Knife at My Back

by Lawrence Lariar

  “What?” Repp brushed her aside and stood before me. He faced me flatfooted and purposeful. “What do you want, peeper?”

  “Small talk, Repp.”

  “At this hour? You should have your head examined.”

  “You may be right,” I said. “But let’s talk, anyway.”

  “Isn’t he nice?” Darlene asked, flopping alongside me on the couch. “I told you he was an okay guy, Hugo.”

  “Out,” said Hugo.

  “All right, then, I’ll just sit and listen,” she said.

  “Out,” Repp said again. He jerked her to her feet and propelled her forcefully toward the door. She dropped her glass and it crashed against the table and splattered the liquor over his pants. He muttered an obscenity at her and jerked harder. He pulled her body around and got the door open and started her through. She .managed to turn and wave at me drunkenly. Then she was out in the hall and screaming a nasty word at him as the door shut her away from us. Repp wiped the wetness from his pants and continued to swear at her diligently. “Crazy whore,” he said. “What’s with this dump? The dames up here all crazy? I’m going to cut the ears off the lousy crud who conned me into coming up here.”

  “Who was that?”

  “What?” Repp asked again. The word seemed part of his temperament, as natural as his beady stare, and just as meaningless. “What?”

  “The man,” I said. “The man who conned you into visiting The Montord?”

  “Some jerk in New York.”

  “Who?”

  “You wouldn’t know him.”

  “Try me.”

  “What?” Repp was as obvious as the liquor stain on his slick buff slacks. He stalled and temporized in his manner of a moron who can’t hear well. But his ears had picked up my message and telegraphed it to his cunning brain. And he was standing there, pushing for a suitable name. He found it finally. “Oh. The name? Louis Glasser. You know him?”

  “Never heard the name before,” I said. “How about you.”

  “Of course. Friend of mine—in the insurance business.”

  “Sure. So Louis told you to come up to The Montord for the Labor Day weekend? And you hopped in your chariot, deserting the wife and kiddies, and came up to this place for the laughs. Know anybody up here, Repp?”

  “Only the broad with the rhumba lessons.”

  “And when are you leaving?”

  “Couple of days.”

  “What’s holding you back?” I asked. “You hate the dump. Why not leave tonight?”

  “What the hell business is it of yours?” Repp shouted. I had finally broken through to his spleen again, reminding him that he didn’t want me here in the first place. He huffed and he puffed when anger gnawed at him. He was the high blood pressure type, given to sudden red blotches on the cheeks when out of control. He continued to stare at me, not quite sure what he wanted to do with me, yet cautious and careful because he had been groomed in such tactics through years and years of existence through the fruits of his scheming brain. His pudgy face clouded with suppressed rage and then quieted and calmed as he cased me for size. “I must be nuts to stand here and even talk to you, Conacher. What’s on your mind? Say it and get out of here!”

  “Stag reels,” I said.

  “What about stag reels?”

  “The smart talk says you have the best, Repp.”

  “So what if I have?”

  “I figure you’re up here on business.”

  “You figure wrong.” Something snapped behind his eyes, the blinking doubt about me blossoming now into open caution and craftiness. He was aware that I knew something and worked hard to plumb my motives for the tête-à-tête. “I got no customers up here.”

  “And I say you’re lying. I say you’ve already made a sale, Repp.”

  “Out,” he yapped.

  “Not yet. I haven’t finished.”

  “Out,” he said again. But this time he meant it. He had an automatic in his hand. He didn’t like the feel of it. He handled it gingerly, as though it might be loaded with leprosy. A man with a gun queers himself by the way he holds it, by the way it reacts on him. Repp gained nothing in the way of self-assurance with the gun in his fingers. He sweated mightily, the beads of moisture rolling down his bald pate and gathering in small puddles on his oily chin. He wanted no part of what the automatic meant. If he shot, it would come as a big surprise to him.

  “Get out, before I let you have it,” he whispered.

  “Stuff it,” I said.

  “Nobody would blame me if I shot you,” he said, trying to convince himself that he meant business. “I could tell them you were robbing me.”

