Never Love a Stranger (44 page)
—and——” His voice seemed to choke up in his throat and he couldn’t speak. He stood there looking down at them silently, his throat working convulsively, his Adam’s apple jumping up and down.
Janet reached up and took his hand and drew him down to her. He sat between them, his face in his hands. “You know the rest of the story,” he muttered between clenched fingers.
Janet looked at Martin over bowed head. There was a look of understanding, of love and sympathy for him on her face. She spoke to Jerry, but it seemed to Martin that she was talking to him. “We know, darling,” she said softly. “And that’s why we’re going to do what we are.”
A strange look came into her eyes; they seemed to be seeing far ahead into the future. Her voice took on a mystical quality. She spoke to Martin. “What would you do if you had your life to live over again? What would you do for Francis?”
For a moment Martin thought he was crazy. He jumped to his feet. “Why, that’s preposterous! We all know that Francis is dead.”
The flame in Janet’s eyes glowed brighter. “What would you do if I told you he wasn’t?” she asked softly.
F
ENNELLI
was waiting in my office when I got back from lunch. He jumped to his feet when I entered the room. I crossed the office and sat down behind my desk. I turned the switch down on the inter-office phone so that my secretary would know I was in—I had entered by the private elevator. The one-o’clock report was on my desk. I picked it up and looked at it before I spoke to Fennelli.
Then I looked up at him; he was standing in front of my desk. He seemed to be a little nervous. Perhaps someone who didn’t know him as well as I did wouldn’t detect it, but I did. There were little signs: the studied stillness of his hands, the slightest pressure of his lips—little things that gave him away.
I smiled. “Sit down, Silk.” I lit a cigarette and watched him seat himself. “What’s on your mind?”
He jumped to his feet again. “The pressure’s really on, Frank.”
He was telling me! For the last six weeks I didn’t dare cross the river into New York and he was telling me the pressure was on! I didn’t speak.
He put his black Homburg on the desk. “I mean it, Frank. They’ve really turned on the heat. Cowan saw the Governor the other day and got permission to start on us first since they can’t get to you.”
I knew that too. I was paying a guy right in the Governor’s office two c’s a week to keep me posted. I knew when Cowan made the appointment and when he kept it. I even had a transcript of their conversation in my desk. There was still nothing for me to say, so I kept my mouth shut and smoked my cigarette.
Silk was watching me. When he saw I didn’t speak, he spoke again. “We’ve got to do something. The boys are worried.”
“What boys?” I asked.
“Madigan, Moscowits, Kelly, Carvell, the whole bunch.” “You too?” I asked.
He sat down again and nodded his head. “Me too.”
I laughed. I remembered when I used to think these guys were tough and that nothing fazed them. Now I knew different. They were tough enough in their own cute way, but if anything went wrong they came running to papa.
“What do you want me to do,” I snapped, “hold your hands?” Silk flushed a little. “Can’t you get to Cowan in some way?”
“I told you I tried that and it can’t be done.” I was lying. I didn’t even try. If I had, I didn’t think he would bite anyway.
“How about the guy himself?” Silk asked. “Maybe he’s got something hidden away somewhere he don’t want anybody to know about?”
I laughed again. “That guy’s led so decent a life it’s disgusting. There’s nothing there.” “How about his family?”
“You know his old man yourself,” I pointed out. “Do you think you can hang anything
“His wife?” Silk asked.
“No dice there,” I said. “I checked that, too. They’ve known each other a hundred years—ever since they were kids. They were engaged since they left high school. There’s never been anyone to nail there.”
“There’s got to be a way to stop him,” Silk muttered.
I stood up and walked over in front of Silk and looked down at him. “Sure, it’s very simple. All I got to do is walk into his office and say: ‘O.K., boys, here I am, what can I do for you?’” I stopped for a second and ground out my cigarette in the ash tray. Then I turned back to Silk. “Just like that!”
Silk held up his hand. “You know we don’t mean that, Frank.”
“How do I know what you swine mean?” I snarled. “All I know is that you guys come whining over here every goddam time something goes wrong.
“Can’t you dopes see that that’s what they want you to do—play you around till one of you cracks wide open? Then they’ll have all of us.
