While I Disappear

by Edward Wright

  “I work for Joseph, just like you do.”

  “Maybe not for long.” Her mouth twisted into a grin.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He wants me out of his house. And he said if I feel like quitting my job, that’s all right with him too.”

  “Well,” Horn said, “none of this would have happened if you’d stayed out of trouble.”

  “Go to hell, Mister Horn. You want to know something?” The anger tightened her voice. “I’m ready to be on my own. I don’t need his handouts. He’s just been waiting for the little half-breed girl to fall down, embarrass herself, embarrass her family.”

  “Are you going home?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Are you really going to take a knife to your father?”

  “Won’t know about that until it happens.” She sank back in her chair and mumbled the words, sounding irritated and resentful.

  “All right, listen to me.” He sat up in the big chair, leaning forward. “If you won’t talk to me about the other night, let me tell you a story, and maybe you’ll want to join in. I met up with an old friend, a woman named Rose. You sat with her for a while that night at the Green Light Tavern, and I got together with her a couple of days later. We had a long talk, and I told her about you, about how you’ve been having trouble. She knew a lot about trouble, and also about helping people, and she offered to talk to you. I didn’t ask her; in fact, I didn’t particularly want her to. But she offered.

  “As I said, she had problems of her own, and I had no idea if she’d follow through or not. But then Joseph told me you took off work and lifted a bottle from the bar. I was at Rose’s place later, and I noticed she and someone else had been drinking from a bottle. There was one little thing I didn’t remember until after I’d left. Funny how you can almost miss something that’s right under your nose. The bottle hadn’t been bought at a store. It had a bar spout stuck in the top. Now that doesn’t mean a lot, I suppose. But I know that if a bartender wanted to give away some of his stock, he’d never hand out a bottle with a spout still in it. He’d pull the spout and cap the bottle first.” He paused. “Any of this make sense to you?”

  Cassie slowly twisted a lock of hair around one of her fingers. “Well, suppose I was there,” she said finally. “She called me at the casino. Invited me over. We had a few drinks.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Nothing much. Things I should watch out for. All the terrible things that are waiting for a little girl out there in the big city.” She laughed. “She sounded like my mother.”

  “Did she give you any good advice?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows? I guess she tried.”

  A door opened, and Mad Crow’s aunt came out in her nightdress. Her broad, sharp-planed face regarded them impassively.

  “Good morning, Nee Nee,” Horn said quietly.

  “Make some coffee?” the old woman asked.

  “Don’t go to any trouble.”

  “Make some coffee.” She headed for the kitchen.

  He felt immensely tired. It was time to get to the point. “What time did you leave Rose’s place?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking bored again. “Sometime after midnight. She got sleepy, and I said good night.”

  “Did you lock the door?”

  Her eyes narrowed. She seemed to understand that his questions were not idle ones. “No,” she said. “I couldn’t. What’s this about?”

  You’re stalling, Horn, he said to himself angrily. Spit it out. “Sometime that night, someone came into Rose’s room and killed her.”

  Her jaw went slack. “What?”

  “Killed her. Strangled her with a piece of rope. I found her last night.”

  “No.” Without taking her eyes off him, she slowly brought her knees up and hugged them, as if suddenly cold. “Who?”

  “I don’t know. In that neighborhood, it could have been anyone. Her purse had been emptied. Did you see anyone there? Did anyone see you?”

  Her face still vacant, she shook her head. “No. I mean, I don’t remember. There were a few people around. I suppose someone could have seen me.”

  “Cassie, if the police get your name, they’ll be coming around asking questions. So I have to ask you first: Do you know anything about what happened there?”

  “Why don’t you say what you mean?” she said slowly, her eyes fixed on the tabletop. “You want to know if I killed her.”

  “All right. Did you kill her?”

  “No.” The word came out gutturally.

  They sat there in silence for a minute or two, listening to the stirring sounds in the back of the house. Nee Nee came out of the kitchen with two cups of black coffee, which she put on the table between them, then left without a word.

