Noir(ish) (9781101610053) (14 page)

She hung up, walked back to the booth, and stood there, lost in thought.

“Somethin' wrong?”

“Yeah, something's wrong!
Where
were you when you called me?”

“I told you: the Hotel Niagara. Trying to stop my head from spinning.”

“Anyone see you there?”

“Fritz Lorre,” I told her. “I talked to him when I got there. The desk clerk, Jacques something, saw me leave. So did the kid who runs the elevator. Why?”

Stanwyck picked up her purse. “Well,” she said, “this is gonna
make
your head spin, Robert. Gloria Mitchum? She's missing.”

“Missing?”

“From the morgue. Bacall says the coroner just called. Looks like somebody sneaked in, knocked out the guy on duty—he's okay, but he didn't see a thing—and stole his clothes. And her body.” She took a quarter from her pocketbook and dropped it on the table. “I'll call you when I get a minute,” she said. “You can tell me the rest then.” She looked at me once more, shook her head and walked out.

I was hungry. I finished my sandwich.

* * *

The rain had begun again by the time I was through, but it was just intermittent drops and I couldn't get much wetter, anyway. I slung the raincoat over my shoulder and went to the register. I asked Ed, “How much?”

“Egg sandwich and coffee?” I nodded. “Forty cents,” he computed.

I checked my pockets. They yielded a dime, two nickels and some pennies, so I reached for my wallet. It wasn't in the hip pocket where I usually kept it. Or anywhere else. “I seem to have forgotten my wallet,” I said.

Hopper shrugged. “Oh, that's okay, Mr. Grahame. I trust you for it.”

“Thanks, Ed. I'll bring it around tomorrow. Sorry.”

“Sure. No problem. Night.” He sat and picked up his paper again.

“Good night,” I said. I opened the umbrella and walked into the dampness of the approaching dusk.

Chapter 10

Thursday, June 26th, 1947, 9:00 p.m.

I knew I had my wallet when I went into the Niagara. I hadn't thought to check for it when I came to. I was sure it had disappeared while I was “asleep” in the Harlow Suite. I figured there was no point in looking for it there—I'd call Fritz in the morning just in case—so I went home.

The rain had stopped, it looked like for good. On the way, a little sun made its way through the gray sky, but by the time I got there, it had set and a fog was settling in. I pulled the two days' mail from my mailbox, clambered into the elevator, and rode express—well, nonstop, anyway—to five, glancing through the envelopes on the way. A couple of bills that Lizabeth Duryea's five hundred dollars and Dan Scott's sixteen were gonna make easier to pay, my
Ellery Queen
magazine, an invitation to a July Fourth barbeque from Wally and Phyllis that I'd decline: It was the day after The Day that was a year, next Thursday. I didn't expect I'd be very good company.

The rest were typed and looked official. I ignored them.

Before I had the door unlocked, I heard Greenstreet's yowl and The Song playing. I dropped the mail on the bar, fed the cat, turned the fan to high and the radio off, changed into dry clothes, and called Lizabeth's number. There was no answer, which was no surprise. Then I called the number she'd given me for Dan Scott. No answer there, either. Just in case, I looked through the telephone directory; there were a dozen Scotts listed whose first names were Dan, Daniel, or D. None of them was in Westwood, and none of their numbers matched the one Jacques had written down. I called that, too.

There was no answer.

I decided I'd look for it tomorrow. McPherson knew people at the phone company.

Despite the coffee and the sandwich, my head and my stomach were still at war, so I took a couple more aspirin. They could battle it out over who'd be relieved; I'd feel better no matter which one won. Then I took the garbage to the incinerator. I wasn't around often enough to have much besides Greenstreet's empty cans, my empty bottles, and a few eggshells and bread wrappers, but the smell of cat food residue and kitty litter reminded me it was time. When I came back, I poured a drink. That would mollify the loser of the aspirin war—maybe the winner, too. That's when I heard the elevator thump to a halt and its doors grind open. Over his protests, I shut Greenstreet, food dish and all, in the bedroom, switched off the lights, took my spare gun from the silverware drawer, and waited for the knock.

