Blondes are Skin Deep (6 page)

W
HEN
I reached the lobby Peone was sorting mail behind the desk. I went up to him. “Give me the guest register for the last two weeks.”

Peone sounded almost happy. “No.”

I should have known enough to let it lie, his reaction should have told me what was coming. But I was in no mood to analyze. I reached for a handful of coat lapel. Peone stepped backward and sideways, making no effort to defend himself. A hand came down hard on my shoulder and I was jerked away from the desk.

It was Chimp and when he had me turned around he let loose with a fist that landed like a rock against my temple. I went to my knees on the old stone floor, falling hard enough to jar the building. I tried to duck as I came up but I was too slow. Chimp’s foot swung out, leveling against the other side of my head. I sprawled out flat, bouncing off a thick pot that held a palm tree. I started rolling as Chimp came after me.

I kept trying to get around to the other side of the palm. I wanted a few seconds to get my brains back into place. Chimp let me get started and then reversed his direction so that we met head on. I made a frantic scramble to get up and out of reach but again Chimp was too fast and too deft. There was no expression at all on his face. His damned cigar hardly even moved as he came at me.

Chimp used his feet as though I were a soccer ball. A heavy toe caught me under the eye and another one landed against the side of my chin. I was still rolling and Chimp hardly even breathed fast as he kept on kicking. A final blow hit as I made it to my knees. It slid along my ear and threatened to take off the top of my head. I remember hitting a lobby pillar and falling forward. If Chimp kicked me any more I didn’t feel it.

It took a few minutes for me to find the strength to lift my head. Chimp was standing close by, polishing his shoe on his pantleg. My jaws were almost too sore to be moved.

“What’s the idea?”

“Hall called down to have me stop you,” he said. “I did.” He shifted the unlighted cigar to the other corner of his mouth. “Do you walk out or do I throw you out?”

“I stay,” I said. “I’ve got a date in this lobby.”

Chimp’s voice was thin with amusement. “You aren’t in much shape for a date, Nick.”

A voice from behind me said, “I’ll be the judge of that.”

I tried to turn my head but it hurt and I stopped. Anyway, I recognized the voice of Edna Loomis. I smelled her perfume, too, when she bent and started hauling me to my feet. I gave her what assistance I could.

She put an arm about my waist and we headed for the street. “Do you always insist on staying where you aren’t wanted?”

“I was waiting for you,” I said. It came out something like, “I wash wa-infru,” but she seemed to understand me.

“Was that his reason for kicking you?”

I said, “I made an error in judgment. I deserved what I got.” I didn’t blame Chimp. I had thrown my weight around once too often. It was one way to learn things.

I could feel Edna Loomis’ hand going into my pocket and I squawked. She said tartly, “I’m looking for car keys. You have a car.”

“Is that a question or a statement? If so, how do you know?”

I felt sharp, asking one like that. I cocked my head to get her answer. The keys came out of my pocket and I heard the car door click open, even while she managed to keep one arm around my waist. She pushed me into the seat; I was still waiting for the answer.

I woke up listening for it. My head was beginning to bother me now that the numbness had begun to wear off, and my mouth was an over-grazed cow pasture. I turned to look at Edna Loomis. There was no one but myself in the car. I could see tree trunks through the windshield, but no sign of life except a nut-hunting squirrel.

I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to do anything. I had no body anymore, just one large pulsating pain for a head. Closing my eyes, I tried to get rid of it.

When I opened my eyes it was fully dark and I was still alone in the car. I was pleased to discover that I had arms and legs again, and I tested them to make sure. I opened the car door and stepped gingerly out. The fresh air felt fine but my legs weren’t what I had expected them to be and I climbed back in the seat.

It took a lot of effort to get beneath the wheel and find the ignition key. It took more work to push on the starter and get the motor going. I didn’t know where I was, and even after I had turned on the headlights I could see only tree trunks. I stopped worrying about it, got the car into gear, and started forward.

I went between some trees, scraped a fender, hit some soft grass, and bounced over a curbing onto an asphalt road. I turned right because it looked like a downhill slope. After a few twists of roadway I broke out of the brush and could see the city stretching down below, and lights winking across the Sound. Now I knew where I was—in the city park at the east edge of town.

I really didn’t care. All I wanted was strength enough to last until I found a quiet place to drop my head—before it fell off. I didn’t want to think; I wanted to sleep some more.

The road finally made contact with a city boulevard and from then on it was just a matter of reaching my apartment before I passed out. I made the alley behind the building, parked, shut off the motor and lights, and got the car keys into my coat pocket. I leaned on the door handle until the door came open and I went sprawling to the gravel.

