Whistle Pass (7 page)

“Meet me around the corner of the hotel at ten tonight.” Charlie stepped out of the doorway and disappeared into the fog.

Gabe quickly pulled a key out of his pocket, went to the next door on the block and unlocked it. He ran all the way up the stairs, then unlocked the door to his apartment.

Standing in the center of the room, he tapped the leather folder against his temple. “Where do I put you?” He scanned an immaculately smoothed bed, the dust-free veneer dresser, the closet, the radiator’s metal lace cover. Too easy. Anyone really looking would find the picture. So, where? He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling, then at the ceiling molding. He smiled.

With one foot on the dresser and one on the bed’s burled walnut headboard, his fingertips rocked a piece of molding nailed into the plaster wall. Little by little it loosened until a space just large enough revealed itself. He slid the photo and cover behind it, slapped the board back in place, and then ran down the stairs.

Breakfast was waiting. But he’d have to send it back. What he needed most was to vomit.

C
HARLIE
walked into the newsstand. A round soda table with two iron stools stood vacant next to the window, affording him a view of the barely visible doors to city hall immediately across the street. On the table rested a newspaper. He checked the date. Three days old. But the title was
The Weekly Whistle
, so he figured it was the latest edition.

“Coffee?” the man behind the counter asked.

“Yeah. Black.” He read the headline and shivered.

The man set a mug of brew in front of him. “Yes, sir. Iowa knows how to handle them damn homosexuals. If the rest of this country’d follow suit, the world would be a safer place. You want anything else? Got some frosted donuts.”

Charlie pulled his fingertips over his face, stretching his skin as he did. “No. I’m good.” The man shuffled away, and Charlie stared at the headline: “Iowa Commits 29 Homosexuals to Mental Asylums
.
” He shook out a Lucky and lit up. He exhaled and refilled his lungs. Smoke leaked from his nostrils.
Yeah. Lock up all the insane Gabes and Charlies, and the world will be safe for the fine, upstanding citizens like Roger Black
.

He clenched the cigarette between his teeth and combed back his hair with his fingers. In the northern forests of Wisconsin, men looked the other way. As long as each bunk only had one body on it at night, nobody questioned what happened out of sight behind a tree.

He sipped at the coffee for a while, making it last longer than he usually would. Time dragged into two more cigarettes. The supply low, he called out, “Can I get a pack of Lucky Strikes?”

The pack hit the table as the doors to city hall opened. But the uniformed cop walking out plucked the last of a cigarette from his lips and chucked it into the street.
No ceegar, Charlie boy.
He’d have to try later when the shift changed. His bet was that one of the city cops smoked Red Dot cigars. “What do I owe you?”

“Thirty-five cents with the smokes.”

Charlie pinched open a red rubber coin holder and counted out the correct change, then tossed a dime on the table. It spun and rolled before settling torch side up. “Tails, you lose.”

The man squinted. “What’d I lose?”

Charlie picked up the dime and put it back in his pocket. “Your tip.” He pushed open the door and walked out to the sidewalk. Hands in his pockets, he inhaled the smell of the river under the column of smoke rising from the cigarette in his mouth and turned toward the water.

He ambled along the bank, idly watching the green water lap at wave-smoothed rocks. Finding an iron bench with wood slats, he sat. He ran his hand across the wood, shaving off a few featherings of white paint. The cigarette at its end, he pinched out the final drag and flicked the butt into the river. Water tore at the paper until tobacco spilled out.

Charlie closed his eyes, laid his head back, and wondered what a man as handsome as Gabe was doing in a town that obviously had no use for him. He coughed out a single note chuckle.
Handsome
. It had been a long time since he’d thought of a man as handsome; since… Roger.

A rush of heat stirred his groin. He shifted his hips to counter the movement. Apparently his eyes weren’t the only part of him that found Gabe attractive.

G
ABE
donned his coat and hat and took a step toward the door of the restaurant. Realization stopped him cold. Austin had beat Charlie. But how had Austin known he was at the hotel? Maybe he’d seen him arrive.

