Called by a Panther

by Michael Z. Lewin

  That irritated me beyond its importance. It was an error of routine, the rules that the new me had set for the new life.

  Not a big deal, but . . . Either I played this game or I didn't.

  After a few moments of self-flagellation I forgave myself. And as a reward my brain remembered why my woman was not available to still my anguished outpourings: she was at a meeting of a foster parents' support group.

  I decided to read. I went to my bedroom and picked Chance & Necessity from the shelves that line the wall next to the bed. It's about the origins of life. Well, my life was at a new beginning. Maybe I could pick up some tips.

  And then I heard a knock.

  But it was not the Scum Front on the porch outside the office. It was Mom at the door that connects me to the rest of her house.

  She said, “I meant to say, son, if you're in some kind of trouble, I have a gun now.”

  “You what?”

  “You can borrow it if you need it.”

  “A gun? What do you mean, a gun?”

  She drew a small-caliber automatic pistol from her bathrobe pocket and showed it to me.

  “Is that thing loaded?”

  “There's not much point if it isn't. But the safety catch is on. See?”

  I saw. “Whatever possessed you to get one of those things?”

  “It's not the tool,” she said, “it's how the tool is used.”

  “Which doesn't answer the question.”

  “Oh, it just seemed like a good idea,” she said. “I think a widow is entitled to a little protection.”

  “Is this one of Norman's suggestions?”

  “Don't mind Norman, son. He means well.”

  “Does he?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “Though he's a little rough, I admit.”

  “You're not about to tell me he's a diamond underneath, I hope.”

  “He certainly is a help.”

  “Do you know that he disapproves of my living and working here? That he thinks I am taking advantage of you?”

  “Oh yes. But I told him that you'll pay me rent once you get solid on your feet.”

  “That won't be long now, Mom,” I said. I meant it to sound strong but it sounded feeble.

  “I'm sure it won't,” she said.

  “I'm having some television ads made. They'll be hitting the airwaves soon.”

  “Oh, good. Which channel?”

  “One of the ones on the new cable system.”

  “Oh.”

  “I'm going to sign you up for that, if you don't mind. I'll pay for it, of course.”

  “Well, we'll see,” she said. Then, “Would you like the gun, son?”

  “Don't point that thing at me, please!”

  “I'm not going to shoot you. I've been practicing.”

  “Where?”

  “There's a range in one of the shopping centers out Southeastern. I've been the last two Sundays.”

  “With Norman?”

  “It's a lot of fun. And I'm getting better. I hit the target most every time now.”

  “You'll be wanting a bigger gun for your birthday, with a grip made to measure and a stabilizer to reduce the lift from the recoil.”

  “Oh no,” she said. “Not yet. But remember, son, it's here if you need it.”

  “I'll remember, Mom.”

  “That's good.”

  “O.K.”

  She looked up at me. “Albert, are things all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “It's funny, you know. A boy like you suddenly going about your business so differently after all these years. I hope you're not trying to be something you aren't. We aren't all meant to be successful, son, but we are all meant to be ourselves.”

  “Everything's fine.”

  “Then you bring down a strange young woman . . . I don't know. I just don't know.”

  “There's nothing to worry about Mom.”

  “I wish I could believe that,” she said, as if talking to herself. Then, “Would you like to come down and play Scrabble with Norman and me?”

  “I think I'll pass this time. Thanks for asking.”

  “You probably have some work to do, now you're so busy.”

  “That's right. I'm expecting a call.”

  Even as I said it, the telephone rang.

  Chapter Twenty One

  MY CALLER, HOWEVER, was Quentin Quayle. “Albert, it's going wrong!”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “I may have to end it all!”

  “It can't be a suicide matter, surely.”

  In a voice that was calm and corrective, he said, “Don't be stupid. That's not what I meant.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I need to talk to you immediately.”

  “You do?”

  “Come now. Take whatever is necessary out of the money I gave you, but come.”

  “Don't you think you're being a little bit—”

  “Please!” he said.

  A magic word, especially in conjunction with the fact that waiting for the Scummies was making me jumpy. I said, “O.K.”

  Poet had the use of a third-floor apartment on a corner of 38th Street and North Meridian. It took me the best part of twenty minutes to get to his door and when he opened it, he said, “Oh, Albert!” with an over-the-top emotional exhalation that, on screen, would have made movies silent again.

  I didn't get an immediate chance to ask him what his problem was. He turned and walked away from me. As he did so he pulled at his hair with a baby's anger.

  I wasn't so sure that responding to my soulmate's summons had been a good idea after all, but I entered the apartment and closed the door.

  The living room was chock-a-block with furniture and ornaments. Quayle couldn't have packed it that way in mere months so perhaps this was an apartment that Charlotte Vivien kept specially for poets.

  I'd never been in the building before but it was where a local politician conducted a personal affirmative action program. According to Miller.

