Can Ladies Kill?, page 19
She sighs.
“Maybe I am very foolish,” she says, “but what did Marella desire to protect herself against?”
I grin some more. “Look, honey,” I tell her. “I told you just now that dames who think a woman is goin’ to pull a fast one on ’em usually try to get in first. Ain’t you got it?”
She looks at me. She is beginnin’ to get it.
“You mean,” she says, “you mean . . .”
“I mean that Marella thought that you were wise to her,” I tell her, “an’ so she was tryin’ to get in first.” I stub out my cigarette.
“Me—I am on my way,” I say. “An’ I am goin’ to give you some orders, Berenice. You stick around this house an’ you keep your nose inside it, an’ don’t go out. Maybe this man’s town ain’t goin’ to he quite so safe for a day or so. When I get back I’ll be seein’ you.”
“Are you going away, Lemmy?” she says. “Shall you be long away?”
“Maybe yes, an’ maybe no,” I tell her. “But I’ll be seein’ you even if I have gotta pair of handcuffs with me when I cometa call. So long, Berenice.”
She stands there smilin’.
“I have yet to tell you the proverb about the Blue Dragon,” she says. “I believe that the original Blue Dragon . . .”
“Lady,” I tell her, “I am a very busy guy an’ the only time that I am interested in blue dragons is when I have been hittin’ the rye bottle too hard. Maybe I’ll listen to that proverb some other time.”
“I see,” she says, sorta soft. “You do not like discussing proverbs with me. I understand very well. The only things that you find time to discuss with me are baseless accusations against my character such as the one that I was Aylmar Thorensen’s mistress.”
She draws herself up, an’ I’m tellin’ you guys she looks swell. I could eat this dame.
“There are moments when I despise all men,” she says.
I grin. “Lady,” I tell her, “that is just sweet hooey an’ you know it, an’ I can prove it.”
“I don’t understand you,” she says, “how can you prove it?”
I don’t say a thing. I just walk over to her an’ prove it. She wriggles away after a bit.
“That is not the way for a Federal Officer to behave,” she says with a little smile. “Now possibly, I may tell you about the Blue Dragon . . .”
I grab my hat. “Some other time, Berenice,” I tell her. “Me, I got some work to do.”
I scram. I leave her standin’ there lookin’ after me.
Dames are dizzy. You’re tellin’ me. Here am I tryin’ to find a killer, an’ this dame wants to talk about Blue Dragons.
What the hell!
Chapter Thirteen
SHOW-DOWN FOR TOOTS
I run inta San Diego at seven o’clock. This dump is a sailors’ town, an’ I usta hang around here years ago when I was on a Navy case. The Police Chief is a bozo called Kitlin—a nice guy who I reckon will do what he can for me.
I check in at a little hotel I know an’ take a hot bath an’ do a little ruminatin’, after which I get around to Police Headquarters an’ see Kitlin. This guy almost throws a fit when I bust in, an’ we get around to a little spot he knows an’ proceed to drink some bourbon.
“Here’s the way it is,” I tell him. “I getta letter from a dame I am lookin’ for—a frail by the name of Toots. O.K. Well this Toots sends me a letter with the San Diego postmark on it, an’ I reckon she is around here because I reckon that she had just got enough dough to get here an’ when she arrives she is goin’ to look for a job.”
“An’ what sorta job will she be lookin’ for, Lemmy?” he asks.
“You search me,” I tell him. “I do not know what this dame’s ideas are, but I know that her shape is not so bad, an’ that once on a time she was an actress out in the sticks. I reckon that she is the sorta dame that the Fleet would go for in a big way, an’ if you got any dance halls where they use taxi partners around here, the sorta place that the marines use, I reckon that Toots might be stickin’ around there. If she ain’t there I guess we gotta try any theatre or vaudeville agencies you got here in town, or maybe you got some sorta burlesque show where she might get a job.”
“O.K.,” he says, “I will proceed to put the boys out on a drag-net act that will not even let a tiddler slip through. Let’s get goin’.”
We ease back to Headquarters an’ he gets the boys to work. I got back to my hotel an’ proceed to lay down on the bed an’ give my self up to very deep an’ serious thought.
