The Night Remembers

34

She’d burned something — toast, most likely — and my apartment smelled of it now. She’d left the TV on. Donahue in his dramatic way was about to probe a woman’s face with his microphone. In the bathroom I found a pink plastic bottle of talc overturned. The damp bathmat was covered with white powder that looked vaguely like heroin. She was scared and so was I.

In the living room I picked up the phone and dialed Faith’s apartment across the street.

“Hello.”

“Marcia?”

“Yes.”

“Walsh.”

“Oh. Hi.”

“How’s Hoyt?”

“Kind of grumpy today, actually.”

“Give him a kiss for me.”

She laughed. “I was thinking of giving him something else.”

“I’m sure he’s picking up our moods.”

“Oh, you mean Faith’s test.”‘

“Right. You heard anything?”

“Huh-uh. Not a word.”

“Well, if she should happen to call tell her I’m back at my apartment for a while.”

“Okay. You want to say goodbye to Hoyt? I just picked him up.”

Hoyt made a few wet babbling noises. I puckered up and gave him a noisy telephone kiss.

“Bye,” Marcia said.

I was just taking my cup of Folger’s Instant from the microwave when I saw the gray ghost of the mailman cross right-to-left behind the curtain. Cup in hand, I went into the hallway and got my mail. The only thing interesting was a letter from my friend Salvadore Carlucci who I’d served in Italy with during World War II and who, like me, was a retired cop turned investigator.

Lately, Carlucci’s letters were more like small essays as he reminisced about our days in the war. “Remember when you could room and board — and I mean six good meals — for a whole weekend outside Fort Dix... for just $10.85? Remember the time we saw Betty Grable perform in New York? Remember the kid from Oklahoma with trench mouth so bad all he could do was cry? Remember how we used to pack dead men on mules and send them down the long, winding mountain roads so the Red Cross people could attend to them?”

As I sat there, my coffee going cold, I began to think back and in doing so realized how many different people I’d been in my life. In the war I’d been forced to be the kind of cold, ruthless man I later learned to despise. Later, as a detective, I’d developed a real sympathy for the plight of most people in trouble — a sympathy based, I suppose, on the belief that each of us at heart is scared and alone.

I was just debating sticking my coffee back into the microwave when the phone rang. Assuming it would be Faith, I jumped for it.

“Mr. Walsh?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Stan Papajohn.”

“I appreciate the call,” I said.

“I’m told you were asking about Stella.”

“Yes.”

“I guess I’d like to know why.”

“I’m an investigator, Mr. Papajohn. I’m working for a client.”

“That doesn’t tell me much.”

“I’m trying to figure out your ex-wife’s relationship with her former employer, a Mr. Vandersee.”

“Are you trying to be smart?”

“No. Why?”

“If you know anything about Stella then you know just what kind of relationship it was.”

“I see.”

“They were honeys.”

“Do you mind talking about it?”

He hesitated. “I guess not. I suppose this has to do with her murder?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must be working for George Pennyfeather.”

“You know George?”

“Not really. But he came over here one night.”

“He did? When?”

“Back before he killed Jankov.”

“Do you know what he wanted?”

He laughed. “Whatever it was, he wanted it pretty bad.”

“Oh?”

“That’s right. He slapped Stella.”

“George Pennyfeather?”

“Yep. Stella said he was a real wimp. But he slapped her anyway.”

I didn’t tell him about George’s relationship with Papajohn’s late wife. “Did she know Karl Jankov?”

“The same way she knew Vandersee.”

“They were lovers?”

“Yup. Bitch. That was the kind of woman she was.”

“Is that why you got a divorce?”

“That and the way the bill collectors were comin’ around.”

“I thought she was doing very well in those days.”

“She was but got in too deep.”

“Do you know exactly how she and Vandersee made their money?”

“Import-Export as far as I knew.”

“Nothing else?”

He hesitated again. “To be honest, I always knew there was somethin’ else but I never could figure out what it was. I think that’s how they made their read money.”

“You didn’t ever get any real sense of it?”

“Not really.”

“Do you know a man named Heckart?”

“Yup. He brought Stella home one night.”

“Richard Heckart?”

“No. His name was Paul Heckart.”

“What?”

“Yup. I wrote down his license number and checked it the next day. Paul Heckart. Those were the days when I was still trying’ to keep track of who she was seein’ on the side. After a while, it got to be too much trouble.”

“You’re sure it was Paul Heckart?”

“Sure. Who’s this Richard Heckart anyway?”

I was about to answer when I heard the key in the door and before I could turn around, she was crossing the threshold.

Given the look on her face, I didn’t need to ask how it had gone. She moved quickly through the living room and into the bedroom. She closed the door quietly. Moments later she started crying.

“Mr. Walsh?”

“Yes.”

“You all right?”

“I guess so, Mr. Papajohn. Thanks for your time.”

“Well, sure. Is that it?”

“For now, anyway. Thanks again.”

I hung up. I couldn’t ever recall my apartment being this silent. Her tears were a scourge on the air.

I went to the door and knocked with on knuckle.

She just kept on crying. I turned the knob and went in.