Once a Mutt (Trace 5)

by Warren Murphy

  “Then don’t bother her anymore,” Ferd said, as he chained and locked the gate behind Trace.

  5

  Trace drove away from the house toward town, but a half-mile down the road, stopped, turned his car around, and went back and pulled into the driveway of the house just before Mrs. Paddington’s.

  The house was separated from the Paddington home by 125 feet of tall thick pines. Trace parked in the driveway and rang the front doorbell.

  A woman opened the inside door. At least, Trace thought she was a woman. She was wearing a heavy jogging suit, despite the heat of the day, and she was so fat she looked like a repulsive mound of laundry. Across the front of her sweatshirt was lettered: FREE HINCKLEY. The person was wearing a wool knit cap pulled down over her ears, wristbands, and ankle-high army green sneakers. She was holding Heavyhands weights, and as she looked at Trace, she jogged up and down in place.

  “Yes?” she said through the screen door. Her voice was clearly that of a woman.

  “Is the man of the house in?” Trace asked.

  “Tacky,” she puffed. “Very tacky.”

  “Why tacky?” Trace asked.

  “These are the 1980s, mister. You don’t go around anymore asking for ‘the man of the house.’ Anything you’ve got to say nowadays, you can say to either of us. We are equal.”

  “Ooops, sorry,” Trace said.

  “So what did you want?”

  “I’m taking orders on vasectomies,” Trace mumbled.

  “What?” the woman asked. Jog, jog, jog, jump, jump, jump.

  Trace spoke up. “I’m from the Garrison Fidelity Insurance Company.” He held up a business card and the woman perused it through the screen door. Trace wondered if it was hard to read while jogging up and down in place, while pumping Heavyhands over your head at the same time. If you could read while running, why not a reading collar for runners? Like those things that Bob Dylan used to wear to make believe he could play the harmonica while he was making believe he could sing and play the guitar. Runners could jog and still keep up with their reading. They could study the latest medical statistics on fatal coronaries suffered while jogging. It might be a big-hit item and Trace told himself to remember to make a note of it. Someday, when he retired rich from the restaurant business, he might want to have that one patented. If the people next door could make a fortune out of dog doo, then he should be able to make a dynasty out of a read-while-running device.

  “Okay,” the woman said. “I see the card. What would you like?” She was still jogging in place. Just then, a giant hound skidded around the corner behind her, into view. It was an enormous shepherd that Trace thought might have a career shot at herding elephants. He growled savagely at Trace.

  “Nice dog,” Trace said. “Pretty bowwow.”

  The dog took a step closer to the screen door and snarled and salivated.

  Great, Trace thought, caught between a distrustful fat feminist and a maniacal hound.

  “Let me make one thing perfectly clear,” Trace said. “I’m not trying to sell you insurance. Make no mistake about that.” He considered doing his Richard Nixon impersonation but decided not to. The last time he did, someone thought he was imitating W. C. Fields and he was weeks recovering his sense of self.

  “Hoho,” the woman said, still running in place.

  “Why hoho?”

  “The last person who came to the door and said he wasn’t selling anything wound up filling my basement with a worthless freezer and sides of beef. What do you do with a side of beef?” She jogged; the dog snarled.

  “Rocky punched them and look where he wound up,” Trace said.

  “Who’s Rocky?”

  “You know. Sylvester Stallone, mumbles, moom pitchers, Marlon Brando impersonations?”

  “I don’t like Sylvester Stallone,” the woman said.

  “I think he is the quintessential classical actor of our time. He has cut away all the frills and reduced acting to its basic core essential.”

  “What basic essential?” she asked.

  “Showing up on the set on time and sober,” Trace said. “A great contribution to filmatic theory.”

  She was still jogging up and down. Trace liked to look people in the eyes when he talked to them, but it was hard when the eyes kept moving. He wondered if she would be offended if he jogged up and down on the top step, in time with her. Then he decided that Baskerville, the dog, might disapprove even if she didn’t. He held his ground.

