Vixen by Bill Pronzini Page B

was going through her mind when the phone rang and the same dude as before started another rap about needing to see Bill ASAP. He sounded even more tight-assed this time, as if he were upset about something and working to keep himself under control.
    â€œWhere is he? Not in the hospital, is he?”
    â€œThe hospital? No. Why would you think that?”
    â€œOut of town, then, or what?”
    â€œI can’t tell you that. What’s your business with him?”
    â€œThat’s between him and me. Can you get a message to him? Have him get in touch with me right away? Not by phone, in person.”
    â€œI might be able to, if it’s important enough.”
    â€œIt’s important, all right.”
    â€œWho am I talking to?”
    Long pause before he countered with, “Who’re you?”
    â€œTamara Corbin. Partner in this agency.”
    â€œPartner.” Another pause. “This is Frank Chaleen.”
    Tamara wasn’t surprised. The hospital question had tipped her. The other thing Bill had told her last night was a brief account of how Margaret Vorhees had tried to brain him with a whiskey glass.
    She said, playing the dude, “What was that name again?”
    â€œFrank Chaleen. You know who I am.”
    â€œDo I? What makes you think so?”
    Pause number three. Then, “Don’t you people talk to each other?”
    â€œUsually. When there’s good reason.”
    â€œYour partner didn’t say anything to you about me?”
    â€œI didn’t say that. How do I know you’re who you claim to be? Just a voice on the telephone.”
    Chaleen didn’t like that. She could tell she’d gotten under his skin; his voice had an angry wobble when he said, “You get a message to him, tell him to come talk to me.” He rapped out the address of Chaleen Manufacturing. “Tell him he’d better show up soon if he knows what’s good for him.”
    Like hell I will, Tamara thought. She said, “Good-bye, Mr. Careen,” deliberately mispronouncing his name, and hung up on him this time.
    *   *   *
    Jake Runyon came in a little before one. She was expecting him; he’d been in the city all morning, finishing up a hit-and-run investigation for the victim’s attorney, and had told her yesterday that he’d stop in with a report and to see if she had anything new for him.
    She let him get his business out of the way first. Pulled up the hit-and-run casefile and made notes on it while he talked, in between bites from the sandwich she’d brought from home. When he was done, she said, “News, Jake, none of it good,” and told him, first, about Cybil Wade dying. She’d thought about notifying him last night after Bill’s call, but why lay a load of gloom on the man after he’d put in a long day on and off the road? There was nothing he could do. Nothing she could do, either.
    Jake had one of these immobile faces that seldom showed emotion, made it hard to guess what he was thinking. Not so much now, though. The news had the same effect on him that it had had on her. The way one side of his mouth twitched and he muttered, “Damn,” told her that.
    â€œBill said Kerry seems to be coping all right so far, but after all she’s been through…”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œBe a while before he comes back to work. So we’ll have to take up the slack, maybe put in even more overtime.”
    â€œThat’s no problem.”
    Tamara said, “He got the news just after talking to Margaret Vorhees yesterday. That went down hard for him, too.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œShe was drunk, belligerent. Wouldn’t believe she was in any danger. He told her as much as he could … a little too much, maybe, he said. Dropped Chaleen’s name, intimated Cory Beckett was screwing him as well as her husband, and she went ballistic. Called him a liar, threw a glass