Marvin studied Tiffany. She looked not only less light, but he thought she looked teary.
“You were close to him?”
“Not really,” Tiffany said. “He was my boss, of course.”
“Did he get along with everyone at the bank?”
“Quite well,” Tiffany said. “Frankie, well . . . I think he may have gotten along with her too well.”
“They had something going?”
“I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that. She and Tom were separated. But she did work for him. It wasn’t seemly, the way she carried on. It wasn’t that she was at anytime a great looker, so I don’t understand his attraction.”
“You said she was cute,” Marvin said.
“Like a Chinese pug, but not pretty.”
“So, the boss liked her?”
“I doubt it was anything serious.”
Marvin sipped his coffee. None of this had been in the notes. And another thing not in the notes, and left unsaid, but seemingly said beneath the conversation, was the fact that Tiffany had had designs on the boss herself.
Marvin decided to come right out with it.
“Did you have interest in Jim?”
“Of course not.”
“A beautiful woman like you, and he didn’t notice?”
The beautiful woman line perked Tiffany up, but the glow faded quickly. “Oh, he noticed. He noticed plenty. It made Frankie mad, the way he noticed. It made her mad plenty.” Tiffany leaned back with satisfaction and drank her coffee. She licked at the whipped cream at the top of the straw like a cat licking milk.
“He just noticed?” Marvin said. “That’s all? Just noticed?”
“Yes. He just noticed. Are you looking into all of this again?”
This seemed like a stupid question, since that was why he had invited her to coffee, but he said, “Yes. I think the previous detectives might have missed something.”
“What would that be?”
“Don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out. They skimmed the surface. That’s what I get from reading their notes anyway. Me, I’m tenacious.”
“Are you?” she said.
“Very much so. It’s a cold day in hell when I quit.”
“I see. Well, that’s certainly a good quality in your line of work.”
“I like to think so.”
“Nothing else I can help you with, I suppose I should run along. I have a few errands to take care of.”
“If I think of something I’ve forgotten, would it be alright to call you up again?”
“I just can’t imagine having anything else to say on the matter. I’ve told you all I know. To tell the truth, I think Tom’s gone forever and no one will ever find him.”
“I’ve found people missing for years before,” Marvin said. “Sometimes they were even alive. So, you never know.”
She stood up with her drink in her hand. “Good luck to you, then.”
She stuck out her free hand. Marvin stood and shook it.
The next moment she was out the door.
Marvin drove by the bank. It was a pretty large building, and there were a number of drive-through outlets associated with it scattered throughout town.
It seemed to Marvin it hadn’t been that long ago when the old bank, which was a fifth the size of the new one, was the only one in use. But when he counted up the years in his head, he winced. Time flew quickly and was as merciless as a hawk.
The new bank was attached to the old one, but the old one was now a museum and could be entered only by the original front door. Marvin did just that. The old bank had a lot of exposed fine wood, and there was a huge red brick fireplace to one side, and there were tellers’ desks, and at the back was a glassed-in section that had been the manager’s office. He remembered that from when he was a kid. He had lived in Houston at that time but visited LaBorde often, as his aunt had lived here. Dead and gone now, he had tagged along with her a number of times as she did her banking. It made him feel good to do it.
There was a woman at the desk and she smiled at Marvin and he smiled back. She was a plump woman in a loud flower pattern dress, but she had a gorgeous brown face and short black hair.
“It’s a dollar to look through,” she said.
Marvin paid his dollar. He walked around. There really wasn’t much to see. The bullet holes had a frame around them and there was a placard there that said they had been shot into the wall by one of the robbers, Dog-Face Fulton, just to show he and his two pals meant business. This may have let the people in the bank at that time know he was serious, but it also alerted the law, who took note of the getaway driver outside, and promptly chased them down and shot them to pieces. Fulton may have been dangerous, but he wasn’t smart.
Marvin was surprised to discover that the bank really was small. Even smaller than he remembered. As a child, it had seemed so imposing. He walked to the back and looked in at the glassed-in manager’s office. It was claimed by another placard on the wall that all the furniture in the manager’s office, and throughout the bank, was the original furniture in the same position, dating all the way back to the bank robbery. Probably was. It seemed like the same furniture he remembered.
Marvin stopped at the fireplace. There was a placard there. It said the fireplace ceased to be in use after the bank closed, but at one time it was the only heat for the bank. He walked past the desk where the lady sat. He said, “So, the front door was the only way in when the bank was in use.”
“No, you could come in from the back street,” the lady said, and pointed at a sealed door. “That door leads into the new bank, but it used to be an outside entrance. There was an alley there. Oh, and there was a storage room off to the left of the door. That’s gone too. It got incorporated into the new bank.”
It was funny that he and she both thought of it as the new bank. It was only new as compared to the museum.
“I see,” Marvin said, and thanked her and started to leave. But then he paused. He walked to where the old back entrance had been. There was a door there, but it was locked. He looked where the storage room would have been. He faintly remembered its location, and the doorway from the alley. Where the storage room had been located, there was only a wall.
He went back to the desk. “So where the wall is, there was a storage room?” he said as if he didn’t know better, hadn’t really listened to her.
