Blondes are Skin Deep

by Louis Trimble

  Which put me right back where I had been. She had changed the alibi she offered me the first time I saw her. Probably, I thought, for the benefit of the police.

  I said, “Someone is lying.”

  “I’m not,” she said. She stood up, taking her empty glass across the room. I cupped a hand over mine; it was still half full.

  “Your name,” I said, “is Edna Loomis?”

  “It is.” She turned on me. “I said it was—and it is.”

  I bent down and scratched thoughtfully at my ankle. Sometimes it helped me to think. “How did you manage to get into this hotel?” I asked.

  “It was recommended to me. I like it.”

  “The lobby is enough to scare anyone off.”

  “I was warned about that.”

  “By whom?”

  “Is that any of your business?”

  “Lady,” I said, “anything connected with your name is my business.”

  She decided to show annoyance. She was good at it. Carrying her drink she flounced down on the couch. “I’m tired of having you throw my name at me. What’s wrong with it?”

  I tossed the next one in casually. “It might belong to a murderer.”

  There wasn’t enough reaction. She simply stared, her lips carefully apart. “You think that—of me?”

  I said truthfully, “Right now I don’t think anything. I’m just trying to find something to think about.”

  With a gesture of primness she drew the negligee more carefully about her legs and more tightly around her throat. She sipped at her highball as if it were a cocktail. The telephone rang and she had to get up; it spoiled the effect.

  I said, as she walked across the room, “You’re the same Loomis who made a deal with Johnny Doane. It involves twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  She put a hand on the phone and glanced back at me. “Were you hired to investigate me or find Johnny Doane?”

  “Both,” I answered.

  She lifted the phone. “Yes?”

  She listened a moment. I tried watching her but she carefully put her back to me. “I don’t think I understand,” she said into the phone. “You must have the wrong party.”

  I’ll bet.

  “That’s perfectly all right,” she said and hung up. She came back to the divan. Her negligee was loose now; she had forgotten her most recent pose. “Some trouble over cleaning,” she explained to me.

  “Sure,” I said. “Me. I’m taking a cleaning.”

  “You could, you know, explain yourself.”

  I should explain myself! “Why?” I asked. “I like an even trade.”

  “I might be of some help to you,” she said.

  “All right, start by telling me why you left Portland and came here.”

  “I enjoy a change of scenery now and then,” she answered.

  “It wouldn’t be because the heat was on?”

  A faint smile worked the corners of her mouth. “You seem bent on involving me with the police.”

  “And I shouldn’t?”

  She stood up again. It wearied me. She had too much energy. This time she walked toward what I judged would be the bedroom door. “Give me a half hour,” she said. “I’ll meet you in the lobby and you can take me to dinner.”

  “That’s nice of me,” I said. I sat where I was.

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  “I like this place,” I said. “It’s comfortable. The liquor is good. And I have no intention of being suckered out now that I’m in.”

  She said, “I can make you get out.”

  “You’re beautiful,” I said. “But not that beautiful.”

  She walked on into the bedroom. I finished my drink, slowly, relishing it. I had set the glass down and was thinking about a cigaret when she came back. I wasn’t expecting it. I felt silly because I should have known what was coming. I looked into the barrel of a gun and it was no toy.

  I got to my feet. “In half an hour,” I said, trying to sound pleasant about it.

  “A half hour,” she said with equal pleasantness. “In the lobby.”

  I went to the door, opened it, stepped into the hall, shut the door, and started down the hall with loud, slightly drunken-sounding footsteps. After about ten of them I stopped and did a quick sneak back to her door. I was in time to hear the night latch being clicked over and then the sound of the phone as she lifted it.

  9

  I TOOK a few quiet steps away from the door and made a break for the elevator. It was still where I had left it. I was glad it wasn’t as slow and ancient as it appeared. I hit the lobby in full stride and cut in the direction of the switchboard. Peone was there, obviously listening.

