by Day Keene
The red-haired stripper had disappeared as completely as Palmer. The F.B.I., however, had traced Lippy Saltz as far west as Las Vegas and, according to the lead of the reporter who handled the story, Lippy’s apprehension and arrest were expected momentarily.
I washed the lather from my face and looked out the front window again. There was a light in the dining room.
I put on my coat and cap and crossed the drive feeling sorry for Lippy Saltz. I knew how the guy must feel. I’d be looking in the papers, too. From now on. A guy named Jerry Wolkowysk was dead. I’d killed him. The wreckage of his car was certain to be discovered. His body might or might not be found. I wiped sudden sweat from the leather band of my cap. Corliss and I might get away with it. We might not. There were so many little things a man didn’t think of at the time. Little things that bobbed up to sink him.
The bar was still closed but the restaurant part was open for business. A heavy-set older woman, wearing a white nylon uniform with a big purple parrot embroidered on one shoulder, was drawing fresh coffee from an urn. Mamie was drinking orange juice at a table by the window.
I drew out a chair and sat across from her. “Hi.”
“Hi yourself,” she said.
I ordered wheat cakes and eggs and ham. “And my coffee right now, if you please.”
“Yes, sir,” the waitress said.
I drank my coffee looking at Mamie. I didn’t know Meek. I’d only seen him twice, both times at a distance. But unless he had hidden charms, the brunette had fallen on her head when she had married him. With her looks and body, she could have been a lot more choosy.
“Feel better now, sailor?” she asked me.
I asked what she meant by that.
Instead of answering me she said, “I wish I was a man.” She finished her toast and wiped her fingers on her napkin. “A man can do so many things. He can go to sea. He can be a soldier. He can fly.” Her smile turned wry. “He can crawl in and out of beds. He can get drunk and into messes. Then all he has to do is sober up and take a bath and no one thinks less of him.”
“But a woman can’t, huh?”
“No.”
“Why can’t she?”
Mamie lighted a cigarette. “Because she’s supposed to be good. She can’t be half bad like a man can. With a woman it’s all or nothing.”
I grinned over my cup at her. “What’s the idea so early in the morning, kid? You get out on the wrong side of the bed or something?”
She blew smoke at me. “Maybe even the wrong bed. How would you like to do me a favor, Nelson?”
I said that depended on the favor.
She reached across the table and gripped my wrist. With surprising strength for a woman. “When you finish your breakfast, shove off.”
“Why should I?”
“I told you that the first day you made port. I think you’re in danger here.”
“What sort of danger?”
She shook her head slowly. “I can’t tell you that. I don’t know. But I can tell from my husband’s snide remarks that—”
She stopped it there as the swinging doors into the kitchen opened. Meek didn’t look any better close up than he did at a distance. He wasn’t as old as I’d judged him to be. He was a man in his middle or late thirties. His hair was beginning to recede. But from the lines stamped in his thin face, I’d say he hadn’t thrown anything over his shoulder or poured anything down the drain. He looked at us, clearing his throat.
“Number Fourteen is checking out, Mamie,” he said finally.
The brunette opened her mouth to say something, took her hand off my wrist instead, and walked out the door he was holding open for her.
The door swung shut behind them. I looked at my wrist. Mamie’s nails had dug into the flesh. The heavy-set waitress brought my breakfast. The food looked good, but my appetite was gone. I was nervous again, jumpy.
It was the second time Mamie had warned me to shove off. Why? It could be she was jealous. Some women are that way. There couldn’t be any other reason for her to say what she had. She couldn’t know about Jerry Wolkowysk. No one knew that. No one but myself and Corliss.
I pushed my food around the plate, then forced myself to eat. Mamie had to be jealous. That was all it could be. She was as pretty as Corliss. Her body was just as lovely. But Corliss had everything that any woman could want while all she had was a job and Meek.
