Dames Don’t Care

by Peter Cheyney

  I do some quick thinkin' because this is a very interestin' situation. You will remember that Burdell told me that he was all for Henrietta until he suspected her of the counterfeitin' job, an' here is another guy who was supposed to be hot for marryin' her pullin' the same story. It looks like these guys have been takin' time out together, don't it.

  "Looky, Fernandez," I say. "Here's the way it is. It's goin' to be pretty easy for me to find out whether Aymes was runnin around with a woman if I get the boys in New York on the job, but I reckon you can save me the trouble. I'm goin' to make a bargain with you, although I don't often do a deal with a lousy two timer like you, an' the bargain is this. I want the truth outa you about this woman that Aymes was supposed to be gettin' around with, an' I wanta know what was goin' on. If you llke to cash in well an' good. If not, I'm pinchin' you here an' now on a charge of attemptin' to murder a Federal Agent because I think that you were the guy who had a shot at me way back on the Palm Springs road."

  His eyes start poppin'.

  "Say listen, Caution," he says. "You can't say that. I can produce about six guys who will say I was around with them all the evenin'. Besides, anything you wanta know I'll be glad to tell you."

  "OK," I say, "listen to this."

  I then tell the story that Henrietta has told me. He stands there smokin' an' listenin'. When I have finished he starts in.

  "I reckon that she is stringin' you along," he says with a grin. "It stands to reason that since you know she was in New York on that night she has gotta have some sorta story to give a reason for bein' there. If she ain't got a reason then it looks as if she just came down from Connecticut for some other reason that she don't want you to know-such as bumpin' her husband off. I reckon that she made up that story about the other dame.

  "I used to get around with Aymes a lot," he goes on. "I usta drive him around the place an' he had dames all over the place, the usual sorta dames, but there wasn't anything special about that. There wasn't any special one that he went for. Nope, there was just a whole lot of 'em an' I could make you outa list of 'em if you want it. But I reckon you'd be wastin' your time."

  "OK," I say. "Now you listen to me, Fernandez. An hour ago some palooka has a shot at me an' tries to iron me out. Now that mighta been you or it mighta been Henrietta or it mighta been Maloney or it mighta been Periera. Well, as the professors say, for the sake of this argument, I am goin' to say it was you."

  I slip my hand under my coat an' I pull my Luger outa the shoulder holster an' cover him with it.

  "Look, sweetheart," I say. "I have gotta reputation for bein' plenty tough, an' I am goin' to be tough with you. If I have any nonsense outa you I'm goin' to drill you. Then I'm goin' to say that it was you who tried to bump me earlier tonight; that I followed you out here to pinch you an' that you tried another shot an' then I shot an' killed you, an' how do you like that?"

  He stands there an' I can see that he is beginnin' to sweat. "An' if you don't want me to do that," I tell him, "you're goin' to tell me the name of that dame who was kickin' around with Aymes. There was one, an' I wanta know who it was. If you ain't made up your mind who she was an' where she is livin' right now, by the time that I can count up to ten, I am goin' to give it to you in the guts. See?"

  He don't say anything. I start countin'.

  When I have got to nine he puts his hand up. His forehead is covered with sweat an' I can see his hands tremblin'.

  "OK," he says. "You win. The dame's name is Paulette Benito, an' she's livin' at a dump called Sonoyta just off the Arizona line, in Mexico."

  "Swell," I tell him, putting the gun away.

  I get up.

  "I'll be seem' you, Fernandez," I crack, "an' while I am away don't you do anything your mother wouldn't like to know about."

  CHAPTER 7

  GOOFY STUFF

  I DRIVE back to the Hacienda.

  On my way I am thinkin' plenty. I am thinkin' that this guy Fernandez knows a durn sight more than he is lettin' on. I reckon that he only blew this stuff about the dame Paulette Benito just because he was afraid that I was goin' to blast a bunch of daylight into him, an' even then I don't think he woulda come clean if he hadn't thought that I'd known something about a dame anyway.

