Skirts Bring Me Sorrow, page 3
Yet at the same time that dress seemed charming and simple, tight fitting around her slender waist, imparting to her a girlish, innocent appearance. Her dress was simple in another sense of the word too. Apart from her high-heeled shoes, it looked like it was all she was wearing.
She kinda hit me all at once, made me sweat a little, made me breathless. I was trying to remember what I knew about Fletcher’s daughter and I couldn’t remember anything, couldn’t think about anything except her melting blue eyes and the subtle shadows of her armpits.
She said softly, as though it didn’t matter a damn provided I looked at her: ‘What was it you wanted?’
‘I’d just like to have a few …’
‘Give me a cigarette,’ she demanded with an up-and-under smile.
I knew the play as well as she did and went through the actions like I’d been rehearsing all my life. I took my case slowly from my pocket, walked across to where she was half-standing, half-sitting on the edge of the table. That way, her rounded thighs were starkly outlined through the soft fabric of her skirt. She selected a cigarette with care, bending over the case so her hair brushed my cheek and a subtle fragrance teased my nostrils. When I held a lighted match she bent closer, puffing expertly, so her bare shoulder touched mine.
I’m not gonna pretend it didn’t mean anything. It was a softly rounded shoulder, the skin smooth and tantalising so I wanted to touch. I lit my own cigarette with a shaking hand, turned on my heel deliberately and strode across to the fireplace. I stood there with feet astride, eyeing her steadily.
She gave an artful little chuckle like she was having fun all to herself, drew on the cigarette and directed a thin plume of smoke towards the ceiling. Every simple movement was graceful and tantalising, even the way she half-turned to stub out the newly-lighted cigarette in an ashtray. Then she paced over to me, melting blue eyes smiling into mine, hands behind her, steps slow and measured with a playful springiness that revealed a keen sense of rhythm.
‘What d’you want to see him about?’ she asked disinterestedly, and her eyes were smiling invitingly. She was close now, walking straight at me. I tensed myself, gauged her movement, said sharply: ‘It’s a personal matter.’
There were two more paces to go. Her eyes were still smiling into mine. She took one pace, began the next. I tensed myself and sucked in my belly, rocked back on my heels to avoid her. But she knew a smarter move. At the last moment, she swayed to one side, slipped past me so her hard, firm bodice brushed against my chest and arm. She turned to face me, smiled wickedly and chuckled musically.
‘I can arrange a meeting if that’s what you want,’ she said.
‘It’s a personal matter,’ I repeated. ‘If you can fix it, I’ll be extremely grateful and …’
She did it again. She made a job of it this time, brushed right across me, my arm, my chest and then my other arm. Pointed tips as hard as pebbles.
She knew what it was doing to me. Her eyes were laughing and melting at the same time. ‘You’re a nice guy,’ she drawled. ‘I can fix it for you.’ She swayed towards me again, ready to do it a third time. It wasn’t necessary. I grabbed her wrists brutally, jerked hard so it snapped her flush up against me. Her body was warm but tense and her lips only half-responded. She pulled her head to one side, said in a hard, cold voice: ‘You’ve got a nerve!’
‘Quit acting,’ I growled. ‘It’s what you’ve been asking for.’
Her blue eyes stared at me steadily for maybe a coupla seconds. Then she gave a deep, husky kinda chuckle and turned to jelly, a weighty, gooey kinda jelly that smelled sweet, clung warmly and moistly. She wrapped one arm around my neck in a grip like a vice, and her lips were wet and hungry, starting at one corner of my mouth, working slowly and expertly to the other corner. Her other hand was underneath my jacket, so the tips of her fingers rested between my shoulder blades. There was a magic in those fingertips that penetrated right through my shirt. They traced a delicate, sensitive pattern that my heated nerve-ends responded to with a frightening suddenness so I was scared what was happening to me. My hands were hot, my skin slippery with perspiration.
She was slippery too, sensuous and clinging, like she was wanting to be, and almost was, a part of me. The magic in those fingertips was so unexpected it caught me off guard. For one crazy moment I almost didn’t care what happened.