Sweat beaded on my face. Still, Mamie hadn’t been out on the cliff. That I knew. All she could possibly know about me and Corliss was that Corliss had brought me to the court to keep me out of trouble; that I had got fresh and Corliss had slugged me with a bottle; that Corliss had brought my money to the Palm Grove brig and we might have parked for an hour or so on our way back to the Purple Parrot. And, possibly, that we had taken an early morning ride together.
I pulled the morning paper Mamie had been reading to my side of the table and ordered another cup of coffee.
“How long has Mrs. Meek managed the court?” I asked the waitress.
“I think almost two years,” she told me.
For want of something better to do, I read the Palmer story again. When you got down into the bulk of it, while the F.B.I. might have traced Lippy Saltz as far west as Las Vegas, his imminent apprehension was the reporter’s own idea. The F.B.I. wasn’t talking. There was only one direct quote. That was a statement by a Chicago agent to the effect that one small mistake on Sophia Palanka’s part had given them what pertinent information they had.
One small mistake. That was all it took.
I wondered if I’d made any. I thought of two and really began to sweat.
I’d wiped the wheel of Wolkowysk’s car. Then I’d released the hand brake and used my left hand to steer the car to the lip of the cliff. If the car was found and murder was suspected, my fingerprints were on the brake button release and the left half of the wheel. More, the bloody white pile rug on which Wolkowysk had died was still in the back of Corliss’ car.
I patted my face with my napkin.
“Hot in the sun, isn’t it?” the waitress said pleasantly.
“Yeah. Hot,” I agreed.
I couldn’t do anything about the fingerprints except hope the rocks and waves would grind the Buick to pieces before it was found. The rug was something else. I had to destroy the rug and buy one to replace it as soon as I possibly could.
I dropped two bills on the table to cover the check and tip and walked out and leaned against Wally the barman’s beaten-up Ford.
The wind sweeping across the highway was cool on my face. It felt good. I stood looking at Corliss’ carport, wondering how I could get the rug out of the back. I didn’t see how I could, at least without someone seeing me. I’d have to dispose of the rug on our way to L.A. to be married. But how? How did a man go about getting rid of a bloody three-by-four loop pile rug?
The little things.
I crossed the highway to the beach and walked down it for a quarter of a mile. Maybe I hadn’t been smart in telling Ginty I was washed up with the sea and the line. It took brains to operate a farm. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough to make a living on shore.
Hell. I hadn’t even been smart enough to get on a bus for Hibbing. On the other hand, if I had, I wouldn’t be marrying Corliss.
I walked back down the beach to the Purple Parrot and across the highway to the drive. Corliss’ door was still closed. The blinds on her windows were drawn.
I flipped a mental coin trying to decide whether to go back in the bar and see if I could persuade the heavy-set waitress to sell me a couple of drinks before legal opening time, or try to get a few more hours of sleep. I decided to try for sack time.
The screen door of the office was open. I could hear Mamie crying inside. Meek was pruning a climbing rose with a jackknife. As I came abaft he turned and faced me.
“Just a minute, mate.”
I stopped and looked at him. “Yes?”
He gripped the jackknife like a dagger. “Look. I know
my wife was in your cottage a couple of times the other day. I know you’re a big, good-looking joe, the kind dames go for.”
“So?” I asked him.
“So keep away from my wife from now on.”
I told him the truth. “I haven’t the slightest interest in your wife, friend.”
His face was blue with cold. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his sweater. “Sure. That’s why you were holding hands in the restaurant just now. So I’m warning you. See? Stay away from Mamie.”
I got a little sore. “Or what?”
Meek told me. “Or I’ll stick a knife in you.”
I doubled my fist to hit him, then unclenched it. He was too little for me to hit. I was apt to crack his head like an eggshell. Like I’d caved in Jerry Wolkowysk’s head.
The thought made my breakfast turn over.
“O.K.,” I said and walked on.