  The board was at the end of the desk nearest me and there was an opening behind it that led into the lobby. I went through the opening and made a grab for Peone. When he tried to turn it was too late. I got one hand on his shoulder and with the other lifted the phone headpiece from him.

  His face was bruised pretty badly but his eyes were just the same. I put a hand over them and pushed and he wobbled backward off balance. I got the earpiece of the phone in place.

  I heard the husky voice of Edna Loomis. “He showed up, all right. He works fast.”

  A man answered her. He had a quick, hurried voice that I could have picked out of any crowd. “Learn what you can. But be careful.”

  “I’ll get it tonight,” she said.

  I glanced toward Peone. He was behind the desk, some distance away, half crouched and glaring at me. Chimp was nowhere in sight.

  The man’s voice said, “We’re about ready to wind it up.” Then the line went dead.

  I dropped the headset and went into the lobby. Peone walked slowly back to the switchboard. Chimp came in from outside wiping something from his mouth and feeling for a cigar. I said, That Peone doesn’t like me.”

  “He’ll never forget he doesn’t like you, either.”

  I thought of Peone’s face. “I wouldn’t if anyone had ever messed me up that way.”

  “No one ever did?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “You going to try it?”

  Chimp smiled. “Kane never told me to mess you up. When he does—I will.” His soft voice held its low level. All the emphasis was in his smile.

  That was all I wanted to know. “I almost think you could,” I said.

  “Peone will probably get to you first,” Chimp said casually.

  I started back for the elevator, glancing at Peone. The hatred in his eyes was hot and naked. I wondered if I shouldn’t start carrying a gun.

  “He shouldn’t be so touchy,” I told Chimp. Peone didn’t even blink. He made no move when I got into the elevator.

  This time I went all the way up. Tien answered the door. “Kane up yet?”

  “Yes,” she said, “and angry with you.” But she was smiling.

  “Good,” I said. “I’m sore at him, too.” I went past her into the living room. Hall was sitting behind his desk, sipping tea. He glanced at me and nodded toward a chair. I sat down.

  “What’s the beef?”

  Hall said heavily, “Doesn’t the name Peone mean anything to you?”

  I watched his upper lip curl over the rim of the teacup. “Should it?”

  “He was on trial last year for carving a guy in a tavern,” Hall said. “He was acquitted that time.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “He’s already done two stretches for the same thing,” Hall went on. His eyes flickered over my face and then returned to stare at his cup. “He gets coked up and he wants to carve somebody. Somebody he thinks has done him dirt. He can’t help it. He’s pathological.”

  “I’m glad to know that,” I said. My throat was dry.

  “Don’t forget it,” Hall said. “And when you want to go upstairs, phone for my permission. He was only doing the job I ordered him to do.”

  “I was in a hurry,” I said. I could tell from Hall’s face that the trouble with Peone was the least of his worries. He wa
s just using it as an opening gambit. I went on, “Where did you dig him up?”

  Hall was brief; he was through with the subject. “Portland.”

  “You inherited him from Considine?”

  “Obviously.”

  I said, “Then he was the one who tipped you about the hundred and fifty thousand. And this is his reward.”

  “You might call it that.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said. “I always did like to work for a man who was free with his information.”

  Hall ignored that. “Did you learn anything from Edna Loomis?”

  I was still waiting to find out what his beef was. This didn’t sound like it, though. I said, “Not very much.”

  “You were up there long enough.”

  “Did you ever try learning anything through a locked door?” I asked. I let the implication lie there. Hall could take it as he wished. I said, “You’ve had over a week to find out something. I had an hour, maybe. I should be the one to ask.”

  “I explained why I took no interest in her,” Hall said.

  I wondered why he lied when he was paying me good money to find out these things. I said, “No interest at all. Didn’t you get a report when she registered?”

  “Naturally. Quist registered her and sent up a report.”

  “Who registered since?” I asked.

  “No one,” Hall said. “No one’s checked in or out.”

