Hanging a right on 8th and walking two blocks east, we finally reached the Birmingham residence, a four-story, tan brick structure housing a street-level chop suey restaurant.
(If I smelled like fish, Jimmy probably smelled like fried rice.) There were no buzzers near the building’s entrance, and no lock on the door either, so Abby and I simply went inside and trudged, in single file, up the dark, narrow staircase to the second floor.
There was just one apartment on that floor, and the name on the door said Potter, so we continued our climb to the next level and the next apartment. And there it was—written in letters so tiny they almost all fit in the window of the small brass nameplate—BIRMINGHA.
“Should we ring or knock?” I whispered to Abby, glad not to have to make such a momentous decision on my own.
“Ring,” she said, pressing the bell. She took off her hat, pulled her long braid over one shoulder, and started warming up her lash-batting muscles.
Nobody came to the door.
“And then ring again,” she added, jabbing the bell about three more times.
Still nobody.
“Then knock,” she said, rapping her knuckles hard against the wood.
Nothing happened.
“And if that doesn’t work, knock harder,” she said, pounding the side of her fist like a sledgehammer on the door. “Hey, Birmingham!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Get your lazy ass over here and open the door!”
Mission accomplished. There were some plodding and groaning noises on the other side of the portal, then a couple of clicks and scrapes, then a wide opening appeared between the door and the doorjamb. And standing smack in the middle of that opening was Jimmy Birmingham, yawning loudly and wearing nothing but a high school ring, a silver ID bracelet, and a dirty brown blanket wrapped around his narrow hips. Otto was standing at Jimmy’s feet, whimpering and whirling his skinny little tail in circles.
“Hi, Jimmy,” Abby said, pushing the door even wider and stepping inside. “Did we wake you up?” Her bright red lips were smiling and her thick black lashes were flapping like the wings of a raven on takeoff. It was quite a show.
“Yeah,” he said, holding the blanket up around his waist with one hand and scratching his beard with the other. “Didn’t get to bed till a couple’a hours ago.” He cleared his throat, rubbed his eyes, and took another—closer—look at Abby. “Hey, gorgeous, do I know you?” he asked, raising his heavy lids and cocking his lips in a sleepy smirk.
“You do now,” she said, brushing past him and moving deeper into the apartment.
“Allow me to introduce you,” I said, stepping into the doorway and standing in front of Jimmy. “This is Judy Catcher’s cousin, Muffy Gurch.” (If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never know where that name came from!) “She just came into town from Pittsburgh. Muffy’s still really broken up about Judy’s murder, and she thought she might find some comfort in the company of her cousin’s closest friends.”
Looking at me for the first time, Jimmy took a step backward and winced. “Yeah, okay, fine—but what the hell’re you doing here?” He touched his fingers to the scabbed-over lesion on his lip. “You wanna sink your teeth in me again?”
“Oh, no!” I cried, telling the absolute truth (for a brief second, anyway). “I thought I could use some comfort, too. And I wanted to apologize for what happened the other night—and for the nasty things I said.”
“Yeah, well . . .” He looked skeptical, to say the least.
“I’m really sorry, Jimmy,” I pleaded. “I’m so sick about what happened to Judy, I don’t know what I’m doing or saying anymore.”
“Are you serious?” he asked, scratching his beard again.
“Dead serious.”
“No more biting or crazy accusations?”
“Not even a nibble.”
“Well then,” he said, moving aside and pulling the door all the way open, “I guess you can come in, too.”
Jimmy seemed to have forgiven me, but Otto definitely hadn’t. As I walked into the apartment, the teeny-weeny dog let out a great big weenie growl. And then—nails clicking madly against the bare wood floor—he started jumping all over the place and yapping his pointy-nosed little head off. I was the only one in danger of being bitten now.
“Cool it, Otto!” Jimmy commanded, and the little dog immediately quieted down. Jimmy picked him up in his free hand (the other one was still holding the blanket around his waist) and cradled him in the crook of his arm. “That’s a good boy,” Jimmy gurgled, lowering his cheek for Otto to lick. (Was that the same sound I’d heard on the phone with the anonymous caller last night?)
