False Negative (Hard Case Crime) (9 page)

“You sound hoarse,” Jordan said. “Bad cold?”

“It’s the tube in my nose.”

“What tube?”

“I’m in the hospital. Somebody tried to kill me,” Pelfrey said. “I’ve got something outside your backyard, if you don’t mind hitting the road.”

“Shoot.”

“It’s from Yardley, PA. Bucks County.”

“The Faber case.”

“That’s right. What do you hear?”

“No sign of forced entry, or sexual assault, nothing taken from the house. The children left unhurt in their room. In other words, the husband.”

Pelfrey was glad he’d given the case to Jordan, who seemed sober and on top of things. It wasn’t something he could say for many of his writers after ten.

“I’ll talk to the cops and the beat reporter, and hurry back to
the typewriter,” Jordan said. “After Dr. Faber is booked, I’ll slap a few graphs on the end, and you’ll have it.”

“Writing in advance of the arrest is not a good habit to get into,” Pelfrey said. “Cases don’t always turn out like they should. You’ll wind up with a pile of stories we can’t buy from you.”

“What else have I got to do?”

“Before you hang up—”

“Yeah?”

“The local reporter, if it’s Tom Flynn, he doesn’t know yet I took the case away from him and let you have it.”

“You’re pulling my leg,” Jordan said, “right? About someone trying to kill you?”

“Occupational hazard,” Pelfrey said. “Don’t let it bother you. It wasn’t Flynn.”

He came back from Yardley with enough for a book. When the arrest was made he would have a nice payday. Till then he’d cool his heels, unless another murder came along. He had no life until someone died horribly, but it beat having no life at all.

He steered past the Park Place restaurant where cops had shot the kid with the air gun. It was high time to get his shirt back from Mollie, the hostess. Smoothing his hair in the mirror, he saw through his lounge lizard smile. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about the shirt.

The girl handing out menus at the velvet rope wasn’t Mollie, and didn’t know where she’d gone. A waitress who looked familiar carried an empty tray into the kitchen, and Jordan dogged her to a twelve-burner stove.

“I’m trying to find Mollie Gordon,” he said.

“You’re the gent who told her he’d put her picture in the paper,” the waitress said, “and then you didn’t.”

“Turned out it wasn’t that kind of story.”

“Same old story, you mean.”

Why was it that every waitress in Atlantic City sounded like she was auditioning for a part in
Guys and Dolls
?

“I need to see her.”

“Another job opened up. Finding off-season work is like musical chairs for us gals, and she didn’t want to be the one left with no place to put herself. You’d think she’d remember to mention it to a classy fellow such as yourself.” The cook scraped something involving an egg off the griddle. He slid a plate under it, and the waitress caught the plate in her tray. Jordan followed her out of the kitchen.

“Where?” he said.

“On the beach. In Brigantine. It’s all I’m going to say.”

Mollie was at the cash register when he walked into the Rusty Scupper forty-five minutes later.

“How did you know I work here now?” she said.

“Finding out about people is what I do.”

“I thought they had to be dead.”

“Not all of them.”

“Or naïve.”

“Do you have my shirt?”

“I never go anywhere without it.”

The way she said it, not too sarcastic, he had a sick feeling she was going to hand it over on the spot, and he’d never see her again. And he wanted to see her more than he’d realized. She wasn’t the only one who’d been tight the night at his place. Why else hadn’t he realized how beautiful she was?

A couple came in shaking the sand out of their clothes. The woman was holding a book with an osprey pictured on the cover, and Jordan noticed other diners wearing binoculars around their neck. Mollie stepped around him, brought the couple to a banquette, and continued into the kitchen. Jordan had an idea she’d gone straight out the back till she put down two bottles of Rupert’s at a booth for six.

“You should have called,” she said. “You made a long trip for nothing.”

“You’d’ve told me to stay away.”

“I couldn’t force you. Just like you can’t make me talk about something that never should have happened.”

So beautiful he must have had the blind staggers, because being tight didn’t begin to explain it.

“I’d convinced myself it never did,” she said, “till Horty Miller told me a reporter came by. I’ve kept your shirt in my car ever since.”

“I didn’t know I’d find you here.”

“It’s your lucky day. I’ll get it now.”

“It can wait.”

“We can talk about the woman who had my job before me, Mrs. Chase.” She filled her glass, let him pour his own. “That way you won’t be wasting your time.”

