by Monica Nolan
Chapter 31
The Knock Knock’s New Owner
It was nearly midnight when the two bedraggled girls climbed their weary way to the fifth floor. The ambulance had taken injured Agent Freitag to the hospital. After an almost endless conference with a covey of policemen, Kathy had told the exhausted ex-deb that they were finally free to go.
The fifth floor was silent except for the faint sound of Dolly snoring. Kathy went to the washroom, and Maxie squelched after her. The G-woman had been tight-lipped on the ride home, but Maxie wasn’t going to sleep until she got some questions answered.
“Why were you and Joe following me?” she demanded as Kathy mechanically washed her hands and splashed her face. “And don’t give me that bunk about hoping I’d lead you to Lon—you know where she lives!”
Kathy looked up, green eyes glittering. “Of course we weren’t looking for Lon! It was you we were following—just as we’ve been following you all summer!”
“Me? But why?” Maxie stammered in astonishment.
“Drop the charade!” Kathy lashed out. “You knew we were after you. You deliberately lured us out to the pier in order to drown us in another dockside ‘accident.’ ”
“Kathy, no, it wasn’t like that!” Maxie protested, but Kathy refused to be calmed.
“We have a file on you a foot long! You consort with all kinds of criminals, from mob girls like Lon to that unsavory Ramona, the dope peddler—yes, we know all about her. You needn’t pretend these brass knuckles I found on you”—she shook the pair she’d taken from Maxie in the ex-deb’s face—“were just something you picked up today. When we interviewed your former boss, Mamie McArdle, even she admitted that you often bragged about being able to procure witnesses to give false testimony with ease. You’re a dyed-in-the-wool bad egg!”
Maxie understood now why the Step Stool gals were so concerned about Sapphics being associated with crime. She’d have to do some fast talking to convince Kathy that each incriminating item had an innocent explanation!
“Listen, Kathy, it was me that crazy crane driver was trying to kill!” Quickly Maxie poured out the story of the blackmailer’s phone call, and her desire to find out what the man had on her mother.
“See, I even brought the money to purchase the paddle, in case the blackmail business was legit.” Maxie pulled up her shirt to reveal the waterproof money belt she’d purchased that afternoon. Kathy just stared, still suspicious. “And you must have seen that the I beam was aimed at me—and why would I have pulled Joe from the water if I wanted him dead?” When Kathy still didn’t respond, Maxie burst out angrily, “For heaven’s sake, you’ve been following me all summer—have I ever done anything illegal?”
Kathy’s thoughts behind her green eyes were unreadable. “You jaywalk when you’re in a hurry,” the G-woman said finally. “But aside from that, I haven’t personally observed any criminal behavior.” She added almost too low for Maxie to hear, “Except your lethal way with women.”
Maxie sagged against the sink in relief. “So why all the suspicion?” she begged. “It can’t be just that stint of reefer rolling!”
Kathy turned off the water, which had provided a gushing backdrop to their heated exchange. “Do you know whose name is on the title of the Knock Knock Lounge?”
“No,” said Maxie more puzzled than ever. “Whose?”
“The deed was transferred this past May from one Selma Swenson, widow of Sven Swenson, to Mabel Mainwaring, who then transferred it to the Nyberg Trust, beneficiary Maxine Mainwaring.”
The drip-drip of the leaky faucet sounded very loud in the tiled room. “But—but that’s insane!” murmured Maxie after a moment of stunned silence. “Mumsy hasn’t the slightest idea how to operate a ladies-only nightspot!”
“Being a front doesn’t take any experience,” Kathy commented. “Don’t you see, Maxie? You and your mother are either patsies for the new mob, or you’re working with them, hand in glove!”
Maxie started to say that Mumsy wasn’t anyone’s patsy, and then realized what that would mean. Instead, she protested, “I won’t get my hands on that trust for ten years, and Mumsy would never risk her reputation! Why, if her DAP friends heard about this piece of property, they’d kick her off the board.” She paced the tiled room. “There must be an innocent explanation. Why not pull Mumsy in for some old-fashioned questioning?” Even someone as tough as Mumsy would crack under an experienced interrogator, Maxie thought hopefully.
