Toll Call Read online

  “I’ll try. There’s no need for you to stay, Marsh. I’m fine now. I just … got scared there for a while. I was afraid he might come back. But he won’t. Not tonight. He plays bridge on Thursday nights.”

  I suppressed a surging urge to throw something. “How the hell do you know all this?”

  “He told me.”

  “When?”

  “On the phone.”

  “Tonight?”

  “No.”

  “Then when?”

  “I don’t know. A couple of weeks ago, I guess.”

  “Damnit, Peggy. I don’t get it. What the sam hell’s going on?”

  Peggy sighed again, this time without wincing. “It’s nothing. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. It’s not very … I just want to go to sleep now. Please, Marsh?”

  “But you’re sure the guy who attacked you was the guy on the phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? What did he say when he shoved you?”

  “He said what he always says.”

  “Which is what?”

  “‘Think of me.’ That’s what he always says when he hangs up. ‘Think of me.’ And that’s what he said tonight.”

  “Did he say your name?”

  “No.”

  “Was he armed?”

  “I don’t think so. He just pushed me.”

  “Did he come down the stairs after you, to see if you were hurt? Or dead?”

  She paused. “I don’t remember. I guess I passed out.”

  “What was he wearing?”

  “Marsh? Please? I don’t—”

  “Just a few more questions,” I persisted. “You might not remember some of this in the morning. What was he wearing?”

  “I don’t really know. I barely saw him. A bulky sweater, I think. A ski mask. A stocking cap pulled low. Levi’s. That’s about it.”

  “Anything else? Smells? Sounds? Did you rip any part of his clothing, or scratch him or anything like that?”

  “No. There was a smell. He wore some kind of aftershave, I think; I have no idea what kind. But it all happened so fast I didn’t have time to do anything but scream. I didn’t even have time to grab the banister to keep from falling. I just did a back flip down the steps. The judges gave me a nine point nine, degree of difficulty two point eight.”

  I smiled against my irritation and patted her hand. “You seem to know a lot about this guy. In the morning I’m going to know a lot about him too. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Go to sleep. You want me to carry you to your bed?”

  “No. I’m fine here. You go home now, Marsh. Really.”

  “If you’re not going to use the bed then I am. I’ll see you in the morning. How do you like your eggs?”

  “Marsh.”

  “Peggy.”

  She smiled. “Scrambled.”

  “Okay. How do you do that, anyway?”

  She laughed and told me.

  SEVEN

  I slept fitfully, tossing and turning on a bed of tangled troubles and unfamiliar scents. Although the sheets were satin, the bedspread ruffled, the bedposts walnut, the headboard padded in soft brown leather, I didn’t enjoy a minute of it. A mysterious figure kept crashing through my dreams, hooded, silent, skeletal, emerging from the far shadows of sleep to threaten havoc and assault. By five A.M. I was as rested as I was going to get, so I got dressed and went into the living room and joined Marilyn as she stood watch over Peggy until sunshine crept over the building across the street and eased through the blinds and licked at her eyelids until they opened.

  She blinked and scratched her nose and looked around the room until she saw me. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.”

  “How long have you been up?”

  “A while.”

  “What have you been doing?”

  “Watching Marilyn watch you.”

  She covered her face with her hands. “I must look like a harpy.”

  “From the expression on Marilyn’s face I’d say you looked more like a Little Friskie.”

  “I don’t feel frisky. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

  “Souvenir of your fall. I recommend a hot bath.”

  She nodded. “That would be wonderful. If I can make it to the tub.”

  I got up and went to the couch and looked down at her. “We’ll go one step at a time. First, sit. Then, stand. Then we’ll worry about traveling cross-country.”

  She threw off the blanket I’d draped over her and swiveled into a sitting position.

  “When you stand up, put your left arm over my shoulder and I’ll put my right arm around your waist. Don’t put any weight on your ankle till you’re sure you have your balance. Then gradually test how much it can take. My guess is not much.”

  I reached out a hand and Peggy grasped it with both of hers and I tugged her to her foot. When she was reasonably steady I moved to her side and we maneuvered into a fraternal embrace while Peggy touched her injured foot to the floor. “Ouch,” she said. “You were right. It feels like someone’s got it in a vise.”

  “Are you dizzy?”

  “No. But I have a terrific headache.”

  “Let’s head for the bathroom. I’ll pretend I’m your crutch, and you can kind of hop along.”

  “Cassidy?”

  “Funny.”

  We managed to get there without toppling over, though the jarring jolts of her hops made Peggy grunt each step of the way. When we reached the bathroom I opened the door, kicked the throw rug out of the way, lowered the lid to the toilet, and helped Peggy skip her way into the room and lower herself onto the blue plastic disk.

  “So far, so good,” I said.

  Peggy was looking down. “How long will my ankle look like it’s dying?”

  “Several days. The color goes before the swelling, usually.”

  “I guess it’s sweat socks for a while.”

  “Galoshes. Can you make it on your own from here or do you need help getting out of your clothes?”

  I paired my question with a leer, but Peggy considered it seriously. “I’m wearing a full slip, of all things. It goes off over my head. I’m afraid I’ll fall trying to get the damned thing off.” She reached out a hand. “Help me.”

