by Jay Flynn
McHugh told him. The boy nodded, his face saying nothing. He went away and used the phone. He came back in a moment and leaned on the bar. He took a fistful of pretzel sticks from a basket, popped some into his mouth and talked around them.
“Bill says you’re legitimate, and I owe him a couple of favors. No, she hasn’t been in. Not for a couple of nights that I know of. And, before you ask, all we know her by is Cece.”
“Know where she stays?”
“Nope. Just that it’s probably some place close, because I never see her with a car. She walks, and she walks alone. If she works, I don’t know where or what at. She has enough money for brew when she stops in. Even Tony doesn’t know much more than that, and he’s had her in the rack.”
“Tony?”
“The guitar.”
“She goes for him?”
“She goes for the music.”
The telephone, by the cigar counter rang. The barkeep moved away, and McHugh sipped his beer, gazing without enthusiasm at the heavy beams of the ceiling, at the words of wisdom from Wilde, Work Is The Curse Of The Drinking Classes, behind the bar. He studied framed caricatures on the walls and picked out one of the boy behind the bar. He was apparently known simply as H.
H cradled the phone and said something to the guitar. The guitar nodded and went on fingering chords. After a moment, he put the guitar under his arm and walked out, chino pants curling themselves around his thin legs. The barkeep waited until he had left before coming back to McHugh.
“She’s here. She wants him.”
“Yeah?” McHugh slid his beer away, swung around and started to follow the boy with the guitar.
“Wait up,” H said. “Finish your beer. You can go there anytime.”
“Friend, that girl could be hurt anytime. Some hard people would like to see her.”
“You look like a hard man yourself.”
“I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Bill said you were okay. She’s at Tony’s place. So are a lot of other people, including half the Monterey Peninsula College football team.”
“Party?”
“Just some kids getting together. They’ve got the hi-fi turned up and a goatskin full of wine.”
“Where’s that leave me?”
“On your own. The door will be open. Just walk in. You show with something to drink and there won’t be much in the way of questions.” He got a pad of paper and pencil. “Here’s how you find it.”
McHugh cradled the gallon of red wine and ducked through the heavy bushes that shielded the house from the street. It was an old board-and-bat crowded up against its neighbor on the left. He heard it long before he saw it. The flamenco music poured through the aging walls and the Dutch door. The upper half of the door was open, dangling by one hinge. A keg that had once held beer was canted on its side on the small porch. The front room was big, but crowded with an assortment of furniture that might have come from the clearance sale at the Goodwill shop. There were three dejected sofas, two overstuffed chairs, one with three legs, and an electronic monster that devoured records and made the building rock with its sounds. The walls were completely covered with burlap, punctuated by an assortment of paintings. The painter, whoever he was, either liked red or was short on other colors. The room was illuminated by a battery of lighted beer signs. Hamm’s. Olympia. Lucky. Signs with pictures of cool waters and frigid brew.
McHugh stood just inside the door. His eyes sorted over the dozen or so people in this front room. They were young, they looked strong. Happy young animals. Sweatshirts and jeans were their uniforms. The guitar was not in sight. Nor was the girl who called herself Cece. He felt out of place in his Brooks Brothers suit, and the button-down collar of his shirt seemed to choke him.
A girl looked up, and there was a faint, wary narrowing of her eyes. She sat on the arm of a sofa, her back against the burlapped wall, a long leg swinging a little in time to the music. A record ended, and, while the machine reached for another, she called, “Johnny, c’mere. I think we woke up another neighbor.”
“I told you to turn the damned box down.” A boy poked his head through a draped doorway. He held a mixing spoon in his hand. He eyed McHugh with curiosity, noting the gallon of wine. “Honey,” he said to the girl, “our neighbors don’t bring the grape. Not hardly ever.”
McHugh felt the eyes on him. He held the jug up. “I’m from Ted’s. Somebody called a while ago and wanted this delivered.”
“Who’s the big spender?” Johnny demanded. There was no reply. He shrugged. “Looks like you’ve been had by a joker, buddy. Much as I hate to say it, you better take it back.”
“I’m going home. I’d rather give you the darned thing than go downtown again.”
There was a minute of silence, of incredulity. Then the girl who had seen him first moved off the sofa and crossed the room with lithe grace. “The things you hear if you live long enough.”
She took the wine and went through the curtained doorway. McHugh unbuttoned his collar and loosened his necktie. The boy called Johnny said, “Stick around and have a little touch, dad. Unless the sound bugs you.”
“The sound is fine,” McHugh said.
“You like spaghetti?”
“Like the wine and the sound.”
“Use one of these?” Johnny produced a fat wineskin. McHugh looked around the room. Most of the kids were doing their drinking from glasses, and their eyes challenged him. “I can try it.”
McHugh hefted the skin, judging its fullness. He caught it in a good grip, put his head back and squeezed. The red stream arced through the air and licked between his parted teeth. His throat moved as he swallowed, without breaking the flow. He was lucky. Only a couple of fugitive drops trickled from the corners of his mouth before he finished. He capped the skin and tossed it back to Johnny. Somebody applauded. He swallowed twice, hard, and managed to keep the wine down. He wished he had bought better wine. There was an empty cushion on the floor. He sat on it and crossed his legs. The wineskin was making the rounds. The music surged up and over him and he tried to concentrate on the talk that blended with it.
