His worrying fluctuated between Sarge and Chico. Where would she have gone with the car? She was a terrible driver, her foot so heavy on the accelerator that she mashed it into a concave shape. The thought of her tooling madly around Manhattan was horrifying. He reminded himself to be sure to catch the hourly radio news to see if there had been a wave of traffic deaths among surly cabdrivers, run into brick walls by the Yellow Avenger.
And where was his father? What the hell was he up to?
Trace showered, shaved, and stepped outside the bathroom every few minutes to sip his vodka, which he had left on a small end table near the door, because he thought it was disgusting to bring a drink into a bathroom.
He finished the vodka about the time he finished dressing. He called his father’s two numbers again and there was still no answer. Now he was more than a little worried, and he called the bell captain to get another rental car, and while he waited, he hooked up his tape recorder.
His parents lived in Queens, just across the river from Manhattan’s East Side, on a quiet tree-lined street that looked more New Jersey than New York.
Trace had not been to the house for more than two years and most of the homes on the block looked alike with identical brick fronts, but he recognized Sarge’s instantly by the large decal set in the glass of the front porch door.
It showed, in straight-on perspective, a gun facing anyone coming up the stairs and it bore the legend: “Forget the dog. Beware the owner.”
As he leaned on the doorbell, Trace glanced up and down the street, but he did not see his father’s beat-up old Plymouth.
When no one answered the door, he walked along the narrow alleyway to the back entrance. That was locked too, but there was an old unused milk box inside the back porch door—who delivered milk anymore?—and Trace found a house key taped underneath it.
He went into the house nervously, calling out, “Hey, Sarge, you here? Sarge? Hey, Pop. Where the hell are you?”
He walked through the first floor, room by room, then up to the second floor, checking all the rooms, the tub in the bathroom, feeling vaguely like a peeping Tom when he looked into his parents’ bedroom, but relieved nevertheless when he found no body. Sarge’s bed was made.
“Nothing is dead here except good taste,” he said aloud as he went back downstairs, past the diamond-shaped racks on the stairway wall in which his mother had displayed her collection of inch-long plastic dolls with two-inch-long plastic hair in many colors.
Another rack held a collection of glasses from places they had visited on vacation, most of them at the New Jersey shore, all of them ugly, usually painted red, white, and blue since their vacations in the days of Trace’s youth always seemed to coincide with the Fourth of July weekend. It was only years later that he realized that his mother had insisted upon this because she added in the extra weekend, and decided that such scheduling gave them three weeks of vacation instead of two. It had never mattered to her that this forced her husband to spend extra hours driving in the frustration of maniacal holiday traffic.
There were also displayed a lot of plastic stirrers with whistles attached, presumably for blowing at a bartender to catch his attention, so that he would know whose face to punch out for whistling at him.
He saw a set of cheap plastic ashtrays, brightly painted to resemble slightly less-cheap ceramic ashtrays. The scenes usually depicted some woman’s legs or some man’s rear end or somebody wearing a barrel. They had a lot of snappy, surefire, laugh-getting phrases written on them as well as the name of the dismal resort town in which such dismal words were regarded as humorous.
Downstairs, now that he had a chance to look at it, was much as he remembered it. There was one pattern of flowered print on one sofa; another pattern on each of two chairs; yet another pattern on the window drapes. The carpet was flowered and matched nothing else in either color or style.
There was a little pad on the end table near the telephone, but there were no notes and no message. So Sarge wasn’t here. Then where the hell was he?
“Hold it, pal, right there.”
The voice barked out from behind him, instantly recognizable as officialdom, and Trace turned slowly, his hands visible before him, and said, “I belong here.”
The policeman standing in the doorway to the kitchen was young. The cop who stood behind him, safe for the moment from crazed random pistol fire, was older.
“Yeah? Who are you?” The older one called over the young cop’s shoulder.
“My name is Devlin Tracy. This is my father’s house.”
The older cop squinted at him. “You don’t look much like Sarge.”
“My identification’s in my wallet,” Trace said. “My driver’s license with my picture. ’Course, that doesn’t look much like anybody.”
“All right, I guess,” the younger cop said. “Show us the license.”
Trace slowly handed the policeman his wallet, opened so that the license was visible. The cop nodded as he handed it back.
“What are you doing here?” Trace asked.
“One of the neighbors called. They saw you go down the alley and then not come back out. They thought you were a burglar.”
“No. I’m in town for a couple of days and I haven’t been able to reach my father by phone. I just came out here to make sure he’s all right.”
The younger cop looked at the other one and Trace snapped, “What the hell’s going on? Don’t jerk around with me. Where’s Sarge?”
The old cop stepped forward and said, shaking his head, “There’s nothing wrong. Don’t get upset, okay?”
“Swell, where is he?” Trace shot back.
“He didn’t get hurt, but he was in a little accident last night.”
“What kind of accident?”
“A car accident,” the policeman said.
“Where is he now?”
“He’s in Riverside Hospital, but he’s okay,” the policeman said again.
“How okay is okay?” Trace asked.
