Call for Michael Shayne [= Case of the Missing Twelve Days]

Chapter ten Goldie Waggles her chins

When shayne walked into the lobby of the Argonne a little man was sweeping the bare floor. His back was turned to Shayne as he pushed the long-handled brush-broom slowly ahead of him.

“Good morning,” Shayne said briskly.

The old man turned and his old eyes squinted upward to look into Shayne’s face. “Want a room?” he asked without enthusiasm. “Got plenty. Two and three-room apartments, too. Cheap and clean, Mister. Y’can’t do better anywhere in the city. ’Lectric fans for rent a dollar a week and no extry charge for ’lectricity.” There were no teeth behind his thin lips, and he sucked at each word as he spoke it.

Shayne shook his red head. “Not even with an electric fan. I’m after information.”

He carefully propped his broom against a chair and came up to Shayne. “What kind and what for and how much?” he asked cagily.

Shayne grinned and took a five-dollar bill from his wallet. “About the people in two-oh-nine for private reasons and about five bucks’ worth.”

The Argonne manager whisked the bill from Shayne’s fingers with the competence of long practice. “Mrs. Jerome minds her own business and makes no trouble. That what you want to know?”

“Not quite. What about Mr. Jerome?”

“He’s just been here two weeks. Didn’t know there was a Mister until then — but there was others I might’ve guessed was him if I went in for guessing — which I don’t. Live and let live is what I always say.”

“How long has Mrs. Jerome been here?”

“Goin’ on three months. Allus thought she was a widow lady ’til her man pops up. Sickly, I reckon. Been stayin’ in mostly.”

“Wait a minute.” Shayne was confused. Up to this time he had been playing along with Arthur Devlin and trying to believe his story. But if he had met Marge after his attack of amnesia and they had just recently married, how could she have been registered previously as Mrs. Jerome?

“Let’s get this straight. She called herself Mrs. Jerome before her husband showed up?”

“Why not? If that’s who she was?”

“No reason — if that’s who she was,” Shayne said. “Can you tell me exactly when Mr. Jerome came to stay with her?”

The little man opened his claw-like fingers and smoothed out the bill Shayne had given him, studying it intently as though asking himself whether its full value had been used up. “Can look at the register,” he said finally. “Law says you got to have every occupant register even if there ain’t no extry charge for two.”

“Let’s look at the register,” said Shayne gently.

The manager folded the bill, placed it in his pocket, thus warning his interrogator that further questions would require an additional fee. He led Shayne over to the desk and took out a mottled ledger, turned the pages back slowly, running a dirty forefinger down the names and making little whinnying noises to himself. He stopped and turned it about for Shayne to read: Joe Jerome, City, in unmistakably feminine handwriting. The date was June 9 — and according to Devlin’s story his last conscious memory was late on the evening of June 8th.

“Did Mrs. Jerome sign for her husband?” Shayne asked casually.

“That’s legal.” The little man bristled. “No law says a man has to sign the register his ownself.”

“Maybe she registered ahead of time for him,” Shayne suggested. “Did she tell you when he was expected?”

The little man was seated in the desk chair. He leaned forward with his elbows resting on the desk and stared up at the detective with bright inquisitive eyes. “Mind saying what your private reasons are?”

Shayne got out two one-dollar bills and folded them together lengthwise. The manager reached out for them and said, “He was right here when she registered him that morning. Recollect she stopped at the desk to tell me, and she asked Polly — that’s the maid — to skip her room that day. Said her husband was sick and didn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Are Mr. and Mrs. Jerome in now?”

“Dunno. Haven’t seen either of ’em go out since I come on at eight-thirty.”

Shayne said, “Thanks,” as he turned away, and the little man said briskly, “The same. Any time, Mister.”

Shayne found 209 and rapped on the door. There was no answer to repeated rappings. He tried the knob and found it locked. He was fumbling in his pocket for a ring of keys when he was aware that a door across the hall had opened.

Turning about, he saw a very fat woman standing in the doorway and regarding him with round blue eyes that looked like the painted eyes of a china doll. Her face was plump and smooth and extended downward to include three chins, and her little rosebud mouth was smiling. She wore a voluminous gay-flowered wrapper and ludicrously high-heeled scarlet shoes.

