Ladyfingers

by Shepard Rifkin

  Just across the river from New Jersey. It would be about seventy or eighty miles from New York City.

  "Can you connect me with the New Hope operator, please?"

  "Yes, sir." The New Hope operator came on.

  "Detective Sanchez. New York Police Department. On 215-724-4957, name and address, please."

  After a moment she said, "George Clark, 729 River Road." That would be the owner. Henley had sublet and was using Clark's phone.

  "Thanks. Please get me police headquarters."

  "Police Sergeant Brill."

  "Sergeant, this is Detective Sanchez, New York Police Department."

  "Yes, sir. Can I help you?"

  "Exactly where is 729 River Road?"

  "Well, let's see. Do you know New Hope?"

  "Afraid not."

  "Well, You come over the bridge from Lambertville. That's New Jersey. As soon as you come over, make a sharp right turn. That's River Road. Go about three miles. The road will make a ninety-degree turn to the left. You won't miss it; there's a big yellow warning sign there. A little dirt road goes off to the right. The road goes over a little bridge which crosses the canal. Then it goes to the right, say about a hundred and fifty yards. Then you come to the Clark house. It's the only house on that road. It's like on a little peninsula."

  "Thanks, Sergeant."

  "Anything we can do?"

  There was a lot he could do. He could surround the house with hundreds of men with tear-gas grenades and a few expert snipers in case Henley took a severe case of instant dislike to me. But since the New Hope Police Force consisted of perhaps three or four guys, and since I was only working out a lot of vague possibilities, I would have to take my chances. I just didn't want to be embarrassed any more than was absolutely necessary if Dr. Lyons wasn't there.

  "No, just checking."

  "Anytime, New York."

  I hung up. I opened the phone booth door and stepped out.

  Across the street was a red Maserati. Well, so what? There was more than one red Maserati in New York, right?

  I idly walked across the street, amused at the coincidence, in order to hail a cab that was cruising towards me.

  I looked at the license number as I lifted my arm.

  PS 167.

  That was my Maserati, goddammit!

  27

  THE CAR WAS EMPTY. I TOOK A QUICK LOOK at Nurse Forsythe's apartment building. It was half a block away and I could see a woman going in. The behind looked familiar. I sprinted back.

  The inner locked door was closed and through the glass panel I could see the elevator indicator light at the third floor. I rang 3A. No answer. I rang 1A, 2A, 4A, 5A, 6A, and 7A all at once by giving a slow karate chop at a vertical row of buttons.

  As soon as the buzzer sounded I ripped open the door. I pounded up the stairs four at a time. Before I reached the second floor I could hear angry female voices. One of them belonged to the Duquesa de Bejar. The other was that of Miss Forsythe.

  The Duchess had her foot in the door. Nursey was trying to push her out again and she was saying something about calling the police.

  "Police, call them!" yelled the Duchess. "That's my husband you've been fooling around with!"

  "Shut up!" I said. A door down the hall opened slightly. It was my old-lady friend of five minutes ago. I glared at her. She was no longer my friend. She pursed her lips and closed the door.

  "Oh, there you are! There you are, you wretch!" cried the pillar of Castilian nobility. "I gave you the best years of my life! I gave life to four of your lousy kids, and you're out screwing as soon as my back is turned!"

  Forsythe didn't have to know how to act. This lady could handle everyone's thespian requirements. I looked at her in admiration.

  "I hope you had sense enough to get a babysitter before you left," I said. "Did you, Ethel?"

  I thought she wouldn't like to be baptized Ethel, and there wasn't much she could do about denying any name I gave her.

  "You didn't tell me you were married," said Forsythe. She looked very nervous.

  "That's right," I said.

  "How would you like to be named corespondent in a divorce suit?" the Duchess demanded.

  "She wouldn't," I said. I tried to pull the Duchess' arm away from the doorjamb. I could have settled everything and rendered her quiet by telling her it was a business trip which may have begun otherwise, but by the time I would have gotten all the subtleties across they'd be tearing out each other's hair. The two ladies were conducting a silent and red-faced tug of war.