  But I am very interested in the way this guy tries to bust down Henrietta's story about there bein' some other woman. It is a cinch that this Fernandez an' Burdell are workin' together on some set-up that they have thought out, but just what they are gettin' at - search me, I just don't know.

  An' for all I know Fernandez an' Burdell an' Henrietta an' Maloney can be all playin' along together, I've known crooks put on good acts before an' when you come to think of it I know just as much about this bezusus as when I started in. All the way along the thing has got sorta confused with new people an' things bustin' in.

  But one thing is stickin' outa foot. Both Langdon Burdell an' Fernandez want me to think that Henrietta bumped Granworth off. Everything they have done an' said is calculated to get my mind workin' that way. What are they gettin' at?

  I reckon that I have gotta get next to this Paulette Benito. Because I reckon that she is goin' to be able to tell me more about Granworth Aymes than anybody else. If she was the woman he was chasin' around after, an' if he thought enough of her to give a swell dame like Henrietta the go-by for her, then she must have some little thing that the others haven't got She must have plenty, an' I reckon that Granworth never had any secrets from her.

  Because, an' I expect you have noticed this too, a bad guy always likes to kid himself that he is goin' for a good dame, but in the long run he always makes a play for some jane who thinks along the same lines as he does. He does this because she always talks the same sorta language an' believes in the same sorta things. Maybe Henrietta made Granworth feel like two cents just because she was so much better than he was an' so he takes a run out powder an' hitches up with this Paulette, who knows how to play him along. In nine cases outa ten like goes for like.

  I remember some high-hat jane in Minnesota. Her pa wanted her to get hitched to some young bible-student who was kickin' about the place, but she wouldn't have it at any price. She goes off one night an' she runs away with a two-gun man who finally gets fried for murder, after which she comes back an' marries the church guy with a contented mind. I reckon that if she hadn't gone off with the other guy she wouldn'ta been able to appreciate the bible-puncher.

  There is one idea that I have got in my head an' that sorta sticks. It is that Burdell an' Fernandez an' anybody else who is playin' in with them woulda expected me to have pinched Henrietta before now. After all I have got evidence that she was in New York that night. I am entitled to suppose that she know somethin' about the counterfeitin' an' most people woulda pulled her in before now - as a material witness at least.

  An' the reason why I have not done this is just because I have got this idea that they expect me to do it, an' I am a guy who never does what other people expect. That is why I told Fernandez the story that Henrietta had told me. I wanted to see what his reaction to it was, an' sure as a gun the big palooka starts to throw it down, even though, if what he told me before was true, he didn't know anything about what had happened that night in New York because he was stickin' around at his own place.

  I pull up around the back of the Hacienda, an' walk around to the front entrance. It is a lovely night, hot as hell, but there is a moonlight that is making the old adobe walls look like silver an' castin' shadows all around the place like it was some sorta fairyland.

  I go in the entrance an' I see that some of the lights are out. When I get on to the main floor I see that the band is just packin' up an' that all the tables are deserted. I look up the stairs an' I see a guy an' a dame disappearin' into the room where the play is held so I think that maybe Periera has fixed a game for tonight.

  Just then I see him. He comes outa the storeroom behind the bar, an' he opens the flap in the counter an' walks across to me.

  "Meester
Caution," he says. "There ees a little game tonight - not very beeg. I know that ect ces not legal, but 1 theenk that you don't mind, eb? Eet don' matter to you?"

  "You bet it don't," I tell him. "I'm a Federal Agent not a Palm Springs dick, an' it ain't my business to worry about people breakin' the State gamblin' laws. Maybe I'll come up an' take a look."

  He says thank you very much an' looks as pleased as if I had given him a thousand bucks. I have already told you that I do not like this guy Periera one bit. He is a nasty bit of business an' I personally would like to take a sock at him any time, but right now I am feelin' like playin' anybody around here along. I want 'em all to think that they're gettin' away with everything, that I am just a big dumb cluck with no brains, because I reckon that this way, sooner or later, somebody is goin' to do something that is goin' to give me an idea to get goin' with.

