Free Live Free

Citizens Of The Street

“In a wall,” Stubb muttered to himself. Swiftly yet methodically, he inspected every wall, striking matches to peer at those the sunlight failed to reach, finding and lighting Free’s candle, grinning bitterly at the footprints Barnes and the witch had left in the snow, smashing plaster occasionally with a hammer he discovered in a broom closet. He found no ticket, no treasure, no wall safe or hiding place.

Wearily, he walked to the house on the other side of Mrs. Baker’s and knocked. A thin young woman in a soiled housedress came to the door, carrying a baby that squalled fretfully, like a toilet with a leaky valve.

“I’m sorry,” Stubb said. “I hope I didn’t wake him up.”

“She hasn’t been to sleep yet. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, it’s a girl.” Stubb tickled the baby’s chin. “Isn’t she cute!”

“Her name’s Melissa.”

“How about that! Listen, Melissa, I’m a detective, and I need to ask your mommy a few questions about a certain car. Can I come in?”

The young woman’s jaw dropped. “Wait a minute. Are you really a cop?”

Stubb took a badge case from his pocket, flipped it open, and closed it again. “You and your family aren’t in any trouble,” he said. “I just want to ask you about some people who came to the house next door last night.”

“Okay.” The young woman stepped back. “Haven’t I seen you around the neighborhood?”

“Sure,” Stubb told her. “I was in and out of the place two doors down a couple dozen times before they demolished it.”

The young woman nodded wisely. Her house was less clean than Mrs. Baker’s and Free’s had been, and it smelled of excrement.

Stubb sat on a green plastic chair at the dinette table. “I want you to think about the house next door. That way. Got it? An old lady lives there.”

“I think so. I see her shopping sometimes. I don’t know what her name is. Is she all right?”

“Sure, she’s fine—I just talked to her. Last night there was a four-door sedan, dark color, parked in front of her house. It must have been there from about six to at least eight. Think back. Did you see it?”

The young woman shook her head.

“Were you outside anytime yesterday evening?”

The young woman nodded. “That’s the trouble. We went over to my mom’s and left Melissa, then we went to a movie. Ed got off at five, and we left just after that.”

“You don’t work?”

“Not since Melissa came. We decided I’d take at least a year off.”

“What time did you get back from the show?”

“Ten, maybe. See, we had to go over to Mom’s, and then we ate with her, and then we went back to the show, and then we sat around for a while and told her about the picture. It was Something Strange. That was the name of the movie.”

“It’s good you get out once in a while. I know how it is, staying inside all the time looking after a little baby. You like the show?”

The young woman smiled. “I guess so. It scared me silly. I hung onto Ed all night.”

“You want to watch out, or you’ll never get back to work. It’s one of those haunted house pictures, isn’t it?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “There’s this old house up on a rock in New England. Barbara Delacourt answers an ad for a house-sitter. See, she’s supposed to take care of it while they’re in Europe. What she don’t know is the house eats people, and every so often they do this to feed it. Once she started to go into a closet, and the clothes hanging up and the shoe boxes on the floor all turn into teeth. I crawled right under the seat.”

“You didn’t have to worry—the star never gets it until the end of the picture. But speaking of haunted houses, you haven’t seen anything funny going on in the place two doors down, have you?”

“Not except that they’re tearing it down. They’re going to tear this one down too, and the place next door. They said they’d tell us when. Ed and me only rent, but we’re looking for something else, maybe an apartment if they’ll take Melissa.”

“They’re going at it pretty slow, if they’ve started on Free’s but haven’t even told you when yours is coming down.”

“Is Free their name? The place across from the Frees’s is condemned too.”

“The doctor’s?”

“No, that’s across from here. Across from the Frees’s. Only with the strike, it might be a long time.”

“I didn’t know there was one.”

“It’s the construction guys. They walked off yesterday afternoon. That’s why nobody’s working today. Some guy got hurt as soon as they started. Some cop. I mean a police officer.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“There was a big number about it. The TV came. Then two construction guys got hurt too, and the rest of them walked out. Unsafe working conditions, I guess.”

“I see.” Stubb rose smiling. “Listen, I can see you’re busy with the baby, and I don’t want to take up any more of your time. You’ve been a big help. If the forces of law and order got more cooperation from good citizens like you, well, the neighborhoods wouldn’t be as bad as they are.”

The young woman looked modest. “Officer, you were just somebody nice to talk to. A break in the day.”

“Thanks. Listen—that car I told you about? I don’t know if it’ll be back, but I will. If you see it, take a good look and write down the license number, will you? Try and see who’s in it.”

The man who answered the next door was large and black and yawning. He wore an undershirt and white boxer shorts. When Stubb showed his badge, he grabbed his wrist. “Hey, man, let me look at that. That say Private Investigator—you ain’t no real policeman.”

“Did I say I was a policeman?”

“Course you did.” The black plucked the badge case from Stubb’s hand. “Get your foot out my door.”

“No, I didn’t. I said I was a detective. I am. I’m a private detective, just like it says on the tin. I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

“You got this out the mail-order catalog.”

“Sure. Where else would I get a badge like that? There’s a company out in California.”

“You just get out my door.” The black drew back the door to slam it, and Stubb stepped inside. The black said, “Man, just what do you think you’re doin’?”

