Sugar Shannon

by Lawrence Lariar

  The rest of the place yielded nothing for me. The kitchen was in the rear, a tiny cubicle featuring an electric stove, a refrigerator and a cupboard full of canned foods. The bedroom lay to the left, a room dedicated to utility. In the center, a bed large enough for a team of basketball players, with assorted mates to match. A mirrored ceiling offered a clue to Lambert’s inner man. The walls were completely devoid of decoration, no paintings, no etchings, no lithographs. Jacques Lambert preferred to limit his art appreciation to the living room. In this nest he chose to concentrate on bedding down.

  The place challenged me, stalled me. There should be more rooms upstairs. There must be a doorway leading there. But where? My instinct drew me back to the kitchen. The door to the third floor was there, of course, tightly locked against any intruders.

  I was using a bobby pin on it when somebody called to me from the doorway.

  “Looking for something, Sugar?”

  It was Boyer, appraising me with a cool and queasy eye. He stood there, working to level me with his official nonchalance.

  “Just browsing,” I said. “And you?”

  “Me, I’ve got a search warrant. You, too?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’ve got nothing but good intentions.”

  “Not enough, Sugar. I could run you in for breaking and entering.”

  “I entered,” I said. “But I did not break.” I gave him the full cut of my smile, trying to soften him a bit. He had me where he wanted me and knew it. How had he sneaked past Gwen? I had instructed her to keep the little vestibule in focus downstairs. She must have wandered too deeply inside Jacques’ gallery, lured by the wonderful pictures.

  “Why, Sugar?” Boyer asked, stepping in for a close-up of my anxiety. “Why did you take the chance?”

  “Just browsing,” I said again. “I came up for a visit with Jacques. He invited me to see his pictures. He’s a bit late for our date.”

  “No dice. Lambert went out a half hour ago, with Serena Armitage. I’ve had a man watching this place since breakfast.”

  “How clever of you.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. Lambert’s gallery has been lousy with visitors all morning. Your friend Horace Gordon was in, too. I didn’t know he was an art lover.”

  “Horace is mad about pictures. Especially nudes.”

  “He must be. He stayed for over a half hour just gawking at the paintings downstairs.”

  Boyer allowed me to squeeze past him and return to the living room. I kept smiling, tugging him my way toward the mammoth couch in the center of the room. I patted the cushion alongside me and Boyer dropped himself with a fine show of control. But the signals were up. High. A girl knows when the male sex stew is boiling. The customer breathes in quicker tempo and his voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper and his fingers begin to twitch and fumble for a fleshy target.

  Like the way Boyer was reaching for my hand.

  “Got a cigarette, Boyer?”

  “Listen, Sugar. I’m not such a bad guy, am I? Maybe you and I could do business.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “All kinds. Starting with this deal.”

  “What can I tell you?”

  “Level with me,” he said. He had me leaning away from him, unable to cope with his physical sincerity. He was the type of goon who must breathe in a girl’s ear to convince her of his masculinity. “What were you looking for up here, Sugar?”

  “You want the truth?”

  “Of course.”

  “I dropped in to talk to Lambert. I wanted to ask a few questions about George DeBeers.”

  “Questions? Such as?”

  “His relationship with Marianne Fry.”

  “Relationship?” Boyer retreated to nibble on the word. He found the taste of it loaded with vinegar. His face clouded over with genuine befuddlement. “What are you getting at? You figure DeBeers was living with that little tart? That sounds crazy as hell.”

  “She was an attractive baggage,” I said. “But you’re quite right when you say that George was not her type. You see, I knew George pretty well myself. That’s why his intimacy with Marianne Fry at certain intervals puzzles me. And that’s why I came up here to discuss it with Jacques Lambert. After all, he was probably closer to George than anybody.”

  “Except Magda Trent,” Boyer said, dropping the line in his most sophisticated way, as casual as a hit on the head. He was testing me for reaction, of course. He was baiting the trap for me.

