Pulp Crime

by Jerry eBooks

  Thompson was right. Waldo Maxwell had been a national figure for forty years. His bank was a Gibraltar of finance; he was the ultimate in conservative respectability. He’d be finished, out, if the sandal sheets got a thing like this.

  “Maxwell retained the Blaine Agency,” Thompson continued. “The sky is the limit on expense. And we’re giving it to you. The Orchid is at the Palm Beach Palo Verde, registered as Miss Gloria Dean and maid. We don’t know anything about the maid. It’s a cinch she’s crooked too. Got any ideas?”

  “Plenty,” I said, thinking fast. “First, make good on that expense account. And I’ll want a good looking woman with brains. Got one this side of New York?”

  “Trixie Meehan is due here in the morning from Chicago. She’ll work with you.”

  I groaned, knowing Trixie.

  Next morning I bought luggage, evening clothes, dress shirts, shoes, hats, all the clutter an oil millionaire from west Texas would be likely to have.

  Trixie Meehan blew in, had a conference with Thompson before he left town, did some whirlwind shopping herself. We made the train together with enough luggage to do a theatrical troupe.

  An hour before dinner that evening we rolled into Palm Beach in two taxis, one packed with luggage. The Palo Verde was four stories high, with sprawling wings, acres of velvet lawns and a golf course; shrubbery, flower beds, palms, and the blue surf of the open Atlantic creaming in on the white sand beach before it. We wheeled up a wide shell driveway and stopped before a long marquee. Four uniformed bellboys ran out to meet us.

  Trixie kicked me on the ankle.

  “Out, ape!” she hissed under her breath. “Husbands always help the little woman tenderly.”

  “There you go!” I snarled. “Trying to start something right off the bat!”

  “Yes, darling,” cooed Trixie for the driver’s benefit as I helped her out to the sidewalk.

  Trixie Meehan was a little frail slip of a thing with forget-me-not eyes, a knock ’em dead fare, and a clinging vine manner that covered concentrated hell She had a razor tongue, muscles like steel springs, a brain that made me dizzy at times, and absolutely no fear. And here she was cuddling close and cooing up into my face while the taxi driver eyed me like a sap.

  I paid him and left the baggage for the bellhops. “Lay off that googoo talk when you don’t have to use it,” I growled as we went into the lobby. “You get my goat.”

  Trixie grabbed my arm and snuggled close. “You big strong he-man!” she sighed.

  I couldn’t shove here there in the lobby, so I took it out on the clerk. “A suite. Two bedrooms. Best you have. Ocean exposure, on the third floor, if possible.”

  “A quiet suite, dear,” Trixie trilled.

  “A quiet suite!” I snapped to the clerk.

  “I think we have one that will be entirely satisfactory,” he beamed at me. “And I can give it to you for only eighty dollars a day, since that is late in the season.”

  “Eighty a what?” I gagged.

  “Eighty dollars a day,” the clerk repeated firmly, and managed to chill me with one eye while he eyed our mountainous luggage, just coming in, with the other.

  Trixie pinched my arm, and smiled brightly. “Eighty dollars a day is quite satisfactory, darling.” she cooed. “Can’t you remember that we have oil wells now?” The clerk caught it. His face cleared instantly. He handed me a registry card and a fountain pen. I registered Mr. and Mrs. Blaine, San Antonio, Texas.

  We looked like wealthy young globe trotters, for our old luggage was plastered with labels from everywhere. Undercover work for the Blaine Agency means travel. When the bellhops got their toll and left us alone in the suite, I went to the connecting door of the bedrooms and moved the key to my side.

  “Verboten,” I grunted at Trixie. “None of your blasted tricks now. I want some peace on this ease.” Trixie threw her hat on the bed and made a face at me. “Be yourself, ape. Nobody’s pursuing you. What has your massive brain planned for this evening?”

  “The Orchid and her maid have three rooms at the end of the hall,” I snapped. “I meet her, I make her, and then we take her.”

  “Just as easy as that,” Trixie marveled. “Well, here’s hoping. But don’t forget we’re married, darling, and I get some of this Palm Beach whoopee.”

  “Nix,” I grinned. “That’s for me and the Orchid.