  "You better take your foot out of the door," Forsythe said nervously.

  "How would you like a punch in the nose?"

  Far off I heard a siren. The old lady down the hall sure got good service for her pie-shaped slice of the tax dollar.

  "I think we better go," I said, taking an even firmer grip on my excitable friend's elbow.

  "You go," the Duchess said. "I never liked redheads, anyway. I think I'll take out a couple of handfuls and see what the real color is."

  The siren came closer.

  The Duchess was braced solidly in the doorway. I took her head between my palms, silently begged her pardon, and I turned her head towards her right shoulder with vigor.

  "Ayeeee!" she said, and let go.

  I shifted my grip to her right hand. I bent the hand back at the wrist, jammed her right elbow into my left hip. I locked my left elbow over her right elbow. It's a very effective come-along. To the casual passerby it looks like two friends are strolling arm-in-arm. The slightest resistance and you bend back the hand. The pain is terrific at the locked wrist joint.

  "Let's walk, shall we?" I said.

  Miss Forsythe stood in her hallway. Her shaking hands were buttoning her djellebieh.

  The Duchess didn't want to walk. I bent her hand a little. She began to walk. She turned to address nursey over her shoulder. Thank God, the elevator was still at the third floor. I shoved her inside before she could say anything, and pushed Ground Floor.

  "I don't know why you made me leave," she said. "I was doing quite well mopping up the lower classes."

  "Every time I see you, your head seems to get one inch thicker," I said. "A public brawl involving two women fighting over one detective would go over real great. That could do wonders for my career."

  "Oh, your career!" she said, with disgust. "I-" The door opened and two cops were standing there. They moved aside politely to let us out. I gave a little warning leverage at the wrist, and we went past them into the lobby. They got into the elevator.

  "Your career, your career!" she began again. "You could quit. You could get work as a private detective. You could guard expensive presents at weddings."

  "And what else?"

  "And things like that."

  "Sure. Things like that. Shut up and give me the keys fast." I didn't want to be around when the cops came down. They'd have our description and they would remember us.

  She fished out the keys. One good thing about her at that point, her pocketbook was well organized. I ran her across the street. She hadn't locked the doors. I pushed her in, ran around to the driver's side, jumped in, and slammed the key into the ignition. The motor caught instantly. God bless her mechanic. I didn't put the lights on, and just as I pulled out the cops came out. I went by them and one saw me.

  "Hey!" he yelled. Hey, you! Stop!"

  But I was long-gone Pablo.

  28

  I WHIPPED AROUND THE CORNER, WENT into a skid, corrected it while she murmured approval at my driving skill. There were two empty spaces in a row in the middle of the block. I pulled in, shut off the ignition, pushed her to the floor, and joined her.

  "What-" she began.

  "Oh, shut up!" I hissed. For once she obeyed. A siren went by, very loud. She was on the floor with her knees drawn up and I was on top of her.

  "Look," she said. "The foetal position. I haven't been in it for thirty-three years. I feel warm and secure."

  "I'll get off
as soon as Snow White and the Two Dopes give up," I said. She shook with amusement at the old joke.

  "That's pretty funny," she said. The light from the street lamp fell on us. Her ear was small and perfect. I had never been so close to it. Nor, come to think of it, had I ever been on top of her.

  I looked at her from a distance of four inches. Her eyelashes were enormously long. They were real.

  "Let's stun the passersby," she went on.

  My groin fitted into her hipsocket like an adjoining piece in a jigsaw puzzle.

  "I've never done a belly dance horizontally," she said. "I'll do one now."

  It felt very good. I braced myself with my palms on the floor while her hips slowly gyrated. Part of her was coiled around the gearbox like a boa constrictor. My back hurt but I didn't care.

  My hand felt something greasy. I looked at it. It was a paper napkin smeared with oil and grease.

