Four Kinds of Rain (27 page)

Bob bit his lower lip and nodded his head.

“Yeah,” he said. “They had it right. Dave and Lou Anne found out what I’d done. He wanted money, a lot of it. He was a blackmailer, Jess. Maybe I should feel bad about it, but I don’t. I couldn’t let him bleed us like that. And you know Lou Anne would never shut up.”

“I see,” Jesse said. “And how long would it be before you decided I was in your way, too, Bobby? Me and the baby.”

“Never,” Bob said. “Who do you think I am?”

“Well,” Jesse said, “that’s a good question. I’d say looking at it in one way you’re a good man who got spooked by being old and poor and went on the wrong path. But looking at it from another way you were this guy all along … this thief and hustler, and now murderer, Bob. This guy was the real you just waiting to get out.”

“That’s wrong,” Bob said, edging toward her a little. “You know I’m not like that.”

“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “Maybe there’s a third way to look at you, Bobby. Like a broken-down car, sort of.”

“Huh?”

“Well, my uncle Clyde had himself an old Chevy back in Beckley. It was a good ride for a long time, then one day it got stuck in one gear. Reverse. Couldn’t get that clutch to kick in any other gear. Only went backward. That’s you, Bob. You got stuck in your youth, baby. In visions of purity and innocence and some kind of ultimate justice. Other people grew up and went on, but you stayed in the past. Everything you see and do is in reverse, Bob. You judge everything from the viewpoint of about 1968. From there you can justify anything you want to do.”

Bob shuffled a little closer to her. The bitch, talking to him like this, to
him, Bob Wells, who had given up everything for the poor, the needy, the tired, the hungry, a man who had sacrificed because he loved humanity, had a vision, a real vision of equality and racial harmony and love and peace and compassion
…
he, Bob Wells, how dare she
…

“You know,” Jesse said, “my mama used to act the same way you did. Only she wasn’t no liberal. She was a churchgoing woman, and she believed God was on her side, and she could justify jest about anything with Him hanging on to her. She and my uncle Clyde once killed a black man in the neighborhood and I overheard ‘em talking all about it, how that nigger threatened them, how they was good, kind people but that nigger’s mere presence was enough of a threat to justify him disappearing into the Gauley River. That’s you, Bob. You talk better and have read more books, but you’re a fanatic. Ain’t no difference between you and my mama or for that matter some Muslim terrorist. All of you are sure you are pure. Well, I say if there ever was a revolution in this country, the first thing we oughta do is shoot the pure, ‘cause they are the worst of the worst, and we’d all be better off without ‘em.”

Bob felt a great pressure building in his temple. What was she saying? Him, a fanatic? No, no, no, he’d spent his whole life defending the poor against the fanatics, the rich, the evil, the powerful … he was the only one, the last one of his generation with real morals.

“You don’t understand anything about me at all,” Bob said, raising his voice. “You ignorant redneck. You don’t understand. I didn’t play the situational ethics game. I stood up for my beliefs all my life. I was practically a saint. But that wasn’t enough. They wanted me to die, see? They needed me to die, to justify their own selling out. And I wouldn’t let ‘em do that to me. That was why I had to take matters in my own hands. That was why I had to steal and kill. They wanted me to die in the gutter, so they could shake their heads and say, ‘He never grew up. He never learned how to be an adult,’ as if there was only one way. Being like Rudy Runyon, a phony phone voice on the radio dispensing bullshit advice about feelings, conning people into thinking they felt better for ten minutes while emptying their pockets into your back account. I wouldn’t settle. Never.”

He took another step toward her and Jesse moved back.

“You can’t have it both ways, Bobby,” Jesse said. “Saints don’t look for a big payoff. Not to mention they don’t kill their friends and let another man swing for it. You’re no saint, Bob. You’re an egomaniac, and if you take one more step toward me you’re gonna be a dead one.”

“You cunt. Talking to me that way?” Bob said. “Threatening my life?”

He took another step toward her. Now he was nearly within reaching distance.

“I’m leaving now,” Jesse said, backpedaling. “There’s a hundred thousand dollars on the dining room table, Bob. That should see you through for a year or maybe even two of drinking yourself to death. Forget about looking for me. Because if you find me, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

“Bullshit,” Bob said. “You don’t have it in you.”

