Ed Gorman - Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

“This is great.”

“It is?”

“Finding a doctor who drives a black Corvette shouldn’t be too tough.”

“I actually thought he was the coolest guy of all of them. The ones who called on her, I mean. He’s kinda sexy, actually.”

I thanked her and walked to the door.

“Say,” she said, “anything new with the missiles?”

“Nothing that I’ve heard of.”

“The company is warning us what to do if a missile hits a city we’re supposed to land in. It’s really scary.”

That detail made the whole crisis even more real. You never think of things like that. You’re in a plane thirty thousand feet up and the city below you becomes a mushroom cloud. Then what?

“Thanks again,” I said.

TWELVE

I HAD A BEER AT a tavern with animal heads on the wall. The way I feel about hunting is I’d rather see the hunters’ heads on the wall. But I don’t suppose I’ll ever get to be president of the United States saying things like that now, will I? Or didn’t I tell you that I have this diabolical plan to take over the United States?

I called a friend of mine on the Cedar Rapids police force and asked him to run a check on the black Corvette driven by a doctor.

Then I dawdled over a second beer, not wanting to go back to my apartment, which was turning into a crime scene, the crime being French farce. The woman I’d loved most of my life sleeping with the man I’d hated most of my life under my roof? God either has a great sense of humor or none at all. When I figure out which it is, I’ll get back to you.

On the third and final beer—I am not a great drinker—I decided, and I think truthfully, that I didn’t love Pamela any more. I know you’re not supposed to trust beery revelations but there was something dead inside me now where she was concerned—I started thinking of all the F. Scott Fitzgerald short stories I’d read in college where the protagonist ends with something dead inside where his woman is concerned—but when I thought of her now I just felt a sadness. Even though she’d never loved me, she’d been the center of my life all those years. But she wasn’t now and never would be again and I felt alone in a way I’d never felt before.

Screw it, I thought. They could have my apartment. I’d stay at a motel. I’d only go over there in the morning to shower and change clothes. Hell, I’d get a new bed out of it for my trouble and a good motel room would be eight, nine bucks was all. I’d come out ahead.

Stu answered when I called and I told him what I had in mind.

“But I’m making steaks.”

“More for you.”

“Jeez, McCain, this doesn’t seem right. Kicking you out of your own apartment.”

“You’re not kicking me out. I am. And by the way, the bed you’re going to buy me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I want a one hundred dollar bed.”

“That’s no problem.”

“Great. Then I’ll see you in the morning. Oh—did I get any calls?”

“Hang on a sec.” Though he cupped the phone, I heard him say, “Did he get any calls?”

“Kenny Thibodeau. That dirty book writer.” She’d never much approved of Kenny.

“That dirty book writer. You know, Kenny.”

“Fine. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

There wasn’t any answer at Kenny’s place so I walked down the street to an Italian restaurant, the only ethnic restaurant in town except the one where they serve buffalo burgers. I’m not sure which ethnicity that is. Eskimo?

I ate a plate full of damned good spaghetti and started pouring down coffee. I don’t like the feeling of being drunk. The coffee and a bunch of Luckies helped me sober up. My dad has the same problem. When you’re as small as we are, you don’t hold your booze well. It’s a shameful thing for a Celt to admit.

One table away, a working class family of five were discussing the missile crisis. The littlest girl was so scared she started to cry. She crawled up in her daddy’s lap and he kissed her on top of her blonde curly head and then he sort of rocked her as he probably had when she was a baby. It broke my heart. And made me angry. Some guy somewhere in this place called Russia gets pissed off because some guy somewhere in this place called America was stupid enough to listen to the CIA and invade Cuba. Or try to. It sure as hell wasn’t much of an invasion. And so this guy in Russia, in a snit because of it, decides to play poker with nuclear warheads as chips. And maybe destroy or at least alter life on this planet for the next 50,000 years. Awfully damned hard to explain that to a little girl in Black River Falls, Iowa who’s too young to understand where Russia is or why the CIA was run by zealots who didn’t much care about lives, American or otherwise, or why her mom suddenly started crying last night when they all got down on their knees and said the rosary for world peace.

I got up and went for a walk. The cold night air felt good. The Johnny Cash song wailing out of the tavern sounded mighty lonely.

After my walk, I went to a corner grocery store and bought two Pepsis, a package of smokes and a paperback by a new guy named Dan J. Marlowe, who was one mighty fine writer. Fifteen minutes later, I was in my motel room in my underwear and under the blankets, reading my book.

After fifty excellent pages, I tried Kenny again. This time he answered.

“Heard something I thought I’d pass on.”

“Great. What is it?”

“Mrs. Murdoch tried to pay off Karen Hastings. To get her out of town. Mrs. Murdoch has plenty of money of her own. Her husband didn’t know anything about it. She started at ten thousand but the Hastings woman said no. So eventually she went to twenty thousand. I think she copped to the whole thing, man. The four guys and Karen Hastings, I mean.”

“Hold on a sec.”

I dug out my notebook and wrote it down.

“That’s useful. Thanks. I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who you heard it from?”

“Can’t. I took the Boy Scout oath.”

“You could be making all this stuff up. How would I know?”

“Would the author of The Torrid Twins ever lie to you?”

“I thought that was The Tempting Twins.”

“They changed the title for the second edition.”

“Ah.”

“See what you can do with it, anyway. She might have iced the Hastings dame.”

“Boy, you’re really picking up on the tough-guy talk.”

“Yeah, I’m digging the hell out of this detective gig, man.”

I tried to go back to reading, I wanted to go back to reading, I told myself that I should go back to reading and put everything else out of my mind for the evening—

But since I already had my notebook at hand—

I started going through motives that might lead an unstable mind to commit two murders.

Mike Hardin

Gavin Wheeler

Peter Carlson

Wanted her for himself

Ross Murdoch

Brother shaking him down for money

Mrs. Murdoch

Wanted her out of town

I fell asleep just before the ten o’clock news, not waking up until just before six. I dressed in yesterday’s clothes and drove over to my place.

I let myself in, being as quiet as possible. I opened the door to the meows of the three cats who stared up at me with long, guilt-inducing gazes. How dare I spend the night somewhere else? But I could see their bowls from here. They’d been fed well and their water had been refreshed and filled to the brim in the bowl.

A voice said, “Don’t worry about us. We’ve been up all night.”

I walked into the area that I used as the living room. Stu sat on the couch, smoking a cigarette. He wore pajamas and his hair was mussed and he needed a shave. A pillow was propped up against the arm of the couch. On the opposite end was a blanket.