In the late afternoon, in the rolling country of eastern Ohio after another coffee, his mind cleared and the world seemed ordinary again, though not without the feeling he had simply locked up the haunting question in a room and would be hearing from it again. He asked himself the rational question, Exactly what is the purpose of this trip, and was surprised to discover he did not know. Ray Marcus has been released, and Andes wants me to come. To help, he said, but no word as to how. It’s a hell of a long journey for so indefinite a purpose.
He counted up the number of long journeys he had taken at Bobby Andes’s request. This would be his fourth visit to Grant Center in a year. All this in pursuit of three men. He thought, Why I must be crazy. This is insane.
It was the vagueness of purpose this time that proved it. Each of the other trips had a specific end which made some sense. He supposed Bobby Andes had a plan, something secret, not safe to mention over the telephone. Why, he said, that’s mad. It’s not me that’s insane, it’s Bobby Andes.
They met not in Grant Center but in Topping, in a restaurant with a counter, and they sat in a booth by the window opposite the fronts of their cars parked outside. Tony’s dinner was tough gray roast beef under a blanket of gravy. He faced Bobby Andes, who bent over his food, curling his spaghetti on his fork, raising a forkful to his mouth but not putting it in, putting his plate aside, leaving it untouched. Tony Hastings looked at him and said, This man is mad. Adding after a moment, So am I. Bobby Andes said, “If it wasn’t for this cancer.”
“What cancer?”
Bobby Andes glared. “I told you, I got six fucking months to live.”
Tony Hastings stared back. “Did you tell me?” Did he sleep through such an important message as that?
Bobby Andes was saying how it was the lawyer he got, lawyer the court appointed, named Jenks, how him and Gorman made a deal and got Ray off. A deal, politics, you take this one, I’ll let you have that one.
Tony asked, “When did you tell me about your illness?”
“It’s Jenks and Gorman.”
“I don’t understand what you are talking about.”
“They want to ease me out.”
“Why would they do that?”
Bobby Andes did not answer.
“Would they drop a murder case to do that?”
Yes, the case. Bobby Andes explained. They were saying the case wasn’t well prepared, it was a sloppy job, slapdash, no evidence, evidence gathered improperly, won’t stand up in court. According to Andes, Gorman was punishing him because the sonofabitch is scared to death to take on a case he might lose. He asked if that made Tony mad.
“I saw them, Bobby.”
“Yeah yeah yeah.”
“Are they dropping Lou too?”
Not Lou. They got the fingerprints on Lou. Make him stand trial for the whole fucking Hastings case. That’s fine if you’re satisfied to hold Lou accountable for crimes inspired by Ray.
“It’s no good if they don’t get Ray,” Tony said.
“That’s what I thought you thought,” Andes said. He told how Ray got off because the only thing they had on him was Tony’s word, and Jenks had scared Gorman into thinking that wouldn’t stand up. And because it was Andes’s case and Gorman thought it was time he retired and got the benefit of his cancer in Florida.
“You never told me about the cancer.”
“The word going out these days is I’m incompetent. Which Gorman would like to prove.”
“What if I spoke to him?”
Bobby laughed, haw haw. The trouble with you is this airtight alibi Ray’s got. His airtight alibi. He was with Leila Whozis, she backs him up, her aunt backs him up, what can they do?
“There’s another problem, too.”
“What?”
“Get this.” According to Gorman, your identification of Ray is unreliable. Calm down, it ain’t personal, it’s lawyers. It’s Ray’s alibi, plus she backed him up. Plus, it was in the dark which increased your chances for error. Plus, you couldn’t identify Turk. That’s big with Gorman, you couldn’t identify Turk.
“Ray was more vivid than Turk.”
“Don’t tell me, I believe you. We sure could have used your friend in the truck.”
“Who?”
“The deaf man. He could have identified Ray.”
“He probably never knew about it.”
“Everybody in the county knew about it. Sonofabitch was too scared to come forward. Mind his own business, the bastard.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Well, according to Bobby Andes, the obvious way would be to break somebody down. He told how he tried that on Lou Bates, which they wouldn’t let him because all Gorman would allow was polite questions. You don’t break an ox like Bates with polite questions. According to Bobby Andes, Lou Bates was an idiot. He had one principle of survival, name rank and serial number. He don’t know Ray, period. When Bobby told him what the guys at Herman’s had said, Lou said, “If I had a beer with him, I never knew who he was.” When Bobby suggested it wasn’t fair for him to take the rap for everybody, Lou didn’t know what Bobby was talking about. When Bobby asked who was that third guy running away at the Bear Valley Mall, he don’t know, was there another guy? Big stone face with a beard.
Bobby Andes set down his fork and lit a cigarette. He was enjoying his frustrations. He thought they could at least hold Ray on the holdup but now the clerk can’t identify him. He quoted Gorman saying, the only thing you got is the guys in Herman’s who saw them drinking beer and Hastings (that’s you) recognizing him from the number on the back of his uniform after you told him who he was. And they can’t use Ray’s police record because that ain’t done.
He looked at Tony a long time, which made Tony nervous. “It’s a question how serious you are about seeing justice done.”
He said he had George keeping an eye on Ray, so he won’t get away without him knowing.
Tony said, “What do you mean, how serious I am?”
“That’s a good question.”
Tony waited. Bobby Andes put his uneaten spaghetti a little further to the side. “Can’t eat,” he said. “Might throw up.”
“Are you in pain?”
“What time do you have? Do you have eight o’clock?”
“Yes.”
“So do I. George will be calling. He’s to check me here at eight.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Bobby shrugged his shoulders.
“Can’t you eat? How do you get along if you can’t eat?”
He shrugged his shoulders again. “It depends.”
“I appreciate your going to all this effort.”
“Sometimes I can eat, sometimes I can’t. This place stinks.”
“Do you have any close relatives or friends?”
Bobby Andes lit another cigarette and stamped it out without smoking it. “Let me ask you a personal question,” he said. “Between us, okay? What do you want me to do to Ray Marcus?”
The question startled Tony, the odd wording. “What can you do?”
Bobby Andes seemed to think about this. “Anything you goddamn like,” he said.
“I thought you said—”
“I got nothing to lose.”
Tony tried to understand. Bobby Andes said, “Shall I restate the question? Put it this way: how far are you willing to go to bring Marcus to justice?” He lit another cigarette.
Tony wondered, what do you mean? He heard Bobby Andes saying this: “Are you willing to go outside the strict procedures a little?” Like wondering if that slight tremor you just felt was an earthquake.