Buried Caesars

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Dorothy, short, gray and distracted, nodded and kept on tapping and reading as we went out the front door.

  “This way,” J.V. said, walking a foot in front of me, probably to avoid the drip of my bleeding ear. “It’s not far.”

  And it wasn’t. We crossed the broad central street of Angel Springs, passed the hardware store and a pair of high-fashion women’s clothing shops, went around the corner past a Rexall Drugstore and into a doorway between the Paris Golf Shop and Sharon’s Luncheonette.

  “Up here,” she said, and up the narrow wooden stairway we went to two doors above the shops. She brushed her dark falling hair away again, pulled a small ring of keys from her pocket and opened the door on the right.

  “Just a second,” she said, indicating I should wait.

  I waited and she went in. I could hear her shoes clopping quickly inside, and through the open door I could see the bedroom—living room and part of a kitchen. She was back in a few seconds, handing me a towel which I placed over my tender ear.

  “Come in,” she said, backing inside and wiping her palms on her hips.

  I went in. The room wasn’t quite a mess, but the bed hadn’t been made and the morning newspaper and a few magazines were scattered on the floor. Beyond, in the small kitchen, I could see a few dishes on the table. Back in the living-bedroom there was a combination radio and record player in a corner near the windows. Records were stacked on the floor and on a small white table. Still holding the towel to my ear, I walked to the window and looked out onto one of Angel Spring’s business streets.

  “It’s a mess. I know,” J.V. said, looking around the room.

  I gave her a lopsided smile and looked at the framed posters on her wall. They were all old and yellowing, and all were for operas.

  “I like opera,” she said, almost apologetically. “Sad ones especially. Listen every Saturday to the Met, even have Deems Taylor’s book here someplace.” She glanced around in vain search for the book.

  “That’s my favorite,” she said, looking up at a poster for Tosca which featured a man in a white wig clasping the wrists of a woman who kneeled in obvious pain before him. “He’s torturing her boyfriend in the other room,” she said, taking a step toward me. “He wants her to … you know, but she kills the bad guy at the end of the second act. Third act she tries to free her boyfriend but he gets shot and she jumps off a tower.”

  “Sad,” I said, taking the towel from my ear. The bleeding wasn’t too bad.

  “You’re telling me,” she said. “The music is beautiful. You want to hear it?”

  “Someone kidnapped my friend,” I said. “I saw it through the Chief’s window. Two men in overalls named Wylie and Conrad. You know them?”

  J.V. had moved to the record player and was fingering through her records.

  “I don’t know,” she said nervously, then she turned to me. “Maybe we better just skip the opera. I’ll bandage your ear and you can go …”

  “You’ve heard of them,” I said gently. “They work for Pintacki, don’t they?”

  “God. What have I done?” J.V. said, looking at me. “My mother, my father, my sister Bemice and my brother David-Arnold said I’ve got stray cat-itis and it was going to get me in trouble some day. God, don’t make this the day. I’m not ready for it.”

  “They have my friend,” I said, moving past her and aiming for the bathroom.

  “The Chief …” she started, her voice cracking slightly.

  “… wouldn’t believe me. This Pintacki has him under his thumb,” I said from the small, cluttered bathroom. There was hair on the soap. Used towels hung from shower racks, towel racks, and over the top of the toilet. I used the bloody towel to wash my ear and then checked myself in the mirror. The thin scratch from the cat was almost gone. The ear was red and stuck out a little more than usual but it would be all right with a piece of tape. I found one in the medicine cabinet behind the Dr. Lyon’s tooth powder.

  The bathroom smeiled slightly of sweat and soap and reminded me of something, somewhere, and someone.

  “Give me a hand with this tape,” I said, coming out of the bathroom.

  J.V. was standing nervously near the record player. A stack of records rested on the spindle over the turntable. One of them dropped, bristled, crackled and came on. A woman sang in anguish and Italian through the cheap speaker.

