Lawrence Block - The Best American Mystery Stories 1999

Seems antsy, don’t he?

Wouldn’t you be tasked Miriam.

That was really nice of you, hon, giving that poem back to him. You always were one for taking care of your friends.

Charmer.

What can I say? Seems my disposition’s improved considerably since I died.

Oh, now, don’t go bringing that up. There’s not much we can do about it.

How come that doesn’t make me feel any better?

Maybe this’ll do the trick, said Miriam. “Who laughs now anywhere in the night, without cause laughs in the night, laughs at me.”

Don’t tell me, tell the sensitive poetry soldier over there.

I just did.

They watched Davies for a few more seconds: he rubbed his face, then lit a cigarette and leaned against the porch railing and looked out into the street.

It’s not right, said Irv to his wife. What happened to us wasn’t fair.

Nothing is, dear. But we’re through with all of that, remember?

If you say so.

Worrier.

Yeah, but at least I’m a charming worrier.

Shhh. Did you hear that?

Hear what?

The children are playing in the backyard. Let’s go watch.

A moment later, the wind came up, and the glider swung back, then forward, once and once only, with a thin-edged screech.

Jackson Davies dropped his cigarette and decided, screw this, he was going to go wait down by the van.

He turned and ran into a phantom, then recoiled. The phantom stepped from the scar of shadow and into the flashlight’s beam, becoming Pete Cooper, one of Davies’s crew managers.

Davies, through clenched teeth, said, “It’s not a real good idea to sneak up on me like that. I have a tendency to hurt people when that happens.”

“Shakin’ in my shoes,” said Cooper. “You gettin’ the jungle jitters again? Smell that napalm in the air?”

“Yeah, right. Whacked-out Nam vet doing the flashback boogie, that’s me. Was there a reason you came up here, or did you just miss my splendid company?”

“I just...” Cooper looked over at the van. “Why’d you bring the Brennert kid along?”

“Because he said yes.”

“C’mon, fer chrissakes! He was here, you know? When it happened?”

Davies sighed and fished a fresh cigarette from his shirt pocket. “First of all, he wasn’t here when it happened, he was here before it happened. Second, of my forty-eight loyal employees, not counting you, only three said they were willing to come out here tonight, and Russ was one of them. Do you find any of this confusing so far? I could start again and talk slower.”

“What’re you gonna do if he gets in there and sees... well... everything and freezes up or freaks or something?”

“I talked to him about that already. He says he won’t lose it, and I believe him. Besides, the plant’s going to be laying his dad off in a couple of weeks and his family could use the money.”

“Fine. I’ll keep the other guys in line, but Brennert is your problem.”

“Anything else? The suspense is killing me.”

“Just that this seems like an odd hour to be starting.”

Davies pointed at the street. “Look around. Tell me what you don’t see.”

“I’m too tired for your goddamn riddles.”

“You never were any fun. What you don’t see are any reporters or any trace of their nauseating three-ring circus that blew into this miserable burg a few nights back. The county is paying us, and the county decided that our chances of being accosted by reporters would be practically nil if we came out late in the evening. So here we are, and I’m no happier about it than you are. Despite what people say, I do have a life. Admittedly, it isn’t much of one since my wife decided that we get along better living in separate states, but it’s a life nonetheless. I just thank God she left me the cats and the Mitch Miller sing-along records, or I’d be a sorry specimen right about now. To top it all off, I seem to have developed a retroactive case of the willies.”

A police cruiser pulled up behind the van.

“Ah,” said Davies. “That would be the keys to the kingdom of the dead.”

“You plan to keep up the joking?”

Davies’s face turned into a slab of granite. “Bet your ass I do. And I’m going to keep on joking until we’re finished with this job and loading things up to go home. The sicker and more tasteless I can make them, the better. Don’t worry if I make jokes; worry when I stop.”

They went to meet the police officers, unaware that as they came down from the porch and started across the lawn they walked right through the ghost of Andy Leonard, who stood looking at the house where he’d spent his entire, sad, brief, and ultimately tragic life.

On July fourth of that year, Irv Leonard and his wife were hosting a family reunion at their home at 182 Merchant Street. All fifteen members of their immediate family were present, and several neighbors stopped by to visit, watch some football, enjoy a hearty lunch from the ample buffet Miriam had prepared, and see Irv’s newly acquired pearl-handled antique Colt Army .45 revolvers.

Irv, a retired steelworker and lifelong gun enthusiast, had been collecting firearms since his early twenties and was purported to have one of the five most valuable collections in the state.

Neighbors later remarked that the atmosphere in the house was as pleasant as you could hope for, though a few did notice that Andy — the youngest of the four Leonard children and the only one still living at home — seemed a bit “distracted.”

Around 8:45 that evening, Russell Brennert, a friend of Andy’s from Cedar Hill High School, came by after getting off work from his part-time job. Witnesses described Andy as being “abrupt” with Russell, as if he didn’t want him to be there. Some speculated that the two might have had an argument recently that Andy was still sore about. In any case, Andy excused himself and went upstairs to “check on something.”

Russell started to leave, but Miriam insisted he fix himself a sandwich first. A few minutes later, Andy — apparently no longer upset — reappeared and asked if Russell would mind driving Mary Alice Hubert, Miriam’s mother and Andy’s grandmother, back to her house. The seventy-three-year-old Mrs. Hubert, a widow of ten years, was still recovering from a mild heart attack in December and had forgotten to bring her medication. Brennert offered to take Mary Alice’s house key and drive over by himself for the medicine, but Andy insisted Mrs. Hubert go along.

“I thought it seemed kind of odd,” said Bill Gardner, a neighbor who was present at the time, “Andy being so bound and determined to get the two of them out of there before the fireworks started. Poor Miriam didn’t know what to make of it all. I mean, I didn’t think it was any of my business, but somebody should’ve said something about it. Andy started getting outright rude. If he’d been my kid, I’d’ve snatched him bald-headed, acting that way. And after his mom’d gone to all that fuss to make everything so nice.”

Mrs. Hubert prevented things from getting out of hand by saying it would be best if she went with Russell; after all, she was an “old broad,” set in her ways, and everything in an old broad’s house had to be just so ... besides, there were so many medicine containers in her cabinet, Russell might just “bust his brain right open” trying to figure out which was the right one.

As the two were on their way out, Andy stopped them at the door to give Mrs. Hubert a hug.

According to her, Andy seemed “really sorry about something. He’s a strong boy, an athlete, and I don’t care what anyone says, he should’ve got that scholarship. Okay, maybe he wasn’t as bright as some kids, but he was a fine athlete, and them college people should’ve let that count for something. It was terrible, listening to him talk about how he was maybe gonna have to go to work at the factory to earn his college money... everybody knows where that leads. I’m sorry, I got off the track, didn’t I? You asked about him hugging me when we left that night... well, he was always real careful when he hugged me never to squeeze too hard — these old bones can’t take it... but when he hugged me then, I thought he was going to break my ribs. I just figured it was on account he felt bad about the argument. I didn’t mean to create such a bother, I thought I had the medicine with me, but I... forget things sometimes.