The Listener

by Robert R. McCammon

  “Yeah? Well, I—”

  “Come in,” she told him. “Voices carry.”

  Thus it was that thirty seconds after finding the woman who’d left him high-and-dry in Stonefield eight days ago, Pearly was standing in her apartment at the Hotel Clementine on Texas Street near the working docks and warehouses on the mud-colored Red River. It was the hot and humid afternoon of August 11th, stifling outside; an electric fan atop a table stirred the air, its back-and-forth motion sending a breeze past Pearly’s cheek like the caress of a soft and invisible hand.

  Ginger LaFrance—for that was the name Pearly decided suited her best, being so theatrical and damned arrogant—latched the door. She turned toward him, her back against the door and her hands behind her, and she stared at him in silence. A clock ticked somewhere and a tug’s horn hooted on the river. Pearly stood at the center of the room. A pulse beat hard at his temple. He had come to rough her up and get the key to his Packard; he had envisioned coming in here—breaking in, if he’d had to—and then seizing her by the hair and maybe busting her lip, enough to let her know he meant business. It would’ve been fine with him if she cried and begged for mercy, and then he was going to make her kneel at his feet and repeat I am a lying bitch and I am not worth a shit. After that they would be all evened up, as far as he was concerned.

  She spoke.

  “I was about to make myself a bologna sandwich. You want one?”

  He was amazed at her composure. If she’d been a man her balls would have been dragging the floor. “I’ve had all the baloney I can stomach from you,” he said.

  She shrugged. “I need some lunch.” She walked past him, as brazen as if there had been no murder between them and no betrayal; she was headed for the little kitchenette and stove over in the corner, and her air of nonchalance was more than he could stand. His face flamed. He reached out to grab a handful of her hair and bring her to heel, and then she abruptly stopped and looked at his hand and her eyes seemed to freeze it before it got to her.

  “I see you dressed like Dick Tracy,” she said, referring to his dark blue suit, the white shirt and the thin black tie, his sedate outfit topped with a black fedora. “But I knew your voice right off. How’d you get past Teddy?” When he was slow to respond, she prodded him. “The clerk downstairs. He’s pretty good at guardin’ the place. So how?”

  He wanted to hit her in the face. He wanted to see her lower lip burst open and the blood spew out, and for those piercing eyes behind the specs to look shattered for a second, and then when she staggered he would throw her to the floor and stand over her to show her who was the boss around here.

  But instead, to show her what he’d gone through to find her, he used his hand to produce his wallet, flip it open and display the bright shiny Shreveport Police detective’s badge, number five-one-one.

  She gave a low and appreciative whistle. “How much that set you back?”

  “One hundred bucks from a guy in the backroom of a Bossier pawnshop. I had to approach him very carefully.”

  “Nice. So…you want a bologna sandwich or not?”

  “What I want is to beat your lyin’ ass. Then I’ll take my Packard, thank you.”

  Ginger’s short, sharp little laugh was almost paid for with her teeth. She turned away and walked the few steps to the icebox. She opened it and brought out a piece of bologna wrapped up in brown paper. “About the Packard,” she said as she struck a match and lit a burner on the gas stove. “I saved your tail on that one.”

  “Really? I’ll bet.”

  “Sure.” She opened a drawer, took out a knife and began slicing the meat with a steady hand. “I started thinkin’…maybe it wouldn’t be so smart for you to be drivin’ around in the dead doc’s car. If anything happened, I mean.” She glanced over at him. “How many slices you want?”

  “Can the bullshit,” he said.

  “Three slices for me, three slices for you. Oh…and go pick up that envelope on the bookcase over there. See it?”

  He did. It was a small dark brown-painted bookcase, flush against the wall. A book was lying flat on top of it, and on top of that was the envelope.

  “Go on, it won’t bite.” She put the bologna slices in a frying pan and started frying them up.

  He went to the bookcase but he didn’t put his back to her. The envelope had the name Pearly written on it in small but precise handwriting. When he picked it up he noted that the book’s title underneath it was The Mystery Of Human Psychology by Dr. Morris Fonaroy.

