Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 02 (15 page)

Chapter Nineteen

As Hickey paused to refill his briar, he recalled how Murphy the realtor had looked, spoken, moved, and shaken hands as if his cup overflowed with woe.

Hickey rested his eyes for a minute, then looked out the window. Between the blotches of clouds, there was glimmering in the distance that looked like the capital of heaven. Probably Denver. He leaned back, listened to the mutters and groans of the marines, filled his pipe, and wondered if there was any hope for the girl. Besides that, she might be a pure-blooded loon; he’d watched lots of people with fervor like hers, rushing out to save somebody who hadn’t asked to be saved. She’d have been safer as a marine landing on Corregidor. If, as he could easily imagine, she yearned to rid the earth of every seed her mother had planted, the Bitch would surely be a target, maybe followed by any number of Venus’ disciples. One murder could be the first drop of a blood-bath.

So, Tom, he mused, you gonna tail her till everybody dies of natural causes? Maybe he ought to back off, forget what he’d seen, quit risking his family and everything for the girl. Except that no matter how screwy she was, Cynthia had a gift. The way she could release an audience from their minds and bodies by inviting them into hers. Besides, if the girl destroyed herself when he could’ve saved her, she’d haunt him. From an asset and a joy—somebody who made his heart swell even though he was prudent and faithful enough not to touch her—she’d metamorphose into a nightmare.

Not many guys had steadier nerves than Hickey. Yet a few things startled him into terror, made him quake dizzily, and sweat like a fat lineman running sprints in full gear. One of them was nightmares. He’d been fighting them for twenty-seven years, since his father ditched, ran off to the war, leaving him to wake up at midnight with the saint’s fingers on his belly, her gray shadow covering him.

The
Dumb Duck
was already nosing downward with metallic screeches and violent quakes when he picked up Cynthia’s book for the last time and read that Cynthia, on her way back to Otherworld, heard Laurel wailing. At the edge of the cliff by the gazebo, a hundred people stood waiting for Laurel to dive from a ledge about halfway down the cliff. For a minute she stared below at the waves battering the rocks, then she wailed again and stopped short to wheel and yell up at Madame Esmé, “Get him away from Venus!”

Venus sat on the edge, her knees up and face in her hands, Pravinshandra kneeled behind her, gripping her shoulders.

Henry Tucker, Will Lashlee, and Mr. Murphy had already secured a rope to the gazebo and were measuring it out and tying it around their waists, hitching themselves to each other, Murphy on the end, then Will Lashlee, with Tucker closest to the gazebo. Murphy started down first and to the left of Laurel, groping for foot- and handholds on the jagged rocks. Lashlee, about fifty feet along the rope, climbed down to Laurel’s right. She must have glimpsed or heard them, but she gave no sign.

They were going to encircle her, the first two heading for ledges below, Tucker climbing last, straight down toward her. When she finally turned his way, she threw her hands up as if to push him off, then skittered back so close to the edge that Lashlee made a leap to his side, trying to reach the outcrop directly beneath her. The loose rock gave way. He tumbled into the sky. For an instant the rope held taut, until the knot slipped. He fell silently. Landed on his back, on the largest, flat boulder, beside a tide pool, just as a wave rolled out. Blood sprayed like mist from his head.

Tucker slid past Laurel before he grabbed the root of a scrub tree. He got a broken ankle, while Murphy swung out and back on the rope, bashing the rocks. By the time some men reeled him in, he was ruined.

While the plane circled Denver, Hickey skimmed a few pages that told how Venus, exposed by rumor, in danger of banishment from Otherworld, sold two parcels nearest the Fort Rosecrans Cemetery. According to Cynthia, she had to forge Madame Esmé’s signature on several documents, since all papers had to be countersigned.

Eleven days after Will Lashlee got crushed on the rocks, when Venus was already gone, Madame Esmé had the Bitch consigned to the mental ward at a hospital called Riverview, near the Sweetwater River, about ten miles inland. The Bitch had been raving and threatening whoever restrained her. Henry Tucker was in Mercy Hospital. Miss V helped him decide to place Cynthia somewhere the ghosts wouldn’t haunt her. For most of a year—while Tucker’s bones healed and he bought a car and traveled alone to visit the graves of his family and sacred Indian places in New Mexico, where he hoped to find peace or inspiration, a reason to stay alive in a world without Venus—all that time Cynthia lived a few miles up the San Diego River from Otherworld, in the children’s home of the Mission de Alcala.

The final scene in the third ledger was of Cynthia’s first encounter with Father McCullough. The priest had come to sit beside her in the garden. For an hour or more he observed her and said nothing except to field her queries about the orphanage’s food, its library, the uniforms they had to wear, and if there was a piano she could play. He listened to her pleas to be given a room of her own and consoled her when she wept because that wasn’t possible.

