“Hold it a minute,” Hanna ordered. “I have to check and make sure everything was delivered.”
She started to fool around with her bundles, checking and repacking, unpacking some of her photography equipment to leave at the office and I wandered over to the city desk—pardon, workstation—and picked up a copy of the Toronto Star. I looked on page five, where the second-class and out-of-town murders generally appear, and there we were, under
Hardware merchant slain,
police expect arrest soon
The story had obviously been written from a phone interview and was about as accurate as the usual run of news story. That is, it had Ernie’s age wrong (he was fifty-seven, not fifty-nine), spelled his last name wrong—“Stutters,” instead of Struthers—described the murder weapon as a chisel and said the body had been found on the back porch—wrong—of the Second St.—wrong again—residence of a “local reporter” who worked, according to the Star, for something called the “Silver Falls Dancer.” The piece made it clear that the fuzz were poised to make an arrest, and made it clear, too, that the arrestee was likely to be one “C. Lancelot Dithers, 27”—wrong once more on the name and age but not, I guessed, on the substance.
“Anything new?” Hanna asked, as she emerged from the studio.
“Um. Apparently, the cops have gotten around to checking the envelope against the typewriter in Ernie’s store.”
“And?”
“It was typed on Ernie’s typewriter.”
“That’s interesting. Of course, it doesn’t prove that Ernie typed it himself.”
“There’s more. They’ve got a paragraph on the fact that retired Staff Inspector Hanson Eberley is helping the OPP with their inquiries. They say a couple of leadheads from the OPP homicide division in Toronto have been sent up to conduct the case, making it clear that Hanson has no official role. And they’ve got Hanson’s name spelled right, which is a miracle.”
“Anything else?”
“Nope. Yes. Land-a-mercy!”
Hanna stalked over and grabbed me by the elbow. “Here,” she said, “explain something to me. How come you talk that way?”
“What way?”
“You know what way. ‘Land-a-mercy.’ Calling the cops ‘rozzers.’ That way. In one of the columns I read, you used the word ‘consarned.’ And I heard you telling Tommy Macklin that something was ‘codswallop.’ Is this just a hick act you put on?”
“Not that it’s any of your consarned business, Klovack,” I replied warmly, “but I talk this way, and write this way, because my father did. Anything wrong with that?”
“Well, no, but . . .”
“But my father’s dead, and people don’t use that sort of language anymore, right? Well, fiddlesticks, is what I say.”
“Fiddlesticks? You would say fiddlesticks?”
“Why not? Perfectly good word. Hasn’t been used to death, like some other words beginning with the same letter. Now you’ve done it again.”
“Done what?”
“You’ve gone and made me forget what I got so excited about.”
There was a brief pause while I dipped back into the newspaper.
“Land-a-mercy,” I said again.
“Land-a-mercy, what?”
“Well, according to this story, Ernie Struthers died ‘leaving no near relatives.’”
“So?”
“Well, he always told us he had a brother and a sister. Made quite a point of it, in fact. He said his brother and sister were sick as mud when the rich aunt pegged out and left all her money to him, and nothing to them. Now it turns out, unless the paper has this wrong too, that there was no brother and sister. What do you suppose that means?”
“I suppose it means maybe there was no aunt, either.”
“Then where did the money come from for Ernie to buy the hardware store?”
“The proceeds of crime, maybe.”
“What sort of crime could Ernie commit around here and not get caught at?”
Hanna was scornful. “That one’s easy. Blackmail.”
“Codswallop,” I said, automatically, but my heart wasn’t in it. If Ernie was a blackmailer, was he killed by his victim? And what in tunket could there be worth blackmailing someone over in a quiet little backwater like Bosky Dell? It is not a place where you can keep secrets, at least not of the negotiable-for-blackmail variety, I wouldn’t have thought.
“Well, here’s another little surprise for you,” said Hanna, “Emma Golden thinks you and I are an item.”
“She does? What makes you say that?”
“Well, just before she headed off to her place with that guy Silvio, she said I wasn’t to worry about you turning out to be a louse.”
“She means well,” I said.
“Yes, I know, but imagine, thinking you and I were a pair. Hilarious. Really hilarious.”
I began to get just a bit peeved. One hilarious was okay but, for some reason, not two.
“What’s so damn hilarious about it?”
Hanna was standing right next to me, now, and she looked up at me in what I can only call a supercilious fashion.
“Well, because . . . you know.”
“No, I don’t know. I mean, I know we don’t get along, but Emma Golden didn’t see that, and I don’t have two heads, so I’m not entirely sure why it’s so hilarious that she might think that you and I were . . .” This was a sentence I didn’t want to finish.
Hanna snorted. “Well, I guess it’s pretty obvious,” she said, “that you’re as queer as a three-dollar bill.”
Once, when I was raking leaves around the old homestead, I put the rake down for a bit while I tried to wrestle the corpses into a garbage bag—failing utterly and getting very cheesed-off in the process—and I lost track of the rake, one of those old rakes, you understand, with square metal teeth and a long handle, and I was wandering around looking for it, buried beneath the leaves by now, and I stepped on the head and up came the handle and caught me a smart blow on the tip of the nose. It was the first time I ever understood the phrase, “Everything went black.” Until Hanna got off her line I thought that had been the most unexpected jolt of my existence, but this feeling so far surpassed that one that I would have cheerfully gone on being bashed on the nose with rakes for hours and never a complaint made. I stood there for a moment, feeling numb. Then I reached across, grabbed Hanna by the shoulders, turned her towards me, and kissed the living hell out of her.
It was fine while it lasted. There was the smell of her hair, a hint of perfume, a pepperminty taste—toothpaste, I guess—and a nice feeling. Then I foolishly released her, and she uncorked a right cross that would have done credit to Sonny Liston in his heyday. She fetched me such a clout that, on cold days, I can feel the tingle yet. Then she turned on her heel and began grabbing boxes, and we packed her car, and drove off in companionable silence.
After about three blocks, with never a word spoken, she started in complaining.
“Well, then, what about Belinda Huntingdon?”
“What about Belinda Huntingdon?”
“You don’t react.”
“What do you mean, I don’t react?”
“Every other man around here, as soon as Belinda Huntingdon heaves over the horizon, with those great . . . things of hers out in front, they fall over in a faint or something. You just pat her on the back. You don’t even—migawd, you don’t even peer down her front!”
“You mean, just because I don’t lust after Belinda Huntingdon, and make a disgusting exhibition of myself, you think I’m . . .”
“Thought,” amended Hanna, “thought you were queer.” She added defensively, “It stands to reason.”
“My dear young prune,” I said, “if everybody who didn’t fall over in a faint in the presence of Belinda Huntingdon were queer, the human race wouldn’t last out the next
generation. Human sexuality,” I added, remembering a good line from Dear Abby, “is to be treasured, not plundered.”
“What about what Nora Eberley said about you not making passes?”
“Well, that’s just what she meant. I’m not crude, that’s all.”
“What it amounts to, practically, is false pretenses.”
“False pre . . .” I couldn’t continue. The woman was maddening. Men who leer and paw are disgusting, men who don’t are queer, and if they aren’t queer, they’re sneaky. That’s what she was saying. You couldn’t win. But then, when can you? I decided to change the subject. It was either that or kiss her again and something told me this would not be a wise move. They did this sort of thing in old movies, and were well thought of in consequence. No more. In these modern, enlightened days, the girl you kiss without warning turns out to have a right cross like Sonny Liston.
By this time, we had arrived at Hanna’s new apartment, which turned out to be, not an apartment, but two small, neat, furnished rooms in one of the town’s outlying developments. We unloaded her boxes, and I asked Hanna if we could have a cup of coffee or something.
“No,” she said, “especially not, or something.”
