Ice Blues - Stevenson Richard - Страница 44

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"I went out about nine o'clock and got back about a quarter to twelve. June and I had a couple of drinks and chewed the fat for a while. When I got home Mackie had gone out and didn't get back till God knows what hour.

Why, that two-timing so-and-so! He must have been ashamed to look me in the face! Why, that-Mackie never even told me he was AC-DC. He must've picked it up in the facilities, that's all I can figure. Why, that-right under my roof he does it! Wait'll I get my hands on that lying son of a bee!"

"I hope none of your other tenants saw what was going on and are laughing at you behind your back. Was anyone else in the house that night?"

She fumbled with a pack of L amp;Ms and managed to insert one into the side of her mouth. "Unh-unh. There was a salesman here for a while on Sunday, Jim O'Connor, but he left when the back porch fell off. My back porch broke down on account of all the snow, but that was Sunday. Last Tuesday the only other person in the house was Mr. Frye in 2-B, and he never goes out of his room, just to the mental health on Monday morning and then pick up a box of sandwiches and root beer for the week over at the store, so he wouldn't've seen any funny business that was going on.

"Why, that Mackie! I should've known. In the morning the place looked like they had a party in here and cleaned it up. I just should've known. Men! You gotta keep an eye on em every minute. Though let me tell you, mister, this is a new one. This is a real big surprise. I'd've never believed it if you hadn't told me. Not Mackie." She lit the cigarette with a butane lighter and shook her head in nauseated disbelief.

"What made you think they had had a party?" I said. "I'm surprised, because Jack is a Jehovah's Witness and doesn't drink or smoke."

"Oh, it wasn't much," she said abstractedly. She was having trouble keeping her thoughts focused on this minor matter. "Back in the bedroom they must've spilt something on the rug and then tried to wipe it up, but it left a stain I can't get out. Wine or something. Busted the bottle too, I guess, cause there's still glass slivers. I got one stuck in my big toe yesterday. I mentioned it to Mackie, but he just said never mind the rug, he was gonna get me out of this dump anyway, take me to Atlantic City and put me in a condo. But that's just bull. Mackie can't even leave Troy till his parole is up in '87. Hell, he don't even have a job except driving some old coot around.

"Say, lookit-" She dragged on the cigarette and her expression had turned quizzical. "Tell me somethin' then. If you think Mackie's playin' around with your boyfriend, why don't you just give your boyfriend a piece of your mind? Tell him to shape up or ship out. What do you want to go both-erin'

Mackie for? Jeez, you might get him in trouble with the parole office for perversions. Listen, fella, I can handle Mackie. If he's gonna keep gettin' between my legs he's gonna have to quit foolin' around with degenerates who might give out that new disease that came up from Hades. What's it called?"

"AIDS."

"That's the one. I heard it can make you awful sick."

"That's why I want to find Mack today, Flo. I think Jack is with him right now, and I want to find them and talk some sense into Jack before it's too late. Do you think they might be at Terry Clert's house? Terry lives over on Third Street in the North End of Albany, I've heard."

"Yeah, they might be. Mackie went out early this morning and said he was picking up Terry and they had some work to do. But maybe that was just a line. Do you think?"

"Yes, I do. I think that was just a line."

"Men! You can't believe a word they say."

"No. No, I guess you can't."

I parked in front of the Clert house on Third Street at ten till two. The green pickup truck was nowhere in sight, nor was any other vehicle I had ever seen before. I watched the house for fifteen minutes and saw no sign of life. I knew Mrs. Clert would still be at Pug Lenihan's, though Corrine had mentioned a Kevin Clert who stayed with Pug overnight, and he could have been asleep inside the ramshackle frame carton I was looking at.

Slogging through the melting snow, I moved to the rear of the house and popped the lock on the back door with a credit card. I walked in with my revolver drawn. I'd never shot a human being and didn't want to now. But I knew I would do it if it meant saving Timmy or myself, both of whose lives I valued more highly than Mack Fay's or Terry Clert's. I knew now the kind of people I was dealing with, and if they were badly hurt and suffered exquisitely during whatever was coming next, I could learn to live with it.

The house was silent except for a dripping faucet and a humming refrigerator in the kitchen where I stood. If Timmy was in the house the leaky faucet would be driving him crazy, so I gave the handle a hard shove.

The drip-drop-drip continued. The washer was shot but I didn't take the time to replace it.

Finding no person, awake or asleep, in the downstairs rooms, I climbed the stairs and checked the bedrooms. There were three, each recently having been slept in, all unoccupied at the moment. One room, neat, feminine and freshly Airwicked, was obviously Mrs. Clert's. The other two, malodorous and chaotic, with pants flung over chairs and soiled twisted sheets on the beds, apparently belonged to the two male Clerts. I poked through the debris but found nothing incriminating or helpful.

Back downstairs I went to the telephone on the kitchen counter hoping to find an address scrawled on a notepad, as in Boston Blackie or Martin

Kane, Private eye, but there wasn't any.

I did not know where to look next for Timmy. A jar of instant coffee was next to the teakettle on the gas range, so I fixed myself a cup and sat at the kitchen table drinking it in the trapezoid of dusty sunlight that shone in the back window. I did not at all want to do what I decided to do next, but it seemed that both survival and neatness required it.

Back at the Hilton, I made nine telephone calls to acquaintances in New York City before I was able to complete the arrangements I had in mind. I skimmed off fifty thousand dollars from the two and a half million in the closet, stuffed it in my coat pockets, went down and picked up the car, and headed south.

I was in Manhattan by six, out by six forty-five, back in Albany just before ten. That gave me two hours before I was to meet Timmy and his captors at our house on Crow Street. From the hotel room I placed several more phone calls, the first of which was to my friend the narc.

TWENTY-ONE

The temperature had dropped back to three degrees and was headed, the radio said, down to eight below. For once, that was good. I picked up two friends at their house on Chestnut Street and drove them over to Rensselaer and back. Then I drove them over to Rensselaer and back a second time.

"On the phone you said you needed our help, but all we're doing is riding back and forth across the river. What is it we're supposed to do?"

"Pant."

"No, really."

"I want rapid breathing. Pant for me."

Casting nervous glances at each other, they panted until I dropped them back at their house.

"Thanks for your moisture."

"Don, are you okay?"

"My feet are cold, but my faculties are intact."

"Why don't you try turning the heater on?"

"Ah, but then I wouldn't have your frozen breath preserved on my window glass."

"You aren't going to go somewhere and lick it off, are you? I would consider that low-risk sex, but I suppose the ultra-cautious might insist it constituted an exchange of body fluids."

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