“My cousin used to write me letters about you, Jimmy,” Abby said, taking off her coat, inflating her ample chest, giving him an eyeful of her fuzzy, well filled-out red sweater. She threw her coat on the foot of his rumpled bed (it was a studio apartment—no bedroom) and draped her thick braid over the opposite shoulder, allowing it to slither, like a python, over one breast. “Judy told me how handsome you were, and that you were a brilliant poet. I can see for myself that the first part was true,” she said, twirling the end of her braid around her index finger and giving him a slow, slinky smile, “but how can I be sure about the second part?”
Jimmy was a goner. Signed, sealed, and delivered. Abby had him by the short hairs (and I’m not talking about his beard). “I can read you some of my poems,” he said, writhing, strutting, blushing, inflating his own (bare) chest to the bursting point. “Or you could come to the Vanguard tonight and watch me perform. It’ll be real gone, babe. Far out. I’ll be reciting my new Christmas opus.”
Opus?! I hooted to myself. I had to fight to keep from laughing out loud. A real gone, far out Christmas opus?! Now, that I had to hear.
“I have an idea,” I broke in, stepping up close to Jimmy, trying to get his full attention (no easy feat with Abby in the same room). “Why don’t you go take a quick shower to wake yourself up, and then get dressed, and then come out and read us your new poem. We’d both really like to hear it, wouldn’t we, Muffy?”
“Boom chicky boom!” she said. “That would be sooooo groovy. ”
Jimmy grinned at Abby and nodded. “Okay!” he said, getting even more excited. He put Otto back down on the floor and charged around the room—from the closet to the dresser and back to the closet again—gathering up various items of clothing and putting them in a pile, doing his best not to step on his trailing blanket. Then, scooping the pile of clothes up under his free arm, he scrambled toward the bathroom at the far end of the studio.
“I’ll be right back!” he croaked, stepping up to the closed bathroom door and trying to open it with the same hand that was clutching the blanket—an impossible maneuver which left him flushed and frustrated. Finally, he dropped the blanket to the floor, opened the door, and ducked into the bathroom—giving us a real gone, far out glimpse of his pink, poetic backside.
Chapter 24
THE VERY SECOND JIMMY CLOSED HIMSELF up in the bathroom, Abby and I got to work. She started going through the drawers of his dresser, while I tackled the closet. Otto kept dashing back and forth between us, whimpering at Abby and growling at me.
Glad that Jimmy had a miniature dachshund and not a Great Dane, I rifled through the boxes on the upper shelf of the closet, finding nothing but a flattened football, a stack of pinup magazines, a 1949 bowling trophy, and a Dodgers baseball cap. I searched the pockets of Jimmy’s coat, pants, and jackets and came up empty—except for a snotty handkerchief and a slew of movie ticket stubs from the Waverly Theater. There were a couple of shoeboxes on the floor of the closet which held nothing but shoes. Neither box was from Thom McAn.
“Did you find anything?” I whispered to Abby, closing the closet door and turning to see how she was making out.
“I found a few holsters,” she said, dangling a handful of jockstraps in the air, “but nothing that even remotely resembles a gun.”
“Then check out the kitchen shelves and dr
awers,” I said. “I’ll do the bookshelf and look under the bed. Besides the gun, keep your eyes peeled for a black lunchbox.”
“Aye, aye, captain!” she whispered, turning toward the area near the bathroom door, where the small kitchen appliances and cabinets were lined against the wall like cartons in a stockroom.
I zipped over to the side of the bed and dropped down to my hands and knees. Lifting up the edge of another brown blanket, I put my face down next to the floor and peered into the darkness underneath. Nothing but dust, a well-chewed steak bone, and a bunch of dead cockroaches. Otto darted under the bed and crouched down over the bone, staring out at me, snarling, protecting his treasure with unabashed zeal. I backed away from the bed, lowered the blanket, and crawled a few feet over to examine the small, low, dusty bookshelf—which also revealed nothing, except that Jimmy liked to read dime store novels with titles like Hot Rod and Pickup Alley. He also had a copy of The Catcher in the Rye—but then, so did everybody.
