Knife at My Back

by Lawrence Lariar

  “Funny thing about that doll,” he whispered, still staring at Margo, but not meaning Margo. His eyes glazed with the faraway speculation of the professional introvert. “Damned funny thing, the pitch she threw me a while ago, at the table.”

  “What?” asked Manny, confused by his sudden soliloquy. “Who?”

  “This little doll who was down there with me at the table,” Buddy said.

  “Mrs. V. Lambert?” I asked.

  “Didn’t tell me her name, detective.”

  “I know her name.”

  “Anything you don’t know, peeper?” Buddy asked, without turning my way. It was a habit he had, a personal gesture, a trick he always used when in the presence of unimportant peasants.

  “I don’t know what she wanted with you,” I said.

  “She didn’t want me, Conacher.”

  “You’re just modest, Buddy. She was probably giving you a hot time, lining you up for tonight.”

  “You’ve got a dirty mind.”

  “Come on, fellows,” Manny said lightly. “Keep it clean. No reason to spit at each other, is there?”

  “Like I was saying—” Buddy addressed himself to Manny exclusively, treating me to a close-up angle shot of his broad and beefy behind. “The doll was almost flipping her wig to meet Margo. I’ve seen all kinds of fans, Manny. But this one was something different. She practically worships Margo. Wanted to meet her real bad.”

  “Did you fix it?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” Buddy snapped. “If we performers had to meet all our fans, where the hell would we get time to sit down, Conacher? They get to be a damned nuisance sometimes.”

  “So you gave her the brush?”

  “Naturally. I knew Margo wouldn’t have time for her.”

  “Nice boy,” I said. “Did it ever occur to you that it might be bad publicity to keep your horde of admirers at arm’s distance? Maybe Margo wouldn’t agree with you, Punchinello. Maybe Margo would want to meet a dame like Mrs. Lambert.”

  “That’s Margo’s worry, not yours.” He continued to address his remarks to me by way of the wall ahead of him, letting the words bounce off it and over his shoulder to me. When he finally turned, he managed to nudge me gently, letting me feel the weight of his elbow and the two hundred pounds behind it. “Listen, Manny,” he mumbled, “maybe I better not follow Margo out there. She’s killing the people. It won’t look so good if I go on after her.”

  “Not for you, it won’t,” I said.

  “What do you think, Manny?” he asked, disregarding me. “You think I’m wrong or right?”

  “It was your idea, Buddy.”

  “I should have my head examined.”

  I said, “That’s the best line I’ve ever heard you use.”

  “Drop, please. Dead,” said Buddy Binns. He shuffled around and gave me his tail again, strolling into the shadows as though be might be looking for a lost golf ball back there. He gnawed his lip and made faces at the floor boards. When he returned to us, he had made up his mind. “Manny, do me a favor and count me out tonight?”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “Maybe I’ll do a routine tomorrow night. Okay?”

  “You’re the boss, Buddy.”

  Manny was buttering him up, and the sight of anybody playing bootblack to Buddy Binns ripped at my sensibilities. All of a sudden I disliked him so much that I couldn’t stand the sight of him. In my book, a comedian can’t be funny unless he understands the humanities, unless he consorts with the little people and makes an effort to appreciate their souls and their emotions. Buddy Binns neither understood human beings nor cared about them. He operated in a sphere of lofty snobbishness, enclosed by the small and confining wall of his closet-like ego. He would wander forever in the darkness, and all alone, coming out only to accept the glare of the foot lights and heave his zany jokes at the waiting public. He would always please them out there, because the part of him that was the actor knew the tricks and sold them well. But in private life, Buddy Binns could never exist as anything but a stiff pain in the region of the buttocks.

  And that was why I walked away from him.

