Until You Are Dead

by John Lutz

  I cooked up some hamburger steaks and stewed tomatoes and sat down with it and a glass of beer to watch a ball game on television.

  At a few minutes after five, the jangle of the phone woke me from a sound sleep in front of the TV.

  "Nudger?"

  "I think."

  "Chief Gladstone. I got a call from the city police. Larry Stein is at the morgue."

  I could think of nothing to say. I wasn't sure myself how I was taking the news.

  "Refuse collectors found his body this afternoon in a big cardboard box behind a restaurant. He was shot to death. How about going down and making the I.D.?"

  "Does Emily know?"

  "Not yet."

  "I'll tell her," I said. "I'll let you know when I get done at the morgue."

  I replaced the receiver and stood for a moment, despising myself. I knew that hidden in my compassion for Emily was a secret joyous voice reminding me that she was a widow now, she was free.

  But when I got to the morgue and old Eagan slid Drawer #16 out on its metal casters, I found that I wasn't looking at Larry Stein. This man had been close to Stein's height and weight, and his hair was dark brown if not black, but his face was broader than Stein's, and slightly pockmarked.

  Whoever he was, he'd been shot five times in the chest.

  When I phoned police headquarters and told them it wasn't Stein, they told me to come down. I took an antacid tablet and went.

  Lieutenant Jack Keough, an old friend from when I was on the force, talked to me. He's a few years older than I am, with candid brown eyes and an often-broken nose that wasn't Roman to begin with. His office is so barren and battered that even after the morgue it was depressing.

  "We sent the prints to Washington," Keough said, "so we should know soon who we've got chilled." Then he dumped the contents of a large brown envelope onto his desk. He didn't have to tell me it was what was found in the pockets of the corpse. An expensive kidskin wallet — Larry Stein's wallet with all his identification, credit cards, driver's license, photographs of Emily, and a few worn business cards. There were two tens and a five in the bill compartment. Besides the wallet, there were a leather key case, a black pocket comb, and some loose change. While I was sorting through it, I told Keough about the kidnap case.

  "Now it's in our ball park too," Keough said. "We can help you."

  "I wish there were a way," I told him. "You'd better phone Chief Gladstone and let him know about this. Maybe he can put a name on the dead man."

  "We're never that lucky," Keough said.

  Armed with some head shots of the corpse, I drove the next morning to Marlville to talk to Emily. As I was about to turn into the semicircular driveway, I saw a dark blue Pontiac sedan turning out of the other end of the drive onto the street.

  When Emily answered my knock, I could see that she was badly shaken. I wished I'd had the presence of mind to jot down the license number of the Pontiac.

  "Have you found out anything?" she asked, opening the door wide.

  "I'm not sure," I told her, stepping inside. Bruno ambled over and licked my hand. "I'm afraid I have to show you some unpleasant photographs, Emily."

  She backed a step, supported herself with exaggerated casualness on a low table. "Not . . ."

  "Not Larry," I said quickly. "A man was killed, and Larry's identification was in his pockets. We need to know who that man was."

  "Killed . . . how?"

  "Shot to death." I removed the photographs from the envelope and showed them to her.

  She seemed relieved to find herself staring at a peaceful composed face. "I don't know him," she said. "At least, not that I can recall."

  I followed her into the living room, where she sat bent and exhausted on the sofa.

  "Do you know someone who drives a blue Pontiac?" I asked.

  She used a graceful hand to brush her hair back from her face. "No, I don't think so. Why?"

  "I thought I saw one pulling away from the house as I drove up."

  Emily shrugged. "He must have been turning around. We're the end house; they do that all the time."

  But she had said "he," and there had been a man driving the car.

  That night I began keeping watch on the Stein house. And learned nothing. At midnight, when all the lights in the house had gone out, I went home.

  The next morning I learned from Keough that the man in the morgue was still unidentified. His fingerprints weren't in the master files, which meant that he had never been in the armed forces or acquired a police record. His good behavior had earned him five bullets — according to Keough, thirty-eight caliber bullets, probably fired from a Colt automatic.

