by Basil Copper
I hit the exit stairs, but I needn’t have bothered. When I made the sidewalk with smoking brogues there was an interested crowd in front of the building, a couple of sheepish coppers in a prowl car and one useless hire car stashed in the parking lot.
These boys were good, I had to give them that. The couple were probably riding a street car a couple of blocks away, half-way through the baseball results by now. I left it to Tucker to blast the prowl men and went back in to thank the manager. While I was in the lobby there was a call for me. Mary Sunshine risked her dentures in handing the phone to me. She was probably impressed by my footwork. Come to think of it I had been pretty good on the stairs tonight.
It was Dan Tucker. I told him what had happened and held the phone out at arm’s length. Then I told him good night. As I went to ring off I could hear him telling someone in the station to get the prowl car wavelength on the R/T.
I got back in the lift and rode up. I went in through 221 again and out on to the balcony. I straightened up the mess I had made with the tables. I heard a car gun in the lot below. I looked down and saw the prowl car going away. It seemed to sneak down the avenue. They didn’t use the siren this time. I sighed and went on over and tapped at Sherry Johnson’s window. This would be great work if you had a clue what it was all about.
*
There was a pause and then the curtains slid back. Sherry Johnson looked white and startled. Then she relaxed and slid the bolts. I went on in.
“It’s easier when the window’s unlocked,” I said. She said nothing but took me through the bedroom into the lounge. I sat down in a leather chair and feathered smoke at the ceiling. She went over to the sideboard and made a great noise of clinking bottles. She came back over and handed me another long drink. She looked better already.
We tapped glasses and drank. She fumbled in her pocket and produced a crumpled package of cigarettes. It was empty. I gave her one of mine and lit it.
“Thanks,” she said, but she wasn’t referring to the light. She went and sat down on the divan, smoked for a minute or two and swung her legs. She seemed to have on silver lamé pyjamas. Usually I think that sort of thing corny, but they looked good on her.
“Friends of yours?” I asked. Her eyes widened and she stiffened.
“I should say not,” she said. “Does this look like friendship?” She pulled away her housecoat and bared a shoulder. Angry red marks were already turning to deep bruises. She had a point there.
“I just wondered,” I said. “You haven’t seen them before?”
She shook her head. “They told me to stop asking too many questions,” she said. “One of them, the nasty one, had sticking plaster on his face.”
“I know — that was me,” I said. She smiled again then; it lit up the dim room briefly and some of the fear went from her face.
“They said they knew I’d engaged a detective and warned me to leave town. They said they’d taken care of you.”
“Slightly exaggerated,” I said. She got up and went to refill my glass.
“What was the pantomime in the bedroom?” I asked.
“That was the horrible part,” she said. She shuddered.
“They pushed me inside and the fair one told me to strip. The other man — Mellow was it? — was frightened and kept saying they should leave. The other one shouted him down and told me to get my clothes off and get on the bed. He was going to work me over with the knife, to teach me a lesson, he said.”
She stopped momentarily and I waited for her to go on. It was pleasant and quiet in the dusk; the heat of the day had gone at last and the noises from the boulevard were muted and far away.
“And?” I prompted her.
“The young one got hold of me. I told them to get out and started to strike at them. Then you fell down outside the window and they ran off.”
We looked at one another for a long moment and then she burst out laughing. I joined in, though what the hell for, I didn’t know. She gave me my drink and sat down in a chair, still shaking. I knew the laughter would turn to hysterics if I didn’t do something so I caught hold of her by the shoulders and pulled her against me.
“It’s all right,” I said. “It’s all right, it’s all over now.”
She came up against me; her hair was fragrant against my face and her skin smelt of violets or whatever it is women use in bathrooms. Anyway, I’m as human as most guys, or so they tell me, and this was definitely a twelve-cylinder job. She put up her mouth to be kissed and I felt her lips, full and tender in the semi-darkness.