Chapter Nine
It was ten when Corliss woke up. It was noon by the time she was dressed and ready to leave for L.A. Her eye looked better than it had when I had kissed her good night. It was still badly puffed, but she’d hidden the discoloring with a good cold cream and powder job. Her sunglasses hid it completely, but every time I looked at her eye I felt better about Wolkowysk.
As we pulled away from the court I asked her how she’d slept.
She said, “I didn’t sleep at all until I’d taken three seconals.” Her lower lip quivered. “It all seems like a bad dream.”
I said, “I’m afraid it wasn’t. I killed the guy and we dumped him. Now it’s fifty-fifty if we beat the law.”
Corliss was indignant. “But think what he did! Certainly that’s against the law. Certainly I had a right to have my future husband defend me.”
I used the lighter to touch off a cigarette and offered her first puff. “I tried to point that out last night. Remember? I wanted to call Sheriff Cooper. But you wanted no part of the law.”
Corliss smoked in silence for a mile. Then she moved closer to me on the seat. “I’m sorry, Swede.” She sounded like a contrite little girl who’d just kicked her playmate’s lollypop into the dust. “I’ve got you into something awful, haven’t I?”
I took the cigarette back. “Anyway, it’s done.”
I was still keeping my speed down and glancing in the rear-vision mirror from time to time. I didn’t want a cop to pick us up before I got rid of the rug.
Corliss laid her hand on my arm. “You still love me? You still want to marry me?”
I patted her hand. “I still love you. I still want to marry you.”
Both statements were true. I’d meant what I’d told Ginty. I was through with the sea. I’d spent eighteen years afloat. And what had it got me? Twelve thousand dollars in cash, which I’d been ready to blow on one last binge. A busted nose, broken in a brawl in Port Said over a Berber wench I wouldn’t have spat on if I’d been sober. A bedding acquaintance with tarts all over the world. In Lisbon, Suez, and Capetown. In Bremen, in London, Murmansk. In Colón, in Rio, in Lima. In Yokohama, in Macao and Brisbane. Starting from scratch every time I shipped out, while other men my age had homes and families. It was time I sent down roots. It was time I stopped spending life as if it were only money. I realized my breathing was labored. Besides, I wouldn’t really feel safe again until Corliss and I were married.
The police could pound on me until both of us were pulp without getting anywhere. I could take it. I knew. I’d been through a lot of fish-bowl sessions. It was different with Corliss. A few hours under the light with smart cops shooting questions at her in relays and she would get hysterical and tell her whole life story. But a wife couldn’t be forced to testify against her husband. And Corliss was the only person in the world who knew I’d killed Wolkowysk.
Her fingers bit into my arm. “Are you as frightened as I am, Swede? Do you feel sort of sick to your stomach?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
She looked back at the wicker basket on the jump seat. “Then why did you have Cora prepare a picnic lunch? I can’t eat a thing. It would choke me.”
I said she’d find out why I’d had the lunch packed in a few minutes, as soon as we came to a suitable stretch of beach. I glanced sideways at her white face. “Now you tell me something, honey. We’re in this thing together. We have to be truthful with each other, don’t we?”
“Of course.”
“Then tell me this. And remember the cops may check and I’ll have to know where I stand. How well did you know Jerry?”
Corliss folded her hands in her lap. “I told you last night, Swede.”
“Tell me again.”
Tears trickled out from under her sunglasses. “I went to one dance with him. In Manhattan Beach. For the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund. I had to fight him all the way home in the car.” The tears rolled faster. “Then, to get even with me, he told it all up and down the highway that I was bad. That I’d do it for twenty dollars. So I went to his place to raise hell. And there you were. Drunk, and hurt, and bloody, but grinning at me. And I forgot what I’d gone there for.”
I handed her my handkerchief. “O.K. That’s fine. Stop crying. Just so I know.”
Her voice was small. “Say you believe me.”
“I believe you.”
I found the kind of beach I wanted just above Oceanside. The highway ran close to the ocean. There wasn’t a house for a mile in either direction. I pulled off the highway on the lee shoulder of the road and helped Corliss out of the car. Then I carried the wicker hamper and a blanket to the beach.
