“I guess not. But why me? There are a lot of people in the building. She might have been visiting any of them.”
Ivey made a pad of his handkerchief and wiped his bald dome. “That’s true. But I got a hunch she came here because she needed help. Private-cop help. And there’s only one private cop in the building.”
“She isn’t here now,” I said. “You want to come in and look around?”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she tell you two hours ago?”
“She didn’t tell me anything, Steve. I wasn’t here.” It was clear that Ivey didn’t, as yet, know Tina had come to the apartment last night. His only connection of her to me was her departure for dinner. I didn’t see any sense in tying knots until I found out which way the rope was dangling.
“Mind telling me where you were?”
“Yes, I do mind,” I said. “I didn’t see Tina La Flor this afternoon, and that’s the truth.”
Ivey placidly lighted a cigar. “You’re up to something, Rivers. When you get that dumb-ape look, it means you’ve turned on that computer under your skull. What’s with Tina La Flor?”
“I’ve told you...”
“How’d you get those marks on your cheek?”
“I had to go downtown last night and check a shorted burglar alarm. When I got back, a mugger jumped me.”
“You didn’t report it.”
“He didn’t get anything. I chased him.”
“You should have reported him.”
“I didn’t get a look at him. It was too dark.”
“Okay,” Ivey shrugged, “if that’s the way you citizens want it. If Tina La Flor shows up, will you let me know?”
“Maybe. Why would she come here?”
“Probably to retain you. Over in her neighborhood a little while ago some kids at after-dinner play noticed an open window in Tina La Flor’s cottage. You know how kids are. The place was dark, and they decided to sneak in and have a look at all that miniature furniture they’d heard their parents talk about.
“But the cottage wasn’t empty, Ed. A big guy, all bloody, was lying in the living room. One of the kids, a little girl, she got hysterical just from the sight of it and the family doctor had to put her under sedation.”
Grisly sweat crawled down my chest. “Somebody beat the guy up?”
“Somebody killed the guy,” Ivey said. “He’d taken a beating. The blow that seems to have finished him came from a blackjack we found near the body.”
The butterflies in my belly turned to writhing snakes. “Know who he is?”
“Fellow named Bucks Jordan,” Ivey said. “A quick routine on him turned up a record. Vicious, dirty, petty stuff. Beating up a woman, attempted extortion. He worked a carny for awhile — along with Tina Fa Flor.”
“Coincidence,” I said. “You can connect two thirds of the ex-carny people in this town through past show employment.”
“Wasn’t coincidence that he was found in her cottage,” Ivey said doggedly.
“But you can’t think that a little dame like her could slug a...”
“I’m thinking she could hire it done,” Ivey said, “whatever the reasons. And when it was done too thoroughly and she saw she had a fresh corpse on her hands, I’m thinking she’d figure she needed some help and needed it desperately.”
“Which brings you to me.” I wondered if my lips looked as stiff as they felt.
“Which brought her to you,” Ivey corrected. “Now you know. You’ll contact me if she shows up?”
“I’ll keep in touch,” I said.
I stood in the hallway until Ivey disappeared in the stairwell. Then I went in the apartment, closed the door, and fell back against it.
Someone had entered the cottage, found Bucks’ own blackjack, and used it for a final blow.
That’s the way it had to be. I knew he’d been alive when I left.
And yet — the question seeped smotheringly through my mind.
No, I told myself, I didn’t kill him. He was alive.
Then who knew he was there? Who killed him?
I went to the kitchenette and broke out a beer. It tasted like ipecac.
One part of me raged to another part: Damn it, I know I. didn’t kill Bucks Jordan.
And the other part whispered back: Even if you didn’t try and tell it to Ivey.
The phone screamed.
I went in the bed-sittingroom and picked the phone up.
“Ed?”
“Tina — where the devil are you?”
“Why’d you do it, Ed?”
“You think that I...”
“I heard, just now, on a newscast... Ed, I didn’t want you to get him off my neck with such permanence. But don’t worry,” she sobbed. “I won’t say a thing, even if they catch me.”
“Tina...”
“I won’t let you down, Ed.”
“Tina!”
She hung up.
Chapter Five
What’s more, she disappeared.
Operating on about four hours sleep, I used up most of the next day without getting a lead on Tina. I found out several facts that did seem to back up her story. She did have a new agent, a New Yorker who’d caught her act while vacationing in Florida. A long distance call to him confirmed that he had hopes of selling Tina in the big time.
The day turned up a few personal details relating to Tina.
Her parents had abandoned her when, as a kid, it appeared certain she had stopped growing and was destined to be a freak.
In any slum, there are children of questionable parentage. The slum area of Ybor City was no exception. The homeless kid had attached herself to a couple named Cardezas. Without officially adopting her, Mr. and Mrs. Cardezas shared their bean pot and sausage roll with Tina.
In later years, the Cardezas had four children of their own who attached no particular importance to Tina’s size because she’d always been that way to them.
In late afternoon, I drove out to the Cardezas house.
It was a cramped, unpainted structure with a drooping front porch. On a street of such houses, a street swarming with noisy kids, the house was faintly lopsided on its cement block pillars, as if a long-ago hurricane had nudged it hard.
My new car drew looks from laboring men with empty lunch pails. No husband would return to the Cardezas house. An animal handler, he’d been killed two years ago while trying to handle his charges during a circus fire.
I crossed the hard-packed yard and knocked on the flimsy door. When opened, the door framed a big, warm, bosomy woman of middle age. Her thick hair was in jet coils, stranded with silver, about her head. Her face was full and fleshy and smiling. I suspected that the smile was a natural expression. It gave a glow to the big, open face, which was dusted with misty perspiration, and extended to the large, liquid eyes of striking black.
She was dressed in simple cotton and held half a dozen dinner plates in the crook of her arm.
“Mrs. Cardezas?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Ed Rivers.”
“Oh, I know of you. Please come in.”
I glanced at the dinner plates. She laughed. “Oh, that can wait. Or perhaps you’d eat with us?”
In the house behind her, a young voice said, “Bang, bang, you’re dead, Miguel!” And another screeched, “No, I’m not, you missed!” And the first yelled, “Mama, make Miguel play right!”
Mrs. Cardezas called over her shoulder, “Miguel, you must die when properly shot. Now some manners out of you! We have company.”
She stepped aside for me to enter. “Poor Miguel,” she clucked. “Always he is the one to get shot.”
I stepped into a living room that was barren, but clean. On a table against the far wall rested a large Bible. Over the table hung a crucifix.