Molly’s profile was static. She speared a piece of potato with her fork, brought it mechanically up to her mouth, chewed it as if it were gum.
“What dame?” Tilly said.
“Nobody got a good look at her. The cops figure she was working with Larry. That sounds reasonable.”
Tilly snorted. “You’re losing your grip, George. That sounds like a gag to me. Breen wanted to shake you off. He’s hiding somewhere with the bag right now, laughing up his sleeve at you.”
Here I was, the man they were talking about, and they didn’t know it. I could have laughed up my sleeve if I had had any laughter in me.
“I’m sure Larry’s got him,” Moon said bleakly, one word at a time trickling from his lips. “It’s a fact that Larry slugged him and a dame was waiting to drive him away. And why would Breen blow with the bag? He couldn’t use it. I looked into Breen’s record and he’s what he says he is, just an auto salesman with a wife and kid. He figured he’d be smart and hold me up for a stiff price.” He spoke a trifle faster, defending himself. “I was handling it right. I showed his daughter a good time for a couple of hours and then told him next time she wouldn’t come back. That scared him, but not enough. He went to the cops. Next time I took his girl, he would’ve stayed away from the cops. He would’ve broken his neck to hand me the bag and get his daughter back.”
“Only Larry was a step ahead of you,” Rufus growled. “What do we do now?”
“If Larry gets the bag, he’ll have to come out in the open sooner or later. And then — “ Moon snapped his fist shut over air. Slowly he let the fist sink, opened it, closed the long fingers over a water glass.
I said: “What’s in this bag you’re talking about?”
Eyes shifted to me. Only Tilly’s were definitely hostile. Her ring finger jabbed toward me. “George, he was pumping Milton about the bag.”
“Just asking him,” I said, “the way I’m ’asking now. I keep hearing mysterious talk about a bag. Naturally I want to know what it’s about.”
Tilly’s finger did not waver. “I bet he’s one of Jasper Vital’s Florida boys. So what if his wife is Clara Darby? They came here for the bag.”
Molly was silent. This one she was leaving to me, an easy one.
“I thought you said somebody named Breen had the bag and that Larry had Breen,” I said. “If we were working with Larry, we’d be with him, helping him get the bag from Breen. And if Clara and I had come here for any reason but the one we told you, wouldn’t we have had a neat-story all ready for you? And if we knew anything about the bag, wouldn’t we know what was in it without asking?”
Rufus Lamb said: “What’s the matter with you, Tilly? I know all the Florida boys. They drove up here all winter.”
The finger withdrew, Tilly clicked her ring against her teeth, a grudging admission of defeat.
“What about the bag?” I persisted.
Moon finished chewing the food in his mouth. Then he drawled: “What makes you so anxious, Bert?”
“If I’m going to work for you, I want to be all the way in.”
“You’ll be when the time comes.” He leaned forward, looked lazily at me past Molly. “Don’t be curious about anything but what you’re told.”
I didn’t say anything. The others watched me, stacking me up against their boss. He couldn’t trust me completely because he intended to take something from me, or at least borrow it. I glanced sideways. Moon had abandoned me. His shoulder was against Molly’s and he was whispering into her hair. She gave him a glowing open-mouthed smile. She wasn’t making it easy for me to play the role of her husband.
Molly left the table as soon as she finished-her meat dish. I remained for the coffee, but gave it up after a few sips. I went upstairs and pushed open the door to our room. Molly stood in front of the dresser in brassiere and shorts. I said, “Sorry,” and beat a quick retreat out to the hall. Somebody was coming up the stairs. I waited until Beezie’s head appeared and then reentered the room. She was getting into her blue silk robe with the white polka dots.
“I can’t be seen or heard knocking at the door,” I said. “We’re supposed to be married. Remember?”
“You’re the one who jumped out, I didn’t mind.” She was facing the dresser mirror and brushing her honey-colored hair. “Well, we did it,” she said cheerfully
“You did it. Thanks for saving my life.”
