“May I take your coat, Mr. Quarry?”
I gave her the raincoat, having since removed the nine-millimeter automatic and left it in the trunk of the Ford. I felt somewhat naked in this house without the gun, not knowing precisely what kind of confrontations I might be having in here, but it seemed less than wise to tote around the murder weapon of Albert Leroy in the home of his mourning relatives. My uneasiness was amplified by the draftiness of the hallway; it was cool in here, centrally air-conditioned I supposed, an uncomfortable, morgue-like coolness.
Linda Sue Springborn said, “Will you join us in the drawing room, Mr. Quarry?” She motioned to a doorless archway to her left. “Raymond’s in the den waiting for you, Peg.” She smiled and said, “I understand you’re going to discuss business matters. I’m glad you are, that will make things easier for Raymond, get his mind off this very depressing day.”
Peg nodded, smiled at Mrs. Springborn, smiled apologetically at me, pressed my hand, and disappeared through the French doors opposite the archway.
I followed Mrs. Springborn into the drawing room. She said, “Make yourself at home,” and left me to fend for myself. I found a chair in the corner and sat. I was sitting before I realized I was the only person doing so. The other twenty-some people in the room were standing around, trying to look mournful, none of them taking advantage of the chairs and several davenports. I looked around the room and understood.
It was a nice room to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there. It was one of those rooms full of chairs you don’t sit in, tables you don’t set things down on or pick things up off, with bookcases full of leather-bound volumes you don’t read, and a fireplace you don’t burn wood in and a grand piano you don’t play. The walls in here, though, were not the cheerless dark wood of the hallway but a rather pleasant pastel green satin-paper; this was offset by deadly dull paintings stuck here and there, full of meadows where horses postured stiffly and trees seemed made of green and brown plaster.
Mrs. Springborn circulated, like a hostess at a reception, and periodically remembered the occasion, alternating a sad sideways shake of her head with an up-anddown nod, both of which I took to represent her restrained sorrow. No one spoke above a whisper unless they were speaking with Mrs. Springborn and never once did I hear Albert Leroy’s name mentioned. I had the distinct feeling Albert Leroy could have walked into the room unnoticed. I had the odd notion that I was the only person in the room who had really known Albert Leroy, the only person who had played any meaningful part in his life, the only one who viewed Albert’s death with at least some importance.
This went on for an hour. Sometimes, the room had so little motion the whole thing could’ve been a painting, and as dull and lethargic a painting as the landscapes on the walls. I was getting thirsty, in spite of the coolness of the room, and must’ve swallowed several times, in a dry sort of way, because Linda Sue Springborn came over after a while and stage-whispered, “Could you use a drink of water?” And she winked.
Suddenly I liked her better.
I smiled and said, “Yes, I sure could use a drink of water.”
I followed her out of the room and through the hallway into a room that was obviously used for living and not display, with a couch in front of a television and a soft lounge chair next to a table strewn with magazines and paperbacks. From there she led me through a smaller drawing room, not as lived in as the previous room but not as much a museum as the other drawing room, either. Off of that was a small overblown closet of a room, a small study with a desk and one wall of books and three walls of awards and photos relating to the Kitchen Korner radio program. “ My den,” she said. “Not near so large as Raymond’s, but I need my privacy as much as he does. Maybe more.”
She went to the bookcase where in the middle a space was reserved for a cluster of bottles and glasses, which made for a small but sufficient liquor supply. She said, “Sorry, no ice,” and poured me a shot of Scotch as though she knew that was what I wanted. It was. She made herself a hasty gin and tonic and had it down before I’d even sipped my Scotch.
“You take that like it’s medicine,” I said.
“Exactly what it is,” she said. “A transfusion for an anemic soul.” She smiled. She was rather pretty, in a plastic-surgery sort of way. Her eyes were hazel. “How glad I am for a stranger to talk to. Someone I don’t have to play games with.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t love my brother, Mr. Quarry. He was a burden in life and he’s a burden in death.”
“Those words sound cold even to a stranger’s ears, Mrs. Springborn.”
“Well…” She made a face, and there was sadness in it somewhere. “It isn’t true to say I didn’t love my brother… I used to love him… I loved him before he became irrational… before he became a hermit… he was a bright man once, Mr. Quarry, maybe a genius, near it anyway… but he had a mental breakdown, was given shock treatment, which was maybe a mistake because afterwards… he was a vegetable. Tell me, Mr. Quarry, how do you mourn a potato?” She laughed, then abruptly the laughing turned to choking and her eyes teared. She brushed away the wetness and fixed herself another drink. She could mix a gin and tonic as fast as I’ve seen one made. She could down them with the best of us, too. “There’s something in your face that makes me feel I can be open like this with you, Mr. Quarry. And Peg, she’s a good girl, a smart girl. She’s a little wild sometimes, but I don’t think she’d bring one of her casual shack-ups along with her. She must think well of you to bring you along.”
“Can I have another Scotch?”
“Of course, certainly, let me have your glass. Where are you from, Mr. Quarry?”
“Nowhere, really.”
“What’s your trade?”
“I’m a salesman.”
