1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead

by James Hadley Chase

  ‘Did he leave a bag?’

  The bellhop’s eyes shifted.

  ‘Yeah, but the manager’s got that. He’s entitled to it. The guy didn’t pay for his room.’

  ‘Go and get it,’ I said.

  The bellhop stared at me.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘If the managers saw me with it…’

  ‘Go and get it or I’ll talk to the manager myself.’

  ‘You mean - now?’

  ‘Yes; now.’

  He put the half-finished whisky down on the overmantel and after giving me a long, thoughtful stare, eased himself towards the door.

  ‘Do I make anything out of it? Or does that twenty cover it?’

  ‘You make another ten.’

  When he had gone Kerman said, ‘That was a lucky break. How did you guess Ed came here?’

  ‘Why did we come here? Give me another drink. Talking to that rat makes my headache.’

  While he was fixing me a drink, I opened the suitcase again and took out Anita’s photograph. I put it face down on the bed.

  Kerman said, ‘Do you think he’ll know her?’

  ‘It’s worth trying. He’s been here ten years.’

  The pain in my head was a little better, but still not right.

  I washed down two more aspirins.

  ‘You’re taking too much of that stuff,’ Kerman said, frowning. ‘And you’d better lay off whisky. You should have seen a doctor.’

  The bellhop came in with the suitcase and put it on the bed.

  ‘I’ve gotta take it back,’ he said, a worried look on his rat face. ‘I don’t want to get into trouble.’

  I went through the suitcase. I didn’t expect to find anything and I wasn’t disappointed. It was just an ordinary suitcase a guy would pack who is going away for the weekend.

  The only thing in it that was missing was Anita’s photograph. I put the things back, closed the case and shoved it on to the floor.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Take it back.’ I took a ten-dollar bill out of my wallet and dropped it on the bed. ‘Take that too, and keep your mouth shut. Okay?’

  He picked up the note and the bag.

  ‘Is that all I can do for you?’ he asked, suddenly reluctant to leave us.

  I turned Anita’s photograph over and flicked it towards him.

  ‘Ever seen this dame before?’

  He put the bill in his pocket, set the bag on the floor and picked up the photograph. He held it at arm’s length, squinting at it.

  ‘Looks like Anita Gay to me,’ he said, and shot me an inquiring look. ‘It’s her, ain’t it? Jeepers! The times I’ve seen her. Sure, it’s Anita Gay.’

  Don’t act coy,’ I said. ‘Who’s Anita Gay? What does she do? Where can I find her?’

  ‘I don’t know where you’ll find her,’ he said regretfully, and laid the photograph on the bed. ‘I haven’t seen her for months. She used to do a turn at the Brass Rail. And, boy, was she a sensation! That fur glove routine of hers certainly packed them in.’

  ‘What’s the Brass Rail?’

  ‘You don’t know the Brass Rail?’ He looked astonished.

  ‘Why, it’s a big beer-dill-pickle hippodrome on Bayshore Boulevard. It hasn’t had my custom since Anita quit. She wouldn’t be coming back, would she?’

  I thought of the face framed in blood with the hole in the forehead big enough to poke my finger in.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘She won’t be coming back.’

  chapter seven

  I

  I left the hotel the next morning around eleven o’clock. It has been a hot night, and I hadn’t slept well, and when I finally bludgeoned myself to sleep with aspirin and whisky I didn’t wake until it was nearly ten.

  Kerman let me sleep. He said there was nothing like rest after a sock on the head. But as my head still ached and I still felt lousy when I woke I didn’t believe him. After a lot of strong black coffee and a couple more aspirins and a tepid shower I did manage to feel well enough to start the day’s work.

  I decided against calling on the photographer’s shop right away. I thought it would be better, if I could, to get a little information about Anita from the Brass Rail before I tackled Comrade Louis, so I decided to go there first.

