The Best American Mystery Stories Part 4

"That's not usually how it goes," Davis said.

"She was depressed, she said." Jeffers shook his head. "What's that thing where girls make themselves skinny for attention?"

"Marriage," Davis said.

Jeffers gave her one curt laugh. "I heard the window, I didn't know what to think. One day we were fighting and she found a nail on the ground. A nail! And scratched herself across the arm. With broken gla.s.s, I didn't want her to-"

"We used one of the chairs to break the door down," Bruno said. "Gregor heard us and came upstairs. The chair was broken too."

"Now what else is really in this room?" Davis said. "Rug and desk, you said. Curtains?"

"Heavy dark things," Jeffers said. "Like in here. Just like in this place. "Timothy Speed made her get them. That's the first place we looked. We thought she'd thrown herself out one of the big windows, although she was so light they might not have broken. Who knows. But she wasn't there. And don't think behind the door because I looked there and kicked the G.o.dd.a.m.n wall. I'm telling you she wasn't hiding. She must have gone out the other one."

"It's a lightwell," Bruno said. "It goes up," to a skylight made of marble you can s.h.i.+ne light through. The light is yellowy. I don't like it. But that's where it goes."

"Up to a skylight," Davis said, "and down to where?"

"To another window, in the bas.e.m.e.nt," Bruno said. "Painted shut. Not messed with. The police used what I have read was a fine-tooth comb."

"She was gone," Jeffers said. "When we saw the window we ran downstairs to the bas.e.m.e.nt. There were four cases of wine stacked up against that window. They were dusty. She wasn't there. We ran all the way up to the roof. The sun was coming up over the park, I'm telling you, the G.o.dd.a.m.n birds were singing but my wife was not on the roof and there's no way she was ever on the roof."

Davis stopped wiping the table. "Afraid of heights?"

"No," Jeffers said. "You can't open that marble thing. It's old. Wesson didn't build it to be opened."

"Who went up on the roof?" Davis said. "All of you? Gregor too?"

"Gregor's old," Jeffers said. "He dozed in the other chair."

"The police have been with him a million times," Bruno said. "That's why they haven't arrested Mr. Jeffers, I think. They believe that I'd help him murder somebody and hide a body, but not Gregor. They thought maybe they couldn't shake me, but two hours with the cops and Gregor would cry like a baby."

"He lost his mom young," Jeffers said. "That's why he's such a f.u.c.king baby."

"I really don't like you," Davis said. She walked back to the bar and ran a thoughtful hand down the wood, close to where I was sitting. I couldn't help watching her even though it must have looked schoolboy. "A girl," she said, "goes into a room with nothing in it but antique furniture and closed windows. Someone brings her a drink. Gla.s.s breaks. A tiny window that goes nowhere is broken. The other ones aren't, and you're sure, right? Became they're tall. You might have missed a small break at the top."

"When we got back from the roof I ripped those drapes down myself," Jeffers said.

"Which hasn't helped your case," Bruno said. "He trashed that whole room and then had to tell the cops that nothing had been broken but the window. We got an Italian guy doing the wiring and an old man with a shop in his garage. He's the only man who can fix a Wesson chair, so he says."

"Yes," Jeffers said. "I threw the chair."

"The chair that broke the door?" Davis asked.

"No," Jeffers said. "Another chair. The chair by the desk. It was like a throne but I lifted it and I snapped it over the desk."

"So there was another chair in the room," Davis said. "What else?"

"Papers in the desk," Jeffers said. "I don't know. Nothing. A letter opener, maybe? When I tipped it over I didn't notice anything missing."

"The drink," Bruno said.

"What?" Davis asked.

"The Delmonico," Bruno said. "The tray was there and the little shaker full of melting ice. But the gla.s.s and the drink were gone. Gin, vermouth, brandy, dash of bitters."

"An invisibility potion," Jeffers said. "Like I said. Gone like her."

"Mr. Jones," Davis said, "put something on the jukebox."

