Simon A. Andrews
House Call
I slept the next day until half-past noon. No dreams – I was too tired to dream. My eyes opened on a cold, cruel afternoon. Pretty soon I wished they hadn’t.
I lay on my back a while, tracing the cracks in the ceiling as I tried to gin up a reason to get out of bed. The case wasn’t in the best of shape. My lady benefactor was paying me to find out who killed her husband. So far all I’d managed was some cracked ribs, a few pointless conversations, and a little light trespassing. Now Cato thought I was working for him, and my old pal Benny would probably pull a runner the next time he saw me coming. I could think of worse things, but damned if the little weasel wasn’t useful. I had other people I could shake down – con men, pushers, and a kid who parks cars at a club downtown – but nobody like Benny.
I probably should have punched out right then and there. It was my standing policy to steer clear of the rackets, and in three days chasing after Walter Lance I was up to my neck in a failed dope ring run by the city’s reigning kingpins. It could only get worse going forward. I’d satisfied myself that Fitzroy wasn’t the button man, but he was bound to get wind of my chin wag with Sam. Mr. Lee was sure to come calling when he did, and I don’t know as he’d much care for my explanation of things. I suppose I could have gone back to Cato, asked for some muscle while I worked at putting the smoking gun in his rival’s hand. But that would have come up short, too, eventually. Cato would figure out I wasn’t onto Fitzroy anymore, or that he’d become suspect number one. Worse yet, he’d figure out who hired me, and I didn’t want Deirdre to have to worry about these mugs.
I didn’t want her to have to worry about anything. She’d given me a job, and I was going to finish it if it killed me. I wondered if maybe it would, too, but the thought didn’t put me off like it should have. Thing was, if I cried uncle and gave her back her money I might never have seen her again. I should have been glad of it, after everything I’d been through on her dime, but the idea made me sick to my stomach. I wanted to talk to her some more. I wanted to kiss her. Hell, I’d have settled for just being in the same room. Staying on the case would get me there, I figured, or else make sure she wore a nice dress to my funeral.
It wasn’t much, but it got me up off the mat. I shaved and dressed, choked down a cup of dishwater coffee, and made for the office. The storm had caught its second wind, and the rain was coming down in buckets. I drove, listened to the radio. Someone far away sang Stormy Weather. You almost had to laugh.
These days I hang my shingle in a building full of lawyers, accountants, and insurance adjustors. We tend to share clientele. It was past two by the time I made the lobby. The place was dead quiet. The old man at the newsstand yawned elaborately and turned over his racing forum as I passed by on my way to the stairs. We have an understanding, me and him. He refuses to carry my brand of cigarettes and I pray he’ll drop dead. It’s one of the more dependable relationships I’ve ever been a part of.
Looking back on it, it was a lucky thing I was studying this scuff on the toe of my right shoe when I finally walked through the door of the outer office. Otherwise, I’m sure I’d have stepped right over the square of cream-colored paper someone had left on the floor. I bent low to pick it up and got a whiff of something sweet and dark. It was a piece of stationary, perfumed like a lady’s handkerchief and folded neatly in half down the middle. I opened it and hit the lights. Someone had penned the phrase “If you can spare the time” in handwriting you don’t usually see outside of etiquette manuals. Below that was an address in a middling neighborhood on the far side of town. A header explained who was doing me the honor, though I didn’t need it. The thing couldn’t have smelled more like Deirdre if she’d used it to dry herself coming out of the bath.
So there it was, the invitation I’d been aching for since the night she introduced me to those lips of hers. It’s embarrassing how happy it made me. I felt like a kid before the first time he stepped out with a girl. My heart pounded in my chest like a bass drum during a Gene Krupa solo. But there was an edge to that feeling. Deirdre wasn’t some doll I’d met on a Saturday night down at the Trianon. There was something about her that frightened me a little. She was the kind of girl you don’t say no to, no matter what she asks. She hadn’t asked me for much yet, but she could have. I think I’d have done anything for her. That’s what scared me. I was obsessed with her, and I didn’t know where it was going to end.
