Which would’ve left me looking and feeling like a prize shmoe. And we’re all entitled to a bit of vanity. Especially when I wasn’t exactly popular in one or two places and there were a few characters who’d have liked to see me fall flat on my face so they could give me the big laugh.
On the other hand, I might’ve said, “Phooey!” and crawled back under the bedclothes and given the whole business a miss. Yeh . . . I might’ve done. But I’ve got to to go on living with myself. Sometimes it’s hard enough as is it. And, stranger or no stranger, if Judith had been on the level I wouldn’t have been able to sleep nights from then on.
Inside my head, I kept asking myself “. . . Why me?” And a little voice began to join in and tell me I was a sucker for a dame . . . any dame . . . day or night . . . drunk or sober. . . . I suddenly realised that I could’ve used a drink at that. As the elevator slid to a smooth stop, I was hoping Judith wouldn’t have forgotten the traveller in the night.
The carpet on the hallway was soft and close-woven. I left the elevator doors open, took a peek both ways to see how the numbers ran, and went left. Miss Judith Walker’s apartment was the fourth door. Like all the others, nothing stirred behind it.
Below her name-plate there was a tiny ivorine button with a raised metal surround in gilt. I touched it lightly, once. Inside the apartment, a bell chimed two musical notes. The echoing sound hung in the air for a long time. It hadn’t died away completely when I pushed the button again.
Maybe I waited a minute after that before I came to the conclusion that playing musical boxes wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Miss Walker wasn’t receiving callers. Or she slept very soundly. . . . That was a train of thought I didn’t want to pursue.
Or she had gone out. Asking myself why she should’ve gone out and where wasn’t likely to produce results, either. A dame who can call a strange guy at two in the morning and discuss suicide can do anything.
But she’d told me to hurry. And I could still hear her saying “. . . There’s a limit. . .” in a plaintive voice that had stayed in my mind ever since.
About then, I discovered something that was quite a help. Whether she was at home or abroad, she’d left me an invitation to go on in. The door wasn’t locked.
I took my hand off the knob and pushed gently with one finger. Somewhere farther along the hallway a guy made sleepy noises and bedsprings creaked. I could hear a clock ticking where no clock had ticked before . . . a far-off truck ground its way into the distance in low gear . . . under my feet, a floorboard complained . . . the door swung wide.
It was a comfortably furnished living-room with tasteful decorations and one or two pieces that indicated a certain amount of plush. Miss Judith Walker looked to be well-fixed.
The light was on. Directly facing me was another door. That was open, too. And the light was on in there as well. I had a good view of a reclining bedside chair on one side of a bed and a small hexagonal table on the other. A pair of stockings and a sheer slip had been thrown carelessly on the chair. A brassiere hung over the edge of the seat. Beneath it, a girdle had fallen on to the floor. Not far away, another couple of scraps of underwear lay on the carpet.
A nearly-full bottle of rye stood on the table next to an empty glass and an open handbag and an ashtray. Two cigarettes smouldered in the ashtray. I guess I must’ve been pretty tired. I don’t remember wondering how there came to be two. But I found out soon enough.
In any case I wasn’t very interested right then in cigarettes or ashtrays or even bottles of rye. I was busy making a long-range inspection of the canary who was spread out negligently on top of the bed. Taking a detailed inventory of the furnishings just had to wait: first things come first.
I went in and closed the door. Then I soft-footed into the bedroom. And the nearer I got to her the stronger became the smell of liquor. The atmosphere was thick enough to be stored in a bonded warehouse.
She was lying on her back with her eyes shut and her lips slightly parted. Against the white of the pillow, her dark hair was a shining jet. She had long, curving eyelashes, a fine smooth skin, and faint hollows in the cheeks. Her face was pale and relaxed. Her only make-up was a very artistic mouth.
