One True Sentence: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 1)

by Craig McDonald

  “I suppose that depends on what conforms to your notion of an ‘actual poet,’” Simon said. He ground out his cigarette and began preparing his pipe. “Sánchez was published, and often, if that’s what you mean. He won a few awards, as well.”

  “And then he tried to kill a woman, and committed suicide,” Brinke said. “How does a poet come to that?”

  Simon said, “A moment alone, Monsieur Lassiter?”

  “Certainly.”

  Hector scooped up his overcoat and slipped it on, following the cop down the stairs. As he descended the stairs, Hector realized his left ankle hurt a little…probably from a bad landing chasing the homicidal poet. Hector figured he was lucky he hadn’t broken a leg leaping over all those banisters and dropping onto the uneven runs of steps.

  They slipped out into the sheltered alcove of the apartment building, standing against the wall to be out of the chilly wind. Hector saw that the dead man’s body had already been hauled away.

  Simon squeezed his arm. “So what has really happened here, Hector?”

  Wetting a cigarette with his tongue, Hector toyed with his box of matches before lighting one. He said, “Brinke was being honest. We came here tonight thinking it was a small dinner party, and that we would be providing some handholding. Joan — and her partner, her lover — run the little literary magazine called Intimations. Another one of those literary journals. They were afraid for themselves.”

  “For good reason, as it has proven out,” Simon said.

  “We didn’t know that Gertrude and her stooge were invited tonight,” Hector said. “You may need to lean on Miss Stein, Simon. I mean really throw a scare into her in order to get her out of your way. Same with Quartermain.”

  “As she is at hand, I’ll do that with Miss Stein before I let her leave. And Quartermain? Next time she is foolish enough to pay me a visit, I’ll deal with her.”

  Hector said, “What’s the real story on Joan’s prospects?”

  “Dismal, I’m afraid. She’s certainly going to be left blind. Blind, and quite disfigured. She’s also in some kind of deep shock. That could indicate there’s been some kind of mental rupture. They say the next day or two will be critical.”

  “Goddamn.”

  “The poet, Sánchez, was at a reading at the same time François Laurencin was shoved under a car.”

  Hector shrugged. “So we infer from that he didn’t commit that murder. But we’ve already agreed this isn’t the work of one person, haven’t we?”

  Simon nodded. “But this Sánchez, did he say anything as you pursued him?”

  Hector took a hit from his cigarette, buying time to think. Hector was inclining along the same lines as Brinke — he believed that Victor Leek and his literary movement were tied not only to Molly Wilder’s steep decline, but perhaps also to the little magazine murders. If he was right about that, Hector wasn’t prepared to point the police directly at Leek. At least not until he knew how that might or might not affect Molly. So Hector opted for semantic legerdemain in case he might later have to amend his statement:

  “Nada.”

  “Merde.”

  “You don’t owe me a favor,” Hector said. “But would you consider granting me one?”

  “Ask, then I’ll answer.”

  “A name has come up once or twice.”

  “Come up in connection with the murders, you mean?”

  “Perhaps peripherally,” Hector said. “Oswald Rook. Could your people make some inquiries?”

  “Oui.” A long draw on his pipe, then Simon said, “This man…Sánchez, he willingly threw himself in front of this car. That is confirmed by others. I just can’t conceive of a man doing that — particularly not a man of words — without saying something.”

  “Nada,” Hector said again. Then he relented, just a bit. “Paco said a few lines from a prayer, but altered. ‘Hail nada, full of nada…nada is with thee.”

  “How strange.”

  “Probably just depressed.”

  “Depressed like Mueller Hawkins?”

  “Now you’ve lost me,” Hector said.

  “Mueller Hawkins is another poet, Hector. Another American. He hanged himself yesterday.”

  “Mueller get himself some bad news,” Hector said, “or what?”

  Simon shrugged. “Who can say? But he had a slip of paper he’d clipped to his shirt.”

  Hector blew smoke up into the alcove light. He said, “A suicide note?”

  “No, there was just a single word scrawled on the slip of paper,” Simon said. “Nada.”

