The Throat (47 page)

An image
moved into the front of my mind, so powerfully that I knew it had been
hidden there all along. I saw a naked creature with thick legs and huge
hands, ropes of muscle bulking in his arms and shoulders. A mat of dark
hair covered his wide chest. On the massive neck sat the enormous
horned head of a bull.

When I
got into John's office, I turned on some lights, made up my bed, and
got Colonel Runnel's book out of the satchel. Then I slid the satchel
under the couch. After I undressed I switched off all the lights except
the reading lamp beside the couch, lay down, and opened the book.
Colonel Runnel stood in front of me, yelling about something he loathed
and despised. He was wearing a starchy dress uniform, and rows of
medals marched across his chest. After about an hour I woke up again
and switched off the lamp. A car went past on Ely Place. Finally I went
back to sleep.

Around
ten-thirty Tuesday morning I rang Alan Brookner's bell. I'd been up for
an hour, during which I had called the nursing registry to ensure that
they had spoken to Eliza Morgan and that she had agreed to work with
Alan, made a quick inspection of April Ransom's tidy office, and read a
few chapters of
Where We Went Wrong
.
As a stylist, Colonel Runnel was
very fond of dangling participles and sentences divided into thunderous
fragments. All three Ransoms had been eating breakfast in the kitchen
when I came down, John and Marjorie in their running suits, John in
blue jeans and a green polo shirt, as if the presence of his parents
had changed him back into a teenager. I got John alone for a second and
explained about the nursing registry. He seemed grateful that I had
taken care of matters without bothering him with the details and agreed
to let me borrow his car. I told him that I'd be back in the middle of
the afternoon.

"You
must have found some little diversion," John said. "What time did you
get home last night, two o'clock? That was some walk." He allowed
himself the suggestion of a smirk.

When I
told him about the man who had been following me, John looked alarmed
and then immediately tried to hide it. "You probably surprised some
peeping Tom," he said.

The
usual reporters were slurping coffee on the front lawn. Only Geoffrey
Bough intercepted me on the way to the car. I had no comments, and
Geoffrey slouched away.

Eliza
Morgan opened Alan's door, looking relieved to see me. "Alan's been
asking for you. He won't let me help him get his clothes on—he won't
even let me get near his closet."

"His
suit pockets are full of money," I said. I explained about the money.
The house still smelled like wax and furniture polish. I could hear
Alan bellowing, "Who the hell was that? Is that Tim? Why the hell won't
anybody talk to me?"

I opened
his bedroom door and saw him sitting straight up in bed bare-chested,
glaring at me. His white hair stuck up in fuzzy clumps. Silvery
whiskers shone on his cheeks. "All right, you finally got here, but who
is this woman? A white dress doesn't automatically mean she's a nurse,
you know!"

Alan
gradually settled down as I explained. "She helped my daughter?"

Eliza
looked stricken, and I hurried to say that she had done everything she
could for April.

"Humpf.
I guess she'll do. What about us? You got a plan?"

I told
him that I had to check out some things by myself.

"Like
hell." Alan threw back his sheet and blanket and swung himself out of
bed. He was still wearing his boxer shorts. As soon as he stood up, his
face went gray, and he sat down heavily on the bed. "Something's wrong
with me," he said and held his thin arms out before him to inspect
them. "I can't stand up. I'm sore."

"No
wonder," I said. "We did a little mountain climbing yesterday."

"I don't
remember that."

I
reminded him that we had gone to Flory Park.

"My
daughter used to go to Flory Park." He sounded lost and alone.

"Alan,
if you'd like to get dressed and spend some time with John and his
parents, I'd be happy to drive you there."

He
started to push himself off the bed again, but his knees wobbled, and
he sank back down again, grimacing.

"I'll
run a hot bath," Eliza Morgan said. "You'll feel better when you're
shaved and dressed."

"That's
the ticket," Alan said. "Hot water. Get the soreness out."

