The Man Who Lived by Night (19 page)

Hoag:
Can we talk about the night Rory died?

Scarr: (pause)
We were wrapping up “We’re Double Trouble,” our encore number, just as we had been every night on the tour. I noticed this flash down in front, but when I saw Rory fall, with blood coming from his nose, I thought it was the coke—he’s bleeding from all of the snorting, I thought. Collapsing again, like in Denver. I was the last to know, you see. It wasn’t until I saw that bugger waving the gun and heard Derek screaming that I got it. And then … then all I kept thinking was it’s happening like with Puppy all over again. Only it
mustn’t.
We mustn’t lose Rory. “Why can’t someone help him?” I kept wondering. “Why can’t anyone help him?”

Hoag:
You dropped your scouse accent up there.

Scarr:
So I’ve been told. I have no recollection of that. I must have been in shock. When it finally hit me, when it sunk in that Rory was dead, I kept thinking—this will sound dreadful—I kept thinking it was a blessing. Rory died playing his guitar on a stage. He died the way he was meant to die. He was never meant to grow old, to become an aging wreck like I am. In so many ways he’s better off …

Hoag:
There are certain people, like Jim Morrison, whom you can’t picture with gray hair. Rory is definitely one of them.

Scarr:
Yes. Because he was the spirit of rock ’n’ roll. Forever young. More wine, Hogarth?

Hoag:
No thanks. I’m driving into town tonight.

Scarr:
Business or pleasure?

Hoag:
Neither.

Scarr:
Ah, you’ve heard from Merilee then.

Hoag:
Not exactly.

Scarr: (pause)
Don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for, mate.

Hoag:
Sound advice. You’ll forgive me if I don’t take it.

Scarr:
Mates always forgive. If it works out between the two of you, I’d very much like to meet her. Bring her to the party, why don’t you?

Hoag:
Party?

Scarr:
I’m giving a blowout a week from Saturday.

Hoag:
Well, well. What’s the occasion, Christmas?

Scarr:
Who needs an occasion to say hello to a few hundred old mates?

(end tape)

J
ACK WAS IN HIS
office cleaning his Browning when I went out to fetch the Peugeot, his meaty bricklayers hands caressing the shotgun lovingly. A half-empty mug of stout sat next to his elbow on the desk. I watched him there from the garage for a second before he noticed me and nodded. I nodded back, and decided it was time to drop my hook in the water.

“Vi have other plans tonight?” I asked him casually from the office doorway.

Jack tried very hard to not register a reaction. He almost succeeded. “Miss Violet? I wouldn’t know, sir.” He kept rubbing his gun.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“You two are close, aren’t you?” I patted myself on the flank. “Very close … ?”

I wanted a reaction. I got a reaction. First Jack put the shotgun down, which was nice. Then he got up, whirled, and cuffed me across the face with the back of his hand. My cheek went instantly numb. With his other hand, he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall and held me there, his purple face close to mine. His breath hadn’t improved.

“Don’t stick your nose in other people’s business.”

“Sticking my nose in other people’s business
is
my business,” I got out, hoarsely.

“Maybe you ought to change your business.”

“Can’t. Too old.”

“You won’t get much older if you don’t back off. Got it?”

“I believe so. Yes.”

He let me go. It wasn’t until I felt the jolt of my heels that I realized he’d been holding me an inch or two off of the ground. He sat back down and finished his beer in one gulp. I stood there rubbing my neck. It felt like it had been squeezed in a bench vise. My cheek was burning where he’d hit me.

“Kind of touchy, aren’t you, Jack?” I suggested gently.

He squinted up at me, like he’d gotten soap in his eyes. Then he dropped his head in his burly arms and began to weep. “She’s m-making me
crazy,
Mr. Hoag,” he sobbed. “Never in my life have I felt this way about any woman. I-I can’t sleep. Can’t eat. She’s in my mind constantly. The smell of her is in my nostrils. She’s so alive, so fresh … Christ, I-I m going to
explode!”

I took a seat and waited him out. When he was done crying, he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and blew his nose into the gun rag he’d been using. It left an oily smear across his cheek. Then he held his hand out to me. I wish I could say I didn’t flinch.

“I want to apologize for going after you, Mr. Hoag. Lost my head for a second. Sorry.”

