Red-Headed Sinners, page 7
“Well,” Ann smiled, “what brings you to New York, Jeff?”
“Business,” Jeff said. He wondered how hard it was going to be to get rid of the blonde girl. He couldn't very well get down to cases while she was still tuned in on the conversation.
“Police business?” Ann asked.
“No. Just my own.”
“So you're a cop,” Nadine said. Her teeth were small and sharp, and she made the word sound as if it had a bad taste to it.
Jeff let it go. “I'd like to talk to you, Ann,” he said.
“Why, of course, darling. Nadine and I were just killing time, anyhow.” She turned to smile at Nadine. “Weren't we, pet?”
“It's beginning to look like it,” Nadine said sourly.
Ann laughed and turned back to Jeff. “What shall we talk about, darling?”
The bartender put their drinks before them. Jeff paid for them and waved away the change. “It can wait,” he said with a casualness he didn't feel. “Maybe later. Whenever you have a few free moments.”
“Well!” Nadine said. “I like that. I really like that, Mr. Cop!”
“No offense,” Jeff said. “Just a little business. You know how it is.”
Ann was still smiling, but now the smile wasn't quite sure of itself. “You're certain this isn't police business?” she asked.
Jeff picked up his drink and sampled it and set it down again. He shook his head. Why couldn't the blonde girl find another playmate for a few minutes? Did you have to hit her on the top of her yellow head to make her take a hint?
Ann turned her head slowly and said, “Nadine, doll, would you mind terribly if Mr. Stoner and I...?”
“Yes,” Nadine said tightly. “I would mind. I'd mind like hell. We had a date—remember?”
“But, pet...” o
To Jeff's amazement, Nadine looked very much as if she were going to cry. “It never fails,” she said. “Never!”
“Listen, Nadine,” Jeff said patiently. “You're making something out of nothing. This will take only a couple of minutes.”
“To hell with you, Mr. Cop,” she said. “I know a goaty guy when I see one. Save your breath.”
“Darling!” Ann said. “Please.”
Nadine glared at Jeff a moment. “Oh, all right!” she said. She slid off her stool and flounced back toward the door under the neon sign that said She.
“You'll have to forgive her,” Ann laughed. “Young girls can develop such serious crushes. She's really quite childlike at times.”
“I can believe it,” Jeff said.
“Now, Jeff—what was it you wanted to talk about?”
“Piggy,” he said.
Her smile stayed where it was, which surprised him.
“Piggy,” she repeated. “Dear Piggy.” She shook a cigarette from the package on the bar before her and waited until Jeff lighted it. She let the smoke out lazily through her nose, her eyes not quite meeting Jeff's. “Poor, lost little Piggy...”
“The King City cops would like to talk to him about some jewelry.”
“Yes. Poor little Piggy—the dirty little son of a bitch.” She was still smiling, but there were cold lights in her eyes now. If—as George had said—-she was still carrying a torch for Piggy, that torch was no longer burning, Jeff decided. Either that, or it was burning hotter than ever. With women like Ann, you never knew. Feeling one way while acting another was their stock in trade. One thing seemed certain: although she had known Piggy was wanted, she didn't know he was wanted for murder.
She was even more beautiful than he'd remembered. And sleeker, more confident. For Ann Lynch, the lean days were far behind.
“I thought you told me this wasn't police business,” she said.
“Not officially. I'm not on the Force any longer, Ann.”
“Oh...?”
“You hadn't heard?”
“No.”
“I'll tell you about it sometime. Right now, I'd like to talk about Piggy. Where he is, for instance.”
“That's a good question.”
“Do you know?”
She smiled at him. “That's an even better question.”
Jeff returned the smile. “You can't shoot a guy for trying.”
“Not unless he tried too hard.” She twisted around on the bar stool so that she faced him. “I saw George Bishop the other day. Did he tell you?”
“He said you got a little spiffed together.”
“Love that George,” she said. “I'm getting a little spiffed again. Can you tell?”
