Ron Goulart - John Easy 03 - The Same Lie Twice (7 page)

“You see them?”

“No, but I heard somebody pretty sure. When I got the floods on they weren’t there,” said Benning. “What’s all this got to do with Joanna?”

Easy left the door. He put both hands, the one with the .38 and the one without, in the pockets of his robe. “I’ll get dressed and escort you out to your car.”

“Who are those people?”

“I don’t think they’ll try anything with you.”

“Who are they?”

Easy was in the living room, pulling on his trousers. “I’m afraid,” he said, “they’re looking for Joanna, too.”

T
HE CAR RADIO WAS
saying, “… according to San Ignacio police the body was discovered early this morning by a neighbor who was returning Miss Moseson’s lost monkey. Lana Moseson, an attractive brunette in her late thirties, had been brutally beaten and then strangled. Police as yet will not say whether this brutal slaying is linked in any way with the murder last week of Miss Moseson’s brother, Philip Moseson, prominent San Ignacio accountant. Six school children fatally injured in bus crash. That story after this word from Norm’s Burger Pit in …”

After clicking off the radio, Easy swung out of his VW. His office parking lot was still damp in the clear morning. He emerged from the car, rubbing at the sore spots on his head.

In the unseen driveway between buildings a soggy flapping sound began. A few seconds later Hagopian came jogging into view, his scuffed black briefcase tucked under his arm. “Not even winded,” he said, grinning. “And I jogged all the way from the cab to here. Did those guys you told me about last night step on your face in the course of their work?” He swung a finger in the direction of the fresh abrasions on Easy’s rough face.

“They may have. I slept through part of it.”

“You’re looking even more knocked about than usual this morning. If you drove a substantial car instead of that Nazi tin can goon’s wouldn’t have such an easy time of shoving you off into culverts.”

Heading for the rear door of his office, Easy said, “Where’s your car?”

“Jem lost one of the fenders,” said Hagopian, strolling alongside. “Actually, she’s got the fender and she isn’t sure where the rest of the Jag is. Do you know much about mesmerism?”

“Nope.”

“I’m wondering if it’s possible to be hypnotized by bouncing tits,” said Hagopian.

Easy unlocked the door to his private office and swung it open. “Good morning,” he said to his secretary.

“Which might explain,” continued Hagopian, “why I give my car away so readily.”

Nan Alonzo let go of the airconditioner knobs. “You’ve been getting phone calls,” she told Easy.

Resting his left buttock on his metal desk, Easy picked the scatter of blue phone memos up off the blotter. “Jim Benning called to say nobody’s … what? What’s this word?”

“Lurking,” replied his short broad secretary. “Nobody’s lurking. He wanted you to know and he wanted to ask if we had anything more about his wife. Poor guy.”

Easy let himself down slowly into his chair. “I’m starting to feel like Typhoid Mary,” he said. “People I talk to are dying.”

“Who now?” asked Nan.

“Moseson’s sister.”

“You saw her last night, didn’t you?” asked Nan.

“Yeah, right before the hoods saw me.”

“How was she killed?”

“I just heard a short report on the news. But it sounds like the same style of killing they used on her brother.” He glanced at the second memo. “That must be what Lt. Alvin wants to see me about.”

“He told me it was only routine.”

“I don’t much like his idea of routine,” said Easy.

Hagopian bounced on the sofa a few times before settling down with his old briefcase on his knees. “You implied last night the San Ignacio cops might be in on what happened to you.”

Easy made a compact ball of the message from Lt. Alvin. “Those guys got on to me when I left Lana Moseson’s. It’s probable they were lurking around outside her cottage. Alvin knew I was heading there. Right now it seems safer not to trust him.” Easy frowned at the next phone message. “Gladys Waugh, huh?”

“She has a very mysterious voice.” Nan hurried over to make a quick delicate adjustment to the airconditioner.

“That’s because she’s a witch.”

“I drew the dollar sign next to her name because I think she wants to sell you something,” explained Nan.

Nodding, Easy said, “Yeah, I want to see her this morning. Sooner or later those goons are going to try to contact her.”

“She said she’d be available from noon on should you care to pay a call.”

Easy turned to the final message. “Ned Mowatt. Wants to see me right away. Urgent, with three exclamation points.”

“He called a few minutes ago,” said Nan. “Sounding very anxious and agitated.”

“Maybe he and his wife do know where Joanna has gotten to. I’ll head for there now.”

