City Primeval

30

THEY HAD SEVERAL DRINKS at the Athens Bar, quiet drinks, Raymond and Hunter alone at a table, with little to talk about until Hunter leaned in to tell what worried him. Like Carolyn Wilder. Would she blow it or not? Raymond said he didn’t think so. She had walked out (her car was gone when they left the apartment building) and it was like saying to them, do what you want. Without saying it. He believed she could handle it. Carolyn had learned to be realistic about Clement: she could send him away for assault and robbery, but knew he would come back if she did.

Hunter said, “You want to know exactly what it’s like? It’s like the first time I ever went to a whorehouse. I was sixteen years old, these guys took me to a place corner of Seward and Second. After, you’re all clutched up, you don’t know whether to feel proud of yourself or guilty. You know what I mean? And after a while you don’t think of it either way; it’s something you did.” Hunter went home to bed.

Raymond walked back to 1300 Beaubien. The snack counter in the lobby was closed and he looked at his watch: 5:40. The squadroom was locked, empty. He went in and sat at his desk beneath the window. It was dismal outside, a gray cast to the sky; somber, semidark inside, but he didn’t bother to turn on lights.

He had felt relief as the wall closed and Mansell disappeared; but the relief was an absence of pressure, not something in itself. He tried to analyze what he was feeling now. He didn’t feel good, he didn’t feel bad. He called Carolyn. She said, “Are you worried I’m going to tell on you?” He said, “No.” She said, “Then why talk about it. I’m awfully tired. Why don’t you call me tomorrow, maybe go out to dinner, get a little high? How does that sound?”

A little after six Raymond looked up at the sound of the door opening. He saw the figure in the doorway backlighted from the hall.

Sandy said, “Anybody home?… What’re you doing sitting in the dark?” She came in, letting the door swing closed. “God, am I whacked out.” She dropped her shoulderbag on Hunter’s desk, sunk into his swivel chair and put her boots up on the corner of the desk.

Raymond could see her in faint light from the window. He didn’t move because he felt no reason to. He had not been thinking of Sandy Stanton. He had obvious questions but did not feel like asking them. He did not feel like getting himself into the role, being the policeman right now.

“I pulled in the garage downstairs, a guy goes, hey, you can’t park here. I told him it’s okay, it’s a stolen car, I’m returning it. The guy at the desk downstairs-what is that place?”

“First Precinct,” Raymond said.

“He goes, hey, where you going? I tell him I’m going up to five. He goes, you can’t go up there. I’m thinking, try and get out of here, shit, you can’t even get in … I thought you’d be looking for me. I sat in the apartment not knowing what’s going on, finally the phone rang. It was Del. He isn’t coming home, he’s going to Acapulco. You ready for this? And he wants me to fly out to L.A. and go with him… and bring his pink and green flowered sportcoat that asshole gave to the doorman. How am I gonna get it back?”

Raymond said, “Is that what you came to ask me?”

“No, I wanted to know if it’s okay to go or if you’re gonna arrest me or what. I’m so fucking whacked I want to go somewhere, I’m telling you, and sleep for about a week.” She made fists, holding them out, and said, “My nerves are like that.”

“You left Skender’s car?”

“Yeah, I told the guy it really wasn’t stolen it was sort of stolen and that you know all about it.”

“What about the gun?”

Sandy dug into her bag. She brought out the Walther and laid it on Hunter’s desk.

She said, “Do we have to get into it again? I haven’t seen shitbird at all, he hasn’t called, thank God, I don’t know where he is, if he’s in jail or what and I don’t want to know. I’m twenty-three and I got to get my ass in gear and I think going to Acapulco could be very good for me. What do you think?”

“I think you ought to go,” Raymond said.

“Really?”

