Pipsqueak (12 page)

Chapter 18

A
nd so it was that we called upon our lawyer, Roger Elk. We found him dressed pretty much as I’d seen him last: suede cowboy boots, bolo tie, white western-cut shirt, corduroy jacket. His office was on the eighth floor of a narrow, dingy, industrial building, three floors of which still housed an artificial Christmas-tree factory. The elevator was more along the lines of a dumbwaiter, the unautomated kind that requires the elevator operator to physically heave on a cable to set the counterweight in motion. On the eighth floor, however, we discovered a neatly painted hallway lined with pebbled-glass doors, and we located the one stenciled
Roger Elk, Atty
. His two-room office had dark paneling, ceiling fans, and dusky wood furniture. Everything was old and worn but very tidy. A law degree from Northwestern, various Chicago civic awards, and a testimonial of some kind from the Aurora Corporation adorned his stately walls.

Angie, Otto, and I sat in an array of cushioned straight-backed chairs, the kind upholstered in old red leather and decorative bronze nails. Roger Elk sat calmly in his oak four-caster desk chair, hands folded over his potbelly and concentration wrinkling his brow. As he had instructed, I related the story from top to bottom, ending with: “And so here we are.”

“Interesting story, and it’s good you came to me first.” There was something utterly reassuring in his manner, the propounder of conservative advice.

“My advice”—he loosed a broad, wise smile—“is
not
to go to the police.”

I was confused. “But I don’t get it, what about—”

“If they come to you, call me and we’ll arrange to talk to them together.”

“But—”

“What would you tell them, Garth? What you
know
? In point of fact, you don’t
know
anything. You
suspect
many things. But the police have no interest in what
you
suspect. You don’t know firsthand that the dead woman on your stoop was Marti Folsom, and even if you did, that doesn’t have any direct connection to these retrophiles. You’ve not seen the ‘Cola Woman’ in their company and you have nothing to indicate that the retrophiles have anything to do with that puppet. You don’t even know whether the puppet was the impetus for the Tiny Timeless Treasures murder. The anonymous threat on your phone machine will hardly impress them.”

“What should we do?” Angie threw up her hands.

“My advice, Angie, is to steer clear of both the retrophiles and the police. Go near the jive crowd again and they may harm you. Go to the police with your suspicions about a puppet? Preposterous, and if the police discover that you are, however obliquely, attached to two murders, they will become suspicious. Forget about this whole episode, stop looking for the puppet, and go back to your normal lives. If you were being threatened, I can’t see why those responsible would object and bring any physical harm on you.”

“You think we can just do that and it’ll be all over?” I laughed, slightly giddy at the prospect.

Roger Elk crossed his weathered brown hands on his blotter and leaned forward. “I believe so. Let’s just hope the police don’t approach you again. Now, I wouldn’t want to be one to meddle in your family affairs, but your brother’s involvement in this isn’t helping you any. It seems to me that he’s demonstrated poor judgment in dealing with some pretty rough characters. My advice to you would be to avoid him, at least until he’s off this case.”

“Exactly.” I nodded enthusiastically, glancing Angie’s way. “He’s always been trouble.”

We all shook his hand (Otto hugged him) and departed with spirits raised.

“Eetz good? No KGB? Eh?”

“That’s right, Otto.” I looked at Angie, and for the moment, anyway, she seemed resigned to let this puzzle remain unsolved.

“Maybe the police will figure it all out.” Angie chuckled. “I mean, these retros are bound to step out of line again and get caught, right?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. “It was a bit of an adventure, what with infiltrating the Church of Jive, huh?”

“Ah! Garv, Yan-gie, we must to go lunch, eh? Cey-ley-bration, yes?”

“Not a bad idea, Otto.” I slapped him on the shoulder. We went over to a place on 22nd Street for haystack onion rings and beer.

Chapter 19

T
wo days later and all was well. My Brooklyn film rental was a wrap, and subsequent to that I’d sold the bison head (from the bedroom) and steer longhorns to a new bar opening where the Barbed Wire used to be. The former joint had been closed down for serving to underage kids, and the new place seemed intent on following the western theme of the former, probably to wrangle the same element to soil my doorstep once more.
Bull’s Balls
, the new sign read.

