Death of Cecilia, page 5
The rails in the tunnel glinted in the approaching head-lamp, and the thunder of the train rushed nearer. The platform trembled under my feet. I dug in my heels and fought desperately against the unmistakable thrust that was intended to hurl me down on to the track.
Chapter Six
Even now I get into a cold sweat when I think about it. There was a confused mumble of voices around me, the glare of the onrushing light in my eyes, and the blanketing roar of the train filling the air with vibrating sound. I was suffocating with light and noise and fear.
Then, without warning, the remorseless pressure on my back relaxed. My wet shoes lipped on the concrete, stuck for a moment, and slipped again. I fell backwards into the group of workmen as the train swept past with a grinding of brakes. Someone caught me before I landed among their feet, and everybody began talking at once.
“What the hell comes off here?” The man who was propping me up struggled to get rid of my weight; he had his hands under my armpits and his breath was hot on my face. I twisted my head round and caught sight of his eyes. They were filled with anger and resentment—but no guilt.
“If you want to sleep it off, bud, better find a flop-house.” He pushed me away and squeezed past. I got out of the crush and watched the train filling up, without making any attempt to get on board. The train rattled out of the station again and I was left on the empty platform. The tunnel light changed back to red, the rumble of wheels faded into the distance, and the pounding of my heart gradually settled down.
I was good and sore—mostly with myself. I had behaved like a sucker and it was no credit to me that I wasn’t smeared all over the shining track. I had walked into a murder trick with my eyes wide open and positioned myself for the pay-off more conveniently than the killer could ever have expected. If the thrust in my back had been made a second earlier, or the grip of my shoes hadn’t given me a moment’s respite—the palms of my hands were clammy as I thought of what it would have been like to lie in the path of those spinning wheels.
By the time the next train came in, I was beginning to feel mad at the whole business. The scare had gone, and left me with nothing but art intense desire to get close to the son of a bitch who had thought nothing of tossing me into a mincing machine. I didn’t care a damn who he was; next round I’d teach him.
Chapter Seven
The golden hourglass was the kind of joint that caters for well-to-do commuters with more money than sense—a lot more. Big butter and egg men from the prairies were provided with all the amenities that are calculated to bring a sparkle of reminiscence to their eyes during the long winter nights back home. As a change from reaping corn, they were given every opportunity of sowing their oats.
When I went in, it was warm. The steam heat had been turned on with a lavish hand as a gesture from the management, to protect the female patrons from pneumonia.
The chick at the hat-desk looked like she was wearing tights—and I mean tight. She gave me the sort of smile that makes fortunes in tooth-paste ads, and leaned forward so that I could see most everything but her vaccination mark. The rose-shaded light in the vestibule ceiling rippled over her brassy hair.
“Good evening, sir. Nice to have you again.” She fluttered her hand-painted eyelashes and tilted her head on one side. “Long time since we had the pleasure of your company. Just arrived in town?”
I handed over my coat and took the check. “Didn’t think you’d remember me,” I said. “Must have an extra-special memory.”
“Only for extra special customers.” Her eyes were calculating and predatory. “We never forget old friends.” She leaned her elbows on the desk and reached out to straighten my tie. It took a long time, and her hands kept brushing against my cheek as though by accident. “How long are you stopping over?”
“A couple of days—maybe more,” I told her. “Why?” I put my hand on her arm and let my face tell the story that the movie people exhibit with a notice: “For Adults Only.”
She smiled again faintly as though we shared some old intimate secret. “Could take you along to a swell party—if you’ve got time.”
“Anything like the last one?”
“Better.” She waited while my eyes strayed over her with the kind of look that makes clothes transparent. “This time,” she went on, “there’ll be just four of us.”
“Swell,” I said. “Who are the other two? First-aid men?”
“Funny boy. “Her laugh was as artificial as her complexion. “One of the girls and her man friend, that’s all. Whaddye say?”
