Built for Trouble

by Al Fray

  “Have any luck, Mr. Edwards?” the desk man asked as I came into the lobby. He nodded toward the sample bag in my hand. I just grunted, stopping all questions in that direction, and he nodded toward an afternoon paper on a nearby easy chair.

  “L.A. paper there, if you’d like to read a bit before dinner.”

  “Thanks,” I said shortly. “No time.” Then I went on down the hall and to my room. Grinning to myself, I tossed the canvas bag onto the night stand, got out of my dusty clothes, and hit the showers.

  In the next two weeks there were only half a dozen references worth noting in the papers. Each day I’d go out through the lobby of the hotel with my canvas bag and a couple of props, stop at the bus depot, drop some coins in the box, and pick up all of the Los Angeles newspapers. Then I’d run out to my hideaway and loaf through the hours. I hiked some for exercise. And I read those damn papers.

  Nola was getting some publicity on her own, it seemed. She’d made a connection with the guy they had lined up for a minor part, a clunk who wore his dungarees low on his hips, a yachting cap pulled over his head on one side, and a cookie duster under his nose. One of the pictures showed him leaning out of the cabin of his cruiser and smiling at Nola. The twosome, according to the movie column, was sailing around the isthmus at Catalina Island to look over the setting for the forthcoming Island Love. The picture got some other plugs, usually with reference to Nola’s spectacular rescue of a lifeguard not long ago, and then there was a nice spread showing Nola and a representative from Apex Pictures going over the final script which, so the papers said, had just been approved by Apex. It made my palm itch, that last item. I clipped that piece out and slipped it in my wallet before I discarded the newspaper and went back to the hotel.

  By Friday I still hadn’t heard from anyone in Los Angeles, so I dropped the clipping into an envelope with a short note to the effect that it was payday and mailed it to Carol Taylor’s address. Monday, when I picked up my three L.A. papers and drove out to the hills, I noted that Apex was shipping equipment over to Catalina and that some of the cast was going across. There was a picture of Nola and her new sailing man casting off for the islands. I smiled when I looked at his boat. A real salty one, that boy. He had her rigged with all the spit and polish you’d find on a Navy ship of the line, and I had to admit that his was a seaman-like outfit, right down to the Navy-type anchor peeking out of the hawse pipe. You don’t see that kind of detail too often on a small boat—this boy took his seamanship hard.

  Well, if they were that far along with things on the home front, I should be getting my dough soon. But later, when I asked for mail at the hotel desk, there was nothing. I frowned and turned away, and then a flash of red hair caught my eye near the entrance to the lobby. Carol Taylor was walking toward the desk.

  Our eyes caught momentarily, and then she looked away. I stopped to light a smoke, and when she asked about accommodations, I went on back to my room. I’d already written her the number; I could expect her to make contact without further help from me.

  Chapter 11

  I SHOWERED OFF THE DUST and got into clothes, and was just tying my shoes when the soft tap came at the door. I reached up, opened it, and motioned her in.

  “What do you hear from the mob?” I asked. She gave me that cool level look and then glanced quickly around the room. She was in green again, this time a two-tone outfit, with the skirt a few shades darker than the light green sweater.

  “You,” she said, turning back to me, “are a fine one to be talking about mobs.”

  “Now, now, let’s not be—” I stopped as she put a finger to her lips.

  “We can’t talk here,” she said in low tones. “We don’t want anyone making the wrong connections.”

  “All right,” I said, “drive a couple of blocks west and park. I’ll meet you.” She nodded, and I checked the hall, then motioned her out. When she left I eased the door shut, stalled a few minutes, then slipped out the back way to my car and drove to the rendezvous.

  “C’mon.” I said, “we’ll use my car.” Carol tossed her light coat into the Pontiac, locked it, and got into the Ford. I pulled away from the curb and held out my hand.

  “Put it right here, honey, all fifteen thousand dollars of it.”

