Old School (9 page)

He pulled a Ziploc bag out of the lock box, opened that up, took out the brick of Federal soft points – the ones they used to call Chicago loads. Even out of a short-barreled .38, they’d put a hurting on you. He loaded the rounds into the five chambers, closed the weapon, wrapped it back in its towel, put the ammo back in the Ziploc, locked everything in the box and stuck it under the winter sweaters in his bottom drawer. If he had to use the gun, it would be soon. Clarence wouldn’t need anything out of the sweater drawer for at least four or five months. DeGatano figured he’d be dead by then.

***

The doctor shoved the stethoscope back in his pocket, told Lou he could put his shirt on.

“You’re blood pressure is way up, edema’s worse. You’re ankles look like balloons. You been misbehaving?”

DeGatano nodded. “Had like three bites of a bacon cheeseburger yesterday, couple onion rings, maybe half a beer. Been having these pains in my chest.” He told the doc about the barbed wire feeling.

“Do we need to go over what sodium restricted means again? And maybe point out those no alcohol stickers on the back of all your prescription bottles?”

“Look, doc, you tell me we’re pretty much on the home stretch with this heart thing. If you can’t cure it, then I guess I’ll eat what I want. If I only make it to 84-and-a-half instead of 85, so what?”

The doc shrugged. “It’s up to you. Although as run down as your system is, I’m betting you felt like shit after the burger. But yeah, might as well enjoy yourself to the extent you can. A month ago I told you six months maybe, but now I’m thinking that’s probably optimistic. If you’ve got anything you need to tend to, I’d tend to it. I’m pretty much at the end of my rope here. Can’t up the dosages on anything without killing you. “

“OK doc. Thanks. I’ll see you next month or I won’t.”

***

DeGatano was up in his room, just after 8:00 pm when the phone rang. It was Johnson.

“A couple things on Novak. You’re right on the draft thing. He was inducted in September of 1971. Also, his home address at the time was on Rathbone, down south of Prairie.”

“Which puts him right on the Burlington tracks, maybe half a mile from that first kid.”

“Yeah. Also, you guys were looking for a black Camero, right?”

“Yeah,” said DeGatano.

“There was a black ’68 Camero registered at the same address. Paul Novak. Older brother, it looks like.”

DeGatano didn’t say anything.

“Lou?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not proof.”

“It ain’t nothing, either.”

“I know. I just, I mean I don’t want you doing anything.”

“What am I gonna do? Sick old fuck like me? I can’t even piss on the guy.”

This time a pause on Johnson’s end.

“I mean it Lou.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Silence. Her waiting for him to say something else. Cop trick, let the pressure build, people always feeling like they have to say something, fill in the vacuum. DeGatano figured reporters would know that shit to, so he just waited her out.

“Anyway,” she started up again, “I sold the Hangman thing to my editor. He wants to do a two-parter. First, a recap, sort of a boogie man tale for all the young folk that haven’t heard of the guy, then the interview. So when are we going to talk? I can expense lunch this time, so if you really want to grow a wild hair, go to Olive Garden or something, I can make that work.”

“Truth is, the burger damn near killed me. Stop by tomorrow, meet me in the day room, we can go upstairs and talk. Maybe before we do, you could rub my thigh a little, give me a peck on the cheek, give the old biddies here something to fan themselves over.”

“It’s a date,” she said.

DeGatano hung up and then called McBride, got his voice mail, left him a message with the date on Novak’s induction, his old address, the Camero. “And Matt,” he finished, “ since you didn’t want to play ball, I had to go to the other team. This shit? I got it from Johnson over at the Beacon. She’s interviewing me tomorrow. So you can get your head out of your ass and move on this, or you can watch while the paper solves it for you.” Fucker’d have to listen now, at least take a peek.

***

DeGatano woke up to the pain in his chest, the barbed-wire thing again, but there was this pressure behind it this time. Cold sweat all over, too. This time was different. This time was it.

