Too Old a Cat (Trace 6), page 13
“I can’t tell you how secure that makes me feel,” she said, sharing a wink with her husband before walking the two men to the front door.
When his terror at the way Jackson drove had subsided to a steady level of fright, Razoni said, “Where are we going anyway?”
“Better talk to that Karen Marichal. Abigail Longworth’s friend.”
“What happened to the little twit anyway?”
“She called last night and told her father she was all right and she’d be coming right home. That’s when we got pulled off the case. Then she didn’t show.”
“So now we forget the lizard again?” Razoni said.
“Looks that way,” Jackson said.
“I swear to God Captain Mannion’s getting as nuts as the rest of the fags who run this department,” Razoni said. “Take me home before we do anything else. I want to change my clothes.”
When he came back out of his apartment, Razoni was wearing a dark-blue suit, “To match my mood,” he explained.
Jackson peeled away from the curb. Five minutes later, he ran two turning-red lights, barely missed a bus as it pulled from the curb, and parked in front of a fire hydrant.
As he got out of the car, Razoni was told by a street sweeper, “You guys can’t park here.”
“Why not? You see any fires?”
“You’re going to get a ticket for interfering with firemen.”
“Good,” Razoni said. “They want the same pay as cops, let them work for it.”
Jackson led the way up the stairs to the front doors of a renovated brownstone. The light-tan doors were so heavily varnished that Razoni could see his reflection in them, and he carefully arranged his dark wavy hair. Then he straightened his tie. Then he looked down at his shoes.
“Are you finished?” asked Jackson.
“Yeah. But as soon as we leave here, we go back to my place so I can change my shoes. These are scuffed.”
Jackson pushed the bell button. It sounded out with the first line of the chorus of “With a Little Help from My Friends.”
No one answered.
“Ring it again, Tough. See what they do for an encore.”
Jackson hit the bell again. It played the same notes, but this time the door opened. A uniformed butler stood there, a huge man with a shaggy head of blond hair that reached to his shoulders.
“Yes?”
“We’d like to see Karen Marichal,” said Jackson.
“Whom may I say is calling?”
“Mr. Razoni and Mr. Jackson.”
“Wait here, please.” The butler closed the door on them.
“I guess everybody has a butler these days,” Razoni said.
“Everybody’s who’s too lazy to open his own door.”
“Maybe I’ll get one.”
“Just what you need in a one-room apartment,” Jackson said.
They waited until the door opened again and the butler invited them inside. They followed him toward a pair of French doors at the right side of the entrance hall. The butler pushed open the doors. The two detectives began to step inside, then stopped short.
The doors had opened on a long elegant room with tall and narrow stained-glass windows. Hanging from the twenty-foot ceiling was a cut-crystal chandelier that looked as if it belonged in a theater lobby. Suspended from the ceiling, next to the ornate light, were a pair of ropes. Tracing them down with their eyes, they found the ropes ended with a pair of gymnastic rings. A man wearing gymnast’s leotards was reaching up for the rings.
They turned back to the butler, but he had gone. They stepped into the room.
Along the far wall was a twelve-foot-long satin white couch. It was splattered with paint of many colors. Next to the couch was a woman standing in front of a painter’s canvas. The canvas was eight feet long and six feet high. She was slapping red paint onto the canvas with a housepainter’s brush. Large globs of it bounced off and dropped onto the couch.
“Let’s get out of here,” Razoni whispered.
“Where’s your guts?” Jackson said.
The man was swinging on the rings now, back and forth, picking up speed. Finally, he let loose, turned a somersault in the air, and landed with feet together in an Olympic dismount position. There was a little thudding of applause from the corner of the room to the detectives’ right. They looked in that direction and saw an old woman, wrinkled, wearing pink aviator glasses and a formal satin gown in powder blue, clapping. She clapped by slapping one hand down onto the oak table at which she sat. Her other hand held grimly onto a crystal goblet filled with red liquid, apparently from the gallon jug of Gallo burgundy that sat on the table in front of her.
