Love Has No Alibi

by Octavus Roy Cohen

  That didn’t seem to call for an answer. He gave me plenty of time, and then he said, “I reckon you want us to look into it for you, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “You understand that it’s your business and you can keep it that way if you want.”

  “I’d rather lay it in your lap.”

  “It’s a big lap.” He chuckled. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  “Go ahead.”

  His questions were simple enough. My name, age, profession, salary, habits, friends. When I finished, he gazed fondly at his golden toothpick and said, “We’ve missed something somewhere. This thing wasn’t accidental. Your name wasn’t picked out of a hat. It was somebody who knew you. They knew you had an account here and they probably knew you were out of town, so there couldn’t be a quick check-up. You say that note sounds as though you could have written it?”

  “Yes. There’s not much style to it, but what there is, is mine.”

  “And you have no rich friends who might like the idea of playing genii to your Aladdin?”

  I haven’t any rich friends. And if they wanted to give me that much money, they wouldn’t do it that way. What’s more: I don’t like it.”

  Hanvey looked me over deliberately. “You’re a big guy, Mr. Douglas. You don’t look like someone who would scare easy.”

  “I still don’t like something I can’t understand.”

  He asked a shrewd question: “Could you use a hundred thousand?”

  “Who couldn’t?”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean, have you got any special iron in the fire? Have you got some scheme on tap which you could put across if you had that much dough?”

  “You mean, have I any special use—at this moment—for a large sum of money?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No.”

  “Suppose it was really yours. What would you do with it?”

  “Leave it in the bank, I suppose. Buy war bonds. I don’t need extra money, if that’s what you mean.”

  Hanvey said, “It’s the screwiest thing I’ve ever run across. Want me to plug on it?”

  “If you will.”

  “Let’s let it ride as it is for a while. Mr. Larsen will pass the word around to watch carefully all checks bearing your signature. Though it isn’t likely that anybody would try to withdraw that money with a forged check. Meanwhile, just forget that you’ve got it.”

  I shook my head. “Fine chance. Could you?”

  “Nope. But I could try.”

  We talked a little more, and then I want back to the office. I chatted with my bosses and, in the course of our conversation, asked them whether they’d made a deposit to my credit while I was away. The senior partner said, “No. Why?”

  I tried to pass it off as a joke. I said the bank was crediting me with more money than I had. I didn’t say how much. I left the impression that it was a small sum. They both laughed and one of them said something about this being my lucky year. I wasn’t so sure he was right.

  It was Saturday, and I drifted into a picture show with the idea of forgetting what had happened. I was tired of thinking in circles. But I kept on doing just that. I still don’t know what the picture was about. At five o’clock I dropped a nickel in the slot of a pay phone and dialed Dana’s number. Her voice gave me the usual thrill. I asked if I could come by her apartment and she said she’d been waiting two hours for just that.

  Dana lived in a simple, inexpensive two-room apartment. She had a part-time maid, but she was alone when I got there, which was swell with me. She was wearing a crepe housecoat of black with a broad red stripe down the front. She had on black satin mules, and her toenails had red polish on them. She looked pretty as seventeen dollars’ worth of lettuce, and didn’t appear to mind my attempts to spoil her lipstick.

  Never before had love struck me as so goofy. What a probably excellent picture had failed to do in two hours, Dana accomplished in five minutes. I forgot everything except how lovely she was and how I wished I was married to her. It wasn’t until later that I remembered what I had come for.

  I sat her down alongside me and told the story. She let me finish without interruption. Then she said, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.”

  I agreed with her. She said, “Have you had any fresh ideas since you finished talking with the fat detective?”

  “No good ones.”

  “How about ones that are not so good?”

  I said, “Ricardo?” and finished with a rising inflection. Her answer was, “Why?”

  I said I couldn’t figure why. It was scarcely the act of someone who didn’t like another person, but if it was part of a scheme to cause trouble . . .

  Dana shook her head. “It doesn’t come out right anyway, darling. Ricardo hasn’t got a dime.”

  I was puzzled. I knew the act was drawing down fifteen hundred dollars a week. Deducting ten per cent agent’s commission, that left $1,350. It was Ricardo’s act—his personal property. He paid Dana three hundred dollars a week, and the rest was his, minus income tax. I figured that at a thousand a week gross income, a man could be pretty well heeled.

  Dana shook her head. “Gambling,” she told me. “He’s always believed that he’s smarter than the horses. Now that they’ve shut down all American race tracks, he’ll find some other way of losing his money. Maybe by placing bets for the Havana and Mexican tracks. But he’ll lose it. He always has, and he always will. Besides, I can’t figure any reason why he should put a hundred thousand dollars in your account.”

  I said, “I can’t figure why anyone would. That’s what worries me.”

  We tossed it back and forth and got exactly nowhere. The more we thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. She said, “So when we ate steak last night, we weren’t pretending. You really are worth a lot of money,”

  “It doesn’t make me feel good.”

  “What will you do about it?”

