Ed Gorman - Ticket to Ride

We’d been at it for half an hour. He’d told Marjorie he wouldn’t be taking any calls, and he yelled at anybody foolish enough to knock on his door.

“Lou and Ralph. They were my friends.”

He slid off the desk and rubbed his butt. Apparently it had gone to sleep. Then he walked behind his desk and sat down. The news had shocked him into humility. He hadn’t yet called me a shithead or an asswipe, two of his more recent names for me. But then I hadn’t insulted him either.

“Lou helped build this town. He employed a hell of a lot of people and he was always behind making things better. He had that foundation and it donated a lot of money. Hell, Lou built that swimming pool for those colored kids just last year.” He was talking to himself. He was still trying to convince himself that this was real. “And poor Ralph’s wife. She’s real high-strung and she’s had a lot of health problems. This sure won’t be good for her. This is the kind of thing that can kill people.” I remembered her scream as I stood on the DePaul drive earlier. The terrible grief of it. “Him and that damned gambling. I warned him about it. He used to sneak off to the Quad Cities. Friend of mine spotted him over there several times. I brought it up to Ralph, and he promised me he wouldn’t do it any more. He lied. And he just got in deeper.”

He leaned back in his chair. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, and then he said: “If all this is true, McCain-and it probably is-that still leaves us with two murders.” Despite the air conditioning, his tan khaki shirt was spotted with sweat. “Somebody who wanted to pay them back for being involved in that fire.”

“That’s how I read it.”

“You got any ideas?”

I swallowed a smile. I imagined Judge Whitney’s face when I told her that he’d actually asked my opinion. The old judge would have ordered up a bottle of the best. The new judge would just sip her ginger ale.

I lied, because I felt as if I’d done all the work so far and I wanted to finish it off myself. “Not really. Just possibilities.”

“What kind of possibilities?”

“Just ideas that I still need to think through.”

The way he looked at me, I knew he would soon be calling me names again. “You’re hiding something.”

“I’m really not, Chief. I just need time to think my ideas through.”

“That’s the trouble with you, McCain. All talk and no action.”

Let’s see, I’d brought him Raines and DePaul while he’d brought nobody. Most of the time I would have defended myself, but now all I wanted was to leave. “I’m just trying to take my time with things.”

“What’ll they do to Ralph?”

“If he cooperates right now, that’ll help. Hell, Chief, your cousin’s the district attorney. You can put in a good word for Ralph.”

“Yeah, he’s my cousin all right, but we had this family reunion out to the park last weekend and I guess I kind of called him a cheat. You know, at cards? I had a few too many beers, I’ll admit that, and he was whopping me every hand, so I shot my mouth off. My wife, she made me call him the next day and apologize. The jerk.”

“He wouldn’t accept your apology?”

“He called me a clown.”

“That’s too bad.”

“‘Clown’ is worse than ‘cheat,’ isn’t it?” But he didn’t wait for an answer. “I guess I can always ask my dad to talk to him about Ralph. He’s scared of Dad just like everybody else.”

He was so damned dopey, I sort of liked him for a fleeting moment. I used his funk to say, “I need to be going, Chief.”

He waved me off. “I suppose Raines’ll bring in some hotshot from Chicago for his lawyer.”

“Probably.”

And then he brought me back to reality. He smiled like a plump idiot baby and said, “Nobody’d want some dipshit lawyer like you, that’s for sure.”

All the way down the hall, as I headed for the front door, I could hear him laughing.

As soon as I opened the outer door to my office, I heard their voices. Jamie and Wendy. I got myself a Pepsi from the machine I shared with the store up front and then strolled into my office. I say strolled because the heat had started to slow me down considerably. I didn’t mind the moisture in my shorts all that much, but the sweat on the bottoms of my feet bothered me. I felt as if I was walking on sponges.

I walked over and kissed Wendy on the top of her head; then I went to my desk, dropped into my chair, and let the rumbling window air conditioner work its noisy miracle. I rolled the Pepsi bottle back and forth over my forehead.

“You look tired, Mr. C.”

All I could manage was a grunt in response.

“Jamie and I were just saying you work too hard.”

Another grunt.

“That’s why I stopped in, Sam. How about grilling some shrimp and eating some potato salad I made? That’s my specialty. Then a relaxing evening on my veranda, where it’s cool as soon as the sun starts to go down.”

“He’ll never be able to say no to that, Mrs. Bennett.”

“Oh, you never know about Sam, Jamie. He might tell me that he’s too busy.”

“But Mr. C needs some time off and this sounds really good.”

“You and I know it sounds good, but does he know it sounds good?” Wendy looked like a coed in a light-blue blouse, dark-blue culottes, and white tennis shoes.

“I wouldn’t miss it. Thank you very much for the invitation.”

“See,” Jamie said. “I told you.”

An odd smile broke wide on Wendy’s face. “Tell him your news, Jamie.”

“What news?” The artificial air was beginning to chase the sweat from me.

“You know when I asked you for an advance?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I started thinking about what you said. And then I started thinking about all the money I’ve already given Turk, Mr. C. And you know what I came up with?”

“No. What?”

“I decided to tell him that I wouldn’t loan him any more money because I was broke myself, always borrowing ahead and everything. And even when he started yelling at me, I didn’t change my mind. I did it just the way Mrs. Bennett told me to.”

“Wendy told you to do it?”

“Yes, Mr. C. We just started talking while we were waiting for you, and I was telling her about Turk and everything, and she said that if he really loved me, he’d get a job and not keep asking me for money. A surfer band from Iowa kind’ve confused her, too, I think. Anyway, she told me just what to say and that’s what I did.” She smiled at Wendy. “It was kind of funny, she was coaching me while I was talking. I had a hard time not laughing.”

“I’m very proud of both of you.”

“And, oh yeah, William Hughes called. He said he’d call you back.”

“Didn’t say what he wanted, though?”

“Huh-uh. He said he was in Cedar Rapids and would call when he got back.”

I sat up straight, set the Pepsi bottle on the desk and said, “How long ago did he call?”

“About two hours ago, I guess.”

Two hours would have given him plenty of time to drive back from Cedar Rapids. I reached in the drawer and retrieved the phone book. Lou Bennett wasn’t listed. But then why would he be? All rich men in small cities are, fairly or unfairly, resented by a share of the populace. Having your number listed would be asking for nuisance calls of all kinds.

Then I realized that the heat really had slowed my thought process. Sitting across from me, and looking quite plucky for all the heat, was Linda Raines’s sister-in-law.

“I’m assuming you know the number of the Bennett estate?”

“Sure.”

I wrote it down as she gave it to me, and then I picked up the receiver and dialed.

The voice I heard on the other end was strained, tight. “This is the Bennett residence.”