She lifted her face and looked into his. “Oh Mul,” she said softly. Obviously his condition was known to her. He stared down into her face, and they might have kissed, but he realized then that this was not the sexy teenager of his dreams but a middle-aged woman married to someone else. The tears had marred the carefully laid on cosmetics.
Gently but firmly he pushed her away, saying, “We better slow down.” He turned and looked wildly about the kitchen. “Where's that coffee?” His voice was absurdly high and raspy.
Bonny looked stricken for a second, then managed a forced “Whoo!” She raised a hand to her forehead, then wiped her eyes quickly. “I'm sorry . . . I, ah . . . I . . .” She took a deep breath. She smiled and said, “Yes, . . . coffee.” She began to rinse out their cups, and Mulheisen strolled back to the living room. He desperately wished for a cigar, but this was not a room in which a cigar ever had, or could, be smoked.
When she rejoined him with the coffee cups, she looked remarkably bright and fresh again. Mulheisen stood up to take the cup and said, “I want you to know that, I, uh, like you, Bonny, . . . I always have, . . . but under the circum—”
“Oh, shut up, Mul,” she said and seated herself across from him on the couch, smoothing her skirt. In a dry, frank manner she said, “I knew I never had a chance with you, Mul.”
“Bonny!” Mulheisen's long face twisted in a grimace of concern.
“Let's drop it, shall we?” she said. “We were talking about Gene and . . . his girlfriend.” She smiled wryly.
“Bonny, how did you come to marry a . . .”
“A dope like Gene? Well, he's not a dope, Mul. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking so, but he's really very bright. He just has that . . . that manner. Anyway, the answer is he asked me.”
Mulheisen sat silently for a moment, then said, “And no one else . . . ?”
“No one. Well, a few drunks from time to time.”
“But that's impossible, Bonny. Why, look at you—you're beautiful.”
“Do you think so? Still?” She gazed at him calmly. “Or is it that I look like a great piece of ass?” Immediately she smiled in her old apologetic fashion and said, “I'm sorry, Mul. You didn't deserve that. It's just . . . well, that's the way it usually is and always has been.”
Mulheisen was intensely uncomfortable. To his eyes nobody could be a more desirable woman than Bonny, but what did that mean? A piece of ass? And what happens when this desirable woman approaches the end of her career as a sex object? His face betrayed his dismay.
“How about you,” she said, “did you ever get married? No? I would have guessed that.” She arched a brow flirtatiously and said, “Not the marrying kind, is that it?”
Mulheisen shrugged. “I don't know. But you . . . how did you and Lande . . . ?”
“I met him in Las Vegas. I was working the gamblers in one of the casinos. I used to be in the chorus, but by this time I was bringing drinks to the big winners. I wasn't too old for that.” She smoothed her shirtfront and smiled.
Suddenly she jumped up and went to a cabinet in the corner of the room. She took out a cut glass decanter and a glass, into which she poured a robust measure of whiskey. She turned to Mulheisen and hoisted the glass with a mocking gesture. “It's a little early, but”—she glanced out at the dark rain—“it looks plenty late enough.” She drained the glass. “Whew! I needed that,” she said. “You?”
Mulheisen frowned, then said, “All right.”
He walked across the room to her. She poured for both of them. “Nastrovya,” she said. “That means ‘nasty day.’ “ She drank half of hers.
Mulheisen sniffed the glass. “What is it?”
“Whiskey, dope.”
“Yeah, but what kind?” He tasted it gingerly. It was some kind of blended rye.
“Who knows? It's something he buys.” She refilled her glass and carried it back to the coffee table. Now, sitting back, she threw her arms along the back of the couch on either side. The stress on the buttons made the shirt gape.
Mulheisen eyed her from across the room. The whiskey had a metallic, artificial tang. He had a fleeting memory of visiting a friend's house after school and sampling the father's forbidden whiskey. This was a moment much like that—perhaps it was the same whiskey.
“You must have known I had a crush on you, Mul,” she said after a spell of silence.
Mulheisen shook his head with a sad smile and set the whiskey aside. “No, and I'm not sure I believe that. Anyway, that's past. Now you're married to Lande.”
