Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, September 1956

A Present for Peter by Carter Sprague

A lady on the lam — a strangler on the loose — a stranger at the bar! If Wanda let the man pay for her drink, she wondered where it was going to lead...

Wanda sat upright on the unmade bed and looked at the nylon blouse and nylon stockings draped dismally over the radiator cover that formed the sill of the room’s one window. On her flat, pretty face — powdered and lip-sticked — was an expression of discontent and of worry underneath, worry that amounted to fear.

But Wanda was refusing resolutely to allow herself to dwell on the source of her fear. She concentrated her concern on the little things — on the fact that what she was wearing, plus the things drying on the windowsill, plus the skirt and jacket draped carefully over the single straight chair, were all the clothes she had to her name.

Nor did Wanda need to open the saddle-stitched leather shoulder-bag on the bed beside her to know what it contained. It held make-up gear, a scattering of bobby-pins, matchboxes, movie-ticket stubs, a small mirror, a lipstick-stained lace handkerchief, a checkbook, some cleanex and, in the purse, eleven dollars and sixty-seven cents in cash.

With the green jade elephant that lifted a defiant trunk at her from the yellow oak table in front of the bed, the room contained everything Wanda owned in the world. At any rate, it held everything she dared claim as her own. She had been in the hotel four days now — she had paid rent for a week in advance. She had to figure out some way to get in touch with Danny in the next three days, or she’d be out in the street.

Wanda was incognito, in hiding, on the lam. Some ninety-nine hours earlier, Peter Corell had been garroted on the gentle curve of the sectional sofa in his East Sixty-third Street apartment. When she heard the news of his murder, Wanda had been sitting in a bar off Madison Avenue, drinking a sloe-gin fizz and waiting for the eleven-o’clock television news to pass, so she could ease around the corner to join him. The green jade elephant had been in her bag. It was the eve of Peter’s birthday, and the elephant was to have been a present. A girl got tired of giving only money to a man she was fond of.

Just how fond she had been of Peter, Wanda hadn’t given herself a chance to find out since the story came over the telenews. It was the last line of the dispatch, as uttered by the announcer, that had frightened her. “... and police expect to find the motive for Corell’s murder either among his business associates or business rivals, or among his lady-friends, who are said to be numerous.”

If the cops got hold of her, Wanda Reese was a very dead pigeon. She had had her troubles with the cops as a kid, before she had gotten smart. She could still remember the smells — the spit-sweat-and-tobacco smell of the station houses, the woman-vomit-and-formaldehyde smell of the detention cells, the lye-soap-and-moldy-paint smell of the house of correction where she had spent two years.

Cops! The thought of them curdled her now, as it had curdled her four evenings earlier, in the Madison Avenue bar, as it had curdled her when she was still a runny-nosed alleycat, stealing from markets and dime stores. Once they got hold of her, she was finished as surely, and a lot less cleanly and quickly, than Peter had been. If they caught her. they’d crucify her.

She couldn’t bear thinking about them, even now. And she couldn’t do much about keeping away from them for long if she sat in this crummy side-street hotel room until her dough ran out and the manager booted her out. The laugh was that she had plenty of dough in the bank — enough to take her almost anywhere she wanted to go. But she didn’t dare write a check. She had a comfortable East Side apartment with plenty of dresses hanging in the closets, plenty of food in the refrigerator, plenty of bottles in the little bar Danny had had her put in — plenty of bottles, that is, if the lousy cops hadn’t drunk them all empty waiting around for her to show up.

It was a laugh, all right, but it wasn’t funny. Her situation reminded her of an old movie she had seen once on teevee. It was about a nutty old millionaire who had hated his relatives and given his dough away, a million bucks at a whack, to people he picked at random from the phone book. One of them was George Raft, and he had been a professional check forger. So, when he got the good check for a million, he hadn’t been able to cash it. If I Had a Million — that was the name of the movie.

