Too Old a Cat (Trace 6) (13 page)

The drawing was of a young blond woman, done with delicate loving strokes. The blonde was nude, except for a small gold bell that hung about her neck.

Jackson stepped forward to examine the sketch more carefully. At the bottom was the title:
Keri
.

“Was this one of your models?” asked Jackson.

“No, that was just a free memory exercise one of the classes did. It’s very good, don’t you think?”

Razoni had rejoined them in front of the paper sketch. “Well, it’s sure a lot better than these disgusting things they’re doing now,” he said.

“The human form is never disgusting,” Dr. Mack said vigorously.

“Yours isn’t,” Razoni said. “That one isn’t,” he said, pointing to the drawing. “That one at the end of the room is.”

Dr. Mack looked at Jackson and shrugged.

Jackson said, “Has Abigail seemed upset lately?”

“No,” the young professor said. “Just the opposite. She’s seemed very happy.”

“Does she have any special friends in the class here?”

Dr. Mack shook her head. “Abigail’s a very shy girl. She hardly ever speaks to anyone, much less have friends.”

“I see,” Jackson said. He pointed at the drawing of the blond woman and said to Razoni, “Recognize the model?”

Razoni looked at the drawing carefully, then nodded.

When Jackson asked for the drawing, Dr. Mack declined, but made him a photocopy of it on the class copying machine.

Jackson folded the copy and put it in his pocket. “Thanks, Dr. Mack,” he said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“My pleasure. If you two ever want to come back and model for our class, we’d be glad to have you.”

“What’s it pay?” Razoni asked.

“Four dollars an hour.”

“To sit naked in front of all these Peeping Toms?”

“Yes.”

“That’s disgusting,” Razoni said.

After Chico left the office, Trace read again the report Sarge had prepared for Angelo Alcetta on his wife. Basically, it said that the agency had found out nothing about the woman, and Trace thought it was depressing.

From the center desk drawer, he took out the four lined pieces of paper ripped from a notebook that constituted Sarge’s business records and learned what depression was really like.

So he called Angelo Alcetta’s number. Alcetta wasn’t there, but some male of indeterminate species took the message that Trace wanted to see him in Sarge’s office that afternoon. After hanging up, Trace read the report again. It didn’t contain anything, except a lot of leading questions that it didn’t answer, but Trace thought he could fake his way through it.

The telephone rang.

“Tracy Agency.”

“Hello, Devlin.” Suddenly Trace knew everything else that had happened in his life was just a warm-up for this feeling of really being depressed. The voice was his ex-wife.

“Better talk fast, Cora. I was just leaving to catch a plane.”

“Don’t give me that, Devlin. I know that you’re going to be in town for the whole week and you’re staying at Hilda’s house. I suppose that floozie is with you?”

“What do you want, Cora?”

“What I want is for you to visit your two children. That’s what I want. Do you know how long its’s been since you saw them last?”

“Let’s see. The last Ice Age ended in 15,000 B.C., I think. It’s been since then.”

“Very funny. Really, Devlin. Don’t you think you could spare a few minutes to see your children? They need you.”

“Why? Did you go and buy them target pistols again?” Trace asked.

“I don’t know how you can ignore your own flesh and blood,” she said.

“I pay great attention to my flesh and my blood,” Trace said. “It’s just my kids that I ignore. Let’s face it, Cora. They’re yours. You spawned them and you raised them and I don’t even know What’s-his-name and the girl, and they don’t know me. Why ruin something that’s working perfectly?”

“Devlin, I am cooking dinner at this house on Saturday. Seven P.M. Your children and I will expect you here.”

“Good-bye, Cora.”

“Don’t forget. Seven o’clock Saturday.”

Trace hung up, feeling sweat starting under his arms. She might call back, he realized with panic. He had to go out. He smiled when he realized he had a perfectly valid business reason. He would go and take a look at Gloria Alcetta. Call it background information for when he delivered his report to Angelo later that day. He could honestly tell Angelo that not one, but two operatives had been working on his case.

From the desk drawer where he had stashed it, Trace took a small tape recorder. He locked the office door, then removed his shirt and taped the recorder to the right side of his back. He donned his clothes again and threaded the microphone wire through a shirt buttonhole and attached it to a tie clip in the shape of a golden frog. The frog’s mesh-covered open mouth covered a very powerful microphone. Trace tested the tape device, satisfied himself that it worked, then turned off the television set and left the office. Time to go see Sister Glorious.

“Next stop, Cap’n Crunch’s cereal shop,” Razoni said.

“Absolutely kee-rect,” said Jackson as they drove away from the uptown college.

“I can’t understand why the girl in the store lied to us about not knowing the Longworth kid,” Razoni said.

“Maybe she thought she was protecting her,” suggested Jackson.

