Shirley

by Howard Fast

  “Flint, you son of a bitch, get down on your knees!” Soames snarled.

  “Please—please, Al,” he whimpered.

  “Down on your knees!”

  Now Shirley realized that Soames would kill Flint—that nothing in him or in Flint could halt the progression. She watched Flint fall to his knees.

  “Come toward me,” Soames said.

  On his knees, Flint shuffled toward Soames.

  “Kiss my feet, you son of a bitch!”

  Shirley walked toward them, slowly but deliberately.

  “Stay out of this, Shirley!” Soames cried.

  “Now look, Buster,” Shirley said, calmly and deliberately. “If you kill him, you’re going to have to kill me too. You kill me, and that louses up the whole works. Just think about it. No Morton Stillman, no will changed, no seventy million—maybe even no peanuts to pay expenses. Because if you kill him and me, the cops are going to hear the shots, and this place is going to be eleven times as hot as hell. And if by any chance you should crawl out of it, what do you tell your friend Joey? Do you tell him how you loused everything up?”

  Soames was listening to her now. Flint was listening too. Shirley fought to keep her voice level and quiet, sensing that if her voice broke, the spell would break and events would snap back into the inexorable, lunatic progression she had been watching.

  “So grow up, both of you,” she said. “Right now, Burton could be on his way up here. He’s a smart cop. Suppose he goes to my apartment and finds that I’m not there. He’s got to come up to the roof. Right?”

  Flint and Soames stared at her. Then, slowly, Flint rose to his feet.

  “I’m sorry, Soames,” Flint said haltingly. “I won’t say that again, ever.”

  “The hell with that! Let’s get over to Joey.”

  “Dear God,” Shirley said to herself, “let me just get out of this one with my head on my shoulders, and I’ll never put my nose where it doesn’t belong. Never. I’ll never be a Girl Scout again. I swear I won’t.”

  Flint led them across the roofs. They came to the roof of an old-law tenement, about six feet higher than the roofs of the converted town houses. Flint stood up on the ledge and pulled himself onto the next roof. Then he helped the others up.

  They went down through the tenement hallways, and met no one but a middle-aged lady whose arms were filled with packages. In front of the tenement, they were a block away from Shirley’s apartment on Minetta Street.

  Another block away, the car was parked and waiting, a long, cream-colored Buick sedan. Soames told Shirley to get into the back, but couldn’t be bothered to open the door for her. Flint got in behind the wheel, and Soames sat next to him. Flint hadn’t spoken a word since his apology on the rooftop.

  “Drive through Minetta Street,” Soames said.

  “What for?” Flint wanted to know.

  “Because I say so.” Soames underlined the fact of their changed relationship.

  “I told you about the cops on Minetta Street,” Shirley said.

  “Nobody looks inside a car,” Soames grinned, twisting around to face her.

  They drove through Minetta Street. Shirley noticed the hunched, bulky form of the plain-clothes man who was stationed across the street from her home. He gave them hardly a glance as they slowly drove by.

  “See? Cops. Cops are stupid.”

  “We’re smart,” Shirley said.

  “Sure we’re smart. You ride on the money, you’re smart.”

  “You learned a lot since you were an actor, didn’t you, Buster?”

  “You know what,” Soames said, “I don’t think I like you calling me Buster. Not one little bit.”

  “Then what should I call you—James Charles Alexander?”

  “Just shut your yap,” Flint muttered.

  “Drop dead,” Shirley told him.

  Soames watched her, grinning. “Call me Al,” he told her. “You got a lot of guts, Shirley.”

  “Why?”

  “Guts, Shirley. I like that.”

  “So has an elephant.”

  “What?”

  “So has an elephant got guts. Forget it.”

  “You know something, Shirley,” Soames said, still grinning, “this is Joey’s car. His own car. You like it?”

  “Why? You going to give it to me?”

