A Bullet for Cinderella Read online

  “He could have called her Cindy because of the skit?”

  “I imagine so. Children dote on nicknames. I remember one poor little boy with a sinus condition. The other children made him unhappy by calling him Rumblehead.”

  “I want to thank you for your help, Miss Major.”

  “I hope the information is of some use to you. When you find Antoinette, tell her I asked about her.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  She went with me to the door. She said, “They’re bringing me a new Braille student at four. He seems to be a little late. Mr. Howard, are you in some kind of trouble?”

  The abrupt non sequitur startled me. “Trouble? Yes, I’m in trouble. Bad trouble.”

  “I won’t give you any chin-up lecture, Mr. Howard. I’ve been given too much of that myself. I was just checking my own reactions. I sensed trouble. An aura of worry. As with that Mr. Fitzmartin I detected an aura of directed evil.”

  When I got out in front, a woman was helping a young boy out of a car. The boy wore dark glasses. His mouth had an ill-tempered look, and I heard the whine in his voice as he complained about something to her.

  I felt that I had discovered Cindy. There had been a hint as to what she was like in the very tone of Timmy’s voice. Weak as he was, there had been a note of fond appreciation—the echo of lust. Cindy would know. The phrasing was odd. Not Cindy knows. Cindy would know. It would be a place known to her.

  I sat in my car for a few moments. I did not know how long my period of grace would last. I did not know whether I should continue in search of the elusive Cindy or try to make sense of the relationship between Fitz and Grassman. It came to me that I had been a fool not to search the body. There might have been notes, papers, letters, reports—something to indicate why he had been slain. Yet I knew I could not risk going back there, and it was doubtful that the murderer would have been so clumsy as to leave anything indirectly incriminating on the body itself.

  I did not know where to start. I didn’t think anything could be gained by going to Fitzmartin, facing him. He certainly would answer no questions. Why had it been necessary to kill Grassman? Either it was related to Grassman’s job, or it was something apart from it. Grassman’s job had apparently been due to Rose Fulton’s conviction that her husband had come to some harm here in Hillston.

  Prine’s investigation had evidently been thorough. He was satisfied that Fulton and Eloise Warden had run off together. He had a witness to the actual departure. Yet Grassman had been poking around the cabin the Wardens used to own. I could not imagine what he hoped to gain.

  I could not help but believe that Grassman’s death was in some way related to the sixty thousand dollars. I wondered if Grassman had somehow acquired the information that a sizable sum had disappeared from the Warden business ventures over a period of time, and had added two and two together. Or if, in looking for Fulton’s body, he had stumbled across the money. Maybe at the same time Fitz was looking for it. Many murders have been committed for one tenth that amount. There was only one starting place with Grassman. That was Rose Fulton. Maybe Grassman had sent her reports. She was probably a resident of Illinois.

  I wondered who would know her address. It would have to be someone whose suspicions would not be aroused. I wondered if there was any way of finding out without asking anyone. If the police investigation had been reported in the local paper, Fulton’s home town would probably have been given, but not his street address.

  I realized that I did not dare make any effort to get hold of Mrs. Fulton. It would link me too closely to Grassman.

  Antoinette Rasi then. I would look for her.

  The shack was on the riverbank. It had a sagging porch, auto parts stamped into the mud of the yard, dingy Monday washing flapping on a knotted line, a disconsolate tire hanging from a tree limb, and a shiny new television aerial. A thin, dark boy of about twelve was carefully painting an overturned boat, doing a good job of it. A little dark-headed girl was trying to harness a fat, humble dog to a broken cart. A toddler in diapers watched her. Some chickens were scratching the loose dirt under the porch.

  The children looked at me as I got out of the car. A heavy woman came to the door. She bulged with pregnancy. Her eyes and expression were unfriendly. The small girl began to cry. I heard her brother hiss at her to shut up. The woman in the doorway could have once been quite pretty. She wasn’t any more. It was hard to guess how old she might be.

  “Is your name Rasi?” I asked.

  “It was once. Now it’s Doyle. What do you want?”

