Poisoned Pins

8

The Airport Arms Motel sat far back from the highway, fronted by a gravel parking lot that was sparsely populated by squatty cars, pickup trucks with gun racks, and an enormous motorcycle with improbably high handlebars and enough chrome attachments to intrigue NASA. The building, weathered to gray and as bleak as a military barracks, was a two-story structure with six apartments on each level. As I pulled into the lot, an airplane came thundering over the treetops and continued its descent onto the runway across the highway. Several seconds passed before I was able to sit up, lick my suddenly parched lips, and park near a battered car that was similar in breadth to Debbie Anne’s lethal weapon.

Arnie’s green truck was not there, but I’d driven several miles on my mission and it would be silly-all right, cowardly-to leave without any attempt to find him. Hoping there was a parking lot behind the building, I climbed out of my car and went to the double row of rusty mailboxes. Although the numbers of the boxes had• been written in crude numerals, the few scrawled names were too faded to be legible.

It was, I decided uneasily, a bit like Russian roulette. Behind the splintery doors were twelve apartments; any one of them might be Arnie’s. The eleven others belonged to the owners of the vehicles in the lot. I looked back at the motorcycle, squared my shoulders, and knocked on the nearest door.

The woman who opened it was less than excited by my presence. She had a beer in one hand and a half-eaten sandwich in the other, and kept her eyes on the television blaring across the room and filling the room with flickery blue shadows. Only one side of her mouth moved as she said, “Whaddaya want?”

“I’m looking for Arnie Riggles, and I was told he lived at this address.”

‘Why you lookin’ for him?”

“I want to discuss a job,” I said semi-truthfully.

She cackled at something on the screen, drained the beer and crumpled the can in one fluid motion, and said, “Never heard of him.”

The door closed inches from my nose. No one was home in the next two apartments, and from within the fourth I heard sounds of marital discord heading for a crescendo that might drown out the next incoming airplane.

Surely no one would cohabit voluntarily with Arnie. I continued down the row, interrupting another woman who was watching the same television show and had never heard of Arnie, and a swarthy Middle Eastern male who trembled in response before he slammed his door.

I returned to the middle of the building and went up the creaky staircase to the balcony, where six more doors awaited me. I knocked on the end door perhaps with less vigor than previously, and backed into the railing when my worst nightmare opened the door

Dressed as he was only in boots and faded jeans that rode low on his hips, I had an overwhelmingly excessive view of his body hair, all black and curly on his chest and belly, straggly and streaked with gray on his head, and sprouting in thickets on his jaw and upper lip. His nose and cheeks were rosy, his mouth almost feminine. There was nothing feminine about his arms, however; they were so densely tattooed that virtually no flesh between his wrists and his neck retained its original hue. He seemed to realize I was taken aback, and with a wry smile he said, “Be careful, ma’am. The railing’s rotten and it’s a long way down. Something I can do for you?”

“I’m looking for Arnie Riggles,” I said, desperately trying to prevent myself from gaping at the colorful swirls on his arms. I was not at a sideshow, and I hadn’t paid a quarter to justify rudeness. Then again, he could have put on a shirt before he answered the door.

“He lives in the next apartment, but he’s not home. He came by a little while ago to see if I wanted to shoot some pool. I didn’t. You want me to give him a message?”

“No, I don’t think so. Do you have any idea when he’ll be back?”

“He didn’t say, but he’s only down the road at the Dew Drop Inn. You can catch him there.” Clearly amused at my demeanor and having little difficulty interpreting it, he turned around to expose his back, which was more ornate than a medieval tapestry. When he held up his arms and flexed his biceps, a mermaid rippled as if swimming amid purple and blue fish, and a dragon swished its silver tail. “Pretty neat, huh?” he said, grinning over his shoulder at me. “I’ve got more, but I usually don’t show them to ladies unless we’re…, intimate.”

The railing bit deeper into my back, and my voice may have risen as much as an octave as I said, “Please don’t. If you could be so kind as to point me in the direction of the place you mentioned, I’ll-I’ll be on my way.”

