The Switch (11 page)

A week ago Saturday evening, sitting in the cocktail lounge, opening up a little to Kay Lyons, Kay had said, “If the parties bore you, don't go.”

Mickey: I don't mean I'm bored. It just seems like a waste of time, every weekend the same thing.

Kay: Then do something else.

Mickey: But if Frank likes to come—entertain customers, all that—it's what a wife does, isn't it?”

Kay: What is?

Mickey: Be with her husband. Do what he wants to do.

Kay: Why?

Mickey: Because it's expected. He's—

Kay: The breadwinner: I don't know, I usually come out alone. God knows where Charlie is most of the time.

Mickey: Then you choose to come here. You like it.

Kay: What else is there to do?

Marshall Taylor, leaning on the table with his golf cap sitting on top of his head, said, “You thinking about it?”

Mickey said, “Marshall, I have to go. Bo's got a match and I have to find Frank—”

“I understand he's going to the Bahamas,” Marshall said.

“Just for a few days. An investors' meeting.”

“I asked him if he wanted to play next Saturday, he said he'd be away.”

Mickey hesitated, nodding. “Probably all week, but he isn't sure.”

“How about tomorrow then for lunch? I know a good place—if you're worried about being seen.”

“Tomorrow—no, I really can't.”

“How about Tuesday then?”

“Really, it's not a good idea, Marshall.” Her gaze moved past him, through the entrance to the hallway and the all-yellow outfit approaching. “Frank's
coming.” She didn't mean it that way, as a warning.

But Marshall winked at her and said, “I'll call you later.” He turned to Dawson with a grin. “You leave your wife sitting alone, Frank, somebody's liable to steal her.” He started away.

Frank turned on his grin, swiping at Marshall's shoulder. “See you out there, partner.” Then turned off the grin, pulled a chair out and sat down.

“Well?”

“I saw you as we drove in,” Mickey said, a nice even tone. “I thought you were starting at 9:30.”

“Is that why you brought me out here?”

“If you weren't playing right away—I wanted to tell you Bo's match was changed to 2 o'clock.”

“You send a waitress in to get me—”

“I asked Rose if she'd seen you.”

“You send a waitress in to get me. She says, ‘Your wife wants you.' Like that, like, ‘So you better get out there.' “

“I didn't say it that way.”

“Let me finish, okay?” He waited, in control. “You send her in to get me, I'm supposed to jump up and come running out, huh?”

“Frank, I didn't mean to interrupt you.”

“I told you at home I'd watch Bo's match if we finished in time. You remember my saying that?”

“Yes, but then the time was changed and I was wondering about your flight.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“Well, if the flight's at 6:30 and you haven't gone out yet—”

“Don't
worry
about it, okay? We're going out at 1:30. Larry didn't get here, he was late. But I'll keep you posted, every move,” Frank said. “Let's see, so far I've had two shells and I just ordered a cheeseburger and french fries. If I have another shell with lunch that'll be three, right? What do you think, you want to write it down or can you remember?”

“Frank, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. Why don't you go back in?”

“When we get through playing I'll probably have a couple more beers,” Frank said. “Let's see, that'll be five. Six if we have one at the turnstand. Then a couple of drinks at home, a couple on the plane. That's, let's see, ten.”

Mickey got up, taking her pack of cigarettes.

“A couple more with your folks,” Frank said, “that'll be twelve—”

 

RICHARD EDGAR MONK
lived at 1035 State Fair, the street that ran east of Woodward Avenue along the south edge of the Michigan State Fairgrounds. The house faced a chain-link fence and was directly across from one of the gates where they used to bring in the horse-trailers during the racing season and Richard made eight dollars a day parking cars in his drive. But now they played softball over there.

The house was a frame crackerbox with a pair of dormer windows sticking out of the roof and no style at all until Richard fixed up the front with imitation ledgerock, a grillwork porch and striped aluminum awnings over the porch and windows. There was a hedge around the little square of grass to keep in the pair of flamingos, a bird-feeder on a pole in the backyard and a statue of the Blessed Virgin standing in a birdbath that Richard's mother had bought. Before she had died, Richard's mother used to go out there by the birdbath and say her
rosary for the conversion of Russia. She and Richard had both hated atheistic communism.

