False Negative (Hard Case Crime) (15 page)

At 9:30 he went home, and thawed dinner. He started on another manuscript, but couldn’t get settled. When his wife left she took most of their friends. His closest acquaintances were writers, faceless voices on the phone. The long distance operator put him through to a New Jersey exchange.

“It’s Pelfrey,” he said. “I’ve got something to keep an eye on. A couple of little girls, twin sisters—”

“Rita and Rina Pulaski, eleven years old,” Jordan said, “vanished while walking home from Grover Cleveland Elementary School in Sea Isle City. Last seen with the school janitor, who’s got a county record for exposing himself to children.”

“When did we talk about it? My memory’s shot. These damn pills—”

“I caught the case from the United Press while you were in the hospital,” Jordan said. “What’s the time?”

“After ten. Too late to call?”

“No, it’s a treat to get away from the typewriter. I’ve been at it all day.”

“Which story are you working on? I forgot that, too.”

“It’s not for you,” Jordan said. “I’ve been working on and off on a book, mostly off, for years.”

“The great American novel?”

“A novel. If I ever finish, I’ll find out how great.”

“I’ve been thinking about starting a book myself,” Pelfrey said. “That’s as far as I get.”

Jordan hated to talk about writing, a subject on which everyone but the practitioners was an authority. But a 10 p.m. call from a man he scarcely knew wasn’t about literary theory. What did it cost to lend an ear? He liked Pelfrey, and he owed him. And he could make use of a character with no one but a stranger to cling to late at night. “Thinking’s the hard part.”

“The dick books are shot. I figured I’d hang on till I retire, but I don’t see them lasting five years. I’m the last of the Mohicans. There’s no future here, not much of a present.”

“Get out while the getting’s good, why don’t you?”

“It’s not something to brag about, but—”

He didn’t sound like a braggart. What he sounded like was a career criminal copping a plea.

“I love the magazines. Editing them’s what I want to do forever. You’re just starting out,” he said, “but you’ve got the knack. When we go under, it’ll be a terrible waste of talent, yours and mine. In the meantime, we can pray.”

“That they don’t fold?” Jordan said.

“For big murders to keep them going longer.”

Pelfrey replaced the receiver, and felt under the desk for his pencil, which had rolled onto the floor. He almost had it when the phone rang, and he pulled his hand away. “What did you forget?”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t die.”

Was it necessary to point that out? He’d misjudged Jordan, who was as flaky as his other staffers without the excuse of being a souse.

“...so I can have the pleasure of killing you myself.”

The connection was too clear for long distance, the voice deeper than Jordan’s, and with a rasp. He felt a twinge in every one of his stab wounds. “Who is this?”

“Fifteen years I lost on account of you. You and your damn magazine turned the jury against me. You know who I am.”

He was too angry to admit being afraid. If Morris Wing wasn’t able to finish him while driving a blade into his body, what could someone on the phone do?

“The line forms on the left,” he said.

“Laugh now, comedian. After I’m done with you, nobody’ll be laughing but me.”

Pelfrey dialed the police, but knew what he’d hear. The NYPD didn’t have enough men to watch over everyone. Didn’t he know that someone serious about harming him wouldn’t announce it? They advised an out-of-town vacation. Or he could bunk in jail till the threat blew over. He put down the phone, and went to set the chain on the door. Then he locked all the windows. The fire escape was a highway between the roof and the alley. Nothing he could do about that. It was high time to quit being every screwball’s sitting duck, and get started on his book.

He put aside the manuscript, and typed notes on his run-ins with men who wanted to kill him. He’d never given a thought to writing fiction, but the voice of authenticity might make a novel an easy sell.

The phone rang again. He stared it down before making a grab. “Stuff it, you gutless bastard.”

“Edward, how did you know it was me?”

“My mistake,” he said.

“Not at all. It sounded like pillow talk.”

“I thought you were someone else, Barbara.”

“She’s a lucky girl, I’m sure,” Barbara said. “How are you feeling? I’d have come to the hospital, but I had doubts I was what the doctors ordered.”

