Yardbird Page 4

  “You antsy, boy,” Spiff drained his glass. “You got something on your mind?”

  “I want to get the hell out of here,” Scratch said. “I need to find out who's trying to set me up.”

  “Leave it alone, yardbird,” Spiff told him. “You're out of the fire. Don't jump back into another?”

  “What's that mean?” Scratch asked.

  “Don't screw with it, is what it means. I'm not tellin' ya, I'm ordering ya!”

  Spiff and Scratch locked eyes.

  “I don't have to work for you,” Scratch said.

  Spiff chuckled. “Oh yeah you do, yardbird. Nothin' anywhere else for you. No one's gonna take a broken-down GI who has nightmares while wide awake. So stop fuckin' around and pay attention to young Lowery. He has something for you to do at Horace Hammock's house.”

  “Why not send Shep?”

  “Because you're the yardbird, boy. He's the sheriff. He's busy protecting the county.”

  “And your interests,” Scratch said.

  Spiff sniffed the air. “It's the same damn thing.”

  “Yes, Scratch. There's something Mr Spiff would like you to get from Horace Hammock's house,” Lowery said.

  He'd fixed himself a smaller glass of whiskey and poured a shot of freshly squeezed orange juice in it. Scratch had never seen anyone make an alcoholic drink with orange juice. Lowery cleared his throat and continued.

  “It's a large 13-inch black vinyl hatbox with a gold satin rope around it. Gold initials on the front: SS.”

  “And the significance of this hatbox?” Scratch asked.

  “Don't worry about it!” Spiff screamed before Lowery had a chance to answer. The old man's spit went all over Shep, who jumped from his chair, cursing. Lowery flashed an uneasy smile. Spiff continued his tirade. “Stop asking dumb questions and do what yardbirds do!”

  “What is it I'm supposed to do, huh?” Scratch retorted. He was hot under the collar. Sick of the old man ordering him around. Sick of the uppity attitudes of a hick town like Odarko. He just wanted to go back to Darktown. Back to where people acted like real people and not characters from a Robert Mitchum movie.

  “Yardbirds do what I tell 'em to do! Nothing more! You gotta eat, I tell ya! You gotta sleep, I tell ya! Ya gotta take a shit…” Spiff chuckled, “…I definitely tell ya to shit. Now, get, boy. I'm sick of seein' ya!”

  8

  Shep and Ralph took Scratch to the Wildwood Diner. He didn't eat much. He didn't say much. He had a lot on his mind. Afterwards, they dropped him off at the station to get his car.

  He was torn about what to do first. He knew he needed to go back to the room at the Primrose before they cleaned it up, but he'd been ordered to get a hatbox from Horace Hammock's house. Was it the same hatbox? He couldn't remember. Some of what happened in that room was kind of shaky in his memory. Scratch wasn't sure if it was because of wallop on the head or because the nightmares were of Korea were haunting him again.

  Scratch started his '48 Dodge and eased out of the parking space. He put the car into drive, rolled down Main Street slowly, then took a quick right on Tulip drive. He was going to Horace Hammock's house first. Twilight was setting in and the moon and the sun were exchanging hellos and goodbyes. Scratch came up on a stop sign and he jabbed at the car brakes, tires squealing.

  A three-story brick house sat at the end of Tulip. Horace Hammock's house.

  Scratch parked at the end of the street. Then he cut through a little wooded area that led past three other people's houses before he reached the backyard of Horace's house. He crept past several hedges that hadn't been trimmed in months, and circled around a shack that was ready to fall apart at the first whisper of noise. He came to the high window of what looked to be a study.

  Scratch saw a tall brown-haired woman in oval-shaped glasses, red blouse and black skirt, rifling through a chestnut desk. She was being fast and sloppy. Tossing papers aside, books, old newspaper clippings and photographs. The woman was actually quite striking, thick-boned with an hourglass shape. Scratch was immediately attracted to her. She took him back to the days when he fancied a school teacher he had as a teenager. He watched her a little longer, and when she gave up irritably and sat on a small couch in the study, Scratch decided to go inside the house himself.

