Third man out

9

I drove back into Albany, took a ten-minute cold shower, and phoned Rutka.

"I've been threatened again," he said before I could get a word in. " 'This time you're going to burn,' was what the guy said. I didn't recognize the voice, but the asshole scared the shit out of me. Whether it was somebody capable of actually hurting me or not, I don't know, but the voice was full of hatred and I don't want to take any chances. What kind of protection did you get Bailey to agree on?"

The throbbing in the back of my skull that Rutka induced much of the time started up. I said, "That was all the caller said, "This time you're going to burn?"

"He said it twice, the same thing."

"To you or to Eddie?"

"To me. I answered the phone. Eddie has the gun and he's watching out the back door and I'm watching out the front. The arson investigators were here, but then they left and we were here alone. We explained to the investigators about Grey Koontz, how that's who Mrs. Renfrew must have seen, and they said they'd check it out. They were businesslike enough. Not exactly friendly, but what can you expect? And then about ten minutes ago this call came in. So am I about to get some protection, or not?"

"I had a long talk with Bub Bailey," I said. "He says he has your best interests at heart, and I think he means it."

A pause. "What is that supposed to mean?"

I recited the whole story: Bailey's evidence eliminating Sandifer's alibi for the time of the firebomb attack, on top of Mrs.

Renfrew's placing Sandifer in the neighborhood; Bailey's litany of Rutka's crimes and misdemeanors in New York, as well as his long history of lying; Bailey's offer of a deal-get out of town and don't come back, so that Bailey won't have to prosecute the son of an old friend, as well as the son's boyfriend. I left out the part where Bailey suggested San Francisco as a city where Rutka and Sandifer might feel more at home; mentioning it would only set Rutka off on a tirade whose object was beside the point.

Rutka, of course, came up with his own semi-irrelevancy. After I finished, there was a long silence. Then he said, "Do you have any idea why I took the hypodermic and the drugs from the hospital? Do you?"

"No. Okay, tell me."

"And do you know what the drug was?"

"No. And I don't feel like guessing."

"It was morphine," he said. "Morphine for a man in horrible pain whose body was half gone and who for twenty-four hours a day for a solid week had been begging to die. Do you have any idea? Have you ever been around such horror?"

"Yes, I have."

"Then you must understand. It's not that I shouldn't have taken the drug-nobody will ever convince me of that. It's just that I shouldn't have gotten caught."

"Okay."

"Or I should have gotten the stuff on the underground market. That's a lot easier now than it was then, but it was possible and I should have done it that way. But I did what I knew how to do at the time, and I paid for it with my job and with my New York State R.N.'s license."

"I'm sorry."

"It's a fucking crime the way people with AIDS have to suffer because of a profit-driven and corrupt homophobic health-care establishment in this country. That's a crime, not what I did." He went on with a speech to which I half listened and half thought about Aunt Moira's petunias out the window and the dull, sunny lives they lived.

When Rutka was through, I said, "Look, none of that makes up for the fact that Chief Bailey apparently has the goods on Eddie.

Eddie has no alibi for the hour he was away from Kopy-King, and Mrs. Renfrew saw him in the yard. Bailey thinks you two planned the fire and, to tell you the truth, the evidence he's got makes a certain impression on me."

A long, tremulous sigh. "First of all," he said, "has anyone asked Eddie where he was at the time of the fire? Under our system of government-unless it was changed over the weekend and I didn't hear about it- under our constitutional system, a man has a right to examine the evidence against him. He has a right to face his accuser. And he is, of course, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. So naturally I am a little fucking bit disturbed that the Chief of Police of Handbag is going around making accusations of criminal misconduct behind a citizen's back! It's fucking unconstitutional, is what it is!"

I found a bottle of aspirin atop the refrigerator, held the phone between my chin and shoulder, and managed to pop the little bottle's lid. "So what would Eddie say if he was asked to account for his whereabouts at the time of the fire? Can you put him on the line?" I filled a glass of water and gulped down the two aspirin.

"Oh, I can see now exactly what is going on here. Bailey told you this bullshit and now it sounds as if you agree with him and you're going to join him in his campaign to blame the victim."

I said, "That's enough."

"What?"

"I can't take this. Every word you speak gives me a headache and I've had enough. I resign."

"No, please!"

"I'll mail you back your check, John. I can't work for you. I think you lie as naturally as you eat candy, and I think both the shooting and the fire are stunts you and Eddie staged to get sympathy and attention for you and your cause. It's a good cause overall-it's my good cause, too-but you're going about it in a way that goes too far and hurts innocent people and is self-defeating. I can't participate, I'm sorry."

"But you agreed! You said you would help protect me for twenty-four hours and you're not keeping your promise. You can't leave me alone like this when I'm in real danger! It's unfair! Look, I know I've cut a few corners. Can you tell me you've never cut a corner or two for a good cause? No, no, you can't, I know it. And even if I am too assertive sometimes, and I step on a few toes that maybe I shouldn't, do I deserve to be murdered for it? This is fucking insane! This is unfair! This is-"

I hung up on him. I couldn't stand to hear him speak another word. I quickly disconnected the answering machine and plugged the phone line back into the wall outlet. A few seconds later, when the phone began to ring, I let it ring and ring. Then I wrote a note for Timmy and left the house. end user