“Yes,” I said. Aside from threats coming from various Kolchiks and their minions, it was just a job. This was a girl you couldn’t bullshit. It made life easier if I didn’t try.
“Well, to me it’s the most important thing in my life. I hate the whole idea, but if I have to, I’ll let Dr. Irving inflate my breasts like footballs. And I’ll shake them at anybody who comes into The Jungle if it will get me closer to knowing who killed Tina.”
“And what if whoever did it has nothing to do with The Jungle? What if it was somebody completely outside North Beach, someone who’ll never come into the club again?”
“Then I’ll have been shaking my tits in vain, won’t I? That’s the chance I’ve got to take. But I have a feeling that I’m not wasting my time. Tina’s world was a small one. She’d never lived any place but North Beach since she came here. I could count on the fingers of one hand the people she knew from more than five miles away from The Jungle.”
“That narrows it down considerably,” I said. “But let’s try to thin the suspects a bit more. For instance, who’s your current favorite?” She didn’t answer right away, and it wasn’t because she was considering the question. Something clouded behind those blue-gray eyes. Little Irma wasn’t being completely candid with her new partner in crime detection.
“Let’s not kid each other, Irma,” I said. “You’ve got a favorite, but you’re not going to tell me who it is. Right?” She did it again—looked me in the eye. A disconcerting habit for a pretty girl.
“You’re right, Joe. I have. Are you telling me everything you know?”
She had me there.
“All right,” I said. “Every partnership has its little running-in difficulties. Let’s just agree not to lie to each other. That will help. If you want to keep something to yourself, that’s okay by me. And I’ll do the same. Now, just for the hell of it, run once more through the last time you saw Tina.”
Patiently, Irma recounted that last meeting with Tina, the setting of Tina’s hair, what they said, as best she could recall, the parting after making a date for early the next morning after the last show at The Jungle. Then she switched to when she found Tina’s body. Nothing new there, either, until she was telling me, quite calmly, I thought, about the chaos that set in after the door to the apartment had been opened. Then something occurred to her.
“Joe,” she said, “I can’t put my finger on it, but even at a time like that—with Tina dead on the floor—I found myself looking around the apartment, just aimlessly gazing. Maybe to avoid looking at Tina. They tried to get me out of the apartment, but I wouldn’t go. I kept thinking—it’s the strangest thing—I kept thinking something was missing. Something I was used to seeing just wasn’t there. Maybe it’s my imagination, but it’s driving me crazy. I can’t think what it was.” She put long, slim fingers to either side of her forehead.
“Don’t strain,” I said. “It’ll come to you when you least expect it. The harder you try, the more elusive it will be. Let me take your mind off it for a minute with another question.”
She looked up at me under heavy lashes with a look I couldn’t consider completely trusting. Or maybe it was just wariness. “What is it?”
“Why did you have a go at Bruno Kolchik tonight?”
“I don’t like him.”
“That was obvious,” I said. “But you must have some reason. It’s not just because he’s a cop. Or even because he got to the top on his brother’s back. There’s got to be another reason.”
“Does there?”
“Yes. Remember our no-lies policy. How can I trust you if you so obviously don’t trust me?”
She thought this over carefully. If I say so myself, it had the ring of truth. Finally, she said: “All right, I’ll give it a try. I went for Bruno Kolchik because of something Tina told me.” She stopped as if reconsidering her candor.
“And what was that?” I prompted.
“A couple of weeks ago, Bruno came to see Tina and told her that the mayor was about to get rid of her. For political reasons or something. What’s more, he suggested that it might be a good idea if he—Bruno—sort of took the mayor’s place.”
“And what did Tina say?”
“She told him to fuck off, of course,” Irma said positively. “And when he hinted that she might get leaned on, Tina offered to claw his rotten eyes out.”
“She told you this?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“And do you think she told the mayor about it?”
Irma bit a thumbnail. “I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t get a chance to. Tina wasn’t one to rush into something without thinking it over.”