  He jimmied the lock on the backdoor with the fingernail file on his Swiss Army Knife. The lock popped with no trouble and Scratch opened the backdoor carefully. He went through the kitchen, felt his way through the darkness, using a light in the hallway as a guide. From the hallway, the living room was dark, but the light from the study was shining through the door left partly open. Scratch saw the woman's leg and her shoeless stockinged foot hanging off the couch. Scratch pushed the door with the palm of his hand and the door creaked open.

  The woman turned her head and stared at Scratch with tired eyes. She was now sitting upright but with her legs stretched along on the couch. Both shoes were off her feet and her brown hair was loose about her shoulders, not pulled up in a bun as it had been when he last saw her. The first few buttons on her blouse were unfastened and its collar was loose and wide, revealing a long white neckline and even more of a see-through diamond-patterned brassiere.

  Her eyes grew large and she quickly reached into her purse and pulled out a small .22 gold plated Luger. She got to her feet swiftly. She was like a tiger, graceful, fast and apparently just as dangerous. Her dark eyes screwed down in a squint and her upper lip caught the wave of a curl that seemed so popular once a certain entertainer burst on the scene.

  “Hold it right there, buster!” She spoke fast, too, like the heroine of one of those screwball comedies from the thirties.

  “Easy, sister,” Scratch said. “No reason to let that thing go off.”

  “I will, if you make any sudden moves,” the woman said.

  “No sudden moves from me,” Scratch said.

  “Who are you?” She demanded.

  “Sheriff Shep Howard,” Scratch said.

  The woman was taken aback and not fully certain whether that was a lie or the truth.

  “Where's your badge?” She asked.

  Scratch shrugged. “At the station.”

  “Well,” she said, exasperated. “I don't understand…”

  “What I'm doing isn't exactly legal.”

  “Police do it all the time,” she said. “Breaking into houses… Say, what's with the patch over your eye?”

  “A burglar shot it out a few years ago,” Scratch said.

  Again, the woman didn't know whether to believe him or not. She grunted an OK. “Why are you here?”

  Scratch took a step toward her. The woman raised her eyebrows and shook her head at him. Scratch smiled and said: “I forgot something here when we answered the call to the suicide of Mr Hammock.”

  “Suicide?” The woman lowered the Luger slightly, her wrist tiring from holding it in the same position. “He didn't commit suicide.”

  “No?” Scratch asked.

  “No! He was stabbed in the back of the neck… Wait! Shouldn't you know this if you're the Sheriff?”

  Scratch lunged at her and caught the woman's hand just as the Luger went off. He forced her hand toward the floor. The bullet struck the floorboard by her left foot. She screamed, jumped, and dropped the gun. Scratch was already falling on top of the woman, grabbing the collar of her blouse.

  The material ripped as he and the woman fell hard on the floor. He was lying on top of her, face to face. She was struggling with him, her skirt riding up and her legs wrapped around his waist, revealing the same diamond pattern panties, black garter belt attached to suntan stockings. She tore a hand free and dug her nails into Scratch's right cheek. He groaned and took hold of the hand, forcing it to the floor to match the other he already had pinned down.

  Her eyeglasses were pulled to one side and he got a good look at big brown eyes.

  “Wow,” he found himself saying without realizing it. “You really are a knockout.”

  T
his statement caught the woman by surprise.

  The woman gasped. “I… I am?”

  There was an uneasy silence. they both gave a nervous laugh. Scratch did the gentlemanly thing. He removed himself from the woman, even though the next logical step would have been to kiss her. She seemed torn between wanting him to stay and fixing her skirt to a more presentable position.

  Scratch sat up and leaned against the couch. The woman joined him. She fixed her glasses, then her hair. Scratch took out a pack of Camels and offered her a cigarette. She smiled and took it between her first and middle fingers.

  “I suppose I should introduce myself,” she said. “I'm Lilly Griffin. I'm Mr Hammock's secretary – was his secretary.”

  Scratch smiled, tipped his hat up. He lit her cigarette first, then his. They blew out smoke simultaneously.

  “Yeah, well, I'm not the sheriff,” Scratch said.

  Lilly cocked her head. “I gathered that.” She chortled. “Did someone really shoot your eye out?”

