Thorazine Beach (12 page)

The major having been marched out, the Union Avenue precinct needed a new boss. “Just interim,” Mac said when I got there. “But still…”

“Sad,” I said. “Friend of yours?”

“Met him,” Mac said. “But friend? No. Still, one of our own…”

“Thank God for guys like you,” I said. His face said the line had come across a little flat.

“Gets worse,” he said.

“How much worse?”

“Wish I could tell you, Jack,” he said. “You don’t know how much I wish I could tell you.”

“Lunch?” I said. “Might ease the pain.”

“Sure, but…”

“What?”

“Um…I’m a bit embarrassed, but…they hauled me in here so fast…I forgot my wallet.”

I shot him a Johnny Carson deadpan.

“I swear, Jack, I swear, I will make this up to you.”

“Oh, you will,” I said. “You will. Now. You like upscale places, don’t you, Major MacDonald. Don’t you?”

“I do indeed.”

“Lovely. There’s that Chick-Fil-A right across the street.”

“You’ve mentioned that.”

We settled on the Pho Saigon, and took my car. Mac threw his briefcase in the back seat. It was clear MacDonald wanted the conversation kept light, and had a whole lot, anyway, that he couldn’t and wouldn’t tell me. So light I kept it.

Back at the Union Avenue precinct, I pulled up by the front door. Mac hopped out, a perfunctory thanks, not much else to say. He jerked the handle on the back door. “Sorry!” I said, and rocked the lock button to open. He reached in for his briefcase.

“Christ,” he said. “Christ almighty.”

I put the car in park, turned. If a guy as brown as MacDonald can look pale, he did.

“This,” he said.

He held up a copy of a copy. Eight by ten. I’d scooped one of the pictures Barbara Jean McCorkle had shown me, scooped it without her seeing. Made my own Xerox to tuck in a file. My file had spilled over the seat as I’d turned back onto Union. The little Filipina girl. The dress. So pretty.

“Park right here,” he said. “You’ll need to come into the office.”

I did, querulous, clueless, following Mac as he and his briefcase and my file preceded.

“This hasn’t hit the news yet,” he said.

“What?”

“Dead,” he said. “State Line Road, this morning.”

He showed me the crime scene shots. Nothing pretty at all. Whoever had done this had wanted more than a dead girl. He’d wanted to send a message.

“How the hell did
you
get
her
picture? And where? And from whom?”

Winter begins on Summer Avenue.

The Admiral Benbow Inn went under. Twice.

Once, late September. I popped home at noon, uncharacteristically, for a file I’d forgotten. Stuck my key card in the door. No green light, no nothing. But the door creaked open, just from my touch. “What?” a voice said, half a dozen doors down, as a woman I hadn’t seen before made the same discovery on stepping up, card in hand, to her room.

The woman was as surprised as I. All I could manage was a dull
I don’t know
. My stuff was all there, untouched. I went inside, to the office, looking for Mrs. Patel. Admiral Benbow is closed, said a hand-scrawled sign taped to the window of the cashier’s cage. Call owner. And a number with an area code I didn’t recognize. It was disconnected anyway. I packed up and loaded my car—an hour, still hot, tore my pants on a nail in the door jamb. Went to some anonymous place in that clutch of fading motels of the 240 at Sycamore View, and bought a week, in cash. I stayed two, went to some other place. Never really unloaded the car—just the clothes I needed, a few favourite books, and my stamp albums. Neither one of the places had the feel of home—not like the Benbow.

Second time, late October. Driving by, hadn’t been that way in a week or more. The Benbow had gone under again—literally, this time. Buildings razed, plowed under, all bulldozed, even the pavement of the lot. Couple of gigantic dumpsters. Most of the lot remained barren, plantless, save for a lone, idiot tree in a last remaining flowerbed, just inside the iron fence. Where the pool had been, though, grass had grown, unusually lush and green.

The sign still stood, near where the lobby had been. The name was gone, but the powerless neon outline of the admiral’s tricorn hat remained. And, on the marquee below, some last, imperfect act by the last employee to leave, one of the stick-on letters having fallen, a misbegotten but apt attempt at a past participle:

losed.

