The Horse You Came in On

by Martha Grimes

  A much younger man sat on the near bed, a guitar against his chest. His hair was shoulder-length, very dark and almost burnished like mahogany; he had a thick mustache and rather humorous brown eyes. He nodded towards Melrose and thrummed his guitar, not really playing anything, just making soft noise.

  Melrose looked around, wondering what the drill was. He could not, he was sure, leave his cart unattended.

  “You can have either one. Just flop. Never mind what they tell you out there about not using the room till night. The name’s Jerry.” Here he raised two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute.

  “Uh. Mel. Glad to meet you.” Melrose moved over to Jerry’s bed and stretched out his hand. Having noticed the fellow had a pleasant, honeyed drawl, Melrose decided to engage him in conversation by saying, “You’re not from around here. You certainly don’t sound like Baltimore. Where are you from?”

  “Baton Rouge.” The black eyes regarded Melrose. “Yourself?”

  Melrose puffed out his cheeks. “I’m English, actually.” He sounded too stiff, he thought. “Just one of your Brits.”

  “No kidding.” The tone was flat, but the note of mild surprise was pure pretense. Jerry only just barely kept from smiling. “Coulda fooled me, Mel.”

  “Yes. Yeah. See, things were bad back there—”

  “With an accent like that I can believe it.”

  What? Melrose had always thought his accent quite passable. What did this Jerry mean? He was lying there with an arm draped over his guitar as if it were a baby, blowing smoke in Melrose’s face.

  “Newcastle, that’s where I’m from. North of England.” He doubted Jerry was all that well acquainted with the Geordie accent. “It’s fierce up there. Worst employment problem in England. They call the job centers ‘joke shops.’ ” Melrose was warming to his subject and was a little annoyed when Jerry interrupted.

  “Smoke?” Jerry reached the pack towards him, punching up a couple of Marlboros.

  “Ah, thank you.” Melrose’s own silver cigarette case was at that moment resting in the inside pocket of his cashmere coat, near the money clip. “Much obliged,” he added, as roughly as he could.

  “Sure.” Again, that smile that reached Jerry’s eyes and just missed twinkling.

  Well, for God’s sake, why had he expected to get away with this absurd charade? First he’d treated the heavyset woman at the counter as if she were the desk clerk at the Dorchester, and now here he was trying to get this person to believe he came from Tyne and Wear.

  Jerry asked him, “You an actor or something?”

  Melrose certainly hadn’t expected this. “Actor?”

  “Yeah. You know, studying your role. Pretending to be a tramp.”

  Melrose concentrated on the coal of his cigarette and turned over this possibility.

  Jerry went on: “What’s the flick? The Happy Homeless?” But he did not seem to take all of this in other than good spirits. He grinned.

  Melrose laughed. “You’re pretty damned smart. What gave me away?”

  “Oh, shee—it . . .” Jerry more or less lost the word in a spatter of saliva and wiped his hand across his mouth. “Tell the truth, Mel, I ain’t one bit clever. I am pretty dumb, or I wouldn’t be in here. No offense, but why didn’t they get a real English dude for the role? Michael Caine, like?”

  “Caine doesn’t have the right accent, to tell the truth. North London, East End, that’s Caine.”

  “Hey, that’s rich. He don’t, but you do?”

  “I look the part.”

  “So what’s the story? The movie story?”

  “Well . . . it’s about this English fellow who’s trying to solve the murder of a homeless man.”

  Jerry lay back on his pillow, throwing his arm across his forehead. “Cretinous, man. Truly cretinous. But that’s Hollywood.”

  Melrose gulped up a couple of laughs. “You got it.”

  “You can drop the accent, old buddy.”

  “I’d rather not. It’s good practice.”

  “So who’s doing it?”

  “Doing what?”

  “The flick, man—the picture.”

  Melrose rolled his cigarette in his mouth. “Barry Levinson.”

  Jerry scratched his chest and studied the ceiling. “Name sounds familiar.”

  “You’ve seen Diner, haven’t you? Mickey Rourke’s in it.”

  Jerry snapped his fingers. “Shit, yes. Great movie. So who’s in the one you’re doing?”

  Melrose picked at a loose black button on the old coat and said, “Annette Bening.”

