by Milton Ozaki
With difficulty, I strained my neck around until the other side of the room came within my range of vision. He was a short, chunky guy with graying, curly hair, a square face freshly shaven and nicely talcumed, dark eyes, and the prettiest brown plaid suit I'd ever seen outside of a tailor's window. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but I didn't recognize him until he paced slowly in front of me, folded his hands behind him, and gave me the considering stare of a man who's studying a fly on the end of a pin.
Then his name popped into my mind: Leo Gold! I didn't groan, but I felt like it. Gold was king of the local shysters, a great guy with the bright boys and smart girls, the kind of lawyer who rarely had to soil his manicured nails by touching briefs or law books.
"I don't like it," Richmond said flatly.
"Of course not," Gold agreed in dulcet tones. "I don't either. It's simply a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Fortunately, you had sense enough to consult me before you did anything irrevocable." He lifted his eyebrows delicately and looked at Richmond. "I'm a businessman, Arnold. I'm interested in making money—and I assume that you are, too. The less violence we have, the better for both of us."
"But for chrissake, Leo, the guy's wise to us!" Richmond snapped. "The only way to stop him from spilling the whole set-up is to kill him."
"You're wrong, Arnold." Gold's tone was quiet but firm. "Killing him will merely multiply our troubles. As things stand now, the cops are after Sands' killer—and this guy is a natural suspect. The cops will love him. The newspapers will love him. And you and I ought to love him, because as soon as the cops get him all the heat will be off us."
"But he'll talk!" Richmond interrupted. "How do you expect to stop him from talking?"
"I don't." Gold paced back and forth slowly. "Well let him talk. The way I'll have things fixed, the more he talks the less anybody'll believe him!" Gold made a dramatic arc with one hand. "I tell you, all we need is the right girl, one who'll put on a good act, follow directions, and keep her mouth shut afterwards."
Richmond frowned and shook his head. "I hate to bring another dame into this. We were okay until you started mixing dolls into the racket."
"You're imagining things, Arnold. Giselle followed through perfectly on every job we gave her, except this last one. What happened was purely accidental. It wouldn't happen again in a thousand years." Gold glanced at a gold watch on his wrist. "Time is flying. Let's make up our minds."
"Well, you're the boss," Richmond said, not very enthusiastically. "I still don't like it, but I'll play along if you're sure that—"
"I'm sure," Gold said.
"Okay. Suppose we give the job to Fia Sprite?"
Gold squinted at the ceiling. "The Calypso babe?"
"Yeah. She's clean as far as the law goes, and she's damned anxious to get her hands on a wad of dough."
"Why?"
"Wants to quit thrashing in the joints and open an interior decorating shop. For a few grand in real money, I think she'd hold still for nearly anything—and she's got enough looks to put the act over, I think."
"Can she keep her mouth shut?"
Richmond shrugged. "Can any woman?" he asked. "All I'm saying is that if we make the price right, I think she'll follow through."
"How soon can you get her here?"
"She lives in the building."
Gold nodded his satisfaction. "Get her here. Have her pick up some liquor." His voice became softer. "You won't need me. As soon as you have things set, phone my office. Then clear out. Understand?"
"Sure, Leo." Richmond nodded. Gold returned the nod, opened the door, and left. Favoring me with an angry glance, Richmond grunted and got to his feet. I made sounds in my throat, hoping to suggest that the gag was strangling me. "Shut up, you bastard," Richmond muttered. The flat of his hand cracked across my face. I subsided.
Richmond left the room and I heard the staccato whir of a telephone dial being spun impatiently. I strained at the ropes around my ankles and wrists. They gave about as much as a miser on Tag Day. I bent my legs at the knees and arched my back, trying to reach the knots with my hands. Impossible.
Richmond, speaking in a low, brisk tone, said abruptly: "Fia? This is Arnold.... Are you alone?.... Well, get rid of him... I've got a deal on, the kind you've been looking for.... Yeah.... I wouldn't kid you. This is something big. Tell the guy to scram.... I want to bring a someone up to your place in about ten minutes.... Hell, I can't talk about it now. Use your head.... Okay." The receiver banged onto its cradle.
