Of Daughter and Demon (9 page)

“I gotta go,” my voice was barely a
whisper.

“Harry?” Angie asked. “Has Alice started
talking to you again?”

I stop in my tracks, my back to her, that
stare a hers burning the back a my neck.

“Do you hear her, in your head I mean? You
know
she’s dead, Harry. If you’re hearing her voice you need
to see someone.”

“I, I gotta go.”

“Harry? You need help! Let me call an
ambulance for you--”

“I gotta go!.”

I got in my car and backed up at top speed. I
flipped it around and gunned it down the driveway and busted
through the gate and kept going, Alice, I kept going and oh god,
Allie, baby, you ain’t been dead four years, have you? How come you
ain’t talkin’ to me no more? I didn’t find you four years ago, did
I? You ain’t been dead but a couple days, ain’t that right? Answer
me, Alice, answer your father! I need a drink but my car started
smokin’ from under the hood, I pulled over to the side of the road
and got out. I don’t know where I went after that but I remember
stumbling into my bar after dark, drunk, asking Fifties Chick how
long you been dead, Alice, I had to ask her cuz your Ma doped me or
lied, or I really, really lost it, but I don’t really know right
now so I asked Fifties Chick, but your Ma says she ain’t real
neither, and I passed out before she could answer besides.

I opened my eyes and I was lookin’ at the
ceiling of the bar, and at four Fifties Chicks. My stomach rolled,
and it was not wanting to puke on or in front a her that kept it
down. I blinked and there was only two of her, blinked again and it
was just the one. I was afraid to blink again in case she might
disappear all together, sure that was the thought of a dumb drunk,
but once I thought about it I couldn’t get it outta my head.

“How long I been down here?”

“’Bout a minute,” Fifties Chick said. “Can
you get up?”

I lay quiet for a second, feeling out my
limbs. I clenched my mitts into fists and they felt normal enough.
I sat up, slowly, and the room spun a little. I held on to a
barstool and pulled myself up onto my knees and then she grabbed me
under one arm and helped stand me up.

“This is two nights out of three I helped you
up, Harry.”

“Yeah, I’ll hafta start paying you to work
here.”

“Come on, sit down.” she lead me to my table
in the corner, I sat and she left, and I thought drunk thoughts,
trying to piece the day together, she came back with a pot a
coffee, two mugs, and poured us each a cup.

“What time is it?”

She glanced at her watch, a big blue job,
like a little kid might wear. “’Bout ten.”

That meant I been drinking hard for about
six, seven hours or so. What happened? Where was my car? I knew
somehow I’d walked here. My arm’s killing me, and it’s wrapped in a
dirty bandage. I left my car somewhere, right? I took a sip a
coffee and thought about it, but the more I thought about it the
more I remembered, and the worse I felt. A black feeling came over,
it went from my head to my heart, and my heart pumped it through my
whole body like tainted blood. My hands started shaking and I felt
like I would collapse if I wasn’t already sitting down.

“You OK Harry?” Fifties Chick asked.

“How much you know about me?”

She shrugged. “How do you mean?”

“I ever mention the name Mike or Mikey
Donaldson?”

She thought for a second, and that’s another
thing I’d come to love about her. Most people, you ask ‘em
something they just talk back until they think they said what you
wanted to hear, but Fifties Chick, she always thought about it
first.

“I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure.”

“You ever known me to go to a doctor?”

She laughed a little at that. “You? I just
stitched your ear on a day ago for chrissakes.”

“But like a head doctor I mean? A
shrink?”

“You never said anything about one, but you
don’t talk much, Harry. Sometimes I wish you’d tell me more. Most
of the time, actually.”

“How about medication? You ever seen me
popping pills?”

“Not even aspirin.”

“How long’s my daughter been dead?”

“Two days.” She said this softly, and put her
hand on my arm. “You OK?”

“Do you know that, though? Or just cuz I told
you? I mean, before two nights ago, I ever talk about Alice like
she was dead?”

“No, just that she was missing.”

“But you don’t know that for sure?”

“Didn’t you see me at her funeral today?
What’s going on, Harry? I mean, it probably isn’t any of my
business, and I’m sorry, but I’m worried about you. You don’t have
to tell me anything if you don’t want to, but you
can
, you
know. You can tell me anything, everything, even.”

