by Curt Colbert
He went back inside and checked around one more time before he turned out the lights, flipped the lock, and closed the door.
Gus collected the drug money that hadn’t gone into the Rasta’s mouth, and he took all the dope and stuck it in his gym bag. The money would make a nice anonymous contribution to the Gospel Men’s Mission. The dope he’d unload into the nearest sewer drain. He hoped the salmon would get a good buzz when it reached the Sound.
Gus heard the heavy motor of a truck pulling into the far end of the alley and the squeal of brakes. He ducked around the corner and looked back. It was a city garbage truck, the big kind that compacted the garbage. Gus stayed to watch. He saw the truck’s long skid arms slip under the dumpster, lifting and then emptying it into the truck. The dumpster’s lid clanged as it was lowered. Then the mechanical sound of the compactor’s motor revved as it efficiently ground up the contents.
Gus leaned back against the rough brick side of a building, hidden from view of the garbage crew in the alley. Then he bowed his head, but it wasn’t in prayer. He was staring at the realization, as clear as if printed on a poster in front of him. He could’ve stopped the truck—and the compactor. Maybe shouted or waved his arms before the terrible sound of the grinding wheels.
But he hadn’t. Now he’d have to live with that memory too. Gus shrugged.
It was a bad end to a bad creep.
Gus stuffed his free hand in his pocket and started walking. Before he caught the bus for downtown, he fed the dope and pills into a sewer grate and tossed the bag into a garbage can.
Gus got off on First Avenue and walked to Pioneer Square. He found a dank tavern and had some quick shots—he knew from practice exactly how many dulled the sharp edges of memory but still left him able to figure out next steps.
The odds were that the trash collectors would find or see something funny. Maybe the dealer’s skinny bones would jam the mechanism. Or the garbage collectors would notice a lot of blood and do some checking. Once something like that was reported, it would be carried on the local news. Probably say, What’s Seattle coming to? Do-gooders would be up in arms at such a heinous crime. Gus laughed at the image. Peaceniks armed with pitchforks, not rifles.
Gus welcomed the mellow numbness beginning to spread in his body. He wanted it to reach his chest, to surround his heart. Still its beating. Gus shook himself. Now was when he had to be really careful. He needed to think, and he pushed his shot glass away with a shaking hand.
Seattle PD had good cops. They might not care if a dope dealer ended up as beef stew in the city dump. But they’d follow through with their investigation. The headlines and the City Council would demand that.
A good investigator would interview all of the shopkeepers and restaurant folks around the alley. Ask the drifters and bums if they’d seen anything. The cops would sure as hell assume there was some connection between a Rastafarian and a Caribbean restaurant. And the owner could ID him. So could some of the punk kids he’d approached about buying drugs.
If they did a sketch from the café owner’s description and ran it over the wire, his picture might turn up. Sure as hell, his name and the fact that he’d been a cop in San Jacinto would come out. And why he’d left the police force.
The word would spread. Rogue cop.
Gus threw a couple bills down beside his glass and left the bar. He started walking, not caring where. He had a headache that was the granddaddy of all headaches, knocking the sides of his skull and traveling down to his shoulders. Suddenly, Gus felt too weary to move, his feet, dead weights. He couldn’t lift them. He shuffled into a doorway and leaned against the shop window.
Gus thought of Sweet Sue… and Jenny, and he wanted to cry. But couldn’t do that. The well had dried up a long time ago. He muttered, “Gus Maloney, you’ve screwed up your life. Big time.”
He nodded in agreement with himself. Then, after a long while, he slowly pulled himself together and swiped his eyes with his hand.
There’s no going back.
But Gus did change direction.
He headed for the hospital and Sweet Sue. Gus knew what he had to do. After he checked on Sweet Sue, he’d pack up and get out of town, head south, maybe just to Tacoma. Lay low. But be close enough that he could check on Sweet Sue. Soon as the old geezer was well, he’d let him know that he wanted his aide-de-homeless-camp with him again.
