Bloody River Blues Read online

  How far away was the Sheraton? Pellam wondered. How long would it take to get there? Forty minutes, he seemed to recall. Not that it would matter at this point. The time was now nine-thirty.

  He sat in a small room in the Maddox police department. Across an unsteady table were the two detectives. This tiny room, like the rest of the office, stank of age: old wood, Lysol, mold, sour paint. The walls were sickly green, and shaded incandescent bulbs hung down from the cloudy, grimy ceiling on black wires. In the main office of the station were a dozen desks. Only two of them were occupied, and only three others showed any signs that they were used.

  The drive to police headquarters seemed to take forever. Pellam now decided he shouldn't have told them about his meeting; he was sure the cops had intentionally driven ten miles out of their way to take him to the station and make sure he'd be late.

  When he'd been led in, cuffed and scowling, the four cops in the room looked up with eight resentful eyes. The Italian detective had crouched down in front of a cabinet, opened the doors and begun pulling things out, a Sears catalog, empty flowerpots, a shotgun in a plastic bag, stacks of memos. "Nope. Can't find it. Charlie, where's that Breathalyzer got to?"

  "Dunno."

  They had searched for a few minutes more, but it was a halfhearted exploration and they couldn't locate the machine.

  "We're going to have to get one from the Highway Patrol. Shouldn't take more'n an hour. You'll have to wait here till we do."

  When they'd said that, the time had been 8:05.

  "It is absolutely vital I get to my meeting," Pellam had growled.

  "Well, when people get arrested they don't always get what they want."

  "I. Am. Not. Drunk. Book me or release me."

  This had prompted them to take Pellam into the tiny canister of a room where he now sat. They asked, as long as they had some time, what did he remember about the Gaudia hit. They told him he could make a phone call if he'd give them one fact-just one-about the man in the Lincoln.

  'This is a setup."

  "Well, whatever you want to call it, it's all completely legal," the WASP said indifferently. "So why don't you just put on your thinking cap?"

  He gave them the story one more time and then said, "I want to see my lawyer."

  "That's it? That's what you told us before."

  "My lawyer," he said.

  "You aren't being charged with anything. We can't charge you with anything until you take the Breathalyzer test. You just-"

  "I want a lawyer."

  "You just'll have to wait." The Italian cop was angry at Pellam's impatience.

  The WASP cop looked like he had an idea. "Maybe as long as he's here, he could do that picture."

  "I don't know," Pellam offered. "I'm probably too drunk."

  "Ha. Give it a shot, why don't you?"

  He tried to do an Identikit composite of the man who had knocked into him. As he spoke, he gazed blankly at the words on the Suspect Description form. Hair, kinky, afro, fade, cornrows, caesar, processed, scar, tattoo words only, tattoo unknown type, limp, pimpled, pocked, harelip, left-handed, bushy eyebrows, muscular, stocking cap, cowboy hat, applejack, turban …

  No one was impressed with his composite drawing and the cops decided he was still being recalcitrant.

  The H cop said, "You know, nobody's come forward. You're the only one who can help."

  Pellam was trying to remember their names. Who was the H cop? Hilbert, Hanson, Hearst?

  "… we've done a tag check-"

  "Tag?" Pellam asked.

  The Italian cop, the G cop, said, "License plates on other cars in the vicinity that night."

  "Oh. Your supervisor? I want to see him right now."

  The WASP continued, "… and it came up zip. We've got no other witnesses."

  Hellman, Harrison?

  The G cop asked somberly if Pellam knew how many people were killed annually by drunk drivers. Pellam didn't know if he was supposed to answer or not.

  Hagedorn! That was it. Now he just had the G cop to worry about. Giovanni?

  Pellam said wearily, "Let me talk to my lawyer."

  "You can't talk to a lawyer," the G cop said.

  "I have a right. It's in the Constitution. Confront my accusers." Which Pellam regretted immediately. He sounded prissy and obnoxious-like the bald, spineless CIA director Tony Sloan had cast as the villain in his first movie. The cops looked at each other, then back to him. They seemed to be rolling their eyes, although their pupils didn't move from his face.