He swung his legs off the bed, looked at the clock. Quarter to five. Two doors down to the new guy’s room. DeGatano staggered to the recliner, plopped down, pulled open the bottom dresser drawer, grabbed the lock box, and took out the .38. He was glad he’d loaded it already. Way his hands were shaking now, he’d be lucky to chamber a round. His O2 canister was still in its carrier. He’d left it by the door after lunch. He turned the crank full open, slipped the hose over his ears and shoved the nozzles up his nose. Breathing the oxygen in, he felt a little burst of energy, also felt the barbed-wire in his chest tighten up another notch. No time. He had the gun in one hand, the handle to the O2 carrier in the other. He headed for Novak’s room.

DeGatano lost the light from the hall when he let Novak’s door close behind him, but it was the same layout as his room, a little light leaking in the window. He could see what he needed to see. Fucker was sleeping like a log, light snore burping out of him. DeGatano crossed the room, clicked a light on next to the bed and sat down.

Novak’s eyes opened, focused on DeGatano, seemed lucid.

“Know who I am, you fuck?”

“Guy from down the hall.”

“Know who I used to be?”

Novak shook his head.

“Used to be a cop. Used to be a detective. Forty years ago, I cut four little boys out of trees.”

Novak’s eyes fluttered a little.

“I know you lived down on Rathbone. I know your brother had a black Camero. I know you got drafted in ’71. I know the killings stopped when you left town. I know little Cub Scouts make you lick your lips. And I know you can tie a fucking sheepshank.”

Novak’s eyes lost focus, weird smile on his face. “Sheepshank,” he said.

The pain hit DeGatano again hard. He stiffened, grunted. Christ. The barb-wire was biting all the way in now, like it was pinning his heart to his spinal column. No time. No time. He raised the .38, pressed the end of it to the middle of Novak’s chest, tried to squeeze the trigger, his hand shaking, the hammer only coming back a fraction of an inch, the pain in his chest building, sweat pouring, he could feel his body shutting down, not enough strength in his hand to pull the fucking trigger. He brought his left hand up, tried to double up, get two fingers inside the trigger guard, arthritic knuckles in the way. The wire in his chest finally bit all the way through, a feeling like his heart snapped in half. DeGatano’s vision grayed up, the pain stopped and he fell off the bed, onto the floor, the .38 clattering away from his hand, his brain going blank. Tried to sit back up, something he was still supposed to do. Couldn’t remember what it was, couldn’t move. He felt his bladder let go, a long, steady stream flowing out. Jesus, that felt good.

“Sheepshank,” Novak said.

Purl Two

Knit one, purl two . . .

It’s funny what you think of. “Close your eyes and dream of England.” Wasn’t that the advice she’d read, what mothers told Victorian brides to get them through their wedding nights? But this wasn’t a wedding night. Gladys Wilson had been through one of those fifty-six years ago. No, she could feel the weight on her back, pressing her into the Ottoman, smell the sweat and oil and dirt on the man, feel him forcing himself . . . my God, that isn’t even where it went . . . and she thought of something else she read, how Queen Victoria refused to outlaw lesbianism because she didn’t believe women would do such things. Gladys wasn’t that sheltered, of course. She knew what the man was doing. She knew people did such things.

“Old bitch is drier than a week-old dog turd,” the man said, grunting. “I’m going with plan B. Still gotta shit, don’t she? Gotta be able to make me a hole there.” She could feel something tear, feel blood run down her thigh. She should scream, but she knew they wanted her to scream.

“Hooo-weee,” shouted the other man. “You ride that bitch, Bobby. Tear that shit up, make me some room. “

She could only see a small square of the floor, pieces of plaster from when the two men had been ripping holes in the wall, the picture of her husband, dead ten years now, the frame broken at the corner, the glass cracked.

“Don’t gotta take the whole ride, bitch,” the man said, thrusting into her. “Money’s here somewheres, just gotta point ‘er out for us, we be on our way.” He leaned back and drove into her with particular emphasis. “Gotta warn you, I may be hung for a white boy, but ol’ Seephus there, you ain’t seen nothin’ like him, ‘cept maybe at the zoo. Gonna pop out your navel, he climbs on.”

Her grandson. She’d called the sheriff on him four days ago. Went back out to the barn for the first time in ages – she hadn’t planted anything on the farm, not in five years. Not since her son died from the cancer and that no-good daughter-in-law had lit out before he was even room temperature, leaving the grandson she’d already gone and messed up with Grandma. “Don’t know what to do with the kid,” the girl said out the car window, already another man in the seat beside her. “You’re always tellin’ me what I done wrong, you straighten his ass out.”