  I picked up her right palm and looked at it. There was grease under her fingernails and in the lines of her palm. I dropped it and looked at her left palm. The same. I got up and slid into the driver's seat.

  She got up slowly and slid into her seat.

  She held out her right palm and said, "I know you want to tell my fortune." I looked at her thoughtfully. "I can tell by your expression that your suspicious mind is working overtime," she said.

  "Where'd the grease come from?"

  "I did a ring job while you were shacking up with that phony broad."

  I started the car, turned on the lights, and headed for the Expressway. She fell against me with her head on my shoulder.

  "You were fooling around with my car, right?"

  "Give the man a cigar!"

  "You followed me."

  "All the way from Seventy-fourth Street, buster. You don't know how to shake a tail, see?" She was trying to imitate a gangster's moll, but all her knowledge came from bad movies. I did know how to shake a tail, but I didn't want to get sidetracked.

  "And you waited till I went inside Bruno's, right?"

  "Right!"

  "And then you pulled the wires."

  "Another cigar for the flatfoot!"

  "How come the kid didn't see you?"

  "He was listening to that radio with his mouth open and his eyes closed."

  "What was the point of the whole thing?"

  "I thought I'd be cruising by when you couldn't start your car and then I'd offer you a lift."

  "Why didn't you?"

  "Why? Why? You are stupid! Why should I offer you a lift when that cow slipped a note into your hand? I saw that look of glazed lust in your eyes. You could walk for all I cared. When you got the cab I followed you."

  "Well, why did you come up?"

  "I saw you go out the first time for liquor. I almost followed you and broke the bottles with my jack handle. Then when you came out the second time I knew what you were after."

  "What was I after?"

  "You know."

  "I don't know."

  "Yes, you do know."

  I found her shyness mixed with her frankness funny. "Come on, tell me."

  "She asked you if you had any protection after she'd gotten you drunk and you said no. So she sent you out to get some. She wants you to think she's a nice girl and never does things like that, and I bet she eats those pills like they were popcorn."

  "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this," I said. I told her about the quinine water, the yearbook, the broken toilet, the call to the chief operator, my offer to get her cigarettes, and the location of Henley's house.

  She said nothing. She took my palm and slapped her face with it.

  "Since you wrecked my car," I said, "can I borrow yours?"

  She said yes in an abashed tone.

  A few blocks further ahead on Queens Boulevard I saw a police car. Since we were out of Forsythe's precinct I pulled up alongside and showed them my badge. I asked them for an escort to the Lincoln Tunnel.

  The driver was a little more experienced. All he said was, "You'll write us in your UF 49?" I told him I would. While he switched on the radio and took his car off patrol, I stepped into a phone booth at the intersection. The local junkies hadn't gotten to it yet. The receiver was in one piece and the coin box hadn't been jimmied out.

  I called Communications. I didn't want my next request to go over police radio. Hanrahan might pick it up on his box at home and cut my throat at the tunnel entrance.

  I identified myself.

  "Yes, sir?"

  I told him I would be driving a red Maserati, New York PS 167. I asked him to alert the New Jersey Turnpike Police.

  "I'll be doing close to a hundred," I said. "No sense having an escort at that speed. Just notify all units on patrol to let me pass. Then repeat the message to the New Jersey State Police. My route will be the Turnpike to Newark Airport, then Route 22 to Somerville Circle, then Route 202 to Lambertville. Got that?"

  He repeated it. "Thanks," I said.

  As the police car lurched ahead I fell in behind. The Duchess sat quietly. Good. I checked my wristwatch. It had stopped at 9:30. It must have been at least midnight. My friend the doctor would plan on my beginning my morning phone calls at 9:00 a.m. If they were taking the early morning plane out of Kennedy he would have to finish up by 5:00 a.m. What "finish up" meant was anybody's guess.

  I pressed the accelerator pedal down some more. The police knew I was crowding them and they didn't like it. They don't like to go over forty where there are cross streets. But I outranked them. I was tailgating them and it made them nervous.