From north to south she was wearing a nylon nightdress that did more for my temperature than it could’ve done for hers. It wasn’t quite transparent—not quite—but it didn’t take an X-ray camera to see through it. And it must’ve been a Scotsman who had designed the bib-front held in place by a strap of narrow satin ribbon and a lot of will-power. Up till then I’d never believed dames really wore that kind of attire when they went to bed—even on honeymoon. I’d always thought only models wore them when posing for the kind of ads the boys in the army cut out and stick on the wall.
But she was wearing one all right. And I mean all right. What was more, she had long, slim legs and tapered hips and a most attractive chest development. In or out of bed, she was my idea of a honey. The colour of her eyes didn’t make me no difference. But I was sorry about the rye she had spilled on the silk bedspread when she’d dropped her glass beside her. To me, it kind of spoiled things. And the way she stank of the stuff, it couldn’t have been the first glass she’d spilled.
I stooped over her and watched the rise and fall of her breast and listened to her quiet breathing. When I raised one of her eyelids, she didn’t stir. I touched the turned-up pupil but she still didn’t stir.
Her pulse was slow and weak and her skin was cold. It felt clammy like she’d been perspiring a lot. All of which indicated that she’d either had too much alcohol or too many phenobarbs. Or both. And that wasn’t exactly healthy.
I put the glass on the bedside table and spent a few seconds studying the two cigarettes burning themselves out in the ashtray. Two cigarettes . . . and two glasses . . . and one overdone dame in an under-dressed condition. Two and two don’t make one. . . .
All along I’d taken it for granted that she’d been alone when she’d called me. Now I began to get different ideas—crazy ideas. There’d been a guy with her . . . it had to be a guy . . . she wouldn’t have dolled herself up like that to entertain her maiden aunt from Kalamazoo. And they’d had a cosy drink . . . or two . . . and she’d passed out . . . and he’d left her alone displaying her wares in the shop window . . . which rated him a permanent home in the city nut-house.
Yet. . . he had left her. And not so long before I’d arrived. The ash on the cigarettes wasn’t much more than an inch long . . . and the hall door had been unlocked, so he’d taken it on the lam just in time to avoid meeting me . . . which meant he’d been around when she’d said her little piece on the phone and . . . why?
That was it. Why? A lot of why’s. Such as why both cigarettes were daubed with lipstick and why both had the same length of ash and why ash and stub totalled the length of a cigarette as near as dammit. They had been lit but not smoked . . . and they’d been lit by her. She’d laid herself down on top of the bed and slopped rye all over her nightdress and bedspread. It was sticky on her arms and her bare shoulders. There was some on the table as well.
To duck out like he had done, he must’ve been sober. And she slept like the dead because she’d been doped to the eye-balls with sleeping pills. And the phone call had been nothing but a gag. And she hadn’t been drunk when she’d given me that load of hooey about headaches and the end of the road. But she’d talked drunk. That was another why.
Whichever way you look at it, I was Sammy the Sucker. Just a gag—no motive, no reason. But the gag had backfired. I had better than an idea Miss Judith Walker might not wake up again if somebody didn’t get her to hospital. But quick.
Then I got another idea. It could be that I’d been picked as the fall guy. The hour, the dame, and the rye regardless . . . it made a nice set-up . . . if I’d been married . . . and if I’d had a jealous wife . . . and if I were worth blackmailing.
But I wasn’t any one of them. And Judith wouldn’t have carried things quite so far even in the interests of an ar
tistic badger game. . . .
That was when I got a cold feeling right under my belt. Supposing she died . . . and a copper walked in and found me with her . . . and I told him how I came to be there. . . . Yeh, supposing. As an explanation it would smell as high as the Empire State.
The little voice inside me said the best thing I could do would be to get the hell out of it and put in a call to the local precinct from a pay-station not too near. And after that I should mind my own business and go home to my own bed and let Judith do the explaining—if she ever woke up again.
If she didn’t. . . . I wiped my prints off the glass and tried to forget the jockey who’d said it was a lousy night. Maybe he’d be able to give the bulls a working description . . . if they ever caught up with me, they’d want to know why I’d ducked out . . . if I were innocent . . . if I were innocent . . . if I were innocent. . . .
