Tough Guys Don't Dance (22 page)

If it strains belief that I could think of such a story while the steam of his madness was scalding my eyes—well, I can hardly believe it myself. Maybe I was not as brave as I pretended and clung to his tale in the hope that it would mollify his rage. You cannot strike a man who is filled with compassion for you.

This was the story: He was illegitimate, and his mother claimed he wasn't hers. Said they messed up the name tags in the hospital. She used to beat him every day. When he got older, he beat everybody he faced in the Golden Gloves. He was in line to make the U.S. team for the Pan-American games, but he went down to Georgia to look for his father. Never found him. Went into a white bar dead drunk. They wouldn't serve him. They called the State Troopers. Two came in, and asked him to leave.

“You got no alternative,” he informed them. “Serve me, or piss on you.”

One of the troopers hit him so hard with a billy club that he began to lose the Pan-American games right there. But he didn't know it yet. Just felt a great happiness. Because he was bleeding
as if he had been butchered, but he wasn't shook. In fact, he was wide awake. He proceeded to injure both cops and it took the entire bar to subdue him. They brought him in restraints to the jail house. Among other things, his skull was fractured. He could box no more.

That was the sad tale he told. He related it as an example of his stupidity, not his valor (although it had the opposite effect on Patty) and when we came to know him better, he proved to be a funny man. He used to do imitations of black whores to make us laugh. We saw a lot of Mr. Green, and I would lend him money.

Will it give you an idea of how close I felt to annihilation, and how comfortable this idea had become (after all the rat-scurry of keeping myself alive) that I could now recognize that Bolo had not treated me so badly as I had treated Wardley. The remains of my rage began to fade and a peace came in to replace it. I do not know what Mr. Green was thinking of, but even as my anger departed, so did his. “Well,” I said, making my offering to the silence, “what do you say, motherfucker?”

“I never had a mother to fuck,” he replied. Sadly, he held out his hand for five. Sadly, I tapped it.

“I don't know where Patty Lareine is,” I said.

“You aren't looking for her?”

“No.”

“I'm looking for her, and I can't find her.”

“When did she leave you?”

He frowned. “We had it on together for three weeks. Then she got restless. Took off.”

“Where were you?”

“In Tampa.”

“Did you see her ex-husband?”

“Wardley, is that the guy?”

I nodded.

“We saw him. He took us out to dinner one night. Then she went to see him alone. That was cool. He was no threat. I figured she was hitting on him for something good. But the next day she took off.” He looked like he was about to cry. “She treated me decent. She was the only bitch ever treated me that decent.” He looked very sad. “I just ran out of things to talk to her about. Used them up.” His eyes studied mine. “You know where she is? I got to find her.”

“She may be around.”

“She is.”

“How do you know?”

“A guy called me. The guy said Patty Lareine told him to call. She wanted me to know. She was back here in P-town with Wardley. She missed me, the fellow said.”

“Who was the fellow?”

“Didn't give his name. He gave it, but there's nobody by that name. I knew it was no good when he gave it. He was talking with a handkerchief over the phone.”

“What was the name?”

“Healey. Austin Healey.”

A mote of town lore came back. A couple of
years ago a few of us, tired of the sound of Stoodie, began to speak of him as Austin Healey. That went on for a little while. But Stoodie was not told our name for him. It had to be Spider who called.

“This Healey said Patty L. was at the Provincetown Inn,” Bolo said. “I called there. Shit, she wasn't nowhere near a place like that.”

“When did you get back?”

“Three days ago.”

“When did she leave you?”

“One week ago, about.”

“Seven days for sure?”

“Eight. I counted them.”

Yes, he was counting his days. I was counting mine.

“I could kill her,” he said, “for leaving me.”

“There's no man she won't leave,” I said. “She comes from a narrow background. It's sin to her.”

“I'm just as narrow as she is,” he said, “and I'm going to take a big hit on something when I see her.” He looked at me from an angle as if to say, “You can hustle others, but, baby, get trustworthy with me.” Then he put his doubts away. He would tell. “Austin Healey said Patty Lareine was seeing you again. When I heard that, I figured I would have to treat you to a welcome.” He paused to let me feel the weight of the thought. “But I knew I couldn't do it to you.”

