The Big Bang Page 5

  I shook the rain off my hat and said, "Maybe. But I'm not exactly a customer."

  She gazed up at me, still smiling. Nice dimples. "I didn't think you were," she said, vaguely amused. "You don't, uh ... look like the kind of person who makes or buys ceramics. Of course, you never know about people."

  "No argument there." I shifted on my feet. "It's about Russell Frazer. Any place we can talk privately?"

  The smile faded—not into irritation, but sadness. "A terrible thing. Terrible." She paused, then nodded toward the archway. "You're another investigator?"

  "That's right."

  She nodded, businesslike. "Then we can speak back in the studio."

  I followed her through the curtains and across to a large table loaded with partially painted figurines, and surrounded by a half-dozen beat-up wooden chairs. The rest of the room was a maze of shelves and bins packed with chalky molds, raw bisque, and greenware. It wasn't anywhere near the season yet, but holiday items seemed to predominate, little Santas and reindeer and elves that didn't quite fit with the artier junk out front.

  She noticed me eyeing that stuff and said, "Christmas underwrites the rest of our year."

  "You and about every other shop in town."

  When I had pulled out a chair for her and sat down myself, I said, "I take it you just found out about what happened to Mr. Frazer?"

  She shuddered. "Not thirty minutes ago. There was a call from police headquarters, then a squad car stopped by, and right now, Mr. Elmain—he's the manager—is on his way to identify the body. But then you must know that."

  "Pretty standard procedure," I said evasively.

  She frowned just a little. She had smooth skin and, at her age, such frowns had only delivered glancing blows. "Mr., uh..."

  "Hammer," I said. I hadn't bothered to introduce myself. I'd wanted to connect with her before we got around to the ugly reality of who I was in this.

  But she was no fool. When I said "Hammer," she must have caught the lack of rank before my name. Because now she was cocking her head, looking at me peculiarly. "You are a policeman...?"

  "I'm a private investigator, Miss..." And this time I let it hang, because she hadn't introduced herself, either.

  "Shirley Vought." She may have been suspicious, but her manner remained direct and essentially positive.

  "Miss Vought," I said, and gave her a serious smile, "I was involved in helping the police identify Mr. Frazer. There's an odd set of circumstances at play here, which might make Mr. Frazer's death relate to a problem of mine."

  "Oh?"

  "You might be able to help me."

  Again, she remained direct and positive: "Certainly, if I can."

  "Do you know any of Mr. Frazer's friends?"

  For a moment she looked puzzled. Then she answered, "Well, there was a young woman, just a girl really ... Susie something ... who met Russell a few times, after work...."

  "Know where she lives?"

  "No, but she works in the market on the corner. I can point you there." She gave me directions, briefly.

  "Thank you. Any men Mr. Frazer hung around with?"

  She thought again before shaking her head. "Outside the shop, I can't say I know any of Russell's friends."

  "What exactly did he do here?"

  "Pickup and deliveries. In between, he poured slip in the molds, loaded the kilns, waited on customers."

  "Well paid?"

  She nodded, chin crinkled. "I'd have to say, yes. Mr. Elmain is an exceptionally generous employer. Russ made over a hundred a week for what you'd have to say was menial work."

  I nodded, remembering that tailored mod suit, and the wallet in his pocket, thick with big-number bills. Whoever had rolled the late Mr. Frazer was walking around fat and happy. But even at a generous hundred bucks a week for unskilled labor, how had my buddy Russell rated In Crowd threads and a wad of dough like that?

  Somehow she picked the thought out of my mind and said, "Russ lived by himself, Mr. Hammer. He did have rather expensive tastes in clothes, but he didn't have much else to spend it on."

  "No family?"

  "He originally came from Chicago, I believe." She thought harder, then said, "I can't say I ever heard him specifically mention anybody back home, either family or close friends."

  "Where did he live?"

  "Let's see—I think on Peck Street. That's one block from the new housing development this side of Saxony Hospital. But I'd better check it."

  She got up and went to a counter; she had black slacks on under the dusty smock and, where it tied, a glimpse of nicely rounded rear peeked out and said hello.

