by Milton Ozaki
It's fifty-eight miles from Kenosha to Chicago's Loop. For the first ten, she glared at the radio and kept her pert nose pointed straight ahead. I kept my nose straight ahead too, but it was difficult. Her perfume filled the sedan subtly but potently, reminding me that detectives are merely men and men are human. She was young, not much over voting age and built like a calendar model.
She was first to break the silence. "Do detectives make a lot of money?" she asked abruptly.
"No," I admitted. "It's a lousy racket."
"Suppose I gave you a check for seven-hundred-fifty dollars. Would you let me have the car?"
"No."
"A good check."
"Don't tempt me, honey."
"Suppose I gave you the check and three hundred dollars in cash."
Temptation tugged at me and I waltzed with her a moment, but I shook my head.
"I've got some—some jewelry. You can have that, too." A note of desperation tinged her voice.
"Look, baby," I said. "You rolled the dice and it turns out you made a bad pass. I'm vulnerable to a fast buck; most guys who have to scramble for a living are. But you're trying to tempt me with peanuts. Suppose I took the check, the cash, and the knickknacks. It doesn't add up to big dough—only a little over a grand altogether, probably—and I could get my neck chopped off for it. That cop's got my name in his notebook, as well as the license and serial number of this car. I advise you to make a new connection when you get back to Chi, get another car from your boyfriend, and then begin your trip again. What's a couple days to a kid like you?"
"What do you want, then?"
"The car, honey, nothing but the car. The insurance company's going to pay me a nice fat fee for latching onto it— and, as the bridegroom said to his best man, this time it's all strictly legit."
"But I can't let you take it away from me like this!"
"Why not?"
She bit her lip. "Well.... because."
"That's a hell of a reason."
Silence fell between us again. As the miles continued to unwind, I glanced covertly at her from time to time. She sat huddled in the corner of the seat, her wide blue eyes fixed straight ahead and her small chin tight and set. I began to wonder if and when the big idea would hit her. She looked like a sweet young kid, but she had a woman's equipment and something in her voice and manner had given me the impression that she had been around. If I were right, the call of the wild should be sounding any minute...
I hadn't long to wait. She began by loosening her legs and wriggling her shoulders a little. Then she made a small moaning sound. Keeping my eyes on the road, I said: "What's the matter, kid?"
"I—I think I'm going to be sick—"
"No kidding?" I tried to look worried.
She put a limp arm across her forehead. "My head is pounding and my stomach feels as if it's going to roll over." She massaged the offending organ delicately, unbuttoning the gray jacket to do so. I got a side-eye view of some very pretty scenery.
"Think a coffee might help?"
"I... ugh, no. It's—the way the car sways, I guess."
"Car sickness," I said brightly. "Sort of like sea sickness." I pretended to ponder the situation. "Well," I suggested, "I suppose we could stop a few minutes." I glanced at her, adding: "If you think that would help."
"Could we?"
"Sure. There's no rush."
"I'd sure appreciate it."
"I'll pull into the first decent-looking place I spot."
Deliberately, I passed up the ordinary roadside eating joints and chose a rather elaborate, freshly painted establishment which billed itself in vari-colored neon as The U-Need-Rest. Needless to say, it consisted of a huge frame building which housed a combination grill and tavern and which squatted within a semi-circle of little frame cabins like a mother hen among her chicks.
"This place looks okay." I announced casually. Slowing the car, I pointed it at the whitewashed driveway and parked near the main entrance. I turned off the ignition.
"You're sure you don't mind—stopping?" she asked in a small voice.
I faced her and dropped an arm along the back of the seat. I grinned. "Hell, I've got all day, honey."
She managed a grateful smile. She had beautiful eyes, smoothly curving red lips, and lovely skin. I studied the area of skin visible in the V of her blouse and involuntarily moistened my lips. She was a sweet dish—and I love sweets. She was playing a game—and I am a guy who likes sports. She wasn't calling the turn fast enough to suit me, though, so I decided to help her along. "Maybe you ought to lie down a while," I suggested, looking ostentatiously around and nodding toward the cabins. "They'd probably rent one to us for an hour or so."
