Sinister Heights

by Loren D. Estleman

  “I’ll talk to her,” Iris said between bites. “I’ll call you. If she agrees to a meeting I want to be there. Leland Stutch. I’ll be damned. If that creep husband tries to come in for any part of it, I’ll put Mr. Chapin farther back in the line for that chainsaw.”

  “How long’s the line?”

  “Amos, you can’t see the end.” She buttered her baked potato. “Did you get a chance to play that number at the Grand?”

  “I got hung up, sorry.”

  “Just as well. I’m lucky at roulette; it makes up a little for the rest of my life. If I hit it big I might retire. Where would the women go then?”

  “To you.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it. There’s no telling how long this humanitarian streak will last. Prostitution didn’t take. I crapped out on paradise, and you know what happened when I went for the white picket fence and two-point-five kids. Who was it said you can only go so far in one direction?”

  “I think it was Columbus.”

  “Yes, and look at all the trouble he caused. What about you? When you put in for your license, did you think you’d still be doing the same thing all these years later?”

  “I didn’t think about it. It beat where I was when I got the idea.”

  “I’ll bite. Where?”

  “In a hole, avoiding a flame-thrower.” I twirled my fork in a pile of pasta. “Maybe when Constance’s ship comes in she’ll make you a donation.”

  “No, they only remember me when they go back to their men and wind up in the hospital. It’s my fault for making the sons of bitches mad.” She lifted her glass. “Self-pity. Who else if not us?”

  I lifted my glass. It was empty.

  When the check came she asked if I was going home.

  “Probably. I’m not as lucky as you at roulette.”

  “Can I go with you?”

  I hesitated, then continued counting out bills. “How do you feel about dust? The maid didn’t show up this year.”

  “Just as long as the sheets are clean.”

  I overtipped the waitress in spite of the dry spell. On the way home with Iris close beside me, defying the seatbelt law, I checked the mirror for caramel-colored Chevies. She was right. I’d been going in one direction too long.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  “I know what I said, Mrs. Stainback. Listen to what I’m saying now. Well, ask her to come to the phone.” Iris looked up at me. “I never let calls go through to residents. It’s a decision I defend in court three or four times a year.”

  “Bill of Rights,” I said. “What a bother.”

  “I’m peddling survival, not liberty.” She bent her head to the receiver. “Hello, dear. How are you? Yes, I really want to know. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

  She was sitting in the easy chair in the living room, wearing one of my shirts and nothing else. The tails came to mid-thigh. With her legs crossed, the long muscle in her right thigh stood out like insulated cable; all those trips up and down courthouse steps made owning a Stairmaster redundant. Her naked feet were long and slim, with high arches and clear polish on the nails.

  She smiled thanks when I set a saucer of buttered toast and a mug of black coffee on the table beside the telephone, but she wasn’t there. She was in the shelter in Monroe, telling Constance Glendowning about the Stutch inheritance, telling the story in detail as I’d told it to her and as if Constance hadn’t heard it from her mother all the time she was growing up. All those depositions had trained her to park the emotions around the corner; she might have been discussing the previous fiscal year with her accountant.

  I sat on the end of the old sofa that retained most of its stuffing, drinking coffee and admiring the view. She was wearing her hair short again, nearly as short as it had been when we’d met. It made her look younger than she’d looked in the turban. She’d grown leaner in the years since I’d last taken inventory, but not thin; last night had been like wrestling a mountain cat, only without as much bloodshed. The scratches would heal.

  The receiver went into its cradle. “You heard?”

  “I don’t listen in on other people’s telephone conversations.”

  “Balls. You were staring at my ass.”

  “I offered you a robe.”

  “Saying no to one thing is not saying yes to another.”

  “Objection,” I said.

  “On what grounds?”

  I swallowed coffee and grinned.

  “I had a good time too.” She smiled back. “She wants the day to prepare little Matthew, who’s been through a lot of changes lately for a three-year-old. Meet us at the shelter at six-thirty.” She gave me the address. “Don’t ring at the front door. There’s a screened porch out back where residents receive visitors. Go around there.”

