1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead

by James Hadley Chase

  Her mouth tightened and two little spots of red showed on her thin, pale cheeks.

  ‘How did you get in here?’ she demanded angrily.

  ‘I climbed a wall,’ I told her. ‘And look, don’t let’s waste a nice morning getting cross with each other. I want to see your father.’

  ‘He’s not here. Will you please go away?’

  ‘Then perhaps I could have a word with Mrs. Cerf?’

  ‘She’s not here either.’

  ‘That’s too bad. I have a diamond necklace of hers.’

  The spoon she was toying with clattered into the saucer. I saw her clench her fists.

  ‘Will you please go!’ she said, raising her voice and leaning forward in her chair.

  ‘But I want to return the necklace. It’s valuable. Can’t you tell me where I can find her?’

  ‘I don’t know nor do I care,’ she cried and pointed with a shaking finger towards the main entrance. ‘Now get out or I’ll have you thrown out!’

  ‘I don’t want to annoy you,’ I said, ‘but this is a lot more serious than you realize. Your father hired a woman operator of mine to watch Mrs. Cerf. While she was watching Mrs. Cerf she was murdered. Mrs. Cerf s necklace was found in the girl’s room.’

  She turned suddenly so I couldn’t see her face and reached for a holdall, dipped into it and produced a cigarette case and lighter. She lit a cigarette with a hand that was not too steady, keeping her face turned from me while she did so.

  ‘I’m not interested in Mrs. Cerf’s affairs,’ she said in a much quieter and subdued voice. ‘I told you to get out.’

  ‘I thought you might possibly be interested to know that the police didn’t find the necklace,’ I said casually. ‘If you’ll tell me where I can find Mrs. Cerf I’d like to put her mind at rest too.’

  She looked up sharply, her face as expressionless and as white as a freshly laundered sheet. She started to say something then stopped and her eyes narrowed, and she looked like a cat that’s seen a movement and knows there’s a mouse around. I swung round on my heels.

  The bright boy, Mills, was standing a few yards to the right and behind me, his black gauntlets, doubled into fists, rested lightly on his slim hips. He looked faintly amused, the way Joe Louis might have looked if a midget had socked him on the nose: full of confidence, too much confidence: the kind of confidence that made you wonder what was coming and wish you had a gun or a club instead of just your bare fists.

  ‘There you are, Mac,’ he said. ‘I thought I told you to fade.’

  ‘See him off the premises!’ Natalie snapped as imperious as a heroine in a Victorian novel. ‘And he’s never to come here again!’

  Mills looked at me out of the corners of his eyes. There was a half-smirk on his thin mouth.

  ‘He won’t,’ he said languidly. ‘That’s one thing you can bet on. Come on, Mac. Let’s take a little walk to the gate.’

  I glanced at Natalie, but she was buttering toast, no longer interested, the blank, lonely look back on her face. If they ever handed out an Oscar for a brush-off they’d give it to her without even a show of hands.

  ‘I don’t want to be a bore about this,’ I said to her, ‘but it would save time and trouble if you could tell me where Mrs. Cerf is to be found.’

  I might just as well have addressed the Great Wall of China for all the attention she paid me.

  The bright boy began to close in on me.

  ‘On your way, Mac,’ he said coaxingly. ‘You and me together.’

  ‘Now look . . . ‘ I began, but stopped short as his fist hit me in the mouth. It wasn’t what you call a heavy punch, but it was fast. I didn’t see it coming, and that should have warned me. It hurt as it was meant to hurt, but it didn’t even rock me.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, touching my bruised lips. ‘Let’s go down to the gate. If that’s how you feel maybe I can sublimate your repressions.’

  I was so mad I didn’t even look at Natalie Cerf - I went down the steps fast. He followed me. I was sure I could take him. I was four inches taller and about twenty pounds heavier and was thirsting for his blood.

  He kept his distance, and we arrived at the main entrance still two or three yards apart. At the gate I turned and waited for him. He still looked languid, and that irritated me, because guys don’t look languid when I’m going to sock them.