Who the hell cared what the name of it was? Wanda wanted a drink. She couldn’t think while she was alone. All her thoughts did was go ’round in circles. She needed someone to talk to, to listen to, to get her brain functioning. The trouble was, Danny had lammed, too. He’d done some sort of business with Peter — that was how Wanda had met Peter in the first place. She didn’t know too many of Danny’s friends very well — and she didn’t know any of them she dared trust. She knew, without a shred of proof, that Danny had strangled Peter Corell.

At any rate, she needed a drink and some companionship — the crummy hotel didn’t have a TV in the room. It didn’t even have a lousy radio. The bar downstairs was full of creeps and dead horseplayers, and she didn’t dare go to any of her regular places, or to Danny’s. But right now, it was better than nothing. She got up and took the things off the windowseat. The panty-girdle was still slightly damp, and there was a runner in one of the stockings...

The bar was dim and dirty and dull. The television screen, set cat-a-corner under the ceiling at one end of the bar, was on, with the sound turned low so as not to interfere with the juke-box, which was blasting a rock-and-roll dirge by a trick-voiced girl singer. At the red-check-covered tables in the rear, one drab threesome and an even drabber couple were seated. The mouse-grey males and a middle-aged woman with unwaved hair and too much rouge sat midway along the bar itself. Wanda moved to one end, to be as far away from them as possible, and noted the man alone.

At least, she thought, this one looked like a man, not like an aging insect from whom some spider had long-since sucked all the juice. She wondered what had brought him to a dump like this. Charlie, the bartender, came up and said, “What’ll it be tonight, miss?”

Wanda ordered a sloe-gin. She didn’t care a hell of a lot for the taste of alcohol — too bitter for her liking — but she liked its effect inside her. Sloe gin was at least halfway sweet. When she rummaged in her bag for money, Charlie waved a hand in front of her. “No dice,” he said. “The gentleman’s paying.”

“No fooling?” said Wanda, her suspicions mounting. For a moment she was tempted to turn it down. But the pitiful amount of cash in her bag stopped such foolishness. Hell, she thought, maybe the jerk was just lonely, like herself. He’d sure picked the right place to be lonely in, if he was looking for action. But she couldn’t afford to take chances. “Who is he, Charlie?” she asked.

Charlie shrugged and swabbed the bar with his towel. “Never saw him before tonight,” he replied, disinterested. “He’s staying upstairs, that’s all I know.”

Wanda tried to get her thoughts in order. When she didn’t answer, Charlie said, “Well, what’ll I tell him?”

“Oh hell, tell him to come on down,” said Wanda. It had occurred to her that, if the stranger was a cop, she had nothing to lose — since it would be already too late. Maybe he was okay — anyway, he’d be somebody to talk to.

He looked okay on closer view, as nearly as she could tell in the half-light. He had good shoulders that weren’t all padding, like Danny’s, and his face was square and almost handsome. She said, “Thanks for the drink, mister...”

“Byrne,” he said, “Michael Byrne — with a y and an e and no s. A pleasure.” He had, she noted, a sort of out-of-town accent, like some of Danny’s friends from St. Louis or Chicago.

She said, “Charlie tells me you’re staying upstairs, Mr. Byrne. What’s the matter — couldn’t you get a room at the Ritz Towers?”

He grinned — Michael Byrne had a nice grin that showed white teeth that looked real. He said, “Believe it or not, I was lucky to get a room in this dump. New York is full to here.” He drew a line across his forehead, added, “Conventions.”

Wanda said, “No kidding?” She knew about conventions. Before she met Danny and got set, she’d been on call to serve conventions, as she had been on call for other services. Nightmare jobs, she and the other girls had called them. Nightmares of hairy bellies and hairless heads, of clutching hands and slapping hands and crude innuendo, when all you were supposed to do was smile and drink and deliver on demand — but profitable nightmares. She said, “You with one of them — conventions, I mean?”

“Not really.” He shook his head. “I’m here to see a few people on business.”

The voice bothered her a little. She said, “Where are you from, Michael?”

“Mike,” he told her gravely, but with a nice light in his eyes. “I’m not exactly the Michael type — too formal.”