  “Okay,” she said, and puffed out. “Sell me what you’re not going to sell me.”

  “Really, I’m not a salesman. I’m doing a survey on life insurance among the upper classes of America.”

  “That’s us. What do you want to know?”

  “Do you or your husband carry life insurance?”

  “I wouldn’t know, puff, puff. You’d have to talk to my husband.”

  “And the man of the house isn’t home?” Trace said.

  “No man of the house is home. This is Westport, Mr. Salesman.”

  “Westport,” Trace said. “That’s right. Westport, La Jolla, and Grosse Pointe. That’s my survey territory.”

  “Every man in Westport works in New York City. They’re all gone till seven-thirty tonight. Some until Friday night ’cause they stay in town all week.”

  “I see. And you don’t know about your life insurance.”

  “Not a thing,” she said.

  Trace nodded in the direction of Mrs. Paddington’s home. The dog growled and moved a few inches closer to the screen.

  “How about the folks next door?” he said. “Think they might be helpful?”

  “I don’t think you can get in to find out,” she said. Jog, jog, jog, pump, pump, pump. Trace was getting sweaty watching her.

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  “Well, first of all, the husband’s dead,” she said.

  “Sorry to hear that,” Trace said.

  “’S all right. He died a long time ago. But they don’t see anybody.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “There’s a woman living there, the widow, and she’s got a couple of servants, but you can’t get in.”

  “Maybe you could get her to see me? I mean, give her a call, you know, a neighbor and ask her to talk to me. I’d appreciate it,” Trace said.

  “You don’t understand. They don’t see anybody. Not even me.”

  “You’re the next-door neighbor and you’re not friends?” Trace said.

  “Friends? I’ve never even been in the house.”

  Trace was silent. As so often happened, the woman got nervous with the silence and kept talking.

  “They moved here a few years ago and I baked them a garbanzo loaf, sort of like a welcome cake, and I brought it over there.”

  “And?” Trace said.

  “The guard took it at the gate and said that Mrs. Paddington, that’s their name, wasn’t well and not seeing anybody but that he would see she got the loaf. He didn’t even let me through the gate.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “No phone call, no thank you, and I even put my name on the side of the loaf pan with my phone number so she could call but she didn’t.”

  “That’s not very neighborly,” Trace said.

  Her eyes were still going up and down as she jogged in place. “Try this,” she puffed. “About a week later, I came out of the house one day and the loaf pan was right there on top of the milk box.”

  “At least you got your pan back,” Trace said.

  “Yeah. But the garbanzo loaf was still in it. It wasn’t even touched. Is that rude or what?”

  “Rude, definitely rude. Garbanzos have feelings too. So that’s it?”

  “Sum and substance of all my dealings with my next-door neighbors.”

  “You don’t see them in church or at the market or anything?” Trace asked.

  “Once in a while I see the maid at the supermarket.”

  “Is she nice?”r />
  “I don’t even know her name. We don’t talk,” the woman said.

  “I guess there’s not much point in my trying to talk to those folks, then, is there?” Trace asked.

  “You wouldn’t get past the gate.”

  “I want to thank you for taking this time out of your busy day. You’ve been very helpful to me.”

  “I didn’t tell you anything,” the woman said.

  “But you tried, and in this world of woe and tragedy, good intentions count for a lot.”

  “I’d rather have the money. Listen, talk to the woman across the street. She’s nosy and she might know something.”

  “Thank you. It’s been nice talking to you through the door this way. Would it help if I stayed and counted cadence for you?”

  As he walked back to his car, Trace told himself that it wasn’t really a wasted stop. After all, he had come up with the good idea of a reading gadget for joggers. And all a man needed to become wealthy, really wealthy, was one good idea. That, and a little investment capital. As soon as the restaurant opened and started producing money, Trace would have no shortage of investment capital. The future looked bright. If the restaurant ever opened…

  Trace backed out into the street and drove up the roadway to the house directly across the street from Mrs. Paddington’s. He parked in front of the closed garage door, walked to the front entrance, and rang the bell.

  “No one’s there,” a woman’s voice called out.

  Trace looked around but saw no one.

  “Over here,” the voice called. “Behind the big tree.”

  On the far side of a big pine tree, Trace found a woman lying on a towel on the neatly clipped lawn. She was wearing the skimpiest of two-piece bathing suits; her hair was fire-red and shiny, her skin very tan. Her eyes were large and jade-green. She had turned on her side to await Trace, with her head propped on one hand. The curve of her hip nipping into a small waist as she lay there was like the female curve in a sketch of Picasso’s—simple, yet totally womanly. Her bosom was very large.

  “Are you the lady of the house?” Trace asked.

  “I hope I don’t look like the man of the house?” the woman said. She smiled. Her teeth were large and even and very white, her lips wide and full and seemingly dark red without the use of lipstick. Her eyelashes were so thick that they looked as if they had been baked in a kiln, but she wore no other makeup and Trace thought that perhaps the lashes were just another of nature’s gifts to her.

  Next to her, a glass was held in a coiled metal ring, attached to a metal rod stuck into the ground. A lawn drink holder. Trace was impressed and wished he had invented that. Another glass, empty, was in a holder next to hers.

  “No,” Trace said. “No mistaking you for the man of the house. You live here, I take it?”

  The woman rolled onto her back and smiled at Trace, who, standing there, suddenly understood the meaning of jumping one’s bones. He kept himself vertical by an act of will.

  “Before you get all involved in business discussions and boring stuff, would you like a drink?” she asked.

  “Yes. My lips are suddenly dry.”

  “Pour yourself one.” She handed him a glass pitcher that had been under the tree.

  “What is it?”

  “Westport Windjammers,” she said. “Vodka and tequila and rum and whatever fruit juice you can find around the house.”

  “What kind did you find?” Trace asked.

  “Lime Kool-Aid was all I could find.”

  “Good. Just the way I like it.” He poured a glass, drank half of it, refilled his glass, put it in the lawn glass holder, marveled at its construction, the low cost of the item, imagined the profit he could make with a six-to-one markup over manufacturing cost, then sat on the towel where the woman was patting a place next to her.

  “Should I do business now?” Trace said.

  “If you must.”

  “Your husband’s not home, I take it?”

  “Does it matter to you?”

  “Not unless he’s bigger than me,” Trace said.

  “He’s not.”

  “Good. I’m from the Garrison Fidelity Insurance Company.”

  “Oh, God. You’re not going to try to sell me insurance, are you?”

  “Of course not, Mrs.—Mrs.—?”

  “Patrick. Mrs. Patrick. But you can call me Elvira.”

  “It’s a pretty name,” Trace said.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I feel like an Elvira today.”

  “I feel like an Elvira today too,” Trace said. “Anyway, I’m not selling insurance. I’m doing a survey.”

  “I thought they hired college kids to do that kind of stuff, you know, house to house, asking insipid questions.”

  “Don’t send a boy to do a man’s job,” Trace said.

  “I’ll remember you said that. What’s your name?”

  “Devlin Tracy. My friends call me Trace.”

  “And what do your enemies call you?” she asked.

  “I only have three. One of them calls me her ex-husband. The other two call me Daddy.”

  “You sound as if you’ve had a tough life,” she said. Her breasts were really wonderful, Trace decided as she snaked a long thin arm over to take her drink from its holder.

  “Not so tough. Anyway, about the insurance. Probably you can’t answer these questions. Maybe your husband might know more about it.”

  “My husband’s in New York and won’t be back until Friday night.”

  “How does he stand being away from you?”

  “He has a mistress. He stays with her Monday through Thursday. I get him Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.”

