The Staked Goat Read online

  “No, thanks,” Carol said. “Lean down, though, will you?”

  I leaned down toward her, and she gave me a quick but a shade-more-than-friendly kiss on the lips. “If you get lonely and want to talk, give me a call. I’m in the book. K-r-a-u-s-e.”

  “I remember,” I said. “And thanks.”

  I opened the tundra turnstile, and she scooted outside.

  When I got back to the kitchen, the vodka bottle was three fingers lower than I’d remembered leaving it. Dale sucked liberally from a tumbler with just ice and clear liquid in it. My vodka memories being too recent and still powerful, I chose a beer.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.…”

  It was nearly eleven o’clock. Dale and I had polished off two sandwiches each. I was on only my second beer. The vodka tide was ebbing inexorably from the bottle and toward Dale. At first I thought he was suffering a post-funeral low. Then the conversation turned to Larry.

  “I just don’t know,” said Dale for the third time. He had put in a tough couple of days, too, so I kept up my part of the conversation.

  “Know what?”

  “Oh”—Dale blinked and sucked up another mouthful of vodka—“life. The ‘where-is-it-all-leading’ problem. I’m forty-six years old. Larry’s twenty-nine. I love teaching and tutoring music, but if it weren’t for some family money, I’d … we’d … never have been able to afford the house. As it is, I don’t know what I’d do if I needed to buy a new car. I had a German car, a VW Bug, until three years ago. But after, you know, the recession, I couldn’t, I couldn’t stand not buying an American car with American steel. It’s not such a great car, but whenever I complain about what I’ve got or where I am, all I have to do is click on the TV or walk down the street. Do you know what this city’s unemployment rate is?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  Dale grimaced and took another gulp of booze.

  “The official rate is fifteen, sixteen percent. Unofficially, counting the people who’ve been out of work so long they’re probably not in the computers anymore, the real rate now must be almost twenty-five percent. Walk down the streets, you’ll see them. Big, strong men in bowling jackets and baseball caps just standing on corners. Or waiting in line for any kind of job that’s listed. Their jobs, the industries that made their jobs real, are gone. Some to other countries, some just ‘gone’ for good. A man who used to make steel can’t feed his family, but I can make a living teaching piano. You figure it out.”

  “Does seem a little out of whack, I guess.”

  Dale sighed and seemed to run out of steam. Which was just as well, because I needed some answers before he slid into a different kind of trance.

  “Dale—”

  “No, not Dale,” he said. “Stanislaw. That’s my real name. Stanislaw Ptarski. I grew up in a little town fifteen miles from here. My father was in steel. God”—he laughed—“God, he would have cracked me good for saying that. That he was ‘in steel,’ like he was ‘in stocks’ or ‘in banking.’ He was a steelworker, pure and simple. Thirty-six years. He’d tell me about the Depression, how people pulled together. I’m glad he never had to see what’s happened now. Or hear the name change. After he died, I found that people didn’t want piano lessons from a portly gay named Stosh Ptarski. I don’t know, maybe it hit a little too close to home, with the ethnic name and all. So I changed it, and people were much more comfortable with a portly gay named Dale Palmer, like I had been imported from somewhere else, like I hadn’t grown up with them here and still turned out …” He seized up for a minute.

  “Dale—?”

  “Do you know,” he said blinking, “do you know how I picked the names, ‘Dale’ and ‘Palmer’?”

  “No.”

  “Well, when I was younger, and TV arrived, my favorite cartoon characters were Chip ’n Dale, you know, the Disney chipmunks. And just after Dad died, this baseball pitcher, terrifically handsome guy named Jim Palmer, had a great season and was all over the papers. I was in Baltimore once and even went to see him play. And I can’t stand baseball, to me it’s like watching golf, you know, all tension and no real release. Not like football, where you get to take out … no, no, that’s how I named myself, after a chipmunk and a jock.”

  He closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair.

  “Dale …?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly.

  “I need to know some things. To help Martha.”

