The combo was already on. I found a table close to the one I’d had the night before, and the waiter appeared from the air. I could see no sign of Odin.
“A gin and Cointreau for the lady,” I said, “and a...”
“Cointreau?”
Elsa smiled at him. “A pink gin will be quite all right.”
“And a whisky.” The hell with it. “Double.”
He went away. Elsa coughed daintily behind her hand.
“It’s very cosy.”
I agreed it was cosy.
Elsa listened awhile to the jazz. She tried her drink and grimaced. Odin came from the back somewhere, and the waiter brought him his tall glass without instructions.
“He’s got a good left hand,” said Elsa, her eyes on Earl, and I looked at her in surprise.
When Margie Dee came on I made no comment. I gave her no particular attention, though I noted how she did exactly the same thing as last time—fingered the mike and whispered to Earl at the piano. I wondered If this was habit. Or maybe she was asking about the condition of his liver or something. She sang an entirely different set of songs.
Halfway through the second number I turned to Elsa.
“The girl with the microphone.”
“Yes.” She looked at me, startled. “What about her?”
“She fits the porter’s description.”
Elsa looked as though I had slapped her face. Her eyes flicked to Miss Dee, back again. “No David. You can’t be serious.”
I didn’t know what I was. To tell the truth, I was getting confused. Margie Dee fitted the description—as well as half a million other women around Birmingham. But what the hell Odin’s girl friend might be doing with Geoff Forbes I could not guess. And Elsa’s prints were in the Queens flat. And hell...I wanted an excuse to see Elsa, talk to her, be near her...
“I don’t know if I’m serious. She seems a nice enough girl.”
“I didn’t mean that.” Then, when I glanced at her, she looked away. “You know I don’t mean that. But I knew Geoffrey—through and through. He just would not be interested in that girl.”
I’ve learned that it’s always hopeless to guess the sort of women men are interested in. There could hardly be two women more contrasted than Elsa and Margie Dee, and yet I’ve known men running two equally contrasting girls at the same time. Elsa might know Geoff; I know men. I had thought I knew Geoff myself, but what I knew was a man who was absolutely immersed in Elsa. I was beginning to realize that I had endowed him with my own emotions. That I could find his interest in another woman inconceivable was no criterion.
“She’s the only one around.”
“I won’t believe it,” she said.
“You’re looking at her with your woman’s eyes.”
“You men! That’s all you think about. Well...David...you may see something attractive in her, but I’m sure Geoffrey wouldn’t.”
I poured the remainder of the scotch down my throat to hold back the words. Now I wasn’t sure where I was. I put the glass down on the table with a snap.
“D’you want to go, then?”
“Not if you’re enjoying it, David.”
“Enjoying it?” I snarled. “Come on. Let’s go.”
There was another thing to consider. The way my anger was slipping from control I’d soon be making a scene, and I didn’t want Odin to spot me. I stood up. Elsa remained seated. She looked up at me placidly, something provocative in her eyes.
“Don’t you think you should stay and have a word with her?”
“I don’t want to stay.”
“You must think of other people sometimes, David. Now sit down and stop being foolish.” I sat down. “You should be glad of the chance of speaking to her—as you’re so interested.”
I sat, reached for my cigarettes, took one myself, then realized and offered them to Elsa. She looked at me with such a deep, deep smile of internal amusement that I couldn’t help grinning back.
“We seem to have been talking about two different things,” I said.
“We have to pursue every possible lead.” She drew on her cigarette. “Though I refuse to accept that Geoffrey would take a flat without me knowing it, or that he’d take a woman up there, let alone...” She drew smoke in again. “...a jazz singer.”
I had a feeling she was ribbing me, but I’d learned to keep my mouth shut. I signalled to the waiter and ordered another double. Elsa was keeping her pink gin going.
Very much the same thing happened as on the night before. A couple of people gave us a duet, then there was the inevitable call for Odin. I had not yet made up my mind what he was doing there; Margie’s boyfriend, Green’s chucker-out, or a disguised member of the combo. Maybe all three.
But this time Margie Dee, instead of sitting at Odin’s table, had disappeared into the back. Odin wrapped himself into a long and complex development on a theme Earl tossed at him. I didn’t think he was noticing anything.
“Will you be all right if I leave you for a while?” I asked.
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
There was something about her voice that caught my attention. She was sitting with her elbows on the table, her chin cupped in one hand and her eyes half closed, rested dreamily on Odin.
“He plays a magic flute,” I agreed. “You run along, David. See your girl.”
I slipped all round the shadows at the outer edges, then back towards the dais. It was getting too unhealthily close to Odin, but short of going out of the front and round through the alleyway, I could see no other way. When I got close I saw that the velvet curtain hid an opening at the side. I eased my way through. The curtain smelt of dust. Odin and Heaven were still communing.
There was a narrow corridor of unplastered brick painted cream and peeling. In the ceiling a weak and tired bulb was locked in a steel cage, in case anybody thought of stealing it and smuggling it off home. Three doors were spaced along one wall. They each had paper stars with their edges lifting off. I knocked on the first two doors without result, because the boys were all out front, and from the third got a “come in”.
