I caught his eye, asked "How's it going?"
"Been better. Been worse, too."
"And will be again."
"Believe it."
He pulled out a pack of Winstons, shook one loose and got it going. Then as an afterthought glanced my way, took the pack out again and offered me one. When I declined, he put the cigarettes back, held out his hand. We shook.
"Danel. Like Daniel without the i."
"Turner… Any chance you could help me with these?"
I slid the paper across. After a moment he looked up.
"From out of town, are you."
I pled guilty.
"But you have business here." He tapped at the paper.
Yes.
"Well, sir, this here ain't part of Memphis at all, it's another country. Birdland, some of us call it. Bunch of whitebread castles's what it is. Some Johnny-come-lately builds him a house, next Johnny comes along and has to outdo him, build a bigger one. Kind of business that gets transacted out there, most people'd do best to stay away from. I'm guessing you're not most people."
"Can you give me directions?"
"Yeah, sure, I could do that. Or-" He threw back his coffee. "What the hell, it's a slow night, I'll run you out there."
We struck a deal, I picked up the Chariot as he sat idling in the Nu-Way Motel parking lot, then pulled in behind and followed him to city's edge. Here be dragons. We'd been cruising for close to thirty minutes, I figured, six or seven classics on whatever station I'd found by stabbing the Seek button-Buffalo Springfield ("There's some-thing hap-pen-ing here…"), Bob Seger's "Night Moves"-when Danel pulled his Checker cab onto the shoulder, a wide spot intended for rest stops, repairs, tire changes. I came alongside and we wound down windows.
"Here's where I bail," he said. "Place you're looking for's just around that bend. Don't be lookin' for the welcome mat to be out. Ain't the kind to be expecting company up in there."
I hoped not.
"Good luck, man."
"Thanks for your help." I'd paid him back at the diner. He had a good night.
"You're welcome. Prob'ly ain't done you no favor, though."
I pulled back onto the road, along the curve, cut the engine to coast into a driveway inhabited by a black BMW and a gussied-up red Ford pickup, chrome pipes, calligraphic squiggle running from front fender to rear wheel well, driver's-side spotlight. Backed out then and parked the Jeep a quarter-mile up the road, at another of those pull-offs.
The house was a castle, all right-like something imagined by Dr. Seuss. Classic middle-American tacky. Once in El Paso I'd seen a huge bedroom unit that looked to be marble but, when you touched it, turned out to be thin plastic. It was like that.
In the front room just off the entryway (as I peered through what I could only think of as eight-foot-tall wing windows) a large-screen TV was on, but there was no evidence of anyone in attendance. Action appeared to be centered in the kitchen-I'd come around to the back by then-where a card game and considerable beer consumption were taking place. Many longnecks had given their all. Bottles of bourbon and Scotch. One guy in a designer suit, two others in department-store distant cousins.
Newly awakened from its slumber in Glad bag and hand towel, the. 38 Police Special felt strangely familiar to my hand.
One of the cheap-suit players was raking in chips as I came through the door. Undistracted, his counterpart pushed to his feet, gun halfway out as I shot. He fell back into his chair, which went over, as though its rear legs were a hinge, onto the floor. I'd tried for a shoulder, but it had been a while, and I hit further in on his chest. There was more blood than I'd have liked, too, but he'd be okay.
Thinking it over for a half-minute or so, the second cheap suit held up both hands, removed his Glock with finger and thumb and laid it on the table, just another poker chip.
Dean Atkison in his designer suit looked at his flunky with histrionic disgust and took a pull off his drink.
"Who the hell are you?" he said.
I was supposed to be watching him at that point, of course-cheap suit's cue. He almost had the Glock in hand when I shot. His arm jerked, knocking the Glock to the floor, then went limp. He stood looking down at the arm that would no longer do what he willed it to do. His fingers kept on scrabbling, the way cat paws will when the cat's asleep and dreaming of prey.
It was all coming back.
Atkison's eyes went from his fallen soldiers to me.
"Be okay if I call for help for my boys here?"
"Go ahead."
I stood by as he punched 911 into a cell phone, asked for paramedics, gave his address, and threatened the dispatcher. Thing about cell phones is you can't slam the receiver down.
"Think we might attend to business now?"
"We don't have any business."
I whacked his knee with the gun, feeling skin tear and hearing something crunch. Blood welled through the expensive fabric. None of that should have happened.
"I live in a small town far away from here," I said. "Not far enough, apparently. A few days ago you brought your garbage to it."
He'd grabbed a hand towel off the table, was wrapping it around his knee.
"Paid some goddamn arrogant surgeon nine thousand to have that thing fixed, not six weeks ago. Now look at it."
"A man named Judd Kurtz came through. He didn't get through fast enough and wound up in jail. Then a couple of others came in his wake. None of them stayed."
"And I should care what happened in Bumfuck?"
I walked to him, helped wrap the towel.
"I need to know who Judd Kurtz is. I need to know if he's alive. And I need to know who the goons were who thought they could come into my town and tear it up."
"That's a lot of need."
Pulling hard at the ends of the towel, I knotted them.
"I was in a state prison for seven years," I told him. "I managed okay in there. There's not much I won't do."
He looked down at his shattered knee. Blood seeped steadily into the towel.
"Looks like a fucking Kotex," he said. "I'm a mess." He shook his head. "I'm a mess-right?"
"It could be worse."
He pulled a napkin towards him. Started to reach under his coat and stopped himself. "I'm just getting a pen, okay?"
I nodded, and he took a bright yellow Mont Blanc out of his coat pocket, wrote, passed the napkin across. Classic penmanship, the kind you don't see anymore, all beautifully formed loops and curls-confounded by the absorbent napkin that blurred and feathered each fine, practiced stroke.
"My life's not all that much, mind you," he said, "but I'd like to know it doesn't end here."
I shook my head. Sirens of fire truck and ambulance were close by now.
Nodding towards the napkin, Atkison said, "You'll find what you need there."
What I needed right then was to go out the back door, and I did.
When first I held it, the gun had felt so familiar. The body has a memory all its own. I started the car, pulled the seat belt across and clicked it home. Slipped into gear. The body remembers where we've been even as the mind turns away. I eased off the clutch and pulled out, hot wires burning again within me, incandescent. Blinding.
CHAPTER EIGHT
My Father's uniform hung in the back of a closet at the front of our house, in an unused bedroom. I found it there one rainy Saturday afternoon. It smelled of mothballs-camphor, as I'd later learn. Again and again I ran my fingers over its scratchy, stiff material. Dad never talked about his army time, what he'd done. In my child's mind I had him traversing deserts in Sherman tanks or diving fighter planes that looked much like Sopwith Camels through air thick with gunfire, smoke, and disintegrating aircraft. Much later, after his death, Mother told me he'd been a supply clerk.