It Takes Two (4 page)

Clearly, neither the damage to the vehicle—nor to his nuts—was his main concern. He was controlling his emotions by force of will. “Jesus Christ, Dan,” he whispered, his face going blue-white. “Goddamn, Jesus Christ.”

“I’m a lucky guy,” I answered, wanting to touch him. “Told you that already. And I ducked. So I’m OK.”

Bud took a breath and whispered again, “Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn, Lieutenant. Goddamn fuck.”

Doc appeared at my side, inspecting the scratches on my neck. “E-e-you must have nine lives,” he said, his voice for once as subdued as Bud’s. “Otherwise, you’d have been—ha ha—my next customer, for sure, if your pal here hadn’t moved so fast.”

My throat went dry. He’d just confirmed what I thought I’d seen, that Bud had thrown himself between me and the gun. He’d saved my life.

Doc patted my shoulder almost absently and turned toward the hearse. “Mose? Drackett? Now where did you boys go? You safe?”

They were. The trusties had dived under the hearse and were unharmed. Clambering out, they dusted themselves off.

“Sah.”

“Sah, we be fine.”

“Fine as wine. But we got to get us a new whitewall.”

Laughing glumly, Doc nodded and glanced down at the sobbing figure on the pavement.

Bud shook his head again, as if to clear it, then brushed his right hand across his eyes. “Doc,” he called. “Who is this lady?” Turning, Doc touched Bud’s shoulder and gently propelled him toward the office door. “Can we talk inside for a minute?”

Mrs. Jenkins banged the door open after one rap and stuck her head outside. “I am packing my bags,” she screamed. “It’s like a war zone. With Russians! I call my owners from somewhere safe.”

“Go comfort that there lady,” Doc told her. “Pat her hand or something. She’s a little bit upset too.”

“Upset, hell,” Bud countered, beginning to return to combative normal. “Let’s talk fucking hell about upset—excuse my language, ma’am. I get upset when a goddamn bitch invades my crime scene, smashes up a county-owned camera, grabs the weapon we should of got prints off of and starts shooting up the street and just missing innocent people. And when I try to slow her down, she kicks me in the ding-dongs. What a fucking snafu.”

Mrs. Jenkins shook her heavily ringed hands in Bud’s face. “You watch the language when there’s ladies present. Snafu, huh?” Bud leaned forward. “You didn’t hear what Doc said? Get some smelling salts for the lady on the ground there. Or go finish your packing.”

Bud turned his attention on the coroner. “Looks like you know this shooter pretty well, Doc. I got to wonder if she shot up this place earlier. And then drove back in case she hadn’t finished the job.”

“Sure I know her,” replied. “Her people founded this town. Name’s Willene Norris.”

“Doesn’t ring any bell.”

“Her daddy was a county commissioner back in Franklin Roosevelt’s first term. Ran for the State Legislature.”

“So?”

“He owned the Ford agency. And left it to Willene and her husband when he died. Ha ha.”

“Rich lady, huh? Used to gettin’ her own way?”

Officer Hurston had sidled up behind Doc and Bud. He was nodding. “So you might want to go a little bit easy, Mr. Wright,” he advised, keeping his voice low. “Unlatch those cuffs soon as she quiets down some. If you don’t mind my saying so. Because Miss Willene and her mama, they know people. They know everybody.”

“Unless I miss my guess,” Doc added quietly, “that’s her husband Hillard Norris in there with half his face shot off.”

“Double fuck,” Bud muttered. “Destroying evidence could just be the start.”

Brushing his hand across his eyes again, Bud walked back to the Jeep and stopped beside me. In the distance, coming from downtown, I could hear sirens. Reports of more shots at the Royal Plaza Motor Lodge had been called in.

Carefully running a forefinger up the metal edge of the shattered windshield, Bud murmured, “Maybe you could just take a walk.” His hand was shaking and he wasn’t looking at me. “You could catch a ride if you get going pretty quick. Ain’t gonna be no time for breakfast.”

“Game’s just begun,” I answered. “Your old coach doesn’t mind sticking around for all nine innings.”

My argument went nowhere. He looked at me funny, as if to say that private jokes and private names didn’t belong here. “I shouldn’t of brought you here in the first place, Dan, and come up on a crazy woman, gunfire and all.” Blinking to emphasize the point, he added, “But from here on, you’d just be in the way.”