But I shrugged off the feeling, chalked it up to that gunk that Sam had served me the night before. Stick to brown, I said, you’ll be fine. And anyway, the woman was still a client. As long as her cash was still green, I’d go where she wanted me to go. This I told myself, and slipped the card into my jacket pocket. I had responsibilities. It was business.
The house, when I eventually tracked it down, was a narrow two-storey in Yesler Hill, not far from Chinatown. It was a flat-fronted building, doors and windows and balcony all jammed together. It looked squeezed-in from the sides, too, like it was holding its breath. The trees out front had a dead, rotted look, and the whitewash on the clapboard was peeling off along the edges.
I can’t say it was the kind of place I pictured meeting my client, but then I guess I wasn’t being reasonable. Times are tough all over, they say, and a detective’s salary doesn’t go as far as it used to. If Walter could have done better for his wife I’m sure he would have. She’d have made a point of it.
I rang the bell and stood hunched against the door, just trying to keep out of the rain. The street at my back was empty, save for my Nash against the curb and an ancient Packard that looked like it hadn’t been moved since the sinking of the Lusitania. I could hear music from the neighbor’s. A dog barked like it was crying.
I was about to knock when the lady of the house pulled open the door. She was wearing this white satin number that cinched at the waist and flowed down from there like an evening dress. Against the dull grey of the sky and the rain, she looked like she was glowing. She smiled as I looked her up and down a few times. Her hand was on her waist, and her head was tilted slightly to one side.
“Thank you for coming to see me on such short notice, Mr. Parker,” she said. “I do hope I haven’t pulled you away from anything important.”
It took me a minute to catch hold of what she’d said. Other things were on my mind.
“No trouble, Mrs. Lance,” I said. “Nothing is more important than satisfying my clients.”
The lady smiled some more. “I’m so glad to hear that, Mr. Parker,” she said. “Do please come inside.”
I stepped through the door as she beckoned me in with a wave. The wet rag that used to be my coat found a space on the rack by the door. She took my hat, held it in her hands like it was something she wanted to play with. She settled on fanning herself, and then made like I should follow her into the next room.
“You’ll forgive me, I hope,” she said over her shoulder, “For receiving you in only my dressing gown. I didn’t plan on going out today, you see, and I wagered you weren’t a man who stood on ceremony.”
Dressing gown, she called it. It was a couple yards of material and a neckline that just kept going. Whenever she turned to say something I could trace the line of her collarbone with my eyes. Some dancers I know look more modest on the job, and are more self-conscious about it.
“Of course,” I said. “It’s your house.”
Deirdre’s smile darkened slightly, like she’d been reminded of something she didn’t much care for. “Yes,” she said, “It is. Do please sit down.”
The place had a dark, musty feel to it. We’d settled in the parlor, where the furniture looked as old as my grandfather and there were still gas jets set in the walls. The lady took up with a wingchair and gestured towards a sofa that was on the other side of a low, scuffed table. A piano was pushed up against the wall by the door where we came in. Everything was covered by a layer of dust. She didn’t entertain much, I figured.
My hostess sat primly while waiting for me to get comfortable. She looked stiff and regal, with her knees together and her shoulders back. If it was Cleopatra I’d met the other night, now I was in the slightly ratty throne room of some ageless virgin queen.
“So then,” she said eventually, “What news, detective?”
It was a funny sort of opener, but it fit. She looked at me like I belonged to her, and I was too happy to play the part.
I cleared my throat, tugged at my left ear. “Mrs. Lance,” I said, “I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead – and certainly not to the widow of the deceased – but it’s come to my attention that your husband was deeply involved with some of this city’s more unsavory characters.”
Deirdre cocked her head to one side. Her lips bent into a slight frown. “If you recall,” she said, “I believe I communicated as much to you during our first meeting.”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said, “You did. But I’d say the magnitude of the thing is a fair bit larger than you seemed to indicate.”
“Ah,” she said. Her raised eyebrow formed a long, smooth curve like the stroke of a pen. “But there’s a thing, now? And it has magnitude? My, but you do work quickly, Mr. Parker.”
I let that one go, as much as it pained me. We were still talking business.
