"Jellybean did," Ada stirred to life, eyes flashing. "Yesterday. On the door—you heard him—you saw the letter—"
"We'll do that routine later, Ada." I shook my head. "I want you to concentrate on some of the things I've just rehashed for you. Do you see the catch in all of it? Why all these women, who were over six feet tall, could be killed by a midget? A man no larger than our own Jellybean? It's right there in front of you, just like the reason why nobody remembers anyone at all at the scenes of all those murders."
She writhed in the chair, almost moaning. "It's your story. You tell me. I strip, I don't make like the cops on TV."
"One of the strippers was sitting in her bathtub, another was sitting in a parked car. A third was seated at her dressing-room table. Another was lying on a bed. And five will get me twenty, that Heavenly Blue must have stopped to kneel down to tie a shoelace or adjust her pantyhose or something. Anything that would bring that height of six feet and over down. Shorten it—make her closer to the ground—for a little maniac with a knife. The Gingerbread Man could have tripped her, too, so that she'd fall. Hell, I've seen half pints topple bruisers just by using a little fancy footwork. That's how it would have to be for Jellybean. As strong as he is, I can't see him leaping off the ground to stab all those girls in the heart. Not with the force of those wounds. He did a gouge job on all their breasts, according to a headquarters' man I know. Jellybean got to them all when he had his best shot at them. In a tub, on a bed, in a car, sitting at a table and down in an alley, however that was accomplished. Is any of this making sense to you, Ada? Or do I have to give you all the rest of it?"
"You give me all the rest of it." She gritted that out at me.
"Okay. No witnesses. Nary a one. Not so hard to understand why, if you keep in mind a little guy, no more than three feet or so tall who could pass for a small boy. So easy to hide in an alley behind a garbage pail or in the shadows or ducking along doorways. Or hide in a parked car. Or even in a dressing room, waiting for Cleo Patra to come in after her show. Or hiding anyplace at all. Even if he had been spotted at night, most people would think it was some kid staying up too late. I'm sure Jellybean was too smart to do all his stunts in that circus outfit of his. But the most significant part of it all is this: even if Jellybean Jackson had been spotted in the Kit Kat Club or around that alley where Gardena bought it, who would have thought it unusual? The manager of the great Ven would certainly be expected to go around to other clubs to check on the competition. And if anyone had seen him—they wouldn't have thought it worth mentioning to the cops. A midget, a fellow show-biz guy. See what I mean? As for yourself, a couple of those nights you were onstage. For the kills that took place in the hotel and the private home—well, I've seen you hit the sauce, Ada. You were probably sleeping toots off when Jellybean went after Satana and Dimples O. Blue, Patra, and Gardena were killed during or immediately after their shows." I ashtrayed my cigarette.
"Hah!" she snorted, jumping on that as if I'd shown a weak spot. "You and me and Jellybean were all in the hotel suite when Satana got it. I'm sure you know that!" She showed me her pink tongue.
"Do I?" I smiled at her ruefully. "I was making like the Great Horned Devil with you and then I dozed off when I went back into the main room. Yeah, I checked. Jellybean was in bed, sleeping. But it wouldn't have been any trick at all for him to have ducked out, gone down the fire escape, raced by cab across town to do in Satana, and get back in less than an hour. Who would have seen him leaving the hotel or coming back? He's so damn small it's almost ridiculous. And if you add the fact that he's insane as well as brilliant, well, I can't see anybody catching on to him. Sorry, Ada, the more you go into these kills the more it fits him like a glove. And a noose."
"You haven't got a thing yet." She shook me off. "Not a thing. So he's a midget, so he could have, he might have, he maybe did—crap, Noon. All crap. You'll second-guess yourself into a cell you go blaming him for something you can't prove. Jellybean's as smart as a shyster lawyer."
"There are other things," I said. The little room was close, now. As if the air had become staler. But it wasn't that, really. It was all the ugly things I was saying, the awful accusation I was making.
"You bluffer," she sneered, pulling her robe tighter about her shoulders as if she was cold. "What other things? You're skywriting!"
"Not actually. Not when the cops start with the premise of Jellybean Jackson and then go after it from that angle. Then everything does fall into place. The Gingerbread Man, as nutty as he is, needs a motive, then he needs the opportunity, then you go into the reasons for things. Why a stripper a day, why all these particular girls—strange that the greatest one of them all, you, Ada Ven, is spared a knife and an 'S,' isn't it? See what I mean? It goes something like that. Then all the little items become important. They start adding up together and they add very well. The Gingerbread Man, if he wasn't old Jellybean, would have knocked you off first, I think, now that I've seen your act. Not only because you're the number one in strip, but you do have, and I hate to use such a corny word, just about the dirtiest act I've ever seen. You ought to be picking up quarters with a twitch of your clitoris the way those worn-out strippers used to do in old-fashioned skin shows all around the country at circuses and fairs."
She hated me for that. Her green eyes flashed that dangerous yellow and her mouth contorted in an awesome smile. She raised a hand as if to jab me, but it was only a throwaway gesture of contempt.
