Ed Gorman - Blood Game

The heat, waning now, had left her feeling unclean. She hated that feeling. She rose and went over to the porcelain pitcher and basin on the bureau. Even warm, the water felt good on her face and hands. She opened her lacy blouse and massaged clean water onto the tops of her breasts. She thought of last night with Leo Guild. She had not liked a man, least of all a white man, in some time. But there was a humility about Guild she liked. That was the only word for it. Humility.

Going to the bed, she sat on the edge of the mattress, the box springs squeaking slightly beneath her weight. She looked at the yellow bowl of red apples against the light blue wall. In the sunlight the bowl and the apples and the wall looked like a painting. She stared at it until the tears came.

There should not be tears now, of course. She had waited so long for this day that she should feel nothing but joy.

The poison she had put in Victor Sovich’s water bottle would be taking effect by now. His punches would be ineffectual. He would die in the ring, just as her brother had died in the ring.

At first Rooney would see this as a day for celebration. A mediocre boxing career would have been turned around. Rooney would have big plans.

The light in the room was the purple of dusk. In the street below was the clatter of buggies and wagons and the faint sound of laughter from the porch where oldsters passed the time by whittling on white wood and lying to each other about the past.

She wished her brother were here with her now. He would be pleased with what she had done.

A knock. “Taxi’s here, miss.”

“Thank you.”

“He says shake a leg.”

“I’ll be right down.”

“They like to have you there early for the train.”

“Right down,” she said again.

The room had enveloped her in melancholy, and she found herself reluctant to leave. The soft song of birds, the gray light in the window, the scent of perfume spilled in her carpetbag. She did not want to leave. If she closed her eyes she could be a little girl again. Her brother would not be dead and Guild-

She knew what Guild would think of what she had done. The words he would use.

She stood up, sighing.

She gathered her two carpetbags quickly and left the room, turning back only once to look for the last time on the peculiar half-light trapped in the comers of the place.

She wondered if death would be this soft and eerily beautiful. She hoped so, she hoped so.

“Hurry now, miss. Hurry now,” the desk clerk said, looking her over again, still undecided if she was black or white.

Portland

June 7, 1892

Dear Stephen,

When the detective came to my door, I was very frightened. I knew that at last my past had found me, the past I wonder about when I can’t sleep at night.

If you have children of your own someday, you will know the particular hell I am describing, the hell of deserting your own flesh and blood. How many times over these past years have I wondered what you would look like as a young man. How many times have I heard the tears you surely cried when I left.

I know that no apology can undo what I did. I must accept my blame without any attempt at justifying myself. The worst thing I ever did was to desert my own son.

There is no point in castigating your father. I’m sure you know by now how difficult he can be, and how he delights in belittling and bullying people. I can only say that I stood it as long as I could and then left. I should have taken you. I was afraid, however, that he would never rest if I took you, and he would someday find me, too.

The detective tells me that you work for your father and that you’ve grown into a healthy and handsome young man. When he saw me, he said that you still favor me. I suppose it sounds vain, but I’m glad you do. It’s as if we still have a special bond between us, and the looks we share prove that bond.

Reading this over again, I see that your father was probably right-I was, and remain, a silly woman, spoiled by my own father and sheltered from the world in convent school. Even today I feel more like a girl than a woman, and when I look at the children I’ve had with my husband, Ralph, I feel a peculiar alienation-the same alienation I felt from your father and now my husband, Ralph. I know you won’t believe this, but the only person I’ve ever felt close to-except to my father, who never had any time for me-was you. I think about you constantly. I hear a sentimental song and I think of the songs I used to hum to you when I rocked you in your cradle. I see a painting or a book-remembering how taken you were with paintings and books-and I want to buy it for you and send it to you.

I think it would spoil things if we met, Stephen. Tempting as it is, I think you would hate me the more for inflicting myself on you at this late date. And Ralph, to be truthful, would not understand. Long ago he tired of my tears and moods where you are concerned. He warned me that he would ask me to leave if I “moped” about you any longer.

At my age, darling, I can’t afford to be on the street, and Ralph, handsome and rich as he is, would not think twice about putting me there. He is known to keep company with other women, and I assume at least a few of them would be more than happy to become his next wife.

But there I go, doing what I said I didn’t want to-inflict my troubles on you.

I pray to sweet Jesus that you can someday find it in your heart to forgive me. I pray to sweet Jesus that someday I can forgive myself.

Love,

Your mother

Guild was outside the business office, smoking a cigarette, when the boy he’d sent as a runner came back with the fat, beersmelling sheriffs deputies. Guild explained to them what had happened, carefully leaving out that John T. Stoddard himself had set up the robbery.

“His son got it, huh?”

“Yes.”

“This doesn’t look like Stoddard’s day.”

“Oh,” Guild said, “what else?”

“The nigger.”

“The fighter?”

“Yeah.” The deputy wore a khaki uniform. Great dark circles of sweat ringed the areas beneath his arms. “He’s winning.”

“What?”

“He’s knocked Sovich down four times now.”

Something was wrong in the ring. Guild didn’t know what, but Rooney had no chance against Sovich. None. “We’d better go tell Stoddard.”

“Wasn’t like Reynolds to carry a gun,” the deputy said. “We all knew him. He was a robber, and a good one. But never carried any gun.”

“He did this time.”

“You have to kill him?”

Guild stared at the man. “Yes, I did, Deputy. I had to kill him.”

The deputy shrugged. “Just asking.” He nodded over to a wagon. Two sleek black horses stood in traces. “We can use that to take the bodies back to town.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll go make arrangements. Why don’t you go tell Stoddard.” Guild nodded and went back inside the building. Dusk shadows filled the hallway now. Reynolds lay sprawled beneath a blood-soaked blanket. Guild stepped over him and went inside the office where Stoddard sat in a chair next to his son’s body. Stoddard dumbly held a letter in his hand. Guild knew the letter was the one Stephen had been carrying but had been afraid to open. Stoddard stared down at Stephen.

“I don’t know what to do, Guild.”

“There’s nothing to do,” Guild said harshly. “You live with it, that’s all.”

“I didn’t know he was going to die. I didn’t want him to be here when Reynolds came in.”

“Well, he was.”

John T. Stoddard looked up. All the arrogance was gone from his face. He appeared to be a large, ponderous animal that had been wounded very badly. His eyes were red from crying. “You still don’t like me, do you?”