Hugh Washington rummaged in his pocket for his room key, his head still spinning from the drink. He keyed the door. The blast of hot air from inside caused him to flush. He’d left the heat on. He turned it off, flopped down on the bed and watched the ceiling move. He hadn’t sat in a bar till last call since before he was married, and the way he felt, it would be another twenty years before he did it again.
When he left the motel five hours earlier, he hadn’t intended on getting drunk, hadn’t even intended on going to a bar. Seeing Susan Spencer again after thirty years made him homesick, so he took the ten minute drive down Across The Way Road and found himself back in Palma.
The lazy main street of thirty years ago now sports two bars, three restaurants, a sporting goods store, two pharmacies, a bookstore, two banks, two gas stations and a few other small businesses. Not a big town by anybody’s standards, but not the one bar, one gas station town that he’d grown up in.
He parked in front of the bookstore. He wanted to walk the street. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt. Plenty of time to get back and watch Kohler’s place. Besides, he still needed a warm jacket, though he doubted he’d find anyplace open.
He moved up the street with an easy stride, curious as any vacationing tourist. He was reminded of the many vacations he’d gone on with his family and how he and Jane used to love window shopping, looking at things they couldn’t afford. He’d sense the longing in her heart and he’d say, ‘Someday I’ll buy you one of those,’ and she’d always answer, ‘You’re all I want. You and Glenna.’ But he always suspected she wasn’t being completely truthful, because she stared at the new dresses and the jewelry with a kind of burning intensity, like she was carving the image into her mind. If she couldn’t possess it physically, she would posses it mentally.
He was feeling sorry for himself and he hated it. He stopped in front of Dewey’s Tavern. A drink might help chase the blues away and some of the cold as well. He went in. The tavern might have been transported from London. Even the smell was authentic. He bellied up to the bar and ordered a Guinness. When in Rome.
“ Mr. Washington, we are meeting again.” Hugh recognized the voice of Jaspinder Singh even before he turned around. He shook his hand. Singh was drinking a coke.
“ You live in Palma?” Hugh asked, making conversation.
“ Eleven years, since I bought the market Tampico side.” Tampico was on the north side of the bay, Palma the south.
“ You work Tampico side, live Palma side. You must know everybody in the area?”
“ Are you wanting more information?”
“ A little. I was wondering if you could help me put a couple of names to a couple of descriptions.”
“ I could try.”
“ The first fellow is a skinny little man, losing his hair, combs it over, right to left,” Washington swept his hand across his head to show what he meant, “slanty eyes, reminds me of a weasel.”
“ And the other,” Jaspinder Singh said, “Looks like an ape?”
“ Yep.”
“ They are Frank and Bobby Markham. Frank is the older brother, Bobby is as stupid as he looks. Not retarded. Just stupid.”
“ You can see it in his eyes,” Hugh said.
“ Yes, in his eyes. I am thinking these are not nice men. Very bad. As you must know, they work for Dr. Kohler. Where he found them, nobody knows, but many people are wishing he would send them back.”
“ Have they been into any trouble?”
“ No, I don’t think so. You would have to ask Sheriff Sturgees. It’s just that they look at you with contempt, like you’re beneath them. I could well imagine them as Gestapo working under a man like Kohler. They seem well suited for that kind of work.”
“ You wouldn’t happen to know where they live, would you?”
“ They live at Kohler’s.”
“ That’s cozy.”
“ The doctor is away most of the time. When he’s out of town you can find the Markham brothers Tampico side, drinking at the Long Bar, or here. When the doctor is in residence, they stick to him like shadows.”
“ One more question, not related. When I was a boy my dad used to take me Tampico side to Dewey’s Men’s shop. It was the only place you could buy Levi’s. This Dewey related?” He made a sweeping gesture with his hand.
“ His son.”
“ And old man Dewey? Is he still alive?”
“ Very much so and still selling Levi’s in the same location.”
“ It’s good to see that not everything has changed.” Washington took a long pull on his beer.
“ Much here has, like the murders this morning.”
“ What murders?”
“ A woman was attacked on the beach early this morning, right in front of her son. Fortunately an alert passerby was swift thinking and ran the homeless beggar down in his jeep.”
Hugh felt sick. He was a trained cop. He should have stopped and made sure that woman was all right.
“ Is she okay?” he asked.
“ Oh yes, the man was stopped before he could cut her.”
“ He had a knife?”
“ Oh yes, a big knife, a Bowie knife.”
“ Very bad,” Washington said, glad the woman hadn’t been hurt.
“ But it looks like he killed a young family earlier, before he attacked the woman. We are getting too much like the big city. Soon I fear I will have to look for another place to bring up my children.”
“ Where? It’s getting to be the same all over.”
“ Out by Victorville maybe, the high desert, not much crime there?”
“ What kind of life can kids have out there?” Washington wanted to know.
“ I just want them to have a life.”
“ I understand that,” Washington said, thinking about Glenna and what America’s violent society had done to her.
“ I went to a lot of trouble to become an American,” Jaspinder Singh said, as if reading his mind, “but I want my kids safe. I might leave. Maybe Canada or Australia,” he paused for a few seconds, “or New Zealand. Someplace safe.”
He sat with Jaspinder Singh through three more beers, before bidding the man goodnight. He should have gone too, but he stayed, sipping beer and feeling sorry for himself, till last call. Never again, he told himself, as he went into the bathroom to splash cold water on his face.
Knowing he couldn’t sleep and feeling that he’d let Glenna down by not being on station in the thicket across from Kohler’s, he decided to go out there now. He changed back into the camouflage clothes he’d bought earlier, having to struggle into them. He wasn’t drunk, he thought, just a little tight, but deep down he knew that if he would’ve pulled himself over, he would’ve taken himself to jail. He grabbed his keys and went out the door.
He cranked the ignition, the starter motor whirred, but the car didn’t start. He tried again, nothing. The car was trying to tell him something, but he wasn’t listening. He pumped the gas three times, held the pedal to the floor, cranked the ignition a third time and the car sprang into life. He drove out of the parking lot, making a left turn on Mountain Sea Road, toward Kohler’s and that dirt road a quarter mile beyond.
It was a quarter to three when he turned onto the dirt track and parked the car. Once the headlights were off he was bathed in black. It was a dark night, the moon and stars hidden under a low, cloud-covered sky. Like last night, he thought, when he’d found the blood all over the walls. He had the unshakable feeling that the overhanging clouds and the bloody walls in that room were intertwined and he shivered, but he was too drunk to be afraid.
He fumbled the keys out of the ignition and stumbled out of the car. He wondered how he made it out here and how he was going to get the trunk open with his unsteady hands in the dark, but he did. He took out the carbine, the extra clip and the flashlight, then closed the trunk.
“ Prepared, like a boy scout,” he mumbled, as he flicked the flashlight’s switch. The light stayed dark. “Some boy scout,” he said, still mumbling. “No batteries.” But through the fog haze he vaguely remembered buying some. Again he fumbled with the keys, struggling with the trunk. Once it was open, he ran his hands around the interior,
