The Corpse Without a Country

by Louis Trimble

  Seeing her boy friend writhing on the floor apparently brought Emily to life. She forgot that as a beatnik she was supposed to be indifferent to everything, and she backslid. She came out of her chair and hurled a husky one hundred and forty pounds at Jodi.

  I thought she would smother Jodi, who wouldn’t weigh one-ten in a diver’s lead shoes. But Arne hadn’t raised his daughter to be a patsy. Jodi disappeared, and then Emily’s bulk was in the air, lifted by leverage and its own momentum. Emily came down on a tabletop on her back, arms and legs spread. The table gave up and flattened itself.

  Emily lifted her head and began to cry. Ridley Trillian hoisted himself up and staggered to his chair and sat down, leaving her to her blubbering. She finally got herself to her feet and joined him.

  Willie came and set down our coffee. The other ghouls sat and looked indifferent, just the way the rule book said they should.

  Willie said, “Four bits and two cents tax.”

  I paid. Jodi lit two cigarettes and passed me one. It tasted of her lipstick. I liked the flavor. I sipped my coffee. It was in a thick mug. I was hoping Ridley would try another move. I wanted to heave the cup at him.

  But he wasn’t going to move anything but his jaw muscles for a while. He said, “What do you want here, Dad?”

  “I came to discuss poetic imagery with Emily,” I said. I paused long enough to sip more coffee. Then I added, “Before the police come to discuss it with her.”

  I was just trying to stir something up. My words didn’t really mean anything. Not to me, that is. They seemed to mean a lot to Emily. She opened her mouth and a whimper oozed out. She looked at me and whimpered louder. Then she got up and ran. She was still whimpering when she went through black curtains at the rear of the room.

  I went after her. Behind the curtains was a hallway. To my right a door opened onto a lighted room. I could see oil paintings on the walls. Some of them looked pretty good. To my left was a door marked Toilet. At the end of the hall was a red light over a fire exit.

  I rapped on the toilet door. “You can’t hide forever, Emily.”

  I didn’t find out whether I’d scared her enough or not. The curtains parted and Ridley appeared. He wasn’t moving very fast but he came steadily.

  “Blow. She doesn’t want to talk to you. So blow, Dad.”

  I said, “Let’s grow up. Don’t you professional creeps ever mature? How long are all the fads and childish lingo going to appeal to the ruts you have for brains? This year everyone is ‘Dad’; and I suppose I’m square and you’re hep or cool. What pseudo-intellectual toys will you find to play with next year?”

  His cheeks blossomed pink. I said, “And you’ve got a lot of guts, taking money for imposing your atrophied mentality on college students who put out good money and time to learn about poetry from you.”

  Two little dribbles of foam ran down from the corners of his mouth. I cocked my left leg, my eyes on his groin. He took a sideways step and went through the toilet door. I got my foot in the way and followed.

  That room was something. Not very big, it managed to house all the amenities without bothering with the division of the sexes. There was a urinal against one wall and an open-booth toilet next to it and a shower nozzle across the room. Under the nozzle was a drain. Emily was standing there, one hand pressed to her mouth.

  Her skin was a dirty gray and her eyes were full of sick fear as she stared at me. Ridley gave her a look that sent her pressing back and trying to squeeze through the cement wall.

  He walked to the toilet, reached behind the tank, and came up with a gun. He pointed it at me. “Blow, Dad.”

  I started toward him. I didn’t think he was the kind of man who would kill in cold blood. If he held his ground, I was going to change my mind and do what he said—‘blow.’

  The gun muzzle wavered, then stiffened. I stopped. The door behind me opened. Ridley put the gun in his pocket and took a step toward me. I heard something swish in back of my head. I tried to turn. Ridley moved in, clobbering my jaw with his fist. I didn’t get to see what was swishing. But I felt it. Ridley’s fist twisted my head one way, and that “something” half took my ear off. I went to my knees.

  The door closed. Ridley and I were alone with Emily. Ridley took another step forward. He lifted a foot covered with a tennis shoe. I was glad he wasn’t a mountain climber. The tennis shoe hit me hard enough. It caught me in the wind. I fell on my side.

