Kiss Me Once

by Thomas Gifford

  Cassidy woke first in the morning. The fires were still glowing, giving off warmth. Cindy lay on her side, mouth open an inch, wedges of white teeth peeking out, snoring softly like a little girl. He covered her back up with the mink and his heavy ulster, got dressed, and went out to the vast country kitchen. He made coffee and found some fresh bread, butter, strawberry jam, sugar, milk, and thanked God for the caretaker. Staring out into the gray, low-slung day, he sat at the rough-hewn kitchen table and drank the morning’s first two cups of coffee. He checked his Hamilton against the ticking Regulator on the wall. It was 10:30.

  Everything had gotten very complicated since yesterday. He hadn’t thought he’d ever be involved in any way again—beyond longing for her like a lovesick fool—with Cindy Squires. He’d thought the surveillance of her would convince Max she wasn’t running around on him, whether in his crazy jealousy he wanted it to or not, and now that had been blown to hell by her running away. He’d thought the war news was the most exciting thing in his immediate future. Like everybody else, he was thinking about when and where and how the Allies under Ike were going to invade Festung Europa. And he’d grown used to the thought that Karin would always be there, the central ache within him.

  But all that was yesterday.

  Now Cindy Squires had taken everything into her own hands and was raising all kinds of hell in all of their lives. He had to get it all clear as he could before he got run down in the panic.

  First, Max loved but didn’t trust Cindy, was sure she had another man. Either he was right, she was a liar, and the evidence of Herb Contreras’s two weeks was worthless, or Max was obsessed by not being able to service her sexually. Or maybe it was all true—fair proof that there was no God.

  Second, Cindy said Max was crazy, positively chewing the carpet, out of his head. She said she was scared of him and had to get away from him. But …

  Third, Cassidy knew Cindy was scared. She was scared because she was convinced that Max was going to find her and kill her … precisely because she had made her own decision to leave him for good. So that made the question of Max’s recent behavior oddly academic. He’d either let her go, sanely, with a hearty good luck, which didn’t sound like the Max who’d visited Dependable Detective … or he’d exact his revenge.

  Fourth, there was Cassidy himself. He had no choice but to admit that she’d nailed him down, made him remember what he’d been trying to forget. He had fallen in love with her in the first place because of her looks, then because she appealed to his romantic nature in all the old ways. Love, sex, passion, her own kind of vulnerability, her open and savage eroticism. She seemed lost and of course he knew he alone could save her.

  But could he trust her?

  Hell, what did it matter? He loved her …

  She’d never been anything but straight with him. He couldn’t have lived with himself if he hadn’t trusted her. Maybe she was using him, maybe he didn’t know quite how. But everybody always used everybody. That was life. And love was love and he was stuck with it.

  It had been a hell of a long time.

  “What’s the story with you and Bryce Huntoon?”

  “That’s right,” she said, remembering. “You’ve been following me.”

  “Max is convinced you’re having an affair with someone.”

  She nodded. They were sitting in a dim little Italian restaurant down the road toward the nearest town. The day had passed in the manner of days in love. He’d called Terry, told him where he was, that he’d be in town the next day. In the meantime Terry could handle Max, present him with the Boston scenario. Now they were finishing the linguini with clam sauce and a bottle of wine and were sitting over coffee, smiling, trying to enjoy being in love with the shadows of gunmen hanging over them. There was so much beneath the surface, an undertow they had to fight.