We shook. I said, “So what’s the problem—is she going out on you?”

“She’s
playing
with me. She won’t get serious. I keep asking her to—”

“She’s very young, Jack.”

“Got a problem with that?” His voice was nasty again.

“Absolutely not. I’m in no way judging you—I just mean she may not be ready to get serious.”

“I see.” He nodded. “What should I do?”

“Who am I, Dr. Ruth?”

“Who is Dr. Ruth?”

“Give her time, Jack.”

“I can’t. This is it for me, Mr. Hoag. She’s the one. We could have a life together here, she and I. A good life.”

“Give her time,” I repeated.

He lowered his eyes. “Did she … has she made a play for you?”

I cleared my throat. “A play for me?”

“She said she was in your room one night.”

“Oh, that. Just acting frisky, I suppose. Besides, I’m involved with someone else. Somewhat. You don’t have to worry about me, Jack.”

“God bless you for that, Mr. Hoag.”

“God has very little to do with it.”

I patted him on the shoulder and left him there with his shotgun and his pain. He had about as much chance of settling down with Lady Vi as I had of being named chairman of the Federal Reserve. I think he knew it, too. But it didn’t change how he felt. She was the one. That was all he knew.

Maybe I knew a little about what that was like.

The lights were on in the mews house. There was movement behind the shades. Zack was there. It had to be Zack. She would be at the theater now, onstage.

I sat there in the Peugeot, watching the shadow on the shades and thinking about Jackie Horner. Thinking about how he was feeling. Thinking about how I was feeling. Rotten things, feelings. Much better off without them.

Zack left a little before eleven. He’s tall and lanky like I am, except he carries his shoulders stiffly, as if he’s still wearing the hanger in his coat. The coat was a loden cloth. There was an Irish tweed hat on his head. He made sure the door was firmly shut before he headed out, hands buried deep in his pockets. He walked unsteadily. He was potted.

It would be easy, really. Just start up the Peugeot. Put her in gear. Pick up some speed. Run the pretentious asshole over. No one would ever know. It would be easy.

But no, that wasn’t the crime I’d come here to commit.

I waited until he’d turned the corner before I got out and headed for her front door, fingering my key. I could hear a faint whooping noise from inside as I put the key in the lock. The whooping got downright loud when I made it inside and shut the door behind me. It was Lulu—tail thumping, ears flapping, she was hobbling toward me across the living room floor.

“Oh, I see,” I said coolly. “So now you’re happy to see me.”

Not as happy as I was to see her. I picked her up and held her. She whooped some more and licked my nose and tried to crawl inside my trench coat. I stroked her and said some soothing, intimate things I won’t bother to repeat here. Then I tried to put her down, only she wouldn’t let me. So we investigated together.

This part wasn’t so pleasant. His clothes were there in the bedroom. Brooks Brothers all the way. His toiletries were there in the bathroom. Ice-Blue Aqua Velva. Whew—no wonder Lulu was happy to see me. There were dishes in the kitchen sink they’d eaten from, glasses they drunk from. I’d hoped all of it would tell me something, like how the two of them were getting along, and where I stood. Maybe a real detective could read all of that from the evidence. I sure couldn’t. I put Lulu down in her bed. She started to protest until I picked her and the bed up together and started for the front door. I opened it to find myself face to face with a real detective.

“Good evening, Hoagy,” Farley Root said. He wore a belted black nylon raincoat and a scuffed black leather cap, and was jiggling one bony knee nervously.

“Good evening. Inspector,” I said. “Merilee isn’t here. She’s at the theater.”

“It’s you I wished to speak with, if I may. And I’m not actually an—”

“No problem,” I said, ushering him inside. “Just in the process of doing a little friendly dognapping. But how did you know I’d—?”

“I followed you here.”

“All the way from Gadpole?”

“No, we’ve a team system. I picked you up not far from here.”

I’d had no idea I was being followed. That tabloid reporter must have been clumsy. Clearly, Root and his men were not.

I put Lulu and her bed back down before the fireplace. She snuffled at me, confused by this change of plans. “Why follow me?” I asked Root.

“I like to know where everyone is. A fetish of mine. Hope you don’t mind.”

“As fetishes go it’s not too terrible,” I assured him. “Have a seat.”

