"He still works at the plant."
That surprised me. "I thought her family didn"t like him."
"They didn"t like the idea of their daughter a.s.sociating with him, but he"s good at his job, so they kept him on."
"That"s pretty fair-minded. Ever think he might have something on her folks as well?"
"It"s a possibility, but if so, then it"s only enough to keep him at his present post, but not sufficient to promote him."
I got a flashlight from the glove compartment, went invisible, and floated across the street toward the house gate. I materialized long enough to get my bearings, then went up the steps and sieved through the cracks around the door.
Good thing for me and for Escott"s business that I didn"t have to bother about getting an invitation before crossing any new threshold.
Once inside, I went completely solid and took a moment to listen on the off chance that Escott"s information was less than perfect, but all was quiet. The shades were down, so my bobbing flashlight beam would be less likely to be seen by curious neighbors. I could have searched just as well without the flash, but I wanted to be thorough. It helped that the house wasn"t large, McCallen had few furnishings, and kept them basically tidy. Most of the stuff looked like it had come piecemeal from a secondhand store. Nothing matched, but it seemed to be of good quality. He bought what he needed and no more. A big chair with a floor lamp looming over it appeared to be his favorite roost downstairs. Within easy reach of it was a table with a radio. Scattered on the floor around was a stack of newspapers, another of magazines, and another of books. He had lots of those lodged in a number of bookshelves. I didn"t bother getting nosy about t.i.tles; I was here to find the envelope, not a handle on his character. I flipped through the papers and magazines and turned out any books large enough to hide an envelope, then flipped the chair over and checked there. Everything went back the way I found it, and I moved on to other areas.
In ten minutes I"d given the downstairs a good once-over, hitting all the obvious places. Nothing jumped out at me, though I did startle a cat and vice versa. The thing hissed at me and shot upstairs, and if my heart had been working it would have given out just then. I eventually followed the cat, thinking that if McCallen had hidden the goods anywhere, it would be in his bedroom. I spent half an hour there, going through the bureau, the closet, every shelf, every cranny, under the bed, behind the bed, under the mattress. At the risk of getting caught I turned on the light for a second to see if he might have tossed the goods up into the suspended overhead globe, but it was empty.
That left the rest of the place to cover, and I was starting to get frustrated and was wishing that Escott was along.
Maybe he couldn"t disappear at the drop of a bullet, but an extra pair of hands and eyes would have helped speed things. I checked the undersides of furniture and drawers to see if McCallen had taped anything there and did a fine- tooth comb routine all around a desk. It was stuffed with all kinds of papers, mostly handwritten, but not the ones I wanted.
Once finished with that, I hit the ground floor all over again, getting more detailed. I even checked the sleeves to his phonograph records to see if all they held was music. They did.
The bas.e.m.e.nt was next. This time I turned on the lights. It was dank and cool except near the furnace, with lots of crannies and dust, which proved helpful. Where it was thick and undisturbed I didn"t have to look so closely. To judge by the footprints, he hadn"t been down here in a while anyway. I went back up.
Two hours gone. I was nearly out of time and nothing to show for it. My guess was that McCallen had taken the stuff with him or hidden it in some other location, possibly even at his workplace. I"d looked at the tops of all the bookshelves and under all the rugs. The cat got over his fear of me and came out. While checking the icebox I found a plate of cooked fish and gave him a sliver or two. In a transport of feline affection he kept trying to turn figure eights around my ankles, meowing for more. A nuisance, but he gave me an idea, and I went up to the bathroom, where McCallen had a long flat aluminum pan full of sand for his pet. The envelope had been slipped exactly under it.
Feeling pretty c.o.c.ky, I gave the cat another sliver of fish and quit the place a few seconds later. Materializing across the street in a dense patch of tree shadow, I walked up to the car where Escott patiently waited. I half expected him to be asleep, but he had his eyes open, keeping himself occupied by puffing on his pipe. He perked up when I waved the envelope at him. I opened the pa.s.senger door, letting out a cloud if tobacco smoke, and boosted inside.
"Excellent!" he said, looking pleased. "Are you sure it"s the right one?"
"I took a gander and found a lot of stuff in a woman"s writing. Didn"t bother to read it."
He accepted the flashlight from me and looked for himself. "That"s her hand all right." I told him where it had been stashed and he chuckled and congratulated me on the fit of genius.
"McCallen"s gonna be madder"n h.e.l.l when he finds out," I said.
"I"ve no doubt of that, but he won"t be able to accuse Miss Sommerfeld of robbery without incriminating himself. If he becomes a nuisance, then your talent for persuasion might be necessary."
"Sure, just hope that he"s sober." My hypnosis didn"t work so well on drunks. "What now?"
"A swift delivery to our client and that should conclude things for us-if you have the time for it?"
"Yeah, sure. I always wanted to see how a cracker heiress lives." The evening was still young for me. Plenty of time before Bobbi"s last show. If there was no party afterward, I could take her to some all-night place for food, and then back to her flat for a little drink if she was in the mood.
