Kim

by Robert Colby

  He showed me about a foot of teeth in a proud grin. “You have to hand it to her, Mr. Striker. The kid’s got spunk.” The smile faded. “But I can’t understand where this Tarino gets his gall. I mean, when a girl slams the door in your face like that, what good is she to you even if you can bully her into going out with you? The man is crazy. He’s got to be a psycho and he ought to be treated like one!”

  Well, after listening to that hearts-and-flowers version of the story she gave him, I damn near laughed in his face. I had to blow the old schnozz and keep the handkerchief over my mouth for half a minute.

  Then I got up and I said, “That’s about it for now, Mr. Massey. You had a rough time there the other night. And I’m not gonna kid you. Those boys play for keeps. They don’t have to bluff. If they come back again they might kill you or they might just cut you into the hospital for about six weeks. And the kind of cutting they do isn’t exactly covered by Blue Cross either.

  “Now you can take my word on all this because I’ve had a case or two something like it and I know what I’m talking about. There’s a lot of difference between amateur theatrics by some wounded lover and pro-vengeance on order. In one case you got a loud mouth, in the other you got cool bone-breakers and meat-cutters for cash. So play it smart, Mr. Massey. Be careful.”

  “I’m not afraid,” he said with a crooked grin.

  “I know. And that’s what bothers me. You should be afraid.” Like I said, this guy was the hero-type.

  “Would you let some greasy goon like Tarino intimidate your fiancée?” he wanted to know.

  “Listen,” I said, “if it was my tootsie, Tarino would know better. Or he’d find out in a hurry. Something would fall on him. Like me. Or a Mack truck.”

  “There!” he said. “You see!”

  “But I’d try everything else first,” I added quickly. “The legal plays. And you’d better, too.”

  “I have an idea,” he said. “A highly legal one. And I think it will stop Mr. Tarino.”

  “Whatever it is, we ought to discuss it, Mr. Massey. If I’m going to pack this guy up the river in stripes, I have to know what’s going on.”

  He smiled. A kind of wise-guy smile that worried me. “You’ll hear all about it,” he said. “In good time.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You know where to reach me.” I went to the door. “Don’t take any wooden coffins.” I waved. And went out.

  The redhead, the one with the demure face and the saucy behind, sat outside at her desk. Her typewriter was doing about ninety per. She was beating hell out of Massey’s letter.

  I stood there until the clacking paused and she looked up.

  “What a waste of talent,” I told her. “I beg your pardon?” she said, demurely.

  Seven

  I goosed the bell button and after too long, Myra Bailey’s moist lips spoke to me from the wrong side of the peephole.

  “I’m taking a shower,” she said.

  “So?”

  “So go ‘way and come back when I’m decent.” “I don’t like you that way.” “What way?”

  “Decent. That kind I can get at the YW.”

  “Please, Rod. I’m dripping, you drip!”

  “So unlock the goddamn door and run like hell. Don’t worry, I’ll catch you.”

  I heard the chain rattle, then the lock flipped. I counted to forty — by twenties — and went in. Myra’s classy rump was doing a samba behind a tight twist of towel as she fled from the room. I followed leisurely, stood listening at the bedroom doorway to the muted crash of water. Over the sound, I heard her singing. Not a bad voice. A gal of many talents. And I was getting the use of all but one of them …

  I was waiting behind the bathroom door when she came prancing out, naked as a Mexican hairless. Of course she did have the towel. But she was standing with her back to me, drying the front, elbows high. So I reached under her arms and grabbed her breasts, covering the nipples with my palms.

  “Guess who?” I said.

  It was kind of a dirty trick. But I’ve know Myra a long time. In certain moods she had a bawdy sense of humor and the subtle approach will only get you more of the Big Tease. I had decided it was about time for direct action.

  I was right Because after she stiffened like an over-starched collar in a mangle, she let go a big breath and pressed my hands around her breasts. Then she dropped the towel and turned around, molding against me. My God, I was steamed up and pounding like a flop-house radiator.

