Paul Levine - Night vision

He took a long pull on the beer. "Just started acting up. Sometimes it hurts more than others."

"I'll bet. When anybody who smells like government begins asking questions, it must hurt like hell."

He got loud. "You trying to fuck with my pension? Look, I walked these streets for twenty-three years. Pavement so hot your shoes stick to the asphalt. Wearing those goddamn knee socks and striped shorts. Little Havana, Overtown, Cables Estates-you name it, I worked there. Don't know what's worse, the jungle bunnies in Overtown or the rich bitches in the Gables in their two-hundred-dollar bathrobes, asking me to carry their trash to the curb. Do I look like the sanitation department?"

"No, you look like a two-bit grifter who plays the angles and loses three out of four."

He had the expression of a mutt who'd just been kicked. Sometimes you charm a witness into talking. Other times you hit him over the head with a two-by-four. I went for the whole tree.

"Travers, you look like a guy who used to have a buddy clock in when you wanted to goof off, if you had a buddy at all. You look like a guy who can't wait to get rear-ended so you can soak the insurance company for a new paint job and take a month off at full pay 'cause your neck hurts. You look like a guy who'll pick up the silverware from the diner and jiggle the pay phone till a quarter comes out. In short, Travers, you look like a small-time sack of shit."

He licked his lips and his watery eyes darted back and forth. Other bettors were starting to stare. Maybe I was embarrassing him in front of his cronies.

"I don't have to take this," he said. "I put my time in. Now I got sciatic neuralgia."

"You don't say."

He leaned close and let me get a whiff of his sour breath. "Yeah, and I got affidavits from two chiropractors and an osteopath to prove it.

"I don't give a shit about your pension. I want to know where you were on the night of July two."

He took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. When he put them back on, they were no cleaner. "Like I told the detective, I was right here. Ten o'clock, maybe a little after, I headed home."

"What about proof? Who saw you?"

"Everybody. Sal the beer guy, Dave the Deuce who works the two-dollar window, but they don't know one day from the next."

"You have any tickets from that night?"

He laughed. "I don't keep 'em as souvenirs. I cash 'em if I win, toss 'em if I lose."

"And when you got home, you went online with Flying Bird, right?"

"What if I did? I live alone, okay? I bought this computer. I play some games on it. I got a program that handicaps the horses, another that balances my checkbook. I see an ad for this Compu-Mate. Meet your life mate, right? I never been married."

I nodded, and he quickly added, "Hey, don't think I'm one of those. When I was in the army, I got my share when you could still get it for five bucks and a carton of Luckies. And a guy doesn't deliver the mail all those years without getting invitations for a cold drink or two, if you catch my drift."

I nodded again to let him know we were both a couple of regular guys.

"I mean, times have changed," he said. "Ten years ago, who'd have thought Henry Travers would be richer than John Connally, holier than Jim Bakker, and get more pussy than Rock Hudson?"

"Or be more full of shit than Virginia Key."

"Hey, what gives? I talked to a few women on the machine. I went out with four or five. Older ones, you know. Divorcees, widows, hungry for a man. A lot of lonely women out there."

"And Flying Bird."

"We chatted online. Just a kid. She wanted one of those young lawyers or bankers."

"Did you resent that?"

"What?"

"That she thought you were too old for her. Not upscale enough."

"You think I killed the girl because she wouldn't go out with me?"

Behind us, the crowd applauded a winning point. "So that's what happened," I said. "Old Harry Hardwick got shot down. A bitter guy on disability, a guy who lives in one room with a leaky window air conditioner-"

"I got central air!"

"— A guy who gets pissed off. Who does she think she is? Like those rich bitches in the Gables who think you're the garbage man. Maybe get even with them, too."

"You're out of your mind!" He started to get up, but I grabbed his forearm and yanked him back into his seat.

"Maybe she shot you down real good that night, huh? Maybe old Hardwick shoulda changed his name to Droopy. And maybe she'd already given out her address after the invisible man described himself as looking like Tom Selleck, but she found out otherwise. Is that what happened, Travers? You slip over there to teach the bitch a lesson?"

"Friggin' crazy! I'm a taxpayer and I'm gonna complain to my congressman. If Claude Pepper was still alive-"

"She really made you angry, didn't she?"

"She wasn't even my type."

That stopped me cold. "How do you know? You'd never seen her. Did you fantasize about her, follow her around? Beats watching TV, staring at the computer all day."

"Hey, I don't even know where she lived."

"Right, lived. Most people, they'd say, lives. "

"What's the big deal? Your cop friend told me she was dead. I'm sorry for the girl, but I had nothing to do with it."

With that, Henry Travers hoisted himself up and looked toward the scoreboard. Valdez won, Alonso placed, and Ecenarro showed. I watched Travers's hands as he tore a thick batch of quiniela, perfecta, and trifecta tickets down the middle. Strong hands. He showered me with the confetti, then hustled back to his post at the rail. His sciatic neuralgia must not have been acting up.

I had a second watery beer, then headed for the exit when I heard the voice boom behind me.

"Repent! Make peace with the children."

I turned, expecting one of the Jesus freaks, pamphlets in one hand, tin cup in the other. But I found Gerald Prince, tie at half-mast, gray cardigan unbuttoned. Hardwick and Prince, what a quiniela.

"Do you remember the scene in the restaurant?" he asked.

"What are you talking-"

" Death of a Salesman. Willy in the restaurant with his sons in the second act, remember?"

"Vaguely," I said.

"Willie tells his boys he's been fired, and he's looking for some good news to tell the missus."

"If that was my cue, I missed it. I can't remember Biff's lines."

"Don't worry, we'll rehearse."

"Are you telling me the college fired you?"

"Of course not, I've got tenure. They can only discharge me for committing bestiality in the quadrangle at high noon, and then only after arbitration. It's in our contracts."

He was holding a bag of nachos covered with melted cheese and salsa. He gestured with the gooey mess, offering to share the bounty, but I declined. "So what are you doing?"

"It's called acting," he said.

"I mean doing here. I didn't know you followed jai alai."

"Moronic game. Never been here before in my life. I called your office. I was informed of your whereabouts by your delightful secretary."

"Cindy must have been replaced."

"Jai alai, she told me. And I always thought that was some form of Japanese poetry."

We walked together toward the parking lot. He was saying something, but a 747 taking off from Miami International drowned him out. When we reached my old convertible, he put a hand on my shoulder. "And that's all there is to it. Flying Bird, yes, TV Gal, no."

"Are you confessing?"

"To being a fool, Mr. Lassiter. When you suggested I spoke to both of those unfortunate young women on the nights they were killed, well, naturally, I assumed you were right. You are an authority figure.

In a play I'd cast you as a man of character with strength, but with doubts nonetheless, a man's man who appeals to women, but is-"

"Could you get on with it?"