Wake Up Little Susie

by Ed Gorman

  There were two cars in the sweeping driveway, a little red brand-new T-Bird and a dowdy green Chevrolet sedan.

  The chimes were lengthy and pretentious, sounding vaguely like Gershwin. Bob Gershwin.

  Amy’d put on a few pounds since I’d seen her last but they were not at all unbecoming.

  She’d been three years ahead of me in school.

  She’d always been beautiful, stylish. She had the sensuous mouth, the erotic overbite, the perfect classical nose, the brown-alm-ebon eyes that could be merry and sad at the same time. If her body was slightly overmuch, it was slightly overmuch in all the right ways. Dressed in a man’s white shirt worn outside and a pair of jeans, she displayed two surprisingly small and very naked feet. She looked like the heroine of every Harry Whittington Adults Only

  paperback I’d ever read.

  “Thanks,” she said, and plucked the brown paper bag from my grasp. “You want some coffee?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  As she led me through an impeccably modern and impeccably impersonal house, she said, “God, I think it’s great.”

  “What’s great?”

  “That you think I killed that bitch.”

  “Yeah, there’s nothing more fun than being accused of murder.”

  “Where that bitch is concerned, it’s an honor.”

  We sat in a tiled kitchen, open and sunny, right out of a magazine. A huge island, shiny pots and pans suspended from above. White appliances—vast upright refrigerator-freezer, even vaster stove—andthe pleasant scent of floor wax.

  The coffee was made. We sat in the breakfast nook.

  “How’s the coffee?”

  “Good.”

  “You don’t have to lie, McCain. I know I make terrible coffee.”

  “Ok, it stinks.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I’m sorry but it does.”

  “You want some sugar?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll just kind of sip at it.”

  “He always bitched about that too.”

  “Squires?”

  “Uh-huh. Said I couldn’t cook, said I weighed too much, and said I always made a fool of myself after two drinks.”

  “Sounds like a pretty good marriage to me.”

  “She was a conniver.”

  “That wasn’t my impression.”

  “She took my husband, didn’t she?”

  “From the way you described your marriage, maybe he just handed himself over.”

  She sipped her coffee from a mug with a Republican Party cartoon elephant on it.

  “Maybe it’s just because I’m used to it. But I think this stuff tastes pretty good.”

  I looked at her. “Happen to remember where you were Friday night between eight and twelve?”

  She cackled. “God, you’re serious, aren’t you, McCain?”

  “I’m afraid I am.”

  “I was right here. With my two little daughters, who never see their father because that bitch wouldn’t let him come over here.”

  “How old’re your daughters?”

  “Nine and six.”

  “You talk to anybody on the phone?”

  She thought a moment. “No.”

  “Anybody drop by?”

  “No.” Then: “I didn’t kill her,

  McCain. Besides, they found her in a car trunk, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I couldn’t lift a person and throw her in a car trunk.”

  “She probably didn’t weigh a hundred pounds.”

  “Oh, I see. I’m such a moose I

  could’ve done it, huh?”

  “Just about anybody could’ve done it, Amy.”

  “You know what’s funny?”

  “What?”

  “I was the one who got her on the cheerleading squad. I mean, she was nobody. And I just thought it’d be neat if I, you know, sort of extended my hand. I was the captain of the squad so I figured I should set the example. The other girls didn’t want her. They called her “Jane” because she was always reading those Jane Austen novels. My mom said Jane Austen was a lesbian.”

  “Well, if anybody would know about Jane Austen’s sex life, it’d be your mom.”

  “But I felt sorry for her. So I insisted.

  And seven years later, she steals my husband.

  Small world, huh?”

  I tried the coffee again.

  “Any better?”

  “I’d just as soon keep my opinion to myself.”

  Then: “People tell me you got into it with her in public a few times.”

  She shrugged. “It wasn’t any big deal.

  I’d had a couple of drinks a couple of times.

  I mean she did after all steal my husband.

  Thanks to her my two little girls have no father.”

  “He left you pretty well provided for.”

  “Guilt. You run off with some little flat-chested Jane Austen type, the only way you can live with yourself is to lavish a lot of money on your ex and your daughters.”

  I waited a beat and then said, “He ever hit you?”

  She waited several beats. “How’d you find out about that? That was one of the things I agreed to keep quiet about. In return for the house and the cars and everything.”

  “So he did hit you?”

  “He wants to be governor, you know.”

  “So I hear.”

  “But first he needs to be state attorney general. The party fathers in Des Moines think he needs to be known better statewide before shooting for governor. So he’ll run for Ag first.”

  “And it’d look bad if the Ag was an accused wife beater?”

  She nodded. “The funny thing is, it was kind of sexy when it started out. I mean, he’d rough me up when we were making love, and at first I didn’t mind it. He didn’t really hurt me.

  Then he started losing interest in the sex and went right to the hitting. He knew just where to do it

  so it didn’t show.”

  “He ever get carried away?”

