Pardon My Body

by Dale Bogard

  We sat in two easy chairs drawn up on either side of the electric heater she had installed in the center of a wide fireplace.

  I thought somebody should be saying something and it might as well be me. So I said, “Who are you?”

  She appeared to think for a moment, as though the question needed reflection. Then she answered, “It doesn’t matter, honey—but the name is Lena Martin. I knew Arthur Schultz more than twenty years back, when I was a kid of sixteen just out of high school. I was running around with a pretty fast crowd of high steppers. Most of them were other kids in their teens and early twenties, but there were one or two older guys who liked to tag on, and one of them was Arthur Schultz. He was in his early thirties and if he had a wife he never mentioned it. I don’t think he had. He struck me as the lone wolf kind, always on the make—but he liked having his fun, at that. He liked teenage virgins best.” She paused a moment and gave another of those little crooked smiles. “If there were any virgins in that gang. I wouldn’t know, but I can guess as well as the next. He had the edge on most of the boys on account of he had that grown-up style and his pants pockets were full of dough, so he got most of the dates he wanted.

  “He drove a big Packard. Most of the time the gang holed-up at the Falls Lake Country Club but around three in the morning we generally went to parties in private houses. He took me home one time….”

  She stopped again. This time to drink some more bourbon. When she set the glass down she said, “I’ll say this for Schultz—he was one fast worker. After ten minutes’ driving he stalled the car and it took him about twenty seconds to rip the frock off my back. But that was all he ever got out of me. I didn’t like Arthur Schultz and I wasn’t going to be pawed by a guy old enough to be my daddy.”

  I said, “What did you do?” Though I didn’t care what she did.

  “I hit him across the face with my handbag and got out and walked.” She gave me a hard look. “But you don’t care about all that, do you?”

  I told her I didn’t care.

  “Okay,” she said, “that was just background stuff, anyway. What is it you want to know—and why?”

  I answered shortly, “A Wall Street businessman was stabbed to death a few nights ago in a Connecticut inn. He used the name of Grierson, but his description tallies with that of a man named Schultz who came from Falls City but later operated a lawyer’s business in Chicago. Maybe they’re different people, maybe not. I’m trying to find out. I’m not a private eye and I don’t represent anybody except myself. I was at the inn when Grierson was killed and because of that several people seem to think it would be an idea to rub me out, too. Will that do?”

  She nodded. “I guess so. You’ve got involved in whatever it is and you want to find out what makes Sammy run?”

  I told her she was right to figure it that way. She picked up the story again. “You’re probably guessing right, brother. Arthur Schultz was running a legal business in Chicago at the time I knew him. But he came from Falls City and used to spend most weekends here.”

  “His business was supposed to be on the level—or, at least, to keep one jump ahead of the sheriff. Check?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe most of it was. But there were some queer tales…”

  “Such as what?”

  “Such as using at least one of his legal connections to lift a lot of dough by some smart private blackmailing.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “There was nothing to be sure about. But a lot of people talked. Schultz was supposed to be putting the squeeze on an old guy named Tennemaker who had been a district court judge and was believed to be financially involved in the syndicate houses on North Riverside Avenue. Nobody was supposed to know this, but once or twice Schultz got high and bragged a little. There was an awful shindig about it one time with a guy named Berson he brought over for a weekend from Chicago…”

  I looked up sharply. “Was this man Berson in it with Schultz?”

  “It looked that way. He was a young guy—maybe twenty-two or three and as sharp as they come. He had some kind of business interests in Chicago, but he seemed pretty damn close to Schultz. Close enough to be worried when Schultz started blowing his top.” She wrinkled her brows reflectively. “This guy’s name was Leo Berson and although he was as hard as steel filings he had a funny sort of feminine way with him. He…”

  Something clicked into place in my mind. “What sort of a way?” I asked gently.

  “He was always just a little too well-dressed and some of the girls who went around with him said he carried a compact. He kept his nails like a woman, too, and always smelled of scent….”

  I felt myself drawing in my breath. I said, “Can you remember what he looked like?”