  “I’m trying to locate Antoinette Rasi.”

  “For God’s sake, shut up sniveling, Jeanie. This man isn’t come to take the teevee.” She smiled apologetically at me. “They took it away once, and to Jeanie any stranger comes after the same thing. Every night the kids watch it. No homework, no nothing. Just sit and look. It drives me nuts. What do you want Antoinette for?”

  “I’ve got a message for her. From a friend.”

  The woman sniffed. “She makes a lot of friends, I guess. She doesn’t hang around here any more. She’s up in Redding. I don’t hear from her any more. She never gets down. God knows I never get up there. The old man is dead and Jack is in the federal can in Atlanta, and Doyle can’t stand the sight of her, so why should she bother coming down here. Hell, I’m only her only sister. She sends money for the kids, but no messages. No nothing.”

  “What does she do?”

  She gave me a wise, wet smile. “She goes around making friends, I guess.”

  “How do I get in touch with her?”

  “Cruise around. Try the Aztec, and the Cub Room. And try the Doubloon, too. I heard her mention that. You can probably find her.”

  It was sixty miles to Redding, and dark when I got there. It was twice the size of Hillston. It was a town with a lot of neon. Lime and pink. Dark, inviting blue. Lots of uniforms on the night streets. Lots of girls on the dark streets. Lots of cars going nowhere too fast, horns blowing, Bermuda bells ringing, tires wailing. I asked where the Aztec and the Cub Room and the Doubloon were. I was directed to a wide highway on the west edge of town, called, inevitably, the Strip. There the neon really blossomed. There wasn’t as much sidewalk traffic. But for a Monday night there were enough cars in the lots. Enough rough music in the air. Enough places to lose your money. Or spend it. Or have it taken away from you.

  I went to the Aztec and I went to the Cub Room and I went to the Doubloon. In each place I asked a bartender about Antoinette Rasi. On each occasion I received a blank stare and a shrug and a, “Never heard of her.”

  “Dark-haired girl?”

  “That’s unusual? Sorry, buster.”

  The cadence of the evening was beginning to quicken. All three places were glamorous. They were like the lounges of the hotels along Collins Avenue on Miami Beach. And like the bistros of Beverly Hills. The lighting was carefully contrived. There was a Las Vegas tension in those three places, a smell of money. Here the games were hidden. But not hard to find.

  The way Mrs. Doyle had spoken of her sister gave me reason to believe I could get assistance from the police. They were in a brand new building. The sergeant looked uncomfortable behind a long curve of stainless steel.

  I told him what Mrs. Doyle had said about how to find her.

  “There ought to be something on her. Let me check it out. Wait a couple minutes.”

  He got on the phone. He had to wait quite a while. Then he thanked the man on the other end and hung up. “He knows her. She’s been booked a couple times as Antoinette Rasi. But the name she uses is Toni Raselle. She calls herself an entertainer. He says he thinks she did sing for a while at one place. She’s a fancy whore. The last address he’s got is the Glendon Arms. That’s a high-class apartment hotel on the west side, not too far from the Strip. Both times she was booked last it was on a cute variation of the old badger game. So cute they couldn’t make it stick. So watch yourself. She plays with rough people. We got rough ones her
e by the dozen.”

  I thanked him and left. It was nearly ten when I got back to the Strip. I went into the Aztec first. I went to the same bartender. “Find that girl yet?” he asked.

  “I found she calls herself Toni Raselle.”

  “Hell, I know her. She comes in every once in a while. She may show here yet tonight. You an old friend or something?”

  “Not exactly.”

  I tried the other two places. They knew the name there also, but she hadn’t been in. I had a steak sandwich in the Doubloon. A girl alone at the bar made a determined effort to pick me up. She dug through her purse looking for matches, unlit cigarette in her mouth. She started a conversation a shade too loudly with the bartender and tried to drag me into it. She was a lean brunette with shiny eyes and trembling hands. I ordered a refill for her and moved onto the bar stool next to her.

  We exchanged inanities until she pointed up at the ceiling with her thumb and said, “Going to try your luck tonight? I’m always lucky. You know there’s some fellas I know they wouldn’t dare try the crap table without they give me some chips to get in the game.”

