Ken Kuhlken_Hickey Family Mystery 02 (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The cloudless sky was still silver-blue when Eva’s cockers’ yapping got so loud they sounded directly beneath Hickey and Madeline’s window. He dragged himself up, pulled on his trousers, a pair of slippers, and a sweater, and walked through the house and out back to the beach. Eva was standing beside the pier, dressed in her usual khakis and jacket, deck shoes, fishing hat. She was petting one of the monsters.

“Hey, you,” Hickey growled. “Hand over the mutt. I’m gonna make his paws into key chains.”

“Keep your distance, brute.” Eva strode toward him swinging the handle end of a leash as if preparing to box his ears with it. They faced off nose to nose and scowled.

“Where you been, Tom?”

“Up north. Denver. The Pine Hills Lodge for Christmas. You miss me?”

“Not too bad. There’s more than one man in my life, you know. What’s in Denver?”

“Ice. Windstorms. Italian food.”

“What brought you there?”

“Never mind.”

She reprimanded him with a pout. The cockers tugged at their leashes. Eva started walking and Hickey followed along, past a stone ring filled with ashes and charred cans, an overturned rowboat, a sand castle with dripped spires. By the turn in the bay, he’d asked her twice for the latest gossip, but all he’d gotten back was a curiously sympathetic punch on the arm, until she muttered, “This is gonna pain me, Tom.”

She squatted and unsnapped the dogs from their leashes, shooed them off to run, then took his sleeve and led him over to the wall that bordered the bayside walk. “Sit down here.” She waited until he obeyed, then joined him. “Last evening I was casting for perch, out at the end of Crystal Pier. Your wife comes walking. What’s her name?”

“Madeline.”

To avoid looking at him, Eva removed her hat, slapped it on her leg a couple times, put it on again. “She’s smooching with a fellow.”

“Oh, no. She was out with some ritzy old buzzards. What time?”

“Sunset. She comes walking right past me, arm in arm with a tall guy, black greasy hair, all snuggled up. Every so often they’ll stop and kiss.”

“What was she wearing?”

“Pants, I think. Maybe a dress. She has the fellow’s overcoat on. I sure don’t want to distress you, Tom, but I expect you oughta know.”

“Sure,” Hickey mumbled. “I’ll go ask her about it.”

He wheeled and took about fifty long strides toward home, stopped still a moment, then shuffled to the bonfire pit and sat on a log seat. Elbows on his knees, he covered his eyes, pictured himself stomping onto his porch, through the living room, finding Madeline in the kitchen. He saw himself grab her by the chin, lift it up, pinch it hard. He got up, left the beach, cut through a vacant lot and down the alley to Mission Boulevard, going for coffee, hoping to clear his brain a little. In the bakery he remembered he wasn’t carrying money. The frosty-haired baker’s wife poured him a cupful, said pay when he brought the cup back. He returned to the log by the fire pit, sat, and drank the coffee, staring at the glassy water and telling himself it wasn’t Madeline. Old Eva hardly knew Madeline. Besides, a night out smooching didn’t concur with Madeline’s demeanor, the brightness with which she’d told him about Mrs. Thorndike and her piano-playing son, the way she’d described just how she’d sung “Tangerine.”

“You got the wrong gal, Eva,” he muttered, as he got up and started home.

Or, he thought, if it was Madeline, if she’d gone to Castillo after the way she’d talked when he came home from Denver and in spite of Hickey’s promises, after he’d warned her about the Cuban’s mob pals and she’d agreed not to step into the same room with the guy—if Madeline was that far gone, if he knew that little about who she’d become, Hickey’d already lost the game.

He left her sleeping, took a shower, then dressed and kissed her good-bye without waking her. Before he reached the kitchen door, the phone rang. His answering service with a message. A lady named Venus would meet him at the Grant Grille at nine this morning.

With an hour to kill, he crossed Pacific Beach Drive, drove the dirt road up to Grand Avenue, took it east across the Coast Highway to Milly’s Texaco Beanery.

He ordered a couple eggs over medium, no potatoes, a bowl of cornflakes with half-and-half. The straw-haired waitress, a girl Milly had rescued when a long-haul trucker dumped her, kept refilling his coffee every time he drank it down an inch. He nibbled, sipped, wondered if Venus knew that the Grant Grille was restricted, no females. Thinking of the fuss she might raise, he chuckled and started planning his attack. Not a chance she was the kind you just waltzed in on, bossed around, overwhelmed with your manliness. He sipped, smoked, and rehearsed a few lines. At 8:30 he tossed two dollars onto the table and walked out, aiming to arrive at the Grille before Venus showed, to lead her across the street where ladies were welcome. Open the meeting with him in charge.