Richmond strode back into my field of vision, moving purposefully. With what looked to me like an old undershirt, he polished the arms of all the chairs, the tops of all the tables, the doorknobs, and the front of a radio-phonograph console. He emptied all the ashtrays, rinsed them with water, dried them thoroughly. Then, grabbing me by the shoulders, he half-pulled, half-lifted me into a sitting position.
Kneeling beside me, he adjusted the rope about my ankles so there was quite a bit of play, thereby permitting me to separate my feet about twelve inches. I watched him closely, hoping he might be careless enough to give me a chance to kick him in the teeth, but he cautiously kept well to one side and pressed one of his arms across my shins. "Okay, get up!" he ordered.
With a grunt, I threw my weight forward and levered myself up.
He inspected me critically for a moment, then went to a closet and returned with a woolen bathrobe. He draped it over my shoulders so that my bound hands were concealed, folded the front together, and tied the rope-like belt. He gave me another critical inspection. This time he nodded with satisfaction. I essayed a step.
He nicked a fist into my kidneys. I gurgled, started to double with pain, and nearly fell on my face. He caught me, pushed me back onto my feet. "Stay right there," he ordered tersely. "Don't move. Give me a good excuse, and you're dead—get it?"
I managed to nod.
Hurriedly, he went into the other room and returned with a small vacuum cleaner. Using the machine expertly, he vacuumed the floor in front of the sofa, then the cushions, then the back and arms. I had to give him credit for doing a good, intelligent job of destroying evidence that any of us had been lounging around the place.
"Okay, Forbes," he said finally, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. "We're going upstairs." Stepping behind me, he unknotted the gag and jerked it out of my mouth. "You're a very sick man and can hardly walk.... and if you try any tricks, you'll be sicker. Catch on?"
I choked, licked my sandpapery lips, and sucked around in my mouth for spit. As soon as I could get the words lubricated, I rasped out a phrase uncomplimentary to his mother.
"Another crack like that will get you no teeth," Richmond commented. The back of his hand slashed across my mouth. I stumbled, spitting blood. "Get wise, Forbes. You're in the wrong spot to start trouble." He patted the side pocket of the serge suitcoat. "I'd just as soon blow a hole in you as not." He prodded me toward the door. "We're going upstairs, like I said. We probably won't meet anyone. If we do, keep your head down and remember that you're very, very sick. Is that clear?"
I couldn't trust myself to speak, so I grunted.
He opened the door, stepped into the corridor, then motioned me to follow. The rope permitted me to take a step of about ten inches. Feeling like an invalid Chinese maiden in a hobble skirt, I hunched my shoulders and minced after him. He shut the door and prodded me down the corridor. We reached a narrow flight of concrete stairs.
"Up," Richmond urged, prodding me impatiently.
"How the hell can—" I began.
His fist smashed into my side. "Keep your mouth shut and get moving," he ordered tersely.
Painfully, I lifted one foot and got it onto the first step, then I shifted my weight carefully and slowly brought the other up. No one was more surprised than I was when, finally, I gasped my way up the last step and tottered onto the landing. Richmond said: "Okay, straight ahead."
I minced past three doorways before I was jerked to
a halt A brass 815 ornamented the varnished panel. Richmond tapped on it softly. When nothing happened immediately, he drummed his knuckles against it and rattled the knob. It opened suddenly, as though drawn back in anger.
Richmond pushed me into the room, then shut the door and bolted it. The girl confronting us was a slim Latin number with thin, painted cheeks, long black hair, and flaring dark eyes. She wore black satin toreador slacks and a rumpled plaid blouse which was only partially buttoned. Judging by the look she gave us, Dale Carnegie had had no affect on her. "Come in, for godsake," she said in an irritated, brittle voice. "I thought you said ten minutes! After I rush the guy out of here, you make me sit around here twiddling my—"
"We were delayed," Richmond explained shortly. He administered a shove which sent me toward a rumpled studio couch.
Her eyes flicked over me. "Who's the sucker?"
"A private dick named Russell Forbes."
"Oh?" Her eyebrows danced briefly and her eyes became dark alleys. "I'm listening."
"I want you to throw a little party for him. You know. The heat's on him and we want him picked up in the right sort of situation."