“Sit tight. Keep your mouths shut! Leave the thinkin’ to me and stop whining every time the wind blows cold!
“You guys put me here to do a job for yuh and I’m doin’ it.”
I turned and looked him straight in the eye and put a different inflection in my voice. “That is—unless you guys ain’t satisfied?”
“Oh, no, Frank. We’re satisfied all right,” Silk protested a little too quickly.
I knew about the talks the boys in New York were having too. If I gave them a chance they’d throw me to the wolves as quick as the next guy.
“Then go back there and tell them to stop shiverin’. You can tell them that I’m on top of every move they make and that I want them to do what I say.
“I’ve made arrangements to get every guy out that they pinch, within a few minutes after they book him. You tell them to keep operatin’ until I tell them different.” I went back to my desk and sat down.
Silk picked up his hat and moved towards the door. “I’ll tell them what you said, Frank.” His voice was respectful, but his eyes were showing green.
I changed the subject. “You’re nine g’s behind on your share of the pool last week.
While you’re here, go down and see Joe Price and square it.”
“I’ll do that, Frank,” he said, his hand on the door, his eyes shifting around the office.
I threw another punch. “And Silk,” I said quietly, “don’t forget that I remember you once wanted this job for yourself—and that I got a good memory.”
He took his hand off the door and held it towards me. “Don’t forget,” he said, in a queer tone of voice for him, “if I didn’t give you your first break, you never would have got this setup.”
“I’m not forgettin’,” I answered quietly. “That’s why I’m talking to yuh so polite.”
He hesitated in the doorway a moment. He looked as if there were something else he wanted to say but couldn’t get the moxie up to say it. He went out and closed the door
behind him. The trouble with these guys was that they’d been pushing others around for so long that they forgot they were human enough to stand a little shoving themselves.
I reached for the phone. “Get me Alex Carson.” Carson was the top shyster for the firm. I had to tell him to follow through on the idea I had when I was talking to Fennelli— the one about setting up bond and bailing the gee’s out as soon as they were pinched. Sometimes a little talk went a long way towards clearing things up. I was always ready to talk things out. The trouble was I couldn’t trust any of them enough to talk with, so I had to dope the whole works out myself. I could only tell them a little at a time or else they would know as much as I did and soon begin to get ideas.
When I was through with Carson, I hung up the phone and turned back to my desk. There were a lot of things I had to do. I smiled a little to myself. Easy living was hard work.
A girl came in with the five o’clock report and stood there waiting while I read it. I looked up at her. “Anything in from Tanforan yet?” I asked.
“No, Mr. Kane.”
I picked up the phone and asked for Joe Price. Joe Price was the controller—a very smart guy with the numbers. When I picked him up, he was making a hundred fish a week as head accountant for some lousy little company. He had gone into the bag for a few g’s, and I thought I could use him, so I pulled him out. He was worth it. I wasn’t paying him a grand a week because I liked his looks.
He answered.
“How’d we make out on the first at Tanforan?” I asked. Tanforan was in California and was three hours behind us.
“We’re down about eight thousand,” he spoke in that clipped accountant’s voice of his, “and the pool is down about thirty.”
“How does it look for the day?”
“We’ll be lucky to break even,” he said.
“O.K.,” I said, and hung up the phone. You couldn’t make it every day.
My secretary was still standing near the desk. I looked up at her. “There is a woman outside waiting to see you—a Miss Coville.”
I looked puzzled. “How did she get past the front desk?” I asked, “I don’t recall the name.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Kane,” the girl replied. “I guess she just walked by.” She picked up the report from the desk. “She said you’d know her, she was Marty’s sister.”
“Oh, yes!” I knew her all right! What was she doing here? I hesitated a moment. To cover my thoughts, I asked: “Is Allison in yet, Miss Walsh?”
“No.” She started to go. “Shall I tell her you’re busy?” I hesitated again, then answered: “Yes.”
She went out. I looked down at the desk. I had been tempted to see her, but nothing would be gained by it. She probably would recognize me as the guy that was in the hospital, even though I had put on a little weight and a two-hundred-dollar suit. It was better this way.
