by Ed Lacy
“Cut that,” I said, trying to push her away. My hand touched a great deal of cool skin, and that lace bra strap.
“... And he talks tough and you don't believe him, only he is so hard he frightens you. It's almost like a new thrill, gives the evening a new tone, a sharp edge.”
I was fooling with the strap and it broke or came apart and I had my fingers on the heavy rise of her breast. I could still remember all the reasons for not tangling with strays.
“Aren't you even going to kiss me?”
I moved my head down to duck her lips and ducked into her firm breast, the hard nipple stabbing me in the eye. She giggled. “Now you'll have a shiner.”
“But this is the best way to get one,” I said, my lips moving against the lush smoothness of her breast.
Her laughter was a high note of hot triumph in the still room as her hands tore open my shirt.
I could still remember all those reasons for skipping quickie affairs—but I didn't believe a one of them.
5
The shrill sound of an alarm shattered my head. I sat up. The room was dim with the hard early gray light of morning. The alarm claimed it was five-thirty. Louise got out of bed and shut the damn thing off. She threw her arms back, stretched; even the morning light couldn't change the comfortable curves of her strong body, nor the wild red of her. I didn't object to seeing them, I don't believe in mixing the two “B's”—business and bed. After I talked my last secretary into working between the sheets, the office went to hell. In Anita's case there was another danger—despite her saying she was nineteen, I was sure she was jail-bait, and I'm not that sex-slappy.
Anita was a slender, almost skinny, dark-haired kid, with an eager, sharp face that reflected her constant drive. She looked more like a bobby-soxer than a secretary, but she was an efficient office worker, and I wasn't paying the world's highest salary.
She was honest, a hard worker, and a nice kid—and she was driving me nuts. Aside from throwing her young bosom all over the office (when I once politely suggested she ought to buy a bra out of petty cash, Anita said, “Hell, those two-piece jock straps are for old women.”) the kid also had the private eye bug. Her mother must have been frightened by a comic book for Anita thought being a detective was strictly being a super Humphrey Bogart. It was a source of painful astonishment for her to learn that I'd never been on a big robbery, much less a murder, that the private eye business is 99.99 per cent guard work, skip tracing, and maybe now and then shadowing a two-timing wife or husband. Anita lived in a private world of “big rewards,” childish daydreams about the “sensational capture of Public Enemy 1 to 10,” and junk like that.
Taking my mail, three letters, I sat down at my desk, asked, “Anything worth reading in these?”
“You got two bills, and a case—a great big one, a hundred bucks worth,” Anita said with mild disgust. “The boys called in, patrolled the stores last night, everything okay. We're out of cards, so I called the printer. I've also typed out four letters to dance-hall owners, usual baloney. At noon you have a lunch appointment with a slob named Boscom, owns the 5th Street Casino, a real fire-trap.”
“Thanks,” I said, opening the one letter that wasn't a bill. “Keep working through the directory, sending form letters to the other dance halls.”
“Okay, okay, Hal, and don't think it isn't just all too, too thrilling. See this?” She waved an FBI circular. “There's a two hundred grand reward on that armed car robbery in Frisco. Gee, think of lifting two million bucks... even bigger than the Brink's job up in New England. Two hundred thousand bucks... reward.” There was a far-away, dreamy, quality to her voice.
I grinned at her. “I know, two more box tops and you can send away for your tin badge.”
Anita made a comment about my mother living on a diet of bones. Talking tough was another of her charms.
The case was from Guy Moore, who was my MP officer in Tokyo. Now he was a struggling lawyer in St. Louis. An old man had died leaving an “estate”—if you can call a rundown farm by such a fancy handle—to his niece, one Marion Lodge. The case meant a lot to Guy because a bank was handling the estate and if he showed fast action on this, they'd give him some real important cases. After a lot of remembering what buddy-buddies we'd been in the army, Guy wrote he could only afford a hundred bucks, and would I kindly break my back and locate the gal. There was a check enclosed and a snapshot of the girl. The check looked prettier than the gal—she was an ordinary-looking, big kid of about twenty-one, with an overlong nose, and black hair that hung in corny curls. Guy gave me her last known address, as of 1949, on the lower West Side.
