Sleep with Strangers

by Dolores Hitchens

  Dimly, his own reflection danced in the side of the water bottle. “What a clunk,” he said to his distorted image. “Who do you think you’re kidding? Dan’s wise now.” He wanted to jeer at himself, to poke fun; but something inside him was as heavy and cold and dead as a chunk of ice.

  He went back into the other room where lights burned, sat down, typed up everything that had happened at the field office and later at the Ajoukians’. “We ought to invest in a tape recorder, a portable one,” he said half aloud, imagining himself talking into one as he had driven toward Long Beach, saving all this work.

  When he shut the office and went down to the street, the chimes of the big church on Pacific Avenue were ringing the half hour. It was half past six. He went over to Pine, turned left toward the beach. At the foot of Pine Avenue he walked down the incline to the beach, turned into the alley of garish light. The rain had stopped, though the skies had not cleared. There were knots of people, sailors mostly, strolling along the midway.

  Milton’s booth was lit and his pigs peered at Sader inquisitively from behind their wire netting. But Milton wasn’t behind the counter urging the public to buy baseballs.

  The man in the next concession, putting change into his change box, said, “Looking for Milt? He’s in the bar yonder.” He jerked a thumb at a flashing blue sign across the way.

  A six-year-old kid with a wet taffy apple bumped into Sader. He was rubbing the stickiness with a handkerchief as he went into the bar. There were about a half dozen people on stools, a few more at tables. The light was poor and the jukebox thunderous. He picked out Milton Wanderley at a table in the back of the room, Tina Griffin with him, drinks on the table before them. They were watching him. Milton’s sagging face was split in a smile. Tina’s exotic, oriental eyes held a wary hurt as if she hoped Sader might go on out again.

  He walked back. Milton half rose, brushing at his temple in the awkward gesture which was habitual. Sader said, “Mind if I join you for a minute?”

  Milton beckoned the waitress. “What’ll you have?”

  “Coke,” Sader told the girl. “Cold but no ice.”

  “Still on the wagon?” Tina bantered softly.

  “Still on, but I don’t know for how long,” Sader said heavily. “A reformed drunk walks a tightrope every waking minute of his life.”

  “You used to drink, huh?” Milton asked.

  “With enthusiasm.” The Coke came and Sader tried it. Tina was shooting little glances at him, her slanted eyes enigmatic under her lashes. “I’m sorry about that incident on the Hill.”

  “I should be cross with you for making me go back.”

  “I didn’t,” Sader corrected without heat. “But I’m sorry anyway that Pettis treated you as he did. He wanted a confession from you.”

  “I knew that. I didn’t have anything to confess.” In the shadow of the silky black hair her brow was serene, unworried. Her long fingers on the glass she held betrayed no tremble of nervousness.

  Milton must have heard from her of the murder in the field office. He said worriedly, “That guy’s place is right below my house, not more than a half mile. I was home, I guess, when it happened. Is that what you came to ask me about?”

  Sader said, “Just hoping you’d remember something.”

  “I was trying to sleep this morning. My head hurt, so after I’d fed and watered the pigs I took some sleeping pills and lay down with the blinds drawn. Sometimes it helps. Anyway, I had no idea anything was wrong down there. I’d never met this man Mullens. I live on the Hill because I get the house cheap and the landlord’s away. I never did get acquainted with any of the oil people.” He shifted on his chair. “How’s it coming, looking for Felicia?”

  “Nothing,” said Sader, his lips tightening.

  “What’s Kay doing? Is she pretty upset?”

  “The rain gets her.”

  “I see what you mean,” Milton said, after considering it. “Anyone gone like that, perhaps something happened to them, you figure when the bad weather comes they might be out in it. Helpless. Dead, even. You think of them lying out all wet, no shelter, no warmth. Nobody to give a damn.”

  Tina shivered delicately. The jukebox switched to a new record and a cloying voice began to whisper of faithless love. Tina moved her glass, building a pattern of small close circles. “Where could she be? It couldn’t be the Hill, there’s no place to hide. Too many men work there. The place is full of people all day. They’d see her.”

