Wild (4 page)

I
TURNED ON
the light. The office waiting room hadn’t cleaned itself. I closed the door, checking for mail. Six days in the home town had brought nothing to this waiting room except unpaid bills, morning and evening papers, and stray notes of condolance. There was the same creaky rattan furniture I remembered as a kid, and thick dust. I was glad she hadn’t come here.

The inner office was worse. I turned on the desk light. I’d been sorting, filing, every day since pulling in from California. Stuffed manila folders were stacked on file cabinets, desk, chairs, everywhere. Loose papers and books littered the floor, along with old tobacco tins, gnawed and broken pipes, a couple of raddled fly swatters, and other aged and even nostalgic junk, like a sack of marbles—selected cat’s eyes and steelies I remembered having back in grammar school. My old man had left me a mess.

I sat behind the desk in the old swivel chair. The phone directory was on the floor. I heaved it up on the desk and lit a cigarette.

James Baron was still in this room. A human being doesn’t leave a place in which he’s lived and worked for over a quarter of a century just because he dies.

For years he’d been after me to throw in with him, help him make something of the agency. I’d been too much of a fool to know for certain that all I wanted to be was a good private cop. So when I finally made up my mind and figured to burst in on him and surprise the hell out of him, he was already three days dead.

I phoned Hoagy Stills’ home again. His wife said he was still sleeping. She would appreciate it if I’d cease calling. The ringing phone might wake him.

I checked the directory. There was an Elk Crafford listed at 7 Canawlside Drive, over on Grove Point. I wanted to see him, or his wife. I thought about his wife, remembering her as Ivor’s long-legged kid sister. She’d been a pretty wild kid, and I wondered how she’d be now. Thinking about her letters to Carl reminded me I needed a shower.

At my apartment in Bahama Shores, I shaved, took a fast shower, and finally quit thinking about what I’d heard of Asa Crafford. I got dressed. I wore my brown sharkskin and a pair of crepe-soled shoes. I felt wide awake; crisp, hard, hot and hungry.

In the living room, I stared at the phone. It didn’t ring. I decided to give it half a chance.

I went through the evening paper. Nothing new on the Laketown robbery. Out in the kitchen, I poured half a water glass full of bourbon, took a swallow, had a flash.

I remembered seeing a large carton of newspapers in a closet down the hall by the fire exit. I got that, hauled it back to the kitchen, and set it on the table.

There was a summing-up story on the Laketown job in a week-old
Journal
. I took my glass of whisky and the paper into the other room, sat in the one comfortable chair facing the big window overlooking Tampa Bay, and started checking.

Close to four hundred thousand dollars. A lolloping sack of jack. Sheriff’s Department theorized getaway car headed south, maybe Miami. Whoever pulled it had sure scraped the paint. His one bad slip was creaming a guy named McCarthy, a teller, with a .32. It was hard to figure anybody planning to rob a bank with a .32. Two men in the robbery, so far as was known. They had come up with a fresh witness, a Mrs. Cargy Johnson. Mrs. Johnson said: “I was scared to tell what I saw, but I’ve been thinking it over. It’s really not so much, but I thought it might help. I was in Union Trust Wednesday noon when it was held up and robbed. There were two men. The vault was open, just like the paper said. But what I saw was, they had a big suitcase and that’s what they put the money in. A big brown leather suitcase, with leather straps and brass buckles. On the top were small black initials. Just as plain. It looked as if somebody had tried to scrape them off with a knife. They were ‘K. S. L.,’ “ she told the deputies.

My hands were cold as I reread those words. And I was out by that trailer in the rain, kicking tin cans, not a care in the world, staring into the trash pit where they burned things at the large brown leather suitcase, three-quarters burned, with the initials “K.S.—.” There had been no “L.” That was burned off.

I knew now that I was working for a bigger client than Ivor Hendrix.
I
was my own client
. I would help her. But I would help myself, this time. This was big. My chance to set up business.

The phone didn’t ring. She would call later.

I shook out my slicker and left. I had coffee and an anemic ham sandwich at a drugstore, then headed for 7 Canawlside Drive.

The streets were slick. The rain had nearly ceased.

To all intents and purposes, as Grandma used to say, Carl Hendrix was dead. In the eyes of the police, until proven otherwise. I decided to play it that way, watch reactions, see what happened, until I learned something. This was mine, straight to the dregs.

I made two fast corners, and that was when I spotted the possible tail. I was about a mile from Seminole Causeway, short-cutting through narrow residential streets, or I might have missed him.

