Soft Touch

by John D. MacDonald

  She turned around and stumbled. She went down onto her hands and knees on the stairs and lost the robe. As she snatched it up and put it around herself again, she gave us a wide muzzy smile and said, “Woops!” and plodded back up out of sight.

  Liz did not look at me again. She turned and opened the door. There wasn’t a damn thing I could say. Nothing at all. I watched her through the screen as she walked down the porch steps and out of my life.

  I closed the door and went back upstairs. Tinker sat on the dressing table bench, wearing the yellow robe properly, combing her harsh and vivid hair. She looked at me meekly in the mirror and said, “I guess I goofed, huh?”

  “You goofed.”

  “That was the blondie from the office. The one you’ve had a thing about.”

  “That’s right.”

  “She didn’t look like she was ready to be very broad-minded.”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry if I spoiled anything.”

  “Just tell me one thing, Tink. If you really thought it was Mandy, why the hell would you come down?”

  “Oh, I guess it seemed like a good idea. I mean like a joke. And there’s some of Lorraine’s things that won’t fit me that would fit her. She’s slim in the hips like Lorraine. Anyway, Mandy wouldn’t tell anybody. She’s real good fun. You’d like her lots. We don’t have any secrets from each other.”

  “I guess you don’t.”

  “Mandy really likes you. I think she’d like to come and have a little visit with you, dear.”

  “What the hell are you trying to do? Bribe me with Mandy? I don’t understand you people.”

  She turned around and gave me a look of mock solemnity. “Glory, you poor old beast. You’re all tied up in knots, aren’t you? Sweetie, it’s like Charlie keeps saying. We all have measurable amounts of Strontium 90 in our bones. Did you know that? It’s very creepy when you think about it. So the way you go about not thinking of it is by having fun. And when you’re having fun you only think about the fun. Mandy and I are very careful, darling, but we still have slightly horrible reputations. But it doesn’t bother us any more than it does Lorraine. Darn it, I feel so sticky. Can I use your shower? Did Lorraine leave a bathing cap around?”

  “Bathroom closet, top shelf.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.” She shed the robe and padded into the bathroom. In a moment the shower began. I went down to the kitchen and made coffee, hot and black. I couldn’t stop thinking of the look on Liz’s face. And wondering about the two men from Washington.

  I had poured the second cup, still too hot to drink, when Tink came down. The blurred look was gone. She looked brisk and alert. She carried her loot wrapped in the pleated skirt.

  “Darling, I’d stay and swab up glasses and plates and things, but I’ve really got to run. Do you mind?”

  “Run along. Please do.”

  “Don’t be so grim, baby. I’m sorry I messed up your little office romance. Brother, I really did it, didn’t I?”

  “You did it.”

  She came over to where I was sitting, ran her fingers through my hair and kissed the corner of my eye. “You’re very pleasurable, my lamb, and don’t glower about that plain-looking blonde. We’ll have lots and lots of cozy fun, and we’ll make Jerry forget all about her, won’t we?”

  She went out the back way. I tried the coffee. It was still too hot. I carried it upstairs. I wanted to take a shower. The bathroom appalled me. It was awash. She had apparently floundered around like a damn sea lion. It was sticky-hot, perfumed, humid and thoroughly steamed. I opened the window wide, used a towel to sop up the water on the floor.

  I took a shower, drank my coffee, made the bed, cleaned up the litter, took three aspirin, put on a fresh sports shirt and slacks. I inspected the end result. My eyes had a hollow look.

  Just as I reached the foot of the stairs the doorbell rang again. I had the crazy and ridiculous hope that Liz had come back.

  But it was Lieutenant Paul Heissen, as wide and stolid and placid as before, but with a look of a man in an uncomfortable situation.

  “Come on in, Paul. Beer?”

  “Not this time, thanks.”

