Blackmailer

Chapter Eight

I had not been to the office in a week. But nothing had changed.

“You look just ghastly, Mr. Sherman,” Miss Dennison said by way of greeting.

“Thank you, Miss Dennison. Is Mr. Conrad in his office?”

“No.” She smiled maliciously. “He’s at Twenty One with Miss Carstairs. She was very disappointed you weren’t here.”

In spite of the fact that I was feeling even more ghastly than I looked, I could not help grinning. “Poor Pat,” I said. “Poor Pat.”

I went into my office, sat down at the desk and stared out the window.

After a while I picked up the telephone. I had decided that it was now time to find out a little about a man named Max Shriber.

I made three casual telephone calls. To three people who, between them, know everything there is to know about everything. One was a book salesman, one was an associate editor at a large publishing house, and the third was a lady literary agent.

The book salesman knew only that Max Shriber was a big agent. I was getting a little tired of that phrase. The associate editor had met him twice, knew very little about him, but was under the impression that he had once been a gangster. The lady literary agent told me that he handled some very big people, both writers and actors. That he was very attractive in a George Raft sort of way, and that there were rumors that he had spent time in jail for killing a man.

It all added up to nothing. Gossip.

Nothing.

I was on the point of making a fourth phone call when Miss Dennison buzzed me.

I could tell by her voice that something terribly exciting had just happened.

“Mr. Sherman,” she said, gasping a little, “there’s a lady to see you.”

“Tell her to go away,” I said. “I can’t talk to authors’ wives today.”

“This isn’t an author’s wife!” Miss Dennison said. “This is Janis Whitney.”

I was genuinely startled.

“Who?”

“Janis Whitney.” Miss Dennison lowered her voice discreetly. “You know-the movie star.”

“Oh,” I said. “That Janis Whitney. Tell her I’ll be right out.”

I tried to be very calm. I was so cool and poised and collected that I knocked over my chair getting up. I picked up the chair, poured myself a drink, gulped it down, and, slowing myself down to a dignified walk, went out to the reception room.

Janis smiled, stood up and raised her forehead to be kissed. I kissed it. Miss Dennison’s eyes bulged.

“Dick, darling,” Janis said in her movie voice. “I hope you’re not too terribly busy.”

“Busy?” I said. “How could I possibly be too busy?”

“Grand,” Janis said. “Then you can take me to lunch.”

“All right,” I said.

I turned to Miss Dennison. “If anybody calls I’m having lunch at-” I turned to Janis. “Where will we eat?”

“Twenty One?”

I shook my head. I wanted to talk to Janis. I wanted very much to have a long talk with her. And it would be so noisy in Twenty One-when they were throwing Lorraine Carstairs and Pat out.

“Voisin?” I said.

“All right.”

“We’ll be at Voisin,” I told Miss Dennison. Then I took Janis’ arm and steered her toward the elevators. We did not talk going down in the elevator. In the cab I lit our cigarettes and Janis said, “I’m so sorry about last night, Dick.”

“That’s all right. I take it this is pretty much a business lunch?”

Janis raised her eyebrows.

“I assume you want to sell me the book Charles Anstruther finished before he died. Everybody else does.”

“I’d like to have you publish it, Dick. It’s the least I can do. After all, we were pretty good friends once.”

“You don’t have to do me any favors.”

“Please, Dick.”

We were quiet for a minute or two, then, suddenly, I reached over and took her hand. “Darling, what are you doing?” I said. “What are you getting mixed up in? Walter’s a crook. I don’t know anything about your friend Max, but he doesn’t sound like such good company for a little girl. What are you trying to prove? Why don’t you just make movies?”

“I’m not mixed up in anything, Dick. I bought a piece of the Anstruther book on the advice of my manager. It’s a sound investment and it works out very well tax-wise. What makes you think I’m mixed up in anything?”

We got out of the cab at the corner of Park.

“We both know a girl was killed at Walter’s last night,” I said as we crossed the street. “Something’s going on. And it has something to do with the book.”

“I don’t know, Dick,” Janis said. “Sometimes I don’t know.”

At Voisin we were rushed to a table.

We ordered drinks, and sat in silence until the waiter returned. Then I said, “Tell me about Max. It’s very important, darling.”

“What about him?”

“Don’t fence with me, Janis. Who is he? Where did he come from? Was he really a gangster? How does he happen to be your manager or agent or whatever he is? And how come you’re going to marry him?”

“I’m going to marry him because I love him,” Janis said. “He’s my manager and agent because he was the only person in Hollywood who believed in me. You can’t possibly know what he did for me. Got me parts. Loaned me money. Introduced me to important people. I get sixty thousand dollars a picture now, darling. And Max did it. He did it all.”

“You’re out of your mind,” I said. “You did it. You’re beautiful and talented. You’d be making whatever it is you make a picture without him.”

I was interrupted by the captain, who appeared with a telephone which he plugged in at the table.

“Excuse me, darling,” Janis said.

I could hear the voice at the other end. It was a harsh, guttural, nasty voice. It was the same voice that had called me on the phone the night before.

They talked for a moment and then Janis laughed at something he said.

I felt sick.

I stood up, reached into my pocket for my wallet. All I had were two singles and two twenty-dollar bills. I dropped one of the twenties on the table.

“The hell with it,” I said. “I’m not interested now.”

“Excuse me,” Janis said into the phone. “I’ll talk to you later.” She replaced the receiver. “What’s the matter, Dick?”

“The hell with it,” I said. “Tell Walter and Max they can take their big deal somewhere else. I’m not interested. And all of a sudden I don’t feel like having lunch.”

I started out of the restaurant.

Janis followed me. In the lobby she caught my arm.

“Wait a minute, Dick.”

The doorman approached. “Miss Whitney, Mr. Shriber sent his car. It’s waiting for you.”

“Good,” I said. “At least you won’t have to walk home.”

Janis was a step or two behind me when we reached the sidewalk.

There was a black Cadillac parked by the curb. The chauffeur was standing next to it. He saw us and began moving toward us.

It must have been the uniform because it took me a second or two to recognize him.

He recognized me an instant after I recognized him. But that instant was enough. He wasn’t ready when I hit him.

I’m no fighter. The punch was wild, and from the floor. If he had been expecting it, he could have blocked it easily. But he hadn’t been expecting it.

I’d aimed for his chin, but I caught him a little lower, in the side of his neck.

He staggered and I caught him again, this time in the stomach. Then I kicked him in the shin as hard as I could. When he bent over I hit him on the back of the neck with the side of my hand, and brought my knee up into his face.

I could see the doorman and a couple of waiters moving in. I didn’t stay around to find out what happened next.

A second later I was moving fast up Park Avenue toward the hack stand. There was a cab with a driver inside reading a newspaper.

“Uptown, baby,” I said, “and step on it.”

I didn’t look back. Not even out of the back window after the cab started.

I was suddenly aware that my right hand hurt. But I didn’t care. I felt wonderful. A kind of wild, crazy exultation.

“Where did you want to go, Mister?”

A few minutes before I had told Janis I was through with the whole thing. Now I was back in it again.

I gave the driver Walter Heinemann’s address.

A lot of things seemed to fit together. I didn’t know exactly how. But I was going to find out.

And it had certainly been interesting to discover that the big thug who had helped wreck my apartment was also Max Shriber’s chauffeur.