Eliza
left the room, and Alan gave me a piercing look. He held up his
forefinger, signaling for silence. Down the hall, water rushed into the
tub. He nodded. Now it was safe to speak. "I remembered this man in
town, just the ticket—brilliant man. Lamont von Heilitz. Von Heilitz
could solve this thing lickety-split."

Alan was
somewhere back in the forties or fifties. "I talked to him last night,"
I said. "Don't tell anybody, but he's helping us."

He
grinned at me. "Mum's the word."

Eliza
returned and led him away to the bathroom, and I went downstairs and
let myself out of the house.

I
crossed the street and rang the bell of the house that faced Alan's.
Within seconds, a young woman in a navy blue linen suit and a strand of
pearls opened the door. She was holding a briefcase in one hand. "I
don't know who you are, and I'm already late," she said. Then she gave
me a quick inspection. "Well, you don't look like a Jehovah's Witness.
Back up, I'm coming out. We can talk on the way to the car."

I
stepped down, and she came out and locked her door. Then she looked at
her watch. "If you start talking about the Kingdom of God, I'm going to
stamp on your foot."

"I'm a
friend of Alan Brookner's," I said. "I want to ask you about something
a little bit strange that happened over there."

"At the
professor's house?" She looked at me quizzically. "Everything that
happens over there is strange. But if you're the person who got him to
cut his lawn, the whole neighborhood is lining up to kiss your feet."

"Well, I
called the gardener for him," I said.

Instead
of kissing my feet, she strode briskly down the flagged pathway to the
street, where a shiny red Honda Civic sat at the curb.

"Better
start talking," she said. "You're almost out of time."

"I
wondered if you happened to see someone putting a car into the
professor's garage, one night within the past week or so. He thought he
heard noises in his garage, and he doesn't drive anymore himself."

"About
two weeks ago? Sure, I saw it—I was coming home late from a big client
dinner. Someone was putting a car in his garage, and the light was on.
I noticed because it was past one, and there are never any lights on in
there after nine o'clock."

I
followed her around the front of the car. She unlocked the driver's
door. .

"Did you
see the car or the person who was driving it? Was it a black Mercedes
sports car?"

"All I
saw was the garage door coming down. I thought that the younger guy who
visits him was putting his car away, and I was surprised, because I
never saw him drive." She opened the door and gave me another second
and a half.

"What
night was that, do you remember?"

She
rolled her eyes up and jittered on one high heel. "Okay, okay. It was
on the tenth of June. Monday night, two weeks ago. Okay?"

"Thanks,"
I said. She was already inside the car, turning the key. I stepped
away, and the Civic shot down the street like a rocket.

Monday,
the tenth of June, was the night April Ransom had been beaten into a
coma and knifed in room 218 of the St. Alwyn Hotel.

I got
into the Pontiac and drove down to Pigtown.

South
Seventh Street began at Livermore Avenue and extended some twenty
blocks west, a steady, unbroken succession of modest two-story frame
houses with flat or peaked porches. Some of the facades had been
covered with brickface, and in a few of the tiny front yards stood
garish plaster animals —Bambi deer and big-eyed collies. One house in
twenty had a shrine to Mary, the Virgin protected from snow and rain by
a curling scallop of cement. On a hot Tuesday morning in June, a few
old men and women sat outside on their porches, keeping an eye on
things.

Number
17 was on the first block off Livermore, in the same position as our
house, the fifth building up from the corner on the west side of the
street. The dark green paint left long scabs where it had peeled off,
and a network of cracks split the remaining paint. All the shades had
been drawn. I left the car unlocked and went up the steps while the old
couple sitting outside on the neighboring porch watched me over their
newspapers.

I pushed
the bell. Rusting mesh hung in the frame of the screen door. No sound
came from inside the house. I tried the bell again and then knocked on
the screen door. Then I opened the screen door and hit my fist against
the wooden door. Nothing. "Hello, is anybody home?" I hit the door a
few more times.

"Nobody's
at home in there," a voice called.

The old
man on the neighboring porch had folded his newspaper across his lap,
and both he and his wife were eyeing me expressionlessly. "Do you know
when they'll be back?"

"You got
the wrong house," he said. His wife nodded.

