“What about Gus?” Gee Gee asked. Her eyes were wide and frightened, but her mouth had stopped quivering.
“Gus?” I said. “Gus what?”
“Gus is all I know,” Gee Gee said. “And all I want to know. He was in the bathtub yesterday. Dead. The dogs were scratching around the bed. I don’t know whatever possessed me to lift that mattress, but I did, and that awful face was staring up at me . . .”
Gee Gee buried her face in her hands and began moaning. “I wanted to tell somebody, but every time I got the nerve something’d happen to me and I’d get scared again. I-I knew him, Gyp.”
“You couldn’t have,” I said.
“Yes I did,” Gee Gee insisted. “He used to hang around backstage at the Burbank Theater when I was working there. He sold perfume and stuff. I knew it was hot as a pistol because it was so cheap. You know me with stolen stuff. I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. But plenty of the other kids used to buy from him. I did buy a bottle of Guerlain’s Jicky from Mabel, though. She don’t tell me where she gets it, just says she’s in a mood to sell it cheap. I naturally figure it’s a present from some John, so I give her three bucks for it. I get it home and open the bottle and I find out it’s junk. The bottle’s good but the perfume is like embalming fluid.”
“I take it back to Mabel and when I start beefing she tells me to blame Gus, not her, that she got it off him. Only Gus doesn’t come around for a while, so I open my big throat and tell the girls what a cheat he is. I get so mad I even tell Max, the cop that’s got the theater beat. Then, about a week later, I’m finishing my second act number and the doorman tells me there’s a guy in the alley wants to talk to me.
“I throw the skirt of my costume around me and I go out to see who it is. I don’t see him right away. He’s standing under the fire escape in the dark. Then all of a sudden I feel somebody grab my arm. Naturally, I go to yell and this guy puts his dirty hand over my mouth. ‘Shut up, you,’ he tells me, ‘I hear you been throaty about me around the theater.’
“Then I know who it is. I know it’s Gus and I know he’s on the warpath about me telling the cop he’s selling stolen goods. I’m fixing to tell him to go to hell, but I get a good look at him, and Gyp, there was something about the way he was talking that scared the pants off me. His eyes looked little, like a pig’s, and they were red. I got a feeling that he’d just as soon kill me as not. He was telling me to go in and tell the girls I was only kidding about the perfume. I’d look sweet giving him a clean bill of sale after him pushing me around like that! But I don’t tell him that. Hell, I just wanted to get rid of him, so I say, ‘Sure, I’ll tell ’em anything you want.’ He says, ‘That’s a good girl.’ Then he shoves something in my hand and runs down the alley.
“I keep watching until I can’t see him anymore. Then I go in the prop room, where it’s light, so I can get a look at this thing he gave me. It’s like a little book, a pamphlet, only it’s got the dirtiest pictures in it I ever saw. I’ve seen pamphlets, but I’ve never seen anything like that one. There’s something else in the book. It’s like a cigarette, only it’s longer and skinnier. I’m standing there looking at that damn thing and cussing a blue steak to myself when who walks in but Benny the trumpet player. You remember Benny?”
I nodded. I remembered him as a gangly, neurotic musician. Wonderful trumpet player though.
“Well,” Gee Gee went on, “Benny takes one look at the cigarette in my hand and he lets out a whoop. ‘Look who’s joined our club!’ he yells. I don’t get it. I don’t like him much to start out with so I give him a freeze. He looks me up and down real slow. ‘Reefing, eh?’ he says. Then he turns on his heel and he’s gone. Like a hit on the head it comes to me. That Gus has given me a marijuana, Me! Later I find out he’s the guy that’s been selling ’em around town, to school kids even. He’s selling other kinds of dope, too. Cops looking all over for him, and he gives me a marijuana.”
Gee Gee pulled out a package of cigarettes and lit two of them. She handed me one, and we smoked silently for a moment.
