“Her horse?” Pete couldn’t keep the disbelief out of his voice. “You mean right there in town?”
Again the poet giggled. “Yeay! Right there. Four blocks from the big pigpen back of city hall.” He made a graphic hypodermic gesture. “That kind of horse. The big H. Heroin. Anyway, that night we’d held a service—chants and rock vibes and a sitar, all pretty traditional—and about three A.M. I drifted back to take myself a leak out of the door because there was a couple busy in the john. I opened up and there he was, just leaving Leda’s pad.”
“You’re absolutely sure?” Timuroff asked, very quietly. “Sure I’m sure. My light was on, with a real turned-up moon, and there his face was right in front of me. Man, but nobody could forget those fisheyes. Besides, even if, that was the night she died—when she got horse-kicked dead, dead, dead. Next day the narcs and pigs were there all over us, pushing us around. We had to squawk to the ACLU before they let loose.”
The cold and airless wind that van Zaam’s death had not dispelled touched them once again.
“Any idea what he was doing there?” Pete asked.
The guru slowly shook his head. He shrugged. “He wasn’t peddling Girl Scout calendars. We talked about him later on. None of us figured Leda was all that far gone, but hell! you can’t ever tell once they get on that stuff.”
“You told nobody about seeing him? No cops, that is?”
“Uh-uh. I tripped on acid, and had a talk with Sakti, and she came to me, and she was in her other, darker self, with her lour arms and her hungry red tongue hanging out, and she was beautiful, and I could see that she was pleased with me because we’d kept it to ourselves, and we were at the burning ghat, among the bones, and then she straddled me like I’d become Lord Siva—” Guru-ji’s eyes had closed; his smile hung open; he started swaying slowly back and forth, and the front of his grubby loincloth betrayed what seemed to be a rather undersized erection.
The hen, clucking excitedly, flapped back upon his shoulder and glared at them antagonistically.
“Looks like the interview is over,” Pete said. “He’s on a kickback to his trip.” He rose. “Thank you very much, Master,” he intoned. “Perhaps you have helped to solve the murder of your friend, Mayor Munrooney. The world is grateful to you.”
The poet showed no sign of having heard, and they backed out into the air. The thin young man, hunkered against the wall, was waiting for them. “Hey, you sure made out, didn’t you?” he said, rising to his feet.
“We were deeply impressed,” Timuroff replied.
“It’s his charisma. Man, he’s lousy with it!” The young man stared at Pete, and plainly he too was impressed. “He must’ve known you were an Indian last time around. That’s why he’s a Master, feeling these things. Nobody else’d have the balls to ask a couple of lousy cops to stay over for a chakrapuja.”
He led them back toward the car, steering them apprehensively away from a newly built, ramshackle shed where multitudes of flies were buzzing, explained that it was Her shrine, and waved good-bye to them politely but with obvious relief.
“Well,” remarked Timuroff, as they pulled away, “what do you think of Guru-ji?”
“My considered judgment,” Pete replied, “is that he’s sort of chickenshit. Say, what is a chakrapuja, anyway?”
“Some sort of Lucky-Pierre-ring-around-the-rosy, I believe. Under the circumstances, I’d rather not speculate.”
“My God, somebody ought to give that place a firehose enema I And there’s one of his disciples who ought to be checked out real quick—that great big bastard with his tool in a tobacco sack. He’s something nasty looking for a place to happen—maybe not the first time. I’d better put the sheriff’s people on to him.”
They reached the road, and found their way blocked by a mail truck, a little right-hand-drive affair drawn up by the box. The driver looked them over, grinned, and walked up with a letter in his hand. “You two don’t look like you belong in Creepsville,” he remarked, pointing with a navy-tattooed hand.
“We’ve been bill-collecting,” Pete told him.
“Well, don’t let ’em give you any garbage about being broke. Take a look at this—Special Delivery.” He held the envelope against the sun. Its return address said J. Ellis Stitchgrove, D.D.S., somewhere in the Midwest, and it was addressed to J. Ellis Stitchgrove, Jr. The check inside was clearly visible. “More than I make in two months, and they come all the time, some from his old man, some from a female with a different name who I guess may be mama. That’s what keeps this mess alive.”
