The Lime Pit (14 page)

"That's it?" he said. "That's all?"

"Not quite. I want the Jellicoes, too. I want to
put them out of business. Permanently."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"You're going to call Lance up. You're going to
tell him you got a 'thing' for Cindy Ann. You're going to arrange a
date."

"What if ... I mean what if she isn't around?"

"You're not going to take no for an answer,
Preston."

"You don't understand," LaForge said. "The
Jellicoes ... they run a safe business. That's how come people like
me go to them. They guarantee safety. The girls are always ... safe.
You know? They're homeless. And you never see the same girl more than
a couple of times."

"That's your problem, Preston," I said to
him. "I don't care how you do it. But you either bring Cindy Ann
to me or you find out where she is."

LaForge started to say something but I cut him off.
"You do it, Preston. Because if you don't, I'm going to take
that picture and ruin you with it. They're going to put you in jail.
And do you know what they do to sweet young things like you in jail,
Preston? Man, they'll eat you alive. So, get cracking, Preston."
I took a card from my wallet and tossed it on the rug. "You call
me tonight at that number when you've got it arranged. And remember
this--I've got twenty-five more pictures just like that one and every
damn one is going to the cops if you double-cross me. And with them
goes enough of a deposition about you and Cindy Ann and the Jellicoes
to get a grand jury working overnight."

I started for the door. "As the man said, you'll
thank me for this some day, Preston."

I heard him laughing stupidly as I walked out.
 
 

13

I FELT sorry for Preston LaForge. He was a sad little
boy trapped in a world that has no use for the weak or the winless.
On any given day I might have tried to help him--the way I was
helping Hugo at that very moment. But I would never be able to trust
him the way I trusted Hugo. He just wasn't sane enough for that.

So I didn't leave the Vicarage right away. Instead, I
got in the Pinto and waited, hunching down in the car seat and
peering up at the rearview mirror.

And, sure enough, at half-past five, Preston popped
into view. He was dressed a little too carefully for a stroll--in a
Ralph Lauren western outfit. Striped cowboy shirt, designer jeans,
red scarf and topsiders. He looked like a picture from the
sportingwear section of a Neiman-Marcus catalogue. There was
even something of the sportsman in the set of his face--the kind of
martial alertness that hunters show when they're about to shoulder a
gun. It occurred to me that that pretty beach boy was on the prowl.
Perhaps out to prove that he could still have his way after I'd
slapped his wrists and said, "No." It would be an
understandable enough impulse in a man like him.

He walked across the lot to a Jaguar two-seater and
glanced quickly at the sky before hopping in. It was clouding up
overhead. A thick porridge of a sky. And I said a little prayer for
rain as I started the Pinto and followed Preston out of the Vicarage
lot.

It was cooler on the streets, with the storm brewing
up. The air had a nervous thrum in it, and the picturesque bungalows
along St. Martin's looked stark in the gray, pre-storm light. LaForge
sped past them up to Paradrome and the Jaguar made a little whine as
he down-shifted at the corner and turned left on Ida.

Most of Mt. Adams is too trendy for my taste, too
expensive to enjoy and too characterless and chameleon-like to fall
in love with. But Ida Street ... that's my exception. Built on an
arched viaduct above a green grove of flowering apple trees, it runs
like a bright ribbon between the Art Museum and the East Bottoms.
And, for a block or two beyond Seasongood Pavillion, it is as
attractive as a crowded urban street can be. The houses along that
stretch are those rarities of big city architecture-homes that the
architects have built to please themselves. Each of them is unique,
in this city of red-brick St. Louises and ranch-style suburbs. Each
one of them is full of character and thought and good, adventuresome
taste.

LaForge pulled up abruptly in front of one of my
favorites--a lovely white stucco building, vaguely Spanish in style,
with two Chinese red doors in front and tall blinded windows between
them. I watched him unlock the right-hand door with his own key and
flash a puckish grin at someone standing inside.

