After twenty minutes of trying, I finally caught Alex at home. To put it conservatively, by that time I was mad.
“Alex,” I said, “I knew you were a shyster, but I didn’t know you peddled dope.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked. I told him my plans for his nose and hung up.
CHAPTER FOUR
Human Again
The second two weeks were more interesting, because I had something to do. Vivian was allowed up now, though she still spent much of her time in bed. When she was up she moped around the house dispiritedly, spending most of her time yawning and incessantly smoking cigarettes, and the rest of it trying to sneak out without my catching her. Once she tried violence and put a long scratch on my cheek, but the next meal she had to eat from the mantel. After that she kept her distance.
The nurses had been discharged at the end of the second week, and I now carried both the key to the door between my room and Vivian’s and the key to Vivian’s hall door. Mrs. Rand still had the third.
I let Vivian pick her own bedtime, but each night when she retired, I carefully locked her in and left her there until she pounded on the connecting door the next morning. Mrs. Rand had instructions to ignore pounding on her door.
By the end of the fourth week Vivian began to look human again. She was thin and extremely nervous and she tired easily, but her complexion began to freshen and her eyes to clear. Dr. Yoder decided she was well enough to leave the house.
“Now your real job begins,” he told me. “Amazing, success you’ve had so far. Be nice if you can keep it up.” He looked at me, not very hopefully.
“I’ll keep it up,” I said.
Up till then Vivian shrank from any contacts because of embarrassment at her appearance. Even after she was allowed up, she returned to her room when Norman Sheridan made his daily call, or when any other visitor arrived. But now she blossomed forth all at once.
At Vivian’s request I ordered a beauty operator and a dressmaker, both of my own choosing, to report to the Rand home at nine the next morning. They spent three hours together locked in Vivian’s room, and when at noon the rap on my door to let them out came, Vivian was again a beautiful woman.
The green knit suit she wore had been subtly altered to compensate for a loss of twelve pounds, changing her thinness to a willowy slenderness. And expert makeup had converted gaunt hollows to interesting high cheek bones. She wasn’t the same woman who had visited my apartment nearly seven weeks before, but she was just as beautiful a woman.
“I want to go out to lunch,” she informed me imperiously.
I let her have a wolf whistle. “We’ll look like beauty and the beast.”
For the first time since she had gotten up, she smiled at me, proving that even though she doesn’t like you, no woman can resist a compliment.
Norman Sheridan and Mrs. Rand were together in the drawing room when Vivian and I entered. Sheridan heaved his soft bulk erect and let a smile of delight slowly spread across his round face.
“Well, well,” he said. “The cocoon has opened and the butterfly emergeth.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Rand. “You look stunning.”
Being realistic about my own beauty, I deduced they were speaking to Vivian and not to me, so I kept my mouth shut. A flush of pleasure added even more loveliness to Vivian’s face.
“We’re going out to lunch,” she told Mrs. Rand.
“How nice,” Vivian’s aunt said. She looked at me quietly. “Do be careful of her.”
Vivian frowned slightly. “I won’t run away, Aunt Grace.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Mrs. Rand protested. “But you’re still weak, my dear. Don’t overdo it.”
Mrs. Rand loaned us the Packard, complete with its sullen chauffeur, Harry. Harry had been avoiding me ever since I moved into the house, probably in deference to our onetime unfriendly relationship. As far as I was concerned, he had served his time and bygones were bygones, so I winked at him in the rear view mirror as we settled back in our seat. But instead of looking reassured, his face turned pale and he clashed the gears in starting.
Vivian chose the Jefferson to dine, and lunch was pleasant except for a heightened and false vivaciousness on the part of my companion. From across the room it probably looked as though she hung on my every word and replied with delightful banter, but behind her tightly fixed smile her mind was turned inward on her own thoughts. Half the time my remarks got no answer at all, and the rest of the time the answers bore little relation to the questions. Our conversation sounded like a Marx brothers’ script.
A choice example was when she brought up the subject of her mother’s death. I had just remarked that the waitress was slow with our coffee.
“Do you think the police have forgotten about it?” she asked musingly.
“Our coffee?” I said, puzzled.
“It’s been over a month now.”
“About ten minutes,” I said. “It just seems long…” I stopped because her blank eyes told me she was a thousand miles away.
“Vivian,” I said.
“I don’t believe the police are doing a thing. But I’ll bet you could solve the case, if you put your mind to it.” She smiled brightly at me. “Now that I’m well and really don’t need you any more, I think I’ll hire you to find my mother’s murderer.”
“Vivian.”
“So much time has passed, you really should start right now. Right after lunch. You can take Harry and I’ll take a taxi home.”
“Vivian.”
I got her attention, and also that of the tables on all four sides of us. “No,” I said more softly.
She smiled at me weakly, once again back in the present. Then her smile brightened and she rose. “Excuse me a moment.”
Pushing back my chair, I dropped a ten dollar bill on the table in case we weren’t coming back, and said: “I’ll go with you.”
