by Leslie Ford
“How did you know? Gee, you weren’t supposed to see it. She was over at the pool with some guys so I had to slip it to her on the quiet.”
“So I gathered,” I said. “And where’s my son? I’d like to see him.”
“Oh, there’s some gal up there thinks she wants a taxi,” he said. “They’ve got one for her, and Bill’s trying to help the fellows find her. She’s had a couple too many, is all.” He pushed it aside as a familiar occurrence and furthermore one quite inconsequential in view of more pressing business at hand. “Anyway, we figured I’d better talk to you. You see, we’re sort of in a real jam, Mrs. Latham, and we thought maybe we could get you to help us out of it.”
It was a different Sheep from the infectiously grinning and debonair young man in the white coat earlier in the evening. The fanshaped smile wrinkles at the corners of his direct and serious blue eyes were smoothed out. I thought he was a tough-minded young man and one you’d think twice about crossing if he happened to gel sore at something.
“You see, it’s like this, Mrs. Latham. And don’t start screaming until you hear it all.” He gave me an ironic grin and leaned forward. “It’s like this. There are a lot of angles we never thought about. I guess it was because our hearts were pure, or something. For instance: it sure never occurred to us that driving Molly up here from Texas was going to land us with a charge of transporting a minor. Gosh, we just figured it was a way to save train fare. It was all on the up and up—but we don’t want some screwball to drag us into court to make us prove it. It would make mighty cute headlines for a gossip column but it wouldn’t help Molly.”
“I can see that,” I said.
“So—what we want you to do is stay here and establish legal guardianship over Molly—”
“Stop!” I said. “Stop right there.” I would have said it sooner if I could have caught my breath quicker. “Me? Establish legal guardianship over Molly McShane? Good heavens, Sheep!”
He was nodding earnestly. He really meant it.
“Look,” I said, a little more calmly. “The answer is No. Absolutely No. I’d just as soon take over the tiger cage in the zoo. You and Bill can study very nicely in jail, and I’ll go home—”
“She’s sweet, Mrs. Latham,” Sheep said gently. “She’s one of the sweetest kids you’ve seen. I mean, really. You don’t know her.”
The lean, freckled face that had been so tough a minute before had changed almost comically.
“Are you in love with this girl?” I asked.
His face got red. He ran his fingers through his curly, ginger-colored hair.
“That stuff’s out, Mrs. Latham. We all agreed on that. That’d wreck everything. You must have been listening to Lucille Gannon. That’s all she thinks about. No, it’s nothing like that, Mrs. Latham. This is a straight deal.”
I imagine he thought it was the truth he was telling.
He looked and sounded to me very much like a young man in love, aware or unaware of it as he might be. And Lucille Gannon apparently thought so too, and she’d had a lot more experience than either Bill or Sheep Clarke—pain though they appeared to agree she was.
“We’re both nuts about her, of course,” Sheep added hastily. “I don’t mean to say we aren’t. That’s what makes it sort of tough deciding—”
“Deciding what?” I asked, when he trailed off unhappily and began to fish around in his pocket for a lighter.
“Well, you see, if we can’t get you to help us, there’s only one other way we can figure. That’s to marry her.”
I stared at him.
“Sure. Then it would all be straightened out.”
“Which one of you does she propose to marry?” I asked, as calmly as I could.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter to her. It’d just be a deal, you see. Till she’s twenty-one. Then we’d call it quits. But—”
He paused again.
“But what?”
“Why, we can’t make up our minds which of us ought to— I mean, which one—”
“Wants to sacrifice himself,” I suggested. I thought I’d better help him out.
He reddened, but he grinned this time. “I guess so.” He fished around and got his lighter. “Bill’s got the most dough, but I’ve got a couple of sisters. I know more about girls than Bill does.”
“I think you’re crazy,” I said. “All three of you—but you and Bill are crazier than Molly. And now you seem to me to be headed for real trouble.”
“We hoped you’d—”
“Listen, Sheep,” I said. “Molly has parents. Or has she?”
“Oh, sure.”
