Ticket to Ride (26 page)

“I will. Good-bye, Mr. McCain.”

After I hung up, I sat there sorting through everything I'd just heard. Something was wrong out at the Bennetts'. Maybe it was just an angry family argument. Maybe Linda and Hughes were going at each other. That's not uncommon following a death. Old grudges are aired and bitterness thrives. I had a client once who wanted me to sue her sister for belting her in the eye. They'd argued over who had really been their dead daddy's favorite. I finally talked her out of the suit but lost her as a client.

“What's wrong, Sam?”

“I'm not sure. The maid sounded as if there was some kind of trouble there. I think somebody was telling her what to say.”

“Linda's probably hysterical with David in jail. She can be hell on wheels when she's upset.”

“I like that,” Jamie said, “hell on wheels.”

“By the way, Sam, hell on wheels reminds me. Tomorrow night Cartwright is going to try again. He couldn't get all those Beatles records burned, so now he's going to stand on that little bluff out at the lake and throw them into the river.”

I wished I had time to enjoy the image of Cartwright firing the Satan-spawned records into the dark waters, but that would have to wait. The Pepsi and the air conditioning had helped revive me, but not enough for the trip I needed to make now.

“I need to go down the hall.” Jamie knew what I meant. She always said “little girls' room,” so I decided to euphemize my own duties.

Wendy looked confused.

“He means the little boys' room,” Jamie said.

“Thank you, Jamie.”

“You're welcome, Mr. C.”

Wendy found this amusing. She looked even better when she was laughing.

In the john, I took off my shirt and proceeded to the tiny sink. I ran cold water, grabbed three paper towels, and started washing my upper body. Then I stuck my head under the faucet and began scooping cold water on my head. Two doors down, I could get a cup of atomic coffee. It didn't taste very good, but one cup could keep you awake for as long as a month.

I combed my hair, leaving it wet. I reached across to the peg where I kept an extra shirt. This was a short-sleeved blue JCPenney button-down.

When I walked back into my office, Jamie was on the phone. It was a Turk call. She had that look. There was a Turk call expression for happy and a Turk call expression for sad and a Turk call expression for mad. This one was sad. “I told you, Turk. I still love you, but I just can't give you any more money. You need to get a job. And I shouldn't be wasting Mr. C's time by talking about this at the office. Now I need to go.”

After she hung up, she breathed deeply, made fists of her small hands, and said, “Was that all right, Mrs. Bennett?”

“Perfect. And will you please call me Wendy? You're driving me nuts with that ‘Mrs. Bennett' business. I feel old enough already.”

“Well, you're not that old. I'll bet you're not even forty yet.”

Now it was my turn to be amused. Wendy was six months younger than I was, which meant she was twenty-eight. Jamie had no concept of peoples' ages. She once guessed my age and put it at forty-six.

“I'm actually forty-three, Jamie.”

“You are? Well, you've held up very well. Wouldn't you say so, Mr. C?”

“Remarkably well.”

Then I needed to fortify myself. I have a drawer gun and a glove compartment gun. I decided on the Smith & Wesson .38 I keep in the office. I can hide it better in my clothes. “Now I have to leave.”

“Am I supposed to pretend I didn't see you shove a gun in your back pocket?” Wendy did not sound happy.

“You did. And it's nothing to worry about. Just a precaution.”

“Don't worry,” Jamie said. “He takes guns out a lot of the time. He knows what he's doing.”

Wendy's mouth was tight, her gaze disapproving. “I'm not much for guns, Sam.”

“You know what?” Now I sounded a bit irritated myself. “Neither am I. Now c'mon, I'll walk out with you.”

Before leaving, Wendy walked over to Jamie and took one of her hands and said, “I gave you my phone number. You call me whenever you want to talk. This won't be easy for you, Jamie. But you've got to do it.”

“I know you're right—Wendy. It's just so hard when I think about all the fun we've—” She was starting to cry.

Wendy kissed her on the cheek. “You're a lot stronger than you think you are, Jamie. And remember to call me when you need some moral support.”

Tears gleaming in her eyes, Jamie nodded, then turned away from us so she could cry in private.

