On the Other Hand, Death

25

"Hi, Jerry. Your boss says you're feeling under the weather today. Left the office early."

"Oh, hello! It's you! My boss said that?"

"Mind if I come in? I'd like to talk."

"Well… Sandra took Heather swimming."

"No sweat. We won't need a chaperone for this. Joey over at Freezer Fresh?"

"No, not till four. He's down mowing Mrs. Fisher's lawn. She called. That was really white of her. Very Christian. Considering."

He made no move to open the door. We spoke through the screen. The sweat ran down his pale face and splashed onto his drip-dry white dress shirt.

"Why don't you come out and we'll sit under a tree and talk?"

"What about? I'm not feeling well, actually. I was just thinking of… going to the doctor. Maybe another time, when I'm feeling up to it, okay?"

"Mr. Murchison says you turned over fifty thousand dollars to him this morning."

"Wh-what?"

"The fifty that was actually due last week. The second payment, including sixteen percent interest, that's restitution for the hundred and forty-one thousand you embezzled from Murchison over three years, and which he caught you at in June."

His mouth worked at speaking words. He fought to keep from collapsing, and managed it, barely.

I opened the door and he backed away.

"I don't- I want- I need a drink of water," he stammered.

I followed him into the kitchen and watched him gulp down some tap water from a plastic cup with a picture of two Smurfs on it. He rinsed out the cup and placed it on the drying rack. His mind was working and working.

He turned toward me with a twitchy grin. "I really can't understand why Mr. Murchison told you that story. That was just something between he and I. Jeez. Why would he do that?"

"Where did you get the fifty?" I said.

He kept on grinning, his head moving back and forth, back and forth, trying desperately to look incredulous. "Mr. Murchison said-he told me-he'd keep that between us. I was making good. I made a mistake, but he forgave me, and I was making good."

"If he forgave you, why did he sick Dale Overdorf on you?"

"Who? Dale who?"

"The goon who roughed you up in June."

"Oh. Oh, jeez. He told you about that? You'd think he'd be ashamed." The panic in him was rising and he kept swallowing, but it wouldn't go back down.

"Murchison didn't strike me as being either ashamed or forgiving," I said. "I think he had his reasons for stringing you along and not calling in the cops, and leaning on you at the same time.

But you didn't answer my question. Where did you get the fifty that you paid Murchison this morning?"

"I borrowed it," he said weakly, not much conviction left in his voice. Then his face reddened and he slammed his fist at the air. "Anyway, I don't have to tell you anything! This is a private matter between Mr. Murchison and I. Who do you think you are coming in here and delving into my private affairs! Mr. Murchison said he was going to treat the whole thing like a loan, so as far as anybody else is concerned, it's none of your darn business! You come in here and start questioning my integrity and… and you don't have any right! I want you to… to leave my house right this minute!"

I said, "What did you do with the money you embezzled? There's no evidence of it around here.

No steak for supper at the Deem house, just hot dogs. Where did it all go?"

The anger drained out of him in an instant, as if someone had opened an artery. He stood by the sink white-faced and trembling now, dumb with shock, watching me, trying to prepare himself for the moment he'd been terrified of all his adult life. I despised the moment too. But I saw no point in putting it off, so I said the words.

"You spent a hundred and forty-one thousand dollars feeding Duane Andrus's coke habit. That's a lot of money for low-grade sex."

He gawked at me in hot panic for a long couple of seconds. And then he broke. Deem slid to the floor, quaking and weeping, his heaving back banging against the sink cabinet, his face in his hands. Between great racking sobs, Jerry Deem shook his head and keened, "I'm not a homo! I'm 104 not a homo!"

I seated myself on a kitchen chair and gazed out the window at the immobilized T-bird. Not looking at Deem, I said, "The kidnapping wasn't your idea, was it?"

"No, no, I wouldn't have done that."

"But Andrus told you about it as soon as he'd done it. And you didn't turn him in. If you had, you might have saved Peter Greco from drowning in a sea of cat fur."

He sobbed and nodded and shook his head.

"Andrus wanted you as an involuntary accomplice to gain a further hold on you, because he thought that Dot Fisher would sell out to Millpond to raise the ransom money and make everybody on Moon Road rich. When Dot threw a crimp into that plan by raising the hundred grand through other means, Andrus decided to kidnap

McWhirter too-none of us knew yet that Greco was dead-and put additional pressure on Dot to sell. That way, Andrus would end up with the ransom money and whatever he could extort from you after the sale of your property went through.

"One reason you went along with it was-besides your fear of Andrus's exposing your relationship with him-the other reason was, you wanted part of the ransom money to pay off Murchison, who was pressing hard for his August installment and threatened to send Dale Overdorf around again to break your collarbone. Two busted collarbones in one summer would have been hard to explain to your family and friends."

He sobbed and nodded, nodded and sobbed. I looked down at him. My head hurt. I felt sick.

"Why, Jerry? I understand the two-life syndrome. Like a lot of people, I once lived that way myself. I understand the terror that drives men to it. But why Duane Andrus? Why some violent punk like him? There are two billion men on the face of the earth. Why Andrus?"

He peered up at me now, still shaking, his face awash with sweat and tears. After a long, tense moment, he said angrily, "Because he was evil. I am an abomination unto the Lord! Duane Andrus is what I deserved."

We sat gazing at each other. If Fenton McWhirter had been there he would have attempted to explain a few things to Deem. But I had neither the stomach for it nor any hope that it would make a difference to anyone living.

Breathing more easily now, Deem said, "I think- I guess I better have a Valium. I need to calm down."

I nodded.

He managed to stand and wobble into the living room, then staggered left into the rear part of the house.

After a moment, I stood and walked quickly in the direction Deem had gone. The bedrooms were empty. A door in the short hallway was shut. I knocked. He didn't answer. I tried the knob. Locked.

In an instant, I made a decision I sometimes later regretted. I lifted a leg and sent my shoe crashing hard against the flimsy plywood door. It exploded inward, knocking Deem against the sink, the battery of pills flying out of his mouth and pinging against the mirror like buckshot. He flailed about, grabbing for the pills, but I had him by the collar and dragged him into the living room backwards.

Then to the kitchen, where I bent him over the table and held him there with one hand while I dialed the phone with the other. I glanced at my watch while I dialed. Five after two. There was just enough time. I had another appointment to keep.