by Hank Janson
‘You’re a silly old dear,’ she said, still smiling at him softly. She rumpled his hair. ‘Run along now, darling,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
I wasn’t sure what the set-up was. I couldn’t see that being unable to get a divorce from Burden meant Charles and Dorothy couldn’t set up house together. But apparently it did. Charles kissed her goodnight, she shook hands with me and we drifted back to my car.
‘Where shall I drop you?’ I asked him.
‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘I don’t live far from here. Just five minutes’ walk.’
He said goodnight to us and then set off, his tall, thin figure disappearing into the shadows.
I went on from there to Dane’s apartment. He was very quiet now. Very subdued. Yet I got the feeling he was seething inside. ‘Will you be all right now?’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I guess I’ll take a shower before I hit the hay.’
‘That’s the stuff,’ I said. ‘See you in the morning.’
Going by car to a party has its disadvantages. Especially if it’s a late party. You usually wind up acting as a taxi-driver for everybody and get home dead beat, hours after everyone else.
It was pretty late now. I had a full day’s work ahead of me the next day. I was tired, and I remembered now that I’d concentrated on drinking all the evening and hadn’t eaten a thing. I had that queer, weightless feeling in my belly that goes with drinking too much when you haven’t eaten.
But I couldn’t ditch Lulu. I had to get her home. When I pulled up outside her apartment block, she said: ‘Come up and have a nightcap, Hank.’
‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I’m hungry, I’m dead beat and I’ve gotta get up early.’
‘I’ll fix that,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a cold chicken in the ice-box. How does that sound?’
It sounded good. Real good. I went up. The electric clock on the kitchen wall said it was four o’clock. Just to look at it made me feel tired. Lulu opened up the ice-box, tore a coupla legs off a chicken she had. I snatched one leg from her and gnawed it ravenously.
‘Coffee?’
‘If it’s black.’
As the pleasant, bitter aroma of brewing coffee began to fill the kitchen, I sat half on the edge of the kitchen table and chewed my chicken bone. She sat next to me, pressing her shoulder against mine. I stripped the bone clean, tossed it into the sink and fumbled in my pocket for a handkerchief to wipe my greasy fingers. Lulu already had her hand in my pocket.
‘What the hell are you up to?’ I asked.
She giggled, flashed her eyes at me and held up my key-ring, There were two keys. One for my car and the other for my apartment.
‘What’s this?’ she asked archly.
I held out my hand.
‘Give,’ I said.
‘Let me guess,’ she mocked. ‘Car key and door key. Right?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Give.’
She giggled, moved quickly before I could stop her. Her hand lingered in the bodice of her dress and came away empty.
‘What kinda gag is that?’ I demanded.
She chuckled meaningfully, plucked at her waist. There was the soft thwack of snapped elastic.
‘Don’t let’s play games, Lulu,’ I said wearily. ‘I’m tired. I wanna hit the hay.’
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘When you’re ready.’
‘Jeepers,’ I said tiredly. ‘Don’t start something. I’m not in the mood for a petting party.’
‘I’m all right,’ she said brightly. ‘I feel fine.’
‘Listen,’ I said angrily. ‘Are you gonna give me that key or have I gotta –’ I broke off abruptly.
She nodded, smiled archly. ‘That’s right,’ she said confidently. ‘You’ve gotta get it yourself.’
I glared at her. Any other time I’d willingly have tangled with this dame. Twelve hours earlier I would have willingly tangled with her. But with the clock hands working their way around to five o’clock, I wasn’t interested. I wouldn’t be able to lie in bed until 12 o’clock next morning thinking how nice it had been. I had to work.
‘I can handle that,’ I said grimly. I swung off the kitchen table, went into the dining room and picked up the telephone. I dialled Dane’s number. I was gonna ask him to give me pillow room on his settee.
She followed me curiously, stood there looking at me, a slightly worried look on her face. The lines connected and the telephone began to burr.
‘Who are you ringing?’
