Stone Cold Blonde

by Lawrence Lariar

  There was little time for further thought. Grace Masterson’s taxi swung to the east and headed for the dignified area of private dwellings in the middle thirties, just off Madison Avenue. I tapped my cabby and brought him to a halt when I saw her bounce out of her cab and run to a doorway, an open doorway, because she did not bother to ring, but entered immediately. Her driver did not pull away. She had instructed him to wait. I got out and moved into a convenient alley, on the prowl for a quick look at the address.

  I had no time for exploration. She came out almost immediately.

  And Ashforth was with her!

  CHAPTER 18

  Sutton Place is a barren concrete corridor in the small hours of the morning. The residential activity is at its lowest ebb, the parties finished, the night clubbers bedded down, the slick and snobbish cars tucked away in convenient garages. A few lights were yet burning, dotting the stone piles with occasional oblongs of yellow, the high-class insomniacs still stirring in their lush cubicles.

  I had walked quickly from the corner, but there was no need for speed. I knew where Ashforth and Grace Masterson were bound. They had disappeared into the modern fastness that was Alice V.’s duplex. The façade or her notorious nest was well known to me, along with thousands of other New Yorkers who found some interest in the magazines of house and garden. Alice V.’s place had been an architect’s dream of delight. Crunzi, the imported playboy among the avant garde builders, had been hired by Alice V. to convert an old brownstone into a modern masterpiece. He had done well by her. The entire front of the old house had been ripped away, to be replaced by the smoothly swank surfaced slate that gave the place the air of a museum, with immense picture windows on each floor, each of them draped against the prying eye. But there was light behind the big window on the second floor. There were people up there. People I had to see.

  I crossed the street and examined the long car parked at the curbing. It was a Caddy, of the latest vintage, a roadster that featured zebra seat covers and enough chrome to blind an astigmatic driver. On the door, in aristocratic paint, a decorative chunk of heraldry insinuated the owner’s classic background: a griffon and a bear rampant on a field of crimson. I resisted the urge to poke around inside. There wasn’t too much time.

  Alice V. was expecting company. The fancy door was unlocked and nobody bothered me when I stepped inside and through another door and into a foyer. It was dimly lit, a decorator’s delight, compounded of offshade blues and subtle greens, as warm as the bottom of a herring’s behind. The rug was deep and lush, a gray carpet of silence as I stepped along and off to the right, where the stairway beckoned. From somewhere up above, the distant buzz of voices sounded through the walls, only a murmur from where I stood.

  The stairs ended in another small anteroom, completely dark save for the beam of light from the room beyond, a narrow slice of brightness that I avoided. I stood listening and the voices were close at hand now, rising and falling in the heat of a dramatic exchange, four voices, three of them familiar. The fourth I knew only by a reputation, but the sound of it was enough to start my stomach heaving and bring back the flood of hate and anger that made me toy with the automatic in my right jacket pocket. My fingers were sweating as I listened. It would be good to cock that gun from here, to shoot out, only once, and watch his face twitch with the sickness of the bullet in his guts. It would be good to shoot him again, this time in the head, in the spot where he had mortally wounded Abe Feldman. But I pulled my hand away, rubbing the itch off on my pants. I would save that piece of business for later. This moment called for a simpler pitch.

  I stepped forward into the living room.

  I was aware of Ashforth’s uninhibited scream as I walked in. I did not walk too far. I advanced less than a half dozen steps and slightly to the right, so that I could see them all and also see the doorway. I did not want anybody behind me.

  “For the Lord’s sake,” said Ashforth. “Just look who’s here!”

  Alice V. Christie put down the drink she was sipping. She dropped it with a flat slap on the coffee table, as though it might have fallen to the floor if the table hadn’t been there.

  “What a delightful surprise,” she said. “What on earth brings you here at this hour?”

  “Maybe he came up to hear your record collection,” Ashforth giggled.