It was a little while before I got to my feet, using the runningboard of the car to haul myself up with, but it wasn’t bad after that. I made it to the service stairs and started up them on my hands and knees. They were long and steep. When I got to the top I found the rear door locked. I fumbled for my keys, missed, reached into darkness for something, and just leaned forward until my shoulder thudded against the screen door. I bounced off it, rolled, and lay on the porch with one leg hanging over the side.

I could hear footsteps and I remembered that someone was supposed to be in the apartment waiting for me. It was nice to remember it; now I could lie there instead of trying to get up again.

A light came on. The door was opened and the light hit me in the eyes. I realized that I was on my back. I heard an exclamation and saw a face, fuzzy in outline, and a cap of tightly curled gray hair.

“I’m damned,” I said. I shut my eyes.

• • •

Water felt good being rubbed over my face. I heard a man’s voice say, “Bring that bottle, please,” and in a moment whiskey was going down my throat. That felt even better.

After that it was easier. When I opened my eyes I could focus, and my head was clear. I saw Nelle. She gave me some more whiskey and then disappeared. I lay there, letting the liquor radiate outward from my stomach. I tried sitting up, then, and it worked.

Nelle was near me, looking worried and upset. I tried to smile but my jaws hurt so I put the smile away. She just kept on looking upset. Across from the couch, using my easy chair, was Lieutenant Nathan Powers of the city homicide squad. He owned the gray hair.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“What hit you, a truck?”

“A fist, a foot. I asked for them.”

“When was this?”

“Earlier,” I said. I tried to place the time. “Much earlier.” Powers seemed to prefer definite answers. He said, “I want the time.”

“All right,” I said. “The first came about five, the first foot at five, zero, and a half. I could be a minute off either way.”

Powers’ usually friendly eyes were not amused. “Who hit you?”

“I’m not preferring charges,” I said. “I got what I asked for.”

“You said that before. Who hit you?”

I decided that I didn’t like sitting up after all. Powers was getting fuzzy around the edges again. I stretched out, lying so that I could see him, but not Nelle.

“Chimp hit me,” I said.

“Why?”

“Why did he hit me?”

Powers made an angry gesture with his hand. “Damn it.”

I patted my pockets and located my cigarets. Nelle appeared with the table lighter. I offered them both a smoke, both refused. The cigaret tasted wonderful.

“I got tough with the room clerk,” I said.

Powers leaned forward, his hands clasped over his bony knees. There was something in his eyes that bothered me; I had never seen it before. I tried to put a name to it and failed. The only word I could think of was “suspicion” and that made no sense. Not coming from Powers to me. Insofar as was possible with a private cop, he was my pal.

“Let’s start over,” Powers said. “You’ve always had your own way around that hotel.”

“Not from this date,” I assured him. “From now on I’m
persona non grata
, and graduated with honors. I had a beef with Kane Hall.”

He seemed to relax, to settle back in his chair. As if, I thought, that was what he wanted to know. “A beef—about what?”

He wasn’t playing it smart. If he hadn’t moved, settled himself in, the question would have caught me as the others had. But he had tipped me off, rung a warning bell in my mind. Enough so that I could smell the rat.

I said, “Money. What else is there to beef about?”

“He wasn’t paying you enough?”

“He couldn’t pay enough,” I said. “What the hell is this, an inquisition?”

“Just checking,” Powers said. He was trying to be casual about it and he sounded like an old truck pulling in low gear. “So you had a beef with Hall. And you went downstairs and took it out on the room clerk. And Chimp handed you a couple.”

“You could sum it up that way.”

“Why did Chimp decide to stop you?”

“Kane Hall called down and ordered him to. He was sore when I left the apartment.”

“Sore enough to threaten you?”

“Kane never threatens—to a man’s face.”

Powers nodded as if in agreement with that. He said abruptly, “How long has she been here?”

The change of pace bothered me. I had been concentrating on fixing a story about myself and Hall. It took me a moment to adjust. I said, “How long?”

“I told you,” Nelle said from somewhere out of my range of vision. “Since he went away on his last trip.”

I had to grin even though it hurt. Powers was very unhappy. “I asked Mercer, not you.”

“If she says so, I guess that’s right,” I told him. “She was here when I came home today.”

“Was her stuff here?”

I lifted my head and looked around. I saw what he meant. Nelle’s collection of knick-knacks, toy dogs, plaster pots with ivy in them, odds and ends with which she cluttered her own place, were strewn about the room. I let my head go back down.

