by Anthony Rome
“Uh-huh. All day. I just got out.”
“But . . . does that sort of thing happen to you often in your line of work?”
“It happens.” I gave her one of my cigarettes and lit it for her.
She took a deep drag at it, blew out a cloud of smoke, and studied me interestedly. “I’ve never met anyone just out of jail before. I’ll bet you could use a drink.”
I shook my head. “I could use some information about a guy called Nimmo.”
It startled her. “Nimmo?”
“The last time I was up here you got a phone call. About somebody with that name.”
“Sure,” she said slowly. “I remember. But what makes that your business?” She wasn’t annoyed, just curious.
“Saturday a Miami hotel detective who used to be my partner was murdered. I think Nimmo is involved. It’s not a common name.”
It took her a moment to adjust. “Nimmo Fern?”
“I don’t know.” I described the tall, darkly handsome man I’d run into outside Turpin’s hotel room. “Early forties. A short, broad scar under this eye.” It could have been Catleg—but luck was with me.
Anne nodded excitedly. “That’s him all right. Nimmo Fern. That’s some coincidence. My knowing him, and you thinking he’s involved in a murder.”
“In this case,” I told her, “I don’t think there’s really much coincidence involved.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where does this Nimmo Fern live?”
“Search me.”
“Where can I find him?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen Nimmo in over a month.”
I snubbed my cigarette out in an ashtray and got a grip on my impatience. “All right. Just tell me what you know about him.”
“Like what?”
“Who is he? What is he? For a start.”
“I’m not sure,” Anne said hesitantly. “I got the impression he’s some kind of lone-wolf gambler. He talked a lot about the gambling in Las Vegas and Havana.”
“How’d you meet him?”
“It was about a week after I came down here to wait out my divorce. I was awfully restless—I needed something to keep me from feeling sorry for myself. Something exciting, different. One of the bellhops recommended Floring’s Place. Know it?”
I nodded. “Plush night club up near The Strip.”
“There’s a secret gambling room in the back of the club. Did you know that?”
“I’ve heard rumors. Floring must have some heavy connections. The Beach cops’ve been cracking down on gambling lately.”
“Floring keeps it pretty exclusive. You need an introduction to get in the back room. The bellhop was nice enough to call up Floring and fix it so I could get in.”
“That was nice of him all right. He gets a fat rake-off for steering loot-heavy people like you to a joint like that.” Anne grinned crookedly. “I suppose so. Well, I went on a sort of gambling binge there for a couple of weeks till I calmed down. And that’s where I met Nimmo Fern. He showed me how to recoup some of my losses by making side bets at the craps table. After that we began seeing each other from time to time.”
“If you dated him, you must have some idea where to get in touch with him.”
She shook her head. “I don’t. He’d just phone me from someplace and ask for a date. I think he was impressed with me, liked being seen out with me.” She gave me that defensive look again. “I don’t think I was the kind of woman he was used to.”
“Sure. Where’d you usually meet him?”
“Here. Or at the bar in Floring’s Place.”
“He never told you anything about where he was from, where he worked?”
“No. And I never asked. He was that kind of man. He talked about all the places he’d been and hinted he was in the rackets. He knew that made him more interesting. But outside of that, he never said much about himself.”
I asked if she knew a man named Catleg. She didn’t. I sighed and paced to the windows and looked out at the white, frothy combers surging on the beach.
“You say you haven’t seen Nimmo Fern in over a month. How come?”
Anne shrugged and looked a little embarrassed. “His charm wore thin after a while. What was fascinating about him began to seem a little sinister. And I began to realize he actually had a lot of contempt for women. All women. Explanation enough?”
I nodded. “What was that phone call about?”
“That was Seth, the piano player at Floring’s. He wanted to know if I’d seen Nimmo lately. He said he owed Nimmo some money and wanted to pay it back, but Nimmo hadn’t been around the past few days.”
I thought about that for a few seconds. “Tell me. Did Nimmo ever meet any of the Kosterman family as far as you know?”