“All right. They’re her legal guardians. She doesn’t—”
He shook his head. “That’s the trouble, Mrs. Latham. They’re in a kind of funny position. They’re okay—I don’t mean they aren’t—but—well, they’re just ordinary people. They—”
“Most parents are.”
“I know. But—these people are afraid they’d handicap her. They’re crazy about her and terribly proud of her. But they’re afraid they’d hurt her. Her father doesn’t speak very good English, and her mother wants to—well, she wants to keep in the background. It’s not that they think she’d be ashamed of them, if you see what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I don’t, Sheep,” I said. “Aristocratic parents have never been a Hollywood must that I’ve ever heard of.”
“This is different,” he said stubbornly. “And don’t get our little girl wrong. She thinks they’re swell. But she sees the point—about the McShanes, I mean. And this other dame—she hates her guts.”
“Would you mind telling me why, Sheep? Bill says she doesn’t even know the woman’s name—and she certainly doesn’t know what she looks like.”
It occurred to me that having said so much I might as well go on.
“In fact, I don’t really think your little girl is being very frank with you two guys. And if she hasn’t told you whatever it is she knows about Mrs. Viola Van Zant Kersey in 31-B, I know she isn’t.”
He shook his head. “Why should she be, Mrs. Latham?” he said gently. “We don’t own her. If there’s something she doesn’t want to tell us, why the hell can’t she keep it to herself if she wants to? If she’s got something to hide, that’s her business. And it’s nothing wrong, Mrs. Latham. We know her—she’s okay. If she’s in trouble, we’re with her. We’re not going to kick her overboard just because somebody’s trying to louse up the deal.”
I’d been telling myself all evening that I had to keep my mouth shut. It was that kind of a spot I was in. I had to watch my step. It was hard to make any kind of suggestion at all without giving them the impression that I was definitely against their little dreamboat.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “All I meant was that this whole thing is crazy. You and Bill are worried about ‘this dame.’ You don’t know who she is. I’ll bet you a hundred dollars she’s Viola Van Zant Kersey. That’s all I mean. I think Molly knows it’s Mrs. Kersey. If you know what else it’s about, I don’t. But I should have told Molly, and I’ll tell you, that Mrs. Kersey says she’s very much interested in the three of you and wants to help you out. What’s money for, Mrs. Kersey says, if you can’t use it for others? She also says she knew Molly’s mother and she was a bad and wicked woman—”
“That is—false,” Sheep said calmly. “In fact, it’s a damned lie. We know Molly’s mother. She’s worked like a hound to get the kid some place. She’d kill herself if she thought it would do the baby any good. I tell you, we know. We’ve seen them both—her mother and her father. They’re fine. It’s just that they’re scared of this racket the kid’s in, this dog-eat-dog fight. They know you can’t go in with any kind of a strike against you. That’s all that worries them. That’s why we wanted you to take over, Mrs. Latham. We asked Lucille Gannon, but she hit the ceiling.”
“Why don’t you think of Mrs. Kersey next?” I suggested peaceably. “She says she wants to help you.”
“No, thanks,” he said
shortly. “She can suck up to Gee Gee Gannon all she wants to, and let her. She’s not playing in our game.”
I looked at him. “Gee Gee Gannon? Lucille’s husband? He’s in Palm Springs—”
“He’s right straight across the hall from you, Mrs. Latham,” Sheep said. “Lucille’s in Palm Springs. Gee Gee’s in the next room. Also, your Viola Van Zant’s in there with him.”
“Oh,” I said.
Chapter Nine: Unconcealed murder
I WAS A LITTLE LIKE MOLLY, it seemed. Here was someone whose name I knew and that was all. I’d had no idea what Lucille Gannon’s husband looked like. I tried to think of the man Lucille had met one day, fallen in love with and rushed to Las Vegas and married six weeks later, all in such a passionate whirlwind that her second husband hardly knew what had happened. Her Dream Prince, Gee Gee was, then, and of course still might be, though I’d always thought of a Dream Prince as having more hair and less avoirdupois.
