The Autumn Dead

Chapter 19

"The name Sonny mean anything to you?"

"It's the name of a song."

"Yeah," I said.

"There was Sonny Liston."

"Right."

"And Sonny and Cher."

"Uh-huh."

"And Sonny James."

"Who?"

"Country-Western singer."

"Oh."

"Don't give me your crap about country-Western singers."

"All right."

It was one-thirty in the afternoon in Malley's Tavern on the Eighth Avenue side of the Highlands. The place smelled of beer, disinfectant, and peanuts. Strong warm sunlight brightened the aged wooden floor. Bob Malley, paunchy, bearded, wrapped around with the spotless white apron that is his pride, stood behind the bar he owned and idly flipped a quarter, checking heads or tails every time it came down. I imagine he does this as often as five hundred times a day. Some people find this the kind of minor social irritation that can turn nuns into psychopaths. But I'm used to it. Though he was a grade ahead of me, Malley and I have been friends since, respectively, first and second grade. I've seen him flip quarters probably twenty million times by now.

Ordinarily I come in three afternoons a week. Today I had two reasons to be there. To say hello and to ask for information. Malley remembers our school days with the reverence of Thornton Wilder recalling an autumn afternoon in New England.

"Sonny Tufts," I said.

"Oh. Yeah. Sonny Tufts. You want another shell?"

"Nah.

He grinned. "Donna's a good influence on you, Dwyer. You've cut your drinking in half since you met her. So when's the date?"

"We fornicate without benefit of clergy, Malley. We have no plans to get married. We're not ashamed. She's not even Catholic."

"That's my only reservation about her."

"Right."

"So what's with this Sonny jazz?"

I told him about the woman in the black leather and how she'd mentioned Sonny.

"And you were in Larry Price's house?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Then she probably meant Sonny Howard."

"Who?"

"Sonny Howard. Summer of our senior year. Remember we went to summer school so we could take a lighter load during the regular year?"

"Yeah."

"Well, he went to summer school, too. Except he hung around with Price and Forester and Haskins. Then he killed himself."

He tossed it away so casually it almost went right by me, like doing a bad double-take shtick. Then, "What?"

"He killed himself. Don't you remember? He jumped off Pierce Point."

"Give me another shell."

"I thought you didn't want one." He smiled and got me another shell.

"Tell me some more about him."

"Don't know much more about him," Malley said, setting down my beer.

"Why don't I remember him?"

"Probably tried to forget him."

"Why?"

"He sort of hung around Karen Lane. That's when you were chasing rich chicks and trying to forget all about her."

"He knew Karen Lane?"

"I don't think they were getting it on or anything-I mean, I don't think she put out very much when you came right down to it-but I remember toward the end of the summer they were together a lot."

"Why were people so sure he killed himself? I mean, Pierce Point, you could fall off real easy.

"There was a witness."

"Who?"

"You're being a cop again. Ease off, okay? I'm not especially fond of cops."

"So you've told me."

"Witness, I don't know, seems it was David Haskins."

"You're kidding?"

"You asked me. Why would I kid you?"

"David Haskins was the witness?"

"David Haskins was the witness."

I drained half my shell and set it down and watched white foam slide down into the yellow beer. I liked taverns, hearing the crack of cards as men played pinochle, and the clatter of pool and the sound of workingmen loud at the end of a workday. At four I used to sit in union taverns and eat salted hard-boiled eggs and sip my old man's beer and learn all the reasons why you should never trust Republicans.

"Killed himself," I said. "Killed himself."

"I take it you don't believe that."

I looked right at him and said, "No, Malley, I don't. Not in the least damn bit at all."