Dames Don’t Care

by Peter Cheyney

  Eventually he is just leaning up against the wall an' I smack him down. He stays put on the floor I look at Periera. He don't look so pleased now.

  "Listen, Periera," I say. "You take this punk tough guy outa here before he gets me really annoyed. Because I am a guy who is liable to hurt somebody some time. But maybe I will do the job myself."

  Periera don't say nothin'. I get hold of Fernandez by The collar. I yank him up an' I take him over to Henrietta.

  "Tell the lady you're sorry, punk," I say, "because if you don't I'm goin' to smack it out of you. Get busy."

  Just to help him along I flatten his nose - which is not so well anyhow, with my thumb.

  He comes across, an' says his stuff.

  I take him outside to the top of the stair leadin' down to the dance floor an' I kick him down. He bounces considerable. When he gets to the bottom he sits up like he was tryin' to remember what his first name was.

  I go back.

  "Listen, Periera," I say. "Where does this guy Maloney live?"

  He says he lives in some dump near Indio, so I tell him to get out a car an' drive Maloney home. He looks like he is goin' to object but he thinks better of it. I tell him that he had better take the Fernandez bird off as well, an' he says all right.

  I turn around to Henrietta. There is a little smile in her eye. I give her a big wink.

  "Get your wrap, sister," I tell her. "You an' me is goin' to do a little drivin'. I wanna talk to you."

  She looks at me an' she laughs.

  "You've got your nerve, Mr Frayme," she says.

  CHAPTER 4

  PORTRAIT OF A 'G' MAN

  SITTIN' IN the car, drivin' easy with Henrietta smokin' a cigarette an' lookin' straight ahead in front of her, I was feelin' pretty good. I was thinkin' that if there wasn't so much crime mixed up with this 'G' business it would he a swell sorta job.

  After a bit I ask her if she wants to go any place in particular, an' she says no, but that if we keep ahead an' take a turn right pretty soon we will come to some dump where they are open all night an' that she reckons that we might as well drink some coffee while we are talkin'.

  I take a peek at her sideways, an' I'm tellin' you that this dame is certainly the goods. She has got that peculiar sort of way of talkin' an' doin' everything that gets you guessin'. Most dames woulda been hot to know what I wanted to talk to 'em about, but this Henrietta just don't ask a thing. She sits there lookin' straight ahead with them sapphire blue eyes of hers, an' a little smile playin' around her mouth. She gets me curious because she don't seem very interested in anything much - not even herself-an' there ain't many dames like that.

  Pretty soon we come to the intersection that she has talked about an' we turn right. Away ahead I can see the lights of this place where we are goin' to get coffee. I slow down a bit because I want to put in a spot of thinkin' myself about what spiel I am goin' to pull on this Henrietta. I reckon that I have gotta tell her some sorta stuff that is liable to make her open up an' yet I have also got to keep who I am an' what I am doin' around here under cover. However, I have always found that if you are goin' to tell a fairy story you might as well make it a good one, so I get busy thinkin' about the idea that I am goin' to pull on her, after which I step on the gas an' we travel plenty.

  Suddenly she starts talkin'.

  "I think that was a swell job you did on Fernandez, Mr Frayme," she says, lookin' at me outa the corner of her eye. "He thinks he's tough. But maybe he'll alter his opinion after that little session he had with you."

  "That wasn't nothin'," I tell her. "Anyhow, I don't like this Fernandez. He looks to me like a punk, an' I didn't like to see him bustin' your boy friend about. lHe looks a regular guy that Maloney bird."

  "He's pretty good," she says, "I like him."

  I pull up an' she stops talkin'.

  We go in this place. It is the usual one story adobe building with a few tables stuck around an' a wop who is half asleep takin' coffee to a coupla old guys who are sittin' at a table. Besides these there ain't any one else there.

  We sit down an' I order some coffee. I give her a cigarette, an' when I have lit it she holds it up an' looks at the smoke curlin' up.

  "I'm afraid that you won't be very popular with Fernandez after this, Mr Frayme," she says, "and what he is going to do about me I don't know.

  I ask her what she means by that crack.