If the girl called Cece was here, she was out of sight. And McHugh knew this was not the time and place for questions. The young people around him were being pleasant. He had brought wine and he handled the wineskin well, so he had this much coming. But Cece was one of them, and they would know she was in trouble or that she was afraid. These kids would stick together against the outsider they did not know. Say the wrong words, do the wrong things, and these young, muscled boys would beat him bloody.
And there were certainly enough of them to do the job.
“Who’s gonna eat?” Johnny stuck his head out of the kitchen. “Chow down while it’s hot.”
There was a surge for the doorway. McHugh got his feet under him and drifted along. There was a gas stove, with a big tub of spaghetti and a pot of sauce bubbling on it He found a plate and a fork and spoon. A girl in shorts and a man’s shirt took the plate and loaded it up. He thanked her and found room on a counter to eat. The boy called Johnny was adding something to the sauce, tasting, scowling. The music stopped then, and there was the strange silence that comes to a room when a lot of people begin eating at once; the silence of the first few seconds while the food is tasted and judged.
It was then he heard the guitar, growing strong with the flamenco. The sound came from a short corridor leading away from the kitchen.
McHugh waited until Johnny had left and he was alone in the room for a moment He put his plate down and moved down the hallway without sound. There was another doorway, draped in burlap. Through the cloth he could see the gleam of a candle.
He pushed the burlap back and stood, framed in the doorway.
Now he knew what the kids meant when they spoke of a pad. This room had wall-to-wall mattresses. There were four of them. They completely covered the floor, with the exception of a small, square area in the center. This was taken up by a Japanese table the same height as the mattress
es. Cushions had been nailed to the walls above the mattresses. The walls were burlap-covered here, too, hung with travel posters and water colors and an assortment of items including a five-string banjo, a crossbow, a blowgun and a headlight from a wood-burning locomotive.
Tony was propped in a corner, cross-legged, the guitar across his lap. He did not look up when McHugh appeared.
The girl was crouched on the mattress beside him. She was wearing a dark turtle-neck sweater and narrow chino slacks that emphasized the slenderness of her waist, the length of her legs. She was barefoot and without makeup.
She did look up when McHugh came in. There was puzzlement in the wide-spaced dark eyes, then recognition coupled with sudden fear.
She opened her mouth, showing fine white teeth. Her small breasts were outlined against the sweater as she drew her breath in suddenly.
She threw her head back and screamed.
CHAPTER 7
“JUST A MIN—” McHugh began.
The earthquake started then, smothering his words. The old house shook and trembled. A stack of pans in the kitchen hit the floor. The kids jammed through the small hallway, moving with the speed and violence of a flash flood. McHugh was squarely in the path of the flood when it hit the door. He was bowled along, and he lost his footing and pinwheeled across the mattresses, crashing into the opposite wall. He tumbled face down.
Somebody wanted to know what the screaming was about. The girl was silent now, open-mouthed, pointing at him.
One of the boys reached out for him. He twisted, got his right leg set and crouched. He came up like a coiled spring when the boy’s hands found him. Leverage and a lucky grip on a wrist did it. The boy rose from the floor and seemed to float through the air. He collided with two others, and the three slammed into a wall. The banjo made a strange whanging noise, slipped its hook and landed on them. It whanged louder.
The girl screamed again. Two more boys vaulted over the three on the floor and launched themselves at McHugh. They moved with the precision of Cal linemen. One tackled him low, at the knees. The second whipped a chunky arm around his neck. Their momentum carried them against the lone window in the room.
McHugh took a sledge-hammer fist in the belly as the candle went out. The room was dark, except for the faint light filtering in from the kitchen. He retched, chopped down with the edge of his hand and hit a meaty shoulder. The boy who had taken him low held on, twisting, trying to wrestle him down. The other one swung again, and the knuckles found his cheek. He stumbled and hit the window again.
Glass shattered, and wood parted with a screech. Window and frame and a section of wall broke loose from the house. McHugh axed his hand downward again, this time finding the back of a head. His legs were free. He caught the arm that was locked around his neck, braced himself against the swaying wall and heaved. The boy grunted and let go.
“What in the hell is this all about?” The words were shouted from the door, and now a flashlight beam speared around the room and found his face.
A heavy body hurtled at him. McHugh side-stepped, caught an arm and heaved. The boy kept going, through the place where the window had been.
“Hold it! Knock it off!” It was the voice behind the flashlight again.
Nobody moved for a moment. A switch was flipped, and a ceiling light came on. H stood in the doorway. He looked at the wreckage of the room, shook his head and asked, “What’s the big occasion?”
There was a sheepish silence before somebody said, “Well, this guy here busted in on Cece and Tony, and we heard her scream, and then everything just sort of happened pretty fast, H.”
McHugh drew a deep breath. His stomach hurt and his head hurt and his shirt was ripped. He saw with some satisfaction that the girl was still in the room. At least she hadn’t slipped away in the confusion.
