Sandra Birks said to Bertha Cool, ‘I just want you to see the kind of husband I have. Look what he’s doing. Carrying on up here with a dirty, faded blonde, wandering around without any clothes on.’
She made a grab at the rose-colored robe. Sally Durke clutched it around her. Sandra pulled it up high enough to show bare legs and thighs. Sally Durke kicked at her face and called her a name.
Bertha Cool scooped an arm around Sandra Birks’ waist and pulled her away from the fighting blonde.
‘Thanks,’ Morgan Birks said, still sprawled on the bed. ‘It saves me from popping her one. For God’s sake, Sandra, take a tumble to yourself. You’ve been two-timing me right under my nose.’
‘That’s a lie,’ she said, struggling against Bertha Cool’s big arm.
Alma Hunter ran to Sandra’s side. ‘Come, Sandra,’ she said, ‘don’t argue with him. The papers have been served.’
Morgan Birks leaned over the side of the bed, found the cuspidor, dropped the end of his cigarette in it, and said to Sally Durke, ‘I’m sorry my wife is such a bitch, dearest, but she can’t help it.’
‘If you ask me,’ Sally Durke said, ‘she needs a good beating.’
I said to Bertha Cool, ‘I’ve served the papers. I’m ready to make the affidavit. That’s all I have to bother about,’ and walked out into the corridor.
A moment later, Bertha Cool pushed Sandra Birks out ahead of her into the corridor. She was mumbling soothing words. Behind us, the door slammed and the bolt turned. We walked down to 620 and went in. I said, ‘I didn’t know there was to be a show.’
‘I just couldn’t help it. I wanted to confront him with the proof of his infidelity,’ Sandra Birks said.
The door from the bathroom opened, and Dr. Holoman came into the room. His sleeves were rolled up, his coat was off, and his shirt was spattered with water and bloodstains.
‘What was all the racket about?’ he asked. ‘And did I hear something about a doctor?’
‘I’ll say you did,’ Bertha Cool said. ‘And I don’t think Mrs. Birks’ lawyer would care very much about you being here.’
‘He had to come on account of Bleatie,’ Sandra Birks said. ‘How is he, Archie?’
‘He’s going to be all right,’ Dr. Holoman said, ‘but it’s been touch-and-go. I had the devil of a time stopping that hemorrhage. He got too excited. I’m going to insist that he keep absolutely quiet for at least three days.’ He popped back into the bathroom and closed the door.
Sandra Birks said, ‘He’s a beast. He’s always made those rotten insinuations. I’ve been absolutely true to him. I’ve never so much as looked at another man all the time I’ve been married. He’s even poisoned my own brother’s mind against me.’
I went back in the closet, changed my clothes, and wrapped up the bellboy costume.
She walked over to the door and called out, in a loud voice, ‘Oh, Bleatie, it’s all right. He’s been served.’
I heard Bleatie’s voice from the other side of the bathroom door saying, ‘Shud up. He cad hear.’ Then from the other room, sounding distant and mumbled, but still taunting, came Morgan Birks’ voice, distinctly audible: ‘Bleatie, eh? So I have you to thank for this? I should have known it.’
Bleatie sputtered into noise. ‘You’re crazy, Morgan,’ he yelled in his hay-fever voice. ‘I stuck up for you. I’ve got something in my pocket to give you. Open the door.’ There was silence for a minute or two, then the bathroom door burst open, and Bleatie came storming into the room. He was a mess, with red stains all over his shirt and coat. ‘You fool!’ he cried at Sandra, his voice coming thickly past the bandaged nose. ‘Haven’t you any more sense than to yell at me like that? Didn’t you know he could hear?’
‘I’m sorry, Bleatie.’
‘—Sorry, hell!’ he shouted. ‘You never did anything in your life you were sorry for, unless it was something that inconvenienced you. Now that the papers have been served, you don’t give a damn about me. Well, I’ll make it a point to see that you don’t stick Morgan for a lot of alimony.’
He dashed past us, jerked the door to the corridor open and ran around to room 618. He hammered on the door. Then, when there was no answer, said, pleadingly, ‘Morgan, let me in. It’s Bleatie. I want to talk with you. I have something to tell you.’