“They kept me sedated. I’d have tolerated a visit.”

“Don’t be arch. Who did you think I was?”

“Someone else who wants me dead.”

The sniping brought back the last days of their marriage, when it was a question of who would move out first.

“Are you receiving combat pay? Is that why you remain loyal to the magazine?”

“How many times have we had this conversation?”

“Dozens?” she said. “Hundreds? But I was your wife when we started, and you assumed I was trying to get under your skin. I’m your ex now. If you can’t believe your former spouse, where is the foundation for trust?”

“Why did you call?”

“The check—”

Pelfrey shook a pain pill out of the vial, and swallowed it dry. “I brought it to the post office two days ahead of time.”

“You’re a dear. It’s already on deposit.”

“If it isn’t late, what’s the problem?”

“It’s small.”

“It’s right on the number, the same amount you receive every month.”

“Don’t I know?” she said. “A dollar doesn’t go as far as when we were divorcing. The same amount is less than it used to be.”

“Take it up with a judge. I’ve been fair with you. You’re asking for too much.”

“Of course I am. Would you respect me if I settled for less? Living as you do, you don’t even respect the money. It’s fitting and proper that you take better care of me.”

“Everything I have will be yours one day.”

“That’s what you
say
—”

“But don’t get your hopes up that that day will come soon, no matter who is sneaking past the parole board. I intend to have a long and healthy life, and to run through my last dollar living it.”

“How very selfish of you.”

“Good night, Barbara. It’s always a delight to hear your voice.”

“Watch your back, Edward,” Barbara said.

Toward the end of the week Jordan called New York to find out how Pelfrey was feeling. He dialed collect, lowered the window against a squall as he waited for the girl to accept the charges.

“Mary,” he said, “let me talk to your boss.”

“This isn’t Mary. I’m Amy Lund. And I’m here alone.”

“I don’t know you. Where’s everybody?”

“At the cemetery.”

Jordan lit a Lucky, and sealed the windows. How come everybody picked the rottenest days to visit a cemetery? “Why?”

“For the funeral,” Amy said. “I’m a temp. They didn’t tell me much, only that somebody tried to kill Mr. Pelfrey, and he died.”

“He’d been stabbed,” Jordan said, “but he was getting better. It looked like he was going to make it.”

“They didn’t take chances this time. They shot him.”

“Who did?”

“No one knows. Mary says we’ll probably run it as an unsolved.”

By the grace of Ed Pelfrey he’d fielded a gig that was the next best thing to what he loved to do, and he blamed Pelfrey—poor bastard—for blowing it. An editor with ideas of his own would be brought in to run the magazines, and he had a feeling it wouldn’t work out for him. No reason to think that way—just the feeling. Joe Btfspik from
Li’l Abner
, who went around under a permanent black cloud, had nothing on him.

He wanted a woman to talk to, at least to talk, but didn’t know any who’d give him the right time. Maybe one. Good-looking enough in her way, though not his type. All wrong for him, in fact. When did he ever let that stop him?

A man picked up on the first ring. “Cherise there?” Jordan said to him.

“What time you need her? For how long?”

“Who am I talking to?”

“Who’re
you
? Where you want her?”

A hand slapped the mouthpiece at the other end of the line.
A woman asked, “That for me? Give me the damn phone.” Then Cherise, out of sorts, but keeping her anger in check, said, “Yeah?”

“It’s Adam Jordan.”

“Who?” she said. “Oh. Oh, you.”

“It’s nobody, go on, get out,” she whispered. Then for Jordan again: “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. Got to give me time.”

“Who was that?”

“My pimp,” she said. “That what you thinking? Sorry to disappoint, but he’s my nephew. ’Scuse his juvenile humor. You don’t feel a fool for askin’?”

For calling. And for the notion that this coarse girl could help to smooth his crash landing. “Did you find out anything?”

“Some. I ain’t Dick Tracy.”

