Trouble in Rooster Paradise (7 page)

He seemed mildly impressed. But it was hard to
know with him.

“
Anyway, Gunnar, go poke around.
Stir the pot if you have to. But take care, son. As I said, I want
to avoid the kind of fanfare that would be bad for business and
hurt my family.”

I told him I understood.

“
Go talk to Len. In the meantime
I’ll grease the skids for you down at the police
station.”

“
Police station?”

“
Yes. I’ll have it all arranged so
that when you’ve finished talking with Len and his stable of lovely
Fräuleins
, you can talk to Dirk. I’ll tell them you’re a
hireling of his lawyer.”

“
He
needs
a
lawyer?”

“
Definitely. For now, Dirk’s simply
being questioned. But if I know that hothead, he’ll soon talk
himself into being a full-fledged suspect.”

“
W
hat was
Seattle like—just after the Second World War, I mean?” Kirsti
asked. That hopeful gleam of the idealist in her eyes met the
realist’s flicker in mine.

“
Well, Blue Eyes, think of the
population of New York City as an apple pie,” I said. I’d just
eased back down into my wheelchair after a solo limp to and from
the men’s room, and was looking up at Kirsti’s pretty face. “In
1950 the citizenry of Seattle was about the size of a one-sixteenth
sliver of that pie. Now mind you, the financial and high-priced
shopping districts were on a lot smaller scale, but I’d say they
were as defined and striking as in Manhattan, and the Hudson River
definitely had a kid brother in the Duwamish.”

“
What do you mean by ‘kid brother’?”
she asked as she turned my chair around and began to roll me back
to the outside courtyard.

I went on, “Well, in those days from West
Seattle the tide flats at Duwamish Head stunk up the Spokane Street
corridor like a backed-up outhouse in summer. Then it wafted over
the railroad tracks to gag the tipsy denizens of the Skid Road
flophouses—and anyone else who got within whiffing
distance.”

“
Yuck.”

I almost laughed out loud. “Sure. The view of
Seattle’s skyline from across Elliott Bay might have suggested
Manhattan Island, but it was as awe-inspiring as a sink full of
dirty pie tins and almost as colorful. Closer yet, you saw the
pigeon poop garnishing the cornices of many a low-rise building
from the base of Queen Anne Hill down south to King Street and the
markets of Chinatown.”

“
Gross.”

“
Sure. But nobody noticed, girl, and
nobody cared. Not in those days. The beauty of Puget Sound was a
different story … and still is. It was awe-inspiringly scenic,
especially as seen from one of the tallest buildings west of the
Mississippi.”

“
The Space Needle?”

“
No. Bless your heart. That wasn’t
built till ’62. No, the pigeon droppings had a negligible effect on
our very own forty-two-story high rise—The Smith Tower.”

“
But that’s so puny now—”

“
Uh-huh. And in those days Seattle’s
downtown was distinguished from its uptown solely by the slope of
the streets.”

I was headed uptown.

Fifth and Pine was where the larger retail
establishments were cozying up in those days. It was considered a
fashion metropolis. While searching for a parking space I spotted
Engstrom’s Jewelry. It was on the first floor of the building
cattycorner across the street from the one I was bound for—the
Atherton Building.

I sauntered through the mezzanine entrance past
a coffee shop that had just beaten back a lunch-crowd assault. I
loped down a broad staircase to the main floor devoted to fine
clothing for the fair sex—an annex of the downtown Darlund
Apparels. I made my way to the elevators and saw my ride would be a
brief one. Fasciné Expressions utilized the entire second
floor.

Rikard Lundeen had told me his son’s venture
was a costly one, so I wasn’t too surprised when I stepped from the
elevator into what looked like a sitting room from Maison le Swank.
I think it was the chairs not meant for sitting that put me off.
They were two of those brocade-covered jobs with knuckle arms made
from dark wood native only to the Himalayas—or someplace equally
remote. These flanked an ornate table that was pedestal to a stack
of tasteful-looking business cards. But nothing was roped off and
there were no signs reading “Do not touch.”

