On Harrow Hill

He turned to Gurney. “You had another question, right?”

“How did he die? He wasn’t that old, was he?”

“Not really. Forty, forty-two maybe.”

“Maybe forty-four, forty-five,” said Clarice. “But he was a heavy drinker.”

“How could you tell?” asked Gurney.

“The vodka bottles in the garbage. And the only time you’d see him on the street was coming or going to Gaffy’s Liquors. The man had a problem.”

“A dirty past,” added George. “We found out later. A kid not even half his age. He’s lucky he didn’t go to prison. They don’t like guys like that in prison.”

“How did you find out about the problem with the girl?”

“I don’t remember. I think somebody we knew might have known somebody in Larchfield. Right, Clarice?” When she didn’t answer, he continued. “Anyway, the story got passed along. And we heard the name. Hanley Bullock. Figured there couldn’t be two Hanley Bullocks around. So that was it. But that was after he died.”

“And that happened . . . how, exactly?”

“Now we get into the funny part.”

“Funny weird,” said Clarice.

“This guy showed up one day. A big guy on a black motorcycle, asking up and down the street if anyone knew Hanley Bullock.”

“This was before we heard about the problem in Larchfield,” said Clarice.

“He said he was Hanley’s cousin, and he knew Hanley lived in Crickton, and he thought he’d drop by and say hello on his way through. So we gave him the apartment number.”

“As I recall,” said Clarice, “it was Trudy down the block gave him the apartment number.”

“Whoever the hell gave it to him, he got the number and went to the apartment. Pretty soon the radio came on. Country music. Stayed on for hours. And we could hear the big guy’s voice. Had a loud laugh.”

“You folks have an apartment in the same building?”

“Yeah, it’s our building. Pluses and minuses to that, I can tell you. So we hear a lot, want to or not. Mostly we’d rather not.”

“Did you get the big guy’s name?”

“I don’t recall it. You, Clarice?”

She made a constipated kind of face, as if trying to remember were a physical strain. “Country-music kind of name,” she announced finally. “What it was I couldn’t tell you. We’re talking ten years ago.”

“Okay,” said Gurney, turning back to George. “So you heard them in Bullock’s apartment, playing music and laughing?”

“The music, yeah, and the big guy letting out a loud laugh every so often. I don’t believe I ever heard Hanley laugh—not then, not ever.”

“This went on how long?”

“All that afternoon and into the night. In the morning, it was real quiet. Round about midday, a fancy car pulled up in front of the building. I could see it right out this front window. A fancy little man got out of the car with one of them little black doctor’s bags and went into the building. I thought, what kind of trouble we got now? And I followed him in, caught up with him at the foot of the stairs. He said he was a doctor and he’d gotten a call about a Mr. Bullock. I gave him the number of the apartment, and up he went. Half hour later he came down, came into the deli here, asked what my relationship was to Mr. Bullock. I told him it wasn’t any kind of relationship, Mr. Bullock was just our tenant. He said he regretted to inform me that Mr. Bullock had suffered two massive heart attacks and had passed away. Since he’d been present when the second one occurred, he was able to sign a death certificate without hesitation. And since Mr. Bullock’s cousin was present and willing to be responsible for the removal of the body, there would be no problem or inconvenience for me. In fact, he said, a call had already been made and a removal vehicle was on the way. That’s what he called it. A removal vehicle.”

“How did they bring the body down the stairs?” asked Gurney.

“You recall, Clarice?”

“One of them body bags like you see on TV, with handles on it. The two of them carried it down—the big guy and the doctor. Someone else had arrived in a hearse—what the doctor called the removal vehicle. They loaded the body in it, and off they went. The big guy on his motorcycle, the doctor in his shiny black car, and Mr. Bullock’s body in the hearse.”

“You mentioned a couple of minutes ago there was something weird about the situation. What was it?”

“I guess the way it felt.” Clarice looked at her husband. “What would you say it was?”

“How fast it all happened. One day he was fine, next morning he was dead, and an hour later he was heading out of town in the back of a hearse. And that was that. The end. We never heard another word. No obituary notices, no nothing. One day he’s our tenant in apartment 2A, next day it’s like he never existed.”