The Virgin Kills

by Raoul Whitfield

  Eric Vennell’s eyes were expressionless. Mick lighted a cigarette noisily.

  “Guys don’t drown on bullets,” he observed.

  Vennell nodded. I smiled and said: “Now and then I run into Mick. I figured he might be your man.”

  The yacht owner reached almost lazily into a vest pocket and produced a bill. He flicked it to Mick.

  “Five grand,” he said quietly. “It may mean staying up late nights. But only for a few. We reach Poughkeepsie around midnight. The races are tomorrow. We’ll lay over, maybe two days. That depends. Then we drop back here. And you’re through.”

  Mick fingered the bill and said huskily: “It don’t sound too tough.”

  Vennell shrugged. “It’s one of those things,” he said. “I’m paying for the bullet you may catch. This is the first time the Virgin’s been on Hudson River water in eight years. There were reasons for staying away—and for coming back. I’m not telling them.”

  Mick said: “You’re paying me to stick close—and to shoot first if it looks bad.”

  Vennell nodded. “You’re with me,” he said.

  I sipped my whiskey and soda. “Mick is big and tough, Eric,” I said. “I had to figure a stall for him. He looks big and tough. So I’ve given him some lines to mix in with his own. Sort of as if he’d been around and had picked up stuff here and there.”

  Vennell looked puzzled. “What sort of stuff?” he asked.

  I said: “Highbrow, in a way. It had a neat effect when he came aboard. I think we got it over.”

  Vennell said: “Well, how does that help?”

  I sipped some more of my drink. “It alibis him,” I replied. “I’m going to spread the word that he’s my find. A big bruiser, a roughneck reaching for higher things. He’s my find, and you wanted me along. So I brought him. I want him against the background, for a book I’m thinking about writing. You fall hard for him, laugh once in a while at his stuff—and it’ll give him a reason for sticking close to you. You like him—and you’re the big boss.”

  Vennell slitted his eyes and looked at Mick’s huge form.

  “All right,” he said, “but it’s like this—”

  He shifted his body a little and his right hand slipped under his dinner jacket, toward the left shoulder. His voice had risen a little. The chair on which Mick was sitting creaked suddenly. Mick said in a grunt:

  “Uh—”

  His body battered the table between Vennell and me out of the way—his left-hand fingers ripped the yacht-owner’s hand away from the half-exposed shoulder holster. His right hand jerked Vennell’s gun loose, tossed it toward a pillowed window seat. For a second the hand vanished—then it held his own snub-nosed weapon. He backed away from Eric Vennell.

  “Now—” he said slowly—“was that nice?”

  Eric Vennell adjusted his dinner jacket, stood up. His eyes came away from the breakage on the floor, went to the snub-nosed gun in Mick’s right hand. The gun was held low and close to the big fellow’s right side. Mick was smiling.

  I said: “Thank God I was holding my drink.”

  Vennell smiled with his thin lips making a straight line. His eyes were on Mick’s.

  “It suits me,” he said grimly. “You’ve got eyes and you move fast for a big man. The five grand entitled me to know about that.”

  Mick O’Rourke chuckled. He went over to the pillows of the window seat and picked up Vennell’s gun. There was a tapping at the door. Vennell took the gun from the big fellow and smiled at me.

  “Open it—it’s probably Griggs,” he said.

  I opened the door, and the steward looked past me toward the broken glass on the floor. Vennell smiled at him and said:

  “Get at this mess, Griggs, will you? I didn’t know the Hudson could get so rough.”

  The steward’s face was expressionless. Both Vennell and Mick had their guns out of sight. Mick said suddenly:

  “It’s the Passion Play influence, clearly.”

  Vennell fingered his tie and moved toward a mirror hung between two windows. The siren of the yacht wailed twice and drew a piping reply from some small craft. Vennell said:

  “We’ve a gay crowd aboard. Some picture people. Torry Jones, Don Rayne—he captained and stroked Columbia last year. Jones is the flier, you know. Carla Sard—she’s between screen epics and on from Hollywood. Cy Dana—the sportswriter. Sonia Vreedon, the daughter of Ben Vreedon, the California criminal lawyer. And ten or fifteen others. Perhaps not that many. How many, Griggs—know?”