And then I saw reason. I was in Fletcher’s house, in the morning room with the door unlocked so anyone could walk in. She was Fletcher’s daughter and he was a guy with dough. His dough made all the difference. No matter who was to blame, I’d be the guy left holding the bag. The daughter of a guy as rich as Fletcher couldn’t possibly be in the wrong. I’d be to blame and it would be assault or rape.
I had to kinda peel her off me. Her pointed nails seared across my back, tore skin through my thin shirt. A piece of my lip went with her, and as I gripped her bare shoulders, holding her away, she was panting uncontrollably, eyes swimmy and semi-conscious. A little trickle of blood ran down from her parted lips, and there was a warm saltiness in my own mouth. The sting of it made me even more acutely conscious of that unlocked door.
‘Cut it out,’ I breathed. ‘It’s crazy.’
That’s what I intended to say. But my voice was a harsh, breathless whisper and my arms and hands were trembling as I held her off, supported the full weight of her body which she leaned on me.
She took four slow, deep breaths, each breath deeper than the previous. The last one was a kinda shuddering gasp that came up from deep down inside her. Her eyes were less swimmy, fused with mine. ‘When?’ she panted.
‘You say,’ I said. But I didn’t say it. I croaked it.
‘It’s difficult,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll ring you.’
I held her off with one hand, fumbled a visiting card from my inside pocket. She took my other hand between her own and began moving it around. My blood stared pounding and I knew it was gonna start all over again. I pulled free quickly, almost roughly, and got an armchair between us. She stood for a moment like all the strength had been sapped from her, and then wearily crossed to another chair, sank down into it gratefully.
‘My telephone number,’ I said, holding my card towards her.
‘Bring it over,’ she said. Her cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes melting into mine. She was like an eighteen-year-old who’d had her first emotional brush with the opposite sex and was exhausted with the excitement of it.
I approached cautiously, handed her the card. She thrust it away in her bodice without even looking at it. ‘You mean it?’ she pleaded. ‘You really do want me?’
Right then I did mean it. Right then I couldn’t help myself. I said so.
‘But I want to see Fletcher too,’ I added.
‘You’ll see him,’ she promised. She took another deep breath. ‘Just a few minutes.’
‘Take your time,’ I said. ‘Cool off first.’
I lit another cigarette, strolled across to the French windows and stared out across the lawn. When I turned around she was looking at my card. She tucked it away guiltily, looked at me artfully. ‘So you’re a reporter?’
‘That’s my job.’
‘I can guess why you’re here,’ she said slowly. ‘He’s refused to see all newspaper men.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I’m not after an interview. I’ve got a special angle.’
She gave me an up-and-under look. There’s no point in trying to describe it. That look conveyed all the emotional intensity she and I had felt a few moments earlier. It promised a repetition of that for the future.
‘I’ve got a special angle too,’ she said huskily.
I’d reached the butt end of the cigarette. I arched my eyebrows enquiringly. ‘Ready?’
‘As ready as I’ll ever be while you’re in the same room,’ she smiled. She got up, smoothed her skirt across her thighs, pulled the puffed sleeves up on to her shoulders and tautened the neckline draw-cord. She still looked cute. The bodice being drawn tight that way caused the material to strain against flesh.
She was a big help, led me to a wide, circular, thickly-carpeted staircase to the floor above and along a wide corridor decorated with expensive marble statuettes. She stopped momentarily outside a door, knocked peremptorily and pushed her way inside.
She held the door open, stood to one side and smiled for me to precede her. I took a coupla steps inside the room and saw him seated the other side of a huge desk, his brow furrowed in a frown of frank annoyance, his white hair a vivid contrast to his lined but healthily tanned face.
I stared at him, mentally recording my first impression for future use, observed the narrowed, wrinkled eyes, the mean twist to his thin lips and the long pinched nose.
As he stared back at me hostilely, angry at the interruption, the silence was broken by her soft, persuasive voice: ‘Henry. This is Mr Hank Janson.’ The soft blue eyes stared at me meltingly. ‘Mr Janson,’ she added, ‘I’d like you to meet my husband.’
