Black Cat Weekly #95

Chapter 5-1

byThe Smokey showed up Saturday evening around six. Maxie spotted him as soon as she came out of the storeroom: tall man in his thirties, buzz-cut, not an ounce of fat, posture that would shame a yardstick. He wore a pressed, button-down shirt and khakis and looked pathetically uncomfortable. This was a man who felt n***d out of uniform.

He had set himself up by the white wine display in the front of the store where he had a good view of the sales counter.

Maxie checked the customers Spike was ringing up. First in line was a middle-aged exec with a case of assorted wines for a dinner party. Next was a white-knuckler about to lose her latest battle with sobriety. Then came a handsy couple buying bourbon, no doubt on the way to a motel. And after them—

Bingo. Twenty-something blond boy with a three-day-growth of beard, the fashion that was weirdly popular these days. Only person she had seen all day with a jacket and tie. He carried a six-pack from the beer cooler.

Maxie opened the second register and beckoned the white-knuckler forward. The poor lady’s hands shook so much as she counted out her money that Spike was up to the blond with the beer before she finished.

Spike checked Blondie’s ID and started to hand it back.

“Wait,” said Maxie.

She picked up the driver’s license and gave it a hard look. It said the guy turned twenty-two last month. A beautiful job, as well it should be.

“Check it again,” she said to Spike. “Compare it to the sample.” A John Doe license was pasted in front of each cash register.

He frowned at her and tried again. This time his young eyes caught it. “Oh!”

Maxie looked at the kid. “You’re twenty-two, huh?”

“That’s right,” he squeaked.

“What’s the first song you remember hearing on the radio?”

The kid stared at her.

“Never mind. That ID looks fake to me. Do you want to leave it here or shall we call the cops in to referee?”

Blondie turned to Smokey for guidance, but the trooper just looked disgusted and walked out. The kid followed.

Spike asked: “What happened—”

“Customers.” She moved to the back of the store where a senior citizen seemed baffled by the almost endless display of Scotches.

Fifteen minutes later Lorgan’s Liquors was empty, and Maxie turned back to her young clerk.

“Didn’t you spot the State Trooper up front?”

“What? No. Was he in uniform?”

She sighed and explained the clues to recognizing a Smokey. “They come in at least twice a year, trying to catch us selling to underaged people. That blond shill was probably twenty years and ten months old and looked five years older.”

“I did check his ID,” said Spike. “It seemed legit.”

“Of course, it did. The Department of Licensing made it special for him. You had to notice they screwed up the order of the information on the DOB line.”

“Wow.” Spike scratched his nose. “What would have happened if I missed it?”

“I’d get a big fine. And your butt would be out the door.”

His eyes widened. “Just like that?”

“Exactly like that.”

“Well, shoot. Isn’t that what they call trapping?”

“Entrapment. Not according to the judges.”

Spike shook his head. “I’m glad you were here.”

“Me too. They’ll probably come more often now, ’cause you look so young.”

“I’m twenty-three.”

Maxie laughed. “Oh, I know. I checked ten ways from Sunday before I hired you.”

He frowned. “If it’s such a hassle, why don’t you can me and get somebody older?”

“It’s the principle of the thing. When have you known me to back down?”

“I haven’t known you long.”

“Hang around ten years until I retire. You still won’t see it happen.”

The door opened. A smiling woman came in, wanting a bottle of champagne for a friend. “She’s celebrating her divorce.”

“Let’s find something special.”

There was another lull around ten and that’s when they heard the crash.

Maxie ran for the door, yelling at Spike to call 911.

Lorgan’s Liquors was on the corner of Pace and Berryman Streets, with its door on Pace. Moxie saw that a pick-up truck had shot through the stop sign on Berryman and plowed into a hatchback. The sedan, what was left of it, had spun in a half circle, leaving the driver’s side only a foot from the curb.

She heard a door slam. The truck driver must be climbing out.

There was a streetlight in front of her store and from its halo Maxie saw that there was only one person in the hatchback. She was a young woman with auburn hair. Her face was covered with blood and her eyes were closed.

The driver’s door was bent from the crash, but Maxie pulled it open on her third try. “Hon, can you hear me?”

No answer.

There were shouts from the other side of the truck. Angry voices.

Someone was standing next to her now, a big man with a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt. “He’s trying to get away, the bastard.”

“Who?”

“The truck driver. How is she?”

“Not good. I think—”

A spark popped under the bent hood.

“Crap.” She smelled gasoline. “Come on. We got to get her out of there.”

“Are you crazy?” said Dallas. “You don’t move an injured person!”

“You want her fricasseed?” Maxie moved forward. “I’ll take her legs. You get her shoulders.”

“Ambulance is on the way!” Spike yelled.

“Get the fire extinguisher. My office.”

