Cat's-Paw, Inc.

by L. L. Thrasher

  “April had been gone for a few months and I didn’t really give a damn about anything. I went to work because it was better than being at home. It was Halloween night. Mackie celebrates Halloween the old-fashioned way—lots of tricks. We were busy as hell and it was about midnight before I ever got to the police building and I never did get over to my desk.

  “Someone had decorated the place. There were jack-o’-lanterns all over, spider webs hanging from the ceiling, all kinds of crap. I noticed a big pumpkin on my desk but it was facing the other way. Then the guy who was Chief of Detectives back then put some papers on my desk and started laughing like crazy. He doesn’t laugh very often so after he left, everyone else in the room went over to see what was so funny.

  “The pumpkin was carved to look like a house, with a door and some windows. There was a mailbox painted on it. My name was on the mailbox.” I shut up for a minute to let the pain in my throat subside. “Had a wife and couldn’t keep her. Shit. I threw the pumpkin through the window and threw my badge out after it. It seemed to make sense at the time.”

  “Did you find out who did it?”

  I jumped about a foot off the bed. “Jesus Christ, I thought you were asleep.”

  “You were talking to me.”

  “Well, I still thought you were asleep. You didn’t say anything.”

  “You sounded like you just wanted me to listen.”

  “Are you sure you’re only seventeen? I knew who did it. There was a cop named Porter who was a real nut-case. He pulled practical jokes constantly. None of them were funny.”

  I didn’t tell Allison the rest of it. Carrie knew most of my sins but I had never even told her how I deliberately set out to charm the pants off Porter’s lonely, homely wife. It wasn’t hard to do and I whiled away several days of unemployment in the Porters’ chintzy bedroom, waiting for the day I knew would come, the day Porter would slip away from work and come home for a snack or a nap or a quickie, the day I was going to break every bone in his body if he didn’t shoot me first.

  The day came. Porter didn’t shoot me and I never laid a hand on him. I pulled my clothes on and watched his wife’s face as he explained to her exactly why I had found her charms so irresistible. I left them both crying on the marriage bed I had recently defiled. They moved to California a month later. If there’s a hell, Betty Porter’s tears bought my ticket.

  Allison moved restlessly inside her swaddling blankets.

  “Zachariah?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Would it be all right if I tell you I love you?”

  “For crying out loud, it’s four o’clock in the morning.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s all right as long as you promise not to believe it.”

  I could tell she was smiling as she said, “I promise.” Then, very solemnly, she said, “I love you.”

  The statement, incomplete as always without a response, hovered above the bed. I didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, Allison did.

  “I promise not to believe you either.”

  I kissed the top of her head. “I love you. Now go to sleep.”

  She did. I couldn’t, so after a while I got up and undressed and got into my own bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I managed to get about five hours’ sleep before Allison woke me up by sitting on my pillow. I opened my eyes to the sight of a creamy thigh so close I could see the fine pale gold hairs on it. There isn’t much you can do with a thigh that close but kiss it, so I did and felt goosebumps rise beneath my lips. When I curved my hand around her leg just above the knee, Allison shivered.

  “The mountains are out,” she said.

  They were. The room was awash with sunshine and she had opened the window to let in a fresh breeze. A perfect day for a picnic. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and Allison in my arms. And I didn’t have to do anything until eight o’clock. I nuzzled the thigh again while visions of Allison in a motel room with me for ten hours danced through my head.

  “How would you like to go to the zoo?” I asked. “I can drop you off and pick you up this afternoon. You’ll like it. And there’s the Western Forestry center next to it and OMSI. That’s the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. You’ll like them all.”

  She thought it was a wonderful idea. I told her to turn around so I could put my pants on.

  “What are you wearing?”

  “Nothing.”

  She smiled. “I saw you naked the other night.”

  “You were older then. Turn around.”