“Ye gods, from the harmless, i.e., queer, Carlton, I have gone to Carlton the sex fiend in one leap. Could I then at least have a lift back to Bosky Dell?”
“No.”
“Well, how am I supposed to get home?”
“Take a cab.”
“A cab? It’s close to midnight.”
“So?”
“This is Silver Falls, not the metropolis. The cabs pack it in when the beer hall closes, at 11 p.m.”
In the end, Hanna agreed to drive me back to Main St. and the motionless Marchepas. If the car wouldn’t go, she’d take me back to Bosky Dell. But it did, first try, in that maddening way it has, so I bade Hanna a stony-faced farewell and drove off thoughtfully. I got almost home, as a matter of fact, before Marchepas conked out again and came to a halt in the middle of the road.
I coaxed and begged and pleaded, fooled around under the hood, kicked the wheels a few times, but nothing would persuade her to start again. Life, I told myself, was one damn thing after another. I pushed the brute over to the shoulder, and hiked the last mile or so to Bosky Dell. It was well after 2 a.m. by the time I got there, and I thanked the powers that be that the next day, or, rather, this day, was Thursday, one of our soft days at the Lancer, and I could sleep in. I felt as if I had been awake since about the eleventh century, and it was with a grateful sigh that, after creeping into the darkened cottage—no lights, in case Dominic Silvio was still on the prowl—I donned my bright green PJs with the orange clocks, and slid between the sheets.
Right up against a warm, unmistakably female, and mostly naked body that stirred, rustled, and whispered, “Darling, at last.”
Chapter 12
I have often wondered since whether it was three feet straight up in the air that I leapt, or only two. Seemed like ten. I fetched up in the living room, where I stood, trembling in every limb and waiting for my heart to stop hammering. There were sounds of whispering silk from the bedroom, the door creaked open, and Nora Eberley stumbled out into the living room, partly in, but mostly out of, about half an ounce of some gossamer material that served rather to accentuate than to conceal her considerable charms.
I had to admit that, clad, or un, as she was, and softly lit by a moon that chose this ill-considered moment to shove its big fat face in through the living-room window, she was not unattractive. She looked a lot rounder, somehow, than she did in her street clothes. Rounder and softer. The sharp features were not so evident; it was the less sharp ones that drew the eye. I hastily looked away, only to find myself staring at a large beer tray, glowing in the moonlight on the wall, and bearing the proud slogan, “Property of the Leaside Hotel. Do Not Remove.” One of my dad’s acquisitions. He held the view that stealing from hotels was not really stealing. What would my dad have done in these circumstances?
Mrs. Eberley broke in on my reverie in a voice I can only describe as throaty. Throaty and throbbing.
“Why, Carlton,” she throbbed, “aren’t you glad to see me?”
No, actually, I wasn’t. It would have been less upsetting, certainly less embarrassing, to have discovered a six-foot boa constrictor curled up on my pillow.
“Well, ah, Mrs. Eberley. Ah. Harumm. Such a pleasant ah, uh, surprise to find you here. Can I offer you anything? Coffee? Cigarette? Directions home?”
The woman paid no attention whatever to this babble. Twitching the gossamer garment, a thing I wished she wouldn’t do, she undulated towards me.
“Carlton, darling,” she murmured, “it’s time we got to know each other better.”
I was saved by my housekeeping. There are those—my mother led the list—who insist that the home should be kept always in a state of neatness, with a place for everything and everything in its place. Codswallop. If everything had been in its place, Nora Eberley would not have stumbled, after about the third step, into a half-full pot of mashed potatoes, which I had been eating while watching TV a few days earlier, and gone ass over teakettle onto the rug. Nor would she, striving to rise from that position, in a well-ordered home have put her hand into another saucepan, this one containing decaying spaghetti, which might have been placed there for that express purpose. I guess sloshing the foot into cold mashed potatoes and the pinkies into decaying spaghetti, in the dark, and in circumstances in which neither of these substances can be identified, unsettles the nerves. Mrs. Eberley gave a blood-curdling shriek and began to swear steadily, putting together verbs, nouns and adjectives, with hyphens, that I had never heard coupled before.
