The eyeglasses case contained a pair of glasses with frameless beveled lenses, the earpieces attached near the bottoms of them. When I held them up to my eyes everything looked watery. Reading glasses, I decided. I remembered her squinting to check the name on my credit cards.
The leather case contained a manicure set.
I opened the compact. Powder and a puff.
In a zippered compartment in the purse I found a small Hallmark calendar book. The only marks in it were circles around a single date about every four and a half weeks. The last circled date was ten days ago. I decided I could rule out pregnancy as an explanation for her condition. The back cover of the little book was torn in half. The missing piece would have had the name of the store giving out the free calendars.
The wastebasket beneath the desk was empty. So was the one in the bathroom. She must have ripped the book cover up and flushed it. None of her toiletries were suitable for concealing identification.
Her sweater was tossed on the foot of the empty bed. I checked it out and came up empty-handed.
Well, hell. She probably had her ID under her pillow and nobody slept that deeply. I stood beside the bed, watching her sleep and considering my options. I could turn up the thermostat and wait for her to kick the covers off. Or I could go get her some dinner.
She frowned suddenly in her sleep and made a small sound, almost a whimper.
I went out to get her some dinner. I was hungry, anyway.
I brought back Styrofoam cups of vegetable soup, turkey sandwiches on soft rolls, and fruit salad from a deli down the street. The smell of food must have penetrated Allison's dreams. I had just placed the containers on the table when I heard movement behind me. I turned around just in time to watch her sit up. The blankets fell to her waist. I tried to keep the disappointment off my face.
She stared at me for several long seconds, her wide-eyed, unfocused gaze making me wonder if she was really awake. Apparently she was. When I smiled, she frowned and said, “I took it out of your suitcase. It was open. Is that okay?”
I said it was fine. After the initial letdown, Allison in my T-shirt was a whole lot better than fine. The neckline sagged into a V, the shoulder seams were halfway to her elbows, the thin white cotton clung very nicely to her breasts.
I asked if she was hungry. She asked if I had a robe. I had one at home, about eight years old and in mint condition. I handed her a blue wool Pendleton shirt, which I had actually purchased in Pendleton. She took her time, buttoning every button and carefully rolling the cuffs up several times. She got out of bed and took her purse into the bathroom with her. Water started running full blast immediately.
I checked under the pillows and ran my hand between the mattress and box springs. Nothing.
Eventually the water stopped running and Allison came out of the bathroom, her face shiny clean, her hair gleaming in a thick golden cascade down her back. With the oversized shirt and the Alice in Wonderland hairdo, she looked about twelve. Except for the legs. No twelve-year-old ever had legs like that.
The pocket of my shirt looked a little stiffer than it should have. She must have slipped the ID from beneath the pillow while I was trying not to be obvious about watching for her to do it. Getting it out of the breast pocket of the shirt without her noticing didn't seem likely. Outsmarted by a nineteen-year-old girl. Well, it wasn't the first time.
I got her a Seven-Up from the vending machine and we sat down to eat. The television was still on and the sound from it kept the silence from seeming too awkward. When I finished, Allison was still picking at her food. I decided to see what was going on in Mackie. The last news report I had heard was a rehash of the earlier broadcasts.
I propped pillows against the head of my bed and pulled the telephone off the nightstand. After studying the directions on the phone, I dialed the twenty or so digits that would connect me with the second floor of the Mackie Police Station and charge the call to my credit card. Technology can wear a man out.
Someone picked up the phone on the other end and I listened to half a minute's worth of background commotion before Phil Pauling said, “Yeah, well, screw you. Not you, hello.”
I said hello and Phil said “Hang on, Bucky” and the line clicked. I listened to a minute of hollowness before the line clicked again and Phil said, “Where the hell are you?” There was no background noise and I knew Phil had moved into one of the interrogation rooms where he could discuss official police business with a civilian without worrying about who overheard him.
“In Portland,” I said.
“Well, that figures. What are you doing, chasing underage pussy again? You looking for the Finney girl?”