“I can’t do that.” The G-woman sank onto the wooden bench against the wall.
“Why not?”
“I’m not an actual agent!” Kathy put her face in her hands. “I’m just Joe’s secretary!”
She poured out a shamefaced confession to the astounded ex-deb. The Director, she said, had never permitted women agents. Nonetheless, Kathy had entered the Bureau hoping to prove the exception. “My whole family’s in the Bureau—my dad, my uncle, my cousins.” Her speedy typing skills and analytic mind had ensured a rapid rise to Clerk Secretary III-A—the highest level most women achieved. But Kathy wasn’t satisfied. “I persuaded Joe to let me work in the field—go undercover and infiltrate the Arms. He allowed it, on condition I continue my secretarial work.” She looked apologetic. “I’m sorry I kept you up, typing his reports.”
Exhausted with her late-night stints at the machine, the tireless girl nonetheless shadowed Maxie all over Bay City. “It was a relief you were such a late sleeper,” she confessed.
“And this Knock Knock business—that’s why you were so interested in my relationship with my mother!” the ex-deb realized.
“Psychology seemed the perfect ploy to quiz you about Mabel Mainwaring’s activities and find out whether you were involved as well.” The Bureau secretary shrugged. “I was sure your feud with your mother was phony, and you, with your criminal history, were the link to the mob!” She slumped against the wall. “Now I don’t know what to think.”
Is this the last layer of the onion? Maxie contemplated the complicated girl. Kitty/Kathy, student/sleazologist/ G-woman/secretary, seemed to have reached the end of her rope. She was shivering with fatigue. Her skirt was creased and stained and her sensible shoes were covered with mud and blood.
“There’s no percentage in racking our brains right now, the state we’re in,” the ex-deb decided. “After a hot shower and a good night’s sleep we’ll see things more clearly.”
She turned on the water in the shower stall and stripped off her soaked sweater. The G-secretary’s shivering increased as she slowly unbuttoned her blouse, staring fixedly at Maxie all the while.
It took a moment for Maxie to realize that Kathy’s eyes were focused on Maxie’s brief brassiere and clinging dungarees. She’s not trembling with shock, the experienced girl decided, but pent-up passion!
Swiftly Maxie shed the rest of her clothes, pretending not to notice anything amiss with the shaking secretary. “Nice and hot,” Maxie announced as she tested the shower. “In you go; it will do you good.” Grasping the staring girl, she pushed her into the stall. She pretended to ignore Kathy’s start as she followed her in and pulled the curtain closed.
“Isn’t that better?” The water had plastered Kathy’s crisp curls to her head. Maxie efficiently removed the undercover agent’s underwear, wondering if the drab garments were Bureau issue. She looked deeply into Kathy’s lust-glazed eyes. “Isn’t this what you’ve been wanting, all summer long?” She moved closer to Kathy, so that their torsos touched.
Kathy made an inarticulate sound, and clutched Maxie close. The ex-deb noticed with satisfaction that the G-girl’s pallid skin was pinking up, warmed by both the hot water and the heat of desire. She was really quite an attractive girl, Maxie thought, peering through the clouds of steam. She didn’t have Stella’s lush figure, or Lon’s movie-star good looks, but her compact, yet fit, frame and her fine-boned face had a certain appeal, especially when her green eyes rolled back in her head and her eyelids fluttered.
And
besides, it was fun to be with a girl so tightly wound that sucking a drop of water from her earlobe nearly sent her over the edge to ecstasy. A girl got a special sort of satisfaction from helping a naïve newcomer who’d reached the boiling point let off some steam. If Kathy was a kettle, she’d be whistling right now, Maxie decided, her own excitement growing as the undercover agent rained clumsy kisses on the ex-deb’s face. Kathy was like a pea about to pop, like a chick pecking its way out of its shell, like a litter of kittens desperate to escape from the sack they’d been stuffed in for drowning—desperate to get clear of the canvas bag and live a little.