She said, “They ain’t in, dearie. Neither one of them. I think maybe he took a run-out powder on her again,” she went on breathlessly, as though she feared Shayne would hurry away and deprive her of an audience, “because when I went in a while ago to see if there was anything I could fix for him, like I’ve been doing lately while Margie was at work and on account of we’re good friends and it really wasn’t no trouble just to pop over now and then, well, he wasn’t there. And no sign of the studio couch made up either.” She caught her breath and her amazingly small hands fluttered at her breast. Three fingers on each hand shone with imitation diamonds and rubies and emeralds. “But maybe I put my foot in it again,” she exclaimed without actual contrition. “If you’re one of Margie’s friends and didn’t know about him—” She paused expectantly, panting a little, her lips parted and ready to talk again.

“That’s all right,” Shayne said carelessly. “I’m a friend of Joe’s. I thought he was staying in close.”

“Oh, he has been.” She nodded emphatically, her chins caressing each other, and took a conspiratorial step over the threshold toward him. “Is he on the lam? Is that what it’s all about? I didn’t like to ask Margie right out — you know. And when I just hinted around for information she just the same as outright told me to mind my own business. When I just wanted to be helpful. You can ask around any of the boys and they’ll tell you Goldie’s okay. My name’s Goldie Milterschmitt. What did you say your name was? Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Devlin,” Shayne told her. “Arthur Devlin.”

The only reaction this brought was an effusive handshake from Goldie. “Friend of Joey’s huh? I didn’t know that man had any friends. Grumpy he was. And the way he’d stare at a body! And answer yes and no like he was afraid I’d gab his business around if he told it to me. You know what I think, Mr. Devlin? I think he was getting off the junk. Twitchy, he was. I’ve seen ’em before, dearie.”

“Where is Marge working now?” Shayne asked with friendly interest.

“Now that I’ve never been able to find out.” Goldie sighed gustily. “Close-mouthed she was. Some fancy job, the way she told it, and using a different name and dressing fit to kill when she went out and putting on airs. It was like she was ashamed of living at the Argonne. Well, it is a dump, sort of,” she conceded generously, “but it’s a place to squat, and that’s something.”

“Joe was supposed to leave a package for me to pick up,” Shayne lied. “Do you have a key?”

“My key fits her door just like it fits half the other doors here. Come right inside, dearie, while I get it and I’ll let you in, seeing you’re a friend of Joey’s.”

Shayne followed her through the open door into a neat and meticulously clean room, an astonishing contrast to Goldie’s appearance and manner. “You sit right down there on the sofa while I go put on something more in keeping for a lady to entertain a gentleman caller in. Unless,” she added coyly, “you’re of a mind to come in with me and help me get this old thing off.” She giggled with a professional, pathetic attempt to achieve girlish seductiveness, and Shayne shuddered inwardly as he said:

“I’d rather come back some evening if you don’t mind. You know how it is. It always seems to me like the nighttime is best for social engagements.”

Goldie chuckled all over. “I know just what you mean, dearie, and how right you are. That’s the sign of a true gentleman every time, I always say, and I’d be delighted to entertain you any evening you say. And if you’d like a drop of something now while you’re waiting—?”

“It’s a little too early for that,” Shayne told her. “We’ll wait until I pay you that social visit.”

“Well, then, I’ll be right back in a jiffy, dearie. I didn’t have anything to offer you but gin, anyways. What with the price of liquor these days—” She vanished into the bedroom.

Shayne fidgeted impatiently around the room as he waited, but true to her promise, Goldie came out of the bedroom in less than five minutes magnificently arrayed in a sweeping hostess gown of green satin that zipped tightly over the bulges of her remarkable breasts, and green slippers with heels fully as high as the crimson ones. Her face and chins were generously powdered and with the red splotches of rouge on her cheeks, and her rosebud mouth smeared with lipstick, she looked more like a roguish and very fat china doll than before.

She marched over to the sofa and sat down. “Why don’t you sit down and let’s you and me have a little chat?” she said, tilting her head coquettishly.