“Any luck?” Abby asked, moving back into the middle of the room. “There’s hardly anything in the kitchen. He doesn’t even have any food.”
I stood up and walked over to her. “I couldn’t find anything either. And there’s no place left to search but the bathroom. I’ll look around in there after Jimmy comes out.”
No sooner had these words left my mouth than Jimmy exited the bathroom and joined us in the studio. He looked very handsome in his black turtleneck, black pants, and sexy, cocksure smile. His thick, dark, Tony Curtis hair was still wet from the shower.
“Hi, girls,” he said, raising both eyebrows and stroking his sleek Vandyke. “Did you miss me?” He was talking to both of us, but he only had eyes for Abby. At the sound of Jimmy’s voice, Otto scurried out from under the bed, scampered to his master’s side, and dropped his dust-covered steak bone at his feet.
“May I use the bathroom?” I asked immediately, anxious to complete my search of the premises. I also had to pee.
“Sure, doll,” Jimmy said, still looking only at Abby. “Knock yourself out.”
Tearing myself away from the happy trio (nobody—not even Abby!—was sorry to see me go), I slipped into the bathroom and locked the door. Turning on the sink faucet full blast (I hoped the sound of running water would mask any other sounds I might happen to make), I opened the medicine cabinet and peeked inside. Just the usual stuff: a bottle of aspirin, a razor, a shaving mug with a brush (which had seen very little use), and one of those weird-looking nosehair clippers. No small handgun or box of .22 caliber bullets. No lunchbox either, but I didn’t expect there to be, since it could never have fit on one of those shallow glass shelves.
Except for the bathtub, which was wet and empty, there was only one hiding place in the room big enough to conceal a lunchpail—the dirty clothes basket. Yanking the lid off the small white hamper, I plunged both arms into the stash of soiled underwear, feeling around the sides of the hamper, and all the way down to the bottom, for something hard. Nothing doing. No gun, no lunchbox—no cigar. Jimmy had either hidden the murder weapon and the lunchbox in another location entirely, or disposed of them altogether, or he was no murderer at all.
Wondering which of these three possibilities was true, I peed, flushed, washed my hands, and left the bathroom. To my utter surprise, Otto ran over to meet me, wagging his little tail in ecstasy, gazing up at me with the sweetest expression I’d ever seen on any creature’s face. I picked the little dog up in my arms, gave him my cheek to lick, and then looked over at Abby and Jimmy, trying to determine the cause of this welcome canine windfall.
It wasn’t too hard to figure out. Jimmy was so entranced with Abby—and Abby was working so hard to keep Jimmy entranced—that Otto had no one left to turn to but me. I gave the pup a soft little squeeze, fondled his warm, floppy ears, walked over and sat down on the side of the bed, settling the little dog snuggly on my lap. It felt so good to have a new friend. One who wouldn’t stalk me, or push me onto the subway tracks, or break into my apartment, or be looking for new ways to kill me.
“Hey!” I said, loud enough to bust up the near-coital experience taking place between Abby and Jimmy, “I’m back now, and I’m in need of brilliant poetry! My soul is starving! Bring on the Christmas opus!” Though I was dying to ask Jimmy a few leading questions about Judy Catcher, I felt I could use a little diversion first.
And Jimmy was eager to provide. “Okay!” he cried, placing his hands on Abby’s shoulders and guiding her—backwards—to a seated position next to me on the bed. “Prepare to be transported to the truth!” he said, puffing out his cheeks and chest in pride. Abby and I gave each other a stealthy little smile, then focused all our fawning attention on Jimmy.
Jimmy walked back across the width of the room, picked a notebook up from the small table against the wall, spun around to face us, and struck a dramatic pose—feet planted firmly apart, one arm behind his back, the other dangling down his side with the notebook in his hand. The wall behind him was decorated with three (yes, three!) bullfighting posters. (I’ll never understand why everybody—but everybody! —in the Village has huge bullfighting posters hanging in their apartments. Is it a craving for violent public spectacle, a mythical fear of mighty animals, a passionate lust for blood, or just a faddish devotion to the bullfight erly novels and stories of Ernest Hemingway?)