I pulled a pair of Leitz binoculars out of the glove
compartment and took a look at the door. The placard by the bell
said, "Tracy Leach," which could be a man or woman. From
the way Preston had been dressed, I guessed a lady. And it was
obvious that Tracy Leach was a very close friend. I liked the fact
that he'd gone to a friend to talk things out. It meant that Preston
wasn't as impulsive as he'd seemed, that he had an adult sense of the
precariousness of his position.

It was best, I decided, to
leave him to his own counsel. If I stuck my nose in again, I might
frighten him into running to the Jellicoes or to the police. And I
didn't want that to happen until I had Cindy Ann Evans back. Or, at
least, until I knew where her bones were resting. A thin splatter of
rain dashed the windshield as I turned the ignition key. And it
continued to drizzle all the way back to the Delores.

***

When I got upstairs--fourth floor, right wing,
Apartment E--I stripped off my sports shirt, sat down on the recliner
and pretended to read the sports page of The Enquirer. But the
langorous smell of perfume and the slightly sugary smell of' face
powder--Jo's scent-distracted me. I kept seeing her in my mind's eye,
standing in the hall that led to the bedroom or by the pointed arch
that opened on the kitchenette or by the front door. What I was doing
was moving her around, mentally, as if she were a piece of outsized
furniture and I was trying to fit her in the room. But she was just
too large for the two and one-half shabby rooms of the Delores. I
started thinking that maybe I'd have to move to a place spacious
enough for the two of us. And for the next half hour I settled into a
quaint domestic mode of' speculating--outfitting the new place,
imagining Jo and me in bed, naming the kids. Which only goes to prove
my theory that a thirty-six-year-old bachelor is just a
thirty-six-year-old husband without a mariage license.

At ten of six, the old Delores rocked like a boat
when the sky finally opened up and bellowed, "Enough!"
Thick rain, thunderclaps, and lightening poured down on Cincinnati;
and I spent a couple of minutes closing windows, a couple more
looking out on the waving branches of the dogwoods in the front yard
and wondering if Jo was getting drenched. It was going to be a long,
sore, wet night-a real mid-summer deluge. And I didn't look forward
to driving back up to Mt. Adams in the midst of it.

By a quarter past, I was beginning to worry about Jo
and about why Preston was taking so long with the Jellicoes and with
Cindy Ann. My first problem was solved almost immediately, when Jo,
black hair collapsed about her face and neat secretary's suit
sopping, came laughing and shaking and dripping through the front
door.

"My God," she said merrily. "It could
have waited a few minutes longer!"

I jumped up and gave her a hug and a long, damp kiss.
She was as slippery as soap in her wet skin, but otherwise no worse
for the weather. She wandered off into the bedroom to towel dry and
change clothes, and I sat back down, feeling aglow, and stared at the
phone on the desk. By all dramatic rights, it, too, was about to ring
and Preston would then say, in his cheeky, affable voice, "I've
got Cindy Ann for you." And then we'd all join hands and form a
ring.

But Preston didn't call until after Jo and I had
dined on scrambled eggs and on each other. We were lying in the bed,
holding hands and listening like nervous children with the lights out
to the beating of the rain on the dormer window and the tremendous
claps of thunder when the phone rang.

I'd told Jo a little bit about Preston while we were
eating supper. I'm not usually a gossip about my work, but LaForge
was too juicy and out-of-the-ordinary for me. And I'd told her about
Hugo, whom she'd already met and liked and felt sorry for. That seedy
old man had a way with women. Jo'd thought he was "sweet"
and wanted to see him again. I hadn't said a thing about the
Jellicoes, because I hadn't wanted to spoil our lovemaking with the
thought of how they made their living. Jo knew that Hugo's "little
girl" was in trouble and that LaForge was somehow involved and
that he was an odd fellow who was going to help me crack the case.

Anyway, when the phone rang, she giggled and said,
"That must be him!"

I reached over and pulled the phone down to the bed
and, with Jo cocking an ear against the receiver, said, "Stoner."