“I didn’t get a chance to say word one to anybody,” McHugh said to H. “You know who I am and why I’m here.”
“What do you want with me?” Cece was standing now, looking confused and defiant as she spoke.
“To ask you some questions. You know what about” Me Hugh dug through his pockets, found a cigarette that hadn’t been smashed and got it going. He looked questioningly at H.
“I know him. You can all clear out,” H said. “It’s okay.”
The record player started up again, and a speaker carried the sound into the wreckage of the room. Then there was a new sound, the throb of a siren.
“We better all clear out” a boy said. “The cops are on their way.”
There was a rush for the door. The boy McHugh had hit behind the ear dragged himself to his feet. He rubbed his head and stumbled after the others.
“Come on, Cece,” McHugh said. “Unless you want to answer your questions down at the cop shop.”
“Who are you?”
Brakes squealed in front of the house, and a police whistle shrilled. There were shouts. McHugh reached out, caught her by an arm and shoved her to the hole in the wall. “Outside. Move!”
She obeyed, slipping through the window into darkness. He followed quickly. The lights came on in the next yard, showing him a path through shrubbery that had gone wild. He followed it, dragging her along behind him. He used his pencil flashlight sparingly as they picked their way between houses and came to a winding street. In the distance there was another siren. The girl was breathing heavily, and once she cried out when her bare foot hit an exposed tree root. They stopped.
“Catch your breath. They won’t be looking for us now.” He kept his tight grip on her hand.
“Who are you? What are you going to do with me?”
“My name’s McHugh. I just want to talk to you. Maybe help you.”
“You’re the bartender. From that strange place in the city.”
“And you’re the girl who was waiting for a dead man. That’s what I want to talk about.”
“Oh.” There was resignation in the tone. “Where?”
“You sound like you could use a stiff drink.”
He took her to Sade’s, a restaurant with a small, separate bar. It was dark, with low couches and coffee tables. They settled on a couch, and McHugh ordered two double Scotches. The girl drank half of hers without lowering it from her mouth.
“I shouldn’t talk to you. I shouldn’t talk to anyone,” she said then. “If you’re smart, you’ll go back to your bartending.”
McHugh smiled and held a light for her cigarette. “Because of you I’m in bad with the city cops and the FBI, Cece. And I took a knocking around from a couple of hoods who were looking for you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There were two FBI men in the bar. I saw your driver’s license, but I wouldn’t tell them who you were. If I had, you’d have been picked up before you left the city. And the hoods were staked out in your station wagon. They thought I was tied in with you, and they took me off for a little talk.”
“Oh...I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right I killed two of them.”
She gasped.
“They wanted a package. They’d killed the other man. He didn’t have it and they figured you did.”
“Oh, God...”
“I think they were right.”
“No—”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know.”
He found her elbow and let her feel the pressure of his fingers. “You can tell me. Or you can tell the police. They can have an FBI team here in ten minutes.”
She hesitated, white teeth nibbling the curve of her lower lip.
“That might be better anyway,” McHugh went on. “I’m sure not in any position to give you protection. The FBI can.”
“Why should I need protection?” Her voice was low, fierce. “I haven’t done anything. I don’t even know what this is all about.”
“Start with the man. You knew him.”
“Only as a customer. His name was Lawrence Gilbert. I think he lived down south, in Beverly Hills. I had never met him be
fore last week, and then I saw him only for a few minutes.”
“What do you mean by customer?”
“He bought some of my work. I’m a sculptor, work mostly in wood. My studio is in Big Sur. He bought a few pieces through a dealer in Los Angeles, and then I sold him four, possibly five, direct.”
“And you don’t even know his address.” There was a note of skepticism in McHugh’s voice.
“I was instructed to ship care of Railway Express. Was there any reason I shouldn’t, or that I should ask for an address?”
“I suppose not.” McHugh got another cigarette going. “This means you don’t actually know our dead man is Gilbert He could have been someone using his name.”
“That’s true. I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Now tell me about the meet.”
“It was about a week ago. The man came to my studio. He introduced himself, and we talked for some time.”
“About what?”
“The work I had done for him. Art in general. I got the impression he didn’t have an expert’s knowledge of art but—well, you might call it an eye for something in good taste. He said he bought my figures simply because he liked them. He didn’t try to figure out what they were supposed to represent, if anything.”
“Just a friendly chat,” McHugh said sourly. “He could have been anyone who knew about this particular work of yours. Tell me about the package.”
She pursed her lips. “It was about so by so,” she said, indicating something roughly the size of a cigar box with her hands. “He asked if he could leave it with me for a few days. He said it was valuable, and he didn’t want to carry it around.”
“You’ll have to do better, Cece. Here we have a complete stranger showing up asking you to hold something that was evidently worth a lot. Worth his life. He could have rented a safety deposit box at a bank, left it in a hotel vault, anything.”
“I don’t know what he could have done. I’m just telling you what he did, Mr. McHugh.”
“What did he say about getting it back?”
“That he would call me.”
“And he did?”