“What do you sell?”
“Myself, mostly. Like everybody else.”
“How true, how true that is. We’re all prostitutes, Mr. Quarry, in one way or another. We pursue almighty buck, the great American pastime. But what happens when we get almighty buck, Mr. Quarry?”
“I’ve never had that problem.”
“Well, I’ve had it, I have it now. Once you get there, so what? What’s the point of it all?”
“That’s a question I never ask myself.”
“You just play your role and continue on, survival as an end in itself.”
“You might say that.”
“We have roles we play, Mr. Quarry, and sometimes playing them we forget who we really are.” She laughed, then said, “Do you know,” her voice slipping into a flat Midwestern nasal twang, “do you know I’ve made a pile of money being a homey, down-to-earth Ioway gal? Like to hear a recipe for chocolate marshmallow fudge? Some tips on jarring preserves?” She shook her head and began making her third gin and tonic. I touched her arm.
I said, “Listen, it’s none of my business, especially since I don’t know how much you can hold, but you’ve got a role to play out there, with your friends and relatives, and a gutful of gin and tonic might not be the best thing for you to be riding on.”
She made the drink anyway, and had it down before she answered. “Leeches,” she said. “None of those S.O.B.’s, none of ’em cared about Albert when he was alive. Why should they care now?”
“You’re important business people in this town,” I said. “They come out of respect to you.”
“Leeches,” she said.
“You want to go back now?”
“Yes.”
I walked her back and she was a bit wobbly on the way, but once in the drawing room she straightened and resumed her role of stiff-upper-lipped bereaved sister. She was a good actress.
24
After a while I went out into the hallway and sat on the bottom step of the winding staircase. It was nice getting away from that drawing room full of ghouls; it was nice sitting alone. For half an hour I sat and watched the French doors to Springborn’s den and waited. Finally Peg came out and gave me a wry smile and said,
“Having a good time?”
“Terrific,” I said. “Any progress?”
She shook her head no; still a stalemate situation, she told me, probably best sorted out by lawyers. Ray was too good at business wheeling-and-dealing, she said, and she was too stubborn, for either of them to make any headway.
Then she said, “Well, now, look… I suppose I ought to go pay my respects to Linda Sue, and make the rounds talking to the friends and relatives. What a pain in the ass. I suppose you’ve had your fill of all that? You want to wait out here for me?”
“Sure. Take your time, I don’t mind the waiting at all.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I watched as she disappeared into the drawing room, then I went in through the French doors.
Raymond Springborn’s den was similar to his wife’s, but on a larger scale. One wall was a window that provided a no doubt breathtaking view of the Mississippi, a view blocked right now by drawn cream-color curtains. The room was full of dark wood, like the hallway but not so barren, with a nonfunctional fireplace across from the French doors, its mantel covered by trophy-style awards, and much wall space taken up by framed citations, plaques and photographs pertaining to the Kitchen Korner radio program and various other Springborn-Leroy family enterprises. The wall opposite the cream-curtained window was all but engulfed by a desk about the size of a small tank, a grooved, scarred desk stacked high with paperwork. The half of the back wall that wasn’t taken up by French doors was a bookcase and in front of the bookcase was a steel frame cart with a modest supply of liquor and glasses riding it. Raymond Springborn was standing with his back to me, replacing a bottle of bourbon on the stand, getting ready to chug down a healthy glass.
Apparently he hadn’t heard me come in, his mind on the business dealings he’d discussed with Peg, perhaps, or maybe he was just anticipating the forthcoming jolt of bourbon.
“I’d like to talk to you, Mr. Springborn,” I said.
I startled him. I heard him choke on his swallow of bourbon and he swiveled, his face intensely surprised and angered; the moment was close to a comic one, as though he were a comedian doing a double take. Was there recognition in that look? Was this the man who earlier today had tried to take me apart with a wrench?
“Who the hell are you?” His voice was an even baritone. He’d been edgy there at first, but he calmed down fast.
I couldn’t be sure if this was the man with the wrench, couldn’t be sure at all: the struggle had been in near-dark, I’d been caught off guard and had been concerned with survival, not with remembering a detailed observation for later. A black T-shirt and a wrench, that was all I could clearly remember about my assailant. Springborn was wearing black, all right, a conservative gray-black suit, out of respect for the deceased, I assumed. That morning when Albert’s body was being hauled away, I’d seen Springborn from across the street and had pegged him as tall, but not this tall, not damn near six-four. And I couldn’t remember that man with the wrench as being so tall. But then I hadn’t stopped to weigh and measure him, either.
I said, “My name’s Quarry.”
If he recognized the name, he didn’t show it. If he was the man who’d hired me, and if the Broker had called him today to tell him about my staying around Port City, then Springborn might have gotten my name from Broker. At any rate, what he would have gotten for sure from Broker was a description, a good detailed description like the one I wished I had of the man with the wrench.
As for Springborn’s description, well, he looked like what he was: a successful businessman, the proper lean, hard look of a man who got to the top and stayed there. His hair was the color of ashes, his eyes a similar gray. Otherwise his features were bland, ordinary. But those eyes, with shaggy, hawkish eyebrows, those translucent gray eyes seemed to take everything in let nothing out.
“Have we met?” He finished his bourbon in one gulp, put the glass down on the cart top.
“Maybe. That’s something I want to find out.”
“Do you have any particular reason for talking in circles?”
“I didn’t come to answer questions,” I said, “I came to ask.”
“Now look, I don’t know who you are, or who you imagine yourself to be, Mr. whatever-the-hell-yousaid-your-name-was, but…”
“Quarry.”
“… but I suggest you and your goddamn overbearing manner leave immediately.”
“I suggest we talk.”
“You’re a madman,” he said, teetering between irritation and amusement.
“I’m a businessman. Like yourself.”
“We’ve had business in the past?”
“That’s something else I intend to find out.”
“People who talk in riddles annoy hell out of me.”
“People who act like riddles annoy hell out of me.”
“Your nerve is amazing, I’ll say that for you. Just how did you manage to get in here, anyway?”
“I came with Peg Baker.”
“Peg…?”
“You can forget trying to blame her for me. She’s just a little indiscriminate about who she sleeps with, that’s all.”
“Oh, so you picked her up, got into her confidence and her pants, not necessarily in that order, and used her to get inside my house.”
“Something like that.”
“You must manipulate people well.”
“As a successful businessman you should know all about that.”
“I do. I know all the subtleties of the art. But with you I’ll dispense with subtlety. With you I’ll be blunt. Leave, Mr. Quarry. Leave my house. Now.”
“We have business.”
“I have an office for such matters. This is my home, and my brother-in-law died this morning and this is no time for business.”
“Even when your brother-in-law’s death is the business I want to discuss?”
“What?”
“My business involves his death. His murder.”
“In that case, you won’t mind if I walk over to the desk, pick up the phone and get my good friend Chief of Police Kurriger over here and you can share your business with him. If you do mind, I again must suggest you leave my house.”
“Go ahead and call. Your good friend Chief Kurriger might be interested in hearing about some of the things I know. A lot of people might be interested in hearing about some of the things I know. Your wife, for instance.”
Springborn calmly refilled his glass of bourbon. He poured me a glass and I drank it while I watched him drink his. His gray eyes were unfathomable. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go where we can talk and not be disturbed.”
“Okay.”
He led me out of the den and up the winding stairway. The second floor was dark, shapeless; it was like walking through a cave. Finally Springborn opened a door and flicked a light switch and started up some narrow stairs and I followed him, coming out onto the upper floor of the house, the little box-tower third floor.
In the middle of the room sat a pool table, massive, ageless, its mahogany wood polished and worn and beautiful, and it was as if this table had been here forever and this room built around it only recently. There was indeed a recent look to the room, its walls covered in commercial brown wood paneling of the sort you might see in a remodeled basement; the modern, characterless paneling surrounded the old table anachronistically, the accouterments of the room as timeless as the table: high-backed, leather-seated chairs; long, yellow-shaded windows with the original woodworking; a tall rack with a dozen cues standing like rifles in a case; and an old map of Port City, as faded as parchment, covering most of one end wall, huge but unimpressive in comparison to the table. Only the white ceiling tile and tubular lighting went along with the paneling; the rest of the room belonged to the table, a relic of days when a man had four and a half by nine feet of room to play a game of pool. The colorful balls were racked and waiting for a game, the expanse of cloth stretching out like a green sea.
Springbor
n took a cue off the rack, chalked it up. He nodded to me to help myself. I chose one and walked to the table and lifted the wooden frame from around the bright balls, walked down to the other end of the table and fired cue into ball into multicolor triangle, shattering it, scattering balls all over the table, two dropping in, one each in both corner pockets down on the far end. I sank another ball, then missed a tough shot; I was having trouble getting used to the table. It was a good table, it was the mother of tables, but the size was bigger than I had played, and the rails were softer and the nap of the cloth smoother than I was accustomed to.
We didn’t play a game, really. We just took turns, shooting till we missed. He would run three or four or five, then miss when the only open shot was too difficult; he played a simple but competent game, a workmanlike game. Our styles were similar; I was workmanlike, too, though I could run the balls longer, up to six or eight. But we were an even match, and a money game would’ve been close.
Neither of us were pool-hall men. He played with friends, I guessed, up here probably, other businessmen he’d invite over, among whom he was likely considered a top-grade player. I played at home, back at Twin Lakes, at tables in a penny-arcade shop across the street from the beach; I played rotation, mostly, with college kids, most of whom could beat the pants off me.
But it was a way to get acquainted, for Springborn and I, and after half an hour of aimless nonplaying, we knew each other well enough to talk.
I sat down in one of the high-backed chairs, laying the cue across my lap. He continued to shoot, leaning over the table, stroking balls into pockets, stopping now and then to line up a complex shot which he would invariably miss.
He finally sank one of his complex set-ups after several attempts, looked over his shoulder at me and said, “Are you a blackmailer, Mr. Quarry?”
“Not in the conventional sense.”
“Then what are you?”
“I think you know. I think there is a very good chance that you know.”
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