  “I don’t have your money yet,” she said.

  “Then why are you here? What’s the stall?”

  “Joe Lamb was afraid you might get impatient and come back to Hollywood.”

  “He didn’t miss. In fact it’s a hell of a good idea.”

  “Just hold your horses, Mr. Baker, and—”

  “Cut that Mr. Baker oil,” I said sharply. “I’m Eddie and I want my dough. So why isn’t it here?”

  “It will be.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as Joe can get it together.”

  “Apex paid off. The papers said they’ve accepted the final draft of the script.”

  “I know. But you demanded cash and one has to wait for a check that big to clear the maker’s bank before drawing against the money. Surely you understand that. And it will take a few days.”

  “That’s a little vague,” I said grimly. Almost automatically I’d driven toward the hideaway I was using each day, but at night the narrow canyon road was eerie. Carol glanced around uneasily.

  “I hope you know where you’re going,” she said. “There are such things as lovers’ lane bandits, you know.”

  “We’re prepared,” I said, grinning. I reached into the car pocket, slid the automatic out, carefully worked the slide to cock the thing, and then tucked it tenderly into the break between the seat and back rest by my left hip.

  “Boy scout Baker, at your service,” I said.

  She wasn’t amused. “I’m beginning to wonder,” she said thoughtfully, “if there isn’t more to all this than I’ve been told. Publicity is one thing, but your carrying that gun around and Nola going to so much trouble over a publicity deal and—”

  She stopped and swallowed hard. We had pulled into the spot I knew so well by now, but tonight we had company. I counted the house. Three other cars, cigarettes glowing in front seats and soft music floating into the night air. I turned my radio on to mask our voices and switched off the ignition.

  “Let’s get down to business,” I said.

  “When the check clears, Joe will draw one for Nola. It’s the way an agency operates. Then it will take a few days for that check to go through and then Nola will be able to withdraw the money. I’m to stay here until they actually get the cash in hand and transfer it to me. I’ll pay it to you; neither Joe nor Nola will be seen around here.”

  “And what will you be doing all this time?”

  “Keeping track of you,” she said, suddenly smiling. “And, of course, I have to phone Joe every night from a pay booth away from the hotel, and then when—”

  “You’ve got it all worked out. But if they’re hoping you’ll keep me in hand while they stall indefinitely—”

  “We aren’t stalling. You’ll be paid in less than a week. Now will you drive me back to my car, please? I haven’t had dinner yet.”

  “Then we’ll eat,” I said. I backed out and went toward the highway again. The radio was too loud; I cut it down to a soft background, and when the dirt road came onto the highway I swung toward Ventura.

  “Aren’t you going in the wrong direction?” she asked quickly. I nodded, but said nothing. We barreled over the fourteen miles of pavement, and the tension eased. When I asked about Nola’s sea-going boy friend, Carol laughed.

  “A publicity deal again,” Carol said.

  “Have you met him?”

  “No. Actually, I’m not very close to Nola Norton. Since Joe and I are partners in the agency, we often do favors for each other, but mostly I handle script writers and TV stuff while Joe sells movie talent and occasionally a property to pictures.”

  “I see.” It figured; they really were keeping this kid on the fringe. When we nosed into the parking lot of a nic
e bar and grill at the edge of town, Carol took a moment to powder her nose. We led off with a couple of cocktails each, then put away a good seafood dinner.

  “I’ve already been cooped up in Ojai too long,” I said as we left the grill. “How about us playing hookey for an hour or two. A show, maybe? A few drinks at the nearest bar?”

  “A show will get us back pretty late,” Carol said, but I could see that two drinks and a good dinner had softened her.

  “Then we’ll hoist a glass or so,” I said. We found a dimly lit place just off of the main drag. I followed Carol back to the far corner and we slid into a booth. After three fast ones we had filled each other in on one of two bits of missing information. I learned that the Lamb and Taylor agency was a comparatively recent partnership, that actually each of them had been working separately until Joe came to her with two parts of a clever package and wanted to get together on using Alex to write Island Love. The merger wasn’t necessary, of course, but it looked like a profitable thing; they weren’t getting rich, they were getting by.

