Murder in the Wings

15

He was down there, all right.

At first, as I moved into the hall, it was almost like being blind. Moisture from the night and my nerves stuck my shirt to my back. In my hand I carried a piece of plumbing pipe I’d found in a storage closet. I’d made Donna stay behind.

He moved.

From what I could gather, as my eyes began to adjust, he was behind several big packing crates. The noise was his jacket scraping against the rough boards of the crates. A rasping, like rats in walls.

I knew he might be any sort of vandal or vagrant, but I didn’t think he was. There were plenty of hiding places on the first floor. He had chosen to be near the classroom because the acting class interested him. I was beginning to form an impression of who he might be.

The pipe in my hand was rusting from my sweat as I saw him dart across the hall from one big crate to another.

“Stop!” I yelled. Maybe he’d think I was a cop. But you couldn’t say I impressed him much. The mildewed air was silent except for my breathing. No sign of anybody ambling out with his hands up. He wasn’t going to make it easy. For either of us.

Toward the opposite end of the hall, in the muzzy light spilling from the classroom, I saw Donna peek out. Exactly what I told her not to do, in case the guy had a weapon and fired at me.

I turned back toward the packing crates, and that’s when he jumped me.

He came at me in an awkward tackle, getting me around the waist and putting me hard up against the wall. The pipe dropped from my hand, clattering in the darkness on the floor. Just before he kicked me in the side of the face, I heard Donna start screaming. He got me one more time in the face and took off. Now I yelled, warning Donna, and tried to get to my feet.

What happened next, there in the spill of light from the classroom doorway, was not without a comic aspect. Donna stuck one of her long legs out, sort of like a confused chorus girl who didn’t quite know the dance routine, and the man was obliging enough to stumble over it. He wore a shabby overcoat, which made the windmilling motions of his arms look even more cartoonish. By the time he reached the floor, sprawling and sliding, he had sworn so many times it was quite impressive. That was when she jumped on him, the way you jump on a trampoline, with your bottom leading and your arms outstretched. “Hurry, Dwyer! I don’t know what to do next!” she said on the way down.

When she landed, he started groaning and scrambling to his feet. He tried to punch her, but he had no leverage and missed. In return she gave him a dainty little slap. The next one she gave him was not dainty at all.

I got him by the shoulders of his coat and dragged him into the classroom. I was still scared and mad enough that I wanted to pay him back for the kick in the face, so I got a good sharp fast one off to his ribs.

“God,” Donna said, coming into the room, “who is he?”

“I have a feeling we’ve just met Lockhart.”

“Fuck yourself,” the man said.

“Boy, so far,” Donna said, “he seems like a delightful person.”

Probably not even Lockhart’s mother loved his face. He had feral brown eyes and a feral pink mouth and feral pointed ears. He needed a shave and a shower. Donna was right. He was delightful.

“I think you can help us,” I said.

“I think you’re full of shit.”

“That may be. But I still think you can help us.” My face hurt but I’d be damned if I’d give him the satisfaction of rubbing it. “Who killed Reeves?”

He smiled. “Your buddy. Wade.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Gee, then I must’ve been listening to the wrong station. Seems like every time I turn on the radio or the TV, they’re talking about how many cops are out looking for him.” He winced. Looking down at him, the way his eyes narrowed with pain, I wondered if I should have kicked him quite so hard. I probably could have made my point with a bit less violence.

“Why were you out in the hall?”

He looked at Donna. “I was taking a piss.”

She smiled at him. “Gosh, I’m really offended and shocked. Taking a pee in a school corridor.”

“I don’t want to kick you again,” I said.

He grimaced. “You try it, motherfucker, and see what happens.”

I stepped on his hand, quickly enough that he didn’t even try to get it out of the way. I stepped down hard.

“God, Dwyer, c’mon.” It was Donna talking. “God, look at him.” She looked down at his hand as if she were going to be sick.

“Why were you out in the hallway?”

“Fuck yourself.”

I stepped down harder. “Tell me.”

He screamed.

“God, Dwyer, please,” she said.

“Donna, for Christ’s sake, I’ve got to know why he was out there.”

“But you’re hurting him.”

“Look at the left side of my face.”

She looked. “God, what happened?”

“This guy you’re so worried about kicked me.”

“Why, you bastard,” she said to him.

“So will you please go somewhere if you can’t take it?”

“Why did you kick him in the face?” she said to Lockhart. He was too busy grimacing to answer.

“Step on his hand,” she said. “He deserves it.” Then she said, “But not real hard, you know, Dwyer? Not real hard.”

“Donna.”

She made a face. I eased up a little, out of deference to the woman I love, and that’s when he grabbed my ankle and knocked me over, and Donna right after me.

He ran to the door to the stairs. We were maybe a half-minute behind. His feet clattered on the staircase. Below, he careened into two old ladies coming from their Medicare class. They screamed. He kept on running.

I nearly ran into the same two ladies myself, trying to get to him. His flight had been slowed just enough that when he reached the front door I could grab the sleeve of his raggedy overcoat. It ripped away from the rest of his coat. He whirled around, slamming into the doorframe, and then he got his composure again and started into the downpour.

I saw it happen from the doorway.

The street was narrow and the pimpmobile was going at least twenty over the speed limit. It was long and pink, and even with the windows rolled up you could hear the disco music from the tape deck. When it hit Lockhart, it didn’t slow down a bit, nor did it slow down when it reached the corner. If anything, it went faster, and then it disappeared.

Donna was two steps behind me. We started out into the rain. We didn’t run. We knew he was beyond help. She slipped her hand in mine. “God, Dwyer, I don’t know if I’m up to looking at him. Do you mind?”

“Uh-huh. You go back in the school where it’s dry.”

“I don’t give a damn about the rain now, Dwyer. I mean, after what happened to him.” She just stood there with her arms folded, huddling into herself.

I nodded, understanding, and set off for the street. Another car had come along. In its headlights I could see Lockhart clearly. He reminded me of a dead dog in the road. You want to look away but something terrible in you — something that recognizes your own eventual death — holds your eyes there. I thought of how I’d stepped on his hand, the pain I’d given him, and the wild sad look of him then. I felt like shit. I bent and took his pulse. I looked up into the broad face of a sixtyish black man in a plastic raincoat and shook my head. Behind him more headlights appeared. I was surprised to see that it was the pink pimpmobile. A swarthy white man got out. He wore a tatty gray three-piece suit, a very white shirt, and a very red tie. He had a business card held out. The black man looked at me and shrugged. Which one of us was supposed to take the card, and why?

“I didn’t see him, mon,” the swarthy man said in a Jamaican accent. “I did’na see him.” He was so bombed the black man had to help him back to his car.

I found Lockhart’s wallet in his coat and put it in my pocket. I went back to Donna and said, “We need to get out of here. Fast.”

On the way to the car, she said, “God, look at your hands.” I held them out in the dim streetlight. They were covered with Lockhart’s blood.