I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d made a mistake. A week crawled by, my every moment filled with a sense I’d fucked up. No way I should’ve let that guy walk away from my place. He knew too much about me: where I lived, who I was, who I used to be. I should’ve followed the old instinct and iced him on the spot and dumped him in a gravel pit.
But my caller in the London Fog raincoat didn’t exist in a vacuum, and he wouldn’t die in one, either: he was clearly just a messenger, a fancy one maybe, but a messenger. Which meant somebody else-your classic person or persons unknown-had sent him; knew as much, or more about me, as he did.
So killing him would still have left somebody out there knowing more about me than was healthy.
There were options. I could’ve dropped everything and followed the messenger home, and done what needed doing, to all concerned.
But I didn’t.
I could pack up and disappear. Walk out of Linda’s life and leave her and the child inside her and the Welcome Inn and the comfortable life I’d somehow managed to contrive for myself forever behind me. Go and start over somewhere. I had money stashed under several names, including my real one back in Ohio; I had buffers built in to allow this sort of contingency.
Or I might risk taking Linda with me. She loved me. She was as loyal as Tonto, or anyway Pocahontas. And, with the exception of her brother, she had no ties, family or otherwise, to prevent her from disappearing with me, the two of us starting up and over somewhere, under new names.
She would probably go along with that. It wouldn’t even be necessary to tell her the truth about my past; she would, most likely, accept it when I told her that something in my past required it. Something “bad” that she didn’t need to know.
So why hadn’t I sprung it on her?
Because, goddamnit, I liked my life. I liked it just fine the way it was. I was fat and comfortable and, fuck! I didn’t want to start over. Why should I start over if I didn’t want to?
I had turned these people down. They knew I wasn’t interested, and if I wasn’t interested, what was I to them? Certainly no threat-what could I say to anybody about what they were up to? Nothing, without risking seriously screwing up my own life.
They would simply go elsewhere for their hired help. I was retired, they asked me to come out of retirement, I declined, their messenger in the London Fog tipped his figurative hat and went. No hard feelings, he’d said.
So why shouldn’t I go on about my business, go on with my life?
And, so, I had, but I still couldn’t shake the thought, the feeling, I’d made the wrong decision. The visit, from the man’s smooth but nervous manner to his muddy license plate, lingered like a bad dream, leaving a mental aftertaste and not a pleasant one.
The days themselves had been ordinary enough-I divided my time at the Inn between the garage, where for the hell of it I helped work on cars from time to time, and making sure the restaurant and hotel operation was operating smoothly. That was slightly weird, because half the time I’d been in greasy coveralls, the other neatly attired in suit and tie, an executive with a wrench in his back pocket.
I’d spent some time with Linda, quiet evenings, watching the tube, curled by the fire. We were both readers-I stuck with my westerns, while she read these dismal sappy romance novels, sitting there lost in them, smiling dreamily. The girl saw the world through rose-colored glasses- prescription rose-colored glasses, at that.
Another week passed, and the unsettling feeling that I’d fucked up began to fade. It didn’t disappear; but it did fade. Nonetheless, I took precautions. I owned three nine-millimeter automatics, and was carrying one, a Browning, with me everywhere I went now, instead of just in the glove compartment of our sporty blue Mazda, and the drawer of the nightstand next to the bed.
Early on, Linda had wondered about why I owned so many guns, particularly handguns, keeping them stashed about.
“I’m just a little paranoid,” I said. “Both my parents were killed by an armed robber.”
Her eyes had gone wide and round; that, added to their light blue color, made her look impossibly innocent. “Jack… I knew your parents were… gone… but I never…”
“They ran a little neighborhood market,” I said. “You know, mom-and-pop kind of deal. And they were both killed.”
“Oh, Jack,” she’d said, eyes full of tears, holding me tenderly.
It was all lies of course, but it led to some immediate great sex and some long-term understanding. She never asked me about the guns again, until just recently, when I started carrying the nine-millimeter around with me.
“Why are you wearing that?” she asked, concerned, as I was slipping my sportcoat over the shoulder holster, on my way up to the Inn.
“There’ve been a few robberies in the area,” I said. “It’s been in the papers.”
And there had been, but so what? That was almost always true.
“I understand,” she said, nodding sagely, and came over and hugged me, gun and all.
The girl’s new insight into me apparently came from her adding the truth that I’d been in combat to the lie about my sainted mom and pop being shot down in their grocery store. I was just a poor, sensitive, traumatized soul, wasn’t I?
