I looked at her, wondering what the hell I was letting myself in for, then I undressed too, but not with the same unself-consciousness. I did it fast, blew out the lamps and got in beside her.
“Just hold me,” she said.
I wanted to say the same thing, but I didn’t.
XII
The .45 was in my hand, the hammer cocked the second I touched the knob. Lee was a typical New Yorker who kept himself barricaded behind triple locks and now the door swung open easily. I had gone too far to pull back so I smashed on it, hit the floor rolling and ended up in a corner ready to spit lead at anybody who came at me.
I waited, changed positions fast and waited again. Nothing moved. Motes of dust danced in the late-morning sunlight streaming in the windows and from the street below the traffic noises were a dull hum. When another thirty seconds had passed I stood up and angled toward the door of my bedroom. It was empty, untouched and just as quiet.
On the other side of the living room Lee’s door was closed, a half-dozen letters and the day’s paper strewn on the floor. I reached it quickly, kicked it open and waited to see what would happen. Nothing did.
But this time I heard a noise, an almost inaudible murmur with odd bubbly overtones. The blinds were still down and I picked my way across the unmade-up bedroom to Lee’s bathroom, the strange sounds getting faintly louder, seeming to rise, fall, then break with a weird hysteria.
Then I knew what the sounds really were, shoved the gun back and went through the door so hard I snapped the tongue out of the lock. Lee was stretched out in the tub, hands and feet lashed together behind his back, his mouth taped with wide surgical adhesive. The heavy metal desk chair had been tossed on top of him to keep him at the bottom and the tap turned on a slow trickle to make dying a long-drawn-out torturous affair. Muscles in his neck were taut cords as he stretched to keep his face above the surface, his eyes bulging wide with terror.
I turned the tap, flipped the chair away and dragged him out of the tub. When I cut through the tape that bound him the sudden release of his twisted body brought vomit spewing out of his nose and I ripped the gag off his mouth with one pull before he could choke to death. He looked up at me, groaned once and went into a dead faint.
Aside from a small discoloration on his temple there weren’t any marks on him at all. I got Lee in bed, cleaned up and sat there mopping him with a cold wet towel until his eyes fluttered open. I said, “Take it easy, don’t push it. We’ll talk later.”
His head made a small motion in acknowledgment.
“You hurt at all?”
One hand made a negative sign.
“Okay, then stay there.”
I wet the towel again, laid it across his forehead and went out and locked the front door. I kept saying damn to myself for being idiot enough to think this wouldn’t happen. I’d left everybody exposed I had touched because I didn’t figure they’d be dumb enough to want to set the whole dirty machine in operation again and I was as wrong as hell. There wasn’t any sense trying to follow up the attempted hit. The tub had been almost filled, which meant the water trap had been set long enough ago to give anybody a good chance to clear out. It had been a simple operation. They caught Lee coming up with the mail, held a gun on him, followed him in and sapped him.
I picked up the letters from the floor, then looked at the dateline on the newspaper. It was yesterday’s. That meant they nailed him last night coming in from work. They had waited right through the night hoping to get me and when I didn’t show, decided to leave a present for me.
When it hit me I let out another curse, ran into the bathroom, threw the drain on, flushed the tape down the toilet bowl and set the chair back in front of the desk where it belonged. As I ran past Lee I saw his eyes go wide again and said, “Get dressed and get ready to put on an act.”
I barely had time to get my coat off, the gun stashed away and a call in to Leyland Hunter when the raps came on the door. I told his secretary to hang on, walked over and threw the lock open. The same two cops stood there, the one called Tobano and his partner, two guns pointed at my middle from either side of the opening.
“Don’t just stand there,” I said. “Come on in. I’m on the phone.”
I started to walk back inside but Tobano stopped me. “Hold it, buddy.”
Everything was done with standard classical police procedure, even to the partner checking on the phone call. He told Hunter’s secretary I’d call back and hung up. Before they had a chance to look through the rooms Lee came out in the bottom half of his pajamas and stood there scratching, a perfect picture of a guy dragged out of a sound sleep. He even managed a yawn. “What the hell’s happening, Dog?”
“Beats me.” I looked at the two cops. “Mind telling me what this is all about?”
“Mind if we check around first?”
“Go ahead.”
“Make my bed up while you’re at it,” Lee told them.
Tobano stayed with us while his partner went through the place. He came out of my room shaking his head.
“Clean.” Their guns disappeared under their coats.
“Now?” I asked.
The big cop nodded. “We had a report there was a dead body up here.”
Lee faked a grin. “My cleaning lady did that to me once when she found me passed out on the floor.”
“This wasn’t a lady,” the cop told him.
“Anonymous?”
“Aren’t they all?” he said to me. “That your room over there?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s made up.”
“I’m neat.”
“Here all night?”
“This an arrest?”
“Nope.”
“Then let’s skip the questions. You didn’t even advise me of my rights.”
“I said it wasn’t an arrest. And we don’t like games, either. If you know any practical joker who’d try this crap, you’d better tell them to knock it off.”