"I'd like that," she said quickly. Too quickly. "But—" Remembering that she shouldn't be too eager, she dangled the rest of the sentence like a good little actress, colored slightly, and fluttered her eyelashes in a way calculated to denote embarrassment.
"Think nothing of it," I reassured her. "The management is probably used to drop-ins. I'll tell them we've been driving all night and want to grab a couple hours of rest."
"All right." She smiled brightly. "They don't know us, so it doesn't make any difference what they think, anyway."
"My sentiments, exactly."
I got out of the car, taking the keys with me, and entered the grill. A blase fat boy in a Hawaiian-motif sport shirt took my application, made in the form of a folded five-dollar-bill, and jotted down the license number of the Caddy in a dog-eared notebook. I signed—with quite a feeling of roguish-ness—Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Matthews, Chicago, on the line below. Fat Boy inspected the signature glumly and gave me a hotel-size key on a formica tag. The tag bore the numeral G. I thanked him graciously and went back to the Caddy.
The blonde was no longer sick. Giving me an expectant half-smile, like a bride waiting to be lifted across the threshold, she asked: "Is it all right?"
"Sure." I matched her smile. "We're in cabin six."
I got the cars going and, with minor difficulty, maneuvered them around the circling driveway to the rear, where one of the chicks bore the proper numeral. Parking was not an easy matter because of the shallowness of the space between the roadway and a high iron fence which stretched across the rear of the cabins. I solved the problem of getting the Pontiac out of the road, finally, by detaching it from the towline and driving it around to the other side of the cabin. While I was so engaged, the blonde strolled to the cabin and unlocked the door. She went in, leaving the door invitingly open. I looked at it and my red corpuscles began to get redder. Conscience tugged at me. I pushed it away. She was calling the turn, wasn't she? And if she didn't know what she was doing, she deserved to find out.
I glanced at the rear of the Caddy as I turned toward the cabin—and stopped. Frowning, I stared at the broad strip of yellow immediately beneath the edge of the trunk compartment. It was streaked irregularly with slanting stripes of brownish-maroon, as though a thick liquid had been spilled within the compartment and, urged by the movement of the car, had drained toward the rear and seeped over the bottom edge. I touched one of the streaks with a curious finger. It was quite sticky, not unlike thin simple syrup. But it wasn't syrup. It was blood. Drying blood.
With fingers which trembled, I unlocked the trunk compartment and thrust the lid up. My stomach began to climb toward my mouth. Jammed into the steel-lined interior was the body of a man clothed in blood-soaked blue gabardine. A wide mouth of ugly flesh gaped at me from beneath his chin, where a razor-sharp knife had passed across his throat.
Ordering my stomach to behave, I reached in, twisted my fingers in the thin, brownish hair atop the head, and pulled the face toward me. It was a round, ordinary mask of flesh with a fattish, large-pored nose and staring dark eyes.
He was no one I knew.
TWO. The Errand Girl
WHEN I entered the cabin, her suit skirt and jacket were folded neatly on a chair, her blouse hung sedately from a wire hanger, and her high-heele
d pumps were at attention beside the chair. She was lying on the narrow bed, clad in a frothy bra and a sheer half-slip. Releasing a startled gasp at the sound of the door closing, she flung an arm protectively across the front of the bra, as though it had never occurred to her that a man might enter the open door and interrupt her siesta.
I slammed the door shut, locked it, and stood in the center of the small room, staring at her. She made quite a picture. Stretched indolently on the bed with a fluff of soft blonde hair framing her pretty face, and with a blend of come-hither and sweet innocence in her wide blue eyes, she was vibrating the sort of chord which men harken to and which keeps our divorce courts busy. The whole get-up, from the way the sheer hose molded her long limbs, ending in coy garters which peeped through the sheer half-slip, to the way her navel winked up at me from the flatness of her bare belly, was arranged to excite the age-old hunger of man.
But, at the moment, murder dulled my appetite.