  “I don’t know,” Milton argued. “If somebody was hurt, or dead, you could dump them lots of places. There’s all kinds of gullies and holes, weed patches——”

  “I’ve been wondering about that sump below Mullens’s office.” Sader watched them both, but nothing drifted across their faces except puzzlement, a mild surprise, and a touch of revulsion on Tina’s part.

  “They’ve fenced those things, what’s left of them,” Milton said. “Kids and dogs and cats used to fall in.”

  “What a horrible way to die. . . .” Tina said, strain in her voice.

  Milton worried it around. “I’m always afraid those pigs of mine will get into oil, somehow. They can pry through a fence like weasels. One little hole, they’d be out, a line of follow-the-leader.” He seemed eager now to lead the conversation away from Felicia. “I finally just moved them indoors. Maybe it wasn’t an entirely honest thing—I didn’t get the landlord’s permission. He lives in San Bernardino, I just mail him the rent. I couldn’t figure what else to do with the pigs.”

  “Quit worrying,” Tina said. “You’re always fretting over something. Why not just admit the pigs are company, and hell with what anyone thinks?”

  Sader remembered that he hadn’t heard any disapproval of Milton from anyone, including the woman with the strange blue eyes, Margot Cole. Mrs. Cole had condemned Felicia Wanderley for her intolerance over Milton’s pigs. He remembered too, now, the story of the party Monday night. He asked Tina, “Do you remember whether Charlie Ott and Ajoukian were at Mrs. Cole’s party at the same time?”

  It caught her off guard and her reply stumbled. “Ajoukian?”

  Sader’s glance was ironic, mocking; and she saw it and color came into her face. “An elderly man. Very well dressed, I imagine. You can always tell good tailoring. You saw Felicia Wanderley there, of course.”

  She nodded mutely. Milton broke in with, “Have you figured what she was mad about at my place? Somebody not being honest, or something like that?”

  “I have a couple of leads,” Sader answered. To himself he admitted their uncertain quality. No one could say definitely that Felicia Wanderley had been angry about Ajoukian’s proposal to buy Margot Cole’s oil shares. Mrs. Cole had reasons for not cooperating. Ajoukian wouldn’t discuss his business affairs.

  Charlie Ott might have been sabotaging Mrs. Wanderley in regard to her fee for selling his duplex. He wasn’t talking, any more than was Mrs. Cole or Ajoukian.

  “I guess,” Sader correctly somberly, “I should say I have a couple of hunches.”

  Milton fiddled with his drink. “I wish I could help you. I wish I’d seen something this morning. But gosh, I didn’t even know the guy down there in the office was in danger. I still don’t see how his murder ties in with Felicia.”

  Tina brushed at a wing of hair that had fallen along her cheek. The oriental look had deepened around her eyes, so that Sader seemed to see a mask chiseled with a tool, remote and haughty. “No one’s proved it has,” she said softly.

  Sader thought about the oil sump and Dan’s errand to buy the grappling hooks. The cold, dead feeling grew heavier; and he wished he could have had a drink. One drink.

  “My God, does it have to rain forever?” Dan got out of the car and looked at the dark and shuddered. They were parked in the lee of the office where Mullens had died. In the black sky overhead Sader sensed clouds, wet and heavy, rolling along like a fleet of overloaded trucks. Dan pulled ropes and grappling hooks from the floor of the back seat. “On a night
like this a man should go to bed with a good book. Remind me, Papa. Next time it’s like this and you pull me out into the weather, I’m resigning.”

  “Didn’t you wear your rubbers, sonny?” Sader asked, pretending to worry about it. “Need your nose wiped?” He tested the big flashlight; its beam cut across the weedy slope, showed the wet earth, and struck silver in the falling rain. Off in the distance a few lights blinked where rigs were working. The town was blotted out in the storm.

  “When I need my nose wiped I’ll ask for prettier hands than yours,” Dan jeered, then waited to see what Sader would reply. “That Kay Wanderley’s a cute mouse. I wouldn’t mind some attention from her.”

  Sader knew his partner was baiting him and kept silent. They walked down the slope from the office, came to the embankment and the fence surrounding the oil sump.