I reckon this is one goddam case. I have had some honeys in my time but this one tops the lot. I have gotta lot of things worked out like I told you, but there are still some blanks that need fillin’ in, an’ whether Toots is goin’ to be able to fill ’em in is, another business. After a bit I go off to sleep.
I am wakened up by the telephone goin’. It is Kitlin.
“We got your girl friend, Lemmy,” he says. “One of the boys got a line on her. Of course he didn’t wise her up to what was goin’ on. She’s workin’ at the Follies Burlesque off Main at Harbour Place. She got herself a job there a coupla days ago bein’ a show girl or somethin’. I reckon you can pick the dame up any time you like.”
I say thanks a lot an’ that I will get around there.
It is eleven o’clock when I get around to this Follies Burlesque. I ease around to the stage entrance an’ walk in. I flash my badge at the guy who is lookin’ after the office an’ he goes an’ gets me the stage manager. I tell him what I want an’ he don’t seem very surprised. Maybe he is usta havin’ his show-girls pinched now an’ again.
I go along the passage with this guy an’ in a minute we are on the side of the stage. Some dame is just finishin’ a number an’ the curtain comes down as we get inta the prompt corner. I look over on the other side of the stage an’ there in a pair of black silk tights is my little friend Toots, the blonde baby.
“Hi’yah, Toots,” I tell her. “I been sorta lookin’ for you.”
She looks at me. Her eyes go sorta heavy an’ sad as if she knew that this time the works are bust properly.
“Jeez,” she says, “so I couldn’t shake you after all. I sorta hoped I’d got you ditched.” She gives a big sigh. “An’ where do we go from here?” she says.
“You go an’ get your street clothes on, Toots,” I tell her, “an’ draw anything you got comin’ from the manager. After which you an’ me will go an’ take some hot groceries together an’ talk a whole lotta sense.” .
“O.K.,” she says, but she looks kinda wilted.
I stick around while she is changin’ an’ gettin’ her dough from the guy who runs this place. He don’t really want to pay her because he says she is walkin’ out on him, but after I have explained the difference between a chorine walkin’ out an’ bein’ pinched, an’ requested as to whether he would like a smack on the kisser, this guy decides to pay up.
Outside I get a cab an’ we drive down to the Arbola Café. Toots don’t say a word. When we are inside the café an’ sittin’ down she looks at me with a mean sorta smile. I told you before that this dame wasn’t bad lookin’ except that she is tired the whole time.
“So you finally caught up with me,” she says. “An’ how do we play it from here?”
I order her a man size steak—medium rare with a lotta side dishes an’ one for myself. She also manages to suck down a double shot of rye, after which she seems a bit more like her old self.
“Looky, Toots,” I tell her. “You’re in bad an’ you know it. Just how you are goin’ to come outa this business I don’t know. In fact,” I go on, “if anybody was to ask me to lay a bet as to whether you will do not less that two an’ not more than five years in the pen, whether they will give you a sweet twenty year stretch, whether they decide to hand you a natural life sentence or whether they will give you the hot seat . . . well, I would not take the bet.”
I look at her kinda grim. “You gotta realise,” I tell her, “that you are helpin’ yourself or otherwise from now on. If I was you I would talk fast an’ plenty.”
“Yeah,” she says, “that’s what you say, sailor, but I have had guys tried to stand me up for a big bluff before, although I oughta say that I appreciate this steak which is kinda nice when a girl ain’t been eatin’ too regular.”
“I’m glad you like it,” I say. “I usta know a dame in Wichita, when I was stickin’ around there in an Investigation Division up there. This dame was plenty smart an’ she had a whole lotta brains—just like you. In fact what with her brains an’ the fact that she had sweet curves an’ was easy to glance at, she thought she was doin’ fine. O.K. Well she gets herself mixed up in a murder rap. She didn’t do it, but she was sorta stickin’ around when it happened—if you get my meanin’.
“Well, to cutta long story off short, this dame gets pulled in an’ questioned, an’ she starts bein’ clever. She sorta deliberately mixes things up an’ she thinks she is doin’ fine an’ keepin’ her boy friend—the guy who did the bumpin’ off act—outa this business.