“Get your book out.”
“I'll come over,” Anita said, although the office was so small I could dictate from one end of the room to the other without raising my voice. She came over, moving her hips like a lazy heel-and-toe walker, sat down beside me, her skirt above her knees. She had on an interesting perfume. I sent Guy a letter saying I'd do my best and to airmail me any info on Marion Lodge's background, education, birthmarks, and what she was supposed to be doing in New York.
Then I knocked off a couple of mild dunning letters to remind several storekeepers they were behind on their ten bucks a month for “Darling's Protective Service.”
I was in the middle of another letter checking on a character who had skipped town with a partly paid for TV set, when the door opened and a mailman came in—a big lumbering fatso with thick graying hair. He asked, “You the dick?”
“What's wrong, a due letter?” I asked, noticing he didn't have his bag on his wide shoulders.
He shook his head, giving Anita a fast going over, which she enjoyed. “Naw, I'm here on business.” His voice went with his bulk, a deep, rumbling voice.
“Grab a chair and tell me about it.”
He glanced at Anita, then back at me. I said, “Miss Rogers is one of my most trusted ops, in on all my good cases.” Anita slipped me an amused look, told him in a hammy slinky voice, “Rest your load, big boy.”
He slid into a chair opposite me, and from the hesitant look on his face I knew he was having wife trouble. After a while you can spot things like that I was absolutely wrong.
He said, “Johnson is my name, Will Johnson, see? Want to see you about this.” He dug into a pocket of his blue-gray uniform and carefully took out a small envelope, out of this came tissue paper wrapped around a sliver of cloudy dirty-looking stone. It was less than half an inch long, almost paper thin, wide as a match stick. As I picked it up he said, “Careful, don't break it, see?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Rock of some kind. Get this, Mr. Darling, there's no mystery or crime involved here, just curiosity. Want to find out where this rock came from.”
“What makes you so curious?” I asked as Anita took the sliver from my hand, fingered it, smelt it. He sighed. “It's a silly story. About a month ago I come home and was sitting in my living-room, reading. Was about four in the afternoon, see? I hear a sharp noise at the window, then over my head. I go over and there's a small, clean hole in the window pane, another in the metal Venetian blinds. Back of where I was sitting we got one of them imitation fireplaces and a copper vase on top of it There's a dent in the vase and on the floor I find this little hunk of rock. See, at first I didn't think nothing of it, was sore about the hole in the window. Then I start thinking this sure had a hell of a force.... Excuse me Miss....”
“Sure,” Anita said sweetly, “you mean it had a goddamn hell of a lot of force.”
Johnson blinked and I told him, “Miss Rogers takes shots —in the head—to make her sound rugged. The rock had plenty of force, so what?”
“So what? It went through glass, a metal blind, made a dent in the copper vase over my head—see, it might have killed me!”
“You think somebody is trying to murder you?” I asked as Anita became bug-eyed.
Johnson shook his big head. “No, no, only telling you why I got so interested in the rock. Nobody hates a
postman. Like I say, it's been on my mind so much. Thelma, that's my wife, she says 'Willie, stop thinking so much about it, see a detective before you get a nervous breakdown.' See, that's it.”
“And you picked me—just like that?”
“No sir, not just like anything,” Will said. “Figured you're a small agency, wouldn't charge much, see?”
“Yeah I see. Of course you realize this may all turn out to be as simple as a kid playing with a slingshot and...”
“It ain't simple, Mr. Darling. I live five flights up, nothing higher than two-story private houses around me. Have to be some slingshot, wouldn't it?”
“I'm not turning down the case, Mr. Johnson, only don't expect any fantastic solution, like this coming from Mars or...”
“How do you know it didn't come from Mars?” he snapped.
Anita giggled and I wondered if the postman was nuts or just a plain liar. Anyway, I wasn't dropping cases—even the stupid ones. I said, “You know I charge thirty dollars a day, and expenses.”
“That much? We mailmen don't make much and with the high cost of living —”
“And we dicks aren't exempt from the high cost of living.”
