The Twenty-Year Death

by Ariel S. Winter

  “And tell him I expect to get that card back. He already has one, and they cost.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  He turned on his heel and crossed the room to the aisle that ran along the booths on the right, then went through the door marked Private. Nothing happened except for servers trailing in and out of the kitchen, giving quick glances of a white well-lit place through the swinging door. The noise in the restaurant remained constant. It didn’t matter what anyone was saying; it all sounded the same. Cupid’s stream was never-ending.

  It was no more than two minutes before the maître d’ appeared again, walking quickly towards the front with an excellent display of good posture. When he regained his place at the podium, he said, “Mr. Gilplaine will see you in his office. Take the door by the kitchen, and you’ll see his office at the end of the hall.”

  “It’s a good thing that Mr. Gilplaine just got back in time to see me,” I said.

  No one looked at me as I crossed the room. The door marked Private led to a small corridor, no more than ten feet with two doors to the left and one straight ahead. That door was open. Gilplaine was behind a desk that could have been a twin of the one at the Carrot-Top Club, but the desk was the only thing about it that resembled the office at the casino. This was a pristine environment with no boxes piled up and nothing on the desk other than a bronze souvenir ashtray from Tijuana, two black telephones, and a small clock that was turned to face Gilplaine. There was another desk in the corner, a smaller metal one with a typewriter on it and two neat stacks of paper. The walls were hung with framed photographs of Gilplaine with one movie star or another. They were all autographed as well. Leaning up against one wall was the big boy from the night before, grinning like I was a long-lost friend.

  I came in and closed the door behind me.

  “You have one minute to say something interesting,” Gilplaine said.

  “Interesting to who?”

  Instead of answering, he turned the clock on his desk so that we could both see the thin red second hand sweep around the dial.

  “I’m looking for Greg Taylor,” I said. There was no reaction at all. “I was told he comes here. I thought maybe you or someone on your staff—”

  “I won’t have my staff harassed by some snoop who’s decided to pester me.”

  “If you call this pestering, I’d like to see what you consider being friendly.”

  “Your minute’s going fast, Foster.”

  “This guy is young, early twenties with sandy blonde hair and fine features. He’s just the kind of pretty boy that makes the queers go gaga when he bats his lashes. He hangs out with movie people.”

  Gilplaine sat back in his chair. “Whatever game you’re playing, you can stop it.”

  “This isn’t a game. I call this work.”

  “What’s it have to do with Chloë Rose?”

  “I didn’t say it had anything to do with Chloë Rose.”

  “So you haven’t come to ask me about Mandy Ehrhardt’s death?”

  “I’m no longer involved with the Rose case, and Mandy Ehrhardt’s something else altogether.”

  “You just found the body.”

  I said nothing to that. I certainly didn’t ask him how he knew. A man like Gilplaine had a way of knowing things. He and the police were best friends. Drinks on the house anytime.

  “Edwards said you asked him about Mandy,” he said.

  “He also said you weren’t here. I don’t think his word is to be trusted. Anyway, I told you, it’s not the same case.”

  He turned his clock back to face him. “Time’s up, friend.”

  “I’d like to ask your bartender whether Taylor was in last night or not.”

  “The police already wasted an hour of his time. That’s like wasting an hour of mine.”

  “The cops came here?” I said. “Did you forget a payment or does your arrangement with them not cover Harbor City murders?”

  He snapped his fingers over his shoulder and said, “Mitch.” His man came off the wall and stepped forward.

  I stepped back. “Okey. I’m going.”

  Gilplaine watched me as I stepped back again, my hand now on the door handle. His expression was the same one the tiger gives you at the zoo: forlorn frustration that he was prevented from ripping you limb from limb.

  He had given me nothing when I had asked for little more. It was out of a need to strike back that I said, with one foot on the threshold, “Just out of curiosity. What can you tell me about Janice Stoneman?”

  His eyes narrowed at that, his lower jaw jutting out from under his upper. I like to throw peanuts at the tigers too. “Who?” he said.

  “I thought maybe she worked for you. Like Mandy. I haven’t started asking around yet, but if she did, I’m sure people will remember—”

  His expression grew more thoughtful. “Did you say Janice?” he said. He smiled widely, showing off his dental work. “We did have a Janice working here some time ago. Haven’t seen her for months, since December at least. She had to go back to her folks in Kansas or Oklahoma or one of those places these girls come from. We owed her some money. Tried to get it to her, but with no luck. Is that what this Taylor business is about? I’d love a chance to get Janice her money.”

  I had been shooting in the dark. I never expected him to get loquacious. I kept playing it by ear. “When did you say you saw her last? There’s some confusion about the date she left. Some say it was at the beginning of December, some say the beginning of January. The police aren’t much better.”

  “Who’d you talk to at the police?” he asked through his smile, which wasn’t so wide anymore.

  “You’ll understand, I can’t say.”

  “I think it was just before Christmas,” he said. “I seem to recall she was going home for the holidays.” He shrugged and frowned. “Never came back.”

  I nodded as though that meant something to me. “You know, it’s kind of funny, two women who worked for you, and one’s dead and the other’s missing.”