  So I took the bait.

  “Poor Magda,” I said. “She’s a sick one.”

  He eyed me testily. “You know her well, too?”

  “I met her yesterday. I can live without meeting her again today.”

  “Now what does that mean?”

  “Simply that Magda is not my cup of tea.”

  “Tell me more about Magda,” he said, resuming his usual wolfish pose, one arm over the chair behind my back, the other poised and ready for a frontal attack. There was an impending pimple blooming under his ear and when he leered at me a little tic bounced up near his eye. He was preparing himself for a big play now. It came through in his lowered voice, his glistening eye, his meaningful smile.

  “Boyer,” I said. “You are the hottest thing in police pants to come my way. Remove your hand, please.”

  “Listen, Sugar. I could be awfully nice to you.”

  “Of course you could.”

  “I could help you with your story.”

  “With your right hand?” I asked. “The way you’re helping me now?”

  “Maybe I’ve got something really big for you.”

  “That I believe. The questions is, do I want it.”

  “What a brain,” he laughed, delighted with me.

  “You’re clever, too.”

  We exchanged innuendoes and I let him move in close. He would be easy to soften if I gave him his head. A girl gets to know the Boyer types. They are the conventional apes, the grabbers and the oil merchants. They woo you and make stabs at you over a drink at the bar. They dazzle you with alcoholic generosity, waiting for the key moment, the titillating second when you drop your guard and allow a rambling hand to massage your kneecap. They ply you with corny dialogue, working their points toward the bedroom, the motel, or any other convenient mattress. They can be dangerous at the bed level. The idea is to keep them on the hook, holding them off with coy promises.

  “How about dinner with me tonight, Sugar?”

  “I have a date,” I said. “But I might break it.”

  “Break it.”

  “I’ll do my best.” I waxed a bit moody on the line, studying my fingers as though they held the secret of the Russian air bases in Outer Mongolia. “If only I could get a fresh angle on Lambert,” I sighed. “He’s an absolute blank to me, Boyer. He just doesn’t seem to fit into the DeBeers story.” I lifted my eyes and gazed at him soulfully, play-acting at Little Miss Naiveté. “Can’t you help me with anything, any small piece of information?”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “Don’t be mean, Hank.”

  “About that date tonight,” he beamed, reacting to my use of his first name. “Is it a deal?”

  “I promise to do my best.”

  “Good enough. I’ll give you a big crumb about our friend Lambert. I grilled Cantrell early this morning and the nance sang for me. He told me he saw Jacques Lambert following Marianne Fry after she left DeBeers’ studio last night.”

  “Golly,” I said. “That’s a startling development. Tell me more, Hank.”

  CHAPTER 16

  4:03 P.M. Saturday

  The merry-go-round shot into high gear for Gwen and me. The jigsaw pieces were fitting into place, the all-over design ready to reveal itself. But the final picture sickened me. The cast of characters belonged in a nigh
tmare.

  “Whither?” asked Gwen.

  She jerked me back to reality. The cab was speeding downtown, toward the Village. I had instructed the cabby to take us to Washington Square, a hub point from whence we could move in many directions. I was allowing my mind a carefree pause, an interval of introspection and quiet. I needed a strong direction. I needed a goal and instead my head was crowded with destinations. Three? Four? And all of them in or near Greenwich Village.

  “Stop here, cabby. Next corner.”

  “Whither are we headed?” Gwen asked again.

  “Not we. You. You get off here.”

  “Jolly. Where am I going?”

  “Serena’s bistro.”

  “Suppose I’m not thirsty?”

  “You’ll manage a few,” I said. “I’ll phone there in five minutes to check with you. I want to make sure that Serena is with you.”

  “Stop sounding like a television heroine. What’s up?”

  “I’m doing some snooping. I’m visiting Serena’s apartment.”

  I checked The Grotto later and Gwen informed me that Serena was behind the bar. I instructed Gwen to wait for me there.

  Then I climbed the steps to Serena’s flat. It was a charming house located on the southern edge of the Village on a street that smelled of class and upper bracket rentals. The hall was tiny. On the mailboxes only three names. Serena’s nest was on the second floor. There was a fire escape at the rear of the corridor and I entered by way of her kitchen window. An orange cat stared at me from atop her refrigerator, then slid away into the living room as though conducting me on a guided tour.

  I moved quickly through the kitchen, checking the two closets and finding nothing. In the living room there were no hiding places, nothing but a mélange of rococo furniture and thick Persian carpeting, a symbol of bad taste. I paused to let the room whisper to me. Rooms are people. People are rooms. Only an expert decorator can mask the true personality of his client with fancied up decorations. Serena’s flat was a paradox. It screamed mediocrity, it stank of the buckeye in art and upholstery.

  It gave the lie to her interest in modern painters. On the walls, framed in gilt, a collection of chromos out of the early century; cupids and doves and the curlicued scenes of saccharine slop so popular in Victorian nests.

  I backed away from this into Serena’s bedroom. Here the décor seemed staged by an expert at feminine frippery. The entire-room swam in pink, a color that suggested the honeymoon suite in a brothel. On the bed, a profusion of silk pillows of various shapes and sizes. On the wall, a French bedroom picture, complete with Pierrot chasing a befuddled Pierette through a sexy glen.

  Again, her bedroom closet yielded nothing but the strong smell of dusting powder, perfume and cosmetics. There was nothing here but the overpowering stench of Serena’s cloying character.

  Until I looked under the bed.

  Because I found all the missing paintings there, the complete stock from her little office at The Grotto.

  I stood there studying the paintings for a long time. I let them talk to me, test me, challenge me. I slid them out on the rug and eyed them, one after the other, until I hit the Hudson River painting by George DeBeers. It was a little masterpiece, a work that sang with authenticity, an antique done by a great talent, so deftly, so skillfully that its technique belied its age. George had the ability to paint in a thousand ways, from Rembrandt to Picasso. Yet, in addition to this talent, he was gifted with the supreme spark of originality in his contemporary work. The paradox clawed at my imagination.

  Until a small bell began to ring.

  And I got out of there.

  Fast.

  Mardall Lane beckoned me again. Even in broad day-light the little street seemed loaded with sickness and despair. Along the littered sidewalks two small girls played with their dolls, children with ragged clothes and grimy faces, gamins out of a slum clearance movie. They turned their inquisitive faces my way as I passed, wise in the eyes and chattering like monkeys.

  On the far side of the street, a vagrant from out of the Bowery leaned over a garbage can in search of redeemable offal. He was lost in his own world of grab and grub.

  At Marianne Fry’s house a girl sat on the stone steps, a ginger-haired tart who meditated over her handbag. She looked at me with hard eyes, measuring me, cataloguing me and finding me out of bounds in her social register. She slid inside the dim doorway before I reached the house. She would be on her way back to a miserable sex pad, to sleep away the day and await the night. I knew the habits of these professional prostitutes. I had done a series of articles on them, a summary of sex in the big city. They were simple to explore, easy to interview. It was the borderline slut who made tough copy. It was the Marianne Fry type, the occasional tramp, the social tart who refused to describe her customs and mores.

  And that was why I had returned to Marianne Fry’s nest. She was a challenge, an oddity in the cast of characters. Why did George DeBeers enjoy—her company? Why had he held her at his side on his big nights, his monied nights?

  The superintendent of 875 Mardall Lane was a fat old number, dressed in a potato sack Dior and full of a steadily burning fury. She gave me the dirty end of her mouth until I appealed to her womanhood with a ten dollar bill. She pocketed the money and stood there, arms akimbo, waiting for my first question. When it came, she closed her eyes and let fly with a well-oiled monologue.

