David Levien - Where the dead lay

“Break this shit up,” were the first coherent words Behr processed. Three of them, in uniform, had come through the front door and flooded into the place. Behr felt powerful hands yank him back, while a pair of patrolmen went past him and interdicted the fierce-looking man’s progress in his direction. The cops wrapped the man up, causing him to thrash and start screaming.

“Get the fuck off me!” the man yelled. “Sonofabitch comes in here and beats on my kids, I’ll gut him.” Behr saw the man’s coal black eyes flash with hate, and realized he’d stumbled into a family affair. The men he’d fought were this guy’s sons, and perhaps the guy he’d been following was, too. The blond man he’d thrown to the ground regained his feet and glared at Behr as the third cop, a round, stocky fellow sporting a handlebar mustache and lieutenant’s bars, worked his way around to keep them apart.

“That’s enough!” the lieutenant yelled. “Back it the fuck up.”

The patrolmen pushed the one Behr had been fighting and the father into the darkness toward the back of the room, while the lieutenant dragged Behr toward the front.

“Hands on the bar,” he said. Behr knew better than to argue, so he put his hands on the oak and assumed the position.

“Gun, right lower,” Behr said, anticipating the lieutenant’s finding it as he was frisked. The cop yanked Behr’s pistol out of the holster.

“Gun up front!” the lieutenant shouted to the cops in the back, then to Behr, “What’s up, buddy?”

“I was-”

“I don’t want to hear it. Let’s see some ID,” he said. “Slow.” Behr felt naked without his gun. He glanced toward the back of the room and saw that the father and son, both seated and squawking at the cops, weren’t exactly getting the same treatment. Behr spat blood on the floor, pulled his driver’s license out of his wallet, and let the lieutenant see his shield as he handed them over. “The pistol permit and P.I. license are all in there.”

“Uh-huh. Okay,” the lieutenant said, comparing Behr to his driver’s license and glancing at the other documents. “What happened?”

“What happened? I walked in and got hit by a bat. That guy and another guy jumped me,” Behr said.

“What bat?” the lieutenant asked. Behr pointed off into the darkness. “What other guy?”

“He went out the back,” Behr said. The place was getting quieter now. The men in the rear reduced to violent-sounding mutterings.

“You’re saying you were assaulted. Stay here.” The lieutenant crossed toward the back and spoke to the other cops, but Behr couldn’t hear what was being said. After a moment the lieutenant was back. “They say you started it. You want to press charges, buddy? ’Cause what do I have here, a bar fight?” the lieutenant said.

“Is that what they told you? It was no bar fight,” Behr said, turning from the bar, his eyes finding the lieutenant’s nameplate. It read “Bustamante.”

“Then what was it? Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?” Lieutenant Bustamante demanded. “I know these guys, they may come on like hard-asses, but they’re real quiet business owners.” Behr said nothing. “C’mon, you were on the job, give me something, otherwise I gotta bring you all in,” the lieutenant went on, in a more reasonable tone. “You working private?”

Behr was tempted to pull him aside, to let him know the circumstances under which he’d come. He even thought about saying he was Pomeroy-sanctioned on the other matter. But something stopped him, and suddenly his eye found what it was: it was that nameplate. Bustamante. The name was familiar to him, and he remembered where he’d seen it: in the pea-shake property searches. A woman with the same last name had recently bought some houses. Coincidence? Or could she be his wife? It wasn’t the most common name. Behr felt an uncomfortable sensation in his gut and suddenly needed to get his gun back and get out of there. He tried to measure his breathing before he spoke.

“You know what, why don’t we forget about it?” Behr said.

“Yeah?” Bustamante asked, eyeing him.

“Yeah. Misunderstanding, spilt milk,” he said as evenly as he could. “There won’t be a next time, but maybe I come back one day, they’ll be a little more friendly, we’ll all have a drink.”

“There you go. Now you’re thinking. Save me some paperwork and I appreciate it.” Behr put his hand out and Bustamante gingerly placed the gun onto his palm. Behr reholstered it just as gingerly. He peered into the darkness of the bar and felt those hate-black eyes staring back at him as he exited. The adrenaline was leaving him, and a dizzy head and a ringing in his ear took its place. He made his way to his car on unsteady feet and turned for one last look at the place. His eyes found the white light floating over the building. It wasn’t the moon he was looking at, but the white illuminated sign over the door to the bar that featured a tilted-martini-glass-toasting-with-a-beer-mug logo. The Tip-Over Tap Room. Then it came to him. Schmidt, the Caro boy, had a pack of matches with the same logo in his room at the Valu-Stay. What was that? He’d picked up the matches someplace? Someone had given them to him? Or had he been to the bar? It didn’t mean much, in itself, a simple book of matches. But Behr’s head began to reel, as a long slow tremor of recognition snaked through him.

He was working one case, not two.

Terry Schlegel sat on the weight bench in the back office of Rubber House. They were all crammed in-Knute, Charlie, Dean, Kenny, and Larry Bustamante-and between the heat and the adrenaline of what had just passed, the room smelled like bulls.

“The guy’s name is Frank Behr,” Bustamante told them. “He was a cop. His kid died-shot himself with Behr’s gun and the guy came apart, boozing and pissing people off until he got run. This was back eight, nine years ago. He’s a goddamn hump and a loser now. People don’t like him. He drinks down the bar from real cops, if they even let him in the door.”

The boys seemed to jump all over this description, to eat it up, and Terry saw how it boosted their confidence, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t want them getting comfortable. Not now.

“You said ‘hump,’ but not a fuckup or an idiot,” Terry said.

“No. Well, he might’ve been kind of a fuckup-”

“Or maybe people are a little afraid of him ’cause he’s got nothing to fucking lose.”

“Maybe.” Bustamante shrugged.

Now silence, concerned and edgy, fell over the room. It was what Terry wanted, because concern made people careful.

How the hell could Larry and Vicky even be related? he wondered of his brother-in-law, who was the furthest thing from careful. The dark, swarthy guy was all short and bulbous, while Vicky was blond and still lanky and had been truly lithe when she was young. He’d never seen a brother and sister like them. Vicky said they had the same feet and the same space between the nose and lip, but the hell if Terry could see it.

“The question is, how did he end up here?” Terry asked the room.

“We told you,” Charlie spoke for the boys. “Dean was at the girl’s old place, the guy showed up and followed him here-”

The literal thinking was only going to get them so far. They needed to get philosophical. “I know that. I mean how did he end up here. Why’s he in it?” Terry said. Now Charlie shrugged.

“Maybe Larry can find something out?” Knute suggested.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Bustamante said, sounding as weak as a politician.

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s a good fucking idea,” Terry barked.

“Maybe you should cool out for a minute. I mean if Dean hadn’t given me a call, this thing could’ve turned into a real mess.”