Peter Gunn

by Henry, Kane,

  “Call,” he said.

  “Who?” she said.

  “Call. Call his office,” he said. “Ask.”

  She called, and was told. She sat. She sank, tremblingly, into a soft chair. She crossed her legs. The flared skirt of the housegown fell away and she was bottom-naked to the rim of vermilion growth, unrealizing, and Peter Gunn scrambled for surcease behind the zebra bar. “You’re mixed up in it,” he said. “So let’s talk it out, you and me, please.”

  “Talk what out you and me please?”

  “Twelve o’clock noon, where were you?”

  “Right here, lapping screwdrivers.”

  “The butler, the Japanese guy, he can cover that?”

  “Sure. Of course. Don’t you believe me?”

  “I believe you, Al. Now let’s get to the relationship, kid.”

  “What relationship?”

  “You and Bain.”

  “It stank.”

  “Stank enough for murder?”

  “It could have.”

  “Why?”

  “He was an old man, and a jealous old man. Even jealous young men can’t make it with me. I liked him. I really liked him, but he didn’t dig me. I’m a type, what you call a type, you got to understand me. You don’t understand me, like you’re way out, lost.”

  “And Bain was way out, lost?”

  “He didn’t understand me.”

  “What’s to understand?”

  “I’m a nympho, huh? Let’s put it like that, I’m a nympho.” She pulled her knees together and primly covered them with the flared skirt. “So what? There’s people and people. I’m people. Steve Bain dug me when he yanked me out of that joint in Vegas. That’s the way I am, period. I don’t hurt anybody, do I? Like I’m a hedonist whatever the hell that is, but someone called me it once. I can be fond of somebody real special, but that don’t mean he’s got the market cornered, baby, not with me. I can’t help it, I can’t help myself, and nobody can never say I didn’t tell them in advance.”

  “You were fond of Bain?”

  “Sure.”

  “And you told him?”

  “Sure I told him, when he was propositioning me at the beginning, but this Bain guy always got his way, only with me he didn’t, because I couldn’t, if you get me. He figured if he surrounded me with enough gold he’d insulate me, but like I don’t insulate that easy. I got to spread around, that’s my nature, and you can’t fight your nature, even if you’re in love.”

  “Were you in love with Bain?”

  “I said I was fond.”

  “And he objected to the lack of exclusiveness?”

  “Objected! Screamed all the time like a stuck pig, like I was using it up or something, like there wouldn’t be enough left for him. It made me worse, him screaming all the time, and the minute I got rid of him, I was out looking for company. So I fell in love.”

  “I thought you said you were fond.”

  “Love. With another guy.”

  “Oh,” said Gunn.

  “A guy, maybe doesn’t have all the loot Bain had, but a guy spends it just as free. A hip guy, a guy who understands me. He don’t expect me to be faithful, I don’t expect him to be faithful. There are people like that, and they can be in love, real love, in all things, and the sex bit, so you spread it around a little, so what? You get tired of steak every day.”

  “And this guy takes it?”

  “Sure. And I take it from him. It’s a world of people, man. People find people that understand them, that dig, that are hip. What’s with the Puritan bit, what’s with the exclusive bit, what’s with the jealousy bit, who says it has to be like that? Each to his own, period, and nobody’s hurting anybody. And you can be in love like that, dad, whether you know it or not. So okay?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I mean do you read me?”

  “I think so.”

  “So this guy and I want to get married. We want to set up house together. We want to have maybe a couple of kids. Maybe, in years, who knows, maybe we both cool off, maybe we make it exclusive together like the world approves. Who knows? Who cares? We’re in love. We suit each other. We want to get married. Any crime?”

  “No.”

  “So Bain pops his cork like tomorrow just got blown up.”

  Alexis McDuff crossed her legs. The silver skirt peeled back in graceful flounces. Vermilion peeked. Gunn dropped behind the zebra bar and came up with Scotch straight in a fat-bellied brandy glass. He sipped his Scotch as though it were brandy and kept his eyes averted. “You informed Mr. Bain, I take it.”

  “Sure. Look. Maybe I’m queer, maybe I got my own kind of crazy philosophy, but nobody can never say that Al McDuff don’t have honor, because honor, man, that I got. I don’t two-time when it really means. Do you dig?”

