Dick Tracy (26 page)

“Just stick it out,” he said. “Don’t bolt from the orphan home. Tracy’ll get out of this fix and come after you. He and Tess think the world of you, kid.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Well, will you ask Miss Tess to come see me at the orphanage?”

“Uh . . . well, sure, kid.”

But the Kid could read it in Catchem’s face: something was wrong.

“Is something the matter with Miss Tess?”

“Look, son. We’re not sure. We can’t locate her, and Tracy thinks she’s been kidnapped by the ‘mystery man,’ as the papers put it.”

“What? You mean, that faceless guy has her?”

“Like I said, we don’t know anything for sure. We’re lookin’ for her . . . and we got every available man on the case. We’ll find her, all right. You can take that to the bank.”

“I don’t know, Mr. Catchem,” the Kid had said glumly. “Banks fail, sometimes.”

Catchem hadn’t denied it.

Now the Kid was staring out the wire-mesh window, wondering if he’d be letting Tracy down if he ran off. But what could he do for Tracy? How could he help him?

It was true that he had held out on Tracy on one thing. He never told the detective about seeing that flat-headed guy, the nervous hood, and that mushy-mouthed creep at the garage; he never told Tracy he’d been an eyewitness to that massacre.

It wasn’t that he was afraid that the gangsters would try to get even with him if he ratted them out. It was the concept of ratting them out, period. Tracy was a great guy, but the Kid had lived on the streets his whole life. One of the things you learned on the street, one of the first things Steve taught him, was that you didn’t squeal.

There was an unwritten code on the streets, and this was a major entry in the invisible rulebook: You did not rat anybody out to the cops, under no circumstances whatsoever.

Anyway, the Kid didn’t see how telling Tracy about that flat-headed guy and his pals would help the detective out of the jam he was in now. Besides, the Kid thought, who would believe a little juvenile delinquent like him?

Footsteps on the hardwood floor caught his attention. He turned and saw Mrs. Plett, portly, attractive, in a floral-print dress, her salt-and-pepper hair back in a tidy bun, approaching with a small tray on which were a glass of milk and two cookies.

“Are you sure you won’t join us downstairs?” she said. “The entertainment is really quite good this afternoon.”

“No thanks, Mrs. Plett. Is that for me?”

“Of course it’s for you.” She put the tray on his bed. “I realize it isn’t fancy here, but we are a kind of a family. I want you to know you’re welcome here.”

“Thanks, ma’am.”

“Sure you won’t come downstairs now?”

“No. Thank you.”

“We do want you to feel at home. School days are devoted to work, but Saturdays and Sundays you can have a little fun. What do you like to do?”

“Well . . . I like to draw.”

“Really?” She smiled. “Do we have a budding artist amongst us? That’s wonderful. Would you like me to get you some paper, and perhaps some pencils, or crayons?”

“Well, uh . . . that would be real nice, Mrs. Plett.”

She nodded and went out. He lay on the bed and gobbled the two chocolate chip cookies and gulped the milk. He’d skipped breakfast because he was feeling so low; but now he was starving.

Before long, Mrs. Plett returned with a tablet and some crayons.

“These are yours,” she said. “Please understand that you can always come to me for help. There are a lot of children here, and nobody gets pampered—and we do not spare the rod, when necessary. But my door is always open to you.” She smiled but it was a sad smile. She put her fingers in his hair and ruffled it. “This is your home now, Dick Tracy, Junior,” she said.

Not hardly,
he thought.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

Idly, sprawled on the saggy bed, he began to sketch. He drew the flat-headed guy; he drew several pictures of him, including one of him shooting a machine gun. The guy was really creepy and, in a weird way, fun to draw. Then he drew that guy that was always scratching himself—an odd-looking bird; took a while to get the glasses right. He was using a black crayon, so he couldn’t erase, and had to start over when he didn’t get something the way he wanted.

Next he drew the squinty-eyed blond guy who mumbled; he was easy to catch, even though he’d only got a glimpse of him sitting in that car.

