Girl Meets Body

by Jack Iams

  “I suppose it makes sense,” said Tim. “I don’t like it though.”

  “Ah,” said Mrs. Barrelforth, “but you’re going to like what I’ve cooked up for you. Remember Millie?”

  “No use saying I don’t,” said Tim. “But what—”

  “Look, I’ll be at headquarters for at least an hour. Don’t champ at the bit. This is a break. Our pal here should have a lot to tell us when he comes round. Meanwhile, I want you to track down this Millie gal. Find out every damned word Lady Sybil said to her. She must have told Millie something. Something that may help. If she had any sense, she’d have given her a message, just in case. Whatever, find out all you can. Roger?”

  “I guess so,” said Tim. “It’s no labor of love, though.”

  “Any sacrifices you are forced to make,” said Mrs. Barrelforth, “will be strictly in line of duty.” She looked at her watch. “It’s after ten. Phone me at midnight at this number. I’ll write it down. Whatever happens, phone me at midnight. Got it?” She handed him a slip of paper and climbed into the front scat of the car beside the limp, squat figure.

  “What if that guy comes round too soon?” asked Tim.

  Mrs. Barrelforth took from her pocket the gun she had picked up and waved the butt. “Klonk,” she said succinctly. “Well, here I go in my merry Oldsmobile.”

  The car rumbled off over the rough paving and disappeared into the wide, gaunt darkness of the waterfront street. Tim stared after it with a sinking sense of being left derelict. Then he forced himself to grin and said aloud, “There must be belter ways to get a Ph.D.”

  He took a brief look into the Snuggery bar and decided that if there was a phone directory there, it would be in the lavatory. The neighborhood had lost its charm for him, anyway, and he headed east, the wind ripping round into the side street after him. It was a relief to come, presently, upon a solid and respectable drugstore. Three or four kids who would have looked tough to Tim ordinarily but who looked like Harvard men after the Snuggery were lounging at the soda fountain. Tim walked past them to the phone booth and was pleasantly surprised to find Millie in the book. She lived on Tenth Street. He tried the number but there wasn’t any answer.

  He went on walking east and realized after several blocks that he was in the western outskirts of Greenwich Village, somewhere in the skein of streets which is thrown into chaos by Fourth Street’s irresponsible wanderings. He couldn’t be too far, then, from Millie’s quarters. He went into another drugstore, this one patronized apparently by Oxford dons, and called Millie’s number again.

  “Hullo,” said Millie’s voice. It sounded tired.

  “Hullo. This is Tim Ludlow.”

  “What!” said Millie. “Not Tim Ludlow, the well-known farmer’s daughter! Not the bedside raconteur!”

  “None other.”

  “What brings you to the big city?”

  “Oh, one thing and another. I’d like to see you, among other items.”

  “I dunno,” said Millie doubtfully. “I’m just about done in. I’ve had one hell of a day, with a hang-over to start. I suppose you know your little woman didn’t turn up for the show.”

  “Yes. I was listening.”

  “She put me in an awful hole,” said Millie. “The timing was messed up and so was the script, and of course, Ruth Royce blamed me. What happened to Lady Sybil?”

  “She got involved in a bridge game, apparently.”

  “What! How do you know?”

  “I talked to her on the phone a while ago.”

  “Well, I’m damned.” Millie’s voice was irritated. “I’m double-damned. You know, that burns me up a little.”

  “Me, too. In a way.”

  He sensed the change in her tone when she next spoke. “We might as well burn up together,” she said.

  “I don’t feel like going any place but we could drink a drinkie at my shack.”

  “Fine.”

  “Can you find your way to Tenth Street?”

  “I’m somewhere around there now,” said Tim.

  “Counting your chickens, were you? Hurry up, then.”

  After he’d hung up, it occurred to Tim that he might have given Millie a misleading impression of his state of mind.

