Читать книгу Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle - H. Mel Malton - Страница 22

When you want to know the colour of the night, girl,

ask the band.

—Shepherd’s Pie

“What's going on?” I called over to the band.

It was loud outside. One of the musicians answered, but I couldn’t hear him.

“Sorry?”

The guy stepped up to the mike and spoke into it. The sound-technician had left the setting on reverb, and it sounded like the voice of God.

“We just finished a song and someone screamed real loud over by the door and then all hell broke loose. People swinging punches. Place cleared like a loose bowel. Pardon me, ma’am.” Behind him, the rest of the band snickered manfully. We headed for the door.

A wall of people jammed the exit. There was the smell of adrenaline in the air and the crowd was pressing in to get a look-see, chattering away like greedy gray squirrels at a city picnic. It was first come, first served, and we were late. We joined the jam, at the very back.

“When I heard that gun go off, I spilled my beer on my wife,” one man said. “She’ll kill me for sure when we get home.”

“That was no gun,” the man next to him said. “Someone threw a chair.”

“Oh? Geez, so I spilled it for nuthin, then. Well, I’ll get hell anyway. Who screamed? You see?”

“Some woman. I was over by the bar. Fight broke out, four or five guys, right about where we’re standing.” Both men immediately looked at the floor, possibly for blood.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Can we get by, please?” The man who had spilled his beer on his wife glared at me.

“Wait your turn, dear,” he said.

Susan tapped me on the shoulder.

“Window,” she said, pointing.

We couldn’t see much because it was dark outside and the windows hadn’t been washed since Trudeau’s reign, but there was definitely a brawl going on. Lots of inarticulate profanity and what looked like some unpleasantness with fists.

“Do you think anyone’s called the cops?” I said.

“There’s a policeman there already,” Susan said.

“There he is, look. He just pulled the little one off the big one.”

“Oh, God. Becker. I have to get in there.”

“Why? You the cavalry?”

“No. The girlfriend,” I said. “Is there a back way?”

Susan gave me an eyebrow, then made for the washrooms again. I followed.

Next to the ladies’ room was a door marked FIRE EXIT ONLY—ALARM WILL SOUND. Susan pushed it open. I’m more Canadian than she is. I gasped. She chuckled.

“The alarm’s never been connected,” she said.

It was cold enough outside to see our breath. We walked along the side of the building, around behind the kitchen-extension and out to the front, where a set of stairs led up to the foyer of the old building.

The exterior lights were on, and it looked like a stage set, the brawlers front and centre, with a Greek chorus made up of Cedar Falls citizens, grouped artistically on the steps, beer glasses in hand.

We stuck to the bushes, finding ourselves a bit closer to the ringside than was comfortable. I’ve never been big on violence, and while I may have jumped in a time or two when Francy was in danger, I certainly had no intention of getting involved for Becker’s sake. He was holding his own.

The six guys fighting were the pickup boys, whose names I didn’t know, versus Becker and Vern, a giant, simple man I’d seen occasionally in the village. It was four against two, but three of the pickup boys were stagger-drunk. The other was right out of his mind with rage about something, but he was tiny, shorter than Susan is, and thinner than a winter birch.

Vern was easily identifiable as the focus of the trouble. The pickup boys were trying to kill him, but they weren’t having much luck. Their opponent stood his ground like a front-end loader, baffing them away with hands the size of dinner plates. Whenever two or more went for the giant at once, Becker stepped in and pulled them off, which meant a battle every time. Vern’s fists had dealt some stinging blows, but this just seemed to enrage the boys, the same way a rolled up magazine enrages a wasp.

They were all yelling.

“Back off now before somebody gets hurt.”

“Fucking touch my motherfucking girlfriend fucking asshole?”

“Neil, fucking help us, man.”

“Fucker smacked me right in the face.”

“Fucking kill him!”

From the giant came a low rumbling sound, like a semi out on the highway, getting closer. His eyes were half-closed and he had a serene, beatific smile on his face. His tweed cap hadn’t budged from his head.

Susan and I had crept round to where George and Otis Dermott stood near the front steps. Otis toasted us with his plastic glass.

“Vern’ll blow any minute now,” Otis said.

“Why isn’t anybody helping?” I said to George. “Surely three of you guys could go in there and help pull them off?”

“They started it,” Otis said. “Vern won’t get hurt none, although your cop friend may get hurt if he don’t stay out of the way.”

I raised an eyebrow, Susan style. “Cop friend?” I said.

Otis leered. “I remembered him,” he said. “I seen him talking to Freddy at the dump. You go for a man in uniform, eh? I should have wore my army coat.” He wheezed with laughter and swigged at his beer.

I looked at George and Susan. They gazed blandly at the fight, avoiding my eye. When I looked back at Otis, he was doing the same thing.

“It’s like this, eh?” Otis said, after a moment. “Them boys have been making trouble since they got to Cedar Falls. Everybody knows, but nobody’s been able to catch them at it.”

