You’re Lonely When You’re Dead

I

I left the hotel the next morning around eleven o’clock. It has been a hot night, and I hadn’t slept well, and when I finally bludgeoned myself to sleep with aspirin and whisky I didn’t wake until it was nearly ten.

Kerman let me sleep. He said there was nothing like rest after a sock on the head. But as my head still ached and I still felt lousy when I woke I didn’t believe him. After a lot of strong black coffee and a couple more aspirins and a tepid shower I did manage to feel well enough to start the day’s work.

I decided against calling on the photographer’s shop right away. I thought it would be better, if I could, to get a little information about Anita from the Brass Rail before I tackled Comrade Louis, so I decided to go there first.

Kerman asked me if I was windy about calling on Louis. I said no. I just wanted to get as much information as I could before someone tossed me into the Indian Basin, and I felt the danger zone was the photographer’s shop, I said I was working on a hunch. Kerman had a great respect for my hunches, especially when I played the horses, so he agreed we should go to the Brass Rail first.

He left the hotel before I did. I wasn’t worried that he would lose me. He was very good at shadowing people, and I wasn’t going to make it hard for him.

When I got on to the street I asked a patrolman where I could find the Brass Rail. He said it was on the corner of Bayshore and Third, about ten minutes’ walk from the hotel. While he was explaining how to get there I glanced across the street at the photographer’s shop. There was a light showing in the fanlight, but there was nothing else to see except hundreds of glossy prints mounted on boards set flush against the shop window and the door.

I thanked the patrolman, thinking the San Francisco police had much better manners than the Orchid City police. If you asked an Orchid City cop the way he was likely to run you in for insulting behaviour, or at best send you in the wrong direction to teach you not to bother him in the future.

The Brass Rail was a typical down-at-the-heel dump you’re likely to come upon in any big town that has a large population, not too choosey about their entertainment. It could have done with a coat of paint and a lot of elbow grease on the brass work. There were three double swing doors, an island ticket office out front, and a lot of glossy photographs in frames that covered every spare inch of wall space.

Along the outside edge of the usual projection that over-hung the ticket office were four-foot letters made of tarnished chromium that spelt out:

At night there would be lights behind the lettering, and the setup would look a lot smarter than it did now because the darkness would hide the tarnish. Another sign in lights, below the four-foot letters read:

I went and browsed over the photographs, and came to the conclusion that there would be nothing original about the show; nor would it ever set this town nor any other town on fire. There were the usual hard-faced, bright-eyed comics in loud suits. You knew by looking at them the kind of joke they’d crack. The girls didn’t look much either. They didn’t attempt to hide what charms they had. Most of them wore a G-string and a vacant smile. One of them did wear a hat, but she looked overdressed. The fifty tall tanned, terrific gals were tall and tanned, but tarnished would have been more truthful than terrific.

While I was browsing, one of the swing doors opened and a little guy with a face like a ferret came out into the sunshine. He wore a grubby camel-hair coat, a slouch hat that rested over his right eye and imitation shark-skin shoes that hadn’t been cleaned since he had bought them: a long time, ago to judge by the cracks in them.

‘Who’s in control here?’ I asked him. ‘Who runs the joint?’

He eyed me over, cleared his throat and spat accurately into the street.

‘Stranger around here?’ he asked in a voice made hoarse by trying to put over ancient jokes.

I said I was a stranger around here, and repeated my question.

His sharp-featured face darkened.

‘Nick Nedick,’ he said, and then followed a stream of obscenities that ran out of his mouth like sludge from a drain. He didn’t seem to think much of Nedick for some reason or other. ‘Up the stairs,’ he went on after he had exhausted his vocabulary. ‘Second door on right past the circle entrance. Spit up his cuff if you see him,’ and he went away down the street, flat footed, his head bent forward as if he wanted you to think the weight of his brain was a little too much for him.

I looked after him, wondering what was burning him up. In the middle distance I saw Kerman leaning against a lamp post leading a newspaper. He melted into the scene very well. When he had to look like a loafer he looked like one. It is not easy to stand about on the sidewalk and not look conspicuous, but Kerman could do it by the hour.

I pushed open the double swing doors and crossed the lobby to the stairs. An elderly negro in shirtsleeves and a sack round his middle was rubbing the brass banister rail. lie was rubbing as if he had very tender hands, and his large, bloodshot eyes stared vacantly into space. I might have been the invisible man for all the attention he paid me.

At the top of the stairs were more double swing doors that led to another lobby. As Ferret-face had said, there was a door marked Office to the right of the circle entrance.

I rapped on it, pushed it open and entered. The office was small, stuffy and hot. There was a desk, two metal filing cabinets, a lot of glossy photographs on the walls similar to those decorating the front of the house. A man in shirtsleeves sat at the desk, pounding a typewriter. He typed with two fingers, but very fast. He had a lot of black crinkly hair, a five o’clock shadow and a complexion like a toad’s under-belly.

