Don't Dare a Dame (23 page)

Twenty-eight

   
Donnie vetoed the watering hole nearest the factory, saying it was sort of scruffy. He strutted a little as he led the way into another place farther up the street. From the greetings, it was clear he was both known and liked there. The place was crowded. Most of the men wore overalls or other rough work clothes. Besides me, there were three other women.

   
In spite of his boast about women asking him out, I knew Donnie would probably dig in his heels if I tried to order, so I slid him a buck and asked would he get our beers. He’d persuaded a couple of acquaintances to give up their table in favor of spots at the bar. He brought back the beers and we made small talk until he began to relax.

   
“About Neal,” he said, watching me over the rim of his glass. “He in bad with the law?”

   
I shook my head. “Not as far as I know. As I told you, his family’s been having trouble. A couple of days ago somebody roughed up one of his sisters.”

   
He’d just taken a mouthful of beer. He went still as a statue before he swallowed.

   
“You think something happened to him?”

   
“Maybe. Or maybe he got scared and ran.”

   
Donnie processed that for a minute. He wasn’t slow, just thoughtful. There was an openness about him which I liked.

   
“Tuesday noon when we came out for lunch, a man was waiting for him.”

   
“Someone he knew?”

   
“I don’t think so. Anyway, it made Neal real jumpy.”

   
“Tell me what you remember. What happened?”

   
“This guy was waiting, and he called Neal by name. Started ambling over.”

   
“Was the man alone?”

   
“I guess. Didn’t see anybody else. Anyway, Neal told the rest of us to go, he’d catch up with us. And he did. But he drank a lot and he seemed real nervous.”

   
I drank some beer, but it didn’t allay my growing uneasiness.

   
“Any chance you can describe this man?”

   
Donnie thought, then gave his head a rueful shake.

   
“I didn’t pay attention, is the thing. I think he had dark hair, but his hat had a brim, so that could have been shadows.”

   
“Build?”

   
“Kind of boxy.” He brightened. “He was shorter than Neal. Does that help?”

   
“Sure.” I felt like a fool, but I asked it anyway. “You know what an Eskimo is?”

   
“Those people that live in little round houses out of ice?”

   
“That’s it. Anything about him make you think of one of those?”

   
He squinted at me.

   
“I know it’s a screwy question,” I said. “But a woman who saw something else told me there was a man who looked like an Eskimo.”

   
“Oh. Well he wasn’t wearing one of those coats with fur around the face. He was dressed like an American.”

   
We’d run out of beer. Donnie got us replacements, and a couple of sandwiches to go along with them. Meanwhile I wondered whether what he described as a boxy build could be what the neighbor lady meant by Eskimo. It didn’t seem likely.

   
The sandwiches turned out to be better than the beer, which was pale German stuff. I asked about the car Neal’s visitor had been driving, but Donnie hadn’t noticed whether he’d even had one.

   
“You think something’s happened to Neal?” he asked again after an interval.

   
“I’m hoping he’s just lying low. When I leave here, I’m going to check where he lives.” I switched gears. “Anybody around here involved in politics?”

   
“You mean union talk?”

   
“No, city. State. That kind.”

   
Donnie snickered. “Yeah, I kind of have my eye on running for governor.” He drank some beer and started to nod.

   
“Okay, this isn’t nobody here, and it may not amount to a hill of beans, except that you asked, but Neal claimed his dad was.”

   
“Involved in politics?”

   
“Yeah. Well, not that his old man himself was, but that he had connections. Bragged about it a couple of times, but then Neal was always trying to sound important. It may not even be true.”

   
My ears perked up.

   
“Any idea if he meant his own father or his step-dad?”

   
“Whichever one died last week.”

   
I jumped up, not because what he’d told me was urgent, but because it had generated a thread of excitement. Thinner than that thread, but visible now, was one that maybe, just maybe, tied Neal’s disappearance to Cy Warren, or at least to one of the politician’s associates.

   
“Hey, I’ve got to run,” I said. “Thanks for the help.

   
“Wait,” said Donnie, overtaking me as I made for the door. “Do you like to dance? There’s a nice place I could take you tomorrow. Respectable—”

   
“Thanks, Donnie. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

   
“What about next week?”

   
“The thing is, I’ve got a boyfriend.”

   
“I’ve edged out a boyfriend or two.”

   
We were already halfway back to my car. He kept just a fraction ahead of me, grinning down with a good-natured roguery almost guaranteed to make girls forget common sense. I laughed.

   
“I’ll bet you have. But we’re practically engaged. Anyway, he’s not somebody you’d want to irritate. He’s a cop.”

   
I hoped my tongue didn’t blister.

