Make that lust.
I reached the end of the foyer. It opened on a wide, wide room, lousy with bookcases, winged chairs, Picasso and statuary and bric-a-brac that somehow makes a conglomeration of antique mentality no matter how carefully placed or arranged. There were even several large frescoes of some kind that looked like they might have been borrowed from the Museum of Natural History.
The couple on the couch that opened into a large bed didn't see me. They couldn't have. They were too wrapped up in their French lesson.
There is very little of the voyeur in me since I am the sort of man who could never get his kicks secondhand. But Mr. Garcia Lopez had a great deal to be upset about.
It wasn't only disloyal, unfaithful and unkind. It wasn't nice.
Mady Lopez was starkly naked, on her knees, still wearing the calf-high boots. She looked bigger than a battleship and somehow twice as awesome. The bare-skinned man lying on the couch beneath her was serenely contemplating his ceiling which was the latest shade of shocking pink. He was in no hurry, even if his sighs and grunts of sexual pleasure were an amalgam of yearning.
The positions of Mady Lopez's mountainous buttocks, so white and soft as to reveal the minute veins of her body filled the lens of the camera. The man beneath her, his knees fanned out in an enormous V of surrender, was clearly framed in my eye. It was going to be a gorgeously dirty picture and/or pictures. The sort that can bury people, ruin lives and disfigure the truth forever.
I wanted to get it over in a hurry. The first click and flash of the cube bulb popped in the dim interior. I quickly advanced the film, getting one more shot a bit more interesting than the last. Mady Lopez had whirled. Her baby face was drugged, her eyes were lidded and the nipples of her swollen breasts hung like grapefruit before me. The man had half-risen, looking more compromised than ever.
"Jesus Cheerist!" the man in the bed screamed. Mady Lopez said something else. Nothing Spanish. Just pure plain gutter talk from the streets of the City dating all the way back to Plymouth Rock. The pair of them began that mad scramble of disorganised, let-me-out-of-here fright and outrage that had also gone on since Adam found Eve messing with the guy in the next cave. By that time, I got a third picture off. There was no time for a fourth.
Paul Arnet, if that's who he was, had danced off the bed, picked up a heavy statuette of Rameses the Third or somebody like that and was taking bead on my skull.
I hit him. Just once. A roundhouse right that landed on his triangular-shaped chin. He had caramel coloured eyes. I saw that before they closed. He collapsed at my feet, Rameses falling to the carpet with a thud. The punch was a good one. He rolled over on his stomach, out like a dead light bulb.
But Mrs. Garcia Lopez was a horse of a different grade of meat. She rushed me. Big, wide, breasts swinging, arms clawing. I had a close-up of the ugliest expression in the world before she smothered me in her long arms.
I cursed, trying to fall back. The camera fell from my fingers. I went for my .45. Toe-to-toeing with a six foot two inch angry dame are not the best odds to get. I had flashing memories of the Tall Dolores and getting tossed around like a beanbag.
She was still cursing. The roaring, unprintable words all running together in a panting, pulsing stream of venom. She rammed her formidable bust line into my face and I couldn't breathe. Still, it was no time for Emily Post stupidity.
I kneed her where it would do the most good. She gasped in pain, falling back, her arms letting me go. Before she could worry about her equipment, I stepped in again, slapping her across each babyish cheek. She slumped backwards, falling over her naked lover. She made a tremendous racket hitting the deck. She had to weigh close to one-ninety at least, as shapely as the poundage was.
Retrieving the Instamatic, I took the last picture. Then I dropped the camera in my side pocket, walked over to the wing chair on the other side of the room and sat down. I took out my Camels and lit up.
Mady Lopez was breathing hard, half-crouched on the floor, as if she were trying to hide her nakedness. There was something primeval and lewd about her. No woman born of woman should ever be so big. So vulgar in her nakedness.
She glared at me, mouth still working but no words came. Her enormous breasts were penduluming. Mr. Paul Arnet was groaning in his suddenly-induced sleep.
"I've got a message for you from Garcia, Mrs. Lopez. He wants a divorce. Yes or no?"
