“But that proves it was an accident,” Kellum went on. “Suppose Archer didn’t usually use the steam rooms but decided to try them. He wouldn’t know what was a safe amount of steam and what wasn’t. Sometimes the rooms are opened up to make one big steam room when it’s crowded, then all that steam wouldn’t hurt a fly. But closed up in room three, poor Archer didn’t have a chance.”
I figured Kellum would gab like a woman if he had something to gab about. It suited my purposes just fine. I said, “This is strictly confidential, Mr. Kellum. I guess I can trust you, though.” I leaned close and whispered so the pudgy customer wouldn’t hear. Kellum embraced my shoulders with wet-hot hands and became mildly excited. If I hung around here much longer I knew I’d have to poke him, so I talked fast. “My theory is that Mr. Archer was murdered,” I said. “Whatever you do, don’t spread it around. But if you find anything out, we’ll pay you.”
I stepped away and watched him drop his arms to his sides with regret. He’d left white handprints on my shoulders. Lovely fellow. Unless I missed my guess he’d have a woman’s compulsion to bend every ear in Tolliver’s with my murder theory in no time flat. But I still had to tell him I was Gideon Frey, a coin-changer at Karen Tanner’s penny arcade. My fey-winged Paul Bunyan would react like a woman scorned but I had more important things to worry about. I wanted the murderer to know exactly what Gideon Frey thought.
“You’re no dope, Mr. Kellum,” I said, grinning at him. “You probably wondered how an insurance investigator could get here so soon after Archer’s death.”
“Say, that is a point.”
“You probably were too polite to question it.”
“I like to mind my own business.” I couldn’t tell if Kellum was trying to bide his alarm or if a storm was brewing. “I’m not an insurance investigator.”
“No?”
“You must have known it all along. All that muscle and you’ve got a brain, too.”
Kellum strutted. The pudgy guy retreated into a corner. It was going better than I thought.
“I took advantage of you,” I said. “My name is Gideon Frey. I’m a friend of Bert’s and I’m working with Miss Tanner in her penny arcade.”
“Well, you did have a pretty convincing line, I must say.”
“Then you’re not angry?”
“Why should I be? I’ve got to hand it to you, Frey. Actually, I took you for a private detective.”
I’d be the last to deny it. “You’re smarter than I thought,” I said. “All this is on the Q.T., of course.”
“Certainly.” We shook hands. I made a good try at squeezing back but lost.
A short man with a hard, stocky body and huge ridges of muscle between his bull neck and sloping shoulders clomped into the room in trunks and clogs. “What’s on the Q.T.?” he demanded. “What’s going on, King?”
King? I almost burst out laughing. King Kellum spent all his time on the make for queens. Well, it figured.
“I’m Gid Frey,” I said. “Maybe Miss Tanner…?”
“Yes, she told me about you. Glad to meet you. I’m Janus Soolpovar.” Soolpovar had short-cropped graying hair bristling up over a narrow brow and close-set eyes which protruded. We shook hands. “A terrible thing about your friend,” Soolpovar sympathized. “I’m sorry, Frey. Truly sorry.”
“It must have been quite a shock to Karen.”
“She’s not the kind of girl who shows it. I wouldn’t judge her too harshly by her actions, Frey. Meanwhile, you want to use any of the facilities around here, they’re free. That goes for the dames, too, ha-ha.” Soolpovar didn’t laugh; he spoke the sound of laughter. He had even white teeth and not an ounce of spare flesh on him. He paced about the room and his bull neck thrust his head forward like a rooster’s with every step. “All kinds of dames pay their four bits to come in here,” Soolpovar went on. “Most of ’em are desperate, see? The summer’s the time to make ’em, don’t you make any mistakes about that. They don’t mind a little sweat, it gets ’em excited. Ask an old stud horse like me, I know.”
Kellum examined his fingernails with a complete lack of interest. This conversation left Kellum as cold as the inside of a deepfreeze, but Soolpovar was probably on testosterone by now and would have lewd pictures pasted on the ceiling over his deathbed. They made a balanced team here in the bathhouse, all right.
Picking up my gear from one of the empty tables, I said, “Does anyone know where I can find locker 1418?”
Smiling, Soolpovar drew me a mental road map. I thanked him and headed for the locker. Sure, I’d found out what I could here in the bathhouse but it was a hot day and I thought maybe a swim would make me feel better. I stripped, climbed into the woolen shorts which were a size too large.
Soon I was waiting on a shuffling line while a plump girl with breasts as big as basketballs stamped an identification tag on the backs of our hands with invisible ink which she claimed could show up under some kind of purple light gadget. Then I walked out under the boardwalk and onto the footprint-rippled brown sand. A sea of bodies, mostly female, lay out there on blankets and under big green and orange umbrellas. A lot of them were lookers, but taking it all in was something like trying to down a bottle of good whiskey all at once without pausing for breath. You can spoil the effect.
I found a spot big enough to stretch myself out down pretty close to the water. They don’t have breakers at Coney Island. The gray water sloshes up sluggishly on the sand and then recedes, leaving a thin greenish scum. Kids splash and yell. Old ladies do something special called dunking, lowering their bodies waist-deep in the waster so that the bathing-suit skirts billow out about their fat-dimpled legs.
I stood up to do some swimming, then decided on a cigarette instead. I started smoking it in bright, hot sunlight.
I opened my eyes again and it was raining. Quite a cigarette. The sun had set and rain clouds had gathered and it was almost completely dark in front of me, out over the water. I was all alone on the beach with rank on rank of trash baskets marking right up to the water’s edge and illuminated only when lightning ripped jagged cracks in the dark sky.
I felt awful. My skin was dry and parched and I wanted to peel it off. I couldn’t see but I knew I had a sunburn a boiled lobster would have been proud of. I was drenched and miserable and hungry and I could picture how all the parents must have told their kids earlier in the day, “See that man? The red one? He’s getting sunburned and you mustn’t ever do that.” But the dopes didn’t bother to wake me up and then everyone got chased indoors by the quick summer rain.
Everyone but me.
I stood up and groaned because the rain was still falling and felt like needles on my crisp skin. Something exploded inside my head and I thought of sunstroke and sat down again: It wasn’t sunstroke. I heard movement in the sand behind me and I tried to turn around by my head got detonated again. A soft thinking sound ushered in the pain.
I climbed to my knees and shouted but only a tired whisper escaped my lips. Something struck my face and tried to push all the features clear through to the other side of my head. It didn’t work because I flopped over on my back and found I could still breathe. A shadow hovered there in front of me, watching, indistinct in the gloom. My hands came up, fluttery and weak in front of my face, and got themselves smitten.
Then the thunder crashed in my ears and the lightning lifted up my eyelids and peeked behind them. Whoever had worked me over did a good job and I fell through the sand and through the bedrock and kept falling and my last thought was Oh God, Korea is on the other side….