  Jerry sat up, suddenly. “No shit! Lucky fucking you, right, man? She’s gorgeous.”

  This Annette Bening must be something. In a slightly smirking tone, Melrose said, “In La-La land, everybody’s gorgeous.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How long have you been here? In Baltimore, I mean.”

  Jerry shrugged, thrummed his guitar. “Six, seven months.”

  Melrose didn’t think it would be appropriate to ask him if he liked it. But Jerry went on:

  “I had me a nice little franchise in Baton Rouge. Muffler place. But things got bad, just like everywhere else. Couldn’t find work . . . the wife walked out.” He shrugged again. The old story.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Jerry didn’t comment. He was sitting on the side of the bed now, looking in the wire cart. “So where’d you get this shit? Is it a prop?”

  “It belonged to a homeless man named John-Joy.” He waited for perhaps some sign of recognition, but Jerry was frowning over one of the books he’d picked up. Melrose added, “He used to come here a lot, I understand.”

  “ ‘Used to’?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Jerry looked up from the book, studied the air for a moment. “John-Joy. Yeah, wait a minute—think I heard him around once or twice. Kind of batty.”

  “He had a friend here called Wes. Do you know any Wes?”

  Apparently, there was little enough distraction in the shelter that Jerry didn’t think about, or bother with, questioning Melrose on his interest in John-Joy. “Shit, everyone round here knows Wes. He’s kind of on the staff now. Come on; I know where he usually is.”

  • • •

  “Place used to be some tycoon’s home,” said Jerry as they walked down the hall, Melrose still pushing the creaking cart. One of its wheels was turned backwards, and he had to keep kicking at it.

  “Private home,” said Jerry. “Down here used to be a ballroom. Maybe turn of the century. Or maybe there’s an account of it in one of them books in the cart.” He laughed.

  The room at the end of the long hall was enormous, the size, as Jerry had said, of a ballroom. A few men lounged there, leaning against the wall or just standing, watching a tall black man out in the middle of the room. He was dribbling, or attempting to dribble, a much-used basketball over a floor too rough to take it.

  “Wes,” said Jerry, nodding toward the black man. “Wes used to be pro. Ten, fifteen years ago. Got into drugs—crack cocaine, that shit. I never got into that shit, let me tell you. Wes was a great player. He’s still got some of the old razzle-dazzle.”

  Yes, thought Melrose, he did. From the middle of the room he moved with the ball, back, forth, hands, floor, down to the “basket” at the end—an old wastepaper bin with the bottom cut out, fixed up on a board, itself fixed to the wall. Wes’s arm shot up, dunked it; the ball went through, catching momentarily on the ragged underedge, then falling back into the black man’s hands. Then back up what should have been the court he came, a couple of the men separating themselves from the shadows to come out and shadow-play with him, presenting shadow obstacles, moving to get the ball away. Wes just dancing around them. He seemed to be playing in a magnetic field, he and the ball, for the ball didn’t want to separate itself from his hands. The hand shot out, calling the ball back. Fingertips of a sorcerer.

  “Hey, Wes,” called Jerry. The black man feinted to the left out of the reach o
f the other two, bounced the ball over. He wasn’t sweating.

  “Jer,” he said. “Who’s your friend? Great hat, man.”

  “This is Mel. He wanted to talk to you.”

  “It’s about a friend,” said Melrose. “John-Joy.”

  Wes frowned. “Where the shit you from, man?”

  Jerry laughed. “The Coast, can’t you tell?”

  “Don’t sound like no fuckin’ coast I ever was at.”

  “I mean, he’s a fucking actor, Wes.”

  “Yeah. Sure. An’ I’m fuckin’ Kevin Costner.”

  “Fuck you, Wes.” Jerry seemed to dislike having his find called into question.

  “Fuck you, man. Why’s he want to know about fuckin’ John-Joy, he ain’t a cop?”

  “He knows fucking Annette Bening, man!”

  Melrose waited patiently for this single-word badinage to end so he could get to the point. They threw a few playful punches at one another and then stopped and both turned to Melrose. Well, what did he have to say?