  “No.” Scratch laughed. “Lost it in a car accident.”

  “Oh.” Lilly was disappointed. She wanted to hear a good, action-packed story, and she would've been OK with a lie. “So who are you then?”

  “My name is Scratch Williams.” He inhaled then exhaled blue smoke. “I work for Oliver Spiff.”

  “Ah,” Lilly said. “That makes sense.”

  “How so?”

  She took a long drag from her cigarette and gazed at Scratch for 45 seconds or longer, before exhaling. A huge cloud of blue smoke rose to the air above her head. Scratch watched the smoke disappear, then shifted his eyes back to Lilly's. She had a thin top lip and rather full bottom lip, and Scratch noticed Lilly had painted on her red lipstick to make the top lip look as full the bottom. Still, Scratch really liked her appearance. He thought she was striking, with those gold-tinged, slightly thick brown eyebrows and thin, spider-web lashes.

  “Spiff and Horace hated each other. But they needed each other,” Lilly said. “Horace went bankrupt a few years back. Borrowed money from Spiff. Spiff thought he owned the newspaper. Fat chance,” she shook her head and laughed. “No way, José. Horace made a deal with someone in Vegas. He paid Spiff back every penny. Tore up the marker in his face.”

  “Is that what's in the hatbox?” Scratch asked.

  Lilly shrugged. “What hatbox?”

  “That's what you're looking for,” Scratch said.

  “No I'm not.”

  “Then why do you look so guilty?”

  “Look, buster…” She turned red in the face and her anger level had risen to 10. That top lip started to curl up again.

  Scratch was pleased with himself for that accomplishment. He threw his hands up, smiling. “OK, OK. You're not looking for a hatbox.”

  “Good! I'm glad we got that out of the way!”

  He had another question designed to make her even angrier. One of Scratch's favorite pastimes was getting under people's skins. He really enjoyed needling them. Sticking it to them and seeing what the outcome was. If the situation became ugly, he'd apologize or wait for the first punch to be thrown. Afterwards, retaliate anyway he could.

  “So…” He chose his words carefully. “You call him 'Horace' and not 'Mr Hammock?' ”

  Instead of getting mad, Lilly smiled.

  Scratch threw another fireball at her. “Were you more than just his secretary?”

  She batted those huge eyelashes at Scratch, the spider web dashed the lens of her eyeglasses with light-speed precision.

  “Of course I was,” Lilly said. “Just not in public or in his bed,” she sighed. “He'd take me from behind at his desk once a week. Or he did. Until I hit 30. Then it became less frequent. More like every couple months. Does that shock you?”

  Scratch smiled, shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “I was thinking what a lucky man he was.”

  Lilly laughed, batted her eyes and touched her hair, embarrassed.

  “Did you love him?” Scratch asked.

  “God, no,” Lilly made a face. “No one in their right mind would love a person like Horace. I did some digging on Horace Hammock a few years ago, when a blackmail letter came to the office. His real name was Leon Goldman. A New York City reporter, who left behind two wives and six children. Left them destitute. A young man had delivered that letter. There was an exchange of money. He went away. I think he was Horace's son. So, I'll say it again. No one could love a sorry bastard like that. Not even that bimbo he was sleeping with who was 40 years younger than him.”

  “Bimbo, huh?” Scratch said. “This bimbo have a name?”

  “Caroline Seafront. She's barely 21. Horace has been with her for a year or so. You've seen her around town, I'm sure. Blonde, big blue eyes, even bigger tits.”

  Scratch laughed.

  “What?” Lilly laughed with him. “A woman can't talk dirty?”

  Scratch shrugged. “No. I mean, I don't mind so much. It's just…”

  “Just what?” Lilly had to get the bottom of the look on Scratch's face and the shrug.

  “Just… it doesn't go with your demeanor.”

  “What's my demeanor?”

  Scratch waited to answer. “You remind me of a school teacher I had.”

  “Oh,” she sounded disappointed with his answer. Or hurt. “Or a librarian. Either way, I remind you of a lonely spinster.”

  “No,” Scratch said. “A school teacher I wanted to bed.”

  The smile returned to Lilly's face. “Is that what you want to do? Take me to bed?”

