Night of the Toads Page 4

  Her smile was a little mocking of herself. A mother who was justifying her son, but who was also pushing him to face his own goals more seriously. Forcing him to really think of the theatre, and not of the girls, the good times, the swagger of being a man of the theatre. Trying to make a man of a boy, and what the hell else would a mother do?

  Ted Marshall laughed. ‘A real selfish old hard nut, yes she is.’ He sat on the arm of the couch, put his arm around her. ‘Sorry, Ma, you know? I’ll get rich for you. Okay?’

  ‘You’re all blarney, Theodore,’ she said, smiled up at him. ‘Now I must go to work. Try to get some sleep, Theodore.’ And to me, ‘Not too long, Mr Fortune, please.’

  She got up only a little slowly, and went out without waiting for an answer. I heard her walking toward the elevator. Ted Marshall stared at the closed door.

  ‘I do live on her. Thanks, Ma, maybe you can take it easy when you’re a hundred. Damn, I will make it up to her. Now all my loot is for the theatre, the big front.’

  ‘Where do you work?’

  ‘Nat Brown, the agent. Four days ’til three.’

  ‘Tell me about Ricardo Vega?’

  ‘Vega? What about Vega?’

  ‘Anne was having an affair with him, right?’

  ‘Not that I know. She’s in his class, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re a boyfriend?’

  ‘We make it. No strings, she got to live, and our theatre needs money. I never see her weekends, I don’t ask about it.’

  ‘You don’t know of any trouble with Vega?’

  ‘Trouble? No, I don’t.’

  I thought. ‘She said to me once that Vega was the power, the action. She wanted to talk to him about something private. Did she ever talk about him backing your theatre, helping, or maybe about getting money from him?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You know Anne?’

  ‘A battlefield meeting once,’ I said.

  He puzzled me. Was he so naive, or jealous, that she hadn’t told him? Because if he knew about Vega, why hide it? If he had nothing to do with her disappearance, he should want Vega’s possible role investigated. If he was part of whatever had happened to her, if anything, why not jump at the chance to put suspicion on Ricardo Vega? He wasn’t putting suspicion on anyone.

  ‘Hell,’ he said, ‘she’ll come back soon, you see.’

  ‘Come back? You know she’s gone somewhere?’

  ‘Just an expression. I mean, she has to be somewhere, right? I don’t have a clue, believe me.’

  ‘Do you know a tall, gaunt man?’ I asked, and I described the man I had seen with her in the cafeteria.

  ‘No one like that. He doesn’t sound her type.’

  A key turned in the door. It meant nothing to me, but it did to Ted Marshall. He got up with a grunt, clutched at his ribs. A short, dark man in army fatigues came in. The newcomer took three quick steps into the room.

  ‘Ted, I—’

  He saw me, gave a small gasp, almost rose up on his toes, and his hand flew to his mouth. A girlish gesture, startled and automatic. He looked like a girl, a delicate face, a slender body. Yet he was no boy. Over thirty, his face lined, his bare forearms muscled. His hands were stained, had broken nails. He tried to recover, smiled coyly, wagged his hips—girlish.

  ‘You mother,’ he said, ‘she leave. I think now is good time … well.… So introduce me to your friend.’

  A woman’s phrase, coy. The tone, the manner—one of the boys. Ted Marshall. His pallor was flushed pink. He ground his teeth as he spoke.

  ‘Dan Fortune, Frank Madero—our night super. Mr Fortune’s a detective, Frank. Private.’

  His voice was tight. It was there all right, a ‘thing’ between them. Both of them vibrated like nerve ends. Ted Marshall had been quick to tell Madero that I was a private cop, no threat from the vice squad. Oh, hell.

  ‘Francisco,’ Madero said, bowed. ‘I am from Cuba. I come later, Ted, of no importance. The leak of the faucet. A pleasure to know you, Mr Fortune. I am not always the janitor. Maybe I see you sometime.’

  He went as fast as he had come. Here to fix a leak, okay, but he had expected to find Ted Marshall here, and alone. I let Marshall break the freeze.

  ‘He’s … a friend, too. Nice guy. Not like most supers,’ he said lamely.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘If you remember anything, call me.’

