C is for Corpse

Chapter 18

When I was safely back in my apartment again, I took out the credit-card receipt I'd lifted from Lila's shoe box. The date on it was May 25 and the store was located in Las Cruces. The credit-card imprint read "Delia Sims." In the box marked "phone number," someone had obligingly penned in a phone number. I hauled out my telephone book and looked up the area code for Las Cruces. Five-oh-five. I picked up the receiver and dialed the number, wondering as I heard it ring on the far end just what I intended to say.

"Hello?" Man's voice. Middle-aged. No accent.

"Oh hello," I said smoothly. "I wonder if I might speak to Delia Sims."

There was a moment of silence. "Hang on."

A palm was secured across the mouthpiece and I could hear muffled conversation in the background.

The receiver was apparently taken over by someone else, because a new voice inquired, "May I help you?"

This one was female and I couldn't classify the age.

"Delia?" I said.

"Who is this, please?" The tone was guarded, as though the call might be obscene.

"Oh, sorry," I said. "This is Lucy Stansbury. That's not you, is it, Delia? It doesn't sound like your voice."

"This is a friend of Delia's. She not here at the moment. Was there something I might help you with?"

"Well, I hope so," I said, mind racing. "Actually, I'm calling from California. I just met Delia recently and she left some of her things in the backseat of my car. I couldn't figure out any other way to reach her except to try this number, which was on a credit-card receipt for a purchase she made in Las Cruces. Is she still in California or is she home again?"

"Just a minute."

Again, a palm across the mouthpiece and the drone of conversation in the background. The woman came back on the line.

"Why don't you give me your name and number and I'll have her get back to you?"

"Oh sure, that's fine," I said. I gave her my name again, spelling it out laboriously and then I made up a telephone number with the area code for Los Angeles. "You want me to mail this stuff back to her or just hang on to it? I'd feel bad if I thought she didn't realize where she'd left it."

"What exactly did she leave?"

"Well, most of it's just clothes. A summer dress I know she's fond of, but I don't guess that matters much. I do have that ring of hers with the square-cut emerald and the little diamond baguettes," I said, describing the ring I'd seen Lila wearing that first afternoon in Henrys garden. "Do you expect her back soon?"

After the barest hesitation, the woman's chill reply came. "Who is this?"

I hung up. So much for trying to fool the folks in Las Cruces. I couldn't imagine what she was up to, but I sure didn't like the notion of this real-estate venture she'd proposed to Henry. He was so smitten, she could probably talk him into anything. She was moving quickly too, and I thought I better come up with some answers before she took him for all he was worth. I reached for a pile of blank index cards in my top desk drawer, and when the phone rang moments later, I jumped. Shit, could someone have put a trace on the call that fast? Surely not.

I lifted the receiver with caution, listening for the white noise of a long-distance connection. There was none.

"Hello?"

"Miss Millhone?" Male. The voice sounded familiar, though I couldn't for the moment figure out who it was. Music blasting in the background was forcing him to yell, and I found myself yelling too. "This is she."

"This is Gus," he hollered, "Bobby's friend from the skate-rental place."

"Oh, it's you. Hello. I'm glad you called. I hope you have some information for me. I could sure use the help."

"Well, I've been thinking about Bobby and I guess I owe him that much. I should have spoken up this afternoon."

"Don't worry about it. I appreciate your getting back to me. You want to get together or just talk on the phone?"

"Either way is fine. One thing I wanted to mention-and I don't know if this would be a help or not-but Bobby gave me this address book you might want to take a look at. Did he ever talk to you about that?"

"Of course he did. I've been turning the town upside down looking for that thing," I said. "Where are you?"

He gave me an address on Granizo and I said I'd be right there. I hung up the phone and grabbed my handbag and car keys.

Gus's neighborhood was poorly lighted and the yards were flat patches of dirt, graced with occasional palm trees. The cars parked along the curbs were primer-painted low riders with bald tires and ominous dents. My VW fit right in. About every third property boasted a brand-new chain link fence, erected to corral God knows what kind of beast. As I passed one house, I heard something that sounded ugly and snappish scramble forward to the length of its choke chain, whimpering hoarsely when it couldn't quite get to me. I picked up my pace.

Gus lived in a tiny frame cottage in a U-shaped courtyard ringed with cottages. I passed through an ornamental entranceway with the street number in wrought iron arched across it in a rainbow shape. There were eight units altogether, three on each side of a central walkway and two at the end. All were cream-colored and even in the darkness looked drab with soot. I identified Gus's place because the music thundering out was the same stuff I'd heard on the phone. Up close, it didn't sound as good. His front drape consisted of a bedsheet slung over a curtain rod and the knob on his screen was an empty wooden spool on a nail. I had to wait for a brief silence between cuts to pound on the doorframe. The music started up again with a vengeance, but he'd apparently caught my knock.

"Yo!" he called. He opened the door and held the screen for me. I stepped into the room, assaulted by heat, loud rock, and the strong smell of catbox.

"Can you turn that shit down?" I yelled.

He nodded, moving to the stereo, which he flicked off. "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "Have a seat."

