Never Bet Your Life

by George Harmon Coxe

  A closed door, apparently leading to a closet, stood on the left, and after his first glance about he strolled toward the only other door, which was open and opposite the first. This led to a dressing room where there was a vanity and mirror and some built-in chests.

  To Dave’s masculine eyes the vanity was a mess, the odor arising therefrom only slightly less than overpowering. Powder was strewn all over the top, and the seat and floor nearby were flecked with it. There were bottles and jars and vials and boxes of tissue, greases and ointments and lotions. There were two drawers and these held other vials as well as certain beauty aids and instruments necessary to the well-groomed nightclub chanteuse.

  The whole procedure was a little embarrassing somehow, but Dave stayed with it until he had examined each object; only then did he go into the adjacent bathroom where he stepped immediately to the medicine cabinet.

  Here, in back of the mirror, were, in addition to the usual toilet essentials, a dozen or more bottles, and he read the prescriptions on five of them before he found one that interested him, a small, round container of green glass, the label of which read: As required. For aid to sleeping.

  Unscrewing the cap, he removed the cotton and then tipped a capsule into his palm. When he saw its color he grunted softly, replacing cotton and cap while a slow excitement began to build inside him.

  Back in the other room where the light was better, he started to examine the capsule more closely. Then, suddenly, his head came up and his mouth tightened. As he listened he heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the outside stairs; when those steps started along the gallery he acted on impulse, opening now the one closed door which he had left untouched and stepping blindly into a closet that was hot, stuffy, and perfumed. Seconds later the screen door banged and Liza Drake came in.

  With his eye to the crack he had left open, but having none of the feeling of a Peeping Tom, he saw her toss her robe and beach bag on the couch. She reached behind her to unsnap her halter, shrugging out of it and flipping it on top of the robe. She stretched once, her arms high, half turning as she did so. That gave him a momentary glimpse of a smooth, two-toned torso that was magnificently molded and presented in profile.

  Then she was gone. When he heard the shower start, he tiptoed to the door and eased himself out.

  At the foot of the stairs, he lit a cigarette, discovering as he did so that he was perspiring freely. Only then did he experience any sense of guilt and now, as he glanced round, he saw a jumper-clad man watching him from the garage doorway at one side.

  Dave pretended the man did not exist. He adopted what he thought was a nonchalant air. He smoked his cigarette with studied slowness and when he thought five minutes had elapsed he went back upstairs and banged on Liza’s door. When she opened it a moment later she was wearing a pale-blue robe. Her black hair, which she usually wore pulled straight back to a lowlying bun, was wet at the ends and pinned high. She was massaging her nape vigorously with a wadded towel.

  Her dark eyes said she was surprised to see him but her voice was pleasant enough.

  “Hi,” she said. “Come in.”

  He stepped past her and when she came up to him he gave her a long unsmiling look that did not seem to register. She pushed a chair around and gathered her things from the couch, stopping to straighten the spread before she moved into the dressing room to get rid of the things in her hands.

  When she came back she tightened her robe and apologized for the mess, emptying ash trays now and still not looking at him. She said she had not expected callers. He let her go on, saying nothing until she ran out of breath. Then he asked if she had heard about Gannon.

  She sat down suddenly on the couch. She said yes. She said it was terrible, she was shocked, she couldn’t believe it. When she ran out of words he took the capsules from his pocket and arranged them neatly on the tabouret before her, the full one, the three halves. Finally he looked at her again, giving her the silent treatment and seeing a new stiffness take possession of her face.

  “I was here before,” he said. “I looked around. I found the capsules in the medicine cabinet.” He explained where and when he had found the halves.

  “It wasn’t the waiter,” he said. “He would have spiked my drink before he came to the table. That leaves you and John Gannon and Resnik.”

  She wet her lips. She stuck her chin out, a very determined chin. Her dark eyes returned his stare and her voice was bold and indignant.

  “Wait a minute! Are you trying to tell me I gave you a Mickey?”

  “Somebody did.”

  “Who says so besides you?”

  That stopped him because he had not expected such defiance. He tried again, patiently.

  “I didn’t make it up,” he said. “I didn’t fall asleep.” He touched the capsules with the tip of his finger. “They’re the same, aren’t they?”

  “They’re the same color, if that’s what you mean.”

  He studied her a moment, no longer quite so sure but thinking too that she was more on the defensive than was necessary.

  “Maybe it was just coincidence.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ll bet you can get capsules like that in any drugstore. It’s what’s in them that counts.”

  “You don’t know anything about them?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “You thought I’d fallen asleep.”

  She folded her arms across her breasts, tightening the fabric. “I don’t like this third-degree routine,” she said, and this was not the voice of the girl he had talked with during the past week; this was another who had had to fight with life for what she wanted.

  “I don’t like what happened to me last night,” he said evenly. “I don’t like what happened to John Gannon. I’m going to do what I can to find out why it happened. If you don’t want to talk to me let’s call Vaughn. Let’s get him over here.”

  She thought that one over, the determination still there in her mouth and jaw but a disturbance growing now in the depths of her eyes. She went back to his earlier remark, no longer quite so hostile.

