Girl Running

by Lawrence Lariar

  But one of them stepped away from the group and grabbed my eyes. This was no Dior frump. This one walked with easy hips, a big doll with ample accessories. Her bouncing frame made two wandering Frenchmen turn and whistle.

  I whistled, too.

  She was Denise Marchand.

  “My little friend,” she said, shaking my hand stiffly in the approved Parisian manner. She sat immediately. She would always drop her butt wherever a free drink beckoned. “I am surprised to find you here.”

  “I, too, am surprised,” I said. “Pernod?”

  “Already you have become a Parisian, no? If you please, a Vermouth cassis. I have only a few moments.”

  “My pleasure. You were visiting the great Tomaselli?”

  “A position,” she shrugged. “Tomaselli, I was told, searched for models.”

  “You got the job?”

  “He did not like me, the idiot.” She stretched in a mock pose for me. “She pulled her terrific torso into a fashion gesture. When she moved, the waiter almost lost his eyes. “I am too fat, eh?”

  “Not for me, baby. Tomaselli must have wheels in his head.”

  “Wheels?” She laughed at the silly word. “It does a girl not much good to be told she is too heavy.”

  “You should worry. You’re not too heavy for Larry.”

  Her face clouded. She had quick, expressive eyebrows. Now they were down in a frown. She lit a cigarette and sucked at it hungrily.

  “Please. Larry and I, we are no longer friends.”

  “It will pass. Whatever he did, you’ll forget it, baby.”

  “Not so,” she said seriously. “I am finished. Your friend Larry is a cruel man. Perhaps it is the American way to be so cruel, so rough, so muscular? A woman in France loves the—how do you say it—gentility? The French lover, he is softer. Kinder, perhaps, that is the word.” A sudden memory made the frown deepen. “Larry, he is a brute.”

  “He just plays rough.”

  “He must find another girl to play with.” She would sit here all day. She would bend my ear forever, as long as the free drinks ran her way. She called for a second cassis, enjoying my listening ear. “Last night,” she explained, “I met our host, Monsieur Garr. A charming man? A reasonable man? Can I help it if he liked me? Is it my fault when a rich one comes along? Naturellement, Monsieur Garr is attractive to me. How can one resist such a charming personality? A girl would be crazy to do such a thing. And am I crazy? Not Denise, mon petit. Yet, the cochon Larry, he is deeply hurt when I make the big decision. For this, he wanted to beat me.”

  She was all set to explain. With personal diagrams. She showed me a blue mark on her upper arm. She stood, ready to lift her skirt and reveal other abrasions. I waved her off. It was too late for anatomical explorations. It was almost five.

  “He’ll be back to apologize,” I comforted. “The big boob was too drunk to know what he did. Maybe you gave him the brush too suddenly, baby. No man likes to be dropped quick.”

  “Please. You must not tell him you saw me. I am afraid he will attack Monsieur Garr. That would be most terrible. Such a jealous one, the cochon.”

  I left her there, since she was unwilling to abandon her unfinished cassis. Only in Paris could you find this type of dame. Her outspoken hunger for easy loot made me laugh out loud.

  I was still chuckling when I walked into Tomaselli’s.

  A couple of French businessmen were eyeing a model when I arrived. Tomaselli sat beside them, his hands gesturing as the girl stepped and turned. Behind Tomaselli, the nance Eric leaned in with a pad and pencil. He looked up, saw me, and tapped his boss on the shoulder. Vince gave me his eye for a brief nod. He was telling me not to interrupt. I stayed on in the foyer watching the end of the performance. There was a final flurry of activity from the customers, a few thousand French words of dialogue, after which Tomaselli escorted them graciously to the exit.

  Then he came my way. He didn’t put out a hand for me. He was reluctant to remember me from Loretta’s. He lit a cigarette slowly, watching me as he smoked, uncertain of what to say to me.

  “Loretta told you I’d be here?” I asked. “Conacher?”

