“Are you listening to me?” the Jinn demanded irritably.
“Well, to tell the truth, no,” Reggie said.
“You seem to know those people at the corner table,” the Jinn said.
Reggie was developing a certain atypical guile. “Why, certainly not,” he said. He decided shrewdly that the Jinn had seen through his little trick of ignoring his friends, and was prepared to do something about it.
“Well, I’ll drift along in that case,” the Jinn said.
“See you around,” Reggie murmured.
The Jinn left the barroom, but Reggie, watching in the mirror, saw him pause in the doorway, and then step aside to a position from which he could survey the room without being seen.
Reggie, barely managing to conceal his elation, strode over to Million-Dollar Monroe’s table. He came up behind Monroe in time to hear him say, “Of course, Cribmount, I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to let you into this deal, but I will try my best, and that—”
Reggie, beaming widely, slapped him on the back at that moment. “Old pal, old pal,” he cried, in a voice of nauseating bonhomie.
Monroe looked up at him irritably, and then something changed in his face—the sort of change noticeable in a man’s face the instant before he realizes he must throw up his dinner.
“Reggie,” he said weakly.
“Old pal, old pal,” Reggie said, and sat down and put an arm about Monroe’s beefy, well-tailored shoulders. “It’s been a long time, too long, dash it, since our last get-together. What?”
Monroe smiled weakly.
“Selling old Cribmount some stocks, are you?” Reggie said.
“Some of those pretty, lovely stocks?”
“Hah, hah,” Monroe said. Now the large, massive voice had developed a number of hysterical cracks. “Let’s don’t talk business now, eh? What about some drinks? Think the baseball situation is interesting? Now take the Cubs, I say, and there you have a team that—”
“Stocks are my meat,” Reggie said with relish. “Ever since you put me in the clover I’ve loved the silly things.” He poked Teddy firmly in the breast. “Take a tip, old chap, and let Monroe here handle your money. He’ll triple it for you with no trouble.” Sneaking a cautious look at the doorway, Reggie saw that the Jinn was watching Monroe with a speculative little frown.
“Rum thing, eh?” Teddy Cribmount said.
“The rummest,” Reggie said, with a positive shake of his head. “Old Million-Dollar Monroe will treat you right. He’s my dearest pal, the one bloke I couldn’t do without.”
“Nice of you to say so, very nice,” Monroe muttered, wiping his damp forehead. “I’ve got to dash along now, if you don’t mind.”
Reggie led him to the front doors of the club, an arm about his shoulder, and prattling in a high carrying voice on the subject of his indebtedness to, and eternal friendship for, Million-Dollar Monroe. Monroe broke away from him at last and hurried for the street, his expression troubled, worried, and suspicious. Reggie’s attitude disturbed him, to put it as mildly as possible.
Reggie smiled as he watched him go.
Returning to the bar, he noticed with a small warm sense of triumph that the Jinn had disappeared . . .
MILLION-DOLLAR MONROE entered his hotel room fifteen minutes later and tossed his hat into a chair. There was a tall, Brunhildean-type blonde girl lying on the sofa staring intently into the pages of a comic book. She wore a halter and shorts.
“Guinevere,” Monroe said irritably.
“Yeah?”
“Will you put that ridiculous book away? We’re in trouble.”
“Yeah? Ain’t that a coincidence. So is the Black Wasp. A mountain just fell on him.”
“Something similar may happen to us,” Monroe said, pacing and rubbing his forehead.
“Awright, what’s the beef?” Guinevere said, closing the book and stretching her preposterously curvesome body like a lazy, well-fed cat. She rolled onto her stomach and looked sideways at Monroe.
“You remember that whacky character, Reggie Van Alexander, I told you about?”
“The one you pushed the pretty paper onto?”
“Yeah. Well, I’ve just bumped into him,” Monroe said. He frowned and shook his head. “Something wrong, very wrong. He was all smiles and good-will. Get that! After what I did to him, he greeted me as if I were a long-lost brother. It’s—frightening.”
“What do you mean?”