“Yeah, but from what? All we did was ask her if she knew her.”

“I don’t know,” Jackson admitted. “They’re close enough that Abigail draws nudes of the blonde. Maybe she thought Abigail was in some kind of trouble.”

“Probably just trying to keep her away from us. Dirty fags,” said Razoni.

“Not just the two of them either,” said Jackson.

“What do you mean?”

“The Marichal kid. She’s got a picture of Abigail in her room with a little love message on it too.”

“What is this?” Razoni said. “Everybody in this town is turning queer. Lesbian Fagola City. It’s all that Longworth’s fault. As soon as that pinko came to town and started ruining all the television, everybody’s turning swish. He won’t rest until he gets this town renamed San Franswishco.”

“Everybody’s favorite city,” Jackson said.

“Aaaaah, bullshit,” Razoni said. He was quiet for a while, then asked, “Did the captain say how those two precinct morons—what’s their names, Gault, Gorman—how they were doing with the Salamanda investigation?”

“No break yet,” Jackson said.

“Well, at least we’re not involved in that one anymore,” Razoni said.

“That’s not exactly correct,” Jackson said. “The captain told us to keep an eye on it.”

“What?” Razoni yelled. “How the hell can I investigate a missing lesbian and a lizard’s murder all at the same time? Why the hell doesn’t he get a broom for my butt and I can sweep the floor on the way out of the office?”

“He probably didn’t think of it yet,” Jackson said.

“You’re a fine one, Jackson. You don’t care how much work gets laid on me.”

“I don’t know anybody else who could handle it all with such grace.”

Trace had this idea that Indian holy men were interested in nothing so much as the bottom line. So as he walked down the street toward the Salamanda ashram headquarters, he knew that in Nirvana somewhere the Swami would be pleased to know that his fruit-and-nut factory was doing a land-office business selling granola and birdseed.

Trace picked his way through the crowds of people in the store and asked a young man at a back counter, “Where’s Sister Glorious?”

“I suppose you’re another one of them from the press,” the young man said with great disdain.

“Had a lot of press around?” Trace asked.

“Yesterday. Gawd. We had everybody but the
National Enquirer
. Who are you?”

“I’m with the
National Enquirer
,” Trace said. “Jerome Falwell. Were you one of the Swami’s disciples?”

“With all my heart.”

“What do you say to people who said his message wasn’t one of love, but just a call to free indiscriminate sex. What do you say to them?”

“I say they should go fuck themselves,” the young man said with a grin.

“Well-phrased, well-phrased,” Trace said. “Is Sister Glorious here?”

“She’s next door at the ashram,” the young man said.

“Thank you very much.”

“Have a nice day, Mr. Falwell.”

Razoni and Jackson went into the food shop and asked the man at the counter in the back, “Where’s Keri?”

“Keri?”

“Yes. The tall blonde that works here.”

“I don’t think I know her,” he said. “Who are you?”

Razoni ignored the question. “We were in last night. She waited on us.”

“You know, we don’t really have people who work here,” the man said. “Anybody who’s here will work here. That’s the way it works under the Swami.”

“Maybe somebody else here knows her,” Jackson said.

The young man shrugged. “Janelle,” he called out. A fat young woman pushed her way through a beaded curtain that separated the store from a back room. “They’re looking for a Keri,” the young man said. “Said she was working last night.”

Razoni had turned to watch the people milling about the store. Without thinking, he dipped his fingers into a bucket of grains, pulled out a few, and started to chew them. They were good. Surprisingly good. He had a few more.

“Yes, Keri was in here last night,” the fat girl told Jackson.

“But she’s not here now?” he said.

“No.”

“Do you know her full name?” Jackson asked.

“No, I don’t. We have all given up our old names, we who serve the Swami.”

Jackson fished the photocopied sketch from his pocket, unfolded it, and placed it on the counter. “This is the girl we’re talking about, right?”

“That’s her,” said Janelle.

“Damn,” the young man said, scanning the nude drawing carefully. “I knew I should have worked last night.”

“Think she might be next door?” Jackson asked.

“She is there a lot,” Janelle said. “She might be there now.”

Behind him, Jackson heard the sound of crunching. “You almost finished fooling around?” he asked Razoni.

“Anytime, Tough. I just want to get a bag of this stuff.” He poured a scoopful of the grains into a clear plastic bag and brought it to the counter. “How much?” he asked.

The young man put the bag on the scale. “That’ll be four dollars.”

“What?”

“Four dollars. It’s eight dollars a pound and you’ve got half a pound.”

“For cereal?”

“Special natural grains and kernels,” the man said.

“Special natural rip-off,” Razoni said. He took the bag and poured it back into the bin. “Let’s go, Tough.”

“Cheapskate,” the young man muttered.

“Thief,” Razoni muttered.