“I guess I was a dope to go to the cops,” she said finally. “I was scared, though. First I went to Max and told him the whole story. He sent me downtown, and I talked to a bunch of plain-clothes guys, Narcotic Squad. They keep asking me questions, and I tell them what I know. I tell them what Gus looks like, how long he’s been hanging around the theater. If I’d known it, I’da told ’em what he ate for breakfast, I was that mad. It was a mistake, sure, but how was I to know? Later I find out, of course, I shoulda known he wasn’t alone in the racket, but I never would have guessed there were so many guys mixed up with him. First I get the telephone calls. Then guys tap me on the shoulder, notes get slipped under my door, all of ’em telling me to keep my mouth shut or they’ll shut it for me permanent. That’s one reason I wanted to leave town.”
“You should have told Biff and me,” I said.
“Oh, sure,” Gee Gee said. “You two would have knocked yourselves out asking me to join you. I was just the kid you needed to make your honeymoon complete.”
“Did you tell Dimples?” I asked. There wasn’t much sense in contradicting her.
“Hell, no,” Gee Gee said. “She knew about the perfume of course, because she was working the Burbank when it happened, but I didn’t tell a soul about the dope. Oh. Gyp, it’s such a mess. What’ll I do?”
She began crying again. I put my arms around her and patted her shoulder. In a way I felt like slapping her, but after all she was my friend and she was in trouble. Just because her trouble had become my trouble was no reason for me to get angry with her.
“Look, honey,” I said. “Tell the cops the whole story just like you told me. When they know who he was and what he was, they’ll probably pin a medal on you for killing him.”
Gee Gee pushed me away from her. “But I didn’t!” she said hoarsely. “That’s why I was afraid to tell anybody his body was in the trailer. I knew they’d think I done it and, so help me, I haven’t seen him since that night backstage.”
I believed her.
We smoked for a moment longer. Then Gee Gee tossed her cigarette into a fire bucket near the telephone. There was water in the bucket and when the cigarette fell it made a sizzling little noise. There was another sound, though. The sound of someone walking away. I jumped up and ran to the door. It was ajar. I threw it open and looked out. No one was there.
“What was it?” Gee Gee asked listlessly.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just thought I heard someone. Must have been the breeze.”
Gee Gee didn’t question me. We hadn’t felt a breeze in a week, but her mind was too occupied to think about that.
“You think the cops will believe me?” Gee Gee asked.
I thought for a moment. I tried to remember the sheriff’s expression as he listened to Biff and me. When I did, it wasn’t a reassuring picture. I wondered what he would say when he knew that Gee Gee could identify the first corpse, not as a longshoreman, but as a dope peddler. Then I decided on something.
“Look,” I said to Gee Gee. “The sheriff thinks we know the guy you call Gus. We knew him as George; he was our best man. If you go to him now and say it isn’t George, it’s Gus, the sheriff might think something funny is going on. I don’t think anybody could tell who the second corpse is, so we don’t have to worry about him, why let yourself in for something?”
Gee Gee listened closely. Her head was nodding up and down like one of those counterbalanced doll’s heads. Her mouth twitched spasmodically.
“Think you have enough nerve to keep it to yourself?” I asked.
“Gee, Gyp, I don’t know . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Promise me one thing,” I said. I walked over to her and tipped her chin so I could look into her eyes. “If you feel like you’re getting ready to spill it, let Biff or me know first. Promise?”
Gee Gee grabbed my hand. “I promise,” she said.
“Come on. Let’s get ourselves a drink. I�
��ll buy.”
Gee Gee got to her feet. She leaned heavily on my arm as we walked toward the trailer. Trailerites were sitting under their awnings having early dinner, and as we passed them they waved good evening to us.
“Some excitement, eh?” one of them shouted with a grin from ear to ear.
“Yes, sir,” I shouted back. That trailerite didn’t know what excitement was. If he thought a brush fire was excitement, what would he call our two corpses?
Women in slacks and shorts were making the early evening rounds. Children were just warming up for their after-dinner screaming. Here and there a man was washing up at a basin.
It was hard for me to believe that people living in such a close community could be unaware of the two murders.
