Murder Takes a Break

by Bill Crider

  "I assume that the two of you will join us for dinner," Big Al said.

  I looked away from the cat. There was a plate of enchiladas, rice, and beans in front of Big Al. A covered dish of tortillas sat to one side, near a dish of picante sauce and a plastic basket of tortilla chips.

  Henry J. must not have been hungry. There was no food in front of him, though there was a half-full bottle of Dos Equis to go with the three empty bottles beside it. Big Al was drinking Carta Blanca.

  Dino and I sat down. Les Paul and Mary Ford came on the juke box with "Mockingbird Hill."

  "We'll have the enchiladas," I said. "I've heard they're really good."

  "It's true," Big Al said. "Beer?"

  "Not for me. Do you have Big Red?"

  Big Al laughed. "We don't serve kids' drinks," she said.

  "Water'll be fine, then. What about you, Dino?"

  "Carta Blanca's OK."

  Big Al waved a hand, and a man wearing an apron came over. The apron must have been white at one time, but the time had been years before I was born. He took our order and went into the kitchen. I looked around for the white cat, but it had disappeared. I hoped it hadn't gone back to the kitchen to deliver the meat for my enchiladas.

  "You know," Big Al said to me, "You haven't been exactly nice to Henry J. lately."

  "Henry J.'s been following me around," I said. "I don't like to be followed."

  Big Al brought a forkful of enchilada to her mouth and stuffed it in. She chewed happily for a while, then took a hit from the Carta Blanca bottle.

  She swallowed the beer and said, "That's the great thing about a free country. A man can go where he wants to go. On the other hand, a man can't assault someone for no reason at all. Look at poor Henry J.'s nose."

  I looked, and in spite of the hate in Henry J.'s eyes, it wasn't easy not to laugh at his appearance.

  "I have a feeling that whoever assaulted Henry J. did it for reasons of self-defense," I said.

  Big Al waved her fork in the air. "Maybe. Maybe not. Why do I get the feeling you didn't come here to apologize?"

  "Because I came here for the enchiladas?"

  "Many people do," Big Al said.

  I looked around the room. As far as I could tell, not a single person except Big Al was eating. Everyone else was drinking beer and listening to the juke box, which was now playing "Rags to Riches." The Tony Bennett version.

  "But not you," Big Al said.

  The door to the kitchen opened. Our waiter came out, followed by the white cat, which was no longer carrying the mouse. I wish I hadn't seen him, to tell the truth.

  "No," I said as the waiter set the thick white plates in front of us. "I didn't really come here to eat, but the food does look good."

  The waiter used a folded towel to handle the plates, which were very hot. The enchiladas were covered with chopped onions and jalapeno peppers. The chili around the enchiladas bubbled and sizzled.

  "If you didn't come for the food," Big Al said, "Why did you come? Do you have a secret crush on me?"

  "I'm sure there are a lot of guys who do," I said. "But I came to talk to you about a party."

  "I thought we decided yesterday that we wouldn't discuss the party."

  "We didn't decide anything," I said. "We just got interrupted."

  I reached out for the picante sauce and spooned it onto the enchiladas. Dino watched me with a kind of horrified fascination, and I pushed the bowl over to him when I'd finished.

  "I don't want any hot sauce," he said.

  "Suit yourself."

  I cut into the enchiladas and steam rose above the plate. I thought it might be best to wait a while before taking a bite, that is unless I wanted to incinerate the inside of my mouth.

  "About that party," I said.

  "Big Al said we weren't going to talk about that," Henry J. said. He sounded particularly nasal, like a bad country and western singer.

  "I'm talking to Big Al, not you," I told him.

  He pushed his chair back about six inches, and I thought for a second that he was going to come across the table for me. But Big Al put up a hand, and he sat back down. I could tell he wasn't happy about it, though.

  "Assuming that I have some idea of which party you're talking about," Big Al said, "why don't you tell me why you're so interested in it?"

  "You know why," I said. "A girl was killed there."

  "That's enough of that shit," Henry J. said, pushing his chair back at least a foot.

