Blabbermouth (A Brit Moran Mystery)

by Joel Travis

  I called Sheila and explained that I was being evicted from my room and couldn’t pay my hotel bill. She came right over, paid my bill, and took me to the airport in a cab. At the airport we hooked up with Barbara Crenshaw, who was waiting impatiently at Gate 7. Sheila’s friend was a tall, stork-like woman with horn-rimmed glasses and flaming red hair. Sheila made the proper introductions. The most favorable comment I can make about Crenshaw’s attitude is to say that she didn’t spit on me. She looked down her beak at my pillowcase luggage.

  “Look what you’ve done,” she said, pointing at Sheila’s bruised face.

  “It was an accident,” I said.

  “I wonder.”

  And I had to wonder what makes a woman like Barbara Crenshaw tick. A biological clock perhaps. A spinster, as one might expect from looking at her, she had apparently stored up forty years of bitterness to unleash on some man, and I was that man. I soon gave up trying to win her over with my charming personality. It was like trying to charm a snake.

  Crenshaw insisted that Sheila take the window seat since it provided the best view of the Grand Canyon, as if I’d have no appreciation for a giant hole in the ground. Crenshaw took the middle seat, leaving me the aisle seat. Whenever I attempted to lean forward to make eye contact with Sheila, Crenshaw found it necessary to lean forward to adjust one of her shoes.

  While it struck me as an obvious attempt to prevent me from having any meaningful dialogue with my ex, I had to consider the possibility that the spinster was suffering the painful effects of corns or bunions from worldwide travels in uncomfortable footwear. I offered to exchange seats. When she declined, I offered to exchange shoes, figuring we wore the same size.

  She stared me down through icy eyes.

  I shrugged it off and reclined in my seat. If I couldn’t converse with Sheila, I could make use of my idle time by reflecting on the meaning of recent developments. Specifically, I wondered what had brought Julio to the Stardust. Of course, I knew Cesar had sent him to threaten me, or to kill me. But how did he know I was in Vegas? Likewise, what was Julio doing in my hospital room during my deathbed confession? It wasn’t like he was a close friend someone might have invited on my behalf. For someone I didn’t really know, Julio Hernandez seemed to know my whereabouts all too well.

  #

  Sheila informed me that she and Barbara would be staying with Marty and Susan for a few days. She encouraged me to do the same, pointing out that Thanksgiving was only two days away. I should be with Marty and Susan for the holiday.

  “It’s not safe for me to stay at Marty’s,” I said. “As you know, there are people looking for me. That’s the first place they’ll look.”

  “You don’t want to spend Thanksgiving alone, do you?”

  I pictured myself in the Pinto, alone and cold, gnawing on a chunk of cheese for my Thanksgiving feast. I decided that Marty’s house would be my hideout. I could reside in the back bedroom and slip out the back door if Cesar’s gang or the police came calling.

  It was after midnight when our cab rolled to a stop in front of the Moran home. Marty and Susan welcomed us in. Sheila introduced her friend from New Orleans and fended off questions about her own bruised face.

  Sheila, Susan, and Crenshaw settled into the study, drinking, giggling, and yapping about Europe. Except for the drinking part it wasn’t my thing, so I prepared for bed by taking a shower and putting on one of Marty’s robes. I joined him in the kitchen for a nightcap.

  I brought my brother up to date on my abbreviated Vegas trip, including Lori’s mysterious disappearance and Julio’s mysterious appearance. When I told him I intended to conduct my own investigation to find Melvin Hedgeway’s killer, he gave me another verse of the same old song about letting Forest help me before it was too late. I told him I knew what I was doing and asked him if he could lend me a hundred bucks because a stripper had fleeced me out of several thousand dollars.

  “By the way, where’s my car?” he asked.

  “It’s at Lori’s apartment.”

  “Why is my car parked at a stripper’s apartment?”

  “That’s between you and your wife,” I said, offering a weak smile.

  Marty decided it was time to show me to my room. I’d stayed in the back bedroom during my separation from Sheila, so I was surprised he felt a need to accompany me. On the way there, we stopped by the laundry room. He pointed to a thin mat on the floor.