"Ohhh—" It was a satiny sigh, and as a final touch, she lifted her arms and stretched like a lithe, lazy kitten. "What took you so long?"
Without answering, I strode to the chair holding her clothes. Under the skirt lay her purse, a black rectangle of leather the size of a gift box of cigars. I picked it up and tugged at the zipper. It came open with a metallic whisper.
"Say!" The bed creaked as she sat up suddenly. "What do you think you're doing?"
Ignoring her, I up-ended the purse, shaking its contents onto a nearby table. A gold lipstick, several bob pins, a comb, three keys on a beaded chain, a gadget for crimping eyelashes, an emery board, a tired pack of Viceroys and a packet of matches rattled onto the bare wood. I shook it again and a tiny red memorandum book and a flat wallet of worn red leather joined the rest of the junk. I dropped the empty purse onto the chair and gave my attention to the wallet.
"Why, you—!" The satiny tone became sandpapery. She flung herself at me, her fingers clawing frantically for the wallet. I knocked her hands down, then gave her a push which sent her skittering toward the bed. She landed on it with considerable impact, enough to clip short the nasty name which had been about to leave her lips.
There was a sheaf of crisp bills in the wallet—several hundred dollars' worth, I estimated—and the usual celluloid flaps containing identification cards and snapshots. Her name, according to a vehicle operator's license issued by the state of Illinois, was Giselle Kent and her residence was 162 Maple Street, West Frankfort, Illinois. Also, she was blonde, blue-eyed, five-six, and weighed one-twelve.
She scrambled off the bed, making sounds of great fury, and got one of her shoes. Clutching it hammerwise by the toe, she tried to drive my ear into my head with the heel. Fortunately, her aim was bad. I caught the blow with my shoulder, slapped the shoe from her hand, and administered another push. She and the bedsprings screeched as one.
I inspected the snapshots with cursory interest. One was a glamor shot, highly retouched, in which she exhibited pearly teeth and much bare shoulder. The next, a poorly focused full-length view, showed a laughing blonde—either herself or a sister—in a very brief bathing suit, leaning against the willing shoulder of a grinning youth who, I deduced by the chain of dog-tags hanging from his neck, was a member of the armed services. Her family was next, of course. Papa looked well-fed and strong; mama, the taller of the two, was stiff-backed and impatient-looking. The front porch of what I presumed was the family manse was in the background; although slightly out of focus, it looked like an old-fashioned concoction, the kind peculiar to small towns these days. The last picture was a posed studio shot on matte paper, obviously cut down to fit the celluloid flap. It featured a sleek, dark-haired man in three-quarter pose, who smoked a cigarette and wore a large black-stoned ring on the third finger of his left hand. There was something familiar about him, but the picture rang no bells.
I discarded the wallet and riffled through the pages of the memo book. There were a lot of tightly written names and addresses and a profusion of telephone numbers. The cover of the book bore the printed blurb MR. MEL—Your Hairdresser, followed by the phone number of a beauty salon on East Walton Place. I dropped the book into my pocket for further study and continued my search.
Her blouse had been designed, quite successfully, to cover but not to conceal anything. I tossed it aside and examined the skirt and jacket thoroughly, finding nothing. I picked up her shoes, studied the heels, thrust fingers into the toes. Again, nothing. Staring at her, I took a step toward the bed. She was crouched against the headboard, her face pale with fear and taut with anger.
"Where is it?" I asked hoarsely. "Where did you hide it?"
"Wh—what?" The word came out of her throat with a rattle, as though it were glad to be released.
"The check," I rasped. "Give it to me."
"What ch-check?"
"You little fool!" My knees banged against the edge of the bed as I leaned toward her, reaching for her shoulders. "You told me you had it. Where did you put it?" I shook her impatiently.
With panicky fingers, she tore a cup of her bra and turned it down. Pinned inside was a molded fold of brown paper. I brushed her trembling hands aside and unfastened the pin myself. The check was damp from the intimate contact with her warm flesh. I unfolded it carefully. It was drawn on the Cosmopolitan National Bank of Chicago and made out to G. Kent for $750.00. The signature, written in the large, careful script of either the very old or the very young, was: Arnold J. Richmond.