My last prescription of Thorazine ran out. I’m not sure how long ago. Weeks, anyway. An embarrassed moment at the Kroger pharmacy—
No, no, check again, I’m sure there’s one more refill
…I left after quite a little hissy-fit. Stayed up all night watching a marathon run of those programs—extreme asses killing themselves jumping off roofs on rollerblades, that kind of crap. Played with my stamps till dawn.

I know Doctor Nigeria would have written me another scrip. But I just—what with one thing and another—never did ask. He smiled, said he liked the fact I’d taken in my belt a notch.

I’ve moved again. Back on Summer. The other side of the 240, the east side, quite a bit closer to Eileen’s office, where I seem to be spending rather more time, now, on rather more cases.

The Guest Inn—such a generic-sounding name—has a
somewhat
nicer lobby. Coffee’s decent. Big cups. Sir sticks. All the Splenda you could want. They put out apples and bananas. Milk, too. I’ve become quite a milk drinker—I like a nice cold glass after my morning walk, right before I hit the AA meeting in the old Korean Baptist Church. Make-your-own waffles, too. But I’ve learned to leave them alone.

They have a sufficient variety of insect life, the Guest Inn—enough to amuse an entomologist or a twelve-year-old. And they also feature hot and cold running hookers. But most of both are confined to the other wing, the old and not so nice wing, far side of the pool. Which, incidentally, is blue. Or clear. Depending on how you look at it. And, now well past the season, closed. I was out there, mind you, the other night, poolside, lying in a chaise longue, alternating between reading the star map by flashlight in the centrefold of the November
Sky and Telescope
and trying to find the Orion nebula through binoculars and the soup that Memphis calls a sky. New binoculars, incidentally. A gift from MacDonald. Biggies, too—eighty mil, ten-to-twenty zoom. Zeiss, no less. He’s on this German kick, now.

Bucks is still there, way down Summer. And Nikki, too. Lippy as ever, visibly ticked at the days I don’t come in. She had no end of smartass comments about my face—as long as the bruising showed. And an act or two of kindness, as well.

One morning, I stopped in at the Union Avenue Starbucks, stood in line after setting up my laptop at the community table. A voice behind me said, “Will you let me buy your coffee, Mr. Minyard?” Unmistakable. I’d seen him a few times here before, met him once, years ago. I was sure he wouldn’t remember. Not only did Mayor Wharton buy, but he sat with me. Briefly, at least. He said little—just pleasantries. He smiled, slid an envelope across the table, and took his leave. “Thanks,” he said from the door. I opened the envelope: three thousand dollars—cash.

I got a one-up on MacDonald—he hadn’t caught on to Clayton McCorkle. But he had excuses, as usual. “Geez, Jack,” he’d said. “It was a one-man investigation.”

“One and a half,” I’d said back quietly. But I filled him in. The trouble: McCorkle was missing, and there was no credit card trail.

Friday last, I had that date with Jackie. Quite unexpected. Her idea, too. Out of the blue. Early movie and a quiet dinner out. Separate cars—we met at Starbucks and picked the movie out of the paper. She showed up in black spandex jeans, white blouse, a black blazer, and a smile. “The jeans are Eileen’s idea,” she said. “Haven’t had them out in years, but she said you’d like the look.” Just a hug when we left the restaurant—no big thing. But we’d talked a long time, longer than either of us knew, and I learned she liked Scrabble and had once belonged to the Memphis Astronomical Society and hoped to finish her BA—in English. She liked wearing those jeans, she said, liked the way they made her feel. She kissed me on the cheek and whispered, “I have these in two more colours. Free next Friday?”

I’ve been receiving tailor-made dress shirts in the mail. From Thailand. “But they’re British
style
,” MacDonald says. And a couple of luridly European ties, definitely
not
from Thailand. Or eBay.

Red Line’s looking for a real P.I. now, a no-pretend employee—they’re branching out. “No promises,” Eileen said yesterday. And she insisted on putting an ad in the paper. “It’s the thing to do. Protocol, you know.” She looked at me, dead cold. Smiled. Handed me an envelope. “But this might improve your chances.” Inside, unsolicited, a five-thousand-dollar bonus cheque, on the Dwayne Poteat case, from Giant Bloodsucking Insurance Group of America, made out directly to me. Some veepee even wrote a note on her own stationery:
Jack
…
Thanks for the photo of the year!

