Authors: Peter Rabe

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General

Murder Me for Nickels (22 page)

BOOK: Murder Me for Nickels

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“I don’t know,” he said. “Lemme try it out.”

But he didn’t get up for it. He pulled her over by one arm and gave it a twist so she would sit on his lap. I could see only that they were close together.

“You’ll fill the bill,” he said.

She didn’t say anything. I heard a sound of material. Then he said, “What’s wrong with Lippit?”

“Wrong? Nothing wrong.”

“Then why this?”

“You’re bigger.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”

They were close together and I couldn’t see much else. I saw her bare arm on his shoulder and I saw her move her head once.

Pick the winner, I thought. First rule to success, male or female, pick the winner. Pat had been with Lippit for quite a time.

“No,” she said. “Not here.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t like him there,” she said.

“He’s out.”

“I don’t care. I’ve never done it this way.”

“Listen,” he said, and laughed. “All you got to worry about….”

“Please, Franklin. No.”

They didn’t talk for a while and then he said, “You’ll come around.”

“I know,” she said. “Let me show you,” and she got up.

I don’t know if he let her or if she just caught the right moment, but when she got up she did so all the way, smiled at him, and went to the door to the lake.

I could see her good there, in the light. Everything else being normal, I would have gone after her, too.

Franklin got out of the chair and she went out of the door. He went that far, this side of the frame, before he stopped and turned around fast.

At first he just watched the chair, because it was moving and chairs shouldn’t move. This one flew.

I was up, hauling the line, trying to get the chair to me before he did.

He was fast like a rhino. He got ahead of the chair, heading my way, because the chair meant nothing to him, but I did.

He got ahead of the chair and then the chair caught up. It caught him in the back of the legs, and there was just a small stumble, a one moment chance and then it would be gone.

I missed the chance. I was afraid to take it. He kept thrashing his arms and I was afraid to get close. Then he flailed into the rope. That was his chance, and he muffed it. He tried to get free and threw the rope over his shoulder. I jumped away and the chair climbed on his back.

He stopped thrashing—I didn’t have to worry about that now—doubled forward to heave the chair off his back, and then I took the chance.

Nothing would come of wasting time on the knot at my ankle. I was close now and the rope was lax. I threw a loop and it fell as it should. Then I kicked. Not at him, but back. He gagged as the rope dug into his neck.

It got complicated after that. I don’t know how it all went. But once Pat was there, back in the door frame, standing there with a big stare on her face. When she saw me looking she turned and ran.

I didn’t have time for her. This was a weird dance.

I got him on the shin once, and once he dragged me over the floor. Then his gagging stopped him again. He tried to swing the chair off his back, the wrong way, with the loop going double. In the end I just stayed on the floor, throwing my leg up and away from the man. His ears went dark red but that could have been rage. There was the point where we both hit the floor and I had my foot on his head, not for kicking him but for leverage. To pull the rope up but not the man.

He was confused by then. He must have been because he had his hands on my foot and was keeping it settled on top of his head.

I wasn’t all clear, either. When he was lying still and I tried to get up I saw where he had torn my pants leg to shreds. There was blood on my leg, and I didn’t know whose.

But he lay still. I didn’t care enough then to see if he was breathing, but I worried the knot on my ankle as if that was all there was.

When I had it off I sat and just breathed.

That’s when she came back. I hadn’t heard anything. Like a cat She came into the room from the lakeside. It made things hard to tell. She was close before I made out the face and the right hand up, holding the revolver.

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t think so. His skull hasn’t stopped bleeding.”

“Oh,” she said. “Then you don’t need it.”

She dropped the revolver, as if it was too heavy, and then she stood, as if wondering whether she should fall.

She didn’t She was—in a figurative way—plenty tough. I took the revolver and then I took her arm.

“Can you walk?”

“Sure. Can you?”

We walked out. I said thank you to her at one point. “It was horrible,” I told her, “but I thank you.”

“I wanted to get him to the car,” she said. “I had the gun there and wanted him in the car.”

Then we drove back to town. Before driving, she said, “Will you zip me?”

