by John Lutz
Bender must have skipped breakfast. I watched him pull up to a hamburger restaurant, one of a chain, that had a sign proclaiming that they served eggs and pancakes. Parked in an inconspicuous spot near a discount store, I waited for him and thought of things other than food.
I hadn't carried a gun since I was with the department, and I wondered if I should have one now. Bender looked harmless enough, even amiable, but I remembered the deceptively peaceful death photos of Victor Talbert and the fear on Belle Dee's bloodied face when she opened her apartment door for me. And I remembered my own reaction to the sight of her injuries.
Bender finally emerged from the restaurant, his suit coat unbuttoned and his stocky arms swinging freely, the expansive walk of a well-fed man. I watched him get into his car; then I saw a hazy rush of exhaust fumes from the tailpipe of the tan sedan, and it backed from its parking slot and maneuvered in tight quarters to point toward the driveway to the street.
I started the Chevy and sat with the engine idling. When Bender turned the sedan into the flow of traffic, I reminded myself of Carlon's fifty thousand dollars and followed.
Bender was driving more confidently now, as if he knew where he was going. He was easier to follow.
We took a cloverleaf and were on Highway 67, where it was called Lindbergh Boulevard. Within a few minutes Bender made a left into the parking lot of the King Saint Louis Motel.
The motel was small and not very prosperous-looking, a series of duplex cabins. Bender must already have registered. The tan car made a sharp turn and parked in front of the end cabin. I watched as Bender got out of the car, carrying his attache case, and let himself into the cabin through the door nearest me.
I sat in the car, parked on the gravel road shoulder off Lindbergh, and looked at the cabin's closed door. With a shattering roar, a jet passed almost directly overhead, so low it seemed the treetops flinched. The King Saint Louis was one of a string of motels directly west of the airport. I eased the Chevy forward, turned into the parking lot and, with a soft squeal of brakes, stopped in front of the tiny office.
I asked for one of the cabins nearest the highway. There were plenty of vacancies, as the sparse-haired elderly woman behind the desk informed me, and she was more than glad to comply. I registered under my own name and paid in advance.
The cabins were strung unevenly along a line diagonal to the highway. From my front window I could see Bender's parked car and the front of his cabin. All of the cabins were in minor disrepair, faded redwood with patchwork shingled roofs. I could see tall weeds beyond the back corners of most of them, and outside the window of the back door of my own.
The telephone had a long cord, just long enough to reach the table by the front window. I set the phone down, moved a lamp aside and pulled a wicker-backed chair next to the table. Never letting the front of Bender's cabin out of my sight for more than a few seconds, I dialed the number of Heath Industries and asked for Tad Osborne.
There was something in the voice of the girl who answered the phone as she asked me again whom I was calling, then requested me to hold the line-a high edge of excitement. The next voice I heard was a man's, but not Osborne's.
"Who's calling, please?"
I started to speak, but an uneasiness, a subtle tingling of suspicion, bored into my mind.
"Hello, who's-"
I replaced the receiver.
For a long while I sat still, staring out through the dusty, slanted Venetian blinds at the quiet, sun-brightened face of Bender's cabin. Maybe the girl on the phone at Heath had some personal reason to be excited. Maybe she'd given me the wrong extension and the man's voice was simply that of another Heath employee. Maybe nothing was wrong. Maybe it was.
I phoned Heath Industries again, got the same girl, then the same laconic male voice asking me to identify myself. Not office procedure-police procedure.
I punched the button in the telephone's cradle, dialed the Ramada Inn and asked for Alison's room.
No answer.
I hung up the phone and sat staring out the window. Another jet roared overhead, sending vibrations through the flimsy cabin. I had no way of knowing what, if anything, had gone wrong at Heath, or where Alison was, or if Bender had somehow been tipped to my presence. Doggedly I told myself things might actually be going smoothly-nothing wrong at Heath, and Alison hadn't had time to return to the Ramada, where she was supposed to wait for my phone call. But the fear lay like a slab of lead in my stomach, and my chest seemed to be constricting my heart.
I was plagued by the feeling that events had passed from my control, that the tiger I'd had by the tail had finally turned around. But there was nothing I could do about it now; I could only go on with what I'd planned. I'd try the Ramada again in a while, talk to Alison and get some of the answers.
Noon arrived, passed, and Alison still hadn't returned to her motel room. And Bender's cabin-half in shadow now, peaceful, drapes closed-might have been vacant but for the fact that I knew he was inside. The tan sedan was parked, unmoved and baking in the sun, where Bender had left it.
My back began to ache, and I got up now and then to pace, occasionally sitting down to make another unsuccessful phone call to the Ramada. The intermittent overhead roar of jet engines was beginning to wear on me.
Then, at two o'clock, the door to Bender's cabin opened and he came out.
He'd changed clothes. Now he was wearing gray slacks and a pale-yellow sport shirt. Maybe he'd been asleep; he looked fresh. I stood at the window, leaning over the table and watching him.
I cursed silently as Bender walked past his parked car. At first I thought he was going to the motel office, but instead he turned left and stood on the shoulder of the highway, leaning forward, waiting to cross.
