Fischer, apparently a master of timing, left me dangling there long enough to encourage paranoia and make everyone wonder what the hell was going on. I was just about to sit down when Fischer said: “Mr. Goodey is a private detective from San Francisco.” This revelation didn’t bring smiles of welcome to many faces. A good thing, too, because they’d probably have cracked and fallen off when he added: “Mr. Goodey has come down here to try to prove that one of us killed Katie Pierce, our late sister.”
Talk about the impact of the legendary turd in the punchbowl. Most of the faces that could summon up any expression at all opted for outraged hostility. It didn’t look as though I was going to leave The Institute with any lifelong friends. The amateur lynch mob noises continued to grow until Fischer raised a beefy hand.
In the grumbling silence that followed, he said: “Now, you and I know that Mr. Goodey is going to go away empty-handed…”
Somebody at the back of the room shouted: “And empty-headed!”
But Fischer wasn’t being taken in by such cheap shots. “I say,” he continued, “that we know that Mr. Goodey won’t find Katie’s murderer here because she wasn’t murdered. But Mr. Goodey has a job to do here—it’s not a job everyone would take, mind you—and I want each and every one of you to cooperate with him fully.” At this, the mob at the trestle tables began their tar-and-feather-him rumbling, which only died down when Fischer raised his voice to the diamond-cutting level. “Shut up! I’m trying to say that if we all cooperate with Mr. Goodey, it won’t be too long until he realizes that he’s wasting his time here and goes back to San Francisco.”
This was a real crowd-pleaser, and the cheers it evoked made Mrs. Carter’s crystal chandeliers vibrate. I tried to look humble about the whole thing, but Fischer wasn’t finished having fun yet.
“Perhaps,” he said, “Mr. Goodey would like to say a few words to us.”
That set off an uproar of sarcastic clapping. This was certainly turning out to be a jolly little dinner. I looked around and saw that a few people weren’t clapping. Rachel, for one, was toying with her fork and looking distinctly unhappy. Mrs. Carter was spooning food off Tommy’s flashy lapels and back toward his slack mouth. Jack Gillette wasn’t clapping, which was interesting in itself. But, even more surprising, Pops Martin wasn’t either. He was up at his table-for-two, looking preoccupied. Perhaps he was sulking because I seemed to be getting all the attention on his wedding day.
The uproar went on so long that I figured I’d have to say something just to get off the hot spot. I’d sat down during Fischer’s monologue, so I got up again and stood there looking around the big room and waiting for a bit of silence. To my surprise, I got it, but I waited a little longer just to keep them on edge.
Then I said: “You’re all under arrest.”
That got a better laugh than it deserved from such a hostile audience, so I let it run a while and then raised my arms high like a fight referee.
“Listen,” I said, glad to be able to get the message over to so many people at once, “I don’t know whether Katie Pierce was murdered, much less whether someone here did it. But that’s what I’m here to try to find out. You can make it easy or hard, but either way, I’m getting paid by the day, so I don’t mind. Thank you.”
I sat down in a pool of nearly perfect silence, but then at the edges a ripple of applause began, which grew slowly in volume until it was nearly as loud as that before I’d spoken. But this was different; it was real applause. These people obviously didn’t mind being spoken to straight. If they were a lynch mob, at least they were a fair-minded lynch mob.
I enjoyed this limited approval until Fischer stopped it with an imperious gesture. “I have another announcement. The regular Saturday night open house has been canceled. Sitches will begin fifteen minutes after dinner is finished.”
He started to sit down again, but a big guy at the back jumped up. “What about our guests?” he demanded. “Some of them are coming long distances to make the open house.”
“To hell with them,” said Fischer, not even bothering to stand all the way up. “If they are really friends of The Institute, they’ll understand and come back again. If not, we don’t need them.” He sat down; his questioner sat down, and an excited buzz of conversation broke out all over the room.
“What are these things—these sitches?” I asked Susan.
“They’re small meetings of about ten or twelve people,” she said. “The word sitch is short for situation. As Hugo says, they’re situations for intensive communication between individuals.”
“What happens at these—meetings?”
