Chapter 14
The cab took him back to the airport, where he picked up Robin's Jag and sped back to the city. There were a lot of things he had to straighten out with her. About Donald, about what she intended to do with herself. He'd bitten off a larger hunk than he had realized. He knew he'd have to speak with Millardson and clear the air with him too. But right now, none of that mattered.
He drove through the thinning drizzle with the hunch that he was hurtling straight into the center of mayhem. The hope which had carried him this far shredded away. Cee-Zee wasn't there. He could feel the apartment looming empty and quiet, surrounded by the brick jungle of New York. Nothing could be fiercer than the beasts in that jungle. Tailored, wealthy beasts more venomous than real cobras in real jungles. His skin felt clammy with fear for Cee-Zee.
He left the car sticking half way out of a parking spot too small for it and ran up the steps three at a time. He flung the door open and called her name, hearing his own voice answer. Only his own voice. A fever burned beneath the iciness of his skin as he went into the bedroom and into the bathroom still hoping to find her, yet knowing he would not.
The rumpled bed had been straightened. He flung a book onto it in sheer frustration, watching it bounce on the tightly pulled spread.
Then he dashed out again and drove across to the West Side, knowing Lilio's place was closed, but needing to see this for himself.
He banged at the locked door. An old woman from the building beside it came out and yelled at him to go away. At the corner drug store, he phoned everyone he knew to discover if by some slim chance, one of his acquaintances knew Lilio.
Then he stood on the street corner, his arms still, his jaw grinding, his eyes seeing red. And he decided to go to the cops.
But on his way to the precinct, he stopped again and phoned Martin Millardson. Surely he would know. Or the criminal lawyer who had smoothed things for Cee-Zee could find out.
Millardson said, "Come up to my office."
Eric had no time for formalities now.
"I won't give that kind of information over the phone," Millardson insisted.
He had to consent.
Millardson's plush offices in a Fifty Seventh Street skyscraper had just been redone in the most expensive modern taste. Eric tracked his dirty shoes over the new tan carpet and hovered over the secretary till she switched off the intercom and told him he could go inside.
He burst through the door to find Millardson swivelling around in his chair.
Eric put his fists on the broad desk. "I don't have time, Martin. If you know where this mug is or where I can find him, tell me quick."
Millardson eyed him and stuck out his lower lip in contradiction. "You have plenty of time," he said and turned his black shell chair around to look at the windows across the street, the rain drying on them in the first glimmerings of sunlight.
"If you're stalling me for a reason, let's have it. You know what happened to that girl once. I don't want it again."
"Your girl, Eric?" His words took their time. "That's beside the point."
Millardson put his feet up on the windowsill and examined the tip of one polished shoe. "I don't think it is." He swung around now and leaned his forearms on the dustless blotter. "In fact, it's very much to the point, old man."
Eric stared at him bewildered, his temper leaping to high waves inside him.
The radio on Millardson's desk buzzed. He flicked the switch. "Not now, Jeanine, I'm in conference." He shut it off. "Well, then, Eric, shall we have a little chat? That's how my wife used to put it, a little chat."
He had never heard Millardson speak about his wife. His anger paused to gather a crest of curiosity. Reluctantly he pulled up a chair and sat down.
"That's better, Eric. Much better." He pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. "Scotch, isn't it?"
Something told Eric that he'd better tread gently, that he was walking through a mined field. "Yes, Scotch," he said in a restrained voice.
He pulled out the cork and filled two squat glasses. "Took you a long time to get here," he said. "I expected you last week."
"What for?"
"About Donald, of course."
He couldn't make the connection between Donald and Cee-Zee. He waited for Millardson to clue him.
"You haven't even tasted your drink," Millardson said. "It's an excellent bottle. I keep it especially for go-getters. Like you, Eric," his voice faded a little, "like you."
Eric put the glass down on the desk untouched.
"I apologize for trying your patience."
"Well then?"
Millardson's shrewd eyes examined him, charged from appreciation. "I took the liberty of keeping an eye on you, my boy. After our agreement about Donald."