I wasn’t packing the gun when we drove down to Chicago for the day, however, though one of the three automatics was in the glove compartment. We were picking up her brother Chris at O’Hare early that evening-he was coming in from Atlanta, Georgia-and Linda suggested we go in early, spend a day in the city Christmas shopping. Even mid-week, the city was jammed with traffic, sidewalks packed with people, and was a good reminder of why I lived on a quiet lake.
She shopped at Water Tower Place, six floors of trendy expensive nonsense, equal parts marble, glass, plants and people; it was the sort of shopping center where women in mink coats rode escalators. I quickly found my way to the theater complex and parked my butt in a fairly comfortable seat and watched Clint Eastwood pretend to be a marine for a couple of hours. I met Linda for lunch at a cafe next to the theater-where two people could have pie and coffee and get just enough change back from a twenty to leave a tip-and she was bubbling over about the things she’d bought, including several hundred bucks worth (using the word “worth” loosely) of metal signs, replicas of vintage advertisements for Coca Cola, Crackerjacks, Heinz pickles and so on, for decoration in the Welcome Inn’s rustic dining room. She’d also bought some presents for me, which she was dying to tell me about but managed to contain herself. She was a sweet kid. I didn’t deserve her, but then who does deserve what they get in this life, good or bad?
We walked to Gino’s East a few blocks over and shared a medium pepperoni pizza, the best deep dish pizza (so they said) in a town famous for deep dish pizzas. The walls were carved up with graffiti (it was encouraged-it gave the place atmosphere, and having your customers provide the decoration made more sense than buying little tin advertising signs yourself) and she coaxed me into carving our names there. Too many romance novels. What the hell, I did it, using the serrated part of a table knife, a heart with Jack and Linda in it, squeezed between THE BOSS FOREVER and BON JOVI SUCKS.
I never met her brother before, and when he showed up-his flight an hour late, his only bag a tan leather carry-on-I wasn’t sure I wanted to. He was very blond, very tan, and prettier than Linda. He wore a loose-fitting pastel blue shirt and off-white, baggy, pleated linen pants; he also wore huaraches and no socks.
“Sis!” he said, beaming, and hugged her. Then he backed away, with her still in his arms and said, “I’m freezing my nuts off.”
What kind of dildo would fly into Chicago in November dressed like the fucking beach? This kind of dildo.
“Here,” I said, and gave him my plaid hunting jacket. “It isn’t Ralph Lauren, but it’ll keep you warm.”
“Why, thanks, sport,” he said, and he had a nice smile, white teeth in a face as tan as his Gucci carryon. He slipped the jacket on and it fit him fine. Well, in terms of size it fit him fine.
“I thought I’d never get here,” he said, slipping his arm around her shoulder. She looked up at him adoringly. I fell back, following them down the wide aisle toward the main concourse. “All these delays, and the turbulence? I’d have lost my lunch, if I’d eaten any.”
“You look great, Chris.”
“I feel terrific.”
“Are you being careful?”
“I’m being careful.”
She’d never mentioned her brother was gay, but I had figured it out. First he lived in San Francisco, then in Atlanta-both centers of such activity-and he was thirty-five and unmarried. I know you can be thirty-five and unmarried and live in one of those cities and not be gay, but not when you have a succession of male roommates, and particularly not when you have a sister who cries every time she reads about AIDS in the papers.
“Safe sex,” she said, shaking a lecturing finger at him.
“I know, I know.”
“But you broke up with Ray…”
“I’m looking for a monogamous relationship. I’m not by nature promiscuous.”
I stopped listening about then. I wasn’t interested in the conversation, and I was distracted by the sight of Preston Freed’s clean-cut disciples peddling his Democratic Action party magazines and bumper stickers (the latter seemed pro-nuclear energy and anti-Jane Fonda).
I went and got the car, not minding the cold at all, and picked them up amongst the cabs. He squeezed in back, behind me, with Linda’s many packages, and she sat in front but looking his way. They chattered all the way back, mostly about his work (he was an artist, and had had some gallery showings in several cities-an abstract painting in pastels of his hung at the A-frame, and I didn’t mind it). Later in the conversation Linda revealed that she was “expecting,” and he seemed thrilled, maybe even envious. He patted me on the shoulder and I smiled at him in the mirror.
“I’ll make a fabulous uncle,” he said. “I just love kids.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted the details.
Finally, I pulled in the restaurant parking lot, and Linda said, “It’s getting a little late-I’d rather wait till tomorrow to show Chris around the Inn.”
“Why don’t you kids go back and chat,” I said, getting out of the car. “I have something here I want to work on.”
“Jack,” she said, “come with us-we’ll make a fire, have some drinks…”
“I’ll be home by midnight,” I said. “You have a lot to talk about. Family stuff. You’ll both see plenty of me over the next week.”
