by Robert Colby
“Now,” he said. “I’m gonna chew you up, baby. And when I spit you out, you’ll know you’ve had a man!”
My mind raced, scurrying frantically for an idea that wouldn’t destroy all I had gained. His arms were steel bands closing around me. I knew how to injure him so he would let go. But that would be the end of it and —
And then there was a distant pounding on the hall door, growing louder. I felt him go limp, listening.
“Goddamn,” he said. “Goddamn, goddamn!”
He shoved me away and buttoning himself, left the room. I went right out behind him. He had the door open and two bellhops were wheeling in carts of food and champagne.
Thank God, thank God!
Fourteen
When the bellhops had gone I looked at the handsome spread of cold cuts on the table and the iced buckets with their bottles of champagne. And I said, “Six bottles, Mr. Markos? That’s a lot of champagne.” My God, this was going to be a night!
He was taking the cork from one of the bottles with a lot of wrenching and pulling and he didn’t look up. “Ever hear about the babe who took a bath in champagne?” he asked.
“No.”
“She fizzled to death.” He laughed and I made a sound like laughter. “Just fizzled out,” he said with a final chuckle. The cork popped and he poured into glasses, passing me one. He lifted his own. “Just be sure you don’t fizzle out on me, Myra.” We drank.
Then the phone rang. He frowned, moved across the room to answer it.
“Yeah? … Well goddamnit, you’re early! I told you not to come until — ” He looked at his watch. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s eleven. Okay, come ahead.” He hung up.
“We’re gonna have a little company,” he said. “But don’t let it bother you, they won’t stay all night.”
That certainly was reassuring.
He went into the bedroom and came out fully dressed. He was pouring more champagne when there was a knock on the door.
“Answer it,” he ordered.
I went to the door and it was Eddie Tarino. There was a young girl on his arm and I knew from Rod’s description it must be Kim Rumshaw. A quiet face with a loud body. I mean, it shouted sex. She was dressed in a pale blue sleeveless sheath and she wore a mink stole.
Eddie introduced us and I was sure she didn’t have an inkling as to who I really was, especially since the name Vanderwalt was unknown to her. She smiled quite pleasantly, giving me the quick study, the way females automatically measure the competition. If she was under any strain, if she was frightened or intimidated, it didn’t show. She appeared to be perfectly poised. In fact, she was gay and there was an air of dominance about her.
I was puzzled.
Eddie hustled Kim up to Markos and made the introduction, calling him “Mister Markos” as always, and with much respect. Whatever impression she made on Markos, he gave her only a curt little nod and a glass of champagne. He gestured towards the food. In the world of Nick Markos there were apparently just two kinds of people — those he tolerated and those he did not. God help the latter.
Among other things in that tower, there was a radio. The lights (with the help of Tarino) were cut to one, and we danced. Markos was a lousy dancer. He knew certain steps but he was stiff. I suppose in his own peculiar way he was too dignified and too unbending for anything which required such a loose obedience to rhythm.
He was also unable to have a good time. He went through the same motions of drinking, eating, dancing (he never grew more talkative) but he just wasn’t quite there. He wasn’t with it, as they say. If anything, he drank more than we did. But whatever emotions alcohol fired in him, he simply became more and more brooding. He was smoldering inside and you couldn’t even see the smoke.
That bothered me. He was a kind of nut. And what do you do with a nut if you can’t crack it?
Meanwhile, Tarino and Kim were oblivious. They were both getting high, thoroughly enjoying themselves. So it seemed. They were drinking and laughing it up and dancing around the room, Kim with her shoes off. I could see that Tarino was getting amorous. He was whispering suggestions with a sly look on his face. She wasn’t saying no and she wasn’t saying yes. She was laughing. Not with him, but at him.
Tarino didn’t get it — that he was being laughed at. Not at first. But the drinks were making him ten feet tall and he was becoming insistent. And just as insistently, she was laughing him off. An arrogant laughter, needling and superior. In effect, she said — You poor boob, you unknowing slob.
