Cinderella

2

There were flies buzzing around the cheese Danish on Frank Summerville’s desk. He was drinking coffee from a soggy cardboard container, and he was glaring sternly at Matthew over the rim of it.

“I don’t want you getting involved in this,” he said.

“Otto was a friend,” Matthew said.

“Otto was a private eye who occasionally did work for us.”

“No, Frank, he was a friend. I liked him.”

“I liked him, too,” Frank said. “But now he is dead, Matthew. He was shot in the head, Matthew. Twice, Matthew. His murder has nothing whatever to do with us, and I want you to stay away from the Public Safety Building and Detective Morris Bloom, do you hear me, Matthew?”

“Morrie’s on vacation,” Matthew said.

“Good,” Frank said.

He was a half-inch shorter and ten pounds lighter than Matthew. They both had dark hair and brown eyes, but Frank’s face was somewhat rounder, what he himself called a “pig face.”

In Frank’s physiognomical filing cabinet, there were only two kinds of faces: pig and fox. Frank also believed that there were only two kinds of names: Eleanor Rigby names and Frère Jacques names. Benny Goodman was a Frère Jacques name. “Benny Goodman, Benny Goodman, dormez-vous, dormez-vous?” Robert De Niro was an Eleanor Rigby name, “Robert De Niro, puts on his face from a jar that he keeps by the door...” Frank further believed that there were only two kinds of people in the world: the Tap Dancers and the Touchers. He considered himself a tap dancer because he was very agile at gliding away from any sticky situation. He considered Matthew a toucher because he was always getting involved in situations he had no business getting involved in.

“I’m going over to his office later today,” Matthew said.

“Whose office?” Frank said. “You just told me he’s on vacation.”

“Otto’s.”

“What for?”

“I want to hear what was on that tape.”

“Otto’s murder has nothing to do with us, Matthew.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“He was working a lousy surveillance!”

“Maybe somebody didn’t like the idea, Frank.”

“Matthew... please. Do me a favor...”

“I want to hear that tape.”

The people of Calusa, Florida, liked to believe there was no crime here at all; the uniformed cops and detectives who worked out of the Public Safety Building were concerned only with such things as citizens stubbing their toes.

Public safety.

Not crime.

But in Rand McNally’s most recent Places Rated Almanac, there was a section that rated metropolitan areas from safest — the number-one position — to most dangerous — the 329th position.

Wheeling, West Virginia, was rated the safest city in America.

Number One.

New York, New York — Frank’s beloved Big Apple — was rated the most dangerous city in America.

Number 329.

Chicago, Illinois — Matthew’s hometown — was rated 205.

And crime-free Calusa was rated 162, virtually midway down the Rand McNally list, only forty-three slots higher than big bad Chicago, and apparently not as safe as the citizens here dreamt it to be.

To hear them talk about the murder of Otto Samalson, you’d have thought this was the first time anyone had ever been killed down here. Oh my, how shocking. Shot twice in the head. Unthinkable. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Blue-haired ladies shaking their heads and refusing to believe that public safety meant anything more than avoiding banana peels on the sidewalks. Such an embarrassment. It annoyed Matthew that Otto Samalson had become an embarrassment to Calusa, Florida — where homicides never happened except on a motion picture or television screen.

He did not get to Otto’s office until a little after noon that Monday. By then he had spoken on the telephone to at least a dozen people who clucked their tongues (and undoubtedly wagged their heads, which Matthew could not see) over the unfortunate death on a public thoroughfare of a man whose profession was questionable at best. It took him ten minutes to walk from his own office to Otto’s office in downtown Calusa. Downtown Calusa. The words somehow conjured a giant metropolis. Like downtown Calusa, man, you dig? Same as downtown New York or downtown Chicago. Downtown Detroit. Downtown LA.

Well...

Downtown Calusa was exactly nine blocks long and three blocks wide. The tallest buildings in downtown Calusa, all of them banks, were twelve stories high. Main Street ran eastward from the Cow Crossing — which was now a three-way intersection with a traffic light, but actually had been a cow crossing back when the town was first incorporated — to the County Court House, which, at five stories high, was the tallest building anywhere on Main. The other buildings on Main were one- and two-story cinderblock structures. The banks were on the two streets paralleling Main to the north and south. So when you said “downtown Calusa,” you weren’t talking about a place that also had an uptown. There was no uptown as such. There was simply downtown Calusa and then the rest of Calusa.