  She had hold of one of my arms and was pulling it tighter around her, those lips parted and coming closer, as if to gobble me up.

  Suddenly her hands tightened on that arm, she spun around, bent double, and sent me flying over her shoulder. I landed so hard on my back I could almost hear the plaster falling in the apartment below. It took me a full aching minute to climb to my feet. I spent the time regaining my respect for the tricks Myra had learned in the L. A. police department.

  When I hobbled into the living room, she was sitting in a big chair, wearing a robe and slippers and coolly smoking a cigarette. She wasn’t smiling, she hadn’t said a word since the tumble. But now she arched one eyebrow into an icy question. Had enough, lover-boy? her expression said.

  Well, it was funny. I mean, she was so damn casual and undisturbed I had to chuckle. And then she choked back a tiny giggle and I laughed right out loud. We both laughed until we were weeping all over the goddamn room. Then she made a drink and I gave her the latest poop on the Rumshaw case, all business again.

  She listened carefully. Occasionally she had a question. When I had finished I got up to leave.

  “Well,” she said. “What now?”

  “You now,” I answered.

  “Me now?”

  “You now, that’s right, kiddo. I want you to go down and get yourself a job in one of Tarino’s dives. The Frolic.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “Any job. B-girl, kootch dancer, anything! Just so long as Tarino hires you personally. I want that creep to fall all over himself trying to make time with you. Remember, I said — trying!”

  “Darling, you didn’t have to remind me. Ugh!”

  “What’re you ughing about, Myra? You’ve never set eyes on the guy.”

  “I know the type and I still say — ugh! All right, let’s suppose that I get at least a leer out of this bloke. And he hires me. Then what?”

  “I can’t give you any blueprints, baby. Play it by ear. Just be sure you come back with answers. Some of them could be in black and white — like evidence. Take along mini-tape and record a few items if you like. But for Crissake, be careful!”

  I kissed her and this time when she clung to me, she meant it.

  “Luck,” I said. “Come home safe, baby.” Walking away, I heard the door click behind me. And all at once I felt lonesome.

  Eight

  MYRA BAILEY

  The minute Rod had gone I felt sort of uneasy. The way I always do just before an assignment. I usually have to work alone and I never know what I’m getting into until. I’m in the middle of it, and then it’s too late. Funny — no matter how many times you go out on a case and no matter how many times you come back in one piece, you always get a little nervous just before, as if it was the first caper. Like now with this Tarino character. Then the very second you get into the action, the knots come out and you forget about being scared because you’re too busy. When it’s over you get the shakes again and you think back and you wonder how you ever pulled it off. But I can be shaking inside like a wet pup and no one will ever know it but me. It’s a law I wrote for myself a long time ago. Never show them you’re scared!

  I went into the bedroom and got a jazzy shade of nail polish from my vanity. The kind you can practically see in the dark. Red as junior’s fire truck. I hated the junk. Cheap and gaudy. But I figured Eddie Tarino was out of his element with the Rumshaw dish. Just a new toy, exciting because she gave him the brush after that week end and then his silly ego had to be fed by sho
wing himself he could take any gal he wanted and make her like it. But what the Tarino-types really need down in their grimy little souls is some brass-tongued wench who is so obvious she would stand out like Eleanor Roosevelt in a chorus line at the burlesque.

  Of course I could have been wrong about him. And like Rod said, I’d have to play it by ear. But anyway, you don’t go looking for a job in a sex trap dressed like the missionary’s wife at a meeting of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. So I sat down on the bed and began to put that bright gunk on my nails. Absently, you know. Because I was thinking about something else entirely That Rod! My God, what a crazy fool. The way he grabbed me and said, ‘Guess who?’ What an absolute nut! Well, I showed him, guess who. Bet he won’t try that again!