“Okay, Mike — where are you from? Your voice isn’t New York.”

He smiled again — this time ruefully. It made him look about fifteen years old. He said, “I didn’t know it showed. I’m from the Middle West — Cincinnati, to be exact. By the way, you haven’t told me your name.”

“I know it.” She almost snapped the words. Then, relenting because he was so polite and looked hurt, she added, “My name is Carla — Carla White.” That was what she’d signed in as on the hotel card. She’d heard it somewhere on a teevee show.

“Okay, Carla.” His eyes were smiling. “How about another drink?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” she told him, smiling back for the first time...

A couple of hours later, back in the cell that was her room, Wanda took off her clothes. She started to throw them on the floor, as if she was still at home, with Ruby coming in every morning to clean and pick up. Then she remembered she hadn’t any closetful of things, any bureau drawers full of lingerie — she pronounced it lawngeray even in her thoughts. She folded them neatly over the chair.

In the mirror, she looked at her body — she still had a figure, thank God — though how, she sometimes wondered, considering the abuse it had taken. Maybe she could get a job modeling in the garment district — but that meant a return to hairy bellies and bald heads, and she wasn’t ready to face that — not yet, anyway.

She sat on the lumpy, unmade bed and scratched herself and realized it was hot. It was funny, meeting Mike that way, with him living just down the hall, beyond the semi-private bath. She could hear the shower running through the biscuit-thin walls. He had told her he was going to take a bath. That was another thing she liked about Mike — he was clean. He hadn’t even propositioned her, just thanked her, very solemnly, for giving him a pleasant evening.

Still, she had to be careful. She didn’t really know a damned thing about Mike, except that he’d bought her some drinks and talked to her pleasantly in his out-of-town voice and had moved into a room only a couple of doors removed from hers. She lit a cigarette and lay back on the rumpled sheet and tried to figure things out.

Mike was polite — in that he reminded her of Peter. But his politeness was a sincere, middle-class politeness, not the high-class mockery that Peter’s was — had been. Funny, she found it hard to think of Peter as dead. She wondered if she had been in love with Peter. She had certainly acted crazy enough — giving him all that money and that elephant. She turned her head to look at it, as it stood, its trunk uplifted, green and defiant by the ashtray.

Silly thing for a grown man to do — collect green jade toy elephants. Peter had had forty-nine of them, all in different positions, all green jade. When he showed them to her, he had said, “Believe it or not, they’re hard to get and they cost a lot. Almost as much as women.” She had been angry at that, until she saw he couldn’t mean it about her. Peter was always mocking himself.

She had been surprised when he made the pitch for her — why Wanda, she couldn’t help wondering, after some of the women he had had — countesses, society girls, movie actresses. After the men she had known from girlhood on, even Danny, he had been something very new and very different. Wanda had gone overboard. And now Peter was dead, murdered by Danny, and she and Danny were on the lam.

She thought about Danny. He was almost Peter’s opposite number. He was tough and not handsome with his busted nose, and not a talker. But Danny was smart. She never had been too sure about what he did, but he’d had to be smart, or he never could have set her up the way he had. Of course, if he hadn’t had dough, she’d never have spit on him — he was too much her own kind.

She wondered how he ever got associated with a guy like Peter Corell, a guy who made his living promoting funds for big charities. Danny wasn’t exactly charitable — except where she was concerned. He’d been real goofed about her. He’d told her so a hundred times.

“You’re a very classy doll for a mug like me — stay that way, and we’ll get on.” Those had been his words. And she had stayed that way until Peter came along and made his pitch. Sure, she’d given him money these last three months. Guys like Peter Corell came high. High class, high cash. That was the way of the world as she knew it.

She looked at the elephant again, and it reminded her of the afternoon four days ago, before Peter was murdered. Danny had come to see her, the way he always did afternoons unless he had a daytime deal on. Danny worked nights mostly, so they had their times together afternoons. Sometimes she’d gone out with him evenings, when he wanted to show her off or needed a girl on his arm — that was how she had met Peter. But mostly, the nights were lonely, like right now. She wasn’t a girl who could ever get used to being really alone. Maybe that was why she had fallen for Peter’s pitch.