‘Friend of mine,’ I said. ‘He’ll put me up tonight. Tomorrow I can get another apartment key if I don’t come and twist that one from you first.’
‘Why not do it now?’ she asked.
‘Because I’m tired. Because I’ve gotta get up in the morning. I told you that. Remember?’
It musta been a wrong number. There was no reply. I dialled again and got the same result. I kept the phone ringing so long that nobody, no matter how sleepy, could have endured it.
I hung up thoughtfully.
She smiled wickedly. ‘Your friend’s not home, then?’
‘No,’ I growled. I was wondering where the hell Dane had gone. I was remembering how he’d asked me about that gun. It was crazy. Dane wasn’t the guy to get ideas like that. I dismissed it from my mind.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my bed,’ she said. ‘It’s a feather mattress.’
I wanted to go home, shower, freshen up and get to bed. I’d seen too large a selection of boobies displayed that evening to have any scruples.
I twisted Lulu around, pulled her close and thrust my hand over her shoulder, deep down into her bodice. She giggled, wriggled, crossed her arms, pressed herself together and imprisoned my fingers. I kept fumbling and she kept wriggling and giggling. I didn’t find the keys, but I found a whole lot of something else. I began to get all hot and bothered, and it wasn’t on account of not being able to find the keys.
I began to get worried. I couldn’t find the keys. She was squirming now, doubling up and giggling all the time. She was hugging onto my arm, imprisoning my hand like she was afraid I’d pull it away. But I’d set out to find those keys and I was determined to find them. I unbuttoned the front of her frock, pulled it down over her shoulders. She wriggled herself artfully, helping me, not resisting.
She kinda lay in my arms with the frock rumpled around her waist.
‘That’s nice, honey,’ she crooned, as I loosed her halter.
I pushed her away from me angrily, went down on my hands and knees and began searching the carpet. She was bare down to the waist and since I hadn’t found the keys I figured they musta dropped on the floor.
Her voice was mocking. ‘Can I help you, honey?’
I grunted.
She stood there, hands on hips, watching me with mocking eyes. She eased her dress down over her hips and stepped out of it.
I got up, red-faced, breathing heavily, and looked at her. ‘What have you done with them?’ I demanded hotly.
‘Aw, honey, what do you trunk I’ve done with them?’ she said, rolling her eyes.
Then her fingers strayed to the waistband of her briefs. She plucked. There was the soft thwack of snapping elastic, a sound that I’d heard before. I got it then. I knew where my keys were.
I was angry now. I said, ‘Give – or I’ll strip you!’
‘Yes, please, honey,’ she said quickly, working a husky, sexy tone into her voice.
I moved in. She moved fast, slipping around me, laughing and chuckling. ‘You’ve gotta catch me first, naughty boy,’ she cooed.
She was swift and slippery like quicksilver. We circled the dining-room table half a dozen times, knocked over a coupla chairs before she fled into the bedroom, screaming with laughter.
I finally caught up with her when she sprawled herself on the bed.
She was hooting with laughter as I grappled with her, she crossed her ankles, doubled her knees up beneath her chin and wrapped
her arms around my neck. She thought it was great fun.
The way things were working out, it seemed Lulu had had a lotta practice at stealing apartment keys this way. She seemed to know all the angles. Hugging herself together the way she was didn’t give me a chance to get at those keys. I had to straighten her out first. And since she was as slippery as an eel and as wiry as a Japanese wrestler, the only way I could straighten her out and keep her straightened out long enough to get my keys was to sprawl my weight on top of her.
I was sweating for more reasons than one when I finally got the keys, and it was then she stopped giggling. She kinda relaxed, sighed, hugged me lightly and said: ‘Hank, honey, you’re wonderful!’
All this had taken time. I almost didn’t waste that time. If it hadn’t been for the clock in the living-room chiming five o’clock, I’d probably … But the chiming chimes were like a cooling draught. I got up unsteadily, fumbled my way across the bedroom and to the door.
‘Hank,’ she cried. She propped herself up on her elbow and stared after me with angry, vexed eyes.