When I started to say something else, he shook his head. “Fact is,” he said, “you wasn’t even here. Now take a walk.” Cocking the thumb of his balled fist toward the highway, he murmured, “This is my job. I got to get statements. It’s gonna be cats and rats for the rest of the afternoon.”

Though his determined face seemed stuck in neutral, he suddenly brought his hand up, saluted me smartly and threw me a rough grin. “It ought to be routine from here on, Lieutenant. Some kind of crime of passion, looks like. So don’t worry. Damned glad you didn’t get hurt or nothin’. Now scoot.”

Returning his salute, I turned and marched off down the side street.

I ate breakfast back at the hotel.

Emma Mae Bellweather, the hotel’s big-bosomed boat driver, handed me two telegrams and a housekeeping problem before I’d half finished my delayed Sunday breakfast.

“These wires is marked urgent,” she said, thrusting the envelopes forward with one plump hand while shading her tortoiseshell glasses with the other. “Been looking all over the goddamn base for you.”

Light-headed and positively famished, I’d settled down at a table near the pool and told the waiter to bring whatever was quickest. Though I’d thought about telling Emma Mae this was my day off, I just smiled and stirred my coffee. We both knew it would be a waste of breath.

Emma Mae was a full-figured girl with a sweet, bovine face and a tongue that could etch glass. A former motor-pool mechanic, she swore more often and more colorfully than most chief petty officers. “Fucking fishing boat,” she said, emphasizing the words by slapping bits of sea salt off her faded jacket. “Tub’s been leaking like a pair of Cuban heels, boss. We caulked her again, though, so she’s tighter than a nun’s twat at Christmas time. Everything’s under control. Strictly SOP.”

SOP, or “Standard Operating Procedure” in military parlance, led directly to what I privately thought of as MSP— “Manager’s Shit Patrol.”

“But that’s only part of my problem, boss,” she continued, sinking into the chair opposite me. “Because I got another fuck-up situation that’s beating me all to hell.” Reaching into the basket of sweet rolls, she explained. “You know, we got two VIP guests, a Mr. and Mrs. Mayson.”

“Yes, I’ve met the Maysons,” I told her. “They’re staying in a seventh-floor suite and paying top dollar.”

Emma Mae explained that the Maysons had come to her a couple of days earlier to charter the boat for a late-afternoon fishing trip for two, for today.

“Now Mayson up and tells me he’s invited four more folks to go along. That’s six, including, if you please, that no-account weasel Lou Salmi.”

Salmi, a wartime torpedo specialist, had served a long patrol under the officer who later became my boss, Bruce Asdeck. Now a swing-shift waiter at the Caloosa, Salmi had spilled coffee while filling my cup not five minutes earlier.

I knew Salmi and the Maysons about as well as I wanted to. Salmi, a George Raft stand-in with low-slung sideburns and pants too tight to ignore, had a smug, narrow face, sleek Mediterranean nose and honey-colored skin. I trusted him about as far as I could throw him.

Jamie Mayson, a pot-bellied machine-parts millionaire from Detroit, had approached me during an afternoon cocktail party in the club room. In a tone of voice he must have used for buying steel by the ton, he said he wanted to watch another man service his wife. The Mrs., a dark-haired Jane Russell type named Barbara, was more than game for it, he said. And he’d heard from his very close friend Bruce Asdeck that Dan Ewing had a real gentleman’s touch and might help him out.

I’d have jumped at such a situation a year or two earlier in Tokyo. Performing for a powerful older man like Mayson would have seemed exotic, erotic and attractively risky. But now that I was committed to Bud, even loosely, it didn’t tempt me at all.

Finding an acceptable actor for Mayson’s little drama was a relative snap. Salmi, the onetime torpedo greaser, enjoyed a reputation as a stud who could fuck a hole in a phone book. As Mayson and I spoke, Salmi was standing four feet away, right behind the bar. So I called him over and made introductions. What else is a hotel manager for?

Salmi’s midnight show had clearly been successful enough to take on tour.

“So what’s the problem?” I asked Emma Mae. “Assuming you can keep the tub afloat long enough to ferry them out to the Gulf and bring them back?”