  “You kill me. You know something—that black car that was smashed up, that wasn’t Joey’s car. Rented. You know who rented it? Fatso, the one who was driving, and where he is, he’s not signing any affidavits. Is he? Well, that’s the way Joey is—clean—always clean. A car’s going to be smashed up, it’s not Joey’s car. He uses his head.”

  “Good for Joey. He goes to the head of the class.”

  “Tell that broad to shut up,” Flint muttered.

  “Why? It’s no skin off your back. Let her talk.”

  “Sure. Let me talk,” Shirley said. “I’m entertaining. All the fellows go out with me, they say, that Shirley—she’s a creep all right, but she’s fun. She’s a million laughs. Tell me something, Buster, how old are you?”

  “How about that Buster stuff?”

  “I forget”

  “Why do you want to know how old I am?”

  “Maybe I want to be a mother to you.”

  “I’m too old for that, Shirley. I’m twenty-three years old.”

  “You learned awful fast. Don’t ever tell anyone you’re a lousy actor. You’re a great actor. You could make a name for yourself on the stage.”

  “The hell with the stage.”

  “Absolutely. With seventy million, we can buy a lot of stages. Tell me something, James Charles, was it true about the house? Is that where we’re going?”

  “We’re going to the Hotel Leland on West End Avenue. Joey has a suite there. It’s not quite as fancy as the East Side hotels, but it’s a pretty sharp place. So just relax, kid.”

  “Sure. I’m relaxed,” Shirley said.

  7. Burton

  No one simply accepted Shirley. People liked her tremendously or found that they could not tolerate her at all. She evoked numerous and varied responses in people, but not indifference. And in Lieutenant Burton, she produced a diversity of reactions, all of which were disturbing to the lieutenant.

  Forty-seven years old, solid, phlegmatic, a career policeman who had not done too poorly with his career, a long-married man with a son in college and a married daughter who would soon present him with his first grandchild, Detective Burton found himself speculating with the notion of what his situation re Shirley would be if he were twenty years younger. Such speculation was uncommon with him. It titillated and depressed him at one and the same time; and when, at dinner that evening, his wife Lucy asked him where and on what cloud he happened to be, he reacted with a meaningless mumble of explanation.

  “Well, come back long enough to eat your meat,” his wife reminded him. “It’s rarely enough that I have you at supper now, without watching my cooking go untasted. I suppose you keep your weight up with beer.”

  “You know I don’t drink beer any more, Lucy.”

  “I know you don’t get fat on my cooking.”

  “Peanuts,” said Detective Burton. “You know something, Lucy, if I was down there in Washington with the Food and Drug Administration, I’d make peanuts a worse crime than dope. You can’t stop. Every time I pass a candy stand, I buy peanuts. Then the boys know about it, and they buy a can of the stuff and put it on my desk. That’s death. I can finish a can in one night.”

  “It shows,” his wife nodded. “Is that what you’re dreaming about—the Food and Drug Administration?”

  “No. No, of course not. I just can’t get my mind off this case and this kid.”

  “Shirley?”

  “Well—yes.”

  “Personally, I don’t like the name. I never did. It always seemed to me that Shirleys are one particular type that I don’t like.”

  “It’s just a name. Nobody picks their name. But this is quite a kid, tough, h
ard as nails, and then she looks at you and gives you the impression that she’s a thousand years old. Still, I like her. I like her a lot.”

  “So I’ve gathered,” his wife said.

  “Come off it, come off it. I could be her father.”

  “But you don’t want to, do you?” Mrs. Burton said, smiling sweetly.

  “Look,” Burton said, “in the line of my work, I come into contact with all kinds of people. You know that.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then why all this fuss?”

  “What fuss?”

  “You know damn well that I mean!”

  “I like a firm man,” Mrs. Burton nodded. “Strong man, strong words. Absolutely. And as long as I think of you in that lovely little office of yours—”

  “So it’s a lousy office.”

  “—beating up some poor junkie who hasn’t enough sense or character to do anything about it, I don’t mind. I just say to myself, there’s the old lieutenant, doing his job.”