Wordlessly, she instructed the inexperienced girl on the finer points of French kissing. That’s where all this typing got you, she thought hazily. You had no time to pick up the really important skills in life! It was too bad Kathy would be unable to appreciate the expertise that Maxie showed when Kathy finally boiled over, keeping her from those slips or bruises on the faucet that were so common in amateur attempts at shower sex. Someday, when Kathy had seen more of the world, she’d appreciate the skill with which Maxie managed to reduce her to a simmer and turn her back up to boil again.
A while later, a rejuvenated Kathy remarked, “That was refreshing!” as she toweled herself dry.
“You seem much more relaxed,” replied Maxie. She opened the window wide. The washroom still billowed with clouds of steam.
Kathy wrapped her towel around her modestly. “I was thinking about tonight’s attack,” the indefatigable investigator announced. “If I reread last week’s reports—”
“Not tonight,” Maxie told her firmly. “You’ll be able to think more clearly after a good rest. Besides,” she added with a suggestive smile, “wouldn’t you like a little company in bed?” She’d been so busy cooking for Kathy, she’d ignored her own appetite.
But Kathy only tucked her towel more tightly. “Really, Maxie,” she said primly, “I’ve told you over and over that my interest in you and your Sapphic sisters is strictly on behalf of the government!”
Maxie’s jaw dropped. She’d heard of lace-curtain lesbians, but this was the limit! “I suppose all that steam blinded you to what we just did in the shower?” she asked sarcastically.
“I appreciate your therapeutic massage.” Kathy avoided Maxie’s eyes. “But I think in the future we should keep our interviews on a more professional level. The Bureau frowns on close contact with suspects.”
She hurried from the washroom, leaving Maxie fuming. That twisted sister needed a real psychiatrist to figure her out!
Chapter 32
A New Job
“Miss Watkins? It’s Maxie. I just wanted to let you know, I have a new job!”
“Goodness, Maxie, you certainly don’t let the grass grow under your feet. Where are you working now?”
“I’m at the Knock Knock Lounge,” Maxie said proudly. “I’m the new busgirl!”
Just then Della called from the other end of the bar where she was wiping glasses. “Finish your call, Maxie, you’ve got lots to learn before it gets busy.”
Maxie hung up on Miss Watkins’s confused congratulations, promising that yes, she would still keep the appointment next week when Mrs. Spindle-Janska returned.
What she hadn’t told Miss Watkins was that she had not one job but two. Ostensibly a mere busgirl, she was actually working for the FBI as an informer.
Or was it three? I’m still working for myself, Maxie thought. The busgirl intended to get more information from the Bureau than she gave. After all, she’d almost been murdered! And if the agents could mistake her for a criminal, who’s to say they hadn’t made the same mistake with Lon and Mumsy?
It had been easy to convince Kathy that a sudden love of country had come over her since their shared shower—and that a snitch at the Knock Knock would be a valuable addition to Operation Smorgasbord. Maxie had one of her hunches that the Knock Knock—Lon’s unofficial headquarters and owned on paper by the Mainwarings—was the key to the mystery.
Lon had been a harder sell. Maxie had pleaded desperate circumstances—her recent firing, her lost allowance, and her longing for a job that would let her sleep late.
“I just don’t see it,” Lon said. “You want to work here?”
“Why not? I think it’ll be fun!” It was only when the ex-deb threatened to write Lon’s address on the Knock Knock’s bathroom wall that Lon agreed to “put in a good word for you.”
“Maybe you just don’t want to see so much of me,” Maxie suggested.
Lon evaded her look. “You know you’re easy on the eyes,” she muttered as she hurried away.
Lon hadn’t even thanked her for the flippers, Maxie thought, disappointed. In fact, the mob girl seemed to be avoiding Maxie!
The ex-deb’s duties weren’t difficult: restocking the refrigerator with bottles of beer and the shelves with liquor, slicing limes and lemons, and scrubbing glasses in the little sink. “You’ll bus the tables too,” Della told Maxie. “When it gets busy the girls will start throwing drink orders at you, so be ready to take ’em. Friday nights they’ll have you hopping!”
Maxie enjoyed the bustle and buzz of her new job, the bits of overheard gossip, watching the never-ending drama of who came in with whom and whether they left together. Della, the ex-deb discovered, was a regular Who’s Who of the twilight world. She knew everyone there was to know, and enjoyed sharing her expertise. The only time she clammed up was when Maxie asked her about the new mob in town.
