by Kane, Henry
He was tan-brown, bronze: he selected his sun in the choicest of resorts. He looked like a lifeguard who wrote poetry on the side. He was a beautiful man: strong, tall, and in perfect condition.
“Do you love her?” he said.
“Go home,” I said.
“Do you want to marry her?” he said.
“Please go home,” I said.
“What the hell are you wearing?” he said.
“Shorts and undershirt. Do you want me to change to dinner jacket so that we may duel properly attired?”
“You would if you were a gentleman which you aren’t. Do you want to marry her?”
“You’re a gentleman, gentleman?”
“Of course. Not you.”
“What am I?”
“You’re a shit.”
I had had a long bad night. I was now having a long bad morning. Dander began a boil in my veins. “Go home, if you please,” I said.
“Do you want to marry her?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes. I love her. And you’re in my way. You’re cluttering me. And she doesn’t love you, my boy, my boy. You’re a sweet-man, satisfying carnal desire. I want you to stop seeing her. I’ll pay you. How much?”
“Die,” I said.
He came near me. “You’re a pretty shrewd son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you? How much? Lay it on the line.”
“Do you want to marry her?”
“You’re in my way, shrewd son-of-a-bitch. You’re cluttering me. She’s using you as a defense against me. How much, sweet-man?”
“You can’t marry her and you damn well know it.”
“I’m arranging for that, but this arrangement is far less complicated. How much?—and if it’s reasonable, you can get paid right now.”
“For free,” I said, “but when I’m ready.”
“I’m ready, and that’s what counts.”
“With you.”
“With me. I’m in love and love is crazy. I want you out of my hair. I want you out, done, finished, quits—now. If you want money, you can have money.”
“Stick your money.”
“You’re playing it for big, aren’t you? Well, state your figure now instead of working it up in a slow stall. What you may think big may be nothing to me. How much at big? At biggest, crumb?”
“Mr. Lyons,” I said, “hustle your tail out of here before I kick it all the way.”
He was close and at that moment it was unexpected. He delivered hard knuckles and they caught me on the point of the jaw. I hit the carpet in a helpless spin. The guy had a lot of hate going because that did not satisfy him: he leaped in a tackle and I squirmed out from under just in time. He was on all fours and I was on my feet but hate is contagious and I kicked him in the head but it was not efficacious. I was not wearing shoes and a skull is all bone. I got a pain up my arch and I got Tommy Lyons back on his feet. He came at me in a bull-rush like I was a toreador draped in red. I was not a toreador and I was draped in my underwear but I side-stepped with all the clumsy grace of a tired private sleuth on a Sunday morning. It was nothing for the bull-ring and in an arena in Spain it would have drawn an avalanche of over-ripe vegetables but in the arena of my living room on Central Park South, it proved sufficient. He sped past me, head down, neck rigid, and he hit against the arm of a couch but the arm of a couch is soft and his head was hard as I knew from the pain in my arch. He straightened and set himself up as though his balled fists were wrapped within eight-ounce gloves. The posture, of course, was classic, upright: the left was out-thrust for the wearing-down jab and the right was cocked at the breast for demolition purposes, just like Gentleman Jim in the glossy photographs.
I moved down into a crouch like a preliminary-pug in a neighborhood gym and so we circled one another, two grown men in a living room, sun streaming in stripes through the slats of the venetian blinds.
He poked and probed, powerful and learned from paid teachers, with rapid left jabs, and I let them flick by. He was obviously skilled in the gentlemanly art of fisticuffs and his bruiser’s shoulders could propel ungentlemanly damage but in my business mayhem is fundamental to the basic training and I had picked up a few gambits since graduation from boot-camp. I floundered, reeled, permitted a few of the jabs to brush me; then I led with my chin in a stumble of tempting bait; and he smiled as the cocked right flashed with the murderous intent of a one-punch finish. I slid within it and lifted a knee in a jolt to the groin that froze his smile, lowered his arms, and bent him forward with mandible jutting like the bosom of an Italian movie queen. I took aim and fired and he exploded horizontally, the back of his head thumping the carpet. All six-feet-three of him quivered once, and then he got comfortable. He would be comfortable for a long time.