Finally he asked her what was the meaning of life, a question so blunt it left her speechless, Cynthia claimed. Hickey tried to imagine Cynthia speechless, as he turned to the last page, where Father McCullough answered his own question. What the priest said, Cynthia had transcribed in letters that filled the page.

The plane bumped, sailed, bumped, skidded to a stop. Hickey looked out the window and shivered. He sat for a minute, hoping that it was only because the air looked damned cold and thinking that he should hurry to call Leo and then track down Venus and the master. Yet he gathered his things slowly, folded the blanket, and delivered it and the coffee cup to the cockpit from which the pilot and copilot had already fled. The marines were long gone. Finally he stepped off the plane; he glared around at the hangars and Quonsets, and over them at snowdrifts up the side of craggy mountains capped with black clouds that looked too heavy not to be falling right now. Suddenly he missed Madeline, and Elizabeth, voraciously as though in another few minutes without them he’d starve. All he wished for at that moment was to get home alive. Denver looked like a hell of a place to die.

Chapter Twenty

The sun looked pale and timid rising into the ice-blue sky, like a tourist from the north on her first tiptoe into the ocean. Either the temperature hovered around zero, or Hickey’d caught a deadly case of the jitters, or both. Quaking spasmodically, he hitched a ride in a jeep whose driver hunched bundled so deeply in coats and scarves that you could hardly guess the race or gender. They skidded and swerved through a legion of biplane trainers toward the front gate, Hickey’s teeth clacking together so hard that he began to wonder if they could shatter.

The gate guard leaned out of his booth and muttered a few words that froze to death in the air. Hickey managed to stammer that Colonel Creaser had arranged his passage, that he was in Denver on the colonel’s business. He dug out his billfold, passed it to the fellow, who glanced inside, jotted something on a notepad, tossed the billfold back, and waved Hickey away as he retreated into the deepest corner of his booth.

A half dozen soldiers paced outside the gate, wearing scarves and earmuffs, hands beating against their sides or stuffed into the pockets of their long coats. The wind seemed to gust from both east and west, as though it had raced across the Great Plains, driven by some evil purpose, and had gotten thwarted by the Rockies and sent flurrying back toward its home. Hickey kicked snow off one end of the bench and sat, his butt numbing, all of him stupefied by the cold, until the trolley bus arrived like an angel of mercy, its overhead cable sparking.

As he began to thaw, Hickey quizzed the private sitting across from him, a red-nosed, snuffling kid. He learned that the Brown Palace Hotel—where the master and Venus’ itinerary placed them—was downtown, a few blocks from the mint and the state capitol. The bus turned right at a city park where children pulled each other on sleds and kicked balls around on hard-packed snow. It passed a row of brick mansions surrounded by trees gray and gnarly as a witch’s hand, made a left on Colfax, fell in behind a convoy of olive-drab flatbed trucks, their loads covered with tarpaulins. The stubble of last summer’s wheat and corn blemished a half mile of snowy fields, across the road from a suburb of flat-roofed brick houses cramped beside each other as if land were scarce, as though nobody’d yet discovered the billion acres of plains.

The trolley bus stopped every half mile or so, letting on school kids and workers until they jammed the aisles and warmed the car with their body heat. By now Hickey’s shivering had quieted a little. His teeth only clacked in momentary spasms. The road had widened into two lanes each way, bordered by brick shops which stirred Hickey to remember hearing that Mayor Stapleton owned a brickyard, which he obliged local builders to patronize. Eastside Ford’s showroom was boarded up, and the gravel lot, at least an acre, displayed fewer than a dozen cars. The newest was a ’36 Chrysler. The picture window at Weckerly’s Tire and Brake was blackened and lettered
VISIT OUR REOPENING SALE—AFTER THE WAR
. Over the door hung a sign:
U.S. ARMY RECRUITERS
. Oscar’s Grocery, Wholesale and Retail, had a half-block line outside. Word must’ve leaked that a stash of some rarity like coffee had appeared. Vince’s Café was next door to Eldorado Dry Cleaners.

Hickey grabbed his bag and wedged his way between seats and bodies to the door. He leaped off the bus, hit the icy sidewalk, skidded, and braked by grabbing onto a light pole that had nearly whacked his skull. His feet catching hold about every third step, the wind pushing him from behind, he walked back to the dry cleaners. A sign on the door promised the place would open at 9:00
A.M.
, twenty minutes away unless Hickey’d turned the hour hand too far when he’d set his watch to mountain time. He stepped into Vince’s Café, checked the wall clock, and flopped into a booth with chilly clear-plastic seat covers over checkerboard fabric. A hairy Italian fellow delivered a menu and coffee that smelled as rich as Judy Garland might’ve to a lonely boy stationed a hundred desert miles out of Tripoli. Hickey guzzled it, got a refill, and ordered a Denver omelet. A furnace near the booth, the coffee, and finally an omelet soaked in Tabasco warmed him everyplace except the heart, which remained gripped by the mightiest chill, the one you’re not likely to shake while staring at your own mortality.