When there was a break in the traffic, he trotted across the highway, and I watched him walk south on the other side. I realized then where he was going. The King Saint Louis didn't have a restaurant, and Bender was headed for the restaurant of the motel across the street for a late lunch.
I had to move to the side, hold back the drapes and peer at an angle through the window now to follow his progress. He passed out of my sight momentarily, but I picked him up again as he entered the motel restaurant. I relaxed my grip on the drapes and stepped back. My stomach said no to what I had to do next.
Walking to the back door of my cabin, I examined the lock. Simple, the sort that can be slipped with a piece of celluloid or a plastic credit card. But there was also a chain lock. I could only hope that the back door of Bender's cabin didn't have one; or, if it did, that it wasn't fastened. Parting the stained sheer curtains over the window in my door, I took a quick look out back, saw only tall weeds and a small gray trash container, and stepped outside.
Slipping the lock on the rear of Bender's cabin was no problem, but the door did have a chain lock and it was fastened. I saw what I'd have to do. If I punched out the door's small windowpane nearest the lock and cleaned up the broken glass, Bender would never know it unless he happened to look behind the door's curtains. My heart was pumping with labored wild-ness and my body was bent by the tightness in my stomach. I wondered how professional burglars ever got up the nerve to operate. With a fast, guilty look around, I rammed my elbow into the window, and the glass broke in four pieces but didn't fall from the frame. No damage to my elbow, and I was grateful there hadn't been much noise.
I removed the largest piece of glass, reached in and, with fumbling fingers, unfastened the chain. Then I added breaking and entering to withholding evidence and went inside.
It was almost as if I'd found shelter; I couldn't be seen now. But the exhilaration and fear had entered with me. I could hear the sounds of my own breathing and rushing of blood, and only my rising anger with myself brought a measure of calm.
The interior of Bender's cabin was exactly like mine. A suitcase stood open on a luggage stand at the foot of the double bed, revealing folded white underwear and shirts. Bender's leather attache case was on the floor,
leaning against the side of the dresser. I went to it first, found it unlocked.
The case was empty but for a gold letter-opener and a thin packet of white business cards. The cards were similar to the card I'd found in the pocket of Victor Talbert's jacket, engraved only with GRATUITY INSURANCE.
I closed the attache case and leaned it back the way I'd found it. Then I went to the suitcase and searched carefully beneath the folded clothes. It took me a while, and I found nothing but lint.
After rearranging the suitcase the way it had been, I checked the bathroom. Nothing there but a zippered travel kit containing the usual assortment of shaving cream, razor, spray deodorant and manicure set.
From the bathroom I went quickly to the closet. I'd been inside Bender's cabin for little more than five minutes, and I told myself it would be safer to slow down and do things right than to panic. He probably wouldn't return for at least half an hour.
The "closet contained a suit, a sport coat and two pale-blue shirts on hangers. A search of the pockets netted me nothing but a postage stamp and comb. I straightened the shirts on their hangers, smoothed the lapels of the suit.
The blast of a jet engine made me take a step toward the back door; then I stood leaning on the dresser, waiting for the sound to subside.
In the first dresser drawer I opened I found a dollar's worth of change and a set of gold cufflinks. The rest of the drawers were empty.
I stood in the center of the cabin and looked desperately around. There was nowhere else to search. I'd risked everything for nothing.
After making sure things were arranged the way I'd found them, I moved toward the back door. And that's when I saw the strip of white beneath the dark suitcase.
I stepped over, lifted the end of the suitcase and discovered that what I'd seen was the edge of an airline ticket. It was made out to Emmett Marshal, either Bender's real name or the name he traveled under, and it was a return-flight ticket to Chicago. The departure time was noon tomorrow. I replaced the ticket where I'd found it, letting the edge of white show as it had before.
When I left Bender's cabin, I removed the remaining broken glass from the back door's window frame and made sure the curtains hung completely over the opening. I dropped the pieces of broken glass onto some soggy cardboard in the gray trash container as I passed, and I entered my own cabin the back way and locked the door behind me.
The floor seemed to be made of sponge. I sat weakly on the edge of the bed and realized that I was practically panting, winded from doing nothing more than holding my breath.
After a few minutes I involuntarily laughed out loud, and that seemed to drain me of my tension. I got up, crossed to the telephone and dialed the number of the Ramada Inn, knowing it well enough now to dial it without thinking. When I asked for Alison's room, her telephone was answered on the first ring.
There was anxiety and weariness in Alison's voice instead of the usual crispness.
I sat down in my chair by the front window. "Alison, where were you earlier?"
"Talking to the police."
"The police?…" My fingers were suddenly slippery with perspiration on the smooth receiver.
"Tad Osborne's been murdered."
Fear rushed into me. I didn't know whether to curse my bad luck or my stupidity.
That I should curse my greed never occurred to me.
22
Twenty minutes after leaving the King Saint Louis Motel, I entered Alison's room at the Ramada Inn.
She was on the phone, her lips compressed in exasperation. When she spoke, it was with the brittle self-control of someone who'd rather be screaming. "I will," she said, "you can count on it."
When she hung up the phone, she sighed. "My editor," she explained. "He thinks I'm on another assignment and I have to stall him."
