Straight Man

come aboard?” I call up.
    She’s looking down at me. “Wow,” she says dully. “I actually know something nobody else knows.”
    Her husband’s voice, from somewhere inside the house, is heard. “Mark the calendar.”
    I climb the stairs and join her. There are two folding chairs on the deck, which means we’re fine if her husband doesn’t join us. When she hands me the box of cereal, I take a handful. “Sugar Pops are tops,” I tell her, this slogan returning to me across the decades. If I’m not mistaken, the woman I’m speaking to may be hearing it for the first time. “What is it that you know that nobody else knows?” I ask her.
    “Your whereabouts,” says her husband, coming out through the sliding glass door. He’s got two cups of coffee, one of which he hands to me. The second Mrs. R. looks at her husband to see if the other one might be for her. When he drinks from it, she gets up and goes inside. Rourke settles into the vacated chair. His hair is still shiny and wet from the shower. “I knew you’d come over to my side eventually,” he says, putting his feet up on the rail. They haven’t taken very good care of their deck. The wood is dry and splintering. Two or three boards have buckled, and some of the nails used to keep the others in place have begun to inch up dangerously.
    “Pretty nice view,” I tell him. “No leaves to obstruct it.”
    Actually, the trees over on this side of the road are budding, at least some of them. Whereas on the other side they are so thick we can see only occasional glints of metal and glass. Still, it’s clear that cars and vans line the entire winding road up through the trees, and if I’m not mistaken there’s a mobile satellite hookup being assembled atop a truck.
    “A wild guess,” I say. “Another duck has died.”
    “You just missed an interview with Lou Steinmetz on the local news. He claims they know the identity of the perpetrator.”
    “He used the word
perpetrator
?”
    Rourke nods. “He didn’t mention you by name though.”
    What’s occurred to me is that the second Mrs. R. has not returned with her coffee. I’ve been prepared to offer her my chair. Rourke notices me glancing over at the sliding door. “Don’t worry about her,” he says. “She’s off smoking her first joint of the day.”
    “No kidding?”
    “She hasn’t been anything but stoned since we got married.”
    “Huh.”
    He nods. “I’ve pretty much had to quit. I think it may be responsible for my blackouts.”
    “I never knew you smoked.”
    “How do you think I’ve kept from coming after you with a baseball bat?”
    “Then you shouldn’t stop,” I say.
    He snorts. “Just do me a favor. Don’t tell anybody you came over here. I’ve been promising people for years that if you ever did I’d throw you off this deck for the pleasure of watching you roll all the way down to the road.”
    I know my role in this drama. I stand up halfway and peer over the side, showing the requisite respect for his fantasy. It’s a hell of a drop, too. Unless he hit a tree head-on, a tumbling man wouldn’t stop until he reached the pavement.
    “Not that you’re interested, but I got a call from that schmuck Herbert this morning,” Rourke says. “The union’s managed to get its hands on a copy of the list.”
    I study him for a moment before I say anything. “I was under the impression you believed me when I told you there wasn’t one.”
    “Not exactly,” he corrects me. “You told me you didn’t make one. That I believed.”
    “But now you say there’s a list.”
    “For every department.”
    “Including English?”
    “Including English.”
    I consider this. “I’m touched, Reverend,” I tell him, and it’s the truth, I am.
    Now it’s his turn to study me. “Why, for Christ’s sake?”
    “You’re always accusing me of lying.”
    “You always are.”
    “And yet you believe me now.”
    He shrugs. “Just this once.”
    We’re quiet for a minute. “I guess you better tell me who. I’ll go see Jacob.”
    “Fucking Jacob.”
    In fact, when I said Jacob’s name, I was myself visited by an ugly thought.
    “Call Herbert,” Rourke says wearily. “Let him tell you. Or Teddy. I’m sure that little gossipmonger knows by now. Three of the four were predictable anyway.”
    “Orshee?”
    “That’s one.”
    “Finny?”
    “Two.”
    I take a deep breath. “Don’t tell me Billy Quigley?”
    “You’re three for three.”
    “And someone I