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Choices Got a call from Dewey one night a week or so later, at home. Talking fast, leaving stuff out, I heard him tell me I would wanna see about it, but I couldn’t figure any a’ the rest of it. “Where? What are you talking about?” “Roberta! That fella, that one from the picnic, I don’t know what’s going on, he’s making Roberta cry, and she told me to go on out, otherwise I’da--“ “I got it.” That was all I needed to know. I grabbed my jacket, kissed Lynn, and headed out the door. Peggy’s little sister, Pam, was behind the counter. She looked scared. “Bill” was standing right across from her. Roberta was standing right next to him. “You can’t walk in here and mess around with my niece,” Roberta said, and Dewey was right, there were tear tracks down her cheeks, but she wasn’t backing down. “‘cause I won’t stand for it. You hear me? I don’t care what you think you know about me. This is my place. I’m telling you to leave. You go ahead and tell anybody anything you want.” “Aunt Bertie, it’s all right, he didn’t do anything, it was just talking.” “You be quiet, little missy. You’re in trouble, too.” I got all that as I was walking from the door to where “Bill” was standing. Didn’t have to be Einstein to figure out what happened. Those nieces of Roberta’s were the flirtiest little girls in Bisbee. They weren’t tramps, they just didn’t know any better. I grabbed his collar, pulled his arm up behind his back and slammed him down on the counter. “Did he touch her?” I asked Roberta. The sonuvabitch wasn’t smiling now. He had a snarl on his face; I guess I liked that better. “Did he put his hands on her at all?” I bent down so “Bill” could hear me good. “If you touched her, asshole, I got you. She’s jailbait.” “I am not!” Pam said. “I’ve never been to jail! Well, except for that one time when I was delivering the pie.” “No,” Roberta said. “I don’t think so.” She wiped her eyes with her apron. “I knew a guy like him in NYC. Always snooping around, always trying to get something over on everybody.” “Well, you’re through now, you stupid old lady!” “Bill” said, before I slammed him down on the counter again. He grunted, and said, “By this time tomorrow, everybody’s gonna know your sorry little secret.” “Shut up, you.” Grabbed his hair and banged just his head against the enamel countertop. She bit her lip. Looked a little anxious. “Everybody knows you here,” I said.. “Who’s gonna believe this bum?” “I don’t know……You already know about it, Bud. But…..some of the ladies in the altar society…….” “Don’t worry--it won’t come to that. Be better to spend your time figuring out how to explain the facts of life to this little girl here.” She nodded. She lost the worried look; Pam was in for it. She grabbed her by the ear---“Ow!” “You come with me, young lady.”---and dragged her back into the kitchen. “Now---“ I hauled “Bill” up, there was blood trickling from a cut next to his eye. “I’m gonna take you back to the station to make sure you ain’t drunk, and then maybe let you stay overnight, cool off a little.” “I didn’t do anything! You can’t lock me up!“ “Oh yeah? Watch me.” “You stupid asshole. I’ve been leaving you alone.” I stopped right before we got out the door. “Who gives a fuck what you do?” I thought about bashing his head against the door frame once for good luck before I took him to the station…..but didn’t. “You better,” he sneered. “I’m gonna make mincemeat outta your old lady now.” That did it. He howled when he hit the mahogany; I dragged him to my car. Asshole. I felt better about things for a little while. Herbert let him out in a coupla hours. Said I didn’t have a reason to detain him. “Bud,” he said. “This is a modern police force. You can’t just do anything you want. Due process of law, that’s what we have to have. You can’t lock people up because you don’t like them.” “This guy’s bad, I know it.” “That’s not enough. You have to have evidence, and more importantly…..you have to have a crime. You know that.” I knew it. Dammit. He hadn’t done anything but talk. And the stuff he talked about was stuff people like Roberta wouldn’t wanna let anybody else know about. If nobody will admit to being a victim….then you got nothing. Lynn had been pretty quiet since the picnic. Didn’t have much to