  “Hey, did you guys get a dog?” I asked.

  “No. That’s your bed.”

  “What happened to the bedroom I always stay in?”

  “We had to give Barbara her own room. The poor woman suffers from allergies and she didn’t want to disturb Sheila’s sleep. This is the only other room near the back door.”

  The following morning I awoke as drops of water dripped down onto my face. I wiped my eyes and looked up. Barbara Crenshaw was standing over me, stuffing clothes into the washing machine. Dressed in a pink robe, with a pink towel bundled turban-style on her head, she looked like a giant popsicle. The popsicle was melting—water dripped from the towel with her every movement. Although she had apparently showered, she had yet to apply makeup. That scary sight made me retch, jolting me fully awake.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m washing everyone’s clothes. Go back to sleep.”

  She started the machine and sneezed.

  “Bless you,” I said as she left my quarters.

  Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep with a washing machine thrashing everyone’s clothes two feet from my head. I decided it was all for the best. I could get an early start organizing our murder investigation. Filled with a sense of purpose, I scoured the whole house and then the garage in search of a poster board. In the latter location I found such a board, with the words “Garage Sale” printed across its face. I could draw my diagram on the back.

  I carried the board into the study, opened the entertainment center cabinet, turned on the television, and took a seat at Marty’s desk. I found a thick black marker in the top drawer and drew a perfect circle on the left half of the poster. Do you have any idea how impossible it is to draw a perfect, fifteen-inch circle with a fat marker and no compass? Sometimes I amaze myself, the things I can do.

  I looked up at the television. ESPN was replaying a recent rodeo. I watched a cowboy try to stay atop a pissed-off bull. When the results of the competition were transposed on the screen, I was surprised to see that the winner received only five thousand dollars. Pathetic pay when you consider that the bulls have poor attitudes and horns. Even more pathetic to contemplate, the last-place rider received one hundred dollars, about eighty bucks after taxes. That didn’t seem fair. He had clearly provided the most entertaining ride, what with being tossed off and landing on his head, before being trampled and gored. Of course, the rodeo clown is supposed to rush out and distract the bull before the goring becomes a health issue, but I guess he was busy clowning around in the back somewhere. That’s the problem with clowns. They don’t take their jobs seriously.

  I drew another circle on the right-hand side of the poster. I labeled the circles and drew some arrows. Before I knew it, I had completed a diagram depicting an overview of our murder investigation. My partners were sure to appreciate my business-like approach when I unveiled the poster at our kickoff meeting.

  There’d be no kickoff meeting until I called Ace Monroe and told him to get his ass over here. Where might Marty keep his number? Perhaps right here in the desk. I dug through Marty’s things, searching each drawer for an address book. In the bottom right-hand drawer, I noticed the corner of a little black book jutting out from beneath a stack of papers. I pulled it free of the pile. I sat there, staring at the little book. I didn’t need to open it to see if it contained phone numbers. I knew it did. And lots of other numbers too, each one reflecting the amount of a wager won, lost, or pending. The last time I’d seen that book was on a Saturday afternoon at Joe’s Gym where I’d sat on a locker roo
m bench and made my tallies for the week. Once that chore was completed, I’d locked my betbook in my locker and left the gym, never to return, due to the auto accident.

  It was Marty himself who’d told me the book had been stolen by the unidentified thugs who’d broken into my locker, after they’d beat the hell out of poor old Joe. A vein in my neck pulsed with a surplus of blood as I placed my betbook back where I’d found it—bottom drawer, papers on top, one corner exposed—in my brother’s desk. The brother I’d trusted with my life.

  I was forced to consider the possibility that my brother was working with the enemy. But if Marty was working with Cesar and Julio for some unknown reason, why hadn’t he turned the incriminating betbook over to them? And since Marty had obviously removed the book from my locker, why had someone—presumably Cesar’s men—gone to the trouble of breaking into that same locker? Of course, it might have been nothing more than a mix-up in communications. Perhaps they hadn’t known that their inside man, Marty Moran, had already snatched the book.

