by Kane, Henry
It was a small, lavishly-appointed drawing room, with walnut walls, a wine-red carpet, and a chandelier from which soft light glistened from tiny bulbs. Mr. Veneto was freshly-shaved and thoroughly relaxed in black trousers, black shoes, a white silk lounge shirt, and a wine-red smoking jacket the color of the carpet. Tall, dark, slender, he rose up from a commodious easy chair.
“Always good to see you, my boy,” he said and extended a hand which I pretended not to see.
“Charmed, charmed,” I said. “Any commission for me on that two hundred and twenty gees you’re now going to collect right soon?”
“No,” he said.
“But why not, dear friend?”
“Because you don’t deserve no commission, that’s why not, dear friend.”
“Who does?” I said.
“What’s with the riddles?” he said.
“On Tuesday you came into town to protect your interests. If you did it yourself, nobody, of course, deserves a commission. But if somebody did it for you, somebody damn well does deserve a commission.”
“You talking about the old lady who got cooled?”
“Now, what else would I be talking about?”
“I had nothing to do with it.”
“Not much you didn’t.”
He opened an ivory box for a cigarette, inserted the cigarette into a long ivory holder, put fire to the cigarette from a lighter with an ivory base, sat down in his commodious easy chair, and crossed his legs. “Peter,” he said easily, “I like you very much, but I don’t like you so much when you get snotty and you’re getting snotty.”
“Did you bump her, Vinnie?”
“No.”
“Did you have her bumped?”
“No.”
“Would you tell me, either way?”
“No.”
“See what I mean?”
He puffed, smiled, spoke, as always, in tender tones. “What the hell business is any of this to you?”
“I knew the old lady.”
“So what? I knew her too. I once wanted to buy her stables.”
“I’m working on that murder thing. Not officially, but I’m working on it.”
“So what?”
“So if you tell me you did it, I’m finished. I couldn’t prove it, but at least I wouldn’t be running around breaking my tail trying to prove that somebody else did.”
“Then my advice is—keep running.”
“Sure. In circles.”
“You know I wouldn’t kid you, Peter my boy.”
“Not much you wouldn’t.”
He uncrossed his legs. “You’re getting snottier by the minute.”
“You wouldn’t kid me about Olaf Kalmar, either.”
“Now what the hell?”
“Last night he got jumped by a goon who gave him your regards.”
“What goon?”
“How the hell would I know? A goon. Mentioned your name.”
“I can’t stop people from mentioning my name, can I?”
“Vinnie, let’s be sensible—”
“A very good idea.” He stood up and touched a button. A broad-shouldered Japanese appeared. “Mr. Chambers,” said Vinnie, “is leaving now.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m a bug for politeness. I don’t even mind getting thrown out—politely.”
The Japanese bowed, grinned, and started his strut toward the door, and I marched after him as meekly as an adjutant after a general.
“Just a minute!” called Vinnie.
The military procession ceased. The general and the adjutant turned their heads toward the commander-in-chief.
“Get out,” said the commander-in-chief to the general.
The Japanese bowed and made a dignified exit.
“What’s the matter?” I said. “Change of heart? You going to get me off the merry-go-round?”
“I’m going to put you on a merry-go-round.” The silky-smooth tones remained tender but for once the bland blank Mafia-face had expression. There was a red gleam in the dark fox-like eyes and a vein bulged in the smooth forehead. “This is confidential,” he said. “Do you understand? Confidential!”
That was an order the contravention of which could bear an extreme penalty. “I’d rather skip it,” I said. “Confidences from Vinnie Veneto I can do without.”
He smiled. He removed the cigarette from the holder and got rid of both. He drew a pin-seal wallet from an inner recess of the wine-red smoking jacket. “Pete,” he said. “Money means nothing to me. You know what I mean?”
“No.”
“I got so much loot, I couldn’t spend it if I lived another lifetime. I enjoy making it, earning it, I enjoy the action, it puts like zest, enjoyment, into life. Can you dig that? A man like me needs the action, needs the excitement, needs the brain working all the time, you know? Can you dig that?”
