Stuart Kaminsky - Bright Futures

“Go around back,” he said and closed the door.

I walked through the grass to the back of the house where Williams was placing two tall glasses of what looked like lemonade on a wooden picnic table.

“Have a seat,” he said.

I sat. It was hard to tell how big the yard was. It was dense with fruit trees, succulent bushes, flowers, and vines. The picnic table was on a round redbrick island that left no room for anything but the table.

“Nice,” I said, looking around.

On a mat a few yards from the table was a plastic-covered bench. A series of bars and weights were lined up evenly next to the bench.

“Thanks. If you go that way, down the path… See it?”

“Yes.”

The lemonade was cold with thin slices of lemon and clinking cubes.

“There’s a fountain over there with a small waterfall. You should be able to hear it.”

“I hear it,” I said.

“Okay, maybe I can save us some time.” He took a deep drink of lemonade and looked in the general direction of the running water. “Philip Horvecki raped my mother and aunt when they were kids and got away with it. Eight years ago Philip Horvecki came to my mother and my aunt’s home, threatened them, and left them crying. He warned them not to tell anyone or he would come back and kill them.”

I nodded. There was nothing else to do. He went on.

“My mother was sixty-four, my aunt sixty-six. I was on the force in Westin, Massachusetts. They didn’t tell me what had happened till I came down for Thanksgiving. That was three months after the attack. I went to the sheriff’s office and demanded that Horvecki be arrested. My mom and aunt filed criminal complaints. Only the word of my mom and aunt against Horvecki, who had the best lawyers money could buy. They tore at the reports, said they were filed by two sexually frustrated, old black women who changed their minds about selling the house for what he called ‘a fair price.’ He also said they were angry because he wouldn’t accept their advances. His lawyers brought up medical histories, family history. We didn’t have a chance.”

“So…”

“Didn’t even go to trial,” he said, shaking his head. “He walked. Then I moved here, took a job with the Venice police and began watching everything Horvecki did or said. My mother and aunt moved back north. They’ve both been in therapy. They’re recluses. They seldom go out, and they’ve got guns and know how to use them. They think Horvecki’s going to make good on his promise to kill them.”

“Didn’t you feel like doing more than watching him?”

He was nodding now, considering. Then he leaned forward toward me.

“I wanted to kill him. I told him I would. I told him I’d pick my own time. I wanted to turn him into a pile of frightened jelly.”

“Did it work?”

“No,” he said. “After a while, he didn’t believe me. The fact, which I’ll deny, is that I had a date set, the anniversary of what he did to my mom and aunt, to beat the bastard to death. Three weeks from today. I’m glad someone beat me to it.”

“Horvecki was rich,” I said.

“Very. Worth about sixty or seventy million. Real estate. He made at least two million of that from my aunt and mother’s house and property.”

“You know who gets his money?”

“His daughter I guess. Who cares? My mother and my aunt are lost. You know what it’s like to lose someone you love? You know what it’s like to become obsessed with punishing him?”

“Yes,” I said.

He looked at me long and hard over the rim of his lemonade and then said, “Maybe you do. When you see him dead in a funeral home, the feeling of vindication doesn’t come. You just feel flat, empty.”

“I know,” I said. “Did you kill Horvecki?”

“What?”

“Did you kill Philip Horvecki?”

“No. I told you. I thought you were trying to find information that would justify what Gerall did, not come up with another suspect. Who do you work for?”

“Ronnie Gerall. I told you. He says he didn’t do it.”

“Surprise. A killer denies his crime. If you find out someone else did it, I’ll give that hundred dollars to his defense. Now I think you better leave.”

He stood up, but I didn’t.

“I think there’s something you’re not telling me,” I said.

His fists were clenched now. The scar across his forehead distended and turned a clean snow white.

“Get out,” he said, kicking the bench.

“You’ve got a temper,” I said. “How angry are you?”

“You want to find out?”

He was around the table now standing over me. I didn’t want to find out.

“You lose your temper easily,” I said.

“Maybe.”

He had me by the front of my shirt, now, and pulled me to my feet.

“You are about to have an accident,” he said. “A bad one.”

“Don’t think so,” came a familiar voice from the corner of the house.

Ames stood there with a pistol in his hand.

“Best put him down and back away,” Ames said.

“You have a license for that weapon?” asked Williams.

“No, but if I shoot you dead, legality of the weapon won’t mean much, will it?”

He still had my collar and was squeezing more tightly. I gagged.

“You won’t shoot,” Williams said.

“He will,” I gagged. “He’s done it before.”

Williams lifted me farther. I felt myself passing out. Ames fired. He was a good shot, a very good shot. The bullet skidded between Williams’s feet leaving a scratch in the bricks. Williams let me drop. I tumbled backward, fell over the bench, and landed on my back.

“You all right, Lewis?” he asked.

I had trouble answering. My back was a flash of pain, and my throat wouldn’t allow words to come out. I made a sound like “Mmmm,” which in the universal language of the beating victims of the world could mean no or yes.

Williams stood still, looking at Ames.

“One question,” I rasped, getting to my knees.

“I didn’t kill Horvecki,” said Williams.

“Not my question,” I said, making it to my feet. “Have you got a favorite first line from a book?”

Williams turned to look at me. “No,” he said.

I staggered to Ames’s side, and he said, “Let’s get my scooter in your trunk and get out of here.”

I didn’t argue. Ames kept his weapon trained on Williams, who was now ignoring us and sitting on the bench again. He had poured himself another large lemonade.

On the way home, Ames explained how he had found me. He knew the names of the two suspects I was out looking for. The files Pertwee had given me were on my desk. He used the same telephone directory I had and made his way to the house in Venice.

“He kill Horvecki?” Ames asked as I drove.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“The other fella, Pepper?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Where do we go now?”

“You have a favorite first line from a book?”

“Yes.”

Ames is the best read person I have ever known. His room across from the kitchen and near the rear door of the Texas Bar and Grill was jammed with books neatly arranged on wall-to-ceiling shelves Ames had built. He always carried a book in his pocket or in the compartment of his scooter. The last book I saw him reading was Dead Souls.

“What is it?”

Ames was silent for a moment. He looked down at the barrel of the shotgun between his legs and said, “People don’t read much anymore.”

Then Ames said, “In a village of La Mancha the name of which I have no desire to recall, there lived not so long ago one of those gentlemen who always have a cane in the rack, an ancient buckler, a skinny nag, and a greyhound for the chase.”

“Which one of us is Quixote and which one is Sancho Panza?” I asked.