Ed Lacy - Dead End

“Call me Bucky Laspiza!” I gasped.

“Bucky L-Laspiza,” he said, turning his head away from me, the words coming out a tormented moan.

There was a bruise on his cheek; a trickle of blood ran out of one ear. I got off him and sat on the floor, feeling my numb chin. I was suddenly very sober and scared—I had damn near killed him. I stroked his thin hair and Nate began to cry. I kissed him on the forehead, muttered, “Oh, Dad, Dad! What's happening to us? You're right, this is crazy. Why can't you adopt me, give me your name?”

“Don't talk about that,” he said, hugging me with one hand, but still not looking at me. “I told you about the police... looking for me.”

“All this time? For what?”

“Murder. I... I... killed your father.”

I pulled away from him. “Stop snowing me, Nate. That's a lie.”

“No it isn't.” He was whispering again.

“I thought about it in camp—you're all I thought about. You've always told me how the oil company has such a careful check on their employees. All that security stuff. If you were wanted by the cops, they would have had you long ago.”

“They—the police—they... don't know I killed him.”

“Then there isn't any reason why you can't adopt me.”

He didn't answer. For several minutes neither of us spoke. Nate's eyes were shut and his face was so white I thought he had passed out. I stood up. Pulling Nate to his feet, I led him to a kitchen chair. For the first time Nate didn't look dapper, merely old. He leaned on the table, feeling of his face, staring at the blood that came off on his hands. I wet a dish towel with cold water and tossed it on the table. Nate held it to his face for a long while.

“Nate, that stuff about killing; it's a lie, isn't it?”

“Yeah. But I wanted to kill him. I used to dream how I had killed him—whoever he was. I'd dream of ways of slow... I suppose that's why Daisy never would tell me.”

“Dad, I'm sorry I hit you.”

He took the towel from his puffed face, looked at me. “I could cut off my hand for punching you, Bucky.”

“Nate, listen: I still want you to adopt me.”

“Son, in time you'll forget about it.”

“Can't you understand that I wouldn't want any other man for a father?”

“I've always been your father, Bucky.”

“Damn it, Nate, make it legal!”

He shook his head and groaned with pain. Then he said, “I just can't do it. Sometimes I wanted to but... Bucky, I've always been an also-ran—in everything I did. I never made the big leagues or had a good job. Well, a man can't be a complete blank. What I'm trying to say is that even a bad thing can still be the biggest deal in your life. That's the real reason why I never adopted you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You see, if I had adopted you, or put my name down when you were born—it was that simple—why, in time it would have been forgotten. I would have forgotten it! Son, you can't ask a man to forgive and forget the biggest thing in his life.”

“What?”

“No matter if I was second best in everything else—in that I stuck to my guns.”

“You mean you wanted to hold it over Daisy all her life. Is that it?”

“No. I loved Daisy. You should know that.”

“Bull! You did the 'right thing' and wanted to make damn sure she'd never forget it—you wanted to punish her! What did it do, keep you on that righteous kick all your life?”

“That's not so. Daisy is dead and I'm still young enough to—I can't even think of marrying again.”

“My God, Nate, I used to think of you as a man, but you're sick, crawling with self-pity!”

“What if I am?” he asked loudly, staring up at me. 'You're only a kid and can't understand what I've been trying to tell you. When a man has nothing else, even self-pity can be the most important thing in his life. It's been something I've clung to all these years. I can't give it up now.”

“But clinging to what? Is this why you never had any other... any kids with Daisy? Why you made her your maid... something around the apartment like a dishrag?”

“That's an unfair lie. We tried to have children. And I always treated Daisy well, better than any—”

“I know. You did the 'right thing,' and you're stuck with it—in your own crazy mind,” I said, picking up my garrison cap, straightening my jacket and shirt. Heading for the door, I called back, “Good-by, Nate. I wish to God I'd never come back, never seen you like this.”

“Bucky!” It was a wail that made me stop at the doorway.

Fumbling for words, Nate said, “Good-by, Son. I've been thinking of moving. I may be transferred to our L.A. office. I'll send you my address.”

“Don't bother.” I started down the stairs.

“Son! Wait.”

“I'm waiting.”

“Bucky if... if it means so much to you... After all, you're the only thing real I have left in life. Well, I'm willing to give you my name.”

“Thanks, Nate.”

“Tomorrow I'll see a lawyer and start—”

“Don't bother. When I said thanks I meant thanks for making it so it doesn't matter a damn to me now if I have your name or not. Good-by!” I rushed down the stairs.

I rang Elma's bell. When she came out I told her, “Let's get back to the hotel.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “I have to be careful, Bucky. You know my old man and Mama gave me hell about staying—”

“Tell her we're getting married in the morning.”

“Bucky! You kidding?”

“Aw, I have this G.I. insurance, can get an allotment. You've been good to me—why shouldn't you get it?”

Over a fat kiss, Elma said, “You don't know how good 111 be to you from now on! Let's go, lover.”

“Don't you want to tell your folks?”

Elma uttered her favorite word, then added, “We're engaged, aren't we? My old man would think we're lying and—I'll tell Ma later, when I show her the ring.”

3—

There was a knock on the end wall. Doc sat up, moving fast and quietly. The room was out of an old movie, with a false wall and a phony closet on the other side. Of course, I'd only seen the house once from the outside—when we came in, and I hardly had my mind on it—but from the street it looked like a narrow, rundown frame house. Yet on the inside, from the little I'd seen, it was very roomy, including this hidden room.

I was on my feet. Doc put the useless gun in his holster as the knock was repeated twice. He called out, “Yes?”

The entire wall—it was about eight feet wide—swung open silently and the old bag who owned this trap came in. She was a real creature, about as low as they come: a horribly overpainted face that looked like a wrinkled mask; her few stumpy teeth all bad; watery eyes; stringy bright blond hair atop a scrawny body and dirty house dress; torn stockings over veined, thin legs; and broken men's shoes acting as slippers. The very least she needed was a bath. The biddy's eyes said that at one time or another she had tried everything in the book—the wrong book.

She held an afternoon paper in her claw as she talked to Doc. She had ignored me from the second we'd come. In a rusty voice she asked, “Whatcha think, Doc, you're playing with farmers? Handing me this gas about being in a jam over some lousy investigation, ya got to hide out for a few days. A million bucks!”

She waved the newspaper like a red flag, her tiny eyes trying to X-ray the three suitcases.

I glanced at the paper. There it was, all over the front page:

SEEK TWO CITY DETECTIVES

IN MISSING $1,000,000 RANSOM

Of course I had expected it. It wasn't any secret. Yet actually seeing the headline, our pictures, was like stopping a right hook below the belt.