  Her apartment was in a three-story brick building with two bare plane trees in front of it. He rang the bell marked Marsden and waited for the buzzer. It buzzed and he pushed open the white-painted door with its useless brass knocker and saw Millie standing in the soft hall light at the head of red-carpeted stairs. She was wearing a flowered housecoat with flaring skirt and sleeves, but otherwise molded to her charms. As he came up the steps, he noticed that it was the kind of housecoat that zips down the front.

  “Take your eyes oft that zipper,” said Millie, “and come in.”

  It was a one-room apartment with a studio couch on which gay pillows were piled. The curtains were gay, too, and there were bright modern prints on the walls and the bright covers of books in white bookcases between the windows. On a low table in front of the couch stood a cocktail shaker and two glasses.

  “I’ve made us a mess of whisky sours,” said Millie. “Hope you like ’em.”

  She hung his trenchcoat on the back of the door and they sat down together on the couch. Millie poured smooth golden liquid from the shaker. “Here’s to the three bears,” she said, holding her glass to his.

  “Here’s to ’em,” said Tim. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Here’s to the little one, in particular,” said Millie. “I never did find out what he was going to do to Reddylocks.”

  “It’s a continued story,” said Tim. Damn, that wasn’t what he’d meant to say, either.

  “Oh?” said Millie. She leaned back luxuriously on the cushions and looked at him over the rim of’ her glass.

  Tim cleared his throat. “Millie,” he said, “before-before we—”

  “Before we what?” asked Millie. Her voice scolded him but her eyes didn’t.

  “Before we drink these drinks,” said Tim, “I’ve got to ask you something.”

  Millie sighed faintly. “Go ahead,” she said. “My life’s an open book. Banned in Boston, but open.”

  “It’s not about your life. It’s about Sybil’s.”

  Millie frowned. “Now wait,” she said. “If you’ve come here for a sisterly talk about how your wife misunderstands you, I’m not interested.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “You’re quite sure?” As she spoke, she rolled slightly toward him and lifted her face until it was a few inches from his.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m from Missouri,” she said. Her voice was husky, her bright lips close.

  Well, thought Tim, line of duty. He moved his head forward, stiffly as in the mouvement de danse known as pecking, and her mouth crushed against his. Her arms went round his shoulders and she pulled him back among the gay pillows.

  Then suddenly she released him and pushed him away, not angrily but with a kind of rueful playfulness. “Little bear,” she said, “you’ve got something on your mind. When a guy kisses me and thinks about something else, he’s got a lot on his mind.”

  “I can believe it,” said Tim. “And I guess I have.”

  “All right,” said Millie. “Spill it.”

  “Did Sybil tell you where she was going?”

  “Yes. And she said it was strictly confidential.”

  “I see. But couldn’t you—”

  “No. I don’t blab other women’s secrets. Not even when they’re the wives of guys I could go for.”

  “Look, Millie,” said Tim, “I know Sybil went to see the late Jake Burlick. But—”

  “Whoa!” cried Millie. “The late Jake Burlick?”

  “Yes. He was shot dead about an hour ago.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Millie.
She sank limply back on the couch and stared at him with wide, shocked eyes. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t—”

  “It wasn’t Sybil.”

  “Thank God for that,” said Millie. “Or I might have been an accessory before the fact.”

  She pushed herself to her feet and walked nervously around the room. “This puts a different complexion on things,” she said. “What time is it?”

  Tim looked at his watch. “Three minutes to midnight.”

  “At midnight,” said Millie, “if I haven’t had word from your Lady Sybil, I’m supposed to mail you a special delivery letter. I wasn’t going to tell you.”

  “Have you got it?

  “Wait till midnight.”

  They sat there silently. Tim could hear the tiny tick of his watch.

  “My God,” said Millie suddenly, “this is the longest three minutes I ever spent. You might kiss me again, just to pass the time.”

  The minutes picked up speed.

  Tim stood up, blinking a little dazedly. “It’s midnight,” he said, but far a moment he couldn’t remember what difference it made. “Midnight,” he repeated and then he remembered “I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  Millie stared. “Not—not to your wife?”

