Stone Cold Blonde

by Lawrence Lariar

  Ashforth stood in the doorway, smiling at me for a moment. Then he was gone. He was back inside, ready to throw the switch that would turn the wheel.

  Gus Bryant halted me on the landing and walked ahead, through the wheel to the other side. He held his gun lightly, aiming it my way. I heard him whistle, a soft note, low and flat, the signal for Ashforth to start the machinery.

  The rumble came. There was a humming whir and after that a higher and deeper grumbling, the noise of the gears taking hold. I stared ahead of me, fascinated by the tableau. The wheel turned, slowly. And there was a flick of a second when one of the tiny cabins rolled down and swung over the landing. And in that second, my brain erupted with an idea.

  Gus Bryant was hidden from me when that last cabin came down.

  He would be hidden from me again, in another few seconds.

  I counted the seconds away. And when the next cabin lowered itself between us, I moved.

  I ran forward, taking advantage of the barrier between Bryant and me. I grabbed hold of the metal crossbar alongside the cabin and pulled myself up. I was being lifted. But slowly, almost too slowly. In the next moment, Bryant saw me moving away from him and I watched his gun go up. He had lost his head. A shot sounded and I jumped from my perch and flattened myself against the roof of the cabin.

  Then hell broke loose.

  Masterson had seen me from up above. His gun went off and a bullet whined over my head. And another, splatting against the wall of the cabin, and zinging off into the surrounding gloom. Down below, Ashforth and Bryant were exchanging frenzied words, and I knew what they were deciding to do. They would bring the wheel around again, a full circle, until I arrived at the landing platform. They would sit down there and wait for me to come their way. They would get rid of me first, before handling Masterson. I was on my way up to the top. I would be turning soon and coming down. I was on a merry-go-round. And sudden death was waiting for me at the end of the first revolution of my zany ride. The wheel swung me up and the cabin shook under me and I felt the fresh burst of a breeze as I arrived at the top of the circle. Then I was coming down through the fog, into the area of visibility, within range of Gus Bryant’s gun. There was only one way out for me. I saw his figure moving into position down there. I saw him taking aim. I would be a sitting duck for him, lower now, and still lower.

  I jumped.

  I jumped out and away, aiming my body at his head. There was the sound of a gun, a blast that seemed to come from inside my head, loud and echoing, the noise of a violent thunder. And something burned in my shoulder. He had winged me and I was falling into a void, traveling with mad speed, down, down, and in a line with Bryant’s upturned face, startled and frightened as I plummeted his way. I didn’t see him after that. I felt the collision, the impact of hurt and shock as I hit him. But he had softened my landing. A stab of pain shot through me and I closed my eyes against the skittering light. Then we were wrestling.

  He didn’t have the gun anymore. And without the gun, he was meat for me. I had stunned him badly and his fists were weak against me. I used my legs against him, kicking out blindly, aiming low. He screamed with pain as we writhed in the dirt, grabbing for my throat. I rolled away and let him come to me, and when he was close enough. I kicked again. His body sagged and he went limp. I started away from him, crawling along the ground, aimed for the watchman’s shack. Above me, the great wheel spun in the fog. Ashforth had decided to put it into high. I saw him come through the door of the shack, headed my way.

  I froze. I played dead.

  He pranced toward me until he saw my stiffness and I caught a nervous giggle as he fumbled in his jacket pocket. Then he had the gun out and was mincing cautiously in my direction, approaching me with the movement of a startled female observing a wounded mouse. His jittery eyes skipped beyond me and absorbed the rest of the scene, Bryant’s body in the dust near the fence. Ashforth shivered and whispered a vague word of encouragement to himself, caught in a climax he could not expect. I made my move.

  I caught him in a low tackle, bringing him down in a puffing heap, but not easily. He was heavier than I thought, and agile as a cat. He reached for my face and clawed out at me, scratching my jaws with his well-manicured fingers. The gun was gone, dropped as I made my leap at him. He was too strong for me because I was fighting with only one arm. My left arm was dead, all the way down from my shoulder. It was a zany match, a handicap wrestling bout, a rolling battle with a tub of butter. His rage came through to me in a series of uncontrolled yelps and giggles, half hysteria, half enjoyment, but the pressure of his pudgy body sickened me. He was too close for comfort, so close that I was able to whiff the cloying sweetness of his personal perfume. I worked him around desperately. I caught him off balance and kicked him away from me. Then I clawed out feeling the earth for a weapon. And the earth was good to me. I had a rock in my fist now, large enough to flatten him in one last blow.

  I brought the rock down on his forehead, between the eyes. His head fell back and his eyes closed and I heard him scream, high and thin, the sound of a woman in mortal pain.

  I rolled away from him and spilled my guts against the fence.

  Above me, the sound of the wheel swelled against my ears, the movement of the great gears; the noise of the sliding cars alive on the ungreased tracks. I lay there and looked up at the mad scene. Masterson and Lisa were up there, in one of the revolving cars, swinging around the circle at top speed. They would continue to swing that way until somebody entered the watchman’s shack and killed the motor. The fog rolled around the heights of the wheel, screening it with impenetrable grayness. I began to laugh at it all, overcome by the tableau around me. Then I got off my back and stood up and started for the shack. I stumbled inside and managed to get a nickel out of my pants and dialed Headquarters.

