The Sin of the Fathers
A Law Edwards Mystery
1
An Early Morning Visitor
I sat on the bench on the platform of the Broad Street Train Station until the train which David had boarded onto was clear of the station. Once it was gone from sight and hearing, I heaved myself onto my feet and lit a cigar. I had a lot of work to do.
For the week I’d spent looking after David since the attack he suffered at the hands of the Decency Crusaders, I’d done little else. Captain Marshall had covered for me at work, but I knew his patience would be thin after all the time that passed. Mitch had mostly left me alone about my ignored responsibilities to her and the Kingdom of Keystone. I suspect she was still trying to decide how to deal with me since I’d threatened to torch her place with everyone inside it if she didn’t find out who brutalized David.
I also had four Decency Crusaders to hunt down and beat unconscious. Mitch had told me who they were, an act which nullified my threat to set fire to the Kingdom. I don’t think I would have followed through on that threat, but I might have. I was glad Mitch didn’t force me to make the choice.
All the work and responsibility I owed to this one and that one seemed like an impossibly large task given as flat as I felt just then. David had left. The earthbound angel who soothed the miserable pain of my knotted insides had left. He’d had the combined kindness and cruelty to hug me before we parted.
I appreciated the gesture, but I hated that my body now fully understood what it might have had if I would’ve allowed David to stay in the city for a few more weeks. The hug David had given me was powerful and masculine. It was also tender. I felt intense affection in his warm embrace. I heard the gratitude in his deep voice when he said, ‘I’ll never forget you.’
He’d asked me to go with him. At the last second, David asked me to abandon my life in Philadelphia and step onto the train with him. He’d basically proposed to me, as much as one man is permitted to do that with another. He’d offered me a place in his life, a partnership on the farm he planned to start and build from the earth. I’d refused to go with him, but even as I hailed a taxi outside the station, every fiber of my being screamed at me to rush back inside to catch the next train to Montana.
I ignored what most of me wanted because deep down, I knew the life which David offered would be impossible for me. I was too violent to live in the idyllic countryside. I could only thrive in the city, like a hearty weed which grows from a crack in the sidewalk. I climbed into the back of the cab and yelled at the driver. “Kingdom of Keystone!”
The driver twisted himself around in his seat to stare at me. “Where?” He asked.
I almost repeated my shout before my mind realized what my mouth had said. I shook my head and corrected myself. “Oregon Avenue and Swanson Street, a block from the salt works.”
The driver nodded and jerked the metal flag down to start his meter.
* * * *
I paid the cab off outside of Mitch’s and climbed the curved marble steps to the front door. I had to knock to be let in because the place wouldn’t be open for business for several hours yet. I passed through the gambling rooms with their carefully covered gaming tables, strolled around the base of the grand staircase which led upstairs to temporary heaven, and entered the bar.
The bar was empty except for Charlie. He was at the main barman’s station, polishing glasses. Charlie greeted me with his signature crooked smile and flexed his shirtless body to tease me. I said the words of our usual greeting. “You look like shit, Charlie.”
When he heard the sour melancholy of my voice, Charlie’s crooked smile fled from his face. He set his glass and cloth down and braced his hands on his side of the bar. The muscles under the smooth, tanned skin of his arms tensed as they accepted the weight of Charlie’s sculpted upper body. Even Charlie’s breathtaking beauty failed to improve my mood.
“David leave?” Charlie asked.
“I just put him on his train.” I said.
Charlie stood for a second. He looked at me while I looked at the bar. At the edge of my vision, I saw the muscles in his forearms flex as he pushed himself upright. Charlie walked away and came back with a tall glass. He set the glass in front of me. It was filled with the perfect gin and tonic. I knew the drink would be perfect, because Charlie made it. The drinks were always perfect when Charlie made them.
I lifted the glass and drank. The chilled gin and quinine-laced tonic cooled my mouth as it slid down my throat. Even my knotted guts welcomed the soothing nectar. The lemon slice which floated in the glass added just a hint of citrus to balance the scent and flavor of the drink. I put the glass down and felt my mouth smile at Charlie. “I needed that.” I said.
“I know.” Charlie said. He grinned at me again. “Hey, Law, knock-knock.”
The smile which had been on my face changed to a scowl. “I’m not in the mood.” I snarled.
Charlie insisted. “Awe, come-on. Knock-knock.”
I relented. “Alright. Whose there?” I asked.
“Al.” Charlie said.
“Al, who?” I asked.
“Alcoholic!” Charlie answered.
I chuckled at the silly joke, but Charlie laughed to beat the band. He laughed and laughed. He laughed so hard, he held his washboard stomach with both of his hands and doubled over. When he stood, his stomach was no longer rippled with defined muscle. It wasn’t even flat anymore. His stomach bulged like the breath of his laughter was trapped inside him.
Charlie’s whole body started to grow. It bloated and distended. His taught, tanned skin faded to become pale and blotchy. A stained and threadbare shirt sprouted from the waist of his pants and spread over his expanding body. Charlie doubled over again to continue to give vent to his hysterical laughter. When he stood straight, he was done laughing. He smiled his crooked smile at me, but half his teeth were missing. His face sagged and his jowls were unshaven. The whites of his eyes were yellow with jaundice.
“Alcoholic!” Charlie wheezed. “That kills me!”