He took another step toward her, his hands reaching so close that he could nearly touch the gun barrel.

“I knew it,” he said. “Now let’s get serious.”

“No problem,” Jesse said, then shot him once in the stomach. As the blood seeped out of him, Bob looked at the bullet hole in disbelief. Then he sank to his knees.

“You did it,” he said. “You shot me.”

“‘Bye, Bobby,” she said. “Thanks for the education.” She quickly turned and ran from the room.

Bob waited for some indescribable pain, but instead felt as though air was whistling through his innards. He pulled himself up by leaning on his chaise longue and, after retrieving his gun, he limped to the front porch just in time to see Jesse’s car driving two blocks down Aliceanna Street.

He staggered to the curb and opened his own car door. Fell heavily into his seat, his mind a whirl of pain and Jesse’s voice delivering her catastrophic insults. At that second he wanted to choke the life out of her, more for what she had said than for the fact that she had stolen his money and shot him.

The indignity of it. He had been on the
Today
show and in
The New York Times.

And she was a mere hillbilly girl who he had allowed into his life.

Why, hadn’t he done the whole thing for her? Stolen and murdered to keep her around? It was almost, almost as though she had ordered him to do it.

Anyone could see that.

He twisted the key in his car and roared off down the street.

Bob figured that she’d be heading for the beltway. Once she made it there she’d go to the airport. Of course. She must already have a plane reservation. And probably under another name.

Christ, the airport was huge. Once there he might never find her.

And which country would she go to? He had no idea. And he was pretty sure she had no idea, either.

Or had she already arranged some kind of offshore banking deal?

Christ, that made perfect sense. She’d been planning it ever since they got back from their happy little visit with Emile.

Yeah, the whole Dave and Lou Anne thing was just an excuse.

She had always planned on taking the money. Of course, and good old, softhearted Bob hadn’t seen it.

He made it to the stoplight at Broadway. There was a giant National Bohemian beer truck in front of him. He leaned on the horn, but the truck didn’t move.

Then he saw her. She’d been stuck in traffic, as well, and was just on the other side of the truck turning right at Broadway.

If he waited he might lose her forever. There was nothing left for Bob to do but drive up on the sidewalk. He heard the muffler dragging as he bumped over the curb. A woman screamed in front of him and narrowly dove out of his way. Though his stomach was throbbing now he started to laugh wildly. Was this a new kind of fun? He drove across the wide sidewalk and smashed into a parked car, smashing his own front bumper, which now hung from the grille.

People screamed at him, waved their arms, and a man threw something at him. It bounced off the window and Bob caught a glimpse of it through the window. It was a Cal Ripken puppet. Well, yes, he thought, of course.

He turned the wheel frantically to straighten himself out and then floored the car, shooting a block and a half in barely thirty seconds.

There she was, in her shitty Honda, turning at Lombard. Trying to get to the freeway, but he could cut her off if he could just get by a taxi that was blocking him.

He wanted to honk his horn, scream at the guy, but didn’t dare. If she heard it and looked behind her, she’d see him. So he tail-gated the taxi driver and waved his arms. The guy shot him the finger back and Bob rammed into his rear.

The taxi driver, an Indian man, relented and moved over. As Bob passed him the man waved his arms and cursed him.

But Bob paid no attention to him. Now she was just on the left of him. He pulled up next to her and gave her a couple of quick blasts on his horn.

She looked over and Bob saw the shock on her lovely face.

He hit the window button and stuck his head out.

“Pull over and give me the money,” he said. “Now!”

“Fuck you, Bob,” Jesse said.

That left him no choice. He rammed into her side, sending her into the far left lane. She managed a turn on the other side of Broadway, but slid off the road, overcompensated to her right, and smashed into a light pole.

Steam blew from the engine like a geyser.

Barely able to stay on the road himself, Bob pulled up on the street in front of her, parked, and jumped from his car.

He walked toward her, but was surprised to see her leap from the car and run into the Aero Theatre.

Bob tried to run after her, but felt something shift inside his stomach. He looked down at himself and saw the blood making a thick, red stream down his shirt and pants.