I said yes and Phil said, “I kinda figured her daddy would decide to hire some outside help. He wasn't real pleased with the amount of time and energy we were willing to put into dragging his kid home for him.”
“So how's it going there? You looked good on the tube.”
“Shit, we're really pissing into the wind on this one, Bucky. And Harkins is about to can my ass. He says the TV bitch never would have brought up the corruption investigation if I'd minded my P's and Q's and read the goddamn statement he gave me. Shit, that woman was all over me about it before we went on the air.”
“What's with the execution-style story?”
“Pure media hype. The man was just plain shot to death.”
“You don't think Vanzetti had anything to do with drugs in town?”
“Hell, no. We managed to keep the reporters in the dark about his profession for a couple of hours. The first thing I did was haul in everyone in town I ever even suspected of dealing. I never saw such a bunch of blank stares in my whole life. I'd bet my badge none of them ever heard of Carl Vanzetti until his name showed up on the front page.”
“How'd you find out he was in the business?”
“Ran him through the computer and came up with a federal warrant. For tax evasion. I called the Fucking Bureau of Investigation and they were pissed as hell that we let Vanzetti go and get himself killed. The tax charge was good. Vanzetti'd been living high on the hog and hadn't filed a tax return in fifteen years. But the Feds didn't give a shit about that. They wanted to work a deal. They knew he was some kind of high-class errand boy in a big black market pharmaceutical operation and they wanted him to name some names and in exchange they'd hit him with some back taxes and penalties to make it look good and drop the charges against him. Of course, they didn't bother to explain the game plan to Vanzetti and he already did twenty years' hard time and the thought of going back apparently didn't set too well with him. So he ran. That was six months ago. He lit out of Chi town one jump ahead of the law and nobody's seen hide nor hair of him since. Until this morning.”
“So you don't have any leads at all?”
“Leads? Leads? Oh, we got leads, Bucky. They just ain't leading us anywhere. Lemme start at the beginning, okay?”
I switched the phone to my other ear and said, “Okay.”
“Things started hopping down at the Arms about four twenty-five when the switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree and all the guests started complaining about their beauty sleep being ruined by gunshots. The night clerk heard the shots but he thought it was a truck backfiring. The guests were pretty panicky though, so he tells them all to stay in their rooms and calls us.
“Jackson and Malcolm get over there and they fart around in the lobby for a while before they decide to mosey upstairs. They get on the third floor and discover the definite odor of gunpowder lingering the hallway. So they think 'hot damn' and start checking rooms. The killer was a polite son-of-a-bitch and closed the door behind him.
“They finally get the right room and find Mr. Vanzetti, who wasn't a whole lot of help on account of he'd been shot four times in the chest with a thirty-eight and he was deader'n a doornail. What the hell is a doornail, anyway? So Jackson and Malcolm seal off the scene of the crime, meaning the hotel in its entirety, and I had to drag my weary ass out of b
ed at five in the A.M. and go down there.
“We ID'd the deceased easily enough. He had an Illinois driver's license and a passport, both saying he was Carl Anthony Vanzetti. So we set out tracking down John Thornton.”
Phil paused, possibly for a breath. “Who's Thornton?”
“Just what we wanted to know. Room three-oh-one—that's where the body was—was registered to him. We wasted maybe twenty minutes trying to find someone who could tell us about him. Finally some of the day shift hotel people get down there and I stick Vanzetti's passport picture under their collective noses and they all say, oh, that's John Thornton. Which pretty much ruled out our prime, not to mention only, suspect.”
“None of the guests saw anything?”
“Shit, middle of the night in a hotel you think someone's going to step out in the hall in his jammies to see who's playing with firearms? None of them saw anything. None of them heard anything, except for the shots. And the guests all checked out okay. Jesus, I never saw such a bunch of upstanding citizens in one place in my whole life. All the couples were married, for fucking out loud. I don't know what this world is coming to when you can shake down an entire hotel and not come up with one good case of fornication.”