“Once. I was invited to a beach party Diana threw on The Island. I took Nimmo along.”
I felt something quicken in me. “How long ago was this?” Anne thought back. “About four months ago . . . yes. It was a couple of weeks after I met Nimmo.”
“Any of them act like they knew him? Or did he say anything about knowing any of them from before?”
“No. Why? They wouldn’t be likely to know somebody like Nimmo.”
“You wouldn’t think so,” I mused. “How’d they take him?”
“Oh . . . Diana and Darrell thought he was pretty fascinating. Rita seemed to take an instant dislike to him though.”
“How do you know?” I asked quickly. “Did she say anything to him?”
“Not to him. To me. She said she was disappointed in my choice of men.” A light blush suffused Anne’s cheeks. She looked away from me, chewing her lower lip. “After that Rita made herself scarce for the rest of the party.”
“How’d Kosterman like Nimmo?”
“Rudy wasn’t there that day.” Anne took another of my cigarettes, lit it off the tip of her old one. “I told Nimmo what Rita said about him, after we left. Trying to get a rise out of him. He only laughed.”
She crushed out her second cigarette after only a couple of puffs and looked at me again. “Do I get told the rest of what all this is about? Or do you have to go on being mysterious?”
I thought for a moment and made up my mind. “Look, you said you didn’t like short notice, but you don’t have a date tonight. How about going out with me to Floring’s Place?”
“I wish I was dumb enough to think that’s a social invitation,” Anne said. “You want to ask Floring about Nimmo, right?”
I nodded. “And that piano player, Seth.”
She heaved a mock sigh. “Okay, Tony, I’ll pretend it was sweet of you to ask me.”
I went to the Straight Pass for a shower, shave and change of clothes. Then drove back to pick Anne up. By the time we reached Floring’s, the night’s business was in full bloom.
The main front room of Floring’s Place was big, crowded, noisy. Smoke from dozens of cigarettes fogged its purplish lighting. Tables and chairs hugged the walls on which had been painted murals depicting an adolescent boy’s idea of life in a harem. There was a circular bar in the center of the room, with a small raised stage inside it. A four-piece combo was pounding out a rhythm with a primitive beat, while an awkward but gorgeously formed young stripper shed her complicated clothing arrangement on the stage and tried to move her hips to the music at the same time. Equally leggy strippers who had finished their numbers or were waiting to go on hustled drinks from lone males at the bar. The customers, exhibiting every possible degree of tan and sunburn, seemed to be having a grand time. They felt they had to, at a dollar fifty for a small glass of beer.
We sat at one of the tables near the wall. I ordered brandy on the rocks for both of us, and Anne asked the waiter to tell Floring she’d like to see him.
The drinks arrived first. While we were sipping and waiting, the stripper finished peeling and the band took a short break. Anne called to Seth, the piano player. He came to our table, said “Hi, Mrs. Archer,” gave me a fast smile, and slumped i
n a chair. He was a weedy young man wearing dark sunglasses, thin golden hair, and the careworn expression of an accountant at income-tax time.
“Man, I’m done,” he rasped. “Can I have a gin?”
“They got the musicians hustling drinks too, now?” I asked him.
He gave me a pained look. “No, man, I’m talking about real gin. I need it. I’m tapering the monkey off my back. Okay?”
I nodded. He grabbed a passing waiter and ordered a double gin, no ice.
‘Tm looking for Nimmo Fern,” I told him. “Mrs. Archer says you are, too.”
“I was. No more.”
“You found him?”
“Uh-uh. He ain’t been around. For which praise Allah. I owe him some loot. I had it when I called Mrs. Archer. Hour later I got cleaned in a craps game. Now I couldn’t pay him dime one.”
His drink arrived. He gulped it like water.
“Think Nimmo’ll be sore about your not being able to pay?” I asked him.
“I ain’t looking forward, I’ll tell you true. He’s got that mean look, you know?”
“I owe him too,” I said. “Got any idea where I can find him?”
“Who can ever find Nimmo? He finds you, like. That’s why they call him Nimmo. Most of the time, he ain’t.”