Bertha Cool finished the last of her drink and smiled benignly at the tense group in the room. After a moment, Sandra Birks moved out into the corridor where she could watch Bleatie standing in front of the door, pleading and knocking.
Bertha Cool said calmly, ‘Come on, Donald. We’re going back to the office.’
I looked over at Alma Hunter, and her glance showed me that she understood.
‘I did have a dinner date,’ I said. ‘Something to talk over—’
Bertha Cool interrupted with calm finality. ‘You’re going to dinner with me,. Donald. We have a case to talk over. You’re working for me. If Alma Hunter wants to hire my agency for any more work, I’ll be glad to accept the employment and assign you to the case. This business is finished. Come on.’
I took a card from my pocket, scribbled the telephone number of the boarding house where I was staying, and handed it to Alma Hunter.
‘She’s the boss,’ I said. ‘If you need me, you can ring me there.’
Bertha Cool said to Sandra Birks, ‘This Scotch and soda are part of the expenses. I’ll leave word at the desk that you’ll settle up. Come on, Donald.’
Dr. Holoman ran out into the corridor just ahead of us. He tugged gently at Bleatie’s sleeve and said in a low voice, ‘You’ll start that hemorrhage again. Come back here.’
Bleatie shook him off, pounded on the door. ‘Open up, Morgan, you fool,’ he said. ‘I have something that’s going to help you win your case. I’ve been protecting you all the way through.’
Dr. Holoman turned quickly away. Mrs. Cool, marching toward the elevator, almost ran him down.
He grabbed her arm desperately and said, ‘Look here, you can do something with him. He’ll bring on a hemorrhage. Won’t you try getting him back into the room?’
Mrs. Cool said ‘No’ to him, and then to me, ‘Come on, Donald,’ and led the way down the corridor.
When we were on the sidewalk, I said, ‘Is this new case something I’m supposed to start on tonight?’
‘What case?’
‘The one you wanted to discuss at dinner.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘there isn’t any case, and there won’t be any dinner.’
When she saw the expression on my face, she went on, ‘I saw you were falling for that Hunter girl. I don’t like it. She’s mixed in a case. We’ve worked on that case. Our job’s finished. Forget her. And, by the way, Donald, you might signal a cab for me. Get it over here by the fireplug where he can pull in to the curb, because I’m not built to go out into traffic and climb aboard a cab.’
I walked out to the curb with her and signaled a cruising cab. He took a look at Bertha Cool’s build and didn’t like the idea of trying to load her, away from the curb, any more than she did. He switched on his lights, pulled in next to the fireplug. I assisted her in, and raised my hat.
‘But you’re coming, Donald,’ she said.
‘No, I’ve got other places to go.’
‘Where?’
‘Back to ask Alma Hunter for a dinner date,’ I said.
Her eyes locked with mine. ‘I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘you don’t take kindly to suggestion, Donald.’ And her voice was the voice of an indulgent mother, censuring a child for a minor misdemeanor.
‘I don’t,’ I said.
She settled back against the cushions. ‘Pull down that jump seat, Donald,’ she said, ‘so I can put my feet on it, and don’t be so God damn serious about it. Good night.’
I raised my hat a good ten inches from my head as the taxicab whisked her out into traffic. Then I turned back toward the hotel and bumped into a man who was standing just behind me.
‘Sorry,’ I said.’
> ‘What’s the hurry?’ he asked.
‘Nothing you’d understand,’ I said, and tried to push past him. Another man who had been standing a step behind the first one came up to block my progress. ‘Take it easy, Pint-Size,’ he said.
‘Say, what is this?’ I asked.
‘The chief wants to see you,’ one of the men said.
‘Well, the chief has nothing on me.’
The first man was tall and slender with a hawk nose and hard eyes. The other had big shoulders, slim hips, and a bull neck. His nose looked as though it had been pushed all over his face, and his right ear had a tendency to cauliflower. He had the gift of gab, and evidently liked to hear his own voice.
‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘Our friend is pulling the old crook stall. The chief has nothing on me-how about it, buddy? Want to talk with the chief, or shall we tell the chief that you don’t care about co-operating?’
‘Co-operating with what?’ I asked.
‘Answering questions.’
‘About what?’
‘About Morgan Birks.’
