Torch Song (6 page)

The restaurant was as good as they had expected; Constance had sweetbreads. Charlie said he wished she wouldn't do that and she said at least she never made the dish at home, and he said she should wait until he was out of the country to eat it at all.

It was close to 9:30 when they left Chelsey House. Charlie drove to the supermarket, stopped, and gazed around Cedar Falls. There was a dim light in the market, another, dimmer light in the grocery store across the street from it, and a light at the service station. The antique store was dark. No one was in sight.

“What I'm thinking,” he said, starting to drive again, not toward Tuxedo Park, but back up the road toward Marla's house, “is that it was too public, the way she got rid of Pete. A fight for Roy to hear, driving through town, where everyone would be watching, dumping him and coming back, knowing she'd be watched all the way. She could have stopped, let him get out and hop in the backseat, scrunch down out of sight.”

“Where are you going?”

“Just looking. This sure is a dark road, isn't it?”

Dark, narrow, with occasional lights showing from houses that were not visible, the road wound uphill more steeply all the time. He slowed down and grunted in satisfaction. “I thought so,” he murmured, and made a turn to the right onto another narrow black road. After winding about for a bit, this road led downhill. A few miles later, there was a well-lighted intersection at State Highway 17. The information sign said that 1-84 was four miles to the left, Tuxedo Park three miles to the right. Charlie turned right, and within minutes they were back at their motel in Tuxedo Park.

“Escape hatch,” he said. “Thought there might be one. So our boy Pete could have gotten in that big black Buick and been gone without anyone ever suspecting he'd been around.”

There had been nothing in Marla's house to indicate that he had ever been there, but Pete was smart—he would have erased his tracks thoroughly. Charlie thought of upper New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut… He could be anywhere out there, secure, waiting to make his next move. Marla would be in touch with him, he felt certain. She would tell him they were sniffing around; they had done exactly what he had wanted them to do. Pete was toying with them, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it, except follow where the trail led, knowing that Pete had planned it this way, that the trail might be mined, booby-trapped a dozen different ways that no one could anticipate and avoid. Time was on Pete's side and he had enough money to carry out whatever plans he had made during his thirteen years in hell.

The drive to Middletown the next morning was quick and easy. The sun came out and all traces of winter were gone; that was deceptive at this time of year, Charlie had learned, but for now, today, the early spring made him cheerful. He found the strip mall without any trouble, and they drove behind it to look, as they had done with all the other buildings. This strip had a dozen shops—shoe store, florist, Chinese restaurant. Charlie's good humor faded as he studied the rear of the long, narrow structure: cement-block construction, metal window frames, barred windows. There were a few pallets leaning against the wall, two Dumpsters, a few stacks of cardboard boxes strapped together… and nothing that would burn more than ten minutes. Yet a shop had been destroyed, the owner killed. Mervin's Novelties, he remembered, and made a sharp turn at the end of the alley to drive by the front of the mall. No Mervin's Novelties. That business had not rebuilt Although the mall was open for business, there were few cars, few pedestrians. He pulled into a parking space and studied the layout of the strip mall.

“I see how the fire got inside,” Constance said, reading the report about this fire. “The back window to Mervin's shop was open; gasoline was sprayed in. He was in the rear section of the store.”

Charlie nodded, unhappy with it. You can't burn down a cement-block building, he thought grumpily. You don't leave a window open at three in the morning, even if it is barred. You don't sleep through alarms and get burned up when the outside door is a few steps away.

“Let's buy a flower and ask a question or two,” he said, nodding toward the florist shop. “For Auntie Geraldine.” The shop was in the space where he had expected to see Mervin's Novelties.

“Hi,” Charlie said to the woman in the florist shop. She was quite round, with iron gray hair and a pleasant smile. “Maybe we can find something in here, honey,” he said to Constance, and then turned to the woman. “We're on our way to Monticello, her aunt's birthday, and thought we should pick up something, since we left her present on our kitchen table. I left it there,” he said woefully. “Guy I know said there's a novelty shop around here somewhere, but we can't find it.”