I went to the bedroom and put on slacks and socks and loafers and a silly sports shirt. In the living room I found my highball and had one swig for the road. Then I rode down in the elevator and sauntered through the lobby and went out into the street and sought his car and had no trouble finding it because it was double-parked. He was not using one of the Caddys this Sunday morning, or one of the Continentals: the Rolls Royce was sleek and grey and the chauffeur was even larger and stronger than his employer. His name was Sam Bleek and he was a shtarker whom I knew from his bad old days. These were his new good days, a hoodlum reformed to legitimate ways: as chauffeur-bodyguard to Tommy Lyons, he could earn more with less work and far less risk. Tommy Lyons had reformed a number of ex-hoodlums, all earning more and with less risk: Sammy Bleek was factotum-in-chief of the elite corps comprising the bodyguard of a multimillionaire, and Sammy was a good man. Sammy could wreak permanent havoc with his own natural endowments: in addition Sammy was an expert and an experienced crack-shot with pistol, rifle, and Tommy-gun.
I leaned in through the rolled-down window of the expensive means of transportation and I said, “The boss wants you, Sammy.”
“Where?” he said and flicked away the stub of his cigarette through the other window.
“Upstairs.”
Sammy opened the door and disentangled his enormous bulk and stepped out, flat-bellied and thick-necked and very tall and torso like a wrestler, and slammed the door and stood in the gutter and said again, “Where?”
“Upstairs, my place,” I said and Sammy went with me, leaving the Rolls double-parked and without custodian because what’s another ticket to a multimillionaire?
We went back through the lobby and up in the elevator and into the living room of my apartment and Sammy looked at his boss and said, “What happened?”
“He fainted,” I said.
“Gee, the poor guy,” said Sammy and knelt to perform resuscitation while I hustled my can to the bedroom and pulled open a drawer and took out one of my licensed pistols because maybe once again I could handle a revived Tommy Lyons but it would be presumptuous all the way down to the detriment of bodily harm to think I could handle a revived Tommy Lyons supplemented by the reinforcement of an unrevived Sammy Bleek. I am headstrong but that headstrong I am not and certainly not that presumptuous. I clicked off the safety-catch and held the gun behind my thigh and went back to the living room and there they were, both on their feet, and Sammy looking ugly and Tommy, at this point, naturally, looking somewhat wistful.
“He says he didn’t faint,” said Sammy.
“Take him home,” I said.
Tommy’s expression began to improve, which was no improvement for me. The motor was back in operation: defrosted grey eyes started icing up around the irises. “Sam!” Tommy ordered, quite guttural.
I brought out the gun from behind my thigh and pointed it.
“A man’s home is his castle,” I said.
“Sam!” Tommy uttered.
Sammy Bleek looked at me, looked at the gun, looked at his boss. “Yes, Mr. Lyons?” Sammy Bleek inquired with unaccustomed meekness.
I did not let it get out of hand.
I knew Sammy Bleek, but Sammy Bleek knew me.
“A man’s hom
e is his castle,” I said. “Sammy, you’re a three-time loser and the law would love to have you. Mr. Lyons, you’re a jealous lover and I can prove that. I’m holding a loaded gun in my own castle and if either or both of you get punctured, I will get praised, not punished. I’d advise you to take him home, Sammy. He’s probably been drinking.”
“All night,” said Sammy, conciliatorily.
“Will you give her up and get out of my hair?” said Tommy Lyons.
“When I please, or she pleases, but not on command from you. Take your drunken boss home, Sammy.”
Sammy looked at my gun and looked at his boss.
His boss looked at me. “You’ll regret this, Mr. Chambers.” All the ice was back in the ice-grey eyes.
“He’s drunk,” I said. “Take your drunken boss home, Sammy. Get the hell out of here, the both of you.”
“He’s a nut,” said Sammy Bleek to Tommy Lyons.
“You know him?” said Tommy Lyons to Sammy Bleek.
“From way back,” said Sammy Bleek.