  She riffled through a card file a moment and came back to the table and sat. "Peck Street, all right," she said. "Number 1405. Before that he lived on the Boulevard."

  "Miss Vought—have you ever heard the names Herman Felton, Norman Brix, Timothy Haver, or William Blue?"

  Those lovely dark eyes angled into mine a second and twin narrow lines formed a brief furrow between her brows. "Yes."

  That perked me up. "You did?"

  She nodded. "I read about them in the papers. And, of course, I knew Billy Blue."

  "You knew him?"

  "Know him. We deliver a quantity of greenware pieces to the hospital for their therapeutic program ... in the children's ward? Billy often came by here to pick up some incidental supplies—brushes, paints, that sort of thing."

  I waited, thinking.

  "And Mr. Hammer—I remember reading about you now, too." There was a wise glint in her eyes.

  I gave up half a grin. "I've been around too long to bother trying to con anybody, Miss Vought. I never misrepresented myself."

  "Yes, I know," she said. "I pay attention to such things." She gave me a small smile.

  "I guess in the pottery game, you have to pay attention to detail. Same in the detective game."

  "I'm sure," she said, the velvety voice making a purr out of it. "You know, I rather appreciate your indirect approach. No lies, but not terribly generous with the truth."

  "No use showing your hand until you have to."

  She was studying me now, the big eyes going narrow. "Then your interest in this matter is ... personal?" Her voice remained calm. "Rather than professional?"

  "It's always personal when somebody tries to kill me."

  The eyes got big again. "Well, Mr. Hammer—you are Mike Hammer, aren't you?"

  "Yeah."

  "I seem to remember a rather sensational magazine that made mention of another violent incident involving you ... a few years ago?" She smiled again. "The publisher tried to sue you, after you did something, uh ... detrimental to his well-being?"

  "He caught an acute case."

  "An acute case of what, Mr. Hammer?"

  "Broken ribs." I shrugged. "No big deal. He withdrew the charges upon advice of counsel, after receiving a ten-cent phone call."

  "Anonymous call, you mean?"

  "Oh no. I gave my name loud and clear."

  The smile had something flirtatious in it now. I'd told Pat the dolls went for Neanderthals.

  She said, "Who tried to kill you this time, Mr. Hammer?"

  "Your friend Russell Frazer."

  The smile vanished, and she tilted her head. "That doesn't make sense...."

  "Murder never does," I said. "At first, anyway."

  "Russell rarely raised his voice around here. He was nice, rather funny, I'd even say charming. I can't imagine him trying to kill anyone, much less ... much less someone as, uh, formidable? As you, Mr. Hammer."

  "It's like you said, Miss Vought."

  "What?"

  "You never know about people." I pushed the chair back and stood up. "Thanks for the conversation. I hope I wasn't a bother and kept you too long from your work."

  With her penchant for detail, Shirley Vought was watching me carefully and the eyes were wide again, curiosity twinkling at their corners.

  Very abruptly she said, "I was wrong."

  "Wrong?"

>   "You are anything but indirect, Mr. Hammer. I would say ... you are remarkably di-rect."

  "Thanks."

  Her expression grew slyly catlike, and openly sensual. "Tell me, Mr. Hammer ... do you make love with that same direct approach?"

  I grinned at her, taking the invitation of that remark to allow my eyes a sweep over her body. The streak of green on her cheek glowed like some sort of psychedelic beauty mark under the fluorescent lighting.

  "No," I told her. "I'm a little more devious in my lovemaking. I like it nice and lazy, after a good, long chase ... so I can appreciate the explosion, when it comes."

  She couldn't hold back the laugh, throaty but still velvet all the way.

  "You know," she said, "I believe it."

  I gave her another half grin. "Interested?"

  This time her eyes smiled, too.

  "This," she said softly, rising from the table, "is where I say 'Thank you ... call again.'"

  I was almost through the curtains when I glanced back and said, "Don't you mean 'come again'?"

  She gave me a little shrug. We'll see, she seemed to be saying. We'll see....