  “So she did.” He seemed to recognize me then. His face showed some kind of inner struggle. But it would be tough to analyze Tomaselli. He had the vacant, faraway look of a poet. In the awkward moment, Loretta’s words came back to me. This was no act, no stall. He was still operating in the recent past, his mind wrapped up in the last transaction, the last idea.

  Then he held out his hand for me to shake.

  “Listen,” he said. “Can you come back tomorrow? I’m deep in my new show. You want to talk, I know. It isn’t going to be easy for me tonight.”

  “I’ll make it as easy as I can.”

  “It must be now?”

  “It won’t take long.”

  We walked up the stairs to his office. Up on the landing, Eric waited. He was as nervous as a nurse over a needle. He stepped in close to his boss, whispering a rapid-fire line in French. Tomaselli shook his head and motioned him downstairs. He went grudgingly, unwilling to leave us. Tomaselli turned to look down at him, disciplining him with a finger and a frown. Eric moved away.

  Vince waved me to a leather chair. He offered me a cigar. He added a brandy. He was a smooth and experienced host, nerveless, an actor all the way. I began to feel like a schoolboy just back from playing hooky. It was all so very casual, the neatly decorated sanctum, the atmosphere of calm, the impeccable host behind the big modern desk.

  “You came,” he said easily, “to ask me questions about Judy Martin, isn’t that it?”

  “On the nose.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can, without the asinine questions. I know Judy fairly well. I met her during an exhibition of work at the Zarchy school. You will want to know when? It was about a year and a half ago. You will want to know what happened next? I liked her painting. Judy has talent, lots of it. I bought several of her things. I also convinced friends to do the same. Lester Garr, for instance. Loretta is another. That’s about it, Conacher—the beginning and the end of it.”

  “Let’s have the middle,” I said.

  “The middle?”

  “Fill me in on your friendship. The way I heard it, you were on the make for her.”

  “I liked her.”

  “Nothing deep?”

  “We’re friends,” he said. He played with a paper knife. His hands were tight on the handle. He had it in his fist, pricking the desk blotter slowly. He put the thing down when he saw my eyes on it. “Just good friends. Judy’s a nice girl. The most talented female I’ve ever met, actually.”

  “Talented and flighty?”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She faded,” I said. “Only disturbed people hide away, Tomaselli. Was she disturbed?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “Who can?”

  He shrugged, still miles away from me. Creating a new dress design? Or working to shake his mind away from an annoying memory? His face told me nothing. And his eyes were emptier than his face.

  “Her closest friend, I suppose. Her sister should know.”

  “Her sister hired me to find out.”

  “Why?” He came alive a bit. He was warming to my problem. It could be that he might help me if he accepted the deal on an intellectual basis, on a creative basis. His face took on a curious look now. “You’ve a fascinating enigma on your hands in a way Conacher. Judy didn’t hit me as the type of girl who changed her mind after a serious decision. Her painting proves that. She’s a hard, zealous worker. Perhaps she’s off on a new adventure with her painting. Painters do that, you know. They run away to be alone. Some kind of a battle they must fight with themselves. Maybe that happened to Judy. Her sister might think about it.”

  “Smart boy,” I said. “You’re right
on the beam. Judy’s already told her sister to give up.”

  “It sounds like Judy.”

  “Does it? A clever butcher might take the same line to decoy the hounds.”

  “I don’t quite understand you, Conacher.”

  “I’ll break it down. Wouldn’t it be pretty easy to get some doll to call Peggy and put on an act? Peggy would be too upset to check the voice on the wire carefully. Peggy would react to almost any feminine voice. It’d be a cute way to get Peggy to call off her hunt for her sister. Cute—if it worked.”

  His face showed me nothing but a building interest in the paper knife. This boy was solid granite. He’d react to nothing but a good kick in the tail. Or would that move him? More than ever I was beginning to buy Loretta’s explanation of his temperament. He sat on his personal cloud. His eyes still focused in mysterious distances. Did he see me at all when he turned my way?