I slowed. He swept in a half block, then cut his speed. All I could see were headlights. I tried to make out the grillwork, but it was no dice. I took it easy for about eight blocks. He stuck. I took a right, then a left, and another right, fast, then eased down again. He showed.

Shoving the gas to the floor, I let it go flat out for three blocks, took a wheel-screaming left, braked, made a U-turn, and parked on the other side of the street. I waited over five minutes. Nothing.

Finally I drove on toward the causeway. You can be mistaken. I’d had it look like a tail before, only to find it was some guy coming home from work.

He came up beside me doing about seventy, with his lights off, on the causeway. I nearly missed spotting him. I braked just as he cut in on me. He nearly went through the rail, and so did I. My engine quit. By the time I got it started, he was gone.

• • •

I parked at the curb down a way from the hedge- and tree-shielded house on Canawlside Drive. The neighborhood was a haven of expensive silence. Obviously the payments were kept up. The “canawl” was down the street to the right, guarded by a line of snotty-looking silver oaks, grass-banked and serene.

The rain had ceased. The night was dark, fragrant, cool. I walked past waxen-leafed ligustrum hedging along waferlike imported flags. A meandering drive to the left led between dollar-aged slump-block walls toward a gleaming midnight-colored platform at the entrance.

The air shivered against the distant sound of a woman’s laughter, the exclusive clink of ice in a glass.

I punched the bell. Chimes tinkled delicately.

A
YOUNG WOMAN
came down a vast hallway toward the door.

She was tall and every inch, from any distance, an eye-peeler. Thick black hair, lush hips that curved in to one of the narrowest of waists. The black hair was yanked to the left side of her head, shaped to a fold over her shoulder; she looked something like a brunette, well fed, polished, modern Veronica Lake. Her head tilted slightly to the left as if the hair were a bit too heavy to tote. She wore a pale green wrap-around evening get-up, with silver threads running through the cloth. The dress opened in a long narrow V to the black sash around her waist. She wore black, flat-soled slippers that made no sound as she neared across pale marble floor. She carried herself like a hot dream.

The first door opened.

She straddled her late twenties, and if you looked hard, you saw in the shape of her face that she was Ivor’s sister.

She opened the door in front of me and flipped a cigarette past my ear. It sparkled high out across the lawn.

“I’ve decided you can go to hell,” she said lightly.

“Will you come with me?”

She stared at me, frowned as if I were a bug caught on the outside of a window screen, then said abruptly, “Oh. You’re not—!” She covered her broad red mouth with one hand and laughed gently behind the hand. Her breasts did things under the thin cloth. She took the hand down and said carefully, “I’m sorry. I thought you were my husband.”

“Forget it.”

We smiled. Her lower lip was sulky. She had changed considerably since I’d last seen her, and none of it was to the bad, if you disregarded a certain obvious harshness.

“Well? What is it?”

I grinned at her. “Asa?” I said. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I should, shouldn’t I. I can tell.”

I didn’t realize I had changed that much. It was a little discouraging. “Lee Baron,” I said.

We stood there and went through some of the sudden bright formalities. We shook hands. Where have you been; It’s been such a long time, hasn’t it; You haven’t changed; Neither have you; This certainly is a surprise; You’re married now; Yes, it’s crazy, isn’t it? “Well,” she said. “Whatever brings you here?”

Her face was without expression now. She had things on her mind, and I wasn’t among them. Her right palm moved once up, once down her right thigh.

I said, “It’s about Carl Hendrix, Asa.”

“Oh. What about him?”

“He’s dead.”

The right corner of her mouth jerked once. That was all. It was enough.

“Come in,” she said. She turned and walked into the house, through the doors. She waited for me in the hall, then said, “Follow me.”

Her walk was lusciously lazy from behind, mindful of Abbe Lane crossing the platform for a bit of cha-cha-cha.

We left the hall without my knowing it and entered a muted, lushly furnished large room, softly lighted, sprinkled with low couches and chairs. Whoever manufactured the carpet had been thinking of sleeping, not walking.

“Please sit down.”

I sat on the edge of an enormous chair. She parked herself on an immense, circular blood-red hassock and leaned on one arm. The fold of hair had slipped inside the V of her dress. She lifted it out and slung it over her shoulder.

“Now,” she said quietly. “What’s all this?”

I told her again, briefly. “Carl Hendrix is dead.”

The corner of her mouth jerked again.

She said, “Why do you come to me?”

“Thought you might be able to help me.”

“I still don’t get it.”

“He was murdered.”

There was a large, well stocked, gleaming bar at the far end of the room. She got up and walked over there.

“Care for a drink?” she said.

“No.”

