Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  They went up the front steps of the Las Dunas and pushed through the glass doors. The lobby was bright and quiet and deserted.

  “You have the key?” Sin asked.

  John Henry felt in his trousers pocket. “Uh-huh.”

  “I sort of expected your pocket had been picked. Johnny, who are we?”

  He grinned. “The Conovers, returning from a festive evening with the police.”

  Outside their path curved to the cottages. Most of the cottages were still unlighted.

  “I’m glad you left our porch light on,” Sin said suddenly.

  John Henry could have sworn that he turned the porch light off, but there it was, clearly illuminating the black iron 15 on the white stucco.

  He punched the key into the lock. Then he withdrew it. He looked down at the lock.

  “I could swear I locked it.”

  He tried the handle. The door swung open into the blackness of the cottage. He patted around for the light switch. The front room came into brilliant being.

  Sin’s scream was short and piercing. John Henry swore automatically. Sin was wrapped around his arm, half behind him, her eyelashes fluttering in fright.

  A girl was sitting in the big chair that faced the door. Her round eyes were ponds of friendly curiosity. Under them, softly prominent cheek-bones slanted into a tiptilted nose. She was young, with a lily-smooth face and black hair. Trim legs were doubled up under her.

  “What the hell,” said John Henry, “are you doing here?”

  “Yes,” said Sin definitely.

  The girl had a small sultry mouth that said, “You’re trying to scare me. Somebody told you I liked to be scared.”

  The Conovers looked at each other. John Henry said, “Well, that doesn’t answer my question, Miss—”

  The girl kept smiling, half-veiling bright eyes. Her voice came caressingly.

  “I’m so glad you came to call. I need building up.”

  Sin said flatly, “We live here.”

  The girl answered, “I live here,” and shook her sleek black head slowly.

  “Now, look here,” John Henry began.

  “Tell her, Johnny.” Sin nudged him. “Tell her that we’re registered here.”

  “That’s right. We’re registered here, Miss—”

  The girl’s face saddened. “I’m sorry this is all a mistake. I was registered for this cottage less than an hour ago. Mr. Gayner was quite definite about the number.”

  Sin whispered, “Johnny, don’t just stand there!”

  JOHN Henry took recourse in reason.

  “Yes, I guess a mistake has been made, all right. They’ve put you into the wrong cottage. We’ve been living here ever since early this evening. I’ll show you!”

  He strode into the bedroom. Their clothes were in the closet. That should convince the girl that she was in the wrong place. John Henry threw open the closet door.

  Sin said, “Oh, honey!”

  The closet was stuffed with clothes, but they were the wrong clothes—slinky dresses, evening gowns, dressing gowns. Nothing was Sin’s, much less her husband’s.

  The girl pulled out a hanger with a black robe which, except for collar and cuffs of jaguar fur, was completely transparent. She held it up and looked at John Henry.

  “I found this in Mexico City. Would you say it was too extreme?”

  John Henry backed up and sat down abruptly on the bed. “I can’t understand it,” he said heavily. “This is our cottage. I know it is.”

  “We were registered for this one. We dressed here. Johnny took a bath in that bathroom.” Sin pointed a dramatic forefinger.

  The girl smiled demurely. “You must have mistaken the number this evening in the dark.”

  Sin folded her arms. John Henry recognized the battle flags going up.

  “I,” she announced, “am going to stay right here. This is our cottage.”

  John Henry interposed, “Suppose I get Mr. Gayner. He ought to be able to straighten the whole thing out in a jiffy—”

  “Wait, Johnny!” Sin scampered after him. “I don’t want to be left alone here!”

  The girl came in from the bedroom, and coiled gracefully into her chair again.

  “Will you shut off the lights as you go? I like to sit alone in the dark.”

  “Sure,” said John Henry hollowly.

  He pulled the blue door shut and hurried Sin toward the friendly brightness of the hotel. . . .

  “I wouldn’t have had it happen for the world.” Mr. Gayner was prostrated.

  “Okay, I understand that,” John Henry said. He stood behind his wife’s chair. Sin sat there fidgeting angrily.

  The assistant manager leaned back in his swivel chair.