  I stepped back into the bar and passed the time of day with Dave, the bartender. A small covey of bar quail gathered on the high stools, making sly talk with the passing males and trying for deeper involvements in the coy, tentative way that young dolls ask for interest. I nursed a Scotch and discussed the customs and mores of The Montord with a shy little dame who had a receding chin and a protruding purpose. The place buzzed and hummed and clattered with alcoholic activity. Paul Forstenburg came by and bought me a couple of drinks. I bought him the same. There was no great urgency for liquor in me, but you can’t stand quietly by in a busy bar without taking a dose with friends. And there were all kinds of reasons for hanging around, once the liquor bit deep enough.

  There was Darlene again.

  She had been piloting an old porgy around the outside of the glass wall, making feeble passes at me with her bright eyes. She made the grade with him, finally, brushing him off in a burst of fluttery purpose and dashing my way and grabbing hold of me as though I might have been waiting for her. The ancient rhumba maniac scowled and made faces at me and walked off.

  “One of your customers?” I asked.

  “Buy me a drink, will you?” she said. “That was Edgar Farrishan, the slimiest hotcake on Park Avenue. He practically made me sign a contract to play mattress games with him for a set of lousy mamba lessons.”

  “He looked mad enough to spit.”

  “The old jerk,” said Darlene, sipping her drink with Latin gentility. “Let’s forget about him.”

  Forgetting was no job with Darlene. We took our refills out on the small terrace beyond the bar. The band was playing a soft and thuddy rhumba. She couldn’t resist the tempo and melted my way and let me lead her around under the trees. She danced as though she knew me well, throbbing and rolling to the tune. The South Americans discovered something when they invented the rich and relaxing music for their native bounces. Darlene closed her eyes and gave herself up to the mood, lost in the sensuous scheme of the rhythm and telling me that she liked it with me. We drank and danced until the alcohol increased her pulse beats and she no longer kept her distance. And then we were down the steps and moving where she wanted me to move, into the shadows beyond the terrace. But somebody watched us from the bar. It was Lili.

  I said, “Manny isn’t going to like this.”

  “Who’ll tell him about it?” she asked.

  “A little bird named Lili.”

  “To hell with Lili.”

  “Manny and she aren’t cozy?”

  “Manny eats out of my hand,” she said, as close to me as the lining of my jacket. And twice as hot. “Forget about him. I like the way you move, Steve.”

  “Manny’s a good friend of mine,” I said.

  “So what? I don’t owe him a thing.”

  “What about Chico?”

  She laughed, low and husky. She nibbled at my ear playfully, pulling my head her way and letting me feel the pressure of her nails on my neck. “What do I have to do—give you guarantees?”

  “You’re drunk, Darlene.”

  “I like it this way. I don’t get drunk often.”

  She was selling me, but fast. With a doll like this, two weeks at The Montord would last a normal man through a hard winter. But there were reasons why I didn’t want her now. I thought of Manny Erlich and his strange ferocity when loused up in the department of flesh and foolishness. Manny had the introverted anxiety of a college boy who finds the women hard to get. He would hate me forever if I took his latest wren for a walk through the woods. I wondered vaguely whether Lili had put two and two together and found enough to take back to Manny for a session of teasing about his waning flame. Darlene was drunk enough to be delicious now. Lili had disappe
ared from the door to the bar. We were alone, and the deal tempted me.

  So I said, “I’ve got to see a man, Darlene. Forgive me?”

  “A man for real?” she asked. “Or just five minutes?’

  “For real.”

  “I’ll wait right here.”

  “Better not,” I said. “It may take time. Business.”

  “I’m throwing myself at you, you little dope.”

  “I’m not catching. Not tonight.”

  “Tomorrow?” she asked, giggling up at the stars. She was lit up like a neon sign, but she didn’t know it. She wobbled a bit as she waved to me. “Tomorrow?”

  “It’s a date,” I said, and started down the hill.

  It was too easy to get involved at places like The Montord. And I had things to do that pulled away from Darlene’s Spanish charms. Yet I couldn’t resist a last look back at her, because she had what a warm night demanded. In the semi-gloom of the terrace near the bar, she was plumbing her tiny purse for a cigarette. She found one and lit it quickly, jerkily. What had happened to her binge? Her gestures were smooth and orderly as she dragged at the butt and let the smoke cloud around her. She put a hand on a hip and stood there a moment looking my way. But I was completely lost to her, down the hill and away in the darkness. She flipped the cigarette away and started for the bar. A man met her. It was Manny Erlich. He led her away toward the far end of the hotel walk.