  I let it pass. I was too busy watching Gus Bryant on the long couch at the window, close to where Grace Masterson was sitting. He straightened up, smiling like an amateur comic before the hook falls around his neck. His lips curled with what was supposed to convey lightness and insouciance: his camera smile, the old college try. He had handed Grace Masterson his drink and now he was on his feet, his hands in his pants, rocking a little.

  “I thought you said this was a private party, Alice?” he asked. His voice was level and cool and he kept his eyes on her, as though I might have been a delivery boy, up from the corner delicatessen store with some sandwiches and pickles.

  She introduced us with the unruffled poise of a hostess at a tea party. “This is Steve Conacher,” she said. “You know who he is, Gus.”

  “Is this the Conacher you were talking about?”

  “The same,” said Alice. “Mr. Conacher is a detective, a private investigator.”

  “I don’t like private eyes,” Gus said. “Their noses are too long—and they smell bad.”

  “Mr. Conacher is one of the finer varieties,” Alice V. said. “To know him is to love him.”

  “He’s perfectly charming,” Ashforth said. “Not at all like the run-of-the-mill detectives. Little Stevie is clever, real clever. I do believe that he’s one of the smartest of his species I’ve ever encountered.”

  “They’re all alike,” said Gus Bryant. “I can smell them from two miles off on a clear day.”

  I only half heard his nasty dialogue. I was too busy watching Grace Masterson. There was something in the scene that didn’t sit well with her. Her eyes were doing a travelogue, from Alice V. to Ashforth and back to the edge of her knees, where her hands clutched the two glasses. The whiteness of her knuckles was visible from all the way across the room and she was chewing her lip again.

  “Well,” said Alice V. “Grace tells me that this detective is worth knowing, Gus. Even you could use him, I’ll bet.”

  She came my way and put her hand on my arm. It was an affectionate gesture that made my flesh crawl, like the touch of a cobra around a rabbit. She must have felt my arm go tight under the pressure, because she let go of me. “This man is a genius at tracking down missing persons,” she said. “I never dreamed any detective could do what he did, until Grace walked in here a few minutes ago. He tracked down her husband in less than a day—a fantastic record.”

  “Positively fabulous,” said Ashforth. “How on earth did you ever manage it, Conacher?”

  “I can manage anything for money.”

  “And he’s modest,” laughed Alice V. “The first modest detective I’ve ever met. Even though he is the hungriest for money, too.”

  “An unhealthy combination,” said Gus Bryant.

  “Not for me,” I said. “Give me enough loot and I don’t need vitamins.”

  “Isn’t he the funniest?” said Ashforth, chuckling in his high falsetto, a yelp of delight. “He positively leaves me limp.”

  Alice V. closed her eyes on that one, smiling a stiff little smile. She said, “His humor is sometimes a little forced, however. And his ethics are a bit queer. He forgets that when a man makes a contract, he must live up to it.”

  I waited for her to open her eyes and then I said, “I have a bad memory for contracts. Especially with lady lawyers.”

  “You don’t really mean that,” Alice V. said. She was as cool as her highball glass. “I am at a complete loss to understand your conduct, Steve. After all, we made a friendly deal, didn’t we?”

  “Maybe we were friends when we
made it.”

  “But were still friends. I don’t object to your trying for a holdup on this case. Business is business, and even detectives can learn the commercial tricks. But you don’t expect Grace to up your price to ten thousand dollars, for God’s sake. It isn’t human.”

  She was talking it out to Gus Bryant, really. And, the tableau was set for high comedy, from the way he nodded at her, bobbing his crew cut in the manner of a sage, as though they were discussing the misadventures of a bad schoolboy. The sound of her voice, droning along in a legalistic argument, was as out of place as a crooner selling bagels on a street corner. The scene was beginning to wear on me. Alice V. was dressed for solitude. She must have been startled when Grace Masterson phoned that she was on the way over. She must have been too startled to sit for long over the make-up table. She had neglected her face and without the powder and paint her years came through and the little wrinkles alongside her eyes robbed her of her cosmetic perfection. She was only a fading matron now, without the girdle on. She had flung a house coat over her nightie, but the bulges were visible. Her mouth, without the accustomed lipstick smear, was thin-lipped and mean, the hard cruel lines of a frustrated virago.

