Coward's Kiss

by Lawrence Block

  I tried to picture the girl. ‘Young and strangely innocent.’ A girl who ran with thieves and who found Jack Enright exciting, awe-inspiring. She made a funny picture. Every time I learned something new about her, the picture went out of focus and came back different.

  “Now the plot thickens,” Armin was saying. “A cliché. But an apt one. Alicia came to New York with a few sample jewels and hunted for Mr. Bannister. He tries to pass himself off as a country squire. Has a large estate in Avalon on the tip of Long Island. He’s a minor patron of the arts—supports a poor painter or two, donates regularly and substantially to several museums, occasionally backs a theatrical production. Alicia got his ear on one pretext or another, then told him her business.”

  “And he liked it?”

  He sighed. “The details grow difficult now. Hazy. Mr. Bannister must have suggested a double cross—she would help him and they would leave the thieves out in the cold. Maybe he offered her twenty or thirty thousand outright. That must have looked better than whatever crumbs her boy friend was tossing her. At any rate, she cooperated with Mr. Bannister.

  “She told the thieves to come to New York with the jewels. They let her know where they were staying and she relayed the information to Mr. Bannister. Then she went to their hiding place with one hundred thousand dollars. She paid them. They were supposed to give her the jewels in return. They didn’t.”

  “You mean they were rigging a double cross of their own?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. Really, they were honest in their way. They feared Mr. Bannister and wanted to be out of the city before he could get to them. Instead of the jewels they gave Alicia the briefcase.”

  I said: “I thought we’d get to that sooner or later. Now what in hell is in the briefcase?”

  “Directions. A set of directions and a pair of keys which would permit the holder of the case to claim the jewels. They thought this would save them from a cross, since Mr. Bannister couldn’t chance killing them before he had the jewels. They were wrong.”

  “How?”

  “Alicia traded the money for the briefcase and left Minutes later Bannister’s thugs broke in on the thieves and took back the money. The thieves disappeared.”

  “They skipped town?”

  “I rather doubt it,” he said. “I believe a cement overcoat is the American term. You could probably find the four of them on the river bottom.”

  Maddy shuddered. I put an arm around her and Armin looked on with fatherly approval.

  “It all grows jumbled after that point,” he said. “I believe Alicia carried her double cross to its logical conclusion. She had the briefcase. It could make her richer than cooperation with Mr. Bannister could. So she stopped being Alicia Arden and turned into Sheila Kane. She must have been planning this all along. Her alias was established in advance.”

  “Maybe she was afraid of winding up in the river. Or maybe she wanted the twenty grand in her hands before she gave him the case.”

  Armin conceded that was possible. “She disappeared,” he said. “Several weeks passed. Then everybody found the poor girl at once. Mr. Bannister found her and had her murdered. But he didn’t recover the briefcase. You found her, but you didn’t find the case either. I was certain you had, but I was wrong. And I was able to find the girl but not the briefcase myself.”

  I looked at him. “It’s about time we got around to you,” I said. “You know all about it without fitting in anywhere. Just how did you get into the act?”

  “I didn’t.” I stared at him and he smiled back at me. “Let me put it this way, Mr. London. I learned of the situation. My livelihood hinges upon my ability to hear of situations where a profit is in the offing. I heard of this one, worked very carefully, found the girl out, and arrived too late on the scene. I’m still searching for the briefcase. I intend to make a spectacular profit when I get hold of it.” His smile spread. “Does that answer your question?”

  “I guess it has to.”

  He held out both hands. “My contribution,” he said. “Now you must keep your part of the bargain. What do you know?”

  “Not much.”

  “It may help. Will you tell me?”

  I gave him most of it. I left out Jack Enright’s name, kept some of the details purposely vague. He listened to all of it.

  “That helps,” he said. “It explains things.”

  “It does?”