There was a girl in the corner of the room nearest the window. Her dress lay on top of one of the filing cabinets. Her underwear was not over clean, and her stockings had long runs in them. She had got herself tied into such a fantastic knot that she scarcely looked human. Her body bent backwards as if her back was broken and her legs hung over her shoulders and she was standing on her hands. As I stared at her she turned a slow somersault so she landed on her feet, still tied up in the same knot, and then fell forward once more on her hands to start the somersault all over again.

‘Why don’t you look at me?’ she said to the man with the crinkly hair. ‘How can you tell how good I am if you don’t look at me?’

The man with the crinkly hair went on pounding on the typewriter as if his life depended on it. He didn’t look up, even to see who had come in. The girl went on doing her slow somersaults, and kept asking why he didn’t look at her. But he didn’t take any notice.

I stood around staring at her, because although the act wasn’t very refined, it was sensational in its way. It would have been a lot more sensational if she had had a better figure, and if her things had been cleaner, but for all that as something free, it was worth seeing. I wished Jack Kerman could have seen her. Kerman was very keen on double-jointed women. He would have taken a great interest in her; more interest than I was taking. I felt he was missing something.

But like all things which are repeated too often the novelty wore off after a while. It didn’t wear off as far as the girl was concerned. She seemed set for the day, and never stopped asking the crinkly haired man to look at her. And the crinkly haired man seemed set for the day too. He never stopped typing.

So after I had gaped all I wanted to, I tapped him on the shoulder, but even at that he didn’t stop typing nor did he look up, but he did, say, ‘Wadjerwant?’

I said, ‘I’d like a word with Nick Nedick.’

He looked up then, but the typing went on as before.

‘Far door,’ he said, and his eyes shifted back to the typewriter again.

The girl said plaintively as she began another somersault: ‘The pain your mother went through to give you your eyes, you heel. Why don’t you use them? Why don’t you look at me?’

Because I was sorry for her, I said, ‘You’re doing fine, baby. You’re sensational! I’ve never seen anything like it.’

Her tight, hard little face swivelled between her crossed legs to look at me. Her mouth opened and she cursed me. Some of the words I had never heard before. They all sounded very bad. The man with the crinkly hair gave a sudden, sharp giggle, but he didn’t look up, nor did he stop typing.

I didn’t blame her for cursing me. It couldn’t have been much fun to do what she was doing, and the man who could give her a job not even to look at her. Maybe she had been years getting her body to tie itself up the way she was tying it up now. Maybe she was hungry. Maybe she couldn’t pay her rent. I guessed she was afraid to curse the man with the crinkly hair. He might have kicked her in the teeth. There was something about him that made me think he would kick her in the teeth if he had half a chance. I waited until she had run through all the words she knew, smiled at her to show her I hadn’t taken offence, and went over to the far door the man which the crinkly hair had indicated and knocked.

II

The inner office was very much like the outer office, only it was a little larger, and there were two desks instead of one and four metal filing cabinets instead of two and a lot more glossy photographs on the walls.

At the desk near the door sat an elderly woman with sad, dark-ringed eyes and a thin, yellowish face that might have been beautiful years ago, but was no more than plain in a nice way now. She was doing things with a book of theatre tickets. I wasn’t interested enough to see just what.

At the far end of the room was the other desk. A man sat behind it, but I couldn’t see anything of him except his thick fingers. He was hiding behind a newspaper he held before him. He had a big diamond ring on his little finger. The diamond was as yellow as a banana. I guessed someone had given it to him as a settlement of a debt, or maybe he had found it. It wasn’t the kind of diamond you would buy: not if you were in your right senses.

The woman looked at me with a timid smile. Her dentures were as phoney as a chorus girl’s eyelashes, and not half so attractive, but I didn’t take any interest in them either. She had to eat with them; I didn’t.

‘Mr. Nedick,’ I said, and tipped my hat. ‘The name’s Malloy. I’d like a word with him.’

‘Well, I don’t know.’ She looked timidly across the room at the spread of newspaper. ‘Mr. Nedick is busy right now. I don’t know really.’

‘Then don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘Mr. Nedick and I will get along fine without you worrying. Won’t we, Mr. Nedick?’ and I went over to his desk and sat on the edge of it.

A round ball of a face appeared from over the top of the newspaper. Small, humorous eyes looked me over. The newspaper was cast to the floor.

‘We might, young man, we might at that,’ Nedick said. ‘Just so long as you don’t want to sell me anything.’

I could see at a glance that the trouble with him was that someone, sometime, had told him he looked like Sydney Greenstreet. All right, he did look like Sydney Greenstreet; but not only did he look like him, he now dressed and talked like him too, and that was a shade too much.

‘The guy outside with the typewriter said for me to come in,’ I explained. ‘I hope that’s all right.’

The fat man chuckled the way Sydney Greenstreet chuckles. He seemed pleased with the effect.

‘That’s all right. And what can I do for you, Mr. Malloy?’

I gave him my card: the one with the Universal Services crest in the comer.

‘Orchid City, huh?’ He tapped the desk with the edge of the card and smiled at the elderly woman who was hanging on his every word. ‘Millionaire’s country, Mr. Malloy. You live there?’

‘I work there,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to get some information about a young woman. I believe you know her: Anita Gay.’