So she’d tried with the boy, but he was beyond learning. She rented her acreage out to Hank Sauer, just up County B. Her grandson used the barn. Kept his truck out there, his motorcycle.

Four days back, she’d stepped outside, sciatica not bothering her for once, one of the first beautiful days of spring. Figured the boy must be back in the barn. Never stop loving them. That’s all the parenting advice she knew. She’d go back, see if maybe he’d like to drive into Leesburg, she’d buy him lunch. The barn was more of a walk than she was used to anymore, nearly half a mile back down the gravel track, but she was up to it that day.

The smell hit her about halfway there – ammonia smell. And she wasn’t that sheltered. Knew what that meant. Knew where the money was coming from – money for the truck, money for the motorcycle, money for the dirty-haired, tattooed girls. She walked back to the house and called the sheriff.

The man on her back stiffened for a moment, grunted, emptied his seed into her bowels, blood and filth running out of her as he pulled out and stood up. Only a square of floor, the pieces of plaster, her husband’s photo, the corner of her knitting bag.

“Goin’ upstairs, Seephus, clean this shit off’a me, take another look around up there.”

“You go on, Bobby.” The other man’s voice, deeper. “Me and Granny have a date.” She heard a belt buckle, a zipper, the sound of pants dropping to the floor. “Don’t learn none, do you Granny? Gonna roll you over, bitch. Better get them dentures out – you’re gonna help get this beast hard.”

She felt the man grab her shoulder, turning her, straddling her and the ottoman. He was dark black, naked, she could see the lines of muscle in his abdomen and chest. Funny what you think of. Her nurse’s training coming back to her. Rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis, tendenous inscriptions. The bottom of his ribcage, the zyphoid process of his sternum, just above the diaphragm, behind that the heart. The man above her so proud of his penis, his accident of birth, stroking it, looking into her eyes. Not at her hands.

She drove the knitting needle directly into his heart. Held it there, pushing, could feel the vibration in the metal, feel the chambers flailing away at the intrusion.

“Bitch!” he roared, swinging a fist into her face. Already weaker, hurting her, but not killing her, not knocking her out. Then his face changing, the message from his body reaching his brain, he gasped, the first of the blood coming from his mouth. He tried to steady himself, grabbing the front of her blouse, tearing that away as he toppled off to the floor.

They were lazy, as all who wouldn’t work to earn their way were lazy. They’d started to search, smashed some holes in the wall, turned some furniture over, but they supposed she would tell them, supposed that would be easier. She stood up, surprised not to feel more damaged. The adrenaline, probably. Pulled the large Bible from the corner of the bookcase, reached behind it, drew out her husband’s .45, the one he’d brought home from the Pacific.

“How you lovebirds doin’?” the other man’s voice, coming down the stairs. “Awful quiet down there.”

She waited, the gun in both hands, leveled at the corner where the man would enter the room. She knew how to use the .45. She wasn’t that sheltered.

Circle of Life

To Miller, you say a place is a dump, that means roaches, it means you find pubic hairs from the last guy on the sheets. Sure, this place was a little threadbare, carpet was worn some, furniture a bit dinged up, but it was clean, shower was hot – and it didn’t have one of those fucking aerator things on it either, things the hotels put on to cut their water bills so you end up trying to get clean in something like a heavy fog. And then they hang their Greenpeace propaganda on the bathroom door, how you’re helping to save the environment by showering in this weak stream of piss-warm water and drying off with a dirty towel and sleeping in yesterday’s sheets because they don’t want to kill no baby seals by washing your stink off nothing and melting another hundredth of a millimeter off some ice cap somewhere. No, this joint had an actual shower, crank it up hot, lean on the wall, let it beat on your back. At his age, that was almost as good as what he used to get from that Eurasian chic who had the hot pillow joint down at the end of bring-cash alley in Saigon. Or as good as what he got from her before she did that combo sword-swallowing, spin-me-like-a-top deal. Wasn’t as good as that. But he wasn’t getting much of that anymore. Hell, he’d need some of the little blue pills if he wanted to, and his line of work, it didn’t come with medical.