A Shroud for Aquarius

14

The next morning I was driving on Highway 61, squinting into a bright sun; me, I didn’t feel so bright. Jill had left early, barely after sunup, to go home and shower and get ready for work; she seemed more shaken, more troubled this morning than she had in the thick of things last night. Holding each other in the dark had made getting through the early morning hours a snap; getting through the day on our own would be a whole ’nother deal.

I hadn’t been able to get back to sleep after Jill left, so at nine o’clock I was sitting at the Sports Page having breakfast — biscuits and gravy, very good but settling in my stomach like an anchor. Shortly after I was on the road. I felt a little stiff from my skirmish with the guy in my kitchen last night, and a little uneasy about the direction my unofficial investigation into Ginnie’s death was taking. Specifically, that direction was (at the moment anyway) the Quad Cities, which despite its name included half a dozen cities and a handful of smaller municipalities, about a half-million population’s worth sprawled along either side of the Mississippi River as it separated Iowa from Illinois.

Ginnie’s husband, J.T. O’Hara, whose absence at his wife’s funeral had puzzled me, managed a used-book store atop Harrison Street hill in Davenport, on the Iowa side of the Quad Cities. Because Harrison is a one-way falling downhill toward the river, I had to travel the uphill one-way of Brady, and circle around. Once I’d parked, I felt as though I’d stepped not from my car but out of a time machine taking me into 1969.

The Used Book Exchange was on a commercial strip that seemed, for a couple blocks anyway, to be a hippie ghetto. The shop was stuck between a co-op health-food grocery store whose window bragged about its prices on tofu and sprouts, and a restaurant seeking to pull hungry folks off the street with the lure of soy burgers. Just across the way was a used-record store cum head shop, next to which was a seedy-looking new-wave/punk bar advertising its next band via graffiti in its own window: The Reaganomics, the band seemed to be called. The Exchange itself was like a dining car, one end of which was stuck rudely toward the street, a narrow storefront with brightly colorful big letters spelling out its name in the window; smaller, the words MOVIE POSTERS and USED COMICS were also spelled out, and some comic books were propped up in the window, underground comics (Zap, Freak Bros., Mr. Natural) mingling with superheroes (X-Men, Batman, Fantastic Four); all were sixties vintage. The shop opened at ten, and it was just after that now, so the OPEN sign was turned my way in the door. In I went.

The shop’s interior was deep, a surprisingly tidy room where a wall of books on either side faced several aisles of bookcases that stood taller than me; paperbacks mostly. Just inside the door, to my left as I came in, was a squared off counter, a little newsstand-like structure, behind which a skinny, balding, bearded man sat on a stool by the cash register reading a magazine called Denver Quarterly.

Despite its being summer, the man wore a green lint-flecked sweater; of course — an ancient air conditioner chugged in a port in the window behind him, and it was fairly chilly up in the front of the narrow shop. Hanging from thumbtacks at just above eye level from a wooden strip atop the newsstand-like counter were comic books from the fifties: Superman, Little Lulu and, I was pleased to note, Sgt. Bilko (half a dozen boxes of old comics stood on the floor in front of the counter). Also hanging from thumbtacks were 8-by-10-inch glossies of movie stars, ranging from Clint Eastwood to Clark Gable, from Woody Allen to the Three Stooges. A sign advised that movie posters were available; just ask — and various posters were taped to the ceiling — Superman, Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Who Cares. No blown-up covers of Denver Quarterly.

J.T. O’Hara nodded at me (I was in a black T-shirt and jeans today), smiled, said, “Let me know if you need some help,” and went back to reading his literary magazine, not recognizing me.

I browsed for a while. The place was very orderly, broken into sections, with historical romance and Harlequin romances and other women’s paperback pulp dominating; the mystery section was in the back, and I found a copy of one of my books there, personally inscribed to somebody at some book-signing I’d done — glad to see my personal touch had meant so much. I also found a couple first printings of Mickey Spillane and Roscoe Kane paperbacks, picked ’em up. Everything within a given section was in alphabetical order; O’Hara was doing a good job with the little shop — it was hardly the jumble many such paperback exchange shops are — and his hippie roots were only showing here and there, such as in the extremely left-wing political section. Those roots were especially showing in the poetry section, where prominently displayed among Yeats and McKuen were several chapbooks by J.T. O’Hara, published by Toothpaste Press of West Branch, Iowa. The newest was entitled A Shroud for Aquarius. I thumbed through the little book, found the title poem, next to a grainy sepia photograph of a sun going down, or maybe coming up.

