Cul-de-Sac Read online

“I don’t know what I want you to do. I didn’t have anyone else to go to, don’t know anyone in the area …” After using the handkerchief on her eyes she refolded it. “This was in your left back-pocket wasn’t it. A sharp pocketknife in your left front pocket … carbon blade, lockback. A few hundred dollars cash in your right front pocket. Am I right?”

  He said she was close enough.

  “I knew how you’d be dressed too. Old jacket, something tweedy and formerly expensive, faded blue oxford shirt, tan slacks, white socks, heavy black shoes. Same haircut from when you were what, thirty years old? I bet if I came over there I’d smell bay rum wouldn’t I?”

  He thought of telling her come on over and find out but instead said, “All I’ve done for the past fourteen years was get older.”

  “Still armed?”

  “Always.”

  “I remember everything about you like it was yesterday.”

  He felt the same way about her. Everything … but most especially the ocean. For him Annie would always be the ocean.

  She leaned forward. “Teddy—”

  “This building you and your husband bought …”

  “Cul-De-Sac.” She drew back in her seat. “I had no idea until last night it was so big, so dilapidated. A massive square building, three stories of rooms arranged around an open center. Paul told me that originally there was a huge skylight illuminating the building’s entire interior but it’s been covered over and now the interior’s so dark you can turn on all the lights and it still seems like you’re in shadows.

  “All I know about renovation is what I’ve learned being married to Paul for three years but just walking through Cul-De-Sac you can tell it would take a fortune to restore … some of the doorways have been bricked up, walls torn down, corridors full of junk, there’s been vandalism, fixtures torn out, the plumbing would have to be replaced, new wiring. No way could we ever get our money back and it’s too big of a job for one man anyway.”

  “You have any idea what your husband and this other guy might be involved in?”

  “No. He kept mentioning elephant, is that some kind of drug term … like, gimme an elephant of heroin?”

  Camel smiled in that peculiar way of his, as if squinting from the sun. “Not that I know of … your husband ever been involved in drugs?”

  “No, Paul’s a super-straight arrow. I was with him once when he was stopped for failing to signal a turn, the cop was very nice about it, issued a written warning … but Paul was a nervous wreck, like he was being arrested for murder.”

  Camel went back to wondering what it was exactly that Annie wanted him to do.

  She emptied her beer bottle. “You think I could get something stronger to drink?”

  “Sure.”

  “Large vodka?”

  “How you want it?”

  “In a glass.”

  Up at the bar, Camel asked Eddie for a double vodka rocks.

  “I assume it’s for your friend.”

  “Yeah.”

  When Eddie brought the drink he said, “You’re happy.”

  “What?”

  “Suddenly you’re a happy man.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I ain’t saying you got a big shit-eating grin on your face but you’re definitely a happy man.”

  On the way back to the booth Camel realized Eddie was right.

  8

  State police superintendent Parker Gray suffered a terrific jones otherwise he wouldn’t be doing this, not here in the office where he could get caught. He’d tucked his tie into his shirt, now he was rolling the chair away from the desk and leaning forward so he wouldn’t get any of the white powder on his clothes … it was already smudging three fingertips and a thumb, had already dusted the blue cover of a statistical report Gray was using as a placemat … virtually impossible to eat these powdered-sugar doughnuts without getting the white dust everywhere. Gray had acquired his addiction back when he drove patrol and every once in a while just had to have one.

  If the powdered sugar fell on your clothes and you tried to wipe it off, that just made the mess worse, created a greasy white smear. The key was to stay leaning over until you could … shit, the telephone. Keeping his head forward and using his unpowdered left hand Gray picked up the receiver but didn’t speak just yet because his mouth was full.

  “Superintendent Gray?”

  “Mm-uh.”

  “I hope you remember me … Kenneth Norton?”

  Gray almost choked, quickly licking the fingers and thumb of his right hand before reaching for his coffee cup.

  “Hello?”

  After he got a gulp of coffee down, Gray said, “I remember you sure, what’s up huh?”

  “Is Donald Growler out of prison?”

  Gray felt his heart go funny. “Of course not … why?”

  “For the past week someone’s been asking around for me … called a place where I used to work, showed up at one of my old apartments. People who’ve told me this, they’ve described the guy and it sounds a little like Donald … except he’s not giving anyone his name.”

  Gray stood and moved away from the powdered sugar mess waiting like a booby trap on his desk.

  Norton asked, “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If Donald’s out of prison—”

  “He’s not.”

  “You promised me … if I did what you said, you promised me Donald would never—”

  “This guy you say’s looking for you, you don’t know it’s Growler huh?”

  “No but—”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “I am worried, I lied for you!” When Parker didn’t comment, Norton pressed the issue. “You and your partner said Donald was guilty but he’d get off on a technicality unless I—”

  “You’re mistaken.”

  Shocked into a moment’s silence Norton finally pleaded with the superintendent, “Don’t do this to me, you owe me protection—”

  “Mr. Norton, I don’t owe you anything.”

  “If Donald’s escaped from prison—”

  “He didn’t escape, I would’ve been notified.” Maybe, Parker thought.

