Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler [163]
“He never could load a gun properly.”
“Your dad?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Just like your dad, I’ve put more than one suspect into the hospital. ‘Resisting arrest,’ you know.”
“I fired it.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Like recently?”
“Boogie and I had a lot to drink after my wife drove off.”
“Sure thing. You must have been furious with him. I know I would have been. Screwing your wife behind your back. Biff bam boom. A guy with your hot temper.”
“What do you mean my hot temper?”
“You were brought into Station Ten once, I’ve got the date here somewhere, for fighting in a bar. Another time a waiter in Ruby Foo’s had you charged with assault. I hope you didn’t think I was a goyisher kop. We guys may not own big lakeside properties, but we sure do our homework, eh?”
“I pleaded with Boogie not to go for a swim in his condition. And when he started down the slope, I fired a warning shot over his head.”
“You just happened to have the gun in your hands?”
“We had begun to horse around by that point,” I said, beginning to sweat under my shirt.
“And you fired a shot over his head for a hee-haw? You fucken liar,” he said, giving me a shove. “Let’s get serious here.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“You’re lying through your teeth, while you’ve still got them. Because it would be fucken embarrassing if you fell and lost some, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t give a damn how it looks. That’s how it happened.”
“So he went for a swim and then what?”
“I was feeling a bit woozy myself. So I went to lie down on the sofa, and I woke from a nightmare in what I took to be only a few minutes later. I dreamt I was in an airplane about to crash into the Atlantic.”
“Oh, you poor dear.”
“I had actually been asleep for something like three hours. I went off in search of Boogie, but couldn’t find him anywhere in the house. I was afraid he had drowned, so I phoned the police and asked them to come over as soon as possible, which I clearly would not have done had I anything to hide.”
“Or if you were too smart for your own good. You know something? I’m an Agatha Christie fan. I’ll bet if she wrote this one up she’d call it The Case of the Missing Swimmer. You should have turned in this weapon after your father died.”
“I forgot it was here.”
“You forgot it was here, but you had it in your hand, and fired a shot over his head for a laugh?”
“No, I got him right through the heart, and then I buried him out there in the woods, where those pricks are searching right now.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Are you a total stranger to irony, O’Hearne?”
“Unless I’m hard of hearing, what you said is, ‘I got him right through the heart, and then I —’ ”
“Fuck you, O’Hearne. If you’re here to charge me with anything, let’s hear it. If not, the three of you can bugger off right now.”
“Boy, that’s some temper you’ve got there. I hope you’re not going to hit me. I mean I’m sure glad it wasn’t me you found in the sack with your wife.”
“Here’s something else for your notebook, but I’m afraid it weakens your case. I wasn’t the least bit upset with Boogie. I was delighted. Happier than I’ve been in ages. Because I wanted a divorce and now I had grounds. Boogie had agreed to be my co-respondent. I needed his testimony. So why should I kill him?”
“Hold your horses. I never suggested any such thing,” said O’Hearne. Then he wet his tongue and flipped over several pages of his notebook. “According to your wife, just before she drove off, because she had reason to be afraid of your violent temper —”
“I have not got a violent temper.”
“I’m only quoting her. She asked, ‘What are you going to do about Boogie?’ and you said, quote, I’m going to kill him, unquote, and went on to threaten her and her recently widowed mother.”
“It was a figure of speech.”
“You don’t deny it?”
“Goddamn it, you idiot. I had no intention of harming Boogie. I needed him.”
“You’ve got a girl in Toronto?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“A nice piece of ass called Miriam Somebody?”
“You fucking keep her name