  “Yes?” he said, opening his eyes.

  “I can see for myself that this place hasn’t been brought along at all. There are things that have to be done that haven’t been.”

  Dale’s expression changed from philosophical to sad. “Nobody likes to meddle in another family’s problems. But pretty clearly things weren’t going too well for Al at his job. I assume they told you that this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, most of us around here, Al and Martha included, bought under a special mortgage program. Even if I weren’t half-drunk, it would take a lawyer to explain it to you. But basically, because of some federal/state deal, we got low-interest mortgages to come in and try to revive this area. The catch is that renovations have to be mostly done by a certain deadline, something like two years after you move in. You also have to complete the work by something like a year later. Larry and I finished ours way ahead. Carol was just under the wire. Al and Martha had already been inspected—the state sends somebody to walk through your house—and the inspector failed them. I mean, you see the fixtures and all, he had no choice. With the economy around here, speculators are hovering like vultures over properties like this. Two families on the next block already lost their places. I never asked Al about it, but—” Dale moved his hands in a shrugging gesture that rattled the cubes in the glass he was holding but couldn’t hurt the long-departed vodka.

  “You mean unless the renovations are done pretty damn quick, Martha loses the place?”

  Dale nodded slowly. “The renovations are the big thing. The monthly mortgage, property taxes … they could be manageable … Look”—Dale leaned forward, put his glass down on the table and wiped his hands on his pants—“I’ve never told Martha, but Al borrowed money from all of us. Me, Carol, and I’m sure others, though from the funeral, perhaps not. Al was in desperate financial shape. I honestly don’t know how he thought he’d pull even.”

  I experienced that sick-stomach feeling again, the one I’d gotten when I heard the radio announcer in Boston describe Al’s body being found. I was beginning to realize how Al thought he could pull even.

  “How much?” I said. “How much for the renovations?”

  Dale inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. “I would guess twenty thousand.”

  I did a quick room-by-room allocation. “That doesn’t sound like enough,” I said.

  Dale pinched his nose. “One Sunday last fall, I’d gotten two free tickets to a Steelers’ home game. I asked Al, but Martha and Al, Junior were both sick, so he had to stay home. I dragged Larry along. He’s not much for football, but he came anyway so I’d have someone to go with. Anyway, about midway through the second half, three guys a few rows behind us started saying … things. About my toupee, about Larry, who had worn some, well, tight jeans to the stadium, and so on. They were drunk and really obnoxious, and we left just before the end of the game. On our way up the aisle, Larry said something to one of them, and that one tried to come after us, but we moved pretty quickly and lost him in the crowd.

  “It was still nice weather so we had walked to Three Rivers Stadium and were walking home. As we turned onto our street here, I heard a car roar up behind and then slam on its brakes. Just our luck, the three guys from the game. I don’t know how they found us. There are a lot of bars down in the square, maybe they were headed for one of them, maybe it was just a wild coincidence. Anyway, the guy Larry had said something to got out of the car and came running up to us. We were across the street from our place, perhaps five doors down from Martha and
Al’s. The other two guys came up, too. The first guy—he was at least two hundred pounds—grabbed Larry and slammed him against the car, screaming the usual ‘homo’ stuff at us. I said to let him go, and he didn’t, I said it loud, and he still didn’t so I punched him hard, just above the kidney. You know what I mean?”

  I thought back to Marco at the courthouse elevator. “Yes, I do.”

  “Well,” said Dale, “that was a really stupid thing for me to do. Maybe the guy would have been satisfied to just push Larry around and scream some more. But once I punched him, and he sank to the ground, the other two guys jumped on me. One pinned my arms, the other began punching me in the stomach. The second punch really hurt, and I cried out. Larry kicked the guy who punched me, and that guy turned and punched Larry hard in the face. Larry went backwards onto the hood of the car, blood everywhere. I was struggling, but weakly because of my stomach hurting so much. The guy I had hit staggered up. He and the guy Larry had kicked then started punching and kicking Larry, hard, viciously. I think I started screaming.