He tossed the letter in the box, wished Pete and Timuroff good hunting, and drove away.
“He’s right,” Pete said morosely. “Daddy and mom buying junior off to stay the hell away. Except for that, we’d only have an under-the-counter culture, the way it used to be. Okay, we drive sixty miles and waste an hour brown-nosing a dirty little parasite any sane society would lock up in a booby hatch. And what for? To learn he saw van Zaam a year ago, for God’s sake! Suppose it was the night some poor twirp dealt herself out—so what? I’ll tell you what I need. I need to crawl off to some quiet cellar somewhere and get a nice cold bottle of Gewürz Traminer to wash the taste away.”
“I know the very place, not five miles away; and while we’re waiting for them to serve the wine, you can use their phone.”
“What for?” demanded Pete suspiciously.
“To call that friend of yours in Berkeley—isn’t it Burgoyne? Remember what you told me—that half the women in the world are in disguise? False names, false hair, and unreal faces. We’d best find out who Leda Minden really was. If she was tied in with van Zaam, there may be something we can’t afford to miss. Besides, you do owe me a favor.”
“Come again?”
“You never told me about your last incarnation, and I came nobly to your rescue over that business of your caste. My Uncle Cedric’s rolling over in his grave at the idea of your officers beating you to death—that was strictly against regulations.”
Pete smiled, grinned, and laughed aloud. “You win,” he said, “but I warn you—it’s a waste of time.”
They reached their destination, and Pete called Burgoyne. “I got him at his home,” he informed Timuroff. “He’s going to look into it and let us know.”
Then the Traminer, cool and exquisite, was served to them over a dark old barrelhead. Half an hour later, feeling better, they sallied out to raid antique stores, and Timuroff presently unearthed and purchased five Japanese blades: a tachi, three katana, and a wakizashi. Probably liberated during the Occupation, fortunately none of them had been abused. The dealer referred to them as “samurai harikari swords,” and Timuroff saw no reason to hurt his feelings by correcting him, especially as his price was a small fraction of their actual value.
“I think I hear someone purring,” Pete remarked as they drove off again.
“Quite loudly,” Timuroff admitted. “That tachi is a joy and a delight, late Kamakura Period—it could be Kagemitsu or somebody like that—and its Higo mountings are extraordinary. As for the others—well, I’ve hardly had a chance to look at them, but there’s not a bad one in the lot.”
“I’m glad somebody’s happy,” grumbled Pete. “Here we go out into the boondocks to solve a sordid killing, and instead you make a killing in swords.”
“Well, let’s hope it’s the only kind of killing we run into from now on,” said Timuroff. “We’ll celebrate. I’ll buy the dinner.”
CHAPTER XI
A Killing in Swords
At midnight, when Liselotte and her party returned from the maestro’s, Timuroli and Pete were waiting for them. They had spent nearly three hours over an epoch-making dinner at La Bourgogne, in an atmosphere more conducive to optimism than that of Mr. Stitchgrove’s ashram. Then, at Timuroff’s apartment, Pete had phoned Traeger and Jake Har
rell. All was well on Kemble Street, and Harrell reported only that an anonymous informant had tipped the media off to the mayor’s nakedness, and that much was going to be made of it. After that, they had settled down happily to examining Timuroff’s acquisitions.
The five swords had been placed, with ceremony, on a lacquered sword stand, and Timuroff had gone over them carefully, checking signatures against illustrations of fully authenticated specimens, and estimating their worth. He had decided immediately that the Higo tachi would have to join the carefully culled half dozen comprising his almost-never-shown personal collection. “Tomorrow,” he told Pete, “I’ll call Amos. He can see the others after lunch. He’s sure to take at least two. I’ll give him a very decent price and still get all my money back, which will be nice. But I won’t tell him anything about the tachi—it’d spoil his day.”
“That’s true humility,” said Pete.
