The Long Wait (26 page)

“But you never found the letter?”

“No.”

“Did you ever think about what could have happened to it?”

“I think I know. The person came back and claimed it.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Mrs. Minnow said Tucker called him about a special delivery letter.”

“That's right.” He took a long pull on the cigarette and filled the car with smoke.

“What was it about?”

“Hell, how do I know? He picked it up at the desk and stuck it in his pocket. He probably filed it away somewhere.”

“Find that letter, Lindsey. Go through every damn cabinet and drawer in the place, but find it.”

“Just a minute ...”

“You said you wanted to find a killer.” I looked at him coldly. “I'm not ordering you around, I'm giving you something that might tie in. Find that letter.”

His mouth clamped tight. “And what will you be doing?”

“Finding out who wrote it and why.”

He smoked that cigarette right down to the tip without saying anything. When it was finished he threw it out after the other one, squinted his face into a snarl and climbed out. Behind me I heard his car turn over, then pull away from the curb.

A week I told him. Seven days. It wasn't very long. I rolled the car forward and turned the corner. I traveled slowly and kept my eyes on the street signs until I found the one I wanted.

I parked in front of the building, took the elevator up and pushed the bell that had Servo on the nameplate.

Nobody answered.

I tried again, waited and still nobody answered. I went back downstairs to the super's apartment and pushed his bell too.

The guy was all smiles at the prospect of company even if he was in his shorts. I said, “Servo come in?”

He shook his head. “Hell, I dunno. His babe went outa here in a hurry awhile back, I know that. Just as I was coming up from fixing the hot water burner.”

“She have clothes on?”

“Yeah.” He showed his gums again. “They didn't fit, neither. You know what? She had on a green dress with spangles. Them whores upstairs ... one of 'em got a dress just like it.”

“Okay. I got it.”

He squinted his eyes at me and kept his voice down. “Somebody kicked Servo around.”

“That was me.”

“Thought so. Give it to him good?”

“Uh-huh. Why?”

“I was wondering. Him and somebody been doing a lot of arguing up there. For a while I thought maybe there was a fight in his place only I didn't hear anything like that. Just arguing. They was sore as hell about something.”

This time I gave him a ten. He folded it up and kept it in the palm of his hand. “What floor are the babes on?”

“Top. 7E. They're alone tonight.”

I went back to the elevator and let it haul me up. At 7E I rapped on the door until somebody told me to cut it out, they were coming and to take my time.

The brunette that opened the door had on a housecoat and nothing else. She gave me a surprised grin and said, “Well, if it isn't our tired playmate. So you finally woke up. Come on in.”

She was one of the pair Jack had sent up to me in the hotel. I said, “I'm not in the market, sugar. Right now I want some information. Downstairs there's a girl ... Servo's girl. She left awhile ago.”

Her professional smile disappeared. “So what.”

That was the sister-in-trouble act. This was another wall I had to break down fast. “She came up here and borrowed a dress. She lammed and I want to know why.”

“Maybe she wanted to see the town. How'd I know. Look, feller, you go ...”

“The kid's in hot water up to her ears. If you want her to get in deeper then clam up. I can find out someplace else, you know.”

She didn't like it a bit. Her teeth fastened to her lip while she tried to make up her mind. Maybe I looked honest enough to suit her. “She was scared, that's why.”

“Servo?”

“She didn't say. She was damn near hysterical and wouldn't talk. All she wanted was some clothes. You know what the matter was?”

“No. Did she say where she was going?”

“As far as I could make out she was leaving town. She was scared stiff about something and we thought that maybe Servo had worked her over. He's good at doing things that don't show any marks. Good at doing it so it does show too.”

“Just that?”

For a second she chewed on her lip again. “No ... there was something else. She was babbling about something in the paper tonight. She said she'd be next or something like that. I was running around too much to notice.”

I let it sink in, then reached behind me and opened the door. “Thanks, I'll find her.”

“I hope so. If anybody asks where she got the clothes, you don't know, understand?”

