Get Stupid

Guns and women. Add them to any otherwise normal set of circumstances and they set men on edge and make them do strange things. Some men go all the way weird when a woman walks into their life. Some men see the opportunity to become the big defender or the chief ring master.

I’ve been pretty good at avoiding the guns but not the women. I used to think that women were far more complicated than firearms. Now I know the truth. Beyond the initial seduction there are certain things you just can’t hide from. Features common to both, you could say. Give a woman a gun and somehow time stops moving, forward progress is lost and the world gets confused.

It didn’t start with the woman. We’ll get there. There were the usual assortment of faceless names and nameless faces to work through first. There’s always a curve ball or two, always an unexpected slice of human greed or low behaviour. I’m not a cop or a badge of any other kind. I’m not a reporter or a private eye or a street pounder chasing leads and showing mug shots to people. I never wanted or asked to get mixed up in anything my whole life. All I wanted was enough money to make rent and stand some beer when I craved it, when the sun was up and the shift over with. I work in a warehouse, nothing spectacular and nothing exciting. I get to spend my days watching dust motes swirl through the occasional hole of light and count down the hours and minutes to being me again. As work goes, it allows my head to move at its own pace and my muscles have memorised the movements like we’re dancing.

On this particular Friday, it started with a call at work. I never get calls at work. Partly because I don’t play free with the number and partly because calls at work are like fist fights at work. They get you fired.

“Ed?”

“The same.”

“It’s me, Lou.”

“I know my own brother’s voice, Lou. What’s wrong?”

Some questions drop you into the thick of things quicker than others. If I had the chance to go back and start over, ‘what’s wrong?’ is a question I would work hard to avoid asking. Ever. It never leads to anything positive and more often than not it involves an investment of some sort that I would rather decline. Trouble is, when it’s your own brother and your twin brother at that, it’s pretty heartless to avoid the help wanted in the question asked.

“Can you meet me after your shift? What time you get off?”

“I can meet you, yeah. I get off at four.” That’s how come I remember it was a Friday. Friday is the only day I ever get off at four.

“Name the venue,” I said.

“I was thinking maybe Larry’s Bar and Grill.”

“Near your office?”

“On the corner.”

We fix the time and the location. We’re good at it. We’ve had a lot of practice. Being twins some people think we can do that without a phone but that’s a lot of fish shit.

When I punch out at four, I’m forced to catch a lift with Don from the warehouse. My Oldsmobile has been leaking black stuff all over the neighbourhood for too long and the thing is in the shop to be fixed or to die, whichever proves the least painful. Don has a powder blue low slung machine with tail fins. I wonder how in God’s name a man like that, with a job like that, drives a car like that. It’s not for me to ask but that don’t mean I’m beyond speculating. My guess is nothing legal gives a man like Don a set of gleaming chrome alloys like that. Still, Don seems on the up and up. He has no family, only just started seeing a girl. Maybe he has a one room rat pit, or lives above the parental garage or something.

The ride is mostly quiet. Don’s in love with the car and likes nothing more than listening to her talk to him. As the blocks slide by, my mind gets to wandering around and looking at Lou. Lou has always been the sickly twin. The one with the rash or the limp. Lou’s had his problems but he’s turned out alright. He has a good job with the local authority, something to do with zoning and planning. He worked out better than I have in that respect. Lou is a man of habit. Everything in his life is fixed up just so. From his wardrobe to his jazz band, Lou can be relied upon to do the expected thing. Since today is not our designated day for meeting up for a beer, I have to wonder what kind of news it is. I hope it’s the good kind. I’ve had a gut full of the other kind lately.

Don rolls away from the kerb outside Larry’s and I stand for a second to let the light breeze ripple my T-shirt and move my hair around. After eight hours amongst the crates, wood shavings and body odour of minimum wage apes avoiding contact with strenuous activity, it feels good and wholesome to taste the air again. I walk through the front entrance of Dino’s and the ceiling fans beat to the fifties juke box over by the men’s room. I do a quick scan of the room, Lou isn’t here yet. I order a cold one and a burger with fries. Might as well make a meal of it. Lou tends to take his time when we meet up, if I don’t eat now it could be ten past whatever.

I feel his hand cup the nape of my neck and squeeze lightly. The same hand then pats my shoulder and pulls my head into his midriff for a brief show of affection. I notice Lou is getting softer around the middle. It’s the downside of a well paid job and ordered lifestyle.

“Thanks for coming, brother.”

“Hey, whenever.”

We trade basics and he follows my lead, ordering a burger right down to the exact combination of relish that I asked for. Some of that twin stuff carries, just not all of it.

“What’s got you heated up?”

“How’d you mean?”

“C’mon, Lou. You know you never call me out of sequence. What’s up? The rotary club cancel the luncheon?”

Lou shakes his head and his blood hound nose takes in the arriving burger. “I keep telling you,” he says, “No rotary club, country club or any other kind of club. If you need to know, I didn’t have anything planned for tonight and thought I might ask your advice on something.”

“I’m not sure things are going too well for you, if you need my advice.”

Lou hits me in the upper arm and laughs his Lou laugh. It’s good to hear him cut loose with that joviality now and again. It brings out the boys in us.

“Well, I have to admit, I’m homeless and on the skids.”

I take a long pull on the beer and settle the glass back onto the counter top. “So go on,” I say. “What’s the real reason you asked me over here?”

“I’m serious,” says Lou. “I’m homeless, Ed. I lost out on a can’t-miss investment and all of my chicken’s came home to roost on the same day.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I’ve been fooling around on the side and I got caught.”

He’s playing the tough guy but I know that being thrown from the marital home is a huge deal for Lou. He’s always had a problem with fidelity but generally, it shows itself as flirting. I hadn’t known it to go any further, not that he had admitted to, anyway.

I try to hide any feelings I may have and ask him if he has somewhere to crash. He tells me that options are limited. Once we’ve thumbed through the dictionary awhile, I realise limited means me or the soup kitchen. The conversation dries up as the details soak in and the food and then more beer goes in. It’s a given that Lou will have to stay with me. He never asks and I don’t need to offer.

On the nearest stools to us, two square-headed, wide shouldered crew cuts are talking Kennedy and Cuba. Feels like half the country is paranoid. Things are changing; folks are restless and everyone wants what they think they deserve. It all comes back to money and entitlement and an entitlement to more money. Just lately, I’m feeling a sickness for the way greed gets everywhere. The two square heads start to infringe on our space with their volume. I nod toward the door and Lou nods in agreement. When we reach the outside of Dino’s, Lou sparks a Kool and asks me how I’m getting home?

“Well, since we’re going to the same place, I thought you might give me a ride.”

We roll along in the half light before the night and Lou talks about jazz and soloing and other stuff that helps him to avoid the real things that are bugging him. I know those things will grow legs somewhere around the half way point of a bottle of sour mash. Lou stops off at a mini mart and picks up a bottle and a crate of beer. He probably buys more cigarettes, he always raises his intake in times of stress.

When we reach my place, I show him his room. It’s easy enough. He is looking at it when we walk through the front door. I point at the couch and he immediately makes it his own.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he says. His voice carries to the bathroom where I pee for a while and then freshen my work-wet pits. It sounds neutral, like none of his doubts are attempting to climb his entrails and find his mind.

“Meaning to ask me what?”

“If you have any plans to find different work?”