“Don’t worry.”
The big cop gave me a disarming smile. “I’m not. I’m just wondering if this was a practical joke.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re not used to seeing the same two people so often. Seem a little odd to you?”
“Now that you mention it.”
“Any explanation?”
I shrugged, picked up a butt and lit it. “I told a few people about that last episode. Maybe one of them felt like having some fun.”
“It’s going to cost them if they keep it up.”
Tobano didn’t see the look on my face as I walked past to hold the door open for them. “You bet your ass it is,” I said.
Lee couldn’t hold his act any longer. It dropped as they went out and he sagged to the couch with a stifled groan and lay there shielding his eyes from the sunlight. His hands were shaking and a tic was playing around the comer of his mouth.
I went out to the kitchen, brewed up a pot of coffee and brought him a cup. “Drink it, you’ll feel better.”
He pushed himself to a sitting position and took the cup in his trembling fingers and sipped at it until it was gone. I took the cup away and lit him a cigarette. “Feel like talking?”
His eyes rolled toward mine in a face pasty white. “Dog ... what the hell are you into?”
“Sorry, kid.”
“They ... tried to knock me off.”
“I know.”
“But I didn’t even ...”
“Just describe them.”
His tongue tried to wet his parched lips and he nodded, his hand rubbing the bruise on the side of his head. “There were two of them. About your size. Those guns made them a lot bigger. Damn it, Dog ...”
“Come on, Lee.”
“Sure, come on. You know what it’s like to think you’re going to drown in a couple of minutes? You ...”
“I have a good idea.”
Lee squinted and propped his head in his hands. “They were in their forties, one wore a black suit, the other a
sport coat and slacks. White shirts ... patterned dark ties.”
“Any definite characteristics?”
After a moment’s thought Lee said, “Nothing ... special, unless you want to call them kind of hard looking.” He looked up at me then, his eyes still scared. “Dog, look, those guys weren’t kidding around! They sat here all night without saying a damn thing, then all of a sudden one got up and coldcocked me. The next thing I knew I was tied up in the tub and they were turning the water on.”
“They must have said something.”
“Yeah, in the beginning. They wanted you. I didn’t know where the hell you were. You didn’t tell me you were going to stay out all night.”
“How about their speech? What did they sound like?”
“You mean... like a dialect?
“That’s right.”
Lee gave it a thought for a moment, frowning. “They spoke... well, pretty damn good. Like too good, maybe.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sort of ... like they studied the language. The one ... he seemed to think first, then speak. The other had a funny inflection like... you remember that RAF pilot they called Big Benny?”
“Yeah.”
“Like him, that kind.”
“Benny was from Brussels,” I said. “He went to England straight from college four years before the war started.”
“Well, he didn’t say much except to ask about you and he sounded like Big Benny when he did.”
“Did they say what they wanted me for?”
“No, but one was going to search the place until the other one told him you wouldn’t be that stupid. They were going to wait until you got here, make you talk and then kill you. They had a briefcase with them that had all kinds of stuff in it. Tools, bottles of stuff... scared the shit out of me. I guess they knew I wasn’t lying or they would have tried something on me.”
“They knew, all right. I just wonder why they didn’t wait for me.”
“One of them kept looking at his watch the last two hours. He was getting pretty fidgety.”
“They could have figured I smelled the trap and would come back with reinforcements.”
“But why those cops?”
“Another way to nail me down, except their timing was bad. They kept a watch on the door until I did show, then called the cops thinking I’d be grabbed in an apartment with a dead man ... or trying to move a body.”
“Trying to... geez, Dog ...”
“Forget it. Nothing happened. I’m going to clear out of here and ...”
“The hell you are,” he interrupted. “I saw those guys and I can identify them. You’re not letting me be a straggler on this raid. Man, I’m chicken. I don’t go for this routine at all.”
“Okay, okay, you may be right.”
I got up and got another cigarette. When I turned around he was staring at me like I was a stranger. “You know who they were, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Then you know why they were here.”
“I got an idea.”
“But you can’t tell me.”
“No,” I said.
“You’re wild,” Lee told me, then he grunted “I guess you know I really did shit my pants.”
“I found that out the hard way.”
“You ever do that?”
“Twice,” I told him.
“Dog ...”
“Yeah?”
“They were wearing brown shoes.”
I snuffed the butt out and waited.
“In New York you don’t wear brown shoes with a black suit or dark slacks. Like it’s one of the gauche things out-of-towners do.”
“Or foreigners?”
“Uh-huh. All the time.”
“What else?”
“Everything they had on was brand-new. I saw the folds in their shirts from the packages.”
“You notice the guns?”
“How could I miss them. One was a big bore, maybe a
.38. Either a Colt or an S. and W. The other one was a .22 on a heavy frame.”
“Nickel-plated?” I asked him quietly.
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
Below the penthouse level of the fabulous Chateau 300, New York City lay sprawled out like a gigantic Christmas tree, the lower branches sweeping into Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, then stairstepped up to the giant towers of Manhattan.
