“And imaginative.”
“And, of course, she's got that great body and those beautiful chocolate-brown eyes.”
“She has?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “I'm a poet. I notice things like that.”
“Sounds like you're in love again, Poet.”
“Albert,” he said, “I am.”
“And tell me, do you think the lady returns your feelings?”
“I think,” he said, looking me in the eye, “that she thinks I am less of a jackass than she originally thought.”
Self-awareness now? For once I was impressed.
“Well,” I said. “Good luck to you.”
Norman arrived with my BLT and chili. He said, “These both for you, Albie, or is one for your date?”
I rose and said, “Norman Tubbs. Quentin Quayle. You guys ought to get acquainted. I think you have a lot in common.”
Poet said, “How do you do?”
Norman said, “You're not related to S. Quentin Quail of the Bonafide Oil Company, by any chance.”
“You like the Marx Brothers?” Poet asked.
“Love them.”
“Me too.”
“Hang on,” I said. “Will somebody tell me what's going on here?”
Dismissively Norman said, “S. Quentin Quail is the character Groucho played in Go West.’‘ Then to Poet he said, “Why don't you come over to the counter. Albie can probably just about cut up his food for himself.”
And without another word they left me—struck dumb and mouth hanging open.
Chapter Fifty Nine
WHEN I FINISHED EATING I made an unnoticed escape through the house to my office. The new soulmates probably wouldn't have cared anyway, but I didn't want to take a chance.
Despite the comfort of a full belly, I was nervous as I opened the door to my quarters. I let it swing wide before I went into my bedroom. But there was no one inside and no obvious sign of a recent visit.
I felt foolish, but I had had a hell of a few days. Nothing seemed genuinely to surprise me anymore except lack of surprises.
The observation didn't make enough sense to be poetic. I considered it, therefore, to be philosophic.
There wasn't even any mail.
There were, however, messages on my answering machine. But before I listened to them I showered and changed into fresh clothes and became a new man and managed not to think of bombers for seconds at a stretch.
There were five messages in all.
The first of the day was from Bobbie Lee. She asked me to call and to tell her answering machine to wake her up.
The next three messages were, incredibly, from prospective new clients.
Finally, Frank spoke urgently of the need for eight hundred dollars.
Nothing on the machine was more important than my seeing Miller.
Yet I hesitated.
What I wanted to say to Miller wasn't clear in my head.
I found myself feeling that I shouldn't rush to the police just yet.
And one reason for delaying was the image of my little friend
Sick.
There was no justification, philosophic or poetic, for Kathryn Morgason doing what she had done. But in a world as barbarous and cruel as this one, where the suffering inflicted for personal gain is immeasurable, I did not believe that Kathryn Morgason had done enough to deserve having the key thrown away.
Judge Samson was it now?
Well, why not? Judge Samson was at least as “wise” as any other judge.
But I also hesitated to spill my guts to Miller because I did not feel that I understood enough about what had happened and why.
And what responsible judge would make a decision without all the facts?
Yet there was a bomb in my car.
I don't make life easy for myself.
I sat for a while at my desk. I tried to begin a list. Things I could do. Options. But before long I found myself doodling. Wavy lines became hands. The hands acquired spots. The spots began to take erotic forms.
Then the telephone rang.
As I picked it up I realized that I shouldn't have. It could be Miller. It should be Miller.
I said, “You have reached the Albert Samson Investigative Services Agency. Mr. Samson cannot come to the telephone right now but if you will leave your name and tel—”
“Bull shit,’‘ Bobbie Lee said.
“Ah.”
“I wanted to let you know that I am awake and I'm ready to drive over in case you are the slightest bit interested in a pretty unusual surveillance report. But, gee, Mr. Samson, sir, if you are too important these days to get reports from—”
“I'm sorry,” I said. “I was afraid you were the police.”
After a pause she said, “I didn't think you ran that kind of operation.”
“I don't,” I said. “It's a complicated story. But come to the office, please. I'll be here.”
“I don't want to get mixed up with the police. They take too goddamn much time.”
“You won't. In fact,” I said, improvising, “I have more work for you.” I looked at the list of client calls on my pad. Well, why not? “A lot more work.”
She thought about that.
“But watch yourself when you get here. Quentin Quayle is downstairs.”
“You know, Albert,” she said, “that guy isn't quite the jackass you think he is.”
Bobbie Lee Leonard look tired. “Late night?” I asked.
“If you've seen Quentin, you know damn well it was,” she said.
“We didn't talk about it.”
She smiled. “Hasn't he got the cutest way of saying things?”
“It's what he says I have the problem with.”
“Well, you want this report or not?”
“I do.”
She took a notebook from her handbag. “On paper it's only a list of where and when. I haven't had a chance to write it up fancy and make the client think he's got his money's worth.”
