Mitchell Smith (20 page)

It was dark back there, and not only that, but he couldn’t see the fucking elevator. They had a big discussion about it-then the Lieutenant let him park where he should have parked in the first place-got out of the car at long last, and went upstairs with Tucker and Mason to wait in the Jew-boy’s apartment, routine shit to shake him up a little-walk in, find them waiting. And he was due. They got the call he was off duty a half hour ago.

“Hurry up and wait. ” That’s what his dad had told him. Had that shit changed? -it had not. A man better learn to keep himself company, in this outfit.

Budreau blew his nose again-the hay fever was easing up, thank God. That shit wore you out.

was an article on page thirty-two about pro linebacking-lots of diagrams and faggy artwork. There was some good stuff in it-you could tell the guy wrote it had talked to some people that slaved the position-but it was still a lot of bullshit. A guy’ diiin’t have to play with anything but a junior college team-especially a good team (regional division chains, good coaching)-to know how linebacker should be Iayed. Maybe not quarter, maybe not offensive end. -A guy had to keep a lot in mind, playing those.

Mason had his head up his ass, always talking about the Big Ten-just like he hadn’t got cut for a busted ankle and never played for Iowa after the first couple of months-not even baseball. Hadn’t played service ball, either. He should have come down to Pennsylvania and played regional-would have got both ankles busted down there. A good-enough guy. He was O.K.-but he didn’t know shit about football.

Man didn’t know about something, ought to keep his mouth shut about it.

-How linebacker ought to be played…. A guy had to have a pair of balls on him, for starters, and real good lateral movement. And he had to be able to diagnose. That was the key right there. -You know the play-you know where it’s going. That’s the key right there. Than all you got to do is get over where you need to be, and kick ass.

Budreau turned the pages to another article, on the fighting problem in pro hockey, read a little of that-it wasn’t very interesting; hockey players didn’t know how to fight better than a drunk in a bar, knew no crippling strikes, didn’t even know eyes-throat-and-nuts-then put the magazine back in the glove compartment, and sat watching the wide, stained concrete space in front of him. Rows of parked cars-most people home from work already-the narrow gray doors of the elevator far to the right.

Budreau began to do what he often did, think about things he’d done years ago. He could sometimes picture them in his head, as clear as if he was there. A game with … a game with Chalmers. Big game. Big high school game. On a very hot day. He’d tackled an all-state halfback in the second quarter-boy named Wilcox. That had been a hit, him coming off a block the tackle put on him and just sliding-had some luck, and never thought he didn’t-just sliding right, and there was Wilcox (a big fucker for high school) head down and pumping through the line. Meat on the table. Hit that son-of-a-bitch so hard it made them both sick. Wilcox down on his back, trying to get his helmet off, trying to get a breath-and Ronnie Budreau not feeling too good, either, like his whole chest and his neck was asleep. But still on his fucking feet-you better believe it! One hell of a tackle.

,-The single best stop that I’ve seen in fourteen years of coaching high school ball.” That said by Coach, in public.

A man could wait a long time, and not have a better day than that one he had when he was just a kid. Very same day, by the way-that evening-that he got stoned enough at the senior dance to go up to Annette Shefflin and dance with her, and then ask her outside, and all the time stoned-out on pot and vodka both, and with a hard-on that wasn’t about to quit.

Talk about getting put down, man! A man could have his ass whipped a dozen times-like, for example, when Sergeant Tucker had surprised him to shit by taking him down to the gym basement at Fort Peary and just kicking the cocky-doodee out of him. Damn near killed him. -And the same to Mason when he was assigned. Damn near killed him. Old Mason.

“Hell, Ronnie-I’m used to guys droppin’ turds for me. Now, let me tell you, that four-eyed black son-of-a-bitch has got me brownin’ my Fruit of the Looms; and that’s a fact, man. -You know that nigger never even took his glasses off?”

Tucker hadn’t taken them off to beat up Budreau, either.

Well, a man could take a trashing, and think about it, and finally figure out he fucked up, or the other dude was just too much to handle.

No matter how good you are, there’s always some guy a little better.

Every grown man knows that-and if he doesn’t know it, then he isn’t a grown man. A man can take that kind of stuff, and get it down and go on trucking. What a man’ll remember, though, is just a word or two some girl stuck to him. -He’ll remember that word or two forever.