Nedick closed his eyes and his round face registered thought.

‘What sort of information, Mr. Malloy?’ he asked after an appreciable silence.

‘Anything,’ I said, took out my cigarette-case and offered it. ‘I’m not fussy. I’m trying to reconstruct a picture of her background. I’d like to listen to you talk about her. Anything you say may be useful.’

He took the cigarette doubtfully. I lit it for him and lit my own.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m a little busy right now. I don’t think I could spare the time.’

‘I would pay for it,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to give me your time for nothing.’

He let loose another chuckle: it wasn’t so convincing as the first.

‘Well, that’s business, Mr. Malloy. I appreciate a businessman when he’s as straightforward as you.’ He looked at the thin woman. ‘I think you could go to the bank now, Miss Fenducker. Tell Julius I’m tied up for the next half-hour as you go out.’

There was a short silence while Miss Fenducker hastily grabbed up her hat and coat and left the room. She was the type who never could do anything without getting into a panic about it. By the way she rushed out of the office you would have thought the place was on fire.

As she opened the door I caught a glimpse of the girl contortionist. She was still turning somersaults. Julius had stopped typing and was reading what he had written, his feet on the desk. Then the door closed, shutting out the scene and I was alone with Nedick.

‘What sort of fee had you in mind. Mr. Malloy?’ Nedick asked, his small eyes still.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘How about fifty bucks? It depends on what you can tell me.’

‘I could tell you a lot for fifty bucks. I don’t want to appear inquisitive, but is she in trouble?’

‘Not exactly in trouble,’ I said, thinking of the way she had looked the last time I saw her. ‘Anyway, not now. She has been in trouble. My client wants an accurate picture of her background if I can get it without causing too much commotion.’

He pushed back his chair, crossed one fat leg over the other and hooked a thick thumb in the buttonhole of his vest.

‘And the fifty bucks?’

I took out my wallet and laid five tens on the desk. He reached out a fat hand, scooped them up and stowed them away in his trousers pocket.

‘I’m always telling Julius you never know what’s coming into this office,’ he said, and chuckled again. ‘Always see everyone, I tell him. You never know what you’ve missed if you turn people away. Time and again I’ve proved myself right.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, flicking ash on the floor. ‘When was Anita Gay with you?’

‘She was with us for two years. I can give you the exact date if it interests you.’ He raked around in a drawer full of papers and odd junk, and finally produced a leather-bound memo book. He flicked through the pages until he came to the entry he was looking for and laid the book on the desk. ‘That’s another thing I’m always telling Julius. Always make a note of everything that happens in the office. Make it so you can find it again quickly. You never know when you may need it. Now here,’ his hand slapped the open page of the book. ‘It’s all here. She came to the office on 3rd June, two years ago. She said her name was Anita Broda. She wanted a job. She had been a stripper, working the nightclubs in Hollywood, but she’d got herself in bad with the Vice Squad, and her agent had turned sour on her. Roy Fletcher had advised her to come to see me. Fletcher handles legitimate stars. He hadn’t anything for her, and didn’t want her anyway. So he sent her to me.’ He looked at me and grinned. ‘You’ve seen her, Mr. Malloy’

I said, yes, I had seen her.

‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘She stood over there,’ he pointed to the window, ‘and did her act. Even Julius was impressed, and he’s a very hard man to impress: the hardest man in this racket. After the first week she moved from the middle to the top of the bill. After the second week we had her name in lights across the front of the house.’

‘Why isn’t she here now?’

His face darkened.

‘She got married. It’s always the same, Mr. Malloy. Get a good girl who draws in the money, and she gets married. Marriage is the biggest menace there is to this racket.’

I was beginning to wonder if I hadn’t squandered my fifty bucks a little recklessly.

‘You haven’t seen her since her marriage?’

He shook his head.

‘I heard she and Thayler didn’t get on, and she left him. Anyway, she got a job with Simeon, the swank dress designer on 19th Avenue. I sent Julius down to see her, to try to persuade her to come back, but she wouldn’t. I guess being a mannequin sort of raised her social status. She was a girl to get on. Anyway, nothing I could offer her interested her. She left Simeon’s about a couple of months ago. I don’t know where she is now.’

I let him run on, but I was stiff with attention.

‘She and Thayler,’ I said. ‘Who’s Thayler?’

‘Her husband.’

‘You wouldn’t know when she married him?’

“Sure,’ he said complacently, and patted the book again. ‘I’m not likely to forget. Marrying him lost me a lot of money. They were married on 8th November last year.’

‘What happened to him? Did he die?’

‘Die?’ Nedick blinked. ‘No, he didn’t die. He’s right here in town. He and a guy named Louis run a photographer’s shop on Army Street.’

My head began to ache suddenly. Maybe I was thinking too hard. I pressed my fingertips to my temples and scowled at him.

‘Let’s talk about Thayler,’ I said. ‘Tell me about him. Tell me all about him.’

Nedick opened a cupboard in his desk and hoisted up a black bottle without a label and two glasses.

‘Would a drink be any good to you?’ he asked. ‘You look sort of pinched.’