What had happened in the last eight months: First, Richard's wife, Dot had left him, taking four-year-old Richard Jr. with her. She had never complained or said a word about Richard's mother living with them; but according to the note that had been the reason she left. She couldn't stand it any longer, the woman telling her how to cook, where to put the dishes in the cupboard, how to toilet train Richard Jr. The note had not said much more than that. Then his mother had died of a heart attack a few months later at the age of sixty-seven. But there was no way of locating Dot to tell her. All he knew was Dot and Richard Jr. were somewhere in California, because he received postcards of Disneyland and orange groves about once a month, saying they were fine and the weather was hot but cool in the evening.

Richard wanted to go to California to look for his wife and boy and believed he could do it himself because of his interest in police work and procedures. He read books on it, watched police shows on TV and, until recently, had had a job with Alert Security Services—patrolling shopping centers, rich neighborhoods and construction projects—which Richard felt was good training. The trouble with the job, he'd only made three-sixty-five an hour, one-ten a week take-home, had to buy his own uniform
and wasn't able to save anything. So he had begun drawing fifty bucks on the side to disappear or look the other way whenever the coon came at night in the truck to pick up building materials. That was fine until he got questioned, read-out and fired without notice.

Now he had a two-tone blue police uniform and no job. He was patiently waiting for the big one the coon, Ordell Robbie, told him was going to come any time now.

Ordell had said to Louis, “You ain't ever in your life seen anything like Richard Edgar Monk. Wait till he shows you his war room.”

Louis wanted to say to Ordell, man, I don't believe it. The van was parked outside the cute house on State Fair that Sunday afternoon. They were inside visiting with Richard, upstairs now, letting Richard show them his gun collection and World War II memorabilia. Louis was a little confused at first.

He said, “Your dad was in the war, right?”

“Tank gunner,” Richard said.

“Well, let me ask you,” Louis said. “What side was he on?”

Richard looked at him straight, 240 pounds of Richard in his T-shirt and police pants with the light-blue stripe down the side, crew-cut head looking
at Louis—no screwing around with Richard—not a glimmer of anything in his blue eyes.

“My dad was with the 9th Armored. KIA at Remagen, March 12, 1945. I was two years old.”

Louis said, “Oh.”

The reason he was confused, there were photographs of American soldiers sitting on tanks; but there was also a red, white and black swastika on the wall; pictures of German soldiers cut out of magazines; a photograph of Adolf Hitler, and a nice shot of Heinrich Himmler in his black SS uniform.

Ordell was watching Louis taking his time to look at all the stuff on the wall before he got to the gun display. Ordell said, “See, Richard says the Germans the best soldiers in the world and it don't matter about sides now. That right, Richard?”

Richard must have nodded. Louis didn't hear him say anything. Louis said, “How come they lost then?”

“Logistics,” Richard said, “their troops divided up on two fronts. The way it should've been, we should've been over there helping them fight the Communists.”

Jesus Christ, Louis thought. Again he said, “Oh,” and picked up a copy of a tabloid newspaper with the name
THUNDERBOLT
on the masthead. Published, he noticed, by the National States Rights Party. Louis came to a poster and glanced over at Ordell. Ordell was grinning. The lettering
on the poster said,
Nothing is lower than Niggers and Jews, except the Police who protect them
.

Ordell said, “Richard believes some niggers are all right though. Hey, Richard?”

“Some,” Richard said.

“The rest he want to send back to Africa—”

“The ones on welfare,” Richard said.

“Yeah, the ones on welfare he want to send back. I say, Richard, but Ah's from Cleveland. He says it's all right for me to stay. Least till we get this job done.”

Louis reached the conference table that displayed Richard's arsenal, an assortment of rifles, revolvers, a musket, shotguns—one sawed off—several grenades, bayonets, trench knives, a gas mask, a German helmet, an Afrika Korps soft hat, Nazi armbands, belt buckles, an SS death's head insignia, boxes of cartridges and shotgun shells.

“Show him some,” Ordell said.

Richard picked up the musket first. “Well, this here is your Kentucky rifle, black powder musket. That little sawed-off's a Mercury 12-gauge double barrel. Let's see, you got your Mauser, German K-43 semi-automatic . . . Beretta M-59 Assault Rifle, holds twenty rounds. Here's your famous Walther P.38, some people think is a Luger . . . your Colt .45 . . . your Smith and Wesson Combat Masterpiece . . . Iver Johnson Sidewinder, some Saturday night specials that ain't worth a shit for
killing anybody, I mean stopping them, but they're sort of interesting, you know? Here's my favorite weapon, Colt Python .357 Mag. Son of a bitch weighs almost four pounds. It'll knock a man down and tear a hole in him big as a fist coming out.”

Ordell said, “That the one you carry?”

“When I'm on duty,” Richard said.

Louis said, “You ever shoot anybody?”

