Noir(ish) (9781101610053) (9 page)

“You meeting someone?”

“Could be.”

I held up the package. “Not a couple of cheap hoods named Elisha and Wilmer, by chance.”

Either Scott was a heck of a lot better actor than Jimmy Stewart, or even Ray Milland, or else he really was perplexed. “Elisha and who?”

“Wilmer. The boys who stopped by my office this morning. Your boys. 'Scuse me: Your boy and your girl. This”—I held up the package—“was there all the time. They didn't do a very thorough job. Except on me.”

He shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. “Grahame, I got no idea what you're talkin' about.”

“Oh. It was just an accident, you calling ten minutes after they left.”

Scott sat up. He was still smiling. “Accidents happen. All thee time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It's smart to watch where you're goin'.” There was no edge in his voice, no veiled threat, just a quiet cautionary note: big brother talking to little, the man who'd been there offering friendly advice to the man who hadn't.

Well, I'd been there. And I was in no mood for friendly advice from anyone, least of all a guy who was probably responsible for the stomachache I'd had all day and now was trying to buy me by buying something he already owned. “It's smarter to keep your monkeys off my back, Scott,” I said. With an edge in
my
voice.

Now he grinned and reached inside his suit jacket. “You're pullin' my leg, Grahame,” he said, and surreptitiously withdrawing a pistol and pointing it discreetly, but directly, at me. It was a large gun and a little peculiar: The barrel looked slightly bent. But maybe it looked that way because
I
was, from all that bourbon. “And I don't like it,” he added unnecessarily.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he would have shot Siegel. I was about to let him have the package, no more questions asked, when he reached into a side pocket with his free hand, took out a second, larger wad of bills, and dropped it on the table. “This is for your trouble. Now give me thee package. Or your pal Sydney might be wipin' up more wet spots than usual.”

Well, why not: If Scott was willing to pay for it, fine. Besides, what was in the package wasn't worth getting roughed up again, much less dying for. Not to mention the problems blood-spattered walls and the descent of a legion of cops would cause Sydney. And it looked like there was a lot of money wadded up on the table. I could use the dough. If it was real. If it
wasn't
stolen.

I wondered whether Scott knew what was in the little brown jug I was holding, or whether he'd be surprised when he found out. Or pleased. I laid it in the center of the table. Scott pushed the money toward me and picked the package up. “Thanks,” he said, with the same good cheer he'd had earlier. He examined the thing briefly, dropped it into his breast pocket, and stood up. “See you around,” he said.

I nodded. “Yeah. Be sure to give my regards to Lizabeth.”

“I'll be sure to do that,” Scott said. He was smiling again, that same annoying smile. “And be careful, or you might be givin' yours to Bugsy Siegel.”

“Y' know, everybody tonight seems to think he and I were bosom bodies.”

“That so?”

“That's so. I didn't have anything to do with Bugsy.”

Discreetly, Scott tucked the gun away. “That's a bad bruise on your face, Grahame,” he said in the same brotherly tone. “You
oughta
be more careful about where you're sticking it.”

“Thanks for the advice. But what's Siegel got to do with me?”

Scott shrugged. “
He
wasn't,” he said amiably.

“I see.”

He took a deep breath and yawned. Cherry Life Saver residue wafted over me. He tipped his head toward the exit. “This heat: It wears me out!” He yawned again; this time, he covered his mouth. “See,” he said, and leaned on the table, which, happily, was well built. He brought his face all the way into mine and spoke in that roar of a whisper: “They got him, and they can get you, too.”

“Ohhh . . .” I moved my face away from all that sweetness. “I suppose it's a matter of space.”

He stood up. “
Space
?” he said incredulously. “Nah, see, it's— Hey!” He stopped and perked his head. “You hear that?”

I did. For the twentieth time that night.

“My favorite song,” said Scott. “You like it?”

“I used to.”

He laughed. “Funny how people's tastes . . . change.”

“Yeah. A real laugh riot.”

Scott listened a moment and sighed. “Love that tune. Listen: I'm goin' out thee front door.
Don't
be behind me when I turn around. Okay?” I nodded. “S' long, Grahame. I'll be watchin' for you.” He saluted, widened the smile, and, calmly and casually, walked away and out of The Pickup without looking back.

I watched him go. I wanted another drink: The wooziness had all but vanished. I knew it would come back unless I quit now. What I really needed was coffee, hot, strong, and black. Besides, Scott had it all wrong. I was gonna give him
plenty
of time to disappear before I gave him
any
chance to make me disappear as well.