* * *

When it came, it was a light tap. I was hidden in the archway that connected the dark kitchen to the short hallway that led to the living room, where there was only a faint glow from the fogbound streetlights. My gun was at the ready. The knock was repeated, followed by a long moment of silence. Then a soft voice called, “Robert?”

Another tap on the door. “Robert? Are you there?”

I waited. The door wasn't locked. The knob jiggled; the door opened quietly. Someone stepped through and stood a moment—acclimating to the darkness, I supposed. I heard more taps, on the wall: the search for a light switch. Then the overhead flicked on. The voice repeated, “Robert?” The door clicked closed.

From where I stood, I could only see the shadow cross the floor. But I knew the voice.

In the bedroom, Greenstreet yowled. The shadow turned toward it hastily, and its voice said a startled “Hello?” Greenstreet didn't answer. Neither did I.

I watched the shadow move into the room, gradually becoming a pair of shoes that were all but covered by an ankle-length black wool coat. Lizabeth Duryea appeared, purse in hand, stepping stealthily into the center. She looked around again. Then, seeing and hearing no one, she went to a window and waved. She waited a moment, then turned back into the room.

I was standing there, my gun pointing at her chest. “Robert,” she said again. She tried to smile.

I flicked the gun toward a chair. “Have a seat, Miss Duryea. It'll take him a while to get up here. The elevator's slow. You probably noticed.”

“Robert, it's not what you think. You must believe me.”

“Must I?”

“Yes,” she insisted. “You
must
. It wasn't only you. I, I was a victim, too: They, they knock' me out.”

“Yeah?” She nodded. “Let me feel the lump.”

“No. They, they use'—floracorn?” She covered her mouth with a glove and wheezed. “Then they dragg' me out of the hotel room.”

I smiled. That floracorn sounded awful. “How'd you get away?”

Lizabeth's eyes opened as wide as I'd ever seen eyes open. They sparkled like roman candles. “I . . . don't know. When I woke up, I was in a strange alley. With only my purse, but all the money was gone, an' this.” She reached toward a coat pocket.

“
Unh-uh
,” I said.

“But . . .”

I pointed. “That pocket?”

“Yes.”

“Put down your bag.” She hesitated. “
Go on!
” She let the purse fall beside her. “Now: Put one hand into the air and reach in your pocket with the other, very slowly, just your fingers.” She did as told. Slowly. The fingers came out with my wallet.

“Your license is in it. It shows where you live. Here.”

I took it and flipped it open. My PI and driver's licenses were there. So was the eighteen dollars I recalled having, my Social Security card, and an extra office key, along with a couple pictures taken of
us
last year on the carousel at Santa Monica Pier. We were both smiling. I hadn't looked at them in months, but I remembered they were there every time I reached for a dollar bill.

I closed it and crammed the wallet into my hip pocket. “Thanks. And I suppose Dan just happened to come along and you both thought it would be nice to pay me a visit.”

“Dan is not here,” she protested. “Dan hasn't seen me. I am still fearful of him.”

“Yeah, I'll bet you are.”

“It was just a nice man who brought me here in a taxi. He was making sure I was all right. He is not there now. Look, you can see: The street is empty.”

I tilted the gun toward the sofa. “Move over there. And have that seat. Now!”

She went silently.

I waited until she was settled, then went to the window. The night was painted charcoal: Clouds covered the moon and stars, and the fog covered everything else. If Scott was down there, I couldn't see him, and I had no idea how he'd managed to see Lizabeth waving five floors up. I looked anyway, just to be sure: Like I said, in the dark you looked out for things that might go bump.

And you listened for them. Things like the elevator screeching its lethargic way up the shaft. I looked at Lizabeth. I still wasn't smiling. “Who's that?”

She was trembling. I had to admit: The girl was good. “I . . . I don't know,” she said with totally believable uncertainty.