  In the corridor I lit a cigarette, and swore. I didn’t care if Ted Marshall liked orangutans, but if he swung both ways, and wanted to hide it, the mess could be complicated. If he did swing two ways, and wanted to hide it, he wasn’t going to be much help. He would stay far away from the heavy boots of the police.

  Chapter Six

  I called Sarah Wiggen from a booth on Sixth Avenue. She sounded alone, and nervous.

  ‘No, I haven’t heard anything from her, Mr Fortune.’

  ‘No news? The police? Ricardo Vega been around?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I know the police still think she just went away. Perhaps she did. She does things that way.’

  ‘When she asked you to go home? You believe that?’

  A silence. ‘No, I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Sit tight. I’ll call back. Maybe she’ll show.’

  Maybe she would show, Anne Terry. I was tired, my missing arm was aching. You’d think I’d been walking on the stump. Nuts! The lost arm didn’t hurt when I was tired, it hurt when I was upset, low. It’s my monkey, that missing wing, where the nerves are raw. Anne Terry was still missing. In a way, I’d been with her all day. I was getting to know her, and what I knew so far, I liked, and I didn’t think she was going to show up now—not on her own.

  All around me the mobs of people were on their way home from the offices, stores, the work-services, the small factories—stepping on each other’s feet like refugees fleeing. Five-thirty p.m. Some brisk and hurrying, some dragging themselves, but hurrying or dragging to what? To tomorrow. Never more than one dimension at a time: ciphers at work, TV at home. Flat men in a flat world, or who could know for sure what we are? Work and perish for the sake of a copper penny. A quote? Yes, a quote. From Isaak Babel, a writer who had died the victim of a different future, but a future just as one-dimensional.

  (There we go again, the malady of the sailor at sea, the dweller in solitary cafés—reading. Worse: reading and remembering. Isaak Babel’s words, and my thoughts. ‘A worthy labourer who perished for the sake of a copper penny.… Ladies and gentlemen! What did our dear Joseph get out of life? Nothing worth mentioning. How did he spend his time? Counting other people’s cash. What did he perish for …?’

  Tired thoughts on a street corner with the hordes of people pushing around me. Missing arm thoughts. Anne Terry thoughts. Was she dead somewhere for the sake of a copper penny? Had she gotten much from her life beyond Ted Marshall and Ricardo Vega? She had wanted a lot, and where the hell was she, and was Vega part of where she was? What the hell was I doing anyway? Out to get Ricardo Vega, sure. No, not now. Trying to find a girl who might not be doing anything but enjoying herself. A girl I had come to like in half a day. No liked her that first night in the rain; the beautiful, direct, bony face; the gentle touch in a bare cafeteria; the realistic voice:

  ‘You better fade out, Gunner.’

  Direct and simple—and surrounded by parasites, scavengers? Sarah Wiggen who resented not being in her life all the way, who hated her verve, spark, and who had lost Ted Marshall? Not that Anne would have had to ‘take’ Ted Marshall.

  ‘I don’t need losers, Gunner. Bring me the winner.’

  A world of nothing worth mentioning for Anne Terry who only wanted to work hard for what she knew was inside her? Integrated, full, needing no hlp.

  ‘I don’t guess so. Mind your own henhouse?

  ‘Who minded Ricardo Vega’s henhouse?’

  ‘I really dig the guy, too, except he’ll never be sure enough to relax. Too bad.’

  Too bad? How? For her? No, she wasn’t a woman who worried ab
out ‘Too bad’ for herself, tougher. Too bad for Vega that he wasn’t man enough to be her man, so had to be something else for her? Too bad, what she had to do?

  ‘You better fade out, Gunner.’

  ‘Maybe I’d better fade out. Me, another loser for her? Probably. If I found her, what? Nothing. For my needs there had to be trouble for Ricardo Vega and that meant there had to be trouble for Anne Terry. Another scavenger.

  From the telephone booth I called Marty at her theatre uptown. She was busy; maybe an hour, they said. I left a message—the back booth at Black’s Tavern. I needed that friend now, and a drink. Because what did I do next?