A few minutes later Allison came in. He was my night secretary. I needed two—one for
day, one for night—and a woman was hard to get to work nights. I generally was around the office until pretty late, and all the tabulations were in. So I had hired Allison.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“There’s a lady waiting outside to see you, a Miss Coville,” he said. There was a funny look on his almost effeminate face. I never did like him. I could never trust a man who could take shorthand.
“I thought I told Miss Walsh to send her away,” I said.
“She’s still waiting, sir.” He rarely looked directly at me, but now he did. I was surprised to see how strong his jaw line was. “She said you had promised to see her.”
I gave up. I’d see her and get it over with. “All right,” I snapped, “send her in!”
I stood up as Allison opened the door for her. She stood there in the doorway a moment looking at me. She was dressed in a smoky-blue-grey suit that seemed to set well against her blue eyes. Her gaze was level and direct. Her mouth was firm and her jaw almost mannishly square.
She waited until the door closed behind her before she spoke. “It is you.” She walked towards me and held out her hand.
I ignored it. “Who did you expect it to be?”
She dropped her hand self-consciously to her side. Doubt flickered in and out of her eyes like shadows on a wall. “I don’t know,” she said, with a suggestion of nervousness in her voice. Then it grew calm. “Anyway, you were at the hospital that time. I wasn’t wrong.”
“What does that prove?”
“Why, nothing, I guess,” she answered. “It’s just that I thought——”
We had remained standing, facing each other across the desk, like fighters in a ring. “What do you want here?” I asked.
Her nervousness had gone completely. “I wanted to see you—to see if you were at the hospital—to see if you were the same person that had come into our house.”
“Now that you see who I am, is that all?”
She set her chin. She hadn’t changed very much. “You’re still the same person now that you were then. Only you’re older—and harder.”
I didn’t answer.
She began to speak again. “I shouldn’t have come. Marty and Jerry warned——”
With a bound I leaped across the space between us and put my hand over her mouth. “Shut up, you fool!” I whispered, harshly. “Don’t you realize that I’m watched every minute, that every one that comes here is watched? Why you couldn’t leave well enough alone, I don’t know!
“Don’t you know what will happen to them if I’m ever tied up to them? “I didn’t use their names but she knew who I meant. I let go her mouth, her lipstick was on my hand. I wiped it off on a handkerchief and looked at her.
She was close to tears. Her eyes were filled and her lower lip trembled. She sank into the chair in front of my desk.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t think.” “That’s just the trouble! You didn’t think!”
“I only wanted to help,” she said.
“Who, me?” I asked, sarcastically. “A lot of good you can do me! And if you’re ever traced to them, it’ll be tough. The best thing you can do when you get out of here is never to come back.”
She had gained control of herself. She stood up. Her voice was cool again and formal. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. It was a mistake even to try to help you. You haven’t changed a bit. No one can help you. You won’t let anyone try. You’ll just go along until you’re knocked down. I’m sorry I came.” She moved towards the door.
I watched her. I wanted to tell her I was glad to see her, wanted to tell her I missed the old bunch. But I didn’t dare. Maybe Jerry had sent her to me, looking for an angle. I couldn’t know.
“I’m sorry I was so rough with you,” I said gently.
“That’s all right,” she said, “I deserved it. I should have known better.” She was at the door. “Good-bye.”
I went to her and took her hand and smiled. “Anyway,” I said, “thanks for coming.”
We stood there a moment, our hands locked, looking into each other’s eyes. She leaned towards me. I felt a kiss brush my lips. “Remember what you said long ago,” she said. “Now we’re friends.”
“Good-bye,” I said, and watched her close the door.
I called Allison for the Tanforan report, and while I waited on the phone for him to read the figures, I was thinking. It was nuts. It was screwy. This was no time to fall for a dame, no matter who she was.
Or was it?
I
HAD
been seated at the desk a long time, lost in thought. Allison had come in, turned on the lights, and left. Time flickered by without notice. I had come a long way in the last few years. All the things I had ever wanted were now mine. I had money. I wore good clothes, ate well, lived well. What more did I need? A woman? Hell, all I had to do was snap my fingers and I had the best tail in the country! No, it wasn’t that.