Can Ladies Kill?, page 9
I get my hat an’ I walk out inta the street. The entrance to The Two Moons Club is in a wide sorta alleyway. This is a pretty dark place an’ there is only one light at the end. As I start walkin’ along my head begins to go round an’ I see the light at the end of the alley goin’ round in circles. I get to feelin’ that I would pay a million bucks to be sick; yet at the same time I don’t wanta be sick.
I get it. While I went over to talk to Spigla some clever guy has hocked my drink. Maybe the Chinese girl or maybe it was done before the waiter brought it. Whatever they have given me is doin’ me no good at all. I have got a pain in my guts like snake was livin’ there an’ not likin’ it. My knees feel as if they was made of spaghetti, an’ it looks like it is a matter of minutes before the pavement comes up an’ hits me.
I lean up against the wall an’ try to concentrate so as to take a look around me. Over on the other side of the road, down in a doorway, I can see a guy. I reckon this is the palooka who is waitin’ for me to pass out.
I get one of them funny ideas that a guy gets when he is goin’ under to a drug. I get the idea that if I can get myself to the street lamp at the end of the alley I might have a chance. So I start concentratin’. I concentrate on walkin’, although every time I put one foot in front of the other I feel as if there was a ton weight on the end of it.
I get to the lamp, an’ I put my arm around the post. I start to be sick, an’ I begin slidin’ down the post because I can’t hold myself up.
The last thing I see is the guy who was standin’ in the doorway comin’ towards me. He has got his hand in his coat pocket.
Everything looks like black. I go right out.
Chapter Six
NECKING IS SO NICE
I do not know if you have ever had knock-out drops, but if you have you will know without my tellin’ you that it is not so hot when you start comin’ back.
My eyes are heavy and as sore as if they was filled with sand, I have got a taste in my mouth that makes me feel like I have been eatin’ bad birds-nest soup, an’ every time I try to move I feel like somebody is tryin’ to shave a bit off my head with a blunt saw.
I do not know where I am but it smells good to me. There is some perfume or something round about an’ I am tryin’ to remember where I smelt this stuff before. After doin’ a lot of concentratin’ I get it. This was the perfume that I sniffed when I was gettin’ around Berenice Lee Sam’s room, the stuff that made her handbag smell so nice. I get a big idea that it is that goddam hot momma that has given me the knock-out drops. So what?
I open up my eyes for a minute an’ I see that I am right. I am in Berenice’s room. I am lyin’ on a settee an’ opposite me I can see the door with the silk fringe screen—the door leadin’ to the Chinese maid’s room. The room is pretty dark, there is only a standard lamp alight. Sittin’ up against the wall opposite me is a big Chinese guy, the guy I saw puttin’ his hand inta his pocket just before I flopped.
Between him an’ me, sittin’ in an armchair, smokin’ a cigarette through a jade holder and wearin’ a peach coloured wrap with silver snakes worked all over it, is Berenice. She is lookin’ at me an’ smilin’ a slow sorta smile, the sorta look that a cat would bestow on some bird it was goin’ to use for hors-d’œuvres.
I look at her under my eyelashes. This dame is a sonsy number I am tellin’ you, an’ I reckon I know plenty guys who would do more than murder if they could get their hooks on a lovely like this as a result thereof. This dame is the sorta proposition that gets me burned up. She has got looks, figure, class an’ that certain something they call allure which is the thing that gets guys goin’, but it is her nerve that gets me on the floor.
I watch the light from the standard lamp reflectin’ on the ice in the rings on her fingers as she takes the jade cigarette holder outa her mouth. I get a feelin’ that I would like to smack this dame so hard that she would be constrained to maintain the perpendicular almost continuously—as the geometry fan said.
I think I will try an’ say a few words, but even my tongue is swollen with the hells broth that they have slipped inta me, an’ when I talk it sounds like I have got a mouthful of spaghetti.
“O.K., Berenice,” I tell her. “I reckon that you pulled one that is just a bit too fast this time. Ain’t you the disappointin’ dame—an’ I thought you was clever? I certainly thought that you was too clever to think that you are goin’ to get any place by givin’ me a dose of hocked liquor an’ bringin’ me up here.