  He took the same chair as before, dropped his hat in the same place. “This is one of the things you got to do when you’re a cop, Jerry. I might as well level with you. Old lady Malton can’t figure her darling daughter taking off without a word to her. And she finally got E. J. Malton all worked up about it. They paid the chief a call yesterday and I was called in on it. They say you weren’t getting along very good. It took a long time before they came right out with it, but they finally said it. They think it’s possible you killed her and that Biskay.”

  “That’s a pretty weird idea.”

  “Probably is. But I have to check it out. That’s what I’ve been doing. I know you’ve got the answers, but I have to bother you so I can write a complete report on it. The lady across the street, Mrs. Hinkley, says she saw your wife drive in at about one o’clock last Wednesday. I can’t find anybody who saw her after that. You came home in the middle of the afternoon and ran out of gas. I checked that out with Mrs. Sittersall.”

  “Who? Oh, Irene. Yes.”

  “You met her when she was coming to work and told her your wife wasn’t well. Why did you do that?”

  I heaved a deep sigh. I told him that I was trying to save some of Lorraine’s reputation when I hadn’t told him all the facts before. I described how I had come home and how I had found them.

  “A lot of people have turned up dead when that happens.”

  “I know. But I wasn’t in the mood to kill anybody. He wasn’t in good shape. And I … I’ve had reason to suspect her in the past. This was the first time I had proof. She locked herself in the bedroom. I took gas down to get the car going and ran into Irene and I didn’t think it was a very good situation for her to walk in on. I mean it was pretty tense around here.”

  “So you drove her to a bus stop and got the car gassed up. Then what?”

  “I came back here. I had a couple of drinks and then I took off. I was trying to think things out. I just drove around.”

  “When did you get back?”

  “I don’t really know. It was dark. Vince was asleep. Lorraine was gone, but her car was in the garage.”

  “I checked with Amanda Pierson. She stopped by at about nine-thirty. How long had you been home?”

  “Maybe fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes.” I knew Mandy had stopped by much earlier than nine-thirty. Her error might come in handy.

  “Where do you think your wife was?”

  “I don’t know. She visits around the neighborhood a lot. Maybe she was just walking. She does that sometimes. Or maybe, hell, she was hiding somewhere in the house. I would never have thought to look for her.”

  “What did you do?”

  “After Mandy phoned I went out again, leaving a note for Lorraine. You saw the note. I had more drinks and went out. I know I stopped at the Hotel Vernon bar. Timmy should remember. You can understand why I was a pretty mixed-up guy. I stopped at a couple of other joints too. Frankly, Paul, I was in no shape to be driving. I could have killed somebody. Or myself. I didn’t want to go back home. I even drove up to Morning Lake. The Maltons have a camp up there. We use it. I thought I’d stay up there. But the black flies were too fierce.”

  “That’s where you got those bites, then?”

  “That’s right. So I came back thinking I’d have it out with her. I’d come full circle back to thinking that maybe we could still make a go of it. But they were gone. And her car. I could see she’d packed in a hell of a hurry.”

  “Mrs. Sittersall told me about that.”

  “I read the note and took it down the road to E. J.’s place and made a fool of myself.”

  He looked over the notes he had written. “Now here’s something you can clear up. Mrs. Sittersall didn’t see any scratches on your face. But you say you didn’t see your wife again.”

  “She gouged me ri
ght after I found them, before she locked herself in. I tried to cover them up. I did a fair job, using some of Lorraine’s pancake makeup. Irene isn’t very observant.”

  “What gas station did you go to?” I told him, realizing uncomfortably that this was a thorough, plodding, methodical man. He would check there.

  “Now then, Jerry,” he said. “On Friday a truck came here and two men carried out a heavy packing case and drove away with it. That information was volunteered by Mrs. Hinkley. What was in it?”

  I gestured at the book shelves. “Books and personal papers. I’m going to get around to putting the rest of my personal stuff in storage too. I was just making a start. I’m not going to keep on living here, Paul. Hell, one man in a house this size!”

  “Got the warehouse receipt?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’d like to see it, Jerry. Sorry to be such a damn nuisance.”

