Trouble in Rooster Paradise (14 page)

“
Call it the tutelage of an
impassioned grandfather.”

“
I enjoyed that particular bout. We
sat ringside. Fifty-dollars a seat. Sal and I rooted for Carpentier
in what little French we knew. A delicious event, really. But
still, by then I’d had quite enough of our escorts. They were a
good fifteen years older than we were and they were moneyed,
overbearing, and extremely self-important. I’m afraid that even
then, I had little patience with blades of their stripe. But not
Sal. She eventually fell in love with her suitor. She fell hard. I
tried to warn her. But Sal wouldn’t listen. She believed him when
he said he’d divorce his wife and marry her. You know the old
story. Sal believed so hard, she even made plans to leave the show.
But like I suspected, he was stringing her along. It was a game to
him. It broke her heart when she finally realized it, and it ate
her up.”

I asked her what became of Sal.

“
It was worse than a tragedy. Sal
refused to cut her losses and move on. She foolishly threatened to
make trouble for the man. She said she’d tell his wife—expose him
publicly. His friend—the man I’d been paired with at the fight—had
powerful friends in the city. Sal’s lover and his crony had her
jailed on trumped up charges. They railroaded her and had her
sentenced to prison for two years.”

“
How was she when she got
out?”

“
She didn’t. The poor girl couldn’t
take it. It crushed her. She died in prison.”

I told her I was sorry.

“
There’s a deliciously cruel humor
to all of this, when you think about it.”

I asked her to explain.

“
Well, after all, such things as
secrecy and trust are usually implicit in an
illicit
amour.
Ironic, isn’t it?”

I grinned and agreed.

“
Let me make myself clear, Mr.
Nilson. I know nothing for certain. I’ve simply witnessed many
times what goes on between older men and the young women they chase
after. I’m spouting mere speculation, mind you. Having said that,
let me say that if Mr. Engstrom is
not
Christine’s murderer,
then it wouldn’t surprise me one whit if the foolish girl took
things too far and somehow crossed the wrong man of means. It’s the
type of thing that’s happened many times before, and to girls far
more clever than Christine would ever have been had she lived to
see thirty.”

Mrs. Arnot walked me to the door.

“
Britt didn’t exaggerate about you,”
she said.

“
How’s that?”

She smiled. “Well, now that I’ve had a chance
to talk with you awhile, I do see that there is indeed a bit of
Cary Grant’s charm about you—and like him, you’ve also mastered a
certain relaxed breeziness.”

“
Breezy I can do. It’s the dimpled
chin and carefree saunter that need work.”

I gave her my card.

“
I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more
help to you, young man. I wish you luck.”

It was 9:15 when I left. I stopped at The Twin
TeePees off Highway 99 across from Green Lake. As the name
suggests, it was a roadside diner built in the shape of two large
adjoining teepees—one of those oddball monuments to advertising
boosterism.

I used the payphone to call Rikard Lundeen. He
told me that Addison Darcy would be staying around home the next
day and that I was welcome to stop by at any time. I put a clove in
my mouth and took a table looking out at the highway.

I ordered a cup of coffee and a piece of pecan
pie. After the waitress brought my order I watched the pavement
strain with night traffic. I let the cars mesmerize me for a while
as I chewed and mulled over what the aging and seasoned Ziegfeld
girl had told me.

Before the war, Lou Boyd and I came to the
rescue of a lawyer named Grant Lincoln Presswell. He’d come to the
Bristol Agency with a recurring problem. A crazed weakness, really.
Presswell was a whimsical old reprobate who seemed unable to
restrain himself around the pretty office girls who worked for his
firm. He’d never touch the current focus of his adoration. Not so
much as a grope, pinch, or a wink. Instead he’d write her love
songs. Love lyrics.
Lewd
lyrics. Pages and pages of them.
Lucky for Presswell, the girls never took him to court. They were
usually too embarrassed or intimidated to do anything. Presswell
generally exhausted his emotions or ran out of paper and ink—I
never knew which. It was our job to try and retrieve the love songs
amicably, or simply buy them outright—if the girl hadn’t already
burned them, that is. Eventually, one of the girls did turn
adventurous and tried to get hush money from our client. He came to
us in a four-alarm panic. Before we could do anything, he died of a
heart attack. The girl had obviously carried things a little too
far. But, then again, so had Presswell.

I parked the Chevy in its usual spot in front
of Mrs. Berger’s. I’d thrown my coat on the passenger side and
remembered it only after I stepped into the street. Normally I’d
have left it to rumple overnight. But the suit was new. Plus, I
planned to wear it the next day when I saw Britt Anderson again.
So, I turned and stepped back toward the car.

That move saved my life.

I heard the tires squeal as the car shot past
me. I don’t know if I leaped or was propelled, but I slammed into
the side of my Chevy. As I slid to the ground I cursed the driver
and all his forebears, and hoped he’d stop and apologize so I could
curse him to his face. But when I looked in his direction I saw the
dark outline of a sedan hurtling down the street like a
rocket.

“
Are you all right,
Gunnar?”

It was Walter Pangborn, a little winded from
running out of the shadows.

“
I … I think so,” I said as he
helped me stand. “That idiot could have killed me.”

“
I think that was his intention, old
socks. I think that was his intention.”

Walter had been sitting on the front steps with
the porch light switched off when he saw me drive up.

“
I’d just tamped and re-lit my pipe.
I thought it peculiar that the driver of that sedan didn’t turn his
lights on when he pulled away from the curb. He was waiting for
you, Gunnar. He meant to kill you.”

“
Did you get a look at him?” I
asked.

“
Sorry. Not a clear one.”

It figured. I was parked too far from the
streetlight.

“
Was it a Packard?”