That almost rhymed, but I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to. I didn’t know whether it was a good poem or not (though I might venture a guess: not) but at least I could tell what it was about.

I carried a copy of A Shroud for Aquarius up to the counter, along with my Spillane and Kane, dug six bucks out of my billfold; the sale of his own book perked J.T. O’Hara up. So did the odd literary company I’d placed him in, I think. He put the literary magazine he’d been reading face down on the counter, fanned open to where his place was.

“Mickey Spillane and I seldom find the same readers,” he said, slate eyes coming alive, sliding the books into a used paper bag, “but I salute your catholic taste.” He was my age though his crow’s feet were deeper. It’s not that I look young for my age — it’s just that he didn’t. The full but carefully tended beard could not hide deep lines, and gray freely mingled with the brown of his hair and beard. He was an old hippie, all right, but he did not have the drugged-out, burnt-out look in his eyes that normally characterizes the breed.

“I found the title poem very interesting,” I said.

“Really? Not much of a poem. Something I scribbled off.”

“Why would you name the volume after what you see as one of your lesser poems?”

He shrugged; he was my size but skinnier, and looked frail — shrugging seemed a risk. “The editor at Toothpaste Press suggested the title for the collection. Said it summed up what all the poems in the volume are about.”

“The end of the sixties, you mean.”

His eyes brightened further. “Right. The dreams that didn’t come true. The idealism that turned to ash.”

“Those were the good old days, by your way of thinking.”

“Sure! Never better. Something was in the air.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Pot smoke.”

“Mallory,” he said, standing. Eyes narrowing. “I didn’t recognize you at first.”

“What gave me away, finally?”

“The cynicism. You’re here to talk about Ginnie, I suppose.”

“Yes I am. I’m surprised you recognized me at all. We only met a couple of times.”

“Ginnie spoke of you often. You were her best friend, growing up.”

“I always thought of her as my best friend,” I admitted. “It’s nice to hear that she felt the same about me.”

“You really loved Ginnie, didn’t you?”

He meant “loved” in the sixties sense; he knew there’d never been anything romantic between us.

“Yes I did,” I said. “Even though we drifted apart.”

He smiled; his teeth looked a little bad. “Not everybody was able to love Ginnie. She had her faults.”

“She had a tongue like a knife,” I said.

“You’re a poet yourself,” J.T. said, “albeit of the Raymond Chandler school. My memories of Ginnie’s tongue conjure rather more lyrical images than a blade. But I’ll grant you her temper could slash you.”

“Did her temper ever slash you?”

He risked another shrug. “From time to time. The sort of wounds that don’t ever heal completely; but neither do they debilitate.”

“Why did you live apart?”

“Why did we live together?”

“Because you loved each other?”

“A reasonable assumption.”

“J.T.,” I said, “we’re alone here. There’s no one else in the store. You don’t have to talk in circles. Life isn’t a poem.”

“But it is poetic.”

“Justice is, sometimes — not life. If you still loved Ginnie, and she still loved you, why didn’t you stay together? When did you split, exactly?”

He sat back down. “Two years ago.”

“Why?”

“I loved her too much to be a part of it.”

“A part of what?”

“Her life. And I didn’t want Mal to be part of it, either.”

He meant their four-year-old daughter, Malinda; I knew that was what he meant almost at once, but hearing the name attached to Ginnie’s child jarred me, just the same.

“You didn’t want... Mal to be part of Ginnie’s life... in what way, J.T.? The gambling? The crazy trips to Vegas and Tahoe?”

“No. I didn’t like that much, but she was her own person, she could do as she liked.”

“What bothered you about Ginnie’s lifestyle, then? What was it that a free spirit like you couldn’t handle in a free spirit like her?”

“I don’t think I care to talk about it.”

“What if I told you Ginnie may have been murdered.”

He flinched, then smiled — not a convincing smile, but a smile. “Life isn’t a mystery novel.”

“I disagree.”

“A mystery, yes. A mystery novel, no.” The smile curled into a sneer, emphasized by the mustache of his beard. “I don’t remember liking you much, Mallory. Your cynicism always rubbed me the wrong way. Out of respect to Ginnie’s love for you, I won’t throw you out bodily, but will just ask you to go.”

This guy could not throw a puppy out of this place bodily. Putting on my best cynical smart-ass smile, I leaned on the counter with one hand, with the other giving him the peace sign; he gave me half of the peace sign in return.

