Edward Gorman - The Autumn Dead

Ever since we'd started talking about Larry Price, her jaw had set and a strange anger was in her eyes.

But I was too concerned with my own anger to worry about hers. I was almost overwhelmed with the purity of my rage even though twenty-five years had passed. "Larry Price, Ted Forester, David Haskins-you knew how I hated them. And you know why, too. What they did to Malley and me that night."

Price, Forester, and Haskins had been seniors when we'd been juniors. One night they'd depantsed a wimpy kid everybody picked on with the casual cruelty of young people who constantly needed to reassure themselves they were normal and cool and slick. Then they'd beaten him and beaten him badly. And it so happened that when Malley and I heard about it, we got a six-pack and sat around and talked about it a lot, kind of working ourselves up, and then we went looking for them. And it was all supposed to go our way because we were righteous and we were poor, and poor kids were supposed to be tough, but when we found them, it didn't work out that way at all. Even though Price and Forester and Haskins had only come to St. Michael's in a redistricting of Catholic schools and did not socially fit in-they were the sons of very wealthy and successful people-they were at least one thing they were not supposed to be, and that was tough. My friend fought Forester and did not do well at all, and then I fought Price and did even less well. For weeks we tried to explain that to each other-"You know, if we hadn't been so drunk, man, there wouldn't have been nothing left of those guys" — but it was all bull and we hadn't been tough enough, and that remained, even today, a source of secret shame.

So five weeks later, my supposed girlfriend Karen Lane borrows my car and takes Larry Price to the drive-in. "Maybe it wasn't what you think, Jack."

"Sure."

I was about to say more, coasting on my anger now, when she pulled something up from her lap and set it on the table next to the fresh-cut rose in the slender vase.

A white envelope.

"Money," she said.

"For what?"

"That isn't the question you should be asking first."

"What question should I be asking first?"

"You should be more curious about how much there is than what it's for."

"So how much is there?"

"A thousand dollars."

"I'm impressed."

"You should be. I'm practically broke. " '

"Now I want to know what it's for."

"Because I want you to do me a favor."

"I've already got doubts."

"It's perfectly legal."

"Right."

"All it involves is you getting back something that belongs to me."

"And what would that be?"

"A suitcase."

"Where is it?"

"In a condo on the northeast edge of the city."

"And who lives in the condo?"

"A man named Evans. Glendon Evans."

"Glendon?"

"That's his full name. But everybody calls him Glen. Including his patients."

"Patients?"

"He's a psychiatrist."

"I see." I sipped some water. "Why can't you just call Glendon or Glen and ask him if you can have your suitcase?"

"I'm afraid he's angry with me."

"Ah."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I sense amore is somehow involved. True?"

"We lived together nearly a year."

"But now you want out?"

"I am out and have been out for a month, but he won't give me my suitcase back."

"Where are you staying now?"

"Do you remember Susan Roberts?"

"Sure." Susan had been a slight but lovely girl, given, unlike most of us in the Highlands, to things of culture and beauty. You never found Susan at the drag strip on Sunday afternoons. She had also been, as I recalled, obsessive about a guy named Gary Roberts whose sole desire had been to be a writer.

"She married Gary. Did you know that?"

"Yes," I said.

"He's a teacher. A very good one." She smiled. "And he still writes. Every day. And someday, he'll get something published. You wait and see."

"You're apologizing for him. That's arrogant. He's probably a lot happier than these jack-offs you've been married to."

"Would you please just not be so angry?"

I sighed. "You're right. I'm being angry, and I'm being arrogant and now I'll apologize."

"I appreciate it."

"So you've been staying with the Robertses?"

"Yes. They were the ones who told me that you'd been a policeman and now were a private investigator."

"Mostly I bust shoplifters."

Now she sipped her water. "But certainly you have enough experience to get my suitcase back."

"What's so special about it?"

"It's just got a lot of sentimental things in it."

Which I didn't believe at all. She struck me about as sentimental as Charles Manson's sister. But I let it pass.

"And the suitcase is in the condo?"

"Yes."

"So if I went in there and got it for you, I'd be committing B and E.

"B and E?"

"Breaking and entering."

"Not really."

"Why not?"

"First, because the suitcase belongs to me, and second, because I have a key."

Which she produced with a distinct air of voilà. Even in the blanched light of the gray day, she still looked tan and overpoweringly lovely.

"Did you know there's a reunion dance tonight?" she said.

"I know. Number twenty-five. I'm not going."

"Why?"

"Because I feel old enough already. I don't need to confirm my suspicions by looking at people with bald heads and potbellies and wattles like turkeys. I've got all that stuff myself."

"Actually, Jack, you're still very handsome in your way."

"You always said that, that 'in my way' thing, and it always bothered me."

"Well, you're not Robert Redford, but you're appealing. You really are."

"So what about the reunion?"

"Well, I thought it would be fun if you just kind of popped over this afternoon and got my suitcase and then popped over to the reunion. Then we could have some fun together. And you could have the money."

"I like the way you kind of ran those together."

"What?"

"Popping into a B and E and then popping over to the reunion. Real fast. You're good at it."

"Don't be cynical, Jack. This is all very straightforward. It's Tuesday and Glen sees patients till ten. He won't be there to bother you. "

"I have an obvious question to ask."

"What's that?"

"Why don't you just go get it yourself?"

"Vibes."

"Vibes?"

"The vibes were so bad between us there at the end. If I so much as set a foot back into the place, I'd be depressed for a week. Really."

"Vibes," I said.

She took out five one-hundred-dollar bills and laid them out green and crisp and dignified on the brilliant white tablecloth.

"You'll do it?" she said.

"You really want to get me mixed up in all this?"

"In all what, Jack? It's just getting my suitcase back."

"Why don't you have me do something else?"

"Such as what?"

"Mow your lawn or take out your garbage or something."

"Jack," she said.

And then she put her hand on mine and in a very different way said again, "Jack."

The winding asphalt road got steep enough that I had to keep the Toyota in second gear most of the way.

The sun was out now and the hills of pine and spruce were like a wall closing me off from the city behind. At one point I saw a deer come to the edge of the road and watch me with its delicate and frightened beauty.

After a few miles, country-style mailboxes began appearing on the left-hand side of the macadam, and then, up in the trees that seemed to touch the clouds themselves, you could see the sharp jut of the white stone condos, their Frank Lloyd Wright expanse of glass flashing gold in the sunlight.

I rolled down the window and enjoyed the odors, sweet pine and the tang of reasonably fresh water from a nearby creek and wild ginger and ginseng in the forest to the right.