by Simon Swift
I said nothing.
"Come on, Errol, talk to me. I have told you that there is nothing to worry about."
"Tell me again. What was Arnold Muchado doing in our office?"
"I'm not going to answer that but if you think…"
"What the hell am I supposed to think? The man is a fuckin' lunatic. If we get in any trouble, we help each other out, that's the way it's always been. I've been straight with you on this case all along but right now..."
He stared unblinking at my gaze. I looked conciliatory at him, before directing my gaze at the hectic traffic. As the rain poured down I remembered when I first saw that look. It was a moment after Hermeez took a bullet in the shoulder, and went on to shoot himself and half of the unit out of ammunition at the Battle of Edson's Ridge. It was the second and near successful attempt by the Japanese to break our perimeter on Guadalcanal. They were stopped just short of the airfield and I later heard several people explain their failure with one man's actions.
That man was of course Hermeez. He hated everything about Guadalcanal, seeing it as a nasty, poisonous morass. He hated the crocodiles, the red, furry spiders, the lizards as big as panthers and the whole turgid swamplands covered in slithering creepy-crawlies, rats and crabs. He even hated Spam and dehydrated potatoes, which put him at a real disadvantage.
He hated it all, but in spite of his loathing for this most beautiful of islands he was the only thing that got me through it. Like many of the thousands of American casualties, I got a dose of malaria early in the campaign and several times thought I was going to die there. My buddy would not let that happen. Time after time he saved mine and many other's lives. It was something I had never forgotten. Maybe, until now.
I turned the key in the ignition. The engine turned over but did not spark. Still Hermeez stared. As I tried a second time and the engine fired, he opened the passenger seat door and got out. I wound down the window, but he continued to walk the other way, hands in pockets and head down facing the ground as the rain poured on.
"The diner, tonight. Be there, Hermeez, be there!"
I telephoned Claudia at Ava's from the hotel to cancel dinner. I was in a foul mood and had way too many things to think over. In a matter of a few moments I managed to alter her ‘can't wait to see you’ real excited mood to one of glum rejection. I promised to meet up for a drink at Joe's later that evening, but she insisted on pointing out that I had earlier promised dinner. She said she had remembered something important to tell me. I told her later. There was a knock on the door. She persisted. I hung up.
"Who is it?" I shouted, heading towards the door curiously.
"Room service," came the predictable reply.
I hadn't ordered any. "Just a moment," I countered, positioning myself just behind the door. When it opened I would be in the perfect position to disarm or disable whoever it might be. "Okay."
The door opened and a trolley was wheeled in. In one movement, I slammed the door closed and flung my arms around the trolley-pusher. Our two bodies tumbling to the floor. We wrestled around on the soft carpet and I managed to wrench off the fake hotel service cap, revealing long, silky red locks.
I stopped struggling and rolled over on to my back laughing. The trolley-pusher shook her hair free and smiled sweetly. She must have left the Bluebird a while back. It was not in the hotel car park. I had checked.
I got to my feet and walked over to the drinks cabinet. There were only miniatures so I mixed a few and handed one over to the room service lady. She took the glass from my grasp and sat down on the edge of the bed, the same bed that Claudia had slept so sweetly in twenty-four hours earlier.
"I thought it was you," I said, searching in my shirt pocket for a cigarette. "You're a lousy tail," I laughed.
She pulled a fresh packet of Luckys from her trolley and tossed them towards me. A lighter followed and I lit one up.
The trolley girl stood up, six feet of sheer beauty. Slowly she slipped out of her uniform revealing a shiny black dress that sparkled. She then pulled out a stick of lip-gloss, shook her beautiful hair back and applied it to her pouting lips. When they had a good coat of blood red gloss, she smiled, thrusting out her shapely breasts.
"So sweetheart, what's the story?" I said to Marlow and slumped back onto the comfortable bed, waiting for the dramatics to begin.
"I was afraid I was never going to see you alive again..." she began in a melodramatic, whimpering tone.
I reached forward and gave her a gentle slap around the face. "No, no, no," I said. "We've had enough of the fairy story. Tell me what really happened."
Marlow looked hurt. She held a cuddly toy belonging to Claudia in her angelic hands, playing with it clumsily.
"What are you saying?" she squealed. "You were there, you know what it was like," she cowered. "After all, it was to rescue me that you were there at all, wasn't it, Errol?"
I sat up and Marlow quickly continued.
"After I left your room that night I was again captured. They did terrible things to me..." She raised an eyebrow, stopping her monologue only to catch breath, "I bided my time and then I..." she hurriedly continued, sensing my patience nearing an end, "I took my chance the same as you and somehow I got out."
She went into a long and detailed tale about how Coward had chased her, capturing her before finally she escaped his clutches. "And now we are reunited, love has found a way through for us." She paused for a drink before continuing, "Dyke told me where you lived right at the beginning. I have been waiting there for days, desperately holding onto the grim hope that you might some day return." She smiled a truly happy smile, "and you finally did. I don't know how you managed it, Errol, getting away from..."
I slammed my glass down hard on to the bedside table. Marlow stopped dead, opening her big, brown eyes fully and looked timidly across the bed. I simply shook my head smiling wolfishly.
She paused for a moment before changing tack…
"Should I continue?" she asked with a cheeky smile, that despite my protests, set tides flowing deep in the base of my belly.
"Not unless you want another red cheek," I answered. "Try something else, we've got all night."
"I do love you, Errol, you must believe me."
"I don't have to believe anything. Now are we ready for act two?"
Marlow looked down into the contents of her drink. "I'm sorry, I never meant to lie to you, they made me you see," she added.
"This sounds a little better, who made you lie, precious?"
"The Coward. He told me if I didn't entice you there that they'd kill me like they killed Dyke. He thought that once you were on his patch he would force you to give up the diamond." Tears filled Marlow's eyes, well rehearsed tears no doubt, but still tears all the same.
"I'm listening," I grunted.
Marlow wiped her eyes, taking care not to smudge her makeup and continued.
"When you refused to cooperate they sent me to your room. They said I had to coax it out of you."
I grinned recollecting the method.
"This is the truth, Errol, honestly it is. I wouldn't lie to you again."
"My, my," I uttered, shaking my head. "So that night was all a sham… you were under orders to get the diamond, and I thought..."
"Oh, Errol, they made me do it, just like they're making me do this."
I looked surprised. Marlow's eyes lit up again, now confident her story was working.
"Yes, they have sent me here again. It is almost certainly my last chance. If I don't give them the location of the diamond they'll kill me. Maybe they'll kill me anyway," she said it all in one breath.
I took the Lucky out of my mouth and stubbed it out. A look of sheer surprise now on my face. I looked around the room with my mouth wide open in absolute disbelief. Marlow's eyes followed me. You could almost see her brain working away inside that perfect little head of hers. Still I remained silent as if dumb-struck, before..
"Errol, what is it?"
I swallowed
heavily, before dropping my head into my hands, shaking it desperately. Eventually I looked up. "Are you saying the diamond is not where I told you? Are you sure, did they look properly?"
It was now Marlow who looked surprised. She took a moment, looking at my shocked face and then back down at her drink. The pause was only a few seconds but appeared to take forever. There was the most beautiful woman I had ever met frozen. Like one of those models photographed for magazines.
Her stunned silence was interrupted by another gentle slap across her cheek. Her eyes thinned and she stared at me, all the lost innocence drained away.
"You want a third try?" I asked not able to contain my grin.
"You were always forceful, Errol," she whispered, accentuating the huskiness of her voice. "You always liked being in charge." She smiled. "You wanna be forceful with me now? Tell me what a naughty girl I've been?" She stretched out her arms, showing off her amazing body, before lying out on the bed.
I rubbed my forehead and sipped my drink. Marlow was truly performing tonight. Her eyes never left mine. So dark and sensual. She curled up like a Playboy Centerfold, pushing out her bosoms and holding her firm taut legs together, bent at the knee, well aware that her figure hugging dress was riding high above.
I pulled out another Lucky and put it between my lips. Before the flint of the lighter could do its perpetually mundane job the Lucky was no longer there. Tossed away by the soft, silky fingers belonging to the hand of a woman. Marlow sat astride me, just as Claudia had done only twenty-four hours before. I could feel her hot breath on my cheek, her pouting lips only an inch away from my own. She was breathing heavily, watching me closely with those big, brown eyes of hers.
I lifted her up and sat her down facing me. Running a hand gently down her cheek, I smiled wickedly and said, "Enough Marlow. I'm tired of all the games. I want you to tell me what really happened before I do something I regret. You can start right at the beginning by telling me just why you set me up to be at the Dragon Bar the night Dyke Spanner was murdered."
Her face softened and she nodded. "It all started a long, long time before that night at the Dragon Bar," she said in a voice I didn't recognize.
"I'm sure you have spoken to your partner," she said. "Or should I say the intrepid reporter." She laughed until tears formed in the corners of her eyes. "Did he really think that he was fooling me with that pathetic story?"
I shrugged never taking my eyes off Marlow.
"So you took Hermeez for a sap, but he enjoyed himself in the process."
"Did he? We didn't sleep together. We just talked. I'm sorry, Errol. I know he is a friend of yours, but if that's the best he can do he should stick to doing chores for Arnold Muchado."
That did get a reaction. I quickly stood up before Marlow held out her palms defensively and continued, "You didn't know right? I've seen him, he runs around after Arnold like a little lap dog."
"Go on."
"The things I told him are true. I was expecting him to convey them back to you, but to explain things properly I have to go right back to the beginning."
I wasn't sure if it was just another act, one that I had yet to experience, but she seemed to take on a more sincere tone and I listened carefully as she told me the whole story…
Chapter Twenty-Six – The death of the Dutchman
"I was the mistress of Arthur Flegenheimer for three years. One of several, I dare say, but I always convinced myself I was his favourite. During that time, he treated me like a princess and in turn, I would do anything for him. Yet I always knew he would never leave Frances and I would never become his wife.
"One thing Arthur did promise me was that if anything were to happen to him I would be looked after. Not through his estate as that would have been impossible to arrange without questions being asked. The security he had in mind was the Flegenheimer Diamond as it was named, the very same diamond that you have come to know quite a lot about over the last few weeks. Arthur attained it in a deal many years before and always insisted that it was really mine, a symbol of our love. He already had more money than he could ever spend.
"When he was killed…" She said this with no show of emotion, I noted. "I expected a man to come around with a parcel and bring to me what was rightfully mine. I knew Arthur always carried the diamond on his person, never trusting banks or safes and the fact that he regained consciousness several times in hospital led me to believe that he would not let me down. I waited and waited and waited but the man never came.
"I was of course distraught. Not only had I lost the love of my young life, I was now left virtually penniless and without what was always promised to me. I quickly realized that the diamond must have been taken during the assassination, but how was I to discover by whom, and even if I did I was not in any position to do anything about it.
"So the years passed by and the injustice of it all grated more and more. Sure, I used my initiative to make a good life for myself but still there was something missing. I wasn't exactly living a life of poverty but until I got the diamond I knew I would never be truly fulfilled. And that is when I met the man known only as the Coward.
"The Coward, I would later find out, was the illegitimate half brother of Arthur and for some reason he had it in his mind that he was the rightful owner of the diamond. He claimed Arthur stole it from him a long, long time ago and had refused to accept him as his brother. A moment in his company and it became absolutely clear he was a fanatic about it. We forged a friendship and I agreed to help him in his quest to search it out.
"Through contacts that I dare not question, the Coward assured me that none of the gunmen had taken the diamond from Arthur. I would later discover he is tight with Charlie Luciano and Albert Anastasia, and he was convinced that none of their men had found such a stone. So that left only three other men, the members of the Shadow Man Detective Agency. It had taken a long time for Coward to track these men down as the only other people present when the shooting took place but he did it, and he also discovered their names.
"Of course, Terry Shadow, the founder of this small time agency, was now dead but the other two were both alive and well. They were of course Dyke Spanner and Errol Black. You were missing, Errol, so Coward decided that Spanner was the man that would lead him to the diamond. He quickly became acquainted with him and urged me to do the same. We would then swap stories and ensure we got the truth from Spanner. The only problem being I soon fell for the man.
"Whatever your differences and Dyke did not try to hide them, he thought a lot about you, Errol. Whenever he talked about you his eyes sparkled and he spoke with great respect and admiration. I liked to listen to him talk about you and he made me desperate to meet you. Meanwhile he was playing a dangerous game.
"Dyke confided in me that he had no idea who had the diamond. He certainly didn't and he was sure that you didn't either. In spite of this, he decided that he would play along with the Coward with the intention of bluffing him and taking a lot of money from him. The best way he knew how to do this was to stall for time by insisting that he would only do business once you and he were together. Amazingly, the Coward bought it. He spent a good deal of time wining and dining my lover whilst I fed back whatever stories he asked me to.
"Dyke didn't care about the diamond; all he was bothered about was money. But he realized just how much it meant to me and it was he that let me into the secret of Liam Tighe, the other man present when Arthur was shot down. Dyke didn't say as much but it was pretty clear that he thought it must be Liam that had the diamond. He had the opportunity and the motive, added to the fact that he fled the scene of the crime and was never seen again. He took some persuading but eventually Dyke told me where Liam was now living.
"I got in touch with an old friend from my days with Arthur."
"Ferriby?" It was the first word I had said in the last half an hour and Marlow simply nodded.
"Yes, George Ferriby had always been a rogue but I felt I could handle him. He was interested
in diamonds and for the right price would do whatever I asked of him. We decided it would be worth befriending Liam Tighe's ex-girlfriend to see if there was anything else we could find out before meeting with the fugitive. When George went to Mexico he was only supposed to talk to Liam, negotiate even, but it all went wrong and Liam ended up getting killed."
"I know."
Marlow nodded. "I'm sure you do. But we still didn't get the diamond. George came back in a terrible state, he was furious with the whole mess and had got it into his head that Dyke had double-crossed us. I pleaded with him to see reason but he wouldn't listen, he wanted to meet Dyke and have it out with him and he said if he wasn't happy with the result he would kill him."
"So that's where I come in?"
"Yes. I was afraid that George would be good to his word, after all he had already killed once. That was when I hatched the plan to send Claudia to see you. Although I had only befriended her to get as much information as I could about the Flegenheimer, we really did become close. She reminded me a lot of myself maybe ten years ago and I felt responsible for her, especially as she was oblivious, to whom George Ferriby really was.
"She had fallen head over heels for George and was going to get badly hurt. They had only been seeing each other two minutes but to her it was the real thing. George used to laugh at her calling her a stupid kid and lots worse but she was blinded by love. It amused him that she was connected to one of the families and he was taking her for one hell of a ride.
"And I was terrified for Dyke. It was all I could think of, if you were tailing George there was no way that you would let him kill Dyke and at the same time you would rid Claudia of him. And with a bit of luck I would get to meet you into the bargain. Only it didn't work to plan. Somebody shot Dyke before we even got to meet him," she smiled at me, a smile full of sadness yet brimming with hope, "although I did get my wish and I did meet you. And you were even better than I had imagined."
"Who killed Dyke, Marlow?"
