Kim

by Robert Colby

  She went away and came back with a bottle and a glass.

  “Fifty-five,” she said.

  “Fifty-five! For that I can buy three bottles at the super.”

  “That’ll be fifty-five,” she said, palm extended. I gave her the money, counting it laboriously from my change purse.

  “What’s your name, honey?”

  “Sally.” Her face was expressionless.

  “Well, hiya, Sally. I’m Myra. I’m gonna work here.”

  “That so? What makes ya so sure?”

  “I always get what I go after.”

  Her gray eyes stopped dueling with each other long enough to climb over me. “Maybe,” she said. Her mouth worked once around a chew of gum. “Maybe,” she said again. “But I’ll be surprised.”

  “Bet you a beer,” I said.

  “Bet.” She moved off, wiping towards the sailor and his “mamma.”

  I made the beer last, taking tiny sips. It wasn’t difficult. I hate beer. In about ten minutes, Sally came back. Now she moved briskly. She seemed alert.

  “He’s here,” she said. “Mr. Tarino.”

  “He is? I didn’t see him come in.”

  “You don’t know where to watch. There’s a side door by his office. Back there. Him and another gentleman, they come in a few minutes ago.”

  “Bully for them. So what do I do now?”

  “You go and see Mr. Tarino in his office.”

  “Easy as that?”

  “I called him on the phone and he said it was okay.”

  I remembered that she had been talking on a phone which she had pulled from its hiding place beneath the bar.

  Sally shook her head. “Funny. I didn’t even think he’d see you. Least not now with that other guy — ” “Which way?” I said.

  She pointed towards the main room. “You walk to the left and there’s a hallway. You follow it until you see a door with Mr. Tarino’s name on it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Just keep that beer you owe me on ice.”

  But for a single light, the big strip arena was dark. I picked my way among the tables along the left wall, following it to a narrow passageway. I walked the length of it and found a door marked Mr. Edward Tarino, Private. I took off my jacket and draped it over my arm. I smoothed my skirt and then I knocked.

  “Come!”

  I opened and went in.

  It was a good-sized room, longer than it was wide. At one end there was a conference table and half a dozen chairs. Behind this, ebony doors had been parted to reveal a narrow bar with cabinets. There were two long windows of the awning variety and in the distance I could see one of the pier sheds and the stack of a ship.

  I knew the man behind the desk was Tarino. He looked about the way Rod had described him in our final briefing session: a large head, high cheekbones, narrow jaw, black insolent eyes. He reminded me a little of Frank Sinatra playing the heavy. He was leaning back in his chair, sitting very still, a cigarette in his hand. Nothing moved but his eyes, little black knives cutting away my clothes with the same clinical disinterest of a surgeon slicing bandages from a patient.

  The other man sat in a chair beside the desk, facing me. I had an idea the chair had been turned for my entrance. He was older, just this side of fifty I guessed. He seemed tall and he was slim. He had black hair and a dark brooding face, pale blue eyes with long lashes under heavy brows. He had a sharp nose, a cruel slash of mouth. He chewed half a cigar and wore a perfectly blank expression which managed also to contain as much waiting violence as a cocked gun.

  “Who are you?” said Tarino. “Myra Vanderwalt.”

  “Vanderwalt?” His brows made signals of disdain. “What kind of a name is that?”

  “It used to be Garbo,” I said, “but I changed it.” “Well don’t just stand there, Garbo. Close the door.” “Please?”

  He said nothing and I did nothing.

  “All right, f’Crissake. Please!”

  I closed the door and moved into the room. I wasn’t offered a chair so I just stood there, head high, shoulders back. In that dress with my shoulders back a Sultan would have whistled. But they only stared.

  “Now,” said Tarino, “what is it you want?”

  “I dunno. What’re you offering?”

  “Nothing. I’ve got a full crew. I’m not hiring any broads right now.”

  “Then why did you send for me?”

  He pulled on his cigarette, pursed his lips and blew smoke at me. “I didn’t send for you.”

  “The girl at the bar, Sally, said you told her to send me in.”

