Читать книгу Murder Without Tears - Leonard Lupton - Страница 6

WE STARTED back toward River House. It was almost noon. I hadn’t wasted a morning like this since the place had opened. But I didn’t have the feeling that the morning had been wasted—rather I had the sense of standing on the verge of some momentous event.

On the way up the hill I said, “You were joking about breakfast, but I’m not joking about lunch. Can you?”

“Can I what?”

“Have lunch with me.”

She said, “Why not? I told you that I wanted to see River House.”

“All of it?”

“All of it,” she said. Her smile was hardly a smile at all, yet I sensed there was laughter behind it. Not shared laughter, but laughter at my expense.

I tightened up a little inside. I could guess how the brush salesman with his foot in the door must feel when the housewife says that she doesn’t really need any brushes, but she just might take a quick look. I wondered what the brush salesman did then—did he find himself a more likely prospect, or did he take a lopsided pride in his sales talk and move in for the kill?

We turned into the blue-graveled drive, found a space to park and nothing more was said until we were inside. I ordered lunch without counting the house or wondering how big the noon throwaway would be. My mind was not on business. She was wearing a perfume that I had been aware of all morning and it seemed to me that I had never before been so completely aware of a woman.

She said, “You know, you’ve done surprisingly well in changing this place around—in spite of its being entirely commercial, the feeling of the past is still in this room.”

“You aren’t the first to say that, but you’re the first who matters,” I said.

She said, “I’m not teasing now. I meant that. I knew this house well in the old days and I’ve got the unreal feeling that these people lunching here today are guests.”

Well, she had one advantage in appraising River House that I would never have—she had memory. I was going to take her on a tour of this place all right, as soon as we were finished with dessert, to see it through her eyes.

“Do you know,” she said, “I’d especially like to see the upstairs.”

I said, “There’s nothing up there but my room. The rest of the rooms are used only for storage.”

“I know,” she said.

I didn’t wonder how she knew.

“Let’s do it now?” she said abruptly, stood up and started for the green-carpeted stairs. I followed her. I liked to watch her go up the stairs. She had fine, strong legs, with a good curve at the calf and a stout ankle. We stopped in front of the door at the top of the third flight of stairs and I opened the door and looked in. I made a move as though to let her precede me, assuming that she would step first to the window overlooking the river, as I had once or twice seen other girls do.

But she did not even cross the threshold. She stood looking in, and what she saw was a chest of drawers and a bureau and a bed. There was a small desk and a steel filing cabinet against one wall and a small shelf of books.

“Books?” she said. “Do you like to read?” She studied the titles.

I said, “Whenever I get a little time.”

She started to turn away. She said musingly, “I wanted to see where you lived. I hoped that it would tell me something about you. But it looks like a hotel room.”

I said, “What else? This is a public house, not a home.”

She swung a quick glance along the hall. “Shall we go down now?”

I put both hands on her shoulders. I turned her toward me, moving her so that her face was level with mine. But she put both hands against my chest, pushing.

“Not now,” she said. “Not right here—not right now. These things can’t be forced, not with me, at any rate.”

I looked at her steadily, aware of a sincerity and a half-promise that were more important and more enticing than any other promise had been before.

I said, “Of course,” and took my hands from her shoulders and touched her elbow, but only to guide her toward the stairs. I had waited before. I had waited through the war years and through most of the years since and now I had twisted life around a little, this past year or so, to fit a pattern I had long had in mind. The whole thing, the waiting, the planning, could have been upset in a matter of seconds here on the lonely third floor of River House.

She paused at the top of the stairs and looked at me. There was a skylight overhead and I could see the blue of her eyes and the question behind them—a question she seemed to be asking of herself, not me.

She smiled suddenly and said, “You’re a patient man, Jason. I’m afraid of patient men. They don’t often lose any game they play.”

I said, “Then this is only a game?”

The smile went away. “No,” she said slowly. “This isn’t just a game any more. I thought you understood that.” She turned quickly and started down the stairs.

When I had seen her out the front door to her car I asked, “Anne, if it isn’t a game any more, will I see you tonight?”

She did not hesitate. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll come unescorted and you’ll have to sit with me.”

But I did not sit with her in the barroom of River House that night. I sat with a Major Craddock instead.

You might have been in the late great war and still have been lucky enough never to have met Major Craddock. He was not a combat soldier, nor yet stateside. He was—or had been—an MP officer. He had always operated in base section. Operated is the right word.