“I need a break from murder.”

“Not with me.”

“You don’t feel uncomfortable taking over from a woman who was killed?”

“That’s not about her,” she said. “But I’ll answer anyway. Suzie Chase was in Atlantic City for the Miss America pageant. I’ve been thinking of taking her place there, too.”

“It’s not for everyone,” he said when he meant to say, It’s not for every beautiful girl.

She grabbed her bottle by the neck, emptied it. “I’m a former Miss Jersey Shore,” she said.

“You never mentioned it.”

“We did talk at your place, didn’t we?”

“Not much.”

“Maybe you weren’t listening. I’ve been on the beauty circuit since I was seventeen. I was Miss Delaware Valley 1951, and Miss Sussex County. Last year I was first runner-up Miss Poconos.”

“What are you now?”

“Sick of the whole scene,” she said. “Look at me. Look close.”

He’d never stopped. “Why the long face?”

“It isn’t long,” she said. “If it was long, I wouldn’t have gotten past the qualifying rounds. It’s sad, which is no good either. My skin’s a mess, so is my hair, and I put on six pounds I don’t know what to do with.”

“I wouldn’t bet against you.”

“You’re handing me a line. Being Miss Delaware Valley counts for nothing. I’ve seen pictures of Suzie Chase. Dressed to kill, I’m not as attractive as she was getting out of bed in the morning.”

“Don’t expect me to go along with that,” Jordan said. “There’s nothing wrong with you I can see.”

“What do you know about beautiful women?”

He knew that the prettiest girls he’d dated were the most insecure. None were as gorgeous as Mollie Gordon, or filled with as much self-doubt.

“Being Miss anything does come with side benefits,” she said. “I’m thinking of dusting off the old swimsuit.” She picked up her bottle again, and emptied it into his glass. “I have to lose six pounds, anyway. But you want to hear about Mrs. Chase.”

Not before he made his play to have her back at his apartment. New information about Suzie Chase was sexy, too, but hearing it now meant letting Mollie off the hook, and he didn’t know when he would find her so vulnerable again.

“You’ll need a new portfolio,” he said. “I may be able to help.”

“You’re also a glamor photographer?”

At last he had a smile from her. It didn’t mean he’d gotten anywhere.

“Do you know what the side benefits are?” she said. “Rich gentlemen falling all over themselves to do me favors. Are you rich?”

“I have a friend with a studio.”

“Pictures are expensive. I can’t pay now.”

“You can work out an arrangement.”

“I’m sure I can,” she said. “No thanks.”

“Tell me about Mrs. Chase.”

“We had something in common besides knowing how to stuff a swimsuit,” Mollie said. “She was also broke.”

“Where did the money go?”

“What money? The Scupper pays terribly. The owner, Rusty—his name is George Cochran, but that’s what we call him, Rusty—docks us if we’re a minute late, or we don’t dress like he wants, or we go home a little early. He could have shorted her for not putting out for him. Those are the side benefits
here
.”

“How do you get by?”

“Who says I’m getting by?”

“How did she?”

“She borrowed. She was gorgeous, sweet, and had her hand in the kitchen staff’s pocket. They knew they could collect from Rusty if she tried to stiff them, so they gave her what she wanted.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“Who’s telling the story?” Mollie said. “She put the arm on everybody, and then she died. No one got their money. The bus-boys haven’t stopped grumbling. The dishwasher who thought she had a crush on him is out a hundred bucks, and blames her for getting killed. No one had a motive for wanting her dead except for me, and I never met her.”

“Why you?”

“I’m going to be the next Miss New Jersey, or catch a rich husband trying. Suzie Chase was standing in my way.”

“A sugar daddy,” Jordan said.

“I could do worse.”

He pulled a face, drank his beer.

“Easy for you to say,” she said.

“Did Suzie already have a sugar daddy?”

“If she did, he wasn’t very sweet. Why else would she be borrowing from the kitchen staff?”

“I’d like to see you again,” Jordan said, “before you find a rich guy.”

“That night at your place, it was fun?”

“No complaints.”

“Would you say I enjoyed myself, too?”

“You gave every indication—”

“You read me wrong,” she said. “A good time for you isn’t a good time for me. That goes double when I’m out like a light.”

“You weren’t—”

He let it go. He wasn’t going to get anywhere telling her they hadn’t slept.

“Old men, are they fun?”