say. Didn’t ask me about the stranger and I didn’t volunteer anything. He said he was gonna make mincemeat outta my old lady. I thought about warning her…..but I didn’t wanna. I didn’t wanna bring it up, didn’t wanna upset her. If he said anything to her, she’d tell me, right? If he said anything to anybody else, they’d tell me, right? And coulda been it was just talk. Maybe he’d think about it again, and decide not to piss me off. Maybe I could keep him off her back. He had to know if he tried his routine on my wife, he’d be in more trouble than he could handle. That’s how I had it figured. I’m just fucking stupid sometimes, you know it? Didn’t see “Bill” around for a coupla weeks. Figured he was laying up at Lois’s. Recuperating. Probably figuring how he could screw me. End of the month, sitting at the dining room table, looking through the bank statements; the kids were watching the television set we bought about 6 months before, laughing at whatever geezer was cutting up on the screen. Lynn came to stand in the doorway. “Hey, baby.” She didn’t say anything. It only took me a few seconds to figure out why. She knew I’d see it; she knew I’d ask her. “I forget about something? Did we buy something worth $1000 I just haven’t seen yet?” She shook her head. I sat back and waited. “I had to do it. I had to give him the money. He would have ruined everything for us otherwise.” “Jesus fucking Christ.” I didn’t have to ask her who she meant. “Tell me you didn’t give that bastard cash just because he asked for it. Dammit, Lynn, you’re smarter than that.” “I had to do it,” she said again. “So you think he’s gonna go away and leave us alone now? Is that what you think?” “No.” “Damn right he’s not. Why didn’t you say something to me first? Jesus Christ.” “I knew you wouldn’t want to pay him. I was afraid he’d talk before we could think of what to do. I was afraid--“ “And what’s to keep him from talking anyway?” “He won’t talk. Not yet, anyway. He’ll want to see how much he can bleed us for.” “Uh-huh.” “I knew he wouldn’t go away. I was just buying time.” “Time for what?” “I don’t know yet. I just know I’m not going to let him do this to me.” Yeah, I thought, sounds like he’s already doing it to you, baby..….. Lynn was smart, she was smarter than me. She coulda balanced the checkbook and paid the bills in half the time it took me, and not made any mistakes, either. We both knew it. I did it ‘cause I wore the pants, it was my job; didn’t matter how long it took. She was pretty smart, but maybe she wasn’t as smart as she thought she was. Sure as hell not as smart about men as she thought she was. She let Patchett run her, sell her; she let the men who paid Patchett use her however they wanted; but she always thought she had something to say about it, thought she had some control. She told me she wasn’t forced to do anything she didn’t wanna do. She told me she did what Patchett wanted her to do because he took care of her, invested her money, kept her from getting slapped around; but being sold, even if it’s to guys that wear $100 suits and say please and thank you, ain’t my idea of being took care of. She said she went along with the blackmail stuff with Hudgeons because it was part of her job, but I think it was because of what they mighta done to her if she didn’t. She was smart enough to know just what that was. I guess what I’m saying is, it was another one of those roads you go down because you can’t see that there’s any others to pick from. And maybe you think you’re making the choice, but you ain’t. Same with “Bill.” She only thought she was making the decisions. I figured he knew just exactly what was going through her mind, and had already figured out how to take advantage of it. Taking care a’ her’s the job I wanted, the job I got---so it was up to me to do it right. Didn’t matter what it took. Went looking for the bastard the next day, to lean on him. Nobody home at Lois’s place. The car was gone, the lights were off, nobody answered my knock. So I went cruising. Driving. Looking. Thinking, for a change. It wasn’t the money. It wasn’t. If I’d thought a few thou woulda got him outta town for good, I’da given him what we had and borrowed the rest. But it never works that way. Leeches never stop sucking at ya, till you got no more to