Opal pouted. “Spider and Dean–remember? Or do you want to go and help the lady with her pooch?”
We had reached the exit door. I stared through the glass.
“Next trip maybe. Here’s the Club Car. And there’s Spider and Dean. And they look mighty impatient.”
I pulled the door to one side. Air rushed up through the thin cracks of the corrugated metal floor. Steel whined pleasantly as the couplings connecting the cars swayed and danced. My trousers billowed and Opal’s skirt flared briefly. We crossed into the car.
Opal shivered in spite of herself. I couldn’t exactly blame her. It had started out as a train ride to Chicago. And it hadn’t been exactly a sentimental journey.
The Club Car was deserted except for Spider and Dean. They were seated quietly at a bridge table affair along the windows playing cards. But cards wasn’t the game they were interested in. Even as we aproached them, I could see they had hardly been paying attention to their hands.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” I said cheerily. “Could I interest you both in a Drop Dead club? We need two new members. You both fill the bill on all counts.”
Spider growled and Dean smiled his gold-toothed smile.
“Sit down like nice kiddies,” Spider rumbled. “My .45’s under the table aimed at your belly, Dad. We gotta lotta chin music to play before you both get yours. What’s it going to be?”
We sat down as the Mainliner slowed for an upgrade crossing.
CHAPTER SIX
Opal Trace sat near the window across from Dean. I was staring Spider in the mean eyes.
“Okay, we’re sitting down, Spider,” I said. “But put the hardware away. We’ve loads to discuss.”
Spider growled and Dean only laughed. For the first time I had a chance to really study them both. They were the same as before but something new had been added. Spider’s chin showed a purplish bruise where my knuckles had caressed him. I couldn’t vouch for Dean’s fanny because he was sitting on it. But otherwise, my first impressions filled out.
Spider still had the snappy velour hat on although it was less snappy because it had fallen in the gutter back in Manhattan. It was green felt and pushed back from his forehead to show a brush haircut. His face was still brown, still handsome. Only the lidded look in his deep-set, squint eyes robbed him of nice looks. The mean look in his eyes and the Tiger tank width of his halfback’s shoulders told you just how tough he was. Or could be.
Dean was the real fooler of the pair. He still wore the silly beret and his bland, angelic face was still soft, still untroubled. His face was like unfinished cooking dough. Indefinite. You didn’t know whether he was going to come out bread or the crust for apple pie. His features just hadn’t settled down. A smile, a frown or a leer would always make him look several degrees different. And he was short, a head shorter than Spider. Even sitting down, Spider’s torso made him resemble a small tug alongside the S.S. United States.
And they had both shed their raincoats someplace.
Dean was smiling now even though his fanny must hurt like hell. Even though Opal Trace had obviously double-crossed him. Even though, he had just helped commit a murder. Or ordered it.
“Prevarication will achieve innumerable quantities of agony, my friends. Direct cooperation and guided thinking may produce infinite pleasures and rewards.” The five dollar words rolled off his glib tongue with loving enunciation.
I took Opal’s hand and squeezed it to help her over the shakes.
“We heard Spider different. Spider wants to kill people.”
Dean spread his hands for me. They were small and pudgy like more undisciplined dough.
“Spider accedes to my demands on most occasions. His natural zeal overcomes his native perspicacity at times.”
Spider snorted. “Okay, Dad. Make the parley with them. But fast. This choo-choo could get too hot for us.”
Dean smiled briefly. A porter, his dazzling white uniform offsetting his ink-bottle blackness, glided up to us on silent feet.
“Good evening,” he said as mellow as good wine. “May I serve the party drinks, Ladies and Gentlemen?”
To the rescue. I needed a drink real bad. I couldn’t vouch for anybody else. I didn’t wait for permission, either.
“But definitely, friend. Stinger for the lady and a martini for myself. With an olive. I don’t know what the gentlemen are having.”
I made ‘gentlemen’ a very dirty word. Dean laughed again and Spider killed me with a look.
“A pair of Scotches,” Dean purred. “On-the-rocks. Please serve them as expeditiously as you are able.”
