Buried Caesars (12 page)

“Pintacki,” I repeated. “How do I get to his place?”

“It’s hard to find,” J.V. said without looking at me.

“Show me,” I said.

“Got to get back to work,” she said. “Beer?”

“I saw a Dad’s root beer in the refrigerator,” I said. “I’ll have that and directions on a map.”

“I don’t think the Chief would like it if I …” she said as she generously swabbed a slice of bread with Miracle Whip.

“I don’t think he would either,” I said, opening the refrigerator and pulling out the Dad’s. “But that doesn’t mean it would be wrong to do it.”

“I don’t know,” she said, putting two liver-sausage sandwiches on a plate and licking the Miracle Whip from her fingers. If she hadn’t done that, I could have kept my distance, but she was close and smelled of sweat and looked like someone who needed. I touched her arm. She turned suddenly to face me, slightly frightened.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, holding my hands up. “If you want me to, I’ll take my sandwich and go. I just thought …”

The look of fear didn’t leave her. She stepped in front of me, her big brown eyes scanning my face for something. I reached over and pushed a strand of hair from her face and she came to me, her breasts against my sore chest, her mouth against mine, and open and warm and tasting of Miracle Whip.

The kiss was long and soft. Her arms were around my neck, touching my hair. I was the one who pulled back to catch my breath. The woman behind us sang as I looked into J.V.’s eyes.

“I’ve never done anything like this. Not ever,” she said. “It’s crazy.”

“You mean you’re a … you’ve never,” I said.

“No,” she said with a slight smile, inches from my face. “I was married for a few years when I was twenty. His name was Alfred. He just left one day and never came back. I never got a divorce. It’s been … I don’t know … about ten years since I …”

I kissed her. Her face was soft and warm.

“You sure you want me?” she said, pulling her head back to seek my eyes. “I don’t think I’m any good at this kind of thing. God. Listen to me. What are we talking about here? I must be going nuts. I just met you. I don’t know anything about you.”

I kissed her again and she sighed. “What the hell?” she said, taking my hand and leading me back into the living room. “How long will this take?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I’ve got to be back at the station in thirty-five minutes or the Chief will come looking for me,” she said as we sat on the unmadebed.

I unbuttoned her uniform, brushed back her hair and looked at her breasts. They were round, pinkish-white and beautiful. I’d never made love to a cop before. She reached over with trembling fingers and unbuttoned my shirt.

“The Chief would come himself if you didn’t come back on time?” I asked.

“He’s my brother,” she said.

“Of course,” I said.

The woman sang on in Italian, and was joined by a man with a deep voice. J.V. and I rolled and wrapped under the rough blue blanket. She was deep, warm, moist and strong, and she hummed contentedly. I didn’t feel too bad myself. The record ended. The spindle was empty. The automatic arm lifted and clicked itself off.

“Time,” she whispered in my ear.

“Don’t know,” I said. “My watch is never right.”

She kissed me and rolled over to stand up. There was plenty of her but she wasn’t fat. Ample, plump.

“Men stay away from me in Angel Springs,” she called, moving to check the clock in the kitchen and returning with the two sandwiches and a glass of semiflat Dad’s root beer for me. “My brother … you know.”

“Sort of,” I said, accepting the liver sausage. “You were great.”

“Thanks,” she said with a blush and smile, a cheekful of sandwich. “God, you don’t think I’ll have a baby? I mean, just from one time?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

She looked at the window, at her sandwich, at me.

“I don’t think so, either,” she repeated without great confidence. “No offense, but do people your age … I mean I looked at the sheet on you … can you … do you have babies?”

“We cling to life,” I said, sitting up gingerly. My chest was covered with gray and black hair. We both looked at it and at the discolored circle where J.V.’s brother had hit me. “It’s always possible some ancient sperm of mine could dig down deep for a final hallelu.”

“I think I’m okay anyway,” she said, finishing off her sandwich and reaching for her panties at the foot of the bed. “I got seven minutes.”