give. Till you’re dried up and dead. Lynn. Lois. Arbutus. Roberta. Who’d be next? No, not next---those four were just the women I knew. Who was he shaking down right now, that I didn’t know about? What was he doing when he dropped outta sight for a week or two at a time? We knew how he knew Lynn…..but how did he know the others’ secrets? Why did he come to Bisbee in the first place? Who the fuck was he? Last question first. Drove back to Lois’s house bent on breaking the law. Didn’t have to B&E—the back door was unlocked. Walked through the kitchen, into the living room, and almost tripped over Lois, sitting on the floor, a half empty bottle of gin on one side of her, and her damn little dog on the other. She squinted up at me. “Well, Deputy White. Look at you.” “Mrs. Larsen.” “I heard you knock before. I knew it was you. Nobody knocks like you do.” “Why didn’t you answer the door?” “You know……when you knock and nobody answers, it usually means nobody wants you to come in.” She giggled. “Actually……that’s me. Nobody. Come on in and sit down.” She was wearing a towel. “Uh, I was wondering if you could help me with something.” “Sure. Come on,” she patted the floor next to the bottle. “Put it right here.” So I sat down. “Do you know “Bill’s” real name?” “Umm…..does he have one? Hey, you don’t have a glass. I’ll go get you one.” She had a tough time getting up off the floor. Her towel came loose. “Whoops!” She giggled, tried to stick the end back in where it had been, and didn’t succeed. Stumbled into the kitchen. I got up and started looking around. Didn’t know what I was looking for; figured I’d know it when I saw it. Everything laying around her little house looked like it belonged to Lois. Mail, keys, magazines. Nothing with a man’s name on it. Opened a desk drawer, found stationary and pens. Poked my head in the bedroom—it was the same. Tidy. Looked in the waste baskets. Empty. The dog followed me. He looked more like a little blonde puffball now, insteada the drowned rat he looked like the last time I saw him. Whenever I stopped to look at something, he growled at me, a ridiculous high-pitched snarl of hatred. “I rescued you, you little shit, shut up.” He snarled harder, and almost barked. “You bite me, I’m throwing you back down the sewer.” I got done with my looking, and came back to the living room, the little puffball following me, but Lois hadn’t come back from the kitchen. I waited for a few minutes, then went looking for her. Found her leaning over the counter, clutching the front of her towel in both fists, tears trickling down her cheeks. “I can’t find a glass,” she said. “And I can’t make my towel tie.” “I don’t need a glass,” I said. “Let me help you with this.” I tucked her towel the way it was supposed to go, and didn’t look any more than I could help. She leaned her forehead up against my tie. “I tried for you.” “I know. But I’m married.” She sniffled. “Everybody’s married. Everybody nice. I just wanted a nice fella to go around with, you know?” “You shoulda tried for Albert.” She nodded. “I always pick the wrong ones.” “Next time, try picking somebody that isn’t married.” “Not gonna be a next time.” She started to sob. I shouldn’ta touched her, marriage was a serious thing, but……dammit. I put my arm around her, and led her out to the sofa. Sat her down, sat down next to her. She curled up under my arm like a kitten. The dog stopped growling, pricked up his ears, looked interested. “Don’t stay too long,” she said, and hiccupped. “And don’t drink the bourbon.” Her head slid down and rested on my thigh. Her eyes were shut, stayed shut. “You didn’t eat your pie,” she sighed. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.” “I’ll have to give your wife the recipe before I go.” Her lashes were long and wet with tears. I watched ‘em dry. Bourbon? Lois drank gin. When she started to snore, I slid out from under her. She stretched out in her sleep, the way a cat does. Her towel came undone again. I found a blanket in the closet in her bedroom, and covered her up with it. The dog hopped up on the end of the sofa and laid his head on her feet. Looked until I found the bottle of bourbon. Wrapped my handkerchief around it before I picked it up. Locked the doors on my way out.
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