“Rich old men?” she said. “I’ll let you know.”

She smiled. It was the second smile he’d had from her, and he began to think she wasn’t as angry as she wanted him to believe. Then she drained her glass, and said, “I’ve got to get back to work now.”

“When’s your day off?”

“I’ll call you,” she said.

“You don’t have my number.”

“I had it from the start.”

Jordan was drafted during the final stages of the Pacific war, and did his basic training at Fort Dix. What the Pentagon needed in the spring of 1945 were bodies to fill uniforms, hundreds of thousands of men expected to be slaughtered in the invasion of the Japanese homeland. From Fort Dix he was sent to Camp Edwards, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, to become adept at taking a beach under artillery and machinegun fire while being strafed by Zeroes.

He was 18, fresh out of high school, and wasn’t leaving behind a promising career, a wife and kids, or steady girlfriend. Without means for tuition a college education was as real a possibility as a Hollywood screen test or a tryout at Ebbets Field. The arrival of his induction notice took his immediate future out of his hands. But he had an important decision left to make.

Before reporting for his physical on Whitehall Street in lower Manhattan he was advised by his friends on how best to flunk. He could elevate his blood sugar by drinking pure Coca-Cola syrup, and be rejected as a diabetic. He could raise his temperature by sprinkling cayenne pepper in his armpits. He could act insane, or play the spastic, or shit on the floor when told to bend over and spread his cheeks. He could wear a bra and panties under his suit. The army doctors wouldn’t be fooled. They recognized who was legitimately unfit for service and who was gold-bricking, but awarded 4-f status for initiative and determination.

Jordan accepted his 1-a gladly, eager to find out how he measured up against the heroes who had defeated Hitler and brought the war to the emperor’s backyard. Infantry school
added ten pounds of muscle to his frame. He relished learning how to fight, and after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed felt cheated when he was transferred to a military police unit under training in Fort Benning, Georgia. His IQ was wasted on a grunt. He was more valuable to Uncle Sam keeping the peace among GI’s in occupied Europe.

Jordan hated the South. It was hot, and there were poisonous snakes, and biting insects, and weeds that made him itch. Outside the base lurked the Klan. His New York accent made him the butt of idiotic jokes. Frequently a stranger’s hand would sweep his head, a new barracks mate checking for the horns Jordan was alleged to keep hidden under his crew cut.

Backed up against the base was a dreary strip of bucket-of-blood bars, two-dollar whorehouses, tattoo parlors, pawn shops, a chop suey place run by a tubercular Cantonese known as One Bum Lung, a rooster-fighting pit, back alley craps games, three stores that sold marital aids and Tijuana bibles, a clap clinic, a third-run movie house, 17 churches, a Salvation Army chapel, the USO. Jordan had no buddies in his unit, knew no one in town, and could not make heads or tails of the mushmouth dialect. He was dying of homesickness when he discovered jigtown.

It was still the nineteenth century in the Negro district of Columbus, Georgia, as Jordan saw things, the Emancipation Proclamation a hoax. Jigtown was poorer and more backward than other parts of Columbus. But Jordan had grown up around Negroes, had occasional Negro friends, and understood their take on the language. When a jigtown Negro tried to steer him to a nickel bag of marijuana he might have been back in the schoolyard at P.S. 161.

Jordan was not an idealist. He wore his big army revolver where the toughs wouldn’t miss it on his visits to the colored part of town. He went there for the jump jazz and rhythm and blues rather than drag his feet to Harry James and Sinatra
on the jukebox at the USO. No one spoke to him at the joints where he was barely tolerated as the only ofay. But he liked the loud humor of the other customers, liked watching them dance and carry on, and trailing after them to a barbecue stand for a big feed.

Negro refugees from southwest Georgia were well-established in Atlantic City. Jordan’s favorite place for barbecue was Mae’s in the colored district off Missouri Avenue near the Convention Center and the Million Dollar Pier. Jordan didn’t pretend that it was healthy food. The meat was not choice cut, and came out of the smoker dripping fat, a pallid vehicle for the spicy-sweet sauce heavy with molasses and God knows what else. If Jordan had advance notice that the sun was about to flame out, he would take all his meals at Mae’s until the earth turned to ice. But he was trying to fulfill his life expectancy, or at least to see his thirties, and so he stopped there no more than once a week, or when he was feeling let down and sorry for himself and wanted comfort, or was left hopeless about a girl.