“Tell you what, let me grab a shirt and I’ll go with you. The Dew Drop’s not the sort of place for a lady to go by herself.” Before I could decline his offer, he disappeared into the apartment. When he returned, carrying a translucent black helmet, he was more pedestrian (and a great deal less colorful) in a long-sleeved shirt and black leather vest. “Why’s someone like you looking for someone like Arnie?” he asked as we went downstairs.

“I need to ask him a few questions about some recent events,” I said vaguely. “That’s my car. Shall I follow you?”

“You’re welcome to ride with me, and I’ll bring you back whenever you’re ready.” He spoke politely, with no edge of challenge in his voice, but his mustache quivered as he struggled not to smile. “It’s only a mile or so. Nice, warm evening like this, you might enjoy it. ‘In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.’ Milton, 7lractate of Education, of course.”

“Of course.” I wasn’t nearly as intimidated by him as I’d been when he opened the door. He was no taller than I, and although he was built like a barrel, he was hardly a massive monster seething with rage and likely to rip apart live chickens with his teeth. There was no skull emblazoned on the back of his vest. Except for the facial hair and that which I, like the Shadow, knew lay beneath his shirt, he was rather ordinary, perhaps as old as fifty, a benign, middle-aged version of Santa Claus. Ordinary, that is, except in his ability to quote Milton.

“Shall we?” He gestured at the motorcycle.

Changing my mind was one thing, but losing it was another I stayed where I was. “I don’t even know your name.”

“‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Or, in my case, would be as willing to escort such an attractive woman to a dive like the Dew Drop, if only because I’m curious why you want to find Arnie. You game or not?”

That was the question, all right. Approximately twenty-four hours earlier I’d decided that I had insulated myself, that I needed to expand my boundaries, meet new people, experience new things. At the time, I hadn’t counted on being offered a ride on a motorcycle, particularly one that could have come screaming out of a futuristic movie that featured heavily armed cyborgs with poor attitudes. But hadn’t Peter Rosen, Mr. Propriety himself encouraged me to go out with other men? There was no doubt about it: this was about as far out as I could go.

“Sure,” I said, “I’m game. What do I do?”

He gave me the helmet, helped me onto the padded seat, and showed me where to rest my feet. “All you have to do is hang on and flow with it,” he added as he straddled the seat in front of me, did something mysterious, and leaned back as the machine bellowed to life with a fury not unlike a rabid buffalo’s.

Just hang on and flow with it, I told myself as we squealed out of the parking lot and shot down the highway, easily passing a pickup truck on one side and a tractor trailer on the other. I’d expected to be stoic yet terrified, but after a minute, I loosened my death grip on his waist and acknowledged that I was enjoying the speed, the wind that stroked my skin and ballooned under my shirt, the vibrating power the continual roar that isolated us from our surroundings. The traffic moved; we were motion itself.

I was a little disappointed when we slowed down and pulled into a parking lot. My chauffeur cut off the engine. The abrupt cessation of sound was unnerving.

“So what’d you think?” he asked.

I took off the helmet. “A memorable experience, unlike anything I’ve ever done.”

The Dew Drop Inn was shabbier than the Airport Arms, if possible, and held together with splintery sheets of mismatched siding, indecipherable metal signs, spit, and a goodly amount of prayer There were more than a dozen vehicles in the lot, and as I passed over the helmet, another car pulled in.

“Today’s Sunday,” I said as we started for the door “Why is this place doing a brisk business when it isn’t even supposed to be open?”

“The Dew Drop’s more of a social club than your ordinary tavern, and the NBA playoffs are on this afternoon. Last year Millie put in a big screen. It’s a male rite of spring to congregate and watch the game over beer and bullshit. There’s plenty of both here.”

All the NBA signified to me was the National Book Award, but it was hard to envision the literati slinging quotes at each other across a net. If they were to do so, sophistry and sherry would be their accouterments of choice. Mystified, I entered the Dew Drop Inn.

The room was dark, and the smoke was as pernicious as the skies of Los Angeles. There were only two sources of light: a swaying rectangular fixture above a pool table and a large television screen on which men in boxer shorts cavorted in pursuit of an elusive ball. Most of the twenty or so men were seated at tables, watching the game, but three or four stood in the shadows beyond the pool table. Oblivious to the ashes dribbling from his cigarette, a man in a cowboy hat was bent over the table, the tip of his cue stick resting on the worn green felt. Competing with the outbursts of laughter, good-natured curses, and inanely bright chatter from the game announcers was the persistent ringing of unseen telephones.