Outside, as we walked to our respective cars, Wendy said, “She's so pretty and so sweet.”

“Even though she thinks you're forty?”

“I didn't say she was brilliant. But I like her. She's kind of downhome folks.”

“Thanks for helping her. I've been trying for years to get her to stand up for herself—you managed to do it the first time out.”

“He was just taking such advantage of her.”

We were at her shiny black Chevrolet Impala. She poked me in the stomach. “I take it you're going out to Lou's place.”

“Uh-huh. Something's wrong.”

“Marilyn's almost always very pleasant. They had to go through a number of maids before they found her.”

“You're making my point. She didn't sound pleasant at all. She sounded scared.”

“I wonder if William's there. He wouldn't let anything happen.”

“The maid said he was, but I don't know if that's the truth.”

She touched my arm. “I hate to say this, but why not call Cliffie and let him take care of it?”

I kissed her gently on the mouth. “I don't blame you for hating to say that. I'd be ashamed to say it.”

Another poke in the stomach. “My he-man. And not a brain in his head.”

She slid her arm around me, two sweaty, lonely, even desperate people. When I was with her, I felt good, safe in some way. She told me she felt the same way. We both agreed this didn't mean we'd be going out all the time. But then we both agreed that it didn't not mean we'd be going out all the time, either. I guess if you wait long enough, those cheerleaders come through for you after all. Last night we'd gone all the way to third base; and lying there afterward, sharing a cigarette, I realized how much I just plain liked her. The pain of her divorce and loneliness had changed her. She was no longer the belle of the ball, because the ball had ended; the fiddlers had fled.

She walked me over to my car and saw me safely seated. “You think you'll ever give this convertible up?”

“Please. Not ‘convertible.' Ragtop.”

“Oh, I see, just like in all those Henry Gregor Felsen novels my brother used to read. My brother always wanted to have my father drive him to Des Moines to meet him.” Felsen wrote teen novels for boys. Most of them involved cool cars. They were among the most popular books in American libraries.

I started the car. “I wanted to do the same thing. Maybe I still will someday.”

I backed out, beeped the horn when I'd gotten the car turned around.

She waved good-bye and damn, that felt good. I gave her a little Lone Ranger wave of my own and sped off.

25

D
ARK CLOUDS HAD STARTED MOVING IN FROM THE WEST
. Though the day was dying, the heat had not relented. Lawns without sprinklers looked naked. Hoses were still the preferred choice of fun for giggling kids. Women wore straw hats with brims as wide as an eagle's wingspread. Old couples sat on old porches, intimate in their silence.

Traffic was slow because factories and businesses and shops had just closed. When I got on the secondary road leading to the Bennett place, I added twenty miles an hour to the speed limit.

When I was near the estate, I pulled over to the side of the road and cut the engine. I wanted to find out if something was wrong in the house. Announcing myself was not the way to do it.

Adjacent to the estate was a forest of pine and oak. The estate had no fence around it. It would be possible to work my way parallel to the back of the house through the trees and then run for the house without being seen. Possible, but no guarantees.

The trail I found was so narrow that I had to fight low-hanging branches all the way. Any good the sponge bath had done me was quickly lost. I streamed with sweat, both from walking and swatting at any number of flying things that seemed to find me tasty. I tripped once over an extended tree root and was dropped to my knees. Amazing that you can feel humiliated even when you're alone. I was really pissed at that tree.

All the time I walked, I could see the estate house as a dim form broken by various tree parts. At the point where I planned to sneak across to the back door, I left the pitiful trail and battled my way through branches that were ready for the contest. By the time I reached the edge of the woods, I had cuts on my forehead, my cheek, and my throat. Something had ripped into my right sleeve and cut a hole in it. Sweat had filled the bottoms of my shoes again. Comedians called it flop sweat, but I didn't like the implications of “flop.”

I crouched beneath a pine tree and gazed out past the heavy shadows to the estate grounds. I checked every window facing me. Empty. The rear of the place was static; it could have been a still photograph. The three-stall garage, the barn, the stable, and the black car William Hughes drove stood in the fading sunlight, their colors dimming now in the lingering plunge into dusk.