  I was ready to go twenty minutes later but Allison was still in my T-shirt so I called Phil. He seemed distracted and after he called me Zachariah for the third time, I asked him what was wrong.

  “Aw, shit. Harkins is driving me nuts. That man’s about half a bubble off plumb on a good day and ever since this murder went down he’s been acting like a man in need of a rubber room. First big case since he’s been Chief and we’re running around like a bunch of jackasses who couldn’t arrest a jaywalker if he stepped on our toes.”

  “Don’t let him get to you. You been to a meeting lately?”

  “Last night. Don’t worry, it’d take a better man than Harkins to drive me to drink.”

  “If I remember correctly, it usually takes a woman.”

  I didn’t join in Phil’s laughter. The solution to his problem, and to Harkins’ problem, was on her knees on the bed beside me, threading one of her gold hoops through the hole in my earlobe.

  “You haven’t come up with anything new?” Phil said no and I asked, “How about relatives? They’re always a good bet.” Guile and cunning again.

  “Yeah, but Vanzetti didn’t have any. He never married and he was the only child of two only children. We’d have to go back three generations just to find some kind of cousin. Bucky?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Aw, nothing. It’ll keep. I gotta get back to work.”

  I hung up the phone, smiling at Allison, who was related to a dead man who had no relatives. She sat back on her heels, tilting her head to the side.

  “You look like a pirate,” she said.

  “You aren’t going to ask why I had my ear pierced?”

  “No,” she said and added very primly, “I’m not going to ask about the tattoo either.”

  I laughed. “I forget it’s there. And don’t you go telling anyone you know about it. I could go to jail for letting a minor see it.”

  “I would like to know how you got the scar.”

  The scar she was referring to was the same one Bundy had asked about. It was shaped like a number seven, stretching between my shoulder blades and angling down to the small of my back. It looked as though Zorro had made two-thirds of his mark on my back with a very shaky rapier.

  “You know how in the movies when there’s a big fight someone always crashes through a window and gets up and walks away? In real life you don’t get up and walk away. You lie there and bleed all over the sidewalk.”

  “You were knocked through a window? Was that when you were a policeman?”

  It was when I was a drunk. “After I quit. I was in a bar and I took exception to the way a man was treating a woman. I didn’t notice he had three friends with him.”

  “That sounds romantic. Protecting a lady’s honor.”

  The lady sold her honor nightly, hourly if she could find the customers, and her beef with the man stemmed from the fact that her minimum was fifteen dollars and he only had ten. She was drunk, he was drunk, the three friends were drunk. I was drunker than all five of them put together and had spent several hours looking for something to hit.

  I gazed into Allison’s midnight blue eyes and said, “Yeah, it was romantic. But it hurt like hell and I ended up paying for the window. Are you going to the zoo in my T-shirt? All the animals will stare at you. And I don’t mean the ones in the cages.”

  She retrieved her earring and went into the bathroom. When she came out,
she was wearing her dark blue pants with the pink blouse, which had a deep V neckline and enormous sleeves. She liked sleeves. All three blouses she had chosen had big ones. On the run from the cops and she picked out clothes she would look good in. I supposed it made some kind of sense. What woman wants to get arrested looking less than her best? She pinned her hair up and tied her hat on. As we left the room, she put her sunglasses on. For once, she needed them.

  On a clear day in Portland, you don’t need to see forever. The day itself is sufficient. The wind that had blown away the marine layer during the night had gentled to a perfect summer breeze. As we crossed the Willamette, Portland was spread before us, a multicolored jewel in a setting of green hills and blue sky. Sunlight played upon concrete and steel, brick and glass and water. Tall buildings with mirrored facades reflected the scene with crystal clarity.

  The water of the Skidmore Fountain would be dancing in the sunlight with no memory of the heavy splash of a suddenly inanimate object. To the water it was all the same—fallen leaves, tossed coins, discarded gum wrappers, blood and brains and bits of Brandy.