I asked if he knew anybody named Catleg. He said he didn’t.
A big, tuxedoed man whose pale round face and bald skull had never been subjected to a drop of the famed Miami sun drifted to our table and smiled down at us benignly. “Good to see you again, Mrs. Archer. Been a while.”
“Hello, Mr. Floring,” Anne said. “Can you join us for a minute?”
Floring’s smile widened. “My pleasure.” He flicked a look at Seth that would have chopped down a tree. Seth got up hastily, mumbled, “Time for the next number,” and vanished. Floring sat in the vacated chair and gave me a pleasant, curious smile.
“This,” Anne said, gesturing at me, “is . . . a very good friend of mine, Mr. Floring.”
“Any friend of Mrs. Archer’s,” he said, and shook my hand with the crusher grip that’s somehow supposed to indicate friendly intent. “You like to gamble?”
“Too much,” I told him truthfully. “I owe Nimmo Fern some money, but I can’t find him to pay off. Anne thought you might know where to reach him.”
Floring shook his head regretfully. “Sorry. He hasn’t been around here in over a week.”
“Have you known Nimmo long?”
“A while. Why?”
“Well . . .” I pretended embarrassment. “It was quite a lot of money he won from me. I just wondered if you considered him honest.”
“I’d say he’s a straight enough gambler,” Floring told me, considering it. “At least, I’ve never heard about anybody accusing him of cheating yet. And I’ve known him almost since he first came here about a year ago.”
“Oh? He’s not native Miami?”
“Him? Naw.”
“Where’s he from? I couldn’t place his accent.”
Floring shrugged. “Who knows where gamblers come from? Sometimes I think they were all born and grew up on a plane between Las Vegas and Havana.”
“Any idea where I can find him?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nimmo’s a pretty shut-mouthed guy. Hard to know anything about.”
“Can you think of anybody who might know?”
“Well . . . Georgia might.”
“Who?”
“Georgia McKay. One of my strippers. She always acts pretty buddy-buddy with him.”
I glanced toward the bar. “Which one is she?”
“Georgia ain’t here now. She took off early with a big wallet from Baltimore. He said.”
“That was pretty generous of you,” I said, “letting her off for the night.”
Floring laughed. “Generous, hell! He bought two magnums of champagne to pry her loose from here. At a hundred ten a bottle I can miss her for one night. Not that it’ll do that poor sucker any good.”
“What do you mean?”
He grinned. “She’s a . . .” He glanced at Anne, then back to me. “She don’t like men. She’s probably ditched him by now, and he’s eating his heart out. Can’t say I blame him. She’s a real stacked chip.”
“Where do I find her?”
“She lives in a trailer camp out on Northwest Thirty-sixth.” He gave me the address. I thanked him and paid the check.
“She probably ain’t home yet,” Floring said as we rose. He glanced winningly at Anne. “How about you and your friend visiting the back room for a while? I don’t mind losing money to nice people like you.”
Anne grinned at him. “You’ve got a nerve saying that after all the money I’ve dropped here,”
“Only one way to get even, you know,” Floring intoned. “Luck can’t always go one direction. It’s got to turn. Science says so.”
“My bank account says otherwise,” Anne told him.
I tried the name Catleg on him, but it didn’t ring a bell. So I told him we’d be around for a try at his back room another time. That got us loose from him.
Out in my car, I turned to Anne. “I’d better take it alone from here on.”
“Well, I guess it’s safe enough to let you. Floring did say she doesn’t like men.”
I dropped her off at her hotel.
“Take care,” Anne said quietly as she got out of the car. “Don’t go getting yourself beaten up again. Don’t get thrown in any more jails.”
I solemnly promised to do my best to avoid both pitfalls. After she vanished into the hotel lobby, I pulled away from the curb and drove to meet the luscious, unattainable Miss Georgia McKay.