I reached out and grasped her wrist. She looked scared again. I pulled her hand to my mouth, kissed her finger—tasting liver sausage this time—and then let her go.

“God,” she said with a sigh. “I love operas, the Italian ones; the women fall in love right away, sing beautiful songs, do dumb things and kill themselves. They sing pretty but they are dumb. I don’t sing and I hope I’m not dumb, but I’ll show you how to get to Pintacki’s place.”

While I sat up in her bed, eating my sandwich and looking across at the scowling face of a man with a sword on a poster of
II Trovatore
, J.V. finished dressing and came back with a map of the area—Angel Springs, Palm Springs and a few oasis stops. She showed me the roads leading into the desert, and indicated with a small penciled
X
about where I’d find Pintacki’s. Before she could stand up, I touched her cheek and kissed her. She closed her eyes, kissed back and then pulled away.

“You’ll see me before you go?” she said, adjusting her belt. “I mean before you leave Angel Springs?”

“Promise,” I said. “J.V.? What’s your name?”

“Jean,” she said. “The V doesn’t mean anything.”

“Jean,” I said. “How would you like a real stray cat? I really have one.”

She had moved to the door by now and paused to look at my face to see if I was joking. She could see I wasn’t.

“I … maybe,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

And she was gone.

I finished my Dad’s, put on my pants and found J.V.’s phone in the corner near the record player. I called Shelly at the office, asked for messages, and said there was a chance his new patient might not make his appointment tomorrow morning.

“Where’s my patient?” he said angrily when he heard that last revelation. “Where is he?”

“He’s been kidnapped, Shel,” I said.

“What?” Shelly bleated. “You took him somewhere. I want him back. He said he’d pay cash.”

“I appreciate your humanity and concern, Sheldon,” I said, “but he’s been kidnapped. As soon as I get him back, you can finish mutilating him.”

“It’s not right, Toby, to do that,” he said.

“I apologize, Sheldon,” I said. “Has anyone been looking for me?”

“Not right,” Shelly repeated.

“Anyone looking for me?” I shouted.

“Yes,” he shouted back. “Some soldier. I’ll get the note.”

A pause while Shelly rummaged around and finally found it.

“Major Castle. Left a message. Wants a report. Left a number. You want it?”

I wanted it. Shelly gave it to me and I assured him once again that I’d deliver Hammett unto him in at least one piece.

When I finally got rid of Shelly, who insisted on telling me about his plan to hire a dental assistant named Louise-Mary, I called the number Major Castle had left. A voice came on, a voice I didn’t recognize. It was a man, but I couldn’t tell what age.

“Major Castle,” I said. “Tell him it’s Toby Peters.”

“He’s not here,” said the man. “He will be calling in at fourteen hundred hours.”

“Tell him I’m in Angel Springs,” I said. “And I may be near Lansing. If …”

And then the voice of General MacArthur broke in.

“Peters,” he said. “We must return to the Pacific by the day after tomorrow. This continent is in imminent danger. A Japanese submarine has shelled the coast of Oregon at Fort Stevens. A Japanese airplane dropped incendiary bombs on the southern coast of Oregon. Defense plants along the coast are being hurriedly protected by barrage balloons and antiaircraft batteries. This Lansing affair, this distraction from my primary task, must be resolved before I return to the theater of battle.”

“I’ll do what I can, General,” I said.

“I can accept nothing less than success,” MacArthur replied. “I can live with temporary setbacks, but I do not accept them.”

“I’ll call when I have anything,” I said.

And the General was off the line.

The man who had answered the phone came back on the line to say, “This number may not exist beyond this call. How can Major Castle reach you?”

“Leave messages at my office.”

