Obit Delayed (10 page)

“He might get careless,” The Duchess said hopefully. “Angelina seems so stupid I’m sure he’ll never suspect her of understanding anything. Come to think of it, I’m not sure that she does. Anyway, you know what they say about giving a man enough rope.”

Mitch didn’t answer. The Duchess was happy; why spoil it? Frank Wales had cornered the hemp market, and even if Pinky had been pushing reefers along with his Coke-and-hamburger trade it wouldn’t make any difference. The thought was only a random one, because Mitch’s mind was still back where he’d left it on the third floor of the El Rey Hotel. Norma didn’t want to see him again, that was for sure; but he couldn’t help wondering how she was making out. Even for Mitch Gorman this waiting was hell. How much longer could it go on?

That was the last day of the search for Frank Wales. The night was yet to come.

NOW THAT he had been definitely removed from the affairs of Norma Wales, Mitch didn’t know what to do with his evening. With the paper put to bed, with the dusk getting lost in the darkness, and the street lamps taking up sentry over the night, there was a letdown. He was too tired to go home to bed, and too keyed up to stay there if he did. That bicycle he’d been on for the past twenty-four hours wouldn’t stop on a dime.

The whole town was that way, quiet and tense, with a feeling in the air that something was going to break but without knowing where or when. Even the advent of darkness didn’t make much impression on the heat. It was stored up in the earth and boxed up in the houses. Hot as it was, not many people would be sleeping on their screened porches, and not many people would leave the door standing open.

But there was still one place that seemed free of the tension. “To hell with it!” Mitch muttered into the Scotch-and-milk dinner he was having at the Club Serape bar.

“Speaking to me?” asked a voice at his elbow, and Mitch began to remember that annoying people frequented this particular bar. Dave Singer’s face was leering over his shoulder, and that sort of thing could curdle the milk.

“If the shoe fits,” Mitch observed, “I see no reason to go barefoot.”

This was meant to be a subtle invitation for Dave to take his charms elsewhere, but Dave was very gracious.

“Funny man,” he said. “I’d love to hear the rest of your act, but Vince wants to see you.”

“He saw me last night,” Mitch said.

“That’s right, and now he wants to see you again.”

“Let him come on, then. I don’t charge admission except on Sundays.”

The bar was practically deserted, the hour being too early for the rat race to begin; and there weren’t enough customers in the dining-room to dirty the linen. Mitch didn’t know what he was doing there himself. The romanticist The Duchess had scolded about, perhaps, returning to the scene of his first evening with Norma Wales. Whatever it was, it wasn’t such a good idea, because when Vince put in an appearance the room was suddenly crowded.

“It ain’t Sunday I want to see you,” he said, getting directly to the point, “it’s right now. What kind of trouble is it that you’re after, anyway? We got all kinds if you insist.”

Vince hadn’t come down alone. Herbie Boyle was at his shoulder and Dave had returned with them. There were also a couple of shadowy characters loitering in the corners, and the whole atmosphere suggested a gathering of the clan at which Mitch was about to be served as the main course.

“Do I want trouble?” he asked.

“You sure act that way. Didn’t you go to Captain Talbot last night with some cock-and-bull story about the Virginia Wales murder? Don’t you know shooting off your mouth to the police can cause people headaches?”

It was odd how such a little good news could warm the heart. Mitch had no idea how that talk with Ernie could have come home to roost so soon, but if Vince had troubles that was fine. Why should he be the exception?

“Maybe you don’t hear very well,” Vince added, getting his big face a little nearer. “Dave told everything there was to tell when you were here last night. Tell him again, Dave.”

“I’ll tell him,” Dave muttered, “in my own way.”

Dave was a very big man, especially among so many friends; but Vince was holding the reins. “No, in mine,” he insisted. “You see, Mr. Gorman, it’s this way. I’m a businessman, and like any businessman I’ve got enemies. Plenty of people would like to take scuttlebutt like you’ve been giving out and turn it into a nice frame. From those people I expect trouble, but what did I ever do to you?”

Mitch didn’t answer. It would take a full-page editorial to do an adequate job of that.

“Well?”

“I’m thinking,” Mitch said.

“That’s good. Sometimes it’s a good idea to think before you talk so much.”

Strangely enough, Mitch was thinking; but nothing of a nature to warrant Vince Costro’s approval. The more he reflected, the more interesting it seemed that the news of his chat with Ernie had spread so fast. Even if Ernie had shown any official interest, which he hadn’t, there wasn’t a chance that he’d spared time from the man hunt to chase out here and cross-examine Vince Costro. But there was one way the news could have traveled. It had been a topic of conversation at Pinky’s.