“That is not a normal way for a sucker to act,” Monroe explained patiently. “Now, what’s his game? That’s what I’m wondering. He’s got something cooking in that screwy head of his, and I want to lift the lid and take a peek into the pot. And there’s where you come in. You meet this character and find out what he’s got up his sleeve.”
“Supposing he won’t talk?” Monroe glanced at Guinevere, inspecting her points calmly. Then he lit a cigar. “He’ll talk,” he said.
REGGIE RETURNED home at three in the afternoon. Clive was out shopping and the apartment was clean, quiet, and lonely. Reggie made himself a drink and slumped disconsolately in a chair, his mind a harbor for derelicts of gloomy thought. Sari was gone forever, and would never know the nobility of his renouncement. He thought sadly of her pretty red hair, and her understanding mind. She did understand him, dash it! That was the most comforting thing about her. She was one of a small, select group—those who understood Reggie. He sighed and thought of other things. Clive was out shopping. That meant a good dinner, at any rate. Well, every cloud, and all the rest of it, he thought.
The doorbell rang then, jarring him from his bitter-sweet reveries.
When Reggie opened the door, he did so with no idea of whom or what to expect. However, had he been told what to expect, specifically and carefully, he still wouldn’t have believed it. He’d have laughed, and said, “Dash it, there just aren’t girls like that anywhere in the world.”
Still, there she was, a strapping Viking with fine blonde hair, a sultry mouth, and long-lashed green eyes. She wore a white silk dress, a choker of pearls, and a diamond bracelet on her left wrist.
“I think I have the wrong apartment,” she said, smiling delicately at Reggie.
“Perish the thought. All the flats here are identical. Hallway, living room, butler’s pantry, stuff like that. Come in and look around. This one is like any other.”
“Will ‘do’ for what?” Guinevere said, slightly taken aback.
Reggie smiled charmingly. “We can figure that out later, I dare say.”
Guinevere sauntered into the living room. Reggie was thinking, what luck! A gray afternoon had suddenly brightened. A wink ago he’d been in a blue funk, alone, not a soul to talk with. And now this creature had popped into his life, and in spite of her out-sized proportions, she looked conversationally adequate. Perhaps he could tell her about Sari and the Jinn. What a tonic it would be to discuss that somber, mournful little Jinn. Reggie giggled at this involuntary pun. Jinn and tonic. I say, wait till Freddy hears that one, he thought.
“What’s so funny?” Guinevere said.
“Ah, nothing, nothing at all. Drink? Cigarette? Dance?”
Guinevere approached him slowly, her eyes soft and her body langorous. She put her arms about him and Reggie heard one of his vertebrae emit a surprised squeak.
Guinevere increased the pressure. “I lied to you,” she said. “I didn’t come here by mistake. I’m in trouble. I’m afraid.”
“Afraid?” Reggie said, gasping for air. He could imagine nothing short of a rutting elk alarming this girl.
“Do you know a man named Monroe, Million-Dollar Monroe?” she asked.
“I say, this is a coincidence.”
Guinevere smiled and led him to the sofa. She pulled him down beside her and stared into his eyes. “You do know him, then. He’s a cheat. He’s swindled me out of my last penny.”
“Another coincidence,” Reggie said, astonished.
“He’s swindled you, too?”
“Well, so
to speak.”
“We must have revenge,” Guinevere whispered, her lips close to Reggie’s mouth. “Do you have any plans?”
Reggie drew away from her, inching toward the end of the sofa. “Why, no,” he said, in a high, strained voice. Her nearness was disturbing. The sheath-tight silk dress strained to contain her majestically heaving bosom, and the sunlight glinted on her beautifully muscled, bare legs.
“I must have a cigarette,” he said. He lit one and blew a shaky smoke ring.
“You have no plans?” Guinevere insisted.
“Well, no,” Reggie said.
“But you must hate him.” He cheated you, you said.”
“Well, if a chap’s a cheat he’s got to cheat someone,” Reggie said, reasonably. “Might as well be me as anyone else.”
“You’re teasing me, silly boy,” Guinevere said ominously, and took him in her arms. “That isn’t wise, you’ll find.
“Now just a minute!” Reggie cried.