  He moved in lightly, and I feinted with my left to bring his hands down and let go a right to his jaw that should have taken his head off his shoulders. It was a nice punch; one of my very best, and one that had never been known to fail before. It was well timed and it didn’t travel more than a foot. It wasn’t telegraphed and was a shade faster than a flash of lightning, but it missed him by a good three inches and the impetus brought me forward so all he had to do was to step in close and hit me. He slammed in five quick ones a little south of my belt with the force and speed of a rivet-gun.

  I was out on my feet. My breath exploded at the back of my throat, my knees went and I stood there, trying to stand up. The right he tossed over was a languid affair. I could see it coming all the way, but I couldn’t do anything about it. It exploded on my jaw with the impact of a sledgehammer. I came out of a black wave of nausea to find myself lying flat on my back, staring up at the cottonwool clouds that floated serenely in the morning sky.

  ‘Don’t call again, Mac,’ a voice said a long way off. ‘We don’t like your kind around here, so spare us the visit.’

  I vaguely made out the dapper figure standing over me, then something that could have been his boot smashed into my neck and I went out like a flame in the wind.

  IV

  There was a cop sitting astride a motor cycle when I pulled up outside my cabin. He had the resigned, bored look on his big, fleshy face of a man who expects a long wait, and is going to wait come snow, come sunshine.

  When he saw me he gave a half-smirk, got off his machine, jacked it up on its rest and came over.

  I had been cursing steadily all the way from the Santa Rosa Estate, and although now drained of expletives I was still mad. My neck felt as if it had been boffed by the fiat side of a battleaxe, and there was a ring of soreness around my middle that added fuel to my rage.

  I was more mad at myself than I was at Mills. To have allowed a half-grown Dead End Kid to kick me around was something that hurt my pride, and when a Malloy’s pride gets hurt the Klu KIux Klan rides again.

  ‘And what do you want?’ I demanded, tough enough to chew a mouthful of nails. ‘I’ve got enough grief without a cop adding to it, so say your little piece and dust.’

  The cop grinned sympathetically as he eyed the black and green bruise on the side of my neck. He whistled softly and shook his head.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, folding his arms on the car door and leaning his weight on them. ‘Horse kick you?’

  ‘A horse?’ I said sarcastically. ‘Think a horse’d mark me up like this? You know that steam hammer working on the corner of Rossmore and Jefferson?’

  He said he did, his eyes opening wide.

  ‘Well, I stuck my neck between that and the anvil and took a few whams to show me how tough I am.’

  He digested this slowly. He was the kind who’d believe anything he was told, even if someone said he was handsome. But after a while, the nickel dropped, and he decided I was kidding.

  ‘Wise guy, huh?’ he said, grinning. ‘Well, okay. It’s your neck. The Captain wants you at Headquarters. He told me to bring you in.’

  ‘You go back and tell him I’ve better things to do than waste time with a buzzard like him,’ I said, preparing to get out of the car. ‘This is a snobby town, and I’ve got to be careful who I mix with.’

  ‘He said either to bring you in or carry you in: please yourself,’ the cop said amiably. ‘If the old man says carry you in he means I can sock you on the conk with my skull-bender. Pity to add to your bruises, Bud.’

  ‘He can’t talk that way to me!’ I said
indignantly.

  ‘Funny, but he thinks he can,’ the cop returned, grinning.

  He seemed a good-natured, friendly guy, so I grinned back at him. ‘He only wants to have a little talk about this killing last night. Better come, Bud.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, and trod on the starter. ‘But one of these days I’ll meet that jerk up a dark alley and I hope I have my spiked boots on when I do.’

  ‘Yeah,’ the cop said, starting his engine. ‘I hope so too.’

  ‘And listen, Jock,’ I shouted above the roar of his engine. ‘If I’m coming, I’m coming in style, so set your siren going.’

  And we went in style. It was fun driving through the crowded streets at sixty miles an hour with the cop in front blasting the traffic out of the way with his siren. We crashed every red light, beat up a good dozen motorists, turned right when it said No Right Turn, and set everyone we met gaping at us.

