Kiss Me Twice

by Thomas Gifford

He reassured her. “All our problems should be solved.”

  “What is it Terry says? Everybody’s a comic?” She spoke without rancor. “What I mean is, what will happen to Manfred? Is Colonel MacMurdo going to kill him?” Her eyes were fixed on the view beyond the window. Her voice was calm.

  “I don’t think so. He’s going to want to ask him a lot of questions, of course. Whatever he knows of the Nazis in America.” He shrugged, wondering if he was anywhere near the mark.

  “He’ll be disappointed then. Manfred doesn’t know anything about all that. He’s a soldier, not a spy. You’d think MacMurdo would have more sense.”

  “Well, there’s the minotaur. And some money he’s supposed to have. Maybe even plates for printing money—”

  “He must be driving a truck, then! MacMurdo is a man with secrets. He’s good with secrets, isn’t he? I’d worry about that if I were you—”

  “He’s had to be, the war he’s had.”

  “We all have our secrets, I suppose. All of us. What’s your secret, Lewis?”

  “I’m an open book.”

  “Don’t act so innocent. I know you’re not. Are we going to learn the secrets in California? Is that really why we’re coming all this way?”

  “There’s a man I want you to meet in California.”

  “What sort of man? Another doctor? Will I like him? Will somebody kill him?”

  “No, not a doctor. Far from it. More of a magician. Or a charlatan. I’ve never been sure. But he’s a nice man. An actor sometimes. Calls himself a mentalist. Most everybody else calls him a mountebank. I don’t know—he likes to see himself as a kind of wizard. You’ll like him. He usually smells of garlic. He says it’s in his blood, the garlic.”

  “Keeps the werewolves away.”

  “Vampires, I thought. He played a vampire in the movies a few times. Terrible movies. You could always see the microphone booms. Monogram Pictures. My father knew him in the old days. Still does, I guess.”

  “Who is this man?”

  “His name’s Omar Popescu. Or so he says. Somebody once told me his real name is Murray Rosenblatt and he was born in Seattle. In Hollywood everyone is actually someone else. I knew him back in the thirties before I got—”

  “Before what?”

  “Before I got married.”

  “You’re married? You never told—where is this wife? I’ve never heard you speak of a wife—”

  “No, she’s not with me—”

  “But you are married?”

  “Not exactly. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it someday. For the moment, don’t forget it’s your husband we’re interested in right now. Will you answer one more question, Karin?”

  “If I can.”

  “Are you in love with Manfred Moller?”

  “Love.” She turned slowly from the window so he could see her elegant profile. “Love,” she said again. “Love didn’t really play a part in it. I can’t explain what condition I was in. … You’d have had to see me to understand. I was quite dead for a time, you see. I had no memory of anything, I couldn’t talk, and then when I finally could speak I still couldn’t think of anything to say. I don’t mean to make a joke of it, I had nothing to say. And then finally I did speak. … Rolf was like a father, I knew he could give me life again … and then Manfred came and he was so good and kind to me. He fell in love with me. … I don’t think I’ll talk about it anymore now.”

  She leaned against him and closed her eyes.

  He must have drifted off for a moment or two because when he shook himself and looked up he saw two huge headlamps shining through the fog, looking as enormous as movie-premiere searchlights. The car turned slowly, visible only in outline, a Rolls-Royce that made him think of the Queen Mary sliding up to its berth. It wasn’t the sort of conveyance one associated with the run-down, pockmarked, beaten-up motor court.

  Footsteps sounded on the gravel walk. A band was playing on the radio that Fred Allen had vacated. Stan Kenton live from Balboa.

  Cassidy saw the figure take shape, the belted mink coat, a soft fedora pulled down, the whole thing blurred by the fog.

  “Mr. Sheehan, I presume?”

  Her voice was deep and smoky and by its nature insinuating.

  “Oh, hell,” Cassidy said. “I suppose so.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “LET’S TAKE YOUR CAR,” SHE said. The obsidian eyes glittered beneath the hat’s brim. “It’s not impossible that my husband is having me followed. I didn’t see anyone in the fog, but you can’t be too careful when you’re dealing with Tash Benedictus.”