  “Bryce is just a guy,” she said. “Somebody to talk to. His biggest attraction, I suppose, is that he’s not Max. He’s working with Max on some defense effort stuff, or he was, and I kept seeing him. At the club, sometimes at the apartment or out at the house. So I was in a kind of frantic heat—there’s no point in my lying to you, Cassidy. I haven’t lied to you about anything and after last night it’s just too late to start now. I was in heat and Max was no use to me and I was afraid to drag you into the mess I was in. And, besides, I didn’t think you’d do it. That’s the truth. Anyway, Bryce was the only guy I could get to so I put quite a bit of pressure on him. I didn’t beg him to take me to bed … you’re the only man I’ve ever begged, ever wanted to beg. But I let Bryce know that I wanted it.” She shook her head sadly. “He’s such a regular Joe, sort of pompous, pretty innocent. And when he got the message he sat me down and told me that he would enjoy enjoying me, that’s exactly what he said, but he told me a man has a code and one of the things in the code was that you didn’t betray a friend. And he looked upon Max as a friend. He said it was simply impossible. He was always shaking hands with me. Very sweet man. So I respected all that and asked if we could be friends and he said of course. And I stopped thinking of him as a potential lover … and I knew then that he’d only have been a poor substitute for you, knew then that I had to get away from Max and my time was running out. I was serious, I knew. I had to make you understand that what I felt for you was real, that I wasn’t just a whore … and to do all that I had to be alone with you. Oh, Lew, I was a whore with Max … but I wanted to be a woman. I had to be a woman with you, you wouldn’t have settled for anything less.” She took his hand across the table and squeezed it. “Get it?”

  “Got it,” he said.

  The next day Terry called and told Cassidy to get back to New York. Everything was falling into place and he needed his partner.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE BIG PEARL-GRAY CAT was blinking slowly, bored by the pre-cocktail hour lull. The lobby bar of the Algonquin was quiet, no glittering crossfire of sarcasm from the famous wits who always had their names in the columns. Cassidy was nursing a Rob Roy and playing mind games with the cat, Hamlet. He was losing because he was too proud to admit he was pitting his will against a cat’s. Hamlet was winning because Hamlet just plain didn’t give a shit. You could learn a lot from Hamlet if you were smart enough in the first place. Cassidy wasn’t, so he read the Mirror until Terry showed up.

  He ordered a martini, filled his mouth with peanuts, and leaned back, red-eyed and weary. “Lew,” he said, “I’m not absolutely crazy about the way this one’s working out. I’m having to think too damn hard, it’s complicated. When it doesn’t come easy I’m always suspicious. Thing is, I’m trying to save your ass and everybody else’s, too, but it’s … sticky. Still”—he took the drink directly from the waiter’s tray and had a healthy slug—“I’ve got it figured. Absent friends,” he said as always, lifting the glass. “How did it go out there?”

  “Fine. She’s just fine. Scared, worried. She says she’s not going back to Max. Regardless.”

  He lit one of his long Dunhill cigarettes. “She in love?”

  “Let’s not have another seminar on love—”

  “Just asking, don’t get shirty with me, Lew. I’m on your side. She in love?”

  “Says she is.”

  “Anyone we know?” Terry grinned beneath the sleek moustache. “What’s the matter with you, anyway?”

  “Maybe I’m getting my period … or maybe I want to know what Max is planning.”

  “Huntoon—she saying anything about Brother Huntoon?”

  “They were friends, that’s all. She thought he was sweet and pompous.”

  “So she was half right. Hmmm, friends.” He thought about that and sipped the martini. Hamlet had strolled over and was smelling Terry’s cuffs. Hamlet had always liked Terry. “You believe her?”

  “Yeah, I believe her. She was straight with me. She tried to seduce him but he wasn’t in the market.”

  “No kidding? Hard to believe. Don’t you find that just a tad unlikely? A little saintly for Brycie-boy?
”

  “He said it would violate his code.”

  Terry laughed. “You kidding me? You gotta be kidding me, amigo. When it comes to women, as it often does with our Bryce, his code is ‘Get ’em while you can’ and it always has been … but that’s what he told her?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Well.” He took his turn staring at Hamlet, who did a coy number, licking the long tail. “Makes me think I’m right. About human nature.”

  “Come again?”

  “About people. Cindy and Huntoon. They were having an affair.”

  “You’re wrong, Terry. Dead wrong.”