  “Our only big deal so far has been the package,” Carol said, “and a guy named Eddie Baker is going to wind up with all the profit on that anyway.”

  “Not your dough, Carol. Alex Coleman gets his nine thousand; you collect your ten per cent. Why knock me?”

  “I know. But it’s… blackmail.”

  “It was business. Remember?” I said. She shook her head.

  “It’s a shakedown, any way you look at it. And I’ve been wondering lately just how much all this should be worth to Nola. Certainly not seventy-five thousand dollars. What else is there, Eddie?”

  “Publicity. We’re going to build toward—”

  “It’s still too much. Even if Nola cut you in on half of what she’s making, it would make one wonder. And actually, she’s giving you almost all of it. I want to know why.”

  I hauled out cigarettes and stalled for time. She wasn’t a fool, and she was beginning to sec the holes in the cheese. I had to trowel it on.

  “Look, lady, I was had. In spades. This was no small thing in my life; they cut me down on the only job I’ve ever wanted, the only work I know. And it wasn’t just knocking me out of that one spot with the Los Angeles crew—this is permanent. And coast to coast. I couldn’t get a job tending the wading pool in a tiny tot’s section of any playground in the country. Besides that, I—”

  Wait now, there wasn’t any point in dragging out the business about Judy and how she’d given me the brush-off. That was over. I hardly thought of her any more, and when I did it was only in the way you think of a near accident you might have had on the highway but somehow managed to avoid. Not that I felt kindly toward either Judy or Nola. Judy had let me down when I needed her most, and Nola had trampled over me without the slightest thought of how I would come out.

  “And besides you what, Eddie?” Carol prompted.

  “And besides, I—I look at it this way. If you run a guy down with your car and ruin his earning capacity, you can’t kiss him off with a week’s pay. Hell, no. You have to shell out big money—enough to rehabilitate him, get him back in line once more, set him up with a cigar store or something. So it’s the same here. All I’m doing is collecting damages.”

  “Quite a point of view. And what will rehabilitate you? I hadn’t thought of you as being particularly disabled.”

  “No, except that I’m unemployable. Who wants a guy with a reputation for blacking out? So I’m letting Nola make it right. She’s going to set me up in a little business of my own.”

  “You actually believe the courts would give you any such amount? You can’t really mean that.”

  “I gave Nola her choice. She didn’t seem to want to bother the legal wheels with this little problem.”

  “You,” Carol murmured, watching me through half closed eyes, “are the soul of generosity.”

  “Glad you see it that way,” I said, and ordered another round of drinks.

  It was midnight when we left. Carol didn’t seem to mind that we’d stayed longer than a show would have kept us. She was good company, once we got off of the subject of money, and we were getting along fine. Maybe it was the drinks. At any rate, she was mellow on the drive home, and when we came to the turn-off I wheeled back toward lover’s lane. The place was almost deserted now, only one car in evidence. We pulled to the far end and parked. She smiled and leaned toward me, and for over an hour we horsed around in the car, playing the game of almost-but-not-quite. It was almost as if she were winning a battle she’d rather lose. Along about one-thirty I turned on the ignition and drove us back to Ojai. The hotel was dark and no one around, so I stopped by the curb on the side street.

  “Give me the key to your car,” I said, “and I’ll drive it back here for you.”

  “I guess every girl isn’t as easy as you found Nola,” she said.

  “Okay, you’re still pure, and you’re glad.”

  “Am I?” She said it softly, and glanced up at me. I reached for her but she slid out of the car, opened her purse, and dropped the key on the seat. Then she was gone.

  I rolled the Ford into the parking lot and drove her Pontiac into the lot behind the hotel. Then I went in the back way and along the hall to her door. It was unlocked. I pushed it open, stepped inside, and eased it shut behind me just as she came out of the bathroom.

