Cold Was The Ground

by B A Black

  Sal takes four cups of coffee and two pieces of toast in the seedy diner. The two men don’t much stand out from the other customers, but the waitress keeps giving Sal uncertain looks until some of the ashen cast of his skin fades.

  “Was it this morning?” Sal asks, trembling a little less, now.

  “Last night,” Houston says. “A woman came in late. Alfreda Winsome.”

  Sal sits up straighter. “Is she—”

  “Married to Charles Winsome, yes,” Houston says. Suddenly, he’s not too eager to give Sal the details of the case. He’s not sure how Sal will react.

  Sal picks another corner off his toast and chews it carefully, testing his stomach. “What’s she got for us?”

  “Charles is missing.”

  “He got another woman?”

  “Not exactly,” Houston says, dry.

  “What’s that mean?”

  Houston’s blood goes cold. He lowers his voice. “Charles Winsome plays for the other team. She already knows.”

  “Christ, Mars,” Sal hisses. “What’d you take a nancy case for?”

  Houston sits back, a quiet, betrayed anger sitting on his heart. It’s not like a punch in the gut—not the cold-sweat fear that makes him laugh along when he sits in a bar and someone says “faggot”. This is a subtle knife, a painful blade in a vulnerable spot.

  “I mean jeezus, Houston, when we go out and investigate, how many of these guys are going to know you?” Sal continues, unaware or uncaring that he’s throwing words like stones.

  Houston shoves his chair back so hard it screams over the floor on two legs before crashing back down to four. He’s out of the diner before he realizes he’s fleeing the situation, and then angry that even his instincts make him a coward, make him afraid that what he is, who he is will always put him here. Hurt and running, like a whipped dog that won’t learn and can’t bite.

  The cold air hits him hard in the face, and Houston realizes he’s left his coat on the back of the chair. He refuses to admit sense and go back for it. Houston continues on, heading for the bus stop, feeling the change in his pocket. It’ll get him back to the office. Ignoring the sounds of running steps and his partner calling his name behind him, Houston sets his eyes on the bus stop sign and stays his course.

  Salvatore’s heavy hand lands on Houston’s shoulder, pulling hard to spin him around on the spot. Houston faces him down in angry silence.

  “You ever been told not to piss where your garden grows?” Sal asks, out of breath. He shoves Houston’s coat into his hands.

  Houston doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t trust his voice.

  “Mars,” Sal says. “Gimme a break.”

  Houston takes a big, deep breath of cold, crisp air and holds it freezing in his lungs until the shock and vibration of anger flushes out of him.

  “You don’t wanna work it?” he demands, tone still sharp. “Take a week off. Clean up. Sober out, Costanzo.”

  He shrugs angrily into his coat, leaving Sal standing in the dirty snow with his mouth open. At least this time, Sal doesn’t shove his foot in it. He stands next to Houston silently at the bus stop, shivering between cold and withdrawal.

  They ride the bus home in stormy silence, Houston stays standing with his wrist through one of the leather straps and knees flexing into the wide, slipping turns the bus makes. The darkest, angriest part of him knows that the worst of his upset comes from how close Sal’s words were to his own doubts, at least the part about staying uninvolved, publicly, in things he took part in privately. Don’t piss on your own garden.

  Sal follows him off the bus when Houston gets off in front of their agency.

  They don’t talk about it. Instead, the long silent bus ride slipped a pillow over the mouth and nose of the previous conversation while it slept. Sal takes the stairs up two at a time.

  Houston lets the past slip out of the way. He turns on the hot plate under the morning’s pot of coffee and calls down to Miss Wentz to tell her she can connect their calls again. Tellingly, they have no other messages. It’s a sparce time for private investigators.

  Sal pulls a chair up to the other side of Houston’s desk, and lights a cigarette while Houston recounts the facts of the case.

  His partner is quiet for a long moment afterward, blue eyes acute. He looks two steps shy of hell, Houston thinks.

  “So,” Sal says at last, reaching forward to crush a good half-cigarette out in front of Houston’s starving eyes. “Alfreda Winsome is the saintly, tolerant wife, and usually Charlie has the good sense to keep his beard in the loop.”

