Lady, go die

CHAPTER SEVEN

Marion Ruston’s apartment was in an older building, a recently renovated brownstone. Most of the furnishings were covered in flowered chintz, very cozy, but strictly a woman’s place. A man wouldn’t have all the frou-frou junk she had for love nor money. I tossed my hat on a coat-tree hook and, while Marion slunk seductively into the bedroom, I stretched out in an overstuffed armchair and waited.

This should be good, I thought.

It was-in only about five minutes, she appeared poised at the hallway entry in the sheerest dressing gown imaginable. And that was all. That and red finger-and-toenail polish.

“My temptation togs,” she explained with a tah dah hand gesture, her smile turning up at both ends.

She went over to a standing lamp to switch it off and, when she did, moved past a window where the drapes were back, letting the glow of the city at night turn her into a curvaceous silhouette. Her form had the kind of lines usual in pin-ups but unusual in life, plump firm behind, full impertinently tipped breasts, a waist you could put your hands around, and legs that followed gentle, supple curves on their way to the toes she posed provocatively upon.

“You can take that spider web off, too,” I said, fishing out my deck of Luckies from my suit coat pocket, “for all I care.”

As I lit up the cig, she moved toward me with a dancer’s grace, and this was a sort of dance, wasn’t it? I blew out smoke, away from her, gentleman that I am.

She raised her eyebrows and slid onto the arm of my chair with studied ease. When she crossed her legs she let as much skin show as possible. Very nice skin, creamy and white, but hardly necessary. It wasn’t like that gown was making an attempt to conceal anything.

I looked up at her the way a scientist studies a slide. “I liked you better in the dress. At least I could let my imagination do a little work.”

She gestured to herself. “What’s the matter with this?” Her expression was more curious than hurt.

“Nothing, but it just shows what every woman has. The equipment is pretty much the same, though I admit yours is well arranged.” I shrugged and blew a smoke ring. “A guy just gets tired seeing the same show over and over again. Why don’t you sit over there so we can talk?”

I pointed my Lucky at the sofa across the room.

She slipped off the arm of the chair and stood with her fists at her waist and her pretty face crinkled. “The hell with you, Mac. Who do you think you’re fooling with that lousy line? It’s nothing new. Your technique stinks.”

“Look,” I said, trying not to get sore, “I’m not pulling your own kind of hard-to-get routine, I’m being serious.”

“You are, huh?”

“You brought me here to tease me and then pull the rug out from under me and give me the horse laugh. Fine. Everybody needs a hobby. But I came up here to spend a little time with a nice kid I used to know, back when your brother Billy was a pal of mine.”

She sighed and I’d be lying if I said what those breasts did under the sheer nightie didn’t rate a trouser salute.

But she abandoned the sex dolly persona and smirked like a real human gal and said, “Okay, okay, Mike Hammer-you win.”

She moved quite naturally over to the couch, and the truth was, it was more appealing than the sashaying routine. “What the hell did you come up here for?”

“Anything but that. It’s too early in our renewed friendship.”

She smirked. “Not for some people, it wouldn’t be.”

“It is for me. Ready to talk a while?”

She threw her painted-toed feet up on the coffee table, then reached over to the end table and withdrew a cigarette from a silver box. I tossed her my matches and she caught them like she was playing first base, smiled her thanks, and batted her eyelashes at me.

“Stop that,” I said.

“Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

I returned to the armchair and got on with my talk. “You ever been out to Sidon, Marion? Little tourist trap out on Long Island?”

A match stopped halfway to the cigarette and she stared at me a moment.

Then she said, “Yes. Well, not Sidon, but a place outside there. Why?”

Interesting that she’d had to think that over before answering.

“A place outside Sidon,” I said. “Wouldn’t be Sharron Wesley’s gambling den, would it?”

“Well… actually, yes. I was there several times. It was really very nice, very pretty perched there on the ocean.”

“Who took you out there?”

“A… just a fellow… Why, does it matter who?”

“It might.”

“Why?”

“Sharron Wesley’s been killed.”

She said nothing, but her eyes were wide and the cigarette froze halfway to her lips. She was batting her eyelashes again but I didn’t figure it had anything to do with trying to look sexy.