"This is
the right address," I said. "Do you know the people who live here?"

"Well,
if you say it's the right house, keep on pounding."

I walked
to the end of the porch. The old man and his wife were no more than
fifteen feet away from me. He was wearing a faded old plaid shirt
buttoned up tight against the cords in his neck. "What are you saying,
no one lives here?"

"You
could say that." His wife nodded again.

"Is it
empty?"

"Nope.
Don't think it's empty."

"Nobody's
home, mister," his wife said. "Nobody's ever home."

I looked
from husband to wife and back again. It was a riddle: the house wasn't
empty, but nobody was ever home. "Could I come over and talk to you?"

He
looked at his wife. "Depends on who you are and what you want to talk
about."

I told
them my name and saw a trace of recognition in the man's face. "I grew
up right around the corner, on South Sixth. Al Underhill was my father."

"You're
Al Underhill's boy?" He checked with his wife. "Come on up here."

When I
got up onto their porch, the old man stood and held out his hand.
"Frank Belknap. This is the wife, Hannah. I knew your father a little
bit. I was at Glax thirty-one years, welding. Sorry we can't give you a
chair."

I said
that was fine and leaned against the railing.

"How
about a glass of lemonade? We got August in the middle of June, now
that the politicians poisoned the weather."

I
thanked him, and Hannah got up and moved heavily through the door.

"If your
father's still alive and kicking, tell him to drop in sometime, chew
the fat. I was never one of the old Idle Hour gang, but I'd like to see
Al again." Frank Belknap had worked thirty-one years in the purposeful,
noisy roughhouse of the factory, and now he spent all day on the porch
with his wife.

I told
him that my father had died a few years ago. He looked resigned.

"Most of
that bunch died," he said. "What brings you to the place next door?"

"I'm
looking for a man that used to live there."

Hannah
came back through the door, carrying a green plastic tray with three
tall glasses filled with ice and lemonade. I had the feeling that she
had been waiting to hear what I was after. I took a glass and sipped.
The lemonade was cold and sweet.

"Dumkys
lived there," she said, and held the tray out to her husband.

"Them,
all their kids, and a couple of brothers."

"Dumkys
rented." Hannah took her seat again. "You like the lemonade?"

"It's
very good."

"Make up
a fresh jug every morning, stays cold all day long."

"It was
one of the Dumkys you wanted?"

"I was
looking for the man that used to own the house, Bob Bandolier. Do you
remember him?"

Frank
cocked his head and regarded me. He took a slow sip of the lemonade and
held it in his mouth before swallowing. He was not going to say
anything until I told him more.

"Bandolier
was the manager at the St. Alwyn for a long time."

"That
right?"

I wasn't
telling him anything he didn't know.

"My
father worked there, too, for a while."

He
turned his head to look at his wife. "Al Underhill worked at the hotel
for a while. Knew Mr. Bandolier."

"Well,
well. Guess he would have."

"That
would have been before Al came to the plant," Frank said to me.

"Yes. Do
you know where I could find Bandolier?"

"Couldn't
tell you," Frank said. "Mr. Bandolier wasn't much for conversation."

"Dumkys
rented
furnished
," Hannah
said.

"So Mr.
Bandolier moved out and left his furniture behind?"

"That's
what the man did," said Frank. "Happened when Hannah and me were up at
our cottage. Long time ago. Nineteen seventy-two, Hannah?"

Hannah
nodded.

"We came
back from vacation, there were the Dumkys, every one of them. Dumkys
weren't very neighborly, but they were a lot more neighborly than Mr.
Bandolier. Mr. Bandolier didn't encourage conversation. That man would
look right through you."

"Mr.
Bandolier dressed like a proper gentleman, though. A suit and tie,
whenever you saw him. When he did work in his garden, the man put on an
apron. Kept his sorrows inside himself, and you can't fault him for
that."

"Mr.
Bandolier was a widower," Frank said. "We heard that from old George
Milton, the man I bought this house from. Had a wife who died two-three
years before we moved in. I suppose she used to keep things quiet for
him."