  Her name was Susie Moore, she ran the checkout register at counter number two in Supermarket East, and she was glad to have a sandwich with me at the rear table at a lunchroom around the corner. She was twenty-three, shared an apartment with two other girls who worked in the neighborhood, and was saving her money to enroll in a secretarial school that winter.

  Susie wasn't exactly pretty, just cute in a pug-nosed way with brown pixie-cut hair, a lithe figure, and a bubbly charm that was attraction enough—one of that new breed of kids you see leading peace marches and waving out of the window of a police van on the way to being booked at the local precinct house for having disturbed the tranquility of the Establishment.

  We were next to a window in the unpretentious little deli restaurant. The rain had stopped but its tendrils were trickling down the glass nearby. I had pastrami, corned beef, and Swiss cheese on rye, and she had a tuna salad sandwich. She didn't eat meat, she said. That would be news to the tuna.

  Analytical eyes picked me apart across the table, trying to separate me into beast or benefactor, or maybe just plain lecher looking to add a few female flower children to his well-thumbed black book.

  She had accepted the invitation of a free lunch with a knowing smile—as long as she picked the place—willing to cross swords with me just so it saved her another couple bucks for her secretarial kitty. She was wearing her pale blue checkout uniform, which was miniskirt short, showing off her long, bare Go-Go Girl stems.

  Before she had finished her sandwich, she had rattled off most of her life history without bothering with any of mine, and when she suddenly realized that, she paused between bites and said, "You play it pretty cool, don't you, Mr. Hammer?"

  "Do I?"

  "Uh-huh." She swallowed down her last bite of tuna fish sandwich, and sipped her Coke through a straw. "Here I've been waiting for the big pitch, figuring there might be a new angle, and it's like it's never gonna happen." Her tongue flicked a crumb from her lower lip and she put the glass down. "You play it nice and cool—let me do all the work."

  "Maybe I'm just interested."

  "Maybe ... but what's your ult?"

  "My what?"

  "Ulterior motive?"

  "It's not like that."

  She grew a knowing, smirky look that didn't become her. "Isn't it?"

  "No. Honey, I'm not after your body."

  That surprised her, and probably hurt her feelings a little, but that's what she got for getting too cute. She gestured down at herself and back to me. "I haven't had any complaints before."

  I shrugged. "You have a nice figure. Like a model. Only, my tastes go back about ten years, when women had some meat on the bone—more hips, bigger boobies."

  Now she was really puzzled. "Well, that's not today's scene."

  "It'll come back," I said, not convinced it had ever left.

  Susie didn't like to be sidetracked. "Let's get back to your ult. If it's not me, what is it?"

  "Suppose we start with Russell Frazer."

  This time she squinted and wrinkled her nose at me. "Why?"

  "Isn't he a friend of yours?"

  "Until he got to be a drag. I used to date him. Just broke it off, like, the other day. What about him?"

  She obviously didn't know he was dead, but she had dated him, so things could turn ugly, even with a cutie like this. Still, there are ways of saying things without having to lie or actually say anything at all.

  "Maybe," I said, "the best way to put it is that I'm looking for character references on him."

  "Is Russ in some kind of trouble?"

  Once again I could be truthful about it. I simply said, "Nope."

  After all, Russell Frazer would never be in trouble again, not unless his coffin got caught on a tree root, getting lowered into the big hole.

  She refused the cigarette I offered her, and I waited. This time the computer eyes had hesitated because the keyboard was sending out odd vibrations. She shook off the confusion, trying the Coke again. Her mouth working the straw was pretty cute, but I'd rather she talk.

  Finally, she did: "Listen, I said he was a drag, but if you're checking up on him, really, Russ is okay. I met him right here, you know." She gestured to the little deli sandwich shop around us.

  "You dated him? How serious did it get?"

  She shrugged and tapped out a rhythm on the tabletop with her fingernails. "Not serious at all. Oh, I balled him plenty of times, sure. He thought he was God's gift, but he was all show and no go, you know? A wham-bam type who figured a girl could get her jollies just because he pulled down his zipper. He was hung like a horse."