The porter blinked but he was equal to the order. His smile showed two rows of white-wall teeth. He glided away just as silently as he had come.
“Damn headhunter,” Spider snarled. “Always sucking around.”
Opal Trace just wasn’t built for cat-and-mousing like she was built for something else.
“Can’t we get this over with?” she blurted.
Spider’s eyes pinned her.
“You two-timed us, Angel. Wanted the whole pie for yourself. Me and Dean don’t like that.”
I’d had enough of everybody at that point. I was up to here with murder talk and threats and Violent Virgins and Blue Greens. Fat men with guns hadn’t helped my mood either. And the dead conductor was practically haunting me.
“Look,” I said. “Let’s begin at the beginning. I’m already an alien with mud in his eye. Who wants what and why? Who belongs to who and why? And please do let’s discuss The Violent Virgin and The Blue Green before I lose my mind altogether. And Dean, if you are going to tell the story, please drop those jawbreakers. There are no translators for miles around. Otherwise, let me hear it from Spider.”
They both looked at each other, Spider and Dean. While they were doing it, our drinks arrived. Tall, cool and nicely iced. The Club Car had started to fill up. A middle-aged couple settled down three tables over and regarded us with a sniffing suspicion. The old guy called for a deck of bridge cards in a loud nasal voice as he noisily crinkled the cellophane away from a foot long cigar. His wife was furred and haughty too. I was also aware of someone else in the car.
Seated, with her ramrod-straight back to a window, the scenery unfolding behind her in flowing darkness, was the sharp-looking redhead. Without Schnapps. She was reading a thick book with ruffled dignity. Our eyes met again briefly and she seemed to sniff too. It was that kind of a club car. Poshy and rich with atmosphere. Rich atmosphere. But her hazel eyes showed more warmth than her face would normally allow the male animal. I made a mental note of it.
Spider hunched his shoulders and put his arms on the red leather table between us. He had put his gun away. He reached for his Scotch and shook the ice in the glass almost thoughtfully. I looked at Dean. He was sipping his quietly, smilingly. Opal gulped some of her stinger down like she was really thirsty. I let my martini lie.
“Okay, Daddyo,” Spider murmured. “Now that the cannibal’s taken off, you get the sales pitch from me. Dean here owns a statue. Very expensive statue. A girl statue. The Violent Virgin. You heard of classics, Daddyo? This is one of those. Real big. Costs one hundred thousand dollars. Worth maybe half a million clams to private collectors.”
“The porter isn’t a headhunter or a cannibal,” I said. “He’s a Negro. But please continue.”
Spider ignored me. “The girl statue belongs in a museum but Dean owns her. He keeps her out of museums because she’s his. Right down to the stone toenails. Opal here worked for us. Private secretary, Girl Friday bit. We used to like her very large. We trusted her very large. We were all taking her–the stone lady, I mean–to Chi. Opal takes a powder. This we do not understand. We do not only not understand this, we do not like this. We come after her. Right away you’re in the picture. Right away you’re horning in. We have to chase you to catch up. It looks like the old screw-your-buddy routine. Why we ask ourselves? Why? That’s just one of the answers we’re looking for.”
I reached for my martini.
“You’re coming in real good, Spider. Pray continue.”
Spider glowered.
“Now there’s some ice in the picture. Real hot ice. The Blue Green it says in all the catalogues. Very expensive glass. Big as your fist. Broken down into a lot of little fingers, the take would come to a million more clams. Dean owns this real hot ice too. Suddenly, it’s missing. Suddenly, Opal is running. You’re a smart guy, Dad. Wouldn’t you want to ask her a lot of questions too?”
Opal was shaking all over now. I squeezed her hand some more. But her flesh was cold, clammy. No matter what she was made of, I knew that Dean and Spider would always scare her; that they had some special hex on her.
“So Dean owns the Virgin and the Blue Green? He must be a millionaire.”
“He is,” Spider agreed. “Right now, a sore-headed millionaire. So if Opal threw in with you, or gave you anything for safekeeping, just hand it over like a friendly Daddyo and save yourself some bad news.”