“That’s the right word,’ I said. ‘Set them up and tell me about Thayler.’

He poured two shots of whisky into the glasses. We nodded to each other and drank.

While I was getting out the aspirin bottle, he said, ‘Lee Thayler was here when Anita came. He did a Buffalo Bill act. It wasn’t bad, and he kept changing his routine so we kept him on. The trouble with most of the hams we get here is they can’t vary their routine. After a week they’re through. But Thayler was different. He was smart, and kept working out new tricks.’

I swallowed a couple of aspirins and chased them down with whisky.

‘What kind of tricks?’ I asked.

‘Anything with a rifle. You know the kind of thing: shooting at pennies tossed in the air; firing at targets by sighting in a mirror; trick stuff. He had a very good trick with a Colt .45. He would throw the gun in the air, catch it and fire at the same time. He had a girl to help him in this trick. He shot cigarettes out of her mouth. It was a dangerous act, but he had plenty of confidence.’

‘And he married Anita?’

‘He did.’ Nedick scowled. ‘Both of them quit when they married. Thayler bought himself a piece in this photographer’s shop. He reckoned he was ready to settle down to a steady job when he married. It was hard to believe because Thayler wasn’t the type to settle down. But as far as I know he did settle down. Anyway, he seems to be doing all right. He knew a lot of people in the show business, and they all went to him to be photographed. Louis does the actual work. Thayler’s job is to drum up new business.’

‘And Anita left him?’

‘So I heard. I don’t know the details. Perhaps she got sick of sitting around doing nothing. Thayler was a mean sort of guy. I guess when the first bloom wore off they started fighting. He’d fight with anyone.’

‘Were they divorced?’

‘I never heard they were.’

He poured two more whiskies. We touched glasses before we drank. The whisky was good. It was only when it was down you realized what a kick it had.

‘Would you have a photograph of this guy?’

‘Sure.’ He pointed to one of the filing cabinets. ‘You’re younger than me. Open the top drawer of that file. Yeah, that one. There should be a folder of photographs... you got it? Bring it over here.’

I laid the folder on the desk and be began to paw over a collection of glossy prints. Finally he found one he was looking for and handed it to me.

‘That’s him.’

I looked at the tall lean cowboy who stood against a painted backcloth of cactus and open prairie land. He had on sheepskin chaps, a ten-gallon hat and a check shirt. His face was long and narrow, his lips were thin, and his eyes steady and dangerous. He looked as if he seldom smiled, and when he did the smile wouldn’t reach his eyes. It was the face of a man who would take risks; a gambler’s face; a man who would hold life cheap.

I said, ‘Can I keep this?’

Nedick nodded.

‘If you want it. I have a photograph of Anita somewhere. That fur glove routine of hers was a natural. It had the boys sitting on the edge of their chairs.’ His big hands pawed over more photographs and he found one similar to the one I had taken from George Barclay’s drawer. ‘That’s her. If you ever run into her tell her I’d like to do business with her again. I can’t let you have it; it’s the only one I have left.’ He fished out another photograph, tossed it over. ‘That’s Thayler doing his cigarette trick act. I didn’t like it. I was scared there’d be an accident. It was too dangerous. But the girl didn’t mind. She had nerves like steel.’

But I wasn’t listening. I was staring at the photograph. It showed Thayler in his cowboy dress shooting at a girl who faced the camera, her profile turned to Thayler. It was a good photograph. You could see the cigarette flying out of the girl’s mouth, and the smoke and flash of the gun. The girl was wearing a kind of bodice made out of pony skin, a G-string and a ten-gallon hat.

‘It wasn’t that he aimed at the cigarette,’ Nedick said. ‘He didn’t. He threw up the gun caught it and fired in one continuous movement. It made me sweat to watch him.’

It made me sweat to look at the photograph, for the girl in the G-string was Miss Bolus.

III

The door jerked open, and the man with the crinkly hair came in. He put some papers on the desk.

‘That’s Gardener’s contract,’ he said to Nedick. ‘You’d better sign it before the lug changes his mind.’

As Nedick reached for a pen, he asked. ‘What’s that girl like out there? We’re not missing anything, are we?’

‘She stinks,’ the man with’ the crinkly hair said contemptuously.

‘Then send her away. I can hear her bones creaking in here. It worries me.’

‘Everything worries you,’ the man with the crinkly hair said. ‘Do her good to get some exercise,’ and he gathered up the papers and went out.

Through the open door I could see the girl. She was sitting on a chair, her dress across her knees and she was crying.

The man with the crinkly hair said to her, ‘I’m going to give you some advice. The best thing you can do is to take the elevator to the top floor, pick a nice high window and jump out of it. Your act stinks and you stink. Now, beat it.’

He closed the door as the girl got slowly to her feet.

Nedick said, ‘Sometimes I think Julius is a little rude to people.’

I thought it would be nice to go into the outer office, pick up the typewriter and to try and smash it to bits on the top of Julius’s black, crinkly head. But it wasn’t my business how he treated people, so I said, ‘Tell me something about this girl: the one in this photograph. What’s her name?’

