Naked and Alone

by Lawrence Lariar

  “Any friendaSerenash a friendomine,” he garbled, laying it on with the drunken accents.

  “Your fly is open,” I said, straight-faced.

  The gag rocked the room and I caught a hint of vague pink creeping up Foley’s jaw as he automatically fumbled for his pants. Serena went to his rescue immediately and swept him back and away for a dance. He grabbed her like he’d been grabbing her all his life and they started dancing, a wild and unorganized reeling that carried them across the room and away from me fast. Then she had her lips close to his ear. She was certainly talking at a great rate. And Foley was listening. His expression didn’t change, though. He held the same phony and glassy-eyed drunken stare throughout her subdued monologue. Serena paused only to smile sweetly at me and wink once in a while over his shoulder. Norma slithered over to me and dragged me down on one of the better upholstered couches. She almost tumbled my drink and pushed hard against me, so that I was squeezed up against the arm.

  “You like my concoction?” she asked.

  “Oh, delicious.” I sipped the broth again. The gin tasted as if she had made it herself in a grimy bathtub. “Oh, sensational.”

  “Your poor face, doll. What happened?”

  “I ran into a tiger,” I said.

  “A tiger named Serena, I bet.” She laughed her loud and stinging laugh again. “You must know her real good to get marked up that way on the face. She’s a real passionate kid, but crazy.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You didn’t find out yet?” She whispered it with a conspiratorial air, leaning into me and blinking her bloodshot eyes at me until I came into focus. “You’re in for a real treat, Johnny, doll. If she likes you, that is.”

  “She likes me.”

  “Then you’re really in.” Norma swallowed a long and gurgling mouthful from my glass. I let her keep it. She almost spilled it again when she jerked herself around to examine our neighbors, a couple of halfwits too drunk to be eavesdroppers. Norma then raised her finger again. “Serena only goes for the boys that wallop her. The longer you hit her, the better she’ll get, and if she hits back, Lordie help you, doll.”

  Norma stopped suddenly, as though somebody had cut her throat. She stiffened and strained beside me, her eyes popping. She was staring hard at Serena and Foley. She was murdering Serena with her eyes. Or was it Foley she wanted to kill? She grabbed my free hand and squeezed it hard. She ground her teeth when she spoke next. “But get her away from my boy, away from Foley, you hear?” She gulped her drink and looked away from them. “Hurry, will you? Or I’ll blow my top.”

  “Jealous?”

  “She kills me when she grabs him close like that,” Norma hissed. “I could cut her up and feed her to the crabs, the bitch.”

  “Forget about her,” I suggested.

  “Ask me something easy.”

  “A good idea. What about Foley?”

  “Foley?” Norma studied her drink blearily. “Take a look at him. Is he worth talking about?”

  “To me he is.” I adjusted myself on the couch so that I could screen Foley and Serena from her wandering eyes. If I could woo her away from watching him, she might spill something I could use. I waited for her to bend my way. “You and he going steady?” I asked.

  “Up until tonight we were.”

  “He’s a ship’s officer, isn’t he?”

  “That’s what he tells his friends,” Norma said. “If he isn’t, he’s the biggest liar on Long Island. Take a look at his uniform, Sherlock Holmes. It don’t look like he’s dressed for a ball, does it?”

  “It looks like he’s a sailing man.”

  “Clever. Very clever. You won yourself a gold star for that stab, Johnny.”

  “On what boat does he work?”

  “The Southern Prince.”

  “Purser?’

  “You get better as you go along,” Norma said. “Is that all you want to know, or do I have to tell you how good he really is?”

  “Does Foley live around here?”

  “I just told you he works on a ship.”

  “Sailors come home once in a while.”

  “Not sailors like Hank Foley. He only comes home to play.”

  “And always with you?”