  “Open it,” she urged, and then she began rummaging in the icebox as if she were totally alone in the room.

  He tore the envelope open. In it were twenties and tens…three hundred dollars in all. Counterfeit? No, his fingers told him the paper felt right and the color was government-issue.

  “Like I said…three slices for me, three slices for you,” she offered. “I sold the Packard for six hundred. I’ve been keepin’ it safe for you.”

  He didn’t know what to say. His voice came out with, “I ought to beat you bloody for the hundred I spent on that goddamned badge.”

  “You’re two hundred skins ahead of the game, Pearly. And you got a good deal on the badge. No tellin’ when you might be able to use it again. I like spicy mustard. That suit you?”

  “I think you’re fuckin’ crazy,” he said.

  “Why?” She turned toward him and gave him a withering smile with a little glint of teeth behind it. “A lot of people like spicy mustard.”

  He was stumped for a reply and almost thoroughly floored by the dough in the envelope. As Ginger returned her attention to the frying of bologna slices, Pearly took a look around the place. It was basically one room but spacious enough, with a Murphy bed in its upright position behind a pair of doors; there was another narrow door that must be a closet, and the door to the small but tidy-looking bathroom was open to show its black-and-white tiled walls. Pearly wished he had his own private bathroom, but the Dixie Garden was one to a floor. He saw pretty quickly how neat and orderly the place was; the furniture wasn’t new but it wasn’t ratty, she had a nice console radio and the crimson rug on the floor wasn’t worn to the weave. All in all, Ginger LaFrance or Lana Rae Wiley or whoever the hell she really was, she wasn’t rich but she lived okay and though he himself was neat in his habits she appeared to be a few rungs higher than him in that department.

  “You need the specs?” he asked as he watched her at the stove.

  “Clear glass,” she said. “I’m doin’ some research.”

  “On what? Connin’ a secretarial school?”

  “Nope,” she answered, but offered nothing more. The slices in the pan were sizzling.

  “I’ve got a pitcher of sweet tea in the icebox,” she said after a pause. “Make yourself useful and pour us a couple of glasses. The glasses are in the cupboard up over there on the right.”

  He had a moment of nearly bursting out laughing, but he swallowed the laugh down. He had come to beat her ass and here he was being invited to a late lunch…and craziest of all, he was okay with that no matter how much his gut twisted at the thought. He wished he could at least give her a punch for having to fall down on the Nevins’ staircase that day and pretend to have sprained his ankle. Oh no, I don’t think it’s broken, ma’am, but it does hurt a smack. Don’t think I can walk very far today. Lord…I do need at least one pair of trousers…what a fix this is! Do you think…maybe…and it would be awful helpful…that if I gave your husband my size and some money he could go to the store and get me a pair? I’d be glad to pay him an extra dollar…and I swear too, no more smokin’ in the room. No need to call a doc, I’ll be fine just restin’ it awhile….believe I can make it back to my room all right, thank you kindly.

  He’d just as soon kicked Hilda Nevins in her teeth as looked at her. But Grover did go to the store and buy him a pair of ill-fitting dungarees, and later that da
y the Nevins had brought him some beef stew and crackers from the cafe, so all was right with the damned world.

  “I’ve been through a shitmess because of you,” he told the woman at the stove. “I was in that fleatrap for four more days. And guess what? The last night I was there, they were talkin’ at the cafe about how somebody’s huntin’ dog found some burned-up clothes in the woods and it was mighty peculiar because it looked like it used to be a nice suit with a vest and all.”

  “Hm,” she answered. “Did you hear me about the tea and the glasses?”

  He felt deflated. In fact the air seemed to leave his lungs with a little whistle like a distant steam train. Still he maintained his stance of defiance at the center of the room…until she gave him a glance and a quick wicked pursing of her lips and said, “Does baby feel better now, gettin’ all that ol’ nasty out of his system?”

  “Jesus,” he said.