I hung up before he could come up with anything else, put my dishes in the sink, dressed, and left a note for J.V. along with two dollars to pay for the phone calls. I was on the street in a few minutes and found a cab around the corner in front of the Rexall. Fifteen minutes later I was behind the wheel of my Crosley in Pudge’s driveway. Another car was blocking my way, a big blue Buick Eight convertible with a grill that looked like steel teeth. I had enough room to turn, drive over the lawn and bounce onto the street. The door to Pudge’s house opened and an angry blond woman in white stepped out to glare at me. I figured itwas the grieving Widow Pudge.

I stopped the car and got out. The angry look on her face turned to fear and she backed up.

“Mrs. Block?” I asked.

“What do you want?” she said, ready to slam the door on me.

She was hard, pretty, thin and tan, not my type at all but the best money could buy at her age.

“My cat,” I said.

“Your …” she began, and the cat, big and orange, dashed through her legs and ran over to rub itself against my leg. I picked him up and felt him purr against me through my Windbreaker. It was a sunny day and I was feeling warm and ready with the memory of J.V. still in my mouth.

“… cat,” I finished and headed for my car.

“You’ve torn up my lawn,” she screamed, gaining courage now that the mashed-nose intruder was heading away.

“Pudge’s insurance will cover it,” I said. “Enjoy yourself.”

I got in the car, put the cat down in the back seat, checked the map J.V. had given me, made sure my .38 was still in the glove compartment, and headed for the desert.

T
he desert wasn’t far. Angel Springs was a green island on the edge of a sea of sand, sagebrush, cactus and distant hills. Just after I lost sight of town I stopped at a small truck stop called Marty and Matty’s. Marty and Matty’s had been announced by weathered roadside signs promising good food, cheap gas and hospitality.

Marty and Matty weren’t doing much business. I pulled up next to one of the two Sinclair pumps and waited. No one came. I beeped the Crosley’s tin hom. The cat screeched and jumped into my lap. Finally, a lanky woman in a baseball cap and overalls came out of the station-restaurant, an oily rag in her hands, and cowboyed toward me. I got out of the car, closing the cat inside.

“Gas?” the woman asked. She was weathered down, and her black and gray hair suggested she wasn’t young but might not yet be old.

“Gas,” I said. “A pair of Pepsi’s, a couple of sandwiches, one for here and one to go, something for my cat and some information.”

“Gas first,” said the woman, moving to the pump.

I moved past the pumps into the station, where I found a short-order counter with four stools. There were two tables in the small space beyond the counter, each with three chairs. The tables were wood and everything was covered with a thin layer of sand. A large painting of a snow-covered valley filled one wall. It was covered with sand too.

I took a seat on one of the stools after wiping off the dust and picked up a sandy copy of last week’s
American Weekly
. I flipped pages till the woman came back through the screen door.

“Eighty cents for the gas,” she said. “What kind of sandwiches you want?”

“What kind you got?”

“Cheese,” she said.

“Sounds good,” I said.

She moved behind the counter, washed her hands in the sink with a bar of Lava.

“You Marty or Matty?” I asked.

“Neither,” she said. “Marty’s my husband. Matty’s my son. Marty’s in England someplace, in the army. Matty’s in Seattle, navy. Cat eat cheese?”

“Don’t know,” I said.

“Let’s give him a can of chicken noodle soup,” she said. “Give it to him warm without adding the water.”

“Sounds good,” I said, watching her open a bag of bread and pull out a couple of slices.

“You said you wanted information?”

“Man called Pintacki,” I said. “Lives out this way someplace.”

The woman paused and looked at me, slice of cheese in one hand, butter knife in the other.

“You a friend or kin of his?” she asked.

“Neither,” I said. “I’ve never met him. We’ve got business.”

She went on making the sandwich.

“Suit yourself,” she said. “But don’t trust him.”

“He has two men working for him, Wylie and Conrad,” I went on.

“You asking or telling?” she said, plopping the sandwich in front of me on a small plate, along with a bag of Fritos.

“Asking,” I said, reaching for the bag while she kneeled and came up with a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle.