Of Mice and Murderers

by John Stockmyer

  "I will."

  "Yeah." Ted being more hopeful than convinced. "You'll hear from me." .... Click.

  So what had Bob Zapolska, ace private eye, discovered from his morning of phone calls? Nothing much. At least not yet. (Z being hopeful.)

  Mostly, he'd learned that growing older hadn't done any of the Musketeers a hell of a lot of good.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 4

  Finished with the phone calls, it was eleven-thirty, not too late to eat, then collect his money from Beth Ogden. Except ... he was out of the mood to track the lady down. Nor did the thought of having lunch at the gallery give him pleasure any more.

  Why?

  He decided it was the depressing combination of the stolen painting, Susan's slipping away, and having to face up to the fact that he and his friends were aging -- a witches' brew enough to sadden anyone!

  He shook himself. Time to follow the sage advice of that great Kansas City baseball player, Satchel Paige, who said: "Never look back -- somethin' might be gainin' on you." (Not what you'd call a positive view of life, either!)

  In Bob Zapolska's case, an antidote for depression was to force himself to make progress on a case or cases ... that very day.

  But first ... lunch. No sense trying to "make progress" on an empty stomach.

  Hauling his leg off the desk, struggling up from his battered swivel chair, he went to the right-hand filing cabinet where, after the usual struggle, he worked open the warped top drawer and took out the Philip Jose Farmer paperback he was reading.

  Closing the drawer, limping through the narrow arch to the front room, he retrieved his overcoat from his "secretary's" desk and put it on.

  Leaving the office, closing the door, he made himself nod in response to the greeting of the thin, middle-aged woman coming out of the office across the hall. Millie. She'd done his income taxes last year; had saved him a little money; hinted that if he made more, she could save him more.

  Like Z, the building's other occupants were headed out for food before going back to the grind of income tax preparing, accounting, working in the employment office, peddling insurance, selling real estate, repairing vacuum cleaners, or attending the sleazy secretarial school on second.

  Outside, cranking up the Cavalier's undersized engine, he maneuvered his way into the line of drivers trying to pull out on Chouteau.

  Finding a hole in traffic, he was left turned out of the lot, and trying to keep pace with the other cars.

  Drove (in traffic) the width of residential Gladstone in fifteen minutes, ending at the Pizza Hut on what was the Northland's true business street, North Oak.

  Pizza Hut. A small place that was never crowded.

  Also cheap.

  Also quiet. A spot where he could read.

  Seated by a high school-looking waitress who took his order, surrounded by the red and white checkered atmosphere of Pizza Huts everywhere, Z read a chapter in his paperback while waiting for his double pepperoni personal pan pizza and Diet Coke.

  Weird. (Not the food, the novel.)

  But that was why he read SF: to shake up his mind.

  After eating (with nothing else going for him,) he turned the Cavalier south on Oak, the day as sunny as Western Missouri got in January.

  The lunch-crowd cars thinning out, he drove a quick ten blocks, cranking right into the crowded lot of Easy Rental, Z slowing to edge around an old truck that was clogging up the already U-haul-jammed entrance, the truck's back doors swung wide, warmly dressed men with buff-colored work gloves feeding metal folding chairs into the van.

  Past the truck, he pulled in at the end of a row of rusty cars, jeeps, and light trucks.

  Getting out of the Cavalier, Z crossed in front of the chair gobbling six-by-six to push through the jingling door of Easy Rental.

  Looking the same inside as out -- like what it was -- a sometime-in-the-long-ago-painted-bilious-green Quonset hut, Easy Rental had a cavernous, iron-and-rivet-braced, corrugated steel interior, its ceiling arched high above a riotous assortment of items someone -- sometime -- might want to "borrow."

  The room's age-stained concrete floor supported rows of dilapidated folding tables piled with power tools, garden equipment, picnic baskets (already packed with plastic tableware,) china, folding church chairs, propane torches, airless sprayers, drain-cleaning snakes, candelabras, coffee makers, grills, and table skirting.

  At one time, Easy Rental also offered jack hammers, ventilator fans, halogen lights, kerosene heaters, and electric cable -- the reason Z was there.

  Old men in work clothes and colorful, quilted jackets were side-stepping along the tables, pawing through tools in the belief that, if they could locate the right gizmo, they could find a use for it.

  To center left was the rental counter with its hand-crank cash register, cardboard box of rental forms, scratched phone, credit card machine, and the same clerk Z had seen there a year ago -- a teenage mutant dingy girl named Myrtle.

  "Something I can do for you, fellow?" Asked in the whiskey rasp of Jake, Easy Rental's owner. Waddling up, Jake was dressed in greasy, out-sized bib overalls and dirt-encrusted, checked shirt. Except for the smell of kerosene and a grime-inspired tan, Jake resembled nothing so much as a short, two-ball snowman in cast off clothing.

  "Any of last year's stolen items ever turn up?"

  "Huh?" You had to speak up around Jake, his ears seriously plugged with fat. "Oh. I know you. You're ... You're ....." A dirty, split-nail finger poked at Z, hand and finger tattooed with crank case grease.

  "Bob Zapolska."

  "Yeah. The private dick I hired who couldn't find my stolen goods no better than the cops." Fighting the weight of three hundred pounds of gravity, Jake tried a multiple chin sneer; managed only to twitch his Rudolph-red nose. Why anyone would rent from unpleasant Jake when Glad Rents was just down the street, Z couldn't figure.

  "Not yet."

  "You ain't given up?" If Z could have seen Jake's blubber-buried eyes, they'd be registering disgust.

  "Never. Anyway, you don't owe me 'til I produce. Results Guaranteed."

  From his lack of eagerness to get back his merchandise, Z wondered if Jake had listed more stolen items on his insurance claim than had actually vanished. "Just checking. Wanted you to know I'm still on it ...." Wasted words, Jake already toddling off.

  For Z, headed home to strap a heating pad to his knee, another imperfect ending to another imperfect day.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 5

  "You're sure I don't owe you anything?"

  They were seated in the smoking section of the Golden Corral on Oak, defending their corner of the restaurant from barbaric hordes of hungry, noontime diners. Picking up silverware, napkins, light orange plastic trays, and drinks, they'd made it through the ordering line, past the smells of the crowded salad bar and, finally, to the sturdy table tucked into an out of the way spot where they waited for the purple-uniformed post-high school waitress to bring their food.

  It had been about nine A.M. that Thursday morning when Z had called Dr. Calder at Bateman College to suggest lunch at the Golden Corral. And here they were, overcoats and scarves draped over the backs of two of the four maroon-bottomed chairs, Calder across from Z at the table. (Because of Z's knee, this was the first time in the last two days that he'd been able to do anything. He could only hope he'd recover faster with a knee brace and by following the sports store salesman's advice: not to soak his damaged knee in hot water but to use ice on it.)

  Z had just pushed a fat business envelope across the wood-grained, Formica-topped table, the professor using a steak knife to slit open the envelope, a glance inside and a quick thumb ruff showing the young prof the envelope was crammed with hundred-dollar bills.

  "I figured two thousand should fix the damage to your house," Z said, the prof nodding.

  A boyish grin spreading across Calder's chubby face, the doctor stuffed the envelope, rather casually Z thought, in the inside breast pocket of
the professor's corduroy sports jacket.

  At the moment, Dr. Calder was staring across the table, the Dr.'s light blue eyes focused on Z as if he was an exotic animal. Which, in a way, he was.

  "And you don't owe me anything. He paid my fee, too," Z lied. "Which I've pocketed."

  White lies could hardly be considered lies at all, Z had always thought, accounting for why they were called "white."

  "Amazing!" Dr. Calder ran the soft fingers of his right hand through his finely textured hair. "After I talked to him I had a totally different impression of Maddox. You must have extraordinary powers of persuasion."

  Something of an understatement, Z thought.

  "I'm supposed to be a student of the human animal," Calder said slowly, "and yet, I've just been confronted with three completely unexpected human behaviors. First, I hire you and don't have to pay you. Secondly, I get my money back from someone I'd thought wouldn't give me a nickel unless tied down and stepped on."

