Called by a Panther Page 9

  He said morosely, “She's been out all day and I don't know where.”

  “Are you saying you want her followed day and night?”

  “No, no.”

  “Well, what have you been calling me about?”

  “I thought it might help if you had a photograph of Charlotte.”

  “I have met the woman. Even worked for her. Bowed though my head was in her august presence, I would recognize her again.”

  “You don't have to be snotty,” he said. “You don't have to kick a man just because he is down and in love.”

  He was right, of course. You don't have to. It can feel good, though.

  But I said, “Sorry. If you have a photograph of her, I would be pleased to have it.”

  A hangdog looked up and said, “Would you?”

  “Pathos makes me borborygmic, Poet. Just give me the picture.”

  He passed an envelope across the desk. It had a thin pink ribbon around it.

  I found scissors. Inside was a pack of some twenty photographs.

  I leafed through them. Charlotte Vivien in almost every conceivable daytime-around-the-house pose. Any one of ten would do for identification purposes.

  But I became aware that this was an attractive woman.

  I hadn't noticed during the tense days leading up to the party. Then she had just seemed obsessed with what a hysterically funny idea the party was.

  In these pictures, however, her face was lively and expressive. She seemed comfortable with the photographic scrutiny and her eyes, especially, came alive as I thumbed through the shots. Quentin's preoccupation might not be with her bank balance after all.

  I pulled one of the facial full frontals and said, “Thanks.”

  “You're welcome.”

  “Now, how about a few more details? She's about forty right?”

  “Forty-seven.”

  I looked at the picture again. “You said she has children.”

  “Two. Both at college. Usually.”

  “And she has a lot of interests and activities?”

  “She's very active,” he said.

  “When you go home, I want you to write out a list of the organizations she belongs to with details of where their meetings are held and who might be there. O.K.?”

  “I can do that,” he said.

  “And you don't know where she is now?”

  “No.”

  “But she's coming back later this afternoon?”

  “There are a dozen people from the Butler dance and drama department coming over for cocktails.”

  “So if someone is ready to follow her after that . . .”

  “Great,” Quayle said.

  Then he started to cry.

  That passed my chicken limit. “On your way, Poet. Go home and write the list. Make it rhyme.”

  He rose and began to gather his outdoor clothing. But he moved slowly and sniffed a lot.

  I said, “I don't buy this feeble stuff, Poet. I think it's a Scarlet Pimpernel act while all the time you're the brains behind the Scum Front. Don't think I haven't noticed they only showed up after you hit town.”

  For a moment, his eyes lit up. “You've read Baroness Emmuska Orczy?”

  “Just the Classic Comic.”

  That hit harder than any of the cracks I'd aimed directly at him.

  “What am I doing here?” he said. “In this . . . this . . . desert.”

  And despite myself, I felt the loneliness and I was affected.

  He looked at me with half a smile. “I wasn't always the Quentin Quayle you see before you.”

  “You weren't?”

  “I am my own creation. I was born a `George.' I became `Quentin.' The alliteration seemed a good career move.”

  “Oh.”

  “I used to be in love with my life. Now I am in Indiana with my love.”

  He said the second “love” as if he wasn't having a real good time.

  I said, “But you were always a Quayle?”

  “Oh yes.”

  I went to the door. “If you want something to make you feel better, stop at the luncheonette downstairs. Ask for Mom and say I sent you. Order some of her chili. It's good for love.”

  When he left I called Graham Parkis again. I wanted him to supply someone to cover Charlotte Vivien for a few days.

  “Well, well,” Parkis said. “Things must be on the move down your end of the market.”

  “I have a photograph of the target and I know where she'll be from late this afternoon. Can your operative come downtown with your artist? That should give him or her plenty of time to get up to the house before the target goes out.”

  “You don't care whether it's a man or a woman?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  “In that case what about if the artist is the operative? We know she's available.”

  “She's used to surveillance?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Can she do the picture and still get to the north side before seven?”

  “If you and your witness are punctual, there should be no problem at all.”

  “Sold,” I said.

  “I'll give her a call now. She'll be pleased to have the work. She's got a mother who's not well. It's run up some bills.”

  I hung up and chewed an antacid. I get awful indigestion when I'm force-fed on sob stories.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  I CALLED MILLER. MAYBE the trace on the license plate number was back. But he wasn't at his desk. I was a little surprised. I thought being a captain meant you never had to go out. But what do I know?

  Then I tried Frank, about my commercials.

  He was out too.

  It was a little after three. Until I went downtown at four-thirty all I could do was wait for the Scum Front to get in touch with me.

  About three-thirty the telephone rang. I practically flew from sorting dirty clothes to answer it.

  A woman's voice said, “Mr. Samson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bobbie Lee Leonard.”

  “Who?”

  “I'm supposed to make a drawing for you, from a witness's description. And now I hear you want me to follow somebody.”

  “Ah, ah, ah.”

  “Is something wrong? Are you choking?”

  “No no. I'm just expecting another call.”