Hagopian held up the briefcase. “Want to take this stuff along with you?”

“What did you come up with?”

“Some background clippings on the Darlington & Sons accounting firm. They have done lots of work for outfits quite close to the San Ignacio local government, construction people, contractors and so on,” said Hagopian, rattling the briefcase. “I also packed you some material on Mayor Zibelli and his cronies. Oh, and one muckraking article on Sam Troxa, better known as Sam the Barber.”

“He used to be a barber?” asked Nan.

“He used to cut people’s throats,” said Hagopian. “There’s a strong possibility your goons are employed by Troxa. He’s a syndicate man. There have been rumors he’s tied in with most of the construction work in San Ignacio. That’s on top of gambling, loan sharking, prostitution and narcotics.”

“I’ve heard of Troxa,” said Easy.

“It looks like Troxa’s heard of you,” pointed out Hagopian. Down-turning lines formed on his wide forehead. “Maybe you ought to severely restrict the number of visits you make to San Ignacio.”

Easy lifted the briefcase from the dark writer’s hand. “I’ll take this along to San Ignacio with, me.” He tapped the forlorn Hagopian on the shoulder and went back out to his car.

J
EANNIE MOWATT BENT TOWARD
her husband. “Would Mr. Easy like a cup of coffee?”

“Ask him,” Ned Mowatt was a moderate-sized blonde man of thirty. He was sitting on a long low flowered sofa, surrounded by cats.

“No, thanks.” Easy leaned on the arm of a chair that matched the sofa. “Let’s get to what you wanted to talk to me about.”

Still not looking at Easy, Jeannie asked, “Maybe Mr. Easy would like a cup of tea instead?” She was wearing a short tweed skirt today and a sedate white blouse.

“Shut up for a while, Jeannie,” suggested her husband. He reached up, took her cigarette from her fingers and began smoking it himself.

“I thought you were giving it up.” Jeannie walked slowly across the room, stopping with her back to the drawn drapes.

“So I’m nervous this morning,” said Mowatt. Three of their cats were sprawled and slumbering on the bright sofa.

“Do you know where Joan is?” Easy asked the nervous Mowatt.

“Would Mr. Easy mind if I turned on the hi-fi? It helps soothe my nerves sometimes.” The husky blonde looked in Easy’s direction but focused on the even row of small pictures which ran up the wall behind him. Each picture showed a famous nineteenth century steam engine.

“Do whatever you want, Jeannie, but shut up,” said her husband. “I’ve decided I better talk to you, Easy.”

Easy nodded, not replying.

Jeannie passed close in front of him. She knelt at a hi-fi system built into white wall cabinets. “Does Mr. Easy like jazz?”

“Honest to Christ, Jeannie, what is all this Mr. Easy crap?”

Easy said, “I don’t think your wife took too kindly to me on my last visit.”

“This is Miles Davis,” announced Jeannie as she slapped a record on the turntable.

“Turn it down,” said Mowatt above the initial blast of the music. He left the sofa, which caused the cats to stir and complain. Reseating himself on a cobbler’s bench closer to Easy, he went on. “I’m right in assuming the same people killed Phil’s sister. I mean, the same people who did it to him?”

“Yeah,” answered Easy, “I’d say so.”

“He’s afraid they’re going to come and get him,” said Jeannie. She took a new cigarette from the canister on the round coffee table. “He couldn’t stand that, being beaten up.”

“Why don’t you go away somewhere and shut up,” said her husband. “It’s Joan I’m worried about.”

“You had your chance with her,” said the husky blonde as she lit the cigarette.

“Honest to Christ, Jeannie, I don’t expect you to be at all sentimental, I know you too well for that, but you can at least shut up for a while. You slept with Phil, after all.”

“Only so you could have a turn with dear Joan. I don’t need extra playmates.”

“That’s great,” laughed Mowatt. “You’ve balled every guy within a radius of a mile, down to and including that kid with acne who mows the Hodgins’ lawn, and you try to tell me …”

“Where’s Joan?” asked Easy.

His eyes still narrowed and aimed at his wife, Mowatt said, “Excuse us, Easy. I didn’t bring you over to … look, they may try to kill Joan, too? Is that a possibility?”

“If they haven’t already.”

Mowatt puffed rapidly at his borrowed cigarette. “That’s what I’m really afraid of, Easy. I was going to coast on this, leave it alone, until I heard the radio this morning. Until I heard about Phil’s sister.”

