Butcher's Moon

Thirty-two

Nathan Simms did dogged laps in the pool out behind his house. At his age it was hard to keep in shape, to trim away those fat rolls at the sides of the waist, to keep the belly from hanging out as though he had swallowed a soft basketball, to keep from panting like a walrus after making love to Donna. Swimming was supposed to be good for all that, wind and belly and spare tire, so whenever the weather was at all good enough Simms was in the pool, exhausting himself, plodding earnestly from end to end, keeping track in his head of the number of laps he had done, and from time to time lying like a discarded doll on the hot concrete beside the pool, listening to his heart drum while he waited for strength to go on.

Elaine came out, shielding her eyes from the sun like an Indian looking for cavalry. It had been ten years or more since she’d made any effort to keep herself in shape, and now she was a dumpy woman with bad digestion and a perpetual manner of ill-treatment. “Phone, Nate,” she called, managing to imply by her tone of voice that the phone call was frivolous and that it had interrupted something very important that she had been doing.

Simms was grateful for any excuse to stop the endless back-and-forth swimming. He churned laboriously to the steps, and by the time he got out of the pool Elaine had already disappeared back into the house. He was grateful for that too; Elaine’s presence, the last few years, grated on him like an old bedsore. Dripping, he padded into the house and used the wall phone in the kitchen. “Hello?”

It was Harold, Al Lozini’s houseman. “Mr. Lozini wants you to come over right away.”

Now what? A wooden ball of apprehension formed high on Simms’ stomach. “I’ll leave right now,” he said, and hung up, and went upstairs to his bedroom to dress. Putting on plum-colored slacks, brown suede high-top shoes, a white turtleneck shirt and a madras jacket, he thought about last night’s meeting with Dutch. Had a contract really been put out on Parker and Green, were they dead now? Had something gone wrong, did Al know the whole truth all of a sudden?

These last few days were grinding him down. He wished it was all over, that the dust was settled and he was already comfortable and safe at the new plateau, with more money and more power and more to offer Donna.

He drove across town to Lozini’s house and was met by the houseman. Simms said, “Mr. Lozini in his office?”

“He isn’t here yet, Mr. Simms. Would you wait in the living room?”

“Not here? Where is he?”

“He went out this morning. He’s supposed to be back pretty soon.”

That wasn’t satisfactory, but Simms could see it was the only answer he was going to get, so he gave an irritated shrug and went on into the living room, where he found Frank Faran standing by the window, swirling a colorless drink in a tall glass. A bit of lime in the drink suggested it was probably a vodka-tonic.

Faran turned and gave Simms his professional smile and a salute with the glass. “How de do, Nate. Your hair’s wet.”

“I was in the pool.”

“Harold!” Faran shouted. When the houseman appeared in the doorway, Faran gestured to him, saying to Simms, “Have a drink.”

“No, thanks,” Simms said. He was worrying about the meeting, the reason for it, and he wanted to ask Faran as soon as they were alone. But then he suddenly thought that a drink might calm him, and he said, “Wait. All right. I’ll have one of those.”

Holding the glass up, Faran said doubtfully, “It’s made with rum.”

“All right. No, vodka. No, wait, I’ll try the rum.”

The houseman left, and Faran grinned at Simms, saying, “You seem nervous, Nate. Trouble at home?”

“I’m fine,” Simms said. “What’s this meeting all about, anyway?”

Faran shrugged. “Beats me. Probably something with that Parker and Green.”

“I wish to Christ those two had never showed up.”

“Amen,” Faran said, and Jack Walters waddled in, looking absurd in a short-sleeved white shirt open at the collar and a pair of trousers left over from some suit. A balled-up handkerchief was in his right hand, and when he lifted it to pat his damp forehead, he made it look as though he’d never attempted that particular movement before in his life and was finding it very unnatural to his body. “Good afternoon,” he said.

“You look hot,” Faran told him. “When Harold gets back, get yourself a drink.”

“No, thank you. Where’s Al?”

“Out somewhere. We’re supposed to wait.”

Simms said to Walters, “Jack, do you know what this is all about?”

“No idea.”

The houseman brought the drink and Simms took it, while Faran made cheerful small talk with Walters. They were all standing, like an underattended cocktail party. Simms tried the rum and tonic and found it sweeter than he would have guessed, but not cloying. He lowered the glass, and discovered with astonishment that he’d downed half the drink.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and put the glass on an end table. But as he was about to leave the room Ernie Dulare walked in, and he changed his mind again.

Dulare ran the important gambling concessions in town, everything except Simms’ own stepchild, policy. A tall, smooth, self-contained man in his fifties, he usually dressed in casual jackets and no tie, and his frequent trips to Las Vegas and the Caribbean had given him a deeper and glossier tan than was possible for people limited to the summer sun of Tyler. He had what Simms thought of as a radio-announcer’s voice, smooth but with a kind of mellifluous gravel in it. His presence always made Simms very nervous, for no rational reason.

There were hellos back and forth, through which Simms waited impatiently, until he could say, as though casually, “Ernie, what’s this meeting all about, do you know?”

“No idea,” Dulare said. His ignorance didn’t seem to bother him. “I got a call, and I came. I haven’t seen Al for quite some time. Where is he?”

“Due back pretty soon,” Faran said.

“Excuse me,” Simms said, and went out to use the phone in the front hall, but Dulare’s bodyguards were there, two burly men in pastel jackets, talking pro football with one another.

The bodyguards were, so far as Simms knew, Ernie Dulare’s only affectation. Nobody traveled like that any more, nobody had to. Even Al Lozini didn’t cart bodyguards around with him wherever he went. But Dulare, who did a lot of traveling and hosted a lot of parties and spent a lot of time in public, never made a move without his two sluggers. There was no need for them, but Dulare apparently liked the idea of them; like a professional gunslinger in the Old West having pearl-handled revolvers even though a normal grip was safer and less likely to draw the wrong kind of attention.

Well. With the bodyguards in the hall, Simms went in search of another phone. He heard faint movement sounds from upstairs; probably Mrs. Lozini, and her resident married daughter, whose husband was in prison on check-kiting charges. It had been a first offense and he would have gotten off with probation if he hadn’t been an in-law of Al Lozini; the judge had gone out of his way to demonstrate that he hadn’t been bought.

There was a phone in the library, a room full of magazines and religious books. Simms called Donna, and when she answered, her voice clear and happy, he found himself smiling at the phone. “Hi, honey,” he said. “It’s me.”

“Well, hi.” He could visualize her in her yellow and red kitchen, leaning against the wall by the phone, one ankle crossed over the other. “Long time no see, stranger.”

“You know how things are sometimes,” he said. “Listen, I’m in a meeting now, but why don’t I come over as soon as it breaks?”

“Sure, honey. How long?”

”I don’t know. We’re waiting for Mr. Lozini now. It shouldn’t be too long, and I’ll call you the second it’s over.”

“Just come on when you can,” she said. “I’ll be here.”

She likes me, Simms thought, and felt warmth spreading through his chest. “You’re a sweet girl,” he said.

She laughed. She really did like him. “Don’t be too long,” she said.

“I won’t.”

He hung up and went back through the hall to the living room. On the way by, the bodyguards gave him flat incurious glances. In the living room, Dulare and Walters and Faran were standing in a group near the window, talking. Dulare was just finishing Simms’ drink.