  You’re the neglected wife who mopes in her room.” You’ll have whiskers to your ankles when I do that.” Trixie said through her teeth.

  The idle rich! The wisecracker who said that never had more than a week’s pay on hand in his life. Golf, tennis, swimming, riding, dancing—and bridge thrown in whenever Trixie could scare up a game. Throe days of that to put us in the public eye and get our lines out.

  The unlimited expense account made it possible; oil millionaires from Texas, hicks, from the sticks, lathery with money. Trixie shopped at those exclusive little Fifth Avenue branch shops. They came to the hotel collect, and we had war the first night.

  “Whose little gold digger are you?” I yelped. “Look at these bills I settled today! I knew you were a tough cast, but I didn’t know you had mucilage fingers. Any dumbwit you drag to the altar will be going for a cleaning instead of a honey moon. Sixty-seven berries for a hat, and I could wear it for a felt thumb protector!”

  “So!” said Trixie with a glitter in her eye. “You were snooping in my packages like a second story mug, Michael Harris?”

  “When I pay sixty-seven crackers for a cardboard box and four yards of tissue paper and ribbon, I want to see what I’m stung with!” I gave her.

  And Trixie moved in close for battle.

  “Listen to me, you sack of wind! Nobody ever dragged you to the altar and they never will. Pull those popeyes in and get this straight! I’ll send the beach up here collect if I feel like it, and you’ll pay and thank me. Whose bank account is getting nicked? Not yours! Hand you a five dollar bill and you’d start jawing J, P. Morgan. Gold digger, am I, for providing a little atmosphere? Next time I hear a—”

  I slammed the door on the rest. That acid tongue of Trixie’s could lift the skin off a cigar store Indian.

  We buried the subject of clothes. After all it wasn’t my money. I took a flier or so in the market those three days. And the tips I ladled out everywhere disturbed my sleep nights. But they were good advertising. By the second day every flunkey in sight was bowing and scraping when I appeared. Funny how oil millions can spread. We were the gossip of the hotel. Some turned up their noses, and some fell over themselves to glad-hand us.

  The Orchid did neither.

  I spotted her the first evening in the dining room, and the waiter cinched it. “That is Miss Dean, sir.”

  “Pretty girl to be dining alone.”

  “Miss Dean seldom has anyone at her table, sir. She is, if I may be so free, a retiring woman And the waiter rolled an expectant eye at Trixie.

  “Perhaps, dear,” says Trixie sweetly, “you would like to leave me and join her?”

  And the waiter went off satisfied.

  The Orchid had everything Thompson had outlined. I didn’t try to guess her age. She was like an orchid, slender, graceful, dainty, fragile. She was a natural blonde—Trixie admitted that reluctantly—with a she’ll pink complexion and ripe red lips. Her eyelashes were long anti dreamy, her makeup a bit of art, her expression tender and demure.

  One look at her there in dainty solitude and I was willing to swear Thompson was a liar and Waldo Maxwell a lecherous old reprobate. A second look and I was hardboiled again. I’ve seen enough crooks to have an extra sense about them. Her eyes wandered over and caught my grin. She took me in from hair to second button on my dinner coat, and then went on eating without a change of expression. But my neck hairs stiffened. She was like a beautiful leopard, lazily lapping cream. Claws were sheathed behind that fragile daintiness.

  Trixie was on tap as usual. “All right, cave man, go into your act,” she said under her breath.

&n
bsp; “Rats to you,” I said. “This is going to take technique.”

  The waiter returned and Trixie cooed: “Yes, dear.” And we had honeymoon the rest of the dinner.

  I didn’t make a move for three days. But now and then when the Orchid was on the horizon I caught her studying me. The wild and woolly west, with a wagon load of money, and extra luggage in the wife, had come to Palm Beach. I spent as little time with Trixie as possible. I ogled the women when the Orchid was around. I flashed the bankroll and made a fool of myself. Anyone with half an eye could see I was ripe picking for a smart dame.

  But it was Palmer, a natty customers’ man for Trenholme and Edwards’ branch brokerage office, who gave me my break. A little about oil wells and flyers in the market made him my man. He was a good looking young chap, a little too soft and polite; but he knew his Palm Beach, and the Orchid by sight when I pointed her out on the hotel veranda.