  “No,” Scratch said.

  The smile disappeared.

  “I want to bend you over that desk,” Scratch said.

  The smile returned. Lilly slowly stood. Contemplated slipping into her heels, but decided against it. She walked over to the desk, bent over and lifted her skirt over her waist. She eased her hands to her ass, pulled down those diamond-pattern panties. The roundness of her cheeks reminded Scratch of a huge ivory ball, and it made the garter belt flex out and her stockings ride up and expand.

  Smiling, she looked over her shoulders at him.

  “Well?” Lilly asked. “What are you waiting for?”

  9

  Lilly excused herself to go to the bathroom. She was gone for quite a bit. Scratch decided to see if Horace had any beer in the icebox. Sure enough, two bottles of Blue Ribbon sat not far from a dish of cold cuts. Scratch took down a plate. He fixed a sandwich for himself and Lilly. He carried the plate and the beer with him as he searched for Lilly.

  She wasn't in the bathroom anymore. The light was on, but the door was wide open. By now, the Grandfather clock in the living room said it was nine forty-five. He searched the study. Lilly wasn't there. He searched the guest bedroom. She wasn't there either. Scratch went upstairs.

  Hanging around the top of the stair, in the hallway, he heard Lilly in the bedroom on the left. Scratch made as little noise as he drew closer to the partly open door. He peaked inside. That bedroom belonged to woman. Lilly had tossed clothing everywhere. Dresses lay on a canopy bed. Undergarments and stockings on the floor beside dresser drawers. Lilly sat on the bed, crossed her legs angrily – obviously upset she hadn't found what she was looking for.

  But she wasn't dissuaded.

  Struck by a thought, she uncrossed her legs and jumped from the bed. She reached behind the bedpost and dug down. She smiled. Lilly had found what she was looking for. She pulled it out slowly. A white silk blouse was wrapped around a ball of newspapers. She unwrapped the blouse, tossed it aside. She unpeeled the newspaper carefully and discovered what looked to be three stacks of ten 20- dollar bills, bound by paper bands.

  Lilly clasped her hands together, threw her head back and cackled.

  When she came downstairs, she found Scratch sitting on the couch, eating and watching television. She wandered over and sat beside him, casting a leg over his. They grinned at each other.

  “I made you something to eat,” he said. “Got you a beer, too.”
>
  “How sweet,” Lilly said. “Thank you.” She snatched the sandwich from the plate and bit into it like a rabid dog. Scratch watched her eat, finding it humorous she ate as sloppily as he did.

  “Here's your beer,” he offered the bottle.

  Lilly shook her head, picked up Scratch's bottle and drank from it. “That's OK.” She gulped and smacked her lips. “I'll have some of yours.”

  The TV flickered. A cowboy rode through brush and came up on a ranch.

  “What are you watching?” Lilly asked.

  “Studio One,” Scratch kept his eyes on the screen. “But it looks like a cowboy flick. I don't know. I guess the show is trying something different than people arguing with each other in their kitchens.”

  “I wouldn't know,” Lilly said. “I only watch Our Miss Brooks.”

  Scratch gazed at Lilly. That was it, he thought. He couldn't put his finger on it before. Now he knew. She did resemble Eve Arden. Did she purposely try to make herself look like the actress? Yeah, Scratch told himself. She did. He nodded. Eve Arden was a knockout, he told himself.

  “What?” Lilly asked, making a face, shifting that full bottom lip to the side.

  “Nothing,” Scratch said. After a few minutes he blurted out: “I think we should go back to my place.”

  Lilly laughed. “You do, do you?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and kissed her softly. “I do.”

  “Well,” she said, pulling away, “I-I can't.”

  “Oh. Why not?”

  Lilly waited to answer. She was trying to come up with a good excuse.

  “I don't know,” she said, looking away. “I… just shouldn't.”

  “Shouldn't or don't want to?”

  Lilly shrugged.

  “A little of both,” she said, removing her leg from Scratch's. She fixed her skirt.

  “OK,” he said.

  There was complete silence for a good while. The grandfather clock chimed, alerting them to the fact the time was eleven o'clock.

  “I… guess I'll get going.” Lilly stood.