Similarly, when you saw a frosted glass door and the lettering on it read—

— you expected to open that door and find behind it a suite, which by strict definition was a series of connected rooms and which in the popular imagination (like downtown Calusa, man!) conjured grandness, a suite at the Plaza Athenée, right?

Well, when you opened the frosted glass door to Otto’s office, you found yourself in a reception room measuring six by eight feet and crammed to bursting with a wooden desk, and a typewriter on it, and In and Out baskets to the left of the typewriter, and papers all over the desk, and a wooden chair behind it, and an upholstered easy chair opposite it, and green metal filing cabinets, and bookshelves, and a Xerox machine, and a coatrack, and walls hung with pictures of presidents of the United States, only two of whom Matthew recognized. On the wall opposite the entrance door, there was another door, presumably leading to the rest of the “suite.”

A Chinese woman was sitting behind the reception room desk. She did not look at all like the Dragon Lady. She had black hair and eyes the color of loam, and she was wearing a Chinese-style dress with a mandarin collar, but that was where the resemblance ended. Matthew guessed she was in her fifties, as plump as a dumpling, as tiny and as squat as a fire hydrant.

“Yes?” she said. “May I help you?”

Perfect English. Not a trace of sing-song.

“I’m Matthew Hope,” he said. “Summerville and Hope. Mr. Samalson was doing some work for us.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m May Hennessy. Otto’s assistant.”

He had spoken to her on the phone more times than he could count, but he had never once guessed she was Chinese. Always figured Otto’s assistant was a big redheaded Irish lady who carried a blackjack in her handbag. May Hennessy. That’s what a May Hennessy should have looked like. He glanced at her left hand resting on the typewriter. No wedding band. So where’d the Hennessy come from? Had her mother been Chinese, her father Irish? Or was she divorced?

“Hell of a thing, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Nicest man who ever lived.”

“Yes,” Matthew said, nodding.

There was an awkward silence.

“Miss Hennessy,” he said, “when I saw Otto on Friday, he mentioned a tape he’d made. On the Nettington case. He said it was in the safe.” He paused and then said, “Could I possibly have that tape?”

May Hennessy looked at him.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Would there be any problem with that? I know my client—”

“Well, I can’t see any problem as such,” May said. “Your client was paying Otto to make that tape, so I guess you’re entitled to it. It’s just...”

“Yes?”

“Well, the detectives asked me...”

“Oh? Have they been here?”

“Been here all morning,” May said. “Left just a few minutes ago.”

“Who? Which ones?”

“Hacker and Rawles.”

“Have they sealed the office?”

“Well, this isn’t a crime scene, I don’t suppose they’ll be sealing it, do you? It’s just... they want me to gather all the current files, the cases Otto was working on when he got killed.” She shook her head. “I still can’t say those words. I get a lump in my throat if I even think those words.”

“Yes,” Matthew said.

“So I guess that includes the tape, don’t you?”

“I would guess so. When will they be coming back for the files, did they say?”

“I told them it’d take me a while. The phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning. He had a lot of friends, Otto.”

“But will they be coming back later today?”

“I told them around five, five-thirty.”

“I wonder if you’d do me a favor, Miss Hennessy.”

“You want to hear that tape, don’t you?” she said. “Before I give it to the police.”

“Please.”

“I can’t see any harm in that,” she said.

“May I take it with me? I’ll bring it back in an hour or so.”

“You can listen right here,” she said. “If you’re worried about me, I’ve already heard anything that could be on that tape a hundred times before. I’ve been working with Otto for ten years now, Mr. Hope. There’s no more dirty surprises for me.

Matthew hesitated.

“You can go in his office and close the door if you think I’ll be embarrassed,” May said. “The recorder’s on his desk. I’ll get the tape for you.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And Miss Hennessy... these cases Otto was working? The current ones?”

“Yes?”

“How many were there?”

“Just yours and one other.”

“Both here in Calusa?”

“Yes.”

“Are the files very thick?”

