Big Goodbye, The (7 page)

Margie had placed her drink on the end table and was now bending over nearly touching her toes in front of me.

“Have you seen Lauren?” I asked. “It’s important.”

“Have you ever seen Lauren do this?” she asked, and began to touch herself.

“She’s in trouble. If you know where she is, you need to tell me.”

“Maybe your arm wasn’t the only thing got blown off, soldier. That why Lauren left you?”

I pulled out one of my new cards and dropped it on the coffee table. “I’ve got a new number. Use it if you hear from Lauren. She’s in danger. She needs help.”

She picked up the card pushed it up inside herself.

“Lauren’s not the only woman who needs a private dick now and again.”

I shook my head, as much at myself as her, wondering how I could have been such a sap. “The drunker the floozy,” I said, “the blunter the patter.”

Driving back into town, I thought about Lauren and wondered where she was and what she was up to. I should’ve forced her to show me what she bought from the kid, made her tell me what she was mixed up in and with who, and insisted I take her home, but as usual I had gone soft. I had been confused by her lies, intoxicated by her Paris perfume, and once again I was playing the sap for her.

We had it good for a while. Real good. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t let go, why I couldn’t stop acting her fool.

As I drove through Lynn Haven, I remembered riding back from Margie’s with Lauren after one of our mornings together. As usual, it had been so good that it scared me, and I was trying to pick a fight with her.

“Why won’t you leave him?” I asked.

“I can’t.”

“You won’t. There’s a difference.”

“I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone—ever
will
love anyone,” she said, “but I can’t leave Harry.”

“Then you love him more.”

“It’s not love,” she said. “It’s something else.”

“Whatever it is, it’s stronger than what you have for me.”

“It’s not. You know it’s not.”

“You’re choosing him over me.”

Even in the midst of acting like I was, saying the things I was, I’d tell myself to stop, attempt to gather some self-respect and regain some self-control, but I couldn’t, and I hated her for what I’d become.

“Please don’t see it like that,” she said. “It’s not like that at all. I just owe him so much. I couldn’t do that to him.”

I knew what she owed him. Her life.

Shortly before his death, Coolidge Brown, Lauren’s father, Harry’s best friend and the vice president of Harry’s bank, had used his position of trust to provide reckless and unsecured loans for friends and embezzled a small fortune for himself. When Harry discovered what he was doing, he confronted him, demanding his resignation and threatening to squawk.

Secretly consumed with envy, Coolidge invited Harry over to his home ostensibly to apologize and discuss restitution, but really to take Harry down with him and his family. At gunpoint, Coolidge set his house on fire, dousing his wife, his kids, and his boss with kerosine. Not only had Harry acted bravely and saved Lauren’s life, but he also covered her dad’s crimes with his own money, burying the scandal with him. He provided for Lauren through high school and even some college, eventually asking her to take the place of his deceased wife.

“You’re not even like a wife to him,” I said. “He wouldn’t mind so much.”

“The only thing he’s ever wanted in his whole life is to be in public office. If I left him what chance would he have? I can’t do that to him. Can’t deny him the one thing in all the world he wants.”

“No?” I said. “Well, you sure don’t have any problem doing it to me.”

Nearing Panama City now, I thought about how I had actually believed her. I thought she really did love me the way she said, thought she just honestly couldn’t bring herself to leave Harry. I thought all this right up until the moment she told me it was over.

Chapter 12

Dr. Payton Rainer had his office in a converted hotel on Eleventh Street near St. Andrews. Standing two stories, it had a courtyard in the back and was surrounded by a cement privacy wall on all sides.

When I rang the bell next to the locked front gate, a large man in a gray suit came out to greet me.

“Can I help you, sir?” he asked.

“I’d like to see Dr. Rainer,” I said.

“Do you have an appointment?”

I shook my head.

“Then, I’m sorry, sir, but that’s quite impossible.”

“That I don’t have an appointment?”

“That you could ever see Dr. Rainer without one,” he said.

“Tell him I’m a friend of Freddy’s.”

“Freddy no longer works here, sir.”

“On account of he’s dead,” I said. “I know. That’s why I want to talk to Rainer.”

