Don't Dare a Dame (36 page)

   
It was pitch black. Roof overhangs blocked moon and stars. There were no outside lights. As soon as my eyes had adjusted, I got out and, with my .38 at my side, walked the alley’s length. Satisfied no one was watching, I made my way through the narrow passage to the old door.

   
As I’d requested in my note, it was wedged open slightly. Getting in was harder than getting out, and I had to squeeze some, but I managed. Then I stood amid the damp smell of recently used mops and rags, waiting for my breath to slow.

   
Before leaving Mrs. Z’s I’d changed into gum-soled shoes. My steps were soundless as I made my way along the back hall. Through a half-open door I could see the night watchman playing cards with pals, as he did most nights. When I heard them laying their cards down and figured eyes were intent on the table and who had the winning hand, I crept by.

   
Next it was a matter of up one flight of stairs and listen; up another flight and listen. I was on my own floor now. Ducking through the door from the stairwell to avoid weak light from a single bulb above it, I stood watching and listening. The only other night illumination came from an equally feeble bulb at the far end next to the elevator. After several minutes my eyes caught a splinter of yellow leaking beneath the door to my office.

   
Shifting my weight from heel to toe with each step, I moved without noise. My pulse had accelerated, but I moved with confidence on my home turf. As I neared my door, I bent low to keep from being seen through the frosted glass panel on top. I was holding my breath.

   
Now I was in position. I watched for a minute. Sure enough, I caught sight of a shape moving inside. Then came a whispered spurt of speech, followed at once by another. Like last night, there were two of them, though right now I couldn’t see either. Then one bobbed up from rifling my desk drawers. His chum was probably keeping lookout where the opening door would give cover if someone came through it.

   
I took a breath.

   
“Guns down, hands up!” I ordered slamming the door back hard as I switched on lights.

   
The door banged into the wall, and I knew I’d been wrong about where the second guy was. He stepped out of the corner next to the window, hands empty, while the figure in front of me dropped a gun on the desk. I snagged the weapon with my free hand while the intruders were still half blind. Finally I took a look at the one closest to me.

   
Skinny and ratlike. Lank hair.

   
“Oats Ripley,” I said through my teeth. “You lying s.o.b., I ought to put a bullet in you just for the aggravation you’ve caused me.”

   
He tried to make a run for it, but I tripped him, following up with a shove that sent his top half sprawling onto my desk. Stuffing the semi-automatic he’d relinquished into my pocket I ground the nose of my .38 against the back of his head.

   
“Whoa, whoa, honey. Wait. You got this all wrong,” said the one by the window.

   
For the first time, I spared him more than a glance ... and tried not to stare. I’d never seen a live person who was that pale. His hair was white even though he looked like he hadn’t hit fifty. His skin was equally void of color. Pink rimmed his squinting eyes. If he wasn’t a true albino, he was close.

   
Albino. The association dropped faster than a hooker’s drawers.

   
Albino.

   
Eskimo.

   
They sounded vaguely similar. Rare and exotic. To someone who seldom used either word they’d be easily confused.

   
“No, I’ve got it just about right,” I said slowly. “You hire an ex-con who’s threatened me all over town to break into my office. You come with him because you want to know what I’ve dug up on Cy Warren. And because you hope something in my files will lead you to Neal Vanhorn so you can threaten him some more and maybe kill him—”

   
“We only wanted to talk—”

   
“Save your breath. He didn’t see anything. But there’s another witness who’ll put you there.”

   
“Warren? He’s a lying bastard. I saw him go inside.”

   
“Be sure and tell the cops.”

   
Oats was inching his spread arms toward his body, waiting for my attention to lapse so he could launch himself back from the desk. I tapped his skull to get his attention.

   
“Lock your hands together behind your head, Oats. Now stand up.”

   
Once you’ve done the first, the second isn’t as easy as usual. It kept him from making any fast moves. My voice was hard enough, and we had history enough, for him to think twice rather than cross me.

   
“Now spread your legs. Wider. Wider!”

   
Whitey had let his hands sag to shoulder level. He was looking worried.

   
“Okay, I went about this wrong. You’ve got dirt on Warren. I’ll pay you for it. Two hundred dollars. Simple as that.”

   
“So some boy you’ve picked gets elected instead and you get the spoils?”

   
He shrugged.

   
“Good a reason as any. What do you say?”

   
“I don’t take bribes. Or do business with people who hire goons to split my face open—”

   
“Hey! That wasn’t me! It was Warren—”

   
“Or to rough up a blind woman.”

   
He didn’t have an answer for that one.

   
“Move over there.” I gestured to a spot closer to Oats where I could keep an eye on them both. I took the gun Oats had been carrying out of my pocket. “Now get down on your knees.”

   
Whitey stayed calmer than most men would. He shook his head.

   
“Listen, honey, you do anything to me and you’ll be in a peck of trouble.”

   
“Call me ‘honey’ again and you’ll go out that window head first. Get down.”

   
Whitey complied. Making sure there was a round in the chamber, I popped the magazine from the semi. The eyes of both men followed my every move. I put the gun on the desk and marched Oats over where he could reach it.

