The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

Mrs. Martin opened a shiny black purse. “I can pay you something now—”

  “No,” said Collins. “Never mind that. I have lots of money.” He actually had five dollars and seventy-three cents, and the rent was two weeks overdue. “Where is this place that Myra had been living?”

  “At 1271 Sales Street. It’s a boarding house.”

  “Yes. And where are you staying?”

  “At the Fortmount Hotel.”

  “All right, Mrs. Martin. You go back there and wait. Don’t worry more than you can help. You’ll hear from me soon.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She got up, breathing a little unevenly. “Thank you very much. I didn’t know where to turn. If I can just be sure Myra is all right, but I’ve had such a terrible empty feeling …”

  “Yes,” said Collins absently.

  He showed her to the door and came back and sat down at the piano and stared at the worn keyboard. With one finger he began to plunk out a little tune to the words “Myra Martin.” He couldn’t remember the name at all, but then he met a great many people in a great many places, and he never paid very much attention to people’s names.

  He noticed suddenly that his one-finger tune was the first bar of a funeral march. He stopped playing it and shivered. It was cold in the apartment and dark in the corners where the light didn’t reach. Mrs. Martin’s drear, sad little story had left an ugly and chill echo behind it. It was nothing you could touch, nothing you could see, but it was there. It was black and twisted and wickedly mirthful, and John Collins didn’t like even the thought of it.

  He unearthed a half-empty bottle of gin from under the chesterfield, took a big swig, and then got his hat and went out of the bungalow.

  ales Street was like quite a few others you can find in the back-washes of Hollywood if you care to look. It didn’t have any tinsel or glitter or rackety-rax. It was dark and narrow and a little bit crooked, and the tree branches over it moved in the wind and threw sharply jagged shadows that danced dangerously back and forth across the bumpy sidewalk.

  Number 1271 was a big brown house with a bulging bay-window and a discouraged sag in its roof. The front steps creaked under John Collins’ feet, and the floor-boards of the porch moaned in protest as he crossed to the door and punched a bell under the feeble night light.

  There was a discouraged jangle somewhere inside, and then slippers flip-flopped on bare boards, coming closer, and the door opened.

  “Vell?”

  Collins stepped back to take a good look. The man in the doorway was over six feet tall and as thin as a pencil. He stooped forward a little, as though the weight of his mustache was pulling him off-balance. It could have easily. It was a wonderful mustache. It ran as straight across his face as a ruler and turned up in sharp points at either end. Behind it, the rest of the man’s face was dingy and nondescript. He was wearing a conical fez with a tassel on it, sharp-pointed red leather slippers, and a red sash.

  “Going to a costume party?” Collins asked.

  “Vet you vent?”

  Collins said: “I’ve played in joints in Istanbul and Port Said and Cairo, but I’ve never heard a Turkish accent like that. Where’d you pick it up?”

  “In books,” said the man in an injured tone. “What’s the matter with it?”

  “Let’s step inside,” Collins suggested. He put a thick finger in the center of the man’s chest and pushed him back into a narrow dimly lighted hall that smelled faintly of fried onions and cheap perfume. At the foot of the stairs there was a rickety little table that served as a desk, and there was a telephone on the wall above it.

  “What’s the matter with my accent?” asked the tall man again. “And say, who are you pushing, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” said Collins. “What do you call yourself these days?”

  “Ali Singh Teke.”

  “Now, now,” said Collins.

  The tall man wiggled his mustache. “Well, all right. That’s my picture name. That’s the way I’m listed at Central Casting. My real name’s Alfred Peters. I play Turkish parts in the movies. I got to keep in practice, don’t I? What’s the matter with my accent?”

  “I couldn’t begin to tell you. Where’s Myra Martin?”

  Something dark and sullenly secretive closed over Alfred Peters’ face. “She ain’t here no longer.”

  “I didn’t ask you where she ain’t. I want to know where she is. Give.”

  “She moved out without givin’ no address.”

  “Did you throw her out?”

  “What?” said Alfred Peters, startled. “Why, I never! It’s a lie! Whoever told you that? Say, who are you, anyway?”