  “You mean like lose control?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Once. Gave me a black eye and a

  split lip. I was really scared. I was going to talk to a shrink in Iowa City about it, but he begged me not to. Promised he’d never do it again. Right after that, he started seeing the slut—”my calculation, anyway.”

  “You ever hear about him hitting Susan?”

  “No.” She smiled impishly. “But I

  would’ve been happy to do it for him.”

  I looked at my Timex and I thought about whipping out my notebook. But then I decided Amy wasn’t the sort of person you gave an edge to. She’d be gossiping about Captain Video for weeks. “I guess that’s about it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know the crazy part?”

  “What?”

  “To make him jealous I started sleeping with a lot of his lawyer friends from Iowa City. And I made sure the word got back to him.”

  “And?”

  She looked suddenly miserable, giving me a glimpse of the hard but fake exterior she’d constructed for herself. “I still love him, McCain.”

  “I’m sorry, Amy.”

  “This’ll be our fourth Christmas without him.”

  She walked me to the front door. “I saw you at Rexall’s the other day. Talking to Mary.

  When’re you going to come to your senses and marry that girl?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said.

  The half-hour drive to Cedar Rapids was pleasant. Fall is my season. The

  melancholy scent and the delicate beauty of the land, made all the more delicate by its brevity.

  The office was on the west side of the river, above a corner grocery store that stank of rotting meat. The owner pointed me to the side of the stucco building and a flight of stairs that led to a door beyond which you could hear babies crying and adults coughing.

  The nurse was pretty, much l
ike Susan had been. Young Dr. Jensen’s taste in

  women seemed to run to type. She said she was sorry but that since I hadn’t phoned ahead for an appointment, I’d just have to wait my turn.

  Babies always cry when they see me. I set three or four of them exploding just by sitting down.

  Mothers scowled at me for existing. What sort of telepathy or voodoo had I performed on their sweet little dears?

  The people in the waiting room looked poor, that class below the working class that not even the war was able to help economically. I suspected that Jensen dealt with them because they were the only clientele he could get. But I had to give him his due for bringing help and comfort to people that most of society despises. In America, being poor is a sin if not a perversion.

  Coughers coughed and sneezers sneezed, and a couple of old men hawked up enough phlegm to make me swear off eating for months. It was a swell way to spend seventy-three minutes.

  I killed time by taking out my notebook and reading over what I’d written about the case so far. A couple of the mothers made faces when they saw Captain Video staring at them. One infant kept pointing at me and sobbing. I gave his mother my best “I’m sorry” look but she wasn’t mollified.

  I started looking my way through the magazines.

  The room was long and narrow, much like a boxcar, the cracked walls painted a mustard yellow. There were a lot of framed bromides about staying healthy, but they looked so old and decrepit they mocked their own wisdom. The chairs were mismatched, and so were the three tables upon which magazines were heaped. There were so many magazines, I got the impression that people were using this office as a dumping spot for periodicals they wanted to dispose of. Magazines of every kind: family, how-to, adventure, knitting, horseback riding, grain importing. And not a single one displaying cleavage. I found a Collier’s with a John D. MacDonald novelette in it and read that.

  He wore physician whites and a black serpentine stethoscope. His wild curly red hair was a lot longer than it should have been, and too many midnights had painted gray swaths beneath his green eyes. The equipment was sorely out of date, an examining room and two slender glass-fronted cabinets holding

  medicine.

  He was busy with a clipboard when I walked in. He glanced up and said, “Just sit on the table. I’ll be with you in a sec.”

  It was a couple hundred secs actually. Then he looked up at me and did a double-take Red Skelton would have considered hammy.

  “You,” he said, pure accusation.

  “The one and only.”

  “You were at the dance the other night.”

  “Right.”

  “What the hell’re you doing here?”

  I took my notebook out from inside my sport jacket and held it up.

  He gawked and looked as if he wanted to giggle. I’d forgotten to flap the cover back.

  “Never mind the cover,” I said. “This is where I keep my list of suspects.”

  “Oh, great,” he said. “A cop with a Captain Video notebook—”

  “I’m not a cop. I work for Judge

  Whitney of the District Court.”

  “That snooty bitch. What the hell’s she got to do with any of this?”

  “She wants to see justice done.” I sounded like Broderick Crawford on Highway

  Patrol.

  “I’ll bet.”

  He walked over to the door and put a giant hand on the knob. “Get out.”

  “I have a witness who saw you arguing with Susan a few weeks ago. The witness says you gave her a very hard shove.”

  He didn’t sound quite so sure of himself suddenly. “A shove is a long way from murder.”

  “It could be the first step toward murder.”

  His hand came away from the knob. He leaned against the east wall. “We had an argument was all.”

  “About what?”

  He sighed. “I used to go out with her when she worked for Squires. Then she fell in love with him. And he ditched his wife and took up with her.

  But we never quite let it die, me ‘n’ her.”

  “She didn’t let it die or you

  didn’t?”

  He hesitated. “Me, I guess.”

  “Everybody I know says she was still in love with Squires.”