“I can’t describe it for you,” said Susan. “You’d have to experience it yourself.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I think I’ll give that a miss.”
By this time, the banqueters were licking their sherbet spoons, and many had risen and were drifting from the dining room. Susan got up from her chair.
“I have to go now, Mr. Goodey,” she said, too polite just to walk away. “I’ll probably see you later.”
“You probably will,” I said. Then I remembered something. “Wait a minute.” She stopped and looked at me with some anxiety. “Somebody told me you used to be a guard up at the ladies’ slammer at Frontera,” I said, “and…”
“I was a matron at the California Institute for Women at Frontera,” she said with a frown.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s your terminology. But what I want to know is whether a girl named Irma Springler came in while you were there.”
“Yes,” Susan said. “Irma came in just about two weeks before I left, and I took her through orientation.”
“How was she? Did she seem to have any problems? I mean, besides six long years to do?”
“No,” Susan said. “Irma seemed fine when I last saw her. A bit detached, perhaps, but that’s understandable. I hadn’t heard of any problems when I left. Is she a friend of yours?”
“Not really,” I said. “I put her there.”
“It was kind of you to inquire,” she said sarcastically, then shot a look at her wristwatch. “I really must be going.”
It occurred to me as I watched her walk away that girls don’t really look all that glamorous in coveralls, even pale mauve ones. Especially, walking away, if they’re developing a bit of a lard ass.
By then, I was nearly the last one in the banquet room except for a crew of flunkies in gray who were none too joyfully clearing the tables, scraping garbage into buckets and grumbling among themselves.
This seemed like a good time to sort out my luggage in my luxury suite while the residents were having a bit of intensive communication. Upstairs, the narrow halls were deserted. When I opened the door to my room, not much had changed except that the smell of bus driver’s underpants had faded somewhat. My suitcase was sitting on the hard narrow bed, as Gillette had promised. I fished out the appropriate key, unlocked the case, swung open the lid and promptly went into a cardiac arrest. The two reports—the sheriff’s and Brazewell’s—were no longer stacked neatly on top of my shirts where I had left them. I did a quick rummage to the bottom of the case just to make sure, then wheeled and practically ran out of the little room.
It’s funny how fast you can move when you really want to. In less than a minute I was outside the big polished walnut door of Fischer’s office. Gasping only slightly, I twisted the brass knob and went into the room like a rookie on his first whorehouse raid.
It was a pretty picture that greeted me. At his desk, in the light of a Tiffany-glass lamp, Hugo Fischer was leafing through Brazewell Associates’ well-researched report, while back in his favorite chair like faithful dog Tray, Pops Martin was reading the sheriff’s version, licking his fingers as he turned the pages. It looked like reading hour at the Old Lag’s Home.
Fischer, who had put on a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses for the exercise, looked up and raised his eyebrows as I came into the room. I thought I saw him cock an ear for the missing knock on t
he door. He opened his mouth, but I didn’t wait to hear what would come out of it. Without breaking stride, I charged over to his desk, snatched the Brazewell Report from his hands and pivoted toward Pops Martin. The bridegroom was uncoiling as I came toward him, which brought the sheriff’s report up to easy grabbing height.
“Hey,” he protested, like a kid whose last comic book has been confiscated, “you can’t…”
“I can, Pops,” I said, facing them both. The reports were neatly tucked under my arm. “As for you, Fischer,” I said, “keep your thugs out of my room and my belongings, and your hands off them, too.”
Fischer didn’t look especially disturbed to have been busted with the stolen reports. He looked up at me like a flawed Buddha. “You know, Goodey,” he said, “that’s a pretty libelous piece of literature you’ve got there. Those Brazewell people want to watch it or they’ll end up in court with me on their ass.”
“I don’t care about that,” I said. “Just keep your hands off my stuff.”
I spun around and shot back out through the door. The last thing I heard before the door slammed was Fischer saying: “You already said that.”
I was heading back up to my room when Roscoe Matson loomed in front of me. “Hey, Joe Goodey,” he said. “I been looking all over the damn place for you. You’re late.”
“Late for what?”
