Beauty is a funny thing. Like all babies are beautiful no matter how they’re shaped. Like how there are times when any woman is beautiful as long as she’s the color you want. It’s not something that only shows in a picture. It’s a composite something that you can’t quite describe, but can recognize the second you see it and that’s the way this woman was.
Her hair was a pale brown ocean that swirled with motion and threw off the sunlight that bounced into it. She smiled at me, her mouth a gorgeous curve that had a peculiar attraction so that you almost missed the body that bore it. Her mouth was full and wet as if it had just been licked, a lush mouth with a will of its own and always hungry.
She walked up with a long stride, pressing against the breeze, smiling a little. And when she smiled her mouth twisted a bit in the comer with an even hungrier look and she said, “Hi. Going to the social?”
“I wasn’t,” I said. “Business, now I’m sorry.”
Her teeth came out from under the soft curves and the laugh filled her throat. For the barest second she gave me a critical glance, frowned with a mixture of perplexed curiosity and the smile got a shade bigger. “You’re a little different, anyway,” she said.
I didn’t answer and she stuck out her hand. “Michael Friday.”
I grinned back and took it. “Mike Hammer.”
“Two Mikes.”
“Looks like it. You’ll have to change your name.”
“Uh-uh. You do it.”
“You were right the first time ... I’m different. I tell, not get told.”
Her hand squeezed in mine and the laugh blotted out all the sounds that were around us. “Then I’ll stay Michael ... for a time, anyway.” I dropped her hand and she said, “Looking for Carl?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, whatever your business is, maybe I can help you out. The butler will tell you he isn’t in so let’s not ask him, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
This, I thought, is the way they should be. Friendly and uncomplicated. Let the good breeding show. Let it stick out all over for anybody to see. That was beauty. The kind that took your hand as if you were lovers and had known each other a lifetime, picking up a conversation as if you had merely been interrupted in one already started.
We took the flagstone path that led around the house through the beds of flowers, not hurrying a bit, but taking in the fresh loveliness of the place.
I handed her a cigarette, lit it, then did mine.
As she let the smoke filter through her lips she said, “What is your business, by the way? Do I introduce you as a friend or what?”
Her mouth was too close and too hungry looking. It wasn’t trying to be that way. It just was, like a steak being grilled over an open fire when you’re starved. I took a drag on my own butt and found her eyes. “I don’t sell anything, Michael ... not unless it’s trouble. I could be wrong, but I doubt if I’ll need much of an introduction to Carl.” “I don’t understand.” “Sometime look up my history. Any paper will supply the dope.”
I got looked at then like a prize specimen in a cage. “I think I will, Mike,” she smiled, “but I don’t think anything I find will surprise me.” The smile went into that deep laugh again as we turned the corner of the building.
And there was Carl Evello.
He wasn’t anything special. You could pass him on the street and figure him for a businessman, but nothing more. He was in his late forties, an average-looking joe starting to come out at the middle a bit but careful enough to dress right so it didn’t show. He mixed drinks at a table shaded by a beach umbrella, laughing at the three girls who relaxed in steamer chairs around him.
The two men with him could have been other businessmen if you didn’t know that one pulled the strings in a racket along the waterfront that made him a front-page item every few months.
The other one didn’t peddle forced labor, hot merchandise or tailor-made misery, but his racket was just as dirty. He had an office in Washington somewhere and peddled influence. He shook hands with presidents and ex-cons alike and got rich on the proceeds of his introductions.
I would have felt better if the conversation had stopped when I walked over. Then I would have known. But nothing stopped. The girls smiled pleasantly and said hello. Carl studied me during the name swapping, his expression one of trying to recall an image of something that should have been familiar.
Then he said, “Hammer, Mike Hammer. Well, of course. Private detective, aren’t you?”
“I was.”
“Certainly. I’ve read about you quite often. Leave it to my sister to find someone unusual for an escort.” He smiled broadly, his whole face beaming with pleasure. “I’d like you to meet Al Affia, Mr. Hammer. Mr. Affia is a business representative of a Brooklyn outfit.”
The boy from the waterfront pulled his face into a crooked smile and stuck out his hand. I felt like whacking him in the mouth.
I said, “Hello,” instead and laughed into his eyes like he was laughing in mine because we had met a long time ago and both knew it.
Leo Harmody didn’t seem to do anything. His hand was sticky with sweat and a little too limp. He repeated my name once, nodded and went back to his girl.
Carl said, “Drink?”
“No thanks. If you got a few minutes I’d like to speak to you.”
“Sure, sure.”
“This isn’t a social visit.”
“Hell, hardly anybody comes to see me socially. Don’t feel out of place. This a private talk?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go inside.” He didn’t bother to excuse himself. He picked up a fresh drink, nodded to me and started across the lawn toward the house. The two goons sitting on the steps got up respectfully, held the door open and followed us in.
The house was just what I expected it to be. A million bucks properly framed and hung. A fortune in good taste that didn’t come from the mouth of a guy who started life on the outer fringe of a mob. We went through a long hall, stepped into a study dominated by a grand piano at one end and Carl waved me to a chair.