“We’ll have to talk about him,” said Tommy Lyons.
“But not here,” I said and I went to the door and I opened it and I said, “Now if you please. Out.”
“You’ll regret this, Mr. Chambers.”
“I regret it already. Out, kindly.”
Sammy Bleek touched his boss’s arm.
The boss shook him off. “You’ll regret this, Mr. Chambers.”
“Regret what?”
“All of this.”
“Maybe you’ll regret it,” I said brave with gun. “Now get the hell out of here.”
Tommy Lyons went out with dignity. Sammy Bleek went out with a massive shrug. I closed the door and I locked the door and I drank what was left of my drink. I had acquired an enemy and a rich one. That’s the worst kind of enemy to acquire.
Six
SLEEP WAS now out of the question: fatigue had been defeated by secretions from the adrenals: but I needed a shower. Hell, I had sweated through an improbable morning after sweating through an improbable and fairly sleepless night. I put away my weapon and stripped out of my clothes and lingered long under the sharp spray of the shower-head, from bubbling hot to bouncing cold and then, after the mist had cleared from the mirror, I saw that I needed a shave, and I shaved. Then I dressed, in gloomy mood, in gloomy clothes, and when I got out into the sunshine of the street, it was twelve-thirty Sunday afternoon.
I thought about going to the garage and taking out the car and then I thought the better of that. Adrenals or no adrenals, secretions from ductless glands or no, I was a tired guy and a tired guy at the wheel of an automobile on a Sunday afternoon is an accident on its way to happen and who needs to be party to another pile-up on the Belt Parkway? There would be enough pictures of horrendous smash-ups for the Monday afternoon papers without my head stuck through a windshield.
I flagged a cab and said 900 Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn, which was near enough, and then I said to take it easy because I was pregnant, and that joke brought sickly laughter from the front seat, but it did keep his foot light on the accelerator and so we had a leisurely drive to Brooklyn. At 900 Linden, I paid the penalty inscribed on the meter and added a sufficient tip to erase the memory of my joke and got out and walked. It was a quiet day in a quiet neighborhood with trees at the curbs of the sidewalks and 1011 Linden Boulevard was a quiet, broad, flat brownstone, without a stoop, entrance on street-level. I entered, street-level, into a cool little lobby smelling of disinfectant and I studied a neat vertical array of names-and-bells and saw that Carl Rockland was Apartment Number 1. I pushed his bell without too much hope and when there was no answer I pushed a bell of a top-floor apartment and when the click responded I shoved through to an inner lobby which had one door and that one had a plastic plaque neatly indented, black on white: CARL ROCKLAND. There was a white button on the right door-jamb but I did not press it; instead I tried the knob of the door, thinking the while of other means of ingress, but the door gave on pressure: it was not locked nor even fully closed.
I went in, secured the door behind me, and turned the lock.
I was in a neat well-furnished waiting room, and I walked through that into a neat well-furnished office, and through that into a living room that featured an old-fashioned round carved mahogany dining table, and I walked through the living room into a kitchen, and through that into a bedroom, and there on a high wide made-up bed lay Carl Rockland quite as dead as in Arlene’s kitchen, but colder. He wore the same brown suit, his heels made hardly a dent on the rose-colored coverlet, and the toes of his slim little shoes pointed upward.
I did inspection in the bedroom and from the pills, pellets, amyl nitrite capsules and laboratory reports, I learned that the guy had been a chronic cardiac case which explained his death but did not explain his travels as a corpse. I dug in for his packet of keys and did inspection in his office.
Carl Rockland had been a legitimate private investigator with a small but select clientele. I recognized some of the names in his files—theatre people—but the only client with whom I was personally acquainted was David Holly. There was nothing in the file to disclose the purpose of his employ by David Holly but private detectives keep skimpy, if any, records.
I closed up shop for Carl Rockland, returned his keys, and quit his domicile, leaving the front door open. I walked in the sunshine until I found an open drugstore and called the police and reported a death by natural causes. I said I was a neighbor who had dropped in for a social call. I said I had found the door open and had found him in bed, and then I hung up.
