I kissed her lips and she stopped crying. Her body tensed and seemed to grow cold. I shivered and a ghoulish chill swept over me. I would have given a whole lot to have been able to turn my back on her and go out the door.
I couldn’t. I said, roughly: “We were going to get drunk.”
She was looking past me at the huddled body of Green on the floor.
I pushed her away. “Mix some stiff drinks. I’ll get rid of this.”
She went to the table and started mixing drinks. I picked Green up, shouldered him like a sack of flour, carried him out to the hall and rang for the automatic elevator. I put him in the cage when it came up, closed the door and left him there.
Lucile had the drinks mixed when I went back.
They were potent. So potent that the rest of that night hasn’t a definite place in my memories.
Which is, perhaps, just as well.
Chapter 7
The telephone awoke me at two o’clock the next afternoon. I stumbled out of bed, half-awake, and tilted the receiver against my ear.
The woman’s voice coming over the wire brought me out of my trance in a hurry. With the words, “Oh darling!” Lucile managed to say as much as a woman like Dolly could put across in a string of paragraphs.
I said, “Shoot,” and braced myself against the wall.
“I have to see you right away, Ed.”
Her tone kept me from asking any questions. “All right. Shall I come over?”
“No! Not here, Ed.”
“Hold everything. Can you talk... or is someone listening?”
“I can talk. But I can’t tell you over the phone.”
“Want to come to my place?”
“I can’t do that.”
I asked her what she could do.
“Suppose you meet me in the park in half an hour.”
“Bayfront Park?”
“On the walk at the foot of Flagler.”
“In half an hour,” I promised, and hung up.
I sloshed some cognac in a water glass and put it down, sitting on the edge of my bed in pajamas. I had Lucile figured as not the jittery sort. Take the evening before, for instance. After I dragged Green out, she didn’t waste time on post mortems or attempted explanations.
No, she wasn’t the sort to go jittery without plenty of cause. I took a cold tub and got dressed without asking myself too many questions. After all, I hadn’t dodged the issue in my interview with Green.
She was waiting for me when I parked my car on the near end of Flagler. She looked like hell before breakfast.
Her left eye was an ugly bluish-green. The whole left side of her face was angry and swollen. She hadn’t put on any rouge or powder, and the hem of a white slip showed beneath her blue tailored skirt. She looked for all the world like a stevedore’s sweetie who had unsuccessfully tried to get away with a bit of two-timing.
I said, “What the hell?” and began chuckling.
She grabbed my arm, hard, and led me to an unoccupied bench behind a clump of oleanders. There wasn’t a spark of mirth in her eyes as we sat down together.
“It’s nothing to laugh about, Ed.”
“Green must have recovered from the solar plexus knockout,” I guessed.
Lucile nodded. She touched the shiner with her fingertips. “He gave me this... when I refused to give him your address.”
“What would he have given you if you hadn’t decided to cough up the address?”
She started violently. “How did you know...?”
“He didn’t impress me as the sort of a bird who would stop at a shiner.”
She shuddered. “He would have killed me, Ed.”
“When can I expect a visit from him?”
“That... depends. I promised I’d try to get you to meet him some place where you could be alone.”
“What,” I asked her, “is the plot?” I gave her a cigarette and took one. Lit them both. She puffed on hers half a dozen times, grimacing with her bruised lips.
“Before God, I wish I knew.”
“Jealousy?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s rather late for that.”
“Then what’s it all about?” I asked roughly.
She looked away from me. Stared across the bay. Her thickening lips twitched. “I think he intends to kill you.”
“Sure, I know that. But why?”
“What you did to him last night is enough reason for Harry Green.”
“Why did he jump me last night?”
She asked drearily: “Don’t you know?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“All this doesn’t matter.” She grabbed my arm again. “You’ll have to get out of Miami, Ed.”
“I like it here.”
“Enough to... want to stay always?”
“I’d just as soon be buried here as anywhere.”
“No, Ed! My God!” She was shaking uncontrollably. “It’ll be my fault.”
I stretched out my legs and puffed on my cigarette. “I’m too old to learn to run from things I don’t understand.”
“But he’ll kill you. You don’t understand. It’s not only Harry. It’s...” She caught in her breath sharply.
I pretended not to notice. “I’m stubborn as hell. And as curious as an old maid about what’s under a man’s shirt tail.”
“He’ll... not stop with you, Ed.” The words came faintly. She was twisting a lace handkerchief into a wispy string.
I lit another cigarette from the butt of my first one. “Here’s the way I get the picture: Green has some reason for thinking I’m in his way — not only so far as you’re concerned. Am I right?”
Lucile nodded.
“Just to be on the safe side,” I went on conversationally, “he decides to rub me out... and at the same time he’s likely to make it tough on you.”
Another nod. The tip of Lucile’s pink tongue was caressing her swollen lips. She seemed to be studying my words carefully — as though they were more important than I was making them sound.
“I still like Miami,” I told her.
She cupped her chin in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees, gazing out through a rent in the foliage to the blue of Biscayne Bay rippling to the feel of an inshore breeze.
“Let’s take a ride up to your hotel.” I took hold of her arm and pulled her up.
She drew back. “We’d better not.”
“Afraid Green might be keeping tabs?”
She nodded nervously.
I said, “To hell with Green,” and pulled her toward my car. With her riding beside me, I went on: “You can call him as soon as we get there. I’ll tell you what to say later.”
She didn’t answer. I saw her looking at me out of the corners of her eyes. I was doing a lot of figuring in a hurry and it didn’t add up right.
Lucile put her hands on my shoulders as soon as the door of her room closed behind us. Lifted her face to mine. “Don’t mix up with Harry. Please darling. Take my word for what he is.”
She tried to pull my face down to hers. I pushed her away. “What the goddamn hell is all this about?”
She walked over to the window and stood beside it, looking out across the bay.
I said: “Don’t bother to put on a show for me. I’ve got the layout down pretty well. Just how does this Green stack up with the gang you’re playing ball with?”
She whirled on me. All of her face was white except for the bruised place. “What do you mean? Who are you?”
“Barlow’s the name.”
“But... what made you say that other?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “That’s the only way I can hook up Green’s play.”
“How much do you know about that?” she demanded.
“Not a lot about anything. I’m using the brains God gave me and I know there’s something besides jealousy behind Green trying to put me on the spot. He looks like a guy with too much sense to fight over a skirt.”