The two goons closed the door and stood with their backs to it. I said, “This is a private talk.”
Carl waved unconcernedly. “They don’t hear anything,” then sipped his drink. Only his eyes showed over the lip of the glass. They were almond shaped and beady. They were the kind of eyes I had seen too many times before, hard little diamonds nestling in their soft cushions of fat.
I looked at the goons and one grinned, rising on his toes and rocking back and forth. Both of them had a bulge on the right hip that meant just one thing. They were loaded. “They still have ears.”
“They still don’t hear anything. Only what I want them to hear.” His face beamed into a smile. “They’re necessary luxuries, you might say. There seem to be people who constantly make demands on me, if you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean.” I pulled a cigarette out and tapped thoughtfully against the arm of the chair. Then I let him watch me make a smile, turning a little so the two goons could see it too. “But they’re not worth a damn, Carl, not a damn. I could kill you and the both of them before any one of you could get a rod in his fist.”
Carl half rose and the big goon stopped rocking. For a second he stood that way and it looked like he’d try it. I let my smile tighten up at the edges and he didn’t try it after all. Carl said, “Outside, boys.”
They went outside.
“Now we can talk,” I said.
“I don’t like that kind of stuff, Mr. Hammer.”
“Yeah. It spoils ‘em. They know they’re not the hot rods they’re paid off for being. It’s kind of funny when you think of it. Put a guy real close to dying and he changes. I mean real close. They’re only tough because they’re different from ordinary people. They have little consciences and nothing bothers them. They can shoot a guy and laugh because they know they probably won’t get shot back at, but like I said, let ’em get real close to
dying and they change. They found out something right away. I got a little conscience too.”
All the time I was speaking he was half out of his chair. Now he slid back into it again and picked up his drink. “Your business, Mr. Hammer.”
“A girl. Her name was Berga Torn.”
His nostrils seemed to flare out a little. “I understand she died.”
“Was killed.”
“And your interest in it?”
“Let’s not waste time, you and me,” I said. “You can talk to me now or I can do it the hard way. Take your pick.”
“Listen, Mr. Hammer ...”
“Shut up. You listen. I want to hear you tell me about your connection with the dame. Nothing else. No crap. You play games with somebody else, but not me. I’m not the law, but plenty of times there were guys who wished the law was around instead of me.”
It was hard to tell what he was thinking. His eyes seemed to harden, then melted into the smile that creased his mouth. “All right, Mr. Hammer, there’s no need to get nasty about anything. I’ve told the police exactly what the score was and it isn’t important enough to keep back from you if you’re genuinely interested. Berga Torn was a girl I liked. For a while back there I ... well, kept her, you might say.”
“Why?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If you knew her then you know why.”
“She didn’t have much to offer that you couldn’t get someplace else.”
“She had enough. Now, what else is there?”
“Why did you break it off?”
“Because I felt like it. She was getting in my hair. I thought you had a reputation with women. You should know what it’s like.”
“I didn’t know you checked up on me that close, Carl.” The eyes went hard again. “I thought we weren’t playing games now.”
I lit the cigarette I was fooling with, taking my time with that first drag. “How do you stand with the Mafia, Carl?”
He played it nice. Nothing showed at all, not even a little bit. “That’s going pretty far.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” I stuck the cigarette in my mouth and stood up. “But it’s not nearly as far as it’s going to go. I started for the door.
His glass hit the desk top and he came forward in his seat again. “You sure put up a big stink for a lot of small talk, Mr. Hammer.”
I turned around and smiled at him, a nice dead kind of smile that had no laugh behind it and I could see him go tight from where I stood. I said, “I wasn’t after talk, Carl. I wanted to see your face. I wanted to know it so I’d never forget it. Someday I’m going to watch it turn blue or maybe bleed to death. Your eyes’ll get all wide and sticky and your tongue will hang out and I won’t be making any mistake about it being the wrong joe. Think about it Carl, especially when you go to bed at night.”
I turned the knob and opened the door.
The two boys were standing there. All they did was look at me and it wasn’t with much affection. I was going to have to remember them too.
When I got back outside Michael Friday spotted me and waved. I didn’t wave back so she came over, a mock frown across her face. I couldn’t get my eyes off her mouth, even when she faked a pout. “Bum steer,” she said, “no business?”
She looked like a kid, a very beautiful kid and all grown up where it counted, but with the grin and impishness of a kid nevertheless. And you don’t get sore at kids. “I hear you’re his sister.”
“Not quite. We had the same mother but came from different hatches.”
“Oh.”
“Going to join the party?”
I looked over at the group still downing the drinks. “No thanks. I don’t like the company.”
“Neither do I for that matter. Let’s both leave.”
“Now you got something,” I said.
We didn’t even bother with good-byes. She just grabbed my arm and steered me around the building talking a blue streak about nothing at all. We made the front as a car was coming up the driveway and as I was opening the door of my new heap it stopped and a guy got out in a hurry, trotted around the side and opened the door.