“So?”
“Today, in a queer way, I’m happy. Today I caught up with a rat. Me, in a queer way, when I catch up with a rat, I’m happy.”
“Why?”
“Because it shows I’m not perfect. Because it shows I can make mistakes. And I enjoy to clean up my mistakes. I enjoy when I snap a trap on a rat and get rid of it. And I don’t care how much it costs me, I enjoy. The money ain’t the object, you know what I mean?”
“Not quite.”
“Lemme show you.” He counted out five one-thousand dollar bills from the wallet. “I wish to retain you,” he said. “I got other scouts out, but I wish to retain you too, because I like to have all the guns shooting for me.”
“What do you want?”
“I want Mickey Bokino.”
“But you’ve got him. He works for you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Now listen, confidential, and remember about the confidential. Today my auditors walk into 500 Fifth and when they walk in my General Manager walks out. They bring me a report—which is none of your business—but I am now looking for my General Manager. I’ll catch up with him, with or without you, but you’re here like you was wished on me, and I’m a guy who likes to go with the tide. So you are now retained for five thousand apples.”
“For what?”
“For bringing in Mickey Bokino. For catching up with him for me. Like I said, I’ll catch up with him with or without you, I got more scouts out right now than you got hair on your head. But like God wants it you’re here, and I don’t fight God which is like magic. You’re paid whether you bring him in or you don’t bring him in. So pick up your five gees, but confidential, and you’ve been paid, one way or the other. But work on it, pal. I want the guy, and I’m going to enjoy.”
“Add another big one,” I said.
“I beg your pardon?” he said.
“Another thou,” I said.
“Why another thou?” he said.
“Because,” I said, “six thousand dollars is for me right now a magic number. For six thousand, I accept. For five thousand, I decline. I don’t insist, but you play it as you like, Vinnie.”
“I believe in magic,” he said. “Maybe I’m simple but I go for the crap. Six is important to you; you got it, pal.” He laid out another bill. “Go to work, kid. The extra thou don’t mean a thing to me. You have now been paid your fee whether you produce or don’t produce. Of course I would like if you produce but I got other guys on it who may produce before you do. The hell with that. You been paid your fee, now get out of here. All I ask is confidential.”
“Yeah, man,” I said. “Confidential.” And I gathered in the loot.
FIFTEEN
Kiki Kalmar resided at 69 East 69th Street (she had probably been swayed to that address by all the jokes she could make about the numbers) and I paraded in that direction this mild September Thursday with all of the pomposity of the conscious samaritan. I parade down mild sunbright Fifth Avenue, breathing deep of the last burst of verdant-perfume from the glowing autumnal park, head high, chin up, and chest swelled as becomes the good samaritan. A fee is a fee is a fee is a fee, but I did n
ot regard the six thousand bucks from Vinnie Veneto as a fee; not at all; I regarded it as an investment for the possible restoration to grace of Mickey Bokino. So far I had garnered $6500 out of all the commotion but I intended to throw it all back upon the waters; for once I had no desire for emolument; my one desire centered strictly upon Marlyin Windsor. I had other incidental desires, of course. I desired to discover the murderer of Barbara Lund. I desired to take the pressure off Olaf Kalmar. I desired to erase the fright of Beverly Crystal. I desired to reinstate Mickey Bokino who, poor junkie, had embezzled $30,000 to prove himself to a prostitute who had been kind to him, and had thus signed his own death warrant. If Beverly, by Friday night, could produce the thirty gees, Mickey would have a potent talking point to assuage the wrath of Vinnie Veneto, provided he could stay out of Veneto’s path until then. I had plans for all of them, but for me, all my plans involved the ingenuous Marilyn Windsor. And so I strolled down sun-smiling Fifth Avenue, heavy of foot but light of heart, as is seeming for one whose intentions are pure, and so I arrived at 69 East 69; ah, dear Dr. Freud and dear Dr. Kinsey, you have made us aware of the interesting convolutions of these mystic numerals.