  “Oh, that” He tossed his feet up on a corner of the desk. “Well, I always take a look, anyway.”

  I turned around and walked towards the door.

  “Wait a minute, miss.”

  I turned back. “You had your look,” I said.

  “And you’ve got a lot of nerve, kiddo.” His eyes flashed. “I oughtta throw you out on your can.”

  “Don’t try it, buster,” I said.

  He glared at me for a moment and I glared back. Then a wisp of smile touched his thick lips. He turned to the other with the cigar. He winked. But Cigar just sat there chewing his stub, ticking away like a bomb.

  “What kind of work you lookin for?” said Tarino.

  I shrugged. “Most anything. I don’t mind hostess if the percentage is good.”

  “How much experience you got, baby? Where did you sell your bag of tricks before?”

  “Place called the Tom Cat out in L. A.”

  He nodded. As if the name was familiar.

  “What’ve you done here in town?”

  “This is my first try. I’ve only been here a couple of months and I’ve been taking it easy. I had a fight with my man. He was working at the Tom. So I drifted away. But now the sock is getting a little low. Not much cabbage in the patch, you know?”

  “Who runs the Tom Cat, Myra?”

  “Fella by the name of Tafuri.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Mike Tafuri. Will Mike give you a good rep?”

  “Sure. The best.”

  “What did you do for Mike?”

  “John con. Salary and percentage.”

  “Can you dance?”

  “I can wiggle. Enough.”

  “Sing?”

  “A little.”

  He swayed in his chair, hands behind head. “Let’s see your legs.”

  I put the jacket and pocketbook on a table and hiked my short skirt a few inches. I was wearing black stockings. “Higher,” he said. I raised the skirt another notch. “Up!” he said.

  I gave him a look and then I went on up to the tops of my panty hose.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” he snapped. “All the way, all the way!”

  “I’ve got just so much leg, you know. If you want a pantie model, trot over to one of those undie factories.” I dropped my skirt.

  “Bend forward a little,” he said. “Give us a bow.”

  I bent, but I was getting mad.

  “Are those real?” he said.

  “They were when I put them on this morning.”

  “Looks like you got a nice pair of knockers,” he said. “Pull the dress down and take off the bra.”

  Tarino had turned to look at the other one, evidently to see if he was enjoying himself. But that one sat like stone, his teeth clamped around the cigar. He looked as if only a corpse would please him.

  “C’mon,” said Tarino. “You want a job or don’t ya?”

  Well, I knew it was pretty much what I should have expected. The standard treatment most of the floosies got who hunted that kind of work. But I wasn’t going to show myself for these creeps.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t see any point in it Because I don’t want to be a stripper. I don’t travel that road.”

  “Figure like that, you could make a mint,” said Tarino sadly. “We could pack them in.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’ll do most anything else.”

  “You show what you’ve got
or I can’t use you,” said Tarino.

  I picked up my bag and jacket, ready to leave.

  Tarino was looking again at Cigar Face. Their eyes met and Tarino shrugged and made an apologetic face which told me everything. He had just been putting on a little show for this guy’s benefit. He never intended to hire me.

  I went to the door.

  “Thanks,” I said, “for nothing, you bastard.” I turned the knob and was half way out when Cigar spoke for the first time.

  “Give her a job, Eddie,” he said. “Anything she wants.” It sounded like an order. I went back in. “Just like that?” said Tarino.

  “No,” said the other. “Call up Tafuri. If she checks, anything she wants. This cookie has guts. I like her.”

  “This gentleman,” said Tarino, “is Mr. Markos, Mr. Nick Markos. He owns a big supply house, equipment for bars and restaurants. We do a lot of business, eh, Nick?”

  “Yeah,” said Nick Markos, rising and removing his cigar. He came towards me. “Glad to know you, young lady. And I’ll be seeing you later. Maybe tonight.”

  He gave me a small pat on the rump and went out.

  He didn’t look back.

  Ten

  Tarino just stood there for a moment hands on hips, look ing after Nick Markos. Then he waved me to a chair and went bounding out the door.