In the next couple of minutes, I concentrated so much on looking at it from their angle that I could almost have believed I was guilty at that. Judith had the looks and I had the reputation. It’s happened before. So long as there’s a dame with what it takes and a guy who wants to take it, it’ll go on happening.
All of which didn’t help me one Chinese damn. The choice was clear: I could either call the police and stick around, or take it on the lam and call them from somewhere else. Unless there was any chance of reviving Judith without outside help . . . then nobody need know . . . and she might tell me the score . . . when she woke up . . . if she woke up.
And that would depend on whether or not she had any salt on the premises. Mustard would serve the same purpose . . . if all else failed, I could feed her lots of hot water until she threw up and rid herself of the dope . . . then she’d need coffee . . . and the quicker I got started, the better her chances.
I stopped worrying about the fingerprints I might’ve left around. When I’d reassured myself she was still breathing, I left her.
The first of the other two doors leading off the living-room opened on to a bathroom. The door alongside it must’ve been the kitchen door. But I never found out for sure. I never saw what was on the other side of that other door.
Because the bathroom was in darkness . . . and I went in and fumbled for the light switch . . . and two things happened simultaneously like they were both controlled by the same button.
I think the light came on although it didn’t have much time to register. And I think I heard the sound of a swift movement before the darkness vanished. What I don’t have any doubt about is the smack on the biscuit someone handed me.
For one blinding moment I felt like an explosive charge had been set off inside my head. There was a light greater than all the million lights of Broadway and it was right behind my eyes. Noise poured in on me—the noise of a rending dissolution. Pain tore me apart.
It lasted for only a tiny fragment of time. I know that now. But right then it seemed that a year went by before someone knocked the four walls away and the ceiling fell in on me.
Maybe I was struck twice on the same spot. I wouldn’t know. All I do know is that I went out like a birthday candle.
Chapter III
Awake to Murder
In the course of my thirty-seven years I’ve had more than a few unhappy awakenings. When a guy makes a habit of going on the jag, he’s entitled to wake up now and again mourning after the night before.
But this was different. This was plain, undiluted hell. This was the screaming meemies and the whoofits and the jim-jams. This was the works.
For a long, long time, I felt real bad. And when at last I managed to sort out my individual symptoms, I discovered I was cuddling a noggin that seemed as big as Cinderella’s pumpkin. I knew if I didn’t hold on to it tight it would fly apart.
To get that kind of a head generally costs a small fortune. And I couldn’t remember where I’d been celebrating . . . or why. After a short communion with myself, I found I couldn’t remember anything. To make things harder, a little guy inside me began singing “. . .and when I die, don’t bury me at all, just steep my bones in alcohol. . . .” His voice had the same effect on me as a pneumatic drill. With every note, another piece of my skull shattered.
When he’d sung the same darn words over and over again like he was never going to stop, it got so’s I couldn’t take it any more. So I took a tighter grip on my head and I said, “Shut up . . . for Pete’s sake, shut up. You’re driving me crazy.”
He did shut up, too. But a different voice said, “The sleeper awakes. And it dishes out orders. Let’s see what else it can say . . . eh?”
Something that felt like a slab of dry salt-cod flip-flapped me on both sides of the face and a vice fastened itself to my shoulder and hauled me upright. Another voice said, “Pour yourself back in the bottle, stew, and pay a bit of attention. You got company.”
I hated that guy. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done to that guy. But I was in no condition even to tell him what I’d have loved to do. All my energy was being used to get my eyes open.
They didn’t want to open. I found out why when they yielded at last.
The bright light in the ceiling was the nearest thing to torture that I’ve ever met. It bored into my eyes and through my scrambled brains and out the back of my head like it was a couple of white-hot drills. I put both hands over my face and took time out to groan.
If I’d expected sympathy, I didn’t get any. A second vice took a grip on my hair and yanked my head back. Somebody said, “Don’t start getting sorry for yourself too soon, bud. You ain’t seen nothing yet. These are just warming-up exercises. I’m gonna get a great big kick out of giving you the working-over of your lifetime.”
