Once a Mutt (Trace 5)

by Warren Murphy

Trace heard the telephone ring downstairs. It rang twice and stopped. He looked through a window and saw Ferd unlocking the front gate. The gray Mercedes was stopped behind him, with Maggie at the wheel.

  The telephone rang twice again. Trace closed the desk drawers and ran downstairs.

  He heard the car approaching up the stone driveway. He let himself out through the kitchen door onto the breezeway. He heard the sound of protesting machinery as the garage door opened, probably from an electronic buzzer inside the car.

  He darted out through the back door of the breezeway and crept along beneath the garage windows.

  The car pulled in and the door lowered itself again. He heard the car’s motor die as it was turned off. He heard two voices, a man’s and a woman’s, but he couldn’t make out the words.

  He carefully raised his body toward the corner of one of the windows and peered inside. He saw Ferdinand and Maggie going through the door to the breezeway. Ferd had his hand familiarly on Maggie’s rear end. Trace ran toward the fence on the garage side of the house.

  Moving behind bushes, he found his way to the bent bars of the fence, let himself out into the wooded field next door, and then walked quickly to the road.

  Three minutes later, he was sitting on the grass next to Elvira, sipping a fresh drink.

  “I thought you’d be ready for one,” she said. “That was a close call.”

  “Sure was. Thanks for the help.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Not a blessed thing.”

  “What did you hope to find?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. A confession that Mrs. Paddington killed her husband or something. But whatever it was, it wasn’t there.”

  “Too bad.”

  “I don’t know. It’s good practice keeping my burglary skills in order. Thanks again for helping.”

  “I expect more than thanks,” Elvira said as she slithered toward him across the large teddy-bear towel.

  17

  Trace was at the bar of the Ye Olde English Motel cocktail lounge. The need for ten to eighteen thousand dollars was still heavy on his mind and he was making a list of all the money he could put his hands on, including all the people who would definitely lend him money.

  It was not a particularly long list. He had about four hundred dollars in his checking account. He had another five hundred in a cashier’s deposit box at the Araby Casino. He figured that he would be able to beat Garrison Fidelity out of seven hundred dollars on the Paddington investigation. That totaled sixteen hundred dollars.

  In a separate column marked loans, he had listed his father as the big investor at five hundred dollars. Somehow, Sarge could come up with five hundred dollars. Trace had written his mother’s name, but then had drawn a line through it.

  Eight bartenders were listed for a hundred dollars each and six waitresses for fifty each. One blond hatcheck girl who worked at an Italian restaurant near the Desert Inn was down for two hundred dollars. So were two pit bosses at the Araby Casino. The concierge at his condominium building was good for one hundred and so was the woman who cleaned their apartment three times a week. Another nineteen hundred dollars.

  He decided not to include on the list Cora, his ex-wife, whose last words to him had been “I hope you melt in a nuclear accident,” and his mother, whose last words to him were, unfortunately, never the last.

  He doubted if his kids, What’s-his-name and the girl, had any money. If they did, he doubted that they would lend it to him. He was sure that Tugboat Annie had poisoned their minds against him, just because of pettiness, just because he didn’t do sappy sentimental things like visit them or write them or call them. Women were ungrateful wretches, he thought, which brought him to the most ungrateful wretch of all. Chico.

  They had been together now for four years, and on a scale of zero to ten, those years were sevens. This wasn’t a low mark, Trace thought, because he could not remember another year in his life that was higher than a three, which meant that he could have spent most years entirely in bed and not have missed a thing worth remembering.

  Trace added up the list. Three thousand five hundred dollars. It wasn’t that he didn’t have friends, he realized. He had lots of friends. His trouble was that none of his friends had any money. All his friends were bartenders or waitresses or degenerate gamblers. The rare insurance-company president, who might have had real money, was a drunk and he wasn’t good for anything.

  He did some calculation. He was anywhere between sixty-five hundred and fourteen thousand five hundred short of what he needed.