“That was only incidental. I saved mine too, you know.”
“Where were you when Milton came up for you? You weren’t here or in the bathroom.”
“Searching rooms,” she replied blithely. “There was a possibility I might come across something. Luckily I popped out of Tilly’s room just before Milton saw me. It would have been hard explaining that. Then I had to use my gun downstairs until I was sure my story convinced them.”
“Did you find anything in -the rooms?”
“No. I hardly expected to.”
I sat on the bed and watched her apply flame-red lipstick. After a little-while I said: “Are you Clara Darby?”
She laughed noiselessly into the mirror. “Was I that good, honey?”
“Yes.”
She leaned back against the dresser and regarded me with amusement. “I’m Molly Crane, daughter of the eminently respectable Dr. Freeman Crane of Baltimore.”
“How do you know so much about Lou Darby?”
“The advantage of a writing career. Last year I did a magazine article on Lou Darby, one of America’s most notorious bank robbers.”
“Suppose Rufus Lamb knew the real Clara Darby?”
“When Darby was killed, Clara and her mother moved to a small Ohio town. They’re still there. Clara is married to a bus driver; he doesn’t suspect who his wife’s father was. Nobody does. I found them, but when I learned the situation, how they’d cut themselves off from the past, I naturally gave my word to keep their secret.”
“Who’s Bert Hemsley?”
“You are. I never heard of another.” Her teeth showed very white between the flame lips, “Me, Clara Darby! Did you really believe that?”
“I don’t know what to believe about you. One hour you’re scared sick and the next you’re facing a bunch of professional gunmen as competent and cool as the devil.”
“I’m a girl of moods,” she said lightly. She picked up an eyebrow pencil and did a job on herself.
This was like a scene at home, with me sitting on the bed and watching Esther make up. It was twenty-four hours since I’d vanished. What was Esther doing now? Still waiting for the telephone to ring or for a knock on the door?
“There’s nothing to keep us here any longer,” I said. “We know the bag isn’t here.”
“Where will you go?”
“Home where I belong.”
“You heard what Moon said. He had planned to kidnap your daughter again.”
I stood up. “Listen. Those are stolen cars down there.”
Her back remained to me. She was tying a fresh ribbon around her bob. This one was black. “Wasn’t it obvious?” she said.
“It is now. The jalopies down there are just to cover the good cars. They don’t want to accept good cars in trade; they can get them for nothing by stealing them. They run them up from Florida and maybe elsewhere. That, I think, was Vital’s and Larry’s end of the job down there. When they learned that I not only had the bag but also worked in automobiles, they decided at once that I was in the racket. This car lot is only a depot. They probably dispose of the cars in Brooklyn. I’ll get the police to raid this place and Moon will be in jail where he can’t touch me.”
“How will the police be able to prove they’re hot cars? They’ve repainted them and changed the license plates.”
“There are serial and motor numbers stamped on each car, and the cars are registered in the names of the rightful owners.”
She moved over to me with her free-swinging stride. She put her palms flat on my chest. “Honey, I know how crooks work. Do you think George Mo
on would be so careless as to leave evidence around in the open? And if he did, what would a raid accomplish? Moon and Tilly and a few others would be arrested. He has a bigger organization than what you see here. There would be others outside of jail who would still want the bag as badly as ever and who are certain you have it.”
I stood rigid. Her hair was in my nostrils and I smelled perfume in' it. “What are you after for yourself, Molly?”
“I’m after a bigger story than a hot car racket. A murder story.” She threw her head back and looked gravely into my face. “And I want to help you out of this mess. I’m not as hard-boiled as I pretend. Do you want to know the real reason I was nasty to you this afternoon? Because you’re a married man and a father, and I — I —”
We kissed.
There was no preparation, no plan. All at once our mouths were together.
I held her close. Her arms wound around to my back.