  The steward said: “Fourteen, sir, besides the ones you named. I can’t recall their names.”

  Vennell grunted. “I shouldn’t think so, “he said. “Don’t believe I can. Don’t believe I’d wish to.”

  I grinned. “Just a good bunch going up to see California sweep things clear,” I said:

  Vennell faced me, his eyes suddenly sharp. He said:

  “Think so, Al?”

  I nodded. “Cinch,” I replied. “Odds are two, two and a half to one. Practically all sportswriters agree. The battle is for second place, between Washington and Columbia.”

  Vennell said: “You think that way, eh?”

  I nodded. He shrugged. “Pour me one of mine, Griggs,” he said. “And another for Mr. Connors. Mick—won’t you have one?”

  Mick O’Rourke smiled and shook his head. “Sometimes it gets my eyes,” he said. “It finished my grandmother.”

  Vennell said: “That so? Too bad.”

  The big fellow chuckled. “Hell, no,” he said. “She was a louse.”

  Griggs sucked in his breath sharply. Eric Vennell looked startled, then looked at me questioningly.

  I said: “Personally, I thought she was quite a charming old lady.”

  Mick looked at me with amazement. I showed a thumb toward Griggs, who was pouring a drink, his facial muscles twitching. Mick O’Rourke said:

  “Yeah—when she was sober.”

  Vennell laughed a little. “I imagine she lived to a good old age,” he said.

  Mick nodded. “She said she was ninety-eight—but she was an awful damn liar,” he replied.

  I took a fresh glass from Griggs’ fingers. Vennell lifted his, and Griggs went from the cabin, closing the door quietly behind him. His footfalls died along the corridor. Vennell looked at me and said:

  “Here’s to the best crew, Al.”

  I nodded. “And the next best—the one that finishes back of California,” I said.

  Vennell drank. He did it decisively. Mick stood near the door, looking cramped even in the large cabin.

  “Are them oars heavy—the ones they use?” he asked suddenly.

  Vennell looked at me and chuckled. I said:

  “Crew’s a tough racket, Mick. It takes guts.”

  Mick O’Rourke smiled at me, narrowed his fine eyes on Eric Vennell’s.

  “I stick to my ten-shot rod,” he said grimly. “It does the same thing.”

  Eric Vennell did something that might have been a shiver. He lighted a cigarette and said cheerfully:

  “I believe the crowd is up above—aft.”

  Mick O’Rourke looked at me, then turned his eyes toward the yacht owner.

  “Do I get a tipoff?” he said. “Anything to help?”

  Vennell shook his head. “Nothing,” he replied. “And don’t crowd me—it isn’t that bad.”

  I said: “Just be around, Mick.”

  Vennell nodded. “That’s it,” he agreed. “Just be around.”

  “Well—I can’t swim,” Mick stated. “So it won’t be hard to be around.”

  I said: “We’ll get right and go up.”

  Vennell smiled: “For cocktails,” he said. “I think Carla Sard said she’d invented one for the trip. Called the ‘Regatta.’”

  He went out and toward a companionway. We went back to Suite B. After the door was closed, I said to Mick:

  “Well—what do you think of Vennell?”

  The big fellow frowned at his spread-fingered hands. Then he sh
rugged.

  “He’s tough—and he’s a liar,” he said in a hard voice.

  I sighed. “But you’re not quitting.”

  He swore at me. “Quittin’?” he breathed huskily. “I like ’em that way.”

  3

  Carla Sard said gaily: “It’s the ‘Regatta’—to be taken with a clean stroke and no splashing. If you’re in form you sit up at the finish. I got the idea while I was in the tub, at the Plaza—”

  Torry Jones cut in: “As if that Plaza bunch ever bathe!”

  Cy Dana, short and thickset, tapped his small mustache with stubby fingers and nudged me with an elbow.

  “The kid’s got the stuff,” he said in his husky voice. “You’d better watch that palooka of yours.”

  I shook my head and leaned against the aft rail. Mick sat across the deck, taking up a lot of space and watching activities with a silly grin.

  “He’s seen all this before,” I said. “Only not on a yacht. He was a bouncer at the Lido for a time.”