Work has been a thing between us for a long time. Lou judges a man by his work and his outward appearance. He can’t help it; it’s the crowd he clings to, working hard to be anonymous in a circle that knows everything. I prefer my way. Although the extra money would be welcome. 

“You have something in mind?”

“Anything would be a start, wouldn’t it?” I know without looking that he is eyeballing the apartment. It’s pretty bleak and basic. In winter the windows keep the rain out but invite the cold in. The furniture is strict thrift and the damp parts of the walls are covered with movie posters and sports cuttings. Some of those are damp, too.

“You want to pay more rent, I’m sure you can find something in your bracket.”

“It’s not about money. Don’t make this about money.”

“With you Lou, it’s always about money.”

“It just makes things easier, is all.”

“Well you got a lot more than me and we’re both going to get drunk and sleep here tonight. Explain to me how that makes your situation any better than mine?”

“I can afford the booze,” he says.

Two

            I lost my grip at around four am with Lou yammering about women, dollars and bullshit. He had also managed to talk cars, horses and any number of background distractions. He raced from one subject to another, always coming back to the central theme. Women. How to find them, how to keep them, how to lose them and then how to start again. You would think a man might learn along the way.

I am grateful for a day off. My neck is a fuse to the bombs going off inside my head and everything I try to taste – coffee, milk and cornflakes – all tastes like vomit about to launch. Lou has no such qualms. He sleeps later than I do, probably because his office stints start later than my bending and shifting and his system lets him sleep longer. When he wakes, he acts as if he was born here and nothing about anything is on his mind.

“It was good to catch up last night,” he says and then “I’ll get to work on finding a place at some point today.”

“There’s no rush.” He doesn’t answer, just sets the pot off and the smell of it has me tip toeing to the can. One hand at my belly.

When I get back and settle into a simple slouch by the window, he destroys my fresh air moment with a cigarette and a coffee. I don’t know how he functions after so much booze. Perhaps he balances it against all of the bad news and just makes do.

“How do you feel this morning?” I say.

“Not brand new but then again, hardly broken.”

“Last night it was the end of the world and probably your life.”

“You have to allow me a little aftermath.”

“I suppose.”

We let the quiet establish itself before Lou heads out for a paper. He likes the news. He likes to digest it and spread it. Good, bad or crazy he loves all of it. He has always been one for picking through it and asking your opinion on this politician or that land deal. I’ve never followed the news in the way that Lou does. The only news that concerns me is the kind that is linked directly to how empty my pocket is at the end of the week.

I busy myself doing nothing until he gets back. Shifting this dead head and sea sick stomach is likely to be a full day operation. The smell of nicotine hangs over everything like a warning. I’ve never liked that stale smell, it’s the reason I quit smoking. When Lou returns he is hugging a brown grocery sack that looks pretty full.

“It’s your refrigerator’s birthday,” he says and hacks his way through a half cough, half laugh at his little joke. “Being as you won’t take any money for the rent, I thought I’d put some food on the table.”

“It’s appreciated.”

We spend the morning searching the classifieds and it seems that we are some way apart on prices and standards. Lou can afford a much classier place than me. Scratch that. Lou can afford a classy place. One that hasn’t been given a lethal injection. He seems to have lowered his expectations. As the afternoon creaks along on rusting hinges and the quiet is broken only by disjointed comments such as “nah, not enough space,” or “Kitchen’s too small,” I begin to realise that money is as much a concern for Lou as it is for me. We just have different starting points.

“Why don’t you tell me the whole story, Lou? With the money and the real reason Francine kicked you out.”

The air goes out of him like a bike tyre on black tacks. He wants to avoid this. He’s had his spill-all conversational and now he’s sober, he would rather pretend the entire story off into the darkness some place.

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“How about this investment that’s got you looking for apartments that I could stretch to afford.”

He lights a Kool and sets the coffee off again.

“Okay. But let me tell you,” he points at me with the burning end of the Kool. “It’s going to take a while.”

“Shoot. I’m only killing a hangover.”

Three

“You sure you got the time for this?” Lou makes his way to the fridge and having had his fill of coffee, snaps the ring pull from a beer. I know it’s going to be another long haul through the wreckage of his mistakes.

“Like I said; nothing else happening for me, today.”

“Well... I guess I’ll start with Francine.”

Francine and Lou married nine years ago as our mid-twenties were just about visible in the rear view. He had become some sort of middle ranking zone expert and the department had seen fit to throw more money at him, doing nothing to squash his air of success.

“Well, you know Francine. The more I could make the more she could grow to like it. Clothes, shoes... you name it. Francine had an appetite for the good things.”

“You’re not shy in that department.”

“No. I don’t doubt it. Between the two of us, we could keep a store clerk pretty busy. The thing is, I had to spend more time at the office to keep us in the honey and Francine wasn’t too happy about that, although she never complained with the results. Look, I’m not saying this all her fault but couples go to the wall for a lot of reasons.”

He seemed to wait for something from me. I just tell him to go on.

“I started to get bored with it all. The job, Francine. Even the money. I wanted some risk. Something that would make me sweat a little. I wanted to make things happen in my life.”

“Forgive me for not crying.”

“Look, I know it sounds like another spoiled brat story.”

“So far, it is another spoiled brat story. Did you find God and get better?”

“Just listen, Ed. Look, you asked the question. I’m trying to give you an answer here.”

It seems that Lou started to head down to the casino after work and book it down at home as office hours. The money wasn’t a problem since he was making enough and by his account, was largely disinterested in the gambling life. What he wanted was a taste of danger. Not the kind of danger that comes with guns but certainly the type that comes along with women. He justifies this to me by saying that Francine was just as bored as he was.

“It’s an old story,” I say. “Nothing new. Two people spend a lot of time together, boredom gets to be the habit.”

“Well, anyway. I start meeting people.”

“At the casino?”

“Sure. At the casino. Mostly at the casino but not always. I wasn’t putting serious hours in at the tables. I was just killing time and looking around. Keeping an ear out for anything that might interest me. I was thinking at this point something along the lines of stock options. Something of that nature.”

“Money men never have enough, huh?”

“It gets so that it seems like the normal thing to do. Money might get you some security but it reminds you that insecurity is scary and it’s nearer than you think.”

“My coffee’s getting cold.”

“Okay. I’m getting to it.” Lou cracks a second beer and offers me one. The story isn’t warming my toes up yet so I accept.

Time’s precious and life’s short so nut shelling the whole deal, it comes out smelling like this. Through his nights at the casino, Lou starts building some recognition. This sees him invited to some parties. Nothing really big shakes at this point and Lou still has the idea that he is on approval. People are sniffing him out like dogs do when everything’s new or uncertain. The parties start to get more exclusive and a little wilder. The way Lou explains it is more action. I’m not sure he would put it that way ordinarily but he seems to like this image he has of himself as a shady guy.

Lou starts inviting some of these rich slackers to his jazz gigs in the clubs around town. He sits in behind the drum set for any number of bands and he’s good. He has the whole detached jazz drummer thing off. Ray ban shades, cigarette burning and beer at hand. He always starts out in a tux, finishes with the tie open and hanging, sleeves rolled up and jacket discarded. The new crowd like the act. They figure Lou for a player and start grabbing the scent of his wallet. Only thing is, he isn’t carrying as much as they need.

“I started to over stretch a little, just to fit in. I figured it was an investment. That it was only a matter of time before they started leading me to some insider intelligence.”