We kissed. It was a long one and when I came down to earth again I found I’d spilled my drink all over the carpet. I always go into these things ill-prepared. Not that it mattered. No one was complaining. I blotted out a mental picture of Stella and went in for some more. We were at an interesting stage in the proceedings when the door bell buzzed softly in the silence.
I suppressed a natural oath and Sherry bounced out of the settee, doing up the buttons of her pyjama top. She was grinning and found time to stick out her tongue at me as she waltzed towards the bedroom. This was too good an evening to waste, so I de-frosted my face with an effort, straightened my tie and opened the door. It was the manager. He was all apologetic and deferential.
“Is everything all right, Mr. Faraday?” he asked. “I wondered about Miss Johnson. A dreadful thing to happen in the hotel …”
“Come on in,” I told him as he babbled on. “She won’t sue you, if that’s what you’re talking about.”
He looked pained. “I just came up to tell Miss Johnson that under the circumstances we propose to make no charge for the accommodation. Unless she would like to move to another suite …”
“That’s up to her,” I said. “She’s been rather upset. If I were you I’d just tap on the other door and explain.”
“A good idea, Mr. Faraday.” He looked relieved. I thought this would be a proper time for me to organize myself for ten minutes. I pencilled a note on my scratch pad, folded it and left it under my drink. I had just got the main door half-closed when I heard the two of them talking as she came out of the bedroom. Besides, it would look better to the manager if I disappeared for a bit. I rode down to the ground floor, nodded to the doorman, who was new to me; apparently Admiral Dewey had gone off duty. Little Mary Sunshine had stolen away too, which was a relief.
I lit a cigarette and enjoyed the night air. Then I went over to the Buick parked under the lamp and made a big thing about driving away. I gunned the engine, gave plenty of tyre snatch on the tarmac and with headlights blazing, drove ostentatiously up the far end of the parkway, about a quarter of a mile; made quite a business of turning on to the boulevard, then cut my lights and sneaked in again behind a board fence on a building lot. I parked the car, set the brake, put up the hood, took a final look round and then locked the car.
Then I footed it back along the parking lot and up the fire escape in front of the main suites. Nothing moved anywhere but I stayed still for perhaps five minutes until I had satisfied myself. When I got to the place just below the balcony I found there was one of those fancy escapes, which extend only from the top; this was the most difficult part of the evening and threatened to interfere seriously with my pleasure.
Rather than risk a pas de deux with a trash can I was about to swallow my pride and go in around the main entrance, when I remembered my belt; I took it off and by jumping as high as I could and holding the loop up over my head I managed to catch a metal bar on the bottom of the ladder at the fourth or fifth attempt. It came down without a squeak and I was on the balcony within seconds. Dead easy, I said smugly, but I happened to look at my watch and found it was past one; I had been away half an hour already. Dead easy, my foot.
I tip-toed over to the main window of Sherry’s suite and was surprised to see the manager still there. He was standing finishing a drink and making extravagant gestures with his hands, like he was trying to smooth things down. I thought he was going to kiss her hand when he
left about five minutes later. I sat at one of the tables briefly before going in and looked at the sky. The stars looked big and remote; they seemed painted on and somehow the lights of the city looked almost beautiful by contrast. Walden Pond wasn’t in my line at all.
When I figured the manager had been gone too long to come back I went over to the bedroom window. It was still unlocked and I slipped through and locked it behind me. Then I went on into the lounge. I don’t know what I expected, but Sherry was sitting in a big chair, smoking a cigarette and looking about fourteen years old. She had on the same house coat and her legs were bare; on her feet were a tiny pair of black Oriental-style slippers. She looked good enough to eat and I felt hungry.
“You took your time,” she said. She looked very calm and grave, as though she had men all figured out years ago.
“I thought I’d give the manager a chance,” I said. “He only gets old ladies and teenagers to deal with usually.”