“Who took you there, Marion?”

“I’m… I’m sorry to hear that about Sharron. She could be fun.”

Obviously Marion didn’t want to answer my question. I tried another: “Did this… fellow of yours spend much money while you were at the casino?”

She shook her head. “On the contrary. He won about three hundred.”

“That was the first time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that joint wasn’t as straight as Louie’s. How did your ‘fellow’ fare after that?”

“Oh, the next time he dropped a little. Not much.”

“Then?”

“I was only there with him twice, if you’re trying to make the point that they suckered him up to that point. Who killed her?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Was she a friend of yours, Mike?”

“No.”

“You never… made her?”

“No.”

“Well, do you have a client?”

“No. Now back to my questions, Marion-was there much money in the joint? I mean hard cash on the tables?”

She tried to blow a smoke ring and muffed it. “Yup,” she said, “enough to make our friend Louie look like a piker.”

“Estimate it.”

She frowned in thought, then: “Well, I watched a poker game where they used chips. The whites cost five hundred. Nobody bothered with those. The play was all with the blue. One guy had a pile as big as his belly in front of him. And he had a good-size belly.”

“Any important people from the city there?”

“A few politicians. Local types. Maybe some state officials. I don’t pay much attention to that kind of thing.”

“What did you pay attention to?”

She shrugged. “Some out-of-town money from Chicago seemed to carry things that night. There were one or two society-page playboys treating some phony blondes to a showy time, too. You know, trying to impress.”

“Were you impressed at all? I mean… what was your opinion of the place?”

“Say, you really did want to talk, didn’t you?”

“I told you that.”

“All right. To me it looked big-time. There was as much money there as you’ll ever see out in the open, and nobody was worried about it, so the fix was in. In a town the size of that Sidon, it wouldn’t be hard to do. A few hundred handed out to the bulls, and everything’d be jake.”

Miss Marion Ruston really had been working for Louie Marone a while.

She went on: “It was an elegant joint, all right, with enough attractions to pull a crowd from as far away as the Midwest. I’ve seen some of the players in Louie’s, but they weren’t the real spenders. These playboys and rich johns, they think they roll high, but the boys with the real dough at the Wesley joint were guys who made gambling their business. I could mention a few names, but it would be better if I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“You may not like me, Mike. But I like me, Mike. I like me so much I’d hate like hell to be put on the spot.”

“I like you just fine, kid. And anyway, getting put on the spot went out with Prohibition.”

“Oh, did it? That’s what you think! Why, only the other day I was reading a magazine article where a mobster went in for a haircut and shave and got his throat cut, instead.”

I stabbed out my cigarette in a tray, and waved that off. “Nuts. Like Bugsy Siegel said, those boys only kill each other.”

“You think? Didn’t he wind up shot to hell?”

“All I mean is, they have their own fix in. As long as they pay their income tax, they have nothing to worry about. Sharron’s place wasn’t underground. If anybody catches hell, it’ll be the operators, not the players. Giving me their names won’t get them or you in any kind of hot water.”

She frowned, smoking nervously now. “Are you really sure, Mike?”

“I’m sure.”

“Well…”

She looked dubious, but decided to take the chance. “I saw Bill Evans there-from Chicago?”

“Yeah? Who else?”

“Miami Bull.”

I whistled at that. Those two guys were the biggest of the big in gambling circles. When they sat in a game, it was for tens of thousands. If that was the kind of crowd that played at her “parties,” Sharron Wesley had cleaned up.

“Do you know a local Sidon cop named Dekkert?”

Marion laughed gaily. “ That big phony? Ha! Last time I was out there, he spent the whole darn night putting the make on me, or anyway trying to. Can you beat that?”

“Tell me more.”

She sat forward, dishing the dirt. It’s in a dame’s blood. “He took me out in the back and walked me to the beach. He said he was worried about something he saw my date do, and wanted a private word. We passed a clump of bushes and he tried to throw me down to drag me in there.”

