Stone Cold Blonde

by Lawrence Lariar

  “Get up!” she said.

  “You play too rough,” I said. “If you want to hit me, come down here. I’m sick of falling.”

  “Schwein!” she said, and ran quickly to Paul Simoneck, kneeling at his head and cooing strange foreign endearments over him. With her free hand she flipped open her bag and began to mop blood where I had begun the good work. She jumped to her feet and came toward me suddenly, the gun trembling in her hand.

  “I shall kill you for this!” she whispered. “I shall kill you.”

  “Take it easy. I didn’t slug the old guy.”

  “Get up, you beast!”

  “Oh no, lady. Like I said, I’m not playing anymore.”

  “Schwein!”

  Her lip curled over the dirty word. She had a broad and sensuous mouth, and the bright lipstick on her lips exaggerated it. Her face was pale and bloodless, much too sick and white for a woman of her size, as though she had ducked it into a barrel of powder and forgot to rub off the residue. She had flashing black eyes, as dark as the bottom of a well. She blinked them at me, breathing hard, her whole giant figure alive with the effort of breathing, like a channel swimmer on the last gasp for shore. There was a slight noise from the old man, and she wheeled to stare at him. It was only a minor gesture. But it was enough for me. I bounded up at her, reaching for that gun.

  I caught the gun and wrenched it out of her hand, but it fell away from us as we struggled. She was bigger and heavier than I thought, a mountain of a girl, as hard and tough as any man. She rubbed up against me, but I felt no yen in the rubbing. She made me feel foolish wrestling her around. But she was forcing the fight. She caught me under the heart with a right, almost making me scream with the pain of her fist. I yanked hard at her free hand and worked it around so that I was behind her. She groaned and blubbered at me in a series of European curses. I pushed up on the arm and she yelped with pain. But she wasn’t licked. Not yet. She heaved me to the floor and put a knee in my groin, an unladylike pose, but there was enough avoirdupois behind that knee to take my appendix out. I kicked up at her, measuring the round curve of her buttocks for the effort. She was making me sore. So sore that I missed her elegant can. But I had the range now and it was becoming increasingly more important to injure her. Before she squeezed the tongue out of my mouth.

  Then she froze.

  The old man was on his feet. “Stop,” he said. “Lisa, stop. This man has done nothing to me.”

  The tableau was laughable. Lisa lay all over me. I had her caught in a scissors that barely reached around her solid waist. I released the pressure on her torso and she unhinged her muscles. She was top lady in a wrestling act. But I was no opponent. Her head was down close to mine and her hair fell over her pallid face and she had both hands on my throat. The pressure went out of them and she was limp and motionless now. She pulled herself off me and adjusted her skirts on the way up. One of her stockings was ripped clear up to her thighs. She went over to the couch and began to whimper in a high, girlish crescendo of sadness. Paul Simoneck put a thin arm around her and patted her gently.

  “Lisa thought you had done this to me,” he said.

  “Lisa has a bad temper.”

  “Oh, not at all, not at all. But I cannot blame her for what she did. I have been bothered …” He caught himself, his hand to his mouth, as though his uppers might be on the way out.

  I said, “You’ve been bothered by Bryant before?”

  Lisa sat up stiffly and burned her eyes into me. “You know him?”

  “I know his reputation. I saw him come in here.”

  “He is a brutal fellow,” Paul Simoneck said. “It reminded me of other brutes I’ve known—in Vienna. There was no need for him to strike an old man. Such violence, it is hateful. If I were only a little younger, I would have handled him myself.”

  “What did he want, Mr. Simoneck?”

  “Ah, you know my name?” His high forehead filled with a long row of corrugations. He took off his glasses and puffed at them and polished them, the kind of lenses that make a man’s eyes bung. He had on a pale vest, complete with large onyx ornament dangling on a silver chain. He was wearing a broad-striped shirt and a heavy stickpin, some kind of a scarab, with small red stones and bright gold. He stared at me with the open-eyed curiosity of a cow over a daisy. “Do I know you, sir? I am afraid not.”

