And 47 Miles of Rope (Trace 2) (18 page)

“Maybe. I don’t know. But she wasn’t his top woman anymore. You know, she was the first woman who worked for him. She was with him all those years and he just slid her out to put in somebody else.”

“Who?”

“Some cheap redhead who calls herself Blaze. A real bitch.”

“So I need Clara,” Trace prodded.

“I haven’t seen her in a couple of days, Trace.”

“Then I need her full name and her house. Where’s she hang her hat?”

“When do you need it by?” Margo asked.

“Yesterday.”

“It’s not that easy sometimes,” she said.

“A lot of things aren’t easy. I did some things for you, too, that weren’t easy,” he said.

“All right. I’m not forgetting. I’m just saying”

“You’re just saying that you’ve got a lot of reasons why you can’t do something, instead of doing it.”

“All right, Trace.”

“I need it right away,” he said.

“I’ve got to get a telephone,” Margo said.

“I’ll wait here,” he said.

It took her only five minutes. She slid back into the booth and slipped him a piece of paper.

“Her name’s Clara Buxtable. She lives out in the Village section in those new houses. The address is on there. She’s got a seven-year-old kid, a girl, but no old man.”

“Thanks, Margo.”

“You didn’t get it here,” she said.

“You don’t have to tell me the rules,” he said, standing up.

She touched his hand with hers. “Give me a call sometime, Trace. If your woman’s out of town. I’m here most of the time. The taxi phone booth next door. They can always get me.”

“I’ll do that sometime,” he said.

The thing that was going wrong with Las Vegas was houses like Clara Buxtable’s, Trace thought as he parked in front of the neat little frame house on the neat little street with the neat little lawn in front.

When he had first moved to town, even though the late-August temperatures could top 110 degrees, it was still reasonably comfortable because there was hardly any humidity.

Then the city had a housing boom and every house had a lawn and every lawn had a sprinkler system, and all of a sudden there was all this sprinkle in the air, packing the city with moisture it didn’t need, and 110 degrees wasn’t bearable anymore. It was hot and sticky and he perspired. Why didn’t people leave a desert alone? Why did everybody think that when he moved he had a right to bring his grass with him? If he wanted grass, let him move to Guatemala, not Las Vegas.

Nobody answered the door bell, so Trace walked to the house next door and summoned up a gray-haired man with a potbelly and thick eyeglasses.

“What do you want?”

In the background, Trace could hear a television roaring.

“I’m looking for Mrs. Buxtable,” Trace said.

“What’s that you say?”

Deaf, too, Trace thought. It was his luck. When he was driving and got lost, as he often did, the person he stopped to ask for directions would be the one person in five thousand square miles who didn’t speak English. Now, he had to question a deaf man.

He shouted, “I’m looking for Mrs. Buxtable.”

“She ain’t home.”

“I know that. Where is she?”

“What’s that?”

“WHERE…IS…SHE?” Trace shouted again.

“Who wants to know?”

“I DO,” Trace yelled.

“Oh,” the man said, as if overwhelmed by the simple beauty of the answer. “She’s gone back home.”

The man glanced back inside as if a moment’s letup in his vigilance and termites would come in and eat his furniture. The television set roared on.

“Where’s home?” Trace asked.

“Listen, if you’re going to talk all day, come in here. I want to watch the end of this show,” the man said.

Trace went inside and sat on a flowered couch. The man sat down on a chair in front of the television and cheered on the contestants in a game show.

“Take the curtain. Take the curtain,” he yelled.

The contestant, who was dressed to look like a sugar cube, took the first door and won an automobile.

“There was better behind the curtain.” Trace’s host shouted.

The master of ceremonies opened the curtain to display a camel, a particularly disreputable-looking beast.

“Camels are worth a lot,” the man yelled. He turned to Trace and in an aside, as if he feared the contestants would overhear him, said, “You should always take the curtain. Curtain’s always got the best behind it.”

“I’d rather have a car than a camel,” Trace said

“You watch this show?”

“Never,” Trace said.

“Take the curtain. What they do is they move things around when you pick, and if they want you to win, they put the good thing behind whatever you like. That’s if they like you. If they don’t like you, they give you a camel or something.”

Great, Trace thought. He needed information and he had wound up with somebody with a conspiracy theory of game shows.

