Sinful Woman

by James M. Cain

  “I’m not a fan. I got business with her.”

  “Your business will have to wait.”

  “She might not think so.”

  “I only go by her instructions.”

  The girl went off, but didn’t leave the hotel. She went to a far corner of the lobby and sat down, to the clerk’s obvious annoyance. Mr. Layton finished his business and started to leave, but something in the girl’s voice lingered in his ear. It seemed to him that in that “She might not think so” there was some hint of a threat. He turned, crossed to where she sat in a mulish sulk, and said: “I couldn’t help hearing what was said to you just now. I wonder if there’s something I could do for you? I sometimes transact business for Miss Shoreham.”

  Insurance was certainly some sort of business, and if he wasn’t doing much transacting he was at least trying to. She looked him over suspiciously and said: “You a friend of hers?”

  “Well—more like an agent.”

  Smiling, as though it had all been settled now, he said: “Let’s go have some coffee. In the dining room we won’t be overheard.”

  They went into the dining room, ordered coffee and canapes, lit cigarettes. He said: “Nice girl Sylvia. Very nice girl indeed. But she’s in one bad mess now.”

  “What do you mean, bad mess?”

  “Don’t believe everything you see in the papers.”

  This cryptic fly, cast at random in the direction of something that might be water and might be a whirl of gnats in Mr. Gans’ fevered imagination, brought a flash of fins and a spurt of foam. She said: “So you was in on the dirty work too, hey?”

  “ ... What dirty work do you mean?”

  “At the Domino.”

  “I was in town.”

  “You seem to know about it.”

  “You mean making something look like nothing?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “Let’s say I’m a pretty good guesser.”

  He laughed. She laughed. She had big white teeth. He remarked on them, and on her eyes, asked if she had Spanish blood. She said no, but she was one eighth Indian. He said he always said if a woman really wanted to be good-looking, one thing she couldn’t do without was a drop of Indian blood. He said he ought to have known it, because she had such beautiful black hair. The canapes came, and he poured her coffee, gallantly giving her his sugar. She said it didn’t look like there was much use trying to kid him, did it? He said he hoped her eyes weren’t kidding him, anyway. Abruptly she said: “I seen something out there today.”

  “At the Domino?”

  “I work there.”

  “In the bar?”

  “I deal blackjack.”

  “Oh yes of course.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Layton. George M. Layton. What’s yours?”

  “Call me Ethel.”

  “Want to call me George?”

  “I don’t mind. George, I seen it all. I don’t mean what they said happened. I don’t mean what they done to fix it up and make it look like a accident. I mean I seen it. But don’t get me wrong. I didn’t come down here to make her feel bad or anything like that. That’s why that clerk made me so sore. I came down here for just the opposite. I came down here to let her know it was all right and she didn’t have nothing to fear. I come down to let her know that so far as I was concerned that husband of hers was a heel. You’d be that amazed, George, if you know the propositions he made me, while I was dealing him blackjack not an hour before she shot him. Wanted me to drive back to his shack with him for a ‘small fun,’ he kept calling it. Can you imagine that? It’s not any of my business what was done. Just the same I do think she ought to make it worth my while. Don’t you think that’s only right?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “You’d think she’d want to do something like that.”

  “I guarantee she wants to.”

  “So if you want to take me up there—”

  “Not so fast, not so fast. Taking you up there would be simple, some other time, but, as you can easily imagine, she’s got her own reasons for not seeing anybody today, not even me. Don’t worry though, it’ll be handled. Does she know you saw it? Were you there?”

  “In the door there’s a slot, with bars in front and a steel door behind. The door was open a little bit. I peeped in.”

  “And you saw something, is that it?”

  “I seen him killed.”

  “By her?”

  “If I told you that, you’d know as much as I do, wouldn’t you? Suppose you do some talking now. And talk nice. About money.”

  “To spill it or skip it?”

  “To skip it, I would rather imagine.”

  “She’ll be interested to hear that.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “Let me think. Where’s Spiro?”

  “Out at the Domino.”