“I'll just look around,” Constance said, peering at a birthday card. She replaced it and picked up another one.

“Well, people always like flowers,” the woman said. “A nice arrangement? Or a garden bouquet?”

“I don't know,” Charlie said. “Is there another mall like this down the road? Maybe the shop's in a different one.”

“You said a novelty shop. Like trick lapel buttons that squirt you? Whoopee cushions? For her aunt.”

“Is that what he meant?” Charlie said, aghast. He took a step backward.

“Well, if it is, the shop's gone. Used to be that space where your wife is looking for a card. I expanded when Mervin got burned out last year.”

“Gone,” Charlie echoed. “Burned out?” He looked around. “You, too?”

“No, hardly any damage in here, but his shop was destroyed. He died in the fire, poor man.”

“Gee,” Charlie said, and leaned in closer again. “Really? Right there?'

She nodded, then said in a low voice, “He must have been dead drunk. They say he opened his back window and fell asleep on the floor, never woke up. He was a lech,” she added, and pursed her lips. “Some of the stuff he had, well, pornographic comes to mind, but maybe others didn't see it that way. Well, I'm not saying he's paid for his sins—that's not up to me to judge—but he's gone, and that's for sure.”

“I can't imagine what my good buddy was thinking of, telling me to go to a place like that with my wife! Junk like that! What kind of stuff did he handle?”

“Oh, inflatable animals, lions, even a dinosaur, inflatable beds, anything you could blow up, he had. Dolls. Dolls with… you know, parts? Real junk. He had an inflated woman in his window for about a year, looked like a maid, you know, the high heels, little tiny skirt and apron, cap, everything. People would stop and pretty soon they'd be laughing, but some of his stuff wasn't funny, I don't think. I told him all that gas was dangerous, but he wouldn't listen to anyone, not him. You know gas explodes and spreads the fire something awful when it gets too hot.”

“Gas,” Charlie repeated. “He kept gas in there?”

“You know, for blowing up the balloons, the animals and people, all that. Real dangerous to keep gas around.”

“It's surprising that he could manage a business, what with chasing and boozing”

“Oh, he chased, all right, but he wasn't a real drinker. That's why it was surprising that time. But why else would he have stayed after the fire started? Unless he was out cold,” she said triumphantly. “Never went home that night. Got himself a bottle and started in and didn't quit until he passed out. Just that one time, and that one time's the one time the place catches on fire. Makes you think, doesn't it?”

“What do you mean he never went home? You mean he slept in his shop?”

“Just that one time…” she started again, and again made his head spin.

He tsked tsked. “Makes you think,” he said. “Sure does.” He looked at the rear of the shop, where Constance was reading another card. “Honey, just pick one, will you? Aunty Geraldine can't see it, anyway.”

“It has to be right,” Constance said primly; she replaced the card and picked up another one.

“We all think he had a girl in there. He had these books and magazines he kept locked up, and sometimes he'd pull his shade down and put the ‘Closed' sign up, and we knew he was in there with someone, probably showing her dirty pictures or something. He closed early that night, but he didn't leave.”

Charlie stared at her in disbelief. “That one time…” he said. She nodded vigorously. “What did the police say about
that?”
he asked in a hushed tone.

Now she drew back and looked at Constance. “I don't guess anyone mentioned it. You know, his wife, Shirley, I mean, what was the point in hurting
her
? She had enough to put up with when he was living and chasing, no cause to bring her more grief.” She was watching Constance.

“Honey,” Charlie called sternly, “if you're not through in two seconds, I'm leaving without you.”

Constance marched to the counter and put down a very large card with a red velvet rose. “And that box of chocolates,” she said, pointing.

“That's fifteen dollars!” Charlie exclaimed.

“If you hadn't left the birdcage on the table, we wouldn't have had to stop to buy anything. Pay the lady.”

A block away from the shop, she opened the box of candy and handed him a piece, took one for herself. They began to laugh.

“Birdcage!” he said.