  They slid into the small rented car with the cracked seatcovers and the smell of cheap cigars seeping from every crevice.

  “Where am I going?”

  “Take a left on the highway and I’ll direct you.” She was firm, all business, the way she’d been at dinner when she’d befriended Dora. Cassidy kept thinking about her, remembering the pressure of her thighs clamping around him, and he had the feeling he was the only one in the car preoccupied with those particular reflections.

  The fog was too thick for any speed. He switched on the yellow fog light hanging on the driver’s door frame. In half an hour they had crept along the road, hearing the surf below, its throb dulled by the fog that absorbed the sound like the beach soaked up the ocean, and turned into a defile between two boulders that worked its way down to a narrow strip of hard-packed sand. It was a perfect place for a murder, except you’d have to find it first. Cassidy felt as if he’d been there before, probably ransoming somebody’s emeralds, and he had been there before but it was all in the movies he’d seen as a kid and William Powell was the one retrieving the lovely lady’s gems.

  “Pull in here,” she said.

  “Whatever you say.” He braked and turned off the lights, left the motor running.

  “Turn it off,” she said. “I’m nervous, Mr. Cassidy. Let’s get out and walk. It’s funny about foggy nights. There’s always plenty of light from up above the fog. And I don’t want to be a sitting duck in the car.”

  She waited while he came around to open the door. She took his hand and got out.

  “What do you mean, ‘sitting duck’?”

  “My husband knows men with guns. My God, my husband is a man with a gun. Look, I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Cassidy.”

  “Well, good for you. Now, why the hell am I here?”

  “My, aren’t we testy,” she said.

  “You’d be testy, too, if you’d been sitting on your can all this time listening to Cliff Howard tell you how we’d just won the wrong war.”

  “Mmm. Cliff is a character. Central Casting.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “I’m not a free agent. Tash is very watchful. The point is I’m here now and you’ve come all this way to make a deal—”

  “Rescuing another maiden in a tower.”

  “To make a deal,” she continued, ignoring him. “Everyone comes to California to make a deal. That’s what California is for. You want a certain man. I’ve cornered the market on the man in question. I’ll trade you, him for my husband—”

  “Then I’d have both of them. I don’t want your husband. I want Manfred Moller—Fred Miller to you.”

  She took his arm. The mink made a soft cushion. “Let’s walk. Hear me out. Do you have a gun?”

  “Yes, I have a gun.”

  “Good, so do I. A Luger. I stole it from Tash. He’s got so many he’ll never miss it. Come on, I’m wearing low-heeled shoes, I can walk in the sand.”

  She was right about the moon glowing behind the fog. The wind gusted off the ocean, full of mist. It blew her scent. She seemed to be all around him, circling him, like the fog.

  “My husband,” she said. “He’s the key to this deal for me. The German is the key for you. Let me tell you a couple of things about my husband. He is not what he appears.”

  “I’m not so sure. He appears to be a perfect asshole.”

  “I need
hardly tell you that nobody’s perfect. However, he is among other despicable things a Nazi sympathizer.”

  “I know. His name is Brian Sheehan and he goes all the way back to Sir Roger Casement. You don’t have to tell me your husband’s story.”

  “You are a detective, Mr. Cassidy. I’m impressed.”

  “Look, I’m sick of sitting around that stupid motor court. Now start talking and make it worth my while. I’m a patient man, but I’m not a saint.”

  They were moving slowly across the sand, leaving a perfect trail for any henchmen abroad in the night.

  “My husband is making a considerable fortune these days acting as the middleman for a group of Nazi mucky-mucks who not only got out of Germany but managed to commandeer a U-boat or two that arrived during the spring and summer—” She took a breath. It was a long sentence that had turned against her.

  “Relax.” He squeezed her arm. “You’re beginning to interest me.”