  J.V. sighed and moved toward me. Her breasts moved softly under the blue blouse and she smelled slightly of the washroom I’d just come out of. She avoided my eyes and taped’ my ear with shaking fingers.

  “Beautiful,” I said.

  She stepped back away from my touch.

  “The music,” I explained, pointing at the record player.

  “Right,” she agreed.

  “And you, too,” I added. “Thanks for helping me.”

  “Stray cat-itis,” she said. “You hungry?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  The woman on the record sang out in Italian. J.V. turned her back and moved into the kitchen. I followed her.

  “Sandwiches,” she said, moving to the refrigerator. “Liver sausage, or I could do some bacon fast.” She looked up at a clock on the wall above her small sink. The clock was embedded in a red enameled outline of a windmill. “I’ve got about forty minutes.”

  The kitchen was small. I stood next to her as she worked.

  “Pintacki,” I repeated. “How do I get to his place?”

  “It’s hard to find,” J.V. said without looking at me.

  “Show me,” I said.

  “Got to get back to work,” she said. “Beer?”

  “I saw a Dad’s root beer in the refrigerator,” I said. “I’ll have that and directions on a map.”

  “I don’t think the Chief would like it if I …” she said as she generously swabbed a slice of bread with Miracle Whip.

  “I don’t think he would either,” I said, opening the refrigerator and pulling out the Dad’s. “But that doesn’t mean it would be wrong to do it.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, putting two liver-sausage sandwiches on a plate and licking the Miracle Whip from her fingers. If she hadn’t done that, I could have kept my distance, but she was close and smelled of sweat and looked like someone who needed. I touched her arm. She turned suddenly to face me, slightly frightened.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, holding my hands up. “If you want me to, I’ll take my sandwich and go. I just thought …”

  The look of fear didn’t leave her. She stepped in front of me, her big brown eyes scanning my face for something. I reached over and pushed a strand of hair from her face and she came to me, her breasts against my sore chest, her mouth against mine, and open and warm and tasting of Miracle Whip.

  The kiss was long and soft. Her arms were around my neck, touching my hair. I was the one who pulled back to catch my breath. The woman behind us sang as I looked into J.V.’s eyes.

  “I’ve never done anything like this. Not ever,” she said. “It’s crazy.”

  “You mean you’re a … you’ve never,” I said.

  “No,” she said with a slight smile, inches from my face. “I was married for a few years when I was twenty. His name was Alfred. He just left one day and never came back. I never got a divorce. It’s been … I don’t know … about ten years since I …”

  I kissed her. Her face was soft and warm.

  “You sure you want me?” she said, pulling her head back to seek my eyes. “I don’t think I’m any good at this kind of thing. God. Listen to me. What are we talking about here? I must be going nuts. I just met you. I don’t know anything about you.”

  I kissed her again and she sighed. “What the hell?” she said, taking my hand and leading me back into the living room. “How long will this take?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “I’ve got to be back at the station in thirty-five minutes or the Chief will come looking for me,” she said as we sat on the unmadebed.

  I unbutton
ed her uniform, brushed back her hair and looked at her breasts. They were round, pinkish-white and beautiful. I’d never made love to a cop before. She reached over with trembling fingers and unbuttoned my shirt.

  “The Chief would come himself if you didn’t come back on time?” I asked.

  “He’s my brother,” she said.

  “Of course,” I said.

  The woman sang on in Italian, and was joined by a man with a deep voice. J.V. and I rolled and wrapped under the rough blue blanket. She was deep, warm, moist and strong, and she hummed contentedly. I didn’t feel too bad myself. The record ended. The spindle was empty. The automatic arm lifted and clicked itself off.

  “Time,” she whispered in my ear.

  “Don’t know,” I said. “My watch is never right.”

  She kissed me and rolled over to stand up. There was plenty of her but she wasn’t fat. Ample, plump.

  “Men stay away from me in Angel Springs,” she called, moving to check the clock in the kitchen and returning with the two sandwiches and a glass of semiflat Dad’s root beer for me. “My brother … you know.”