  They began to pull away. When they were up to seventy-five I kept the pace steady. They were happy to get rid of me at the Lincoln Tunnel.

  29

  A STATE TROOPER WAS WAITING FOR US WHEN we came out of the tunnel.

  "I'll escort you to the toll booth," he said. "We don't want you doing a hundred around here. Once you're on the Turnpike it's all yours."

  He hit the siren button and pulled away.

  For every ten miles per hour, good drivers are supposed to keep twenty feet away from the car in front. So I let him get a hundred and fifty feet in front before I held the Maserati at a steady pace.

  My two hands held the wheel with a firm grip. She looked at them. "You certainly are a careful driver," she said. "My, my." Her voice was tinged with ironic contempt.

  I once had a front tire blow on me on Lenox Avenue at 116th Street one afternoon when I was doing eighty-five chasing two guys who had robbed a bank and killed a woman teller. The wheel had spun out of my grip, the car whipped sidewards. I tried to go for the wheel but I saw that I wouldn't be able to grip it or hit the brakes fast enough.

  I dropped to the floor and rolled up in a ball when I saw she was out of control. I wound up fifteen feet inside a liquor store. I never saw so much broken glass in my life. Outside of a small cut on my head and a wrenched back muscle, I came out all right. The two guys got away.

  "Yep," I said. I looked at her. She looked as if she were lolling in a hammock on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

  "I bloom at high speeds," she said.

  "Feel more alive, eh?'

  "On the button." She leaned her head on my shoulder.

  "Try sky diving," I said.

  "You object to fast driving?"

  "Nope. But I get enough kicks from my job so that I don't have to pretend I'm a new edition of Hemingway."

  She grinned and kicked off her shoes. She braced herself against my side, and gripping the window crank with her toes, she lowered the window all the way down. She slipped her shoes on again and stuck her feet out of the window.

  The car hit a little bump and her right shoe went flying.

  I was about to hit the brake, but a quick look in the rearview mirror in the moonlight showed me that a heavy tractor-trailer two hundred feet behind had gone over the shoe with all its right-side tires.

  "Will you get my shoe, please."

  By then we were almost half a mile south of her goddamn shoe.

 
"The shoe is very good lizard. I bought it five years ago-"

  "You bought one shoe?"

  "I bought it and its mate five years ago in Florence. You have heard of Florence?"

  She was getting even for the "one shoe" crack.

  "Word leaks down to the peasantry."

  "Good. I would appreciate it if you would go back for my shoe."

  Calm. The calm before the storm.

  "They cost me a hundred and twenty-five dollars at Ferragamo's. I am rapidly becoming irritated."

  I told her that a big truck had made the valuable shoe into a lizard pancake.

  "You're a liar," she stated crisply. "And now I order you to go back."

  The trooper's car pulled out to the left lane and flashed by a bus that was on the verge of passing a slow car. The bus driver must have thought it would be safe to pass as soon as the trooper passed him. He pulled out in front of me.

  I cut left. The left wheels of the Maserati jumped the median curb. I held it for two seconds and then cut back to the road. I missed the bus by no more than an inch. The jounce up the curb and then down again shook off her other shoe.

  If I had held the steering wheel the way she approved, the jumping of the curb would have wrenched the car out of my control and we could have ended upside down.

  "No," I said.

  "This is my car. You will go back. Now."

  After my little airplane ride around the bus I wanted to say something like, "Blow it out your homesick ass." But I controlled myself. I opened the glove compartment, took out the owner's registration, and tossed it into her lap.

  After a couple of seconds she said, "I outsmarted myself with that move." She put back the license and looked out the window.

  At the toll booth the trooper pulled aside and waved me through. I took the Maserati and boosted her up to a hundred; she growled and leaned into it.

  At Railway the Duchess asked, "Do you know why I put up with your crudities?"

  "No."

  "Because you make me feel you need me."

  "I need you?"

  "Your feeble jalopy would only be limping through Jersey City by now."

  I had to admit she was right.