Stuart Sharp had called again, and I had yet to visit New Hope to look at his giant weevil. I had been busy working with the Nassau County Science Museum to supply it with snakes for dioramas, which had me putting in calls to contacts in the Southwest. Diamondback rattlers and pit vipers are a cinch, but coming up with a scarlet king snake and either a western or eastern coral snake was proving to be a problem. They particularly wanted those two because they look very much alike, yet only the coral snakes are poisonous. It’s one of those wacky natural-selection manifestations, like the monarch and viceroy butterflies, that make good visual aids. The two snakes are usually about the same sub-thirty-inch length, and both are variably striped with yellow, red, and black. But they aren’t difficult to tell apart. Some prefer all manner of memory aids, like “Red touch yellow, kill a fellow.” Or “Two-color tail, run like hell.” However, I’ve never had any trouble identifying the one with the black nose as a coral snake. “Black = death.” (By the way, a scarlet snake has a red nose. “Rudolph that wriggles, gives me the giggles.”)

Lorna Ellison, my snake gal in Phoenix, had referred me to half a dozen people, and I’d resorted to looking for dead specimens that I could have mounted. Pete Durban, a guy I know from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, collects poisonous critters and owns a couple of corals, but I doubted very much whether he’d let me stuff one of his prized pets. I found myself calling Dade County Animal Control agents, asking if they’d had any calls to dispose of eastern coral snakes. Nope, just nuisance gators, the stray saltwater croc, and a pit bull or three. Hadn’t had a snake call since a boa strangled its owner, an off-duty carnival performer called Sheena the Viper Girl. Texas has the next highest incidence of bites from corals, and I was about to ring up the San Antonio Animal Shelter when the front buzzer sounded.

As you can see, life was back to normal at our abode, and I was glad of it. My foibles were under control and I felt comfortably on track to forget all about General Buster and his pals. Even a hopelessly nostalgic dealer like me can be scared straight by a dead woman on his doorstep and his brother used as a punching bag.

The buzzer sounded again. It was about ten in the morning. Angie was up at Acme Crafts buying a hand piece for her flexible shaft and draw plates, which in itself wouldn’t take long except she and Katie the salesperson talk a blue streak. Otto had gone to get his uniform for a part-time job selling hot dogs at Grand Central Terminal. “Veemin, milliontz of veemin, Garv! They go to verk, very much hurry, walk fest, eh? Veemin walkink fest: very nice, eh?” I think a Victoria’s Secret catalog would put Otto into an orgasmic coma.

The day was sunny, but cool and breezy like the best of October days. The worst are rainy, cold autumn days when you realize May is the light at the end of winter’s long tunnel. Most Americans seemed to have pumpkins on their porches, leaf piles burning in their gutters, and Thanksgiving on their minds.

“Who is it?” I hollered into the squawk box.

“Open up! Hurry,” the box crackled back.

Boy, the Jehovah’s Witnesses could be so pushy. “Who is this?”

“Dammit, open up, Carson. Please!” It was a high, wheezy voice, but I couldn’t tell whether it was male or female.

“Not unless I know you.”

“You don’t know me, but I have an urgent package for you.”

This was over the top even for a Witness, and the voice sounded earnestly troubled. So I went into the hallway and opened the vestibule door. Before me stood a soft-looking man with thick white hair, a narrow jaw, white eyebrows, and pale eyelashes, pale skin, full lips, and dark eyes. Not an albino, but definitely at the far end of the spectrum from George Hamilton. He had on a baggy beige suit, black shirt, thin tie, and two-tone shoes. A Panama hat was clutched in one hand, a wicker basket under the other. The basket was filled with crumpled paper and looked like a small wastebasket.

“Can I help you?” I picked up my mail from atop the radiator in the foyer as I watched him mop his brow with a polka-dot hanky.

