The Gutter and the Grave (5 page)

“Working at the five and ten.”

“Where’s that?”

“On Third Avenue.”

“What time did you leave work?”

“At five.”

“Dom could have been killed any time between two and six. Where’d you go after work?”

“Home. To my apartment.”

“Alone?”

“Laraine lives alone,” Christine said. “Our parents are dead, and we’re the only two children. We lived together until I got married.”

“When was that?”

“Four years ago.”

“What difference does it make?” Laraine said sharply. “Are you saying I shot Dom?”

“Did you?”

“Why would I?”

“This is ridiculous,” Christine said.

“All right, let’s skip it. I was leaving anyway. For Johnny’s sake, you’d better not mention to the police that I was here. It won’t help me, and it might hurt him.”

“All right,” Christine said.

“Nice meeting you,” I said. “Both,” I added, and I walked out of the apartment. I was going down the steps when I heard the voice behind me.

“Mr. Cordell!”

I stopped. I turned. Laraine was coming down after me. She walked with the swift sureness of a tall and pretty girl. She raised her straight black skirt as she came down the steps, dropping it when she reached me. She had long legs, and a tight skirt doesn’t help with steep steps.

“What do you want?” I said.

“I want to apologize,” she answered.

“What for?”

“For lacing into you.”

“It’s understandable,” I told her. “Your brother-in-law was just killed. I imagine it upset you.”

“Why should it?”

“Look, Laraine,” I said, “I’m not your headshrinker. It just seems natural to me that a girl would be upset when her sister’s hus…”

“I’m not.”

“Okay, let’s leave it at that. We started off wrong together, and it isn’t getting any better. Besides, I need a drink.”

“I can use one, too,” Laraine said.

“I didn’t invite you.”

“I’m inviting myself. Do you mind?”

“I thought I bothered you.”

“I’m getting used to it.” She took my arm. “I know a quiet bar. We can talk there.”

“Maybe I ought to see a barber and a tailor first. Get spruced up.”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” she said. She grinned. “But don’t change a hair of you,” she cracked. “I want to remember you this way always.”

I laughed, and we headed for the bar.

* * *

Laraine’s full name was Laraine Marsh. Her sister had been Christine Marsh. She was twenty-four years old, and she drank rye straight from a shot glass. Her eyes were very blue, and she never took them from a person’s face, either while talking or listening. Mostly, she talked. We sat in a booth in a Third Avenue bar, and I told her straight off that I was a professional drinker who couldn’t afford to pay for a social drinker’s pleasure. She told me straight off that she would pay for the drinks this one time alone and so, understanding each other, we began to drink and talk.

I asked her if she liked her job.

“In the five and ten?” she said “What a drag that is!”

“Why don’t you get another job?”

“There’s only one job I want. And I’m going to get it some day.”

“What’s that?”

“Guess.”

“Secretary to the president of General Motors.”

“Nope.”

“Miss Rheingold?”

“Nope.”

“I don’t like guessing games.”

“The tradition is three guesses,” Laraine said. “Take your last guess.”

“High-priced call girl?”

Laraine laughed. “Is that what I look like?”

“That’s not a bad thing to look like. They’re the sleekest and best-dressed girls in New York.”

“My ambitions aren’t that lofty,” she said.

“Okay, I’ve run out of guesses.”

“I’m flattered, though. That you thought I could…”

“So what’s your ambition?”

“…make the grade in what must be a highly competitive…”

“What’s your ambition?”

“…field. I don’t like to be interrupted, Cordell.”

“Get friendly,” I said. “Call me Matt. And go to hell.”

“What?”

“I don’t like women to tell me when to interrupt them.”

“We get along fine, don’t we?”

“Just dandy,” I said. “I want another drink.”

“Don’t forget who’s paying for it,” Laraine said.

“I didn’t ask for the free ride. I can pay for my own.”

“It’s my pleasure,” she said.

“I think I know your ambition,” I said.

“What?”

“You’d like to run a concentration camp.”

“I’m a singer,” Laraine said flatly.

“Are you?”

“And a damn good one.”

I thought about this for a minute. Then I said, “How come such a good singer is working in the five and ten?”