  Just beyond the fountain, the Burnside Bridge would arch toward blue skies for its leap across the Willamette. The impartial sunshine would spill into the space beneath the bridge, warming, drying, bleaching. To the sun it was all the same—morning dew, urine and vomit, spat tobacco, spilled whisky, Peggy’s blood.

  When we arrived at the Washington Park Zoo, I gave Allison enough money to enjoy her day but not enough to run on. The third time I reminded her to save taxi fare in case something came up and I couldn’t come get her, she said, “Honestly, I’m not totally incompetent.”

  “Sorry. Carrie says I have a mother-hen complex.”

  “She’s right.” She kissed me quickly and got out of the car. I watched until she waved at me from the ticket booth then I drove straight back to the motel.

  I called the answering service to see if anyone knew the name of the store in Allentown. Someone did. I should have just guessed. It was the Allentown General Store. Marilyn got the phone number for me. I gave my name to the kid who answered and asked for Sarge.

  He came on the line immediately, saying, “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “Fine,” I lied. “I need a favor.”

  “Sure thing. Whatcha need?”

  “I think you’re going to be asked some questions about Monday morning, who was at the café, that kind of thing. It would be helpful if you forgot I was there.”

  “Are we talking cops?”

  “Yeah. I don’t want you to lie. If they know I was there, go ahead and tell them you talked to me. But if they don’t know, don’t volunteer the information.”

  “Shit, the last thing I volunteered for was Nam. You got it.”

  “Thanks, I owe you one.”

  “No, you don’t. This makes us even.”

  I called Finney, who listened to my story in incredulous silence, then said, “I’m coming out there” and hung up on me as usual. My next call was to Bundy. He wasn’t at work but I left a message and he called me back within five minutes. Peggy was in intensive care and hadn’t regained consciousness. There was no other news. I told him I’d see him at eight.

  The motel room seemed too quiet. I turned the television on, flipped through all the channels, and turned it off again. I called Virginia.

  “Hi,” she said. “Is there another private investigator from Mackie in town or is this you in the paper?”

  “Shit. What does it say?”

  “Not much. An unidentified girl is in critical condition following a shooting in Old Town. Her assailant was shot and killed by a private investigator from Mackie who witnessed the shooting. The incident may be connected with the recent shooting deaths of three other women.”

  “Shit.”

  “You sound like you could use some cheering up. I can get away from here for a while. Why don’t you meet me at my place in about an hour?”

  “That’s the best offer I’ve had all day. All year.”

  As soon as I hung up the phone, it rang. Phil said, “What the fuck is going on, you closemouthed son-of-a-bitch. Carrie just called and read me an interesting item in The Oregonian. She’s all upset and she just knows you’re going to get your tattooed ass blown off.”

  “Shit. Call her back and tell her everything’s okay. I don’t want her calling me every five minutes.”

  After I gave him a quick summary of events, Phil said, “Sounds like you got yourself a whole lot of trouble right there in River City. Try to remember you’re not required to die in the line of duty anymore. I got something I need to talk to you about and I’d hate like hell for you to kick the bucket before I get a chance to do it.”

  “Just keep Carrie off my back.”

  “Last time you killed someone, you took a nosedive off the deep end. That’s one thing that’s worrying her.”

  “This wasn’t a kid, he was a hired gun. And I’m not going off any deep end so just tell her to leave me alone.”

  “I’ll give it my best shot.”

  “How’s the Vanzetti case coming?”

  “We’re cherchez-ing the woman as hard as we can. Nothing about the damn case makes sense. I keep feeling like I’m missing something and I just don’t know what it is. It’s gotta be the woman though. Damn, why couldn’t she take her fucking nightgown with her so I could buy into Harkins’ theory. A nice simple case of one bad guy getting offed by another bad guy and we could set it on a back burner and forget it.”

  “What is it you want to talk to me about?”

  After a long pause, Phil said, “It’ll wait. Talk to you later.”