  “I never even saw Al approaching us. I found out later he’d heard some yelling and looked out his front window. The next thing I knew, though, Al was behind the two guys who were hitting Larry. Al kicked one of them hard behind the knee cap, and he went down. The other guy, the one I’d punched, turned and swung at Al. Al let the man’s fist go by his head, then jabbed at the guy’s throat, quickly and lightly”—Dale demonstrated—“like a snake striking. This guy started coughing and dropped to his knees. The other guy, the one on the ground, was writhing, yelling about cramps.

  “I realized the guy holding me had let go. He was watching Al and backing away. I ran over to Larry. He was conscious but in a lot of pain.

  “Al ignored the third guy, instead he bent down and yanked the wallets of both of the men he’d hit. He flipped through them, reading, and then pulled out money from each.

  “ ‘Hey,’ said the third guy, ‘what the hell …’

  “ ‘Just squaring things,’ said Al, in exactly those words. ‘Just squaring things.’ ”

  Dale and I looked at each other for a moment.

  “Then Al asked the third guy if he was the driver. The guy replied no, and Al said, ‘You are now,’ and with that Al pulled open the rear door and tossed, and I mean just picked them up and threw, the two guys into the back seat. He flung their wallets in on top of them. By this time, the third guy was getting in on the driver’s side. I got Larry’s arm around my shoulder and pulled him off the hood. The keys must have been in the ignition because the third guy started it up right away. Al leaned into the passenger’s side and said, ‘I know who you two are and where you live. You guys and us are square now. Debt owed and paid. You give my friends any more trouble, expect a house call from me. Now get out of here!’

  “The third guy put the car in gear and took off, tires squealing. Al pushed the money from their wallets into my pocket and drove us to the hospital. Larry needed some stitches in his lip, and we were both black and blue for a time, but without Al, we’d have been … And then for Al to die … the way … the papers said.”

  Dale stopped and bowed his head. It was so quiet in the house that I could hear the refrigerator motor clicking and whirring.

  “No,” resumed Dale Palmer, head still bowed. “I have a few friends in the trades who owe me favors, too. To square things, twenty-thousand would be plenty.”

  Dale left a few minutes later. It’s eerie to be alone in a strange house when you can’t make much noise. At the same time, it was the first time I had been on my own, and conscious, since getting on the plane in Boston. I wasn’t really sleepy after my nap earlier, but I was afraid calling Carol might reinforce a wrong impression.

  I tried to discharge my night-nurse duties toward Al, Junior and Martha. Shortly after closing the door behind Dale, I tiptoed upstairs and looked in on them. Both seemed sound asleep in their respective rooms. I came back downstairs and found a science fiction paperback by Larry Niven and let my thoughts drift with his. I finished the book at 2:30 a.m., then tried to tote up what I knew so far about Al’s death.

  Lieutenant Detective Murphy’s investigation confirmed that Al had come to Boston on business legitimately. Al had called me, seen his customers, albeit fruitlessly, and had one other appointment. He hadn’t told me he was in money trouble. He had told me he’d made a bet on the Bruins the night before and won. I couldn’t remember Al ever talking hockey before, and he’d never been a gambler. Of course, a man in a money squeeze might try a lot of unexplored ways to ease the pressure. Still, Al would have been too smart to trust some guy in a strange city to pay him off the next night. And I couldn’t quite picture a bookie killing Al by mutilation—and passing it off as some ritualistic slaying—to deflect attention.

  In fact, when you thought about it, what could have been worth what Al’s killer had gone through? I had to admit that a secret appointment suggested blackmail. Assuming the killer was Al’s secret appointment, why keep the appointment at all? Why not just run? Identities can be changed, passage and even sanctuary bought pretty easily. The killer must have had something more to protect than just his own skin. Maybe some illiquid asset or business operation. That would explain the pass-off method of killing. It would also explain the torture, the tossing of Al’s room, and the gander at my message. The visit to the motel room and desk were both risks, small risks to be sure, but nevertheless risks of being spotted, identified, and connected with Al and therefore with Al’s death. The killer would have run that risk only if his identity were subordinated to protecting something else. He preferred to risk being spotted in order to be sure something that tied him to Boston was secure.