  He couldn’t keep up his smile through that. “Who said she’s missing? Just because I couldn’t find her.”

  “I’d think you’d be able to find anyone you wanted.”

  He shook his head. “These kids come through here. They work a few weeks, a month, it’s always temporary. If a couple of them disappear, wind up in bad situations, well, that’s just what happens. It’s San Angelo.”

  “It is San Angelo.” The subject appeared to be exhausted. Mitch, meanwhile, looked ready to go nine rounds. I turned to go.

  “This Taylor,” Gilplaine said, slowly, as if just remembering. “Is he a junky? Hangs out with John Stark?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  His smile came back, as comforting as the Cheshire cat’s. “A lot might go on in my clubs, but not the sort of thing you’re thinking about. Not what this Taylor kid was after. I suggest you go down to Market Street in Harbor City. You might do better there.”

  “I thought you didn’t know him.”

  He shook his head a little bit yes and a little bit no. “I know a lot of people. I can’t always remember all of them.”

  “Sure,” I said, “you have a memory like a goldfish.” I nodded to both men and shut the door behind me.

  At the maître d’ stand, I asked Edwards, “Were you on the door last night?”

  He shifted his weight.

  “Oh, come on, you can tell me that much. I could find it out from almost anybody.”

  He looked behind him as though the answer would be there. He was no gangster, just a dandified waiter.

  “Look,” I said. “I was just making conversation before. This is serious.”

  “Yes, I was on the door.”

  “And did you see a young blonde man, very slight build, medium height, maybe high on heroin?”

  “No I did not,” he said in a way that made it clear that he regretted saying anything and that he wouldn’t say anything else.

  “Thank you,” I
said, and left the club. I got in my car and sat for a moment behind the wheel. Gilplaine literally wouldn’t give me the time of day when he thought I was looking into Mandy Ehrhardt’s murder, and Taylor meant even less to him, though he did know who he was. But when I added Janice Stoneman in, he was quick to give me an answer that would keep me satisfied and working on something else. I sat for five minutes thinking, maybe ten. There was nothing more to do on Taylor until Market Street opened for the night. I started the engine. As I eased away from the curb, a sand-colored coupe pulled out of an alley along the side of the club and fell in behind me. Gilplaine was telling me too much.

  SEVENTEEN

  The main branch of the San Angelo Public Library was in an art deco building that had been built by workers in the W.P.A. Its façade made gestures towards grandeur, but inside it wasn’t much more than a warehouse. The coupe parked half a block behind me, but I wasn’t too worried that one of Gilplaine’s men would take a step into a library.

  I went to the periodical department and got out the bound volume of the S.A. Times for last December. I scanned all the way through the paper from December 20 onward, including every advertisement and job posting. I found nothing of interest the first three days. Then I started on the issue for December 23. It was at the bottom of page three. They probably hadn’t wanted to spoil anyone’s Christmas; otherwise it would have been a front-page piece. An unidentified woman’s remains had been found on the beach in Harbor City. Her throat had been slit and her thighs had been gashed open. I flipped through the next few days’ papers. The story moved to page six on December 24 and wasn’t mentioned again after that. The woman still hadn’t been identified as of Christmas Eve. Clearly Gilplaine thought that it had been Janice Stoneman.

  I placed my hand on the fold in the page and looked around. There were only a few other men in the room, all engrossed in their reading. I coughed and tore the article out. I returned the volume to the periodicals clerk and started for the front door, but stopped just before going out. As long as I was here, I might as well look into everything.

  I went to the circulation desk. A plump woman wearing a lily-patterned tea-length skirt over a pink silk blouse smiled as I came up. She had prematurely silver hair streaked with white, which she had braided and wrapped around her head like a coronet, holding the whole thing in place with a box worth of bobby pins. Half-lens reading glasses hung from a cord around her neck, but she hadn’t been using them to consult the volume opened flat on the counter in front of her. It looked like a dictionary.

  “May I help you?” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’d like to find some information about a horse called...” I pulled out the sheet I’d torn from the notepad in the Rosenkrantz home the night before. “Constant Comfort,” I said.

  The librarian frowned. “I don’t approve of horseracing. I voted no in that election.”

  “I did too. Horseracing is dreadful and only dirty and dangerous people go in for it. This isn’t about racing. A friend of mine just got this horse, but he thinks he might have been cheated. He just wants to see who owned it before him to make sure he got the right one.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know about that. Would City Hall keep those kinds of records?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I asked you.”

  “I’m sorry, I have no idea.” She pulled her lips in, causing little wrinkles to erupt around her mouth. Those were premature too.

  I knocked on the counter twice. “You know what? Never mind. Thank you for your help.”

  So much for Constant Comfort.

  I went outside. A bank of phone booths stood against the wall of the building. A broad-shouldered man in a navy blue suit and no hat leaned against the nearest booth. His hair was slicked back and his brown brogues were freshly polished. But he wasn’t there for me. He held a racing form folded into a rigid rectangle about the size of a closed street map, in case anyone might be confused about what he was doing there. He looked up at me as I came down the steps, then looked back at his paper when he saw that I wasn’t a customer. I went into the booth furthest from his, and pulled the door shut. The overhead light turned on and the exhaust fan in the ceiling began whirring. It didn’t help. The booth was still stifling.