Our trailer was parked farther away from the center of activity. As Gee Gee and I approached it, Mother closed the bedroom door and started down the steps. She carried a small, carelessly wrapped package in her hand. When I called out to her, she slipped it into her apron pocket.
“Why hello,” she said gaily. “Where have you been?”
Gee Gee flopped down into one of the camp chairs; she let her head sink in her hands.
Mother stared at her for a moment. Then she turned to me.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “You look awful. Why don’t you fix your hair? Just because you’re camping out is no reason to let yourself go like this. I think you’re gaining weight, too. I knew this trip would turn out like this. You’ll get sunburned and fat, and . . .”
“Biff and I went to see the sheriff,” I said. “We went out to the grave and . . .”
Mother looked at me for a long moment, “Well?” she asked.
“We found a body. Not our body, another one.”
“Please stop calling it our body,” Mother said petulantly. “It sounds so—so possessive. How do you know it wasn’t ours, anyway?”
“They dug that one up last night,” I said. “This new one has a knife in its back.”
Mother sat down next to Gee Gee. She arranged her dress carefully over her bare legs and placed her hands on the table. I hadn’t expected much animation from her, but I would have liked her to act as though she had heard me.
“Not only that,” I said, “but this one had no face.”
Mother smiled up at me. “Stop joshing, Louise,” she said, “Whoever heard of a corpse without a face?”
I poured some water into the washbasin and doused my head in it. It was cool and it refreshed me. Mother handed me a towel and waited until I dried my face and hands.
“Well, come on,” she said. “Let’s go look at it.”
Gee Gee shivered.
Mother changed her tone. “I mean, let’s go see if we can help the police.”
“There’s no police, Mother, just a sheriff.”
“Then we can help the sheriff.”
Mother walked ahead of Gee Gee and me. I could see the blue gingham of her dress as she hurried toward the woods. I heard her hum her little tune, “I know a place where the sun never shines . . .”
“Sure you want to go?” I asked Gee Gee. “It isn’t pretty, you know.”
“I don’t give a damn what it looks like so long as I don’t recognize him,” Gee Gee said.
I suddenly cared, though. I needed fortification to look at it again. I took Gee Gee’s arm and led her back to the trailer.
“Let’s get that drink we promised ourselves,” I said.
Gee Gee got the glasses. I uncovered the bottle, and we had two ryes each. Neat and fast. The trailer was empty. I wondered vaguely where everyone was. Then I felt relieved there was no one around. I was in no mood for casual pleasantries.
Gee Gee and I went back toward the woods.
When we arrived at the burial place, I saw Mother leaning over the grave. The sheriff, hat in hand, was standing next to her.
“I can’t say for sure if I know him or not,” Mother said. “I don’t know who it could be. When Louise told me he had no face I didn’t believe her.”
“Louise?” the sheriff asked.
“That’s my daughter,” Mother said. “Louise is her real name. Gypsy is a stage name, a burlesque stage name.”
The sheriff nodded in sympathy at Mother’s inflection of the word burlesque.
“I cried for days when she first went into that awful theater . . .” Mother started crying again at the very thought of it. She leaned her head on the sheriff’s chest and let herself go.
Biff looked at me and winked. “While she was crying, though,” he said, “she was eating, which was a damn sight more than when they were doing that broken-down vaudeville act of theirs.”
The sheriff began to pat Mother’s tousled head. Then he caught himself. With a quick glance to see if we had been watching him, he pulled his hand away.
“You’re a brave little woman,” he said to Mother. “Burying that body all by yourself. That took real courage.”
Mother stopped sobbing. She brushed a fat tear from her cheek. “A mother’s love, you know,” she said. She swayed a little at that, and the sheriff put out his arm again. Mother naturally swayed right into it.
The sheriff had a look of deep concern on his face as he looked down at her.
“I’m afraid I’m getting a little faint,” Mother whispered.
Biff looked from Gee Gee to me. We all knew what Mother could go through without getting faint.
“I think you should go back to the trailer,” the sheriff said.