  I watched the Stein house most of the next day and that evening until Emily went to bed at 11:45. Again nothing. Maybe Emily had been telling the truth; maybe the car I'd seen had only been using the driveway to turn around.

  But on the way home I saw the blue Pontiac in the Mc-Donald's lot in Marlville. Of course I'd only caught a glimpse of the car at Emily's and couldn't be positive this was the same one, but after writing down the license number I parked in a spot near the rear of the lot where I could watch it.

  McDonald's was closing. After a while some of the parking-lot lights winked out and the swarms of insects that had been circling them disappeared.

  A man walked from the red and yellow building, munching a hamburger as he strode toward the Pontiac. He seemed to be in his thirties, medium-height, and muscular rather than stocky a lean-waisted weightlifter's build. He was wearing dark slacks and a blue short-sleeved sport shirt open at the collar.

  I couldn't see his face clearly.

  When the Pontiac pulled from the lot, I popped an antacid tablet into my mouth and followed.

  It took him about two minutes to reach Emily's house. As I sat parked up the street, watching, he knocked on the front door. Lights came on, the door opened, and he entered. Twenty minutes later he came back outside, got into the Pontiac, and drove away. I stayed with him.

  He drove toward the city, getting off the highway at Vine and turning south on Twentieth. Ten minutes later, he made a right onto Belt Street and parked in front of a six-story brick apartment building just this side of being condemned. We were in one of those neighborhoods on the edge of a genuine slum. As I watched, he entered the building and a while later a light came on in one of the fourth-floor windows.

  I climbed stiffly out of the Volkswagen, crossed the street, and entered the vestibule of the building. There was a dim overhead light bulb and a row of tarnished metal mailboxes. Two of the names on the fourth-floor boxes were women's. 4-D was listed as B. Darns, 4-B as Charles L. Coil.

  After copying all the names and the address, I walked back to the Volkswagen, waited until the light had gone out in the fourth-floor window, then drove home weary for bed.

  Ten o'clock. I got up slowly, sat for a while on the edge of the mattress, then made my way into the bathroom and under a cool shower. Ten minutes later I turned on the burner beneath the coffee before returning to the bedroom to dress. After a breakfast of grapefruit juice, poached eggs, and black coffee I was sufficiently awake to ask myself what it had all meant last night.

  Emily was seeing the man in the Pontiac and wanted it kept secret. Was he one of the kidnappers? Anyone unconnected with the case? A clandestine lover?

  The telephone rang, and I carried my coffee into the other room to answer. It was Keough. They had an identification on the body in the morgue — Harold Vinceno, 122 Edison Avenue. He'd been reported missing by his wife three days ago and his general description fit that of the dead man. Mrs. Vinceno had made the positive identification this morning.

  I asked Keough to get me an owner from Records on the blue Pontiac's plate numbers, then asked him to find out what he could about the car's owner. When he asked me why, I told him it was nothing solid, just a hunch I was following.

  By the time I'd finished my coffee and examined the mail, drops of rain were pecking at the window. Keough mi
ght not call back for hours. I went to the closet and put on a lightweight waterproof jacket, then I left to visit Mrs. Vinceno.

  Edison Avenue was near the west edge of the city, medium-priced neat tract houses, on small lots with trimmed lawns that were being watered by the steady pattering rain. The Vinceno house was a white-frame ranch with empty flower boxes beneath the front windows.

  Mrs. Vinceno answered the door on the third ring. She was a small haggard woman, probably pretty in ordinary circumstances, with large dark eyes that were red from crying.

  "My name's Nudger, Mrs. Vinceno. I'm a detective. I know it's an awkward time, but I need to talk to you about your husband."

  She nodded without expression and stepped back.

  We sat at opposite ends of the sofa. But for a new-looking console TV, everything in the small living room was slightly worn.

  "I'm sure the police have asked you, Mrs. Vinceno, but do you have any idea what happened to your husband?"

