1945 - Blonde's Requiem

by James Hadley Chase

  I dragged the camera-case off his head, rolled him on his back and made sure that he was out, then I legged it down the passage. There was no sign of anyone and no sound of activity. It looked like Starkey had considered Jeff big enough to handle the morgue on his own.

  I shot through the post-mortem room and the receiving-room and stumbled out into the dark alley. The hot air and the musty smell hit me like a slap in the face after the cold of the morgue. There was another smell that hadn’t been there before.

  The faint smell of lilac.

  I stopped short and sniffed again. It was lilac all right. I called to Reg.

  He made an odd growling noise that came from almost at my feet and I turned on my flashlight. He was sitting against the wall, a dazed, blank look on his face.

  “She’s got the camera,” he said, struggling to sit up.

  Then I did get mad. “What do you mean?” I snarled at him. “Who got what?”

  “Some dame . . . as I came out, she grabbed me—”

  “You let some dame take that camera?” I said, hardly believing my ears.

  “She stuck her hip into me and I hit the wall—” he began, but that was enough for me.

  “The little smarty!” I said violently. “That’s the redhead . . . Audrey Sheridan, Cranville’s pet dick! She’s pinched every damn clue I’ve found up to now and I’ve had enough of it. Come on, don’t sit there like a stuffed duck, let’s go.”

  He crawled to his feet. “It could be her,” he said miserably, as he tagged along behind me. “That jiu-jitsu stuff got me on the wrong foot.”

  “It got me on the wrong foot too,” I said grimly, “but this is the last time she pulls a fast one on me. After I’m through with her she’ll be taking her meals off the mantelpiece.”

  We reached the Ford coupe and bundled in.

  “Where now?” Reg asked, starting the engine.

  “Where do you think? We’re going to call on Miss Strangler Lewis and I’m getting that camera back!”

  As he pulled away from the kerb the crazy woman let off another gurgling scream.

  “If you think that’s anything like a noise, you wait until I’ve got my mitts on that little smarty-pants,” I said savagely. “Get moving, can’t you.”

  I think I’m going to enjoy this,” Reg said, and shoved his foot on the accelerator.

  chapter five

  I wasted two valuable days hunting Audrey Sheridan, but I didn’t find her. When I broke into her apartment I discovered her toilet things, some clothes and a fair-sized bag I’d noticed previously had disappeared. It looked as she had decided to duck out of sight.

  While I was searching around for her, Wolf had taken over the Granville Gazette. I had to leave him to it, and Reg reported that he was reorganizing the place in a big way. There was nothing I could do with the Gazette until I had found the picture of Dixon’s body. And it didn’t look like I was going to find it.

  I was sore as hell about the whole thing. The worst of it was Starkey thought I had the photograph. I knew he would go all out to stop me using it and I was walking around town like a trapeze artist using frayed ropes. Any minute I expected someone to shoot me.

  Most of my time was spent either watching Audrey’s apartment or her office.

  At the end of the second day I had come to the conclusion that she had either left town or else had hidden herself away in some foxhole only she knew about. For the past forty-eight hours I had kept in touch with Ted Esslinger, but he had no idea where she was or where she was likely to be hiding.

  It did cross my mind that she might have been kidnapped, but the fact that she had packed a bag and also had the photograph, which in itself was dynamite, seemed to me to be sufficient reason for her to duck out of sight. She would know that I’d do everything to get the picture back and she wasn’t likely to take any chance of running into me.

  Starkey showed his hand on the night of the second day after Reg and I had visited the morgue.

  I had spent the previous night watching Audrey’s apartment and I was feeling pretty low. I returned to the Eastern Hotel, went immediately to my bedroom and flopped into a bath.

  One of Starkey’s thugs tossed four inches of lead piping filled with T.N.T. through my bedroom window and wrecked the room. If I hadn’t been in the bath I would have been by now a nasty stain on the wall. As it was, I had half the bathroom ceiling on my head.