  “Chop chop. If you’re stayin’ for lunch, take off your hat and coat. I’m not sharin’ my bologna with Dick fuckin’ Tracy today.”

  Incredibly, he did what she said. He thought she must have the power to bend his mind. He found himself going to the cupboard to get the glasses, and then it fully dawned on him that she had been expecting him to find her all along. “How’d you know I’d track you down?” he asked as he stared at the back of her head.

  “I didn’t. But I gave you enough clues to get you started lookin’, didn’t I? I even gave you the name I’d be usin’. Maybe not quite the name, but near enough. I had to make it a challenge for you. Right?”

  “This doesn’t figure,” he said. “What’s the angle?”

  “Want yours on a plate, or will a paper napkin do?”

  “Napkin’s fine. I asked you a question…what’s the angle?”

  “Ice in the icebox,” she answered, in nearly a musical sing-song. “Bread’s in the breadbox. Mind on the moment, Pearly.” Then she took off her glasses and turned toward him with a dazzling smile that had not a shade of malice in it, and for a few seconds Pearly thought he was looking at someone else entirely; he could imagine her as a shopgirl innocent to the world, and he her beau equally innocent waiting for her outside the shop with a bouquet he’d picked up on the walk over. It was nearly a shock to him, to see how quickly she could transform herself, as if the smile had altered the bones in her face and made her look so soft she couldn’t bite through a marshmallow. He felt a little tremor pass through him, and it came to him that he was standing on the edge of not the summer garden she wished him to see, but a quicksand swamp. In that moment he nearly turned and walked out the door, and to hell with the Packard and the revenge-beating and every other damn thing, but maybe she saw that in his face because as she focused her attention on the frying pan once more she said quietly, in a voice like silk being drawn across satin, “How’d you like a split of two hundred thousand dollars?”

  Get out, he thought.

  But he did not move.

  “You heard me,” she repeated over the noise of sizzling meat.

  It was another few seconds before he got his tongue working. “I’m not up to robbin’ the United States Federal Bank.”

  “Well, they’re broke as hell anyway,” she said. “We’re ready here. Where’s the bread?”

  They ate their sandwiches at a little round table set near the window that gave a view of the river. Pearly kept waiting for her to speak again about this two hundred thousand buck deal, but she did not. Instead, she began talking about New Orleans, how’d she visited there several times and it seemed like a place she might like to live in at some point, with all the fancy old architecture and the wrought-iron balconies…and, of course, the Mississippi would be so much more interesting to watch than the Red, because there was a whole hell of a lot more river traffic to—

  “Did you test me?” he asked suddenly. “That about givin’ me clues to find you. All that crap you were spewin’. You were testin’ me to see if I’d come through?”

  She took a sip of iced tea and lifted her chin into the fan’s breeze. “Yep,” she said.

  “And killin’ the doc too? That was a test?”

  “That,” she said, “was a necessity. Had to get him out of the way. Not safe to have him out there somewhere, prattlin’ on about whoever and whatever.” She clinked the ice in her glass and tilted her head toward the sound, as if it had stirred some pleasant memory. “But yeah, I guess you could call it a test, if you want to. See, when you walked into that place and presented yourself, I thought, ‘Boy, here’s a square peg who thinks he’s a rounder’. I knew you were a grifter right off…it’s a little too obvious for anybody but a total idiot, and you ought to be glad so many soft touches out there are idiots. But then…when you stepped up and helped clear us out as smooth as you did, I thought, ‘Hmmmm. Now maybe this fella has some potential. Maybe.’ Figured I ought to give you a chance to show your stuff.”

  “See if I could kill a man, you mean?”

  “See if you appreciated logic,” she corrected. “And as I said, I like to gamble. So…I took a gamble on you.”

  “What’s the payoff?”

  Ginger finished her sandwich and licked spicy mustard off a forefinger before she replied. “You asked what the angle was. Look out that window at an angle of about…oh…twenty degrees.”