PART III
LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD
TILL DEATH DO US…
BY CURT COLBERT
Belltown
I hate domestic cases. As long as I’ve been a private eye, they’ve been as unpredictable as counting on a sunny day here in Seattle. Harry Truman upsetting Dewey in last year’s election was no big surprise at all compared to domestic cases. They can ruin your day faster than losing a bundle on the wrong nag or saying “I do” to the wrong dame.
So why did I do it? Take the Dorothy Demar/Harold Sikes case, I mean. I’ve been asking my bottle of Cutty Sark that question ever since it was full and I still don’t have a good answer. It has been getting a little easier to ask the question, though. Decent Scotch doesn’t do a thing to solve the eternal mystery of sin and sordidness, but it does make it slightly easier to swallow.
Dorothy Demar entered my office without knocking while my girl Friday, Miss Jenkins, was out having her usual at the Woolworth’s lunch counter. At least Miss Jenkins could afford to go out to lunch. Me, I was dining on yesterday’s liverwurst slapped between two hunks of last week’s bread. I had some slight money troubles. It was payday and I’d sucked my bank account dry forking over my girl Friday’s salary. Worse, I’d blown the last C-note I had in reserve for the down payment on the fancy-schmancy two-way radios that I’d had my sights set on for the better part of a year. Cops had them, why not me? Yeah, well, now I had my two-way radios, but my name was going to be mud at Queen City Electronics without the dough for the balance of the account, which, coincidentally, just happened to be due today. Nothing I hated worse than a welcher—and that was going to be me, I was thinking, when Dorothy Demar sashayed in.
“Jake Rossiter?”
Husky voice for a female. More like a command than a question.
“Who’s asking?”
I glanced up from my desk, startled that the owner of the whiskey voice turned out to be such a hot number.
“Dorothy.”
The way she peeled off her long white gloves reminded me of a woman slowly taking off her nylon stockings. This dame just dripped with sultry allure. Got me excited—got me nervous—didn’t know which emotion to act on.
So, there I sat—and there she stood—tall, slim, busty, early thirties at most, with a blond Veronica Lake hairdo over high cheekbones, perfect skin, and a button nose, her powder-blue, two-piece silk ensemble so snug that I had to catch my breath.
“Dorothy Demar,” she said, adding a last name, her eyes a deeper blue than the last swimming pool I dove into.
I noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I drew on all my years as a professional to compose myself.
“Glad to meet you. Have a seat. What can I do for you?”
“I want to hire you.” Curvier than ten miles of bad road, she slid into the green wingback chair across from me.
“I figured you weren’t collecting for the Milk Fund.” I pushed the liverwurst out of my way and replaced it with my stenographic notepad. “I might be able to squeeze in a new client. Shoot,” I told her, uncapping my fountain pen. “What’s the scoop?”
“I need you to keep an eye on me.”
“From what I’ve seen so far, that won’t be difficult.”
She smiled for the first time, her pearly whites glistening between her full red lips.
“Just for the record, though,” I continued, “why do you need me to keep an eye on you?”
“I think I’m in danger, Mr. Rossiter,” she said, a little quaver in her otherwise strong voice.
“Why’s that?”
“Does it matter?�
�� she snapped. “I want to hire you! Isn’t that enough?”
I studied her for a moment, a bit put off by her sudden fire. “Not quite.”
“I think I’m in danger,” she repeated.
“Look, let’s try this again,” I told her, taking out a Philip Morris and lighting up. “Maybe you’re new to this sort of thing, but I’m not really big on mysteries. I like my cases nice and straightforward. And my answers plain.”
Dorothy jumped to her feet. “Maybe I’ve come to the wrong man.”
I stayed seated. “Maybe you have,” I said, thinking about how fast lust can go wrong.
She reached into the small ivory clutch that she carried, and laid four fat C-notes face up on my desk. Ben Franklin never looked more handsome. “Is that enough to make you the right man?”
“Well, now…” I pulled the bills toward me. “I could maybe handle a certain amount of suspense for this kind of dough.”
