I slumped in a hard-wooden chair in the office at Central Precinct for seven hours while Lieutenant Barnes paced back and forth, fondling a leather-sheathed lead sap. Alternately slapping it into his left palm and glaring at me with what he thought was an evil eye, he pried me with questions about the Plymouth and it’s driver. I’ve been around too long to be intimidated by a two-bit cop with a railroad yard-dick’s attitude. I didn’t know anything about why the Plymouth was in the soup or why my client’s husband was behind the wheel when it rolled into the Willamette and joined all the other scrap metal and old tires. What possible trouble could a bookkeeper get into in Portland. “Bookkeeper”, I always liked the word, because it had two o’s, double k’s and twin e’s, all right in a row. Maybe that was why I was determined to do whatever I could to find out what happened to the poor schmuck. Or maybe it was the cashmere sweater. Just possibly, it was because of what was inside the cashmere sweater. I couldn’t get my mind off of her.
Maybe that was why, when Barnes released me at around 6 o’clock that evening, I headed straight to the old Vaughn Street Ball Park for a game. Nothing took my mind off of women like baseball. And the Beavers were on a tear. They had just returned from a road trip where they beat the Oaks in Oakland, three out of four and the Seals in San Francisco, four out of five. They had climbed to the top of the Pacific Coast League, which would explain why, when I arrived, the ball yard was bursting at the seams with fans. There were even folks lining the outside of the old wooden fence in right field, trying to get a view through the knot holes and cracks.
I laid out my six bits and, after I pushed through the turnstile, I headed straight for the beer stand that was selling Lucky Lager in bottles. As I was waiting in line, I heard a commotion, and glanced over to see a couple of thugs in matching bowling shirts, apparently teammates, pushing another guy in a bowling shirt of a different color. I went over to intervene.
“Take it back to the alley boys, the bowling alley I mean.” I said, as I pulled the twins off of the loner.
By now, he was on his back on the sticky cement under the grandstand. He had peanut shells stuck all over his backside, it looked like the bottom of a parrot’s cage. The two mugs resisted my motions and one of them threw a wild right hook at me. It grazed my ear and hurt like hell, making my blood start to rise. I blindly threw a couple of quick ones to his middle and something in the back of my head told me this was awfully familiar. A blast of beery wind belched past me and I didn’t even have to look to realize it was Dixon again. By now he was leaning against the metal railing that leads under the stands to the field seats, trying to hold his belly and keep it from spilling over his buckle.
“What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were a night watchman.” I barked, holding onto my ear.
“Kiss my ass.” he spit out, in between gasps.
I’d had enough of this guy. I grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him into the men’s toilet. It smelled like pee and the urinal was a trough that ran the length of one of the walls. I pushed him and his foot landed right in it, kicking a sanitary soap cake right out and onto the floor.
“I want you to tell me everything you know about Paul Price”, I demanded.
“That little piss ant had better stay off of my property” Dixon coughed up some blood and bile.
“That little piss ant is dead.” I pushed him again, his pants were now wet up to the knees.
“What, you gotta be kiddin’ me?” He sounded truly surprised.
“Don’t give me that crap.” I slapped him and his hat fell into the trough.
“I didn’t know, she never talks to me. Hell, she never even looks at me.”
That didn’t surprise me, they were from two different species, cripes, they were from two different planets.
“I want you to tell me everything you know”, I was losing my patience. And, I could hear cheering from above us in the stands, I was missing something good.
He finally spilled. According to Dixon, Price kept very regular hours. He left for work at the same time every day. And, he came home on the same regular schedule. However, Mrs. Price wasn’t so reliable. Because he was a night watchman, he was home during the day, and peeking between his venetian blinds at his sexy neighbor. He had a pretty good idea that she was doing something extra curricular during the afternoons. He didn’t go as far as to follow her anywhere, but he knew she was gone for long periods of time and she never seemed to come back with any packages. Not a compulsive shopper. But, maybe she was compulsive at something else?
I let Dixon go. His bowling partner was loitering around the exit turnstiles when we came out of the men’s pisser. They walked away while his compadre quizzed him about the recent events.
I went up to the grandstand and watched the final five innings. I love the sounds of the ballpark. The vendors shouting. The crack of the bat. The tinny transistor radios that the old timers hold to their ears to listen to Rollie Truitt’s play-by-play. I even love the aroma of the cheap cigars that send smoke wafting through the seats. The Seattle Rainiers came from behind with three runs in the seventh and two more in the top of the eighth. The Beavers stranded runners in four of the five innings and lost, 5-3. Baseball, the only form of entertainment that can leave you to go home depressed.
I stopped at Besaw’s for a corned beef on rye, washed it down with a bottle of Blitz and pointed my Chevy coupe back to my apartment in Hollywood. Yeah, there’s a neighborhood in Portland called Hollywood, named after the fancy, 1920s vintage theatre on Sandy Blvd. I headed up the Lovejoy Ramp and over the Broadway Bridge. As I drove past all the darktown jazz joints on Williams Avenue, I was tempted to stop for some action. But, after the day that I had had, I was ready to hit the rack, alone. The bowling alley under the Seven-Up tower on 37th was just emptying out. It must have been league night because there were several gangs, all wearing matching shirts. Storm Troopers in pink and blue, short sleeved shirts, with their first names embroidered over the left pocket. Carl, Vern, Ed, Earl. If these guys committed any crimes, other than bad bowling, they’d be easy to identify in a line-up. Jeez, my attitude about bowlers had taken a turn for the worse.
I made it to my place, right next door to Chin’s Kitchen. I parked my car in the alley just off of 40th, went upstairs and turned on the radio. Dick Powell was solving another crime as Richard Diamond, the singing detective, on the little bake-a-lite box, while I fell asleep watching the glow from Chin’s flashing neon sign make dancing patterns on my wall in red and blue.
