The Long Wait

Chapter Three

The place was a roadhouse on the north-south highway. There was nothing fancy about it except the sign that said LOUIE DINERO’S STEAKS AND CHOPS. It was a real log cabin job with a big fieldstone fireplace on the bar side and from the number of cars parked in the drive, business was booming.

“Kind of far out for such a trade, isn’t it?”

“Don’t make no difference. It’s the only good place left to eat. Catches all the trade going home.”

Inside, a rumba band picked up the beat and a lot of people started whistling at something happening on the dance floor. Pop said hello to a few people, got a big hello in Italian dialect from Louie himself and introduced me with a half-hearted wave. I think I said hello. It was hard to talk and watch the blonde wrapped around the microphone at the same time. She was a real bottle-yellow blonde in a green dress that went on like a bathrobe and was held together by only one button in the middle. No matter which way she stepped you’d see almost all the inside of a lovely tanned leg that was a tantalizing flash in the amber spotlight. She started off the song with little steps that got larger and more critical and had everybody forgetting their chow waiting for the inevitable.

The song was about three bars too short and the inevitable stayed hidden. Instead of giving the patrons a breather she started a new routine with the top of the dress and for a minute I thought she would come out of it altogether. That song ended too fast too. She got one hell of a round of applause and disappeared behind the curtains beside the band.

Louie said, “You like?”

I said, “I love.”

He gave me a big smile and patted his belly contentedly. “Wendy she was good tonight. Very good. Sometimes soon she make the big time.”

I grunted, “She had it made a long time ago.”

“So true. But she likes it here and won’t leave. I pay tops. Very nice girl. Now, Nick, you and your young friend like to eat?”

Pop said, “Sure, I need something. Get us a couple steaks, but bring a drink first. We’ll be over at the corner table.”

By the corner table he meant the one that was wedged so far in the comer behind a palm and some draperies that it was empty because nobody knew it was there. The drinks reached the table the same time we did and went down in time for the waiter to bring back the empties for a refill.

“This a regular banquet of yours, Pop?”

“Guy gets tired of boarding-house cooking sometimes.”

“Nice job you got. Maybe you own the bus line.”

“Hell, Johnny, it ain’t expensive here for me. Friend of mine supplies Louie at a cut rate, so Louie makes up the favor on the bill. The steaks are something special.”

He wasn’t kidding there. They were very special. I didn’t know how hungry I was until I worked mine over until there was a big shiny T in the middle of the plate. I pulled out a smoke and sat back to enjoy it when the blonde came in around the palm and I sat there with the match burning down to my fingers.

She didn’t have on the green dress, but the one she wore was just as good. When I studied her a little closer I decided that it wasn’t the dress at all but what was underneath it. She said, “Hello, Nick,” in a rich, husky voice and wrinkled her nose at me.

“Hi, Wendy, meet Johnny.”

I like women who stick out their hand and shake like a man.

It gives you a chance to feel what they’re made of. This one was okay. “Hello, Wendy. I liked your number.”

She laughed deep down in her throat. “Not disappointed?”

“Well, a little bit. I had hopes there for a while. Someday the threads holding on that button will wear out.”

“I’d get awfully cold,” she said.

I grinned at her. “Uh-uh. I’d keep you warm.”

“You’d have to beat off the mob with a club,” Pop grunted. “Sit down, Wendy. You through for the night?”

“All done and ready to go home. You going to drive me back?”

“Sure. Take you as far as the station and Johnny can go the rest.”

That was nice of him.

Wendy said, “Swell. Or will I have to fight you off?”

“Don’t be so damn anxious,” I told her. “When I have to fight a dame for what I want I’ll hang up.”

She propped her chin in her hand and smiled all over her face. It was a beautiful face with eyes that were all sex and a mouth to match. She even looked good with the bleach job and that’s not easy. “I was just asking,” she said. “It’s hard to tell what a guy’s like these days and you look like you already had one hung on you.”

“You mean the head?”

“That and your jacket.”

Pop shoved his plate back and picked up the last of his drink. “He got that from the cops, honey.”

The smile waned away. “Cops?”