I glanced from one to the other, unostentatiously shifted my position so that I could look over toward the hotel. At any minute now Sandra Birks and her brother might come out. They’d figure I’d led them into a trap or had sold them out. I grinned up into the hard eyes of the tall man, and said, ‘Sure I’ll come.’
‘That’s better. We thought you would,’ the bruiser said, and looked anxiously down the street. A big sedan slid out of the stream of traffic, and the men pushed me across to it, one at each arm. They opened the door and popped me in, climbed in beside me, and the tall man said to the driver, ‘Okay, John. Let’s go.’
We went, but it wasn’t until the car reached the residential section that I began to be suspicious.
‘Say, what’s the big idea?’ I asked.
The one named Fred said, ‘Now listen, Pint-Size, we’re going to have to put a bandage over your eyes so you don’t see so much it wouldn’t be healthy. Now, if you’ll just ’
I swung at him. He took my blow on the chin without appearing to have noticed it. His hand whipped out a folded bandage, put it down over my eyes. I fought and tried to shout. Fingers closed over my hands, handcuffs snapped around my wrists. The car began a lurching series of turns, designed to make me lose all sense of direction.
After a while I felt the slow jolt as it ran up into a private driveway. I heard a garage door open and close. The bandage was taken off. I was in a garage. The outer door closed, and a side door opened onto a flight of stairs. We climbed the stairs to you’re here, and doubtless you have the information.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Well, now,’ the fat man said, ‘I hope you’re not going to be obstinate, Mr. Lam. I certainly do hope you’re not going to be obstinate.’
I remained silent. The man with the battered face moved a step closer.
‘Now just a minute, Fred,’ the chief said. ‘Don’t get impulsive. Let’s let Mr. Lam tell this in his own way. Don’t bother to interrupt him. Don’t try to hurry him. Now let’s just begin at the beginning, Mr. Lam.’
I said courteously, ‘Would you mind telling me just what you want to know, and why you want to know it?’
‘Now that’s the spirit,’ the chief said, beaming all over his face, his little protruding gray eyes looking for all the world as though they’d been crowded out by the layers of fat which had been deposited on his cheeks. ‘That’s exactly the spirit! We’ll tell you anything you want to know, and you tell us what we want to know. You see, Mr. Lam, we’re business men. We’ve been associated with Morgan Birks, and Morgan Birks has certain-well, you might call them liabilities-certain obligations to us. We don’t want him to forget those obligations. We’re anxious to see that he’s reminded of them. Now you’re employed to serve papers, and we wouldn’t interfere with that for anything on earth, would we, Fred? Would we, John? That’s right. The boys agree with me. We wouldn’t interfere with your work at all, Mr. Lam; but after your work is finished, we want to know where Mr. Birks is.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I see no reason why I can’t help you-if Mrs. Cool says it’s all right. Of course, she’s my boss, and I wouldn’t want to do anything without her.’
The tall man said, ‘You’d better let Fred soften him up a bit, Chief. From all we can figure, things are getting hot. It looks as though he’d expected Morgan Birks at the Perkins Hotel. The whole gang moved in there. Sandra Birks, her brother who came out from the East-and had his nose broken in an automobile accident-a bird who said at the desk his name was Holoman, who doesn’t figure in the picture anywhere that we can see, Alma Hunter, Bertha Cool, and this guy. He took Bertha Cool out of the hotel and put her in a taxicab. He was turning around to go back to the hotel when we picked him up.’
The chief said, ‘You’d better tell us, Mr. Lam, because it’s really important to us, and sometimes my boys get impulsive. No one deplores it more than I do, but you know how boys are. They just will be boys!’
‘I think Mrs. Cool would gladly co-operate with you,’ I said, ‘if you’d get in touch with her. And I think she has information that would be available to you. You understand, she’s in the business of getting information and selling it to clients.’
‘That’s right, so she is,’ the fat man said. ‘Well now, that’s a thought! It is, for a fact! I’ll have to take that up with the little woman. What do you think of it, m’love?’
The big woman didn’t change expression by the twitching of a muscle. Her hard, cold eyes looked at me as though I’d been a specimen under a microscope. ‘Soften him up,’ she said.
The big man nodded.
Fred shot out his arm with the speed of a striking snake. His fingers hooked around the knot in my necktie, twisted it until it started choking me. He pulled on the necktie, and I came up out of the chair as though I hadn’t weighed fifty pounds. ‘Stand up,’ he said. His right hard swung up from his hips so that the heel of his palm pushed the tip of my nose back into r my face and sent tears squirting out of my eyes. ‘Sit down,’ he said.