In the street outside, Razoni said, “Well, the blonde knows something about the lesbian’s disappearance. That seems to be pretty sure. But I wonder. Did she make us last night as cops? Is that why she lied to us?”

“Maybe somebody told her we were at the headquarters,” Jackson suggested.

“Yeah,” said Razoni. “Somebody with a bell. Everybody’s got a bell. Stand aside for Tough Jackson, who knows all about bells. Ring dem bells, won’t you ring dem bells, dey is ringing out de glory of de land.”

“Go soak your hand in granola.”

“Not at eight dollars a pound,” Razoni said.

Walking next door, it was decided that Jackson was too nice a person to be a policeman. It was also decided that Razoni would handle the case from here on in.

These decisions were made unilaterally by Razoni, who took Jackson’s silence for agreement.

There were new signs in front of the Swami’s headquarters.

WHEN WILL THE POLICE DO JUSTICE?

NATIONAL CONVENTION THIS SUNDAY.

JOIN THE TREK TO THE CITY OF LOVE.

“Brother Gildersleeve’s not kidding,” Razoni said. “He’s going to stuff that lizard and prop him up and go ahead with that convention.”

“Well, that’s the way it goes,” Jackson said blandly.

There had been nobody at the reception desk inside the Salamanda building, so Trace had wandered into the large meeting room—obviously the place where the Swami had died—and sat quietly in the back, looking around and wondering.

He was wondering what he was doing here, what he could do that Sarge hadn’t already done. It wasn’t likely that he could just walk up to Gloria Alcetta when he saw her and say, “What are you doing that your husband ought to know about, so that when you sue him for divorce he can cut you to ribbons?” No, not that. How about “My father thinks you were sleeping with the Swami. Were you? If so, was it any good?” No. He got up to walk around, hoping he’d think of something.

He was looking down a hallway leading from the main meeting room when he saw Gloria Alcetta. She had stepped from a small office, followed by a small man in a shiny-fabric suit. That must be Gildersleeve, he thought. Both persons looked angry, and as Trace watched, they stopped, turned toward each other, and seemed to be arguing.

Just then, two men, big men, one black and one white, entered the hallway and walked up to Gildersleeve and the woman. Trace was not close enough to hear what they were saying, but he didn’t like the looks of the men. Mob guys if he had ever seen them.

Gildersleeve stopped talking to Sister Glorious when he saw Razoni and Jackson coming toward them.

“Are you here to tell me that you’ve solved the brutal murder of our leader?”

“We’re not here to tell you anything,” Razoni said. “We’re here to ask. Where’s the girl named Keri?”

“Keri?”

“This is like a record. We say ‘Keri’ and somebody else says ‘Keri’? Yes, dammit, Keri. The tall blonde who served you and the lizard tea on Saturday night.”

“I don’t know,” Gildersleeve said. “And I don’t know why I should have to do your work for you. I’m very busy. And I just want you to know that if you incompetents don’t solve this murder promptly, you’re going to have a lot of trouble on your hands.”

“Trouble has a way of leaking,” Jackson said softly. “Sometimes everybody’s feet get wet.”

Gildersleeve snorted and stomped away, leaving Gloria Alcetta alone there.

“I know Keri,” she said softly.

Jackson pulled the sketch from his pocket. “This girl?” he said.

Sister Glorious looked at the sketch and nodded. “That’s her,” she said.

“Keri Ellison,” Jackson said. “That’s her name?”

For a moment, Sister Glorious looked confused. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “That’s not the name I know.”

“What is her name?” Jackson asked.

“Keri is the name she uses here. I’ve never heard the Ellison name before. We spoke once. Her real name is Karen. Karen Marichal. She lives up on—”

“We know where she lives,” Razoni said.

Sister Glorious stepped closer and put a hand on each of the detective’s arms. “Is there any indication of who killed the Swami?”

“Nothing yet, ma’am,” Jackson said, “but we’ll find out.”

“Somehow I’m sure you will,” she said.

Mob guys, pure and simple, Trace thought. The white one looked hard and mean, his suit was too expensive, his features whittled too sharp for him to be up to any good. The black man was softer-looking, almost gentle, probably a kind of Lenny from
Of Mice and Men
, the kind who would kill anything or anyone the other one pointed him at.

Why was Gloria Alcetta talking to the mob? This might be a home run, he realized, a piece of information important enough for him to con Angelo Alcetta into keeping the firm working for him for weeks more. Maybe months.

The two big men were leaving and Trace decided Gloria Alcetta could wait. He had to follow these two and see what they were up to.

Walking to their car, Razoni said, “I knew that family was nuts. I guess we’d better go talk to her, but I’m surprised at you, Tough. Not figuring out that the big blond chickie was the looney hiding in the dark in the monkeyhouse.”