James Burke - Light of the World

The man in work clothes came around the far side of the willows, knee-deep in the current, the lights from the vaudeville theater and the park across the river reflecting off the rapids behind him. His hair was black and thick and unwashed and hung in dirty strings around his face. His left hand was clenched on his cheek, pushing his lips out of shape, exposing his teeth. A dark fluid was leaking from below his rib cage, down his shirt and trouser leg. In his right hand, he held a small semi-auto, perhaps a .25 or .32. He was obviously weak from blood loss and probably had decided he would either see the sunrise from a plane window or with a DOA tag tied to his toe.

“You were stand-up. Your bud was a rat bastard,” she said. “Throw your piece in the water. You can go into wit pro. There’re all kinds of—”

He raised the semi-auto. “Chug this,” he said.

Maybe he fired, maybe he didn’t. She didn’t try to think it through. She was sure her first round hit him in the forehead, the second in the throat, the third in the chest. Maybe one went long or hit him in the arm. He went straight down, as they always did. Even while he slid into the current, the back of his shirt puffing with air, his head bobbing like an apple in the chop, she couldn’t stop pulling the trigger, the bullets dancing all over the water’s surface. In seconds the current or a cottonwood snag took him under, and all she could hear was the incessant humming of the river.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” she said under her breath.

Inside her head, she heard a cacophonous voice that sounded like it had risen from the bowels of a building through a heating duct: Hi, baby doll, it said. Welcome back to that old-time rock and roll. It’s so nice to have you back on board.

By Monday morning Clete Purcel didn’t think much else could go wrong with his day. Not until he saw a hand-waxed, metallic-purple, chrome-plated Humvee coming up the road, splashing through the rain puddles, almost running over Albert’s border collie. The Humvee turned into the driveway and stopped by the pedestrian gate to the north pasture. A slight man wearing a Mexican vest and a flowery shirt with blown sleeves and a braided cloth belt and trousers stuffed inside hand-tooled, multicolored boots came through the gate with a self-satisfied expression while he eyeballed the pasture and the low-hanging clouds and the sunshine spangling on the wet trees, as though he owned whatever he walked on.

Clete stepped out on the porch, steam rising off the tin cup he held. “What can I do for you, Mr. Younger?” he said.

“Call me Caspian. Is that your restored Cadillac under the tarp?”

“Yeah, the ravens keep downloading on it. It’s a way of life with me.”

“Getting dumped on?”

“Yeah, think of me as a human Dumpster. What do you want?”

“Not much. I felt obligated to tell you you’re not the first.”

“First what?”

Caspian Younger gazed at the sheen on the fir and pine trees on the hillsides and the clouds dissolving like smoke as the day warmed. “I understand you worked for Sally Dio in Reno and Vegas.”

“I used to get comped at the Riviera. I stayed in the penthouse, right next to Frank Sinatra’s old suite. The greaseballs loved it there. It was the worst shithole on the Strip. You ever stay at the Riviera?”

“I never had the pleasure. You don’t like Vegas?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it that a hydrogen bomb and a lot of topsoil wouldn’t cure.”

“Did you enjoy yourself last night, Mr. Purcel?”

“Actually, I don’t remember much of what I did. I have blackouts, see? I wake up in the morning and don’t have a clue about where I was or who I was with.”

“Know where I met her?”

“Not interested.”

“She was a ticket taker in an art theater in Metairie. I thought she was the cutest thing I had ever seen. She looked like a little teenage girl with a woman’s jugs. You ever see skin like that on a woman? Or didn’t you notice?”

“I met your wife in town to talk about the death of your adopted daughter. We had a drink in a bar and went to the Depot and ordered a dinner we never ate. In the meantime, your family keeps showing up in our lives. I don’t see y’all as the offended party.”

“She’ll fuck your brains out and throw the rest of your body parts on the roadside. She fucked the governor of Louisiana right before he went to prison. The poor schmuck probably never figured out why she balled him. She collects stuffed heads. Hey, nobody complains. Felicity can have four orgasms in one night.”

“If you want to talk about your wife like that, it’s your business. I don’t want to hear it, Mr. Younger.”

“I’m a realist. I knew what she was when I married her. You go out with another guy’s wife, but you’re offended by profanity?”

Take a chance, Clete thought. “You know that dude who was following me and Miss Felicity around?”

“Which ‘dude’?”

“Driving a pickup, Kansas plates, rectangular face, maybe, what’s the gen on this guy?”

“The ‘gen’?”

“Yeah, the background. You know this guy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know what bothers me most about your visit here, Mr. Younger? You haven’t made one mention of your daughter. Your wife wants to hire me to help find your daughter’s killer, but you show no curiosity at all about what I might know. You don’t show any rage, either. Most fathers who lose a daughter to a predator don’t want the guy cooled out. They want to feed him into an airplane propeller.”

“I didn’t raise the subject, Mr. Purcel, because I don’t think you know anything. I think you’re a rotund, self-deluded fellow who will bed another man’s wife and pretend he’s part of a noir tradition he learned about from watching too many movies. We checked you out. Wherever you go, you have the reputation of a court jester with dunce cap and bells, an alcoholic idiot who can’t keep his flagpole in his pants.”

“We were talking about your lack of anger or desire for revenge or even justice.”

“Anger is the stuff of theater. Revenge is a science, my friend. Stay away from my wife. The first time wasn’t altogether your fault. The second time won’t be nice.”

Clete felt his hands close and open involuntarily at his sides. “I guess you’re not a listener,” he said.

“And you look like you had a hard night,” Caspian said. He reached out with his fingernail and ticked the lipstick smear on Clete’s shirt. “I hope it’s worth it. When she gets rid of a cop — and there have been other cops before you — he’s usually ready to eat his gun. Can you see yourself eating your gun over a broad? Hey, I like this place. You get to stay here rent-free?”

Clete went back inside the cabin, his blood pressure throbbing in his wrists, a taste like copper pennies in his mouth. Gretchen had just gotten up. “Did you know you have lipstick on your shirt?” she said.

“Thanks for pointing that out.”

She looked through the window. “That’s Caspian Younger. I’ve seen his picture. He got in your face about his wife?”

“More or less. He wanted to convince me he’s a good loser. You know what it takes to be a good loser? Practice.”

“What’d you say to him?” she asked.

“I told him nothing happened. I don’t think he believed me.” He sat down at the breakfast table and rubbed his forehead. “Let’s go over a couple of things from last night. You tried to make the guy in the water give it up before you dropped him?”

“Were you in the sack with her?”

“No. And my private life is not the issue, Gretchen.”

“Maybe the guy got off one round. I’m not sure. I waited till the last second before I shot him. Then I couldn’t stop.”