“His name is Johnny McBride.”

That beautiful mouth made a curve that said a silent “Oh!+” that became part of a frightened scowl. “You mean...”

I took it up from there. “The police would like to prove that I killed somebody.”

“But... they did!”

“You ought to speak to them and find out.”

Her eyes went between me and Pop. He jerked his thumb at me. “Look at his fingers, Wendy.”

I turned my hands over and let her have a peek at the smooth surfaces of my fingers. There was nothing ugly about them. A lot of hard work rigging oil derricks had taken away most of the discoloration and they would have looked just like fingers if they weren’t so slick.

She was going to say something, but Pop beat her to it. “He’s crazy.”

I pulled my hands back and picked up the butt. “You’d be surprised how sane I am.” My voice had a hard edge to it.

Pop caught it the first time. “What do ya mean?”

“Why’d you bring me here, Pop? There were plenty of places to eat in town.”

He didn’t answer.

“Before you left you made a phone call. It was to blondie here. Why?”

It caught him with his mouth open. He let it hang that way for a second before closing it sheepishly. “You was listening,” he accused me.

“Listening nuts. I’m guessing and I’m guessing right.”

“You’re right, Johnny. He called me.” I grinned at the blonde and let her throw the ball to the old duffer.

“Okay, Johnny,” he said, “I called her. Now I’ll tell you why. I think you’re a plain damn fool for sticking around, but that’s your business and I’m not butting in there. Just the same, you park right out where everybody can see you and you’re asking for trouble. Wendy here owns a pretty big house and she’s going to take you in.”

“That all?” I asked.

“That’s all, Johnny.” He stopped and stared at his plate. “Can’t you tell me what’s biting you?”

“No. Nothing’s biting me.”

“Ah, I don’t know. A guy’s not much help when he’s old, I guess. When you was a little kid and used to hang around the station I was the guy who fixed your kites and took the knots outa your fishing line. Ever since you got into trouble I’ve worried myself sick over you. Come on, let’s get outta here.”

And there it was, another piece of history that went back twenty years. Like most kids, I was supposed to have made the station a regular hangout. I bet I even used to know the schedules by heart. Now I could quit worrying about why the old guy was so damn friendly. It was nice to know those things, especially when I had never seen him before in my life.

Wendy picked up her hat and purse, said so-long to Louie and the bar crowd, then joined us outside. There was only room for two in the front of the Ford, so I got in back and took it easy awhile. Nobody said anything until the car rolled in against the platform, then the old boy got out and told me to get up front.

I said, “Sure, Pop.”

He gave a tug at his mustache and glared at me. “And damnit, stop calling me ‘Pop’! You know my name as well as I do!”

“Okay, Mr. Henderson.”

“You sure got fresh in five years, Johnny.” He stamped away, but got over his mad soon enough to turn around and wave.

We waved back and he disappeared inside.

The station was still empty.

“Where you staying, Johnny?”

“Hathaway House.”

The blonde nodded, made a turn and cut down to the main drag. “We’ll go right to my place and you can send for your baggage in the morning.”

“I don’t have any baggage. I’m not going to your place yet either. Maybe tomorrow, but not tonight.”

She didn’t argue about it. “That’s your affair. I’m only doing it as a favor for Nick.”

I waited until she was stopped for a red light and grinned so she could see it. “Look, Wendy, you’re a nice little mouse and all that, but you’re strictly the kind of sex I can’t afford to have around right now. I got things to do.”

Her eyebrows slid up disdainfully. “Don’t worry, you won’t get raped.”

“It’s been known to happen,” I said.

“God, what an ego!” The light changed and the car shot forward with the gears mashing noisily.

“Don’t fool yourself, baby. I’m as much man as you are woman and like Freud says, it’s sex that motivates everything.”

“You’re an educated bastard.”

“Yeah.”

A smile played around in the comer of her mouth. “Perhaps I should change that song routine of mine.”

“Do that. Either let ’em see it or keep it hidden altogether. I hate to be teased.”

She threw back her head, laughed and I laughed with her. Then we both shut up until we were a block from the hotel. I saw the sign up ahead and told her to stop. I got out, shut the door and leaned on the window. “If the invitation is still good, where do I find your place?”

