The Girl’s Number Doesn’t Answer

Chapter 10

There are about a million people in the Greater Tampa Bay area. They work in stores, offices, or the light, airy, air-conditioned, smokeless factories industrial commissions have wooed to Florida. They play in water that sparks with frosty phosphorescence at night, on white beaches where the sand is as fine as talc, in cool cocktail lounges and pastel stucco and glass homes. The dregs among the million live in a squalor and filth Mr. Average American is likely to associate with the backward areas of Puerto Rico or Mexico, but never with the rich, well-fed giant of the United States.

I had to believe that one among the million was a blonde woman who could give me some answers I needed.

I’d never seen her. I had no description of her. I didn’t know if she was alive or dead, where she had come from, or what her name might be.

I was out early. A brief call to police headquarters got me names of a few of Ichiro’s friends. From these I learned the identity of other people he’d known. I talked to thirty or forty people that day. Among them were blonde women, but not the right one. Not a blonde who’d been careful never to be seen openly with Ichiro.

He’d had a few friends in Sarasota, the ritzy coastal playground a few miles south of Tampa.

I’d try Sarasota tomorrow.

I drove the rented car to my apartment building and parked on the street. The agency hires its cars on an annual rate from a nationwide auto-rental firm. That way we have a new car every year, no worries with gas, oil, tires, upkeep. What with taxes and the simplicity of the setup, we come out all right, with no additional details to clutter our operations.

It was late afternoon, the sun a fiery red ball poised for its plunge into the Gulf.

A gang of kids chattering in Spanish came racing down the sidewalk. They were ragged, unkempt, as brown as seasoned walnut, and as healthy as stringy mongrel pups that have had to learn a little savagery.

I lumbered up to the apartment, started cold water in the tub, and opened a pint can of beer.

I sat at the kitchenette table with the beer for a few moments to let some of the hard, steady pumping go out of my feet. I looked from the window at the dirty rooftops jammed together. On south, away from the jamming and ugliness, lay Sarasota.

Nick’s last chance?

It could well be.

If I found her there, I knew what I would say. I wouldn’t take long in saying it. She’d better not take long in giving some straight answers, if she valued her health.

And then suddenly the doubt became overpowering, building itself into a certainty that she wouldn’t be found in Sarasota. There was no reason for her to be. Ichiro had few friends there. Those had formerly resided in Tampa. He had gone to Sarasota very infrequently and his stays had never been long. His interests and just about every hour of his life had been centered in Tampa. The chance that he had met the blonde in Sarasota was too slim to build hope on.

Where then?

In Tampa, his center post.

How? Not at a party. I’d have got some kind of hint of that from someone among thirty or forty people interviewed. Not at a night spot; they hadn’t been seen together in night spots.

Without breaking my chain of thought, I wandered to the bathroom and turned off the cold tap.

There was a click in my mental gears, and I was shaken because I’d overlooked the obvious. The odds were not a million to one. They were a million to two.

There had to be a second person. The person who had introduced Ichiro and the blonde, who’d brought them together. Unless you wanted to believe that Ichiro and the woman had met entirely by accident, introducing themselves, forming a friendship, with no one else present.

Think about the second person for a moment. Man or woman? No way of knowing yet. Friend of Ichiro’s? Unlikely, unless they were all good liars.

If not a friend, what would motivate the second person to introduce the blonde to Ichiro?

And what would springboard Ichiro? He was a sensualist, seeker after pleasure, partaker of the erotic, searcher for thrills.

I wheeled into the bedroom. There was a black notebook in the drawer of the telephone table. I thumbed it open, flipped a page, found a name and phone number.

Sweat gathered in a heavy drop on the end of my nose. I brushed it off, picked up the phone, and dialed. It rang about six times. I’d about decided she was out when Tillie Rollo answered. She had a pleasant, smooth voice softened with culture.

“Ed Rivers, Tillie.”

“How are you?”

“Busy.”

“Yes, I noticed your name in the newspapers.”

“Any of the other names mean anything to you?”

“Do you have a particular name in mind?” she asked.

“Ichiro Yamashita.”

There was a pause. “Perhaps,” she said.

“Fine. I’ve got a question—”

“My hairdresser is here, Ed. I’m very busy. Why don’t you drop out a little later and we’ll have a glass of sherry.”

“What time?”

“In an hour or so.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

I dunked my bulk, put on some fresh clothes, went to the corner restaurant and ate some chicken and yellow rice.

Then I picked up the rented heap and drove out to see Tillie.

She lived in a good section of town in a very comfortable home made of adobe bricks and rustic siding. The lawn and shrubbery had been meticulously tended. A foreign-built sport car stood in the driveway near the carport.

There was no red light over Tillie’s front door.

The chimes sounded softly, and she opened the door immediately. She was a very good-looking young woman. She wore her copper-red hair in an upsweep. Her eyes were green and cool, her complexion like ivory-colored satin. Her dress was a quiet blue in excellent taste.

“You’re very prompt,” she said, as she stepped aside for me to enter.

