to find
her husband.

"What do you mean, had to?" Leanne said,
looking up at me with her shell-shocked face.

"Your husband is a drug dealer, Mrs.
Silverstein."

"Christ," Levy said, slapping the arm of
his chair, "you got no heart in you at all."

Leanne glanced at Levy, then back at me. "Drug
dealer?" she said. "Jon?"

"He and his partners ripped Lonnie off at that
motel Jon owns--the Encantada."

Leanne laughed nervously. "You're crazy! Jon
wouldn't do that! "

"Oh, but he did," I said. I leaned over and
picked up the photograph from the floor. Karen put her hand on my
arm. "Do we have to do this now?" she whispered fiercely.

"Do you want to know the truth?" I replied,
just as fiercely.

She didn't answer me for a second. "I don't
know," she finally said. "What difference does it make
anymore?"

"Have you forgotten about LeRoi and Jordan?"
I said.

I turned back to Leanne Silverstein again. She was
wobbling unsteadily on the chair, trying like hell to keep her
attention focused on me.

I said, "Lonnie was given two thousand dollars
by your husband, as a down payment on some crack. He was supposed to
deliver the crack to Jon at the Encantada Motel. But he was ripped
off for the drugs before he could deliver. Ripped off by your friend
Norvelle, by Norvelle's roommate, Cal, and by a guy named Claude
Jenkins."

Leanne Silverstein blinked with her whole face. `
Jenkins? He was the night clerk at Jon's motel. He was killed in a
robbery."

I nodded. "Norvelle and Cal killed him for the
drugs he was holding--Lonnie's drugs. They were in it together, Mrs.
Silverstein. Jon too."

"I don't believe it," she said, looking
horrified. "Jon wouldn't hurt anybody. And we didn't see Lonnie
last week. We haven't seen him since 1969."

"Jon saw him," I said. "On Wednesday,
at the Bijou--your day off. Jon used him to buy crack from a
connection in Avondale."

She shook her head defiantly.

"C'mon, Leanne," I said. "How do you
think Jon gets the money to pay for this? How do you think he pays
for your habit?"

She flinched as if I'd slapped her. "I don't
know," she said. "I don't know about his business."

"Sure, you do," I said. "You just
don't want to admit it."

"I ..." She glanced at the front door
nervously. "I think maybe you better go."

"We'll go, all right," 11 said in a tough
voice. "We'll go to the cops. And they'll come back here with a
warrant for your husband. He used Lonnie, Leanne, and then he killed
him."

"You bastard!" Levy shouted, rising from
his chair.

Leanne's defenses collapsed all at once. She slumped
in the chair, covered her eyes with her right hand, and began to sob
miserably. "I love Lonnie. Jon knows that. He would never hurt
him. You must be wrong. It has to be a mistake."

I handed her the photograph. "I found that in
your husband's Jeep, Mrs. Silverstein. Lonnie had it on him on Friday
night."

She took the photograph in her left hand and stared
at it. Tears ran down her cheeks, spotting the surface of the
picture. "Oh, Lonnie," she said in a tiny voice.

"Where is he, Leanne?" I said. "Where
is Jon?"

"At the motel," she whispered.

Leanne began weeping hysterically, bouncing up and
down and clasping herself tightly with both arms, as if she were
literally about to fall apart. Levy went over to her, giving me a
vicious look as he passed by.

"It's all right, honey," he said, pulling
her to him. "You didn't know."

She looked up at him desperately. "I've got to
get off again, Sy," she pleaded, her face running tears. "I
can't take it. I can't! It's just too horrible."

Levy stroked her hair gently. "You need your
strength, now, Leanne. You don't want to go getting high with your
folks around."

"I have no strength," she wailed. "They
took it all away from me. They took everything I cared for. And now
they've taken Lonnie too." She looked over at Karen. "I
loved him, Karen. I really loved him."

Karen ducked her head. "Oh, Christ," she
said softly.

I got up from the couch and went over to Levy. "I
need your car, Sy," I said.

He glared at me. "For why? For more destruction?
Isn't this awful enough?" He looked down at Leanne, who had
buried her face in his chest. "Just leave it alone. Let the
police handle it.

"He's right, Harry," Karen said. "It's
over."

"The fuck it is," I said angrily. "He
killed your husband, Karen. He killed my friend."

"Your friend, Harry?" she said, giving me a
long, long look.

"Yes," I said. "My friend." I
turned back to Sy. "Give me the keys, old man, or I'll take them
off you."

Sy blanched, then reached in his pocket, and handed
me the keys.

Karen started to get up and I shook my head.

"No!" I said sharply. "You stay here.
Call Al Foster. Tell him to get a warrant and search this place. If
Silverstein hasn't turned it over yet, the crack might still be
here."

"What about Jordan?" Karen said. "Won't
he be notified? I mean we're fugitives from him right now."

"Just make the call," I told her.
 

44

I walked out of the house into the cold afternoon
twilight. The sun was just setting above the oak trees, casting long
shadows across the yard and turning the ice on the duck pond
blood-red. I got in the Studebaker, started it up, and headed back up
the access road to the highway.

It took me less than ten minutes to get to the motel.
The neon sign was on, sputtering feebly in the dusk. I parked by the
office and walked over to the bar. There were only a half dozen
locals inside--it was too early for the bike crowd.