I was sitting next to Markos on the sofa, drinking and watching, with great interest, because I knew something was going to give. Markos was silent, morose. He hadn’t touched me — not a pass. It was as if he was so sure of me he didn’t have to bother with any games. When the time came he would simply take me and that was that. Meanwhile, he was above any public charades.
Tarino had maneuvered Kim to the hall which led to the bedrooms. He had danced her over there. He said something. She laughed. He stopped dead, got hold of her arm and began to guide her away, none too gently.
“No!” she said sharply. “Not now, not tonight, not ever!” She spoke loudly, her voice cutting through the music.
I looked at Markos. He showed no interest. He was a zombie.
Tarino was furious. He knew that we had heard. He grabbed her arm again.
“Wait!” she cried, wrestling free. “I want to show you something.”
She flounced across the room and came back with her pocketbook. She opened it and produced a white folded piece of paper. She pressed it into Tarino’s hand. “There — you bastard,” she said. “That’ll hold you!”
“Who you talkin’ to!” screamed Tarino. “And what the hell is this?”
“Read it, read it!”
He gave her a look, then marched to the one light and opened the paper. He read it. Something electric came over him and he read it again, glaring up at her, then down at the paper. He moved towards her and gave her a giant slap across the face. She fell. I started to get up but Markos put his big hand flat against my stomach and shoved me back.
“You think this’ll do you any good?” Tarino hissed down at her. “You think so? Just wait ‘n see, baby. Just you wait ‘n see!”
He tore the paper in half. And again. He dropped the pieces on her face. Then he leaned down and picked her up in his arms, her tiny fists smashing at him. He carried her struggling into the other room. A door slammed.
“Aren’t you going to stop him?” I asked Markos.
“Mind your own business,” he said. He got up and poured himself another glass of champagne. He must have had more than a dozen. He didn’t even stagger.
I went over and picked up the fallen pieces of paper. I spread them on the table under the light and puzzled them into the right order. Then I read.
It was the photostat of a marriage license. As of yesterday, she had become Mrs. Howard Massey.
Fifteen
It wasn’t more than five minutes later that there was still another knock on the door. This time it was the Latin, Carga, and the big young-old one called Remick. Markos gave them a drink and then he went to get Tarino. There was going to be a meeting. I gathered this from the conversation. Now Markos was all business.
Kim came out of the bedroom with red eyes and a puffy face. Gone was her bravado. She looked thoroughly cowed, frightened. Tarino hurried her to the door and came back without her.
“You’ll stay,” Markos told me. “You’ll wait in the bedroom.” He turned off the radio and then he went over to the one called Remick and took him aside. The other two were guzzling champagne. They had their backs to me. And in that moment I slipped the recorder from my pocket and flipped the switch to “record.” Quickly I placed the little box under the sofa, well out of sight.
I had barely settled back with a cigarette when Markos came and led me to his bedroom.
“Wait here,” he said. “You and I got some unfinished business. Right, baby?”
&n
bsp; I tried to smile.
He closed the door.
I sat down on the edge of the bed. Thinking furiously, I finished the cigarette and mashed it in a tray. I got up and went to the door. I placed my ear against it and listened. I couldn’t hear a murmur. Cautiously, I opened the door.
Remick was standing just in front of it. He turned.
“Back, sister,” he said. He gave me a thin leering smile as his eyes swarmed over me. For a moment I thought he was coming in. He had that look. I closed the door.
Well, I was a prisoner. That was obvious. Probably Remick was there to see I didn’t get close enough to listen. But I was still a prisoner. And I was worried. These guys took what they wanted, any way they could get it. Just to be around them, to be exposed innocently like Kim, was dangerous. But to spy on them, if you got caught, was suicide.
Still, the job had to be done, and I had long ago accepted the risks.
I had one advantage. Time. My guess was that I could figure on at least a half-hour. Five minutes should be plenty.
I went to the door and quietly pressed the lock button.