  I pulled her up. She balanced on one foot and I held one of her hands to steady her. With her free hand she unbuckled her belt, then tugged her slip up from beneath her skirt. When she’d finished she sat back down again, the slip a silvery cummerbund around her waist. Then she unbuttoned her blouse and took it off and tossed it at something behind me. “Hold me while I get rid of this thing,” she ordered.

  I put my hands on her hips while she wrestled the frilly satin above her bosom and then over her head. Her midriff was tan and taut, her bra two translucent scoops, her breasts fat and freckled at the top, as if sprinkled with cinnamon.

  When she caught me admiring them she threw the slip at me full in the face. “I think I can handle it from here,” she said, looking at me with her head cocked, amused more than angered by my thrall.

  “Rats,” I said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I don’t suppose you need me to scrub your back.”

  “I don’t think so. One thing might lead to another, and I haven’t brushed my teeth.”

  “Speaking of which, you don’t happen to have a spare toothbrush handy, do you?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “I thought all you swinging singles kept such conveniences around.”

  “No.” Peggy’s look darkened so considerably I guessed I tromped on a poorly buried memory. “Could you get me my robe?” The request was terse and clinical. “It’s on the hook behind the bedroom closet door.”

  I went to the bedroom and found her robe—silk, white, floor-length, with a single red rose embroidered at its lapel—and took it to her. “Anything else?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Oh. Maybe you can turn on the water. As hot as you can stand.”<
br />
  “Okay.”

  “And I use those bath oil beads over there.”

  I looked where she was pointing and plucked two pink balls that looked like plastic marbles out of an imitation crystal canister and dropped them into the steamy tub.

  “And my towel. On the shelf up there.”

  “Washcloth?”

  “No.”

  “Soap?”

  “No.”

  “Rubber duck?”

  That finally revived her grin. She punched me on the arm, much harder than I’d punched her. “Will you get out of here?”

  “Your wish is my command. The eggs will be scrambled when you’re done.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know. But then you didn’t have to let me help you off with your slip.”

  She reached for a sponge and threw it at me. I ducked, stuck out my tongue, and retreated. “And don’t forget to add milk to the eggs before you pour them in the pan,” she instructed, as I let Marilyn through the door before I closed it.

  I went to the kitchen, put on the water for coffee, found some baking soda and cleaned my teeth with it and my index finger, then found the instant coffee, eggs, frying pan, mixing bowl, and started in on breakfast.

  I puttered with the staples for ten minutes, trying not to make a mistake that would poison or inflame us. By the time there was coffee in my cup and the eggs were wrecked and ready for the pan I was feeling cocky and cute, giddy from a lack of sleep and from the slightly risqué byplay with Peggy in the bathroom.

  With the flair of Julia Child, I added a dash of this and a pinch of that to the soupy slime of eggs. Then I remembered Peggy’s caution and looked in the refrigerator for the milk, then remembered she was out. I was about to dump my concoction into the pan all the same, just to see what would happen if I fried it up as is, when Peggy called me from the bathroom. I put down the mixing bowl and hurried to the rear of the apartment.

  The door was still closed. I tapped and she told me to come in. I was greeted by a cloud of steam and a meandering cat and the sight of Peggy standing in the center of her bathroom wrapped in a towel from her cleavage to her knees, her hair dripping like molasses onto her bare shoulders and her ankle dangling six inches above the floor like an ungainly grackle that was daring its first flight.

  Her arms were crossed over her breasts and her face was as pink as her towel. “This is embarrassing,” she said, not meeting my eye.

  “Why? You look good in terry cloth.”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean I have to stand on the edge of the tub to reach those damned things and I can’t stand on the edge of the tub because of my silly ankle.”

  She was pointing to a shelf high above the basin. On it were several items—a bag of hair curlers, a can of air freshener, a still-wrapped bar of soap, a box of Kleenex—plus the item she wanted me to get. I hopped onto the tub, reached up and got the little blue box, then hopped back down and handed it to her.

  She thanked me. “On top of all the rest I just got my period. This will not go down as one of my favorite days.”

  I lingered.

  “Well? If you think I’m going to let you stay while I do this, you’re insane.”

  “We don’t have any milk. Remember? It went to join the janitor.”

  “What?”

  “Milk. For the eggs.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m going to improvise.”

  “Oh.”

  “If it doesn’t work I’ll go out for lox and bagels.”

  “Fine. Good-bye, Marsh.”

  “Or doughnuts, if you prefer. I like the powdered sugar ones. About half a dozen.”

  “Good-bye, Marsh.”

  “Or maybe croissants, if you’re that type.”

  “Marsh. I mean it.”

  “’Bye.”

  I returned to the kitchen and inspected the mixing bowl. The ingredients I’d added didn’t seem to be blending all that well with the eggs. I stirred but didn’t improve the situation, so I stirred some more, then opened the freezer and took out the quart of strawberry ice cream and added a teaspoon’s worth of that as well. It still looked funny.

  As I was debating what to do next I heard a knock on the door. When I was halfway to it I remembered why I was where I was and went back to get a rolling pin.