Still, you had to give Nora—I feel that once you have shared spaghetti with a woman in your night garments, you can go to a first-name basis—full marks for effort. When I switched on a light, she started in on me again. Wiping her hands on the gossamer, which did not produce a pleasant effect, she sat down—after a wary check behind her—on the couch, and once more unlimbered the throaty tones.
“Carlton,” she murmured, “this isn’t exactly the way it looks.”
I said not to worry, any time she was in the neighbourhood I was happy to see her. We keep open house on Third Street.
She ignored this, and went on murmuring. “We have to have a talk, and this . . .” a graceful gesture down the gossamer, somewhat marred by the fact that a blob of spaghetti chose that moment to plop to the rug, “. . . seemed the best way.”
“Nothing would suit me better than a cozy chat,” I replied, lying in my teeth. “Why don’t we get together soon, you and I and Hanson, and . . .”
“Not Hanson,” she interrupted, “he mustn’t know anything about this.”
I could see her point. I wasn’t all that anxious for Hanson to join in the conversation right at the moment myself. But I was still a little perplexed.
“Mrs. Eberley . . .”
More throaty tones. “Call me Nora”—which, as we know, I was prepared to do.
“Well, then, Nora . . . does this, ah, little chat, does it have anything to do with the death of Ernie Struthers?”
“No. Yes. Well, it might.”
This was not helping. “Perhaps it might be better, Mrs. . . . Nora, if you just told me whatever it was you came to tell me.”
“I can’t, not right now.”
This to-ing and fro-ing was beginning to get on my nerves. “Why not, for Pete’s sake?”
“Because somebody just drove up and parked in front of the cottage. I think they’re coming in.”
It would have been wiser, I can see that now, to have risen quietly from my place, walked out the back door, and driven to Wyoming, leaving Nora to straighten things out with this new invader, but I panicked. I had been through a lot. I simply grabbed the poor woman—quickly shifting my grip when I rea
lized where I had grabbed her—and stuffed her into the living-room closet, which I knew contained enough assorted junk to conceal the presence of the Red Army Choir. She didn’t even protest, just rolled her eyes.
I made it to the front door just in time to keep Hanna from hammering it into smithereens—she is of the Blam, Blam rather than the tap, tap school of knockers. I turned on a light and bade her come in, state the purpose of her visit, and vamoose. Not the suave host, I admit, but I was not feeling at my best. She looked a trifle subdued. Not contrite; contrition is not in her repertoire, but not quite as belligerent as at our last meeting. I assumed she had come to apologize for her previous obnoxious behaviour, so I asked her, coolly, in what way I could serve her at this unholy hour?
“Well, to start with, you can put something on to cover up those godawful pyjamas.”
See? Starting in on me already, and right in my own home. I retrieved the brown bathrobe from its customary spot on the living-room floor, and donned it.
“Better?”
“A little, not much. Say, where do you get your night things, anyway, Bargain Harold’s?”
“Did you drive all the way out here in the middle of the night to discuss my shopping patterns?” The sarcastic note, you understand, to crush the creature, which, to my astonishment, it appeared to do. When she spoke again, it was in a subdued tone of voice.
“Well, no, Carlton. I’ve been thinking . . .”
A silence.
“Yes?”
“Carlton . . .”
Another silence.
“Standing by.”
“I’m not exactly sure how to put this . . .”
“Take your time. Think it out. Dawn will soon be with us, another whole day in which to arrange your thoughts.”
She shot me a look, then lapsed into humility, or something like it, again. “It’s this way . . .”
Yet another silence.
“For God’s sake, Hanna, spit it out!”
The eyebrows rose, and I could see the light of battle enter those flashing eyes. “We get a little testy without our sleep, don’t we?”
Right Church, Wrong Pew Page 9