Nedick took the photograph, studied it, laid it down.

‘That’s Gail Bolus.’ He shot an inquisitive look at me. ‘Does she interest you?’

‘Any girl who dresses like that interests me,’ I said. ‘Is she still around?’

‘No. We never did know much about her. Thayler brought her with him: she was part of his act. He paid her out of his own pocket. Apart from her name, there’s not much I know about her. Except she had very strong nerves.’

‘She quit when Thayler quit?’

‘Oh, no. She quit before that: when Thayler started to make passes at Anita Gay. That put the skids on his act. He couldn’t find another girl with, the right kind of nerve. He wanted Anita to take Gail’s place, but she wouldn’t touch it; I didn’t blame her either.’

‘Were Gail Bolus and Thayler anything to each other?’

‘I guess so. A mixed act usually gets around to sleeping together sooner or later. They were no exception. But she wouldn’t stand for him and Anita getting together, and she told him so. They quarrelled and she walked out on him.’

‘She quit about six months ago?’

Nedick said, yes, it would be about six months ago.

‘What happened to her?’

‘We lost sight of her. She didn’t register with any agent. She hadn’t any particular talent except to stand still and let Thayler shoot at her. I guess she quit show business.’

‘You never ran into a guy named Caesar Mills?’

He explored his memory, finally shook his head.

‘It’s not a name I recall.’

‘Would you know anything about Louis?’

He stroked his moustache and let out a half-hearted chuckle.

‘You certifiably believe in getting value for your money, don’t you, young man? I can’t sit around all day talking to you. I have a business to look after.’

‘You leave it to Julius,’ I said, and reached for my wallet again. ‘Suppose we say another twenty-five?’

He filled up the glasses as a sign of assent. The money exchanged hands, and he settled back in his chair again.

‘You’re a man after my own heart, Mr. Malloy,’ he said, beaming. ‘Now what do you want to know about Louis?’

‘What kind of man is he?’

Nedick spread out his big fat hands and hunched his shoulders.

‘An arty guy. He can take pictures, and he’s cheap. He gets all our trade.’

‘Concentrate on what he looks like.’

‘Tall, weedy, effeminate, chin bead and has two convictions for criminal assault,’ Nedick said rapidly.

That gave me a picture. I liked this guy, Nedick. He was saving me an awful lot of leg work.

‘How does he stand with the cops?’

‘Not good. The assault raps hang over him, although they happened five and ten years ago. I guess he’s got used to taking girls in the flesh by now. But there are rumours...’

I waited, but as he said nothing, I said, ‘Don’t dry up on me. I’ll have the rumours as well as the facts.’

‘If you can handle a camera well, Mr. Malloy,’ Nedick said, pulling at his lower lip, ‘and you haven’t any moral scruples, you can always earn a living: even if it’s a smelly one.’

‘Don’t go vague on me,’ I pleaded. ‘I’ll treat it in confidence.’

‘The cops think he’s running a blackmail racket. I wouldn’t know if they’re right or not. He takes his camera out nights in Buena Vista Park. It’s a nice spot for couples to get to know each other. Some of the couples don’t always want their photographs taken. You know how it is. Some of the negatives might be worth quite a bit of money. It’s just a rumour. Nothing you can pin on him.’

I said I knew how it was.

I said, ‘From what you know of Thayler, could you see him mixed up in blackmail?’

Nedick laughed.

‘Thayler was the kind of guy who would be mixed up in anything. He was ambitious. He had no nerves. He wanted money. Believe me, Mr. Malloy, no one or nothing would stop him once he had made up his mind. I told Julius over and over again Thayler was dangerous. I said sooner or later he would get us into trouble, but Julius wouldn’t listen. Well, he didn’t get us into trouble because he quit before he had time to get into trouble. It wouldn’t surprise me if he turned out to be a killer. Blackmail? Sure. Thayler wouldn’t worry about blackmail. He’s ruthless. I was glad to see him go. If he hadn’t taken Anita with him I would have hung out a flag when he did go. I didn’t like him, and I didn’t like his act; but Julius kept him on because he brought in business. Only a man without a conscience would have put on an act as dangerous as that cigarette routine. It worried me. I was glad when he went.’

I couldn’t think of any more questions to ask him so I slid off the desk.

‘Well, I guess that’s all then,’ I said, and shook hands with him. ‘If I think of anything else I’ll call in and see you. And thanks for your help.’

‘That’s all right,’ Nedick said. ‘Just so long as you have what you want. Take my tip and don’t monkey with Thayler. One of these days he’ll shoot someone. I wouldn’t like it to be you.’

I said I wouldn’t like it to be me either.

IV

After leaving the Brass Rail, I went straight back to the hotel The bellhop was hanging around the lobby, and I told him to have some sandwiches and four bottles of beer sent up to our room.

I hadn’t been in the room more than five minutes before Kerman came in with the bellhop close on his heels.

‘What’s the idea of sandwiches?’ Kerman asked in disgust. ‘Can’t we afford to go to a restaurant?’

The bellhop put the beer and sandwiches on the bamboo table and stood around, waiting to see if there was anything in it for him. I gave him half a buck and told him to scram.