He was just putting some finishing touches on, when he heard footsteps again. Thinking it was Mrs. Plett, he glanced up and was about to thank her once more when he saw a tall creature with the body of a bear and the head of a man.

Startled, even frightened, he sat up, and then he realized it was a guy in a bear costume; the man was holding the bear’s head, or anyway the headpiece of the costume, under his arm, like a basketball. It was an old guy, with a mustache; his hair was white, and real messed up, probably from being inside that bear-head.

“Young man!” he called. “Are you the young protégé of Richard Tracy?”

“Huh?” the Kid said.

The mustached guy in the bear costume padded over to him.

“My name, lad,” the bear-man said, gesturing grandly with a clawed paw, “is Vitamin Flintheart. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”

The old guy said this proudly, but his face fell when the Kid said, “No. Sorry, mister.”

“It’s of no great import,” he said, though it obviously was to him, and he sat down on the bed next to the Kid. Now the bed
really
sagged. “I’ve been sent here on a mission.”

“In a bear suit?”

He touched a paw to his shaggy brown chest. “I arranged for my theatrical group to give a presentation here, this afternoon, of ‘The Three Bears.’ I, of course, am Papa Bear. I had expected you to be in the audience, but when I inquired, I found you were not.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“My great and good friend Richard Tracy, America’s answer to Sherlock Holmes, has recruited me to give you a message.”

“Are you talking about Dick Tracy the cop?”

Flintheart’s eyes under shaggy white eyebrows flared. “Have you no ears, lad? That’s precisely what I just uttered.”

“Uttered?”

“Said, lad! Said!”

“What does Mr. Tracy want?”

Flintheart pointed a bear paw at the boy. “He wants you to stay put. He beseeches you not to hie to the highway—he implores you to resist the siren song of the railways.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t run away, lad. Tracy says he’ll come for you.”

“Mr. Tracy is in big trouble, mister.”

“The name is Flintheart, lad. And yes he is.”

“The papers say he’s up for the murder of the D.A. They got two witnesses at that hotel who saw him go in, and he was seen arguing at City Hall with the guy they say he killed.”

“Alas, you speak the truth. There’s also the matter of a blackmail note written in Richard’s handwriting, found in the pocket of the deceased prosecutor.”

“Well, it’s not the truth that Tracy’s goin’ around
murdering
people. That’s not the way he does things. And he’s no blackmailer, neither! He’s tough, but he’s fair.”

“As well I know. But Richard has prevailed over many a scrape indeed in the past, and he will overcome these dire circumstances, as well. Do as he says: wait for him. He will come for you.”

“Baloney! They got ’im cold! And where’s Miss Tess? The papers say nobody can find her!”

Flintheart shrugged his shaggy shoulders. “Miss Trueheart’s mother indicates that her daughter returned to the city the night of Richard’s unfortunate arrest. Apparently Miss Trueheart and Richard had encountered difficulties in their relationship . . .”

“She caught him with another dame.”

“Do tell. At any rate, there are those who think she has gone off somewhere, to be with herself.”

“That’s the bunk! Miss Tess didn’t take no powder. It’s a snatch. Big Boy grabbed her!”

“In fact,” Flintheart said, “that is indeed largely the opinion Richard has shared with his fellow gendarmes, though as yet the fourth estate is not aware of it.”

“Fourth estate?”

“The newspapers, lad.” Flintheart noticed the drawings. “What’s this, boy? These are quite remarkable.”

“I draw.”

“Ah!” Flintheart raised a paw grandly. “You will never regret pursuing a life in the arts, my lad. It’s a difficult life, but so rewarding.” He looked at the drawings carefully. “My boy, these really are outstanding. Your gift is truly singular. But tell me . . . why this gallery of grotesqueries?”

“Well . . . Mr. Flintheart, can you tell me something? I mean, you got lots of experience; you’re an old guy.”

Flintheart blinked. “It’s the costume, lad. I consider it maturity, not age.”

“Yeah. Right. Anyway, you been around. Do you think it’s wrong to squeal?”