“But she don’t get no place. This dame is so clever that she manages to build up a fine bunch of circumstantial evidence against herself, which is funny when you come to think of it, especially as the Court sorta accepted it an’ sent her to the chair. So the joke was on her.”
“Oh boy,” she says, “you’re gettin’ me scared.”
She laughs an’ grabs off some more french fried.’
“Whadya wanta know?” she says.
She looks over at me in a leery sorta way. I reckon this dame has still got her wits about her an’ that if I make a slip-up she will just wriggle outa tellin’ me what I wanta know by some way or other. This Toots has got a certain amount of low cunnin’.
“I wanta know plenty, Toots,” I tell her. “First of all I’m goin’ to ask you one or two questions, an’ if you are bein’ advised by me you are goin’ to answer ’em just as if you was on oath, an’ you ain’t goin’ to make any mistakes neither.”
She looks at me an’ grins.
“Otherwise I get railroaded for killin’ Marella, eh?” she says, “That’s the idea, ain’t it?”
“Maybe it is, baby,” I tell her, “an’ maybe it wouldn’t be railroadin’ you either. If you didn’t do it you know who did.”
I give her the mustard.
“O.K., Toots,” I tell her. “Now let’s get down to cases. You tell me this: When did you know first of all that Marella was havin’ an affair with Rudy Spigla? Was it about six or seven months ago?”
“That’s about it,” she says, “it was about six months ago. An’ how did you know?”
I reckon that Toots is bein’ fresh to ask me questions. But I think that I might as well tell her just so’s she will know that I am plenty wise about this business.
“Nellie the cook out at the Villa usta see Rudy comin’ out there,” I tell her. “I knew durn well that he never went out there to see Thorensen. He went out there to see Marella, an’ she used to send Nellie out in the afternoons an’ leave the french windows open at the back so’s Rudy could get in nice an’ quiet. Another thing she gave Rudy that seal ring of hers—the one with the crossed keys on it. I knew she gave it to him when Nellie told me that she was a dame who usta raise hell if anything was missin’, an’ that she didn’t raise hell about missin’ that ring.
“It’s a funny thing,” I go on, “to think of a swell dame like Marella havin’ anythin’ to do with a lousy heel like Rudy. But Rudy had got somethin’, hadn’t he, Toots? That guy had got a certain appeal an’ I reckon it went over big with a neglected dame like Marella who was as lonely as any dame could be.”
She nods. Her mouth is full of steak.
“Also,” I go on, “there was another little thing between Marella an’ Rudy. There was that little matter of dope takin’ that the dirty heel got her started on. An’ afterwards he usta supply her with the stuff. I reckon that Rudy had got Marella where he wanted her all right.”
She looks at me again an’ grins. “You’re a smart dick, ain’t you, Lemmy?” she says. “If it ain’t rude how didya know that he was givin’ her drugs?”
I grin back at her. “Work it out for yourself, Toots,” I tell her. “I took a look around his apartment. On the wall there is a picture of some dame an’ she had written on it: ‘To Rudy who gave me such sweet sleep, such sweet dreams.’ Well, I knew the answer to that one. I reckoned that the sweet sleep that Rudy usta give this dame was narcotics an’ that he’d been playin’ the same game with Marella.”
“Dead right,” she says, “an’ what else didya find out, copper?”
I look at her. “You mean you ain’t talkin’ until you sorta found out how much I know, hey?” I ask her.
She nods all brightly.
“I ain’t puttin’ my fanny in the electric chair without bein’ pushed there,” she says. “I’m talkin’ when I see I gotta talk an’ not before.”
I laugh an’ order her some more rye.
“O.K., Toots,” I say. “I will now proceed to show you that the best thing you can do is to talk—that is if you wanta save your own carcass.
“About two three months ago some dame gets wise to the Rudy Spigla-Marella set-up,” I tell her. “An’ this dame thinks out a sweet idea. I reckon she thought she had got Rudy just where she wanted him. She had him all ends up. She knows durn well that he has been runnin’ dope inta San Francisco in the contraband silk cargoes that he has been bringin’ in. She knows durn well that he has got Thorensen workin’ with him, but that Thorensen didn’t know about the drug part of it, an’ she knows durn well that if Jack Rocca was to find out that his side-kicker Rudy had been double-crossin’ him he would hand Rudy a pay-off outa the end of a hand-gun.