  “You got call waiting or do you want me to free the line?”

  “There's no need.”

  There was a hesitation.

  “Really,” I said.

  “If you're sure,” she said. “Well, reason I'm calling is I thought if we met up before seeing your witness, you could explain about the surveillance assignment. That way I could leave as soon as the drawing is done.”

  “Your suggestion sounds entirely, even spectacularly sensible,” I said.

  “Are you sure nothing's wrong, Mr. Samson?”

  “No no. It's just that your clarity has gone to my head.”

  “You mind if I say you don't talk like anyone I ever worked for before?”

  “Not at all, Ms Leonard.”

  “We're meeting your witness in the lobby of the Merchants Bank Building, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I thought we could meet in the parking lot next to it. Say, at the top, four-thirty. Will that give you enough time to brief me?”

  “That should be just fine. How will I know you?”

  “Well, unless I get my carburetor back together quicker than I expect to, I'll be the one with dirty fingernails.”

  I laughed.

  “Otherwise, chances are I will be the only woman with a sketch pad leaning on the hood of a red Rabbit.”

  When we hung up, the telephone rang again immediately. It was Miller.

  “I tried you a few minutes ago,” I said, “but you weren't there.”

  “Anybody whose job entails a lot of sitting should make a habit of getting up for at least five minutes every hour.”

  “I can see those seminars they send you on aren'
t a total waste of taxpayers' money.”

  “You want details of this vehicle ownership, or not?”

  The “flat-back” truck was nine years old and belonged to a Cecil Redman. Redman's address was on College Avenue between 22nd and 23rd Streets. It was not far from where the Scum Front had picked up its explosives.

  I decided to use the time before my meeting with Bobbie Lee Leonard to look at Redman's house.

  But when I got into my car I didn't start the engine.

  On the passenger's seat was a manila envelope. I hadn't left it there when I came in. I hate a messy vehicle.

  I opened the envelope and saw a newspaper cut-out message. It began, “To contact us put the white hanky in your office window.”

  I shook the envelope. A white handkerchief fell out.

  The message continued, “When we see the hanky we will call your office and pick one of the locations listed below. Each has a public phone. Go to that phone. If you get no call within six minutes, go to the next phone. Six minutes the next and so on. From the bottom of the list, start again at the top.” And there was a list of street corners numbered one through nine.

  It ended, “Learn these locations and destroy this.”

  Cloak-and-dagger stuff all the way.

  A handkerchief in my window?

  I looked through the addresses of the telephones. They followed a geographical sequence and were short drives one to the next.

  Well, I had my way to contact them, even if it was labor-intensive. It seemed they were prepared to spend hour after hour, day after day driving past my office.

  But there wasn't time to try it out. My plan had been to look around near Cecil Redman's address. No reason to change it. I tucked the note and hanky back in the envelope and headed for College.

  In fifteen minutes I was at the address Miller had given me. The building was a three-story clapboard-clad house that had once been white.

  From the car I could see two faded aqua doors leading from a narrow, unrailed porch. Each bore a number and Redman's was next to a curtained sash window. The window beside the other door was larger but had no glass. It was only partly filled by a piece of hardboard.

  Redman's pickup was not parked on the street.

  I drove around the corner and then up the muddy alleyway that passed behind the building.

  The truck was not here either but the back view of the house showed how much of it was empty and rotting. There was a gaping hole in the roof and another in the outside wall. None of the windows had glass.

  However, Redman's building was not as ramshackle as the frame house beside it. Nor had it been originally so elegant. Next door there were the remains of a veranda around two full sides and gabled upper rooms looking out in all directions. I was particularly taken by an arch-shaped double door which had once led to a second-floor porch. Now, of course, it was nothing but a rotting hole.

  The Bear's indignation about the “rubble belt” seemed suddenly appropriate. I hated the decay of the place. And I, a middle-aged man back living with his mother, identified with it. We were not far off the same age, the house and me, but it was prematurely old. Disease is one thing but to become infirm from neglect is hateful.

  I'd have been thrilled to have the place. To have the chance to make it good again. It would make one hell of a base for a Go-for-It Detective to detect from.

  I thought about all the little rooms and odd places I have worked from and lived in.

  Funny how your stomach never suffers from your own sob stories.

  My time was running out.

  I drove on up the alley and completed the circuit that brought me back round to the front of Redman's.

  I got out and went up to Redman's door. I listened for a moment but heard nothing from inside.

  I went to the other door on the porch. Through the gap at the top of the window next to it I saw the sky.

  As I turned away, a child came around a corner of the house next door—my house. He was eight or nine. He stopped when he saw me.

  That was fair; I stopped when I saw him too. I beckoned to him to come over.

  He shook his head.

  Slowly I walked toward him, but when I stepped off the porch the kid turned and ran away.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  I WAS A COUPLE OF MINUTES early in the parking lot so I saw Bobbie Lee Leonard and her Rabbit as they squealed around the final corner.