“You mentioned before,” I said, “That you sometimes heard your husband mention the names Cato and Fitzroy over the phone.”
The corners of her mouth turned up in a smug, self-satisfied smile. “So good of you to remember,” she said.
I nodded. “Sure,” I said. “And you wouldn’t happen to know anything about them?”
Deirdre made like she was puzzled, frowned a little. “Cato and Fitzroy, you mean?” she said.
“That’s right,” I said. “The ones you heard about over the phone.”
The lady smiled some more. She liked that I was being cute with her. Then she pressed her lips together and placed a finger on her chin. Her mouth looked like a little red heart.
“I seem to recall the girls in my sewing circle mentioning something about them,” she said. “But then, you know how people talk.”
I tried not to smile myself. I liked that she was being cute with me, too. “No,” I said. “What do they talk about?”
Deirdre’s shoulders rose and fell in a delicate shrug. The way the neckline of her dressing gown shifted made my heart beat double.
“How they’re powerful men,” she said. “How they have a great many concerns in this city. How they practically own the police department, the mayor, and the county prosecutor.”
“These lady friends of yours,” I said, “They seem to hear an awful lot.”
My employer shifted in her seat, reached for a black enamelware box that sat on the table between us. “No one thinks women ever listen,” she said, “and fewer still think they’re worth listening to. Don’t you find that to be so, Mr. Parker?”
The box was full of cigarettes. She took one, placed it delicately between her lips, and offered the rest to me. I helped myself, thanked her, lit hers, and then mine. They were French, and very bitter. I tried not to cough.
“That hasn’t been my experience, Mrs. Lance,” I said. “But I follow.”
Deirdre watched me while I smoked, winced, tried to look at ease in her presence. It wasn’t easy. She had a way of making a man feel like something was expected of him. I could never figure out what it was, but damn it if I didn’t try.
“Yes,” she said eventually. “I think you do.” Then she set the box back down next to a table lighter with the same glossy black finish. I followed her hands with my eyes.
“Matched set?” I said.
The lady took a long draw before answering. “A wedding present,” she said. She didn’t sound thrilled about it.
I’d have backed off right then, usually. Clients don’t always like to talk about themselves. But I wanted so badly to know something more about this woman, and figured I could pass it off as idle chatter.
“Your parents,” I said, “Or his?”
Deirdre watched me some more. I looked for someplace to put my ash – there was only a dark circle in the dust where a tray would have been – and tried again to make it seem like nothing at all was bothering me. She sat still for a while, and quiet, following my gaze with hers. Then she sighed, leaned over for a saucer that had been left on an end table at her elbow, and placed it between us. I thanked her, tapped the end of my cigarette against the rim of the dish.
“Neither,” she said eventually. “Walter’s parents passed away before we ever met. Mine never approved of the two of us.”
I nodded, tried to look understanding and contrite. “Yes,” I said, “I think you mentioned that as well.”
“I did,” she said. “And you remembered.”
I didn’t take the hint. “Had you gone against their wishes before,” I said, “Or was there something special about Walter?”
The lady looked sidelong at me. “Is there something on your mind, Mr. Parker?” she said. “Maybe something you’d like to say?” Then she leaned forward, to ash her smoke in the dish on the table. It made for a hell of a view.
“Maybe I can help you find the words,” she said, looking up at me with eyes that were full of suggestions.
I might have popped a blood vessel. It felt like the room was swaying around me. Here I was trying to interrogate the woman, and she was past caring about the words we could say to each other. It was like something out of a dream.
So I steadied myself. “No,” I said. “Nothing I’d like to say. Something I’d like to do, maybe.”
Deirdre flashed me another cat-like smile. Then she melted back into her chair. “Please yourself,” she said.
Lord, how I wanted to. I wanted to pick her up and carry her somewhere. I wanted to drown in her eyes and die in her arms. But something held me back. A little voice kept telling me what a mistake this whole thing was. At the time I figured it was the last shred of my professional integrity. So I kept talking, figuring I’d indulge the old man before laying him to rest.