  He had to get up from the table to do so. He peered out into the bright sunlight across the street at the wharves, workshops and warehouses along the sluggishly-moving river. “Okay,” he said. “What am I lookin’ at?”

  “There’s a name painted in red on one of the warehouse walls. See it? Read it.”

  “Ludenmere,” he said. “So what?”

  “You never heard of Jack Ludenmere?”

  Pearly turned from the window, his eyes stung by the glare. “Sounds to me like a cough drop.”

  “Ha,” she said without humor. She sat staring at him for a few seconds and he felt the intense scrutiny nearly crawling under his skin to inspect the foundation of his innards; he figured the champagne-colored eyes were sending the last signals to her brain whether the gamble had paid off or not. Then she got up, went to the narrow-doored closet, opened it and from the top shelf brought out a small metal lockbox. She set it on the table between their sweating glasses of iced tea. She flicked open the latch, lifted the lid, and Pearly saw that inside was a collection of newspaper clippings.

  “Jack Ludenmere,” she said, “started his shipping company here in Shreveport about fifteen years ago. He did pretty well, but he was limited by the river. So he keeps his warehouse and some of his barges here, but he pulled up stakes, took some cash and went to New Orleans to build his business there.” She chose one of the clippings, unfolded it and showed it to Pearly. The headline read Ludenmere Wins Coveted Contract. “He just got a shipping contract from the government to move building materials up and down the Mississippi for the CCC,” she said. “Worth upwards of a million dollars, is what both Fortune and Forbes magazines say. And a certain private secretary for the Randolph Construction Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma, can find out a lot by smilin’ real nice and shakin’ her tail for the businessmen around here.”

  “Oh,” he said. “That’s the get-up, huh? Okay, so this Ludenmere gent is loaded. Good for him, but like I asked before, what’s the game?”

  She smiled faintly, refolded the clipping that announced the bargeman’s triumph and returned it to the lockbox. “Ludenmere’s wife is named Jane,” Ginger said. “They have two kids: Little Jack, eight, and Nilla, ten. Think each kid would be worth a hundred thousand, if they were to get…shall we say…borrowed for a time?”

  There was a silence but for the stuttering of the fan as that sank into Pearly’s brain.

  “I’ve got some ideas,” Ginger went on, in a voice that was both eerily quiet but as firm as reinforced concrete. “Just some things to think about. But I believe it could be done. You ever r
ead the New York Times?”

  “Above my paycheck,” he heard himself say, like a ghost in another room.

  “I read it at the library,” she said. “Every so often they run on the front page a little box that tells you what kidnapped kid—or whoever, it’s not always a kid—gets returned to their family. Swear to God. Sometimes they list five or six names. It’s a fuckin’ epidemic.” She shrugged. “But…what they don’t report in those little boxes is how much dough got paid out. They don’t want you to know that. Gives people ideas.”

  “That’s where you got this one from?”

  “I’ve been chewin’ on this ever since I got here, four months ago. I saw that big name in red letters and I wondered who that was and if there might be a score to be made. So I started readin’, and I found out about his business, his wife and his kids. Found out they’d moved to New Orleans just before the girl was born. Then this news about the CCC contract came up a few days before I went on the road with Honeycutt.” She tilted her head as if to look at him from a different perspective. Her eyes gleamed in the hot light. “The first ransom note for the Lindbergh kid asked for fifty thousand and then it got upped to seventy. A hundred grand ought to pay for each Ludenmere brat…he’ll make that back in six months, no skin off his ass.”

  “Sure,” Pearly said, with a slight sneer. “He and his security men’ll just step aside and let ’em be snatched, right off the street. You don’t think he hasn’t got three or four bodyguards watchin’ those kids?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” she answered. “Hey, I know there are things to work out. We may move along and figure it can’t be done. Then we can scratch it and scram. But just think of the money, Pearly. Think of figurin’ a way to get those kids, gettin’ all that money, then dumpin’ ’em on the side of the road somewhere and headin’ straight to Mexico. Think of it, let it get in your head.”