“
As for that, I can only say that it
might have been. I can say for sure only that it was a very dark
sedan. I must admit, old thing, as the lyricists might say, my eyes
saw only you.”

“
I’m touched, Walter.”

Walter’s assessment got me to drop the
idiot-driver theory. I’d angered plenty of people and racked up my
share of enemies over the years. The driver could easily have been
somebody out to settle an old score. But my profession made me wary
of coincidences. Given the timing, it was just as likely that my
close call had something to do with my nosing into Christine’s
murder.

We went inside. Sten was still out. Mrs. Berger
was making Zs, her insomnia being no match for several of Walter’s
gin and bitters.

Walter poured us each a shot of Black &
White as I went over the details of my day with him.

“
I’d like to meet this Blanche
Arnot,” Walter said. “She sounds enchanting. I’ll wager she has
quite the photo album to go with those reminiscences.”

“
Overall, Walter, what do you make
of this pretty kettle of fish?”

“
Ah, yes, a reference to the salmon
and trout Scottish picnickers cooked in kettles for their picnic
meals. Arguably, not a pretty sight. A mucky, jumbled mix. And when
you also consider how chaotic a picnic can often
be ….”

I held up a hand. “Walter. Please. Your
thoughts about what I’ve told you so far. What’s your take on Dirk
Engstrom?”

Walter held his shot glass to his nose and
sniffed the whiskey. “Prisons are filled with people who insist on
their innocence, of course. Still, the way you characterize the lad
and his story, I’m inclined to think he’s being framed. That near
hit-and-run outside would seem to confirm it.”

I agreed.

“
Gunnar, if we combine some of the
details you’ve gleaned, I’d say it’s fairly safe to assume that
Christine Johanson was involved in an
affaire de coeur
with
an older man—presumably one of her customers.”

“
Sure looks that way. It would
explain why she told the Engstrom kid she wasn’t good enough for
him. She was a two-timer with a grain or two of
conscience.”

Walter nodded and suddenly drained his glass.
“The eavesdropping Meredith Lane said Christine sounded nervous and
angry when talking on the phone. What was that other word she used
to describe how Christine felt?”

“
She said Christine sounded like
she’d been cheated.”

“
Cheated
? You’re sure that
was the word? Not deceived or betrayed?”

“
I’m sure. She said ‘cheated.’
What’s the difference, Walter? Maybe she’d been a sucker to the old
routine. ‘I’ll marry you, cupcake, after I divorce my wife.’ The
whole sleazy nine yards. Only, her lover boy didn’t mean a word of
it and Christine found out she’d been played for a sap.”

“
Perhaps. However, I’m certain Miss
Lane would have put a different word to it had Christine been the
victim of a lover’s broken promises. In such a case, I see her
using a word like betrayed or duped.”

“
Walter, I know these girls are
getting groomed by Mrs. Arnot, but Meredith didn’t exactly strike
me as a budding lexicographer.”

“
You’d be surprised, old top, how
exacting people can be when it comes to labeling the emotional
state of another.”

“
So you’re thinking
cheated
as in
money
?” I said.

“
That makes more sense to me,
although I admit I don’t quite see how it all fits
together.”

“
Well, you’re in good company,
Walter. Christine’s behavior with me the other night may have
hinted at something shady, but I pegged her as a sweet kid overall,
just self-involved. You make her out to be a shakedown
artist.”

“
Possibly she was all of that. You
must admit, old socks, you were taken with her looks. You were in
one of your …
drooling
moods. No one—especially a
libidinous male—wants to think the worst of a beautiful face. But,
it’s likely that poor Christine wasn’t as sweet as you might like
to think. It would also fit with Mrs. Arnot’s excellent theory
about the murderer acting to protect himself.”

Kirsti had her lower lip between her teeth and
was staring at me with rapt attention, as if I was the wise old man
of the mountain. She got up off the wood bench and came around
behind my wheelchair.

“
After a few more minutes of
conversation, I told Walter goodnight and went to my room,” I told
Kirsti casually, as she pushed me toward the cafeteria. She and I
had decided a cup of coffee was in order.

It was between feedings, but since it was
Sunday, pockets of visitors and Finecare inmates loitered here and
there in the cafeteria dining hall, glibly talking about old times
and ditheringly passing on what might be new. A few kitchen ladies
were robotically preparing meals. Another one of their number was
going around bussing recently abandoned tables and being dogged all
the while by a grizzled golden-ager, younger than me, who was
trying to get her to listen to a letter he clutched in his hand.
There were printed signs on a couple of walls about not sharing
food, and not taking your trays and silverware with you, and not
sitting on tables, and keeping hands, feet, and objects to
yourself. If you weren’t careful, it was the kind of place that
could make you forget there was anything right with the
world.

As sensitive and perceptive as Kirsti was, I
wondered if she saw Finecare as I did. I decided probably not.
After all, this was her time for defining moments and not for
grappling with moments trying to define her.

Kirsti found us a private spot, looked at me
with the expression of a veteran waitress, and said, “
Black
,
right?”

I said “Right.”

Kirsti got us our coffee and then positioned a
chair across from me and sat down, placing one of her dimpled knees
over the other. She held her cup in both hands and perched its edge
on her top knee.

“
That Walter sure read you right,”
Kirsti said, after a few moments of silence. “About you drooling
over beautiful women.”

I laughed. “I was young.”

“
You were …
horny,
” she
said with a shrewd glitter in her eyes. “And all the time, it
sounds like to me.” Suddenly she had a pink tint on each cheek that
ran to the temples and was not completely hidden by the
crescent-shaped locks of her pageboy.

I coughed, and then took a big swallow of
coffee. “I admit to having had a full array of youthful impulses,”
I said defensively.

“
For sure,” she said, the flush on
her face deepening. She raised her cup to her lips to take a
sip.