She handed me two of Callahan's unearned dollars. He glared at me. I walked to the jukebox and chose Chet Baker, which is what I do often.

"What was she wearing?" Davis asked.

"A necklace," Jeffers said. "A lot of money around her neck. Diamonds and I think sapphires, I don't know. A vintage thing somebody found for me. A present after a fight. And a silk dress I ripped. And her shoes, but her shoes were sitting on the desk, right next to the phone which I tipped out oi the wall. Just tell me where the f.u.c.k she is or stop with the stupid questions. l'm so tired of this. The cops ask all the same things, what was she wearing, like I would have forgot to mention jet-pack."

"I'm going to pour you one more Scotch," Davis said. "And you'll drink it and I'll tell you something and you'll leave. And you'll pay for another bourbon for Mr. Jones."

"Who the h.e.l.l is Mr. Jones?" Jeffers asked.

"A customer who doesn't give me any trouble," Davis said, her back to the bottles. She poured, and then she reached up and coaxed two martini gla.s.ses from a rack above her head. I always forget about that. The gentlemen sipped and I sipped and she filled the two gla.s.ses with ice and left them on the bar, while she busied herself with a shaker. Gin. Brandy. You know where this is going. She trembled the bitters bottle over the shaker, stirred, and shut the lid. The ice s.h.i.+fted in the gla.s.s. The jukebox played.

There's something about this I'm not telling right. How nasty Jeffers was, maybe, or the sheer implausible mess of a circus wife, a thuggish friend, a tale of an old butler and a locked-up room. The gorgeous shadow of the Slow Night while outside the sun sank, and the quiet of an early drink you didn't deserve. You do not meet people very often like Davis, with a smile from nowhere and a wavering frown, thinking things over so beautifully just to watch her was beauty enough, like the lilt in a good jazz singer, the curve of a good lyric like a secret closing in on itself. This suspense is killing me. I can't stand uncertainty. Tell me now. I've got to know whether you want me to stay or go. Love me, or leave me and let me be lonely. You won't believe me. I love you only. I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else. You might find the nighttime the right time for kissing, but nighttime is my time for just reminiscing, regretting instead of forgetting with somebody else. There'll be no one unless that someone is you. I intend to be independently blue. I want your love, but I don't want to borrow--to have it today, to give back tomorrow. For my love is your love. There's no love for n.o.body else.

When the song ended Jeffers lifted his gla.s.s to drain it. It finished, and the sliver of lemon hit his grimacing mouth. "Well?" he said, and pointed to the icy gla.s.ses. "What're those?"

"Delmonicos," Davis said. "Like the one that vanished. But it didn't vanish. She threw the gla.s.s at the window. Both broke. You couldn't tell one from the other."

Jeffers turned his gla.s.s over. This wasn't polite. The Scotch was on the rocks, and the bar got wet with the slop of his ice. The puddle stopped before the two gla.s.ses, the ice ghosting into water, that Davis had ready for I couldn't imagine who. "And my wife?"

"That I can't tell you," Davis admitted. She opened her palm and brushed the pile of money, very slowly, into the puddle of Callahan's drink. "Time to go, fellas."

"She's not smart," Jeffers said to Bruno, pointing at him and sneering. "She doesn't know."

"I'm smart enough," Davis said. "If you don't stand up and leave I will walk out of this bar myself. Across the street is a roomful of drunk cops. I'll tell them that Callahan Jeffers, a man finished in this town, is hara.s.sing me."

It was true. Funny thing: Davis lets cops drink for free, but hardly anybody ever takes her up. Across the way, O'Malley's lets them drink for half price, and by closing there's a whole platoon staggering outside. Bruno grabbed Callahan's shoulder. Callahan put on his hat. When the door swung open the light was almost gone, and when it swung shut Davis poured the ice out of the gla.s.ses and drained the c.o.c.ktails from the shaker. "Join me," she said. "I haven't had one of these in years."

I put my bourbon aside. "It's not a drink for beginners," I said.