He thrust the wastebasket to my chest. “Take this. Big risk, but there’s nothing for it.” He spoke quite loudly. “We’ve got to get it to safety. You know a man named Palihnic?”

I looked from the wastebasket in my hands up to the stranger. “What is this?”

Whitey peered up and down the block, looking to see if he had been followed.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You have what you wanted. Is there a back way out of here?”

“Whoa!” I barred the way into the hall with my arm. “You’re going to have to do some explaining before I show you the back way out. Now, calm down and tell me what this is all about.”

“Can I at least come in, have a glass of water? I have to hurry back before they notice it’s gone.”

I considered a moment and thought it unlikely that Whitey had the gumption or the wherewithal to cause me much trouble. “Awright.”

Whitey was momentarily flummoxed by the number of animals staring at him when he came into our living room—not an uncommon reaction. I’ve known people who can’t sleep with a room full of taxidermy staring at them. He perched on a stool at the soda counter while I fetched water.

“You kill all these?” he mumbled nervously.

“I collect, rent, sell . . . here.” I plunked down the glass and he drank greedily, eyeing all the birds of prey hanging from the ceiling. I noticed an envelope in the mail pile addressed to me that wasn’t a bill and picked it out for closer examination. I felt a wallet-sized card inside. Probably my new bank card, I thought. “So, Mr. . . . ?”

“Sloan.”

“Mr. Sloan, why have you brought me a wicker waste bin?”

“Don’t be stupid, please, Carson,” he gasped between chugalugs.

It was then that I saw among the crumpled paper what appeared to be an eye. Stuffing the envelope in my pocket, I stirred the papers in the basket, uncovering two bulging eyes. I shuddered, then spilled the paper onto the counter. Out tumbled Pipsqueak.

Yeah, I was a little surprised, and I think I said something like “Yak!” I gently slid a hand under the puppet and picked him up. He was surprisingly light, especially the head. I held the little black sticks to his hands and made his paws wiggle. Up close, I could see how much hair had been lost over the years and how his tail had probably been replaced at some point. His goggle eyes were actually purple painted pupils on a yellowed white plastic base. The India-rubber red tongue sticking out the side of his mouth was dried and cracked. The buckteeth were real but outsize for a squirrel, perhaps lower incisors from a deer or elk. A string on the back manipulated his mouth, and when I pulled it, the mouth fell open. I could see that the black elastic in the back of his mouth had broken many years ago. Pipsqueak’s white belly fur was yellowed, and the whole pelt was in need of cleaning. He smelled strongly of mothballs.

It was hard to believe. Pipsqueak, in my hands! I wanted to savor the moment, and yet, to be honest, actually having him in my possession wasn’t as satisfying as I would have thought. The emotion was a little . . . sad. Pipsqueak demystified?

And of course, after Marti’s murder and Nicholas’s run-in, I was a little scared at being dragged back into the retro imbroglio. Just days ago, I was after Pipsqueak.
Now he was after me
.

My thoughts and emotions tumbled over each other, but I managed to get the crucial question out first.

“What’s so important about Pipsqueak the Nutty Nut?”

The look I got was vexed. “Don’t toy with me, Carson. Surely you came looking for the puppet for the same reasons as Loomis.”

I leaned in close to Whitey’s face. “I’m outside the loop, Sloan. Tell me: What’s with the squirrel?”

“It’s Bookerman. He needs it. For the Church.” Whitey was getting testy.

It took me a moment to register. “Fine, I can see why Bookerman wants his little pal Pipsqueak to comfort him in his later years. But what does the Church want with him? If it’s not just a puppet, tell me what it is!”

I handed him another glass of water, and after he’d taken a long sip, he gave me a stern, penetrating gaze, the white eyebrows taut. I’d seen these Perry Mason eyes before, heard the loud squeeze-box voice, and I took a step back when I realized where. I probably made another one of my erudite exclamations, like
Gak!

“You’re Cola Woman!”

His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

“The woman at T3! But you’re not a woman. You were dressed up like a woman!”

His eyes rolled slightly. “Got a problem with that?”