He reasoned that the odds were on his side, no matter if Katoulis were ten times the gunfighter. Unless Cynthia had gotten suspicious and made contact with Donny, or with Charlie Schwartz, who might pass word along, Katoulis wouldn’t be looking over his shoulder for Hickey or anybody. Not in Denver. Besides, they hadn’t met face-to-face in nine years. Unless he walked up and said howdy, chances were slight that Donny’d recognize him. The man would be concentrating on his business. Hickey held all the best cards, except one. Katoulis had the ace of spades—he was a pro, while Hickey barely qualified as a novice killer. It had been years since he’d shot anybody; only once had he gone out intending to kill. Then he had frozen, watching Donny Katoulis’ grin.

Next door at the dry cleaners, after greeting a stub-nosed older man as cheery as a blizzard, Hickey cast his eyes down. “See, pal, I been working out on the coast. Last year, day after Pearl Harbor, my mother calls and says I oughta join up. I promised her I was gonna. Damn proud, it made her, and I tried, but the louses wouldn’t take me—on account of I’m a borderline diabetic. I was too shamed to tell her. Now, with her bragging to the neighbors and all…I bet you’ve got a uniform about my size somebody’s forgot to pick up.” He plucked a couple twenties from his billfold. “Seventeen neck. Thirty-four waist, thirty-four inseam. A cap and tie, if you’ve got ’em, and the heaviest coat you can rustle up.”

The old guy sneezed, wiped his nose, and turned to the back room. A few sneezes later, he returned with an outfit all pressed and starched, on a single hanger. He led Hickey past the machines, racks of dresses and suits, a Chinese girl washing linens in a tub, to the storeroom and flicked on an overhead light.

The uniform fitted Hickey a little snugly around the waist and neck but loosely enough through the shoulders. He crammed the civilian clothes into his suitcase, except his hat, which he carried so it wouldn’t get squashed. He crossed the street and walked down to the bus stop, filled his pipe, and concentrated on lighting and sheltering it from the wind until the trolley bus came. There was standing room only. Riders pitched and swayed unconsciously, reading their dime novels or morning papers. Hickey gazed over their heads and hats, between newspapers. Other than that the trees appeared dead and the Victory gardens frozen, and that Stapleton’s bricks prevailed, Denver looked like home. The same flat-tired cars waiting for the price of rubber to go down, the blackout curtains people had failed to lift after daylight, the same resolute expression on most every face. They’d known worse times. They might be harried or plagued with nightmares about their brother fighting in Algeria or New Guinea. Still, they had work and purpose. They didn’t go hungry anymore.

A copper-skinned woman whose elbow had been jabbing Hickey the last couple miles showed him his stop, a block past the frozen slope leading to the state capitol.

The last mile or so he’d gotten lost in a glorious dream, about the Christmas gift he desired. A walk around the bay at twilight, tomorrow evening, with Madeline squeezing his right hand, Elizabeth clutching his left. He jumped off the bus and landed in another realm, wherein every shadow to his side or rustle behind him could be Donny Katoulis, and where he felt as conspicuous as if he wore signboards advertising his name and his mission. The wind snatched his hat, which bounced and flew up Broadway. He ran, slipped, skidded, finally cornered it against a newsstand.

You couldn’t miss the Brown Palace, it was so tall, brown, and triangular, like a Hollywood studio mountain that covered the block between Treemont, Seventeenth Street, and Broadway. At the Seventeenth Street entrance, the doorman wore a braided cap, earmuffs, and a long blue coat with epaulets. Hickey nodded and stepped into the lobby. Before he noticed the decor, he scanned the room for any face like the master, Venus, or Donny K. He’d never seen Venus or the master, in person or photo, but he’d know them. Already they seemed like familiars.

Finally he stared in awe at the lobby, a grand atrium with pillars and arches of onyx on the ground floor and mezzanine, the six upper floors railed in tarnished copper. Hickey would’ve bet that there were more palms here than alongside San Diego’s harbor, only these were in pots beside the potted red-, green-, and white-lit cedars. The floors were polished tile decked with Oriental rugs, velvet- and leather-covered stuffed chairs and sofas, white mahogany and cherry wood dining and coffee tables. Yet the rest looked drab compared to the chandelier, a Christmas tree about fifty feet high, made of a thousand tiny crystal starlights. Beneath it, beside a grand piano, a woman in a floor-length white tunic fingered a harp, making tunes that drifted through the atrium sounding as if they came from beyond the moon.

Hickey dropped his suitcase and hat on the tile. The desk clerk had sleek hair combed back without a part and a lipless mouth concealed behind a bushy, drooping mustache that looked stolen from a cowboy.

“Single, one night,” Hickey said.

“We’re sorry,” the man said primly. “You know how it is, with the war and all.”

“Yeah, I know how it is. What’ll it cost?” Hickey grumbled, flashing the contents of his billfold.

After Hickey’d checked in and sent a bellhop carrying his bag to room 306, he asked to use the telephone and got ushered into an alcove with two chairs, each beside a wall phone. Hickey dialed the operator and gave her Leo Weiss’ home number.

“Vi, it’s Tom. In Denver. The old man keeping out of trouble?”

“Hi, Tom. He seems to be. He figured you might call. Left a message that the girl sang like her angel self last night, went right home afterward, and hit the sack. Leo dozed a few hours, got back to shadowing her not long past dawn. That’s the last I know. Now, what’re you up to in Denver?”

“I ran away to join the rodeo. Do me a favor, huh? Call Madeline, tell her I love her.”

“You two still fussing?”

“Yep.”

“Call her yourself, Tom, if you want her to believe it.”

“There’s things I gotta do today that require I don’t get preoccupied brooding about Madeline, which is what’ll happen if we talk.”

“What things?”

“Can’t hear you, Vi. Bad connection. Tell him I’m at the Brown Palace.” He placed the receiver on the hook as softly as if someone were sleeping beside him, got up, and walked outside. The doorman was scraping ice off the steps with a shovel that, compared to his bulk, looked the size of a tablespoon. Hickey asked him for directions to the Trinity Methodist Church, where Venus and the master would perform that evening. The doorman suggested he go to the corner and look to his right, up Treemont.

The church was brick with a conical spire, topped by a cross, the tallest thing in sight. The brickwork looked old as the Brown Palace, too ancient to blame on Mayor Stapleton.

Hickey walked past the church, continued around the hotel, scouting for entrances and exits. Only one on each side led directly into the Palace. You could also enter through the Ship Lounge. At Broadway and Treemont he crossed the intersection to get a longer view, check if you could spy through upstairs windows. On the far corner a woman in a Salvation Army uniform played “Greensleeves” on an oboe. As Hickey passed, her keying hand shot out and brushed his sleeve. Her face was the color and shape of a peeled potato, but Hickey fell for her meek smile, tossed a dollar into her kettle. A few steps farther he stepped on ice, ran in place, then crashed, and bruised his tailbone. He sat awhile, cussing and puzzling why anybody lived here—back in antiquity when tribes were migrating across the earth, why didn’t they keep moving until they reached the tropics? If nothing else, the walking might’ve helped keep them warm. A man in a bank guard’s outfit offered him a hand. He used it, thanked the fellow, and hobbled back to the hotel.

Three-oh-six was a corner room, diamond-shaped but vast compared to most old hotels where only the public rooms were elegant and spacious. Hickey’s room had a private bath, a fireplace with three logs, and a bundle of kindling. He tried out the bed. Firm, with no lumps. He lay staring at a floral design in the ceiling plaster; he groped for a scheme that would let Katoulis do his job, make sure he’d get hung for it, and guarantee that Cynthia wouldn’t. For a minute or so, his overcharged mind blanked. Then it flicked to a new preoccupation—wondering, if he survived Denver, could he make good his promise, give up Hickey and Weiss, to hold onto Madeline? Yeah, he thought. People live without arms and legs.

When his temples began to throb, he rose, kicked off his shoes, replaced his socks with two clean woolen pairs, tightened his shoelaces. He got the Smith & Wesson .38 service revolver and shoulder holster out of his suitcase, strapped them on, and laid his rumpled suit coat and slacks on the bed. After slipping into his long coat and soldier’s cap, he checked himself in the mirror above the dark oak vanity, tugged the cap down lower to hide most of his graying hair. You saw plenty of middle-aged corporals, but gray ones were still an oddity.

He walked out, passed the elevator, wanting to keep space around him, and trekked down the three flights of stairs. In the lobby he picked a love seat near a couple high-backed chairs he could duck behind should he wish to become invisible. The harpist must’ve taken lunch early. Between Hickey and the piano, three old dames in mink wraps sat arranging each other’s hats and brooches at the most flattering angles. On a coffee table lay a picture book about Denver and the hotel. He picked it up and started to browse but gave up. Knowing the quirks of his mind, he feared getting engrossed in some stupid article while the master and Venus passed him by. Or while Donny K spotted him, strolled over, and popped him between the eyes. So he sat gazing around at the guests as they entered from the streets or one of the several cafés and saloons around the atrium’s perimeter, at the bellhops, and at the cabbies who carried in luggage. He got up and made a turn past the elevator to assure himself that the ancient Negro operator wasn’t Katoulis disguised, and returned to his chair wondering how long it would take before the desk clerk or the cigarette girl got suspicious and sent a house dick to grill him.