“I’m still on the clock,” I said. “You’re still paying for all this. It wouldn’t be right.”
My hostess cupped her chin in an upturned palm, laid her head on one side. “In my experience,” she said, “Thinking like that only ever keeps you from getting what you want.”
I started to sweat. I hadn’t had a drink in twelve hours and this woman was looking at me like I was a side of beef and she was a lioness. But the words kept coming.
“What experience is that?” I said.
The lady ignored me. She could see that I was hers, and wanted to run me around a little. “Where were you,” she said, “Before you were here?”
“My office,” I said.
“And before that?” she said, without missing a beat.
“My apartment,” I said.
“And before that?” she said again.
I shrugged. “Chicago,” I said. “Well, Cook County. Oak Lawn, if you really want to know.” It was the first time I’d said the words in I don’t know how many years.
“Oak Lawn,” said Deirdre. Then she sighed and closed her eyes. “It sounds practically picturesque.”
I nearly choked on my cigarette. She hadn’t meant it as a joke, but it was. I coughed, tapped my smoke on the rim of the saucer. Then I shrugged.
“Sure,” I said. “If now and then you don’t mind forgetting something you’ve seen or heard. Or if you can manage to sleep at night knowing that maybe one person in the whole county is actually calling the shots and it sure as hell isn’t the mayor.” I managed another drag without my eyes starting to water. The smoke felt thick on my tongue.
“Other than that,” I said, and exhaled, “It’s just peachy.”
Deirdre shook her head gently from side to side. “I take it these were not things you were pleased to discover,” she said. It was plain enough she was having a laugh at my expense. She thought my suffering was funny. That was fine by me. Better to laugh at it than cry.
I shrugged again. “Not especially,” I said. “I had ideas, you see. I believed it when they told me in school that we were lucky to live in such a swell country. I guess that sounds pretty corny, but at the time it felt like I’d been betrayed.”
The lady made a little gesture with her free hand, like she was showing me the door. “And so you ran,” she said. Again, I could tell she was enjoying herself.
“Sometimes,” I said. “Sometimes I walked. Mostly I hitched. Kept going west until I hit the ocean. Turns out they’ve got cities out here, too.”
“And?” said Deirdre.
I frowned, shook my head. “I’m not sure what more you want me to say,” I told her.
Her shoulders rose and fell again. It was like watching a cat stretch in the sun. “Little boys,” she said, “Don’t dream of becoming private detectives.”
“Little boys don’t have debts,” I said. “And most of them can’t imagine they’ll ever have their back against the wall. This is all I know how to do, and the bills don’t care whether I dreamed about it or not.”
“You could have left,” said Deirdre. “It doesn’t sound like there’s very much keeping you here. You could have gone to another city, tried to be somebody else.” Her expression just then was strangely thoughtful.
I shook my head again. “It’s all the same country,” I said. “Be miserable here, be miserable in San Francisco, be miserable in Portland; it wouldn’t make any difference. At least here the barkeeps know what I drink.”
My hostess shook her head back at me. “It seems you’d have been better off just keeping your head down,” she said. “At least then you could have pretended you were happy. Given enough time, you might even have fooled yourself.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” I said. I’m still not sure what I meant by that. Like I said before, I was talking anxious.
But Deirdre seemed to know. When she smiled this time it was like she became a different person. She looked tired, and a little sad. I’d never seen that girl before.
“I learned a long time ago,” she said, “That nobility is for fairy tales, and that everybody wants something from you that you’re not willing to give up. Success comes from finding a way to let them have without losing the last part of yourself you think has any value.”
It might have been the most sincere thing I’d ever heard a person say. I hadn’t been expecting it, and now the thought that she might keep on talking like that made me more anxious than I was already. I swallowed, cleared my throat.
“That a personal philosophy?” I said. I don’t know as I could have done much better. She’d blindsided me for the second time. I was just fighting for air.
The lady shook her head some more. The way she was looking at me made my palms sweat. “A truism,” she said, “Whether you believe it or not.”
“Is that how it was with Walter?” I said, and hated myself for it.
I swear I saw her twitch. Her eyes narrowed a little. She frowned. “I beg your pardon?” she said.
I cursed myself, my name, and the day I was born. I’d broken whatever spell she’d cast. We were just people again, talking business.
“Your husband,” I said, trying to rally.
Deirdre sighed. She took her eyes off me, let them roll around the room. “Must we talk about Walter?” she said.
“Isn’t that why you asked me here?” I said. I’d given in. My sense of propriety had won.
The lady’s ruby lips tilted down at the corners. It was about the most attractive frown I’d ever seen. “I suppose,” she said.
“Is there something you’d rather discuss?” I said.
Then she smiled again, and looked me square in the eyes. “No,” she said. “But maybe there’s something I’d like to do.”
I’m surprised my head didn’t explode. It should have been corny, pitching my own line back to me like that. I’m sure it would have been if I’d tried it. But she said the words like she meant them. I stared across the table at her, this woman in white who looked like a dancer and acted like a queen. My nerves hummed like guitar strings.
And she stared back at me, the washed-up shamus who drank too much and slept too little. I must have looked like hell, but she made me feel like I was the only man in the whole damn world. It was like she could see exactly which part of me was broken and was the only person who knew how to fix it.
“Deirdre,” I started to say. It was the first time I’d spoken her name.
That was as far as she’d let me go. She turned away, looked towards the stairs by the door. “The police made a cursory search already,” she said. “I gather it was mostly for the look of the thing. You should avail yourself of the same privilege, while you’re here. I’ve left Walter’s belongings quite undisturbed.”
This woman was giving me whiplash. She’d pull me in and then push me away like it was nothing at all to her. I was sure that the next time she looked me in the eye like I’d drop dead right there. I hoped she would, too. In the meantime it felt like I’d been hit by a truck. All I could do was nod and mumble something about how I’d been meaning to ask.
She rose, gestured at the doorway with a graceful wave of her arm. “If you’ll follow me,” she said, “To the bedroom.”
My elbow slipped just then from where it’d been braced against my knee so that I nearly planted my face on the coffee table. At the last second I managed to jerk my head up and scramble to my feet. I caught a quick smile from Deirdre out of the corner of my eye.
The stairs were narrow and creaky. It was clearly an old house. Probably it had belonged to Walter’s parents. Probably he grew up there. The paper on the walls was a sickening floral print that Sears & Roebuck had stopped selling around 1905. Cold stares looked down out of grimy portraits; men and women in high collars and children in short pants. I felt like I was being judged for something I hadn’t even done yet.
The bedroom was at the end of a short hallway, with a window facing an overgrown lot on the other side of a rotting fence. Deirdre opened the door, beckoned me in after her. The air was stale and musty and the light was gray and cold.
“Walter kept most of his things in the chifforobe, there,” she said, pointing to a battered wooden dresser against the far wall. “The rest will be on his nightstand.”
I nodded, tried to shake the feeling I was rifling a dead man’s pockets. That’s almost exactly what I was doing, so I suppose I had every right to feel a little funny. All the same, I didn’t like much like it. Being under the widow’s watchful eye wasn’t any help.
It wasn’t a large room, but it seemed cozy enough. The walls were a kind of pale green, and the furniture didn’t look as old or as stiff as the stuff in the sitting room. There were gas jets, still, and a big iron radiator under the window, but also Tiffany lamps on the nightstands and some landscape prints on the walls. There was also a layer of dust on everything, like there had been downstairs. No one had been living there, I figured, for at least a few weeks. I told myself to ask Deirdre about it.
I started with the end table on Walter’s side of the bed. His widow stayed by the door, followed me with her eyes. There wasn’t much there, it turned out – just a cheap tin ashtray and a couple a framed photographs. One was a group shot, maybe twenty guys in army kit. The other showed two patrolmen in dress blues, shoulder to shoulder, playing at looking stern. I went for the first one, hit the lamp so I could see it better.
They were kids, really, these soldiers. None of them looked older than eighteen or nineteen. They’d arranged themselves in two rows, the first sitting cross-legged and the second standing behind. There were some black pines around them, an empty sky above, and a clapboard barracks in the distance. A few of the boys had on these flat-brimmed hats with high crowns, and all of them wore the same dusty-looking uniform with big breast pockets and flared trousers. A couple were smiling, big, and wide, and innocent.
Walter was dead center in front. He looked thinner than in his case photo – more knees and elbows – but the square jaw and high forehead were the same. He sat hunched between two of his friends, forearms resting on his thighs. He wore a watch around his bony wrist, with a big round face that looked like a saucer.
“Fort Lewis,” said Deirdre, “In case you were wondering.”
I turned to look at her. She was still posted by the door. Her arms were crossed and her back was pressed against the frame. She laid her head on one side, smiled sweetly.
“What was that?” I said.
“The picture,” she said. “It was taken at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, just before they shipped out in 1918.” She said the words so matter-of-factly, like she hadn’t been married to the dead man in the front row.
I nodded, looked back down at the overgrown boy scouts. Walter was one of the smiling ones. It made him look younger than he probably was, and like he was happy about the way things were turning out for him.
I picked up the buddy shot next. “And this one?” I said. Walter was a few years older, and looked more serious.
The lady stepped so lightly, I didn’t know she’d crossed the room until I could feel the heat of her body over my shoulder. She reached under my arm with hers, tilted the frame so she could get a better look. I stood stiff, rooted to the spot. I could smell her, she was so close.
She hummed to herself, deep in her chest like a purr. “That was ’22,” she said eventually, “Or maybe ’23. Just out of the academy. He was so proud of himself, and so full of purpose.”
I could hear the blood rushing in my ears again, tried to think through the creeping haze. “You knew him then?” I managed to say. My throat felt tight.
“We met shortly thereafter,” she said. “You could tell he was special just by looking at him. He was going to change the world.”
There was real tenderness in her voice. I wasn’t expecting that. She always seemed so self-contained, like she didn’t need anybody. I wanted to hear more, even if it meant listening to her moon over a dead man.
“Tell me,” I said.
Now the lady looked surprised. She frowned a little, raised her eyebrows. “About Walter and I?” she said. “Is that strictly relevant, do you think?”
I turned, looked over my shoulder. “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I just want to understand the guy a little.”
Deirdre looked up at me a while. I could feel her eyes searching my face. I don’t know what she found, if anything, but it made her smile. At close range it was a hell of an effect, like a personal sunrise. I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach.
Then she let go of the picture frame, stepped back, and took a seat on the edge of the bed. I turned to face her. Her arms were splayed out behind her, propping her up. The way her gown spread out on the duvet made it look like she was rising out of a pool of liquid ivory.
She pouted a second, thinking of where she ought to begin. Then she nodded, smiled again. “It was in June, ’27,” she said. “Father was hosting another of those dreadful dinners he so favored. I don’t remember the exact occasion – a reception for the newly-elected something or other – but Mother took it upon herself to plan the night around my long-awaited social introduction. I was eighteen and only just out of school, you see.”
I nodded, shifted from one foot to the other.
“Things were different then,” she went on. “There was something in the air. It was like some kind of wonderful electricity. School had been so desperately dull, but for the music we’d listen to when the other girls and I would sneak out on a Saturday night. The clubs in San Francisco were like something out of a dream. I wanted more of that. I wanted to live. But Mother, she’d rather I paraded around like a prize mare while she told every blue nose in the city how cultured I was.”
I remembered those days, too. They seemed swell enough at the time – steady work and strong juice – but I can’t look back anymore without feeling crummy about what I’d been a part of. Deirdre didn’t seem to have that problem. I was glad for her.
“I went along, of course,” she said. Then she shook her head, like she was disappointed in herself. “Father made it clear what disobedience would be met with. I was still frightened of him then, if only just. So I smiled, and nodded, and spent the night letting old men kiss my hand and young men size me up like I was a piece of meat. I tell you, Parker, it made me want to retch.”
“I know the feeling,” I said. I guess I wanted her to laugh. She was being so honest with me, I felt out of my depth. I should have kept my mouth shut. The lady didn’t seem to hear me, thank God. She was somewhere else.
“Before the whole thing was even halfway over,” she said, “I knew I needed to get out of there. It was either that or drown myself in the punchbowl. So, I told Mother I needed to use the powder room and slipped out by the servants’ entrance.” Then she smiled, almost laughed. She liked this next part.
“I didn’t very far,” she said, “Before nearly toppling into the most dashing man I’d ever seen.”
I looked down at the photo of Walter, nodded. The kid cut a figure. I was more like the fellow next to him, with the round shoulders and the funny look in his eye. Women, they tell me I’ve got character. That’s fine, only they never get around to saying what kind.
Deirdre had gone quiet. I looked up when I noticed. She was smiling, looking at nothing in particular. She kept on jogging her foot, so that the sole of her shoe tapped against the base of her heel. The sound it made was too much like flesh on flesh.
“What was he doing outside your parents’ house?” I said. “Did someone park their Rolls near a hydrant?”
The lady blinked, looked my way. There was this look of warmth in her eyes that made you want to cry. She was thinking about someone she loved. For the first time, I actually felt sorry for her. Maybe things hadn’t gone so well for her and Walt, but they’d had something real at the start.
“Father had invited the mayor to the proceedings,” she said, “To my utter mortification. So of course a police bodyguard was called for. Walter had been posted to the kitchen entrance, where I very nearly bowled him over. It took ages to convince him to take me away from there. He took his responsibilities so seriously. It made me like him even more, I think. He needed someone to put a crease in him so badly. We spent the rest of the night in a tavern not far from here. He introduced me to all of his friends. They were workers, mostly, and other policemen. Mother would have been horrified, but I thought they were the most wonderful people I’d ever met. They were so real. So was Walter, I thought.”
I turned the photo to face her, indicated Walter’s friend with my thumb. “He there too?” I said.
“Hmmm?” said Deirdre. She squinted at the photo, frowned. “Oh. You mean Sergeant Webb. Yes, he was there, and genial enough that first night.” Her voice went cold when she talked about the man.
I couldn’t help but be intrigued. If she’d told me she wanted me I think I’d have done anything she asked. But in the meantime I was still a shamus. The wheels kept turning. I couldn’t stop them if I wanted to.
“Just that first night?” I said.
The lady’s frown twisted into a bitter little smile. “Like Mother and Father,” she said, “The good Sergeant never approved of the idea of Walter and I. For different reasons, of course, but they did have that in common.”
I nodded, turned the picture around so I could get another look at the man. “See him much anymore?” I said.
“No, thank goodness,” she said. “He and Walter made detective around the same time, but they ended up in different precincts.”
“Walter still talked to him?” I said.
Deidre paused before answering, looked me up and down. It was like she’d only just remembered what line I was in. I shuddered a little under the scrutiny. The distance between us increased.
“If he did,” she said, “I’m sure I don’t know anything about it.” The she tossed her head back with a flourish and looked past me out the window. “Once he left my sight it was never any concern of mine where he went or what he did, so long as he came home.”
I nodded, set the picture frame back on the nightstand. “Yes,” I said, “Of course. You were saying?” I felt chastened.
I figure that’s what she wanted. I had started to take control of the conversation. She didn’t like that. She was the kind of woman, I think, who would let you know when you should take the wheel. It had to be on her terms, you see.
So I backed off. She rewarded me by letting her gaze slide from the dismal view out the bedroom window to yours truly. I smiled weakly. The lady stared back, said nothing. Then she re-crossed her legs. The silk shimmered over her calves and her thighs.
“I was saying,” she replied, “That Walter interested me, deeply.”
I smiled again. “Well,” I said, “What man doesn’t aspire to be the object of a woman’s passionate interest?”
She smiled back. “Depends on the man,” she said, “Depends on the woman.”
Her expression just then could have melted butter. I swallowed, started to sweat again. “You and Walter?” I said.
The lady nodded. “Very much,” she said. “He was the most honest man I’d ever met. I don’t mean professionally – although he was that – but just in the way he carried himself. He didn’t know what a salad fork was, had never heard of Verdi. There was nothing contrived about him at all. I had almost forgotten there were people like that.”
“You loved him?” I said. It was a stupid thing to ask a recent widow, but I didn’t try too hard to stop myself.
Deirdre only shrugged. “Someone had to,” she said. “He hid it well, but there was a pain he carried around inside. I think maybe he left a part of himself on some battlefield in France. In those days I thought maybe I could fill in what was missing.”
It was a hell of a thing to say. Probably I should have been surprised by the way she was talking about Walter. She didn’t have much to say for the man when she’d hired me. I should have noticed that, marked it somewhere. But she’d been keeping me off balance, had me thinking either she loved me or hated me. It was all I could do to ask a question or crack a joke.
“I think I’ve seen that picture,” I said, “With Ed Lowe and Dolores Del Rio?”
Deidre could have thrown me out for that one – having a laugh at something that personal. Instead she smiled. “I like the things you say, Parker,” she responded.
I had nothing for that. My face felt hot. I wanted to sit, but didn’t.
The lady’s smile widened. She gave a little shrug. “Of course,” she said, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take some amount of pleasure from the way Mother reacted when I told her Walter and I intended to marry. I tell you, Parker, her eyes nearly popped out of her head.” The she shook her head, chuckled to herself. Her laugh was like chimes.
“She never did understand,” she continued, “Never even tried. Father, too. They thought I was moving the family in the wrong direction.”
“How do you mean?” I said.
Deidre sighed, tossed her head back against one shoulder. I watched her chest rise and fall, the pulse beat in her neck. Her skin was very white and very fine, like porcelain.
“The house,” she said eventually, “The cars, riding lessons, finishing schools – none of it mattered. They thought someone raised around the finer things would turn out to be a finer sort of person. But none of it was real, Parker. Or at least it wasn’t real to me. Someone else’s money paid for it, and I was told I should be grateful. Well, why should I be thankful for something I never wanted? I didn’t work for them, I didn’t ask for them, and I just didn’t care. Maybe that makes me selfish.”
I shrugged. “Maybe,” I said. I probably shouldn’t have agreed with her just then. I was having trouble concentrating.
I don’t think Deidre heard me. “But Walter,” she said, eyes closed, smiling. “Nothing could buy him. You had to earn his respect, his trust, his love. That’s what I wanted. I wanted him to be mine because he chose it. And at some point I just decided that I wasn’t going to stop until he did.”
“Just like that?” I said. My throat felt dry again. The last time I’d had something to drink was too far behind to remember.
The lady opened her eyes, raised her head a little. “I can be very persistent,” she said, “When I set my sights on something.”
Holy Christ.
I nodded, stopped. The world was unsteady enough under my feet. Wherever we were going, I just wished we’d get there. It felt like the tension was going to kill me.
“How did Walter feel about that?” I said. “Your persistence, I mean.”
Deirdre smiled again, head still propped on one shoulder. Then she raised one hand to her delicate white neck. Slowly – so goddamned slowly – she trailed her first two fingers from the underside of her chin, across her collarbone, and down the center of her chest. Where they met the “V” formed by the overlapped fabric of her gown, the shimmering silk gave way. Her neckline dropped to her navel. My breath caught in my chest.
“You tell me,” she said.
The next hour or so of my recollection is pretty damned hazy. I remember I stood there by the bed for a good couple of seconds, just being devoured by her eyes. I didn’t hesitate long, mind you, but I did hesitate. And in that time I remember telling myself to run the hell out of there. This dame was bad news on wheels. She too clearly enjoyed torture. I didn’t listen, of course. Because another part of me saw what she could do for me – saw how good she could make me feel after I don’t know how many years of feeling pretty crummy – and jumped the hell in.
The bed was two steps. Then I was next to her, with her face in my hands. When we kissed it felt like coming home. Her hands found my neck, the back of my head. She held me like I belonged to her, and always would. And then everything went white.
It’s mostly blank after that. I remember imagining we were alone in the world, her and me. I remember feeling like I was floating away from my body. And for a while there I even managed to forget everything about who I was and the things I’d done. That was the best part. That’s the part I miss.
And then I remember waking up.