Bruno’s little try at Tina gave me something to think over. Maybe he would bear looking into. I copped a look at my watch. It was past midnight, and my body felt like four in the morning. I drained the watery liquid in the bottom of my glass and stood up.
“I’d better hit the road for home,” I said mock-heroically. “The later I stay out, the more diminutive Chinese I’ll have to evict from my bed. It’s not all fun being a private detective.” I looked around for my suitcase, knowing very well where it was. Finally spotting it and limping—genuinely—over to it, I picked the case up as if it weighed several tons and turned bleakly toward the door.
“Thanks very much,” I said, “for the use of your bathroom. I leave here a cleaner if not a wiser man. If you need to find me…” I saw that she was fighting a losing battle with a smile and let my voice trail off. I stood looking at her and trying not to appear too foolish. I don’t think I was succeeding.
“If you’d like,” she said fatalistically, “you could sleep on this couch. It’s not very soft, but…”
“Great,” I said, dropping my suitcase and no doubt half of the plaster on the ceiling of the apartment below. “I accept.” I never have been very good at mealy-mouthed if-it-won’t-be-too-much-troubles. An expression flickered across her face. It could have been a second thought. Too late for that.
It didn’t take Irma long to make up the couch into a neat little bed topped with a satin-edged blanket. We said our civil goodnights. The door to her bedroom had hardly closed when I stripped off all my clothes, hobbled to the couch and slipped between the smooth, cool sheets. I lay there trying not to think about who killed Tina and attempting to ignore the multitude of little pains gathering like the Cherokee nation to massacre my central nervous system.
I closed my eyes, and I could swear that my eyelids ached. I hoped that those lads from the alley were going to feel as bad in the morning as I did right then. I tried to imagine that a soothing, healing liquid was flowing over my body, but that hurt, too.
Sometime later, a noise, not much of a noise, more like a swish, jerked my eyelids open, and a small, painful turn of my head told me that I wasn’t alone. Something pale, filmy and diaphanous was moving toward me from the direction of Irma’s room. It was Irma. The light from a moth-splattered street lamp outside the window showed that she was barefoot and wearing a translucent, off-white nightgown which skimmed the top of her knees.
“Joe,” she said. “Joe, are you still awake?”
“Yes, but I’m not so sure I’m still alive.”
She was at the side of the couch, leaning, then kneeling.
“I can’t sleep,” she said. “Tina’s in her grave, and I’m all alone. I don’t think I can stand to be alone tonight. May I sleep with you, Joe?”
I won’t go into all the thoughts that ricocheted through my head. They were too various and not all to my credit. But I knew what she meant. The night that Pat caught that final, irretrievable plane to New York I was reduced to sleeping with a big, plush teddy bear I’d bought her in happier days. It was better than nothing. I suppose, to Irma, so was I. I didn’t really think it was love.
It won’t do to hesitate too long in a situation like that. “Sure,” I said. “But for God’s sake be careful. Don’t bump me too hard, or I’ll probably come apart all over your couch.”
/> “Don’t move,” she said softly. “I’ll climb over you to the other side.”
Something feather-soft fluttered over my face, leaving a suggestion of a dry, clean but faintly exotic perfume. That didn’t hurt a bit. She lifted the covers slightly and then was between them, lying on her left side facing me. We weren’t actually touching, but I could feel the slight pressure of her body on the bottom sheet.
“There,” she said. “Did that hurt you?”
“No, but it’s the only thing that’s happened to me in the last few hours that hasn’t.” I could feel her breath softly on my right ear.
“Where does it hurt most?”
“Everywhere,” I said. “I feel as though a vast herd of tiny elephants has been using me for a parade ground. It would be easier for me to tell you where it hurt least.”
“There?” she breathed, placing a warm hand on my bare chest.
“Nope,” I said. “One of those little bastards was butting me. I think he was trying to put his head through my chest.”
“How about there?”
She moved her hand down in easy stages over my ribs to my stomach, which when last seen had looked as if someone had painted a stormy sunset around my navel. My involuntary wince answered her question, and Irma’s hand wandered slowly southward, then paused.