“I’m waiting for the breaks,” she told me.

“Well, I’m sure Cole Porter will come up to the East side for a spool of thread one day. He’ll hear you humming behind the counter and sign you for his latest musical.”

“I don’t want to sing musical comedy.”

“You’ve got the other necessary attributes for a musical comedy.”

“I’m a popular singer. I sing with a band now.”

“Anybody I know?”

“I doubt it. A bunch of local kids. We play weddings and beer parties, and like that. But it’s work. And it’s training.”

“Sure,” I said.

“There’s a lot more to making the grade than just being good, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Sure. You need clothes and special arrangements,
and a good accompanist doesn’t hurt, either. All that takes money. But I’ll get there. I’ve got too much talent. Nothing’s going to stop me.”

“Well, good luck,” I said.

“Thanks, but I don’t need it. Luck is the one thing that doesn’t play any part in this. All you need is talent and money. With that combination, you make your own breaks. You don’t have to wait for Cole Porter to buy that spool of thread.” She smiled. I smiled with her.

“You said Dom’s death didn’t upset you very much. How come?”

Laraine Marsh shrugged. Her body did very pretty things when she shrugged, but she seemed totally unaware of the chain reaction. She lifted her drink and sipped at it, and then wet her lips, or perhaps licked rye from them, it was difficult to tell. I felt good sitting opposite her. A pretty girl may not be like a melody, but she’s certainly like a tonic, and Laraine Marsh was a pretty girl with something else. Maybe it was the drive. Maybe ambition boiled inside her and overflowed from her ears. Whatever it was, this girl bubbled with life. In Actor’s Studio classes they’d have called her tense. Too tense, perhaps. But the tenseness provided a sort of electricity that bounded from the girl in engulfing bursts of brilliance. Sitting opposite her, feeling the life force, the electricity, the whatever the hell you want to call it, I began to like her. Nor was the liking purely intellectual. That life was bubbling inside a girl who was damned close to being beautiful. I’ve never been a person who was easily blinded by the
bright lights. Doggedly, I tried my question again.

“Why weren’t you upset to learn about Dom?”

“Dom was from Squaresville,” she said, and I guess that summed it up.

“Didn’t you like him?”

Again, Laraine shrugged. “You don’t like or dislike a square,” she said. “He just made no impression. He was my sister’s husband. I saw them on holidays sometimes. Period. Do you mean was he the kind of brother-in-law who planted moist kisses on my cheeks and offered fatherly advice, no. He wasn’t. He was, in many ways, a very cold and emotionless person.”

“But your sister loved him,” I said.

“Did she?”

“Didn’t she?”

The table went silent for a moment. Theatrically, Laraine studied her shot glass and then killed what was left in it. She signaled for the waiter.

“Didn’t she love him?” I repeated.

“Matt,” she said, “I stopped analyzing people a long time ago. There isn’t much percentage in it. I’m concerned with Number One right now, and that’s me. I want to be a singer. I’m going to be a singer. I’m going to cut records and sell a million copies of each one. I’m going to make personal appearances, and I’m going to have my own network television show, and eventually I’m going to wind up in the movies where they can give me low-cut gowns designed by men in Paris. Me. Number One. Doris Day started as a singer, you know.”

“I know.”

“Okay. So it doesn’t concern me what Christine felt for her husband. That’s her business. If she wants to rant and rave after he’s dead, fine. I’ll go along with it. Why should I deny a widow her pleasure?”

“You sound as if you feel the grief was an act,” I said.

“Is that the way I sounded? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“Was it an act?”

“Judge for yourself. You’re the detective. Christine and Dom haven’t been living together for the past six months.”

I digested this. The waiter came over to the table, and we ordered another round. Somebody at the back of the bar put a dime into the juke and Elvis Presley began pretending he had the lead in the musical version of
Blackboard Jungle
. Our drinks came. Laraine knocked hers off before you could say “Rumpelstiltskin.” I nursed mine. I’m not a gentleman drinker, but I didn’t want to leave the bar on my face.

“Why’d they separate?”

“She kicked him out.”

“Why?”

