“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know you didn’t. But the thing is, you might hear something you’re not supposed to. And in that case . . .”
I held my breath.
“In that case, things might get a little dangerous for you.”
For me? Dangerous for Griff, more like!
“If you happened to mention what you heard to anyone.”
“It would be hard to mention something to anyone if I couldn’t remember what I wasn’t supposed to mention, wouldn’t it?”
He looked at me through narrowed eyes, as if he were trying to make out what I’d said. “True enough. But if you do remember, and you do want to mention it to someone, you know where to find me.” He rose and put a finger to his forehead in salute. Then he walked toward the door.
“I don’t, actually.”
He paused in his step. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t know where to find you.”
A smile hovered at his lips as if he thought I was telling a joke. “Down at the precinct.”
“Which one?”
He turned around with a sigh. “Can’t a guy make a decent exit? I haven’t gotten a third-degree like yours since I was in the army.” He jammed his hat on his head. “At the station on Harrison. Any more questions, miss?”
“No. I think you’ve answered them all.”
He burst into laughter. “You know, you’re a real goof. You want to go somewhere tomorrow night?”
Did I? “I . . . don’t know.”
“You don’t know. Is there anything you do know?”
“It’s just that I don’t know you very well. At all. I don’t know you at all.” And there was something about him . . . something I just couldn’t quite lay a finger on. But it bothered me.
“Well, how about this: What time is your shift over tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow?” Tomorrow was Wednesday. Was my shift over at the same time every night? “Five?”
“Is this another thing you don’t know?”
“No. Yes.”
He walked over and chucked me on the chin. “I think I’ll call you the I-don’t-know girl instead of the hello girl.” He winked. “I’ll meet you out on the sidewalk, and we’ll go somewhere.”
“Where?”
He raised a finger as if to preclude more comments. “No more questions. It’s for me to know and you to find out.”
11
I worked the rest of my shift in a state of nerves. I tried to get rid of them by being Janie. She would never have listened in on a telephone call in the first place! But being Janie didn’t help much, and it didn’t keep my thoughts from straying toward Griff.
If I couldn’t figure out who those people on the telephone were and how they planned to murder him, then I was just going to have to stick as close to him as I could. That was the best plan I could come up with. At least then I might be able to foil their plans.
As I ate supper with Father, I tried to think of a way to get out of spending the next evening with him. I didn’t want to lie about it; I already felt bad he assumed I was helping out down at the orphan asylum.
My father took a drink from his glass and pushed back his plate. “I was thinking, with everyone else at the shore, we ought to take advantage of it and have some fun. How about seeing Girl Shy at the Exeter tomorrow night? You can be my best girl.”
“No!”
He looked a bit taken aback. “But you can’t have seen the movie. I had my secretary call this morning, and they’ve just got it in. They assured her I would like it, and that you would as well.”
I probably would like it! If it weren’t for Griff and his sticking his nose into other people’s business, then I’d be able to go. Honestly! People shouldn’t go around doing things that could get them murdered. It was very inconvenient.
“Ellis?”
“I wish I could but . . . I can’t. I already made a promise to a friend.” At least, I hoped the policeman, Jack, would turn out to be my friend.
He held up a hand. “Say no more. I understand. Why would you want to go out with dear old dad when you could be with your girlfriends instead?”
“It’s not that. It’s just—”
“No need to explain. Maybe some other time.”
I liked my father. I really did. And once I left for Hollywood, I didn’t know when I’d make it back to Boston. I’d probably be contracted for movies, which would tie me up for . . . for years. “I wish I—”
He leaned forward and brushed my nose with the tip of his newspaper. “Not to worry, Buttercup. Some other time.”
But . . . there wasn’t going to be another time.
I stalked over to the Phillipses’ house. Of all the lousy timing. Why did Griff have to pick this summer to get murdered? I could just about . . . bean him on the head with something. Something really hard! Why did it have to be me patching through that telephone call? Why did he have to go and make someone want to kill him? And why did he have to look at me with such delight as he greeted me?
That was the worst.
But if having my intentions misunderstood is what it took to save his life, then . . . I’d just have to suffer. I needed to figure out where he was going to go that would be in plain sight of everybody.
“Ellis!”
“Hi . . . Griff. I just . . . came over.” There wasn’t much of a social season in summer. At least not in the city. If it were any time of year but this, I could almost guarantee I’d be able to keep an eye on him by going to dinner parties or the theater or symphony, and it wouldn’t look quite so much as if I were trying to throw myself at his feet.
“I’m glad. Do you want . . . do you want some tea? Or something else maybe?”
“No thanks.” I strayed from him over to the fireplace. There was a ship in a bottle sitting up there on the mantel. I wondered how people put ships in bottles. It seemed like such an impossible thing to do.
“Is there something you wanted?” He’d come to stand beside me.
I stood on my toes to look at the neck of the bottle. It was awfully narrow. I didn’t see how to get a ship inside there.
