Briarpatch (31 page)

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Authors: Ross Thomas

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller

BOOK: Briarpatch
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Back in his room at the Hawkins Hotel, Dill showered and changed into his seersucker jacket and gray pants while Anna Maude Singe listened to the tape on the Sony. The tape was almost over when Dill slipped the jacket on, moved to the writing desk, and started putting coins, keys, airline ticket, and wallet into his pockets. The last item was the .38 revolver. He again shoved it down into his right hip pocket. She watched, but made no comment, and went on listening to the last words on the tape as they came over the earphone. When the words ended, she punched the stop button, then the rewind one, and said, “It's dynamite.”
“I know.”
“Have you got a copy?”
“No.”
“You should have copies made.”
“I'll let Spivey do that.”
“You're giving it to him?”
“I think so.”
She nodded slowly. “Then you've made a pretty big choice, haven't you?”
“Have I?”
“Sure. You've had to choose between your friend and your government, and you've chosen your friend.”
“That's not a very big choice,” Dill said. “That's hardly any choice at all.”
He picked up the phone and dialed information. When the operator finally came on—after a recorded voice first counseled him to consult the directory—Dill asked for the home number of John Strucker, the chief of detectives. The information operator told him a few seconds later that no such number was listed. Dill hung up.
“Unlisted?” Singe said.
He nodded.
“Let me try.” She took an address book from her purse, flipped through it, found a number, and dialed it. When the call was answered, she said, “Mike?” and when Mike said yes, she said This is Anna Maude. They chatted for a few moments and then she said she needed to get in touch with John Strucker at home. Mike apparently had the number handy, because she wrote it down on the back of a hotel envelope she took from the desk. She then thanked Mike, said goodbye, and hung up.
“Who's Mike?” Dill asked.
“Mike Geary as in AP Geary.”
“The one you used to go to the Press Club with.”
“Right.”
“I'm jealous,” Dill said as he picked up the phone and dialed the number she had written on the envelope.
“No, you're not,” she said.
The phone rang three times and was answered by a woman's voice. Dill assumed it was Dora Lee Strucker, the rich wife. Dill identified himself, apologized for calling so late, and asked if he
could speak to her husband. She said it was nice to hear from Dill at any time and that Johnny would take the call in the study.
Strucker came on with a noncommittal “Yes.”
“How would you like to collar Clyde Brattle?”
“Brattle, huh?”
“Brattle.”
Strucker sighed. It was the most sepulchral Strucker sigh Dill had heard yet. “From Kansas City?” Strucker answered, almost as if he were hoping Dill would say, No, this particular Brattle is from Sacramento or Buffalo or Des Moines.
“From Kansas City,” Dill said. “Originally.”
“Where?” Strucker said.
Dill gave him Anna Maude Singe's apartment number and address.
“When?”
“Ten sharp.”
“Ten, huh?”
“Ten.”
“I'll think about it,” Strucker said, and hung up. It wasn't quite the reaction Dill had been expecting. By rights, he thought, Strucker should have jumped at it. Unless, of course, he needed to check with someone else. Dill dialed Strucker's number again. It was busy. He cut the connection and dialed Jake Spivey's number. It, too, was busy. Dill put the phone down slowly. They could be talking to each other, he told himself, or to any of a million other people.
“You look funny,” Singe said.
“Do I?”
“You look like he said no.”
“He said he'd think about it.”
“That's not what a cop's supposed to say. He's supposed to say,
Stall Brattle till I get there and don't let him out of your sight—or something like that.”
“Unless he …” Dill let the thought die because it was only half-born and extremely ugly, even grotesque.
“Unless he what?” Singe demanded.
“He already knew Brattle would be there.”
Her eyes opened very wide and Dill again noticed how pretty they were. Concern makes them even darker, he thought. Almost true violet.
“If he knew about Brattle before you called,” she said, “that means somebody's about to get shafted. You, probably.”
“Maybe,” Dill said. “Maybe not.”
It was then that the new fight began. Anna Maude Singe insisted on going with Dill. He refused. She asserted it was her goddamned apartment and she could go there any goddamned time she pleased. Dill replied she goddamned sure wasn't coming with him. She threatened to phone the Senator and tell him about the tape. Dill offered her the phone. She took it, dialed 0, and asked for Senator Ramirez's room. Dill snatched the phone from her and slammed it down. A few moments later they reached the compromise: she would come along, but she wouldn't go inside. Instead, she would wait in Dill's car and watch who went in and came out. She said she thought that sounded goddamned silly. Dill said if he didn't come out in an hour, it wouldn't be goddamned silly, it would be a goddamned shame. She wanted to know what she was expected to do if he didn't come out in an hour. He told her she should call someone, but when she asked who, he said he didn't know. Someone. They left it at that.
 
 
It was still raining when they pulled up across the street from the Van Buren Towers in Dill's rented Ford. He suddenly realized he
always thought of the apartment building as the Old Folks Home first, and then consciously translated that into its proper name. The rain was steady and unrelenting and, like all steady and unrelenting things, boring. Dill found a parking space directly across from the apartment-building entrance, but Anna Maude Singe said, “You can't get this thing in there.”
“Watch,” said Dill, who prided himself on his ability to jockey large cars into impossible places. He parked the Ford with dispatch and even with a bit of a flourish. When done, there was only six inches or so of space left at either end of the car. Singe remained unimpressed. “What if I have to get out of here in a hurry?” she asked.
“I guess you can't,” he said.
She looked at her watch. “Nine twenty-five.”
“I'd better go.”
“Have you got a raincoat?”
“No.”
“You ought to have a raincoat.”
“Well, I don't.”
She frowned. “I don't want you to go in there.”
“Why not?”
“Aw, for God's sake, guess.”
He smiled and put an arm around her and gently pulled her toward him. She went willingly. They kissed a long and somehow anxious kiss and when it was over she sat back and examined him thoughtfully.
“I don't know, Dill,” she said.
“What?”
“Maybe I am your sweetie after all.”
 