And suddenly he was aware of the pain. In the car, he had been so focused on driving that he was numb, but now Bob couldn’t believe the radiant throbbing he felt from deep inside. It was as if someone had placed a hot coal in his intestines.

He had to get to the hospital. But the thought of giving up the money was too ugly. It was his and his alone.

He staggered up to the Aero’s door, opened the doors, which said COOL in big wet-looking letters, and went inside.

A fat, little black man looked at him and shook his head.

“You a mess,” the man said. “You need to get yo’sef to a doctor.”

“I’m with the Baltimore Police Department,” Bob said. “Detective Geiger. I’m following a woman who is suspected of being a terrorist. I saw her enter here.”

“Yeah,” the man said. “I was, like, working over at the snack bar and she run right in there. I was jes getting ready to call a cop when you came in. She shoot you?”

“Yes, she did,” Bob said, staring down at the blood stream, which ran steadily down his pants.

“You want me to call the cops?”

“No,” Bob said. “This whole deal is undercover. Top secret.”

“Whoa,” the ticket man said. “Ain’t that something?”

“Keep the crowds back,” Bob said.

“Right,” the man said, looking at two junkies who were eagerly staring at Jesse’s wrecked car in front of the theater. “Hey, like, be careful in there, Officer. Bitch still has her piece wif her.” Bob opened the two gold doors that led into the dark theater.

Inside, the blackness blinded him as he stood by the door. It occurred to him that she could be standing right in front of him, her gun aimed at his head. He quickly dodged into the back row and took a seat while his eyes got used to the darkness.

While he waited he looked up at the screen and saw two women making love to a man dressed in some kind of superhero costume. The man Bob recognized as the repulsive porn star Ron Renzle, a man Rudy Runyon had recently interviewed on his radio show. The two of them had discussed the liberating aspects of porn, and Bob had to suppress a desire to call in and scream at Rudy for selling porn as freedom. The nerve of him. What had happened to the left? Now they sold anything as freedom, anything that could make money.

Bob got so mad at Rudy Runyon (the phony, the cad, the wife stealer) and the porn star that for a second he forgot why he was in the Aero Theatre at all. He fell back in the seat and wanted badly to go to sleep.

But the pain in his stomach kept him awake and a second later he remembered why it was that he was here.

Yes, of course, he had to keep focused.

He was here to kill his fiancée and take back his money. The money he had stolen and killed for. (But it didn’t seem that way. Somebody had killed for it, yeah, but was it him? Really? No, it couldn’t be, could it? Not he who so loved the world … )

He could see in front of him now.

Twenty or thirty men in the old theater, where Bob had once seen
Rocket Man
serials, old Roger Corman movies, like
The Invisible Eye,
and was it watching him now? Oh yes, it could be, and wasn’t it always watching a person? Yeah, you know it was. It was always there, and it was sometimes Jesus’ eye and sometimes it was Karl Marx, and sometimes Bakunin and sometimes R. D. Laing and they were all watching him all the time … they were. It was kind of a no-escape deal and he felt the blood leaking out of him and he forced himself up and saw a man bobbing up and down in his seat to his left, a newspaper over his lap. And Bob realized he was here in jackoff city in the hot afternoon, and yet when he looked at the man again, a long-haired guy with a round face, he was sure he knew the guy.

Wasn’t that Billy Stetzle, the old activist? Hadn’t they taken part in some of the greatest street battles of the early seventies? Yeah, that was him. Bill Stetzle sitting in a porn theater with a copy of the
Sporting News
over his pants. How weird was that?

The man looked up and when he saw Bob’s face, he blushed and kind of pulled his hand out of his lap and waved.

“Hey Bob,” he said.

“Bill,” Bob said.

Bill looked deeply embarrassed.

“I don’t usually do this so much,” Bill said.

“Of course not,” Bob said. “You see a blonde come in here?”

“She have a briefcase with her?” Bill said.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Bob said.

“I saw her go somewhere down front,” Bill said. “Not too many girls come in here.”

“Right,” Bob said. “Well, keep working it, Bill.”

“Yeah,” Bill said, looking away.