She kept on glaring.
"No? I've got four pictures now that say yes out loud. You shouldn't have double-crossed the little man. Especially this way. French lessons. I'd say you were giving the lessons."
"Bastard," she hissed. It was all she said.
"Not officially. My birth is on file in Bellevue. Come on, now. I'll be walking out of here in five minutes. I'd rather not show these pics to your husband. He deserves a break. When I find out you agree to the divorce, I'll burn them. Negatives, too. Is it a deal?"
She shook her head, eyes glazed, trying to understand me. Paul Arnet was making louder noises now, trying to come awake.
"Come on, lady. Last chance. Yes or no. As soon as my cigarette burns low, I'm leaving."
She found her voice. It was a snarling, rasping unlovely voice. "You're leaving all right, you dirty bastard. Feet first. I'll kill you for this—" She called me some other names that never make the pages of the Times.
I stubbed out the Camel in an ashtray that looked like it was supposed to be a devil's head. I flung her a soft salute and headed for the foyer.
"So long, sister. See you in court."
She lumbered to her feet. Tall, mammoth. Enough weight and bulges for two women. Her hair was short, bobbed and black. It hardly dangled about her scalp. She stared at me, her dull face still disbelieving that this could have happened to her. Maybe, not comprehending that her little husband had had such a big idea and followed it through.
"Don't be a sucker, mister. I'll give you anything you want for those pictures. I'll go down for you right now. Be a sport. You've never had anyone like me—" She began to go into the details, speaking as plain as hell, ending off with the piece de resistance. "—and you can have it any time of day or night. Any place, anywhere. I can't divorce Garcia! I can't! Please God fellah—"
I was out of there before she finished, locking the door behind me, unable to wait for the elevator. Her lousy perfume was all over me. I smelled bad. I felt ugly. The awful pictures in the Instamatic were hot enough to scorch a shrine. Any shrine. Anywhere, any place. To quote Mady Lopez.
The only other thing I had garnered on my visit to Paul Arnet's apartment, besides evidence for Garcia Lopez's divorce, was that the late but great Tommy Spanner had chosen some very curious playmates for his bedroom.
Again, how could such a man have any connection at all with the White House?
I had eight more things to do before I left the vicinity of Central Park West completely. I did them.
There were that many prints unexposed in the Instamatic. So I used them up, pausing to take a close-up of the canopied entrance of 415, Paul Arnet's nameplate in the lobby, a long shot of the penthouse tower and assorted views of the strollers idling by across the avenue.
It wasn't the Scotchman in me; it was simply a matter of using up the roll immediately. I had some instant plans for development.
There was a curious suspicion of snow in the air as I walked around the corner to the Oldsmobile. The sun had vanished and crazy cloud formations were building.
But they couldn't compare to the dizzying structures of doubt and winking cynicism slowly springing erect in my mind.
Spanner's corpse was reaching from the grave, laughing like a satyr.
A playboy with horns on.
FOUR
NOT SO PRETTY PICTURES
□ Tops Billings was in when I pushed the front door of his studio office in. There was a bell you were supposed to ring after you climbed the one long flight of narrow stairs to the place that doubled as his home and office but nobody ever paid much
attention to that. He was one of the best and busiest photographers in the Broadway business and about as formal as a Sloppy Joe sweater. He was open day and night, large blow-ups and a montage of celebrity faces advertising his wares to the millions of tourists and famous somebodys walking past his Seventh Avenue front in the West Fifties.
The threat of snow had gotten stronger. There was a sudden chill in the air.
Billings' studio was as warm as the inside of a harem. It looked like one too, except for the battered desk, a steel four-drawer file and walls crowded with photos that had seen print in some of the greatest magazines in the world.
A four-page layout of Sophia Loren for Playboy magazine had resulted in a one-day sell-out of the particular issue all over the country. That's why they called Raymond Billings "Tops". He was the best. He caught something on film that the rest of his competitors only dreamed about.
He was a nut for atmosphere. There were curtains, fluffy pillows, ottomans and bands of velvet, silk, velour, gauze and lace wherever the eye could look. Once you cleared his office area, it was like walking into an Arabian Nights layout. He had had that much in common with Tommy Spanner.