  “It’s a logical theory,” Tomaselli said. He said it with the same emotional pitch as a request for a cigarette. “You’re assuming, then, that Judy’s been murdered, is that it?”

  “Not yet. We never assume murder until we’ve found a body.”

  “Of course. But—what do you assume?”

  “That Judy’s still around. I’ve got to keep dredging. Got to keep asking questions. Judy’s male companions, for instance?”

  “I’m not your man for that question.” He smiled, caught up in some internal joke. “Judy was quite popular. I can recall some sort of flirtation with Jastro. He’s a specialist at seduction.”

  “He made the grade with Judy?”

  “You’ll have to ask her that.”

  “I’m asking your opinion.”

  “I doubt that he got far with Judy Martin,” he said. “A girl with lots of character, Conacher. Too much for Jastro. A really talented woman.”

  He sat there waiting for my next question. In the past ten minutes he seemed to have softened, weakened, let down the high screen to his inner man. Was he finished with his creative dreaming for a while? The phone rang. He picked it up and spoke French into it. He said: “Toot sweet, toot sweet, toot sweet.” Then he hung up and offered me another cigarette and another brandy.

  I said: “I’m finished, Tomaselli. Just one more question.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Last night. After Garr’s party. Where did you go?”

  He chuckled softly. “That’s a rather impertinent question, Conacher.”

  “I’m an impertinent character.”

  “You’re out of bounds. Let’s just say that I went for a walk.”

  “A long walk,” I said. “You walk in your sleep?”

  “You’re out of bounds, Conacher.”

  It was impossible to make him boil over. He conducted me down the stairs with the air of a headwaiter. From the foyer I could see Eric Yale sitting again in the big red chair. He must have been squatting there while I talked to his boss. He shot me a withering girlish glance. Tomaselli opened the door for me.

  “I hope I’ve helped you, Conacher.”

  “Like a hole in the head,” I said. “But I’ll be talking to you again.”

  “Come now, let’s not make a habit of it.”

  “I’m loaded with bad habits.”

  He shook my hand pleasantly enough. Before the door closed I heard the thin sound of Eric Yale’s laughter from the red chair. For a flick of time, in the second before the door shut him away from me, Vince Tomaselli seemed to react to that laugh. His handsome kisser clouded with annoyance. His well-oiled poise cracked for an electric moment. But it passed quickly. He was smiling again when I hit the street.

  The Bar Genête was filling with apéritif guzzlers when I found a table. The French live it up a bit before dinner. They pause, during the darkening hours, to sip a quick one and prepare their gastric juices for the main meal of the day. I parked and joined the ritual. I drank and watched. Over at Tomaselli’s, no lights went on in the downstairs section. The street swam in the first thick haze of darkness.

  From where I sat, the whole street lay in focus. On the right, on my side, a small factory emptied. A group of French workers came into view. They laughed it up. Some of them broke and ran for the main boulevard, hell-bent for the first bus. A few dawdled on the curb, making passes at the chicks. Then they were gone and the street was deadly quiet. A kid came wheeling in on a bike. He disappeared at the end of the alley. A lone man stepped across the way. He carried a long loaf of bread, whistling as he bounced along.

  A cab rolled in from the boulevard. It stopped at Tomaselli’s door. Its occupant was screened away from me, making me jump from my seat and run to the forward edge of the tables. I caught the dim figure of a woman over there. In her quick movement to Tomaselli’s door, I could see only her size and shape, dimly. Loretta? This babe walked like Loretta, a big broad dressed in a blouse and skirt. For a moment she paused at the door, her finger on the buzzer. When she turned, the cab swung back and lit her briefly with its headlights. It was Loretta, all right.

  She was inside before I paid for my drinks.

  And when I came through to the sidewalk, another barrier faced me.

  A car was parked at the curb.

  “Monsieur Conacher?” somebody asked through the open door.

  I leaned down to look inside. It was a small crate, one of the domestic French models. In the shadowy interior, a man sat alone, his face hidden from me.

