He was pleased. He went to make himself another drink, and then changed his mind. This was a momentous occasion; the most beautiful girl in the world, the love, finally, of his life, was going to welcome him into her bed, and the worst thing he could arrange would be for him to be shit-faced when she came home. No more booze.
Christ! Washington!
Five minutes later, he had relayed the information to Detective Jason Washington that he would have Miss Louise Dutton at the medical examiner’s office at eight o’clock the following morning.
Champagne! Why didn’t ‘t I think of that before? I’ll have a couple of bottles on ice when she walks in the door.
He put his coat back on and went out in search of champagne. He bought three bottles, instead of two, and two plastic bags of ice, and returned to the apartment. He couldn’t find a champagne bucket, so he put the champagne and the ice in the kitchen sink and covered it with a dishcloth. That raised the question of champagne glasses, and a further diligent search came up with some, which apparently had not been washed for years. He washed and rinsed two of them and then polished them with a paper towel.
He was ready. But she would not be here for an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes.
An idea, so ridiculous and absurd on its face that he laughed out loud, popped into his mind.
What the hell, why not?
He went into the bathroom and turned the taps on to fill the marble swimming pool. He saw a glass container with BUBBLE BATH printed on it. If half a cupful of detergent was the proper amount to use for a washerful of dirty clothes, that measure would probably work for a bubble bath. He poured what he estimated to be a half cupful into the tub.
Next, he looked for and found a razor. He examined it carefully. It was a ladies’ razor, with a gold-plated head, and a long, pink, curved handle. But the working part of it, the gold-plated device, seemed to be identical to a regular razor. He decided it would do.
He took the cover from the bed, folded it neatly, and then turned a corner of the sheet and blanket down, and finally returned to the bathroom. The swimming pool was now overflowing with bubbles. There were more bubbles than he would have imagined possible.
There was nothing to do about it now, obviously, so he slipped into the water. There were so many bubbles that he had to push them away from his mouth with his hand.
There’s room in here for both of us. I wonder how she would read to that suggestion?
There came the sound of a door opening against a lock chain.
Oh, Christ, she came home early! And I put the goddamned chain on the goddamned door!
He erupted from the swimming pool, called “Wait a minute, I’ll be right there!” and dried himself hastily. He grabbed his bathrobe from where he had left it on the bed, and ran through the apartment to the door.
“Sorry,” he said, as he pushed the door closed so that he could unfasten the chain lock. “I was taking a goddamned bath.”
He pulled the door open.
He found himself looking at a smallish, dapper, intense, middle-aged man.
“I’ll just bet,” Stanford Fortner Wells III said, “that your name is Peter Wohl.”
****
Louise Dutton let herself into her apartment, and then turned to fasten the dead-bolt lock and door chain.
“Peter, don’t tell me you’re asleep,” she called, and then walked into her living room, where she found her father and Staff Inspector Peter Wohl standing by the couches and coffee table. There were glasses; a bottle of scotch; a cheap glass bowl half-full of ice; and an open box of Ritz crackers on the table. They were both smoking cigars.
“Hello, baby,” her father said.
“Oh, God!” Louise said.
“You called,” Stanford Fortner Wells III said, “and I came.”
“So I see,” Louise said, and then ran across the room to him, and threw herself in his arms. “Oh, Daddy!”
When she let him go, she took a handkerchief from her purse and blew her nose loudly in it.
She looked at Peter. “Is my mascara running?”
He shook his head no.
She walked to him, and took the glass from his hand and took a large swallow.
“Peter and I have been having a pleasant chat,” Wells said.
“I’ll bet you have,” Louise said, as she handed the glass back. She pointed to the bowl of ice. “What’s with that?”
“It’s a bowl, with ice in it,” Peter said.
“What do you think that is?” she said, pointing to a large, square heavy crystal bowl on a sideboard.
Both Peter and her father shrugged.
“That’s an ice bowl,” she said. “I paid two hundred dollars for it. Where did you get that one?”
“Under the sink in the kitchen,” her father said.
“That figures,” she said. She went to the crystal bowl, moved it to the coffee table, dumped the ice from the cheap bowl into it, and then carried it into the kitchen. She returned in a moment with a small silver bowl full of cashews and a glass.
“Where were they?” her father asked. “All we could find was the crackers.”
“In the kitchen,” she said. She made herself a drink and then looked at them. “Gentlemen, be seated,” she said.
They sat down, Wells on the couch, Peter Wohl in an armchair.
“Well,” Louise said. “Now that we’re all here, what should we talk about?”
Wohl and her father chuckled.
“I thought the standard scenario in a situation like this was that the father was supposed to thrash the boyfriend within an inch of his life,” Louise said. “What happened, Daddy, did you see his gun?”
“No,” Wells said. “I just decided that a man who takes bubble baths can’t be all bad.”
“Bubble baths?” Louise asked.
“Oh, shit,” Peter said.
“When he answered the door, he had bubbles in his ears, all over his head,” Wells said. “You really don’t want to thrash a man with bubbles on him.”
Peter, grimacing, laughed deep in his throat. Wells grinned at him.
They like each other, Louise realized, and it pleased her.