Escott put the Nash in gear and drove a few miles west. Miss Sommerfeld lived in what the fancier estate agents might call a honeymooners" cottage. It wasn"t big, but had plenty of frills, standing on its own lot surrounded by a prissy-looking picket fence that wouldn"t keep out a determined Mexican hairless. The shutters, which were for decoration only, were painted pink and had little heart shapes cut into them. The window set in the front door was also heart-shaped. I"d seen something like it in a cartoon. The architect must have tied one on during Valentine"s Day and this was what he"d designed during the hangover.
She had a lace curtain covering the window and twitched it aside after Escott"s knock. Her eyes went wide as soon as she saw us, and she instantly unlocked the door and welcomed us in.
"Good news for you, Miss Sommerfeld," said Escott, handing her the envelope with a little bow that only English guys can get away with and not look awkward.
She went nuts in a happy kind of way for a few minutes, squealing, hopping, dancing around, and breathlessly thanking him half a dozen times. When she calmed down enough to remember herself, she invited us into her living room and offered to make coffee. Escott accepted, and while she went to the kitchen to fix things, he dropped onto her couch and allowed himself to deflate a bit. I felt tired just looking at him.
Her place wasn"t as fussily decorated as one might expect from its Swiss-chalet exterior. She had a few quality antiques mixed with quality modern, and the abstract paintings were expensive originals. When she came back with a tray of coffee and cookies, I asked if one of the paintings was by Evan Robley.
She was surprised and pleased. "Why, yes. You"re familiar with his work?"
"I met him a few times before last Christmas. He"s a nice guy."
"You met him! How interesting!" She launched into the source of the painting, some gallery I never heard of, and how she"d fallen in love with the colors and lines sprawling over the big canvas. "I can"t tell you why I like it, but I just do. It is beautiful, isn"t it? Quite my favorite."
I agreed with her and stood about ten feet away from the thing. As I"d thought, this was one of Evan"s specialty works. From any other angle, from any other distance, it was an abstract, but if you looked at it just right and focused hard, the hidden image he painted into the thing would reveal itself. Or in this case himself. Evan favored doing highly disguised self-portraits of his favorite piece of his own anatomy. Escott raised one eyebrow, apparently recalling what I"d once told him about Evan"s art, but I kept my mouth shut. Miss Sommerfeld"s sensibilities were safe with me.
Escott accepted a cup of black straight and did not provide her with details on how we recovered her papers. "The method is not as important as the fact that they are now in your possession. Mr. McCallen will likely be furious when he discovers what"s happened, so I hope you will take all necessary precautions to protect yourself."
"But he wouldn"t hurt me... or do you think-"
"It has been my experience that when one has prepared a defense against the darker side of human nature, one never suffers regret when it attempts a mischief."
"Yes, I suppose he might try getting back at me."
"Are you armed?"
She blinked, slightly shocked. "I"ve got a .22 in the nightstand, but I don"t think I"ll need it against him. He"s a lot of brag and bl.u.s.ter, but he would never hurt me."
"Famous last words," I said.
Her mouth sagged open.
Escott looked her hard in the eye. "Forgive my partner"s bluntness, Miss Sommerfeld, but you should take what he says to heart. I would prefer you to be safe rather than sorry."
Some of the color went out of her and she stammered out a thin thank-you for his concern. After that it was a question of her signing a last receipt, and then we left.
Escott made sure she had one of his cards with the home, office, and his answering-service numbers on it.
"Call us if you feel uneasy about anything, and call the police instantly at the least sign of trouble," he said.
She promised to do so and firmly locked her door behind us.
"Think she bought it?" I asked as we settled into the car again.
"One may hope so."
"Are you really worried about her?"
"A little. She"s all by herself." Escott had a streak of white knight in him. "Although my contact with McCallen has been brief, I would judge him to be too intelligent to make further trouble, but..."
"He could be Einstein and still fly off the handle and do something crazy," I concluded.
"Unfortunately, yes. I"ll phone her tomorrow to make sure she"s all right."
"Be careful. With all that attention she might dump that prince of hers for you."
"If you insist on being absurd, I shan"t stop you."
"What about me discouraging McCallen?"
"Only if he becomes a nuisance."
"If I get to him first then he won"t be."
"I"m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt."
"Famous last words," I said cheerfully.
Once we were back at the office, he counted out fifty dollars in bills and handed them to me.
I grimaced. "You know I don"t need this."
"Of course you don"t need it, but you have earned it. You did all the work tonight, and are more than ent.i.tled to your share of the payment. Take it so my books will balance."
I took it. "You heading home?"
"After a stop or two."
"Make sure one of "em"s an eatery. McCallen"s cat is better fed than you."
He gave an amused snort and promised to see to his nutritional requirements before too much time pa.s.sed. I wanted to tell him to get some sleep if he could, but bit it off. He could look after himself. Most of the time.
In my own car again, I drove a few blocks to a telegram office and bought a twenty-five-dollar money wire, arranging to have it delivered to my folks in Cincinnati Monday. The profits from the hardware business had dropped after the Wall Street crash, and Dad needed the help. My brothers and sisters had their own families and worries and couldn"t spare much themselves; I was the happy exception and sent something every month. I had to be careful, though. If I sent too much too often, Mom would demand to know where it all was coming from, and I never did learn how to lie to her, not face-to-face. It was easier in a letter or over the phone.
