Yesterday's News (12 page)

At the door to Bun's, Teevens spoke to the bouncer, an ox with a Duran Duran tee shirt and a bullet-shaped, shaved head. “He's with me.”

“Enjoy the show.”

I said, “Thanks.”

Inside, Bun's opened up into one big room. A raised stage with purple velvet curtains as backdrop occupied the far left corner. Running from the stage and toward the entrance was a bar with a center runway, constructed so that the performers would always be separated from even the bellied-up customers by the bar itself and the moat of bartender space between the bar and the runway. Although no one was on stage, the place was pretty full, ten men for every woman, as best I could see in the dim light.

Duckie said, “Take a seat at the bar. I gotta see a guy here first. Don't order till I get back to you.”

I did as he said, telling the bartender who came over promptly that I was waiting for Duckie. The bartender moved away, and I felt long nails squeeze my leg.

I looked up into a tough female face wearing enough eye shadow to fool a male raccoon. The punked-up hair glittered so much that I couldn't tell what color it was.

“I'm Sherry. What's your name?”

“John.”

“John. I like that name.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Wanna fuck my brains out?”

“Thanks, but it sounds like someone already beat me to it.”

The smile gave way, but Teevens put his hand tenderly on her shoulder from behind and said, “He's with me, Sher.”

Sherry lifted her head defiantly and stalked off.

The bartender came back and Duckie said, “Cal, a round of the boss's stock.”

I said, “Just beer for me, thanks. Bottles?”

Cal said, “Bud or Mick.”

“Michelob. No glass.”

“Right.”

Teevens said, “You don't like the hard stuff?”

“Not most of it.”

Cal poured Duckie a double shot of Johnnie Walker Black. I made sure I could see the top of the Michelob bottle from the time Cal used a church key on the cap.

After Cal served our drinks, Teevens said, “You're careful. I like that.”

“Watching the drinks?”

“Yeah.”

“Force of habit. I ask how you figure Coyne died, will I get a straight answer?”

“Not likely.”

“Why not?”

Duckie rotated his drink on the bar, leaving artistic whorls of water rings interlinking each other. “Charlie goes into the books the way the cops say, nothing changes. I put in my two cents, maybe I make waves.”

“Off the record, what do you think?”

“What, you think I was born yesterday? The fuck does ‘off the record' mean to me?”

“Okay. How about what you saw that night.”

“The night Charlie got it?”

“Right.”

“I didn't see much. Charlie was a real asshole. Bunny told you true there. He used to drink in here a lot, but couldn't hold the shit, even just Bud.”

“What's a beer go for when you're not buying it for somebody?”

“Four bucks a bottle. Used to have some on tap for three, but nobody was stupid enough to buy it. Figured it was watered or stale.”

“Four bucks. I thought Coyne didn't have two nickels.”

“Meaning you don't see him drinking in here a lot.”

“That's right.”

Teevens gestured toward the empty stage. “Maybe he liked the show.”

“A guy who played around as much as you say he did would pay that kind of money to watch strippers on a regular basis?”

“Charlie wasn't no brain trust. Like we told you.”

“Gotbaum comped him to the drinks, right?”

Duckie smiled and drank some Scotch. “Yeah, we comped him.”

“Why?”

“Bunny, he's a compassionate, generous man.”

“No, Duckie.”

“Bunny, he grew up with Coyne's old man. That generation down here, religion was no big thing. They were tight with each other, looked after the families. That kind of town, you know?”

“How did you hook up with Gotbaum?”

“Same way. My father and him knew each other. Mine croaked off this stuff,” Duckie indicating the liquor on the shelves, “so Bunny give me a job at fifteen. Been with him ever since.”

“And you tell him to take his medicine.”

Teevens straightened, and for just a second I felt the instinct to fight rise inside him. Then he relaxed and half laughed. “I promised his wife. Before she died.”

I let it drop. “You have any idea how Jane Rust got involved with Coyne?”

