Mother Finds a Body (28 page)

“Say, The Happy Hour isn't the only saloon in Ysleta, you know,” Biff said. “They got enough of 'em in town that you could make a career from 'em. I could maybe make a deal for you at The Blinking Pup.”

His voice sounded casual enough, but knowing Biff I looked at him closely. He had something on his mind, and I wasn't sure I was going to like it.

“Matter of fact,” he said, “I thought you gals might feel a little squeamish about staying on at The Happy Hour.”

“Squeamish,” Dimples said. “If it means what I think it means, the word'll fit.”

Biff said, “I was talking to a guy about it a few hours ago. He runs The Blinking Pup. Caught the act at The Happy Hour, and he thought you were pretty solid.”

Dimples smiled as much as the chin strap would allow. “He did, huh?”

“Yep,” Biff said, “he told me he could use Gee Gee too. Forty a week and meals. Four-week contract. That's not to be kicked around, you know. I could maybe get him to up the money a little.”

Gee Gee and Dimples looked at each other, then at Biff.

“Can I maul it around in my head for a while?” Gee Gee asked.

“Sure,” Biff said. A broad gesture went with the word. “Think it over. It sounds like a good bet to me, but after all, you're the girls to decide.”

Then I got it! I might have guessed from Biff's expression, but being on the slow side that night it took me a little longer than usual. I knew then that when Biff let his eyes travel over the trailer he was mentally picturing it without Gee Gee and Dimples. He looked at Mother for a moment, then he shrugged his shoulders slightly.

“That one stopped you, didn't it?” I asked sweetly.

Biff started, then his face broke into a grin.

“Not exactly,” he said pensively. “I got an idea on that score, too.”

I was sure he had.

“And what about Mandy?” I asked. “Saloon or no saloon, it won't be easy to sell him as a single. And of course there's always Mamie. Have you got her all set as the Belle of The Blinking Pup?”

Gee Gee thought that was very funny. Biff didn't.

“I'm getting off the original script,” he said. There's something I got to tell you all. It's about poor Mamie. She's—”

A car stopped in front of the trailer. The headlights glared from the window into Biff's face, and a second later someone pounded on the door. Mother quickly fluffed up her hair and pinched her cheeks until they were quite pink, then she opened the door for the sheriff.

We all faced him silently. He took off his hat and held it awkwardly in his large hands. He gave the impression of having to stoop a little so his head would clear the ceiling of the trailer. His high-heeled shoes looked silly. I suddenly saw him as a musical-comedy sheriff, and the idea wouldn't go away.

“I can see you all know,” he said. He let his head drop for a moment, and it was as though the orchestra should go into a number at that point.

“Biff was just telling us about Mamie,” Mother said. “He didn't get very far with it.”

She realized too late that her words were hardly complimentary. As a quick cover-up she added, “Now that you're here maybe we can get a straight story.”

The sheriff seated himself as close to Mother as he could. Biff offered him a drink and he refused it. His eyes were on the bedroom door. The knob turned and the door opened. I had forgotten about Gonzales. He turned down the lamp near the bed and picked up his black bag, then he walked on tiptoe to the door and closed it behind him. He stood within touching distance from me, and in the shadows his teeth, when he smiled at Hank, were white. Almost like phosphorus.

“I'll send the large car for Miss Janice,” he said softly. “She'll be better off in town where I can keep an eye on her.”

I watched him as he fastened his black bag. His long, dark fingers moved gracefully as he slipped the leather strap through the clasp. His head was bent over, and the light fell on the black oily hair. When he walked toward the outer door I felt a sudden urge to stop him. I couldn't explain it. I wanted to look at him closely for a moment. He asked Dimples how she felt.

“Like a babe,” she said smiling up at him.

Then he was at the door; it opened and closed behind him. I heard the car start up, the gears meshed, I could hear the tires splashing through the soft mud. I ran to the window and looked out. A red taillight flicked for a moment, then it was gone, but not before I saw the light-colored roadster. It was a long, expensive-looking roadster. I had seen it before. It had left the doctor's driveway while Biff and I stood in the darkness. That night Cullucio was driving it.