  “Come on down to Coney Island,” I mumbled. “The Ferris wheel. But don’t bring the kiddies. Tell Biberman—”

  But I didn’t finish the sentence. I was out cold before I could mouth the last few words.

  CHAPTER 20

  The first thing I saw was a white patch of light, between two darker patches, blurred and distant.

  The three shapes remained stationary and then the white one moved forward and I saw that he was a little man—an interne. He put his hand on my shoulder and shook me gently and said a few words to me. I tried to answer him, but my voice was coming from somewhere around my heels, as fuzzed and distant as a weak whisper. I forced my eyes open and he came into focus slowly, a smallish man, a blur of movement at first. Then the light caught his glasses and there was a highlighted reflection in them.

  I closed my eyes and bobbled my head to shake the cobwebs away.

  The little man was saying, “He’ll be out of it in a minute. He’s suffering a bit from shock, but it isn’t serious.”

  Somebody else said, “How about the shoulder?”

  “Nothing to worry about.”

  Their voices were coming through to me clearly now and I knew that I was on the cot, in the watchman’s shack. I opened my eyes again, but the little room was still swimming around me and the figures of the two men were still hazy and indistinct, somewhere beyond my reach.

  Somebody opened the door and a gust of cool sea air swam into the tiny cubicle, followed by another man, who said, “Carson just came back from the station. He reports that they found the stones. Masterson broke down completely when we booked him. He admitted that he threw the cluster away, the minute he saw us coming in to grab him. He threw them off the wheel and they landed over there, on the roof of that building. One of our boys just picked them up.”

  “Masterson cracked, eh?”

  “He went to hell in a hurry, almost from the minute he stepped inside the precinct door.”

  “How about the big dame?”

  “She’s going to be trouble. She almost murdered the matron when she tried to take her to
her cell.”

  I struggled to a sitting position and leaned my head back against the wall and said, “What happened to Bryant?”

  Somebody said, “He’ll live.”

  “He’ll live to burn,” I said. “And the fat man?”

  “Concussion. What did you hit him with, Steve—the side of a building? He looked as though the Ferris wheel had fallen on his kisser.

  I recognized the laughter, and when he came into my range of vision, I saw that it was Biberman. He shook my hand affectionately and sat down. There was a small clock on the wall behind him. I squinted at it. It was almost seven o’clock.

  “You got here fast,” I said.

  “I was right behind you, almost all the way,” Biberman said.

  “Behind me?”

  “Didn’t you know?”

  I said, “Break it down for me.”

  “You’re slipping, Steve.”

  “I’ve slipped. And I didn’t bounce.”

  “Lucky for me you didn’t. You did me a big favor on this deal.”

  “You haven’t answered my question,” I said. “How did you know I was down here at the wheel? How did you get down here so fast?”

  Biberman got up and went to the door. He shouted to somebody outside and a man came in behind him, an average-sized character, but he was wearing a gray hat.

  Biberman smiled and said, “Recognize this lad?”

  “Should I?”

  “He was on your tail all the way down the line. His name is French and I assigned him to cover you from the moment you left my office yesterday.”

  I leaned on my good elbow, enjoying the sight of the man named French. He was vaguely familiar. He was the man I had spotted under the awning—the moment before I entered the mad party at Leo’s.

  “What happened, French?” I asked. “Lose me?”

  “I lost you after you took the cab from The Maisonette. My hack stalled when you headed east off Broadway. But I was behind you before that for the rest of it. I tailed you down here early this morning, but I hung back on Surf Avenue because I knew you’d spot me if I followed you into the amusement section back here. So when I lost you after The Maisonette, I called the boss and told him what happened. He figured you must be here, so we beat it down.”

  Biberman grinned modestly. “It was a long shot, Steve. When French reported that he lost you, I admit I was confused. You certainly moved around a lot in a few hours. But French’s report seemed to indicate that you found something when you came down here early this morning. The fact that you headed back to your office suggested that you might have wound up the locate on Masterson.”

  “You guessed right,” I said. “I was burning with joy. I wanted to tell Abe about it. Poor Abe. It was because of him that I was able to muddle through. But he had to die to push me along to Hands Vincetti. Before that, I was on a merry-go-round, believe me.”

  “I believe you,” French said. “You did a lot of legwork, Conacher.”

  “I did a lot of all kinds of work. You missed most of the fun. You should have seen me at Alice V. Christie’s dump. I was terrific.”

  Biberman whistled. “Alice V. Christie, the lady lawyer?”

  “The same.” I broke it down for Biberman, in small slices, so that he could digest the yarn easily. He heard me out and then bounded to the phone and put through a call uptown. They would grab Alice V. without trouble. She would be sitting in her Sutton Place perch, drinking her highball and waiting for the return of Ashforth and Bryant. She would be feeling secure until two of Biberman’s boys would ring the bell and take her away to a small square cell, to convert her into a prize client for one of her colleagues in the legal business. I saw her sitting in the witness chair, her glib mouth silenced, her anxious eyes surveying the twelve good men and true who would send her where she belonged.