“I haven’t much time,” Shayne said, “but—”

“I know just how it is. You’ve got things to do, and I promised to let you in Margie’s apartment to pick up the package Joey left for you. How long a stretch did he have?” she asked.

Shayne looked at her in astonishment. “Joe? How did you know?”

“Never you mind, dearie. You sure you won’t have a drink with me? Like I said, I got nothing here but some gin.”

Shayne forced himself to chuckle. He took his billfold out, extracted a ten-dollar bill, and flung it in her lap. “You take that and buy us some good liquor for the night when I come back for that visit.”

Goldie’s chins jiggled with laughter. “I’ll sure do that, dearie. And mind you don’t forget. It’s a promise.”

“It’s a promise,” Shayne repeated. “But look here, you don’t mean Marge talked — told you about Joey?”

“I reckon she didn’t mean to let it slip out — and maybe she has forgot she told me, but when she first moved here she told me one night her husband was a long-time loser. And anybody could tell it on him when he popped up a couple of weeks ago. White-faced and jumpy he was. I’ve seen enough of ’em come out of the Big House to spot ’em every time. But I haven’t let a squeak out of me to him or her about it. I know how a man has his pride and hates for his woman to tell things like that on him.”

She paused for breath and Shayne asked, “What time does Marge get home from work?”

“About four o’clock mostly. Like I said, it’s some pretty swell job. I never had hours like that when I was a girl. Never leaving until nine o’clock in the morning.”

“It isn’t nine yet,” Shayne protested, “but you say she has already gone to work.”

“This morning was special, I guess. I just happened to have my door open a crack at seven o’clock when she came hurrying out all dressed up and pert as you please. How that girl manages it I’ll never know. Night after night I’ve heard her—” She broke off, then continued in a contrite voice, “But I oughtn’t rightly to be talking about Marge to you like this. She’s a nice sweet girl and I’d be the last one in the world to blame her for having a little fun while she’s living all alone and her man up the river.

“But that Skid — ugh!” she hurried on. “I don’t see how she stood him and I’ve told her so right out time after time when he stayed until all hours of the morning. Sneaky, that’s what I called him, and I do think there’s limits to decency and I do draw the line at dope peddlers. Well, you can bet he hasn’t been around since Joey came back, and I’ve wondered what would happen across the hall if he did drop in unexpected some night.”

Shayne was sitting in a chair he had drawn up in front of the sofa. Goldie was leaning toward him, her little blue eyes glittering, as though in her mind she witnessed the awful thing actually happening across the hall. “Always full of his stuff like he was,” she continued, “and crazy about Marge. I dunno how she stalled him so he hasn’t been visiting for two weeks, but that’s the chance a girl takes when she plays around with a man like Skid and then her own man turns up and makes himself at home.”

She slowly settled back, her eyes saying to Shayne, Now what do you think of that!

Shayne said, “Well, I’ll be damned. You’re talking about Skid Munroe, of course.”

“Who else? You a friend of his, too?” She gave him a sharp, suspicious look.

“I’ve just seen him around,” Shayne said carelessly.

This bit of information really tied the case up against Arthur Devlin in a tight knot, Shayne thought grimly. As soon as the newspapers hit the streets with Devlin’s picture in connection with the slaying of Skid Munroe, Goldie was sure to come forward and testify that Marge’s husband had every reason to be jealous of Skid.

And there was your ready-made motive, even discounting a blood-stained ten grand. It explained, too, why the girl had been so callously eager to know whether Devlin had succeeded in the project which she had evidently planned, and Shayne began to wonder disgustedly why he was dirtying his hands with the case at all. Right now, it looked as though Devlin’s entire story was a tissue of lies — that he had known Marge in the past — had, perhaps, been married to her.

Goldie was chattering away, but Shayne wasn’t listening. He got up abruptly and stood towering above her.

“I just remembered something important,” he muttered. “Got to hurry now. I’ll be back later when Marge is home to pick up that package — and you have that bottle of liquor ready for us.”

He reached down and patted her beringed fingers, then hurried out while Goldie was pulling herself up from the couch to follow him to the door.

“I’ll have the you-know-what, all right,” she called after him. “And don’t forget to come back.”