The man from the trapeze stepped forward to the two detectives.
“Hi there, old buddies. How are you?”
“Fine,” said Jackson. The man grabbed Jackson’s right hand and pumped it. He advanced upon Razoni, who thrust his right hand into his jacket pocket.
Nothing daunted, the man gave Razoni a bright smile. He was perhaps in his early sixties, but only his lined face and bald head showed that age. His body had the long stringy muscles of a teenage gymnast.
“I’m Ferenc Marichal. That’s my wife, Charmaine,” he said. The woman at the mural-sized canvas did not turn around but waved the big red paint brush over her head in a sign of greeting.
“And that’s Mother,” said Marichal, pointing to the woman in the corner. She did not look at the detectives because she was busy shaking the gallon jug over her goblet. When only a few drops trickled out, she yelled, “Shit,” reached over her head for the bell rope, and began to yank it angrily.
“Well, Mother’s occupied,” Marichal said blandly.
The old woman kept yanking on the bell rope. Resounding throughout the house, Razoni could hear the bong-bong-bong of a heavy bell. If there were a hunchback in this house, he was leaving.
He heard a voice behind him.
“Beep, beep. Coming through.”
Razoni moved aside, and the uniformed butler skidded past him, almost on a run, carrying a full jug of wine. He brought it to the aged woman, filled her glass, put the rest of the jug on the table, and removed the empty bottle.
“About time,” the woman said.
“Yes’m,” the butler said.
“I think you’re getting too old for this work,” she said.
“Yes’m.”
“You’re fired, asshole,” she said.
“Yes’m.”
“Don’t worry,” Marichal whispered to the detectives. “She fires Igor several times a day. What can I do for you, now?”
“We don’t want to bother you,” Razoni said. “We’ll be glad to come back during visiting hours.”
“Nonsense,” said Marichal. “We’re always at home to visitors. Mi casa es su casa.”
“We’ve come to see Karen,” said Jackson.
“Karen?” Marichal said. He looked puzzled. “Oh, yes. Karen. My daughter,” he said brightly.
“Yes. We understand she’s a friend of Abigail Longworth.”
“That’s right. Close. Close. Very close.” He stopped and waited. After a few seconds, he said, “Now it’s your turn.”
“My turn?” asked Jackson.
“Yes. Your turn to talk. I said close, close, very close. Then you were supposed to say something. That’s how conversations go, first one, then the other.”
“Oh, I see. May we see Karen?”
“I don’t know. How are your eyes? Hah! A joke. Mother, did you hear that? He said, may he see Karen and I said, how are your eyes? Charmaine, did you hear that?”
“Oh, go scratch your ass, Ferenc,” said Mother Marichal from the corner. Across the room, Charmaine Marichal waved her paint brush over her head. A large glop of red paint fell in the middle of her hair. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Very funny,” Jackson told Marichal.
“Look, we want to see Karen,” said Razoni.
“You can. If you’ve got good eyes,” Marichal said. He seemed about to say something more, but instead went over to a column that stood in the middle of the floor. Atop the four-foot-high column was a mound of clay that was slowly being sculpted into some sort of head. With his thumb, Marichal smoothed out a spot over the left eyebrow. He cocked his head and looked at the mound of clay, then picked it up from the pedestal and threw the head against the far wall. The soft moist clay hit with a splat, stuck against the deep wood paneling for a second, then trickled down toward the floor.
Marichal turned back to Razoni and Jackson. “I’ll take you to see Karen. But don’t be surprised if she doesn’t want to talk. She’s been depressed since her guru died.”
“Her guru?” asked Jackson.
“Yes. Poisoned. Very guru-some.” He giggled.
Razoni felt something brush the back of his legs. He turned, just in time to see a spider monkey hopping up onto his shoulder. It put its face next to Razoni’s ear.
Jackson laughed.
Razoni screamed. “Get this son of a bitch off me. I ain’t no banana.”
