Getting Up With Fleas (Trace 7)

by Warren Murphy

  I turned toward the smaller guy with the bad teeth. Before I could say anything, McCue was standing alongside me. He told the smaller man, “It’ll take two tougher guys than you to take us on.”

  Us? I thought.

  “Now get your friend out of here,” McCue said, “before you find out what trouble is really like.”

  The smaller man nodded, helped Beer Belly to his feet, and led him away.

  McCue and I watched them go, then the actor clapped his hands together, and said, “Hot damn. I love bad dialogue.”

  “Let’s just get out of here before they change their minds and come back with their seven brothers,” I said. “Can you drive?”

  “I can not only drive. I can sing while driving. ’I talk to the trees but them peckerheads won’t listen to me.’” He was roaring unmelodiously at the top of his voice.

  “I’ll drive,” I said. “Where are the keys?”

  “In the car.”

  “You leave the keys to a Rolls-Royce in the car?”

  “If I don’t, I lose them,” McCue said.

  “All right.” All the car’s doors were open, so I kind of shoved him in the back seat and drove away from the ginmill.

  Great ride. He was singing “La donna è mobile” in pig latin. I looked around. Somewhere the son of a bitch had found a bottle and was drinking from it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I looked back toward the road and he said, “The great tragedy of my life. I could have been a great operatic tenor.”

  “What went wrong?”

  “I turned out to be a baritone.”

  “Right,” I said. “Who wants to be a baritone? The tenors get all the songs and all the women.”

  “Exactly. It’s always the tenors who are hoisting their glasses and raising their voices in song. Baritones don’t get shit to sing,” he bellowed. “They might as well hum, for all anybody cares. I couldn’t stand not being noticed.”

  “I’ve observed that peculiarity,” I said.

  The guard at the gate was disappointed when he saw me driving, but he brightened when he saw Tony sprawled across the back seat, screaming, savaging “Di quella pira” from Trovatore.

  “For you, my good and faithful servant,” Tony said, and handed the guard the bottle.

  “Thanks,” the guard said as he went to open the gate.

  “Don’t worry, Trace, I’ve got more,” McCue shouted into my ear.

  I parked the car and left the keys in it. What the hell. I could be every bit as irresponsible as he was. Then I helped him up the steps toward the darkened Canestoga Falls Hotel.

  There was a small night-light on as I helped McCue up the stairs.

  He said, “Do you want me to recite ‘The Face on the Barroom Floor’?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Then I’ll sing. “Oh, you can’t chop your poppa up in Massachusetts, not even if it’s meant as a surprise…”

  “Shhh,” I said.

  “Ooops, sorry. People sleeping, right?”

  “Right. Listen, we’ve got to make a deal.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “You stop trying to sneak out on me,” I said. “It’s a pain in the ass to have to drive around trying to find you.”

  “That sounds like a rotten deal to me,” he said. “What do I get out of it?”

  “I won’t try to stop you from drinking.”

  “No?” he said.

  “No. I don’t give a rat’s ass how much you drink.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “A deal?”

  “You have the word of a thespian on it.”

  “What’s that worth?” I asked.

  He stopped in the middle of the hallway, separated himself from me, and drew himself up to his full height. “Sir, I never lie. I deceive, but I never lie.”

  “I’ll remind you of that,” I said. I left him off in front of his door and went back to my own room. On the floor inside the door, I found a note.

  It read: “Your father called tonight. Telephone him tomorrow. Important.” It was signed “Snapp.”

  If it had been real important, Sarge would have said to call him tonight, so I put that out of my mind and began to undress.

  As I laid my jacket and shirt over the back of a chair, I realized that Chico was unreasonable. She always said I was a slob because I hung my clothes neatly on a chair when I take them off. I think this is elegant; she thinks it’s clear evidence that I am a dirtbag.

  “Where should I put them?” I asked her once.

  “In the closet, like everyone else does.”

  “Hah. How little you know. Only fourteen percent of American men put their clothes in the closet when they take them off at night, and all those men watch the Phil Donahue Show. I read that in Chapter 912 of The Playboy Philosophy. Nobody hangs their clothes up, Chico. Suppose they’re dirty. Suppose they’re sweaty. Then they dirty and sweat up all the clean clothes in your closet. Best wait till morning till you’re sober, and you can make an honest evaluation of the state of your clothes. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

  “What difference does it make?” she had said. “You wear them again anyway.”

  “That’s just the way things work out sometimes. My clothes always happen to be clean because I am a very neat and orderly person.”

  “Your clothes are always reeking with alcohol that you spilled on yourself during the night.”

  “If you’re going to resort to personal attack, I’m not going to discuss this with you anymore,” I had said.

  There are a lot of things women just don’t understand. I took off my pants and neatly put them across the back of a chair. Then I took the jacket from the bed and put that on the chair and then hung the shirt over it. I took off my socks and laid them neatly across the tops of my shoes to air out.

  Satisfied that I had done everything good breeding and simple hygiene required, I was standing there in my underwear when the hall door was pushed open.