“You said to get out of the door, so I did. I have to talk to you, and I figured you were probably freezing, standing there in your undies.”

“You woke me up, man. I was sleepin’. I work third shift this week.”

“Yeah? What do you do?”

“What you care? Little man, you know I could chew your ass up and spit you out.”

“Sure, but you won’t.” Stubb looked about the room, then sat on a straight-backed chair near the lone, comfortable-looking easy chair.

“You tell me why I won’t. Man, it’s cold in here.”

“Because you know I’m a private op, and I might be carrying a gun.”

“Are you doin’ that?”

Stubb got out a battered pack of cigarettes and offered one. “If I said, you couldn’t be sure you could believe me.”

“Guess you’re right.” The black accepted a cigarette and bent over Stubb’s match. “Here.” He tossed the badge case into the small man’s lap. “Keep it. I’m goin’ to get a blanket.”

He reemerged from the rear of the house in a minute or so, a plain, dark green blanket wrapped about his shoulders. “How about this? Look at superman. I got me a nice, warm robe a while back, but I spilled somethin’ on it. My woman’s been soakin’ it. Now, what you here for, wakin’ me up an’ botherin’ me?”

Stubb told him about the car.

“Didn’t see it. I don’t never pay much mind to what neighbors is doin’ anyway. If you do an’ they’re doin’ bad, they’ll get you for it. If they’re not doin’ bad, what’s the good of it?”

“Will you keep your eyes open for me anyhow? I’ll check with you on the weekend when you don’t have to sleep.”

“Man, weekends I sleep till noon.”

“I’ll check in the afternoon, then.” Stubb stood up.

“You don’t even know my name. I’m Buster Johnson.”

“Jim Stubb. Somebody told me about you once—I think it was the lady down at the all-night grocery. She said you were a tough dude.”

“She told you right. I does my share.”

“You look it.”

“See that scar?” Johnson touched his face with one finger. “That’s a busted beer bottle. You put that scar on you, man, and the little children would run off out the street. On a black man they don’t show so much.”

Stubb nodded. “It’s a shame.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Depends on whether you want to scare the men or cuddle up the women. I believe I’d just as soon cuddle up.”

“There were two women in that car I told you about. If you’ve got an eye for the ladies, you might use it to keep a lookout for them.”

“I might at that. Specially if there was somethin’ in it for Buster.”

“I haven’t got money to toss around on this one,” Stubb said. “But there might be some later. If you see something let me know, and we’ll see what we can do.”

As he went down the icy steps to the sidewalk, Johnson called behind him, “Man, you really got heat?”

A clown opened the next door. His nose was a red rubber ball; the rest of his long, smoothly ovoid face was of a white so pure as to be nearly luminous. Scarlet tears shaped like inverted hearts fell from his eyes. His collar was a wide ruff that would have honored an Elizabethan gentleman, and the buttons of his white blouse were pompoms.

“Yes?” he said.

“I’m a detective. I’d like to talk to you.”

The clown nodded. It was hard for Stubb to tell what expression, if any, he wore under his sad greasepaint. “The neighbors have been complaining, I suppose,” the clown said.

“What do you think they have to complain about?” Stubb asked, stepping inside.

The room was not a living room, a sitting room, a parlor, or even a bedroom. It seemed half warehouse and half shop; there were stacks of queer clothing, masks hanging from the ceiling, and painted tubs, cabinets, and chests.

With startling agility, the clown sprang to the top of a coffin too theatrically coffin-like to be real. “I’m sorry there’s no place for you to sit,” he said. “Perhaps you can find somewhere.”

“I’ll stand,” Stubb told him. “I’ve been sitting down a lot lately.”

“What do they say?”

“Your neighbors? I think you know.”

“Of course. Get that clown out of here! Dissolve him like a dream! He’s a menace to society.” The clown pulled out a red handkerchief and pretended to blow his rubber nose. A paper butterfly propelled by a rubber band fluttered from the handkerchief and circled the room, blundering into woolen sausages and gargantuan shoes painted to look like feet.

“What’s your name?” Stubb asked.

“Nimo. Nimo the Clown.”

“Swell, Nimo. What do people call you when you’re not wearing that makeup?”

“You understand, don’t you? At least a little bit. They call me Richard A. Chester—that’s my name when I’m asleep.”

“Sure, I understand, Nimo. What does Richard A. Chester do for a living? If you don’t mind telling me.”

“Nothing,” the clown said. He used his thumbs and forefingers to make a circle. “Nothing at all.”

“He just sort of hangs around?”

“That’s right!” The clown smiled broadly and clapped his hands, delighted. “And he shops for me, and sometimes he eats for me. And he sleeps for me.”

“I don’t suppose he was hanging around out on the street last night, was he? Say, sometime between six and nine?”

“I doubt it—it was too cold. But you’d have to ask him.”

“Ask Dick?”

“Ask Richard. He doesn’t like being called Dick.”

“I’m for him. I never liked it much either. I guess if I was to come back later today I might be able to talk to him?”

“You might.”

“Maybe I will, but while I got you here, Nimo, there’s something I want to ask you. You know the house four doors down, the one they’re wrecking?”

The clown nodded.

“Is there anything you can tell me about it?”

The clown nodded again. “They don’t have any children.”