Gone, No Forwarding

Twenty-Six

When the phone rang at seven o’clock on Friday morning, Corinne Jones was sitting on the edge of her bed and marveling at what a good night’s sleep she’d had once she knew Bart hadn’t been fooling around with that topless bitch back in New Orleans. But the phone started it up again. Who called you at seven in the morning? The breather with another serving of filth? Or maybe just Toni to ask if she could open the office again.

“Ah... is this here... um... Corinne Jones?”

Unknown voice. Female. Southern Black.

“Yes. Speaking.”

“Your... um... Mr. Heslip gave me this number, said I could reach you evenings...”

“This is morning,” snapped Corinne. If Bart had given that topless bitch her unlisted home phone number...

“This here is an emergency...” The voice paused breathily but it was the breathlessness of extra poundage, not of menace. “Thing is, I done hear from my husband after all these years, an’...”

Damn the woman! But at least, with a husband, it wasn’t about to be that topless bitch.

“You’ll have to tell me who your husband is — and who you are.”

“Oh! Emmalina Rounds. It’s my little girl that—”

“Mrs. Rounds! Yes! Bart said... oh, and you’ve heard from your husband in New Orleans?”

“Uh... I guess ex-husband, cause he’s done remarried a long time ago. Thing is, four men come to see him an’ wanted Verna’s address. He wouldn’t give it to ’em, so they started to beat on him. He was callin me from the hospital, had some busted ribs an’ all, but he knocked one of ’em out so the police, they got him. An’ he didn’t tell ’em nothin bout where my Verna is at.”

“That’s wonderful, Mrs. Rounds.”

“Thing is, he wanted to get word to Mr. Heslip that there was men after my Verna. He had it wrong about Mr. Heslip, thought he was fum some gover’mint agency...”

They talked a little longer and hung up. Corinne sat, phone in hand, trying to think of what to do. She had no idea of how to reach Bart. He already knew other men were after Verna, but he didn’t know they were going for violence. What frightened her was that her Bart was the kind who would get in their way rather than let them do anything to the little former file clerk.

DKA. She had to let Giselle know, they would have some ideas. But she couldn’t call them because the phone was bugged. Maybe her phone was bugged too. Maybe even the office phone. Maybe...

The trouble was, you knew one phone was bugged, actually bugged like on TV or during Watergate, and all of a sudden you were sure every phone in the world was bugged. But if she went down the hall and used the Miltons’ phone...

Giselle Marc was supposed to be up at 7 A.M. herself so Dan Kearny could pick her up out front on his way through from Lafayette. But Giselle was a slow starter, so the phone ringing at 7:45 caught her slopping around the bedroom in pajamas and thinking that when you cut your foot on the shag mg, it was time to vacuum.

“Yes, Ms. Marc,” said a clipped vaguely familiar female voice, “This is ACT calling.”

“ACT?” What was this, a joke?

“American Conservatory Theater. Sony to phone you so early, but we do have your name on file and we are auditioning for Macbeth at 10 A.M. and—”

“Macbeth?”

“I do have the right Giselle Marc, do I not? You are familiar with the words of the Bard?”

“Of course, but—”

“We are casting the three witches on the moor.” The voice was suddenly emoting over the phone. “ ‘When shall we three meet again’...”

“ ‘In thunder, lightning, or in rain’ ” Giselle quoted back. She had it now. Corinne, doing a great job setting up a meeting in case tape recorders were turning in some anonymous little room. She and Corinne and Larry Ballard on a fog-swept corner outside the hospital where Bart had just come out of a seventy-two-hour coma, quoting that line to one another. “I’m delighted at the opportunity. I will be at the Sutter Street casting office as soon as I can.”

“We’ll look forward to seeing you.”

As they hung up, Larry Ballard was talking from a pay phone in Sacramento with Dan Kearny on a pay phone in Lafayette, and had just gotten the low-down on the bugged office and all the rest. The phone was just down the block from Madeline Westfield’s apartment, where he could keep a watch on the bus stop she’d likely wait at. He’d just told Kearny about her.

“Sounds like just a casual lay to me,” said Kearny thoughtfully. “If you laid all the cheating husbands end-to-end—”

“It wasn’t like that, Dan. He sure wasn’t any Casanova to her last night. More like a mailman delivering a letter.”

“Probably just normal civil service enthusiasm for his job,” said Kearny. “But try to get a run-down on her anyway. So far we don’t have anything suggesting any other irregularities in Greenly’s life, and Monday is it for us.”

Ballard waved sweetly to the woman standing on one foot first and then the other outside the booth. To hell with her, he was here first. He said to Kearny, “I can try to bust his home phone bill to get a run-down on his long-distance calls, but I don’t know the billing cycle here so the phone company might not have it until the end of the month. If he’s on the take, it isn’t showing up in the normal circles of his life. I asked retail credit to give me a full profile, not just a rating, and should get that today. But beyond that...”