“What’s the idea? Are you tryin’ to snatch me or is it my fatal sex-appeal that has got you down? If it’s a snatch I don’t reckon that Uncle Sam will be prepared to pay very much for my carcass an’ if it’s the other thing I give you due notice that I do not intend to fight for my honour, so get busy; only I tell you this much that when I get outa here I’m goin’ to make things so tough for you that sittin’ on tintacks would feel like wearin’ silk underpants after what I’m goin’ to do to you some way or another.”
She just goes on smilin’. Then she waves her hand an’ the Chinese maid comes in with a cup of something an’ brings it over. I smell it an’ it smells like very good tea. I reckon that all they can do to me now is poison me an’ that anyhow even death cannot be very much worse than the way I am feelin’ right now, so I drink it, an’ it is very good tea.
Berenice starts talkin’. She says somethin’ in Chinese to the guy who is sittin’ up against the wall an’ he gets up an’ scrams outa it. The maid comes in with a silk towel dipped in ice water an’ sticks it around my head. I begin to think that maybe I am goin’ nuts in my old age an’ that this is all a pipe dream, because if this sorta stuff makes sense then I am Old King Cole.
She looks at me again. The smile sorta wanders off her face an’ she is starin’ at me like she was some old hen considerin’ a tough chicken. I have told you before that this dame has got plenty, an’ I wish that I knew enough words just to put over how she looks sittin’ there in that peach coloured robe with a diamond an’ ruby clasp in her black hair an’ a humorous sorta look in them turquoise eyes of hers.
Even although my head is still achin’ like I have been tryin’ to butt down the Empire State building with it, I start thinkin’ that it would be swell if this Berenice was a good girl an’ on the side of law an’ order instead of rushin’ around pullin’ all sorts of mayhem like she is doin’. I start wonderin’ once again why it is that if a dame has got looks an’ class an’ that swell wiggle when she walks (you know what I mean), then in nine cases outa ten she is the one who smooths your fevered brow with one hand an’ busts you a mean sock in the midriff with an old Samurai knife that one of her ancestors used for shavin’ with the other.
But I reckon she is goin’ to pull something, an’ I reckon it is goin’ to be something very swell. I take another gulp of Orange Pekoe just to get my mental motor turnin’ over, an’ I look at her outa one corner of my eye an’ try an’ come to a quick conclusion as to what the set-up is goin’ to be.
First of all it is a cinch that the Chinese dame in The Two Moons Club is the one who hocked my drink, an’ secondly it is a cinch that this baby was workin’ for Berenice when she done it. So what does this lovely with the turquoise eyes an’ the used car morals want to hand me a bunch of knockout drops for, an’ then give me tea with wet towels around my head? Does it make sense to you? I reckon that she is goin’ to try an’ do a deal.
She starts talkin’. Her voice is soft an’ low an’ thrillin’. If I hadda voice like that an’ looked as swell as Berenice I would start so much trouble that the League of Nations would call a special session to decide whether it wouldn’t be cheaper in the long run to build me a palace in Iceland so as to keep the Esquimaux from playin’ snowballs durin’ the long winter nights.
“Mr. Caution,” she says, “Lemmy, what do you think about me?”
I draw a long breath. I reckon that I am goin’ to tell this doll just what I do think about her.
“Look, Very Deep an’ Very Precious Stream,” I tell her. “I will tell you just what I am thinkin’ about you. First of all I reckon that you think that I got something outa Jack Rocca to-night, something that was so important that you even took the chance of givin’ me knock-out drops an’ gettin’ me up here so’s you can try an’ make a deal with me.
“I think that there oughta be a law against dames like you bein’ born. Because you are too good-lookin’ to stick around without makin’ a bundle of trouble for all concerned, an’ I think such a lot about your technique that when I get outa here I am goin’ to have you pinched an’ held as a material witness in the Marella Thorensen case. If you didn’t kill that dame then I’m nuts, but before I’m through with you I’m goin’ to cause you a whole lot of grief, Berenice, an’ that is official, so you can quote me.”