"What's he hot for?"
"Not for you, baby," Richmond told her, smirking a little. "We just want it to look that way. Catch on?"
She sniffed, not very delicately. "What's in it for me?"
"A cool grand."
Her lips twisted into a wry red bud. "Get him out of here," she said. She indicated the door with a toss of her head.
"What the hell, Fia, you toss your can around the joints for peanuts, and now when I offer you a real deal, you—"
"I can't hear you," she said. "Get him out. Beat it."
"Fifteen C's, then. That's a hell of a lot more than—"
"I still can't hear you."
"Hell, Fia, I'm doing you a favor!" Richmond protested. "You know that dames are a dime a dozen. I could have given the job to any one of fifty other babes—and they'da grabbed it!"
"That's for the birds," she said pleasantly. "You know damned well you can't trust them. You brought the guy here because you know I won't blab about it."
"How much, then?"
"Three grand." Her lips touched the words lovingly, like a mother cat tonguing a favored kitten.
"Impossible!"
She whirled. "What have they got on you?" she demanded. "What're you hot for?"
"Picking my nose in front of City Hall," I said bitterly.
"Oh, a wise guy." She confronted Richmond. "You may as well level with me. What's he wanted for?"
"What the hell difference does it make, Fia?" Richmond rasped, looking uncomfortable. "All you've got to do—"
"Answer me." She tapped a foot impatiently. "What's the bite?"
Richmond's shoulders moved in an involuntary gesture of defeat. "They think he knocked off Eddie Sands," he admitted.
"Well, what do you know?" Her eyes studied me speculatively. "A killer, huh? And you think I'm going to get myself smeared all over the papers for less than three grand?" She tossed her head and looked wide-eyed at Richmond. "I've got news for you, Arnold. You can stick him back where you found him."
Richmond shrugged. "I haven't time to argue, Fia. Three grand it is."
"On the line, too," the girl said quickly.
"I don't have that much cash with me—"
"Then get it."
"Okay, okay. I'll see what I can do." Richmond strode to me and unfastened the bathrobe. Rolling me over, he removed the robe and folded it over his arm. "How are you fixed for liquor?" he asked.
"I got maybe a fifth," the girl told him.
"I'll pick up a couple bottles," Richmond said. "You may as well get started. Liquor him up good."
"Remember, Arnold—" the girl warned, "—no dough and I queer the act."
Richmond nodded shortly. "I'll be back in a few minutes. He's tricky, so don't take any chances."
As soon as the door closed behind Richmond, she blew a kiss toward it and did a tricky bump-and-grind toward a tiny kitchenette. From a cabinet over the sink, she got down a water glass and a used bottle of Old Crow. Smiling purposefully, she came toward me with them.
"Scotch," I said. "Bourbon makes me sick."
She dropped onto the couch beside me. "This is all I've got." She filled the glass half-full and pushed the rim of it between my lips. "Have a slug, hon," she invited. "It's on the house."
Bourbon, to me, always has a sweet-sour smell which reminds me of a men's lavatory. I twisted my head, trying to avoid the glass, but she kept the edge rammed against my teeth and dribbled the biting liquor over my sore lips until I either had to swallow or to gag. I decided a swallow wouldn't kill me and might even have a medicinal effect. I took a big gulp, choked, gasped for breath.
"That's the idea," she chortled approvingly. "Not so bad, is it?" She splashed more into the glass and returned it inexorably to my mouth. "A few more of these and everything'll be rosy—for both of us, maybe."
"Richmond's suckering you," I gurgled around the glass. "You'll both burn for this."
"Richmond, maybe," she said coolly, "but not me." She tilted the glass. I shuddered as the burning liquor went down my throat. My stomach was beginning to feel like a bathtub full of hot, swirling soup. The glass came up again. I shook my head, tried to avoid it.
"Have a heart," I gasped.
"Oh, come on," she taunted. "Are you a man or mouse?" The phrase must have awakened memories in her, for her eyes narrowed suddenly and she gave me a shrewd look. "Say, how come you haven't tried to buy your way out of this?"
"I can't talk your language," I told her.
"You haven't got any dough?"
"Not nearly enough."
