Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 03 (10 page)

The second Hickey’s eyelids fell, the brighter circuits of his brain switched off. For an age, it seemed, he floated in the bliss of forgetfulness. It looked like inside a rainbow.

A figure hovered over him. His eyes sprang open. The boss leaned toward him, his hand creeping out. Reaching for the gun.

Hickey’s right foot flew up, sprang out. It launched the gambler backward, stumbling over his feet. He landed on the couch.

Collecting himself, impaling Hickey with his eyes, he snarled, “You shouldn’t of done that, Tom.”

Chapter Fifteen

A tamarack that rustled in a gusty wind kept slapping the wall of the cabin, directly outside from the corner where Wendy sat near the stove, wrapped in her patchwork quilt. On the other side of the stove, next to the bin of logs, the blond man lay sprawled on a bunk. He was so tall his legs from the knees down hung over the end. Beyond him, out the frosty window, the middle of the lake appeared dark and thick as oil. In the center, like a bull’s-eye rose an island of pale gray boulders. The shoreline all around was fringed in ice.

The man about Tom’s age, with the soft, pretty voice, stood washing a pan. Since they’d arrived, he’d been cleaning things. Mopping the floor and dusting the shelves. Sneezing a lot.

He set down the plate and turned around. Light from the hanging lantern sparkled off his bottle-thick glasses. “Goddam wind,” he said. “Why don’t you get off your can, Tersh, go out and hack down that branch?”

“Shut up. I was just nodding off.”

“Sleep with that noise? Goddam wind, sounds like another lousy storm blowing in. How about this: we get snowed in. Two, three weeks, we’re outta food. What do we do, cook the broad on a spit?”

“Sure,” Tersh muttered. “I get the breast, you take the rump roast.”

“Yeah, and a month goes by without a thaw. Foster’s pal don’t send an expedition to rescue us. With us and the doll starved to death, he saves a bundle. Suppose we already ate her, it’s gotta be you gets cooked up next. You’re twice as meaty as me.”

“Shut up, Bud. What kinda dreams you think I’m gonna have, you talking that way?”

“You? How about the doll?”

Bud turned back to the sinkboard and picked up another dish, while the tall man rolled over, gave Wendy a leer and a wink. “Come on, join me, cutie.” He patted the bunk, beside his hip. “Plenty of room. Hey, Bud, how about she wants some more of that tea, or hotcakes, she’s gotta smooch for it. I mean, she oughta have to pay for her keep. It’s only right.”

“How do you feel about pregnant gals, Tersh?”

“Whatta you mean, how do I feel?”

“I mean do they get you hot, what else? Personally, I think they got a special kinda charm. You ever had one of ’em?”

“Not yet. Maybe soon as I wake up.”

As long as Wendy kept praying, she didn’t get too afraid. Her belly didn’t cramp too hard. The chills didn’t shoot down her arms or legs. Her eyes didn’t blur.

Having already prayed a lot for Tom, baby Clifford, and Claire, she prayed for some people at church, ones she knew were sick or troubled. After those, she prayed for dead people. Her brother, Clifford. Their mama. Their beastly father, who needed forgiveness most of all. For Mr. Poe, whose stories had haunted her since last summer when she chose a book of his from the lending library at Pederson’s store in the village. She often prayed for Mr. Poe, figuring he must’ve dwelt in torment, or else how could he write those things?

She sent off a prayer for the poor lady Tom had gone to rescue. When he learned that his wife and baby were in trouble, Tom might’ve left the poor lady in jail and come speeding to the mountains. Wendy knew Tom was searching, because the third or fourth time she’d asked the men why they’d snatched her, Bud said, “Hey, all I know’s your ol’ man got his nose stuck in somebody’s affairs. And this somebody’s the kind, you tweak his ear, he rips your head off. You wanta win, that’s how you play the game.”

Her mind struck up a hymn. It came loud, as out of a radio.

Far away in the depths of my spirit tonight

rolls a melody sweeter than psalm.

In celestial strains it unceasingly falls

o’er my soul like an infinite calm.

While she listened, she grew deeply sorry because wherever Tom was, he wouldn’t be sleeping very well, because she hadn’t been there to kiss him good night or rub his tight shoulders. He wouldn’t sleep enough, she thought. He’d get too angry. His face would turn red. Blue veins would cross his brow. He might sock the wall—or somebody.

Peace, peace, wonderful peace
,

coming down from the father above
.

Sweep over my spirit forever I pray
,

in fathomless billows of love
.

When Tersh began snoring gruffly, Wendy sighed and felt her muscles loosen. He was the one who frightened her, the way he stared icily as if she were a page of numbers he needed to cipher. The way the Nazis used to stare. Ever since she’d gone to Hell, tall blond men most always spooked her.