He came into the barroom at River House that Saturday night with his gut sucked in and his chest out and his shoulders very square. He had a crew cut and a big, blueish jaw. He kept his eyes squinted into dangerous slits, so there would be no doubt that, although here was a gentleman and upon occasion a very polished one, here, too, was a very hard case.

He came straight to the table where I sat waiting for Anne Cramer, and said, “You’re Broome.”

I put an inch of cigar ash into the black tray that had RIVER HOUSE printed on it in white letters. I leaned back in the caned chair and looked up at him.

I remembered this man, all right. One of his MP’s had arrested me in a base section town for wearing a mixed uniform, minus a tie. I hadn’t had much trouble proving why I was dressed that way. A phone call to a code number had fixed that. But the memory nudged me now and some of the old annoyance scratched across my palate. It made my voice raspy.

I said, “I’m Broome.”

He sat down. He said, “Do you know who I am?”

I said, “No.”

He said, “I am Major Craddock.” His voice got a little smug. “I am General Gunther Cramer’s right hand man.”

I thought to myself, You are just one shade removed from being General Gunther Cramer’s dog-robber . . . but I did not say that. I said, “How do you do, Major Craddock. I hope you are enjoying your stay in Newburyport.”

He took out and lit a cigarette after frowning at my cigar. He went through all that silly business of tapping it and lighting it with great care.

He said, “Broome, I’m going to be blunt with you. It has come to the general’s attention that his daughter has been seen in this place.”

“Anything unusual about that?” I asked as casually as I could.

“No.” He made a gesture with the manicured hand that held the king-size cigarette. “But the general doesn’t like it. A little slumming is all right when it’s done in a group, but not alone. I understand Miss Cramer has been here unescorted.”

I felt the slow burn starting but I don’t think it showed. I inhaled cigar smoke. It was heavy, rich and quieted my first angry impulses. I managed to say quietly enough, “My compliments to the general on the work of his intelligence agents. I hadn’t thought of River House as a slum area.”

The major thought that one over, changing color slightly. I got the feeling of an imminent explosion. When I looked down at his hands, all I could see were knuckles.

He said, “Look, Broome. Maybe I’d better use your own language. You’ve been putting up a big front here, but I know your background. I’ve looked you up. Do you begin to understand?”

I said, “No. I wear a clean shirt and don’t swear in front of ladies. Doesn’t that make me a gentleman?”

“All right—crack wise. I’ve met a lot of men like you in my career. They’re as brittle as their pretensions.”

I said, “You’re making me some kind of threat and I don’t understand why.”

I understood why all right, but I needed time. I needed to stall him. We were going to have it out—that was why he was here. The general probably said, “Craddock, my daughter is getting interested in a bum from the brickyards who runs some kind of a saloon out on Brickyard Avenue. Go take care of this bum.”

The idea burned me, but under the burn it amused me a little, too. I wondered if the major still saluted the general. They were both out of the army but I would have bet they kept observing all the regulations.

“I’m not threatening you, Broome. I’m explaining a delicate situation. You are to discourage Anne’s coming here. The general won’t have it. Is that clear?”

I said, “You express yourself well, Major. If I don’t give Anne Cramer the cold shoulder hereafter—I’m in serious trouble?”

He leaned back, relaxed. I could see the beginning of contempt and amusement in his eyes.

“I’m glad you realize that, Broome. I thought we would meet on common ground. I understand you had some sort of military experience yourself. You know how these things are.”

I knew how they were. The army expected the corporal to be a better man than the private; and the majors and the bird-boys stood up in the officer’s mess when the man with the star on his collar came in late. There was a reason for it, and a good one. A chain of command, unquestioning obedience, so automatic that it became a natural way of life in wartime.

But this was not war—not yet—and I didn’t stand up any more in the presence of field grade or better. I was a citizen of a free and democratic country and it was now my privilege to tell Major Craddock where to go.

I leaned across the table, even as he was relaxing, and told him just that. “Major Craddock, you can go to hell.”

It might have been kinder to have hit him in the stomach. The result could have been no more startling. Craddock’s neck began to swell and the fine, oxford collar cut into it and left a thin line of white, bloodless flesh in the midst of all that red flush of anger.

He got up at once, as I had expected he would, and the MP in him made his hand reach out automatically to take hold of my shirt front. I knew the next move. He would drag me up close and belt me across the mouth with the back of his other hand. I could imagine his arm and shoulder tensing under the expensive suit, preparing for just that effort.

I pushed my chair back quickly and walked to the door and he followed me, as I knew he would. I stepped out into the graveled drive and when he reached for me I took the sap out of my hip pocket and let it lie there across the palm of my hand where he could see it. The sap is a leather pouch, weighted with shot, the handle short but flexible. There was once a leather wrist thong on it, but I had cut that off.