  “I never could figure that one, never. I got all kinds in this dump. Listen, I ain’t running The Waldorf here and I know it. The girls got to have their fun and if they don’t get too noisy upstairs, hell, why not? But that Marianne Fry, now. I don’t figure her no common whore, you might say.”

  “How did you figure her?”

  “A bar nut.”

  “You mean she hung out in bars?”

  “That’s where I first met her,” said the old lady, pausing to lick her reminiscent chops. “Down at McCloy’s Bar, on the corner. Kind of a family place, you might say, local place. Night I met her she was sitting there at the bar, bending an elbow. She blew me to a rye and I can’t slate her for that. Then a man came over and bought her a drink and that was it. You know the type? All of these dames hang out in bars to get picked up. What else would they be waiting for? Show me a woman alone in a bar and I’ll show you a would-be whore. Unless the woman is my age, naturally. Me, I’m only in there to talk to people. But the young ones, they bar hop for quick lays or maybe the chance to fool around with a strange man. I’ve seen all kinds down at McCloy’s. Some of the ones who make it big with the boys are in their thirties and forties. Listen, I saw a woman there one night, pretty as somebody’s mother, best-looking woman I ever saw, all gray hair and a face like a magazine cover, maybe forty, forty-two or thereabouts. Well, what I mean is she looked clean and beautiful until she had a couple of gins and got herself picked up by one of the local nuts. What was she looking for, I asked myself. Well, pretty or not pretty, they sit around bars looking for real trouble. And that was the way I figured Marianne Fry, too.”

  “You mean Marianne wasn’t a common whore?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean. Oh, she was loose, all right. She was loose as my uppers. But she had a good heart. She would always slip me a bonus when she had the money.”

  “She made lots of money?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said she had it once in a while.”

  “Boy friend?”

  “I never asked her,” shrugged the old lady. “But she didn’t make her money working steady. She must have landed herself a sugar daddy.”

  “But you never saw him?”

  “Him?” she laughed, showing me a row of gold tipped teeth in a mouth of crimson liver. “Marianne didn’t specialize, like I told you.”

  “You can’t remember seeing one of them?”

  “It ain’t easy.”

  ‘Squeeze a li
ttle,” I said, and shoved a five into her greasy palm. “Concentrate.”

  “A skinny guy,” she said. “A bum, he looked like.”

  “Remember his name?”

  “That makes it tougher.”

  “Cantrell?”

  “No dice.”

  “George?” I asked. “Was it George?”

  “That’s him. I remember she called him George one night.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Maybe a month ago.”

  “You saw him come in?” I asked.

  “In and out,” said the old biddy.

  “What time of day was it?”

  “Afternoon. Maybe three, three-thirty.”

  “Was he with her long?”

  “Not long enough for what you think,” she said, her teeth glistening in an evil smile. “He came and went out. He was with her maybe fifteen minutes, not enough time for even a rabbit.”

  “How often did you see him here?”

  “Five, six times, maybe. But that don’t mean he didn’t come when I was out shopping. It also don’t mean she didn’t have other regulars, not rabbits like that George guy, but real customers, bed wallopers you can be sure. Sometimes I’d see them coming downstairs early in the morning, plenty of them beatnik nuts. She knocked them out, those skinny ones. They came down looking like they were put through the wringer. That Marianne sure was a big one, a strong one.”

  “Can you give me the key? I’d like to look at her room now.”

  “Don’t need no key,” she giggled. “Left the room wide open since they took her away. Terrible smell in a place with a dead body, you ever notice? Terrible.”

  We had been standing in the rear of the ground floor hall. Behind me, the street door was hidden by a series of large cabinets, old fashioned chests out of a long dead bedroom. But my ears picked up the sound of footsteps easily. Somebody was running upstairs. Somebody who wore carpet slippers, or sneakers or heelless shoes. The sound was a shuffling, softening thump.