“Yeah. It was from that raid there. She was after him for some kind of story, and Charlie, he could sense when a broad wanted something he could trade for. Fuck, underneath it all she probably just wanted him to ball her. He sure got caught with his hand in the nookie jar often enough, anyway.”

“Jealous husbands?”

“Yeah. Or fathers or boy—” Duckie stopped.

“What's the matter?”

“Shit, man, that was good. That was better than your routine out by Connie there.”

“What?”

“Cut the shit. You were getting me to tell you what I thought happened to old Charlie. Indirect.”

I downed some beer. “You're a lot brighter than you show, Duckie. Why is that?”

He shrugged. “Don't get you.”

“Sure you do. Take your knowing about
The Shape of Things to Come
being a book. H. G. Wells, right?”

“You say so.”

“‘Generous,' ‘compassionate,' ‘indirect' …”

“Okay, okay.” He took a bigger bite of the booze. “I didn't exactly finish high school, right? But some of the stuff they told us to read was okay. So, I kept after it on my own. Like I'd go over to the community college there, and I'd pick up a book list making out I was some student, and I'd go buy some of the books. All kinds of shit, plays, poetry, whatever. One thing I learned. You ever heard of Maxwell Anderson?”

“Barely. He wrote plays, I think.”

“Yeah. There's Sherwood and Maxwell, both Andersons, but I'm talking Maxwell here.” Go on.

“Well, this guy writes a play called
Barefoot in Athens.
All about how they're gonna kill Socrates. Now the Greek king in the play, he comes across as kind of a clown, okay? So at this one part, Socrates says to the king, ‘Hey, you're a lot smarter than you give off. How come?' And the king says, ‘You know, when you come on stupid to people, they don't bother you so much. Lets you live okay without them figuring they got to get rid of you. Which gives you time to get rid of them first.' Well, that made a lot of sense to me.”

“Be smart, don't look smart?”

“Right, right. I'm learning this business from Bunny real well, but it's gonna be a while yet. And he was good to take me in, you know? So I say, ‘yes, boss,' and ‘no, boss,' 'cause he likes that kind of shit. And I get after him about the heart pills, 'cause I don't want him thinking I'm pushing my chances any. But to everybody else, I come across as Bunny's gofer who's got this mind's in the gutter and can't say a sentence without ‘fuck' in it somewheres. Nobody's gonna be worried about me competing with them to take over when Bunny goes, and so when it's time I can get them before they even think about getting me.”

“I didn't get the impression from Bunny that you guys were in a growth industry. One worth preparing for and protecting against competitors.”

“It is if you do it right.”

“Meaning kiddie porn, that sort of thing? For the VCR crowd?”

“I don't know nothing about that.”

“Then how about an answer to my original question. How the hell did Jane Rust ever get involved with somebody like Coyne?”

Teevens took a minute. “I think maybe for Charlie, this Rust broad was the real thing. But she had another boyfriend, right?”

“Right.”

“Guy over to the Redevelopment Authority.”

“So I understand.”

“Yeah, well, I understand from Charlie that there were some problems there.”

“At the Authority?”

“No. Well, maybe. I don't know about that. I'm talking the boyfriend himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Rust broad told Charlie about it. ‘Confidentially,' of course. That fuckin Charlie, he run off at the mouth like a sewer.”

“Told him what?”

“About the boyfriend. Seems there was more heat than meat.”

“You mean the sex was bad?”

“The worst. The boyfriend just couldn't get it up.”

“Impotent.”

“That's what they call it.”

I left Duckie at the bar and said good night to Bullet-Head at the door. Turning left, I walked to the closest of three liquor stores in sight. I bought a pint of cheap rye whiskey and circled around the block to the mouth of the alley behind the store.

The alley was about fifteen feet wide. I heard some scuffling and laughing down aways. As my eyes adjusted to the moonlight, I could see half a dozen pairs of legs sticking out from behind overflowing dumpsters and overturned trash cans. Then I picked out the source of the sounds.

Three teenagers in matching varsity jackets were playing “keep-away” from a derelict. They tossed a booze bottle one to the other, the victim stumbling from boy to boy, always a toss slow.

