Everything but the Squeal sg-2

by Timothy Hallinan

  “Apple knows all about Aimee,” Donnie said proudly. “I told you I loved her.”

  “Apple?” Jessica said.

  “It's Nora, really,” Apple said. “But Donnie says I should never use my real name.”

  “Which you just did,” Donnie said with some exasperation.

  “But they're your friends,” Apple said, bewildered. “Aren't they?”

  “Yes,” Jessica said, sitting down and plumping the sleeping bag with one hand. “Sit down.”

  “I didn't do anything wrong?” Apple asked Donnie.

  “Forget it,” Donnie said magnanimously. “Executive Suite, here we come.”

  Apple sat next to Jessica, giving her a microscopic smile. “The man was very nice,” she said to Donnie.

  “Listen,” I said. “I know you two are anxious to get to the motel, so let's finish up. Tell me what happened with Warner.”

  “He got fired,” Donnie said. “For about a week they slept every night in Robinson's. They chose a different room every night. They were all over the furniture department. Finally they had a party. He bought some red wine, and Aimee got drunk and spilled it all over this Santa Fe couch. It was white, naturally. It couldn't have been red, could it? That would have been too much to hope for. So he went to find something to clean it with, only it didn't work. He got real scared and threw her out. Next day he got fired. Aimee showed up at about four the next afternoon and slept here, and told me the whole thing. The day after that she packed up her stuff and left. And that was the last time I saw her.”

  I sat silent for a moment, trying to figure out the calendar.

  “Can we go now?” Apple asked. “I'm all itchy.” Jessica moved a fraction of an inch away from her.

  “In a second,” I said. “I don't suppose,” I asked Donnie with no hope at all, “that you've got Warner's phone number?”

  “Sure,” Donnie said instantly. “When you meet a jerk that big, you get everything you can.” He gazed at me, weighing his chances. “For another hundred,” he said, “I'll send him to you.”

  11

  The Sleep-Eze

  The Sleep-Eze was a two-story stucco excrescence, air conditioners protruding from the windows of the rooms like technological tumors. Most of them were off, in deference to the wintry Easter climate, but a few pumped valiantly away. The motel was arranged in a U around the parking lot, and as we pulled Alice into a spot I looked up. Three of the twelve doors were open. In each of them, a very large man sat. Two of them were black and one was white. Dealers, waiting for business.

  Jessica and I got out of the car and headed for the front office. You couldn't get into the front office. From behind a window made of about three inches of bulletproof Lucite, the old dame behind the counter accepted my credit card, took one look at Jessica, and demanded her I.D. I produced a twenty and handed it to her.

  “Twenty,” the old dame said, studying the bill. “She doesn't look that old.”

  “I've led a sheltered life,” Jessica piped up.

  The lady looked from her to me and back to her again, then made a clucking sound with her mouth. “Suit yourself, dearie,” she said, “but I've had guys, they showed I.D.'s that said their girlfriend was a hundred. Name your price and get the cash first, if you know what's good for you, which I doubt.”

  “He's my godfather,” Jessica said. “I trust him. Golly, he's friends with my daddy.”

  I summoned up a grin from some dim subterranean depth.

  “And you,” she said to me with a fearsome squint, “you oughta be ashamed of yourself.” She was wearing what had to be the world's last muumuu.

  “I'm going into therapy tomorrow. In the meantime, can I have a key?”

  She shoved it through the little hole and snatched her hand back as though mine were Germ Warfare Central. “One-oh-five,” she snarled, “all the way to the left.” To Jessica she said, “If anyone knocks in the middle of the night, it'll be the cops.”

  Jessica wrapped both arms around herself. “Oh, good,” she trilled. “I feel so safe.”

  I grabbed her by the sleeve of her blouse and yanked. “That's what I like,” she said. “Forceful. Young guys are such wimps.” She rolled her eyes. Lillian Gish couldn't have done it better.

  “Someone's going to ask for her,” I said to the old dame. “Her name is Aimee.”

  “Better and better,” the gorgon said nastily.

