“Wait, Conacher. Wait.”
“You’ll talk?”
“Don’t be mean to me. I’ll tell you why I came. Give me a drink. I need another shot and a few kind words. Be a good guy and hand me the bottle?”
So I was a good guy and handed her the bottle. She swallowed a long and thirsty drag at the thing. She gulped and coughed and spluttered and continued to drink. In another few seconds she would have emptied the bottle. I took it away from her and let her cough herself back to some semblance of normalcy.
“I loved Greg,” she sobbed. “I was crazy about that fat boy, believe me. And he liked me, too. We got along, I tell you. All the way.”
She racked out her great passion for Greg Wilkinson, breaking it down into detail for me, the whole works, the intimate secrets of their tremendous affection for each other. She sobbed her loyalty to him, explaining how he had wooed her and won her long before she came to work at Cumber’s. She dug back into their history, their friendship in Chicago, where they first met. She was a bumbling drunk, a meandering talker, anxious to convince me that she knew her man in every way a woman should know a man. She detoured into their first delectable moments. She was hell-bent for building a pornographic picture of their initial mattress mating.
But I cut her short on the way into bed with him.
“I believe you were in love with him,” I yelled at her. “That still doesn’t explain why you came here tonight.”
“I wanted something of his,” Vivian wailed. “Any little thing, Conacher. A keepsake. A picture. After work, I went into a bar and cried into my beer for a while. I began to feel sorry for myself. I asked myself stupid questions. Why did I love him so much? And what did I have to show for it?” She turned her stained eyes up to me. “Nothing. I had nothing but some memories. So I came here to find a keepsake. Does that sound corny? Does that sound like a lie to you?”
She blundered against the upset bed, sinking her face into the sheets and trembling with impossible sorrow. I looked down at her and wondered whether any actress on earth could put on this routine.
“Get up,” I told her. “And get the hell out of here.”
“I’m leaving.” Her feet were lost to her. And her usually deadpan face couldn’t quite hold up under the strain of her throbbing emotions. She fumbled stupidly with her blouse. She held her bag unsteadily, letting it swing as she walked to the door. When she turned to smile at me, she was a caricature of alcoholic sorrow, loose and limp and operating out of instinct. “And I didn’t even get a memento, did I?”
“Maybe he left you something in his will.”
“You’re a stinker, Conacher.” She seemed to rally for a small pause. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“I’ll let you know in the morning.”
She slid out to the landing and started downstairs. I watched her ease herself along the balustrade and lift her shapely gams slowly down the steps. She couldn’t see me when she reached the lobby down there. She wasn’t aware that I stood at a good angle, where I could watch her make petulant faces at herself in the hail mirror, dabbing powder along her streaked cheeks, running fresh lipstick on the broad lines of her mouth.
Then she moved out to the front door.
I ran down the stairs behind her.
CHAPTER 19
Mama Netti’s was a small tourist dump located in the core of Greenwich Village. The little tables were checkered in the finest Italian tradition and there were yellow candles in wine bottles and sawdust on the floor and the ripe and biting smell of garlicky food in the air. My table sat near the window. The street became a stage through that window, made to order for keeping the flossy joint across the way in focus.
After a while, Midge Doughty said: “What did you call me down here for, boss? To hold your head?”
“I could use a head holder.”
“You could use a doctor. Who hit you?”
“That’s why you’re here, Midge. Maybe we’re going to find out.”
Midge wrinkled her cute nose. “And I thought you were asking me out for dinner.” She frowned. “Instead, all I get is business. Don’t you ever give up and relax?”
“You can have the full-course dinner. Provided you keep your fanny right here at this table.” I signaled the waiter and ordered the dinner for Midge, complete with the correct wine.
“You’re not even eating with me,” Midge said.
“Haven’t got time.” I patted her hand until she smiled at me. That smile of hers was almost enough to make me forget my troubles. But not quite. “I’ll make it up to you, Midge,” I said. “Just as soon as I get off the merry-go-round.”
“I don’t believe you, Steve. But it sounds nice. What do you want me to do for you here?”
“Take a good hard gander at the canopy across the street.” The canopy belonged to one of the most celebrated bistros in New York. It was a bright yellow affair, the canvas sparkling under two sharp floodlights set back in the shadows of the building itself. This was the entrance to the Canary Club, a hangout for the sophisticated seekers of sin and sensation, a place where the management offered everything from homosexual waiters to herring and halvah. Against the background of November fog and drizzle, the entrance shone with a phony glow. Only three clients had entered the dump since I arrived, a scant half hour ago.
“What am I looking for?” Midge asked.
“Vivian Debevoise.”
“I simply watch?”
“Vivian went in alone,” I said. “I followed her down here. The last time I saw her she was putting on a big routine for me, playing the drunk. But she wasn’t at all drunk when she left me. She was sober enough to hop a cab and come right down to the Canary Club. When a doll like Vivian sees fit to playact at being a lush, I begin to wonder.”
The waiter arrived with the antipasto. He was a cordial citizen, rigged to resemble a Sicilian rustic. But he turned out to be a bright young ex GI, working his way through medical school.
