Inside the room, I locked the door and hung my sport jacket over the keyhole. Then I began an inch by inch search along the baseboard, the wall, the mattress for that .25 calibre shot. It wasn’t important in itself. But I had to know. Maybe it wasn’t in this room. Maybe somebody was carrying it around right now. Some woman. It would narrow the search, it would make it easier.
I’d almost given up, and sank on the edge of the bed. What a room for Herb to live in. What a hell of a place to die in. I found myself wanting a drink, wishing I hadn’t found out all I now knew about the man who called me his best friend.
It was winking down at me from the ceiling. A tiny, obscene black little eye in the plaster up near the light cord. I got up on the bed, opening my pocket knife. The bullet hole was there, but there was no bullet in it. Somebody had beaten me to it.
I felt my shoulders sag as I stepped down from the bed. The bullet didn’t matter. It was just that somebody was ahead of me, just ahead of me, outthinking me. That’s what I didn’t like, that’s what gave me that feeling of emptiness in my diaphragm.
I heard the movement behind me. I gave a little yelp and whirled around. But all I saw was fourteen million planets exploding from the outer spaces. They wheeled and spun about in my head as I sagged to my knees and then toppled forward on my face, hard. Somebody hit me again and that turned off the planets and then it was very dark and very cold where I was.
12
AT FIRST, it was shadow against shadows. The way storm clouds bank up on a rainy day. Then the shadows were empty and wispy and then they dissolved like ice in a Scotch glass.
I was lying in the alley behind the Aala Street boarding house. My pockets were turned inside out. I had been picked clean. Even my wrist watch was gone.
The back of my head ached. I turned over. She was squatting over me, her toothless leer ugly in the light from her backdoor.
“What you do out here?” she said. So I knew there was no use asking her anything.
“What time is it?” I sat up and they exploded an H-bomb at the back of my neck.
“Oh. Ten o’clock,” she said. “About ten o’clock.” I stood up. I staggered a little, feeling her eyes, cold and black on me as I walked past the house and out into the street and down to my car at the railway station. For no reason I was thinking about Ona.
I drove uptown and parked near my office. I tried to tell myself she wouldn’t be there, and yet I had a feeling of blank high walls pressing down on me, and somehow Ona’s threat was a part of those walls.
Maybe she was just a fool girl making silly threats. Maybe all she wanted was to be loved again. Probably. Yet, I knew I had a dangerous date to keep at eleven o’clock at Eddie Kole’s Bali Hi Club at Waikiki. There was just a chance Ona knew something. After all, she’d been Albert Mosani’s girl friend. Disappointed girl friend. Anyhow, I wanted all the answers I could get before eleven.
I looked up and down the quiet street. There was no sign of any cop’s tailing me. My head was throbbing as I climbed the stairs to the dusty hallway upstairs over the haberdashery shop. It would be like Ona, I thought miserably, to get a key from the landlord and be waiting — shall we say stark naked — for me in my office.
The hall was quiet, the whole building silent. The lawyer’s office, the dentist’s, the life insurance adjuster’s, all of them dark. Dark as my own. But when I touched the knob, the door swung slowly open under my hand, hinge singing a little, dryly. Even if it were only Ona, I thought, I’m taking no chances after what happened to me on Aala Street. Somebody wanted me out of this thing bad enough to try to scare me out. I wanted to be ready for whatever they had planned next. The dim light from the corridor spilled in the door making a shadow of me and dusty lathes of white beside it. No sound came out to me. I leaned against the door, slipping off my shoe and holding it by the toe for a futile club. I slipped my hand inside the door and snapped on the light.
The room came into being. The venetian blinds were tightly drawn at the closed windows. The apple crates were over turned, papers pouring out of them. The filing cabinet was on its side. Then I saw Ona.