Cable Howard Productions had taken over the entire restaurant to celebrate its merger with Walt Gentry, announcing the forthcoming filming of Fruits of Labor, a current best seller of nineteenth-century sex. Lee had whipped up a guest list that included everybody who was anybody at all; football greats, movie stars, Wall Street financiers and a scattering of war heroes in uniform of all the services.
The press was all over the place, popping flashbulbs, rolling TV cameras and taking notes, living up to their reputations at the punch bowl and the three huge bars. A pair of name orchestras spelled each other at playing soft dance music for a change, with a concert pianist fresh in from an appearance at Carnegie Hall filling in the blanks between sets.
Walt Gentry presided over it all in his usual manner, pleasant and smiling, taking a few notes himself to break the monotony of his bachelorhood in the future. Sharon was at S. C. Cable’s side prompting him with names and making the introductions. She had wanted to skip the whole affair, but her boss insisted he needed her and she was back in the big run again.
She saw me watching her and waved just as a glass tinkled next to mine. A voice said, “Enjoying yourself, Mr. Kelly?”
I threw a quick look at Dick Lagen and shrugged. “Not especially.”
“Must be a bit dull after those lavish European affairs you’re used to.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
He swirled the ice in his glass, then polished half the drink off. “Several sources. You keep excellent company. Walking among the rich must be rather pleasant.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Really? Doesn’t being the guest of one of the richest men in Europe impress you? I understand Roland Holland owns nine separate major industries outright and heads one of the world’s largest conglomerates.”
“Rollie and I were in the same outfit during the war, Dick.-Every once in a while I pick up on my old buddies. Lee Shay was there too.”
“Your wartime buddy wasn’t wealthy before the war, however.”
“Nobody was, remember? Rollie was one of those types with a mind. A financial whiz kid. He parlayed a small bundle into a fat fortune and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Plenty of others have done the same thing.”
“Quite so, but they weren’t friends of yours.”
“That remark had a curve on it,” I said.
“Your friends all seem to be very interesting people. Your seeming lack of friends is just as interesting. I still don’t get very far researching your past ... except for your immediate family.”
“Read the society pages, Dick, you’ll find out about them there.”
Lagen let a waiter take his glass and picked another drink off the tray. “I found some interesting tidbits in the gossip columns... and a few police reports.”
Now I knew where the needle was going in and beat him to the punch. “You mean about Veda and Pam? Those twists always were trouble. Veda’s been in more night courts than a Times Square hooker. Pam’s just as bad, but if you want icing for the cake, try Lucella. She and that Fred Simon character cut a real wide path before they divorced. How the hell they could figure me for a black sheep is more than I can understand.”
“The rest of the family seems to live with it.”
“Bullshit. Those old biddies ignore it or are too old to remember. Besides, when you’re top chicken in the pecking order in that social circle, nobody feels like promoting gossip and getting kicked off their rung.”
“You ought to talk to Mona Merriman. That kind of talk would fill her columns for weeks.”
“It’s old hat, Dick. She�
�ll get enough garbage for a month right at this bash.”
Lagen let a smile play across his face and looked over to where the center of activity was. “She may get more. There’s an old friend of yours here.”
I followed the direction of his eyes but couldn’t place anybody. “Who?”
“A Mr. Cross McMillan and his wife, Sheila.’
“You really do a research job, friend.”
“I’ve only just started, Mr. Kelly.”
Walt Gentry was a large stockholder and a director of Wells River Plastic Corporation. Cross McMillan was the majority stockholder and chairman of the board. That afternoon there had been a meeting to consider a merger and, since Cross was staying in New York, Walt had invited his business associate to his party.
Until I joined the group he had been enjoying himself, then all those nasty memories of the past, the rock in the head, the standoff at the beach and the loss of all that waterfront he had wanted so badly etched a mask of concealed anger into his face. Walt’s attempted introduction drew a curt “We’ve met,” and upon seeing Sharon he threw a look at Walt as if he were being double-crossed. Walt got no part of the play at all and called him away to meet somebody else, leaving me standing there alone until a tall brunette with a figure and features so sensuous as almost not to be real sidled up and said, “My husband doesn’t like you, Mr. Kelly.”
I looked at her, puzzled. The sheer silk of her gown clung to the curves of her body, the open front of it the absolute minimum in modesty. At the point of cleavage of her magnificent breasts a huge pear-shaped diamond pendant dangled on a platinum chain throwing highlights of color into my eyes.
“No, we haven’t met,” she laughed. She held out her hand, cradling a drink in the other. “I’m Sheila McMillan ... Cross’s wife.”
I took her hand and held it a moment. The grip was warm and firm, a little stronger than most women’s. “Dogeron Kelly. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Mona told me who you were, then I remembered Cross speaking about you.”
“We’re not exactly buddies.”
Sheila laughed again and held the glass to her mouth. Even the way she tasted her drink was a pure sex act and I began to wonder about all those things I had heard about her. “You’re the one who gave Cross that scar on his head, weren’t you? You know, he’s never forgiven you for that.”
The Erection Set Page 17