She was seated in front of a make-up table adding mascara to her already thick eyelashes, which framed large and liquid brown eyes. Her face was oval, her complexion cream and smooth. I thought she was wearing a wig. Close to, she seemed smaller and more fragile than performing.
She turned as I came in, her eyes wide open in surprise. “Odin?” Then she saw it was not, and she half rose from the seat. The chair was a cane-seated one, fraying apart.
“It’s all right. I only wanted a word.”
“You get out,” she said. “You just get out of here.”
The accent placed her. As Black Country as Odin.
“It was the only chance of having a word with you.”
“Just wait until he hears about it.”
I preferred not to think about that.
“Anyway,” she said, “I’ve got to go on again.” She half turned away from me with an irritated little shrug.
“He’ll be going strong for a few minutes yet.”
She looked at me seriously, a small amount of curiosity blunting her aggression. For a few moments she had been a bristling little thing.
“Well, he doesn’t always play for long.”
And having tossed the responsibility in my direction she turned back to her mirror, not caring much whether I went or not.
The mirror was surrounded by five working bulbs and seventeen that had given it up some years back. Half the silvering had peeled away, so I moved over beside her so that she could continue to use the other half. She ignored me and critically examined her reflection. I could see nothing wrong with it, but she apparently did.
“How does a girl who works every evening get a night out?”
It was an awkward question. It sounded false.
“You’ll be lucky,” she told me.
I wasn’t too certain of that. “But perhaps you’re not on every evening?” She looked into the mi
rror at my sexy old image and smiled. “I can get a stand-in.”
“Do you do it often?”
“Whenever Odin asks me.”
I watched her scoop cream out of a jar. Her voice had been calm enough, but that was cleansing cream and she was due on again in a few minutes. She realized what she was doing and scooped it back.
“And nobody else?”
“Why should I?”
“If it’s worth your while.”
She thought about that. “Sometimes I go to see my mum.” She smiled. “If a gentleman asks, I go to see my mum. Because otherwise Odin would be angry.”
The thought of Odin angry was appalling. “I was thinking of a man around six feet two, broad and heavy, dark, about forty...”
“I don’t know what you’re on about...”
She stopped what she was doing and turned to look at me.
“I was asking if you’ve ever spent an evening out—several evenings—with a man like that.”
She tried a flicker of a smile. “Now you’re being funny.”
“Then you don’t recognize the man I’ve just described?”
“What are you, crazy or something?” She turned back to the mirror. “Odin’ll miss me. You’d better get out of here.”
“I’ve got an idea this man wouldn’t take you for an evening on the town. His flat, more like.”
“What d’you think I am?”
She couldn’t have been more than nineteen, but she managed to get into the question all the sleazy suggestion of a million years of progressive filth. It so startled me, flashing suddenly and coyly from those quiet, innocent eyes, that I could think of nothing to say for a minute. My imagination would not cope with the mental image of Geoff Forbes taking this girl to the flat I was expected to believe he’d rented for just that purpose.
“His flat in Queens Mansions,” I amplified.
She dropped a paper handkerchief. When she bent down for it a red light flashed above the centre of the mirror.
“Where’s that?” she said, coming up.
I told her. She turned to me a completely blank expression.
“Never heard of it.”
But she was so intent on my face that she completely missed another little flash of the red bulb. I reckoned it was some sort of call signal from the dais.
“I thought you might have been there.”
“Who? Me?”
“With this chap I was telling you about.”
She had got her confidence back. “You had better get out.”
“Perhaps if I took you round to Queens Mansions,” I suggested, “you might remember it.”
She was on her feet now, those great eyes no longer liquid and appealing but flashing with animosity. The red light was bouncing on and off frantically. “I told you. I ain’t never been there.”
“Or maybe they’d remember you.”
The door opened behind me. Her eyes went past my shoulder.
“They want you,” said Odin.
“This man...”
“I know love. You run along.” There wasn’t much expression in his voice, and none in his face when I turned.
She slipped past him and put a hand on his arm.
“He been pestering you?”
“He’s...funny.”
She left. Odin slid into the room, which was suddenly very small. He leaned against the door and it shut with a disconcerting clop. There was no window. He wasn’t carrying his flute.
“You wouldn’t want to annoy my girl, Mr Mallin.”
“I’m sure she wasn’t annoyed.”
“Looked it to me.” He shook his head gloomily. “We don’t want things getting rough, do we?”
They were rough enough already. “I thought we were friends...”
“My friends don’t come back here pestering my girl.”
His head was hunting side to side and his eyes had gone blank. There was no sign of the bright intelligence I had discovered at the billiard hall. I had not brought my pipe—my cue was back at my two and a quarter.
He moved. My hand fell on the jar of cleansing cream. I picked it up, but unfortunately it was plastic and not heavy glass. All the same, I tried swinging it at one of his flapping ears. He caught my arm with his left hand and hit me in the guts with his right. Then he went on holding me up with his left hand and did it again.
I was fighting for breath, retching. The pain would have doubled me up if he’d let go my right arm. He dragged me up by it until he could see my face again.