"Up yours, baby. I do what I do. Take it or leave it."
"I left it," I said, a little sadly. "A long time ago. But now—Jellybean. He still loves you. He's still trying to get the pants back you took off him by divorcing him. So he went ape. Mostly to impress you and mainly because he's obviously psychotic. Don't know what finally did him in, but he started it and he kept it up. Who knows? Heavenly Blue may have been an accident. I mean he may have walked her home and then got amorous, trying to get her in an alley, and then gone nuts from that point on. I'm sure Heavenly Blue had a bottle of Red Rose in her bag. It's not the sort of thing the cops would notice if it was missing, is it?"
"You're crazy, Ed. What would Jellybean be doing with a knife?"
"He's a runt, isn't he? He could carry a switchblade for safety."
Now, somehow, I really had her hypnotized. She had quieted down, the withering look had disappeared, and a great amazement filled her face. She began to shake her red head back and forth in wonder.
"Who can speak for a loony?" I asked. "I can't. But what if it happened like that? What if he kills Blue, strips her, then marks her stomach, and that begins the whole thing. So he goes on, waiting for all the word to spread, the panic to start, and he keeps on, knowing he can suddenly say to you—see, Ada—I did it—it was me—little Jellybean Jackson—not bad for a midget, huh? So he adopts this Gingerbread Man gimmick and away he goes and then you spoil it all by getting scared and deciding you need a private detective—me."
"The 'S,' " she almost whispered the words. "What is that supposed to mean? Stripper or what? It doesn't make sense."
"I don't really know, Ada," I admitted, "but ironically, it is the one thing in all of this that made me start thinking about Jellybean Jackson. The height of the girls, his own height—I have as dirty a mind as the next man—and it started with that old dirty joke—'Did you hear about the midget that went up on it?'—and one thing leads to another. Again, it was either intentional or not. But why the 'S' on the abdomen? Why not on the breast or the forehead or the thigh, if it's supposed to have a meaning? So it came to me, considering the height of the victims. If they were standing up and Jellybean was in front of them, he'd come up to just about their navels. And not much higher. It might have been a subconscious gesture of defiance and hate, but that's the way I saw it. And when I did, I started measuring everything about Jellybean."
"Jeezus," she gasped. "That's filthy, Ed!"
"Ain't it?" I asked sourly, omitting an obvious comeback. "But it takes everyth
ing else with it that points to Jellybean Jackson. It's all for you, Ada Ven. To publicize you, to put strip back into the headlines, to increase your notoriety. You're The Great Ven. Ada The Greater. Redheaded Ada. So the fingernail polish is called Red Rose, the letter 'S' is a scarlet letter and not Hawthorne's 'A' this time, and I could even make out a case for the use of the Gingerbread Man as a tag. You could be considered a ginger, too. It's red, one way or another. But actually, that nursery rhyme is just another clue going back to Jellybean. What was the Gingerbread Man but a little guy who leaped out of the oven and ran away, daring all the bigger people to catch him? And you know something? When people make a gingerbread man these days, they sometimes put jellybeans on the front for decoration, to make a vest or something. Maybe Jackson wasn't thinking all that way consciously, but, wow, does it add up, psychologically."
"Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me—"Ada was slowly, almost in a monotone, reciting the words. "My God! My God!"
"Yes, Ada?" I waited for her confession. The admission of what I knew. That Jellybean Jackson had already identified himself as the man.
"Then he staged that scene yesterday—at the door," she moaned.
"He had to. The description of the man he gave was far too theatrical. No killer looks like they do in the movies. So conspicuous, I mean. He just pulled it off to convince me and you that you were a target, too, and it was just more window dressing. He knew you wanted me to hang around. It must have appealed to his ego to put me on, besides. A so-called hotshot snooper like me. But it also made him understand just how badly he was frightening you. And then when you passed out this morning when we both asked you to play clay pigeon tonight. Well, I think that was the capper. So he told you after I left. Didn't he? Come on, Ada. Once the cops know what I think and they already have most of it—Jellybean's a dead duck."
She was still fighting me, out of loyalty, out of sheer vindictiveness or absolute disbelief that a little midget could get the murderous best of five, big, strapping strippers. I was sure he had told her and just as sure that she hadn't really believed him. She may even have howled her head off when he brought the subject up.
Ada bit her lip, fighting an inner battle. She was losing.
"Jeezus, it's so weird. So way out. Jellybean. Those broads. Why they were monsters compared to him! They could have put him on their backs like a papoose—"
"The knife, Ada. Did he show you the knife?"
"No, no, I didn't even ask him. Jeezus how can I look him in the eye again if what he told me and what you told me is all true?"
"It is true, Ada. And we're both going to stay here until he comes back. And I'm going to take him in. And I want your help. I don't care how much you like him. Just keep remembering what he did to those five girls and that will make it a lot easier. He's way off his rocker, Ada. He could finally have gotten around to you. Especially if you turned him down again. Think about that too, Ada."
"Eddie, let me think—"
"Think. Do that, above all. Thinking will make you see the right thing. You can't play guessing games with a maniac."
"I know, I know," she snapped, with her old Tallulah boom, "but, jeezus, stop yakking about it, will you?"
"I will. But make up your mind quick. He could pop in here any second. He's very jealous of you, Ada."
"Oh, hell," she whimpered and it was ludicrous. All her great womanly size and her little-girl tone. "It can't be him. Why not that dumb Pipps or the other guys hanging around this club? Like Rogers, that boozing newspaperman and that musclebound stud, Donn Dunn?"
"I know about them. They may have their hangups, but this one is all Jellybean Jackson's. A little guy trying to outdo the big boys." And suddenly it came to me what the "S" might stand for. The only thing it could have stood for. There was nothing subtle about Jellybean Jackson and why should there be? The "S" was a signature, all right. As such, it could only stand for one thing, only mean one thing. A brutal murderer doesn't like to advertise, but he certainly wants the credit, one way or another. When Judgment Day does finally roll around. I unbuttoned my coat and tugged at my collar a little. The dressing room wasn't air-conditioned, in spite of Ada Ven's star status. "Come on, Ada. We haven't the time while you wrestle with your soul."
"Okay." She let out a deep breath and glanced at the door as if Jellybean Jackson might bounce in right then. "I'm with you. You're with me. But if you're wrong—jeezus, I'll kill you myself!"
"You did. Last night." I was trying to be gallant, but she wasn't buying. Her lips curled contemptuously and her green eyes raced over me as if I had suddenly become a leper of some kind. Or just a lost cause.
"Go save your own soul, Noon. We're through that way. Never again from my end. Now, I know why you lost so many dames. You must have talked all forty of them to death! Damn missionary, that's what you are. Damn shame, too, because you do have what it takes."
I bowed slightly in gratitude and she looked away, back to her mirror, no longer interested in me and suddenly interested in her own flowing, tumbled red hair. She picked up a long, pink comb with a rattail for poking and teasing. She looked radiant and glorious in that cheap mirror. A Titian even Rembrandt would have admired, as long as she didn't open her mouth. What a screwy world it really is. The great Ven was a queen for beauty, vocally she was a charwoman. Bonnie Bee was no Rita Hayworth, but Ada Ven was. All that and more.
It was then, during that brief interlude of decision and waiting, that the miracle occurred. Or maybe it was just a magic act or an optical illusion. For while I was studying Ada Ven's marvelous image in the mirror, I saw something else. Behind me, less than a yard away, the big black steamer trunk which I had barely given a second thought began to move. Before I could undo myself, whirl around, and take stock of the miracle, I saw the little hand coming out, emerging from the insides of the thing, like a spider trying to get a purchase on the terrain it is spiraling around. I jumped back, streaking fingers for my holstered forty-five, and Ada Ven suddenly saw what was going on, dropped the comb, and revolved as if she was sitting on a barber chair. Her face opened up.
Jellybean Jackson came bouncing out of the big steamer trunk like a jack popping up from the box. Only he didn't have any springs holding him back. And he was left-handed even though he had kidded me by always wearing his watch on his left wrist, the way left-handed men are not supposed to. And he had a switchblade knife, like I thought. The sort of thin, sharp-bladed murder weapon that could have gouged out the breasts of the dead women. It looked like a short sword in his small hand. And he came at me like a fencing master, marking him for the expert he apparently was. The Gingerbread Man in the flesh.
He didn't scream; he didn't shout. His face was a snarl.
He just flew at me like a released catapult. Flying.
Dead on, knife tip zooming in like a radar beam. Dead true.
I got the forty-five up in time and would have blasted his head off at close range, except for one thing. One unexpected, feminine thing.
Ada Ven, God help us all, fell against me, slamming her huge and shapely weight into my gun hand, and shouted something between a bleat and a warning. I never did know which. It didn't matter, really.
And Jellybean Jackson could no more stop his Kamikaze, crazed, head-on assault, then he could help cutting off his original idea. The killing, and shutting up of the mouth, of one nosy private investigator.
Ada Ven was in my arms, head flung back, mouth opened in surprise and plain disbelief, her great surging flesh spilling over, just as Jellybean Jackson's switchblade buried itself in her back.
Right up to the hilt. With a thin rustle of awful sound.
To the quivering, throbbing, penetrating hilt.
Something he hadn't wanted to do.
Something Ada hadn't wanted him to do.
Something that completely threw me off my game, my gun.
She sagged against me, going down, eyes working, mouth trying to speak, long legs doubling, arms flopping. Her
throat showed tendons.
Great cords of muscle suddenly springing into view.
Her lips pulled back in an enormous effort to speak, to say a word.
Blood, a scarlet gusher, suddenly geysered upward, spurting from her mouth as if the knife had gone right into her mainstream of life. It hit me in the face, washed over us both, and then she was down, sprawled on the floor, still supported by my hands, like a dangling nude barely concealed by the thin robe. I had dropped the forty-five. Just as Jellybean Jackson had let go of the knife.
Kill Her- You'll Like It! Page 11