I wondered if Brown Hat was still twiddling his thumbs outside.

“Ready for something else, hon?” said Vivian, slinking to my side.

I looked at her. Her eyes
were
cat's eyes, green and narrow, and flecked with gold like Lizabeth Duryea's. “What'd you have in mind?”

She smiled and leaned over, revealing the little of her chest that had been left to the imagination. “
I
get off in half an hour,” she purred.

I nodded. “Most girls I know don't take that long.”

Vivian stood up. “Huh?” she said.

“Never mind.” I picked up the bills Scott had left on the table, peeled off a twenty, and held it out. “Here. Buy yourself some long underwear.”

She took it and stuffed it inside her top. I wondered what other denominations had occupied that privileged domain. “Thanks. Maybe I will.”

I ordered one more drink: the coffee. I wanted to make sure I was ready in case there were any surprises waiting when I walked out of The Pickup. While I waited for it, I counted the rest of the money. There was sixteen hundred twenty dollars, more than I took in most months. And it was all large bills, in no particular arrangement: nothing smaller than a twenty, but there were a few fifties and a couple of hundreds mixed in with them randomly. It was like there'd been a large pile and Scott had scooped up whatever was handy. I worried it might be fake or stolen. I'd ask Jules Bezzerides to have a look at it in the morning. He had one of those black light gizmos that could tell the real stuff from the counterfeit, and he'd helped me out before. I'd make it up to sweet little Vivian if it was phony. But if it wasn't—and I had the gut feeling that was the case—there was a new Buick in the offing. And maybe a fishing trip. Me and Wally and his partners, Bart Neff and Fred Keyes, could all head up the coast toward Santa Rosa for a few days. Or down it—there was good fishing not too far past the Mexican border. Maybe McPherson could join us.

Vivian brought the coffee. I was stirring in a half-teaspoon of sugar when Sydney stopped by.

“I have a call for you, Mr. Grahame,” he announced with another inscrutable smile, plugging in the phone he was carrying.

“Thanks, Sydney.” I took a swig of coffee. It burned my tongue, and it felt good everywhere else. Then I picked up the receiver. “This is Grahame.”

“Mr. Grahame,” the soft, trembling voice on the other end said, “this is Lizabeth Duryea.”

I was, to say the least, surprised. I
had
called her, several times during the day, and gotten no answer. I hadn't stopped by her apartment: There'd been enough to do without getting into a face-to-face conversation with a woman who seemed to play fast and loose with a lot of things, including, probably, the truth. And who happened to be a client
and
a woman who was very well aware of that fact, and that I was a man. I'd become pretty aware of that myself over the past year, and especially during the last twenty-four hours. Still . . . “Well . . . nice to hear from you, Miss Duryea.”

“I have to see you. Right away.”

I blew on the coffee and took another swig. “How'd you know I was here?”

Her voice was almost apologetic between the tremors. “I telephonick' your office. Your secretary tol' me you were going to The Pickup. I was going to come there, but I thought I sh— ought to call to be sure.”

“I was just about to leave.”

She gulped. “Dan is back.” Now she sounded terrified. Having seen him, I could understand why.

Even if she was his sister. Which she wasn't.

“I know. He was just here. I gave him a little package.”

“A . . . package?”

“Uh-huh.” Vivian flitted past. She waved. I waved back. “And he gave
me
sixteen hundred more dollars. Then he said he had to meet someone, seemed awful anxious to get going. I figured it might be you.”

Her laugh bordered on the hysterical. “I don't think so.”

“Where are you?”

“At a telephonick booth. At the corner of . . . South Street and Vine. Can you meet me? Please, it's very important. I'm very . . . afrai'. I don't know what to do.”

It was past ten, and I was tired and a little at sea: Lizabeth Duryea was a ride on a small but ritzy sailboat in the middle of a monsoon. And two late nights in a row with her wasn't going to make the ride any more settling. Scott had left me with doubts and questions I'd just as soon not have about a client. But . . .
nuts
: Those questions needed answers, and there was no time like the present.

South Street and Vine wasn't that far; I could catch a taxi and be there in ten or fifteen minutes. “Okay,” I said, “look: There's a little diner down the block from where you are. The Criss Cross. There's another telephone booth in front it. And a big ‘Phillies Cigars' sign above the window.”