  Chico could make up the difference with a sweep of her magic pen and magic checkbook. He ordered another Finlandia by pointing to his empty glass. Of course. Chico would have to make up his shortfall. That was that. They had been together too many years now and she owed him.

  A voice inside him whispered, She doesn’t want to invest in a restaurant. She’s afraid of losing her savings.

  There’s no way to lose here, Trace told the voice.

  She doesn’t believe that, the voice said.

  Stop throwing obstacles in my path. Trace responded. She will lend me the money

  Be realistic the voice insisted

  All right, Trace conceded. Maybe she won’t lend me all the money, but she’ll lend me a lot of it.

  Put her down on the list, then But be realistic the voice cautioned.

  Trace wrote the name “Chico” down on his list. He paused for a long time, the ballpoint pen stolen from the lawyer’s office poised over the paper

  Realistic? Realistic would be that she would acknowledge her gratitude to him for dragging her naked out of a hallway and lend him all the money he needed.

  He sighed and marked her down for one hundred dollars.

  The woman had no character; she belonged working in a geisha house.

  He drank his vodka and crumpled the napkin into a lump and dropped it into the ashtray Life sucked

  Two messages had been slipped under the door of his room. One read Call Walter Marks” Trace threw that one away He didn’t want to talk to a man who wouldn’t lend him money The other read. “Please call E.L.V.”

  Again? Was the woman insatiable? Didn’t she realize that if he spent all his time in bed, he would have no time for drinking or for commerce?

  It was time to end this romance before she got too dependent on him, he decided. He dialed her number. After a week of rejection, it might feel good to reject someone else for a change.

  “Hello, Elvira. Listen, I…I want you to know—”

  “Trace, they had a visitor across the street,” the woman interrupted.

  “Oh? Who?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see him real good. It was some guy with dark hair. I was in the house and I just glanced out and saw him and Ferdinand at the gate. Then about a half-hour later, I saw two cars come out.”

  “His car?”

  “Yeah. A red Mercedes convertible and the station wagon.”

  “See who was driving?” Trace asked.

  “No. It was too dark for that. Is this good stuff I’m getting for you or what?”

  “Real good,” Trace said.

  “Listen, Trace, there’s something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I won’t be able to see you anymore. My husband will be home tomorrow.”

  “That’s a fine how-do-you-do,” Trace said. “You’re dropping me like a hot potato?”

  “Well, when my husband’s home. You going to be around next week?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Then I guess this is good-bye,” Elvira said.

  “I guess so,” Trace said sullenly.

  18

  Trace’s Log: Devlin Tracy in the matter of Helmsley Paddington, only one tape in the master file, and it’s midnight Thursday.

  This is the day I was going to kill myself, but I talked myself out of it. Moral to be drawn from that: always, always, do whatever pops into your mind. First
impressions are always best, and I would be better off dead.

  But I’m not. I spent one more day in this vale of tears looking at the Paddington claim, and I’m finished. I even committed burglary and didn’t get anywhere. Tomorrow I’m going back to Las Vegas. It’s easier to commit suicide in Las Vegas. Just drive out into the desert until you run out of gas and then walk in the sun until the heat fries your brains and the vultures swoop down and pluck out your eyeballs. Like Prometheus. It’s the only way to go.

  If anybody is listening to this drivel, this is what the day was like.

  I went to see Lt. Sam Roscoe at the Westport police and he didn’t know anything either about the Paddingtons. His brother-in-law was the private eye that Groucho hired to look into this case; Groucho was overcharged, but the report was accurate. Nothing funny happened to Helmsley Paddington.

  Roscoe talked to Mrs. P. on the phone and didn’t get anything that made him suspicious, so that’s that. What can I do that a smart cop can’t do? Anyway, Roscoe was interested in how I got my bruises. Maybe I’ll tell him that I got them from Ferdinand who cold-cocked me in a parking lot. That might do the trick.