I said, “You’re bigger than I am, Major, and all things being equal you could beat me up. But all things are not equal, as you’ve just pointed out.” I hefted the sap. I said, “I’m my own bouncer and this is only in case two people give me trouble at once. You’re as big as two people. Were you thinking of giving me trouble?”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. He looked the situation over. He wasn’t afraid. I’m sure of that. He would have walked into me and taken the chance that I knew how to use that sap. But as angry as he was, there was a calculating glint in the depths of his squinted eyes. I couldn’t actually see it there, but I could sense it.

He said, “Broome, you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were. I could understand your having a gun, but not that sap. They never issue licenses for those things. It’s a concealed weapon and you’re not a police officer, and you have threatened me. You’re in trouble, Broome.”

“Why don’t you go down to town, Major, and round up a couple of the boys in white helmets? Or don’t the boys in white helmets recognize your rank any more?”

It didn’t work. He said, “For a little while, Broome, I thought you might be going to be a problem. I overrated you. You’re not any problem at all, now.” He turned away and started across the gravel toward his car. It was a little satisfaction to me to see that I had guessed right about that—it was a fish-tail convertible, at least a five grand raytop, inelegantly. But that was about all the satisfaction that I did get from the incident.

I expected to hear from him again, but not quite the way it happened. The next I heard of him, Major Craddock was dead.

I went back into the barroom after Major Craddock had left. It was Saturday night, the big night of the week at River House. At the bar I told Armando to give me Black Label. I swallowed the drink down fast. He had the chaser ready but I shook my head and gave him back the empty shot glass and he filled it again. I never drink more than two in succession like that and although I wanted a third, I walked away from the bar without it.

My date with Anne Cramer was obviously off for tonight. And yet it didn’t seem reasonable to me that the general, or Major Craddock either, could dictate to Anne. I had not given much thought to her age, but it seemed quite apparent that she had been long enough out of school to be well-started down her twenties. She was a free agent, an adult. Wasn’t there a chance that she might ignore her father and come anyway?

As I moved around the room, never quite sure to whom I was speaking, I had one eye on the door. But Anne Cramer did not put in an appearance, nor did I see anything more of Major Craddock.

At closing time I walked with the last of the guests to the blue drive. When the parking lot was empty, I went back inside and got the cash deposit bag and went around to my own car. I gave the motor a half-minute to warm up, wondering if I was making a mistake to go down to the bank alone at this hour of the night. I wonder about it every Saturday night, though nothing has ever happened. Newburyport has a good and efficient police department.

I cut off Brickyard Avenue into Water Street and slowed to the legal limit. Prowl cars often cruised here. I saw a couple of drunks rolling home, and a girl too young for what she was doing leaned out from the curb and made an elaborate pick-up gesture. I grinned at her and went on, but when I stopped in front of the bank and went over to the bronze plate of the night depository she hurried along the street and stopped beside me.

“You look lonesome, honey,” she said. “Ain’t nothing worse than being lonesome at this hour.”

Her dress was a sleazy thing with a transparent upper half that showed a white brassiere and lots of flesh beneath it. She stood on spikes too high for her, and her smile was a brittle mask, covering her youth and inexperience.

I said, “Kid, you ought to be home in bed.”

She giggled. “Let’s you and me make a night of it.”

Jailbait, maybe. It was hard to tell the age under that mask of powder, rouge and mascara. I had seen too many like her on the Via Roma. It bothered me that it could happen here.

I made my deposit and turned back. “Broke, kid?”

She pulled her dress up and there was a wad of bills in the top of her stocking. “What do you think?”

I might have come up with a fin to pay her to take herself out of my way quickly, but just then we both heard the car coming. The red light on the roof wasn’t flashing and the siren was stilled but we could both see the lettering: POLICE.

She said, “I’ll see you at the foot of the block,” and dodged down River Street. I shook my head and crossed to my car. The prowl wagon went past, both cops turning for a brief look But a man making a night deposit was a common enough sight along Water Street.

I drove back toward Brickyard Avenue and River House, wondering about the girl, about her home life, about how she got that way. My thoughts were impersonal, detached. I decided idly that probably it had been fortunate for me that the police had come along just when they did—they had saved me a fin and the trouble of getting rid of the girl . . .

How was I to know that Major Craddock was dead by now and that a good, sweet alibi was all ready to cover me—or would have been, if two cops hadn’t come down Water Street past the bank at three-thirty on a Sunday morning and seen me talking to a tart?