“Ellis?”
“What?” Oh. “No. There’s nothing I wanted.” Except to keep him from getting murdered. That was the main thing.
“Then . . .”
I turned to him. “Don’t mind me. Just pretend I’m not here.”
He smiled a slow smile, which started at one corner of his mouth and worked its way toward the other. “That’s pretty hard to do.”
“Maybe . . . do you mind if I close the curtains?” Twilight hadn’t yet fallen, and there were still people about on the street. I walked over and freed the curtains, letting them fall together. Now no one could see in.
“I guess not . . . but it sure is dark.”
That’s what lights were for. I walked over to the light switch and flipped it. “There. Perfect.” I noticed books spread out all over the table. Was he working? “How are your numbers?”
“My what?”
“Your numbers. Did you get them figured out?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. In a way.”
“How many ways can there be?” I’d tried different ways of figuring numbers out too, but my professor didn’t acknowledge there was any other way to answer a test question than his own.
“Quite a few, apparently. Especially when you’re trying to hide things.”
Hide things? “What things?”
“Well . . .” He walked over to the table and turned the book toward me. “Come over here and take a look.”
I walked over to his end of the table.
He pulled out the chair so I could sit, then squatted beside me, an arm around the back of the chair. He was so close I could smell that scent that was uniquely Griff: dusty sandalwood, pungent leather, and the licorice he was always eating when he thought no one was looking. Those scents always reminded me of him. And of home. Maybe I’d pack a bunch of licorice in my bag when I went to Hollywo
od.
“See right here, in this first column?”
I looked where he was pointing.
“That number represents the full amount in this account. And over here . . .” His finger skipped to the next column. “These are all the things that were bought with the money. And down here . . .” His finger slid to the bottom of both columns. “Those numbers are the same, right?”
“Yes.”
“That’s because all the money for that account was spent.”
“So there’s no money left.” I knew how that felt.
“Right. And back here . . .” He flipped through some of the pages. “All of those expenses ought to be written here somewhere as goods that were acquired or services that were enlisted. If you spend money, you ought to get something in return.”
“What about a movie?”
He blinked as he looked over at me. “What about it?”
“What do you get if you spend money on a movie? Or a magazine? Or a . . . newspaper?”
“Well . . . I suppose you get . . . entertainment. But that’s not what I’m talking about. In an office, you ought to be accumulating pencils or carbon paper or . . . sewer services. The money never disappears, it just shows up in different places.”
“But what if it doesn’t? What if you never see it again?”
“If it doesn’t, then where did it go? Sometimes it’s just a matter of it being improperly recorded.”
“But . . . what if it wasn’t recorded at all?”
“Exactly.” He seemed to take great satisfaction from closing the book with a thump.
“Exactly . . . what?”
“If it wasn’t recorded at all, then why? That’s the question you have to ask yourself.”
“Maybe . . . someone forgot.”
“Maybe. But what if there’s a pattern of someone forgetting?”
“Then maybe that person ought to be fired.” It seemed simple enough to me. I got up and wandered over toward that ship in the bottle again.
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
I turned. “You’re trying to fire someone?”
“I’m trying to get someone fired.”
“Who?”
“The mayor.”
The mayor? “You can’t—you can’t just fire the mayor!” Mayor Curley might not be the most honest man in the city, but he’d been voted into office by a majority of someone. Irish, mostly. And Italians.
“Someone needs to.”
“But—why does it have to be you?”
“It’s not me. It’s the Finance Commission. That’s what we’re trying to do. We have someone in the mayor’s office copying records for us so we can find proof of Curley’s corruption.”
“So . . . you’re not really working with numbers this summer?”
“The numbers are just clues. It’s justice we’re really working for.”
And the mayor was Irish! I stuck a finger in the bottle just to make sure it was really as narrow as it seemed. Griff might not know anyone who was Irish, but the mayor sure did. And if he knew Griff and the commission were out to fire him, then . . . he might be willing to do just about anything to stop them. He might even want to put Griff out of the picture!
The bottle’s neck really was that narrow. I pulled my finger out. “Griff, I—” I turned, meaning to talk to him, but he was so close I ended up practically walking into his arms instead.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Ellis. . . .”
“I don’t think—”
“I really want to talk to you. . . .”
As he looked down into my eyes, something queer started happening with my knees.
He put his hands on my shoulders, cupping them as if I were something precious or fragile, which might break. “I need to ask you something, Ellis.”
“No.”
“No?” He dropped his hands, shoving them into his pockets. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Not ‘no’ to your question.” Although no is actually what I wanted to say, I’d planned to write it all down in a letter before I left. “‘No’ to . . . your wanting to talk. I’m . . . late. I’m late. I have to be going. Now.”
“Late to what?”
“Late. I’m late at getting going. I should have been gone by now.” Long gone. And here I was, still in Boston. “Don’t . . . go anywhere tonight.” I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I thought he might be wandering around the city, followed by whoever it was that wanted to shove him off his throne. “And don’t talk to anybody. In fact, do you think you can do your work at home for the next few days?”