  Melrose stood there, looking from one to the other. Finally, he said, “Look, I’m not a cop; I’m not an actor. Sorry,” he said to Jerry. “I don’t know Miss Bening. I was just playing the part you cast me in because you didn’t seem to believe I am who I am. I’m English, as I said.”

  “That accent’s real?”

  Melrose was not sure he cared for the astonished look, but he said, “Yes, real. The real thing. That story I told you, the cretinous one? Over here investigating a murder. Well, it’s true. I know if it were a movie, no one would believe it, but a friend of mine is with Scotland Yard. I’m here with him. This story”—Melrose put his hand on his heart—“is bloody fucking true. Really.”

  “Hee hee,” said Wes. “You look just like him, like John-Joy.” Wes clapped his own hand over his muscular chest and said, “I got the doin’s, I got the doin’s.”

  “What did he mean? What was he talking about?”

  They were leaving the ballroom, making their way down the hall back to Jerry’s room, Wes occasionally dancing backwards, dribbling the ball. He shrugged. “Seemed to think he’d be famous one of these days.”

  “Famous,” said Melrose. No longer having to conceal his goods and chattels, he reached inside the pocket of his buried coat and brought out his chased silver cigarette case, offered it around. “What claim to fame did this John-Joy have, then?”

  “Beats me. This his shit? Looks like it. He was always wheeling this shit around.” Wes reached in, extracted one of the books. “He just kept talking about this shit. ‘I got the doin’s, I got the doin’s!’ ”

  “But he never explained that?”

  “No, never did. Just a lot of stoned talk about his family.”

  “What was his name? His last name?”

  “Dunno. ‘Joiner’ was one of his names, though. That ‘John-Joy,’ that was a nickname.” Wes was inspecting Melrose’s calfskin gloves, turning them over and over. “Why the hell’s some cop from Scotland Yard interested in John-Joy?”

  “A CID superintendent. But John-Joy’s not the reason he’s here. He’s here on another case. It’s just that there’s reason to believe John-Joy’s murder is related to the other one.”

  “Which other one?”

  “A man in Philadelphia.”

  “Well, I never did hear him mention Philadelphia. What happened in Philly?”

  “Man named Philip Calvert was murdered. Shot. Up north. You might have read about it.”

  “Don’t remember nothing like that.” Wes had wrapped the Liberty scarf around his neck and was running his palms over it.

  “So why’s this dude got Scotland Yard on his case?” asked Jerry, who was doing the same thing with Melrose’s cashmere coat.

  “The fellow was the nephew of a woman who lived in London. Well, it’s a long story. Try that on, why don’t you?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Jerry swung the coat around, stuffed his arms in it.

  Wes tried on the gloves. “You saying someone had some motive to kill John-Joy? It ain’t just another—as the newspapers say—‘senseless waste of life’?”

  Melrose shrugged. “There might have been some motive. You both look excellent.” He checked his watch, both to see the time and to see if he still had it. “I appreciate your help, but I’ll have to be going.”

  “You want your shit back, I guess,” said Wes, heaving a sigh and sliding the scarf from around his neck.

  “Oh, that’s not my shit. It’s John-Joy’s. Keep it.”

  “All right, man.”

  They both high-fived Melrose.

  27

  The bird with the dusty plumage screeched as Melrose entered the shop on Aliceanna Street. “Eh-more . . . Eh-more,” it squawked, substantially diluting the effect of Poe’s poem by appearing, really, only to want another cracker.

  Quickly, Melrose divested himself of the awful overcoat and unravelled mittens to go in search of something more suitable. In amongst the vintage clothing over there, he thought, he had seen an assortment of men’s garments that would at least do to get him back into the Admiral Fell Inn without the management’s mistaking him for a vagrant.

  While he tried on and discarded a velvet smoking jacket, he studied the parrot for a moment, the bird and its environment, as it hobbled about in its cage. What if he were to install such a bird—one with more brilliant feathers, of course—in Ardry End? Could he teach it to say “Agatha! Agatha!” and drive his aunt crazy—or least away from his hearth? Had he been rash in not bringing her along to go to her relations in Wisconsin? Well, she’d never have stayed in America. Perhaps he could train a bird to scream out “Vampire! Vampire!” for Vivian. Or it might be nice to have one in the Jack and Hammer, quaking “Gin! Gin!” in Mrs. Withersby’s ear. Thus did Melrose move the bird around Long Piddleton before he noticed the girl looking in the plate glass window. He had seen her before, caught a glimpse of her yesterday, he thought. She was lumpish, heavy-featured, and was window-shopping, but determinedly staring towards the rear of the shop, as if she were looking for someone.

