by Roy Huggins
It was far too early for business. The bright lobby was empty and the sliding doors of the profit room were closed. Boots took my arm and we rounded the broad stairway and walked to a shadowed door at the end of a dark corridor that ran beside, and then under, the stairs.
She knocked lightly on the door and then opened it a foot and said, “Can we come in?”
It was a harsh, ugly voice; a voice straining to get into a lower register than nature meant for it. It said, “You seem to be doing all right.”
Boots opened the door wide and held it for me and came into the room behind me. It wasn't the kind of room I had a right to expect. The theme was Mexican. A huge natural fieldstone fireplace, Monterey furniture in Mexican white finish, upholstered in crash with a nice homespun effect with orange rust and beige horizontal stripes. A lot of tin, hand-forged iron and Mexican pottery cluttered up the place. He was standing with his back to the fireplace warming his hands. He stared past me and said, “Put the board back over the hole, toots.”
Boots went back and closed the door, a little emphatically, and came back to stand beside me.
She said, “This is Mr. Bailey, Spiros. Spiros Dorkus, Stu.”
He kept his hands stretched out to the fire behind him and nodded at us instantly. I nodded back. He was a handsome man. Not tall, not short, but with a lean brown face and large dark eyes that were moist and sad, like the eyes of a salesman of Fine Funerals. The hair was too long and too shiny, like the lapels on his dinner jacket; but it was gray in just the right places. I decided it was his voice that lost him to Hollywood. It couldn't have been anything else.
There were two bright sofas on either side of the fireplace. He waved at them with one of his long hands. The nails on it gleamed with a pale translucence.
“Sit down,” he said. “I've been expecting you.” I sat down and Boots stretched out on the sofa across from me. She had taken off the furs, and she was wearing a little cat smile and looking eagerly from Dorkus to me and back to Dorkus. He was looking exclusively at me now with a heavy brooding interest.
“I've never seen you before, fellow. What's your beef?” The tone was flat, neutral, non-committal.
“Do I have to have a beef?”
He glanced at me sadly, then stepped by us and sat down in a chair facing the fireplace. He put his elbows on the wooden arms and his long beautiful hands together, lightly, just touching at the glowing finger tips. He pursed his lips.
“Yes,” he said, “you do. I was told to let you in, cooperate with you and let you out whenever you wanted to go.” He paused and turned over a hand and admired the nails. “As far as I'm concerned, you can go any time. You're lucky I feel that way about it.” It was still flat and casual, too elaborately casual, too studied. But it still impressed me. Hams can be just as tough as the earthiest of torpedoes and lots more imaginative.
Boots stirred on the sofa and said, “Those are mighty big words, Spiros. I don't think Bruno will appreciate 'em.”
Dorkus went on gazing at me sadly as if no one had said anything. “I asked you a question—what's your beef?”
“I don't think I've got one—with you. It's with your friend Keller. The one you lent the room to.” I thought I had tossed out a bombshell. It went off with a whimper and crept out of the room with its tail between its legs. Dorkus didn't scream or turn green. He didn't even blink. He just sat and looked bored.
“I don't loan out rooms,” he murmured. “I don't even rent them.”
Boots sat up with a sudden wrenching movement. The cat smile was gone. It had curled up and died when Dorkus ignored her remark about Bruno.
She leaned forward and showed her little white teeth and rasped, “Listen Mister Dorkus. Someone had him here last night in that first bedroom on the north side. I know because I went up there to pass out. Bruno wants to know why.”
Slowly Dorkus turned and looked at her. And just as slowly his lips curled up into a refined leer. He said, casually, “You smell of the harem. I don't mind the odor of harems. But I don't like it when it begins to make a noise.”
She stood up quickly and the hard little face grew tight with a raw whiteness about the pinched nose. The red slash that was her mouth drew down and opened. A whine came up and became a thin and rasping scream that carried words on it, as decayed and broken things are carried on a wind. They were not pretty words. They were words read from the grimy lavatory walls of America, stretching down into the dark alleys and the back rooms. They told a vicious, sordid, and very sad story.