“Ronnie,” Annette had said-and we’re talking about prime eating-pussy.

We are talking about a nice girl, man her daddy was mayor once. And we’re talking about beautiful. We’re talking about dark-haired and thin, with just a pretty good ass on her, and little pointy tits-and we’re still talking about beautiful. Never-had said a goddamn civil word to Ron L. Budreau in four years of high school. And we’re talking about a Ron L. Budreau was a real big fat kid his first year, and would have about died if that girl had said “Hi” in the hall.

Too goddamned stoned to care-just took her outside, and gave her a hug so she could feel that big boner up against her. Out in the parking lot. Gave her a hug, and went to kiss her-and she put her hand up over her mouth so the back of her hand was all was kissed, and pushed away-no more strength to her than a little kid and said, “I have … cared for you for a long time, Ronnie. I really do think there’s a nice, gentle boy inside you, that a girl could really care for. But I was wasting my time. I have finally realized you’re too damn scared to ever let that nice boy out.”

Stepped away from those strong linebacker arms, and walked off like she was leaving a cow flop with flies on it, If you think a few days go by that doesn’t get thought about, remembered … People think because a man is real strong, physically-that means that sort of stuff can’t hurt him.

Budreau saw a blue VW, an old bug, come rolling down from the long entrance ramp, wheel on in, and swing a hard left into a parking place beside a pillar, across the garage passage from Budreau’s Chevy, and about five or six cars to the left.

A tall, thin guy in gray pants and a cheap blue jacket, black hair with gray in it cut kind of long-the Jew-boy for sure-climbed out the driver’s side, pulled the seat forward, reached into the back, and lifted out a sacklooked like groceries. Closed the car door, locked it, headed for the elevator.

Budreau slouched a little, picked the radio up from the passenger seat, thumbed the speak, and said, “R-1 to R-2-Subject’s on A.”

“Say again . . . ” The Lieutenant, with lots of hiss.

Budreau heard him say something to somebody else.

“R-1 to R-2-Subject’s on A.”

“I read,” the Lieutenant said. “Out.”

Budreau put down the radio, opened the glove compartment, and took out Sports Illustrated again. -The fighting problem in pro hockey was terrible. It was just terrible. One of these days, a guy was going to get hurt.

Mrs. Henry was cooking when the door buzzer sounded, and she turned down the heat under the potatoes, and covered the pot before she went to answer. “Don’t you get up, now,” she said. -Her sons, Hadji and Troy, were watching a car race on TV. “Don’t you answer the doordon’t you move for nothin’.” She walked to the door-a slight, handsome black woman with a graying afro and wink of gold tooth at the right corner of her mouth lifted the little cover of the peephole lens, peered through at Detective Classman’s pleasant brown eyes, his long, bony face, and unlocked her door locks, thinking-not for the first time-that this man needed a wife to feed him, take care of him, a lot more than he needed that poor senile old lady upstairs.

Classman thanked her, said he wouldn’t come in, was sorry to bother her at dinnertime. And how was his mother?

“You sure you don’t want to come on in-have some supper with us, Officer? -Your mama’s all right. She’s just fine. I was up there all afternoon-an’ when I left to come cook supper, she was sound asleep in her bed.

She’s just fine. She was real good all day.”

Classman thanked her, and said, “No … no, thanks.”

He thought he’d be going on up-fix some dinner upstairs. He’d bought some ground chuck and hamburger buns.

“Well, she loves those hamburgers,” Mrs. Henry said.

“-She’ll like that.” Mrs. Henry had been a full-time practical nurse at Roosevelt Hospital until phlebitis in the veins of her legs had gotten very bad. She looked after several old people in Park West.

Classman thanked her again for the invitation to dinner, stood thinking for a moment to be certain he’d paid her to the end of the month, then thanked her again, and left her to close and lock the door behind him.

He walked down to the elevators carrying his bag of groceries, rang, and stood waiting.

“O.K., this is going to be a relaxed contact,” the Lieutenant had said.

“—We’re agents of the United States Government looking for cooperation in a matter of serious national security. -It’s true, and that’s what I’m going to tell him. I’ll mention the money to him real casually just for expenses. Tucker-when he’s on stream, you remind me about the receipt. You know-just paperwork, routine . . .”