  “Never mind. Let’s talk about Myra Martin. She just walked out one morning and didn’t come back, is that it?”

  “Yes,” said Alfred Peters.

  “No.”

  Alfred Peters’ mustache wiggled again. “Huh?”

  “I said, no.” Collins took his right hand out of his pocket and opened it to reveal the coin lying on his broad palm. “Know what that is?”

  “Sure. It’s a half-dollar.”

  Collins spun it on the bare scarred top of the desk. “Does it look all right to you?”

  “Why, yes,” said Alfred Peters, puzzled.

  “Watch.” Collins picked the half-dollar up and closed it in his fist. The big cords in his wrist bulged out thickly, and the blood drained from his knuckles until they looked like bulging white knobs. He opened his hand again and dropped the half-dollar back on the table. It didn’t spin now. It rocked rapidly back and forth in the same spot, glittering. It was bent nearly double.

  Alfred Peters stared at it in unbelieving fascination.

  “Now,” said Collins. “Let’s start all over again. Where’s Myra Martin?”

  “Say, I never saw anybody do that—” Alfred Peters raised his eyes slowly to Collins’ face. “I told you she didn’t leave no address when she moved out. I don’t know where she is. You doubtin’ my word?”

  Collins nodded slowly. “That’s right.”

  Alfred Peters puffed himself up. “Where do you get comin’ in my house …”

  Collins picked up the bent half-dollar and flipped it up in the air and caught it again.

  Alfred Peters swallowed. “You can’t come in my house and get tough! You get out of here now, or—or—”

  “What?” Collins asked.

  “Well—well, you ain’t got any right.… Anyway, I told you the truth. She didn’t leave no forwardin’ address. She just up and went. Only it wasn’t in the mornin’ like you said. It was at night. It was real late at night. She pounded on my door and woke me up and said good-bye.”

  “She was carrying her trunk on her shoulder at the time, I suppose?”

  “No, she wasn’t. She didn’t have no trunk. Just a couple of big suitcases and an overnight bag.”

  “Did she have those on her shoulder?”

  “No. I guess the fella carried ’em for her.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Collins. “The fella. What was his name again?”

  “I dunno. And I dunno what he looks like, neither! I never saw him! I don’t know nothin’ about him!”

  Collins reached out and took hold of the spiked ends of Alfred Peters’ mustache. “Find out something. And make it fast.”

  “You leggo— Ow! I don’t want no trouble! I got a business here! I got to live—”

  Collins’ face was close to his. “Got to live? No, friend. Not necessarily.”

  “Aaah!” said Alfred Peters in a horrified gasp. “You wouldn’t— Ow! Ow-ow! All right, all right! Leggo! I’ll tell you—”

  Collins stepped back. “Go ahead.”

  Alfred Peters tugged at his mustache tenderly. “You ain’t got any right at all.… All right! I’m gonna tell you! It was just like I said. Now, wait! Only I heard a couple things when she was talkin’ on the telephone. I wouldn’t listen when any of my guests is talkin’, but the telephone is right there by the desk—”

  “
Sure,” said Collins.

  “Well, it is. And she was always talkin’, to this fella over it. She never spoke his name. She was always awful careful about that. At least, when I was around. But she sure put out a lot of love talk. She acted like she was dippy about this bird, what I mean. And it was all of a sudden, too. She never made no calls or got any before, and then she was on the phone all the time.”

  “Did the guy come around to see her?”

  “I think so, but I never saw him. Honest! She’d get all dressed up, and then she’d wait here in the hall until just two minutes to seven. Then she’d go out and walk over toward Sunset.”

  “And then?”

  lfred Peters shrugged his skinny shoulders. “I dunno.”

  “Yes, you do. You followed her.”

  “Well, once,” Alfred Peters admitted. “I was lookin’ out for her own best interests. And what did I get for it? I got a slap in the face, that’s what! She waited for me in a dark place down the street and stepped right out and slapped me in the face and told me to mind my own damned business.”

