The Long Wait

Chapter Eleven

Wendy was gone when I woke up. There was the impression in the pillow her head had left, the mark of her cheek on my arm. I could still smell the spicy sweetness she left behind.

I didn’t like the way I felt. I didn’t want to feel that way about any woman. Not yet. There was something about her that was different from most women, something direct and honest. Something that made a guy feel like he had lost an arm when she was gone.

I shook the thought out of my head and got up. There was a note on the dresser that said for me to take the car and she’d see me that evening, signed with love from Wendy. The marks of her lips were overlaid on the signature.

After I had had something to eat I backed the car out of the garage, filled it up at the nearest gas station and picked up a road map. I marked out a route up to the state capital, skipping all the main roads in case the cops had decided to throw up a road block and picked the macadam road that started the run.

At least I didn’t hit any traffic. I barreled the Ford along at a steady seventy, slowing down for a turn here and there and making up the loss on the straight stretches. Ten minutes to eleven I was on the outskirts of the city.

The public buildings were grouped in a towering gray huddle that stuck up above everything else like a sore thumb. In the rear of the mess was a parking area. I left the car there, went inside and scanned the directory until I found what I wanted. The State Auditor. His offices were on the fourth floor.

A very tall, very thin girl peered at me through her eyeglasses and told me to have a seat, so I flicked off the dust with my handkerchief and sat down. She didn’t like that a bit and sniffed at me. All the seats were dirty. Visitors were probably at a premium here. The phone rang on her desk and after she answered it said, “All right. Mr. Donahue will see you now. Go right in, please.” She sniffed again disapprovingly. They weren’t the friendly type here like in Lyncastle.

Mr. Donahue beamed at me and showed out a pudgy little paw. “Sit down, sir, sit down.” He tried to give me the big squeeze that said he was a handball player every Friday at the gym. He was a little round guy with a big nose and a bigger smile, but you didn’t have to look twice to tell that there was a lot of brain power behind the light blue eyes that seemed to dance in his head.

I took the seat and one of his cigarettes. I said, “Mr. Donahue, do you like excitement?”

He paused in the middle of lighting a butt and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Well...” he chuckled and pulled on the butt, shaking the match out. “That’s an old question. Yes, might say that I do. In moderate doses, of course. Never find excitement around here.” His hand swept the room. “Unless it’s an error in bookwork. That’s my only form of excitement. Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re going to be able to kick up a lot of it in a few minutes if you want to... unless you’re not the kind of a guy who likes a little fun.”

His face said he was interested. “I... don’t quite understand. Perhaps...”

“According to the police, Mr. Donahue, I’m a bank absconder, thief, murderer and a few other things. One word from you and I’ll be in the jug.”

His eyebrows really did nip-ups this time.

“The name is McBride. Five years ago you checked the books of the National Bank of Lyncastle that proved me an absconder.”

“I remember.”

“How much do you remember?”

Mr. Donahue was nervous. The cigarette shortened in a series of jerky little puffs. He didn’t know whether to look at me or not and was afraid to make a move toward the phone.

I said. “I’m not here after you, friend, so stop worrying.”

He showed his teeth in a smile, but didn’t stop sweating. “I... remember the details quite... clearly.”

I sat back and folded my hands behind my head. “Give.”

He stamped the butt out, paused, then raised his face to mine. “That information is confidential, you know. I’m sure the bank...”

“I can’t go to the bank. I can’t go anywhere. Cops are all over the damn city looking for me now. I was framed, Mr. Donahue. I didn’t have a thing to do with that business.”

“My job wasn’t to prove you guilty, young man. I only checked the books. There was complete evidence of a fraud. The books had been juggled in a neat, but no uncommon manner.” He stopped and stared out the window a moment. “Some time ago I had another request similar to yours. A young lady. She made a point of cultivating me until she openly asked the same thing you did.”

My mouth went into a sneer all by itself. “Vera West.”

“That wasn’t the name she gave.”

“A blonde. A real honest-to-goodness blonde a little on the tramp side.”

“Er, yes. She managed to extract the information from me. I thought you’d know about it.” His face reddened and he wouldn’t look at me. “I never mentioned it before. Perhaps I should have.”

“No,” I told him. “You did right. It wouldn’t do to open your mouth when she had something on you that could turn you upside down. I’m not blaming you. What I want are the details.”

His fingers picked up a pencil and tapped it against the desk. “There really isn’t much to it. The District Attorney of Lyncastle, the one who died later, called me in. I made a routine check of the bank’s books and found the error.”

“Two hundred thousand dollars’ worth?”

“Approximately. A shade over to be more nearly accurate.”

“You found something else, too, didn’t you? Something you might have mentioned to the blonde.”