  "Calm down, Henry J.," Big Al said. "This is getting interesting. I suppose you think you can prove what you're saying, Smith."

  I couldn't prove anything, of course. I wasn't even sure I was right. I was just guessing to try to keep her off balance and maybe get her to say something in an unguarded moment, not that I thought she ever had any. I knew damned well that something had happened at that beach house, however, and that everyone was lying to me about it. I just didn't know what or why.

  "Her name was Kelly Davis," I said. "You might have read about her in the newspaper."

  Big Al shrugged her powerful shoulders and smiled.

  "I might have," she said. "It seems to me that she was found in the Gulf. She drowned, I believe."

  "No," I said. "She didn't drown."

  "How did she die, then?"

  I started to say that I didn't know, that the cause of death hadn't been discovered, but I didn't want to give her the satisfaction.

  So I said, "She was murdered."

  Big Al put her fork down on her plate with an audible clink.

  "You don't know that."

  "I believe it, and I'm going to prove it. And I'm going to find out what happened to Randall Kirbo, too."

  "I never heard of him," Big Al said. "And now I'm tired of talking to you. Show them out, Henry J."

  I would have gone quietly, and Dino would have, too. But Henry J. must not have thought so. Instead of politely standing up and asking us to leave, he shoved the table at me and hit me in the stomach so hard that my chair toppled over backward.

  I landed hard and tried to bounce up so that I wouldn't have to lie too long in the sawdust which was clinging to me like a fungus. I was afraid it might eat right through my jacket.

  I couldn't bounce anywhere, however, because I was tangled up with the chair. I tossed it aside just as Henry J. swung his Dos Equis bottle at Dino's head.

  Dino put up his left forearm and knocked the bottle aside while throwing a short, hard right into Henry J.'s stomach. He should have known from his prior experience that hitting Henry J. in that particular spot would have about as much effect as hitting the bar. Some people are slow learners, however.

  Henry J. grinned beneath his bandaged nose as if he hadn't even been touched and kicked Dino in the shin. Dino bent over, and Henry J. smashed a fist into the back of his neck. Dino crumpled, and Henry J. raised his foot to stomp him.

  I was on my feet by then, and I grabbed up my enchilada platter and threw it in Henry J.'s face. The food was still hot, and the plate was heavy. The combination didn't do Henry J.'s nose any good, but it didn't stop him, maybe because of the metal nose guard he was wearing. About all it did was mess up his bandage. He wiped a hand across his face and came at me.

  I jumped aside, and Big Al hit me with a solid right just under the heart. It was a little like being kicked by a horse, and I staggered backward, my feet slipping in the sawdust.

  Henry J. started to move in for the kill, but Dino stood up and got between us. Henry J. tried to kick him again. Dino did a little pirouette, grabbed his foot, and turned him a flip. I heard the crack when Henry J.'s head hit the floor. The sawdust apparently wasn't thick enough to serve as much of a buffer, but I didn't feel a bit sorry for Henry J. I didn't have time. Big Al was all over Dino, hitting him with a flurry of rights and lefts that was almost too fast to follow. He put up his arms and managed to stop most of the blows from landing solidly, but he was taking some damage.

  I stepped over beside them and reac
hed for Big Al's hair. It was awfully short, but I got a grip that allowed me to yank her backward.

  She sounded like a snake with asthma as her breath hissed between her teeth, and she tried to twist around to hit me. She almost made it, but Dino grabbed her arm and twisted her back to face him. He was going to hit her, but he hesitated for just a fraction of a second, giving her time to drive her fist into his mouth.

  He fell like a rock, and Big Al turned her attention to me again. She gave a powerful jerk of her head, and I was left with a tuft of her hair in my hand. I dropped it just as she hit me in the stomach.

  I try to keep in shape. I run as often as I can, but running doesn't do much to harden the stomach. I bent double and gasped for breath.

  Big Al didn't give me a chance to get one. She came on with a roundhouse punch that would most likely have killed me if I hadn't turned my head at the last second.

  As it was, her knuckles scrapped along my jawline, turning me almost around. I was still breathing as raggedly as a bronchitis victim on a coughing jag.