  “Would you be notified if he was released?”

  “He wasn’t.”

  “But you don’t know that for sure do you … do you? If Donald finds me, I’m dead—”

  “He’s in prison.”

  “I hope you’re right!” Norton becoming screechy. “I hope to God you’re right!”

  After hanging up Gray moved quickly behind his desk to get to the computer terminal, unluckily catching the edge of the blue vinyl report cover he’d been using as a placemat, flipping it enough to puff up a mini-snow-cloud of sugar dust that powdered his pants just over the left pocket. “Fuck me,” he muttered … a sentiment that after five minutes with the computer he found himself repeating.

  9

  On Camel’s third trip to the bar for Annie, Eddie asked him was she drinking them or spilling them … by the time she finished that third vodka her eyes were shining wet and her smile had slipped a few degrees off horizontal.

  “I don’t want to go back to a motel.”

  “You can stay with me.”

  Implications kept them both quiet for a moment, then Annie said okay. Camel suggested they leave now, get Annie something to eat and maybe she wanted to take a nap too.

  She nodded but kept seated, holding onto the empty glass as if Teddy might try to snatch it from her. “Paul was talking about hearing things in that building … a piano playing, scratching in the walls.”

  “He thinks it’s haunted?”

  “He said Satan keeps showing up.” Annie stared at the glass and considered asking for another. “When I opened my eyes and saw that man standing there I thought it was the devil.” She glanced over at Camel. “I’ve never been more scared in my … then this morning I couldn’t think what to do, who to go to for help …” A strange stricken loo
k came over Annie’s face just before she turned sideways in the booth, lowered her head to the level of the tabletop, and vomited on the floor.

  Teddy’s shoes got splattered, he went around to Annie who was apologizing even before she stopped throwing up.

  “Come on, I’ll take you to my place,” he said, helping her stand.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it.”

  When Eddie came over, Annie said, “I’ll clean it up.”

  He told her same as Camel did, forget it.

  But she kept apologizing. On the way out she looked back at the people who were looking at her and just as Annie and Camel got to the door she said to the last person at the bar, “It’s morning sickness.”

  By the elevator she leaned against Camel and kept her eyes on the floor. “All over your shoes,” she said.

  “Not a problem.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Annie, forget it.”

  When the elevator came she told him, “I don’t know why I said that about morning sickness, I’m not pregnant.”

  “I know.”

  “How would you—”

  Then the elevator arrived and they got in. It was empty but stopped every few floors to pick up passengers, Annie holding onto Teddy as if she expected the ride to turn bumpy.

  Half a dozen people were in there with them when Annie said, “I had my first orgasm with you, in your sleeping bag.” She was speaking softly against his neck but in the close space of that elevator everyone heard her plainly. “Only ten years old but I felt so grown-up that night.”

  Camel stood stoically looking at his shoes.

  The elevator stopped at the twelfth floor where two women got out, turning to get a good look at Camel so maybe they could pass on his description to the police. Up on Fourteen when Camel helped Annie from the elevator the other four people gave them plenty of room to exit.

  Annie clung to him tightly, they made a clumsy time of it walking down the corridor to his office. While Camel was getting out his keys she raised up on her toes and whispered in his ear, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s nothing, forget—”

  “No I mean our baby.”

  He stopped fumbling with the keys.

  “I’m sorry about our baby,” Annie said just before collapsing like she’d been shot, falling so suddenly and heavily that Camel dropped the keys to free up his hands and barely managed to grab Annie’s shoulders before her head hit the hard tile floor.

  10

  Before putting her to bed Camel removed Annie’s shoes and helped her lift off the blue dress … she had on no underwear and seeing her naked aroused him with such urgency that he felt foolish, quickly covering Annie with a blanket. She said the room was spinning, he promised it would stop. Within seconds she either passed out or fell hard to sleep and Camel went into the adjoining office where he conducted business, Camel Investigations.

  Mainly he worked for lawyers, collected evidence for divorce cases, checked on people to see if they were who and what they claimed to be. Camel also did a little business off the books, he’d hire out to go have a talk with someone, encourage the person to be reasonable. Maybe it was someone who’d been jilted then started harassing the ex and the ex’s new lover … Camel would go over and talk to the jilted party about self-respect, getting on with your life. Or maybe there’s a feud in the family and this guy won’t return some property belonging to his brother-in-law who then hires Camel to go over and talk with the guy, urge him to be reasonable and do the right thing.

  In these endeavors Camel was himself eminently reasonable, he didn’t threaten violence or embarrass people in front of others … and neither was he always successful, though more often than not he was. Something about Camel, his face, his demeanor, made people pay attention to him, encouraged them to comply with what he was asking them to do. His ex-partner Alfred Bodine used to say that when Camel talked to you in a serious way it was like the Voice of God, Old Testament.

  His singular ambition had always been to be taken seriously. The highest compliment Camel’s father could give anyone was to say he was a serious man. Didn’t matter if the guy was a big shot or one of the grooms who hot-walked horses at the track where Camel’s father lost money on a regular basis … if the old man thought someone was worthy he’d tell Teddy, “Now that’s a serious man.”