He shook his head.
“Well,” she said, “I am. And I'm going to get a lot more spiffed before I get through. That's what I feel like doing, and so that's what I'm going to do.” She finished her Tom Collins. “And,” she said, “Courtney Wolfe can go to hell.”
“And how about Nadine?” he asked.
“She can go with him. I'm tired of both of them.”
“About Piggy...” he said.
“Shhhhh, darling. This is no place to talk about pigs.” He forced himself to grin at her.
She put her face very close to his. “Let's say I did know where he was. I don't, you understand, darling. But—if I did —well, what would there be in it for li'l Annie?”
“Reward, you mean?”
“Reward is exactly what I mean, darling.”
He thought a moment. The temptation was terrific, but he stuck to the facts. “The jewels were insured, of course.”
“Of course.” Her shoulder was touching his now. “And talk softer, darling.”
“If the insurance company got the jewels back, they'd talk business, naturally.”
“Naturally. And about how much business do you think they'd be willing to talk?”
He finished his drink and caught the bartender's eye and ordered fresh drinks for both of them. The warmth of Ann's leg was heavy against his thigh. He hadn't noticed it at first, but now he sensed that she was either pretty well oiled, or rapidly getting that way, which, he decided, was just fine. It could make things a lot easier.
“How much?” she asked again.
Jeff waited until the new drinks were before them and the bartender had moved away. “Depends on a lot of different things. A deal like that has to be handled carefully. There has to be a middle man, and one thing or another. If it were handled right, and all the jewels were there, they'd probably go as high as ten thousand.”
Her eyes trailed away from his. She lifted her glass, turning it slowly in her fingers, studying it. “You know, Jeff,” she said softly, “this is all very interesting.”
He listened to the rise and fall of the feminine voices around him. It took all kinds, he reflected. Women like these, and like Ann Lynch, and men like Gil Phelps and Harry Sybert and Piggy Ferris. Maybe there was a common denominator somewhere, but it was pretty hard to root out.
“There's one thing, though...” Ann was saying. She turned and put her face close to his again. “And that's what you'd get out of it.”
“I was kicked off the Force,” Jeff said evenly. “If I walked in with Piggy, with or without the jewels, I could start being a cop again. Grabbing the jewels too, would help naturally.”
“And that's what you want... that's all you want—to get back on the cops?”
“That's all,” Jeff said.
Hmmmmm. I wonder...”
“Wonder what?”
She shrugged. “Oh... nothing. I—I don't suppose there's any way a girl could be sure that Piggy would never find out who— who talked out of school?”
“If it were handled right,” Jeff said.
“You're sure?”
“Dead sure.”
She shuddered and grimaced. “Don't use that word. That's what a girl would be if he did find out, you know. Dead.”
“He'd be in prison.”
“Not forever. And besides, he has friends.”
“I could handle it,” Jeff said.
She laughed again. “No use being too serious, is there? After all, we're both just kidding. Aren't we, darling?”
“Sure,” Jeff said. “Just kidding.”
Jeff saw the door at the back open and Nadine's blonde head appear. He watched her approaching them, her eyes sullen, and he said, “Let's get out of here, Ann.”
“But why?”
“Your friend's coming.”
“Call me,” Ann said. “Tonight. About seven-thirty. I know you didn't wander in here by coincidence. George gave you my phone number, yes?”
He nodded. “But...”
“No buts, darling. I can't run out on Nadine. I'd never hear the end of it.” Then, more softly. “Business before pleasure, Jeff, you know. And with Nadine, there's money involved.” As she turned on the stool to greet Nadine she gave him a good-bye smile. “Seven-thirty, then?”
“Seven-thirty.” He put money on the bar for the drinks and got up just as Nadine gave him a hate-filled look and climbed back on her stool beside Ann Lynch. “So you finally got rid of the bastard,” she said loudly. “Men! How I hate them!”