  She stood up. “I can do better than that. I’ve got some old snapshot pictures. Come over here.”

  I followed her across the room to a small bureau-bookcase. She let the flap down and rummaged about in a drawer. Her hand came out with a bulky, faded envelope. She slid a collection of old prints onto the bureau desk like a deck of cards.

  Neither of us spoke. I was just conscious of the faint warmth of her body and the perfume of her red hair. It was very quiet. The sudden noise of a car on the street below sounded curiously far away.

  She shuffled the cuts. About two-thirds of the way through the pack she stopped and pulled one out. I bent forward to get a better look. I went on looking for maybe half a minute, though there was no need. I got a funny constricted feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don’t know why, except that I was staring down at a twenty-odd-year-old photograph of Mr. Lucius Canting….

  I heard Lena Martin saying, “There was some trouble—Schultz took it on the lam with a wad of dough and Berson was mad. I don’t know…”

  Her voice snapped off like the thumbing of a light switch. Now there wasn’t a sound in the little room. Then there was. I just heard it. But I didn’t hear it fast enough.

  It was a sound I ought to have known. A sound which cuts through the air like a swish because that’s what it is.

  A swishing sound…

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I WOKE UP WITH A BRAKEMAN’S cleaning-rag in my mouth. Somebody was drilling holes in my forehead with hot rivets and the back of my head had switched places with a sponge. Opening my eyelids was like raising a concrete slab, but I made it. I was still in Lena Martin’s apartment. I was lying on the slightly threadbare carpet by the bureau. I sat up, supporting myself with one hand and using the other to finger the back of my skull. I fetched my hand away and saw the brownish-red smear across it, but I knew my skull was intact. Whoever hit me hadn’t wanted to kill me.

  Whoever…I quit wondering because my eyes were starting to focus. What they had focused on was Lena Martin. I knew it was her by her clothes. That was how I did know it was her, although I hadn’t previously seen her with her skirt rumpled-up almost to her waist. Her long nylon-clad legs were half drawn up under her and I could see that that she was wearing pink silk panties. They looked pretty. Nothing else did. This was because her head had been smashed in. The face which had once been beautiful wasn’t any kind of a face any more.

  I sat on the floor staring at the dead girl. A single blow had cracked her skull apart, but that wasn’t good enough for the killer. He had gone to work on the rest of her head. I slumped forward on both hands, twisting my head a little to the side. I was going to be sick. Then I knew I wasn’t. Two things stopped me and they were just below eye level. They were a pair of heavy black boots and maybe they wouldn’t have stopped me except that I knew feet were inside them. My gaze travelled up a pair of dark blue trousered legs.

  From up above a voice spoke.

  “Ya can get up, Bogard.”

  He didn’t say it nicely. He said it the way he would if he was opening a third degree session on a shine.

  I got up and wobbled against the bureau. My legs still felt like they were made of rubber but they were hardening a little. I mean I could stand o
n them.

  The man who stood three feet from me wore tree trunks for legs and had a big chest rating. Not the biggest in the world. Epstein’s sculpture of Adam has that. But big. He wore the uniform of a police captain. His face was red, sweaty and spotted but it had the kind of expression that made you think it had been carved out of solid hardwood. Puffy fat closed in on the eyes so much that you saw them through tiny slits. You didn’t miss them because they glittered like little ice-blue pellets. He wore a pre-1918 Prussian haircut and his right hand engulfed a wicked-looking Navy Colt. It was pointing at my stomach, which is a very unpleasant place in which to be shot. But I knew he wasn’t going to shoot. That was why he had hit me.

  I had never seen him before but I knew he was Captain Lester Tawley and I understood now why Falls City had got left behind in the march of time.

  Tawley let his bull voice snarl. “Why d’ya kill the broad, Bogard?”

  I said, “I wouldn’t know.”

  A single long blue vein down the left-hand side of his fat neck throbbed a little. “Cracking wise won’t get ya no place, Bogard. Why d’ya…”

  “Don’t keep asking me that,” I snarled back. “Tell me who lives at 2469 South Franklyn Avenue.”

