Wake Up to Murder (4 page)

I smoothed the bills and counted them. Mr. Kendall had given me the week’s pay I had coming. Plus two weeks severance pay. In lieu of notice. Without bothering to make any income tax or social security deduction. I’d had one hundred and eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents in my pocket, when I’d left the house. Plus a few dollars in silver. I’d bought three beers at the drive-in on Country Club Road. I’d taken a cab to the Ole Swimming Hole. I remembered laying a twenty on the bar in an attempt to impress Shad. I’d been in at least a half dozen other bars. I’d listened to a swing band. I’d gone for a long ride. I’d eaten a platter of lobster. All of it had cost me money. A lot of money. Still, I now had four hundred and twenty-nine dollars. About two hundred and forty dollars more than I’d had when I started.

I took a drink I didn’t want in an attempt to clear my head. It didn’t help. All it did was make me drunker. I tried to think. The harder I tried to think, the more confused the night became. I remembered the Ole Swimming Hole, distinctly. I’d gone from there to the Sun Down Club. That was where I’d heard the band. I’d danced with an amorous redhead — somewhere. I’d eaten a platter of lobsters. Probably at Eddie’s. Later in my drunk, much later, I’d been bellied to the bar in the Bath Club, talking to a group of wealthy tourists. Assuming the exaggerated importance of a drunk, magnifying my small knowledge and triumphs, accepting as accomplished fact the important things I’d once hoped to do, assuring myself and everyone within range of my big voice that I was really the big shot I’d once hoped to be.

I remembered an old man with a paunch saying I seemed to know my local politics. A little thing. I remembered looking down my nose at him. I remembered saying:

‘Why shouldn’t I? What do you think I am, a sixty-two-dollar-and-fifty-cents-a-week lawyer’s runner?’

But where had I met Lou? Where had I gone between the redhead and the Bath Club? It had to be sometime during that blank spot that I had made contact with Mantin. Where? What had I told him I could do for him? What had he talked over with ‘the captain’? Captain of what? Because of what something I had told him I could do, did he want to give me all the time possible in which to work my angles? What kind of angles? Something worth ten thousand dollars to him?

I sat on the edge of the tub and wished I could be sick. A big shot. Me. That was a laugh. I was a thirty-five-year-old failure. Thirty-five years and one drunk. I hadn’t had the first thousand dollars of the hundreds of thousands I’d hoped to make. My dreams of a big car and a lovely home and furs and diamonds and servants for May were just that — dreams.

I took another drink, then zigzagged out into the other room, picked up the phone and gave the girl on the hotel switchboard our number, fast. Before I lost my nerve.

“I’m sorry,” I began the conversation.

May sounded as if she’d been crying, as if she hadn’t slept all night. “Are you all right, Jim?” she asked.

“Yeah. As all right as a fool can be,” I told her.

“Where are you, honey?”

I hedged. “I — checked into a motel out on the beach. But I — I’ll be home in the morning. Just as soon as I’m sober.”

May said, “I love you, Jim,” and hung up.

I love you, Jim.

That was May. No pounding on tables. No yelling. No tirade of wifely abuse because, filled to the neck with self-pity, I had walked out on her and gotten my damned skin full of whiskey. For all May knew, I’d spent every dime we had. And what did May say? “I love you, Jim.”

I should have felt good. I didn’t. A fresh wave of futility swept me. Even my love life was average. There were no heights, no depths to it. I went to work in the morning. I came home. I kissed May. We worked on the lawn and the flowers. We ate supper. I read the paper or listened to the radio while May did the dishes. Then we played Canasta with Bob and Gwen. Or pinochle with Fred and Alice. Or went to a drive-in movie. Or up to the Sandbar for a beer. At eleven o’clock we went to bed. Some nights we made love. Some nights we were too tired. Then at six-thirty the alarm clock rang and the whole thing started all over again.

If we’d had children, perhaps things would have been different. I used the still half-full bottle of whiskey to wipe the sweat from my face and chest, looking in through the crack of the bathroom door at the brown manila envelope on the flange of the wash basin. Anyway, last night had been different. I began to sweat harder. God Almighty. Ten thousand dollars was a fortune.

My knees felt weak. I sat on the edge of the bed. Daydawn wasn’t far away. The slim finger of light feeling under the fluttering shade turned red. It was bolder than it had been. It caressed Lou’s body and moved up to flicker across her face.