  I picked up a pen and wrote the address on the cover of TV Guide. “No Y chromosomes allowed inside the house, I guess.”

  “Only the nonthreatening kind. You know, sensitive and caring and probably not anatomically correct. Obviously, you don’t qualify. Don’t take that as a compliment; Big, good-looking brutes are the reason most of my residents are residents. A substitute mailman is enough to put them back several squares.” She munched toast. “Decision’s hers whether she’ll come back to Detroit and with who. Whom? Fuck it. That’s the deal, Amos. The money’s important, but it’s just paper if getting it undoes the progress she’s made. If she doesn’t want to go, that’s the end.”

  “I hired on to find her, that’s all. I’m fresh out of gunny sacks.” I swirled my coffee to no good purpose. “She can go to her mother’s first, if it’ll help. Mrs. Stutch wants to see them both at once or not at all.”

  “They should have a lawyer.”

  “Come along. At this point you could pass the bar. They don’t have to answer her offer right away. If Rayellen brings a lawyer, or asks them to sign a piece of paper, we’ll each grab one of Constance’s arms and haul her out of there.”

  She lifted her brows over her mug. “So it’s Rayellen, is it?”

  “I’m not trolling for millions, Iris. She’s only had the other name a little while. Old Man Stutch had it all stretched out of shape a half-century before she was born.”

  “She’s better-looking than I thought. You don’t usually go on the defense so fast.”

  “I didn’t get in my eight hours last night.”

  “Yes, you did.” She started and glanced at her wrist. It was bare. “What time is it?”

  I looked at the shelf clock that was older than the house. “Ten to eight.”

  “Damn it. I’m meeting the secretary of the county planning commission at nine. They want to rezone me out of business.” She stood and brushed the crumbs off the shirt. Now the tails fell about her knees. Barefoot, she was a lot smaller than she was. “I parked at the MGM Grand. Do you think they’ve towed me?”

  “They probably think you’re still inside.”

  “Wish I had time to play that number. I feel lucky.”

  “I’ll play it for you after I drop you off.”

  She came into my arms, warm and clean-smelling. “Would you? I’ll split the take.”

  “What if we lose?”

  “Too bad for you. It would be your Walker luck snagging up my kind.”

  We kissed. She tasted of coffee and tart strawberries. I hadn’t served any strawberries.

  We were moving onto another level when she planted her palms against my chest and pushed loose. “Uh-uh. Ten minutes of that and they’ll put up a Speedway on my lot.” She ran off to dress.

  When she came out, makeup on, tucking a tendril of hair up under the turban, she looked fresh from the box. I drove her downtown and into the flashily lit parking deck at the Grand, where a black attendant in a red jacket with a gold crest took her claim ticket.

  “Steel-gray Volvo, brother,” Iris said. “Ten bucks if I’m behind the wheel in one minute. You got ten?” she asked me, as the attendant sprinted off.

  I found a bill a
nd held it out. “What if I didn’t?”

  “I’d dock him ten seconds. That’s just an advance on what you owe me, sugar. Your gender, I mean.” The West Indies was back in her speech; it had always been good for a fifty-dollar tip back on John R.

  When she left, in just under a minute, I went into the jangling casino, past banks of senior citizens in pastel sweats working the slots with nothing on their faces but doom, and waited my turn at the roulette wheel. A floor man gave me the fisheye; in January an off-duty cop had shot himself in the Motor City Casino after a bad run of cards, and I must have looked like sad heat. I stepped up and put down the last of what I’d drawn on Rayellen Stutch’s check on the black seven at roulette. It was gone faster than Iris.

  Mrs. Campbell answered the telephone in Iroquois Heights. I had a mind’s-eye glimpse of a map of the United States crisscrossed by red wires, describing a network made up of husbandless matrons running interference for their female employers. While I was waiting for my client to come on I dealt myself a Winston and contemplated the three bank calendars hanging on the wall opposite my desk, representing the months of March, April, and May. Free calendars were becoming rare. Before long it would cost me a little more to know where I’d been, where I was, and where I was going.