  “Just make sure he gets the right room,” I said. I held up another twenty, and she started to reach under the plastic for it. I slapped her hand. “Ah-ah,” I said. “Make sure the man finds her.”

  “That's what I mean,” Jessica said to her, “he's so forceful.”

  When I had her outside, I pinched her arm. “You're overacting,” I said.

  “Yummy, yummy,” she said, jerking her arm away, “another bruise.” She lowered her voice. “How do you know no one's listening? Jeez-o-crips, look at all these windows.”

  “Just behave,” I said in a whisper. “There are limits on how scummy I'm willing to feel.”

  “That's your problem. It wouldn't bother old Blister.” I shut up.

  The room was small, dirty, and painted that peculiar shade of pale green that's usually reserved for veterans' hospitals. Fluorescent tubes hummed, and a single queen-size bed offered shade for the cockroaches. Other than that, there was nothing but a chipped desk with a blotter, a ball-point pen, and a couple of dog-eared postcards advertising the glories of Hollywood.

  “God,” Jessica said, “it looks like they painted it with Linda Blair's leftover vomit.” She surveyed the room critically. ‘That's got to be the John,” she said, nodding at the far door, “and I get it first. Girls, you know. It has something to do with the relative length of the urethra. What do you think about the relative length of the urethra?”

  “I think it means you go first,” I said.

  “I'm not real fast.” She started to pull the door closed and then turned back to me. “I don't think this locks,” she said.

  “I’d be surprised If it did.”

  Fast she wasn't. Eight minutes later, when the knock sounded on the door, she was still inside. I went to the bathroom and rapped twice.

  “Don't you dare,” she said.

  “Oh, for Christ's sake. He's here. You stay inside until he's gone.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But if you get into trouble, I'm coming out.”

  “I can't tell you how much better that makes me feel.” I tugged at the door once to make sure it was closed, and wiped my hands on my pants. They were wetter than I would have liked them to be. I hadn't counted on Jessica being around when I talked to someone who might have kidnapped Aimee Sorrell. On the way to the front door I stopped at the desk, picked up the ball-point pen in my left hand, and put it behind me.

  He rapped at the door again, more urgently this time. A husky voice whispered, “Aimee?” I positioned myself on the hinged side, counted to three, and then pulled it open very fast.

  “Yow,” Wayne Warner said, stepping away. I reached out, grabbed his shoulder, and manhandled him into the room. Before he could say anything else, I slammed him around, facefirst, into the wall-he didn't weigh very much- and pushed the sharp end of the pen into his back, hard.

  “Hey, ” he said. “Don't. Don't, please? I thought you wanted to talk.”

  I pushed the pen a little harder into a spot just above his left kidney and wiggled it. “I'm not a surgeon,” I said, “but I think I could get that kidney out if I had to. Can you get along on one?”

  “Holy Christ,” he said. “I didn't do nothing. Holy Christ, I can't stand knives.”

  “You didn't do nothing,” I said. “You didn't do nothing to Aimee Sorrell?”

  “I gave her a hand.”

  “You gave her more than a hand, from what I've heard.”

  He was twitching. He was jiggling around like a bag of tics held together by a belt, some buttons, and a zipper. I wiggled the pen around some more.

  “H
ey, man,” he said plaintively. “Don't do that. I'm jumpier than a flea circus. I'm a nice guy, honest I am. She was just too cute. There wasn't nothing I could do about it.”

  “Wayne,” I said, “shut up. Now, put your arms above your head, palms flat against the wall. Spread your fingers, spread your legs. Not a word, now, you hear?”

  He did as he was told, but his knees were shaking so badly that I wasn't sure he could remain standing. He had a breast pocket stuffed full of pens and, hanging from a loop fastened through his belt, a pocketknife and a bunch of keys. Other than that, the search told me nothing that I didn't already know except that he wore knee-length white socks, none too clean.

  “Use your left hand,” I said. “Reach down slowly and unfasten the knife and give it to me.”

  “No problem,” he said shakily. “No problem. Look, watch, I'm doing it. You want cooperation? You got it.”

  “Good boy,” I said as I heard the ring unsnap. “Now hand it to me.”

  “You got it,” he said breathlessly, extending his hand behind him. I opened the knife and tossed the ball-point to the floor.

  “Turn around,” I said, “but slowly.”

  He did, trying to keep his hands up on the wall behind him. I heard one of his shoulder joints pop. “Relax,” I said, waving the open knife under his nose. “No point in dislocating your shoulder.”

  “Thanks,” he said, staring cross-eyed at the knife. “I do that from time to time. Hurts like a son of a bitch, too.” He lowered his arms to his side and looked penitently up at me. I felt more like his confessor than his interrogator. He couldn't have weighed more than one hundred twenty pounds and he wore a wispy white little Ho Chi Minh goatee. An aging hipster: probably went home in the morning after work, smoked a little grass, played the Modern Jazz Quartet, and leafed through back issues of the EvergreenReview, looking for the juicy parts.

  “Aren't you a sorry sight,” I said.

  “I used to be okay,” he said.

  “I'm sure you were,” I said mercilessly. “I'm sure you used to be six-four, too.”

  “Aw, come on,” he said, heartened by the fact that I hadn't killed him yet. “What kind of thing is that to say?”

  “Sit on the bed,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said. “I'll sit anywhere you like.” He looked around the room. “Are we alone?”

  “As alone as we're going to be.” I pulled out the chair next to the desk and straddled it, facing him. I tapped for attention on the back of the chair with the knife blade. “Tell me about Aimee.”

  He swallowed, and his Adam's apple did a swan dive. “Why?”

  “Wayne,” I said, flourishing the knife. It was an improvement on the pen. “I can take out your kidney from the front too, you know.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “Aimee,” he said. He was all jitters. His eyes shifted left to right and his knees bounced up and down. He seemed incapable of controlling the fluttering of his hands. They flew around him like demented butterflies. First they smoothed his hair, then they laid flat the wings of his collar, then they checked his buttons, and then they brushed the cloth of his trousers.

  “The hands,” I said. “Sit on them.” I'd checked his hip pockets, but his hands were making me nervous.

  “Sure,” he said, following orders. “Look, I'm sitting on them.”

  With his hands imprisoned, the kinetic energy in his body jolted willfully through his other systems. His shoulders twitched as though they had an agenda of their own. He crossed his legs and then uncrossed them. His feet tapped on the floor.

  “You're a very jumpy man,” I said.

  “Well, who wouldn't be?” he said with a pale attempt at defiance. “I get a call from some kid saying Aimee's here and then you stab me in the back, and all I was doing was having a good time.”

  “Wayne,” I said. “You absolutely can't imagine what an asshole I think you are. Let's talk about your wife.”

  He retreated into himself, growing physically smaller, if possible, as he did so. “No,” he said, “you win.”

  “Aimee,” I prompted.

  He sagged on the bed. With his hands under him he couldn't straighten himself. “She wanted it.”

  “She wanted someplace to sleep.”

  “Aaaah,” he said, blinking. His eyelids were as thick as a lizard's. “She knew what she was doing.”

  “No, Wayne,” I said. “You taught her what she was doing. You and some other respectable citizens. You know why she came to Hollywood? To become a star, that's why.” I tested the edge of the knife against my thumb. “She really believed she could become a star. Isn't that a joke? To become a star.”

  “Well,” he said, eyeing the knife, “maybe she will.”

  “What?” I said. “What does that mean?”

  The bathroom door creaked.

  “Hey,” he said wildly. “I thought you said we were alone.”

  “I said we were as alone as we were going to be.”

  “Cops,” he said, standing upright. “I don't have to be afraid of cops.”

  “Sit,” I said.

  “We're not cops,” Jessica said.

  He turned toward her and then to me. I was between him and the door, the knife in my hand. He gave her a long look, tried to make sense of it, and then gave up. “Who's she?” he said, pointing at Jessica.

  “The Ghost of Christmas Past,” I said. “Are you going to sit, or not?” He sat, doing a jitterbug of conflicting emotions. He pulled at the crease in his pants and he tugged at the wispy little beard. It stayed on.

