1981 - Hand Me a Fig Leaf (7 page)

That set my nerves jumping.

I would have been much more relaxed to have found that these two thugs were junkies in search of something to sell, but it was unpleasantly clear to me that they had come either A to cut me up or even to kill me.

My nerves began now to jump like Mexican beans.

But why?

Was it because I had talked to Hank Smith? I couldn't think of any reason. The gorilla had been waiting to scare me. While he waited, he could have got my address from the licence-tag on my car. As I didn't scare, he could have a telephoned these two thugs to wait at my apartment and fix me.

Sitting on my bed, I thought back on what Hank Smith had told me: that Mitch Jackson was a drug-pusher. Then I thought of Hank Smith. Was he in danger? I thought of his fat, disapproving wife and the photograph of his two kids. I began to sweat again.

When I was talking with him, I had noticed a telephone in his living-room.

Getting to my feet, I got the book and found his number. As I began to dial, I looked at my watch.

The time was 23.30. A lot had happened since I had left Searle.

A voice answered the second ring.

"Yeah?" The voice of a coloured man.

"Hank?"

"No. I'm Jerry, Hank's neighbour."

"Can I speak to Hank?"

There was a long pause, then the voice said, "No one's ever going to talk to Hank now. He's dead."

I felt the shock go through me like a punch in the face.

"What are you saying . . . dead?"

"I don't know who you are, mister, and I don't care much. I'm here to look after the kids while Mrs. Smith is at the hospital, talking to the cops, for all thee good that'll do her and the kids."

"What happened?"

"He was hit by some goddamn hit-and-run bastard. He was going to his club, then biffo!"

Slowly, I replaced the receiver. For a long time, I sat staring into space, feeling chills run up my spine. This was turning out to be one hell of a night. Then I pulled myself together. This was something the colonel had to know. Knowing he wouldn't be at the office, I hunted up his home telephone number and dialled.

Mrs. Parnell answered. She said the colonel had just left for Washington and wouldn't be back for at least a week.

"Mrs. Parnell," I said, "I am Dirk Wallace. I'm one of the colonel's operators. It is important I contact him."

"You will have to wait until he returns," Mrs. Parnell said, her voice suddenly snooty. I got the idea she considered the colonel's operators were less than the dust. "The colonel is on State business," and she hung up.

I thought of consulting Chick Barley, but I decided against it. This was my case. I would have been correct to have consulted the colonel, but no one else.

I stripped off, took a shower and went to bed.

I didn't expect to sleep, so I wasn't disappointed.

***

The Jumping Frog was the only hotel in Searle. It looked from the outside as hospitable as a knuckle-duster, but, climbing the ten creaking steps to the entrance lobby, I became slightly more reassured.

There was a pretty girl with corn-coloured hair behind the reception desk. She gave me a bright smile.

"Hello there, Mr. Wallace," she said as I reached her. "Have you come to stay?"

This didn't surprise me. Everyone knew everyone, including strangers, in Searle. Silas Wood must have been talking.

"That's the idea," I said.

"I'm Peggy Wyatt. My dad owns this hotel, but I run it," she told me. "What kind of room do you want, Mr. Wallace, or may I call you Dirk? We're all pally in this town."

I eyed her. She had a nice little body. In fact, she had that thing which told me she wouldn't be hard to drag into bed.

"Sure." I gave her my wide, friendly smile. "Room? Well, what have you got?"

"Between you and me, most of the rooms are pretty crummy, but there's the bridal suite: nice double bed." She gave me an up-from-under look. She had long eyelashes, carefully curled. "A little living-room and a bar refrigerator."

"That sounds like my scene."

She told me the cost and, as I was on an expense account, I said it was fine.

She pushed the register towards me and I signed in, then she came around the desk.

"I'll show you."

She was wearing the inevitable skin-tight jeans and I followed her tight little bottom to the elevator.

We climbed to the first floor. She kept looking at me, smiling. If Searle was supposed to be pally, she certainly was a great advertisement.

Unlocking a door, she showed me the suite. It was comfortable, a little shabby, the small living-room looking onto Main Street. The bedroom had a vast double bed and there was a tiny bathroom leading off.

"This is great," I said, setting down my suitcase. She sat on the bed and bounced.

