Free Koko by Peter Straub Page B

fit together?” Beevers asked. “We’re a unit!”
    “Here’s what
I
see.” The driver glanced again at his mirror. “You look like some kind of bigshot
     lawyer, maybe a lobbyist or some other kind of guy who starts out in life by stealing
     from the collection plate. The guy next to you looks like a pimp, and the guy next
     to him is a working stiff with a hangover. This one here next to me, he looks like
     he teaches high school.”
    “A pimp!” Pumo howled.
    “So sue me,” said the driver. “You asked.”
    “I
am
a working stiff with a hangover,” Conor said. “And face it, Tina, you are a pimp.”
    “I got it right, huh?” the driver said. “What do I win? You guys are from ‘Wheel of
     Fortune,’ right?”
    “Are you serious?” Beevers asked.
    “I asked first,” said the driver.
    “No, I wanted to know—” Beevers began, but Conor told him to shut up.
    The cabdriver smirked to himself the rest of the way to Constitution Avenue. “This
     is close enough,” Beevers said. “Pull over.”
    “I thought you wanted the Memorial.”
    “I said, pull over.”
    The cabbie swerved to the side of the road and jerked to a stop. “Could you arrange
     for me to meet Vanna White?” he asked into the mirror.
    “Get stuffed,” Beevers said, and jumped out of the cab. “Pay him, Tina.” He held the
     door until Pumo and Linklater left the car, then slammed it shut. “I hope you didn’t
     tip that asshole,” he said.
    Pumo shrugged.
    “Then you’re an asshole too.” Beevers turned away and stomped off in the direction
     of the Memorial.
    Poole hurried to catch up with him.
    “So what did I say?” Beevers asked, almost snarling. “I didn’t say anything wrong.
     The guy was a jerk, that’s all. I should have kicked his teeth in.”
    “Calm down, Harry.”
    “You heard what he said to me, didn’t you?”
    “He called Pumo a pimp,” Michael said.
    “Tina’s a food pimp,” Beevers said.
    “Slow down, or we’ll lose the others.”
    Beevers whirled about to await Tina and Conor, who were about thirty feet behind.
     Conor looked up and smiled at them.
    Beevers tilted his head toward Michael and half-whispered, “Didn’t you ever get tired
     of baby-sitting those two guys?” Then he yelled at Pumo, “Did you tip that shithead?”
    Pumo kept a straight face. “A pittance.”
    Poole said, “The cabdriver I got yesterday wanted to ask me how it felt to kill someone.”
    “ ‘How does it feel to kill someone?’ ” Beevers said in a mocking, high-pitched voice.
     “I can’t stand that question. Let them kill somebody, if they really want to find
     out.” He felt better already. The other two came up to them. “Well, we know we’re
     a unit anyway, don’t we?”
    “We’re savage killers,” Pumo said.
    Conor asked, “Who the fuck is Vanna White?” and Pumo cracked up.
    *  *  *
    By the time the four of them got within a hundred yards of the Memorial they were
     part of a crowd. The men and women streaming from the sidewalk across the grass might
     have been the same people Poole had seen the day before—vets wearing mismatched parts
     of uniforms, older men in VFW garrison caps, women Poole’s age gripping the hands
     of dazed-looking children. Harry Beevers’ chalk-striped lawyer’s suit made him look
     like a frustrated, rather superior tour guide.
    “What a bunch of losers we are, when you come down to it,” Beevers spoke into Poole’s
     ear.
    Poole said nothing—he was watching two men make their way across the grass. One, nearly
     six-five and skinny as a pipe-stem, leaned against a metal crutch and in wide arcs
     swung a rigid leg that must also have been metal; his bearded companion, imprisoned
     in a wooden wheelchair, had to hoist his body off the seat every time he pushed the
     wheels. The two men were calmly talking and laughing as they moved toward the Memorial.
    “Did you find Cotton’s name yesterday?” Pumo asked, breaking into his thoughts in
     a