“All the games shows are like that,” the man said. “They all cheat.”

“I guessed that,” Trace said blandly. “That’s why I don’t watch them.”

When the show ended, the man leaned forward and turned off the roaring television set. “I don’t like what’s on next,” he said. “They got all these celebrities, and they are the stupidest people you ever saw. I saw that Mister Spock once and he was so dumb he shoulda been arrested.”

“I’m looking for Mrs. Buxtable,” Trace said.

“Why are you yelling?”

“I thought you were deaf.”

“I will be if you keep yelling,” the man said.

“I’m sorry. I’ll talk softly.”

“Not too softly, sonny. I’m eighty years old. I hear good but not perfect.”

“I’m looking for Mrs. Buxtable,” Trace said again. “How’s that?”

“Much better. She went home.”

“I thought she lived next door.”

“She does, but that ain’t what I mean by home. Home is where you come from. Nobody comes from Las Vegas.”

“Where’s her home?”

“Minnesota. What do you want her for?”

“I talked to her last week about a job. I was thinking of hiring her.”

“You a pimp? You don’t look like no pimp,” the man said.

“No, I’m not a pimp. Why should I be a pimp?”

“Because you want to hire a hooker.”

“I thought she was a bookkeeper,” Trace said.

“Maybe she told you that, but she’s a hooker. Calls herself Lip Service. Ain’t that a good one?”

“Sure is,” Trace said. “Don’t you mind living next door to a hooker?”

“Not if she’s nice. Clara’s nice. Even comes over here once in a while. Won’t take no money neither.”

“Why’d she go home?”

“She said she wanted to take a rest. I think somebody beat up on her, though. She had a black eye. I could see it under her sunglasses. Just left yesterday.”

“When’s she coming back?”

“She didn’t say. Want a drink?”

“No, thanks,” Trace said. “She own that house next door?”

“No. She just pays rent. I own it. I own six houses on this block.”

“Suppose Clara doesn’t come back?” Trace said.

The old man shrugged. “There’s always hookers to rent to,” he said.

His mother had her jacket off and, as if that weren’t serious enough, her hat, too.

Trace stood across the casino entrance from the machine she was playing. A plastic tubful of nickels was next to her and there was a look of unalloyed joy on her face that he hadn’t seen since the first summer she had sent him to camp. He left the day after public school closed and came back the day before it opened. Summer camp to his mother meant summer camp, not for one week or two but for the whole summer.

When eleven-year-old Devlin had gotten home, his father had asked, “How’d you like Camp Chicken Soup, son?”

“I hated it. All fat kids in green sneakers.”

“Good. You’re not going anymore.”

“Good.”

“Without you around, I didn’t have anybody to talk to,” his father had said.

“Did Mother go away too?”

“No. That’s why I didn’t have anybody to talk to.”

The red light atop the slot machine began to flash, a bell rang, and a small avalanche of nickels began clattering into the coin tray in the front of the machine. His mother whooped and started scooping the money into the bucket.

Trace walked away into the casino. As he passed the blackjack pit, the day boss called him over. “Your mother’s having a great time over there,” he said. “I’ve been keeping an eye on her.”

“Thanks. Is she doing any damage to my bankroll?”

“Not a chance. She won’t bet more than a nickel. She’s got a progressive machine, and if she’d punch up her bets, she’d be winning six, ten times as much. But she can’t get herself to pop for more than one coin.”

“Good. I just want her to be successful. I’m not paying for a windfall.”

“You’ll get out of it for a hundred dollars if she keeps going that way.”

“It’ll be worth it.”

At the casino cage,’ Trace asked to speak to the head cashier. She was a tiny little woman with gray hair, iron-rimmed glasses, a pencil behind her ear, and a no-nonsense attitude that discouraged small talk.

“What can I do for you, Trace?” she asked.

“Sometime yesterday before noon, did any of your people cash in a woman with three thousand dollars in chips? Hundreds?”

“What kind of a woman?”

“A big blonde. She’s on the hook, but she might have been dressed mousey. I’m not sure.”

“Wait a minute.” The woman began to talk to her cashiers. One at a time, Trace saw each of them shake his head. Finally, one woman nodded and the head cashier called Trace down to the window.

“Martha here had a woman yesterday.”