  A globule of sweat rolled down the side of his thick nose. “That’s my home, smarty pants,” he said softly, “and the fact ain’t gonna make no difference to ya one way or th’ other.” He let his white tongue crawl round his lips. “Now—give. Why d’ya kill th’ broad?”

  “Maybe I should ask that question and find out for you,” I sneered.

  “Yeah—who?”

  I said very slowly, “Maybe I should ask you—”

  I had to let it go at that because he had pushed the Navy Colt into my chest. He fetched up his balled left fist and drove it straight at my front teeth. I had time to turn my face, but I took the blow just under my cheekbone. I got enough of it to feel my head jerk sideways and my back teeth bite into the inside of my face. There was a sharp salty taste in my mouth and a trickle of blood ran over my lips.

  Tawley stepped back and grinned.

  “That’s just a slap,” he said. “Just one li’l slap for the smarty pants. When we’re finished with ya there’ll have been so many ya’ll have given up th’ count. Finally, we get th’ signed confession.”

  I felt my gorge rise. I wanted to slam him across his gross face. I wanted to do a whole lot of things to this yegg in copper’s clothes, but he was the man with the gun. So I just stood there and said, dully, “What confession?”

  “Why, th’ one that tells us all how ya let this floosie pick ya up in that beer parlour and then wouldn’t pay her and satisfied ya dirty instincts by…”

  “Don’t give me that,” I screamed. “I didn’t kill her, I tell you. Why should I kill her…?”

  “I just told ya why, Bogard.” Now Tawley was gloating. He was going to enjoy himself over this.

  I wobbled about by the bureau. “If I killed her who put me out?”

  Tawley leaned forward. “Why, that’s silly, smarty pants. No guy thumped ya. Ya beat up this poor kid and in th’ struggle ya finally fell and hit ya head against that bureau.” He paused a moment, then: “There’s blood on th’ base of th’ bureau right now.”

  I screamed at him some more. “You can’t get away with this…I got attacked from behind…I…I…”

  Tawley reached out and yanked me off the bureau. “Ya yellow dog, Bogard—ya ain’t got the guts of a louse. I’ll…”

  He stopped and spun me away from him. I reeled against the bureau again, whimpering and rocking back and forth on my feet. Then I gave a little sound and slumped to the floor at his feet.

  I lay there moaning and rolling side to side. I could sense him bending down. Then I saw him lift his police boot to let me have a slap in the face. And as he raised his leg I seized the foot with both hands and sprung him almost into a somersault. I could hear the big Colt clatter into a corner of the room as I straightened up and leaped onto him.

  He had hit the carpet with an impact which shook the room but he hadn’t time to rise because I had landed on top of him. I landed with both feet on his fat belly. A funny whistling sound came out of his mouth and all the color rushed from his face. I bent down and let my right swing in a low arc to his chin.

  But he had rolled instinctively and I went sprawling over him. Now it was fists, teeth, feet—nothing would be barred. Tawley would use every dirty trick in the book and a whole lot more they haven’t written down. He used the flat of his feet to send me staggering half-erect back over the room and lunged after me. He was going for my eyes—but, as he came, I drove my right knee hard into his groin. The collision was almost sickening. He bent double in his agony but I slammed a left hook into his jaw and he swayed upwards, rocking back and forth with his piggy eyes glazed and nearly lost in their fat. Then, suddenly, he plunged headlong onto the carpet.

  He lay still, with his face pressed into what was left of the pile. I grinned crookedly. I bent down and jerked out his police handcuffs. I dragged his hands behind his back and clamped the irons on. He would have to lie still with those. I knew that police pattern. The more you struggle the tighter the steel gets on your wrists.

  Okay—but he could shout. But not if he had a gag in his mouth. I pulled a cloth off a small round side table and stuffed it on to his tongue. Then I tied it in a double knot.

  I stood there looking down at him. Captain Lester Tawley wasn’t going to frame anybody. He was going to lie there getting very sore indeed until the night janitor found him. Or the day janitor. I wasn’t bothered.

