Ed Gorman - Short Stories, Volume 1

But she had other ideas.

She pushed through the undergrowth and stumbled a little and got to her feet again and then walked right up to them.

“Karen!” Haskins said.

“So you did kill Michael,” she said.

Price moved toward her abruptly, his hand raised. He was drunk and apparently hitting women was something he did without much trouble.

Then I stepped out from our hiding place and said, “Put your hand down, Price.”

Forester said, “Dwyer.”

“So,” Price said, lowering his hand, “I was right, wasn’t I?” He was speaking to Forester.

Forester shook his silver head. He seemed genuinely saddened. “Yes, Price, for once your cynicism is justified.”

Price said, “Well, you two aren’t getting a goddamned penny, do you know that?”

He lunged toward me, still a bully. But I was ready for him, wanted it. I also had the advantage of being sober. When he was two steps away, I hit him just once and very hard in the solar plexus. He backed away, eyes startled, and then he turned abruptly away.

We all stood looking at one another, pretending not to hear the sounds of violent vomiting on the other side of the splendid new Mercedes.

Forester said, “When I saw you there, Karen, I wondered if you could do it alone.”

“Do what?”

“What?” Forester said. “What? Let’s at least stop the games. You two want money.”

“Christ,” I said to Karen, who looked perplexed, “they think we’re trying to shake them down.”

“Shake them down?”

“Blackmail them.”

“Exactly,” Forester said.

Price had come back around. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. In his other hand he carried a silver-plated .45, the sort of weapon professional gamblers favor.

Haskins said, “Larry, Jesus, what is that?”

“What does it look like?”

“Larry, that’s how people get killed.” Haskins sounded like Price’s mother.

Price’s eyes were on me. “Yeah, it would be terrible if Dwyer here got killed, wouldn’t it?” He waved the gun at me. I didn’t really think he’d shoot, but I sure was afraid he’d trip and the damn thing would go off accidentally. “You’ve been waiting since senior year to do that to me, haven’t you, Dwyer?”

I shrugged. “I guess so, yeah.”

“Well, why don’t I give Forester here the gun and then you and I can try it again.”

“Fine with me.”

He handed Forester the .45. Forester took it all right, but what he did was toss it somewhere into the gloom surrounding the car. “Larry, if you don’t straighten up here, I’ll fight you myself. Do you understand me?” Forester had a certain dignity and when he spoke, his voice carried an easy authority. “There will be no more fighting, do you both understand that?”

“I agree with Ted,” Karen said.

Forester, like a teacher tired of naughty children, decided to get on with the real business. “You wrote those letters, Dwyer?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Karen wrote them.”

A curious glance was exchanged by Forester and Karen.

“I guess I should have known that,” Forester said.

“Jesus, Ted,” Karen said, “I’m not trying to blackmail you, no matter what you think.”

“Then just exactly what are you trying to do?”

She shook her lovely little head. I sensed she regretted ever writing the letters, stirring it all up again. “I just want the truth to come out about what really happened to Michael Brandon that night.”

“The truth,” Price said. “Isn’t that goddamn touching?”

“Shut up, Larry,” Haskins said.

Forester said, “You know what happened to Michael Brandon?”

“I’ve got a good idea,” Karen said. “I overheard you three talking at a party one night.”

“What did we say?”

“What?”

“What did you overhear us say?”

Karen said, “You said that you hoped nobody looked into what really happened to Michael that night.”

A smile touched Forester’s lips. “So on that basis you concluded that we murdered him?”

“There wasn’t much else to conclude.”

Price said, weaving still, leaning on the fender for support, “I don’t goddamn believe this.”

Forester nodded to me. “Dwyer, I’d like to have a talk with Price and Haskins here, if you don’t mind. Just a few minutes.” He pointed to the darkness beyond the car. “We’ll walk over there. You know we won’t try to get away because you’ll have our car. All right?”

I looked at Karen.

She shrugged.

They left, back into the gloom, voices receding and fading into the sounds of crickets and a barn owl and a distant roaring train.

“You think they’re up to something?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

We stood with our shoes getting soaked and looked at the green green grass in the headlights.

“What do you think they’re doing?” Karen asked.

“Deciding what they want to tell us.”

“You’re used to this kind of thing, aren’t you?”

“I guess.”

“It’s sort of sad, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Except for you getting the chance to punch out Larry Price after all these years.”

“Christ, you really think I’m that petty?”

“I know you are. I know you are.”

Then we both turned to look back to where they were. There’d been a cry and Forester shouted, “You hit him again, Larry, and I’ll break your goddamn jaw.” They were arguing about something and it had turned vicious.

I leaned back against the car. She leaned back against me.

“You think we’ll ever go to bed?”

“I’d sure like to, Karen, but I can’t.”

“Donna?”

“Yeah. I’m really trying to learn how to be faithful.”

“That been a problem?”

“It cost me a marriage.”

“Maybe I’ll learn how someday, too.”

Then they were back. Somebody, presumably Forester, had torn Price’s nice lacy shirt into shreds. Haskins looked miserable.

Forester said, “I’m going to tell you what happened that night.”

I nodded.

“I’ve got some beer in the backseat. Would either of you like one?”

Karen said, “Yes, we would.”

So he went and got a six-pack of Michelob and we all had a beer and just before he started talking he and Karen shared another one of those peculiar glances and then he said, “The four of us — myself, Price, Haskins, and Michael Brandon — had done something we were very ashamed of.”

“Afraid of,” Haskins said.

“Afraid that if it came out, our lives would be ruined. Forever,” Forester said.

Price said, “Just say it, Forester.” He glared at me.

“We raped a girl, the four of us.”

“Brandon spent two months afterward seeing the girl, bringing her flowers, apologizing to her over and over again, telling her how sorry we were, that we’d been drunk and it wasn’t like us to do that and—” Forester sighed, put his eyes to the ground. “In fact we had been drunk; in fact it wasn’t like us to do such a thing—”

Haskins said, “It really wasn’t. It really wasn’t.”

For a time there was just the barn owl and the crickets again, no talk, and then gently I said, “What happened to Brandon that night?”

“We were out as we usually were, drinking beer, talking about it, afraid the girl would finally turn us in to the police, still trying to figure out why we’d ever done such a thing—”

The hatred was gone from Price’s eyes. For the first time the matinee idol looked as melancholy as his friends. “No matter what you think of me, Dwyer, I don’t rape women. But that night—” He shrugged, looked away.

“Brandon,” I said. “You were going to tell me about Brandon.”