“He lost control of his car and hit a bridge railing. A little concussion. No broken bones, no internal injuries, nothing to worry about. He’ll be getting out right away.”
“That’s the truth?” Trace asked. He stared hard at the older cop, then his eyes asked the younger one for a second opinion.
The older policeman answered. “I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.”
“Thanks, then,” Trace said. “I appreciate it.”
Sarge wore a helmet of bandages and Trace said, “You look like a goddamn tight end for Mummy University.”
“You come here to yell at me?” Sarge said.
“No. How you feeling?” Trace went to the bed and hugged the old man, who squeezed him back with enough pressure to push the air from Trace’s lungs.
“I’m okay. They say when you’re my age, you get hit in the head and you gotta hang around for twenty-four hours or so just to make sure there’s no hidden complications. But I’m all right. I don’t even have a headache.”
“What the hell happened?”
Sarge glanced toward the bed to his right, but its occupant was sleeping noisily. “Come closer,” he said.
Trace leaned over the bed.
“I got run off the road. On purpose. Somebody tried to kill me, Dev.”
Trace looked at him sharply to be sure the old man was not joking.
“It’s true,” Sarge said. “I spotted the car following me when I left Manhattan.”
“When was that?”
“Last night, about one or two o’clock or so. I saw the car following me over the bridge. Then, when I got close to the block near the house, there’s that overpass, and the son of a bitch cut me off and tried to run me off the top of it.”
“What’d you do?”
“I banged along those railings for a while, but I finally fought it back on the road. I cracked my head on the windshield. I remember trying to look out the window to see the bastard—I was going to peg a shot at him—
but he was gone or his lights were out. And then I passed out and I woke up here. I’m okay, though.”
“You don’t think it was just an accident?”
“No, it was on purpose. Somebody wanted either to kill me or hurt me or give me a warning.”
“Who?” Trace asked. “What jealous husband do you have riled up now?” And then he realized what he said might not have been as funny as all that. “Did you recognize who was in the other car?”
“No. Two guys. I saw that much, but I couldn’t see their faces.”
“Recognize the car?”
“Big old thing, plates muddied up, I don’t know.”
“The cops told me that you lost control of the car,” Trace said.
“That’s what I told them.”
“Why not the truth?”
“What for?” Sarge asked. “The guys who did it were gone, and cops have too much to do to go looking for them. And I don’t want a lot of people nosing around in my business. Our business.”
“You think this had something to do with Tony Armitage?” Trace asked.
“Sure. I got a lot done yesterday and maybe somebody saw me.”
Trace pulled over a chair. “Maybe you ought to tell me about the lot you got done yesterday.”
“First thing, I went up to Connecticut real early in the morning and I found a store right near where the kid lived that sold those Nixon masks. And bingo, the clerk remembered Armitage buying one. I had a picture of the kid and he recognized him.”
“Why the hell didn’t the cops find that out?” Trace asked.
“Maybe it wasn’t important to them,” Sarge said. “But it is important. He bought that mask himself. That’s got to mean something.”
“That’s what Chico says too. She kind of guessed that it was his mask.”
“She’s eerie sometimes, that woman,” said Sarge.
“So anyway, I get back to the city and I get your note at the restaurant and I went to some friends of mine on the city liquor squad and I got a home address and next of kin on that Dewey Lupus. I went to his apartment, but the landlord said he hasn’t seen him in a month. He skipped the rent and the landlord was getting ready to rent the place again. He said Lupus left all his stuff and I got him to let me in.”
“Find anything?”
“The apartment had been tossed, Dev. It was a mess, with everything thrown all over. I asked the landlord if anybody had been there and he said he saw two guys skulking around about a month ago, but he didn’t know.”
“Could he describe them?”
“He said they were big and ugly and they dressed like George Raft.”
“I think I maybe know who they were,” Trace said. “And you got run off the road by two guys.”
“Think they were the same?” Sarge asked.
“I think so because I was someplace last night where they should have been and they weren’t there. I think they were out taking you over the hurdles.”
Sarge shrugged. “Anyway, I went through what was left of Lupus’ apartment, but I didn’t find anything that counted for anything.”
“Think about this. We found out that the kid was kidnapped the night before he was killed. Anything in Lupus’ apartment that goes with that?” Trace asked.
Sarge squinted his eyes, and Trace knew that under the bandages his brow was furrowed. He thought for a full minute, then shook his head. “No. Nothing there meant anything. It was just another bachelor’s apartment. A lot of copies of Playboy. I was going to steal the centerfolds for my office wall.”
“All right. Keep going,” Trace said.
“I had the address of his family in Jersey. It’s down near Freehold by the harness track, so I decided to drive out there just to check it out. I talked to his mother. She said they hadn’t heard from him in a month. They didn’t know where he was.”
“Were they lying?”
“No,” Sarge said. “I checked some neighbors and the gas station on the corner, but he wasn’t around. I would have known if she was lying anyway. Dev, he just vanished. One day he was around and the next day he wasn’t. And somebody came and went through his apartment right after that.”