I walked down the alley toward them. The kid nearest me, who seemed about my size, stuck his foot out as the bum went blindly by him. Tripping, the derelict sprawled into a pile of loose trash. He slipped a couple of times as he tried to get back up. The laughing got louder.

“What's the joke?” I said.

The nearest kid, the tripper, gave me a quick glance, probably seeing the brown bag in my hand. He said, “Fuck off, hairball. Unless you want to be next.”

“Harsh words. But challenging.” I came even with Tripper, who squared around to face me. I set my bag on the ground. “There's my bottle, boyo. Who's gonna get the game started?”

Tripper took a step backward, shaking his neck out and using the motion to check the position of his mates. The guy with the original bottle was turning it in his hands, a little shakily I thought. The other kid was looking back up the alley behind him, confirming his line of retreat. I guessed that Tripper was the only initiator in the trio.

“Come on, fellas,” I said. “You guys are lettermen, right? I'm just the next level of competition. Who's first?”

Bottle said, “Cliff, maybe we oughta—”

Cliff the tripper said, “Shut up.”

Edging backward, Retreat looked behind him again.

“Seems to me the team's a little shy, Cliffie. Maybe you've got to lead by example here.”

Cliff said, “Why don't you fuck off before we hurt you, man?”

“Hurt me?” I inclined my head toward the derelict in the trash, who was barely moving. “I thought this was just a little game you guys were playing. Just for laughs, you know? I didn't realize you wanted to hurt anybody.”

“I'm warning you, man.”

“You're gonna have to do better than that, Cliffie.”

He tried to. He made like he was turning to review the troops again, but instead brought his right in an uppercut from behind his back. Sucker punch.

I parried it inward with my right palm, shunting my body left and following with a half-force side kick to his stomach. He doubled over and dropped to his knees. I grabbed him by the back of his collar and crab-walked him over to the nearest pile of trash, pitching him forward into it. As he raised back up on all fours, I said, “You get the urge, Cliffie, better to throw up into the garbage.”

He obliged me.

I turned to the other two. “Cliffie here got a little too much into the game. Laughed himself sick. You guys feeling queasy, too?”

They shook their heads.

I pointed to Bottle. “Set that down. Gently.”

He complied.

“Now, when Cliffie here composes himself, you take him somewhere and clean him up.”

Cliff managed to say, “Jesus, guys … get me home … please.”

I moved sideways and gestured toward him. His friends haltingly came forward, each taking an arm and lifting Cliff to his feet. They swung back toward me.

I said, “No. Take him the long way out.”

Retreat said, “But our car's—”

“The long way. Or the hard way. Take your pick.”

They looked at each other, hefted Cliff a little higher, and took the long way.

I went to the man they'd been razzing. I got him up and over to the comparatively cleaner side of the alley, sitting him against the wall of the adjacent building. “You alright?”

“Why'd she have to go and do that?”

“Who?”

“And with my own son. Hell, I knew she was a slut, they're all sluts. But my own son. Why? Why?”

I retrieved his bottle and mine, resting his lengthways between his knees.

Near the rear door of Bun's, a heap of clothing wearing shoes twitched as I passed. I stopped.

“Hey,” I said, shaking the man at the shoulder.

“Go 'way.”

I said, quietly, “Hey, pal, I got a pint here for the guy who saw the stabbing the other night.”

“Go 'way.”

I moved on to the next heap and repeated the offer.

“Seen it. Yeah, yeah. I seen it. Let's have the pint.”

I pulled it halfway from the bag, so he could see the label. “Describe the guy with the knife.”

“Nigger. Always niggers with the knives. Gimme the pint.”

“Describe him.”

“Aw, you know the niggers, man. All look alike. Gimme the pint.”

“Sorry. No sale.”

“Fuck you. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

Ten feet farther down, a third body said, “Yeah, I the one seen it.”

“Describe the guy.”

“Describe him. Charlie be dead.”

“I mean the guy with the knife.”

“Where's that pint at?”

I showed him.