Trouble in Rooster Paradise

by T. W. Emory

  “I’ve come up with more questions. Problem is, the answers aren’t keeping pace,” I said.

  She smiled broadly, causing her cheeks to dimple.

  “You’re still alive. That’s a good sign. I’d hate to be without my date for tomorrow night.”

  “You’re a cold one, Sweet Knees.”

  “Callous to the bone.”

  “Is that all I am to you? A warm body to drag around a dance floor?”

  “When you put it that way, it sounds rather macabre,” she said, frowning. “Pick me up at six, will you? And be sure your warm body’s wearing a different suit. That one resembles used carbon paper, and I see enough of that each day already.”

  I was going to reply but didn’t get the chance.

  At first I thought it was an automobile backfiring down on Market Street. But the second, third, and fourth shot that immediately followed were unmistakable. Someone was blasting away at my end of the corridor.

  I grabbed for Cissy and yanked her with me in a dive and roll over her desk. I thumped to the floor with her piling down on top of me. We hit in a dizzying sprawl that formed a chaotic heap of legs, thighs, elbows, and torsos that normally I’d have found intriguing. We lay still for a moment.

  Silence.

  I felt Cissy’s heart keeping time with mine as her breast-points nudged and pushed at my ribcage. She quickly broke the scissor lock her knees had on my waist. My hand sprouted my .38 as we disentangled. One of her nylons had a run from ankle to mid-haunch. She hitched at her coat and skirt, retrieving them from where they’d been hiked by our tumble. Her face was pale.

  I whispered, “Stay put while I go check.”

  She grabbed my coat sleeve and said, “Don’t, Gunnar.” For a split second I heard a rare vulnerability in her voice. I liked it. “Whoever it is may still be out there.”

  “That’s the idea,” I said, breaking away from her.

  I took three soft strides to the door, opened it, and dropped to my knees, pointing my .38 in the direction of my office. When I saw nothing, I quickly wheeled about and pointed my gun down the other way.

  More nothing. The corridor was empty. The tenants across the way were either out or lying low.

  I moved over to my office. The glass to my door’s window was in shards on the linoleum. The inner door had suffered the same fate. The back wall was bullet-pocked and pieces of plaster littered the floor.

  The shooter had scrambled.

  I rang Milland again. A dispatcher contacted him by radio. He and Hanson came right over and took our brief statements. Downstairs, Olga Peterson had heard the commotion. She told them she thought some kids were celebrating the Fourth of July early. No one had seen anyone suspicious-looking come or go.

  “He probably ran out the back way,” Hanson said.

  I was going to give Milland the list of customers Britt had given me.

  “We got our own copy. I’ll get back to you on any matches.”

  They told us we could go home.

  Before I left I tugged from the wall the corkboard I used to tack up my notes. I jury-rigged a temporary cover with it for where my window had been. It didn’t make my office secure exactly, but at least it would discourage an honest man.

  Cissy waited around and watched me work. I sensed she wanted company. Normally, I’d have taken her out for a drink to help bring harmony to any nerves that were still ragged. But I was mindful of my date with Britt, and didn’t want an awkward breakaway later. I told her I needed to stop off home before heading out to another interview.

  “Have a good belt before you hit the hay tonight, Sweet Knees,” I said as we parted. “We’ll shake this incident off tomorrow night at the Trianon.”

  She told me to please be careful.

  I told her I’d be incredibly careful. She was a little teary-eyed. I felt like shit served on stale shingle for leaving her, but managed to do it all the same.

  I headed home.

  As I entered the kitchen side door, I was hit with a hearty whiff of Musterole. Sten—the undying cigarette hanging from his lip—had just finished constructing a Dagwood sandwich at the kitchen table.

  I gave the air two meaningful sniffs and asked, “Rough day?”

  “Shoulder’s acting up. I think the shrapnel is migrating. Rubbing Musterole on it seems to help,” he said with a grin. At Bougainville, Sten had jumped out of an amphib right into what he called a Tojo surprise.