‘If you guys are looking for a little recreation,’ he said hopefully, ‘I have that blonde lined up, waiting.’

Kerman opened the door.

‘Beat it!’ he said.

When the bellhop had gone I opened a couple of bottles of beer and started pouring.

‘I thought we’d better talk up here where we wouldn’t be overheard,’ I explained.

‘Well, all right,’ Kerman said, and sat in the armchair. ‘You were long enough in that dump. I was getting ready to organize a rescue.’

I gave him a beer and went over to sit on the bed.

‘I’ve picked up a lot of stuff,’ I said, and told him what I had learned. I told him everything except about the girl contortionist. I thought if I told him about her he wouldn’t be able to keep his mind on business.

He listened without saying anything, but he didn’t touch his beer, and that’s a sure sign I had his attention. When I was through, he let out a long, low whistle.

‘For crying out loud!’ he exclaimed. ‘What does it all mean?’

‘All these facts are pieces in the jigsaw puzzle,’ I said. ‘They need fitting together. I had no idea Gail Bolus was hooked up in this business. All right, you don’t have to grin.’

‘Think she’s working hand-in-glove with Thayler?’

‘She might be. I don’t know. It may be a coincidence she turned up in Orchid City. She may have cut Thayler right out of her life. I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. The big discovery is that Anita was married when she married Cerf. If she married Cerf secretly — that is if Thayler had no idea what she was up to, and then found out — we shan’t have to look far for the blackmailer. And another thing that’s interesting. Thayler is an expert with a .45. He may be the boy who has done the killings.’

Kerman grunted and drank some beer.

‘Do you think Thayler knocked off Benny?’

‘Thayler or Louis or both.’

‘And how about Mills? Is he out of it?’

‘I don’t know. I think there’s something going on between Natalie Cerf and him, but whether it has anything to do with this setup or not I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know much, do you?’ Kerman said. ‘You’ll have to do a lot better than this if you’re going to make a name for yourself.’

‘I know enough to tackle Louis now,’ I said. ‘And that’s what we’re going to do.’

I opened my suitcase and took out a writing-pad. I wrote in big block letters the words:

Kerman said blankly, ‘You mean we don’t do any more work?’

‘Not us, you dope. We’re going across the way and we’re seeing Louis. We’ll stick this on the shop door as we go in.’

Kerman hurriedly finished his beer.

‘This is the moment I’ve been waiting for,’ he said, and reached for his hat.

V

As I pushed open the shop door a concealed bell went ping! Harsh electric lights lit up the outer room of the shop: a room smothered in glossy prints more or less on the same pattern as those decorating the outside of the Brass Rail. A short counter divided the outer from the inner room. The inner room, from what I could see of it between the gap in the two shabby curtains that had only been half-drawn, consisted of a number of chairs, a couple of partitions with curtains hanging before them and two big mirrors. Beyond the inner room was a narrow passage that led, I assumed, to the studio.

We had decided that if anyone happened to be in the shop they would have to be taken care of, and Kerman had brought along his gun. He was a little self-conscious of it as he had never shot with it nor did he have any cartridges for it. I said it didn’t matter so long as Louis didn’t produce a gun of his own. Kerman’s gun looked all right: it looked vicious No one, unless they were out of their minds, would argue with it.

Kerman said bitterly that we would look a couple of suckers if Thayler turned up and started some trick shooting.

I guess he was right, but I didn’t tell him so.

As soon as we were in the shop, Kerman stuck the notice on the door, and as he shot the two bolts a girl in a slinky black dress and with a figure like an hour-glass came down the passage, through the changing-room into the outer room. She was hard and blonde and brassy, and switched on a mechanical smile when she saw us, although her eyes looked bored.

‘Was there something?’ she asked, resting her hands on the counter. She had bright scarlet nails, and her fingers were grubby. When you looked closer the rest of her was grubby too.

‘Why, sure,’ I said, tipping my hat. ‘We thought it would be nice to be photographed. Can you fix it?’

Kerman said, ‘I’ll let you have a copy of mine to keep you warm nights if it’s a good likeness.’

The blonde’s bored eye blinked and she looked questioningly from Kerman to me.

‘I’m afraid Mr. Louis is engaged right now. I can make an appointment,’ she said, and languidly patted her back curls.

‘We’re in a hurry,’ I said, looked at Kerman and nodded.

Kerman produced his gun with a flourish and pointed it at the blonde.

‘Don’t squawk, sister,’ he said in a voice that sounded like someone ripping calico. ‘This is a stick-up!’

The blonde recoiled, her eyes popping and her mouth opened to scream. I poked her hard with my index finger in her midriff and the breath came out of her with a hiss like a punctured tyre. She doubled up over the counter.

It took us about a minute and a half to tie her hands and feet and gag her with the cords and gag we had brought with us. Then we put her under the counter, found a pillow for her head and told her to take it easy. Her eyes weren’t bored any more: they were black explosions of fury.

‘Come on,’ I said to Kerman. ‘You’re doing fine.’