  “Salvatore,” Houston warns.

  Sal displays his empty palms in surrender. “What’s to say he hasn’t just run off for good this time, embracing a life of sodomy and sin?”

  “She says she just wants to know if he’s alive,” Houston says. “And not in trouble.”

  “Alright.”

  “Instinctively, I don’t think he’s the sort.”

  “You don’t know him.”

  “Flighty birds make themselves hard to track down from the start,” Houston says. “Running is always in the back of their mind. Usually, they test their wings a little before they make good.”

  “You sound like you know,” Sal says, peering at Houston as if he’s a puzzle he’s just got a new piece to.

  “Ask me again some time I’m not mad at you,” Houston tells him.

  “Alright, Mars, jeez,” Sal says. “Where do you think we should start on this case?”

  “I got an address of where he was last supposed to be. Guy owns a boat, a place up on the lake—”

  “Lake Michigan?”

  “No, Lake Titicaca, what do you think?”

  “Alright, wiseguy, how do you propose we get out to the happy house? You think the bus will take us out there?”

  “We can catch a rail car out pretty close. Take a cab from the train station.”

  “You need a car,” Sal accuses. “Just ask for it.”

  “A train will be faster,” Houston argues. Sal’s car is an ancient Ford, prone to breaking down and goes about as fast as a lamed horse. Eats more, too. “And warmer, in this weather.”

  “Suit yourself,” Sal gets to his feet. “But we better not end up walking. Looks like snow again tonight.”

  Houston doesn’t make any promises. If walking in the snow is what it takes to locate Charlie Winsome, he’ll do it.

  Sal stops to wash his face in the bathroom sink, to suck down a fifth cup of barely warm black coffee. To Houston, he still smells like the opium pit—like smoke and sweat and despair—now with some aftershave splashed over his unshaven cheeks.

  Houston waits, patient, for Sal to finish wetting down and combing his hair. He checks a train schedule, and calls down to Miss Wentz again, telling her they’ll be out of the office until Monday.

  “Mars,” Sal says, as they start down the creaking stairs. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  Houston stops abruptly and looks up at him, measuring. It’s an easy thing to say, when it’s that vague. Harder to mean it. Sal likes a smooth road, likes to get along. In this case, he seems genuine but anxious. Houston stands one stair below him and looks up across a distance of worlds and understanding.

  “It’s just,” he says, trying not to fold over too easy and forgive Sal. It’s hard when his eyes are the brightest thing in their sunken sockets and the light turns his skin almost as gray as it was that morning. “What kind of guy do you think I am, Sal?”

  That seems to take his partner back some, and Sal blinks twice. Houston lets him chew it over.

  “Come on,” Houston says, turning back toward the stairs. “Daylight’s burning.”

  ◆◆◆

  The cabin by the lake only fits that description by some privileged view of the world. The brick and wood building, a two story implication of rusticism that the perfectly manicured grounds don’t fit, is like the Hollywood version of a cabin. All the comforts of home, dressed up in plain timber and good old
fashioned masonry. The inside, Houston thinks, won’t suit it either.

  It has big windows facing the lake, and Houston can see a pier at the back of the property, with what he assumes is “the boat” that Mrs. Winsome mentioned.

  Beside him, Sal utters a low whistle. “That ain’t no rowboat.”

  It’s a yacht, bobbing gently on the water with her mast tracing lazy circles against the looming sky. Her sails are furled, tied down neatly against the oak-colored yardarm.

  “Old money,” Houston reminds. He supposes the yacht—there’s a name painted on her bow that Houston can’t read from this distance—would be more than comfortable for the use Mrs. Winsome described.

  “The Norma Gaye,” Sal says, confounding Houston.

  “How do you see that from here?”

  “I got good eyes, Mars. You need glasses.”

  “The hell I do.” Houston tells the cabbie to wait, and passes over a big enough tip that he’ll think about it, before ascending the well-swept stairs. Sal stays behind him.

  A young man with wild hair in a rumpled silk robe and and holding an open bottle of champagne answers Houston’s knock.