  The only good thing that happened to me today was that Newman and Redford didn’t bother me while I ate lunch. Elvira checked with some old boyfriend at the bank and there was truly nothing big to notice about the Paddington mortgage. Nadine bought the house, paid forty thou, owes one-sixty, and is on time with the monthly payments. Big deal.

  Ferdie and Maggie went on a picnic. Well, why not? They sleep together. Maybe they’re married? I never thought of that. You know, world, I never thought of a lot of things. I should have checked to find out if Ferd and Maggie have police records. I don’t even know Ferd’s last name. Well, that just goes to show you. Even the smartest brains in the world can go on hold when they’re overloaded with other problems, like finding money to fix a restaurant.

  Mrs. Paddington, I guess, went with them on the picnic because she wasn’t in the house when I broke in. But I didn’t see her when they came back either. I mean, they just walked into the house, goosing each other, and if she was in the backseat of the Mercedes, they were just going to let her stay there. And her dusty old wheelchair was still under the stairway in the house.

  I don’t know, maybe they lock her in the cellar when they go out. Maybe she’s the Prisoner of Zenda.

  So, anyway, I break into the house but I don’t find anything except a picture of Maggie before she bleached her hair and Ferd looking like newlyweds. Maybe they are married.

  But nothing else. In Maggie’s room, I got this tube of green waxy stuff that’s here in my pocket. I don’t know what it is, but it’s probably something real important like aloe vera hair-conditioner.

  And there wasn’t a thing in Mrs. Paddington’s room. Dusty clothes but nothing else. Not even a book in the nightstand. It’s all right to be sick, but jeez, you don’t have to be dull about it. Mrs. Paddington’s got to be the dullest woman in the world. You’d never know she was in that room.

  So then I had to go pay off Elvira for being such a good detective’s assistant and later she dumped me, so that tells you what a great lover I am. And I figured out every place in the world where I could get money, and the most I can raise is thirty-five hundred and that’s counting on Chico for a hundred, and I don’t think I could get it from her.

  Oh, and somebody visited the Paddington house tonight but Elvira didn’t know who, except he had dark hair and a red Mercedes convertible.

  Who cares?

  I don’t.

  I’m going to go to sleep and tomorrow I’m leaving this burg. Christ, I was in a bar today and I saw somebody order Pimm’s Cup. I ought to figure out my expenses tonight but I’m too tired even to cheat.

  I’ll do it tomorrow. And then I’m going home to Las Vegas and I’m going to drink and drink and drink until I can’t think about my troubles anymore and they have to come and send me to the place with the rubber room.

  This is some end for a guy who was voted second-most-likable person in his junior-high-school class.

  19

  Basically all he wanted to do when he went to bed was sleep. Why couldn’t the world understand that simple thing? If it wasn’t women who wanted to jump his bones, it was something else, like the phone always ringing. Leave me alone, world, Trace thought as he struggled to consciousness. I’m turning off and tuning out.

  But the phone wouldn’t stop and he finally picked it up and snarled, “Pleasant middle of the evening to you.”

  “Mr. Tracy?” a woman’s voice asked.

  “Now, who else would it be?” Trace said.

  “I don’t know if you remember me. This is Teddy Bigot. Dr. Bigot, remember?”

  “Oh. Right. Right.”

  “Has my husband contacted you?” she asked.

  Trace started to come awake. “No,” he said. “Was he supposed to?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I heard him say that he was going to talk to you. I think that’s what he said.” Her voice was halting and slow.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Trace suggested. “I’ll hold on.”

  There was a pause that was a beat too long. “He went on a trip. I haven’t heard from him yet. I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Tracy. I just wanted to know if you’d heard from him.”

  “Wait a minute,” Trace said. “About what?”

  “Doctor doesn’t tell me what’s on his mind too much,” she said as she hung up the telephone.

  “Then Doctor’s a shmuck,” Trace yelled into the dead telephone.

