1949 - You're Lonely When You Dead

by James Hadley Chase

  We had decided that if anyone happened to be in the shop they would have to be taken care of, and Kerman had brought along his gun. He was a little self-conscious of it as he had never shot with it nor did he have any cartridges for it. I said it didn’t matter so long as Louis didn’t produce a gun of his own. Kerman’s gun looked all right: it looked vicious No one, unless they were out of their minds, would argue with it.

  Kerman said bitterly that we would look a couple of suckers if Thayler turned up and started some trick shooting.

  I guess he was right, but I didn’t tell him so.

  As soon as we were in the shop, Kerman stuck the notice on the door, and as he shot the two bolts a girl in a slinky black dress and with a figure like an hour-glass came down the passage, through the changing-room into the outer room. She was hard and blonde and brassy, and switched on a mechanical smile when she saw us, although her eyes looked bored.

  ‘Was there something?’ she asked, resting her hands on the counter. She had bright scarlet nails, and her fingers were grubby. When you looked closer the rest of her was grubby too.

  ‘Why, sure,’ I said, tipping my hat. ‘We thought it would be nice to be photographed. Can you fix it?’

  Kerman said, ‘I’ll let you have a copy of mine to keep you warm nights if it’s a good likeness.’

  The blonde’s bored eye blinked and she looked questioningly from Kerman to me.

  ‘I’m afraid Mr. Louis is engaged right now. I can make an appointment,’ she said, and languidly patted her back curls.

  ‘We’re in a hurry,’ I said, looked at Kerman and nodded.

  Kerman produced his gun with a flourish and pointed it at the blonde.

  ‘Don’t squawk, sister,’ he said in a voice that sounded like someone ripping calico. ‘This is a stick-up!’

  The blonde recoiled, her eyes popping and her mouth opened to scream. I poked her hard with my index finger in her midriff and the breath came out of her with a hiss like a punctured tyre. She doubled up over the counter.

  It took us about a minute and a half to tie her hands and feet and gag her with the cords and gag we had brought with us. Then we put her under the counter, found a pillow for her head and told her to take it easy. Her eyes weren’t bored any more: they were black explosions of fury.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Kerman. ‘You’re doing fine.’

  ‘What really excites me,’ he said, as he moved after me, ‘is the thought a copper might crash in here and mistake me for a gunman. I guess a little thing like that hadn’t crossed your mind?’

  I motioned him to silence, crept down the passage to a door at the far end, opened it and looked in.

  The studio was fair sized and workmanlike. The usual portrait camera stood on its wooden tripod facing a backcloth of grey-painted canvas. Two big arc lamps on wheels stood on either side of the camera. There was a table with a raised drawing-board against the wall and a man in a white smock and a blue beret sat at the table, working on a collection of glossy prints. He was tall, weedy, effeminate, and had a black chin beard. His complexion was the colour of old parchment, and his lips were thick and red against the black-ness of his beard and moustache: not a pleasant specimen.

  When he saw us he dropped the paint brush he was working with and his hand shot into a drawer of the table.

  ‘Hold it!’ Kerman snarled, threatening him with his gun.

  The hand hovered above the drawer. The bearded face turned a greenish tinge. I went over and took a small automatic from the drawer and shoved it into my hip pocket.

  ‘Hello,’ I said, and brought my fist down as hard as I could into the hollow between his neck and right shoulder. The blow drove him off his chair on to the floor. I bent over him, gathered him up and stood him on his feet, then I hauled off and hit him on the bridge of his nose. He went shooting across the studio, collided with the camera and landed up on the floor with the camera on top of him.

  Kerman sat on the edge of the table.

  ‘Be careful you don’t hurt him,’ he said.

  ‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t got any feelings. Have you, you heel?’

  Louis made no effort to get up so I went over to him, picked the camera up, and holding it by its tripod, slammed it down on his chest. He gave a gurgling scream as the camera flew off the head of the tripod and went whizzing across the room. One of the tripod’s legs came off. I threw the other bits away, took the leg in both hands and hit him with it as he tried to get up.