  “What do you mean, Aimee will be a star?” I asked.

  “She got an agent,” he said. He sat back down on the bed.

  I didn't believe my ears. “An agent? What was his name?”

  “I don't know,” he said.

  “What kind of an agent?”

  “A kids' agent, what do you think?”

  “How’d she find the agent?”

  “Got the name from some kid, I guess. Jesus, I don't know.”

  “The name, Wayne.”

  “I told you. I don't remember.” He brightened. “Some kind of vegetable.”

  “A vegetable?” I said, slicing through the air with the knife.

  “A vegetable,” Warner said. “Even if you cut me, I don't remember nothing more.”

  “That's good enough,” Simeon,” Jessica said.

  “It's good enough when I say it's good enough. This little bedbug has a way to go yet.” I got up from the chair. “This is going to hurt me more than it does you,” I said, “although that's probably not true.”

  He squirmed back and finally fell full-length on the bed, his hands still trapped obediently behind him.

  “Holy Jesus,” he gasped. “I told you, I told you, I don't remember. God, don't you think I'd tell you? I hate knives. What do you want from me?”

  “Everything,” I said.

  “She was going to have her picture taken,” he said with a burst of inspiration. “She told me she was going to have her picture taken.”

  “Did she tell you the photographer's name?”

  “Yes. I mean, no. I mean, yes, but I'm no fucking good with names. Holy Jesus, I told you this much, why wouldn't I tell you the name?”

  It was a good point. “I sure hope you keep this knife sharp, Wayne,” I said. “Where was the photographer?”

  “Somewhere on Melrose. She said Melrose. Near here, probably.”

  “And the agent?”

  “I don't remember. Please, can I go home now?” He was wringing wet.

  “The agent's name, Wayne.”

  “I told you. Holy Jesus, I told you. Some kind of vegetable.”

  I looked at Jessica, who was watching openmouthed, and closed the knife.

  “Some kind of vegetable,” I said.

  12

  The Halls of Academe

  An hour later Jessica had talked to Annie and Wyatt, and I'd been hung up on by my parents and Roxanne. My mother had sworn at me with
Irish creativity, and Roxanne had made me listen to a page being torn out of her phone book.

  “You know my number by heart,” I'd said unwisely.

  “I didn't before,” she said, “and now I won't again.” That was when she'd hung up.

  Jessica was sitting on the bed, regarding me as though I were someone new. The business with the knife had impressed her, and not in a way I'd hoped to impress her.

  “Mad, huh?” she said.

  “Madder than Qaddafi.”

  “Who?”

  “Jessica, don't you know anything?”

  She sat back, stung. “He's that greaser in the Gulf,” she said. “I just needed to think for a second.”

  “Well, think for a minute more. When I get back, we'll have a quiz on the politics of the Mediterranean.” I got up and went out the door.

  “Hey,” she said plaintively as the door closed, “don't leave me alone.” It was a little late in the day for plaintive.

  The old dame in the Lucite fortress stared up at me disbelievingly. It had only taken eight rings on the bell to get her to turn away from a late-night rerun of WheelofFortune, the last three minutes of which I'd watched over her shoulder on a tiny black-and-white TV so old that it probably ran on steam.

  “Another room?” she repeated as though I were crazy.

  “Another,” I said very slowly. “Room.”

  “You mean, two?” she said.

  I sighed and held up two fingers. Verbal communication was getting me nowhere.

  “Full up,” she said, as pleased as her place in life made it possible for her to be. “Where's my twenty?” She grinned, showing me a raddled picket fence of decaying calcium with much potential for expensive dental work.

  “Waiting for a room key.”

  “You already got a room key.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said wearily, “and I need another.”

  “Can't have one,” she snapped. “No vacancy.”

  “In this rathole?”

  “My twenty,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the TV. “I could rent your room too,” she added. “Rent it five times by sunup. Rats or no rats.” She gave me the ruined teeth again, like a preview of a mine collapse in West Virginia.