She stopped, turned, and looked at me. Then she went to the bar. “I’ll have two, then,” she said. “I’ll make believe you drank the other.”

She took a bottle and shot glass, poured the glass full, knocked it down. She did this twice more. Then she returned to the hassock and sat down again.

I said nothing.

“Still asking the same question,” she said. “Why come to me?”

“I think you know.”

She crossed her legs, pulled her dress open so it hung down either side of her legs, above her knees. She scratched her thigh up near the rim of her sheer stocking, watching me. Fingernails rasped quietly, then ceased. There was a disdainful expression in her eyes. She left her dress that way, watching me. It was all done in a practiced way, almost absently—not quite.

“Now that you’ve proved to me that you have nice legs, shall we talk?”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

“I like to give pleasure.”

“Doesn’t it trouble you that you can’t give any more to Carl Hendrix?”

She straightened. “Just exactly what do you mean by that?” Her eyes widened. Her dress began to slide open still more. She stood up quickly, leaned toward me from the waist. “I think you’d damned well better explain yourself, and fast,” she snapped. “And then I think you’d better get the hell out of here even faster.”

I sat there. I watched her.

I felt nasty. She had done it. They dangle it in front of you, then when you reach for it, they yell. I wondered if she would yell.

“I read the letters,” I said. “He never burned them.”

She held the pose.

“Does that trouble you?” I said. “Does it make you any more human?”

“One of those,” she said, straightening. “Another one of those goddamned creeps.”

“There were three letters. I read every line.”

You could see things happening behind her eyes.

“Hottest stuff I ever read,” I said. “Wowers.”

She came at me with her claws. I got up fast and met her halfway. She kicked for my shins. The claws were like an eagle’s. Down in her throat, she was screeching. I’d triggered a bomb.

I snapped out and grabbed her wrists. She was strong and mad. She kept trying to kick me. I twisted her arms behind her, got in tight against her so she couldn’t kick, and looked into her eyes. She’d been crocked all the time, I saw it now. I held her that way, talked into an explosive aroma of rare old brandy.

“Hold still and shut up,” I said. “I came here with the idea I could talk to you. I wasn’t going to mention those letters.”

“Oh, no—of course not!”

She socked me with her hips. Her thighs writhed. She stomped on my feet, and the throat of her dress pulled back across a plump bare breast. I held her wrists in the small of her back and squashed her flat against me so she couldn’t move. Her body was a curved hunk of hell.

She went limp. She looked at me, her face an inch from mine, her eyes foggy.

A man spoke from the hallway entrance. I turned my head, but I didn’t let go of her.

He said, “Don’t mean to interrupt. Only bother you a minute. Excuse me.”

He crossed the room, not looking at us. A large man wearing a white dinner jacket and black tie. He carried a pipe. He walked stiffly to the bar, picked up a bottle, turned and walked back toward the hall. He didn’t speak again. I listened to him walking down the hall, and a door closed.

“Who was that?”

“My husband.”

“Shall I let you go now?”

“Try it.”

I tried another tack. “This isn’t going to get either of us anywhere. All I want to do is ask you a couple of questions. I won’t mention the letters again.”

I let go of her and gave her a push. She sat down hard on the hassock. She sat there staring up at me for a moment. She fixed her dress. She breathed heavily.

I didn’t say anything.

She put her elbows on her knees, put her head in her hands, looking down at her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m all mixed up. It doesn’t really matter, because everything’s a mess anyway.”

I tried breathing regularly. It worked.

She held her head that way, not looking up. “What do you want to ask me?” she said. “Go ahead. I don’t give a goddam.”

“When did you last see Carl Hendrix?”

“A week or so ago.”

“Where?”

“In my bedroom.”

“What about your husband? Doesn’t he count?”

“He counts.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Sorry, again. I’m always sorry. I spend my life being sorry. That’s how I get my kicks. Being sorry.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question.”

“You’re a real tough onion, aren’t you?”

“If you say so. Why don’t you stop knocking yourself and talk with me? You’re not the only one who has it rough.”

“No?”

“No.”

“I’d like to see somebody match me.”

“So would I.”

She lowered her hands and looked up at me. “Okay, Lee. You win. Funny. They always win.”

“Yeah. Very funny. Ever since the first time under the front porch.”

“How did you ever guess?”

“I didn’t guess. I was there, don’t you remember?”

“You weren’t the guy who started me off.”

I grinned sadly at her. “Maybe not, but maybe I was the one who made it fun.”

She shot me a timid, half-embarrassed smile. Then her face changed. She put her head in her hands again. “So why did you go away? Why did you leave me there? I’m still under that goddamned porch.”