“Sounds fine.” I held one of her hands tightly and moved closer until I got a nose-full of “Passion Flower.” Her lips were pouted and provocative. “Who’s the dame? That icicle in the cash-desk?”
Something happened to her smile. It stayed put on her face as though her muscles had forgotten how to relax, and her eyes were calling it a liar. They had gone flat and very still. A tiny warning flickered in them, and said, as plainly as though she had spoken aloud, “Careful. This guy mightn’t be all he seems.”
After an awkward pause, she pulled her hand away and shook back her hair. “What’s it matter who she is? The others won’t interfere with us. They’ll be minding their own business.”
“No dice, baby,” I said. “If she’s the other one, I couldn’t relax—not even with you. She’s not my idea of fun and games. I’d rather spend an evening in an art museum.”
“You can take a load off your mind. She won’t be with us.” Her voice tried to sound confident, but she seemed to be all on edge. The brazen invitation had gone out of her face; she kept wetting her lips and looking uneasily beyond me.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You look like you’d seen a ghost.”
Her eyes tried to crawl back into her head. She tucked in her full lips and grabbed a quick breath that seemed to get stuck half-way down. The hand that rested on the desk was shaking.
I grinned at her and said, “This gets more interesting every minute. Why so scared? Come on, spill it.”
She rubbed her hands together and picked at her nails, in the best show of nervousness this side of Broadway. Then she eyed me up and down and leaned forward. In a low husky voice she said, “This’ll mean my job if it gets around that I talked.” She caught hold of my lapel and pulled me nearer. Our faces were almost touching. I could see where her lipstick ended against the shrimp-pink inside her mouth. “The dame in the cash-desk is dead.”
“You don’t say? Gee, that’s tough. How’d it happen?”
“She shot herself because she was—like that?”
“Like—?” I stared at her as though I were puzzled, and then I nodded understandingly. “Oh, I see. Another Belinda in search of a father?”
“Maybe she didn’t need to search very far. I could give a name to the guy if I wanted to.” Once started, she had lost her nervousness; the eager light in her face was like the morbid expression of the women that gather round a street accident.
“Nobody’d thank you for putting the finger on him,” I said. “And you could be wrong—unless she told you herself?”
“A girl doesn’t tell things like that—until it’s too late to do anything about it. But I saw them together a couple of times—and I mean together.”
“Where?”
“Back of his car, in the alley behind her apartment.” Her mouth twisted in a knowing smile and her eyes weren’t nice.
“What were you doing there?”
“Snooping. She’d stood me down twice in a row, and I wondered what she was up to. A girl’s got to know all the answers in this business.”
“How’d you recognise him in the dark?”
“By the car. It takes heavy sugar to run his type of chariot. Aren’t many like it in New York.” She shook her head warningly and I stood aside. Two men approached the desk and handed in their coats. They had the hard, weather-beaten faces of the Great Outdoors, and could have had straw sticking out of their ears.
Goldilocks dished up her standard “Welcome Stranger” smile, but it lacked something. As she told them “Good evening,” she was watching me with speculation at the back of her eyes.
One of the farmers winked at her. “Doing anything to-night, baby? “He was running his gaze over her like he was trying to count her bones. “If you’ve got a friend in the same class, how about making up a foursome and seeing the town?”
She touched up her side curls and held her head back. “You men! In front of my boy-friend, too!”
He threw me a quick glance, and mumbled, “My mistake, mister. No offence.” His shoulders stirred awkwardly and he turned away. “Let’s get inside, Jeff, and see what they have to drink in this joint.” They went through the curtained door into the main room, and we were left alone again.
I moved closer to the desk, and waited until she had shaken the snow off the hicks’ coats and hung them at the far end of the rail. When she came back, she asked suddenly, “I’ve just been thinking. You’re kinda nosy, aren’t you?”
“Being nosy is my business,” I said. “We’ve all got to live.”
