“Yes, sir, that’s right,” she said. “Do you have the number?”
I read the Dresden listing from the book; she agreed that was it. She finally remembered to ask me who I was.
“This here’s Wally, dumpling. Gotta go now. Bye.”
I hung up as she was saying, “Sir, Wally wh—?”
Cowboy finished his beer and shook his head. “Why do you fart around calling secretaries sugar baby and dumpling and all that crap?”
“To distract them,” I said. “They get all steamed about what a sexist bastard I am, and they don’t think about all the information they’re handing out. Sometimes, anyway. This woman wasn’t hiding anything, though; she’s just overloaded. One partner dead and the other one missing; she’s probably getting hassled by cops, customers, employees, everybody.”
“Real nice of you to join in,” Cowboy said.
“Don’t rub it in. You want to hit the street?”
Cowboy shrugged. “Sure thing. We gonna hit his office or his house?”
“Beats me. It depends on what sort of guy he is. I assume we’re looking for a phone number or a note; something like that. How about we start with his house, then try his office if we have to? Maybe he kept a desk diary.”
Cowboy stood up and stretched. “Let’s do it.”
“I’ll call his house first. See if anyone’s home.”
“Bring your gadget,” he said. “Phone from the car. If you’re gonna be a yuppie, do it right.”
“True. Shall we stop and buy a Cuisinart, too?”
Carl Dresden lived in an older neighborhood, in a thirty-year old frame house that looked comfortable but not quite uptown enough for the owner of a convenience store chain.
Not quite uptown doesn’t mean Dresden’s house didn’t have all the suburban touches, though. It had a big lawn with a sprinkler system, and it had a picket fence and a separate garage. And it had a delivery truck parked across the street. And two men sitting in an unmarked Dodge in front of the next door neighbor’s. And on the other side of the Dresden house, a “yardman” followed a lawn mower back and forth over the same strip of already mowed grass.
“Well, looky there,” Cowboy said. “Everybody wants to find this Dresden dude, don’t they?”
“Let’s try his office.”
It was dark when we got there. Mini-Maxi Food Barn was one of three firms in a small single-story office building in Richardson. There were company signs out front, including a miniature of the rotating barn I’d seen the night Max Krandorff died.
I lurched into the empty parking area, popping the clutch and gas to make the Mustang hop and buck. It stalled conveniently in the middle of the lot. I got out and poked around under the hood. Cowboy stayed in the car.
The building had halfhearted lights along the front, probably to discourage burglars. The Mini-Maxi office was dark; the other firms had night-lights burning inside.
“Car in the drive-in across the street is watching this place in its mirrors,” Cowboy said.
“Come on,” I said. “You can’t tell that from here.” I wiggled a wire like I knew what the wire did.
“The passenger lit a cigarette. I saw it in both mirrors. If I can see him, he can see me. Simple.”
“Very good.” I’d have to remember that one. “And that’s another department Dodge on the cross street, or I’ll eat your hat, snakeskin band and all.”
I stepped back, dusted my hands, and dropped the hood. The motor started with no more complaint than usual. We left.
“Well now, boss-man,” Cowboy said, “it looks like they done put a crimp in our style.”
“Not really,” I said. “All we have to do is chase the cops away from Dresden’s house. Then we can burgle it.”
“Uh-huh. And how you gonna do that?”
“Simple, Igor,” I said in the Transylvanian accent that bugs Hilda so much. “Watch this one.”
Chapter 21
“This high tech gizmo is going to be more help than I thought,” I told Cowboy as we pulled away from a McDonald’s drive-in window five minutes from Dresden’s house. He held the bags of food on his lap and watch me fumble with Ed’s fancy phone.
“Watch where you’re going, boss-man,” he muttered. He put the bags on the floor and peered out the Mustang’s windshield suspiciously. I didn’t know what bothered him; there wasn’t all that much traffic.
I juggled the steering wheel and the phone handset and a scrap of paper with Dresden’s home phone number on it, and simultaneously swerved to miss an ancient Plymouth with a death wish. Maybe there was more to this car phone business than I’d realized. Driving while phoning was harder than it looked.