CHAPTER
15
EXCEPT FOR the wheels under the trailers, there was nothing about the community which suggested impermanence. The trailers were arranged in neat rows like houses on a block, each with its own small landscaped plot, its own little garden, and a tiny patio shaded by a colored aluminum ramada or a gaily striped awning. Some trailers were even flanked by children’s swings and slides.
Georgia McKay’s trailer was one of the boxcar-sized Great Lakes jobs, propped up at both ends with cement blocks, near the kidney-shaped swimming pool. Most of the residents had already turned in for the night, but lamplight showed through the Venetian blinds of Georgia McKay’s trailer. I knocked at the front door and waited.
It was a minute before the door was opened. The woman who opened it wore a nondescript man’s bathrobe and shapeless slippers. Her mousy brown hair, about the length of a man’s when he’s three weeks overdue at the barber’s, was tousled. She was stocky, her face broad and stolid. Her sleepy eyes blinked at me. She rasped, “What is it?”
I asked, “Georgia McKay?” but I knew she couldn’t be. “No. I’m Irma. Georgia’s roommate. What do you want?”
“I’m looking for someone Georgia knows. Floring thought she might be able to help me find him.”
“Floring sent you?” Irma eyed me suspiciously. “But she’s still at Floring’s Place this time of night.”
“She went out on a date with a customer.”
Fright showed in Irma’s eyes but was quickly hidden from me.
I added, “Floring figured Georgia would give him the slip pretty fast.”
It made her feel better but no friendlier. “Well, she isn’t home yet. So I’m afraid . . .”
“I’d like to wait for her. It’s important.”
She stared at me as though my request confused her. “Wait? Here?”
“You can phone Floring about it. If I worry you.”
Irma thought about it, finally shrugged. “Okay. You can wait. Come in.”
I climbed the two steps into a living-dining room. An accordion partition screened the kitchenette at one end. Beyond it, a short, narrow corridor led back to the bedroom and bath.
Irma closed the door and stood looking at me uncertainly, her fists planted on her wide hips. “I was just going to sleep when you knocked. I get up early
. I run a driftwood factory.”
“I’ll be quiet,” I promised.
She started to turn away, then stopped and looked back at me. “This man Georgia’s supposed to know. Who is he?”
“Nimmo Fern. Name mean anything to you?”
“Uh-uh. How does Georgia know him?”
“Maybe they met at Floring’s Place. He’s a gambler.” Irma frowned, worried and thoughtful. “Well . . . don’t keep Georgia up too long when she gets in. She never gets the sleep she needs as it is.”
“I’ll make it short,” I assured her.
Irma nodded abstractedly, surveyed me a while longer. Then she muttered, “Well . . . good night.” She trudged down the corridor to the rear bedroom, closed the door behind her. I waited for the sound of her locking the door. She did.
I sat on the sofa, took my time lighting a cigarette, and prepared for a wait.
Seven cigarettes later, I was still waiting, and the inside of my mouth was beginning to taste like ashes. I went to the kitchenette, had a long, cool drink of water and went back to the sofa. Another hour went by. No Georgia McKay. I finished the pack of Luckies, prowled the room in search of more cigarettes. No luck. I went back to the sofa. The weariness of the waiting began to get to me. Finally,
I stretched out on the sofa, propping my ankles up on one of the arm rests. After a while I closed my eyes.
When I opened them again, daylight was filtering in through the Venetian blinds.
It was the sound of the trailer door opening and clicking shut that awakened me. I sat up quickly, blinking my eyes open. A tall girl with silver-dyed hair and the shoulders, breasts, and hips of a Venus de Milo stood there, her startled gaze fastened on me.
I rubbed my palms over my sleep-numbed face and stared back at her. She wore a strapless black evening gown cut daringly low across the generous hills of her bosom and tucked tight around her tiny waist. Her features were so beautifully chiseled, with just a touch of sensuality to the flare of her nostrils and curve of her lips, that you almost missed the peculiar dead look of her flat gray eyes.
“Who . . .” she whispered tensely.
“Floring sent me,” I told her quickly. “I’m looking for Nimmo Fern. Floring thought you could help me. You are Georgia McKay, aren’t you?”