69 East 69 was an imposing edifice with a self-service elevator and Kiki Kalmar’s apartment was 6G. The outside door opened upon push, and the elevator, upon push, transported me to the sixth floor, and I placed a firm thumb upon the mother-of-pearl button of 6G and pushed. Kiki Kalmar opened the door and although I was not interested she took my breath away. Kiki Kalmar was attired in tight-clinging white lastex toreador pants and white high-spiked shoes and she was attired in nothing else. Her firm, enormous, pink-nippled breasts seemed to quiver with far more, if involuntary, inquisitiveness, than her green shockproof eyes. “You?” she said.
“Were you expecting someone else?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I was. But come in, come in; just don’t stand there, glaring.”
I came in but I did not stop glaring; I refrained from glaring at her; I glared at everything else in the smartly-furnished room (the living room of a three-room layout) but finally I was back to glaring at her. “Why don’t you go put something on?” I said.
“What is it with you? Haven’t you ever seen a broad without a bra?”
“Yes, but let’s say not quite so casually.”
“So what’s wrong with casually? You a prude or something?”
“Yes, I’m a prude,” I said primly. “And I’d appreciate if you’d consider my sensibilities.”
“Nuts,” she said. “Consider my sensibilities, why don’t you? You’re talking about my stock in trade, part of my equipment, and I believe it’s good for them not to be tied together and strapped up like bags of pig feed or something.”
“But must they be bobbing around in the air like that?”
“Yeah, I happen to think the air is good for them. Pores breathe, you know. Or don’t you? Furthermore, this is my apartment and I have a perfect right to dress or undress as I please. Christ, a grown man to be thrown by an ordinary pair of tits. Shame on you.”
“Shame on me? Shame on you. And incidentally, they’re not ordinary at all. Extraordinary would be putting it mildly.”
“Well, thanks, sweetie pie.”
“You’re welcome. Now go put something on.”
“Baby, it’ll take more of a man than you to order me around. Now what is it, please? Talk it up. I told you I’m expecting company.”
“Like this you’re expecting company?”
“Maybe I want to impress him.”
“Honey, you’ll impress him. Boy, will you impress him!”
“Thanks again. Now let’s have it. What the hell do you want here?”
I talked fast. “Remember when Olaf witnessed that Boligula-bit, and he had the police protection?”
“Sure. Everybody remembers. The papers talked him up like he was running for President. So?”
“Last night he got slugged by a goon on the same proposition.”
The green eyes grew wide and she pulled up straight. The green eyes growing wide was one thing, but the pulling up straight practically wilted me. I turned my back on her and talked faster.
“I wanted Olaf to call the cops,” I said, “but he refused. He feels he can handle it by himself. You know how stubborn that guy can get. I tried to convince him but it was no go. I won’t go over his head to the cops; you know Olaf, he’d just deny the whole bit and laugh at me. Now I want you to get into the act.”
“Me?”
“The smartest guys can be stupid, and he’s stupid about you. The whole world knows you for a hardboiled nickel-and-dime tramp, but to Olaf you’re still the sweet little girl he adopted, his kid, his one and only daughter. He doesn’t realize what an ungrateful—”
“Get out!” she said.
“In a minute,” I said. “To me you’re nothing, zero, a bad bitch—but to Olaf you’re something; you carry weight with him, and you might be able to convince him. Call him up or go to see him. Tell him I’ve been here, tell him I’ve told you, tell him you’re worried, and tell him to call cops. You may be able to swing it. He figures to listen to you. In his stubborn crazy way he cares for you, and maybe, for you, he’ll do what he won’t do for himself. Love is blind, they say. And paternal love is the blindest. To him you’re still a sweet little kid, and if you’re scared, he might take care of himself just because you’re scared. His eyes are closed to the fact that you’re a big grown-up tramp now, an awful bum; a broad that greets her guests with her bazooms hanging out like wash on a line—”
“Get out! Get out!”