Her face was a pale oval in the gloom of the car. “4014 Pontiel Road, Johnny. It’s a white house on the crest of a hill. I’ll leave a key in the big flowerpot on the porch.”

There was something in her voice that was all honey and butter like when she sang that song and I could see her in the green dress with all the light tan skin showing. I reached out and pulled her halfway across the seat until her mouth was there, full and ripe, and I tasted it hungrily, feeling the hot lance of her tongue before she stiffened and jerked away.

“Damn you. That was a nice line about not fighting for it!”

“Hell, that was just sparring around,” I said. Then I laughed and she let the clutch out so fast I almost went on my neck. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face because she was a hot little mouse who liked to tease and couldn’t take any teasing back. She didn’t know it, but she was due for some lessons in Freud at that Pontiel Road address.

Instead of going in the main entrance of the Hathaway House, I used the side door and saw the big cop before he saw me. He was slouched in a chair trying to read and watch the exit at the same time without doing a good job of either.

I tapped him on the shoulder and if he wasn’t so big he wouldn’t have gotten stuck in the chair trying to get up. I said, “Oh, sit there, junior. I’ve already been so I’m not going anyplace. If you should want me, just ring my room.”

He sat back and gave me a dirty look and made sure I got on the elevator. Then he picked up the paper again and started reading. I stepped out on my floor, walked down the corridor and poked the key in the lock.

Before I had my clothes off I knew somebody had been through the room. There was a smell that shouldn’t have been there and it was a newly familiar smell I couldn’t miss. It took awhile but I got it. The stuff was an antiseptic. Like hospitals. Like Tucker’s beat-up face under a bandage.

Whatever he was looking for he didn’t find because there wasn’t anything there to find in the first place. I tossed my new jacket in the handbag with the other junk and took a shower. The shock of cold water started my head aching again, so I warmed it up until I turned pink in spots and the ache went away.

I was drying off when knuckles rapped the door. I yelled to come in and wrapped the towel around my middle. Jack, the bellhop, stood there in a listening attitude, one ear cocked toward the door. Apparently he was satisfied with what he heard. “You know there’s a bull downstairs.”

“Uh-huh. He tried following me awhile.”

“Slip ’im, huh?”

“Ran away from him. He’s not very fast.”

“That true stuff about you being the guy who knocked off the D. A.?”

“A lot of people seem to think so.”

“What do you think?”

I gave him a hurt look and climbed into my shorts. “Now what would I want to knock off a D.A. for?”

He grinned at me slyly as if I had spilled the whole thing. “You had a visitor before. A mummy.”

“Yeah, I know. I could smell him.”

“That was Tucker. He’s a son of a bitch. You and him tangled, hah?”

“In a minor sort of a way I belted the crap out of him. Why you handing out all that nice information?”

The grin came back. “You give me a fin. He didn’t. Besides, he’s been on my neck a long time. The bastard wants his cut of everything that goes on and he gets it. Not from me though,” he added. “Anybody who takes him is a pal of mine.”

“Hi, pal. What’s your racket? Everybody else in town seems to have one, so what’s yours?”

“Women.”

“Good, send me two. A redhead and a brunette.”

“Okay, and you know what I said before. Anything you want, you holler. I like the way you messed up that bastard Tucker. Any more come busting in I’ll give you a ring. There’s an emergency exit and a service elevator down the hall. I’ll leave the car on this floor so’s you can use it if you hafta.”

He listened again and ducked out. I crawled into bed and shut my eyes. If was late as hell, but from the street noises you’d think it was the middle of the day.

If I did sleep it was only for about five minutes. The door opened again and the lights came on.

There was a redhead and a brunette standing there.

The redhead said, “Jack sent us.”

I let out a tired groan. “Tell Jack hello and to go to hell, will you.”

“But he said...”

“I was only kidding. Honest, rm too tired.”

“Not that tired,” the brunette smiled. She walked over and whipped the cover off me. “I guess he is at that,” she told the redhead.

So they laughed and went out and I tried to get some sleep.