Under the impact of that hand, I went down like a sack of meal. ‘Stand up,’ he said, and his hand on my necktie brought; me up.
I tried to get my hands up to block the heel of his hand as it came for my sore nose. He speeded up the punch just a little,;’ and beat me to it. ‘Sit down,’ he said.
I felt that the whole front of my face was coming off.
‘Stand up.’
‘Sit down.’
‘Stand up.’
‘Sit down.’
‘Stand up.’
‘Sit down.’
‘Talk.’
He stepped back a pace and let go of me.
‘Talk,’ he repeated, ‘and don’t take too long about it.’ His face was expressionless. His voice held a note of impersonal boredom as though he’d been softening people until it had become a routine chore, and he felt aggrieved about being called upon to perform it after five o’clock.
‘That’s right,’ the fat man said, nodding and smiling affably. ‘You see, Fred’s right, Mr. Lam. When he says stand up, you stand up. When he says sit down, you sit down. Now then, when he says talk, you talk.’
I groped for my handkerchief. There was blood trickling from my nose down the front of my face.
‘No, never mind that,’ the fat man said. ‘That’s just a little surface leakage. As soon as you’ve told us what we want to know, you can go in the bathroom and get fixed up. Fred will help you. Now, when did you see Morgan Birks last?’
Unostentatiously, I swung around in the chair so that my leg was braced against it. ‘You,’ I said, ‘can go to hell.’
The fat man held Fred back with a gesture of his upthrust palm. ‘Just a moment, Fred,’ he said, ‘don’t get impulsive. The young man has spirit. Let’s see what the little woman has to say. What do you think, m’love? Should we—’
‘Go ahead,’ she said to Fred.
Fr
ed reached for my necktie.
I came up out of the chair with everything I had and swung straight for his stomach. I pivoted from my hips so that my body muscles were behind the blow, my right fist traveling in a straight line with the force of a piston.
Something happened to my right arm. It went numb. A pile driver cracked me on the point of the jaw. I felt myself being lifted from my feet and sailing through the air. There were blinding flashes of light in front of my eyes and a feeling of black nausea in my stomach. I tried to get my eyes in focus, and saw a fist coming. Before I could do anything about it, the fist exploded into my face. From what seemed to be a far distance, I heard the woman’s voice saying, ‘More in the ribs, Fred.’ And then something caved in the pit of my stomach. I doubled up like a jackknife and knew somehow that the thing which had banged against the side of my head and stayed there was the floor.
I heard the fat man’s voice sounding weak and fuzzy, like a blurred radio station. ‘Now take it easy, Fred. Don’t overdo it. After all, you know, we want him to talk.’
The tall man stood over me. He said, ‘Nuts on this guy. We’re wasting valuable time. He’s got the papers, and it’s all arranged for him to serve them.’
‘Where’s he got them?’ the woman asked.
‘In his inside coat pocket.’
‘Take a look,’ she said.
Fred reached over and poked his fingers in the collar of my shirt. He lifted me up so hard that my neck, which was like a dish rag, came back with a snap, and my head almost jerked off. I felt hands going through my pocket, first the inside pocket of my coat, then all of my coat.
Bill’s voice made the report. ‘He’s got the original summons. He hasn’t any copies.’
The woman said, ‘You damn fools. He’s served them.’
‘He couldn’t have served them,’ Fred said.
‘What makes you think he couldn’t?’
‘I know he had them when he went to the Perkins Hotel. He was there about five minutes when Alma Hunter came in and joined him. They registered as man and wife. Then Sandra Birks and her brother showed up. Then he went out. He pulled the papers out of his pocket when he hit the sidewalk, to make sure they were all okay and ready for service, and pushed them back again into his inside coat pocket. He went to the telegraph office and sent a telegram. We don’t know who it was to. The telegraph girls wouldn’t kick through with any information. ; Money didn’t interest them. We kept trying until they threatened to call the cops. I tagged him from there to a costumer’s. He got a bellboy costume and went to the hotel. He was there about twenty minutes and then came out with Mrs. Cool.’
The Bigger They Come Page 9