  And about Al’s being so oblique with me on the telephone? He had to let me know he was trying something so the something wouldn’t be gone forever. But he also couldn’t drag me into it beforehand and therefore perhaps unnecessarily. No matter how pressed for money Al was, he would never have asked me to help him with something shady. He would have had to handle the someone alone.

  A someone who was good enough to take Al, who only a few months before was himself still good enough to cool a couple of stadium toughies. I didn’t think Al would have met someone like that selling steel gizmos to distributors or general contractors. But we had both met a lot of people like that somewhere else. I moved J.T.’s name up near the top of my list of the next day’s phone calls.

  Twelve

  I BLINKED. THE DIM sunlight of a February morning in Pittsburgh slanted through the front window. I was lying on the couch. My teeth felt as though they would fall out if I didn’t brush them soon. I sat up, and my kidneys ached all the way to my shoulder blades. A full night’s sleep on a horizontal and firm mattress would do me a world of good.

  From the kitchen came some quiet tinkling of tableware and the scuffing sound of slippered feet. I walked into the kitchen.

  Martha was at the sink, her back to me, carefully stacking glasses on the dish rack. She had pulled on a turtleneck sweater with a hole in the left elbow. Her hair was drawn back into a bobbed ponytail. The clock above her head said 10:20 a.m.

  “Good morning,” I said softly.

  Martha jumped but recovered nicely, reaching for a towel to dry her hands. “Good morning, John. I wish we had a better place for you. How did you sleep?”

  “Fine.”

  Her voice sounded steady and strong, with none of the false bravado high, or grief.

  I said, “You?”

  “Uh,” she giggled, embarrassed, “those pills must really be something. I remember Carol making me take two. I’d hate to think what more of them would …”

  The possibility darkened her face like a small cloud crossing the sun. It passed quickly, and the sun shone again.

  “John, I’m afraid I haven’t been too steady the last few days. I do want to thank you for all you’ve—”

  I put my hand in a stop sign. Martha nodded, broadening her smile. She came over to me, and we
hugged as a brother and sister might.

  “He tried so hard,” she whispered past my shoulder.

  “He always did, Martha.”

  We broke apart. She returned to the sink.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get to those last night,” I said.

  She shook her head over the sink. “Don’t be silly. There’s coffee on. Help yourself.”

  “I don’t take it,” I reminded her.

  “Oh, right. I’m sorry, I forgot. Help yourself to anything else.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll hop over to Dale’s and clean up instead. Any place nearby where I can get a newspaper?”

  “The Pittsburgh papers are in a couple of stores in the square. If you want the New York Times, go to the drugstore.” Martha looked up at the clock. “Tell them you’re staying with us, Al always … they save one for us.”

  “Right,” I said. “How’s Al, Junior?”

  “Fine. He was up at seven pounding on me to play with him.”

  “Carol said Kenny was a little sick last night. She took him home.”

  “Carol’s a wonderful girl. Really a heart of gold. Always watching out like an older sister.” Martha stopped, then added quickly. “She’s not really older, you know. I mean, she’s maybe a year or so older than I am. I mean she just seems more, well, mature.”

  “Hard times can do that,” I said, and immediately regretted it.

  Martha’s silence confirmed that she was just thinking that about herself. I said I would see her later and left.

  I used my key at Dale Palmer’s front door. I closed it quietly behind me. There was some soft symphonic music playing through the living room stereo speaker.

  “Larry. Lar—” Dale stopped when he saw me. He was standing in the archway to the dining room. He was wearing a black kimono with orange dragons. It looked like silk from where I was. He recovered by saying, “Oh, John! You know, I had forgotten all about you. I was too soused to have heard you come in last night, anyway.”