  She shook her head no. "When I saw Harold I was surprised," she said in a husky voice. "Not because he was dead, but because he'd been shot."

  I waited.

  "Harold left here three days ago with the intention of committing suicide, Mr. Nudger. We hadn't been getting along. We had money problems — personal problems. He left here in one of his rages, saying he would end everything for himself."

  I watched her battle the trembling of her hands to light a cigarette.

  "Then he called here the next morning and told me our money problems were solved. He said he'd stumbled across a deal that couldn't miss and he'd let me know more about it when the time came. I begged him to come home, but he wouldn't.

  "I didn't take his talk about money seriously. Harold was kind of incoherent on the phone, and he was always stumbling into rainbows without pots of gold at the end of them." She bowed her head and her disarranged black hair fell down to hide her face.

  It didn't boost my self-esteem to keep at her, but I did. "Did your husband ever mention Larry Stein, the man whose identification was on him?"

  She shook her head no. "How about B. Darns? Charles L. Coil?" No and no. Her shoulders began to quake.

  Driving to my office, I tried to draw some conclusions and only came up with more questions. Was Vinceno one of the kidnappers? Had he actually intended to commit suicide, or had he been playing for his wife's pity? Had he known Emily? The man in the Pontiac? The only person involved in the case I could be sure Vinceno had crossed paths with alive or dead was Larry Stein.

  My office is on the second floor of a Victorian apartment building that was converted into oddly shaped bay-windowed offices when the neighborhood declined. It has a certain ornate charm and the exterminator comes every six months.

  I was informed by my answering service that Lieutenant Keough had called and left a number where he could be reached. When I dialed the number, Keough came to the phone and told me that the blue Pontiac was registered to William Darns, thirty-four years old, of 6534 Belt Street, apartment 4-D. Darns had a record — B and E, Plainton, Missouri, August third of '69, placed on probation; armed robbery, Union, Missouri, May seventh of '71, convicted and served three years. There were also a raft of moving traffic violations and a minor drug charge.

  "You're from Plainton," Keough said. "Do you know this Darns?"

  The name in conjunction with Plainton had already opened a door in my memory. "I know of the Darns family. There were two boys in their early teens when I left. They'd be in their thirties now."

  "What connection might they have with Vinceno?" Keough asked.

  "I don't know yet. I saw Darns leaving the Stein home late last night. And he was there before, but Emily Stein denied it."

  "That's all?"

  "All I have."

  Keough sighed. "It could mean anything. Maybe we ought to talk to Darns."

  "I wouldn't now. If he's mixed up in the kidnapping, we might be putting Stein's life in danger. I think the thing to do is watch him."

  "All right," Keough said. "We put somebody on Darns. What are you going to be doing?"

  "I'm going to Plainton."

  I didn't tell him what I was going to do before I left for Plainton.

  When Darns was gone from his apartment, along with his tail, I entered the building on Belt Street and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. Ignoring my fluttering stomach, I used my Visa card to slip the lock so I could enter apartment 4-D.

  The tiny apartment was a mess, the bed unmade, rumpled Levis and a pair of dirty socks in one corner, hot stale air. I knew the places to look and how to look, and I worked hard at looking to stifle my fear.

  Within ten minutes I found it, a sealed white envelope taped to the outside of the back panel of a kitchen cabinet drawer. I took it into the bathroom and ran hot water into the basin until steam rose. Then I held the envelope over the rising steam until the glue had softened enough for me to pry the flap open. Inside was five thousand dollars. Resealing the envelope with the money inside, I replaced it on the back of the cabinet drawer, then, after making sure everything was in the same disorder in which I'd found it, I left.

  Plainton existed in reality much as it did in my memory — white frame houses, small shopping area, unhurried pedestrians. I'd taken a flight to Saint Louis and connected with an Ozark Airlines flight to Jefferson City, where I'd rented an air-conditioned Pinto for the drive to Plainton. Now I was driving along the streets where I'd spent my childhood and adolescence before my family moved to Kansas City.