I cracked the front door and stood to its side; I'd be invisible until someone walked in. “Yeah, well,” I said, “no one else lives on this floor. If it stops here, you better figure it out real quick, or you're both gonna be sorry he made the trip.”

The elevator continued its rise, creaking up to five and, without stopping, past it. I breathed a sigh of relief. My head still hurt, my stomach ached, and I wasn't up to wrestling with a guy as big as Dan Scott. I'd carried a gun since the day I got my PI license, but I'd never fired it at anyone. Of course I'd never had to face Goliath before and I hadn't brought a slingshot.

“I—
tol
' you he wasn't there,” Lizabeth announced.

“Yeah, you told me.” I closed the door and sat across from her in a stuffed chair, the Smith and Wesson, still trained, in one hand and my drink in the other. “Now you can tell me some other things. For starters, who killed Bugsy Siegel, you or Dan?”

She looked flustered. “I . . . don't know. I di'n't know him. I only saw him the one—”

“You're lying, Lizabeth.” I sipped my drink. It tasted really good and made me look forward to the next one. “Maybe you only ‘saw' him the one time. That's when he beat you up, so Dan made another date with him for you, but instead of doing what he wanted to do, you did what you wanted to: You shot him. I guess your aim wasn't all that good—you only hit him two times out of nine tries, but that was plenty to make him very dead. That's how it was, isn't it.”

“No, I—”

“That would've been okay. Bugsy deserved it, and nobody's really sorry he's dead. You bumped him off and made it look like a professional hit—but then you had to make it look like someone else did it so Dan, who had some kind of deal going with him, wouldn't suspect you. And for some reason—I haven't been able to figure what it is—you decided
I
was the man of the hour. So right after you left my office Tuesday night, you called a guy who worked for Bugsy named Victor Bianco and told him I did it, and the proof was I had the bullets. I was trying to blackmail you with those bullets: If you didn't pay me, I was gonna turn you over to the mob and tell 'em you gave them to me.” I swallowed more bourbon. My head
and
my stomach felt one swallow better. “And Vic called Moe Sedway, another mob guy—you ever meet him?” Lizabeth shook her head. “I didn't think so. Anyway, Vic only got to tell Moe part of the story because while he was tellin' it he had a heart attack—which was an inconvenient something you didn't plan on. He only got as far as ‘Grahame has the bullets.' He never even got around to saying it was a woman who called him.

“When you found out Vic was dead,
that's
when things started getting messy, so you decided you wanted the bullets back, and you went to my office last night to take a long hard look all by yourself. But Gloria was there, so you killed her and took
those
bullets so the cops couldn't match 'em to the ones that shot Bugsy, if they ever got hold of them.”

“No, Robert, I—”

“Oh, you were good, sweetheart, real good. In fact, you only made one mistake: You didn't know I knew Moe Sedway. And that
Moe
knows everything that happens in the LAP—”

The apartment door flew open. There, framed by the light from the hall, wearing an ill-fitting brown morgue attendant's uniform and a white lab coat, stood Gloria Mitchum.

In one hand, she held my Colt .38.

Chapter 11

Thursday, June 26th, 1947, 9:45 p.m.

With her other hand Gloria clutched a pillow to her side, the reward from the bank.

“Please give her your gun, Mr. Grahame,” she said with the same winsome smile she wore while taking dictation. “Not that it could
really
hurt her, but these make
such
a lot of noise. I just
knew
this”—she waved the pillow—“woul' be useful. If I nee' to use . . .” She waved my gun, took a step in, closed the door, and said, “Onipul?”

Lizabeth left the sofa abruptly. “What
kept
you?” she demanded. She snatched my Smith and Wesson with a gloved hand. I'm sure I looked confused.

Gloria shrugged. “Oh, I just figure' it woul' be smarter to take the elevator all the way up and the stairs back down. It is
so
noisy!”

Nuts
, I thought. I said, “Hello, Gloria.”