  “You romantic devil, you,” he said. “Funny how a really beautiful woman can convince a guy she’s honest as she is beautiful.”

  “Terry, you’re right on the edge—”

  “That’s where it’s best. That’s where you can really live, amigo, out there on the edge.” He was grinning. “Come on, relax! I’m just thinking out loud. Maybe you’re right. I like Cindy, don’t get me wrong. But I think we’d better check, just to get our ducks in a row. Like I told you, I’ve got this plan. Want to hear it?”

  “Sure, sure.” Terry was getting under his skin. Maybe it was just Cindy, she was the one who was getting at him, making him jumpy. “But let’s leave her out of it.”

  “As much as possible, of course.” He ran a knuckle along that thin moustache. “We’re going to check out Huntoon’s little pied-à-terre up on East 62nd. I think maybe they were having an affair. You say no and you’re probably right. But I’d like to ease my mind. So I want to know if she’s spent any time at his place. You grant me that?”

  “Waste of time.”

  “Maybe. But we gotta have some results for Max. I’ve thought it over and we’re gonna have to give him old Bryce.”

  “I’m not surprised you don’t much like your plan. I don’t like it either.”

  “No. You wouldn’t. But my point is, if we have to give Max someone, and that someone happens to be Huntoon, it might be nice if he’s actually guilty. See?”

  “Nobody’s innocent, Terry. You know that.”

  “Ah, the voice of experience. But if there’s stuff of Cindy’s at his place …” He shrugged. “And if there isn’t anything, you might as well get used to the idea that we’ll have to salt the place.”

  “Like salting a gold mine? When there isn’t any real gold?”

  “Such a smarty.”

  “I can’t let you do that, Terry—”

  “Ease up, will ya? We’ll cross that one when we come to it. Just remember, Max said he wanted some proof—”

  “We’re not going to plant evidence incriminating Cindy … and, anyway, you’ve got the photographs of them together. Give those to Max if you have to—”

  “We may need something better than that. And we don’t have to incriminate Cindy, amigo. Max has already decided she’s guilty. We’re incriminating Huntoon … instead of letting Max figure out it’s you she loves. Get it through your head—Max has decided about Cindy! All we can do for a first step is fill the other opening. And don’t forget the ten grand …” He munched another handful of peanuts.

  “This is bad. I don’t like it—”

  “There are worse things, amigo. Like we don’t give Max what he wants and he decides to go looking for himself. And sooner or later he comes down on one very scared Lew Cassidy. We really wouldn’t want that, would we?” The place was filling up. Soon the bon mots would be filling the air. Hamlet had already slouched away in search of safety. “Max can be a very uncivilized fellow when the going isn’t so good.”

  “So what about Huntoon? You’re setting him up to be killed!”

  “Hey, come on. This is Terry, remember? I’m one of the good guys.”

  “Then give me the rest of the plan.”

  “Huntoon won’t have any trouble with Max. He can just lay low in Washington for a while. Max’ll get interested in something else. Lew, I’m gonna warn Bryce. Whattaya think I am, anyway?”

  “And what about Cindy?”

  “We’ll work that out, too.”

  “She says Max’ll kill her—”

  “No, no, he’s not gonna kill Cindy. He may be crazy but he’s not that crazy. He loves her. I can talk him out of that, if I have to.”

  “Cindy says Max dies or she dies, no other way.”

  “So who says she’s the big expert all of a sudden? I know about these things. She’s just being overly dramatic—”

  “It’s no act,” Cassidy insisted.

  “Well, I’ve got Elmo glued to Max—”

  “You’ve what?”

  “Andretti. I’ve got him on Max so we can head off any trouble. So far all I know is that this Erickson character never leaves his side. Who is he?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “I want to find out,” he mused.

  That night Terry told Cassidy he’d arranged to have lunch the next day with Bryce Huntoon, just two friends getting together at Costello’s to catch up on things.