  I dropped a coin in the slot and dialed. It was answered after one ring. “Chronicle.”

  “Pauly Fisher, please.”

  The line began to hum, and then there was a click, and then Pauly’s warm voice came on. “Fisher here.”

  “It’s Dennis Foster.”

  “Foster. What you got for me?”

  I cracked the door just enough to get some air. “Maybe something. Maybe nothing. You remember a murder in Harbor City just before Christmas? Jane Doe, slit throat, carved-up legs?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. What about it?”

  “You only get the news that’s in the paper or do you get the real stuff?” I wiped the back of my neck with my handkerchief.

  “What? You’re thinking of this starlet that got herself cut up yesterday?”

  “Sounds like they were cut up in the same ways.”

  “Sounds like a coincidence to me.”

  “Well, can we find out if it’s been a coincidence any other times?”

  “You must be kidding.”

  “What?”

  “You know what I’d have to go through to find that out? I hope you don’t need it this week.”

  I tried to entice him. “I think I’ve got a name for Jane Doe.”

  “Nobody came looking for her. It’s not news.”

  “Don’t you find that odd? You’d agree that a cut throat and carved-up legs normally is news, right? Especially when it’s a nice-looking young woman on the receiving end.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then why was it buried on page three? And a dead story two days later?” I heard the faint electric whistle along the phone line that passed for silence. Now I had caught his interest. I sweetened it. “What if it wasn’t a coincidence? What if there were other women?”

  “You been reading about Jack the Ripper again?”

  I waited.

  He sighed. “Okey. But it’s going to take me a while.”

  “Try my office first. If I’m not there, try the apartment. Oh, and Pauly, one more thing, do you know anything about a horse named Constant Comfort?”

  “I know about horses as much as I know about Einstein.”

  “All right. Thanks.” I hung up. I opened the door and stepped out of the phone booth. There was one man around here who’d know more about horses than about Einstein. He was in the same spot I had left him, still holding his little folded racing form. I walked down the bank of booths.

  He saw me coming and he tucked the paper under his arm and held out his hands, palms up. “I’m just waiting on a call from my aunt to tell me my uncle’s out of the hospital.”

  “What’s he in for?”

  The man readjusted his stance. “Appendicitis.”

  “Next time try he was in a car wreck. Sounds better.”

  He tilted his head and squinted.

  “I’m not a cop,” I said. I held up a five-dollar bill. “What do you know about a horse named Constant Comfort?”

  “You’re sure you’re not a cop?”

  I crinkled the money. “Private.”

  He checked to see if he needed a shave. He did. He probably needed to shave after every meal. “Comfort doesn’t race anymore. He won a couple of pots last year. Out to pasture now.”

  “You know who owns him?”

  “He was in Daniel Merton’s stable when he was racing. I don’t know about now. Why? You in the market for a horse?”

  “Nah, your horse might have appendicitis.”

  I held out the bill to him, and he snatched it away as though he expected me to do the same. He pocketed it and made a big production of taking the racing form out from under his arm and finding his place. He leaned back against the booth again, but his eyes weren’t moving across
the page. He was waiting for me to leave.

  At the curb I got back in my Packard. Daniel Merton was one of the founders and owners, and the current president, of Merton Stein Productions. If he had owned the horse before and Chloë Rose owned it now, he must have given it to her. But he was also the man she worked for, which made him the one the mystery man on the phone had been calling on behalf of. Why would Merton want to buy back a horse he’d given her?

  I started the engine. None of this was my business. I had a client, and he probably expected me to work for my money.

  I checked the time. Almost five. It was too early for any of the right people to be on Market Street in Harbor City and too late to go sit around the office. I decided to go home, and wait for Pauly Fisher’s phone call. The sand-colored coupe decided to join me.

  EIGHTEEN

  I didn’t bother locking my apartment door. If Hub’s men wanted to get in, they’d get in, the only question was whether I’d have to deal with a busted doorframe afterwards.

  I took up a position so I’d be behind the door when it opened. I stood there and nothing happened. I kept standing, feeling like a fool. But in the last thirty-six hours I’d had a gun pointed at me, been threatened by gangsters and by the police, and found a mutilated body. I waited.

  The knock came, three heavy thuds made with the meat of a fist. I stayed quiet. We all listened to the floorboards. The knock again, more insistent, and this time, “Come on, Foster. We know you’re in there. We just want to talk.” It was Mitch’s voice.

  I heard a hand on the doorknob, and then the door swung towards me, but faster and harder than I’d expected. It slammed into my hip, sending a sharp pain up and down my side. I must have cried out, because Mitch hurled his full weight against the door, pinning me behind it. I tried to lean forward but my shoulders were pushed together, my arms in front of me like a fighter trying to protect his middle. I was stuck.

  Mitch peeked around the door, still holding his weight against it. At the sight of me, he eased the pressure for a moment only to fall back against the door, shooting pain along my shoulder blades.