  “I don’t want to gamble.”

  “Yeah, sometimes I get tired of it, too. I mean when you just can’t seem to get any action out of your money.”

  “Do you know a girl around town named Toni Raselle?”

  She stopped smiling. “What about her? You looking for her?”

  “Somebody mentioned her. I remembered the name. Is she nice?”

  “She’s damn good looking. But she’s crazy. Crazy as hell. She doesn’t grab me a bit.”

  “How come you think she’s crazy, Donna?”

  “Well, dig this. There’s some important guys around here. Like Eddie Larch that owns this place. Guys like Eddie. They really got a yen for her. A deal like that you can fall into. Everything laid on. Apartment, car, clothes. They’d set you up. You know? Then all you got to do is be nice and take it easy. Not Toni. She strictly wants something going on all the time. She wants to lone wolf it. And she keeps getting in jams that way. My Christ, you’d think she liked people or something. If I looked like her, I’d parlay that right into stocks and bonds, believe you me. But that Toni. She does as she damn pleases. She don’t like you, you’re dead. So you can have hundred-dollar bills out to here, you’re still dead. She wouldn’t spit if your hair was on fire. That’s how she’s crazy, man.”

  “I think I see what you mean.”

  Donna sensed she’d made some sort of tactical error. She smiled broadly and said, “Don’t take me serious, that about parlaying it into stocks and bonds. I’m not that type girl. I like a few laughs. I like to get around. My boy friend is away and I got lonesome tonight so I thought I’d take a look around, see what’s going on. You know how it is. Lonesome? Sure you wouldn’t want to see if you’re lucky?”

  “I guess not.”

  She pursed her lips and studied her half-empty glass. She tried the next gambit. “You know, at a buck a drink, they must make a hell of a lot out of a bottle. If a person was smart they’d do their drinking at home. It would be a lot cheaper.”

  “It certainly would.”

  “You know, if we could get a bottle, I got glasses and ice at my place. We could take our hair down and put our feet up and watch the teevee and have a ball. What do you say?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “My boy friend won’t be back in town until next weekend. I got my own place.”

  “No thanks, Donna.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Nothing in particular.”

  “Joey,” she called to the bartender. “What kind of place you running? You got a dead customer sitting here. He’s giving me the creepers.” She moved over two stools and wouldn’t look at me. Within fifteen minutes two heavy, smiling men came in. Soon she was in conversation with them. The three of them went upstairs together to try the tables. I hoped her luck was good.

  After she was gone the bartender came over and said in a low voice, “The boss gives me the word to keep her out of here. She used to be a lot better looking. Now she gets drunk and nasty. But when he isn’t around, I let her stay. What the hell. It’s old times, like they say. You know how it is.”

  “Sure.”

  “She can sure get nasty. And she won’t make any time with that pair. Did you dig those country-style threads? A small beer says they don’t have sixteen bucks between the pair of them. She’s losing her touch. Last year this time she’d have cut off their water before they said word one. Old Donna’s on the skids.”

  “What will she do?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know where they go. She can always sign for a tour.” He winked. “See the world. See all the ports in S.A. I don’t know where they go.”

  I wandered back to the Aztec. My bartending friend told me that Toni Raselle was out in the casino in back, escorted by a general. He said she was wearing a white blouse and dark-red skirt, and had an evening scarf that matched her skirt.

  I tipped him and went out into the casino. I bought chips through the wicket just inside the door. The large room was crowded. It was brightly, whitely lighted, like an operating amphitheater. The light made the faces of the people look sick. The cards, the chips, the dice, the wheels were all in pitiless illumination. I spotted the uniform across the room. The general was big-chested. He held his face as though he thought he resembled MacArthur. He did a little. But not enough. He had three rows of discreetly faded ribbons.