“He’s supposed to be holed-in working on a script,” Sheep said. “No phone calls, no visitors. He’s sure been sweating it out today. If the picture hits the audience the way it has him, they’ll all wake up in the N.P. ward. Lucille ought to come and take him home and call the doctor. I bet I’ve taken him ten tubs of ice since one o’clock.”
He tossed his cigarette into the fireplace.
“This is off the record. Nobody’s supposed to know he’s here. He’s registered as George Smith. That’s part of the claptrap of being local Big Brass.”
He grinned at me. “It would break Georgie’s heart if nobody tried to get him, so his secretary calls up every twenty minutes and leaves a message under a different name. But Georgie’s a nice guy, Mrs. Latham. It’s just the pattern. He’s okay. So keep it dark—and don’t speak to him if you run into him, or I’d lose my job—for two days… And think it over, will you, Mrs. Latham. You know what they say—time is of the essence.”
I looked at him. I had no idea whether he knew or didn’t know, or believed or didn’t believe, that Mrs. Viola Van Zant Kersey was their enemy, or if so, for what reason she was dangerous to Molly McShane. But one thing I did know, and that was that there wasn’t any halfway house for Sheep. He was for Molly, and it didn’t make any difference what Molly did. He was for her, and anyone against her was against Sheep Clarke. And he didn’t look like the sort that would care much about the cost.
“Nobody’s going to get their hooks in our girl, Mrs. Latham,” he said evenly. “I’ll see them in hell first.”
It was the second time that day that I’d heard so. Molly had said it in the white heat of passionate fury. Sheep was quiet, but I thought he meant it.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” I said. “Tell Bill to go home and go to bed. I’ll see him tomorrow too.”
“Good night, Mrs. Latham.”
I closed the door behind him, with a glance at Gee Gee Gannon’s door across the hall, and went over to the window to let in a little fresh air. I was pretty much disturbed. It seemed to me there was trouble ahead. I could smell it the way a sleeping dog can smell a pound of hamburger when the butcher boy opens the kitchen door. I pulled open the French window.
When the voice out of the darkness said, “Hello, there,” I must have jumped a foot. There was someone on my patio. Then I realized who it was. It didn’t take any imagination, from the sound of the voice, to do it, either. I pushed the curtain aside, and in the long yellow panel of light it let out into the night I saw the girl, huddled in a fur coat, reclining on the blue chaise longue. She pulled herself up, blinking into the sudden light.
“Did you give that girl her bag? I just wanted to know if you gave it to her.”
Her voice was blurred and fuzzy.
“Yes, I did,” I said.
“That’s all I wanted to know. I’ve been looking all over for you, but you had company when I found you so I just waited. I told you, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you some screwy dame would figure we swiped it? Didn’t I tell you?”
“Yes, you did,” I said. “You did indeed. So now why don’t you go home?”
“That’s what I’m going to do. That’s what I was going to do before. But I just wanted you to see I was right. Remember what I said to you? I said, some screwy dame’s going to start yelling we lifted the crown jewels. Wasn’t that just what I said? The very ee-zact words? And wasn’t I right? You bet I was right. I know these dames down here.”
She got up, balancing herself carefully against the wrought-iron table.
“Now I’m going home. Tomorrow I’m going clear home. Back to Seattle, Washington. Do you know where Seattle, Washington, is?”
“Yes, I know,” I said.
“Well, that’s where I came from, and that’s where I’m going back to. I can get a job there. I can get a job anywhere. I got a job here, but I don’t like it. I’m going back to Seattle, Washington. I don’t know why I came here when I had a good job there, in the first place. What did you come here for?”
“I don’t know either,” I said, and with a good deal of truth now that the point had risen.
I held the screen aside as she came through, blinking in the lighted room.
“That’s just it. Nobody knows—nobody ever knows.” She stifled a yawn. “I’ve been asleep. I feel better now. Not much better but some better. Now I’m going to get a taxi and go home. You call me a taxi. Will you do that?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll do that.”
“Okay. Goodbye. And remember what I said about these dames around here. Remember? I said—”
“I know,” I said. “I’ll remember it. And you wait. I’ll call a taxi and then I’ll walk out with you.”