  “Up until tonight,” Norma said angrily. She studied me through her pink-rimmed eyes. She worked me over in her soupy intellect. Some small crumbs of reality were reacting on her now and I sensed a slow but cagey sobering up on her part. Her eyes were beginning to come alive and she was curious about my interest in her lover boy. Something like sly caution smeared itself on her sick face, her smile tentative now, her eyes batting at me, struggling to appear composed and normal. “What about Hank Foley, Mr. Detective?”

  “He’s putting on a big act, isn’t he?”

  “Act? Hank’s no actor, for God’s sake.”

  “He can’t be as drunk as he looks.”

  “You don’t know Hank.”

  “I know his Ford, out in the driveway,” I said. “When I came, the motor was hot enough to boil eggs. He didn’t have time to put a load on, Norma. He just got here, a few minutes before Serena and I walked in. And now you’re going to tell me he was lit when he arrived, is that it?”

  She giggled stupidly. “You’re terrific, Johnny. It just happens you guessed it, on the nose. Johnny was cockeyed when he got here.”

  That did it. The place was beginning to wear on me. It wasn’t a slow build. I had sniffed it in the hall and now the stink was getting too deep for my inner man. There was nothing here for me to grab, nothing tangible except Norma and her boyfriend. And I could get the lowdown on them out in the fresh air, with Serena, on the way back to her place in New York. Norma still leaned over me so that I could smell the gin on her breath. She was whispering into my ear, a long and forthright monologue, full of drunken conviction, trying to let me know that her Hank Foley was nature’s nobleman. But from where I sat, Hank Foley looked like something out of a hop joint. He still tugged Serena around the floor in a slow and stupid dance. And Serena still nibbled at his ear and whispered to him. The tableau had built itself into something that could in spire a quick and uninhibited fit of upchuck. I started to lift myself. I had to escape Norma and get myself out of this cesspool.

  I didn’t quite make it. I was still breathing Norma’s second-hand gin when a new and even more charming character walked through the front door.

  CHAPTER 8

  He was something out of Main Street, in any town in the land. He was heavy and dumpy, a medium-sized man who rolled on his way in, wrapped up in the shy and self-effacing manner of a small boy entering his first grown-up party. He raised a pudgy hand in greeting.

  “Hi ya, folks,” he said.

  Somebody yelled “Horshy” and the shout was taken up by several others in the room. Horshy stood near the door, flatfooted and squinting through the smoke as though trying to find a buoy in a fogged and misty sea. The genial smile on his puss seemed frozen until he spotted Norma. Then his eyes filled with a great glow of love and affection and he came our way quickly. Norma gave him a small slice of her good nature, just enough of a smile to crease her make-up. There was nothing warm in that smile.

  “Hello, Horshy,” she said, head turned my way now, sick eyes shut again. “Johnny, this is Mr. Horsh. Mr. Horsh, this is Johnny Amsterdam. Johnny is a private detective.”

  “A real one?” Horsh asked, his eyes bright and shining behind his thick-lensed glasses. In the moment of staring at me, he showed that he was really impressed. “Golly, I never hoped to meet a real detective out here in Merrick.”

  “We get around,” I said. “What’s your line, Horsh?”

  “Horshy’s an undertaker,” Norma said with some disgust.

  “I wish you wouldn’t keep calling me an undertaker,” Horsh said plaintively. “I’m a mortician, Mr. Amsterdam. Have on
e of my cards.”

  The little dope handed me an engraved card advertising his trade. Norma belched and turned away in disgust. Horsh began a lecture about his craft but I interrupted him quickly.

  “I may have a customer for you soon, Horshy.”

  “A—a customer?”

  “The crud who killed Kay Randall.”

  Horsh was a mile behind me, in a deep fog. “I don’t understand, Mr. Amsterdam. I don’t handle funerals for murderers. I conduct a dignified business, one of the finest chapels on Long Island, as you will see if you come to visit me. But what did you mean, about …?”

  “Aw, have a drink,” Norma said, and slid away from us to grab the gin bottle. She poured a glassful and handed it to him belligerently, forcing it into, his fat little hand. When he just stared at it, Norma jerked his elbow savagely. “Drink up, Horshy, you’re killing my party. It serves me right for inviting a damned stiff-burier to a shindig like this. Drink up, Horshy!”