“Did I say Dom was emotionless? He was. Except on one point, perhaps. Christine. I suppose he really loved her. Or at least he made wounded male animal noises in her presence. A very jealous man when it came to my sister. Couldn’t even stand her
talking
to another man.”

“
Was
there another man?”

“I doubt it. My sister looks deadly, but she learned her catechism well. The body was strictly for Dom.”

“I see.”

“Somebody spotless can get annoyed when she’s constantly called unclean. If my sister ever entertained the thought of another man, she sure as hell never did anything about it. And it annoyed her that Dom constantly accused her. So she kicked him out.”

“This was six months ago, you said?”

“Yes.”

“And he hasn’t been with her since?”

“No. In fact, he thought she kicked him out because there
was
another man. He even hired a detective to watch the place and report comings and goings.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me.”

“When?”

“I met him one day. About two months ago, I guess it was. He said he’d hired a detective to watch my sister.”

“Wasn’t that a little odd? Telling you, I mean.”

“I don’t carry tales,” Laraine said flatly.

“Not even to your sister?”

“I keep my nose out of other people’s business. That’s why people tell me things. Dom knew he could tell me about the detective. In fact, he was probably dying to tell somebody.”

“What was the detective’s name?”

“Dennis something.”

“Dennis Knowles?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“I know him,” I said, but I made no further comment.

“Well, that’s the guy.”

“Is he still on the job?”

“I don’t know,” Laraine said. “That was the last time I saw Dom.”

“Two months ago?”

“Yes. Understand this, Matt. I think Dom hired that man to prove to himself that he’d been wrong. I mean, it sounds peculiar, but he really loved Christine and wanted to learn for himself that she
didn’t
have another man. Does that make any sense to you?”

“Yes, it sounds reasonable.”

“Well, I don’t know how reasonable it is, but that’s the way I see it.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get out of here. Where are you going?”

“I’ve got a few ideas,” I said.

“Like what?”

“I wanted to see your apartment.”

Laraine looked at me quizzically. “Why?” she said.

“I’d like to go to bed with you.”

She nodded. “Really?” she said.

“Yes. Really.”

“That might be nice,” she told me, “except for several items.”

“Like what?”

“Like, for one, I have a very sensitive skin. I’m afraid the beard would be out of the question.”

“I’ll shave.”

“That’s nice of you,” she said, “but there are other reasons.”

“I’m still listening.”

“I have a band rehearsal in ten minutes. Singing is a little more important to me than you are.”

“I wouldn’t think of interfering with your career,” I said.

“You couldn’t, believe me.” She grinned. “But the third reason is the most important one.”

“And what’s that?”

“I don’t want to go to bed with you, Matt Cordell.”

“Why not?”

The smile dropped from her face. Her eyes got very serious. “Because I have a feeling I should stay away from you. Far away. I have that feeling.”

“That’s going to be difficult,” I said. “I’m coming to your band rehearsal.”

You might say that I was digressing.

I was.

In later rationalization, I suppose I could claim that I knew the leader of the band in which Laraine Marsh sang was a kid named Dave Ryan who happened to be a part-time presser in Johnny’s tailor shop. In truth, I did not know this when I offered to accompany Laraine to her rehearsal. I went with her because of a good many sound investigatory reasons, naturally. But the real reason I went with her was because she was a blonde who reminded me of Toni, and I was back where I had first met my ex-wife, and I wanted to be near this woman, and that was it. As a matter of fact, there weren’t
any
investigatory considerations involved at all. I was digressing. I admit it. Shoot me.

The rehearsal was held in the basement of an apartment building on 116th Street, just off Third Avenue. The rain had washed the sidewalks and the asphalt, and water rushed in the gutters toward the sewers. It was only eight-thirty or so, still not dark, but a few lights had come on, and the sky westward was already washed with a soft duskiness. Laraine was a fast walker. She had long legs and a good stride, and I had
trouble keeping up with her. She walked as if she knew exactly where she was going, and Christ help anyone who happened to step into her path.

“You’ll find this very dull,” she said. “Rehearsals always are. People come to rehearsals expecting a finished product, and they’re always disappointed.”