  “I think he’s the guy, not Shoreham.”

  “I would have gone to him, but he and Tony are so thick all of a sudden I was afraid. I work for Tony and I didn’t know how he’d take it.”

  “I’m awfully glad you came here first. Now here’s what you do. Have a buck off me and see yourself a nice picture. Around seven o’clock or so, come back here and wait to be paged. Don’t go back to the Domino till you hear from me.”

  When Mr. Layton entered the Domino, Tony was being pointedly disagreeable to some schoolgirls, telling them Miss Shoreham was not there, that he had no idea when she might come there, and that they certainly could not leave their autograph books for her to sign. It didn’t seem a propitious time for inquiry, so Mr. Layton bought $1 worth of 10c chips and began playing roulette. But soon the phone girl came through, her plug bouncing against her knees, calling his name. Tony said he might take the call in the office. It was Miss Jennifer, whom he had informed of his movements, with a telegram from Mr. Gans, evidently his last testament before explaining. It was full of exhortations like: “Cannot impress on you too strongly importance prompt energetic aggressive action your part or refrain calling your attention Southwest General will expect same cooperation you she expects gets every man her organization.”

  Mr. Layton listened as Miss Jennifer read this to him over the phone, then, two or three times, he heard something that was quite familiar to him, on account of Miss Jennifer’s habits. It was the sound of a key being lifted. As he hung up, a short, round, flat-headed little man came into the office, and began peering at a road map that hung on the wall. Suddenly, fitting Tony’s surprising courtesy, the key, and the little man together, Mr. Layton knew his call had been tapped, and he felt a hot, salt taste in his mouth, for he needed nobody to tell him that the pure in heart do not plug in on other people’s lines.

  Thus he who had been paralyzed by officialdom, by ignorance of the ropes he was trying to handle, by a conviction that he was afoot on an absurd and monstrous errand, had now become a different man, and an incomparably dangerous one. For bland cheek was an integral part of his daily life; he not only had a gift for it, but believed in it, as the sign of an up-and-at-’em-tude, and studied it avidly under the district manager, other agents, and such experts in salesmanship. He was a virtuoso at keeping the other fellow guessing, at never giving him a chance to take charge of the interview, of feinting him into the path of the argument held in reserve. He could dissemble, he could laugh, he could tell a little joke. He could be stern, he could plead. He could wink. And he could defeat, by stratagems developed by the whole inner arcanum of insurance agents, any known method of throwing him out.

  He didn’t address Dmitri at once; indeed, he didn’t seem to pay any attention to Dmitri. Instead, he drummed on the desk with annoyed finger tips, then lifted the receiver and asked for a number. When it answered he said: “Sheriff Lucas, please—Layton calling, George Layton of Southwest General ... Well listen, sweetie, I don’t like to get disagreeable about it, but haven’t you any idea at all where he is, or when he’ll be in, or how I can get hold of him? ... No, there’s no
way he can reach me. I’ll be on the move all afternoon and there’s no use having him call ... I’m sorry too, and I suppose you’re doing your best and that God loves you or somebody does, but you’re putting me to one awful lot of unnecessary trouble.”

  Hanging up, he spoke with the baffled weariness of one who has puzzled over human nature all his life, but can still make no sense out of it: “Maybe you can figure this one out. Sheriff Parker Lucas. If there’s been any time in the last two years when you couldn’t see that longlegged jerk anywhere you went, with his hand out for a cigar, a drink, a phone number, or what have you, I don’t know when it could have been. But now, on a murder case, when I want him, when I’d like something for my vote, try and find him. It’s a great life if you like a great life. Personally, I’d rather see a picture.”

  On the word murder, which was the only part of this elaborate harangue that mattered, he saw Dmitri’s eyes leave the map and stare glassily at the wall. He lifted the phone, rang Miss Jennifer again, asked airily if the sheriff had called. Then he went out, paid the operator for his calls. Then he went in the gentlemen’s room, combed his hair, whistled The Minstrel Boy. When he came out, Tony and Dmitri were in a corner of the casino, whispering. He went into the office, called the apartment where he lived, and where he knew there would be nobody. He was holding the receiver to his ear, frowning at getting no answer, when Dmitri came into the room and went to the map again. But he looked up pleasantly when Dmitri said: “You been to Goldfield?”