  “Party doesn’t start until the sun goes down, fellas,” he says, giving a bright, almost-apologetic smile. His words are faintly slurred already. The bottle in his hand is half-empty.

  “Mr. Edward Phillips? I’m Houston Mars.” Sal lets him take the lead, staying quiet; it’s a well-rehearsed act between them. “Mrs. Winsome has asked me to look into the whereabouts of her husband.”

  Houston doesn’t reach for his P.I. license, not wanting to spook the man.

  “Charlie?” the man asks, sounding surprised. The man blinks owlishly, still barricaded mistrustfully behind the flimsy shield of the screen door. He turns to look assessingly at Sal next. “He’s not here yet. He never comes up before Saturday. Who did you say you were again?”

  Houston thinks he can see the fear beginning to build on Phillips’ features. He introduces himself, hoping to put Edward at ease. “I’m Houston Mars. This is my partner, Salvatore Costanzo.”

  “Police?” Phillips asks.

  “No, sir,” Houston says. “We’re private investigators. Mrs Winsome is concerned about her husband and asked us to look into it discreetly. We just have a couple of questions.”

  Phillips eyes the pair with mistrust.

  “Please,” Houston says. “We just want to be able to tell her that her husband is safe.”

  Phillips lets them in after a moment of hesitation, holding the screen door wide so they can enter. As Houston passes, he travels through the heavy fog of alcohol on Edward’s breath. The bottle in his hand is not his first. It’s just after four p.m, the sun dipping close to the horizon.

  “I haven’t seen Charlie in a while,” Phillips says, leading them deeper into the house. The interior of the cabin is lavishly decorated and indulgently askew. Barely restrained chaos. In the parlor where they settle, hunting trophies dominate the landscape—stuffed and mounted bucks, elk, buffalo. A fox crouches leering on the mantle of the massive fireplace, with a silk-and-lace camisole draped over the fluffed out tail. Despite the cold, the fireplace is unlit, dirty. The hearth is full of ashes and old cigarette butts.

  “Mrs. Winsome indicated that he would have been up here last weekend,” Houston says. He pulls his notepad out of his pocket.

  “Last weekend?” Phillips says, sounding puzzled. He sinks down on an overstuffed and well-used leather armchair, leaving several other matching pieces of furniture available for the detectives. Houston sits, ignoring the burn holes in the leather. Phillips swings one leg carelessly over the arm of the chair, making a show of thinking back. He sets aside the bottle of champagne on a beleaguered side table where it joins in a cityscape of beer bottles and wine glasses, as well as one ashtray, overflowing.

  He recovers a pack of Camels and a book of matches from somewhere in this landscape. He doesn’t ask if they mind before he tweezes one free between his thumb and forefinger and lights it.

  “I don’t think Charlie was here at all last weekend,” Phillips says, appearing to think very hard. “He’s not a regular—not every week, you know?”

  Houston glances back over his shoulder at Sal.

  “You sure?” Sal asks, looking around the room to take the setting in, eyes lifted up toward a massive elk head. “Looks like maybe your parties bring a lot of people.”

  “Sure,” Phillips says, looking up past Houston at his partner. “It gets wild around here. But Charlie’s an old friend. We go way back. I remember it when he actually comes.”

  “Was he supposed to come? Last Saturday?” Houston prompts.

  Phillips takes a deep drag off his cigarette and shakes his head. “Open invitation, at least for Charlie. I wasn’t especially looking for him, but he’d have been welcome if he came. He wasn’t here.”

  “His wife said he’d told her that he’d be here,” Houston tries one more angle. If Winsome had disappeared between home and the Phillips residence—well, it’d be a harder trail to follow.

  Phillips snorts, then dissolves into drunken giggles. “Sure. He’d tell her that. She’s a worrier.”

  Houston senses more is forth-coming. He lets the line spool out, seeing what story turns up on his hook.

  “You see, Charlie’s got a wild side,” Phillips says. “He gets dark, pal.”