Abruptly she pulled away from me. Gathering her robe tightly about her waist, she walked to the dresser and shook a cigarette out of the pack. Watching her, I felt like a school boy who had been slapped by a girl.
“I’d like to get dressed,” she said quietly.
I looked at the slight sag of her wide shoulders and the fine sweep of her hips. Then I said, “I'm sorry,'' and went out.
Rufus Lamb and Beezie were talking baseball in the lunchroom. I joined them at the wirelegged table. Beezie was a Brooklyn fan and Rufus liked the Chicago Cubs. I decided that a Westerner like Bert Hemsley ought to root for the St. Louis Cards, and I did.
After a while I heard people come down 'the stairs. I heard Molly laugh gaily. Rufus cut a sentence in two and put his eyes flatly on me. From where I sat, I had a glimpse of Molly and George Moon round the staircase and head toward the side door. She was clinging to his arm.
I stood up and looked out of the lunchroom window. It was night, but light from the lunchroom flowed out to the parking area in front of the building. Moon led her to a gleaming Imperial Chrysler parked beside her coupe. She wore a red wool dress with a square low neckline. Her tweed jacket was over the arm which wasn’t clinging to Moon. His height cut down her own and made her look very feminine. The smile she gave him as he opened the door for her illuminated the night.
I found that my fingers were on my lips. I could still taste her kiss.
The car drove off. I turned away from the window and saw Rufus standing at my side. His hand dropped from the gun in his, hip pocket. Tilly was there too, I hadn't heard her enter. She leaned between the two stools against the counter and looked frightened. “Get her out of here,” Tilly said harshly. “Take her away before there’s trouble.”
“Trouble?” I muttered stupidly.
“You idiot!” she said. “And George is another. He can’t keep his hands off a pretty girl. You want him to kill you?”
“I can handle him,” I muttered. , Rufus tapped my shoulder. “You’ll have to handle all of us,” he said softly. “George is the boss. Be a smart cookie and scram with your wife.”
Damn Molly! Damn her for having put me in this preposterous position! Damn her for having kissed me!
“There won’t be any trouble,” I said thickly. “I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all.”
I slunk out of that room, away from the contempt in their eyes.
I sat in darkness at the window at which she had sat that afternoon. A three-quarter moon rose above a hill behind the barn, and by its light the cars were crouching monsters lined up for parade. The night was still and the house was still.
That afternoon she had left (the glass ashtray choked with cigarette butts tipped red by her painted mouth. Now at midnight my own butts had erected a mound which had periodic landslides onto the white windowsill. The next butt I flicked through the partly open window. It arched like a miniature rocket and glowed faintly in the short withered grass.
“Hey!” Milton appeared out of nowhere and killed the butt with his toe. Then he peered up at my window. Moonlight poured over his wizened figure in the oversized overalls.
“That you, Bert?” he called.
“Yes.”
“Trying to start a fire and burn up the cars?”
“I’ll be more careful.”
I lit another cigarette. Milton was gone: Then night belonged to the cars and me.
When the cigarette was smoked down, I sought for room in the ashtray. That caused a major landslide. I started to pile the butts back and paused with a red-tipped one between my thumb and forefinger. Her .lips had tinted it, and those lips had been pressed against mine. That had been four hours ago, but the taste of her mouth had not left. I thought that the taste would remain with me for the rest of my life.
To hell with you, Molly Crane, if that’s your name!
A dot of light appeared and vanished at the far end of a row of cars. A match, I thought, struck by Milton for his corncob pipe. The glow returned, steadier than a match and shooting out in a thin stream. It crawled over the heavy chrome of a late-model radiator grill and expired.
I opened the window all the way, leaned over the sill. Moonlight solidified a patch of darkness into a human shape. Milton? I could not tell. But Milton would not be cautiously keeping the cars between himself and the house. I could see the shape only because I was looking down from above.
The light came on a third time. He had the front right door of a sedan open. His torso leaned inside. When he straightened up, the light swirled across his face, and the instant before it went out I glimpsed a twisted nose and a pointed chin. I was not surprised.
