The Corpse Without a Country (7 page)

I thought, after all, Arne is her father. And Arne was scared. And Reese was her fiancée. And maybe Jodi wanted to pump me for them.

I said, “It was just a hope—that you’d seen Tom or the blonde or their boats.” She shook her head. I tried another angle. “Did you get over to Boundary much this summer?”

She was lifting her drink to her mouth. There was an instant’s hesitation, a slight break in the motion, and then she got the glass to her lips and took a swallow. She said, “Quite a bit. It’s a wonderful place for seascapes.”

“Did you notice anything unusual? Especially this past month?”

She shook her head. “I don’t seem to be much help, do I?”

She was lying again. I tried not to let her see that I knew as I studied her profile. It was lovely and composed. Then she turned and gave me a front view. The wicked, impish grin had come back. I became very conscious of how kissable her mouth was. I moved quickly to the window and looked down at the lights scattered along the canal.

She said, “What are you going to do now, Peter?”

“I’m going to try to find out just how the blonde knew I had Tom’s report.”

“Maybe she bugged your office,” Jodi said. She sounded serious.

I started to laugh and then stopped. “Maybe not bugged!”

I said. I was excited. “But something close to it. Emily Calvin, our secretary, to be exact. Because that blonde tailed me from the Pad, right after I left Emily there.”

“You went to the Pad?” Jodi exclaimed. “Now you do need me. I know all about it.”

I said, “I was just outside; I didn’t go in. How did you get tangled up with the place?”

“I put two of my paintings there on exhibit,” she said. “And the people amuse me. They care so much about not caring for anything.”

I said, “Let’s go introduce me around. I want to talk to Emily.”

“I know her,” Jodi said. “She’s Ridley Trillian’s latest.” She paused and added in a deadly serious tone, “Don’t underestimate him, Peter, because he’s only a poet. He can be dangerous.”

I
HAD VISIONS OF A
poet with the name of Ridley Trillian getting rough by slapping my wrist with the tips of his fingers. The thought gave me the first good laugh I’d had for quite a while.

As we started down creaking stairs, Jodi said again, “Be careful.” But now she was referring to the stairs, not what we might find at the bottom. They were dark. The cement walls on either side were painted black and so was the cement floor at the end. The big room where the poetry-reciting and dulcimer-playing rites were held was hidden behind a black cloth curtain. The light that we had came from a twenty-five watt bulb high overhead and most of it was absorbed before it ever reached the steps.

The over-all effect on reaching the big room was one of exhausted relief. As depressing as it was, at least I could almost see again. Here the floor was painted black; the walls were draped with a dull black cloth; the light came from single candles placed on each of the large, round tables scattered about the barnlike place. The atmosphere was chill and damp, and the air had the stale, sour smell of an unwashed, moldy storage bin overlaid with that pungent odor rats and mice leave when they haunt a place.

I said, “It stinks.”

Jodi said, “We’re being examined, Peter. Don’t talk that way.”

I couldn’t see anyone at first but as my eyes adjusted to the gloom I finally made out half a dozen persons. They were all around one table placed in a far corner where there was almost no light at all. They watched us with an unwinking immobility that was disconcerting. I had been forced into interviews with hoodlums where I felt more comfortable. Right now I had the sensation of being the lone Christian at a Black Mass. I began to get irritated.

I took Jodi’s arm and steered her to a table facing the occupied one. We sat down. Nobody moved. Nobody said a word.

I got tired of it. “What do they have here that won’t dope us?”

Jodi’s voice held a smothered giggle. “The coffee’s good.”

I looked at the occupied table and located Emily Calvin. She was wearing the same getup she had earlier. But she wasn’t looking soppy-eyed at me now. We weren’t in an elevator. Or maybe the difference was the stocky character in a sweatshirt next to her.

He had pale blonde curly hair and rugged chopped features that reminded me of a punchy fighter I’d once known. He was willing to look at me even if Emily wasn’t. He had a terrific scowl.

A chair scraped back and a tall character wearing a blouselike shirt with a black ascot tie and loose-cut Dutch trousers stood up. He looked big through the chest and hips and wore his hair roached.

“Two coffees?”

I said, “Black,” as if we hadn’t had to pass inspection before getting service.