Chapter Ten
TO JEFF STONER, killing time in Greenwich Village, it seemed the afternoon would never end. He felt the urgent need to do something, to get started on the trail of Piggy Ferris. He thought several times of going back to the Brick Yard, to hurry things along, but his better judgment told him that this was something he couldn't push.
He spent an hour in a bar on Christopher Street. A little later he went into a restaurant and ordered a steak dinner. But when the steak came, he stared at it and at the French fries and sliced tomatoes—and pushed the plate away. He needed it, but he couldn't eat it. He paid his check and tipped the waiter and went out to wander the narrow, crooked streets again.
A hundred questions hammered relentlessly in his brain. A hundred questions—and not one answer. He wondered what could have put out Ann Lynch's torch for Piggy Ferris. Another woman? Probably. It was hard to think of any other reason that would have caused such a complete reversal in Ann's feelings toward him.
He thought about the way Gil Phelps would be working on this case—methodically and relentlessly, leaving no possible lead unchecked. A foul ball, Gil—as a man. But a damn good cop.
Gil's shadow, police reporter Harry Sybert, was the guy to watch. He was a soured, sadistic mess of inferiority complex with a mad on at the whole world.
He'd have to get hold of himself! He was thinking in circles as well as walking in them. He went into Nick's and had two double shots. Then he came out and walked up the street to Julius' and had two more. From then until seven-thirty, it was like that, bar after bar and drink after drink, except that he stuck to single shots and limited himself to one in each place.
At exactly seven-thirty he went into a bar on 10th Street and called the Glencannon. While he waited for the operator to ring Ann's room, he held his hand out flat in front of his eyes, and congratulated himself. No nerves; none at all. He glanced through the glass door at the people. His eyes were focusing perfectly, he noted, which meant that he was sober. And that was a little surprising. After all, he'd had quite a bit, and all of it on an empty stomach.
Ann's voice came on, sounding a little thick, he decided.
“I'm down in the Village,” he told her. “Can you talk?”
“Certainly I can talk, darling. Are you coming over?”
“Is it all right? I mean, what about your friend?”
She laughed. “Don't worry about him. He's a buyer, and some salesmen just took him out on the town. I don't know when he'll be back, but it won't be soon.”
“All right,” Jeff said. “What's the room number?”
She told him and he hung up and walked outside to find a taxi.
Ann Lynch's suite at the Glencannon was everything Jeff had expected it to be, and more. She showed him through it proudly.
“It's a slight improvement on that furnished room I had on Flower Street in King City, isn't it?” she laughed. “Here. Let me take your coat. And loosen your tie.”
He wasn't the only one who had spent the afternoon drinking, Jeff discovered. It showed riot so much in her voice as it did in the exaggerated casualness with which she helped him out of his coat and tried to undo the knot in his tie. And when he followed her back to the living room, he noticed that she teetered ever so slightly on her four-inch heels.
She wheeled a bar-cart over to the sofa and sat down and patted the cushion beside her.
He sat down and watched her making drinks and said, “How's our friend Nadine?”
“Please! Spending the whole afternoon with her was bad enough. I just got back, as a matter of fact. Haven't even had time to shower and change.”
“Are we going some place?”
She handed him a drink that was mostly whiskey and shook her head. “No. Not unless you want to.” She clicked her glass against his and smiled at him through her lashes. “Why go out? We've got everything we want, right here.”
“That's so true,” he said. He sampled the drink. It was as smooth as moonlight. He drank half of it and put the glass down on top of the bar-cart. “Well, Ann—are we ready to talk about things?”
She shut her eyes and raised her glass. When she opened her eyes again and put the glass down, it was empty. “Wonderful stuff,” she murmured. “How I needed that.” She reached out and turned on the bar-cart's radio. It blared suddenly, and she cursed and turned the volume down to a whisper. Dance music came out, soft and slow, and to Jeff it seemed that it had the quality music has when it comes across water. He didn't know how she had managed it, but now her thigh was pressing his, exactly as it had earlier in the bar.