  I rolled over and came to my feet. Ridley grinned at me and went to work with his knuckles. I went under them and clinched with him. I hung on while he played tunes on my ribs. I wondered if he thought I was his dulcimer.

  Emily thoughtfully stopped the proceedings. She made a gurgling sound and fainted.

  X

  WHEN EMILY FAINTED, Ridley stopped hammering on me and turned to see what was going on. For a brief moment, he presented me with as fine a view of the side of his jaw as I could want. I didn’t look long; I swung.

  There wasn’t much steam to my punch but it caught Ridley off guard. He tripped over his own feet and fell down. I found the same spot on his jaw with the tip of my shoe. He rolled over on his back and lay there, his mouth open and his eyes closed.

  I went back into the hallway. Jodi was just coming through the curtains, worry furrowing her forehead. She took one look at me, grabbed my arm, and steered me out through the fire exit doorway.

  We were in an alley, rank with the smell of rotting garbage. With me in tow, Jodi picked her way out to the street and down to her car. I had never been so glad to sit down.

  Jodi drove fast, whipping a lot of cold wind into the car. That helped clear my head. So did the three fingers of rye whiskey she had for me after I stretched out on her divan.

  That divan was about eight feet long, and it faced a floor-to-ceiling window. Through the window I could see the dark waters of the canal. To my right, lights outlined the bridge just this side of the Inlet. To my left the canal opened out into the Sound. The water was so close I could almost touch it.

  Jodi brought me more rye. “Like my view?”

  “It almost makes me want to be rich,” I said. I took the rye glass she held out. There were only two fingers, but that was enough. I could feel again. I rubbed my ear, surprised to find that I still had all of it.

  “Do you try to solve all your cases by using yourself for a punching bag?” Jodi asked pleasantly.

  I let that one pass. I said, “Who came into the toilet and set me up for Ridley?”

  “That would be Willie,” Jodi said. “She’s pretty good with a sand-filled leather bungstarter.”

  “You have such interesting friends,” I said dryly.

  “They’re no friends of mine,” she protested. “I met them when I took my paintings down for exhibit. Willie wanted to know me better, but I’m fussy that way.”

  I said, “I feel sorry for Willie if she ever tries to tangle with you.” I was thinking of Emily flying through the air. “You helped me out of two jams tonight. I like the way you work, but remind me never to make a pass at you.”

  “When I want you to, you’ll know it,” she said.

  I said, “Let’s wait until my head settles down, shall we?” and reached for the rye.

  Jodi moved it quickly out of my way. “Enough is enough,” she said. “Those last two remarks didn’t sound like Peter Durham.”

  I said, “I constantly surprise myself. I seem to lose my inhibitions when I’m with you.”

  She mocked me with a grin. “When I did have a crush on you,” she said, “you couldn’t see me at all.”

  “You weren’t a very pleasant character as a kid,” I said. “Greedy, stubborn, spoiled …”

  “I still am,” she said. “I like to have a lot, and when I make up my mind, I’m hard to change.”

  Soft light touched her features and stroked down her figure. She looked deceptively small and helpless. I said, “Maybe you just wear your sins better now.”

  Jodi got up. “I’m going to
make you some coffee,” she said in a positive voice, “and take the rye far away.”

  I leaned my head against the end of the divan and closed my eyes. I must have dozed off. The next thing I recalled was Jodi saying, “Here, drink this.”

  She had a cup of black coffee for me. I sat up and took it from her. She said, “I’ve been thinking—Do you really believe that Emily is involved?”

  “I do,” I said. “I think Ridley smiled at her and she rolled over and barked for him.”

  “Ridley?”

  “Why not? Can’t a poet get mixed up in a racket? Emily isn’t bright enough to have got into trouble on her own. I think he told her to keep him posted as to what went on in our office. And I think the blonde hooked Ridley the same way Ridley hooked Emily—by smiling.”

  “A regular chain,” Jodi said with a faint smile.

  “Sure,” I agreed. “And with Emily as the weak link….”