“Your sitch, man,” he said. He looked down at the clipboard he was carrying. “Let me see. Yeah, I’ve got you down for the Karma Room.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s what it says here. I don’t make up the rosters. I just execute them.” Matson gave me some elaborate and confusing directions how to get there and then sauntered off down the hall. I turned back toward my room, but then heard his voice. “Goodey?”
I turned around. “Yeah?”
“Just wanted to say,” Matson volunteered, “that I don’t like cops and I think you’re barking down the wrong hole, Ace, but you’ve got some balls.” Before I could feel too smug about that, he added: “You may not be too bright, but, yeah, you’ve got guts.”
“Thanks,” I said.
He turned and continued down the hall with a springy athlete’s walk. He probably thought he was whistling a tune.
9
Making a short detour back up to my room, I tucked the two reports under the lumpy mattress with no doubt that if Fischer wanted them back, he’d get them. There didn’t seem to be a word for privacy at The Institute. I suppose I could have taped the reports under my shirt, but to tell the truth, I didn’t care much whether Fischer read them. I just didn’t like the way he got them.
Trying to remember Matson’s directions, I backtracked through the corridors until I found myself outside a substantial green door bearing a hand-painted sign: “Karma Room.” All seemed quiet inside. Squaring my shoulders, I put a hand on the doorknob and had begun to twist when from inside the room came an explosion of noise as if someone were trying to force spats onto an alligator.
I backed off a step and a half and listened intently. From my side of the door it sounded like a riot at the Tower of Babel, and it couldn’t have been much quieter inside. Somehow, it didn’t make me eager to charge into the Karma Room. Not just then. I called myself a coward, but the accusation didn’t have much sting. I was about to turn away and go find a good, rousing game of Parcheesi, when the door to the Karma Room opened and Hugo Fischer was standing in the doorway, looking at me with benign malevolence.
“Goodey,” he said, speaking over the tumult behind him. “I thought there was someone out here. Come in. You’re late.”
I wasn’t so sure I wouldn’t have preferred jumping into a snake pit, but how could I resist such a gracious invitation? Fischer turned and went back into the room as if certain that I would follow. I followed.
I walked right into a very interesting little tableau. Mrs. Donald Moffitt was leaning aggressively toward Mr. Donald Moffitt and screaming that he was a “rotten, little, chickenshit, cowardly son of a bitch.” That wasn’t bad for openers, and Moffitt just sat there in an overstuffed chair and took it.
I paused for a moment, not wanting to interrupt this earnest communication, but quite willing to hear a bit more of it. No chance. Ten or twelve pairs of eyes swiveled toward me as one. From most of the expressions, I felt as welcome as a rustler at the cowboy’s ball. But then Rachel Schute spoke up to say: “Sit down, Joe. Just take any empty seat.”
They were seated in an irregular circle on a couple of small couches, some easy chairs and a piano bench. I took the least conspicuous seat I could find, between Aileen Moffitt and the great man’s cousin Harold. Further to my right were the new Mrs. Pops Martin, Dr. James Carey and Mark Kinsey. To the left were Don Moffitt, Dr. James Carey and Mark Kinsey. To the left were Don Moffitt, Susan Wallstrom and Rachel. Directly across from me, Fischer regained his lordly armchair, flanked on either side by Pops Martin and Cousin Harold’s harmless-looking wife. Most of the power structure was there.
Moffitt was looking pretty relieved to have the pressure off him for a moment, but then Harold Fischer stuck out his mock-Hugo jaw and said: “Well, Don, is what Aileen says true? Are you the original nutless wonder? Are you afraid to have a go in the big cold world outside? That job offer in New York sounds pretty good to me. What’s holding you back?”
Though only a cousin, up close Harold looked enough like Hugo to be his brother. They were like two pots that had been uniform when put into the kiln, but which came out different. Where Hugo was flawed, dynamic and unique, Harold was symmetrical, inert and very ordinary, a poor facsimile.
“Fuck you, Harold,” Don Moffitt snarled. “You’ve no room to talk. If it’s so wonderful out there, why aren’t you still in Omaha selling used cars? Instead of here in The Institute holding on to Hugo’s shirttails for all you’re worth.”