  Horsh slurped his liquor and eased away from us, his face the color of beet salad, his ego somewhere under the carpet. Norma watched him go.

  “Isn’t he the greatest?” she asked. “Isn’t he just the nuts?”

  “I’ll bet it’s a pleasure to be buried by him.”

  Horsh interested me. He was as out of place here as a virgin at a stag party. He wandered the room, not really moving toward any destination. He said a few soft words to one or two of the drunken drips on the couches. He wound up near one of the big windows near the porch side of the room. And there he stood, sipping his gin and offering stupid grins to anybody who would notice him.

  Who noticed him? Well, he got a flip of the hand from Foley, as he steered Serena around the room. When would they stop their dance? The music from the midget radio was now playing a rhumba, but this did not alter the step Foley and Serena danced. Foley still had his eyes closed and his mouth still arched in a ridiculous smirk. Serena’s nails dug into Foley’s back like a hawk’s claws. A couple of more minutes and she’d have grooves worn in his back. The music stopped. Serena pulled away from him and started for the gin table. Foley swayed over to us and let himself drop between Norma and me.

  He played it jolly now. “You’re a fast worker, Amsterdam. I take my eyes off Norma and I find you playing footsie with her. I’m the jealous type, you know.”

  Norma lifted her hand quickly and brought it across his mouth with a flat, efficient smack. “Look who’s the jealous type,” she snarled.

  “Temper, temper,” said Foley, still smiling. So she slapped him again. This time it must have hurt.

  “You louse!” Norma yapped. “You know I go nuts when I see you laying all over Serena that way.”

  And then she burst into bitter, drunken sobs. Foley began to laugh, a deep and sandpapered roar. Some of the other imbeciles in the room picked it up and converted the scene into something of a madhouse. Serena ran over to us and dropped to her knees and held Norma’s hands.

  “Don’t cry, Norma baby,” she murmured. “Hank didn’t mean anything. He always dances that way. And as for me, I came here with Johnny. I don’t want any part of your boy friend.”

  Serena grabbed me. Before I knew it, we were dancing. On the couch, Norma watched us shrewdly, as alert as a dog over a bone. Serena pulled me close, hell bent on proving that I could do a better bump and grind routine than Hank Foley. After a few bruising seconds of the music, I could understand what was paralyzing Foley when he had her in his arms. She was a bundle of soft flesh and sleek movement, her hands scrambling high on my shoulders and one of them sneaking up behind my head and doing strange things to my ear. She pressed close to me, letting me feel every line and curve of her wonderful body. And her mouth? What was it doing? I felt the gentle stabs of her tongue as she rubbed her lips against my cheek.

  I held her tightly, playing it the way she wanted it. It gave me time to case the room. It gave me a few good moments to watch Norma and Hank Foley, now completely absorbed in each other on the couch. Were they whispering, or was he kissing her? I had the feeling that nothing amorous was taking place on that couch. I had the feeling that Foley was busy with small talk. Once, when we circled the room and I turned my back to him, I checked the mirror near the hall and caught him glancing my way. But Foley didn’t see me. Foley didn’t know that I caught the full measure of his fresh and curious expression in one tick of time. The bars were down and he glared at me soberly. And in the next minute, when I pivoted Serena into a turn, I saw that Foley was back in Norma’s arms again. Drunk, of course.

  I maneuvered Serena alongside the couch.

  She continued to grip me tensely, her body clinging to mine.

  “A penny for what you’re thinking right now,” she whispered, letting me feel her tongue on my ear.

  “It isn’t a bed,” I said.

  We were very close to Foley now. Norma looked up at us and simpered and stroked Foley’s greasy hair.

  “Are you sure, cutie?” Serena cooed.

  “I was just thinking,” I said, “that I’d like to find the bastard who murdered Kay Randall.”