  “No. Another woman.”

  “Well, I’m damned,” said Millie. “Maybe I’ve underestimated you. The phone’s in the kitchenette. Here’s the letter.”

  She handed him the envelope, addressed to him in Sybil’s handwriting, in pencil. He looked at it and turned it over. He realized that he was afraid to open it. “Where’d you say the phone was?” he asked.

  “Kitchenette. That door.”

  He closed the door behind him and dialed the number Mrs. Barrelforth had given him. Her comforting boom answered. “Minute late,” she said. “Line of duty, I suppose. Any news?”

  “Yes,” said Tim. “Sybil left a letter with Millie. She was supposed to mail it at midnight to me if she didn’t hear from Sybil.”

  “Have you got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Haven’t opened it yet.”

  “Then open it, for God’s sake.”

  He tore the envelope open and unfolded the letter. His fingers weren’t steady any more. The letter said:

  Tim, darling:

  At last you can do what you’ve wanted to do all along. As soon as you get this letter, notify the New York police that the body we found on the pier was Sam Magruder’s. Tell them everything else you can that will help them run the Heinkel gang to earth. Because that’s where I’ll be.

  If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to explain everything to you. If I’m not, just remember this: I love you, I love you, I love you.

  “Read it to me,” said Mrs. Barrelforth.

  Tim couldn’t find his voice for a moment. The words swam in front of his eyes. On his dry lips, the taste of Millie’s lingered like wormwood.

  “What’s the matter?” demanded Mrs. Barrelforth.

  “Nothing,” said Tim. He read the letter aloud, his voice jerky and mechanical like that of a boy orator with stage-fright. When he came to the last sentence, he stopped, choking. “She closes with an expression of affection,” he said.

  “I see,” said Mrs. Barrelforth. “Where’s that hussy’s flat?”

  “Tenth Street.”

  “D’you know the big drugstore at the corner of Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue? Meet me there fast as you can. I’ve got news, too.”

  Chapter Thirty

  In a Crumpled Heap

  “Everything all right?” asked Millie.

  “No,” said Tim. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Better have a drinkie.”

  “No, thanks.”

  She smiled at him, a twisted little smile. “Gonna kiss me before you go?”

  He hesitated, then stepped forward and kissed her quickly on the cheek. She caught him by the lapels and clung to him, her face nuzzling his. The sultry fragrance of her body made him dizzy. He took her wrists and looked down at her. Under the make-up, her face was old.

  “Good-by, Millie,” he said.

  “Ah, hell,” said Millie to the ceiling. “Why do I always get mixed up with husbands! Good-by, St. Anthony.”

  The sharp wind that shook the branches of the two bare trees outside felt good. Tim pulled his trenchcoat around him and walked fast down the street.

  Sixth Avenue was garish with neon. At the corner of Eighth Street, people were buying morning papers at a stand, their chilly faces and turned-up coats caught briefly in the glow from the big drugstore. Inside, there was a crowd at the long fountain from which rose the pungency of sticky syrups and mayonnaise and coffee. People waited in line at the cigarette counter. A fat woman in slacks with a dog on a leash browsed through the cut-rate books. To Tim, as he stepped inside, the life and warmth of the place seemed abruptly unreal, as if he had wandered from an alley through a stage door and onto the set. There was no sign of Mrs. Barrelforth.

  Tim found a seat at the fountain and ordered coffee. Somebody had left a tabloid on the sticky marble. Tim picked it up idly while he waited, and a headline on a small boxed item caught his eye: There Goes That War Bride Again.

  Tim gulped and read on:

  That titled English war bride who caused a courtroom commotion with her story of a beach stroll in the altogether was still making news yesterday. At the last minute, Mrs. Timothy Ludlow, the former Lady Sybil Hastings, failed to show up for a scheduled appearance on the Ruth Royce Rollick radio program. It was learned that she drove to New York earlier in the day but apparently got lost in the big city. One school of thought suggested she’d gone for a dip in Central Park. Anyway, efforts to locate her failed.

