I wasn’t comfortable, and time passed slowly. It was another half-hour, plus about seven-and-a-half minutes, before I heard my lady coming. She was walking fast, and she had long legs and a business-like stride, but even on the gravel you could tell she was a woman hampered by high heels and a narrow dress. She jerked the car door open, hit the front seat hard, and bounced herself over about ten inches to line up with the wheel. She slammed the door closed. I heard her fumble in her purse for the keys.
“Oh, God damn!” she said savagely, as something got in her way.
I received a face-full of mink or sable as she flung her furs in the general direction of the rear seat. Then she had the keys. I waited until she had put the right one into the ignition lock for me; then, under cover of the noise of the starter, I rose up and got a head-hold with my left arm, covering her mouth at the same time, locking my hands together, holding her head hard against me as she writhed and tried to cry out. I used the leverage of both arms to exert knuckle pressure upon a certain nerve center in a certain way. Her body went slack with frightening abruptness.
I couldn’t help remembering Jean, and the little sigh she’d given as she crumpled to the floor. I was tempted to feel for a pulse, but there was no time for sentimental horsing around. I got out the little kit we’re issued—the one that contains a number of fascinating chemicals, including the death pill for the agent’s own use—and slipped the needle, already loaded, into Mrs. Rosten’s arm. That would keep her under for about four hours, if she wasn’t already dead and if I’d judged the dose correctly.
I dragged her out from behind the wheel, climbed over, started the big car, and drove out of there fast, like an angry woman might—or a man with a limp female body beside him. It took me about half an hour to make my way through town and out the shore road where I’d been that afternoon. The little woods track leading to Mason’s Cove wasn’t easy to locate in the dark, but I found it, and drove into the clearing where I’d met Rosten earlier, hoping that nobody had decided to use it for a lovers’ lane tonight.
The place was empty of vehicles. I checked Mrs. Rosten’s pulse and found it strong and steady, which was a relief. I cut the lights and motor, got out and prowled around in the dark, and saw nothing. I sat down to wait. It was a very quiet place. One car went by on the shore road, sounding far away; that was all. There was no wind. There was a mist; I could see stars through the treetops, but they looked vague and distant. Well, I wasn’t expecting trouble from that direction, but if anybody on this planet was planning to interfere with the grim work for which I’d been hired twice, it was about time he—or she—showed up.
Nobody came. The moon rose, big and hazy through the trees. A little wind came up and died away. Some small nocturnal animals got used to my presence and went about their nightly affairs. An owl hooted far off, then closer and then far off again. It was a weird sound to hear in the middle of the night. I couldn’t help wondering if it had some sinister significance, but after all, I wasn’t Daniel Boone surrounded by hostile redskins. I didn’t think the people I was after would go in for bird calls, although I still didn’t know anything about them. All I knew was Mac’s verdict: They must learn not to monkey with the buzz saw when it is busy cutting wood.
There was a slight sound from the car, as if the woman I’d left there had stirred in her drugged sleep. I went back and turned on the light to look at her. She’d changed position on the seat; the drug was wearing off. I regarded her for a moment, feeling kind of guilty about the whole thing; but I was committed now. I’d hoped my well-announced murder would get some action out of somebody; but nobody was cooperating. There was nothing to do but carry out the bluff to the end.
I went to work grimly, picking up Mrs. Rosten’s purse and slipping the shoes from her feet. She wasn’t wearing stockings; she was tanned enough, I guess, to figure she could get by without them. I carried the stuff halfway across the beach and arranged it neatly on the sand. Then I went back to the Cadillac, started it, and drove forward, out onto the beach, until I felt the wheels begin to sink and slip. I tested reverse, and the rear tires only dug in deeper, indicating that nobody was going to drive the big car out of there, now, without a considerable amount of preliminary work.
I got out, walked around, opened the other door, and got Mrs. Rosten into my arms. I carried her across the beach, out into waist-deep water and threw her in.
