“Never mind. That’s not important. It’s kind of a blow, you know. I — ah — well, I’d fallen for her pretty hard.”
“She was out to take you, George. Believe me. I know.”
George smiled thinly. “That wasn’t important either. I can afford to be taken. Funny, isn’t it? I didn’t mind that part at all. Maybe I’m nuts, but I figured she’d get over taking me after a few years and — well, sort of like her position and settle down in it. I still think that’s what would have happened.” He shook his head. “But the two of you. Anything but that. Even anyone else. It wouldn’t have mattered very much. Not you, though. Not in the family. Can you picture how it would be?”
“Sure.”
“Every time I looked at her, at you, at the two of you together — No. That I couldn’t take.” He looked vaguely about the room, then pushed himself away from the bar. “Good night, Marty. We can talk about the hotel deal some other time.”
“Sure. Sorry, George. Good night.”
Marty sat back after he was gone and started to smile. He was no longer in the middle. Frank would think Marty was responsible for the break-up and be grateful, and, on the other hand, there was no way Dotty could blame him for it. After all, he had not really been the one to break the news. He could explain that to Dotty with no trouble at all. Maybe now she would leave San Francisco, perhaps try New York. That would be very nice. It would reduce his only element of danger by 100 per cent. Marty was well satisfied with the outcome.
He waited a long while for Karen, but she did not return to the study. He turned back to his work and completed it in a few hours. He yawned, called the butler to take care of the lights, and went back to the master bedroom. Karen was not there and again her dressing room was empty. Marty swore under his breath and went down the hall to the next bedroom, again prepared to break down the door. It had worked before, it would work again. But the door was unlocked. Karen was sitting up in bed reading a magazine, a fluffy bed jacket over her shoulders. She put the magazine aside and looked calmly at Marty as he walked in and approached the bed.
“Not this time,” she said. “I allowed you to get away with it before because there was a doubt in my mind. I could have been wrong. I wanted to be proved wrong. But not this time.”
“I told you before that as long as you’re my wife you occupy my bed.”
“Sorry.”
He said between clenched teeth, “That’s the way it’s going to be.”
“No, Marty.”
“Do I have to carry you in again?”
“You can, of course, but you won’t. Because if you do, my attorneys will call on you tomorrow. That, also, is the way it’s going to be.”
Marty stood at the side of the bed, but made no move to touch her. He looked down at her, at a loss to understand what was going on. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? Now what have I done? George?”
“Yes.”
“But George is no kid, and I have never considered myself his nursemaid.”
“You could have been decent, though. You knew what was going on, Marty.”
“Why should I — ”
“Now, please. You have always known what that situation was. You were not even the least bit surprised by his announcement.”
“All right. So what?”
She looked at him as if appraising a strange, new animal. “I don’t know why you still astonish me, Marty. I should know you by now. You know that was a cruel thing to do to George, a vicious thing. Even you can understand what it can do to a man when a thing goes that far. And all the while, in the very beginning, just a few words from you — You could have stopped it. Marty,” she said, her eyes again calculating and hard, “just what sort of hold has this Kimball woman over you?”
Marty stepped back, the picture of wide-eyed innocence. “A hold over me? I don’t get that.”
“There has to be. You have become far more of a snob than any of us, including George. You are very careful about the friends you make. They must always be financially powerful and socially prominent. All of them you have met through us. Obviously, you must have had other friends before you and I got married, yet I have never known or met a single one of them. There’s only one assumption I can make, that you have cut them all off.”
“So what has that to do with Dotty?”
“A lot. She’s not on the same level with your new friends, at least not by your standards, yet you have allowed her to come very close to being a member of the family. That violates your new set of rules. There has to be a reason for it. She has some sort of control over you.”
Marty shifted his eyes away from her and snorted, “That’s a lot of nonsense.”
Karen leaned back against the satin-covered headboard and said wearily, “So you don’t intend being honest about it. I didn’t think you would be.”
“I can’t be,” he exploded. “Damn it, I can’t tell you about it.”
“I’m still your wife, Marty. It’s possible that if you’re in some sort of trouble with this woman I can help you.”
He shook his head and growled, “It’s out of your league.”
“Very well. We’ll leave it that way. However, I do think it was downright vicious of you to allow George to go as far as he did, particularly because of some peculiarly selfish reason.”
“You don’t know anything about it. She may have made a good wife for him. He admitted as much in the study. He figured that she was probably out to take him, but that he could afford it, and in time it would work out all right. Sometimes, you know,” feeling a desire to hurt her, or at least arouse some emotion, “a woman like that makes the best kind of wife. So it could have worked out.”
His shot did not get through. Karen’s expression was as cool as ever. “You know better than that, Marty. This woman is no child. Her character is well established. And George, as you well know, is rather a weakling in some respects. An unscrupulous woman of that sort would definitely ruin his life. It was very indecent and dishonest of you to let him run that risk. I doubt that I will ever be able to forgive you for it.”
