Night Train (11 page)

       Well, I thought: 'That' isn't it. Just then Denziger looked at his watch with what seemed like irritation or anxiety. I said quickly, 'The revolution you talked about. Of consciousness. Would there be casualties?

       I heard the door open. A broad in a black sweatsuit was standing there, making a phone call. When I turned again Denziger was still  looking at me. He said, 'I guess it wouldn't necessarily be bloodless. I have to talk to Hawaii now.

       'Yeah. Well I'm in no hurry. I'm going to smoke a cigarette out on the steps there. Maybe if you get a moment you'll walk me to my car.'

       And I reached for the tape recorder and keyed the Pause.

       With my arms folded to promote warmth and thought, I stood on the steps, looking at the quality of life. Jennifer's life. Jennifer's life. The fauna of early spring—birds, squirrels, even rabbits. And the agitated physicists—the little dweebs and nerds and wonks. A white sky giving way to pixels of blue, and containing both sun and moon, which she knew all about. Yes, and Trader, on the other side of the green hill. I could get used to this.

       The naked-eye universe. The 'seeing.' The eighty-billion-year heartbeat. On the night she died, the sky was so clear, the seeing was so clear—but the naked eye isn't good enough and needs assistance... In her bedroom on the evening of March fourth Jennifer Rockwell conducted an experiment with time. She took fifty years and squeezed them into a few seconds. In moments of extreme crisis, time slows anyway: Calm chemicals come from the brain to the body, to help it through to the other side. How slowly time would have passed. She must have felt it. Jennifer must have felt it—the eighty-billion-year heartbeat.

       Students straggled by. No, I don't have to take a test tomorrow morning. I'm done with being tested. Aren't I? Then why do I feel like I feel? Is Jennifer testing me? Is that what she's doing—setting me a test? The terrible thing inside of me is growing stronger. I swear to Christ, I almost feel pregnant. The terrible thing inside of me is alive and well, and growing stronger.

       Blinking with his whole forehead, Bax Denziger staggered out into the light. He waved, approached—we fell into step. Without any prompting he said, 'I dreamt about you last night.'

       And I just said, 'You did, huh?'

       'I dreamt about this. And you know what I said? I said, 'Arrest me.'

       'Why would you say that, Bax?'

       'Listen. The week before she died, for the first time ever Jennifer fucked up. She fucked up on the job. Big.'

       I waited.

       He sighed and said, 'I had her defending some distances in M101. Princeton were kicking our butt so bad—they were killing us. Let me keep it simple. The plate density scan gives you a bunch of numbers, millions of them, which go into the computer to be compared and calibrated against the algorithms. The—'

       Stop, I said. The more you're telling me, the less I understand. Give me the upshot.

       'She changed—she changed the program. I see the reductions on Monday morning and I'm like ''Yes'.' I'd been 'praying' for data half that strong. I look again and I see it's all bullshit. The velocities, the metallicities—she'd changed all the values. And blown a month's work. I was up there nude against Princeton. Without a stitch on.'

       'Not an accident, you're saying. Not an honest mistake.'

       'No. It was like 'malicious'. Get this. When Miriam phoned and told me, my first reaction was relief. Now I won't have to kill her when she comes in. And then just awful, awful guilt. Mike, it's been bleeding me white. I mean, am I that brutal? Did she fear my anger that much?'

       By now we were in the lot and skirting around the unmarked. I'd fished my keys from my pants. Denziger looked as though mathematics were happening to him right then and there. As though math were happening to him: He looked subtracted, with much of his force of life, and his IQ, suddenly taken away.

       'It's just a single element. In a pattern of egression,' I said, looking to give him comfort with something that sounded technical. 'You know Trader?'

       'Sure I know him. Trader is a friend of mine.'

       'You tell him about Jennifer's stunt?'

       'Stunt? No, not yet. But let me tell you something about Trader Faulkner. He's going to survive this. It'll take years, but he'll survive this. From what I gather it's uh, Tom Rockwell who has the biggest problem here. Trader's as strong as an ox but he's also a philosopher of science. He lives with unanswered questions. Tom's going to want something neat. Something that...'

       'Measures up.'

       'Measures up.' As I climbed into the car he gave a bushy frown and said, 'That was a 'good' joke she played on me. I keep getting into these professional brawls because my preferences are too strong. She always said I took the universe much too personally.'

       Tom's going to want something that measures up. And again that thought: She was a cop's daughter. This has to matter. How?

ARE YOU HERE TO MEET JENNIFER ROCKWELL?

The Mallard is the best hotel in town, or it certainly thinks it is. I know the Mallard well, because I've always had a weakness (what's 'wrong' with me?) for the twenty-dollar cocktail. And for the twenty-cent cocktail, too. But I never resented the extra: It's worth it for the atmosphere. A double Johnny Black in elegant surroundings, with a sleepy-looking cocksucker, in a white tux, slumped over the baby grand: That was my idea of fun. Fortunately I never came in here when I was really smashed. For a two-day climb, give me York's or Dreeley’s on Division. Give me a long string of dives on Battery. The Mallard's the stone mansion in Orchard Square. Inside it's all wooden panels and corporate gloom. Recently refurbished. A high-tech shrine to Great Britain. And with a lot of duck shit everywhere you look. Prints, models, lures—decoys. Those little carved quack-quacks, which have no value except rarity, sell for tens of thousands. I got there early, equipped with Silvera's literature on Arn Debs. I sat at a table and ordered a Virgin Mary, heavy on the spice.

       Arn Debs subscribes to 'Business Week', 'Time', and 'Playboy'. Naturally I'm thinking: Why did Jennifer give him my number? Arn Debs drives a Trans Am and carries a $7,000 limit on his MasterCard. Right now I have to assume that she wanted me to cover or middle for her—which I guess I would have gone ahead and done. Arn Debs has season tickets to the Dallas Cowboys. Probably I'd cover for any woman on earth, in principle—with one exception. Arn Debs rents action movies by the shitload. With one exception: Jennifer's mother. Arn Debs is a registered Republican. Nobody seems to worry too much about Miriam: Maybe we assume that, with her background, catastrophe is all wired in. Arn Debs wears a bridge from eyetooth to eyetooth. Here's another read: Jennifer gave him my number because he was bothering her and she wanted me to roust him. Arn Debs has three criminal convictions. Two are for mail fraud: These are out of Texas. One is for Aggravated Assault: This rap goes way back—to when he was just an up-country boy.

       Jennifer screwing up on the job: This could play two ways. A rush of blood, maybe. Or a kind of personal inducement. Giving her one more reason not to see Monday...

       Now wait a minute. The Decoy Room was a zoo when I walked in here. But eight o'clock has come and gone. And I'm thinking, No: It's that fucking room-emptier at the near end of the bar. How could I miss the guy? I had him d.o.b.'d at 1/25/47. Six-three. Two hundred and twenty. Red hair. I guess I just couldn't feature it: Him and Jennifer, in any connection. And I'd been watching him, too. There was no escaping Arn Debs. Until around eight fifteen he was sticking to beer—out of deference to his boner. Then he despaired and switched to scotch. Now he's swelling and swearing and sneering at the waitresses. And boring the barman blind: Asking the kid about his love life, his 'prowess,' as if it's the feminine 'of prow'. Jesus, aren't drunks a drag? Barmen know all about bores and boredom. It's their job. They can't walk away.

       I hang fire till the kid dreams up some chore for himself in back. Then I stride the length of the room. Everyone says I like to dress as a beat cop. As the beat cop I once was. But my jacket is black cotton, not black leather or sateen. And I wear black cotton pants, not the issue serge. And no nightstick, flashlight, radio, hat, gun. The man's wearing cowboy boots under his slacks. Another giant. Americans are going through the roof. Their mothers watch them grow, first with pride, then with panic.

       'You Arn Debs?'

       'Who the fuck wants to know?'

       'The law,' I said. 'That's who the fuck wants to know.' And I opened my jacket to show him the shield pinned to my blouse. 'Are you here to meet Jennifer Rockwell?'

       'Maybe and maybe not. And fuck you whichever.'

       'Yeah well she's 'dead',' I told him. And I made a quelling gesture with my raised palms. 'Easy now, Mr. Debs. This is going to go just fine. We'll sit in the corner there and talk this thing through.'

       He said quietly, 'Get your damn hand off of me.'

       And I said quietly, 'Okay. You want to come and listen while I call the house? Do your wife and daughter know about Jennifer and you? Do they know about that spot of pain you had in August '81? With what's her face—September Duvall? That was a rape beef, wasn't it. Copped to Agg Assault. This was when you were still living up in Fuckbag, Nebraska. Remember?

       'Eric?' I called to the barman. 'Let me have a Virgin and a double Dewar's for the gentleman over at my table.'

       'Right away, Detective Hoolihan. Right away.'

       What I'm looking at here, I think (and he's sitting opposite me now, crowded into the nook by the window, with a hollow duck practically perched on each shoulder), is a semi-reformed shitkicker, in a good tweed coat and twills, who likes to get it wet at both ends whenever he's out of town. Table for two booked at the French restaurant upstairs. Tex tan, dark glasses ready in his top pocket, and a head of tawny hair he's real proud of—I'm surprised he's not called Randy or Rowdy or Red. High, wide, and handsome, with itty-bitty eyes. A card-carrying tailchaser who's 'that close' to being a fruit.

       I said drink up, Mr. Debs.

       He said well this is a hell of a turn for the evening to take.

       I said so you're a friend of Jennifer Rockwell's.

       He said yeah. Well. I only met her but once.

       I said when?

       He said oh, maybe a month back. I make these business trips regular, like every three or four weeks?

       Met her on my last trip. February twenty-eight. I remember because no leap year. Met her February twenty-eight.

       I said where?

       He said here. Right here. At the bar there. She was sitting a couple of stools away and we got talking.

       I said she was here alone. Not waiting for anybody.

       He said yeah, sitting at the bar there with a white wine. You know.

       I said so what were you thinking?

       He said to tell you the truth, I thought she was like a model, or maybe even some kind of high-class call girl. Like you get in the better hotels. Not that I was fixing to pay for it. Then we got talking. I could tell she was a nice girl. She wasn't wearing a wedding band. She married?

       I said what did you talk about?

       He said life. You know. Life.

       I said yeah? What? Sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. Look before you leap. That kind of stuff?

       He said hey. What is this? I'm answering your questions, okay?

       I said you tell her about your wife and kid?

       He said it didn't come up.

       I said so you made a date. For tonight.

       He said listen. I conducted myself like a gentleman.

       Debs went into a thing about the company he works for in Dallas, how they had a guy come down from DC to give a seminar on social etiquette. A seminar on how to avoid sexual-harassment suits. He reminded me that you can't be too careful, not these days, and he always conducted himself like a gentleman.

       I said what happened?

       He said I said you feel like some dinner? Here at the hotel? She said I'd like that but tonight's a problem. Let's do it next time you're in town.

       I said how come she gave you my phone number?

       He said 'your' phone number?

       I said yeah. We talked yesterday.

       He said that was 'you?' Hey. Go figure. She said it wasn't 'her' number. Said it was a friend’s number. Said if I called her at home there might be a problem with the guy she lived with.

       I said okay, swinger. That's not how it happened. Here's how it happened. You were hassling her. Wait! You were hassling her, in the bar, in the foyer, I don't know. Maybe you followed her out into the street. She gave you the number to get you off her back. You were— He said that's not what happened. I swear. Okay, I escorted her out to the cab stand. And she wrote down the number for me. Look. Look.

       From his inside pocket Debs produced his wallet. With his big fingers he leafed heavily through some loose business cards: There. He held it up for me. My number followed by Jennifer's crisp signature. Followed by two exes, crosses—for kisses.

       I said you kiss her, Arn?

       He said yeah I kissed her.

       And he paused. It was gradually dawning on Debs that the momentum had turned his way. He was feeling good again now. What with the fomenting adrenaline, and the double Dewar's he'd long gotten down himself, as if against time.

       'Yeah I kissed her. There a law against that now?'

       'With your tongue, Am?'

       He straightened a finger at me. 'I conducted myself with the upmost correctitude. Hey. Chivalry ain't dead. What she die of anyhow?'

       Well that's something. 'She's' dead. But chivalry isn't. 'Accident. With a firearm.'