Crazy Like a Fox
THE SERPENT THREAT REMOVED, Gert’s was mobbed and every booth occupied, the bar three deep, two bartenders going flat out. Raymer’s timing was good, though. The couple occupying the darkest booth along the far wall, the one he most coveted, away from all the mayhem, were insulting each other at high volume. “I’m not the one that’s fucking crazy,” the man shouted. “You’re the one that’s fucking crazy.” Someone down the bar shouted, “You’re both fucking crazy,” leaving the angry couple no choice but to form a temporary alliance, bellowing in perfect unison, “Fuck you!” A second later, though, they were squaring off again, and whatever the man said next — Raymer didn’t quite catch it — must’ve tripped the woman’s switch, because she lunged across the booth, knocking over their pitcher of beer, and punched him in the face, the blow landing with enough force that his head rebounded off the back of the booth. “Don’t,” Raymer told her when she drew her fist back, about to let fly again. “I’m serious. Don’t do it.”
“Give me one good fucking reason,” she said, her features contorted into a mask of unreason, so Raymer showed her the badge that he now realized he should’ve given Gus along with his resignation letter. He still had his revolver, too, as well as his radio, though he’d left the latter in the car, not wanting Charice to interrupt his drinking.
“She assaulted me,” the man whined, a thin trickle of blood leaking from one nostril. “You’re my witness.”
“Because he’s a goddamn asshole,” the woman explained, as if establishing a companion’s generally rum character was a time-honored defense in cases of physical assault.
“Pay your tab on the way out,” Raymer told them, then stood aside so they could sheepishly vacate their booth.
“See what you went and done?” the man told his date when he saw Raymer slide in.
Gert came over and wiped off the table with a smelly rag. “Jesus,” he said, noticing his ruptured fruit of a hand.
Outside in the parking lot, Raymer had discovered that the sharp-edged garage-door opener, though useless at Sully’s, was the perfect tool for digging at the inflamed, itchy edges of the wound, which had taken over his entire palm. Thin red cobwebs now crept up his wrist. He slid his hand out of sight under the table. “What was that beer I was drinking when I was in here the other day?”
“You mean yesterday afternoon?”
“That was yesterday?” Raymer said. Because it felt like last week.
“Twelve Horse ale.”
“Right,” he agreed, Jerome’s low opinion of it now coming back to him. “I’ll have one of those. In fact, bring me two. I’m going to murder the first in about two seconds.”
When Gert left, Raymer raised up on one haunch to regard the puddle of beer he was sitting in. At least he hoped it was beer.
“On the house,” Gert said when he returned, sliding two bottles of Twelve Horse and a glass in front of him. “I heard you saved the life of one of my regulars.”
“Thanks,” Raymer said, sliding the glass back to him, then draining half the first beer in one go. It tasted every bit as wonderful this afternoon as it had yesterday. Since turning in his resignation, he’d been wondering what he might do next. Suddenly his path seemed clear. He would become an alcoholic. He would sit in dark, smelly bars like this one in the middle of the afternoon drinking cold, cheap beer. “I should probably tell you,” he said to Gert. “That as of this afternoon I’m officially unemployed. I might not be able to pay my tab.”
Gert made a sweeping gesture that took in his entire establishment. “Welcome to the fucking club.”
In three more swallows he’d finished the first beer and settled into grateful ownership of a large booth all by himself, confident that not a single raucous drunk wanted any part of his company. With his uninjured left hand he rolled the cool empty bottle over his forehead, the exquisite pleasure of this proving that — yes indeedy — he was running a fever. That said, he’d felt worse, even quite recently. He seemed to have moved beyond exhaustion to whatever came next. The primal scream he let loose over at Sully’s must’ve dislodged something. Dougie? That would be nice. Because that guy, he’d concluded, was an asshole. Somehow he managed to bring out both the best and worst in his host, making Raymer at once a better cop and a much-worse human being. Admittedly, he never would’ve tracked William Smith down without Dougie’s help, and good had come of that, but it was also Dougie who’d encouraged him to dig up Judge Flatt for no sound purpose and it was also under his influence that he’d punched out an innocent (albeit obnoxious) motorist. Nor was Dougie as smart as he seemed to think he was. Without a shred of evidence, he had encouraged Raymer to believe that Becka’s boyfriend was Peter Sullivan, which, granted, he’d been all too willing to accept. And maybe worst of all, after Raymer demonstrated some actual maturity by crafting an agreement that benefited both Ghost Becka and himself, the bigmouth had reneged on the deal. So if he’d somehow managed to expel Dougie with that primal scream — he’d been silent ever since, and the buzzing in Raymer’s ears had stopped — so much the better.
Also apparently expelled at the same time, unfortunately, was his judgment. Because face it: instead of sitting here guzzling beer, he should be at the hospital getting his hand amputated. Would Charice think poorly of him and find him less attractive as a one-handed man? he wondered. To feel so disconnected from his own well-being was mildly alarming, but this was more than compensated for by the fact that, for the first time in his life, he didn’t give one tiny little shit about anything. Was this what freedom felt like? If so, bring it on. All he was missing, he decided, was someone to tell how perfectly happy he was.
On the wall between the two restrooms was a pay phone, a suspiciously thin Schuyler County phone directory dangling from it by a chain. Half the pages had been torn out, but he was in luck, the number he needed having been left behind. “Jerome,” he said when the man finally answered, his voice sounding groggy. How best to engage somebody probably still suffering the lingering effects of powerful sedatives? “I know who keyed your car,” Raymer told him.
“I do, too,” Jerome replied dully.
Raymer paused only briefly to puzzle over his lack of interest, then continued. “It was this asshole named Roy Purdy.”
“No,” Jerome said. Not contentious, just confident. “It wasn’t him.”
“Actually,” Raymer said, “we’ve got a witness.” Though this wasn’t quite true. All Mr. Hynes had seen was Roy emerging from the alley, but still.
The silence on the other end of the line lasted so long that Raymer wondered if he’d somehow missed the telltale click of his having hung up. Finally, Jerome said, “You. You keyed the ’Stang.”
Raymer let out an exhausted sigh. “Why would I do that, Jerome? I mean, we’re friends, right? Why would I?”
“I have to go now,” Jerome said.
“Don’t hang up,” Raymer said, surprised by the angst in his voice. “Hold on a minute, okay? There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. Something I have to come clean about.”
“You hate me. You keyed the ’Stang.”
“No, Jesus, will you listen?”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“No you don’t. I think…I might have feelings for your sister.”
“Now you’re trying to fuck with my head.”
“That’s not true,” Raymer said. “Why would you even think that? I mean, is that so weird? You said yourself that she was devoted to me. I should’ve realized how I felt about her sooner but…I don’t know…it’s just been really hard to let go of Becka. Hard to, well, to forgive her, I guess. Because she could’ve come to me, right? Explained how things were? Why she didn’t love me anymore? Told me who the other guy was? She could’ve done all that, right?”