With the leaves not yet on the trees, the miniature effect turned out to be an illusion. The house had been added onto in the rear, going back and back until it crowded four thousand square feet, and it wasn’t the biggest on the street. My house and office would fit snugly between the broad curved sidewalk and the front steps.
The neighborhood had a bright plastic smell, like a new toy. Not so long ago it had belonged to the estate of an auto pioneer who had drunk himself to death during the Depression, leaving a widow to wallow into centenarian old age in a bin full of greenbacks and stock certificates. The new houses had sprung up like lichens on the stump of a demolished mansion built of Florentine marble and half the Brazilian rain forest.
A Vietnamese housekeeper in a gray uniform answered the bell. The eyes in the crumpled rice-paper face were small and sharp. I’d called ahead, and Mrs. Lochner was expecting me. I followed a pair of sore feet in broad deck shoes through a series of rooms done in pearl-gray and mauve into a solarium with a retractable roof—locked in place that day—and bumped-out glass panels all around. Normally such rooms are wasted that time of year, when the dismal sunlight skulks in with its tail between its legs, but the curved glass warped it into something almost virile. It fell directly onto a rattan sofa where the lady of the house lounged in a yellow sundress and pink prescription lenses, jingling ice cubes in a tall narrow glass.
I’ve stopped expecting anything when I knock on a door, but if I’d formed a picture of Patti Lochner based on what Alec Wynn had told me, I’d have been disappointed. She didn’t look like anyone’s idea of Lucrezia Borgia. She was a plump little thing in her late thirties who wore her black hair in bangs and a lot of copper-and-turquoise jewelry that clanked when she moved her head, gestured with her hands, or recrossed her ankles. The ankles were too thick for any runway, but her bare feet were well-shaped, with high arches and a French pedicure with tiny crystal inlays that glittered like shattered glass at the scene of an accident. A distinct roll pressed out the fabric between the bra built into the dress and the waist of the skirt. Her cheeks dimpled deeply when she turned up her red-red lips in a smile and her long eyelashes glittered also. She had a start on a double chin and probably cookies in the oven.
“Like the place?” she said. “We put it in last fall. Got me through the winter with only two trips to Miami.”
I looked at the glass blisters. “Nice. Now I know how pus feels.”
She hesitated, then reacted. She had a tinkly laugh, like vampire women in a movie. “You look thirsty. Long Island iced tea?” Her underarm jiggled when she waved a hand full of copper rings at a cloudy pitcher on the table at her elbow.
“No, thanks.”
“Something stronger? Nha’s gotten to be a good little bartender.”
“It’s a little early for me.”
Her smile shut down like a bank window. “Meaning it isn’t for me. A polite phrase with a venomous sting.”
“Diplomacy. I come down with a bad case of it every time I cross Eight Mile Road.”
“You should lay off judging people until you get to know them. It happens I played a round of golf yesterday and got a little enthusiastic putting away the chill at the nineteenth hole. Stoli, no ice. I recommend it. Today I had Nha put in just enough vodka and plenty enough caffeine to settle my head. What’s your remedy?”
“My father said the best way to avoid a hangover is to stay drunk. I wasn’t judging you, Mrs. Lochner. I was giving myself a pep talk. I’m still coming down from a spell of too many prescription drugs, and I’m too old to move all my bags from one habit to another. I’m no stranger to that one either.”
She swirled her glass again. Ice jingled, copper clanked; and while we’re at it, she had a tinkly speaking voice too. A living set of wind chimes. “Is that how private detectives work it? Open up with a bunch of personal stuff and expect the suspects to follow their lead?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve been at it so long I don’t think it out that far. What is it I’m supposed to suspect you of?”
“Talking Cecelia into leaving that shirt stuffed full of money she married. I’m sure he told you all about how I’ve been poisoning her mind against him for years.”
“That would fall under the category of client confidence. Yeah, he tore you up, down, and across: A shredder should be so efficient. Female dogs would have a hell of a class-action suit against the entire married male human race if they could just dial a phone.”