‘What really excites me,’ he said, as he moved after me, ‘is the thought a copper might crash in here and mistake me for a gunman. I guess a little thing like that hadn’t crossed your mind?’

I motioned him to silence, crept down the passage to a door at the far end, opened it and looked in.

The studio was fair sized and workmanlike. The usual portrait camera stood on its wooden tripod facing a backcloth of grey-painted canvas. Two big arc lamps on wheels stood on either side of the camera. There was a table with a raised drawing-board against the wall and a man in a white smock and a blue beret sat at the table, working on a collection of glossy prints. He was tall, weedy, effeminate, and had a black chin beard. His complexion was the colour of old parchment, and his lips were thick and red against the black-ness of his beard and moustache: not a pleasant specimen.

When he saw us he dropped the paint brush he was working with and his hand shot into a drawer of the table.

‘Hold it!’ Kerman snarled, threatening him with his gun.

The hand hovered above the drawer. The bearded face turned a greenish tinge. I went over and took a small automatic from the drawer and shoved it into my hip pocket.

‘Hello,’ I said, and brought my fist down as hard as I could into the hollow between his neck and right shoulder. The blow drove him off his chair on to the floor. I bent over him, gathered him up and stood him on his feet, then I hauled off and hit him on the bridge of his nose. He went shooting across the studio, collided with the camera and landed up on the floor with the camera on top of him.

Kerman sat on the edge of the table.

‘Be careful you don’t hurt him,’ he said.

‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t got any feelings. Have you, you heel?’

Louis made no effort to get up so I went over to him, picked the camera up, and holding it by its tripod, slammed it down on his chest. He gave a gurgling scream as the camera flew off the head of the tripod and went whizzing across the room. One of the tripod’s legs came off. I threw the other bits away, took the leg in both hands and hit him with it as he tried to get up.

Kerman slid off the table

‘Do you think he wants his camera?’ he asked.

‘He won’t want anything when I’m through with him,’ I said breathlessly, and bashed Louis again.

Kerman went over and stamped on the camera until it was in small pieces.

‘I don’t see why you should have all the fun,’ he said.

We drew off to recover our breath.

Louis cowered on the floor, his hands covering his face, scarcely breathing. He looked like a man waiting for a bomb to drop on him.

While I was getting my second wind I examined the prints he had been working on. They weren’t nice pictures. They confirmed Nedick’s theory that Louis was a blackmailer.

As nothing more happened to him, Louis began to crawl to his feet, but when I turned, he flopped back on to the floor again. He had as much spine as a plate of porridge.

‘Why’d you kill Benny?’ I asked, standing over to him.

The small eyes twitched. Breath made a rattling sound in the long scraggy throat.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The voice came in a whisper: like an echo in a tunnel.

‘I kicked the white smock. It was a good kick. It moved the weedy figure about three yards.

‘Why did you kill Benny?’ I repeated.

He didn’t say anything. He groaned instead.

I kicked him again.

‘Maybe he thinks we’re fooling,’ Kerman said, coming over to watch. ‘Some guys need an awful lot of persuasion before they talk.’

‘This one won’t,’ I said, reached down and pulled Louis to his feet. His legs were rubbery and he started to fall, but I managed to keep him upright long enough for Kerman to take a sock at him. He went flying across the room and smashed through the grey painted backcloth.

Kerman said, ‘Hey! Do you see what I see?’

He reached under the table and produced a blow-lamp.

‘Now that is something,’ I said. ‘Get it going.’

I ripped the rest of the backcloth out of its frame, collected Louis and dragged him back to the middle of the studio by his ankles.

There was a property couch at the back of the studio. I pushed that alongside Louis.

‘Let’s get him on here,’ I said.

Kerman gave the blow-lamp a few quick pumps until the flame began to roar out of the spout, then he came over and caught hold of Louis. We got him on the couch and I sat on his chest.

Fever sweat had broken out on his face. He glared up at me, his eyes wild with panic.

‘I’m not going to waste a lot of time on you,’ I said. ‘We’re here to find out what happened to Benny, and we’re going to find out. I know you, Thayler and Anita Gay are all hooked up together, and I know Benny came here yesterday. If you don t talk you’re in for a bad time. Benny was a pal of mine. I don’t care two hoots what happens to you. You’ll talk or you’ll get hurt. Now, why did you kill Benny?’

‘I don’t know Benny. I swear it!’ Louis gasped.

‘He doesn’t even know Benny,’ I said to Kerman.

‘This is just the thing to help his memory,’ Kerman said, picking up the blow-lamp.

‘Do you want to get burned?’ I asked Louis.

‘I don’t know him!’ Louis squealed, and began to struggle. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

‘You’ll change your ideas in a second, you louse,’ Kerman said, and played the flame on Louis’s shoes.

After a few moments of this Louis suddenly stiffened, arching his chest, his eyes bulging and sweat jumping out of his face like a squeezed sponge. I had trouble in keeping him down, and the noise he made started my head aching again.

‘Why did you kill Benny?’ I asked, signalling Kerman to lay off. The studio stank of burned leather.