“Call him. Work on him. Else, he can get awfully jammed.”
“Get out!”
I got.
And so, after being thrown out and recalled at one apartment, and thrown out and not recalled at a second, I went to a saloon for a rapid drink and a quick phone call. I figured that Roy Paxton was the visitor to be impaled upon the breastworks although I hoped not because he was next on the agenda of my altruistic perambulations. I called Roy Paxton and I was delighted to discover that he was not the expected visitor. He was right there at his office and he stated, when I informed him I was on my way, that he would be pleased to see me. He would be more than pleased when he would learn that I was coming as a customer and that I was donating five hundred bucks to his cause. I wanted him to go along with me and I wanted to make it sweet enough so that he could not reasonably refuse. It was to be my first cast of bread upon the waters, and very murky waters at that.
Roy Paxton practiced out of 11 East 42nd Street and as I entered the crowded elevator on my way up to the fourteenth floor where he had his office, I took major precautions against the inroads of possible pickpockets, because I suddenly realized that I was more loaded up with pelf than a small-time armored truck. Aside from my own petty cash, which is usually considerable, I was still carrying around Astrid Lund’s fee, and now, added to that, was the added imposing weight of Vinnie Veneto’s six big ones. I was ejected at fourteen without untoward event and escorted with proper pomp by Paxton’s secretary to Paxton’s office. He smiled, stood up behind his desk, shook hands with me, and sat down behind his desk. I smiled and sat down in front of his desk. All cozy and decorous; all lawyer and client.
“And how are you this afternoon, dear Peter?” he said in his most lawyer-like manner.
“Oh, bully; just bully indeed, thank you.”
That wiped away the lawyer-like expression and the small smile that remained was spiteful. He was, as always, well groomed, and, as always, handsome, but the dark face looked tired and the satchels beneath the dark-brown eyes were plaid-purple and ponderous. He took off on a new tack.
“That was a darling little kid you were with last night,” he said. “Marilyn?”
“I believe that’s her name. Beautiful.”
“I’m stuck on her like a sword.”
“Tough when a man’s overboard.”
“You ought to know, huh?”
“Yeah, I ought to know,” he said sadly and the smile grew twisted and pensive. “Generally makes no sense, people out of different worlds, with different concepts, different morals.” He shrugged. “What the hell! Love, or lust, or sex, or whatever, these are matters of the emotions and who ever said the emotions have anything to do with making sense?”
“Um,” I said.
“But I’m sure you didn’t come here to philosophize about love or lust or sex.”
I dug into my pockets and placed five one-hundred dollar bills on his desk. He looked from the money to me.
“Whom do you want me to kill?” he said.
“That’s a very lame joke, coming from you.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I have a hazy recollection of certain drunken indictments you made in the men’s room.”
“Sorry, I’m not copping out. There was nothing drunken about my indictments.”
Somewhat sharply he said, “Okay. So what’s with the five hundred smacks?”
“A fee,” I said.
“For me?” he said.
“All for you.”
“For what?”
“A small job. At most, a writ of habeas corpus.”
“What’s this all about?” he said, and sat back in his chair and folded his hands on his stomach in regulation lawyer-like procedure.
“Juan Fernandez,” I said.
“Who’s Juan Fernandez?” he said.
“The doorman at 700 Park.”
“Oh, yes. Of course. I know the guy. A very nice little fella. He got shot in that wing-ding too, didn’t he? I read he’s in the hospital in rather serious condition. What’s with Juan Fernandez and habeas corpus?”
“He’s not in the hospital and he’s not in serious condition.”
That loosened the hands on his stomach and brought him forward, chest touching the rim of the desk. “What the devil?” he said.
“The police put that malarkey out for the newspapers.”
“Malarkey, eh?”
“They’ve got an idea he’s mixed in it.”
“Fernandez? Why?”