“Those damned things! I tried to get her to take them out. I didn’t win, did I?”

Nelle said, “Why would I lie, Lieutenant?”

“Your clothes are in his bedroom, too,” Powers said. He sounded accusing.

“It’s the only bedroom here,” I said apologetically.

Powers swung his head, looking from me to Nelle. “What’s the gag?” he demanded.

Nelle said fiercely, “Is it a gag to love a man?”

Powers let that set for a while. “You decided that in a hurry,” he said finally.

“I decided it a long time ago,” Nelle corrected him. “I got tired of waiting for Nick to do anything—so I did it myself.”

Powers was rubbing his long jaw. “Why?” he asked sharply. “Because the police are closing in on Johnny and you want Mercer’s help?”

Whatever Nelle actually believed, she made her answer sound like the truth. I was surprised. She was not naturally a good dissembler. But she almost took me in; I know she took Powers in. Her voice was scornful. “Nick doesn’t believe Johnny is guilty any more than I do. And he’d help me—anyway.”

Powers started to say something but I beat him to it. “Is that why you’re here—to check on Johnny?”

“Partly.”

“What’s the other part?” I demanded. “It’s about time I got a few answers for my money.”

“Don’t push me around, Mercer,” he said. “I’m no hotel clerk.”

I said, “I’m not pushing. I’m asking. I’m being polite. I’ll even say please.”

“We got a tip that Doane might be coming here for help,” he said.

That wasn’t it, and I knew it. But I said, “Who tipped you? The same guy who called the papers?”

“We don’t give out that kind of information.”

“Don’t sound like a tough cop,” I gibed him. “It was Kane,”

“No.” He studied me with a disguised intentness that made me want to laugh. “It was a woman.”

“Tien,” I said. “That’s the same thing.”

“No, again.” I waited, knowing that his desire to trap me into an admission might bring additional information. He said, “This woman had a strong voice, young, too.”

He had learned a lot from a voice. I wondered if he knew that she was blond, too. I closed my eyes. He had as much as said that it was Edna Loomis. And that didn’t fit in.

“So you thought it was Hall,” Powers said. “And you beefed.”

“I told you. That was over money.”

“You don’t care enough about money to shoot a man for it. You do care enough about Johnny.”

“I shot—who?”

“Kane Hall,” he said. “About six o’clock this evening.”

I
T
WAS
all very cozy. Nelle made some coffee, and though Powers’ attitude showed plainly that he felt her to be a blighted female, he took the coffee.

The coffee hurt my mouth where the inside had been cut against my teeth. I said, talking slowly, “You think I killed Hall because I believed that he turned in Johnny? Right?”

“Partly,” Powers said. He seemed to love the word.

“Then,” I went on, “you think I moved Nelle in here so we could hide Johnny out. Or that she moved in and tried to talk me into it.”

Powers fooled me. Nelle was sitting on the floor, where I could see her now, her legs curled under her. He glanced down at the top of her head. “No. I think if Johnny comes here now it will be to see what his sister is doing.”

“That’s none of his business,” Nelle said defiantly. Obviously, she was going to play the love-nest angle to the hilt. I could see that it bothered Powers.

“Have you told Johnny that?”

She was quick. “How could I? I haven’t seen him.”

I grinned a little. Powers said, “The question still stands.”

“If I see him, I’ll tell him.”

Powers looked at me. “What do you think of this?”

“I think it’s fine,” I said. “A woman is a cozy thing to have knocking about the place.” I sipped my coffee; it didn’t hurt quite so much this time.

“When you get through being clever,” Powers said, “we’ll get down to business.”

“Any time. I have nothing to hide, Lieutenant.”

He thought I was mocking him. With surprising viciousness, he said, “Stop playing. I want to know where you were after five o’clock. And I want a straight answer.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I got kicked in the head. I passed out. When I came to I was in the East Park. I went out again. I came to and it was dark. I drove home.”

“You were out all that time?”

“Sure,” I said. “Or maybe I was out of my head and went back and shot Hall. I was in swell shape for that kind of a job.”

“What about her?” Powers demanded, nodding toward Nelle. “Where was she from five to seven?”

“Why seven?” I asked curiously.

“That’s when I got here,” Powers said. “She arrived at the same time.”

“I told you that I was out shopping,” Nelle answered. She was hanging onto her control beautifully. “And I had a few things still to bring from the apartment.” She wriggled into a more comfortable position. “For heaven’s sake, Lieutenant, we haven’t been conspiring to help Johnny. Nor to kill Kane Hall.”