  I could get it but he would see me get it, and it would be awkward to try to explain the weird hiding place.

  “Give me a minute to think where I put it. I’ve been pretty mixed up the last few days.”

  “Take your time. In the meantime, I’d like to have that ote she left.”

  I’d been afraid of that. “I’m sorry, Paul, but I threw that ut. I threw both notes out. Hell, you took down what they aid.”

  “The Maltons aren’t certain the note was in their daughter’s handwriting.”

  “But it was!”

  “If it’s gone, it makes it sort of tough to prove.”

  “I don’t see what the hell difference it makes. Lorraine will tell you she wrote it.”

  “It would just make it easier if you still had it, Jerry. That’s all.”

  I went over to the desk and opened the drawer and made pretense of hunting for the warehouse receipt.

  He stood up and said, “Mind if I look around a little?”

  “What for?”

  “Just so I can put in my report that I looked the house over. That’s expected. I’d have to do it even if I had to get a warrant, Jerry.”

  “Why don’t you book me for murder?”

  “Don’t get nasty. Let’s do this the easy way. Hell, I don’t think you killed her. But what I think doesn’t matter. I just investigate, like I’m told to do.”

  “Okay. Go look around. I’ll hunt for the receipt.”

  He went out into the kitchen and I heard him go down the cellar stairs. For one cold moment I couldn’t remember whether any of the money was still there. My mind wasn’t working well. It had been misted by gin and by an excess of Tinker. I took the receipt from its hiding place, straightened it out and waited until I heard Paul coming back up into the kitchen. I took it to him. He looked at it, nodded, pocketed it.

  “Tomorrow morning we’ll go take a look at the crate.”

  “Why, for God’s sake?”

  “Because if we don’t, I get asked why we didn’t and then do I say it was too much trouble?”

  “Okay, okay. So we look at the crate. We’ll take every stinking book out of it and read every page.”

  “I’m trying to make this easy, Jerry.”

  “I’m sorry, Paul. I know that. I’m just edgy. I guess I’m upset about throwing her note away.”

  “Would it still be in the trash, maybe?”

  “No. I tore it up and threw it out the car window.”

  “Too bad.”

  “But it can’t be critically important, can it?”

  “No. I wouldn’t say that.”

  He was frighteningly thorough. He asked a hell of a lot of questions. He picked up the comb from Lorraine’s dressing table, and pulled a tuft of crisp red hair out of the teeth and looked at me.

  “A … a friend of Lorraine’s. Mrs. Velbiss. Tinker Velbiss. Lorraine had borrowed something of hers and didn’t return it before she left, so when Tinker came over I told her to come on up and get it.”

  “So she combed her hair.”

  “Okay, Paul, damn it. She came over to talk about Lorraine, and it ended up in a way we hadn’t planned. I guess I’m … vulnerable.”

  “Jerry, look. Don’t lie to me. Not in little things. Not in anything. Don’t lie to me. That’s important.”

  “Okay, Paul. It won’t happen again.”

  “I was going to ask you about Mrs. Addams in the office. I heard a rumor you’ve been friendly. A thing like that could be considered a motive.”

  “She’s a splendid person. I like her. But that’s all there is. I wish I’d married her instead of Lorraine. But I didn’t.”

  He made me make a list, from memory, of the things Lorraine had taken with her. He looked the station wagon over carefully. He checked the garden tools. He thumbed dirt off the shovel I had buried her with and crumbled it between his fingers. I watched him, trying to breathe normally. He asked no questions.

  It was well after dark when he finally left. He said he would meet me at the warehouse at nine in the morning.

  He apologized again for having to bother me. I said it was all right. I apologized for being irritable.

  11

  Paul Heissen was waiting for me when I got to the warehouse at nine o’clock. I had brought a screwdriver along. They made a fuss about the trouble this was causing them and quieted down when Heissen said he was from the police.

  I unscrewed the lid. Paul lifted out books. He uncovered the brown paper packages.