He moved away. As he passed close to a lighted candle, his torso was momentarily in silhouette. I saw that I’d made a mistake. Under the loose blouse, “he” was definitely she.

I said to Jodi, “Which one is that?”

She frowned warningly at me. “Willie. She’s the proprietress.”

“
She
is!” I said in a mincing voice. The man behind Emily deepened his scowl. I said, leaning toward him, “Are you Trillian?”

“It’s your quarter, Dad.”

I said, “Let’s talk grown-up talk.”

His voice was flat, without intonation. “What’d you come here for?”

“I came to see the exhibit,” I said.

I could have meant the art exhibit. Only I didn’t, and he knew it. He came up out of his chair. I hauled myself to my feet. The top of his head was level with the muscle jumping in my cheek. His bulk pulled against the seams of his sweatshirt when he moved his arms. He moved them very fast. His left caught me under the breastbone and his right chopped the side of my jaw.

I took the left but managed to backpedal away from the full power of the right. He came at me, light on his feet like a boxer. I decided that I had the wrong slant on poets. This character was fast and he hit hard.

I swung a left of my own. He sneered and leaned away from it. He lifted a foot and brought it down on my instep. I blew out a yowl of pain.

He stepped up to me, rough-knuckled fists ready to use on my face. I couldn’t shake the pain in my foot long enough to do anything about him. I thought, Durham is going to get chopped up by a dulcimer player.

He started his swing. Then his mouth came open. His complexion went a faint green. He doubled over like a man with a sudden cramp. The back of his neck was there, waiting for me. I hooked my hands into one big fist and smashed it down where his neck and hairline fit into his sweatshirt. The sound of his face kissing the black cement floor was dulcimer music to my ears.

Jodi regarded the toe of her shoe that had just buried itself in his groin. She said admiringly, “Nice teamwork.” She was Arne’s daughter, all right.

Seeing her boy friend writhing on the floor apparently brought Emily to life. She forgot that as a beatnik she was supposed to be indifferent to everything, and she backslid. She came out of her chair and hurled a husky one hundred and forty pounds at Jodi.

I thought she would smother Jodi, who wouldn’t weigh one-ten in a diver’s lead shoes. But Arne hadn’t raised his daughter to be a patsy. Jodi disappeared, and then Emily’s bulk was in the air, lifted by leverage and its own momentum. Emily came down on a tabletop on her back, arms and legs spread. The table gave up and flattened itself.

Emily lifted her head and began to cry. Ridley Trillian hoisted himself up and staggered to his chair and sat down, leaving her to her blubbering. She finally got herself to her feet and joined him.

Willie came and set down our coffee. The other ghouls sat and looked indifferent, just the way the rule book said they should.

Willie said, “Four bits and two cents tax.”

I paid. Jodi lit two cigarettes and passed me one. It tasted of her lipstick. I liked the flavor. I sipped my coffee. It was in a thick mug. I was hoping Ridley would try another move. I wanted to heave the cup at him.

But he wasn’t going to move anything but his jaw muscles for a while. He said, “What do you want here, Dad?”

“I came to discuss poetic imagery with Emily,” I said. I paused long enough to sip more coffee. Then I added, “Before the police come to discuss it with her.”

I was just trying to stir something up. My words didn’t really mean anything. Not to me, that is. They seemed to mean a lot to Emily. She opened her mouth and a whimper oozed out. She looked at me and whimpered louder. Then she got up and ran. She was still whimpering when she went through black curtains at the rear of the room.

I went after her. Behind the curtains was a hallway. To my right a door opened onto a lighted room. I could see oil paintings on the walls. Some of them looked pretty good. To my left was a door marked
Toilet
. At the end of the hall was a red light over a fire exit.

I rapped on the toilet door. “You can’t hide forever, Emily.”

I didn’t find out whether I’d scared her enough or not. The curtains parted and Ridley appeared. He wasn’t moving very fast but he came steadily.

“Blow. She doesn’t want to talk to you. So blow, Dad.”

I said, “Let’s grow up. Don’t you professional creeps ever mature? How long are all the fads and childish lingo going to appeal to the ruts you have for brains? This year everyone is ‘Dad’; and I suppose I’m square and you’re hep or cool. What pseudo-intellectual toys will you find to play with next year?”