Richard looked at him and seemed to think about it before saying, “Not yet.”

“Over here,” Ordell said. “What's it called, Richard?”

“That's your Valtox drug-screening kit,” Richard said. “Runs you fifty-nine ninety-five.” He walked over to the open vinyl case, sitting on a wall shelf, that contained small bottles with eye-dropper tops and what looked like test tubes. “You can test over twenty-five different drugs. Marijuana, hashish, your amphetamines and opium alkaloids, also your LSD, STP and so on.” Richard picked up one of the bottles. “This here is your new cocaine odor test. Put a drop on the material and if it's cocaine you get a smell like, it's like a wintergreen mint.”

“Brush your teeth with it and get high,” Ordell said. “What else you got?”

Richard's thick body revolved slowly as he looked around, raising stubby hands to rest on his
hips. Like a guard in a concentration camp, Louis thought. Jesus.

Richard said, “Well—”

“You notice in the drive?” Ordell said to Louis. “He's got an AMC Hornet, man, pure black, no shit on the outside at all, your plain unmarked car. But inside—tell him, Richard.”

Richard said, “Well, I got a rollbar. I got heavy-duty Gabriel Striders. I got a shotgun mount in front.”

“He's got one of those flashers,” Ordell said, “Kojak reaches out, puts up on his roof?”

“Super Fireball with a magnetic bottom. Let's see,” Richard said, “I got a Federal PA one-seventy electronic siren, you can work it wail, yelp or hi-lo. Well, in the trunk I keep a Schermuly gas grenade gun, some other equipment. Night-chuk riot baton. An M-17 gas mask.” He thought a moment. “I got a Legster leg holster. You ever see one?”

“He's gonna see everything,” Ordell said. He took Louis into the hall, squeezing past Richard. He showed Louis the bathroom and opened the door to a small bedroom. “Big enough, huh?” Louis looked in. He saw a vanity made of blond wood and a single bed covered with a decorative chenille spread.

Downstairs, Ordell said, “Don't Richard keep a nice house?” He made a sweeping motion with his
hand, presenting the lace curtains and furniture to Louis, the fat maroon couch and easychairs with crocheted antimacassars on the arms and headrests. “He's a good cook, too,” Ordell said. “Fixes noodles with about anything you can name. Don't you, Richard?”

“I like noodles,” Richard said.

Ordell was picking up the Sunday
Free Press
from the coffee table, looking for a section. He said, “I'm gonna take a piece of this, Richard. Okay?”

No, Richard was shaking his head. “I haven't read it yet.”

“I'll leave the funnies, man. I just want this part here.”

Outside, getting into the van, Louis said, “Jesus Christ, I don't believe it.”

“I told you he's beautiful,” Ordell said. “I love Richard. Make a wonderful screw at some maximum security joint.” He dropped the section of newspaper on Louis' lap and started the engine. “See, what he does, Richard trips on that Nazi shit; makes him feel big. What I like about him, in his mind there ain't any bullshit. I mean everything's in order.”

“His
mind
,” Louis said. “That guy's got fucking cement for brains.”

Ordell glanced at the rear-view mirror pulling
away from the house. “Sure he does, but that's the beauty. I tell him the man's a big rich Jew, that's all Richard has to hear. See, it's for the cause then. It's like you wind him up—he'd do it even if he didn't need the money so bad.”

“What's he need money for, buy some more guns?” Louis glanced at the newspaper that said, across the top,
FOR AND ABOUT WOMEN
, and caught the word
tennis
below it.

“No, he needs to find his old lady. She ran out on him.”

“Jesus, I don't blame her.”

“Yeah,” Ordell said, “first time in years his old lady is probably happy. Don't have to get up and salute the swastika.”

Louis was holding the newspaper open now, looking at the full page of photographs of tennis moms and their kids.

“Which one is she?”

Ordell reached over and pointed to one of the pictures. “That one. See over near the end it's got something about, this man saying how much it cost him for his kid to play?”

“Yeah?”

“That's the man. Spend six, seven grand a year on tennis balls.”

Louis was still looking at the picture of Mickey Dawson.

“I was expecting her to be older,” he said. “An older woman. You know, she's not bad looking in the picture.”

“You're gonna see her for real,” Ordell said, “if we can work it, get up close to the place.”

“It says her name's Mickey.”

“You hear what I said?”

“What place? This is some tour, you know it?”

“Out where the rich folks live,” Ordell said. “Call the Deep Run Country Club.”

“I been there,” Louis said. “I played golf there once.”