One eyebrow quirked up in amusement, she shrugged and started across the floor. I followed her across the dining room, through the hotel lobby to a door reading, “Women.” She grinned at me quizzically and pushed through the door.
Long ago I had decided that once Vivian was allowed out of the house, it would be impossible to keep her in sight for six months. The only possible way to keep her from morphine was to give her some rope, locate her sources of drug, and eliminate the sources.
So instead of foolishly waiting outside the women’s room, I ducked out the hotel’s side door, loped to the alley and got the windows of the room under observation. I arrived just in time to see her drop lightly to the ground.
When she turned my way, I pulled back my head and faded into the cigar store located at the alley corner. Through the display window glass I saw her stop in front of the store, look in all directions and enter one of the line of cabs parked at the curb.
As soon as she settled back in its interior, I was out of the cigar store and into the taxi immediately behind hers.
“Keep the guy pulling out in sight,” I told the cabbie. “But don’t make him suspicious.”
He dropped his flag. “Copper?”
I said: “No,” and let a ten flutter into the seat beside him. My expense account was mounting.
At the end of the first block Vivian peered through her cab’s rear window, and I slouched down until my driver’s back cut off my view. Apparently her one look satisfied her, because she didn’t check again.
Our first stop was the Merchant’s National Bank. Vivian’s taxi came to a halt in front of the bank and we pulled in a quarter block behind it. The other cab waited, so I remained in mine until Vivian came out again.
I suspected she wouldn’t be long and she would come out mad. If she were trying to get hold of some money, she was going to discover one of the disadvantages of being declared legally incompetent was that you can’t cash checks on your own
account. It took my signature to get any of her money out of the bank.
In about three minutes she came, out, and even from a quarter block away I could see her face was dark red. When she slammed shut the cab door, it nearly broke the glass.
Her next stop was in front of the Uptown Personal Loan Company. This took ten minutes, but the only result was an even more flushed face and a still harder slam of the cab door.
For the next ten minutes Vivian’s taxi wandered aimlessly, while its occupant apparently thought things over. Then it picked up speed and started decisively in the direction of the water front. It stopped a block from the Mississippi in front of an unsafe looking three story building.
In this neighborhood of sidewalk fruit stands and dilapidated one man shops, a taxi was more noticeable than in the uptown section, so I had my driver roll past her taxi and park in the next side street.
When I rounded the corner on foot the other taxi still waited, but Vivian was not in evidence. Unhurriedly I drew abreast of the cab and, without glancing at the driver, turned into the entrance in front of which he was parked.
The building was old and needed airing. A single naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling lit its windowless foyer, disclosing worn stairs ascending on either side and a variety of cigarette stubs and other litter on the floor. On the wall exactly between the two sets of stairs was a faded building directory.
Glancing over the half-dozen directory names, which included a chiropractor, a job printer, a seed company, two novelty wholesalers and a private detective, I settled on the last.
“Joseph Alamado, bonded investigator, room 209,” the notice read. I had heard of Joe, and he was no credit to the profession.
Taking the left stairs to the second floor, I passed the print shop and two empty offices before I came to 209. Its plain wooden door repeated the directory’s legend. Opening it softly, I pushed into a drab waiting room containing only a black leather sofa, an iron ash stand and a dusty magazine rack. Across the waiting room voices came from behind another plain wooden door, on which was painted the single word, “Private.” Leaving the hall door ajar, I crossed to the inner door and leaned one car against it.
“You know I’ll pay you,” Vivian Banner was saying in a tone of tight desperation. “I’ll bring the money tomorrow.”
“You can have the stuff tomorrow,” a heavy masculine voice said. After a timed pause, it added: “If you bring the money.” There was no sympathy in the voice, and it definitely disapproved of credit transactions.
“Just a shot, then. One shot to carry me over. Against tomorrow’s order.”
No reply came from the man, but I guessed he had shaken his head. Vivian’s voice grew wheedling. “I’ve always liked you, Joe. I’d be awfully grateful. I’d be so grateful I couldn’t refuse you anything at all.”
Joe’s tone was heavily bored. “I deal in cash, lady. Cold, hard cash. Period.”
For so long there was silence, I thought Vivian was turning to leave, and quietly started to leave myself. But her voice, low and vicious, brought me back.
“You rotten, sneaking vulture,” she said. “I’ve poured thousands into your filthy hands. Listen to me.” Her voice sank till I could barely hear it. “The police would love to know how many thousands—and what it was for!”
A chair scraped back and Joe said sharply: “Just a minute!”
Silence again, until Joe’s heavy voice explained reasonably: “You know I don’t stock it like a grocery store does apples. I buy when my customers order.”
“You’ve got it right in this office!”
“No, lady. I can get it in an hour, but it takes cash.”
“You’re lying! You always had it before.”
“Sure,” Joe agreed. “But I always knew when you were coming. You ain’t been around lately.”
“All right,” Vivian said. “I’ll wait an hour while you go for it. I can pay you tomorrow. Honestly.”
“Sorry, lady. I ain’t got the money to advance. I can’t get credit either, you know.”
Vivian’s voice again sank to a vicious whisper. “Unless I leave here with at least one shot, I’ll go straight to the police from here!”
Neither spoke for a long time. Finally Joe said: “You wouldn’t want to do that. You’d never get any then.”
Vivian’s laugh was slightly hysterical. “I’ll never get it anyway. At least I can pay you back for some of the torture you’ve caused me.”
For a second time her chair scraped back, and for a second time Joe said: “Just a minute!”
A period of silence ensued before Joe said slowly: “I could fix you up tomorrow, lady, but I couldn’t raise you a shot today even if you threatened to phone Edgar Hoover.”
“What time tomorrow?” Vivian asked eagerly.
Joe’s voice grew persuasive. “Listen, lady. You’re well on the way to cure. Why not be smart and stay off the junk?”
“What time tomorrow?” Vivian repeated. Then she said: “How do you know that I’ve been taking treatment lately?”
“I keep track of my clients.”
For a long time neither said anything. Then Vivian asked: “What time tomorrow?”
“Phone me at noon,” Joe said resignedly.
“That’s too late. Make it earlier.”
“Noon.” Joe’s voice was definite.
“All right,” Vivian said crossly. “Noon.”
She moved toward the door and I faded back into the hallway, timing the click made by the hall door’s closing to coincide with the noise of the other door opening. By the time Vivian reached the hall, I was halfway down the stairs.
But when I reached my taxi and we had swung around the block, Vivian’s cab had already pulled away. We caught it two blocks farther on.
As straight as he could go without cutting across vacant lots, Vivian’s driver headed for the Rand home. When the cab stopped, Vivian immediately stepped out and ran up the walk to the house. I told my driver to park behind the other vehicle.
“Wait again?” the cabbie asked when I climbed out.
“No.”
“That’ll be two-thirty then.”
I said: “Take it out of the ten I gave you and keep the change.”
“Oh,” he said. “I thought that was extra.”
I gave him the fishy eye and he grinned. “No harm in trying, is there?” Stopping next to Vivian’s cab, I asked the driver: “She tell you to wait?”
“No. Just went in for money to pay me off.”
“What’s the fare?”
“Two-sixty.”
I said: “You guys ought to standardize your rates,” gave him three ones and turned toward the house.
At the front door Vivian met me, holding a five dollar bill in her hand. I flicked it away from her.
“You can’t handle money,” I said. “You’re mentally incompetent.”
She looked at me expressionlessly, glanced past me to see that her taxi was gone, and without a word turned and reentered the drawing room. I followed and found the inevitable tea party in session. Mrs. Rand, Claude Banner, Dr.
Yoder and Norman Sheridan all sat around holding cups.
I nodded to the group generally and handed Mrs. Rand the five. “I told you not to give Vivian money.”
“She said there was a taxi.”
“Don’t do it again.”
Her thick eyeglasses flashed hostility. “You needn’t press the point in front of company.”
I glanced over the group. “Nobody here who doesn’t know what’s wrong with Vivian.”
Returning to the hall, I phoned the head waiter at the Jefferson and asked him to find Harry and tell him to come on home. While I was phoning, Vivian and Mrs. Rand passed and went on up the stairs. I hung up and returned to the drawing room.
“Where you been?”
I asked Claude Banner, none too politely.
He looked startled. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t called to see your stepdaughter once.”
“Had to fly to Mexico City again,” he said in a reasonable tone. “Just got back about an hour ago.”
Mrs. Rand came back into the room, minus Vivian.
“Vivian’s lying down,” she told me. “She doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
“Lock your door?”
She looked nettled. “Yes.”
Deliberately needling her, I asked: “Mind if I look in your room and check?”
She looked even more nettled, but said coldly: “If you wish.”
Upstairs I found all three doors to Vivian’s room locked. Not caring to rejoin the tea party crowd, I stayed in my room until the guests departed. About five-thirty I heard Mrs. Rand and Vivian talking in Vivian’s room, and then a door opened and shut again as Mrs. Rand left. I continued to lie on my back and stare at the ceiling until time for dinner, then I knocked on Vivian’s door.
She answered through the panel, but I never saw her alive again. The next morning I found her body…
Harry’s face was pale and frightened when I slipped into the front seat beside him.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
He started up, killed the engine and had to use the starter again. I decided Mrs. Rand must have told him of Vivian’s death.
“Four-hundred block on Second Street,” I told him.
“Mrs. Rand wants me to stop by Mr. Sheridan’s on the way,” Harry said diffidently. “His phone’s out of order and she wants him to come over.”
“I’m in a hurry.”
“It’s right on the way.”
“Make it snappy, then,” I said.
We rolled past Forest Park, made a neat right turn and swung into the driveway of Norman Sheridan’s big brick home. The garage doors were open and Harry wheeled the car right through them. Behind us the doors slid shut.
I looked angrily at Harry, started to open my mouth, and closed it again when a voice spoke to me through the side window. “Good morning, Mr. Moon.”
A Shot in the Arm Page 4