  I said, “Mrs. Masterson has told you what I expect. Do I get the dough, or do you want me to waltz out of here? Frank Masterson will be crawling out of his current hole sooner than you expect. If you want him, you’ll pay for him. And you’ll pay my price.”

  “Oh, come now,” Alice V. said. “Be reasonable, Steve. You’ll settle for less, won’t you?”

  “My price is still ten grand.”

  “Will you take five?”

  “I won’t take nine ninety-nine, ninety-nine.”

  “We’ll go seventy-five hundred, but not a cent more.”

  “I’ll tell you a little secret,” I said. “You’ll go ten grand, and you’ll get it up now, or I’ll be bidding you good morning.”

  The silence blossomed around me. There was a quick exchange between Alice V. and Gus Bryant, an eye flick that meant something I wasn’t supposed to understand. But I caught it, despite the fact that I was watching Grace Masterson, waiting for her to raise her head and say something, anything, some little paragraph that I could pick up and spit back in her face. She said nothing. Nor did she join the optic parley. Her face was a shade pinker than it should have been, like a small girl caught stealing soap in the little boys’ room.

  “This is a bit out of my league,” Alice V. was saying. “What would you do if you were me, Gus?”

  “Ten grand is a lot of loot for less than a day’s work,” Gus said. “Once I paid out a bit more than that for a job done in less time, Conacher. But the guy who got the dough didn’t live long to spend it. He started sliding. He got bad habits and slid so fast and so deep that they found him out off Freeport in Great South Bay one sunny afternoon. A character in a fishing boat pulled him out and he looked awfully tired. Somebody had tied a load of dead weights to his ankles. Somebody had filled his fat gut full of lead and dropped him over board for the fishes to nibble at.” He sighed loudly. “Sometimes ten grand is just too much dough for a man your size.”

  “I’m a growing boy,” I said. “And I like pretty things.”

  “You don’t want to stunt your growth.”

  I shrugged it off, not wanting to let go of myself with him. Not yet. There would be time for him later, after the money was on the table. He was staring at me with his chin out, waiting for the next line in our tête-á-tête. I allowed him to burn on a slow fire, enjoying his restlessness. He had his bands out of his pockets and was cracking his knuckles at me. Alice V. was at the bar, mixing a drink. She waved me to a seat.

  I said, “Pretty soon it’ll be light and Frank Masterson will get up and begin twitching. I’m not making any guarantees unless the dough is in my hand before the sun comes up.”

  Alice V. gave me my drink. I stood it on the edge of the mantel, under a picture of a flying virgin pursued by seven satyrs, all of them leaping with lust in their eyes. There was a little clock on the ledge, a French timepiece. It began to bong. Five times. The long window behind Grace Masterson was starting to gray up, the hint of morning lightening the edges of the silhouetted buildings beyond.

  Alice V. said, “I’m glad you dropped up, Gus. I don’t know what I’d have done without you. Mr. Conacher has got me over a barrel and I’m afraid I’ll have to pay off. That is, if you have that much money on you.”

  “I have it,” Gus Bryant said.

  “Count it out,” I said. “On the coffee table.”

  “Ten thousand dollars,” Ashforth whispered to his fingers. “What a horribly fabulous amount of money.”

  Gus Bryant had his wallet out. He slapped it in his palm, scowling at me. He continued to slap it as he talked. “How do we know this character won’t slip you a Mickey on the deal? He did it before. Maybe he’ll do it again. I don’t trust the short pants operators, Alice. If I were you, I’d make damned sure you’re going to get what you’re paying for.”

  I said, “What’s the matter, Bryant? You worried that she won’t pay you back? Why don’t you mind your own business and lend the lady the money?”

  “You’re talking too big for your britches,” Bryant said. He had the money out. It was in his hand and he was flapping it around. But he wasn’t counting. Not yet. I had stung him and his pin-point black eyes were burning mad. He said, “If this was my deal, I’d push your pretty face in, Conacher.”