“Well, OK. Either my ex-wife is lying to me
for some reason, or I’m crazy; really, really crazy.”

“How do you mean?” Fifties Chick asked.

“She told me…well, she told me the funeral
wasn’t yesterday, that it was four years ago, and yesterday was
just the anniversary.”

“Harry, come on,” she said with a little
smile. “We were
both
there.”

“There’s something else Angie told me,
too.”

“Oh yeah?” Fifties Chick asked. “What’s
that?”

“She said you wasn’t real, that you’re in my
head. You and this Dulouz fella both, she said. She said you’re
both part a my brain tellin’ the rest a me I need to get help.”

She didn’t say nothing, and I figured she was
gonna up and walk out, Alice, and I wouldn’t really blame her.
Crazy’s a heavy thing to ask someone to stick around for. But she
put her hand on my arm again and I knew she was just waiting for me
to talk, to tell her what I meant. I wanted to, I did, you know
that’s true, Alice, and I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier, but I
was confused, and I still am a little, and I wasn’t ready to tell
her everything your Ma and me talked about.

Then she laughed. “I don’t know what to say,
Harry. No one’s accused me of not being real before, you know? I
mean, isn’t that what a hallucination would do? Try and convince
you it was real?”

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I
just gotta find out when, exactly, Alice died.”

She shrugged. “Look it up.”

“Huh?”

“You’re a cop, Harry. You telling me you
can’t find out when someone died? When your
daughter
died?
Go downtown and look it up.”

I cracked a smile cuz her words, sarcastic
though they were, they was like a ray of sun in a dark room. “Now
why didn’t I think of that?”

“I’ll tell you why. You’re dead drunk and you
spent two of the last three nights either getting beat on or
falling over and hitting your head.”

“And I ain’t a cop, not no more,” I said.

“You told me you were on leave, right?”

“Yeah, well, I think it might be a little
more permanent than I let on. I doubt they’d ever let me carry a
badge again, and I ain’t sure I’d want to. Too many memories, you
know? So now I’m a bartender.”

“You’re more than just a bartender to me
Harry.” Fifties Chick leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the
cheek that indicated there was more where that came from, then she
hopped up from the table and greeted a couple drunks that walked
in. She served ‘em a couple beers and a couple shots and came
back.

“You’re right, I gotta go downtown. I ain’t
gonna feel any better about this until I do.”

“Right now?”

I nodded.

“Well, let me fix you something to eat first,
and you better call a cab. You shouldn’t drive when you’re drunk,
especially to the cop-shop.”

That, and I still wasn’t too sure where I
left my car. Somewhere near Angie’s house, which reminded me she
was yelling she’d call the cops on me. This might change things. I
didn’t want to go down there if they was after me, but if they
were, they’d come by the bar, right? And Fifties Chick woulda told
me. She came back a few minutes later with a couple cheeseburgers
and some fries and refilled my coffee for me. I ate, and when I was
almost done, I heard her on the phone, calling a cab.

The cab pulled to a stop across the street
from the police station. I handed the cabbie the fare plus another
twenty to hold him where he was, said I’d be back out in a couple
minutes. The ride over made me nervous, I ain’t never been in a cab
before. You believe that, Alice? Your old man, here I am ‘round the
half-century mark and I ain’t never been in a cab. I didn’t like it
too much, neither. I don’t like riding, being the passenger. You
should know that, Alice, how I never let your Ma drive. She weren’t
no god damn good at it neither, but it wasn’t that, I just feel
anxious when I’m not controlling where I’m going. That’s why that
one time we took you to the carnival, those were the only rides I
ever been on, and they was fun, riding ‘em with you and all, but I
ain’t got reason to get on ‘em again.

I stopped and talked to the desk sergeant,
who I knew from when I was on the force.

“Still riding the pine, huh Jake?” I asked
when I came in.

“Hey-hey, Harry, how you been, man?”

“I’m alright. How’s Marie?”

“Oh, she’s fine. Hey, uh, Harry, I know you
been through a lot, an’ we just been wanting to tell you how sorry
we are. Marie, she lights a candle for you every day.”