  Being a serious man meant you could be relied upon, your word had value, you knew your business. Crooks could be serious men, so could drunks and people the world might consider losers … if they followed the rules. A serious man didn’t claim more knowledge than he owned, he wasn’t a loudmouth or bully, and even if he was poor he always carried a few hundred dollars cash on his person because cash is serious in a way checks and credit cards and promises to pay you later never can be. When a serious man picks up a restaurant tab he goes over to the waiter and pays it discreetly, he doesn’t make a show of grabbing the check. If a serious man helps you out with a loan, he doesn’t mention it around. And if he has a low opinion of you he either keeps it to himself or tells you to your face.

  Camel tried always to follow these and other rules, what he would or wouldn’t do … as complicated as chivalry, with Camel keeping the book on what was wrong, what was right.

  Going back into the other room and slipping under the covers with Annie would be wrong, Camel knew this instinctively … though if Annie came through the connecting door right now and took him by the hand and led him back to bed, he would accompany her joyously, without second thought. He wasn’t sure what the difference was, why going to her uninvited struck him as the act of a man who couldn’t be taken seriously, yet following her to bed wouldn’t break any of his rules. All this was tied up with what happened between them fourteen years ago and had very little to do with the legal fact that Annie was married.

  Camel used to have affairs with married women, though not for several years now … not since his affair with a woman who would make love to him only in the bed she and her husband used. As soon as the husband left for a business trip the woman would contact Camel. When Camel arrived at her house she’d always make a point of mentioning, her eyes flashing when she spoke, “I didn’t change the sheets.” As if this should arouse him the way it did her.

  One evening the husband called while Camel and the woman were in coitus. She picked up the bedside phone and carried on a conversation with her husband. She talked about ordinary things, she asked the husband how his flight was, did he have a nice room, the meeting go okay … and all the while she’s on top of Camel, moving back and forth on him, rubbing her breasts for him to watch, pulling on a nipple harder than he would’ve dared, keeping her eyes locked on his.

  Toward the end of the conversation she leaned forward and placed her left hand on the pillow next to Camel’s head, her right hand still holding the phone, breasts hanging just above Camel’s chest … then she brought her face close to his so that her lips were almost touching his mouth, the woman wide-eyed when she told her husband on the phone, “I love you.”

  After hanging up she fucked Camel the way a man sometimes will a woman, hard and fast to reach a conclusion … and Camel knew he was incidental, whatever was going on here existed between the woman and her husband.

  Camel never saw her again after that, made excuses why he couldn’t come over the next time her husband was out of town. The woman didn’t seem brokenhearted but the incident continued to fill Camel with a sense of wrongness … not regret or guilt but a sense that what had happened simply wasn’t right. Camel couldn’t explain even to himself the difference between fucking the guy’s wife while he’s out of town and unaware of it or fucking the guy’s wife while he’s out of town and unaware of it and on the phone with her … but he knew in ways he couldn’t articulate that the incident had crossed some line he didn’t want to be over. Just as he was instinctively sure that getting into bed with Annie would turn out wrong, would not be the act of a serious man.

  He hadn
’t met with much success in his life, didn’t have a good marriage and his career went bad there toward the end when it really counts, he was estranged from his daughter, he was broke and had sold his car … but if you asked anyone who knew him even those who didn’t particularly like him, to a person they’d tell you he was a serious man.

  To ensure Annie wouldn’t be disturbed by the calls he’d be making Camel closed the door between his two offices. The door had frosted glass in its top half so Camel could see if Annie woke up and turned on a light.

  First call was to Michael Neffering, Eddie’s boy who’s a real estate broker … Camel asking Michael if he could research a piece of property called Cul-De-Sac, find out its history and if the property had ever been connected to anything criminal. Michael said he’d call back within the hour.

  After several other calls Camel returned to check on Annie who still slept soundly. He wondered what she would think of the way he lived … in this room with daybed, hotplate, TV, microwave, half-size refrigerator, sink, cutting-board countertop, bookshelves, table and two chairs, recliner with footrest in front of it and a floor lamp behind, one corner of the room drywalled in to enclose the commode and shower. Maybe she’d think he’d mastered the art of low overhead.

  Annie’s face was plain in repose, it was animation that sparked whatever beauty she owned, the way she worked a smile up and down like window shades letting in sunlight, the way she flashed those blue green eyes like headlights going on and off high beams … that’s how Camel had always thought of her, light to his dark.

  When the telephone rang he slipped out of the room and softly shut the door … it was Michael Neffering calling back to tell Camel the Cul-De-Sac property had been in and out of the courts for as far back as he could trace. One entanglement over ownership came about because a person who would’ve inherited a one-third interest in Cul-De-Sac was convicted of murder.

  Camel started taking notes.

  “The victim,” Michael continued, “was a minor, Hope Penner, who owned one-third of Cul-De-Sac, an interest that would’ve gone to her cousin, Donald Growler, except he’s the one who killed her.”