Waltz of Shadows

16

I got the video tapes out of my truck and went around and unlocked my study, which is the bottom floor of our place, and separate of the rest of the house; a kind of mother-in-law quarters.

I slipped inside feeling disappointed. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of the cassettes being dismissed as evidence, due to the way they were obtained.

Still, I didn’t let that stop me. I took the cassettes over to my TV and laid them on top, and went to work.

I have video duplicating equipment down there, because to explain it bluntly, I often duplicate copies of movies for personal use. It’s also a place where I repair damage to rental videos, something I’ve gotten damned good at.

I cleaned the heads on the machines first, then made copies of the videos we had stolen and watched them while they recorded. There really wasn’t anything in the video with Dandke onoc and Fat Boy to assure a jury that money was exchanging hands, but it was certainly suspicious looking, and would convince a jury that Bill hadn’t made up Fat Boy.

I took Fat Boy’s appearance in as best I could, for future reference. He dressed like a poster child for bad taste. He walked like his feet were killing him. He was certainly fat, and he walked funny, but the meat on him didn’t jiggle. It was a hard kind of fat, well-marbled, like a show hog, and his arms were big and firm beneath his coat, filling out the sleeves the way sausage meat fills out a casing. The rest of him was average looking. He didn’t appear to be someone who would take money for shooting someone in cold blood.

As for the other cassette, it helped establish that there was in fact a Disaster Club. I came away from seeing it feeling Bill was dumber than I thought, getting mixed up in something like that.

I also decided Sharon had been one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen, and obviously one of the most messed up.

I finished making the copies and fell asleep.

When I awoke, I rolled over and glanced at the clock on the wall. I had been asleep for about an hour and a half. I didn’t feel exactly renewed, but I didn’t feel that my brain was a coconut packed with sand anymore.

I looked Arnold up in the phone book and called him. I wanted to connect. I felt strange, not having talked to him after all those years, then, in one evening and a night and an early morning, we had talked and argued and broken into a couple of apartments and stolen some possibly incriminating video tapes. It seemed like every day business. Very comfortable. Maybe we could start robbing filling stations.

He answered on the fifth ring.

“I was out feedin’ the dog,” he said. “What’s up?”

I told him what Bev had said about the way we had obtained evidence.

“Well, Bubba-son, Beverly’s thinking on her feet, but in this case she’s wrong. You see, cop gets information like that, it’s suspicious, but someone ain’t a law officer breaks and enters, gets information and turns it over to the police, then it can be used in court. ’Course, you got to face the breaking and entering charge.”

“How do we get around that?”

“I’m not sure we do. My suggestion is we leave Billy out of it. He’s in deep enough doo-doo as it is. But you and me, we could take the rap, or I could.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Glad you said that. I wasn’t going to do it. I was just being melodramatic. I won’t let you take it either.”

“Never planned on it. In fact, I’d rather neither of us took it.”

“Maybe we ought to pin it on Billy after all,” Arnold said.

“Ha. Ha. Isn’t there a way around all this?”

“Might be. How well you know this lawyer?”

“He woulft"0em" wdn’t suck poison out of my balls I got snake bit there, but I know him well enough. He’s a good lawyer, I can say for sure. Well connected. Something of an opportunist. He’s won some high-powered cases.”

“Then lend an ear,” Arnold said. “There might be a way around our problem. A lawyer can call up the powers that be, say, ‘Hey, I got some evidence comes to me from a client, but I can’t say who ’cause the client is a thief. He was breaking and entering and panicked cause he heard a night watchman, grabbed what he could. A couple of video tapes.’”

“Sure,” I said. “I was a burglar, I’d have to have a couple of random video cassettes before I broke and ran.”

“Say a burglar got home and watched the tapes, thought they looked kind of funny. Thought there might be something really big going on. And though the guy’s a thief, he doesn’t want any part of something like this. So he calls the lawyer and turns the cassettes in, but stays anonymous.”

“So I tell Virgil I’m a thief?”

“No. But he might play the game some, he thinks it’s important.”

“There’s nothing on either of those tapes means much unless you’ve got the background on them. A burglar couldn’t see those and suspect much of anything.”

“Hell, I don’t know, Bubba. I’m talking off the top here. Thing to do is jam with your lawyer, feel him out before you show him your etchings. Know what I mean?”

“I suppose,” I said. “Something else I want to tell you. I don’t know why, but I want to.”

“Shoot.”

“I love you. I’ve always loved you. Been driving by your place for years. Stopping and looking but never going up to the door. I realize now, the pain I’ve felt all that time wasn’t anger or betrayal. It was loss.”

“I know,” Arnold said.