"You mean putting an eye on me," Eric interrupted. "A private eye."
"Yes. Donald isn't any Tom, Dick or Harry, is he?"
"You can say that again."
Millardson's shrewed eyes examined him, charged from the high voltage battery of his brain. "I discover, though not to my astonishment, that you are quite a man with the ladies."
Eric snorted and picked up the glass now. He couldn't really blame Millardson for checking on him. "So?"
"And what I discover is that you have not one," he held up a groomed forefinger, "not two," he lifted the next finger, "but three, pyramided into a very pretty triangle."
"So you think I'm messing with your daughter, is that it?"
"I haven't accused you. Yet." He put his hand on the desk top with a little slap. "Believe me...."
"I have not built my fortune on belief, Eric. But on action. I judge men by what they do. I don't give a damn what they say." He finished the whiskey and refilled his glass. "Now. My daughter is in Cuba. Safe for the moment, I trust. When she returns, I would like to feel confident that you will scratch her off your list. She may be a very little fish to you, no doubt. But to me she is the only one in the ocean. I have plans for that girl. And they do not include her coming to tell me one day that she is pregnant and has to marry some slick talker."
"I would laugh in your face if you weren't so pathetic," Eric said.
"That doesn't sway me."
An inkling of something deeper in Millardson touched him. He couldn't quite get hold of it to analyze because the pressure of Cee-Zee forced out everything else.
"You're wasting my time, Martin." With Robin out on the island, Eric knew he held a flush over Millardson's ace high straight.
"I'm buying your time," Millardson corrected. "Your girl for mine."
Eric stood up and leaned across the desk. "All right. Let's get with it."
Millardson picked up the receiver and got Lilio's address from one of his connections. "Remember," Millardson shook a warning finger. "Leave my daughter alone."
Eric hardly heard him. On impulse, he pulled open the center drawer of Millardson's desk. He grabbed the revolver he knew would be inside and disappeared from the office and down to the car, feeling he was racing against time. He could only remember the last time Cee-Zee had gone to Lilio. His blood pulsed hard at the memory.
The dependable Jag took him northward out of the city, heading toward Scarsdale. He knew what to expect.
A quiet house in the most respectable part of town.
A boody trap surrounded by a picket fence. The revolver felt lovely in his pocket. Heavy, solid. Winding roads Jed him through a canopy of chirping bird sounds and the lush fragrance of hyacinths. Color heavy gardens nodded beside the road. He thought of Lilio infecting all this peace with his stink and contamination. He saw him doing his civic duty. The responsible citizen of a growing community. He thought of graft and henchmen muscling Lilio's way into respectability. Graft ... violence ... blood ... death. He thought of Cee-Zee and drove faster.
He parked down the road in the shade of maple trees.
A leaf floated to land on the hood of the car. He got out and put his hand into his pocket. His fingers closed over the smooth cold metal.
Moving toward the house, he let his eyes fill with the spectacle. A long white stucco building with a terra cotta roof, sloping in graceful Spanish style. A trim lawn spread around it like green velvet. The wide porch was deserted.
He walked directly up the cobbled lane. His shoes echoed his stride. Scalloped window shades shut away any view of the inside but he could tell there wasn't a light on. The sweet vapor of dew clung to the shrubs and twilight drew fading streaks of color above the distant hills. His alerted senses absorbed the whole picture though his mind trained steadily on what would meet him inside Lilio's house.
First he tried the doorknob. The latch remained firm. Then he lifted the gleaming brass knocker and let it drop. Tensely he waited, knowing it was foolish to announce his arrival this way. But he couldn't get in through any of the windows without crashing the glass. He half hoped that Lilio himself might answer the door. Then he could smear him like a fat caterpillar on his homey walls.
The seconds passed before he heard a shuffling footstep. He did not recognize it. Not Lilio's.
A female voice asked, "Who is it?" Not a glamorous voice.
"Eric Spokane," he said with authority, thinking the woman might open the door to him out of curiosity. His guess was right.