“He thinks he got his money's worth all right.”
“So verbal is all right?”
“And simple. I just want to know what happened.”
“Well, the Vivien woman went out in the early evening and she headed downtown, only she stopped at a public phone on the way and made a call.”
“O.K.”
“Then she went to a little bar out East Washington and met this man.”
“Yeah. I've heard about the 'scruffy' bar and the ugly, dirty old man with halitosis, dandruff and a patch over one eye.
“I guess I forgot to mention he didn't wear no underwear and only had the one ball.”
“Yeah yeah.”
“But I don't understand why you hire me to follow somebody and don't tell me you are going to meet her yourself.”
“I didn't know.”
“No?”
“Quentin identified the dress in the picture you drew as one of Mrs. Vivien's. So after you left I called her and she agreed to meet me.”
“So you were on another case? The picture case?”
“Yeah. So where did Mrs. Vivien go after she left the bar?”
“She stopped at another phone booth and this time she made two calls, not one.”
“To what numbers?”
“You wish,” Bobbie Lee said.
“And then?”
“Then,” she said, “she went to a motel out Washington Street.”
“A motel?”
“Just the other side of 465. She went into reception and was there for a few minutes and came out with some keys.”
“Quentin must have been having a fit.”
“He didn't say.”
“And once Mrs. Vivien had her keys?”
“She drove away. And she went to a shopping center and found another phone and made two more calls.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And then she went into a supermarket.”
“Hang on.”
“And bought a bag of groceries and about ten o'clock s
he went back to the motel and went into a room.”
“Alone?”
“The room was dark when she went; in. Lights came on as she closed the door.”
“O.K.”
“We parked where we could see pretty good but nothing happened. Once she had been in there for a while I went to reception and talked to the clerk. It cost you money, but I found out that Mrs. Vivien booked three rooms, all in a row. And the one she'd gone into was the middle room.”
“Hmmm.”
“Then people started arriving. First a woman, in a BMW. Then two more together, in a Ford.”
“Women?”
“Yeah. All white. First one was maybe five feet tall and she moved well, you know? Athletically. In her thirties I'd guess, but I didn't get a good look. She wore a long jacket and a scarf. The other two, one was older and one was younger. Both about five four or five. They had long jackets on too, and scarves. The two together had a couple of suitcases.”
I just sat.
“This stuff mean something to you?”
“I can't quite believe it but it does.”
“Do I get to ask what?”
I said nothing.
“I thought not,” she said. “That's one of the reasons I've got time for Quentin. He may not say it in words, but you always know where you are with him.”
I shrugged.
“Is something wrong?”
I said, “Did you get the plate numbers?”
“Of course.”
“Bobbie Lee, did you put them through to get the owners?”
She grinned. Her tongue played in the gap between her teeth. “Sure did, boss.” She flipped a page in her notebook. “You want the list?”
I nodded.
“BMW is registered to a guy named Morgason.”
“And the Ford?”
“Lillian Ray. You want the addresses?”
“Not now. Finish the report.”
The page came back. But instead of beginning again she said, “You all right?”
“Great.”
“You look like shit.”
I said nothing.
“Well, all these women went to the room Mrs. Vivien was in.”
“What time did the last two get there?”
“Ten past eleven.”
“And then?”
“Quentin and I waited outside till five-fifteen.”
“Nobody came out?”
“Nobody. And the lights stayed on.”
“Nobody else went in?”
“I would have said.”
“Bobbie Lee, might they still be there now?”
Chapter Sixty
SOMEBODY LESS TIRED THAN I was might have gotten it earlier.
When I talked to them in the phone booth Monday night, the Scummies had been furious. They had called me “treacherous” and referred to my “cop friends.”
I had never figured out why.
But now I knew. Monday was the first night Bobbie Lee followed Charlotte Vivien. It was also the night that Quentin Quayle followed her. Vivien had spotted Quayle and taken tire-squealing evasive action to shake him. But she had thought she was shaking a cop and for a cop to be tailing her meant that I must have betrayed them.
Later that night I displayed the hanky in my window. I wanted to talk.
So did they. And everything they had had to say was angry.
If I'd only managed to associate their unexpected anger with the shaken tail, I would have known then that Charlotte Vivien was one of them. The Gorilla. The one who hadn't ever spoken in my presence.
Oh God! My woman and Miller had both asked the key question: why did the Scum Front come to me in the first place? Why me?
I had asked it too and been told it was because I worked alone. But that wasn't enough. No. The Scum Front came to me because, when they decided to hire someone to look for their missing bomb, Charlotte Vivien was able to say that she already knew a private detective. One who could be paid to do just about anything. Even a goddamn murder dinner party.
I picked up the phone.
Bobbie Lee watched.