  He was roused from his concentration on this girl, who was probably thirteen or even fourteen, a few years older than Jip, and unpleasantly rough-looking, by a voice coming from the shadows, asking him what he wanted.

  This, he thought, must be the aunt, as he picked the darker shadow from the shadows in the corner. A woman dressed in black, or, rather, wound about in some black garment, mummy-wise, and with a black turban round her hair, sat smoking a cigarette. He saw, as he approached, that the only color apparent in her ensemble was the blood-red polish on her nails. Even the lipstick, slathered on with a generous hand, was a brackish dark red. The garment that enfolded her was a sort of huge shawl, wound round her shoulders again and again, fastening her upper arms to her sides. Beneath the black turban, her face was pale as a moonstone. A cheerless companion for a young girl. Again, she asked him what he wanted, a little as if he were intruding on her coffee break.

  “Oh, just looking for some old clothes,” he said, moving over among the racks that Jip favored so much.

  “What in particular?” she asked.

  Melrose sighed as he handled a long cloak sort of thing. He hated going into shops, and had his own clothes tailored precisely to avoid the inanity of shop assistants’ questions. Once you gave them a toehold by answering the first question, they would only ask another and yet another.

  But vacuum, he thought, picking up an opera hat, demanded to be filled. Melrose loathed empty talk, done merely to fill this vacuum. He supposed that made him insufferable, but he frankly didn’t give a damn, he thought, swinging the opera cape about his shoulders, if people thought him intolerant. Better that than engage in a lot of verbal bowing and scraping to appease the gods of meaningless intercourse. He observed himself in the pier glass, looking roguish as he tipped the tall hat onto his head. He had pulled on white gloves, plucked an ebony cane from the Chinese jar filled with tattered parasols and twirled it
a bit. He looked like a cross between Fred Astaire and Count Dracula. That brought Vivian to mind again, and her trip to Venice. He sighed as he removed top hat and cape.

  “That looked elegant,” prompted the Black Aunt from the background shadows.

  He unhitched a black jacket with shiny lapels from its hanger. What had Jury been talking about with regard to Vivian? He struggled into the jacket and wound a moth-eaten scarf around his neck. Would that do? His thoughts went back to Vivian’s fiancé of many years ago, the past proprietor of the Man with a Load of Mischief (which he should have bought himself to keep it from falling into strange hands—worse luck!). Christ, but hadn’t the woman any sense? With a black bowler on his head and the shiny black jacket too short in the sleeves, he wondered if he didn’t resemble Chaplin.

  “I don’t think that suits.”

  Oh, shut up, he thought, removing the jacket and picking something else from the rack. Well, naturally, they all knew Vivian didn’t want to marry Franco Giopinno, but just didn’t know how to disentangle herself gracefully—suddenly, he thought of the notebook again, and wondered about it. Surely Trueblood had rescued it from the bucket? He tapped a riding crop against his leg—apparently, he’d picked it up unaware.

  “Do you ride to hounds? There’s good riding around here.”

  He saw in the mirror he’d struggled into a pink coat without half noticing. He removed it and pulled a floor-length brown overcoat from the rack, his thoughts now straying to Polly Praed in Littlebourne. It had been years since he’d seen Polly; Polly of the amethyst eyes. And the cut-glass tongue, he reminded himself. Anyway, Polly had always been enamored of Richard Jury. At least, he thought so. He removed the coat and pulled another garment from the rack. Well, but weren’t most women? He frowned slightly, settling something atop his head, thinking that, actually, Ellen Taylor had never shown any weakness in the knees when Jury appeared. She seemed to like him, yes, but she didn’t ogle him. That was interesting, he mused, as he wound something round his neck, by this time so lost in thoughts of the women he knew he didn’t register his reflection. Why was he taking stock, anyway? It was all Jury’s doing; hadn’t Jury appeared in Long Piddleton looking awfully pleased with himself?