  The sportswriter stared at me. “Bouncer at where?” he muttered.

  I said: “Sure—at the Lido. But he made a mistake one night.”

  Dana grunted. “And bounced Moss and Fontana for doing a hot dance, I suppose?” he said.

  I shook my head. “You were close,” I told him. “It was Irene Bordoni—he chucked her out for doing one of those French songs.”

  Cy grunted again. He looked across the deck at O’Rourke. Mick didn’t look so bad in dinner clothes—he had them fitted tightly, and he didn’t need shoulder padding.

  Cy said: “What’s the racket, Al? I don’t fall for that one about bringing him along to get material.”

  I said in a hurt tone: “You don’t think I can write a book?”

  He swore at me. “You’re too damn lazy to even scribble a bad one,” he said.

  Carla Sard came over to us with two cocktails. She spilled most of mine, but I got out of the way. Carla had saucer eyes, dark hair, and a nose that just escaped being snubbed. Her figure was the thing, and she knew how to move it around. She said to both of us:

  “Will you take them this way—or like a sandwich?”

  Dana said: “What’s a sandwich way of taking them?”

  She handed me mine. “Cocktail sandwich—three in succession, one in the middle.” She chuckled. “My God—hasn’t that reached New York yet?”

  Cy looked sad. “We miss so much, not being close to Hollywood,” he said.

  I tasted the drink. Carla frowned at Cy and looked at me.

  “Like it?” she asked.

  I nodded. “If I’m all right in a few hours, I like it,” I told her. “What’s in it?”

  She shook her head. “I keep forgetting,” she replied. “Or maybe I change things around. Anyway, there’s alcohol.”

  Cy groaned. Carla gestured toward Mick and said:

  “He says he’s on the wagon—does he mean it?”

  I shrugged. “He might,” I told her. “Mick’s hard to figure.”

  Carla said: “Yeah?”

  I qualified the statement. “Hard for me to figure,” I said.

  She flashed me a smile that looked as though it might screen nicely.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll try him.”

  The radio sent dance music across the deck. The yacht was above Storm King, cruising at greater speed now. It was almost dark.

  I sipped the cocktail, leaned against the rail, and looked over the group seated and sprawled near the buffet and radio. Torry Jones was talking in low tones to Sonia Vreedon; there was something about the girl I liked. She had a sharp face, gray eyes that held intelligence—and a firm mouth. She’d been on the Coast much of the time, with her father. He was on some sort of a world cruise at the moment, and there was some reason why she hadn’t gone along. I couldn’t think of it. She spoke without making any gestures, and she was decisive in tone.

  Eric Vennell was stretched in a deck chair, between Rita Velda and a gray-haired woman who talked too much and too loudly. Rita wasn’t far behind her in either respect. She’d done a wisecracking book about a bootlegger who went in for culture, and it had been a best seller. She was tall and willowy—and had red hair slicked down. Her nervousness seemed to make everyone else nervous.

  Don Rayne stood near a pile of cushions, talking with a chunky human whose name was Panklin. Rayne had the build of a crew man, but a year in a stockbroker’s office had taken most of his last season’s crew tan from his lean face.

  My eyes went to Eric Vennell again. He was watching Sonia closely; at intervals he moved his head to speak with one of the two women beside him, but his eyes always returned to Ben Vreedon’s daughter. I was thinking:

  They might do well together—Vennell and Sonia Vreedon. Both of them quick, hard, and sharp. One a big-league gambler, wealthy and tricky. The other the daughter of the best criminal lawyer on the Coast. A man that licked Fallon when he was at the peak—

  Cy Dana interrupted my thoughts. He spoke in a low voice.

  “Funny—this crowd.”

  I said: “Why funny?”

  Dana shrugged. He tapped his mustache. There was a burst of laughter from a young group near the buffet.

  “Vennell hasn’t had the yacht on the Hudson for years. He never went in much for this sort of thing.”

  I said: “What sort of thing?”

  The sportswriter said: “Crew.”

  I looked at Vennell and caught him watching Sonia again. His expression was intense.

  “He’s a yachtsman,” I pointed out. “It’s a big race—and a chance for a big party.”