  “Faye Jordan is,” he mourned, “a child of whim. Whim and wealth are an uncomfortable combination. Cottage fourteen has been held open for a week, pending her arrival—she paid the rental all that time. When she arrived this evening, I naturally moved her into Cottage fourteen. Then we discovered a mistake had been made in her telegram. Instead, she desired Cottage fifteen.”

  “Of all the silly things!” Sin exploded. “The cabins are all the same, aren’t they?”

  Gayner shrugged. “Exactly the same, Mrs. Conover. I emphasized that to Miss Jordan, but nothing would do but that she had Cottage fifteen, so—”

  “You moved our things out,” John Henry said.

  “Just next door,” Gayner soothed. “I regret the embarrassment this whole business has caused. I had expected to be on the desk when you returned. I could have prevented this unfortunate episode. I did my best in your absence. I secured permission to move your baggage.”

  John Henry swallowed. “Permission! Who gave you permission?”

  “Your representative here. The tooth-paste fellow. Mr. Trim. . . .”

  John Henry stopped pacing around in Cottage fourteen and plopped down on the bed beside Sin.

  “I know how you feel, honey.” He stroked her hair gently.

  “What’s so special about Cottage fifteen, anyway?” she demanded.

  “Beats me.”

  There were two light taps on the living-room door.

  “There’s our boy now,” John Henry said.

  HE was right. Mr. Trim stood blinking on the porch. His small mouth and bald head reminded John Henry of an underfed Humpty Dumpty.

  “Come in, Mr. Trim,” Conover greeted him. “My wife wanted to see you.”

  “I hope you’ll forgive this intrusion,” Trim rattled in his high precise voice.

  “We called you,” clarified Sin. She folded her arms.

  “I know,” the little fellow confessed miserably, “you haven’t been having a good time. That’s why the Company sent me here. And I’ve failed. I’m awfully sorry the misunderstanding arose.”

  “We are, too,” said Sin, unswerving. “Mr. Gayner was so wrought up I couldn’t refuse. I didn’t realize a different cottage would actually make any difference to you. It must have been quite a shock to find your clothes gone.”

  “It was,” John Henry said grimly. “But not so much of a shock as it was to find all our things had been searched.”

  “Searched! You mean somebody tampered with your personal belongings?”

  “Uh-huh. And whoever searched our stuff did it in a hurry. Everything’s a mess.”

  John Henry said moodily, “It’s not as if we were surprised. Nothing surprises us any more.”

  The tooth-paste representative said vigorously, “Something has to be done. After all, I’m responsible.”

  “Johnny,” Sin said, “maybe you should tell Mr. Trim the whole story.” John Henry regarded Trim’s anxious expression narrowly. Then he attacked the story, trying to remember everything. The wounded prowler, the robed waiter, the playing card queen, Barselou’s hostile attitude. Only when he got around to the shooting in the alley and Homer Anglin’s dying message did Trim commence puckering his forehead.

  “Say, I don’t know what to say,” he confessed.


  “It’d make more sense if Anglin had given me something,” John Henry said. “But he just said, ‘You already got it’ and died. I didn’t get anything.”

  “But somebody thinks Anglin gave you something, Mr. Conover,” Trim said owlishly. “That is quite probably why Mr. Gayner was so willing to accommodate Miss Jordan. Moving your baggage would give him an excellent opportunity to search it.”

  “Why should Mr. Gayner want to go through our things?” asked Sin.

  “Because he was told to, Mrs. Conover. Mr. Gayner’s boss—the boss of most things in Azure—is Mr. Barselou. Mr. Barselou owns this hotel.”

  John Henry grunted, “Well, how do you like that!”

  “Just more weight to your belief that Mr. Barselou is hip-deep in this business, whatever it is,” Trim said. “And there’s no doubt that Mr. Barselou believes you are working against his interests. Arc you?”

  “For heaven’s sake, no!” said Sin. “Then,” said Mr. Trim, “I suggest we go to the police.”

  “No!” John Henry flushed. “Maybe now that Barselou’s searched our stuff, he’s convinced we haven’t got what he’s after. Besides, I’d feel like a dope telling all this to that police lieutenant now.”