 
Carrying the Sony player-recorder in its King Brothers ice-cream bag, Dill ran across the street through the rain and into the Van Buren Towers. In the lobby he discovered he had got damp, but not wet. He rode the lone elevator up to the fifth floor, walked down the corridor, unlocked Anna Maude Singe's apartment door, and went in. After switching on two lamps, he looked at his watch and saw it was 9:29. He started toward the bathroom, but stopped to give the Maxfield Parrish print a brief inspection. He again concluded the two figures in the print were girls.
In the bathroom, he used a towel to dry off his hands, face, and copper-colored hair. He looked in the mirror and saw a trace of lipstick on his mouth. He scrubbed it off with the towel, staring at his reflection. You look tired, old, scared, and your nose is too big, he told himself, and went back into the living room.
He was examining the Maxfield Parrish print again when he heard the knock. He went to the door, opened it, and Jake Spivey came in, wearing a Burberry trenchcoat.
“Jesus, Jake, you look like something right out of
Foreign Intrigue.”
“No, I don't,” Spivey said. “I look like a fat guy in a trenchcoat, and the only thing that looks dumber's a sow in a white shirt. But Daffy bought it for me and well, what the hell, it was raining, so I wore the fucker.”
Spivey was already unbuttoning the wet trenchcoat and turning to give the living room an inspection. “Damned if this don't look like nineteen-forty-something-or-other. She wasn't on this floor, was she?”
“Who?”
“Aunt Louise. You remember Jack Sackett's Aunt Louise.”
“I remember.”
Spivey closed his eyes and smiled. “July 19, 1959. About two-thirty
in the afternoon.” He opened his eyes, still smiling. “I can remember all that but I can't remember what floor she was on.”
“The fourth,” Dill said, suddenly remembering. “Number four-two-eight.”
Spivey nodded. “Believe you're right.” He held up the wet trenchcoat. “What d'you want me to do with this?”
Dill took the coat and said he would hang it up behind the bathroom door. When he came back, Spivey was seated on the couch staring at the Parrish print. Dill asked him if he wanted a drink. Spivey shook his head and said, “Liquor and Clyde Brattle don't mix.” He turned from the print to Dill. “Clyde sound like he's willing to cut a deal?”
“He might—depending on what you've got to offer.”
“I've been thinking about that, Pick, and I haven't got a whole hell of a lot. What I've got might get Clyde twenty-five years, but, shit, what's twenty-five years when you're looking a hundred in the face?”
Dill took the King Brothers ice-cream sack from the top of the old record player and handed it to Spivey, who asked, “What's this?” Both his tone and expression were totally suspicious.
“Fudge ripple.”
Spivey stared at Dill for several seconds, and then opened the sack, much as if it might have contained either a bomb or a snake. He brought out the small Sony player-recorder. “I always did like Sony fudge ripple.” He again looked at Dill. “Want me to go ahead and play it?”
“That's right.”
Spivey studied the controls briefly, put the player-recorder on the coffee table, and pushed the play button. The sound this time came from the machine's small one-inch speaker. The voices were clear but tinny. Dill watched Spivey listen. And Spivey listened with
total absorption and concentration, asking only two one-word questions and they were, “Ramirez?” and “Dolan?” when the voices of the Senator and the minority counsel were heard for the first time. There's no surprise on his face, Dill noted. No surprise, no elation, no appreciation. Nothing but that curiously blank and neutral look that comes when the mind is absolutely concentrated.
But when it was over the smile came—the Spivey smile: full of villainy and cheer, malice and humor. A rogue's smile, Dill thought.
With the smile still beaming, and an expression of mild wistfulness added, Spivey said, “You wouldn't wanta sell me that little old tape there, would you, Pick?”
“I might.”
“How much you asking?”
“How much're you willing to pay, Jake?”
“About every dime I've got—and I'll throw in Daffy and the pickup, too.”
“With that tape,” Dill said, “you won't have to go to jail.”
“You don't know what that tape really is, do you, Pick?”
“What?”
“Why it's the ultimate briarpatch, that's what. Shit, with that, I won't even have to
think
about going to jail.” The smile appeared. “C'mon, Pick, how much you really asking?”
“My don't-fuck-around-anymore price?”
“Just name it, I'll pay it.”
Dill felt the tension come then. It started in his shoulders, shot up to his neck, and fastened around his mouth. His lips felt stiff; the inside of his mouth dry. Go ahead, he told himself. Spit it out, and if you're too dry to spit, write it down.
“What I want, Jake,” Dill said slowly, surprised at how calm and reasonable he sounded. “What I want is whoever it was who killed Felicity.”
The Spivey smile went away. A grimace took its place. It was a grimace of regret. Spivey looked to his left at the Parrish print. He studied it for several moments, then looked down at the tape recorder and chewed on his lower lip at least three or four times. Finally, he looked back up at Dill. The grimace was gone. The smile was back and the eyes were brimming with what Dill took to be both guile and good will.

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