The following is a continuation of the April 18, 1949 entry into the Rocky Stone notebooks:
A cool breeze came in through my office window around three in the afternoon, and brother, I needed it. I spent a better part of the early afternoon on the telephone, tracking down records, prior addresses, possible aliases. Everything came up just short. She lived in Los Diablos for ten years in seven different apartments, went by the name of Candy Eaton, just like the good Reverend had said, but also danced at a place called The Flagon and Parsnip as Mona Longwell. Under that moniker she was arrested twice for things good girls don't get arrested for.
I heard voices in the inner office and after a few seconds the door floated open and Wanda showed Pastor Hosea in. His face was different, less reserved and more open now that we weren't in such a public place. There was genuine concern in his eyes. I didn't expect to see him this soon as I was more than a little bit annoyed by the intrusion.
“I'm a big boy, Reverend. I don't need anyone to hold my hand.”
He didn't look the least bit offended. “I needed to come,” he said, quietly.
As it so happens, he was right about that. Much though I didn't want to admit it, I was stumped. The usual channels had come up empty as a gumheel's pockets and the only one who could fill in a few of the blanks just walked into my office. “Have a seat,” I said. He did so, but on the couch in the corner instead of the leather guest chair.
I put the cards on the table right away, letting him know all about her flight from Max Blank two weeks earlier, and everything I had come up with that afternoon. He listened carefully and didn't say a word to me, just nodded when the time came up to say something. When I was finished he just looked up at me with sad eyes and said, “She's in danger.”
“Very much so,” I replied. “Blank would take down his own mother for a handful of change. So if you want her back, you've got to think: where we would she go if she was in trouble like that? Does she have any family?”
“We are the only family she has,” said Hosea with a tremor in his voice. “Her mother was her only living relative and she died a few years ago. We did not attend the funeral. There was some quarrel between them and Marjorie could not put it aside, not even then.”
“Where was it? The funeral, I mean.”
He shook his head. “She never said where. Marjorie was very protective of her past and rarely spoke of it.”
That was because she was afraid of it. There was something back in there she didn't want anybody to know, not even her own husband, because she carried the guilt around with her wherever she went. It was too painful to mention what happened. It was even too painful to mention where it had happened. Somehow, for whatever reason, I knew she had gone back to that place, the place where she grew up, where her mother lived. Even though she hated it, it was still home to her, and when she found herself with no place to go, she had to go there.
I sat down next to Pastor Hosea on the couch. “It may sound strange to you, but can you think of some time, any time in your marriage, where something upset her, and you didn't know why?”
He thought about it for a second. The police bothered her, he said, and any time she saw a cop on the streets she would look away. That stood to reason. Then something snapped in the Pastor's head like he knew exactly what I was talking about. He said: “The speaking tour.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“She would not accompany me on a speaking tour of which I was invited to take part. She absolutely refused and I could not understand why. It moved her to tears.”
“And where were you going?”
“New Mexico.”
I got up from the couch and went immediately to the phone, asked for long distance. It was flimsy, but it was the best I had and you can't leave any stone unturned in this business. The telephone clicked and an operator came on and I said to her: “Connect me to the New Mexico State Police. And hurry.”
Will Rocky discover the Pastor's wife's whereabouts? Tune in next week to the Adventures of Rocky Stone! Next week: The Lost Love, Part 6!
1 comments:
The character of Max Blank seems to be based on the real-life Norman Kolb, who owned several clubs in San Diego. Norman was arrested in 1953 for cruelty to animals when he combined the sports of dog racing and cockfighting in the back rooms of his club, The Painted Bottle.
Thank you.
Post a Comment