The Disposable Man by Archer Mayor

Author:Archer Mayor [Mayor, Archer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: USA
ISBN: 9781939767080
Publisher: MarchMedia LLC
Published: 2013-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

THE PHONE RANG JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT, an ungodly hour in a rural state. I was on the couch downstairs, half-comatose in front of the TV, surrounded by old newspapers, empty bags of junk food, a couple of dirty plates, and a bowl of melted ice cream. For the past three days, I’d been either checking in at the state police barracks, as required, or hunkering down here, eating poorly, not shaving, reading in the paper about everyone’s outrage at rampant police corruption, and waiting.

I didn’t mind the late-hour interruption.

“It’s me,” said Kunkle’s voice. “Just listen.”

I stayed quiet.

“Go for a walk up the street. Now.” The phone went dead.

I hung up the receiver slowly. Something had come up in the Boris case, and Willy wanted to fill my ear with it, in direct conflict with a court-set condition—something I wasn’t inclined to dismiss lightly.

I got up, went to the bathroom, and washed my face, watching myself in the mirror as I toweled off. The moment I’d been entertaining—purely as a notion—had finally arrived. Without the excuses of adrenaline or ignorance, on which I could have blamed my confrontation with Alonzo, I was willfully considering a violation of the rules I’d followed my whole life. The mildness of the affront made no difference. Brushing aside a court order was a big enough event that if the judge ever caught wind of it, he’d make sure I’d never forget.

I left the bathroom, put my shoes on in the living room, and, leaving the TV on and the house security system off, slipped out the back door. I cut through a small thicket of young trees on the edge of our property and emerged onto Orchard Street. From there, I headed uphill, away from the veiled glow of Western Avenue below.

It was a dark, clear night, and the stars overhead gave me more than enough light to see by, although I wouldn’t have used a flashlight in any case. Taking Kunkle’s cue, I was being unusually cautious. Coffin knew the burden of the restraints he’d put upon me—cooked up, no doubt, as much to force my hand as to keep me under wraps. In the l80 days we had until trial, nothing much was going to stimulate any headlines—unless I did something to change that.

Several times during my walk, I paused under a tree, enveloped in shadow, and waited. I saw a pet or two roaming its territory, a couple of ’possums and a family of raccoons. Once, a car drove by, forcing me into the bushes. But generally, I remained alone.

Willy hadn’t specified where he’d contact me, and I hadn’t expected him to. A Vietnam vet who’d specialized in long-range recons behind enemy lines, he was given to lurking in the night, finding, I expected, a form of inner peace that escaped him during the day. A friend of mine had once said there were two types of human beings—the simple complicated, and the complicated complicated. If ever there was a man who defined the latter, it was Willy Kunkle.

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