“Cathy, would you call me a cab?”

“Sure, Gabe.”

He turned up his collar and went outside to wait. Maybe Austin had stumbled upon Charlie. But maybe not. There was one man who sure as hell had known when Charlie Harris arrived.

G
ABE
exited the cab and grabbed the sidewalk’s iron pipe handrail. Little flashes of white swirled in a whirlpool of discomfort and insecurity. He closed his eyes, hoping the moment of height vertigo would pass quickly. He detested coming to this part of town, constructed in layers onto the side of the river bluff—houses, then a street on the next level with stairs leading down, or up, depending on one’s perspective, a row of houses, pavement, and so on to the crest many yards and crooked stairs above him. Trees grew at angles, only to curve sharply toward the sun, which still wasn’t visible through the fog. Nor was the river far below.

Thus his uneasiness. When he could see the downtown below, know where he’d stop if he fell, the vertigo tended to be a dull throb in his temples. He wasn’t so much afraid of heights as he was the fall without end.

The whirlpool drained. The flashes reduced to occasional silver darts thrown at a target behind his eyeballs. He opened his eyes and slowly made his way, one cautious step at a time, down the slick wooden stairs to the wood-frame bungalow painted yellow with green trim.

He knocked on the door and scraped his shoes over the rubber mat. A shrill
yip, yip, yip
, acknowledged his presence. The door opened. The old man held the yapping brown and white Chihuahua in his arms.

“Morning, Edgar. May I come in?”

Edgar clamped fingers over the dog’s mouth and kissed the snout. “See? It’s just Gabe. Now hush, Muffin.” He looked at Gabe and stepped back. “Come on in. Muffin will be a good girl.” A turned cheek nuzzled the dog. “Won’t you, baby?”

A corner of Gabe’s mouth curled. When Edgar’s wife died, Muffin had gotten the man through the depression that nearly took his life. God knew what would happen to the man if something happened to the dog. Gabe closed the door behind him.

The dampness in his nostrils was quickly replaced by the dry heat of radiators and the bite of whiskey-laden air… and dog piss. Edgar never drank on the job, that Gabe knew of, but at home was quite a different situation altogether.

“You want to sit? I’ll clear you a spot.”

Gabe glanced at the tattered couch littered with piles of newspapers and
National Geographic
. “No thanks. I’ll just be a minute.”

Edgar staggered to a threadbare armchair in a corner of the small room. The dog lay down in his lap with an eye trained on Gabe. Edgar picked up a short glass with a trace of gold liquid in the bottom, downed it, then set the empty glass next to a framed photo of his deceased wife on the round table of the floor lamp. “What can I do for you?” He reached to the floor, picked up a bottle, and refilled the glass to the brim.

Gabe stuck his hands in his coat pockets, rubbing his knuckles with his thumbs. “You called the night cop, Phil Austin, when Charlie Harris checked in.” He took a deep breath of the rank air, fighting back a twinge of nausea. “I’d like to know why.”

Edgar lifted the glass and sipped the whiskey from the rim before responding. “No secret. Austin always wants to know when somebody strange checks in. You know, somebody alone, not a tourist, and not working for the railroad.”

Gabe’s ass puckered. He hadn’t considered the prospect of every visitor to the city getting the crap beat out of them. At least Austin was apparently selective in who he tortured.

The old man set the glass down again. His hand went to his face; thumb and index finger massaged his eyes. Then he drew the hand downward, pulling his haggard features with it until the hand slipped off the end of his chin. “But I swear I didn’t call the police chief.” Red-rimmed eyes looked up at Gabe. “I swear. You gotta believe me. I didn’t have anything to do with that.” He guzzled half the contents of the glass.

“Police chief?
Our
police chief?” A flush of dread surged through him. Sweat beaded under his hat brim. He tugged the fedora off and wiped the droplets from his forehead. Fallen strands of his sculpted hair tickled the top of his ear, but he ignored them. He nervously turned the hat in his hands. Police Chief Howard Perkins was nobody to tangle with.