  “I’ll bet I am. The U-boats, I gather from what I’ve overheard, were carrying art treasures. They landed in the Gulf Coast, along the Florida coast and in the Keys, the islands off the Carolinas, even up in New England. The paintings were considered highly negotiable, a means of financing these Nazis as they began their new lives in the New World. Once the art gets to the States it’s easily funneled to California. … The stuff is being sold in the movie colony where questions are only infrequently asked, if at all. Studio heads, producers, directors, stars, their doctors and dentists and lawyers and their pool men, for all I know—they’re buying this stuff. Tash is acting as the conduit and he’s taking a very large cut. He runs the auctions. The prices are high, Cassidy. Very high.”

  “What does Tash do with the take?”

  She shrugged. “That’s his business—”

  “You must have picked up something. You seem awfully well informed. Hasn’t he ever spoken about people in it with him?”

  “V. He’s referred to someone called V. I’ve seen notes on his desk, things like that. That’s all. Vincent, Victor … I don’t know.”

  “All right. V. I know what V means. Go on.”

  “The man you want from me is somehow involved. Don’t ask me how because I don’t know how.”

  “The man you know as Fred Miller,” Cassidy said. “Same fellow who stayed with you at the castle the past six months—”

  “How do you know all this? Wait, no, I don’t care. You know and that’s plenty. Fine.” She stopped and stared out at the surf rolling up the sand and dying ten feet in front of them. “I want to keep this as uncomplicated as possible, just you and me and Tash and the German.” The wind was tugging at her hat. She bowed her head against it, hands plunged deep in her pockets. “You want the German … and in return you can do something for me. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

  “You haven’t told me what you want me to do.”

  “I’ve found out a few things about you, Cassidy. Football player, now you’re a detective with this ex-cop Leary, you were involved with the wrecking of the Max Bauman gang. … All of which tells me that you just have a chance against my husband … a chance, mind you. No more than a chance, but you’re the only chance I’ve got—”

  “Mona,” he said, turning her by the shoulders, “what do you want me to do? And try to remember, this isn’t one of your goofy movies. I’m not in this alone. This is a government operation. They’re not people you bargain with—”

  “All right, all right. I give you the Germans, you free me of Tash … that’s all.”

  “How? Why don’t you just leave?”

  “Leave him? Leave Tash Benedictus? You don’t leave Tash. … You run the risk of his reverting to form, becoming Brian Sheehan again. You don’t know the kind of man he is. He kills people just to stay in practice … and he’s worried, Cassidy. Nervous. He’s up to his neck in Nazis and it’s getting out of control. The German this summer was a little too much. Tash knows he’s being used; he keeps fuming that they’re using him, that they’ve gone too far—”

  “They? Who are they?”

  “I don’t know. The Nazis, I suppose.” She shook her head impatiently, the black eyes glittering, the scarlet mouth curling down at the ends. Her face was white in the eerie glow. “If not the Nazis, well, who else?”

  “I don’t know. I wonder.” Cassidy shrugged. “So what do you want me to do for you?”

  “Tash has told me that if I try to leave him he’ll kill me. I’ve been his prisoner for so long. … But now, now I have a wonderful offer to go back to work!” She looked up at him and all the jaded ennui had dropped away. Her face was animated, hopeful, as if the young woman from years before were shining through. “It’s a solid offer, starring role. With Preminger directing. He’s lining up a new picture, like Laura or The Woman in the Window or Phantom Lady. Ty Power is set to costar. This funny little man, Ray Chambers, or Chandler, he’s supposed to be good and he’s writing it. Do you understand, Cassidy? I want this job. I want to work again, I want to be a star again … but Tash knows I’ll never come back to him once I’m out there—he knows I hate him. So he keeps me tied to him, keeps threatening me, keeps telling me he’ll go to the papers with the story and you can believe me, he’s got some of the columnists in his pocket, they’ll print it, the bastards!”

  “What story?”

