Til Death (9 page)

“I’m still waiting, Angela.”

“What?”

“If anything should go wrong, if anything at all should happen between you, I’ll be here. You can count on me. I’ll take you in a minute, Angela. I loved you once, Angela, and I still—”

“Ben, please stop it. Please.”

“Just remember. I’ll be waiting for you. I’ll be waiting, Angela.”

The Green Corner was a tree-shaded house with a winding walk lined with azalea bushes in full bloom. Meyer and O’Brien walked leisurely to the front door and rang the bell.

“Coming,” a voice said, and they waited as footsteps approached the door. The door opened. A wispy little woman in a dark-blue dress stood there, smiling. From somewhere in the house, a dog began barking.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” Meyer answered. “Are you the lady of the house?”

“My, do they send salesmen around on Sundays, too?” the little woman asked.

“No, we’re from the police,” Meyer said. The smile dropped from the little woman’s mouth. “Now, don’t be alarmed,” he added hastily. “We only wanted to—”

“I’m only the dog sitter,” the little woman said. “I don’t even live here. I don’t know anything about any lawbreaking that’s been going on. I come to sit with the dog, that’s all.”

“No one’s broken any law,” O’Brien said. “We only wanted to ask some questions, lady.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about anyone who lives here. I only sit with the dog. His name is Butch, and he tears up the furniture if they leave him alone, he gets so lonely and miserable. So I sit with him. Butch is the only one I know here.”

“Do you know the owners of the house?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Travers, yes, but not so good as I know Butch. Butch is a Golden Retriever, but he chews up the furniture. Which is why—”

“Know any of the roomers?”

“Yes, there’s old Mr. Van Ness on the top floor, but he’s out right now. And there’s Mrs. Wittley, but she’s out, too. And then there’s
the new girl, Oona Blake, but she’s out, too. And I don’t know any of them real good except Butch. He’s the only reason I come over here. I’m one of the best dog sitters in the neighborhood.”

“This Oona Blake,” O’Brien said. “Is it Miss or Mrs.?”

“Miss, of course. Why, she’s just a young girl.”

“How old?”

“Not thirty yet, I would say.”

“You said she’s out right now. Do you know what time she left?”

“Yes. Early this morning. I know because the Traverses are away for the weekend, which is why I’m sitting with Butch. I got here yesterday. And I was here this morning when Miss Blake left.”

“What time would you say that was?”

“Right after breakfast. I also make the meals when the Traverses are gone.”

“Did anyone call for her?”

“Who? Mrs. Travers?”

“No. Miss Blake.”

“Oh. Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, someone did.”

“Who?”

“Don’t know him. I told you, I don’t know much of the goingson here. You ask me, the Traverses run this place too loose. Too loose.”

“Was the man carrying anything?”

“What man?”

“The man who picked up Miss Blake.”

“Oh. Him. Yes, he was. A trombone case.”

“A trombone case? Not a trumpet? Or a saxophone?”

“No, a trombone. Don’t I know a trombone when I see one? A long black case. Oh, it was a trombone, all right.”

“What did he look like?”

“I didn’t get a good look. He was sitting in the parlor waiting for her, and the shades were drawn. But I saw the trombone case leaning against the armchair.” The little woman paused. “She won’t be here long, anyway. That Oona Blake.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I was dog-sitting last week. She got three calls in the same day. All from the same place. A real estate agent. She’ll be moving soon, that one.”

“Which real estate agent? Do you recall the name?”

“Certainly. She got three calls in the same day. Besides, it isn’t far from here.”

“What’s the name?” O’Brien asked.

“Pullen Real Estate. It’s the next elevated stop from here. Right on the corner, under the station.”

“Can you tell us what Oona Blake looks like?” Meyer asked.

“Yes, certainly. But I don’t really know very much about her. Where shall I start?”

“What was she wearing when she left here this morning?”

“A red silk dress, rather low cut. Red high-heeled pumps. No stockings. A little sort of red feather in her hair, with a rhinestone clip.”

“Was she carrying a purse?”

“One of these small things that all you can fit into are a compact and lipstick and a few odds and ends.”

“Was that red, too?”

“No. It was a dark blue. Sequins, I believe.”

“And how would you describe
her?”

“She’s a blonde. I think it’s natural. She’s very well developed. If you ask me, she’s got a thyroid condition. Anyway, she’s a very big girl. Noisy, I guess. Or perhaps she just talks loud. She’s very pretty, I would say. Blue eyes. She gives an impression of…I don’t
know…being strong, I guess. She’s got a nice smile and a pretty nose. Does that help?”

“Yes. Thank you very much.”

“You going to that real estate office now?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t. He’s closed on Sundays.”