‘Some other time, honey,’ I said thickly. ‘It’s like I said. I’m tired. I’ve work in the morning.’
She came running after me, trying to pull me back, and she had the kinda curves to give her plenty of argument. But the magic moment had passed, shattered in fragments by the chiming of a clock. A clock that reminded me that in just a few hours I’d be sweating to make the deadline for the morning edition.
She was almost in tears when I left her at her apartment door. She couldn’t very well follow me any further the way she was dressed – or undressed!
With a sigh of relief I got back into the driving seat, started the engine and pointed the bonnet towards home.
My homeward direction led me past Dorothy Burden’s apartment. As I’ve already said, it was on the ground floor. Quite naturally, I glanced at it as I passed. Then I jammed on my brakes and pulled into the side
The lights were full on, the door was wide open and lights were streaming out through the porch. I got the queer feeling there was something wrong.
I knocked on the open door and called. Nobody answered. There was that kinda quietness a place has when there’s nobody around.
Cautiously I went in. I called again. I kept on calling. There was an open book and reading glasses by the side of an easy chair. It was as though somebody had been sitting there reading. I touched the chair cushions and they were still warm. I scratched my chin thoughtfully, walked across to what was obviously the bedroom door and pushed it open gingerly.
The room was empty. The bed hadn’t been slept in. The kitchen and another room were also empty. I went back into the living room and looked at the easy chair and the book. Two and two made four. Dorothy Burden had been sitting there reading until a short time ago. Why should she go out suddenly at this time in the morning and leave the door wide open?
I shrugged my shoulders. I was getting less and less sleep. And there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this, anyway.
I went back to my car, started up and steered down the road. Way up ahead was an all-night drug store. It was the only lighted shop front in the street. I saw somebody come out and come hurrying down the road towards me. It wasn’t until I’d passed that I recognised it was Dorothy. By then there was no point in stopping. Everything was simple. She’d just popped out to the druggist to get something.
Just gone to the druggist to get something!
What did folks want from a druggist at five o’clock in the morning?
All kinds of thoughts whirled around in my mind. Burden. Poison. Murder!
It was crazy, of course. Dorothy seemed like a good, clean-living young woman. She wouldn’t get crazy ideas. But then, all kinds of folks get crazy ideas. I slowed the car around and headed back. You don’t burst in on a friend in the middle of the night and say: ‘Have you just bought poison to murder your husband?’
I stopped outside the druggist, went in and put a five-dollar bill on the counter.
‘What’s that for?’ he asked.
‘The dame who just came in,’ I said. ‘What did she buy?’
He left the bill lying right where it was, looked at me, looked at the bill, and then looked back at me again: ‘What’s it to you, brother?’
‘Don’t’ get smart,’ I warned. ‘You know you have to put signatures in the poison book resister. I know who the dame was. Did she register?’
His eyes switched from me to the telephone. He edged a coupla paces sideways. ‘Just what do you want?’ he demanded.
‘The dame who just came in,’ I repeated grimly. ‘What did she buy?’
‘The nuts I get in here!’ he sneered ‘What d’you think a dame would buy in here at five o’clock in the morning?’
‘I’m not thinking. I’m asking. Are you gonna talk, or am I gonna call a cop?’
He addressed an unseen audience. He gestured with his hands. ‘What goes on in this town?’ he asked them. ‘Cops, poison books, dumb-faced guys demanding information. What kinda world is this, anyway?’
‘You want I should come behind that counter and poke you?’
‘Listen, bud,’ he said grimly. ‘Float! Take a powder! Scram! Get going before I call the cops.’
‘Call the cops,’ I challenged him. ‘You can do some talking to them.’
‘When I call the cops I have a reason,’ he sneered. ‘I don’t call cops any time some half-baked tough guy wants to know why a dame orders a sleeping draught in the middle of the night!’
‘Sleeping draught?’ I echoed.
‘What the hell did you think it was – arsenic?’
‘Any poison in it?’ I asked quickly.
His eyes looked at me keenly. ‘Are you thinking that dame’s a suicide case?’