  “She was. That’s what we were arguing about.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “She was still in love with him but he wasn’t still in love with her.”

  “Oh? How do you know that?”

  “I followed him several times.”

  “For what?”

  “I thought maybe Susan would see him for what he was. You know, if I could prove he was running around on her.”

  “And was he?”

  He snorted. “Hell, yes, he was.”

  “Anybody special?”

  “Not that I could see. Just general nooky.”

  I took out a Lucky. He nodded to the pack and I gave him one too. When I got us fired up, I said, “You told Susan this.”

  “Yes.”

  “And she believed you?”

  “Not at first. But she believed me after I showed her some pictures of him at a motel.”

  “You’re a busy boy.”

  “I love her.” He hesitated. “Loved her, I mean. And she loved me too. At one time. I look at that prick and I can’t figure out what women see in him. He’s the kind of guy who steals your woman just to prove he can do it. And then laughs in your face.”

  “He ever laugh in your face?”

  “Once.”

  “When was that?”

  “He saw me at an outdoor concert in Iowa City. He was with Susan. When she introduced us, he said, “Oh, yes, the young man who’s always calling you when I’m not home.” Then this big smirk.”

  “You know there’s a possibility he beat her?”

  “Possibility? Are you kidding? Of course I knew. I had to treat her a couple of times.”

  “She didn’t want to leave him?”

  “Leave him? Hell, she wanted to help him. It just brought out her maternal side. She talked about how his mother had been so cold to him.

  He didn’t trust women. Deep down he was scared of them. She figured it was a small price to pay—taking a beating every once in a while—ffhelp straighten him out.”

  “Been reading too much Freud.”

  “No shit,” he said. “I hate

  all that crap. It was force-fed us in med school.

  And that’s what I kept trying to tell her. That it didn’t matter why he beat her—even if her Freudian psychology was right—what mattered was that he did beat her and that’s all that counted. I told her he was going to get carried away some night and kill her. These things almost always escalate. He might not even want to kill her, I said. But he’d do it accidentally.”

  “How’d she respond?”

  “The way she usually did. That I was just trying to come between them.”

  A knock. His nurse. “There’s a call for you from Mercy Hospital, doctor.

  Emergency.”

  “Thank you.” He walked over to a small sink, ran water, soaked his cigarette, and then pitched it in the ashtray. He turned back to me. “I don’t dislike you quite as much as I thought I would, McCain.”

  “Gee, that’s good to know,” I said.

  I seem to make friends everywhere I go.

  Ten

  Rush hour in a town like ours means more milk trucks, more tractors, more hay balers, more combines, and more dump trucks. If you think traffic crawls in Chicago, you should spend three miles behind a plow-pulling tractor, watching its green John Deere ass wiggle and waggle all over the road.

  I went straight to my rabbit warren of an office and called Judge Whitney with an update. She was gone for the day.

  “Boy, she doesn’t usually leave this early,” I said to the beautiful Pamela.

  “It’s nearly four, McCain. That’s not very early. She needed to go to Iowa City for some new shoes. S
he decided the ones she bought in Chicago aren’t right for her dress after all.”

  “Sounds like a big do.”

  “It’s Lenny.”

  “Lenny?”

  “Lenny Bernstein. Or is it com.steen?”

  “Stein. And what’s he got to do with it?”

  “He’s coming to the university, and he’s invited her to have dinner with him afterward.”

  “Leonard Bernstein invited her to dinner?”

  “Uh-huh. His secretary called yesterday to set it up. Then Lenny got on the phone himself and talked to her.”

  I’ve become immune to the Judge’s

  name-dropping. A lot of the time I don’t even believe she knows the people she claims to. But every once in a while, one of the names calls her and then I walk around in a state of disbelief for a couple of hours.

  Dinner with Leonard Bernstein, no less.

  Lenny.

  Plenty of bills, no money.

  I sat at my little desk with my little Captain Video notebook trying to work out my finances for the next month. I drew two lines down the center of the page. Debits and credits. Just the way Mr. Carstairs taught us in Business Math back in high school. I looked at the sorry figures. My car really needed a new pair of glas-paks, but t’wasn’t to be this month. I took out my huge stamp that says

  120 Days Overdue!!!

  Please Don’t Make Me

  Turn This Over To A

  Collection Agency

  and started stamping bills. I sat back and did what I always did: added up my debits and credits. If everybody who owed me money paid me, I’d be in fine shape. But my clients were mostly one step above public defender level and the prospects of their paying me weren’t great.

  So the collection agency threat was a joke and everybody around town knew it. Pops Mason may once have been a mad dog of a bill collector, but now that he was in his mid-sixties, some of the cunning had gone out of his pursuits. He was blind in his left eye, had rheumatism, gout, and prostate problems, and he never drank fewer than four quarts of Hamm’s per day. He still pinched ladies a lot too. I knew all about his medical problems because he talked about them constantly to anybody who’d listen. He also had a long spiel about not having had a decent erection since he was fifty-three, a fact he blamed largely on the fluoride in the water. It was his