  Kerman slid off the table

  ‘Do you think he wants his camera?’ he asked.

  ‘He won’t want anything when I’m through with him,’ I said breathlessly, and bashed Louis again.

  Kerman went over and stamped on the camera until it was in small pieces.

  ‘I don’t see why you should have all the fun,’ he said.

  We drew off to recover our breath.

  Louis cowered on the floor, his hands covering his face, scarcely breathing. He looked like a man waiting for a bomb to drop on him.

  While I was getting my second wind I examined the prints he had been working on. They weren’t nice pictures. They confirmed Nedick’s theory that Louis was a blackmailer.

  As nothing more happened to him, Louis began to crawl to his feet, but when I turned, he flopped back on to the floor again. He had as much spine as a plate of porridge.

  ‘Why’d you kill Benny?’ I asked, standing over to him.

  The small eyes twitched. Breath made a rattling sound in the long scraggy throat.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The voice came in a whisper: like an echo in a tunnel.

  ‘I kicked the white smock. It was a good kick. It moved the weedy figure about three yards.

  ‘Why did you kill Benny?’ I repeated.

  He didn’t say anything. He groaned instead.

  I kicked him again.

  ‘Maybe he thinks we’re fooling,’ Kerman said, coming over to watch. ‘Some guys need an awful lot of persuasion before they talk.’

  ‘This one won’t,’ I said, reached down and pulled Louis to his feet. His legs were rubbery and he started to fall, but I managed to keep him upright long enough for Kerman to take a sock at him. He went flying across the room and smashed through the grey painted backcloth.

  Kerman said, ‘Hey! Do you see what I see?’

  He reached under the table and produced a blow-lamp.

  ‘Now that is something,’ I said. ‘Get it going.’

  I ripped the rest of the backcloth out of its frame, collected Louis and dragged him back to the middle of the studio by his ankles.

  There was a property couch at the back of the studio. I pushed that alongside Louis.

  ‘Let’s get him on here,’ I said.

  Kerman gave the blow-lamp a few quick pumps until the flame began to roar out of the spout, then he came over and caught hold of Louis. We got him on the couch and I sat on his chest.

  Fever sweat had broken out on his face. He glared up at me, his eyes wild with panic.

  ‘I’m not going to waste a lot of time on you,’ I said. ‘We’re here to find out what happened to Benny, and we’re going to find out. I know you, Thayler and Anita Gay are all hooked up together, and I know Benny came here yesterday. If you don t talk you’re in for a bad time. Benny was a pal of mine. I don’t care two hoots what happens to you. You’ll talk or you’ll get hurt. Now, why did you kill Benny?’

  ‘I don’t know Benny. I swear it!’ Louis gasped.

  ‘He doesn’t even know Benny,’ I said to Kerman.

  ‘This is just the thing to help his memory,’ Kerman said, picking up the blow-lamp.

  ‘Do you want to get burned?’ I asked Louis.

  ‘I don’t know him!’ Louis squealed, and began to struggle. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

  ‘You’ll change your ideas in a second, you louse,’ Kerman said, and played the flame on Lo
uis’s shoes.

  After a few moments of this Louis suddenly stiffened, arching his chest, his eyes bulging and sweat jumping out of his face like a squeezed sponge. I had trouble in keeping him down, and the noise he made started my head aching again.

  ‘Why did you kill Benny?’ I asked, signalling Kerman to lay off. The studio stank of burned leather.

  ‘I didn’t . . . I swear I know nothing about it,’ Louis groaned. The muscles of his legs were twitching and his head rolled on the padded back of the couch.

  ‘Give him a good dose this time,’ I said savagely.

  Kerman gave him a good dose. Louis screamed so loud I had to cram his beret in his mouth.

  ‘Does it matter if I lame him for life?’ Kerman asked.

  ‘Not to me, but hold it until I see if he’s changed his mind. The smell’s bothering me.’

  ‘We ought to have brought a bottle of Scotch with us,’ Kerman said. ‘I’ve got a weak stomach.’

  I took the beret out of Louis’s mouth.

  “Why did you kill Benny?’ I asked.

  ‘It was Thayler,’ he said so faintly I could scarcely hear him.

  ‘I think he’s going to talk,’ I said. ‘But keep the lamp handy in case his memory goes.’ I stood up. ‘What happened?’ I asked Louis.

  It took a little time to get it out of him, and Kerman had to burn him once or twice when he seemed reluctant to go into details, but we finally got it out of him.

  Benny had called at the shop a little after five o’clock the previous evening. Obviously from what Louis said, Benny had no idea he was walking into trouble. He had shown Louis Anita’s photograph and had asked him what he knew about her.

  ‘Thayler was there,’ Louis said, sweat running down his face. ‘He was listening behind the curtain. He came out with a gun. I searched Benny and found out where he was from. Anita had told Thayler about Universal Services. Thayler sapped Benny and took him away in his car. I don’t know what happened to him. I swear that’s all I know.’

  That was when Kerman gave him the lamp again.

  ‘Where’s Thayler now?’ I asked.

  Louis said something but I couldn’t hear.

  ‘I think this punk could do with a drink,’ I said.

  ‘I know I could,’ Kerman grumbled and began to look around the studio. After a while he discovered a bottle of Scotch and some glasses in a cupboard. He poured three drinks, gave me one, set one on the table for himself and threw the third in Louis’s face.

  ‘Where’s Thayler now?’ I asked, after I had taken a drink.

  It wasn’t bad whisky: not good, but drinkable.

  ‘He’s gone to see Anita,’ Louis managed to get out.

  ‘When did he go?’

  ‘He caught the ten o’clock plane last night.’

  ‘You’ll have to speak up,’ I said. ‘You asked for this, and you’ve got it. Did you know he tied Benny’s hand and feet and threw him in the Indian Basin?’

  The thin, pain-ridden face blanched.

  ‘No.’

  I was inclined to believe him.

  I said, ‘Thayler and Anita were married, weren’t they?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Did you know she married a guy called Cerf about two months ago?’

  His eyes shifted, but as soon as he said he didn’t know Cerf, Kerman reached for the lamp, and he howled out, ‘Yes, I knew. It was Thayler’s idea. Thayler said she could make a lot of money out of Cerf.’

  ‘Was she scared of Thayler?’

  He looked blank.

  ‘She hadn’t any need to be.’

  ‘They quarrelled and parted, didn’t they?’

  ‘That was nothing. They were always quarrelling. When she met Cerf she came here and asked Thayler what she was to do. He told her to marry the guy and get as much out of him as she could. He said he’d keep his mouth shut if she paid him a cut.’

  ‘What do you know about Gail Bolus?’

  He licked his dry lip, shaking his head.

  ‘Only she worked with Thayler before he met Anita. I never met her.’

  ‘Is she in this racket?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘This isn’t Thayler’s first trip to Orchid City, is it?’

  He hesitated, but as soon as Kerman made a move he said hurriedly, ‘No. He went out there two nights ago. He got worried when Anita called him on long distance and told him she was being watched. He went to see her, but he didn’t contact her.’

  ‘He came back here?’

  ‘Yes. He was nervous. He said the girl who had been watching Anita had been shot. He thought he was better out of the way. He was worried he didn’t find Anita.’

  ‘Didn’t he tell her he was coming?’

  ‘No. He had this call from her and she asked him to come, but he had a job to do. Then when she hung up he changed his mind, and decided to go and find out what was happening.’

  ‘Is he coming back here?’

  ‘Yes’

  ‘When?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘Anita was shot last night.’

  He flinched, and his small eyes receded in their sockets.

  ‘Shot? Is she dead?’

  ‘Yeah. There was a Colt .45 found near her. What gun did Thayler use?’

  ‘I don’t know. A big gun. I don’t know anything about guns.’

  I shrugged and moved away from him.

  ‘I can’t think of anything else, can you?’ I asked Kerman.