  What ever am I thinking? Wouldn’t that be awful? If he never tried anything again … For a moment there I almost let myself go. When I turned around against him the temptation was unbearable. Just unbearable! But it wouldn’t have been worth it. No, I’ve been that road before with him. He always manages to wall up his emotions and keep at least half an eye for peeling tomatoes, as he calls it. That part doesn’t worry me because he won’t take any other female seriously. What worries me is that he never quite takes me seriously, either. And all the time he seems to be playing just for kicks, I’m lighting a torch for him that would melt the arm off the Statue of Liberty.

  No thanks, it isn’t worth it. Maybe he’ll get tired of that cheap homogenized milk you can find on any doorstep. And then he’ll buy the whole cow. I’ll be waiting.

  Actually, I don’t know what it is that makes Rod so damn desirable. It certainly isn’t just his looks. He’s no Rock Hudson or Warren Beatty. He’s got kind of a big nose and his ears stick out a bit. His face is a little too long and that rock jaw … Oh hell, who’s perfect if you take them apart feature by feature? The thing is, when you’re looking at Rod Striker, you’re looking at a man! And I don’t mean because he’s six-three and muscular and could fight his way out of a concrete mixer. No, it’s something inside the guy. You can see it in the eyes. He’s all there. A whole man, a kind of harmony of character. Nothing flabby and weak at the core. He’s a bad little boy and full of the craziest kind of hell. But not sneaky or grubby. He gets down into the mud but it doesn’t stick to him. And you know he wouldn’t come apart under pressure, when it counts.

  That’s Rod, more or less. And if you still don’t know what I’m talking about when I say he’s a man, forget it. Because I’ll need a new language to explain what I mean.

  I finished my nails and then I went to the closet and got out a kind of smoky-colored cocktail dress with silver spangles at the bodice. It was a sheath, of course. If you’ve got a figure and that’s what you’re selling, don’t wrap it in a tent. The dress left nothing to be desired, except a jacket to cover it up so they wouldn’t arrest you on the street Thank God, I had one — a button-up thing which matched.

  It took a long time and two pounds more make-up than I generally use, but I was finally ready. I had phoned to find out what time his excellency was expected to arrive at his sewer. A sooty-voiced female told me that Mr. Tarino might be in his office at The Frolic around four-thirty. It was some special business he was attending to and he wouldn’t be on tap for more than a half-hour. Time enough….

  So at four sharp I called a cab. While I was waiting, I unlocked a drawer of my dresser and took out the snub-nosed .38 revolver and the miniature tape recorder. This tape recorder is a new gadget for police work. Nothing so small has ever been made before. It’s not much bigger than an electric razor and it’s not as bulky. Flat, you know, and light. I checked it over and then I put it in a secret compartment of the big black suede pocketbook I was going to carry. I have several of these, one for every occasion. They are large but not so gigantic as to be suspicious.

  These pocketbooks have two hidden pouches within, one on either side. They are held closed by concealed magnets and can be opened with a flip of the finger. If some sneak gets hold of the bag and looks inside, he sees nothing but the usual face-garbage and the like.

  In one of these compartments I placed the mini-tape. Next I wiped off the .38 carefully. You have to keep a gun well oiled in this climate or it will rast. I broke the weapon and inserted some new shells in the chambers. You think of a woman as carrying one of those little toy .25 automatics. But automatics jam and I like a weapon which will stop a muscle-bound ape in stride, even if you don’t hit him in some vital spot.

  This particular gun is small and has an extremely lightweight frame. Perhaps the lightest ever made. It has one disadvantage. Because of its lack of weight, it kicks like a howling baby. But you get used to it with practice. And you carry death like a feather.

  I put the gun in the other pouch with my real identification. The phony stuff was made out under Myra Vanderwalt. If a name is just a bit odd it tends to be more believable. Who would ever believe a name like Bailey? Ha! But you don’t take chances in this game. And to go with my fake identification, I even had another address. A cheap little apartment west of Biscayne where I always stayed during any investigation in which there could be danger if I was uncovered. In this apartment I kept some spare clothes and a few minor Vanderwalt-type possessions.