“They're all down at the Woodland Inn. The Arms doesn't have hourly rates.”
“Well, that's true.” Phil sounded relieved to be reminded that sin was alive and flourishing. “In the meantime, some interesting things were turning up in Vanzetti AKA Thornton's room. Item number one was suitcase containing his clothes. It wasn't real interesting except that just one of his shirts probably cost more than I've spent on clothes in the last five years. Item number two was a corker—another suitcase, smaller and padlocked. Guess what was in it.”
“Drugs?”
“Guess again.”
“Money.”
“You got it. Almost a hundred and fifty thou of Uncle Sam's finest. Small, unmarked bills, non-sequential serial numbers.”
I whistled.
“That's just what I said,” Phil said. “So instead of just a dead man, we got a dead man traveling under an assumed name and carrying one colossal amount of folding money. He also had close to a grand in his wallet, which pretty much ruled out robbery as a motive.
“Then we find item number three, which confused the shit out of us. You want to guess? You'll never guess. A nightgown! A goddamn woman's nightgown hanging on a hook on the back of the bathroom door. Vanzetti was in one of those big rooms the Arms calls suites and they all have two beds but he checked in alone and ordered meals for one from room service all three days he was there. Nobody ever saw him with a woman. Nobody ever heard him with a woman. The cleaning ladies say only one bed was ever slept in. Except for the nightgown and item number four there was nothing to indicate double occupancy.”
“What's item number four?”
“Found it in the bathroom trashcan. Some Kleenex smeared with cold cream and mascara.”
“Maybe Vanzetti liked to dress up.”
“We thought of that. You think we're a bunch of small town hick cops who never heard of perverts? The nightgown was way too small and there wasn't any cold cream or mascara in the room. So I ask you, who—not to mention where—is the woman who took her nightgown and mascara off in Vanzetti's bathroom?”
“Beats me.”
“I talked to our higher priced ladies of the night but they were all wide-eyed innocents at least as far as Vanzetti is concerned. Both beds looked like they'd been slept in but I know funky sheets when I see funky sheets and neither one of those beds was used for any heavy-breathing activities. Besides, who ever heard of a hooker wearing a nightgown? And this wasn't any Frederick's of Hollywood come-and-get-it-big-boy number either. Looked like something your sister would wear. Well, not your sister. I always kinda picture Carrie in black lace. Not to give the impression that I spend a whole lot of time thinking about your sister in sexy nighties, her being a married lady and all. Come to think of it, how come I never did think about Carrie in black lace back before she latched onto young Doctor Kildare?”
“You were married.”
“Oh, yeah. Funny how a little thing like six years of holy wedlock can just kinda slip your mind. Speaking of which, did I happen to mention that Philip the Second hit the winning run in his ball game Saturday?”
“No, you didn't,” I said. “That's great, Phil.”
While Phil gave me a play-by-play description of his son's game, I studied Allison, who had given up on her dinner shortly after I left the table. She was sitting very still, hands clasped in her lap, legs tucked under the chair, head and shouldered bowed. She seemed to be trying to displace as little air as possible.
I wondered idly what her problem was. My best guess was that the man in Pendleton didn't meet with her parents' approval and she ran off to be with him. I didn't know what happened in Pendleton but I figured it was some variation of the usual. She showed up unexpectedly and caught him with the girlfriend. Or maybe with the wife and kids. Or maybe when he found out she ran away and jeopardized the inheritance, he made it clear that he had expected a package deal—her and the old man's money. Whatever happened, I couldn't believe it was more than a minor problem in the long run. She got hurt, but everyone gets hurt. All she needed to do was swallow her pride and call home. She had to be Daddy's little darling and all would be forgiven soon enough.
And yet, I sensed an undercurrent of desperation that seemed out of proportion to her situation. Whoever paid for her clothes and jewelry had enough money to get her home posthaste and first-class. She had to feel uncomfortable accepting the hospitality of a stranger and yet she was in no apparent hurry to make other plans.