She stopped with a sudden intake of breath and turned to me. “Are you going to let him get away with that—and what he said to you?” She stared at me, her teeth clamped, lips apart, trembling. Dorkus sat watching her over his steepled hands, his face flaccid, empty.
I said, “Don't bear down on it too hard, baby. Wipe the sordes off your mouth and sit down.”
She didn't move, but her eyes widened a little as if she'd been slapped and her face reddened. She turned and scooped up her furs and ran to the door and slammed it behind her with a sound like the percussion of a frontier Colt.
Dorkus got up and went back to the fireplace. He brought a silver, or maybe platinum, case out of a pocket and opened it. He put a cigarette in his mouth and stepped over and offered me one. I took one and he struck a match and lit it for me. We smoked for a while, not saying anything.
Pretty soon I said, “Bringing her out here wasn't my idea.”
“Don't apologize. Coming out at all was the feeblest part of your idea.”
“Let's take our tongues out of our cheeks for a second and talk about Keller. I'm ready to do business with him...”
“We've got a wheel out there that doesn't seem to know who it's working for. Try your luck?”
I stood up and threw the cigarette into the fire and looked at my watch. “I don't think this is my night. But I'm getting a phone call here in about fifteen minutes. I've got to take it. Otherwise, embarrassing things might happen.”
He smiled. It was a wide, pleased smile with dimples. Hollywood's loss was probably nobody's gain at all. He said, “So you didn't feel any too safe with Des Noyers and his pet alley cat behind you after all.”
“The phone call will cost about a dime,” I said. “I'd rate the danger at a little more than that.” I looked at him and added, “But not much more.”
His pretty mouth puckered for a moment. Then he laughed and flipped his cigarette into the fireplace and started for the door. I followed him. At the door he said, “No hard feelings?”
“I should ask you that. The little girl heaps a mighty hot coal.”
A dreamy look came into his eyes and he said, “Maybe . you'll run into somebody you know outside. Who knows? But Des Noyers ought to know I don't dance for anybody. Not anybody...” He opened the door and waved me through.
There were a few people in the lobby but I didn't know any of them. The sliding doors were open now and Dorkus walked with me into the gaming room. It was bigger than I remembered it, with a large space to the left of the doors for a dim-lit bar and several tables. There was only one wheel operating and a few overdressed people gathered around it. I didn't see Boots at the wheel or at the bar.
One player stood out because he was wearing a gray suit and because he was rather large. Or maybe it was because he had bright red hair. I stopped and waited for him to see me. Dorkus stopped too and looked absently around the room.
“You're on your own, chump. This is Des Noyers' party, not mine.” He grinned. A cold sadist's grin. I decided I'd got in on the tail end of some very unhealthy job relations.
Red looked up and past me and then looked back again quickly with blank disbelief. He started dropping chips clumsily into his coat pockets, still looking at me. Then he lumbered toward me, stowing away chips, and letting the slow wide grin stretch outward across, his enormous teeth.
“Cholly! What'd ya come back for this time, huh?”
Dorkus was watching us. Aloof, politely indif
ferent. Red glanced at him and then brought his sharp little eyes back to me. “Spiros, this is the guy I was tellin' ya about. The machine that walks like a man. He goes off with an arm full of dope and then comes back a coupla hours later for his coat!” The grin broadened. He wet the enormous teeth with his tongue and they shone like washed pearls. “He's quite a guy.” His eyes brightened and he said, “I know. Ya come back for that handkerchief ya lost, huh?” He reached into a pocket and brought out a white ball. He pushed it into my breast pocket and fluffed it out and patted it. “There y'are, Cholly. All dressed up and no place to go.” He laughed high idiot laughter, his eyes began to lose their brightness and the grin began to stiffen.
“Let's go upstairs, Cholly. To our little room. You'd like that, wouldn't ya?” He pushed me gently with his bear trap hands.
I leaned on them. “It might be nice—some other time,” I said.
Red moved his right hand over a bit until it touched the .38. The smile faded and he looked puzzled. “How come the guy's heeled, Spiros? What's a matter with the gee at the door? Who brung him in?”
“He brought himself, but I don't think Des Noyers would like anything to happen to him. You can suit yourself about it, though.”
Red took his hands away and the grin crawled back and his eyes gleamed amiably. “Did ya come out here to see somebody, sweetheart?”