  Foley had a cigarette in his hand when he heard it. He lit a match unsteadily, still play-acting at being drunk. But he had caught my eyes and couldn’t avoid them.

  “Kay who?” he asked. “Kay who?”

  “Randall,” I said; “Know the name?”

  “I know a Louis Randall over in Brooklyn. A bookie. But I never heard of no Kay Randall.”

  “You haven’t lived,” I said. “She was a big shot singer for a long time.”

  Norma said, “Sure, I heard of her, Johnny. Hank’s got a bad head for names or he’d remember her too. She was pretty hot on the radio a while back.”

  “Oh, her.” Foley remembered now. “Good-looking broad. Heard her at the Paramount. Long time ago.”

  “You remember the dress we started for her?” Serena asked. A quick question, aimed at Norma. “The gray silk?”

  “Why, naturally,” Norma said. “Just last week, wasn’t it?”

  “Last Wednesday,” Serena said.

  “And she was killed?” Norma clucked sadly. “Now what in hell for? I ask you, what in hell for? A dame like that, with a career and all.”

  I could have kicked Serena around the room. I could have slapped her and smeared her against the wall for what she had just done. She had fed Norma the answers to questions that burned inside me. She had loused up my plans, telegraphing the information so I would get nothing directly from Norma. In the electric moment of my anger, I couldn’t be sure whether she really meant to throw Norma a tipoff.

  But the chips were down now, and there was nothing I could do to rebuild the situation for honest questioning. I was beginning to sweat small bullets, just standing around and looking at the crumby lot of them. I grabbed Serena. I grabbed her hard and jerked her along with me, across the room. Her pretty face knotted in pain, but she didn’t rebel. She would never really rebel against physical torture. Beyond the pain, her starched smile still beamed at me and her eyes danced with anticipation.

  “You’re hurting me real crazy,” she whispered. “Nice.”

  “It’ll get worse before it gets better,” I said. “You came out here to see your friend Foley, right?”

  “Jealous?”

  “Never mind the cute cracks.” I pinched her arm until her pretty face screwed up in honest pain. I kept pinching. “Is Foley your special project?”

  “I like him.”

  “You came here to see him, didn’t you?”

  “What if I did?”

  “That’s all I wanted to know.”

  I plucked her alligator bag off a chair and slapped it into her hand.

  “Outside,” I said.

  “Must we go?” she whimpered. “Norma has a room upstairs—”

  By that time we were crossing the stench-filled hall.
I threw the porch door open and pushed her through it. I hazed her down the porch and across the lawn. She climbed into the Caddy without another word. She spoke only when we roared down Sunrise Highway.

  “Where are we going now, Johnny?”

  “Back to New York.”

  “To my place?” she asked hopefully.

  “Right,” I said. “But not to play games, sister.”

  She clammed up after that, all the way down the long dark road that led us into the main highway a few blocks north. I wheeled the sleek Caddy to the left and aimed its nose toward the west and New York.

  CHAPTER 9

  Long Island was bathed in its usual sea of cotton fog as we headed back toward the big town. The mist rolled and puffed and sucked around us, daring us to break through and make speed. The gossamer veil was so thick that the turns were screened and hidden from me and it was impossible to move with my usual ease behind the wheel. The Caddy crawled protestingly along the state road, like a humbled giant suddenly gone blind. The highway lights were shrouded in mist, as impotent as a flashlight in a can of black paint.

  Fog spilled into the car, too.

  Something had gassed up my mental machinery with the same dull and throttling haze of uncertainty. Maybe I’d just had to absorb too much. The whole evening had been jumbled, queer, out of focus. A hot telephone call from Kay, an old girl friend. An unexpected romance with another old friend, Jordice Gray. A knife in the beautiful bosom of the gorgeous Kay Randall. A chase behind a wacky girl who drove like somebody born on the Indianapolis speedway. A bartender with hammers in his fists. A crazy party in a pigsty with guest to match. An ancient floozy and a ship’s purser who was a good actor at drunkenness.