“Thanks Jake, I mean that. And you tell Marie
thanks too.” I wanted to ask him what he meant, exactly, if he
meant that it was sad you got kilt four years ago, or that they
heard you got kilt two days ago. But you can’t really ask someone a
thing like that, not if don’t you want ‘em talkin’ about you behind
your back.

“Say Jake, you mind if I take a look at some
files?”

“Sure. What, you writing a book?”

“Nah, why?”

“Eh. Some guys in your shoes, on the leave, I
mean, they write about bein’ cops cuz they ain’t out bein’ a
cop.”

“Not me. Just had some things on my mind is
all, wanted to check a couple facts.”

“Be my guest, Harry. They emptied your desk
though, on account you been gone so long. But it’s down in the
log-room with everything else.”

“They still keeping the Book?”

“Yeah, that thing’ll be around forever. Hell,
both you and I, we’ll be in there someday, Harry. Not till I pay
off the house though, knock on wood.”

“Yeah, Knock on wood.” We knocked on his desk
and I walked back through the station house. God, I used to live in
this place, at least before you come along Alice, and even then I
was here more than most guys. I guess that’s part of why your Ma
and me fell apart, but I don’t think all of it was my fault, do
you? Me neither. I’m glad you’re talkin’ to me again though. It
sure would be nice if you could just tell me--I know, you got rules
up there, too, and you follow ‘em, Alice. I know you’re a good
girl, you always was, keep at it.

Everything in the station was the same, for
the most part. A few faces I didn’t know, a few faces I knew but
couldn’t name. I’d worked days though, and most a the guys from
back then was home now, asleep if they could get it, some of ‘em
drinking, like Bobby Johns surely is. Poor Bob-O, hope he’s OK.

I moved through the halls and rooms like I
never left, and was soon in the log-room, where all the old files
is kept. Also, the Book is in here. I don’t know if other
departments do this, or hell, even other stations in this city, but
here in ours we always kept the Book Of The Dead. In that book went
everyone that died that was either in our precinct, or was a cop in
this station at one time. This was a tradition that had been handed
down for years, and I know, sounds like this book would have to be
ten feet thick to fit all them people, all those lives in it. But
it ain’t all in the same notebook, ain’t one big enough. But
there’s one shelf in the log room, an entire book shelf, lined with
these same black, hardcover journals. You open one up, all you see
page after page after page is name, date, and cause of death.

Your name is in here, Alice, I’d trust that
over the internet or any newspaper on the planet. The Book of The
Dead is never, ever wrong. There is something solemn about it,
almost holy, and in this station, it’s treated like that. All the
people in here, the kids, the mothers and fathers, the whores, the
pimps, the addicts, the drunk drivers, the cops, and the old people
that just up and die, all of ‘em are in these books, and in these
books, all of them are equal.

Your name would look like this, Alice:

Mitchell, Alice J. Then the date, then;
Murdered.

I grabbed the only Book that wasn’t lined up
neat and labeled, the most recent one, the one that hadn’t yet been
filled. This is the one, Alice. This is the one that tells me if
I’m losing it--hell, if I
lost
it--or if I’m right. I hope
I’m wrong, Alice, I hope I’m cracked in the head and you been dead
all this time instead a just a couple days, cuz that means you
didn’t have to suffer for four years, that the puke I killed the
other day didn’t really fu--didn’t do what he said he done.

“Harry?”

I jumped a little, not expecting anyone to
show up. I turned and it was Bobby Johns.

“Bobby, hey, how’ya doing?”

“What are you doing here, Harry?”

“I’m just uh, just looking something up.”

“Angela called me, said you might show up
down here.”

“What’d she tell you?”

“What’d she tell me? She told me you’ve been
seeing things again. People that talk to you, that say they work
for God? Is that why you wouldn’t talk to me when I come to the bar
yesterday?”

“You wasn’t in my bar yesterday, Bobby.”

“Jesus it’s true,” Bobby said. “Come on,
partner, we need to get you to the doctor, OK? I can drive
you—“

He reached out and put his hand on my arm. I
turned my arm, knocking his away, and shoved him back a step.