  The G cop said, "That's only if you're the defendant."

  "If I'm not a defendant then what am I doing here?"

  "Not very much," the G detective said bitterly. "Not very much at all."

  Pellam slammed his open palm on the desktop. It hit with a sound that surprised even him. The cops blinked but neither of them moved. "Are you going to arrest me for standing nearby a motor vehicle and having a sip of beer or not? If you can't find the killer…" Pellam felt his heart sprinting. "You can't find any leads, so you're blaming me."

  "Hey-"

  Through clenched teeth Pellam said, "You go to your boss and you say, 'It'd be open and shut, except there's this witness who hasn't got the balls to help us. He's a GFY.' Whatever the hell that is."

  Hagedom said, "Is somebody paying you off?"

  The Italian cop said, "That's a crime, sir. A serious crime. And you'll do hard time for that."

  Pellam knew about good cop, bad cop from some films he'd worked on. This was a variation: bad cop, really bad cop.

  Another officer, a young uniform, stuck his head in the door. "Can't find that Breathalyzer anywhere. Sorry. And MHP don't have one to spare."

  "Well, this is your lucky day, Pellam."

  "I've spent three hours in this hellhole. That's not lucky."

  "Well, sir, you could've been in our lockup all these three hours, which is a lot less pleasant than here."

  Pellam walked past them into the main room. He asked the desk officer, "Was there a guy here? Tall, blond hair, mustache?"

  "Yeah, but he left. Sorry."

  "He left sorry," Pellam s voice rang out in a singsong.

  "We had a little mix-up. My fault. I heard them boys talking about the Highway Patrol and, not seeing you, I thought they'd taken you there. I sent your friend to the troop HQ. It's over on 1- 70 a good piece. Forty, fifty miles or so." The voice added unemotionally, "Sorry about that."

  Pellam closed his eyes and rubbed them. "Could you give me a ride back to my camper?"

  "Afraid not, sir. Since you're not a suspect or a witness or anything that'd be against regulations."

  "Well, could you call me a cab, at least?"

  "Cab?" the officer laughed. He was joined by chuckles from other cops in the room. "The last time Maddox had a cab company was in, what was it, Larry?"

  "Oh, I'd guess it must've been-"

  "That's okay," Pellam said, "I'll walk."

  "To your camper?" one cop called. "Say, that's a long walk."

  Another said, "Couple miles, easy."

  TEN

  He found a pay phone outside a closed deli and finally got the front desk.

  Yessir, Mr. Weller had waited in the lobby until nine, then left with another gentleman. They were going to dinner. Would this be Mr. Pellam by any chance?

  "Yes. Did he leave a message for me?"

  Weller had. Pellam was to meet him at the Templeton Steak House at nine-thirty.

  An hour and a half ago.

  "Where is that?' ''

  According to the young man's blithe directions, it was a half hour from Maddox.

  "I'm calling from a pay phone. You wouldn't happen to have their number, would you?"

  "Well, I do. Were you thinking of having the steak?"

  "What?"

  "I was wondering if you were going to eat there or if you were going to meet Mr. Weller. Because if you were going to meet Mr. Weller, he was leaving the restaurant at ten-thirty. He had an el
even o'clock flight out of Lambert Field."

  "He's checked out?"

  'That's right. Believe he mentioned a trip to London."

  Pellam sighed. "And the other gentleman? Mr. Telorian."

  "I believe he was flying to Los Angeles tonight. I should say, sir, Mr. Weller was pretty anxious to see you. He asked a number of times at the desk if you'd called."

  Pellam was staring at the number pad on the phone.

  "Hello?" the pleasant desk clerk asked.

  "Still here."

  "Don't be too fast to pass up Templetons. For my money, best T-bone in the county. You still want that number?"

  Pellam declined.

  He dug another quarter out of his pocket, made a call and sat down on the curb.

  A half hour later the headlights of Stile's Taurus swept around a curve, and the car braked to a stop beside him. It was the first car he had seen on this road all night.

  ***

  "What you're experiencing is called phantom pain."

  "Like Ghostbusters," Donnie Buffett said. The woman smiled.