The calmly measured tone of her voice was getting under Marty’s skin. He felt a wild urge to beat her, to make her cry or scream, but he knew that if he did he would never see her again. He could not remain in the room. In another moment he would reach for her and there would be violence. He could not allow that to happen.
He left her and went back to his bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, staring at the carpet. What had gone wrong? Where had it started? It was all so confusing. He felt like a man standing at the intersection of a dozen roads, eleven of which lead to disaster. But there were no signboards giving directions. How to know which road to take?
He got into bed, alone for the first time, and felt that loneliness creep into him. He swore aloud into the dark. It was ridiculous. He had been alone most of his life. But he nevertheless felt lonely. He got up and had a cigarette, then went into the study for a straight shot of bourbon. He had a number of them. When he went down the hall to his room, hours later, he staggered and bumped his shoulders against the walls. He did not remember passing out at the door, or Karen and the butler putting him to bed.
He drank his way through the next few weeks and through the grand opening of the Wilton Plaza. The affair was as brilliant as the opening of the Stannard, and smoother. The various night-club rooms, all appropriately named, were jammed not only with the socially elite citizens of Santa Barbara, but also with large groups of studio people from Los Angeles. Marty was catering especially to their tastes and pocketbooks and was gratified by the large number of recognizable features and internationally famous names.
It surprised and pleased him to learn from them that he was also becoming well known. His exploits and success with the old Stannard Hotel had been talked about even in Los Angeles and there had been wide speculation as to what he would do with the Wilton Plaza. What he had accomplished seemed to be eminently satisfactory. He
had another overwhelming success on his hands.
His vanity was further rewarded by a characteristic peculiar to movie people. Regardless of their own personal eminence in the bright world of stars, they nevertheless jockeyed jealously for the right-hand seat at all functions. Marty was the right person, the one in the spotlight at the opening of the Wilton Plaza, so they maneuvered for positions at his side whenever anyone aimed a camera. He thought at first that Karen was causing all the attention, but realized gradually that it was himself. His success was complete.
Frank and George returned to San Francisco the day after the hotel opening, but Marty and Karen stayed on for four additional days. Marty felt that the holiday atmosphere might serve to thaw out Karen and even tried to court her all over again. It was a failure. She remained as aloof as ever. The extra days, in fact, lacking the adulation of the movie group, became bitter to Marty. His one consolation lay in the obvious success of his second venture. He made up his mind to concentrate on business and allow time to take care of his marriage. At least, he knew where he stood in business.
As soon as he returned to San Francisco George called on him in his hotel office. George was dressed for a day on the golf links and should have been anticipating it with some pleasure, but he seemed nervous and ill at ease. He wandered about the office, peering into cabinets, thumbing through magazines and papers, and lighting one cigarette off the other. As he wandered about the room he began talking, rarely looking at Marty, who sat quietly behind the desk watching him.
“It came off worse than I expected, Marty. I just couldn’t drop Dotty without an explanation of some kind. That would have been a dirty thing to do. After all, we had been pretty thick and she had every reason to believe that I was about to propose to her. So I called on her as soon as I got back, a couple of days ago.” He made a wry face at the memory of that call. “It got pretty rough. She called me about every dirty name that came into her mind, and believe me, she knows them all. Talk about a Marine sergeant — Anyway, it was nasty and damned ugly. However, it really opened my eyes and made me realize how lucky I was to be out of it.”
“Did she threaten you with a suit of any kind?”
“Oh, sure, but she knew that was silly even while she was screaming it at me. I just told her, finally, that it was all over with and that I was sorry and all that. She soon realized there was nothing she could do about it. But then the whole thing took an odd turn.” He frowned and looked over Marty’s head for a moment, then resumed his pacing. “From that point on she directed all of her anger at you. Cripes, what she thinks of you is really something! I thought I’d had it pretty rough, but it was nothing compared with what she had to say about you.”
Marty leaned his elbows on the desk, picked up a pencil, and chewed on it. He bit through the wood and tossed the pencil away. “Anything specific?”
“Well, not exactly, except that she knew things about you a whole lot of people would give their right arms to know.” He glanced briefly at Marty. “Is there anything in that?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because if I were in your shoes and she had anything on me, I’d head for the nearest bomb shelter. I’ve never seen anyone so hysterically angry in my life.”
Marty asked coldly, “Just what was it that turned her on me?”
George looked sheepishly away from him. “Well, when the real reason came out why I was dropping her. I had been lying about my reasons up to that point — really, I was trying to make it easy on her — but then I got tired of it and told her the truth.”
“Such as what?”
George looked surprised. “Why, you know, about her being your mistress. I told her I could probably have tolerated anything but that. That was too close to home to live with.”
“And just how did you tell her you came by that bit of news? Did you tell her I was the one who told you?”
“Naturally. Isn’t that the way I got it? Of course, I did think of mentioning that it was Karen who brought it up originally, but I figured why drag her name into it? Don’t you think that was right?”
“Yeah. You bet. You’ve done a swell job of it.”
“Anything wrong with that?”
Marty smiled bitterly and said dryly, “Oh, no. You were quite right.”