“Not my girl, Mr Mallin,” he said.
Then he did it again, let me collapse forward over my suffering guts, and with a sudden twist sent me pitching over against the wall. I fell with my nose in the cleansing cream.
When I looked up he had gone, and either he’d been gentle shutting the door or my hearing was going. After a long while gulping in air I tried my legs, and they worked in a basic, shambling sort of way. I managed to get over to the make-up table to get rid of what remained of the cream.
Over a rail there was a towel so filthy that I’d normally have hesitated to touch it, but I used it to wipe my face. In the mirror it didn’t look like me—a Dave Mallin drawn and grey, and old. I ran a comb through my hair and spotted a wash-basin in the corner. I splashed cold water on my face and straightened my tie. One shoulder seam of my jacket had given way.
Then I tried walking as though I was normal. It was agony, but I made it to the door. I was very nearly ready to face the world again. Perhaps in the poor light I’d get away with it and nobody would scream for an ambulance.
I went back to the make-up table, fingered through the oddments there, hairgrips, pots and sticks and tubes of make-up. She used a cheap brand. To one side was a polystyrene representation of a bald head. I’d been right about the wig, then.
In the second drawer down I found a letter addressed to Miss Margie Dee at the club. It had been forwarded from an address in Liverpool and was from her mother in Bilston wondering when Margie would be coming home. If it was any consolation, she was drifting close. In the drawer below there was another envelope, no letter inside, sent to a local address, also to Margie Dee. I made a note of the address. Maybe I’d have to see Margie Dee again, and if so I’d prefer it to be without Odin around anywhere.
I put it all back where it had been, and left.
“You’ve been a long time,” said Elsa.
I sat down. Odin and Margie were doing one of their party tricks, like two angels serenading eternity. There was something left in my glass so I tossed it down and looked round for the waiter.
“Well?”
I didn’t meet her eyes. “She’s not my type.”
“And not Geoff’s, I’m sure of that.”
No, definitely not Geoff’s. The waiter appeared out of the floor. “Another double...” I glanced at Elsa’s empty glass. “And a pink gin.”
“No,” she said. “We’d better be going, David.”
“A double,” I said firmly. Quite apart from its medicinal effect, I needed the time before I had to get up out of that chair. When he’d gone to get it:
“She reacted when I mentioned Queens,” I told her.
I was watching Elsa. She was quite calm. “Did she?”
“But it seems so unlikely...”
“Any woman seems unlikely,” she said positively. “We’re wasting our time.”
“You said find her.”
“I don’t believe she exists.”
She played with her empty glass, picked it up and looked at it as though surprised that it was empty. The waiter brought my scotch. I took a good sized bite out of it.
“There was a woman in that flat, Elsa.”
She looked at me coldly. “If you say so, David. But she’s not the one.” She gestured with her head, a quick angry swirl of her hair.
I checked with my mind to see that I’d still retained Margie’s address. I had.
“Can we go now?” she asked.
I finished the drink.
“Sure.” I made it sound easy, though I wasn’t certain till I’d got to my feet. I used the back of the chair, just kept back a groan, and helped her on with her wrap.
It was still raining, and the car hadn’t moved any nearer than where I’d parked it. There was going to be no galloping for it in my condition. I said, “wait here”, and strolled off into the rain, and let the suit soak it up. The car started and I blessed the work I’d done on it. I swung round on full lock and went back to collect Elsa.
“I should like you to take me home,” she said precisely.
Elsa had come a bit too close to it and she’d looked long and carefully into its hoary face. She was tense and cold.
“We’ll see about the Jag.”
“But I told you, I haven’t got the key.”
I drove back towards the city centre. “You know Geoff. He was mighty careless about leaving his car. It’d be just his style to’ve left it unlocked and with the keys in.”
He had developed the habit when he had been a policeman, a kind of contemptuous gesture to all and sundry. There it is, damn you, try pinching it and getting away with it. Nobody ever did.
Elsa stirred, I thought with impatience. “If you like.”
So we went to Queens. As I think I said, I’m economical, and I didn’t like to think of Elsa’s trip into town not serving the double purpose. Elsa had not spoken again by the time I plunged down the ramp under Queens.
“It was over there,” I said, and puttered over there.
But there was no gold 4.2 Jaguar in the bay against the back wall.
9
We got out and had a look. Along the rear wall were parked about seventeen cars, all in the luxury class.
“You did say he often left his keys in,” she said dully.
My first thought was to phone in to the office.
“What’s the registration number?”
“Oh...how would I know, David?” she asked.
I looked quickly at her. The light was very poor down there but she looked drawn and tired.
“Can’t you just drive me home?”
I had not realized I was being thoughtless. But I needed to know. I had to know. “In a minute, Elsa.”
Along that rear wall each bay was reserved for flat tenants. They had their car numbers on plates fixed to the wall, to make sure there was no argument about it. I tried to get a mental picture of the car as I remembered it standing there. I was certain I had the correct bay because it was next to a supporting girder. The number on the bay was TUK 703.
Time to Kill Page 8