  “Mr. Walker.” She was panting.

  “What is it this time?” I asked. “Running with the bulls or heavy dusting?”

  “Nautilus. The wealthier you are, the more you pay to sweat. Do I take this call to mean you’ve rounded up all the relatives?”

  “I caught a break. The woman who runs the shelter where Constance is staying is an old acquaintance. I’m meeting with them both tonight. If I don’t scare her off, you’ll see her tomorrow. Maybe as early as tonight, but I haven’t checked in yet with Carla Witowski.”

  “Call me as soon as you know. I’m hosting a fundraiser at the civic center for a new library at eight. I’ll need rime to call and cancel.”

  “I didn’t know anyone in the Heights read books.”

  “Don’t be a snob. Connor Thorpe roped me into it. He’s invested a lot in the city. GM is counting on tax breaks for its new industrial center.”

  “What’s a security man got to do with investments?”

  “For years he was the man you had to see first if you wanted to run something past Leland. He has a lot of friends here. I guess someone on the board thought it wouldn’t make sense to send in a Baby Buster business grad instead. I don’t pretend to understand all the politics. All I need to do is look good in a low-cut evening gown. That’s why the Nautilus and everything else.”

  “I didn’t know being rich was such a tough job.”

  “Staying rich is. Will you call?”

  I said I’d call. “This a family affair, or are you bringing the troops?”

  “If you mean my attorneys, that comes later. Talking takes twice as long when people won’t let you. I want it to be a pleasant experience. Mrs. Campbell will serve refreshments. In addition to her piano playing, she’s a world-class chef.”

  “She isn’t an ice sculptor, by any chance?”

  “I don’t know. I can ask. Why?”

  “A life-sized study of your late husband might be a good thing for Carla to go at with an ice pick. That would guarantee a pleasant experience for one of you.”

  “I’ll ask.”

  I cut the connection and dialed another number.

  “Witowski residence.” It was Carla’s low tone. Her dog was coughing in the background.

  I identified myself and said I was meeting with her daughter that night. She took in her breath, then snapped at Moo-goo to shut up. The coughing stopped. “Is she all right? That creature she’s married to—”

  “I haven’t spoken to her yet, but she’s in good hands. You can ask her yourself when you see her. Mrs. Stutch wants to meet with you both at the same time.”

  “I want—I’d like to see her before I walk into that room.” She stopped short of making it a request.

  “I’ll put it on the list. It’s up to her. You were right about her husband; she’s taken her boy and left him. Being right can be a hard thing to be forgiven for.”

  “It’s never worth the cost, Mr. Walker. I don’t know why it’s so important to so many people when all it does is cause pain.”

  There wasn’t a thing in that I could use, so I let it lie. I told her the meeting with Mrs. Stutch could take place that evening or more likely tomorrow. “If it’s tomorrow, Constance will need a place to stay overnight. If I leave her in the shelter she may change her mind.”

  “I’ll have her old room ready.”

  “The boy may be with her. In fact, he probably will be. At this point you probably couldn’t pry them apart.”

  “It’s a queen-size bed. There’s a rollaway in the basement I can bring up in case Matthew’s such the little man he won’t share a mattress with his mother.”

  I grinned at the calendars. “You sounded like a real granny there.”

  “I hope so, Mr. Walker. I need the running start.”

  “Let’s not lose sight of the main objective,” I said. “This means a fresh start anywhere in the world if you both play it right.”

  “It would be a fresh start anyway. Oh, my.” She sobbed out the last.

  I said I’d call when I knew the plan and we exchanged goodbyes.

  I closed out a small flock of cases whose clients didn’t care much when, they were resolved or even if, without moving any farther from the telephone than my boarding-house reach to the file cabinet. That took me up to the lunch hour. When I got back, there were no Hindu pashas waiting in the reception room, no sea captains cackling over precious bundles, no exotic women or deaf hunchbacks or flashy gangsters or tragic clowns. There were just the same aging magazines and a little pile of plaster dust on the rug from a hole in the ceiling, chewed by a squirrel under the impression we could both make a living from what was inside.

