by P. N. Elrod
“Not nothin’. A couple months went by, and he just gives up. Knocked the stuffin’ outta him, but he hid that, too. Sometimes we’d talk about her. Y’know, looking back on it I think maybe that’s when he figured someone croaked her, only he didn’t tell me. You were right about this remembering stuff, Spor—Jack. A lotta this is coming back to me, an’ it looks different.”
I nodded. “You think he knew who might have done it?”
“Nah. He’d have told me because then he’d have scragged the bastard with his bare hands. He probably figured she was gone for good and just gave up. No percentage for him, y’know?”
But the news about Lena had been a bad shock to Nevis. It could have been guilt. But if not, then he’d harbored some small kernel of hope that she was alive and might return. I knew what that felt like. “So he was sappy for her. How’d she feel toward him?”
“She liked him better than the other mugs.”
“Who were they?”
“Just guys hanging around the club. Nobody in particular.” She stubbed out the cigarette.
“What about Tony Upshaw?”
“He wasn’t there much back then, but he’d dance with her. He danced with all the girls if they wanted it. Mostly he was with that partner of his, Ruth. She didn’t have him on any leash, but he knew the butter for his bread came from her. She gave him that half interest in the dance studio, y’know. You wanna know how he earned it?”
“I’ve an idea how already.” I ran a light hand up the length of Rita’s arm, looking at her the whole time. She took a deeper breath than normal and gooseflesh budded on her skin. Very good. “Did Tony do more than dance with Lena?”
“He was too smart for that. They didn’t advertise it, but everyone knew she was pretty much Booth’s girl and to keep away. ’Cept Shivvey. He was always trying to get her attention.”
“But back then he was working for Booth’s rival. He wouldn’t be welcome at the Flying Ace.”
“Nah, but Shivvey would run into us at the bookies’ or the track, or he’d turn up at other clubs. Always flirting with her. He thought she was one juicy pippin an’ wanted to pluck her but good, but she didn’t see him the same way. Because he worked for Welsh, she thought he might try using her to get at Booth. We used to laugh about it.”
“You still laugh at him?”
“Why should I? It was Lena’s joke and old news. Welsh is dead, and Shivvey’s working for Booth and friends with me now. A good friend—when he’s not being a jerk,” she added, her voice sharpening briefly.
“You think Lena might have led Shivvey on a bit? Maybe as a way to help Booth? Then if Shivvey figured her out—”
“Ah, Shivvey wouldn’t do something like that to her. Too much trouble. He’d just pop her—right here”—Rita pointed a finger at her temple like a gun barrel—“and walk away. Then fix it so he wouldn’t get caught. But he’d have to have a damn good reason to do it. He really liked her.”
“But if he got fed up with her turning him down all the time, he might have been pissed enough to do something special about her. He might also have had some other reason to make her vanish. Maybe so he could go to work for Booth?”
She snorted. “That’s cute. So cute you should put lace pants on it.”
She was right, but then I was only tossing out stuff to see what happened. I had more trust in Rita’s immediate reactions than her words. She was telling the truth so far as she knew it. She was also showing a definite reaction to my touch and the way I was focused on her. Her expression was much softer, her heartbeat a little faster. I continued to concentrate, holding her gaze.
“What about Tony Upshaw? How deep is he in Shivvey’s pocket?”
“He’s not. They don’t pay him for anything. He just hangs around him and Booth to look tough. He likes to think he can be one of the tough guys, but he just doesn’t have what it takes. You know what I mean? But you—you got it.”
“I do?”
“Oh, yeah, it’s all over you, honey. Yer a lil’ skinny, but you got the real kind of tough. Inside. The real kind. But Tony? If he worked his brain as good as his feet, he’d have figured out what was missing by now and keep clear of mugs like Shivvey.”
More focus, more light caresses. It was taking longer, and my hold was cobweb thin, but I could sense a change within her, a relaxation that had not been there before.
“How did Shivvey take her disappearance?”