  Big Al wound up again, but she wasn't going to have to hit me. There was someone else to do that for her. The bartender was right beside her, and he was holding a regulation Little League baseball bat. He fell into a crouch that made him look a little like Jeff Bagwell and took a swing at my head.

  I dropped to my knees and the bat whistled through my hair. I really didn't like the idea of lying in the sawdust again, but I liked the idea of having my brains smeared on the bartender's bat even less. I rolled under a table and looked around.

  Henry J. was sitting up, staring vaguely around. His head had struck the floor hard, and he didn't seem to have any idea about where he was.

  Dino was wrestling with Big Al. They were scuffling around in the sawdust.

  The white cat was sitting by the kitchen door, watching calmly, as if he saw this kind of thing all the time. Most of the other patrons had disappeared. I wished I could.

  The bartender was still after me. He yanked the table away and tossed it aside, then swung at me again, but I had my breath back, and I was able to stick a chair in his way. The bat splintered the chair back, and sent a stinging vibration all the way up the bartender's arms. He yelled and dropped the bat, wringing his hands.

  The bat bounced off the sawdust. I grabbed it, stood up, and slammed it gently into the bartender's stomach, which was much softer than Henry J.'s. His eyes bugged, his tongue stuck out, and he gagged and sat down. Maybe I hadn't been as gentle as I thought.

  Big Al had Dino down on the floor, pummeling his face. I gave her a shot in the kidney, and she rolled off him.

  "Don't bother to get up," I said. "Dino and I will be leaving now. If we can. How about it, Dino?"

  "Give me a couple of seconds," he said, sitting up. His face was already swelling a little.

  Big Al measured me with her eyes, judging the chances of making a try for me. To my right, Henry J. was beginning to regain his senses. I slapped the bat lightly into the palm of my left hand, but I don't think I scared her a bit.

  "I don't think you have a couple of seconds," I told Dino. "I think we should go right now."

  He stood up, and I put my left hand under his arm, keeping a tight grip on the bat with my right. We backed toward the door like that, while Frankie Laine sang to us about the travails of being a moonlight gambler. The juke box seemed very loud all of a sudden, but that was probably just my imagination, plus the fact that aside from the juke box the club was almost completely silent now.

  Big Al and Henry J. watched us leave. I wish I could say that they bid us an affectionate farewell, but that would be a slight exaggeration. The good news was that they didn't come after us. I'm sure neither of them felt like it, however, and so they let us go quietly. I hoped that there was no one waiting outside to curry favor with Big Al by tackling us and carrying us back in, but the sidewalk was deserted. Big Al had her supporters, but none of them had been in the Hurricane Club that evening, for which I was grateful.

  When Dino and I got to the truck, I opened the door and helped him get in, tossing the bat in after him. I stumbled around to the driver's side and got in. In five seconds we were on our way.

  When we got to Broadway where the lights were brighter, Dino looked at the bat.

  "This is a Ralph Kiner autograph model," he said. "It must be forty years old at least. I wonder how much it's worth?"

  I wasn't in the mood to discuss baseball memorabilia. I was worried about what the sawdust on my clothes was going to do to the upholstery in the truck.

  "You can have the bat if you want it," I said. "I don't think Big Al will be coming after it."

  "She might. You can't tell about her and Henry J." He looked out at the esplanade for a second or two. "You know, I think Henry J. must be a little crazy."

  "Really? What was your first clue?"

  Dino took me seriously. "There was no call for him to do what he did in there. We weren't going to argue about leaving. Were we?"

  "I wasn't."

  "Me neither. I wonder if there's something he doesn't want Big Al to know?"

  "It's a thought," I said.

  He brushed at the legs of his jeans, knocking damp sawdust to the floor of the truck.

  "I don't think this sawdust is very clean," he said.

  "You're developing a real talent for stating the obvious."

  "I'll bet people have been spitting in it for years. Decades, maybe. Can you smell it?"

  I could smell it all right. The smell filled the whole truck. I just didn't want to think about it.