  Kerman asked me if I was windy about calling on Louis. I said no. I just wanted to get as much information as I could before someone tossed me into the Indian Basin, and I felt the danger zone was the photographer’s shop, I said I was working on a hunch. Kerman had a great respect for my hunches, especially when I played the horses, so he agreed we should go to the Brass Rail first.

  He left the hotel before I did. I wasn’t worried that he would lose me. He was very good at shadowing people, and I wasn’t going to make it hard for him.

  When I got on to the street I asked a patrolman where I could find the Brass Rail. He said it was on the corner of Bayshore and Third, about ten minutes’ walk from the hotel.

  While he was explaining how to get there I glanced across the street at the photographer’s shop. There was a light showing in the fanlight, but there was nothing else to see except hundreds of glossy prints mounted on boards set flush against the shop window and the door.

  I thanked the patrolman, thinking the San Francisco police had much better manners than the Orchid City police. If you asked an Orchid City cop the way he was likely to run you in for insulting behaviour, or at best send you in the wrong direction to teach you not to bother him in the future.

  The Brass Rail was a typical down-at-the-heel dump you’re likely to come upon in any big town that has a large population, not too choosey about their entertainment. It could have done with a coat of paint and a lot of elbow grease on the brass work. There were three double swing doors, an island ticket office out front, and a lot of glossy photographs in frames that covered every spare inch of wall space.

  Along the outside edge of the usual projection that over-hung the ticket office were four-foot letters made of tarnished chromium that spelt out: THE BRASS RAIL.

  At night there would be lights behind the lettering, and the setup would look a lot smarter than it did now because the darkness would hide the tarnish. Another sign in lights, below the four-foot letters read: 50 TALL TANNED TERRIFIC GALS.

  I went and browsed over the photographs, and came to the conclusion that there would be nothing original about the show; nor would it ever set this town nor any other town on fire. There were the usual hard-faced, bright-eyed comics in loud suits. You knew by looking at them the kind of joke they’d crack. The girls didn’t look much either. They didn’t attempt to hide what charms they had. Most of them wore a G-string and a vacant smile. One of them did wear a hat, but she looked overdressed. The fifty tall tanned, terrific gals were tall and tanned, but tarnished would have been more truthful than terrific.

  While I was browsing, one of the swing doors opened and a little guy with a face like a ferret came out into the sunshine. He wore a grubby camel-hair coat, a slouch hat that rested over his right eye and imitation shark-skin shoes that hadn’t been cleaned since he had bought them: a long time, ago to judge by the cracks in them.

  ‘Who’s in control here?’ I asked him. ‘Who runs the joint?’

  He eyed me over, cleared his throat and spat accurately into the street.

  ‘Stranger around here?’ he asked in a voice made hoarse by trying to put over ancient jokes.

  I said I was a stranger around here, and repeated my question.

  His sharp-featured face darkened.

  ‘Nick Nedick,’ he said, and then followed a stream of obscenities that ran out of his mouth like sludge from a drain.

  He didn’t seem to think much of Nedick for some reason or other. ‘Up the stairs,’ he went on after he had exhausted his vocabulary. ‘Second door on right past the circle entrance. Spit up his cuff if you see him,’ and he went away down the street, flat footed, his head bent forward as if he wanted you to
think the weight of his brain was a little too much for him.

  I looked after him, wondering what was burning him up.

  In the middle distance I saw Kerman leaning against a lamp post leading a newspaper. He melted into the scene very well. When he had to look like a loafer he looked like one. It is not easy to stand about on the sidewalk and not look conspicuous, but Kerman could do it by the hour.

  I pushed open the double swing doors and crossed the lobby to the stairs. An elderly negro in shirtsleeves and a sack round his middle was rubbing the brass banister rail. lie was rubbing as if he had very tender hands, and his large, bloodshot eyes stared vacantly into space. I might have been the invisible man for all the attention he paid me.

  At the top of the stairs were more double swing doors that led to another lobby. As Ferret-face had said, there was a door marked “Office” to the right of the circle entrance.