"Too bad." She looked regretful. "You look like a nice guy and I hate Richmond's guts, but—" She sighed resignedly. "I guess a girl's got to make the best of things." She splashed the rest of the liquor into the glass. "Come on, this'll kill the bottle."
"It may kill me, too—"
"Not a big guy like you! Come on—!"
By the time Richmond got back, the room was moving about me with a gentle, undulating motion and my stomach seemed to be pumping hot lava through my veins. I felt sick, but happy-sick, and the hell with Richie and Goldie. He gave me a quick, appraising glance, then grinned at her. "How's he doing?" he asked. "Any trouble?"
"No trouble," she said shortly. "You got the dough?"
"Yeah, but I had a hell of a time scraping it together." He took a bulky envelope from his pocket and tossed it to her. "I brought a couple more fifths. It ought to do the job."
"Sure." She was busy riffling through the contents of the envelope.
"You can count it later," Richmond said impatiently. "Hurry up and get him loaded, can't you?"
"Why, sure, Arnold," she retorted with mocking sweetness, "just as soon as I stash this away." She eyed him slyly. "You wouldn't want the cops to get their hands on all this dough, would you?"
"Of course not, Fia—but for godsake, hurry up and stick it wherever you're going to stick it!"
"Sure thing." Pushing the bills back into the envelope, she sealed it, got a pen from a drawer, wrote a name and an address across it. Then she rummaged around in a purse and produced a strip of postage stamps. With a wink at me, she licked the stamps and plastered them across the envelope. "Be right back," she said gaily. Opening the door, she ran lightly down the corridor.
"Think you're smart, huh?" Richmond commented when she returned. "What'd you do, mail it to yourself?"
"Why should I tell you?" she asked, somewhat acidly. "It's my business what I do with it, ain't it?"
"Guess so." Richmond jerked his shoulders. "Let's get this over with, Fia. You know the program: Get him loaded. Take off a lot of the rags. Make like a party."
She paused in the act of opening a fresh bottle and gave me an arch look. "Sounds like fun, doesn't it, honey?"
"Shure," a blurred voice replied. It seemed to come from behind me. I twisted my head,
trying to verify the source.
"Shure, kid," it said again, "lesh make shum party." A moment later: "Shay, ish me talking!"
"What you need is another drink!" she cried, laughing. "Here, have one on me!" She came toward me, executing the bump-and-grind routine again.
"Say, have you been lapping the stuff?" Richmond demanded.
"No, but it might be a good idea," she retorted. "You know, to make things look good." Raising the glass to her own lips, she sucked off a good third of its contents, shuddered, then took a smaller swallow as a chaser. "Now it's a loving cup," she giggled, forcing the glass between my lips. "You're supposed to drink all of it and then make a wish!"
I gulped obediently. "Brr. Wish he'd go 'way!"
"Sure, honey, we're going to get rid of him in a hurry," she promised, splashing more liquor into the glass. To Richmond, she added: "He's getting pretty loaded. You don't want him blind, do you?"
"Better give him another good slug," Richmond advised. "It might be an act."
"Look, honey, I got another loving cup for you!" She waved the glass beneath my nose, tilted it briefly to her lips, then held it against mine. "I'll even let you make another wish!"
"No more...!" The room was slipping and sliding around me and Richmond's bulky figure was rapidly going out of focus. "Pleash, no more!" I protested.
Hands, prodded me, pushed me, turned me over. Somewhere someone was laughing. I tried to crawl away from the laughter. It came closer and the laughter blurred into words: "Hey, lover boy, where do you think you're going?"
"You think he's got enough?" Richmond's voice asked worriedly.
"Jees, he don't know which end's up!"
"Okay, snuggle. Remember, make it look good. I'm going to beat it."
"How long'll it take them?"
"Fifteen-twenty minutes, maybe." A door opened and closed.
An instant later, a cool body wriggled close to me and slim arms encircled my waist, holding me tightly. A shoulder stung annoyingly. I tried to scratch it but, confusingly, the shoulder eluded my fingers and I seemed to be stroking her hair instead. The sting transferred itself to my neck. I tried to roll away, to avoid it, but the arms held me and the sting flickered about, like a persistent mosquito, returning from time to time to various places on my neck and chest.