When the greed takes hold, it’s pretty damn hard to shake free. Even my own brother started to feel fragile at the hint of untold wealth.

“So I started throwing more in the pot. Buying a little coke here and there, picking up a tab or two. You don’t make any money with these people until they know you have some to begin with.”

“I can imagine.”

Lou lets it slide. He knows what I’m shooting at. We both do. The old game of rich people buying other rich people, greasing the wheels and spreading the money around amongst themselves. He needed an in and he was willing to take some risks to get it.

“I got involved with a widow by the name of Elizabeth Stanton. Her husband had been in the hotel business, mainly up on the East Coast. Some New York business but his main money was upstate, Catskills and a place in Buffalo.”

I picture this woman sitting back on the dead man’s pile, doing very little and bored with her money and her life. The jazz drummer comes along and each of them has a new lease. “Elizabeth is something else. She’s not a shy woman but she knows society, she knows how the rich people act in private, what makes them tick. She knows how to get them to part with money. Most of the renovations on the hotels, she has them done through outside investment. She contracts the work out through discounts to people she knows. These are rich people we are talking about. They never give discounts, get embarrassed if anyone mentions it but she just has the knack.”

I try to build a physical picture of this Stanton widow but I’m more interested in another beer and a point to the story.

“So,” Lou says; “I get onto the inside. I start hearing things and sliding a little money around and for a while everything tastes good. I’ve got my life at work and at home and when I can sway the time, I’ve got me this whole other world on the weekends or in the evenings. I take up the drum stool in a band that moves in these circles and drop the other gigs.”

“You ditched Jimmy Farrar?”

“Time to move on.”

“You been with Jimmy for what? Eleven years?”

“Thirteen.”

“Well if you can drop Jimmy on a whim, I don’t suppose Francine stood a chance.”

Lou tightens at the jaw and doesn’t respond. I can guess he thinks I have overstepped but he is the one telling the stories, he has to be ready for some reactions here and there.

By the time Lou grinds to a beer soaked climax, I have managed to learn that most of his available money was entrusted to this Elizabeth Stanton, that she ended the thing before he saw a return and now is playing harder to find than a congressman in a game of truth or dare.

There isn’t anything here to really make me sit up and ring bells. It’s the usual story of a married man wanting more. When Lou fades into sleep on the couch, I cover him and remove his shoes. Although I feel like he hasn’t told me the whole story yet, I’m in no doubt that it will come. It takes him so long to get around to the specific points of interest that I have to accept some delays. Still, as the night chugs on, punctuated by siren and foot fall on the street, I have to ask myself if there is anything out of the ordinary here at all.

Trouble is my gut; my instinct and my twin radar keep telling me that my brother is laying the shit on so thickly that I might as well be a farmer’s field.

Four

When I boiled my eggs Sunday morning, Lou was nowhere in sight. The apartment is small, you don’t miss something as big as my brother in a space so confined. We had spent the last day or so avoiding each other like two tanks in a phone booth. The place seemed like it had more oxygen per square inch all of a sudden. That was until Francine happened. I had just shaved and found a fresh T-shirt when the phone called me to it.

“Is that Ed?”

“The same.”

“This is Francine.” She sounded like she had been crying or trying not to. She also sounded like she might be attempting to kill something with her bare hands.

“Is Lou with you?” She says Lou with some effort, it’s no longer a word she has much use or regard for.

“He has been.” No point lying. “He isn’t here right now, though. I’m not sure where he is, I’ve only been up for an hour or so.”

“Has he told you what happened?” The question is as loaded as any army issued magazine. How can I know what they have discussed? How can I know if whet he has told me ties up with what he has told Francine? People are rarely honest when it comes to things they would rather not admit about themselves.

“He’s told me some things. I’m sure he’s missed some of it out, too.”

“Has he told you about the married woman?”

“It was my understanding she was a widow?”

“Oh, sure. She was a widow. Did he tell you all of it?”

“Like I said, I would imagine not. How much of it is there?”

“Plenty. Did he tell you how long Mrs Stanton had been a widow?”

“I don’t believe he mentioned it.” I had no recollection of any such mention. Still, beer can make these details hard to reach at the best of times. I couldn’t say with any certainty. Francine didn’t need me to encourage anything, the news was right there and just about ready to land on my morning.

“Try two weeks.”

“She’d been a widow for two weeks when he met her?”

“No. She had been a widow for two weeks when I told him to get out of the house.”

This statement takes a walk around my still sleepy brain looking for somewhere to sit down and take root. I ask her if I heard her right and it seems I did.

“I don’t know what to say to that, Francine.”

“Neither do I but I know what the police might say.”

“The police?”

“Don’t pretend to be dumb, Ed. Your brother is bouncing on a rich woman. The rich woman’s very rich husband turns up dead and two weeks later, I find out your brother has been with this woman for seven months. You think the police might be interested in that?”

I didn’t need to answer and Francine didn’t need to hear one. Let’s just say that between the two of us, we wouldn’t have made a great jury for Lou.

“Can you set me straight on one thing, Francine?”

“If I can, I might. Depends what it is.”

“When did you throw Lou out?”

“Why?”

“He has been with me since Friday. I was just wondering how long he hasn’t been with you?”

“I told him to leave a week ago Tuesday. So he hasn’t been with me for...”

“Ten days.” I finish the sentence for her. My brother has a lot more story to tell.

When Francine leaves me to the afternoon, I decide to get some air and perhaps take a walk to the park. I’m feeling trapped in here with the first building bricks of a puzzle I didn’t ask for.

The air outside is cooler than it should be. I could have used a jacket but decide to walk through the initial chill. It’s just after mid-day when I cross over into the park and the mercury level has started to rise slowly, like it had other plans but changed its mind. I have no word from Lou and no reason to expect him home at any time, either. He may have gone and splashed out on a place of his own. He could be on the outskirts of Philadelphia with Mrs what’s-her-face. Counting money and laughing about idiot husband’s who should have known better. I don’t want to believe this of my own brother. It seems disloyal to think about anything approaching that suggestion. I watch a dog chase a ball and pass couples with strollers and sitting on blankets, making plans and picnics. I wonder where Grace might be and whether or not she is with anyone.

When the afternoon stretches out nice and easy and the skyline blushes at its own beauty, I take a turn toward downtown and opt to kill an hour and an appetite at a bar. I collect a sandwich from Malone’s deli and have the thing down me in not much more than a couple of bites. When I enter the cool darkness of the Last Remains bar on South Seventeenth, my head is beginning to walk its way around the approach to all of these Lou related problems.

The first beer sinks as quickly as first beers generally do and I relax the pace on the second. I purposefully only brought enough coin for two, so I’m on the home stretch as soon as this one is extinct.

Lou is no killer, of that I’m certain. He hasn’t handled any of this in a way I would have predicted even a week ago but he is not a man to kill a man. No matter how much money is involved, or how desirable the woman he wants to impress. My brother is not good with blood and gets weak kneed on long journeys if he isn’t the driver. He doesn’t have the required constitution for a fugitive and he isn’t a good enough actor to keep something as big and ugly as a murder private. Even if he has changed his habits and had a complete turn around in the personality department, alcohol has always unbuttoned his mouth to the point of outright indiscretion.

Francine has set me to thinking and once I start thinking too much, I get dangerous ideas.

Five

There is no sign of Lou when I leave for the warehouse in the morning. I’m set to collect the Oldsmobile after my shift, so at least I’ll be mobile again. I leave him a note in case he drops by. I leave Francine out of it and just ask him to contact me, or stick around until I get home.

Nothing of note except heat and dust ever happens in the warehouse. I’m cleaning a belt down and preparing to oil the runners when the foreman, Howard calls me over.

“Had the police here asking about you. I told them you weren’t here.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Can’t spare the man power. We’re behind on the Bingham order as it is. Anything I should know about?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”

“I don’t know what it’s about.”

Howard chews on a pencil, he goes through the things like a sixth grader in art class. I watch him melt in front of me, heat eating the both of us. He wears black, thick framed glasses and has a hell of a time keeping them at the bridge of his nose.

“They left a number for you to call. They weren’t in uniform.” He hands me a card like he’s doing me a favour and has something else for me that he’d like to surprise me with.

“Thanks.” I take the card from him and glance down at it. Nothing I recognise. One name and two numbers. Added ink in a sprawling scribble adds ‘call me.’

“You let me know what it’s about when you know.” Howard is all nose and ears.

“I’ll let you know if it concerns you. If it don’t concern you, I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Suit yourself but if it’s trouble, you’ll be looking for work someplace else.”

“And I thought I was the golden boy.”

“If you’re done shooting your mouth off, you can get back to work.” Howard likes to talk tough for the benefit of the office girls. Beneath all of that, I always get the impression that he misses being one of the boys.

When the shift ends, I take the short walk to the repair shop and collect the Oldsmobile. It feels strange to be driving again but I’m relieved to be mobile. When I pull up outside the house that Lou shared with Francine for seven of the past nine years, I sit outside and wait. The engine idles and the car heats up like a Billy can on a camp fire. I see no sign of Francine or, for that matter, Lou. I’m not even altogether sure what I’m waiting for. This just feels like the right place to be.

Not for the first time over the last couple of days, my mind shifts gear and throws Grace at me. I’m not ready to sing that song. Not by a long way so I push the car into drive and roll down the road with nothing on my mind except how to block the things that are on my mind.

Back at the homestead, if Lou has been there he’s been quiet about it. My note looks untouched and his things are as he left them. I can’t decide if the lack of contact is something that should concern me. Francine had said that he had been gone for a number of days before he contacted me. Maybe he was just back to wherever he had been staying before. I couldn’t quite get my head around why he had told me his options were my place or the street when we had met in Dino’s. Unless that was another circumstance that had changed without warning, the realisation that my brother might be playing me was growing inside me like a yawning ache.

The thought of Lou lying to me is not an easy notion to stomach and not just because of the blood link. Our dad died drunk in a fist fight, face down in his own blood and our mother raised us with the worst kind of step father. The type that brooded about your presence and designed every act in a way that might encourage your absence. Lou and I had spent more and more time away from the home until we hit the point where we just didn’t go back. We had got through a lot of darkness together and it played on me that whatever might be in the middle of his life at the moment, it was not something he felt able to tell me in full just yet. What I couldn’t decide was whether or not that implicated him.

I slept in the armchair by the window. When the draft and neck ache pulled me out of my messed up dreams, I zombie walked to the bedroom and crawled in. There was no-one there to tuck me in or read me a story and no-one there to wake me in the morning.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to wait all the way until morning.

“Just tell me something, would you Ed?”

“Francine. What the hell time is this?”

“Who knows? Who cares?”

“Are you drunk, Francine?”

“When did your brother get stupid?”

Six

It all went and got official. Having conversed with Francine more over the last forty eight hours than I had in the last forty eight months, I decided it was time to do some digging. I can’t say I dislike my brother’s now ex-wife any more than I can say I like her. Truth of the matter is somewhere in-between. My feelings for her have never been too well defined. We haven’t spent that much time together, considering the marriage and all that gets bound up within that arrangement.

I throw a few loose items into a holdall. Seems like I’ve been doing that my entire life. Packing for something, leaving for something and looking for something. Running to or running away; the end result is always the same. The first steps are always taken mentally right before you walk out the door.

“If you can leave your own mother like this,” my mother had said, “you’ll be leaving women for the rest of your life.”

I skipped the warehouse, I wasn’t in the mood for Howard or dust or machinery that brought out the bastard in me. I’d been bottling things up in there for longer than was good for me. The money was hardly worth the effort and the job was way short on satisfaction. Like it or not my only starting option was to drive over to Francine and hope she was thinking clearly.

Her voice came to me from an upstairs window following the third bell chime. Had she been downstairs, I probably would have smelled the gin. She told me to hang fire and stop making so much goddamned noise and she would attend to me directly. Seconds later the door swung open and inwards and I was met by the sight of my still drunk sister-in-law or ex-sister-in-law in a negligee and holding onto a cup of something steaming.

“What do you want?”

“Is that any way to talk to a man you call at three a.m.?”

She ignores me and steps back after a spell, standing to one side so that I am able to cross the threshold. She asks me if I have had breakfast and I tell her that as a matter of fact, I haven’t had the time.

“I’ll grill some bacon. How do you take your eggs?”

“Anyway they come, as long as they run.”

“Come through to the kitchen, it’s easier to talk.”

I follow her down the hallway, counting potted plants and reach six before we cross the black and white diamond flooring of the kitchen. Francine shows me the breakfast bar and I sit myself on a stool not unlike the ones I normally drink beer from. She’s a show of movement and silence at first, no real effort made to talk but she has the sulking down fine.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she says, finally.

“It’s Okay. You’re going through it.”

“What does that mean?”

“Whatever you’d like it to mean.”

“Just like your brother.”

“How’s that?”

“Always quick with the answers and none of them mean a thing.”

“Sorry.”

“Him too. Makes no difference though, does it?”

The bacon and eggs smell better than they taste but I’m glad for the strong coffee. Francine slows up long enough to re-fill her cup. She passes on the food. I tell her I’m looking for Lou, that I haven’t seen him since Sunday. The two day gap she tells me, is nothing out of the ordinary for him. “In my experience, he could be gone two weeks and walk back in there like he’d been taking a bath.”

“How long has he been doing that?”

“The last year or so. Maybe a little longer. I never locked him up.”

“Maybe you should.”

“The more you tie a man to the house the more he wants to be gone. I couldn’t win.”

I feel sorry for her. Not in a charitable sense but in a real, human sense. I get the first impression of what living with the adult Lou has been like for her these past months and I feel a little guilt at having never been around for either of them.

She waves away my face and any expression it must be showing her and lights a cigarette. If she can look this good in a morning on the back of a hangover and riding a marriage split, I wonder how good she could look with time to prepare. My brother must have really raised the bar on his financial ambition if he was really willing to walk away from this. Sure, she wasn’t at her best right now, nor was she close to it but it underlined her case.

“Lou never saw me as good enough for him.” She ignores my frown and head movement. “I don’t know why. God knows he could hardly claim to have been born with a silver spoon up his ass. I know you guys had it tough. He used to tell me he had it made when we got married. I can’t understand why everything changed so much.” Tears turn up and she seems angry to let me see them.

“Do you think it was all about money, all this other stuff?”

“I think it was partly money and partly a lot of other things, too. He wasn’t man enough to tell me himself. I had to get all of it from his diary.”

“You read his diary?”

“Yes. I read his diary. If we’re keeping score, he slept with other women. I’m not sure I’m the loser if we’re comparing morals.”

It was tough to argue that one and I wasn’t about to try it. I got the half crazy idea that she was flirting with me a little but dismissed it as the heartsick desperation of a woman missing my lookalike.

“Look, I’m going to try and find him and find out what the hell is going on in his head. Would you take him back or is it too late?”

“I’d like to say it’s too late and at least have that going for me. I’ve taken him back before.”

“You have?”

“There’s so much you don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“Do you believe in fate or destiny?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes, there’s a difference.”

Seven

I’m sat with my back to the room in the window of a cafe at a busy intersection. Francine was unwilling to elaborate on the question of fate, or was it destiny, but did give me a name and a number to check on. I followed it up before I left the house and the man in question, a fellow by the name of Cooley agreed to meet me here for coffee and discussion. He asked me to sit in the window and he would come and find me. I’m not usually so suspicious but this felt too much like giving him the upper hand. I sit in the window but two seats over from the one he had suggested.

At the counter a guy in overalls pays for a bagel to go and re-joins the now rush hour traffic. He doesn’t give me a glance. He has the day on his mind, or maybe the previous evening, who knows?

The cafe smells like grief and grease. The ever present aroma of coffee skids across the surface of things and I realise that I’m currently drinking coffee at something like a six to one ratio to beer. I don’t get any further with this information when a man I believe to be Cooley enters. He hangs back in the door way just long enough to tell me that he is temporarily thrown by my plan to sit off centre. He is an odd assortment of dress sense. Part smart suit, part scuffed shoes and white socks. His hair could use something to pin it down and his shirt is partially un-tucked. The pinstripe is immaculate but he looks as though he could have been sleeping in everything else.

When he sits opposite me, I have a brief sense that I am hemmed in between him and the outside world. The traffic grinds behind him, not quite gridlock, not quite moving.

“I’m Cooley.” He offers me a hand.

“I thought so. Casper. Ed Casper.”

“There was no mistaking you,” we shake, firm but a little sweaty. “You’re a dead- ringer for your brother.”

“Like I said earlier, my brother is missing. Francine tells me that you know him better than most. Any ideas?”

“Well, you said it’s been a couple of days when we spoke earlier. To me, that’s not out of the ordinary for Lou. It could be one of those parties he loves, could be a woman or great bar. Any of those things is possible.”

He bites at one of his finger nails and then does the same with the thumb. He is slim enough that I wonder if this is his breakfast. “Francine said you’d been to some of these parties with him.”

“Only two. Not some. Tell you the truth, it wasn’t my scene. Some of these people make no bones about their dislike about you if you’re not loaded.” I always worry when people tell me they are telling me the truth. Makes me wonder why they would assume I thought otherwise.

“Tell me more.”

“Lou has a taste for these things. I’m not really into that whole party groove. I know Lou through the music but the other stuff isn’t really me. I like to hang around musicians. They are my kind of people. I felt uncomfortable at these parties. One of the two I went to – the second one, was more an orgy than a party. Made me feel out of place.”

“How did Lou take that.”

“Man, his eyes just about popped. He didn’t need any kind of encouragement, I’ll tell you that.”

“Was it just a sex thing?”

“Not strictly, no. It was drugs too but mainly it was a kind of initiation. That’s the impression I got. I figure that they think if they can get you all good and compromised, they can trust you a little before they let you in.”

“Who’s the they?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Just give me a couple of names.”

“I really can’t tell you that.” He looks around us even though the only other person in the place is the girl behind the counter and she’s distracted by her own reflection. “Look,” I say, “my brother is missing and I need to find him.”

“You’re going to have to do it without names. Like I said, two days is nothing for Lou. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”

He stands and shuffles to the door, when he leaves he holds his coat close to him despite the morning already being warm enough for sleeves only. He looks around him, all directions and then picks up his pace considerably. I don’t warrant a backward glance and he’s out of there. I’m left in the moment with my head full of parties, orgies, drugs and initiation rites. There’s not a whole lot I can do for now, so I order another coffee and lose myself in the sports section of the Wilmington News Journal.

When I slow foot out of the cafe and back to the Oldsmobile, I have no real plan of attack for this thing. I’m starting to think that maybe I should just wait the whole thing out. If a dog don’t want to be found, he’s always one step ahead of the pound. Lou is a big boy, I reason. If he needs me, he’ll find me. He did last time. I decide I have just enough time to get to work and lose some pay but keep the crappy job. Living on the bones of my back won’t do me any good, whether or not Lou is in trouble and whether or not he is somehow mixed up in the death of this rich guy. I pull the sun visor down, find some music on the dial and set off for the warehouse. I’m not able to fully push it all out of my mind. The music is jazz.

Eight

The warehouse is no place to be when you can’t drive doubts from your head. I’m learning things about Lou that I never suspected. You never know all there is to know about anyone; I can accept that. Hell, life would be short and boring if you could. I scrape through my eight hours with minimal effort and contact. I’m not much in the mood for social interaction and if anyone comes and tries one on I’m liable to crack something open until it gets too sticky for good health. Lou is right on top of my list of current worries but he ain’t the only show in town, as they say. Trouble is a three headed thing at times. Just when you lay one of them to rest, another head wakes up and gets ready to bite.

I’m in this reflective, balancing between pissed off and reactive mood when I hit the parking lot and locate the Oldsmobile. I’m ready to drive until I start to get some answers and I’m ready to face crack the first person that squints wrong at me, I don’t care if the sun is in his eye.

I stop off at home. Use the facilities and scrape together a sandwich from the last of Lou’s ration bag. I bin a tomato that looks like a lab experiment and head back out the door and into the late afternoon blaze. The cool will come soon, until it slides down the skyline and chills the flags some, I’ve got some hot, car heated driving to do. It’s time to round up the rest of the jazz monkeys, losers and general assorted pond life that associate with my brother. Some of them are fine but I’m guessing they are not the ones that can help me out.

When I arrive at Egan’s – a club so desperate that the door girl apologises for the cover charge, it crosses my mind that I might even run into Lou just by virtue of the fact that I’m looking for him. Rule number one when looking for Lou is search the bars and music rooms, find anyone with an odd or disorganised facial hair arrangement and ask them if they know where he is. It’s worked plenty of times in the past. Since most of this crowd recognise me and some of them will be up the wall just far enough to think I am Lou, it shouldn’t prove too taxing on anyone concerned.

First guy I run across is Double Talk Jerry. Jerry is the bar keep at Egan’s in the early part of any evening you care to mention. He got his name from his ability to hold five conversations at any one time, not because he is some kind of behind the back merchant. Most of the regulars like him and those that don’t, tend not to get too vocal about the fact.

“Lou. How’s the head?”

“Head’s fine but I’m not Lou.” Jerry offers a hand across the bar top and I shake it. “Sorry man, in this light you and Lou... shit, there’s not a lot to separate you.”

“Except maybe brains and looks.”

He pours me a small beer and sets me up with a napkin. “First one’s free on account of your brother’s growing account activity.”

“He in here a lot?”

“Just enough that he almost pulled a wage last week.”

“You know he split from Francine, right?”

“I hear things. I don’t give ‘em too much credit. Talk’s talk, especially in a place like this.”

“You been hearing any other kind of talk?”

“Such as?” he says and stoops so that his elbows slide onto the bar top. His forearms flex a little and his fingers, pointing out front lock together. I notice the blue ink on his left forearm, looks like something from the navy, or else jail.

“He’s been a little out there, this last couple of weeks. He was staying at my place but I haven’t seen him in a few days.”

“He was last here on Monday afternoon. Haven’t heard or seen anything since.”

I let the beer carry its chill into my gut, it doesn’t satisfy me the way it should and I don’t have any more patience for Jerry, who has started in on another conversation further along the bar.

I spot Trombone Haley. The man is as drunk as it is possible to be whilst on two legs. He spends a good deal of his time in that condition and I can’t see any real point in asking his opinion on anything. He probably couldn’t swear on the colour of his own socks without a trip to the bathroom. I ease past him and out to the steps that will take me up to street level.

Trombone’s voice comes up the stairs after me.

“Hey, Lou. Lou? You playin’ tonight?”

I can’t be bothered with explanations. I just tell him that I have to be elsewhere and leave it at that. He puts his hat on back to front and heads for the bar. Nice life, some people have.

Nine

I almost hit something in Jester’s Bar down the road from my apartment and having run into nothing but handshakes and half promises the entire evening. Fellow by the name of Carter says he saw Lou last night, looking pensive. Pensive was the word he used. Not nervous or worried but pensive. I don’t normally rub shoulders with guys who would pull a word out of the bag like that one at the first search. It sticks with me. Pensive is a pretty clear description, it sounds precise and I get a picture of my brother, bottom lip bitten white and eyes skittish as a cat caught in the budgie cage.

Carter tells me that he was with a woman, no-one familiar and that he was talking about heading to San Francisco and how the air was getting thicker than gravy around Philly. Carter was pretty sure that Lou had more than the woman on his mind. He couldn’t offer anything more detailed and said the whole conversation lasted no longer than half a minute. He said Lou couldn’t settle. Couldn’t sit and couldn’t stand too well either. Not through a lack of balance or sobriety, just as though the fear had gotten into him and had a tight grip of his stomach.

I thanked Carter and gave him my number. I told him I needed to find Lou and to call me if he heard anything at all, mundane or otherwise.

Pensive.

It’s a good word for my brother. He likes to play the hip jazz cat but despite his cut and general ease, there has been something just below that casual approach of his for as long as I can remember. I’m going way back here. Those who know him very well, don’t talk about his confidence or easy going nature like the rest do, men like Carter know my brother well enough to pick up on small thing that could become a big thing.

When the light finds me fully clothed and half minded sitting by the window, I check my watch and run through the morning routine. I arrive at work with a few minutes to spare and Howard says he wants to see me in the office.

“Had the police here again, this morning.” He looks at his watch and says “First thing.”

“What did they want?”

“Said they need to find your brother and wanted to know why you hadn’t called them yet.”

“I’ll call them today.”

“Make it on your own time, or they won’t be a tomorrow.”

“Sure,” I say but I’m planning to land a cross right across the soft part of his face. As I make my way over to my area of the warehouse, I hear his steel capped brogues tap dance after me.

“One other thing.” I wheel around and I think the suddenness surprises him some because he takes a step back. It’s not much, it ain’t wide eyed or slack jawed but it was enough, I saw it and he knows I saw it.

“I don’t need police trouble or any other kind of trouble around here. Understand?”

I look him up and down. Howard is a voice to me, mostly. I pay him next to no regard. He looks worn down. Like someone took a shit in his hat and told him he would be back tomorrow. I wonder if he is paying protection or mixed up in water too deep and cloudy for him to paddle in.

“What’s really goin’ on, Howard?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you got no call to be on my back about the police coming here if you’re on the up and up. I’ll take care of things with them. I need to see them, anyway. Meantime, you might want to get some help catching your own sharks.”

He says nothing. Starts to but stops. Takes a step forward and stops. In the end, he settles for pushing a hand into a pocket and heading back to his office. His shirt sleeves are rolled to just below the elbow. His tangle of tight blue veins at the forearm suggest to me that he may not be eating enough. The trousers are hitched too high and the belt too tight, so that the shirt balloons a little at the waist. I ask myself why none of this stuff ever struck me before and think it might be a lot to do with him being the boss. Me being just another horse.

Ten

I roll into the precinct after my shift and have to wait around for an assortment of lost, worried and drunken people, mostly men but not exclusively, get processed, booked or have statements taken, witness or suspect.

When a detective at last stands over me, pointed my way by the desk sergeant, I am lost in a newspaper article about a money laundering racket so detailed, it involved half the major cities in the country and some in Europe too. Hard to figure at times, how anyone thinks they can get away with anything.

“You Ed Casper?”

“I am.”

“Frank Beezer. Thanks for coming in, we’ve been after talking to you for a few days.”

“So my boss says.”

“Hope we didn’t get you into any trouble?”

“Not yet.”

“Follow me.”

I walk in his footsteps and follow him through the office space where people are typing, smoking, listening and talking. Mostly the effect is one of noise but I am able to distinguish the odd clip of sense from the scene.

“Well, Mr Myers, you neighbour says it wasn’t like that at all...”

“I have to tell you guys about this every week. Every week...”

“It’s not a threat...”

“They are trying to clean up the...”

“Not at all, Mrs Cunningham. This information is very...”

Everyone thinks their business is more important than anyone else’s could be and I don’t suppose I’m any different. I just haven’t properly decided yet what my business is.

Beezer walks me to a battered oak desk toward the back of the open office. He moves like a younger version of the man he is. Light on his feet. His hair touches his collar, like he thinks it keeps him in touch with the real people. It does nothing to dilute the fall brown colour scheme of the rest of his undercover cop costume. He shows me a chair with the flat of his hand and I sit dutifully. He is into the script before he is seated.

“Like I said; thank you for coming down here. We need to get our heads together. We have reason to believe that your brother has skipped town and headed to California. We think Oakland.”

“What the hell does he want with Oakland?” I’m pulling memories together instantly but I’m getting no connections to Oakland. No reason for Lou to make his way most of the way cross country and to the opposite coast that I can think of.

“We’re not sure at this stage. Maybe he wants to head over the bridge to San Francisco, feed the seals at pier thirty nine. Or maybe he wants to write some of that beatnik crap and hang out with the homos.”

He seems to think I’m going to smile but I forget to. I’m not sure why this guy or others like him have turned up at my work place twice to give me the travel itinerary of a grown man. If Lou is in some kind of trouble, I would have thought the anonymity of New York just up our own coast would fit him better.

“Look, Detective Beezer, I’m not sure yet why I’m even here. I’m looking for my brother and I may kick him in the head when I find him, or slap him in the chops. But I still don’t know why this is a matter for the Philadelphia love and peace police.”

Now he fails to smile.

“We take murder pretty seriously, Mr Casper.”

“Murder?” He has my attention.  

“Your brother is up to his neck in trouble, Mr Casper.” He slides open a desk drawer and removes a manila envelope. I feel like a guy in the movies about to be stood on his head and then hit the whiskey to cope. He opens the envelope and sure enough, out pours a glossy black and white with the mug shot of a confident looking dead dude.

“This is William Stanton. He was the husband of Mrs Elizabeth Stanton the socialite. Mr Stanton turned up face down in a dumpster a few days back. We have strong reason to suspect that your brother is the link.”

Of course I am aware of the basic facts even if I know none of the details. I’m not about to furnish him with any help or confirmation of anything I have already been told. I decide my best course is to look all hurt and surprised and let him go on.

