Uh-huh. But you did see him Monday night?
She nodded.
That made it a day after Mrs. Eiverson had last seen her son — and more than a day later than the last news I had about Danny Spring.
Ruthie continued, I thought something was wrong then. He acted so funny.
How do you mean?
Well, I’d have to go back a little. See, I’m crazy about traveling. Never have traveled any, but that’s what I want more than anything. Frank and me, we talked about it a lot, the places he’d take me and all — Egypt and Paris and all over. Well, the last month or two he’d been saying we were really going to do it; we’d go to all those places when we got married. He was going to make a lot of money, and we’d just pack up and go. She smiled. Be vagabonds, he said.
Did Frank say how he was going to make all that money?
No, but he said we’d have enough to go anywhere. She paused, frowning. That last night, though, he told me to be quiet when I talked about the passports and ships and all. Shut up,’ he said. It would have to wait, something had gone wrong. This deal, or whatever it was, was off. And he was so nervous. He acted scared.
Did he tell you any more about what went wrong? I said.
No. But there was something else funny. I can’t remember.
She closed her eyes, frowning. Suddenly her eyes popped open and she said brightly, Oh, I remember now. It was the funniest thing he ever said to me. It was a couple of weeks ago, about. We were drinking a little. She hesitated and then added, smiling. Actually, we were stoned. You know.
I grinned. I know.
And there we were, over in the Casbah or some place, and I asked him where all the money was coming from. Then he said the crazy thing. From the grave of Mr. Graves. Old Gravess old grave. Then he laughed and said, Not old grave, new grave, Ruthie. It just didn’t make sense but we laughed about it. It was such a crazy thing, though, I remembered it even the next day.
That last time you saw him, he was pretty upset, huh?
Real upset. I mean, he couldn’t sit still, and he sort of snapped at me. He wouldn’t ordinarily do that, you know. Frank’s as nice as anybody I ever met. He’s really wonderful, Mr. Scott. She paused, and said in a voice so soft and empty it gave me a funny, cool feeling in my stomach. He’s — got to be all right.
Her face squeezed in toward the middle and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. But then she started talking again, about the way Frank had acted, almost as if she were talking to herself. And then a phrase hit me. She was repeating what she’d told me about how nervous Frank had been, and added, Even his hands were shaking. I thought he was sick or something.
Finally, it filtered in. A few more questions and I was sure: first, that Frank Eiverson was still on junk, and had needed a shot bad that Monday night; also, that Ruthie didn’t have any idea what his nervousness had meant.
Ruthie, do you know if Frank was ever in jail for anything? Jail, or prison, or —
She didn’t let me finish. Of course not. She half-smiled. He’s not a crook or anything. What a funny thing to say.
A funny thing to say. Everything I’d learned about Frank Eiverson added more to the picture of a hoodlum, a punk, one little bubble on the city’s scum. But Ruthie didn’t share my picture of the guy. She was in love with him. It didn’t matter much whether Frank was giving her a line, or really loved her. She believed he was in love with her, that was enough. Ruthie seemed like a sweet little gal — despite Frank.
I lit a cigarette, offered her one, but she refused it. Ruthie, sometimes — I stopped, began again. How long have you known Frank?
Almost a year.
Well, sometimes a guy leaves out things in his — that happened before he met a girl, things that would make him look bad. Especially if he really likes the girl. Understand?
She started to speak, then stopped. After a while she asked me, Was Frank in jail, Mr. Scott?
He spent a year in San Quentin. For possession of narcotics.
She was quiet a long time. I don’t believe you. That’s what she said; but she believed me.
I dragged on my cigarette. I’d laid it out for Mrs. Eiverson, and it had been easy. It wasn’t so easy to tell Ruthie. He was convicted of possessing narcotics. He’s a user. The police think he was selling the stuff, too.
No —
Ruthie, the reason he acted so nervous that night is because he needed a shot. He’d gone too long without the drug — for some reason — and I want to know the reason. That’s why it’s so important for you to —
He didn’t, he didn’t! He’s not a — dope fiend.