The lady smiled the way you might for a little child who was easily distracted. “Yes, that’s right. But everything else is the same.”
“Everything?”
“All the desks, everything. Just like they were, all the way back to the robbery.”
“Like the placard says,” he said.
“Just like that,” she said, losing a tiny bit of patience.
Marvin didn’t blame her, but he thought it best to double-check. His memory wasn’t perfect about the old bank, and he wanted to make sure the placards weren’t shining on their history a bit more than was true.
Marvin looked at the back door. If someone had walked out that way, they could easily have stepped into the storage room, if they were being clever, without being seen by anyone. Unless that person was sitting where this lady was sitting now.
Marvin said, “This desk is original?”
“Yes, it is,” the lady said, “as I said.”
“Is this its original location? I mean, was it setting here back twenty-five years ago?”
“Wait a minute,” the lady said.
She pulled open her desk drawer and pulled out a small stack of papers. She said, “This is a copy of the original layout. . . . Yes, it looks as if the desk was here all the way back to the eighteen-hundreds.” She pushed the paper across the desk toward Marvin. “See,” she said, “everything is pretty much the same. You can check for yourself.”
“May I have a copy of the layout?” Marvin asked.
“There are plenty. I suppose I should put them out here on the desk, it’s just that no one really seems all that
interested in how things were laid out back then . . . I mean, you look around, and you can see that, how it was laid out. But if you’d like, certainly. Take one. Take two.”
“One will do,” Marvin said, took the sheet of paper, smiled, and went out.
Marvin stopped by the police station. He was lucky. His friend, the chief of police, was in. He was invited into the office. The chief was a cop named Drake who had been bumped up to the position recently. LaBorde went through chiefs of police like toilet paper for prune-juice drinkers.
Drake was thin and black as night. He had a flat nose that was partly due to genetics and partly due to someone’s fist. He was leaning back in his chair, smiling at Marvin. “There’s coffee, you want it.”
Marvin stopped at the coffee table and fixed him a cup, lots of cream and sweetener. Marvin sat down and took a sip. He said, “Man, who shit in this?”
“I do the shitting,” Drake said. “Every morning. It gives the stuff some bite.”
Marvin took the coffee to the trashcan and dropped it inside.
“You’ll make everything wet,” Drake said.
“There’s a liner.”
Marvin sat back down. He said, “Twenty-five years ago, a fellow named Tom Craver disappeared. He was never found. Know anything about it?”
“They don’t know where he is,” Drake said, and grinned.
“Thanks.”
“It’s a cold case. I know a little about it. I even looked into it once. Not very seriously, I admit. But it came up again when I was a cop, not a chief, and we have that cold-case unit, which is two tired cops, one of which at the time was me, and a police dog without all his teeth and a surly attitude.”
“The dog helps on cold cases?” Marvin said.
“Not that I can see. He doesn’t even sniff drugs very well. But, can’t fire him. Union, you know.”
“Uh-huh. So, nothing?”
“I don’t remember a whole lot about it,” Drake said. “Just that this guy Tom disappeared and they didn’t find him. He was at the bank one day. Spoke to his wife, or ex-wife. I forget the exact situation. Anyway, he spoke to her, went out, and no one ever saw him again.”
“I hear the bank manager turned up dead of gunshots,” Marvin said.
“Oh, yeah. I remember that. Sure. No connection that anyone could find, though this Tom had a record, you see, and some thought it was him. That he wanted to rob the bank, maybe by getting the manager to help him out at gunpoint. There was an argument, and he shot the manager and killed him in his car while it was sitting in the drive. Anyway, some thought this Tom was good for it, but we never found him. Tom, wasn’t he some kind of circus guy?”
“Carnival. He was a contortionist. Clown. That sort of thing.”
“Yeah,” Drake said. “I remember now.”
“Anything else curious?”
“Let me see. Hell, there was the guard and the driver.”
“Excuse me?”
“The armored car,” Drake said. “They delivered money to the bank, and a week later, them and their armored car were found in the Sabine River, some good many miles from here. They were both shot in the head.”
“How many times?” Marvin said.
“What? Oh. I get you. Twice, I think. We can get the files and look, to make sure, but I think it was twice. You’re saying it was the same as the manager?”
“I’m saying they both got shot twice,” Marvin said. “A bit of a coincidence. I’m assuming the armored car made deliveries and or pickups at the bank.”
“Yep,” Drake said. “And a connection was thought of then, but none was found. No money came up missing. The bank was even. The armored car showed up there. The manager checked the money in. The money was put in the bank, and the right amount was there the next morning, and a week later. No one ever figured why the guards were killed, as they weren’t carrying money at the time, and no one ever figured why the bank manager was killed. A connection was implied, but never found. It seems to have all been a coincidence.”
“I believe in them,” Marvin said. “Happens all the time. But three of them? The armored truck guard and driver. The manager of the bank. And Tom Craver missing. That seems like a lot of coincidences, and all of them at least mildly related.”
“How do you see it?”
“Not sure,” Marvin said. “I think Tom might have gone in and talked to his wife, and then acted as if he left the bank, but maybe hid in a storage room.”