* * * *
The sound of the door buzzer jerked me out of a dream which had become a nightmare. I sat up in bed to rub my face and swear into my palms. “What the fuck?” I asked as the steady drone of the buzzer gave way to insistent and urgent knocking on the street door downstairs.
Walt sat up next to me. He took the electric alarm clock from his nightstand and pulled it toward his bleary, sleep-filmed eyes. The power cord stretched taught and stopped the motion just before the tip of Walt’s nose pressed to the plastic lens of the clock. “Seven o’clock,” he said to the clockface, “same time as yesterday. This has to stop.”
“IT’S GONNA STOP!” I barked over the noise of hard knuckles on painted wood. “Of all the fucking weeks he could pull this shit, Georgie picks this one.”
I struggled out of bed, pulled my light grey robe over my dark grey pajamas, and tied the sash. I jerked the nightstand drawer open and felt around inside. I took out my cigarettes, my matches, and my snub-nose .38 revolver. I pocketed the cigarettes and broke the cylinder from the gun to make certain it was loaded.
Walt observed my preparations with alarm. “You’re not going to shoot him, are you?” He asked.
I snapped the cylinder into the gun, careful that the empty chamber was under the hammer, and shoved the weapon into my other pocket. “No, I’m not going to shoot my baby brother. I should blast him for waking us up this early in the morning, but I won’t. I just want to be prepared. He and I haven’t seen each other in thirty-five years. I don’t know if he means well or ill. I’d rather have protection and not need it than need it and not have it.”
The knocking from downstairs ceased. The brief silence prompted Walt to open his mouth to say something. Just as he did, the door buzzer started up again. The mechanical drone of the buzzer drowned out the comment Walt planned to make. He pressed his lips together in frustration. He took a deep breath and shouted over the noise. “You’ll make sure this is the last time, RIGHT? I NEED my sleep.” Walt pressed the heels of his hands to the sides of his head in a gesture of desperation. “The stress is getting to me. I can’t manage if I’m tired.”
I leaned over the bed to kiss Walt’s mouth. “Go back to sleep.” I said. “If Georgie wants to talk, I’ll take him into the restaurant.”
Walt combed his fingers through my greying hair to push it back from my forehead. “Thanks, Love. I do care about what’s going on with your brother, it’s just that I’m so worried about this Firestone inspection. A good review would put us on the map, but a bad one…”
“Stop. Don’t talk like that.” I gently scolded Walt. “No one could give your restaurant a bad review. Put that out of your mind and go back to sleep. I’ll deal with this.”
I put my hand on Walt’s shoulder and pushed him backward until his head nestled into his pillow. He pulled the covers up and closed his eyes. With him composed to sleep, I hurried to answer the continued knocking and buzzing from the street door downstairs.
On the way down, I grabbed the key to the restaurant from the hall table. When I reached the door, I took the gun from my pocket and held it ready in my left hand. The street door would open toward me, from my right to my left. I planned to hold the gun out of sight behind the door until either I needed it, or until I confirmed there was no threat and returned it to my pocket.
I flicked the deadbolt lock clear of the jamb and yanked the door open to catch my visitor off guard. My attempt at surprise worked. The man at the door startled as I appeared before him. He snatched his hand away from the door buzzer like he’d burned it and clasped it together with his other hand. The man and I stared at each other in the low light of the gloomy grey morning as each of us tried to decide how to deal with the presence of the other.
I was confused because I’d expected to open the door to find a man who looked like me. After Walt had met my brother Georgie under similar circumstances the previous morning, he’d returned to the bedroom with the information that Georgie was roughly my size, had my coloring, and that he had the same heavy-lidded eyes as me. To my consternation, the man before me was far taller and leaner than me. He also had blond hair.
My first thought was I’d been wrong in my assumption that Georgie had come knocking two days in a row. I assumed the man who stood in the doorway was there to make an early delivery to Walt’s restaurant which we lived above. If that was the case, I wondered what he’d done with his truck. I also didn’t understand why a delivery man would be dressed in a black suit which was close to twenty years out of fashion.
The tall, blond man shook himself as if he needed to rattle his brains to make them work. He lifted his enormous shoulders in a partial shrug and spoke my name in a deep, mild voice which was as big as the whole outdoors. “Law Edwards, thank God I found you.”
Because the man knew me, and since he had made no moves to threaten my person, I leaned toward the open door to put my revolver back in my pocket without exposing the fact that I had it. I used my other hand to fish my cigarettes and matches from my right pocket. I stuck one between my lips and lit it. When I finished lighting my smoke, I held the match up to illuminate the face of my visitor. What I saw made me drop the match.
“Holy shit!” I said around my cigarette. “David, is that you?”
David blinked his sharp hazel eyes and confirmed that it was him. “I need your help, Law.”
I shook my head at the man from my past. I didn’t understand how he was in front of me. My mind felt like it had a cramp in it. Instead of trying to make heads or tails of David’s presence while we both stood in the cold dampness of the March morning, I invited him inside.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm just starting to work on a new story. I'd like to set it in 1968. For one of the main characters, I plan to use a soldier or a marine recently released from a tour of duty in the Vietnam War. If you served in that war, in any branch of the military, but especially the army or the marines, and would be willing to correspond or speak about your service, please email me. Also, if you are a history buff who knows about that War and would be willing to correspond or talk, please email me.