***

   
Neal and his stepbrother George lived together in a three-story brick apartment building on Brown Street. The top had a fake edge to make it look like a castle or maybe like someplace Spanish, but the front was flat and ordinary. Inside was just as plain, but clean. Mailboxes adorned one wall of the entry. In a burst of civic pride, the opposite wall held a lithograph print of the Wright brothers making the world’s first powered airplane flight. I climbed the stairs.

   
The apartment I wanted was on the third floor. I knocked at the door and waited. I’d hoped against hope I’d catch Neal or George — or both — between getting home from work and heading out for the evening. No one answered my knock, so I tried again. I put my ear to the door and listened for sounds on the other side, but there were none. No water running, no radio playing. As I tried for a final time, a thirty-ish looking fellow came out of the apartment next door.

   
“They’re not here,” he said. “Saw one of them coming out when I was getting home.”

   
“Which one?”

   
“The one with the sissy chin.” He pinched his fingers together in pantomime.

   
“What about the other one? Have you seen him around lately?”

   
“Can’t remember.” He started off, eager to get somewhere. “They’re always out Friday nights. Most nights. Come around earlier,” he called over his shoulder.

   
As I was about to try the neighbor on the other side, a door across the hall opened. A woman with a mop of gray curls put one foot out, her mouth drawn up in disapproval.

   
“All of them along here come and go all the time, and all hours too. No respect at all for decent people. Just out for a good time.”

   
“I’m looking for Neal,” I said. “The taller one who lives here. Have you seen him?”

   
“Not lately, and just as glad of it, impertinent as he is.” She looked me up and down. “I suppose you’re some girlfriend here to make a scene because he jilted you. Or worse.”

   
“No. Why?” She’d caught my interest. “Did another girl make a scene?”

   
“Oh yes. With that one you were just talking to. And number six, he’s had two here crying around. I don’t know how the Robinsons in number eight stand it. They claim they don’t hear a thing, but you’d need to be deaf as a post....”

   
I thanked her and left while she was still lecturing.

   
She probably thought me impertinent.

***

   
My uneasiness over Neal was starting to increase. Skipping out on a decent job was bad enough. The fact no one where he lived had seen him recently upped the ante. I drummed my thumbs on the steering wheel. If I hurried, I might be able to start some serious checking into his movements.

   
This time I was able to park just a few doors away from the joint where I’d left Donnie. To my relief he was still there, though he’d moved to join a table of other men near the back. I waited just inside the door, knowing men would start to notice me and the ripple would reach him. When one of the men at his table said something that made Donnie turn, I inclined my head toward the door.

   
Polishing off what was left in his glass, he stood and shouldered his way through a room more crowded and more boisterous than when I’d left it.

   
“Hey, you decide that cop wasn’t so interesting after all?” he asked with a grin.

   
“I swung by Neal’s place. None of his neighbors have seen him these last couple days,” I said in a low voice.

   
His face went serious. We stepped outside, squeezing our way past two men who greeted Donnie by name.

   
“So why’d you come to tell me?” he asked, baffled. “I honest to God don’t remember anything—”

   
“I know. But I hoped you might help. You know the spots Neal usually went to have his beer? Have some fun?”

   
“Yeah. Three or four.”

   
“Know some of the men he’d be with?”

   
“Sure. He didn’t come down here on weekends, though. Went places with his brother or step-brother, I think.”

   
“That’s okay. It’s someplace to start. If I give you five bucks, think you could find it in your heart to visit those places tonight or tomorrow? Buy a few beers, ask around, find out if anyone’s seen him since Tuesday?”

   
I held my breath. He was a smart guy, and he had pride, and I felt pretty sure that underneath the kidding he’d nursed at least a small hope I’d fall for him.

   
“Doesn’t seem right, taking money from a woman,” he said finally. “But I guess it’d be like working for you. I guess I can. Neal’s kind of an idiot, and I don’t like him much, to be honest, but I hate to think of him ending up with his head knocked in.”

   
“Thanks, Donnie. People wouldn’t talk to a stranger like me the way they will you.”

   
I opened my purse and gave him a fin. He took it and stood looking down at me for a minute.

   
“I know I’m not your sort, but you were nice enough not to say it. You’re okay.”

   
I put out my hand. His callused one engulfed it as we shook.

   
“You’re okay too, Donnie.”

Twenty-nine

   
Jolene’s parents had come into Dayton for some kind of meeting. They’d dropped off a jar of her mother’s fresh apple butter, which we demolished with our toast on Saturday morning. It fortified me for my short drive down to the brick apartment house I’d visited the previous night.

   
As I went up the stairs, I saw a woman letting herself in with groceries several doors down on the second floor. One floor up, I went down the hall and knocked where George and Neal lived. It was a few minutes past ten, late enough that they should be up, but before they got out and about, judging from what I’d heard of their fondness for nights on the town.