  “Corker, isn’t she?” Palmer sighed. “Haven’t met her, but I hope to. See her all the time at Corey’s. Say, that’s a place you might like. Been there yet?”

  “A big gambling joint, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be glad to take you and Mrs. Blaine there any time.”

  “Tonight,” I said. “Mrs. Blaine will be busy. We’ll go alone.”

  I’d heard about Corey’s place; to gambling what Palm Beach was to society. With its clientele a Broadway gambler would have retired in six months. Strict cards of admission were required, and your name almost had to be in the social register to get one. Formal evening dress, of course, and once inside the old lavishly furnished frame building, set back in a tangle of trees and tropical growth, the sky was the limit. Private rooms upstairs for really high play. The drinks and food were on the house. The service was in keeping with the crowd who went there.

  Palmer got a card some way. Things like that were his business. I went with a fat billfold, a boiled shirt, tails and everything—and tried to forget that in a few weeks I might be impersonating a longshoreman around the East river docks.

  It was a joy to lose the first three hundred, of someone else’s money. We shifted from game to game for an hour and a half. Cool, perfumed air, beautiful women—some of them—men whose names made the newspapers, the hum and chatter of conversation, the quiet voices of the house men, now and then a black dressed automation moving about with a tray. But no Orchid.

  And then she came in, wrapped in a black coat with a roll of white around the collar. Stunning? I skipped a breath. “Palmer,” I said, “I’m going to need the rest of the evening to myself. Would you mind ordering a Rolls outside in case I need it?”

  And I went to the roulette table where the Orchid had drifted. For a few minutes I watched her lose five dollar chips, and then I slipped into an empty place at her side and slapped down five hundred. I lost and raised to a thousand. And won, and won the next time, and the next. By that time I had the Orchid and everyone else at the table with me.

  A fifty dollar bill was slipped into my palm, and I met a cool smile. “Will you play it?” the Orchid asked. “I think you are lucky tonight.”

  We won together.

  Since it wasn’t my money I didn’t get the cold chills as I pushed my luck. I played the Blaine oil wells in public that night, and had the customers hanging on the edge of the table and standing three deep behind us. No, I didn’t break the bank. They tell me no one ever does that at Corey’s. But I put on a good show, won six thousand when the plays were evened up, and broke the ice with the Orchid.

  I stuffed the winnings in my pocket and grinned at the Orchid. “I always quit while I’m cool, ma’am. Would a little drive along the ocean front cap your luck?”

  “It might,” the Orchid agreed as she folded her cut. “Shall we try it?”

  The motor of that big Rolls purred and so did the Orchid. Her technique would have made Delilah quit. “You were so calm over those big stakes,” she sighed.

  “Shucks, ma’am, back in Texas, our stud games would make that piker play tonight.”

  “You’re from Texas?”

  “West Texas.” I gave her breezily. “Out in the oil country.”

  “How fascinating! Have you an oil well?”

  “A dozen,” I grinned. “An’ two more spudding in this week on proved ground. I always told Susan that when I passed my first million I was coming to Palm Beach. And here I am. But I never thought I’d be riding around with a beautiful woman like you.”

  “You flatter me,” said the Orchid absently. “Your wife—does she like it? I’ve noticed her. She’s a beautiful little thing.”

  “Susan’s pretty enough,” I agreed without enthusiasm. “But she says she’d rather be back home where she can be a big frog in a little puddle instead of a little frog in a big puddle like she is here.”

  The Orchid laughed softly.

  “Perhaps she is right at that. A woman has to be used to this life before she can get the most out of it. I owe you more thanks than I can repay for making it possible for me to stay here a little longer.”

  “I don’t understand,” I mumbled and waited for her line.

  “The money you won for me,” she explained. “That was almost my last fifty dollars I gave you.”

  “I thought you were—”

  “—rich?” She laughed shortly What an actress! “One thinks that about everyone here. A little insurance money can create quite an effect. But when it’s gone—” She broke off on a quaver.

  I put a hand over hers. “I understand.”

  “I thought you would,” the Orchid murmured. “Now forget about me and tell me about Texas.”