  "You can take a bath when you get home," I said.

  Dino put a hand to his face. His lips were swollen, and there was a bruise beginning to form on his jaw.

  "I hope I don't get some incurable disease," he said.

  "I'd recommend very hot water and an anti-bacterial soap if you have some."

  "I think I do."

  "Good. Use it."

  He didn't say anything else for a few minutes, not until we were nearly at his house. Then he said, "There's one thing I gotta know, Tru."

  "Go ahead and ask," I said.

  "Would you really have eaten those enchiladas?"

  I tried a smile. "We'll never know, will we?"

  22

  I let Dino out at his house and drove home after he assured me that he was going to be just fine as soon he got a good night's sleep. I gave him the baseball bat and told him to take a couple of aspirin and call me in the morning, but he didn't laugh.

  There were all kinds of ideas tumbling around in the back of my head by the time I got home, but I couldn't make sense of any of them. It was almost as if the bartender had hit me with that bat of his.

  I managed to feed Nameless, take off my wetly sawdusted clothes and stick them in the washer, except for the jacket and tie, of course, which I hung on the back of a lawn chair outside. Maybe they'd air out and I could get them cleaned later.

  After that, I took a hot shower, but I didn't manage to read even a page of O'Hara. I fell into the bed and went to sleep almost at once.

  Nameless woke me up the next morning. He was standing on my stomach, plainly irritated that I hadn't gotten up at the usual time to feed him.

  He stared at me accusingly with his green eyes and said, "Mowr."

  I lifted my head to get a better look at him and immediately wished I hadn't. It felt as if it weighed a ton.

  "Mowr," Nameless said again, with no regard for my pain. Cats have no pity.

  "I don't guess I blame you for not feeling sorry for me," I told him. "I'd be upset if someone delayed my meals, too. But I've got a good excuse."

  "Mowr?"

  "Never mind. You wouldn't believe it, even if I told you."

  "Mowr."

  "Oh, sure, you say that now. But you haven't heard the story yet."

  I tossed off the sheet and sat up with my legs over the side of the bed. My head felt a little better, but my whole body ached.

  Nameless di
dn't care how I felt. He just wanted me to feed him. He jumped down from the bed and walked around in front of me so that he could look up at me.

  "Mowr?"

  "I'm not going to tell you. Let's just say that I'm getting too old to get into fights with women. And with bartenders who carry baseball bats."

  Nameless had no comment. Apparently my decrepit condition was obvious to him. He stalked away, his tail in the air, confident that I would follow him.

  So I took a deep breath, stood up, and did.

  After I'd fed him, I shaved and washed my clothes. I wasn't sure I'd ever wear them again, but I wanted them to be clean even if I threw them away. I didn't want to be arrested for polluting the garbage dump.

  While the clothes were chugging through the wash cycle, I went in and fixed a bowl of shredded wheat. It tasted surprisingly good, and I remembered that I hadn't eaten a thing since breakfast the previous day. I'd gotten cheated out of my enchiladas, but then I hadn't paid for them, so I guess it all evened out. I finished the shredded wheat and had another bowl.

  When I was finished, I put the bowl in the sink and ran water in it. Nameless hopped up on the drain board. I put a little soap in the bowl and washed it out with hot water. Then I dried it and put it away. Nameless gave me the accusing look that he'd been practicing.

  "I've told you before," I said. "Drinking out of my bowls isn't sanitary."

  He ignored me and got in the sink anyway. Since there was no bowl to drink from, he just licked the water in the bottom of the sink. You can't win with cats, so I left him there and went to run my clothes through another wash cycle.

  I put on my running shoes. I didn't feel like going for a run, but I went anyway. I wasn't going to let a little thing like a few hundred bruises stop me. I was old and decrepit, but I wasn't going to give up my exercise. Not yet, anyway.

  When I got outside, I discovered that the weather had undergone a complete change. Gray clouds scudded along so close to my head that I could have jumped up and touched them, if I could have jumped, which wasn't every likely. The air was heavy with moisture, and a cold wind blew from the north. I didn't mind. It was pretty good weather for a run.