I spread the blanket on the sand and told Corliss to set out the lunch I’d had the heavy-set waitress pack. She thrust out her underlip in a sullen pout but did as she was told. While she was spreading the lunch on the blanket I gathered a big pile of driftwood.
The tide was out. I laid my fire well down on the shingle where the incoming tide would cover and dispose of the ashes. When it was burning well I went back to the car for the rug. Before leaving the court I’d soaked it in gasoline, rolled it into a tight bundle, and wrapped it in newspaper. A dozen motorists saw me carry it from the car to the fire.
“What’s that?” Corliss asked.
“The rug we wrapped Wolkowysk in.”
The color drained from her cheeks. I thought for a minute she was going to faint.
I dropped the rug on the fire. Then I sat down on the blanket beside her and made her take a big drink of the rum-laced coffee in the vacuum bottle. The color came back to her cheeks. She snuggled her hand into mine. I ate a ham sandwich with the other. For the sake of the folks driving by. While we watched the rug burn.
The back of it was rubberized and smelled worse than the cotton, but the wind was blowing offshore. To the folks in the passing cars we were just a sailor and his girl picnicking on a cool day, with a fire to keep us warm.
Back in the car again, Corliss said, “I’m glad you thought of the rug.”
I said, “So am I.” I wished I could do as much for the wheel of Wolkowysk’s car.
The closer we got to L.A., the colder and darker it got. I rolled up the windows and turned on the heater. Corliss rode with her thigh pressed to mine. I could smell the perfume of her hair. It made me think of her hair on the cliff. I began to want her again, driving into Los Angeles through the smog on U.S. 101.
Corliss was as nervous as I was. She picked at the buttons of her coat. She twisted on the seat. I could see her lips move, telling imaginary beads every time we passed a police car.
We came into Anaheim in back of an Ohio car. At the second intersection its driver signaled a right-hand turn from the right-hand lane, then turned left in front of me. I had to stand on the brake to keep from ramming the bastard.
A parked radio car roared off after the foreign license. I drove on, shaken. Corliss began to knead my right thigh in a nervous gesture, setting me on fire.
I snarled at her. “Don’t do that.”
She spat back, “Why not?”
I said, “Because if you
do I’m going to pull over to the curb, and the passers-by will be shocked.”
Her lower lip thrust out. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“If I burn for it,” I told her.
She believed me.
I parked in a three-hour zone on Spring Street. Corliss’ eyes were still sullen. She said, “We’re nowhere near the license bureau.”
“First the rings,” I told her. “It so happens the Nelsons only marry once, and we always do it right.”
The sullen look left her face. Her lower lip quivered as though she were going to cry.
“If you cry I’ll slap you,” I told her.
Her lower lip continued to quiver. She pressed the back of my hand to her cheek. Her voice was small. “With love. From me to you.”
I found a small jewelry store up the block. The lad who owned it took one look at my uniform and, brushing the clerk aside, insisted on waiting on us himself.
“An engagement ring and a wedding band. Right, mate?”
I said, “That’s correct. For cash.”
He dipped back of the counter and came up with a black plush tray of rings.
The one Corliss said she liked best was eighteen hundred dollars. The wedding band came to three hundred more. It was a trifle too large for Corliss’ finger, but she insisted on having it, saying the engagement ring would keep it on.
I counted the cash on the counter, plus the tax, and we were out on Spring Street again, me grinning all over my face. The jeweler had put the rings in small satin-lined white boxes. Out on the walk I took the boxes out of my pocket and reached for Corliss’ left hand.
She put her hand behind her. “No. Not now, Swede. Please.”
“Then when?”
She said, “When we’re married, stupid,” then took the sting out of the name by kissing me. “That is, if you still want to marry me.”
I made a fist and rolled my knuckles across her thigh. Brutally. Hurting her. Making her wince. So there would be no misunderstanding.