I didn’t push it for a while. Then I said, It’s often difficult to tell an addict from a non-user, Ruthie. Until they’re overdue for the next shot.
Finally she said she’d seen Frank like that a time or two before, but it was just nerves, he’d been tired or something. She didn’t know anybody named Jake or Pot or Jim; the only friend she knew about was Danny.
She kept saying Frank was wonderful, but during the last minute or two before I left, the truth sank in. She kept looking straight at me, though eyes shiny and her head high, trying hard not to blink. Because if she blinked, the tears would spill.
I stubbed out my cigarette, stood up. Well, I said, I’ll — if you want, I’ll tell you whatever I find out. I stopped. Good night, Ruthie.
She didn’t speak.
When I went out she was staring past me, blankly, the tears running down her cheeks.
Chapter Five
In the Cad I smoked a cigarette, thinking about Ruthie and Frank. And junk. And the grave of Mr. Graves, whatever the hell that was.
Grave — cemetery — mortuary — Rand Brothers? Frank had been working at Rand Brothers when he’d taken that fall for possession. But it had been just one of many short-term jobs he’d held — and the police had checked out that angle, and dropped it.
It’s seldom profitable to go over the same ground the police have covered. Teams of officers, technicians, the facilities of the crime lab, make a very clean sweep, leaving little for an independent investigator to find — which was one reason why I hadn’t visited Dan Spring’s apartment yet. But there hadn’t been any cause for the police to give his place a thorough going-over; Spring was merely another missing person — then.
I phoned Evelyn Spring and chatted a bit, then told her I wanted to search her brother’s rooms. She said she’d call the manager and tell him to let me into the apartment.
The place was named the Biscayne, maybe because the original owner had hailed from Florida, or just because it sounded dignified, which the joint wasn’t. It was a wide, two-story wooden building on Kansas Avenue. A small yellow bulb burned outside the entrance, about the brightest spot for blocks. Kansas was dimly lighted to begin with, and, apparently, playful children had playfully busted three of the nearby street lamps. Possibly because nobody had busted the playful children.
The manager was an old geezer who would have looked natural with a straw between his gums. He wore blue overalls and a faded blue work shirt, and he couldn’t tell me anything about Danny that I didn’t already know. He hadn’t seen young Spring since the weekend before last. Saturday or Sunday, he didn’t recall.
He didn’t move out, though, did he? I asked. No moving van came around?
No, he just hasn’t been here. When I didn’t see him for a spell, I looked in on the apartment, case he meant to skip. But everything’’ there, clothes and all.
I thanked him, took the key he gave me and went upstairs, along the hall to the door marked 12. The place had two rooms and bath, no kitchen. It looked as if Danny might have left only minutes before — jacket tossed over a chair, a pair of brown shoes next to the bed, thick argyles stuffed into them.
After a twenty-minute search, the only item of interest I found was the writing pad next to the pho
ne. No phone numbers were on the paper, but Danny had doodled on the pad, making little marks and figures. He had drawn half a dozen little pictures that I didn’t recognize at first. The word Rand was written a couple of times on the sheet, and probably that made the connection in my mind. The little figures were headstones, simple drawings of the stone markers which rest at the heads of graves.
But the prize was in the bathroom. I found Danny’s kit there, taped under the washbasin. I pulled the tape free, took out the small box and opened the hinged top. Inside was what addicts term the works, more complete than most I’d seen. It contained a hypodermic syringe and needle, a spoon with its handle bent back under the bowl so that, when resting on a table or the floor, the bowl would be level and about a half-inch in the air. The under side of the spoon was blackened from matches burning under it during the cooking. A heavy string, used as a tourniquet, and a small wad of absorbent cotton were also in the kit — plus three small transparent gelatin capsules filled with a dull white powder.
I opened one of the capsules. The powder had no odor. I put a little on my tongue, and it had the slightly bitter taste of Heroin. Three capsules of Heroin, three little caps of H.
I looked at them and said aloud, Rest in peace, Danny. Because it seemed likely that Danny was dead.
I once saw a hype named Grady take a long-overdue shot of Heroin. Until you’ve seen what the stuff does to a man, you can’t understand how ugly that innocent-looking white powder really is. But see one man halfway to hell, just one, and the statistics never look the same again. Maybe a man, or a kid, starts taking the junk for kicks, but soon the kick is gone and the hook is in. The pop is no longer for fun or for a lift, but simply to feel normal for a little while. Normal — the way he felt before he began taking the stuff. No lift now, no jag, no euphoria, just something to stop the pain, the scream inside. Something to stop the sweetly named withdrawal symptoms.
Grady had given me tips in the past, and I had needed information only he could give me. He’d moved, but I traced him to the smelliest, dirtiest hotel room I’d ever seen and was waiting inside when he showed. He’d been without food for three days. That didn’t bother him — food isn’t important to a hype — but he’d also been without his Heroin for three days, and that was important; that was his life. He’d just made a connection, bummed enough money to buy one cap of Heroin.
When Grady came in, he looked at me but didn’t speak, didn’t pay any attention to me. He reached under the bed and got the works. A crude outfit: eye-dropper, hypodermic needle, soft-drink bottle cap, some cotton. He was moaning, sweating, twitching every once in a while. He put a few drops of water in the bottle cap, dropped it and started to cry, got more water into it and managed to place the bottle cap on a little wire frame he’d made to hold it. He dumped the white powder into the water, held a match under the tin cap until the drug had cooked a little and dissolved. He’d stopped crying, but spit was running out the side of his mouth and down his stubbled chin. He smelled like an outhouse.
Usually the junkie puts his hypodermic needle into the mouth of the eye-dropper — held in place with tape or a thread gasket — then sucks the dissolved drug up the needle, into the glass barrel, through a wad of cotton which strains the liquid. But Grady couldn’t wait. The tip of the eye-dropper was broken off, leaving sharp slivers of glass at its end. He managed to hold still long enough to suck the warm Heroin and water into the dropper, but then he just jabbed the splintered end into his arm, into the vein. He was on his knees and stayed like that for a long time, blood running down his arm, onto his hand.
Then Grady got up, went over and sat on the filthy, unmade bed. Finally, he said to me in a lazy voice, Hello, Scott. How long you been here?
Friendly as could be. Happy now, at peace. But I knew — and he knew, too — that if I had tried to stop him, he might have killed me. If he could. Shot me, knifed me, crushed in my skull, anything at all, any way he could. Not because he had something against me — or against anybody else in the world — but simply because I would have been in his way, keeping him from climbing out of hell again. Until the next time. And the next.
I don’t remember now if I got the information I was after; but I sure remember Grady. I’d known him for four or five years; he’d been a young attorney when we met. Clean, neat, bright of eye. First the marijuana, just for laughs, then the Heroin. He was a bright boy, he could handle it.
That’s the stuff the bastards sell.
That’s the stuff the wise school kids are talking about when they say, Come on. Jack boy, just try it once. It’s a real kick, don’t be a jerk.
And that’s the stuff Danny Spring had left in his room. Maybe he’d made a connection somewhere else, but I didn’t think so. When he needed his bang, he would have come back there where the three little caps were waiting for him. If he’d been able to.
The thought had come to me before, but it seemed a settled thing now. Danny Spring wasn’t coming back. Rest in peace, Danny.
I dropped the kit into my coat pocket, went downstairs, gave back the manager his key. When he closed the front door behind me, he turned out the yellow bulb, and for a moment it seemed dark as a tomb in front of the Biscayne. And as quiet.
At the sidewalk I turned right, angled across the grass parking area toward my car a few yards away. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t hear anything, either. What tipped me was the smell of beer. Beer on his breath.
My reflexes are good, and there’s a habit-pattern built into my nerves; when that faint alarm pimps in them, I move first and wonder about it later. But this time I didn’t move soon enough.