  I rapped on it, pushed it open and entered. The office was small, stuffy and hot. There was a desk, two metal filing cabinets, a lot of glossy photographs on the walls similar to those decorating the front of the house. A man in shirtsleeves sat at the desk, pounding a typewriter. He typed with two fingers, but very fast. He had a lot of black crinkly hair, a five o’clock shadow and a complexion like a toad’s under-belly.

  There was a girl in the corner of the room nearest the window. Her dress lay on top of one of the filing cabinets.

  Her underwear was not over clean, and her stockings had long runs in them. She had got herself tied into such a fantastic knot that she scarcely looked human. Her body bent backwards as if her back was broken and her legs hung over her shoulders and she was standing on her hands. As I stared at her she turned a slow somersault so she landed on her feet, still tied up in the same knot, and then fell forward once more on her hands to start the somersault all over again.

  ‘Why don’t you look at me?’ she said to the man with the crinkly hair. ‘How can you tell how good I am if you don’t look at me?’

  The man with the crinkly hair went on pounding on the typewriter as if his life depended on it. He didn’t look up, even to see who had come in. The girl went on doing her slow somersaults, and kept asking why he didn’t look at her. But he didn’t take any notice.

  I stood around staring at her, because although the act wasn’t very refined, it was sensational in its way. It would have been a lot more sensational if she had had a better figure, and if her things had been cleaner, but for all that as something free, it was worth seeing. I wished Jack Kerman could have seen her. Kerman was very keen on double-jointed women. He would have taken a great interest in her; more interest than I was taking. I felt he was missing something.

  But like all things which are repeated too often the novelty wore off after a while. It didn’t wear off as far as the girl was concerned. She seemed set for the day, and never stopped asking the crinkly haired man to look at her. And the crinkly haired man seemed set for the day too. He never stopped typing.

  So after I had gaped all I wanted to, I tapped him on the shoulder, but even at that he didn’t stop typing nor did he look up, but he did, say, ‘Wadjerwant?’

  I said, ‘I’d like a word with Nick Nedick.’

  He looked up then, but the typing went on as before.

  ‘Far door,’ he said, and his eyes shifted back to the typewriter again.

  The girl said plaintively as she began another somersault: ‘The pain your mother went through to give you your eyes, you heel. Why don’t you use them? Why don’t you look at me?’

  Because I was sorry for her, I said, ‘You’re doing fine, baby. You’re sensational! I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  Her tight, hard little face swivelled between her crossed legs to look at me. Her mouth opened and she cursed me.

  Some of the words I had never heard before. They all sounded very bad. The man with the crinkly hair gave a sudden, sharp giggle, but he didn’t look up, nor did he stop typing.

  I didn’t blame her for cursing me. It couldn’t have been much fun to do what she was doing, and the man who could give her a job not even to look at her. Maybe she had been years getting her body to tie itself up the way she was tying it up now. Maybe she was hungry. Maybe she couldn’t pay her rent. I guessed she was afraid to curse the man with the crinkly hair. He might have kicked her in the teeth. There was something about him that made me think he would kick her in the teeth if he had half a chance. I waited until she had run through all the words she knew, smiled at her to show her I hadn’t taken offence, and went over to the far door the man which the crinkly hair had indicated and knocked.

  II

  The inner office was very much like the outer office, only it was a little larger, and there were two desks instead of one and four metal filing cabinets instead of two and a lot more glossy photographs on the walls.

  At the desk near the door sat an elderly woman with sad, dark-ringed eyes and a thin, yellowish face that might have been beautiful years ago, but was no more than plain in a nice way now. She was doing things with a book of theatre tickets. I wasn’t interested enough to see just what.

  At the far end of the room was the other desk. A man sat behind it, but I couldn’t see anything of him except his thick fingers. He was hiding behind a newspaper he held before him. He had a big diamond ring on his little finger. The diamond was as yellow as a banana. I guessed someone had given it to him as a settlement of a debt, or maybe he had found it. It wasn’t the kind of diamond you would buy: not if you were in your right senses.