He was crouched behind one of his tripod cameras, hoarsely commanding some dreamy creation lying on an arrangement of sheets and pillows on the Kentiled floor. The large working room was all lit up like a subway entrance. The dreamy creation was down to the skin. Just this side of pornography. It was Art, in stylish suggestiveness and selectivity. The nipples, the glory of the navel would all emerge as something to be promised and hoped for. But there would be nothing that anyone could get upset about sociologically. Tops Billings got the best prices for the best kind of cheesecake. The girl was a redhead with eyes as big as searchlights. I waited, beyond Billings' back and lit up a cigarette.
"You got company," the girl said to Billings, without changing her dreamy expression or her position. "He looks like a cop."
Tops didn't turn around. He was too busy making a frame with his hands. "I don't know any cops," he grunted.
"He's standing there all the same."
"Forget that for a sec. You got a mind? You got a lover? No, wait. Who's your favourite dream man?"
"Cary Grant," the redhead said without hesitation.
"Good, good," crowed Billings. "That's it. Cary's coming towards you. He takes you in his arms. His eyes travel all over you, stopping at your mouth. He comes closer—close your eyes. That's it. Now open them and you hear him say, 'Judy! Judy! Darling! . . . ' " There was a pin-prick of time. "That's it, baby. Put your clothes on. All over."
"But my name isn't Judy. It's Myra," the redhead said tonelessly. She gathered her silks and laces about her, the mood ended.
"It makes a difference?" Tops Billings turned and squinted at me. He squinted hard. He was about five feet five, as round as a beer barrel and all the hair he had was on his blue black jowls. He was also nearsighted. I moved in closer to give him a break.
"Eddie! Eddie baby!" He embraced me. Pure Broadway etiquette but he wasn't kidding. We'd never had an argument in our lives and I didn't owe him any money. Our friendship dated back to a night in Downey's when I had saved him from a female who had wanted to crown him with a soda bottle for calling her the poor man's Kim Novak.
"How are you, Tops?"
"The tops. What else? Want a drink?"
"No. Business call."
"Yeah? You're maybe posing for the Private Eye of the Month for Heffner. Hey, that's a laugh."
The redhead stood up and the obscenity of Mrs. Garcia Lopez was a bad memory. The redhead was slender, properly proportioned and just right for what ailed me. She flung an oblique look at the both of us and disappeared around a screen-arrangement beyond the harem set-up.
"Pretty," I said. "I sure feel sorry for you."
He snorted. "Her? You get to see so many like her you wonder what assembly line turns them out. Twenty years ago when I was a promising lad of twenty-five, I used to eat, sleep and drink those kind of girls. Now? Well—the spirit is willing but the good flesh is weak. You sonufagun—how the hell are you? Long time no see."
"You're half-blind anyway. I moved a little further downtown. West Forty Sixth. Got a new office, new secretary and everything. I'm up in class."
"I heard," he chuckled. "Schwartza, I hear. A regular Diahann Carroll for looks. Bring her around. I'll take her picture."
"She doesn't want to be in Show Biz."
"Just your Biz, eh? Okay, okay. Forget I asked." He called over his shoulder. "Myra, tell your agent I'll call you again. You got style, baby. Real style."
Praise from Mount Olympus. Myra came hurrying out from behind the screen, all dressed for the street, a round cardboard hat-box dangling from her arm. She wore slacks, a sweater, dark glasses and the red hair was all done up in a knot at the top of her head. The mood hadn't only broken, it had disappeared forever.
"Gee, Tops. You levelling with me?"
"Go on. Scram out of here. You're good, baby. Tops Billings gives you the word."
"Gee—"
"Bye bye for now."
She smiled at me as if in some way I was responsible for the compliment from the king. With that, she waved her long hands helplessly, murmured something and stalked for the door. We could hear her flats slapping noisily down the stairs to Seventh Avenue.
I dug the cartridge of Instamatic film out of my pocket. I flipped it up and down as if it were a half-dollar piece. He sniffed at me.