“The damn rape-happy slob…”

“Oh, it was funny! I got my hands on a rock and bashed him in the puss. He went out like a light. Was he burned up! When he crawled back in half an hour later, he couldn’t look at me the rest of the night without going red as a monkey’s rear-end. And he had a mouse under his eye big enough to put in your pocket and feed cheese to.”

It was pretty funny, the way she put it. Dekkert must have felt like a dope to be pushed over by a young broad like Marion. Trying to force himself on a kid, well, that was one more score to settle with the bastard.

I said, “Who was Dekkert around there? Not a customer surely.”

“No! He was the bouncer at Sharron’s. At least that’s what he told me. He never bounced anybody that I saw. The out-of-town big shots, like Evans and Miami Bull, they all carried rods anyway, and I don’t think Dekkert could have pushed them very far.”

“How do you know they packed rods? They didn’t go around with their coats off, did they?”

She grinned at me, the real girl under the sex kitten facade in full evidence now. “Listen, Mister Man, I’ve been around punks so long that a hood with a rod on his hip, or under his arm, couldn’t hide it from me even if it were small enough to be a watch fob.”

That made me laugh.

She pointed with her cigarette. “Like that rod under your left shoulder. It must be a big one. I always figured you for a big gun, Mike.”

So we were back to that routine again. Full circle.

I stood. “Okay, thanks, Marion, you told me enough for one night. And I appreciate it. Maybe after I’ve dug into this thing a little deeper, I’ll drop back and see you again.”

She leaped to her feet, eyes flaring. “You mean you’re going?”

“Sure. I got what I came for.” I slapped my hat on and walked to the door.

She grabbed my arm and spun me around. “You can’t leave yet!”

“Why?” I let my eyes laugh at her.

“You didn’t even try. We didn’t even get started. And you promised.”

“I don’t remember promising you anything, kiddo.”

“All that talk about skipping the preliminaries! You talked real big! You-”

Before she could finish that thought, I reached up and gripped her dressing gown at the neck, then gave it a vicious yank. The light material of the wrapper ripped like paper. I tossed it away like a used tissue and had a look at my handiwork.

She stood there stark naked, her eyes glowing like hot coals, her mouth open with surprise. I looked her over coolly. She did have a lovely body.

“Nice,” I admitted. “Still… nothing that unusual.”

I pulled a ten spot from my pocket and stuck it in her hand. “That’s for the gown. Maybe you better get a housecoat next time. It’ll save you catching a cold.”

When I closed the door, a vase smacked against the wood and smashed into fragments. I usually had to know a girl a lot better before the pottery started flying. Maybe next time she wouldn’t try so hard, and we really could have a little fun.

I walked to the corner intending to catch a cab back to the garage where I’d left the heap, then on impulse stopped by a drugstore and slipped into a phone booth.

After three tries I got Pat, at home this time.

“Hello, buddy. Mike again.”

“Mike, I figured you’d be back in Sidon by now.”

“I’m about to head that way. But some things have happened since I saw you this afternoon.”

“You do lead an eventful life.”

I filled him in on the two thugs who’d been rifling my office, and the ensuing scuffle.

He didn’t even bother telling me I should have reported it. But he did ask, “Could you identify either of them?”

“By their clothes maybe, but the lights were out and the blinds closed. Their faces were a blur. Does this qualify as connecting the Sidon case to the city?”

He snorted a laugh. “Like there aren’t three dozen hoods in this town with other reasons for shaking down your office.”

“Okay, then, how about this? I have a little more information for you on the late Sharron Wesley.”

“Do you now?”

“These names do anything for you? Miami Bull and Bill Evans-from Chicago? They’ve been sitting in out at the Wesley casino.”

A long, low whistle came over the wires. “Party girl Sharron was running a pretty high-rolling operation. This is more than just rich kids and dilettantes throwing some loose change around.”

“Sure as hell is. The take out there on any given weekend had to be plenty high. Look, I need to get back to Sidon. If you want me at all, call that hotel.”

“Got it. Should have something for you in a day or so.”

“Good. See you.”

Sunday night, cabs were scarce but I finally snagged one, and had it head over to the garage near the Hackard Building to pick up my heap. The cab rolled through a nighttime city cool and calm with twinkles of light and touches of neon giving it a soothing, dreamy quality.

But I knew the statistics.

Somebody would be getting killed out there, right now.

I wanted to get back to Sidon before midnight if I could. Luckily, the roads were empty. Under a star-studded sky so clear and so deep a blue Hollywood might have had a hand in it, I stepped it up to seventy, then eighty, flying through darkness, chasing my own bright headlights.

The miles rolled by. I stopped once at a dog wagon and had a bite to eat before I went on. It was eleven-thirty when I saw Sidon up ahead, its lights reduced to a small swarm of fireflies. In less than a minute, I hit the outskirts.

I rolled the buggy into a corner of the parking lot behind the hotel and hustled into the lobby, anxious to sit down with Velda and catch each other up. From the crowd that sat around, you would think it was maybe seven at night and the town was enjoying a mid-summer boom.

One of the loungers spotted me and yelled, “ Here he is!”

A half dozen guys came running, dragging scratch pads from their pockets. Finally the reporters had caught up to me, shouting questions.

“What have you got, Mike?”

“How about the lowdown?”

“Michael, these city hicks are clammed up tight!”

I spoke to the knot of men around me. “Nothing much, fellers. Sorry, but I haven’t really gone to work yet. Still in the prelim phase.”

“Cut it, Mike, it’s all over town that somebody took a shot at you!”

That stopped me cold.

“Where did you get that from?” I asked them.

A little chunky guy from the Chronicle spoke up. “It’s just a rumor around town, but I got in to see the local doctor…”

Had Doc Moody sold me out?

“…and he told me about that potshot, Mike, and I told the boys, but how the town folk found out, hell, that’s no fault of mine. That good-looking secretary of yours told us to pipe down until you came back, and we did. So what’s the story?”

I thought it over.

Dr. Moody had not sold me out-instead, he’d pulled a smart one. Let the reporters get an idea of what had happened and there would be no tricks played on Poochie by the local bully boys. A swell move on the doc’s part, gaining my full approval after the fact.

I cooperated with the bunch of newshounds by telling them what happened.

“Mike Hammer,” somebody said, laughing, “saved by a beachcomber! We should stop the presses.”

Another asked, “Any idea who shot at you? Was it the same guy who murdered Sharron?”

“Well, as it happens,” I said, “I do know who tried to gun me down.”

Anyway, I figured I did, and saying this might smoke Dekkert out. He’d either make another try for me or jump down my throat. He still was the law in this town, after all. Either way, I’d have some real fun.

With their rapt attention, I continued: “It’s very possible that Sharron Wesley’s killer did try to take me out. Perhaps even probable. This is a small town, where there hasn’t been a killing in years. How likely is it that two murderers would be at large?”

“So it’s one perpetrator?”

“I’m not sure… yet.”

I let the significance of that linger. The reporters exchanged glances.

“Can we quote you on this, Mike?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

I went on and told them of Sharron Wesley’s gambling setup and the way the town was operated, without mentioning the mayor by name. They could fill that in themselves. I also omitted Poochie getting beaten by Dekkert and his goon squad. I didn’t have to mention Dekkert’s checkered past with the New York PD because every one of these newsmen had covered that story years ago.

What I gave them seemed to satisfy them, and they closed their pads.

A little guy from the News piped up: “Hey, Mike. Think there’s any use us sticking around any longer?”

“Why not? Before I’m through someone’s sure to get shot up.”

Several of them laughed at that. Several others didn’t-they knew I meant it.

“Guess you’re right,” the little guy said, sticking his pad in his sportcoat pocket. “Always could depend on getting a good story out of your exploits. Can’t print all the details sometimes, but every damn time a darn good story. Okay, I’m sticking. What about you guys?”

The others grinned and nodded. They were happy as long as there was a bar handy and an expense sheet to pad. If a story panned out, great. If not, so what? They still had a paid vacation far enough away from town that the city editor couldn’t ride their tails.

When they drifted away, I picked up the house phone and asked for Velda’s room. The operator rang a few times, but no one answered. I thanked her, hung up and took the stairs to my room. There was no note under the door for me, so I took the chance that she was off eating or still snooping around.

I laid out a suit for tomorrow and was switching my junk to the other pockets when I pulled out that feminine handkerchief from the side coat pocket. It still smelled of the musky perfume. I sniffed it and put it with the rest of my stuff. I had almost forgotten that little item.

The phone rang and it was Velda. “Mike, when did you get back?”

“Little while ago. I gave an impromptu press conference for the boys in the lobby, then tried your number but got no answer.”

“I was down the hall taking a shower. Come on over.”

I did, and she answered the door in a white terrycloth robe that came almost to the floor. Her hair was damp and she toweled it as she sat on the edge of the bed and I pulled up a chair so we could talk.

I filled her in on my day, and when I got to the part where I’d got into it at the office with the two intruders, she came over and checked the back of my head. She smelled great. It was just soap, but, man…

“You’ll live,” she said, and sat back down on the edge of her bed. “What then?”

I told her about my visit to Louie’s, and decided the better part of valor would be to omit going to Marion’s crib. Moving the gist of that conversation to Louie’s place wouldn’t hurt anything, and there was no need to get Velda’s nose out of joint. The Ruston girl parading herself for me, and yours truly pretending not to be interested, would not seem the harmless fun it had been. Not to a secretary who gave me hell for two weeks after spotting one lousy lipstick smear on my shirt collar.

“So Sharron’s silent partner,” Velda said, “is some big gambler from the city. It wouldn’t be this Miami Bull character you mentioned, or…?”

“Bill Evans. No-wrong city. They’re Chicago boys.”

“I hear there’s crime in Chicago.”

“Yeah, I heard that rumor, too, but this will be some big boy from New York, and I may try to track down Evans and Miami Bull to lead me to him. They won’t have anything to lose.”

“Our friend Dekkert has ties in the city.”

“That fact is not lost on me, honey. How was your day?”

She put her hands on the terrycloth over her knees and rocked like a little girl. “Quiet. You’d almost think I was on vacation.”

“Ouch.”

“I had a few conversations with locals, but most of the stores weren’t open. Either closed on Sunday or not open for the season yet.”

“No surprise.”

She went back to toweling her hair. “I spoke to several reporters, but I knew more than they did. They got wind of Doc Moody, but I handled that.”

“So that was your fine hand at work? Good job all around. What about Poochie? Did you see him today?”

She smiled tightly. There was frustration in it.

“I did,” she said. “But the doc is mostly keeping him sedated. I finally spoke with the little guy this evening, but you’re not going to like what I found.”

“He didn’t finger Dekkert as the shooter in the window?”

She shook her head. “At first he said he didn’t remember. Then when I pressed, he said he just saw the gun and that a man was holding it. But it was too dark outside for him to see who was aiming the gun.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe you can get more out of him. I pressed as hard and as long as the doctor would allow. Obviously, the poor soul may just be scared, Mike. Dekkert almost killed him the other night. And getting beaten to death is a hard way to go.”

I nodded. “Say, you look tan. Don’t tell me you actually got some sun?”

“I did!” She hopped off the bed. “Want to see?”

“Easy there, kitten…”

“Oh, don’t be a prude. You’re a big boy.”

Getting bigger all the time.

“I have a bra and panties on,” she said, “you coward. My bikini is skimpier, you know.”

She opened the terrycloth robe. It was like curtains parting on a masterpiece of sculpture devoted to the female form. She had a nice tan going, all right, nicely dark against the underthings. And I had seen her in a two-piece suit before, but the psychology of seeing her that way, presenting herself to me with a proud smile, letting me admire the jut of her breasts, the curve of her hips, the hint of dark curls behind the whiteness of panty, the long, long legs, not the pipe cleaner legs of a model but the fully fleshed, muscular legs of a vibrant woman.

“What do you think?” she said, as she closed the robe and cinched the terrycloth belt.

“I think,” I said, managing to get to my feet, “that it’s been a long day, and I could use a shower myself. A cold one.”

She laughed and showed me to the door.

“See you in the morning,” she said.

“See you, kitten.”

You’re here to find a killer, buster, a voice in my head said.

“If these dames don’t kill me first,” I muttered.