  Tony McCue stood in the open doorway, wavering from side to side, his famous apologetic smile on his face.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I seem to be having trouble opening my door,” McCue’said. “They don’t make doors like they used to.”

  “Did you try turning the knob?” I asked.

  “My first line of attack,” he said. “When that didn’t work, I swore. Then I kicked it. Nothing worked. It’s hopeless, Trace. I’m a man without a home. Can I bunk with you?”

  “No,” I said. I walked past McCue and down the hall. He followed me. I turned the doorknob and pushed his door open.

  “It seems to have magically corrected itself,” McCue said. Suddenly he threw his hand up to his mouth. “Help me in,” he said. “I think I’ve got to do va-va.”

  “Va-va?” I said.

  “Quick. The bathroom,” McCue said.

  I grabbed his arm and steered him through the bedroom. He ran for the toilet, lowered his head over it, and threw up.

  That was it, I figured. Chico might want to be a detective and carry a freaking gun, but if the work involved helping grown men throw up, it wasn’t for me. Case closed.

  I started for the door, then stopped. Suppose McCue decided to drown himself in the toilet bowl? I would stay, but I wouldn’t watch him, though. I couldn’t stand to see a grown man puke.

  I saw McCue’s pill bottles on the countertop of the sink. One of the bottles was on its side and pills spilled out. I remember they had been neatly stacked when I was up here earlier, looking for McCue.

  He flushed the toilet, stood up, and washed out his mouth in the sink. Then he splashed cold water on his face.

  “Must have been something I ate,” he said. “God, I feel like shit.”

  “You look like it too,” I said.

  He brushed by me and walked back into the living room of the suite. I saw him empty the single tray of ice cubes in the freezer into a silver-colored ice bucket. He found a bottle of gin in a dresser drawer.
r />   “I need a drink,” he said.

  “You need to sleep.”

  “I have to get a pill.” He brushed by me again and went into the bathroom.

  I followed him and as he picked up one of the vials of drugs, I caught his hand. “Don’t take them,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a long story. Trust me.”

  “I can’t sleep without pills,” he said.

  “Tonight you will,” I said.

  I steered him back into the bedroom and pushed him down, fully clothed, onto the bed.

  “You know we’re blood brothers now, don’t you?” he said. “It’s like we cut our wrists and mingled our blood.”

  “Why?”

  “An old Chinese proverb,” he said. “Once you see a grown man heave, you have a responsibility for his life.”

  “Especially if your company is carrying an insurance policy on his life. Go to sleep.”

  “I’ll try if you make me a drink.”

  “Okay.” I went outside, found a glass, filled it with ice cubes, and poured a little gin on top.

  “Lots of ice,” he yelled from the bedroom.

  I handed him the drink. He raised it to his lips, spilled most of it on his face, and passed out. I took the drink away and put it on the end table. Then I went into the bathroom and collected all his pills and took them with me. When I got back to my room, I stuck them in a dresser drawer and went to bed.

  McCue was snoring well. I fell asleep to it.

  Later I woke up. My luminous wristwatch said it was almost four A.M. I never wake up in the middle of the night. Why this time?

  I was listening and I heard a sound in the hallway.

  That was why. That son of a bitch was trying to sneak out again. I got up and walked to the door and opened it softly. I’d trap the bastard.

  But I didn’t see McCue. Instead, I saw Tami Fluff, wearing a satin gown and maribou slippers standing outside his door. She opened the door and went inside.

  For a moment I was annoyed that I hadn’t locked McCue’s door, until I remembered that I couldn’t have. The door locked only from inside the room.

  What the hell did Tami Fluff want?

  I lay back down and got my answer. McCue’s snoring stopped and Tami Fluffs sounds started. She squealed a couple of times. She let out a cry of delight. It took about twenty minutes. Then I heard McCue’s snores reverberating again. A minute after that I heard soft footsteps going past my door.

  Good. Now if maybe everybody was finished jiving and chucking, maybe I could get some sleep.

  Good night, world.

  15

  The phone woke me up before I was ready to get up. I know there are some people who can ignore phones, even sleep through them, but I’m not one of them. Suppose it’s the lottery office telling me I won? Suppose it’s the IRS telling me that they made a mistake and they owe me fifty thousand dollars? Suppose it’s my ex-wife calling to tell me that she is going to jump off the George Washington Bridge? Upper deck. Suppose it was Sarge calling back?

  Unfortunately, this call wasn’t any of those. It was Tony McCue, who said, “Good morning, old sport.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to get up,” he said.

  “Here,” I said. “Hoist yourself to a sitting position, then swing around on your ass until your feet are hovering over the floor, lurch forward, and you’re up.”

  “Easy for you to say,” McCue said.

  “Easy to do.”

  “I can’t get up. You took my pills, you Irish bastard. I need a pill in the morning to get my heart started.”

  “Fake it with the heart,” I said. “Nobody will notice.”

  “You give me my pills or I’m calling the police,” he said.

  “Why do I have your pills?”

  “You took them last night.”