She frowned mightily. “I’m not sure. I remember him asking after her with me, and making a long face when I said she was gone. He asked where and thought I was pulling his leg when I said I didn’t know. Me and Booth had our heads together a lot about it and didn’t pay much attention. Jeez, I wish I could remember better.”
“You don’t think Booth did it? That he could have been jealous of Shivvey or another man?”
“He’s gotta soft spot.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, especially if a man thinks his girl’s running around on him . . . was she? Shivvey said as much to me last night.”
“Ah, he was just shoveling you a lot of bull.”
“He said she was friendly to most any man she could hit up for a loan.”
Rita bristled, and I felt my hold wavering. “That’s a dirty lie. We had our fun, but she stuck with Booth.”
“And the stuff about loans?”
“She only needed to ask Booth. He gave her whatever she wanted if she came up short. He never did that with me.”
“You sure there weren’t any other men?”
“No . . . I don’t think so.”
I’d worked up her arm and now touched the side of her face with the backs of my fingers. Her skin was very soft. “You were roommates.”
“Yeah . . .” She sighed it out, looking dreamy.
Too much distraction. I broke off eye contact and let my hand slip down to rest lightly on her shoulder. That helped. “You were roommates,” I repeated. “You had to know what she was doing.”
“We weren’t tied to each other. She maybe coulda had someone on the sly that I coulda missed. I donno for sure, but I don’t think so. Wouldn’t make sense to mess up the sweet spot she had with Booth, would it?”
“Maybe not, but still—”
“I donno. She was a lotta laughs, but she didn’t talk much about herself. Knew how to keep a shut mouth. Never said where she came from, who her people were. Wasn’t my business, anyway.”
“Who else was in Lena’s circle at the time?”
Rita faltered out a few names, but none were familiar to me. Those people had long dropped from circulation or moved elsewhere. I got her talking past the ten-minute limit until she went in a circle and started repeating things. Time to try a different angle.
I caught her eye again, holding for a long time until I was fairly sure I had her. “Tell me the truth, Rita. Did you kill Lena?”
She was under enough not to become angered. Instead, she looked very sad, very tired. “No, I didn’t.”
“Who do you think did?”
“I donno.”
Okay, it was done. I had to ask. For the first time since I’d started working on her my head suddenly hurt. The soft sell was a lot less wear and tear, but still took some effort. I pulled back on the concentration and woke her free of it with another question. “You think you’d like to come to Lena’s memorial service?”
She blinked some more, fighting a drowsiness that had nothing to do with my influence. “A service?”
I explained what had been planned.
“What a decent thing to do. Mighty, mighty decent. Yeah, I think I should go to that. Poor Lena, poor, poor kid.” She took a big gulp from her glass and hiccuped once.
“Should it be a priest, preacher, or rabbi?”
“Jeez, I don’t know. Preacher, I guess. She once told me she thought the Catholic churches were real pretty compared to the others. Made me think she wasn’t used to ’em. She never went to church, though.”
Telling Rita the wh
en and where wouldn’t do any good now, so I found a discarded bill envelope and wrote everything down on the back, leaving the note on a clear space atop the liquor cabinet. The task reminded me of something else I had to check. “You got any of Lena’s papers left?”
“Papers?” Rita finished her drink. She was looking too sleepy to last much longer.
“Old letters, birth certificate, insurance—legal stuff.”
“She never kept junk like that.”
“Driver’s license, a passport?”
“Too much bother for her, she said. She’d take a bus or cab or ride around with Booth.”
Interesting. “Sounds pretty odd. She must have had some kind of business papers, a bankbook, something.”
“Nah, nothing like that. After the crash she didn’t hold much with banks.”
“How did she write checks for her bills?”
“She paid cash. Me, too. Keeps it simple.”
“Booth Nevis pays you in cash?”
“Best way to do it.”
And cash transactions are near impossible to trace. “What is it he pays for? What is it you really do for him?”
