Once a Mutt (Trace 5)

by Warren Murphy

  “I’ll wait,” Trace said. As the man walked away, Trace pressed the button again. Trace couldn’t hear it, but obviously the man could because he wheeled around and glared at Trace.

  “Sorry. Just fooling around,” Trace said.

  “You fool around too much.”

  “Well, paaaaardon me,” Trace said.

  While he waited for the man to return, he wondered how he was going to come up with ten thousand dollars. He had no illusions about earning anything except his expenses on this case and Chico seemed intransigent. He had no savings left and there wasn’t much he could do to cut down on his life-style and make it less costly. He looked at the cigarette in his hand. Maybe he could switch to generic cigarettes, the kind they sold in supermarkets in those black-and-white packages that made them look like poor people’s beans.

  He discarded that idea right away. He had smoked a generic cigarette once. It was a moment he would never forget because it had answered a very large question. Trace had been thinking that there should be a way to recycle horse manure from racetracks. Supposedly it was good fertilizer, so why didn’t every racetrack in America have a manure-processing plant built right next door to it? He had thought it was only shortsightedness, and then he had smoked the generic cigarette and it was suddenly obvious that there was no need for manure-processing plants because racetracks had found something else to do with horse manure. They sold it to companies to make generic cigarettes.

  Another brilliant idea shot to hell. He looked at his cigarette and threw it away. Sure, another brilliant idea. Just like the brilliant idea that had him buying 20 percent of a New Jersey restaurant and putting up every penny he had in the world, and now the goddamn ocean was conspiring to bankrupt him by ruining the building. An act of God. Sometimes he thought God was just lying in wait, ready to ambush Trace on the road to happiness and prosperity.

  He looked up and saw the big man coming toward the gate and again turned on the miniature tape recorder under his shirt.

  “She said she’ll see you,” the man said. His tone of voice left no doubt about what he thought of that decision.

  “Good. I thought she might.”

  He waited at the gate. The man waited on the other side. Finally, Trace said, “Well? Open the damn gate.”

  “She won’t see you now,” the man said.

  “No? When?”

  “This afternoon. She wants time to get herself together, I think she said.”

  “You mentioned the two million dollars?” Trace asked.

  “I mentioned it.”

  “Usually that gets me right in.”

  “I guess two million dollars doesn’t mean as much to her as most. Go away. Come back at two o’clock.”

  “All right,” Trace said. He started to turn from the gate, then asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Ferd. Why?”

  “I wanted to be sure to ask for you when I come back.” Trace said.

  Trace drove around Westport looking for what appeared to be an honest saloon, then gave up the quest and went into a cocktail lounge in the center of town. He ordered Finlandia vodka on the rocks and tried to see past all the potted palms out through the main window at the business street in front. He had already decided he hated Westport. It was the kind of town where everything was neat and clean and polite and antiseptic and he thought he had seen more honest excitement, goodwill, and camaraderie in the eyes of a Las Vegas pit boss. There was an old map on the lounge’s wall and Trace read off the Indian place-names. Indians, he thought. What the hell kind of Indians would have settled in Connecticut? Nondrinking Indians, no doubt. Indians had sold most of America for booze and beads. What had they gotten for Westport? Probably a divine quiche recipe. The Quiche Tribe.

  He finished his drink quickly and ordered another. For months now, he realized, he had not really been drinking. Seventy-five percent of the time, for the past six months, he had been drinking wine. Seventy-five percent. And for what? To try to please a Japanese-Sicilian half-breed who was too mean and nasty and narrow-minded to lend him money, even to make herself rich.

  And he had done it all, cutting the drinking, smoking less, even exercising every so often when he remembered, just to please Chico. Well, she didn’t deserve it, and that was that.

  He took a long vicious sip of his drink and looked at his watch. It wasn’t two o’clock yet, not by a long sight. He had plenty of time left. He hated Westport. There weren’t any real bars and the cocktail lounges didn’t sell sausages or peanuts. For snacks, they didn’t put out little cheesy fish-shaped crackers. Instead, they put out cereal bowls of crap made from whole grains. Sitting at a bar in Westport made him feel as if he should order a quart of milk so he could pour it over the snackies for breakfast.