"You're not a beginner," he said. She'd overmeasured or maybe some of the ice had melted---the gla.s.ses were br.i.m.m.i.n.g full. Carefully, carefully, she walked them both over, nearly teetering "All those fishbowls I had to carry in Miss Brimley's cla.s.s," she said. "Finally coming in handy. To us, Mr. Jones. To our good health."

I didn't drink. "Where is she?" I said.

Davis shrugged, which was a sight to see, each shoulder rising and falling, like a sheet in the wind. "I don't know. Probably in some summer cottage of Timothy Speed's. Dyeing her hair or however that goes. Everybody wants to join the circus when they run away from home, but that might be too easy. He'd look for her there, maybe. But a dead girl'll need money."

"Speed could help her sell the necklace," I said.

"That'd be a start," she said, and sighed. "When did you figure it?"

"When you reached for those gla.s.ses," I said. "n.o.body ever remembers to look up. The drink broke the window and made them look the wrong way. Just the time she needed. They took a trip to the bas.e.m.e.nt, they took a trip to the roof, and by the time they got back from the roof she was out the front door like a person. Speed left a car maybe."

"And Gregor? Really dozing, you think?"

"Really dozing, I think," I said. "Without shoes she could tip toe past him. Or maybe he could lie to the cops after all. Maybe he watched her swing down from that chandelier, as skinny as she was, and let her go after all the fights he saw. She must have been very scared."

"Scared?" Davis said. "She hatched a plan to ruin her husband. It's like he said. They'll never charge him but he'll never be mayor, either. He'll just be a rich guy who got away with murder."

"That's what he is anyway," I said. "That's why she was scared. Scared to fall. If she fell it'd be the end of her--maybe from hitting the floor, or maybe from her husband hitting her. It was a risk. Even an acrobat. Even someone who'd whittled herself away to almost nothing."

"Then she had almost nothing to lose," Davis said. She took a sip and pursed her lips. It's a bitter drink, or maybe bitter's not what I mean. It's sharp and sour. It's complicated. It's difficult to get down unless that's the sort of thing you like. "I feel that way myself sometimes," she said. "Almost nothing, or maybe that's just Chet Baker nudging me to say that. You think I was wrong not to tell him."

"You told him where the drink went," I said. "That's enough for someone like that. Without a body they won't charge him. He'll never know for sure. Maybe Timothy Speed will even blackmail him."

"Or just keep overcharging him for furniture," Davis said. "Wesson never made any rugs. The whole point of a Wesson is the sheer lines of the place. The floors are bare so you can see the wood."

"Callahan Jeffers," I said, "would never see the wood."

"Not for the trees," Davis agreed. She put her drink down and walked to the jukebox with one of Jeffers's damp bills. She punched a number in and her hair just slayed me in the red lights s.h.i.+ning inside the machine that sits in the Slow Night waiting for people to ask it to sing. I tried the drink myself but didn't like it, but I liked watching the tilt of the surface of the drink as I moved the gla.s.s, like water too cold to swim in. When we're alone like this the room sinks in a bit, like we're locked away from all the people. There are some who can't stand to stay in a room like that but this is my regular spot, right here at the bar where I can see her. Time and time I want to tell Davis that I love her, but of course she's so smart--of course she is--there's no way she hasn't figured it our already.

GEORGE V. HIGGINS.

Jack Duggan's Law.

From The Easiest Thing in the World.

LATE IN THE MORNING, the Coupe de Ville - slate gray, black vinyl roof, five years old - emerged from the road in the woods and moved too quickly down the curving highway. There was a building at the bottom of the hill. It was low, one-story, painted white, and peeling. It was surrounded by an eight-foot board fence which had been barn red at one time but had not been painted for years. The fence enclosed a trapezoidal area. The enclosure was filled with old tires piled two and three feet higher than the fence. The fence sagged and bulged around the tires. There was a marshland which surrounded the fence. It was crowded with cat-o'-nine-tails and scrub brush.