She smiles. “First of all,” she says. “I suggest that you should lay back on the couch so that your very efficient brain can, more or less comfortably, grasp what I am about to tell you; secondly, I think it would be very much to your advantage if you were to stop regarding me as some sort of low snake crawling about the undergrowth seeking whom I may kill. Thirdly, you will be very foolish if you do not pay due attention to what I am about to tell you.
“It was on my instructions that the little Chinese girl drugged your drink at The Two Moons, but you will remember she did this only after she had asked you not to return to your hotel and you had refused to listen to her. I did not want you to return to your hotel, and had you attempted to do so you would probably not be alive at this moment. You will remember that one attempt has already been made on your life, an attempt which you attributed to me, and it is therefore to my advantage to protect myself from any further accusations of this sort.”
“Swell,” I tell her. “All of which sounds very nice an’ sweet. But maybe you will tell me that somebody or other has appointed you to be my little guardian angel in size three shoes. Why are you so interested in keepin’ me alive?”
She smiles some more.
“Shall we say that I am more interested in keeping myself alive?” she says. “It will be quite obvious to you that on the very circumstantial evidence that exists at the moment you, and possibly other people, would consider that there is adequate reason to believe that I am concerned in the death of Marella Thorensen. Your main reason for believing this is the letter which you read from Marella to Aylmar Thorensen which suggests that there had been an affaire between us and that Marella had discovered it. You are probably also interested as to how this letter came into my possession.”
She puts another cigarette into her holder an’ lights it. She brings another one over to where I am lyin’, puts it in my mouth an’ lights it with a little gold lighter. I don’t say a word. I am just thinkin’ that this dame has got the swellest nerve that ever I bumped against ever since I been totin’ a “G” identification card.
“I am certainly very interested as to how you got that letter,” I tell her. “First of all it is written to Thorensen and it ain’t got any date on it so it coulda been written any time. Thorensen mighta given it to you to read, in which case he woulda have to have done this before he left for Los Angeles. Anyhow I suppose you had arranged to give it back to him?”
She looks at me with her eyes wide open.
“Why?” she says. “Why should I have given it back to him?”
“O.K.” I tell her, “you’ve told me just what I wanted to know. So Thorensen gave you that letter to read an’ asked you to destroy it, didn’t he? Another thing I reckon he gave you that letter some time during the day that Marella got herself bumped off. But the thing that is interestin’ me is why you didn’t destroy it. Why didya leave it lyin’ around here, in this room where any one could read it?”
She laughs—you know, one of them little ripplin’ laughs. She shows all her pretty teeth between a pair of lips that are so swell that they woulda made King Solomon senda bell hop to let all his wives know that he was bein’ kept at a conference an’ that they was not to bother about callin’ him in the mornin’.
“That, dear Mr. Lemmy, is the whole point,” she says. “And with your usual sharpness of intellect you have put your finger on it. First of all Thorensen did not give me the letter, and therefore he never asked me to destroy it. As a matter of fact I very much doubt whether he has even seen it.
“The reason why I left it lying about, as you so aptly put it, instead of destroying it, was that I was keeping it. . . .”
“For what?” I ask her.
“To give to you,” she says. “Isn’t it obvious that I was keeping it to give to you? Haven’t I made it clear already that I knew perfectly well that my father and I were asked, suddenly, to go down to the Precinct in order that some one—possibly you—could take a look around here. Yet knowing this I leave the letter for you to find. I always intended you to have it.”
“Berenice,” I tell her, “you listen to me. I am wise to you, ladybird. You are one swell, first-class goddam liar and when you die you will certainly go to Hell an’ have the fact tattooed all over your lily-white posterior by blue devils writin’ with fountain pens dipped in acid. Say, what do you take me for?”
“There are moments when I take you for the usual thickheaded cop, Lemmy,” she says. “Especially when you are rude. There are, however, other moments when I believe that you are a really intelligent person possessing a first-class brain and disguising the fact by the use of language that makes me shudder. Can’t you see what is behind this letter?”