Between his eyes a shaded V formed. It deepened until he was squinting at me. “You certainly have a wealth of information. I did tell that young lady something else. It was a mere suspicion. It couldn’t be checked. In my opinion you... I mean, whoever was responsible, took out considerably more than that amount, but managed to pay back all but two hundred thousand of the total.”

“Interesting.”

His tongue flicked over his lips. “There was a matter of eighty-four dollars in an account that by rights should have been cleaned out. It would have been just as easy to take the whole amount as part. In fact, easier, and the books would have been easier to balance out. I speculated on it and arrived at the conclusion that at the time of the investigation a theft was not in evidence as much as a replacement of the theft. Money was being put back into the bank with the intention of eventually making up the theft. Whatever was put back filled up the last account eighty-four dollars’ worth.”

“A sort of no interest loan on my part, you mean.”

“It’s been done successfully before, I imagine. More often not enough.”

“I see.” I dropped my hands to my lap and tilted back on the chair. “You couldn’t noise your suspicions around very far either, could you?”

He knew what I was getting at. The red crept up in his face again and he shook his head. “Actually, it didn’t occur to me until I returned home and thought it over. It was too nebulous a thing to bring out without absolute proof. I forgot it until I was, ah, approached by this young lady. I realize that I never should have said anything, but under the circumstances it couldn’t be helped. She made what I took to be a veiled threat if I ever mentioned the subject to anyone after that.”

“Why bring it up now?”

Mr. Donahue seemed to be a little pained. “Because I’ve had a nagging worry about the matter ever since and I’ll be damned glad to see it come out in the open.”

My chest coughed up a laugh that startled him. “Don’t worry about it then,” I said. “A lot of things will be out in the open before long, but you won’t be dragged into it. You can forget the blonde too. She’s going to have more on her mind than trying to shaft you.”

“You... know who she is?”

“Yeah, I know who, but I don’t know where. She’ll turn up.”

I let the chair down and stood up. He shook hands again but without as much force as the last time. I caught him looking down at the phone once so just before I left I said, “You can make up your own mind about it, but you’ll do better if you keep this little visit under your hat too.” He licked his lips. “And if you’re interested enough, read the Lyncastle News.”

At three-thirty I got back to Lyncastle. I put the car in the garage and went in the house. Wendy wasn’t there and no sign that she had been there earlier. I tried the bus station and somebody on duty said Mr. Henderson had taken the afternoon off. No, he didn’t know where to locate him.

The next call went to the Circus Bar and over all the background noises I finally got it across that I wanted Alan Logan. The guy on the other end yelled back that he wasn’t there and hung up. I tried his office.

A girl answered the call and I said, “Alan Logan, please.”

“I’m sorry, but he isn’t here.”

“Know where I can find him?”

“No I don’t. We’ve been looking for him all day ourselves. He hasn’t called in at all. Perhaps you can suggest...”

I hated like hell putting him on the spot with his office by telling them he was out somewhere on a bat so I said, “Last I saw of him he was on a story. I’m calling because he had some information up there for me. It was from New York, a memo from a Mr. Whitman.”

“Oh, yes. It’s here on his desk.”

“Could you read it off to me?”

I heard whatever it was crackle in her hand. “Gee... I don’t know. We’re not supposed to...”

“It’s okay. It was some personal information I needed.”

“Well...” The paper made a tearing noise and crackled again when she unfolded it. “It isn’t much. It says, ‘Gracie Harlan and Harlan, Incorporated identical.’ It’s signed, ‘Whit.’ ”

“Thanks,” I said. I hung up and stood there playing with the phone. The blank spaces were filling in gradually. There was a little more sense to it now. The cover was coming off the picture, but I had to be sure of what I saw.

I went downstairs and backed the car out again. Someplace across town would be another piece of the puzzle picture.

It was just like the first time, quiet, with the overtones of “The Moonlight Sonata” drifting through the door. She even had on the dress with the tassel. I said, “Hello, Venus.”

Her eyes made one quick sweep of the street. “Get in here, man!” She said it with an urgency in her voice that made me hop. I slid in the door, shut it and watched her lock it.

“Alone?”

“I haven’t been.”

“What’s the score?”

“Servo’s boys. They’ve been here off and on ever since you left. What the devil have you been doing?”

“Plenty. Where are they now?”

“I don’t know. They left, but they’ll be back again.” She fumbled for a cigarette on the table. “The police have been here too. Oh, not the local police. These were feds.”

“Yeah?”

“Things are popping in town. The City Council convened and passed an all-out resolution to find you.” She pulled on the cigarette and walked to the window. When she was satisfied nobody was watching she tugged the curtains together. “I sent a couple of girls out to see what was going on. They made good contacts.”

“Nice. Spill it.”