  “Wait. I’m bound to find the answer sooner or later. I can always hope it was a mistake, although I’m sure it wasn’t. Whoever it was can have his fortune back any minute he wants it.” I leaned forward and my voice tightened up. “But this much I’ll promise, my sweet: when I do find the person who did this, I’ll also find out why.”

  She said, “That’s a very grim expression you’ve got on.”

  “It’s the way I feel. The more I think about this, the more I don’t like it.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Not trying to be melodramatic, but it seems to spell trouble.”

  We both laughed. Which is something we wouldn’t have done if we could have looked ahead a few hours.

  CHAPTER IV

  I TOOK DANA to the Caliente, said I’d be back after the show, and left her. I didn’t stay at the club for dinner because this was Saturday night and the room was jammed.

  I stopped near the checkroom and bought a pack of cigarettes from a girl named Vivian who wore practically no clothes, as though that would make a man want to smoke. She was a cute little number with lavender eyes, platinum hair and sulky lips. She charged me the usual cabaret excess for the cigarettes but didn’t object to accepting the lavish tip which was supposed to make everything all right. She asked me whether I’d been away and I said Yes. She asked how Dana was and I said she was fine. Vivian had a wise look in her young eyes. She had the same ideas about Dana and myself that everybody else had, only she didn’t play cute. What we wanted to do was our own business. Only I was getting fed up with folks believing that it was monkey business. No man likes to feel that a decent love is getting muddied up in people’s minds.

  I stopped near the curb and chatted with Chris, the doorman. We both mentioned that it was cold. We were both right. I figured I might enjoy a walk in the park, but I wasn’t quite as hardy as I thought. As I turned the corner the wind hit me. It bit into me like a set of false teeth. I went back to the Caliente. I said, “I’m a softy, Chris. Can’t take it.”

  I went inside a
nd surrendered my hat and coat. A man left his high perch at the bar and I slid into it ahead of another man who missed the chance. I ordered a scotch and plain water. The curtains between the bar and the main dining room were carelessly drawn and I could see the line of cuties doing their stuff. Vivian, the cigarette girl, paused briefly in back of me. She said, “Love is a mess, ain’t it, Mr. Douglas?”

  The place was full of odors: fish and steak and hors d’œuvres and liquor and powder and perfume. The air was heavy with the smoke of cigarettes and cigars. The music seemed louder than usual, the conversation ditto. I stayed where I was all through the show, getting an occasional glimpse of Dana while her act was on. I called a bus boy, gave him a quarter and asked him to tell Dana where I was. He grinned at me with youthful wisdom and sped off. Twenty minutes later the dance music was on, the guests started crowding the floor and Dana appeared from nowhere. She said, “I’m hungry.”

  We went out together. Chris commandeered a taxi which arrived at the club with a fresh batch of merrymakers. We gave the address of a little restaurant on the East Side. We had been there a couple of times in the past but we liked it because the food was fair and they had booths where you could talk without cooling the soup on the next table.

  We talked about the silly situation at the bank, and about ourselves. We didn’t think of any new things to say; the old topics stood up pretty well. A stenographic report of our conversation wouldn’t have been listed as literature, but it would have fitted neatly into the love pulps. For two supposedly intelligent people, we could talk sappier than any couple I’d ever met. But then I didn’t believe any other couple was ever so much in love.

  We didn’t kill too much time there. We walked to a newsreel theater and found seats way back in the corner. We took off our gloves and held hands. We sat through a lot of war shots. And laughed like a couple of kids at Donald Duck, who maintained his standing as our favorite actor.

  We got back to the club in time for Dana to dress for the 12:30 show. I said I’d wait. I reminded her that the next day was Sunday and I could sleep until noon. Monday morning I’d be a slave again, obeying alarm clocks at seven-thirty. But tonight I was a free agent. She suggested that I come back to her dressing room after the show. Then we could slip out through the next-door tenement under which the dressing rooms were located. That was so she wouldn’t be stopped by guests who wanted her to drink with them.

  I went back to the bar. This time I wasn’t so lucky. Standing room only. I knew what was happening inside by the music. I’d seen that show so many times I knew to the split second who was doing what.

  The show dragged. The crowd was high and appreciative. They encored everything. But it finally ended in a thunder of applause after a second encore by Ricardo & Dana. I shouldered my way between the closely-packed tables, circled the bandstand and turned left in the dreary, drafty corridor. At the far end two doors faced each other. The one on the left was Ricardo’s dressing room. The opposite one was Dana’s. I rapped and asked, “Are you decent?” which is theatrical vernacular for, “Are you sufficiently dressed?” Dana invited me in.

  She had on a robe and was removing her make-up with cold cream. Even that way she looked lovely. Then she went behind a screen to put on her dress. I lighted a cigarette and waited. She came out, looking fresh as a daisy, and asked me where we were going. Before I could answer there came a rap at the door, and Dana said, “Come in.”

  The man who entered didn’t look as though he belonged in the Club Caliente. He was perhaps four inches shorter than I was, and looked hard as a rock. He was dressed in a quiet oxford gray suit, black shoes, gray shirt and dark blue necktie. He had rugged features and a dark complexion. His eyes were bright and black. He removed his hat to disclose the blackest hair I had ever seen. It was close-cropped and neatly brushed.