  “Certainly I thought you were asleep. So did Mr. Gannon.”

  “Who told him?”

  “Why—I don’t know. I’d finished my number and went into the gambling room a minute, and somebody—it might have been Carl Workman, or maybe it was Sam—told him. I went out with him and looked at you.”

  She swallowed and said: “He got a kick out of it. He said you’d been getting too cocky and maybe this would teach you a lesson. He paid the check and told the waiter to be sure he didn’t wake you. I asked him what he was going to do and he said he was going home. I told him I’d drive him if he liked and bring the car back so you’d have it to get back in. So”—she dropped her hands, palms open—“that’s what we did.”

  She said other things, most of them repetitious, and as he watched her it occurred to him that he had gone about as far as he could without some help. Then, his thoughts moving on, he said:

  “Have you talked much to Carl Workman?”

  She blinked at his digression. “Some. He’s down here almost every night.”

  “Has he asked a lot of questions?”

  She laughed shortly but without bitterness.

  “Most men do,” she said with some evasiveness.

  “Like what?”

  “Oh—like where you’re from, and who you know, and how did you get started, and what are your plans.” She laughed again. “I’ve answered a million questions, a lot of them propositions that were monotonous but hardly flattering.”

  “And where are you from? Originally, I mean.”

  “California. A place called Southgate.”

  Dave gave her a small smile and said California seemed to be pretty well represented in that particular neighborhood.

  “You,” he said, “and Workman. Resnik was out there too, wasn’t he?”

  “For a while. I didn’t know him then though.”

  “Frank Tyler, too. He was her
e last night. Know him?”

  This time he got a reaction but he did not know what to make of it. For now her glance evaded him and she leaned over to open the cigarette box on the tabouret. It was empty and she straightened, the V gaping in her robe though she did not seem to notice it.

  “Tyler,” she said, accepting the cigarette he offered. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Southgate,” he said when he had given her a light.

  “Not far from L.A.”

  “Any family?”

  “Not really.”

  “What do you mean, not really? What about your father?”

  “I don’t remember much about him. He ran out when I was little. A bum, according to my mother.” Her glance slid past him and distance grew in her eyes. “Not that she was much better,” she added.

  “She got work as a waitress. I had to take care of myself mostly. She was away most of the day, and some nights she didn’t come home at all. By the time I was fifteen I’d had all I could take. I was well developed for my age, with plenty of everything, and I looked older. It was easy to lie about my age so I got a job as a waitress too.”

  Still not looking at him she said: “Wherever there was a band I pestered the boys and the boss for a chance to sing, even if it was only a three-piece combination that could hardly stay with the beat. At first it was mostly for nickels and dimes but I kept at it. Because I knew what I wanted and I knew if I tried hard I’d get it.”

  Watching her as she said these things, Dave somehow thought he understood what she meant. He took a guess.

  “Sam Resnik?”

  She smiled then. It was a nice smile, and for Liza an almost shy smile that barely showed her fine white teeth.

  “A man,” she said by way of correction. “It turned out to be Sam but all the time I had someone in mind just like him. I couldn’t kid myself too long about my standing as a singer, not and stay smart. As a voice I’m worth maybe a hundred a week. My body, properly dressed and exhibited, is always worth another hundred to anyone who can afford to pay. Throw in the experience and know-how in handling the paying customer and it adds up to three or four hundred, maybe five at the most, providing the boss really likes me. But not for long. A few years with luck.”

  She smiled again. “That’s quite a speech,” she said. “I wish we had a drink.”

  Dave said he wished so too, and waited, and now she looked down at the ring on her left hand, turning it half consciously as if to admire it secretly and all it stood for.

  “It was worth waiting for,” she said, more to herself than to him. “Because I’ve known all kinds of men, the good and the bad, the heels and the right guys. I’ve had to know them, had to learn which ones you can flatter, which ones you pamper, and which you have to insult, You learn how to duck, too, but you have to get along with them, mostly, because it’s the men who lead the bands, and do the booking and run the nightspots. They’re the ones that have the jobs to hand out and all you have to do is learn how to handle them.”

  She leaned over to crush out her cigarette, and the robe gaped again and this time she noticed it and fixed it, expertly and without embarrassment.

  “I like men,” she said, “most of them. Somehow I don’t think my father was the bum my mother tried to make out. Knowing her better than him I’d lay odds it was more her fault than his that things didn’t work out. What it takes is the right man and the right woman.”

  “That’s how it is with you and Sam.”

  She nodded, peeking at the ring again, and now, as she fell silent, Dave thought he could begin to understand the sort of woman she was.

  The determination was there in the chin and the full mouth, the straight, strong brows, for without determination and a certain singleness of purpose she could never have lasted this long. But there was more to it than that. For it seemed to him now that the right man could call forth much warmth from this woman, a great intensity of feeling. But there would be possessiveness too, and jealousy on occasion. Above all there would be an unwavering loyalty that would endure so long as that love lasted.