Guinevere tightened her grip. Reggie felt as if he were being squeezed to death against a perfumed, air-foam mattress. Not a bad way to check out, all things considered, he thought.
“Excuse me, but you left the door open,” a cool voice said in the same tone its owner would have used in declining a packet of filthy postcards.
Reggie sprang to his feet as Guinevere released him, and saw with surprise and pleasure that Sari was standing just inside the door.
“What luck!” he cried. “I was just thinking of you.”
“Obviously,” Sari said, glancing briefly at Guinevere.
Guinevere put her hands on her hips. “You should have knocked,” she said. “A lady would have knocked.”
Sari smiled sweetly. “Did some lady tell you that, my dear?” Reggie, aren’t you going to introduce me?”
“Well, dash it, this is—”
“I’m Guinevere,” the Viking said, after Reggie had paused and scratched his head.
Sari’s smile went a little lopsided. “It’s true then, Reggie?”
I didn’t quite believe you this morning, you know.”
Still another coincidence, Reggie thought moodily. Here he’d invented a Guinevere, complete with wealthy father, for Sari’s benefit, and now one turns up in the flesh—an amazing lot of flesh, at that.
Guinevere had seen Sari’s defeat in the quality of her smile, and she strolled to the door in command of the situation. “When I’m through with your little man I’ll drop him back in your lap,” she said to Sari. “Don’t worry, it may not be a long wait.”
And with that she exited.
SARI CAME closer to Reggie, trying to keep her smile even. “Reggie, is there something you can’t tell me, something you think I wouldn’t understand?”
“Why, dash it, no.”
“We are through then, and you’re marrying this girl, Guinevere?”
“That’s a nut-shellish way of putting it.”
Sari shrugged helplessly. “I always knew you were unpredictable and a little bit—well, silly is the kindest word that occurs to me. I never thought you could surprise me. But you have now, Reggie. And it hurts more than I can tell you.”
Reggie squirmed. Here was this delightful girl of his begging for a kind word, a sympathetic cluck under the chin, and he daren’t do it—or the Jinn might pop up and annihilate her.
“Well, old girl, that’s life,” he said.
“I suppose it is, more’s the pity,” Sari said. She put out a hand hesitantly and touched Reggie’s check. “Goodbye dear. I—I hope you’ll be very happy.” And then she too left, but unlike Guinevere, her shoulders were not square, and there was no smile in her eyes or face.
Reggie stared after her, sighing, his face long and mournful . . .
“NAH, HE don’t hate you,” Guinevere said, for the fifth time. Attired once again in shorts and halter, she lay on the sofa thumbing through a comic book.
Monroe lit his dead cigar with hands that were visibly shaking. “He’s got to hate me,” he said in a ragged voice. “Why don’t he hate me, answer me that?”
“Ah, stop beefing,” Guinevere said, through a yawn. “Why worry? The guy’s a simpleton.”
“That’s why I’m worried. How do you figure a simpleton? A smart guy you can figure, cause he figures like you do. But a simpleton is different.”
There was a knock on the door. “Now, who’s this?” Monroe muttered.
“Why’n’t you bore a hole in the door and peek?”
“You shut up!”
“Ah, open the door. You’re coming apart.”
Monroe went to the door and opened it. Standing in the corridor was a tall, solidly built man with iron gray hair and a wide, hungry mouth. He wore a black suit, a black shirt, and a white tie. “Well, Pally,” he said, grinning broadly. “Long time no see.”
“Come in, Blocks,” Monroe said. “What do you want?”
The man named Blocks strolled into the room, spinning his panama on a banana-sized finger. He raised both eyebrows and grinned at Guinevere. “Who’s the tomato, Monroe?”
“Watch your language,” Guinevere muttered. “You ain’t in a vegetable market.”
Blocks bowed from the waist. “I accept the rebuke, knowing it is meant kindly, sister. And now, since my business, such as it is, is with Daddykins here, why’n’t you go into the bedroom and count up to a million. You can do it by twos if you like.”
“Guinevere is over twenty-one,” Monroe said. “What’s on your mind?”