  “You know what we’ll get out of here, don’t you?” Dan shuffled, the iron hooks clanged together. “Twenty-two dead cats. Old tires. Some old love letters preserved in asphalt.”

  Sader didn’t answer. He went over to the gate and put the light on the lock, and then said something in a low voice.

  “Something wrong?” Dan asked.

  “New lock today,” Sader answered.

  “It’s not very high. We can climb it.” He proved this by putting a hand on the top bar of the gate and vaulting over.

  Sader went over by pulling himself up, squirming across, dropping on the other side. He felt Dan standing off in the dark watching him. “I hate show-offs,” he said. Dan laughed cruelly, and Sader flushed, thankful that the light wasn’t on him and Dan couldn’t see.

  They went up the embankment and Sader flicked the beam of light around over the surface of the oil. There were still bubbles out in the middle. He pointed them out to Dan. “Let’s aim for them.”

  Dan went on complaining about the rain all the time they cast and drew in. Until the third try. That was when he got the handbag.

  “First bundle of old love letters,” Dan said, as the hook dragged up out of the ooze and he saw something trailing. Then Sader came over and put the light on it, and they saw what it was. “Oh, oh. This is what happens when the purse snatchers get through with them.”

  Sader squatted, took out a handkerchief, wiped the clinging oil from the bag. Rain spattered on the leather as he cleaned it. “Hold the light.” He twisted the catch and pulled the purse open. Purse and contents were sodden, permeated with oil. Some paper fell to pieces as Sader lifted it forth. Cigarettes, a book of matches, and some other stuff was welded together, black with oil, oozing a thin stained stream of water. He found a leather wallet.

  He stood up, opened the wallet, wiped at the plastic compartments. Dan stood at his shoulder with the light.

  “She let her driver’s license expire,” Dan said finally.

  “She lopped seven years off her age, too,” Sader added. He flipped open the money compartment. Soaked bills shone with a greasy slime. “Not robbed, at any rate.”

  “Maybe worse. You going to fish some more, huh?”

  Sader grunted, put the wallet on top of the purse. Dan laid the light down on the bank so that it illuminated the pool. They went back to work. After about ten minutes, Sader said, “We aren’t getting out into the middle.”

  “You figure she could crawl there after she was tossed in?”

  “There’s always water on the bottom of the sump,” Sader told Dan. “A body would gravitate to the lowest spot. Probably out farther than we’re hitting it.”

  Dan took off his slicker. “Watch this, Papa.” He heaved, and the line went far out and the hook dropped into the black surface. He started to pull in, then stopped. “Caught on an old tree trunk.” His teeth were white in the reflected light as he grinned at Sader, down the bank.

  Sader walked back and they pulled together. The thing on the hook bobbed to the surface just in front of their feet, and Dan yelped. Sader let the line slacken, and cursed.

  They waited for a minute. Dan’s breath was harsh and whistling, and Sader thought he could hear his teeth chatter. “What do you think it is?” Dan asked. “Is it—her?”

  “Could be. Could be anybody.”

  “Suppose we dig up some perfect stranger? Couldn’t we just leave him here and go home?” Dan tried to laugh, but the sound was hollow. “After all, we’ve got Mrs. Wanderley’s handbag. We could work on that for a while.”

  “This is the place where the boys get off the line and the men go on to the station,” Sader said grimly. “You going or staying?”

  “God damn you, who you calling yellow?” Dan went on to curse Sader thoroughly, and betrayed his popping nerves. Sader listened for a couple of minutes, the rope slack in his hands, and then suddenly he snapped at Dan to shut up and get to work. They pulled the thing from the oil, up to the top of the bank.

  “It’s a man!” Dan bent over the figure. He’d picked up the flashlight, trained the beam on the body. The stench of oil seemed suddenly stronger in the damp night air. The hook was embedded in the clothing at the waist. The coat had dragged half off the arms and the body lay on its face. With a grimace, Sader knelt and pushed at the inert shoulder. Dan backed away.

  “Keep the light still, damn you.”

  “Sure, Papa. He needs his face washed. What’ll we call him?”