  “Look, I was a drug addict. I had a bad habit. I did anything I had to do to get the stuff. When Tash found me I was fucking anybody they wanted me to, the guys running the studio, they’d use me as the centerpiece for their parties, I’d put on a show and then I’d be dessert. And being moviemakers they put it all on film.” She laughed harshly. “You think Fatty Arbuckle got a raw deal? If you’d like to see me with three black cocks inside me, why old Tash can just set up reel seven for you … always good for a laugh. Watch the movie star scream! Or reel twelve where I entertain some of my girlfriends. He’s got enough to destroy me a thousand times over, believe me! And he’ll use it—”

  “How can he? You must know he killed the men who made you do that stuff. He’d be in dangerous water—”

  She stepped backward, almost staggered on the sand, gave him a look.

  “You know that, too?”

  “So, leave him or blow the whistle on him. Get ’em to reopen that case—”

  “Forget it. That’s the way L.A. was in those days. And my God, he’d kill me. First he’d discredit me and whatever story I’d tell … and then, I promise you, he’d kill me. They’d never find my body. That’s why I need you.”

  “To take you away when we take the German?”

  “Oh, no. No, no. That wouldn’t stop Tash. You’ve got to kill him for me.”

  “I’m not a killer—”

  “Oh? That’s not what I hear.” She began slowly walking back toward the car. He followed. The wind was up, whipping sand into his eyes.

  “Then you have been misinformed.”

  “Oh, don’t play the lord with me.” Her laughter was swept away on the wind and surf. “You’re a brute of a footballer underneath that coat of varnish.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

  “You puzzle me, Cassidy. But you are serviceable between the sheets, I’ll say that for you.”

  “A testimonial,” he murmured.

  “Will you kill him for me?”

  “I might.”

  They had reached the car. He held the passenger door for her.

  “I suppose that will have to hold me.”

  “It’s the best offer you’ll get from me.”

  “There’ll be a party Sunday. I’ll tell Tash I ran into you while shopping. He knows you have a connection to the picture business. So I’ll tell him you’re here on business.”

  “Quite a coincidence. Will he swallow it?”

  “I really can’t say. But I am an actress—so he might. Don’t miss the party. Lawn bowling, croquet, movies in the screening room, beautiful woman, rich and powerful men, the catchpenny barons of our tawdry lit
tle world.”

  He closed the door, went around to the driver’s side, and got in. It was a relief to get out of the wind. “Potential customers for the Nazi treasure?”

  “Some of them. But only those Tash can trust. Or believes he can trust.”

  “He’s taking big risks.”

  She nodded. “That’s the way he likes it. You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “I’m always afraid of men like your husband.” He started the car, turned on the lights and the yellow spotlight.

  “But you will come to the party?”

  “One thing—I won’t be alone.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t intend for you to gun him down on the spot, in full view. Mustn’t leave him floating in the punch bowl.”

  “Not and spoil the punch.” He swung the car in an arc across the sand and poked its nose into the narrow road leading steeply to the highway.

  “I’ll have him on view, then. For inspection.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “My part of the bargain. I’ll have your German, your quarry, on view. Whatever you do then is your business.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  The lights of the cafe were out but those on the gaudy sign burned on forever, as if they pointed the way to the underworld. Cassidy pulled up beside the Rolls-Royce.

  Mona Ransom remained seated when he’d cut the engine and extinguished the lights.

  “I believe,” Cassidy said, “our revels now are ended.”

  “Not necessarily. Not if you want me to stay with you. For a little while?”

  “I’m afraid not. I’m in training for Sunday.”

  “Said with a smile and therefore just acceptable. But just.”

  He helped her into the Rolls. She started the huge engine and glanced at him through the window. She rolled it down, smiled reflectively. “I’ll bet you never sleep with a man’s wife before you kill him.”

  Cassidy returned her smile. “Good night, Miss Ransom.”

  “Until Sunday, Mr. Cassidy.”

  He watched her go and very soon the fog swallowed her and he was alone again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE DINOSAURS WERE STILL THERE and he supposed they shouldn’t have taken him by such surprise. Hollywood was full of dinosaurs of one kind or another but, still, these came out of his own past and he hadn’t thought about them in a long time.