The Staked Goat - Jeremiah Healy (26 page)

I told her she was good at avoiding traffic.

She began to say, "Avoidance is . . ." then
dropped it.

South Boston is one of the few residential
neighborhoods in the city where residents can find a parking place on
the street in front of their houses. Nancy maneuvered into a space,
and we went inside and up the stairs.

At our footsteps, the door on the second landing
opened.

"Hi, Drew," said Nancy cheerily.

"Nancy," said Lynch in reply, closing his
door.

She opened her apartment door, and I followed her in.

"Make yourself comfortable in the living room."

"Fine," I said, walking by her.

"Would you like something stronger than ice
water this time?"

"Do you have any vodka?"

"Yes."

"Then vodka and anything will be fme."

"Do you prefer orange juice or grapefruit juice
for breakfast?"

"Orange."

"Then it's vodka and grapefruit tonight."

"Fine," I repeated, collapsing into her
throw pillows, registering the aches in joints and organs from drugs
and batterings and train and bus rides. I felt the way over-thirty
quarterbacks have described themselves at the end of the season. I
closed my eyes.

I opened them as Nancy came in with the drinks, hers
a Scotch and water from the look of it. I didn't think I had dropped
off, but Nancy had changed from suit to jeans and a red cowlneck
sweater. A lot like Jacquie's.

I started to stand. She pushed me back and handed me
my drink.

"To life," she said, lightly pinging her
glass against mine.

"To life,” I agreed.

We sipped. She nestled down Indian-style on the
floor.

"Tell you what," she said, carefully
placing her drink on the low table. "Let's pretend, O.K.?"

"Pretend?" I said.

"Yes, let's pretend that I've already fed us two
steaks from my freezer, and plied you with liquor, and asked you if
you were ready for bed. Let's pretend that you said you were and that
I gave you the choice of my room or the couch and you chose the
couch.

O.K.?"

I grinned sheepishly. "O.K."

"Good. Now we can both relax and maybe even
enjoy each other's company." She picked up her glass and took a
long draw.

"Well," she said, replacing the glass and
cradling back on her elbows, "tell me about what happened."

I told her. It took through dinner and beyond, but I
told her. Most of it.
 

TWENTY-ONE
-•-

I WOKE UP WITH A START. THERE WAS A LOT OF SUNSHINE
in the room. Too much. Then I remembered Nancy's parlor would have
southeastem exposure and get a lot of morning sun, even in winter. I
wondered why she didn't grow more plants. I also wondered what time
it was.

I didn't hear any stirrings in the apartment. I swung
my legs out from under the covers and off the couch, sitting up. I
felt about fifty percent better than I had the night before. I walked
to the bay window and looked down at the street. Her car was gone.

I went into the kitchen. A pencil and a note were on
the table.

John, I'm going to the bank and one other
stop.
Be back by 10:30. N.M. 8:45

P.S. I looked in on you twice. Your face is
angelic
when you're asleep. Maybe you can
tell a book by
its cover.

I smiled and glanced up at her wall clock. 9:10 A.M.
I penciled a circle around the "10:30" on her note and
wrote, "So will I."

The door to Nancy's bedroom closet was open, and she
had a couple of oversized T-shirts at the bottom of it. She probably
used them as nightgowns. Beth always did.

I tugged on a couple of T-shirts for insulation and
tried not to notice her perfume or feel like a transvestite. I pulled
on Amie's clothes and figured I was warm enough for the short walk,
even in March. There was a chance that somebody would spot me, so I
rummaged rudely through Nancy's closet shelf till I found a watch cap
that wasn't too feminine looking. I pulled the cap down and put the
collar up.

I looked in the mirror. Only one person would
recognize me. The only one who really mattered. By the time I entered
the gate, I was hungry. I walked up the main car path, then took the
second right-hand walkway, as always.

As I approached her, I thought how most people felt
that snow on the ground made places more dreary. Sorry, but that was
not possible here. Neither spring flowers nor winter storms affect a
cemetery. It's always the lost part of lost and found, even though
labeled by marble markers.

I reached her, hunching my shoulders a little against
an edge of wind from the harbor.

"It's been a while, Beth," I said.

She agreed.

"I saw Al's family, out in Pittsburgh. Martha,
his wife, is taking it well. His son, Al Junior, is too young to
realize yet. They're really strapped, though, so he'll realize it
pretty soon. You see, Al let everything go. No insurance, no support
from his company. Martha has some real close friends out there, a
woman with a little boy older than Al Junior, and a gay guy across
the street. With just a chunk of money, maybe twenty-five or thirty
thousand, they'd be 0.K. They could hold onto the house, at least
long enough to sell it reasonably instead of at sacrifice. But that
means finding somebody to pay, that means . . ."

Beth asked me about the "other woman" in
Pittsburgh.

I winked and laughed. "Well, she was pretty
cute. She hasn't had it too easy either, a bum for a husband, but
that was years ago, the divorce, I mean, and now she's pretty solid."

I sighed and went on. "At least I hope she's
solid. I had to tell someone out there what I thought about Al's
death being a cover-up for something else. Martha was in no shape,
she was just coming out of it, the shock and all. Dale—that's the
gay guy—I think he was in the process of losing his lover, and I
think he knew it. That pretty much left Carol, Al's boss being a
schmuck on any list."

I paused to let her get a word in edgewise. I heard a
car door slam behind me. An elderly woman and a small boy left the
car, the boy bounding ahead.

"Washington? Oh, I had a ball in Washington.
First I got mugged, then I got set up by J.T. From the army,
remember? Then . . ."

I phrased my situation with Jacquie and rescue as
delicately as I could. "You saved me, Beth. As usual. But I felt
badly about having to deck the MP. I hope J.T. at least has the balls
to own up and not use the kid as a scapegoat. I . . ."