“Hel
lo
, Mr. Grahame!” she said brightly.

“You're looking well for a girl who's been dead for twenty-four hours.”

“Why, thank you. We do do our best to keep up appearances.”

“Must be pretty hard, with all those bullet holes in you.”

“Oh, they were just lea'. They heal' very quickly.”

“I'll bet it's tough, being a doctor where you come from. They must make less than private eyes.”

She laughed. “I
like
' working for you, Mr. Grahame. You have a real sense of humor. I hope you'll keep it once we're back home.”

I sat forward in the chair. “And home is . . . ?”

Gloria laughed again. “Venus, of course. One hundre' seventy-two thousan', five hundre' thirty-eight million miles away.”

“Give or take,” Lizabeth added. She chuckled.

“An' I hope,” Gloria went on, “you'll even learn a little of
our
language. Yours is
so
difficult—all those strange names like ‘telephone.' It took me
weeks
to learn to call it that! Onipul here”—she pointed toward Lizabeth—“coul'n't remember that to save her life.” She sighed. “An' so many words en' with ‘dees'! We just can't say them!”

“Well,” I said, “you'll have plenty of time to learn. They give life sentences for murder on this planet. Or they give you the gas chamber.” Lizabeth—Onipul—laughed. “I'm glad you think it's amusing. The cops probably won't.”

“When you tell them what, Robert?” she said with a sneer. “A little green woman from Venus shot Bugsy Siegel?”

“Yeah. For starters. Except you're not green. In any sense of the word.”

“I think not.” Lizabeth snickered. I grimaced. “
No one
will believe you. Not even Lieutenant Stanwyck. Earth cops are so—sinningle.”

She meant “cynical.” But she was probably right.

I sniffed. Gloria turned serious. “Now,” she said, “enough dallying. Give me the bullets.”

I spread my hands in the air. “I don't have them,” I said, and sank back in the chair.

Gloria looked petulant. “Oh, come now, Mr. Grahame. We're not petty thugs like those two the mob sent. An' don't preten' they're at your office. We've look' there. Twice.”

I wished I had another drink. I wished I had a cigarette. Most of all, I wished I'd told Stanwyck the whole story: I might be sitting across from her right now in some nice club, drinking
and
smoking, and Lizabeth Duryea and Gloria Mitchum—or whatever their names really were—would be locked inside cells where they belonged.

“You oughta know where they are, Gloria. You
did
hear my phone call to Stanwyck. While you were lying there last night, waiting for the ambulance? Right?” Gloria pursed her lips and flared her nostrils. She nodded tersely, once. “Uh-huh. I gave 'em to her,” I said. There's nothing like telling the truth when there's nothing else to tell. “The ones she used on Siegel, anyway. I never found the ones— Where
are
the ones she used on you? Or did you do that yourself?”

“Her work, of course,” Gloria said. “Onipul's what you so charmingly call a hitman.”

“And the bullets?”

They both found
that
question highly amusing. “I tol' you:
They
were Earth bullets. I ate them, of course.” Gloria giggled.

I frowned. “Uh-huh. Sure you did.”

“Enough!” Lizabeth interjected, the first time I'd heard her raise her voice. “We have to get those bullets back. They've got at least five more days. If
he
gets hol' of them . . .”

“Oh, I think Robert can do that for us. Can't you, Robert.” Gloria raised the gun so it was level with my eyes and pointed it between them. “You don't mind if I call you Robert, do you? An informal death threat is a congenial death threat. That's what I always say.”

“Oh?” I said, regretting giving her the bonuses.

“I think a call to Lieutenant Stanwyck will be very effective.”

I laughed. “You don't know Stanwyck. She'd let me die before she'd tamper with evidence.”

“I don't think so, Robert,” Lizabeth said. “Why don't you telephonick her—excuse me: tele
phone
her—an' see? Or . . .” She pointed the S&W at the shantung shade on the floor lamp and fired. The shade, the bulb inside it, and the wall behind exploded. Sputtering wires crackled for a moment. Smoke trailed from them upward; then they turned black. So did the wall. My mood already was.