  I got the first free Irish whisky at Black’s, but not the friend. Joe Harris was busy, the long bar packed with the office refugees staving off tomorrow with the perpetual present of booze. With my second good Irish, I carried a hamburger to the back booth. All right, what did I do next?

  I’d spent the afternoon establishing that Anne Terry did look missing, and learning that she was a free bird who flew over the whole city, who moved quickly among strangers, who drank and played in the big, anonymous places where no one was going to remember her too well. My informers would do me no good with her. I couldn’t track her through familiar haunts. There was her job, but I didn’t think she would have let those she worked with into her private life. Anyway, the police would have checked there; they would have done all the routine. No, all I could do was go around the track again, and add Sean McBride—was he working for Ricardo Vega, or on his own?

  The prospects didn’t inspire me, and I was turning them over glumly, when I saw Marty come in. Her face drove all prospects from my mind. It was tight and angry, with the hunted, violent eyes I knew too well on her bad days. She had ‘bad day’ written all over her. When she sat down in the booth, she didn’t say hello. She ordered a martini, and her small body trembled. I waited until she’d had her first gulp.

  ‘Want to talk about it?’

  ‘No!’ She drank. ‘Yes, all right. We did my scene today, twice. When we finished, Kurt took me aside. Kurt Reston, the director—when Vega lets him direct. He told me how good I was. He wanted me to know how good he thought I was, what a future I had!’ She drained her glass.

  ‘The ease-out? Preparing you?’

  ‘What the hell else? Get me another martini.’

  I waved to Joe. ‘Maybe no. It sounds like this Kurt Reston will fight for you.’

  ‘And lose! Unless he wants to be looking for a new job, too.’ Joe brought the martini, winked, patted Marty, and went back to his post. She drank, suddenly smiled. ‘Ah, what the hell. Kurt said I’m good.’

  ‘That’s my girl.’ I took her hand. ‘Vega doing anything?’

  ‘Looking muscular. Dazzling me with distant smiles.’

  ‘No new direct passes?’

  ‘Just George Lehman’s leering hints, and that new toad hanging around. You know, that Sean McBride. He’s weird.’

  ‘Weird? How?’

  ‘He seems to think that what he did to you ought to make me pant for him. He’s proud of it. I’m too much for a one-arm.’

  ‘McBride’s after you? For himself?’

  ‘That’s what I mean, Dan. First he comes after me for Rey Vega. He knows about you and me, too, and what I think of his beating you. Yet the next I know he’s after me like a bull. He’s got to be a little insane. Vega’s his big chance, but Rey hates competition, and McBride could be out on his saddle.’

  ‘He likes risky games, maybe? For the kicks?’

  ‘And he’s violent, Dan. He went all tight when I called him Vega’s boy. He said he was no one’s boy.’

  ‘Vega could have a tiger in his fist,’ I said. I told her about McBride today, and what I’d been doing. ‘You did say earlier that you didn’t really know Anne Terry?’

  ‘She’s just in Vega’s acting class with me. Don’t you think the police can find her?’

  ‘They get a hundred a day like her, Marty. They can’t move fast or deep on such a small thing. Routine.’

  She drank. ‘You think Vega’s mixed up with her?’

  ‘I started with that in mind. Only now—’

  ‘Now you want to help her? That’s good, Dan.’

  ‘Maybe not good for her. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. She’s a complex girl. You look at her, at how she lives, and she’s a standard show-biz hustler. Hard at twenty-two; cool and calculating. Snubs her sister, sleeps around, sponges off men, has a ‘good’ address she can’t afford, poses nude to draw attention. The main chance. Standard hustling.’

  Marty nodded. ‘From the little I know of her.’

  ‘No.’ I drank some Irish. ‘The girl I met wasn’t hard; just direct, honest. Not calculating, but realistic. She didn’t have to stop McBride, risk trouble, but she did. With that thin man in the cafeteria she was gentle, warm. Her apartment is warm, real; no front inside. She works like a dog for The New Player’s Theatre. It looks bigger than anything else in her life. A real theatre company, and that’s not a standard hustler. They work only for themselves, number one, onward and upward. Anne Terry has dreams of art, Marty, not silk sheets.’