She was huddled in the corner, as though she had moved back as far as she could move. Then they’d taken the Scotch bottle I’d left on my desk and battered her to death with it. The bottle was bloody but it wasn’t broken. They’d thrown it in her lap. I stood there looking at her, huddled up, beaten and dead, her face raked as though with a pointed knife, her poor tight fitting dress up over her knees. Knees that had loved to be caressed and never would be again. And when I looked at her, it didn’t make sense. Ona had come up here to be loved. That was all. It was in the sad little way she’d dressed, sheer sweater pulled tight over her upturned little breasts, the tight skirt, the bright lips.
This is what she got, I thought. This is what she got.
I felt weak and sick-tired all over. I looked around the room. My hurting, burning eyes found the telephone. The receiver was off the hook. I thought dully, not caring, they meant to really get me this time.
They not only killed Ona in my office, they must have used my phone to call the police and left the receiver off the hook so there’d be no trouble tracing the call.
From somewhere far away I heard the police siren. Here they come, I thought. I looked at Ona again, huddled in the corner. I heard the siren again. And then I heard a noise in the corridor. The sirens and the noise must have done it. I quit being sick and I began to be mad. Violently and tremblingly angry. I didn’t know what was behind this. But now I would know. I dropped my shoe and stepped into it. At the sound of my shoe on the floor, the noise outside seemed abruptly cut off. Breath held.
I looked about the room. Then I walked out of it, leaving the light burning, leaving the door opened. I walked into the corridor, hoping I’d see whoever made the noise. I wanted to smash somebody. I didn’t care who. But it may have been a stray cat. The corridor appeared empty. The police sirens went wailing past out front, but I was already running down the rear steps to the alley.
• • •
Troy was holding a book in her lap, face down, when I came in the hallway at the house. She was wearing a peach colored negligee over a lily white silk gown that was seventy-eight percent lace. She was dressed for bed, but her eyes were sleepless.
“Why didn’t you go to bed, Troy?” I said. I went in to her, and kissed her. I don’t know. I knew I had no right the way I treated her, sacrificed her on the altar of my old, old hatred for a girl named Julie.
“I was waiting up for you,” she said. Then she saw my clothes. “Jim. Where have you been? What have they done to you?”
“They’ve made me mad,” I told her. My hands were trembling. “They’ve tried to scare me out. But they haven’t. And now they won’t.”
“Darling. Darling. What have they done to you? You’re hurt, angry — darling stop now — I — I’d rather have you as you were — than the way they’re making you.”
I tried to laugh through the knot in my throat. “Don’t be silly, Troy. Why, I haven’t had a drink in two days.”
“Let me get you one,” she said.
I shook my head. “Right now, I don’t need it,” I said. “I’ve something else to do. Somewhere I’ve got to go. Will you go to bed now?”
She laughed ruefully. “I’ll worry about you. Jim. Before I knew you weren’t going to do anything. I knew you wouldn’t be hurt. I knew that mixed up, unhappy as you were, anyway I’d have you — the physical you — with me.”
“I’m going to be all right,” I told her. “It’s just that I’ve got some people to see — and it won’t wait.”
She followed me in the bedroom and sat on the bed while I dressed. I began to get sick at myself. Ona was dead up in my office. I was pretty sure that the woman I was on my way to see knew plenty about Ona’s murder. And yet, all the time, I knew that inside, I was thinking about those green eyes, and that I was dressing meticulously for that visit I was about to make to a lovely blackmailer
who danced at the Bali Hi.
13
LANAI CAME out to dance in a burst of applause.
I was sitting well back, at a table facing the small circular floor when the lights suddenly darkened to sharp-caught breaths and small sighs, then the single spot came up, spun with whorls of cigarette smoke, and there she was. I could feel the enthusiasms, the electric tension that coursed through the room. My fingers tightened on my fragile glass. I had ordered only mineral water because I wanted a clear head when I talked to Lanai in behalf of Sybil Tinsley.
She wasn’t wearing anything, actually, it was a matter of her being thinly fettered in garish gauze that appeared more tenuous than the wraiths of tobacco fog through which she moved in some intoxicating, exciting dance.