Either the telephone lines were damp or Preston was
drunk, because his voice sounded scratchy and lethargic. "I did
what you said, Mr. Stoner," he said. "I got it all
arranged. I've been a good boy."

Jo looked at me and I looked at her and shrugged.

"That's good, Preston. That's very good."

"You know," he said languidly. "In a
way I'm glad this is going to work out this way. I'm really tired of
the whole thing. After this, I'm going to be good. You'll see."

I felt a little heart-sick, and Jo stopped listening
and stared at the ceiling. "You don't have to be good, Preston,"
I said, trying to sound friendly. "Maybe if you stopped thinking
about yourself in those terms you'd be better off."

He laughed, his little boy's chortle. "You sound
like Dr. Fegley."

"Well, maybe Dr. Fegley knows what he's talking
about."

"He doesn't know," Preston said blandly.
"Nobody does."

I took a deep breath and changed the subject. "What
time should I come by tonight?"

"What'?" he said. "Oh. About ten, I
guess. That's when they usually drop the girls off. Lance is going to
call me in an hour or so to let me know for sure. Boy, I really shook
him up. Mr. Stoner. I really gave it to him. He's not going to use me
anymore. Not me or any of my friends."

A very ugly thought crossed my mind. "You didn't
threaten him, did you, Preston? I mean you didn't tell him you'd gone
to the cops or anything, did you?"

"I did what I had to do," he said. "I
should have done it a long time ago."

I started to say something cautionary and Preston
said, "Don't worry about Cindy Ann, Mr. Stoner. He says he won't
hurt her as long as the cops aren't called in. And he won't hurt me,
either. Tray and I know too much. I'll tell you this, though. As soon
as you get Cindy Ann back to her folks, I am going to go to the
police and tell them everything I know about the Jellicoes. I want
to. I've wanted to for years. I'm not a very courageous man, Mr.
Stoner. I never have been." He laughed unhappily. "Now, I
won't have to pretend any more."

I blew a cold breath out of my mouth. "What
makes you think he'll show up with Cindy Ann?"

"Like I said, Mr. Stoner. All Lance cares about
is the police. I gave him my word they weren't involved."

"You've done well, Preston," I said to him.
"You're a good man."

"Thanks," he said. "I'll see you
tonight at ten."

When I hung up, Jo was
lying on her side with her shoulder to me. Something about the curve
of that shoulder told me that she didn't want to be touched. At
least, not by me. Not at that moment. And, to tell you the truth, at
that moment I couldn't blame her.

***

The rest of the evening didn't go well for Jo and me.
The scarey, shivery storm became just a storm. The bedside lamps
dispelled the sweet privacy of the darkness. We sat in bed and
read--Mary Ellmann for her, Dashiell Hammett for me--and chatted
occasionally and pointed out fun things in what we were reading and
pretended that nothing had gone wrong.

I should never have said a word about the case is
what I thought. I should have buttoned my lip and kept mum about
Preston LaForge, the all-American boy.

Around nine I got up, got dressed and drank a cup of
coffee in the living room. Jo came in and asked if I was going out in
the storm.

I nodded.

She looked at me affectionately and said, "I
guess I must have thought of Preston LaForge as one of the immortals.
To find out he was so damn human ... it just upset me. Don't mind me,
Harry. You broke one of my idols, that's all."

"He was one of my idols, too, Jo," I said
testily. "And I didn't break him. He broke. You don't think a
man spills his guts like that because another man flashes a few dirty
pictures in his face? Preston LaForge has been breaking down since he
was an adolescent. And if he hasn't made good resolutions a thousand
times before--and then forgotten them--I'll eat the radio."

"You're probably right," she said. "You
know detectives aren't ordinary mortals either. At least, they
haven't been in my life."

She smiled and said, "Give me a few days to
adjust."

Jo sat down on the couch beside me and stared out the
rainy window. "It's nasty out there. Will you be gone long?"