“This is the one time that… I can't do it.” She laughed harder.

“That one time was the one time that…” He sputtered to a stop and ate the chocolate.

After a moment, he said, “I think it's a break. Someone might have seen something that night.”

Traffic was not bad, but still he had to pay attention. It was Sunday, and drivers who had not touched a wheel all week were out flexing muscles that were stiff and uncooperative. A Dodge passed him doing eighty and then slowed to fifty a car length ahead of him. Two other cars were dawdling in the passing lane. A U-Haul passed them on the right. Telephone, Charlie was thinking. He needed help. He spotted a gas station and diner and left the highway.

At a pay phone outside the diner, he dialed Brian Possner's number in Manhattan. A machine answered, as he had known it would, and he said, “Meiklejohn. I'll call back at one. Answer the damn phone then.” It was ten minutes before twelve, giving him plenty of time to decide exactly what to tell Brian.

His smile was beatific when he turned then to Constance. “Know what occurred to me out there on the driveway?” He took her arm and steered her toward the restaurant. “Ten percent of roughly six million smackeroos. Reward money for recovering the loot from that job Pete pulled thirteen years ago. You want a Danish with coffee? Let's live it up, kiddo.”

In a booth, sipping coffee that was very bad and nibbling on a Danish that was good, he made notes for Brian. “Keep her in sight,” he muttered. “From three until five every day, get any phone number she might call… .”

“And through the night,” Constance said. “She could leave any night in the Buick. Who would know? Nathan won't tell.”

“You think she'd leave him alone like that?”

“She does what she has to do for the greater good,” Constance said.

He made another note. This would get spendy, he knew, but eventually Marla would lead them to Pete. He wrote again in his own peculiar shorthand: “Find out who was in the novelty shop with Mervin, when she left, what shape he was in, when he opened the window, or if she did.” No doubt she was afraid of publicity, afraid to come out with it, but she could be found, questioned. Not by him. He was determined not to give Pulaski a clue about where he was heading with this. His guys would be all over the place showing Charlie's pictures, describing his car; they'd know he was snooping around, too. He might have gone too far already with the woman in the florist shop, but that was done; he doubted that she suspected she had been questioned. But he couldn't go back. Ten percent of six million, he thought. Worth the risk of keeping the ATF in the dark.

“I don't guess we could get a list of all the artists she deals with, the shops where she sells the jewelry,” Constance said thoughtfully. “She mentioned one woman, Sheila, who gave her the idea, and who has a man in Attica for life. What if Pete is staying with someone like her, upstate somewhere?”

Charlie shook his head. They couldn't even throw such a wide net, much less follow through—contact all her clients, investigate them all. There were federal and state agencies who could, but he wasn't part of them. Marla had to lead them to Pete. And she would, he added. She would. It was nearly one. He left Constance to go make his phone call. As he walked, it occurred to him that if he had an hour alone in Marla's house, and if she kept records, addresses, he would find them. He tried to dismiss the idea and dialed Brian's number.

When Charlie pulled up to Marla's front door, Roy's station wagon was already there, still ticking as the motor cooled. They had watched it drive by from a driveway down the road, had waited two minutes, and followed. Marla opened the door almost instantly. She was wearing a heavy sweatshirt, and she stepped out onto the front stoop, pulled the door closed after her.

“You can't come in,” she said. She sounded hoarse and looked as if she had not slept. “You got Nathan too upset yesterday. We were up all night. You can't come in and do it again.” She drew in a quick breath. “I called a friend this morning, and he said to tell you about him, about us. I don't have Pete here, and I don't know where he is. He won't come back. I told him I have a friend and he won't come back! I see someone every month. Up by Lake Champlain. He has a cabin up there where we stay.” She was hugging her arms about herself as if she was freezing.

“His name, Marla,” Charlie said.

“Scott Breckinridge. He teaches at Bennington and he has an art gallery. People come there to bring jewelry for me to take to New York, and then we go to his cabin. I go out to meet with other people during the day, and back there at night.”