“Onipul! Noise!” said Gloria. “
An'
you're wasting perfectly goo' lea'.”

“
Sor
ry.” Lizabeth brought the end of the barrel to her lips, puckered, and blew on it. “I'm an excellent shot, Robert. The last seven bullets were just . . . subterfudge. I'm sure Mr. Siegel woul' tell you that.”

“If he could.”

“Yes.” She sighed and smiled wickedly. “He was so charming. He sai' I have ‘such a sweet smile.'”

“Straight off the cover of
Modern Screen
.”

“Yes. Now.” She pointed the gun at the phone, then at me.

I nodded, got up and dialed. “Detective Stanwyck,” I said. “This is Grahame. . . . I'll wait.”

Gloria watched me, then plopped herself into one of the stuffed chenille chairs with a large sigh. “
I
am getting hungry.”

Lizabeth shook her head. “Can't you ever wait!”

“That's easy for you to say!” Gloria shot back. “You weren't shut up in a locker for a whole night. A
col'
locker. Completely undress'. An'
without
a purse. I finish' what was in it anyway, before you came last night.” Lizabeth nodded and held my gun steadily, its sight trained on my chest. “An' I finish' all of these”—Gloria tapped the Colt in her hand—“while we were at your office tonight.” She looked at me and smiled. “Except one. Just in case,” she said, and turned back to Lizabeth. “You might remember that.”

Lizabeth snorted. “‘You might remember that,'” she repeated, and reached for her bag. She rummaged inside it with one hand, drew something out, and tossed it to Gloria. Gloria held it up. It was the miniature six-shooter from my Cracker Jack box.

“This is
it
?” she asked, clearly annoyed.

“Oh, all right!” Lizabeth said exasperatedly, and fired the Smith and Wesson's five remaining rounds into her.

“No, Lizab— Don't shoo—” Gloria trembled and twinged as each bullet pierced her body: neck, chest, arm, and stomach twice. The first two went through the pillow; feathers flew everywhere, and the pillow itself sailed from her flailing arms across the room. She grabbed at her heart with her gun hand while blood splattered from every wound. The lab coat and uniform were covered with it in seconds, and bright red spurts sprayed the chair, the carpet, and the wall behind her. “Li-za-beth!” she moaned.

Usually I have pretty good reflexes, but I was too surprised to do anything but hold the phone.

Lizabeth blew on the barrel. “What?” she said.

Gloria stood up, wiping the blood off her face and neck with the doilies from the arms of the chair and brushing away the red and white feathers that were stuck to her. She was plainly unhappy. “Look at this mess!” she demanded.

Lizabeth shrugged. “It's just bloo',” she said.

“You
might
have just emptie' the gun an'
given
them to me! Honestly!” she said. “Now go get yours.” She finished wiping away the worst of it, then sighed and calmly popped each bullet out of her body. Still leaking blood, she sat down again—
I'm going to need to replace that chair
, I thought—and, one by one, popped them into her mouth.

I shook my head in disbelief.

“
Sor
ry,” said Lizabeth. She dropped the empty S&W on the floor and retrieved the gun with the rainbowed barrel from her bag. While she did, Gloria—apparently recovered and munching as contentedly as Greenstreet—kept the Colt focused on me.

“I
tol'
you, Mr. Grahame,” she said. “Oh, I was
so
excite' the first time I saw one of your cowboy pictures:
Enemy of the Law
, it was call'. All those men telling each other to ‘eat lea'.'” She laughed heartily. “It was just like back home. Except for the men, of course,” she added, and continued to chew her meal thoroughly. I'd never heard anyone chew lead before. The crunch was probably audible in Santa Monica.