  Kerman shook his head.

  ‘What shall we do with the rat?’

  ‘I’ll fix him. Give me those photographs on the desk.’

  Kerman picked up the prints, glanced at them, grimaced, and handed them to me.

  ‘Here, write your name on the back of these,’ I said to Louis.

  As Kerman reached for the blow-lamp, Louis hurriedly scrawled his name on the back of each print. I took them from him, slipped them into an envelope I found on the table, scribbled D.D.C. Dunnigan’s name on the envelope and put it in my pocket.

  ‘I’m handing these to Police Headquarters,’ I told Louis. ‘They’ve been waiting to get their hooks into you.’ I turned to Kerman. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

  Kerman stood over Louis.

  ‘Benny was a pal of mine,’ he said, in a low, flat voice.

  ‘Here’s something to remember him by,’ and he shoved the flame of the blow-lamp in Louis’s face.

  chapter eight

  I

  I arrived back at Orchid City as dusk was falling and went straight to the office. Paula was still there, and as I pushed open the office door she glanced up from a paper-strewn desk with an expression of relief and expectancy on her face.

  ‘What news?’ she asked. ‘And how’s the head?’

  ‘The head could do with a drop of Scotch,’ I told her, dropping into an armchair near her desk. ‘Be a nice girl and fix me a drink. Things are popping, but there’s some way to go yet. At least I know who killed Benny. A guy named Lee Thayler. He’s either here in Orchid City or he’s returned to Frisco. I’ve left Kerman to watch that end.’

  ‘Thayler?’ Paula repeated, as she opened the desk cupboard and hoisted into view a bottle of Haig, a glass and a carafe of water. ‘Who’s he and where does he fit in?’

  ‘He’s Anita’s husband,’ I said, reaching for the bottle. ‘I haven’t found him yet, but I’m going after him. I may run into a little trouble with him. He’s kind of cute with a rod. Maybe it’d be an idea for you to make a few notes just in case. If I step into anything too big to handle it will help Mifflin to clear up the mess to know some of the facts. But don’t tell him anything unless things do happen.’

  Paula stared at me; her dark eyes opening wide.

  ‘Now don’t get excited,’ I said, pouring myself a drink.

  ‘This is just a precaution. Got your notebook?’

  ‘But, Vic . . . ‘ she beg
an, but I waved her to silence.

  ‘I want this down fast. I haven’t a lot of time to waste.’

  She pulled her notebook towards her and picked up her pencil.

  ‘Go ahead,’ she said, a resigned expression on her face. ‘I’m ready when you are.’

  ‘The scene is San Francisco,’ I began; ‘the time two years ago in early June.’ I watched her pencil fly over the page, making sure I wasn’t going too fast for her. ‘A strip-tease artist, calling herself Anita Broda, blows into town from Hollywood. Her act has been a little raw for Hollywood’s night clubs, and the Vice Squad has sent her packing. She goes the rounds in Frisco, trying to get an engagement, but the night clubs are scared of her. Finally, she gets an introduction to Nick Nedick who runs a third-rate vaudeville show on the corner of Bayshore and Third. He takes a chance on her, and gives her a week’s tryout. She clicks in a big way, and after her third week has her name in lights across the front of the house.

  ‘Most of the acts Nedick engages fade away after the first or second week, but the customers rave about Anita so she becomes a permanent feature, heading the top of the bill for a record run of eighteen months.

  ‘There’s another act, not so successful as Anita, but good enough to remain as a second permanent feature, put on by a guy named Lee Thayler, a trick sharpshooter, and his partner, a girl called Gail Bolus.’

  Paula looked up sharply, blinked, and asked, ‘Isn’t that the girl ...?’

  ‘Yeah, the same one,’ I said. ‘Let’s get straight on. This stuff’s loaded with dynamite. You’ll get another surprise in a moment.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ she said.

  ‘Thayler and Anita fall for each other, and Thayler decides to quit show business and buys himself a piece in a photographer’s shop, specializing in theatrical work.