(technically, adultery is still punishable by jail time), and what you can read (they get to decide what’s objectionable). Excuse the political message here. But I get irritable every time I enter a state-run liquor store. It’s like getting a note from your mom telling you it’s all right to have a highball.
Slim is a Korean War veteran who had one burning-bright dream the whole time he was getting his ass shot at in the snow over there. He wanted to go to work for Uncle Sam once he got done fighting for Uncle Sam. I remember the college year I spent reading most of Chekov’s stories. I just got hooked.
Nobody ever wrote so well about the civil-servant mentality, and God knows, if there’s one country that has that mentality, it’s Mother Russia. Slim Hanrahan also has that mentality. He’s a slender, gray, balding man with yellow teeth and surprisingly lively blue eyes. His favorite size in everything is small. A tiny Nash for a car, a tiny tract house for a home, a tiny woman for a wife. When he’s in his cups, he always pats his flat belly and says, “Yessir, the way I figure it, I got it made. They say millionaires got it made. But they don’t.
You got money like that, you’re always worryin’ you’re gonna lose it. The way I see it, the people who got it made got government jobs. You really got to be a screw-up to lose a civil-service job. And then you got the right to appeal it, anyway. There’ll never be liquor-by-the-drink in this state, so I got a job for life. Reasonable hours, nothing heavy to lift, good insurance plan absolutely free.
And no layoffs. Those factory guys always braggin’ about how much they make an hour… but lookit how often they get laid off. Or go on strike. I’ve got it knocked.”
That’s Slim.
I decided to check with Slim since he works the day shift in our one and only liquor store.
Mrs. Courtney’s state of intoxication had made me curious.
“You ever see her in here?”
Slim fingered the clip-on bow tie he always wore. Another man was running the counter. “I don’t know if I should be talking to you about this stuff, Sammy.”
He always called me Sammy. I hated it.
“This is a murder investigation, Slim.”
“You think she did it?”
“No, but I think she’s acting awfully strange for a woman whose husband has just been killed.”
“Oh, yeah? Funny how?”
“You think Cliffie could solve a murder?”
He shone his yellow teeth at me. “Are you ki. in’? That idiot?”
“Well, she’s leaving it all up to him, she says. She’s too smart for that. Which makes me wonder if there’s maybe something she doesn’t want to come out about her husband.”
“I see what you mean. By the way, you going to the reunion this year?”
“Probably.”
“My old lady and Joanie O’Hara got into it the other night at the bowling alley. So I’m kinda nervous about goin’. You notice how the O’Haras think they’re a big deal since Wayne was made a foreman at the plant?”
“I guess not.”
“The first thing he did was get an extension phone. They have two phones now.”
“Gosh.”
“Their house is even smaller than ours and they got two phones. That’s what I mean, they walk around actin’ like they’re some sort of big deal. The wife said something about that new discount store out on the highway. This was when they got into it at the bowling alley. And you know what Joanie says?”
“What?”
“She says “I wouldn’t be seen goin’ into a place like that.” Like she’s too high and mighty to save a little money on stuff.”
This sounded like a matter for the United Nations if I’d ever heard one.
“Slim, you think we could get back to Mrs.
Courtney?”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.”
“So does she come in here and buy liquor?”
“Now she does.”
“Now?”
“Yeah, startin’ about four months ago. It was funny. Never saw her in here before. And then all of a sudden she starts comin’ two, three times a week.”
“Two or three times a week.
Isn’t that a lot?”
“It’s a lot for what she was buyin’.
Half-gallon of gin at a time.”
“Was she ever drunk when she came in?”
“Not drunk but drinkin’. Slurring her words, stuff like that.”
“Hey, Slim,” the man running the first register said, “I could use some help over here.”
The place had filled up suddenly.
“I appreciate it, Slim. Thanks.”
“I’ll bet at the reunion Joanie goes around tellin’ everybody about their new extension phone. Whaddaya bet?”
He went over and greeted his customer.
I drove out to the Judge’s place, something I don’t often do. The house is a huge Tudor set upon three acres of perfectly kempt grounds that are safe behind a black iron fence. When her Eastern friends visit-I met Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. there one day; Nelson Rockefeller and Jacob Javits another-the west lawn is covered with a vast tent, a six-piece classical ensemble, and enough booze to get Moscow drunk on a Saturday night.
The props were just now being set up as I aimed my ragtop up the curving drive to the manse.
I saw Lettie and Max and Maria, the regular staff, carrying armloads of serving bowls, glasses, cups from the house to the tent.
The florist was there, as was the caterer, as were the musicians. Jay Gatsby would envy what was being set in motion here.
The Judge herself was in her study, Gauloise and brandy in hand. You rarely saw her in jeans, but jeans she wore and a white silk blouse. She was a little bit Rosalind Russell and a little bit Barbara Stanwyck. She was also a little bit drunk.
“So nice of you to keep me informed, McCain.”
The study had one of those floor-mounted globes that was about half the size of the actual planet and walls and walls of paintings and photos of her Whitney forebears, all of whom looked constipated and skunk-mean. There was also a lot of leather furniture that smelled of a recent oiling.
She also smelled, as usual, of a recent oiling.
I wasn’t up for her sarcasm. “You want to hear about how I almost got my head shoved into a cage of rattlesnakes or not?”
That shut her up. Who could resist hearing a story like that? She was giddy as a girl listening to my tale of bravery and grace under pressure and which, I have to admit, I did embellish a tad here and there, especially the part about how I tied two rattlers together.
“You tied them together?”
“You bet I did. Otherwise they would’ve jumped on me.”
“No offense, McCain, but I’ve just never thought of you as being that smart.”
“Thank you.”
“Or that brave, for that matter.”
“Thank you again.”
“Let me toast you.”
She toasted me. You’ll notice she didn’t offer me a drink so that I could toast me.
“Ah,” she said, downing the brandy. “And you learned what, exactly, for all your travail with those damnable snakes?”
“I learned that I’m much smarter and braver than you thought I was.”
“You shouldn’t brag, McCain. It’s unbecoming.”
“And I learned that Bill Oates seems to be on exceptionally good terms with Viola Muldaur.” I told her about how early he’d been there this morning.
She said, delicately, “Dierdre keeps telling me that Sara isn’t home and will call me back.”
“Avoiding you?”
“What else?”
“I thought you were friends.”
“Best of,” she said.
“And she won’t talk to you?”
“Afraid not.”
“So she knows something.”
“Afraid so,” she said.
“And could be in trouble?”
“Maybe.”
I told her about the mother-daughter visit to my office and about how they went home on friendly terms. And then I said, “Dierdre’s pregnant. I promised her I wouldn’t tell you and I probably shouldn’t have. But you need to know.”
“She’s pregnant? But she’s just a little girl.”
She nearly choked inhaling the smoke from her Gauloise.
“Knocked up.”