  EIGHT

  The woman at the door was small, stout, electrically alert, a bundle of nervous energy in braided brown hair, a workshirt and Levi’s faded to a matching azure, and a pair of unlaced hiking boots that suggested her legs ended in ragged stumps. Her vivid eyes hopped when I opened the door. Her face narrowed as she speculated on my purpose, and the measuring cup she had extended like a sacrament was slowly lowered behind a thigh. “You’re not Peggy,” she intoned absurdly, her voice fit for someone twice her size.

  “No.”

  “Is she here?”

  “She’s getting dressed. She’ll be out in a minute if you want to come in and wait.”

  She hesitated. “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said finally, glancing behind me for a hint of what was going or had gone on. Finding nothing illuminating, she looked up at me again. “You’re him, aren’t you?”

  I shrugged. “I guess that depends on who him is.”

  “Tanner. The detective.”

  “Then I’m him. How’d you know?”

  “She told me once you looked like a fighter who’d never gotten hit. That was close, but not quite right. I’d say you’ve been hit three or four times, but not hard enough to put you down for the count.”

  She was grinning now, engagingly, and I laughed with her. “I’ve been down and I’ve been out and whatever it is you’ve decided is the reason I’m here at this hour of the morning is most probably wrong. You must be Karen. The friend from upstairs.”

  “Right. Karen Whittle.”

  I stuck out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  She transferred the measuring cup and gave my hand a brisk pump. “Likewise, I’m sure,” she replied, still not entirely at ease despite the banter. “I just came by for some margarine. I’m all out, and I’ve got a six-year-old up there parked in front of a pancake that will apparently remain inedible until something polyunsaturated is smeared all over it.” She glanced up at me again. “You care if I just raid the fridge and disappear?”

  “Help yourself.”

  I stood aside and let her into the apartment. She brushed past me and in the process glanced surreptitiously toward the living room. When she saw signs of bedding on the couch she seemed disappointed.

  After that moralistic hesitation, she made straight for the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and helped herself to two heaping scrapes of margarine from a yellow plastic tub. “I better get back before the batter turns to stone,” she said after she replaced the tub. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Detective. Peggy thinks you’re a pretty wonderful guy. I wish I had time to stick around and see if she could possibly be right.”

  “She says nice things about you, too,” I said. “Of course she also says nice things about Imelda Marcos.”

  “That’s probably why we’re friends,” Karen said. “I don’t say nice things about anyone. See you, Tanner.”

  “See you, Whittle.”

  She walked to the door, opened it, then turned back toward me. “Nothing’s wrong, is there? With Peggy?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know,” she said above a shrug. “She’s been different lately.”

  “Different how?”

  She frowned. “Nervous. Snappy. Worried. I don’t know, she’s just not the same person she was six months ago. Is she all right? What I mean is, are you here romantically or professionally?”

  I didn’t answer that particular question because I wasn’t sure quite how to. “She had some trouble last night,” I said instead, “but she’s all right now. Do you have any idea what’s been bothering her?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “So you’ve noticed it too?”

/>   I nodded. “The other day she fell asleep at the office. Normally she’d only lie down on the job if someone shot her.”

  Karen Whittle nodded. “I know what you mean. She’s been exhausted for weeks. I’ve asked her about it but she won’t talk to me. I thought maybe it had something to do with Allison, her daughter, but that’s just a guess. And she talked about some phone calls a while back, obscene things, I assume, but she hasn’t mentioned them for a while. So I don’t know. But if you’re here to find out and I can help you in any way, I hope you’ll let me know. Peggy’s real special to me.”

  I looked at her and made a quick decision to enlist an ally. “Someone shoved Peggy down the stairs last night.”

  Her eyes ballooned and she glanced toward the living room again, and then behind her, toward the hallway. “What stairs? These stairs?”

  “Right. At about ten o’clock.”

  “But I saw her at the grocery store about then. My God. It must have happened right after. Is she hurt?”

  “Twisted ankle. Sore ribs. She’ll survive.”

  “But who? And why?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “In a few minutes I’m going to work real hard at finding out. I don’t think she knows everything but she knows more about it than she’s told me so far and I’m going to dig like hell for it. But if you learn something before I do I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know. It could help save her life. To be melodramatic about it.”

  Karen Whittle looked at me closely. “You’re not being melodramatic; you’re being serious.”

  I nodded. “Afraid so.”

  “Unbelievable. And it happened right here.” She hesitated, then glanced quickly at her watch. “I’ve got to get back. Lily, that’s my daughter, will be wild. You tell Peggy I’m here whenever she wants me. She should know that already, but you remind her, okay?”

  I told her I would. “And maybe you can keep your eyes open for anything unusual around the building,” I added. “Strangers, that kind of thing.”

  Karen Whittle nodded solemnly. “Oh, I keep my eyes open for that kind of thing all the time, Tanner. It’s what I do best in the world, and I’ve been doing it for years.”

  She began to walk away before I could ask her what that meant. Then she turned back once again. “I’m going to say something that’s probably insulting, but I’m going to say it anyway.”