  Sten had built a six-inch tower of bread, cold cuts, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles—all of which was probably held together with liberal amounts of mayonnaise and A-1 Sauce. It looked fantastic. My mouth watered. The kitty-cat wall clock read 4:40, which meant it was closer to 5:00.

  “What? Not waiting for feeding time?”

  “We’re poor little lambs all on our own tonight.”

  “And why isn’t the young and unsettled chowing down at one of his haunts?”

  “Oh, I plan to,” he said. “This sucker’s just an appetizer to tide me over.”

  “Where’s your aunt?”

  “She just left. Some guy she met at the Shurfine Market is taking her out on the town.”

  “Does Walter know?”

  “I’m pretty sure he does. He’s been shut up in his room since I got home. Walter’s no idiot,” Sten added as he put his sandwich on a plate and poured himself a glass of milk.

  I opened the door leading to the basement for him. He called his room the dungeon. I noticed his souvenir Jap bayonet sticking out of his back pocket.

  “Why the bayonet?”

  “Kenny’s got a boil on his butt the size of a walnut. He wants me to lance it for him before we head over to the 211.”

  “My luck to Kenny.”

  With a ghoulish laugh, Sten said, “There’s plenty of eats left in the fridge if you’d like one of these puppies.” He lifted his plate, a self-satisfied look on his face.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got a dinner date myself.”

  “We talkin’ about the dollface with the half-shimmy getalong?”

  “Who?”

  “That almost-receptionist of yours?”

  “No.”

  “So, you’ll put in a good word for me, then?”

  “What happened to Claudia?”

  “You mean Pin-Curlers? That beauty parlor in heels? I swear that girl never finishes getting ready. She’s last month’s news. So, how about the endorsement?”

  “I’ll introduce you if you come by. But you’re on your own after that.”

  “Fair enough. So, about tonight, are we talkin’ Everett good-lookin’ or Tacoma good-lookin’? Or what?”

  “This one’s off any scale you could ever hope to devise.”

  Sten whistled. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said as he descended to the dungeon.

  Things were quiet in Walter’s room, but I knew he was still awake. I freshened up in the bathroom, swatted my face with a little cologne and changed into my dark brown suit. Britt didn’t seem to be put off by my new seersucker, but maybe she was just being nice. If both Mrs. Berger and Cissy gave it a thumbs-down, I wasn’t about to wear it to dinner.

  I rapped lightly on Walter’s door.

  He told me to come in. A good sign.

  He was seated on his work stool over near the window. The bottle of Black & White was on the sill alongside a full shot glass. His 8mm Lebel revolver was in its holster sitting on the end of the workbench nearest him. At the other end the British Dragoons were set up in a charge that looked formidable. They appeared to be finished. A package sat next to them postmarked Springfield, Massachusetts. It was from Raymond Perry. My guess was it had arrived that afternoon. It remained unopened.

  Not a good sign.

  “I’m glad to see you’re still among the living. Care for a drink, old thing?”

  “Can’t right now, Walter. I’m heading out again to go talk to someone.”

  “You won’t mind if I drink in front of you, I trust,” he said, downing his gla
ss. “Did you know that the Arabic word al-kuhul originally referred to the powdered antimony used to paint eyelids?”

  I let him expound. It was the least I could do. He was maudlin but still lucid.

  I sometimes pondered the Walter that might have been. I wondered what he’d have made of himself if he hadn’t been so close to that fuel wagon in the Argonne.

  Usually, my musings about Walter were self-indicting. My own life hadn’t been molded by physical scars, but I suspect something caused me to settle for an addiction to conundrums and a fascination with the twists and folds of human makeup. Family life in the suburbs might have cured the addiction, and a more genteel career may have blunted the fascination, but I never put this theory to the proof. So I was in no position to judge Walter Pangborn. Somewhere along the way I’d stood close to my own version of Walter’s fuel wagon. Not the tangible kind. One far more insidious.

  I told Walter what had happened at the office.

  It didn’t pull him out of his mood, but I could see concern in his eyes.

  “Any ideas yet as to who would want to kill you?”

  “Nothing fixed. Just some free-floating notions.”