The tree slapped louder against the wall. She gazed out over the lake to see if the wind had foamed the water, but it still looked flat and oily. Only along the far bank there were spots that gleamed on the ice, as though fishermen had arrived, with lanterns. Except lanterns ought to throw sharper beams. These were soft, as though from a light wrapped in gauze.

She didn’t dare get up to look closer, or else Bud would shout and wake up Tersh, who’d yell and threaten and maybe smack her. Besides, her legs were numb, and one foot was sound asleep. She leaned forward, squinting toward the lights. The center of each beam seemed to hide behind the manzanita that lined the shore, on the bank about five feet up from the waterline.

Her heart thumped so loudly, she wrapped her arms in front of it to muffle the noise. The lights might be campfires, she tried to believe, though they didn’t flicker. It could be Tom out there. Maybe with a gang of Mexicans like the ones that helped him snatch her out of Hell. She counted nine lights along the far shore. They might have the lake surrounded: Tom, and a bunch of Mexicans, and Clifford. Like before.

Her eyes flooded, because Clifford and two of the Mexicans were in heaven. Looking out through her tears, she narrowed her vision to the light straight across the water. It quavered and sent out ripples like the moon did after rain; then it took a shadowy form. First it became a thunderbird—Wendy had seen plenty of those in clouds. Suddenly it changed to an angel, flying sideways, its wings tucked as though for a dive.

Oh, God! Wendy’s heart sang. Maybe Tom had rounded up a gang of angels.

Chapter Sixteen

Waiting felt like a crime against nature. It pressurized Hickey’s brain, made it crackle and flare. If he could run around showing Wendy’s picture to motel clerks and gas station people, roam the casinos bribing or slapping around tough guys in hopes they might spill something—all he needed was to feel that now and then he got a step closer to Wendy—he’d be okay.

But he couldn’t drag Poverman to those places. The first chance, Harry’d thump him. Besides, the minute they stepped out, Angelo Paoli or Mickey Cohen might call with a deal. Or a pair of sharpshooters, Harry’s boys, might be hiding in the woods across the driveway to knock him off before he reached the car.

Too damn bad, he thought. I’m getting out of this prison.

The gambler was snoozing. Hickey got up and started to lap the room. Fatigued as he was, it looked like a quarter mile around.

He hadn’t seen Tyler or Frieda in an hour. Out the picture window, the junipers swayed like hula girls and the lake rolled as though coming to a boil. A mass of black clouds had blotted the heavens. Hickey imagined hordes of evil warriors sweeping across the Rubicons.

He was startled by a sudden rumble; then two strokes of lightning blazed. A double blast of thunder rattled the window. Hickey’d never seen such lightning in winter.

The doorbell sounded. Harry sprang to life. Before he could shout for the maid, Frieda came shuffling out of the northeast cube, in a bathrobe, hair tied with a bandanna. She peered through the peekhole and opened the door. Claire rushed in. She stopped for a moment in the entryway and scanned the room, squinting into the dim light. There was only one lamp on, beside the couch where Harry sat, and some glowing coals in the fireplace.

She flicked a wall switch that brightened the entryway and crossed the room. “Sorry it took so long. I finally caught up with the benzedrine guy.” She passed Hickey a small paper-wrapped cylinder, a thermos and a paper sack, and dropped into the couch, at the far end from the boss. “God, I’m beat. Aren’t you?”

“Sure,” Hickey said. “These oughta help. Thanks a million.” He peeled the wrapping off the cylinder, tossed it onto the floor, and dropped all but two of the small white pills into his shirt pocket.

“Any news?” Claire asked.

“Not a word.” He gulped the two pills and reached for the water pitcher, washed them down. “You see the lightning?” He opened the sack, grabbed one of the egg salad sandwiches and chomped it ravenously.

“I’ll say. It scared the dickens out of me. How about you?”

“Woke me up a little.”

“You okay?”

“Not so good,” he admitted. “I’m going stir crazy, nothing to do except try and fool myself into thinking we’ll get her back in one piece.”

“We’ll get her back,” Claire said earnestly.

“Suppose we do. What chance she won’t be loony again? I’m seeing her in a rocking chair, with big spooky eyes and scabs on her head from banging it against the wall. If I listen close, I can hear her bawling.”

Claire sighed, folded her hands on her knees, and sat watching tenderly while he devoured the sandwich and carrot sticks.