“I thought you were in oil.” Her expression was a mixture of frustration and distrust. It didn’t improve her looks. “You been stringing me along?”
“You mean you hoped I was in oil.” I held her eyes with mine and pitched my voice low—and tough. “You can cut out the comedy, now. I’m on the make, same as you are. The story you’ve just told me sounds like it could pay off big dividends.”
Her mouth went tight, and she ran her tongue over her lips. “I don’t get it. What’s your racket?”
“I collect secrets. Sometimes I keep them, sometimes I don’t.” I grinned at her. “Depends on how much I’m paid. Lots of people hate the world to know what they’ve been up to on the quiet. They’re funny that way. See?”
“You’re the double of a rich guy who used to come in here,” she insisted. “He said he came from Texas—something to do with oil.”
“The resemblance is also financial,” I said. “We both pump for our dough. How’d you like to cut in on a proposition?”
“I’m not touching blackmail.”
“Who’s asking you to? Give me all the dope, and I’ll do the rest. You just sit back and get a nice slice of the proceeds. What do you say?”
“No. I might finish up like Cecilia.” Greed and fear were staring out of her. “It’s too risky.”
“Who’s Cecilia?”
“The girl who got bumped off—for being clever.”
“I thought she shot herself?”
“That’s what everybody thought. And they can go on thinking it, for all I care. Little Yvonne’s not sticking her neck out for the chopper. If my guess is right, she got what was coming to her. And I’m not asking for a dose of the same.” She shook her head. “Maybe you’re big enough to take care of yourself, but I want no part of it.”
“Look,” I said. “Can we talk it over some place? If you still say ‘No,’ then, there’s no harm done. But I’d like to try and show you that you’re turning up the opportunity of getting your hands on real dough. How about it?”
“It won’t do any good. You’re wasting your time.”
“I’ll take a chance. When can we get together?”
“Well—” She smoothed her hands over her hips and bit her lip reflectively. “To-morrow’s my early night. I finish at ten. Want to call at my apartment around half after ten?”
“It’s a date. Where do you live?”
She gave me an address off Chisholm, and seemed sorry that she had committed herself. “I wish you’d never come here,” she complained. “If the boss ever gets to hear that I’ve been opening my big mouth, he’ll give me the bullet—and maybe worse. He warned a couple of us who were friendly with Cecilia that it’d be just too bad if we talked about it. Said it was bad for business, and he’d spent a packet on keeping the name of the club out of the papers.”
“You worry too much,” I told her. “It’ll steal the roses from your cheeks.” I patted her hand. “Everything’s under control. See you to-morrow night.”
As I turned away, I bumped into a loose-built guy whom I hadn’t heard approach. He had a lumpy face. It looked like plastic that had solidified too soon, with the features added later as an afterthought. His eyes were very small and greyish-green; they were set deep in his head under bony, jutting brows.
He rocked on his heels and grumbled, “Why don’t you go where you’re looking?”
“Why don’t you wear a bell?” I asked.
A trace of colour touched the hard ridge under his eyes; they lit up with something that might have been recognition, and then they hooded swiftly over. He bent his head and pushed past me. I stared after him until he went through a little door marked “Private” in an angle of the vestibule, nearly opposite the revolving entrance doors. I heard the lock click as it closed.
Without turning round, I asked Yvonne, “Who’s the sociable gent? “She didn’t answer, and I looked at her over my shoulder. Her face was white, and she was pasty around the mouth. Dark shadows lay in her eyes, and they were as blank as though I weren’t there.
“Didn’t you hear me? Who is he?” I repeated.
“That’s Lew,” she said dully. “I don’t know what he does here, but he’s one of the boss’s assistants.” Then she took a long ragged breath and burst out angrily, “If he heard what we were talking about, I can kiss good-bye to this job—and maybe I’ll be lucky if that’s my only worry. Why don’t you get the hell out of here and leave me alone?”