  Buffett shook his head as he laughed at his own tiny joke. Mostly, though, he was studying her. All right, she was a doctor and she was a woman. Well, Buffett knew better than to think it was weird that Dr. Weiser, this famous SCI specialist, wasn't a man. But he could not get over what kind of woman she was: young, early thirties, a sleek, pretty face, short, punky auburn hair, a pug nose, a chin dimple. Fingernails painted glossy white. Lipstick red as a stop sign. Under a white lab coat was a silk blouse printed with red and green and blue geometric shapes. And-in addition to dark stockings and black ankle boots that had hooks, not eyes, for the laces, she wore a black leather skirt. Almost a miniskirt.

  When she'd entered the room, the woman had stuck her hand out, firmly shook his, and said, "Wendy Weiser. Your SCI doctor. You're the cop, right?"

  Buffett had cocked his head, brushed off the surprise, and said, "Hope you don't mind if I don't stand up."

  "There you go," she had said. "Today's men. No chivalry to speak of."

  Then Weiser had plopped down in a chair and started right off talking, flashing her green eyes at him. She repeated a lot of what Dr. Gould had said. She didn't use the word "nonambulatory," though her message was no better than his.

  She explained the pain he had been feeling in his legs was common in SCI trauma and was called "phantom pain." That's when he had made the Ghostbusters comment.

  Now, as Buffett studied her'outfit, Weiser suddenly hopped up. She strode to the dotir and swung it closed, then returned. "There are rules, but… what's life without risks, huh?"

  "I'm a pretty safe man to be in a closed room with, wouldn't you say? I mean, I can't exactly chase you around the room.

  When I get a wheelchair you better watch out."

  "You and me, we'll race someday." She examined him * with a curious smile. "Sounds like the gunman didn't get your sense of humor."

  "Hey, Doctor." Buffett looked overtly grave. "If you're gonna help me I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna teach you to speak cop."

  "I say something wrong?"

  "Shooter."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "Not gunman."

  "Oh. You don't say gunman?"

  "On TV they say gunman. We say shooter. Or perp."

  "Perp?"

  "Perpetrator. Perp."

  "That's great." Her eyes widened. Buffett did not for a minute believe this enthusiasm but he appreciated it anyway. She added, "I'll have to use that sometime. Perp. Would a perp also rob somebody? Like a burglar?"

  "Yup. Perp equals bad guy."

  "So my ex-husband is a perp."

  "Could be," Buffett said. "And, while I'm giving you a lesson. He doesn't shoot. He smokes them. Or dusts them. Or he lays the hammer on somebody. And if he tolls them, he offs them or ices them or whacks or does them."

  "You have to learn all this in cop school, huh?"

  "It's more your postgraduate work."

  "Officer…"

  "Donnie."

  "And I'm Wendy. Everybody calls me Wendy." She looked at him with mystified, amused eyes. "Donnie, I've got to say that most people aren't quite so chipper after they've been through what you have."

  He waved his arm vaguely toward his feet, signifying his injury. "This goes with the job description. You're not willing to accept it you don't sign on in the first place. Doesn't mean I like it."

  Could he really call her Wendy? She was a doctor. Then again, she was wearing earrings in the shape of tiny hamburgers.

  Weiser opened her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes; a lighter was stuffed efficiently into the cellophane wrapper of the pack. "You mind?"

  "No."

  She asked, "You want one?"

  "No."

  "Don't tell," Weiser said.

  "I don't work vice." Buffett realized he hadn't shaved since he had been in the hospital. He guessed he looked like shit.

  Well, that was her problem. He didn't have to look at himself.

  Weiser pulled the gray chair closer, inhaled deeply on the cigarette several times. She crossed her legs and bent down to stub out the cigarette on her boot heel. She dropped the butt in her pocket.

  "Evidence," she said. She straightened up, put both feet on the floor.

  "Doctor-"

  "Ah…" She cocked an eyebrow. "Wendy," he corrected. "It seemed so real."

  She raised an eyebrow. "The pain."