  “Oh yeah, plenty of times.”

  “They have a hotel there, yes?”

  “The old brick hotel, it’s still there. Little more hotel than Goldfield needs right now, but they’ll take care of you.”

  “Always wanted to see this place. Doch, it’s impossible to start now. I want to see the Sharf, too. What makes you think it’s a murder case?”

  “Think? I know.”

  “You talked to the police, yes?”

  “Yeah, I talked to them, but I generally always haven’t got time to wait for the police to wake up. Insurance is my line. Southwest General of N. A., and when you’ve handled as many cases as I have, you know and you don’t even know how you know. You just smell it.”

  “I don’t smell nothing, myself.”

  “To me, it’s quite a stink.”

  There was a long pause, while Mr. Layton set his heels on the desk and lit a cigar. When he could see through the wreathing smoke, he noted that Tony was in the room. Then, with the air of one who regretfully pronounces a final judgment on a matter long since closed, he said: “Her big mistake was making it accident. That gets an insurance company a little sore. Now if he was just dead, then O. K., he had to die sometime, and we were on the risk. But when she made it accident, that made the big accident-and-health bond operative, and that makes a difference of fifty thousand bucks. Well, that’s just too bad.”

  “ ... She? Who are you talking about?”

  “Shoreham. The widow.”

  “You mean she made it accident?”

  “She gets the dough, don’t she? As beneficiary?”

  “How can you talk that way?”

  “What have you got to do with it?”

  Mr. Layton snapped this at Dmitri sharply, as though his discussing the case at all were a very suspicious circumstance. But Dmitri looked at Mr. Layton as though he were plain crazy. “You ask me that? What I have to do with? Me? Dmitri Spiro, president of Phoenix Pictures, that makes all Shoreham production? Me, the best friend of Baron Adlerkreutz? You ask me what I have to do with?”

  “And what have you got to do with it?”

  Tony was cold, hard, malevolent. Mr. Layton answered with a smile, a genial freckled smile, in the accents of Dmitri. “Me? You ask me what I got to do with? Me, agency chif for Southwest General of N. A.?” Then, speaking with a smile not so genial, he asked Tony: “And what have you got to do with it?”

  “You can go to prison in this state. For slander.”

  “And you can hang, for murder.”

  “Suppose you get out.”

  “O. K., O. K.”

  He got up, but Dmitri held up his hand, said there should be no hard feelings, that Tony didn’t really mean what he said. Mr. Layton, turning from the door in very friendly fashion, said: “Yes sir, yes sir, making it accident was bad. If it had been suicide, now, I wouldn’t have a word to say.”

  Tony and Dmitri looked at each other, and Dmitri said: “Why?”

  “We don’t pay off on suicide. Not for three years, we don’t. It used to be one year, but during the depression we raised it. Got to be too many fellows taking out a fifty-thousand-dollar life policy in favor of the little woman, then diving out a fifteenth-story window in some hotel downtown. Same way on the accident-and-health, all bets off on suicide. So, if she’d make it suicide, it wouldn’t have concerned the Southwest General of N. A. even a little bit. But when she made it accident, that concerns us a lot. That means exactly one hundred thousand bucks to us, so it’s what you might call, the hundred-thousand-dollar mistake. I’m going to miss her, too. I go to all her pictures. All of them.”

  He sat down again, in no hurry to go. Dmitri stared at Tony in abject misery, and Tony stared at Mr. Layton, a look in his eye that one sees in the eye of a Siberian tiger. After a long time, Dmitri looked over and said: “Look here, old man. It’s ridiculous. It’s quite ridiculous. It was an accident, we all know it was an accident. I was there. He died in my arms. Just the same, nobody wants any trouble. Can’t we make a deal? Can’t—”

  “Hey, hey, hey!” Mr. Layton jumped up as though he had been shot, and said: “Don’t you talk to me about any deal. Not to me!”