“Boat’s going to hold together if we haul in fish from dawn to midnight, boss. Pump’s working fine. But we ain’t got Mae West jackets enough but for four, not counting the old coast guard inflatable you found for me. That leaves us one short, or two counting me, should we encounter”—here she took a bite out of an orange-pecan muffin—“some unforeseen emergency.”

Is she worried about pirates?
I wondered.
Out-of-season hurricanes? Unexploded mines?
It was true that we needed more life jackets. But it didn’t seem like much of a problem, and I said so.

“That ain’t all, Dan,” Emma Mae replied. “My son-of-a-bitching advance order went in yesterday for picnic boxes. For three—namely the Mr. and Mrs. plus crew of one, plus ice, beverages and potato chips.”

When I asked Emma Mae what the charter was worth, she answered that the Maysons were paying the going rate of $50 per half day plus tip. When I asked her what a box of war-surplus Mae Wests cost, she punched me on the shoulder, laughing. “No more than five goddamn smackeroos. But the marine supply store is closed, boss. So’s the Army-Navy. This is Sunday, don’t forget.”

Behind me, Lou Salmi approached with the coffee pot.

“Hear you’re going fishing,” I said, catching his eye and throwing him a big-brotherly smile.

“Long as Mother Carmen lets me off,” he answered, pouring carefully and wiping the lip of the pot with a napkin. “Already got my seasick pills packed.”

“Mother Carmen” was our food and beverage manager, a South Texas transvestite who sometimes performed under the drag name Carmen Veranda.

“You think there’s enough food in Carmen’s kitchen to make up three or four more lunch boxes?” I asked.

Salmi bent closer. His jaw was freshly mowed, his aftershave lotion a blend of testosterone and gasoline.

“There’s definitely no shortage of fried chicken, sliced ham for sandwiches, Cole slaw or deviled eggs, boss. I’ll ask the good lady to pack the lunches herself. You want I should ask if she can scare up a coconut icebox pie?”

I turned to Emma Mae. “Think you can find somebody from the marine supply to lend you a load of Mae Wests—and they could send me a bill tomorrow?”

Emma Mae looked shocked, as if I’d suggested robbing an orphanage. “Guess it can be done, boss,” she allowed. “But I don’t know that I’ll find Cap’n Roy. He could be in church.”

“You’ve got a couple of hours,” I said. “He could be home watering the grass.”

“Or out fishing,” she said, mournfully, as if the whole thing was really a bad idea. “Or banging his sister-in-law, which I hear…”

“I could jimmy the rope shop door,” Salmi suggested helpfully. “Probably take me thirty seconds, most of the locks I’ve seen around this burg.”

“Let Emma Mae try first,” I answered. “No use you going to jail on a non-morals charge.”

“Will do, Lieutenant,” he said brightly. “Lemme go see Mother Carmen about pie and sandwiches.”

I picked up the pair of Western Union envelopes and slit the flaps with a butter knife. “Bon voyage, sailor,” I said. “Bring home some fresh fish for supper.”

The first telegram was strictly routine. An obstetrician and his wife in Scranton, Pa. had a family emergency and were canceling their reservation. The second was anything but:

ARRIVE LATE MONDAY. DISCUSS IMPROVEMENTS TUESDAY.

DELAY RUFFLES AND FLOURISHES.

ASDECK

Bruce Asdeck, managing partner of the Caloosa’s ownership syndicate, was headed south from New York. He was ready to talk about changes I’d proposed in hotel operations. The visit was strictly business.

“Ruffles and flourishes,” according to our ship-to-shore-leave shorthand, was the code for whores. When I’d managed the New Victory Officers Club for then-Admiral Asdeck back in Occupied Japan, the two of us had worked out a system for identifying guests and the special services they required. “Overnight berth” meant one girl for at least six hours. “Hors d’oeuvres” was a fast-and-loose party that didn’t necessarily turn into anything else. “Joe Palookas” were alcohol-abusing officers who threw furniture or roughed up civilian staff. “Kilroys” hung around gawking without spending a dime. A request for “full bath” at the club meant that the guest desired the in-room services of a compliant masseuse. “Shower privileges” substituted a muscular masseur. “Maid service” referred to girls under the age of 18. “Special arrangements” was a request for more than one girl at a time. “Share bath” meant that two grown men wanted connecting rooms. And so on.