  She wasn't late, so she must have been hurrying just for the hell of it.

  As I approached she smiled, showing a missing lower front tooth. “Mr. Samson?”

  “May I see your hands, please?”

  She held them up. They were much less tanned than the Frog's. Carburetors and medical bills will do that. The nails couldn't be faulted.

  “Do you want to brief me here?” she said. “Or do we have time for a cup of coffee?” She sucked air and licked her lips. I gathered she was thirsty.

  “There's a snack bar in the building,” I said, and led the way.

  On the lot's seventh floor we crossed directly to the Bank Building's fifth, just as the Frog had on the previous Friday. Shelley's Shop was off a corridor to the right. The tables were empty but two people stood at the counter. We waited by a bulletin board.

  “This is a good one,” Bobbie Lee said. 'If you eat something and nobody sees it, it has no calories.' Now, there's a philosophy of life.”

  I bought two coffees and we retreated to a small alcove.

  “So what's the story?” she said. “I'm following this woman, right? Is it for a divorce?”

  “No. For a marriage,” I said. “The woman's a widow, and our client loves her. We're seeing if she's got another man in her life.”

  Bobbie Lee clasped her hands together before her heart. “Love,” she sighed. “Sure makes the world go wrong.”

  I handed her the picture of Charlotte Vivien.

  She studied it carefully. She said, “This widow a rich one?”

  “Does it show?”

  “Expensive earrings, and the blouse looks like silk,” Bobbie Lee said. “And what I can see of the house suggests a decorator job.”

  She held the photograph for me to study. “Now you mention it,” I said. I passed the picture back.

  “Is your client in love with her, or is it just the money?”

  “I think he has some real feeling for her.”

  “Lot of people are at their best dressed in dollar signs.” She looked at the picture again.

  “The client has no claims, but he wants to know about the opposition. The idea is to follow her, late afternoons and evenings.”

  She shrugged. “Is it only me? No shifts?”

  “Only you. If it goes more than a few days we can review that.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “O.K.” Then, “How much is Graham charging

  you?”

  I told her.

  She did not look pleased. “You realize he's giving me less than half of that?”

  “I didn't know that,” I said. Then, “That doesn't seem right.”

  “I agreed to take less than I usually get because he spun me this tale about how you were an old friend and he was doing you a favor because your business was in a lot of trouble. Is any of that true?”

  “No.”

  “Look, Mr. Samson,” she began.

  “If you want to bypass the man, that's all right by me as long as we log enough hours through him to make it credible.”

  “Areyou some kind of friend of his?”

  “Never met him before last week.”

  “But you want to stay in good with him?”

  “I'm expanding. I'll need backup if I get more work than I can do myself. That's where Parkis comes in. Until I can start hiring people full-time.”

  “Mr. Samson, I think I'm in love.”

  “What?” I said.

  She smiled big and her tongue played with the gap between her teeth. “You must have read about love.”

  “Uh, well . . .”r />
  “See, I know all the licensed freelance guys on Graham's books and more. And I know who's good and who isn't and who is looking for work.”

  “It may be too personal a question, even to someone in love,” I said, “but why haven't you set an agency up for yourself?”

  “I've had one or two family complications. But it also takes money and time and that driving entrepreneurial spirit that leads guys to get in hock to the bank and advertise in the Yellow Pages.” She wrinkled her nose. “Maybe someday, but not yet. And meanwhile if I can find someone to work for who isn't going to rip me off like Graham Parkis does, well, that's a guy I can stand by.”

  We were a couple of minutes late meeting Dancing Girl in the lobby.

  Dancing Girl was not pleased. “I was about to leave,” she said. “Being late is impolite of a person's time.”

  “I'm very sorry,” I said. “But let me introduce Bobbie Lee Leonard. She is going to make the drawing from your description.”

  Dancing Girl spent barely a second taking in Bobbie Lee's flannel shirt, corduroy trousers and Converse Weapons. “Can we get this over with?” she said.

  Once they began, however. Dancing Girl surprised me with her determination to get it right. There was a lot of give-and-take over preliminary sketches of Wool Glove Woman's clothes. Then, when Bobbie Lee brought things together on a fresh sheet of paper. Dancing Girl said, “That's it. You've got it.”

  “Good,” Bobbie Lee said. She turned to me. “Mr. Samson, you can have this, but I'll do another drawing at home with better color, if that would help. You can have it tomorrow.”

  “Great,” I said.

  But Bobbie Lee turned back to Dancing Girl and continued to ask questions and draw. She was trying to get features of Wool Glove Woman herself from Dancing Girl's unconscious. There was certainly plenty of unconscious to work with.

  The additional ten minutes didn't produce a completed image, but Dancing Girl approved a facial shape and decided on a hairstyle that didn't conflict with her memory of the woman she had talked to on Friday.

  In fact, Dancing Girl was surprised that she had pulled back so much and as she studied Bobbie Lee's work she said, “The only other thing I can think of is that, for what she was, she was pretty.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You've been a great help.”