  I stopped, suddenly aware of the meaning of what I’d said. I thought, Durham, the smart character! I had tipped my hand there at the Pad. Now it was known that I had the finger on Emily.

  I saw a telephone at the end of the divan and grabbed for it. I called Maslin. When I got him, he sounded almost too pleased to hear from me.

  He said with ghoulish pleasure, “Just where are you, Durham?”

  I looked at Jodi. “Where am I?” She gave me the address and I relayed it to Maslin.

  He said, “Just say there.” Then, as an afterthought, “What were you calling about?”

  I told him what I’d just realized. I said, “I’d go to the Pad and get her while you can.”

  “The Pad, huh,” Maslin said. “Well, well,” and he hung up. I dropped the phone back. What he said made no sense at all.

  When I told Jodi, she could only shrug. We sat and worked over the problem. We were still at it when the doorbell rang.

  “That’ll be him now,” she said. “Maybe we can find out what he meant.” She trotted down a hall and out of sight.

  Two minutes of silence later, I realized that Maslin wouldn’t have had time to get here from his office. I turned toward the hall door, my mouth open to call a warning to Jodi.

  I was too late. She was coming back into the living room. Her complexion had lost a lot of its color and her eyes were wide. She looked genuinely afraid. Behind her was the blonde, her dart gun aimed at Jodi’s back. And behind the blonde was the mustard-colored character she had called Mr. Ghatt. He moved with a lot of speed for a man with a crutch and a leg brace.

  I said, “Good evening. Have a cup of coffee.”

  “I prefer to have that report, Mr. Durham.”

  I said, “Madame X, I don’t got no report. I’m sorry as hell, but there it is—the truth at last.”

  She wasn’t amused. She said. “My name is Ilona, please. And I wish the report at once.”

  She pronounced her name European fashion—Ee-loh-nah. It was very pretty. So was her accent, what little she had. So was she, and there was a good deal of her.

  I said, “Didn’t you take the report when you killed Mike Fenney?”

  Ilona stopped. Mr. Ghatt stopped. Jodi came on around the divan and sat beside me. I took her hand. Her palm was moist. I could feel her muscles trembling.

  “I did not come here to joke,” she said.

  “A dead man is no joke,” I assured her.

  Mr. Ghatt swung himself beside Ilona. He spoke to her in a low voice. She said, “The report … now, please. I cannot waste more time.”

  I said, “I haven’t got it. But from what I heard, there isn’t anything important in it anyway. So if I had it, I’d give it to you.”

  That puzzled her. She and Mr. Ghatt whispered at each other some more. Then she said, “I shall have to ask you to come into another room, Mr. Durham.”

  I said, “Just me … alone?”

  She ignored my attempt to be coy. She said, “I wish to examine your clothing, please.”

  Jodi giggled. Mr. Ghatt said in precise, Oxford English, “Do as she says, Mr. Durham, or we shall have to hurt Miss Rasmussen.”

  Jodi stopped giggling.

  She said, “There’s a guest room through that door.” She pointed to the west end of the living room.

  I got up and walked docilely in the direction she pointed.

  XI

  ILONA MANEUVERED ME into the bedroom, turned on the light, and shut the door so smoothly that I knew she was no amateur at this kind of game.

  The room was bright and cheerful, the upholstery and walls in matching pastels, the rug a soft, pale green. It was the kind of room I could have enjoyed being a guest in.

  But not the kind of guest I was right now.

  Ilona sat on the edge of the bed, the gun resting casually on her thigh. She was wearing a pale green dress with classical lines that showed off her striking figure. She was a very beautiful woman.

  I said, “Just what is this all about.”

  Her deep blue eyes were filled with speculation as she studied me. Then she smiled. “Please do not try to fool me with your pretense of innocence, Mr. Durham.”

  I gave up. She had me pegged as something I wasn’t, that was obvious. It was also obvious that nothing I could say would change her mind.

  She said thoughtfully, “You must think a great deal of Miss Rasmussen.”

  “Because I didn’t want your friend hurting her? She’s just an acquaintance. I’d do the same for you or any woman.”