My eyes followed the finger of light. I began to breathe hard again. But not from fear. Mantin or not, Lou was cute. She was young. Exciting.

I put my hand on her arm. “Hey, you, Lou. Wake up.”

Lou turned on her back and opened one eye at me. Perspiration plastered a brown ringlet to her forehead. Still half asleep, her face squinted up against the finger of light, she had a certain something.

“Well,” Lou smiled. “Good morning.”

I leaned over her, an arm on each side of her. “I have to talk to you, Lou.”

“Talk?” Lou said.

She picked up my hand and her finger tightened around it. I could almost hear the beat of her heart. Her flesh was soft and yielding. The smell of her filled the room. Subtle. Fragrant. Inviting.

I had to have her. If I died for it. I took her. Brutally. Savage. No love involved.

I rolled over and lay panting.

“Well,” Lou breathed. “Well.” She raised herself on one elbow and leaned over me, her hair sweet on my face. “What a nice way to wake up. Pardon me. I’m Mrs. Smith. Might I ask your name, mister?”

I went along with the gag. “Joe Doakes. That’s me, kid.”

Lou lowered her lips to mine. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Doakes.”

Lou’s lips were soft and slack. I talked into her mouth. “Where did I meet you, Lou?”

The finger of light was stabbing her eyes. She lifted her head. “That damn shade.”

I pulled down the shade and leaned back again.

Lou snuggled up to me. “Now what did you ask me, honey?”

“Where did I meet you?”

Lou thought a moment, then brightened. “In Judge White’s office. Remember? You and Tom Benner were having a drink. And who should walk in but me.”

I studied her face. Lou was having trouble focusing her eyes. “How high are you, Lou?” I asked her.

She nibbled the lobe of my ear. “Not
too
high.”

I spatted her. “Answer me.”

“Plenty,” Lou admitted. “You kept insisting that I drink champagne cocktails.” She blew up at the lock of hair plastered to her forehead. “And what they do to me!” She snuggled her face against my chest. “What time is it, Jim?”

I said, “A little after five.”

Lou snuggled even closer. “Then let’s get some sleep. Only dopes get up at five o’clock.”

My voice sounded wry. It was. “I’ve been one for thirty-five years,” I told her. I tilted her chin so I could see her face. “Think, Lou. It’s very important to me. Where did I meet you last night?”

Lou said, “I think it was the Plantation. Yes. I know it was. I was sitting at a table all by myself. Just getting ready to go home. And in you walked.”

“What time was this?”

“A little before midnight.”

“I was drunk?”

Lou sucked at her under lip. “Y-yes. I guess you were.”

“You
guess
I was?”

“Well, you looked and talked sober.” Lou laughed. “But about a half hour later, you fell flat on your face in the Bath Club.”

“How did we get into the Bath Club?”

“We walked in.”

“But I’m not a member.”

Lou laughed again. “That’s what the doorman tried to tell you. But along about that time you were ready to start the War Between the States all over. You told the doorman that your family had been big shots in Palmetto County when the only members of the Bath Club were fiddler crabs, and you guessed your money was as good as any goddamn Yankee’s.”

“What did he say?”

“He was impressed and let us in.” Lou bobbed her head and her crisp hair tickled my face. “You had a lot of money, too. You were throwing it away with both hands.”

“Did I tell you where I got it?”

“No.”

“I had it when I met you?”

“Uh huh.”

“Did I tell you where I’d been?”

“You said you’d been in every joint on the beach from Pass-a-Grille to Clearwater.”

“Did I mention the name Mantin?”

“I don’t remember the name.”

“Well, then, while we were together, did I meet and talk to a little man in a white silk suit? About five feet six or seven? Deeply tanned? With a lined face?”

Lou shook her head. “No. Not while we were together. That must have been before you met me.” She stroked my cheek with her fingertips. “But have a heart, Jim. Remember, I was pretty high myself. Why all the questions?”

“I have to know,” I told her. I debated telling Lou about Mantin. I didn’t. He was my problem, not hers. I asked her, “What happened after I fell on my face in the Bath Club?”

“You picked yourself up and laughed. Then I suggested we check in here before you got
too
drunk.”