  When we pulled up outside Police Headquarters the cop grinned at me over his shoulder.

  ‘Okay?’ he asked, hoisting his machine up on its rest. ‘Was that stylish enough for you?’

  ‘Pretty good,’ I said, getting out of the car. ‘We’ll try it again some time. I needed something like that to get rid of my bile.’

  I found Mifflin in the lobby, a worried frown on his flat, red face.

  ‘Hello, Mike,’ I said. ‘What’s cooking?’

  ‘The Captain wants you,’ Mifflin said. ‘Treat him nice and smooth. He reckons you know more than you’ve told us about this killing, and he’s in a mood to tame alligators. So watch yourself.’

  I followed him up the stone stairs, along a corridor to a door marked: Edwin Brandon, Captain of Police.

  Mifflin tapped on the door as if it were made of eggshells, opened it and waved me in.

  The room was big and airy and well furnished. There was a nice Turkey rug to cover the floor, several easy chairs, one or two reproductions of Van Gogh’s country scenes on the walls, and a big desk in the corner of the room between the two windows, one that overlooked the harbour and the other that gave on to a panorama of the business section of the city. Behind the desk sat Brandon, and just in case you didn’t know who he was and what he did there was a gold and mahogany sign on his desk facing you that read Edwin Brandon. Captain of Police.

  Brandon was a man around the wrong side of fifty, short, inclined to fat, with a lot of thick hair as white as a dove’s back, and eyes that were as animated and as friendly as a couple of river-washed pebbles.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said, waving a fat white hand to an easy chair by the desk. ‘I thought it was time we had a little talk.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, and lowered myself carefully into the chair.

  The muscles in my belly winced as I sat down and I winced with them.

  This was the first time I had any dealings with Brandon.

  I’d seen him on the streets, but had never talked to him, and I looked him over as curiously as he was looking me over.

  Mifflin stood by the door and stared up at the ceiling, as quiet as a corpse in a grave. It was said that Brandon was a hard man, and the detectives under him were scared of him and the patrolmen had a horror of him. Judging by Mifflin’s subdued stillness this seemed no exaggeration.

  ‘What do you know about this murder last night?’ Brandon began.

  ‘Not a thing,’ I said. ‘I was there when Mifflin found her, but that’s where it begins and ends.’

  He opened his desk drawer and produced a box of cigars.

  ‘What do you make of it?’ he asked, peering at the cigars as if he suspected someone had been helping themselves.

  ‘Looks like a sex killing to me.’

  He looked up to stare at me thoughtfully, then turned his attention once more to the cigar-box.

  ‘The medical evidence says not,’ he said. ‘No assault, no bruising, no sign of a struggle. She was stripped after she was shot.’

  I watched him select a cigar, lay it on the desk and put the box away. I had an idea he wasn’t going to offer the cigar to me. I was right.

  ‘I understand Miss Lewis worked with you on any assignment you happened to be handling,’ he said, touching the cigar with tender fingertips. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘So you would know a little more about her than most people?’ he went on, unpeeling the band from the cigar, frowning as if that was all he was interested in at the moment.

  ‘Well, I guess I know as much, but not necessarily more about her than most people.’

  ‘Would you say she had enemies?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘A lover?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  He glanced up.

  ‘Would you know?’

  ‘Not unless she told me. She didn’t.’

  ‘Have you any idea why she should be out at East Beach at that time?’

  ‘What time would that be?’

  ‘As near twelve-thirty as makes no difference.’ He had removed the band now and was fumbling for a match.

  ‘No, I don’t know.’

  ‘She hadn’t been to see you, had she?’

  I said she hadn’t, and by the odd look he gave me it occurred to me he was likely to groom me for the killer if I didn’t watch out.

  ‘But she had to pass your place to get to where she was killed, didn’t she? It seems funny she didn’t look in on you.’

  ‘We worked together, Captain,’ I said mildly. ‘We didn’t sleep together.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Maybe there are some guys who don’t know who they sleep with, but I do. Yeah, I’m sure about it.’