“Yes, and I'm faithful to him, although I shouldn't be, obviously.” She gazed at Mulheisen frankly. “I can imagine a situation in which I wouldn't be.”
Mulheisen refused this lure. “How long have you been married?” he asked.
“Six years . . . three months.”
“He was a gambler then?”
“He was gambling, anyway. I don't think he's really very interested in gambling. I carried some drinks to his table. He was winning. Management likes winning players to drink. But he kept winning, and I kept bringing the drinks, and finally he tossed in his cards and said something like, ‘Guys, I can't stand it! Dis broad is too pantageous!’ “ She laughed.
“Pantageous?” Mulheisen frowned. “Pantages?” He had a vision of the old Pantages Theatre on Mack Avenue, now long torn down, and a whiff of velvet ropes and carpets and popcorn caught him.
“I think so,” Bonny said, tilting her head as if catching the same long-lost odor. “Like the theater. It's one of Gene's words. I suppose he means fantastic or outrageous or glamorous, perhaps.” Then she shrugged. “Anyway, we went off to his room, so the boss was happy. It was fun. ‘Little David was small, but, oh my,’ “ she sang, a little shakily. “Not as small as he looks, actually. Afterward he wasn't like most of them. He wanted me to stay. I could see he really liked me. He was from Detroit, too. We talked about Detroit.”
She looked thoughtful, picking up her glass and downing the rest of the whiskey. “It's funny to talk about Detroit when you're someplace else.”
“Really? Why would you say that?”
“Well, you know,” she said, “you run into these people and you both are like ‘Isn't it great? We're not in Detroit!’ Even if you're in, maybe, Buffalo.”
“What's so great about Buffalo?” Mulheisen asked.
“Nothing,” Bonny said. She got up and went to the cabinet for another drink. “Refill?” she asked. “No? Well, it's just that you're always happy that you're not in Detroit, but still there's some kind of feeling, you know . . . some kind of shared emotion. You've both survived Detroit.” She drifted back to the couch.
Mulheisen watched her curiously. She seemed to flicker in and out of character, humorous and wry one moment, then somber and apologetic. She was getting tipsy.
“What about this computer business?” he asked.
“What about it? He's a whiz.”
“Well, what is it? Does he sell them?”
“He sells them,” she said, “but it's more than that. He sets up programs for people. He does pretty well at it.”
“Where is his office? What kind of place is it?”
“It's in a little whatayacallum—a terrace? A bunch of offices in a motel kind of building, around a parking lot? There's a dentist and a record shop and a real estate office . . . that kind of thing. It's over on Nine Mile. He's got a secretary and a couple of guys who sell and schlepp things around.”
“This secretary,” Mulheisen said, “could she be . . .”
“No.” Bonny laughed. “Alicia is not the woman. This girl is not having an affair with anyone, Mul. She's the sweetest thing imaginable, and really, I suspect she actually runs the business. But she's definitely not Gene's type, and anyway, it's not her voice on the phone.”
“If this Alicia runs the business, what does Lande do?”
“Well, I mean she runs the day-to-day business. Gene does all the important stuff. But other than that he golfs. Don't be so
surprised. He's a terrific golfer. He's nuts about it. I bet that's where he is now. At least, I hope so.”
Mulheisen glanced out the window. The rain still fell. “In this?” he said. “I didn't know any courses were open yet.”
“He has his own course,” Bonny said. “It's out your way. Briar Ridge?”
“You mean he owns a course?” Mulheisen was startled. It had never occurred to him that an individual could own a golf course. He couldn't remember any Briar Ridge. “Is it new?”
“Pretty new,” Bonny said. “I've only been out there a couple times. I tried to golf but it didn't work. Did you ever try it? It's crazy. I mean, the little ball sits there, perched on that little wooden thing . . . You'd think you could knock it over the edge of the world . . . Gene does! But they give you these clumsy, odd-shaped clubs to hit with . . . It's crazy. Gene can hit it out of sight, though.” She was quite clearly proud of his ability.
“Who does he play with?”