“Tell me about the champagne in the sink,” Louise said.
Her father threw up his hands, signaling his innocence about that.
“I’m a scotch drinker, myself,” he said.
“Ooooh,” Louise cooed, “champagne for little ol’ me, Peter?”
“At the time, it seemed like a splendid idea,” Peter said.
“That was before he answered the door,” Wells said.
“Surprise! Surprise!” Peter said.
The two men laughed.
“You should have seen his face,” Wells said.
“How long have you been here, in Philadelphia, I mean?” Louise asked.
“Since late this afternoon,” Wells said. “I just missed you at WCBL.”
The telephone rang.
“I wonder who that can be?” Louise said. “Oh, God! My mother?”
“For your sake, Peter, I hope not,” Wells said.
“Jesus!” Wohl said, as Louise went to the telephone.
“Hello?” Louise said to the telephone. Then her face stiffened. “How did you get this number? Who is this?”
Then she offered the telephone to Wohl.
“Lieutenant DelRaye for you, Inspector Wohl,” she said, just a little nastily.
As Wohl got up and crossed the room, Wells asked, “DelRaye? Is that the cop you had trouble with?”
“Yes, indeed,” Louise said.
“This is Peter Wohl,” Wohl said to the telephone. Then he listened, asked a few cryptic questions, then finally said, “Thank you, Lieutenant. If anything else comes up, I’ll either be at this number or at home.”
He hung up.
“‘I’ll either be at this number or at home,’“ Louise parroted. “What did you do, Peter, thumbtack my number, my unlisted number, to the bulletin board?”
“I do
n’t even know your number,” Peter said, just a little sharply. “He must have gotten it from Jason Washington.”
“What did he want?” Louise asked quickly. She had seen her father’s eyebrows raise in surprise to learn that Peter didn’t know her number.
“They found Jerome Nelson’s car,” Wohl said. “Actually, a New Jersey state trooper major found it as he was driving here for Dutch’s wake. In the middle of New Jersey, on a dirt road off U.S. Three Twenty-two.”
“What does that mean?” Wells asked.
“One of Nelson’s cars, a Jaguar, was missing from the garage downstairs,” Peter said. “It’s possible that the doer took it.”
“The ‘doer’?” Wells asked.
“Whoever chopped him up,” Wohl said.
“I love your delicate choice of language,” Louise said. “Really, Peter!”
“Does finding the car mean anything?” Wells asked.
“Only, so far, to reinforce the theory that the doer took it. As opposed to an ordinary, run-of-the-mill car thief,” Wohl said. “The New Jersey State Police sent their mobile crime lab to where they found the car, and, in the morning, they’ll search the area. With a little luck, they may turn up something.”
“Such as?” Wells pursued.
Wohl threw his hands up. “You never know.”
“Why do you look so worried, Peter?” Louise asked.
“Do I look worried?” he asked, and then went on before anyone could reply: “I’m trying to make up my mind whether or not I should call Arthur Nelson. Now, I mean, rather than in the morning.”
“Why would you call him?” Wells asked.
“Commissioner Czernick has assigned me to stroke him,” Peter said. “To keep him abreast of where the investigation is going.”
“Until just now, I thought they liked you on the police department,” Wells said. “How did you get stuck with that?”
“He can be difficult,” Peter said, chuckling. “You know him?”
“Sure,” Wells said. “Which is not the same thing as saying he’s a friend of mine.”
“He’s not willing to face the facts about his son,” Peter said. “I don’t know whether he expected me to believe it or not, but he suggested very strongly that Louise was his son’s girl friend.”
“Obviously not knowing about you and Louise,” Wells said.
“Nobody, with your exception, knows about Louise and me,” Wohl said.
“The two of you have developed the infuriating habit of talking about me as if I’m not here,” Louise said.
“Sorry,” her father said. “Are you going to call him— now, I mean?”
“Yeah,” Peter said. “I think I’d better.”
“I was going to suggest that,” Wells said. “Better to have him annoyed by a late-night call than sore that you didn’t tell him something as soon as you could.”
They like each other, Louise thought again. Because they think alike? Because they are alike? Is that what’s going on with me and Peter? That I like him because he’s so much like my father? Even more so than Dutch?
Peter dialed information and asked for Arthur J. Nelson’s residence number. There was a reply, and then he said, obviously annoyed, “Thank you.”
He sensed Louise’s eyes on him, and met hers for a moment, and then smiled mischievously.
“He’s got an unlisted number, too.”
He dialed another number, identified himself as Inspector Wohl, and asked for a residence phone number for Arthur J. Nelson.
He wrote the number down, and put his finger on the telephone switch.
“That’s it?” Louise asked. “You can get an unlisted number from the phone company that easily?”
“That wasn’t the information operator,” Wohl said, as he dialed the telephone. “I was talking to the detective on duty in Intelligence. The phone company won’t pass out numbers.”
There was the faint sound of a telephone ringing.
“Mr. Arthur J. Nelson, please,” he said. “This is Inspector Peter Wohl of the Philadelphia Police Department. “
Neither Louise nor her father could hear both sides of the conversation, but it was evident that the call was not going well. The proof came when Peter exhaled audibly and shook his head after he hung up.