She hesitated. I repeated the question. She smirked and wagged a playful finger at me, having apparently forgotten the story she’d already given. “None a’ yer beeswax.”
All right. So the influence I was trying to exert had limits. She would cooperate only where she wanted. “Did she leave anything behind? Anything at all?”
“I had to sell or hock most of it to make the rent. It was tough times for a while back then. Booth gimme a raise when he foun’ out. He looks after you.”
A raise or a payoff? Not something I could ask her. Another time, when I could force things. “What about the stuff of Lena’s you couldn’t sell?”
“I got a box of some of her things inna closet. S’nothing much.”
“Show me.”
“It’s inna bedroom.” She drew out the last word in a little girl voice, almost singing it.
“Good. Show me.”
She woke up a bit, smiling, but I had to help her off the couch and keep her steady as she walked. She seemed not to notice and held on to me, humming contentedly.
The bedroom was much like the living room, just more mess with discarded clothes. Under white lace curtains she’d tacked a sheet of black oilcloth over the window. The window faced east, and the glare of the rising sun coming in would have kept her from sleeping off a late night.
Her closet looked like an explosion. She wearily knelt and dug through more clothing that had fallen off hangers, tossing aside a dozen or so shoes before finally pulling out a smashed-in shoe box.
“I think this is it. Yeah, here, but make it quick, sugar.”
Stale dust smell. Inside, more dust and a few paltry oddments: a knot of cheap jewelry, much of it turning color, some old track tickets, a few mismatched keys, a broken watch, and a small amber vial about two inches long. It rattled when I shook it. I took out the cork and spilled the contents into my palm. They were four tiny irregular shapes, the color of ivory and oddly familiar.
“What the hell are these?” I asked.
Rita squinted at them. Turned one over using the tip of her nail. “Teeth,” she pronounced.
“Teeth? What kind of teeth?”
“Baby teeth,” she said.
“What’s she doing with baby teeth?”
“They must be hers. I got some of mine in one of my jewel boxes.”
It was grotesque. “Why would she be keeping her baby teeth? Why do you, for that matter?”
She shrugged. “I donno. Just did. Like hanging on to an old doll. No harm in it. Jeez, lookit how eensie they are . . .”
Not wanting to touch a dead woman’s baby teeth, I slipped them back in the vial and returned it to the box. There were faint scribbles on the track tickets in light pencil. Numbers that might have stood for dollar amounts. “I want to take all this with me. I’ll give it back when I’m done.”
“Sure, Sport, nothing there worth squat.” She put her hand out, and I helped lift her. “Are you done now? You said you were gonna make things better than the best for me. Was that a lot of hooey or are you finally gonna do something?”
In answer, I put the box on a table and pulled her in for a strong kiss.
I shut off the part of my mind that had to do with dead Lena. I shut off the part that had to do with my hunger. God help me, I was even able to shut off the part that had to do with Bobbi. I was like a machine, with a machine’s efficiency. I went through the right motions and got the right reactions . . . and this time Rita didn’t catch on.
It was different from our dressing room encounter. Then I’d been caught up in the lust of the moment, giving in and shunting aside the many sane reasons to stop things before they went too far. Though I’d eventually called a halt, it hadn’t been easy. I didn’t like putting myself through such hoops. Rankling to me, demeaning to the woman. Everyone loses.
But this time I was very much in control, knew exactly what needed to be done, and proceeded to do it.
She eventually had to fight to come up for air. She looked startled but pleased, then stepped backward, smiling and drawing me toward her bed. I let her take me, let her sit, bent to kiss her, got kissed back, but she had a lot less energy now, was sleepy, more passive. I worked slowly on her, getting her even more relaxed. I rolled her onto her stomach and undid the dress, exposing the pale flesh of her back, running my hands over its smoothness, kneading, keeping the pressure gentle and constant. She rewarded me with a soft, happy sigh.
“You weren’t kidding me, were you, Jack?” she murmured. “More. There. I like that.”