“You mean regularly? I don't know, there are a couple of guys. He'll play with anybody. And when he isn't playing, he's working on the course . . . unless he's got a job that Alicia and the guys can't handle. He plays with people he meets out there. He tells me all about it. To hear Gene tell it, none of them knows the first thing about golf. And they cheat!” She smiled sadly then and said, “You may have noticed . . . Gene doesn't have a . . . well, he doesn't really get along with most people very well. He's kind of abrasive, I guess.”
Mulheisen didn't rise to this either. “What about his friends?” he asked.
“That's just it,” Bonny said; “he doesn't really have any friends. Oh, he talks about this guy—'my buddy,’ he says—or another guy—'my pal'—but it's not real. They never come over to dinner . . . They don't call. She calls.” She grimaced, then went on, “Maybe he's the kind of guy who doesn't need a lot of friends. But I think he'd like one friend. A man should have friends, shouldn't he?”
“Most people have friends,” Mulheisen agreed. He glanced out the window and tried to imagine a lonely Lande out in the cold rain, lugging his bag of clubs through the squishing grass. He suppressed a shudder.
“He likes you,” Bonny said.
“Me!”
“Oh, yes. He admires you. He wants to help you. Also, I think he knows about us.”
“Bonny, there's nothing to know about us,” Mulheisen said.
“He's heard me talk about you. He knows we were . . . well, friends, in high school. And then after you got him out of that awful jail and then we had dinner . . . Mul, it would be wonderful if you could just be . . .” She faltered when she saw Mulheisen's cold expression.
“Let's talk about the calls,” Mulheisen said.
Bonny launched into a long tale about the woman. She called at least once a week, usually more often. It had been going on for at least six months. She never even pretended to leave any kind of business message. If Bonny said that Gene wasn't in, she would hang up and then call back every hour until Gene showed up. Then there would be a cryptic conversation—“Yes, no, when?”—and so forth. Then Gene would go out. Not every time, but often. Sometimes he just hung up and made no further comment. If Bonny asked who it was, he would say, “Nobody.” They would go on with their evening as if nothing had happened.
Mulheisen wanted to ask if Bonny didn't ever get angry and demand an explanation, but he knew she wouldn't. Not the complaisant, wounded-looking Bonny. This Bonny now, sitting across the room from him with her frank, nearly cynical manner was something new. He wondered if she was this way only with him. He didn't think so—something seemed to have happened to her.
Sometimes lately Gene would be gone all night, she told him. When that happened, he usually came home for breakfast, or it might be in the very early hours, and he would slip quietly into bed with her. She would pretend to be asleep even though she usually laid awake. At any rate, he never said where he'd been, although in the morning he might apologize for not getting home. He acted as if he'd been out on some business matter, though what kind of business kept a man out all night? The computer business wasn't conducted at night.
Mulheisen felt as gloomy as the day. Lande was such a crude, insensitive kind of guy, he thought, he probably didn't even realize that Bonny was in agony.
“He's really a nice man,” she said.
Mulheisen was silent.
“I know most people find him . . . difficult,” she said. “But except for this . . . this thing with the woman, he's very kind. Really. I have nothing to complain about—he's a good provider.” She gestured around her at the nice apartment. “Mostly, it's like we're on a honeymoon. We go out to the show, to dinner . . . Sometimes we take little trips.”
“Where to?” Mulheisen asked.
“We went to the Cayman Islands over Christmas. We stayed at a terrific hotel, right on the beach. Of course, part of it was business.”
“Business? In the Cayman Islands?”
“Well, we went out to one of the other islands, to look at a site for a golf course. Gene has been thinking about building another course. He loves golf so much and he's gotten to know so much about it from developing Briar Ridge he's thinking of becoming a golf architect. He spent a lot of time talking to bankers down there.”
Mulheisen felt unutterably sad. Lande a golf architect? How could a woman be so deluded? he wondered. Even grateful to such a coarse little thug? Was it just that he'd taken her out of the marketplace, as it were? And how could she tolerate his blatant infidelity, his carelessness toward her? What did she get from it? Was Lande some kind of great lover? A piece of ass? He felt he had to help her.
“What can I do, Bonny?”
“Oh, I don't know, Mul. It's just great talking to you, being able to tell somebody about it. There's probably nothing you can do. I just thought . . . since you're a detective . . . maybe you could just find out for me who this woman is, this Germaine. That's all.”