“Come here, Percy,” called Mother Marichal from the corner of the room. “That gentleman isn’t your friend. He isn’t even a gentleman. He’s just a plain ordinary dork.”
The monkey jumped down from Razoni’s shoulder and skittered across the floor, hopping into a chair across the table from the woman. When she pushed her wineglass forward, it stuck its face close to the wine and began lapping it with its tongue.
Razoni rolled his eyes. Jackson kept laughing. Ferenc Marichal, suddenly all business, brushed by them and led the way to the stairs. At the top of the stairs was a red door with a yellow-and-orange sunburst painted on it. Marichal knocked, then opened the door a crack.
“There are gentlemen here to have a word with you, Karen,” Marichal said. He stepped aside to let the two detectives into the room, then closed the door behind them and left.
The room was illuminated only by a small votive candle in a glass saucer on an end table at the far side of the room. Over the candle hung the poster of Salamanda with the legend: THE SWAMI LIVES. On the end table near the candle were two framed photographs, but in the darkness their subjects were not visible. Next to the candle was also a bowl of fruit, looking like an offering to the darkness.
Razoni reached for the light switch on the wall beside the door. He flipped it but the room remained dark.
“Pleathe,” came a voice. “I am thenthitive to the light.”
The voice was a soft lisping breath of a woman’s voice. The two detectives turned toward its source and saw the girl, sitting in lotus position, atop the couch in the corner of the room farthest from the candle. Her head and entire body were draped and veiled in some kind of dark gauze. Not even her eyes were visible through the gauze.
“Karen?” said Jackson.
“Yeth.”
“I’m Detective Jackson and this is Detective Razoni. You’re a friend of Abigail Longworth’s?”
“Yeth.”
“Have you seen her?”
There was a pause. “Why?”
“She hasn’t been home and her family is worried,” Jackson said.
“Oh. I thaw her on Thaturday at thchool.”
“Not since then?”
“No.”
“Did she give you any indication that she might be thinking of going away for a while?” As he spoke, Jackson gradually moved closer to the candle.
“No,” the voice answered.
“Do you know the name of any of her other friends?” Jackson said.
“Abigail hath no other friendth. Jutht me.”
“He means boyfriends,” Razoni said.
“No boyfriendth,” answered the voice.
“Do you know where she might be staying away from home?” Jackson asked.
“No.”
Jackson took his business card from his wallet, walked to the end table, and put the card on it. “I’m leaving my card here,” he said. “If you hear from Abigail, please call us.”
As he put the card down, he picked up one of the photographs on the table. It was a snapshot of Swami Salamanda. He replaced it and picked up the other photo. It was a duplicate of their photo of Abigail Longworth. There was a message written on it, but Jackson couldn’t see it in the dark. He fished a cigarette from his pocket and lit it with his lighter. In the light, he read the message:
“Dearest K., The beauty of love must always be our guide, A.”
“A beautiful sentiment Abigail wrote you,” he said.
The girl was silent.
Jackson replaced the picture and his fingers brushed against something metallic. It was a small gold bell. He looked at it, then put it back down.
“We’ll be going now,” he said. “We’re very sorry about your guru.”
“Life alwayth endth in death,” the girl said.
“Right on,” Razoni said.
Jackson turned, cigarette lighter still burning in his hand, but he could not see past the girl’s veil. He put out the lighter as Razoni opened the door and light from the hallway leaked into the room. Jackson continued to stare at her, but she seemed, under the veil, to turn her face toward the wall as if to avoid the light.
Jackson followed Razoni out into the hallway and closed the door behind them.
Razoni hissed, “If we’ve got to fight our way out, I take the old lady.”
“I thought you’d want to plug that monkey.”
“No, monkeys I leave to you. They’re more in your line,” Razoni said.
But they went downstairs and let themselves out without anyone wishing them good-bye or noticing their departure.
20
“Hello. This is Devlin Tracy. That’s T-R-A-C-Y. May I speak with the honorable Mr. Walter Marks, please?”