“This fight could be classified as trouble, couldn’t it?” I said. “Grounds for arrest?”

“What good would that do? They wouldn’t get a court-date till God knows, and there’d be worse trouble in between. Listen up. Them boys were stupid enough to pick a fight with Vern, they should take their medicine here and now. He won’t kill them.”

Vern’s rumble was getting louder. The little guy was still calling him a motherfucker and poking at his underbelly with a pair of pointy little fists.

“Why’s that little guy screaming about his girlfriend?” I said.

“Vern felt her up, eh? I seen it. She was staggering around and she bumped into him and almost fell over so he caught her. He held her wrong and she screamed and ran for the bathroom and the boys went for him. Vern broke a chair getting outside, eh? He knows he’s not supposed to fight.”

Becker was bleeding from a cut over his left eye. Every time he pulled a boy off Vern’s back, the boy lashed out with wild punches and kicking feet.

“That guy should get out of it,” a young, bearded fellow said to Otis.

“He’s a cop, eh?” Otis said. “Probably feels obliged.”

“I guess that’s why he’s not hitting back. If he gets decked, I guess we should go in there, eh?”

“If he gets decked,” I said, “the guy who decked him will be charged with assaulting a police officer.” Both men looked at me.

“He should be minding his own business,” Otis said. I gazed back at them. They were grinning.

I looked over at Becker. He was wiping blood away from his eye.

“Becker! Hey!” I said, raising my voice. He looked up, frowned and hurried over to me. The pickup boys, sensing a void, moved in on Vern.

“You should move away from here,” Becker said. “You could get hurt.”

Vern blew. It was like a Marvel Comic.

Biff! Blowie! Splat! Ka-boom!

Four pretty pickup boys, laid in a row. The crowd went wild, hooting, cheering and stamping their feet. Vern swept the cap off his head with a flourish, bowed gravely to the audience and shambled away into the night. The crowd started moving back inside, while three or four big, strong fellows stepped forward to check on the boys. They were conscious, but groggy.

Becker stared wildly at the four prone figures on the grass, turned to see the last of Vern as he disappeared into a thicket of fir trees and then turned back to me.

“Jesus,” he said.

“You’re bleeding,” I said and handed him my backup hanky.

George and Susan came up, arm-in-arm, as if they’d just returned from an evening at the opera.

“You may need a stitch or two,” Susan said.

“I’m fine,” Becker said.

“You did well, son,” George said. “Just leave them be, now.”

“I’ve got to make a phone call,” Becker said.

“To the station?” I said.

“Where do you think? There’s been an assault.”

“Becker,” I said, “you’re off-duty, remember?”

“It was just a little misunderstanding,” Susan said.

“They’ve learned their lesson,” George said. “Kevin, there, will drive them home. He knows where they live.”

Becker was breathing through his nose. He was very pale and his hands were clenched into fists at his side. There was a nasty little pause.

“Jim?” I said. “James T. Kirk? Speak to me. Is it? Oh, God! Not… the goat poison?”

The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Who’s James T. Kirk?” Susan said. Becker said nothing, kept on breathing. His eyes were bugging out. I stepped in closer.

Becker’s breath hissed loudly through his clenched teeth. Susan moved in as well, worried now.

“Relapse,” Becker said softly into Susan’s ear. “Tell McCoy to beam us up.”

“Is he all right?” she said, turning to George.

“Nothing that a Deacon can’t fix, I think,” George said.

“Who’s McCoy?” Susan said, turning back to Becker, who hadn’t moved. Susan had never watched much TV.

I reached into my pocket for the condom-packet, which I slipped into George’s hand. “Dr. McCoy says play safe,” I said.

He handed it right back. “Dr. McCoy should teach her grandmother,” George said.

Becker and I headed for the parking lot.

I drove. I told him I didn’t think he should be behind the wheel after receiving a blow to the head, and he agreed. Gosh. Jeep Cherokees sure go fast.

“Hey, slow down,” Becker said, “or I’ll have to pull you over.”

“Show me your flashing lights.”

“I think they got punched out.” He laughed, a little wildly.

I pulled over to the side of the road and turned on the overhead.

“What?” Becker said.

“Detective Mark Becker, what you did back there was noble and totally right-action, but I want to thank you for not arresting anybody.”

“Well, I was off duty, right?”

“Right. So. I guess dinner and pool in Laingford’s out.” The cut over his eye was still bleeding. “How hurt are you?” I said. “You want to go home? Are you dizzy? Should we go to the hospital?”

“I think sick bay would be better.”

“Sick bay your house or sick bay my house?”

“You’re the doctor.”

“You got gauze and disinfectant at your place?”

“No.”

“The Deacon residence it is. Anyway, when you’re suffering from goat poisoning, you have to return to the source.”

I headed for the Dunbar sideroad and home.