  I strode down the hill in the direction of Lake Wamshaw, the village at the foot of the mountain. I tried to concentrate on Grace Lasker. But the business of making love blossomed in the cool groves around me. Under the dark trees, in hidden corners, behind rocks and in the tall grasses, couples strolled and sat, their occasional voices whispering above the noise of the crickets in the deep woods. It was the hour for wrestling on the bosom of Mother Nature.

  I turned back to The Montord at twelve and began the slow trek up the hill to The Branton and Room 123. And Grace Lasker.

  Along the upper reaches of the gravel path, I could see her window. The room was unlit. I crossed before the front of The Branton and stood for a while on the small porch, wondering whether she had forgotten about me. There were all kinds of reasons for her staying away. A broad on the loose in the fresh mountain air can be sidetracked easily by a few weak drinks and a single strong idea. She could be under some tree, or down on the lake, canoodling, or deep in the tall grasses looking up at the moon and liking it from that angle. Yet, the itch to see her again and talk to her moved me into the lobby of The Branton and down the corridor to her door, where I tapped feebly and waited for her to let me in. And when this did not happen, I pushed the door and it swung open freely. I stepped inside.

  My eyes sought to pierce the gloom and I waited for the room to come into focus. It was one of the deluxe jobs, complete with all the upper class decor demanded by the big money clients. The moonlight filtered through the curtains on the far wall, bringing the bed back there into hazy view, all grays and blacks, diffused and dim against the darker wall beyond. A soft and sleepy breeze blew gently at the curtains, and when they moved, the moon lit the edges of the gossamer material so that they rose and fell; long and penciled lines of light. They were waving and weaving over the bed and my eyes caught and held them for a long moment. Until I was able to see the bed itself clearly.

  Was it Grace on the bed? I moved forward, feeling the deep rich carpet under my feet, advancing like a prowler in a strange bedroom.

  “Grace?” I whispered.

  She did not answer, so I came closer and reached out for her and found her shoulder. Was she asleep? Now in the greater, brighter light of the moon, I saw that she was wearing nothing but skin for me. There was a nightgown draped over the edge of the bed, as though she had thrown it there at the last moment. Her body lay half turned on its side and my eyes picked up the firm, round contours of her breasts, as youthful and trim as a man’s first love. Her hair fell over the pillow and her head was turned toward the window.

  “Grace?” I asked again.

  She didn’t answer, because she couldn’t answer, because when I moved over her and stared down at her I saw that her body was frozen and still and unmoving, stiff and unreal in the moonlight, like a sculptured corpse. Panic rose up in me and I stepped away from her, overcome by a sudden twisting sickness inside me. She was a masterpiece of horror, a huge dark stain darkening her delightful breasts. Somebody had stabbed Grace Lasker. The moon had brightened suddenly, so that her face came through to me clearly and her eyes were shut in an attitude of peaceful repose. Had she been asleep when the marauding murderer entered her room? Her lover? And why had she called me here?

  All these and several other timely questions buzzed and hummed in my head. But I had little time for considering any one of them.

  Because somebody came in behind and hit me with the side of the building.

  And I went down and out, deep through the soft carpet and down the hill and into the lake, where I sank into a dark den belonging to a nameless mermaid.

  I was out. But cold.

  CHAPTER 4

  Nobody revived me. When I awoke, my nose lay deep in the nap of the rug and I breathed with great pain. Somebody had leveled me with one flat crack. How long ago? I stumbled into the john and examined my head and doused myself with water until the dizziness faded and I felt half alive. I dried off and stood there, making faces at myself in the mirror, finding three of my heads staring back at me and waiting until two of them went away and left me alone with my pounding gut. Slowly, slowly, the blood ran back into my asphalt muscles and I regained enough composure to stand there and call myself angry names for a minute or so. The events of the past few hours rose up to hammer at my head and tighten me up inside. But my anger began to fade and die as time ticked by. Because something bigger than anger overcame me as I stood in Grace Lasker’s little john and looked around for a brush and comb.