  “Sort of,” I said, accepting the liver sausage. “You were great.”

  “Thanks,” she said with a blush and smile, a cheekful of sandwich. “God, you don’t think I’ll have a baby? I mean, just from one time?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  She looked at the window, at her sandwich, at me.

  “I don’t think so, either,” she repeated without great confidence. “No offense, but do people your age … I mean I looked at the sheet on you … can you … do you have babies?”

  “We cling to life,” I said, sitting up gingerly. My chest was covered with gray and black hair. We both looked at it and at the discolored circle where J.V.’s brother had hit me. “It’s always possible some ancient sperm of mine could dig down deep for a final hallelu.”

  “I think I’m okay anyway,” she said, finishing off her sandwich and reaching for her panties at the foot of the bed. “I got seven minutes.”

  I reached out and grasped her wrist. She looked scared again. I pulled her hand to my mouth, kissed her finger—tasting liver sausage this time—and then let her go.

  “God,” she said with a sigh. “I love operas, the Italian ones; the women fall in love right away, sing beautiful songs, do dumb things and kill themselves. They sing pretty but they are dumb. I don’t sing and I hope I’m not dumb, but I’ll show you how to get to Pintacki’s place.”

  While I sat up in her bed, eating my sandwich and looking across at the scowling face of a man with a sword on a poster of II Trovatore, J.V. finished dressing and came back with a map of the area—Angel Springs, Palm Springs and a few oasis stops. She showed me the roads leading into the desert, and indicated with a small penciled X about where I’d find Pintacki’s. Before she could stand up, I touched her cheek and kissed her. She closed her eyes, kissed back and then pulled away.

  “You’ll see me before you go?” she said, adjusting her belt. “I mean before you leave Angel Springs?”

  “Promise,” I said. “J.V.? What’s your name?”

  “Jean,” she said. “The V doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Jean,” I said. “How would you like a real stray cat? I really have one.”

  She had moved to the door by now and paused to look at my face to see if I was joking. She could see I wasn’t.

  “I … maybe,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

  And she was gone.

  I finished my Dad’s, put on my pants and found J.V.’s phone in the corner near the record player. I called Shelly at the office, asked for messages, and said there was a chance his new patient might not make his appointment tomorrow morning.

  “Where’s my patient?” he said angrily when he heard that last revelation. “Where is he?”

  “He’s been kidnapped, Shel,” I said.

  “What?” Shelly bleated. “You took him somewhere. I want him back. He said he’d pay cash.”

  “I appreciate your humanity and concern, Sheldon,” I said, “but he’s been kidnapped. As soon as I get him back, you can finish mutilating him.”

  “It’s not right, Toby, to do that,” he said.

  “I apologize, Sheldon,” I said. “Has anyone been looking for me?”

  “Not right,” Shelly repeated.

  “Anyone looking for me?” I shouted.

  “Yes,” he shouted back. “Some soldier. I’ll get the note.”

  A pause while Shelly rummaged around and finally found it.

  “Major Castle. Left a message. Wants a report. Left a number. You want it?”

  I wanted it. Shelly gave it to me and I assured him once again that I’d deliver Hammett unto him in at least one piece.

  When I finally got rid of Shelly, who insisted on telling me about his plan to hire a dental assistant named Louise-Mary, I called the number Major Castle had left. A voice came on, a voice I didn’t recognize. It was a man, but I couldn’t tell what age.

  “Major Castle,” I said. “Tell him it’s Toby Peters.”

  “He’s not here,” said the man. “He will be calling in at fourteen hundred hours.”

  “Tell him I’m in Angel Springs,” I said. “And I may be near Lansing. If …”

  And then the voice of General MacArthur broke in.

  “Peters,” he said. “We must return to the Pacific by the day after tomorrow. This continent is in imminent danger. A Japanese submarine has shelled the coast of Oregon at Fort Stevens. A Japanese airplane dropped incendiary bombs on the southern coast of Oregon. Defense plants along the coast are being hurriedly protected by barrage balloons and antiaircraft batteries. This Lansing affair, this distraction from my primary task, must be resolved before I return to the theater of battle.”

