On the Other Hand, Death - Stevenson Richard - Страница 29

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Deem stood there white-faced and bug-eyed, dumb with fright. A round-headed man with beads of sweat on his brow hove into view. "What's the problem?"

"This kid says you don't have any guanabana," I said. "What kind of ice cream stand you running here, mister, you can't offer a customer who's sweaty and pooped an icy, refreshing nice big scoop of guanabana-flavored non-dairy food product?"

"What? What kind?"

"It's okay, Jose. No sweat, Chet. Albany isn't Merida or San Juan, even though it sure as hell feels like it tonight. I know when I'm diddled, so forget the guanabana. You got any Bingo-bango-bongo-I'm-so-happy-in-the-Congo ice?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Zat so? Well, it's not as if I'm being thrown out of the Savoy Grill, I suppose."

The queue behind me three-stepped neatly to the side as I turned and made my way back to the car.

"Say-hey, Crane! You owe me ten for locating the graffiti artist."

But now what?

Both Deem cars were gone, so I parked up the road and walked back to their house in the semi-darkness. I didn't find what I wanted in the garbage cans, so I grabbed a tire iron and pried open the trunk of the T-bird. There was the red spray paint. This was circumstantial, but Joey Deem seemed so shaky that he'd tell all once Ned Bowman dropped by, said boo, and asked for a sample of the kid's handwriting. Lacking a satchel of foam pellets, I tossed the can in the back of my car.

The tension at Dot Fisher's place had dissipated into a prickly listlessness. Bowman's unmarked car sat in the driveway by the barn, where the fresh white paint glistened stickily in the wet heat. The red graffiti still showed through; another coat of white was going to be needed. A young sergeant in a sweatshirt and baseball cap sat in the passenger seat listening to the staticky jabbering of the police radio, to which he occasionally jabbered back. Above the house, stars were popping out across a blackening sky.

Dot was at the sink furiously scouring a pot as I went inside. Bowman gave me thumbs up.

I said, "What's that for?"

"We're set," he said, and winked.

Dot suggested I help myself to the mint tea, which I did.

"Where's McWhirter?"

"Asleep. Assaulting a police officer can wear you out."

"Maybe I'll do the same. Sleep, I mean. First things first."

He sniffed, tried to look surly.

I said, "Your people visited Mel Glempt. I saw him too. He struck me as a reliable witness."

"So I'm told. Except the man he saw was no police officer. I've looked into that. We're exploring other possibilities."

"Uh-huh. Maybe it was a bus driver. Has Timmy called?"

"Timmy?"

"Timothy J. Callahan. My great and good friend."

"No. You think I'm running a dating service around here, Strachey? Doing social work among the perverts?"

"I just asked if he'd phoned, Ned. Anyway, I'd never accuse the Albany Police Department of social work. Or even, in a good many cases, police work."

"Yeah, well, if you and all your fruitcake pals would

Dot slammed down her pot and wheeled toward Bowman. "Officer Bowman," she said, looking gaunt, overheated, deeply exasperated. "Officer Bowman, please. I realize you are helping us, and I do appreciate your being here and doing everything you can for us and for poor Peter. But, really! I must ask you not to make anti-homosexual remarks in my home. You have a right to your opinions. But sometimes you really can be such an extremely rude man!"

Bowman apparently had not in recent years been called "rude" by a grandmother scouring a pot. He stood there for a moment looking uncharacteristically helpless, his mouth frozen in a little O.

I said, "Actually, rudeness is one of Detective Bowman's finer points, Dot. Don't knock it entirely. He has a foul mouth, but he's no hypocrite. There's a genuineness to his malice that some of us find intermittently refreshing in a city government full of burnt-out phonies."

Bowman glowered but just shifted about nervously. He would have liked to issue me a couple of obscene threats but didn't want to be called rude again by an old lady bent over a kitchen sink.

"Sorry, ma'am," he muttered to Dot. "When I talk like that, I certainly don't mean you, or your ... or Mrs. Stout."

"I don't care who you mean. That talk is discourteous and insensitive and unbecoming of a public servant. Also, I might add, it betrays a narrowmindedness that is certainly discouraging to behold in this day and age. So much of the time, Mr. Bowman, you just seem to be so . . . so . . . full of baloney!"

I would have phrased it a little differently, but probably to less good effect.

Bowman actually blushed. "Well, I have to admit, Mrs. Fisher, that I'm . . . still learning." He was crimson now, looking as if he feared Dot might have him write "No More Fag Jokes" five hundred times on the blackboard.

"We're all still learning," Dot said. "And I congratulate you on being big enough to admit it."

Bowman relaxed a little, no longer worried that he might get sent to the principal's office.

The phone rang. Bowman, relieved, lunged for it. "Let me get that!"

Dot glanced at me and rolled her eyes.

"For you, Strachey. It's your— It's Mr. Callahan." He handed me the sweat-drenched receiver.

"I found out about Wilson," Timmy said.

"This line is not private," I told him quickly. "I'll call you back in fifteen minutes. Where are you?"

"At the . . . you know. On Delaware."

"Fifteen minutes."

I hung up and asked Bowman to accompany me outside. We stood under a pear tree and I told him about Joey Deem.

"I figured that," he said. "One of my men stopped by the Deem place earlier, and the kid took off with a friend when my man arrived. Out the back door, zip-zip. The kid's mother was defensive when asked about her boy's state of mind and activities, but in due course she allowed as how her son might conceivably be capable of criminal matters on a limited scale. We'll pay the lad a visit tomorrow morning and squeeze him. He'll own up."

"I don't doubt it, Ned. Not with irresistible you conducting the interview. Or have you mellowed after getting roughed up in there by Mrs. Fisher? 'Rude.' That's the word, all right. Dot put her finger on it."

His little eyes narrowed like those of the Ned Bowman I'd known five minutes earlier. "Don't you push my face in it, Strachey, I'm warning you! I've got a list and you're at the head of it. Sure, I'll lay off the informal talk when I'm around Mrs. Fisher from now on. Hell, I've got nothing against two broads doing it, even a couple of old dames like those two. I'm broad-minded. I've never disapproved of that. In fact, the idea of it has always kind of turned me on. But two men? That is sicko stuff, Strachey, and you'll never convince me otherwise."

Bowman the Bunny Hutch philosophe.

"Glad to hear you talk that way again, Ned. You had me worried for a minute. I was afraid word of your newly benign outlook might get around and your career in Albany city government would be jeopardized."

"Thanks for the sentiment."

"Tell me, are all those bushes out there in the dark full of your guys?"

"They will be by midnight. The go team is gathering now in my office."

"I'll be behind a bush too. You might want to alert your people. Just how crowded is it going to get out there?"

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