She laughed again. I’d need to tone down my shining wit to keep my skin from crawling away from the bone.
“I’ve been called worse,” she said. “I wouldn’t give a shit for any woman who hasn’t. If I shock you with my language, fuck you. My father blew out his heart working quality control at Dodge Main.”
“Whose didn’t? Chrysler made rotten cars for years.”
She changed direction. “What did you think when he told you all these things about me?”
“I came here first thing to see for myself.”
“Sit down, Mr.—” A pair of strong eyebrows lifted helplessly above the pink glasses.
“Wolfe. Nero Wolfe. I’ll send you a case of black orchids later so you won’t forget again.” I drew up a chair with palm-frond upholstery to match the sofa and sat.
She rattled her fingernails, bedazzled also, against her glass. Just picking her nose would cause a hemorrhage. “I think you’re just about the rudest man I’ve ever met on first acquaintance.”
“Everyone says that, but I keep working. What’ve you got against Wynn, apart from his shirt stuffed with money? I liked that image, by the way. He wasn’t nearly as lyrical on your subject.”
“Proving my point. But being married to one of those myself gives me the advantage of clear observation. Trouble is, my Harold isn’t stuffed as tightly.”
“Ah.”
“What does ‘Ah’ mean?”
“It’s just a space filler. I get nervous when there’s a lull in the conversation.”
“That’s the first time you’ve been less than candid. I doubt you’ve ever been nervous.”
“Wrong. I have a carry permit for a reason.”
She played another concert with her ice cubes, caught a sour note, and addressed the problem with another hit from the pitcher. She took a deep gulp. “I’d admire to make a run at Alec. He’s quite a good-looking man, you know, and clean in his habits. I doubt a pair of his undershorts has ever made contact with the floor of his bedroom; unlike those of some other men I could name.”
“So Mr. Lochner’s a slob. Even slobs have their good qualities. Anyway, you married him.”
“Everyone makes mistakes. They put a delete key on computers for a reason.” She sucked in a lozenge of half-melted ice and crunched it between her teeth; it put my own on edge. “But Cecelia’s too good a friend for me to go behind her back. It would be so much more convenient if she surrendered the field.”
I got out a cigarette and juggled it, hoisting my brows. She lifted a slim black remote off the table, pointed it skyward, and pressed a button. The retractable roof hummed and slid open, exposing a rectangle of sky the color of a ripe cataract. I lit up and blew smoke that direction. It drifted up through the opening and shot away on a trade wind. “You’re some kind of friend, Mrs. Lochner.”
“I’m a bitch. Alec wasn’t wrong about that. It isn’t his fault the language hasn’t come up with something less stale. The truth?”
“I thought we’d stopped lying after I said this is a nice room.” At that point I’d have welcomed a comfortable lie. You can trust someone experienced in B.S. to run you around the block; but no one can trust the completely honest person to be what she seems to be.
“He deserves better than Cecelia,” she said. “The worst bastard who ever lived should have someone to come home to after he’s screwed the world who doesn’t loathe him just for having a penis.”
I burned a quarter-inch of tobacco in the silence of wisdom.
“On second t
hought—”
“Nha!” She bellowed.
The Vietnamese maid hobbled in, her face wrinkled and bleak.
“What time is it, please?”
“A little past two, missus.” It was the first time I’d heard her speak; if a poker face ever had a tongue, it was hers.
“Late enough. The drink cart, please. Detroit isn’t Long Island.”
FOUR
Nha came in trundling a butler’s caddy loaded with bottles, including a leaded-crystal seltzer dispenser you could use for a baseball bat, glasses, siphons, and a brass ice bucket, jangling like a belly dancer, and threw a brake that locked it inside her mistress’s reach.
“What can she mix you?” Patti Lochner asked me. “She makes a lethal mai tai, but you don’t seem the type.”
“I keep sticking my eye with the umbrella. Bourbon on the rocks will hold me till teatime. This time of day I get a sweet tooth.”