  “I’ll do what I can, General,” I said.

  “I can accept nothing less than success,” MacArthur replied. “I can live with temporary setbacks, but I do not accept them.”

  “I’ll call when I have anything,” I said.

  And the General was off the line.

  The man who had answered the phone came back on the line to say, “This number may not exist beyond this call. How can Major Castle reach you?”

  “Leave messages at my office.”

  I hung up before he could come up with anything else, put my dishes in the sink, dressed, and left a note for J.V. along with two dollars to pay for the phone calls. I was on the street in a few minutes and found a cab around the corner in front of the Rexall. Fifteen minutes later I was behind the wheel of my Crosley in Pudge’s driveway. Another car was blocking my way, a big blue Buick Eight convertible with a grill that looked like steel teeth. I had enough room to turn, drive over the lawn and bounce onto the street. The door to Pudge’s house opened and an angry blond woman in white stepped out to glare at me. I figured itwas the grieving Widow Pudge.

  I stopped the car and got out. The angry look on her face turned to fear and she backed up.

  “Mrs. Block?” I asked.

  “What do you want?” she said, ready to slam the door on me.

  She was hard, pretty, thin and tan, not my type at all but the best money could buy at her age.

  “My cat,” I said.

  “Your …” she began, and the cat, big and orange, dashed through her legs and ran over to rub itself against my leg. I picked him up and felt him purr against me through my Windbreaker. It was a sunny day and I was feeling warm and ready with the memory of J.V. still in my mouth.

  “… cat,” I finished and headed for my car.

  “You’ve torn up my lawn,” she screamed, gaining courage now that the mashed-nose intruder was heading away.

  “Pudge’s insurance will cover it,” I said. “Enjoy yourself.”

  I got in the car, put the cat down in the back seat, checked the map J.V. had given me, made sure my .38 was still in the glove compartment, and headed for the desert.

  7

  The des
ert wasn’t far. Angel Springs was a green island on the edge of a sea of sand, sagebrush, cactus and distant hills. Just after I lost sight of town I stopped at a small truck stop called Marty and Matty’s. Marty and Matty’s had been announced by weathered roadside signs promising good food, cheap gas and hospitality.

  Marty and Matty weren’t doing much business. I pulled up next to one of the two Sinclair pumps and waited. No one came. I beeped the Crosley’s tin hom. The cat screeched and jumped into my lap. Finally, a lanky woman in a baseball cap and overalls came out of the station-restaurant, an oily rag in her hands, and cowboyed toward me. I got out of the car, closing the cat inside.

  “Gas?” the woman asked. She was weathered down, and her black and gray hair suggested she wasn’t young but might not yet be old.

  “Gas,” I said. “A pair of Pepsi’s, a couple of sandwiches, one for here and one to go, something for my cat and some information.”

  “Gas first,” said the woman, moving to the pump.

  I moved past the pumps into the station, where I found a short-order counter with four stools. There were two tables in the small space beyond the counter, each with three chairs. The tables were wood and everything was covered with a thin layer of sand. A large painting of a snow-covered valley filled one wall. It was covered with sand too.

  I took a seat on one of the stools after wiping off the dust and picked up a sandy copy of last week’s American Weekly. I flipped pages till the woman came back through the screen door.

  “Eighty cents for the gas,” she said. “What kind of sandwiches you want?”

  “What kind you got?”

  “Cheese,” she said.

  “Sounds good,” I said.

  She moved behind the counter, washed her hands in the sink with a bar of Lava.

  “You Marty or Matty?” I asked.

  “Neither,” she said. “Marty’s my husband. Matty’s my son. Marty’s in England someplace, in the army. Matty’s in Seattle, navy. Cat eat cheese?”

  “Don’t know,” I said.

  “Let’s give him a can of chicken noodle soup,” she said. “Give it to him warm without adding the water.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, watching her open a bag of bread and pull out a couple of slices.