by Ed Gorman
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Oh, no,” she said. “He’s not kidding. His parents are just like that. His mother got me alone the other night and asked if I knew what to do on my wedding night. I mean, it was sweet and scary at the same time. If they hear that I’m only seventy-five percent sure I’m a virgin-”
“The wedding’s off,” Cronin said. He looked ready to go crazy. Straitjacket time.
And then he was on his feet and stomping across the small space of my office. Out the door.
Down the steps.
She put her head down and wept.
Her shoulders shook. Her breath came in hot gasps.
I wished I could hold my liquor. My dad and I are just too small to be good drinkers.
I pulled a chair up next to her and started patting her head and back and shoulders. I wasn’t sure what else to do. She just kept sobbing. I started alternately rubbing and patting.
And then she turned to me and put her wet face into my neck and said, “I’m not telling the truth, McCain.”
“You’re not?”
“I said I was seventy-five percent sure nothing happened? But I’m really only about fifty percent sure.”
And took her sobbing up yet another notch.
Fifty percent was a long way down from seventy-five percent on the absolutely sure scale. A long way. But I guessed it didn’t matter.
“He loves you.”
“I know.”
“And he wants to marry you.”
“You sure?”
“I’m positive. Just look how miserable he is.”
She lifted her head and looked at me.
“I’m not sure I understand that one, McCain.”
“If he didn’t want to marry you, he wouldn’t be miserable. Don’t you see?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I’ll talk with him tomorrow.”
“And say what?”
“Tell him he’s in danger of losing you.”
“What if he doesn’t care?”
“He cares; believe me, he cares.”
“It’s not fair. Women don’t care if men are virgins. And I’m probably a virgin anyway.”
“Yeah, I know. Fifty percent.”
“Maybe sixty, then. If that sounds better.”
“I wouldn’t give him any more statistics, if I were you.”
She threw her arms around me and held me tight. I liked her. And she smelled good to boot. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“What if you found out your fianc@ee wasn’t a virgin?”
I thought of Pamela. “I’d marry her in a minute.”
“God, it’s just so unfair. My mom’s as bad as his. All I ever got growing up was “Nobody’ll want you if you’re not a virgin.” And even if Chip and I did do something, I only did it because I was drunk and mad at Jeff. Jeff was the one who broke up with me. He gave me my Eddie Fisher records back and everything.”
Then I said, “He’s waiting outside in the car.”
“How do you know? Maybe he left me here.”
“He didn’t leave you. I can hear his car.
He loves you.”
“He hates me.”
“Well, at the moment he hates you a little bit. But he loves you a lot more.”
“You’re deep, McCain. You know that? People always say that about you, how deep you are.”
“Well, I try, God knows. Being deep isn’t always easy.”
I slipped from her arms to the door. He was sitting out in the station wagon that belonged to his father’s gas station.
“He’s out there waiting.”
“I love him so much, McCain.”
“I know you do. And he loves you.”
She was at the door. Hugging me. “I really appreciate your talking to us.”
“No problem. I enjoyed it.”
A chaste little kiss on the cheek and then she was hurrying down the steps to the car.
I waved to them. Cronin didn’t wave back. He just backed up the wagon before she’d quite had time to close her door.
I went inside and resumed my life’s work of being deep, which isn’t half as easy as you might think. Just ask Socrates.
Just before five, the phone rang.
“Hi, Sam. This is Miriam Travers.”
“Hi, Miriam. How’s Bill?”
“Oh, actually coming along a little better than the doctor thought he would. In so short a time, I mean.”
“That’s great.”
“The reason I’m calling, Sam, is to ask if you’ve seen Mary.”
“Isn’t she working at Rexall?”
“It’s her afternoon off.”
“Oh.”
“She said she was going to stop by your office and then come home. She said she had something important to tell you.”
“Gee, no, I haven’t seen her. Of course, I haven’t been here all afternoon either.”
“Well, if you do see her, please tell her I’ll hold supper for her.”
“I sure will, Miriam. And that’s great news about Bill.”
At the time, I didn’t think anything of the call. A lot of times, Mary got in her old DeSoto and drove to Cedar Rapids or Iowa City to shop. Being almost twenty-three, she didn’t feel any great need to tell her mother her plans.
A harmless shopping trip.
That was my first conjecture about her absence.
But it would prove to be very wrong.
Perfume. A glimpse of a candlelit dining room. A Jerry Vale Lp on the record player. Mrs. Goldman was up to something tonight.
Her door was open so I peeked in. I wanted to ask her if she’d seen who’d dropped off a letter for me. An unstamped letter.
She was looking mighty fine, Mrs.
Goldman was, in a tan tailored suit, her dark hair swept up in a stunning Cyd Charisse hairdo.
“Wow.”
She laughed. “Thank you, McCain.”
“In fact, double wow.”
“My optometrist friend is coming for dinner tonight.”
“He doesn’t stand a chance.”
She smiled. “That’s what I’m hoping.”
“So your date Saturday night went well?”