  Quayle draped himself across a flowery settee behind a glass-topped coffee table with bronze legs.

  I used a straight-backed chair and sat opposite him.

  “I'm destroyed. We were going to have such a lovely life! Charlotte has another man.”

  “Is that what this is about?”

  “Of course.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Oh I have no idea.”

  “Well, how do you know?”

  “Charlotte is suddenly less open with me.”

  I waited. There wasn't any more. “That's it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Poet, didn't you say she had her children home this weekend and that she was upset?”

  “She is less open. I have been a confidant and suddenly I'm not. She's got a man, Albert. Sure as eggs is eggs, Charlotte Vivien is seeing somebody. I am never wrong about this kind of thing.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I say so.”

  I said, “That's the ball game. Time to be a good sport, wish her luck and forget her.”

  He sat up and leaned forward. He looked at the floor, and the hanging hair meant I couldn't see his face at all. “But I don't want to forget her,” he said.

  “What choice have you got?”

  He threw his head back and said, “I want you to follow her.”

  “What?”

  “I can't revise my strategy until I know who the opposition is.”

  “Poet, following Charlotte Vivien is not what you hired me to do.”

  “I hired your professional services. Isn't following unfaithful women the very essence of what private detectives do?”

  “It takes a lot of time. I have other jobs.”

  “Just follow her at night. That will do. Evenings. I'm sure she is not the sort of woman who would do it in daylight.”

  I looked at him. “I suppose you're never wrong about that kind of thing either.”

  “You must do it,” he said pathetically.


  “Well, I can hire other people to follow her when I'm too busy.”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  “But your money won't last long.”

  “I'll give you more.”

  “Poet, are you sure about this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Aren't you panicking? Don't you want to give it some time to feel better?”

  “No.”

  I said nothing.

  He said, “Albert, haven't you ever been in love?”

  I considered things as I went down the stairs. A simple tail on Charlotte Vivien wouldn't be hard to arrange. Graham Parkis had “guys and gals” just waiting for the work. And I had a home number for him.

  Well, all right.

  There was a telephone booth across 38th Street and I went to it.

  However, the number I called was Charlotte Vivien's.

  I expected Loring to answer but the voice was a girl's. “Hello?”

  “May I speak to Mrs. Vivien?”

  “Who's calling, please?”

  No matter what Mom said, it was not a time to be by myself.

  “This is the Chief of Police.”

  “Oh, hi. Chief.”

  “Uh, hi.”

  “This is Sheree. Mom's not here now, but can I take a message?”

  “No thanks, Sheree,” I said. “No message.”

  “Hey, I watched you this afternoon.”

  “You did?”

  “On the VCR. The tape of Mom's party.”

  “Oh, yeah. I haven't had a chance to see it yet. Too much work.”

  “You were great.”

  “Good. Good.”

  “And I thought that detective Mom hired was mega-fabulous. When he sneezed on that powder and it went in his face! Wow, that was so funny! He was just darling.”

  “You think so?”

  “I'd really like to meet him. Do you know him?”

  “Slightly.”

  “Is he an actor or something?”

  “I do understand that he's got a little television coming up,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  WITH CHARLOTTE VIVIEN not at home I was relieved of any imperative to organize surveillance of her. Can't tell a guy or a gal to follow someone if you don't know where the someone is. Right? Am I right?

  I headed home. I was hungry.

  I wasn't back long enough to get a mouthful when the bell rang.

  I knew who it was going to be. I went to the desk and turned on the tape recorder. Then I answered the door.

  It was the Bear and the Frog. No Kate King or Gorilla.

  “Where the hell have you been?” the Frog asked me in her high “funny” voice. “What do you think this is? A game?”

  “What do you expect? The rest of my life to stop? I made your call to Channel 43 but then I had another client to visit.”

  “You also used a telephone,” the Bear said. She too spoke at an artificial pitch, but low-voiced. Almost a growl. “At 38th and Meridian.”

  “That's perfectly true,” I said.

  “Was it to the police?” Bear asked.

  “No,” I said. “Not this time.”

  The Frog fumed behind her mask. “Don't you care that somebody might die while you mess around?”

  “If what you want is buttons to push, go find a soft-drink machine. You coming in or not?”

  They came in.

  “Sit down,” I said. “Once you're comfortable I'll tell you my conditions for taking this job.”

  “Your conditions?” the Bear said.

  “Your hearing is acute.” I brought a second chair from the bedroom and I faced them across the desk.

  “What we're talking here is a job, not club membership. So I'll need money for my time and my expenses. A couple of thousand dollars to start. I will account for it in detail but not on paper. Do you have that much with you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I'll need a way to contact you if I have to.”

  The Bear said, “What, you mean like a phone number?”

  “That would be ideal.”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Well, think up something else. But I need a way to get in touch in a hurry.”

  The Animals looked at each other.

  “We'll see what we can do,” the soprano Frog said.