“Of course, I’ll zip you.”

I did, and I drove her back to town.

Chapter 20

I
could tell the Duncan street building from the end of the block. I could tell all about it, even though it was dark, or because it was dark and the ground floor, in the rear, was on fire.

There were fire engines and people but nobody I knew. The sight made me sick and I left.

I wanted Lippit. Him or Folsom, I didn’t care which, but really I mostly wanted Lippit.

He wasn’t home, because Pat was there and nobody else. I went to the club and it would have been a laugh if he had been there, swimming maybe or getting a sweat in the courts. He wasn’t there. They were holding a dance and everything else was closed by that time.

His shop was closed, which I knew when nobody answered the telephone, but I went there to see for myself. No Lippit.

I drove around. It was a warm night, like all nights that time of the year, but it didn’t mean anything. A drive on a warm night was just something in the head. I remembered how it’s a pleasure sometimes, but it wasn’t then.

They hadn’t seen him, the bars, candy shops, bowling alleys, so forth. Not since noon, anyway. He had been in and out.

And they asked if I knew when the new sets and the new music would come in.

I don’t think anyone really cared very much, except sticklers like Morry in his nine-alley emporium, because they all played the same tunes in most of the places, dancing to it at the bars, foot stomping it at the ice-cream tables, or listening to it where it hummed out to the street.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “You’ll get the new one tomorrow.”

“It’ll be dead by then, maybe.”

“Maybe.”

When I found him the night was almost done. They had Folsom in police jail for arson, they had Lippit there for assault.

“You wanna bail?” asked the sergeant.

“Sure. I’ll bail.”

“Not the arson guy. He’s in the hospital.”

“I’ll take the other one.”

“Two hundred even.”

I had to go home and get the money and when I got back to the precinct it was getting light.

“He says he doesn’t want to get bailed,” said the sergeant.

“Ask him again. Tell him it’s St. Louis.”

“I did.”

“Tell him I’m waiting. One way or the other.”

Lippit came out then. We said hello and we walked out together. He needed a shave, which made him look rugged, and his clothes were wrinkled, which made him look poor. He said he wanted a beer. He wasn’t a beer drinker but lying in that cell, he explained, he suddenly wanted a beer. We went to an open place which served the hangover crowd and sat by the window, drinking beer.

“Did you beat him up?” I asked him.

“Folsom? Yeah.”

“You caught on to him.”

“No. I was in the plant, in the pressing place office, after nine, I think, looking at the stuff that was ready. I caught him that way.”

“But too late, by the looks of it.”

“Yuh. Most everything ruined.”

I drank beer, feeling cold from it.

“You insured?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“That’s good.”

“Anybody think of saving the masters?”

“The safe wasn’t touched, far as I know.”

“That’s good,” I said.

He looked out of the window, at the white light in the sky. “Know what else?” he said.

“What else.”

“Bascot’s turning.”

“Which way?”

“The normal way. His suppliers been on his neck, for stalling down on the orders, and he’s got a duress thing up in court, pushing Benotti back down to the bottom.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah. That’s nice, huh?”

I said yes again and put out my cigarette. He said, “You done with your beer?”

“Yuh. I’m done.”

“Me too.”

We got up.

We walked out to the street and there we stopped and he held out his hand.

“Well, it’s over,” he said. It was for me. I took his hand. “Good luck.”

“Same to you, Jack,” and we went down the street. He one way, I the other.

Pat, of course, didn’t become a singer, like Doris did. Doris became the biggest thing on Blue Beat labels. She had played her cards right, but that was all there was to it now, and Pat was almost happy for me. I asked Pat if she wanted to sing and she shook her head.

“No, Jack,” she said.

“And no more ‘No-Jacks’ after this?”

“Yes, Jack.”

“Starting now?”

“Yes, Jack.”

“Show me.”

“Yes, Jack—”

THE END

This edition published by
Prologue Books
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
4700 East Galbraith Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45236
www.fwcrime.com

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

eISBN 10: 1-4405-3997-9
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-3997-8