“Lou is known to have been carrying on with Mrs Stanton of late and Mrs Stanton herself seems to be of the opinion that Lou iced her husband.”

“Iced?”

“Murdered. Killed. However you want to term it. Lou is the first name on the list of suspects we have.”

“How many names on the list?”

“One.”

It seems that the police think he is in Oakland because that is where Mrs Stanton says he is. Before I get to raising air fare and chasing the crazy bastard up and down the West Coast I’m going to need something a little more substantial than the whim of a recently widowed woman who gets her kicks raising money for questionable causes and cavorting with jazz drummers. I also have to wonder why they would be so quick to half believe the evidence of the woman whose husband shows up dead and that information regards the man she was dancing with on the side.

I’m in no frame of mind to do any kind of serious follow up when I leave the precinct and head back home. Things are going to get busy and complicated and complicated is the worst kind of busy there is.

I pull the telephone out of the wall, kick off my shoes and aim to be blind drunk within the hour.

Eleven

Whiskey has never agreed with me and I’m not sure why I push on with it, insisting that it’s the thing for my moods. I don’t have the opportunity to find out about how bad it’s going to get before my door explodes inwards, encouraged by the boot of a man half the size of an armoured car and three times as serious. He has me by the collar and is dragging me from my window position before I have a chance to tell him he’s got the wrong place.

His buddy makes his way through my room and its charmless add-ons looking to satisfy himself that the place is correct after all. He has no respect for another man’s property and cheerfully breaks things as he goes. Taking this behaviour as his cue the caveman in a suit starts to pound me in the face with his free fist, which luckily is equipped with a nice rhinestone ring. My eye is swollen shut and I am spitting blood before I can start to try and fight his grip. The other guy, presumably the brains does the talking.

“We know who you are and we know who your brother is. If you talk to the cops again, we will come back and kill you.”

With that, they are gone.

It’s that sudden.

That kind of crap never happens on beer.

At least not to me.

When the phone startles me a few minutes later and I hear the unmistakable whine of Francine, I would gladly accept the immediate end of civilisation as an alternative.

When Francine lets herself in an hour later, it’s not as though she has to open the door, she strides over the debris of my recent visit and it is some time before she speaks. She stands amidst the broken furniture and blood and lets her eyes take in the scene as though attempting to memorise it for a witness statement. When at last she speaks, I find no trace of the recent alcohol dependence, self loathing or pity that have characterised our conversations.

“What in hell’s name happened to you?”

“Well, the police wanted to speak to me about Lou. I spoke to them about Lou and as you can see...” I heave myself up onto one elbow, blood at the corners of my mouth, hair matted by my leaking head. I don’t say anything for a few seconds, allowing the pain to wash through my body like an unwanted massage. “... Somebody didn’t want me to talk to the police about Lou or anything else.”

“We need to get you out of here. It looks like you could have been killed.”

“Not that I’m ungrateful, Francine but why would you want to help me?”

“You’re the best chance I have of finding Lou. I need to find Lou. There are too many things that don’t make sense.” She sits on the couch and crosses her legs. Looks down at me on the floor, bleeding and complaining under my breath. I move my eyes away from her legs.

“The police think he’s in Oakland.”

“To hell with Oakland. He’s in Cleveland.”

“Cleveland, really? How do you know that?”

“He called me this morning.”

“How can you be sure he really is in Cleveland?”

“He’s gone there before when he goes missing. I don’t know. You spend your life with a man, you can tell when he’s lying to you.”

Francine extends a hand and helps me to scrape myself from the floor. I have nothing of value in the apartment. Between us, we throw some items into a case and wave the place goodbye. Creaking down the stair case, mildew damp walls pressing against my sleeves, catching the case and cigarette burned carpet disguising our steps on the rotting boards, I can’t say I’m sorry to go.

When we climb into her car, I ask what comes next.

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“No. Nothing seems all that obvious to me anymore.”

“We are going to Cleveland to find your brother.”

Francine pulls the sedan away from my cheap and charmless former existence and I am taken all at once by an admiration for her. She was not fazed by what she just encountered. She simply dug in and dug me out. We drive for some minutes before I am able to speak again. The road dips and swerves in a way that drives home my physical discomfort. Francine makes no allowances. We have distance to cover.

“Suppose we find him in Cleveland.”

She shoots me the briefest look but stays eyes front with her concentration. “Suppose?”

“Well, what are you going to say to him? What are you hoping to find?”

“He either killed this man, or he didn’t. I want to know which it is.”

Right about now, Lou has any number of police precincts circulating his description on the wire, is the only suspect in a murder case for which he has a motive and for all I know has nowhere to live and nowhere to go. I would still say that Francine and her focus may just be his biggest worry.

When we roll into the lot of some out of way road motel, my mind blindly flickers through a couple of scenarios. For one thing, where do we sleep? Who pays? Francine is way ahead of me.

“I am going to get a room. You can make use of the car. There’s a blanket in the back.”

With that, she climbs out, slams the door and sways on heels toward the reception desk of the ‘Tired Traveller Country Motel.’ The sign promises colour TV and hot running water. I retire to the back seat and slip away into uncomfortable thoughts of unexpected visitors bringing violence with them.

Twelve

We hit Cleveland early as mist is starting to lift from the surface of Lake Eerie and act as reinforcements for some late morning smog build up. The city seems to have an atmosphere hanging over it, an unlikely chill that follows us around like an overly reliant relative. I’m not sure why that should be. I’ve never been to Cleveland before so I have no idea if this is normal for the time of year.

Francine has jawed her way through at least seventeen theories and nine scenarios before we stop off for a light breakfast at a place that specialises in light breakfasts. I eat some toast and Francine has an egg. I’m no chef, that’s as detailed as it gets.

“Lou used to come here on business sometimes. He had a client with one of his larger accounts in Cleveland. I’m sure half the time he was just using them as a smokescreen to get away.” Francine is working a spoon into the boiled egg and a small particle of white clings to her chin like some breakfast shrapnel.

“I’m way behind the curve, here” I say. “I still can’t get it to stick that Lou could have killed a guy. Do you think he’s really capable of that?”

“I would have said ‘no’ without hesitation as recently as nine or ten months ago. I really don’t know. The thing is, until then I would always have said you were the violent brother, Lou for all his smart talk and joking around just didn’t have the same stomach for that kind of thing as you.”

“None of us have a stomach for it, Francine. Sometimes it’s tough to avoid.”

We let a pocket of silence form around us for a while. Neither of us is comfortable with this casual reference to violence and my association with it. Tell the truth, I had been wondering how long it might take to get around to it.

Francine picks up the tab and leaves me standing there like a financial eunuch with his nuts clipped. The women’s movement would love it, I still feel awkward. I don’t fully understand why. I drop a dollar bill onto the plate by the register to make myself feel better and follow Francine into the lot at a distance of two feet like a good puppy should. We climb into Francine’s car and Francine drives and Francine has the plan and Francine makes the decisions. This ain’t no corner of the world for a man to get precious and try and apply the breaks. This lady got an eye for detail that I just don’t have.

“We need to try his client first. The firm is called Leonard, Lock and Geller. Law Firm in the middle of town. Our man is called Milton Lock. I’ve never seen him but I have heard his name plenty. He’s a password for Lou running out on me at weekends.”

She indicates the glove box and tells me there is a map in there. The firm is denoted by a number one on the map. I unfold the thing and then reduce it into a manageable size. Why do they always make these things too big for a car? Francine has numbered five locations around the city, she has a system that works us from the centre out toward the suburbs and it all adds up and makes sense.