24
“IT'S CULLUCIO!” MY VOICE SEEMED TO RING
through the trailer. “I knew there was something about him that was familiar. Stop him! Stop him!” Biff began shaking me. I could see Mother rushing around getting a glass of water for me. Dimples had jumped up from the bed and was running toward the window. Gee Gee held my
arm when I tried to open the door. Their faces and their movements were like a kaleidoscope. Hank's face staring at me, Mother holding a glass to my lips. Biff's arms holding me.

“Leave me alone, please.” I tried to push them away from me. “Don't you see it at all? Don't you realize we've never seen them together? His house, all those expensive things in it. That car! When I saw his hands, I knew it. The black tufts of hair growing on his knuckles. You gave him the can of asthma powder, too. He has it right now and he's gone!”

Biff was pushing me into the chair. No one made a move to stop Cullucio. They stared at me as though I had gone mad.

“Cullucio's in Ysleta,” Hank said softly. “I just left him and I know. The doc—well—it's not supposed to be known, but the doc is his brother. I've known it all long, but there didn't seem any point in telling it around town. Doctors in a town like this have to have a certain dignity. It doesn't sound good to say his brother runs a saloon. Especially when they're partners in that saloon.”

“But the names, Cullucio, Gonzales—”

“Those two names don't even scratch the surface. They have a dozen more, all legal too, if they want to sue them. That Gonzales in Mexico is like Smith in the states. Cullucio isn't even a Mexican name. The doc's all right though. I've known him since he first started practicing here. Cullucio's all right too, in his own way, of course. Honest as the day's long, but a funny sense of honesty—”

“Honest?” Gee Gee screamed. “What kind of people are these?” she looked wildly around the room. “Murderers, dope peddlers. Honest people yet!”

“Who said he was a murderer?” Hank asked

There was no answer.

“Who said he was a dope peddler?” Hank said.

Then Biff spoke: “They must have gathered it from what I was telling them. I never got to finish; they kept interrupting me all the time. I was telling them how I got suspicious when I saw the remains of the burned trailer, then I started from the beginning and—”

“Funny thing about the trailer,” Hank said slowly. He pulled at his chin and nodded his head thoughtfully. “I should have seen it myself. Had my eye on this trailer camp for some months now, and I let a thing like that slip by.”

Biff leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. “Well,” he said condescendingly, “we all can't see everything. Me, now, the second I look over the ground I know there's something funny going on. Trailer burned to a crisp, woods burned too, and still the grass around the trailer hasn't even been scorched. I don't pay much attention to the smell of gasoline around the fire, cars and all, bound to be a smell of gasoline, but no flying spark could burn that trailer the way it was burned. No, sir. Then her moving in with us so sudden like. Oh, I knew something was up all right. I just kept my eyes and ears open, and there it was. Plain as day. What a setup. Traveling around with a beauty shop. Covering all the border towns regularly. Having a couple guys in each town deliver the stuff she brought in, even looking like she does—”

“Damn shame you didn't think of those things before the other two guys got killed,” Hank said. “If you'd come to me in the first place this might have had a different ending. People oughta realize that's what the law's for. Like with Cullucio. He could have told me how he suspected his waiter. I would have gotten some of the boys to look around. But no. He goes and sends for a couple of his own. They mash in the face so we can't identify the body. They know all along who's guilty but they don't give us credit for realizing it. That's just like a crook. They keep lying so much themselves they don't expect anybody'll ever believe 'em.”

Gee Gee stood stage center with her hands on her hips. Her hair, I noticed, was beginning to turn a pale purple with a burnished effect at the part.

“Do you two baboons mean to sit there with your bare faces hanging out and tell me that Mamie Smith from Oologah murdered those men?”

“It's Watova,” Biff said, “eight miles west of Oologah.”

“Yes, she did it all right,” Hank said.