His grasp tightened wickedly. I felt like I was being scalped. With a tremendous effort, I took my hands away from my eyes and flung a wild swing in the direction his voice came from.
That was a mistake. It was one of those nights when everything I did turned out to be a mistake. He kept hold of my hair but he let go of my shoulder. Or else he had three hands . . . because one of them gave me a double flip-flap across the face that hurt worse than the first dose.
Through a maze of pain I had a watery picture of him—a hunched-up guy with crude features that included a nose which was all nostrils, a crooked mouth, and little deep-set eyes full of mordant cruelty. I didn’t know him. But I knew what he was without having to inspect the badge in his pocket.
And I’d met his side-kick once or twice. Cooke wasn’t a bad guy as coppers go. He was honest and he wasn’t mean when it came to handing out a break. He was also plenty tough, although you’d never have thought it looking at his baby-blue eyes and his pink cheeks and his half-shy smile.
Like onions go with hamburger, Cooke went with Sullivan. They’d been in twin harness since way back when. And Sullivan was known as a bastard.
He knew I’d placed him soon’s he saw I recognised Cooke. He said, “Feeling better, Dicky? Think you’re well enough to talk—without persuasion?” His hand released my hair and he tapped a rolled-up bunch of fingers on his palm. Judging by his grin, he was ready to enjoy himself.
I pushed myself upright and waited for the walls to stop in one place. Then I took a good look at my surroundings.
I was sprawled in the chair on which Judith’s underwear had been scattered. The door to the bathroom was open. I could see part of a bath and an airing closet and a mirror-fronted cabinet on one wall. What I couldn’t see was any sign of the gink who had slugged me as I felt for the light switch.
Now I remembered everything. And my memories weren’t happy ones. I had better than a hunch that my real troubles were just starting. Something told me I’d been right when I’d suspected I might’ve been chosen as the fall guy.
What reinforced the something was the smell of rye that lay all around me. It was an overpowering reek like I’d been having a bath in the stuff with my clothes on. It reminded me of Judith with liquor on her shoulders and arms and nightdress . . . and on the bedspr
ead . . . and the table. . . .
I was in a worse state than she’d been. The rest of the bottle must’ve been poured into my mouth and allowed to slosh over my collar and shirt and the whole front of my coat. I was a sodden mess of sticky clothing from neck to waist. I stank like a distillery.
When I realised that much, I felt the tender ridge at the back of my head while I belched some of the fumes that wouldn’t stop down. Creeping into my mind was an awareness that I’d either have to box clever . . . or else.
Sullivan said, “. . . Manners. . . . Did you hear me talking to you?” He was still grinning like he didn’t think I could see the joke.
“Yes,” I said, “I heard you. What’s the idea of slapping me around?”
He pulled down the corners of his mouth and glanced sideways at Cooke and made big eyes at him. He said, “Mister Bowman is asking what the idea is. Now, ain’t that funny?”
Cooke didn’t say anything. He just went on staring at me with a faraway look on his schoolboy face.
Somebody was moving here and there behind me. I could hear a lot of quiet little movements coupled with the brush of feet on the carpet and the occasional yielding of a bed-spring. Whoever he was he must’ve been fond of Tchaikovsky. The whole time he was there he hummed bits from Swan Lake ballet very softly under his breath.
I said, “What’s so funny? I came here to try and talk a crazy dame out of committing suicide and some sonovabitch slugged me when I went into the bathroom.”
In a hard, mechanical voice, Sullivan repeated, “You came here to try and talk a crazy dame out of . . .” He drew a long breath and let it out again while his tongue bulged in his cheek. Then he said, “Gee, that’s cute . . . real cute. I often wonder what they’ll think up next.” His deep, cold eyes flitted momentarily to Cooke and he added, “Don’t you?”
Cooke said woodenly, “Who fed her the goofballs?”
The Long Night Page 2