“How could they be? He only started working yours a few weeks ago and the other one around the end of April.”

“Miss Hennessy... I wonder... after I hear the tape, would you mind very much if I Xeroxed those files?”

“It’s a free country,” May said, “and so far nothing’s been impounded.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“I’ll get that tape,” she said.

A taped conversation somehow always sounded more immediate and real than a live one. Matthew didn’t know why that was so. He guessed that when people were actually engaged in a conversation, they didn’t notice how sloppy and ragged it was. Like life itself, he guessed. But listening to a conversation on tape, you realized that continuity and order were for novels and movies. In real-life conversation, people invariably meandered far afield, sometimes returning to a point minutes later, often seeming to forget it altogether. Interruptions were frequent, overlapping was common, entire passages sometimes made no sense at all. Listening to a taped conversation was compelling because, first of all, it was so shockingly real, and second, the listener was unquestionably eavesdropping. The conversation between Daniel Nettington and a woman identified on Otto’s hand-lettered cassette label as Rita Kirkman (but only as “Rita” on the tape itself) was even more compelling because the people talking were lovers.

Otto’s private office was larger than the reception area — eight by ten as opposed to six by eight — but just as cluttered. It enjoyed the advantage of a window, however, which, combined with its few extra feet, made it seem spacious by comparison, even if the only view from the window was of a bank building across the street. The desk, a twin sister to the one in the reception room, was piled high with papers. There were bookshelves and filing cabinets and a standing electric fan and a small-screen television set and a radio and two wooden chairs with arms and a typewriter on a stand and, on the wall opposite the desk and surrounded by charcoal drawings of nudes, Otto’s framed Class-A license to operate a private investigative agency in the state of Florida.

In accordance with Chapter 493 of the Florida Statutes, such a license granted to its recipient the right to investigate, and to gather information on, a wide range of matters that included:

• The credibility of witnesses or other persons...

• The whereabouts of missing persons...

• The location or recovery of lost or stolen property, and...

• The causes and origin of fires, libels and slanders.

The license further permitted the investigator to:

• Secure evidence to be used in the trial of civil or criminal cases, and...

• When operating under express written authority of the governmental official responsible, to investigate crimes or wrongdoings against the United States or any state or territory of the United States.

All for a hundred bucks.

Which was what the license cost annually.

Renewable before midnight on the thirtieth day of June.

This year, Otto Samalson would not be renewing his license. Nor would he be posting the five-thousand-dollar bond required by subsections 493.08 and 493.09.

Matthew took the cassette May had given him, inserted it into the recorder, sat down behind Otto’s desk — facing the wall with its framed license and its charcoal nudes — and pressed the play button.

...of getting away for at least a weekend.

I don’t know, Rita. I’ll have to see.

I don’t want to force you into doing anything you—

He hit the stop button. Obviously, he’d started the tape someplace beyond the beginning. He rewound it now, pressed the stop button again, and then the play button.

...of getting away for at least a weekend.

I don’t know, Rita. I’ll have to see.

I don’t want to force—

He hit the stop button again. Okay, he had it now. The recorder Otto had planted under the bed was voice-activated. It probably had a good pickup range, and it had begun taping as they came into the bedroom, Rita continuing a sentence she had already started before entering the room. Nodding, Matthew rewound the tape, and started it all over again.

...of getting away for at least a weekend.

I don’t know, Rita. I’ll have to see.

I don’t want to force you into doing anything you don’t want to—

You’re not forcing me into—

It’s just...

That’s the thing of it.

Meeting here all the time.

I know.

Silence.

Matthew listened.

Suddenly:

Mmm.

Yeah.

And another long silence.

He guessed they were kissing.

The silence lengthened. Then:

Don’t you think I want to get away?

I know you do, Dan.

Take this off, okay? But I don’t have the kind of job...

I know.

Some guys travel all the time, you know.

It’s difficult for you, I know.

Guys in sales...

They go all over, I know.

The bra, too.

I’m not saying we should go away for two, three weeks...

Two, three...?

I know, did I...?

Impossible.

Did I say two, three weeks?

Two, three weeks, whoo.

Impossible, I know.

Impossible.

I said a weekend is what I said.

Another silence.

Matthew listened.