“Thought so.” Looking smug, she sat back down and took a gold-filigreed cigarette case out of her clutch. Tamping one of her smokes against it, she said, “Now maybe you’ll start doing like you’re told.”
“Could be.” I offered her a light. “But you haven’t told me anything yet. No, strike that, you’ve spilled loads just by the way you’ve been acting. Let’s see… you’re rich; undoubtedly spoiled rotten as a child; used to getting your own way and you tend to throw tantrums when you don’t. How am I doing so far?”
“Good as a gypsy.” She took a deep drag off her cigarette and gave me a wry look. “I can tell a few things about you too. Let’s see… you’re not rich, otherwise you wouldn’t have this crummy office in the Regrade; you probably had to do for yourself as a child; you’re used to making your own way in this world and you tend to be cynical and sarcastic when things don’t go like you think they should. How am I doing so far?”
“Good as a gypsy.”
“There’s one other thing.”
“What’s that, pray tell?”
“You seem to be one of those people who act just the way they look, Mr. Rossiter. Smart but tough. Exactly the type of man I need to help me.”
This dame was smart herself. And definitely drop-dead gorgeous. Volatile, potentially explosive mix. Whether it was the edgy thrill she gave me, or the fact that her moola would more than cover my two-way car radio debt, I don’t know. All I can say for sure is that I could feel my better judgment flying away as fast as a pheasant that you’d missed with both barrels.
“Okay. You’re rich, I’m not. That about covers all the bases except one: I still need to know why you feel threatened and want me to watch over you.” I pushed the money back toward her. “No answer, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your case, even though I might kick myself later.”
“You have integrity. I don’t need integrity. But it will have to do, I suppose.” She slid the C-notes back at me. “I strongly suspect that my husband is planning to kill me.”
“That so? I didn’t know you were married.”
“We live apart,” she said, a definite sense of finality in her tone. “I have my own place; Harold has his.”
“Harold, huh?” I wrote his name down. “Tell me about Harold, Mrs. Demar. What makes you think he’s got it in for you?”
“It’s Mrs. Sikes, actually,” she corrected. “Demar is my maiden name.”
“Sounds better than Sikes; I don’t blame you.” I fixed Harold’s name in my notes. “So, once again, why would Harold have homicide on his mind?”
“He thinks I’m two-timing him.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
Her candor brought me up short. For want of anything better to say, I replied, “That’s refreshing.”
“Harold thinks he owns me. He doesn’t. That’s why I need you.”
I leaned back in my chair and blew a smoke ring. “What exactly do you want me to do?”
“Keep an eye on me, like I said.”
“That could get expensive.”
“I have my own money. I was rich before I married Harold, and I’m still rich.”
“Have you tried marriage counseling? It’s bound to be cheaper.”
She laughed. Only the second time I’d seen her crack a smile. It vanished as soon as she began talking. “You have a sense of humor too. Keep it. Do you want the job? Yes or no?”
“When would you want me to start?”
“Now.”
“How close do you want to be followed? I can tail you from a distance or so close we might have to get engaged.”
Another smile—very small, very brief. “While the latter method might prove interesting, Mr. Rossiter, just keeping an eye on me from a distance will be more than adequate for the time being.”
“In that case,” I said, picking up the phone, “I’ll have my right-hand man on the job before you leave the office.”
She stubbed out her butt in the ashtray. “You won’t be watching me personally?”
“I’m saving myself for you.” I grinned. “I want to be fresh as a daisy if you ever need the close tail work.”
“I see,” she told me, the hint of a flirt forming in her eyes. It disappeared the instant I got Heine on the horn.
“Heine. Got a gig for you.” I could hear the click and clack of pool balls caroming in the background. As usual, he was downtown, just a few minutes away, at Ben Paris’s pool hall. He haunted the joint trying to shark a few simoleons whenever I didn’t have him working a case.
“That so?” Heine asked. “Good. Where do ya want me and when?”
“Over here at the office. Now.”
“What’s up?”