“It takes two or three murders to get Neddy’s moral sense going,” said his wife.

“You were the one who didn’t want me to talk to him. I wanted to call him last night. It would be better if he finds Joan than some …”

Easy asked, “Can you tell me where she is?”

“Yes,” answered Mowatt. “She’s in Mexico.”

“Olé,” said Jeannie under her breath.

“Where in Mexico?”

Mowatt sighed out blue smoke. “I’m not exactly sure.”

“He wishes he did,” said his wife. She wandered over to the flowered sofa and dropped down amidst the dozing cats. “He’d be there now, holding her lovely white hand, giving her aid and comfort.”

“This is what happened,” Mowatt went on. “Joan called me last Saturday morning around 4
A.M.
She’d been out with someone else that night, not with Phil. You know how she was I guess. Anyway, she’d decided to go back to Phil’s place and spend the rest of the night there.”

“She found him dead?”

“Yeah, right. There was nobody else around, according to Joan. I’m not absolutely sure of all the details, but I think she had a pretty good idea why he’d been killed. She was really afraid they’d try for her as well. She wanted to get far away for a while, right then. To Mexico.”

“Tell him the whole thing, Neddy.” Jeannie stroked the dreaming white Timothy. “Nice pussy.”

“Well, you can figure it, Easy. Joan, because of one thing and another, has always been sort of fond of me. When she found Phil dead, she naturally turned to me.”

“Neddy was number two, but he tried harder.”

“Honest to Christ, Jeannie, will you shut the fuck up!” shouted her husband. “Well, Easy, Joan wanted me to take her away someplace, help her hide out. I told her that was impossible. I have my job and …”

“Your loving wife,” added Jeannie.

“Do you know,” Easy asked Mowatt, “where in Mexico she wanted to go?”

“No, but I’m sure Mexico was where she went.”

“You turned her down. Who did she try next?”

“I have a pretty good notion,” said Mowatt. “Which is another reason I contacted you, Easy. See, Joan was friendly with some of the people over at Gladys Waugh’s. You know about Gladys?”

“Some.”

“The morning Joan called, she became angry with me. She told me if I changed my mind about helping her she’d be at Gladys’ mansion. She told me if I didn’t get there in a reasonable time she had somebody else who’d help her.”

“You know who that was?”

“No, some guy who hangs around there,” said Mowatt. “Gladys knows, though. I called her last night, I’ve been worried about this all. I told her you were looking for Joan.”

Easy stood. “Gladys Waugh wants to talk to me. I’m going there now.”

“Good,” said Mowatt. “Good.” He hesitated, puffing at the cigarette. “Do you think we’re in danger ourselves, Easy?”

“Not as much as Joan is.” Easy walked into the hall. “Say good-bye to your wife for me.”

B
LACK SMOKE DRIFTED UP
from the black chimney and scrawled across the hot clear noon sky. The witch’s three-story mansion was set among blighted and dying oak trees. It was a thin many-spired Victorian and had been painted a flat black. The lacey gingerbread and the now-cockeyed weathervanes were trimmed in a glittery gold, as were the dangling shutters. Some of the lower windows were leaded stained glass, others weren’t there at all and had been replaced with the side of a Gallo wine carton, a cigarette-burned pink baby blanket, a disemboweled copy of
Look
and, at the window nearest the wide black door, part of the tin sign from a place named Orlando’s Depot Club.

Mystic symbols, mostly Egyptian, had been dabbed on the reachable front façade of the decaying old house. The white paint was soluble and the last rains had blurred everything.

The front yard of Gladys Waugh’s home was guarded by a shoulder-high stone wall. Someone had tried to paint that black too, but had given up ten feet to the right and four feet to the left of the sprung-iron gates.

Easy pushed the gate and walked onto a rutted driveway. A truck with huge tires had driven in here and out recently, leaving great tread-pattern channels through the dark mud. On each side of the muddy drive were small fields of high grass and weeds. A gutted Volkswagen, spotted with homemade daisies, lay in the weeds near the gate. A slim, deeply tan young girl was sitting sideways in the car’s carcass with her long bare legs hanging free. She was smoking a homemade cigarette, looking straight up at the noon sky through the missing sunroof.

Nearer the crusty black mansion sprawled another auto. This was a 66 Mustang up on blocks. A long tall Negro, shirtless, was whacking at the engine with a silver wrench.