Эд Горман - Blood Moon

“After you go to the bathroom, do you throw a glass of water into the toilet?”

“Huh-uh.”

“You should.”

“How come?”

“Kinda smells in here, Lumir.”

“I don’t smell nothin’.”

“Yeah, well, I do.”

That was six days ago and by now he knows what the trouble is. Or, troubles (plural) are:

1) Lumir doesn’t cut his stools with water, something some of the more thoughtful cons learn to do for each other.

2) Lumir does not partake of the morning shower any more than two mornings a week.

3) Lumir does not use deodorant because he claims it “makes me break out, like a rash on a baby’s butt donchaknow, and then I’m just ascratchin’ and ascratchin’ my armpits.”

4) Lumir is constantly picking his nose and eating the boogers.

5) Lumir is constantly snuffling up phlegm and spitting it haphazardly at the toilet.

6) Lumir changes socks no oftener than once a week.

7) Lumir can scratch himself in a really noisy way; and Lumir scratches himself eighteen hours a day. Some day Lumir will no doubt become the first man ever able to scratch himself while he’s asleep.

Now all these things are the stuff of great high hilarity when you’re sitting in a bar ten years later recounting them.

But he has to spend day-in, day-out with Lumir and there’s nothing funny about that at all.

Nights... he just lies there. He never gets used to the smells... the really foul stomach-turning odors of Lumir’s stools... or the rancid stink of his socks... or the sweet-sour stench of his unbathed body.

For the third time, he finds himself thinking seriously about escaping.

An hour later, I stood in the motel parking lot, leaning against my car, listening to Jane become more and more irritated with my dishonesty. Night was coming now, and with it the immortal teenagers in their immortal hot cars cruising up and down the main street, the joy of their radios obscene against the grim business in my room.

“You didn’t know him, right, Jim?”

“Right.”

“But somebody killed him in your room.”

“Guess so.”

“Just by coincidence.”

“That’s the only thing I can figure out,” I said.

“You think you’ll tell me what’s going on before anybody else gets killed?”

“I would if I could.”

“What’s that mean, ‘if you could’?”

I was thinking of Melissa McNally. Kidnapped.

“If I could. Just what I said.”

Jane sighed. In the gathering dusk, the downtown lights had come on, a little outpost of civilization in a land where only three hundred years ago Indians had roamed, killed rattlesnakes and wore them around their necks for good luck. Every once in a while you could feel those old winds blowing down the timelines, carrying the exuberance of the Mesquakie when this land belonged to them, and the peace of the vast prairie when it was nothing but wild corn and vivid flowers and free-roaming animals.

“You’re wandering off,” Jane said.

“I’m thinking.”

She shook her head, leaned close. Some of the fifty-or-so citizens filling the driveway had heard our sparring and moved closer for a more definitive version. We walked to the other side of the boxy white ambulance where we could argue without being heard.

“Why don’t you just tell me the truth?”

“Jane, listen, as soon as I can—”

The attendants were just now bringing the body out in a black bag on a stretcher. Inside, two of Jane’s officers, who regularly went to Des Moines for crime-scene training, were just now going through the room for fingerprints. Jane was irritated that the medical examiner, a man shared by several small communities, had yet to put in an appearance.

Jane was about to start talking again when one of her auxiliary deputies, the Burt Reynolds macho man, swaggered up and whispered something in her ear.

“Where?” she said.

“Down the block. Right at the end.”

“You’re sure?”

“Heck, Jane, I used to help the guy move stuff. I should ought to know his car when I see it.”

Car. I’d been wondering about that, too. How had Lodge gotten here? While waiting for Jane to show up, I’d gone up and down the parking lot checking registrations. I hadn’t found a car with Lodge’s name on it.

I turned back for a look at the crowd. By now, what with all the lights provided by Cedar Rapids TV stations, the parking lot was starting to resemble a movie set, the crowd looking appropriately curious, the cops looking appropriately harried, the motel itself looking appropriately seedy. This would inevitably be a drama about a carousing husband who had met his fate in the very same motel room where he’d bopped innumerable married ladies and yummy teenage nymphets, most of whom were cheerleaders.

I saw him only because I felt his intense gaze at my back. I turned to the right and there he was, tall enough to tower over everybody in front of him. Despite the cool breezes, he wore only a T-shirt. But McNally didn’t need a jacket. He had his rage and his fear to keep him warm.

I was still wondering whom he’d seen this afternoon out at the Brindle farm. And why he’d seen them. And why somebody had kidnapped his daughter.

Just as I turned away, I saw a few more familiar faces. There, several yards from McNally, at the very back of the crowd and standing on a small rise of grass, were the good Reverend Roberts, Kenny Deihl and Mindy Lane. If they were here to save Sam Lodge’s soul, they were a mite late.

“There’s Doc Winick,” the auxiliary deputy said, referring to the rumpled little medical examiner making his way toward us.

“God,” Jane said, the stress of the moment clearly starting to tell on her mood, “I sure hope he’s sober.”

She started to walk away. I grabbed her elbow. “Are we still on for tonight?”

She glared at me. “You don’t know how much I dislike you right now.”

“I’ll pay for the pizza.”

She leaned in. “You jerk.” But she was smiling. “Double cheese.”

“I used to think that was my name until my mom told me different.”

“Very funny.”

“I’ll even bring some ice cream.”

She frowned. “We shouldn’t even be talking about food.” She nodded to the ambulance that was just starting to pull away. “Not with Lodge dead like that.”

“I’ll go get myself another room for tonight.” I pointed to the CRIME SCENE signs her two detectives were affixing to door and window.

“I meant what I said,” she said.

“You mean about the double cheese or me being a jerk?”

“Both,” she said, and was gone.

I decided to walk two blocks to the pharmacy where the town’s only newsstand could be found.

As I reached the end of the motel driveway, I turned left and saw the auxiliary deputy who liked me so much.

He was leaning against a car, a cigarette dangling tough-guy style from his chubby mouth. He looked pretty comic, so comic in fact that I felt a little sorry for him. This guy was obviously suffering from a terminal lack of self-esteem.

“You never seen a car before?” he said.

“A blue Toyota sedan.”

“Somethin’ wrong with that?”

The mercury vapor lights gave his face a chilly aqua gleam.

“Just passing a remark.”

“You know somethin’ about this car?”

“Nope.”

“You think there’s somethin’ weird about this car?”

“Nope.”

“You know who it belonged to?”

If I hadn’t, his use of past tense would have given me a big hint. I glanced across the street, in the front window of a diner. It was one of those strange May winds you get in Iowa sometimes, May but smelling of autumn somehow. The people in the diner looked very contented and very snug.