“O.K., sweetheart,” I tell her. “I’ll play along. I’ll say what you want me to say, an’ it’s this. I suppose the idea you want me to fall for is that the letter was never written by Marella Thorensen at all. That it is a forgery planted on you so as to supply a possible motive for you havin’ killed her?”
“Correct in one shot,” she says. “Isn’t it obvious? Isn’t it quite clear to you that a woman of my type would find it entirely revolting to have anything at all to do with a gross and impossible person like Aylmar Thorensen?”
“No, honeybunch,” I tell her, more in sorrow than in anger, “it is not, because I have often found that swell-looking and classy dames like you do go for gross and impossible guys like Aylmar Thorensen.
“Why,” I go on, “I remember a dame up in the silver district in Mexico. She was the cutest little number that you ever saw. She had guys fighting over her like cats. There was two palookas stickin’ around there who fought each other to a standstill over that baby. They fought for six hours with ten inch knives and when they was finished they was both so full of holes that they looked like a coupla water biscuits. Finally, one of these guys gives a big sigh an’ dies, an’ she nurses the other for six weeks. Every day she usta go an’ pour eau-de-cologne over that mug’s head an’ drool sweet hooey inta his ears until the poor guy used to writhe about the bed like he was bein’ tickled to death by fairy fingers.
“So what? The day the doctor says that this guy is O.K. an’ is fit to get his own back on her, what does she do? Why she goes off an’ marries a can manufacturer with a belly so big that it practically made any sort of social contact a sheer impossibility. So laugh that off.”
I sit up. I am feelin’ better an’ dyin’ to get action.
“Look, Berenice,” I tell her. “You know Marella’s handwriting don’t ya? You know whether that letter was written by her or not. Tell me somethin’, how does the handwritin’ of that letter match up with the one she wrote you when you was in Shanghai—the one tellin’ you to come back an’ see her because she wanted to see you bad?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “The letter Marella sent to me in Shanghai was typewritten except the signature. She often used to type her letters.”
She stubs out her cigarette.
“You must believe me, Lemmy,” she says. “I tell you that that letter must be a forgery; that it was written in an endeavour to throw suspicion on me.”
“Boloney, Princess,” I crack back at her. “Say, what do you think I am? You expect me to believe that? An’ you expect me to believe that you sent that maid of yours down to The Two Moons to give me knock-out drops, an’ that big thug of yours to bring me up here, just so as to stop somebody else takin’ a sock at me. O.K. Now you can tell me a few more lies. Tell me where you got that letter from?”
She walks across to the table an’ helps herself to another cigarette. All the while I am watchin’ her. Every time this dame starts walkin’ with that peach coloured gown clingin’ to her the way it does I feel my mind slippin’ right away from the business in hand, because this dame has got a walk that does things to a guy, if you know what I mean.
“The letter was put in my car after I arrived back here yesterday evening,” she says, “that is, before my father and I went to the Precinct.
“After I go up to my room here I remembered that I had left my handbag and gloves in the car. I sent my maid down to the garage which is on the other side of the house to get them.
“She found the letter, enclosed in a plain white envelope, placed on top of my handbag on the seat of the car. She brought it up believing, naturally, that I had left it there with the other things. Immediately I opened the envelope and read the letter I saw that some one was trying to throw suspicion on me. Some one who probably knew that you were already regarding me as a suspect. I made up my mind at once that I would give you the letter at the first opportunity.
“O.K., lady,” I tell her. “You can give it to me now.”
She goes over to a drawer an’ gets the letter, and brings it over to where I am sittin’. I read it once again. I reckon it will be easy to have this handwritin’ checked. Lookin’ at it I see that the letter is written in a light blue ink—Sea Island Blue they call it—an’ I get to wonderin’ whether Marella always used this sorta ink. I make a note in my mind to find out.
I look up at her. She is standin’ just in front of me, an’ as I look at her I can smell a sorta suggestion of the perfume that she is wearin’. She smiles down at me.