  She laughs, an' I can see her little teeth gleamin'.

  "Fernandez wants me to marry him," she says. "He thinks he's madly in love with me, but what he'll think tomorrow after he's had a little facial treatinent and got rid of some of the black eyes and bruises, I don't know."

  "Well, well, well," I say, "an' here was I thinkin' that you was stuck on this Maloney. You don't really mean to say that you would consider hitchin' up with a bird like that Fernandez," I tell her.

  She smiles again. She certainly is a mysterious dame.

  "I don't know what I think," she says. "Maybe I'll have to marry Fernandez." She looks at me an' she gives a little laugh. "Don't let's worry about him just now," she says. "You tell me what you want to talk to me about."

  The wop brings the coffee an' it smells good to me. When she lifts up her cup her wrap falls off her shoulders an' I see that she has gotta pair of shoulders that mighta been copied off this dame Venus that you probably heard about, an' who seems to have started plenty trouble in her time. Henrietta sees me lookin' an' she gives me a sorta whimsical look like you would give a kid who was bein' naughty, an' I begin thinkin' that this dame has gotta way with her that I could go nuts about if I was a guy who went nuts about the shape of dames' shoulders, which is a thing I would probably do, only just when I am getting good an' interested in things like that I get sent off to the other end of the country on some bum case or other.

  Well, here we go, I think to myself, an' I start in on the spiel I have thought up in the car while I was drivin' to this dump.

  "Look, lady," I tell her, "this is the way it is: I work for a firm of New York attorneys who have got a branch office in Magdalena, Mexico, that I run for 'em. Well, a month or so ago I am in New York on some business an' I get around with a guy who is workin' in the District Attorney's office there. This guy starts tellin' me about your husband Granworth Aymes bumpin' himself off last January an' he tells me that they have got some interestin' new evidence an' that they reckon they may re-open this case."

  I stop talkin' an' start drinkin' my coffee. Over the top of the cup I am watchin' her. I can see that her fingers holdin' the cigarette are tremblin' an' she has gone plenty white round the mouth. It don't look to me that what I have just said has pleased her any.

  She takes a pull at herself but when she begins to talk her voice ain't so low as it was before. There is a spot of excitement in it

  "That's very interesting," she says. "What new evidence could they find? I didn't know there was any question about my husband's suicide. I thought it was all over and finished with."

  She stubs out the cigarette end on an ashtray. By this time she has got hold of herself. I put my cup down an' give her another cigarette an' light one for myself.

  "You see it's this way," I go on. "A coroner's inquest don't matter very much if the DA in charge of the case thinks that he's found some new stuff that means something. Anyhow this guy in the DA's office tells me that they have discovered that you wasn't in Connecticut on the night that Granworth Aymes is supposed to have bumped himself off. They have found out that you was in New York an' another thing is that they have gotta big idea that the last person to see Granworth Aymes before he died was you, see?"

  "I see," she says. Her voice is sorta dull, the life has gone out of it.

  "These guys get all sorts of funny ideas in their heads," I say, "but you know what coppers an' district attorneys are. They just gotta try an' hang something on somebody. They wouldn't be doin' the job they do if they didn't like pullin' people in.

  "You see it looks like somebody has d
ropped a hint around there that Granworth Aymes didn't commit suicide. That he was bumped off."

  She flicks the ash off her cigarette.

  "That seems ridiculous to me, Mr Frayme," she says. "The watchman on Cotton's Wharf testified that he saw Granworth drive the car over the wharf. That looks like suicide doesn't it?"

  "Yeah," I tell her, "that's OK, but I gotta tell you what happened. This guy in the DA's office tells me that they got information that you slipped a counterfeit Registered Dollar Bond over at the bank here, an' of course that was reported to the Federal Government. The Feds evidently put a 'G' man on the job, an' this guy gets around in New York an' he grills this watchman on Cotton's Wharf an' after a bit he gets the whole truth about this business. What the watchman said he saw an' what he really saw is two different things, believe me, lady, because the watchman tells this 'G' man that he saw Granworth Aymes' car drive slowly down the wharf, an' that when it was half way down an' in the shadow the off-side door opens an' somebody gets out. He can't see who it is, but he can see it's a woman. He sees her turn around an' lean inside the car an' then shut the door. The car starts off again, gathers speed, bounces off a wooden pile an' goes right over the edge into the river.