Murmurs on the tape.

Then:

God, you’re gorgeous.

Silence again.

Then the woman’s voice:

Ooooo, yes.

And more silence.

Matthew sighed.

Careful, they’re a little sore.

Sorry.

I’m about to get my period.

Silence.

Then the man’s voice:

I’d better take these pants off.

Yeah.

Don’t want to go home wrinkled.

That’s what I mean.

What do you mean?

About a weekend.

Yeah, what?

All I’m asking is a weekend.

I know that. Look, if I had Freddie’s job—

Because if we went away, you wouldn’t have to worry about getting wrinkled or getting lipstick on you or smelling of perfume or—

Away three, four months out of the year, Freddie.

Yeah, but you haven’t.

I know I haven’t. Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix.

Sure, that’d be ideal.

You could meet me anywhere.

Maybe I oughta give Freddie a call, huh?

Oh, sure.

Meet him in Los Angeles sometime.

Yeah, sure.

Silence.

Then the woman’s voice:

Oh my, where’d that come from?

You like that, hmm?

I love it. Bring it over here.

The creak of bed springs.

Mmmm.

And again... silence.

Matthew looked at the charcoal drawings of the nudes. He looked at Otto’s framed license. He looked at the bank building across the street. He listened to the sounds coming from the recorder. Suddenly—

Nettington’s voice:

Don’t stop, Rita.

And more sounds.

Deeper, honey.

And heavy breathing.

That’s it.

And a gasp.

Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.

And a moan.

And a sigh.

And silence.

The tape kept unreeling.

Silence.

Another sigh. Heavier.

Then Rita again:

Was that good, baby?

Nobody does that like you.

How about Carla?

Make me so fuckin’—

How about your wife, baby?

— big.

Mmm.

Silence.

Matthew listened.

You want a cigarette?

Please. What do you think of the Fourth?

The sound of a match striking.

Someone exhaling.

Thanks.

Let me get an ashtray.

For our weekend. The Fourth falls on a Friday this year.

Silence.

Then Nettington’s voice, distant at first:

I don’t think we ought to...

And then coming closer, probably as he carried an ashtray back to the bed:

...take any chances right now.

We could leave late Thursday night, come back late Sunday.

Too risky.

Be a nice long weekend, Dan.

Not right now. I think she’s getting suspicious.

Oh?

Yeah, I think she suspects some...

What makes you...?

Just a feeling.

Has she said anything?

No, no.

Anyway, who gives a fuck, actually?

Well, I don’t want to...

I mean, I just don’t give a fuck if she knows or she doesn’t know.

This isn’t the right time, that’s all. I just don’t want her to find out right now, that’s all.

When is the right time, Dan?

Not now. If we’re gonna do this, we have to prepare for it.

Sure, prepare.

Otherwise she walks off with everything I’ve got.

You’ll never be ready to leave her.

That’s not true, Rita.

It’s true. You can’t take me away for a weekend, you’re going to leave her?

Well...

You can’t even take me out to dinner.

Not right now, Rita.

I must be dreaming.

It’s too dangerous right now.

Why? If she hasn’t said anything...

She hasn’t, but...

Then what makes you think...?

Just a feeling. I thought I saw somebody.

What do you mean?

I don’t know. Just a feeling.

You saw somebody? Here? Tonight?

I’m not even sure.

But here?

No. The past couple of days. Just a feeling.

Silence.

Then:

I don’t want to get caught, Rita.

We won’t get caught.

I don’t want to.

We won’t.

A deep sigh. Silence.

Matthew listened.

How much time have we got?

The woman. No answer from Nettington.

Dan?

Mmm.

What are you doing there?

Looking.

At what?

That car across the street. Was it here when I got here?

What car?

Across the street.

What kind of car?

I can’t tell from here.

Well, what color is it?

Blue? Green? Come take a look.

I don’t want to take a look.

Does anybody across the street own a blue car? Or a green one?

I don’t know what they own. What time do you have to leave?

I’ve got an hour or so.

Then come here.

Silence.

The tape unreeled.

There were only sounds on it now.

Harsh breathing.

Rita moaning.

And at last:

Oh, Jesus, give it to me!

And she screamed.

And the tape ended.