“George Wilson, Johnny McBride, whoever you are... those federal boys decided you have been in back of everything that went on in this town. You financed Servo’s operations for the sheer hell of it and when things got too quiet to suit you, you went off on a spree of your own. You’re back because things outside of Lyncastle got too hot for you. They even tagged you with a long scientific name that means you’re chronically antisocial ever since you came back from the war.”

“So I’m the big wheel,” I mused. “I’m the guy they want from here to Washington. That doesn’t count in Lenny Servo.”

Her eyes narrowed cautiously. “He has a personal score to settle. I know all about it. But there’s more than that. There’s a rumor that he’s been splitting the take with you all along the line and now he’ll be glad to see you under wraps so he can have the whole works.”

“Rumors. They have to start someplace.”

She nodded. “You’ve been flush ever since you came to town.”

“That I have, kid. Rumors are funny that way; there’s always an element of truth in them. A little thought will blow a hole in it though.”

“How?”

“If I’m behind Servo and I get picked up isn’t it logical that I cut Lenny in on half the guilt as well as half the take?”

The cigarette went down another notch. Her face lost the cautious expression and became blank. “Who are you, man?”

I smiled at her and let it go at that. I said, “Once you said you had a picture to show me. Did you ever find it?”

Without answering she got up and left the room. She was back a couple of minutes later with a wrinkled display-size photo that had evidently been stored away for quite a while. She handed it to me and sat down.

There was a fresh pencil mark around the girl she wanted me to see. Her name was Harlan. She was incorporated. I had seen a later picture of her not so long ago. She was a waitress who worked in the ABC diner outside of town and had committed suicide because her roommate had been killed. Before she came to Lyncastle she had worked a con game in New York. She had served time.

Now I knew. Or at least had a good idea.

I handed the picture back to Venus. “Mind if I use your phone?”

“Go ahead.”

It was getting so I could remember the numbers now. I tried Logan’s office first. He wasn’t there. Wendy wasn’t home and Nick still wasn’t at the station. The next number was the police station and somebody answered. I asked for Lindsey and he was put on.

“Captain Lindsey speaking.”

“Johnny, friend.”

His breath got loud in my ear. “Go ahead.” He said it through his teeth.

“What about that letter?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t fit. I found the envelope and that was all. Not a thing anyplace.”

“It’s around.”

His voice was a hoarse rasp. “McBride, I think you’re stalling. You won’t get out of this town alive if you are.”

“I’ve been out and back already, Lindsey. Now listen to me. Servo’s girl is loose somewhere. You know her?”

“Yeah, Troy Avalard. Why?”

“She’s on somebody’s kill list, Lindsey. Pick her up. I think she may be the key to this thing. Pass the word around and see what you can do.”

He said something dirty under his breath. “You gave me the answer to that one last night, McBride. Suppose I do give orders. Somebody else’ll change ’em.”

“You’re not scared, are you?” I asked easily.

Lindsey was silent a moment, then I heard another muttered curse. “I’ll look for her,” he said.

“Fine. Call the bank and see if she made any large withdrawal. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

I slapped the phone back, chain-lit another cigarette and went over to the window for a quick look down the street. There was a truck parked behind the Ford and a light green sedan behind that. A postman was sorting letters as he went up the steps to a house across the street. A kid came by on a bicycle. A kid in a sleeveless sweater was ambling along checking the house numbers.

I closed the curtains and went back to the phone. Lindsey had made his check. Troy Avalard hadn’t made any withdrawals at all. The cashier had given him the information and was instructed to call Lindsey back if she appeared.

Venus was taking it all in silently, sitting there in her chair playing with the tassel on her dress. “You’re big trouble, man. Real big. Things are getting ready to blow, aren’t they?”

“Soon. It should have happened five years ago. It would have if a guy named Robert Minnow hadn’t been killed.” I stopped and looked at her. “You’ll be here right along?”

“I’m not going anyplace.”

“If Servo’s boys come back...”

She smiled and reached down behind the cushions. There was a gun in her hand. A long-barreled revolver that wasn’t a woman’s gun at all. You could poke your finger down the hole in the end. “They won’t bother me, man. Not again they won’t, not even Servo himself.”

“Where’d the rod come from?”

“My husband’s. I told you I used to be married to a cop, remember? He taught me how to use it.”

“What happened to him?”

She jerked with a short laugh. “I shot him.”

The gun went back behind the cushions and she took me out to the door. Like I said, it was just the same as the first time. The tassel was dangling there and I pulled it.

Not quite like the last time. It was a different dress. Just the top fell off. She said, “Skin is still skin to you, isn’t it?”

I agreed that it was and closed the door while she was picking her gimmick up from the floor.