She paused. Then: “Yes, I can see it.”

“I'll meet you there. Fifteen minutes.”

She paused again; then I thought I heard a sob. “All right,” she murmured worriedly. “Please hurry.”

I finished my coffee and left.

Chapter 6

Wednesday, June 25th, 1947, 10:30 p.m.

Brown Hat had been waiting. He was standing and smoking a cigar a dozen feet from The Pickup's entrance, hidden in the shadows beneath the awning of a pawnshop whose three bronze balls were just visible through the smog that had begun to smatter the streets. The tip of the cigar glowed in the dark, a little red beacon. Even if it hadn't, I would have known he was there: I could have smelled the cheap cheroot twice that far away. I felt sorry for him, standing all this time in the heat. I figured he had to be thirsty and he probably had to pee unless he'd ducked into an alley and risked my sudden exit. Well, that was his problem. Mine was Lizabeth Duryea.

It had been nice and cool in The Pickup, but on the streets it was still eighty-something and damp as a locker room after a tag-team wrestling match. And the air smelled just as musty. In Indianapolis, hot summer nights smelled like carnivals and new-mown grass. In San Francisco, the fragrance was fish. In Los Angeles, the scent was more like moldering dreams.

I felt sweat trickling thirty seconds after I set foot on the cement. I looked for a taxi; there wasn't one to be found, so I walked. In the first two minutes I'd sweated out whatever alcohol Scott hadn't shocked out of me. Halfway to the Criss Cross I was reminded about the something in my shoe; I didn't feel like stopping to shake it out, even though I was sure Brown Hat and his metal heels would keep their distance.

It took almost twenty-five minutes on foot. Brown Hat stayed a dozen paces behind me, and I continued to ignore him. The trickle had turned to a rushing stream by ten thirty, the time I got to the Criss Cross. The place was empty except for Lizabeth Duryea. I saw her through the window, huddled, knees up like a little girl who'd lost her favorite doll, against the wall of a three-sided red plastic booth toward the rear of the place, stirring a cup of what I supposed was coffee and holding a Sobranie. The tip of its black tube oozed gray smoke.

Like most places in L.A., the diner was air-conditioned. Restaurant and club owners thought air-conditioning was the greatest invention since the cash register. At times like this, so did I. Lizabeth didn't: She was wearing her gloves and coat and, I imagined, another ankle-length dress underneath its buttoned wool. What was underneath the dress . . . well, I
was
curious, which was curious in itself: It would be a year, next Thursday, since I'd had that sort of curiosity.

When I opened the door, Ed, the counterman, was placing a full sugar bottle on Lizabeth's table. The first thing I heard was the radio: Johnnie Johnston singing “Laura.”

Lizabeth blew on her cup, then set it quietly back on the saucer. “Thank you,” she said.

“Anything else?” Ed ventured in his lanky, friendly manner. Ed's a good guy. He's been working the night shift at the Criss Cross since before the Crash, eight p.m. till eight in the morning, and he's either friends with everybody who walks through the door or he makes friends with them the first time they do. He's the kind of guy you always wonder about, though: There's a sadness that hides behind his eyes. I suppose it's the kind of sadness you get from doing the same thing for twenty years and going home to nothing but your cat.

I had four years to go. I hoped I wouldn't make it.

* * *

“We got some good pie,” he said. “Homemade ice cream, made fresh this morning.”

“No, thank you,” said Lizabeth, staring into the black liquid.

“Well, lemme know if y' change your mind,” Ed said cheerfully. “Name tag”—he pointed at it—“says ‘Mr. Hopper,' but y' can call me Ed. Ev'rybody does. Oh, evenin', Mr. Grahame. Coffee?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Ed.” I pointed toward the radio. “Change the station, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Ed said. “Comin' right up.” He turned the dial. Stations crackled as he scanned. The weather was interfering with the reception. Hopper finally stopped at something static-free: the middle of Coleman Hawkins's version of “Laura.” I had that record. I shook my head.

Lizabeth lowered her feet to the floor, hugged her coat closer, and looked at me. She looked as worried as she'd sounded on the phone. “I was afrai' you woul'n't come,” she said.

“I was delayed. No cabs.”

She nodded. “Thank you for coming.”

The lingering smoke still smelled good to me. I waved it away. She put the cigarette out. “Thanks,” I said, and sat to her right, facing the front window. “Hot enough for you out there?”

