Robert Coover - Gerald's Party

‘I think probably Charley and Janny …’

‘Well, they may not be doing so well either,’ she said, folding the coat gently and laying it on the bench across from the policeman. ‘From what I’ve heard …’

‘Thanks, ma’am.’

Jim was taping the bandage to my shoulder, muttering, ‘It’s strange, they were almost a legend …’ I was staring out at the backyard, where a dark heavy hush had settled, pressing up against the back door as though to embrace us. Ah well … I recalled the soft furry V of her pubes as they thrust against my fingers out there, the nubbly caress of her tongue as it coiled between my teeth, her hands scrabbling over me like hungry little crabs — but it was not an erotic memory, no, it was more like a solemn meditation on memory itself: the warm slippery stuff of time, the dry but somehow radiant impressions that remained. Like the muddy tracks (the voices were stilled now, the traipsing in and out) on the kitchen floor.

‘I cleaned it all up,’ my wife said, following my gaze, ‘but then Anatole and Brenda and all that crowd came through.’

‘I know, I saw him on exhibit in there …’

‘Yes, that was nice. I think he’d been feeling a bit lonely, especially since … since his aunt …’ She stared at her hands, her eyes watering. Jim capped the iodine and fit it back in the bag, rolled up the bandage, snapped the protective metal ring around the tape. ‘We should invite more young people next time.’

‘Maybe it’ll milk some of the piss and vinegar outa the little jerk,’ grumped Fred, ‘pardon the French, ma’am. He’s been giving the Chief a lotta stick, and we’re pretty darn tired of it.’

‘He’s still very young,’ my wife reminded him.

‘Yeah, but he don’t appreciate the difficulties — it ain’t an easy job.’

‘I think the Inspector makes his own difficulties,’ I said.

Fred bristled momentarily, but then, thinking it over, cut himself another hunk of sausage. ‘Well, the Old Man’s got his weaknesses, I admit. We all do. He spent all that time in there with them watches, for example, just to figure out the murder took place exactly thirty minutes after we got here. Huh huh!’ Jim fit one of the sterilized needles in a syringe, put the others in a plastic box, emptied the little pan in the sink, then tossed it in the garbage. ‘Bob and me bailed him outa that one by taking a temperature fix with that stabhole in the liver, but it ain’t always so simple like that — he’s a pretty ingenious fella, like you seen, and sometimes we don’t have a clue how to clean things up after. Sometimes we don’t even know what the hell he’s talking about. But, listen, loopy as he may seem, old Nigel’s solved a lotta crimes. He’s got a special knack.’ He poured himself a shot of vodka and tossed it down, smacked his lips, poured another. ‘He does it by somehow sinking into the heart of the crime itself, making a kinda transmitter outa hisself, don’t ask me how. As far as he’s concerned, see, there ain’t no such thing as a isolated crime, it’s always part of something bigger, and he figures the only way to get at this bigger thing is to use, not just the brain, but the whole waterworks — it’s what he calls “ seeing through ” a crime. He’s a artist at it, best I ever seen!’

Jim had left us meanwhile with his syringe needle up like a pointing finger. My wife was rinsing out the bloody dishrag. ‘So it’s true what they’ve been saying about Mavis — that she’s …’

‘Yes, she’s an epileptic, Gerald. I thought you knew.’

‘Old Nigel once told me something pretty weird,’ Fred continued, sipping thoughtfully at his vodka. Epileptic? ‘He said if a fella could become fond of the evil in the world, he’d find hisself embracing delight. Them were the Chief’s exact words: embracing delight. Of course, evil, that takes in death, disease, cruelty, crime, the whole toot and scramble — so not much chance, hunh?’ He got up, brushed the crumbs from his lap, went over to the sink to wash his hands. ‘In the end, though, it’s gotta be said, for all his fancy talk, old Nigel still seems to suspect foreigners, perverts, freaks and bums, just like the rest of us.’

‘That’s not very charitable,’ my wife remarked, wiping off the breakfast table with the damp rag Jim had used on my shoulder.