  So I spun her a few yarns about how I started as a poor kid in the oil fields and finally got in the money. When I spoke about oil field life she looked out the window, and when I mentioned big money she was all ears again.

  “I want you to meet Susan,” I said finally.

  “No, I don’t think I’d better,” the Orchid said sadly. “Wives don’t seem to like me. They get jealous. We’ll keep this to ourselves.”

  “Perhaps we’d better,” I agreed—and wondered what her game was.

  Trixie saw the powder on my coat lapel when I came in the sitting room, and said acidly, “Necking?”

  “With the Orchid. I wanted her to meet my dear little wife, Susan, but she begged off. Wives don’t usually like her.”

  “Susan?” Trixie had fire in her eye. “I could skin yon for that, Mike Harris! Why not Abigail to that hussy?”

  “Why not? Susan Abigail it is.”

  I got the door looked just in time.

  Thompson Long distanced from Washington in the morning.

  “She’s putting the screws on Maxwell,” he grabbed over the wire. “Wants her dough quick, or else. The old man’s frantic. He thought he’d have a couple of weeks yet am way. Haven’t you done anything?”

  “It looks like I’ve done too much,” I decided. “She wants Maxwell cleaned up before she cleans me.” Well, get some action!” Thompson yelled. “If this thing goes sour on you, you’re washed up with the Blaine Agency It’s that important.”

  “Button your lip,” I advised. “They can hear you across the hall here. Tell Maxwell to put another padlock on his checkbook. No dame’s going to toss a quarter of a million away by getting rash. He’s safe enough as long as he stalls.”

  Thompson’s groan traveled clear down from Washington. “I hope for your sake that’s right,” he warned.

  And so did I. The Blaine Agency had a little trick of loading all the responsibility on the ones who drew a case, and then if they didn’t come through, heads began to fall. It worked nine times out of ten. But Waldo Maxwell’s quarter of a million and the Orchid were a big bite.

  She was a wise one, dangerous as dynamite.

  Trixie heard me out.

  “You can’t stall any longer, loud mouth,” she decided. “Necking parties may be your forte, but you’ll have to cut them short. I’ve been watching that huss
y. She never speaks to anyone who might be in the racket with her. And a dime to a promise that those letters are not in her hotel room here. She wouldn’t dare keep them so close.”

  “She has a maid.”

  “I’ve seen the maid!” Trixie snapped.

  And so had I. A beauty, and a crook, if I knew my way around. “We’ve got to pull a fast one,” I decided.

  “He thinks,” Trixie marveled. “Well, produce before we both get fired.”

  “I’m going swimming,” I told her.

  I met the Orchid on the beach where she had said the night before she’d be. She wore black beach pajamas trimmed with white, and against her creamy skin they were enough to stop the breath and scuttle good resolutions. She gave me a smile to go with them. “Where is your wife?”

  “Reading. No sunburn wanted.”

  “You poor neglected boy. It must be lonesome at times.”

  I held my breath until my face got red and stuttered, “N-not when I’m with you.” And we got along famously.

  All the time I was wondering when she kept those letters of Maxwell’s. Trixie was right. Not in her room. That would, be the first place private dicks would look. And despite the fact that Trixie had seen no one with her, Thompson’s hint that she did not work alone kept pricking at my mind.

  So I admired the big diamond ring on her finger and told her about the jewels I had bought the little woman since the oil wells came in. Three hundred grand worth, diamonds, pearls, emeralds and what not.

  The Orchid swallowed the hook. “What a fortunate woman your wife is,” she sighed. “I haven’t seen her wearing any.”

  I grinned. “She’s afraid to. Jewel thieves. So she keeps them in the bottom of her trunk.”

  The Orchid lay there on the sand like a lazy cat. Her pink finger nails dug in gently when I said that. I saw her leg muscles stiffen slightly. But she didn’t bat an eye.

  “How dangerous,” she warned abruptly. “She should keep them in a safety deposit box.”

  “Susan doesn’t think so,” I yawned. “She likes to take them out and play with them. She’s like a kid. Always wanted a diamond ring—and then got a lapful. And she’s convinced no one would ever think of looking in the false bottom she had built into her trunk.”