"Arnold J. Richmond," I muttered. "Who the hell is he?"
"None of your business!" she flared. "I don't know who you think you are, but you won't get away with this! I've got friends. Even if you are a private cop, you can't—"
"Shut up," I snapped. "Who's this guy Richmond?"
"What difference does it make?" Her voice rose a triumphant octave. It's made out to me, understand? It's no damned good to you unless I endorse it—and I swear to God you'll have to kill me first!"
"When did he give it to you?"
"This morning. I tell you, you can't—"
"Listen, honey." I bit my lip and inwardly cursed the panic which was threatening to get the better of my reason. "I don't want the check. All I want to know is who Richmond is."
"Why?"
"I'll answer that in a minute. Tell me who Richmond is."
"He's just a guy I know; a businessman."
"What kind of business?"
"How would I know? And what difference does it make, anyway? The check's mine and—"
"Maybe it isn't yours," I suggested.
"Like hell. My name's on it and that makes it mine." She flicked a finger at it. "See? G. Kent. That's me!"
"But it isn't yours unless you've earned it—and you haven't earned it yet, have you?"
Her eyes blanked out. "What do you mean by that?"
"You were supposed to ditch the Caddy—and you haven't."
Her lips flattened into a thin red line of outraged intelligence. "Are you nuts? Why would I want to ditch a car like that? Don't you know what it's worth?"
"Richmond paid you to ditch it."
"He didn't! I was taking it up to his sister's place for him."
"For seven hundred and fifty dollars?" I laughed shortly. "For that kind of dough, he could have hired four guys to carry it up to Kenosha on their backs!"
"It's true. That's all I was to do!"
"I suppose you were to knock on her door and sing Happy Birthday, too," I said sarcastically.
"No. All I had to do was park it in front of her house and take the next train back to Chicago. He said she wasn't home but that she was expecting the car, and that it'd be all right to just leave it there."
"Did he tell you to wipe your fingerprints off the steering wheel, too?"
"Of course not. Why?" A scared look jumped into her eyes again. "Say, what are you getting at? It's no crime to deliver a car. And I didn't know it was stolen. So why would he tell me to—"
"Giselle," I interrupted gently, "did you happen to
look in the trunk?"
"You mean in back?"
"Yes, in back. In the trunk compartment. Did you look in it?"
"No. Why?"
"Get dressed, kid. I have a surprise for you."
Something in my voice must have convinced her that I wasn't kidding, for she scrambled off the bed and got into her blouse and skirt. When she had her shoes on, I tossed the car keys to her.
"Go out and have a look," I told her. "If anyone's around, make sure they aren't watching you."
She was gone less than two minutes. When she came in, her face was as grayish as an old hashhouse platter and she ran past me, headed for the bathroom. I listened to the ensuing sounds of violent up-chucking and decided that either they were authentic or she was adept at using her forefinger. I shut the door and locked it again. When she reappeared, she looked as pale and limp as a piece of wet macaroni. She handed the keys to me and sank upon the bed.
"Did you lock it again?" I asked.
She nodded.
"Anybody around?"
"There was a fellow in a car, a couple cabins down. But he couldn't see... it."
"Good. Any idea who the dead guy was?"
She bit her lip. Reluctantly, she nodded.
"Who?"
"Eddie Sands."
"The name sounds familiar. Who was he?"
"He managed the Silver Cloud."
"The jive joint on Clark Street?"
"Yes. Maybe he owned it. I don't know."
I whistled softly. "No wonder they wanted to get him out of Illinois. If what I've heard is correct, Eddie Sands was pretty warm stuff. You'd better give me the whole story, Giselle. We're both on the spot, you know."
"Honest to God, I don't know anything about it!" She shook her head slowly and a haunted look slid into her eyes. "I was to drive it up there and leave it parked in front of his sister's house. He gave me the address and told me how—"