It was interesting, too, to note how anxious Vince was to keep his skirts clean of the Wales murder. So anxious he would pull Dave in and out of town like a puppet on a string and go to all this trouble throwing a scare into a man who couldn’t even convince himself Wales was innocent. This sort of thinking brought Mitch right back to Rita, and for the first time the removal of her body made sense. Suicide or accident, a dead Rita would mean answering questions. And it was a safe bet that she didn’t have a prescription for those sleeping-pills.

“What’s the matter with Dave tonight?” Mitch remarked, with no apologies for changing the subject. “He looks lonesome.”

Dave didn’t actually look lonesome. He looked more like a man resenting the kickback he must be taking for starting this whole mess with his big mouth. “Why should I be lonesome?” he demanded.

“Why not? Something’s always happening to your lady friends. First Virginia—” Mitch could see Dave stiffen at the sound of her name. That was the whole idea of this approach, to watch Dave’s reactions. Coming out in the open with what he suspected wasn’t very bright in present company.

“And?” Vince prodded.

“I haven’t seen Rita around for a couple of nights.”

All this time Dave had stood motionless at Mitch’s side, but now he made a lunge and came up with a fistful of lapel. “I don’t have to take this stuff from you,” he roared. “I told you I only knew that Wales woman from going to Pinky’s!”

“What about Rita?” Mitch challenged.

“All right, what about her? That bar fly’s nothing to me!”

Dave’s other fist was all cocked and ready to go, but he wasn’t going to throw it—not with Vince Costro’s signals coming through.
Put your hands in your pockets, boy
, his fixed stare was saying,
you’ve caused the firm enough trouble already
. For Mitch he had another question, and this one came quietly and to the point.

“You want to see Rita, Mr. Gorman?”

“Do you think you could find her for me?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Rita’s a funny girl, sometimes she just takes off for a while without saying anything to anybody. Ain’t that right, Dave?”

Dave agreed that it was right. At least, his words agreed; but his face still looked a little sick, and Mitch noticed the drops of perspiration on his upper lip.

“So you see, there’s nothing for anybody to get excited about.”

The leader of the cult had spoken. Everybody could relax now and get on with his drinking, because the troublemaker had been put in his place. That slow burn Mitch always felt whenever he traded insults with Vince Costro was beginning to blister, but this was somebody else’s grief, he reminded himself, and started to turn away. Herbie Boyle had moved around behind him and was blocking the way.

“If you’ll call off your watchdog I’ll be moving along,” he said.

The glass of milk the bartender automatically placed before Vince had left a white mustache around his smile. “Sure,” he agreed, twisting about on the stool, “no hard feelings, Mr. Gorman. I just wanted to get things straight. You don’t cause me trouble, and I don’t cause you trouble. Fair enough?”

“So far as I’m concerned,” Mitch said, “the Virginia Wales case is closed. It’s nothing to me anyway.”

“Of course it ain’t! That’s just what I was telling the boys before you came in. ‘Mitch Gorman means no harm,’ I said. ‘He’s just a clever boy.’” Vince flashed a broad wink to get his point home. “I had quite an eye for the ladies myself when I was younger.”

Mitch was getting the idea even before Vince finished his analysis. Obscene was the only word for that leer on his big, beefy face, and Dave Singer was growing one just like it. “I got to hand it to you,” Vince added, “you’ve got a brain. All this noise you’ve been making about Frank Wales puts you in solid with the little woman, and from what I hear she’s quite a woman! Only remember, don’t overdo. You want to be in good shape to comfort the lonely widow when her husband goes to the gas chamber.”

The fist Dave had threatened would have been easy to block; but Vince’s blow hit low and hard. For all of thirty seconds Mitch tried to remember how much he might miss his head if he lost it, and then he made a wild, futile lunge at that leering face. Wild because that’s the way he felt, and futile because nobody ever laid a hand on Vince Costro. It was Mitch who made the sudden descent to the floor, assisted by the butt end of a gun Herbie Boyle just happened to have in his hand. That was the last thing he remembered for some time.

The next thing was the light. It was white and terrible, like the focus of a hundred suns, and every one of them sending a blinding pain tight as wire around his eyeballs. He threw up one hand to cut off the light, but the pain didn’t stop. The pain was coming from the place where somebody had pounded a hole in his skull.