I ignored that. Said, “Was Ginnie involved with drugs? Is that why you didn’t want your little girl around her?”

“Just go, Mallory.”

“Talk to me, J.T. Help me find out why Ginnie is dead.”

He slammed a fist down on the counter; the Denver Quarterly jumped. So did I. I didn’t expect this power from such a frail-looking man, or this rage from so laid back a source.

“She’s dead,” he said, spitting words like seeds, “because that time is dead, because those days are over.”

I laughed at that, though without much humor. “She isn’t dead just because the sixties are dead. She’s not an image in one of your poems, or a symbol in one of my novels, either. She’s a person who was murdered, shot in the goddamn head, J.T.! And I want to find out who did that so the state can serve up some old-fashioned justice, poetic or otherwise.”

He swallowed. “Can I get you some tea?”

“Sure.”

“What kind?”

“The kind you don’t smoke.”

He smiled at that, just a little, and put a kettle of water on the hotplate that rested on the chugging air conditioner. He dropped in a tea bag. He turned and looked at me; his gray eyes seemed very, very old.

“She was involved in drugs, all right,” he said. “But not in using them. Not to any excessive extent, anyway.”

“Dealing, then?”

“No. Not exactly.”

“What, then?”

He paused. Thought. Then, as if against his better judgment, said, “She was working for a guy named Sturms. You know him?”

“I know him.”

“She was his mule. One of them.”

“Mule.”

“You know. She’d go to Mexico, ostensibly on buying trips for her shop, picking up furniture and knickknacks for ETC.’s...”

“Among which were hidden quantities of coke and other illegal goodies?”

He sighed. Nodded.

“Yeah. I figured that’s what Caroline Westin wanted to put a stop to.”

“What?”

“Her partner in ETC.’s, Caroline Westin, recently squeezed her out of the business — you knew that, didn’t you, J.T.?”

He shrugged again; he didn’t seem so frail to me now. Bony, yes — frail, no. “I knew Ginnie got bought out of ETC.’s,” he said, “but assumed it happened because she wanted it to. I didn’t know Caroline forced her out, to put a stop to the shop being involved in drug trafficking. But it makes sense. Caroline was pretty bitter about Ginnie getting back together with me. You see — and I hope this doesn’t bruise your sensibilities, Mallory, since like most cynics you’re naive at heart, but...”

“Caroline and Ginnie were lovers,” I cut in. “Yeah. And Ginnie broke off with her to marry you.”

“Yes. Well. To get together with me.”

“I thought you were married.”

Another shrug. He was pouring us some tea now, in unmatching, chipped china cups. “Sort of. We never had a ceremony. We were together long enough to rate common law, I suppose.”

I took the cup of tea and sipped; orange. “So that’s why she didn’t take your last name.”

“She probably wouldn’t have even if we had married. She was just... well, she was using me, in a way,” he said.

“Ginnie did do that with people from time to time. How did she use you?”

He spooned some honey into his tea cup; stirred. “She wanted a child. It was something she wanted to experience.” He laughed; in that laughter was the first trace of bitterness in him about Ginnie. “Then once she’d had the little girl, she lost interest.” He looked at me sharply. “I’m not saying she didn’t love Malinda. I’m not saying she was a bad mother, either.”

“It’s just that she dropped the baby off at a day-care center on the way home from the hospital, right?”

“No! Not at all. She was a very good mother, those early months. She breast-fed Malinda, for one thing. Would a bad mother breast-feed her child?”

“I guess not. What happened after the early months?”

He didn’t look at me; he looked into his tea, stirring it absently. “She went back to work, back to ETC.’s. I stayed home. That was fine — she was bringing the money in. I’ve been publishing my poetry right along, but half the time I get paid off in contributor’s copies. When I do get money, it isn’t much. Twenty-five bucks from the Iowa Review twice a year doesn’t buy many groceries.”

“Hey,” I said. “I’m a free-lancer myself. You don’t have to apologize.”

“I’m not apologizing! I was a house husband. I’m proud of it. I did a good job. Why should I apologize? John Lennon didn’t!” He set his cup down and splashed some tea on the Denver Quarterly.

“Settle down, J.T. I’m on your side, on this one.”

He studied me, saw that I was. Said, “Ginnie loved our little girl. She just wasn’t much of a traditional mother. And, to her credit, when I told her I was leaving, that I wouldn’t be party to the drug traffic, that I wouldn’t have my daughter raised around it, she didn’t fight me over Malinda. She let me take her with me.”