He cut east on Sassafras Street, took India, then Ash, and pulled into the lot behind Rudy’s. He crossed Fourth and walked fast, dodging around the postal employees and secretaries timing themselves to arrive at work about twenty seconds before nine.

The U. S. Grant lobby appeared built for giants. Marble pillars in rows like the Acropolis. Chandeliers the size and shape of bells whose tolling would’ve started earthquakes. Niches in the walls held large Grecian urns.

The hostess at the Grille was a girl who usually worked in another wing, at the Rendezvous. He remembered her because she walked as if her hips were in a cast and she had a set of invisible encyclopedias balanced on her head. “This way, Mister Hickey,” she beamed.

“Naw,” he said. “I’m going to meet a lady here, take her somewhere besides the boys’ club.”

“But she’s waiting for you. Mister Jack let her in.” The girl drew closer, lowered her voice. “He does that for special people, only before lunchtime, though.”

He followed her through the dim room of dark mahogany, dark carpeting, dark maroon leather booths, sketches of hunting dogs on the walls. The place could be a replica of a billiard hall for the British Parliament. It even stank like half-smoked cigars.

The hostess led him to a booth on the Fourth Street side. Venus had stood to greet him. She wore a snug tailored suit of deep aquamarine, a white silk blouse with hat and gloves to match. In heels she stood level with Hickey. Her lipstick was dark, her smile ingenuous. Her eyebrows looked natural, thick but trim and shapely, slightly darker than her cinnamon hair, which was folded up into layers and held in place with the hat. Her eyes were like Cynthia’s, an emerald color so deep it made the white seem especially pure. There were sapphire and silver clips on her ears and an emerald ring on the third finger of each hand.

She offered her hand. He took and pressed it, nodded, pulled out her chair, and watched her graceful descent, a dancer’s balance and poise. He sat across from her. “Pleasant trip?”

“No. We weren’t able to leave as early as we’d planned. Something came up.” She narrowed her eyes and studied him. “We didn’t arrive until after midnight. It was a tedious drive.”

What a voice, Hickey thought. From deep in her chest yet mild and soothing. Even sexier up close than at the meeting in Denver. A couple words from Venus in the right ear, whole armies charge to their death.

“Mr. Hickey, who sent you to Denver?”

“Never mind.”

Her gaze pinned him, as if focused on a tiny dot in the middle of each of his eyes. “At least tell me if the dead man was really there to kill Pravinshandra.”

“You bet.”

“And who was the instigator?”

“Forget it, lady. You bring the master along?”

“A brother drove me down. I don’t drive. Pravinshandra, as I expect you know, is under suspicion of a crime. The sheriff of Dunsmuir advised him not to leave. So, tell me, are you the one who accused him of raping my daughter?”

Okay, Hickey thought, here we go. “Your daughter accused him. I passed it along.”

The waiter showed up. A balding, stooped fellow who muttered a string of indecipherable words. Hickey ordered juice. Venus asked for tea and the fruit plate.

“I wonder if you truly believe my daughter.” Venus waited, raised her eyes to summon his reply. “You must know she’s been affected terribly by our family troubles. Are you two close?”

“Yeah, too close,” Hickey said.

The woman’s lip rose, almost into a sneer except that she caught and softened it. “I suppose she told you I was to blame for the demise of Otherworld, and that I treated her father wickedly.”

“Yeah. All that and plenty more.”

“Such as?”

“About how Laurel and you lined up on one side, she and Henry on the other, a long time ago. She says you’ve been trying to kill her ever since.”

Venus gave a bitter sigh, took a sip of her tea, and looked up calmly. “Do you have children?” Hickey nodded. She turned to the window. Her lips pursed and sucked in, fishlike. “The difficulty with raising children is, every flaw in your character, every mistake in your life, is apt to be reflected, even magnified, in them. I certainly haven’t been a perfect mother. I’m impatient, exacting, and worst of all, I follow my own star.”

“Where’s Laurel, by the way? I called to tell her Cynthia’s in Riverview. Nobody home.”

“She’s in Dunsmuir, taking care of the master. He’s very distraught.”

“He’s worse than that.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure it was Laurel took care of him, but somebody certainly did.”

“Don’t toy with me,” Venus demanded.

“Laurel give him sedatives, maybe?”