He ignored her. “What about the woman who helped you from the hotel?” he asked me.

He knew more than I had thought. I said, “I remember thinking she was picking my pocket but she only wanted the car keys. I remember her putting me into the car—fade-out.”

“Who was she?”

“Edna Loomis.” I couldn’t very well hide it. I glanced toward Nelle. She was being very busy with her coffee cup. I couldn’t read her expression.

“Who is Edna Loomis?”

“A guest at the hotel.”

“That’s no answer.”

“Ask the Portland cops,” I said heavily. “They questioned her over the Considine case.”

“She knew him then?”

“I presume,” I said. I was being fairly free with Powers, not because I was afraid of him but because I believed that he knew all these answers and was trying to find out just how much I would hold out on him. Certainly the Portland police would have given him the information before this.

“Did she know Johnny Doane?”

I had a brief look at Nelle. She was as rigid as Chimp’s foot. But in a few seconds she had it covered up and managed to look no more than interested.

“I hear that she met him at one of Considine’s parties,” I told Powers. “Why all the questions? Do you think she killed Hall?”

Powers reversed himself, momentarily eliminating me as his prize suspect. “No,” he said. “I think Johnny did—with someone’s help.”

I couldn’t forget that damned telephone conversation between Johnny and Edna Loomis.

Powers was looking at me queerly; there was a goofy sort of grin on his face, smug and at the same time a little ashamed. I said, “What the hell now?”

“What makes you think Hall is dead?” he said.

“You just told me so.”

“Wrong tense,” he said. “I should have said, I think Johnny tried to kill Hall.”

Unaccountably, I felt a surge of pure relief run through me. I saw Nelle unwind like a too-tight spring. I liked Kane Hall, despite a lot of little things.

I said, “That was a dirty trick.”

“Does it make any difference to you?”

“It might to the person who shot him,” I countered.

“No,” Powers said. “It was the same man who shot Considine.” He did grin this time. “And we know the racket, too, Nick.”

“I figured you might,” I said. “I suppose Hall will have to pay off more now.”

“Hardly,” Powers said. “Hall never has paid. Not when he has the local bigshots for customers. Considine had the same set-up. That made it a strictly high class proposition. So high class that it was worth moving in on.”

I wondered why he had bothered to tell me a lot of things I already knew. He had been leading up to something. I let him have his fun. “What does that mean?”

“That’s Johnny’s motive,” Powers said. “It’s a good one.”

“Johnny, always Johnny,” I said. “Why don’t you guys start thinking—maybe you can come up with something else for a change.”

“Why should we?” Powers demanded. “We found the gun that was used on Hall—in his place. It was the same one that killed Considine. Johnny’s old blunderbuss.”

• • •

I was as weak as watered down whiskey. I wished I could stay on that couch indefinitely, but I could tell from the way things were shaping up that it was impossible. So now I was eating dinner. Not because I felt hungry but because I knew I would need the strength.

And then Nelle had insisted on it. I was sipping the soup she had heated for me and watching enviously while she gnawed her way through a steak. I was propped on the couch and she sat on the floor, eating off the low coffee table.

“I wish my jaws worked that well,” I said.

She grinned at me. There had been a change in her since Powers had gone. Somehow I no longer felt that she was giving me the run-around.

“Your throat works well enough,” she pointed out as I gulped a highball along with my soup. She said more seriously, “I am sorry about the beating you took, Nick. You did fight with Hall over Johnny, didn’t you?”

Powers had gone and things were nice and quiet. Before leaving, he had pulled the usual warnings that we should stay put. He had also broken down and told us that Hall’s wound was in the arm, and not at all serious.

I said, “Johnny was one issue.” I didn’t want to talk about it just now. Why did Powers tell us about that gun?”

“Maybe he thinks we’ll try and warn Johnny—and lead the police to him,” Nelle said. The old worry was shadowing her eyes again. “Nick, do you think …”

What did I think? What could I think? I said, “You heard what I told Powers. And you guessed it yourself. I thought that Hall tipped the cops that Johnny was in town—so I got sore. He thinks Johnny killed Considine and he thinks Johnny is coming after him. Hall offered me the same motive that Powers did: Johnny is trying to move in on the organization.”

Nelle had stopped eating. “Is that what
you
think, Nick?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I blurted out. “I’ve been trying to help Johnny—and I don’t get a damned bit of cooperation. From Hall, from Edna Loomis, from you—from nobody.”

“I’d help,” Nelle said quickly, “if I knew what to do.” She meant: if she could trust me.