The street was empty and I climbed in the Ford. While 1 angled back to town I switched on the radio and picked up the local station. It was right on the half hour and the news commentator was giving a recap of daily events. It was too late to get the details, but in brief, he said that John McBride, alias George Wilson, had not been apprehended and was somewhere at large in the city. All efforts were being made to locate him and an appeal had been made by the City Council and the mayor for the citizenry to join in the search. A description followed that was a good one and changed my mind about breezing through town like I was.

Sometimes a crook is safest standing in front of a cop. Then nobody suspects he’s a crook. Everybody expected me to be in hiding so when I went in the dry goods store nobody bothered looking at me twice. I had left my shirt and jacket in the car, walked in in my T shirt and asked the lady behind the counter for a work shirt, size 16, a size 44 leather jacket and a couple of handkerchiefs. To make it look good I bought a pair of blue jeans and a pair of brogans.

She rang up the sale on the register, smiled and thanked me, then went back to her paper. There was another picture of me on the front page. A little smaller in this edition. I changed clothes in the cubicle in the back, threw my other stuff in the rear of the car and started toward town again.

That’s when I saw Wendy. She was coming out of a beauty parlor, on the next corner with a package under her arm, glancing down the street for a bus. I slammed on the brakes and yelled to her. She came across the street on the run and got in beside me.

“That where you’ve been all day?”

I didn’t mean to make it sound like it did. She looked hurt and shook her head. “I just stopped in to make an appointment. I was on the way home.”

I could have seen that if I had looked first. She was still dark around the roots even if her hair did look custom-tailored. I looked some more and grinned. Wendy was an okay chick. I tapped the package. “For me?”

“For you.” She did that trick with her mouth again and opened the top of it. “Want me to tell you about it or read it off?”

“Tell me.”

“Tucker lives in a big house in the suburbs. He has a bar in the cellar with a game room and a poolroom. There’s a two-car garage behind the house with a new Caddy in one side. He uses the other when he’s working.”

“Nice going on a cop’s salary.”

“He isn’t the only one. Most of the police work a shakedown racket on the side. Tucker does better than most though.”

“He’s in with Servo?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “At one time Tucker was a few grand in the hole to one of the big boys. It’s been said that Servo had the debt canceled. I have statements from seven people who saw him lose thousands in one of the joints in town.”

“Try again. He can always say he won the money on another wheel.”

Wendy fingered through the tops of the papers in the pack. “He hires a man to make out his income tax. The guy talked with a little persuasion. He said that Tucker declares everything.”

“He’s smart. Capone should have thought of it. What else?”

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat. “I went back to see Mrs. Minnow. The last time she didn’t tell us everything. Her husband had Lenny Servo in court several times.”

“I know. It was in the papers.”

“The important part wasn’t. Bob Minnow had evidence that would have broken the racket down... or at least put Servo where he would have talked. Twice, on the night before he went to court, somebody broke into his office and rifled the safe. Each time his evidence disappeared.”

“Tucker,” I said. “Damn it, Tucker would have had the way and the means.” I slammed my fist against the wheel and cursed some more.

Her voice sounded like it came out of a fog. “Not Tucker,” she said.

I stared at her. “Who?”

She leafed out a brand-new poster of me, the kind you see in post offices. She had circled the paragraph that said I was wanted for jobs that involved robbing safes. I was an expert at it.

And not so long ago I had sat across a table from Logan telling him about the safe I had pulled from the dump heap and used to experiment on.

“You,” she said. It was soft, but it cracked like a pistol shot. Her eyes were dark with distrust, yet she sat there waiting for me to explain it away.

I didn’t bother. “That’s a lot of work for one day, kid.” She pulled back as if I had taken a swipe at her. There were sudden tears in her eyes and I wondered what the hell I could have said that would do that to her.

I said, “Oh, quit getting sore at me.” I reached out and pulled her under my arm, burying my face in her hair. She smelled pretty. “I’m just a born lout, Wendy. Always forgetting my manners. I should’ve said thanks.”

My thumb tilted her chin up until her mouth was under mine. I felt her lips quivering, then her hand went around my head and held me there until I finished apologizing.

The lines she had around her eyes when I first met her were all gone. Coming out of the hardness was a new kind of beauty she let me see only briefly before she pulled back in her shell.

I hit the starter button. “I’m going into town. You want to come along?”

“No... I have things to do.” She tapped the package.

“What shall I do with this stuff?”

“Leave it in the house. Sure you don’t want to come?”

She shook her head and opened the door. When she was out she stood there holding it open, her eyes going over me curiously. “You’re dressed funny.”

“Disguise.”

“Oh.” She grinned at me. “You’ll be careful?”

“Does it matter?”

She nodded and there were tears in her eyes again. A bus came along and she ran for it, leaving me wondering what it was I said that time.