I took my handkerchief from my back pocket and tried to wipe myself dry, at least dry enough to hold off any more irritation about the weather. I needed to think clearly and act quickly. Without sweat in my eyes, I scanned the rear of the estate again and decided to make my move.

The run was simple. No problem at all. I stood at the back door, my hand on the knob. I checked the back yard in case somebody was watching from one of the buildings; but seeing nobody, I turned the knob. The door wasn't locked.

I took a deep breath and eased my way inside. I closed the door behind me with exaggerated care, a pantomime of caution. Stairs led straight down to the basement. On my left were two steps. These led to another closed door that would open on, most likely, the kitchen area. I took the first one and leaned my head against the door. All I could hear was the chatter of the house itself. The plumbing was particularly noisy at the moment. No human noise.

I took the second step, turned the knob. Only then did I become aware of the air conditioning. My impulse was to just stand there and appreciate it.

The kitchen would have served a big-city hotel very well. Two large stoves, a wall of small appliances, a refrigerator that could hold a water buffalo, and a butcher block table running down the center of it all that resembled the deck of an aircraft carrier. Lou had taken his food very seriously.

A red sun was creeping down the window by the sink. A haze was settling across the land. In all those Hammer movies I saw at the drive-in, this is when we saw Dracula's eyes come open in his coffin. My eyes were wide open now, too, because somewhere in the house somebody was speaking.

I pulled the .38 from my belt. I moved forward one quiet step at a time, drawn by the voice. All I could tell from here was that a male was speaking.

The kitchen led me to a hallway that stretched from front to back of the place. Near the vestibule I could see the bottom of a staircase that curved out slightly. The voice was coming from a room in that area.

Getting in had been easy enough. This was where it became real work. I didn't like the exposure that being in the hallway forced on me. If somebody peeked out of that room, I'd have no place to hide. I started walking on tiptoe.

When I got close enough to make sense of the words being spoken, I stopped and listened.

“You weren't her friends. You said you were. But you lied. I was the only real friend she had. I tried to let it go. I took long trips to try and forget about it. I wanted to get on with my life, but I couldn't. Then when her birthday came this year—

“I took care of Bennett and Davenport. I would've taken care of Raines, too, but the law got to him first.” Then: “You're going to open that safe for me and you're going to do it right now.”

I still couldn't identify him. The voice was familiar, but I couldn't put a name or a face to it. Not anybody I knew well.

A closet door on my right was open a few inches. Glancing inside, I saw her slumped against the wall. The gray maid's uniform was distinctive.

I jammed the .38 back down into my beltline and then tended to her as best I could.

This was used as a storage closet. Boxes lined the opposing walls. The center where she lay was open.

I knelt down next to her. When I touched her wrist, her eyes opened. I put a finger to my lips and shook my head. Recognition showed in the blue eyes. The smells were a mixture of perfume, talcum powder, and blood. Her pulse was stronger than I'd expected. She started to sit up, but her body spasmed with pain. She started to fall back against the wall, but I grabbed her before she hit. She didn't need any more pain, and neither of us needed any noise. I still didn't know who was ranting on in the living room.

She exhaled in a shaky burst, then began searching her skull with trained careful fingers. She found the wound. When she took her fingers away, they were stained with blood. She examined them without any emotion I could see, like a nurse assessing a patient's injury. She scowled then. Anger. Good. Right now, that was the most appropriate emotion of all.

We reverted to pantomime. I jabbed my finger in the direction of the kitchen. She gave a slight nod. Even that caused her to wince. I pantomimed standing up. She gave me a shrug. Maybe, maybe not. I got to my feet and then reached down and took her hand. The flesh was callussed and very cold. We started her long, painful trip upward. She rose by a few inches at a time. When she was halfway up, she started to slump against the wall. I got my arm around her waist to steady her and kept it there for the rest of the journey. She was a thin woman of maybe fifty. I'd made the mistake of thinking she was frail. But as she rose, I could feel her strength pushing against the damage that had been done to her head and her senses. There were a lot of prairie people like her. They'd brought their strength out here from the East. Without that kind of backbone, they would never have survived the daily perils of the frontier.