  But there was still something to do. I got out my handkerchief and wiped off all the surfaces I could think of. Including the bludgeon I’d been hit with. It was a long, black, leather-bound one. It had blood on it. Her blood.

  I looked down at her again. Then I turned away and reached the little bedroom. There was a washbasin near the window. I leaned over it. This time I was sick. I was sick for maybe a minute. My inside felt hurt and empty. I ran both taps and drank a glass of water without stopping.

  Then I picked up my hat and coat and walked out into the corridor. I left the light burning. No one was around. I thumbed the elevator call-bell and waited for the steel cage to come up. It came up empty. I stepped in and rode down to street level.

  The hall was empty, too. Not that it mattered. I was getting out of Falls City and I wasn’t coming back. Outside the apartment was Tawley’s big police car. I got in it and drove it a hundred yards down the boulevard. Just to make things more difficult.

  I walked fast back to my Buick and stepped in. There was a half-bottle of Scotch under the dash and I drank most of it the way I had drunk the water.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I STOPPED OVER AT COLUMBUS, OHIO, and drove back into the Big Town at nine o’clock the next night. I hadn’t hurried. This time I had plenty to think about on the drive. As, for instance, who tipped-off Tawley that I might go to Falls City. I thought I knew the answer to that one, the way I knew the answer to a lot of things. Don’t think you’re too damned smart, Bogard—you still don’t know who killed Banningham, do you? All right, so I don’t. But I will.

  It was important that I shouldn’t go to Falls City—or, if I did, that I shouldn’t get out alive. I twisted my mouth sourly. They’d nearly fixed that angle. Suddenly, I remembered the way Lena Martin had let her gaze rove over the beer parlor, the way she had got up and walked out. Somebody had suspected something. Maybe the man in the once-good seersucker suit. Maybe he had heard the name Schultz. Maybe he had orders to watch things. There were too many maybes. But the police department would have my car registration and as soon as Tawley saw the Buick he would know whose it was.

  So he murdered Lena Martin because she had talked and he was going to frame me for it. That was a way to kill two birds. But he’d only killed one. The other had flown. By now, though, Tawley would have been found and he could radio every cop between Falls City and New York. Every
motorcycle officer and every prowl car could be looking for me. But I didn’t think they would be. I didn’t think Tawley would radio anybody. Tawley had plenty to hide and the men behind him had plenty to hide, too. Clear of Falls City I could get lawyers, call friends. Above all, I couldn’t be third-degreed. No, Tawley would have to play it quiet—if he could play it at all.

  I guessed he couldn’t do that. But others could move in on me. Now I would have to take every step with a gun in my hand and it would no longer be safe to sleep nights. But maybe there wouldn’t be any more nights. I was going to play it big myself from now on.

  It was ten minutes after nine when I killed the motor out front of my apartment. I was tired, hungry and sticky from the long drive. I showered, changed my clothes and drank the only Scotch I had left in the place. I felt better. Then I got a bottled beer out of the icebox and drank that, too. I felt better still. There was some cold chicken in the box and I made myself sandwiches while the coffee was getting hot.

  A quarter of an hour later I was back in the car. The night was clear and the Manhattan air was exhilarating enough to make you doubt that 112 tons of soot fall per square mile on this city every month. Besides, it wouldn’t dirty my face before I got to Cornel Banningham’s house. It belonged to the old man who seldom used it but kept a small staff there. It was an Upper Crust-looking place in the East Thirties. Not massive. Not pokey. Just a nice house. The kind you can just afford when you’re pulling down thirty grand a year. That’s why I’m living in a midtown apartment house.

  The front door didn’t have a bell push. The head of a small brass monkey leered at me instead. I lifted the head and rapped it smartly against the brass resting-base. There was a longish interval. Long enough for me to knock my pipe out, put it away in my overcoat pocket and whistle half of the Beale Street Blues. Then footsteps, a click as the hall light went on, and the door opened and Cornel Banningham stood there looking very elegant in a maroon silk dressing gown over pale cream pajamas. His hair was beautifully slicked back and he looked and smelled as though he had shaved recently.