“Ho, Senator!”

I located Arnie at one of the tables. It was not challenging, in that he was waving his arm above his head while pounding on the table with a beer bottle. “I guess we found him,” I said to my companion. I’d garnered enough attention, some of it curious and some of it smirky, to be glad to have him beside me, and unless I’d misjudged him a second time, I was safe from the advances of the rednecks in the room.

“Come join us, Senator!” Arnie yelled, still carrying on as if we were at a pep rally rather than a seedy tavern. “I got something I want to ask you about this trade imbalance with the Pacific Rim.”

Uncomfortably aware of the incongruity of my presence (there was not so much as a female barmaid), I went to his table and said, “Could I speak to you in private?”

Arnie swatted the man in the next chair. “Jesus, McDooley, were you raised in a barn or what? Give the lady your seat before I cram a beer bottle up your lovely snout.”

“In private?” I repeated emphatically.

“Anything you want, Senator, as soon as the game’s over. I got some serious interest in the outcome, about a hundred dollars’ worth.” He began to wave again, violently enough to rattle the small copse of bottles on the table. “Hey, Ed, whatcha waiting for-an invitation? Come sit with the senator and I’ll buy you both a beer Arnie Riggles is a-rollin’ in dough today!”

I raised my eyebrows as my swarthy driver sat down in the hastily vacated chair on the other side of Arnie. “Ed?”

He mimicked my expression. “Senator?”

Arnie slapped his simian forehead, by pure serendipity with the hand not holding the beer bottle. “Wowsy, Senator, I thought you two knew each other, coming in together like you did. This lovable guy here’s Ed Whitbred, my boss and my best friend in the whole damn world.” He hiccupped as he leaned over to throw his arm over Ed’s shoulder “In the whole damn world, he is my best friend. I can’t tell you the number of times he came down to the can to bail me out, then scolded me all the way home about how I oughta do this detox thing. 01’ Ed Whitbred’s meaner than my first wife and uglier than my second, but I love him just the same.”

Arnie rested his face on Ed’s shoulder and began to cry. From the lack of interest shown by the other occupants at the table, I deduced that the maudlin display was unremarkable, and, indeed, no one remarked on it.

A man in a dirty apron set down two beer bottles and stomped away. I frowned at the bottle, then at Ed. “You didn’t mention that you and Arnie are such dear friends.”

“You didn’t ask,” he said. He tried to pry Arnie off his shoulder, but Arnie’s grip was stubborn. “I’m not sure he’s in the mood for conversation.”

A door at the far end of the bar opened to admit two men, and the sound of ringing telephones intensified. Even with the door closed, I could hear what seemed to be at least a dozen of them. “What’s with the telephones? Are they running some kind of telethon in there? This hardly seems the place for Jerry’s kids.”

“A hundred dollars,” Arnie said, lifting his face. “You wanna little action, Senator? You don’t have to bet much, and it makes the bisketbell… that is to say, the basketball game more exciting. Nickel or dime bet’s okay.”

I took a nickel from my purse and put it on the table. “I’ll bet you this that you can’t sit up and answer a few simple questions, Arnie. If you can, it’s all yours.”

One of the men cleared his throat. “It’s kinda traditional in gambling circles that a nickel means five dollars, a dime means ten. Considering the state he’s in, maybe it don’t matter.”

“Do you mind?” I glared until he looked away, then shook Arnie’s arm. “I am not interested in absorbing the local traditions. If it takes five dollars, then so be it!” I took out a bill and slammed it on the table, feeling quite as bold as a poker player in a Wild West saloon. “Do we have a bet or don’t we?”

Arnie wiped his nose on Ed’s shoulder and managed to sit up. “Yeah, no one ever accused Arnold Juggles of shying away from a bet, no matter what. It seems to me, though, that a senator ought to be willing to go higher than a measly five bucks. What’s the defense budget these days? How about Medicare and Medicaid payments? You raised your salaries last year-” He suddenly slumped forward, his head bouncing off the table several times before coming to rest.

