“I... I’m regarded as, well, a rather frugal person.” Tears brimmed over and spoiled her face, but it didn’t break up, there was no grimace, the face remained haughty and expressionless. “But... this is different. I love my husband. We’ve only been married six months...”
Uncle Harry said, “I think you ought to go upstairs now.”
I said, “But you are going to notify the cops about this, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” She leaned heavily on Uncle Harry. “Tomorrow morning. Whether he’s returned to me or not. I’ve got to give it a chance... and then I’ll go to the police, either way.” She shivered once, violently. “I was warned... we were being watched... that even the phones were tapped... that if we went to the police... they’d... kill him.”
“I understand, Mrs. Reed. I’ll keep my nose clean. It’s your affair, entirely. Now, easy does it, ma’am.”
Uncle Harry led her toward the door. He said, “Ethel, you’ll show Mr. Chambers out,” and then they were gone.
Aunt Ethel came to me, still smiling and smelling of brandy. Aunt Ethel’s silver hair was deceptive. Aunt Ethel was no youngster but she wasn’t senile. Aunt Ethel was a beautiful woman, mature but not aged. Aunt Ethel wore a blue dress which matched her eyes. Aunt Ethel’s blue dress was cut deep in front and a good deal of firm cream-skinned bosom was exposed. She took me out to the small dim vestibule. Aunt Ethel wasn’t smiling now and her lips were full and red and glistening. Aunt Ethel said, “I’m drunk.”
“So?”
“So... this.”
She slid her arms under my arms and hooked her hands over my shoulders. She drew me close and opened her mouth on mine. Oh, Aunt Ethel. She smelled of brandy but she smelled too of a vague and attractive perfume. She moved her mouth away and I made one last small attempt at trying to keep the track clear. I said, “You people could have gone to the cops. There are ways. Who advised her?”
At my ear she said, “Nobody advises Florence. She supports us, just as she supports her husband, not too liberal with any of us, so... nobody advises Florence... except Florence. You’re sweet.” The hands on my shoulders tightened and her warm body was close. “I’m drunk, but I’ve wanted to do this from the moment I came into that room. Drunk. Anyway, it’s an excuse.”
Then her mouth came back to mine.
4.
It was late, but I tried the Club Trippa anyway. There was a bar in front and a cocktail lounge in the rear. It was done in maroon and silver and had a glow that was warmer than a bachelor-girl on vacation. The bar was crowded three deep and the inside room was jumping. The bartender winked and waved and said, “Hi.”
“Nick around? Or Johnny Hays?”
“Don’t know myself, Mr. Chambers. Try Upstairs.”
Upstairs, up a maroon-carpeted flight of stairs, was the floor show, the band, the dance floor, and the heavy spenders. Upstairs, too, were a couple of choice back rooms, one of which was Nick Darrow’s office, if a studio fitted out like a sultan’s reception room can be termed “office.” The merry-makers were engaged in watching a stripper called Bonnie Laurie so I strolled along the periphery of dimness and opened the office door without knocking.
Nick Darrow wasn’t there.
But Johnny Hays was.
He unfurled off a couch, black-eyed and contemptuous, and lounged toward me.
“Still looking for trouble, my dear shamus?”
“Where’s Nickie?”
“None of your business. Any message?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll take it.”
I gave it to him. High, hard and handsome with a lot of shoulder behind it. It splattered blood from his mouth and sat him down with his toes pointed at the ceiling. I didn’t wait for him to get up. I went downstairs and had a Scotch highball and my palms were wet with expectancy. But nothing happened. Johnny Hays didn’t show, nor did Nickie Darrow. Johnny was still sitting there, or he didn’t want to come down, or he’d gone down the back exit and was out front waiting. I paid and went out. Nobody was there. I walked along a couple of quiet streets but nobody sprang at me. So I gave it up and went back to the lights. I had ham and eggs in a cafeteria, with coffee, ketchup, and well-buttered English muffins. Then I went home.
I showered, dried down, slipped into a pair of shorts. I bought myself a Scotch and chased it with more Scotch and I was ready to wrap this day up and put it to bed. I thought about Florence Reed and felt a little sorry for her, as sorry as you can feel for a dame with a hundred million bucks, and then I thought about Aunt Ethel and I got a belt out of that. So... my door-buzzer buzzed.
In the middle of the night, the door-buzzer buzzes.
Each to his own. Poets sleep in the daytime. Tramps work at night. Charwomen come home at dawn. Editors read in bed. Actors awake at the crack of noon. Atom experts ponder through the night. Doctors are always on call. And a private richard... there is no reason why business should not be buzzing the door-buzzer in the dead of night. Private richard. He has about as much privacy as a parakeet in a kindergarten.
I opened the door to darkness. Somebody’d switched off the corridor lights. When lights are out that should be on, you drop, you learn that early when you’re in my business. But I didn’t drop in time. Blazes of light punctuated the blackness, and when I dropped, it wasn’t because I wanted to drop, it was because I was knocked down by the force of the bullets. I heard the pound of feet in the corridor, but right then I wasn’t interested. I felt blood on my naked body, and I heard the labor of my breathing. My one interest was reaching the phone. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t make it. So I crawled, and I lifted the receiver, and dialed o, and heard my whisper: “Operator... hospital... hospital... emergency...”
5.
I was under sedatives for a day, while they probed for bullets, and then I was sitting up in the hospital bed, ready to go, but they told me five days, five days before they’d let me out of there, and then I got a caller, amiable but worried-looking, Detective-lieutenant Louis Parker, Homicide, good cop and good friend.
“Hi, Detective,” he said. “I hear you’re coming around real good.”
“Hi, Lieutenant. What brings you?”
“Well, when a friend is sick...”
“What else brings you?”
“That Abner Reed shindig. I hear tell you were an innocent bystander... in a cemetery. You well enough to chat?”
“I’m well enough to get the hell out of here. Did they return that bird?”
“Yah.” He sighed and sat down. Detective-lieutenant Louis Parker, squat, thick, ruddy and black-haired, stump of an unlit cigar in his mouth. “And none the worse for his experience. Got hit in the throat a couple of times, a little damage to the windpipe. Had to do the questions and answers by writing, but it’s a condition that figures to clear up quick enough.”
“Has it broken in the newspapers?”
“Nope. Not a word. We’re trying to work it through before it gets any publicity. Now, let’s hear your story.”
I gave him the story without frill or furbelow. When I was finished he said, “Any ideas?”
“About what?”
“About what makes you a shooting-gallery target?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a couple of ideas, but I’d rather not talk about them.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re personal, and I’d like to give them some personal attention, as soon as they let me out of here.”
“Okay, Peter Pan, if that’s the way you want it.” The cigar rolled around in his mouth and stopped. “What about the snatch? Want to discuss that?”