“No,” Mother said with a great effort. “My duty is here, with my child,” She braced herself and threw back her head bravely. With a quick, almost birdlike motion she reached for a square of white linen the sheriff held in his hand.
The sheriff wasn’t birdlike but he was quicker. He put the handkerchief back into his pocket.
“I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. “We found this in the grave, and it might be a clue. There may be a laundry mark or something on it.”
He handed Mother his own handkerchief, and she dabbed at her dry eyes. Then she looked at him innocently.
“You mean you can tell things by laundry marks?” she asked. Her eyes were too wide and too innocent.
I would have given plenty to get a good look at that handkerchief. When Mother’s eyes get that wide and that innocent, she is up to something. And when Mother is up to something, it’s a cue to watch out.
The sheriff began telling her how important every detail was. “Especially in a murder case,” he added slowly. “I know what you all have been through, and believe me I’d rather cut off my right arm than have to put all these questions to you, but I’m the sheriff and I just have to. This ain’t like our regular murders. We always know right off the bat who kills who, why they do it, when they do it, and how they do it. We almost know before they do it. This is different. These two murdered men are strangers to me. You folks are strangers to me. I have to know everything.”
“Why of course,” Mother said. “What would you like to know first?”
“I’d like to know who this corpse is.”
We all stared down at the dead man at our feet. Gee Gee turned her head away first. A gurgling noise came from her throat.
“You know him?” the sheriff asked quickly.
Gee Gee shook her head wildly. Her teeth chattered. “No-no,” she said.
Mother moved toward her calmly. “You’ve been drinking too much,” she said in a motherly tone. “That’s what makes you shake so.” She reached into her pocket for a handkerchief and handed it to Gee Gee.
Then she turned around and smiled at me. Her eyes were very blue. There wasn’t a trace of worry in them. She glanced at the sheriff’s back through the corner of her eye, then she winked at me.
Her mouth framed the words, “Leave it to me.”
I tried to smile back, but it was too much for me. If I could only have some idea of what Mother planned on doing, I could feel more reassured, but Mother never knew herself until after she had started the
ball rolling. By then it was always too late.
8MOTHER WAS THE FIRST ONE TO HEAR THE TRUCK. “Listen!” she said.
We listened. There was a loud knocking. I knew the bearings were burned out before I saw it. And after one quick glance I knew there was more than that wrong with the open-stake-body truck. Ysleta must have prided herself on the museum quality of her vehicles. First the sheriff’s car, now this! It had once been painted green, an uncomfortable green. Lettering on the sides read: COAL-WOOD-ICE. The front door was held shut with a piece of rope. There were patches of adhesive tape running crisscross over the windshield. That, I decided, was to keep the thing from falling in the driver’s lap. Instead of four mudguards, there was one. It was hanging noisily to the truck by the grace of a shred wire. The collector’s item stopped in a cloud of dust within a few feet of us, and three men jumped down from the front seat.
I thought I recognized one of them until he came closer. Then I knew I had never seen him before, but I could tell by the black bag he carried that he was a doctor. He said hello to the sheriff. Then he walked over to the grave and looked down at the corpse.
“First one this year, eh, Hank?” he said to the sheriff.
He knelt down and opened the dead man’s coat. The ragged tear in the lining caught his attention.
“Stranger,” he said almost to himself.
“How long would you say he’s been dead?” the sheriff asked.
“Hard to tell in this weather,” the doctor replied. “Twenty-four hours maybe. I can tell better when I get him opened up.”
Gee Gee let out a sickish gasp, and the doctor looked at her.
“You find him?” he asked.
“No.” Mother replied placidly. “I found the body. It was in our bathtub.”
“Not this one, Mother. It was the other one that was in our bathtub. Remember?”
The doctor raised one black eyebrow. He glanced at the sheriff questioningly.
“Actors,” the sheriff said, as though that explained everything. “Living in a trailer at Restful Grove. They knew the corpse in the first, in fact, this little woman here buried it.”
Mother Finds a Body Page 6