The police must have been thorough with her. She wasn't her usual composed self. Some of the shrewd confidence was gone from her eyes, and a stray wisp of auburn hair hung over the center of her forehead.
"How did it happen?" I asked her.
Alison brushed back the strand of hair and paced off some of her nervousness. "After you left to follow Bender I went into Osborne's office to talk to him. He was sitting with his head resting on his desk, his eyes open, as if he were looking toward the door…" Her face was pale wax.
"Only he was dead," I finished for her.
Alison nodded, swallowed. The strain was pulling at the corners of her mouth.
"How?" I asked her.
"He was… stabbed, in the chest."
An iciness dropped through me as I remembered the gold letter-opener in Bender's attache case.
"Did the police find the weapon?"
"No, the killer took it with him."
"Bender… " I said.
Alison gave me an intent look. "It had to be him, but the police don't know who or where he is."
I could imagine Osborne's mistake. He knew we were onto Bender and reasoned that he was in no danger, so he must have pushed too hard, maybe lost his temper, underestimating the ruthlessness and deadliness of Bender and whatever he represented.
"Did you tell the police I was following Bender?"
"Not right away," Alison said, "but I had to eventually. I told them what I knew."
I walked to the window with my fists in my pockets. If I told the police where to find Bender, they'd pick him up and, with that, end my hopes of tracing Joan Clark. I was certain that she was somehow connected with Gratuity Insurance.
"Suppose that Bender realized I was following him, and that he lost me," I said.
"But he didn't."
"From this point on we pretend that I told you he did."
Alison gave me a nice eyebrow arch. "But you can't withhold evidence in a murder case."
I didn't tell her she was too late with that advice or that Carlon was paying me fifty thousand dollars to follow his advice.
"We're too close not to," I told her. "I searched Bender's motel room while he was out. He's going to be on flight five sixty-two tomorrow at noon, bound for Chicago, which is where he came from."
Alison appeared dubious. She touched the flame of her lighter to one of her long cigarettes and glared at me through the smoke. "Nudger, what have you got in mind?"
"I intend to take an earlier flight to Chicago. I'll be at O'Hare when Bender's plane touches down, and I'll follow him from the airport."
"To where?"
"That's what I'll be following him to find out."
I watched Alison take another desperate drag on her cigarette, glad I hadn't confided in her completely. She seemed to relax, letting the smoke filter thickly from her mouth and nostrils.
"What if Bender changes his flight plan?" she asked.
"The Benders of the world don't change their carefully laid-out plans unless they have to. You can bet that killing Osborne was in Bender's mind as an alternative before he walked into that office. And now he knows that if he ever does come under suspicion, it would be best if he left a record of having behaved normally after leaving Heath Industries. Remember, he doesn't know he was followed."
Alison stared at her cigarette and seemed to weigh the logic of what I'd told her. "I'll go to Chicago with you," she said.
"It might only implicate you further."
"I'm not implicated at all yet."
The message was communicated clearly. If I didn't let her accompany me, what was there left for her to do but cover herself by telling the police what she knew?"
"You are asking me to break the law," Alison said. "And remember, I'm the one who steered you onto Bender. We agreed to help each other with an exchange of information, so don't expect me to back away from this story now."
"I don't want you complicating things. I don't want anyone else to get hurt."
"And I want my story."
I knew I had no choice, really. If Alison called the police, I'd never be able to leave St. Louis, and I'd be in hot water a mile over my head.
"All right
, but there's a condition," I told her, pretending to have a few bargaining chips. "I'll be in charge in Chicago, without any interference from you for the sake of a good story."
"If it will help your ego," she said.
I told her to make the reservations.
23
At eleven thirty the next morning I was in Chicago, sitting behind a bourbon and water in the airport lounge, waiting for the minute hand to make another circuit. Alison and I had arrived on the ten-twenty flight from St. Louis. She had gone to check in with her magazine, and I'd instructed her to meet me later in the day at the TraveLodge, on South Michigan Avenue. I'd already rented a car and had my luggage in the trunk. Bender's flight wasn't due to arrive until twelve thirty-two. It was waiting and thinking time.
Alison was the subject of my thoughts as I sat waiting for the liquor to calm me, to numb some of the fear in me. There was fear, but not to the degree that I'd be careless. A thin line there, increasingly hard to discern.
What was there about Alison? What inconsistency was stirring, invisible in the back of my mind? She ever threatened to become a dilemma in the case, and yet it was she who had gotten me this far.
And though I'd pursued the investigation in the only direction I'd seen open to me, would it actually lead to Joan Clark? Collecting the remainder of my fifty thousand dollars depended on that alone. Again I experienced that foreboding, that gradually heightening perception of a drawing nearer, an inexorable movement toward the vortex.
What if Alison was right about the possibility of Bender's having changed flights? It wasn't likely, but unlikely things happened all the time, and to me. Where would I be if he had changed flights, slipped away?
I knew where. I downed the rest of the drink I'd intended to nurse.
At twelve thirty-five I watched Frank Bender pass through security, wondering if he still had the gold letter-opener or if he'd disposed of it in St. Louis.