  The woman looked at me with a timid smile. Her dentures were as phoney as a chorus girl’s eyelashes, and not half so attractive, but I didn’t take any interest in them either. She had to eat with them; I didn’t.

  ‘Mr. Nedick,’ I said, and tipped my hat. ‘The name’s Malloy. I’d like a word with him.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’ She looked timidly across the room at the spread of newspaper. ‘Mr. Nedick is busy right now. I don’t know really.’

  ‘Then don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘Mr. Nedick and I will get along fine without you worrying. Won’t we, Mr. Nedick?’ and I went over to his desk and sat on the edge of it.

  A round ball of a face appeared from over the top of the newspaper. Small, humorous eyes looked me over. The newspaper was cast to the floor.

  ‘We might, young man, we might at that,’ Nedick said.

  ‘Just so long as you don’t want to sell me anything.’

  I could see at a glance that the trouble with him was that someone, sometime, had told him he looked like Sydney Greenstreet. All right, he did look like Sydney Greenstreet; but not only did he look like him, he now dressed and talked like him too, and that was a shade too much.

  ‘The guy outside with the typewriter said for me to come in,’ I explained. ‘I hope that’s all right.’

  The fat man chuckled the way Sydney Greenstreet chuckles. He seemed pleased with the effect.

  ‘That’s all right. And what can I do for you, Mr. Malloy?’

  I gave him my card: the one with the Universal Services crest in the comer.

  ‘Orchid City, huh?’ He tapped the desk with the edge of the card and smiled at the elderly woman who was hanging on his every word. ‘Millionaire’s country, Mr. Malloy. You live there?’

  ‘I work there,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to get some information about a young woman. I believe you know her: Anita Gay.’

  Nedick closed his eyes and his round face registered thought.

  ‘What sort of information, Mr. Malloy?’ he asked after an appreciable silence.

  ‘Anything,’ I said, took out my cigarette-case and offered it. ‘I’m not fussy. I’m trying to reconstruct a picture of her background. I’d like to listen to you talk about her. Anything you say may be useful.’

  He took the cigarette doubtfully. I lit it for him and lit my own.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m a little busy right now. I
don’t think I could spare the time.’

  ‘I would pay for it,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to give me your time for nothing.’

  He let loose another chuckle: it wasn’t so convincing as the first.

  ‘Well, that’s business, Mr. Malloy. I appreciate a businessman when he’s as straightforward as you.’ He looked at the thin woman. ‘I think you could go to the bank now, Miss Fenducker. Tell Julius I’m tied up for the next half-hour as you go out.’

  There was a short silence while Miss Fenducker hastily grabbed up her hat and coat and left the room. She was the type who never could do anything without getting into a panic about it. By the way she rushed out of the office you would have thought the place was on fire.

  As she opened the door I caught a glimpse of the girl contortionist. She was still turning somersaults. Julius had stopped typing and was reading what he had written, his feet on the desk. Then the door closed, shutting out the scene and I was alone with Nedick.

  ‘What sort of fee had you in mind. Mr. Malloy?’ Nedick asked, his small eyes still.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘How about fifty bucks? It depends on what you can tell me.’

  ‘I could tell you a lot for fifty bucks. I don’t want to appear inquisitive, but is she in trouble?’

  ‘Not exactly in trouble,’ I said, thinking of the way she had looked the last time I saw her. ‘Anyway, not now. She has been in trouble. My client wants an accurate picture of her background if I can get it without causing too much commotion.’

  He pushed back his chair, crossed one fat leg over the other and hooked a thick thumb in the buttonhole of his vest.

  ‘And the fifty bucks?’

  I took out my wallet and laid five tens on the desk. He reached out a fat hand, scooped them up and stowed them away in his trousers pocket.

  ‘I’m always telling Julius you never know what’s coming into this office,’ he said, and chuckled again. ‘Always see everyone, I tell him. You never know what you’ve missed if you turn people away. Time and again I’ve proved myself right.’