  He looked at Dana and said politely, “Miss Warren?”

  “Yes.”

  Then he looked at me. “Mr. Douglas?”

  “Yes.”

  He smiled. It was a pleasant smile, although rather on the bleak side. He said, “The cigarette girl told me she thought I’d find you in here.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out something. When he turned his hand palm up, we saw what it was. It was the gold badge of a member of the New York City detective force.

  “I’m Max Gold,” he explained. “Lieutenant Max Gold.”

  We said we were pleased to meet him, and Dana invited him to have a chair. He sat down stiffly and tried to look friendly. He said, “I hate to intrude. But if I could have a few minutes of your time . . .” He was looking straight at me when he said it.

  Dana and I sat down. I said, “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Would it matter if I did?”

  He laughed. But there wasn’t much mirth in it. He said, “There’s something I’d like to ask you about, Mr. Douglas. If you’d rather we were alone . . .”

  “Go right ahead. But I know what it’s about.”

  “What?”

  “That bank business.”

  He seemed to be thinking fast and picking his words carefully. “What about it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know any more than I knew this morning. It made no sense then, and it looks even screwier now.”

  “In what way?”

  “I can’t figure it from any angle,” I said. “In the first place, I haven’t one single friend who owns a hundred thousand dollars. Acquaintances, yes. But friends, no. And if I did, why would they want to give it to me? And if they wanted to give it to me, why would they do it that way?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked down at the toes of his shoes. “Mind going over it again, Mr. Douglas?”

  I started at the beginning and went through to the end. I was beginning to feel like a phonograph record. He listened patiently and then nodded.

  “Interesting,” he commented. “I wish something like that would happen to me.”

  “You can have my share, lieutenant. Me, I don’t like it a little bit. And the very fact that you are here makes me like it less.”

  “You say you talked with Jim Hanvey this morning?”

  “Yes. At the bank. You know him?”

  “Sure. He was a captain when I was a patrolman. He’s keen.”

  “He doesn’t look it.”

  “That has fooled a lot of people. He seems to be sleeping half the time. But he doesn’t miss a thing. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. I got something else on my mind. Something personal.”

  I waited. So did he. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Finally he raised his sharp, black eyes and asked a direct question.

  “How long,” he asked, “have you known Ethel Brower?”

  I frowned. “Who?”

  “Ethel Brower.”

  I said, “I don’t know anybody by that name.”

  He spoke carefully. “Think hard. Maybe you’ll remember.”

  I tried it. I knew a few women rather well, and a great many casually. Women in the office, telephone girls, girls at the Caliente, wives and sweethearts of friends. I said, “The name doesn’t register. What does she do?”

  He said, “That’s what I’m trying to find out. I think maybe your memory is on vacation. I’m sure you know her.”

  “Sorry, lieutenant. I’m pretty good on names, and that one simply doesn’t click.” I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. “Am I supposed to know her?”

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  Dana had been looking first at him and then at me. She said, “You haven’t been holding out on me, have you, Kirk?”

  “With something named Ethel Brower? Don’t be silly.”

  Dana turned to Max Gold. “Would she be ravishing, seductive, gorgeous and et cetera? Somebody a man might know and not tell another woman about?”

  He smiled back at her. He said, “You and Mr. Douglas are pretty good friends, aren’t you, Miss Warren?”

  “That’s a fair example of
understatement.”

  I said impulsively, “Miss Warren and I are in love with each other. Some day we hope to get married.”

  Max was still looking at Dana. “You’re Ricardo’s wife, ain’t you?”

  “Legally.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We’ve been married five years. We lived together for the first six months of that time. Since then we’ve been nothing more nor less than dance partners.”

  “But you’re still married?”

  “Ricardo doesn’t like the idea of a divorce.”

  I broke in. I said, “Look, lieutenant: Didn’t you know all this before you came in here?”

  He grinned. “I had heard it that way. I didn’t know how straight my dope was.”

  “You knew about Miss Warren and myself, but I have a feeling you didn’t know about that bank business.”

  “That’s a good guess, Douglas. I never heard about it until you started talking. But it was interesting—so I listened.”

  “And so it wasn’t what you wanted to see me about, was it?”

  “No.”

  “What did you want?”

  “We-e-ell . . . first of all I’d like to know what you’ve been doing all evening.”

  That puzzled me, but I didn’t hesitate. I started with the time I picked up Dana and went right through. When I finished, he turned it over in his mind and then asked quietly, “When you left the club during the dinner show how long were you gone?”

  “About five minutes. I spoke to the doorman when I left and also when I came back.”

  He said, “Cute.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Why did you speak to him?”

  “I always do.”

  “So he knows you were gone only five minutes?”

  “Yes. If he happens to remember.” I leaned forward. “What’s this all about?”

  “I’m just a curious guy. My profession, see? Now about you and Miss Warren: when you went out to dinner together. Does anybody know you in that restaurant?”

  “Not by name. Probably not any other way, either—unless the waiter happened to remember.”