14
It was a stupid damn business. By the time I had fished her up and towed her back and arranged her artistically at the water’s edge, I felt like a prize damn fool. Soaking wet, with water squelching in my sharp Petroni shoes, I made my way back up the beach disgustedly, and stepped behind the car to watch and wait.
It didn’t take long. The cold water had brought her around. I saw her head come up. Her long dark hair, washed free of combs and pins, covered her face like seaweed. She pushed strands of hair from her eyes, sitting up in the shallows, and looked around dazedly, regarding her surroundings and herself with shock and horror. I could hardly blame her. She’d left a gay party and got into her expensive car, something had happened that she couldn’t quite remember, and now she was discovering herself in the sodden wreckage of her party finery washed up like driftwood on a dark and lonely shore...
I saw her draw a long breath and take her runaway emotions under firm control. She got to her feet, took a couple of steps to dry land, and stood there looking around in the moonlight, rubbing her hands on her hips to get the wet sand off them. Now there was something aggressive and challenging, something startlingly primitive in the way she stood there, brown and tall and lean, with her bare feet planted solidly in dry sand, well apart. The wet white cocktail dress could have been a scrap of hide or woven bark. Plastered to her body unheeded, leaving one tanned shoulder bare, it gave her a look of barbaric nakedness. All she needed, I thought, was a stone-tipped spear, and maybe a tame ocelot for a pet. The damn cat didn’t need to be very tame, at that. She could handle it.
She stood there, looking and listening warily. I saw her take notice of the Cadillac, stuck in the sand, and I saw her discover her shoes and purse, closer at hand. Presently she moved over and studied them, frowning. She shrugged, and at last gave some attention to her dress, twisting the skirt up hard against her thigh to force the water out of it.
After yanking the wrung-out garment into some kind of order, she squeezed the excess water from her hair and found something in her purse with which to tie the hair back out of the way. She stepped into her shoes, and moved towards the car, but froze as I stepped into sight and came towards her.
“You didn’t have to wake up,” I said, stopping in front of her.
“You!” she breathed. “What are you doing here? What in God’s name do you think you’re—what do you want?”
“You didn’t have to wake up,” I said. “I could have arranged it the other way, too. Call it an object lesson, Mrs. Rosten.”
“I’ll kill you for this,” she said softly. “I will! I’ll shoot you down like a dog, Peters—or are you Petroni tonight?”
“Let’s say Petroni,” I said. “Peters is a harmless jerk.”
“The inference being that you’re not harmless? You’re threatening me?”
I looked at her sadly, and sighed. “Lady, it’s not a threat, it’s a demonstration. I’m showing you how easy it would be. The only reason you’re still alive is because I wanted you that way.” I paused deliberately. “You should have come to the phone when I called you this morning, Mrs. Rosten.”
“I see,” she breathed. “I see. So that’s it!”
“I don’t call up people just to pass the time of day, not people like you. You could have figured that out, if you’d got off your high horse for a moment. I was trying to do you a favor. You threatened me with cops. You didn’t even do it yourself; you had your maid do it. That wasn’t smart. That wasn’t smart at all.”
It was a funny interview. It’s hard for a man to be menacing with his pants han
ging wet and baggy down his legs, but it’s equally hard for a woman to be regal with her dress dripping water into her shoes. We were on even terms, except that she didn’t know what I was after, and I did. At least I hoped I did.
I went on, “That little mistake cost you a cocktail outfit and a trip to the beauty parlor, lady. Well, you can afford it. But the next time you get on that arrogant kick, it could cost you something you can’t afford to lose, no matter how rich and pretty you are.”
Her eyes widened. “My God! That’s what it’s all about! I hurt his damn little feelings!”
“Yeah,” I said. “You hurt my feelings, Mrs. Rosten.” I took out the wad of bills I’d collected from her husband and Teddy and slapped it against my hand. “Right here, you hurt my feelings. In the money department.”