  “That doesn’t bother you?”

  “Only on Monday through Thursday. I hate to sleep alone.”

  “I mean, his having a mistress,” Trace said.

  “No, we can afford it and she’s a nice girl.”

  “You’ve met her?”

  “We have lunch together when I go to New York. Bart is working, so we have lunch. After all, we’ve got a lot in common.”

  “If that’s true, Bart’s the luckiest man in the world,” Trace said as he finished his drink and poured a refill. It was a very large pitcher.

  “It’s true enough. She’s very beautiful. Bart has a good eye. So what questions did you want to ask?”

  “I’m wondering about the life-insurance levels that you and your husband maintain,” Trace said, trying to sound very businesslike.

  “Does that mean how much insurance do we have?”

  “Right. Insurance.”

  “All right. Bart’s got a hundred-thousand-dollar policy for each of his first three wives as beneficiaries. That’s three hundred thousand dollars. And he’s got five hundred thousand dollars with me as beneficiary. So that’s eight hundred thousand dollars.”

  “What about you, Elvira?”

  “I don’t have any insurance.”

  “Shouldn’t you have?”

  “No. I can’t think of a reason why I should.”

  “Neither can I,” Trace said. “I think life insurance is a rip-off.”

  “Not all of it. If Bart dies, I’ll need it to maintain this house. To keep the pitcher full, so to speak.”

  “Good thinking. You’re a very bright woman.”

  “Bright and fortunate,” she said. “My cup runneth over.”

  “All of them,” Trace said, glancing down at her bosom. Then he glanced down the long flow of grass rolling away toward the road. He could see the Paddington gates and home across the street.

  “Are those all your questions?” Elvira asked.

  “That’s all I needed to know,” Trace said. “How about those people who live over there?” He pointed toward the Paddington house.

  “What about them?”

  “Do you think they’ll help me with my survey?”

  “You tell me. What kind of answers did they give you when you were there before?”

  “Oh, you saw me,” h
e said.

  “I remembered the car. You don’t see many dark-blue cars anymore. What did they tell you?”

  “Nothing, really. Mr. Paddington is dead and they have a million-dollar insurance policy and they’re trying to collect on it. I was just wondering what kind of people they are.”

  “You’re not really doing a survey, are you?” Elvira asked.

  “No,” Trace said, surprised at his own outburst of honesty. “I’m checking their insurance claim.”

  “Are you a detective? God, are you going to rip my clothes off and shove a gat into my belly unless I come clean?”

  “More like an investigator,” Trace said. “Hold the gat idea.” He sipped at his drink and saw she was smiling at him. “You know anything that might be helpful? About your neighbors?”

  “I don’t know. Aren’t you private eyes supposed to pay your stoolies for important information?”

  “It’s usually negotiable,” Trace said.

  “Then negotiate.”

  “How about dinner tonight?” Trace said.

  “That’ll do for a start,” she said. “I’ve never seen Mrs. Paddington. I read about her in the newspapers a few weeks ago, how her husband died and she was having him declared dead. That’s all I know. The woman who works there is named Maggie Winters, I think. Did you meet her?”

  “No,” Trace said.

  “Oh. Well, she’s pretty if you like the blond peasant sort. The only other person I see there is the big gorilla. The one you were talking to earlier today.”

  “You’ve been here all day?” Trace asked.

  “All day, every day. At least during the summer. I see all and know all,” Elvira said.

  “But you don’t know anything about the Paddingtons?”

  “Nothing. And I know the gossip about everybody.”

  “How do you do that if you’re always on the lawn?” Trace asked.

  “Well, not literally always. I have to go to the hairdresser and the weekly facial and aerobics classes, so I get out a bit. But nobody knows anything about the Paddingtons.”

  “I wish I could find somebody who did. You know what they do for a living?” Trace said.

  “Something to do with dog shit, the newspaper said.”