Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

The writer shook the stars from his head and came up frothing mad. He was only five years or so older than Mandarin and of approximate physical size. Regular workouts at the faculty health club had hardened his body into the finely tuned fighting machine of the heroes of his novels. Now he discarded his initial intent of dispatching his drunken opponent with a few precisely devastating karate blows.

The beer stein had shattered with a jagged chunk still attached to its handle. Hamilton rolled to his feet, gripping the handle in his fist like a pair of brass knuckles.

Mandarin, unhappy that he had not had more on his punches, cleared the end of the table with no apparent intention of helping the other man to his feet. Hamilton’s fist with its jagged knuckleduster slashed at his face.

Rolling under the punch, Russ blocked Hamilton’s arm aside and threw a shoulder into his chest. They smashed to the floor, Mandarin on top with a knee planted in the other man’s belly.

Breath whooshed from the writer’s lips as his head cracked against the floor. Mandarin took the broken stein away from him, grinned down at his pinned opponent. Hamilton gave a hoarse bleat of fear.

“Jesus H. Christ! Russ, stop it!”

Saunders shouldered through the crowd, caught Russ’s arm in a shovel fist, hauled the two men apart. His interference was booed.

Groggily, Hamilton came to his feet, his face astonishingly pale. He glared at Mandarin, struggling to break away from the burly detective, decided not to risk a punch against him.

“Call the police!” he said shakily. “This man attacked me!”

“I’m a policeman, buddy!” Saunders growled. “What I saw was this man disarming you after you tried to jam a busted bottle in his face! Want to take out a warrant?”

The writer composed himself, massaging his bruised chin. “A policeman? Yes, I believe I recognize you now. One of the late Curtiss Stryker’s night school proteges, I recall. No doubt you learned more effective ways of writing parking tickets, officer — although it’s always encouraging to see one of your sort trying to improve his mind.”

“Ask him if he’s stolen any good wastebaskets lately,” Mandarin suggested, wriggling out of the detective’s grasp.

“Very clever, aren’t we,” Hamilton sneered. “I wonder what the state medical association will say about an alcoholic psychiatrist who gets into barroom brawls?”

“I wonder what the English department will say about faggot faculty members who try to chop a man’s face up with a busted beer stein?” Saunders wondered.

Hamilton brushed himself off, his smile supercilious. “Well, I can see there’s no point taking out a warrant when the arresting officer is a personal friend of the guilty party.”

He turned to the onlookers. “You see the kind of police protection our community enjoys. I leave you to judge!”

“Hit him again, Doc!” Someone yelled from across the bar.

“We’ll keep the pig from pulling you off before you’re finished!”

Hamilton’s face turned pale again.

“I think you’d better get going,” Saunders warned. “Russ, get back here!”

“We shall, of course, take this up again when we aren’t immersed in the rabble,” Hamilton promised, moving for the door.

“Oh, to be sure!” Mandarin mimicked.

The writer swept out the door to a chorus of catcalls.

“OK, what started that! ” Saunders demanded, picking up his coat.

The wavy-haired barmaid had brought Mandarin another beer. He was toasting her with a pleased expression on his stubbled face. Despite his annoyance, Saunders reflected that it was the first smile he’d seen from the psychiatrist since the accident.

“That son of a bitch Hamilton, “ Mandarin informed him, “that piece of shit — he’s talked Stryker’s publisher here into letting him edit Curtiss’s last work — do a memorial volume and shit like that! Hell, you know how he and Curtiss felt about each other. Ed, get your fingerprint men up to Stryker’s office. You’ll find Hamilton’s sticky little fingers were all over the place.”

“Let’s not get started on that one again,” Saunders told him wearily.

“Bet you dollars to dogshit, and you can hold the stakes in your mouth.”

“Come on, Russ. I’ll drop you off.”

Protesting, Mandarin let himself be led away.

“What’s the matter?”

Mandarin had paused with his hand on the door of Saunders’ Ford. He stared out across the parking lot. “Somebody’s following us. Just saw his shadow duck behind that old VW van. If it’s that son of a bitch Hamilton looking for more trouble…”

Saunders followed Mandarin’s gaze, saw nothing. “Oh hell, get in, Russ! Jesus, you’re starting to sound paranoid!”

“There’s somebody there,” Russ insisted. “Followed us from the Yardarm.”

“Some damn hippy afraid of a bust,” Saunders scoffed. “Will you just get in!”

His expression wounded, Mandarin complied.

Backing the Ford out of the parking place, Saunders turned down Forest Avenue. Mandarin took a last swig from the Rolling Rock he had carried with him from the bar, then struck his arm out and fired the green bottle in the general direction of his imagined skulker. From the darkness came the rattle of breaking glass. “Ka-pow!” echoed Russ.

Saunders winced and drove on in silence.

“Hey, you went past the clinic,” Russ protested several blocks later.

“Look, I’ll run you back down in the morning.”

“I can drive OK.”

“Will you let me do this as a favor?” Saunders asked, not making it clear whose favor he meant it to be.

Mandarin sighed and shrugged. “Home, James.”

Pressing his lips tightly, the detective turned onto Kingston Pike. After a while he said: “You know, Russ, there’s several on the force who’d really like to put your ass in a sling. Drunken driving is a really tough charge.”

When Mandarin started to argue, Saunders shouted him down. “Look, Russ. I know this is rough on you. It is on all of us who knew Curtiss. But damn it, this isn’t going to make it any better for you. I thought you finally learned that for yourself after Alicia…”

“Goddamn it, Ed! Don’t you start lecturing me now!”

“OK, Russ,” his friend subsided, remembering the hell Mandarin had gone through three years before. “Just wanted to remind you that you’d tried this blind alley once before.”

“Ed, I drink only socially these days.” He waited for the other to say something, finally added: “Except for an occasional binge, maybe.”

“Just trying to make a friendly suggestion.”

“Well, I can do without friendly suggestions.”

“OK, Russ.”

They drove the rest of the way in silence. Saunders expected the psychiatrist to drop off, but the other sat rigidly upright all the way. Too much adrenaline, Saunders decided.

He pulled into the long driveway of Mandarin’s Cherokee Hills estate. It was a rambling Tudor-style house of the 1920s, constructed when this had been the snob residential section of Knoxville. Although most of the new money had now moved into the suburbs, Cherokee Hills had resisted urban decay with stately aloofness.

“I’ll give you a ring in the morning,” Saunders promised.

“It’s all right; I’ll call a cab,” muttered Russ.

Saunders shrugged. “Good night, Russ.”

He climbed out of the car. “Sure.”

Saunders waited until he was in the front door before driving off.

The phone started to ring while Russ was dropping Alka-Seltzers into a highball glass. Holding the frothing glass carefully, he picked up the receiver.

“Hello.” He wondered if he could finish the conversation before the tablets finished their dancing disintegration.