  19

  Brinke and Hector shared a taxi with the Hemingways on the drive home from the crime scene. As they did that, Hector recited for his companions Paco Sanchez’s strange prayer. Hem asked Hector to repeat it twice, writing it down in a small notebook.

  They said their goodbyes and Hector and Brinke slipped out of the coach. Hector paid the cocher to transport the Hemingways back to their more distant apartment.

  Hector checked his watch under a gas light: two a.m.

  He sensed motion across the street; thought he saw someone lurking in another recessed archway of a building on the other side. He considered walking across, perhaps forcing a confrontation. But his ankle hurt more than before. Then Hector looked at Brinke in her slinky black dress; at her glistening black hair lightly dusted with snow, her dark bedroom eyes. To hell with more foot chases, he decided. Let the bastard stand outside and freeze his balls off while Hector made love to Brinke. That was the ticket.

  They made their way up the stairs as quietly as they could. Hector keyed them into his apartment, nearly tripping over something heavy just inside the door. His first thought was that he’d stumbled over a body.

  Brinke said, “My fault. Sorry, Hector.” She turned up the key on the light by the door and a soft glow gradually illuminated the room. Hector saw that he’d tripped over a large battered old suitcase.

  “I decided it was better to have some of my things here,” Brinke said. “With Germaine’s permission, I had this sent around while we were having dinner.”

  Hector kissed her. He picked up and set down the suitcase, weighing it: heavy. “For a woman fleeing commitment, you don’t travel light,” he said.

  “My spare typewriter is in there, too,” Brinke said. “Figured we may need to learn how to write in the same room. For as long as we last, I mean.”

  He smiled, stroking her cheek. “We’ll make that work.”

  He slipped off her coat and hung it in the closet with his own clothes. She wrapped her arms around her bare shoulders and shivered. “Maybe a fire first.”

  “What, you’re not tired? Don’t want to go straight to sleep?”

  “Keep wasting time and I might.”

  Hector kissed her forehead and said, “I’ll get that fire started.”

  “This is all starting to truly frighten me,” Brinke said behind him as he worked at the fireplace. “Think about it. Poets driven so deeply to despair by this literary movement they’ve embraced that they hang themselves and jump into the paths of cars…commit murders. What if Joan had allowed Hem to answer that door tonight? What if she had asked you or me to answer that door?”

  “It didn’t happen that way. Can’t run yourself crazy with hypotheticals, honey.”

  “Hector, you really need to find Molly first thing tomorrow. You, or I need to. Maybe Hadley. But someone needs to reach her and fast. Before she’s handed a gun or a length of rope.”

  “Yes, but no more talk about that until we wake up.”

  ***

  Brinke’s arms were trembling as she pulled him back up to her. “I’ve never been that comfortable before with brouter le cresson,” she said. “Being on the receiving end, I mean.”

  Hector wasn’t sure how to interpret that. He said, “I thought the French had another term for that, something more Latin.”

  He kissed his way up her torso. She dragged her palm across his mouth and then kissed him. “Either way, you ne
arly killed me,” she said.

  “There are worse ways to go.”

  “And we’ve seen some of them recently.”

  “Can’t let it go, can you?”

  “You’ve had a pretty picaresque life for one who’s only twenty-four, Hector,” Brinke said. “The Punitive Expedition, the Great War. You’ve seen terrible things. I’ve spent the past few years writing mystery books in which people die but I’d never seen violence like that up close. I’m not sure I can ever write another Connor Templeton novel after the past few days. They seem trite and wrong after what we’ve been grappling with. Something almost sinful in doing that.”

  “You’re just in shock.”

  “Maybe. But in the morning, let’s do what we originally promised Gertrude.”

  “I promised Simon…”

  “Please, you clearly have made a separate peace with him,” she said. “I suspect you have more leeway with Simon than you realize. Or let on.”

  “All right. We’ll do that. Squeeze it in before Hem and I go looking for Leek.”

  “And Molly, you have to save some time for Molly,” Brinke said.

  “I still don’t know how to help Molly. I just don’t know how to pull her out of this spiral.”