“Why?”

“Because you treated me like a gentleman.”

He measured the truth of this and seemed to
agree with himself. “Moreover,” he said, “Patty Lareine don't like you anymore.”

“Probably not.”

“She said you trapped her into marriage.”

I began to laugh.

“What are you laughing about, honkie?”

“Mr. Green, there's an old Jewish saying: ‘A life, a wife!' ”

He, too, began to laugh.

We went on long enough to draw attention to ourselves. History was being made in The Brig tonight. The cuckold and the black lover were having a big time together.

“Joseph, I'll see you around,” I said to Bolo Green.

“Keep the peace.”

I had to take a long walk. More had come into my head than I could put in order.

It was drizzling, and I was walking down Commercial Street with my hands in my pockets and my head so withdrawn into my parka hood that I did not become aware that a car was following me until the headlights on my back could no longer be ignored. I turned. Behind me was a police cruiser with one man in it. He opened the door. “Get in,” he said. Regency, at my service.

We had not driven fifty feet before he began to talk. “Got a make on your woman, Jessica,” he said. He pointed to a piece of paper on the front seat. “Take a look,” he told me and handed over a pencil flashlight that he drew from his breast pocket.

I studied a photostat of a photograph sent by wire. It was Jessica clearly enough. “I'd say that's her.”

“Well, we don't need you to inform us, pal. There's no doubt. The waitress and the proprietor at The Widow's Walk have both confirmed.”

“Good work,” I said. “How did you track her down?”

“No big deal. We contacted Pangborn's office in Santa Barbara and there were a couple of blondes he associated with socially or business-wise. We were looking into that when her son called. He knew she was in Provincetown with Pangborn—as you might guess from Don Lon's little billet-doux.”

“You're speaking of the son who was Lonnie's lover?”

“Correct,” said Regency. “The kid with the cordless razor.” He opened his window and hawked a throaty yield. “I think I'll never watch a commercial again.”

“You may not.”

“Now, here, Madden, is where the soup starts to stick to the spoon. It seems her name isn't Jessica.”

“What is the real name?”

“Laurel Oakwode. It's a fancy spelling: w-o-d-e for ‘wood.' ”

Recollection came back to me of what I had said to Harpo before the séance that ended with Nissen's scream. “Harpo,” I had said, “tell everybody we're trying to reach Mary Hardwood, who
is my mother's cousin. But the woman I really want to talk to is named Laurel.”

Such a coincidence could not have been produced by a beeper. Despite myself, I began to shiver. Sitting beside Regency in the police car, cruising fifteen miles an hour down Commercial Street, I began to shiver visibly.

“You need a drink,” said Alvin Luther.

“It's all right,” I said.

“Maybe you'd be in better shape,” he suggested, “if the tattoo on your arm didn't say ‘Laurel.' ”

“Do you want to stop the car?”

“No objection at all.”

We were at the end of Commercial Street. We had come to the place where the Pilgrims once landed, but in the drizzle, I could see nothing.

“Okay,” he said, “get out.”

My panic had subsided. The thought of walking two and a half miles home with no more than this amputated encounter for company encouraged me to take a chance.

“I don't know what point you're trying to make,” I said, “but it's no big deal to me. I got shit-face and drove out to see Harpo, and had him put on a tattoo. Maybe Jessica told me that her real name was Laurel, but I don't remember.”

“Was she with you?”

I had to make a decision. “Harpo says she was.”

“You're saying you can't remember?”

“Not clearly.”

“So you could have knocked her off, and forgotten it?”

“Are you accusing me?”

“Let us say that I am working on the outline of the first scenario. In my way, I'm a writer too.” He could not restrain himself. The wild stallion gave his great neigh and whinny.

“I don't like the way you're talking.”

“Hey, pal,” said Regency, “kidding is kidding, but get your ass off my pillow. I could take you in right now.”