  She stood up and opened the window, to air the room out, and returned to the chair. He felt the cold air on his arms and face. But he didn't feel it on his legs. She said, "It's both psychological and physiological. Amputees have the same sensation. It's real in the sense that pain is a subjective experience and what you're experiencing is just like any other pain. But it's phantom because you aren't feeling a pain response to stimuli at the nerve endings. Say, wasn't your wife going to be coming by?"

  "She was. A while ago. She'll be back tomorrow." He tried to picture Penny Buffett and Wendy Weiser chatting at a barbecue or PBA picnic. It was impossible to imagine this scene.

  Weiser nodded. "Well, next time. This is mostly a social visit, Donnie. We've done a lot of tests and we're going to do a lot more. I'll be talking to you more specifically about the results of those tests in the next couple days. What I'd like to do now is just talk with you about your injury in general."

  He looked away. She shifted her chair casually so that she was closer to his line of vision. He glanced at her and he felt compelled to hold her gaze.

  "I want to tell you what I'm going to do, as your doctor, and talk to you about what you're going to do for yourself."

  "Fair enough."

  She said, "First, I want to do something I don't do with all my patients: I'm going to tell you what's going to be going on in your mind over the next several months. This is sort of like-what's that they say on Wall Street?-insider information. Normally this is what we doctors keep in mind as we work with our patients but you seem like somebody who's got a good handle on himself. You look skeptical. Donnie, I've had SCI patients that won't even let me in the room for the first month after their trauma. I've had vases thrown at me. See this scar? It's from a dinner tray. I've had patients who don't seem to see me. They watch TV while I'm talking to them. It's as if I'm not even in the same room. They don't acknowledge me, they don't acknowledge their injury. You're in a different league from them."

  "I can't ignore a woman in a leather skirt. It's in my genes or something."

  "I think we're going to be a great team." She then grew serious. "There are several stages of recovery- I'm speaking of emotional recovery-in a trauma like you've experienced. The first is shock. It's numbness, emotional blockage. It's similar to what happens to the body with physical injury. Shock insulates die patient. That can last up to two or three weeks after the incident. I'm amazed but you seem to be out of this stage already. That kind of snappy recovery is rare. I'd guess you're already in phase two, which is realization of wh
at's happened. You'll start feeling anxiety, panic, fear. A real bummer."

  "Bummer."

  "My daughter's language."

  "You have a daughter?"

  "Twelve."

  "Don't believe it."

  She deflected this with a polite smile. "What you're going to experience is that you're not real present. We say that you'll be, quote, unavailable psychologically."

  "And what would your daughter call it?"

  Weiser considered. " 'Zoned out,' probably. A defense mechanism because you're going to start to feel awful. But with you, I have every reason to believe that it'll be short-lived."

  She pronounced it with a long i. Short-luived. That sounded weird so he figured it was probably right He also guessed that between the punk earrings was a very, very smart brain.

  "So that was the second phase," he said. "What's the third quarter going to be like?"

  "What we call 'defensive retreat.' You're going to believe that you can cure yourself. Or that you've come to accept your injury and it doesn't bother you. You'll miss therapy sessions, you'll do everything you can to avoid thinking about the accident. Oh, by the way, you'll probably become an insufferable son of a bitch. You'll want to blame somebody for what's happened. You'll have a lot of anger in you."

  "Kid I knew got hurt once, bad. We was diving off the docks, and this kid from the neighborhood-"

  "Which is?"

  "Alton."

  "No kidding," Dr. Weiser said, "I'm from Wood River."

  "Ha, Land of Lincolners in the Show Me state." Buffett snorted.

  "When I was married-he was a professor at Wash U-we lived in Clayton. God, I was glad to get out of there, move back to the country… You were telling me about this friend of yours?"

  "Just a kid. He dived in the water…" Buffett wondered if dived was the right word. Dove? He wished he'd said jumped. "

  … and you know how high some of those piers are. He hit a board he didn't see. We got him out right away so he didn't drown but what happened was he went blind. He hit the back of his head or something. He tried to beat me up. He said I should've seen the board. He accused another kid of pushing the board under him. Finally he moved away. He never came back or called."