  “Charlie always tells her something that she won’t worry about,” Phillips continues, once he’s lit another cigarette. “But he isn’t always where he says he is.”

  “And where does he go, really?” Houston asks, making a note on his pad. He doesn’t like to hear it, this indication that Charlie could have been anywhere—that he could be anywhere. It’d be better if he was here, safe, recovering from too much party.

  It’s never that easy.

  “Usually he goes down to the Levee,” Phillips says casually. “There’s not much left there, not like it used to be, but there’s still a few places if you know where to look.”

  “And where would I look,” Houston asks, “presuming I’m worried that Mr. Winsome might be in trouble?”

  Phillips exhales smoke and considers Houston skeptically. “He’s really been gone a week?”

  Houston nods.

  Phillips pulls absently at a fingernail with his teeth. Considering. Eventually, concern for his friend seems to win the battle against privacy and discretion.

  “Try the Sappho in the Levee. On Dearborn. Maybe the Imperial. Sometimes they still have drag boys up there. Sometimes he’ll grab right from the street, winding up in the crib houses.” Phillips stubs out the remains of his cigarette. “Or even Bed Bug Row.”

  It surprises Houston some—surely Charles Winsome can afford better accommodations, more discreet ones.

  “Was he slumming it?” Sal asks.

  Phillips nods. He takes up the bottle of champagne again, a long sip. “He used to. He figured there was space enough between his reputation and theirs that if anyone recognized him, he could deny it. If it came back to him in public, his word would be worth more than theirs. He liked the thrill. But then, sometimes, this was enough for him. After he got married, I thought he’d quit all that. Who knows—if he told Alfie he was here last weekend, who knows if he’s done it before.”

  The words echo Houston’s thoughts—a misled wife, a careful concern about the shame of his actions while still being drawn to even more shameful ones. Houston marks down the names of the places on his notepad. He knows them. Sal has no more questions.

  “Alright, Mr. Phillips,” Houston says. “Thank you for your help. We’d appreciate it if you’d give us call at the office if Mr. Winsome turns up this weekend.”

  “I don’t have a phone,” Phillips says dismissively. “But I can send someone up the street.”

  Houston passes a business card, and Phillips reaches out a slender hand to take it. He closes his hand partway over it and Houston’s forefinger and thumb, taking the card with a long caress a
s he reaches up from his chair.

  “Say,” Phillips says, in a lower tone. He barely glances at the card before tucking it away in a robe pocket. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

  A heavy, sharp feeling sinks down suddenly in Houston’s stomach. A cold shock. “No sir, I don’t think so.”

  Philips gives him a knowing look, now clearly trying to recall.

  “He’s been in the papers,” Sal says, firmly, stepping in at Houston’s elbow. “Call us if your friend turns up. We’ve got a train to catch.”

  Houston follows Sal’s broad shoulders out, and finds that the sky is dark with the early onset of the evening. The cab has abandoned them, apparently having a history with the Phillips household. Houston wonders if the cabbie even bothered to wait the advance out.

  “Well,” Sal says, jamming his hands into his pockets. “I hate to say ‘I told you so’ Mars, but since in this case we’re both walking back to the train station, I really hate to say ‘I told you so’.”

  Houston lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

  “You okay?” Sal asks.

  “Yeah,” he says. “It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.”

  Sal chuckles—a nervous sound, not quite manic. “What do you call today?”

  They reach the end of the long driveway, and Houston looks back at the dim outline of the yacht—Norma Gaye—floating on the water as Sal pauses to light a cigarette. Wordlessly, Sal offers Houston the pack, then lights a match for him when Houston accepts the offer. Cars turn up the driveway, speeding and eager, signalling the start of Edward Phillips’ weekend party as surely as the darkness surrounding them.

  The boat pulls restlessly against the mooring lines as the cold evening rolls in, and it begins, softly at first, to snow.

  3.

  By the time they get back into Chicago proper, the snow’s coming down like a killer, settling and staying on their coats and in their hair. It’s fully Saturday, and while the trains run this late, the busses have stopped for the night. Houston keeps praying in his sinner’s heart that a cab will crawl out of the gray darkness. None do.