Don't Dare a Dame (32 page)

   
“The body of a man named John Vanhorn.”

   
“It was a dream, I tell you!” The woman actually stamped her foot. Her voice had grown shrill.

   
“Your husband knows you know the truth. He wants to get elected, and he’ll get rid of anyone who could cost him that. He’s already killed the other man who was there that day. Your life isn’t worth a plug nickel if you stick around.”

   
The front door banged open in anger. No need to guess what prince was charging to the rescue of the damsel. I got to my feet.

   
“You need to get out,” I told the woman staring at me. “Go to your sister. A friend. Take a trip.”

   
I wasn’t sure she’d heard.

   
“What the hell are you doing here?” Cy strode in. “How dare you bother my wife!”

   
Serenity back in place, Tessa fluttered to his side. Leaning against him, she rested a hand on his chest and gazed up.

   
“Oh, Cy! She keeps asking about that dream I had — about the flood. I told her it was only a dream. I’ll bet lots of little girls had terrible dreams afterwards, don’t you?”

   
She gave him such an adoring look I thought I might lose my lunch.

   
He missed the adoration. He was too busy glaring at me.

   
“Of course they did,” he said shortly.

   
For all intents there were only the two of us in the room. Tessa had become another decorative item like the vase of water waiting for flowers.

   
“Keeping tabs on your wife, are you Cy? What is it, that car parked down the way? Or did you buy one of the houses around here so you could keep track of comings and goings?”

   
It was the only way I could figure he’d gotten here so fast. The likelihood of her calling him was something I’d anticipated, but I’d kept track of time, expecting to be gone before he arrived.

   
“Don’t be ridiculous.”

   
Deprived of anticipated attention, Tessa thrust her lip out. Cy patted her absently.

   
“You’re agitated, sweetheart. Go upstairs and lie down. Take one of your tablets.”

   
Still pouting, she took her leave. My ears strained, trying to determine if Cy had brought some of his men with him. I moved so the low table wasn’t blocking me, crossing my arms and surveying the room as I did so.

   
“Your wife has better taste in decorating than she does in men, Cy. This room’s as beautiful as I’ve ever seen.”

   
“I couldn’t find a more perfect wife.”

   
He closed the gap between us, watching to see if I’d retreat. I didn’t.

   
“Handy, too, since spouses can’t testify against each other in court,” I observed.

   
“Pity that the policeman she told her ridiculous tale to is long dead, isn’t it? Being a devoted husband I naturally looked for anything that could put her mind at rest when she first told me her dream.”

   
Watching my every move, he took a cigar from his pocket and brought out a silver lighter to start it. In private he didn’t need the folksy touch of matches. The lighter lid clicked open and closed, open and closed, with no attempt to summon a flame. Open and closed. Its sound was a challenge as we watched each other like two cats waiting to spring

   
“If you even attempt to contact my wife again, I’ll destroy you,” he said.

   
“I don’t need your wife, Cy. I’ve got you for Alf Maguire’s murder. Two witnesses.”

   
The clicking stopped.

   
“You’re bluffing,” he said after a pause. “You’re good at bluffing.”

   
At last he snapped a flame to life and lit his cigar.

   
“Want to dig into my past?” He chuckled softly. “Go right ahead. I dare you. But you won’t find anything, and some of my over-zealous supporters might get carried away. Without my knowledge, of course. They might do worse than that.”

   
He indicated my face by leaning forward and blowing a stream of smoke directly into it.

   
I nearly coughed, but managed not to. When several seconds had passed and the air was marginally clearer, I took a breath. His eyes were hard, trumpeting his superiority.

   
“Don’t dare a dame, Cy. One may call your bluff.”

   
Plucking the cigar from his startled lips, I dropped it into the vase full of water and brushed past him out of the room.

Thirty-nine

   
Because of my work I’d seen more than my share of the ugliness that hid in life’s corners. Nonetheless, the Warren’s marital arrangement made my skin crawl. A woman married to a man who’d kill her to silence her. A man who, knowing what she’d seen and aware of her unstable behavior, paraded her on his arm. Wherever the match had been made, it wasn’t in heaven.

   
Jesus.

   
The whole thing was unnatural.

   
I tried to make sense of it over a pint at Finn’s, and then over a second one. I let Billy cluck over me while Seamus shot me an occasional look of commiseration. I jawed at Wee Willie. Somewhere after I settled myself at a table, Connelly joined me without my objecting. I could hardly say no, considering how he’d come to my aid a week ago at the hospital. It led to my telling him about Cy and Tessa.

   
“Maybe Mrs. Warren’s one of those women who knows she’s got looks enough to land a husband, and doesn’t much care who he is as long as he’s got money,” he said.

   
“Voice of experience?”

   
“The ones that were eager to land me didn’t have money.” He flashed a grin.

   
“But it just happening to be Cy....”

   
“Yeah. That smells bad. Any chance she was shaking him down?”