"The springs don't creak," she said and giggled.

Just as I was thinking this was an open invitation, she got up and walked into the sitting-room.

"Have a drink on the house," she said and went to a built-in refrigerator. "Scotch?"

"Only if you'll join me."

"I prefer gin." As she made the drinks, she went on, "You'll like the food here. Don't eat anywhere else. Our cook is really fancy." She handed me the drink, waved hers at me and drank. She sighed, then again smiled at me. "At this time of the day, I need a drink. My dad doesn't approve."

"Every hard-working soul needs a drink at eleven thirty in the morning," I said and sampled the Scotch. It was smooth and good.

"They tell me you are a private eye," she said. "We don't get any excitement in this dump. Is it true you are looking for Johnny Jackson?"

Feeling this might turn into a long session, I sat down and waved her to the other chair.

“I’ll just freshen this," she said and waved her little bottom at me as she bent to the refrigerator. I was startled to see her glass was empty. She refilled, then sat down. "Is it right about Johnny Jackson?"

"Yes."

"Wasn't it a terrible thing that old man Jackson shot himself?"

"These things happen."

"Yes, I suppose. Old people haven't much to live for, have they?"

"Some have, some haven't."

She gulped down half her drink.

"I'd hate to be old."

"Well, it comes. Did you know Johnny Jackson?"

"I went to school with him." She gave me a knowing look, then giggled. "I miss him. All the girls were after him, but be didn't care for any of them, except me."

If Johnny Jackson had gone missing six years ago, she would have been around sixteen. Well, if she wasn't kidding me, boys and girls in a hick town like Searle started sex early.

"From what I hear," I said, "Johnny didn't care for girls."

"That's right. That's absolutely right. He was the kind who only went with one girl. . . that was me."

She finished the drink. "Do you think you'll find him?"

"I don't know. I hope so. That's my job."

She leaned forward, her pretty face now flushed by the gin. "I want you to. I miss him."

"From what I've been told he went off six years ago. That's a long time for a pretty girl like you to remember a kid and still miss him."

"He was special. He wasn't like the other slobs here. He had brains: I'm willing to bet he's now a big success somewhere, making lots of money. She sighed. "I dream he'll come back and take me away from this god-awful dump." She stared at the empty glass, her face downcast.

"Did he ever talk about leaving?"

She shook her head.

"He never talked about himself. He never talked about his grandpa."

"What did he talk about then?"

Her eyes shifted.

"Well, you know. We were kids. Sometimes he'd talk about love or how tough the world is for kids. I could listen to him for hours." She looked furtively at the refrigerator. "I guess I'll freshen this." She waved her glass.

"Let it rest, Peggy. Gin isn't good for nice little girls: not too much of it."

She made a face at me.

"What makes you think I'm nice?" She got up and poured another slug of gin into her glass. "No one else does in this god-awful dump."

"Why not?"

She was now more than high. She sneered.

"They'll tell you. The only decent kid ever in this gossip-ridden shit-hole was Johnny."

"Did you and Johnny have a thing together?"

"Why don't you say it? I wanted to but Johnny said real love wasn't like that, and that came when marriage came." She tossed off her drink, staggered a little, let the glass slip out of her hand to drop on the carpet, then, looking wildly at me, she said, a sob in her voice, "That's why I want him found! I want him to come back here and marry me! Find him! Hear me!" and, turning, she lurched out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

By the time I had washed and unpacked, it was time for lunch and I was hungry. I went down to the restaurant. There were around a dozen couples, mostly men, already eating. Everyone looked at me as I came in: some of them gave me a smile, others just nodded. I was sure everyone in the big airy room knew I was an operator working for a detective agency and my job was to find old Fred Jackson's grandson. I sat at a table away from the windows.

A smiling old coloured waiter came over and suggested the special.

"It's one of the cook's best, Mr. Wallace, sir," he said. "Pot roast."

I said that was fine with me and he shuffled away. Conscious of eyes still staring at me, I concentrated on my folded hands on the table. I supposed, sooner or later, I would cease to be a novelty, but this scrutiny, as if they expected me to draw a gun or produce a rabbit or something, bored me.

I became aware of a tall, sad-faced man standing over me.

