Donald Westlake - The Busy Body

Bobbi Bounds, the former Mrs. Brody, sat in the middle of all this, quietly weeping. When Engel came in she said, in a small voice, “I’m sorry, Mr. Engel, but I just can’t help it. This place is so full of memories.”

Which only meant that no matter how typical a thing is, it is still somehow individual.

“I won’t take long, Mrs. Brody,” Engel promised. “I’d just like to take a quick look through Charlie’s papers or whatever.”

“He kept a little desk in the bedroom,” she said. “You’re welcome to look. I haven’t touched a thing yet, I just didn’t have the heart.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can.”

The bedroom was the inevitable encore to the living room, with the addition of a small roll-top desk in the corner by the closet with the mirror on its door. Engel sat down at this desk, rolled up the top, which hadn’t been locked, and spent the next fifteen minutes going through the papers stuffed in the drawers and pigeonholes.

Nothing. Bills, ads clipped out of newspapers, old rent and utility receipts, some travel brochures, income tax records, personal letters, all sorts of junk, but not a thing that helped Engel figure out where Brody was now or why he was there.

The problem was, he couldn’t begin to imagine why anybody wanted Brody’s body in the first place. If only he could figure out a reason, maybe he could get somewhere. But there wasn’t anything in the contents of this desk to give him a reason, or even a hint of a reason.

He went through the dresser drawers, too, as long as he was there, and the pockets of the clothing in the closet, and gradually searched the whole room, and still found nothing.

Back in the living room, the widow had stopped her weeping and was sitting now with a soft and resigned stillness. Engel told her, “There’s a couple of things I’d like to talk to you about. Why don’t we go out and have a drink? Better to talk in a bar.”

“Thank you, Mr. Engel. You’re a very kind man.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Mrs. Brody switched off all the lights and carefully locked the door after them. They went downstairs and out to the street and up to 72nd Street, which was the nearest business district. In a Chinese restaurant-plus-bar called The Good Earth they sat at a table, ordered only drinks to the disgust of the scrutable Oriental who served them, and then Mrs. Brody said, “I hope you found what you were looking for, Mr. Engel.”

“Well, I’m not sure. Every little bit helps, you know.”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

He reflected that neither of them knew what he was talking about, and on that reflection allowed the silence to stretch between them.

The problem was, what sort of question could he ask her? She didn’t know her husband’s body was missing, and Engel didn’t have the heart to give her the news. Also, there was no reason to tell her. But what could she know about why it might be taken, or by whom?

The questions that came to his mind were all the wrong kind. He couldn’t ask if Charlie had any enemies, because an enemy is something you have before you kick off, not after. So what then?

Following an obscure line of thought, he said, “Did your husband belong to any, uh, groups, Mrs. Brody? You know, fraternal organizations and like that.”

“Fraternal—?” The way she looked at him, she had no idea what a fraternal organization was.

Sometimes a high school education got in the way of full communication with the sort of individual one had to deal with in this world. Engel said, “Like the Masons or the Elks or the Rotarians and like that. Or the American Legion, the VFW. Maybe the John Birch Society. I don’t know, just groups.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “Charlie wasn’t a joiner. He was very proud of that, not being a joiner. Every once in a while somebody would come around, join this committee, join that group, fight this, demand that, you know the kind of thing you get, and Charlie always use to say, ‘Not me, thanks, I’m no joiner.’ It used to make them so mad they could spit.”

“What about religion?” Engel asked her. “What religion was he?”

“Well, I’m not sure,” she said. “He was brought up some sort of Protestant, I guess Methodist. But he wasn’t actively in the church at all. I mean, for instance, we had a civil ceremony. In Las Vegas, in one of the marriage chapels there. It was really very beautiful.”

She looked as though she were going to start crying again in a second, but instead she dipped her nose into her drink.

Engel said, “He never joined any kind of religious group?”

“No. Not a one. He wasn’t a joiner, you know?”

Engel knew. But he’d been hoping, he’d been hoping. He’d all of a sudden gotten this wild idea about a crazy religious cult, Druids or something, and when one of their number died they took the body themselves and had some special thing they did with it. He knew it was far-fetched, but if it turned out to be so, then it didn’t matter how far-fetched it was.

Except it wasn’t so.

And Engel had run dry. He kept the conversation going as best he could, but he was stuck and he knew it. He only stayed for the one drink, and then took a cab back downtown to get ready for dinner with Mrs. Kane.

Life was just one damn widow after another.

Another note:

Are you going to phone

me, or aren’t you?

If you don’t want to

see me any more, just

say so.

I can take a hint.

It wasn’t signed, but it was on a résumé again, in lipstick again, and attached to the door with a false fingernail again, so Engel had a pretty good idea who it was from.

“Life is cruel,” he said aloud. He took the note down and went into the apartment.

It was ten after seven, and he spent the next forty-five minutes showering, changing, and generally getting ready for his evening with Mrs. Kane. After all, he told himself, she was at the funeral parlor today, and she knows Kurt Brock, and Kurt Brock was the next to the last one to see Charlie Brody, so I can look at it like I’m still working. There could be some connection between Margo Kane and Charlie Brody’s body.

There could? Engel, adjusting his tie before the one-way mirror (producer), looked himself in the eye and made a face at himself. What would a woman like Margo Kane want with a body like Charlie Brody?

Well, he told himself defensively, you never knew. That’s all, you just never knew.

Sure.

She arrived punctually at eight, coming in smiling and effervescent, wearing now a forest-green knit dress in which she looked almost — but not quite — too thin to be interesting. Her lipstick and nail polish were a less violent shade than before, and her raven-black hair hung in soft folds now around her face.

She came in saying, “I would have insisted on meeting you again if only to see your apartment once more. It’s just the most fascinating place I’ve ever been in.”

Engel felt his hackles beginning just slightly to rise. He didn’t know exactly why, but he had the feeling there was somehow a touch of mockery in her references to his apartment He said, “I’m ready to go if you are. Or,” belatedly, “do you want a drink first?”

She seemed surprised, whether by his tone or his offer he couldn’t tell. “We don’t have to,” she said. “We could have a drink at the restaurant.”

“Okay. Fine.”

They didn’t speak again until they were down in her car, the Mercedes-Benz sports car again, the top still down, once again parked in front of a fire hydrant. Then Engel said, “Don’t you ever get tickets, parking like this?”

“You mean those little green cards people put under the windshield wiper?” She laughed, and started the engine. “I have a drawer at home full of those,” she said, and pulled away from the curb.