“Complicateder and complicateder,” Trace said. “Then what’d you do?”
“I was in Jersey when I called the restaurant and missed you. Then I just nosed around some more. Nothing important.”
He seemed ready to let the matter drop there, and after a moment’s hesitation, Trace said, “Hey, Dad, are you afraid to tell me you were with Martha Armitage? That you two have an affair going?”
Sarge’s eyes looked startled at first, then narrowed to hide all expression.
“What’d you say?”
“You and Martha, you heard me.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Hey, Sarge, this is Devlin, your son. Don’t give me that answer-a-question-with-a-question routine. I’ve done it too many times myself. Who told me? Who told me was the look in your eyes when you two met in your office. Who told me was your going out and borrowing plants and cleaning the joint. Who told me is all of a sudden you’ve very busy at night. Who told me…well, who told me was Chico. She figured it out without ever seeing the lady.”
“I told you that woman’s eerie,” Sarge said. “Okay. I was with Martha the last couple of nights, but it’s not like you think.”
“Where were you with her?” Trace asked.
“Jesus,” Sarge said. “This is real tacky crap, trying to talk to my son about what he thinks was an indiscretion.”
“We’re talking, maybe, about your attempted murder. Where’d you meet her?”
“There’s an apartment near Columbus Circle, belongs to a friend of Martha’s. The friend’s out of town and we met there.”
“Any chance Armitage found out?” Trace asked.
“I don’t think so,” Sarge said.
Trace noticed that his father had his head turned away and was keeping his eyes averted. “How’d Martha get there?”
“By cab,” Sarge said.
“How’d she get home?”
“I dropped her off.” He shook his head quickly. “Not at her house. Near her house.”
“Near enough to be seen,” Trace said with a sigh. “Pop, you know she’s a drinker?”
Sarge nodded. “She’s on a lot of pills too. She isn’t a well woman.”
“The sauce is enough. It was something she said one night to a maid, a freaking maid, mind you, that led us to the kidnapping. You know damned well she probably dropped your name around too when she’s in her cups.”
“I don’t think so,” Sarge said.
“I know so. Last night, Armitage and his sister-in-law both knew you were working with me. But nobody knew that except Martha. You can’t trust a drunk, Sarge. Why’d you meet with her?”
“I don’t know. Dev, it was her idea, but then we’d get together and we’d just talk. I thought maybe it was doing her some good, but I never could figure out why she wanted to talk.”
“Maybe she was trying to build up her courage to tell you about her son’s kidnapping. She hasn’t been playing square with you, Sarge.”
“I know that. I’m sorry, son. She’s not all there anymore. She was once, well, she was a helluva woman.”
“Is that when you two got it on?”
“You make it sound shabby,” Sarge snapped angrily. “It wasn’t like that. It was just once, a lot of years ago, and it wasn’t like that. You want to know how it was?”
Trace was silent for a moment. “No,” he said, “I don’t.”
He looked down and saw that his hands were gripping the rail on the side of the bed so hard, his knuckles were white. With an effort, he relaxed, then reached over and squeezed his father’s shoulders.
“When do you think you’ll get out of here?”
“Tonight, if I’m lucky,” Sarge said.
“Should I call Mother? Run interference for you or tell her about the accident?”
“Don’t
say that or you’ll see me die before your eyes. She doesn’t have to know anything and I’ll have the car fixed before she gets home. I’ll call her tonight myself.”
“All right,” Trace said. “Then I’m going to be moving along.”
“What have you got planned?”
“Chico’s out. I want to check on her, and then…well, I don’t know, I’ve got some other business.”
“You think you know who put me here?” Sarge asked.
“Yes.”
“Don’t do anything dumb,” Sarge said.
“I won’t,” Trace said. He started toward the door. “I’m your son.”
“Devlin.”
When Trace turned around, Sarge said, “With Martha, it wasn’t like you think. It wasn’t cheap or dirty.”
“I know that, Pop. It couldn’t have been.”
“Why not?”
“Because you were involved in it,” Trace said.
“Thanks, Dev. Be careful.”
24
Trace had been back in his hotel suite only a few minutes when the telephone rang.
“Is this Devlin Tracy?” asked a man’s voice that he had never heard before.
“Yes.”
“If you’re wearing boxer shorts, I’ll give you a million dollars.”
“Huh?”
“If you have a birthmark on the inside upper part of your right thigh, I’ll double it.”
“Who is this?”
“If you live with a Eurasian beauty who is the picture of sweetness and grace and all that is good in life, you will be happy forever,” the man said. “Unless you try to poison her with Veal Surprise.”
“This must have lost something in the translation,” Trace said. “Who are you?”
“I’ll be right up,” the man said.
Three minutes later, there was a knock on the door. When Trace opened it, Chico stood there, grinning obscenely, holding a plastic bag in her hand.
“I give up,” Trace said. “What was that all about? Who was that?”
“I cannot tell a lie,” Chico said as she breezed into the room. “C’est moi.”
“The man who called, I mean,” Trace said.
When Elephants Forget (Trace 3) Page 20