“Ellis?”
“I would strongly consider it. In fact, I really think you should. Bye.” I left before he could say anything else. Honestly, I needed to think, and I couldn’t while Griff threatened to stick me with that fraternity pin every time I turned around.
I hurried home and ran up the back stairs to my room, turned on my phonograph, and put on a Marion Harris record. Then I pushed my window up higher to catch the breeze. Although . . . there wasn’t much of one I could feel, so I sat in the open window and stuck an arm out just to see. Ah. There it was! Ever so slight but still refreshing.
I took a long look outside to make sure no one was lurking around Griff’s house, and then I sat there for a while listening to “It Had to Be You,” counting the cats that lay in the square soaking up the warmth the sun had baked into the paving stones earlier in the day. Once the record ended, I ducked back inside, ready to buckle down and concentrate.
Griff was hoping to fire the mayor. The mayor was Irish. I’d overheard Irish people threatening to do something to Griff. That was a nice, tidy circle. The only thing I didn’t know was who the people on the telephone were and what exactly they were planning to do. But I did have the telephone number they’d used. I just didn’t know which one it was. There had to be some way to find out, because if I could hear them talk, then I would recognize their voices. I was sure I would. One of them had sounded as if he had something stuck in his throat. And the other . . . there had been something distinctive about the way he pronounced his words.
Since I had all the telephone numbers I’d transferred calls to that first afternoon, I ought to be able to do something with them, shouldn’t I? Maybe . . . what if I called each one? I could do it in between transferring telephone calls!
No.
That would take forever; there was rarely a moment when I wasn’t transferring a telephone call. And besides, operators like me only patched calls through. If there was a way to initiate one, I didn’t know how.
I took out the receipt I’d written the numbers on and flattened it out on my desk. I was in this circle too now. The two men had heard my voice and a policeman knew I’d overheard the call. In fact, he’d come to warn me not to talk about it. I was definitely part of this circle. And the policeman was too, wasn’t he?
I rummaged in my desk drawer for a piece of paper. Pulling one out, I put my name at the top of it. Then I drew a curving line to a spot halfway down. I wrote Irish Man 1. I drew another curving line to the bottom of the paper. There I wrote Irish Man 2. From there I drew a curving line halfway up the page and wrote Jack. And then I closed the circle with one last curving line and connected me to everyone else.
At one end of the telephone conversation was me and at the other end was Jack. If Jack had known I’d listened in on the telephone call, then one of those two Irish men must have told him. So at least one of them knew him. That meant . . . I chewed on my fingernail as I thought about what it all meant. And when I figured it out, a chill crept up my spine. Jack was one of the bad guys! And I’d agreed to meet him the next evening for a date.
My hands started shaking, and it felt like everything I’d eaten for supper no longer liked it so much down there in my stomach.
I took a deep breath. Everything was going to be all right. This was good. Because . . . because if I knew Jack and he knew the men from the telephone ca
ll, then—?
Then?
I wished I were smarter. I hit my head with the palm of my hand to bang some sense into it, and then I turned my record over. I felt better once I heard Marion Harris singing “Jealous.” I could figure this out. I knew I could.
I had to.
Jack thought I didn’t know anything. Or that if I did, I couldn’t remember it. So all I had to do was keep him thinking I didn’t know anything. And while he was thinking that, I’d get him to tell me everything he knew.
That was it!
I did a quick little dance, twisting on the balls of my feet, stepping forward and then taking a step backward.
Jack had been sent to find out what I knew.
Forward and back. Forward and back. Bah-bah-de-be-bah-bah.
But what he didn’t know was I could use him to figure out what he knew. And he knew what was going on . . . didn’t he?
I bent and placed my hands on my knees, crossing and then re-crossing them as I brought my knees together and then pulled them apart.
Had I worked that out right?
Swinging my arms, I stepped forward with a kick and then stepped back and kicked again.
Griff. Mayor. Irish. Telephone men. Jack. Me.
Griff was working to fire the mayor who was Irish. The telephone men who had heard me had been Irish. Jack had been sent to find the person who had heard them . . . who was me. Jack was connected with the men on the telephone, who must be connected to the mayor, who was connected to Griff’s work. That had to be it.
I danced around the room. It couldn’t be anything else. I spun around, waving my hands in the air above my head. Then I bowed to all the imaginary onlookers as I blew kisses. I took off my dress and pulled Lawrence’s old blanket robe on, and I walked down the hall to brush my teeth.
It took a while to pin up my hair, but I hummed “I Won’t Say I Will, but I Won’t Say I Won’t” as I did it. Afterward, as I crawled into bed and closed my eyes, I imagined going back to campus next autumn and telling everyone how I’d worked out Griff was going to be murdered. But then I realized I wasn’t going to be there.
Love Comes Calling Page 10