“Don't worry.”

“That crazy bastard was afraid to let her out without him. He did everything but keep her on a leash.”

“She liked it that way, didn't she?”

“Hell, why not? She got everything she wanted. She went out often enough and she kept talking of going away for good next year. That's all she lived for ... a little place in California all her own.”

“Tough,” I said. “Thanks again.” I shut the door and let the elevator take me downstairs again.

I found a newstand not too far off and picked up a copy of the
Lyncastle News.
It was a good copy for my scrapbook. My picture was on the front page with the story of George Wilson, the one-man crime wave, and how he was someplace in Lyncastle. The reporters must have been right on hand when Lindsey got that anonymous phone call and he let them go to town on it. There was a paragraph at the bottom of special interest. It said the F.B.I. was interested in George Wilson too and were looking for him.

Big deal. I get Lindsey to give me a break and Uncle Sam takes over.

But the item I really wanted was on the back of the second page. It was a small squib about four inches long and recounted the details of a woman who committed suicide early that evening. Two kids had seen her jump into the quarry and by the time help arrived she was dead. An autopsy showed she was drunk at the time and a close check on her activities disclosed that she had been making the rounds of the highway taverns. Her fingerprints were on file with the local Board of Health and identified her as a waitress in the ABC Diner. The cause of death was remorse over the recent murder of her roommate. They gave her name as Irene Godfrey, her address at the Pine Tree Gardens and that was all.

There was a picture coming out now. It was like walking in at the middle of a show and wondering how it started. If you stayed long enough you could pretty well guess the cause by seeing the effect. But not quite. You were still guessing. If you asked somebody in the next seat who had been there all along you might find out. If he wanted to tell you.

I folded the paper up and stuck it under the seat. My hand brushed the cold butt of the gun I had put there earlier, so I took it out, checked it and stuck it back. It might come in handy.

I was twenty minutes getting down to the bus station. The lights in the ports were out, but on the train side two hand-cars loaded wih mail sacks and packages were standing together waiting for the next connection. I parked the car, got out and walked down the end without getting out of the shadows.

Inside, two men were asleep on the benches. There was another woman with a wailing baby in her arms. The ticket grill was shut on the inside, but through the screened window I could see Nick perched on his stool shuffling papers into a drawer.

Tucker was all the way around the other side, just standing there with an unlit cigar in his mouth trying to be part of the night. I looked again and saw the other guy, a dark blob sitting on a crate. Tucker struck a match and held it to the cigar and I saw his face. He was young, well dressed. Like a lawyer. And F.B.I. agents have to be lawyers.

I made the round trip once more but I still didn't see what I came to see. Troy wasn't making any connections out of Lyncastle by bus or train. I slid inside the door nearest the office, yanked the knob and damn near scared Nick off his stool. He slammed the drawer shut with a bang that knocked over a stack of books and turned eyes on me that were ready to fall out of his head.

“Good gosh, you don't have to scare a man half to death, do you? Get over there and squat down till I get the shade down.”

He reached up and tugged at the partition that covered the grill. When he had it down he shot the bolt through the hasp and turned around. His hands were shaking.

“You got company outside, Nick.”

“Sure. All day I've had company. You know who's out there?”

“I can make a pretty good guess.”

“Damn 'em.” He reached in back of him and pulled a sheet of paper from the top of the pile. “Look here. I have to post it.”

I took it out of his fingers and looked at it. The likeness was perfect. It was the same one they ran in the paper, but this one had a reward notice tacked on the bottom.

I handed it back to him. “Funny place for those things.”

Nick shook his head and stared at the photo. “Law says in public places and this is a public place. Out where you can't see it is a whole bulletin board of these things.” His fingers gave a sharp snap to the sheet before he folded it out and stuck it in the drawer behind him. “You're wanted pretty bad, son. You shouldn't have come down here.”