  I staggered out of the bath, grabbed a towel that was half buried under plaster and went into my bedroom.

  A large hole was blown in the outside wall, the ceiling was down and the door was hanging drunkenly on one hinge. The furnishing of the room was wrecked.

  That was enough for me. As soon as I got rid of the police, and they in turn had got rid of the rubbernecks, I packed what was left of my clothes and demanded my hotel check.

  While the night clerk was making it out, Nora came down the stairs. She looked at me with a cynical, amused look in her eyes.

  “Hello, tough guy,” she said, draping herself over the banisters. “Pulling out?”

  “You bet,” I said, acting like I was scared. “I’ve had all I can take from this burg.”

  She sneered in an amused kind of way. “Don’t go far,” she said. “We haven’t yet got around to spending that dough of yours.”

  “When guys start throwing pineapples at me,” I told her, “I know it’s time to quit. I’m going back to New York. I’m all for the quiet peaceful life in the backwaters of Broadway.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t kid me,” she said. “You ain’t leaving town—not a big, tough guy like you.”

  “I am,” I insisted. “You want to see what that bomb did to my room.”

  She and the night clerk exchanged glances.

  “When you’re this way again, look in,” she said. “Maybe they’ll aim better next time.”

  “Yeah, that’s what scares me,” I said, paying my check. “So long, babe. Mind no one trips over your chest,” and I went cautiously across the lobby to the verandah.

  There were two cops standing outside the hotel and a bunch of people across the way gaped at the hole in my bedroom wall. I gave one of the cops a buck to get me a taxi. I wasn’t showing myself on the street longer than necessary.

  “Where to, boss?” the driver asked as he pulled in to the kerb.

  “The station,” I said for the benefit of the cops and anyone else who might be interested, and I climbed into the cab.

  The two cops were grinning broadly. The one I’d given the buck to stuck his head through the cab window. “Don’t you like this town no more?” he asked, showing his yellow teeth.

  I said I didn’t and called to the driver to get going.

  Halfway down Main Street I told him I’d changed my mind. “Make it the Granville Gazette,” I said.

  A few minutes’ fast driving convinced me that he wasn’t taking me there.

  We were going away from the business centre of the town.

  “What the hell are you playing at?” I yelled to him. “I said the Granville Gazette.”

  “I heard you the first time, bud,” he returned soothingly. “They moved into new offices this morning.”

  I grunted and sat back. As I hadn’t seen Reg since yesterday morning I didn’t know what Wolf had been doing. I thought it was a good idea to move the Gazette from its present down-at-the-heel district. If Wolf was going to make anything of the rag, smarter offices were essential.

  The offices were smart all right. I found the Gazette on the eighth floor of a large modern block on the far side of Cranville, away from the smelting works and the dirt and smoke.

  I pushed open the pebbled glass door on which was traced in chalk the name of the paper. I thought absently that by the time the gilt letters were put on it would look all right.

  They were all there: Wolf, Marian and Reg. There was also a lean bird with a thin hatchet face and an eyebrow moustache who was sitt
ing on the corner of one of the desks. I hadn’t seen him before.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Wolf growled at me as soon as I walked in.

  I put my bag down. “On the job,” I said, flopping into a chair and smiling at Marian. “Anyone got any liquor?”

  They all ignored this.

  “Did you find her?” Reg asked anxiously.

  “Did I hell!” I said, setting fire to a cigarette. “She’s skipped or is hiding out somewhere. What a hell of a place this is! I seem to spend all my time hunting for missing dames.”

  Wolf glared at me. “And you haven’t turned one up yet,” he said. “Now look here, young man——”

  “Skip it,” I said, matching his glare. “I’m not in the mood to take anything from you nor anyone else tonight. I want some sleep. Ten minutes ago someone threw a bomb at me and I’m a little jittery.”

  They all reacted to that.

  Marian said anxiously: “A bomb? You’re not hurt?”

  The lean bird on the desk suddenly woke out of his trance. “What do you mean—a bomb?” he demanded. “Where?”