  He ordered another drink. And then he got change and bought cigarettes from the machine. Strong cigarettes. That’d fix her. He would show her. And he would never exercise again. He had done forty years quite nicely, thank you, without trying to “improve” himself to please her, and he was done being pussy-whipped. No more. Never again.

  He thought about this through three more drinks and then, since it was two-thirty, decided it was time to return for his two-o’clock appointment with Mrs. Paddington. He felt good. He might even eat something later if he kept feeling this good.

  Ferd was waiting for him when he parked near the Paddington gate.

  “You’re late,” he said, sipping air.

  “But I was early this morning,” Trace said. “This makes up for it.”

  Ferd said nothing. He unlocked the gate, let Trace inside, then locked it again behind them. Wordlessly, he led Trace up the long paved driveway to the big sprawling house. Trace saw no animals and hoped that it was dogs’ day off. How nice of Mrs. Paddington to arrange it on the day Trace visited. She might be a smart woman. Maybe she’d like to invest in a restaurant on the Jersey shore.

  Trace sang as he walked:

  Oh, the sons of the prophet

  are hardy and bold and

  quite unaccustomed to fear.

  But the bravest by far

  in the land of the shah,

  was Abdul the Bulbul Emir.

  The rest of it was about Ivan Skavinsky Skavar, but he couldn’t remember the lyrics. Skavar rhymed with shah and czar and far, but Trace couldn’t get the words together.

  “Say, Ferd. Do you have a rhyming dictionary in the house?”

  Ferd did not answer. Trace guessed that he didn’t have a rhyming dictionary. Ivan Skavinsky Skavar would have to await another day.

  As he got up the driveway, Trace could see that the red car in the driveway was a Saab station wagon. The gray one was the obligatory-for-Westport gray Mercedes sedan. This one had smoked windows in the rear.

  Trace thought it was a particularly stupid idea to paint cars to look like battleships. Battleships were supposed to be gray so the enemy couldn’t see them in the fog or mist, but what was the point of that with a car? If you owned a Mercedes, you wanted everybody to see it. That, he was sure, was the Westport rule.

  And, come to think of it, it was a pretty stupid idea about battleships too. The fact was that navy vessels were painted gray way back when everything depended on visual sighting. But now the enemy had radar. Hell, even hang-gliders had radar. So why not cheer up things? Paint navy war vessels in bright colors, pastels, pinks, reds, and purples. Mauve. Trace especially liked mauve. He bet that mauve ships would do a lot to boost the reenlistment rate in the navy. And it would strike terror in the hearts of the enemy to see the pride of the U.S. fleet come barrel-assing out of a fog bank, painted pink and purple and fuchsia and lime green.

  He wondered if the navy paid for suggestions. Maybe he could get somebody who was in the navy to put the idea in the suggestion box and then split the reward with Trace. Sixty-forty. The sixty for Trace. He had to write the idea down someplace, but he never carried pencil or paper, so he turned on his tape recorder and said, “Think about repainting battleships.
”

  “What?” Ferd said.

  “Nothing. Just thinking aloud.” He had it on tape now. He would never lose it.

  He thought Ferd was going to take him through the garage like a tradesman, but at the last moment Ferd led him up the walk and in the front door of the house. A large wide stairway on the right led to the second floor.

  “Mrs. Paddington’s waiting for you in the drawing room. She’s been waiting a long time,” Ferd said.

  “I’m worth waiting for,” Trace said. He followed Ferd past the main stairway and down a dark hall. At the end of the hall, his foot bumped against something and he saw a folded wheelchair propped against the stairway wall.

  He followed Ferd down a cross hall and into a large room. Even though the drapes had been pulled, the room was still quite bright. Mrs. Paddington sat on the sofa, her back to the main bank of windows. She smiled as the two men came in, and Trace knew he would recognize her anywhere by those teeth. He remembered a television commercial from his youth. It was for toothpaste and it showed a cartoon beaver and the jingle was “Bucky, Bucky Beaver, here’s the new Ipana.”