On the dresser there were two tiny lamps. One of them was lighted, otherwise the room was dark. Softly I pulled the bottom drawer open and removed the brief case. There was a zipper and I slid it back.
In one compartment there were banded stocks of money — hundred-dollar bills. The other contained some ruled sheets of paper. I didn’t spend much time with the money. I was interested in those papers. I plucked them out and began to read.
It was some kind of inventory.
BARs #xa0; 26 cases #xa0; 20 pc
TMGs #xa0; 43 cases #xa0; 35 pc
GRs #xa0; 71 cases #xa0; 40 pc
There were many other listings. I didn’t understand any of them. On the surface they looked harmless enough. But every instinct told me there was something vastly illegal here if you could decipher it.
I was turning to the second page when a terrifying awareness crept over me. I was being watched. There was a presence in the room. I felt it, I knew it! Yet, it was impossible …
There was a mirror over the dresser and without raising my head, I took one fleeting look.
Nick Markos stood frozen in the doorway to the balcony. Somehow he must have climbed that walled partition which divided one section from another, coming catlike into the room. First he must have tried the door. And when he found it locked …
As ever, his face was a blank. But his eyes were hooded and he was positively coiled in that doorway. The tension was almost visible, an electric force reaching out from him.
My pocketbook with the gun was out of reach on the bed. And I knew that if I didn’t think of something I would never leave that room alive.
My back was to him, the papers held in close to my body. I was sure he couldn’t see exactly what I was doing and didn’t know I had caught his reflection in the mirror. With one hand I sneaked the papers into the case, while with the other, I removed a wad of bills. I did this without changing my position a fraction. Now I leaned forward to the light and made a show of examining the hundreds. My point was to convince him that my only interest was in the money. It might give me a small chance.
After a moment or two I took a single hundred-dollar bill and returned the rest of the stack to the case. I zipped it and put it away in the drawer. I turned with the folded bill in my hand, moving towards my pocketbook. If I could get that bill inside and reach the gun …
But he was on top of me. One hand grabbed my hair and pulled my head back viciously, the other clamped over my wrist as my fingers touched the bag. He snatched the bill and then his big fist smashed against my jaw. For an instant I felt myself flying backwards. But before I touched the floor, I was unconscious.
When I came to, I had the impression that not much more than a minute had passed. In an odd way it seemed darker. A breeze touched my face. My jaw ached and I felt light-headed. Cool cement was beneath my body, yet for some reason I pressed lightly against it, weightless. My arms were stretched back over my head, also weightless. My eyes focused — on nothing. Space.
I felt strangely uncomfortable. Pulled taut at both ends. My ankles seemed clamped by circles of hard metal. My legs were cold.
I lifted my head slowly and looked. My skirt was around my hips, my legs bare. Above me, far above me, Markos looked down. He was smiling. No, he was laughing in a nearly soundless way. His hands were clenched around my ankles, biting my flesh with their hard grip. I couldn’t understand why he was holding my legs up.
And then I saw that he was leaning over a wall. And I turned my head and looked down.
I saw the pool — empty now, but still lighted. And the little bar, and the court with its scattering of tables — toy tables, little mushrooms sprouting up at me. Directly below, an enormous distance down the white face of the wall, there was a vague section of pavement which shimmered and beckoned.
I grew dizzy. Fear spread through me like a quick violent poison. I was paralyzed.
“I’ve been waiting,” said Markos, sounding a long way off. “It’s no fun if you don’t see it happen. Ready, Myra?”
I tried to speak and couldn’t. I tried to scream and nothing came. I curled upwards toward him, grasping air, falling back again. He let go of one leg and I dangled, swaying in space.
And then, finally — I screamed.
Sixteen
I was a rag doll, limbs askew, dangling hundreds of feet above the earth. It went on and on. For what seemed an eternity. Then he pulled me up a ways, caught my other foot and hoisted me back over the wall. I collapsed against it, sobbing for breath. The stone floor beneath my feet felt unreal, impermanent. My eyes were bugged out of my head with fear, my legs sagged and trembled.
