Nobody Runs Forever

“I’ve talked with her,” Gwen said. “On the phone, before I came here.”

“Then she can tell you,” he said, pointing at the notebook as though wanting her to write all the good reports down in there. “Not one black mark, no unacceptable associates, got a legitimate job, I learned my lesson, that’s all over. And it was only the one mistake anyway. Over.”

“So,” she said, “you have no idea who would take a shot at you.”

The way his face went, for just a second there, told a different story. His eyes shifted, his mouth skewed as though searching for some safe expression, and the whole countenance seemed to go slack with wariness, as though he’d just heard a dangerous noise. Then it was all swept off his face; he turned, round-eyed with innocence, and said, “I been lying here, I been thinking about it, I mean, I got nothing else to think about, and I just don’t get it. Maybe it was mistaken identity, because the guy was behind me, or just a wild shot, or I don’t know what.”

He knows who did it, Gwen thought, or he thinks he does. The worst thing to do now, she knew, was confront him directly, push him, because then he’d just close up forever. She said, “Well, we’ll hope to find out from the shooter himself what he had in mind.”

“That’s the way to go,” he agreed.

She tapped the notebook again. “So who do you pal around with these days?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, and he was just a little too casual. “There’s some people at work I hang out with sometimes, that’s about it. You know, the position I’m in, I gotta be very careful these days, I don’t wanna mess things up after I built all this good record.”

“No, I can see that,” she said. “You’re smart to think that way. Any lady friends at the moment?”

“Nah.” He was being boyish again. “You meet somebody, you know, you say you’re on parole, it isn’t a turn- on.”

Laughing, she said, “For some women, it is. I’ve seen them.”

“Well, those are the ones,” he said, “I shouldn’t hang out with anyway.”

“You’re right. Elaine Langen? See much of her any more?”

“Oh, my God, you even know about that! You sure checked me out, Det— What is it?”

“Reversa. Just Detective is fine.”

“Okay. Anyway, you know everything about me, you know more’n I do, you don’t need to ask me nothing.”

“Well, just in case,” she said. “Elaine Langen, for instance.”

“That was a long time ago, Detective,” he said, and when he was being solemn like that, as though talking about a religious subject, he was more boyish than ever. “That ended when I did the crime and I did the time.”

“You don’t see her any more.”

“Not like that. We live, I don’t know, seven, eight miles apart, I see her on the street, that’s about it.”

“And her husband? Jack Langen, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Jack.” There was something dismissive in the way he said the name.

“Do you see much of him these days?”

“What, Jack Langen? I don’t think I’ve seen him since I got out. Well, since I went in.”

“Do you think he holds a grudge?”

“Against me? After all this time? I—” Then his face lit up with amusement. “What, you think he did it? Shot me? Jack Langen? He isn’t gonna shoot anybody.”

“You’re sure of him,” Gwen said.

Beckham was sure. There was no faking now. He said, “Jack Langen got even with me when he pressed charges and got me put away. The old man wanted to give me a pass. No, if anybody was gonna shoot anybody, and I’m not going to— No, I won’t even say it.”

“But since you’re not seeing her any more, there’s no reason to.”

“Exactly.”

She tapped the notebook some more, looking at the history recorded there in her small, neat printing. There was too much emptiness in this life; there was something missing. She said, “So you aren’t close to anybody right now? You won’t be having any visitors while you’re in here?”

“Well, my sister,” he said, and suddenly lit up with triumphant amusement. Pointing at the notebook, he crowed, “You didn’t know about her!”

“That’s true,” Gwen admitted. “Tell me about your sister.”

“She’s been living over in Buffalo,” he said. “To tell you the truth, we haven’t been so close for a while. Long time, really. But she got divorced last year, and one of her kids is in college and the other works for IBM, so when I called her to tell her about this she said she’d come help out while I’m laid up. You know, water the plants in my house and like that. In fact, she’s gonna stay in my house while I’m in here, she’s driving over from Buffalo today, she might even be in the place by now. Well, not yet, she’ll phone when she gets there.”

“Well, that’s good,” Gwen said. “You’ll have family close by. What’s your sister’s name?”

“Wendy Rodgers.”