“Joe,” she said with a note of genuine surprise in her voice, “aren’t you wearing any clothes at all?”
“Nope,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting any company tonight.”
“I wasn’t expecting to offer any,” she said. “But somehow it just…”
“Happened?”
“Yes. I got into bed and found that I couldn’t help thinking about Tina. I didn’t want to. I’ve been fighting it ever since…ever since Thursday night. But it caught up with me, and I just couldn’t stand to be alone.”
My ears were taking in what she was saying, but my mind couldn’t stop thinking about her hand on my hipbone. Somewhere in back of my mind a spark of feeling was rising which had nothing to do with Tina or the hurt my body had received. I think Irma noticed. She moved her hand even farther down.
“Does it hurt there?”
“It does actually,” I said. “One of my friends had a knee like a pile driver. But don’t stop.”
18
I woke up with the taste, smell, and feel of Irma stamped on my bruised senses, but no Irma. I was alone on the couch, Irma’s nightgown was still on the floor, and the sound of the shower was coming out of the open bathroom door. I got up with a grunt of vividly remembered pain and walked stiffly into the bathroom. She was behind the opaque glass door, and steam was billowing out of the shower stall.
“Good morning,” I called. “If you don’t take all day in there, I’ll buy you breakfast at Rico’s.”
Irma turned off the shower, slid the door open and came out wearing only a towel tied over her hair. When she saw me, she stopped and stared. “My God,” she said, “you weren’t kidding last night. You look terrible.”
“Thanks,” I said, wiping the long mirror with a hand towel and taking a look. There was a lot in what she said. Most of my bruises had turned a nasty yellow with red and blue overtones. They covered most of my body from knees to chest, with a few wild-card extras above and below. An especially vivid blotch over my left kidney made me wince just looking at it. But, except for general soreness, I didn’t feel much worse than I used to after a fairly dirty football game. Maybe I would later.
Irma laid a hand softly on the least bruised part of my rib cage. It didn’t hurt a bit. “I tried to tell you,” I said, “but you wouldn’t listen. I think you must have done most of this last night.”
“Fool!” she said, kissing me and going out of the connecting door to her bedroom. If this was what a private detective’s life was like, I was sorry I hadn’t switched over years ago. Even with Maher and the midgets from the alley. By the time I showered again and shaved, Irma was dressed and waiting impatiently.
Rico’s is one of those sidewalk cafes where a certain sort of San Franciscan likes to be seen eating overpriced bacon and eggs and reading the funny papers. If it’s a good day with blue skies and that luminous sunshine only San Francisco gets, overcooked eggs taste like ambrosia, and local eccentrics are transformed into wits. If not, you sit with your teeth chattering in the dirty wind, picking grit out of your food and watching people file toward the Golden Gate Bridge to commit suicide.
This Sunday morning was bright, if a little brisk, and I felt just fine sitting across the table from Irma and watching the clientele pickle their livers with Ramos gin fizzes. The feeling is that if it’s frothy and sweet, it’s not really alcohol. Rico must have been doing some sort of penance. He was out on the sidewalk taking orders himself, but in his usual half-hearted manner which said they might never get to the kitchen. He sneered when we turned down a pre-breakfast drink, took our orders and then lingered to enjoy the view down the front of Irma’s long-sleeved white blouse.
“I know you’re having a good time, Rico,” I said, “but we’re hungry. If you’ll get me a telephone, I’ll send out for a sandwich.”
Rico knows who I am—vaguely—but pretends not to. He looked past me with the distantly pained expression of someone who once watched his mother drown rather than ruin a new suit. Then he did a fairly military about-face and marched stiffly toward the kitchen.
“Do you really expect to get any food talking to him like that?”
Irma asked me. “He’s probably gone to get the bouncer. I’ve seen Rico refuse service to people just because he didn’t like their posture.”