I was starting to jump when the big hands closed around my biceps. The fingers dug in, hard, painfully — like steel gears grinding into the muscle. Because I was already moving, I was able to swing my body around, pull my right arm free. But a hand was still clamped on my other biceps, and my movement stopped with a jerk, my body spinning sideways. I saw the second man then. He was shadowy in the dun light, but I could make out his features. I’d read his description, seen his mug shot. A tall thin guy with a small square head and narrow mustache. Those fingers gouging my muscles had already told me that Pot was behind me.
Jake had something in his hand, swung it at my face. I jerked my head aside and the loaded sap banged my ear, slammed the base of my neck. I brought my right arm up, across my body, and caught the side of his mouth with the edge of my palm. Pot grunted behind me. His other hand slapped my shoulder, slid down to my free elbow. Jake stumbled, turned back toward me. Pot was incredibly strong, his fingers seeming to rip my flesh. I lifted my right foot, kicked down at his feet, felt my heel pound on his instep. He grunted, and his fingers loosened.
I threw my right elbow backwards into his belly. It was like hitting a cement wall. But I kept turning, got my left foot planted on the grass, slammed my left fist at his face. It was a good blow, and a lucky one. I got my shoulder and the weight of my turning body behind it and landed hard on his eye. It jarred him and he moved back half a step. I knew Jake was right behind me now, that sap probably swinging again, and I ducked, grabbing for the .38 under my coat.
But that was it. The sap didn’t land solidly; it cracked the side of my head and my legs stopped working. I was still on my feet, but the message wouldn’t get through to them. When I tried to turn, one of my knees buckled like a loose hinge and I spilled down at a slant. The sap got me again on the way down.
I felt the ground thud against my chest. My face hit the grass and grating pain raked my skull. I tried to move, tried to get up. But I didn’t know where my hands were, or my arms. Blades of grass were like feathers between my lips. I pulled my head up an inch, another, thought for a moment I was making it, and then felt the grass pressing my face again.
Somebody spoke to me, lips close to my ear. I didn’t know who it was, but I could smell the beer. Pot. I tried to swear at him. No sound came out, and I fel
t the grass move against my lips.
Pot said, I told you, Scott. Told you I didn’t want you to get hurt. Now look what you done. His voice was casual, like a guy asking the time. You’re lucky, cousin.
Another voice, up above me somewhere this time, He don’t know how lucky. Had my way, I’d bust his skull in now.
Then Pot again, We aren’t killing you yet, Scott. Hear that? Second chance in the quiz. Kill you tomorrow. Unless you play ball. Play ball, nobody’ll kill you. Those questions you were asking, about Dan and Frank and all. You forget about that, like I told you before, and just live the good life. His voice was gentle. You’re sure lucky. You get the second chance. But no more. No more, cousin.
I knew where my hands were now. The back of one was touching my right thigh, the other was palm down, thumb caught under the bone of my hip. I got the thumb free, then slowly pulled up my right arm until both hands were palm down on the grass.
I had to get them higher, I thought, next to my chest, before I could push myself up. I pulled at the grass with my fingers and felt my hands moving alongside me, slowly, like fat spiders. There was a taste of metal in my mouth, as if I had a mouthful of dimes.
Lookit him, a voice said, from somewhere high above me. The voice sounded very soft, fluttering. He’s a tough one, aint he? Got all the muscle of a baby. Maybe we ought to change his diaper Lookit him.
I was thinking, if I could just get up, maybe I could kill him. If I could just get up. I had my hands in place, pushing, but the side of my face was still on the grass. I could see something near me. Somebody’s feet and legs.
One of the legs moved back, then I saw it swinging forward. Something dug into my side, and a hacking sound came out of my mouth. The dark turned a deep red, almost black — the color of pain. Then there was a blow on the side of my head, a split-second of brightness —
Chapter Six
After the brightness there was a dull ache in my side, a rhythmic throbbing in my head. I had my hands in the right spots, pushing. It took a long time. But after a while I was sitting up.
Dig That Crazy Grave (The Shell Scott Mysteries) Page 4
