Trouble in Rooster Paradise (20 page)

“
You’ve got my vote.”

She smiled and said, “I meant to ask
earlier—any luck on your investigation?”

I’d shut the door behind me when I came in. My
body blocked Cissy’s view of the door’s frosted glass window;
otherwise she might have seen someone walk by.

“
I’ve come up with more questions.
Problem is, the answers aren’t keeping pace,” I said.

She smiled broadly, causing her cheeks to
dimple.

“
You’re still alive. That’s a good
sign. I’d hate to be without my date for tomorrow
night.”

“
You’re a cold one, Sweet
Knees.”

“
Callous to the bone.”

“
Is that all I am to you? A warm
body to drag around a dance floor?”

“
When you put it that way, it sounds
rather macabre,” she said, frowning. “Pick me up at six, will you?
And be sure your warm body’s wearing a different suit. That one
resembles used carbon paper, and I see enough of that each day
already.”

I was going to reply but didn’t get the
chance.

At first I thought it was an automobile
backfiring down on Market Street. But the second, third, and fourth
shot that immediately followed were unmistakable. Someone was
blasting away at my end of the corridor.

I grabbed for Cissy and yanked her with me in a
dive and roll over her desk. I thumped to the floor with her piling
down on top of me. We hit in a dizzying sprawl that formed a
chaotic heap of legs, thighs, elbows, and torsos that normally I’d
have found intriguing. We lay still for a moment.

Silence.

I felt Cissy’s heart keeping time with mine as
her breast-points nudged and pushed at my ribcage. She quickly
broke the scissor lock her knees had on my waist. My hand sprouted
my .38 as we disentangled. One of her nylons had a run from ankle
to mid-haunch. She hitched at her coat and skirt, retrieving them
from where they’d been hiked by our tumble. Her face was
pale.

I whispered, “Stay put while I go
check.”

She grabbed my coat sleeve and said, “Don’t,
Gunnar.” For a split second I heard a rare vulnerability in her
voice. I liked it. “Whoever it is may still be out
there.”

“
That’s the idea,” I said, breaking
away from her.

I took three soft strides to the door, opened
it, and dropped to my knees, pointing my .38 in the direction of my
office. When I saw nothing, I quickly wheeled about and pointed my
gun down the other way.

More nothing. The corridor was empty. The
tenants across the way were either out or lying low.

I moved over to my office. The glass to my
door’s window was in shards on the linoleum. The inner door had
suffered the same fate. The back wall was bullet-pocked and pieces
of plaster littered the floor.

The shooter had scrambled.

I rang Milland again. A dispatcher contacted
him by radio. He and Hanson came right over and took our brief
statements. Downstairs, Olga Peterson had heard the commotion. She
told them she thought some kids were celebrating the Fourth of July
early. No one had seen anyone suspicious-looking come or
go.

“
He probably ran out the back way,”
Hanson said.

I was going to give Milland the list of
customers Britt had given me.

“
We got our own copy. I’ll get back
to you on any matches.”

They told us we could go home.

Before I left I tugged from the wall the
corkboard I used to tack up my notes. I jury-rigged a temporary
cover with it for where my window had been. It didn’t make my
office secure exactly, but at least it would discourage an honest
man.

Cissy waited around and watched me work. I
sensed she wanted company. Normally, I’d have taken her out for a
drink to help bring harmony to any nerves that were still ragged.
But I was mindful of my date with Britt, and didn’t want an awkward
breakaway later. I told her I needed to stop off home before
heading out to another interview.

“
Have a good belt before you hit the
hay tonight, Sweet Knees,” I said as we parted. “We’ll shake this
incident off tomorrow night at the Trianon.”

She told me to please be careful.

I told her I’d be incredibly careful. She was a
little teary-eyed. I felt like shit served on stale shingle for
leaving her, but managed to do it all the same.

I headed home.

As I entered the kitchen side door, I was hit
with a hearty whiff of Musterole. Sten—the undying cigarette
hanging from his lip—had just finished constructing a Dagwood
sandwich at the kitchen table.

I gave the air two meaningful sniffs and asked,
“Rough day?”

“
Shoulder’s acting up. I think the
shrapnel is migrating. Rubbing Musterole on it seems to help,” he
said with a grin. At Bougainville, Sten had jumped out of an amphib
right into what he called a Tojo surprise.

Sten had built a six-inch tower of bread, cold
cuts, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles—all of which was probably held
together with liberal amounts of mayonnaise and A-1 Sauce. It
looked fantastic. My mouth watered. The kitty-cat wall clock read
4:40, which meant it was closer to 5:00.

“
What? Not waiting for feeding
time?”

“
We’re poor little lambs all on our
own tonight.”

“
And why isn’t the young and
unsettled chowing down at one of his haunts?”

“
Oh, I plan to,” he said. “This
sucker’s just an appetizer to tide me over.”

“
Where’s your aunt?”

“
She just left. Some guy she met at
the Shurfine Market is taking her out on the town.”

“
Does Walter know?”

“
I’m pretty sure he does. He’s been
shut up in his room since I got home. Walter’s no idiot,” Sten
added as he put his sandwich on a plate and poured himself a glass
of milk.

I opened the door leading to the basement for
him. He called his room the dungeon. I noticed his souvenir Jap
bayonet sticking out of his back pocket.

“
Why the bayonet?”

“
Kenny’s got a boil on his butt the
size of a walnut. He wants me to lance it for him before we head
over to the 211.”

“
My luck to Kenny.”

With a ghoulish laugh, Sten said, “There’s
plenty of eats left in the fridge if you’d like one of these
puppies.” He lifted his plate, a self-satisfied look on his
face.

“
Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got a
dinner date myself.”

“
We talkin’ about the dollface with
the half-shimmy getalong?”