  "I see," she says. "And why doesn't this watchman tell this story at the coroner's inquest?"

  I grin.

  "He had a reason, lady," I tell her. "A durn good reason. He kept his mouth shut about that little incident because a certain guy by the name of Langdon Burdell - a guy who was your husband's secretary - gave him one thousand dollars to forget everything except seeing the car bounce off the pile an' go over the edge."

  She looks at me as if she has been struck by lightning.

  "It looks like this Burdell guy is pretty friendly towards you," I tell her, "because when this 'G' man had seen him previously he said that you wasn't in New York that night, you was in Connecticut, an' it looks as if he not only said that but that the night after the death he had scrammed down and bribed the watchman good an' plenty to keep his mouth shut about that woman."

  "Well, what does that look like?" I say. "It looks like Granworth Aymes mighta been dead an' stuck in that car. It looks like the woman mighta been drivin' it, don't it?"

  She don't say anything for a minute. I see her wet her lips with her tongue. She is takin' this stuff pretty well, but she is frightened, I reckon. But she soon gets hold of herself again.

  "If Granworth were killed they could have discovered it at the post mortem," she says.

  "Maybe," I tell her, "an' maybe not. But the guy in the DA's office tells me that Granworth was smashed up through the fall into the river. Remember when that car hit bottom he banged plenty hard against the wind shield. His head was all smashed in, but that mighta been done before he was put in the car."

  "I don't understand any of this," she says. "And I don't understand why Langdon Burdell should have bribed the watchman to tell some story that was not the truth. Why should he do that?"

  "Search me, lady," I tell her. "But I expect that the DA's office can find that out if they wanta start gettin' funny with somebody."

  I ask her if she would like some more coffee, an' she says yes, so I order it. While we are waitin' for it to come I am keepin' a quiet eye on Henrietta an' I can see she is doin' some very deep thinkin', which don't surprise me because it looks like I have given her something to think about.

  When the coffee comes she drinks it as if she was glad to have something to do. Then she puts the cup down an' looks straight at me.

  "I'm wondering why you took the trouble to tell me all this, Mr Frayme," she says. "What was in your mind? What did you expet me to do?"

  "It ain't what's in my mind, Henrietta," I tell her. "It's what's in the mind of these guys in the New York DA's office. The thing is this. My friend who works there says that nobody gave a durn about whether Granworth Aymes committed suicide or not until this counterfeit business turned up. The inquest was all over an' everything was tied up an' put away, an' then this Registered Dollar Bond thing happens. Well, that's a Federal job, an' the 'G' people at Washington have made up their minds good an' plenty to find out who it was faked those phoney bonds. If they can find that out everything's hunky dory an' they ain't likely to worry about the inquest or anything else.

  "When I went to the Hacienda Altmira last night that guy Sagers, the feller who was workin' there an' who was leavin' for Arispe today, told me you was Mrs Henrietta Aymes, an' I made up my mind to tell you about this business, an' here's why:

  "Supposin' for the sake of argument you know somethin' about this counterfeitin'. Supposin' you know who fixed it. Well, if I was you I'd come across. Slip me the works. Then, when I go back to New York I can hand the information quietly to my pal in the DA's office an' if it's good enough for them to pass on to the 'G' people at Washington an' satisfy their curiosity, well, I don't reckon that they'll want to re-open that case about your husband.

  "You see these guys reckon that you must know something about that counterfeitin'. An' if you don't come across with some information, it's a cinch that they'll re-open the business about your husband's death just so that they got something to pin on to you that will make you talk. See?"

  "I see" she says, "but I've no information to give any one. The package of Dollar Bonds which I brought with me out here was taken from my husband's safe deposit where I kept them. I understood from Mr Burdell that the safe deposit was opened with the key taken from my husband's dead body by his lawyer, who handed them to me. That is all I know. As for their re-opening the question of my husband's death and the suggestion that I was in New York on that night, well, they'll have to prove that, won't they?"