  Sader’s handkerchief, already soaked with oil from cleaning the purse, didn’t make much impression on the gummy stuff that clung to the features of the dead man. “Give me something. The tail of your shirt. Or your raincoat. I’ve got to have a look at him.”

  “Use your own shirt.” But grudgingly, Dan held out a clean handkerchief. “I’m going to put this on the expense account. Pure linen. My aunt bought me a dozen for Christmas, a dollar apiece.”

  “You never had a dollar handkerchief in your life.” Sader worked over the dead man, averting his face as much as possible from the stench of oil. “Black hair. A young guy. Heavy brows, full lips. No telling what color the eyes were.” He shrugged and stood up, dropping Dan’s handkerchief on the body. “I can’t do any more with him. We need a telephone.”

  “Aren’t you going to make an identification?”

  “I can’t. I think it’s young Ajoukian. His wife will be brought in and asked to identify him. They’d better leave the old man alone. He’s sick.”

  “Him and me too,” Dan growled.

  “Wait here, will you? I’ll try to get into that office to use the phone. If I can’t get in I’ll have to drive over to Cherry.”

  “Let me go.”

  Sader didn’t smile, but his tone was dry, amused. “Sure. Run along.”

  Again Dan erupted into curses. “You think you’re so damned tough, so goddam smart. I ought to belt you one for insulting me.”

  Sader took out cigarettes and matches and proceeded to light up. Dan walked around a little.

  “I didn’t mean it, Red.”

  “You’re just nervous,” Sader jeered. “You can leap over fences like Tarzan, but a dead guy in a sump unlaces you.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Rub it in. Feel good. Get a big head over it. Make love to the Wanderley babe. Tell her how wonderful you are.”

  “Are you going to wait here while I telephone?”

  “This guy and I are going to have a crap game,” Dan said. “We’ll be real sociable. I might win all of his money. Speaking of money, why don’t you look in his clothes for his wallet?”

  “You can do that while I’m telephoning.” Sader went back to the gate, crawled over, lighted his way to the office where he found a rear window unlocked. When he had located Pettis and talked to him, he walked back to the sump. Dan was using his flashlight now, but not on the body. He was shining it aimlessly out over the oil sump, whistling to himself in the lonely dark.

  He came down to the gate, leaned there, waiting for Sader. “It’s Ajoukian, all right. You want to know how I figure it? Mrs. Wanderley was sore because old Ajoukian was buying the oil shares from her friend, taking advantage of a wom
an in trouble. The son comes out to reason with her. She’s all lit up. To cool her down, he suggests a walk. She ups and murders him. Somehow, tossing in the body, her purse tangles and goes along. Then, getting worried, she arranges that scene with the cab driver to draw attention from her presence here on the Hill.”

  Sader leaned against the other side of the gate, lit a new cigarette from the old one, listened to the pumps chuckling in the distance. “We might stack it up that way when we get a few more answers. Who called young Ajoukian at the bar? Where did she get ammo for the gun? Who fell into those vines by the office door? And where is Felicia Wanderley now?”

  “Aaah, they’re just minor details,” Dan assured him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE LANE was dark, Ajoukian’s lights glowing at the end. Sader parked in the drive, went to the door, rang the faraway chiming bells. It was some time before the door opened. A gray-haired woman in a white nurse’s uniform looked out at him. “Yes, sir?”

  “Is Mrs. Ajoukian in?”

  “She should have answered the bell,” the nurse said. “I’ll go see, though. Whom shall I say is here?”

  “Sader.”

  She went away, her rubber heels smacking the tiled floor of the hall. The smell of the indoor greenery stole out, a wet damp hot-house odor that contrasted with the rainy night, and Sader wrinkled his nose. He tried to pre-phrase his message for Ajoukian’s beautiful young widow. The police would like to see her at the morgue. Or perhaps, if she could give them the name of a family friend who could identify her husband, they’d accept that temporarily. Until she stopped crying, perhaps. Sometimes widows broke down and had hysterics, or even fainted. Pettis’s aversion for such actions had been thinly hidden under the request for Sader to bring the news to the family. He’d tried to imply that since Sader was grossly overpaid hired help, he might as well earn some small part of his money.