She laughed, showing those perfect teeth. She patted the arm of the chair next to her.
“Come and sit here,” she said. “But get me a drink first.”
I went over and fixed a long one, more for my benefit than hers. My hand wasn’t quite steady when I brought the drinks back; for the second time that evening I spilled my glass. Must be getting old, I told myself. The mid-thirties are a bad time for P.I.s. You feel more like it than you ever did, but you get less opportunities and when they do come you wonder if you’ll be up to it physically.
I needn’t have worried that night. All the signs were propitious and Venus was definitely in conjunction with Taurus, or something about that price range. We didn’t talk much; we just sat and finished our drinks and then we kissed. After what seemed about five hours and when it was around 2 a.m. as far as I could make out through the roaring in my ears. I started to undo the buttons of her house coat. She didn’t stir but seemed to lean forward to make it easier.
She was nude underneath, as I knew she would be. I cupped a breast; it was firm as a young grapefruit and much about the same size. I couldn’t get enough of this but before I could proceed any further she undid the remaining buttons for me and spread-eagled her legs with a moan. The coat fell to the ground and she was nude except for the slippers. We fell into the chair in a deep kiss.
“Put out the lights, Mike, and take me to bed,” she panted.
Hell, what could I do? She had a magnificent figure and her knees were hard and firm as small apples under my hands. She was a regular fruit store. I had difficulty in carrying her; she was a tall girl and heavy too, but her legs were really beautiful. She had flesh where it mattered, but she was fine and trim in all the right places as well. I was breathing pretty heavily when I got to the bed and I fell on it; before we hit the bedspread, she was already unbuttoning my slacks and helping herself.
“No holds barred,” she breathed softly in my ear, fascinated and absorbed in what she was doing. We were at it until around five as near as I could judge. She made love in a dry, athletic style which had great fierceness and passion; but she liked to hold off and get the most out of it. She was surprisingly strong and what she didn’t know about sex would have filled half a line in the city phone book — in their smallest type.
When she got the most out of something she tried a variation; she knew what she liked and she made you like it. If there was anything she didn’t want or didn’t like, I couldn’t supply it, that was for sure. And yet, surprisingly, there was nothing offensive about her leading; if there could be such a thing, she enjoyed sex like a woman and practised it like a lady.
When we had pretty near worn ourselves and our ingenuity out with it, we fell asleep. I woke up around half past five. We were both lying on top of the bed, stark-naked, and I interested myself in making another inventory. Then I saw her eyelids quiver and I knew she was watching me; it was still dark and the room was in semi-shadow but the neons spilled a little light through the blinds.
“All right?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, opening her eyes. “You’re pretty good,” she said candidly.
“You’re not bad yourself,” I said. “Nine out of ten, I’d say.”
“Oh,” she said coolly. “Where did I miss out?”
“Well, I’m sorry we didn’t get around to the ninety-seventh,” I said.
She crinkled her face. “The ninety-seventh?”
“Aren’t the Hindus supposed to have ninety-seven basic positions for making love?” I said.
“Oh, that …” She threw back her head and laughed. “Not very enterprising, are they?”
“We’d better save something for another time,” I said, chancing my arm. She opened her eyes wide, as though the idea had never occurred to her.
“Perhaps,” she said.
“I’ll take a rain-check on that,” I said.
She clasped her hands behind her head. I fished in my pocket; part of my suit was lying on the floor somewhere in the bedroom and I had to crawl around in the dark, which amused her no end. I eventually found some cigarettes, lit two and gave her one. She spread out her legs and we lay back, side by side, looked at the ceiling and smoked. It was going to be a hot day again. The room was still warm and there was just that little touch of coolness before the dawn when you can always tell it’s going to be a scorcher.
“Did you know Ralph Johnson long?” I asked.
There was such a heavy silence that I thought she had gone to sleep. Except that I felt her thighs stiffen on the bedclothes.