‘Why d’ya think I’m so het up?’
He flicked the five-spot with his finger so that it skimmed towards me over the counter. I caught it as it floated gently to the ground. ‘Hold tight to your poke,’ he said. ‘She has a sleeping-draught made to doctor’s prescription. I make up a bottle for her every month. You ain’t got a thing to worry about.’
That took a whole load off my mind. It was after all a perfectly reasonable explanation. She’d been reading quietly at home and finally gone out to get her sleeping mixture. What could be more simple?
I got home at 5.30. I could hardly keep my eyes open. And just because there was a little worry still gnawing at the back of my mind, I dialled to Dane’s apartment. There was still no reply. I hung up and scratched my chin thoughtfully. Probably, as in the case of Dorothy, there was some quite reasonable explanation for him not being at home.
I climbed out of my clothes, padded through to the bathroom, showered in cold water and then crawled into bed. I was dog-tired. I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
It was just half-past seven when the telephone began to ring and continued ringing incessantly. I swore, mumbled, clawed my way out through a sleepy mist and lifted the receiver off its hook. It was so pleasant when the jangling of the bell ceased that I just lay there with the earpiece to my ear, half slipping back into sleep.
And then slowly the frantic urgency of the voice began to probe into my consciousness. I sat up and said quickly, ‘Give me that again!’
‘You’ve got to come, Hank. It’s terribly important. I’ll go mad or something. You must come at once!’
‘Stella!’ I said. I breathed hard for a moment, and then: ‘What’s biting you?’
‘There’s no-one I could appeal to except you.’ The desperate anxiety in her voice was coming over as clearly as though she was in the room with me. ‘You must come over, Hank!’
‘What’s the trouble?’
‘I daren’t talk about it,’ she almost whispered into the phone. ‘I’m desperate – I don’t know what to do.’
‘Just how bad is this?’ I asked gently.
‘Terribly bad,’ sh
e said softly. ‘Terribly, terribly bad.’ There was a kinda choked horror in her voice.
I was gonna say, ‘Why didn’t you ring Dane instead of me?’ wanting to be brutal to her, but checked myself, remembering Dane wasn’t at home. I said soothingly, ‘All right, Stella. Just sit tight. I’ll be right over.’
‘Don’t waste a minute,’ she pleaded. ‘Not one single minute.’
I wondered what kinda trouble this was. I climbed into my clothes quickly and there was a dull ache jagging through my skull. Living at this rate, I probably wouldn’t last more than another coupla years. I stopped long enough to rinse my mouth with Bourbon. My tongue felt like it was tarred and feathered. Then I went down to my car and drove over to Burden’s house just about as fast as I could.
I guess I was still really half-asleep. Otherwise I might have guessed what I was gonna see when I got there.
Stella opened the door, dressed in her filmy underclothes. But there was a listless droop to her body and a haunted, frightened look on her face that dispelled any romantic ideas the underclothing might have given me.
She pulled me in quickly, closed the door behind me.
‘What’s this all about?’ I demanded.
She pointed to the lounge. ‘In there,’ she said in a whisper. ‘In there.’
I looked at the door of the lounge and then looked at her. There were black rings beneath her eyes, which were red and swollen like she’d been crying all night.
‘What the hell goes on …?’
‘In there,’ she said. She pointed and kinda edged back at the same time, as though there was something in the lounge that frightened her.
I guess I realised then what I was gonna see. I walked carefully, pushed open the door of the lounge without touching the door-handle and stepped inside. The place was a shambles. Glasses, sandwiches, overturned furniture and the smell of stale tobacco. Just the way a place is after a hectic party.
And there, crumpled up in the middle of the floor, was Hugh Burden. He was lying on his back, one leg crumpled beneath him and his arms splayed out. His eyes were closed and his face was fixed in a wild grimace of pain. He was wearing only his pants, and that enabled me to see clearly why he didn’t feel so good. The haft of a knife projected from between his ribs on the left side, just about where you’d expect his heart to be.