“Mitch Gorman!” marveled a voice behind the light. “What the hell are you doing down there?”

There was too much baritone in the voice to be The Duchess. When the light dropped a bit Mitch tried his eyes again. This time he managed to distinguish a few details, a face bent over him, a visored cap, and the glint of a badge on a shirt front. It was the first time he’d ever felt happy to see Kendall Hoyt. Aside from Hoyt there was nothing but a lot of shrubbery scratching at his face, and something hard underneath that turned out to be the sidewalk. Painfully, Mitch pulled himself up to a sitting position. In addition to the dent in his head a couple of ribs were protesting as if they had come in contact with a well-aimed foot. That was the kind of memento that suggested Dave Singer’s touch.

“What happened?” Hoyt demanded, helping him to his feet. “You look as if a truck hit you.”

“One did,” Mitch muttered, “but I got the number. Get that light out of my eyes, will you? I want to see where I am.”

Other objects were beginning to take shape out of the darkness, the usual things such as trees and lamp posts and doorways. Mitch steadied himself against a cement urn and took another look. Sure enough, that was his own doorway he stood before. Darned nice of Vince to throw in home delivery service. It probably came under the heading of public relations.

“You better come along with me,” Hoyt suggested, trying to steer him toward the patrol car in the driveway. “You need a doctor.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather not,” Mitch said. “I’m all right. I live here.”

“What’s the matter—hang one on?”

He couldn’t blame Hoyt for arriving at that conclusion, and maybe it was just as well that he had. There wasn’t too much left of Mitch’s pride, but what there was didn’t like admitting to a beating from Vince Costro’s boy scouts. They must have really had a lot of fun while they were about it, because now he could taste blood from a cut at the corner of his mouth, and pretty soon he was going to be sick all over the landlady’s geraniums.

“Yeah, I guess I did. I’d better be going in now.”

“I’ll give you a hand.”

Mitch didn’t want Kendall Hoyt giving him a hand. He didn’t want anybody giving him anything except plenty of room, because now he was remembering why he was in this shape. He was remembering Vince Costro’s words and that sickening smile, and Mitch Gorman was working up to a good, old-fashioned mad.

The taste of blood had a memory in it. The last fight he’d been in had been a big one with death for the losers and something else, he wasn’t sure what, for the winners. That had been all the fight he wanted for the rest of his life. So you quit. So you swear off thinking or caring or believing. People get hurt doing things like that.

“Hey, watch it,” Hoyt said in his ear. “You’ll never make those steps alone. Give me your key.”

To hell with Hoyt! Mitch had his own key and he could make any steps alone! Was that what the casualty lists were for? So the Costros could get rich and the Frank Waleses die in the darkness? He didn’t know how Wales got into this memory, because this was a personal matter between Mitch Gorman and something he was remembering to hate. Maybe Wales was a symbol.

“All right, you stubborn fool, have it your way!” Hoyt snapped off his flashlight and started back toward the car. “I’ve got more important things to do than bedding down drunks. I wouldn’t have stopped in the first place if I hadn’t thought it was Wales in those bushes.”

Now everybody was a symbol. Wales, Costro, Mitch Gorman—even Kendall Hoyt. And so was Virginia. The poor dead Virginia who only wanted to dance and enjoy her life. There were only three steps to the door, and when the key finally turned the lock Mitch drew a deep breath and smiled. It was such a little thing to make those steps and unlock the door, but it was a symbol.

Somebody, he vowed, staggering toward the bathroom, was going to pay for this night’s work!

And over on the other side of town a twelve-year-old boy was crawling out of bed, slipping into his shirt and Levi’s, and tiptoeing, shoes in hand, to the window.

“No, you stay here, Duke,” he scolded the half-grown pup at his heels, but the pup only whimpered. He couldn’t have that; not with Ma sleeping in the next room. “All right, come along, then—but no barking, understand!”

It was very dark outside. The moon wasn’t up yet, and the city fathers didn’t waste much of the taxpayers’ money lighting this neighborhood. But the boy knew where he was going and slid along through the darkness so quietly that even the sleepers who had braved their screened porches didn’t hear him pass.

It was only a few blocks to the boy’s destination, a street where the houses crowded together like lines of chicken coops, and the adobe street was illumined by only one dim bulb at the corner. All of the houses looked alike, but one was different. One was padlocked, front and rear, by order of the police. For a couple of days there had been a man on duty to ward off curiosity seekers, but now every available policeman was out searching the streets and the alleys and all of the empty buildings without padlocks.