I had no understanding of the interpretative nuances of her graceful movements, none at all, the language of her dance was as foreign to me as the country out of which it had come. All I knew was it was an aphrodisiac. I tried to guess its ending, and clattered my way through the tables to the rear exit at least three minutes before the lights sprang up, the cry's and applause of the audience sped after Lanai past me to her dressing room. She threw me a puzzled look as she ran by, but did not hesitate.
She had stepped out of her nothingness when I opened her door quietly and entered after her. I caught my breath. She wasn’t real. She was something carved, something carefully hewn from golden stones, the nipples of her breasts standing like bright rubies against the unreal gold of her body.
Casually, looking at me with contempt, she dragged on an old robe, seeming perversely to choose the oldest and most battered, streaked with grease paint.
“I have talked to you once today,” she said. “I have nothing more to say to you.”
I looked at her. I thought of the brass monkey and what it was used for. I thought of Ona lying dead in the corner of my office. I thought of Sybil frightened and alone. Evil Goddess, I thought, vampire, lovely and cold and soulless. Bitch.
“About Sybil,” I said abruptly, “cut out the jokes, will you?”
She was turning toward her mirror, but now she stopped, whirling back, facing me, her green eyes hard.
She tried laughter. “Joh-kes, Jim-mee?”
I wouldn’t have any.
She tried anger. “Get out!”
I didn’t move.
She attempted guile. “Did she even hint that I warned her what would happen if she sent someone to visit me? Even someone pret-tee like you, Jim-mee.”
“You’ve a pretty voice, Lanai, and a pretty accent,” I said. “And it’s all I can do to resist it. But I can. Sybil Tinsley hired me to tell you something. I want you to listen closely. I’m running through it once. I’m making it simple, drawing pictures, but just once.”
She was looking at the set line of my jaw. I believe she knew I was serious. She nodded, sitting on the vanity stool before her bright mirror. She was looking at me oddly, intently. I took three backward steps, turned the key in the lock. At that she smiled faintly.
“Sybil lives on a trust fund. Do you know what that is, Lanai? She is paid a certain amount each month for expenses. If she has to make a withdrawal for any other reason, she must give a valid reason for it. Is that clear? Her brother in law is a vindictive man as well as a banker. Besides that, all her husband’s money was left to Sybil, the family getting nothing — ”
“That sounds nice,” she said with that same smile.
“It only sounds nice. That money can go to that family if they can prove Sybil is misusing it. That is, enjoying it in any way her departed husband or his family might disapprove. Such as paying blackmail — ”
“Blackmail.” She stood up.
“It does have an ugly sound, I admit,” I said. “But that’s it. And that’s the picture, Lanai. You can get away with it, unless you try to collect from Sybil. She’s forced to call your bluff. Then you expose her. You gamble that you’ll be exposed. Sybil’s money is gone. But you’re not a cent richer.”
She frowned. “I do not like all this talk. I do not understand. Maybe I better think it over.”
“There isn’t any time to think it over,” I said.
She looked at me. “I must talk to someone. After all, Jim-mee, you wouldn’t think I was mix up in something like this, would you?”
“Yes.”
“But no. It is only in my room that this person wishes to talk to Sybil. Thinking Sybil will feel safe in my room — ”
“Next time suggest an adder’s nest.”
She shrugged. “You do not sound nice, Jim-mee.”
“You’re in a rugged business, Lanai. The people you’re going to meet from here on won’t be very nice. Faces from a bad dream. Pulled mouths. Baffled eyes. Frightened, cornered animals, paying when they have to, ready to strike when your back is turned.”
“Stop it. You are frightening me.”
“What shall I tell Sybil?”
She spread her arms. “How can I say? How do I know? Maybe you think you can bluff me — ”
“All right,” I said coldly, “I’ll wait until you talk to your friends. But remember this, Lanai, you won’t be able to bluff me, either — ”
She nodded. “All right, Jim-mee, I will remember. You will wait until after I dance again?”
I looked at her. “Shall I wait in here?”