  “An old routine, Repp. But somehow very popular here at The Montord.”

  His gun hand trembled and shook. I stepped in fast and caught him as he backtracked. He was overcome with fear and chagrin at my sudden movement. The gun came out of his hand easily. He didn’t fight me. He was paralyzed by the tableau he had created, not knowing how to extricate himself, not understanding the mechanics of speed and action in a crisis. The long years of plotting behind a desk had worn his reflexes thin. Repp was a man without courage in the clinch. I almost felt sorry for him as I grabbed the gun and jabbed it into his frightened face. Up close, so that the muzzle touched his shivering jaw. He began to whimper, completely gone now, as frightened as a caricature of throbbing horror. He licked at his lip and backed away, trying to bore a hole for himself in the wall.

  “Don’t, Conacher,” he wheezed. “For God’s sake, be careful.”

  “Relax. Put your tail down and relax.”

  He sat in the chair by the window, a weary and beaten man.

  “The sale,” I said. “Tell me about it.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The stag reel you sold. Who bought it?”

  “You’re out of your mind, Conacher.”

  “You want me to coax you?” I asked.

  The sight of the muzzle back at his face converted him into a jellied pulp again. I wondered how long this type of crud must sweat and jerk before spilling. You play a hunch and the breaks go with you and you find yourself at the first important door to the case. You move slowly and think carefully, so that the door will remain half open. A stupid move might slam it in your face. Repp was soft enough for the kill now, but he needed perpetually careful handling. He would crack and burst like a hysterical woman, if urged too strongly. I had seen other Repps, under the lights in the Downtown Precinct. I had watched them simper and pout, like overgrown kids. Until the heat finally wore them down and they screamed their helplessness at the dark walls around them. I didn’t want Repp to scream.

  So I backed away from him and kicked his valise out of the closet. He watched me with mounting restlessness. He licked at his lip desperately. His futility came through in the bunging of his eyes, in the way they dampened and almost dripped as I kicked the valise his way.

  “Open it,” I said.

  “Go to hell,” said Repp to the carpet.

  I slapped him briskly across the mouth. He let out a throttled scream and cowered against the chairback. He was drooling slightly, the spittle on the edges of his fat lips. The gun mesmerized him. He had eyes only for the little hole at the end of the barrel.

  “Better open it, Repp.”

  He was as rigid as a plucked chicken, dazed and frozen in a paroxysm of twitching torment. He opened his mouth, but not even his usual “What?” escaped his lips now. He would sit this way just as long as I showed him the gun. I took advantage of his torture and reached into his jacket quickly and found a small key ring. His body was a block of wood, a sculptured hulk, solid and unbending. The creeping anxiety had caught him and converted him into a purposeless stiff. I took advantage of his fright and opened the valise quickly, yanking at his haberdashery until I had plumbed the
full depth of the suitcase and flipped back the last compartment wall.

  Then I saw the wad of bills.

  “Whew!” I whistled, thumbing the first bundle in a quick count. It was made up of hundred-dollar bills, enough of them to challenge my interest. “A load of loot, Repp. Where’d you get it?”

  Repp didn’t say. But he would talk soon. I threw the wad of bills back into the valise and closed the thing and sat on it, still showing him the juicy end of the automatic.

  “You’re not taking it?” he asked.

  “I didn’t come here to rob you. Just tell me where you got the loot.”

  “Maybe I brought it up here with me.”

  “Sure. Maybe you won it in a crap game, too.” I got off my butt and stood over him, still toying with the gun. “It doesn’t make sense to shoot you, Repp. Where would it get me? But unless you start talking soon, I’m going to slap your fat face until you lose one of your chins. So start talking.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I won’t quote you.”

  “I tell you I can’t.” He was a miserable man, beaten and hopeless. He got up with a heavy sigh and started for the window. I didn’t like him at all, suddenly. My hunch was paying off, but he would hold me up forever unless I showed him more mayhem. I jerked him back from the window and hit him where he least expected it. I hit him low enough to knock the breath out of him, doubling him up in a reflex of shock and pain. He moaned and groaned and rolled on the floor, reaching for the seat of his misfortune, the deep and fatty depths of his gut, where I had planted my first quick punch. He was angering me by his gymnastic suffering, a pudgy parcel of semi-hysterical wheezing and sobbing. I grabbed him and pulled him across the room, letting him slide on his larded can, a funny picture, if he hadn’t begun to rally a bit and grab at my legs. I slapped his hands down and showed him that I was in a position to kick his face in, my left foot aimed for his frightened eyes. Then he wilted, suddenly.

  He held up his hand and began to sob.

  “All right, Conacher. I’ll talk. I’ll talk. I’ll talk.”

  I helped him to his feet and let him brush his fancy pants off.

  “Who bought the film?” I asked.

  He was at the window, framed against the curtains, a picture of hopelessness now.

  “The dame,” he said.

  “Which dame?”

  “The Lamb—”

  I was too late to save him. The shot seemed to come from a long way off, a flat clap of distant noise. Repp paused in his little speech and turned slowly, grabbing for his neck. A rivulet of blood spilled out of him, down his collar and along his pudgy hand. Repp opened his mouth to say something, but he added nothing but gurgling crimson to his dialogue. He stared at the window, but there, was nothing in his face that spelled reality, his eyes already empty of all expression, his mouth open in an attitude of shocked surprise as he reached for the sill and tried to hold on. He failed. His hands slipped away and he bent forward incongruously, off balance and going down. He reeled drunkenly and grabbed at the naked air in a slow and horrible movement. And in the next second, he dropped.

  He fell forward on the rug and lay still.

  CHAPTER 13

  Outside, the night was as black and dead as the lining of a coffin.

  A fickle wind tickled the leaves and brushed the grass and worked some of the sweat off my brow. It was hot out here. And it was lonely. In The Montord, the clientele still swarmed gaily around in The Champagne Room, rubbing themselves in the rhumbas and mambas, drinking and yapping the foolish words, laughing up the bad jokes and inhaling the smoke of a thousand cigarettes. The muted thump of the dance music rolled out through the windows and lost itself in the foliage. I crossed the edge of the golf course for the third time, shaking my head at the darkness, muttering a few private obscenities at my own inefficiency. I had left Repp’s room under full steam, almost breaking a leg getting down the stairs and legging it across the garden and into the pit of darkness beneath his window.

  I found nothing but a black hole of emptiness. There was a cluster of small trees, low and heavily leafed, skirting the edge of the course and only a few dozen yards from Repp’s window. Even a bad shot could have plugged him from that distance.

  I stepped quickly behind a screen of bushes. There was a sudden flurry of activity up ahead of me, at the entrance to The Montord. Two of the uniformed boys at the rim of the parking lot jumped into action, helping a woman inside. From around the edge of the terrace to The Champagne Room, a figure emerged and I saw that the silhouette was familiar. It staggered into the shadows near the big window of the night club. I got up there fast. But Buddy Binns beat me to him. Buddy had come out of nowhere when I arrived. He was helping the wobbling agent to his feet.

  “You feeling better?” Buddy asked.

  Don Trask didn’t answer. His head bobbled and rolled on an erratic axis. I stepped up to him and tried to turn him my way. But Buddy had other ideas. He pushed me away.

  “Where in hell did you come from?” he said angrily.

  “A good question. What’s wrong with Trask?”

  “Jesus—and you’re supposed to be a detective? Take a look at him. He’s stiff as a board. He’s been out here nursing a bottle all night.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve been watching him,” said Buddy, and sat Trask down on a rock with an experienced gesture. “He’s been overdue for one of his binges all week.”

  “I didn’t know he was a lush.”

  “Now you know.”

  “How long has he been out here?” I asked.

  “Since the show started inside. Maybe an hour.”

  “He’s a fast drinker.”

  “He got a head start at the bar.”

  “How often did you check him out here?”

  “What difference does it make?” Buddy snapped the question and dropped his pal at the same moment. Trask sat against the rock and looked up at us stupidly, waggling a finger at us and burbling impossible prose. Buddy said, “Ask him yourself, peeper. I’m sick of his damned fool dipsomania.”

  “A big word,” I said, grabbing Buddy by the sleeve and holding him with me. “Where’ve you been all night, friend?”

  “Digging graves,” Buddy said. “A hobby of mine.”

  “Unfunny. Did anybody ever tell you you’re lousy off stage?”

  “Thash the truth,” gurgled Trask, laughing in his larynx. He weaved to his feet and lay all over Buddy, belching and blowing in his pal’s face. “Goshpel truth, Buddyboyohboy,” he wheezed.

  Buddy pushed at him unceremoniously and Trask staggered and fell with a giggling laugh. From beyond the edge of the shadows, I saw the figure of Jorgenson heave out through the front door, headed for Repp’s room. Buddy snarled a final word of scorn at me and then passed through the bushes, on to the terrace and inside The Champagne Room. Trask settled comfortably on the jagged end of the rock and accepted it as a permanent pillow. He snored lustily as I grubbed ground in the bushes, searching for the bottle he had drained.

  And when I found it, I started away toward my car. The entrance to The Montord was buzzing with activity as I wheeled past the group of bellhops gathered near the chrome doors. I stepped on the gas pedal and got away fast.

  I slowed down outside the lot, rolling easily around the hotel and beyond the main gate and into open country. The road wound down the quiet hills, twisting gently in the shadows, dipping sharply as it swung into Wamshaw Lake, the little town at the base of the hill. I took the right fork and started across country, still only crawling, my mind coming alive now, the cool depths of the valley working to sharpen me. It would be a long ride to Taylorville. I lit a cigarette and tried for direction in the wilderness of confusion that had opened to me with the death of Hugo Repp.

  Repp was a lone wolf. His name and reputation were symbols of the
Horatio Alger school of progress in business. He had toiled mightily and moved the mountain, all by himself. I backtracked into his past and remembered the many stories about him; his beginnings as a poor photographer in Flatbush; his graduation to the naked doll type of picture; his apprenticeship as a salesman of pornographic nudes; his development as an entrepreneur in the business of peep shows; his graduation to the upper world of production man in the same sexy sideshows; and his final colossal success as czar of all the nudities, king of all the perverts, master and monarch of all the broad and gold-lined avenues of degeneracy.

  And all of this, Hugo Repp had achieved by himself. No lackey was ever known to stand by his, side. No henchman ever helped him organize his sex bouts. Repp himself knew his way around the dismal world of tarts and pimps, and his contacts with the ladies of easy virtue were legion. He worked, finally, to establish protection for his intimate soirées. He made the grade with the important cops in the district where his theatricals were staged, and after that he was secure, the top tycoon in the nefarious business of pornographic art.

  Hugo Repp was coming into focus for me about a mile outside of Wamshaw Lake. But the picture blurred and fuzzed suddenly. The road wound on an upgrade toward Taylorville, and straight ahead a police car sat at an odd angle on the edge of the concrete. There were two headlights aimed at me.

  And one gun, aimed at my face when I slowed to a stop.

  “Conacher, eh?” said the flycop.

  “In person.”

  “Turn around and head back to The Montord, bub. You’re wanted back there.”

  “Who wants me?”

  “Jorgenson.” He smiled through his cracked lips. “Something about a murder. We’ve got every road on the side of the hill blocked off. We been expecting you, Conacher. Hop into the car with this man, Larkin.”

  So Larkin escorted me back to The Montord. Larkin was as talkative as a deaf mute. He nudged me out of the car when we arrived and piloted me through the lobby as though I had just killed his mother. The crowd of revelers didn’t see any part of this maneuver. Paul Forstenburg was waiting for me in Lili’s office. His face had aged a full ten years during the last day. He couldn’t control the vibrato in his larynx. Jorgenson sat at his usual perch behind Lili’s desk, as cordial as a congressional committee about to work over a Communist.