   
“Now, Oats, unclasp your hands and pick up the gun. See if you can put one in the wall beside my door.”

   
“What?” He croaked like he thought I’d taken leave of my senses.

   
“You heard me.”

   
He picked the weapon up uncertainly. My .38 pressed his head to discouraged creativity. The needles prickling the hand he’d been clasping behind his head probably would have deterred it in any case. He fired at the wall. Plaster flew. Before he could think about making trouble, I hit the back of his head with the Smith & Wesson and knocked him cold.

   
As I reached for the phone, Whitey saw what I meant to do next. He got to his feet.

   
“You’ve got plenty of piss and vinegar,” he said mildly. “You ought to see the futility of keeping me here. It’s your word against mine. I’ve got the right friends. The kind that come with getting people elected. I wouldn’t spend fifteen minutes in the police station — and I’d get an apology.”

   
“The cops in this town aren’t crooked.”

   
He smiled.

   
“Police are small potatoes, honey.”

   
He tossed a business card onto my desk.

   
“If you change your mind about filling me in on Warren, my offer’s still good.”

   
He strolled out.

Forty-four

   
Jane Mosley’s house radiated cheer and contentment, starting with its bright blue color. The trim and picket fence were white. Pink and white impatiens overflowed a flowerbed under the front windows. It was half the size of her sister’s house, and more modest than the one she’d grown up in, but there was a swing on the front porch and what looked like a nice size yard in back.

   
I’d been considerably relieved when Jane answered her phone this morning. She’d agreed to see me at two, and I was a little bit early, so I sat for a minute, enjoying the view and the sense that good people lived here. It reduced the bad taste lingering in my mouth from watching the albino walk out of my office last night.

   
Galling as it was, I’d recognized truth when he said it would be his word against mine. So I’d called the cops, and when they came I said I’d seen two men, but one had gone out the window when Oats shot at me. The lateness of the hour and the bullet hole next to the door had prompted the police to say I could come in this morning to make a formal statement, which I had.

   
Given the widely known threats Oats had made against me, as well as his lengthy rap sheet, he was facing a charge of attempted murder. As might be expected, he’d turned himself inside out insisting I’d held a gun at his head and forced him to shoot at the wall. It had been met with snickers. A slick lawyer wasn’t likely to get him off this time. Oats was going to enjoy a long vacation behind bars.

   
That part put a spring in my step as I went up the walk to the blue house and rang the bell.

   
“Oh, hello,” smiled a brown haired woman with a friendly face and a sprinkle of freckles across the nose. “You must be Miss Sullivan. Come in.”

   
The living room was sunny, with ruffled curtains at the windows and books piled everywhere. Two rocking chairs with footstools shared a floor lamp. A comfortable looking sofa was covered in chintz.

   
“Goodness, it looks like you took a tumble,” said Jane as we sat down. “I hope it wasn’t that nasty hump in the sidewalk down from where we used to live. It sent me sprawling more than a few times.”

   
I laughed. “No, they’ve fixed that. Your old postman pointed it out to me when we were walking around.”

   
I’d told her on the phone than I was collecting information about the neighborhood where she’d lived before the flood. She might have gotten the idea I was working on some kind of history.

   
“I hope you don’t mind lemonade,” she said, offering a glass. “I’ve been canning for two days, yesterday at a friend’s house and today over here. I’m still a bit overheated.

   
“You know, I think I remember that postman. He was always so jovial. He’d ask what mischief we were up to if my sister and I were playing out on the porch — which we didn’t do often. I’m afraid my mother had rather odd ideas about what well-brought-up girls should do.” She made a face.

   
“What kind of ideas?” I wanted to steer the conversation right to Tessa, but I knew I’d do better if I put her at ease first.

   
“Oh, you know ... too much fresh air spoils your skin, gives you a ruddy complexion, makes your hair frizzy. That kind of thing. Now I have a little patch of garden in back. Not much, just peas, tomatoes, string beans, lettuce. Puttering in it is absolute heaven.

   
“Goodness. I’m rattling. I should let you ask questions.”

   
“Hey, I like to hear about gardens. And the lemonade’s great. What I wanted to ask about your old neighborhood, though, was the flood — the day of the fire.”

   
She nodded, more serious now.

   
“I remember, of course. I was quite frightened. My father kept saying we had to leave, but my mother was afraid to get in the boat.”

   
“Could you see the stores behind you? The ones that burned?”

   
“Oh yes. They were just across the alley from our back yard. Tessa and I shared a bedroom, and we could see the backs of half a dozen shops from our windows. It was wonderful entertainment. Arguments. A man who liked to come out and sneak a drink from his hip flask. A prissy clerk who got in a hair-pulling match with another woman.”

   
“I’m interested in what your sister saw that afternoon. About a clothing dummy. I’m trying to find out what became of a man who disappeared at the drugstore that day.”

   
She looked startled.

   
“Then it’s Tessa you need to be talking to, isn’t it?”

   
“I did, yesterday, but her husband came home. He didn’t like it.”