Edgar’s head jerked up and down. “Yeah.”

“Anything to do with what? What else happened you didn’t tell me about?”

“He showed up in the lobby a half hour before the bus arrived and went upstairs when Harris checked in. A few minutes later he ran downstairs and out the door.” A liver-spotted hand tipped back another gulp of whiskey. “If I had to say, I’d say when he ran by me he looked like he’d gotten the snot beat out of him.”

Gabe placed the hat back on his head and scrubbed his face with his palms. Charlie’d whupped the police chief but had let Austin decorate his thigh.
Why?
He lowered his hands. “Keep this to yourself, Edgar. Okay?”

The old man gazed at him under low eyelids. “Like I want that son of a bitch Perkins kicking in my door some night? I’m not a kid anymore. I might have been able to go a few rounds with him back in the day, but that was a long time ago.” He took a slow drink and set the empty glass on the table. He closed his eyes, laying his head on the back of the chair. A pensive voice muttered, “A long time ago.”

Gabe turned and opened the door.

“Gabe.” The voice was weak and broken.

“Yes, Edgar?” he asked without looking behind him.

“I’m old and a drunk. But this old gandy dancer still knows when something’s not right. You were one of the few who came to Doris’s funeral. You need anything, me and Muffin, we’ll do what we can.”

He nodded and stepped into the doorway. “Thanks.”

The voice on the edge of stupor slurred, “If all the queers were like you, maybe it’d be okay.”

Gabe closed the door and cringed.
Christ. How many other people know?

The tops of buildings on Main Street poked through holes in the gray blanket. The fog had lifted to a degree. He crept along the sidewalk, squeezing the handrail as he made his way down the bluff, hand over trembling hand.

Filled with regret that he hadn’t asked the cab to wait, Gabe could only wince, gulp, and take the first step into the fog below.

C
HARLIE
rubbed his eyes and stood. He guessed the time to be somewhere around noon. A sandwich and nap were on the agenda, right after a stop at the hardware store for a set of doorknobs. Too many people seemed to have keys to his hotel room.

Chapter 9

T
ING
ting ting ting ting
.

Charlie rolled over and slapped the button on the wind-up alarm clock he’d bought along with the new lock he’d install later. Nine thirty. Pain twisted up from his thigh, and he clamped his eyes shut. “Damn it.”

He limped his way to the bathroom and massaged the wound with cold water. The skin was nearly as hard as the sink. The cold numbed the pain enough that he could flex his knee a little, so he slunk back to his room to dress. The Bufferin bottle had four tablets left—he swallowed the bunch dry.

Charlie donned jeans, tee, and flannel shirt. The right boot went on easily. The left, not so much. His leg wouldn’t bend enough for him to tie the laces. Pea coat over his arm, he took the elevator to the lobby.

A few men sat on the couches, lunch pails and lanterns at their feet. “Gonna go have me a few drinks. Saturday night in the big city. Yeehaw,” Charlie said loud enough everyone should hear. A few pairs of eyes glanced up at him.
That’ll do it
.

Outside, the chill nipped at his cheeks, but, fog gone, the night was clear. Two cars raced past, jockeying for the lead. Engines whined. Mufflers rattled. Burnt exhaust filled Charlie’s nose. Three blocks south, a horde of leather and high school-jacketed roaches cheered the winner screaming past around the curve out of downtown and out of sight. The door to city hall flew open. Roaches and cars scattered. The cop jumped into the big-finned Chevy and laid rubber.

Charlie smirked at what had to be a Saturday night ritual and rounded the corner of the hotel. A car’s headlights blinked on, then off. The green car’s chrome hood ornament was a helmeted, mustachioed Spaniard. Gabe leaned over and opened the front passenger door. Charlie sat, closing the door when his legs were inside. The downtown’s sound muted. His sinuses filled with Gabe’s Aqua Velva aftershave.