“What’d she look like?” Trace asked.

“She was wearing some kind of leopard-skin suit or something.”

Trace nodded.

“But it wasn’t three thousand,” the teller said. “It was nine thousand.”

Trace grimaced. It was supposed to be only three thousand dollars.

“She caught a hot hand,” the young woman said. “It was quiet here and I saw her walk in. You don’t miss anybody who looks like that. She went over to the craps table, and a couple of minutes later there was a crowd gathered around and everybody’s shouting and screaming. It didn’t take ten minutes, she came over and dumped her purse on the counter. I checked her out at ninety-one hundred.”

“Okay, Martha. Thanks a lot.” Trace looked past her to the head cashier. “Did I ever tell you I love you?”

“All the time, but I’m saving myself for when I get married.”

“You wouldn’t want me. I snore and eat English muffins in bed.”

“And you’ve got Chico too,” the woman said.

“Don’t remind me.”

“The best thing that ever happened to you,” the woman said.

“Did you two hire the same scriptwriter?” he asked.

Trace took a peek into the banquet room, where the insurance conventioneers had just finished lunch. Swenson and Marks were seated together at a table in the rear of the slowly emptying room.

“Hello, Groucho, Bob.”

“Sit down, Trace. We were just talking about you.”

“I knew that. I could tell by the scowl on Groucho’s face.”

“You really haven’t done much on this Jarvis case,” Marks said, “and the convention ends tomorrow.”

“He’ll still be dead by then,” Trace said. “No need to hurry.”

“I’m suggesting to Mr. Swenson that we call in somebody else who can get to the bottom of this,” Marks said.

“The bottom of what?” Trace asked.

“This whole matter. The killing of Jarvis. The jewelry theft.”

“Horseshit,” Trace snapped. “In the first place, the Jarvis case is simple. If the countess killed him, she doesn’t get any money from us. If she didn’t, pay her up. She was in Europe when he got killed.”

“She might have paid to have him killed,” Marks said.

“She might have,” Trace said agreeably. “And if she did, I’ll find it out. I don’t need any help. And if I don’t do it today, I’ll do it tomorrow or I’ll do it when it’s doable, but it’ll get done. As far as the jewels go, that has nothing to do with us. It’s not Gone Fishing’s policy, we didn’t have the jewels insured and I don’t know what you’re getting all twisted for.”

“Because the two things are tied up together. That’s obvious. And now Roberts getting killed.”

“We don’t know what’s tied up with what,” Trace said. “You’re jumping to conclusions, and that’s dangerous, particularly when the conclusions are, like yours, so unfailingly stupid. And as for calling somebody else in, what happened to your big fancy insurance detective? I thought the baron was going to set the world straight.”

Marks was silent and Trace said, “I’ll tell you what happened. Hubbaker got his ass thrown in the slammer and you went bail for him. So we’ve got one detective who gets killed and the baron gets arrested. What are you going to ask me to have in next? Somebody with bubonic plague? Stay off my case, Groucho.”

“We can’t let this drag on forever,” Marks said.

“No, we can’t, because I’m planning to go to Paris for my new fall wardrobe, and if I wait too long, all the pedal pushers will be gone.”

“I think Mr. Swenson and I would like a report of your progress,” Marks said as he got up from the table.

“Will triplicate be all right?” Trace asked.

“That’ll be fine.” Marks slowly walked away and Swenson asked, “Why does he hate you so?”

“Because I don’t need this job and I don’t need him and he can’t bully me because he doesn’t own me. He’d like you to let him dump me.”

“He said he’s given you enough rope to hang yourself. Aaah, screw insurance. Let’s talk about women. Where’s Chico?”

“She’s out working on the Jarvis thing. I needed her to do some legwork, so she got Flamma to fill in for her.”

“I know it,” Swenson said. “She came running up to me at this morning’s session, threw her arms around me, and tongued me in front of four hundred people.”

“She’s just basically warm,” Trace said. “It comes from dancing with Sterno in your navel. Have you thought about what I said? About National Anthem?”

“Yeah,” Swenson said. “I may get an apartment here in the company’s name and put her in it. Maybe I’ll talk to her about it tonight. Felicia invited us all to her place for dinner.”

“I think you’re on the right track now,” Trace said.

“How does that story end?” Swenson asked.