Hands on hips, Markos stood watching me as if I was some writhing specimen under glass. His little smile said he was thoroughly enjoying himself.
“You think I was afraid to let you go?” he asked. “You think I chickened out? It would’ve been easy. No problem. You got drunk and fell over. Or you knocked yourself off. Who knows? We’re in the other room minding our own business. We hear a scream. We rush in. We look down. There you are, so much rhubarb oozing all over the cement. That’s my story. Three guys back me up. The cops write in their little books. Suicide. And then they beat it, shaking their heads. Easy.”
“You’re crazy,” I said. I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Out of your mind. A hundred dollars, just a hundred.”
“You think I care about the lousy hundred bucks?” He stepped closer, squinting into my face. “But no one crosses me and gets away with it. Not for a hundred. Not for fifty. Not for a nickel! Understand?”
I could only nod.
His hand went around my throat, his thumb caressed my windpipe.
“I don’t read you, baby,” he said. “Not yet But I’m gonna. I’m gonna open you up like a clock and see why you go off like a bell in my head. You’re too smart to swipe a hundred bucks from a guy like me. You’d figure the odds, you’d know you wouldn’t get away with it. You’ve got an angle and I’m gonna find it. If it’s only that hundred bucks, you got nothin’ to be afraid of. You just now learned a lesson you won’t forget. But if it’s something else, if my hunch is right, you better take that big jump over the wall. Before I get back.”
He turned and went into the room. I saw him pick up the brief case. Carrying it under his arm, he went out.
Never for a moment had it occurred to me that he might return for that brief case. But that’s just what happened. He must have needed those figures, the inventory, for the meeting. Well, you can’t win them all. There are things you can’t possibly foresee. And it’s those things which can kill you.
I went into the room and found a cigarette in my bag. I watched my hand shake trying to light it. I inhaled deeply, exhaled on a long sigh. My God, my God, what a night! And it wasn’t over. It could be just the beginning. A guy like Markos smells smoke and you can bet he’s going to find the fire. The har
d way. For me.
I had to get out of there. No way out but down and I had to escape!
I looked at my watch. Not more than five minutes had passed since he caught me. But a single minute suspended in space is forever. Yes, I had to get out of there. And what’s more, that recorder, our mechanical ears, had to go with me.
There was a phone on the night table. I stared at it. I picked up the receiver.
“Operator.” A calm voice from another world.
I gave her Rod’s number. I spoke softly, ever so softly, fingering the growing lump on my chin.
The operator dialed and that robot purred in my ear Once, it rang. Twice. Be there! I prayed. Just this once, God, let him be there. He’ll know what to do. Rod will know 8-9-10. My heart sank. Three more times and I hung up.
The police? What would I tell them? What story that would send them racing? Did it matter? As long as they came?
The house detective? Better still. It was his job and he was seconds away. I would tell him that I was being held in this room and I wanted to be escorted safely out of the building. I reached for the phone.
Splat! A hand whipped across the side of my face. I fell sideways on the bed. I sat up, rubbing my cheek. Remick stood leering down at me.
“Got any more tricks?” he said. “Try something else and see what happens, sister.”
He got some gadget from his pocket and unscrewed the plate from the bottom of the phone. He disconnected the wires. He tucked the instrument under his arm. He went out, closing the door.
Well, he was alerted and that was bad. He wouldn’t dare slap me unless I was under suspicion. The whole thing was falling apart.
I reached for my pocketbook. I hated to use the gun. Because once you have a gun in your hand all the cards are on the table. Until then you might keep them guessing. You might keep them in business long enough to catch them with their filthy hands in the pie.
Also, while a gun is a key that unlocks a lot of doors, you have to be ready to use it. A threat is not always enough. Especially if you’re a woman. Chances are, with such a crew, before it’s over you’ll have to fire the gun. And afterwards you’ll have to be able to justify such a shooting without friendly witnesses. If you can’t, there goes your license.