  Cassie spoke in a voice too low for him to hear.

  “What?”

  “She was a nice woman. She didn’t deserve that.”

  “I know.”

  A door opened, and heavy footsteps came down the hall, followed by the sight of Mad Crow in a garishly patterned robe and slippers. “What the hell?” he muttered as he spotted them. “Thought I heard talking.” He came over and sank into one of the chairs, raised his eyebrows at Horn. “Let me guess. You’re sitting here in my living room because you want my permission to court my niece. If so, you’re a stupider cowboy than I thought.” He noticed the coffee. “Think I could get a cup of that?” His eyes darted between the two of them, and he caught the tension. “All right, what’s going on?”

  Horn took a long breath and began talking. He told everything. As he spoke, Mad Crow’s face went from shock to anger to something more guarded.

  “Sonofabitch,” the Indian muttered when Horn had finished. “Poor Rose.” All three sat motionless, the windows now bright around them. Horn was about to speak when he saw that Mad Crow was regarding his niece through narrowed eyes. There was suspicion in the look.

  Cassie saw it too.

  * * *

  “You sure you want to throw her out?”

  The two men sat at Mad Crow’s kitchen table while Nee Nee fixed them breakfast. Cassie had gone to her room. When the food arrived, Mad Crow splashed liberal amounts of hot sauce on the scrambled eggs, then studied his plate as if deciding what to do with the food. Finally he shoved a forkful in his mouth. “I don’t think you want to get involved in this,” he said around the eggs.

  Horn started to say something, then looked questioningly toward the aunt.

  “She’s all right,” Mad Crow said.

  “Okay. Just thinking out loud. Cassie was in a place where a murder happened. Maybe somebody saw her, maybe not. If the cops ever put her on their list, you know it won’t make any difference to them whether she did anything or not. I’m not particularly happy about the treatment I got from the police, but at least I’m white. An Indian—”

  “I know.” Mad Crow reached over to refill Horn’s coffee cup. “But she’s on her own now. She hates my guts, and she’s told me too many lies. My sister’s just gonna have to understand. Cassie’s a big girl, and I’m through looking out for her, covering up for her. If she needs some help finding another place to stay, even getting another job, she can ask me, and I’ll try to help. That’s all.”

  Mad Crow’s wide mouth was set in a hard line. The rest of his eggs sat untouched. “Something else you want to say?”

  “Just this. If you ever hear that Cassie’s headed back home, you need to call your sister right away.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You may not know everything about why Cassie’s here. She went after her father with a knife.”

  “What?”

  “Said he’d been hitting her mother.”

  “Why, that….” Mad Crow let his fork drop to the table, and Horn saw the old look steal into his eyes, the same look the Indian had shown that night in the Green Light Tavern. Only this time there was no grin.

  “All right,” Mad Crow said quietly. “That�
��s between me and him. Some day it’s going to happen.”

  “Do you mind if I talk to her again?”

  “What about?”

  “Just things.”

  “Be my guest.” He looked sideways at Horn. “You, uh….You think she did it?”

  “Did what?”

  “You know.”

  “Hell, no, I don’t think so. And you better not either.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The police came that night. He had tried to get some work done around the place but, exhausted, he finally turned in before sunset, while the rim of the far side of the canyon was still painted orange by the lowering sun. He slept soundly until something awakened him around nine. He lay on his couch under a sheet and blanket, listening, then saw a bright light rake through the trees outside the front windows. A second later it was gone. Then it returned, this time illuminating his front porch.

  He got up and dressed quickly. Stepping out the front door, he saw a large, dark-colored sedan parked just beyond the locked gate. It had twin searchlights, and both were busily playing around the cabin and property.

  He walked down to the gate. Two men stood on both sides of the car, leaning casually against the doors, operating the light handles with small, expert wrist motions.

  “You Mr. Horn?” asked the man standing on the passenger side.

  “That’s right. You want something?”