  So I ease up the stairs an' go into the gamin' room. There are a bunch of people there. Maloney is there an' Henrietta an' about six or seven other guys an' a few dames. One of the waiters is servin' liquor around an' there is a faro game goin' on at the top table an' they are just startin' to play poker at the centre table.

  I stick around an' take a straight rye an' just look. Henrietta is playin' at the poker table - she is evidently playin' on the house, an' Maloney is sittin' behind a stack of chips an' lookin' pleased. Maybe he is winnin' for once. Periera is just hangin' around lookin' nice an' benevolent. In fact it is a nice quiet evenin' for all concerned. Fernandez ain't there an' I reckon that he is sittin' way back in that swell cabin of his doin' a spot of quiet thinkin'.

  An' what will he be thinkin' about? I reckon that he will be thinkin' about this dame Paulette Benito that he has told me about.

  First of all you gotta realise that he only told me about this jane because he was good an' scared an' because he thought that if he hadn't come across I was goin' to give him the heat. I reckon that when I pulled that gun on him he was scared plenty. An' the reason I pulled it was just this: I knew that there was some dame besides Henrietta in this business. I always had that sorta idea an' I had it just because Burdell, who had always talked plenty, had never even mentioned about there bein' another dame or not. Even when he was suggestin' to me that Henrietta took the letters she had wrote from Granworth Aymes' desk just so's nobody would know that she had written 'em, he never said whether she had been justified in writin' them.

  If she hadn't been, that is if he'd known there wasn't another dame in the business, he coulda said so then. But he didn't say a word about the dame that brought Henrietta to New York an' that is one of the reasons why I thought that Henrietta was tellin' the truth.

  An' I reckoned to take Fernandez by surprise an it came off. You gotta understand that the last thing that Fernandez heard from Burdell was on that phone call, that I had been along to the Burdell office an' heard all tat stuff he pulled on me an' believed it. Neither of 'em guessed that I had their telephone conversation plugged in an' listened to.

  Now here is another thing: Fernandez tells me that he thoughta marryin' Henrietta but that he has changed his mind. Yet when Burdell telephoned through he tells Fernandez to go ahead with this marryin' business. Fernandez makes out that he has changed his mind about it an' tells me so because it looks to him that I am goin' to pinch Henrietta, but just when he gets this idea into head'n thinks that everything is hunky dory I pull a fast one an' a gun an' bust the story about this other' dame outa him.

  So I can certainly rely on one thing, an' that is that when I go an' see this Paulette Benito-an' I am certainly goin' to contact that dame-she is goin' to be all ready for me. It is a whisky sour to all the beer in Brooklyn that Fernandez or somebody is goin' to tip her off that her name has been mentioned to me an' that she can expect little Lemmy to come gumshoein' around. Well, they'll be right about that, only maybe I will do the gumshoein' in a way that they won't expect.

  Me - I think that the guys who are playin' this business along are makin' one big mistake an' I'll tell you what it is.

  They are concentratin' too much on the Granworth Aymes death. They evidently think that if this death can be pinned onta somebody as a killin' that I am goin' to think that whoever did the killin' was also responsible for the counterfeitin'. They will think that this idea will be the easiest way outa the business. But they got me wrong. I never take the easiest ways out an' the reason I have scored a bull in some tough cases before was because I just play along an' talk to people without gettin' excited about things. I have discovered that talkin' to people who may be crooks is a swell thing to do, especially if you tell 'em the truth. Sooner or later they are goin' to pull a very fast one, that don't check up, an' then you got somethin'.

  An' as I have told you before, the main thing that I am workin' on is the counterfeit job. The death don't matter one jig to me. I'll tell you why. Guys are always dyin' an' gettin' themselves killed some way or other, an' it is a very good thing to grab the people who do it. At the same time a guy like Aymes more or less don't make very much difference, but a big counterfeitin' organisation does, an' I reckon that somebody who was organised enough to print off two hundred thousand bucks worth of phoney Registered Dollar Bonds is good enough to get a little attention from Uncle Sam. Even if Henrietta bought them phoney bonds off some counterfeitin' set-up, or ordered 'em to be made, the thing still stands. We gotta get 'em because their work is a durn sight too good. Why it nearly took in the bank manager an' Metts told me he'd never seen such a swell job.