“The less I know the better,” she told Maxie shortly. “I don’t want to get the business the way Francine did.”
“What happened to Francine?” Maxie asked, alarmed.
Della looked over her shoulder nervously. “They killed her cats!” she hissed. “You better believe she’s paying up now. But the big boss is still punishing her—got her place shut down on a health violation.”
Maxie didn’t know which horrified her more, that Francine’s was shuttered or that her mother and Lon might be mixed up with a bunch of cat killers. Action seemed more urgent than ever, but all she could do was watch and wait.
And while she was waiting, Maxie was making money. She was pleasantly surprised, at the end of the first night, at how those nickels and dimes and quarter tips added up. And there was none of the nonsense about tax deductions she’d had at her other jobs. Everything at the Knock Knock was “under the table,” Della told Maxie. Maxie had managed to sneak a look at the books, and, as far as she could tell, Stella’s roman à clef had more relation to reality than the Knock Knock’s accounting.
“I think they’re using the joint as some sort of money-laundering operation,” she reported to Kathy. They were in the lounge, deserted at two thirty A.M., and Maxie was making her nightly report.
“Who keeps the books?” Kathy questioned. “Is Lon involved? Maybe she’d flip if threatened with a tax beef.” The aspiring agent furrowed her brow thoughtfully.
Maxie said hastily, “I’m not sure who does the books—I told you, Lon’s just a baggirl, as far as I can tell. Why don’t you put the pressure on Pete the pawnbroker? I hear he’s some sort of fence for the Finns.”
Kathy shook her head. “The mob’s using Pete’s pawnshop for a message center. We’re going to plant a bug there, not close it up.”
Maxie thought of her mother and the butterfly brooch with a sinking feeling. Her pawned jewelry must have been some kind of message to the mob!
If she hadn’t been worried about her mother’s criminal activities, Maxie would have thought that life was looking up. She slept in every day, and was paid to go to a gay bar every night, where her friends were always dropping by.
One day Dolly slid onto a stool, making her usual complaint: “I should be drinking at Le Cheval for these prices! When is Francine’s going to reopen?” But she was too eager to share the latest gossip to keep it up. “Lois left for Loon Lake this morning,” she reported. “And guess who went with her?”
“Who?” Maxie was wiping down the bar.<
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Dolly paused for dramatic effect. “Pamela!”
“So?” Maxie said, puzzled.
“Don’t you get it?” Dolly exclaimed. “Can’t you see where this is going?”
Maxie hooted. “You think they’re going to come back a couple? Dolly, this soap opera you’re on has gone to your head!” Dolly had picked up a bit part in a daytime drama, playing a visiting nurse.
The actress shrugged. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“It’s not that I’d mind, it’s just unlikely,” Maxie explained, sorting out her thoughts. “Lois is too devastated. She’s not thinking of new love now. Besides, she and Pamela have already worked through that old high school crush. They’re just good friends.”
The busgirl went to pick up the empties. She didn’t want to boast, but Maxie was also sure Pamela would be slow to move on as well. She and Maxie had shared a special something for so many years, after all. Wouldn’t it be nice, Maxie thought, if she and the savvy merchandiser could learn to enjoy each other’s company in a carnal way, without all the silly ideas—faithfulness, shared values, a future together—that had tripped them up so often?
Dolly had finished her drink. “Oh—I almost forgot. Janet called again. She said to please call her back this time.”
“I will,” promised Maxie. It was hard to remember to call the young lawyer, when she never got to bed before three A.M. and was up only after Janet was busy at her new job. “I’ll call her this evening,” she said.
But something always seemed to happen that made Maxie forget her promise. That night she was wiping down the tables and wondering if maybe this was the perfect job for her, when a dark-haired woman smiled at her tentatively. It took Maxie a second to recognize the tempestuous Tanya. Tonight, the tangled beehive had been tamed and no longer towered above the vixen’s visage. “Won’t you join me for a moment?” she asked Maxie.
Maxie looked at Tanya’s glass. The tigress was drinking beer. She shrugged and sat down.