  “Yes, indeed.” The man flipped his suit lapel to one side, and the shield pinned underneath it shone dully in the reflected light. “My name’s Coby, and this is Stiles. We’re with the police, and we’d like you to unlock the gate so’s we can come on up and have a talk with you.”

  “Happy to.” He pulled the key from his pocket, freed the big lock, and swung the gate open. Stiles got in and, tires crunching on the gravel, drove the sedan twenty yards up the estate road and then turned off and parked in front of the cabin. Horn and the man’s partner followed on foot.

  “You’re way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, aren’t you?” Coby asked as the three mounted the steps to the porch.

  “I suppose,” Horn said. “I work here, looking after the property.”

  “What property?” Coby was heavy-set and slow-moving, with a soft face and an amiable grin fixed onto it. He leaned against one of the front posts, hands in his pockets. Stiles, who was younger and apparently the junior partner, sat on the top step, playing with the crease in his fedora.

  “Up on the hill,” Horn said. “It’s the old Aguilar estate.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Well, unless you used to go to the movies a lot twenty years ago, you wouldn’t have,” Horn said. “Place was built by Ricardo Aguilar. He was big in the silents.”

  “I think I’ve heard of him,” Stiles said. “Didn’t he play Ben-Hur?”

  “That was Ramon Novarro,” Horn said. “But Aguilar was the same kind of actor. Big movies like that.” If you like, I could give you the tour, Horn thought. If we had the time and a few shovels, maybe I could even show you where a few bodies are buried.

  “You know a lot about the movies?” Stiles asked from where he was seated, and Horn thought he detected a small secret joke in the question.

  “Sure he does,” Coby said before Horn could answer. “’Cause he used to be in the movies.” He turned to Horn. “Didn’t you?”

  “That’s right,” Horn said.

  “Cowboy movies,” Coby went on. “You used to saddle up and ride after the bad guys, get into shootouts, all that stuff.”

  “I guess so.”

  “I never heard of you before today,” the detective said. He pulled out a book of matches, extracted one, and began scouring the inside of one ear. His face took on a reflective look. “But I dug out your record, and there were some newspaper clippings in there. I guess you were hot stuff. Me, I always liked Gene Autry.”

  “You like the singing cowboys,” Horn said. “The ones with the guitars.”

  “Not all of ’em.” Coby shot him a look, to see if Horn was making fun of him. “Just Gene. Anyway, a few years ago, you got put away for something. That right?”

  “You saw the record.”

  “Nearly beat a man to death, what I heard.”

  “It wasn’t as bad as that.”

  “Did two years for it. Must’ve been pretty bad.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Having apparently quelled the itching in his ear, Coby flipped the match over the porch railing. “Anyway, brings us to the reason we’re here. Woman got killed downtown the other night. A barfly named—” He pulled a small notebook out of an inside coat pocket, turned a few pages until he found what he wanted. “Named Rose Galen. She lived in one of those old places up on Bunker Hill. That neighborhood’s crawling with winos and derelicts, all kinds of people like that, you know? It’s about one step up from skid row. They fight over cigarettes, over bottles of booze, and every now and then, one of them winds up murdered. Looks like she was one of those.”

  “So why are you talking to me?”

  “Well, interesting thing,” Coby said, warming to the subject. “Couple of people saw you with this gal in the last few days. One was a bartender down on Broadway who spotted you at the same table with her and some other characters. There was a scuffle, and everybody left. He said he wasn’t sure who anybody was, but then you came back for a minute and he got a good look. Said he finally placed your face after you left. You know, from the movies.”

  Horn remembered the photo of Johnny Mack Brown over the bar. Just my luck, hethought. A bartender who likes westerns.

  “You said a couple of people,” Horn said.

  “Did I say a couple? I don’t remember. Anyway, this is the part where I quit talking and you start.”

  He had to be careful about what he said. He couldn’t lie about knowing Rose. If he denied being at her place, they might force Madge to contradict him. Someone could also place him at the Anchor Mission when she was there. All he had was the truth, and it offered dismal protection.