  “Let me think,” I said. I thought a long time and then I remembered taking them. Then I remembered why. “You can’t have those pills,” I said.

  “I’ll never be able to get out of bed without them.”

  “You’d be better able to get out of bed if you didn’t spend all night screwing,” I said.

  “Screwing?”

  “Yes. I heard you.”

  “Damn. I thought there was somebody here last night,” he said.

  “Look,” I said, “I’m awake now. Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll go get breakfast.”

  “Screwing, huh? Can you tell me something?” McCue said.

  “Try me.”

  “Was it good for her too?”

  “She sounded happy,” I said.

  “Good. Can you tell me something else?”

  “What?”

  “Who was it?”

  “Get dressed,” I said.

  As long as I had the damned telephone in my hand, I decided to call Sarge. He was at the office early. Why not? If I lived with my mother, I’d be at the office 168 hours a week.

  “Tracy Investigations.”

  “Hi, Sarge.”

  “Listen, son. You asked me to check on that accident?”

  “Right.”

  “It doesn’t quite go down right,” Sarge said.

  “How’s that?”

  “The guy who got killed was just a guy. Single, assistant credit manager at a bank, nothing to worry about.”

  “So?”

  “But the guy who drove the car,” Sarge said. “There were witnesses there, son. They said this guy ran down the other guy and then peeled off like he was on his way into orbit. But at the end of the block, he broadsided a cab and got his head smashed up. Killed instantly.”

  “He was hit-and-running, though?”

  “Looks that way,” Sarge said. “Anyway, the dead driver was this Mafia goon from around Albany. A very bad actor with a long record. And He was carrying an unlicensed gun.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “So you tell me. Why’d you want me to check out an accident and how come it just turns out that the driver is a mob guy?”

  “This dead driver?” I asked. “Would he be the kind of guy who might take a contract to kill somebody? Could that explain the gun?”

  “This guy was bad, son. He’d take a contract to do Godzilla if it paid enough. What’s it all about?”

  “The guy who got killed,” I said. “He was wearing Tony McCue’s white hat and coat. I just wondered if maybe that hit-and-run accident was meant for McCue.”

  “You might be onto something, son,” Sarge said.

  “I think so. Last night I think somebody was messing with McCue’s pills.”

  Sarge was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “It’s starting to look like you might have to earn that five hundred a day. Want me to come up and give you a hand?”

  “Not yet, Sarge. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m just glad you’ve got that gun I gave you,” he said.

  “I’ll call you later,” I said. I showered, and when I came out of the bathroom, McCue was sitting in my bedroom, looking through a four-year-old copy of Reader’s Digest and looking as if he had just emerged from a health spa. He wore an open-throat red-striped shirt, white jeans, and tan buckskin shoes.

  “Put on some clothes, you’re disgusting,” he told me.

  “That’s nothing compared to watching you toss your cookies into the toilet bowl,” I said.

  “I heaved?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “No wonder I didn’t throw up this morning. I took care of it last night.”

  “Get up. You’re sitting on my clothes.”

  I dug a clean shirt and clean socks out of the pile in the drawer and used a bottom drawer as a hamper for my dirty clothes. McCue moved over and sat on the bed as I put on the same slacks and jacket I’d worn yesterday.

  He looked at me and said, “Traveling light, I see,”

  “The mark of the experienced trav
eler,” I said.

  “The mark of the slob.”

  “Did you come here to hassle me on my wardrobe?”

  “No,” he said. “On my pills. Where are they?”

  “See, you don’t need them,” I said. “You said you couldn’t move in the morning without one, and here you are, snotty, well-dressed, pampered, and much too rich. And without taking a pill.”

  “Without a pill, my ass. I had to dip into my emergency supply. I keep them inside a hollowed-out bible.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but I think somebody was messing around with your medicine last night. When I was in your room early, all the containers were neat behind the faucets, but when we went back in there later, some of them were spilled out. That’s why I didn’t want you to take them.”

  McCue was pensive. “No great problem,” he said finally. “I’ll have Doctor Death run into town and get me fresh prescriptions. She owes that to me for making love to her last night.”

  “It wasn’t Ramona,” I said.

  “Oh, my God. Who was it?”

  “Dahlia Cod well,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I’ve really got to start watching my drinking.”

  We walked downstairs, and on the first-floor landing he touched my arm. “Trace?”

  “What?”

  “Why would somebody mess with my pills?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m beginning to get a hunch that maybe somebody’s trying to kill you. You have any enemies?”

  “Everyone here. All of them.”

  “Maybe one of them hates you worse than all the others,” I said.

  “Well, that isn’t nice,” he said with a voice slow and deep with sorrow. “I’m turning over a new leaf, Trace. From now on, I’m going to be nice to everybody. Everybody.”

  16

  As resolutions go, it was a good resolution, and as resolutions go, it went, because the first thing McCue did when he walked into the dining room was to pose in the open doorway, shout “Good morning, you murderous bastards,” and then walk up to Arden Harden, who was sitting alone at a table and say, “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the Jolly Green Midget.”