“If you wish to wait, I’ll check with Dr. Rainer,” he said.

“I don’t wish to wait,” I said. “I wish to be inside, but if I have to wait I wish not to wait long.”

He walked back inside and I waited. Contrary to my wish, I had to wait a while.

The traffic on Eleventh was steady in both directions, Fords mainly, but a few Pontiacs, Packards, and Oldsmobiles mixed in.

A few of the people riding by saluted me, others yelled things like, “Thank you for what you did, buddy.”

I laughed and shook my head. I knew patriotism was high, but so was stupidity.

That was low—and it wasn’t true. They didn’t mean anything but good will. I was just sore, sick of being less than what people assumed.

When the big man finally returned, he was not alone. He was accompanied by an average-sized man he made look small, who wore a white lab coat and had a stethoscope hung around his neck. His skin was the color of tea stains and he had black eyes and black wavy hair.

Though his nationality was indeterminable, he looked foreign, and my guess was he’d talk with an accent, his degree in medicine, if he had one, wouldn’t have come from the states, and Payton Rainer wouldn’t be the name his mama gave him.

Both men stopped a few feet from the gate.

“May I help you, sir?” he asked.

He spoke with an accent, but I couldn’t figure out what kind it was.

“You Dr. Rainer?” I asked.

“I am.”

I handed him my card through the bars of the gate. The big man stepped forward, took it, and handed it to him. He glanced down at it and when he looked up again, his demeanor had changed.

“Then I’d like to come in and talk to you about Freddy.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you in,” he said. “We have patients with very sensitive conditions. No one is allowed in.”

“What kind of doctor are you?” I asked.

“The same kind of detective you are,” he said. “Private.”

“What kind of medicine do you practice?”

“I heal the whole person,” he said. “Spirit, mind, and body. They’re all connected, you understand.”

“Any idea who killed Freddy Moats?”

“That is a matter for the police,” he said.

“What do you have on Mrs. Lewis?”

“I don’t understand the question,” he said.

“Was she a patient of yours?” I asked, surprising myself by my ability to use the term “patient” without busting up.

“I cannot confirm or deny if someone was a patient,” he said.

His use of the word “was” wasn’t lost on me.

“I’m afraid I really must return to my patients.”

“Is Mrs. Lewis inside there right now?” I asked.

“Good day, Mr. Riley,” he said, bowed his head slightly, and turned and walked away.

And there was nothing I could do about it. The gate was too solid, and the wall too high for a right-handed man who only had his left.

Chapter 13

I walked down the block to a Gulf service station and called Pete Mitchell at police headquarters. He wasn’t in, but when I gave the desk sergeant my name, he took down the number and my location and said he’d have Detective Mitchell call me right back.

He did.

“Jimmy?”

“Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

I told him.

“Stay there,” he said. “I’m on my way.”

I hadn’t even told him what I needed his help with.

When Pete and Butch pulled into the parking lot of the service station in their black Ford, they were followed by a black and white patrol car. Pete looked worried. Butch looked happy.

Butch rolled down his window. “Get in,” he said.

Looking past him at Pete, I said, “I need your help. I think Rainer has—”

“Jimmy,” Pete said. “Get in the car.”

I took a breath and tried to calm myself.

The two men in the car looked like complete opposites. Pete, with his bright, clear blue eyes, had a face that was boyish and open. Butch, his dark eyes hooded and wary, had a face with a hard history etched into it.

“What’s with all the orders, boys?”

“There’s two ways we can do this,” Butch said.

“Yeah?” I said. “Can I guess what they are?”

“Jimmy, it’s me, Pete, your old partner,” he said. “Just trust me and get in the car.”

I got in the backseat.

“What’s going on, Pete?” I asked.

Butch said, “You tell us.”

“What are you mixed up in, Jimmy?” Pete asked.

“Not much at the moment,” I said. “I’m—”

“Why’d you kill her?” Butch asked.

My heart seemed to stop beating, my suddenly cold blood standing still inside my veins.
Lauren’s dead and they think I killed her
.

“Hey Pete,” Butch said, “your old partner don’t look so good, does he?”

“Take it easy, Butch,” Pete said.