“We’ll take it from here, dear.”
The housekeeper left us, hobbling on the outside edges of her feet. Patti caught me looking after her.
“The Cong used old-fashioned flatirons, heated over charcoal. Either it was the Cong or the American Rangers; her English is better than my Vietnamese, but we don’t communicate well beyond the basics. Gentleman Jack?” She lifted a tombstone-shaped bottle from the upper deck.
I took it from her gently, as I would Poe’s “Tamerlane” in octavo, if there was such a thing; something very fragile and very valuable, anyway, and selected a heavy Old-Fashioned glass. “Yourself?”
“Kahlúa, neat. I feel like a bit of candy myself.”
I browsed among the glasses until I found a narrow-stemmed cordial, etched with climbing vines on the outside. She touched the back of my hand with a set of glittery nails.
“My fault. I should have said a glass.”
I poured three fat fingers of brown liqueur into the tumbler.
“Second,” she said. I stood holding it out like the faithful old family retainer while she gulped down the last of her vodka. We traded glasses. I put her exhausted one in the spot where the Old-Fashioned I took for myself had stood, scooped ice out of the bucket with a pair of silver tongs, and poured in just enough to float the cubes.
“Toast?” I asked.
“No, thanks. I already had breakfast.” She laughed the tinkly laugh that played up my spine like bones on bones and took a healthy draft. I sipped mine. No sense confusing a stomach trained on synthetic Scotch with too big a dose of the genuine Tennessee.
When I was back in my seat, she pressed her knees together and swung her legs to the floor in a gesture choreographed by Early Woman. She hadn’t the legs for it, not with those ankles, but she managed to pull it off without looking like a scrubwoman standing up. “Why the long distance? I don’t bite.” She patted the cushion beside hers.
I had a whole category of quick responses to that one, but the eggs Benedict on the floor of my stomach trumped the initial effect of the bourbon. “Thanks, but I’m farsighted.”
“Don’t know what you’re missing.” She sent another deposit down on top of the first. “Where were we?”
“Alec Wynn’s penis.”
“Yes, of course. He might as well not have one for all the workout it got from dear Cecelia.”
“You know this how?”
“Girl talk. Over afternoon cocktails. It’s not all about hemlines and Brad Pitt, dear.”
“I’m shocked. Go on.”
“She has a big bag of tricks for avoiding what we’ll call her wifely duties. Headache, of course, but that’s only when she’s too tired to exercise her imagination. Men don’t count the days in the calendar, she said once; that one’s always good in a pinch. Early day tomorrow, and he never asks why or what. She puts so much time and energy into coming up with ways to avoid sex she might as well flop down and get it over with. It’s what I do with Harold.”
“Lucky man, Harold.” I drank some more Jack. “What you’re saying in your delicate way is Cecelia’s frigid.”
“Honey, when she does spread her legs I wouldn’t be surprised if a little light goes on.”
“Not bad. I think I heard it somewhere.”
“Everywhere, probably. Apart from the golf course and the mall I don’t get out. So you see, I’m not the serpent in Alec’s Eden. If dear little wifey decided to go trolling for a better tallywacker, she got that idea all by herself. Frankly, I was surprised he took her back the first time. Some people enjoy being miserable. It’s a poor substitute for happiness, but when it’s the only real feeling they have, they’re afraid to let go of it.”
“Are you talking about Alec or Cecelia?”
“Alec, of course. He’s the one who stayed behind, and the one who’s wasting his money trying to reel in the same cold-blooded slut all over again, just when he should be congratulating himself for getting off cheap.”
“Why spend time with her if you dislike her so much?”
She arched her strong brows. “Cecelia? She’s my best friend.”
“Any idea where she is?”
“No. I haven’t seen her in a week. She doesn’t drive, so she’d have taken a taxi.”