  “I know you. Paul Simoneck is a famous name in the jewelry business, sir. Especially diamonds.”

  I got no rise out of him.

  “Yes, a long time ago,” he said. “But they have forgotten me now.” He accepted a beaker of schnapps from Lisa. She handed me a twin, but she didn’t look at me when she gave it to me. She returned to the couch and clasped her hands over her knees and gave them her full attention. Paul Simoneck emptied his glass and put it down. “You have something for me? Some business?”

  “Maybe. Maybe I have bad news for you.”

  “Bad news?” He had a quick eye, over expressive and adjusted to complement his European accent. “What would that be?”

  “Gus Bryant.”

  I was watching the girl. Her hands knotted tighter on her knees as I said the name. She glared up at me sharply and did things to her lower lip, the way a small animal would gnaw on a slice of lettuce. Only it was her lips she was gnawing.

  “You know him?” Paul Simoneck asked.

  “Well enough.”

  “I do not understand,” Paul Simoneck said, filling his face full of incredulity and then letting it change to caution that bordered on fear. “You are not another one of his—his men?”

  Lisa was on her feet. “Let us get him out of here, Uncle. Let us get rid of him, now, before it is too late.”

  I disregarded her. I gave her my back and continued my little exchange with her uncle. “You mean some of his boys have been down here, too? Which one? Vincetti?”

  “I did not say that.”

  “You hinted, Uncle. You thought I was another one of Bryant’s men, didn’t you? That means you’ve already been contacted by one. And the only really efficient contact man he has is Hands Vincetti.” Lisa had stepped out from behind me and was now hovering around her uncle, in the manner of a great protective bird who circles her nest. But if she was a bird at all, she was some sort of marauding raven, black and sharp and equipped with digging talons. I said, “Better tell Lisa to sit down, Uncle. She’s knocking herself out trying to scare me, but I don’t scare easily.”

  Paul Simoneck muttered something to her in a foreign tongue, a quick and sibilant order. She took up her perch on the edge of the couch again, as stony-eyed as a lynx over a hamburger.

  I said, “Let’s lay it on the line, Simoneck. Bryant came down here for a lead on the Vree pendant. Check?”

  “The Vree pendant?”

  He was a good actor. His pale face mirrored only befuddlement, accented by the movement of his eyebrows, up high along the corrugations on his pate. But I wasn’t watching Paul Simoneck. Lisa would be the true reflex in this scene. Over his shoulder. Six feet away. Something moved on her face, a little tic, an uncontrolled muscle close to her broad lower lip. In the electric moment, she caught me measuring her, and she lowered her eyes and began to chew that lip again, fighting for control. It came through in her hands. They were tightly knotted now, the big bones showing clearly, as though she were trying to squeeze the marrow out of her fingers.

  “The Vree pendant,” I said. “You know it?”

  “Oh, but of course,” he breathed. “Who does not know of such a famous jewel? But of course.”

  “Stop playing cute, Simoneck. Gus Bryant almost beat your brains in because of the Vree pendant, didn’t he?”

  “That is not true.”

  “Then break it down for me. Why did Bryant come down here?”

  “You go too far,” Paul Simoneck said, almost apologetically. “I am not forc
ed to answer your questions. Who are you? And what do you want?”

  “That is better,” Lisa said, on her feet again.

  “My name is Conacher, and I’m a private investigator, and unless you tell your niece to sit down, I’m going to trip her again and squat all over her, Uncle. She bothers me.” She had her eye on the gun now. I could see her licking her lips over her little secret. The gun was over near the window. “Do we play nice, or must I show her a couple of judo holds?”

  She started for the window, as quick as a snake. But I dove down ahead of her and made the gun before her third stride. I sat there, feeling stupid but much more comfortable with the little automatic in my hand. I pointed it up at her, aimed at her nasty teeth, and she took a step backward and another one, until she was close to Uncle again. I got up and walked into her, letting her feel the nose of it in her navel.