“Why are you asking these questions?”

“I got a call from Fay Giles, runs the Castle Crag Motor Hotel. Last evening. She phoned a while after your boyfriend wandered down the road from Black Forest, doped, beaten, and with a string of rawhide tied just so around his private parts. I’m afraid you have a eunuch on your hands, Mrs. Tucker.”

Her expression had frozen, her chin dropped a little. Her eyes brightened and quavered as though something volcanic churned behind their emerald sheen. She stared at the silver sugar bowl in front of her, panting through her nose. Her hands lifted, fingers touching like a spider on a mirror.

“Please don’t call me Mrs. Tucker,” she said flatly.

Hickey thought, Whoa, she’s tough. You wouldn’t catch her whining. She reached for her cup, sipped her tea. “You think Laurel did that to him?”

“Yeah. Shouldn’t you be stunned or something, lady?”

Her face stiffened momentarily and relaxed into a wan smile. “What happens, Mr. Hickey, when you live by the sword?” The way her exquisite lips had set, he thought it might be a smirk, an innuendo about his fate.

“Look, what I heard, Cynthia isn’t the first gal Pravinshandra raped. Seems he liked to dope up, hypnotize, service, and brand his disciples while he had them cornered on the mountain.”

Venus rubbed her temples, gazed studiously at him. “I’m afraid you don’t know women. Whomever Pravinshandra wanted, he merely had to ask. If she resisted, a little talk would persuade her. In rare cases he might have to touch her hand.”

“You’re telling me Cynthia didn’t get raped?”

Her lips had gone drier and flared. “The easiest conquest on earth. She would give herself to a beggar if she believed it would torment me.”

“How about Laurel?”

“What about her?”

“You think it was Laurel who fixed him?”

“Of course not.”

“You wanta know why I think she did?” he asked. Venus nodded curtly. “Wait here, then, while I run next door for something.”

She picked up a strawberry and bit delicately as though trying not to hurt it. Hickey didn’t bother to stop for his hat or button his coat. He scampered out as though fleeing from a packed elevator. When he got outside and waited at the stoplight, he felt reprieved. Somewhere he’d read that beauty was truth, truth beauty, and considered the statement reasonably accurate, even about people. He’d known plenty gorgeous, wicked humans—they had looks but not beauty, which was a feeling that sometimes leaped between the hearts of the observed and the observer. After sitting with Venus, the idea that beauty was truth seemed preposterous. No gesture, tone of voice, nothing hinted she could be a vicious liar. In her presence, Hickey thought, most any man couldn’t help but want to win her favor. Each unkind word, he’d felt like a rat.

When the light changed, he hustled across, strode past the display window of the Owl Drugstore, turned in to the entrance of his building, and loped up the stairs past a curly blonde who walked stiffly, wrapped tightly in a coat, clutching her arms across her stomach.

A thumping noise issued from his office. He checked the doorknob, shoved the door open, and found Leo inside, feet on the desk, tossing a tennis ball. Without glancing Hickey’s way, while the ball rebounded off the wall beneath the photos, Leo flipped him a salute.

“Way I understood, you were a busy man,” Hickey said.

“We’re no hod carriers, Tom. Our kinda work requires meditation.”

“So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong. Say, you oughta see the doll I left up at the Grant.”

“Let me guess. You found a new singer.”

“Yeah, but she’s not the one. This one’s Venus.”

Leo caught the tennis ball, set it on the desk while he swiveled the chair around. “What’re you doing with Venus?”

“Negotiating, about the girl. I’ll give you the whole story later. Maybe tonight, over a couple steaks at Rudy’s. Tomorrow we might be serving tuna instead.”

“Huh?”

“Later. Now I gotta run. Came to get something out of the desk.” Leo rolled the chair back, let his feet drop, allowing Hickey to open the top drawer and remove the manila envelope with Emma Vidal’s drawing. “Six or so. I’ve got a story that’ll make you keep your fly buttoned.” Hickey gave a wink and turned to the door.

He hustled downstairs, caught a green light, double-timed across and into the Grant, where he found Venus nibbling papaya. Laying the envelope between them, he sat down, reached for his water glass. Venus only squared her shoulders, dabbed at her lips with a napkin, raised her eyebrows, and peered at him. Finally he slipped the picture out of the envelope, adjusted it to lie straight beneath her eyes, and watched her eyes dull as they moved across the picture and down to the note at the bottom. She slid the picture under the envelope and folded her hands on the table.