“Sure. I didn’t think anything of it. Anyway, that’s when she flipped her lid about you. She swore she’d get even with you if she had to die a thousand deaths doing it.”
Marty’s smile took on a dangerous edge. “She may, at that. Anything else?”
“Well, no. I just thought I’d better drop by and warn you, just in case she does have anything on you.” He could not resist asking curiously, “Is it anything important, Marty?”
“She was just yapping, that’s all.”
George looked relieved. “I’m glad to hear that. God, I’d hate to have any woman that mad at me. Well,” he smiled, “I have to run. Golf date in an hour. Be seeing you.”
“Yeah.”
George started to leave, but paused halfway to the door and looked back at Marty with a puzzled frown. “Say, I just remembered something. Do you know anyone named Tony Arturo?”
Marty had just picked up a package of cigarettes. He squashed the whole package, then opened his hand a finger at a time to drop it to the desk top. “Why?”
“Well, I was pretty excited, you understand. I left my hat in the living room of her apartment, but remembered it just as I was going out the front door. I went back into the living room and picked it up. I don’t think Dotty knew I was back. She had gone into the bedroom, which is just around an angle of the hallway, and was using the telephone. I heard her talking to someone, like an operator, possibly in a hotel, and asking for Tony Arturo. I’m sure that was the name. I tiptoed out of the room right then and left the apartment.”
“Did you overhear any of the conversation?”
“No. I just heard her asking for the name and then saying hello. That was all. I had a hunch she was possibly calling an attorney. Do you know the name?”
“I’ve heard it before, but I don’t think he’s an attorney.”
George chuckled. “Let’s hope not, anyway. Be seeing you, Marty.”
“Yeah. So long.”
As soon as he had gone Marty called the desk and learned that Tony Arturo was occupying his room in the hotel and had been present the past five days. Marty crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back in the chair. So she had called Tony. And she knew how badly Tony wanted to find Red Martin. It made a neat picture.
He wondered if it would do any good to call on Dotty and explain that he was not at fault for what had happened. He discarded the idea at once. She would never believe him, not after what George had had to say. He felt perspiration on his forehead and wiped it off with the back of his hand. The one danger, the only danger, and it was blowing up in his face. Tony was not dangerous in himself, or the F.B.I., or the police, or anyone else, or anything else. Only Dotty. And that was falling apart because she thought he had double-crossed her, when, for one of the few times in his life, his hands were clean, or almost.
Marty thought of various gunmen he knew about the country. Any one of them could be hired to take care of her. Considering the fact that it was a woman, the price would come high, but it would be worth it. To secure the services of a gunman, however, Marty would have to masquerade again as Red Martin, probably for a few days, or even weeks. That was too dangerous. Marty could no longer consider stepping out of his secure world into the shoes of a hunted man. That was what Dotty had meant when she said that he was no longer dangerous to anyone since his marriage. She probably believed it still. That, he thought, could be a sad error on her part.
Marty turned his thoughts back to the gunmen he knew. One was in Los Angeles, or had been, but the others were all in the East. They were violent men, born antisocial, each with his own pet peeve against the world, and all of them unimaginative and hardly better than morons. Contrary to the popular conceptio
n of gunmen as creatures of steel with nerves of ice, Marty knew the hired killer to be a highly nervous type, stupidly vicious, never to be trusted under any circumstances, and quite often capable of hysteria at the wrong time. They were punks. The lowest order of the underworld. Animals that walked like men. Atrophied brains. Jerks. Never anything else.
He turned them over in his mind and knew, with a sinking feeling, that they could not be used. There was the danger he would run in risking contact with them, which could not be avoided. The killer was interested in the money involved, but he had also to be convinced that the job was easy, with minimum risk. That took time, too much time. Then there was the fact that if the killer were picked up, his first concern would be in saving his own hide. He would talk. He would sing about everything he knew, or even suspected. That had not been important before, but it was now. Now if the wrong thing was said it could be disaster.
He had to do the job himself. There was no other way.
But why Tony Arturo instead of the police? Why had she gone to him? He considered the angles involved and came up with the answer. George Stannard was Dotty’s last chance to play the grand role in life she had always wanted. She figured Marty had double-crossed her and wrecked that chance. She wanted revenge and had it in her power to achieve it. Going to the police would be much too simple for a woman of Dotty’s temperament. Vengeance would be sweeter if she could make it a continuing thing, something that would last, that would make him sweat the rest of his life. Tony was the ideal answer. She knew his type well. It was undoubtedly obvious to her that once Tony knew the identity of Marty Lee-Red Martin, he would move in to blackmail Marty for all the traffic could bear for as long as it would last. Marty would have a new partner in the hotel business, one who would happily take the lion’s share of everything not nailed down. That would, indeed, be Dotty’s idea of sweet revenge. It was simple, after all.
He wondered just how much Dotty had already told Tony. There was one way to find out, not very decisive, but worth trying. Tony had been trying to locate Red Martin through underworld connections. If Dotty had told him anything substantial, then he would abandon that phase of the hunt.
Deep is the Pit Page 22
