Slim’s eyes were dark, intense, his jaw locked so hard the outline cast a shadow on his cheek. Whatever had happened to them, I thought, had resulted in more pain than anyone should have to bear, and was now irrevocable.
Then the other guy did a song, and I caught his name: Dwight Parmenter. Then Slim again, then Ray, and round and round and round, until the next thing I knew, it was two in the morning and I was driving up Hillsboro Road to the freeway on my way back to East Nashville. At the last second, I turned and headed out to the other side of town. The key to Marsha’s apartment sat in my pocket like a chunk of lead. If I couldn’t have her next to me, then maybe by sleeping in her bed, I could feel her next to me.
It was nearly nine when I came to, my head groggy and heavy. I had to get home fast, change clothes, then get out to my office, grab that videotape, and head to the insurance company. Somehow, though, the energy just wasn’t there. I dawdled in the shower, made a cup of coffee, made up the bed, straightened up a little, brushed my teeth-the usual. I tried my luck at cellular-phone roulette, with the same frustrating results as before. I felt like a puppy who’d been yanked from his momma.
Marsha doesn’t subscribe to the morning newspaper-she’s usually at work before it arrives-so I sat at her kitchen table with a towel wrapped around me and coffee in front of me, then flicked on the television. The last segment of Today was just wrapping up, and then a local newsperson came on with a quick roundup of Nashville news, headlined, of course, by the hostage situation at the morgue.
It was right after that when I learned that the sweet-voiced, high-cheeked, long and lanky ex-Mrs. Slim Gibson had been found murdered early that morning, beaten to death in the bedroom of her apartment. After last night’s appearance at the Bluebird, she really had become the late Rebecca Gibson.
Even though I’d never met Rebecca Gibson, certainly didn’t know her, and her death had not touched me personally, I found myself shocked at her murder. Maybe it was her being Slim’s ex-wife. Maybe it was that I’d seen her perform and had heard that sweet voice, now silenced for good.
The morning rush hour had ended by the time I got moving, and there was still another hour or so before the lunchtime rush hour began its slow segue into the evening rush hour. You want to get anywhere in this city, you’ve got about a forty-five-minute window three times a day to go for it. Then you’re screwed. The Big Apple’s got nothing on Music City, gridlock-wise.
For once, my parking fees were paid up, so I was able to slide into a space in the lot across Seventh Avenue from my office. I didn’t know how long I was going to be able to keep the place; cranky old Mr. Morris had raised my rent seventy-five a month after the fire in my office last year. Hell, it wasn’t my fault some joker burned my car and my office in the same day, but try telling that to Morris. Rat bastard …
At least he’d let me stay, though. At first he wasn’t even going to do that. Just to be on the safe side, I avoided him as much as possible. So when I took the steps up to the front door two at a time, I peered through the dirty glass first to make sure he wasn’t there.
In a few seconds, I’m bouncing up the two flights of stairs to my office, trying to stay focused on what comes first. I wanted to try Marsha first, but I needed to call Phil Anderson over at the insurance company to make arrangements to deliver the videotape. I ought to stop by Slim and Ray’s office down the hall as well, just to offer my condolences and make sure they were okay.
Then the thought struck me: does one offer condolences upon the death of an ex-spouse? Life is so complicated these days. I decided that, uncomfortable or not, I’d offer my sympathies. So I turned right at the top of the flight of stairs, away from my office, and walked down to Slim and Ray’s office. The door was locked and there was no reply to my knock.
In my office, there was still a stack of mail on my desk unopened from yesterday. None were checks, though; I could tell that, and I couldn’t bear to open the rest. I’d spent the last month or so, including my expenses on the trip to Louisville, living off the plastic shark. A couple of windowed envelopes in the pile meant the shark had come for his vigorish, and I didn’t have the juice to pay him.
Christ Almighty, I thought, I’m starting to sound like a dick. And I don’t mean private eye.…
I thumbed through my Rolodex, located Phil Anderson’s number, then dialed it on the speakerphone.
“Tennessee Workmen’s Protective Association,” a young woman’s voice answered.
Yeah, right, I thought. Protection, my keister.
“Phil Anderson,” I said.
“Please hold.”
This is why I finally bought a cheap speakerphone. Being on hold gives me a cramp in the neck, among other places.
“Fraud services,” another telephone voice answered. “Phil Anderson, please. Harry Denton calling.” Another round of hold, then Phil’s deep voice laced with southern Mississippi twang answered. I didn’t know much about Phil, beyond the fact that he grew up in the Delta, went to Ole Miss, got into the insurance business, moved to Nashville, and hates the Vanderbilt Commodores with a passion bordering on the pathological.
“Hey, bo-wee,” he practically yelled into the phone.
“Jew have any luck?”
Jew, I thought? What Jew? Then I realized that in the two weeks since I’d last spoken with Phil, I’d forgotten how to listen to him. It is, after all, an acquired skill.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think you’re going to be real pleased. I’ve got a little movie to show you.”
“Hot day-um,” he said, then: “Hey, where you at, boy? You sound like you at the bottom of a fish tay-unk!”
I picked up the handset and held it to my ear. “Cheap speakerphone,” I explained.
“Well, hail-far, I believe I’d take ’at sucker back and get me the next model up.”
“You pay this invoice,” I said, “I just might do that. When can we get together?”
I heard a flipping of pages as Phil consulted his calendar.
“How about four this afternoon?”
“Works for me,” I said. “Your office at four.”
“You got it, boy. Later.”
I hung up the phone, wondering how old a Southern male had to be before people stopped calling him boy.
I set the phone down inside its cradle and stared at it a moment or two. Should I? I wanted to hear her voice. I had begun, in fact, to ache for it. But could I get through? Would Marsha be able to talk to me? Would she want to?
Oh, hell, this is crazy. I reached over and grabbed the phone and punched in the number to Marsha’s cellular phone, which I’d now committed to memory. Once again, that damn computer monotone told me where to get off.
I stared out the window five more minutes before giving up. There was no way I could sit still or concentrate on anything. So I trotted back down the stairs, outside into what was becoming a gorgeous spring day, and pumped thirty-five cents into a newspaper machine and pulled out the early edition of the afternoon paper. I wondered if Rebecca’s murder had made the paper yet.
SIEGE CONTINUES the headline read. And below that: HOSTAGE DRAMA IN DAY THREE.
It was nearly eleven and I was getting peckish, so I bought a hot dog and a large Coke off a vendor’s wagon on Church Street, then parked myself on a bench in the little pedestrian mall across from the Church Street Center. The government employees, who were about all that was left in a central downtown that everyone else had fled for the ’burbs, filed out of buildings and headed off for their own lunches in a flurry of suits and dresses.
I scarfed down the dog and flapped open the newspaper. It was hard to imagine that the words blared across the front page had their origin barely a mile from where I sat. First Avenue was still closed from the Thermal Plant on up to where the road curved around and changed names. As I sat there reading I could hear the dim buzzing of the helicopters circling the area. General Hospital, I read, had been evacuated of all but the most seriously ill patients; the rest were sent to Meharry Medical Center, Vanderbilt, and Baptist Hospital. The obligatory urgent call for blood donations had been made. The mayor announced that for the time being, he was not going to ask the governor to activate the National Guard.