I went over and sat down in the chair. She looked across at me, the black hair hanging down one side of her face, her head propped on one hand now.

I said, “Why did you get so excited over those letters?”

“Where are they?”

“I tried to tell you before. This isn’t going to get us anywhere. You’ll have to answer my questions, or it won’t work.”

She looked away. “Sorry.” She sat there like that, a very beautiful woman, and mixed up. “I guess I don’t want to discuss those letters any more.”

“You saw Carl a week or so ago, in your bedroom.”

“Yes.”

“Does your sister know about you and Carl?”

“Ivor? Dear, sweet Ivor? No, I don’t believe she knows.”

“Do you think she might have found out?”

She looked at me again and licked her lips.

I said, “You think if she found out, she might want to do something about it?”

“Like killing Carl?”

I shrugged.

She dropped her hand, put both hands together, and spaded them between her thighs. She thrust the dress between her thighs. “I suppose it could happen.”

“Nothing much excites you.”

“Some things do. Things that are directly concerned with me.” She slid around on the hassock until she was facing me in the chair again. She leaned back on her elbows. “I’m very selfish. All I care about are sensations.”

“You have a lot of them.”

“No. I’ll never have enough.”

“What are we getting at?”

“I want to sleep with you.”

The room warmed. It was as if somebody had turned on the furnace.

I said, “Sex is everything.”

“To me, it is. For instance, I want you, and I’m going to get you.”

“What about him?” I nodded toward the hall.

“Elk? He’s all right. He’s fine. Don’t worry about Elk. There’s no shim-shamming. He knows what I like. When I married him, I told him I’d never be happy sleeping just with him.”

“Yet, he married you anyway?”

She nodded. “Yes, you see Elk’s a kind of a poet. He’s still very much in love with Carol. I look an awful lot like Carol. Practically the spitting image. I’ll show you a picture sometimes.”

“Who’s Carol?”

“His first wife.”

“Where does the poetry come in?”

“She’s been dead for seven years.”

I said nothing for a moment.

She said, “Shall we go up to my room, now?”

“Not now.”

“I can wait. If you don’t make me wait too long. Then I get nasty.” She hesitated. “Actually,” she said. “I’m very surprised and sorry to hear about Carl. I mean, someplace, I do feel sorry about it. It just doesn’t make me jump up and down with horror, for some reason. My selfishness again, I suppose—I was tired of him.” She shrugged. “I don’t suppose that’s normal.”

I still said nothing.

She said, “Who found him?”

“I did.”

“Where?”

I told her about it, in detail. She didn’t blink.

“That’s pretty awful,” she said. “I’d rather not hear any more about it. I’m beginning to react to it.”

I stared at her.

“I don’t want to dream about it,” she said. “I can think of much pleasanter things.”

“Asa, could I use your phone?”

“You can use anything I’ve got, darling.”

“You’re plastered. The phone will do. For now.”

“I’m going to be plastereder. In the hall.”

I got up and went into the hall. The telephone was in a small alcove. I called Hoagy Stills’ home. His wife came on hard and fast and bright with the information that the last time I’d called, the phone ringing woke him. She began taking me apart. I heard a bottle neck clink against a glass from the Crafford living room. A man’s voice reached me over the phone. Small argument. Gasp.

“Hello?”

“This is Lee Baron, Hoagy. Sorry to bust up the household like this.”

More asides. Two more gasps. Hoagy and I had gone to school together. He was a smart gee. We’d had lunch together three days ago, talking over old times. If I couldn’t get anything from him now I might have to start consulting the crystal ball.

“All right, Lee. What is it?”

“You can go back to sleep in a sec,” I said. “Tell Jane I’ll buy her a box of candy.”

“She’s on a diet. What is it?”

I asked him if he had any inside stuff on the Laketown robbery; names and faces in particular.

“Whyn’t you go see Garlik?”

“Wouldn’t be judicious, at present. But it would be extremely judicious on your part if you keep this phone call all to yourself. Now, any old raveled shred will help.”

Silence.

“Hoagy?”

“Yeah. You make my nose itch. It’s a bad sign.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, come down off the roof.”

“I’m with the lab. Whyn’t you talk with one of the busy little boys in blue?” he hedged.

“Whyn’t you cut this crap? You know something.”

“There was an APB this morning to watch for a guy named Barton Yonkers. Broke out of Raiford a while back. Somebody in Laketown came up with a description that seemed to tally. I think it’s malarky. Some pigeon at Raiford told the warden Yonkers was planning to meet a guy outside on some deal. That’s about it.”