“I'm looking for a dame, Nick. She was Servo's girl until something scared her and she took off. She was red headed, wearing a green dress and probably bawling her head off ... or looked like she had been. Seen anything of her?”

A frown made furrows in his forehead. “No, not that I remember.”

“Any other way she can get out of town?”

“Busses stop any place along the highway to make pickups.”

“That's the only way?”

“Uh-huh. Unless she has a car.”

“I doubt if she has. Okay, that's all I came for.” I started to get up.

Nick shoved me back in the chair. His mustache was working hard around his mouth, a hairy frame for the pink tongue that kept going over his lips. “Easy, son. You can't be batting around any more. You see that paper tonight?” I nodded. “The same thing on the radio too. I've had all sorts of cops in here telling me to be watching out for you. Suppose one of 'em grabs you?”

“Suppose they do?”

“Johnny boy, look. You have to get away. Tomorrow morning ...”

This time I got up. “Some other time, Nick. There's too much I have to do first.”

I got back to the car and managed to get it away from the station without being tailed. My head was starting to pound again and I was getting sick to my stomach. Tomorrow. I'd finish it tomorrow if it didn't finish me first.

I racked the Ford around a turn and lit a cigarette. It tasted lousy, but the smoke curling up around the ceiling was company. It was funny in a way. What Makes Johnny Run. Nearly like the title of a book. He had a good reason to. A long green reason or a long bloody reason, but on top if it all somebody had to run him out because he didn't want to do it himself.

A lot of people had told me things. I'd seen a lot of those things myself. I was part of them now. They were all there in a lump, slipping out of the pile one at a time to string out with big gaps between. When the gaps were filled I'd have the answers.

There was a lot I could see now. You don't play at being a detective. If you are one you work at it, but you have a knowledge of the science and details that goes in back of that work to help you along. No, I wasn't a detective. I was only a guy trying to dig up a five-year-old body long since fallen apart with decay. It wasn't easy. There weren't clues laying around. Just things happening that didn't seem to have any reason except that they all happened after I came to town.

I was a face that made trouble for somebody. They tried to kill me first. They tried to let the cops do the job instead and when that didn't work they tried to kill me again. Not the cops. I was so important dead that George Wilson had to be brought out in the open.

Answers. I needed answers. I wasn't going to be able to figure it out until I had the whole story right there in front of me. And that wouldn't be tonight.

No, tonight I'd sleep off the big head. It was hurting pretty bad.

I headed west, watching out for Pontiel Road, found it and drove up to the house. I stacked the car in the garage and got the key out of the flowerpot then went upstairs.

When I took a shower and got rid of the last of the tape that was keeping my scalp puckered together I looked in the two doors that led off the bathroom. I was too tired for games so I picked the one that smelled of both salts and powder, dumped my clothes on the back of a chair and crawled into the sack. If Wendy tried crawling in that other bed tonight she was going to find my half of it empty and she ought to be smart enough to take the hint not to go looking any further.

The sheets were cool against my skin, the pillow a soft cloud ready to take me off to sleepytown. I closed my eyes and climbed aboard.

The song seemed to come from far away. There weren't any words, just a hum with a deep, bouncy rhythm throated to sound like words. My eyes pulled open slowly and stared into the dark, just a little too heavy with sleep to be fully aware of where the song was coming from.

Then the dark seemed to dissolve into something white and flexible that moved along the edge of the room. It snapped me wide awake. Her dress whispered over her head and her slip made static crackling noises when she took it off. The humming paused for a second and I waited to see her go through the double-jointed contortions all women go through to unhook a bra. I was fooled. She did something to the front of it and peeled it off like a vest. There was another whisper of silk, almost inaudible this time, and she throw the last whisper across the chair and stretched her arms up reaching for the ceiling. Like a pagan moon worshipper. Her body a nude shimmer in the dark, absorbing what little light seeped in the window. Her back bowed slowly, making every curve stand out in sharp relief. Then she relaxed into a sultry pose, ran her fingers through her hair and came over to the bed, still humming the wordless tune.