The Tough Guys

"Only correspondence from the legal firm that handled the trust fund."

"Can I see all this?"

She pointed to the still unopened overnighter. "It's all there. Do as you please."

I snapped the case open and laid the contents out on the coffee table. I went through each item, but nothing there had anything of seeming importance. All it did was make more indelible the simple fact that Terry was so sure of—I had the wrong Massley in mind.

When I turned around, I was caught in the direct stare from her eyes.

She said, "You thought my father was this other Massley, didn't you?"

I didn't try to lie out. I nodded.

"You were going to help me find him, if it had been the other one."

I nodded again, uncomfortable.

"And now that you're wrong?"

I grinned at her. She didn't waste time trying to fool you and, no matter how big and beautiful she was, she was still a dame caught alone with the shadows closing in behind her.

I said, "I'm with you, Terry. I won't bug out. You just got one hell of a slob in your corner though."

She uncurled from the chair, standing almost as tall as I was. There were lights in her eyes and when she came closer I saw they were wet. Her arms reached out and touched me, and then she was all the way there, warm and close, pressing so tightly I could feel every curve of her body melting into mine. Very softly, she said, "You're no slob," and then her mouth opened on mine and I tasted that crazy excitement again so bad I crushed her hard and tight until she threw her head back to breathe with a small, moaning sob.

I had to leave before there was more. I was finding myself with limits and inhibitions again and wondered briefly if it was going to be worthwhile coming back into society again. Then I knew it was and the thought passed.

Terry smiled lazily when I left and I wanted to kiss her again. But what I had in mind wouldn't make a kiss easy to take . . . or give. I was thinking lousy thoughts once more. There were two J. Massleys involved and if there ever had been a name switch it would be following the common pattern to keep at least the first initial of the original name.

It only took a few minutes to locate Gifford. He was still in his office finishing off a picture series that had to be up tomorrow. He said he'd be glad to meet me for coffee in 15 minutes and named a Sixth Avenue automat for the contact.

When he arrived I called to him from a table, waited while he got his tray, then introduced myself over the coffee. Although we had never met before, I knew of his work and he remembered me.

When I told him about seeing his shots of Rhino, he screwed up his face, remembering back.

I said, "What's wrong with it?"

"Lousy shots, that's all. No class."

"You went all the way to Phoenix for them?"

Gifford shook his head. "Hell no, I was there in a private sanatorium." He tapped his chest with a thumb. "Touch of T.B. I was there four months when Rhino died."

"You ever see him around?"

"Not me. He lived on a ranch 20, maybe 30 miles off. Oh, I knew he was out there and running his business with that lung and all, but that's it."

"Then you had a good look at the body."

"Sure. It was hurried, but there he was."

I squinted and shook my head impatiently. "Like how? Tell me."

"What's to tell? I got a call from the paper at the time to get a body shot of Rhino for the night edition. At the time it was pretty big news and I was at the spot, so it wasn't unreasonable to ask. I went over the day they were having the funeral, managed to get by the professional criers and found this woman who was in charge of things. She didn't like it, but she let me into the room where the casket was for a quick shot."

"Who was this woman, family?"

"No, Rhino left no family except for some cousins who weren't there. She had been his nurse as I remember. Quite a looker."

"Then who were the mourners?"

"Hell, you can imagine. Hoods, politicians who wanted to stay in with the next-in-line, whoever it would be, the usual business. You know."

"Sure."

Gifford studied me. "Anything special in this? Like with pictures?"

"I don't know. I'm groping. Tell me, what did the body look like?"

He made a gesture with his shoulders. "What do they all look like? Dead. Waxy. Only difference here was the coffin wasn't the kind that opened down to the waist. Rhino's body was so twisted they kept him covered to the neck. All you could see was his face and the tips of his fingers where they crossed on his chest." He paused, fingered his mouth thoughtfully, then added, "As I remember, they only opened the casket for a short time so the public could have one last, quick look. Rhino had been pretty sensitive about his condition and had left orders to that effect."

"He was buried there?"

"Yup. Cemetery out near the hills. They didn't keep him around long, either. He was planted two days after he died."

"Oh?"

Gifford drummed on the tabletop with his fingers. "How come all the interest?"

"I had the idea Rhino Massley could still be alive."

For a moment his face took on a thoughtful look, then he shook his head. "I've seen dead men before."

"Anybody in a coffin automatically looks dead," I told him.

"Good assumption. Go on."

"Some makeup, total immobilization, easy to achieve in a three-quarters' casket, only allow a quick, unstudied look, and live men can seem pretty damn dead."

"Reasonable, but that's assuming something else."

"What?"

"His motive."

And that was that. There wasn't any damn motive in the world. He was already on top, he had no place to go that an iron lung couldn't be spotted, and no reason to fake his death anyway.

I thanked Gifford and broke up the party.

I turned south on Sixth, walking aimlessly back to the Enfield. Overhead a low rumble shook the night and I could smell the rain in the air. It started before I reached the end of the block and it felt good. Anything was better than that down-the-drain feeling of knowing your grand hopes had been washed right out of existence.

Damn that Rhino anyway, why the hell couldn't he have stayed alive! I would have choked him as he lay in that lung of his and laughed in his face when he died. I would have given anything to have been there the night the power blew out. Man, I could have watched him die by inches in his cell like I did in mine. I could have watched his face in that mirror over his head beg for me to do something and, while he kicked off inch by inch, I could have toasted his passing with a cold brew.

I stood there on the corner waiting for the light to change, and then just as suddenly as it had turned sour it turned sweet again. In a way it was reaching for straws, but it made me feel good and lightheaded like before when there was a purpose left in life yet, and this started with an assumption too.

Assuming that Terry's father was Rhino Massley, then somehow he did have a reason for playing dead.

And with that the big second assumption was laid right out in front of me. If Rhino was alive, then he had not only been assumed dead, but assumed sick too. No polio victim in a lung could hide out long anywhere, far less travel around!

I grinned at the night and held my face up to the rain. I was going against all logic and flying in the face of the classic objectiveness we had been taught to observe. It was a crazy Don Quixote move, only on the other end there might possibly be a real giant.