  Biberman put down the phone. “She’ll never worm her way out of this one, Steve. She’ll get the works.”

  “How about the blonde? The actress?”

  “Hard to say. All she did was impersonate a corpse. And she might have been innocent of any knowledge of the murder of Masterson’s wife.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said. “She was too good for solitary confinement.”

  “You should know.”

  “I know.”

  French laughed. “I caught a quick look at her when she left The Maisonette. She was solid.”

  “You should have walked up to me and told me who you were,” I said. “There were times when I could have used some help.”

  “He had to do it the quiet way,” Biberman explained. “I was worried about you, Steve, because you were fiddling with Bryant, working against him in a race to locate Masterson. I didn’t want you damaged. Like I said before—you were really doing a job for me—for the New York Police. You remember the story I told you about a guy named McQueen? You remember the way I felt about him? Well, you always hit me the same way. And I don’t like to see a talent like yours get shot up by anybody like Gus Bryant.”

  “Bryant was only a bit player in this deal,” I said. “Wait’ll you get a medical report on Vincetti.”

  I got up and tested my legs again. They had ripped my coat off to get at my shoulder, and now Biberman held it up, smiling at it sadly. I took it from him and the weight of it startled me and I stood there laughing at it, high and loud.

  “What’s so funny?” Biberman asked.

  I said, “It just occurred to me that I have a problem, a unique problem for an honest detective. What happens when a phony clients pay off for a locate? Do I keep the fee?”

  “Why not? You did your job for them. You led them to Masterson, the way you promised.”

  “I made them pay through the nose for him.”

  “It’s no concern of the Police Department how much they paid you,” said Biberman. “After all, they were helping to pay for our share of the locate.”

  “Bryant paid off in blue chips.”

  “He can afford it. You’re going to be rolling in dough, Steve. You’ll get the reward from Flaubert’s for this deal, too.”

  “Not me,” I said. “The wad goes to Abe Feldman’s widow—all of it, plus half of what I got from Gus Bryant.”

  “Whatever you say,” said Biberman. “You feeling all right now? Let’s get out of here and have some breakfast. You look as though you could use some ham and eggs.”

  I took the whole squad out for ham and eggs. After all, I could afford it. I had come to the end of the line with only a few curable bruises. But I had plenty of Gus Bryant’s dough stuffed away in my haberdashery.

  And it was a pleasure to fatten the police on Bryant’s money.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the PI Steve Conacher Mysteries

  CHAPTER 1

  It was a little after eight and I was glued to my usual stool in Tim Coogan’s bar, an establishment located only a few short steps from my office on Forty-fifth Street. It was too hot to move. I moved only my elbow, sipping my whiskey sour as I watched Tim Coogan’s television screen. A horse-faced detective was sweating through a corn opus involving a heavily bosomed blonde, a dope peddler, a maniac, a flat-nosed hood and an ingénue out of the comic book school of acting. The characters operated against a waterfront background, created out of the whimsical imagination of some schoolboy script writer. A few of Tim Coogan’s regulars sat around me watching the drama unfold and making interesting comments about the blonde. She was aiming a small automatic at the detective’s midriff and promising to kill him, while he stood his ground, grinning at her pleasantly and mouthing snappy banter before slapping the nasty gun out of her hand. I turned away from the visual stew and signaled Tim to refill my glass.

  He was working over it at the other end of the bar when the girl walked in. She came in tentatively, taking delicate steps, like a small girl about to enter a r
oomful of strange adults. She approached Tim and asked him a question. He looked up at her and then slid his eyes my way, giving me his usual dead-eye wink, as meaningful as a slap in the face. He jerked his thumb my way and she followed it. She moved gracefully, stepping forward with the easy poise of a show girl.

  She slid alongside me and sat on the next stool and studied my face in the mirror opposite.

  “You’re Steve Conacher?” she asked the mirror.

  I nodded at the glass. “Who wants to know?”

  She turned her pretty face my way and showed me her clean white teeth. “My name is Joy Marsh. Mary Ray said I’d find you here.”

  “Mary has a good memory.”

  “She sent me over for you.”

  “Not tonight, lady. Tell Mary I appreciate her thoughtfulness, but I’m not in the mood for it.”

  I was lying like hell. The girl at my side was a picture book girl, a calendar girl, a girl of infinite beauty. Her blonde hair was cut short and the roots were as clean as the ends—a natural tint, a combination of yellow and silver that sparkled even in the dusty interior of Tim Coogan’s. It was a Scandinavian hue, as honest as the color of her eyes. She had a soft, round face, delicately rouged, so that the crystal blue of her eyes shone out at you. The effect was dazzling. The effect was startling. She would not be easy to forget.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “Mary wants to see you.”

  “And I want to see Mary. But I also want to finish my drink. It’s a great night for finishing drinks.” I leaned into her and let her feel the pressure of my shoulder. “What sort of drink would you like to finish, Joy?”

  “You’re very nice, but I really don’t want anything.”