Right and left of me were arched doorways.
Inside were the display rooms where a salesgirl adjusted shelves of
high-class gewgaws as two others parleyed with customers. Rikard
Lundeen’s “lovely
Fräuleins
” appraisal was no exaggeration,
judging by these three.

I picked up one of the business cards from the
table. The printed slogan read: “Exceptional Offerings for that
Extraordinary Someone in Your Life
.”
As I pocketed the card,
the girl who’d been fiddling with the stock came over to me. She
was a redhead of medium height and wore a tawny outfit that had
that “French air” you used to read about in the rotogravure
pictorial section of the Sunday fashion pages. Her face was long
and angular. She was slim but wore a shirtwaist that strained to
contain a bust clearly meant for nursing quite a brood.

“
Good afternoon, sir. Welcome to
Fasciné Expressions. My name is Meredith,” she said in a lazy-toned
way.

Meredith’s full lips enclosed an albescent
smile that warmed and gladly received. Her come-on scent ensnared
my olfactory receptors.

“
How may I help you today?” It was
more an assurance than a question, and her pixie twinkle implied a
delectable competency at being both naughty and nice.

“
My name is Gunnar Nilson. I have an
appointment to see Mr. Pearson.”

“
One moment please,” said Meredith.
As she walked over to the doorway on my right, her hips kept time
to a melody that evoked wolf-whistle accompaniment.

Meredith switched on a wall intercom and said,
“A Mr. Nilson to see Mr. Pearson.”

She came back over to me and said, “Miss
Anderson will be here momentarily. She’ll take you to Mr.
Pearson.”

I’d been sent to nose around in a veneer world
of “may I,” “shall we,” “momentarily,” “perchance,” and “not at
all.” It was a gracious environment of “oughts” and “ought nots”
held together by such niceties the way stitches do a coat. Abolish
the niceties and the whole thing unravels.

I decided to pluck at a stitch.

“
Christine mentioned she worked with
a girl named Meredith,” I said.

Her smile disappeared and her lips formed a
brownish-red oh. “You … you knew Christine?”

“
Just briefly. Such a nice girl. A
real shame what happened to her.”

“
Yes … yes, it was,” she said.
Her grimace showed a small fissure in her face powder.

Immediately I saw that Meredith was a
counterfeit beauty. She had one of those faces that would wear
pretty until about thirty, maybe a little longer—but only with the
help of makeup, and only if you didn’t look close. Chances were
good she only vaguely suspected she’d lose her war against time
sooner rather than later.

As Meredith attempted to reconstruct her
composure, I felt a twinge of shame for rattling her, but was soon
distracted by the appearance of another woman in the doorway next
to the intercom. She was a Junoesque blonde who looked at me and
said, “Mister Nilson?”

I went over. She introduced herself as Britt
Anderson. I couldn’t place her scent, but my name for it would be
Come Ravage Me
.

Beautiful understates it. Miss Anderson had to
be one of the most striking beauties I’ve ever seen. Wire-rimmed
pince-nez glasses hung around her neck on a delicate gold chain.
She wore a square-shouldered jacket of navy blue with a box-pleated
skirt that ended somewhere between knees and ankles. She had skin
like fresh cream, and while her thin-lipped smile didn’t welcome
like Meredith’s, her teal blue eyes proffered their own kind of
invitation. Her face
would
wear well for many years and I
was pretty sure she knew it.

I reached for her extended hand. It was soft
and just the right temperature. I felt body heat sufficient to keep
two people warm in an igloo for several hours. She was probably in
her mid-twenties. Christine and Meredith belonged to the same
league, but Britt Anderson was definitely group leader. I’d been
sweetened and stirred, but she was too busy studying Meredith to
take notice.

“
Meredith, are you all
right?”