  “Well,” said Trim disappointedly, “if you just want to forget it.”

  WHEN he finally left, Sin and John Henry undressed.

  “You know, Sin,” John Henry mused as he buttoned his pajama top absently, “I was thinking about what you said earlier tonight. Who are we? We don’t know who Barselou thinks we are. Sin, he’s fighting somebody he’s never seen—or he’d never have mistaken us for them.”

  Sin said, “But poor Anglin knew we were wrong—after he saw you. What was he trying to deliver? He tries to drop off his ‘it’ here and no luck. Then he tries to give it to Barselou—and gets stopped.”

  Sin sighed, “Poor guy—trying so hard to peddle his something.” She paused with one hand on the bathroom doorknob. “Suppose Anglin came up the canyon counting the cottages instead of reading the numbers: That’s what I’ve been thinking. You know how some buildings and hotels don’t have any thirteenth floor? ’Cause people are superstitious? So they just skip that number. I’ll bet there’s no Cottage thirteen.”

  “Sure, that’s it! Clever girl! That means if Anglin came along counting cottages, and got our old Cottage fifteen, he was one number over.”

  “See, Johnny? Anglin came into the fourteenth cottage. But he wanted Cottage fourteen.”

  John Henry sat up excitedly. “Hey, maybe Anglin was going to meet the girl here in fourteen. He comes to fifteen, instead. As soon as she finds it out—wait a minute! How’d she find it out?”

  “She could have seen the blood next to the door where he put his hand. So insists on having the cottage he visited.”

  “She figures that Anglin left whatever he was to deliver in fifteen. So she wants a chance to look for it. Just in case, our stuff is searched, too. You know, Sin, I think it would be a smart thing if I tried to get chummy with the Jordan girl tomorrow.”

  The morning sun sent golden rays, caressing the pale buildings, driving darkness from the streets, invading the palm-shaded grounds of the hotel on the hill.

  In Cottage fourteen, Sin entered the living room, her hair brushed into a smooth page-boy that glinted like a ruby.

  “Johnny, what are you doing?”

  John Henry stopped peeking between slats of the Venetian blinds and spun hastily, his round face guilty. “Just—looking out,” was the best he could think of.

  “What at?” Sin went to the window herself. “Oh!”

  The occupant of Cottage fifteen was disappearing down the flagstone path toward the hotel. There was a great deal of pale skin which her white bathing suit didn’t cover.

  “Just checking up,” John Henry said lamely. “Ever since you figured out that cottage number business—”

  “Now see here, John Henry . . . What have you got in your pocket, anyway?” Her hand plunged into the breast pocket of his dark-blue sport coat. “Oh,” she said, “your pencil,” and dropped the Eversharp back into his pocket.

  John Henry put a hand into his pocket and pulled the pencil into view again. His forehead had corrugated into puzzled lines.

  “Funny,” he said. “This isn’t my pencil. Never saw it before in my life.”

  Sin laughed. “You probably picked it up when we registered.”

  He paid no attention. The pencil was an ordinary Eversharp, colored black and sea-green, with a gold point and a removable eraser.

  “That’s what Anglin meant. ‘You already got it.’ Sin, Anglin stuck this in my pocket when he fell against me last night.”

  His wife sobered. “Let’s throw it away, Johnny.”

  “No. We should have guessed a pencil before. Remember? In his pockets, Anglin had something to write on but nothing to write with” Strange excitement gripped him. “Let’s just look at it a little before we throw it away.”

  He turned the Eversharp over and over, scrutinized its scratched surface.

  John Henry took off the removable eraser and peered into the cylinder. There seemed to be something wrapped tightly around the lead cartridge. He probed for it with one of Sin’s bobby pins, and pried out a long narrow strip of tightly rolled paper.

  “Quick, open it up! What is it?” Now the excitement had Sin too, and she crowded close against her husband’s shoulder.

  The paper was oiled and the tight rolling made it hard to handle, but the Conovers perused the column of writing on the paper strip, then looked at each other for an answer.

  “What do you make of that?” John Henry wanted to know.

  Sin rejoined that it resembled mostly an incredibly long safe combination. She took the paper from him and read it off carefully.

