by Glen Ebisch
“We owe him something,” Spacer said to the leader.
“Yeah, my nose still hurts. I think he almost broke it,” the Whiner whined.
“What do you think?” the leader said to me. “Do they owe you anything?”
None of the three was an outstanding physical specimen. Even with their various weapons, I figured that maybe Templeton and I could come out ahead if they rest of the gang stayed out of it. And this was probably one of those times when acting confident could avoid a fight.
I shrugged and said to the leader, “The two of us against the three of them. That seems fair. Can we beat on them until they tell us what we want to know?”
He laughed. “I think you’d better turn around and check out your army.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Templeton was gone! Where the hell had he disappeared to, I wondered. He may have had a lot of personality problems, but I never would have guessed that cowardice was among them. Maybe he went to get the police. I figured they would get there just in time to find my trampled body in the snow.
“Before I turn these three loose on you, why don’t you tell me more of this story about members of the Brotherhood chasing a girl at North Hill. It’s the first I’ve heard about it,” the leader said.
Spacer and his friends suddenly looked worried.
“They were chasing her across a field in back of the school. She ran into me. We went into the woods, and I drove these three off with snowballs.”
“With snowballs?” he asked.
Someone back in the pack laughed. Spacer blushed, and he and his buddies looked more eager than ever to massage my skull.
“Do you know why they were chasing the girl?” the leader asked.
“Not exactly, but they said that someone was paying them to do it.”
The smile left his face. It was replaced by a look of such barely controlled violence that I could see how he had gotten to be boss.
“And a girl who was a friend of the person they were chasing was murdered that night. She was last seen here in town,” I continued.
“Do the police know that these three were up there?” he said, casually waving a hand in their direction as though they were already history.
“They know three bikers chased a girl. They don’t know who they were or what gang—or brotherhood they belonged to.”
“How many bikers do you think there are in this little burg? They’ll be around,” he said turning to the three who were now definitely looking more scared than angry. “You took a job without asking my permission. We’re going to have trouble with the police because you got greedy.”
“He won’t tell the police who we are, not if we hurt him bad enough,” Spacer pleaded in a desperate voice, “and then the three of us can disappear for awhile.”
The bearded guy stared at me while evaluating the suggestion, then suddenly his attention shifted over my shoulder. I turned slightly to see what was happening. Templeton had returned and was holding two axe handles. He tossed one to me and leaned his against a garbage can. Then he slowly removed his down jacket, stripped off his sweater, shirt, and undershirt. He took the silk handkerchief out of his pants pocket and tied it around his head.
It was cold out there! Every once in a while a gust of wind came down the street that cut through even my heavy down coat. But Templeton stood there, naked to the waist, holding the ax handle loosely in his right hand, and grinning happily, like it was the perfect day to get a tan and break a few heads at the same time. He was so skinny that he looked like a skeleton with a little skin stretched over the bones; somehow that made him seem even more menacing.
“He’s crazy!” the Whiner said, echoing my thoughts. “I ain’t fighting against no crazy guy.”
All three of them seemed to agree and took a couple of steps back to get closer to their gang. The leader chuckled and stepped out of the way, leaving nothing but space between us and them. Spacer and his friends stood there, but made no move toward us. Templeton kept making sounds low in his throat, like barely suppressed laughter. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, and I was on his side. I could only guess what it was doing to the guys across the way.
Finally I figured it was time to break the stalemate and said, “All we want to know is who paid you to chase the girl, and why? If you tell us that we won’t go to the police with any identifications.”
We glared at each other for a while longer until the leader said to Spacer’s group, “I’m getting cold out here. You can either fight these two or tell them what they want to know. Which will it be?”
The three exchanged glances. “We don’t know who hired us. We didn’t get a name. He called the luncheonette and asked to speak to one of us,” Spacer said.
“Did he ask for you by name?” Templeton asked between gruesome sounds.
“Nah. He just wanted to speak to a biker.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. We met behind the high school at night, and he was wearing a hat and long coat.”
“Old or young?” I continued.
“He was no kid,” Spacer answered, “but he wasn’t real old.”
“What did he tell you to do?” asked Templeton.
Spacer shrugged. “He just told us that the girl would be getting off the bus at ten or eleven by the road up to North Hill. We were supposed to follow her and just shake her up a little. Nothing heavy.”
My hand tightened on the axe handle. The bearded guy must have noticed because he stepped between us and said to Spacer, “What did you get paid for this little job?”
“A hundred dollars,” Spacer said sullenly. “But it was worth a lot more after we ran into this guy.”
“I think you owe each of your brother Cheetahs ten dollars,” the leader said. “And I think you need another lesson on the importance of sharing.” The three rolled their eyes in fear and might have run, but the rest of the gang gathered in close around, giving them some less than brotherly looks. They all started to head back inside the luncheonette.