“Arthur was being his usual, obnoxious self, I gather?” Wells asked.
“He wanted to know precisely where the car was found, where it is. I told him I didn’t know. He made it plain he didn’t believe me. I was on the verge of telling him that if I knew, I wouldn’t tell him. I don’t want a dozen members of the goddamned press mucking around by the car until the lab people are through with it.”
“Thank you very much, you goddamned policeman,” Louise said.
“You’re welcome,” Peter said, and Wells laughed.
“Goddamn you, Peter!”
‘ I didn’t teach her to swear like that,” Wells said. “She learn that from you?”
“I’d hate to tell you what she said to Lieutenant DelRaye,” Peter said.
“I know what she said,” Wells said. “If she was a little younger, I’d wash her mouth out with soap.
“I may get to that,” Peter said.
“What the hell is it with you two?” Louise demanded. “A mutual-admiration society? A mutual-male-chauvinist-admiration society?”
“Could be,” Wells said. “I don’t know how he feels about me, baby, but I like Peter very much.”
Louise saw happiness and perhaps relief in Peter’s eyes. Their eyes met for a moment.
“Then can I have him, Daddy?” Louise said, in a credible mimicry of a small girl’s voice. “I promise to feed him, and housebreak him, and walk him, and all that stuff. Please, Daddy?”
Wohl chuckled. Wells grew serious.
“I think he’d have even more trouble housebreaking you than you would him,” he said. “You come from very different kennels. My unsolicited advice—to both of you—is to take full advantage of the trial period.”
“I thought you said you liked him,” Louise said, trying, and not quite succeeding, to sound light and bright.
“I do. But you were talking about marriage, and I think that would be a lousy idea.”
“But if we love each other?” Louise asked, now almost plaintively.
“I have long believed that if it were as difficult to get married as it is to get divorced, society would be a hell of a lot better off,” Wells said.
“You’re speaking from personal experience, no doubt?” Louise flared,
“Cheap shot, baby,” Wells said, getting up. “I’ve had a long day. I’m going to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow before I go.”
“Don’t go, Daddy,” Louise said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said.”
“Sure, you did. And I don’t blame you. But just for the record, if I had married your mother, that would have been even a greater mistake than marrying the one I did. I don’t expect you to pay a bit of attention to what I’ve said, but I felt obliged to say it anyway.”
He crossed the room to Peter Wohl and put out his hand.
“It was good to meet you, Peter,” he said. “And I meant what I said, I do like you. Having said that, be warned that I’m going to do everything I can to keep her from marrying you.”
“Fair enough,” Peter said.
“You understand why, I think,” Wells said.
“Yes, sir,” Peter said. “I think I do.”
“And you think I’m wrong?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Wells,” Peter Wohl said.
Wells snorted, looked into Wohl’s eyes for a moment, and then turned to his daughter.
“Breakfast? Could you come to the Warwick at say, nine?”
“No,” she said.
“Come on, baby,” he said.
“I have a busy schedule tomorrow,” she said. “I begin the day at eight by looking at a severed head, and then at ten, I have to go to a funeral. It would have to be in the afternoon. Can you stay that long?”
/>
“I’ll stay as long as necessary,” he said. “We are going to have a very serious conversation, baby, you and I.”
“Can I drop you at your hotel, Mr. Wells?” Peter asked. “It’s on my way.”
“Come on, Peter,” Wells said. “Don’t ruin a fine first impression by being a hypocrite now. Anyway, there’s a limo waiting for me.”
He kissed Louise’s cheek, waved at Wohl, and walked out of the apartment.
SIXTEEN
Arthur J. Nelson did not like pills. There were several reasons for this, starting with a gut feeling that there was something basically wrong with chemically fooling around with the natural functions of the body, but primarily it was because he had seen what pills had done to his wife.
Sally was always bitching about his drinking, and maybe there was a little something to that; maybe every once in a while he did take a couple of belts that he really didn’t need; but the truth was that, so far as intoxication was concerned, she had been floating around on a chemical cloud for years.
It had been going on for years. Sally had been nervous when he married her, and once a month, before that time of the month, she had been like a coiled spring, just waiting for a small excuse to blow up. She’d started taking pills then, a little something to help her cope. That had worked, and when she’d gotten pregnant, the need for them had seemed to pass.
But even before she’d had Jerome, she’d started on pills again, to calm her down. Tranquilizers, they called them. Then, after Jerome was born, when he was still a baby, she’d kept taking them whenever, as she put it, things just “made her want to scream.”
She hadn’t taken them steadily then, just when there was some kind of stress. Over the years, it had just slipped up on her. There seemed to be more and more stress, which she coped with by popping a couple of whatever the latest miracle of medicine was.
In the last five years, it had really gotten worse. Jerome had had a lot to do with that. It had been bad when he was still living at home, and had grown worse when he’d moved out. It had gotten so bad that he’d finally put her in Menninger’s, where they put a name to it, “chemical dependency,” and had weaned her from what she was taking and put her on something else, which was supposed to be harmless.
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