CHAPTER THREE
That introduction knocked me sideways.
I staggered across to him, hand outstretched and my mind reeling. I understood now why I hadn’t been able to remember anything about his daughter. It was coming to me now. Fletcher had married just a year ago. The dame was his wife, not his daughter. The old familiar story; a sixty-year-old skinflint who carved himself a fortune, and the tantalising, vital dame of not more than twenty-five who married him. It was like my mind was split into two separate compartments, one figuring the angles, and the other performing routine actions. I said:
‘Pleased to meecher, Mr Fletcher. I shan’t worry you very long. There’s a suggestion I want to make.’ While I was talking I was understanding everything even better: the hungry emotion in her eyes, the way she melted against me, the way she said it would be difficult and she would telephone.
Fletcher’s face was tanned a healthy mahogany colour, but even through that I could see the angry flush that spread upwards from his neck. His eyes were hard, black ice-chips and his nostrils quivered. He roared: ‘What the devil does this mean …’
There really was magic in her fingertips. She’d closed the door swiftly, slipped around his side of the desk, rested her fingertips gently on his shoulder. Even as she did so, you could see the change in him, a miraculous transformation. He spluttered as he choked back angry words, his eyes softened when he looked up at her and those thin, mean lips twitched, gradually became a forced smile that was incredibly soft and gentle.
‘Henry!’ she hushed soothingly, like a mother gently remonstrating with a naughty child.
There was the crack of a whip in her voice again; a different whip this time. The sweet, compelling lash of affection that subdued the angry beast, caused it to fawn and purr with pleasure as magic fingers traced a gentle pattern along the nape of his neck.
‘One day I shall be really annoyed with you, Henry,’ she told him primly, the soft tender smile she gave him belying her words.
He wasn’t standing in my shoes. I saw it differently from him. He got a kick out of his young, beautiful and loving wife.
That wasn’t the picture I saw. She had him strung to her little finger with a slender thread of gossamer. With it she controlled him expertly as though he was a puppet and she was the operator.
‘What does this guy want, Sandra?’ he asked. The sugary sentiment in his voice made me sick.
‘He’s a reporter,’ she told him. ‘He wants a word with you.’
His eyes widened, his mouth gaped. The anger came out through his mouth with a loud whoosh that he tried to smother. He choked over his words as he growled rudely: ‘Whadya want?’
‘I’ve a suggestion to make,’ I told him. ‘I want your approval before I go ahead.’
‘What kinda suggestion?’
I glanced around expectantly. ‘You don’t mind if I make myself comfortable …?’
He did mind. I could see it in his eyes. But Sandra interjected softly. ‘Pull up a chair, come around this side of the desk. It’ll be more cosy.’
It wasn’t until I was around the other side of the desk and sinking into a chair that I saw the cast on his leg. I stared, nodded towards it. ‘Have a fall?’
He grunted assent, glared at me.
‘The poor dear fell while pruning the rose trees,’ cooed Sandra. ‘Doctor says he must wear the cast for another month at least.’ Her fingers strayed across his shoulder, and his face softened as he reached up, trapped them with his own gnarled and wrinkled hands. It was an action that for me strikingly emphasised the vast difference in their ages. A horned, brown hand resting possessively on slim, white fingers possessed of the essential vitality of youth.
I cleared my throat. ‘I’m from the Chicago Chronicle,’ I said.
He scowled. His eyes said the Chicago Chronicle and me could sizzle in hell for all he cared. But his voice said nothing.
‘You may guess what prompted my call,’ I said. ‘The facts are public property since the morning editions came out. But before I get around to my suggestion, I’d like to check them with you.’
He grunted.
Sandra eased around until she was sitting on the arm of his chair, her slim body leaning against his, her arm resting on his shoulder. You could see him softening up as she did it. She narrowed her eyes at me, nodded imperceptibly as though to say: ‘Get cracking. I’ll see he listens.’