Blocks bowed to him, and tossed his panama over his shoulder. “Very well. The bartender of the Saxon club is a friend of mine, and this afternoon he relates to me a most interesting thing he has observed there this morning. It seems that you, and that prospect for a loony bin, Reggie Something-or-other, were behaving with almost unnatural admiration toward each other. Is this a correct account of the incident, or is it not?”
“Yeah, it beats me,” Monroe said.
“That ain’t all it’s going to do to you,” Blocks said, in a kindly voice. There was something in his eyes now, and in the set of his wide hungry mouth, that belied the tone of his voice.
“What’re you talking about?”
“If memory don’t fail, we was in that Reggie deal together,” Blocks said. “Does or does not memory fail?”
“Sure we were. You got your cut, didn’t you?”
“Did I? That is the ugly question I have been asking myself since learning of the great love between you and Reggie.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“DO NOT be stupid. Or do not be more stupid than I think you already have been. I will spell it out for you, Pally. Two guys put their talents together in the interests of fleecing a goofy lamb, who, for the sake of clarity, we shall call Reggie Something-or-other. The caper works sweetly, and the two craftsmen shake hands, divide the loot, and go off on other deeds of good-will. But, Pally, the sucker and one of these two honest swindlers, remain bosom buddies. Now, ain’t that peculiar?”
“Of course it is,” Monroe said hoarsely. “It’s been driving me nuts all day.”
“It has upset me, too,” Blocks said. “Frankly, it has put some dirty pictures in my head. I see, much as I hate to, a faint sign which, as I look at it hard and unbelievingly, resembles nothing so much as a double-cross.”
“Now, hold on,” Monroe said, waving his hands frantically. “Get that idea out of your head.”
“I will try,” Blocks said, solemnly. “I will make inquiries, and investigate the facts, and I will try to get that idea out of my head. If I should not be successful, then I will come back and talk to you some more, Monroe. Do not disappoint me in my search for the truth by being elsewhere when I return. And now, I bid you goodby.” Blocks retrieved his panama from the floor, bowed to Guinevere, and strolled from the room.
When the door slammed Guinevere yawned and glanced at her comic book. “Hey, they just threw the Black Wasp into a pot of boiling oil?” she observed, a moment later.
“I would like to change places with him,” Million-Dollar Monroe said, picking up a whisky bottle and pouring himself a neat two fingers.
WHEN THE phone rang, Reggie leaped for it expectantly. It might be Sari, he was thinking. But the voice on the other end wasn’t Sari’s, although it was a pleasant voice, as men’s voices go. It had a rich, chummy ring to it.
“Mr. Van Alexander, my name is Blocks, although that name may mean less than nothing to you at the moment. I am interested, in a pure and nosy manner, in your relations with one Million-Dollar Monroe.”
Ah, Reggie thought, the Jinn attempting a circuitous maneuver.
“Mr. Monroe is a dear friend of mine,” Reggie said firmly.
“That is very sad. There is no truth, I take it, to the rumor that he once fleeced you out of a sizable hunk of cash?”
“What nonsense! The chap’s made money for me, and for himself, too, in all our transactions.”
“This is indeed unfortunate. It shakes, to put it mildly, my faith in old pals, and all the old virtues. Thank you, Mr. Van Alexander.”
The phone clicked in Reggie’s ear, and he put the receiver down, shrugging. Well, if that was the Jinn, he’d sure outsmarted him.
He turned and started slightly as he saw the Jinn regarding him from the opposite side of the room. The Jinn looked tired; his round face was lined, and there was an anxious look in his soft, mournful eyes.
“It’s been an exhausting day,” he said. “I’ve been checking your acquaintances, and their reports on you seem to lead . . .” He made a vague gesture—” off into nowhere. It might have been simpler to destroy you and let it go at that.”
“Well, you have a point,” Reggie said. “Not a good one, but a point, nevertheless.”
“I suppose you’re right,” the Jinn said moodily. He sat down and put his head back. “You don’t mind if I rest a bit?”
“No, not at all,” Reggie said. “The light bother you?”
“No, that’s quite all right.”
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 294