For a few more minutes, they talked swords. Then Liselotte swirled in, her party following in her wake. What were they doing? she cried out. How could two grown men sit there and play with swords when there was so much splendid news? Heck had told the maestro all about Lucrece and Muriel Fawzi and Evangeline, and he had responded with wild enthusiasm—as indeed who would not? He was going to compose an opera about the house on Kemble Street, an opera in which she—Liselotte Cantelou—would sing the leading role!
Timuroli at once thought of a roly-poly tenor, minus pants and drawers, singing Munrooney’s dramatic dying aria in Italian. Wisely, he did not mention it.
“Now all of us must go to bed!” she ordered. “Heck cannot wait to see his new secret passages. Also he wants to finish his Evangeline so that Umberto can be properly introduced. Penny Anne will stay with me, and we will spend the morning lazily before we get Olivia to take her out to lunch.”
Timuroff, who had already planned the doctor’s subterranean tour, smiled obligingly, and the party broke up in a round of kisses and good-nights, Timuroff allowing Liselotte to shepherd him to bed, where he told her just enough about his day to keep her happy.
He fell asleep immediately, and slept—he told Pete later—like a man who has just made a killing in swords, which was very satisfying. After wolfing breakfast with the doctor, he drove him back to Kemble Street, introduced him to Traeger, and—while one of Traeger’s men mounted guard behind the alley door—showed him the mysteries which for so many years had lain unknown beneath his feet. Hector Grimwood was ecstatic. He groaned with disappointment when they urged the necessity of leaving Miss Fawzi at least temporarily in situ and deferring the opening of the iron door.
“I suppose you’re right,” he said, knocking on it impatiently. “But it’s going to be terribly difficult to wait I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have Evangeline to keep me busy.”
Timuroff walked with him to the workshop, and watched while he prepared his instruments and turned the sheet back to reveal the young Evangeline, waiting immodestly on the surgery table.
“Heck,” he said, “would you tell me a bit more about how your parties are arranged? I know that some of your friends are free to bring almost anyone they please.”
“Yes, as long as their guests are interesting. Usually, my poker players are told first—Baltesar and Voukos and Amos Ledenthal and the rest.”
“Who are the rest?”
“Well, Hemmet has been coming fairly regularly, and Arnold Tesserault the architect, and in the last few months we’ve seen a good deal of Reese Guthrie, Amos’s partner, though I’ve tried not to have him come when Hemmet’s there, and vice versa. Guthrie dislikes him—I think there’s been bad blood between them—and icy politeness doesn’t help a poker game along.”
“What kind of players are they, Heck?”
“Baltesar is flamboyant—every hand is a front-page case in court. Socrates is shrewd and hard, but rather unimaginative. Amos—well, he’s himself; he terrorizes new players until they see that he’s all bark and very little bite. Tesserault is wonderful—he always loses so obligingly. Hemmet is cold and tough and calculating, but he doesn’t win as often as he might, and he’s not much fun to play against, perhaps because there’s so little humor in him. Guthrie’s a good sportsman, and his card sense is infallible. He’s pleasant to play with, and impossible to read. Then, of course, we have a few who come only once or twice a year, like Penny’s cousin Jeremy, and Admiral Melmoth. Wade Kalloch’s been here too, but I don’t encourage him—he always wants to play no limit poker.”
“Do they have the run of the house when they’re here?”
“Pretty much so, the regulars at least.”
“Do you ever lend them your passage keys? During parties or anything like that?”
“Oh, yes. I’m not sure about Melmoth, but all the rest have taken their friends through at one time or another.”
“I…see,” Timuroff said. “Just out of curiosity, which of them helped most in organizing that last party?”
“I’m not really sure. Penny thinks she phoned two or three who were tied up, and then that lovely wife of Amos’s, who did a lot to help.”
By this time, what Dr. Grimwood was doing to Evangeline had become so very intimate that Timuroff, though he recognized its scientific spirit and anatomical necessity, began to feel like a voyeur. Promising to pick the doctor up in time for dinner, he took his leave. Downtown, he parked in the garage opening on Magruder Alley, took his four blades from the trunk compartment, and—trying to purge his mind of the limerick about the girl who came easily unscrewcd—ascended to his place of business.
