Ed Gorman - Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

“Well,” I said, sliding off the stool. “Time to get back to the office.”

She said, in her quiet way, “I’m glad we saw each other, Sam.”

“Me, too.”

Then somebody asked for a “refill on the java.” Suddenly we were in a 1946 Monogram gangster movie. Java my ass.

On the walk back to my office, I heard somebody call my name. Turned out to be Jamie. “Had to get some girl stuff.” She looked uncomfortable saying it. “I only took a couple of minutes off.”

The shape of the small brown sack she carried, I figured it was Tampax.

“No problem, Jamie. Any calls?”

“Somebody named Hastings. He said it was important and he’d try you back.”

I wondered if he knew about Karen yet. I doubted there had been time for the word to spread. Cliffie was probably still out at the Murdoch place. But it wouldn’t be long now before the press was there and the story would make its way to the public.

“Turk had to leave,” she said, as if this would come as bad news to me. “He’s just such a gentleman. Have you ever noticed that?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “All the time.”

“Like when I had to carry in all those heavy office supplies this morning.”

“He helped you, huh?”

“No. He couldn’t help me. On account of his bad back.”

“Oh, I didn’t know he had a bad back.”

“Well, I actually didn’t, either. He said he hurt it playing poker.”

“You can hurt your back playing poker?”

“Turk says you can. From sitting so long.”

“The poor dear,” I said, even though sarcasm rarely registers with Jamie.

“But he was a gentleman about it, Mr. C. All the time I was carrying those boxes in, he sat in the front seat listening to the radio. And every time I kind of staggered past with a heavy load, you know what he did?”

“I’m afraid to hear.”

“He apologized, Mr. C. Every single time. He said, ‘I’m sorry, babe. If I hadn’t hurt my back playing poker, I’d be helping you right now with those boxes.’ Now that’s a real gentleman.”

What do you say? I’m sure Mrs. Goebbels thought her son was a gentleman, too.

Jamie left soon after coming back from the bathroom. We said good night. I checked the phone answering service. No calls. Then I switched on the radio for the local news. Out here that means farm news, too, which isn’t so bad. I know just enough about farming to understand how the markets are performing in Chicago on cattle, hogs, corn futures and so on. It’s the farming commercials that get me. Most of them are too slick, farmers played by professional actors from back east. They all sound like they taught Latin at Rutgers and moonlighted playing farmers.

There was no news about Ross Murdoch finding a body in his bomb shelter. There was plenty of news about the naval blockade around Cuba. No Russian ships had been sighted yet. Not nearby, anyway. But many many nautical miles away three Russian ships could be seen. If they stayed their course, they would end up right in the center of the blockade. The White House, it was said, had no comment on these ships.

Because there wasn’t anything I could do about Khrushchev and his dangerous and stupid ideas, I concentrated on Ross Murdoch. Why wasn’t the news reporting on the body in his bomb shelter? The story should be all over everywhere. I spent ten minutes dialing around station to station. Nothing. Both the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City stations carried national and international news at this time. Eventually, this story would be carried on the national news segments.

I looked up Ross Murdoch’s home phone number and called him.

A male voice said, “The Murdoch residence.”

“This is Sam McCain. I was out there earlier today. I’d like to speak to Ross if I could.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. McCain, he’s in a meeting right now.”

“Who’s this, please?”

“This is Jim Gilliam. I’m handling Mr. Murdoch’s press relations.”

“I see. Exactly how long do you think it’ll be before he gets out of that meeting?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. It’s a very important meeting.”

“I’ll bet it is.”

“I’ll be happy to take your number if you’d like.”

“No, thanks. I’ll just try later.”

“Well, thanks for calling, Mr. McCain.” And hung up.

Political candidates had a lot of meetings. Ross Murdoch wasn’t any different. But very few political candidates had meetings while dead women decomposed in their bomb shelters. It just isn’t in good taste. Ask Dear Abby if you don’t believe me. It’s in her new book, Chapter 14, “Caring for Corpses.” Abby is very big on spritzing them frequently with perfume.

I went back to work. Every once in a while I’d look up at the lone high window in my office and see the dusk sky begin to glow with those impossible mixtures of salmon-gold-pink-and-fuchsia that not even the best of artists can quite recreate on canvas. A quarter-moon hung exactly on the window line of moisture that would, in a couple of hours, be frost. I suppose it’s a variation of self-pity, that emptiness you feel at dusk, that sense of terrible isolation. Vampires are lucky. They’re just getting up about now and for them the fun is just starting. Lucky bastards.

I was hungry but not hungry. Thinking about seeing Mary sometime soon but not seeing Mary sometime soon because that probably wouldn’t be a good idea for either of us. Knowing I should stop over and see Mom and Dad more often but somehow never doing it—and in a town this size, what could possibly be the excuse? Then I thought about Hastings. Had he somehow put Karen Hastings’s body in the bomb shelter?

I got up and poured out the last of Jamie’s pretty-damned-good coffee and then went back to my desk and wondered some more.

I was laying all this out mentally when the phone rang and a voice said, “Just stay right there.” And with that she hung up.

It took me thirty seconds to play the voice back three or four times in my head. To realize who it was I’d been talking to—well, listening to. None other than the beautiful Pamela Forrest.

I thought of what Mary had said not long ago at the drugstore. It’s like we were starting all over again. And it was. Or could be. Would I fall in love with Pamela all over again? Would Mary fall in love with me all over again?

I was pretty sure that vampires never had to go through stuff like this. Lucky bastards.

FIVE

IT WASN’T ANY GRAND entrance. In fact, she stumbled a bit coming through the door, waving a bottle of Cutty Sark. She hadn’t changed in the long months since I’d seen her. A small-town Grace Kelly but without quite as much reserve. She had a pretty tart sense of humor. Tonight she was all Southern California cool, even though I assumed she’d come from Chicago. Tan suede mid-thigh jacket, white silk blouse, dark brown slacks. The golden hair was cut shorter than usual, styled in the way of TV sitcom wives and the good girls in adventure movies.

She set the scotch bottle down on my desk and said, “No waiting in line at a state liquor store, McCain. I brought it all the way from Chicago just for you.”

“I don’t believe it. The beautiful Pamela Forrest.” She laughed. “I take it you’re still in love with me, then? I was hoping you’d be excited to see me.”

I spoke carefully. “Actually, I’m not, Pamela.” But of course Pamela’s ego couldn’t accept anything so negative.

“Oh bullshit, McCain. You’re not over me and you know it. You should see your face right this instant. You got over the surprise of seeing me. Now you look the same as you did when you used to walk me home from school in sixth grade. All moony and shy and just crazy about me.”

“It must be the light in here, Pamela. But moony and shy, I’m not. The crazy part I’ll admit is open to argument.”