  I look over at Henrietta an' grin. She has just won a hand an' cleaned up about fifty dollars. She smiles back at me friendly like an' when I look at this dame sittin' there smilin' with her pretty little fingers pickin' up the chips I certainly get one swell kick out of it.

  I'm tellin' you that she is a swell number. She is wearin' a little filmy sorta cloak over her shoulders. It is made of chiffon or somethin', an' every time she moves her arm it is worth lookin' at.

  She gets up. Then she hands her chips to Periera who pays her out of some bills he pulls outa his pocket an' she looks over at Maloney. Maloney looks up at her sort of inquirin' as if he was askin' if she wanted somethin' an' she shakes her head a little bit an' sorta glances quickly at me, as if she was sayin' that she wanted him to lay off because she was goin' to pull one on me or somethin'. I pretend to be lookin' at the game an' that I have not noticed anything.

  Then she walks around to me.

  "I wonder if Mr Lemuel H. Caution, the ace 'G' man, is going to do a forlorn woman a good turn and drive her home," she says. "Or maybe he's too busy?"

  I get it. when Maloney looked up he had meant should he drive her home, an' she had signalled back no she was goin' to ask me. I reckon that she is goin' to try somethin'.

  I give her a big grin.

  "OK, Henrietta," I say, "an' I won't even make you walk. Do you want me to drive you to that rancho where you live?"

  She says yes, an' I say goodnight to everybody an' follow her down the stairs. She waits on the front entrance while I drive the car around an' then gets in an' we go off.

  There is a swell moon, an' when there is a current of air caused by the car startin' up I get a whiff of perfume that she is wearin' - carnation, an' I always did go for carnation. Only it is not that heavy sorta perfume, but nice an' mild, you know what I mean. It makes me remember the night when I went over her room an' sniffed that scent for the first time. I remember all her shoes an' ridin' boots standin' in a row, an' I suddenly get a big idea. I get the idea that I am becomin' much too interested in this dame, an' that I had better watch my step otherwise I may be fallin' for her just around the time when I am goin' to be makin' a pinch.

  Which, I oughta tell you, is one of the loads of grief that a dick has to bear. Any sorta copper, no matter whether he is Federal, State, or local, is always comin' up against swell dames. Why? Well, because it is always swell lookin' dames who get in jams. You never heard of a dame with a face like the elevated railway startin' anything,
did you? Well, if a guy has gotta eye for a swell shape, a nice voice an' a well-cut pair of ankles, it stands to reason that if he don't watch out his mind is goin' to stray from the business in hand.

  She starts talkin'.

  "Jim Maloney was going to drive me home," she says, "but I thought that I'd like you to do it I 'wanted to drive back with you."

  I grin.

  "I know," I tell her. "I saw you two signallin' to each other, an' I thought somethin' was boilin' up."

  She laughs.

  "There isn't much you don't see, is there, Mr Caution?"

  "Not very much, lady," I tell her. "There have been times when I have been caught off base. There was a dame in a garage flat near Baker Street, London, England, named Lottie Frisch, who once shot me through the bottom of her handbag when I thought she was lookin' for a letter. I never knew what she was at until I got a.22 bullet through the arm, which just shows that you gotta keep your eyes skinned, don't it?"

  She gives a little sigh.

  "I expect you've seen some real life," she says.

  I look at her sideways.

  "Yeah," I tell her, "an' I've seen a spot of real death too. There ain't really a lotta difference between the two. Life comes slow an' death comes pronto sometimes. Take for instance Granworth," I go on, takin' a peek at her, "I bet that guy didn't have any idea on the mornin' of the 12th January that he was goin' to be fished outa the river on the mornin' of the 13th. That's the way it goes, ain't it?"

  She don't say nothin'. She just looks straight ahead.

  Pretty soon I pull up outside the little rancho where she lives. There is some fat Mexican dame sittin' on the front porch, an' she gets up an' goes in as the car stops. This is the hired girl who is lookin' after the place an' cleanin' up I guess.