When I got back to the detective bureau, it was almost five o’clock. There was a note on my desk. It said to call Carolyn Flynn at once. Urgent.
I crushed the slip in my fist, sat down and the swivel sighed dryly under me. I reached out, pulled the phone to me, and dialed her number before I had time to think about it and decide not to. Talking to Carolyn right now was the last thing I wanted.
The phone rang three times before Carolyn said, abruptly, “Mike?”
I laughed. “Hell, no. This is the third assistant secretary of the Junior League. Suppose I’d been the chairman of the Red Cross. Secretary of the Service League. Or Fred Carmichael.”
She wasted no energy on worry. “I knew it was you, Mike. I could tell by the ringing of the phone. Haven’t you ever felt that way?”
“No.”
“I want to see you, Mike. I need to. I know I have no right to lean on you, Mike. But since Tom’s death, I’ve been completely alone—except for you.”
I wondered what Fred Carmichael would have thought of her saying that
“How about eight o’clock?” I said.
She hesitated, then said softly, “Eight will be fine, Mike. I’ll be waiting. Please don’t mind—whoever may be here.”
I replaced the receiver, thinking she probably meant that Fred Carmichael would be there. Then I thought about the scene that might ensue if Fred and I met at the Flynn house after what young Morgan must have told him this afternoon.
I sat up, glancing at the clock. There would be no way for me to avoid meeting Fred Carmichael. You can hurt a man almost anywhere except in his pocketbook and have some hope for forgiveness.
I touched the check made out to Lupe Valdez in the breast pocket of my jacket.
It was three minutes of five. I got up and got out of there.
As I pushed the key into my apartment doorlock, I could hear the soft strains of sentimental love ballads from my Magnavox console—a relic from my fat years as a vice-squad lieutenant.
I stepped in. Lupe Valdez was sprawled out on my divan. This did my libido—whatever the hell that is—no good because her position, except that she was wearing more clothes, was much like the one I had captured the night before with my Rolex.
She sat up, smiling wanly. Her cheeks were starkly pale, her black eyes lusterless.
I grew aware of something else—the place was beginning to smell like her. There was nothing wrong with the scent—a combination of mild bath soap, faint toilet water and youthful cleanliness—nothing wrong at all except for its effect on me. I had nothing but sympathetic understanding for Morgan Carmichael’s rash need for this chick.
“Hello, Mike.”
She gave me the kind of adoring gaze a young girl fixes upon a father who is above human frailties, and who is just a little stronger and better than the next man. One thing her look did. It switched off my libido button, fast.
I felt as gray, suddenly, as she looked.
I smiled back at her, moved toward my portable bar, and at the faint frown in her eyes, stopped. The hell with it. My God, what were people doing to me?
I went over to the couch, pulled the check from my inside coat pocket and dropped it in her lap.
I don’t know what I expected her to do. What she did was burst into tears. She stared at the check, touched the amount, the scrawled signature with her fingers. She looked up at me and sat there sobbing, her eyes dripping, nose running, mouth trembling.
I tossed my handkerchief into her lap on top of the check. She picked it up and blew her nose.
“You’re all right now,” I told her. “You see an investment man at my bank tomorrow. You hear?”
“I hear you, Mike.”
“I’m sure neither the kid nor Morgan will mind if you use some of this to go away a few weeks before you get too outstanding. In fact, Morgan insisted that you do.”
“He does have some feeling,” she whispered.
“Oh, yes, he hurts for you.”
“Oh, Mike. You’re so wonderful. I knew you would be—that first day I saw you.”
“Sure. Only you hear me good. I want that kid to have a living trust. Understand?”
She nodded.
“I don’t want to pick him up some time for stealing something he couldn’t afford to buy.”
“Oh, no!”
“I don’t want him ever joining the cops, either—there are better jobs he can get.”
She reached up, touched my face. “There are worse things than a good cop. Mike, I—I think I love you. Oh, Mike!”
“You’re a doll, Lupe. You love everybody.”
“Mike, I mean it.” She jumped up, began to pull off her dress. “Take me, Mike. All I have to give you is myself. You want me, don’t you, Mike?”
“Sure, but not because you’re grateful to me, or trading favors.” I patted her on that sweet fanny. “Now get that dress back on and beat it. Go ahead. Scram.”
So I sat there, my libido snugly buttoned down in my back pocket. What had happened to me? I wanted a woman who could laugh, and what did I have? A grieving widow and a pregnant teenager. Great.
Carolyn was alone, waiting for me, when I got to her place. She answered the door herself, led me into the once more immaculate sun-room.
She sat on the smartly modern, rigidly uncomfortable divan.
“Come sit here, Mike. With me.”