The girl dancing with Bert Kling was wearing a red silk dress and red high-heeled pumps. She wore a red feather in her hair, and the feather tickled Kling’s cheek as he maneuvered her over the makeshift dance floor. People were beginning to filter to the tables where cocktails had been placed at each setting. Kling was beginning to feel a little hungry. Perhaps it was the way the girl danced, with a sort of nervous, pushing energy that demanded all his leading skill to counter. She was a very busty girl, and she danced quite close, her long blonde hair brushing his cheek. She seemed quite feminine and lovely—even though she was a big girl—but there was nonetheless this pushing quality about her which gave him the feeling that
she
was leading
him
around the dance floor. The strength seemed in direct contradiction to the blue eyes and lovely smile that had first attracted him to her. The eyes and the smile had been totally female. The dancing was the footwork of a steel magnate, a person with something to do, a person anxious to get it done.

The band, once one got used to it, wasn’t really half bad. Playing a medley of foxtrots, they moved smoothly from one number to the next, keeping a steady danceable beat. Sal Martino had put his trombone on a chair that rested on the bandstand alongside him, and he led the orchestra with his right hand, smiling out at the crowd occasionally. Waiters rushed across the lawn carrying drinks. Kling’s eyes moved across the dance floor. Ben Darcy was still dancing with Angela. The pair seemed to be having an argument. Steve Carella was dancing with a redhead who’d
undoubtedly leaped from the pages of
Playboy
although, Kling mused, the same observation could probably be made about the blonde who was pushing him around the floor. Teddy Carella didn’t look too damn happy about the inflammable girl in the green dress. Cotton Hawes didn’t look too happy, either. Dismally, he watched Christine Maxwell dancing with Sam Jones.

This is one hell of a wedding, Kling thought. Everybody bursting with joy. Even Steve looks pretty gloomy, though I can’t see why that redhead should make any man gloomy.

“I don’t think I know your name,” Kling said to the blonde in the red dress.

“You don’t,” she answered. Her voice was deep and husky.

“Mine’s Bert.”

“Nice to know you,” the blonde said.

He waited for her to offer her name. When she didn’t, he let it pass. What the hell, if a girl didn’t want to give her name, there was no sense forcing her. Besides, he told himself in deference to his fiancée, he was only dancing so that he wouldn’t look conspicuous standing on the sidelines.

“You a relative?” he asked.

“No.” The girl paused. “Are you?”

“No.” Kling paused. “Friend of the bride?”

The girl hesitated for just a fraction of a second. Then she said, “Yes.”

“Nice wedding,” Kling said.

“Lovely,” the girl agreed, and she continued to push him around the floor as if in a hurry to get nowhere particularly fast.

On the bandstand, Sal Martino leaned over to pick up his trombone.

From the corner of his eye, Kling caught the movement. He turned to face the bandleader. Sal’s coat fell open as he picked up the horn. He stood up quickly then, the horn in both hands.

Kling’s arm tightened involuntarily around the blonde’s waist.

“Hey,” she said. “Easy does it, boy.”

Kling released her. “Excuse me, miss,” he said, and he left her standing in the middle of the dance floor.

Teddy Carella sat at the table alongside the bride’s table, sipping disconsolately at a Manhattan, watching her husband cavort in the arms of a redheaded sexpot from Flemington, New Jersey.

This is not fair, she thought angrily. There is no competition here. I don’t know who that damn girl is, or what she wants— although what she wants seems pretty apparent—but I do know that she is svelte and trim and wearing a dress designed for a size eight. Since she is at least a ten, and possibly a twelve, the odds are stacked against me to begin with. I am at least a size fifty-four right now. When will this baby come? Next week did the doctor say? Yes, next week. Next week and four thousand years from now. I’ve been big forever. I hope it’s a boy. Mark, if it’s a boy. Mark Carella. That’s a good name.

Steve, you don’t have to hold her so damn close!

I mean,
really,
goddamnit!

And April if it’s a girl.

I wonder if I should faint or something. That would bring him back to the table in a hurry, all right. Although I can’t really say that
he’s
holding her close because
she
seems to be doing all the holding. But I guess holding works both ways, and don’t think this has been easy on me, Steve, my pet, and you really needn’t— Steve! If your hand moves another inch, I am going to crown you with a champagne bottle!

She watched as Bert Kling pushed his way through the dancers, heading for her husband.

Is he going to cut in? she wondered.

And then Kling’s hand clamped down on Carella’s shoulder, and he backed away from the redhead as Kling whispered something in his ear.

Carella blinked.

“What? What did you say?”

In a hurried whisper, Kling repeated, “The bandleader! He’s carrying a gun under his coat!”

Sal Martino didn’t look very happy at all.

The detectives had waited until the intermission and then, as the waiters began serving the shrimp cocktail, they’d approached the bandstand, asked him to accompany them, and led him upstairs to a small bedroom in the Carella house. They stood before him in a three-man semicircle, now, Hawes, Carella, and Kling. Their faces were humorless and grim.