  A hand touched Tim’s shoulder and Mrs. Barrelforth’s voice said, “Ah, black coffee. That’s the ticket.”

  Tim pointed to the news item. “By Jove,” said Mrs. Barrelforth, “that’s a break for us. And, son, we need every break we can get.”

  He looked up anxiously. “Has anything happened?”

  “Nothing except that that hotel mug finally saw the advantages of unburdening himself. I’ll tell you in the car. Finish your coffee.”

  It burned his throat. “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “Merry Point. Come on.”

  She led the way to a long black sedan that was double-parked beyond the newsstand. “Hey,” said Tim, “where’s my car?”

  “In good hands,” said Mrs. Barrelforth, climbing in. “I’ve borrowed this one for the time being.”

  “Why?” asked Tim, as her foot on the accelerator stroked the motor’s purring back. The big car slid silently into the intersection traffic.

  “I figured yours might be recognized,” said Mrs. Barrelforth. “They’ve had a good look at it and it’s not hard to arrange an accident when you know how. As Lady Sybil’s father found out, they know how.”

  The car rushed smoothly south into comparative darkness and stillness.

  “By ‘they,’ do you mean the Heinkel bunch?” asked Tim.

  Mrs. Barrelforth nodded.

  “But why would they lay for me?” Tim asked her. “I’m a strictly innocent bystander.”

  “Not since you got that letter,” said Mrs. Barrelforth grimly. “You’re hot cargo, son.”

  The bluish dimness of the plaza in front of the tunnel loomed ahead.

  “How could they possibly know I’ve got the letter?” asked Tim.

  “You cloistered scholars can be awfully slow,” said Mrs. Barrelforth impatiently, “The letter was Lady Sybil’s safety play. She knew jolly well she’d never leave Heinkel’s hideout alive if he thought the story of Sam Magruder’s death would die with her. So naturally she told Heinkel that if anything happened to her, you’d get the letter.”

  “Oh,” sai
d Tim. The car was roaring through the tunnel now, its tires loud on the flooring.

  “Of course,” went on Mrs. Barrelforth, “this bit of publicity in the papers helps, too. There might be a little too much interest in Lady Sybil now for her to disappear without a fuss.”

  “Damn it,” said Tim, “I’d make a fuss if she disappeared.”

  “I am suggesting,” said Mrs. Barrelforth, “that otherwise you might both disappear. There’s nothing easier to get rid of than a couple of honeymooners. They’re expected to disappear now and again.”

  Tim thought this over in growing uneasiness. It made sense, all right; fantastic sense, but sense. The car rolled through the wide barren streets of the Jersey side between dark and silent buildings.

  “However,” said Mrs. Barrelforth, with a return of her customary boom, “the reckoned without the British-American War Brides Improvement Association. Especially the New Jersey Chapter.”

  Tim grinned to himself, then suddenly the grin froze. A hideous thought struck him like ice. What if Mrs. Barrelforth was on the other side? If, even now, he was being carried to some terrible and final rendezvous?

  Now, wait, said the sensible shreds of his mind. The woman obviously enjoys the best of relations with the police.

  Ah, yes, came back the new and ugly thought, but don’t forget the Breeze Club enjoyed police immunity. Political connections, bribery, corruption—that was the picture.

  He glanced warily at the large, rawboned face beside him. In profile, with the jaws set as she drove, it looked hard. But it looked honest.

  The big car sailed up the Skyway, high above the winking lights and ruddy glow of strange, nocturnal industry.

  “Why are we going to Merry Point?” asked Tim.

  “Because that’s the target area,” said Mrs. Barrelforth. “Our little friend spilled that much. Trouble is, he doesn’t know where the actual hideout is. All he knows is that when he gets instructions from Heinkel, they come by phone from a Bankville number. That doesn’t necessarily mean Merry Point, of course, but it’s around there. Who else has a phone in your neighborhood, anyhow? Squareless doesn’t, I remember.”