  I gave them the story.

  Reg was on his feet before I had finished. He grabbed his camera. “Come on,” he said to the lean bird. “This is news.”

  They nearly fell over each other getting out of the room.

  I stared after them blankly and then turned to Marian. “Who’s the guy with the hard eye?”

  “Ned Latimer,” she said, looking at me anxiously. “He’s working for the Gazette. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m all right,” I said, relaxing once more in the armchair. “But how long I’m remaining that way certainly worries me.”

  Wolf was lighting a cigar. He still glared at me. “What I want to know—” he began, but again I cut in on him.

  “It’s time you and I had a little talk,” I said. “Stick around for a minute.” I turned to Marian. “Look, sweetheart,” I said, “it’s getting late, hadn’t you better go home?”

  “I’m going now,” she said. “But what are you doing? I mean where will you sleep?”

  “This chair suits me,” I returned without enthusiasm. “I’ll find some place tomorrow.”

  “There’s a bed in one of the other offices,” she said, getting up. “I’ll fix it for you.”

  I said that would be swell, and picking up my bag I followed her out of the main office into a short passage which led to three other rooms.

  “Setting up in style,” I said as she opened a door and turned on the light. While we were fixing the cupboard bed I asked her how she liked her new job. “Wolf doesn’t worry you, does he?”

  She said they were all sweet to her and she liked it very much. “I moved out of the Eastern Hotel this morning,” she told me. “I’ve got a room in an apartment house just across the way. It’s cheaper and more convenient and away from the smell of smoke.”

  I said I betted Reg was tickled pink to have her work with him and she said he was.

  “He’s only a kid,” she said, putting the finishing touches to the bed, “but he’s cute. There, you’ll sleep all right now. Perhaps I could get you fixed up at my apartment house. Would you like that?”

  “Leave it for tonight,” I said. “It depends how badly Starkey wants to make trouble. It might be an idea for me to duck out of sight as Audrey’s done. I don’t want any more bombs thrown at me.”

  We went back to the main office. Wolf still sat smoking his cigar and brooding. He said: “Don’t keep me here all night. I’ve got other things to do than waste my time hanging around for you.”

  Marian put on her hat and picked up her handbag. “Good night,” she said to me, and, smiling at Wolf, she left the office.

  Wolf rolled his cigar wetly between his lips and stared after her. “Nice girl,” he grunted. “Efficient too.”

  I sat down and lit a cigarette. “You stick to Miss Wilson,” I returned coldly. “She’s more in your line.”

  He eyed me balefully. “What do you want to talk about?” he said. “I’ve never met such a fellow for talking. Why the hell don’t you do something?”

  “Maybe you don’t know what I have done,” I said, stretching out my legs and yawning. “Let me run over it with you.”

  I gave him the whole works. It didn’t sound half as bad as it really was.

  “Now you see what I’m up against,” I concluded. “Everyone’s working against each other and consequently we’re getting nowhere. Even if I did get the picture of Dixon’s body, I doubt if I could pin the killing on Starkey. All I could do would be to make trouble for Macey—not that that wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

  Wolf tugged at his underlip. “So Starkey is at the bottom of it,” he said. “Pin Dixon’s killing on him and he would be out of the running. Yeah, that’s what you have to do. Never mind about these missing girls. Go after Starkey. Get the picture and dig up some evidence that’ll fix him. Esslinger and I can fight the election by ourselves. I’m not scared of Esslinger.”

  “How about the girls?” I asked, watching him thoughtfully.

  “When Starkey’s in jail,” Wolf snapped, “they’ll come out of hiding. It sticks out a mile that they’re working with him.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. He or someone else has either kidnapped them or killed them.”

  “To hell with them, anyway!” Wolf said. “You go after Starkey. The best thing to hit him with is Dixon’s killing.”

  “Maybe it is,” I returned, “but I wasn’t hired to start trouble for Starkey. I was hired to find the girls.”