  I hung up, wondering what his problem was and wishing I didn’t know he had one so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. I checked my watch, making a bet with myself that Carrie would call within ten minutes. I stretched out on the bed and worried about Phil and worried about Allison and worried about Jessica and worried about Peggy. When I started worrying about a birthday party I didn’t want to go to, I sat up, totally disgusted with myself. The phone rang. Eight minutes.

  I listened to the concern in my sister’s voice as she made small talk at long distance rates. When she ran out of newsy chatter, I said, “Everything’s fine. I have two undercover cops keeping an eye on me. I’ll be home in a few days.”

  “I had a scary dream last night.”

  “Don’t pull that twin intuition crap on me. If you have it, why don’t I?”

  “You do. Remember when you showed up at the hospital at four in the morning when I was in labor with Melissa?”

  “Jesus Christ, I was on my way home and saw your car in the parking lot.”

  “The hospital isn’t on your way home from anywhere.”

  “So I was out sightseeing. You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”

  “I love you, too. Be careful, Dabby.”

  During the drive to Virginia’s, I watched my rearview mirror carefully, trying to spot a tail. When I missed the rear end of a TriMet bus by about two inches, I decided to look out the windshield instead. If I could walk down a dark, deserted street with two people behind me and not notice, I sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to tell if one of the hundred cars going my way was following me.

  Virginia’s plan for cheering me up had to do with getting my clothes off as fast as possible. She didn’t have to bother with hers. She was naked when I got there.

  “Feeling better?” she asked when we were stretched out on the bed catching our breath.

  “You do have a way of taking a man’s mind off his problems.”

  She grinned. “Guess what! I have food! Are you hungry?”

  I said I was and she went to the kitchen and returned with a tray of cold cuts and crackers and two bottles of Michelob. After we finished eating, she cheered me up again.

  I left her place at three-thirty and drove to the zoo to get Allison. She was waiting by the entrance, surrounded by two sailors. She frowned fiercely when she saw the No
va. I drove past her and found a parking place at the far end of the lot. I got out and stood by the car. The sailors trailed after her until she stopped and said something, shaking her head firmly. They turned, reluctantly I was sure, and headed back to the zoo entrance. Allison walked quickly to the car, checking over her shoulder a few times to be sure her admirers weren’t persisting. She got into the car and sighed heavily. Life is hell for killers on the run.

  Once we were away from the zoo, she chatted happily about polar bears and penguins and baby elephants and museum exhibits until I stopped at a pizza parlor. She was suddenly very tired and thought she would sit in the car while I went inside. That suited me just fine. I was glad she had enough sense to realize that being seen with me was a bad idea.

  Back at the motel, we sat on my bed to eat the pizza. When we finished, I propped all the pillows against the headboard and leaned back, pulling her close to me. My head was buzzing pleasantly from the cumulative effects of the beers I’d had at Virginia’s and the ones I’d washed the pizza down with. We had been talking about my family and Allison asked if I had any pictures. I handed her my wallet. I had two or three pictures of Melissa at different ages and one of her with her parents. Allison thought Melissa was adorable, Tom was handsome, and Carrie was fascinating.

  “She looks just like you, only she’s pretty.”

  “I’m not pretty?”

  She slanted a look at me. “I don’t think ‘pretty’ is quite the right word for you.”

  “When I was a kid I used to worry that I was going to look just like my sister for the rest of my life. Except for haircuts and clothes, you could hardly tell us apart. Then along came puberty and the hormones worked their magic.”

  Talk of hormones and puberty seemed to embarrass Allison. She looked away from me and after a moment she asked what Carrie’s last name was now.

  “Harry,” I said.

  She grinned. “Carrie Harry?”

  “And she used to complain about Smith. Now, Tom’s name has a lot of potential. I offered to pay the legal fees so he could have his middle name changed from Ryan to Dickon, but he refused.”