Her head tilted back, the green eyes fixed on me. “Out there would be better,” she said with a suggestion of sadness.
“Cozier in here,” I said. I backed to the door, unlocked it. “Don’t forget, Lanai. They will be making a big mistake to waste time on Sybil — she is rich in a way it will be very difficult for you or your friends to touch.”
I opened the door slightly and looked into the corridor. I heard Lanai’s amused laughter behind me. The corridor appeared vacated, I stepped outside.
I almost stepped on Kam Okazi’s toes.
For a frozen moment we stood like that.
“Keep away from her,” he said savagely. His voice sounded tight in his throat.
I stepped back. “You better find out what I talked to her about,” I said evenly.
“She’ll tell me,” he said coldly. “I’ll make her tell me.”
“My client won’t pay,” I said. “She won’t pay anything.”
He stared at me. “What are you talking about?”
For a moment I looked at him, pitying him, and for a reason not too obscure thinking about Julie, and pitying myself. “You poor devil,” I said, and stepped around him.
He stood staring after me and then ran after me and caught my arm. He pulled me around, his hand strong.
“What are you saying? Why do you call me poor devil in pitying manner?”
“Ask Lanai,” I told him. “Make her tell you. If you can make her do anything.”
It was as though I had hit him at the stomach. He stared at me as though the breath were gone out of him, his full lips parted, his black eyes tortured.
I walked by him again and returned to my table. The waiter was beside my chair. “The telephone,” he said very quietly indicating a booth near the hatcheck desk, “for you.”
The nagging sense of doubt moved beside me into the booth. I waited for the door to close behind me before I spoke.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Patterson.”
“Yes.”
“This is Sybil Tinsley. Have you seen her yet?”
“I’ve talked to her,” I said. “What’s wrong with your voice?”
“Nothing. I’m worried. I cannot stand this waiting. Did they take the five hundred?”
“I didn’t offer it.”
I could hear her sharp intake of breath. Thin wisps of music slid through the cracks under the door.
“What do you think they will do?”
“It’s too late at night for games. What do you think they’ll do?”
“What can they do?”
“They can cut you up in little strips and ship you back home to Alms’ family in
sardine cans. Do you want me to handle this or not?”
“I don’t know, I’m frightened. Maybe I can get the money they want. This once.”
“This once. What will you do next week? Next month? And all the rest of the days after that?”
“I’d die if this got out. I wouldn’t want to go on living. I’m coming over there. Wait for me. I’ve got to know the answer. Tonight.”
“All right,” I said. “It’s your neck. I’ll be at the bar.”
I hung up and stepped out of the breathless little booth. The music was frenzied and people were dancing, furiously as though they had a lot of dancing to do, and little time. Their faces were slug-white under the strong lights. The Bali Hi didn’t encourage its patrons’ dancing. Much preferring they sit at the crowded white tables and drink.
Business was good and they’d already given my small table to a party of four. No night club ever minded hurting the sensitive feelings of a man who drinks mineral water on a busy night.
I went to the bar and when there was a vacated stool, I took it. I regarded myself in the tinted mirror. The bartender asked me what I wanted and I told him Scotch and soda, sat watching him mix it and push it across the damp bar to me. I knew I had to stay coldly sober if I were to handle Sybil, and talk to Lanai and her friends. I dawdled over my drink until the bartender began to stare. I practiced staring back at him. I looked at the spot where his eyebrows met. Finally, he strained his neck a little and only glanced my way occasionally.
I watched the door for Sybil. The lights darkened. Lanai came out to dance, golden, gleaming, perfect. Too perfect. Like something in wax. And like wax, heartless.
Her dance ended suddenly. The lights sprang up.
They howled and shouted for more. But that was it. She didn’t even take a bow.
I knew it was time for me to return to her room. I’d finished off my Scotch without realizing it while she danced. I held it up to show the bartender, and beamed proudly. He didn’t appreciate my humor. He looked like a boxer. I was aware of a slight headache along my right temple.
The Brass Monkey Page 8