   
I gave a short laugh.

   
“Tessa? Threatening to spill the beans if he didn’t marry her? First, I can’t see her figuring out it was him she saw on the day of the fire. She was seven years old. He was in his twenties. Besides, as much as she’s honed her talent for making a man feel important, I can’t see her managing something that took so much planning.”

   
“And even if she did, given how respectable Cy’s become and his connections, why would he even blink at what some kid prattled about a quarter-century ago?”

   
“There is the fact he’s running for office. But yeah, I thought of that too.”

   
“Even with you roiling the waters.”

   
“Even that.”

   
I thought how smug Cy had been that afternoon, blowing smoke in my face. It reminded me I was facing what could prove to be a long evening with Heebs.

   
“Got to go,” I said pushing the rest of my Guinness aside and standing. “We must’ve set some kind of record though, sitting here without squabbling.”

   
Connelly studied me beneath lowered lids.

   
“Maybe I’m losing interest.”

   
I paused a fraction as I turned my coat collar up. The crackle of whatever existed between us had just surfaced, strong as ever.

   
“Or maybe you’re changing tactics,” I said.

   
His touch as light as a feather, he laid a finger on my hand, detaining me.

   
“Mark your calendar for Saturday, though, will you? Rose served notice when she was drawing my beer a week or so back that I’d be in bad favor unless I got our scruffy little group to play some tunes in the big room here.”

   
His eyes held mine. I saw goodness there, and more.

   
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I promised.

***

   
At half past eight I picked up Heebs. Ten minutes later I was parked in front of a bar on a seedy strip along the river. Using the list I’d drawn up with Seamus and Connelly, I’d come up with a plan to look for Neal while conserving my energy, which still wasn’t a hundred percent up to snuff, and which I’d need if I found him. While I sat in the car where I could keep an eye out for trouble, Heebs went in and showed the photograph of Neal and asked if he’d been in.

   
“Piece of cake, Sis,” he reported swaggering out of the first one. “Showed ’em the picture and said he’d skipped out on my stepmom and me, and the little ones were getting awfully hungry.”

   
“Had they seen him?”

   
“No.”

   
I started the engine. I needed something concrete on Cy, and if Tessa wouldn’t talk to me — which I still hoped I could persuade her to do — Neal was my best bet. There had to be some reason why he’d run.

   
Eight places later, we still hadn’t had any luck. I’d had to double-park twice in narrow streets, waving out-of-sorts drivers around me while I waited for Heebs. He came out of the ninth place with his hands filled with peanuts.

   
“Want one?” he offered cracking the shell.

   
“Not sure my mouth could manage it yet, but thanks.”

   
“They hadn’t seen Neal, but the guy serving beer said a dry cleaning place had called hunting him too. Gave me a wink and said Neal had left some money in pants he dropped off — like he was telling me to go get it.” He finished the peanuts. “All the yakking I’ve done tonight made me thirsty. Okay if I get a beer while I’m in the next place?”

   
He made it sound as casual as he could. I gave the little hustler a sideways look.

   
“Nice try, Heebs, but there’s Coke in that sack if you’re thirsty.”

   
Unruffled, he took out a bottle and pawed through the sack for the metal opener that was my only claim to kitchen equipment. He pried off the cap of the bottle and sipped in silence.

   
“What happens if you don’t find this guy, Sis?”

   
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But here’s another place to try.”

   
Heebs set his bottle of pop down carefully on the floor of the DeSoto. I sat waiting, listening to the mournful wail and clatter of a freight train as it passed. The streets we’d been traversing had a weary feel. Just across the river were colored neighborhoods, some nice and some not so nice. West Fifth and other streets there had clubs and theaters that brought in fine entertainment. My photographer friend Matt Jenkins and his wife and I had gone over once to hear jazz. There’d only been one table left, at the back of the room, and ours had been almost the only white faces.

   
Heebs returned to report no more success than he’d had elsewhere. It was past ten. Only four places were left on my list. By the spring in his step when he came out of the third one, I knew he’d learned something.

   
“Old Neal’s been coming in regular,” he said bouncing into the car. “Last week he got such a snootful that two of the regulars had to drag him home. Tonight he came in about five. Left just when they were thinking they’d have to do it again.”

   
“Sweet Mary. Tell me you got an address.”

   
He rattled it off.

   
“It’s a fleabag hotel called The St. George. Cheap rates if you rent by the week. As drunk as he is, the two of us could take him easy.”

   
“As drunk as he is, I’m not likely to get any answers from him. I’ll wait till tomorrow,” I said.

   
But I was lying.

Forty

   
The St. George Hotel fell somewhere between the Ritz and a roach farm. It inclined toward the latter. After I’d dropped Heebs off, I came back and located it and circled the block several times to get the lay of the place. Twice as I passed I saw ladies who didn’t appear at all matronly enter the hotel accompanied by men unlikely to be their husbands.