Ed Gorman - The Day The Music Died

It was actually a big house, but then you needed the extra space to share with all the rats and cockroaches.

Winter dusk. The sky a moody rose and black with bright tiny stars and a bright quarter moon.

Frost already glittering on the windshields of parked cars. To reach Debbie’s place you had to climb rickety stairs up the north side of the green-shingled house. You could smell the dinner from the ground-floor apartment, something homey with a tomato base.

I was just about to start up the steps when somebody came from the shadows and said, “Who the hell’re you?”

At first, I couldn’t see him. He was more shadow than substance. He came a few steps closer and I saw him a lot better. He was imposing. The uniform was regulation army but the decorations were anything but. He was a paratrooper, all spit and polish, caged energy and rage.

Then he said, “Hey, McCain, you little bastard.

I didn’t know it was you!”

Finally, I recognized him, too. Mike Lundigan, Debbie’s older brother. He’d been a year behind me in high school. He’d enlisted in the army two days after graduating.

“Hey, Mike! How’s it going?”

“Just got back stateside last week and came home here fast as I could.”

“Where you been?”

“South Vietnam. Ever hear of it?”

“No.”

“Our side is fighting the commies over there.

Ike’s been sending military advisers. I was over there for a year.” He grinned around the cigarette he’d just stuck in his mouth. “We’re gonna kick their yellow asses, man. In no time at all.”

A car swept up to the curb. The passenger door opened. Loud country music poured from the radio. Debbie got out, said good night, closed the door and the car took off.

Mike ran to her. She screamed his name when she saw him and then hurried into his arms.

They’d been orphaned the year after she graduated high school; their folks were killed in a car accident. They had good reason to cling to each other.

After a few minutes, they looked back at me. I walked over to them. “Debbie, I’ve got a couple more questions I’d like to ask you. But how about if I call you a little later tonight?”

Mike shook his head. “Listen, I was going to run down to the liquor store before it closes and pick up a bottle. Why don’t you two talk while I’m gone?”

Debbie nodded. “Fine with me.”

Mike kissed her on the cheek then shook my hand. “Be right back.”

He hadn’t been kidding about running down to the liquor store. He took off at a trot, his heavy lace-up paratrooper boots slamming the sidewalk hard.

“You have a cigarette, McCain? Mine are upstairs.”

She always said that. Debbie’s favorite brand of smokes was Op’s-Other People’s. She’d been that way since ninth grade. I gave her a Pall Mall and lit it for her.

“Did Susan ever mention blackmail to you?”

“Blackmail? Are you kidding?”

“No. Apparently somebody was getting money from her for quite a while.”

“God, she never mentioned anything like that.”

“Did Kenny know about the affair she had with Renauld?”

“No. She didn’t tell him.”

“Could he have found out some other way?”

“He could have. But I don’t think he did.”

She started stamping her feet a little to stay warm. “You want to go upstairs?”

“I’m almost done.”

“I’m starting to freeze, McCain.”

“So she didn’t mention any blackmail to you?”

“Nope.”

“When she ended it with Renauld, did he ever threaten her?”

“Several times. She used to joke that he had a lousy bedside manner. He was in med school for a while, you know.”

“Renauld was?”

“At the U of I.”

“I didn’t know that.” I thought of what Doc Novotony had said about the abortionist possibly being a med student who knew just enough to be dangerous. Would that apply to somebody who’d dropped out of med school?

“You ever hear him threaten her?”

“No. But she wasn’t the kind to lie. And she was definitely afraid of him.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s not exactly the most stable guy in the world.”

She started slapping her mittened hands together.

“Now I’ve got to pee, McCain. C’mon.

Let’s go upstairs.”

“Actually, that’s all I needed.”

“Good. Because my bladder can’t hold out for long.”

She was already starting up the steps. “I still think Kenny killed her, McCain. He hated her and he hated himself-the booze had pickled his brains -and that’s what happened the other night.”

“Thanks again, Debbie. And tell Mike it was nice seeing him.”

I was two blocks from Debbie’s when I saw a red police light bloom into bloody brilliance in the gloom behind me. I pulled over to the curb.

Cliffie just about burst out of his squad car. His right hand rode his low-slung gun all the way up to my car.

He peeked in and said, “You happen to catch the news on the boob tube tonight?”

“No. Unlike some people I know, I have to work for a living.”

“And I’m talkin’ Cbs news, McCain, not that local shit they put on around here.”

“So what was on the news?”

“The Whitney family was on the news. How shocked the East Coast part of the family is that Kenny went and killed his wife and then killed himself. The Cbs news, McCain.” He grinned, his dipshit mustache as obnoxious as always. “So that kinda makes it official, don’t you think? Kenny killed his wife and then killed himself. Case closed. And the poor judge-boy, I’ll bet she’s never been so embarrassed in all her life. You tell her how sorry I am for her.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that along.”

He smiled again. “I’d sure appreciate that, McCain. I sure would.”

He started giggling. And then he walked back to his car. The red light was still on. He was one for drama, our Cliffie was, no doubt about that.

I pulled into the driveway. There were no downstairs lights on. Mrs. Goldman was probably at a movie. Even with her new Tv set, she still went to the movies regularly.

Tv just wasn’t the same. Besides, she sort of had this movie crush on Jimmy Stewart. She said she’d never liked him, or even considered him very manly, until he started making westerns. The Avalon had a double feature showing last year, the lonely night of the anniversary of her husband’s death, so I packed her off to a restaurant for some Chinese food and then we went to the movies, The Naked Spur with Stewart and Seven Men from Now with Randolph Scott. Great films and she had a grand time.

I went up the back stairs. Frost shone on the steps. I had to hold on to the handrail. I stopped and looked up at the moon and stars again.

I thought of Sputnik and the space program that was going on at the University of Iowa. People like me didn’t look quite so foolish anymore, buying science fiction magazines. Except for the ones where green and many-tentacled monsters were ravishing earth girls in bikinis. We probably weren’t going to find a race of horny monsters in outer space, ray gun in one tentacle and a Trojan in the other.

I got the back door opened and reached around to flick on the light. A voice said, “Please don’t turn on the light.”

“Mary?”

“I’m smoking one of your cigarettes. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Since when do you smoke?”

“Since tonight, I guess.”

I closed the door and came into the living room. I could see her now, sitting in the overstuffed chair. She looked small and young. The alley light cast everything in stark patches of wan light and brilliant shadow, like a Humphrey Bogart movie.

I took my coat off and sat on the couch.