  I told him Len Pearson drove a Packard and related my phone conversation with him.

  “Hmm. Levantine mischiefs or not, he sounds rather harmless, Gunnar. Like the rest of us, he doubtless plays many parts, depending on what the occasion demands.”

  I agreed. “But I figure the real Pearson is probably a frightened understudy hiding offstage.”

  Walter smiled a tortured smile. “Like all of us, old top. Like all of us.”

  Walter poured himself another shot of whiskey. He drank in an elegant, almost lordly manner. His speech was never slurred and he never got surly.

  I told him about the attempt on Addison Darcy’s life. I also told him about Guy de Carter.

  “He calls Miss Anderson ‘honcho lady,’ eh?” He smiled as expansively as his ruined face would allow. “A term from the Japanese word hancho, meaning squad leader ….”

  I interrupted and told him how de Carter had lied to me about where he’d gotten our lunch.

  “And you think this de Carter might have taken a potshot at Mr. Darcy?” he said.

  “Yeah. But I don’t know why yet. I might be looking at the wrong person entirely.”

  “A fellow with Guy de Carter’s proclivities may well have just come from a tryst with a married woman. That could account for his lying. Besides, he didn’t poison your sandwich.”

  “I thought about that. We ate in too public a place for him to kill me in that fashion. Too many good citizens eyeballing us. Plus, he might have decided just to find out all what I knew.”

  I described Guy de Carter to him, and told him what we’d talked about.

  “You’re a student of human nature, Walter. What do you make of this guy?”

  “What do I make of a guy named Guy? I forgive your pun,” he said, taking a drink of his Scotch. “I’m no more than a dime-store analyst, Gunnar. A dabbler, really. So remember, you’re getting just what you’ve paid for.”

  He belched.

  “Excuse me, old socks. I seem to have an upset stomach that has gotten the mastery of my manners.”

  I popped a fresh clove between teeth and jowl and watched as Walter pondered.

  “All of us, Gunnar, have pursuits that help us escape life’s tedium—activities we enjoy to change or modify our dispositions, our moods. Mr. Guy de Carter has merely carried things to an extreme. He’s on a neurotic treadmill. Actually, more like that little wheel in Popeye’s cage downstairs. Your Mr. de Carter is on one of those wheels.”

  “A hamster wheel.”

  “Yes. Just so. He’s running. Some people become booze hounds.” Walter lifted up his shot glass a few inches. “Some—like our fellow boarder Sten—turn to gambling. Others chase after money, eat too much, or are consumed with their employment.”

  Walter paused for a moment’s thought as he warmed to his topic.

  “Mr. Guy de Carter is what the hoi polloi commonly call a ladies’ man, a lady-killer, or even a sex fiend. Whereas the psychiatric mandarins and alienists speak in terms of complexes, compulsions, neuroses, aberrations—”

  “A sex fiend, eh?”

  “Siding with the hoi polloi, I see. Doubtless a wise choice.”

  “Sex fiend is a pretty severe label, don’t you think, Walter?”

  “Perhaps. But Mr. de Carter is a fiend of sorts, at least in the sense that his devotion to sex is excessive. For him sex is like an opiate. He’s running, running, constantly running—just like the caged Popeye on his little wheel. An analyst might tell you that some childhood need of Mr. de Carter’s went unfulfilled. Whatever the case, he’s running from feelings like loneliness, bereavement, hurt. He’s on a flight from a tormenting reality. He’s trying to flee his personal hell.”

  “I get the picture.”

  “The tragic thing about it is that Mr. de Carter probably is actually desirous of—is actually seeking—a close, deep connection, but he never gets it, and he never will. Not the way he’s currently going about it.”

  He was silent for a long moment.

  “With each woman Mr. de Carter sleeps with he makes things worse—he adds to the very mishmash of troubled and tormenting feelings he’s running from. He’s on a madman’s run. Again, he’s like Popeye on his little wheel. But when you think about it, our hamster downstairs is really better off.”

  “What do you mean, Walter?”

  He lifted the left side of his mouth in a smile. “Because the lowly Popeye lives for the present moment. And while Mr. de Carter does so as well, he’s also dogged by his memories of the past, and uncomfortably aware of the approaching future.”