  She sat down without a word. But there was mayhem in her eyes. She glared at the rug and then spat with precision, not two inches from my shoes.

  “Now we’ll begin it all over again,” I said. “I know why Gus Bryant came down here, Simoneck.”

  The girl pulled at his sleeve. “Do not talk to him,” she said. “Do not answer him at all, Uncle.”

  Simoneck removed her hand gently. “It is all right, Lisa. Everything will be all right.”

  I said, “Gus Bryant walked in here and asked you to spill what you knew about the Vree pendant—is that it, Simoneck?”

  “Why do you listen to him?” the girl insisted. “Tell him to leave at once. You could call the police and put him out.”

  “But you must have told Bryant that you didn’t know anything,” I continued, “and he didn’t believe you. Why should he? You’re pretty well known as the best gem expert in New York. You’re an old pro at breaking up clusters like the Vree piece.”

  “Am I?” Simoneck asked. “Is that my reputation?”

  “I’ve heard your name around town,” I said. “A couple of years ago you made the newspapers, but the city dicks didn’t quite grab you, did they, Simoneck?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He shrugged.

  “I’ll break it down for you. The last time I heard your name mentioned, it was in connection with the Gargan stones. A couple of fancy boys pulled a fancy job over at The Waldorf, and Mrs. Mortimer Gargan lost a pretty valuable necklace. It was big time stuff, almost as big as the Vree cluster. There was a lot of soft talk around town about a certain refugee gem expert who had done a fantastically quick job on the Gargan stones. The boys down at Headquarters had all sorts of clues on that case, and one or two stray leads pointed downtown, in your direction. But they never quite made anything of it because you were wise enough to keep your nose clean down here. You took the work out, somehow. You fooled them neatly, Simoneck. But maybe you won’t fool them again. I’ll tell you a little secret, my friend—they’re watching you. One of these days you’re going to make a slight misstep and the boys in blue will be down here and they’ll nail you for it.”

  Simoneck shrugged and smiled and cracked his knuckles. “The police are always good at making theoretical moves,” he said. “They are also experts at assembling dossiers about people whom they suspect. But I do not worry about them. I have done nothing wrong, ever since I arrived in this country.”

  “Let it pass,” I said. “I’m doing you a favor, whether you like it or not. If you’re in on this Vree deal, you can let your conscience be your guide. What you do about those stones doesn’t concern me.”

  “You honestly do not care about the Vree jewels?”

  “I’m only interested in what Gus Bryant might have done when he came down here to see you.”

  “You are a clever man,” said Simoneck.

  “I’m just stabbing,” I said. “The way I figure it, Gus Bryant came down here and asked you nicely at first. All he wanted to know was whether you had worked on the Vree job, whether you had broken it up. What did you tell him?”

  “You are doing fairly well without any help from me,” said Simoneck. “What do you imagine that I told him?”

  “I imagine you told him that you didn’t know a thing about it. And that must have made him boil up a bit, so he began to smack you around, figuring you’d spill your guts after a few pokes in the mush. But Bryant forgot that you’ve had experience with strong-arm boys across the water. He forgot you’ve handled bigger brutes than he is—the Hitler Storm Troop goniffs. So he slapped you once and he slapped you again, until you were out cold. But you didn’t spill.”

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “I’m positive,” I said. “You don’t react to violence, isn’t that it?”

  He was listening to me with a half-smile, an almost tender enjoyment on his thin lips, the way papa listens to a small boy reciting the Gettysburg Address.

  “You are right,” he said. “I do not react favorably to the methods Herr Bryant used.”

  “And before Bryant—didn’t Hands Vincetti come down here to annoy you?”

  “I do not recall the name.”

  “But you’ll recall the face and the figure,” I said. “A big man—a man who looks like an animal?”

  “That was Vincetti?”

  “The same,” I said. “He gave you a going-over?”

  “He was worse than Bryant.” He nodded. His eyes were closed and the horror in his mental image of Vincetti brought out the wrinkles on his brow. It took a long moment for his pinched old face to return to normal. Then he opened his eyes and surveyed me with a shrewdness that was not unfriendly. “And what about you, my friend?”