“I am not a senator,” I said to Ed, who understandably seemed perplexed. “Whoever said it was impossible to underrate human intelligence must have been thinking of Arnie. The smoke and the stench and those telephones are too much for me. Could you please take me back to my car?”

“Sure, and then I’d better come back and drive Arnie home. He’s surpassed his limit for the evening.”

I politely nodded at the occupants of the table and pushed back my chair, but before I could stand up, the front door opened and the room swarmed with men. Men in coats and ties, holding up identification badges. Men in blue police uniforms. Men in khaki police uniforms. More men in overalls and caps. Young men, old men, enough men to take to the football field. For the most part, men with guns. And they were saying, not in unison but in a great babble of confusion ranging from tenor to bass, from strident to coldly authoritarian: “This is a raid!” “Everybody stay put!” “Put your hands on the tables where we can see ‘em!” “Stay away from the door!” “You there-put down that cue stick!” “Up against the wall, bubba!”

I sank back into the chair as more of them stampeded through the door at the end of the bar From within the back room came spurts of official phrases that referred to illegal possession of gaming equipment, violations of federal statutes concerning interstate racketeering, operation of an establishment that operated gambling devices, and more.

“What’s going on?” I asked Ed in a strangled whisper. Before he could answer, a uniformed officer loomed over us. ‘Hands on the table, all of you! Keep your mouths shut! This is a raid, not a damn tea party!”

Hooked up with a cool expression meant to chide him only a bit for his presumptive error. “There’s been a mistake, Officer. I merely came by to have a word with someone. I know nothing whatsoever of any illegal activity, and I’ve never made a bet in my life. I think it would be for the best if I slipped away quietly”

“That your money?” He pointed at the five-dollar bill. “No, it most certainly is not. It belongs to the comatose gentleman beside me. Now, if you don’t mind-”

The comatose gentleman rolled his head to one side. “Damn straight it’s mine. The senator here and I have a little bet, and in a minute I’m going to-” His head went back down, flattening his nose. He began to snore.

“Politician, huh?” The policeman gave me an icy smile as he recited the Miranda warning to me.

During the caravan-style ride to the local jail, handcuffed and squished between two odoriferous patrons in the backseat of the police car, I learned that the Dew Drop Inn had been under surveillance for over a year. My arrival had not been a factor in the decision to raid the establishment. I’d chosen a particularly inopportune day to visit, a day when gamblers surfaced like worms after a shower and law enforcement agents could count on copious quantities of money and betting slips to be within the establishment.

It was educational, I suppose, but not the stuff of which warm memories were made. I was subjected to fingerprinting, being photographed (I demanded to be allowed access to a mirror first, but they were less than cooperative), and ultimately placed in a barren cell and informed that they’d get to me sooner or later.

Earlier in the afternoon, after the unpleasantries with Peter, Caron and Inez, and the anonymous caller, I’d assumed things couldn’t get much worse. Sitting on a metal bench, acutely aware of the darkness and aroma of urine in the air, idly reading obscene graffiti, facing the possibility that I might be doing the same twelve hours in the future, I had to admit I’d been wrong. And what had I accomplished? I’d met Ed Whitbred, but I had no reason to think he had any involvement in Jean Hall’s death or Debbie Anne Wray’s disappearance. He was not my man-in-the-moon prowler, unless he’d happened upon an incredibly effective remedy for baldness.

I wasn’t at all sure what the appropriate behavior was for my situation. I would be allowed to make a phone call before they interrogated me, but they’d implied it might be some time before my name rose to the top of the list. I had neither a metal cup with which to bang on the bars nor a bent spoon with which to tunnel out. I didn’t know any spirituals.

I was considering using my one telephone call to order a pizza when the cell door opened and Jorgeson came in. “Good evening, Ms. Malloy,” he said as if we were meeting under the portico of the Book Depot. Had he been wearing a hat, I was certain he would have touched its brim ever so urbanely. “I understand you’re in a jam.”

“It’s actually a cell. How did you know I’d been left here to rot for hours and hours?”