She lost some of her confidence. “I—I don’t understand.”
“Have you any idea where I got all this money, five grand?” She looked at me questioningly. “Hell, where are your brains, lady? What do you think we’re doing here? This is a down payment. I get the rest when I kill you.”
There was a little silence. She was really shocked; this explanation hadn’t occurred to her.
“Kill me? But who—”
“Who hired me?” I laughed. “I’m not likely to tell you that. I’ve got principles; besides, it would be bad for my reputation if certain people heard I’d given a client’s name away. But I’m a businessman, Mrs. Rosten. I said to myself, somebody’s willing to pay to have this dame killed, okay. But maybe she’ll up the ante, Petroni. Maybe she’s willing to pay more not to be killed. So I called you, to give you a chance for your life, and you gave me cops. Through the maid, yet! You’re damn lucky to be alive, that’s all I can say!”
She drew a long breath. “I—all right, what’s your proposition?”
I said, “Go home and wring yourself out. I don’t like talking to dames who look like they’d been drowned a week. Then get on the phone and call me at the Calvert Hotel, Room 311. I’ll be waiting. For a while. Don’t make me wait too long, Mrs. Rosten. And I hope I don’t have to tell you to keep your trap shut or the deal’s off.” I looked at her bleakly. “You’ll ask me to your home for a sociable drink, in private. And you’ll say please.”
She said quickly, “If you think for one moment that even to save my life I’d—” She stopped.
I grinned in what I hoped was a sinister fashion. “Did you ever see a floater, Mrs. Rosten?”
“A floater?”
“You were well on the way to being one tonight,” I said. “A floater’s a stiff that’s been fished out of the drink. They generally come up after a while, no matter how they’re weighted. They build up gas or something and swell up and break loose and come to the top, what the fishes and crabs have left of them. Then the doc does the autopsy with a gas mask on, and the cops take strips of skin off the fingers and try to restore the prints because nobody’s going to recognize the bloated thing on the table except maybe from its jewelry or the few stinking rags wrapped around it.” I looked her up and down, as if measuring her for the part. “You call me. Ask me over. Nicely, remember. No maids with any more crummy messages. No maids at all. No servants. No husbands. And don’t think it over too damn long. If you do, lady, you’re dead.”
I turned and walked away, past the stranded Cadillac. She was no hothouse flower; she’d get it out in time, but it would take some bare-handed digging and several trips into the thorn-and-honeysuckle jungle for brush to put under the rear wheels. By the time she got through, I figured, her appearance and disposition would really be something to witness.
Well, there would be witnesses when she got home, if Teddy and Rosten had followed instructions.
15
I picked up my car in the woods nearby, where I’d hidden it earlier, waiting for Rosten. She was already trying to get the Cadillac loose; I could hear her spinning the wheels as I drove away. Back in my hotel room, I shed my wet clothes in the middle of the rug, and got into the flashy pair of silk pajamas that went with my hoodlum act.
There was no point in sitting by the phone like a teen-aged maiden waiting for a date. If it rang, I’d hear it. I got into bed and fell asleep at once, and dreamed of a dark goddess rising from the sea with a shining spear. I knew the spear was meant for me, and I watched her approach while the great cat stalked majestically by her side, ready to spring if I should move a muscle... The phone rang. I sat up, made a face at my subconscious, and looked at my watch. I’d slept an hour and a half, if you could call it sleeping.
The phone rang again. I picked it up and said, “Yeah?”
“Petroni?” It wasn’t at all the voice I’d expected to hear. “Jim?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Jim, this is Teddy. Teddy Michaelis.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I—I’m down in the lobby. Can I come up?”
“You can try,” I said. “If you make it, the door will be unlocked. Turn the knob and you might even be able to fight your way into the room. I’ll be plugging for you all the way.”