“My boy, I’m performing in ‘The Three Bears,’ not ‘The Three Little Pigs.’ ”

“No, no—I mean, is it wrong to rat guys out? What if you saw somebody do something real bad, would you tell? ’Specially if you thought ratting ’em out might help somebody else, somebody you liked.”

Flintheart nodded sagely. “I believe I would, lad. It’s the socially responsible thing to do.”

“I don’t know if this would help or not. But let me tell you what I saw . . .”

So the Kid told Vitamin the whole story, pointing to each individual drawing as if reading an illustrated tale to a young child.

And Flintheart, sitting in his bear costume, the bear’s head under his arm, listened with the rapt attention of a very young child, indeed.

F
lat on his back on the uncomfortable cot, Tracy stared at the cement ceiling of the cell, hands behind his head; but he didn’t notice the discomfort, nor did he see the ceiling: he saw Tess’s face.

The small holding cell, one of a dozen such cubicles on the third floor of Central Headquarters, and the only one presently occupied, consisted of the cot he lay on, a small table with a Bible, and a toilet sans seat (and no sink). It was cold, rather dank, and for the first time in his life, Tracy felt a certain sympathy for the many felons he’d sent here.

It was quiet right now. It was usually quiet here, though postmidnight the previous two nights, he’d been serenaded by the discordant music of the current residents of the drunk tank around the corner from him.

His accommodations would soon improve: he was due to be shifted to the county jail, where (he’d already been assured) he’d be kept away from the general population. Putting him in among those he’d sent up could be dangerous for all concerned.

Bail had been denied him, but he felt confident he’d be out on the street soon. His wealthy friend Diet Smith was providing the best lawyer in the city, Kenneth Levin, who ironically had been Tracy’s adversary in many a past case. But at the arraignment, Judge Debirb—who had long been a legal thorn in Tracy’s side—found the evidence “simply too overwhelming” to set bail.

Levin should eventually prevail over Debirb’s ruling, but for the time being, this holding cell and another, slightly roomier one at the county jail, would be his home.

He understood, for the first time, the meaning of despair. Part of him wanted to kick these concrete walls down so that he could find those who’d put him here—and he knew who that was: Al “Big Boy” Caprice joined in an unholy alliance with that faceless gunman, who in all likelihood was this year’s model of one Frank Redrum.

But another part of him wanted to curl up in a fetal ball, and die. Because as much as he wanted to believe that Tess was still alive, he couldn’t conceive of how she could be.

Today, Saturday, had been the second full day to slip by since Tess’s disappearance. There had been, of course, no ransom demand. The motive of the kidnapping was an unusual one: Tess had served as bait.

She’d been kidnapped to lure Tracy to that greenhouse. So that Tracy could be fitted for his frame. That had been accomplished, and then some.

Her kidnapper or kidnappers, their objective reached, had only two options where Tess was concerned: spring her loose, assuming she’d not seen any of their faces (and with the blank-faced guy, how much face was there to see anyway?); or they could do what so many kidnappers ruthlessly did—dispose of their victim.

The only small solace was (he hated even to form these words in his mind) her body had not been found.

But so many never were.

Was Tess, even now, in a wooden-crate coffin, encased in cement? Was she at the bottom of the river, or the lake, where so many of Big Boy’s vanquished rivals kept the fish company?

Was she with Lips Manlis right now?

In the silence, in the darkness, in the coldness of the cell, Dick Tracy did something that might have surprised or perhaps amused his foes: he wept.

He was not out of control, however; he did this almost willfully, purging his system of the emotions. Similarly, he’d made himself sleep—despite the dreams, in which the grotesque countenances of the likes of Flattop, Itchy, and Pruneface, as well as the void that was the mystery man’s blurred face, haunted and taunted him.

He had to be ready. Three times a day, he’d done pushups and sit-ups on the cold concrete floor. He would, eventually, in hours or anyway days, be out on bail. Of that he was confident. And he would look for Tess, however hopeless that seemed, and he—despite the fact that at the first misstep bail would be revoked—would bring Big Boy down.