“Uh-huh,” I said, still more than a little dubious despite what I was seeing. “Of cour— Stanwyck, it's Robert,” I said into the phone. “Look, I need you to do something kind of unusual. . . . Well, those bullets I gave you?—the ones that might be from Siegel. . . . Yeah. I need you to bring them to me, at my apartment. . . . Right away. . . . I
know
you can't do that, but there are a couple of— I don't know what to call them, but they absolutely—”

“Venusians, Mr. Grahame,” Gloria interjected.

I ignored her. “—insist on getting them back. . . . That's right. The bullets are
theirs. . . .
Uh-huh. . . . Yeah, you might say that. . . . Okay.” I looked at Lizabeth. She waved her gun and held up an index finger. I nodded. “And you better come alone. . . . Okay.” I hung up and looked at Gloria. “She'll be here in thirty minutes.”

“See?” Lizabeth smiled. “That wasn't so ha— difficult.”

“I guess not. But tell me—there's just a couple of things I can't figure out.”

“
Only
a couple?”

“Why did you call to ‘warn me' off the case.”

Lizabeth shook her head. “I di'n't.”

“Oh?”

Gloria had finished picking the bullets from her body. She popped the last one from my Colt into her mouth and followed that with the six-shooter, chewed them, swallowed, and sighed. “I could eat a dozen more! I am
so
hungry. You don't happen to have a few lying aroun', do you?”

I shook my head.

“Oh, well.” She sighed again and tossed the empty Colt to the floor. “No, Robert.
I
was the one who call',” she said in the dark, rumbling voice I recognized from the phone call. “One of the more interesting things about Earthlings is, the more you tell them
not
to do something, the more determine' they become to do it. We knew the money woul' bring you in, but something else was necessary to make sure you woul' stay in.”

“Very clever.”

“
I
thought so. I wrote the ‘We have Dan Scott' letter, too.” She giggled perkily. I frowned. I
had
recognized the handwriting. “Earth men always underestimate women. From anywhere.”

“We
are
very clever, as you so neatly put it,” Lizabeth chimed in.

“The police may think otherwise.”

Again, they laughed. “You are
so
insistent!” said Gloria.

I shrugged. “I figure it's my civic duty.” I reached for my glass. It was empty, and I wanted that refill. “Mind if I get another?” I said, and pointed at the kitchen.

“Oh,
I'll
get it,” Gloria said eagerly. “I so enjoy' bringing you your coffee each morning.”

“Sure you did,” I said.

She took the glass. “You know,” she chirped, “it isn't often I get to do something like that.”

Lizabeth sneered. “I guess she's just a Suzie Homermaker at heart.”

“Be right back.” Gloria giggled and started to leave the room. “Oh—ice?” she asked. I nodded. “It's in your icebox, isn't it?” I nodded again. She smiled and said, “Okeydokey. I'll even deal with
that
—for you.”

“Thanks,” I said. This time, she did leave, complete with a trail of blood. The carpet would have to go, too.

Lizabeth kept her gun pointed in my direction. She smiled, too.

Gloria came back shivering and handed me the drink. “Thanks,” I said again. I swallowed and turned to Lizabeth. “The other thing is: Why
did
you kill him? Siegel.”

“We ha' an agreement,” she said. She sat again, looking relaxed for the first time since she'd edged her way into my apartment. She laid the odd gun in her lap. Her hand rested on top of it. “He ignore' it.”

“An agreement? For what?”

“To open up an illegal trade line between Venus and Earth,” said a deep voice from the doorway. I turned, in unison with Lizabeth and Gloria.

Gloria shrieked, “The Captain!”

Dan Scott was standing there, this time wearing a red-and-black-checkered suit with a powder-blue shirt and the same green-with-orange-shamrocks tie. His gun was in his left hand, and the usual smile was on his face.

Lizabeth started to lift her gun. “I wouldn't do that!” Scott thundered. She froze. He smiled. “A very wise decision, ‘Miss Duryea,'” he said, and dipped his huge head in a tiny bow. Lizabeth ignored it. “You can just push it to thee floor. But very carefully, please; I wouldn't want to misinterpret what you were doing.” Lizabeth did. It landed with a dull thud on the carpet.