The door came ajar. A tiny woman of middle age looked up at him. Her pale features smiled uncertainly at the stranger.
"How do you do," he said, not wanting to make a commotion with the maid and tip Lilio off if he were inside.
"How do you do," her voice lilted upward in tentative ! friendliness. She opened the door half an inch further.
She might have been beautiful many years ago. But she wore no make-up to hide her failing youth.
"May I come in?" He smiled innocently, congenially.
She hesitated. "My husband is expecting you?"
"Husband? Yes. He is expecting me." He stepped around her and inside.
Should he believe her? Would Lilio keep a wife around while he played with Cee-Zee. The bastard could do anything. He looked at the pale eyebrows and the gnarling fingers spreading timidly across the skirt of her print dress. For an instant he felt pity. Then his heart shut coldly.
"Where is he? Where is your husband?" She began to point behind her. He brushed past her shoulder and headed through the parlor.
Lilio came out from behind the door, blocking him. They glared at each other in one instant of abrupt silence.
"Ah, monsieur," Lilio said, the two words like double fangs. "You wish something?"
His wife had backed away but she stood in a corner watching.
"Where is she?" Eric said. His hand remained in his pocket. "Who?"
"Cee-Zee." Eric glanced around to make sure no one eke was going to jump out from behind a door. "Come on, where is she?" He had no time for stalling.
"You are mistaken. I am all alone here with my wife."
"Yes," the woman spoke up. "There is no one here. No one."
"I said, where is she?" He grabbed Lilio's collar with his free hand. "You better talk." He began shaking Lilio. The man's blubber shook and quivered but his eyes remained steady, two beams of piercing hate. He reached up with a slick motion and cut Eric's hand free.
The woman ran up now and tugged Eric's sleeve. "Believe him. There is no one here. No one."
Eric shoved her away.
"She's got to be here. Or in hell. What did you do with her?" He slapped Lilio on both cheeks. He kept slapping him.
The woman began to whimper.
"For the last time," Eric said, choking on the words. "What did you do with her, you filthy, rotten...."
The woman's little fists began pounding on his back. He pushed her away.
All of Lilio puffed up. His oily cheeks began to redden as he lunged awkwardly for Eric.
Eric's hand whisked out with the revolver. He brought its butt across Lilio's triple chins. The fat seared open. Blood rose in tiny beads and dribbled over.
Shrieks rang high from the woman. She started to run for the door. Eric whirled and dragged her back.
Lilio took the instant to grab a book end. Eric saw it arching toward him. He ducked and brought the gun up square against Lilio's chin. He staggered back and crashed into a floor lamp.
Eric dashed after him and flung his weight against the tub of fat. They landed beside a coffee table. Lilio grabbed one leg of the table and tilted it into Eric's face. The table careened off his shoulder. He swung the pistol, again tearing a ditch into the flesh of Lilio's cheek. Blood gushed and smeared.
"Tell me...." Eric's voice came full throttle. He crisscrossed paths in Lilio's face, opening his forehead, his nose, his lips.
The woman's shrieks echoed long and terrible.
"Tell me, tell me." He couldn't stop himself. The pointed metal exposed jagged tooths of bone.
Lilio blubbered and spat, drowning in his own blood. His heels kicked the carpet. He tried to fling Eric off his belly.
Eric jammed his knees into Lilio's stomach. His rage blurred everything except the desire to annihilate. Lilio's blood smeared his hands and soaked into his shirt cuffs.
The woman had collapsed into a corner of the room. She stared, numb with terror.
Lilio opened his mouth, spitting out mashed teeth with the blood. His hands swung wildly, blindly trying to grasp Eric. One hand found something on the floor.
A burning sensation ran across the back of Eric's neck. He felt his shirt begin to soak up liquid. He got Lilio's wrist and brought it around to see a piece of shattered glass stained with his own blood. He brought the hand flat to the carpet and hit the knuckles with the revolver butt till the fingers relaxed brokenly.