“O.K. But don’t forget our date to-morrow night.” I left her staring at the little door and twisting her fingers together. The picture of her frightened face was with me as I went through the curtained entrance and let the drapes fall together behind me.
The place hadn’t started to warm up for the long evening session. It was early yet. Half the tables that formed a wide horse-shoe round the tiny dance floor were unoccupied. Each of them had its own little shaded lamp. All the lights were on, but the illumination didn’t reach the high ceiling. It hung dimly overhead like a dark canopy, picked out with scattered pin-points of light that gave the effect of a night sky studded with stars. Behind and above the raised bandstand, a giant neon egg-timer glowed dazzlingly; golden sand trickled endlessly from the upper sphere.
I stood at the top of the short flight of curving steps and made a leisurely inspection of the patrons. They were the usual bunch—bored, thin-faced women with artificially bright eyes and high-pitched chatter. Most of them ran the risk of congestion of the lungs; a strapless gown with a low-cut well-filled bodice was almost de rigeur. There was enough cleavage around to split the United Nations.
The males were all variations on the tired business man theme, with faces flushed from too much drink, and roving, hungry eyes. They behaved like they were mainly tired of the little woman at home. To anyone running this kind of racket, they were a non-stop meal ticket. I could see no one I knew.
A smooth-faced man with a close-shaven olive skin and slick black hair stretched tightly back from his shining forehead met me at the foot of the steps. He was wearing a snug tail suit with a white flower in his buttonhole, and he looked at my d.b. lounge ensemble with thinly veiled distaste. “Are you alone, sir?”
“So far,” I answered.
He didn’t like the way I said it. His nose went up an inch, and he cleared his throat. “This isn’t that type of place, I’m afraid. Unaccompanied ladies are not allowed in.”
“I wondered what excuse you had for keeping ladies out. Management think they wouldn’t mix well with these floozies?”
For a moment he studied me coldly while he tapped a nicely manicured fingernail against his front teeth. His face was expressionless. Then he shrugged. “You wouldn’t be looking for trouble?”
“That’s right,” I said.
The veins in his neck bulged against his high collar and he sucked in his lips. In a thick voice he growled, “Do you want a table, or don’t you? “Without waiting for an answer, he led the way to the far side of the hall, walking with stiff, resentful shoulders and an aggressive carriage of the head. Even from the back he looked like he was ready to boil over any minute.
When he stopped, I was close behind him. The table was tucked in a corner near one of the serving doors. A flat-footed waiter came out, juggling with two armfuls of soup plates, and the sounds of the kitchen were loud until the door swung shut again. Through the opening I had caught a glimpse of steaming pans and a couple of guys in white coats and pants, with high white hats, and sweat on their sallow faces.
“Why not give me a chair in there?” I asked. “I could wash up for you between courses.”
A sour smile twitched his lips, and his eyes were mean. “This is the only available table. All the others are reserved for guests who booked in advance.” He spread out his hands and stepped back. “If it’s not good enough—?”
“It’ll do,” I told him. “Nice to know something’s reserved around here.”
He came close, and said in a tight, controlled voice, “When you feel like starting anything, just let me know. We’ve a special technique for wise guys. Take my advice and keep your nose clean.” Then he turned abruptly and began threading his way back to the steps at the entrance.
I sat down and lit a cigarette. More people came in—some college boys, a bunch of painted fillies with leg-show written all over them, and a noisy, back-slapping crowd from some convention. The place was beginning to buzz with conversation, overlaid with bursts of laughter and the popping of corks. Under the neon sign, Carl and his Calypsos were shedding their apathy. The rhythmic monotony of the music became more compelling, and half a dozen couples got up to dance. I smoked and wondered what the band boys were like without their white tuxedos and floppy ties. Away from the romantic trappings and the sensuous atmosphere, all they had was a mouthful of buck teeth and patent-leather hair.