  Why in the world would a happily-married, law-abiding citizen like Marty be aligning himself with the likes of Cesar? That was a real baffler. Could Marty have been threatened? If so, he might be trying to walk the fine line between keeping Cesar informed and keeping me alive. But if my brother had been threatened, wouldn’t he have turned to his best friend, Detective Forest Gardner, to bring the police into the mix and provide any protection he needed?

  After giving serious consideration to the questions at hand, I was more confused than ever. I decided the wisest course of action would be to assemble my partners and launch our murder investigation, an inquiry which might involve shaking a rotten apple from the family tree.

  #

  At eight o’clock sharp, Marty left for the insurance agency where he worked. Susan was busy entertaining Sheila and Barbara Crenshaw in the kitchen. I disturbed her long enough to get Ace’s phone number. He agreed to meet me for lunch at a local restaurant to discuss an undisclosed, urgent proposition. The restaurant was within walking distance, so I legged it over there on my trick knee in less than two hours.

  Uncle Julio’s is one of the finer Mexican restaurants in Dallas. The name conjured up unpleasant associations. I halfway expected to spot Julio Hernandez in a nearby booth, watching me with his evil eyes over the top of a menu.

  I entered the restaurant. I saw a thin, black man with a pencil mustache sitting at the bar drinking a glass of water, a popular drink among the jobless set. I sidled up to Ace. We exchanged a hearty handshake while I apologized for being an hour late.

  A cute Hispanic girl led us to a booth stationed beneath a portrait of an Indian warrior. She returned a few minutes later with chips and hot sauce. I noticed that her long, braided hair hung below her waist. “She looks like Pocahontas,” I said.

  “I’d like to poke her hontas,” Ace said.

  I laughed. In spite of the late start, I felt we were starting to hit it off.

  I studied the menu. “Are you hungry?” I asked.

  “I had five glasses of water while I was waiting for you to show. I didn’t eat breakfast.”

  “I didn’t either. I don’t know why they don’t serve breakfast here. All they’d have to do is add onto the name of the restaurant.”

  “Add onto the name?”

  “If they served breakfast, they could call it Uncle Julio’s and Aunt Jemima’s.”

  Over beef fajitas, I went over the entire history of the Codger affair. Once Ace was in possession of all the necessary background information, I put my proposition to him. He bluntly informed me that he wanted no part of any detective work. His outright refusal to participate caught me off guard. I had assumed that he would consider it an honor to work with the man whom he had compared favorably to John Wayne. Call it an oversight, but I hadn’t considered the possibility that Ace wouldn’t leap at the chance to work for free alongside an amateur detective on a dangerous murder investigation in which he had no personal stake.

  Some people won’t take no for an answer. I should know—I’m one of those people. I wasn’t about to leave that restaurant without a full-fledged partner in tow. I dug deep into my bag of tricks. Half an hour later, I could practically feel my fingernails scraping the bottom of the bag. I had given it all I had. The man wouldn’t budge from his position, bandying about vague phrases such as “insane risk” and “fool’s game” as if they were legitimate objections.

  “Do you like movies, Ace?”

  “Yeah. Let’s catch the matinee and forget this nonsense.”

  “Do you remember an old John Wayne picture by the name of True Grit?”

  “Sure. A western. John Wayne and a homely girl teamed up with Glen Campbell to track down a killer.”

  “That’s the one. Now think about it as it pertains to my idea of finding the Codger’s killer. Imagine that I’m Rooster (John Wayne) and you’re the Texas Ranger (Glen Campbell). It could be just like it was in the movie. Remember the camaraderie and adventure they shared?

  “I remember that Glen Campbell got killed during the adventure.”

  “It was only a movie. It wouldn’t be like that.”

  “You just said it would.”

  “I’m saying it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

  “So would dying.”

  I sensed that Ace was ready to leave, so I ordered more chips from Pocahontas and came at him from another angle. During my phone call from Vegas, Ace had admitted that death scares the hell out of him. If I wanted him to be a partner, I needed to convince Ace that our investigation wouldn’t be life-threatening.

