Эд Горман - Stranglehold

“So somebody else came there, too?”

Another ice-blue stream of smoke. “Bobby killed him. Two nights me ’n’ Craig were really getting along good, and then Bobby barges in and starts yelling and ruins the whole thing. Craig was in a shitty mood afterward. He gave me the black eye one of those nights. I blame Bobby for that. He had another fight with him the night before last.”

A knock on the door. Sister peeked in. “Just wanted to see how it’s going.”

“He’s tryin’ to tell me that Bobby didn’t kill Craig when I know damned well he did.”

Sister said, “She being any help?”

“Not really. She wants to see Bobby get charged with the murder whether he did it or not.” Heather watched me with the fleshy face of a bellicose infant. “I’m pretty sure somebody else came to see Donovan while she was there, but she won’t tell me who it was.”

“That true, Heather?”

“How the hell would I know who came to see him? I wasn’t there all the time.”

Sister frowned. “I’m sorry, Mr. Conrad. She’s got three more appointments back to back. Best I can do is give you a few more minutes.” She closed the door. I listened to her walk back up front.

“He was gonna marry me.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yeah, for your fucking information, I really did. He told me he’d come into a lot of money. A lot of money. He said he had these friends way down in Mexico, where the drug people would leave him alone. That’s where he was gonna take me — until Bobby killed him.”

Then she was up and charging around the side of the desk. She went right for the door. She had it open before I could stand up. “You heard my sister. We’re real busy. Now, you quit botherin’ me or I’m gonna call that detective, that colored one or whatever she is.”

“She’s Indian.”

“Well, I’m gonna call her and tell her you’re botherin’ me. I’ll bet she won’t like that at all.”

She walked out front. By the time I crossed the threshold, she was at her barber chair, feigning profound interest in her scissors.

I was on parade as I walked up to the cash register. As I passed Sister I said, “Thanks for trying to help.”

“She’s some piece of work, isn’t she?”

A couple of the customers laughed.

As I opened the front door, two women whispered behind me. I didn’t pick up on the words but I heard the giggles.

The motel had a central office and two wings that formed a V. After the Oklahoma City bombing we became aware of shadowy men who moved across the country staying in motels like this one, vague members of even vaguer groups that hated the government and hoped to destroy it. The feds began to miss the days when most of these people could be found in racist or seditionist compounds and were much easier to keep track of. Now they were scattered and impossible to track, much like the days before and during the Civil War when seditionists were hiding in the mazes of lodging houses in Washington, D.C., and other Northern cities.

Gwen had given me the room number. It was second from the end on the west half of the V. The newest car I could see was at least fifteen years old. A baby cried in one room, in another a TV preacher shouted Bible words, and in a third a woman wept. I knocked on Gwen’s door. She opened it immediately.

She wore another faded maternity top. This one was a kind of puce color. She’d put on makeup and combed her hair. The gamine face was somber. “He isn’t here, Mr. Conrad.”

I’d hoped to get something helpful from Heather before coming out here. Something that would help make my case when I talked to Bobby — but nothing.

“You know the police are looking for him. And there isn’t any time for this, Gwen. He’s in real trouble. Now let me in.”

“I told you, Mr. Conrad, he isn’t—”

“Gwen, listen. He’s inside and he’s in trouble. I’m trying to put this whole thing together. He can help me and maybe I can help him.”

“Oh, Mr. Conrad...”

“Screw it, let him come in.” A male voice, young, despondent.

“You sure, honey?”

“Am I sure? Of course I’m not sure. I’m not sure of a thing right now. But you might as well let him in.” Hard to know which was the dominant tone, the fear or the self-pity.

“He didn’t kill anybody, Mr. Conrad. He really didn’t.”

I followed her into a room that was a coffin of old griefs and old fears, the sort of place the human animal goes to hide out like any other animal that is being chased by yesterday. The room was painted mustard yellow. There was a double bed that appeared to slant from both ends into the middle. The ugly brown bedspread once had merry nubs on it. Most of the nubs were gone. There was a bathroom. The doorknob was missing, so all that remained was a hole. The tiles on the room floor curled upward in places. I couldn’t be sure, but tiny pieces on the floor looked like rat droppings.

Bobby Flaherty sat in the only chair, a beaten armchair with so many stains they looked like part of the design. He was a handsome kid in a sullen way. He wore a black sweatshirt, jeans, and blue running shoes. Gwen closed the door behind me. “You be nice to him, Bobby. He wants to help us.”

Bobby added to the haze of smoke in the room by tamping out another cigarette from the pack on his lap. He dug out a long blue plastic lighter and snicked it into flame. He blew out enough smoke to hide behind. He just watched me, animal-alert, assessing a potential enemy.

“You call the police before you came over here?”

“No. I wanted to talk to you.”

“You be nice,” Gwen snapped. She might have been talking to her snarling dog. “Tell him you appreciate how he’s helped me. You promised you would.”

He laughed but in a tender way. “Honey, I do appreciate it. But I want to make sure he didn’t call the cops. Is that all right?”

“He said he didn’t call the police. And I believe him.”

He stared at me through the blue haze. “All right, I believe him.” Then: “I didn’t kill anybody.”

“All right. But you were seen running from Monica Davies’s room. And there’s a witness who said you’ve had several fistfights with your father.”

“Heather,” he said. “He could really pick ’em.”

The east wall hummed with TV dialogue from the room next door. I sat on the edge of the bed.

“How did your father get back in touch with you?”

“Why?”

“Because your mother is very worried about you. And so is Jim Shapiro and so am I. You’ve got to face this, Bobby. I’m trying real hard to believe you’re innocent, but I have to know what happened, starting with your father coming back into your life.”

“If you don’t tell him, Bobby, I will. You need to let him help us.”

Bobby’s glance met hers. He sighed and looked back at me. “I got adopted out to the Flahertys when I was little, that’s where I picked up the name. I didn’t know anything about my old man until a year ago. He managed to track me down.” The smile was bitter. “He was a con man. Did some time in Joliet for running a scam in Chicago, so he wouldn’t have had much trouble getting through the adoption system and finding out where I lived. He gave them a bullshit story that they went for. He was very good at bullshit.” There was nothing but contempt in his voice for his father. “But I’m probably being hypocritical. I did a little time in county myself. The six longest months of my life. Got drunk and got into a fight and beat the guy up pretty bad. By then the Flahertys didn’t want me around anymore and I couldn’t blame them. I’d been in trouble a lot in school and they just couldn’t deal with me anymore. All the time I was in county I kept thinking of how good they’d been to me and how I’d hurt them. I was a real asshole.”