“Is that the way you’d like it?” I said. “Not going out for months?”
“That’s the way I’d hate it. That’s why you’re here.”
“Let’s have the pitch,” I said.
He paced with lithe steps. He was tall and slender and rather graceful, muscular for his age. He had white wispy hair neatly parted in the middle, a pink face, a delicate nose, loose red libidinous lips, and narrow blue eyes beneath expressive not-yet-grey eyebrows. “I want to get out of here,” he said. “And I want to get out of here soon. And I want you to get me out of here.” He went to his desk, brought out an oblong metal box, extracted a number of bills, counted them and brought them to me. “Here,” he said.
I don’t have to be asked twice. I took the bills. I counted them. They amounted to five thousand dollars, money of the realm.
“That a fee?” I said.
“It’s a fee,” he said.
“Whom did you murder?” I said.
“I didn’t murder anyone,” he said.
“Not even Vivian Frayne?”
“Wise,” he said. “A real wise son of a bitch, aren’t you. No,” he said, “I didn’t murder anyone, not even Vivian Frayne, though she was asking for it.”
“Then why are you holed up?” I said.
“Because, a little bit, I’m mixed in it.”
“And you want me to un-mix?”
“Precisely.”
I sighed again. I said, “Sit down, huh? Re-fill our glasses and sit down. Let’s talk it up, huh? But I’m telling you right now, mixed or un-mixed, I keep the fee.”
“Any way it turns out,” he said, “you keep the fee.”
“Anybody know about this place?” I said as he filled my glass.
“Very few. Most of those who know about this place — know me as George Phillips not as Gordon Phelps. I had my attorney — whom I trust — find this place for me, arrange for the lease and all that. I used a decorator to furnish — as George Phillips, and I paid him in cash.”
“Your wife know about it?”
“Heavens, no. I don’t think she’d like it. I think it would rile her. My wife can be quite fierce when riled. She also controls a good deal of... er... what shall I say... my fortune — she controls, with me, jointly, a good deal of my fortune. Her becoming riled could prove embarrassing to me, quite embarrassing — and embarrassing is an understatement, believe me.”
“Then why do you do what you’ve done?”
“Why do any of us do things... we shouldn’t quite do? We have compulsions, desires...”
“Yeah,” I said. “How about Sophia Sierra? She knows that George Phillips is Gordon Phelps and—”
“But she doesn’t know that it has any importance. It’s just a guy using a different name, so that his hideaway can actually be a hideaway. She knows — as the world knows — that I have a good deal of latitude in my married life. It has just never occurred to her that this latitude has any definition, any boundaries... thank heavens. I was drunk, one night, and I slipped — I suppose we all kind of slip sometimes. In a sense, I was boasting to Vivian Frayne, and Miss Sierra was present—”
“So Frayne knew you as Gordon Phelps too?”
“Yes.”
“Did it worry you?”
“About Miss Sierra, no. I had hoped, soon, that I would be out of her orbit, that I’d just be another guy she had known and didn’t know any more. Men keep happening to these girls... and the remote ones just fade away and are forgotten.”
“And Vivian Frayne?”
“That one was different. She and I were much more intimate. She knew much more about me, made it her business, it seems, to know much more about me—”
“Kind of fodder for blackmail, wouldn’t you say?”
“It was fodder for blackmail, I would say.”
“Frayne?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s start at the beginning, Mr. Phelps. Let’s have it from scratch.”
He sipped his drink and set it down. He ran a tentative fingernail through his hair. His face creased into the pained expression of a constipated goat. “We’re all human,” he said. “Let’s put it that way, we’re all human. I like girls. I like girls who are young, strong, beautiful, vital. I don’t like the people in my own sphere. I — how shall I put it — I seek out, sort of, the lower depths, the physical, passionate people of a world other than my own. Perhaps I have a need to feel superior, perhaps my emotions are whipped to—”
“Okay,” I said, “with the abnormal psychology. I dig. Let’s move it from there.”
“I am a frequenter of dance halls — low, cheap dance halls. There, I am most superior. I am a millionaire. There are few millionaires in cheap dime-a-dance dance halls. And yet, you would be surprised at how many of the girls working in these dives are young, sweet, well-shaped kids from out of town—”
“Not me. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“There are bags, but there are beauties — kids trying to make a buck, kids with no talent, no knowledge, no assets, except youth and beauty. I get acquainted with these charming kids, I move slowly, I have patience, and, most of all in my favor, I have a good deal of money to throw around — and basically these kids have one prime need: money. Like that, and in that element, I can compete with my younger brethren. It was about six months ago that I went to the Nirvana Ballroom. As George Phillips, of course.”
“But of course,” I said.
“Originally, I was attracted to Sophia Sierra—”
“Can’t blame you,” I said, thinking of curves.
“But that one was too mercenary for me. She was right on top of the ball all the time.”
“What did you expect?” I said. “That she’d fall in love with you? Why, you can be her father, for Chrissake.”
“I smell maleness,” he said, “and I smell youth, and male ego, and a definite interest in Sophia Sierra. I smell Peter Chambers on the hunt, and I warn Peter Chambers right now. Take it from an old hand, Peter — not your youth, nor your maleness, nor your interest, will carry you one whit with Sophia Sierra. That one, at this moment in her life, is whore, all whore, period.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “Now get off the lecture platform. What happened with Sophia Sierra?”
“I took her out, showed her the town, let her see things big. I bought her a few frocks, a few dinners, advanced her a little cabbage, let her feel that papa was well-heeled and charitable.”
“Did you make it?”
“No.”
“Could you have?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I got close, but I didn’t get where I wanted to get. And then she came up with the lalapaloosa, and I took a raincheck.”
“Lalapaloosa?” I said.
“Ever hear of Elia Strassan?”
“Sure I’ve heard of Elia Strassan. Probably the greatest dramatic coach ever produced in America. Guy was in his prime about ten years ago, then he got sick and retired. What’s Elia Strassan got to do with this?”
“Sophia Sierra propositioned me. Seems she wants to be a great dramatic actress. Seems she wants to study with Strassan.”
“But he’s not having any... or is he?”
“Private tutorship, Sophia told me. Told me that Strassan wanted ten thousand dollars — in advance — for a year’s private tutorship. Wanted the money from me, she did, to pay over to him.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“I checked.”
“Whom?” I asked.
“First, Strassan. Guy’d had a stroke, was confined to a chair, wasn’t teaching any more. But that little lass had gotten to him, made him happy, somehow, right there in his wheel-chair. Because Strassan verified for her, said he’d be willing to take her on, privately, for a year, for ten thousand. He needs ten thousand like a hole in the head; the guy’s independently wealthy. So I checked some more. Dear Sophia had pulled this thing before — grabbed a few suckers — seems there are others like me who look for kicks in dance halls. Strassan covered for her, for reasons known only to himself.” He drank deeply of his drink. “That baby doesn’t want to be an actress. All she wants is to garner a great big bankroll while she’s young enough and beautiful enough to garner it. That’s all that’s on her mind — loot, big loot. And she uses that dance hall as a base of operations. Strange kind of whore, that kid, but all whore. I passed.”