  I’d never seen Walter quite this passionate in his comments on human behavior. As he sliced, diced, and shredded de Carter’s ego, id, and superego, I have to admit I grew increasingly uncomfortable.

  “My guess is that at some level he can’t stand himself or what he does. But he keeps on doing it, over and over and over again.”

  My head swam with clear images of de Carter bedding woman after woman like some sexual jackhammer.

  “You might say that women are Mr. de Carter’s way of chastising an already injured psyche.”

  “You mean like self-flagellation?”

  “In effect, but certainly minus any religious aspect.”

  “Punishing himself with sex?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I suppose there’s worse fates.”

  Walter ignored me. “He’ll probably die a pathetic, miserable, unmourned womanizer. It’s one of many ailments in this life that few seek to cure.”

  “I get the idea,” I said quietly. His verbal barrage got my own psyche running for cover. “Is it possible that self-loathing could turn outward?”

  “You mean, could Mr. de Carter objectify his feelings and violently turn on the women in his life? Actually kill them?”

  I nodded.

  “Anything’s possible. I’m sure it’s happened before, old thing. That’s the construction some place on those Jack the Ripper killings back around the turn of the century. So yes, anything’s possible.”

  “Maybe he and Christine Johanson had something going. He killed her. Then he framed the Engstrom kid. Then he tried to kill me because he’s afraid I’ll figure it out and expose him.”

  “It sounds a little too pat, Gunnar. It doesn’t account for his trying to kill Mr. Darcy, if indeed that was also his handiwork.”

  I told him about getting Milland to hunt up registrations for Packards.

  Walter nodded his approval.

  “I’d be interested in any match Detective Milland might come up with. It may just be the puzzle piece you’re looking for. And by all means, please let me know if you learn anything more from Miss Meredith Lane.”

  Mrs. Berger’s social life was just a trigger. I empathized with Walter. I had my own triggers. I also knew the kind of soul-pie
rcing pain that gets a man looking for his own brand of mind-numbing relief.

  So I felt a little guilty when I got up to leave. Walter would probably have enjoyed the company. I know I would have. But I just couldn’t bring myself to cancel on Britt Anderson. I had my own frailties to consider. As I shut Walter’s door I watched him pour another shot of “the Scotch with character.” Or so the advertisements claimed.

  Chapter 10

  Vista Court Apartments was a misnomer in at least two ways. First, it wasn’t really a court at all. More like a long hairpin. Secondly, though situated on a hill, there was no vista. To my mind the only gorgeous view was the tenant I was there to see.

  I parked on Queen Anne Avenue. I hadn’t been tailed, but I still looked around to be sure before leaving the Chevy.

  I entered one end of the hairpin and was flanked by nicely maintained adobe-style bungalows connected one to the next. They looked to have been built in the early ’30s. Each was terraced in ascending progression to conform to the slope they were built on. So I didn’t exactly gambol along. I’d say it was more like a brisk climb.

  Britt’s apartment sat on the outside of the bend in the hairpin, affording a little more privacy than most of her neighbors’. Given where she lived on the grade, I had to scale two sets of concrete steps to get to her porch. The porch was a small, enclosed affair decorated with several hanging flower baskets. Most contained blooming fuchsias that gave her doorway a cheery appearance. They went with the peppy music that was playing inside.

  I looked at my Longines. It was 6:40. I was early. All right, I was shamefully ahead of schedule. I knocked anyway.

  The music stopped.

  When the door swung open I surveyed a stunning but stunned Britt Anderson. She’d pulled her hair back with a headband, her face was a bit flushed, and she wore a glossy blue leotard from her throat to her bare feet.

  “You’re early,” she said, sounding a little winded. She wasn’t angry, but she wasn’t exactly happy either.

  Gunnar the Ill-Timed.

  “Sorry. I was hoping for a before-dinner drink. Someone tried to kill me again.”

  It was a cheap trick, but it had the desired effect. Her eyes immediately showed the concern I’d seen earlier in the day.