He sucked on his fat upper lip. “How many days you think it will take? And expenses, what will they amount to?”
“Hard to say. Let's turn our cards face up, Johnson. What were you planning to spend?”
“Well...” he coughed and swallowed. “See, I'll make a deal with you. I'm a poor sucker and...” he waved a hand at my office ”... so are you. Suppose I give you all I can afford—a hundred and fifty bucks—and let's say you put in a week on it, full seven days, and forget the expenses? That a deal?”
He clinched the deal by taking out an old wallet and decorating my desk with fifteen tens. “I'm buying it, only remember, I can't guarantee a solution in a week. But I'll give it a good try.”
“That'll all I want, just try hard for a week—seven days.”
“Where do you live and when can I see your apartment?”
“I live at 22 Staymore Avenue, that's Marble Hill, up past Spuyten Duyvil. I'm off today, it's my comp day. See, any time you want to....”
“Have a lunch appointment Suppose I get up there around two?”
The mailman said fine and we stood up and shook hands-at the door he turned, said, “Don't lose that stone, or break it. It's... well... a memo to me.” He sounded worried.
“I'll take good care of it.”
When he left, I gave Anita four of the tens, told her “Might as well pay your salary for the week. This is a weirdie.”
“He's lying,” she sad, looking at the stone. “Odd dark color.”
“You'll probably find there's some construction work near by and this came off while blasting.”
“I'll...?”
“Sure, I'll look the apartment over and then you can make like Dick Powell.”
“Oh no, not on this crummy stone?”
“If you'd rather pound out form letters....”
Anita thumbed her nose at me. “Giving me a big choice, but I'll take the stone deal, Hal... Darling.” The way she said it left no doubt as to her meaning.
7
I phoned a couple of fellows working for the electric and phone companies whom I sent some good rye to every Christmas, asked if they had a Marion Lodge as a customer... and drew a blank. At eleven Bobo dropped in, got the address of the construction job he was to guard, signed out for a night stick. Curly Cox who'd been a fair lightweight when I was an amateur flyweight, came in to put the bite on me for work. I promised him something over the week-end, slipped him two bucks, then drove down to the 5th Street Casino.
Thirty or forty years ago this had been a club for wealthy sports, now it was a seedy-looking place, badly in need of a coat of paint and about everything else. It had a capacity of 250 people, and a sagging balcony with a few dozen tables and a dirty bar. Boscom looked like a walking caricature of an old-time saloonkeeper: short and fat, beady eyes, pink nose, thick little mouth—even an ancient pearl stickpin in his loud tie. He had a bullet-headed punk with him, local tough written all over his nasty puss. Evidently this was my competition.
“When I introduced myself, they both looked astonished and bully-boy, whose name I never did get, asked Boscom, “Hey boss, you kidding? This little blond nance is a guard?” I let the “nance” crack go by, although the punk's short thick neck was interesting. Boscom was sitting at an old desk, puffing on a cheap rope, and he squeaked, “He's been keeping order at my dances... Ain't had no trouble and...”
“And you pay him off with a few bucks and leftover bottles,” I cut in. “You're a businessman, Mr. Boscom, and policing your dances should be done on a strict business level that...”
“Look, anybody starts anything, I give them the business all right—with this!” The punk held up a beefy fist.
It was a warm day, I had on one of my good suits and the carpet was dirty as hell, so I didn't want to take this joker. I tried to keep calm as I told Boscom, “Bet this clown hasn't a license—that means if there's a real rumble, you not only could be sued, and lose your liquor license but...”
“Who you calling a clown?” tough-boy growled. Boscom seemed to be amused by it all.
“Let me tell you something about policing a dance,” I said to Boscom but watching the punk's feet. “There's a difference between a guard and a bouncer. Using your fists or a billy is the last thing you want done. Know who the best guard I ever had was? A midget! Lost him when he got a steady job with a carnival. Only real trouble you get at dances are drunks, and when they saw this midget bawling them out, they laughed and that was that Of course, always had another man that could handle any real trouble. Now for twelve dollars a man, I supply you experienced, intelligent, uniformed men who...”