Danny had been in a good mood for him that afternoon. He had shaved before he got there, for a change. “Hadda see a character for lunch — got a deal on,” he had said, yawning and revealing the gold teeth in the back of his mouth. “This gettin’ up in the middle of the night kills me. But it’s worth it.” He had given her a hug and said, “Big deal on, baby.”

Wanda had been pleased. She had gone into the bedroom to get ready. But Danny hadn’t followed. After a while, she had gone out, and Danny had been gone. She hadn’t been able to figure it out at first. She was planning to ask Peter about it on the date that had never come off because of the murder. But he must have seen the elephant.

She put out her cigarette and decided she was crazy to let her thoughts wander when she ought to be concentrating on a safe way to get in touch with Danny. She had an idea of the place to call — but she didn’t feel safe about doing it. Not with a murder involved, and the cops sniffing around for Peter’s friends and connections. She remembered as if it was yesterday the time Peter had told her, laughing at her question, “You might say Danny’s on my payroll.”

She didn’t want to get Danny into any more trouble — and she couldn’t afford to get in trouble herself. She thought about the cops and felt nausea grip her. All those smells... She hated being alone like this, at a time like this. Almost, she wished Mike would rap on the door. She listened, but the water had stopped running. Mike must have turned in. What a lousy break to meet a gentleman right now, she thought...

She stuck it out as long as she could the next day. It was rainy, damp and hot, and she had a hangover. About three o’clock, her stomach was getting bigger and emptier inside her, and the walls were closing in, the dirty grey walls with their cracks and splotches made by God knew what. She felt sticky all over and took a shower and still felt sticky when she was done. Lord, she was tired of wearing the same crummy clothes. They hadn’t been crummy when she went into hiding — they had been new and crisp and expensive, from a store on Fifty-seventh Street. She had wanted to look nice for Peter, he always ignored her clothes, as if they weren’t worth talking about...

Charlie got her a bowl of mangy chili — she needed something powerful that she could taste over her hangover — and a beer, and let her look at the tabloid someone had left. They were still playing Peter’s murder up big, she saw. It scared her a little — she hadn’t realized Peter was so important. You’d think he was Sergei Rubenstein or something, the fuss they were making. In a way, it made her proud to have been one of his girls. At least, when it was all over, she’d have something to talk about. She got the green jade elephant out of her bag and looked at it, then put it away. A hundred and ninety dollars it had cost her — and all she had was a lousy eleven dollars and seven cents!

She put it away, but it had given her an idea. If she was unable to get in touch with Danny, maybe she could sell it for a hundred — or even fifty. That would be enough to get her out of town till the mess blew over and they caught Peter’s killer. She could get a job waiting tables or something, maybe in Boston or Philly or somewhere. The thought made her feel better. That way, she’d be in the clear until something broke and she could claim her own things and the money in her bank account. She asked Charlie to bring her a sloe-gin. The beer and chili were giving her heartburn.

“On me,” said a pleasant, out-of-town voice from behind her. She saw Mike standing there, in the mirror. She said hello and smiled, and he smiled back and said, “Lordie, isn’t it hot!” And then, “Let’s see that little elephant. I didn’t know they made them in jade.”

She got it out of the bag again and said, “Want to buy it? Like everything else around here, it’s for sale.”

He made a clicking sound with his tongue against his front teeth. “So cynical so early?” he asked with mock reproof.

“Maybe it’s the weather — thanks,” she said, picking up the drink and sipping it. “I don’t really want to sell it yet, but maybe I’ll have to. I bought it as a present for a friend who isn’t a friend anymore.” In a way, that was no more than the truth, she thought, since Peter certainly wasn’t anything anymore. She added, “It cost a hundred and ninety bucks at—” she named the store on East Sixtieth Street where she had bought it, the only import shop in New York that carried green jade elephants.

“Why not take it back and collect your money there?” he asked.

