Dead Man's Song

Chapter 8



(1)



“I saw you on the news,” said Harry LeBeau as he barged into Terry’s office in the municipal building, “and although you did a good job of handling the press, I have to say that I don’t like being left holding the bag. Gus and everyone else was looking for you all day and—”



“Oh, shut up, Harry,” Terry snapped, looking up from the stack of papers crowding his desk. “I’m not in the mood to listen to your whining.” LeBeau skidded to a halt and he stood there, eyes bugged in surprise, mouth working like a fish. Not once, not even at the height of the blight, had Terry ever snapped at him, or even raised his voice. LeBeau stood there, unable to form words. Terry’s blue eyes were hard as quartz. “You’re the deputy mayor and there’s more to that job than putting your title on business cards. Once in a while you have to step up and grow a set. If I was off the clock for five frigging minutes and you had to do some actual administrative work, then that’s just too bad. Later I’ll block out five minutes and have a good cry about it. Same with Gus Bernhardt. We’ve got killers running amok in this town at the start of our busiest season and all he seems capable of is sticking his thumb up his ass. What I don’t need, from you or Gus, is any bullshit about how unfair life is, because I can say with no risk of contradiction that I’ve got more on my plate right now than you have on yours. So why don’t you pirouette around and scamper back to your store and leave me alone? Close the door on your way out.”



There was absolutely no opening to make any kind of response to that, so LeBeau backed out of the room and pulled the door shut. His eyes were burning with tears of shame and hurt as he retreated down the hall to his own office.



Terry sat there, staring at the closed door, his fingernails scratching the hardwood top of his desk. Over the last few days his nails had become gradually thicker and harder. No one had commented on it, except for Sarah, and he’d told her it was just a side effect of his meds. He knew different; he’d read each package insert for each drug, and none of them mentioned this. Nervously he scratched at his desktop. There were deep grooves worn in the polished oak. He heard the sound of slow, ironic applause and he turned to see Mandy standing in the corner by the window, her face half-obscured by the leaves of a potted ficus.



“You can shut up, too,” Terry said to her and turned his face away. In his bloodstream a cocktail of Xanax, Risperdals, and Oxycontin was coming to a boil. He had the worst case of dry mouth he ever had, but at least his hands weren’t shaking. “I don’t have time for you, either.”



Mandy looked at him for a long minute, but the next time Terry glanced over to the corner of the room, it was empty.



(2)



Crow sat hunched forward, elbows on knees, pajama top pulled up as Saul Weinstock probed the bullet grazes on his sides and made hmm-ing sounds.



“So, how’s it look?” They had been out of the hospital for only a few hours, fresh from their naps, when Weinstock breezed in to mother-hen them. He made it sound casual, just something to kill time while they repaired the plumbing at the morgue, but neither Crow nor Val were fooled and they appreciated the gesture. Val was in the rocking chair by the window with Party Cat curled on her lap; she scratched his throat and he purred like an air compressor.



Weinstock pursed his lips. “Sissy-boy little wounds. I’m really surprised you have the balls to pretend you’re wounded in action.”



“That joke’s getting old, Saul.”



“You want sparkling bedside banter, watch a rerun of Scrubs.” Weinstock shrugged. “I told you already, you just got shot through some fatty tissue. No muscles were nicked, and these are already starting to knit. Just keep it clean, try not to get shot again, and you’ll be okay. The wrist will be tender for a while, though, so keep it wrapped. Next week you can go see Young Kim over at Fit & Able for some PT. Your face, though….”



“What about my face?”



“You’re still ugly as an ape. With any luck the bruises will hide that for a few days.”



“You’re not a very nice man,” Crow said.



Weinstock grinned as he put fresh dressings on each wound and secured them with white tape, then he dragged over a chair and sat down. Peering at the items on Crow’s bedside table, he selected an apple from a huge fruit basket that had just arrived from the Pine Deep Business Association and bit into it. Crow readjusted his clothes with some effort. “It’s all right, Doc, I can do it all by myself.”



“Okay,” Weinstock said, not having moved a muscle.



Val said, “I called Mark just before you got here. He said that you were planning on keeping Connie another couple of days. Is she okay?”



Weinstock shrugged. “Physically she’s just about fine, but psychologically—well…” He held his hand up and waggled it side to side.