“
Yes … I’ll be fine. We were
just talking about Christine.”

Miss Anderson went to Meredith and began
patting her arm. I could imagine the feel of that pat as well as
the sound of the whispered “there, there” that went with
it.

The women were hugging now, and their heads
touched. I found it a bit moving.

After a minute they parted with what looked to
be mutual reassurances. Miss Anderson rejoined me and said, “Please
follow me, Mr. Nilson.”

I never obeyed so easily.

Her trim calves tightened as her legs went
striding. She moved with effortless grace, and had a gentle shuttle
to her hips—just enough to pluck intriguing crosswise stretches in
the fabric of her skirt that gave pleasant inklings of a firm but
globular behind.

“
Call me Gunnar,” I said as I caught
up with her.

“
If you like. Please call me
Britt.”

As we walked beside each other Britt said in a
solemn voice, “We’ve been expecting your visit, Mr. Nilson—I mean,
Gunnar
.”

Coming from that mouth, my name sounded
regal.

“
The police have come and gone
already. Routine questions, they said. We’re all so distraught over
what happened to our dear Christine,” she continued. “Meredith took
it particularly hard. They were close. They often worked
together.”

“
It’s a difficult time I’m
sure.”

It sounded lame, I know. But the
snappy-rejoinder part of my brain was still a bit neutralized by
its initial encounter with Britt’s charms.

She led me to a windowless door with neat gold
lettering that read:

LEONARD L. PEARSON

MANAGER

Britt gave the door two quick raps and opened
it.

Leonard Pearson was talking on the telephone
when we entered. With his free hand he was working a yellow Life
Saver loose from a half-eaten roll. The walls of his office were
flat white, offset by maroon draperies and a maroon rug. Pearson
pointed an index finger straight up and greeted me with lifted
eyebrows. Using his raised finger as a pointer he indicated for me
to take a chair with maroon upholstery. I sat as his eyes busily
mapped Britt’s hemispheres.

Pearson’s ogling was met with neither a prim
frown of reproof nor an averted glance of disdain. Britt didn’t
even look at her boss. She seemed oblivious to what I suspected was
his chronic leering.

Britt moved around Pearson’s desk with poise
and dignity, picked up a few papers and straightened a disordered
stack. Afterward she emptied a glass ashtray into the trash and
slid it closer to him. When she circled back she adjusted the angle
of a framed photograph of Pearson’s wife and kids. The door made no
noise when it closed behind her. The execution of these little
maneuvers comprised a seamless performance. But by then I was
already biased.

I took Pearson’s measure as he continued his
phone conversation. He had ears that stuck out like Clark Gable’s,
but he definitely lacked Gable’s he-manship. He looked to be in his
mid-forties and wore a blue two-piece suit that transformed
big-shouldered portliness into utter beefiness. His fair hair was
thinning, his face was florid, and his chatter was energetic and
cheerful.

He hung up the phone and we stood for a formal
greeting. He gave me a virility-proving handshake. He was an inch
or two shorter than my own six one, and showed an automatic smile
and goodwill that I thought might actually be genuine.

“
Sorry about that,” he said, meaning
the phone call. “An old college chum. He’s in town. Wants to get
together. Wants me to show him a good time. You
understand.”

I said that I did.

Within the first minute we were Gunnar and Len.
The Life Saver he chewed didn’t even begin to mask his bourbon
breath. He pulled out a pack of Camels from his drawer and lit
one.

“
You’ve met our Miss Anderson, I
see.”

I nodded.

“
Couldn’t function without her.
Assistant, secretary and general factotum. Irreplaceable. Easy on
the eyes too,” he said, giving me a mischievous grin. “But don’t
bother getting any ideas about her, Gunnar. She’s
unassailable.”

“
A real talent for putting on the
chill, eh?”

“
Exactly. And if she’s pushed, she
has these cute little emasculating stares. More than one of my
friends has made a pass at her, only to be left feeling like he’d
been gelded.”