  "Yeah. I suppose they will," I tell her. I am thinking that all the proof wanted is in the three letters from her to Granworth that I have got stored away in the safe at the Miranda House hotel.

  "Anyhow it was very nice of you to give me this warning," she says. "It seems that I have a lot to thank you for, Mr Frayme, and now, if you don't mind I think I'll be getting back."

  We go out an' get into the car an' I drive back. I make out that I do not know where she is living an' she tells me the way. I drop her at the door, an' I wonder how she will feel when she finds out that somebody has pinched those three letters - three letters that may spell a bundle of trouble for this dame.

  She says goodnight She gets outa the car an' she walks up to the door of the rancho. When she gets there she looks back at me an' smiles.

  I reckon Henrietta has got nerve all right.

  I start the car up an' I just drive along. I don't take any notice of where I am goin' because I am busy turnin' over in my mind what she has said. By an' large she seems to be takin' this business pretty calm.

  There is one or two things that I cannot understand about this Henrietta. I cannot understand why she made that crack about havin' to marry Fernandez, an' I certainly cannot understand why she kept the three letters she wrote to Granworth - the letters that prove she saw him on the night he died-instead of gettin' rid of 'em pronto.

  But I don't think that she knows anything about Sagers bein' bumped off. When I brought his name up an' said that he was the guy who was leavin' for Arispe I was watchin' her like a cat watches a mouse an' she never batted an eyelid.

  An' I reckon she has got enough nerve to have bumped off Aymes. Let's do a bit of supposin'. Let's suppose she goes back to New York after writin' the letters because she has made up her mind to have a show down with Granworth about this woman who he is supposed to be runnin' around with. Maybe Granworth meets her some place in his car, because when I talked to Burdell about it when I was in New York before I come down here, he tells me that Aymes left the office to 'meet some people' an' he was lookin' a bit excited. Maybe he was goin' to meet Henrietta. All right, well, they meet an' they have one helluva row. It might be possible too, that in between whiles she has discovered that the Dollar Bonds he gave her was phoney. So what? Aymes is sittin' in the drivin' seat of
the car in some quiet place an' she smashes him one over the head with a gun-butt or something an' knocks him out. Then she has an idea. She remembers how he tried this suicide business once before in East River, an' she thinks she can pull a fast one. She shoves him outa the drivin' seat an' pushes him over in front of the passenger seat Then she gets in an' drives round by the back way until she gets to Cotton's Wharf which is pretty deserted. She don't see the watchman standin' at the end of the wharf. She gets out, leavin' the engine runnin', turns the wheel so that the car is pointin' to the edge of the wharf, leans over an' presses the clutch pedal down with her hand an' shoves the gear lever into gear. Then, as the car moves she stands away an' shuts the door. This would account for the car runnin' into the wooden pile before it bounced into the river.

  I reckon she coulda done it that way, an' I reckon that she has got the nerve. The fact that she's pretty don't mean a thing. I have known pretty janes bump guys off before-an' get clean away with it too.

  I have been drivin' back along the road nice an' easy, an' away in front of me in the moonlight I can see the white walls of the Hacienda Altmira. I wonder if Periera has delivered this guy Fernandez back where he lives, an' I wonder how the Maloney bird is feelin'. It looks like this Maloney has fallen for Henrietta. I could tell by the way he was lookin' at her earlier in the evenin'. He's got that sorta nutty look that a guy gets when he starts gettin' excited about a jane, an' I am thinkin' that he'd better watch his step with Henrietta. I reckon that one could play him for a sucker too, if she wanted to. Maybe she's playin' him off against Fernandez - you never know with dames.

  I drive past the front of the Hacienda an' turn around an' run pretty slowly past the back. I start gettin' curious. I start wonderin' whether they have took Sagers outa that sack in the ice safe yet an' buried him some place in the desert. I reckon that was done pretty early yesterday mornin'.

  An' for some reason that I don't know I think I would like to have a look. I sorta get a hunch about this, an' when I get a hunch I always play it