Mother pushed Gee Gee away and took the floor.

“She couldn't have,” Mother said. “I'm a judge of character and I know Mamie wouldn't do anything so—so—well, so ungenteel. Not only that, but Gus, or whatever his name was, was killed in San Diego. Mamie couldn't have killed him. Maybe the one named Jones, I don't care about that, but she couldn't have killed Corny either, because she was helping me with my asthma attack at the time.”

“Evangie,” Biff said softly. “Remember how Mamie arrived the same day we did? Well, she came from San Diego. She killed Gus there, because he was trying to open a branch office and cut her out with the guys who really controlled this ring. She expected to find the heroin on the body, but it was gone. She had seen him go into our trailer and she figures he has the stuff there, which he did, only he doesn't tell her where. She hides the corpse in our bathtub—”

“Why our bathtub?” Dimples asked. “I think that's damn inconsiderate of her.”

“It was the first trailer near hers for one thing. Then, when she saw Gus in here, she thought he might be getting mixed up with us. She figured out the trailer business and she thought he was using ours, in cahoots with one of us—or all of us, for that matter—for the same purpose. She was almost sure of it when she saw Evangie bury the body that night. Then when Corny propositions her she thinks it is very nice indeed. Nothing like having a group of grifters falling out. It always leaves an empty spot for someone else, and Mamie had herself set up as that somebody else.”

“Are you telling me that Mamie, my friend, thought I was mixed up in that dope business?” Mother said coldly.

“I think she thought so at first,” Biff admitted. “But after she got to know you she couldn't have. She wanted to get rid of Corny as soon as he gave her the bum steer about the heroin. Her idea was to put the handkerchief in the grave and let Hank find it. Then in a sweet-old-ladylike way she was going to say that she ‘thought' there was something wrong with Corny and ‘admit' she saw him bury the body. After all, he was there, he
saw her bury the body. She was just doing a switch, and it would be his word against hers. But the law's too slow. She can't wait. She knows she's dealing with a guy who wouldn't sit still for anything but dough and lots of it. And he's threatening. She waits until she has him alone, then she lets him take the knife in his back. She was with Evangie all right—that is, until Evangie gets the towel over her head. Then Mamie walks out quietly to the office and waits until Corny comes out. Zoop, it's over, she hotfoots it back to Evangie and asks her if she's feeling better. Naturally, Evangie thinks she's there all the time.”

Mother listened to Biff. A frown creased her forehead.

“I can't believe it,” she said. “I caught her going through the girls' things one day. I spoke to her, and she told me she would never do anything like that again. I knew she was a petty thief but I really thought I had made her see the light. She said she never had pretty things of her own and—”

“All she wanted,” Biff said, “was the pretty heroin.”

“Did she stab Joyce too?” Dimples asked.

“No,” Biff said. “Cullucio's man did that. By mistake of course. He thought he was hitting Mamie, see; she was in the room talking to Cullucio. The ‘boys' were right outside the door, still protecting their boss. Joyce is listening, like I asked her to, and she hears Mamie threaten Cullucio. He's scared to death anyway because of his dead waiter. When Mamie tells him that waiter was her man for Ysleta, he really goes wild. It's a wonder he didn't kill her himself. She's threatening to tell Hank, and Cullucio starts to struggle with her. That's when Joyce tries to run away. Cullucio's man thinks it's Mamie running down the hall so he grabs out at her——”

“Grabs out with a knife,” Gee Gee said. “That's cute, too.”

“Anyway,” Biff went on, “when Joyce gets to the trailer and tells me about Mamie being at The Happy Hour I drive like hell to get there in time. Cullucio would have killed her in a minute if she ever tried to frame him. Not because of himself but because of his brother. That's what Hank means when he says Cullucio has a funny sense of honesty. He figures Mamie is a crook, his brother isn't. If it's a question of one or the other having
to go, he's not going to waste time thinking over it. I made him understand that nothing could happen to Gonzales, and we called Hank to come over and pick up the dame.”