  “I won't go to the police about you, but if they come to me, what I do will depend on the pressure they apply.”

  “We thought it might,” the Frog said.

  “Finally,” I said, “while the job lasts you will plant no more bombs.”

  They exchanged looks but said nothing.

  “I have a license to protect. If the police find out I'm working for you I will need a compelling reason why I didn't come to them at the beginning. The fact that I was able to keep you from planting more bombs is that reason. Do you understand and agree to my conditions?”

  The Frog looked at the Bear, who nodded. The Frog said, “Yes.”

  “I was afraid you would,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  IT WAS THE FROG WHO LEFT the missing bomb. “I got to the Merchants Bank Building about three-thirty.”

  “The lobby?”

  “No. There's a parking lot next to it and a connecting walkway. You come in on the fifth floor.”

  “You had the bomb with you?”

  “In an Ayres plastic shopping bag.”

  “I take it you weren't wearing your mask.”

  “A lightweight houndstooth wool coat and a black velvet hat.”

  “Not clothes you ordinarily wear?”

  “Correct,” she said. “And I also wore a blond wig and glasses.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “I took an elevator to the fourth.”

  “What's there?”

  “It's part of a law office. I got out and looked around until the elevator left. Then I acted like I was on the wrong floor. I asked the receptionist where the stairs were. She pointed down the hall and I went to them.”

  “I see.”

  “One floor down is a women's rest room. Well, on the door it says `omen.' I went in and took my hat off and put on sunglasses.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “The kind of society this is,” the Bear interjected, “anybody passing her on the stairs would only remember `blond' and `sunglasses.’ ” The Bear emphasized her words with hand gestures. Her hands were narrow, with long fingers which looked no younger—though less tanned—than the Frog's.

  I waited.

  The Frog said, “Then, in the stairwell, I went up and looked for a place to leave my package.”

  “Did anybody see you?”

  “No. No one used the stairs.”

  “And?”

  “I went to the fire hose closet on the sixth.”

  “The what?”

  “Every landing in the stairwell has a closet marked `Fire Hose.' They're all left unlocked, and inside, the loops of hose hang down to the floor. It's a perfect place to leave a bomb.”

  “Where, exactly?”

  “I taped it to the back wall. Then I closed the door again.”

  “And it wasn't noticeable?”

  “Absolutely not, unless you were looking for it.”

  “And then?”

  “I left the stairs at the fifth floor and went back to my car.”

  “And you didn't see anybody on the stairs?”

  “No.”

  “What about in the corridor, or in the parking lot?”

  The Frog considered. “A woman got in the elevator with me when I came in, but she punched the first-floor button. And I did see two people on the fifth floor on my way out. But they were laughing and didn't notice me. I think they were headed for the snack bar.”

  “What time did you leave the building?”

  “I was out before four.”

  “In your wig?”

  “I took it off in the car.”

  “And you went where?”

  “About my
own business,” she said pointedly.

  “Well,” I said, “it doesn't sound like anybody picked your bomb up by pure accident.”

  “We agree,” the Bear growled.

  “But maybe someone you didn't notice saw you behaving strangely.”

  The Frog didn't think so, but she said, “It's conceivable.”

  “Or maybe somebody followed you all the way.”

  I expected an immediate and clear rejection of this idea because nobody was supposed to know who they were. Instead there was a hesitation and the two Animals glanced at each other.

  “Look, you've got something to say. Let's get to it, all right?”

  “There was this man,” the Frog said.

  I waited.

  “When we bought our explosives there was a little hitch.”

  “A `little hitch'?”

  “We arranged to buy some dynamite, caps, timers, right? But when we made the pickup we saw a man who seemed to take an interest in us.”

  “Where was this?”

  The Bear glanced at the Frog and said, “Well, you know the rubble belt . . .”

  “The what?”

  “All the empty houses north of downtown that have been boarded up and left to rot. Perfectly good houses—in fact some beautiful houses.”

  “Yes, I know them,” I said.

  Just beyond the current “gentrification” there is a corridor of decay. The “rubble belt”: not a bad name for it.

  “Well,” the Bear said, “we met our supplier just north of 23rd Street behind an empty house.”

  “How many of you were there?”

  “All four.”

  “How did you carry what you bought?”

  “In suitcases,” the Frog said. “But it's not as if we walked the streets. We parked in front of the house and went to what used to be a garage in the backyard. Our supplier was waiting in his car. We paid him and he got the suitcases out of his trunk.”

  “But then,” the Bear said. “I noticed this man walking toward us. He was maybe a couple of hundred feet away.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I pointed him out to our supplier.”

  “And he said?”

  “Not to worry about him. To be precise, he said, `Don't worry 'bout no wino, hon.’ ”

  “But you didn't think he was a wino?”

  “He had a paper bag, but I didn't see him do anything with it. I felt that he was interested,” the Bear said. “He seemed attentive.”

  “Could he have been a policeman?”