  I have learned to take quick advantage of the smallest opportunity, and the second he had gone I was behind his desk. I knew it would be open because there wasn’t time for him to lock it, even if the thought occurred to him.

  I was right.

  I tried the bottom drawer first because that’s where you usually find the most interesting items. It contained a green metal box and a .45 automatic. The box was locked and I had to pass it. In the drawer above I found several notebooks. All but one seemed to itemize business expenditures. The last book was some kind of a payroll record. There wasn’t time to examine it closely. But I did recognize one name — a detective sergeant in the second district. I made note that his services were worth two hundred a week. A valuable man. I moved on to the top drawer. It held an assortment of junk — pencils and pens, paper, a lighter and cigarettes.

  The middle drawer contained a large address book, a banded stack of letters and a telegram. I plucked the wire from the envelope. It had been sent from Chicago.

  LARGE LOT NEW MERCHANDISE ACQUIRED FOR DELIVERY OUR CUSTOMERS. SHIPMENT ARRIVING MIAMI MONDAY. WILL JOIN YOU FOR CONFERENCE WEDNESDAY A.M. MEET TEN-TWENTY FLIGHT 610 EASTERN.

  MARKOS

  I was memorizing this tidbit when I heard steps in the hall. I jammed the wire back in the envelope and closed it away in the drawer. There wasn’t time to make it to a chair so I practically vaulted over the desk. I was leaning against it and investigating something on my leg when Eddie Tarino exploded into the room. I figured the best defense was a distraction and I had the skirt plenty high.

  The tight expression on Tarino’s face told me he had been worried that I might be snooping in his absence. But when he saw what I was doing his features relaxed and he grinned evilly. I gave him a nasty look and yanked the skirt down. Then I fell into a chair.

  He closed the door and flopped behind the desk. For a moment he toyed with the drawers, opening them casually, taking a sly look, closing them. Then he got a cigarette lighted up and swung towards me.

  “You’re working for me now, Garbo,” he said.

  “Am I?”

  “Yeah, that’s right, and don’t you forget it! You can cut the wise-guy stuff. I don’t take crap from anyone. Not anyone! Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ll do what you’re told — no questions. And while you’re doin’ what you’re told, you’ll wear a big jackass of a grin the whole time.”

  I made a huge grimace. “Yes, sir. Yes — sir! But my smile is expensive. What’s it worth to you, Mr. Tarino?”

  “You’ll get fifty per and ten per cent of all the drinks you can take the johns for.”

  “Unh-uh. We went to different schools, Mr. Tarino. I’ll take seventy-five and twenty per cent.”

  “No! He shook his head firmly. “Where do you think you are — out in L.A.?. Or Chicago? This is Miami, sister. Fifty and ten.”

  I got up and slowly gathered my jacket and bag. I went to the door.

  “Where you goin’!”

  “Sorry,” I said. “But I’m not that hard up. There are plenty of other joints in town.”

  I knew that I had him because this Markos character apparently held aces. And an easy mark is suspicious.

  “Be good to your mother,” I said, and opened the door.

  “Hold it!” he ordered. “Come back in and sit down, Myra. I’ll make a call and then we’ll see. Maybe we can get together.”

  I sat down again. Up, down. It was an exercise.

  He placed a call to the Tom Cat in L. A. Just as I thought — I could have told him that it was three hours earlier on the coast and Mike would probably be at home. But I let him struggle. He had to place two calls because the first one was station-to-station. It made him mad and I tried not to smile. It was an effort.

  While he was waiting he asked me how long I had worked for Tafuri. I told him about five years. Then he wanted to know when I left the Tom Cat. I said it was right around four months ago. These were things I had set up with Mike.

  At last he got through to Mike at home. He spoke to him as if they were real buddy-buddy, though probably Tarino wouldn’t recognize Mike on the street. There was a bit of shop-talk, very sharp dialogue. Then Tarino checked on my answers. He kept nodding. He finished with some cagey questions which added up to how far he could trust me. While he talked, his eyes slid over to watch me. He was poker-faced and I couldn’t tell what was going on in his mind. But when he hung up he gave me a lazy grin and he said,

  “You’re okay, Myra. You’re in. At seventy-five and twenty.”