  “Old records,” I said. “Business papers. House plans. Architectural magazines. Stuff like that. Want me to open one?”

  He prodded a package with a thick thumb. “No need of that.”

  We fitted the books back in. I screwed the lid on. He thanked the warehouse man and we walked out. He walked to my car with me and said, “That bartender at the Hotel Vernon said you were in around ten o’clock and pretty well loaded.”

  “I guess I was.”

  “If you’d ordered a second drink you wouldn’t have gotten it. He said you were complaining about wife trouble.”

  “That’s what I had.”

  “I guess you did.”

  “What happens now, Paul?”

  “We wait and see if we can get a line on the car. Now she’s missing under suspicious circumstances. We can put it on the tape. We have already. Nation wide. But quiet like. It won’t alert any nosy newspaper people. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “And if you don’t find her in a hurry?”

  “I’d say if we don’t find her in two weeks, then we’ll have to go through this whole thing again. Bring you in and get a complete and detailed statement.”

  “You people could keep bothering me forever.”

  “Not forever, Jerry. Just until we find out what happened to her.”

  “Oh.”

  I started the car motor. He started away and then turned back and leaned on my window and said, “Say, a funny thing about this Biskay.”

  “What is that?”

  “Usually they’re fast down there. They check the military prints against the central FBI files and give us a fast no or a fast yes with details. This time it sounds like they’re stalling. I never had that happen before. Maybe it ties in with there being strangers in town.”

  “Strangers?”

  “I don’t know much about them. They checked in as a matter of courtesy. They could be Treasury people. It would look like maybe Washington is interested in this Biskay. That’s just a guess. They been to see you yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  I drove to the office. Liz was at her desk. She looked at me with complete and perfect indifference. For a time I had been a part of her life. But all that had been very quickly canceled out by a redheaded slut on a staircase. A suburban type, country-club, gin-fed, plump-legged, mischievous, meaningless slut—as exclusive as a roller towel, as standardized as beanwagon coffee, as significant as a handshake.

  It seemed such a hell of a waste.

  But I was becoming a specialist in waste these days. Of myself and everybody else. Bu
t there was still the money, wasn’t there? And a glorious golden future. No sweat. No strain.

  I asked Liz if E. J. was in.

  She got up and went to the door to his office, tapped on it, opened it halfway and spoke to him in a low voice.

  “Jerry?” he bellowed to me. “Come on in, come on in.”

  She held the door all the way open for me. I passed close to her. Close enough to catch the fragrance of her. And close enough to sense how she shrank away from me without actually moving. The way she would avert her eyes from a nuisance on the sidewalk. She closed the door behind me.

  “E. J.,” I said, sitting down at his gesture of invitation, “the police are prying around because it seems you and Edith have some crazy idea I killed Lorraine.”

  It was more blunt than he had anticipated, I am sure. His face turned red quite quickly. “We … uh … Edith and I, asked that every possibility be investigated, Jerry. If they seem to be excessively diligent …”

  “Come off it, E. J.”

  “Our children have always been very close to us, Jerry. I mean it has been a good relationship. Even if Lorraine did run off with your … friend, Edith seems to think she would let us know, somehow.”

  “If she ran off? What else happened to her, E. J.?”

  “That’s what the police are investigating.”

  “So where do I fit? It makes it pretty damn awkward trying to work for you. It makes it a hell of a situation.”

  He looked down at his neat little pink and white hands and folded them together atop the green desk blotter, and they massaged each other tenderly.

  “I really think, Jerry, it would be best if you took a leave of absence until … this is all settled.”

  The door opened behind me and Eddie came striding in. He stood over me, feet planted, face working. I don’t know who he was imitating. Kirk Douglas or Burt Lancaster. He didn’t do it very well. He was as awesome as Bugs Bunny.

  “What have you done with my sister, Jamison?” he snarled.

  I stared at him, and then I yawned at him.

  He stamped his foot. It is a gesture no adult male can get away with. “I asked you a question!” he said, but his voice was half an octave higher and he was trembling.