His cheeks blossomed pink. I said, “And you’ve got a lot of guts, taking money for imposing your atrophied mentality on college students who put out good money and time to learn about poetry from you.”

Two little dribbles of foam ran down from the corners of his mouth. I cocked my left leg, my eyes on his groin. He took a sideways step and went through the toilet door. I got my foot in the way and followed.

That room was something. Not very big, it managed to house all the amenities without bothering with the division of the sexes. There was a urinal against one wall and an open-booth toilet next to it and a shower nozzle across the room. Under the nozzle was a drain. Emily was standing there, one hand pressed to her mouth.

Her skin was a dirty gray and her eyes were full of sick fear as she stared at me. Ridley gave her a look that sent her pressing back and trying to squeeze through the cement wall.

He walked to the toilet, reached behind the tank, and came up with a gun. He pointed it at me. “Blow, Dad.”

I started toward him. I didn’t think he was the kind of man who would kill in cold blood. If he held his ground, I was going to change my mind and do what he said—‘blow.’

The gun muzzle wavered, then stiffened. I stopped. The door behind me opened. Ridley put the gun in his pocket and took a step toward me. I heard something swish in back of my head. I tried to turn. Ridley moved in, clobbering my jaw with his fist. I didn’t get to see what was swishing. But I felt it. Ridley’s fist twisted my head one way, and that “something” half took my ear off. I went to my knees.

The door closed. Ridley and I were alone with Emily. Ridley took another step forward. He lifted a foot covered with a tennis shoe. I was glad he wasn’t a mountain climber. The tennis shoe hit me hard enough. It caught me in the wind. I fell on my side.

I rolled over and came to my feet. Ridley grinned at me and went to work with his knuckles. I went under them and clinched with him. I hung on while he played tunes on my ribs. I wondered if he thought I was his dulcimer.

Emily thoughtfully stopped the proceedings. She made a gurgling sound and fainted.

W
HEN
E
MILY FAINTED
, Ridley stopped hammering on me and turned to see what was going on. For a brief moment, he presented me with as fine a view of the side of his jaw as I could want. I didn’t look long; I swung.

There wasn’t much steam to my punch but it caught Ridley off guard. He tripped over his own feet and fell down. I found the same spot on his jaw with the tip of my shoe. He rolled over on his back and lay there, his mouth open and his eyes closed.

I went back into the hallway. Jodi was just coming through the curtains, worry furrowing her forehead. She took one look at me, grabbed my arm, and steered me out through the fire exit doorway.

We were in an alley, rank with the smell of rotting garbage. With me in tow, Jodi picked her way out to the street and down to her car. I had never been so glad to sit down.

Jodi drove fast, whipping a lot of cold wind into the car. That helped clear my head. So did the three fingers of rye whiskey she had for me after I stretched out on her divan.

That divan was about eight feet long, and it faced a floor-to-ceiling window. Through the window I could see the dark waters of the canal. To my right, lights outlined the bridge just this side of the Inlet. To my left the canal opened out into the Sound. The water was so close I could almost touch it.

Jodi brought me more rye. “Like my view?”

“It almost makes me want to be rich,” I said. I took the rye glass she held out. There were only two fingers, but that was enough. I could feel again. I rubbed my ear, surprised to find that I still had all of it.

“Do you try to solve all your cases by using yourself for a punching bag?” Jodi asked pleasantly.

I let that one pass. I said, “Who came into the toilet and set me up for Ridley?”

“That would be Willie,” Jodi said. “She’s pretty good with a sand-filled leather bungstarter.”

“You have such interesting friends,” I said dryly.

“They’re no friends of mine,” she protested. “I met them when I took my paintings down for exhibit. Willie wanted to know me better, but I’m fussy that way.”

I said, “I feel sorry for Willie if she ever tries to tangle with you.” I was thinking of Emily flying through the air. “You helped me out of two jams tonight. I like the way you work, but remind me never to make a pass at you.”

“When I want you to, you’ll know it,” she said.

I said, “Let’s wait until my head settles down, shall we?” and reached for the rye.

Jodi moved it quickly out of my way. “Enough is enough,” she said. “Those last two remarks didn’t sound like Peter Durham.”