  “Of course. I now understand several points which made no sense before. Your presence, for example. I had to think you were after the briefcase since there was no other explanation for your interest in Alicia. I also understand how she found an alias so easily. It was waiting for her because of her double life with your friend. Yes, it makes sense now.”

  There was silence for a few seconds. Maddy broke it. “You said you went to the apartment,” she said to Armin. “Was that after Sheila . . . Alicia . . . was killed?”

  “That’s correct. After Mr. London’s friend and before Mr. London. Say ten o’clock.”

  “And the apartment? What did it look like?”

  He shrugged. “As Mr. London found it. The apartment neat, the girl garbed in stockings and garter belt. That’s all.”

  “Just like that,” I said.

  “Just like that. I searched thoroughly, of course, but I left everything as I found it. A bizarre tableau. But I left it as it was.”

  “Then somebody was there after my friend and before you.”

  “Possibly.”

  “But——”

  He said: “Not necessarily, though. Your friend, Mr. London, is neither criminal nor detective. He entered, reacted, left. He may have seen what you and I saw without it registering on his mind. You and I were emotionally stable, saw the scene as it was. But your friend must have been distraught——”

  “He was a wreck.”

  “And consequently may have seen his mistress dead without seeing anything else. The death alone stayed in his memory. He arranged the rest unconsciously to conform with his vision of what should be, not what was.”

  “That’s pretty far out, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not stating it as fact, Mr. London. Purely as a supposition. It makes a certain amount of sense, doesn’t it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Think it through,” he suggested. “The apartment was neat all along. Alicia was at home. Bannister or his men came in, searched the apartment, found nothing, killed her. Perhaps they molested her sexually. He employs that type of thug——”

  I reminded him that there was no evidence.

  “There doesn’t have to be,” he said. “She was hardly a virgin. Or suppose they stripped her to search her, if you prefer it that way. They killed her and left. Your friend came, saw, and ran screaming, his mind unhinged. I came, searched, and left. You came, removed the body, and went away with it.”

  His analysis was logical enough. I let it lie there. Something was a little out of whack but I could worry about it later.

  I stood up, turned to Maddy. “Let’s go,” I said.

  “Leaving?” He looked disappointed.

  “Might as well,” I said. “I’m going to see where I can get with Bannister. In the meantime you can work from the angle of the briefcase. With both of us handling opposite sides of the street we should double our chances of getting somewhere.”

  “We should.”

  “We’ve made progress already,” I told him. “There’s just one thing more.”

  I took out his Beretta, let him look at it. I think there was a second or two when he thought I was going to shoot him with it.

  “This is yours,” I said. “You might as well have it.”

  He did one hell of a take. He stared hard at me, then burst out laughing. He was a little guy but he laughed like a dynamo. It took him a few minutes before he could talk again.

  “Oh, that’s funny,” he said. “That’s really funny. But I still have the mate to that gun, Mr. London. And since we’re working together I’d like y
ou to keep that one for your own protection. You might need it.”

  He started laughing again. “But that’s funny,” he said. “That’s really very funny.”

  TEN

  WE left him laughing and rode the elevator down to the lobby. I stopped there to relight my pipe. I’m glad I did. Otherwise I probably would have missed him.

  He was the kind of guy it’s easy to miss. He sat in a big armchair and disappeared in it. He had his nose buried in a copy of the Morning Telegraph but his eyes showed over the top of it and they were looking at us.

  We had a tail.

  I finished lighting the pipe, took Maddy by the arm and steered her toward the door. I heard a rustle behind us as he started to fold up his paper. “Don’t look around,” I said, “but we’ve got a shadow. A little man who isn’t there.”

  “How do we get rid of him?”

  It’s not hard to duck a shadow if you know he’s there. You can tell your cabby to do some tricks with his hack, or you can walk in one entrance of a building and out another, or you can play games on the subway, getting off the car just before the doors close and letting your tail ride to Canarsie alone. But I didn’t feel like just ducking the little bastard. He was Bannister’s present to me and I wanted to send him home looking ugly. I was sick of Bannister and his presents.