I cleared my throat once more. This was becoming an uncomfortable interview. My voice was husky when I spoke.
‘Briefly,’ I summarised, ‘these are the facts. You haven’t seen your son for twenty years. A week ago it was reported your son was killed in a road accident. It was the first time you’d heard of him for twenty years. You made arrangements for his body to be brought to Chicago for burial.’ I looked away from him, cleared my throat. ‘You know what happened. The railway company made a mistake. The wrong crate in the refrigerator wagon.’
He grunted. It was as though he couldn’t trust himself to speak.
I paused a moment, said meaningfully: ‘Twenty years is a long time for a father not to know the whereabouts of his son.’
He grunted again.
‘Would you care to tell me the reason for this estrangement?’
There was a long pause. Sandra’s fingers fluttered along his shoulders, stroked the back of his neck. The reluctant words seemed squeezed out from inside him. ‘I was poor then,’ he grunted. ‘Just a working man. David lit out of his own accord. Just a kid he was. Fourteen years of age. I reckon he figured he could make out better on his own.’
I moistened my lips, clasped my hands together tightly. ‘And it’s no exaggeration to say that your son died as a vagrant in a casualty ward?’
He hated telling me. But Sandra was behind him all the time, encouraging speech with magic fingers. ‘He was a bum,’ he admitted. ‘Hadn’t a nickel in his pockets. Was cut to pieces on the road by some crazy driver who didn’t stop.’
‘It happened some distance from Chicago,’ I pointed out. ‘Florida is a long way off. How come they knew he was your son?’
There was a pause. A long pause as though Fletcher himself had to think about it. ‘There was a letter in his pocket,’ he said at last. ‘A letter saying he was my son and I should be informed in the event of his death.’
‘Could I …?’ I began.
Fletcher’s jaw tightened, his eyes flashed angrily. Sandra said quickly: ‘Of course you can.’ Then, in a wheedling voice: ‘Let him see it, Henry.’
Fletcher’s suppressed anger showed in the way he tugged the drawer open, drew out a letter and tossed it across to me. The envelope was cheap, grubby and addressed to: Whosoever it may concern.
I arched an eyebrow for permission, opened the envelope and took out the letter. It was like he said, a formal letter stating that the bearer was the son of H Fletcher of Chicago. The notepaper was cheap, the letter typed and the signature an illegible scrawl. I carefully refolded the letter, replaced it in the envelope, handed it back to Fletcher. He took it wordlessly, tucked it away in the drawer.
‘Anything else to identify him?’
He scowled at me keenly. ‘Should anything else be necessary?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Just my newspaper mind. A reporter always checks and double checks. What about birth marks? Anything like that to identify him?’
His eyebrows came together when he frowned. ‘The body was taken direct to the crematorium,’ he snarled.
I’d stepped out of line. Because of the extensive disorganisation ensuing, the Police Commissioner had forced Fletcher to agree to the immediate disposal of his son’s body by the crematorium. Even that had been a nasty job, undertaken by cops wearing gasmasks. But it wasn’t tactful to remind a father of this, even if he hadn’t seen his son for twenty years. I hastily changed the line of my questioning, came to the real reason for my visit.
‘It’s this way, Mr Fletcher,’ I said. ‘You’re a self-made man. You’ve made a name for yourself and a fortune. Now it must be a hard blow to a man like you to learn his only son has been killed. Especially since you haven’t seen him for twenty years. You musta worried about him.’
He stared at me levelly. ‘It wouldn’t be human not to,’ he admitted gruffly.
‘That’s what I mean,’ I said eagerly. ‘This son of yours was missing for twenty years. Now what was he doing during those twenty years? Have you any idea?’
He shook his head slowly, almost sadly.
‘Now that’s what I intend to find out,’ I said. ‘My idea is this: a series of articles investigating the life of your son from the time you last saw him. They will cover what happened to him after he left home, the jobs he had and the folks he mixed with. You get the angle, don’t you? Here’s a guy who went missing for twenty years. This is the story of what happened to him and …’