  “You know,” I said, “I already have a partner. She’s totally committed to the project.”

  “She?”

  “My ex-wife. The whole thing was her idea.”

  Ace took a moment to think. I hoped he was thinking that the risk had to be minimal if my ex was eager to participate. I told him about the journal I was keeping. If we were successful in bringing the killer to justice, my journal would attract publishers. Instead of being an unknown nobody, Ace would be a hero. I laid it on thick, and my new partner lapped up every last word.

  Chapter 8

  I slept fitfully that night. Wine always does that to me. I should have stopped drinking well before I uncorked that third bottle at Sheila’s insistence. I woke up under attack, fending off repeated blows from the fetal position. I had a notion that my plight was connected to events of the previous evening. I tried to piece the puzzle together as I dodged the unrelenting onslaught.

  My first clue was that instead of waking up on the laundry room dog mat, I was in Sheila’s bed. As she rained a barrage of blows upon me, I remembered how drunk I’d been, then how I’d sneaked into her room in the wee hours and crawled into her bed. The rest was a blur.

  Try protecting your head and rib cage simultaneously. It soon becomes a guessing game. Whenever I guessed wrong, she struck me in places I’d already been hit, compounding my injuries. After working me over like nobody’s business, Sheila collapsed from exhaustion, a hapless heap of hate.

  “Don’t cry,” I said, thinking that might be her next move.

  Her next move, which I’d seen in the movies but never in real life, was to wrap the sheets around her as she climbed out of bed. She stalked off to the bathroom, muttering to herself.

  #

  Occasionally you see a parrot wearing clothes. The exception to the rule. Most birds are nude, hence the expression “naked as a jaybird.” I don’t know who coined that expression—probably a hillbilly—but it’s been passed down through the generations and is commonly used to describe stark nakedness in inappropriate circumstances. Likewise, a person who has been folded up in the fetal position for several minutes might be said to be in the “spread eagle” position when he stretches out to relieve the cramping after his assailant has retreated into the bathroom, inconsiderately taking all the sheets with her. What I’m trying to tell you is that I was naked as a jaybird and spread like an
eagle when that stork-like creature, Crenshaw, flung the bedroom door open.

  I should have anticipated that upon hearing Sheila’s unnecessary shrieks and my necessary bloodcurdling screams, it was only a matter of time before everyone in the house rushed to the scene of the attack. Marty and Susan, interrupted from their Thanksgiving meal preparations, appeared behind Crenshaw—Marty wielding a carving knife, Susan a potato peeler. When they saw me sprawled out on the bed as God made me, all three froze in the doorway. They looked like a tribe of savages, with their bugged-out eyes and the most grotesque frowns painted on their faces.

  #

  It has been my experience that whenever these things happen, you can always count on a certain amount of fallout. After she’d conferred with Sheila, Susan sat me down for a long talk. I nodded in all the right places. Convinced that I had seen the error of my ways, my sister-in-law let me go. I passed Crenshaw in the hallway on my way out. She hissed at me.

  Time heals all wounds. By the time I took my seat at the table for our Thanksgiving dinner, I had forgiven Sheila for wounding me in the head, neck, shoulder blades, and ribs. “Forgive and forget,” that’s what I always say. Lots of people have heard me say that.

  Everyone seemed to be making an earnest effort to be cheerful and thankful. The dinner was proceeding nicely until Crenshaw came up behind my chair holding a bowl of asparagus. It occurred to me that she might dump the bowl on my head.

  She stabbed some asparagus with a giant fork and began to place the steaming vegetables onto my plate. A small act of kindness, but not one I was disposed to accept. I hadn’t forgotten how she had hissed at me four hours earlier.

  “I’ll select my own spears if you don’t mind,” I said as I wrestled the bowl from her.

  I made my selections and looked up to pass the bowl down the table when I noticed that everyone was staring at me. I sensed that I should try to smooth things over with the Stork. In my friendliest voice, I asked her if she had family back in New Orleans, and if so, how much longer they would be deprived of her company.