“Very well. Except for a little guilt now and then. You know, as if I were betraying my husband by going out.”
“You’ll get over that.”
“I suppose. But I’ll never forget him.”
The smile this time was sad, remembering her husband. She changed the subject. “So what’s up with you?”
I remembered the letter. “You see who dropped this off on the front porch?”
“Afraid not, McCain. I was downtown most of the afternoon.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll let you get back to setting the stage.”
“I made peach pie. I’ll save you a piece.”
“Thanks.”
Up in my apartment, I settled in with a beer and a cigarette. Early autumn dusk, the colors of the sky, the last birds of day filling the fiery trees with song and silence. Soon enough their winter trek south would begin. In the alley, a couple of kids were playing the last act of their cowboy movie for the day, a shootout in which one was the victor and the other got to ham up a slow death as he dropped to the ground. Far away you could see the lights of the football stadium. They were testing everything for the big game Friday night.
I sat in the easy chair with a Four Freshmen album on the hi-fi. As much as I like rock-and-roll, I also appreciate the simple beauty of the human voice.
I kept studying the envelope and the letter inside.
Chevy ‘ee: (312) 945-3260
That’s all it said.
Who had left the letter for me? And why?
Cliffie was convinced that Mike Chalmers had killed Susan to avenge his prison sentence. But if the ‘ee Chevy figured in the killing, it would tend to exonerate Chalmers. He didn’t own a ‘ee Chevy.
I was just about to dial the 312 number when the phon
e rang.
“Hi, Miriam,” I said.
“There’s still no word from Mary. I’m getting worried.”
“Sounds like a shopping trip to me.”
“Oh, Lord, I hope so.”
“Tell you what. I’ve got to go out for a while. I’ll look around at the places she usually goes.”
“It’s just not like her to do this. Especially with her father in his condition.”
I hadn’t thought of that. And when she said it, the first faint note of alarm sounded in my emergency system. It really. was out of character for Mary to do something like this. She was a dutiful daughter.
“I’m sure it’s fine, Miriam. There’ll be some perfectly logical explanation.
You’ll see.”
“I just keep thinking maybe she’s been in an accident or something-”
Then the words from her previous call came back to me. How Mary’d had something important to tell me. Something about Susan’s murder?
“You just relax, Miriam. You’ll be seeing her very soon.”
“Thanks, Sam. You’re such a good boy.”
I smiled fondly. Miriam Travers had been telling me that most of my life.
I tried the 312 number. Eighteen times I let it ring. No answer.
Eleven
I stopped seven different places, looking for Mary. In the course of my travels, I played two games of pinball, bought a copy of the new Cavalier magazine with a Mickey Spillane story in it, caught up on some gossip with three or four old high school classmates, had an ice-cream cone at one of our favorite places, and walked around in a ladies’ dress shop feeling very self-conscious.
No Mary.
In Chicago-or even Des Moines-a person can easily lose herself. So many places to go. But in Black River Falls, if she was out tonight, I should’ve run into her.
No Mary.
This left two possibilities. That she was visiting somebody, tucked inside a private house or apartment, or something had happened to her.
The former seemed unlikely. Because if she were visiting somebody, she’d have called her mom and told her so.
Leaving accident or foul play.
I wouldn’t have been so concerned if she hadn’t told her mother that she had something important to tell me. Mary wasn’t much for drama. If she said something was important, it was.
I was wheeling around downtown when I saw Chip O’Donlon swaggering down the street, glancing at his reflection in store windows. He was an Adonis, he was; just ask him. I’d inherited Chip as a client from his older brother, who was currently serving two-to-five for setting fire to a rival’s garage, said rival having had the temerity to start dating the girl the brother had dumped six months earlier. I hadn’t been all that sorry to see him go. He was Adonis senior and real hard to take.
Chip. Maybe it was the sunglasses at night. Maybe it was his always calling me Dads or Daddy-O. Maybe it was because the cheap bastard never paid me. Chip liked telling people he had “a lawyer” and they’d been “in court” that morning and maybe he’d get “sent up” and maybe he wouldn’t. His offenses ran to speeding, drag racing, giving beer to minors, and using profane language on a public street: nothing that would get him sent to prison, nothing that would mess up his pretty face. But he enjoyed the bad-boy image.
I whipped up to the curb and said, “Get in.”
“Hey, Daddy-O.” And he gave me a jaunty little salute.
“You hear what I said? Get in.”
He got in. He was wearing enough aftershave to make a stadium tear up. “You got a hot poker up your butt or something?”
“No, but you will if you don’t pay me the money you owe me.”
The girls say he looks like Tab Hunter.
He dresses like him anyway, all the California cool clothes you can buy between here and “Chi-town,” as he frequently refers to Chicago. “Hey, man, you know I’ll pay you.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“How soon is soon?”
“Real soon.”
I sighed. Actually, I didn’t expect ever to get my money from this dimwit. But I had an idea of how to resolve the trouble Jeff Cronin and Linda Granger were having. To do that, I had to talk him into something. “When’re you going to get a job, Chip?”
