Angelo said, “I’m willing to give you a sort of a break, you know?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“You don’t want me along, right? You seem to take one look at me and your mouth fills up with rotten things to say. And me, I don’t relish spending the day in the company of a sour would-be hardass like you.”
“We don’t like each other. Agreed.”
Angelo smiled, his pudgy face almost cherubic. “You see, it’s like this... I got this lady friend in Milwaukee, and when I found out I was going to be in town today I called her up and she was free. And, well, I wouldn’t mind spending the morning with this lady friend, you know what I mean?”
“What about your wife you’re always talking about?’
“She’s at home with the kids where she belongs, what d’you mean what about my wife? Anyway, the only reason I’m insisting on staying with you is I got to stay in tight with Felix. I mean, I want to hang onto my job, you can understand that, it pays good, keeps my family in nice clothes and their stomachs filled, you know?”
Nolan nodded.
“So here’s what I thought. I’ll kind of let you go your own way, but I’ll leave the number for you to call. It’s a greasy spoon on the north side of Milwaukee, my lady friend lives up above. The guy’ll relay whatever message you got for me upstairs. I think it would work out okay, but you worry me a little. I mean, Jesus, if you go and get killed you’ll put me in a very sticky situation.”
“I wasn’t planning on getting killed.”
“That’s just it, who does? And you, you’re due to get it one of these times, I mean, I heard the stories about you. But I’m willing, if you’ll promise to cover for me with Felix, and call that number I’ll give you every half hour or so, to let me know things are going okay, and give me some idea of where you’re going to be. And we’ll have to meet someplace afterward and get our stories together. I don’t know. Jeez. What d’you think?”
“I think I like you better now,” Nolan said. He waved at a waitress, to get one last cup of coffee. “Let me buy you some more pancakes.”
“Okay,” Angelo said, “but my wife is going to kill me.”
When he got there, Nolan thought he’d screwed up. Or maybe that kid at the filling station told him wrong. The neighborhood was upper middle class, full of big two-story white houses, old but with good Gothic lines and well kept up. The streets were wide and lined with shade trees and two cars per family. The lawns sloped away from sidewalks and were well tended, green trimmed hedges crowding porches, separating this yard from that one. What the hell was Tillis doing here?
Balling some white chick, most likely, Nolan mused, allowing himself a small smile. He got out of the tan Ford and walked up onto the porch of this particular house, the one in which Tillis’ woman supposedly lived. The porch was screened in and had an old-fashioned swing on it and the paper was here but hadn’t been brought in yet. He noticed he was standing on a rubber mat that said the Stillwell family. Before he knocked, he thought it over and backed down off the porch and took a look around. This was the right number, all right. Because the porch was roofed, the second floor seemed to sit way back, emphasizing the Gothic shape of the house, its gingerbread trimming. Some of the windows up there were stained glass and it was an absurd obsolete old house that Nolan would have liked to live in, in another life, and only reaffirmed his thoughts about the neighborhood being wrong for Tillis — what’s a rotten guy like you doing in a nice place like this?
The he spotted something, something stuck onto one of the clear windows between two stained; it was a decal pasted on the glass, a bright red circle with an upside down Y in it, and he understood. A peace emblem. So. The upper floor was an apartment, rented out to some college student, or what’s worse, teacher. Well, everybody needs extra money these days, even folks in beautiful old tree-shaded neighborhoods couldn’t be particular about their roomers any more. Things were tough all over.
Inside a doorway in back, he went up a spastic stairway that required three right turns of him and finally deposited him on an over-size landing in front of a white door. On the door was a slot with a card in it saying Phyllis Watson. Nolan knocked. He had his.38 out, which he didn’t think he’d need, but caution never hurt anybody; he also stood to one side of the door, back to the wall.
A pretty white girl with puffy brown eyes and long brown hair that was tousled and a little bit greasy opened the door and stepped out on the landing wearing a shortie terrycloth robe. This anti-war girl was just full of love and trust, not to mention stupidity, and Nolan thought Tillis ought to train his women a little better; she certainly had no hesitation about answering the door (which didn’t seem to have a night-latch on it, as far as Nolan could tell) and coming out to say hello with most of her skin showing.