I dialed Charlotte Vivien's number. Loring answered. I asked for Mrs. Vivien. I was told she was not at home. I asked when she was expected. He said he didn't know.
Then, for what felt like the hundredth time that day, I dialed Kathryn Morgason. But this time I was afraid that she would answer.
She didn't.
When I hung up, Bobbie Lee said quietly, “You could have called the motel to see if they checked out.”
I nodded. “If I'd thought of it.” She studied me. “This is something serious.”
“Yes,” I said. Then, “I've got to go there.”
“You want me to come?”
I was surprised at the offer.
But pleased.
“I still won't be able to tell you what it's all about.”
“O.K.,” she said easily. “I'll try to figure it out as I go along. Ain't nothing so intriguing as a little mystery.”
“If you say so.”
“Correct me if I'm wrong,” she said, “but I get the feeling you'd trade the intrigue for a little sleep.”
“Honestly,” I said, “I no longer really know what I'm doing.”
“Is that supposed to be a news flash?”
“I guess not.”
“One car or two?”
I was sorely tempted to go in her Rabbit. It was unlikely to have a bomb in it.
But it wouldn't be “socially responsible” to leave my car. Or to ask her to ride in it. “Two,” I said.
I followed as she led to the motel. She drove quickly.
I had to concentrate to keep up.
But not too hard to wonder whether Bobbie Lee Leonard carried a gun.
By the time we got there I didn't want to ask. I wouldn't like the answer either way.
She parked near the end of one group of motel rooms.
There was a space next to her but I passed it. I drove my bomb as far away from her car as I could.
She stood by her Rabbit and watched as I walked back across the lot.
“Problem?” she asked.
“No.”
I slipped into her passenger seat and she got back in too. Shaking her head. But she said, “Their cars are still here.”
So this was it. I had them together.
But what was I going to do with them?
“Where?” I asked.
She pointed them out. “And the room is up there, second from the end. Forty-seven.”
We were almost directly in front of it. “I want you to move the car,” I said.
“What?”
I looked for a place away from the room and away from my car. “Over there,” I said. I pointed.
“Why?”
“I'm afraid they might see you here.”
“But they don't know me.”
I looked at her.
She said, “Yes, boss,” and started the engine.
“Back into the space, so you can see the room door.”
“So what happens now?” she asked when we were settled again.
“I go up and knock, I guess.”
“And if they won't let you in?”
“I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow the door down.”
Or put a note under it saying if they didn't open up I'd go to the police. The principle was the same.
“Nervous, huh?” Bobbie Lee said.
“Yeah.”
“Look, let me go to reception and try to get a key.”
“A key? How the hell you going to do that?”
“Ah,” she said, “I'll only show you my little secrets if you'll show me yours.”
I didn't know what to say.
“You want me to try?”
If I had a key I could surprise them.
Was that good? Or would that make something go bang? Or would knocking on the door make something go bang?
“Go on,” I said.
She went.
I sat in the car and fidgeted.
I worried about the suitcases.
I knew what the Scum Front carried in suitcases.
What if they were making new bombs? What if they were about to blow themselves up in a spectacular final gesture?
Was there any reason to think they'd do that?
Well, I would go in anyway. No way was I going to get this close and back off.
Then I got worried because I hadn't made a will.
So I wrote one, on a piece of notebook paper.
Everything to my only child except my books. Those to my woman friend. And a wish for good luck to Miller. My mother as executor without bond. No eight hundred dollars to Frank.
Bobbie Lee came back grinning the most beguiling gap-toothed grin I had ever seen. She dropped onto the seat and jingled a key in front of me.
“That was quick,” I said.
“Shows I was dealing with a man,” she said.
I began to speak but she interrupted. “Clerk last night complained he was having to do double shifts. So it was the same guy. He likes money.”
“I want you to witness something.”
“What are you talking about?”
I signed the will and passed it to her.
But even that didn't wipe the smile. “Give me the pen,” she said, and wrote her name by mine. “You are just about the nuttiest fella I ever worked for.”
“Today I can believe that,” I said.
“So,” she said, “you're going into the room. You want me to come too?”
“No.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Call the cops if I don't come out, I guess.”
“After how long?”
“I don't know. Use your judgment, but give me some time.”
“I take it you figure these women are dangerous.”
“I don't think they are, but they might be.”
“Are you sure you want to do whatever it is you're doing?”
“No. But I'm sure I don't want not to do it.”
“If you were someone else,” she said, “I'd ask what that was supposed to mean. When you going?”
“Now,” I said. I got out of the car.
Room 47 was up a slight incline from the parking lot. I walked straight to the sidewalk in front of the door.
I felt naked. It wasn't because I didn't have a gun. It was because I didn't have any ideas.
I was also frightened.
I approached the door and listened.
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