  “Then I’ll give that some more thought,” Brinke said. She ran her fingers through his chest hair. “They say you can tell a lot about a man and how he’ll regard women —how he’ll treat them — by looking at his mother and his relationship with her.”

  “They say that?” Hector reached for his cigarettes; Brinke took them from him and tossed them back on the nightstand.

  She kissed his neck. “So tell me about dear old Ma Lassiter.”

  “Not much to tell. I didn’t have her so long. She died when I was eight.”

  Brinke paused; he felt her breath on his belly. “She fell ill?”

  “My father came home unexpectedly and found her with a ranch hand. He shot them both.”

  Hector was still aware of Brinke’s breath, hot on his belly. She said, “Did you see…?”

  “No,” Hector said. “But I heard the shots. Grabbed a hunting rifle. There were always plenty of guns around. I didn’t understand what had happened.” Hector rested his palm on Brinke’s head. “I shot my father. Didn’t kill him…the state did that. Four weeks from commission to execution. Texas doesn’t fool around when it comes to meting out what passes for justice. Anyway, I was raised by my mother’s father.”

  Brinke made her way back up the bed. She searched his eyes, not saying anything. She hugged him tightly for a time, then slid over onto his lap; settled atop him. Moving slowly, she said, “Someday you have to tell me about your grandpa, and what he taught you about women.

  ***

  Hector managed to squeeze in a couple of hours of sleep. At four, he was up and in a terry cloth robe. He’d awakened before the fire was spent and he stoked it up again. He sat in a chair by the fire with a notebook, writing his novel longhand…smoking an occasional cigarette and looking up to watch Brinke asleep in his bed. She slept “pretty,” unlike some other women he’d known. Her mouth was closed and her eyelids flickered with her dreams. The back of one hand was under her cheek and her knees were drawn up, the other hand between her thighs. She was shivering a little and he tipped his chair back down on four legs and pulled the covers up around her chin, leaning down to kiss her cheek. She smiled in her sleep and turned a little.

  He went back to his story, writing for perhaps another hour. He came to a break and looked up. Brinke was sitting up in bed, her back to the headboard, staring at him. He said, “How long have you been awake?”

  “About ten minutes, just watching you.” She smiled. “You have harrowing focus…and speed.”

  “I know where it’s going, just trying to keep up now. But I’m spent for the moment.”

  She pulled the covers aside and he slipped off his robe and slid between the sheets with her. She said, “Have to be quick about this, Hector — I want to do some writing, too.”

  ***

  Brinke had balanced her typewriter on a stack of books on the bed. She had pulled on a pair of his pajama bottoms and one of Hector’s flannel shirts. She wrote directly on the typewriter. (“The only way I can keep up; writing longhand bogs me down.”) After an hour, she raised her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and flexed her fingers. Hector rose from his own typewriter where he had been transcribing his handwritten draft. He tried to shake the stiffness out of his sore ankle. “I’m making some coffee.” He prepared more of his outlaw-style coffee in his iron skillet over the fire. He poured Brinke a mug and she tasted it and wrinkled her nose. “I’ll drink it. It’s drinkable. But it could raise the dead.”

  At seven, Hector dressed and went down to fetch breakfast — two trays and two trips. Germaine placed a rose on Brinke’s tray. “Say it was your idea,” she told Hector.

  They ate breakfast together, both reading from various newspapers. Brinke said, “How do you feel about funerals?”

  Hector shrugged. “Provided they’re not my own?”

  “We have three I think we should really consider attending,” Brinke said. “One today and two tomorrow. Lloyd Blake today. François Laurencin and Mueller Hawkins tomorrow. It’s a way of getting around Simon. We’d be paying our respects. If some questions got asked and answered…”

  “It’s inspired,” Hector said. “Where are they planting Blake?”

  “Père-Lachaise,” Brinke said. “Laurencin goes to Cimetière St-Vincent and they’re burying Hawkins at Cimetière du Montparnasse.”

  “Going to make for a grim circuit, but we’ll do it.”

  Hector stood and limped around the table to pour himself some more coffee.

  “What’s wrong with your leg, Hector?”