His place was about half the size of mine and jammed with twice the furniture. King-sized bed, a big chest of drawers in pecan-wood plastic laminate, the stereo cabinet, sagging brick-and-board bookcases, two upholstered chairs with shredded sides, a space heater, and one of those units the size of a television console, housing sink, stove, and refrigerator. The bathroom was separated from the main room by a panel of material hanging on a length of twine. The room's two lamps were draped with red terry-cloth towels that muted their two-hundred-and-fifty-watt bulbs to a rosy glow. Both chairs were filled with cats, which he seemed to notice about the same time I did.

He gathered one batch of them up by the armload as if they were old clothes and I sat down in the space he had cleared. As soon as he tossed the cats on the bed, they made their way back to their original places. One of them kneaded my lap as if it were a hunk of bread dough and then curled up when he was satisfied with the job he'd done. Another one crowded in beside me and a third one settled on the arm of the chair. They seemed to eye each other, trying to figure out who had the best deal. They appeared to be full-grown and probably from the same litter, as they all sported thick tortoiseshell coats and heads the size of softballs. There were two adolescent cats curled up in the other chair, a buff and a black, tangled together like mismatched socks. A sixth cat emerged from under the bed and paused, pointing each hind foot in turn. Gus watched this feline activity with a shy smile, his face flushed with pride.

"Aren't they great?" he said. "I just never get tired of these little peckerheads. At night, they pile on the bed with me like a quilt. I got one sleeps on my pillow with his feet in my hair. I can kiss their little faces anytime I want." He snatched one up and cradled it like a baby, an indignity the cat endured with surprising passivity.

"How many do you have?"

"Six right now, but Luci Baines and Lynda Bird are both pregnant. I don't know what I'm gonna do about that."

"Maybe you could get them fixed," I said helpfully.

"Well, after this batch is born, I guess I should. I'm real good at finding homes for the kittens, though, and they're always so sweet."

I wanted to mention how good they smelled too, but I didn't have the heart for sarcasm when he was clearly so crazy about his brood. There he was, looking like a police artist's composite of a sex killer, making a fool of himself over this collection of domesticated furs.

"I guess I should have spoken up sooner about this stuff," he was saying. "I don't know what got into me." He crossed to the bookshelf and sorted through the mess on top, coming up with an address book about the size of a playing card, which he held out to me.

I took it, leafing through. "What's the significance? Did Bobby fill you in?"

"Well no. He told me to keep it and he said it was important, but he didn't explain. I just assumed it must be a list or a code, some kind of information he had, but I don't know what."

"When did he give you this?"

"I don't remember exactly. It was sometime before the accident. He stopped over one day and gave it to me and asked me if I'd just hold on to it for him, so I said sure. I'd forgotten all about it until you brought it up."

I checked the index tab for B. There wasn't a Blackman listed there, but I did find the name penciled inside the back cover, with a seven-digit number beside it. No area code indicated, so it was probably local, though I didn't think it matched the number for S. Blackman I'd found in the telephone book.

"What did he actually say at the time?" I asked. I knew I was repeating myself, but I kept hoping to solicit some indication of Bobby's intent.

"Nothing really. He wanted me to hang on to it is all. He didn't tell you either, huh?"

I shook my head. "He couldn't remember. He knew it was important, but he had no idea why. Have you ever heard the name Blackman? S. Blackman? Anybody Blackman?"

"Nope." The cat was squirming and he put it down.

"I understand Bobby had fallen in love with someone. I wonder if it might have been this S. Blackman.''

"If it was, he didn't tell me. A couple of times he did meet some woman down at the beach. Right out in that parking lot by the skate shack."

"Before the accident or afterwards?"

"Before. He'd sit in his Porsche and wait and she'd pull in and then they'd talk."

"He never introduced you or mentioned who she was?"

"I know what she looked like but not her name. I saw 'em go in the coffee shop once and she was built odd, you know? Kind of like a Munchkin. I couldn't figure that out. Bobby was a good-lookin' guy and he always hung out with these real foxy chicks, but she was a dog."

"Blond wispy hair? Maybe forty-five?"

"I never saw her up close so I don't know about her age, but the hair sounds right. She drives this Mercedes I see around now and then. Dark green with a beige interior. Looks like a 'fifty-five or 'fifty-six, but it's in great shape."

I glanced through the address book again. Sufi's address and telephone number were listed under the D's.

Had he been having an affair with her? It seemed so unlikely. Bobby had been twenty-three years old and, as Gus said, a good-looking kid. Carrie St. Cloud had mentioned a blackmailing scheme, but if Sufi was being blackmailed by someone, why would she turn to him for help? Surely it wasn't a matter of her blackmailing him. Whatever it was, it gave me a lead and I was grateful for that. I tucked the book in my handbag and looked up. Gus was watching me with amusement.

"God, you should see your face. I could really watch the old wheels turn," he said.

"Things are beginning to happen and I like that," I said. "Listen, this has been a big help. I don't know what it means yet, but believe me, I'll figure it out."

"I hope so. I'm just sorry I didn't speak up when you asked. If there's anything else I can do, just let me know."

"Thanks," I said. I shifted the cat off my lap and got up, shaking hands with him.

I went out to my car, brushing at my jeans, picking cat hair off my lip. It was now ten o'clock at night and I should have headed home, but I was feeling wired. The episode at Moza's and the sudden appearance of Bobby's address book were acting on me like a stimulant. I wanted to talk to Sufi. Maybe I'd stop by her place. If she was up, we could have a little chat. She'd tried once to steer me away from this investigation and I wondered now what that was about.