“I’m tellin’ you that this dame was as wise as they come. She knows that Thorensen is fed up with his wife, that he wants to get away from her an’ that he has fixed to get out to Los Angeles, an’ also that he is makin’ a financial settlement on Marella, an’ she probably makes a sweet guess that Marella bein’ so thick with Rudy probably knows about what he has been doin’ in the drug importin’ line. You got all that?”
She looks at me old-fashioned. “I got it, sailor,” she says. “Tell me more. I am just burstin’ with a big curiosity.”
“O.K.,” I tell her. “Well, this dame comes to the conclusion that the time has come when she is goin’ to stand Rudy and Marella up for plenty. She reckons that she is goin’ to blackmail the pants off those two. But she is plenty scared of Rudy because she knows Rudy would give her the heat as soon as look at her.
“So she thinks of a sweet idea. She probably writes Rudy a letter—this dame is fond of writin’ letters—an’ tells him that he has got just so long to kick in with a bundle of dough otherwise she is goin’ to make plenty trouble for him. Well, it looks as if Rudy don’t fall for this, so this dame proceeds to put into action a very swell little scheme. This is what she does:
“She types a letter to Berenice Lee Sam who is in Shanghai an’ she tells Berenice that it is essential an’ urgent that she should come back to San Francisco an’ go out to the Villa Rosalito between four an’ five on the 10th January. She signs this letter ‘Marella’ an’ sends it off by air mail.
“Then she gets some notepaper printed with the address of the Villa Rosalito on it, an’ she sits down an’ writes a letter to the Director of the Bureau of Investigation, an’ tells him that she has got some information about some mysterious Federal offences that are goin’ on. She says that if he don’t hear from her within the next few days he is to send a ‘G’ man down on the 10th—the same day as Berenice will be arrivin’. She signs this letter ‘Marella Thorensen’ too.
“Now this is clever stuff, ain’t it? This blackmailin’ dame knows that the Director will send back a formal acknowledgement form an’ that Marella will get it an’ will go running to, Rudy Spigla to ask him what it means. The dame reckons that Rudy will start gettin’ scared. Maybe though she was wrong there.
“O.K. She is now sittin’ pretty, ain’t she? She now proceeds to stick around until the mornin’ of the 10th January—five days ago—an’ then she proceeds to ring up Rudy Spigla an’ tell him this:
“That either he comes across with the dough or else . . . She tells him that a ‘G’ mem will be goin’ out to the Villa Rosalito that afternoon, that Berenice Lee Sam will be goin’ out there too, an’ that unless he comes across with the dough she is goin’ to be there too. She says she is goin’ to blow the works to the ‘G’ man about Rudy havin’ been runnin’ drugs an’ contraband for years, an’ that she is goin’ to tell Berenice Lee Sam that Marella is Rudy Spigla’s mistress, that Thorensen her husband knows it an’ is afraid to do anything about it, an’ that that bein’ so he is not the sorta guy who is fit to handle her father’s business.
“She asks Rudy just whether he is goin’ to stand for all that or whether he is goin’ to pay up.”
I stop talkin’ an’ I look at her.
“It is a cinch that the dame who wrote those letters was the dame who rubbed out Marella,” I tell her. “Anyhow that is my story an’ I’m goin’ to make it stick.”
She puts down her knife an’ fork. “You got any idea who this dame is?” she asks. “The one who wrote them letters?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I know who the dame is. You are the dame.”
She sorta smiles again. “Can you prove it?” she says.
“Sure I can,” I tell her. “It was you who sent me that throw-out bill about Oklahoma Joe’s flop house, an’ it was you who wrote the message along the side of it sayin’ that Joe Mitzler was hidin’ out there, because Joe Mitzler identified your handwritin’. You been gettin’ pretty scared of Joe lately, ain’tya, Toots? I reckon you thought he would fix you plenty if he got his hooks on you so you aimed for me to pinch him, which is just what I have done.