  "And the third thing?" Z rasped, the accuracy of Calder's insight fascinating him.

  "I've met an honest man."

  "Who?"

  "You."

  "How's that?"

  "You could just as easily have told Maddox your fee was a thousand, taken that plus the two thousand from him, then gotten another thousand from me for a job well done. Collected double. No one would have ever known."

  "Not my way." Z hated to be always whispering. What must Dr. Calder think?

  "So," the prof said, still something of a wary look about him, "all that detective fiction I absorbed as a teenager was wrong. P.I.s are not hard-boiled like Spade, Carter, and Hammer." Calder shook his head like a golden retriever shedding water, a mist of chamois-colored hair wisping down his forehead.

  Tray in hand, the jiggly young waitress now interrupted them, the same one who'd taken their order slip when she'd brought them their complimentary rolls. "And who has the shrimp?" she asked in a little girl's voice.

  Calder raising his hand like a kindergartener pleading to go potty, the girl set down the professor's plate. Then put down Z's hamburger and buttered potato pieces.

  "Is there anything else I can get you gentlemen?"

  "Nothing for me, thank you," Calder said politely.

  Z just shook his head to the waitress's question. "Alright, then. I'll be back to check on you in a little while to see if you want more tea." She smiled at the doctor. Turned to Z. "And you drink ... Diet Coke, right?"

  "Right."

  She grinned, pleased with herself for remembering. "I'll be back after awhile to get you some more Diet." And she was prancing off to the beat of youth, but on less than Susan-perfect legs, Z couldn't help but notice.

  After tearing up, then dumping a couple of pink packs of sweetener into his tea, Calder then whipping around the teaspoon, the young doc gave his full attention to his food.

  Z with nothing else to say -- they ate in silence. Except when wrestling each other for the salt.

  As for Z's thoughts, they were on Susan, Z not able to reach her all week. (He'd called her twenty times, the evening generally the best time.) Had told himself for the twentieth time that she didn't pick up because she'd turned off her phone to get some sleep.

  Leaving Susan aside, this morning -- mornings having the magic of new beginnings -- it had felt good to see peg-legged Mary's gap-toothed smile when she'd fumbled a three hundred dollar rent payment into her front dress pocket.

  On the other hand, not staying to have coffee with her had made Z feel bad again. He could have stayed. Should have stayed. But ... couldn't make himself.

  "... solved ... successfully ... feeling great," Dr. Calder said, wiping his mouth with small, precise dabs of his paper napkin.

  Whatever Calder said, Z's mind was too late in trotting home to the "Corral" to pick it up. "I didn't catch ...."

  "What I was saying was, in spite of your success, you don't seem to be happy." Calder was right, but .... "It showed in the angry way you forked the gravy off your hamburger," the professor continued, explaining how he knew about Bob's mood, at the same time discounting the "magic" of his own "revelation."

  So. Not only had Calder been concentrating on his own food, he'd been watching Z's. "Even as you gave me the envelope, I thought your smile was forced."

  "I guess our jobs are pretty similar," Z said, half-believing it. "Details count in my trade, too."

  "Sounds right. .... Well ....?"

  "What?"

  "Well ... would you like to tell me about it?" When Calder smiled, he looked like a small boy, Z thought. "Here you are, having lunch with a psychologist who, in his private practice charges 100 dollars an hour to help people with their problems." Calder was waving his left forefinger like a symphony conductor attempting to get more volume out of flutes. "Moreover, a man who's feeling guilty about getting your services for free -- valuable to the tune of two thousand dollars. I don't want to press, but if something's bothering you, that's the kind of work I do."

  "It's nothing. Just woman trouble," Z said, surprised he was saying anything about the way he felt.

  "Woman trouble is never nothing," Dr. Calder said quietly, taking off his glasses and holding them up and away from him as far as his arms would reach, checking for spots by looking through the lenses toward the light of the table's low-wattage lamps.

  Satisfied, Calder put his glasses back on, adjusted them at the temples, then tapped the nosepiece with one finger to lock them into place.