“I want to find him,” I said. “I want to know what he’s up to. Whether …” I broke off.

Nelle finished it for me. “Whether he is guilty.” She said softly, “You really aren’t sure.”

“No, I’m not sure,” I admitted. I looked into Nelle’s eyes; they were very light now, almost a green. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not a damned bit sure.”

Nelle said, “I don’t believe Johnny is guilty. I
know
he isn’t guilty.”

“All the evidence points that way,” I said. “It may be only circumstantial but it’s all the evidence that we have. The fact that he won’t come out to defend himself …”

Nelle was wiping her mouth with a frilly handkerchief. “That doesn’t make me believe it.”

“What evidence have you got otherwise—besides sisterly love?”

I hoped that she wouldn’t pull the intuition gag on me. She didn’t. Her eyes met mine and now they were darker. “I saw Johnny. He told me so.”

I got up off the couch. It was a spontaneous movement. I put my hands on her shoulders. “Go on,” I ordered. “Don’t stop now.”

That’s all, Nick. He said he was working at it.”

“And asked for your help?”

“No. You know Johnny wouldn’t involve me in anything like this.”

“All right, you insisted on giving your help. That’s the same thing.” I was puzzled, and a little hurt. If Johnny was working on it why hadn’t he got me in too?

“You always did jump at conclusions, Nick,” she said. “Just believe me, Johnny isn’t guilty.”

I mocked her, “I’d help, if I knew what to do.”

She flushed and tried to get out from under my grip. I dug in a little deeper. I wanted to watch her for a while yet. I wanted to see if I couldn’t learn something. “If I could help,” she said, “would I dare?” She shook her head, no, answering her own question. “Not when you think Johnny is guilty.”

“In other words,” I said slowly, “whatever you have to tell me would look bad for Johnny.”

“It doesn’t look bad to me,” she said. “It might to you.”

She changed pace again. Her hands came up, closing over my wrists. But she wasn’t trying to get away, she was caressing me with her fingers. “Nick, let’s stop this. We aren’t getting anywhere.”

Her voice took on a pleading note. “Trust me, Nick, please. You—you loved me once. Don’t stop now.”

That subtle change I had felt was gone. Nelle was as she had been earlier. She was smothering me. It was like being in deep water. And it was like welcoming the warmth of death. I wanted to breathe in that water, deeply, and get it over with. I fought like hell.

“Trust you?” I said. “And stick my neck out?” It was ugly; it was the only defense I had. “Go on loving you? You want to swap, is that it?”

She said, “Swap?” faintly.

I hated myself. “Swap. I lay off Johnny and I get you.”

Her fingers stopped caressing my wrists. She jerked my hands from her shoulders. Quickly, she swung free of me. I could see the flush brightening her cheeks.

“I don’t want you to lay off Johnny,” she said crisply. “I want you to help him.”

She was game, I had to admit that. She didn’t quit. I said, “But I don’t get any assistance at all.”

“I told you, Nick. What little I know—wouldn’t help.”

It was nice reasoning, I guess. But it didn’t make sense to me. “I’ve been helping Johnny,” I said. “Despite you and Hall and Johnny himself. And I’ll keep right on until I’m sure he’s guilty.”

“And then?”

“If he is,” I said, “I’ll do what I can to turn him in. Like I would Hall—or you. Until then, I’ll keep an open mind, I’ll keep on trying to help him.” I ran a hand over my jaw. It was still sore. “You don’t have to take me into the bedroom to get me to do that, Nelle.”

She just went to the coffee table, picked up the dishes, and walked into the kitchen. I could hear water running in the sink. I felt about as good as if I had knocked her down and kicked her.

But I was sore, too. She had refused to give me any help. Instead, she was trying to make a trade—herself for protection for Johnny. It was cockeyed, because that wasn’t Nelle. Not the real Nelle. And she was so damned obvious about it, so childish, like a high school kid.

I stood there, listening to the water running, and trying to add everything up. It added all on one side of the sheet, on the debit side so far as Johnny was concerned. There was his gun, there was his contact with Edna Loomis, there was Hall’s contention—and in heavier red ink than the rest was the way Nelle acted.

I went into the kitchen and Nelle turned from the sink. I said, “Did you try to kill Kane Hall, Nelle?”

“No.”

“Do you know who did?”

“It wasn’t Johnny.”

“Where is Johnny?”

“I don’t know.”

I said, “When did you see him?”

“Recently.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll go ask him myself.” I walked out, a little wobbly, but able to manage. I got my hat and coat and went to the car. I drove to the Oxnan.