The Long Wait (15 page)

“As sure as I can be without any proof. If I knew more about how the hell a bank runs its books I could have put the questions right.”

The eyebrows went up again. Higher this time. “But you ...”

“I never worked in a bank,” I said, “because I'm not Johnny McBride. You're the second person I've told this to and you're going to be the last, but Johnny McBride is dead. I'm just a guy who looks like him.”

I gave it to her with as few words as possible and she sat there with her mouth open trying to absorb it all. I motioned to her to eat while she was listening and finished about the same time she did.

She took the cigarette I offered her, dragged in a light and let the smoke curl out with her words. “It's incredible, really. Nobody has thought different so far?”

“Not so I'd notice. I'm going to play the game right up to the hilt until I find out why Johnny left like he did. If you're wondering why I bothered telling you all this it's because I'm going to need you.”

“And Nick ... are you going to tell him?”

“No. Pop's okay, but he's too old to help me much. I'm glad he picked me up when he did and he's got my thanks.”

“You'd better stop calling him ‘Pop.' He hates that. You're supposed to know him well enough to know what he's called.”

I nodded. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“What do you want me to do, Johnny? I mean...”

“Keep it Johnny. I want you to help me find Vera West. Women are good at asking questions right. Try the gang that comes through your place.”

“But they're all from out of town.”

“That's all right. She may not be in Lyncastle. If she changed her name she's probably still using the same initials ... like Veronica Waverly or something. Put out a few feelers with your friends, but cook up a good story to go with it in case they start asking questions.”

I pushed my plate back and got up.

“All right, Johnny. And you can take my car if you want to. I'll use the old one. It's in the garage.”

“Yeah, I'll do that. Don't wait up for me,” I grinned.

“You'll be back?”

I looked her up and down slowly. “What else?”

Her eyes half closed and she tilted her head up. “Kiss?” “Uh-uh. I wouldn't think of spoiling your paint job.”

“Rat.”

“Ain't I?”

She stuck her tongue out at me.

Wendy was a pretty head, all right. A little on the hard side when you looked close and the make-up didn't take away the brittle lines that were etched in the corner of her mouth and eyes. She was a million bucks in a green dress under artificial lights and two million in bed. A dime a dozen in the daytime though.

I told her so-long and went out to the garage.

The car was a black Ford coupé in good condition parked alongside a decrepit Model A that probably had made a reputation for itself in college ten years ago. Some of the witty sayings still showed through the finish and there were coon tails hanging from the chrome guides on the fenders.

I backed out to the street, drove down Pontiel Road and cut over toward the center of town. At a candy store I stopped and picked up a copy of the
Lyncastle News,
then sat in the car to see what it had to say. It said plenty. Page one had a big splash of the cops hauling a pair of bodies from the quarry under the spotlights from a police car. The story was that an anonymous tip to the News brought out the police who recovered the bodies and made an immediate identification. The men were a pair of medium-sized hoods whose activities were usually centered around Chicago. One was wanted for parole violation and the other was wanted for questioning in a series of stick-ups in Florida.

Lindsey made the statement that it was undoubtedly a revenge killing by some gang outside the state and hoped for an early arrest. Apparently the cops and the reporters on the scene had messed up any extra footprints or car tracks because nothing was said.

Buried on page four was a squib mentioning the fact some joker had stolen a car, taken it for a joy ride and abandoned it in front of police headquarters.

When I closed the paper I dug a nickel out of my pocket and went back into the candy store, looked up the number of the Hathaway House and dialed it. I asked for Jack, heard the desk clerk hit the bell a few times, then got my party.

I said, “This is Johnny McBride, Jack. Can you take a few minutes off and meet me somewhere?”

His voice was guarded. “Certainly, sir. Topps' Bar and Grill you say? In fifteen minutes. Yessir.”

I told him fine and hung up. Topps' was about six blocks from the hotel and I made it before he did. I took a table in the back, asked for coffee and waited. A couple minutes later he came in, saw me and came back to the table.

“Hi ya, Mr. McBride.” He sat down across from me and I signaled for another coffee.

“My room still empty?”

“Sure. You had a couple calls to see if you were in last night and this morning. Didn't leave their names though.”

“Anybody staked out around the lobby?”

He screwed his face up. “Not now. Some character was there most of the night. I kind of thought it was a new dick.”

I peeled off two tens and a five from my roll and tossed them across the table. “When you get back pay for my room and check me out. I left a suitcase with some old clothes in it under the bed. Throw that in the ash can. I won't be going back to the hotel.”

“You got trouble?”

“Plenty. I'm not well liked around here.”

Jack grinned broadly. “Yeah, I asked about that. What's the story?”

“Don't believe what you hear,” I said.

“You got framed, eh?”

“What makes you think so?”

“Coming back. If you pulled that bank job you'd still be a thousand miles from here. Whatcha want with me?”

The waiter came with the coffee and I waited until he was back at the other end of the room before I said, “Not meaning to be impolite, but since you do a little pimping on the side you might know something I need.”

“If it's about dames, sure.”

“Ever hear of Vera West.”

He let out a low whistle. “You're working the top brackets now, ain't you, Johnny? She's one of Servo's ex's.”

“Where is she now?”

His eyes lost that young look. “Seems like a lot of people are looking for her.”

“Who?”

“Just people. A pair of chicks I have on call both were tapped with the same question. They didn't know.”

“Do you know?”

He dumped milk and sugar in his coffee and stirred the concoction around slowly. “I only saw her once after Servo dumped her. She was just getting off the night train and she was carrying a suitcase. I remember that she looked pretty upset or something. Anyway, one of Servo's boys happened to be in the station putting some tomato on the train and when she saw him she ran like hell for a cab. I never saw her again after that.”