Cowboy shifted in his seat and said, “How ’bout I drive if you’re gonna play with that thing?”
“It’s all right,” I said. “Just punch in this number, will you?”
Cowboy took the handset and paper, tapped briefly, and handed back the handset.
“Will you at least stop while you’re talking?”
“Keep it down,” I said. “It’s ringing.”
Cowboy shifted in his seat again.
A woman answered Dresden’s phone by repeating the number.
“Good evening,” I said, “this is Lloyd Hopgood at the airport message center. Is that Mrs Dresden?”
“Stoplight coming up,” Cowboy hissed at me. He didn’t have to; I’d already seen it. Really.
“Yes, this is Mrs Dresden,” the woman on the phone said. Her speech was slow and precise. Six margaritas would do that. So would old-school formality; I couldn’t tell yet which was affecting her.
I said, “Message from Mr Dresden. It says, ‘Arriving …’ ah, where did that go …?”
I tried to look at my watch, drive, and hold the phone all at once. Cowboy noticed, made a gargling noise, and shoved his wrist in front of my face. His watch said eight thirty-five.
“Right, Mrs Dresden, here we are. ‘Arriving nine-thirty. Meet me at message center.’ Signed: Carl.”
“This is most unusual, Mr Hopgood,” she said. “Carl always phones me himself.” Her tone of voice said she was old-school formal, not drunk, and the tiniest bit miffed at that naughty Carl.
“Yes, ma’am. I wouldn’t know about that. This message asks you to pick him up.”
“Which airline is he on?”
“I don’t know, Mrs Dresden. All the airlines send messages through—”
A semitrailer thundered around the Mustang and cut back into my lane. I realized I had slowed to about twenty and mashed the gas pedal. Cowboy fidgeted with his hat and said, “Goddamn.” Then he said it again.
“What on earth was that noise, Mr Hopgood?” said Mrs Dresden.
“Landing aircraft,” I said. Maybe Cowboy was right after all. I swerved into a loading zone and stopped. The driver of a station wagon slowed and yelled several words Mrs Dresden probably didn’t know. I said into the phone, “Do you want me to repeat the message?”
“No, Mr Hopgood. I have it. Nine-thirty at the message center. Where exactly is the message center?”
“Between Delta and American, ma’am. You can’t miss it.” I wondered if there really was anything between Delta and American. “And we’re at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, ma’am, not Love Field.”
The round-trip to D-FW would take her at least an hour, plus however long she searched for Lloyd Hopgood and the “message center.” Plenty of time.
“The big airport,” she said dutifully. “I understand. Thank you, Mr Hopgood.”
She hung up gently; I clipped the handset back into place and turned to Cowboy. “She bought it.”
“Let’s go see if the cops buy it, too,” he said. “But slowly, Mr Hopgood. Slo-o-o-wly.”
I pulled out into traffic again. “I don’t know about you, Cowboy. You must be getting old.”
“I hope to,” he said. “I surely do hope to do that.”
I parked a block and a half from the Dresden house and found my old binoculars in the pile of
junk on the backseat. We ate Quarter-pounders with cheese and drank coffee and waited to see what happened when Mrs Dresden left. If she left.
“You reckon this Noonebury dude has her phone tapped?” Cowboy said.
“Probably. I would.”
“Hah! Man who’d drive and play Harvey Hopalong all at the same time would do most anything.”
At eight fifty-eight a large dark car gingerly backed out of the Dresden driveway. It came our way, moving slowly in and out of the streetlights’ glow. It was a four-year-old Chrysler. The woman driving it sat rigidly upright and craned her neck to see over the wheel.
I said, “Wal, dagnab it, that there is Miz Carl Dresden, as Ah live and breathe.”
Cowboy groaned. “You sound ’bout as country as Dan Quayle,” he said. “What’re the cops doing?”
With the binoculars and good street lighting, I could see well enough to do a full play-by-play. “The lawn mower’s gone,” I said. “Even Noonebury’s Scotsmen don’t mow lawns at night. Although I suppose it would save on sunli—Here we go! Two of ’em getting out of the Dodge now. Uh-huh, and from the truck we have … one, ah, two more. Quick huddle in the middle of the street, and bingo! Everybody into the Dodge; way to go, guys … and they’re off!”