  He found a match, scraped it on his shoe and lit the cigar.

  ‘What were you doing between eleven-thirty and twelve-thirty last night?’

  ‘I was asleep.’

  ‘You didn’t hear the shot?’

  ‘When I sleep, I sleep.’

  He looked suspiciously at the cigar, turned it between his white, fat fingers and eased himself farther down in the swivelled chair. I had an idea he was enjoying himself.

  ‘Did you have any visitors last night?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A dame. She had nothing to do with this murder, and she’s married. Sorry, Captain, but you don’t get her name.’

  ‘Was she a tall blonde in a flame-coloured evening dress?’ he asked abruptly and leaned over his desk to peer at me.

  I was expecting him to jump something on me, otherwise he wouldn’t have questioned me personally, so I was ready for him, but for all that I was glad most of my spare evenings were spent in playing poker for stakes I couldn’t afford. I just managed to keep my face expressionless, but only just.

  ‘She was a redhead,’ I said. ‘Who’s the blonde?’

  He studied me thoughtfully.

  ‘You told Mifflin Miss Lewis wasn’t working on any particular assignment,’ he said, shooting off at a tangent. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘If I told Mifflin that then it’s right.’

  ‘Not necessarily. You might be protecting a client.’

  I looked past him to admire the harbour. It looked nice in the morning sun.

  ‘I’m not doing that,’ I said, because he seemed to expect me to say something.

  ‘If I find out you are protecting a client, Malloy,’ he said, a sudden snarl in his voice. ‘I’ll slam your itsy-bitsy organization shut, and hang an accessory rap on you so fast you’d be doing time before you know you’d been tried.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to find that out first, won’t you?’ I returned shortly. He leaned forward to scowl at me. Seeing him like that I could understand why his detectives were scared of him. He looked as pleasant and as sociable as a black mamba.

  ‘We’re not getting anywhere with this investigation, Malloy, because you are trying to play it the smart way. But you can’t fool m
e. Miss Lewis was working for a client of yours and got killed. You’re covering up a killer!’

  ‘I didn’t say so,’ I said calmly. ‘It’s your story, and you may be stuck with it.’

  Mifflin made a slight movement like a man in agony, but when Brandon swung around and glared at him, he stiffened once more into his corpse-like trance.

  ‘Who’s this blonde?’ Brandon went on to me. ‘She was seen at Dana Lewis’s apartment last night. Who is she?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘She was a rich woman, Malloy. She had on a valuable diamond necklace. I want to know who she is and what she was doing with this Lewis girl. You’d better talk.’

  ‘I still don’t know,’ I said, meeting his hard scrutiny.

  ‘Well, I think that woman is the client you’re covering up. That’s what I think.’

  ‘It’s a free country. You can think what you like.’

  He bit on the cigar, then said in a quieter tone, ‘Now look, Malloy. Let’s put it this way. I don’t know what you make out of this racket, but it can’t be much. There are plenty of jobs a fella like you can do, and make better money. Why don’t you get wise? Tell me who this client is and put yourself in the clear. I know all about this secrecy guarantee of yours. That’s a bit of shop window dressing, and all right as far as it goes, but you didn’t intend it to cover murder. All right, if you withdraw the guarantee, maybe you’ll have to close down. So what? That would be better and safer than being caught with an accessory rap, wouldn’t it? Come on, tell me who she is and I’ll see you right.’

  ‘You can’t expect me to know every woman in town who wears a diamond necklace,’ I said. ‘I’ve no idea who she is. Sorry, Captain, you have the wrong angle about this.’

  Brandon laid down his cigar. His face tightened and he stared at me with hot, angry eyes.

  ‘Is that your last word?’

  ‘I guess so,’ I said, easing myself out of the chair. ‘If I could help you I would, but I can’t. I have to run along now, unless there’s anything else I can do for you.’

  ‘You think you’re smart, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Well, we’ll see. From now on, watch your step. The next time you come in here you won’t get out so fast, and you’ll have a talk with my wrecking crew. We have lots of ways of softening up a punk like you.’