  He thought about going back to sleep but saw sunlight peeking from under the tightly closed drapes. He opened them a crack and brightness assaulted his eyes like English darts. He closed the blinds again and looked around for his watch. It was after ten A.M. He had slept later than he expected. He steeled his nerves, gritted his teeth, and opened the blinds again. Then he went into the bathroom to throw up and shower down.

  Then he sat on the bed. He was going to return to Las Vegas, that was for sure. But what was that stupidness with Teddy Bigot? What was that all about? That she had been nervous and lying was obvious. But why? About what?

  He got the Bigots’ number from information and called her back. He would apologize for being groggy; he would ask her what he should tell Dr. Bigot if he should hear from him. He would twist her around and break through her facade and find out what was really on her mind.

  There was no answer.

  Well, that was that. Good-bye, Westport. Good-bye, Mrs. Paddington.

  “Hello, Lieutenant.”

  Sam Roscoe looked up from the watercooler.

  “Tracy, right?” Trace nodded, and Roscoe said, “Come on inside.” Trace followed the policeman into his sun-bright office and Roscoe said, “What’s new? You find whatever his name is, Paddington hiding out in an old mining camp?”

  “Afraid not,” Trace said. “I didn’t find out anything, so I just came in to tell you I’m going home. I like to check in and check out.”

  “I didn’t think there was anything to find. My brother-in-law looked pretty hard, and even if he is a dumb shit, he probably would have bumped into something if it had been there.”

  “I couldn’t either,” Trace said. “I guess it wasn’t a good season for dumb shits.”

  “So what’s next? Your company pays up? Is that the way it goes?”

  “I don’t know,” Trace said honestly. “I never really understood the insurance business.” He shrugged. “I guess the court says that Paddington’s dead and then we have to pay because there isn’t any reason not to. The court says he’s dead, he’s dead and that’s that. Two million dollars.”

  “Almost makes dying seem worthwhile, doesn’t it?” Roscoe said.

  “Hell, I’m dying for ten thousand dollars,” Trace said.

  “Why is that?”

  “The restaurant deal I told you about. I’m going to cut my wrists.”

  “What a jerk. It is a bad season for dum
b shits.” Roscoe sat down and looked at the pile of Teletype messages in front of him. “Listen, if you decide to take the pipe, do it someplace else. I’ve got enough work to do. Missing persons, stolen cars…Christ, don’t they ever stop?”

  “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one,” Trace said.

  “Spare me the Gilbert and Sullivan,” Roscoe said without looking up from the sheets of paper.

  “You don’t have an Alphonse Bigot in that list, do you?” Trace said. “A doctor from New Hampshire?”

  “Is he missing?” Roscoe said, looking up quickly.

  “I don’t know,” Trace said.

  “That question you just asked me, does it mean anything?” Roscoe said.

  “I guess not,” Trace said.

  “Don’t waste my time. Enjoy Las Vegas.”

  “Thanks for all your help, Lieutenant.”

  “Wasn’t much,” Roscoe mumbled. He was busy reading the reports again, and Trace left quietly.

  Trace went back to his room to pack. He thought about calling Walter Marks but decided to wait until he was safely back in Las Vegas. There was never any hurry about delivering bad news.

  “What are you doing here?” Trace asked as he pushed open the door to his room.

  Chico looked up from the table near the window where she was sitting. Trace’s tape recordings were spread out on the table in front of her and she had the earphone of the small recorder stuck into her ear.

  She pulled the earphone out, turned off the tape recorder, and said, “Well, I’m glad to see you didn’t commit suicide.” Her smile was dazzling, but Trace didn’t feel like being dazzled.

  “You’ve been listening to my tapes,” he sniveled. “You’re not supposed to listen to my tapes. How many times do I have to tell you not to listen to my tapes?”

  “Not even the one that was addressed to me posthumously?” Chico asked mildly. She scanned him up and down and said, “Your face still looks like hell.”

  “It’s all your fault. I went to exercise class and I almost got killed in the parking lot and it’s all your fault. Why’d you come here anyway? I’m going home.”