“Why are you carrying a gun?” Carella said.

“Who wants to know?” Sal answered.

“I do. I’m a detective. Do you want to see my badge?”

“Yes. I do. What is this, anyway?”

Carella flipped open his wallet. “It’s a few questions, Sal,” he said. “We want to know about that gun under your jacket. Now what the hell are you doing with a gun?”

Sal studied the shield. “That’s my business,” he said. “You got no right to ask me. What the hell is this? A police state?”

“Give me the gun,” Carella said.

“What for?”

“Give it to me!” he snapped.

Sal dug into the shoulder holster under his jacket.

“Butt first,” Carella said.

Sal handed him the gun. Carella looked at it, and then gave it to Hawes. “An Iver Johnson .22,” he said.

“Protector Sealed Eight,” Hawes agreed, and he sniffed the barrel.

“What the hell are you smelling?” Sal wanted to know. “That hasn’t been fired in years.”

“Why are you carrying it?” Carella asked.

“That’s my business.”

“It’s my business, too,” Carella shouted. “Now don’t get snotty with me, Martino. Answer the questions!”

“I told you. Why I carry a gun is my business and my business alone. And you can go straight to hell!”

“Did you ever try playing the trombone with a busted arm?” Hawes asked quietly.

“What?”

“Why are you carrying a gun?”
Hawes shouted.

“I got a permit.”

“Let’s see it.”

“I don’t have to show you nothing.”

“If you’ve got a permit, show it,” Kling said. “Because if you don’t, I’m going straight to that telephone and call the local precinct, and you can explain it all to them in the squadroom. Now how about it, Martino?”

“I told you I got a permit.”

“Then let’s see it!”

“All right, all right, hold your water. I don’t have to show it to you, you know. I’m doing you a favor.”

“You’re doing yourself a favor, Martino. If you’ve got a permit and can’t show it, you lose it. That’s the law. Now let’s see it.”

“You invent your own laws, don’t you?” Martino said, digging into his wallet.

“Is it carry or premises?”

“It’s carry. You think I’d be lugging a gun around with a premises permit?”

“Where is it?”

“Just a minute, just a minute,” Martino said. He pulled a document out of his wallet and then unfolded it. He handed it to Carella. “There,” he said. “You satisfied now?”

The document was divided into three sections separated by perforated folding edges. It was printed on a dull shade of offpink paper. Its outer edges were serrated. Each section measured 4½ inches by 3¾ inches.

Carella took the small official-looking document from Martino and studied the first section.

Carella read each item carefully. Then he turned the permit over to read its reverse side:

The third section of the permit simply granted Martino permission to purchase a pistol and was signed by the same Riverhead magistrate, Arthur K. Weidman.

Carella knew at once that the permit was legitimate. He nonetheless took his sweet time examining it. He turned it over in his big hands as if it were a questionable international document prepared by Russian spies. He studied the signature, and he studied the thumb print, and he made a great show of comparing the serial number on the permit with the number stamped into the metal of Martino’s .22.

Then he handed both gun and permit back to the trombonist.

“Now suppose you tell us why you carry it, Sal?”

“I don’t have to. The permit is enough. I got a gun, and I got a permit for it, and that’s all you have to know. If you don’t mind, I’m supposed to play some dinner music.”

“The dinner music can wait. Answer the question, Sal!” Kling said.

“I don’t have to.”

“We’d better pull him in,” Hawes said.

“Pull me in? What for?” Martino yelled.

“For refusing to co-operate with a duly appointed officer of the peace,” Hawes yelled right off the top of his head.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Martino said in rising crescendo, “Okay.”

“Well?”

“I’m scared.”

“What?”

“I’m scared. I play on jobs, and sometimes I don’t get home till three, four in the morning. I’m scared. I don’t like to walk the streets so late at night carrying money and my horn. I’m scared, okay? So I applied for a pistol permit, and I got it. Because I’m scared, okay? Okay? Does that answer your goddamn question?”

“It answers us,” Carella said, and he looked somewhat shamefacedly at his colleagues. “You’d better get back to the band.”

Martino folded his pistol permit in half and then shoved it back into his wallet, alongside his driver’s license.

“There’s no law against being afraid,” he said.

“If there were,” Carella answered, “we’d all be in jail.”

“Here it is,” Meyer Meyer called to the counter. “Donald Pullen, 131 Pondigo Street—no, wait, that’s the office. It’s 4251 Archer. That’s around here, isn’t it?”

“Search me,” O’Brien said. “We’d better ask a cop. You looked up the number too fast, Meyer. I haven’t finished my coffee yet.”

“Well, hurry up.”

