Gene Wolfe - Pandora by Holly Hollander

I said, “No, I haven’t eaten. I’d like some cereal with plain milk, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Milk for both of us,” Blue said, giving up, “and how about some coffee for Holly?”

Muddy nodded happily. “I’ll fry some bacon, too. I stole some.”

“He means he got it cheaply,” Blue said.

Muddy winked at me.

I got into the other chair and leaned my crutches against the table. “I guess you’re wondering what I’m doing here, but first I’d like to know why Uncle Dee was.”

“And I won’t tell you,” Blue said. “I want you to forget you saw him—for my sake, as well as his.” He sounded serious.

“Like that, huh? Okay, I forget.”

“I mean it. You came here for my help, I think. If you want it, you must forget you saw Sinclair and his car.”

“Who said anything about Uncle Dee? I haven’t seen him since before the bomb. How’d you know I wanted your help?”

“You came here. If you’d discovered something you thought might help, or simply wanted to know what I was doing, you would have telephoned; besides, you were crying when Muddy brought you in.”

“That was because I ran into some guy whose name I forget when I wasn’t expecting it. I guess you could say I want to consult you. I’ve got an idea I think might lead to something, and I want you to tell me whether you think it’s a good one, and give me some advice on how to go about it. As for phoning, I’d think they’d have ours tapped by now.”

Muddy plunked a bowl of cereal and a spoon in front of me, and poured milk over Blue’s. I tasted mine: Wheaties.

“The courts have made legal taps very difficult for the police, but I’m glad you asked before doing anything. In fact, I’m glad you came.”

“Great. Here’s my pitch. Last night before I got to sleep I spent a lot of time going over everything that’s happened. I picked and pulled at all the important stuff—Pandora’s Box, for instance—and couldn’t get a fingernail in. So what I think is that if you can’t grab on to anything important, maybe you ought to get hold of something that isn’t and give it good yank. Who knows, if I can start a long enough ravel some of the important stuff might come loose.”

“No investigator would disagree with you.”

“Goody. So here’s my loose end. Tell me if it isn’t worth doing, and if it is, give me some advice on how to do it.”

“I’ll try,” Blue promised.

Muddy brought over a big plate of bacon. He must have fried the whole pound, and it was country style—soft and greasy—which happens to be the way I like it.

“My loose end’s Molly. Remember when I was in the hospital and I told you and Sandoz about going to the Magic Key, and the phone calls for Larry? Later you told me you already knew about them.”

Blue nodded.

“Then you probably remember how Megan told me that whenever this guy called he’d ask for Sergeant Lief, and when they said he wasn’t there, he’d hang up. Megan said his voice was scary, but that’s all he said.”

“I remember, yes.”

“Okay, here’s the part I didn’t tell. I didn’t because the cop was there and I didn’t want to get Molly in trouble. While we were talking, Molly pulled a gun from under the register and said if anybody hurt Larry she’d shoot them. It was a revolver, I think a thirty-eight, and after Uncle Herbert was shot I just kind of wondered if maybe Molly had decided he did it. But then yesterday Sandoz took that Gestapo gun of my father’s—”

“It was a PPK,” Blue interrupted. “Those letters stand for Polizei Pistole Kriminal, by which the Walther Corporation meant that it was intended for what we would call plainclothes men.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. So if he was right, it wasn’t a revolver at all, which means it wasn’t Molly.”

“No,” Blue said, “all it means is that if it was Molly who killed your uncle, she employed a weapon other than the one she showed you; but we have no better reasons to suspect Molly than several other people. And it was, in fact, a semiautomatic that fired the shot. The police have the bullet, and it is the fully jacketed type used in semiautomatics. Perhaps I should add that they also found the ejected brass, which is how Sandoz knew in what part of that parking lot your uncle died; revolvers don’t eject their spent cartridges. I think we can safely assume that by this time they’ve run a ballistic comparison that will enable them to say for certain whether the pistol Sandoz took from your father’s drawer killed your uncle. The results of that test are among the things I must determine this morning.”

I waved all that aside. “What I’m trying to say is that Molly had a gun and was ready to kill whoever made those calls if Larry got hurt. Now I ask you—a guy keeps calling, asking for Sergeant Lief. Maybe he tells war stories—that’s what I heard her say on TV one time. Does the way she was acting make sense? Maybe he did sound scary—some people just naturally do, and over the phone it might sound worse. Maybe he got shot in the throat or something in Vietnam.”

“All right,” Blue said, “Molly seems to have been overreacting. Go on from there.”

“What I think is that whenever this guy—let’s call him X, it sounds good—called and got Megan, he knew he had Larry’s kid sister. He didn’t want to scare her, or maybe just didn’t think it was worth the trouble. But when he had Molly, he said more than she told the TV people about. Maybe she told the police, maybe not. Maybe she told you.”

Blue shook his head.

“So that’s my loose end. I want to try to get her to tell me everything he said, and especially why she thought it was so serious she pulled out that gun. Then we’ll follow wherever it leads, and maybe it’ll just peter out and maybe it won’t. What I need for you to tell me is how to go about it.”

“You’re a woman,” Blue said. “You were born knowing more about how to go about something of this sort than I’ll ever be able to learn. But if I were you, I think I’d simply go to her in private and explain what it was that I wanted to ask and why I wanted to ask it. I would tell her that I loved my father, and that Larry cannot be hurt anymore—that he is forever out of harm’s way. I’d begin by asking her to repeat the caller’s exact words, as nearly as she remembers them; when she had done so—and not before—I would ask whether she had not, at least at some time, suspected that he was someone she knew.”

“Okay, I’m going to give it my best shot.”

“Fine.” Blue was looking absentminded, and so help me he reached out and got a slice of bacon and ate it. I couldn’t see Muddy from where I sat, but I was willing to bet he was jumping for joy. “However,” Blue went on, “I think it would be best if you were home by, roughly, ten-thirty. Do you think you might manage that?”

I looked at my watch. “Sure.”

“And it would be well for you to bring Molly. Particularly if she has told you what you want to know.”

“To my house? What am I supposed to do with her when I get her there?”

“I’ll be there as well,” Blue said, “and I’ll let you know then.”

My bum-leg driving rattled Molly so much we had to stop halfway so I could slide over and she could walk around. After that her driving rattled me. She was one of those haywagon drivers who think the engine may bolt and jerk the wheel out of their hands. Also she liked to come to a complete stop before making a turn, which rattled the drivers in the cars behind us who didn’t know her turn signal meant she was about to hit the brakes that hard. By the time we got to my place—I should really say my father’s—I was ready to get out and walk, bum leg and all.