Olivia, of course, was already there, and his carefully stacked and sorted mail was awaiting him. So, to his surprise, was Ledenthal, seemingly very pleased with himself. “Amos,” he exclaimed, “it’s good to see you.” Ledenthal’s eyes fastened on the swords. “Goddamn it, Tim! Why don’t you tell your friends about these goodies? What’re you doing—hogging ’em all yourself? If I hadn’t dropped by on my way back from the Hall of Justice, and if this sweet lady”—he bowed chivalrously—“hadn’t told me, I’d likely never heard about them!”
“I’d intended to call you up before I left the house, but I had to run out to Grimwood’s, and a lot of things came up—”
“Timuroff, you damn fool, are you still mixing into that miserable Munrooney business? After what I told you?”
Smiling, Timuroff put the swords down one by one on the table in front of Ledenthal. “And what were you doing at the Hall of Justice, Amos?”
“I got myself arrested!” roared Ledenthal triumphantly. “I’m out on bail, but I had to go down there again this morning. Jessie and I were having a quiet drink out on the deck late yesterday, just before dinner, when up came that goddamn pipsqueak Lieutenant Kielty. He had a big cop with him, a nice, quiet sort of guy. Anyhow, he wanted to ask questions, so I said, ‘Okay, you pest, I’d as soon answer them here as anywhere.’ He started right in, too—the same old stuff. Did I know Mayor Munrooney, and how well? What did I think of him? Where was I exactly when His Honor was up there getting himself killed? Was I a close friend of Dr. Grimwood’s? Then he started getting all smirky, and dropping dirty hints about Lucrece and the other girls, so I asked Jessie to go bring some coffee out, and the big cop said could he help her? Kielty must’ve figured I was harmless, because as soon as they were in the house he sort of leaned toward me, and smirked some more, and asked me if Mrs. Ledenthal had ever known Munrooney, and had she known him well, and had our marriage ever had its little difficulties? And did I know what he meant?”
Ledenthal’s brows drew down, and Timuroff began to expect at least a minor thunderbolt.
“And what did you say then?”
“Timuroff, I didn’t say a goddamn thing. I reached out and grabbed the little bastard by the drawers—he was in one of our folding canvas chairs—and by the scruff of the neck, and I pitched the whole
shebang into the swimming pool to see if it’d sink—just like I did that stupid MP captain back in Tokyo during the Occupation, only he went into the Imperial Palace moat.”
Olivia burst out laughing. Timuroff joined her. “Just wait till Pete hears about this, Amos! Could Mr. Kielty swim?”
“Not so you could notice it. He splashed around, and snorted, and blew a lot of water, and said a lot of dirty words when he came up for air. Finally, Jessie and the big cop came running and asked what was the matter, and I told them, and the cop sort of apologized and fished him out. That was when I got arrested. I told him, ‘Listen, you s.o.b., I’ll ride in front with your friend here, who’s civilized, but I’ll be damned if I come anywhere near you, wet or dry. Anyhow, that’s how they took me in, and—would you believe it?—the boys down at the Hall of Justice weren’t hostile at all. You’d have thought I was an old pal coming home. My lawyer met me—Jessie’d phoned him right away—and I was out and home again before they’d even started the late show.” •
‘.‘Kielty’s not exactly popular in the Department,” Timuroff said, “but even so, Amos, was it wise?”
“Wise? Damned if I know. But it was a lot of fun and it was worth it.” Ledenthal turned his attention to the swords. “Now, how exorbitant a price are you demanding for these hunks of Nagoya iron?”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” said Timuroff. “Examine them with care. Consider their beauty and their rarity. You’ll be astonished at my pitifully small prices.”
Ledenthal snorted, Olivia snickered, and Timuroff tried hard to look offended. For the next twenty minutes, they wrangled happily, and Ledenthal ended up buying two swords exactly as Timuroff had predicted. “And now,” he growled, when the deal had been completed, “on top of being royally diddled, I guess I’ve got to buy your lunch?” ‘That would be pleasant,” Timuroff said politely.
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