She seemed a little disappointed, but she smiled anyway, said, “Okay, honey,” and slid over into the driver’s seat. Chris got out of the back and got in front next to her.
Gravel stirred as they pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road. I went into the Inn and settled myself at the bar and watched the Tonight Show and then David Letterman and drank a couple of caffeine-free Diet Cokes. I wanted to sleep tonight.
“You okay, Jack?” Charley wondered. Business was slow and he was sitting on a stool behind the bar, watching TV, too. He was bald and round and wrinkled, a friendly old hard-ass.
“Ungh,” I said.
“Your wife’s brother’s arrived,” he said, smiling on one side of his face, nodding.
“Yeah.” I shrugged.
“That comes with the territory. In-laws.”
“He seems like an okay guy.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“His idea of a good time is sticking his dick in some guy’s hairy asshole, but hey, who am I to judge?”
“Don’t be an asshole, yourself, Jack. We can’t choose our relatives. Besides, maybe he prefers bein’ the stickee.”
“I know, I know. I got nothin’ against the guy.”
“You just don’t like fags.”
“I don’t give a shit about that.”
And I didn’t. I worked with one for many years, and he was, for the most part, as good a partner as any. Why somebody’s sex life should be of concern to somebody else is beyond me, anyway.
“You just like your privacy,” he said.
“Why don’t you polish a glass or something? Do I pay you to watch television?”
“Fuck you, Jack,” he said cheerfully. “You’re just like anybody else. You don’t like being invaded.”
I shrugged again. “Our place isn’t big. Having another human being under foot for a week, well… fuck it, I’ll live.”
“Sure you will. Why don’t you put him up here at the Inn? Business is slow.”
That perked me up. “Not a bad idea. Of course, we got room for him at the A-frame-he was going to crash on the couch in the loft…”
“You want my advice? You got a sweet little girl there. Don’t cause her any trouble. Show her and her brother a nice time-take ’em to Lake Geneva, and Twin Lakes, and do touristy shit-eat at a nice restaurant every night. Days, find work to do up here, give ’em some space. She can drive him around and show him antique shops and shit. She’s going to want to spend time with him, and you can cover for her at the restaurant, or work on cars or do any damn thing you want. We got plumbing problems upstairs, y’know, if you’re ambitious.”
“That makes sense, Charley.”
“And at night, well you send the boy up here where he has a private room. He can even entertain an occasional guest, if he likes. Beats sleeping on a couch.”
“Charley,” I said, and smiled a little, climbed off the stool, “forget about polishing a glass. Watch TV till your eyes burn, if you want. You just earned your keep.”
“No problem, Jack. Just remember that faggot is all the family your little wife has in the world.”
“Well,” I said, thinking about what was growing inside her, “that’s not entirely true, but I appreciate the sentiment. I know I got a good thing going. I’m no fool. I’m not about to fuck it up.”
He nodded and turned his attention back to the tube.
I walked outside and started back home. It was less than half a mile to the turn-in, off of which was my drive. The night was cold, particularly with me minus my hunting jacket, and overcast; the moon was glowing behind some clouds up there, not having any luck getting through. About half-way home I noticed a car parked alongside the road. Headed north. I was walking north, but on the other side of the road. It was a dark blue late-model Buick and the man behind the wheel was pale and blond and skeletal. He wore a black turtleneck sweater. He didn’t look at me as I passed.
There was no reason for him to be parked there. He wasn’t parking in front of a house or anything.
The house he was parked nearest to belonged to Charley, a quarter-mile away, and no other houses were immediately around; it was a gently wooded area near the lake, after all.
His plates were Illinois. Rock Island County. The Quad Cities.
Where the Broker had lived.
Without picking up my pace, I walked into the brush lining the road, wanting to make myself less of a target. I was not armed. My shoulder holster was in the closet; the other guns were in their usual positions in glove compartment and nightstand drawer. But the house was nearby, and all I had to do was get in there first.
My past had come looking for me; the lingering feeling I’d had that I’d fucked up had been valid. I’d chosen the wrong fucking option.
Well, it wasn’t too late. All I had to do was get inside that house and get one of my guns, and I’d start exploring other options.
I went in the side, rear door, quietly as I could; it was after midnight, but I figured Linda would still be up, talking to her brother in front of the fire. Lights were on in the front part of the house, so that seemed a safe assumption. I hoped to get in and get my gun and go back out, without alerting Linda or our house guest I’d even been home.
I opened the drawer of the nightstand, felt inside; my hand touched the cold gun.
That was when I noticed that Linda was in bed already, but she hadn’t made a sound; I hadn’t disturbed or frightened her, either, coming in as I had.
Because she was dead.