“Last year when I wrecked the car,” she said, “we were climbing out of the ditch.…I thought Wendy’d be scared to pieces, the way she’d bounced around when we skidded off the road. I mean, she smacked into the roof and the dash and all, landed upside down with her head on the floorboard, between the seat and the gearshift. I thought sure she’d be screaming, but she was fine. Even laughed about it. And remember what I told you she said? She believed we would’ve flipped head over heels and tumbled into that gully, if the angels hadn’t stopped us.”

“Sure, I remember.”

“As long as she doesn’t give up believing in angels, Tom, she’ll be all right.”

Hickey tried to conjure a vision. The best he could dream up were cherubs and ghosts, just enough to lighten his heart for a minute. Until he remembered that angels don’t always come to rescue people. Sometimes they carry people away.

The boss still sat looking sleepy and bewildered. Finally he slapped his face and rubbed it and asked Claire what she wanted to eat or drink. She declined anything, got up, went to the fireplace and tossed on a fat log, came back, and knelt beside Hickey.

“I might as well go out snooping around the casinos. I asked two palookas at the Cal-Neva what they’d heard about the kidnapping. Snuggled up close, batted my eyes, and still couldn’t get a damn thing out of them. How about I go try South Shore, Harry’s place, first?”

The boss gave her thumbs up and nodded. “Toss me the pad, Tom. I’ll write a note that’ll get Miss Blackwood all the drink tokes she needs and a couple boys to keep an eye on her, in case some jerk gets rude.”

Hickey tossed the note pad and pen. “While you’re at it, nose around some of the motels and lodges. Keep an eye out for the Olds, maybe show Wendy’s picture around. There’s a good one on the bookshelf by the hat rack.” He fished in his pocket. “Want some bennies?”

“No, thanks. I’m wide awake and allergic to every pill ever invented. You want me to call, keep you posted?”

“You bet. Every hour or so. And keep checking in with Sheriff Boggs, see what they’ve got, keep ’em honest. If they ask about me, say I’m out snooping. Maybe the sheriff wouldn’t be pleased about this.” He lifted the .45, motioned it toward Harry.

“All right. Photo, motels, sheriff. I’ve got it.” She rose, patted Hickey’s skull, then bent and kissed it lightly. “Don’t take too many of the pills, Tom. Just what you’ve got to, huh?”

Hickey squeezed her hand before she hustled across the room and out the door. He screwed the cup off the thermos, pried out the cork and poured the cup full, took a swallow, then leaned back, stuffed and lit his pipe, and sat blinking his eyelids so they wouldn’t stick together before the benzedrine took hold.

The boss had sprawled lengthwise on the couch again, staring malevolently at the ceiling, as though he’d spotted a wasps’ nest. “If you weren’t spooked I’m gonna poison you,” he grumbled, “I could give you prescription stuff, better than those Mexican jumping beans. I keep it around. You never know when some dame’ll want to lose a few pounds quick.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Hickey muttered.

“Say, what’s with all the blab about angels?”

“Wendy believes in angels. Like I told you.”

“How about that.” The boss wagged his head pensively. “I’ve seen you two stepping out Sunday mornings. You go to that church up in the village?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s it get you? You sing in the choir, toot your clarinet?”

“Nope.”

“What the hell’s it get you then? You shout and stomp, figuring you’re gonna land in heaven while the rest of us no-goods fry?”

“You wanta sit here and argue religion?” Hickey growled.

“We got something better to do? Tell me what’s the point of this churchgoing, I’ll shut up and snooze.”

“Go to church, it makes you feel different, that’s all.” He caught the boss starting to object, raised his hand for silence. “Hold on. I’ll tell you how Wendy explains it. She thinks we don’t live with both feet in the world. Either the right one’s gonna be in hell and the left on earth, or the right’s on earth and the left in heaven. You go to church, it’s like you shuffle your feet, that’s all.”

“You a believer?”

“Now and then. I’ll tell you something, though. Wendy’s not famous for her brain. Hardly one of your top intellectuals, and she hasn’t got around as much as you or me. But I’d bet the pot she knows ten times more about God than either of us do. If she says there’s angels around, you won’t find me calling her a liar.”

Suddenly he felt like a drunk, awash in self-pity, desperate for a lap to cry on. “She wants me to go to church, I go. See, I’ve known a lot of swell women, Harry. Seen them at their best. Dancing, dressed fit to kill, undressed. I guess I’ve seen ’em from most every angle. But I’ve never seen anything half so beautiful as Wendy when she lays her cheek on her hands and prays.” He swallowed hard. “That by itself’d get me to church any day.”

The boss stretched as though to brace up the ceiling. He almost reached it. “Hmmm. So, what about the Blackwood gal? She a churchgoer?”

“Not a regular.”

Harry sat up and leaned on his hands, rubbing his chin and smiling pensively. “Claire,” he mumbled.