  “Dig, dig,” said Gunn, sounding like the Japanese butler.

  Alexis McDuff stood up, the gown resumed its orderly array and Gunn’s admiring eyes returned to his subject.

  “We had a talk, the three of us,” she said. “Like we explained the situation. Bain flipped, but it was like a quiet flip, we didn’t know. Understand?”

  “No.”

  “Well, the next day, Tony—that’s the boy friend—he gets pulled into a hallway and he gets beaten up, not too heavy, once over lightly. Now you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just a few bruises and scratches, once over lightly, like a spanking to a bad boy.”

  “Did you take it up with Bain?”

  “He took it up with us. He called in Tony Valero—”

  “Tony Valero!”

  “He called in Tony, right here, and he laid down the law. He said cut, period. He said if we want to live—cut, period. He said we don’t see each other again or one of us sees the other dead, period.”

  “Tony Valero,” Gunn said, “who owns Club Valero where they do a little illegal gambling in the upstairs room?”

  “You know my Tony?” She looked at the electric clock on the wall. “He’s due here any minute.”

  “Yes, I know him,” Gunn said. “A guy with a trigger-temper, a pretty dangerous guy himself.”

  “But too smart to tangle with Steve Bain. It’s a smart guy who knows when he’s out of his league. So you know my Tony? Friends?”

  “Not exactly,” said Gunn.

  “Enemies?”

  “Not exactly that either. Let’s say acquaintances, on the cool side. I was instrumental in putting him away for a while.”

  “Away? Where?”

  “In the can.”

  “You? A nice guy like you?”

  “Honey, business is business, and Tony Valero became part of my business once. He was running a little gambling operation—with call girls on a side—in Pasadena.”

  “And they needed you to break it up?”

  “Tony boy was paying off a bit of ice to a crumb in authority, but the respectable citizens objected so I was called in. Tony and the politician went out of circulation for a year. Nothing personal, you understand. How’s Effie?”

  “Who?”

  “Effie. How’s she taking this?”

  “This—what?”

  “This—you and he—this new romance.”

  “Me and Tony?”

  “You and Tony.”

  “Who the hell is Effie?”

  “Effie Vernon. Used to be one of his call girls, but crazy about him, and vice versa.” Gunn came out from behind the bar.

  “Must’ve been before my time. I never heard of her.”

  The door opened, the Japanese butler hanging on to the knob. A tall man entered and the Japanese closed the door and they could hear him patter away. The tall man was dark, slender, good-looking, straight-nosed, about forty, with a stubborn jaw and long wavy curly hair. A dark flush mottled the dark face as he looked upon Gunn.

  “Hi, Tony,” said McDuff.

  He ignored her. He walked around Gunn, making a full circle. He walked lithely in blue suede shoes of the exact color o
f his stylish, narrow-lapeled, blue silk suit, white tie held down by a blue-stoned tie-tack. “So now you’re the law,” he said. “Is that it?”

  “Private law,” said Gunn.

  “But you made the Jap think it was public law, didn’t you?”

  “I wanted to get in,” said Gunn.

  “And you got in,” said Tony Valero.

  “You bet he did,” said Alexis McDuff.

  “Shut up,” said Valero. His grin to Gunn was a lifting of lips and a baring of teeth. “Now get out.”

  “Where were you at twelve o’clock noon?” said Gunn.

  “Sleeping,” said Valero.

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah. That’s me. I always sleep alone. Out, bum!”

  “Too bad,” said Gunn.

  “What’s too bad?”

  “Sleeping alone.”

  “Why bad?”

  “Because you might have to prove it, and alone you can’t.”

  Valero whirled to McDuff. “What’s with him?”

  “Steve got killed,” said McDuff.

  “At twelve o’clock noon,” said Gunn.

  Valero looked from McDuff to Gunn and back to McDuff and back to Gunn. “So that’s it, eh? So that’s why you’re here?”

  “Somewhat,” said Gunn.

  “Oh, no,” said Valero. “Oh, no. This you’re not going to pin on me. Out, peeper! Out, you phony bum! Get out!”

  “Make me,” said Gunn.

  Valero thrust his right hand within the folds of his stylish silk suit and brought it out as a fist holding a snubnosed automatic.

  “This’ll make you,” he said. “By God, you’ve had it coming. Just coax me.”