Looking straight at Abby, Jimmy gave her a slow, suggestive wink, then raised the notebook to reading level, and—in a deep, pompous, pontifical tone—began transporting us to the truth:
Snowflakes soundless pure commingling
Falling to the rotted dizzy ground
Seasoned with spirits of meaningless holiday
cheer
Noisy mindless sleighbells pound
Yearly eternal cerebral Christmas blues
For all another round of bloody boozy fizz
Drink up you fools and wish yourself a merry
tight
In the skunk bright moonlight goodnight
Something horrible had happened to me. I was starting to kind of like Jimmy Birmingham’s goofy poetry. It still made me want to laugh, though, so—in an effort to stop any giggle fits before they began—I clenched my teeth and didn’t say a word.
Which worked out just fine, since Abby was being more than effusive enough for both of us. “Ohhhh, Jimmy!” she panted, jumping to her feet and darting over to give him a wild embrace. “That was the living end! So cool and honest and true! I never heard such wonderful words in my life! You’re the new Robert Lowell! You’re better than Dylan Thomas! I’m swooning with the way out passion of your soaring vision!”
Oh, brother! I groaned to myself. If she lays it on any thicker, he’ll be buried alive. Deciding to cut in on the spinning dancers before they swirled right out of control, I rose to my feet and—cradling Otto like a baby in my arms—walked up close to the tangled twosome. “Loved your Christmas opus, Jimmy,” I said. “Really did. But aren’t we forgetting something here? Like the real reason we came to see you today?” I gave Abby a secret poke in the ribs with my elbow. “Muffy is so upset about her cousin Judy’s death that she just has to talk to you about it. She’s hoping you can shed some light on the murder, help her learn to live with the pain.”
“That’s right,” Abby said, finally remembering that she had come to look for a cold-blooded killer, not a new model—or a new lover. She backed away from Jimmy’s grasping arms and flipped her smile into a frown. “I’m so devastated over what happened to Judy,” she said, whimpering in much the same way Otto had earlier, “I can’t ever get to sleep at night. I just lie in bed thinking about the horrible way she died, wondering why anybody would want to shoot my sweet, beautiful cousin, and praying with all my heart that the killer will soon be found.” She stopped talking for a moment and gave Jimmy a pleading gaze. “Do you miss her as much as I do, baby?”
Baby?! She’s calling him baby? What went on while I was in the bathroom?
“Sure I do,” he said. “I miss her a
lot. She was my one and only girlfriend for three whole months.”
Hip, hip, hooray! Let’s hear it for the Ham! Greater love hath no man than to stay faithful for three, count ’em, three whole months!
“So what happened, Jimmy?” I asked. “Why did you break up with her?”
“I wasn’t the one who cut loose,” he insisted. “She broke up with me. I was really torn up about it for a while.” His eyes were getting teary. (From true pain, deep guilt, or pure “poetic” sensitivity? I couldn’t tell.) I hoped he wouldn’t start bawling like he had at the Vanguard.
“But my cousin was so in love with you!” Abby broke in. “Every letter she sent me was all about you! Why would she call it quits?”
“Well,” he said, looking down at the dusty floor and shuffling his feet, “I guess I didn’t treat her too good. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I really didn’t. But I just couldn’t walk the line. I’m a wild and crazy poet, dig it? I’m a natural-born, hot-blooded man. One chick’s just not enough for me.”
“So why were you so torn up when she broke it off?” I asked.
“Because I loved her. She moved me. I wrote good poems when she was with me. Otto loved her, too.” Looking around for his little dog, and finding him nestled in my arms, Jimmy stepped over to me and scooped Otto up in his own arms. “I really hated it when Judy moved in with that old rich guy,” he muttered, hugging Otto tight to his chest, beginning to pace the room in circles like a caged panther.
“You mean Gregory Smythe?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She never told me the cube’s name. She knew I didn’t want to hear about him. It made me too mad.”
Murder is a Girl's Best Friend Page 22