“You better not throw up in our car,” Butch said.

I calmed myself, focusing my attention on the anger I felt at Butch, determined not to let him rattle me.

“Who’d I kill this time?” I asked. “I forget.”

“Come on, Jimmy,” Pete said, “don’t be sore. We’re just doing our jobs.”

“Who’s dead?” I asked, my voice flat, demanding.

“As if you don’t know, you sick fuck,” Butch said.

“Margie Lehane,” Pete said.

“Yeah,” Butch said, “and we found your card inside her pussy.”

Like Margie herself, her place had been ravaged. Her killer had obviously been searching for something. Every room in the house had drawers open, their contents spilling out, overturned furniture, ripped and torn pillows, cushions, and mattresses, emptied closets, and opened books.

“Wonder if he found what he was looking for?” I asked.

“You tell us,” Butch said.

The livingroom was like all the others, except that joining the other items on the floor was the naked body of Margie Lehane. She had been beaten, but good, especially her face, which was unrecognizable. Her beauty-shop blonde hair had blood-red highlights, two of her teeth had been knocked out, and judging from the positions they were in, at least one of her arms and one of her legs was broken. Her blue gown and housecoat were still draped over the arm of the davenport. One of her mules was still partially on her foot, the other on the floor about a yard away.

Her phonograph was still on. It was playing Tommy Dorsey’s “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You.”

As I stood there taking everything in, Butch came up beside me.

“You must have ice water in your veins,” he said.

I didn’t say anything.

“How can you just stand there admiring your handiwork without it bothering you the least little bit?” he asked. “How could you even do that to a dame in the first place? I mean that Freddy faggot was one thing, but how could you do this to her?”

I nodded. “That’s a good question,” I said. “How could I?”

At first he didn’t get what I meant, but a moment later, his eyes widened slightly in comprehension.

“How could a guy with one arm—not his good arm at that—do all this?” I held up my left hand, made a fist and showed it to him. “Where’s the blood, or bruising, or at least swelling?”

“Who’s helping you?” he asked. “He’s turnin’ on you, stickin’ your card inside her like that.”

I turned to Pete. I was surprised he wasn’t saying more. “You think the same person killed Freddy?”

“They were both beaten to death,” he said. “Ain’t somethin’ you see every day. Plus, they both got a connection to you.”

“Pete,” I said, “you even entertaining the possibility I did this?”

“How’d she get your card up her . . . you know, inside her?”

I told them—about being here this morning, about giving her my card, and what she had done with it. The more I talked, the more worried Pete looked.

“That don’t tell us why you was here,” Butch said. “Or who you was working for.”

“I’m lookin’ for someone,” I said. “I thought Margie might know where the person is.”

“Who?”

I shook my head.

Butch let out a harsh, humorless laugh and shook his head.

“Did she?” Pete asked.

“Said she didn’t, but I don’t know.”

“And when you left, she was alive?”

“When I left, she was naked and had just stuck my card inside herself, she was drinking a martini, and without even trying she was breathing in and out all on her own.”

“Wonder what the guy was looking for?” Pete asked, then turning to me added, “Any ideas?”

I shook my head. “Sorry I can’t be more help boys, but I didn’t have anything to do with it, so I don’t know anything.”

Butch was rubbing his crooked nose with his index finger. He did that a lot when he wasn’t busy terrifying me.

“What happened to you?” Butch asked. “Pete says you was a good cop. What made you so bent? You bitter—mad at the force ’cause you lost your arm and got canned? That it?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Withholding information from real cops is a crime,” he said.

I still didn’t respond.

“You better watch your step, gumshoe,” he said. “Just ’cause you maybe didn’t do this don’t mean you can’t go down for it.”

I looked over at Pete. “Things have changed a lot since I left,” I said.

“Not so much, Jimmy,” he said. “He’s just saying we know you know more than you’re telling us and we don’t like it none.”

“Well, you don’t have to,” I said. “I wouldn’t like it either, and maybe I’s you I’d keep an eye on me, but I wouldn’t set up an innocent man, not if he was my worst enemy.”

“Well,” Butch said, “that’s the difference in you and me, and I’s you, I’d keep that in mind.”