Buried Caesars (11 page)

“Most things are,” said Hammett.

The phone on Spainy’s desk rang. He looked at it with irritation, looked at the door, looked at us as it rang on, and finally picked it up with a grunt.

“J.V., I am ensconced,” he said, and then put his hand over the mouthpiece to address us. “Fancy word, huh? You’re not dealing with bumpkins here, Mr. Writer.” He removed his hand from the mouthpiece and listened for a few more seconds before jumping in. “Yeah … okay … finish up that Postum and put him on.”

Spainy looked at the ceiling, took a deep breath and spoke into the phone. The folksy Spainy was gone. He could have been a prof down from Stanford.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Pintacki?” he said into the phone.

Hammett and I exchanged glances and Spainy looked up at us as he nodded his head and listened.

“Of course,” he said. “I’m sure that can be arranged … with the greatest possible dispatch … who would? … yes, I will … Beverly or Salinas … glad to help … good-bye, sir.”

He hung up the phone, looked at it for inspiration, ran his tongue over his lower lip and turned his attention to us.

“Mr. Hammett,” he said politely in his Stanford voice. “You are free to go. There’s been an obvious misunderstanding and I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you. If you think disciplinary action should be taken against the two officers who brought you in, just tell me.”

“I seem to have an influential friend,” Hammett said, standing up.

Spainy looked at the phone. “Oh, that,” he said with a shrug. “Had nothing to do with it.”

I got up to follow Hammett, who had headed for the door.

“Not you,” Spainy said. “Got a few more questions for you. We’re going to trade recipes for rabbit stew.”

Stanford was fast disappearing and the good old boy was almost back.

“Mr. Peters and I are together,” Hammett said.

“Just a question or two,” Spainy said, holding his ham hands up to show they were empty and he was honest.

“I’ll be fine,” I said.

Spainy beamed love, good will and underlying hostility worthy of Billy Sunday.

“I’ll wait outside,” Hammett said.

“Have a cup of Postum before you go,” said Spainy, as J.V., hair falling over her eyes, balanced her way through the door with a cup of hot liquid.

“No, thanks,” said Hammett and went through the door as J.V. put the hot cup on the table in front of the Chief. J.V. wiped her palms on her uniform and smiled tentatively, like a mother who had baked a special treat for her spoiled child. The Chief eyed the brew and J.V. with distaste.

“It’ll do,” he said.

J.V. looked at me and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

“Good girl,” Spainy said, picking up the cup. “A bit obsequious.”

“Good word,” I said.

“Damn good word,” Spainy said, drinking and making a face. He put the cup down and added, “Can’t believe this stuff is good for you. Want to know another good word?
Lepus
. Means rabbits.”

I had a couple of good comments but I managed to keep from letting them spurt out.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” he said.

Behind his back, through the window looking out on the street, I could see the traffic roll slowly by. Angel Springs wasn’t in a hurry. Neither was Chief Spainy.

“There’s a war going on,” I said. “Russian front is shaky. Rommel is backing up in North Africa. Port Moresby looks like it might fall in the Pacific:”

“You a joker?” asked Spainy, pointing his cup at me.

“No,” I said, straight-faced.

On the street behind his back, I saw Hammett come out of the station, shade his eyes and look toward the sun. He plunged his hands into his pockets, looked back at the station and stepped to the sidewalk to pace and wait.

“You’re a talker,” he said. “That’s good. I’m a listener. Now you just tell me what you know and I’ll listen.”

A car pulled up in front of Hammett on the street, a DeSoto. I sat up to be sure. It was Wylie and Conrad.

“I’m listening and I don’t hear anything,” Spainy said. “I got some time.”

“On the street,” I said, pointing, as Wylie and Conrad, still in overalls, got out of the car. Hammett stood his ground. Wylie shielded something with his body. I figured it was a gun because Hammett looked up at Spainy’s window, gave a lop-sided grin followed by a thin-shouldered shrug, and got into the car.

“They’re out there,” I said still pointing. “They’re kidnapping Hammett.”

Spainy lifted his eyebrows but he didn’t turn.

“That a fact? Right in front of police headquarters,” he said, sipping again at his Postum. “Who’s kidnapping him?”

“The two guys at Pudge … Block’s house,” I said. “Look, for God’s sake.”

Conrad was in the back seat. Wylie was in front with Hammett at his side.

“The guys …” Chief Spainy said, nodding. “I thought there were no guys.”

“There were. We just said that because … things were getting too complicated,” I explained. “Will you take a look?”

I got out of the chair, and started to move around the desk to show him as the DeSoto began to pull away from the curb. Spainy came out of the chair and kicked it behind him. It rolled back against the wall as he stepped in front of me. He still hadn’t looked out the window and I was beginning to understand whose pocket he was in.

“Sit back down,” Spainy said, fists balled.

“Do something, Spainy,” I said as the DeSoto pulled away and turned the nearest corner.

“Don’t ask for the dance if you don’t know the steps,” said Spainy.

“They’re gone,” I said, teeth clenched, looking into his eyes. “They’re gone, you damn pachyderm.”

One ham-handed fist came up and caught me in the stomach, doubling me over. The other hand, an uppercut, caught me on the left ear. I had a good shot at his groin. I didn’t take it. I staggered back to the chair at a ninety-degree angle.

“I’m the one with the big words around here,” he said, jabbing his thumb at his chest. “You are more than fifty miles from home and in a lonely place. Hammett’s got some friends, but you …”

“Friends like Pintacki?” I asked.

“None of your damn business, rabbit,” said Spainy, still standing.

My ear was bleeding, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me touch it.

“A couple of guys I think work for Pintacki just kidnapped Dashill Hammett from in front of your building,” I said, holding back the pain in my stomach. The ear didn’t really hurt. It just throbbed and demanded attention I wasn’t giving it. “He’s a real famous man, Spainy. Something happens to him and you’ll be riding herd on your rabbits full time.”

“Got no time for this, Peters. I warn you.” The first tremor of nervousness appeared in his voice. “You got some answers for me?”

“None,” I said, sitting up as straight as I could. “I’ve got other things I’d like to give you but I think I’ll save them for the holidays.”

Spainy laughed, a false laugh that shook his chest and turned his face red.

“Threats,” he said, between bellows. “God, rabbit, you got a nerve. I give you that. I pick you up by the ears and you’re still ready to bite. I’ll give you that.”

“You didn’t give it to me,” I said. “I earned it. How about I leave now or you throw me back in the cell and waste more taxpayer money? If I’m not out of here soon, I’d guess Hammett will call his friend Pintacki.”

“Thought old Hammett had been kidnapped?”

“Pick your story,” I said softly.

“I’ll pick your … get the hell out of here. I got reports, a lunch talk at the Kiwanis in Overton. Get the hell out.”

I stood up, ready to give him a Jimmy Cagney smile, but he was rummaging through his desk for something or nothing. I ignored the pain in my stomach, walked reasonably straight to the door and went out. My hand went to my ear and came down bloody. I leaned against the wall, felt my tender gut and looked around for a washroom or a water fountain. I saw J.V. looking up at me from her desk a few feet away. She was talking on the telephone again but not looking through me. The look on her face was full of sympathy. Another blue-uniformed woman, in her sixties, was standing near J.V.’s desk looking at a clipboard and tapping her toes to a Kay Kyser song on the radio.

I spotted a drinking fountain a few feet away and moved to it to moisten my hand and put it to my ear.

The place wasn’t bustling with life. I found a semiclean handkerchief in my pocket and turned it wet, cold and red in seconds.

“I’ve got some stuff in my desk,” came a voice behind me. I turned to face J.V. Her skin was clear and tan and her eyes concerned, a good combination.

“He might come out,” I said, looking at Chief Spainy’s door.

“God,” she said, clasping her hands. “Wait. I’m on lunch break. Come on.”

She motioned for me to follow her, swept her dark hair away from her face and headed for the exit, glancing back at Chief Spainy’s door.

“Be back at one, Dorothy,” J.V. said to the toe-tapper in uniform.

Dorothy, short, gray and distracted, nodded and kept on tapping and reading as we went out the front door.

“This way,” J.V. said, walking a foot in front of me, probably to avoid the drip of my bleeding ear. “It’s not far.”

And it wasn’t. We crossed the broad central street of Angel Springs, passed the hardware store and a pair of high-fashion women’s clothing shops, went around the corner past a Rexall Drugstore and into a doorway between the Paris Golf Shop and Sharon’s Luncheonette.

“Up here,” she said, and up the narrow wooden stairway we went to two doors above the shops. She brushed her dark falling hair away again, pulled a small ring of keys from her pocket and opened the door on the right.

“Just a second,” she said, indicating I should wait.

I waited and she went in. I could hear her shoes clopping quickly inside, and through the open door I could see the bedroom—living room and part of a kitchen. She was back in a few seconds, handing me a towel which I placed over my tender ear.

“Come in,” she said, backing inside and wiping her palms on her hips.

I went in. The room wasn’t quite a mess, but the bed hadn’t been made and the morning newspaper and a few magazines were scattered on the floor. Beyond, in the small kitchen, I could see a few dishes on the table. Back in the living-bedroom there was a combination radio and record player in a corner near the windows. Records were stacked on the floor and on a small white table. Still holding the towel to my ear, I walked to the window and looked out onto one of Angel Spring’s business streets.

“It’s a mess. I know,” J.V. said, looking around the room.

I gave her a lop-sided smile and looked at the framed posters on her wall. They were all old and yellowing, and all were for operas.

“I like opera,” she said, almost apologetically. “Sad ones especially. Listen every Saturday to the Met, even have Deems Taylor’s book here someplace.” She glanced around in vain search for the book.

“That’s my favorite,” she said, looking up at a poster for
Tosca
which featured a man in a white wig clasping the wrists of a woman who kneeled in obvious pain before him. “He’s torturing her boyfriend in the other room,” she said, taking a step toward me. “He wants her to … you know, but she kills the bad guy at the end of the second act. Third act she tries to free her boyfriend but he gets shot and she jumps off a tower.”

“Sad,” I said, taking the towel from my ear. The bleeding wasn’t too bad.

“You’re telling me,” she said. “The music is beautiful. You want to hear it?”

“Someone kidnapped my friend,” I said. “I saw it through the Chief’s window. Two men in overalls named Wylie and Conrad. You know them?”

J.V. had moved to the record player and was fingering through her records.

“I don’t know,” she said nervously, then she turned to me. “Maybe we better just skip the opera. I’ll bandage your ear and you can go …”

“You’ve heard of them,” I said gently. “They work for Pintacki, don’t they?”

“God. What have I done?” J.V. said, looking at me. “My mother, my father, my sister Bemice and my brother David-Arnold said I’ve got stray cat-itis and it was going to get me in trouble some day. God, don’t make this the day. I’m not ready for it.”

“They have my friend,” I said, moving past her and aiming for the bathroom.

“The Chief …” she started, her voice cracking slightly.

“… wouldn’t believe me. This Pintacki has him under his thumb,” I said from the small, cluttered bathroom. There was hair on the soap. Used towels hung from shower racks, towel racks, and over the top of the toilet. I used the bloody towel to wash my ear and then checked myself in the mirror. The thin scratch from the cat was almost gone. The ear was red and stuck out a little more than usual but it would be all right with a piece of tape. I found one in the medicine cabinet behind the Dr. Lyon’s tooth powder.

The bathroom smeiled slightly of sweat and soap and reminded me of something, somewhere, and someone.

“Give me a hand with this tape,” I said, coming out of the bathroom.

J.V. was standing nervously near the record player. A stack of records rested on the spindle over the turntable. One of them dropped, bristled, crackled and came on. A woman sang in anguish and Italian through the cheap speaker.

J.V. sighed and moved toward me. Her breasts moved softly under the blue blouse and she smelled slightly of the washroom I’d just come out of. She avoided my eyes and taped’ my ear with shaking fingers.

“Beautiful,” I said.

She stepped back away from my touch.

“The music,” I explained, pointing at the record player.

“Right,” she agreed.

“And you, too,” I added. “Thanks for helping me.”

“Stray cat-itis,” she said. “You hungry?”

“Yes,” I said.

The woman on the record sang out in Italian. J.V. turned her back and moved into the kitchen. I followed her.

“Sandwiches,” she said, moving to the refrigerator. “Liver sausage, or I could do some bacon fast.” She looked up at a clock on the wall above her small sink. The clock was embedded in a red enameled outline of a windmill. “I’ve got about forty minutes.”

The kitchen was small. I stood next to her as she worked.