  “Ferdinand,” she said, “would you send Maggie in?”

  “Sorry, Mrs. P. She’s gone to market.”

  “Oh, I told her we’d want tea.”

  “It’s made. She left it in the kitchen. I’ll get it.”

  As Ferd left the room, Mrs. Paddington said, “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Tracy?”

  Trace remembered from her biography that the woman had been born in Hawaii of American parents, but she talked like Mrs. Colonel Blimp with a horsey haw-haw British accent.

  “Chahmed, I’m sure,” Trace said as he sat on a chair facing her across the coffee table.

  He sat and forced himself to examine the woman. Her hair was a medium blond, but puffed up atop her head and sprayed so stiff that it looked like a wig that had been carved from a block of wood and then varnished.

  Her features were regular and she might even have been attractive if it hadn’t been for those top teeth jutting from her mouth like elephant tusks. Why hadn’t she ever had dental work done? Tinted glasses hid her eyes from him.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Tracy?”

  “I’m with the Garrison Fidelity Insurance Company.”

  “Yes, I saw that on your card.” Her voice was deep and Trace finally nailed down the accent. She sounded like an upper-crust Englishwoman with no ear and no sense of humor trying to imitate Peter Sellers doing Inspector Clouseau. “Don’t mind the glasses,” she said.

  “Something wrong?”

  “A touch of conjunctivitis,” she said.

  “The old pinkeye,” Trace said.

  She nodded. Despite the heat, she was wearing a long robe over a long green-flowered nightgown. Her feet were encased in woolly slippers.

  “I’m sorry to be bothering you,” Trace said.

  “It’s no bother. Since I’ve been ill, I see so few people.”

  “It’s about your husband and your insurance claim.”

  “Yes.”

  “This is just part of a routine check,” Trace said. “We do it all the time.”

  “I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t told our lawyer. Have you spoken to him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I should have thought that would be your first stop.” She sounded like a schoolmarm, Trace thought. He felt chastened, but before he could apologize, Ferd returned with a silver service that he placed on the table between them. He looked at Mrs. Paddington, who nodded and said, “That will be all.”

  “Call if you need me,” he said.

  “I will,” she assured him.

  When the door closed behind him, Trace said, “Very protective.”

  “I should say so. Ferdinand has been with my husband and me forever. Maggie, too.”

  She poured tea for the two of them without asking. Like all Brits, real or adopted, Mrs. Paddington just assumed that he would want tea as everyone she knew always wanted tea. But what Trace wanted was a drink. He didn’t even drink tea in Chinese restaurants. It was a wonder the British ever had time to build an empire, with all their time spent with their noses in a teacup. Then, when they did drink, they drank gin. Gin belonged in bathtubs, not in people’s stomachs. Trace gave up any hope that he was ever going to get anything worthwhile to drink in this house.

  “I was wondering why you waited all these years to make your husband’s death public,” Trace said.

  “I didn’t really make it public,” she said. “That happened after my counselor, Mr. Shapp, filed the court papers.”

  “Why so long after his disappearance?” Trace persisted.

  “You didn’t know Hemmie,” she said as she handed him a teacup. She had nice hands, Trace thought. Smooth and soft, and he realized that she was only in her early forties. Her face belied it. Her skin seemed harsh and dry and wrinkled. That old devil sun.

  “No, I didn’t,” Trace agreed.

  “He is…was an exceptional man,” she said. “When his plane vanished, I was sure that I would hear from him any day soon. I never really gave much thought to the possibility that he might be dead.” She sipped at her tea. “Dead.” She essayed the faintest of smiles, but even it exposed a lot of tooth and Trace wished she wouldn’t smile. “I can say the word now. I wasn’t able to for years. Dead.”

  “So you expected to hear from your husband one day,” Trace said. “When did you realize you wouldn’t?”

  “I don’t really know, Mr. Tracy. The time just went on, and each day was like the one before it and there was no Hemmie. You don’t know what it’s like, sitting alone, waiting, hoping and having that hope die a little every day.”

