Stuart Kaminsky: Bright Futures

That was when Victor told his story.

“I took your bicycle from under the stairs,” he said.

“Okay.”

“I went after the shooter, who I saw running from behind the house across the street. He was carrying a rifle.”

“What were you planning to do?” asked Ames.

“I don’t know.”

In a seat across from us, a drunk cradled a limp arm with his good arm like a baby. He snorted in half sleep.

“You chased him,” I said, getting Victor back on track.

“He ran down Laurel. When I turned the corner onto the street

…”

“Laurel,” I said.

Victor knew almost nothing about Sarasota geography. He had spent most of his time in town squatting in my two former rooms.

“What’d he look like?” Ames asked.

“I don’t know, it was starting to get dark. He was a block away. He opened a car door, threw the rifle inside, climbed in, and started to drive away when I was about forty yards from him.”

“He got away,” said Ames with a touch of disapproval.

“He drove west. I followed him. I don’t know where we went. North, I think, then west again. He ran a light on Oxbay…”

“Osprey,” said Ames.

Victor nodded.

“Ran a light and then went way over the speed limit. I would have caught him on Fruit Street.”

“Fruitville,” I said.

“He went right through without stopping, almost hit a couple,” said Victor. “I stopped.”

“Why?” asked Ames.

I knew. Victor had killed my wife in a hit-and-run accident. He didn’t want to be the cause of another hit-and-run.

“You get a license plate number?” I asked.

The drunk across from us snorted louder than he had the first time. He was definitely asleep when he grunted, “Can there be any doubt in the mind of the jurors?”

Then he slumped over on his left side.

“No,” said Victor. “I think it was a dark-colored Nissan. Late model. As he crossed Fruitville, he went under a streetlight. I’m sure he gave me the finger.”

“When we find him,” said Ames evenly, “I shoot him.”

“Ames…” I began.

“He shot the boy,” said Ames. “Could have killed him if Victor here didn’t keep him from tumbling down the stairs.”

“He was aiming for me.”

“More’s the reason,” said Ames.

“No,” said Victor. “No killing.”

“I’ll not kill him,” said Ames. “I’ll just give him some sense of what it feels like to get shot in the eye or the back.”

“No,” said Victor.

The drunk roused himself, blinked his eyes, rubbed his chin, and tried unsuccessfully to flatten his bushy hair. Then he looked at us and said with a cough, “You’re just puttin’ on an act for me, right? I like the story, but it lacks romance. You know what I’m talkin’ about?”

That was when Darrell’s mother came through the emergency room doors, looked around, saw us, and moved in front of me. She was a dry, tired brown stick of a woman who had touches of good looks left over from only a few years earlier.

“You were supposed to look after him,” she said.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“You got him shot.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

She stood, looked around the waiting room, and saw the drunk, who either bowed in his seat or was about to fall over again.

“I want to be angry at you, but I can’t do it. You’re a crazy man, but a good one,” she said. “Darrell thinks you… I’ve got to go see him.”

She turned and hurried to the desk where the wiry triage nurse came around and led her through the double doors to the treatment area.

“I’m sorry I didn’t catch the shooter,” said Victor.

“You probably saved Darrell’s life,” I said. “A fall down those stairs might have killed him. I’ll settle for that.”

“I am the click-clack man who never made it to Oz. I am the bold deceiver who winks to those who understand, who winks only to himself in the mirror, a store window, the dark screen of a computer. I am the truth, which is a lie. I’m looking down at everyone from a spot reserved for me in the asshole of a serial killer with the blood of children in the webbing between his fingers.”

He had called about ten minutes after Victor, Ames, and I got back to my new rooms, which would always smell like decaying wood. He didn’t announce himself, just began talking with a muffled, high-pitched Latino accent that was more Billy Crystal than Ricardo Montalban.

“You’re the click-clack man,” I said. “You almost killed a 14-year-old. I’ve got that much.”

“Stop looking. Visualize yourself in dark glasses looking only straight ahead,” he said.

“I’d fall.”

Ames was reaching for the phone in my hand. He was not to be denied. Victor sat against the wall on his open bedroll.

“Someone here wants to say hello,” I managed as Ames took the phone from my hand and put it to his ear.

Ames looked very calm. I’d learned that Ames always looked calm when he was angry-dangerous and determined. I knew, given enough time, that Ames would find the shooter as Ames had found his former partner when he came to Sarasota. He had found him on the Lido Key Beach. There had been a shoot-out. The partner, a plaster pillar of the community who had cheated Ames out of a small fortune, had not survived the volley.

“Where did you get blunt-force. 22 bullets?” asked Ames.

“What?” the caller said.

“The ones you used to shoot out that man’s eye, and to shoot the boy. We can trace them.”

“No, you can’t,” said the caller.

“Here,” said Ames handing me back the phone and moving back to lean against the wall with his arms folded.

“My friend is angry,” I told the caller.

His voice betrayed a quiver and went a little higher when he said, “I didn’t intend to kill him or even shoot him.”

“You wanted to shoot me?”

“Yes. And I will if you don’t stop.”

“Stop what?”

“You know.”

Ann Hurwitz would say I should stop fighting my emergence from depression over my wife’s bloody death against the grille of the car Victor Woo had driven down Lake Shore Drive. It had happened as Catherine was crossing at the light. I think we were going to have steak for dinner. Or was it chili?

“Fonesca?” said the caller. “You listening?”

“Not really. Why are you calling?”

“Stop looking,” he repeated with some frustration.

“Or you’ll try to shoot me again with a pellet gun?”

“I have a real rifle,” he said.

“Having it and using it are different things,” I said, looking at Victor, who was gently bouncing his head against the wall as he sat.

“I don’t want to kill you,” he said.

“Then don’t.”

“But you might make me.”

“Then do. You want to tell me now what I’m supposed to stop doing?”

“Whatever you’re doing,” he said.

“I’m talking to a frightened person on the telephone,” I said.

“Looking for the person who killed Horvecki,” he said.

Ames was looking at me. I met his eyes.

“You killed him?”

“Yes, I did. The police have the wrong person in jail. Ronnie didn’t do it. They have to let him out. You’ve got to stop looking.”

“This doesn’t make much sense,” I tried. “Ronnie didn’t do it, but you don’t want me to look for who did.”

The pause was long. I could hear breathing.

“What can I do to convince you?”

“Stop shooting at me, that would make a nice start,” I said.

“Lewis,” Ames said firmly.

“What’s your favorite movie?” I asked.

“What?”

“Your favorite movie. Mine’s The Third Man, or Mildred Pierce, or The List of Adrian Messenger, or On the Waterfront, or The Seven Samurai, or Once Upon A Time in America, or Comanche Station…”