“It's . . . comfortable. It's very chilly in here.”

“For
you
.
I
like it.” The skin below her eyes was red: Apparently she
had
been crying. “What's going on?”

She stirred the coffee without drinking it. “I'm . . . fearful, Mr. Grahame.”

“Of your ‘brother.'”

Lizabeth withdrew the spoon and clinked it once on the saucer. “Yes. He . . .he has a terrible . . . tamper. The package you gave him? Was it, I mean, the contents . . . ?”

“It wasn't a four-carat diamond, if that's what you mean.”

Her eyes panicked. “What was in it?”

“One of these.” I reached into a jacket pocket and took out a tiny metal six-gun, a perfect miniature of the Colt .45s Johnny Mack Brown and Tex Haines used, with a small loop extending from the hammer. “You get a prize like this free inside boxes of Cracker Jack. The box I bought had two of these. My lucky day.”

If the information relieved her, it didn't show. “I— What—happen' to . . . ?”

“Oh, nothing very complicated. I just wrapped the other one up the same way your package was wrapped and gave that to him instead.” I handed her the charm. “Here, you like guns. Won't keep you safe like the one you had last night, but it might come in handy sometime.”

She sniffed it. Then she licked it. “It's lea',” she said.

I shrugged. She didn't have much in the way of table manners, but she clearly had a keen sense of smell. And taste. “Maybe you can melt it down and make a bullet.” She let it lie in her hand a moment—the things that fascinate some people; then she put it carefully into her purse.

Ed headed toward our booth, coffee cup in hand. He wasn't as alluring as Vivian had been performing the same task, but I was a lot more comfortable with Ed's version. “Here y' are,” he said. “You let me know, y' want anything else.”

“Thanks, Ed.” I added a half-teaspoon of sugar, sipped, and winced. “I forgot,” I replied to Lizabeth's curious glance. “Speaking of lead: The coffee here tastes like it.” As often as I came to the Criss Cross, I never remembered that. Now and then I managed to finish a whole cup, but I couldn't remember ever asking for a refill. Thank God the place had good food. Ed made the best ice cream sundaes—“sundees,” he called them—in L.A., and they were cheap.

“Really?” Lizabeth took a sip and smiled. “Yes,” she said, “it does.” She took a larger swallow, set the cup down, looked at me with those worried eyes, and added: “Mr. Grahame: Where is the package I gave you?”

“You
saw
where I put it. What
is
in it, Miss Duryea? And
don't
tell me it's your birthday present.”

She looked down again. “I tol' you, I don't know.”

“Yeah,” I said, a little more harshly than I intended maybe, but darn it, I was getting tired of half-answered questions and vague suggestions. She was paying me good money.
Scott
had paid me
very
good money. He'd had no idea he wasn't getting his money's worth, and he'd probably let me know that in some very unpleasant way, but at this rate I'd be a rich man before the case was over. I wasn't complaining, but I like earning my dough. It makes me feel like a grown-up. “And you told me you and Dan were twins, too,” I went on. My steam was rising, and I didn't much care if she got scalded. “But either you got a picture in your upstairs closet or he hasn't aged very well.”

She put her face into her gloved hands and sobbed. “I'm . . . sorry.”

Well, she could sob all she wanted. A sob and a nickel got you a streetcar ride anywhere you wanted to go in Los Angeles, but a sob and five hundred bucks got you nowhere with me. “Yeah,” I said angrily. “Me too. I was just beginning to think you really
might
be in hot water.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Grahame!” she said, horrified. “I am in
col'
water.” She looked up, wide-eyed. The blue and the gold spun together like those gleaming two-sided coins hypnotists use. I had no idea what being “in
col'
water” meant, but at the moment, I didn't care.

“He— It's . . . He tol' me to tell you what I sai' last night,” she said sadly.

That made some sense. I backed off. She was a kid, and like Scott had said, she'd had a hard time, if half of what he'd said was true. And if the other half wasn't, it was probably worse; I imagined Scott could frighten anyone he made up his mind to frighten, and Lizabeth Duryea seemed to scare pretty easily. All right: I'd cut her some slack. If . . . “Okay.” I sipped my coffee again and added more sugar. “So now you can tell me the real story.”

“It's— He's . . .” She took another swallow of hers, a long one that almost emptied the cup, and set it down. “Can I trust you, Mr. Grahame? I mean, really
trust
you?”

“Depends,” I said.