“How did you know?” she asked at last, in a small voice.
“That Ralph Johnson wasn’t your brother?” I said. “Only a little while. The L.A. police got a run-down on you. They told me your real name is Carol Channing and that Johnson was your boy friend.”
She turned to face me; surprisingly, I saw only candour in her eyes.
“So you don’t want to go on with the case?” she said.
“I didn’t say that,” I said. “But the story — the assembly line-up — was a lot of old wind and blarney, wasn’t it?”
She nodded and puffed at her cigarette. “Does it matter?”
“Not really,” I said. “You’re paying the expenses. Was there any truth at all in what you told me?”
“Some,” she said defensively. “Basically, what I wanted you to know was the truth. Ralph was my lover, not my brother. But I find it doesn’t always pay to put all your cards on the table. Most people aren’t too keen to help a girl whose lover has been found shot, but they’re more sympathetic to brothers and sisters.”
“You’ve got a point there,” I said. “Right, take that as read. But why all the mystery? Why not level with me?”
“I have — where it counts,” she said fiercely. “Ralph was murdered, by whom I don’t know; what for doesn’t concern you. I pay you to dig out the truth, to find out something about his killers.”
“And not to make love to you,” I said. “Okay, I’m in my place. I’m sorry. Let me know when you get any more client-employee relationships coming up and I’ll put my pyjamas on,”
She leaned over and kissed me. It was long and lingering and the fronts of our bodies were touching all down their length.
“I’m sorry, too,” she breathed. “I didn’t mean to let off steam. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Looks like it,” I said with a grin, glancing at our reflections in the mirror. “But nobody in this case has yet levelled with me about anything, except the official detective in charge; the simple, city flatfoot who gets paid for getting his ass shot off. The honest citizens have been so busy corkscrewing the truth, that nobody’s yet been able to get at it.”
“Would it matter?” she said. “I’ve simply engaged you to do a job for me. The less you know, the better so far as I’m concerned. I’m not asking you to do anything illegal to help me, if that’s what you mean.”
She had me there. “And your two boy friends? You didn’t know them before?” I asked.
“I told you
last night,” she said and there was a ring in her voice which was absolutely convincing. I sighed and shifted towards her.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll play ball.”
“Good boy,” she said. We kissed again.
*
The curtains stirred in the breeze. A little light was just starting to come into the room, etching the furniture in shadow. The neons had gone out about half an hour before, except for one day-and-night sign opposite, all pink and green, which gave a surrealist tinge to the dusk in the bedroom. Carol shivered and stubbed out her second cigarette in a black onyx tray. She got up, put on a pair of high-heeled shoes and walked around the end of the bed. She looked pretty good, especially with the high heels, and I swivelled to follow her.
“I hate this time of day,” she said. There was an emptiness in her voice.
“I usually sleep through it,” I told her. She walked over near the window. There was a woman’s big dressing-table there, all crystal and silver fittings. On top was a rectangular mirror, split into many segments. The bottom part was in darkness but I could see Carol’s head and breasts, etched in green and pink from the sign, reflected back at a dozen different angles.
“I sometimes wonder where everything ends up,” she said.
“It helps to think serious thoughts, even when you’re twenty-four,” I told her.
She shivered again. “I didn’t mean that,” she said.
“Life is like this mirror, I sometimes think. I’ve got a big one in my bedroom at home. Every day it reflects a little bit more of my life; the bad things, the good things, and I can see it all in my face when I sit in front of it, making up to go out in the evening.
“In the morning, in summer, the mirror reflects back the sunlight and everything seems lovely, you know, like when you’re seventeen. That’s the beginning of life. Then at midday the shadows have grown longer and you look at your face in the mirror; you see that the light is harder and there are lines you didn’t think you had. Then, in the evening, the shadows get blacker and longer and quite suddenly, before you know it, the light has all gone, the darkness is here and everything’s finished. Nothing but darkness and death.”