Raymond didn’t say any more. Sandy got up with her bag. “I’ll just leave the gun here.” Raymond nodded. She said, “Listen, I’m not mad at you, I think you’ve been a pretty neat guy, considering. I know you have a job to do and, you know-so maybe I’ll see you again sometime…”

Raymond raised his hand to her. As the door swung in, closing off the light from the hall, he brought his hand down and got up. He went over to Hunter’s desk and picked up the Walther, hefting it, feeling its weight. He shifted the gun to his left hand and brought out his Colt 9-mm from the shoulder holster, feeling both of the guns now, judging the Colt to be a good half-pound heavier. Two-gun Cruz. In a dark room all by himself. Two-gun Cruz, shit. Sneaky Cruz… Dead-ass Cruz… Or how do you like Chicken-fat Cruz, chicken fat?

After a couple of hours Clement put Donna Summer’s “Love To Love You, Baby” on the record player to hear the sound of a human voice. He inventoried the canned goods, found all kinds of mashed chick peas and pressed meat and not one goddamn thing he liked to eat. There was nothing to drink except water and two cans of Tab and he expected they’d be turning the water off when they thought of it-if the plan was to leave him here. He had thought the wall would open again within a minute or so after it closed. All right, five minutes. Well, give ’em ten. Okay, play the game with ’em, maybe a half hour, which was supposed to give him a good scare. No-what they’d do, he realized after an hour or so, sure, they’d open it up and ask him if he wanted to confess, telling him if he didn’t they’d close it up again and take out the motor. The dumb fucks. He’d look scared and say, yes, Jesus, just get me out of here, I’ll confess to anything you want. Then come up for the exam and tell ’em to get fucked, the confession was signed under duress and he was not only walking, he was filing suit against the police department. A hundred thousand dollars for fucking up his nervous system. Look how he was shaking…

He had been glancing at his gold watch since the wall closed on him at a little after three and he had never seen time go so slow. He’d sit down, he’d get up and pace around a little to the music, then began picturing disco dancers and moved to the beat some more, seeing if he could do it-shit, it was easy-he could feel it and wished there was a mirror so he could see himself doing it-shit, dancing all by himself to the nigger girl singing in a secret basement room. Nobody in the world would believe it.

He looked at his gold watch at 6:50, 7:15, 7:35, 8:02, 8:20, 9:05 after some dancing, 9:32 turn-ing off the record player for a rest and at 9:42. It was right after that he heard the sound, the wall moving.

Clement got in the canvas chair facing the opening as it widened, seeing the clean basement a little at a time, the light reflecting off the cement floor it was so clean.

If it was the Albanian, he was dead.

It could be Carolyn, her heart bleeding for him. But she’d be too scared-unless it was somebody she sent. No, it would have to be the cops, come back to make their threatening offer. Clement told himself to get ready to look scared.

He waited. The humming sound of the motor continued. No one appeared. Clement got up out of the chair and approached the opening, inched his head out, looking over at the furnace. Nobody there. Nobody jumped on him when he walked out. He went over to the switch, reached up and flicked it off.

Who?

See-it ran through Clement’s mind-if it was a friend, the friend would be standing here. And if he wanted to run through his current list of friends, that could only be one person. So it wasn’t Sandy. Unless she wanted to help him, but not be associated with him anymore-ran like hell. Or it was somebody like the Albanians who wanted to take him outside, which didn’t make sense. Or it was somebody with a guilty conscience, which could make sense even though it was hard to imagine.

Clement went up the stairs to the first-floor hall and followed it to the front entrance. He might as well keep going. Anyone meaning to get him would have considered his slipping out the back, so there was no point in getting tricky. Go on out. And he did, walked out to the street, and what did he see sitting there but Skender’s black Cadillac.

Now, was it a coincidence, the car was picked up and returned? Or had Sandy left it here this afternoon and took off on foot? Or was somebody tempting him again? Or-wait now-was the gun in there and they’d stop him, arrest him with it?

No. He could be stopped for stealing a car-number two hundred and sixty something-but if there was a gun in it somewhere it would belong to the owner, not him. No prints anyway. Clement opened the driver-side door and felt under the seat. No gun. Just the keys. Did he want to think about this a while or did he want to haul ass?

Clement took the Cadillac south to downtown, got off at the Lafayette exit, just past the giant red Strohs Beer sign giving warmth to the night sky, and ten minutes later was in the elevator going up to 2504. He hoped Sandy was home and would be able to explain some of these weird things going on.