“That’s because they smiled at him instead of kicking his shins,” I said. “If I’d set his coat on fire, we’d have our breakfast by now.” Just then the double doors to the kitchen came flying open, and a giant in a dirty white coat came out carrying a huge tray high overhead on one arm. With five long strides, he was at our side, had commandeered a tray stand and was sliding covered dishes of food onto our table like a demon blackjack dealer.
Working as smoothly as the best shell-and-pea operator in the world, he quickly uncovered and re-covered each of the stainless- steel containers, giving us an intriguing glimpse of mushrooms, bacon, sausage, kippers, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, steak, and two or three other things I’ve forgotten. This was not the simple bacon, eggs and English muffins we’d ordered, and the hostile stares of six over-dressed tourists across the sidewalk gave me a good clue to its rightful owner.
“With the compliments of Monsieur Rico,” said the magician, pouring two giant cups of coffee and vanishing into the kitchen.
“Will you have some scrambled eggs?” I asked Irma with an I-told-you-so look. We began to nibble around the edges of this feast. There was a momentary flurry as the robbed tourists leaped up from their chairs and flounced down the sidewalk, but then Rico’s settled down to its usual quiet hum of dropped names and characters assassinated.
Something was still nagging Irma as she chewed thoughtfully on a bit of Rico’s breakfast steak. Finally, she said: “You were wrong, Joe. It still hasn’t come. I’ve been trying not to think about that thing—whatever it was—that was missing from Tina’s apartment that night. But I can’t help it. I’ve got to get back into that apartment and see if I can remember what it was. It may not be important, but I’ll rest easier if I know.”
“How are you going to manage that?” I asked, peering in at a flock of grilled kippers and deciding against it. “Fat Phil’s not offering guided tours, is he?”
“Well, you’re a policeman—you were a policeman. Can’t you jimmy the door or something?”
That’s the public for you, always giving a copper credit for useful skills and unethical methods. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s been a long time since I did any burglary, but I could have a go at it. I wouldn’t mind taking a look at Tina’s place myself. The scene of the crime and all that. But why don’t we just ask Fat Phil and skip all the counterspy routine?”
My educated guess was interrupted when Irma reached over and jogged my arm. “Joe,” she said, “I think there’s somebody across the street who’s trying to get your attention.”
I looked up, and there a couple of feet back in a tall, thin alley was Lee, one of Gabe Fong’s juvenile delinquents. I knew him by the flashy club jacket. He was mouthing something fairly urgent, so I motioned for him to come over. We had plenty of breakfast left. But he took a backward step deeper into the alley and gestured even more frantically. If they went back to making silent movies, that boy’s future was assured.
I thought about ignoring him, but then the better side of my nature prevailed, and I decided that I’d better at least find out what he wanted. Spearing a pork sausage and gulping some coffee, I stood up.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Irma. “Then we’ll see what we can do about getting into Tina’s apartment. This shouldn’t take long.” When I started across Broadway, Lee was no longer in sight, but I found him a few feet farther down the alley looking as agitated as a smooth-faced, nineteen-year-old Chinese boy can.
“Mr. Goodey,” he said, “come with me quickly. Gabriel Fong is in trouble. Hurry!” He was already scuttling sideways down the alley, looking back anxiously at me like a relay runner waiting for the baton. Only I was the baton.
“Trouble?” I said wittily. “What sort of trouble?” I kept moving with Lee in order to keep him within earshot. Soon we were twenty yards or more inside the alley. “Stand still, damn it,” I said. “What do you mean, Gabriel Fong is in trouble?”
Lee stopped and turned fully back toward me. “I can’t tell you now,” he said. “There’s no time.”
I reached out and grabbed his thin, bony arm between shoulder and elbow. I dug my heels in, and he had to stop or lose the arm. But he wasn’t very happy about it. “There is time,” I insisted. “Look, either you tell me what you’re talking about, or I’m not going any place with you. Now, just what sort of trouble is Fong in?”
The Triple Shot Box (Goodey's Last Stand, Not Sleeping Just Dead & Fighting Back): Three Gritty Crime Novels Page 17