  Marty finished her martini. ‘Add that she’s good, too, Dan. Very good, not just a body on display. I’ve seen her.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Two faces. In Vega’s apartment she was like any hustler out to use Vega. On the street she said she really liked him, and I believed her. She said it was ‘too bad’ that she really liked him. As if she was saying she couldn’t afford to be real! As if the face she shows the public is manufactured—a product to sell herself!’

  I hunched forward in the booth. ‘A girl married at fourteen to some Carolina dirt farmer. She grows up, and somewhere she gets a dream—theatre. She comes to New York. So she manufactures an Anne Terry to sell for any buck, short term; and behind that façade the other Anne Terry works hard for the real long term. Two worlds: the high-life hustler, and the dedicated actress.’

  ‘Not so rare,’ Marty said, ‘and not so split, Dan. She probably likes both worlds a little. Does it help find her?’

  I sat back. ‘Makes it damn near impossible. What world do I look in for an answer? I don’t know, but I’ve got a hunch the gaunt guy in the cafeteria is a key. He doesn’t fit.’

  Marty thought about it. I waved to Joe for another drink. Marty wanted one, too. At least I’d made her forget her own troubles for now. She sipped her drink this time, thoughtful.

  ‘He sounds like a farmer, Dan. Maybe her husband?’

  ‘A man she married at fourteen? He didn’t act like he’d come looking for her, and there’s no sign of a husband around. No one even hinted at a husband. She lives alone. She—’

  It slid into place. Just like that. The answer. She took her pay by the week. She turned every dollar, worked too much, but had no bank balance. No income tax forms at her place. Gone every weekend, even from Ted Marshall. Every Friday she drew cash—fifty dollars, always the same.

  ‘She’s got another place,’ I said. ‘Marty! Another place, and she supports it! Every Friday she goes somewhere with cash. She doesn’t miss often. It even takes her away from The New Players’. It has to be damned important to her.’

  ‘Actresses work weekends, Dan. We have to.’

  ‘Maybe it hasn’t come up. Has she had an acting job? The New Player’s, okay—maybe the few times she missed were when The New Player’s were performing weekends! It’s important, and she pays. Always fifty dollars—rent, maybe, or food money?’

  Marty was doubtful. ‘That important? A husband?’

  ‘Maybe he’s sick, maybe she loves him. I don’t know. I do know that this time she hasn’t come back, and she expected to.’

  I went to the telephone. Sarah Wiggen was still at home, still nervous, but she didn’t sound still alone.

  ‘Boone Terrell?’ she said when I asked about the husband. ‘I suppose he’s in Arkansas. He lives down there.’

  ‘Anne divorced him?’

&nb
sp; ‘I wouldn’t know. We never knew him, and she never mentions him. You don’t think she’s gone to him? That’s crazy.’

  ‘You mean your whole family never knew him?’

  There was a nasty kind of sigh. ‘We never even met him, and we didn’t care. She ran off, my Daddy tore up her letters. She wrote three in a year, she never liked to write, she was in seventh grade when she ran off. After a year she stopped writing.’ The was a pause. ‘Anne’s three years younger, Mr Fortune. I should have married first! She left me to help Ma along. I didn’t care about her. Four years ago I found out she was up here. I came up why not? Down home all the decent boys were married while I helped Ma. She never mentioned Boone Terrell, I didn’t ask. We didn’t get along here anyway.’

  ‘Ted Marshall?’ I said.

  Silence. ‘Not just him. She keeps away from me.’

  ‘Do you know what she does weekends?’

  ‘Does? Sells herself in her night clubs.’

  ‘Yeh.’ I said.

  ‘Do you have some idea? You sound—’

  ‘I’ll know more after I’ve been back to her apartment.

  I hung up before she could ask me more. All I had was an off-beat suspicion. I told Marty to wait an hour. If I wasn’t back, Joe would put her into a taxi. She understood.

  Chapter Seven

  There was nothing like police outside Anne Terry’s building. The stream of homecomers had thinned to solitary stragglers as the last purple light faded. The street door was open, and I heard noise in the basement. I went up, hoping the lock on her door hadn’t been fixed. It had been. I listened for a full five minutes. That can be a long time alone in a corridor. There was no sound inside. I took a breath, opened the new lock with one of my master keys.