He took off his hat and coat and lunged for the love seat. He wore a plaid jacket and checked slacks. It was not an improvement over the green suit. “What happened to your cheek?” he asked.

“What, this old thing?” I fingered it gently. It had gotten red and tender. “It’s nothing—just ran into a big hand. Whiskey?”

“Love one. Bit chilly out.”

I poured two Laphroaigs and handed him one. He gripped the glass so tightly I thought he’d break it. I sat in the chair opposite him.

“Wondered if you’d ever received that inventory report,” he said, swallowing the scotch over his giant Adam’s apple.

“I did.”

“And … ?”

I sipped the Laphroaig. No, it
was
too smoky for me. “And thank you.”

He frowned, ran his gopher teeth over his lower lip. “You did say we would share information.”

“I know.”

He waited for me to offer him some. When I didn’t, he narrowed his eyes at me coolly. “For your information, we’ve turned something up in regards to the Savile Row business. A lead slug. Twenty-gauge. A bus mechanic found it rattling about in the fuel filter of a bus he was servicing. There’s a hole in the body of the bus where it entered. We checked its route sheets. It would have been in the approximate vicinity of Savile Row on that date and that approximate time. We can’t be absolutely certain that it’s from the attack upon you but …”

“We can assume it is.”

“Yes.”

I tugged at my ear. “Slugs, if I remember correctly, are used primarily in hunting preserves.”

“That’s right. As a safety precaution against accidents. A rifle bullet may carry as far as a mile across open ground, presenting a danger to hunters and game alike. Lead slugs have a far shorter range—two hundred yards perhaps. Fired from a shotgun.”

“Any idea what kind fired this one?”

“Not possible. Slug’s too chewed up.”

“Too bad.”

Still, I knew something now. I knew that Derek, a confirmed black powder man, hadn’t shot me. That didn’t necessarily mean he hadn’t killed Puppy or Tulip. But he hadn’t fired those shots on Savile Row.

Root drained his scotch. “My lord, this is excellent whiskey.”

“You don’t find it too smoky?”

“Not at all.”

“Like some more?”

“Yes, but I’d best not. Work to be done.”

That was his cue to get up and leave, but he just lingered there on the loveseat, watching me and sucking on his teeth, which didn’t make a pretty sound.

“Okay,” I finally said. “I do have something for you.”

“Ah, good,” he said, pleased. He took out his notepad and pen.

I suggested he check something out, something that couldn’t be checked out without the kind of authorization he had and I didn’t: the Church of Life.

“What about it?” Root inquired, making a careful note.

“Who bankrolls it—pays the rent, the upkeep, Father Bob’s salary.”

“What will that tell us?”

“Possibly nothing,” I conceded. “Possibly a lot.”

Possibly a whole lot, if what I was thinking turned out to be true.

“Very well,” said Root. “I’ll keep you informed.” He put away his notebook and pen, got to his feet, and put on his coat, glancing over at Lulu, who was watching him from her bed. “You were having me on before about the dognapping, weren’t you, Hoagy?”

“No, I wasn’t, Inspector.”

He started to say something, stopped. Started again. Stopped again. Then he went out into the damp night.

It may not be easy to compete with an ex-wife who happens to be perfect, but I did my best: when we returned to Gadpole, I took Lulu directly to the kitchen, where Pamela clucked over her and then cooked her up a spectacular platter of kippers and eggs. After she’d wolfed that down I carried her up to our rooms and positioned her before the fire on her leather chair. From there she gazed dreamily at the flames for about thirty seconds before her eyes drooped shut, her tail thumped once, and she was out.

I took a bubble bath myself. A light rain was tapping against the window now. After I toweled off I moved Lulu to the bed and got in with Irwin Shaw. She hobbled around me, then ensconced herself in her favorite position with a soft grunt of satisfaction.

The bedside phone rang the second I opened my book.

Merilee didn’t say hello. “I assume you have her,” was all she said, with a distinct lack of warmth.

“I do. And she’s fine.”

“This is a disgrace, Hoagy. An absolute disgrace. How could you?”

“I needed her, Merilee.”

“You could have phoned. We could have worked something out. You didn’t have to sneak in here like a thieving son of a sea cook.”

“I really have missed your quaint little expressions.”