‘I didn’t... I swear I know nothing about it,’ Louis groaned. The muscles of his legs were twitching and his head rolled on the padded back of the couch.

‘Give him a good dose this time,’ I said savagely.

Kerman gave him a good dose. Louis screamed so loud I had to cram his beret in his mouth.

‘Does it matter if I lame him for life?’ Kerman asked.

‘Not to me, but hold it until I see if he’s changed his mind. The smell’s bothering me.’

‘We ought to have brought a bottle of Scotch with us,’ Kerman said. ‘I’ve got a weak stomach.’

I took the beret out of Louis’s mouth.

“Why did you kill Benny?’ I asked.

‘It was Thayler,’ he said so faintly I could scarcely hear him.

‘I think he’s going to talk,’ I said. ‘But keep the lamp handy in case his memory goes.’ I stood up. ‘What happened?’ I asked Louis.

It took a little time to get it out of him, and Kerman had to burn him once or twice when he seemed reluctant to go into details, but we finally got it out of him.

Benny had called at the shop a little after five o’clock the previous evening. Obviously from what Louis said, Benny had no idea he was walking into trouble. He had shown Louis Anita’s photograph and had asked him what he knew about her.

‘Thayler was there,’ Louis said, sweat running down his face. ‘He was listening behind the curtain. He came out with a gun. I searched Benny and found out where he was from. Anita had told Thayler about Universal Services. Thayler sapped Benny and took him away in his car. I don’t know what happened to him. I swear that’s all I know.’

That was when Kerman gave him the lamp again.

‘Where’s Thayler now?’ I asked.

Louis said something but I couldn’t hear.

‘I think this punk could do with a drink,’ I said.

‘I know I could,’ Kerman grumbled and began to look around the studio. After a while he discovered a bottle of Scotch and some glasses in a cupboard. He poured three drinks, gave me one, set one on the table for himself and threw the third in Louis’s face.

‘Where’s Thayler now?’ I asked, after I had taken a drink. It wasn’t bad whisky: not good, but drinkable.

‘He’s gone to see Anita,’ Louis managed to get out.

‘When did he go?’

‘He caught the ten o’clock plane last night.’

‘You’ll have to speak up,’ I said. ‘You asked for this, and you’ve got it. Did you know he tied Benny’s hand and feet and threw him in the Indian Basin?’

The thin, pain-ridden face blanched.

‘No...’

I was inclined to believe him.

I said, ‘Thayler and Anita were married, weren’t they?’

He nodded.

‘Did you know she married a guy called Cerf about two months ago?’

His eyes shifted, but as soon as he said he didn’t know Cerf, Kerman reached for the lamp, and he howled out, ‘Yes, I knew. It was Thayler’s idea. Thayler said she could make a lot of money out of Cerf.’

‘Was she scared of Thayler?’

He looked blank.

‘She hadn’t any need to be.’

‘They quarrelled and parted, didn’t they?’

‘That was nothing. They were always quarrelling. When she met Cerf she came here and asked Thayler what she was to do. He told her to marry the guy and get as much out of him as she could. He said he’d keep his mouth shut if she paid him a cut.’

‘What do you know about Gail Bolus?’

He licked his dry lip, shaking his head.

‘Only she worked with Thayler before he met Anita. I never met her.’

‘Is she in this racket?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This isn’t Thayler’s first trip to Orchid City, is it?’

He hesitated, but as soon as Kerman made a move he said hurriedly, ‘No. He went out there two nights ago. He got worried when Anita called him on long distance and told him she was being watched. He went to see her, but he didn’t contact her.’

‘He came back here?’

‘Yes. He was nervous. He said the girl who had been watching Anita had been shot. He thought he was better out of the way. He was worried he didn’t find Anita.’

‘Didn’t he tell her he was coming?’

‘No. He had this call from her and she asked him to come, but he had a job to do. Then when she hung up he changed his mind, and decided to go and find out what was happening.’

‘Is he coming back here?’

‘Yes’

‘When?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘Anita was shot last night.’

He flinched, and his small eyes receded in their sockets.

‘Shot? Is she dead?’

‘Yeah. There was a Colt .45 found near her. What gun did Thayler use?’

‘I don’t know. A big gun. I don’t know anything about guns.’

I shrugged and moved away from him.

‘I can’t think of anything else, can you?’ I asked Kerman.

Kerman shook his head.

‘What shall we do with the rat?’

‘I’ll fix him. Give me those photographs on the desk.’

Kerman picked up the prints, glanced at them, grimaced, and handed them to me.

‘Here, write your name on the back of these,’ I said to Louis.

As Kerman reached for the blow-lamp, Louis hurriedly scrawled his name on the back of each print. I took them from him, slipped them into an envelope I found on the table, scribbled D.D.C. Dunnigan’s name on the envelope and put it in my pocket.

‘I’m handing these to Police Headquarters,’ I told Louis. ‘They’ve been waiting to get their hooks into you.’ I turned to Kerman. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

Kerman stood over Louis.

‘Benny was a pal of mine,’ he said, in a low, flat voice. ‘Here’s something to remember him by,’ and he shoved the flame of the blow-lamp in Louis’s face.