  “Let’s call it your deal.”

  Alice V. stepped between us. She said, “Boys, boys, boys. We can conduct this business, without getting emotional. What’s bothering you, Steve?”

  I said, “Maybe it’s your choice of friends. I didn’t expect to find Bryant here.”

  “Gus and I have known each other for years and years,” she smiled. “Perhaps you remember the Gregg case, way back in the middle thirties? I defended Gus in that trial, and we’ve been good friends ever since. When Grace Masterson called me and told me the fee you wanted, I phoned Gus immediately, because he’s the only man I know in New York who would possibly have that much money in cold cash.” She was singing it out nicely, in the tone of voice she used to sway jurors. It came through in smooth, well-mouthed syllables, and when it was all over she was watching me to observe the effect of her monologue. She said, “Now let’s get this business over with, before our little bird has flown his coop.”

  “Now you’re talking sense,” I said.

  Gus Bryant seemed to lose his bumptiousness after her brief oiling. He sat down and leaned over the coffee table, counting out the money. It would take time. Ten thousand dollars is a wad of century notes, and he handled them with great delicacy, riffling each of them, fingering them, dropping them in a measured beat. The air was tight around him. Ashforth stood at the other end of the couch, his dumpy frame half bent, his eyes wide with wonder as he licked his lips over the growing stacks of green stuff. Grace Masterson left her seat at the window. She gave me her back, staring out at the skyline as though she expected the man from Mars. Alice V. had returned to the bar, where she filled her glass again and now sipped her drink with an air of detachment, her body loose and well poised. It was a moment of building tension. In another moment, he would be handing me the collected piles of loot. It would be time for the pay-off. The back of my mouth felt suddenly dry and I adjusted my hand so that I could feel the hard and reassuring lump of automatic in my pocket.

  And then Gus Bryant looked up at me.

  “There’s your dough, laughing boy,” he said. “Ten thousand bucks in century notes. Or do you want me to hire a teller to count them?”

  “Tellers don’t get up this early,” I said. “Or I would have brought one with me.”

  I reached for the bills and began to stuff them away in my suit. Grace Masterson was watching me now. Alice V. put down her whisky glass. Ashforth stepped back, his cute
mouth pursed in a pretty pout.

  “Now then, where is Frank Masterson?” Alice V. asked.

  I had the last bundle in my hand, stuffing it into my inside jacket pocket. The gun was in there. I put my fingers around it tenderly. I brought it out and showed it to them, taking three steps backward as I made the gesture.

  I said, “Over to the window, all four of you!”

  “The dirty little bastard!” Gus Bryant said. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Alice.”

  “What’s the meaning of this routine, Steve?” Alice V. asked.

  “Over to the window,” I said. “And keep your arms up, all of you. This popgun will go off at the slightest provocation.”

  I made them backstep, pushing the rod into Ashforth’s soft groin, so that he sucked in air like a blowfish out of water. I frisked him quickly and did the same with Bryant. There were no guns on them. I stepped back to the center of the room and surveyed my handiwork. There were running sparks of angered surprise in Alice V.’s eyes, but what I saw in Bryant’s piglike optics almost made me laugh out loud. He was scared. He was as white as Monday’s wash. The arrogance had fled his face and something nameless but sickening was taking command of his entire body. He would be fidgeting soon. I looked forward to the pastime I would have with him the final second when I would lash out at him and level him. The way he had leveled Abe Feldman.

  I said, “Scared, Bryant? You’re shaking like Patty Price on opening night.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.

  “I’m not really talking yet. I’m thinking. I’m thinking of what I’m going to do to your dandy little collegiate puss.”

  “What goes on with you?” Alice V. said. “You’ve got your money. What’s eating you, Steve?”

  “Conacher,” I said. “From here on out it’ll be Conacher to you, sister.”

  “I do believe the man has gone mad,” Ashforth said. “Stark, raving mad.”