The Confessors' Club

FIFTEEN

Robert McClain was in the parking lot behind his dark brick apartment building, dry wiping a shiny black Cadillac Seville. He looked old enough to have been driving when roads were made of dirt.

‘I like to be ready, in case I get a call,’ he said, smiling.

I asked him about Jim Whitman.

‘Working for Mr Whitman was a real pleasure,’ he said. ‘Most fellows would have insisted on a younger driver, but not Mr Whitman. He was always real polite and regular, always sat up front with me. He tipped really well.’

‘Do you remember the night he died?’

‘Like yesterday. I knew he was ill – he was straightforward about it – but he didn’t act like a man about to kill himself.’

‘His spirits were good?’

‘Considering what he was facing, yes. As usual, he talked about his grandchildren all the way into the city.’

‘You picked him up about seven?’

McClain nodded. ‘Went in, had a spot of coffee with Mrs Johnson while Mr Whitman was getting ready.’

‘Do you remember where you took him?’

‘Corner of Michigan and Walton, downtown.’

‘I meant which restaurant.’

‘No restaurant. Dropped him at the same corner, as usual.’

‘You’d taken him there before?’

‘Every few weeks. He never did say where exactly he was going from there.’

‘And you picked him up later at that same corner?’

‘Not that night. He called to say he was catching another way home.’

‘You didn’t bring him home in a tan-colored car?’

‘This baby’s all I got,’ he said, touching the gleaming hood of the black Cadillac.

‘Was it usual for him to find another way home from there?’

‘He’d never done it before. Every other time, I picked him up at ten o’clock sharp. He’d be standing on that same corner, waiting.’ He picked up his rag, worked at an imagined spot. ‘That was the last time I drove anybody.’

‘Business slow?’

‘I’m old, and I look it. The agency’s got younger drivers.’

There was nothing left to say. I left him in the late-afternoon sun, polishing a future that likely had disappeared.

I busied myself cutting the last of the closet trim that evening. I needed simple work requiring clear and logical steps while my mind stumbled about in the fog surrounding Jim Whitman’s pills.

For a time, it worked. The cutting, sanding and staining were calming, easy steps in an understandable sequence. But then, well into the evening, it came time for varnishing. Varnishing, done right, requires care: one pass, no over-brushing. Be too fast, and a spot can get overlooked.

And that’s what happened with the cops looking at Jim Whitman’s death. They’d missed a big spot: they hadn’t accounted for his pills. He couldn’t have used his current two-week prescription to kill himself because there had been too few remaining. And he hadn’t tapped his reserve vial because it was untouched. He had to have gotten his fatal batch of fifteen pills from a third source.

Unless he hadn’t. Someone else could have slipped Gendarin into his meal or his drink, knowing that the excess in his bloodstream wouldn’t be questioned because it was the pain medication he was already taking. It would have been assumed that Whitman used his own supply to overdose himself.

What I couldn’t see was the logic in risking the murder of an already dying man.

The vague thoughts and the pungent smell of the varnish finally made me woozy. I walked down to the river to sit on the bench and breathe in the cold March air. Behind me, the jukes in the tonks along Thompson Avenue were beating out big bass notes, primitive drums summoning tribe members to return. I almost envied those in that dark carnival. They were sure of what they were seeking: a simple tingle from some booze, a few laughs, a rub of rented flesh.

Perhaps it had been that simple for Jim Whitman, that last night. Maybe he’d finished a good meal, enjoyed a few drinks, had a few laughs being driven home by a friend… and realized things would never get any better than they were that evening. Maybe he’d rat-holed a stash of Gendarin for just such a time, and asked himself, on the spur of that moment: Why not? Why not check out with a belly full of good steak and good Scotch, and the sound of a laugh still resonating in the back of his throat? Why not?

Except for the grandchildren he’d left without a nickel.

The dim light from the lamp along the riverwalk made a tiny shadow on the ground just beyond my feet. It was another still-born ash leaf, curled and dried on the grass. I looked up at the tree. There was not enough light to see for sure, but I knew in my throat that no new leaves had appeared that day.

I took out my pocket calendar and recorded that loss, too.