  “Could you stand a screen test?”

  She didn’t understand.

  “You’re an actress,” I told her. “I’ve got a little acting for you to do. Game?”

  I told her about it and she was game. We walked out of the Ruskin and down the block to Forty-third Street. We cornered at Forty-third and idled in a doorway, waiting for our friend to catch up with us. He was lousy.

  He took the corner and breezed past us without spotting us.

  Now we were tailing him.

  He must have thought we were shuffling along ahead of him in the crowd. He kept on going, taking life easy, and we stayed with him all the way to Broadway.

  Then Maddy went into her act.

  We picked up a little speed and moved even with him, Maddy on the inside. Just as we moved into the mainstream of pedestrian traffic Maddy brushed up against him and let out a yell they could have heard in Secaucus. Everybody within three blocks turned and stared at her. The little guy stared, too, and his eyes popped halfway out of his pudgy head.

  So it was my turn. I yelled: “You rotten son of a bitch!” Then I grabbed him with one hand and hit him with another. He bounced off the side of the building and looked at me with the sickest expression anybody ever had.

  “Horrible,” Maddy kept telling the world. “Dirty little pervert. Put his hands all over . . . oh, horrible!”

  The jerk looked the part. He had runny eyes and a weak mouth and glasses half an inch thick. When I hit him the second time he lost the glasses. They landed on the sidewalk and somebody ground them into the pavement.

  I was still hitting him when a cop turned up. He was big and rosily Irish and he wanted to know what the hell I was doing. I didn’t have to tell him. The crowd—a big one, and all rooting for me, defender of chastity and feminine virtue—let him know just what was happening and why. He gave our shadow a very unhappy look.

  “I could take him in,” he said. “But it’s a heap of trouble. You’d have to swear out a complaint and make an appearance in court. And I’d have to come in and testify. Work for everybody.”

  I commiserated with him.

  “I’ll tell you,” the cop said. “Why don’t you just belt him a few times and forget him? He won’t pull a stunt like that again, I’ll tell the world. And my eyes will be open for him from now on.”

  That sounded like a good idea. I stood the shadow up against the wall and hit him in the face. He lost a few teeth and his nose started to bleed.

  “Tell Bannister to go to hell,” I told him.

  I hit him again. Then I piled Maddy into a cab and we left him there.

  “I wish you’d put that thing away,” Maddy was saying. “It scares me stiff.”

  I’d been checking the Beretta to make sure it was loaded. It was. I put it back together and gave it a pat, then dropped it back in my jacket pocket.

  “Take off your jacket,” she said. “Relax.”

  I hung my jacket on a doorknob and sank down again on the couch. We were in Maddy’s apartment where the cab had dropped us. It was late.

  “Poor Ed,” she said. “How do you feel now?”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Bad?”

  I nodded. “The cognac wore off,” I said. “I can feel my stomach again. I should have stopped for a bottle.”

  “Look in the kitchen.”

  I gave her a long look, then stood up and went into the little kitchen. Red and white linoleum covered the floor. A gas stove sat in one corner and looked dangerous. An antique refrigerator sat in another corner and looked undependable. There was a rickety table between them, painted to match the linoleum, and on top of it there was a bottle of Courvoisier. A pint, unopened.

  I picked it up gently and carried it back to the living room. Maddy had a smile on her face and a gleam in her eyes. “This,” I said, “was not here yesterday.”

  “The great detective is right.”

  “And you’re not much of a brandy drinker. You didn’t buy this for your own consumption, Madeleine.”

  She blushed beautifully. “The detective is right again,” she said. “I bought it this afternoon before I went detecting for you. I sort of hoped you’d be up here soon. Now pour yourself a drink while I sit here and feel wanton.”

  I opened the bottle and poured drinks for both of us.