  She had let the ponytail down and the red hair had been combed into a flowing casual arrangement. She was wearing one of those shortie nightgowns made out of something thin and clingy, and it was something to make a monk forget his vows. I tossed her keys into a chair and we moved toward each other.

  “Thanks, Eddie,” she whispered in my ear. I slipped my hands under the loose top piece and caught her tight, felt her press against me. For one brief moment doubts flashed across my mind. Why the breakdown? Could the bundle of curves snuggling against me hope to buy me off? On a deal this big? I glanced past her toward the narrow door leading to the clothes closet. A plant? Joe Lamb or some strong-armed boy with a gun or a knife?

  Her hands were moving up my back now, her arms holding me tight. When her fingers reached my shoulders, she turned her face up, stood on tiptoe, and we kissed. Her lips were trembling and warm, too real and urgent to be other than the McCoy. I fumbled behind me for the night lock, turned it, and snapped off the light.

  I spent the next day in the hills as usual, a short jaunt on foot for my daily constitutional, then the newspapers and a magazine I’d picked up. When I got back to the hotel, Carol was in the pool and there were a couple of older people sitting along the side. I showered and got into my trunks and went in for a dip.

  She was a little upset at seeing me and for a while we splashed around avoiding each other, but that wasn’t very natural either, and before long we started to chat. When dinner hour came and the spectators left, we had the whole patio to ourselves. We stood in water up to our necks on the far side and talked in low tones.

  “Any news?’” I asked.

  Carol nodded. “I talked to Joe on the phone. He’ll speed things up—he’s drawing a certified check for Nola. That way she can withdraw any amount right away. You should have your money tomorrow.”

  “Great,” I said softly. “Are you going down for it?”

  “I have to phone him in the morning. Are you going to the same place again?”

  “Sure. So?”

  “I’ll bring it out, if Joe has it and I get back in time. Will that be all right?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Now how about tonight?”

  “I’m playing solitaire.”

  “Oh, come now, we could buzz down to Santa Paula for a steak and have a few—”

  “No. I—Maybe it was the drinks and maybe it was the tension of a long day and maybe it was—but it isn’t going to make any difference. I was as easy as Nola; it won’t happen again real soon.”

  “You sound like something out of the YWCA,” I said.

  “And that’s the way I’m going to act. If I get
the money from Joe, I’ll drive out and meet you tomorrow. But strictly for business.”

  And she meant it. After dinner I went down the hall and tapped at her door but she ignored it. I went out to a drugstore, phoned the hotel, and asked for Miss Taylor in room 16, but as soon as she knew who was talking, she hung up. I knew she’d been determined to stay on the other side of the line with me and, having fallen off the wagon, she felt chagrined. I came back to the room, tried tapping on her door once more, got a low “Go away, please,” and settled down with a magazine for the evening.

  Wednesday I drove out to my spot once more. The morning passed uneventfully. About four I heard a car winding up the road toward me. I slipped the automatic out of the car pocket, made it ready for business, and poked it into my belt inside the shirt. When the car rounded the last bend and came into sight, I saw that it was not the Pontiac but a Plymouth and that it looked like the one I’d seen her in at Echo Park when she followed my car. So she had been to L.A. today. And most likely she’d had to drive Joe’s car back. Maybe something had gone wrong with her hack, but she was alone in the car now and when she stopped a few feet away, I got out and went over.

  “Hi, paymaster. Welcome aboard,” I said.

  And then the back door opened and Joe Lamb knelt there, the business end of a short-barreled revolver leveled at me.

  “Don’t move, Baker,” he said, getting out of the car. “Turn around.”

  “Are you nuts!” I said. “What good will this do?”

  “Move.”

  The gun was in my back now, prodding me toward the side of the road. When I was five feet from a huge boulder, Joe called a halt.