  I parked in one of the angled slots near the sloping lawn that led up to the city hall, fed coins to an ancient parking meter, and left the car in the shade of a huge cottonwood tree.

  Benny Shaver was the man I wanted to talk to. We'd been good friends in high school, and now he owned a restaurant on Alternate Route 3, Plainton's main street.

  Benny had taken out a liquor license in the twelve years since I'd been through town, and now the sign atop the low brick building read SHAVER'S PUB AND RESTAURANT.

  The air conditioner was on high in Shaver's. There was a counter with upholstered stools and a number of tables, each with a red-checked tablecloth and an artificial rose in a tall glass vase. The pub had been added on. There was a door near the counter over which the word PUB was lettered, along with what might have been Benny's family crest. The crest wasn't crossed pitchforks against a field of Guernsey's; it was crossed swords over a shield engraved with something in Latin, maybe the hours. I walked into the pub and saw a man and a blonde woman in one of the booths, and behind the bar where it wasn't so dim stood Benny. Less hair and more jowl, but Benny.

  I walked to the bar, sat on a stool, and called for a draft beer. Benny sauntered over and set a frosty mug on a red coaster, then squinted at me. I noticed that the scar on his forehead from the auto accident we'd had as teenagers was less vivid now.

  "God's great acorns, it's Nudger!"

  We both laughed and shook hands and Benny reached a beefy arm over the bar and slapped my right shoulder so it hurt. "Twelve years," I told him.

  "It is at that," he said, and looked momentarily frightened by the press of time.

  After three beers' worth of reminiscence I said, "I need some information on William Darns."

  "Is he in trouble?" Benny asked.

  "Possibly."

  "I haven't seen Billy in about two years. I don't miss him, Alo."

  "Why not?"

  "He came in here a lot and couldn't drink like he thought he could. This was after he got out of prison and thought he was rougher than he was. I had to break up a couple of fights he got into, mostly over women."

  "Married women?"

  "Some. Billy claimed he was trying to make up for time lost in prison. I never saw him, though, after he took up with the Goiter girl."

  "Who?"

  "You remember Emily Colter. She was a looker, moved away a long time ago to become a model or something. Well, she was back in town a few years ago to visit her cousin, and she kinda
fell in with Billy. About a month after she left town, he left too, claimed he got a job in the East. I wished him luck and hoped he'd stay wherever he was going. He was always in trouble, and prison made him worse."

  I didn't think Benny could guess how much worse. After declining lunch and saying goodbye, I left town.

  I was splashing cold water on my face in the office the next morning when the phone rang. It was Keough.

  "Emily Stein got the ransom-delivery instructions in the mail," he said. "They want the hundred thousand tonight."

  "I'll bet," I said. My stomach came alive and wielded claws.

  "The tail on Darns hasn't brought us much," Keough went on. "He's been getting together with an ex-con named Louis Enwood, extortion and armed robbery. We put a tail on Enwood too."

  "Have they been near a mailbox or post office?"

  "Nope. I don't think they're it, Nudger."

  "Are you going to be in your office all morning?"

  "Most of it."

  "I'll phone you back later," I said.

  I combed my hair, rinsed my mouth with cold water, opened a fresh roll of antacid tablets, and left the office to see Emily Stein.

  She was home. Her Mercedes convertible was parked near the garage at the side of the house where I'd seen it before. I walked around to the rear of the house, then returned to the front porch and rang the doorbell. A sprinkler on the wide front lawn was flinging a revolving fan of water with a staccato hissing sound. Bruno was lying in the shade near the corner of the house, staring at me like the good watch dog he was.

  When she opened the door, Emily smiled at me. She was wearing a pale-pink dress. Her smile lost its luminescence when she saw my face.

  "You heard about the ransom instructions," she said. "I was just on my way to draw the money from the Marlville Bank."

  "Why don't you write him a check and give it to him next time he comes by the house?" I suggested.

  She stepped back into the cool entry hall, and it was as if she'd stepped across time and aged twenty years.