I put on the room light and searched airplane bag, mattress, dresser, closet. No gun, of course. I should have known better than to waste the time. Molly had taken her handbag with her, and that was where her gun would be. To protect herself against Moon if necessary, or to keep it out of my hands. Both probably.
I went, out through the side door and leaned around the corner of the house. No sign of Milton. I crossed to the row of cars where I had seen Crooked Nose. Keeping to the shadows of the cars, I walked noiselessly over soft ground. My hands were lonely for a weapon. I picked up a rock as big as my fist; after a few steps I discarded it. My fist would be as good as a rock, but not as good as a gun if he had one. I walked on, listening to the pounding of my heart and to whatever else was to be heard.
I reached the end of the row. Three hundred feet ahead something glided around a corner of the barn. A human shape? An animal? A swaying branch cutting off moonlight? I didn’t know. Bending my head, as if that would hide me from watching eyes, I did a hundred yard dash to the barn.
The barn doors were locked. There were no windows or cracks through which to peer. I made a circuit of the barn, and I stepped into the sharp beam of a flashlight.
“Looking for something, Bert?” Milton’s voice said.
I waited for him to come to me. A rifle rested in the crook of one arm, a flashlight was held in the other gnarled hand, the pipe was clamped in his lip-less mouth.
“I saw a prowler from my window,” I said.
“A what?”
“Somebody with a flashlight.”
“That was me.”
“No. It was a small light, like a fountain pen flashlight. And I had a look at his face. A crooked nose and a very deep cleft in his chin.”
That didn’t seem to mean anything to Milton. He spoke out of the side of his mouth to keep the pipe in place. “I been watching. I ain’t seen nobody.”
The rifle muzzle hovered negligently in my direction. I said: “Don’t you believe me?”
“Sure, Bert. We keep watch all night so nobody’ll, steal things out of the car. Me and Beezie take turns.”
“Doesn’t anybody here but you work? You’re waiter, watchman, bellhop, and I bet lots of other things.”
“Yeah, they sure run the tail off me,” he agreed. “Let’s go back, Bert.”
When he reached the front of the rows of cars, Milton drifted off to the, left and I walked on alone. Headligh
ts swung off the road. I watched Molly and Moon get out of the car: His arm slid about her waist as they strolled to the side door. They didn’t see me. I waited a minute and then followed.
Their voices drifted down from the upstairs hall. Gay, low, intimate voices.
I stood with one foot on the lowest step. Suddenly the voices ceased. Was he kissing her? Then they were talking again, too low for words to reach me. I didn’t particularly care what they said. It was just that I didn’t have the stomach to face them together.
Tilly came out of the sitting room. She said suspiciously, “What are you—” and broke off. She had heard the voices upstairs. She came close to me. “Why don’t you get out of here?” she whispered. “Take her away. George goes haywire when he sees a woman he wants.”
Feet moved in the upstairs hall. A door opened and closed.
“It’s all right,” I muttered. “There won’t be any trouble.” I went up the stairs.
Molly was hanging her tweed jacket into the closet. She glanced over her shoulder when she heard me enter, “I just got back,” she said. There was none of the laughter in her voice I had heard from the foot of the stairs. She sounded tired.
I went as far as the bed and looked at her. I wondered how she would look in an evening gown, one of those brief, strapless, clinging sexy affairs. She would look wonderful in anything that went with a stately figure and a long bob.
“It’s a surprise finding you here,” I said. “I expected you to be in Moon’s room.”
Her hand, closing the closet door, froze; her square shoulders went rigid. Then she closed the door all the way and turned to me. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous?” No smile, placating or disdainful, went with that. Her expression was as weary as her voice.
“It’s none of my business what you do,” I said stiffly.
She came toward me. She stood so close that I could again smell her hair. “Honey, maybe you should leave. Take my car. I’ll give them a reason why you’ve gone.”
Bruno Fischer Page 13