So far as my family was concerned I"d quit the not-too-terribly-respectable newspaper game in New York and gotten a steady job in a Chicago ad agency, working at writing copy for the very eccentric Mr. Escott. He didn"t give me much time off, so I couldn"t come home for visits just yet, but he was generous with bonuses for good work. Whenever I got a bonus I"d send it home to Mom with my compliments and the a.s.surance that I had enough left over to live on.
Not one of them knew about the vampire stuff, and I had no plans to ever tell them. I didn"t know how. It was just too private.
The whole business about exchanging blood, getting killed, and rising from the dead was not something I could easily talk about to anyone, much less my parents. Sure, they loved me, but I knew them well enough to know they simply would not understand what had happened. It was completely outside their safe and sane world. Telling them would change things between us, and the change would not be to the good.
I"d done the same shut-mouth routine when I"d come back from the war. Some of the horrors I"d seen weren"t worth recalling or repeating, so I just kept them to myself and told amusing stories about army life instead. To hear me talk you"d think I"d been on one long holiday. A lot of funny stuff did happen, so I wasn"t lying, only leaving out what was bad. The folks were better off not knowing some of the things their youngest child had had to do then.
Of course, some of the things I did now weren"t that much of an improvement.
There was one more place to go before I could run home, change to a suit, and get to the club and Bobbi. It called for a long drive, picking my way through block after block until I crossed into what was pretty much a separate city within the city-the Bronze Belt, as it was called by the white people, where Chicago"s Negro population flourished.
Whites did not venture here if they could help it, but I"d appointed myself the exception and sailed in.
Some spots were full of activity, taverns and churches mostly, not much different from any other part of the town. I drove past, stopped at the lights when I had to, and got stared at a lot. Most people were indifferent, a few were hostile, for which I had no blame. If times were tough everywhere, they were twice as tough here. I found the place I wanted, but no close parking s.p.a.ce. After circling the block once, I eased into an opening a few dozen yards away, got out, and locked up. A man jeered at me and another told him to shut up. There was definitely something to this dressing tough.
The building I wanted was old, like those surrounding it, and in just slightly better repair. Lights were on in many of the windows, spilling out onto the cracked pavement. It was surprising just how many people were taking the trouble to stop and watch me walk.
The door to the building got shoved open just before I reached it, and a large brown man emerged. He wore a white cook"s ap.r.o.n covered with stains. He brought with him the smell of hot oil and raw onions.
"Hi, Sal," I said, putting my hand out to him. "Thought I"d come by for a visit."
Sal frowned at my hand and rubbed his own on the ap.r.o.n. "Miss Trudence is out on a call right now. You best come by another time."
His boss lady was a nurse and frequently away from the place. "That"s too bad. I brought a little contribution to the cause. Will you give it to her when she returns?"
"She don"t want no mob money."
"I know the rules, and it ain"t mob money. I earned it fair and square doing a job for Charles Escott. She can call him and check if she wants."
"Got no phone here."
"I forgot."
"Maybe you should come back later."
"And maybe you got kids that need milk right now. Just give this to her for me, will you?" I took two tens and a five and held it out to him, better than a week"s good wages in this neighborhood.
He scowled like I"d offered him a month-old fish. "How you know I won"t just keep it?"
"Because you work for Miss Tru, and G.o.d help anyone who doesn"t play square with her."
The scowl relaxed a little. "You say it"s honest?"
"Word of honor. I"ve done this before. She knows I"m okay."
"Well... I guess." He took the cash and shoved it in a pocket. "You wanta come in or anything?"
Behind him was the unnamed haven Trudence Coldfield ran as best she could against the hard times and overwhelming odds. Her one-woman crusader"s palace was usually crowded with women and kids, victims of hard luck, hard life, or both. She offered shelter, food, healing, and advice, and in return expected them to put work into the place as part of their payback. She"d helped me when I needed it once, but my payback took the form of cash donations.
I wasn"t sure how Sal fit into the picture, whether he was her boyfriend or just friend, but he did seem to be second-in- command of things.
"I might scare the kids," I said. His lukewarm att.i.tude clued me on the proper response to his invitation. Inside I could hear people talking and a radio playing.
Sal unbent a little more. "Yeah, they might think you a ghost "r something."
"Tell Miss Tru I said h.e.l.lo."
"Okay." He stood and watched as I went back down the street again. I couldn"t tell if it was motivated by suspicion or to keep an eye on me. Not so many people stared this time.
"Hey! White boy! What business you got here? You looking to get your a.s.s kicked?"
I would have kept going, but the voice was familiar and coming from a shiny new Nash that had pulled up behind and was pacing me. Shoe Coldfield was in the backseat. He"d partly rolled down a thick, bulletproof window to yell at me.
I walked over, grinning, and the car stopped. "Hey, yourself. How you doing? Isham, is that you?"
The driver turned enough to throw me a smile and nod.