  Antoinette Rasi stood beside him and laughed up at him. It was the face of the high-school picture, matured, not as sullen. Her tumbled hair was like raw blue-black silk. She held her folded rebozo over her arm. Her brown shoulders were bare. She was warm within her skin, moving like molten honey, teeth white in laughter against her tan face. Wide across the cheekbones. Eyes deep set. Nose broad at the bridge. Feral look. Gypsy look. A mature woman so alive she made the others in the room look two dimensional, as though they had been carefully placed there to provide their drab contrast to Toni’s look of greedy life.

  They were at the roulette table. I stood across the table. The general was solemnly playing the black. When he lost Toni laughed at him. He didn’t particularly like it, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. I had twenty one-dollar chips. I began playing twenty-nine, and watching her instead of the wheel. I won thirty-six dollars on the fourth spin. I began to play the red, and kept winning. Toni became aware of my interest in her. So did the general. He gave me a mental command to throw myself on my sword. Toni gave me a few irritated glances.

  Finally the general had to go back to the window to buy more chips. They didn’t sell them at the table. As soon as he was gone I said, “Antoinette?”

  She looked at me carefully. “Do I know you?”

  “No. I want a chance to talk to you.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Antoinette Rasi. Through Timmy Warden. Remember him?”

  “Of course. I can’t talk now. Phone me tomorrow. At noon. Eight three eight nine one. Can you remember that?”

  “Eight three eight nine one. I’ll remember.”

  The general came back, staring at me with bitter suspicion. I went away, taking with me the memory of her dark eyes and her low, hoarse, husky voice.

  I drove back through the night to Hillston. It was well after midnight when I got there. I wondered if they would be waiting for me at the motel. But the No Vacancy sign was lighted and my room was dark.

  I went to bed and went to sleep at once. An hour later I awakened abruptly from a nightmare. I was drenched with sweat. I had dreamed that Grassman rode my back, his legs clamped around my waist, his heavy arms around my throat. I walked down a busy street with him there, asking, begging for help. But they would scream and cover their eyes and shrink away from me. And I knew that Grassman’s face was more horrible than I had remembered. No one would help me. Then it was not Grassman any more. It was Timmy who rode there. I could smell the eart
h we had buried him in. I woke up in panic and it took me a long time to quiet down again.

  • EIGHT •

  I called her at noon and she answered on the tenth ring just as I was about to give up.

  Her voice was blurred with sleep. “Whozit?”

  “Tal Howard.”

  “Who?”

  “I spoke to you last night at the Aztec. About Timmy Warden. You said to phone.”

  I could hear the soft yowl of her complete yawn. “Oh, sure. You go have some coffee or something and then stop around here. I live at a place called the Glendon Arms. Give me about forty minutes to wake up.”

  I wasted a half hour over coffee and a newspaper, and then found the Glendon Arms without difficulty. It was as pretentious as its name, with striped canopy, solid glass doors, mosaic tile lobby floor, desk clerk with dreary sneer. He phoned and told me I could go right up to Miss Raselle’s apartment, third floor, 3A. The elevator was self-service. The hallway was wide. I pushed the button beside her door.

  She opened the door and smiled as she let me in. She wore a white angora sleeveless blouse, slacks of corduroy in a green plaid. I had expected her to be puffy, blurred by dissipation, full of a morning surliness. But she looked fresh, golden, shining and clean. The great mop of black hair was pulled sleekly back and fastened into an intricate rosette.

  “Hi, Tal Howard. Can you stand more coffee? Come along.”

  There was a small breakfast terrace with sliding doors that opened onto it from the bedroom and the kitchen. The sun was warm on the terrace. We had coffee and rolls and butter on a glass-topped table.

  “Last night was a waste,” she said. “He was a friend of a friend. A stuffed uniform until drink number ten. And then what. He goes with his hands like so. Zoom. Dadadadadada. Gun noises. Fighter planes. I’m too old for toys.”

  “He had a lot of ribbons.”

  “He told me what they were for. Several times. How did you track me down, Tal Howard?”

  “Through your sister.”

  “Dear God. Anita has turned into a real slob. It’s that Doyle. Doyle allows that the sun rises and sets on Doyle. The kids are nice, though. I don’t know how they made it, but they are. What’s with Timmy? He was my first love. How is that cutie?”