“As soon as my unemployment runs out.”
I sighed again for effect and said, “I’ve got an idea.”
“I hope it’s a short one, Dad. I’ve got to meet a chick in five minutes.” He gave me the wink. “I screwed her right on her car hood last night. Right out in the park. How about that action, Jack?”
God only knew what he was saying about poor Linda. He was a bullshit artist, as I said.
If he slept with even 30 percent of the girls he bragged about, I’d be surprised. “I’ve got this equipment in my office I need to try out.”
“What kind of equipment?”
“Why don’t we say you’ll find out when you get there?”
“When would this be, Dad?”
He was lucky I wasn’t his dad. “I’ll have to call you to set it up.”
“Will it hurt?”
“No.”
“Can I tell people?”
“Tell people?”
“You know. Like what I’m doing and everything.”
“Oh, sure.” By the time he got done telling the story, he’d be a guinea pig involved in atomic radiation tests.
“And why would I do this?”
“Because you’re such a nice kid, Chip.”
He giggled. He had a high, annoying giggle. “Sure, Dad. Sure.”
“And because I’ll wipe out your bill.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“The whole thing?”
“The whole thing.”
“Cool,” he said.
“Now get your ass out of my car.”
“The whole thing,” he said, as he was opening the door. “Wow.”
I tried the pizza place out on the highway.
Our little town had just discovered pizza last year, a few years after we discovered television, the reception here being lousy until Cedar Rapids stations went on the air in 1953. There’d been resistance to pizza at first. To a town in the middle of the farm belt, it seemed awfully exotic, even slightly suspicious. The first month, Luigi’s Famous Genuine Italian Pizza hadn’t done so well. “Luigi” was a classmate of mine named Don Henderson, and how genuine his pizza was could only be determined by his genuine Italian chef, Jeff
O’Keefe, all freckled, pug-nosed, red-haired sixteen years of him.
Then our local basketball team made it to the state finals. They lost after two games but still, for a town our size, just going was a serious achievement, especially considering that our starting center had lost two fingers in his dad’s combine a week before basketball season started. On the way back, fighting a blizzard, their bus broke down near Luigi’s and the kids had no choice but to try that most exotic and suspicious of foods. They stuffed themselves, gorged themselves, made themselves sick. Never had they tasted better food. And over the next few days, anchovy missionaries, they spread the word throughout town.
Don Henderson was in business at last.
No Mary.
Don hadn’t seen her for a couple of weeks, in fact. In fact, he hadn’t seen me for a couple of weeks. What’s the matter? You don’t like my pizza anymore? (i noticed he’d picked up a modest Italian accent somewhere along the way.)
Still no Mary.
I went back home. A nice new red-and-blue Buick was parked at the curb.
Mrs. Goldman’s gentleman caller. I imagined she was dazzling him.
I pulled my car in back and went up the rear steps. Or tried to. Somebody was blocking them.
At first, in the soft moonlight, I wasn’t sure who it was. He wore a cotton-lined jacket, gray work pants, and heavy steel-toed work boots. With his collar up, and his eyes burning angrily out of the mask of shadows, he would have made a
perfect cover villain on an old pulp magazine.
He said, “You talk to me a few minutes, McCain?”
“Sure, Mike. The steps here all right?”
“Fine.”
I sat on the bottom step. He sat up a few higher. We both lit up cigarettes. It was chilly but good chilly. The cigarette tasted great. I felt guilty. Nothing should give me pleasure when Mary was missing. And she was definitely missing.
“I think he’s gonna arrest me.”
“Cliffie?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t kill her?”
“Hell, no, I didn’t.”
“Squires said you were bugging them.”
“I was. It was stupid but I did it.
Two-three times I parked out by his house and just sat there.”
“Why?”
“Because the sonofabitch sent me up without givin’ my public defender information that woulda cleared me.”
“You couldn’t appeal?”
“He destroyed the evidence.”
A familiar story among ex-cons. Not only had they been framed, they’d been framed by a Da with an inexplicable hatred for them.
“Why would he do that?”
“I knocked up his sister.”
“What?”
“Back in high school. Before your time.
Forty-two. Me ‘n’ Helen used to sneak off.
Her folks hated me. I got her pregnant.
They tried to run me out of town but they couldn’t.
Soon as he got to be Da, he came after me. He waited till he had a good chance to get me. I wasn’t in on that armed robbery. I’d been trying to stay out of trouble. I’d been in a lot of little scrapes but nothing big. A friend of mine stuck up a gas station one night and got caught. Squires made him a deal. He wouldn’t serve much time if he swore I was driving the car. He served two years; I served nearly eight.”
“You can prove this?”
“My friend died in the can. Somebody cut his throat.”
I believed him. There were all sorts of reasons not to-y’d naturally resent the man who put you away for eight years-but the simple way he told it seemed authentic. No anger, no bitterness.
I also had another thought. Maybe Squires had hired me just so I’d keep him apprised of everything I learned. Cliffie would bumble around for weeks and not find the right man. But Squires might have figured I might uncover something.