She wriggled and turned over again, squinting against the bright overhead light we’d left on. I lay next to her, my face close to hers.
“I want you to listen to me, Rita,” I whispered. “Look at me and listen.” Booze or not clouding her brain, I had her full attention and that was the real core of it. I couldn’t forcibly hypnotize her in the usual way, but this was the next best thing. My suggestions would work so long as I kept them in line with her strongest desires. “Do you hear me? Hear my voice?”
She hummed a yes.
“Look at me.”
She made an effort, trying to keep her lids up. I caressed the side of her face and whispered some more, a lot more.
And after a time she slipped into sleep, breathing deeply of the dreams I gave her.
I sat alone on the living room sofa, the crushed shoe box with Lena’s pitiful effects next to me and the radio on, the dial paused on some kind of slow-paced symphony. The old longhair stuff doesn’t usually appeal to me, but for the time being it was fine for my present thoughtful mood.
Rita would say nothing of our encounter. I’d made certain of that. She’d have no specifics to recall, only remember its sweetness with no regrets that it would never happen again.
When it came down to it, I liked Rita. I really had wanted to do right by her . . . so far as I was willing and so much as was necessary to make it work for her. There was a line I wasn’t prepared to cross, and it had to do with Bobbi. I loved her, and I would respect that for as long as we were together.
But Rita . . .
She put up a tough front for a reason. I didn’t know what it might be, but beneath its brittle protection lay a terrible vulnerability that reminded me of Norrie Malone. A hurt child who’s forgotten the cause of the hurt though the scars are visible to those who know where to look. The boozing and men and furious dancing and constant parties helped Rita to keep the demons of her past at bay. It was something I could understand. That was how I knew exactly what to say to her.
Eyes shut, I pushed air around my mostly dormant lungs as though I was a normal, living man. I remembered what that was like in occasional vivid flashes, remembered how it felt to have a beating heart or to sweat in the noon sun heat or to taste a cold beer. Such moments came rarely as time distanced me from what I’d been, but no regrets there,
either. Not anymore. If a genie from a lamp suddenly appeared and said he could wish me back to ordinary life again, I’d have turned him down. What I had now for life, with all its shortcomings, consequences, and future sorrows was better than what I’d had before when I walked in the day.
The proof of it lay behind me, asleep in that bland bedroom with the blacked-out window. She would sleep long and well and soundly. I could never have accomplished that as an ordinary guy. When she awoke, she would be happy, even if she did not understand why. It was the last suggestion I’d given her at the end, the only gift I could give her that was of any worth. She didn’t need another notch in her bedpost; she needed peace in her soul.
Maybe I couldn’t impart it permanently, but at least she’d know what it was like and perhaps find it again herself for well and good.
Or so I hoped.
Exhaling one last time, I shifted gears in my head, stood, and looked around. Reflections aside, there was more to do, and I wouldn’t have been worth beans to the Escott Agency if I didn’t know how to take the place apart while the opportunity was available.
I started with the bedroom, working methodically, keeping it quiet. Not that there was much danger of waking Rita anytime soon, but why take chances?
Since the mess in the closet was such that she wouldn’t notice my invasion, I started there. The clothes were, so far as I could compare to what Bobbi wore, expensive. There were lots of them, enough for Rita to treat most like she’d gotten them at a dime-store sale. I found plenty of shoes, shoe boxes, dust, and lint, but nothing else looking like souvenirs of her late roommate. The hatboxes on the top shelves contained hats, forgotten bits of jewelry, none of it worth anything.
Her dresser had the usual froth and the real jewels, so I knew where she’d invested most of her earnings from Nevis. The stuff was carelessly thrown into a red lacquer box with the cheaper costume pieces. Lying loose at the bottom in a velvet-lined corner were a couple of irregularly shaped objects: the baby teeth she’d mentioned keeping. Damn weird things to have around, but I suppose to some people they’d be a tangible link to the past, like holding on to old photographs.