  She said this with full frankness and volume, even though we were hardly alone in the little restaurant. She might have been saying he had dark hair or his name was Jones.

  Now she got confidential, leaning forward. "You know, a guy who is too big, he never gets really hard. Plus, he can only get part of it in."

  I think maybe she was trying to shock me or possibly get me interested in her, despite my tastes in fleshier dolls. I ignored it, but didn't insult her. Just let her prattle on....

  "You have to fake it for a guy like that," she said, sitting back, almost wistful. "They should pay girls for faking it so convincingly. That kind of guy, you'll hurt his feelings, if he thinks you didn't come through the roof. I hate to hurt people's feelings."

  "Did I hurt yours?"

  Her smile was a little too big. "Come on, Mr. Hammer, feelings are all any of us have. You have got to care." Her expression was more teenager than twenty-three-year-old.

  "I've been known to care," I said.

  "Have you?" She shook her head doubtfully. "Or do you really understand at all? Over thirty and the compassion just goes. Phhffttt. I'm sure you were really nice, once. But now? No compassion, no understanding at all."

  "You're wrong, Susie."

  "Am I?"

  "I was never nice."

  That caught her by surprise and made her laugh. It was a childish giggle, but appealing.

  "Understanding is one thing," I said. "Toleration is another, Susie. And some things just can't be tolerated."

  She had her chin up. "If we ever made it, Mr. Hammer? And you didn't ring my bell? I swear, I'd go right ahead and hurt your feelings."

  "I might hurt more than your feelings, kid. But let's get back to Russ."

  "All right," she said with an agreeable shrug. "I've known him for over a year—ever since he began working at the Village Ceramics Shoppe. He liked to show a girl a good time, and didn't mind spending money. He had ... well, ambition. Someday he was going to be somebody big, he always told me."

  "You kidding? Working in a ceramics shop?"

  "He had other interests, and real possibilities, big opportunities."

  "Such as?"

  "Oh, he didn't tell me about them, but I believed him, all right."
>
  My face said I didn't believe her, and she frowned indignantly.

  "Well, I did believe him!"

  "Why, Susie? You said he was all show and no go."

  "In the bedroom. But when somebody gets calls from Hawaii and Rome and has Cadillacs sent around to pick him up, it's because he has some kind of potential, right?"

  "Right," I said pleasantly. "But it depends on who's making the calls and driving the Cadillac."

  Her smirk was supposed to put me down. "This Cadillac had a chauffeur, Mr. Hammer—an Oriental chauffeur in a proper uniform."

  "Careful, girl. You're cultivating Establishment tastes."

  She let another giggle escape her lips and her shoulders moved in a childish gesture. "It was cute, though, getting the limo treatment. My roomie, Elsie, was real jealous. Before then, she thought Russ was just a big-mouth drag."

  "All show and no go again."

  She smirked and nodded. "Like, I been flapping my lips and what you wanted was a character reference for Russ. I guess I haven't done him any favors."

  "Depends on how you look at it."

  "How are you looking at it, Mr. Hammer?" She lifted the Coke again, slurped the last dregs down in the ice, and put it back on the table.

  "Through a Coke glass, darkly," I said.

  She let half a minute go by while she made designs on the damp table with a fingertip. "Lay it on me, Mr. Hammer. What's this really about?"

  "Russell Frazer is dead," I told her flatly. "Last night he tried to stick a knife in my back."

  There was no doubt about her believing what I said. It was there in the dull shadow of her eyes and the tight lines around her mouth. Her voice was a bare whisper when she said, "And you... you killed him?"

  "No, I didn't kill him. I knocked him on his ass, into the gutter, and left him there. Later, somebody rolled him for his loot, and stuck Russ's own shiv through his heart in the process."

  She blinked at me, as if in time with her brain processing the information. Then she blurted, "I saw something about that incident ... in the papers? But it don't show the man's face, or—"

  "Papers called the victim an unidentified man this morning. They know who he is now. Later you'll probably get some visitors from Homicide."

  "Are you one of them?" Her expression had turned nauseated. "You're not a... pig?"