“I don’t know if we should do this,” said Dallas.

“Don’t be a goddamn coward,” said Maxie. “Lift with your knees.”

The big man grunted and reached forward. They pulled and tugged at the driver, limp as a rag doll. “Keep her head up.”

“Oh, man. All that blood.”

It was easier than Maxie expected. The compartment around the driver’s legs was mostly intact. Contact with the windshield had done most of the damage. The airbag had opened but didn’t seem to have done much good.

They laid the driver on the sidewalk. Spike arrived and, wonder of wonders, knew how to start the extinguisher.

“Aim at the base, not the flames.”

“I know,” he said, lowering the hose.

Dallas had left, running around the smashed vehicles. Soon she heard his voice in the crowd of men yelling on the other side. No doubt he was more comfortable wrestling with the truck driver than shifting a woman’s body.

Body or corpse?

Maxie was no doctor, but she saw no sign of life. Was she supposed to do CPR? She had no training for that.

Sirens announced it was out of her hands.

Maxie told Spike to lock the shop door and prepare to close early. She wasn’t going to mess with the chaos of emergency personnel and looky-loos.

The EMTs quickly confirmed that the driver was dead, and the urgency drained from their actions. Police brought one of them to the other side to look at the truck driver. “Drunk as a skunk,” someone declared. His face was b****y too, but Maxie thought that the result of bystanders discouraging him from fleeing the scene.

By midnight there was no one left outside but crime scene photographers.

“Do we open on time tomorrow?” Spike asked.

“Sure as sunrise.”

Over breakfast the next day Maxie read that the dead woman was Carol Walsh, 19, and the driver of the pick-up was Nathan James Schmetzer, 37. They always gave the middle name of people who were arrested. Why was that?

Nathan James’s blood level had been 0.19, well over double the legal limit for driving. He was in jail and would be there at least until Monday. Longer if he couldn’t make bail.

Carol had been a freshman at the university. She was driving home from a concert at Silver Lake Park when it happened.

Maxie looked across the kitchen table at the chair where her husband used to sit. Jerome would shake his head over stories like that and say: “It’s the damned bars, honey. They call it overserving, like they’re being too generous. But they poison people.”

When Maxie arrived a few minutes before opening time, there was a tow truck in front.

She parked behind the store and walked back to see the driver giving the street a critical look.

“All gone,” she said.

“It better be. The law says when we pull a car after an accident, we’re responsible for cleaning up what’s left. Not spilled fuel. That’s the firemen’s lookout.”

“Makes sense.”

“I figured it’s best to come out in daylight and make sure my guys didn’t miss anything. Don’t need any fines, thank you very much.”

“I’ll bet. Did you tow the truck or the car?”

“We scored both. The truck may roll again but the car is scrap.”

Maxie turned back to the store. Someone had tied a bouquet of flowers to the light pole with a piece of string.

Well, that’s nice.

Well, that’s nice.

“Listen,” she told Spike, a few hours later. “Don’t bring it up.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“The accident. If customers ask, sure, say what you know. But there’s no point in telling the world.”

“Okay.” He looked at the wine bottles he’d been fronting on the shelves. “Why?”

“’Cause we don’t want to be remembered as the scene of a crash.”

“But you were a hero! You pulled her out of the car.”

Maxie shook her head. “Heroes save lives, Spike. She was already dead. What’s going on out there?”

A small crowd stood on the sidewalk. Teenagers, mostly girls, crying and hugging. One of them held balloons.

“Is it somebody’s birthday?”

“No,” said Spike. “They must have been friends of the dead girl. It’s gonna be one of those monuments to people killed by drunk drivers. Haven’t you seen them?”

Maxie figured she must have but had never paid much attention. There were signs on highways, come to think of it. IN MEMORY OF SO AND SO. DON’T DRINK AND DRIVE.

She didn’t remember seeing a handmade one on a city street before.

And a memorial it was. Someone had left a piece of pink poster board leaning against the light pole, facing the street. There were ribbons and balloons attached.

One of the mourners, if that was the word, knocked on the door of the shop. Definitely too young to be a customer, he was a redhaired kid in a Chicago Bulls T-shirt. He smiled. “Excuse me. Do you have any scissors?”

“What for?” asked Maxie.

“We’re putting up some stuff for Carol. The girl who died?”

“Oh, sure.” She pulled a pair out of a drawer. “Bring ’em right back, okay?”

Miracle of miracles, he did.

At closing time Maxie went out for a look. The poster board had a photo of Carol, a pretty, young woman. She was wearing a pink polo shirt that looked better than the black sweater she had on when she—

Never mind.

Never mind.Red roses and yellow ribbons lay on the pavement. Pinwheels were fixed to the light pole. It was kind of sweet.