Her attempt to steal my car didn't bother me much. Her options at that point were to walk, accept a ride with me, or try to take the car. Going for the car made a lot of sense under the circumstances, especially when I had made it so easy for her. But the fact that she had opted to walk out of Allentown troubled me. If ever there was a time when she should have called home, that was it. Long walks on lonely country roads don't usually appeal to young women. Especially wealthy young women who have probably never walked anywhere outside of a shopping mall.
Phil wrapped up the ninth inning and said, “Where was I?”
“Is there an item number five?”
“Sure is, fingerprints on a water glass. Thumb and first three fingers. Best damn set of prints ever lifted. Looks like an illustration in a how-to-classify-fingerprints manual And the only thing we know about them is they aren't Vanzetti's. There's no item number six. Oh, hell, I have a date with that little redhead over at City Hall and now I'm late on account of you calling up and bending my ear. What did you want?”
I grinned into the receiver. “I didn't want anything.”
“You should have come and kept me company Saturday night instead of tying one on down at the Honky Tonk.”
“I'm hanging up now.”
“Okeydokey,” Phil said and hung up. The silence was startling.
Chapter Eleven
When I joined Allison at the table, she didn't look up and when I asked if she would like to talk about it now, she jumped visibly, looking startled, as if my presence in the room had been forgotten and my return to the table had gone unnoticed.
“About what?” she asked.
“About why you ran away from home and why you can't go back.”
“Oh.” She sounded as if it were the very last subject she expected. She straightened a bit, combing the fingers of both hands through her hair, drawing it back from her face. “No,” she said. “I really don't want to talk about it.”
“I think you should.”
“I'll leave in the morning. You don't mind if I stay here tonight?”
“No, but where do you plan to go in the morning?”
“California, I think.”
A great state to get lost in. “How? Hitchhiking? Chivalry really is dead, babe. There are men out there who'll have you hooked on dru
gs and hooking so fast you'll be under your hundredth john before you figure out what's happening.”
“I wish you'd stop talking about that. You make me sick.” Her tone was oddly perfunctory, as if her thoughts were on something else entirely.
“So I've noticed,” I said. “And I'm one of the good guys. I don't seduce young girls with drugs and sex and turn them out to sell their goodies on the street so I can wear silk shirts and snort coke all day. Think how sick the bad guys would make you feel.”
“Honestly, you make it sound like every girl who leaves home becomes a prostitute. Women can take care of themselves.”
“I'm not talking about women in general. I'm talking about young girls—or boys, it doesn't matter—who are unprepared to be on their own, who cut themselves off from their families and friends, who are either afraid or unwilling to go to the authorities for help, who just plain don't have a chance. I've never met a hooker yet who just woke up one fine morning and said, well golly gee whiz, I think I'll go out and be a prostitute. It just happens. It beats starving.”
“I would never do that.”
“Maybe not. You're smarter than the average hooker. But you'll do what you've already done. You'll go with the first man who seems to offer some kind of security, no matter how temporary. If I told you sleeping with me was the price you had to pay for a roof over your head and food to eat, would you do it?”
“No, I wouldn't,” she said, with a little honest emotion in her voice finally. “And if you had any sense you wouldn't go around telling people you consort with prostitutes.”
“Is consorting as dirty as it sounds? My association with prostitutes has always been strictly business—my business, not theirs. I used to be a cop.”
She paled to roughly the color of the paper napkin she suddenly pressed to her mouth.
“Are the police after you?” I didn't get an answer. “Look, my only connection with the cops right now is trying not to let them catch me breaking any laws. I won't turn you in. But if you've done something besides attempted car theft, I might be able to help. If you're just worried about your folks filing a missing person report, you might as well forget it. If some cop stumbles over you, he might take you in but they aren't out looking for nineteen-year-old runaways. They don't have time to look for ten-year-olds. There's no law against running away from home, anyway.”
Cat's-Paw, Inc. Page 8