Score one for counterpunching. Harold’s handsome face developed a red blotch as if Moffit had landed a stinging jab. “Listen,” Harold said. “I was out there for twenty-five years. Some might even say I did all right. I sold the Cadillac dealership because I felt that The Institute offered more. I…”
“He’s right, Don,” James Carey cut in with authority. “Selling cars may be only a little better than pimping”—Harold’s face got a little bit redder—“but Harold made his thirty grand a year, maybe more. And he made it in the market place, where there’s no nice cushion under your ass if you fall. What the hell have you ever done in the real world but hustle drugs, knock over filling stations and generally fuck up your life?”
From Moffitt’s expression I could tell that the contest had changed, and not so subtly either. I had a feeling that he could handle his yapping wife and this poor imitation of Hugo, but in Jim Carey he was up against something else—a peer, and worse, a rival. He inhaled sharply as if to gather momentum.
“Bullshit!” he snapped, leaning toward Carey aggressively like a stag eager to lock horns. “You’re operating under some bullshit false assumption, Carey, that I want to leave The Institute but am afraid to.”
“That’s what it looks…” Carey began mildly enough.
“Well,” Moffitt continued, his ball bearing eyes sweeping the assembled company, “let me tell you—let me tell you all unequivocally—that I don’t want to leave The Institute, and I’m not going to leave The Institute—now or ever, not willingly.” He turned toward Aileen, who was watching his face with intensity. “It’s my wife who wants to leave,” he told the group, “so that she can have a house all her very own and all the horseshit modern conveniences every housewife in America has. And the two-car garage. The whole bit.” He leaned even further toward his wife, as if he were going to spring at her throat. “Well,” he said, gritting his gray, irregular teeth, “if that’s what my asshole wife wants, she can just go get it without me. Anytime she likes. I’m staying!”
Under this verbal assault, Aileen Moffitt crumbled. She didn’t cry, but her eyes, already suspiciously moist, went a bit v
acant, and her thin lower lip began to tremble. Almost unconsciously, she put both balled fists to her temples, looked wildly around the room as if surrounded by a hanging jury, and then jumped up from her chair and ran to the door. After a bit of trouble with the knob, she wrenched it open and fled, leaving the door open a crack behind her.
Christ! This was better than tag-team wrestling. They certainly didn’t play by girls’ rules around here. I was wondering when somebody was going to pull a knife when a voice said: “Well, what have you got to say for yourself, asshole?”
I looked around to find out who the asshole was, and it turned out to be me. Mrs. Harold F. Fischer was leaning halfway out of her comfy chair and pointing a mauve fingernail in my direction. And I always thought she was such a nice little woman.
‘Me?” I said, as if there was some room for doubt.
“Yes you, sucker,” screamed Pops Martin’s brand-new bride, going into a Bela Lugosi impression. “We’re talking to you. Explain yourself!”
“Well,” I said modestly, “I’m just doing my job, just noodling around down here trying to serve the cause of justice and the common good. Trying to…”
“Not that crap, you lame motherfucker,” cried dear, gentle Susan Wallstrom. “We’re talking about the game you’ve been running on Rachel for the last year.”
“Game?” I said in a voice that came out in an unfortunately girlish falsetto. But I had the merest inkling what they were talking about. Somebody had obviously been telling stories. Not that I cared to discuss it at that moment, of course. I was there on business.
“Don’t try that horseshit on us, you chauvinist prick,” Susan insisted, puffing up like a Valkyrie. “You know what we’re talking about. You go over to Rachel’s, eat her food, drink her booze, play with her emotions and then split without leveling with her, you jerk.”
Then all the women in the room were on me except Rachel, who seemed to be memorizing the carpet. Harold Fischer and Don Moffitt were laying back on the oars, seemingly quite content to let me get cut up by these amazons. Hugo Fischer was playing the paterfamilias and keeping his hands clean.
The Triple Shot Box (Goodey's Last Stand, Not Sleeping Just Dead & Fighting Back): Three Gritty Crime Novels Page 28