“Miss Keating.”
“Keating. Come inside and I’ll go see if Violet’s home.”
She went in, showing none of the hesitancy she felt. He closed the door by giving it a shove with his foot. The hall smelled sour. In the light of an old-fashioned beaded chandelier Charlotte saw that the linoleum on the floor was grimy and split with age. Dust grew in the corners like mold, and the paint on the woodwork had alligatored.
He stood with his hands in his pockets, his eyes narrowed. “What did you want to see Violet about?”
“A personal matter.”
“My name is Voss. I’m her step-uncle.”
“I thought so.”
“Violet and me’ve got no secrets from each other. She’s one swell little kid, believe you me. Anybody’d harm a hair on her head I’d strangle him with my bare hands.”
“I’m in rather a hurry,” Charlotte said.
He hesitated, then swung round suddenly and skipped up the stairs, quick and neat as a cat.
Charlotte lit a cigarette and wondered if she’d been wise in giving Voss her name.
She wasn’t afraid of him, but the house made her uneasy. It had an air of decadent resignation, as if so many things had happened there that one more wouldn’t even be noticed.
She could hear Voss whispering upstairs. What is there to whisper about, she wondered. Violet is in or she’s not in, there’s no need for secrecy.
But the whispering went on, and the ceiling creaked faintly under the weight of cautious feet. She raised her eyes and caught a glimpse of a face peering down at her through the rails of the banister. The face drew back into the shadows so quickly that she wasn’t sure whether it belonged to a man or a woman. She had only the impression of youth and a picture in her mind of a flat, crooked nose that looked as if it had once been broken.
She called out sharply, “Voss!”
Voss appeared at the head of the stairs. “Violet’s not in. She must have went to a movie or something.”
“You might tell her that I was here and that I’ll call her early tomorrow morning.”
He came slowly down the steps, tracing a pattern on the banister with his forefinger. “Of course, if I knew what your business was, maybe I could help you. I’ve had a lot of experience one way or another in my lifetime.”
“Thanks, I don’t require any help.” She opened the door. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
She breathed in the cool, crisp air, feeling such an overwhelming and irrational relief that her knees shook a little. She was angry at herself for being too imaginative about the house. A house could be old and dirty without becoming the scene of a tragedy. And Voss, while he was a sleazy character, might live a fairly respectable life.
She crossed the dimly lit street to her car. The old Italian whom she’d talked to on Voss’s porch was sitting on the curb out of sight of the house, eating potato chips from a cellophane bag.
He watched her silently as she took the radiator cap out of her purse and replaced it on the car. Then he said, “Voss is a no-good bum.”
“Is he?”
“I see by your car you’re a doctor, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Voss doesn’t need a doctor, he needs an undertaker,” the Italian said gloomily. “He needs one bad.” Charlotte unlocked the front door of the car.
The old man got up suddenly, spilling the bag of potato chips in the gutter. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I could ride down the road a piece with you.”
“Why?”
“I’m not going anywhere else.”
“That’s not a very good reason.”
A small black and white mongrel appeared and began to eat the potato chips one by one in a leisurely manner. The old man reached down and stroked its dusty back. “I have a good reason,” he said. “You want to know about Violet, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then... We can’t talk here. Voss is watching. He hates me, we have a great mutual hate.” Charlotte unlocked the other door. The old man climbed into the car, running his hand over the upholstered seat with a sigh of satisfaction. “This is the life, yes sir, this is where I ought to be sitting, a big shot. And I would be too if it wasn’t that years ago I got an ulcer. A peptic ulcer, the doc called it. Sometimes I suffer — how I suffer! Right now I feel good. My name is Tidolliani, by the way. Tiddles, they call me.”
“Mine is Keating.”
“I know. I heard you tell Voss. I was listening at the window.”
“Why?”
He looked surprised. “Why? Well, I like to know what my enemies are doing so I can outwit them.” Charlotte pulled away from the curb. She suspected that the old man, Tiddles, wasn’t entirely sane, but he seemed harmless and, besides, he had put into words her own feeling about Voss. (She thought of how angry Lewis would be if he ever found out. He was always trying to make her promise not to pick up hitchhikers, and he’d even bought her a gun to keep in the glove compartment of the car. Though she was flattered by Lewis’ concern, she’d refused to accept the gun.)
“You can stop anywhere now,” Tiddles said.
She turned off at the next side street and parked the car. She asked abruptly, “Where is Violet?”
“I don’t know, but Voss does. He knew she wasn’t up in her room. He took her away himself in a car two hours ago, him and another man, one of the new roomers.”
“Took her away?”
“Well, she acted like she didn’t want to go. The other man was driving the car, an old blue coupé with an out-of-state license.”
“Did she have a suitcase with her?”
“No. The three of them drove off together, and pretty soon Voss and the roomer came back. Voss had two bottles of muscatel with him, and didn’t even offer me a drink. As if I cared,” he said bitterly. “As if I cared.”
“Violet didn’t come back later on by herself?”
“No. Maybe she never will.”
“Why do you say that? Of course she’ll come back,” Charlotte said firmly. “And when she does, I want you to tell her that I’ll call her tomorrow morning, in case Voss forgets.”
“He won’t forget, but he won’t tell her.” He glanced at her slyly out of the corner of his eye. “You might think I exaggerate about Voss, eh, because I hate him? Wrong! I don’t! He is a cheap crook that ought to be in jail. When I think of the people they put in jail nowadays, and here is Voss running loose on the streets! I have a friend who committed a murder. He had a record so clean you could eat off it, he never even put a slug in a pay phone, but he got sent up for life. They ought to have let him go. He’d learned his lesson, he’d never do it again. Besides there was only this one person he ever wanted to murder, his wife it was. A very nice lady but she made him nervous. Take a man like Voss, now. He would do anything for a dime, anything that was mean and petty and miserable and low enough. Yes. Yes, he even thinks he can play the piano and the harmonica!”
The old man was getting drunk on words and hate. Charlotte said, “I’ll drive you home now.”
“All right,” he said with a sigh. “All right.”
“It was kind of you to go to all this trouble.”
“Think nothing of it. It was a pleasure.”
He got out at the corner nearest Voss’s house. Though he seemed tired, he had obviously enjoyed his little conspiracy with Charlotte against Voss.
“Voss,” he said, “Voss will think twice before coming in with two bottles of muscatel and not even offering me a drink.”
“Thanks for your help, and good night, Mr...”
He spread his hands. “Such a hard name. You call me Tiddles like the rest.”
“Good night, Tiddles.”
“I’ll wait up for Violet.”
He shuffled up the street, his head bent against the wind.