I walked in sunshine, raising a new sweat, until I was well out of the neighborhood, and then I waved down a cab and went home to Manhattan. I was hungry but I was too tired to eat. I showered again and then I swallowed a large pill so that I would not be too tired to sleep. I pulled all the blinds and it was like putting a cover on the canary-cage: I made my own night. I turned off the phone and I did not set the alarm. The bed was fresh and cool and private and dreamless and I slept until half past four Monday afternoon.
Seven
I CALLED THE office and there were five messages, from two people. David Holly had called three times and Arlene Anthony had called twice and five times both had left one message: call back.
I called Arlene and I received her Service.
“She won’t be back at the apartment today, Mr. Chambers,” said Service. “You are to meet her in her dressing room after the show tonight.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Actresses have many chores: beauty parlor, interviews, publicity photos, benefit-appearances, voice-coach, acting-school, agency-conferences, dinner with a VIP, even interregnum refresher-rehearsals.
It was now four-thirty and the rest of her afternoon, I was sure, was shot. So I called David Holly’s office and he was not in either.
“A very important conference, Mr. Chambers,” his secretary said. “He’s out of the office and shall not return. But I have a message for you. You’re to meet him tonight after the show at the Barrymore Theatre.”
“I’m to meet him?”
“That’s the word he left.”
“Like an order from the commander-in-chief?”
“I’m only a secretary, Mr. Chambers.”
“Well, okay, thanks.”
“Will you meet him?”
“What’s that to you?”
“He may call in and ask. If you can’t keep the appointment—”
“I’ll keep the appointment.”
“Thank you.”
She hung up before I hung up.
Millionaires are accustomed to giving orders but I am not accustomed to taking orders, unless they suit me. David Holly was a big pea in his patch but his patch was not in my garden. Actors got tight in their britches and actresses loosened theirs and movie moguls shook behind their silver screens and money-men stood hat in hand, but I was none of those: I am an independent contractor. I am an eye for pay and nobody has a lien on
me and I lean on nobody and I don’t take orders unless I’m in service for pay, not even from a David Holly. The Barrymore, however, housed Holly’s Follies, and I did have a date with Arlene and I was curious about Holly. Otherwise, curious or no, I would have set up an appointment at my own good time out of sheer contrariness, call it hostility, call it churlishness, call it childishness—who among us is without foible however ridiculous?
I arrived at her dressing room at eleven o’clock but the show ran long this Monday night and she bounced in at ten after eleven spangled in the briefest of briefs and a laughable bra and I opened my mouth but it was not to laugh, it was to gape. Arlene Anthony, front and center, glowing in skin and not much else, was always a shock head-on no matter how long or well you knew her. The flesh fairly flamed and the curves were outrageous.
“Hi,” she called and embraced me and flung a kiss at my cheek that took five minutes to rub off because she was in full stage make-up.
“Hi,” I breathed and backed off.
“What’s new?”
“Nothing is ever new. All is old.” The long sleep had made me crabby.
“Not you. Not me. I mean about Carl the Rockland.” She was, obviously, in a gay mood.
“Not so loud,” I said and I meant it. Her dresser was standing by, smiling shyly.
She came near again and whispered close, “I mean about Carl the Rockland,” and that put enough lipstick on my ear for another five minutes of rubbing.
“I’ve got a little news,” I said. “Not much.”
“Tell me.”
“Not yet. Still worried?”
“Not in the least.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“It’s you. You’re reassuring. Also it’s a new day.”
“New day?” I said.
“New day, new scene. Yesterday’s worries are today’s regrets and today’s regrets are tomorrow’s nostalgia and tomorrow’s nostalgia is next Wednesday’s nonsense.”
“Philosophy before supper gives me cramps.”
“It’s not my philosophy. It’s a line out of some play I once did in stock.” She was an actress: flame and fire and glitter and ice shifting, intermingling. She danced away, kicked off her shoes, snapped off her bra, stepped out of her sequinned briefs, and the dresser, shyly smiling, came forward with a robe and wrapped it around her. “Tell me the little news, lover,” she said.