  “Damn it all, Lucy, I don’t beat up anyone in my office, and you know it.”

  “Then where? Do you take them downstairs? That precinct of yours must have a perfectly fascinating downstairs.”

  “That’s a fine way to talk,” Burton said. “That’s a real fine way to talk. I bet you believe that I beat up people for kicks.”

  “Don’t you?” she asked sweetly.

  “All because I said something about this kid. If I had any sense, I’d come home and keep my mouth shut. Just what do you think I’m doing with her?”

  “Not beating her up. I didn’t say you beat up women. I’m sure you have women cops for that.”

  “All right. I give up.”

  “So do I,” Mrs. Burton sighed.

  “That’s a fine attitude to take,” Burton began; and then he was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. Mrs. Burton answered it, listened a moment and then said to her husband:

  “Someone called Cynthia Kugelman wants to talk to you.”

  “who?”

  “Cynthia Kugelman. She says it’s about Shirley.”

  Then the name touched his memory. He picked up the telephone and said, “Hello? This is Burton.”

  “My name is Cynthia Kugelman, Mr. Burton. I called the precinct, and they gave me this number and told me to call you right away. Otherwise—”

  “I understand. What’s this about Shirley?”

  “Well, you see, Mr. Burton, Shirley Campbel and myself are close friends. In fact we couldn’t be closer friends if we were sisters—I mean, we have no secrets from each other, because when you’re very close friends with another girl—”

  “You’re close friends!” Burton barked. “I know. Now what happened?”

  “I mean that she told me all about it—”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, you see, I called her earlier in the evening, because I was worried, which is only natural. Shirley and me—we’re both orphans, and that makes us very close and we worry about each other. So I called her earlier—”

  “Yes, get to the point!”

  “I don’t think you should be angry,” Cynthia said patiently. “I’m worried enough as it is. I called her earlier and talked to her. Then I decided to call her again, about fifteen minutes ago, and there was no answer—”

  “Are you sure? Did you let the phone ring?”

  “Fifteen times.”

  “When you called before,” Burton demanded, “how was she?”

  “Strange.”

  “What do you mean, strange?”

  “She kept asking questions about phony princes—”

  “Phony what?” Burton shouted.

  “Princes. You know, like the Prince of Wales or Prince Mike Romanoff—”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “You know, how do you tell the real thing from the three-seventy-five copy, and I told her that the real thing just doesn’t exist. Then she tells me that she’s got one of them, the phony kind, in the next room.”

  “One of what?”

  “A phony prince.”

  “With her? In her apartment?”

  “I think that’s what she said, Mr. Burton. It is not always the easiest thing to tell with someone like Shirley, because she has a sense of humor—”

  “I know she has a sense of humor,” Burton interrupted grimly. “I want your telephone number and your address, Miss Kugelman, and then I want you to remain at home where I can reach you for the rest of the evening. Do you understand?”

  “Affirmative, Lieutenant,” Cynthia replied. “And please try to help her. She’s a very good kid, only stupid in some ways.”

  “You’re leaving practically your whole supper,” Mrs. Burton reminded him as he struggled into his jacket. “Can’t this wait a few minutes?” He shook his head grimly, and then the phone rang again. Mrs. Burton answered it, and told him, “Larry Cohen, from the D.A.’s office.”

  “I can’t talk to him now. Tell him I want him to meet me in ten minutes on Minetta Street.”

  “He says he’s having dinner.”

  “Tell him I’m having dinner too. Tell him I want him on Minetta Street in ten minutes.” And with that, Burton dashed out, leaving his wife to persuade the assistant district attorney that a dinner half-eaten was a necessary sacrifice to the public weal.

  As for Burton, driving downtown he occupied his mind with what he would say to the plain-clothes officer he had left in the hallway of the house on Minetta Street. During his years of service on the police force, Burton had accumulated a rich and almost inexhaustible store of adjectives, calculated to fit every possible occasion, but he had no more than opened his blast on the detective in the hallway, when the man took an oath that he had checked out everyone who had passed, in or out, up or down. Burton held his tongue-lashing in reserve and raced up the stairs to Shirley’s apartment, where he rang the bell half a dozen times.