Tucker had nodded, said, “Mason-you go in that bedroom and try and keep her quiet. Talk to her.” The old lady was mumbling to herself in there a mile a minute.

Mason went in to do it, smiling. -It was one chore Tucker sure didn’t want; the old lady didn’t like that black face at all. They’d had a funny problem with her.

… It had taken Classman’s mother a long time to open the door-probably had seen Tucker through the peep but the Lieutenant had calmed her down, got her to open up.

Then, no sooner were they inside, than the old lady who looked like a skinny plucked chicken in her pink bathrobe-began to mumble at them (backed away when the Lieutenant tried to calm her down) and then let out a pie of little screams and scooted back into her bedroorn.

cou A complete veggie—senile, according to the Lieutenant-and that, they hadn’t been told. -But Mason didn’t mind talking to the old bag.

He’d talk baseball with her.

Tucker and the Lieutenant sat in the living room, the Lieutenant toying with the radio, Tucker sitting still, as usual. The sergeant felt that restless movement was a sign of weakness and uncertainty, felt further that the aimlessness of this society’s political and cultural movements expressed exactly the same. He didn’t feel that that was a bad thing, necessarily–his was an observation, not a judgment.

The old lady apparently didn’t care for Mason being in her bedroom; she came out a little while after Budreau radioed up, started walking back and forth in the wide entrance way, stopping every few turns to say something and point her finger at Tucker. The Lieutenant got up to calm her down.

“Come on, now, ma’am. Come on. -We just want to talk with your son, Mrs. lassman. is o c a business.”

“What’s she talkin’, Tucker?” Mason, very tall, lanky, with short ginger-red hair and hazel eyes, was standing behind the old lady, grinning. “-Sounds like she don’t like bloods.”

“Yiddish,” Sergeant Tucker said, and stood up. Mrs. Classman pointed her finger at him again. She yelled something.

“Ma’am,” the Lieutenant said, “-will you please just calm down?” He turned to Tucker. “Sergeant, I think you better go on in the kitchen, so she’ll calm down.” It was embarrassing.

Tucker didn’t say a word, walked out of the living room and past them down the hall to the kitchen.

“Maybe you can put some coffee on in there,” the Lieutenant said, and they heard Classman’s key in the door. “Now,” the Lieutenant said to Mrs. Classman, “—your boy’s home. —O.K.?”

At that, Mrs. Classman drew in a breath and suddenly screamed out loud, and Mason, startled, reached around from behind her and put his hand over her mouth as the door swung open and Classman stepped in with his bag of groceries cradled in his left arm.

“Take your hands off her for Christ’s sake!” the Lieutenant said to Mason, and holding his hands out, palms up, a portrait of apology, stepped toward Classman, meaning to say, “-I’m really sorry; we had no idea that your mother was sick,” but managed only to say he was sorry, and that word obscured, because Classman-seeing in a glance the two men, seeing his mother’s eyes over the smothering hand-reached back under his jacket with his right hani while still holding his groceries in his left, drew his short-barreled revolver with remarkable speed, and fired one round into the Lieutenant’s chest.

The blast was shocking, and rang so loud in that close space that no one heard the Lieutenant’s shout as the bullet killed him-punching a small round hole through the bottom of his heart on its way to nick a back rib and exit.

Then Classman, his expression peculiar, spun half around like a clockwork man, his revolver’s muzzle searching for something vital of Mason’s as that tall sergeant ducked and withered behind Classman’s moaning mother. Classman’s pause for some target there was not much more than half a second-but just time enough for the Lieutenant to fall back into the foyer, his fe;t kicking left and right, his heels thumping a rum-te-Turn on the polished floor. -Just time enough for Tucker, twelve feet behind Classman at the kitchen door, to draw an Italian pistol from under his left arm and fire one shot into the back of the detective’s head.

Mrs. Classman, deafened by the shots, fallen silent as if satisfied, stood watching her slender son fold into death against the door, smearing the white paint down with brains.

Mason stood slowly straight, wiping her spit from his right palm onto the leg of his trousers.

Tucker walked over to him through a haze and odor of gunpowder, bolstering his pistol. He said, “-See if the Lieutenant’s dead,”