  “That’s great, Mr. Tarino. When do I start?” I decided it was time now to play it straight. I gave him my all-for-you-boss attitude.

  “You’re on the payroll as of now, Myra. But I won’t put you on the floor tonight. Maybe not for a couple of days. Not until Mr. Markos goes back to Chicago. I want you to help me entertain him.”

  “Oh? Well, I don’t know. I’ll miss out on my percentage, Mr. Tarino.”

  “No you won’t, baby. I’ll take good care of you. There’ll be a couple of bills in it for you.”

  “That’s fine, Mr. Tarino, that’s just fine!”

  He studied his nails a moment and then looked up slowly with hooded eyes. “I want you to take good care of Mr. Markos, Myra. This man is in a way to do me a bunch of favors. He has some equipment he can sell me at around cost I need that equipment. It’s stuff I’ve got to have for a new place I’m opening. So I want you to do right by this guy. I want you to take good care of him.”

  “How good, Mr. Tarino?”

  “Well, you know, Myra.” His smile was cozy as a turned-down bed. “I don’t have to tell you what to do.”

  “Sure, Mr. Tarino. Of course I don’t play-for-pay. You might as well know that from the start. But I’ll take care of your friend. You can count on it. I’ll take care of him good.” And not the way you think, Eddie boy, I said without words.

  “Thata girl,” said Tarino, rising and coming around from behind the desk. “Thata baby!” He reached down and gave my leg a slow massage.

  “We’ll get along fine,” he said.

  Eleven

  Eddie Tarino drove me home in his Cadillac convertible. Home was my grubby little apartment on the west side — Myra Vanderwalt’s place.

  The apartment is on the ground floor in a pink stucco building which looks as if it had survived a couple of earthquakes and a flood or two — for it lists slightly to port. Tarino followed me down the dark corridor to my door. Hands in his pockets, he moved with a bouncy strut, looking about him with an air of one who takes mental notes for some future purpose.

  I unl
ocked the door and he walked right in behind me. He didn’t ask to come in, he just took it as his right. I was already sagging from the strain of the past two hours. It was nearly seven-thirty and I was hungry. In my mind I was gluing myself together for one of the romps in which you pretend to be boiling with a kind of giggly passion while you squirm out of the clinches like a snake with its tail on fire.

  But if Eddie Tarino was anxious, it was about something else. He danced into the living room and pulled up short. Feet spread, hands on hips, he took stock of my limp furniture.

  “Can’t salvage a wreck like this,” he said. “We’ll have to sink it. Looks like a hurricane sale.”

  Well, it wasn’t half that bad. But Eddie-boy had come a long way since he first gummed a tin spoon.

  “It used to be a penthouse,” I said. “But it settled a bit.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “But you can’t kick too much, it’s got wall-to-wall floors.”

  “I’m sorry you don’t like it, Mr. Tarino. I’ll have it destroyed in the morning.”

  He wasn’t listening. He had walked across the room to where my phone sat on a table. He got out an address book and scribbled with a pen. Then he bent down and, squinting, he wrote my phone number in the book.

  “Would you like a drink?” I asked.

  He looked up. “What’s that?”

  “Well, a drink is a kind of liquid and it comes in a glass and — “

  He shook his head, chuckling. “You’re a hot one, Myra. You really are. You got a fast mouth. No, I don’t want a drink. I’m on the hop.”

  He stuck his little book in a pocket and went to the door. He glanced at his watch.

  “You stay put here,” he said. “Keep yourself dressed and ready.”

  “For what, Mr. Tarino?”

  “No questions, remember? Just wait.”

  “All right, Mr. Tarino.”

  “And you can call me Eddie. Except around the help. That mister stuff sounds like a rib the way you say it.”

  “I didn’t want it to sound like that, Eddie. I meant every word of it.”

  “It takes a broad like you to get away with certain things and come out with a full head of teeth. You’re all right, Myra. But take it easy with Mr. Markos. Play him straight and careful. I won’t stand for any foul-ups.”