Stone Cold Dead, James Ziskin [best ebook reader android .txt] 📗

Karl. Under normal conditions, my memory is as faithful as a dog and as trustworthy as the mighty Jeep, but this night, I feared the whiskey might prevail and blur everything in the morning.

“Now, about your husband,” I said. “I really would like to talk to him. Since he’s just downstairs . . .”

She seemed to ignore me.

“If you want my help, you’ll have to let me do things my way,” I said. “You can say what you want, but I need to believe what you tell me. And the only way I can do that is to satisfy my doubts.”

Irene Metzger sat quietly, slouched a bit to one side, fixing me with her stare. I couldn’t tell if she was riled or just considering my words. Finally she spoke.

“I’m sorry if you don’t like what I’m telling you, but I know my daughter. And my husband.”

I shook my head; I had drunk enough whiskey for two New Year’s Eves, there was an eager young man waiting in the next room, and this lady wasn’t cooperating. She wouldn’t allow that her daughter might have run off or—if she hadn’t—that her husband might have a darker side than she could ever imagine.

“Okay,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I’ll think about it.”

“Think about what?” she asked, alarmed.

“Whether I can help you or not.”

A grimace, bitter and disappointed, curled slowly across her upper lip and flared her right nostril. She tried to hide it.

“You mean you won’t help me,” she said.

I said nothing, just stared at her.

“I’ll talk to him,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Can’t promise anything.”

“And I’ll make some inquiries,” I said. “Then I’ll be in touch. Give me a few days.”

“I brought this,” she said, producing an envelope. “It’s Darleen’s school picture. In case you can use it.”

“Thanks,” I said, pushing it to one side on the table.

I accompanied her down the stairs in my stocking feet. Shivering on the porch, I watched her climb into an old, faded-green Ford pickup at the curb. Judging by the looks of it, the truck must have been the first one to roll off the assembly line after the war. Or maybe it had been through the war. For a couple of seconds, while a dim glow shone from the dome light, I could see the man at the wheel inside. He looked hard, like sunburn, chewing tobacco, and a three-day beard. My stare met his pale eyes for a short moment, and I froze. He aimed a piercing look at me, expressionless, almost dead like a lizard’s. The dome light went off as Irene Metzger yanked the door closed with an icy, metallic bang. Then Dick Metzger pushed the starter, shifted into gear, and eased away from the curb.

I stood there in the cold for another minute, watching the red taillights recede down Lincoln Avenue. My encounter with Irene Metzger had unsettled me. Convinced her daughter had not run off, she must have feared the worst. She must have been sure Darleen had met a terrible end. What other explanation could there have been? I remembered some of the chances I had taken as a teenager. I had been lucky in my games of Russian roulette, while Darleen Hicks, it seemed, had spun the cylinder and come up with a bullet in the chamber. Irene Metzger’s pain must have been cruel, incorporating both grief and uncertainty. A heavy sadness welled up in my chest as I thought of my own parents, both gone, and the wayward girl I had been. The wayward girl I still was.

Damn! Eddie Robeleski. He was still upstairs. When I returned to the warmth of my apartment, I found him standing there, lipstick smeared over his face, his shirttail hanging out.

“Come on over here,” he said with a big grin, and he reached out both arms for me.

“Oh, God,” I said, rubbing my temples. “I’m sorry, Eddie, but you have to go now.”

CHAPTER TWO

SUNDAY, JANUARY 1, 1961

I don’t normally suffer from hangovers. That’s the blessing, or perhaps the curse, of holding one’s drink. But this day I woke up slowly, my mouth a little dry, one nostril hermetically sealed, and my eyes crusted shut by the sandman. The new year had dawned, and I had slept through the morning.

A confirmed heathen, I usually spend my Sunday mornings lingering over coffee, a hard roll and butter, and the newspapers at Fiorello’s across the street. Fadge, the proprietor and my dearest friend in the world, was sure to be there on New Year’s Day, albeit late. Not because it was New Year’s Day, of course, but because it was morning, and he always ran late. He usually rolled up to the curb in his ’57 Nash Ambassador at eight thirty. Unshaven and (sometimes) unwashed, he would trundle across the seat to the passenger’s side like a walrus undulating across an ice floe, the car rocking on its struts beneath him. The driver’s door was dented shut, so he always dismounted from the right-hand side. Barely four years old, the car was a disgrace. From the day he’d driven it off Bob Frank’s Hudson-Nash lot on Division Street, Fadge had abused it through neglect of maintenance, willful flaunting of the laws of physics, and a demolition-derby style of driving. Vinnie Donati, a local mechanic, once begged Fadge to tell him what he had against the car.

But this frigid New Year’s Day, I was curled up on the sofa under an afghan watching George Blanda lead the Houston Oilers over the Los Angeles Chargers in the inaugural AFL Championship Game. There were no college bowl games due to New Year’s falling on a Sunday, and the NFL had finished up the week before, so I settled for the new league’s championship. Just one of the boys when it came to sports.

By six I still hadn’t dressed and didn’t see the use of changing from my flannel pajama bottoms and terrycloth robe; I’d be ready for bed before too long.

I heated