“According to the arresting officer and the desk sergeant, you’ve been in here for less than half an hour- although I’m sure it felt longer. Time doesn’t fly in the Farberville City Jail, or so I’ve been told.”

“What else have you been told?”

He seemed to have a decent idea of the events that had led to my incarceration, and related them in a carefully noncommittal tone, then said, “One of the officers at the scene recognized your name and called Lieutenant Rosen, thinking he’d want to hear about it. He called me.”

I’d been irritated earlier, but now I was beginning to get angry. “Why didn’t he come down here himself?”

Jorgeson’s bulldog face turned red and his ears quivered-a response I’d seen on previous occasions when he was deeply uncomfortable. Looking at something on the wall above my head, he said, “Ah, the lieutenant said something about being busy, being tied up. Once he heard Arnie Riggles had been picked up in the raid, he said he figured you were up to your old-that you were interfering-I mean, involved in an investigation. He said he’d call the desk and tell ‘em to release you to my custody until the arraignment.”

“The arraignment, Jorgeson? Are you implying that Lieutenant Peter Rosen has no plans to have a quiet word with the head of the operation and make it clear that I am totally innocent of anything more wicked than a tiny lapse in judgment? That I will be brought to court to face a fine or further time in this charming room? Is that what you’re implying?”

“I don’t think he’ll let it go that far, Ms. Malloy. The call caught him in a bad mood, and he was kind of sputtery when he heard about your friend with the motorcycle. I’m sure he’ll do something to help in the morning.”

“What did you mean when you said he was busy?” I continued relentlessly, my face quite as red as his and my ears tingling, if not quivering. “Just precisely what was he doing when he received the call?”

Jorgeson closed his eyes for a moment, and his gulps were audible. “I think maybe he had company. Let’s go back to the desk and arrange your release. You’ll be home in no time, sitting on your sofa with a nice hot cup of tea, and all this will seem like a bad dream.”

“Company?” I said, although I did leap to my feet and follow him down the corridor.

“I believe he mentioned something about Lieutenant Pipkin. It’s none of my business, Ms. Malloy; I’m just following orders.”

“That was an inadequate defense at Nuremberg, Jorgeson. Who’s this Lieutenant Pipkin? Is he on the CID squad?”

He stopped so abruptly that I narrowly avoided a collision, and he pulled me aside as another of my coconspirators from the Dew Drop Inn was escorted to a cell. “Like I said, it’s none of my business what Lieutenant Rosen does when he’s off duty. We sometimes have a beer or go to the college baseball games, but for the most part we go our separate ways. My wife and I were watching a video and I’d like to get home so we can finish it before midnight. If you’re curious about Lieutenant Pipkin, call her yourself. She’s on the campus security force.

Despite the unruliness of my thoughts, I remained impressively impassive as Jorgeson did the necessary paperwork to gain my release, drove me to the Airport Arms, and waved as he pulled onto the highway. Ed Whitbred’s motorcycle was not there, and I felt a little guilty as I realized he wouldn’t have been in the Dew Drop den of iniquity had he not escorted me there. Arnie deserved everything that happened to him, and a good deal more, but Ed had been minding his own business- until I’d shown up.

I opened my car door, then glanced at the second story Ed’s apartment was dark, as was the one next to it; I knew where the renters were, and were likely to be until their arraignments in the morning. Would I take advantage of the fortuitous circumstances that had led to my premature release? Would Oral Roberts accept a blank check?

I went upstairs and along the balcony to the penultimate apartment. Back in the Airport Arms’ heyday, a renter might have been able to lock the door to protect himself from his feral neighbors, but now the knob felt loose enough to come off in my hand with only a minimal yank. It was just as well; Arnie would have lost a key as easily as he did consciousness. I opened the door a few inches and said into the darkness, “Hello? Is anybody here?” If anyone was there, he or she was not in a congenial mood. I went inside, closed the door, and felt for the light switch, trying not to think about the last time I’d been in a similar situation. Arnie’s environment was more likely to host rats.

I flipped on the light and hastily pulled the drapes together. Although the light was visible, I hoped that anyone bothering to notice would assume the tenant was home. The living room was squalid, to be charitable, and decorated primarily with beer cans, plates of petrified food, teetery piles of yellowed magazines and newspapers, and furniture that looked downright dangerous. I knew I was in the right apartment.

The kitchen was filthy, the bathroom more so, and the bedroom surely had been the target of an invasion of the magnitude of Desert Storm. Like the Kappa Theta Etas, Arnie preferred to utilize the floor rather than the closet, although there were no pink cashmere sweaters amid the paint-splattered overalls and dingy gray jockey shorts.

It was hopeless. If there was anything to explain his involvement, I was not going to stumble across it without several hours of intensive search through nasty stuff. I opened the dresser drawers, looked inside the closet, and forced myself to kneel for a quick peek under the bed. If I’d been hunting for dust bunnies and liquor bottles, I would have been incredibly successful, but as it was, I reminded myself of the inanity of my mission and returned to the living room.

On the inside of the doorknob hung a camera on a black plastic strap. I wasn’t any more familiar with cameras than I was with male rites of spring, but I examined it and concluded a roll of film remained inside it. Would one shot be of a startled bookseller, her mouth agape, fingers splayed to block the blinding flash? And, more interestingly, of whom or what would the others be? Arnie was not an amateur engaging in his hobby beneath the windows of the Kappa Theta Eta house. Earlier I’d opined that he was not a murderer, but this was in no way to imply that I’d ever doubted his capacities as a voyeur. Or a blackmailer, in which case the film was likely to hold his evidence.

After a series of futile attempts to disengage the roll of film, I decided to borrow the camera long enough to have one of the nice young people at the one-hour photo service assist me. I switched off the light and opened the door.

Ed Whitbred blocked my way, intentionally or otherwise. “‘Sometimes they shut you up in jail-dark, and a filthy cell; I hope the fellows built them jails, find ‘em down in hell.’ E. F. Piper, of course.”

“Of course,” I echoed lamely. “I’m delighted that you’ve been released, Ed. It was my fault that you were at that place, and I want to apologize to you. If they end up pressing charges, I’ll certainly testify on your behalf.”

“And I won’t have to call you at an office in Washington, D.C., will I? I can drop by your upstairs apartment next to the sorority house, or catch you at the Book Depot on Thurber Street.”

I was disturbed not only by his faintly sardonic tone, but also by his undeniable bulk, which seemed to have taken root on the balcony outside Arnie’s door. “Any time, Ed. Thanks for the motorcycle ride. It was the first time I’d been on one, and it really is a special sensation of its own, isn’t it?” My hands were sweating as I clutched the camera, but it was a little late in the scenario to put it behind my back. ‘Well, I’d better run along home now. My daughter will be worried, and my brief time in jail has left me ravenous, and of course a cup of tea will be divine. You won’t believe this, but I was thinking about using my call to order a pizza when… they released me. Isn’t that silly?”

He was unmoved by my dithering. “What were you doing in Arnie’s apartment, Ms. Malloy? The only thing worth stealing is his fancy new camera. It took me more than a week to teach him how to use it, but he finally got the hang of it.”

I couldn’t force my way past him, and I had no desire to retreat into the apartment behind me. It was something of a stalemate. We stared at each other for what seemed a long time, neither of us commenting on the incriminatory object in my hands. I finally decided it was a checkmate and thrust the camera at him. “I simply wanted to assure myself that no one disturbed Arnie’s apartment during his absence. When I saw this, I was concerned that someone might steal it, so I thought I’d keep it for him until his return. However, as long as you’re here, you might as well assume responsibility for it.”

As he reached for the camera, I shoved it into his belly hard enough to throw him off-balance, and darted past him. I clattered down the staircase, fumbling in my purse for my keys, and did not look back until I was inside my car, the doors locked, the windows rolled up tightly, and the key in the ignition switch.

The balcony was deserted. A light shone from behind the curtains in his apartment. While I’d escaped like a gawky heroine, gasping and moaning, imagining his thick fingers encircling my neck or jerking me off my feet, Ed Whitbred had gone inside and most likely opened a beer. If he was to be a villain in the piece, he definitely needed to work on his role.