“You know the Canary Club?” I asked.
“I’ve been inside on occasion,” smiled the waiter.
“Tell me about the schedule of shows in there.”
“There is only one show, sir. At midnight.”
“What do the customers do until midnight?”
He shrugged and flicked an eye at Midge. I said: “You can speak freely. She’s a big girl now.”
“Just as you wish, sir.” He paused to select the proper verbiage for his description. He had a nice manner for a medical student, speculative and serious. “If I were to describe accurately what goes on in that place,” he began, “I’m sure I would shock even a girl who has grown to full maturity. Without going into the highly erotic details, sir, I would say that the Canary Club is not exactly an establishment for gourmets. The customers arrive for special assignments, one with the other, so to speak. The club serves food, indeed, and the food is not too bad. But the club is more interested in the retailing of certain special small and intimate rooms on the second floor, if you understand what I am driving at.”
“I understand,” I said.
“But Vivian isn’t one of those,” said Midge.
“I do not know the Vivian to whom you refer,” said the waiter sagely. “But I should add that the Canary Club is often used as a meeting place by people who simply consider it a chi-chi establishment for a few drinks and chit chat. I didn’t mean to imply that all who entered its portals were sexual vagrants.”
“You know the owner?” I asked.
“I haven’t had that pleasure, thank you.”
“Know any of the steadies?”
“Again, my answer must be in the negative.”
“Nothing else that might interest us?”
“Perhaps some other time,” he said politely. “My customers are demanding my attention right now.”
I slipped him a bill an
d let him go. Midge plucked at her antipasto without appetite. The Canary Club fascinated her now.
“I’m to keep watching the place?” she asked. “Just that?”
“You’re looking for familiar faces.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ll sit and sip coffee until Vivian comes out.”
“She may be in until after midnight,” Midge moaned.
“I doubt it. She came down here to meet somebody. To talk. And from the way she made time getting here, her date should be along pretty soon. I want to know who the date is.”
“You think it’s somebody from the store?”
“I can dream, can’t I?”
“What do I do after she’s met her date? After she leaves?”
“Go home and wait,” I said. “I’ll phone you later.”
“Where are you going, Steve?”
“I’ve got to see a man.”
“Be careful.”
Careful? My head was cluttered with too many internal intermezzos for caution or clarity. The hammers had quieted after my two quick drinks with Midge. But behind the hammers, strong and headachy harmonics bounced and bumped inside me. The throbbing pains in my forehead had sloughed off to become a steady hurt, to remind me forcibly of what had happened recently in Greg Wilkinson’s brownstone. And behind the incidents at Wilkinson’s, the background at Cumber’s only a few hours ago remained bright and meaningful and ready for further exploration. It was this mixture of memory and misery that kept me rolling on right now. There were a dozen things to do. A dozen strings to pull. A dozen, dozen theories bubbling around in my brain.
So I plucked the first one out of the November fog and started across through the winding streets of Greenwich Village, aiming my nose for Chester Carpenter’s place. He lived in the more ancient section of the Bohemian paradise, on a narrow cobblestoned alley that formed a connecting vein between two more representative arteries. In the old days, Carpenter’s building had been a simple stable, the working place of a blacksmith. But as the city grew around these hoary haunts, the property values rose and somebody saw fit to remodel the archaic ruins into suitable holes for the artists of the section. The red-fronted building housed a few apartments, one on each floor. The hallway was as black as the inside of my hat.
I was holding my lighter under the buzzer marked Chester Carpenter, when the door swung open behind me and a man came out.
“I’m with you,” I said.
He pulled away from me, as frightened as a rabbit under a hound’s nose. My light had gone out when I reached for him. I lit it again quickly and held it up to my face.
“Conacher,” he said.
“Going somewhere, Chester?”
“I was on my way out for a bite,” he said, blinking at me violently. “Care to join me?”
“Not right now. You and I are going upstairs, friend.”
“Why upstairs? We can talk just as well in a restaurant.”
“Upstairs.” I held his elbow and tried to steer him back to the door. He was pulling against me. “Right now, Chester.”
“Oh, say, be reasonable,” Chester argued, allowing me to pull him through the doorway and into the vestibule beyond. A dull blue fixture glowed near his head. Under the light, he looked like something out of a zombie movie. His face reflected a deep and weakening fear. “Must we go up there now? I have a good reason for staying out of my rooms.”
“Name it.”
“It’s—well, it’s rather embarrassing.”
“Let’s have it, Chester. You’re breaking my heart.”
“There’s a woman up there, Conacher.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Well, yes,” he mumbled. “It’s Lila.”
“You were leaving her alone?”
“I left to get some liquor.”
“You’re a little devil,” I said. “I thought you and Lila were all washed up.”
Carpenter shrugged vaguely, showing me his sickly grin.
“Lila’s a very attractive girl, Conacher.”
“You’d give up Helen Sutton for a broad like Lila Martin?” I asked, angry with him for his soupy disposition. “You need a one-way ticket to a good psychiatrist, Chester. Now be a nice lad and lead me up to your flat. Or do you want me to haul you up?”