  “And she’s stayed in her room all that time?”

  “I said so before.”

  Hall was getting annoyed. He disliked being questioned. “Who took her meals to her?”

  “Quist and Peone.”

  “Then they must have made some contact,” I said. “Did you ask them?”

  “Quist described her. That meant nothing to me. Whenever they went in to bring her meals she was in the bedroom. She hasn’t been seen since she registered.”

  Either Hall was lying or the boys downstairs were stringing him. That was a dangerous thing to do. I couldn’t see any percentage in it for them. But Edna Loomis claimed she had gone in and out at will. And she certainly seemed open enough. Otherwise she wouldn’t have made a date to meet me in the lobby.

  I couldn’t see any point in continuing along this line. Neither of us was getting anywhere. I said to Hall again, “What’s your beef?’

  He answered me by tossing over the evening paper. I spread it out and the headline hit me squarely. It was a big red banner streaming across the front page. It read: “PORTLAND MURDER SUSPECT BELIEVED IN CITY.” The story was two columns and the head over it stated that Johnny Doane, local detective, was supposed to be back in town.

  “So?” I said.

  “Johnny’s out to get me,” he said. “You’re in contact with his sister. If he hit town you’d know about it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know,” I said.

  “You broke in on a conversation between Johnny and this Loomis woman.”

  “Sure,” I said. “He could have called from New York for all I knew. Anyway, that was less than ten minutes ago.”

  “I don’t like to think you’re holding out, Nick.”

  I began to feel temper working inside. First Hall lied to me and then he had the damned nerve to accuse me of holding, out. I said, keeping my voice quiet, “I got nothing out of Nelle. I said I’d work for you and I still am. I haven’t held out. I don’t know where Johnny is.”

  Hall shrugged. His eyes were sharp, bothering me. I said, not so quietly this time, “And how did the papers get this tip? You know the cops wouldn’t release it.”

  “From the Loomis woman maybe, if she’s in contact with him.”

  “That’s no answer,” I said. “And you know it.” I got up. “Damn it, Kane, what are you trying to pull?”

  “I want Johnny found,” he said. ‘He’s after me. I want him found fast.”

  “Johnny’s not after you,” I said. “That isn’t his way.”

  “He killed Considine. He hooked up with this Loomis woman. She got over a hundred thousand dollars somewhere. Then she moved in here. Now Johnny’s back in town. What else am I supposed to think?”

  “That he’s playing it his own way,” I answered. “You’re not sure he killed Considine.”

  “Peone is.”

  I could see myself believing Les Peone. “I suppose,” I said, “he told you, too, that Johnny was trying to move in on you. Is that it?”

  Hall nodded. He was still quiet, still calm. But I wasn’t. “That’s it,” he said. “Johnny saw a chance to take over the organization. He got Considine and he got the Loomis woman to work with him. If he gets me, he can move in,”

  Maybe it was Kane Hall who sniffed coke instead of Peone. I said, “It would hardly be that easy. It would take more than a hundred grand to buy out the men who work for you. Chimp especially.”

  “Chimp could be bought,” Hall said. “Any man can be bought.” His voice had that flatness of a man who thinks he is presenting irrefutable logic.

  “Not for a small piece of a hundred thousand.”

  “How about a piece of half a million?”

  Hall was leading up to something again. I worked myself down to a simmer. “That’s nice dough,” I said caustically. “I can see Johnny having it.”

  “You should read the paper,” Hall said, jabbing a finger at it.

  So I read it. I hadn’t bothered with anything but the headline, but now I read the story. It was there, in the second paragraph. Maretta Considine, heiress to Considine’s estate valued at over a half-million dollars, was believed to be with Johnny Doane.

  That one was still in the rumor stage to the papers and the police. But not to me. I swallowed the oversized lump that had lodged in my throat and looked at Hall. He had no more expression on his face than did the top of his desk.

  “That doesn’t prove it.”