"Do me a favour," I said.
"Name it."
"I want this roll developed right away. I want you not to ask me any questions about it. It's dirty film. The dirtiest. But it will get the noose from around a nice guy's neck."
He caught the cartridge before it could come down in my palm again. "Big deal. What am I, a slob? Take a while though."
"How long?"
"Hour. Hour and a half."
"I'll wait. I need it right away."
He balanced the cartridge on his pudgy hand. "Come on and watch. We can yak while we're developing. No more appointments today. We'll catch up on old times."
"Sure. I'd like to look at your etchings anyway."
He squinted again. "You're in a flap, Eddie. I can tell. We never been whatcha call close but—oh, hell. Come on."
I followed Tops Billings into his dark room at the rear of the studio office. He left the tripod camera where it was, only pausing to flip a black hood over the head of the thing but I didn't see him do a bit with the plates or the pictures he had taken of the redhead. I let it ride. Photography is not my racket and I didn't want to find a side of Tops Billings that I might not like. When you turn over all the rocks, you have to find the worms.
Broadway is a funny place. There is more than one chiseller, be he agent, promoter or hustler, who could get a great redhead like Myra into the sack just by promising her free photos from the great Tops Billings. The casting couch isn't the only route to an uncrossing of prim, virginal legs. It's a matter of worth and value all around. The gals who prized their souls more than they did Show Biz and vice versa is all that the game is about. But it wouldn't be like Tops Billings to deal anything but a straight game.
Still—my mood was lousy. It was a day when I didn't want to know the truth about my friends.
It was nice in the dark room with him. I didn't have to keep a funny expression on my face.
Meanwhile, the story of Mrs. Garcia Lopez, starring herself and Paul Arnet, developed right under my eyes.
"Ai chee wow wah," Tops Billings whistled. "They don't hardly make them like that anymore."
The twelve prints, with the four milestone shots, were fanned out on his desk in the outer office, drying off. He didn't touch them, merely squinting down at the pulsing panorama. The four-drawer file loomed behind him. I noticed a stunning photo of Jayne Mansfield on the wall, inscribed at the right corner with an endearing sentiment. To Tops who is nothing but. Jayne.
"How long will they take to dry?"
&nbs
p; "Give it twenty minutes." He shook his head. "Another Tommy Spanner reject."
I got that feeling again. The one that tells me the world is made up of lies, deceits and you too, Charlie?
"Come again?"
"Spanner. Tommy Spanner. This beeftrust was the dame he took to Lake Placid for a week-end. It was all over town. You know about Spanner and his weirdo sex life. They were talking about nothing else on the street yesterday when he got knifed by that broad. You know anything about the dame, Eddie? I mean the one who killed Spanner. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been this chick after what he did to her."
"I'd like to hear it from you, Tops."
He shrugged. "No secret. Spanner was acey-deucy. Liked it both ways. Only he wasn't much of an ace I hear when he tried to play it right. He was Tiny Tommy they tell me. Too small. Well, this beeftrust here—" He poked a pudgy forefinger at the damning film. "He hired a whole floor at one of the hotels. Rigged her up in boots and nothing else and spent the time chasing her up and down the hall playing a game called Lion-Tamer. She was supposed to be the lion and he was Clyde Beatty or something. The catch was, every time he finally caught her, he'd pop a champagne cork at her and spill the whole bottle over her. He went through maybe a case of Peiper Heidsick. Sick is right. They wound up in the big bedroom, stinking from champagne with him sitting in her big lap like a little boy, crying all night. She was too big for him. He drowned in her. Like a peanut in a barrel of molasses. Man, his dough never did him a bit of good."
I lit a Camel. "That wall in Spanner's bedroom. The photo layout of nudes. I saw it yesterday because the cops called me in. I'd had an appointment with Tommy. He never kept it, natch. You know anything about that wall?"
For once, Tops Billings fumed. He showed me his teeth.
"Please. Every time somebody mentions it—they see it at one of his wacky parties or something—I wince. That wall cost me one hundred thousand dollars, Eddie."
The Horrible Man Page 3