Mulheisen felt helpless. “What good would it do?” he asked. “I mean . . . if he wants to stop, he'll stop. What's the use? Do you know anything else about her? Where did you meet her?”
“It was at a party. Gene had these partners in the golf course—he bought them out. So to celebrate he threw a big party out at the club—all catered. It was terrific! She was there. I don't know who she was supposed to be with. She was flirting with Gene. Somebody said she was a singer. She's tall, dark haired, about thirty . . . kind of stacked. I could tell he liked her.”
“Can you remember any names? Who was at the party?”
“Well, there were a lot of people, but I'd never met most of them. The partners . . . there was . . . let's see . . . I think one guy's name was Etcheverry, something like that. And a guy named, uh, Frank . . . Frank . . . Oh, I can't remember.”
“Can you call anybody?” Mulheisen asked. “I mean, I'd like to help you, but . . . Really, Bonny, it's not the kind of thing I do. I can't investigate people for no reason.”
Bonny got up and poured another drink. She sat down again and drank a little of it. Then she said, “I think somebody said she was a friend of Sid Sedlacek's.”
Mulheisen digested this in silence for a good long while, then said, “And her name is Germaine?”
Bonny nodded.
Mulheisen watched her. At last he rose, saying, “Find out who else was at the party. Call me.”
She followed him to the door and stood by—expectantly, he felt-while he pulled on his raincoat. She handed him his hat and raised her face. He managed a more-or-less casual embrace with a kiss on the cheek.
It was still raining, perhaps harder now.
Nine
At approximately the same moment but half a continent apart, Mulheisen and Joe Service drove to similar establishments. In Detroit, as Bonny had described it, the terrace on Nine Mile Road resembled nothing so much as a motel—a U-shaped single-story brick building that provided space for several shops and parking within the ample arms of the U. The Ninemile Plaza was practically ident
ical with the La Cienega Center in Orange County, but while it was pouring rain in Detroit, in California the sky was milky white with a high overcast, and the air temperature was eighty-three degrees Fahrenheit, thirty degrees Celsius, according to the rotating sign by the Bank of America branch. There were other differences as well: in Detroit, a dentist's office, a vacuum cleaner sales office, and the Polski Pierogi sausage shop; in Orange County, a pet shop, the Golden Samurai martial-arts academy, and a lawn- and tree-grooming service. Each complex boasted a computer shop (Doc Byte in Detroit, Computerama in California), a video-rental shop, and a hobby shop—in Detroit the hobby shop featured model trains; California's counterpart was a toss-up between supplies for amateur painters and beer- and wine-making equipment.
Mulheisen parked his old Checker directly in front of Lande's Doc Byte shop, which was sandwiched between the hobby shop and the dentist. He wondered if the dentist was annoyed by Lande's sign—perhaps not. It must have made many people smile, as Mulheisen did now, and remember. A sucker for model trains, he couldn't resist going into the hobby shop first. Although he didn't indulge in the hobby, a friend of his had an elaborate layout of Grand Trunk trains that took up most of the friend's basement. What Mulheisen particularly liked was trolley cars. It had something to do with riding the old interurban that ran to Mount Clemens when he was a child. He was delighted to find an HO-gauge model that reminded him greatly of the Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Short Line cars he had seen many, many years ago. It was made in Germany and cost fifty dollars. He bought it, thinking he might convince his buddy, Fred, to add it to the layout. To that end he also bought the requisite track and some streetlights.
It was still pouring, an absolutely miserable day, though not to Mulheisen; he found it quite agreeable somehow. He tossed the bag of models into the car and ducked into Doc Byte. There was a display room with several computers and printers set up on modern-looking desks. One of the terminals was displaying a constantly changing picture—an experimental automobile in various stages of design and from different angles and perspectives, all in striking colors and accompanied by explanatory captions. There was nobody in the shop. Mulheisen looked about until he noticed a window at the back and what appeared to be the office. He peered in. An extremely heavy young woman, twenty-five or so, was industriously scanning listings on a computer terminal. A telephone was clamped between her cheek and her shoulder, and she was talking all the while. She glanced up at Mulheisen and beckoned him toward a door off a small corridor.
Hit on the House Page 9