Макс Коллинз - Shoot the Moon (and more)

“These FBI guys are putting on a full-scale investigation,” Frank said. “I talked to them this afternoon, before they started going ’round town to ask questions. Too bad we can’t get them to work on this rapist deal while they’re at it.”

“Yeah, too bad.”

“What’s this about you seeing that guy the night he was killed? And right here in the diner?”

“Oh, uh, I was just...”

Lou said, “Haven’t you talked to those guys yet, Harry? I sent ’em out to your girl’s place, figured you’d be out there at the Seaside with Molly. You must’ve just missed ’em.”

I took another swallow of the coffee and tried to think.

“What’s wrong, Harry?” Frank said.

“Hell,” Lou laughed, slapping the counter, “he’s drinking his coffee black. What’s with you, Harry? You know you can’t stomach it without cream and sugar.”

I guess I’m resigned to the fact that I’m going to die. Or as resigned to dying as a man can get, anyway. They’ve told me, you see, that they’re going to kill me. And I have no reason to doubt them. It’s as simple as that.

Haven’t eaten in quite a while but I’m not overly hungry. Wonder if it matters if you die on an empty stomach? At least there won’t be anything left in me to embarrass anybody. I hear a man’s bowels clean themselves out once he’s dead, and I’d hate like hell to be an embarrassing corpse.

I have had a woman, though, and not long ago. A very beautiful woman, too, with soft gold hair and warm brown eyes. Yes, yes, I’ve known her that way, I’ve had that much. Seems as if we made love all night long. Wonderful. I’ve got no complaints about that part of it. Haven’t known her long but I could love her if I had a while, I think. Hell, maybe I love her right now.

Her face is her face, but it’s also someone else’s. From a long time ago. It’s all very confusing.

She lies still, not far from me, as though she were dead.

Perhaps she is.

After a while it gets kind of hard to remember...

In the evening I went out with a young woman who wouldn’t. I dropped her off at her place and went back out into the city and got lost for a while and drank. Don’t own a car, so I walked the streets rather than take a cab. I don’t live far from the downtown anyway. It had been raining and the streets were shiny black like patent leather. Once I almost got hit when I decided to look at my reflection in the funny black mirror which turned out to be the middle of the funny black street. I called the driver who nearly clipped me a motherfucker — I sober up quickly — and tottered off in the vague direction of my apartment.

I got back around two or three in the morning. Not drunk, mind you, but not ready to take on a high wire act either.

I went into the bedroom, stripped down to my shorts, flopped down on the bed. Thought sleep would come easy, but no go. My head ached, and badly. Migraines hit me from time to time, and this was a time.

Got to sleep in an hour or so.

I dreamed. I dreamed I was spread out on a long wooden frame, my legs and arms tied to the ends of it. Then a girl, young and pretty, with the face of someone I loved once, began to twist a wheel which caused the frame to extend and started pulling my limbs apart from my body. I just lay there on the rack and screamed while she kept working the wheel, her face chiseled stone.

I awoke in a cold sweat, naturally, and shook off the damn thing as quickly as I could, before rolling over and back to sleep again. I had had to get used to the dream, because I’d had it as an unwanted bed partner for years.

When I got back to sleep the dream took over again and just as my right arm was being slowly stretched free of my shoulder, someone started playing kettle drums outside.

I sat up in bed.

Knocking. Someone at the door.

I said, “Damn,” and got up and threw on my trousers and kept on saying “Damn” till I reached the door.

When I opened it I found a man about my size, though not quite as heavy as I am, waiting for me patiently. He wore a rather handsome tweed overcoat and an air of having made it big in something or other. The only real catch was the undernourished look he had, complete with chalk-cheeked face with vein-lined bones jutting out from it at sharp angles. Also he seemed vaguely familiar, like something from an old newsreel, and he was smiling like a long-lost brother.

He said, “Hello, Smitty.”

“Okay. Hello. Who the hell’re you?”

“It’s been a while. Don’t you remember?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me in, take my coat?”

“No.”

“Now, come on, Smitt...”

“Who the hell’re you?”

“It’s Vin, Smitt, Vin, don’t you know me?”

“Vin. Thompson? Vin Thompson?”

“Korea wasn’t that long ago, was it?”

“It’s been long enough.”

“Am I disturbing you?”

“Oh no, everybody drops in at three in the morning.”

“I didn’t wake up the wife or kids, did I?”

“I’m not married and don’t have any kids that I know of.” “You didn’t marry that girl back home? That Karen?”

“No. I got a letter from her while I was still over

there. Married somebody else, the bitch.”

“Sorry, Smitt.”

“Don’t be.”

“Well, Smitty?”

“Well what?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

“No.”

“Smitty, we fought together.”

“The hell we did. I was a lieutenant and you were a lieutenant colonel. I barely knew you. Besides, ask me if I give a damn about all that army shit.”

“Do you, Smitt? Do you give a damn?”

That didn’t deserve an answer. I started to close the door on this unwanted ghost when he reached into one of the large pockets on the handsome tweed coat. When his hand came back it had an automatic in it.

“Okay,” I said, suddenly giving a damn, “come on in.”

“Good to see you, Smitt. Close the door, will you?”

“Drop dead.”

He shrugged and kicked it shut.

I rubbed by eyes, belched, and collapsed on the davenport.

“You tired or something, Smitt?”

“What makes you think that?”

A deck of cigarettes appeared in Vin’s hand from out the other kangaroo’s pouch on the tweed coat. He gave himself a cigarette and tossed another in my direction. He lit his with a steelcase lighter but motioned for me to use the book of matches in front of me on the coffee table. I thought about firing the whole book and throwing it in Vin’s face for a minute. For a minute.

“We were in the army together, Smitt, you and me.” He puffed the smoke in and out dreamily. But his eyes were hungry in their hollow sockets.

“I hardly knew you, Vin. You were my superior officer.” “We spoke a few times. I liked you. That’s why I remembered you.”

“I was a lousy soldier.”

“You weren’t bad.”

“I stunk. I drew flies, I stunk so bad as a soldier. I hated it and didn’t give a damn about anything but my own ass. And I was scared as hell most of the time. All the time.”

“You’re a modest man, Smitt.” Half his face smiled.

“Everybody was scared.”

“Not the way I was.”

“You went home with an honorable discharge.”

“That’s a laugh. I went apeshit when I got that letter saying Karen was married. I went off my nut and went out and slept with every slant-eyed thing with two legs that came along. You know how I got that discharge? Discharge is right. I got it for the eight kinds of VD I caught over there.”

“Don’t make me sick, Smitt.”

“I’m making myself sick. If I’d been an enlisted man they’d’ve tossed my in the brig instead of home. Shit. I don’t exactly feel like taking a stroll down that memory lane. So why not let it alone, Vin. Okay?”