  While they lunched Cassidy would use Terry’s lockpick and go through Huntoon’s place. Cassidy told him it was a fool’s errand, a waste of time. Terry asked him to humor him, go have a look, just in case. “What’s to lose?” he asked as they parted back on 44th Street. It was a cold and windy night and he thought about Cindy, alone in the country, in front of the fire he’d laid for her before returning to town. When he got home he called her to say good night. She was already asleep but she whispered sweet nothings into the phone. He damn near got in the Ford and drove out there.

  He should have. He should have gone and taken her away and never come back, headed west until they hit the beach at Malibu. He’d have saved all those people who were right on the verge of getting killed because of her …

  But, of course, he didn’t. You just didn’t do things like that.

  He dialed Costello’s from a telephone booth on the corner of 63rd and Lex. Terry came to the phone and said that Colonel Huntoon was at that very moment awaiting his corned beef and cabbage. “I’m not going to find anything,” Cassidy said. “You know that.” But Terry told him just to pop in, have a look around, check the drawers, closets, and particularly the bathroom.

  It was a small brownstone, chopped into eight tiny flats. He checked the number on the mailbox, let himself into the front hallway, climbed the stairs to number six. The wallpaper was striped and the carpet flowered.

  Inside the apartment the shades were drawn. The room was neat and clean, devoid of any sense of life. A clock ticked. The room and its contents might have been purchased directly from a shop window. The carpet was pale and thick. The lamps were sleek ceramic ladies on tiptoe, reminiscent of the twenties. The couch was soft and blotched with big hungry-looking flowers. Lots of blond wood curled around them and held the package together. It didn’t look as if anyone had ever actually sat on it. A couple of standard reproductions of vaguely jungle-ish scenes with big cats staring out hung on the pale gray walls within their blond scrubbed wood frames. The kitchen gave the overall impression that no one had ever eaten a meal in the flat, either. A couple of bottles of Scotch, a White Horse and a Black and White, stood on the counter. In the fridge he found cheese, apples, a bottle of champagne, some butter. A carton of Camels. A bottle of milk.

  In the bedroom everything began to fall apart.

  The double bed was unmade. One pillow was smeared with dark red lipstick. A woman’s nightgown, black and filmy, lay across the rumpled sheet. It was hot in the bedroom. A pair of panties and a slip hung on the back of a chair. Saks and Bergdorf’s. On the bedside table there was a box of Trojan rubbers, opened. On the table at the other side of the bed was a jar of hand cream.

  The bathroom. A pair of woman’s stockings hung over a towel rack. Under the sink a box of Kotex, almost empty. In the medicine cabinet a tube of dark red lipstick, new. A thick tortoiseshell comb lay on the washstand. A strand or two of long, almost white hair, soft and silky, was entwined amon
g the teeth.

  There was a small bottle of perfume on the back of the washbasin. He withdrew the stopper and held the bottle to his nose. It was the kind of bottle a woman carries in her purse, an amber glass bottle encased in elegant silver filigree. She would transfer her perfume to such a delicate container, using a miniature silver funnel. He stood smelling the exquisite, familiar, unmistakable scent … remembered seeing the bottle somewhere before …

  He stayed in the bathroom for a long time. He tried to take it like a man, tried to be tough-minded and realistic. Then he went to the toilet, leaned over, legs shaking, and vomited.

  Back at the office Terry found Cassidy at his desk staring out the window. “You, my friend,” he said, “look like hell.” He went to his desk, looked back as if he’d felt a sudden twinge from the bullet he carried around. “Uh-oh,” he said.

  “You can say that again,” Cassidy said.

  “Okay, I get the picture. Buck up, come on, come on. We’re going out for a bracer. Rub o’ the Brush.”

  Cassidy had to smile at that, no matter what. Terry the movie fan, quoting one of his favorites. Walter Brennan as Judge Roy Bean in The Westerner. Gary Cooper took a drink at the judge’s bar, asked what the judge called the stuff. Rub o’ the Brush. He had to smile.