  "You can say that again," Z said, feeling it was his turn to pick up the conversation.

  Calder grinned playfully. "OK. I will. ... Woman trouble is never nothing." The prof gave him a round and rumpled wink.

  Z found himself chuckling. He hadn't expected to discover a sense of humor in an intellectual, not that he knew many intellectuals -- not that he knew any intellectuals.

  Maybe his ex-wife was an intellectual by now, Z thought bitterly. Paula. Paula Perfect. She'd wanted to go to college. Dumped him fast after she did.

  Their break-up had started the night Paula said she needed college because he didn't provide her with enough mental "stimulation" -- a nasty thing to say because nothing hurt as much as having the truth told on you, her comment going a long way to account for why he'd lost his temper. In a calmer frame of mind, he'd never have torn off Paula's clothes and held her down while using the indelible laundry marker to write "bitch" and "whore" (as well as a number of tasteless sayings) on her skin. Though she'd fought him all the way, he'd even drawn arrows on her, pointing out the location of her private parts by way of providing directions to other men who might have the misfortune to run into her.

  Nor should he have thrown her out of the house they'd been renting, naked as she was and all marked up that way. (At least it had been a warm November night).

  As for burning Paula's clothes the next day ... to say nothing of mailing the ashes to her mother ......

  "I had a wife, once," Z said, deliberately interrupting his own train of thought. "She wanted to go to college. We quarreled over that."

  "Was it about the money it would cost?"

  "No." Z was speaking in such a low rasp he was having trouble hearing himself over the general background noise of the "Corral."

  Calder seemed to hear him without difficulty, however. Did psychologists have sharper senses than normal people?

  "It sounds like that was a long time ago."

  "It was."

  "And it still hurts? Badly enough to spoil your day?"

  "Not really. Not anymore."

  "Something else, then. Something related?" If getting people to tell you their troubles was what a doctor of psychology was supposed to do, the doc knew his business. He was sharp. Seemed to know about real people, another thing Z hadn't counted on. He'd expected intellectuals to know about ideas, but not about people.

  "My lady friend's gone back to college."

  "And that makes you remember your wife and how her going back to college destroyed y
our marriage." What could Z say? He'd been trying to deny it to himself.

  "So -- what are you going to do about it?" A foolish question from the prof, even though the man was a Ph.D.

  "Nothing I can do."

  "There's always something you can do -- about anything." Z just sat there, not knowing what to say. "For instance, you can feel bad about her going to school."

  "If that's what you mean by doing something," Z said, smiling his best, but still ugly, smile, "that's what I'm doing. It doesn't seem to help, though," he finished lamely.

  "Right. But that's only one thing you can do in this situation."

  "I don't see I've got much choice ....."

  "For instance, you can go to college with her."

  "I couldn't do that."

  "No? Why not?"

  "I ... just couldn't. Don't have the brains for it."

  Calder threw back his head and laughed like a quiet, crazy man, pudgy hands waving in the air.

  Just as suddenly, was sober again, the doctor staring at him with icicle eyes. "Here you are ...," Calder explained, "having just put two thousand dollars in my hand after solving a problem I had no idea about how to tackle. And you tell me you've got too few smarts to go to college?"

  The professor stopped; looked as blank as if he'd had a seizure. ..... Recovered.

  "Where's your girl going to school?"

  "Maple Woods College."

  "An excellent choice." The doctor nodded to himself. "Bateman, where I teach, offers advantages a small college like Maple Woods can't. But mostly it's the sort of activities that appeal to the younger student. Frats. Sororities. Parties. Football and basketball.

  The waitress was at their table now, filling the professor's glass with tea, Calder thanking her, Z motioning her away from his coke glass.

  "There's something else I'll just say in passing," the young prof added, picking up the paper napkin from his lap, folding it carefully before placing it beside the empty paper cup of cocktail sauce and mournful pile of shrimp tails on his plate. "What I know as a marriage counselor is that people who are satisfied with themselves also have the best marriages. If both you and your girl are happy with work, social life, with friends -- it's almost certain you will be pleased with each other and with your relationship."