“One more question,” Templeton called out. “How did you know you had the right girl?”
“He told me what she’d be wearing. What her coat looked like,” Spacer answered as one of the gang pushed him inside.
The bearded one stopped at the door. A smile broke through the black bush of a beard. “The idea of community is difficult for some of the brothers to understand, and the quality of recruits isn’t what it should be. If you two ever get into bikes, come around and visit; we can always use new members.”
Swell, I thought, if I didn’t get into the college of my choice I could always join a gang of bikers—really make my parents proud.
Templeton got dressed, and we walked out to the main street. He was whistling merrily and twirling the axe handle as though it were a cane.
“What was the idea back there? First you disappear, and then you come back and act like a lunatic, or refugee from some grade B Japanese karate movie.”
“A lunatic, exactly right, I acted like a lunatic,” Templeton said with delight.
“That’s nothing to be proud of. In fact you seemed kind of natural in the role.”
“You don’t understand, Wood,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I immediately noted that these people were not going to listen to reason, so some violence was likely to ensue. Now it is common knowledge in violent environments, such as urban ghettos, that the only way to be safe is to act insane. No one will attack someone who might respond with the irrational, perhaps even superhuman, force of the insane.”
“What do you know about ghettos? Did you once stay in a New York hotel that only had three stars?”
“How I know is not important. What is important is that I spotted that hardware store, developed a plan, and successfully put it into action.”
That was hard to argue with, so I kept quiet until Templeton accidentally hit me in the leg with the axe handle.
“What are we going to do with these t
hings?” I asked, waving mine in front of me. A crowd of people gave me startled glances and parted like the Red Sea.
“We could simply throw them away, unless, of course, you would like to bring them back to our room for firewood. It would be more of a contribution than you made the other night.”
“Bah,” I said eloquently, shoving mine in the nearest garbage can.
Templeton followed suit and said, “It’s probably just as well, since we are now going to dine.”
“To dine?”
“Yes, to have luncheon at a restaurant,” he explained as though dining was probably an experience I knew nothing about.
“Why are we going to do that?”
“Because it is almost noon, I am hungry, and it is a good way to examine the restaurant where Vicki was last seen alive.”
“Oh.” That was hard to argue with, too.
* * *
The Midtown Restaurant was a pretty fancy name for a place in the middle of what wasn’t much more than a large village, but the management tried to make up for it with thick carpets and real white table clothes. As you walked in, there was a desk and cash register on your right. Straight ahead a hall ran past a set of rest rooms and stopped at a door that probably led out into a back alley. On the left was a narrow but deep dining room and behind it the kitchen.
A hostess seated us, and when the waitress came I ordered a tuna salad platter, since I was watching my diet for basketball. The food at North Hill was heavy on the bread and potatoes, and I’d already put on five pounds. Living with a skinny guy like Templeton made you aware of any extra inches.
Templeton was studying the tablecloth as though it were a map, and seemed annoyed when I asked, “So what did we learn from questioning the Heck’s Angels back there?”
“Much of what we need to know to solve the case,” Templeton replied.
“Yeah, well why don’t you let me in on it.”
“We know that they were hired by someone specifically to harass Elaine Sharp on that evening.”
“Well, we could have guessed that,” I said.
“Not so, Wood, they could have been hired to harass anyone who got off the bus at that time, but they were employed only to attack Elaine. And by someone who knew the type of coat she wore.”
“Okay, but that still isn’t much.”
Templeton sighed. “Don’t you listen to what people say? We also discovered that the employer was an adult or someone who sounded like an adult. And this someone knew about the bikers’ gang but didn’t know them by name. It was also someone who knew enough about Elaine’s schedule to predict approximately when she would be getting off the bus. Hence it had to be someone at school who was close to Elaine. That confirms our hypothesis.”
“That also narrows the list of suspects down to guys with deep voices who knew about Elaine’s trips into town. You know how gossip spreads around a school. Anyone could have known about her appointments.”
“The real puzzle is what did Vicki plan to do that evening?”
“What difference does that make?”
“It is a bit speculative as of yet, but I believe Vicki purposely manipulated Elaine into coming here because she planned to meet someone. Someone who didn’t want to be seen with her at school.”
“So she planned to disappear?”
“Yes, but not quite so permanently. She was probably going to leave for a few minutes, conduct her business with the person she was blackmailing, then return to the table and go back to school with Elaine.”
“So how does that help us?”
“Perhaps if we can discover how she was kidnapped, it will help us to find who did it.”
“Jameson. I told you from the first that he was no good. Vicki probably knew about him and Pritchard and was blackmailing him. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who got in his way.”
Templeton threw me a contemptuous glance. “But would he know about Elaine’s visits to the psychiatrist and exactly when she was taking the bus?”
“No, Elaine doesn’t know him,” I said slowly. She told me that the night we met him when I was carrying her in the bag.”