“Mark’s not much better,” Crow said, and Val shot him a look. “Hey, sweetie, tell me I’m wrong. I’ve tried talking to him half a dozen times, and he just blows me off. That or he takes offense at anything I say. Thinks I’m blaming him for getting nailed by Ruger.”



“He’s ashamed,” Val said, and Weinstock nodded agreement. “Dad was old and Mark was starting to consider himself the man of the family. I know it’s juvenile, but in a lot of ways Mark’s just a big kid, all his business acumen notwithstanding. He was never a physical person, even when we were little. Never liked roughhousing with the rest of us. Considered himself too cerebral for that sort of thing. Then when Ruger came along, he was overwhelmed by the man. We all were. He never had a chance against him.”



“Few would,” Weinstock said.



“Crow did.”



“Hey, I had an edge,” Crow said and made a karate-chopping motion with his hands. “I got the kung-fu grip.”



“It doesn’t matter how many black belts you have, honey,” Val said, unsmiling. “Mark is measuring what he was unable to do against what you were able to do, and he doesn’t like how that makes him feel. So he’s taking it out on himself, and everyone around him.”



Weinstock nodded. “He’s clearly taking it out on Connie, too. Blaming her for nearly getting raped.”



“Which is pretty stupid—” Crow began, but Val cut him off.



“No it isn’t. Sad, but not stupid. Mark’s frustrated and angry—I can sympathize. You think I don’t blame myself for what happened to Daddy? And don’t you dare tell me that’s stupid, too, Malcolm Crow, or I’ll toss you out of this window.”



Crow mimed zipping his mouth shut.



“I’ve known guys like Mark,” Weinstock said. “Both in college and in business. Guys who either come from money or who have made themselves into very successful businessmen, like my Uncle Stanley. When you get powerful enough in business, when people jump because you tell them to—not because they’re physically afraid of you but because it’s your name on their paycheck and they’re living paycheck to paycheck—then you start equating that kind of power with physical prowess. The hype about ‘captains of industry’ and ‘boardroom lions’ is easy to swallow, and easy to equate with actually being a tough, powerful person. Then along comes a Karl Ruger who’s right out of the jungle and suddenly it’s all about real physical power—the power to hurt, to kill—and then all the illusions are just gone.” He snapped his fingers. “Mark believed the hype that he was a corporate tough guy, and maybe in the boardroom he is formidable, but down on the level of the predators he’s just somebody’s lunch. Now who does he have to measure himself against? Malcolm Crow, who is a short half-step away from village idiot…”



“Gee, thanks, Doc.”



“We’re talking Mark’s perception. You own a small shop in town—Mark owns half a dozen businesses and has interests in, what, ten more?”



“Over thirty more,” Val corrected. “Plus he runs the financial aid department of the college and has oversight on scholarships.”



“Right,” said Weinstock. “That’s power, as far his worldview goes. He has power over companies that make your little shop look like a street-corner pretzel stand. So, measuring himself against you on a daily basis he’s the alpha and you’re way in the back of the pack. Then what happens? Karl Ruger breaks in and roughs everyone up. Does what he pleases, touches what’s not his to touch, proves to Mark that anything he wants is his for the taking. Mark suddenly sees that no amount of corporate muscle is going to mean a thing…and when Ruger goes after Connie, there is nothing Mark could do to stop him.”



“In fairness, Saul, he was tied up!”



“You think that matters? Do you really think that Mark hasn’t thought of what would have happened if he’d been untied when Ruger tried to rape Connie?”



Crow looked at his fingernails.



Val said, “Ruger would have beaten him up again, maybe crippled him, he would still have raped Connie, and would then have killed both of them.”



“Right,” Weinstock said emphatically. “He’s probably mad at Val because she, at least, escaped from him out in the fields, and then was able to come back and attack Ruger in such a way as to save Connie.”



“He’d have killed me if Crow hadn’t gotten there. He was strangling me outside. I couldn’t fight him any more than Mark could.”



“Yeah, but Mark didn’t see that. He was still inside tied up, and you were outside. By the time he’d been freed Crow had shown up and had done what Mark could never have done—he fought and defeated Ruger. Mark, being tied up, could not even so much as hold his wife to comfort her. He had to just lie there, helpless. Essentially impotent. And Connie—she shares the same kind of warped perceptions of the world as her husband. She saw her husband fail to protect her. That she wasn’t actually raped doesn’t much matter, because she knows—she knows—that Ruger would have done it and Mark would not have been able to stop him. Imagine that rattling around in your head.”