“Dame I need you to keep tabs on. She’s with me as we speak. Make it a discreet tail, but don’t let her out of your sight. Her life may be in danger. Name’s Dorothy Demar. Just honk when you show up. She’s got better gams than Betty Grable. You’ll like the work.”
“Say no more, brother,” Heine answered quickly. “I already left.” The line went dead.
“Thank you,” Dorothy told me as I hung up the receiver.
“For what? The compliment or for taking the job?”
“Both. I’m very grateful.”
“Maybe you should save your gratitude until I’m sure I can keep you safe.”
“You will. I have no doubt.”
“You’re pretty certain about me, huh?”
“Everybody says you’re the best.”
“Can’t argue with that. Even so, I’d advise you to lay low for a while if you think your life’s in danger.”
“No, I won’t do that.” She stood up like she was preparing to leave. “I’m going to lead my life as usual. Neither your well-intentioned advice nor Harold’s ill-intentioned behavior are going to stop me.” She glanced at her diamond-studded wristwatch. “I hope your man hurries. I have a final fitting for my winter trousseau at Frederick’s, after which I have a date for dinner and a night out on the town.”
“Not with Harold, I presume.”
“Heavens no.”
“Your date’s a lucky man.”
“Yes, he is.”
Her eyes flirted with me again. This time, I let mine flirt back. Our orbs danced that way awhile, getting closer and closer. They say you can look right into another person’s soul through their eyes—I don’t know what she saw in mine, but what I was seeing was pretty much what I thought the moth saw instead of the flame.
Heine tooting his horn outside saved me from getting singed. He had a trick air horn on his hot rod ’47 Ford that sounded just like a wolf whistle.
“That’ll be Heine.” I walked over to the window, pulled it open, stuck my head out, and threw him the okay sign.
Dorothy came up behind me and put a light touch on my shoulder. “Am I going to be safe with him?”
I turned around—we were so close that her ample bosom brushed against my chest. “Maybe safer than with me,” I told her, taking a step back. “What kind of car are you driving?”
“
The new Packard. Black. It’s out front.”
I yelled down at Heine a couple stories below. “Her ride’s the black Packard!” He couldn’t miss her expensive white side-walled sedan considering he’d parked right behind it. “She’ll be down in a minute, compadre. Stay loaded for bear and keep in touch. It’s worth a C-note.”
“I’ll stick to her like a fly on you know what!” he hollered at me.
Closing the window, I smiled as I noted the new radio antenna sported on Heine’s Ford. Twice as long as a normal aerial, it made his coupe look almost like an unmarked police cruiser. At least I’d be able to pay for it now.
Dorothy slipped on her long white gloves, took her clutch from the top of my desk, and headed for the door.
“Maybe we’ll see each other again,” she said over her shoulder.
“Up to you,” I told her, liking the way her curves curved when she walked.
She paused at the door. “Yes, it is.” Then she went out.
I watched out the window as she got into her ritzy Packard and drove off, south toward downtown, Heine’s Ford rumbling close behind. Then I pulled out my bottle of Cutty Sark and had a belt. I hate domestic cases—could’ve kicked myself for taking this one—except for the big moola and Dorothy Demar’s deep blue eyes. There was something about her that I didn’t trust. That’s why I had Heine tailing her instead of me. I figured I’d do some digging on her and see if there were any concrete reasons for my qualms. Besides, you never knew when another fat cat could walk through the door and offer a bundle for a simple job. Crazier things had happened.
A few minutes later, a man walked in just as I was about to start snooping on Dorothy. He doffed his gray Hamburg and said, “My name’s Harold Sikes. I want to hire you.”
I could’ve choked on my Scotch. Instead, I kept a poker face and studied him for a moment. Dressed to the nines in a double-breasted gray suit, with a pink boutonniere and a diamond stick-pinned tie, he looked to be in his mid-fifties, paunchy, balding, and thick-browed, with a heavy, jowly face bordering on ugly. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell what Dorothy Demar had ever seen in this joe.