“Ah, well, that’s that then,” said Templeton with irritating smugness.
My salad came. It looked like someone had put a whole garden on my plate and topped it off with half a tuna. Templeton grinned as he cut into his steak and commented on how my ears would be the length of a rabbit’s by the time I was done. I tried to question him further on the case, but he concentrated on eating. When I had shoved down all I could, leaving about half a head of lettuce and enough fish to make up Moby Dick, he suggested that I visit the men’s room.
“I don’t have to,” I said.
“Go anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because it will give me an opportunity to examine the door to the alley.”
“So?”
“If you didn’t want to be seen with someone who was blackmailing you, would you choose to meet them in the middle of a crowded restaurant?”
“I guess not.”
“The only secluded spot easily reached from here is that alley,” Templeton said. “So will you move along, now that I’ve put it into pictures for you?”
I went to the men’s room, and left Templeton standing rather conspicuously in the hall waiting for me. I used the toilet, combed my hair, studied the graffiti on the walls, which weren’t very classy considering the price of the meals, and generally occupied my time for five minutes. When I came out Templeton gave me a nod, and we paid the cashier and left.
“What did you find out?” I asked as soon as we were on the street.
“The door is not equipped with an alarm and can be opened from the inside.”
“So Vicki could have slipped out that way and met someone?” I asked.
“If she was careful. The cashier also serves as hostess, so she would simply have to wait until the cashier left her station to seat a customer.”
“And you think Vicki planned to return?”
“Yes. I think she was going to meet her victim, and return before Elaine got suspicious.”
“But why go to all the trouble of having Elaine along at all?”
“I think she wanted someone with her for protection. She didn’t trust whomever she was meeting.”
“It looks like she had good reason.”
Templeton turned left, then left again and headed down a narrow alley that led behind the stores on Main Street. We walked along, dodging garbage cans and dumpsters until we came to a door with Midtown Restaurant over it in small print. You could hear the sound of a dishwasher and the voices of the kitchen workers filter out through a small, partially open, window covered with a security screen.
“What do you expect to find here?” I asked.
Templeton stooped down by the door and picked something up from the ground.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Without a word he handed it to me: it was part of a pen, the point and about an inch of plastic. A distinctive letter “N” was all that was left of the name that had been printed on the pen: North Hill Academy. Everyone at the school used them.
“Do you think she dropped it when she was attacked?” I asked.
“No, I think she had it wedged in the door to keep it from closing so she wouldn’t be locked out. The killer never noticed the door was ajar, and when the restaurant was locked up for the night, someone pulled it shut. That broke the pen.”
“Do you think she was killed here?”
“Perhaps. She may have been killed here, then carried down this alley and placed in a car parked on the street we just came down. Or she may have been forced into the car and killed elsewhere.”
I looked up and down the alley and hoped it was elsewhere. It seemed a dismal place to die, but then I figured no place was really a good one to be murdered in.
“But why didn’t her killer just leave her here? Why cart the body all the way up to North Hill?”
Templeton grumbled,
but said nothing. I took that to mean he didn’t know, and went on, “Well do you know who she was meeting that night and why?”
“If I knew the answer to the second part of that question, I could answer the first. Perhaps your friend Elaine knows.”
“She swears she’s told us everything.”
“We can only hope that she is mistaken or lying.”
“Why?”
“Because the murderer may become convinced she knows more.”
Chapter 9
I showed up at Elaine’s dorm right at six to take her to the movie. When you wanted to see a girl at North Hill, you had to call up to her floor from the lobby, ring until someone answered, then ask whoever it was to give a message to the person you wanted to speak to. All this could take quite a while and wasn’t very efficient. But when it came to bringing boys and girls together, North Hill wasn’t interested in efficiency. They would prefer that members of the opposite sex never meet outside of class.
I’d heard that guys had been known to sneak upstairs, but if Miss Carmody caught you, it meant instant expulsion. And any floor monitor who looked the other way when she spotted a guy skulking around the halls would be fired and find her room moved to a dark corner of the basement where spiders had been the previous residents. So like a good boy, I picked up the phone and called Elaine’s floor. A female voice answered and said Elaine was already down in the lobby waiting. I looked around, didn’t see anyone, and asked where Elaine might be hiding.
“Try the plant room,” the unnamed girl answered.
“Where?”
“Right behind you. Through the double doors.”
I thanked her, and went across the lobby and gently opened the glass doors at the end. A light was on, and in the middle of the floor sat Elaine. Several small white boxes were arranged in front of her, and she had one up in front of her face. I could also see how the room got its name. All around the edge were plants with giant leaves. It made the place resemble a funeral parlor.
“Hi,” Elaine said, taking the box away. “Would you like some Chinese food? I get a craving for it once in a while, and there’s a place in town that will deliver up here if I pay extra.”