I glanced at Dorkus and said, “Better check on that phone call or you'll have a lot of size twelve shoes messing up your nice carpets and making your guests uncomfortable.” Dorkus turned around slowly, dimpling at me, and disappeared toward the lobby.
Red took some chips out of his pocket and began pouring them from hand to hand. He looked worried.
I said, “Yeah, I came out here to see Keller. I'm ready to tell him what he wants to know—for a price.”
“Cholly, I'm surprised. I was tolt ya couldn't be bought off. It hadda be chiseled out.” He clucked his tongue at me. “But I don't know nobody named Keller. Does he drive a dump truck? I knew a guy oncet that drove one, name of Keller, or was it Krantz...?”
“My phone number's Prospect 4712. Tell him to call me. I'll give him a reasonable deal.”
“Sure. Sure. But I don't think I know this Kelly guy.”
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was the small man with the bad eye. He told me there was a call for me on the lobby phone. Red followed me and when we got to the lobby I felt something hard poking me under the left rib.
Red said, “It's okay, Frankie. He'll take it in Spiros' room.” The little man nodded and we walked on down the corridor and into the Mexican room. Dorkus was standing at the fireplace again and one of Red's boys, the sallow man with the plucked eyebrows, was standing at a little white table behind one of the sofas. He had a phone in his hand. Red took a revolver out of his pocket and pointed it toward a door in the far wall to the right. On a shelf next to the door was another phone. He took the phone away from the sallow man, put it to his ear and motioned for me to answer at the other one.
I went over and said, “Hello” into it.
“That doesn't tell me much, Stu. Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“How do I know they aren't holding a shotgun to your belly?”
I looked over at Red. The revolver was pointed at my heart and it looked businesslike. “Hah!” I said weakly. “What would anyone be doing with a shotgun?”
“Maybe it's just a little belly gun,” Lee said. “With a snub nose and freckles. I don't like the way you sound.” Red moved the gun up to eye level and glared at me. Lee went on, “I'm at a drugstore on Fair Oaks, Sycamore 96431. You call me here in ten minutes and call from another number. Otherwise I'll put plan A-I into effect.” He hung up.
Red and I lowered our phones and looked across the room at each other. He lowered the gun.
I said, “What was that phone number I gave you?”
“Prospect four—seven—one—nuts to you, sweetheart.”
I grinned and walked across the room and out the door. I shut it behind me and went through the lobby. The boy at the door opened it for me and said, “Good night.” I went on out into the gray canyon mist.
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE MOON WAS HIGH NOW and the drive and the lot and the rolling grounds were colorless and full of still shadows. The car gleamed in the moonlight as if it had just rolled off the line and was waiting for a paint job. I opened the door on the wheel side and peered in. I'd have been surprised if she hadn't been there. She was sitting in the front seat, one leg under her and the furs pulled up tight around her face. Her hair glistened coldly like floss on an autumn morning. I slid in and put the key in the ignition lock.
“I'm sorry, Stuart. I guess I crabbed your act.” The voice was soft, unctuous, penitent.
I coaxed the motor to life and switched on the lights. I turned out onto the drive and said, “Forget it. I don't think Dorkus has much connection with what I'm working on and I'm pretty sure I got what I came out for.”
When we came to the two pillars at the end of the drive I took the gun out and held it on my lap. But nothing happened. The man with the flash waved us out and called out a cheery good night as we turned onto Cheviot and started back toward town. I put the gun away.
Boots moved over close to me, squeezed my arm, and said hotly, “I wish you'd let go and slap me good. Then we'd both feel a hell of a lot better.”
“Maybe you'd feel better, angel. It would make me just a little sick. I'm funny, I don't like to slap women. It doesn't do a thing for me.”
She squeezed my arm again.
A half mile down the road I picked up the headlights of a car in the rear-view mirror. I speeded up. In Glenview the car came up close, about a block behind. I turned left on Bryant and the car went on down Cheviot, probably going after some marshmallows for an evening snack at home. I stopped at a drugstore and called Lee. Then we drove on into Los Angeles.
At Riverside and Los Feliz the signal was against us and Boots put her hand over mine on the wheel and said, “What were they trying to get out of you, Stu?”