I hung up, rose, fixed the lock, and heaved my discarded clothes into the bathroom. I combed my hair and put on slippers and a dressing gown that a Chicago tart might have found irresistible if she were drunk and not wearing her contact lenses. Mac had really gone all out to costume me for the part. It shouldn’t have bothered me. After all, I’d worn a Nazi uniform a couple of times in the line of duty, and sung the Horst Wessel in guttural German, and said nasty things about Jews. Being a Grade B gangster was a breeze.
I heard the rapping of high heels outside and turned to face the door. Teddy slipped into the room, eased the door closed, and leaned against it, breathless, clutching a small blue satin purse to her bosom. I noticed the purse first. It seemed to contain something considerably bulkier than it had been designed for.
“Well,” I said, “what’s this all about?” Then I looked at her more sharply. “What the hell happened to you?”
It was a bad night for fashion. The long white gloves were gone, and the shiny blue dress had got a drink spilled down the front. The extravagant bubble skirt was crushed as if she’d been sleeping in it, making love in it, or at least lying down in it very carelessly, perhaps crying. Her small face seemed to bear out the last hypothesis. It had the unbecoming blotched look that follows an emotional crisis accompanied by tears.
“What’s the pitch, bitch?” I demanded. “Who broke your doll?”
She looked at me for a moment, and made a sniffing noise. “Here,” she said, shoving the purse at me. “Here, take it!”
I glanced at her, took the purse, and opened it cautiously. It was stuffed full of money.
“Go on!” she gasped. “T-take it. It’s all there, the rest of your d-dirty five thousand dollars. Take it and go. Go away. Go far, far away. I—I’d tell you to go to hell, but I wouldn’t wish you on anybody, not even the d-devil himself!”
She sniffed again, loudly. The phone rang. I picked it up. A deeper voice than the kid’s, but still female and familiar, started to speak in my ear.
I said, “I’m busy. Call back in half an hour.”
“But—”
“You heard me. Call back.”
“Well, really! I must say!”
I hung up on my dark goddess with her well-reallys and her I-must-says. It would do the haughty Mrs. Rosten good, from Lash Petroni’s viewpoint, and maybe even from Matt Helm’s, to stew a little longer. The fact that she’d called at all meant that I’d won something, although I still wasn’t quite sure what. I turned back to the kid, took a clean handkerchief from my pocket and placed it in her hand.
“Blow your nose and tell Papa Petroni all about it.”
She looked at my handkerchief and threw it on the floor and ran the back of her hand and forearm back and forth under her nose, defiantly. I guess the unladylike gesture was supposed to shock me.
“All right,” I said. “If you spurn my hanky, have a drink instead—an
d don’t tell me you won’t touch my lousy liquor. That’s enough temperament for tonight. I read your message loud and clear: you don’t like me any more.”
“I hate you! I don’t know how I could have—”
“Skip it,” I said. I pocketed the money and gave her little purse back. “Now go into the bathroom and wash your face. Other cosmetic and sartorial improvements may occur to you, once you look in the mirror. One might even say the field is wide open.”
“I won’t—”
“Go on,” I said, swinging her around and giving her a slap behind. She started indignantly.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Don’t worry, I’m not contagious.”
She glared at me over her shoulder. “Oh, yes, you are! If it hadn’t been for you, I’d never have dreamed of—”
The phone rang again. It was my busy night. If it kept up like this, I’d have to hire a secretary. I closed the bathroom door on Teddy’s rumpled, rebellious little figure, and crossed the room. This time it was the male half of the Rosten duo on the line. It sounded as if he were calling from a bar or all-night restaurant; there was jukebox music in the background.
“Petroni, I have to talk to you—”
“In the morning,” I said.
“But I must know what went wrong—”
“In the morning,” I said. “I’ll get in touch.”
I hung up on Louis and made the drinks, trying not to feel too pleased with myself. I might not know any more than I had before, but at least I had them all buzzing like angry bees. The kid came out of the bathroom looking subdued and, except for her stained dress, almost respectable. I put a glass into her hand.
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