“I called all the companies in the area. No record of a pickup at the Wynn address, but she might have taken a walk and hailed one, or used an independent. Economy being what it is, every laid-off assembly-line worker with a crate that still rolls seems to be running a gypsy operation. It’s illegal without a license, but the cops are too busy investigating their mayors to spare them the time. What do you know about the pills she took?”
“Drugs? I don’t—”
“Herbs in homemade capsules. Vitamin supplements. If I can find out where she got them in the past it would give me a place to start looking for her.”
“Can’t help you, I’m afraid. I never saw her take a pill or capsule of any kind and she never talked about taking them.”
“I was told she takes them at every meal.”
“Oh. Mystery solved. We never ate when we were together. We drank our lunch like good respectable wealthy suburban housewives.”
I drank off my glass and rolled the contents around my mouth. I was reluctant to swallow. I wasn’t likely to taste anything like it again for a while. Finally I let go, got out a card, and laid it on the drink cart. “Thanks, Mrs. Lochner. If you hear from her, or if anything occurs to you about where she might have gone, I’d appreciate a call.”
“So would I.” Her dimples deepened into knife creases. “Harold’s going to St. Louis tomorrow on business.”
“Like I said, lucky man.” I showed myself out.
*
I’d parked on the street. What the weather folk call a “wintry mix” pricked my face with rain and sharp bits of ice like steel shavings. I started the car to get the heater going and called Wynn on the cell. Outside, the bits of ice bounced on the broad sidewalk and rattled on the roof.
“What’d you get from Patti?”
“Not much, but she gave me the impression I could get a lot more. She needs another hobby outside golf.”
“What’d she tell you about my wife?”
“I’d better leave that till I can report in person. Anyway it’s nothing I can use. When can I drop by your house? There may be something in a drawer or somewhere that will tell me who her herbalist was.”
“And what would you know once you knew that?” He sounded testy.
“If she’s as gung ho as Debner says, she’ll go back to whoever supplies her when she needs refills. If she was preparing for a long trip, she might have stopped there on her way out. Maybe she said something. People tell their barbers and mailmen things they’d never share with friends and relatives.”
“Aren’t you grasping at straws?”
“At this point I’d kill for a straw. All I’ve gotten so far is fistfuls of air.”
“Trina might know,” he said after a moment.
“Trina?”
“Our maid. She’s at the house now.�
�
The windshield was fogging. I adjusted the blower that direction and caught sight of an exasperated face in the rearview mirror. If I’d known about Trina I might have put off my tea party with Patti Lochner, at least until I had better questions to ask. The trouble with clients of private investigators is they expect the investigators to draw information out of the atmosphere, like the condensation process.
The phone rang a half second after I broke the connection. It was Barry Stackpole. “Zilch at all the police stations in Metro, ditto the morgues. Your redhead hasn’t shown up.”
“By now she might not be a redhead.”
“I never thought of that. Neither did any of the experienced cops and attendants I talked to. As a matter of fact, no one connected with professional law enforcement considered the fact she might have changed her hair or anything else about the way she looked. We’re all stumped here at the Yard, Mr. Holmes. How did we ever manage before you came along?”
“That’s flattering, but I can’t help thinking you’re being ironic.”
“Well, a looker like her would stand out regardless. When and where do I collect?”
“Tonight, bar at the MGM Grand.”
“Since when do you like gambling?”
“Since I applied for my license, but if you mean slot machines and roulette, never. They let you smoke there.”
“Make it the restaurant. They make a good steak.”
We settled on seven. When I rang off, the windshield was clear. I threw open the throttle and crossed into Grosse Pointe proper.
*
There are four Pointes, not counting Eastpointe, which used to be called East Detroit and is actually west of the original Pointes and north of Detroit: Compasses are lost on city planners. The first four are interchangeable, although Grosse Pointe itself has the advantage of Lake St. Clair, where the Detroit River stops to take a breather and fills the floodplain with turquoise-colored water—more like cotton wool under April overcast—and the grand old-auto-money mansions slumber in their well-kept greensward lawns.
Don't Look for Me: An Amos Walker Novel (Amos Walker Novels) Page 3