“The address and phone number of an ex-show girl I happen to know.”
“My, what's she got that I haven't got?”
“I wish I knew, baby.”
“Sorry I asked,” she said, hurt.
“I'm glad you did. Your not asking any questions about this thing was beginning to worry me. Ever hear Dorkus mention a man named Keller, or a girl named Gloria Gay?”
“No-o. Never heard of 'em.”
We didn't say any more until I pulled up in front of the apartment behind Boots' Packard. She jumped out on the curb side and was waiting for me in the dim light of the entranceway, a coy, bad-girl smile playing around her mouth. I took her hard little chin in my hand and lifted her face.
“Listen, baby,” I intoned, “with a guy like Bruno you play it without variations—and for all it's worth. That way you don't have to go back to Main Street so soon. Maybe not at all... But you play it straight.”
The red mouth began to harden and then changed its mind. “I can take care of myself, Stu,” she whispered. “Makes me like you all the more for thinking of it, though.”
“Yeah. I like you, too. You're cute. But you're poison. Not to mention that Des Noyers was doing me what he thought was a favor to send you along tonight.”
She looked doubtful for a moment, but it didn't last. She said nastily, “Don't worry about Bruno. I can handle him.” Her mouth hardened and drew tight at the corners. “He's nothing but a smooth softie, Bailey. I'm a lot more afraid of you than I am of...”
“Huh-uh,” I interrupted, “don't chip off any of Bruno's smooth veneer, angel. You'll find a hard little guy underneath with a knuckle-knife in both hands. That body of yours is pretty special, baby. It'll bring a good price for quite a while yet. But with a man like Bruno—with most men who pay well for what they get —it's got to be a scarcity item. Go on home now. I've got work to do.”
The mo
uth stayed hard and drew apart into a tight smile, a smile to carve diamonds with. She made a sharp noise in her throat and turned suddenly and ran down the four steps to the sidewalk. She looked back at me.
“You cheap gumshoe,” she rasped quietly. “I fin'lly figured you out. You're yellow.” Cold laughter. “You're too yellow to even live up to your own manhood.” She turned and jumped into the car. The motor ground and roared, and then she leaned out the open window and screamed, “I'll send my houseboy around to see you. He's just your type.” The car jerked and jumped away from the curb and raced toward Wilshire in an agony of grinding gears.
I went upstairs and washed my teeth and rinsed my mouth out with S.T.37. Then I mixed the drink I'd been wanting for the past two hours, turned off the light and lay down with it on the bed. I closed my eyes and a team of horses galloped through my head, dragging a broken harrow. I opened my eyes. A heavy throbbing pain rode the void that dark had made. I got up and turned on the light. Now it was just an ordinary ten-ton headache. I looked at my watch. Nine-forty.
I was only five minutes away from Westlake Park. I had a few minutes yet. I picked up the phone and dialed City Hall. Quint was still there.
I said, “You boys need a good strong union. Your hours are worse than mine. Anything new on Mrs. Johnston?”
“Yeah. We just found her car. In the bushes off of Jefferson—out there where it runs along the foothills.”
“Sounds like we've got the real thing. 'Storm drain under the hills' would probably mean Bellona Creek.”
“Could be.” Quint yawned. “It wouldn't be the first body we've fished out of there. I'm goin' out. Like to come along? I could ask questions and you could answer 'em. Maybe we could work up an act.”
“I'll come out later. You boys are never hard to find.”
“Uh-huh. Car's a mile and three-quarters past where Rodeo runs into Jefferson.” He hung up.
I put on a hat, got into my dark blue top coat and went down to the car. At Wilshire I turned right and drove the mile or so up to Alvarado, where I parked. The night had turned cold, with great balls of fog rolling like giant tumbleweed across the building tops and among the tall evergreens in the park. I turned the collar up and the hat brim down and went in at the Wilshire corner. A tall statue of Prometheus stood naked and gaunt to the right of the walk. He looked as cold and bare as Saturday's Thanksgiving turkey but he was doing something about it. He had a firebrand in one hand and the world in the other, and he was trying to set fire to the place. He didn't seem to be getting anywhere with it.