  She mocked me. “How gallant, Peter. May I call you Peter now?”

  I said, “Sure,” wondering just what she was leading up to now.

  She said, “But you know her well.”

  “I knew her father well,” I said. “And I knew her when she was a kid. I haven’t seen her for years until recently.”

  She stood up, leaving the gun on the bed. “If that is so, then perhaps we can be friends.”

  She was within a few feet of me. I could smell her perfume. It wasn’t like Jodi’s, but it was nice and expensive. I started to wonder what she had in mind, then I realized I had no need to wonder. What she was thinking was plain on her face and in her eyes.

  I said, “Do you use a gun to get all the men you want to be friends with?”

  “I have no men friends.”

  “What about Mr. Ghatt?”

  “He is a business colleague.”

  She took a final step that brought her very close to me. I could feel myself sweating a little. The ear Willie had banged began to throb.

  I wondered where Maslin had got to. Right now, I was actually anxious to see him.

  She ran her fingers along my cheek and then rested them just under my eyes. “I can see here that you are a very suspicious man, Peter.”

  I said, “My friend is in the hospital with a broken head. You were out on the Sound near where he got hurt. Shouldn’t I be suspicious?”

  A brief, momentary flicker of hesitation came into those beautiful eyes. Then it was gone and she was all warmth. Not the soppy kind of warmth Emily had displayed in the elevator, but real heat, generated by a very efficient furnace.

  She oozed so closed to me that I could feel the rise and fall of her breathing against my chest. It was quite a sensation. Her fingers stopped stroking my cheek and slipped toward the side of my neck.

  “I like men with big chests,” she said.

  Whatever she was after, she might have got—had I been able to give it to her. She might have got it because I was very susceptible to beautiful women. Only when she ran her fingers up the side of my head to draw my mouth down to hers—waiting warm and inviting—her fingers found the ear Willie had nearly torn off with her sap.

  I yelled, “Jesus!”

  And that broke up the party.

  Ilona bounced away from me as if I’d blown garlic breath in her face. I said, “Sorry, but you grabbed my sore ear.”

  I doubt if she even heard me. She was going for the gun on the bed, apparently on the premise that if she couldn’t get what she want
ed one way, she’d get it another.

  When she reached for the gun I reached for her. I got a handful of slim, silk-covered leg and pulled. She jerked to get free and landed in a sprawl on the bed. I reached for the gun. She rolled over, lowered her head, and sank her teeth into the fleshy part of my palm.

  I forgot she was a lady and therefore possibly fragile. I twisted around and came down on top of her. She kept her teeth in me like a determined bulldog. I tried getting a grip on her hair but my fingers kept slipping through its soft, silky texture. I made a try at gripping a few other places. She didn’t seem to mind. She had her teeth in me and she was going to keep them there.

  I finally clamped my fingers on her lovely nose. She had to let loose to get air. I rolled free, taking my chewed hand with me. She made a dive for me and we went to the floor in a complete tangle.

  Ilona was oblivious to the fact that she was supposed to be a lady and so handicapped for a rough and tumble. She had her legs wrapped in a scissors grip around my waist and she was punching at me with both fists. I finally caught her wrists and held her hands away from me. We lay quietly with her on top, spitting down into my face.

  “You are no gentleman! Release me!”

  It was said with such honest indignation, I laughed. “So you can maul me some more? No thanks.”

  She dipped her head, snapping at the tip of my nose with her teeth. I pulled back just in time or I might have lost a fair-sized piece of my anatomy. And when she did that, something left me. Whatever inhibitions I might have had regarding Ilona went off into limbo. There was just nothing fragile about this lady.

  I said, “When you’re angry like this, you’re more beautiful than ever.”

  I released her right wrist, got my hand on the back of her neck and pulled. Her entire weight came down on me and her face was pressed to mine. This time I was the one who started a kiss. And I finished it.

  She got her hand in my hair and started to pull herself free. But I was stronger. After a minute I could feel her starting to relax. Her lips softened up. The rigidity of resistance left her body. Then she stopped relaxing, but there was a different kind of tension in her now. Her breath quickened, catching up with mine.