Coarse—not to mention a wiseass. And his only link to Etta Wyatt. Smooth never went down easy with him anyway.

“Still there?” she said. “I should have more by the weekend.”

“I need it this afternoon.”

“Promised me a feed at a high-class restaurant,” she said. “Lunch don’t count.”

“Teplitsky’s puts out a great buffet.”

“Was thinking along the lines of the Ship ’N Shore at Tarrantino’s.”

“I’ll have to rob a bank.”

“Be quick about it,” she said. “See you at Mississippi and Atlantic at eight.”

The intersection was in the colored district a few blocks from Etta Wyatt’s boarding house. He was there on the dot, running his engine beside a pump. On the sidewalk women paraded coatless in winter’s chill. A teenager in a red dress mouthing “Wanna date?” rapped on his window. She pressed her lips to the glass leaving a hot coral bow around a wet spot where she
rolled her tongue. Why meet here unless Cherise wanted him to think the worst of her? He was up in the air about whether he did.

The teenager ran away. An unmarked cop car took her place alongside his door, the detectives watching her go, then focusing on Jordan through the smudge in the glass. Jordan knew the man riding shotgun from accidents where they’d been first on the scene. There was a delayed instant of recognition, an accusatory look before the cop nudged his partner, and the car took off through a red light.

Spike heels clattering like castanets, Cherise jaywalked across Mississippi, stopping traffic. Her skirt wasn’t especially short or tight, her neckline scooped just low enough to make things interesting. A faux fur coat and a wig with a twisted bun achieved an effect of semi-respectability. Jordan reached over and unlocked the passenger door. Cherise powdered her nose, she tapped her toe. He got out, held the door, shut it behind her. Cherise tuned the radio to the rhythm-and-blues station, and whisked her hand against the leathery upholstery before rendering her verdict. “Nice car,” she said.

“I got it for a song.”

“Threw you a compliment. Suppose to say how pretty I look.”

He’d said it to himself. What more did she need?

“I didn’t recognize you.”

“Spotted
you
a mile away,” she said. “I get all done up, and you, look at you, like you come from touting losers at the track. Would’ve hurt to put on a clean shirt?”

Whatever was bugging her, why take it out on him? How many other women from this part of town would have steak and lobster tonight in Atlantic City’s best restaurant? He rummaged in the glove compartment for a tie, and threaded it under his collar. Cherise batted his hands away. With a strangler’s determination she crafted a fat knot and cinched it tight, then smoothed the wrinkles against his chest.

“Live around here?” He pulled away from the curb, tromping on the brake as a couple of young women in low-cut tops ran across the street after a gang of GIs.

“I had business to tend to.”

It annoyed her that he didn’t ask what the business was. “Booking agent needed to talk to me about a job in Philadelphia,” she said.

“That’s good.”

“The producer wants a private audition at his place. That’s bad.”

The conversation stopped cold. The little they had in common didn’t include an ice-breaker. Etta’s disappearance, Francesca’s beating, Pelfrey’s fresh grave pressed on Jordan with the accumulated weight of all his other cases. Violent crime also exacted a toll on its chroniclers. If he found newspaper work again, he’d try for an assignment on the sports page, build his life around games.

Tarrantino’s
scripted in neon outshone the moon, two signs—front and back—strung between the stacks of an old Cape May-Lewes ferry tricked out with a paddle wheel like a Mississippi riverboat. As he walked Cherise on board some of the diners looked up like they’d discovered a roach in their soup. The hostess came without menus or a smile to say that reservations were required, and every table was booked solid into the spring. Jordan provided the smile. After a smoky fire several months ago he’d used the hostess’ picture with a thousand-word story, plugging the osso bucco. She brought them to Siberia, near the kitchen door. Cherise didn’t make a stink about it.

“Greenie took me one time to Merrill’s in Chelsea Heights,” she said. “Shylock friend of his was holding their note, and swore they’d give us the royal treatment. They refused service, but not on account of me. Didn’t want Greenie’s like on the premises.”