“No you don’t, baby. You stay right where you are.”
“Please... please!” and she looked even more scared than before. “I must get up.”
“Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “If you get up now you’re going to be sick, and I’ve got a very sensitive stomach.”
Her hands were rubbing where I’d hit her, and I laughed a little callously. “You, too, eh?”
She didn’t reply, but just stayed there, taking long, deep breaths. I gave her the glass of water, and after she’d taken a few sips, I sat down beside her.
“Look, kid,” I said, “I’m sorry I slugged you so hard, but you shouldn’t go around pulling a gun on a guy. Now what’s it all about?”
I gave her a chance to answer, but she just bit her lips and looked at me through narrowed eyes. Then I got sore.
Here a dame sneaks into my room, sticks a .45 in my back for no apparent reason at all, and here am I sitting there like a sap, playing twenty questions with her, just because I’m sorry I hit her and because she’s built like the Taj Mahal.
I grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and puffed her up towards me.
“Look, baby, you’ve got some talking to do, and you’d better switch it on right now.”
Well, she switched it on all right. The tears flowed out of her beautiful eyes like the breakers rolling up on the beach outside my window. I just sat there like a dope, scratching my head, wondering what it was all about and wishing I’d never asked that stinking old boss of mine for a vacation.
After a while she got up and flexed her arms over her head, and I couldn’t help noticing that she had what every gal has — only more so.
“Why don’t you leave my sister alone?” she demanded. “Leave her alone, I say!”
I guess my mouth must have flopped open like a trout coming up for bait because she piled it on. “And you needn’t pretend that you don’t know what I mean, either.”
“Look, baby,” I replied slowly, “this may be a shock to you, but I don’t know what you’re gabbing about.”
I read surprise all over her face, so I kept talking. “I don’t know you and I don’t know your sister. And if she’s anything like you, it’s okay with me if I never run into her.”
Her lips started working and I thought for a second that she was going to cry again, but she didn’t. Instead, she blinked her lids at me and didn’t answer.
Then she showed me the back of her head as she walked over and stood looking out of the window. I must have convinced her all right, because she turned around and said hesitantly: “I... I must be wrong.”
“That sounds like a song title, baby,” I quipped. “But you sure are. Why pick on me?”
“I thought you were the heel messing up my sister’s life, so I decided—”
“Hey, wait a minute,” I cut in. “Do I look like a heel?”
“No,” she conceded with a half-smile. And then bit off, “But I didn’t know the rat’s name. And besides, the man at the desk told me that my sister left word she was expecting you. There wasn’t anybody else. Don’t you see? That’s why I thought that you...”
She left the sentence hanging, as the expression on my face gradually sank in.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“And your sister’s name is?”
Even before she answered, my intestines dropped two stories because I knew what she would say.
“Ethel Winters.”
I don’t know where I got the guts to tell Janie about her sister, but I did. Believe me, it was worse than D-Day on Omaha Beach, and she took it plenty hard, too. But she listened to everything I told her, just sitting there with that stricken look on her face.
“Oh, Ethel!” she moaned. “My poor darling.”
She dabbed a bit of lace furiously at her eyes. “But not Kosloff,” she cried. “It couldn’t be — the police must be mistaken! He loved her. He couldn’t kill Ethel.”
“Kosloff?” I exclaimed. “Who’s Kosloff?”
She tossed her head impatiently. “Kosloff the Great. He used to be a circus strong man.”
“Oh!”
“But he loved Ethel. Why would he kill her?”
I didn’t know the answer to that one, but at least I knew the name of the guy who was to make my face look like something you serve between a roll.
She told me that this Kosloff the Great had known her and her sister since they were kids and followed them around like a huge protective dog, particularly Ethel. I guess he’d made the same faux pas that Janie had made and thought I was the guy playing Ethel for a sucker.
Janie stood up slowly, her eyes rubbed red.
“I must see her, I’ve got to!”
“I’m afraid you can’t do that,” I protested.
“Why not?” she flung out, her eyes stabbing me.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Ask the police.”
“The police, the police!” she almost screamed. “They think poor Kosloff killed her! Why don’t they find the real murderer? Why don’t they?”
She began pacing up and down the room like she was determined to wear out the carpet in nothing flat.
“It’s that rat who wouldn’t leave her alone — he killed her!” She looked at me but I registered absolutely nothing. She moved towards me and put a warm hand on my arm. Her voice was irresistibly soft and appealing.
“Help me find him, please,” she pleaded.
Well, like I said before, I’m no cop. What little talent I have is directed into other channels. Just the same, it was plenty tough to say no to Janie’s vibrant voice and soft, red lips, but I did just that, wishing all the time that Lt. Repetti and his roly-poly sergeant were there.
Well, I got my wish, because just then a set of hard authoritative knuckles were laid against my door.
I opened up and in stalked the lieutenant with his fat sergeant right behind him. They pulled up short when they spotted Janie.
“Who’s the dame?” asked the sergeant.
I told him and his eyes bugged out.
“What’s she doing here with you, huh?”
I ignored him and spoke to the lieutenant. “Miss Winters wants to see her sister’s body, Lieutenant.”
He looked thoughtful and said quietly, “That can be arranged.”
The sergeant butted in harshly, “You got an army trench knife, Martin?”
I shook my head. “No.” Then suddenly I remembered the one I’d brought home with me from overseas. “Wait a minute,” I added quickly, “Yeah, I have one. Why?”
The sergeant flashed a look at Lt. Repetti, but the lieutenant’s keen eyes never left my face for a second, although his voice sounded casual and quite unconcerned.
“What did you do with that knife?”
“It’s on my desk at the office, Lieutenant. I used it as a letter opener, but I don’t see—”
The next words refused to come, although my mouth tried real hard. Because, all at once, I did see.
It had been an army trench knife that I had seen sticking out of Ethel Winters’ throat.
I felt my cheeks burning. “What are you guys trying to pull?” I yelled. “I don’t get it.”
The sergeant made noises in his throat. “But that blonde babe in 412 got it, Martin — right smack in her beautiful neck.”
What I saw in their faces gave me the willies. I glanced at Janie and she reminded me of a cat about to spring. Her lips formed a thin hard line across her white face. I tried to keep my mounting hysteria out of my voice.
“Millions of guys brought home trench knives, millions of them. Why pick on me?”
“Because, young fellow,” the lieutenant snapped, “your name is Len Martin.”
I waited helplessly, knowing that something terrible was about to happen.
The lieutenant continued, “And because the initials cut into the handle of the murder weapon are L. M.”