“We've got hours and hours, Jeff,” she said softly. “Let's not talk about that just yet. Would you like to dance?”
“No. Listen, Ann. I...”
“Finish your drink, darling. You're way behind.”
She leaned forward to make herself another drink. She was wearing the same dress she had worn at the Brick Yard, a blue and white jersey print, very low-cut and tight-waisted. It hugged her body like a second skin.
Jeff shifted his glass to the other hand and swirled the ice cube around in it. “I don't want to rush you, Ann,” he said, “but the factor of time can be pretty important in a case like this. Have you changed your mind about Piggy, or what?”
“Must we talk about him? Now?”
“We'll have to, sooner or later. And like I said, the sooner the better.”
She leaned back against the cushion and smiled at him. “I haven't changed my mind, Jeff. I couldn't—because I haven't even made it up yet. You know how it is with women...”
“Don't you think ten thousand is enough?”
She nodded. “It's enough.” Then, “Jeff, darling, I have news for you. Ten cents would be enough. After what he did.” Things were going better now. Jeff relaxed a little. “He gave you the brush?” he asked.
“Yes. A big, nasty brush.” Her voice was suddenly bitter. “For a cootch dancer! Can you imagine?”
Jeff shook his head and raised his glass again. He'd have to go easy on this stuff. Lately, whiskey had had a way of slipping up on him. He drank sparingly and put the glass down again. Nothing to do but sweat it out. Ann had all the cards, and if she wanted to play them slowly, well, then she was going to play them slowly —and there was nothing he could do about it.
Beside him, Ann drank slowly and steadily, humming now and then with the music from the radio. The minutes dragged by, and the silence stirred his unrest. He felt the irritation building inside him and he cursed her silently for wasting time like this. She was doing this deliberately, he knew, enjoying the power she held, extracting pleasure from baiting him and withholding information from him. When it pleased her, she would talk—and not before.
He got up and, carrying his glass, walked to the window, and looked down into Central Park West. The cacophony of auto horns came to him dimly, reminding him oddly of the times he had brought Marcia to New York. Things had been so simple then, the future so clear.... He took two long swallows of his drink— and now he realized with numbing suddenness that he was drunk. Not just a little tight. Really drunk. It hadn't slipped up on him; he knew now that he'd been pretty far gone ever since he'd called Ann from the Village. He'd just thought he was sober.
Behind him Ann's voice said, “Nadine just whetted my appetite, Jeff, darling...”
He turned to face her. What kind of woman was she, anyhow?
Her smile was heavy-lidded, her lips bright and moist looking. “Can you guess what I really want, Jeff?”
“I haven't given it a lot of thought,” he muttered. He put his glass down on the window sill.
Still smiling, her eyes never leaving his for an instant, she twisted her body and lay back flat on the cushions. Very slowly, she reached down and drew the hem of her dress up around her waist.
“This is what I want,” she said huskily.
He stared at her, at the red-gold of her hair and the smoldering eyes. He took a step toward her, then another. It seemed as if he were floating, as if he weren't actually walking at all. He stood beside the sofa now, looking down at her, watching the wisps of red fog swirling across her. Pretty soon the fog would be too dense. He'd have to hurry.
She was breathing heavily. “What are you waiting for?”
She was squirming a little on the cushions, he saw. Maybe Leda thought she was going to get away. He smiled and leaned down toward her. She was wrong. She wasn't going to get away. Leda was smart, and she'd gotten away before. But not this time.
“Jeff!” he heard Leda gasp. “Jeff, what are you...”
And then he couldn't hear her voice at all. He could feel her throat pulsing in his hands, though, and it was a good feeling. And even when the fog grew as red and thick as blood, he could still feel her struggling down there beneath him.
It was in September, on the first day of school, and all the other children on the block were at school right now. But he was too little yet. He'd have to wait a few more years, Mother had said, and then he would be old enough and he could go to school like everybody else.