The interior of the house was airy and cool, furnished simply and comfortably. There was nothing crude or blatant about Tillie. The only tool of her trade on the premises was the pastel-blue telephone in a small alcove off the living room. No girl ever came here — she was required to keep her own apartment or cottage, buy her own clothes — and govern her life by instructions given over the pale-blue telephone. If she failed in any of these requirements, she found life exceptionally difficult for her in Tampa.

“Have you had dinner, Ed?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“Would you care for a drink?”

“No, thanks.”

Tillie crossed the room and sat in a tapestry-covered wing chair. She sat midway in the seat, her back very straight, her knees neatly together, her hands folded in her lap. She looked like a member of the Junior League on her best behavior.

“Shall we quit sparring around, Ed?”

“Let’s.”

“You know about the girl Ichiro Yamashita saw the day of his death, of course.”

“That’s why I called,” I said.

“Yes, I’m not exactly stupid, Ed. You’re wrong, however. The girl had nothing to do with what happened on Caloosa Point. The affair has been cleared up to the satisfaction of the police. The guilty man is in jail.”

I’d taken the chair she’d indicated. Now I leaned forward slightly. “Tillie, in the dictates of your own code, you’ve always walked carefully, never indulging in double-dealing.”

“My honesty and fairness have never been questioned. I don’t feel I’ve done anything wrong. I deal in a commodity. I find there are growing numbers of sellers and buyers, a factor over which I have no control. The market is active, but I didn’t create it. I’m not responsible for the tenor of the times, Ed.”

Looking at the calm, poised beauty of Tillie Rollo, I shuddered inside. I hoped it didn’t show.

“What is it you’re driving at, Ed?”

“I want a favor.”

“Why should I do you a favor?”

“Because I’m going to do you one,” I said. “The police are not completely satisfied. Steve Ivey still has one man assigned to the case.”

The emerald of her eyes darkened. “It hasn’t been in the papers.”

“That’s a silly remark, coming from you, Tillie.”

“I suppose so. I’ve heard from reliable sources that you’re absolutely a man of your word. I don’t think you’re trying to scare me.”

“If I wanted to do that,” I said, “I’d pick a more effective method.”

She sat thoughtful. “Does it appear I’m in for much unpleasantness?”

“That depends a lot on you.”

“Any publicity would be dreadful. There is no such thing as favorable publicity in my business.”

She looked at me gravely. “Ed, I need your help. I must have it.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“It’s imperative that I stay officially clean. My name has never been in the newspapers or on a police blotter. I can’t have a thing like that following me.”

“You planning on going somewhere?” I asked.

“I live only for the day when I’ll go. All this” — she made a vague motion with her hand—” this life is only a transitory thing, like a dream, not quite real to me. Reality will begin when it’s all over.”

“You could get out any time, Tillie.”

“No,” she said tightly, “it’s not that simple. You don’t understand.”

“Anybody got a gun at your head?”

“Of course not. But I won’t settle for anything less than everything I have in mind.”

“And what do you have in mind?”

“I’m going to be a lady,” she said.

“I see.”

“No you don’t! You think you do, but there are so many things you don’t know. I grew up hating poverty. It was the one real, crushing thing in my life. You see, my parents were the end products of a way of life that had vanished forever. They never could quite cope with themselves or circumstances. My mother died while I was still in school, and my father drank himself to death.

“I wonder where he got the money for the alcohol. We lived in the remains of an old mansion in South Carolina. I was taught all the niceties, trained to be a lady, in a home where holes in the roof permitted the rains to stain the portraits of the aristocratic dead ones we called our forebears.

“I could speak a little French by the time I was thirteen. I knew a bit of classical literature from the moldering volumes in our home. My mother tutored me in the manners of a lady, even if there were only cowpeas on the table.

“I was the odd chick in a flock of well-fed neighboring farm children, a laughingstock. At times, I hated my mother almost as much as the children for her helplessness, her fragile, bewildered inability to stop going through motions that bore no resemblance to reality.

“A long time ago I made up my mind. There was only one thing I could do. Go ahead and be a lady.

“All I needed was money. Soon now I’ll have enough. One day I won’t be in Tampa any longer. No one will know where I’ve gone or what name I’ll be carrying. It’s a big country, Ed. In some far corner I’ll find a nice little town tucked away. I’ll settle there. I’ll meet only the best people. I’ll entertain most properly and bring them to me. In that town there will be a man. He’ll be respectable and substantial. I’ll find him. I’ll marry him. And I’ll spend the rest of my days presiding over the best social circle in that little town. It may sound dull and stuffy to a lot of people, but it’s what I want and what I intend to have — the reason my picture must never be in an official file.”

She had grasped the arms of the wing chair in increasing intensity as she talked. Now she relaxed and sat looking at me as if disconcerted by the violence of feeling inside of herself.

“Who was the girl, Tillie?”

“I’m bargaining,” she said tautly.

“I can’t speak for the police,” I said. “I’ll promise you all that I can — and that is to point out to Steve Ivey that you’ve helped. If you do help.”