I watched Dean. His eyes held a meaningless softness but the lip meeting the rim of his upper rack of teeth gave him away.
“Let’s talk some more,” I said. “We don’t hit Chicago until one o’clock tomorrow. Why haven’t you checked the wooden crate in the baggage car? Seems to me Opal could have hidden the rock in with the stone lady.”
Spider wagged his head, his eyes still pinned on Opal.
“No dice, Dad. I boxed and crated the Virgin myself. I shipped her. We had the rock after the crate was delivered to Grand Central. And opening it is a two hour job. Try again.”
I toyed with my martini glass.
“Why did you kill the conductor? Or did he just irritate you the way he asked you for your ticket?”
Spider showed me his teeth. They were strictly from the toothpaste ads.
“Just a chiseler who wanted more of a cut, so we cut him out. You’re just as irritating, Dad. I’m ready to shoot you up right now. Where’s the ice?” He was smiling but his body wasn’t. His big right shoulder had dropped to one side and his hand was below the table again.
I tried my fool grin. The one that makes me positively, definitely engaging. And just as irritating as he had said.
“Before you start shooting and making a lot of noise, what about that corpse? Seems to me a lot of people are going to be wondering where he is and what happened to him.”
It was a good question because they had both been sitting as unconcerned as a lifeguard in two feet of water.
Dean felt he should answer that one.
“Had General Custer performed self-immolation during the massacre at Little Big Horn, who would have discerned his suicidal termination of a bizarre military career?”
Spider grinned with real humor. “Dean means the conductor was a plant. No real conductor at all. Just a false article who tried to cross us. He helped us get the crate shipped as something else besides what it is. But he wanted more money to keep quiet. The train people don’t know him from Adam. That’s what the Dean means.”
“I know what he meant,” I said. “And I also know that you have just won the Liar’s Medal hands down, Spider. No contest.”
He scowled. “Spell it out for me, Dad.”
“Just that story of yours. Biggest boatload of fish anybody’s tried to sell me in years. I mean about the Blue Green. You don’t own it at all, do you? Fess up, men. You’re both just a couple of cheap crooks, aren’t you?”
I knew he wasn’t going to take that sitting down. He didn’t. He half-rose cursed, and brought his .45 up from under the table. Dean cursed too and slapped his gun hand down out of sight. Someone across the aisle said “My …” in a stifled voice. I flashed a look at the redhead. Her face was hidden behind the thick book, but something about her controlled body told me she had just put it there.
Dean reached across the table and pinched my wrist. Spider had simmered down to a seething mass. Opal Trace huddled in her chair.
Dean’s beret bobbed as his head wagged disapproval.
“Disastrous, friend. Disastrous. Spider will never forgive you your fall from the gentlemanly graces.”
“My nose bleeds for him, Dean.” I stared them both down. “Come on. Do something. Make some sense.” I was thinking about Harry all trussed up like a turkey in Compartment B.
Spider snarled. “Finish your drink. We’re taking a stroll, Daddyo.”
“Fine. Where to? This car is stuffier than a tomb.”
“The baggage car, Laughing Boy. We can talk there.” He pushed back his chair and stood up. Dean did likewise. Standing next to the towering Spider, he looked like a small boy in his corduroy jacket and chocolate colored trousers. The gay red scarf folded softly at his throat, and the beret made him resemble the old conception of a Hollywood director. The only things missing were the megaphone and the dark glasses.
I helped Opal to her feet, yawning and stretching as I did so. I brought the martini glass up with me. Spider went for his gun again when he saw what my hands were doing. He was a second too late.
My stretching left hand came down hard on the emergency cord running the length of the club car, fought the pull of it and tugged. I shot the contents of the glass in my right hand full into Spider’s brown kisser. The sound the ice and gin made splashing into his mean eyes was one of the most satisfying sounds since Boogie-Woogie.
The other one was the shrill scream of the emergency whistle and the sudden, grinding, squealing, halting, lurching shudder of the steel body of the Mainliner.
We all left our feet like the rug had been pulled out from under us.