  As a further precaution, Rod and I were never seen together. Not in Miami. And mostly I worked out of one of the apartments, going to the office only when it was necessary to have a formal interview with some special client.

  The last thing I did was to place a call to L.A. I got hold of a Mike Tafuri. He runs a clip-joint called the Tom Cat and he’s a friend of sorts. I mean, I can count on him. I gave him certain information. He listened, made a few agreeable grunts and it was done.

  I had just hung up and was lighting a cigarette when the doorbell rang. I went down to the cab and ten minutes later I was standing outside The Frolic, measuring myself against the talent pictured in a glass case by the door.

  I wasn’t worried.

  Nine

  The Frolic was on Biscayne Boulevard within sliding distance of the docks where the cruise ships tied up, and near Bayfront Park. It was a long stucco building with a lot of wall surface on which was plastered the usual come-on posters — leg-kicking gals in black net stockings with bursting bosoms and man-chewing grins. These were paintings, of course. The real thing could be determined from the photographs in the display case. I knew that once inside, the suckers would be taken by a sex build-up which began with an artless strip routine and ended with B-girls whispering smutty promises at tiny tables in dark corners. The promises would expand in direct proportion to the flow of drinks.

  After a while the gal would gulp tea or anything the color of booze, pretending to get as high as the customer. When the guy got his check, if he could still read the total, he would collapse in bleary shock. Or he would come out of his chair fighting. Either way, there would be a plan to handle him. Usually the girl could soothe him with something like, “Forget it, honey. I’ll make it up ta ya later. Just as soon as we close. Ya wait f’me, huh, sweetie?”

  But if the john really was still waiting at four or five in the morning, she would slip out a back door and steal away.

  If you’ve been in one such joint, you’ve been in them all. The pattern is much the same. And why the idiots can’t see it coming on like a bellhop’s palm, I’ll never know. But sex is a black velvet curtain, and when it falls before the eyes of the hungry and the lonely ones, the darkness is total.

  I pushed the big double doors and went in. For a moment, I had to stand there adjusting my eyes. After the bright sun, it was dusk. A kind of twilight came from windows high over a long bar. There was no other illumination.

  Beyond the narrow bar room, stretching to the left, I could see a bandstand and a square of dance floor. A big area jam-packed with a welter of flimsy tables, chairs upended on their surfaces. This was the room of a thousand leers. But since leering is a pastime of the night, the place was in a state of gloomy undress. It h
ad the naked look of tired sin asleep on a rumpled bed.

  Surprisingly, the bar was tended by a girl — a slim ash-blonde with features sharp as a broken bottle and pushy little breasts under a red sweater. Evidently business was rushing like rigor mortis at this hour, for the barmaid’s only customers were a sailor slumped morosely over his drink, and a beet-haired babe shoving forty and aiming her 45” front at the gob from a dress somewhere down around half-mast.

  As I walked past, I heard the sailor drool, “Aw, c’mon, let’s blow, Flo. We kin swig better juice’n this in my stall for nothin.”

  “You talk like a horse,” she said. “Nag, nag. Listen, dearie, I’m starved! You buy mamma oats and then we’ll think about your little ole stall. Mmmmm?”

  I went on down to the other end of the bar and stood waiting between stools. The barmaid moved towards me indifferently, wiping with her towel as she came.

  “What’ll you have, honey?” she said.

  “I’ll have Mr. Tarino,” I said. “Where’ll I find him?”

  “You won’t,” she snapped. “He’s not come in yet.” Her eyes were battle-gray and slightly crossed. They seemed mad at each other.

  “Well, what time does he flap by?” I asked.

  “Can’t tell,” she said. “Any minute, any day. Whyn’t ya have a drink while you’re waitin? Soon as I see’m, I’ll let ya know. So what’ll it be? Scotch? How ‘bout a champagne cocktail?”

  “Calm down, dear,” I said. “I don’t want a percentage of the joint. I came for a job. Gimme a beer.”