“I wasn’t too drunk?”

Lou put one of her wrists to her mouth and laughed where the sleeve of her dress would have been if she had been wearing a dress.

“We came here directly from the Bath Club?”

“We did.”

“In a cab?”

“No. In my car.”

I thought a moment. “How come you were at the Plantation? I thought you had a date with Mr. Kendall. I thought he was going to drive you over to Steve’s Rustic Lodge.”

Lou snuggled her cheek against my chest sleepily. “Talk to yourself for awhile, will you, Jim? I’m going to get some more sleep. I’m tired.”

I spatted her. “Answer me. I thought Kendall was going to drive you over to Steve’s.”

Lou relaxed in my arms. I could feel her warm breath on my chest. Her eyes were closed. “He did. We had a steak that thick. Then we went to a night club in Tampa. Somewhere in Ybor City. With a dirty floor show.”

“Then what?”

“Then Mr. Kendall drove me back to Sun City. And I told him where he could go. To the bad place. On the corner of Fourth and Center.”

“Why?”

“He insulted me.”

“How?”

Lou snuggled even closer. “He wanted me to check into a hotel with him.”

“You checked into one with me.”

“That’s different.”

“How different?”

“I
like
you.” Lou murmured, as though that settled it. “Besides, it was your birthday.”

Her voice trailed away sleepily. I lay, completely sober now, watching dawn brighten the window, wondering why I didn’t feel more like a heel than I did.

All I felt was frightened.

Lou. Mantin. Ten thousand dollars.

I looked over Lou’s shoulder. I’d left the light on in the bathroom. The brown manila envelope was still on the flange of the basin. The flap was open. I could see the green bills inside.

Mantin had said,
“So there you are, Jim. What we agreed on. Just like it came from the bank.”

I looked back at the brightening dawn to keep from looking at the envelope. Even now that I was sober it didn’t make sense.

I’d met Lou at the Plantation. From there we’d barged into the Bath Club. We’d driven from the Bath Club to the hotel in Lou’s car. Lou didn’t recognize Mantin by name or description. That meant I had met and talked to the little man before I’d met Lou.

I attempted to line up the few facts I knew in chronological order. I certainly hadn’t started on my drunk with the intention of meeting Lou and checking into the Glades Hotel with her. I hadn’t even been thinking of Lou when I’d walked away from the house.

Then how had Mantin known how to find me? How had Mantin known I was checked into the Glades Hotel?

I reviewed our bathroom conversation. After talking to me, wherever we had talked, at some point in my drunk, the little man with the lined face had met someone he called the ‘captain,’ before coming to the hotel. An hour, two hours, possibly even more time had passed. Meanwhile I’d been swaggering up and down the beach. From Pass-a-Grille to Clearwater. A distance of twenty miles. Moving from bar to bar. Making an ass of myself.

So how had Mantin known where to find me?

I closed my eyes and tried to remember seeing Mantin before he had knocked on the door. I concentrated until sweat stood out on my body like beads. What had happened between the redhead and the Bath Club was a blank. Except for the crowing of a rooster and yelling, ‘Hiya, baby,’ at Lou.

I wished I knew more about psychiatry. In the hope of getting ahead, perhaps getting a raise from Kendall, I’d taken a course in Abnormal and Criminal Psychology. At the Junior College, in a night class open to adults. One week the lad teaching it had talked a lot about something he called traumatic amnesia. As an example he’d told about a girl who had witnessed a particularly brutal murder followed by necrophilia. Horror at what she had seen had completely driven the facts from her conscious mind. As if the murder had never happened. At the time it had sounded like a lot of crap to me.

Now I began to wonder.

What if I’d killed someone?

My throat was tight. I realized I was breathing through my mouth. On the other hand, Mantin hadn’t given me ten thousand dollars to pay me for something I had done. He was paying me to do something.

What?

Traffic began to creep along the street below the open window. A party of early rising tourists boasted about the fish they intended to catch. I got out of bed gently, without waking Lou, and went in and took a cold shower. I showered for a long time. The cold water cleared my head of the last of the whiskey.

But the brown manila envelope was still lying on the basin.

The only thing I could see to do was backtrail myself along the beach until I located the spot where I’d first met Mantin. Perhaps someone there would know who he was. They might know where he lived, what we had talked about.