  I gave her about an ounce and filled my glass to the brim. I drank off some of the brandy and told my stomach it could relax now. Then I gave Maddy her glass and sat on the couch with her, sipping and smoking, while the world got better again.

  She said: “You’re not going home tonight.”

  I started to say something but she didn’t give me a chance. “Don’t flatter yourself, Ed. I don’t have any designs on your virtue. Not in your condition. It would probably kill you.”

  “Sounds like——”

  “——a good way to go. I know all about it. Don’t hand me a hard time, Ed. You’re staying here tonight You can’t go back to your apartment. You’d be a sitting duck and God knows how many people want to shoot you.”

  “Not too many,” I told her. “I could always take a hotel room.”

  She said NO very emphatically. “It’ll take you hours to find one and hours to fall asleep. And this is the best hotel in New York, Ed. Here you get congenial companionship, room and board, and the use of an untapped phone. What more could you ask for?”

  “That’s plenty. You make it sound sensible.”

  “It is sensible,” she insisted. “And you’re staying. Agreed?”

  I agreed. I slipped an arm around her and took a sip of the cognac. I was getting tired but I didn’t feel like sleep. I was too comfortable to think about moving.

  “I’ve got a feeling,” she said suddenly. “I don’t think you should be on that Peter Armin’s side.”

  “Oh? I thought you liked him.”

  She bit her lip. “I do, kind of. But he’s a crook, Ed. He wants to make an illegal profit on stolen jewels. If you get the briefcase back are you going to give it to him?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Even though it’s illegal?”

  I took a sip of the cognac. “We made a bargain,” I told her. “Besides, I’m looking for a killer. Not a batch of jewels. A murderer.”

  “But——”

  “And the murderer’s all I give a damn about,” I went on. “Why in hell should I care what happens to the jewels? Armin’s as much entitled to them as anybody else. Who do they belong to? Wallstein’s dead and buried. His widow shouldn’t get them—they weren’t his to give her and she wasn’t married to him legally, anyway. The original owners are either dead or lost. Who’s next in line? The government
of Argentina, as a reward for harboring a Nazi?”

  I took a breath. “I don’t care about them. Armin may be as crooked as a corkscrew. As far as I’m concerned he’s welcome to the briefcase and the jewels and whatever he can get out of this mess. All I care about is a killer.”

  “Then why did you ask for five thousand dollars?”

  “Because otherwise he would have thought I was insane. And because Bannister’s boys ruined my home and my appetite. I’ve been shot at and followed and slugged. Hell, I don’t have a client—I might as well get a little compensation one way or the other. I can use five grand.”

  She nodded, digesting this. I couldn’t tell whether she approved or not. Hell, I’m not a plaster saint. Single men in barracks don’t grow into them.

  “What I wonder now,” I said, “is how much of Armin’s story is true.”

  “You think he lied?”

  “I’m sure he lied. It’s a question of degree.” I shrugged. “I can’t swallow that routine of his about being a clever operator waiting in the wings to make a neat profit. It’s too damned cute. I’d like to know where he fits in.”

  “Any ideas, Mr. London, sir?”

  “A couple,” I said. “Notice how formal he is? You’re not the only one who calls me ‘Mr. London.’ He’s never called me anything else. He even refers to our boy Clay as ‘Mr. Bannister.’”

  “It’s a common affectation, Ed.”

  “Sure. But Sheila-Alicia was always just plain ‘Alicia’ to him. I’ve got a hunch he knew her when. Think back a minute. He talked about her almost reminiscently. Remember?”

  “I didn’t notice. But now that you mention it. . . .”

  I grinned. “Now that I mention it, I think he’s one of the jewel thieves. Or Alicia’s buddy from the past, hooking up with her again to pull a quick one.”

  We sat there thinking that one over. I got my pipe going again, worked on the cognac. “One thing comes first,” I told her. “The briefcase. Nobody’s got it and it’s in the middle of everything. I think I’ll ring up Jack Enright tomorrow.”