  “R-1. L-3. R-2. L-l. R-2. L-3. R-1. L-2. R-1. L-l. R-2. L-3. R-2. L-5. R-1. L-3. R-2. L-l. R-1.”

  “Must be a code,” John Henry muttered. “R and L usually stand for right and left, but maybe this is a cipher.”

  “I don’t know,” Sin admitted. She added, “I don’t want to know.”

  IV

  JOHN Henry placed the oiled paper in the Eversharp. He began to amble around the room, speculatively appraising the walls and furniture.

  “Sin, what’s the most likely place to find a pencil?”

  “In the desk, I guess.”

  John Henry nodded. He pulled open a drawer of the small redwood writing desk, deposited the Eversharp in the pencil trough, and closed the drawer.

  “Psychology,” he explained. “The best place to hide anything is right under people’s noses.”

  Sin decided the sooner the pencil was stolen and gone, the better. “Hey, where you going, Johnny?”

  “Back in a few minutes,” John Henry said from the doorway. “After all that’s happened, I want to grill this Jordan woman.”

  “Johnny, you come back here!”

  John Henry Conover closed the blue door in time to block the pillow hurled by his wife . . .

  Thelma Loomis and Mr. Trim sat at an umbrella-shaded table on the yellow tile bank of the swimming pool. The silver-thatched Sagmon Robottom, across the pool, idly kicked at blue water while he talked gaily with a young girl in a white bathing suit. The four of them were alone at the pool. Most of the hotel guests were Sunday morning sleepers.

  Said Mr. Trim, “What are you watching him for?”

  Thelma Loomis moved her gaze hastily. “Curious,” she said. “I wanted to see how the old goat operated. He’s got quite a reputation around L.A. Plus a wife.”

  Trim looked disapprovingly at the archaeologist.

  “That’s no relic he’s found there,” chuckled Miss Loomis.

  The girl’s swim suit clung to her rounded, enticing body. An inviting face crowned by braids of black hair was turned up attentively to Robottom. Even across the wide pool came the constant flash of white teeth in the bronze aquiline face.

  Then the silver-haired man got up lithely and f
umbled in the pocket of his discarded beach robe.

  “He’s giving her something!” exclaimed Trim. “Say, is it—a key?”

  Robottom handed the girl a little card that looked like a claim check, said something, and they both laughed.

  Mr. Trim clucked. “Maybe that ticket was a chance on something.”

  “You can say that again,” the blonde writer murmured.

  The archaeologist stood on the edge of the pool and stretched. Then he launched his long body into a perfect dive, cleaving the blue water.

  “Say!” whispered Trim. “Another married man! Young Conover!”

  Miss Loomis brought her sharp gaze up to the girl opposite. The brunette wasn’t appreciating Sagmon Robottom’s performance at all. Instead, she had her face turned to a stocky young man in gray trousers and blue sport coat who strode up purposefully.

  The girl patted the yellow tiles beside her and Conover sat down awkwardly . . .

  John Henry had no more than determined how to pursue his course of clever questioning than Miss Jordan said matter-of-factly, “I suppose you’re here to find out how I got your cottage. Your wife probably sent you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  The girl’s eyes brightened and she leaned closer to him. He glanced around hurriedly. Sin wasn’t in sight. A middle-aged man was flailing up and down the pool, apparently disgruntled over something. And at a table on the other side, Mr. Trim and the fan magazine writer had developed sudden interest in the Sunday comic section.

  “Now, Miss Jordan—” John Henry edged away.

  “Call me Faye.”

  “Now, Miss Faye—”

  “Faye! With an ‘e’ like in ‘easy.’ ” John Henry forgot what it was. The girl had slid along the yellow tile so that her bare knee nudged his leg. He couldn’t retreat any farther without falling into the pool.

  PETE started to give the whole thing up when he saw the card tucked into the waistband of her swim suit. Too large for a calling card, it evidently had some engraved letters on the side that was against her flesh. What was she doing, carrying the card around in her bathing suit?

  “Let’s talk,” he suggested. “Let’s talk about you.”

  “All right. Do you know why I think you’re cute?”