“On what?”

“On whether I believe
you
.” I tasted my coffee again. It was still awful. “Up to this point, I've
been
believin' your five hundred dollars.”

She closed her eyes, then opened them, glanced toward the front window nervously, then looked straight into mine. “All right,” she began. “I'm . . . not from Los Angeles, Mr. Grahame. You may have notice': Sometimes my speech is not correct. Or in the correct form.”

“Go on,” I said.

She looked away. “He brought me here,” she stammered. “From another pla— . . . ce. ‘You are very young an' very pretty,' he tol' me . . .”

* * *

This time, I took mental notes.

They were in his living room, she recited vacantly, one evening last week, before he left.

Dan said, “Men'll like you, Lizabeth. They'll give you things. And they'll do favors for me. Important favors. All you gotta do is be nice to them.”

“You mean do . . . things with them.”

He kept smiling at her. “What-ev-er—they—want. Get it?”

She'd felt all fluttery, she said, “Like I do now.”

I nodded. “Go on.”

She said, “Yes, I get it.”

“Yeah, you get it,” Dan said. He grinned at her. “See, just 'cause you ain't the all-American girl, it don't mean you gotta be dumb.”

She started to cry.

“I di'n't want to, but I coul'n't help myself.” She sniffled and her eyes got moist.

I nodded. “Go on.”

“But, but that man last night,” she told Dan, “that—Bugsy? He hurt me.”

She sniffled again. “I think he
like'
hurting me.”

I nodded. Yeah, that sounded like Bugsy.

Dan grinned again. “Oh, now, it wasn't so bad,” he said, and pointed at her arm. “It's not like he left scars.”

“Please, Dan.” She didn't want to do that, she told him. Not anymore.

He took a step toward her. He was still smiling, very sweetly. Then he raised his hand to her face.

“I finch', but he put it on my cheek and he stroke' it, gently.” Lizabeth dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.

“Come on, sweetheart,” Dan whispered. “It'll just be one more time. I told him you'd come by Friday night; then he's goin' back to Vegas and you'll never have to see him again. He gave us a whole lot of money. And you got to keep some. Buy yourself some pretty things. Most of the girls I work with, they gotta give me everything. But you? You're special. You're my sweetheart.” He bent down and he kissed her forehead.

“‘I don't care about the money,' I tol' him.” She blew her nose into the napkin.

I nodded. “Go on.”

“
I care about it!
” he yelled at her. Then he took her face in one hand and squeezed. “I care,” he said again. “And if you know what's good for you, you will too. Right?”

She pleaded with him. He slapped her.

“Right?” he said.

“No, please, I, I . . .”

He slapped her again, harder this time, with the back of his hand.

“I coul' taste bloo' on my tongue,” Lizabeth said.

“Right?” he said again.

“I coul'n't do anything else. So I . . . move' my hea' up an' down.”

Dan got a drink. “See?” he said. “That wasn't so hard.”

“‘I'll do it,' I tol' him. Whatever he sai'. I just di'n't want him to hit me anymore.” She sobbed and covered her face with a new napkin. “‘Please,' I begg' him.”

But Dan kept smiling and got another drink. He gave it to her. “I always knew you was smart. Just keep bein' smart and I won't have to”—he raised his hand, like he was going to hit her again; she screamed; he laughed—“do that, or this”—he grabbed her wrist and held up her gloved hand—“ever again.”

“I—move' my hea' up an' down again. He let go of my wrist, an' he smile' again, and finish' his drink.”

* * *

I handed her my handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose into it, then tucked it, and both napkins, into her bag and finished her coffee. Her eyes were as red as her lips.

I looked through the diner's front window. There were big patches of condensation; drops of water formed around them and slid down like babies down Yosemite Falls. The gloom beyond looked like another world people called Los Angeles, a world where everyone hid in the dark and men like Dan Scott slapped around girls like Lizabeth Duryea every day to their hearts' content, then sent them off to other men like Bugsy Siegel for their own profit and their clients' pleasure. Never mind hers. It made me boil, even more than the heat did. Guys like Scott and Bugsy Siegel and Moe Sedway were big shots. They lived any way they chose to.
Sixteen years as a private eye.
All I had to show for it was a beaten-up client, a broken-up office, an old Buick, a small apartment, four cheap suits, three pairs of shoes, and a cat to keep me warm at night. Same as Ed Hopper.
Nuts
.