  Dana said grimly: “Just between two newshounds—why is he throwing a party? What’s he got to celebrate?”

  I passed Cy a cigarette and we lighted up. I said softly:

  “You know something.”

  Cy smiled a little. “And I’m not holding it back—the way you are.”

  I pulled on the cigarette and watched Carla Sard move toward Mick O’Rourke, with a ‘Regatta’ held high. Cy said:

  “I’ve got an apartment with Tracy, you see. He works the Street. Vennell lost a couple of million in a couple of months. He’s so pleased that he’s throwing a party for a mixed crowd—and he doesn’t know most of them any too well.”

  I said: “Perhaps a farewell party.”

  Cy smiled a little grimly. “Does Vennell strike you like that sort of a human?” he asked.

  I looked toward the yacht owner and caught him speaking to Rita Velda and staring at Sonia Vreedon. His face was relaxed, but his body was tense.

  I said: “Not exactly. What, then? Here we are. The yacht’s moving. Tomorrow there’s the Regatta.”

  Cy said: “Yeah. And how come he went out of his way to get you aboard? And me?”

  “Easy,” I replied. “He knows I’m not a spot writer. I get a chance to read what all the other boys write, and then soliloquize on why Columbia finished second. I can do it just as well here. I’ve known Vennell for some years.”

  Cy Dana smiled. “All right,” he agreed. “So have I. But this is the first year I haven’t ridden the observation train.”

  Carla Sard came over and gestured toward Mick O’Rourke.

  “The big fellow’s gone off the wagon,” she said triumphantly.

  I grinned. “You’ve got a way,” I said, and watched Mick toss liquid overboard, with Carla’s back turned to him.

  She smiled and went toward Vennell, who rose from his deck chair. Cy Dana looked at Mick and said in a mocking tone:

  “And you brought him along just because he’s a funny guy, and you couldn’t be interrupted in your material digging.”

  I said: “That’s it, Cy.”

  The sportswriter grunted. “It’s a swell layout,” he said. “But there’s something wrong.”

  “What?” I asked innocently.

  Cy started to say something, but Vennell held up a hand and looked around at the gathering.

  “Dinner in the main saloon,” he an
nounced. “You may choose partners. Miss Vreedon is already chosen—the commander’s honor, you know.”

  I looked at Cy and saw that he was not smiling. Sonia Vreedon seemed a little startled. The men started to move about a bit. Mick O’Rourke’s big feet made sudden sound. He went close to Carla Sard and said boomingly:

  “I’ll take you, kid!”

  There was sudden silence. Torry Jones stared at Mick and said:

  “Sorry, big boy—she’s been tooked.”

  Mick stopped grinning and dropped his head forward on his shoulder.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  Vennell looked past O’Rourke, at me. There was an amused expression in his eyes. Cy Dana said:

  “Oh, God—”

  “It’s this way, Mick,” I said, and tried to wink at the group beyond him, “Mr. Jones is an old acquaintance of Miss Sard.”

  The big fellow nodded his head. His body relaxed slightly.

  “That makes it easier for me, huh?” he said.

  Torry didn’t like the laugh that got. He looked at me and said grimly:

  “It’ll be a hell of a book you’ll write on this guy, Al.”

  I just smiled. Mick said slowly:

  “The thing is—do you feed with me, kid—or with him?”

  Carla Sard laughed lightly. She said: “Toss a coin—how’s that?”

  Mick nodded and reached into his pocket. He produced a quarter that I’d seen several times before. It was a clever piece of metal splitting—tails on both sides. He tossed it to me.

  Torry said: “Heads.”

  That made it easier. I flipped it up and watched it spin. There was a nice ring when it hit the deck. We crowded around. I said:

  “Tails, boys.”

  Mick picked up the coin and grinned at Carla.

  “I win,” he said, and made a grab for her arm.

  Torry looked at me and shrugged. “He would,” he said bitterly.

  I nodded. “Sure,” I agreed. “Mick’s lucky like that.”

  Vennell and Sonia led the way toward the cabin aft. Mick O’Rourke and Carla followed. Cy Dana said very softly:

  “Your big boy sticks pretty close to Vennell, eh?”

  I pretended I didn’t hear that. Torry called out to Carla: