Ed Lacy - Strip For Violence

9

Outside I called Thelma Johnson and she still hadn't heard from Will. I stopped for gas, drove out to Queens, getting hooked in the late traffic. I'd seen the Rogers once or twice when Anita had worked late and I'd driven her home. Mrs. Rogers was a heavy woman in her late forties who worked in a local bakery. Rogers worked in a gas station, was thin, the quiet type: spoke with stilted words as though his choppers were false and he was afraid they'd . drop out if he opened his mouth too wide.

They lived in one of the cheap-looking bungalows that mushroomed up all over Queens and Long Island immediately after the last war, and sold for about three times what they were worth. When I rang the bell he opened the door, dressed in a faded pair of coveralls. We shook hands and he said, “Glad you came out, Hal.”

He led me to the kitchen where he was boiling hot dogs, had a bottle of beer working. “Emma is staying at her brother's. Upset, of course, and then today this robbery.... Eat supper with me.”

I speared a frank, wrapped a slice of bread around it, poured myself some beer, asked about the robbery. The old man had taken the day off, to be around Mrs. Rogers, and shortly after eleven in the morning he'd heard a noise at the rear porch door, saw two men trying to jimmy the door. He couldn't describe them except that they looked “rough.” He'd taken down a shotgun from the wall, slipped in a shell... they took off when he fired. He showed me where most of the porch door was ripped away. “Aimed high. I know, at fifteen feet I could have splattered them with a shotgun, but... after what happened to Anita, I didn't want to hurt nobody. Too much hurting and killing in this world.”

We finished the franks and a few more bottles of beer as I asked about Anita's boyfriends... could be I was going off half-cocked about the importance of the sliver of rock in all this. Rogers said, “Hal, Emma and I made a mistake, although I suppose it wasn't our fault—we had Anita late in life. As a result, when she grew up we were both too old to give her much companionship, and maybe she wasn't too happy at home, that's why her drive to... Well, now that she's gone I feel like my own life is done, empty.”

“One thing you can be sure of—I'll get her killer or killers if I don't do another thing in life.”

He gave me a tight smile. “Revenge—what does it mean? Won't bring our Anita back. Hal, you asked about boys.... Well, it was hard for Emma and me to understand Anita, we weren't one generation apart, we were several. She was a little wild, excitement seemed to be in her blood like a drug. She was too eager, intense, to have any boyfriends, or any friends, her own age. Guess she sort of frightened them off. I don't mean she was a wanton but... you spent eight hours a day with her, know what I mean.”

“Let's say now and then she was silly.”

He nodded his head slowly, kept nodding for a few seconds. “Hal, I want to ask you something, frankly and honestly. Seem like an odd question for a father to be asking... but... she was mad about you and knowing how impulsive she was, did you... two... ever... sleep together?”

His eyes were hard on me and I wondered where that shotgun was at the moment. “No, sir, Mr. Rogers, we never did. Frankly, I was afraid of Anita. That's the truth.”

He sighed. “That's too bad.”

“Too bad?”

“Hal, when a loved one dies you sit back and take stock of her life. Anita never had much and I hoped she had at least known and enjoyed the thing she wanted most—love.”

The old man amazed me, but I knew I was talking to a hell of an honest man, even if he thought sex was “love.”

He said, “That must sound like an awful thing for a father to say.”

“I understand what you mean. Anita would have made any man a fine wife.”

He stared at the kitchen linoleum, his head nodding again, and began to quietly weep. It gives me the creeps to see a human cry. I stood up. “Mind if I look around her room?”

He pointed to a door on the other side of the kitchen.

Poor Anita—instead of pictures of movie stars, school pennants on the wall, she had reward circulars taken from the office. There was also a proudly framed diploma from a correspondence course the kid had taken in “detection.”

I nosed around: there wasn't much, piles of old detective magazines, newspaper clippings about various stick-ups, swindles... a closet with a few worn dresses, shoes and stuff.

Mr. Rogers came in, said, “We live in a crazy age: your child dies and all you have left are your memories, a few snapshots, dresses... and pictures of criminals.”

“Anita come home yesterday afternoon?”

“Yes, while we were both working she came home, changed her dress.”

“Where's the dress she changed from?” He took it out of the closet. “The police were here this morning, went over the room.”

I said I knew... and didn't say they wouldn't be looking for the same thing I was. The dress had one pocket— it was empty. I went through her dressing-table, poked my finger in the powder-box. She had a pile of cheap costume jewelry in her drawer, some hairpins... and then I saw it! Either carelessly or wisely, Anita had tossed the sliver among the hairpins. Palming it, I slipped it into my pocket. It was almost a letdown finding it... knocked my ideas about “Cat” Franklin into a cocked hat—which I could pull over my head and call it curls.

I went through the motions of looking through the rest of her stuff, said, “Nothing here. I'll be getting on...”

Stay for a while. It's lonely here. Come on, we'll look at TV.”

We went to the living-room and he dialed in some corny dance act, opened more beer. The TV made me sleepy... I'd only had a few hours of shut-eye in the last twenty-four hours. I dozed off.

I slept hard and when I opened my eyes again, I had trouble getting the old man into focus. I yawned, said, “Sorry I dropped off. What time is it?”

“After ten. You.... What's the matter?”

I was staring at the TV screen. It was Margrita's show and she was clowning with a guest—Will Johnson looking fat and sloppy in his mailman's uniform! Margrita had on a pair of shorts that showed off her fine legs and a sort of halter that didn't hide much of the rest of her. The scene was a beach and she had Will down in the sand, was trying to kiss him. I guess it was funny—the studio audience sounded hysterical. Willie was merely acting himself—the embarrassed oaf—and she finally got his shoulders on the sand and a cop suddenly ran into the scene, made like he was a wrestling referee and slapped Margrita on the shoulders—as though she'd won the bout.

When Willie sat up, she planted a big kiss on his fat lips that made the characters in the audience give out with corny whistles... and there was a lipstick smear on Will's dazed face, and the audience howled. That kiss didn't look like any stage peck to me, looked like Margrita really went for the big jerk! And I was downright envious!

“You like her? Has a nice voice but all this leg stuff...”

I glanced at my watch. It was ten-twelve. “When does this show go off?”

“Half past ten. I think....”

“Got to run, Mr. Rogers. Have a... business appointment at ten-thirty,” I said, getting my hat.

10

I drove as fast as I could, but it was after eleven when I pulled up in front of the former movie house that was now a TV studio. The usual autograph hounds were hanging around the entrance, and as I parked my car, they set up a howl. Margrita—in a flowery red dress—and Will were pushing through the crowd toward a sleek, chauffeured car. This was strictly a Cadillac-rich job; it had a lot of shiny gadgets on it and two big silver aerials that stood up like outriggers on a fishing boat. I tried to fight my way through the crowd but couldn't buck the women and kids tightly clutching their stupid autograph books. I ran back and got into my struggle-buggy.