The Cadillac swung around to the front of the building and stopped with some hastiness. There was an old Texaco gas pump in front, the mechanism exposed from the midsection to the top, the top crowned by a white disk emblazoned with the fire chief hat symbol. There was a sign on the front of the building, above two sagging barn doors. One of the doors was ajar. The sign read: TEXACO. GIFFORD'S. BRAKES, SERVICE, LUBRICATION. The letters had started out black, but had faded to gray. There were old tires scattered around the outside of the fence, and a row of old automobile batteries against it.

The driver of the Cadillac backed it up slightly and ran over the signal bell hose again. The bell rang in the stillness. The driver opened the door of the car and got out. He was in his middle forties. He had dark hair and he was getting thick in the middle. He wore a white s.h.i.+rt with french cuffs and onyx links that were too large. He wore a red tie that was too s.h.i.+ny. He had left his suit coat in the car; the pants were dark blue and well-cut. They did not look appropriate with his brown jodhpur boots. He wore wraparound mirror sungla.s.ses and a Texas Instruments calculator watch. He ran his right hand through his hair, making it stand up. He put his fists on his hips and stared at the garage. He slammed the door of the car and started toward the garage doors.

When the driver was about eight feet from the doors, a very large chow-chow emerged with immense dignity. The dog had a mane and a black tongue. It stood half-in, half-out of the s.p.a.ce between the doors and slavered. It looked at the driver with interest, as though it had not had a square meal in some time.

"Nice boy," the driver said politely. He continued to approach the doors. The dog continued to stare at him. The driver reached a point about six feet from the doors. The dog roared and lunged at him, rearing up on its hind legs. It was snubbed up by a chain with half-inch links. The dog sat down. The driver backed up. "Nice boy," the driver said. The dog hung its black tongue out and slavered, measuring the driver.

"Halloo," the driver said to the building. The dog panted. "Halloo," the driver said to the building.

The dog lurched backward, jerked off its front feet, and vanished into the building.

"Is it OK to come in?" the driver said. There was no reply. The driver advanced tentatively toward the doors. He peered around the edge of the one that was ajar. He went inside. The interior was dim and it took him a moment to regain his vision. Dead ahead there was an old man in a khaki cardigan and a dark blue wool ski hat. He was sitting in an old maroon armchair. There was an old floor lamp to the right of the armchair. There was a kerosene heater next to the armchair. It was stiflingly hot in the garage. To the left there was a double rack of new tires. To the left there was a double rack of new batteries. Behind the man in the armchair there was a wooden case, fronted and topped with gla.s.s, filled with candies. The dog sat beside the man in the armchair. The dog was still slavering.

"Careful," the old man said. "Grease pit, front of you."

The driver looked down. There was a lubrication pit in front of him.

"Help you?" the old man said. He was reading something, or had been. The magazine was open in his lap. It was open to a doublepage spread of a naked woman.

"Yeah," the driver said, "I need some directions."

"Ain't seen you before," the old man said.

"Ain't been here before," the driver said. "What I need's directions."

"No gas," the old man said.

"Nope," the driver said, "no gas."

"Just as well," the old man said. "Ain't got any. Quit pumpin' that stuff six year ago. d.a.m.ned nuisance."

"Directions," the driver said.

"Directions," the old man said. "Montreal's north. Go to the border. Turn left. You want Quebec, turn right. Simple." He cackled.

The driver did not laugh. When the old man had finished, the driver said: "Ellis house."

"Ellis house," the old man said.

"Yeah," the driver said.

"You from Boston?" the old man said.

"Yeah," the driver said.

"Thought so," the old man said.

"The Ellis house," the driver said.

"Never heard of 'em," the old man said, complacently.

"Bulls.h.i.+t," the driver said.

"Seen my dog?" the old man said.

"Yeah," the driver said.

"Big dog," the old man said.

"Seen my car?" the driver said.

"Nope," the old man said.

"Out front," the driver said. "Big car. Bigger'n your dog."

"No foolin'," the old man said.