Trouble in Rooster Paradise (15 page)

“
How about we let this old jaw of
mine rest up a bit while we soak up the ambiance,” I said as I
waved my left hand at our surroundings and brought my cup to my
mouth with my right.

She nodded and we finished our coffee in
silence.

Kirsti brought our empty cups over to the gal
doing the bussing, and then she wheeled me back to the outer
courtyard. She continued to keep quiet, so I said nothing as we
bumped and jolted across the gravel and flagstone walk.

“
So, you were in danger. Someone
tried to run you over. Someone was out to get you,” she said when
we reached the wood bench and she’d turned her recorder back
on.

“
Looking back, I’d say that’s
putting it mildly.”

I kept my snub-nosed .38 in my desk drawer when
it wasn’t riding on my torso. I pulled it out of its hiding spot
and placed it on the little nightstand near my bed. It became
anchor for a
Pep Comics
magazine starring Archie Andrews as
well as a tattered copy of Spinoza’s
Ethics
that I’d
recently picked up at Shorey’s Bookstore downtown.

Setting my gun out in the open was the only
precaution I took, but I knew I was going to sleep like a guilty
baby. Or was that a selfish rock? Whatever. For, no matter what I
said to dissuade him, Walter insisted on standing guard all night.
He planned to paint toy soldiers until the wee hours. Nearby on his
workbench he’d have one of his few souvenirs from France that a
buddy smuggled home for him after he’d been wounded. It was an 8mm
Lebel revolver, popular among French troops during the First Great
War. I fluffed my pillow and pitied anyone foolish enough to break
in the house on Walter Pangborn’s watch.

I dreamt I was running in a Sadie Hawkins Day
race with Dirk Engstrom. We’d looked over our shoulders but
couldn’t see the girls chasing us. But we could hear them. They
were gaining on us, and we were worried. Dirk tripped and a shell
exploded near him. The dream shifted and I was with a buddy named
Mike. I banged away with a carbine as Mike blasted the air with his
BAR.

I woke up wet and clammy with a tom-tom
thumping in my chest.

Mike was killed in the Hurtgen. He was a
state-the-obvious pragmatist who didn’t mind the sleet. We were
running through a creek when a kraut machine gun started
stuttering. I didn’t know Mike before the war, but he’d come to us
from Seattle via the replacement depot. It was one of those “Repple
Depple” flukes that put him in my platoon. More a chocolate fiend
than a nicotine addict, he traded cigarettes for Hershey bars. I
liked him. He was dead before his knees hit the water.

I reached over to the nightstand and broke open
my revolver to make sure all the chambers of the cylinder were
loaded.

I decided it would be keeping me company for a
few days.

M
iss Peterson wasn’t with a
customer when I entered the Hanstad Building on Friday, June 9th. I
made sure to keep moving and met her beckoning look with a vigorous
wave that bordered on frenetic.

I found Cissy Paget alone in the anteroom of
Dag Erickson’s suite. Only her left leg was showing in the kneehole
of her desk, the other comfortably tucked under her left haunch.
This told me no clients were in the offing. She had the telephone
cradled in the nape of her neck as she rolled fresh paper and
carbon into her machine. Whoever she was talking with was jabbering
away, because Cissy was repeating a litany of yes, uh-huh, I know,
and I won’t. We exchanged waves and I sat down across from her in
the waiting area.

I picked up a stale copy of the
Seattle
Times
. The heading told me that the Park Board had approved the
$235,000 Aqua Theater. The headline below announced that an oil
tanker was grounded by an ebb tide in nearby Shilshole Bay. A
picture accompanied the story. I hadn’t been paying attention to
local events and was wondering what happened when Cissy hung up the
phone.

I looked up and saw exasperation on her face
and heard the sigh that went with it. I put the paper
down.

“
And how’s Mother, Sweet Knees?” I
asked to be cordial, deducing the source of her
aggravation.

“
Oh, Mom’s fine. Just fine. She’s
off visiting her sister in Bellingham for a few days. The one I
told you was recently widowed. When they get together they bake and
cook up a storm. It’ll help to distract my aunt from her
loss.”

“
Well, that’s good.”

“
Yes, but then they both put on
weight and get depressed and start to bicker.”

“
Oh, well, that’s not
good.”

“
No, but it does give me a needed
break for a few days.”

“
And that
is
good.”

“
Uh-huh, except Mom worries about
picayune details. So of course she’s got to make sure I’m feeding
this, and watering that, and that I’m buttoning up my overcoat when
the wind blows free. The usual. I have to tell you, her little
departures might renew
her
spirit, but they take their toll
on
my
nervous system.”

I rolled sympathetic eyes.

“
But say, tough guy, that’s also a
good thing. It means I’ll have the place to myself tomorrow night,
if that matters to you.”

“
Sounds like it’s got
possibilities.” I’d almost forgotten our date for Saturday night.
“Am I hearing an offer to cook dinner before we hit the
Trianon?”

“
Not on your life. Dinner’s still on
you. My idea is that if you behave yourself, I might invite you in
later for a nightcap.”

I promised to be a regular Eagle
Scout.

“
How’s his nibs this morning?” I
asked, nodding at the door to Dag’s office.

“
He’s in court all day today,” she
said, a slight lilt in her voice.

“
Sort of cuts into your combat pay,
doesn’t it?” I said, reaching in my pocket for a clove.

“
Be nice,” she said, giving me a
glare over the tops of spectacles that rode precariously on the end
of her cute nose. Then she grinned. Cissy had let it slip more than
once that spending all day with Dag gave her a headache. She liked
and respected her boss, but he emitted nervous energy and passed on
stress like a runner in a relay race, hands off the
baton.