“As a last resort try to bust his bank account with the state investigator gag. If it backfires, DKA’ll pick up your bail.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Ballard drily. “How’s Bart doing?”

“Nobody knows. He’s flying blind, we don’t even have a contact number on him.”

The way he likes it, thought Ballard as he hung up. He stepped out of the booth, put a hand on each of the irate woman’s shoulders, kissed her on the cheek, and beamed, “I’m engaged!” and started off down the street. When he looked back, the woman waved to him with a black-gloved hand. How often, he thought, did you get a chance to make someone’s day for them like that?

And then broke into a run, because he had just seen Madeline Westfield getting into a car which had pulled up in front of her place. A goddam ride instead of a bus! And by the time he’d gotten the Cutlass turned around, he’d lost the other car in traffic.

So. Hell. Couldn’t tail her to work. Which meant back to’ the landlady of her apartment house. He hoped Bart was doing better than he was.

Bart Heslip, to tell the truth, was getting damned sick of living out of that rented Pinto with all his clothes and shaving gear in the suitcase in back. Thirty-six hours all together, the last fifteen here in the 400-block of Madison Street. Pretty soon they’d carve his initials in the urinal of the gas station men’s room down on the corner.

It was starting to warm up a little now, with the sun getting high enough to reach down to him between the buildings. As at brother Cliff’s, three-deckers. He got out and stretched in the bright warmth. Corinne would be at her desk by now. How about going up to the café on the other corner that had opened at 6 A.M., getting a cheeseburger and fries, and calling her?

After ordering, he went outside to the pay phone, dropped his dime and gave his credit card number.

“Far Flung Travel. May I help you?”

“Toni? This is Bart. Is Corinne—”

“Thank God you called. Hang on a sec.”

But the voice that came on was Kearny’s, for Chrissake! Who explained about Emmalina Rounds’ phone call, and the fact that the search for Verna Rounds, for some unknown reason, had turned very nasty indeed.

“But what can Verna tell anybody they don’t already know?”

“I can’t figure it out either, Bart, but be careful. Watch your back-trail.”

And the sucker hung up! Just like that, so he didn’t even have a chance to tell Corinne how he missed her. He stepped out of the booth, still keeping his eye on the front of 428, up near the far end of the block on the other side of the street. Nobody who fit the neighbors’ description of either Johnny Mack or Willie had been in or out, no purple hog Cadillac had shown up in front.

He’d call Corinne again later in the day if he didn’t score here before then. Down beyond the intersection a big car backing into a parking space caught his eye for a moment. But it was a Chrysler New Yorker Brougham, not Willie’s purple Cadillac. The sunlight glancing off the chrome trim of the tinted windshield momentarily blinded him.

He started into the café for his cheeseburger. The searchers were back there somewhere, all right, but they didn’t have Roxbury, Massachusetts. Old Zebulon Rounds had come through in the pinch. They hadn’t strongarmed the address out of him, and they wouldn’t make another try, not with one of their thugs in police custody. Jesus Christ!

He whirled and ran back for the phone booth.

They wouldn’t go after Rounds again, hell no, but Fleur the topless dancer knew brother Clifford’s address, because he’d told her after getting it from Rounds. And they knew Fleur’s address...

New Orleans Information had no listing for Fleur Lisette, so he got the number for the Iberville Cabaret. Almost noon there, ought to be someone who...

“Listen, lemma talk with the manager, this is an emergency.”

“Yeah. Me.” He listened to Heslip. “Fleur? Christ man, after what that goddam weirdo did to her, she won’t be outta the hospital for—”

“Hospital?” Oh, no, it already had happened. “Which one?”

“John who got his kicks outta cutting, I guess, and... which hospital? New Orleans General.”

Another credit card call, this time to the head nurse. “I’m Fleur’s brother, in the Air Force and just passing through on assignment, can’t even come up to see her but if I could speak to her...”

“She’s in a ward, doesn’t have a phone—”

“Anything you can do?”

Head nurses could do a great deal. “But just for a moment, you understand? She’s conscious but despite the sedation in a good deal of pain, and...”

Fleur’s voice came on, weak and pinched.

“Fleur, this is Bart Heslip. I just heard—”

“You bastard! Oh, you rotten son of a bitch bastard!”

“Fleur, I swear to you I didn’t know anything heavy like this was going down—”

“You knew they was followin’ us. They said they’d hurt me an’ I told ’em. Gave that address for Verna. I’m glad I told ’em cause maybe you’ll get in their way an’ they’ll do you like they done me.”

“Fleur, anything you need—”

“How about a new nose? A new ear?” Her voice was a ragged scream. “After I told ’em they done it. For fun. I hope they get you an’ cut your nuts off!”

He hung up the dead phone and stood shivering in the sunshine.