An indignant light came into her eyes. “You think I’m drunk. Well, I am. But I can walk. Nobody ever has to walk any place with me. I can walk by myself. I found you, didn’t I? I didn’t need any help to find you. And I can find my way back. You just call me a taxicab. That’s all I want. I don’t want anything else.”
“All right,” I said. “Goodbye.”
She went out. I thought she was steady enough to make it, so I called the desk and ordered a cab for her.
I didn’t know until ten minutes to one that she didn’t make it. The night watchman found her. She was lying at the foot of the steps that led down to Mrs. Kersey’s suite on the lower terrace. It was a long flight of steps, made of jagged stone. She looked pitifully young but at peace, lying there under the light.
When I got out, having heard the voices and gathered something serious had happened, the first thing I saw was Viola Kersey, standing there in the half dark, on the steps just below the top. I supposed she was just returning from Gee Gee Gannon’s room across the hall from me. At any rate, he hadn’t come with her; she was alone when I saw her, and standing there as if rigid. When I went up to her she was so absorbed, staring down at her feet, that she didn’t see me coming.
Suddenly she bent down, and straightened quickly up again. She saw me then. It was light enough for me to see that her face was ashen, her eyes big blue hollows. She turned quickly toward me.
“She tripped,” she whispered. “On a string. It was tied across—”
Mrs. Kersey stopped, staring silently at me for an instant.
“My God!” she whispered then. “It could have been me.”
She started to go on, and stopped. But I saw what she was going to say, in the kind of pasty horror that crumpled her face. It not only could have been her—it was meant for her. She knew it was meant for her.
Mrs. Kersey’s eyes moved unconsciously to the sign on the rail at the top of the step Private Entrance—31 -B Only. She raised her hand and rubbed it slowly across her flaccid chin. Mrs. Kersey was an enormously shaken woman.
“You’d better sit down,” I said. I thought if she didn’t she was going to topple over and go on down to the bottom anyway. “Sit down, and I’ll get the policeman.”
The word seemed to startle her, but she didn’t at once try to stop me. It wasn’t till I’d t
urned and got down three steps toward the grim, concentrated group on the terrace below.
“Oh, Mrs. Latham—”
I turned back quickly.
“Oh, my dear, how stupid of me!”
The voice was phony. I’d known that from the sound of the “Oh, Mrs. Latham.”
“Look, my dear. It wasn’t a string at all. It was just this old vine that looked like a string. Oh, wouldn’t that have been terrible?”
The vine she had hold of came over the top of the rail, not underneath it on the step where she’d been staring when I first saw her. I looked down there. No string was in sight, there or in her hands.
“Just think how dreadful a mistake that would have been. It would have looked as if I was afraid somebody was laying a trap for me! Because this is my stairway. It would have been like casting perfectly horrible suspicion on—on somebody, wouldn’t it?”
She glanced at me more sharply as I didn’t say anything.
“You understand there wasn’t any string, Mrs. Latham,” she said. “You didn’t see a string, did you? I said there was one and I was wrong. Because there isn’t any string, Mrs. Latham.”
There was a string. She knew it, and she knew I knew it. She’d been able to untie it and she’d probably stuffed it in her lavish bosom the instant I’d turned my back to go down and get the policeman. She knew I knew that too.
“I can’t imagine what I was thinking of.” She said that with an airy laugh. “I have no enemies. I haven’t an enemy in the world.”
Her voice was as light as her laughter, but she still had me fixed with an eye that had no lightness or laughter in it.
“You don’t believe me, Mrs. Latham. I can see you don’t. But surely you don’t think there’s anyone who would want to do that to me?”
She nodded down at the crumpled heap at the foot of the jagged stone steps. One of the men had moved. The lights picked out a small moving trickle of blood on the girl’s forehead.
“Or do you, Mrs. Latham?” she said softly. “I’m quite sure you don’t. But we don’t want any misunderstanding about it. I’ll tell the policeman myself… Oh, Captain!” She turned back to me. “It isn’t as if you’d actually seen a string, is it? It’s so easy to be mistaken when you’re all upset… Captain—this vine—”