‘By the way,’ I said (I realized I’d been staring for some time at a little heart-shaped stain on the butcherblock next to the can of body spray: something someone had said …?), ‘it turns out that valentine Naomi had was one I once gave you—’

‘Yes, I know. Dickie asked me to go through her bag before they left and it was in there. She had your electric razor as well, and somebody’s scout knife, Mother’s hairnet, a yellow ball painted with an eye, even Mark’s old potty and a bunch of inky thumbprints.’ Fred glanced up and winked at me over his neckbrace, shaking the water from his hands. ‘But Cyril said she couldn’t help it.’

‘Cyril?’

‘Yes, he was there to see Peg off, of course.’ She put the vodka and leftover sausage back in the fridge, then stood staring into it as though watching a movie there. ‘Now I wonder what I could—’

‘Peg …!’ It was slowly, very slowly, dawning on me …

‘Yes, when she left with Dickie — why! what’s the matter with you, Gerald? We were just talking about—’

‘Right …!’ I turned to gaze out once more on the back porch where the dense tide of night seemed suddenly to be falling back: of course, it was Peg who had gone with him, her tattooed bottom, Dickie had mentioned — it hit me now like a revelation: Alison was still here then!

‘Maybe I could make some brandied stuffed eggs …’

‘Exactly!’ But where? ‘What?’

‘You were right about that sleazy bastard, by the way,’ said Fred. ‘Whisked his redheaded baggage right outa here just as we was bringing charges. Accessory after the — wurr-RRP! ’ He belched loudly, patting his stomach. ‘Whoo, that’s better!’ He belched again, a kind of brief little afterclap (yes, I thought, hugging myself, even for artless fools there are second chances!), then asked: ‘You ain’t never thought of taking up police work, have you?’

‘Not right now …’ My mind was elsewhere, searching, as it were, the premises.

‘Too bad. We could use a fella like you. You got the gourd for it. And a good eye.’

‘What? Ah, well … but no stomach.’ Those others were giving her a bad time; maybe she went outside to hide. I seemed to see someone on the back porch. But, no, all those guys had just come in from there …

‘You get used to it. You got the right attitude and that’s what counts. Of course, as a career, it ain’t what it once was, I admit that, not since they legalized fornication, as we used to call it.’ He pulled on his coat, exercising his shoulders against the seams, then buttoned up. My wife put some water on to boil (where had I last seen her? the living room? I couldn’t remember, it seemed so long ago …), got some tomatoes and green beans out of the fridge, some cottage cheese and butter, a carton of brown eggs. ‘I hope we still have some capers,’ she said. ‘Them were the days — crime everywhere and even them not guilty of fornication was all the more likely to be guilty of something else: fantasy or murder or virulent possession — an excess of sentiment, as the old statutes put it. The force was the place to be in them days, I’ll never forget it, it had something special.’ Maybe the first thing, I thought, is to see if there’s any vermouth left, pick up somehow where we … ‘Of course I was young then — but we had a lotta professional pride and enthusiasm, it was a kinda golden age for the old P.D., all the best brains was in it — that’s when old Nigel joined up, for example — but now, well, most of them boys are gone. The new breed’s got a whole different slant on things. It’s all statistics now, stemming the tide like they like to say — in fact, fornication’s a kinda police weapon these days to keep the citizens confused — these young fellas’ve got no time for dickprints or cuff debris or sussing out a hidden motive. And there’s all this do-gooder crime now, bomb-throwing and food riots in the camps and computer-bashing and the like, most of it happening way over my head — though that don’t mean I won’t lose an arm or a leg from it. Just defending a poker game down at city hall these days can get you napooed.’ He tucked his cap under his arm, adjusted the knot of his tie under the neckbrace, checked his weapons. Quiet deliberations, that’s the important thing, I thought. No more impulsive leaps in the dark. Harmony and balance — I was very excited …! ‘No, the fun’s mostly gone outa crime these days, what you might call the personal touch — I mean, it’s a real kick for us to get an old-fashioned murder like this one, it sets us up for a week after, even if it is something of a luxury — you shoulda seen old Nigel on the way over, he was tickled pink.’