  “Good-by, Miss McDuff,” said Gunn.

  “It was a pleasure,” said McDuff.

  On his way to the door Gunn came alongside Valero, swung his left hand upward against Valero’s right wrist and jolted his own right hand, in a wedge of knuckles, firmly against Valero’s stubborn jaw. Valero reacted in the time-honored manner of all recipients of a good right-cross. He stiffened as he went up on his toes, momentarily held the pose as graceful as a ballet dancer, then twisted about and descended like a plummeting plover. He hit the floor with a soggy clunk and lay prone.

  “Gee, beautiful,” said the unpredictable McDuff.

  “Thank you,” said Gunn. “It’s just a matter of keeping the franchise in.” He stooped to the comatose Valero, relieved him of the pistol and presented it to the admiring McDuff. “You’ll return it to him, won’t you? Compliments of Peter Gunn—and Effie Vernon.”

  “You’re an exciting man,” breathed the unquenchable McDuff, and he was already at the door when she called; “Mr. Gunn!” He turned and his eyes popped like a wrestler’s veins in a stranglehold. The silver gown lay in a pretty heap beside Valero and the pretty heap that was McDuff was unadorned except for the gun in her dangling hand. “Please stay,” she said and smiled. “Just a little while.”

  “Your boy friend’s here, remember?”

  “He’s sleeping.”

  “He’ll get up.”

  “But not too soon. Not the way you hit him. Just a little while,” she wheedled. “Please…”

  “Sorry, but I’ve got to go.”

  “Sorry, but you’ve got to stay.” She lifted her hand with grace but purpose and Gunn contemplated the round black hole of the squat-muzzled automatic. “Don’t misunderstand,” said the admirable McDuff. “No harm meant. Just a little fun, and you’re free to go.”

  chapter 11

  The phone book proclaimed Effie Vernon’s address as 9696 Melrose and Gunn’s shiny new-model motor vehicle, growing more obsolescent by the moment as shiny new-model motor vehicles must in this our age of chrome-plated status, propelled him to the proclaimed address which turned out to be a flaky, old, three-story tenement type with its narrow, paint-peeled entrance-door set between a beer saloon on its left and a psychical research parlor (Zodiac Charts in Color One Dollar Each) on its right. Gunn parked this year’s shiny new model and hastened past the paint-peeled door where he ascertained from the letter boxes in a tiny smelly airless lobby that Effie Vernon resided in apartment 2C. He climbed complaining steps to 2C, knocked softly without receiving answer, knocked loudly with the same reward, tripped down the squawky-squeaking steps, and boldly invaded the beer saloon, meekly requesting beer from a florid, vast-stomached bartender. There was one other erstwhile customer asleep on a high stool in the chronic posture of all saloon-sleepers, strangely reminiscent of a head-hidden slumbering bird on a limb, arm curled on bar and head deeply nestled in the comforting crook of arm.

  “He’s happy,” said Gunn.

  “Sleepin’ off a binge,” said the bartender, resting his hands on his stomach.

  “Quiet,” said Gunn. “Real quiet in here.”

  “We don’t really get no trade till later on after guys come home from work. This ain’t no cocktail lounge. You know?”

  “Yeah,” said Gunn. “You acquainted with Miss Vernon, by chance?”

  “A real nice kid, a swell kid, got a flash for you, a doll, and for a chick in her line of work, honest as the day is long. You figurin’ on payin’ her a call?”

  “If she’s home.”

  “She’s home.”

  “How would you know,” said Gunn, “no impertinence intended, of course.”

  “Look, Mac, I know a wise guy when I see one, and you’re no wise guy.”

  “Thank you kindly,” said Gunn and had to fight to keep a twang out of his voice. “And I know a gentleman when I see one.”

  “Meanin’ me?”

  “Meaning you.”

  “Well, thank you, Mac. Gettin’ back to the question on hand, I know because any time she comes out, no matter what time, she steps in here for a snifter, but regular like clockwork, never fails. Also she leaves any messages right here with me, and her regular gentleman-callers, they know to come in here to ask like if she ain’t home, when she’ll be back, or where she is, stuff like that there. Unnerstand?”

  “Sure,” said Gunn.