  The room was bare of anything but the usual towels and floor mat. I opened the medicine cabinet and stared inside, expecting to find the shelves loaded with the usual array of feminine toiletries. Nothing. Not even a used razor blade. Crazy? It was out of whack, all of it. There isn’t a woman alive who doesn’t unpack her beauty aids as soon as she settles in a hotel. And a doll like Grace Lasker would make a beeline for the cosmetic container and dump a small suitcase full of trash before taking a deep breath. All of these thoughts buzzed through my fogged brainbasket, setting up a growing feeling of unreality, a mixture of confusion and throbbing anger that made me shake my head and wonder about the dead woman on the bed inside.

  Until I stepped back into her bedroom.

  Until I flipped the wall switch and flooded the room with light.

  Because the room was empty!

  Now I was in a personal nightmare, alone in a dizzy dream of my own devising. I ran over to the bed where I had seen Grace Lasker’s nude body. The coverlet was pulled tight and it was fresh and unrumpled, the pillow puffed neatly in the professional way all chambermaids prepare bedclothes. On the small night table, two glass ashtrays shone with unsullied brightness. Nobody had smoked here. Nobody had slept here. Nobody had lived here. I pulled at the Venetian blind and saw that the room was closed tightly. Then laughter rose up in me and I let go, roaring my frustration to the walls. I crossed the room quickly, aimed for the door, knowing what I would find on the outside.

  And I was right.

  The door number was 223! Some bastard had slugged me and dragged me one flight upstairs and hit me again to keep me quiet. I galloped down the stairs and through the corridor to Room 123. I pushed open the door and bounced into the room and put the lights on, all in one movement. And then I froze.

  Because Grace Lasker wasn’t in here, either!

  How crazy can you get? This room was just as neat as the one above it where they had taken me. I got down on my hands and knees and began a search of the rug, loo
king everywhere and anywhere for anything and everything: a hairpin, a toothpick—any small sign of recent occupancy. Could it be that she had tricked me? Was it all a gag? The memory of my last sight of Grace Lasker rose up to challenge me. My fingers had touched her and felt the cooling flesh. My eyes had seen the great blot on her breast. She had not responded to my voice at all. Drunk? Play acting? Was it all a sly plan to lure me there and then get rid of me while she fled the hotel with her amour? A hundred and one idiotic questions burned and hissed behind my ears.

  I got out of there and ran back among the parked cars. Her convertible was gone!

  I made the complete tour of the lot, double-checking. But the spot she had used near the golf course was empty. In the soft earth, twisting at a sharp angle away from the grass, there were tire marks. I made a note of the pattern and filed it away in my storehouse of hopeless information and then started back across the gravel path toward the lobby. Under one of the decorative lamps circling the lawn, I checked my watch. It was exactly two-fifteen. On one of the benches hidden across the path from the entrance to The Branton, I found a couple practicing the more amorous jiu-jitsu holds. I tapped the lad on the shoulder and he broke from her and jerked himself around to face me, as tense and belligerent as a dog over a cut of steak.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “How long have you two been sitting here?”

  “Says who?” he asked. “You got a hell of a nerve muscling in, mister.”

  “Save it. I said I was sorry. I only want to ask you two a few questions.”

  “The nerve of some people,” said the wren, adjusting her skirt to cover her bare shanks. “Tell him to go away, Wally.”

  “You heard the little lady,” Wally said, on his feet now, a towering bundle of fluff and heroics. “Scram, will you?”

  “Not until I get the answer to my question,” I said. “Do we play it nice, or do you want to spar a few rounds?”

  Wally pulled his right hand up and threw it at me and I ducked and came up under him and held him by his sport shirt, high up near the collar. He sat down alongside her, but hard. He squirmed and tried for another frontal attack, but the girl was scared now.