The gushing from his neck seeped around, staining along the front of his shirt. Ignoring it, he lifted Lilio's head and began banging it on the floor.
The struggle went out of Lilio. He lay limp. Unconscious, half drowned in the viscous red fluid. Eric sat breathing hard. He reached around and felt the warm spurt of blood course over his fingers. He was beginning to feel dizzy.
He staggered up and wavered over to the woman. She stared up at him, livid with fear.
Panting, he stared back at her, his vision not quite focusing. He ripped off a sleeve of his shirt and put it against the back of his neck, trying to press hard enough to stop the flow of blood.
"What do you know?" he said without much hope. "You know anything? I don't suppose you know a damn."
She shook her head in a trembling motion. "You have killed him...."
Her words had no meaning for Eric. He leaned over to try to stand her up. She cringed backward, pressing herself hard against the wall. He caught sight of the clotted blood on his fingers and the hand dropped to his side.
"Maybe you heard of a girl," he persisted. A drunken feeling seeped through him. He kept pressing on the rag. It felt soggy. "A girl ... her name is Cee-Zee. You know her?"
She continued to shake her head.
"No. You don' know nothin'." He swayed away from her, dimly aware that he had to stop the blood or he would pass out.
Lilio lay like a stuffed toy, demolished and forgotten. His fat belly moved slightly.
Eric staggered off to find the kitchen while the woman crawled to her husband. She put her face on his chest. She wept silently and rocked on her knees.
He found the kitchen and pulled half a dozen dish towels out of a drawer. He stuffed them into his shirt collar. Then he turned on the water and let it run over his hands. The bright blood had begun to darken around the edges of the smears on his shirt. He splattered cold water onto his face and dried himself with another towel.
Then he started opening closet doors until he found a jacket to put over himself. His brain spun but he couldn't think a thing. He had to concentrate on keeping his balance and fighting against the weakness threatening to collapse his legs.
He came back into the living room, where Lilio had begun to bubble in his own blood.
"I missed," Eric said to the woman. "He's not dead after all."
He dropped the gun into his pants pocket and went out, trimming his mind for the project of driving all the way back to New York.
There was no place he dared go now except home. The car weaved back and forth on the road. He tried to drive slowly, carefully. His hands barely hung onto the wheel. He breathed deeply and blinked, stubbornly trying to clear his vision.
The towels felt damp but he could tell that the blood had stopped gushing. The fresh air revived him a little. The cloud on his thinking began to drift away.
With all the fury spent, he could reason better. He felt satisfied that Cee-Zee hadn't gone to the Scarsdale house. If she had, Lilio's wife would have betrayed it. Of course Lilio wouldn't bring Cee-Zee into that picture. He'd been a fool to think so in the first place.
The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became of the possibility that Cee-Zee hadn't reached Lilio yet. But if that were the case, where would she be?
In her own apartment in Manhattan? That didn't jibe. Maybe he'd hidden her away somewhere, safe from him. Especially safe from cops. But Lilio wasn't the kind to take such a beating if he could avoid it. Maybe she was dead already.
His stomach went sick at the thought.
She couldn't be dead.
Cee-Zee never dies.
He kept the car going more by will power than force of concentration. All avenues of finding her seemed shut off from him. For an instant, he thought of turning around and going back to Lilio again. But a dead Lilio didn't necessarily produce a five Cee-Zee.
He felt all played out Once Cee-Zee had said to him that brains weren't big enough. He knew now what she meant. He needed a thunderbolt, a voice from the heavens to tell him where to find her.
But he knew he wasn't going to give up. If he spent the rest of his life spading up every inch of earth on this planet, he would find her. Cee-Zee never dies.
The words spun round and round in his head. A refrain that kept him going like hammering pistons.
Traffic from Jersey and upstate New York converged on either side of him as he came into the city. The cloudy thick smell of exhaust fumes began to erase Scarsdale. The episode felt very unreal to him. But the clots of blood stiffening the skin of his neck were more than real. They were the begimiing of hell.