  “So you didn’t. What did you try next?”

  “Well, I got a pencil and a little pad there below the telephone for the convenience of my guests, and one time when she was talking she wrote a number down and tore off the page she wrote it on.”

  “But that didn’t stop you, did it?”

  “No,” said Alfred Peters. “I took off the next page and blew some lead pencil scrapings across it, and then I could see the number she wrote.”

  “Which was?”

  “Blakely 7-6222.”

  “Right on the tip of your tongue, eh?” Collins remarked. “Whose is it?”

  Alfred Peters sighed mournfully. “I called it, and a fella answered and said: ‘This is Derek Van Diesten’s house.’ ”

  “Who is he?”

  Alfred Peters stared with his mouth open. “Don’t you know? He’s the big hot-shot Dutch director from Rotterdam. Hitler chased him out, and he come over here a year ago. He’s one of the biggest guns in Hollywood. I sure figured on keepin’ that under my hat. I figured on callin’ him up someday and tellin’ him who I was and all the experience in pictures I’ve had. Then I figured I’d say, just sort of casual, ‘How’s Myra?’ ”

  “And then what?” Collins asked persistently.

  Alfred Peters looked pained at such stupidity. “Why, he’d give me a job, of course. Lots of ’em.”

  “Why would he?”

  “Well, he wouldn’t want no scandal. Of course, I wouldn’t tell anybody, but he wouldn’t want to take no chances that I’d blab what happened.”

  “What did?”

  “Huh!” said Alfred Peters. “It’s easy for a smart guy to figure out, all right!” He looked around and then lowered his voice. “Why, Myra went away to live with him, that’s what! She’s livin’ with him right now someplace under some other name! Sure! I know I’m right! You can’t fool me!”

  “You know,” Collins said slowly, “I don’t believe I’d call him up and say anything to him, if I were you.”

  “Why not?”

  Collins took a long sudden step closer to him. “Because he might send somebody like me around to shut your big blabber mouth—permanently.”

  “Aaah!” Alfred Peters moaned, and his face was a queer greenish color. He made little noises in his throat, and his eyes bulged wider and wider, and then words mumbled out of his stiff lips. “Wait, wait, wait! I never—I didn’t—I was jokin’! I wouldn’t—I don’t know nothin’! Honest, honest! I was just—Aaah!”

  The telephone rang, and he jumped as though he had been stabbed through the heart.

  “Answer it,” Collins ordered. “If they want someone else, tell them the party isn’t here. If they want you, tell them you’re sick. You probably will be, pretty quick.”

  Alfred Peters fumbled the receiver off the hook with a shaking hand. “Huh-hello? … Wh-what did you say? … A big, wide, ugly fella that plays the piano? I dunno who—”

  Collins slapped him to one side and jerked the receiver out of his hand.

  “Who is this?” he demanded.

  “Hello.” The voice was low and muffled and hard to understand. “Hello, John Collins. I’m a friend of yours. I just wanted to give you a word of warning. Don’t look any further for Myra Martin.”

  “Why not?” Collins said.

  “Because if you do, you might find her. I don’t think you’d like it where she is. It’s cold and rather damp and very dark. You’d better stick to piano playing. Good-bye, John Collins.”

  There was a soft click, and then the line hummed emptily. Collins slammed the receiver back on its hook, spun around and grabbed Alfred Peters by the front of his soiled shirt.

  “Where’s the nearest public telephone? Where is it? Quick!”

  “Wh-why, over a block west on Sunset there’s a little d-drugstore—”

  Collins let go of him and ran out of the hall and across the front porch and vaulted over the rickety railing.

  The drugstore was narrow and dingy and cluttered, heavy with the suggestive smell of patent medicines. The clerk was a little bald man in a blue smock, and he was hunched down with his chin resting on his hands, staring wearily at the smeared black headlines of the newspaper that was spread out on the prescription counter.

  “What?” he said, looking up in a timidly surprised way. “Oh. Good evening, sir. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  Collins indicated the telephone booth against the wall. “Did somebody just use that?”