Patiently, Meyer waited for O’Brien to gulp down his coffee.

“I’ve been thirsting for this cup of coffee all day,” O’Brien said. “I’ve got to work out that problem with Miscolo. Do you think maybe I can subtly hint that he change brands or something?”

“I don’t think that’d work, Bob.”

“No, I don’t think so, either.”

“Why don’t you bring your own coffeepot to the office? And buy yourself a hot plate? One of those single-burner jobs.”

“Gee, that sounds like a good idea,” O’Brien said. “Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know how to make coffee.”

“All right, come on, drink up.”

O’Brien finished his coffee. Together, they walked out to the unmarked police sedan parked at the curb.

“4251 Archer,” Meyer said. “We’ll ask the first traffic cop we see.”

They did not see a cop for ten blocks. They pulled over to him and asked him where Archer Street was.

“Archer Avenue, you mean?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“So say what the hell you mean. And pull over to the curb. You’re blocking traffic!”

“We only want to know—”

“I know what you want to know. You giving me an argument?”

“No, sir,” Meyer said, and he pulled to the curb and waited while the cop directed the cars behind him. Finally, the cop walked over to the car.

“Don’t you know better than to stop in the middle of the street?” he asked.

“I wasn’t thinking, Officer,” Meyer said.

“Sure. Now what was it you wanted to know?”

“How to get to Archer Avenue.”

“Two blocks down and turn right. What number did you want?”

“4251,” Meyer said.

“Another three blocks after you make the turn.” He glanced at the oncoming traffic. “Okay, go ahead.” As they pulled away, he shouted,
“And don’t stop in the middle of the street no more, you hear me, mister?”

“Nice fellow,” Meyer said.

“Gives cops a bad name,” O’Brien said glumly.

“Why? He helped us, didn’t he?”

“Bad disposition,” O’Brien said, and Meyer made his right turn. “Three blocks from here, right?”

“Right,” Meyer said. They drove up the street leisurely and stopped before 4251. “Here it is. Let’s hope he’s home.”

4251 Archer, as were most of the dwellings in Riverhead, was a private house. Meyer and O’Brien went up the front walk and pulled the door knocker. A tall man in a white shirt and a red weskit answered the door.

“Yes, gentlemen,” he said, “can I help you?”

“Mr. Pullen?” Meyer said.

“Yes?” Pullen studied his visitors. “Is it real estate, or insurance?”

“We’d like to ask you some questions, Mr. Pullen. We’re from the police.”

“Police?” Pullen went white in the space of two seconds. “Wh—wh—what…what did…?”

“May we come in, Mr. Pullen?”

“Yes. Yes, come in.” Hastily, Pullen glanced past them to make sure none of his neighbors were watching. “Come in.”

They followed him into the house and into the living room. The room was done in heavy furniture covered with maroon mohair. It made the small interior seem hotter than it really was.

“Sit down,” Pullen said. “What’s this all about?”

“Have you been receiving or making phone calls to a Miss Oona Blake?”

“Why, yes.” Pullen looked surprised, and then relieved. “Oh, it’s about
her,
isn’t it? Not me? Her?”

“Yes, it’s about her.”

“I knew she was a tough customer. I knew it the minute I laid eyes on her. A very flashy person. Very flashy. What is she? A prostitute?”

“No, we don’t know what she is. We’d simply like to find out what the nature of her business with you was.”

“Why, real estate,” Pullen said. “What did you think? She wanted to rent an apartment.”

“Where?”

“Well, she was very specific about it. She wanted an apartment either facing 831 Charles Avenue or else
behind
831 Charles Avenue. That’s just a little ways from here. Charles Avenue.”

“That rings a bell,” Meyer said. He thought for a moment. “Sure. That’s where Steve’s parents live. Did Miss Blake say why she wanted an apartment near that address?”

“Said she had friends there.”

“I see. Did you get an apartment for her?”

“Nope. Not that one. But I was able to
fill
her other request. Yep, I gave her good service on that one.”

“Which one was that?” O’Brien asked.

Pullen smiled. “Why, the apartment she wanted near the photography studio.”

“What a dinner!” Birnbaum said. “Tony, you outdid yourself. What a wedding, what a dinner!”

“Birnbaum, have some champagne,” Tony said. “We got enough champagne here to start a France. Have some champagne, my friend.” He led Birnbaum to the ice mermaid and pulled a bottle from her frozen tub. Everywhere around him, champagne corks were popping, and each new pop filled Tony’s heart with joy. It really was getting to be a fine wedding. Maybe all the money those lousy Incorporated were getting would be worth it after all. He tore the gold foil from the neck of the bottle and then ripped the wire loose. Working the cork with his thumbs, he slowly edged it out of the bottle. Standing next to him, Birnbaum put his fingers in his ears. The cork moved out of the bottle neck.