The Guest Inn has a new manager now. Met him Monday. Guy with a smile. “We are repaving, you are please parking over there, one veek only.” His badge read: Mr. Patel. I had to ask. “No,” he said. “Many Patel. Many many. You park there, please, one veek.”

On a wider front, Barbara Jean McCorkle seems to have escaped the net. The FBI’s not talking. Nor INS. Nor Homeland Security. MacDonald’s on the whatsit-commission for real now, he tells me, but claims he’s out of the loop on that specific subject. He means, of course, he’s just not talking. But the TV news this morning said Interpol’s looking for Barbara Jean somewhere in eastern Europe. Where the girls in the pictures have gone, those of them still alive, is anybody’s guess.

In more local news there’s this…I have not had a drink, now, in 447 days, by the grace of God, one damn day at a time. Mitzi will definitely need a new radiator, two new tires at least. But I think I can deal with that. I’ve finally bagged that bill stamp I’ve been looking for—the eight-cent first-issue blue, feather-in-the-bun, in a nice, bright block of four—mint, full gum, never hinged. And I heard a few minutes ago by phone, from MacDonald himself: Down on Mount Moriah, just an hour ago, Clayton McCorkle, alone in his room at the Marriott, dead.

Somewhere, they tell me, Jesus weeps. I haven’t seen it myself. And even in the dark and the quiet, I haven’t quite heard. But for no reason I can fathom, I still believe.

To those who, in various times and ways, have taught me writing or encouraged that writing: Guy Bailey, Shelley Baur, John Bensko, David Carson, Jamie Clarke, Teresa Dalle, Rick DeMarinis, Adrienne Devine, Charles Hall, Donald Hays, Al Heinreich, Barry Isaac, David H. Kelley, Jim Kelly, Stephen Malin, Jo McDougall, Kai Nielsen, Rosemary Nixon, Gordon Osing, Gene Plunka, Jim Rendall, Tom Russell, Brett Singer, Bruce Speck, Charles Stagg, Aritha Van Herk, Bill Washburn, Miller Williams.

To manager Kisan Patel and the staff of Panera Bread #4604, Germantown, Tennessee, and Scott Shellhart and the staff of Panera Bread #4602, Memphis, who have fueled this and so much other writing, endured so much of me.

To Kris Clinton, Blue Line Investigations LLC, of Bartlett, Tennessee, and to Marti Miller, private investigator, Memphis.

To the girls: Leah Bailey, Mary Berni, Kristin C, Megan Conti, Trish Fritsche, Liane Limport, Connie McConnaha, Linda M, Janet Pink, Julia Roa, Debbie Smith, Donna Tingley.

To artist-friends Les Linfoot, Angela Hoehn, Glenda Brown, who have taught me much about the connections between paint and words.

To Tony Branson, my fine friend, my own private Idahoan. And Sandy Branson.

To the members of Toastmasters International, and many Toastmasters friends across the world, all of whom help me believe.

To Holly Schmidt—artist, conversationalist, inspiration, friend, and a MENSA man’s dream-date.

To my editorial clients and writing students, who keep my pen sharp. Thank you, especially, to those of my clients—Jim Paavola, Nancy Roe, Bill Townsend, Tonya Zavasta significantly among these—who have the jam to try their hands at fiction, the determination to dedicate themselves to learning craft, and the unseemly nerve to chafe at some of their editor’s suggestions.

To friends, old and new…Craig Cope, Norma Duke, Ingrid Enns, Bill and Leslie Garries, Doug Levis, Gary K. Lowe, Charlotte Stokes, Tim Yip.

Most especially to my beloved wife, Elizabeth Deeley, for love and patience and friendship of a quite extraordinary order.

And, as a cavalier afterthought, to my bitch-goddess and perpetual muse, Peg Oneil, always the faithful fan, friend, encourager, and a disturbingly accurate critical reader. I know you never did like this text, Peg. You never did wear those boots for me, either. And now, you’ll pretty much have to do both.