“With you getting tired of her and letting the lease expire.”

“No lawsuits? No public humiliation for me?” Swenson asked.

“Nope. None of that.”

“Good,” Swenson said. “I’ll talk to you about working out the details.”

Trace went home. There were no messages on his answering machine and he wondered where Chico and Sarge were. If either of them had any sense, they’d be eloping, on their way across the Mexican border, never to return.

He made a sandwich. As he was pouring catsup on his roast beef, he looked at the bottle and saw the black crud that formed around the mouth of the catsup bottle and it made him think of Walter Marks. What was there in catsup anyway that turned black? Did it turn black inside your stomach too?

And what was there about Groucho that always made it black midnight in Devlin Tracy’s soul?

He ate his sandwich, drank a glass of milk, and put a tape of Joan Sutherland arias on the stereo and fell asleep listening.

“Da-daaaa,” Chico riffled and flourished as she came into the apartment with Sarge, waving a pile of papers over her head.

“Please, I’m depressed,” Trace said, looking up from the sofa. “Da-daaa me no da-daaas.”

“What are you depressed about, you poor thing? Look at him, Sarge. He’s aged ten years in a single day. I bet he’s getting shorter too. The Incredible Shrinking Man. In a week he’ll be smaller than me. Two weeks and Walter Marks can laminate him and use him for a paperweight.”

“He was always depressed. A neurotic kid,” Sarge said. “I tried to save him. I even kept him away from shrinks. His mother wanted to send him. His shoes are dirty, he needs analysis. His marks are low, he needs analysis. His marks are too high, he’ll be unhappy as an overachiever, get him analyzed. And now he pays me back with this.”

“Sarge, I’m forty years old. I’m lying around my house here, all by myself, nobody cares. Swenson’s in love with a woman who loves donkeys. He doesn’t care. My mother’s off raping a slot machine somewhere. She doesn’t care. My roommate and my father are out gallivanting around the countryside and no one cares about me. I’m lying here in my misery. I’ve heard this record a thousand times.”

“Better hide the razors in the bathroom,” Chico told Sarge.

“And the sleeping pills,” Sarge said.

“Save one. People my age often have trouble falling off at night,” Trace said.

“You’ll sleep like a baby when you hear this,” Chico said.

“No, I won’t. What?”

“We’ve got it all figured out. Jarvis, the jewelry, everything,” she said.

“I don’t believe it,” Trace said.

“It was all in your tapes. You just missed it,” Chico said.

“I didn’t miss anything. Tell me one single thing I missed.”

“You missed everything,” she said. “Did you look at the car-rental agreement Sarge got for you for Jarvis’ car? Did you?”

“I glanced at it.”

“You were wondering why Jarvis called for Spiro and then rented a car, right?”

“I might have had a moment’s question about that, yes,” Trace said.

“The rental agreement is stamped with the time. You remember what time it was?”

“It was late,” Trace said.

“It was 11:46, you Mickey Mouse,” she said.

“So?”

“And what was Spiro doing when Jarvis called to say pick him up?”

Trace sat up on the couch. “He was watching television in the kitchen.”

“Right. And you know what show, don’t you?”

“The midnight movie,” Trace said.

“Quick. For two dollars,
Tuesday Night at the Movies
is on what night?” Chico asked.

“Tuesday?” Trace said.

“Correct. And now for the grand prize, what time does the midnight movie come on?”

“Midnight?” he said.

“Correct again. Give that man five hundred dollars’ worth of overpriced junk patio furniture.”

“I get your drift,” Trace said. “Jarvis rented the car before the phone call.”

“Right,” Chico said.

“Then why’d he call?” Trace asked.

Chico looked at Sarge. “You want to tell him or should I?”

“You do it. I want to concentrate on watching him suffer,” Sarge said.

Chico stepped forward and kissed Trace on top of the head. She said, “Jarvis didn’t call.”

“I give up,” Trace said. “Senility is at hand. I thought I heard you say that Jarvis didn’t call.”

“That’s what I said. And if that’s got you confused, look at this.” She shuffled through the small pile of papers in her hand and pulled one out and handed it to him.

He glanced at it. It was a list of names.

“Line eighteen,” Chico said.

Trace looked at it. “Oh my, oh my, oh my,” he said.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Chico said.