“
I’m surprised you’re in so early,”
she said. “I thought you’d be sleeping one off after your little
reunion.”

“
And what little reunion is
that?”

“
Didn’t your army buddy get in touch
with you?”

“
What army buddy?”

She looked puzzled. “Yesterday afternoon some
guy called. He told me he was in the same gang or troop or squad—or
whatever it was you were in together. He wanted to surprise you and
begged me for your address.” She took her glasses off and studied
my face. “He seemed okay, so … I gave it …. It
wasn’t
okay, was it?”

I shook my head and told her about the near
hit-and-run.

“
Gunnar, I’m so sorry.”

“
Forget it. I’d have done the same
thing. Anything distinctive about this guy’s voice?”

“
Uh-uh. Sorry. He sounded like the
average Joe. That’s why his story convinced me. Again, I’m so
sorry.”

“
He missed me. That’s what
matters.”

“
Are you still in danger? Maybe
he’ll try again.”

I was touched by her concern, but was
determined not to show it. “I’m on the look-out this time. Not to
worry.”

Gunnar the Brave. Gunnar the
Vigilant.

I asked if she had any messages for
me.

“
Just one,” she said, picking up a
slip of paper. “The phone started ringing this morning before I
even had my coat off. A
Miss
Britt Anderson
called.”

The name piqued my interest and Cissy
noticed.

“
At least I think she said it was
Miss
. She sounded very officious in a sensual sort of way.
Is she pretty?”

“
Yes. I’d say she is. Pretty in an
officious sort of way.” I thought it was a clever
comeback.

Cissy didn’t. She handed me my message and
started pounding out a funeral march on her Smith and Corona. It
sounded like
Requiem to a Gumshoe
, and it left me wondering
if our friendship had developed a new wrinkle when I wasn’t
looking. Gunnar the Clever-by-half.

I read the message from Britt as I ducked
inside my two pigeonholes. I made a call to Frank Milland, who
answered on the second ring.

“
A driver of a dark sedan tried to
run me down last night.”

“
No shit.”

“
Shit yes.”

Walter once talked for fifteen minutes straight
on the Anglo-Saxon word for diarrhea, and how amazed they’d be to
know that it now outperformed a wild card.

“
Where’d this happen?”

“
Right in front of my boardinghouse.
Walter Pangborn saw the whole thing.”

“
Any idea who’d want you
dead?”

“
A handful of people come to mind,
most of them with overripe grievances from before the war. I’m
guessing this maniac has a newly acquired grudge.”

“
Meaning?”

“
I think someone’s not happy about
me nosing into the Johanson girl’s murder.”

“
Uh-huh. And you know how that’ll go
over with Lieutenant Lister, don’t you?”

“
I’ve got a fair idea.”

“
Well, fair idea this. He’ll accuse
you and the Engstrom kid’s lawyer of fabricating a red herring to
divert suspicion. And just how do I know that isn’t the
case?”

“
Walter was there. He saw the whole
thing.”

“
And who’d believe that
freak?”

“
Don’t call him a freak.” I said it
slowly, pausing between each word. I was mad. Milland knew it.
“Walter got that face fighting Huns when you were still in
knickers. If you ever bothered to talk
with
him instead of
just
at
him, you’d find he’s completely human and quite
credible.”

Frank was silent for a moment
longer.

“
So what am I supposed to do about
this info? Did your war hero happen to get a license
number?”

I told him the details, and what we saw and
didn’t.

“
Gunnar, what happened to you not
screwing up our investigation? That gun we found in the Engstrom
kid’s place
is
the one that killed that Johanson
dame.”

“
Frank, Dirk Engstrom could still be
your killer. I just thought you’d want to know what happened.
That’s all.”

“
Yeah, well, so now I
know.”

“
Yeah, well, so now you
do.”

We hung up.

I reread the message from Britt. It told me
that Guy de Carter had a mid-morning appointment near Woodland
Park, and he wondered if I could meet him there about 12:30 for a
duck dinner—he’d bring the duck. He said he’d look for me near the
fountain in the rose garden.

It was okay by me. It gave me plenty of time to
go see Addison Darcy in The Highlands.

Some compare Seattle to Rome because it’s built
on a series of hills. By the 1890s wealthier families had built
their homes on three of them: First Hill, Capitol Hill, and Queen
Anne Hill. In the early 1900s the well-to-do started to shift their
location to exclusive suburbs like Broadmoor and The Highlands.
Both Addison Darcy and Rikard Lundeen lived in the
latter.

The Highlands wasn’t really a part of Seattle.
It was sort of an enclave outside the city limits.

I headed the Chevy north. I checked now and
then to see if I was being followed, occasionally caressing my
.38.

I shot a quick glance in my rearview mirror as
I pulled up to the small gatehouse. So far I hadn’t grown a
shadow.

The gatehouse guard came out and circled the
front of my car to get to the driver’s side. He was a burly,
bandy-legged hombre. He had an ex-bouncer look in his eyes that
telegraphed a residual itch to French walk all trespassers and
troublemakers. I rolled the window down and showed him as many
teeth as I could.

“
Good morning. Welcome to The
Highlands,” said the guard, droning like a bored museum tour guide.
His lapel badge read “Charlie.” Charlie glanced from me to the
clipboard in his hand, then back at me again. It was his way of
goading me to give my credentials.

“
Addison Darcy is expecting me,” I
said.

“
Your name, sir?”

“
Gunnar Nilson.”

When he discovered my name on his list, his
mouth twitched into what resembled a smile and froze that way. I
took it as a good sign. Charlie came across like one of those
people who believe that the only thing they can be sure of is their
own existence, because when he said, “Yes, sir, there you are,” he
said it in a way that made me feel I didn’t really exist to him
until I made my appearance on his list.