  “She pays me like a regular rate for this small service, every Monday, and that chick ain’t ever failed to get it up, every single Monday, like clockwork, spang on the barrelhead, honest as the day is long.”

  “Sure,” said Gunn.

  “That’s how I know,” said the bartender.

  “Oh,” said Gunn.

  “She ain’t been in, so she’s home, simple ABC. You know?”

  “I know,” said Gunn and left a dollar on the bar and went back through the paint peelings and up the rickety stairs and knocked again at 2C. There was no answer and he studied the lock which appeared to be an ordinary snap-lock and went down to his new-model motor vehicle and obtained a strip of celluloid from the glove compartment and returned to 2C and manipulated the celluloid with the dexterity of a burglar and opened the door and found himself directly in a kitchen.

  “Hello!” he called as the door snapped back on its snap-lock. “Hello!”

  No answer.

  He trod carefully, apprehensively, into the next room, which was a small, dusty, poorly furnished living room, uninhabited, and he continued into the next room, which was inhabited, although its occupant would never return once she was removed. Effie Vernon, in a lacy pink kimono, lay across the blood-soaked sheets of the tumbled bed, her eyes closed but her throat open and redly gaping from a clean-edged knife-wound running under her chin from beneath the hinge of one point of her jaw to the other. Gunn averted his eyes as his fingers felt for her pulse professionally but perfunctorily; it was horribly, sickeningly evident that no touch was needed to establish the fact of her death. He touched. She was cold. There was no pulse. He turned from her to a tall, cheap chest of drawers prominent on which, catty-cornered, stood a leather-rimmed, folding, double picture frame. Effie Vernon smiled mischievously from one frame; the other frame contained a closeup photograph of a dark, straight-nosed, handsome man, about forty, square face topped by dark close
-cut curly hair. The photograph was inscribed in a bad handwriting: To my one and only Effie from your one and only Willie Koko.” Gunn removed both photographs, slipped them into a pocket of his jacket, wiped the frame with his handkerchief, went quickly from the room through the living room to the kitchen, wiped the knob of the door with his handkerchief, opened the door, went out, pulled the door closed on its snap-lock, wiped the outer knob, and used his handkerchief on the banister going down. From a public telephone in the Zodiac emporium he called Homicide, quietly stated, “There’s been a murder at 9696 Melrose, apartment 2C,” and shut off the strident queries wriggling from the receiver by hanging it up.

  chapter 12

  The sun was going down. A little wind had sprung up. Gunn, driving to Edie’s place, felt a chill, whether physical or emotional he could not discern. He was disappointed when there was no answer to his ring. He was confused for a moment, weary, at loose ends; then he proceeded to Mother’s where he found Edie, with Emmet at the piano, working over a new song. Edie waved and continued with her chore and somehow Gunn felt better. Mother’s was dim and cool and clean and ventilated, almost fragrant, not yet open for business. Barney was behind his bar shining glasses. Mother was in the kitchen and said, “Hi, sweetheart,” when Gunn poked his head in.

  “What’s cooking?” said Gunn.

  “Veal cutlets,” said Mother. “How about it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Gunn.

  “With spaghetti? Butter sauce?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Gunn.

  “Kindly wait outside,” said Mother. “Too many cooks.”

  “Thank you always,” said Gunn and retired to Barney’s bar and fished out a picture and showed it to Barney and said, “You know everybody, Barn. Do you know him?”

  Barney inspected the photograph. “No, I can’t say I do.” He read the inscription. “Willie Koko. I’ve heard the name. It sounds familiar. You looking for the guy?”

  “Yes,” said Gunn.

  “Gimme,” said Barney and took the picture and, using Scotch tape, attached it in a prominent place on the mirror behind him.

  “What are you doing?” said Gunn.

  “Finding the guy for you.”

  “By hanging him up?”

  “The name rings a bell and the bell has like a clinker on it, if you know what I mean. Willie Koko, Willie Koko, it’s like that free-association bit. If that ain’t the name of a hood in this town, my name ain’t Barney. So if you’re looking for him, like this we’ll find him. Either all of a sudden my memory will pop and we’ll know or, with his kisser stuck up front like that, one of my customers will recognize him and like that we’ll know. If he’s straight goods, maybe we’ll strike out, but if he’s a hood, I promise you cards and spades on him before this night is out.”