“To do what, use the bathroom later?” Drake said. “Nothing was stolen.”
“That’s where my theory has a hole in it,” Marvin said.
“And that puts you right back in the position where everyone else has ended up. Except no one has ever thought Tom hid out in the storage room. And if he did, to what purpose?”
“You’re making me feel bad,” Marvin said.
“You getting paid good money for this?”
“I am.”
“Monopoly money?”
“Nope. The real stuff.”
“Who’s paying?”
“Tom’s mother.”
Drake nodded. “She’s got some dough.”
“Yep.”
“I know you’re going to actually try and find Tom. I think some of the other detectives, from what I’ve heard, didn’t. I have a feeling you’re going to end up tired and frustrated.”
“You knew them? The private detectives?”
“One. He wasn’t so good in the reputation department. He probably did enough to make it appear he took a serious look, but I think he mostly looked at his name on the check Mrs. Craver wrote him. She’s a nice sort, actually. I’ve met her a few times.”
“I liked her,” Marvin said. “She seems like a tough old bird.”
“Last of a breed,” Drake said. “So, you doing this with the help of your crack assholes, Hap and Leonard?”
“Don’t think I need them for this.”
“Good. Otherwise they might have come in with you. They give me a stomachache. Especially Leonard.”
“They’re my friends, and they give me a stomachache. Especially Leonard.”
“You feel you’re really onto something?” Drake asked.
“You ever have that sensation that there’s a worm of wisdom in the back of your brain, and that it has the answer to what it is you’re searching for? That it has things figured out and it’s trying to burrow to the front of your head so it can let you know what’s up?”
“Nope.”
“Yeah,” Marvin said. “Me neither.”
Marvin drove back to his office. The worm in the back of his head was wiggling pretty hard now. He parked and waved at the good-looking woman who ran the bicycle shop below his place, climbed the stairs, and unlocked the door. His leg was bothering him, and when he got inside, he was glad to see his cane on his desk. He had a pretty good idea that for the rest of the day, he walked anywhere, he and it would be companions.
He made a cup of coffee, fixed it the way he wanted, was about to sit at his desk, and the door opened.
Two guys not any bigger than professional wrestlers entered the room. They weren’t young, but they weren’t old either. One was a little tubby, but he still looked like he could turn over a car and fuck it in the transmission. The other was leaner and had more defined muscles. He was the prettier of the two, and would have only been scary to children and small animals and old people, and well, pretty much anyone.
“You Hanson?” said the pretty one.
“That’s me,” Marvin said, and put the coffee down. He looked at them and moved toward his desk, stood behind it. He studied the men. They had an air of trouble about them. “How can I help you?”
“Look here,” said the not-so-pretty one. “We want you to leave our sister alone.”
“And who might that be?”
“Tiffany,” said the pretty one.
“I thought Tiffany and I had a nice and civil conversation,” Marvin said.
“She said you wanted to talk
to her again, and she don’t want to talk,” said the pretty one.
“So she sent you troglodytes around to ask me not to call?” Marvin said. “That seems extreme.”
“Extreme, not so extreme,” said the not-so-pretty one, “we want you to not bother her anymore.”
“You know, I didn’t plan to,” Marvin said.
“That’s good,” said the not-so-pretty one. “It’s best that way.”
“I didn’t have any reason to,” Marvin said. “Until now.”
Marvin grabbed the cane and came out from behind the desk and whipped the cane over his head and caught the pretty one in the teeth. It was a good blow. Hickory is stout. The prettier of the two was soon less pretty. He was on the floor, bleeding from the mouth, spitting teeth.
The not-so-pretty one came at Marvin, and Marvin swung the cane and hit him in the knee, popped it up and caught him in the side of the jaw, then stepped in and folded the cane against his forearm and hit the not-so-pretty one in the throat with that. The man went down.
The prettier one tried to get up and Marvin kicked him in the throat. For good measure, he popped him across the back of the head with the cane. He went back quickly then to his desk, dropped the cane on it, pulled open the drawer, and took out a large automatic. He sat down in the chair behind his desk and waved it in their general direction.
“My leg hurts,” Marvin said. “So, I’m going to sit. You two can get up, but do it slow and don’t act like assholes, or I’ll shoot you full of more holes than a cheese grater. I’m in what I like to think of as one of my blue moods.”
Marvin rubbed his leg. It hurt like hell all of a sudden. The quick moves, the twisting.
“Now, what the hell is this all about?” he said.
“You knocked out some of my teeth,” said the formerly pretty one.
“Yes, I did,” Marvin said.
“It hurts.”
“I hope so. Now, both of you. Pay attention. Tell me what this is about, or I’m really going to get mad.”
“You’re already mad,” said the not-so-pretty one.
“Yes, but this isn’t as mad as I get.”
“Our sister wanted us to tell you to quit.”
“Let me tell you something,” Marvin said. “I have a gun. I have a cane. I have two friends that are less pleasant than I am. One’s named Hap, and one’s named Leonard—he’s really unpleasant. If I don’t beat you to death with my cane, or shoot you, they will find you and do one or the other if you bother me again. Do you understand?”
Hap and Leonard Ride Again Page 7