  “Why not?” Tony’s tone was savage.

  “Weren’t you talking about laws?”

  “Laws? What do you care about laws? All you’re thinking about is money. O. K., so it’s dead open-and-shut. Why don’t you make a deal? It’s like Mr. Spiro says, you’re talking through your hat, there’s been no crime. But she’s a big picture actress and your measly hundred grand don’t mean half as much to her as not having any mess. Well, suppose they agree to tear up your policies? What do you care? Don’t that let you out?”

  Mr. Layton had a wild, instinctive notion that Mr. Gans, if he had been present, would have made a deal. But he had got a great deal further than he had even dreamed was possible, and his only clear idea was that he had to get out of there, that he had no authority to make a deal and that he had to consult Mr. Gans. Then, probably a deal would still be possible. Blandly he asked Tony: “Where’s Ethel?”

  “What’s Ethel got to do with it?”

  “Ethel saw something today.”

  “Such as, what?”

  “I don’t exactly know. Mighty pretty girl, Ethel is. Part Indian.”

  Tony’s pasty pallor, as well as Dmitri’s soft look of complete collapse, told him quite a lot. Mr. Layton added: “She’s not coming back to work, I guess. She’s a little worried, though I can’t imagine what for.” Then, to Spiro: “I’d talk to Ethel, if I were you. She’ll be in the lobby of Shoreham’s hotel at seven o’clock.”

  He picked up his hat, and there was a tense, strained silence. A tall man and a thin man came in, pitched a package of telegrams and letters on the desk. The tall man said: “Fan stuff mostly, been coming in at the hotel ever since the story went on the air. I told Western Union to hold the rest of it and we’d pick it up. This stuff, I thought we better take charge of it, so nothing gets lost.”

  “O. K., Bushy. Thanks.”

  Benny sat nervously down. Mr. La Bouche suddenly said “Oh,” as though he had just remembered something, and found a letter in the stack of telegrams. Leaning close he mumbled: “It’s that special Vicki sent her, in case she wouldn’t answer his call. I took it along, because God knows how it’ll affect her. Better hang onto it a few days, hah? Before we give it to her to read?”

  Dmitri fingered the letter, stared at the special delivery stamp, at the round clo
ck with an arrow showing the time of receipt, that had been stamped by the hotel. Then, looking straight at Mr. Layton, he said: “Boys, I got an awful premonition creeping up my back that in this communication Victor Adlerkreutz announces his intention to take his own life.”

  “What?”

  Benny’s mouth hung open in amazement, but Mr. La Bouche grabbed him quickly and said: “Shut up! I would think you’d know by now that when Mr. Spiro has something creeping up his back, he’s practically never wrong.”

  But Mr. Layton, so badly crossed up he didn’t quite know what he was doing, was already at the door. To Dmitri he said: “I’m going. If that’s a suicide note, I know you don’t want any strangers around when you read it.” Then, not sure that he shouldn’t make some show of encouragement, he turned a ghastly smile at Dmitri and said: “Yeah, I know you’re kind of unstrung about it.”

  Promptly at 5:30, Mr. Gans came up the ramp, his jaw stuck out and his lower teeth visible against his lip. He listened to what Mr. Layton had to say, made no comment until they were almost in the centre of town. Then, with explosive vehemence, he said: “Great! You’ve done the right thing, Layton! You’ve used your head and you’ve used your guts and Southwest General of N. A. is proud of you! I always say, be aggressive! Move fast! But, if the other party listens to reason, be reasonable! After all what are we, Layton? Insurance men, not hangmen!”

  Chapter Eight

  MR. LAYTON HAD BARELY left the room when Tony leaped at Dmitri, caught him by the arm and began shaking him savagely. “Are you nuts? Listen, fellow, you can’t trifle with this thing! What’ll they think of us, cooking up a dilly like we told them already, and then saying it isn’t so? Spiro, you dealt these cards, and there’s no way now to make it a misdeal! You’ve got to play them!”