  I let myself into the war room and sat down behind the desk and smoked a cigarette and waited for the telephone to ring. I smoked another, checked to see if the telephone was working, and waited some more. I was beginning to miss the squirt with the summons. I locked up finally and went home, where it was supposed to be quiet. Iris’s empty coffee mug and the saucer containing the ruins of her breakfast were still on the table next to the easy chair. I carried them into the kitchen with no expression on my face and rinsed them off in the sink.

  There was nothing on television at that hour except a couple of shrill talk shows and a children’s program featuring an animated tugboat. I watched the tugboat. It made me feel like I was having a sick day, so I switched it off after ten minutes. I shuffled through the books stacked on the coffee table, selected one I’d been nibbling at for the better part of a month, and sat down to finish it. It was the true-life account of an intrepid band of adventurers who decided to climb a mountain in Tibet, only the mountain didn’t feel like being climbed that day, so it knocked them all down and climbed them instead. Most of the corpses were still up there on the north face, brittle as Pixie Stix. It gave me a chill, so I took a hot shower and shaved for the second time that day and put on fresh clothes; I almost pulled on a heavy turtleneck, then remembered it was April and reached for a long-sleeved polo in brushed cotton.

  I called for the correct time, reset the clock on the shelf and wound it, but that didn’t make it go any faster. I walked around, touching furniture. I needed another hobby. There didn’t seem to be much point in that one. Mountain climbing, maybe.

  I made an early supper out of a can of chili and a couple of knuckle bones, washed it down with cold beer, and did the dishes, including those from that morning. After Everest they were just dirty dishes. When I finished it was five o’clock—rush hour everywhere else, meditation time on the freeways serving Detroit, under perpetual construction, like Penelope’s shawl or a hepatic liver. I had an hour and a half, just time enough to make the thirty-minute drive south. I got the car out of the ga
rage and pointed it toward Monroe, Iris, and Constance Glendowning. I didn’t even feel the wind pick up and change directions. My mind was on the top of the mountain.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  Dusk was gathering as I entered the city of Monroe, but the streets weren’t glowing, a positive sign. A near-meltdown at Enrico Fermi, the world’s first nuclear energy plant, at nearby Lagoona Beach came within atoms of wiping out Southeastern Michigan in 1966, along with part of Ohio and the entire fishing industry on Lake Erie. The plant closed soon after, but cloned itself into Fermi II, and a generation of Monrovians had come to their majority uncertain about how much time they had before the next—and last—incident. Pedestrians walk the small-town streets with a cringing gait, the way West Berliners used to when they entered the shadow of the Wall.

  The house was big and solid and old, just as Jerry Zangara had described it, and as ugly as they knew how to build them when function capped the list of priorities. Yellowish tile like discolored dentures covered the frame and a double row of narrow guillotine windows marched across the porchless front, their blinds drawn irregularly, as if stifling yawns. An arched roof, contributed at a later time, sheltered whoever rang the doorbell, while any companions he might have brought with him stood out in the rain and snow. Fortunately it wasn’t raining or snowing, and anyway the front door wasn’t for me.

  The driveway was paved, but a dozen winters of frost and thaw had sunk holes in the earth beneath, scooping out bowl-shaped depressions in the asphalt, which had then crumbled. Weeds had spiked up through the cracks, and patches of sand and gravel showed like naked skin through ripped seams. A faint stain was still visible where automobile fluid had soaked into the dirt. This was what had aroused Jerry’s suspicion: evidence that Constance Glendowning’s incontinent Chrysler had parked there before someone whisked it into the garage out back and out of sight. The grass was cut but untreated, with bare patches and fistfuls of quackgrass growing more healthily than the seeded turf, the way it always seemed to do. The place had been someone’s private home about the time of the invention of the electric iron, but now it had the stale frayed anonymous look of an institution.