“Which way was the train going?”

“It was the incoming train, the express that comes in from Chicago to the state capitol, turns south and goes through here down to Knoxville.”

“I see. Who was the guy she saw?”

“Eddie Packman. He's a right-hand man to Lenny Servo nowadays. Thinks he's big stuff. Hell, before he hit Lyncastle he was small potatoes. He gimme a hard time in a poolroom one day and I beat his ears off. I wouldn't try it now.”

“Why not?”

“Because now I'm small potatoes and he's Servo's boy,” he grinned.

“So you think Vera West left town, is that it?”

He shook his head. “I don't think anything. I remember seeing her last coming into town and remember that she and Servo split up right around that time, but I never had any reason to think about her. Maybe she's right here in town.”

“The last time you saw her, what did she look like?”

“Scared.”

“Describe her.”

“Well,” he squinted in thought, “she was usually half in the bag, and this time she had a beaut of a hangover. Her eyes were red. She sure had pretty hair. Used to keep it in a page boy, you know, down around her shoulders curling up inside on the edges. Like gold. Outside that she was medium. Guess you'd say a nice build. I never looked too close.”

“Okay,” I said, “now suppose she never did leave town. Where could she hide out?”

“Well, for one thing, all she had to do was dye her hair red or brown or something and that'd help. There's places she could work like the laundry and rooming houses she could live in. If she didn't move around too much she could stay under cover. I know a couple of kids who were hot, one with the feds, and they stayed right here in town while they did some job of searching, but they got away with it.”

“I see. One more thing. Why did she break with Servo?”

Jack looked a little pained. “You ask the damnedest questions.”

“You know?”

“I got a good memory and a good imagination. I put two and two together, see? If you're going out and mess around with Servo and my name gets mentioned, me and Lyncastle will have to part company and I like it here.”

“Nuts,” I said, “you won't get involved in anything.”

“Okay, then I'll tell you what I
think.
It ain't what I
know,
remember that. Lenny Servo's got a way with the broads. He treats ‘em nice so long as they treat him nice, but he don't like any one of 'em around too long. Now I know a couple others he brushed off and they didn't like it. Life was too nice while Lenny paid for it so they put the squeeze on him. Hell, they musta seen it coming and worked up a little insurance. Anyway, they don't know what Lenny won't squeeze. He gives them the business the hard way and they scram. No fooling around. Not if they want to keep their own teeth and noses. You get the idea?”

“Yeah, I get it. So where would somebody like Vera go ... working the houses?”

His shoulders shrugged unconcernedly. “That's as likely as anything else. She's a tramp, she stops giving it away and starts selling it.”

“Servo got anything to do with those houses?”

“Naw, this is Lyncastle, not New York. They're on their own, pay off the cops regular and let it go at that. Hell, with all the free stuff coming through here who's going to play around in those bug mills? Me, I got some fancy women working. I catch the legitimate traveling trade, but the houses don't get anything but the low-down stuff.”

“Do I need an introduction to get into 'em?”

Jack grinned, finished his coffee and set the cup down. “Go to 107 Elm Street. Tell the bag in charge I sent you. You'll get in.” He grinned again. “You oughta let me fix you up instead.”

“I'll fix myself up,” I said.

“You'll do that all right, down in those joints.”

I fished a buck out of my pocket and started to get up. Jack picked the bills off the table and I waved at them with my thumb. “Keep whatever's left over.”

“Sure, thanks. If you need me again, look me up. I'll see what I can do finding the broad for you. Maybe the dames know something.”

“Swell.” I paid for the coffee, let Jack have a few minutes start while I picked up some butts, then got back in the car. This was the day I was going to dig up my life history. Or Johnny's rather.

It didn't take long. In a way it was fun. Here I was practically a celebrity and nobody knew who I was. Five years sure go a long way with the public when it comes to remembering. I started off with the records in City Hall, found out I had been born December 9, 1917, lost my parents while I was in high school and was legally adopted by a bachelor uncle who died while I was overseas. I checked the registration rolls of my family, found out where we had lived, went back to the library and dug around in the papers and got a partial history of my service record. Along with several hundred others I had enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor, taken basic training down South, then was assigned to O.C.S. and sent overseas.

I went over all the details until I had them set in my mind and if anybody asked there wasn't much I couldn't tell them. When I left the library I didn't stop to light a cigarette on the steps. I used the side door, ducked down the back alley to the car and hopped up to the main drag for a quick lunch.

At a quarter after two I called Logan. There was something funny about his voice when he told me to meet him in the parking lot outside a bowling alley on the west side of town.

I found the place without any trouble, drove up to the fence and killed the engine. A couple minutes later I saw his car turn in the drive and I waved him up next to me. He got out, opened the door next to me and sat down.

“Any news?” I asked him.

“Plenty.” He glanced at me queerly.

“You found out who the boys were?”

“No ... I found out who
you
were.” He reached in his side pocket for an envelope. I waited while he drew out some clippings and a folded printed circular. “Take a look,” he said.

I spread it out and took a look. I took a good look because it was a police circular with a picture of me on it that said my name was George Wilson and I was wanted for armed robbery, burglary and murder, and the description it gave fitted me to the screwy color of my eyes and the tone of my voice.

ALL I could say was, “Where'd you get it?”

“Our little hick paper has a big city morgue. Read the rest of it.”

I did that, too. They were accounts of the crimes I was suspected of committing. They were all dated and the date of the last one was about three weeks before I forgot who I was. I stuffed them back in the envelope and handed them to Logan. I felt like something that should be crawling instead of walking. “What're you going to do about it?”