“I want something more than that.”

I stood up. “Then I guess you’ll have to deal with the police directly.”

“Wait!” she said. “I suppose I’ll have to take the best offer I can get.”

“That’s right.”

“The girl’s name is Luisa Shaw.”

“That means nothing to me. Where is she now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You keep track of them, don’t you?” I asked.

“Yes, but she’s moved. I tried to find her. She was living in a motel near the bay. Gave no notice. Left no forwarding address. Simply vanished.”

“When?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“What did she look like?”

“Blonde. Long, blonde hair. Teasing sort of face. Small, lively figure. A really beautiful girl. Almost hauntingly beautiful,” Tillie said.

“Hauntingly?”

“Something inside of her — a kind of morbid fascination for what she was doing.”

“When did you see her last, Tillie?”

“I saw her only the one time the night she came here. They usually have a hard time getting to me and have to be referred by someone I know. I mistrusted her at first. There is always the possibility of a policewoman plant.”

“What made you start trusting her?”

“Ichiro Yamashita called. I gave him her number. I knew I could trust Ichiro.”

“You must have known him well,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You don’t sound as if you liked him.”

“I despised him. I despised them all, Ed. They’re only a means to that little town with its single country club and small group that really counts.”

“Ichiro call you the day he was killed?”

“Luisa Shaw called me the day before,” Tillie said. “She was to meet Ichiro at the Yamashita summerhouse. The parents were to have dinner out. She and Ichiro would dine in the summerhouse and go to a small, card-admittance club for the evening.”

“Neatly laid plans,” I commented. “Luisa Shaw always kept you posted?”

“She proved to be the most trustworthy of the lot. Always mailed my share of the money to me. Plain envelope. Cash. I never had to send anyone around to keep tabs on her or collect.”

I stood mulling it over. Then I said, “Do you know Rachie Cameron, Tillie?”

“Not personally. Only by reputation. Ichiro used to speak of her sometimes.”

“Used to? His relationship with Rachie changed after he met Luisa Shaw?”

“Come to think of it,” Tillie mused, “he hadn’t mentioned Rachie Cameron recently.” She studied me carefully. “What are you driving at?”

“Jealousy,” I said, “bubbling in an undisciplined, sick brain.”

Tillie stared at me, going pale. “You mean...”

“I don’t mean anything,” I said, “as yet. I’m only pointing out that if one unknown person went to the Yamashita summerhouse, that two might have.”

“But Rachie Cameron — a slip of a girl.”

“Lithe, athletic,” I said.

“But these people—”

“One to start with. Ichiro. Then the parents walk in. Ichiro was dissipated, probably had the strength of a bowl of mush. The parents were old. The vigorous strength of youth would have been sufficient.”

“You frighten me, Ed!”

“I’m sorry.”

“So like a battle-scarred old bulldog with a strain of wolf. Use a little of that in my behalf, will you?”

“I’ll keep my word to you,” I said.

“I’m counting on you, Ed.”

“I’ll do for you exactly what I promised,” I told her, a harshness in my voice.

I needed to get away from the ladylike niceness of the thing here in the center of its web.

It had grown dark outside while I’d talked with Tillie. I started down the walk, and he came from a concealing shrub.

The barbered grass deadened his footsteps. I knew he was there when the massive forearm chin-locked me from behind and the knee nearly ruptured the end of my spine.

I was held rigid. I couldn’t see the bandy-legged bulk in the natty clothes, or the pear-shaped, hairless gorilla face. But I felt Prince Kuriacha’s breath on the back of my neck and recognized the guttural voice quickly enough.

“You mind your business,” he said. “Ain’t you got any respect for the dead? You leave the Yamashitas alone.”

The explosion in my tail bone had eased to the activity of a few small, intermittent firecrackers.

“Why?” I said.

“The guilty man is in jail.”

“That the only reason?”

The grip didn’t loosen. “They were my friends,” Kuriacha said. “When I was a poverty-stricken bum with nothing to eat in California, Sadao’s brothers were kind to me. Even if it wasn’t the old man doing it himself, on account of he wasn’t there, I don’t forget easy. So lay off, wise guy. I ain’t having you throw dirt all over the Yamashita name.”

He thought I was properly cowed. He turned me loose and stepped back.

I faced him slowly, my hands on my neck, the palms working at the muscles.

His glower was intended to let me know he wasn’t kidding.

He was a wrestler.

I wasn’t.

I hit him in the face hard enough to break the bone. He took the blow on the granite of his cheek. A low-pitched roar came out of him. Arms opened wide, he lunged at me.

If he ever got those arms on me, he could kill me.

I feinted him to one side and hit him again. This time he sat down on the grass with blood pouring from his nose.

“The odds should be about even if we ever meet for the rubber match,” I told him.

His muscles quivered. He seemed on the point of gathering himself to spring.

“You do it,” I said, “and you’ll be digesting your teeth.”

The stalemate held while I backed away and he sat perfectly still.