  “A couple of years, then,” Trace said. “So you finally faced up to the fact that your husband wasn’t coming home. Why didn’t you report it to the authorities then?”

  “What good would it have done? I was still clinging to a straw, Mr. Tracy Maybe I still am, hoping that Hemmie might still turn up. And, well, to tell the truth, I didn’t want to have to deal with anybody. I knew those press persons would be all over the place and I just wasn’t really up to it. What difference does it make if the world knows Hemmie’s dead or if it doesn’t? He’s still dead. What difference?”

  “Two million dollars’ difference to my company,” Trace said.

  “That was the last thing on my mind, Mr. Tracy. You know, if I were interested in the money, I wouldn’t have had to wait seven years. Accidental deaths often do not require that wait, or so my attorney advises me. I just didn’t want to deal with anyone. The truth is I have not been well since my husband’s disappearance. I could not have handled disturbance of any kind.”

  “I can understand that,” Trace said. “Is that why you moved from New Hampshire?”

  “Yes. I thought I could be alone here.”

  “Is it wise to isolate yourself this way?” Trace said.

  “Mr. Tracy, I am not beautiful, but neither am I foolish enough to think I am. Why would I need people? I had the one man in my life who loved me and I lost him. Do you think I would ever find another like him? Or would I find a succession of money-hunting dandies who wanted to teach me the tango? I am quite happy being alone, Mr. Tracy.” She looked at him for a few long seconds, replaced her teacup on the saucer, and said, “Perhaps not happy, sir, but being alone is certainly better than the alternatives I see available to me.”

  “So you came here.”

  “Yes. In West Hampstead—that was our home in New Hampshire—there were too many memories. Too many people who knew us. I will be content to see no one again.”

  “Except Ferdinand,” Trace said.

  “Yes. And Maggie. They have been with Hemmie and me since we returned from England. I hope they will stay with me until I die. Mr. Tracy, are you a detective or some such thing? Do you think this is some type of swindle and you are going to beat the truth out of me with a gun belt or whatever it is you people do?”

 
“No, I’m afraid not,” Trace said. “My father’s a private detective. That’s more in his line. I’m a pacifist.”

  “Thank heavens. I was worried for a moment there.”

  “I have to ask you this question, Mrs. Paddington. Did your husband ever leave you for long stretches before?”

  He saw her sit up straighter on the couch as if even her backbone were offended by the innuendo.

  “Absolutely not,” she snapped.

  “And you nave been a recluse since the accident?”

  “The word ‘recluse’ is your choice, Mr. Tracy. I have just preferred to be alone. I haven’t been well and I spend most of my time in bed.”

  “Is that why you don’t have any dogs here, Mrs. Paddington?” Trace asked. “That was a surprise to me.”

  “I can’t take care of them, Mr. Tracy. I’m not well enough. And dogs are like people. They need love to thrive.”

  She lifted her teacup and seemed to try to hide behind it.

  “Is there anything you can tell me about the accident?” Trace asked.

  “Nothing that I haven’t told the lawyer. Hemmie was a licensed pilot. He decided to join a protest against the killing of the harp seals in Newfoundland. We thought he’d beat the bad weather. So he kissed me good-bye and he left and I never saw him again,” she said softly.

  There was another soft sound in the room and it took Trace a moment to realize that Mrs. Paddington was sobbing.

  He stood and mumbled, “I’ll leave you now, Mrs. Paddington. Thank you for your time.”

  He went out into the hall, where he found Ferd.

  “I think she needs you. She’s a little upset,” Trace said.

  “I’ll see you out first,” Ferd said. “Then I’ll tend to her.”

  The garage doors were open as they walked past.

  “Nice cars,” Trace said. Ferd said nothing.

  “Nice day too,” Trace tried, with the same result. So he reached under his jacket and turned off the tape recorder. No point in wasting good tape on somebody who didn’t talk.

  At the gate, Trace tried one last time. He said, “You know, I really feel sorry for Mrs. Paddington.”