  “Seemed to have sprained it chasing Paco Sánchez. I landed badly jumping over a banister. Maybe worse than it first felt. I’ll wear my work boots today. Get some ankle support there. Couple of days, I’ll be fine.”

  Brinke said, “How’s your hand?”

  “Swelling is gone. Just a little stiff at the middle knuckle,” Hector said. “My own fault. Should never have swung between Crowley’s eyes. Too much bone there. Should have gone for his jaw. Something with give.”

  ***

  Hem came by at ten. Hector said, “Brinke and I had a plan, but it’s shifted a bit. So we can go visit Leek now. We just need to be back here by one for a funeral.”

  “Oh,” Hem said, “whose?”

  “Lloyd Blake,” Hector said. “They’re burying him at Père-Lachaise. Brinke thought we’d poke around. Try to ask a few questions.”

  “I’ll hang around the fringes,” Hem said. “Stand off a bit. Maybe see who else shows. Make a kind of inventory of the mourners.”

  “Good,” Hector said. He winced a little as he stood and put weight on his leg. Once he got moving again he was a little better.

  “I’m thinking that leg should be looked at,” Brinke said.

  “Me too,” Hem said. “Could be a fracture. You don’t want to make it worse. Be immobile for six weeks or more then.”

  “That I wouldn’t want,” Hector agreed. “Think Williams would see me?”

  “As it happens, he’s supposed to be coming by to check on Bumby this evening,” Hem said. “Drop by. We’ll have him look at that ankle.”

  Hector nodded. “Now we need to pay our visit to the Hotel des Lions.”

  “We drove by it last night on the way to Joan Pyle’s,” Brinke said to Hem. “It’s terrifying…desolate, dilapidated. Looks like London’s East End.”

  Hem nodded. “I brought this.” He held up a leather-covered cudgel.

  Hector scowled. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Stopped a purse snatching a while back,” Hem said. “Took it off the little Belgian who tried to use it on an old woman he meant to rob.”

  “I don’t want to get close enough to have a chance to use something like that,” Hector said. He limped to a tall old armoire
, opened it, lifted some shirts, and pulled out a linen-wrapped parcel. He undid the twine binding the wrapper and pulled out the long and gleaming Colt wrapped inside. The gun smelled strongly of oil. Brinke whistled. “Looks like something from an Old West show.”

  “It’s an 1873 Cav model. A Peacemaker.”

  Hem said, “From Pancho Villa days?”

  “Abouts,” Hector said. “I’ve got another roscoe here.” Hector unwrapped a second parcel. He handed that gun to Hem. “The Krauts were arming the Mexicans there for a time,” Hector said. “The Germans were trying to open up a front on our southern border to keep us out of Europe. It’s a Mauser. Took it off a dead Villista a lifetime ago.”

  Hem smiled, brandishing the gun. “Let’s go find that goddamn poet. Test the depth of his infatuation with the void.”

  Brinke looked uneasily between them. She said, “I don’t want to throw a wet blanket on you boys’ fun with your guns, but what would Simon say?”

  When they reached the ground level, Germaine waved at Hector and passed him an envelope. “For you.” A letter from Gertrude. They went in search of a pay phone.

  Gertrude Stein said, “We’re interested in an update.”

  Again, Hector wondered if she was using the royal “we.” He said, “We?”

  “I’m here with Estelle, we’re discussing further investigative strategies.”

  “I can’t talk now, I’m sorry,” Hector said. “Late for a funeral.”

  “Whose?”

  “Lloyd Blake’s. Figured to nose around for clues there.”

  20

  “Brinke didn’t do this place justice,” Hem said. “Really think it’s a going concern?”

  Hector hadn’t been able to see much of the hotel the previous night. In the light, it looked like a derelict building. The hotel’s facade was stained with coal dust and the paint was peeling. The windows looked crooked in their casings and the ground floor walls were covered with layers of posters and faded notices. Hector had one leg crossed over the other and he was massaging his ankle. He said, “Not sure I’d grant it ‘going concern’ status, but I think it’s still open for business. Some of those piss stains on the walls below the windows looked relatively fresh.”