  His eyes snapped angrily. “You were hired to work for me!” he said. “And so long as I pay you, you’ll do what I tell you.”

  I shook my head. “You’re on the wrong foot,” I told him. “If you want me to go after Starkey, you’ll have to hire me all over again.”

  He sank deeper into his chair and his eyes narrowed. “So that’s it?” he said, his voice cold with rage. “You’re trying to hold me up?”

  “Call it what you like,” I returned indifferently, “but I’m not taking on anything as tough as this unless you make it worth my while. I can go back to New York, work on a new case and know, when I get up in the morning, I won’t have a pair of wings to take to the shower with me. This job’s different. Any moment I may start playing a harp. And if I do go after Starkey it’s going to be just too bad if I slip up. Macey won’t do anything, you won’t do anything, and Esslinger will be only too pleased to sell me a shroud.”

  He chewed on his cigar while he turned this over in his mind. “You can go to hell,” he said at last. “I’ll get Colonel Forsberg to send me someone else.”

  I grinned at him. “Be your age,” I said. “Colonel Forsberg runs a detective agency. He doesn’t touch this kind of racket. If he knew what was going on he’d shoot your money back and call me off. If you don’t believe me, ask him and see.”

  I stubbed out my cigarette and pointed a finger at him. “If you want Starkey, you can have him but you’ll have to pay and you’ll have to give me a free hand. Do that and I’ll get him.”

  “How?” Wolf asked, his eyes brooding.

  “Never mind how,” I returned. “I can get him all right. If you want Starkey fixed, say so and I’ll do it.”

  “There’s something about you I don’t like,” Wolf growled. “You’re too smooth, too much of a talker. What are you playing at?”

  I grinned at him. “Maybe I do talk too much, but I don’t give much away.”

  He tapped ash into a brass bowl on the desk. “What’ll it cost?”

  “Five grand will take care of it,” I said. “For that amount of dough I’ll give you Starkey in a week.”

  He shook his round, close-cropped head. “Too much,” he said. “Half would be too much.”

  “Depends how you look at it,” I pointed out. “That’s the value I put on my life. If Starkey beats me to it I want something to
decorate my will with.”

  “Two thousand dollars and a free hand,” he offered, “and that’s final.”

  I saw it was. “Okay,” I said. “You’re getting a bargain, but I was always a sucker for starting trouble. Give me a cheque and I’ll start tomorrow.”

  “When you’ve fixed Starkey,” Wolf said curtly.

  I shook ray head. “No, money now or I’ll throw my hand in. You can’t have it both ways.”

  He eyed me and decided it would be a waste of time to argue. He took out his chequebook, slashed across it with fat ugly handwriting and tossed the slip of paper across the desk.

  I picked it up, glanced at it and put it carefully in my pocket. “You said a free hand,” I reminded him.

  “What of it?”

  “That means you keep away from the Gazette, “ I told him. “ There’s only one way to drag Starkey off his saddle, and you can’t afford to be mixed up in it.”

  He drummed on the desk. “What are you up to?” he asked, suspicion and doubt in his eyes.

  “The less you know about this the better,” I said. “I want you to keep away from here. If at the end of seven days Starkey is still out of jail, then you’ll get your money back. That’s all you’ve got to worry about. Fixing Starkey’s my business, but I’ll need the Gazette to do it, and unless you want someone to throw a bomb at you you’d better keep clear of it.”

  He got to his-feet. “Seven days,” he said. “If you haven’t done something in seven days, you’ll get the hell out of here and you’ll give me back my money. Understand?”

  “Sure,” I said, yawning. “Now maybe you’ll let me go to bed.” He gave me a long thoughtful stare and went out, closing the door behind him.

  * * *

  At ten o’clock the next morning I was seated behind an impressive-looking desk in the office that Wolf had reserved for himself.

  Marian, Reg and Latimer were with me. Marian sat on a chair by my desk.

  Reg sat near her and Latimer propped himself up against the wall by the window.