I started wondering what the eminent Congressman Geyfey was doing up this way when he was supposed to be serving on a committee in Washington. Then I stopped wondering when he took the woman’s arm and helped her out and Velda smiled politely in our direction a moment before going up the path.
Michael said, “Stunning, isn’t she?”
“Very. Who is she?”
She stayed deadpan because she meant it. Her head moved slightly as she said, “I don’t know. Most likely one of Bob’s protégés. He seems to do very well for himself.”
“He doesn’t if he overlooked you.”
Her laugh was quick and fresh. “Thank you, but he didn’t overlook me, I overlooked him.”
“Nice for me,” I grinned. “What’s a congressman doing with Carl? He may be your brother, but his reputation’s got spots on it.”
Her grin didn’t fade a bit. “My brother certainly isn’t the most ethical man I’ve known, but he is big business, and in case you haven’t known about it, big business and government go hand in hand sometimes.”
“Uh-uh. Not Carl’s kind of business.”
This time her frown wasn’t put on. She studied me while she slid into the car and waited until I was behind the wheel. “Before Bob was elected he was Carl’s lawyer. He handled some corporation account Carl had out West.” She stopped and looked into my eyes. “It’s wrong someplace, isn’t it?”
“Frankly, Friday gal, it stinks.”
I started the engine, sat and listened to it purr a minute then eased the gearshift in. All that power under the hood was dying to let go and I sat on it. I took the heap down the drive, rolled out to the street and swung toward the center of town. We didn’t talk. We sat and rode for a while and watched the houses drift past. The sun was high overhead, a warm ball that smiled at the world, a big warm thing that made everything seem all right when everything was so damned wrong.
Pretty soon it would come. I thought about how she’d put it and how I’d answer it. It could come guarded, veiled or in a roundabout way, but it would come.
When it did come it was right out in the open and she asked, “What did you want with Carl?” Her voice sounded sleepy and relaxed. I glanced at her lying back there so lazily against the cushions, her hair spilling down the back of the seat. Her mouth was still a wet thing, deliciously red, firm, yet ready to vibrate like the strings on a fiddle the moment they were touched.
I answered her the same way she asked it; right out in the open. “He had a girl once. She’s dead now and he may be involved in her murder. Your big-business brother may have a Mafia tie-up.”
Her head rolled on the seat until she was looking at me. “And you?”
“When I get interested in people like your brother they usually wind up dead.”
“Oh.” That’s all. Just “Oh” and she turned and looked out the window, staring straight ahead.
“You want me to take you back?”
“No.”
“Want to talk about it?”
Her hand reached over and took the deck of Luckies from the seat beside me. She lit two at the same time and stuck one in my mouth. It tasted of lipstick, a nice taste. The kind that makes you want to taste it again, this time from the source.
“I’m surprised it took this long,” she said. “He used to try to fool me, but now he doesn’t bother. I’ve often wondered when it would happen.” She breathed in deeply on the smoke, then watched it whip out the half-opened ventilator. “Do you mind if I cry a little bit?”
“Go ahead.”
“Is it serious trouble?”
“You don’t get more serious than killing somebody.”
“But was it Carl?”
Her eyes were wet when they turned in my direction. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Then you’re not sure?”
“That’s right. But then again, I d
on’t have to be sure.”
“But ... you’re the police?”
“Nope. Not anybody. Just such an important nobody that a whole lot of people would like to see me knocked off. The only trouble is they can’t make the grade.”
I pulled the car to the curb, backed it into the slot in front of a gin mill and cut the engine. “You were talking about your brother.”
She didn’t look at me. She worked the cigarette down to a stub and flipped it into the gutter. “There isn’t much to tell, really. I know what he’s been and I know the people he’s associated with. They aren’t what you would call the best people, though he mixes with them too. Generally he has something they want.”
“Ever hear of Berga Torn?”
“Yes, I remember her well. I thought Carl had quite a crush on her. He ... kept her for a long time.”
“Why did he dump her?”
“I ... I don’t know.” There was a catch in her voice. “She was a peculiar sort of girl. All I remember is that they had an argument one night and Carl never bothered with her much after that. Somebody new came along.”
“That all?”
Michael nodded.
“Ever hear of the Mafia?”
She nodded again. “Mike ... Carl isn’t ... one of those people. I know he isn’t.”
“You wouldn’t know about it if he was.”
“And if he is?”
I shrugged. There was only one answer to a question like that.
Her fingers were a little unsteady when they picked up another cigarette. “Mike ... I’d like to go back now.”
I lit the butt for her and kicked the motor over. She sat there, smoked it out and had another. Never talking. Not seeming to do anything at all. Her bottom lip was puffed up from chewing on it and every few minutes her shoulders would twitch as she repressed a sob. I drove up to the gateway of the house, leaned across her and opened the door.
“Friday ...”
“Yes, Mike?”
“If you think you know an answer to it ... call me.”
“All right, Mike.” She started to get out, stopped and turned her head. “You looked like fun, Mike. For both of us, I’m honestly sorry.”
Kiss Me Deadly Page 10