Would wonders never cease, Chico thought as she sat on a chair in the office and listened to the telephone conversation. Trace being polite to the secretary of Walter Marks. The poor woman was probably rolling on the floor, holding her chest.
“No, of course I do not mind telling you what my business is,” Trace said. “I have decided to accept an assignment that Mr. Walter Marks has so graciously offered to me.”
He winked at Chico and covered the telephone with his hand. “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” he said. Quickly uncovering the phone, he said, “No, of course not, madam. It’s Devlin Tracy. T-R-A-C-Y.
“My company? Of course. My company is that noble institution for which you work. The Garrison Fidelity Life Insurance Company. And I have news that will delight the right honorable Mr. Walter Marks.”
Trace winked at Chico again.
“The name is Tracy,” he said. “Devlin Tracy. No, not Stacy. Tracy. T-R-A-C-Y. What? You don’t know me? Well, I know you, you stupid twat. You are the latest in a long line of morons to hold that job. Now, put Groucho on the phone before I come up there and kick in your homely insipid face.” He covered the mouthpiece and shook his head sadly.
“Honey,” Chico reminded him. “I think that was a little vinegary.”
“Screw her,” Trace growled. “That’s what I get for trying to be nice. Just watch me charm Groucho.”
“Hello, Walter,” Trace said. “Ho, ho, ho, it’s good to hear your voice again.”
“What are you up to, Trace?” Marks said. He was a small man with a voice to match: a small, pinched, suspicious voice that sounded as if he were being charged by the vowel. He was also the vice president for claims of the insurance company, and thus Trace’s boss on those occasions when Trace chose to work.
“Why are you always in such a hurry to talk business?” Trace said. “Ho, ho, ho. How’s the family?”
“The family’s fine,” Marks said. “What do you want?”
“Glad to hear it,” Trace said. “Ho, ho, ho. Dorothy’s fine? The boy…Walter Junior…is fine too?”
“My wife’s name is Gladys and she’s fine. There is no Walter Junior. My son’s name is Paul and he’s fine. Everybody’s fine but me. You know why I’m not fine?”
“I’m sorry to hear it, Walter. Why aren’t you fine? Ho, ho, ho.”
“I’m not fine because I’m wondering why the hell you’re calling me only one day after I called you and I’m wondering why you’re doing this Santa Claus impersonation. Ho, ho, ho. What do you want, Trace?”
“Remember that assignment you mentioned on the telephone?”
“Right. The Dundee matter.”
“Right,” Trace said. “Exactly correct, Walter. How you do get right to the heart of things? The Dundee matter. Exactly. Well, have I got exciting news for you.”
“I’m listening,” Marks said.
“I’ll take the case, you see. I know that’s what you wanted me to do.”
“Yesss,” said Marks, suspiciously, stretching the word out, as if waiting for Trace to say something so he could withdraw the word without ever having finished it.
“But I’ve set up a new venture, Walter. I wanted you to be the first to know.”
“I’m not investing in it or buying stock in it,” Marks said. “That’s that.”
“No, Walter,” Trace said. “Ho, ho, ho. It’s not like that at all. What it is is that I’m entering the private-investigation business and Garrison Fidelity now is going to be one of our corporate clients. You won’t have just me on your cases now: you’ll have a whole team of top-flight investigators at your disposal.”
“Who’s on this top-flight team?” Marks said.
“We’ve started out with Sarge and Chico, but already we’re looking for staff, good staff. Sarge has just got more work than we could possibly handle. But I…well, I just wanted you to know, Walter, that no matter how big or how busy we get, we’ll always have time for Garrison Fidelity and its piddling little piss-ant cases. And when we get more staff, we’ll be able to help even more. Maybe young Walter Junior would like a job. What do you think?”
“Paul is my son’s name, and if he were ever to be associated with you in any way, I would know that all the money I spend on his education has been wasted,” Marks said.