  “The telephone? Yes, sir. A man just put in a call.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Look like?” the clerk repeated vaguely. “Just—just sort of like anybody else, I think. I didn’t pay much attention.”

  “How tall was he?”

  “I don’t know—about medium.”

  “Was he cross-eyed and did he have a green beard?” Collins asked patiently.

  “Green beard? Oh, no. He didn’t have any beard. He might have been cross-eyed, though. He was wearing dark glasses.”

  There was a sudden whip-like crack outside. In the same split-second a fat brown bottle on the shelf in back of the clerk burst like a bomb and threw shredded glass splinters in a glistening spray.

  Collins dropped instantly into a crouch, below the level of the counter. In the street a motor blasted and then wound itself up into a high fading scream in second gear. The sound died away, and Collins straightened up slowly in time to see the clerk coming up in reluctant jerks on the other side of the counter. The clerk’s face was as white as paper.

  Collins smiled at him. “A friend of mine. Very amusing fellow. He plays practical jokes.”

  The clerk stared at the remains of the brown bottle and then turned his head slowly to look at the starred round hole in the drugstore’s front window.

  “Oh, no!” he said shakily. “No, sir! That wasn’t any joke! That was a bullet—” He dodged around the counter and pelted for the front door, shouting: “Police! Help! Police!” in a thin falsetto wail.

  Collins went quietly through the back room and out the door into an alley.

  ollins arrived on Hollywood Boulevard a half-hour later after a series of zig-zagging detours through dark side streets and darker alleys. The Boulevard was crowded thickly with its usual pack of idly chattering, aimless strollers, and Collins drifted slowly along with them.

  He was an expert at this. He had the trick of blending into a throng of people and becoming as hard to keep track of as an individual wave in the ocean.

  After three blocks of sauntering and stopping to window-shop and sauntering again, he knew that he wasn’t being followed, and he cut out of the crowd and entered another drugstore. This one was big and busy and brilliantly lighted. Collins located a row of phone booths and shut himself up in one of them.

  A consultation with the directory informed him that Blakely was a Brentwood exchange, and he invested fifteen cents in a call to 7-6222. The te
lephone at the other end rang three times, and then the line clicked, and a precisely courteous voice said: “Yes?”

  Collins reflected that they were no longer giving away information as freely as they had when Alfred Peters had called, and then he said casually: “I’d like to speak to Mr. Van Diesten, please. This is Mr. Fulham from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It’s urgent.”

  “Yes, sir!” said the precise voice. “Just one moment, sir! I’ll call him at once!”

  Collins waited, whistling softly to himself. There was another click on the line, and a hoarse baritone voice said: “Yes? Hello, hello? This is Van Diesten. Who is calling from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, please?”

  “I’d like to speak to Myra Martin,” Collins said.

  “What? What is it?”

  “I’d like to speak to Myra Martin.”

  The hoarse voice vibrated with anger. “You are not from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer! I will report you!”

  “I’d like to speak to Myra Martin, please.”

  “I do not know her! I do not know anybody by that name! You will stop calling and annoying me! You must be crazy!”

  The receiver cracked in Collins’ ear, and then the line was dead. Collins sat still for a moment, whistling softly and thoughtfully to himself. He was frowning a little, and he no longer looked friendly. He opened the door of the booth and went out of the drugstore and headed west on Hollywood Boulevard.

  The Fortmount Hotel was tucked away on a side street off Vine. It had been all modern and shiny and Spanish once upon a time, but it was a little tired now. The shrubbery in the patio entrance was more ragged than luxuriant, and the lobby was as depressingly gloomy as a nightclub on Sunday morning. There were a few people sitting around and looking as though they wished they had somewhere else to go.

  Collins crossed to the desk in the arched setback beside the elevators and spoke to the clerk.

  “Will you call Mrs. Martin’s room and tell her that John Collins is here?”

  The clerk had shiny hair and a shiny round face. He put one pale hand up to his lips and coughed sharply. His eyes were blank with malicious little flickers of interest deep back in them.

  “Did you hear me?” Collins asked impatiently.