“There must be a more comfortable room in this house.”
“Oh, Mike.” She smiled sadly. “I really have missed you. All these years. Even when I was happy with Tom. And I was happy, Mike. He was good. And he loved me. And I learned one lesson. Love can be learned.”
“Sure it can.”
She smiled. “You’re so violent, Mike. I can see in your face what you think of a love that has to be learned.... It isn’t really thunder and lightning. Not all the time.”
“Sure. And castor oil is good for you, too.”
I stared at her and remembered how she had looked seven years ago. She had been lovely then. Perhaps the loveliest girl I had ever seen. Now she was the loveliest woman—every promise of her girlhood had been fulfilled—in spades. And I thought of what she was saying about love—as though she had never met it, had never trembled with need of it, had never known what it was like—or what she had missed. Maybe she was lucky. Under her grief was a look of serenity, as if innocence were bliss.
Also, maybe she was right. Perhaps the careful, decorous, sane life she had shared with Tom Flynn was the right answer. How would I have known? But watching her now, knowing that she had never really been touched, never been reached by passion, I thought of her as having been asleep—that there was in her seven years of violence she did not even know about.
I felt the sick longing in my loins, felt the silence of this big house pressing in on us, the darkness at the tall windows—these all became part of the need that had been building in me until I was ready to burst with it. I stared at her and wanted to touch her, to hold her against me. What I felt was worse than desire. It was a sick need, and I had to remind myself that she was full of grief. I had to put everything else out of my mind.
“You wanted to see me,” I reminded her. “You sounded worried.”
I was astonished at the flatness of my voice.
“I’m worried about Jerry.”
“I’ve learned some things about him over the years. And since Tom’s death I’ve kept my ears open. He’s been doing a lot of gambling and he’s in pretty deep. The boys carried him as long as Tom was alive. They had an idea that Jerry was some kind of insurance, which proves they didn’t know Tom Flynn very well.”
“Tom would never make a deal with any racketeers.”
“I know. And like John Brown, he lies a-moldering in his—I’m sorry, Carolyn. It’s just that I found out a long time ago that you’ve got to compromise. No matter who you are.”
“Tom was a good influence on Jerry when he was alive.”
I shrugged. “Maybe he was. Maybe Jerry just played it cagey.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s nothing new about these gambling tabs on Jerry, Carolyn. You might as well know the truth. They’re old. Tom was alive when Jerry made them. I’m afraid Jerry was giving Tom the con—making him believe he was impressed by Tom’s unbending honesty.”
“Oh, Mike, please—”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m so alone. I don’t know what to do. I kept thinking Jerry would settle down. That Tom would influence him—for good. And now I don’t even have that. Could you talk to him, Mike?”
“He wouldn’t listen to me. Not any more. My talking to him might make him worse. He has some idea he has to prove I can’t influence him at all.”
“But I’ve got to do something. Mike, you’re the only one I know who’s ever been able to control Jerry. Down deep, I know he has real respect for you—even affection.” She hesitated and presently I knew why. “Maybe you could talk to the gamblers he owes money to—make them see he can’t possibly pay them, that they’re just wasting time helping him destroy himself.”
There seemed to be a sudden chill in the sunroom. “Nobody can talk to gamblers, Carolyn. What you mean is that you want me to scare hell out of them to protect Jerry.”
“You could, Mike. Tom felt you could. I believe it—with all my heart.”
“Well, stop deceiving yourself. Gamblers are protected in this town, better than any taxpayer you’ll ever meet. They’re entrenched, and they’re organized, and they are protected. They have been for a long time now”
She seemed to grow more rigid; her cheeks became paler than ever. “I don’t believe that, Mike. Tom would never have permitted such a terrible state of affairs in this town. He loved this town. It was his life—”
I gestured helplessly. “He couldn’t help it, Carolyn. He couldn’t stop them. He was a good man—maybe that was his weakness. He tried. He just couldn’t beat them. Once I might have—with a few others on the force who could move among the racketeers. Tom stopped me and without meaning to, threw the town wide open. Now the gamblers and racketeers are in the saddle—and nobody can stop them.”
She sat a long time without speaking. “You wouldn’t help Tom,” she said finally. “I don’t know why I thought you’d help me.” Her voice was chilled.
“I’d help you, Carolyn, if there were anything I could do.”
She stood up, her face lifeless, her smile distant, cold. “I’m sure you would, Mike. Will you forgive me? I have a terrible headache.”
I stood up, staring into her face, knowing the gap between us was wider than seven years now. She barely remembered me at all.
I wondered if she heard me leave the house.
Yet I wanted her. I wanted her. I wanted to touch her soft breast I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to love her.