Микки Спиллейн - The Long Wait

“Not so I’d notice. I’m going to play the game right up to the hilt until I find out why Johnny left like he did. If you’re wondering why I bothered telling you all this it’s because I’m going to need you.”

“And Nick... are you going to tell him?”

“No. Pop’s okay, but he’s too old to help me much. I’m glad he picked me up when he did and he’s got my thanks.”

“You’d better stop calling him ‘Pop.’ He hates that. You’re supposed to know him well enough to know what he’s called.”

I nodded. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“What do you want me to do, Johnny? I mean...”

“Keep it Johnny. I want you to help me find Vera West. Women are good at asking questions right. Try the gang that comes through your place.”

“But they’re all from out of town.”

“That’s all right. She may not be in Lyncastle. If she changed her name she’s probably still using the same initials... like Veronica Waverly or something. Put out a few feelers with your friends, but cook up a good story to go with it in case they start asking questions.”

I pushed my plate back and got up.

“All right, Johnny. And you can take my car if you want to. I’ll use the old one. It’s in the garage.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Don’t wait up for me,” I grinned.

“You’ll be back?”

I looked her up and down slowly. “What else?”

Her eyes half closed and she tilted her head up. “Kiss?”

“Uh-uh. I wouldn’t think of spoiling your paint job.”

“Rat.”

“Ain’t I?”

She stuck her tongue out at me.

Wendy was a pretty head, all right. A little on the hard side when you looked close and the make-up didn’t take away the brittle lines that were etched in the corner of her mouth and eyes. She was a million bucks in a green dress under artificial lights and two million in bed. A dime a dozen in the daytime though.

I told her so-long and went out to the garage.

The car was a black Ford coupé in good condition parked alongside a decrepit Model A that probably had made a reputation for itself in college ten years ago. Some of the witty sayings still showed through the finish and there were coon tails hanging from the chrome guides on the fenders.

I backed out to the street, drove down Pontiel Road and cut over toward the center of town. At a candy store I stopped and picked up a copy of the Lyncastle News, then sat in the car to see what it had to say. It said plenty. Page one had a big splash of the cops hauling a pair of bodies from the quarry under the spotlights from a police car. The story was that an anonymous tip to the News brought out the police who recovered the bodies and made an immediate identification. The men were a pair of medium-sized hoods whose activities were usually centered around Chicago. One was wanted for parole violation and the other was wanted for questioning in a series of stick-ups in Florida.

Lindsey made the statement that it was undoubtedly a revenge killing by some gang outside the state and hoped for an early arrest. Apparently the cops and the reporters on the scene had messed up any extra footprints or car tracks because nothing was said.

Buried on page four was a squib mentioning the fact some joker had stolen a car, taken it for a joy ride and abandoned it in front of police headquarters.

When I closed the paper I dug a nickel out of my pocket and went back into the candy store, looked up the number of the Hathaway House and dialed it. I asked for Jack, heard the desk clerk hit the bell a few times, then got my party.

I said, “This is Johnny McBride, Jack. Can you take a few minutes off and meet me somewhere?”

His voice was guarded. “Certainly, sir. Topps’ Bar and Grill you say? In fifteen minutes. Yessir.”

I told him fine and hung up. Topps’ was about six blocks from the hotel and I made it before he did. I took a table in the back, asked for coffee and waited. A couple minutes later he came in, saw me and came back to the table.

“Hi ya, Mr. McBride.” He sat down across from me and I signaled for another coffee.

“My room still empty?”

“Sure. You had a couple calls to see if you were in last night and this morning. Didn’t leave their names though.”

“Anybody staked out around the lobby?”

He screwed his face up. “Not now. Some character was there most of the night. I kind of thought it was a new dick.”

I peeled off two tens and a five from my roll and tossed them across the table. “When you get back pay for my room and check me out. I left a suitcase with some old clothes in it under the bed. Throw that in the ash can. I won’t be going back to the hotel.”

“You got trouble?”

“Plenty. I’m not well liked around here.”

Jack grinned broadly. “Yeah, I asked about that. What’s the story?”

“Don’t believe what you hear,” I said.

“You got framed, eh?”

“What makes you think so?”

“Coming back. If you pulled that bank job you’d still be a thousand miles from here. Whatcha want with me?”

The waiter came with the coffee and I waited until he was back at the other end of the room before I said, “Not meaning to be impolite, but since you do a little pimping on the side you might know something I need.”

“If it’s about dames, sure.”

“Ever hear of Vera West.”

He let out a low whistle. “You’re working the top brackets now, ain’t you, Johnny? She’s one of Servo’s ex’s.”

“Where is she now?”

His eyes lost that young look. “Seems like a lot of people are looking for her.”

“Who?”

“Just people. A pair of chicks I have on call both were tapped with the same question. They didn’t know.”

“Do you know?”

He dumped milk and sugar in his coffee and stirred the concoction around slowly. “I only saw her once after Servo dumped her. She was just getting off the night train and she was carrying a suitcase. I remember that she looked pretty upset or something. Anyway, one of Servo’s boys happened to be in the station putting some tomato on the train and when she saw him she ran like hell for a cab. I never saw her again after that.”

“Which way was the train going?”

“It was the incoming train, the express that comes in from Chicago to the state capitol, turns south and goes through here down to Knoxville.”

“I see. Who was the guy she saw?”

“Eddie Packman. He’s a right-hand man to Lenny Servo nowadays. Thinks he’s big stuff. Hell, before he hit Lyncastle he was small potatoes. He gimme a hard time in a poolroom one day and I beat his ears off. I wouldn’t try it now.”

“Why not?”

“Because now I’m small potatoes and he’s Servo’s boy,” he grinned.

“So you think Vera West left town, is that it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think anything. I remember seeing her last coming into town and remember that she and Servo split up right around that time, but I never had any reason to think about her. Maybe she’s right here in town.”

“The last time you saw her, what did she look like?”

“Scared.”

“Describe her.”

“Well,” he squinted in thought, “she was usually half in the bag, and this time she had a beaut of a hangover. Her eyes were red. She sure had pretty hair. Used to keep it in a page boy, you know, down around her shoulders curling up inside on the edges. Like gold. Outside that she was medium. Guess you’d say a nice build. I never looked too close.”

“Okay,” I said, “now suppose she never did leave town. Where could she hide out?”

“Well, for one thing, all she had to do was dye her hair red or brown or something and that’d help. There’s places she could work like the laundry and rooming houses she could live in. If she didn’t move around too much she could stay under cover. I know a couple of kids who were hot, one with the feds, and they stayed right here in town while they did some job of searching, but they got away with it.”