We ducked down as the Dodge rushed past, then sat up grinning. “Would you care to join me in a small housebreaking?” I said.
“Might as well,” Cowboy said. “This coffee’s cold now.”
Chapter 22
We left the Mustang parked where it was and walked down the street toward Dresden’s house. Without discussing it, we stepped off the curb together and went first to the fake delivery truck.
“Rafferty, you’re almost as suspicious as me sometimes,” Cowboy said.
“My cynicism is a rock,” I said, “a stable guidepost in a changing, troubled world.”
“Damn,” Cowboy said. “Now I’m sorry I mentioned it.”
The truck had a catering-company name painted in fat cartoon-style letters. Dozens of polka dots in various sizes and colors surrounded the lettering; At least three of the small black polka dots weren’t painted on; they were holes in the sheet metal, with sliding or lifting covers on the inside.
Cowboy said, “Probably close ’em up so folks don’t spray-paint their pretty camera lenses.”
“Spray paint is good,” I said. “I had only thought of smeary fingerprints or masking tape.”
There were other disguised camera ports in the rear doors of the truck and on the opposite side. None of the ports were open. I tapped one of the ports and said, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“Got a better way than that,” Cowboy whispered. He found the truck’s gas cap and fumbled it off noisily. Then he talked to the side of the truck and dared me to drop a lighted match into the gas tank.
There was no reaction from inside the truck. The intrepid Scotsmen had abandoned their fancy truck, apparently without a second thought.
“This ain’t even tough enough to be interesting,” Cowboy said. “House’ll prob’ly be unlocked and all.”
“Come on,” I said. “She won’t be gone very long.” It was nine-eleven.
The house was not unlocked, though it might as well have been. The Dresdens had thoughtfully installed a window air-conditioner in the ground floor master bedroom. Cowboy lifted the window a few more inches, I lifted out the air-conditioner, and Cowboy crawled in through the hole. We reinstalled the air-conditioner, Cowboy unlocked the back door for me, and we were both inside by nine-seventeen.
No wonder burglary is a growth industry.
We did a quick walk-through first, to get the feel of the place. There was a promising-looking desk in the master bedroom. From a framed picture on the desk, Carl Dresden and, presumably, Mrs Dresden smiled out at the room. She was a small, birdlike woman with perfect hair and makeup. She looked exactly like she sounded.
“That Dresden?” Cowboy said.
“That’s him.”
“Wimpy-lookin dude, ain’t he?”
The rest of the house was tidy, teetering on the brink of sterile, and not quite as large as it appeared from the outside. Upstairs we found two more bedrooms, a bath, and what appeared to be a general-purpose work-and-storage room. Large cardboard boxes were stacked neatly in one comer. They had labels like Amy’s Clothes and Winter Bedding. A built-in counter ran the full length of the wall opposite the door. There was a sewing project under way on one end of the counter; a notepad and two shoe boxes on the other end.
“Might as well start here,” Cowboy said.
“Go ahead. Let’s say ten-twenty as bug-out time. She can’t be back before then.”
I left him there and went downstairs to rifle the desk in the master bedroom.
It turned out to be Mrs Dresden’s desk. She kept meticulous records of clothing purchases, household appliance warranties, and the fluctuating fortunes of a hundred shares of General Motors. Sadly she didn’t keep files on hired killers. Undaunted, I pressed on.
The adjoining bathroom didn’t tell me much. She dyed her hair. He shaved with a blade razor. Big deal.
In their walk-in closet, the layout was him left, her right, with a wicker laundry hamper in the middle.
Dresden had a few suits, but the most common items were slacks and plain sports shirts. His clothes were decent quality, middle of the range, neat but unimaginative, heavy on grays and blues.
Mrs Dresden dressed a touch better; she had a few dresses I thought might be expensive, and she was a proponent of the Imelda Marcos theory of footwear acquisition. Except for her shoes, though, neither of them was a clotheshorse. Maybe that was useful information, but I couldn’t see how.