“Intelligent? You cracking I'm a dummy?” bully-boy snarled, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet.
Guess I still could have avoided trouble, but there was a gleam in Boscom's eyes that got me sore. He deliberately had the punk in so he'd have a ringside seat for a free brawl. I said, “Two-bit goons like you come at bargain rates, dime a dozen. And in a real scrap you're not even worth a dime.”
“You little sawed off...!”
He didn't try to sock, instead he charged, a horrible scowl on his face. I grabbed his lapels, pulling him toward me, jockeying around till I had Boscom at my back. The punk had a hand at my throat, another about to wallop my kidneys, as I sunk one foot in his stomach and suddenly fell back on my shoulders. We landed with a boom, but his arm and my other foot broke the fall for me. I pushed my shoe in his gut as hard as I could and let go of his suit—fighting down a desire to grab his neck. His body made a neat arc as it sailed through the air and crashed into Boscom and his old desk. There was a deep grunt from Boscom, then the sound of broken wood and glass. I jumped to my feet, brushed my suit.
The punk was sprawled across the desk top, a busted ink bottle dripping on Boscom, who was doubled up in his chair, both hands holding his pot belly. The goon must have kicked him as he came in for a landing. For a second I stared at bully-boy and was scared the clown had broken his back—even a simple judo fall can be dangerous as hell. But when he got his wind back, he sat up and worked his shoulders, blinked his glassy eyes.
With mock politeness I said, “Sorry, Mr. Boscom, but you saw him start the show. Now you know what I mean by knowing how to handle yourself. Shall I call you tomorrow, talk over a contract?”
Boscom's doughy mouth was sucking air but he managed to grunt, “Yeah,” as I walked out.
8
I drove up the West Side Highway, watching the shad fishermen working their nets out in the Hudson, turned off at Dyckman Street and went up Broadway. Will Johnson lived in one of these neighborhoods where everybody had been averaging fifty a week for years—nobody real poor, nor eating high off the hog either. I climbed five flights, stabbed the doorbell with my finger. A plump woman in a worn, pink housecoat opene
d the door. When I introduced myself, she said, “Come in. I'm Mrs. Thelma Johnson. Willie—the detective is here.” She sounded nervous as she called Willie, and when she spoke, all her face seemed to work.
Will came shuffling down the hallway in slippers and as he shook my hand, Thelma said, “Excuse me, I'm cooking,” and went into the kitchen.
Their living-room was a comfortable, standard job, a couple of bad paintings on the wall, even some artificial flowers. Except for being neater, it reminded me of Louise's place. Will said, “Of course I've had the window fixed, but there was a hole in the bottom pane, and here's the one in the Venetian blinds.” I examined a jagged hole in one of the thin metal slats. He showed me the copper vase over the fireplace, the dent in its side. “See, I was sitting here, reading, when it happened. Little lower and it would have ploughed through me.”
“If it hit the bottom pane, then it must have come up, from the street,” I said, brightly, pulling up the blinds. He had a nice view, nothing around but open lots and private houses. I could see the Empire State from his window, and part of the Hudson and New Jersey.
Will said, “The view is worth walking all them stairs. Hey, want to see something real good?” He took an old pair of binoculars out of a desk drawer, handed them to me and pointed to a tennis court about six blocks away. The glasses were powerful, I could plainly see a girl in white shorts banging a tennis ball against the side of a small house. She had her back to me, but her legs were lean and muscular, and her small breasts jumped against her T-shirt.
“Man, you should see the broads there on a Sunday,” Will said, winking like a school boy. “That one you see now, she's there all the time.”
“Nice-looking dish,” I said, scanning the rest of the area. “Any building or excavating near here?” He said no and as I turned to give him the glasses, I saw part of a pink housecoat in the doorway. Thelma was listening hard.
I asked the routine questions, to make it look like I was working and again he told me the bunk about it only being curiosity on his part. As I was leaving, Thelma asked if I wanted tea and cake. I told her no, and Will said to be careful not to lose the sliver of rock. I assured him it was in my office safe, but when he mentioned the stone Thelma looked sick and worried.