The boy from the car pulled even with us and stared
at me. Maybe I was talking a little loudly. It's hard for me to tell
sometimes. The boy, who was about seven years old, twisted around and
darted off, stopping briefly at each gravestone before running to the
next. Then a voice from behind me. "Harleee! Harley. You come
back now, you heah? Right now. Harley?" The woman was dressed in
a light blue pantsuit and a heavy, ill-fitting outer coat.

"He must be over here, Gram," Harley
replied.

The boy had none of the woman's strong Southern
accent.

"Harley, he can't be over theah, boy! That's the
Fs and the Gs. He's over theah. In the Ls, where he belongs. Harley!"

I was tempted to tell the woman that this cemetery
wasn't alphabetical, that the assignment of resting places was a
function of price and chronology.

"I see an L over here, Gram! In fact, two Ls."

"Harley, Gramps is over theah. He has been over
theah for seventeen months. To the left, Harley, to the left. By the
Ls."

"I see another L!" called Harley back, and
continued his survey.

The elderly woman muttered none too sweetly under her
breath. She began to stomp doggedly down the path to the left.

I looked down at Beth's headstone. Elizabeth Mary
Devlin Cuddy. Would she be in the Cs for Cuddy, or the Ds for Devlin,
or even the Bs for Beth .... You jerk! The Bs. "I had a lotta
luck with the Bs, John-boy." Al, who never expressed a liking
for hockey, or betting on it, but who always loved looking through
phone books for people he knew. Blowing half an R-and-R on the
Honolulu directory. Now I knew how Al had found his killer. And I
knew I could find him, too.

I turned back to Beth. I
started to tell her about Nancy, and the glow, but after a few
sentences she could tell my heart wasn't in it. She shooed me off.

* * *

I got back to Nancy's place and realized I had no key
to her building's front door. I debated pushing the Lyuches' bell for
about two minutes, shivering on the front steps and anxious to go
through the telephone book. I was about to buzz them when I heard two
quick honks from the street. It was Nancy.

She got out with a grocery bag in the crook of her
right arm. She strode up to me. She had the spring of an athlete,
even with the bag.

"You don't look any better in that hat than I
do." She laughed, more with her eyes than her voice.

I smiled and thought about offering to take the bag.
I decided not to, chivalry yielding to feminism.

"Here," she said, shoving the bag into my
arms. "Hold this."

She keyed the lock. We went in and upstairs, me
carrying the bag.

"Set it on the kitchen table."

I did. She tossed off her coat and crossed to the
table. She rummaged around in the bag, producing a packet of
disposable Bic razors, some shaving cream, a toothbrush, and some Old
Spice stick deodorant. I scratched elaborately under my arms. "That
bad, huh?"

She laughed again, music.

"It occurred to me this morning that I wasn't
too well stocked for male guests with no luggage." She pulled
out a package of nondescript briefs and two exceptionally
cheap-looking dress shirts.

"I guessed on size but skimped on quality."
She shrugged. "I didn't want to buy good stuff that wouldn't
iit.”

I thanked her and pulled off the watch cap.
Reilexively she put her fist in her mouth to stifle a shriek. "Maybe
I should have favored a hairbrush over the toothbrush."

I popped in the bathroom. I looked like a punk rocker
only halfway down the assembly line. I came back out and scooped up
the things she'd bought for me.

"Maybe I should just shave my head while I'm at
it."

"Oh, do. That'll certainly make you
inconspicuous."

We both laughed. She gave me a quick, strong hug and
asked if I'd had breakfast. I said no. She told me to shower and
shave while she made it, and pointed to the narrow vertical shutter
on the wall that hid the towels.

It was a simple, silly domestic scene. Maybe the best
few minutes I'd had in a couple of years.

When I came out of the bathroom, we had bacon, eggs,
orange juice, and English muffins with choice of jam or marmalade.
The bacon was a bit overdone for my taste, but I wasn't shy about
seconds.

I insisted on clearing away and washing the dishes. I
started getting itchy about the telephone book, but didn't want Nancy
to see it.

As I dried the last of them and turned around, Nancy
reached into her purse and put an envelope on the table. She nudged
it toward me. I dried my hands and opened it. Mostly twenties and
tens.

I arched my eyebrows at her.

"There's eight hundred dollars. In smaller
bills, no higher than a twenty. And old ones. I told the teller I was
going on a trip and didn't want to risk giving away too new bills on
some Caribbean island. She recommended travelers' checks for safety,
but I stood firm on cash and carry."

"Just an old—fashioned girl, huh?"

Nancy blinked a few times. "In most ways,"
she said, softly.

I felt dangerously close. Close to saying something
and close to her. "Shouldn't you be getting off to work?"

She hid most of her disappointment with a good effort
at a smile. She stood up and crossed to a cabinet drawer. "Yes,
I should. I called the office and told them I had a doctor's
appointment I'd forgotten and absolutely couldn't break again. I just
drew bail appeal this morning, anyway."

She turned and tossed something to me. "Catch."

Two keys held together on a paper clip. "Big
key, downstairs door. Little key, upstairs door."

I hefted them in my palm. "What do I say to Mrs.
Lynch?"

Nancy disappeared into her bedroom to change. "Better
tell her you're my cousin." She closed the door.

No, Nance, I don't think I'll tell her that. Nancy
had said she'd be home about six. I told her not to wait for me. She
had asked if there was anything else she could do for me. I thanked
her and said no.

I watched her get into the Honda and drive off before
grabbing the telephone book. I dialed Murphy's special number as I
traced down through the Bs to Ba, Be, Bea ....