  “If you please,” he was saying. “Come in?”

  The voice was easy, friendly and gruff. I couldn’t find the tab for it. A Frenchman, certainly. I stiffened and straightened, unwilling to play it his way.

  “Who the hell, are you?” I asked.

  Then I felt the gun in my back. Without turning, I could smell the big ape who stood over me. He stank from a mixture of bad cigars and worse food. He was a towering hulk, half man, half garlic. But the rod in his hand was solid and threatening. He pushed it into my spine. He pushed hard.

  “If you please,” said the man in the car again. “Will you join me?”

  I joined him.

  CHAPTER 17

  Les Abattoirs—Route des Petits Points

  Garlic rode in the front seat with the driver, a quiet one who rolled the car skillfully through traffic. We were in no hurry. The street lights showed me my seat mate in quick flashes. He was a fat one, heavy in the chin and chest. He sported a black homburg and smoked American cigarettes. Every once in a while Garlic exchanged a few rapid lines with him. I could see the street signs clearly. We were on the Rue de Crimée. We turned left on the Avenue Jean Jaurès. I assumed this meant the Avenue of the Bad Smells.

  I said: “What’s the tour? The smells of Paris?”

  My friend the fat man chuckled. “Les abattoirs,” he said. “Where the beasts are killed. You say slaughterhouse?”

  “I say it stinks and to hell with it.”

  Now we were on a darker road, Route des Petits Points. Garlic muttered an order to the driver and we swung into a narrow alley, something out of the Hollywood suspense epics. A series of windowless buildings lined the road. At the far end, a black wall. There were no lights. The headlights showed a sea of squalor, boarded windows and bare-boned shacks.

  The fat man said: “Ici.”

  The car rolled into the edge of the curb, under the protective darkness of a warehouse door. We were half in, half out. I could see nothing but the glowing end of my friend’s cigarette.

  “You’re scaring me to pieces,” I said. “But I’d breathe easier if you tell old Garlic to beat it.”

  “Garlic?” asked the fat man.

  “The big bum in the front seat.”

  “Henri,” he barked, tapping the hulk with a chunky finger. Garlic and the driver got out. They parked in the shelter of the warehouse, near enough to be dangerous. It was all very tight and neat, as we
ll staged as a Hammett incident. And twice as frightening.

  Because the fat man showed me his gun.

  “All this and armament, too?” I asked. “Why the gun?”

  “A precaution only,” he said. “It is important that we talk together.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Bon. I will come to the point quickly. You are a celebrated detective, one of the best.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

  “From what I hear,” he continued, “you are famous for your skill at finding the lost ones, no? Which leads me to conclude, perhaps, that you still search for Mademoiselle Judy?”

  “You conclude correctly.”

  “But you have not located her?” He was a glowing dot of light beside me, a flickering cigarette. There was no way to figure him anymore. He would be very heavy, that much I knew. He would be tough to bypass, tough to upset in this little car. He allowed me a minute with my thoughts. “You have not located the Mademoiselle?” he asked again.

  “Let’s play it your way.”

  “Bon. Perhaps my way is the best for you. After all, even a detective is a businessman, no? You labor for a fee? You have a price, isn’t that so?”

  “You’re giving me French double talk,” I said. “Get to it. Your pitch. Make it.”

  He laughed in his teeth. “I admire your frankness. You have guessed my purpose, indeed. I have brought you here to make you an offer.”

  “Cute. How much?”

  “Five thousand dollars in American money. It is yours if you will abandon the search for Mademoiselle Judy.”

  I whistled. He had a wad of bills in his hand. He lit his cigarette lighter and showed me the color of the loot. I gave it only a casual glance. I was too busy casing his fat kisser, putting it down in my memory book. He had a few tabs for me. He had a small, hairline moustache. His eyebrows were as heavy as thumbs, overgrown mats of hair. There was a small X on his forehead, up near his right ear.