I guessed which dresser was Carl’s on the first try. Not much there—underwear, socks, golf sweaters, the usual. I checked the bedside tables. A floral handkerchief, sleep mask, and The Clan of the Cave Bear on her side, half a box of man-size Kleenex on his. I don’t know what I expected; Dresden wasn’t the type to have a bedroom gun. Or any gun, for that matter.
It was ten-fifteen, almost time to go. I’d struck out in the bedroom, so I used the remaining minutes to prowl the ground floor.
The Dresdens had one of those combined seat-and-telephone-table things in the hall near the foot of the stairs. The drawer had a pop-up index gadget inside. The entries were written in a man’s hand, but many of them had been scratched through or amended with notes like “until 12/86.” The gadget was dusty, and the spring was hesitant; it didn’t feel like it was still in active use. I put it back in the bottom of the drawer.
There was also a booklet with a floral-design cover in the drawer. It was full of telephone numbers, too, but they were in a feminine handwriting. I put that one back, too, and checked my watch. Ten twenty-one.
I was about to whistle for Cowboy when he came down the stairs. “Find anything?” I said.
“Not so’s you’d notice it. The bedrooms up there are guest rooms. Used to be kids’ rooms, looks like. The only good stuff was in the shoe boxes in that den or whatever you call it. Paper. Lots of arithmetic. He’d been working out payment plans, budgets, things like that.”
“Personal or company?” I said. “And let’s roll, it’s time to get out.”
Cowboy sauntered toward the back of the house. “Well, I say company, but I can’t be sure. It’s just doodling, you understand. He used initials and rounded off a lot. So, twenty-five plus thirty-seven might mean dollars or hundreds or thousands.”
“Or cartons of cornflakes.”
“Yeah, that, too.”
In the kitchen I opened the back door and set the spring latch to lock behind us. We stepped outside; Cowboy pulled the door closed and checked that it had locked.
Ninety seconds later, we were getting into the Mustang when Mrs Dresden’s Chrysler oozed sedately down the street. I resisted the impulse to wave to her.
The unmarked Dodge was close behind her, too close for a discreet tail. It stopped four doors short of h
er house, probably to give her time to put the car away and get inside.
I coaxed the Mustang into something approaching automotive life and we pulled away from the curb. As we passed the idling Dodge, four faces swiveled after us.
I resisted the urge to wave to them, too, but it was much more difficult.
Then the portable phone rang.
Chapter 23
It was him.
“Where the hell were you?” he said. “I’ve been trying to call you for an hour.”
“An emergency came up,” I said. “I ran out of beer. Just walked in the door, as a matter of fact. What can I do for you?” I wheeled the Mustang around the corner one-handed and let it coast to a stop. I didn’t want to screw up or miss anything. At the same time it annoyed me that I didn’t feel confident about driving and telephoning at the same time.
“I told you to wait for my call,” he said. He sounded peeved.
I looked out the car window into someone’s dark lawn and hoped they didn’t have a loud watchdog. “I’m here now, aren’t I? You want this money or not?”
“Yeah, but …”
“You’re a hard guy to deal with,” I said. “Hey, I don’t even know what to call you. What’s your name?”
A pause; then, “You can call me Dave.”
“Okay, Dave, what happens now?”
“You give me my goddamned money,” he said.
“Suits me. Where? When?”
A longer pause this time. When he finally spoke, there was a sly undertone. “The whole twenty grand?”
“Hang on. Not twenty. There’s only fifteen thousand. That’s all he gave me, Dan. You did say your name was Dan, didn’t you?”
“Uh, no. It’s … Dave.”
“Oh, right. Dave. Got it now. Anyway—”
“You’re a smart-ass, Rafferty. I don’t like that.”
“Hey, I’m scared, that’s all. I mean, I was sound asleep, and that firebomb came in … hell, I could have been killed, burned up all alone in my bed. You can have the money, Don. Just stop trying to burn me.”
Cannon's Mouth_A Rafferty P.I. Mystery Page 9