"I'm Bob Wyatt, Mr. Wallace. My little girl tells me you will be staying with us. It's a great pleasure."

As I shook hands, I looked at his thin white face and dial eyes. He would be around fifty and life hadn't been kind to him.

"If there's anything special you want, just tell Peggy," he said, forcing a ghost of a smile. "Have a nice lunch," and he wandered away.

The pot roast was excellent. I took my time over it, then, a little after 14.00, I walked out into the lobby, not before the remaining diners left in the restaurant had nodded and grinned at me and I had nodded and grinned back.

Peggy was propping herself up at the reception desk. She gave me a bright smile, but I didn't stop. I went into the humid heat and walked across the street to the sheriff s office. I was pretty sure that Sheriff Mason would be imbibing his medicine and with luck Bill Anderson would be on his own.

I found him with his feet on his desk, picking his teeth with a match-end. When he saw me, he whipped his feet off the desk and jumped up.

"Hi, Mr. Wallace. Glad to see you."

"Call me Dirk," I said, shaking his hand. "Could be you and me will be working together soon," and I told him what the colonel had said.

He looked like a man given a million dollars.

"Why, that's great! Thanks, Dirk. That's truly great!"

"The sheriff not around?" I said, sitting down.

"Not for another three hours."

"Tell me, Bill, what's happening to old Jackson's cabin?"

"Nothing. It's for the birds. Maybe someone will want to buy his land, but that's for his grandson to decide. I guess he must be old Fred's only heir."

"And no one knows where he is?"

He nodded.

"That's the situation. Dr. Steed says he'll put an ad in the local paper, announcing Fred's death." He shrugged. "I don't know if that'll do any good, but Dr. Steed says we have to go through the motions."

"I want to take a look at the cabin, Bill," I said. "Do you want to come with me?"

"You expect to find something there?"

"I don't know until I've looked."

"You mean right now?"

"Why not, if you're not busy?"

He grinned.

"I sit here day after day without a thing to do. It's driving me nuts. Searle has a crime rate you could put on the head of a pin."

"So . . . let's go."

On the drive up to Jackson's cabin, I asked Bill about Peggy Wyatt. I sat by his side in his ancient Chewy, primed to get as much information out of him as he had to give.

"Peggy? There's a mess." He shook his head. "You know, Dirk, I can't help feeling sorry for her and for her father. He has an incurable cancer and hasn't more than a year to live. If it wasn't for their black staff, the hotel would have folded. Amy, their cook, turns out food that brings in the customers. Bob Wyatt just hangs on. He's never out of pain. Peggy runs the place. I went to school with her. She was a bright kid. When her mother died, she quit school to help her father run the hotel, and from then on she became a wild one."

"When did her mother die?"

"Around six years ago. Peggy was sixteen then."

"That's when Johnny Jackson was supposed to have gone missing."

He gave me a quick glance.

"What has he to do with Peggy?"

"A wild one? Did she get into trouble?"

"I wouldn't say that. She sure got into trouble with herself. This town never misses a trick. She began screwing around. She has a bad reputation, but Bob Wyatt is popular. Everyone here is sorry for him so they give Peggy a cover-up." Again he glanced at me. "What you call a fig-leaf. But recently, the word is out, she's hitting the bottle."

"I've heard she and Johnny were close."

"That's news to me. Johnny wasn't interested in girls. Anyway, Peggy would have been the last girl a guy like Johnny would tie up with. He was a serious kid."

"You knew him at school?"

"Oh, sure. I had no time for him. Okay, he was top of the school, but he was a loner." He began to drive up the narrow lane leading to Jackson's cabin. "He was an odd-bod. Some of the boys wanted to rough him up. I remember there was a gang that decided it was time to give him the treatment. I was one &them. We got him in a corner of the playground. The idea was to smear him with paint." He rubbed his chin. "We had this can of paint and a big brush. He stood quietly, facing us. He made no attempt to run away. He just stood there, looking at us." He shrugged. "I don't know, but it suddenly wasn't fun anymore. There was something about him that stopped us dead. We all suddenly lost interest or maybe we felt we were being stupid kids and he was grown-up. I can't explain it. There was this ,ready, unafraid look in his eyes that put him behind a high wall. We made the usual gang noises, then suddenly we all walked away. From then on, we left him alone."