“Just as you say,” he mumbled, and started up the dim stairway.
He said nothing until we reached the third-floor landing. There he hesitated before walking down the long hall. He held me alongside him, not knowing how to say what was on his mind. At last, it came.
“Please, Conacher,” he muttered. “I don’t want you to misinterpret why Lila’s here. The fact is she needed my help with some copywriting, after the conference in Kutner’s office this afternoon. I offered to help her tonight. That’s why she’s here.”
“She gets around. Let’s talk to the lady.”
Carpenter’s apartment began with a small square hall, big enough for the usual bachelor trappings; an antique maple cabinet, a colonial rug, and a wall full of prints and etchings that reflected his own quiet good taste. Through the arched doorway, the living room carried the colonial feeling, a comfortable place that had been paneled in pine to make it glow with warmth. Against the long wall directly opposite stood an oversized couch. And on the couch lay Lila Martin.
She only turned when we entered. She had removed her jacket. Her silk blouse was pulled in tight over her breasts. She seemed unconcerned about my arrival.
“Again?” She laughed. “You’re beginning to get in my hair, Steve.”
“Me and a couple of other boys?”
“Now don’t let’s start getting sarcastic.” She flicked her eyes at Chester. There was a question mark in her glance, but he didn’t bother to look at her. He was as uncomfortable as a Boy Scout in a Ladies’ Rubbing Room. She sat up and fluffed back her hair, and then examined her glass, roiling the ice cubes around to telegraph its emptiness. “You didn’t even get us the liquor, did you, Chester?”
“I ran into Conacher.”
“Everybody runs into Conacher.”
“And now,” I said, “you can run out, Lila. You have my permission to leave.”
“Nice of you. And suppose I prefer to stay?”
“You’re on your way out.”
She flounced off the couch and approached Chester. “Don’t just stand there like a worm. Are you going to let this two-bit shamus order me around? Tell him to get out of here. Tell him we had a date tonight.”
“Date’s over,” I said, handing her coat to her. “Do you leave quietly, or must I coax you?”
Lila studied me for a long moment. Her mobile face held a blossoming anger, but she let it die out like a sigh. She had the ability to adjust her moods to suit the problem at hand. Right now, the problem was me. She didn’t want to walk out of the little conference to come. She adjusted her coiffure at the small mirror near the hall. She managed to steal a few sly glances at me while combing her hair. When she was finished with her cosmetic contortions, she stood in the doorway to the hail. She smiled at me prettily.
“Can I see you for a moment, tough man?”
“You’re looking at me.”
“I can see you better in the hall.”
Chester fumbled with his cigarettes as I crossed the room and entered the vestibule. She was waiting for me, her cute behind perched on the edge of the little cabinet. She beckoned to me with a finger. She tugged me closer when I stood beside her.
“What’s eating you, Steve?”
“You. You bother me.”
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous?”
I laughed in her face. “Sure I’m jealous, Lila. But I’m also confused. What do you want from Chester, aside from his brain?
“Chester’s a good friend of mine.”
I whisper
ed a nasty word in her ear. “That’s what you are, baby. In spades. You don’t give a damn for Carpenter. You’re jerking him around like a yo-yo. I don’t know what you want from him, but it isn’t your usual take from a man. You like your men nasty and rich, like Wilkinson and Kutner. You like your men hot and jumpy, like Conacher and maybe Pettigrew. But Chester? Whatever your routine is, it stinks to high heaven. He’s got himself a classy little broad, someone who really worships him. And I want to see Chester go her way, so keep your itchy fingers off him, understand?”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will,” I said. “Or I’ll beat your pretty little head in.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Here’s the down payment.”
I slapped her, just once, across the jaw. The sound of my palm against her face was a flat smack, loud enough to bring Chester running into the vestibule. But when he arrived, Lila was smiling at me again. She jounced off the cabinet and shook her tail once or twice and began to pull on her gloves.
“I won’t forget that, Steve,” she laughed.
“I’m not going to let you forget it,” I said. “Now get the hell out of here. Fast.”
She blew me a kiss and walked out. Chester’s eyes were two watery saucers as he watched her go. I slammed the door against her fanny and pulled him back into the living room. He sank wearily into a chair. He was sweating small and large bullets. He looked like something out of a bad hangover. His head was down, studying the pattern of the carpet. He licked at his lips slowly.
“What did she want?” I asked.
“Just some help with her writing,” Chester said. “That was all.”
“You’re a bad liar, Chester.”
His head didn’t lift to look at me. He was a caricature of hopelessness. His thin frame sagged as he leaned over his knees, knuckles clasped so tight the bones whitened the flesh. He was sitting in a leather chair, a greenish item that stood out against the pine paneled wall beyond. Over his head, arranged in a neat design on the boards, was a collection of guns. I counted fourteen of them, a variety of firearms from revolutionary days up to the last war. To the left, a pair of muskets were crossed over a framed picture. From where I stood, the picture showed Chester in a hunting outfit, holding up a rabbit and grinning madly.
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