  “Get the janitor! With a passkey!” he roared at the detective.

  Mr. Foley, the janitor, his breath as thick and ignitable as a blowtorch, appeared and opened the door, and Burton launched himself into the apartment, through the two small rooms and the kitchen, peered into the closet and then swung on the janitor.

  “Did you see her?”

  “No. I talked to her through the door. She wouldn’t let me in.”

  “That’s right,” said the officer. “I saw him go up. About three minutes later, he came down.”

  “You saw him go up!” Burton snapped. “What in hell do you mean—you saw him go up? Why didn’t you go up with him?”

  “And leave my post uncovered, sir?”

  “You had a man across the street? You could have called him over to cover you. But that would have meant thinking, and thinking’s hard, isn’t it?” He turned to the janitor. “All right—you can go. But stay in the building, understand?”

  The janitor left. “And you,” Burton said to the officer, “you go downstairs and wait for Mr. Cohen from the D.A.’s office. Bring him up here when he comes.”

  The officer started down the stairs and Burton went up, taking the steps two at a time, with an ease and vigor that belied his age. At the top, he climbed the ladder to the opening, saw that the hatch-cover had been unfastened from the inside, removed the hatch-cover and pulled himself out onto the roof. For a moment or so, he stood there, peering around him. Then he went down, replacing the hatch-cover this time and bolting it. He then returned to Shirley’s apartment, closed the door behind him, and began a thorough examination, duly noting the unwashed dishes, two dinner plates, two forks, two knives, two coffee cups. One of the coffee cups had a smear of lipstick on it. Hooking his little finger through the handle, he lifted the other, unsmeared cup out of the sink and wrapped it carefully but loosely in some paper toweling. Then the doorbell rang.

  Burton let the assistant district attorney into the apartment. Larry Cohen, presently none too pleased at being dragged away from his dinner and into a tenement house in Gr
eenwich Village, was a good-looking, serious, slightly stooped and balding man in his mid-thirties. He came into the apartment grudgingly, observing that even destiny had been known to wait its time, and emphasizing the fact that he had never liked the Village and could not understand why anyone chose to live there.

  “I’ll have the mayor send down the bulldozers tomorrow, Larry. Meanwhile, all that can’t afford to wait is the life of one person, so what the hell!”

  “Don’t be so damn cute with me,” Cohen said. “Is this where she lived?”

  “Lives! She’s not dead yet.”

  “How do you know?” Cohen asked, his voice professional and flat.

  “Because I want it that way, God damn it!”

  “Oh?” Cohen looked around him. “No sign of a struggle—”

  “No. Could be she went out of her own free will. It could also be that someone tapped her over the head and carried her.”

  “You said you’d have the place covered?”

  “I had it covered,” Burton said bitterly. “I had a man downstairs and a man across the street. They went out through the roof.”

  “Oh? That was smart of them—to know the house has a roof.”

  “Don’t give me that, Larry. I may not be bright, but I’m not a half-wit. This is an old, converted town house, the kind that has the iron hatch-covers leading out to the roof. I went up there late this afternoon and checked it. It was bolted from the inside. You would have to blow it open to remove it from the outside, and this one was not blown open.”

  “Then it was opened from the inside. She could have done that.”

  “Or whoever was with her.”

  “And how did he get into the house?”

  “God damn it, I don’t know. If I had all the answers, I wouldn’t be here trying to think—something I am very poorly equipped for.”

  “Who isn’t?” Cohen shrugged. “I tell you, Lieutenant, there is something about this that stinks. This kid Campbel knocks off two men, and you insist that it’s not even manslaughter, that we’ve got no case at all and that we don’t even hold her.”

  “Because we have no case. Those two apes were trying to kill her.”

  “Her word.”

  “Her word that she was in the car,” Burton said. “Her word how it happened. There were no witnesses—”