“
Who
?”

“
That almost-receptionist of
yours?”

“
No.”

“
So, you’ll put in a good word for
me
, then?”

“
What happened to
Claudia?”

“
You mean Pin-Curlers? That beauty
parlor in heels? I swear that girl never finishes getting ready.
She’s last month’s news. So, how about the endorsement?”

“
I’ll introduce you if you come by.
But you’re on your own after that.”

“
Fair enough. So, about tonight, are
we talkin’ Everett good-lookin’ or Tacoma good-lookin’? Or
what
?”

“
This one’s off any scale you could
ever hope to devise.”

Sten whistled. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t
do,” he said as he descended to the dungeon.

Things were quiet in Walter’s room, but I knew
he was still awake. I freshened up in the bathroom, swatted my face
with a little cologne and changed into my dark brown suit. Britt
didn’t seem to be put off by my new seersucker, but maybe she was
just being nice. If both Mrs. Berger and Cissy gave it a
thumbs-down, I wasn’t about to wear it to dinner.

I rapped lightly on Walter’s door.

He told me to come in. A good sign.

He was seated on his work stool over near the
window. The bottle of Black & White was on the sill alongside a
full shot glass. His 8mm Lebel revolver was in its holster sitting
on the end of the workbench nearest him. At the other end the
British Dragoons were set up in a charge that looked formidable.
They appeared to be finished. A package sat next to them postmarked
Springfield, Massachusetts. It was from Raymond Perry. My guess was
it had arrived that afternoon. It remained unopened.

Not a good sign.

“
I’m glad to see you’re still among
the living. Care for a drink, old thing?”

“
Can’t right now, Walter. I’m
heading out again to go talk to someone.”

“
You won’t mind if I drink in front
of you, I trust,” he said, downing his glass. “Did you know that
the Arabic word
al-kuhul
originally referred to the powdered
antimony used to paint eyelids?”

I let him expound. It was the least I could do.
He was maudlin but still lucid.

I sometimes pondered the Walter that might have
been. I wondered what he’d have made of himself if he hadn’t been
so close to that fuel wagon in the Argonne.

Usually, my musings about Walter were
self-indicting. My own life hadn’t been molded by physical scars,
but I suspect something caused me to settle for an addiction to
conundrums and a fascination with the twists and folds of human
makeup. Family life in the suburbs might have cured the addiction,
and a more genteel career may have blunted the fascination, but I
never put this theory to the proof. So I was in no position to
judge Walter Pangborn. Somewhere along the way I’d stood close to
my own version of Walter’s fuel wagon. Not the
tangible
kind. One far more insidious.

I told Walter what had happened at the
office.

It didn’t pull him out of his mood, but I could
see concern in his eyes.

“
Any ideas yet as to who would want
to kill you?”

“
Nothing fixed. Just some
free-floating notions.”

I told him Len Pearson drove a Packard and
related my phone conversation with him.

“
Hmm. Levantine mischiefs or not, he
sounds rather harmless, Gunnar. Like the rest of us, he doubtless
plays many parts, depending on what the occasion
demands.”

I agreed. “But I figure the real Pearson is
probably a frightened understudy hiding offstage.”

Walter smiled a tortured smile. “Like all of
us, old top. Like all of us.”

Walter poured himself another shot of whiskey.
He drank in an elegant, almost lordly manner. His speech was never
slurred and he never got surly.

I told him about the attempt on Addison Darcy’s
life. I also told him about Guy de Carter.

“
He calls Miss Anderson ‘honcho
lady,’ eh?” He smiled as expansively as his ruined face would
allow. “A term from the Japanese word
hancho
, meaning squad
leader ….”

I interrupted and told him how de Carter had
lied to me about where he’d gotten our lunch.

“
And you think this de Carter might
have taken a potshot at Mr. Darcy?” he said.

“
Yeah. But I don’t know why yet. I
might be looking at the wrong person entirely.”

“
A fellow with Guy de Carter’s
proclivities may well have just come from a tryst with a married
woman. That could account for his lying. Besides, he didn’t poison
your sandwich.”

“
I thought about that. We ate in too
public a place for him to kill me in that fashion. Too many good
citizens eyeballing us. Plus, he might have decided just to find
out all what I knew.”

I described Guy de Carter to him, and told him
what we’d talked about.

“
You’re a student of human nature,
Walter. What do you make of this guy?”

“
What do I make of a
guy
named
Guy
? I forgive your pun,” he said, taking a drink of
his Scotch. “I’m no more than a dime-store analyst, Gunnar. A
dabbler, really. So remember, you’re getting just what you’ve paid
for.”

He belched.

“
Excuse me, old socks. I seem to
have an upset stomach that has gotten the mastery of my
manners.”

I popped a fresh clove between teeth and jowl
and watched as Walter pondered.

“
All of us, Gunnar, have pursuits
that help us escape life’s tedium—activities we enjoy to change or
modify our dispositions, our moods. Mr. Guy de Carter has merely
carried things to an extreme. He’s on a neurotic treadmill.
Actually, more like that little wheel in Popeye’s cage downstairs.
Your Mr. de Carter is on one of those wheels.”

“
A hamster wheel.”

“
Yes. Just so. He’s running. Some
people become booze hounds.” Walter lifted up his shot glass a few
inches. “Some—like our fellow boarder Sten—turn to gambling. Others
chase after money, eat too much, or are consumed with their
employment.”

Walter paused for a moment’s thought as he
warmed to his topic.

“
Mr. Guy de Carter is what the hoi
polloi commonly call a ladies’ man, a lady-killer, or even a sex
fiend. Whereas the psychiatric mandarins and alienists speak in
terms of complexes, compulsions, neuroses, aberrations—”