“Maybe she knew who the better parent was.”

“Maybe,” he said, not disputing it. “But she did love Mal. Malinda. She’d take her for the weekend once every month or so. Show her a wonderful time. They used to go to Adventure-land Park at Des Moines, for example.”

“Ginnie was nothing if not adventurous.”

“Unfortunately,” he agreed.

“Who’s taking care of Malinda now?”

He pointed upstairs. “I’m living with a wonderful woman, who is also a poet. She helps me run this place, and we take turns spending time with Malinda.”

“You’re doing a nice job here.”

“Thanks. The movie and comic book stuff helps. There are more Three Stooges buffs around here than Robert Frost fans.”

“If you ask me, Shemp was a major poet.”

He smiled again, a smile so faint it almost got lost in the nest of his beard. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Looking into Ginnie’s death. If she was murdered, you’re treading dangerous water. That guy Sturms is connected.”

By “connected,” he meant organized-crime connected.

“Nobody who deals coke on a major level isn’t connected,” I said.

The subject seemed one he wanted to change. “Would you like to meet Malinda?” he asked.

“I sure would,” I said, smiling.

He picked up the phone and dialed, sipping his tea for the first time. “Hi, babe. Old friend of mine dropped by... bring Mal down. I’d like her to meet him.”

The sound of footsteps clomped on stairs, a door opened in a wall at left that was otherwise a bookcase and a woman and a child entered. The plain, pigtailed, a-few-months pregnant woman in a blue sundress, over the top of which her pale bosom was blossoming, held the hand of a pretty little girl of about four, long red hair cascading onto the shoulders of a Strawberry Shortcake T-shirt. Her pants were pink and a little worn, probably secondhand, and she wore sandals. She had the memory of jam on her face, and looked like an urchin — but a well-fed, happy one. The face was Ginnie’s, mostly, the blue eyes particularly.

I went to the little girl and smiled at her. She wasn’t shy at all; she looked up and grinned right at me, saying, “Hi.”

“Hi,” I said, bending down to her level, looking her right in her mother’s eyes.

“My name’s Malinda. Everybody calls me Mal.”

“Everybody calls me Mal, too.”

“Really? But you’re a boy.”

“It’s the kind of name that both boys and girls can use.”

That seemed to go right by her; she just smiled at me with the bright yet empty eyes of childhood.

I said, “I was a friend of your mommy’s.”

“Mommy’s on a trip.”

I hadn’t realized they hadn’t told the little girl yet.

“I start preschool this year,” she said.

“Good for you.”

“Are you going to see Mommy?”

“I don’t know, honey...”

“If you see Mommy, say hi.”

“Okay. I will.”

She tugged at the pregnant woman’s hand, looking at me as she said, “We’re going next door for granola bars. Wanna come?”

“No, thanks,” I said, standing. “It was nice meeting you.”

They were out the door; the woman and I were never introduced, but exchanged a smile through the storefront window as the girl herded her along.

“I haven’t found a way to tell her,” he said.

“You ought to.”

“She’s so little.”

“She’s four going on fourteen. Tell her.”

“I suppose I should.”

“Is that why you weren’t at the funeral?”

He sighed heavily. “I called Ginnie’s mother. Originally we were going to be there, but I backed out. Said Malinda had a cold.”

“It isn’t an easy thing to face, is it?”

“No. I loved Ginnie. I still do. But she was still living her life only for herself, for her whims, one gamble after another. She never... never really lived up to the responsibilities of being a grown-up.”

“That’s a problem for a lot of people our age. Those good old days of yours were a supremely selfish time, despite all the love-generation talk. We were a bunch of spoiled kids, rebelling against those who gave us everything.”

He looked at me sadly. “Is that how you see the sixties?”

“Sometimes. Hell, what else were we, but spoiled brats who thought we discovered politics, when all we really discovered was dope.”

“I smoke a little dope still,” he said, reflectively, sipping his tea, “but that’s about the extent of my... chemical recreation these days. I was part of the drug culture, but I’m not proud of it. Not proud of the way it’s hung onto our generation, and spilled over into the next and the next... I don’t let my daughter see me smoke dope. I don’t know, maybe I’m being hypocritical in that.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I said. “She’ll probably see her friends doing it when she’s in grade school.”

That prospect didn’t cheer him up.

“Maybe Aquarius isn’t dead yet,” he said.

“Maybe it should be,” I said.

I finished my tea, picked up the paper bag of books, told him he had a nice daughter, and left.