  “My pitch is different,” I said. “I don’t go in for muscle-man routines—maybe because I haven’t got the lard for it. Maybe I’m down here to help you.”

  “How do you know that I need help?” he asked.

  “You’re going to need help before this Vree deal is finished,” I said.

  “So? But why should you help me?”

  “Helping you is taking no skin off my teeth. We can do things for each other.”

  “Can we? Or are you here because you want the Vree jewels—and think that I have them hidden somewhere in my home?”

  “I don’t give a hoot in hell for the Vree cluster!”

  Lisa had lit a cigarette and was puffing it madly. She smoked fanatically, the cigarette shoved a good half inch into her lips, as though she might chew it and gulp it at any moment. Now she took it out of her mouth and exhaled a high pressure burst of smoke, and stopped to look up at me, caught and held by my last remark.

  “He lies,” she said.

  “Please, Lisa,” said Paul Simoneck, impatient with her now. “I must ask you to be quiet.”

  “But he is bad, I tell you. As bad as the others.”

  “Oh, I’m a bad, bad boy,” I said.

  “You must forgive Lisa,” Paul Simoneck said. “You should try to remember that Lisa, too, went through the same experience that I did, Herr Conacher. But she was such a young child when it happened. It has made an indelible mark on her—on her personality. She was subjected to violences that children in this great country never experience, thank the Lord. It will take much time for her to forget.” He turned to her and shook his head. “If she will ever forget at all, my poor Lisa.”

  She began to weep now, burying her face in her hands, the way a kid does. He went to her and patted her but the sobbing did not let up, great heaves of emotion that shook her all the way along the line of her big frame. He began to whisper to her, gently, but with a certain amount of force, until the racking sobs died away and she turned her white face up to him. There were reddish rims around her eyes now and the blubbering had upset her mouth make-up. He helped her to her feet and led her off through the dining room. I saw him give her a final pat out in the hall as she started up the stairs.

  “She will take a sleeping tablet and rest no
w,” Paul Simoneck said sadly. “It is a tragic thing with her, Herr Conacher. A ruined child is a ruined woman, nein?” He filled our glasses with another drink of schnapps. He lifted his liquor in an unspoken toast and downed it in one slick swallow, smacking his lips and licking at them with a delicate tongue. “And now? You were saying?”

  “I was saying that I don’t give a hoot in hell for the Vree pendant, remember?”

  “So? And yet you are a private investigator?”

  “Want to see my papers?”

  He waved the idea away. “Who is your client?”

  “Don’t let my wild, laughing eyes deceive you, Simoneck. You don’t think I’d be sucker enough to tell you who hired me?”

  “And why not?”

  “Private detectives just don’t play that way.”

  “Ah? So? Ethics?”

  “Ethics,” I said. “Just like the ethics that kept your lip zippered when Gus Bryant tried to make you tell the customer who ordered you to break up the Vree cluster.”

  He shrugged that one away, too. “I have not admitted that fact, Herr Conacher.”

  “You don’t have to admit it. Not to me.”

  “I am beginning to understand.”

  “Good. Maybe we can do business. Maybe we can get somewhere if you forget about the pendant.”

  “It is forgotten,” Paul Simoneck agreed. “And now?”

  “I just have one question, Simoneck. You see, my client is interested only in Gus Bryant.” I threw it at him and let it ride around in his intellect for a while. He took it and it seemed to sit well with him. I said, “You wouldn’t resent my asking you a few questions about Bryant, would you? It could be that your answers might put the fix on Bryant.”

  “The fix?”

  “Jail,” I said. “It might be pretty cute if you helped me just enough so that Bryant could be sent up.”

  The prospect warmed Paul Simoneck’s face. “That would be an undeniable pleasure, Herr Conacher. But how can you be helped by me?”

  “I need background on Bryant. My client wants to know something about Bryant’s operations in the past—during the last five years or so. My client wants to know, for instance, whether Bryant ever came to you with any jewelry problems.”