Hoarse shouts and a woman’s scream filled the air. I didn’t have to look across the car to realize that the bridge-playing older couple had gotten the jolt of their lives. The old guy very nearly swallowed the foot long stogie.
Opal Trace fell down behind the red leather table. Spider rocketed backwards, helped along by his temporary blindness as well as the sudden stop and did a fancy backflip over the table behind us. Dean very nearly stayed on solid footing thanks to hugging his chair. But when the big wheels of the Mainliner locked to a stop, the terrific lurch put English on the chair and his pudgy little body. He snapped like a whip and swan-dived to the floor of the car. I used the top of the window frame and my ten fingers had managed to stay put.
Released air hissed outside the train with an enormous whoosh of sound as if a giant had exhaled. I could hear feet running, loud, angry voices and the whistle blasting in the night. I flung a quick glance through the soot-stained windows. A mountain range and a dark night sky peppered with salty-looking stars winked at me. We were in the middle of nowhere. And time was awastin’.
I didn’t waste any more of it. I helped Opal to her feet, as dazed as she was, slung her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry before she could protest and got going. I headed out of the Club Car like a tornado with a destination in mind. The car was a jumble of over-turned tables and chairs. Everything that wasn’t built in or nailed down had gone flying. It figured. The Mainliner had been choo-chooing at a good sixty-mile clip, and to suddenly put a stop to all that mammoth steel in less than a hundred yards, is quite a switch.
A red light was flashing from a rectangular frame besides the metal entrance door. KEEP YOUR SEATS! DON’T BE ALARMED! It was flashing on and off with a steady red glow of neon. I shouldered through the door. But not before the tall, erect redhead tried to bar the way.
Her eyes were furious with me. They were snapping like two angry turtles. She had carmine painted fingernails rammed into her full hips. She was blazing, and the brilliant natural red of her hair almost came in a poor second. And she wasn’t mad about Schnapps riding in the baggage car.
“You maniac!” she shrilled in a voice that would have gone through a steel wall. “I saw you! Of all the idiotic, irresponsible, fool stunts–and now you’re trying to kidnap that poor young thing …”
I couldn’t stand there jawing with her. So I did the next best thing. I bowle
d on by her, leaving her shouting and yelling about calling the conductor and reporting me. Opal’s long legs swinging down my back must have clipped her as I squeezed past. Because she suddenly yelped like a real female and said, “Really!” I shot a quick glance back at her before passing into the next car. She was down on the floor, sitting on her cute bottom, fuming up at me, the shock of indignation all over her classic Helena Rubenstein kisser.
It was tough sledding. And I really didn’t think I was going to get home free. Two white-coated porters were coming on the double. They braked up short when they spotted me, surprise and suspicion fighting on their dark faces. One of them was almost six feet six with hands as big as shovel scoops. But I edged past them without a break in stride.
“My wife fainted …” I gasped it out like I was really worried about my wife. “Better hurry back to the Club Car. Some poor woman cut her head. She needs a doctor …”
The smaller porter hurried on like an energetic spider. But Big Brother eyed me coolly and said politely, “Can I assist you to your compartment, suh?”
I was already on by him. “Thanks–no. I’ll manage.” He seemed to shrug and then raced on. I shook my arms. Opal Trace was getting heavy and starting to squirm. The initial shock was wearing off. Up ahead, coming toward us down the long, carpeted aisle corridor I could see blue uniforms and brass buttons. And angry, set faces. An emergency cord pull is just as bad as a false alarm when it is a false alarm. But I could reach the compartment before they could reach me.
Or so I thought.
I had stopped before Compartment B and set Opal Trace on her feet and was fumbling for the door key when a tight, angry knot of people stormed up to us. Opal blinked and braced herself against the door to catch her breath and her bearings. Someone touched my elbow with make-no-mistake-about-it authority. I stopped trying to unlock the door and turned. I saw a blue uniform about my size with iron gray hair poking out under a visored cap. That and no-fooling steel blue eyes staring at me out of a face that was tougher than a Commando squad.
The Case of the Violent Virgin Page 5
