by P. N. Elrod
Taylor got impatient at all the eye play. “Ya want us to throw the bum out, Barb?”
This didn’t speed up her decision; she’d already made it by then, but it did give her an excuse to act. She gestured with one hand, the way queens do when they wave at their subjects, and damned if every one of the guys there didn’t give way to it. Two of them made haste to clear the booth so she could slide out.
I expected her to be tall; it had to do with her long, graceful neck and the way she moved. Again, I thought of royalty.
The boys were watching us with some resentment. She knew it but left the next move to me. I tried a cool but polite smile and nodded at some empty booths at the far end of the joint. She matched the smile and preceded me slowly, giving me plenty of time to evaluate the body under the suit. There wasn’t a thing wrong with it.
She eased into a booth and I took the other side, facing her.
“Drink?” she asked.
“What would you like?”
“It was an offer, not a request.”
“Thanks, but I’ll take a rain check. You need anything?”
“Not to drink, no. What is it you wanted to talk to me about, Mr. Fleming?”
“Last January did you cover the story on Celia Adrian’s suicide?”
“Among others. Why do you ask?”
“I was interested in why your paper maintained that it might not have been suicide.”
The amusement spread from her huge eyes down to her mouth. She had absolutely perfect teeth. “Because a simple suicide does not sell papers.”
“And courting a libel suit does?”
“Of course.” Her cigarette burned out and she made a point of thor-oughly crushing the butt in the table ashtray. “Now, why are you so interested in such old news? Surely you’re not a lawyer?”
“No, I’m a journalist. I’m working on a book about famous unsolved cases and I thought the Adrian thing might be something to look into.”
“It sounds very ambitious.”
“It fills in the time.”
“What paper do you work for?”
I gave her the name. “Except I don’t work for them anymore. I came into a legacy, decided to quit and go free-lance.” It was the truth, more or less. I was a crummy liar.
“Aren’t you the lucky one? That’s a New York paper…. Why are you out here?”
“Because this is where the story happened. What can you tell me about it that didn’t get past the editor?”
She made a business of lighting another cigarette and blowing the smoke from her nose. It was quite leisurely and gave her plenty of time to think. “Very little, really. It was a fairly simple case, as I remember, but this was months ago. You probably know more about what I wrote than I do if you’ve been into the old files.”
“I guess so, but that’s not quite the same as listening to someone who’s been there. What were your impressions of Alex Adrian?”
“The husband? He hardly left any.”
Somehow it was oddly comforting to know I wasn’t the only bad liar in the world. Her answer complicated things, but I had all night. “Too bad, I was really interested in hearing something solid. I guess I can check the police records tomorrow.”
“Yes, there’s always tomorrow, isn’t there?” She was smiling again and part of me felt like a lone fish in a shark tank.
“I suppose I should leave you and let you get back to your friends.”
“They can wait, Mr. Fleming.”
“My name is Jack.”
“I know, and mine is Barb.” She locked those wonderful eyes onto mine again.
This opened things up for a little flirting, but not much—she was a very decisive woman. She stood up soon after and went back to the boys long enough to toss a dollar on the table to cover her drink, and we left together.
“Think she’ll let this one live out the night?” Taylor muttered to the others as the door closed behind us.
The pretext we’d established between ourselves was for me to give her a ride home. We walked to my car and I helped her in; it was all very formal and polite. I never liked playing games like that, but this time I didn’t mind because I wanted her information.
She had a nice apartment in a nice building. Thankfully she didn’t pause at the door for more games on whether she should let in me or not. She opened it and let me make up my own mind and smiled again as I let it snick shut behind me.
“I suppose you think I’m fast?” she said, tugging at the fingers of her black kid gloves. She tossed the empties onto a chair along with her purse and hat.
“I think you know what you want,” I returned.
She vanished into the kitchen and I heard the clink of ice on glass. When she came out the top few buttons of her coat were undone, revealing a little more milk white skin. Her very short hair and the harsh lines of her suit perversely emphasized her femininity. It was the same kind of effect Marlene Dietrich got in a tuxedo.
She handed me a glass heavy with ice and bourbon. “Bottoms up?”
It was less a toast than an invitation. She sipped, watching me over the rim, then eased onto her couch and watched me some more. I let my lips touch the edge of the glass and was hard put to hide the spasm of rejection my stomach sent up.
“You don’t have to have it if you don’t like it.” Innuendo was her specialty.
“Thanks.” I placed it on a low table and sat next to her. We weren’t quite touching.
She put down her drink and rested her arm along the back of the couch, her fingers lightly rubbing the fabric of my coat. “You know, most men your age would either be all over me at this point or rushing out the door in a desperate attempt to preserve their virtue.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“Neither, that’s why you’re here. You act older than you look.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Are you really a journalist?”
“Not anymore.”
“Perhaps you thought by coming here I might talk a little more freely about Alex Adrian?”
I laughed a little. “Not much gets past you.”
“No, indeed. I’m afraid you’ll find me quite useless, as I’ve nothing to tell you. Nothing at all.”
We had moved closer together somehow. “That’s too bad.”
Her mouth curled. “What would your girlfriend think if she saw you like this?”
“Who says I’ve got a girlfriend?”
“I do. I can smell her perfume on you. Winter Rose. It’s very expensive.”
She pressed the length of her body against mine, and I won’t lie andsay she wasn’t having her effect on me. My symptoms were familiar enough: tunnel vision, heightened hearing and smell, and of course my upper canines were pushing themselves out of their retractable pockets. Mixed in with Bobbi’s perfume and Barb’s perfume was the all-too-tantalizing scent of blood. I stopped breathing but couldn’t shut out its soft rumble as it surged through the veins in her throat.
She sensed at least part of what was happening to me and brought her lips around to cover mine. It lasted only an instant and left the possibility open for more if I wished it. I did, but pulled back.
“You don’t have to do this.”
She smiled with infinite patience. “How many times do I have to convince a man that it’s not a question of ‘have to’? I want to and that should be enough. Now lie back and enjoy yourself.” And she pushed herself against me a little and started undoing my tie.
I let things go until she stopped to smile at me again. She slipped into it easily; it was so subtle I was only aware she was under by the slightly glazed look in her bronze eyes. Her hands dropped away and her head went sleepily back, drawing the skin tight over her unblemished throat. I stroked it gently, feeling the vein working under my fingers and noting the soft warmth with a great deal of regret.
Getting to my feet, I walked around the living room until things settled down internally. A few gulps of fresh air from an open window helped clea
r my head and before long my teeth were back in their place again. Barb Steler was one of the most desirable women I’d ever met, and I certainly wanted her, but she wasn’t Bobbi and there was no way in the world that I would ever intentionally hurt either of them.
With that firmly in mind I went back to the couch and sat next to her. Her eyes were wide open, but she was asleep, and taking no notice of me now.
“Barb, close your eyes and think back to last January. I want you to tell me about the story you did on Alex Adrian.”
Her eyes drifted shut. It was more for my comfort than hers, because I hate that empty look they get.
“Tell me about Alex Adrian.”
Her face twisted. “Bastard.”
For a second I wondered if she was talking about him or me, but she was still safely under. “Why is he a bastard?”
“He doesn’t love me.”
I didn’t quite whistle. “You love him?”
She made a low noise in her throat. That was one question she didn’t want to answer.
“Okay, never mind. Where did you first meet him?”
“Paris.”
“When he was a student there?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
It took quite a while because I had to prompt her with questions. It was a simple story but she’d buried it down deep.
She was a society deb on a continental tour with some friends when one of them dared her to model for an art class. She took up the dare and so met Alex Adrian, a promising art student. Long after her friends returned to the States she was still living with him in a little hotel on the Left Bank. Things were idyllic, from her point of view at least. There had been talk of marriage for a time, but it had fallen through.
“He didn’t really want me,” she sighed. “He didn’t. It was his art first, always his goddamned art.”
Their fights became more frequent as she demanded more attention from him, and he pulled away to concentrate on his studies. She finally left for home, returning to her own study of journalism. She was smart enough and good enough to work for any paper in the country, but preferred the style of her tabloid. She had a lot of venom in her system and it only increased when Adrian returned from New York with his new wife.
I shook my head, not liking my next question. “Do you think he killed her?”
“No …”
“Barb, tell me, did you kill her?”
“No.”
“So it was suicide, after all?”
“Yes.”
“And all those stories in the paper?”
“He deserved it. He hurt me. Bastard.”
From under her closed lids a tear slipped out and trickled down her heart-shaped face. I touched it away.
“You tired, Barb?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t blame you. I want you to get up and get ready for bed as usual. All right?”
Her eyes opened and, still unaware of me, she walked into her bedroom and began removing her clothes. It took some effort on my part to remember I was a gentleman. I stayed out in the living room until she’d finished her bath and climbed into bed. The springs creaked as she settled into the sheets and pulled up the blanket.
She wore an ice white satin gown that left her shoulders bare and defined her breasts. She didn’t see me standing in the doorway, but stared at something next to it. I came into the room. Hanging on the wall was an oil portrait of her. She was younger, her hair was different, but the artist had left no doubt to the world about her beauty. The signature at the bottom was Alex Adrian’s.
“Bastard,” she whispered.
I walked around the big double bed and pulled back the covers from the empty spot next to her and climbed in, clothes and all. It was the only way I could think of to convincingly leave the impression we’d slept together.
“Barb—”
“Barbara. My full name is Barbara.”
I put an arm around her and drew her close so she was leaning against me. “Barbara.”
“Yes?”
“You hide it very well, but you hurt a lot because of him.”
“Yes.”
“I think you should let go of the hurt, don’t you?”
Until she crumpled, I hadn’t been aware of the tension in her muscles. I murmured things to her, soft words meant to soothe, and they seemed to work. When her eyes were dry again, she really was ready to sleep. I shifted position, sitting up and facing her and easing her back onto the pillow.
“You had a good evening, Barbara,” I told her. “You don’t have to remember talking to me about Adrian, but thinking about him doesn’t hurt now. Understand?”
She nodded.
“Now you have a good night’s sleep. When you wake up in the morning you’ll feel a lot better about things.”
The covers rustled as she turned over. I carefully got out of bed and studied the portrait a moment longer before shutting off the light. A minute later I locked her apartment door, slipped out into the hall, and walked quietly downstairs so as not to disturb the other tenants.
The car seemed to make more noise starting than usual, but only because I wanted it not to. I shifted gears gently and drifted down the dark and empty morning streets, my head full of complicated thoughts and feelings. Instead of the road I saw a heart-shaped young face in an expensive frame.
The sad part was that she’d been dead wrong about Adrian; no one could paint a portrait like that and not be in love.
6
THE kitchen phone started jangling just as consciousness returned and my eyes popped open. Escott caught it on the third ring and I could tell by his end of the conversation that it was Bobbi. I threw on a bathrobe and decided to spare his nerves and walk up the basement steps in the regular way. He handed over the earpiece and went back to the front room to finish listening to his radio program.
Bobbi was anything but calm. “That rat backed out!” she stated, her voice vibrating with fury. “He called me up this afternoon to call off the sittings.”
She’d said enough for me to identify the rat in question. “What hap pened? Did he say why?”
“He just said he tried and couldn’t get into it, after all, some stuff about not being ready to get back to painting yet.”
“That’s ridiculous, after the way he was last night?”
“I know. First he can’t wait to start, now he dumps the whole thing. What’s the matter with the man?”
The thought flashed through my head that Barb Steler had remembered our talk last night and somehow made trouble with Adrian. It was worry making, but extremely unlikely. I’d been very careful with her. “Give me time to dress and I’ll pick you up. We’ll go over for a little talk and try to straighten things out.”
“Are you sure you want me along? I feel like strangling him.”
“Fine, I’ll probably help.”
Escott’s voice drifted in after I hung up. “Problem?” he asked casually.
I shoved my hands in the robe’s pockets and hunched into the front room. He was at his ease on the long sofa and stretched out a lazy arm to turn the radio down. I spent a minute or so explaining about the portrait commission and Adrian’s sudden refusal of it.
He cocked a philosophical eyebrow. “Artistic temperament, perhaps? Perhaps not. He’s probably far too professional to indulge in such games.”
“I don’t know. I’m taking Bobbi over to find out.”
“A suggestion?”
“Yeah?”
“Take along your receipt—just in case you can’t change his mind.” His hand swung back to the volume dial again.
With him it was a suggestion with double meaning, a nudge for my conscience to kick in, as if it needed much help. I had been thinking of influencing Adrian, but recognized with some sourness that Escott had a ’point, at least for the moment.
Bobbi was dressed for war in a severe black suit with a slash of blood red color on her compressed lips. She was already waiting in the lo
bby, and as soon as my car stopped she shot out and yanked the door open.
“I’m mad,” she said, quite unnecessarily. Anyone in a fifty-yard radius could figure it out easily enough.
“We’ll see what’s going on.”
“He chickened out, that’s what I think.” She crossed her arms and glared out the front window. “And it’s just not fair.”
I got the car rolling again and listened as she talked herself down from a long afternoon of anger and frustration. By the time we reached Adrian’s she’d calmed somewhat and was willing to hear his side of things, if he had one.
He took his time answering the door and there was a change in him. The relaxed face we’d seen last night had been replaced by the guarded go-to-hell-and-so-what expression I’d noted at the party. It took Bobbi by surprise; she was all wound up to ask an obvious question or two, but one look and she knew it was a lost cause.
He let us into the entryway, but no farther. On a table rested the envelope with the money, which he handed to me, meeting my eyes, expecting a reproach and not caring.
“I can’t really explain it,” he said. “I just know I can’t do the job, after all.”
“Why not?”
He’d been ready for that question, and the answer came out easily enough. “Do you ever get a writer’s block, if that’s what you call it? I’ve the same thing, but for painting.”
It wasn’t something I could argue with; you can’t force a person to create against their will. You also can’t ask them why when they don’t want to talk. I couldn’t, not with Bobbi looking on. I gave him his receipt without another word. He stared at it, something crossing his face as if it were the end of the world, then shoved the piece of paper into his pocket.
“I’m sorry to have put you both to so much trouble,” he said tonelessly. He was saying what was expected of him; whether he meant it or not was anyone’s guess.
Bobbi shot me a brief look of alarm, her instincts were doing overtime. I nodded back, we’d talk later.
Adrian opened the door for us and we were back on the porch with it closing quietly behind. I heard his steps retreating deep into the house.
“We sure read him the riot act, didn’t we?” she said. “He looked positively sick.”
