Robert Alter - 100 Malicious Little Mysteries

“That was lucky, anyway,” Hickman said.

“Was it?” Wesley Mize let the question hang between them like smoke. “I spent the next five months in the hospital while they tried to fit my leg back together. There wasn’t a single hour of those one hundred and forty-seven days that I didn’t wish it was me who died instead of Judy.”

“Couldn’t the police tell anything about who fired the shots?”

“Not much. They knew it was a 30–06 deer rifle. An empty whiskey bottle was found where the shots came from. They guessed the guy was shooting at an old signpost where the logging road turned off. Just having a little target practice. He hit the post three times. His first shot was the stray that killed Judy. He never even knew he hit anybody. There was a screen of brush right there and you couldn’t see to the road.”

“That’s really a tough break,” Hickman said. “It’s too bad you didn’t at least get a look at the guy’s car.”

“Oh, but I did. I not only got a look at his car, I read the California license number, and I saw the man who did the shooting. I saw his fat drunken face as he threw the bottle out and drove away. He was weaving all over the road. Probably didn’t remember a thing the next day. I was running after the car when I caught my foot and fell.”

“Then why couldn’t the police locate the man if you knew his license number and what he looked like?”

Wesley Mize stood up and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “I’ll tell you the rest of the story when I get back,” he said.

As the kid limped toward the Men’s Room, Leo came over to Hickman and leaned on the bar.

“That guy’s getting kind of loud,” he said. “Is he giving you any trouble?”

“No, I think he’s all right. He’s all unstrung about something that happened to his wife. I think he just wants to get the story off his chest.”

“If he starts to get out of line give me the high sign. I heard him say he’s from Oregon, and those people don’t much like us Californians. For my money they can keep their state.”

“It does rain a lot,” said Hickman.

The kid came back and sat on his stool. Leo gave him a hard look and sidled away down the bar.

“The reason the police didn’t catch the guy,” the kid said, picking right up on his story, “is that I didn’t tell them about seeing him.”

“What would you do that for?” Hickman asked. “Didn’t you want him punished?”

“That’s exactly why I did it. I want him punished, not slapped on the wrist. As soft as the courts are these days, they would probably let him off with a suspended sentence. That man destroyed the most beautiful thing in my world. There is only one punishment for what he did. He’s got to die.

“During those long months when I was in the hospital there was just one reason for me to live — so that I could come after the man who took my wife... and kill him.”

“You mean you’re going to try to find the guy yourself?”

“I mean I have found him. It was easy. I wrote to the California Department of Motor Vehicles and gave them the license number. They wrote back the name of the car’s owner. It turned out he lives here in Los Angeles.”

Hickman felt a sudden clutch of fear. “You have his address?”

“That’s right. I went to his house today. I waited until I saw him come out to make sure he was the one, then I followed him right here to this very bar.”

Hickman looked down and saw that the kid was holding a .45-caliber service automatic in his lap.

“Wait a minute, son,” Hickman cried, “you’re making a mistake!”

“No mistake,” the kid said.

As their voices rose, Leo came hurrying up the bar. When he reached the spot across from the seated men, Wesley Mize raised the big pistol and shot him in the face. Leo was knocked back against the rows of bottles, then he pitched forward, smacking against the bar as he fell.

Hickman sat as though welded to the bar stool. Wesley Mize laid the automatic on the damp surface of the bar and pushed it toward him.

“I won’t need this any more,” the kid said. “The stray bullet is home now.”

The lights were dim, so low I could hardly make out who was in the room with me. Annoyed, I picked my way to the center where the chairs were. The smoky air was as thick as my wife’s perfume, and about as breathable.

I pulled a metal folding chair out and sat next to a man I didn’t know. Squinting, I looked at every face in the room. Not one was familiar.

Adjusting my tie, the stupid, wide, garish tie Georgia had given me for Christmas, I stared at the glass ashtray in the hand of the man sitting next to me. The low-wattage lights were reflected in it, making, I thought, a rather interesting pattern. At least, it was more interesting than anything that had happened yet that evening.

I was a fool to have come, I thought, angry. When the letter came the week before, my wife had opened it.

“Look!” she’d said, handing me my opened mail. It was a small square of neatly printed white paper.

“It’s from that nice man down the block. It’s an invitation to a meeting of some sort. You’ll have to go!”

“Go? Meeting?” I asked, taking off my overcoat and reaching for the letter.

“You are Invited,” the paper read, “to the Annual Meeting of the Brierwood Men’s Club, to be Held at the Ram’s Room at Earle’s Restaurant, Sunday evening, January 8, at Eight o’clock.”

It was signed, “Yours in Brotherhood, Glenn Reynolds.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I hardly know the guy. And I’ve never heard of that club.”

“You’re going!” Georgia rasped. “It’s your chance to get in good with the neighbors. We’ve lived here two whole months and not a soul has dropped in to see us!”

“No wonder,” I thought. “They’ve heard enough of your whining and complaining the times they’ve run into you at the supermarket.”

“Maybe,” I said, “people here are just reserved.”

“Maybe people in the East just aren’t as friendly as the people you knew back home,” she said, sneering.

“Oh, Georgia, don’t start that up again! We left, didn’t we? I pulled up a lifetime of roots for you, didn’t I?”

“Are you trying to tell me it was my fault?! Because if you are, Mr. Forty and Foolish, you’ve got another think coming! It was entirely your fault, and you’re just lucky I didn’t leave you over it!”

“All right, Georgia.”

“Where would you be without Daddy’s money, Mr. Fathead? Where would you be without me?”

“I’m sorry, Georgia. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

She gave a smug little smile and went on. “You are going,” she nodded, making her dyed orange hair shake like an old mop. “Yes indeedly. You can wear your good dark brown suit and that new tie I gave you and...”

And she went on, planning my wardrobe, just as she’d planned every minute of my last fourteen years.

So the night of the eighth I was at the Annual Meeting of the Brierwood Men’s Club. Totally disgusted. What crazy kind of club had a meeting annually? A service club? Fraternal organization? Once a year?

It was almost eight when the men stopped filing into the room. They were, with hardly an exception, a sad-looking lot. I mean, they looked depressed . A gathering of funeral directors? A club for people who had failed at suicide and were contemplating it again?

“I think this is all of us, men,” Reynolds said, standing at the dais. “Yes. We can begin. Alphabetical order, as always. One minute.”

A sad, tired-looking man in his fifties stood up and went to the platform.