She couldn’t tell him she didn’t dare. She said, “I don’t want to go anywhere that reminds me of this — friend.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t know you were a romantic,” he told her over the rim of his own glass. Once again she noticed his even, white teeth with approval.

“You’d be surprised,” she said.

“I like surprises,” he told her.

They laughed and, after a while, he bought her another drink. When she made a move to pay for this one, he shook his head and said, “Expense account. Let’s live it up a little.”

It was while they were on it that Wanda decided to take the plunge. She said, “Mike, I want you to dome a favor. You’ve done me a lot already, but this isn’t much except it’s important to me.”

For a moment, his eyes were calculating. Then he was smiling again. “Sure,” he said, “anything I can do.”

She told him, “A friend of mine is in a jam, and she can’t get hold of the guy to tell him.” She gave him instructions to call one of Danny’s cronies, gave him the phone number, added, “Tell him Wanda’s friend wants to see him tonight at this hotel. Give him my room number, so I can get Wanda straightened out.”

His face fell. He said, “If this is an assignation, I was rather hoping for a date with you myself. I had a lot of fun with you last night. I’m having a good time now.”

“If you want to keep on having it,” she told him with all the promise she could muster, “make that call like I asked you to.”

He said, “Sure thing, Carla,” and went back into the booth.

He came out four minutes later and said, “All done. Joe says he’ll pass the word for your friend,” By the way he said your friend, Wanda knew she hadn’t fooled him with her subterfuge. For some reason she was glad she hadn’t. She didn’t want Mike to be dumb. Hey! she thought and took a quick rein on herself. Why should she care if Mike was dumb or not, unless she was beginning to like him. She wondered if it was just the drinks or something else. This was no time to be getting tangled up with anyone new — or was it? The matter, she decided, was one that required thought. She allowed Mike to buy her a third sloe-gin.

He was nice. He told her about Cincinnati and how he hated, yet was fascinated, by New York. “Every time I come here I can’t wait to get back home,” he said. “Yet, every time I’m home, I can’t wait to get back to New York. Crazy, isn’t it?”

“Real crazy,” she replied.

He said, “Maybe I will buy that elephant. It’s pretty, kind of, and I ought to have something for a souvenir.”

“To take home to your wife?” she asked him and was startled by the sharpness of her voice. What did she care if this guy was married?

“I had a wife,” he told her, “but she died four years ago.”

She laid a hand over his and looked into his eyes, which were brown. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m awfully sorry.” And she was sorry, which disturbed her almost as much as the relief she felt inside that he was not married.

“Thanks,” he told her. “There’s no need to be upset, though I appreciate it. It happened too long ago.” He looked at his watch, added, “Dammit, I’ve got to run. Have another on me. Then lay off till this evening. If there’s any more drinking, let’s do it together.”

“Okay, honey,” she said. “If I’m not here, I’ll be upstairs.”

She watched him leave and wished she hadn’t had him make the call that would bring Danny. Mike was no Peter, who would take Danny as a joke. Life was funny, she thought. One minute you were nowhere, with nobody, the next minute you had too much. She had her drink and went back upstairs. She only had a little over ten dollars now, but she wasn’t scared anymore — not with Danny coming and Mike so ready to help.

She made her bed this time and smartened up the dismal room as best she could and wished she had some flowers. She got out the green jade elephant and put it back on the table — and thought, not about Peter Corell, but about Michael Byrne. After a while, she took another shower. This time, though the weather was as sticky as ever, she emerged feeling clean. She was living again.

Mike got back a little after seven. He had some carnations with him — the cherry-colored kind with frilly white edges — and some ferns. He even managed to arrange them in a water tumbler so they looked pretty. Then he said, “I brought something else.” He produced a small bottle of sloe-gin and a half-pint of whiskey. “Not a hell of a lot,” he said.

“But just enough, Mike, just enough.” She was suddenly in his arms. Just as she had known he would be, he was both strong and gentle.

He put her away, laughing, and said, “This time, I know I’m going to like New York.” Then he went back to his room for an extra glass.

Later, he said, “Carla, you’re in some kind of trouble. I wish you’d let me help you.”

