“She doesn’t care when I work,” I said, “or when I sleep. All she wants is results. If I can get them in twenty-three hours a day, she doesn’t object to my doing anything I damn please with the extra hour.”
She laughed, then abruptly quit laughing and stared steadily at me. “Donald,” she said, “are you working for the man who came out of that apartment?”
I said patiently, “You don’t know whether he came out of that apartment or not, Marian.”
“Well — look here, Donald. I don’t want to do anything that’s going to hurt you. Don’t you think it would be a swell idea for you to put your cards on the table?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Then you’d know too much.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“It isn’t that. You have enough troubles now, If you helped me without knowing you were helping me, no one could make a kick. If you helped me and knew you were helping me and it turned out I was in hot water, then you’d be in right along with me.”
She said, “Oh. Then you are working for him.”
I said, “Quit talking and eat. I have work to do.”
I hurried her through dinner and drove her up to my place. Mrs. Eldridge listened to my explanation that she was my cousin who had come to town rather unexpectedly. I said she might be there for a day or two. I didn’t know just how long.
Mrs. Eldridge gave her a front room on my floor. She looked across at me with acid eyes and said, “When you’re visiting your cousin, leave the door open.”
“I will,” I said, and took the receipt Mrs. Eldridge handed me.
When she had gone, Marian said, “So we have to leave the door open.”
“Uh-huh.”
“How much open?”
“Oh, two or three inches. I’m going anyway.”
“Donald, I wish you didn’t have to go. Can’t you stay here for a little while and — and visit.”
“No. Charlie might not like it.”
She screwed her face up in a little grimace and said, “I wish you’d quit kidding about him.”
“But what’s his real name?” I asked.
She said, “You’ve created him. He is entirely your idea. If you don’t like Charlie, why don’t you think up another name?”
“Charlie suits me all right.”
“Then go on calling him Charlie.”
I said, “I’ve got some work to do. I’ve got to be shoving on.”
“Donald, I wish I could get that out of my mind. She had such a beautiful figure, and that cord around her neck — her face was all swollen and black and—”
“Shut up,” I said. “Quit thinking about it. Go to bed and get some sleep. The bathroom is at the end of the corridor.”
“When will you be in, Donald?”
“I don’t know. Pretty late.”
“If I’d sit up, would you look in on me before you went to bed?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want you sitting up, and it may be good and late. Go to bed and get some sleep.”
“Will you see me in the morning?”
“I can’t promise.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know what I’ll be doing in the morning.”
She placed the tips of her fingers on my forearm. “Thanks for the dinner and — and everything, Donald.”
I patted her shoulder. “Keep a stiff upper lip. It’ll be all right. ’Night.”
She came to the door and watched me down the corridor. Mrs. Eldridge was waiting to buttonhole me in the front hallway. “Your cousin looks like a nice girl,” she said.
“She is.”
“Of course, I like to know something about people who have rooms here, particularly young women.”
I said, “My cousin’s engaged to a sailor. His boat’s due to arrive some time tomorrow.”
Her nose went up in the air an inch or two. “If he calls on her, tell her to keep the door open — or should I tell her?”
“He won’t call on her,” I said. “His mother lives here. She’ll visit him at his mother’s. She expected to stay there, only there was some company came in unexpectedly.”
Mrs. Eldridge’s face thawed into a smile. “Oh,” she said, and then after a moment: “Oh.”
“Is that all?” I asked.
She said, “Under the circumstances, I won’t ask you anything about her. Usually I like to know more details, but under the circumstances it won’t be necessary for you to tell me anything at all about her personal affairs.”
“I was afraid I’d have to,” I said. I went out, climbed into the agency car, and filled it with gas, oil and water. It was darn near empty on all three.
Chapter Six
I drove down to the Blue Cave. It was a joint. They’d closed up most of the burlesque houses, and those that hadn’t been closed had been disinfected so they had virtually no alcoholic content. The Blue Cave was one of the joints which had sprung up in the neighbourhood to fill the bill.
The place wasn’t particularly wicked as far as anything anyone actually did, but it was plenty wicked so far as intimations of what would be done or could be done or would like to be done were concerned.
I found a table back in a corner and ordered a drink. An entertainer was putting on an expurgated version of a chemically pure strip-tease. She had more clothes on when she’d finished than most of the performers had when they started, but it was the manner in which she took them off that appealed to the audience: a surreptitious, be-sure-the-doors-and-windows-are-closed-boys attitude that made the customers feel partners in something very, very naughty. When the applause started getting really loud, she looked questioningly at the manager and put up a hand to the clothes that were left as though asking him if she dared make a clean sweep. He came running forward shaking his head, grabbed her hand, started to jerk her off the stage, then apparently, getting his presence of mind, turned for two or three bows at the audience, and led her towards the dressing-room, walking hand in hand.
Shortly after that, the strip-tease dancer was back in circulation, and four noisy men at an adjoining table were very patiently trying to get enough liquor under her belt so that she wouldn’t look to the manager for that final signal when the next performance came along.
A woman in the late forties with coal black hair and eyes that were so avaricious I was reminded with each blink of the celluloid tags which shoot up when a sale is rung up in a cash register strolled past my table and said, “Good evening.”
“Hello,” I said.
“You look lonesome.”
“I am.”
“On the loose?” she asked.
“Loose as ashes,” I said.
She smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
What she could do was indicated by a crook of her finger and a jerk of her head in my direction. In no time at all, a brunette with lots of make-up slid into the chair opposite and said, “Hello. How are you tonight?”
“Fine,” I said. “Have a drink?”
She nodded.
The waiter might have been hiding under the table from the promptness with which he answered that nod.
“Whisky straight,” she said.
“Rye highball,” I ordered.
The waiter went away. The girl across the table put her elbows on the tablecloth, interlaced her finger tips under her chin, gave me the benefit of a stare from two very large dark eyes, and said, “My name’s Carmen.”
“I’m Donald.”
“Live here?”
“I’m on the road. I get in once every three or four months.”
“Oh.”
The waiter brought her whisky glass full of cold tea, gave me a rye highball, and a check for a dollar and twenty-five cents. I nicked Bertha Cool’s roll for a dollar and a half, waved him away, and said to Carmen, “Here’s happy days.”