“Should I call you back?”
“I’ll call you. Half an hour.”
I rang him back thirty minutes later, to the minute. He told me what I wanted to know. He was lucky. If he hadn’t had it, I’d have set the police on him. I honestly would have done it. It would have accomplished nothing, it would have hurt me more than it would have helped, but I was in a black and hateful mood, and when you don’t know who your enemies are you have to hate your friends. Any port in a storm.
12
LINDA TILLOU HAMMILL PLIMPTON CRANE HAD A NEW NAME, a new phone number, and lived in a new city, the three of which combined to make it highly unlikely that I could have found her on my own. She had been recently divorced from Plimpton when last I’d heard of her, and I now learned from Gwen via Kay and Doug that she had since married and divorced Crane, in whose Larchmont home she presently lived with Hammill’s son and Plimpton’s daughter.
The Larchmont train leaves from Grand Central and passes through the Hundred Twenty-fifth Street station en route to the Westchester suburbs. I weighed the relative perils of boarding at Grand Central, where cops habitually lie in wait for arriving and departing fugitives, or to be wildly conspicuous as one white face in the black sea of Harlem. Grand Central, moreover, was close enough to walk to, which gave it a decided edge. I did so, and drank coffee until they called a Larchmont train, and boarded it, and bought a ticket from the conductor.
The ride was pleasantly uneventful. Someone had abandoned a copy of the
A ranch house, red brick with white clapboard trim, set far back on a wide and deep lot, with a couple of postwar oak trees in front. The garage door was closed and there was no car parked in the driveway or at the curb. I checked the garage. A green MGB nestled among a sprawl of kids’ toys. The obvious car for a suburban mother of two. Linda had not changed.
Either she was home alone or she was out with someone, in which case there would be a babysitter watching her young. It was somewhere between ten-thirty and eleven-I had never gotten around to replacing my purloined watch. I lit a cigarette, smoked part of it, put it out, and went to the front door and rang the bell.
There was a peephole in the door. I put my hand over it. I heard someone open the peephole for an unsuccessful reconnaisance, then Linda’s voice asking who it was.
“Bela Lugosi,” I said.
It was the sort of reply usually forthcoming from the sort of morons she was friendly with. The lock turned and the door opened and I got a foot in it, and she said, “You must be some kind of a-” and saw my face. Her eyes cracked and she said, “You son of a bitch,” and tried to slam the door. I put a shoulder into it. It flew open. She backed away, trembling, and I kicked the door shut behind me.
She was on the tall side, taller than Gwen, but as thin and angular as a stiletto. Her hair was cut short and dyed black, then tipped silver. She had large brown eyes punctuated by tiny pupils.
“What are you doing here?”
“I have to talk to you.”
“Did you bring your knife, killer?” She laughed like glass breaking. “Are you going to kill me?”
“No.”
“What on earth do you want from me?”
“Information.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I’m not.” She was backing away toward the door, and I moved around her to the left to leave her no place to ran. “I didn’t kill that girl I didn’t kill either of them.”
“I only heard about the one Sunday. Did you kill another one since?”
“I never killed anybody. Not five years ago and not now.” She started to say she didn’t believe me, then shut her mouth again and played Humor The Lunatic.
“I’m being framed,” I said.
“Tell me more.”
“Somebody set me up the first time around. It worked so well I even believed it myself. Then I got out. You know about that.”
“So?”
“So they worked the frame again.”
“Who did?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
The fear was leaving her now. Her eyes met mine, cold, brittle. There was an odd light in them. I wondered if she had been drinking.
“Do you expect me to believe all this?”
“I don’t honestly give a damn what you believe. I just want some answers to some questions.”
“Like what?”
“Russell Stone.”
“Gwen’s husband.”
That’s right”
“What about him? You want to kill him?”
“No.”
“He’s not much. He’s a stiff. Very proper, very much the company man, the Protestant ethic, that whole bag.” Laughter. “Goodlooking, but I bet he’s a drag in the hay. I threw a pass at him on their last trip east. He wasn’t having any. I don’t think he approves of his sister-in-law.”
“When did Gwen meet him?”
“I don’t know. You’re giving me a headache, killer. You want a drink?”
“No.”
“Oh, that’s right You don’t drink, do you?”
“I-”
“You don’t drink and you don’t kill girls. You just get framed by evildoers, is that right?”
I drew a breath. “You ought to humor me,” I said. “Get nasty with me and I might take after you with a knife.”
“I’ve decided I’m safe with you, killer.”
“Why?”
“I’m not a whore.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“I never sell it I only give it away.”
“That’s all it’s worth.”
The eyes flashed. “Go easy, killer. I’m bitchier than you, you’ll come out second best.”
“I didn’t come here to fight Linda.”
“I know. You want in-for-ma-tion.”
“That’s right.”
“What I want” she said, “is a drink. Just a small one, because I am nicely up on bennies and too much would blunt the edge. Sure you don’t want one?”
“Positive.” I wanted one desperately.
“Then I drink alone.” I followed her into the kitchen. She poured Scotch into a water tumbler. “Get me some ice, will you? Right behind you.”
I turned toward the refrigerator, then heard her move. She was making a grab for the wall phone. She had the
