Ed Gorman - Wake Up Little Susie

“Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about something else.”

And I got jealous because the only time Pamela ever looked that radiantly happy was when there was good news on the Stu Grant front.

“Something happened with Stu, didn’t it?”

“Not with Stu exactly.”

“Huh?”

“With his wife.”

“Oh.”

“Been called away, poor thing. Needs to spend two months with her ailing gran, poor thing.”

“Here’s your chance,” I said, unable to keep the sadness from my voice.

Her smile got even bigger. “That’s what I was thinking.”

Her intercom buzzed angrily. “Is that who I think it is out there?”

“Yes, Judge.”

“Tell him to get in here right now!”

“Yes, Judge.”

I just kept thinking of how shocked she was going to be when I told her Squires wanted to hire me. I also just kept thinking about Pamela and Stu together for two months.

The intercom clicked off.

I turned and started for the Judge’s chambers.

But before I could take a step, Pamela grabbed my hand. “I say prayers for you and Mary all the time. That you’ll-y know-get together. Would you do that for me? Say prayers that Stu and I get together?

I’m so scared, McCain, I really am. This may be the only real chance I ever have at him.

Two months.”

“I’ll try.”

I didn’t know which I felt more miserable about at that particular moment, Pamela or facing the Judge.

She had her tall executive leather chair turned away from me. All I could see was the thick blue smoke from her Gauloise cigarette curling up toward the vaulted ceiling.

With its mahogany wainscoting, small fireplace, leather furniture, and elegant framed Vermeer prints, the office was seminally intimidating. The Supreme Court couldn’t look a whole lot plusher than this.

She didn’t say anything for a few moments.

Making me anxious was her second favorite sport. The first was tennis.

Finally: “Is the door closed?” Still facing away from me.

“Yes.”

“Are you sitting down?”

“Yes.”

“Are you afraid I’m going to explode and really tear into you?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Still facing away from me. More smoke from her Gauloise. More silence.

Then: “And have you found the murderer yet?”

The only reason I put up with this was because of the shock I was about to give her. It would be like dropping a bomb on her desk when I told her what David Squires had proposed.

“No.”

“And what did you do all day yesterday?”

“Stayed home.”

“And did what?”

“Thought about the case.”

“All day you thought about the case?”

“Well, except for when I was reading the funnies.”

“And what else?”

“Watching Maverick.”

“And what else?”

“Reading that paperback.”

“Are you ashamed of yourself?”

“Sort of.”

She whirled around and glared at me. “Sort of?” Her cigarette in her right hand, her cut-glass brandy snifter in the other. “Sort of?”

As I’ve said many times before, she’s a good-looking woman, the Judge. Handsome.

Imposing. She had on a fashionably styled fawn wool suit and white blouse this morning.

Her short hair framed her face perfectly.

She was the kind of woman you saw in high-toned magazines, pushing a poodle down Park Avenue.

“Well, I did actually do some work.” I told her what I’d done.

“And I’m supposed to be impressed?”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“Oh, there’s a slashing self-justification.

Better than nothing. Inspiring, McCain.

Downright inspiring.”

I wanted to slide this one right across the plate.

Startle her with it. Make her wonder if she’d heard me right. I wanted to rattle her like she’d never been rattled before.

I said, fast, “David Squires wants to hire me.”

She said, “I know. He called me last night.”

She slid it right back. Startled me with it.

Made me wonder if I’d heard her right.

“What?”

“He said he decided it’d probably be better to speak to me directly.”

“Great. Just great.”

“You were hoping to surprise me with it, weren’t you?”

“I guess.”

“And here I was the one who surprised you.

That’s funny.”

“Real funny.”

“I told him you’d do it, McCain.”

“What?”

“He and Cliffie are up to something, and I want to find out what.”

“You think Cliffie’s involved in this?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

That’s when she got me with the first rubber band. She keeps a stash of them in her drawer. She makes a pistol of her hand, thumb and finger, and then lets me have it. She’s good. Annoyingly good. The rubber band hit my nose and fell into my lap.

“Nice to know I haven’t lost my touch.”

“Yeah. I’m thrilled.”

“Try and be a little faster next time. It’s no fun if I always win.”

She exhaled a great deal of French blue smoke. “Find out what they’re up to, McCain, and fast.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

This time, even though I ducked, her rubber band got me on the forehead.

A sip of brandy. A glance at the two-hundred-year-old Swiss clock. “I need to get ready for court, McCain. And you need to get ready to do what you should’ve done yesterday.” She shook her head. “And I certainly wouldn’t go around admitting that you still read the funny papers. My Lord, McCain.

Presumably, you’d like to be a grown-up someday.”

I made it all the way to the door. Then she did some showing off. Just as I started to open her door, one of her rubber bands landed on my shoulder.

“It’s a good thing you’re short, McCain. I don’t think I could’ve pulled that off if you were normal-sized.”

All the time I was reading Nancy and Slu)o yesterday morning, I should have figured that Judge Whitney would pay me back for it, comments about my size being her specialty.

The beautiful Pamela was on the phone when I went out. She didn’t get to ask me to pray for her and Stu again.

Try to keep the covers folded back so you can’t see the illustration of Captain Video, the boldest man in outer space and the most popular science-fiction show on Tv. Friend of mine at Woolworth’s was closing out merchandise that didn’t sell. Among those items was a box of forty-eight small spiral notebooks that fit nicely in my back pocket. Great for keeping notes during an investigation-z long as nobody saw the illustration with the Captain and his zap gun.

Before I left the courthouse parking lot, I wrote three names on the first page of my fresh notebook:

Mike Chalmers

Todd Jensen

Amy Squires

I’d stopped by the parole office in the courthouse and gotten Chalmers’s address. He was living on an acreage where he worked part of a farm for a salary. Kepler, the parole officer, didn’t seem to have much faith in the man. “You know what the first thing he did was when he got out a few years ago?”

“What?”

“Cruised David Squires’s place.”

“Squires tell you that?”

“Squires didn’t have to. A cop did.

He saw Chalmers out there several times and thought I should know about it. So I call Squires and warn him and I call Chalmers and try and scare him.”

“He scare, did he?”

“You know Chalmers pretty well?”

“Pretty well.”

“Well, then, whaddaya you think? You ever know anybody who could scare Chalmers?”

I put the top down. Figured if I had to work, I might as well enjoy it. I was sixteen again. It’s funny how quickly you can get nostalgic. Here it was 1957 and I was looking back at 1952 as the Golden Age already. Senior year in high school. Somehow, it seemed a slower, gentler time. Beer parties at the sandpits. Dancing with Pamela on the boat that goes up and down the river all summer. Seeing my dad finally shake off the war. No more nightmares. No more depressions. The year 1952 was just about as perfect as a year could get.