“You have, Mike, you have,” she told him, and then she was in his arms again, laughing and crying at the same time.

He said, “What about that call you had me make, sweet? Have you seen your friend yet?”

That brought her out of it. She shook her head, dumb with misery. The thought — all these days, you’ve been dying to see Danny. Now he’s coming and you wish he was dead — flashed through her head. Still, she owed Danny a lot, especially now. She tried to frame a sentence, but Mike said it for her. “You want, I’ll take off and wait till you’re finished.”

“You’re too damned good to be real, Mike,” she whispered. “It may be a long wait.”

There was a tightness to his mouth as he replied, “One thing I’ve got, sweet, is patience. I’ll wait.”

It was a long wait — from a little after nine, when he left, till almost midnight. Wanda sat on the bed, smoking one cigarette after another, not daring to drink. Not that Danny would mind — he’d seen her soused often enough — but she knew she needed her wits about her. Danny was the jealous type, and she didn’t dare risk blabbing to him about Mike when he asked her how things were going.

So she waited, while the minutes ticked by in slow-march. She made up her mind, if Danny didn’t show by midnight, she’d go to Mike and stay with him and forget about Danny and everything else that had to do with the mess she was in. Just seven more minutes by the tiny platinum-and-diamond watch on her wrist.

Then it came — two quick, soft raps on the door. She called, “Come in,” and Danny was there, with her. She said, wondering why she could no longer stand the sight of him, “Hi, Danny, I hated to bother you, but I had to.”

“You dumb broad,” he said softly. “Who’s the character you had call up Joe this afternoon? You working with the cops or something? Not that I’d put it past you. Anything for a lousy buck.”

“No, Danny — it was just a guy I met in a bar. I didn’t want to call myself in case Joe wasn’t safe.” To her surprise, she found she was crying again.

“You sure it was nobody?” he asked. And, at her nod, “Whatsa-matter, you drunk or something?”

She shook her head, and, suddenly, he was on her. He had a necktie in his hands and then it was around her neck, getting tighter. “I don’t mind your cheating with Peter,” he said fiercely. “It’s the way you funneled back the dough I was milking from him. He had the nerve to laugh about it, right in my face. When I saw that stinking green elephant in your place...”

Wanda tried to scream, but she could hardly grunt. The strong silk of the tie was cutting into her throat, choking off speech as well as breath. She felt her lungs catch fire, knew she was going to die. Her eyeballs seemed to burst from her head.

Then Mike was there, and a couple of other men, and the pressure was off. When her vision returned, Mike was feeding her sloe-gin, and they were taking Danny away. Taking Danny away... “Mike,” she gasped through a raw larynx, “those are cops.”

“Sure,” he said soothingly. “I’m sorry we had to wait so long, but we had to. We not only couldn’t find Danny — we couldn’t figure out why a blackmailer should want to kill the guy who was paying him off. But thanks to you, and the elephant — once we’d located you, we had to use you for a stake-out.” He picked up the green-jade toy, that had been knocked to the carpet in the struggle.

Then he came back to her and said, “Sweet, you’re a nice girl. I wasn’t kidding about wanting to see you, to help you...”

She was up then, all the smells back in her head, the spit-sweat-and-tobacco smell of the station houses, the woman-vomit-and-for-maldehide smell of the detention cells, the lye-soap-and-moldy-paint smell of the house of correction where she had spent two years. All she could remember was that she was Wanda Reese again, with her apartment and her clothes and a few thousand dollars still in her bank account — and that this man was a policeman; a policeman who had made a fool of her and almost gotten her killed.

She said, “I suppose they’ll pin a medal on you for this, copper.”

She had hurt him, and she was glad. He was the enemy, the lifelong enemy. He said, “For God’s sake, sweet, I meant what I said.”

“A novelty, I’m sure,” she told him, her hand at her throat. She extended the other, “Do I get the elephant, or do you get to keep that, too?”

He looked at it, still in his hand, then at her. Then, his face remote and impassive, he tossed it on the bed.