  “Let me say something first,” Horn began. “Since I got out, I’ve been doing my job and trying to stay out of trouble. I work at the Mad Crow Casino—”

  “I know,” Coby said. “I hear Mickey Cohen’s got a piece of that place.”

  “That’s the owner’s business, not mine. Thing I’m trying to say is, since Cold Creek I’ve had a clean record. I don’t go around killing people.”

  “Fine,” Coby said. He and Stiles waited.

  “I ran into Rose at that tavern. There was a little trouble, but the bartender can probably tell you it was between two other men. Rose was an old friend, and I caught up with her later and walked her home. Two days later, I looked her up at the Anchor Mission, where she sometimes volunteered. We walked over to Little Tokyo for some lunch. That night—the night she was killed—I called her, and she said I could come by the following night. When I showed up, her door was unlocked. I found her dead.”

  “You found her?” Coby asked quietly.

  “That’s right. There was another old gal there, friend of Rose. She went off to call the police—”

  “We talked to her. Funny she didn’t say anything about you being there.”

  Horn laughed. “Well, I’m not surprised. She looked like she was in shock. I don’t know how she even found her way to the phone. Anyway, I thought I’d better just leave—you know, with my record and all. I guess that was a mistake, but I’m not used to walking up on dead bodies, and I wasn’t thinking very well.”

  “I hear you were in the war,” Coby said casually. “You must have seen a few bodies over there.”

  “Sure,” Horn said. “But not like this.”

  “Uh-huh.” The detective flipped through the notebook pages again. “You know any of her friends?”

  “Not really. Just that woman. Madge, she said her name was. And the pastor over at the mission.”

  “Emory Quinn,” Coby said after a glance at his notebook. “We talked to hi
m. You want to tell me where you were two nights ago?”

  Horn told Coby about his visit with Henry Otis over by UCLA in the early evening. The detective wrote down the address in his notebook. “After that,” Horn said, “I came home and stayed here.”

  “And no one saw you here.”

  “Nope. I live alone.”

  Coby wrote that down too.

  “One of the roomers said they saw a stranger going up the stairs in the building the night Rose Galen was killed. A young woman, dark hair. Ring any bells?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Okay. Anything else you want to tell us?”

  “If I made a problem by not sticking around last night, I’m sorry.”

  “Sure.” Coby stood there studying him, that half-smile still stuck on his face.

  “I’d sure like to know if you’re arresting me,” Horn said. “If so, I’ll finish getting dressed. If not, I guess I’ll get back to bed.”

  Coby laughed, made a meaty fist, and brushed Horn’s shoulder with it good-naturedly. “Might be fun to arrest you. That’s one of those things I always wanted to do—take a movie actor downtown. Friend of mine, he’s in Vice. Got his picture in the paper the night he nailed Robert Mitchum for smoking a little weed. Never let me forget it. I always told him I’d get my own movie actor someday. Maybe it’s going to be you, huh?

  “Now, Stiles here—” He indicated his partner with a nod of his head. “Thing he likes to do most is beat up Mexicans. That, and pumping his girl friend.”

  “All right, Luther,” Stiles said, sounding bored.

  “Me, though, I just want to collar a movie star. Since I can’t get Robert Mitchum, I’d settle for a washed-up cowboy actor. No offense, of course.”

  “I’d be a disappointment,” Horn said. “You wouldn’t see a single photographer turn up.”

  Coby looked around at the shabby cabin. “Maybe so. Anyway, I don’t have enough on you. Hell, maybe you’re clean. But just for fun, let’s say you killed this Galen woman. I’ll get what I need, and I’ll be back. I’ll be the sheriff, and you’ll be the horse thief who gets to ride out to the hanging tree, just like in those old movies of yours.”

  As if catching an unspoken signal from his partner, Stiles rose to his feet. Coby stepped closer to Horn, looked him up and down.