“You killed Tyler Loomis to get the squirrel! And I saw you at the Church of Jive the night Marti Folsom was murdered.”

“Chill out!” Whitey wheezed. “Loomis was after the squirrel to stop Bookerman. He’d been trying to get Pipsqueak, the last puppet, just like me. I got there first, but you happened by, started fucking around with that penguin. It’s your fault Loomis is dead. Well, his too. If you’d both just minded your own damn business . . .”

“What did he want with Pipsqueak?”

“You really don’t get any of this, do you? This was a mistake. . . .” He got up and reached for Pipsqueak. I pulled the squirrel out of reach.

“Why did you bring me Pipsqueak, anyway?”

Whitey’s gaze hardened. “A mutual friend said I should bring it to you and that you’d get it to Nicholas. I thought you understood.”

“What mutual friend?”

“
Someone on the inside,
inside the Church, that’s all.”

Could this be Nicholas’s informer? “Why do you want Palihnic to have him?”

“He’s with the naturopaths, of course.”

“Naturopaths?” I snapped my fingers. “Loomis, he had a tuning fork. He was a sonopuncturist, which means he was a naturopath, right? Okay, so you killed him to keep the squirrel from the naturopaths. Now you’ve had a change of heart and want to
give
Pipsqueak to them? Why?” I wasn’t entirely sure what the heck I was talking about. Naturopaths? Puppet healing? Lamb Chop for lumbago, Beany & Cecil for neuritis?

Sloan’s gaze drifted to someplace far away. “I thought . . . I used to think that Scuppy was on a righteous path. But now I know better. I thought you did too. The Church doesn’t mean to free anybody. They just want to be the slave master!” Sloan’s white eyebrows pinched together, sweat running down his cheeks. “I’ll take that squirrel now, Carson.” I could tell from his deportment that he didn’t feel the matter was open to discussion.

Sloan was standing at the end of the soda bar, and I was behind it. No way out unless I jumped the bar, which I could do, but probably not fast enough to escape.

“So who’ll you give him to now?”

“Most likely? The river. I can’t find Palihnic, and if you don’t understand any of this, it’s obvious Palihnic couldn’t trust you. So how can I trust you? You’d probably call the police. Then the NSA would get him. It can’t go back to Bookerman.” Sloan produced a sleek black pistol, as I was afraid he might.

The NSA? I could see myself asking Dudley if he knew why the government would want a squirrel puppet, only to hear his evasive mumblings because he’d personally worked on Ronald Reagan’s billion-dollar Secret Squirrel Initiative.

“Hand it over, Carson. I’ll do you like Loomis if I have to.”

The Nutty Nut to be forever interred in the ooze of the East River? The child inside me wouldn’t let go of Pipsqueak for anything. So when the adult handed it over, Sloan had to struggle to pull it from my grasp.

“Let go!” he wheezed.

“Sorry! Reflex,” I mumbled, and let go. I wasn’t as sorry as you might have thought. Having held him in my hands, having felt that fur, seen the cracked tongue—getting Pipsqueak back seemed somehow more possible once I’d actually held him.

Sloan backed to the door. “Better for you, Carson. You don’t want any part of this.”

“That’s what I keep saying.” I flapped my arms helplessly.

He reached a hand back for the doorknob, just as a small man in a red and white striped jacket and cherry-red fez shouldered the door open from without. The door slammed Sloan’s arm, which spun him around and flung Pipsqueak into the air. Sloan stumbled back, facing hot-dog man extraordinaire: Otto.

From that moment on, I abandoned the remotest inclination to buy a Rottweiler. Otto was surprised, but swiftly registered the gun, reacted, and lunged headlong at Sloan’s neck, yelling, “Aiee!”

Sloan fell back, Otto on top of him, the gun waving in the air. A shot went off, a puff of feathers drifted off an owl overhead.

I saw Pipsqueak bounce off Fred the lion and hit the floor, the puppet’s bulging eyes imploring me to come save him from Howlie and Possum. I also saw my chance to wrestle the dangerous gun from Sloan’s extended hand. I hesitated.