  She had settled for Sam Resnik and, remembering the things Vaughn had said, he knew that Liza would continue to swear that she had been with Resnik the night before, after he had left the club. Nothing except some perfidy on his part would ever change her story.

  And so he rose, knowing he had done all he could here, not sure how much of what he had heard was the truth but recognizing, too, an undertone of sincerity in many of the things she had said. His movement served to break the spell she had so recently woven about herself, and the softness left her dark gaze when she rose and asked what he intended to do about the capsules. Once again she was on the defensive, and he saw this and told her he did not know. He said he would let her know.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BY THE TIME Dave Barnum returned to the bungalow he had made up his mind about the capsules. His own experiment had proved nothing actually. He had satisfied his own curiosity to some extent but that, he realized now, was unimportant. His job was to help Captain Vaughn in any way he could, regardless of who happened to get hurt in the process. He had withheld this information too long as it was, and now it was up to him to admit it and take the consequences.

  He put in his call to the Vantine police station at once, and when, presently, Vaughn came on, he said he had a confession to make.

  “Good,” Vaughn said. “I was beginning to think we weren’t going to crack this one. I’ll send a stenographer right over.”

  “It’s not that kind of confession.”

  “Oh,” Vaughn said in a tone that suggested he had known it all the time but had played it straight. “You had me worried.”

  “I’ll bet,” Dave said and then he was telling what he knew, starting at the beginning and trying to explain as best he could his own personal reasons for wanting to have a hand in exposing the one who had tricked him.

  He fully expected an explosion of some kind when he finished but it never came. There was a moment of silence and when Vaughn finally answered his tone was resigned and only mildly disgusted.

  “It’s too bad,” he said. “What some of you amateurs can do to louse up us pros is enough to break a guy’s heart.”

  “I should have told you this morning.”

  “No,” Vaughn said, thereby demonstrating again his ability to think quickly and with precision, “you should have told me about your hunch last night before you even went back to the club and you ought to be lawyer enough to know why.”

  “I think I do—now,” Dave said, remembering his own reasoning on the matter when he had made his statement that morning.

  “Now is no good. Last night we could have gone along with you. We would have found those half capsules. We would have photographed them, labeled them, and put them under lock and key as evidence. We could have checked immediately and we’d know by now if they came from Liza Drake’s bottle.”

  He grunted softly, an unflattering sound. “You say you found them under the table but that’s no good because you yourself are involved. For all you can prove, it could still be a plant of yours. If those capsules came from the Drake woman’s bottle, whether she knew it or whether she didn’t, that bottle will be deep in the swamp by the time I get out there—unless she’s a lot dumber than I think she is…. God damn it, Barnum!” he said, still more disgusted than angry. “Why couldn’t you have played that one smart?”

  Dave had no answer. He felt about six years old. He mumbled something about being sorry and after another moment of strained silence he heard Vaughn sigh.

  “Okay,” the captain said. “We’ll go out and see her. Maybe she’ll scare. Maybe something’ll come of it but I’ll lay you eight to one it’ll be too late to do us much good. You can hang on to those capsules, just in case.”

  The connection was broken to punctuate the sentence, and Dave hung up. The moment he did so, someone knocked at the door. He had heard nothing prior to that but when he opened it George Stinson
smiled apologetically and asked if Dave could spare a minute. He wore tropical-weight slacks and a loud, loose-hanging shirt this time, but the same open-work sandals. He adjusted his glasses as he sat down and he coughed behind his hand, coloring slightly as he cleared his throat, as though embarrassed at what he had to say.

  “I thought I should ask what you intend to do and if you have any plans yet,” he said in his mild-mannered way.

  “About what?”

  “Why”—Stinson waved his hand—“about the motel.”

  Dave told him the truth. He said to be perfectly frank he had not even thought about the motel. Stinson nodded. He said he could appreciate that. He rubbed his palms together and then placed them on the chair arms. He let his glance stray to the window and the grounds outside and it was obvious now that he had some things on his mind which he wished to discuss. Presently his glance came back and he cleared his throat.

  “Did Mr. Gannon ever say anything to you about selling the motel?” he asked.

  “No. Did he to you?”

  “Yes, the first day he arrived.”

  He hesitated to see if Dave had any comment to make and then, unexpectedly, he digressed.

  “This is the first job I’ve ever had as manager,” he said. “I was an assistant to the owner of a larger place near St. Augustine when I met Mr. Gannon. He used to stay there regularly and I guess he took a liking to me because when he built this place he offered me the job. He never had any intention of operating it himself but he wanted someone he could depend on who wouldn’t be too expensive. I had a hand in furnishing it. I’ve been here ever since.”

  Dave nodded. He said by the looks of things Stinson had done an excellent job.

  The manager acknowledged the compliment with a small nod of his head and continued his story.

  “I was to have two hundred and fifty a month and my quarters, plus a very small percentage the first year, or three fifty and no percentage. Well, I figured there wouldn’t be too much profit the first year anyway, so I took the three fifty. Then the second year Mr. Gannon gave me the proposition I now have and, frankly, it has been reasonably profitable for me.”