“On what? There's no crime. The lady might be on her way back to Santa Barbara. You're not about to hurt your record with a false arrest.”

“Let me rephrase myself,” he said. “I could take you in right now as a suspect in the possible murder of Leonard Pangborn.”

“You said it was a suicide.”

“So I thought. But the forensics have taken a look. They came in on a special from Boston at our request. The supercoroners, they like to be called, but my private tag for them is: the super-coronaries.” Once again he laughed at his own joke. “They mess up your heartbeat considerably with what they find.”

“What did they find?”

“I'll tell you. It's going to be no secret very soon. Pangborn may have killed himself, but if he did, who drove the car?”

“You told me that he got into the trunk and closed the lid on himself before he fired the shot.”

“The congealed blood on the floor of the trunk
has a shirred movement as if, soon after it began to coagulate, the car was driven, from wherever the event occurred, to The Widow's Walk.”

“Wouldn't the staff at the restaurant have heard the car come back?”

“Not if it was three in the morning. They wouldn't be around. Look, let's not argue. The car was moved. The patterns of the blood show that it was.” He shrugged. “What it comes down to, Madden, is that somebody drove this vehicle back to The Widow's Walk after Lonnie committed suicide.”

“Could Jessica have done that?”

“Yes, Laurel Oakwode certainly could. Let me ask: Did you bang her?”

“I believe I did.”

He whistled. “God, is your head a mess. You can't even remember that?”

“What bothers me is I believe I did it in front of Lonnie Pangborn.”

“I hate to quote a nigger, but Cassius Clay said it: ‘You ain't as dumb as you look.' ”

“What do you mean?”

“Don't let my praise linger in your mouth.” He lit a cigar and puffed on it like it was a Bangalore Torpedo. “Madden, you have just given me
your
scenario. One: You bang Jessica in front of Lonnie. Two: You wipe your cock and walk off. Three: Jessica comforts Lonnie. Four: He starts to complain: ‘Us faggots are not built for such competition.' He hides in the trunk. Bang! He's left her a gift—his body. These gay people
can be spiteful. Well, she's a respectable cunt and doesn't want publicity. So she drives back to The Widow's Walk, leaves the car and starts home to Santa Barbara.” He nodded his head. “It holds up beautifully if—One: You can find where she slept that night, although I'll tell you in advance to save part of your lawyers' fees that you can always claim she walked back to your house and slept in tears on your sofa. Unless you gave her your bed.” He opened his window and threw the cigar away. “Two: She must, when she shows up, be alive, and corroborate your story. You have to pray she doesn't come back to us as a corpse in these dunes and woods.”

“You've done some thinking on this.”

I had hoped to stroke him. He merely nodded. “Let me give you another scenario. You and she and Pangborn go out to Wellfleet in your car. On the way back Lonnie can't stand losing her, so he waves his pistol at you. You stop the car and wrestle his shooter away. In the fracas, she gets shot. Mortally. You leave her in the woods and drive him to his car, make him get into the trunk—he's limp as a worm by now. Then you drive away to a quiet place, open the trunk, lay the barrel in his throat, say sweetly, ‘I'll never hurt you, Lonnie, this is only fun and games. This is how I get my kinks out. Kiss the barrel for me, Lonnie.' Then you pull the trigger, do a little wiping and leave his finger on it. Next, you drive the car back to The Widow's Walk, get back in your car, go to the woods again and dispose of
her body. Son, you do it all except you forget to wipe your front seat. As my wife says, ‘Nobody's perfect.' Neither am I. I let you get away with blood on the front seat. I'm a hick and trust my friends. Yes,” he said, “you better hope and pray her body doesn't show up. I'll be the first one after you because I bought the story about the nose bleed.”

“Well,” I said, “why don't you take me in now?”

“Figure it out.”

“You have no case. If she was shot at close quarters in my car, her blood would have been all over his clothing.”

“Maybe you're right. Let's have a drink.”

Nothing could have been more unsatisfactory. The last thing I wanted was to drink with him. But he started up the car, began to whistle “Stardust” and took off in a spray of road sand and rubber.