We head to Public Square. High rise office blocks, hotels and impressive looking banks, insurance buildings and other money making scams line the sidewalks and face each other across the obligatory hundred lanes of traffic. Old Glory flutters lightly from flagpoles on at least a third of the buildings and virtually all of the larger commercial concerns. I’m not a scientist, I don’t know if it means anything. Francine parks the car having spotted the law firm, despite handling the traffic and having handled me the map and grid location. This woman is all action.

The lobby area of  Leonard, Lock and Geller or Leonard, Glock and Keller as my sleep deprived, addled brain kept calling it, was the usual miasma of wood panelling, large glass sides and marble effect flooring. More examples of extreme patriotism abounded and a small pile of tasteful magazines had been left out on a low rise coffee table, designed to infringe on your shins. The magazines were only slightly younger than the receptionist, who initially at least, was a study in avoiding any eye contact or responsibility. The message was clear; WE are important. YOU can wait.

Francine walks to the counter and mentions the names of Milton Lock and my brother. The receptionist seems to know Lou’s name and dials through to what I assume is an office somewhere way above our heads on say the fourteenth floor. I can’t make out what she is saying and she seems to be taking a while, so I pick up a magazine and look through it. The pages concern themselves with Cape Cod property and most of the advertisements feature Cape Cod appropriate clothing. Perhaps Cleveland money aspires to Cape Cod leisure.

In the time it takes to let us know that Mr Lock will be with us directly and the time that passes as we realise ‘directly’ does not mean ‘right away,’ I could have located and emptied every safe in the building. Eventually, an elevator door slides open and seems to be sticking on the tracks as it goes. The door judders slightly, taking my attention from the guy who motions toward us with his plastic smile and concrete set quiff. He is at least twenty years younger than I had anticipated but when he introduces himself with some shapeless name and announces his job title as ‘assistant to Milton Lock,’ I understand the kid is the latest well educated and over privileged three piece suit looking to get his name engraved onto a brass plaque and nailed to the outside wall. He will probably spend as many hours chasing his dream as I have wasted in bars across Philadelphia.

We follow nameless to the elevator and rise up through the core of the building. The car lurches and stumbles a couple of times and I am prompted to exchange glances with Francine. She has noticed too but seems unconcerned. When the box stops and the door shimmies open, we are stood on a landing that provides a generous view of the city and walls that are covered with conservative examples of non-challenging patriotic American art.

“Mr Lock has agreed to see you but I’m afraid he doesn’t have much time. He is a busy man.”

I imagine he is a busy man is probably the second most spoken phrase inside this little walled community right after a request for payment. We follow nameless across the landing and into a narrow corridor. The doors each face a segment of wall, meaning that doors are never opposite each other. Each wall space is decorated with a framed piece of neutral crap.

Lock fills his seat and isn’t what I expected. I thought the guy would look sharp, tailored, be trim and six kinds of impressive. He’s a slob. His gut rolls across his lap like waves on the Jersey shoreline. Every time he moves the strained fabric of his shirt threatens to pop a button and expose some hairy, pasty fat flesh. He offers Francine a cigarette whilst doing a nice job of admiring her cleavage. She takes one and leans forward to accept a light and I swear I see a speck of sweat break cover on his round dome. He offers me a cigarette and even though I haven’t smoked in some time I take it and let it burn. Hell with it, I’m dealing with homicide, here.

“We’re trying to find my husband,” says Francine in that way she has of avoiding diversion.

“He hasn’t been here in a few days,” says Lock but I don’t think I believe him.

“Why would you be honest with us,” I ask?

He regards me for what could be the first time, judging from the face twitches, I know from experience that he is comparing my face to Lou’s.

“I don’t suppose you can know that I am honest but I am just the same.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” I ask.

“I would have to look through my desk diary. Not so recently that I can just pick the day off the top of my head.”

“Days, weeks or months?” I say.

“Oh, days. Definitely days, I’m just not sure how many. Probably four days. Something like that.”

“That’s when you saw him or spoke to him?”

His jowls shake as he glances at the over sized desk phone. The thing presents with a high polish and I guess he can see himself in its surface. It must put him off as he turns to face Francine. I notice he wears a wedding band and I wonder how fat his wife is, or if she is sleeping with a thin man who has kept his hair. I can be a little bitter about that sort of thing.

“We need details,” I say, in a manner that I hope suggests violence for non-compliance.

“There isn’t a whole lot I can tell you. Your husband, Mrs Casper, is a semi-regular visitor here but I have no real insight into his private life. I doubt he would have told me anything of interest to you.”

“Right now,” says Francine, “everything is of interest to me.”

We leave the office some minutes later having achieved nothing other than shaving a few more minutes from Lock’s life expectancy. When we make it to the sedan and roll almost defeated into traffic, Francine waters at the eyes and makes no show to cover it. These aren’t the fat tears of real grief, more the sudden bubble of frustration announcing itself. I want to comfort her but there’s only so much comfort you can provide to your brother’s wife when she’s driving.

“We’ll get there, Francine. Right? I mean, we still got the other names on the list, don’t we?”

“Yes we still have the other names but how much time have we got? I don’t like this, Ed. I don’t like that Lou is getting less predictable in all of this. I feel like I hardly know him anymore.”

“We’re both on that boat.”

“What’s your gut telling you, Ed?”

“My gut’s telling me that Lou is mixed up in something too big for him. Probably got carried away with his own importance and walked straight into the patsy roll. Then again, like you say; he’s got unpredictable lately.”

The car runs smooth and the road rolls beneath as quiet takes hold. Francine watches the traffic. I watch the buildings roll by. High rises, single storey liquor stores, bars. I watch people amble through the downtown sunshine. Drifters, grifters, grafters, chancers, dancers and whores. Every level of low life, show life and no life you could imagine. Honest folks go about their honest business. We’re unable or unwilling to voice our doubts, most of them, I’m sure, connected to Lou and the question of his involvement in this thing.

We check on a couple of other locations, ask the standard list of questions so often that I’m beginning to sound like a kid at a spelling bee. Nothing sheds light on anything, no leads, no speculation and no floating bodies or blood splattered hats. I’m beginning to wish I had just knocked Lou out and tied him up when I had the chance.

When darkness begins to feel its way around the edges of the sky like blotting paper staining inwards, we are both tired. Tired of Lou, tired of faces and questions and tired of each other. Francine maybe feels bad because she offers to spring for a room, so long as I stay in my own half of it and don’t try to get any looks at her.

By the time we are in the room and the blind is across the glass, I am asleep on my feet and the only kind of body I can think about is one without a pulse turning up in a dark place and for no good reason.

Twelve

If the morning brings us anything to feel good, its’ on a go-slow to show its hand. There’s nothing here in the room but a thick shaft of light through the gap between blind and sill and swirling dust motes, hanging around the classy naked bulb. I pretend to be asleep when Francine lifts herself from the bed and tiptoes to the bathroom, obviously hoping my head is full of dreams of whatever men my age dream about. There’s nothing to see anyway, unless your thing is bed hair and an inch of ankle flesh. I feel a little strange waking up with my sister-in-law like this whilst by brother is who-knows where and maybe facing Murder One.

When we abandon the digs after a rushed breakfast of scrambled eggs and cheap coffee.