by Henry, Kane,
Then, very distinctly, I said, “It happened exactly the way I wanted it to happen” — and I waited with my back to him.
There was no sound.
I waited, with sweat on me.
He tapped my fist. He said, “I’ll be seeing you.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning so long, and let’s never talk about it again.”
Then Miss Miranda Foxworth came through without knocking, as was her wont, which is why I have a sliding bolt on the door. Miss Miranda, squaw-faced and severe, was the only secretary I could work with. ‘Miss Miranda was short and triangular with a sloping corset and a bosom like punched-up pillows.
“The good Miranda,” Viggy said, going.
“Hoodlum.” Miss Miranda sniffed.
He patted her, nether and rear, and he went away.
“Mail,” she said.
I sat down behind the desk. I said, “Ah.”
She drew a crumpled envelope out of her long and maidenly rumpled blue sweater and she gave it to me.
It was air mail out of California.
“Ah,” I said. “And oo-la-la.”
“What’s that?”
“Influence of the French.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“Now Miranda….”
She sniffed, flounced, and, corset-heavingly, she departed.
I opened it up and I brought it out.
I sighed and I settled my heels on the desk and I gathered in my eyebrows and I stared at the check and I thought about taxes, taxes, dear old taxes; a man just can’t get rich. Then I took out my wallet and I inserted the check and I saw the little point of bright yellow card protruding, provocative as the latest thing in evening gowns. I pinched the point and I drew it out and I looked at it, both sides. I sighed, lengthily, but more happily, and I leaned across for the phone….
If you liked Armchair in Hell check out:
Don’t Call Me Madame
ONE
TONY Starr was a new tenant in the Kips Bay Apartments on 32nd Street and Lexington Avenue. A month ago he had signed a two-year lease, depositing four months’ rent as security, but even then he knew he would forfeit the security (he could afford it) because he had no intention of staying out the two year period. Once the estate was settled, he would return to London. He hated New York. He hated everything about New York. He hated every memory of New York. He hated …
For a month now he had been a quiet, anonymous tenant, one among six hundred other tenants in the vast complex of the tall, modern, newly constructed, expensive high-riser. He knew nobody in the Kips Bay Apartments, and nobody in the Kips Bay Apartments knew Tony Starr, which was exactly the way he wanted it. He had a satisfactory three-room apartment, but it was, in fact, temporary. His mother was dead — quick, so terribly sudden, a heart attack in London — and he was here in New York to wait out the settlement of the estate. He had several times been to her lawyer’s office (her lawyer — not his father’s) and had signed all the necessary papers and had been advised that the settlement of an estate takes time.
Time!
But Jesus Christ, how long?
For a month now he had been good, quiet, patient, anonymous. He had been drinking heavily, but he had not touched the white stuff. This evening, finally, he had indulged himself in the white stuff and he was feeling good. Good? God, he was flying. And he wanted a girl. And so at seven-thirty of this warm May evening he showered, and now at the bathroom mirror he was shaving: Tony Starr, twenty-eight years of age, tall and slender with regular features. He had black hair and dark eyes that now, because of the white stuff — the dilated pupils merging with the irises — appeared to be as black as his hair.
He finished shaving, and in the bedroom he dressed in a white shirt and a conservative tie and a fine suit in the latest of fashion. He put money in his wallet, plenty of money, and from a large metal box transferred a portion of the white powder to an ornate little snuffbox, a gift from his mother. He pinched a bit of the powder and sniffed it, a last sniff, and then snapped shut the little snuffbox. He looked in a mirror and grinned. He had big fine white teeth. He had a pleasant, engaging, comfortable, boyish grin. He did the grin again, and stopped it. He shrugged and went away from the mirror.
He knew, precisely, what his procedure would be. He would go uptown to a cheap hotel and there register under some assumed name — but as Mr. and Mrs. He would knowingly leer at the clerk, and pay in advance whatever exorbitant fee was demanded, take the key to the room and keep it with him. Then he would go to one (or many) of the hooker bars that John Edison had recommended. John Edison, his friend who owned the Palisades Club in London, made frequent trips to New York and knew all the spots. (John had also given him the private numbers of some of the best madames in town.) And in one of the hooker bars he would find a hooker who pleased him. He knew, however, he was not easy to please. Unless the hooker suited his taste, she could be distasteful. She would have to be tall, blonde, willowy. His mother had been tall, blonde, willowy. And had had small breasts, and long legs, and a big behind. The hooker would have to have small breasts and long legs and a big behind. A big behind excited him terribly.
He resisted the snuff box, went out of the apartment, and locked the door. And then unlocked the door and went in again to find what he had forgotten. He rummaged through drawers and felt a thrill when he enclasped it, long and slim and graceful: a press-button knife with a six-inch blade. He dropped it into a pocket and went out to the warm May night, Tony Starr, tall and handsome and fashionably dressed, impelled by need and seeking his pleasure.
Read more of Don’t Call Me Madame
Serving as inspiration for contemporary literature, Prologue Books, a division of F+W Media, offers readers a vibrant, living record of crime, science fiction, fantasy, and western genres. Discover more today:
www.prologuebooks.com
This edition published by
Prologue Books
an division of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45236
www.prologuebooks.com
Copyright © 1948 by Henry Kane, Registration Renewed 1975
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
eISBN 10: 1-4405-4036-5
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-4036-3