  “It does to me, Nick. I want you to find Johnny.” I kept thinking about the tip and how it had got in the papers. I said, “Has he contacted you?”

  “NO.”

  “But still you’re sure he’s after you.”

  “I said so.” He finished his tea and set the cup down gently. “I hired you to protect my interests. Drop everything else and get Johnny. That’s all.”

  Carefully, controlling myself, I dug out my wallet and laid the two checks Tien had given me on the desk. I put the wallet back and my hand was shaking.

  “This stinks,” I said bluntly. “You want me to drop everything and find Johnny. You want me to sign his death warrant—so he won’t be around to talk to the cops. You wanted me to investigate Edna Loomis, and then you clammed up on me. Now it’s Johnny, and all you do is sing a song about his being after you. The hell he is. You know Johnny better than that. Either tell me the truth, Kane, or I’m through with it.”

  Hall said, “I’ve told you all I know, Nick.”

  I said, “Take your dough and …”

  I broke off as a flicker of movement caught the corner of my eye. Turning, I saw Tien standing in the doorway. She had a meat cleaver in one small hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “for the words I almost used.”

  “You won’t hurt him,” Tien said, and her tone made it an order.

  “No,” I said, “I won’t hurt him.”

  “You’re excited, Nick,” Hall said.

  “Sure, I’m excited. You cornered me into saying I’d work for you even if it meant turning against Johnny. I stuck with that. But now you aren’t giving him any chance at all. You want me to put on the squeeze and you’ve turned the cops loose on him. You’re not giving him even the break you’d give a lousy rat like Peone.”

  “I turned the cops loose on Johnny?”

  “You or your finks,” I said. “It’s all the same thing. To hell with it.”

  I walked out. I was blind mad. I heard Hall lift his phone but the sound barely registered. I kept thinking about Hall and the incongruity of fragile Tien protecting him, and about Nelle. Nelle, th
e sweet and pure, offering herself so blatantly—for what? And Edna Loomis.

  And Johnny Doane talking to her on the phone. I didn’t want to believe what it had sounded like. I didn’t want to believe what Hall claimed. That’s why I was crazy mad right then. I couldn’t help believing it.

  10

  WHEN I reached the lobby Peone was sorting mail behind the desk. I went up to him. “Give me the guest register for the last two weeks.”

  Peone sounded almost happy. “No.”

  I should have known enough to let it lie, his reaction should have told me what was coming. But I was in no mood to analyze. I reached for a handful of coat lapel. Peone stepped backward and sideways, making no effort to defend himself. A hand came down hard on my shoulder and I was jerked away from the desk.

  It was Chimp and when he had me turned around he let loose with a fist that landed like a rock against my temple. I went to my knees on the old stone floor, falling hard enough to jar the building. I tried to duck as I came up but I was too slow. Chimp’s foot swung out, leveling against the other side of my head. I sprawled out flat, bouncing off a thick pot that held a palm tree. I started rolling as Chimp came after me.

  I kept trying to get around to the other side of the palm. I wanted a few seconds to get my brains back into place. Chimp let me get started and then reversed his direction so that we met head on. I made a frantic scramble to get up and out of reach but again Chimp was too fast and too deft. There was no expression at all on his face. His damned cigar hardly even moved as he came at me.

  Chimp used his feet as though I were a soccer ball. A heavy toe caught me under the eye and another one landed against the side of my chin. I was still rolling and Chimp hardly even breathed fast as he kept on kicking. A final blow hit as I made it to my knees. It slid along my ear and threatened to take off the top of my head. I remember hitting a lobby pillar and falling forward. If Chimp kicked me any more I didn’t feel it.

  It took a few minutes for me to find the strength to lift my head. Chimp was standing close by, polishing his shoe on his pantleg. My jaws were almost too sore to be moved.

  “What’s the idea?”

  “Hall called down to have me stop you,” he said. “I did.” He shifted the unlighted cigar to the other corner of his mouth. “Do you walk out or do I throw you out?”