Black Alibi

BLACK ALIBI

by Cornell Woolrich

Copyright 1942 by Cornell Woolrich

Published by Simon and Schuster, Inc.

Rockefeller Center, 1230 Sixth Avenue, New York, N.Y.

All rights reserved.

I. The Alibi

She was sitting there at her glass, at the fashionable going-out hour, trying to decide between a cluster of crystal grapes and a live gardenia as a shoulder decoration, when someone knocked at the suite door, outside across the adjoining reception room.

Whatever her decision was in the matter, she knew it would have a city-wide effect. It meant that for the next few weeks hundreds of young women would either all be wearing clusters of crystal grapes or live gardenias.

It was hard to believe that just a couple of brief years ago no one had cared a rap what she stuck on her shoulder. Nor anything else about her, for that matter. She’d been wearing her heels down to the quick and getting consistently laid off in an endless string of third-rate Detroit roadhouses. And now— She turned her head and gave it another look through the windows; she couldn’t resist it. That was the testimonial, the badge, of her importance, however transitory it might turn out to be; that out there.

CASINO EXCELSIOR

KIKI WALKER

en la gran revista de arte

“TRIC-TRAC”

The biggest spectacular in the city, rearing against the cobalt late-afternoon sky. And when the current was shot into it next week, for the opening, you”d be able to read her name after dark all the way up at the other end of the Alameda.

They were already naming perfumes and nail polishes after her, and of course paying for the privilege, and the newest concoction at the smart Inglaterra Bar was the Kiki Walker Cocktail (fiery-red at the top and stunning, the barman explained to everyone). For the whole of the last “winter” (June-September) she’d been queening it over the third largest city south of the Panama Canal, with her own car and chauffeur, personal maid, hotel suite. Not bad for a run-of-the-mill roadhouse entertainer from Detroit, stranded down here when a traveling show blew up. Not bad at all.

She still wasn’t quite sure how it had come about herself. A little dancing talent, a little singing talent, and a great deal of luck had done it for her. It was mostly a case of happening to be in the right place at the right time, and of having no competition to speak of. In Detroit her lyrics had been shoddy; down here they couldn’t be understood, so they sounded witty. In Detroit her red hair had been a commonplace; down here it was a rarity. And then Manning and his crazy stunts might, just might, she was willing to admit, have played some small part in attracting the public eye to her.

Their first meeting was not a thing she cared to be reminded of. He’d been sitting at a table at a sidewalk café, needing a shave and a clean collar, and she’d stopped in to find out if they couldn’t use a cashier—or even a waitress. He’d bought her a cup of coffee, because he was still good for a cup of coffee at that partic.ular place and she looked as if she needed one. When they got up from the table half an hour later, he was her press agent. Two weeks later she had her first job and he had a clean collar.

“I
made
him,” she used to end the unwelcome reverie at this point.

That he might have had something to do with making her was unthinkable, not even to be considered for a moment. Whoever had made whom, one thing was certain: now she had the place put away in her pocket.

The knock had been repeated. “It’s probably Senor Manning, Maria,” she called out to her maid. “Let him in.”

She heard the latch go back, but then instead of the maid’s usual little welcoming remark, there was a shriek of mortal terror, a scurry of footsteps, and the fling of a chair, as though somebody had dropped down behind it.

Kiki turned quickly on the bench she had been occupying, rose questioningly. Before she could do more than that, it was upon her, she had seen it herself. It was one of those incredible images that the mind disbelieves in even at the moment of apparition. It was a head, down there on the floor, coming through the open doorway at her from the outside room. The head of
something or other
was the best she could do to identify it at that first awful moment; some member of the cat tribe; leopard, panther, were the successive labels flashed before her shell-shocked mind.

It was black, spade-shaped, ears wickedly flat, muzzle to carpet, coming in fast with an impression of zigzag undulation. That was all she waited to see. Her own scream slashed out to join the maid’s and she turned and vaulted lightly, and with an instinctive agility that betrayed the dancer in her, to the top of her own dressing table. Perfumes, powders, and knickknacks rained down all around her to the floor, including a little toy music box that promptly began to sound off a tinkling little tune. She stood there aloft in flurried motion, skirts clutched nearly at her thighs and waving them defensively to and fro to ward the horror off.

It was only then that she became aware of the muzzle gripping the jaws, the taut leash, and the familiar Middle Western face of Jerry Manning peering blurredly at her from the background. Her outcries only became more verbal, not less vocal. Between them was the graceful, sinuous, almost snakelike body of the thing, straining forward belly-low against the leash; powerful shoulder muscles rippling under the seal-smooth black fur, tail twitching feverishly, in the attempt to get at the flutelike music box.

“Get it out of here!” Kiki wailed in high C. “Manning, what’s the matter with you, bringing anything like that in here?”

“It won’t hurt you,” Manning tried to reason with her, pushing his Panama farther back on his brow. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I rode all the way in with it just now in a produce truck myself. It’s perfectly tame; it was raised from a cub by a guy lives outside of town.”

“Well, what do you bring it to me for?” She had stopped screaming, at least.

“I thought it’d be a good idea for you to show yourself with it, when you take your daily outing along the Alameda.”

“With
that?
Never! Not from here downstairs to the front door, much less driving along the Alameda! Now listen, Manning, I’m getting tired of your brain waves—”

He had taken time off to light a cigarette, using one hand. “Think of the splash you’ll make. Just step out of the car with it, sit down at the Globo for a Martini for a few minutes. What’s there so hard about that? I’ve planted photographers all around there, to take you with it. I can get you the whole inside spread of next Sunday’s
Grafico
on it; I’ve got an in with old man Herrera. Two whole pages of green rotogravure all to yourself. Look, here’s a little gold whip I got you to go with it.”

“You’re too good to me,” she said sulkily.

“It’s for you, not me,” he coaxed. “You’re opening next week. The Latins like their stars to be exotic. You want your show to be a hit, don’t you?”

“I’d also like to be still in it, not all taped up in some hospital,” she let him know. “I’m set. What do I need this stuff for now? In the beginning it was different.”

“You’re never set in your business. Come on, Kick, be game. Look at this, watch me a minute.” It was stretched out sidewise, lazily licking one paw. He bent down over it, gently grazed the soft fur of its underside a few times with a hooked forefinger. It promptly rolled over on its back with typical feline coquetry, lolled there four paws folded in air, coyly trying to kick his finger away. “You couldn’t ask for anything tamer than that, could you? Come on, just take hold of it. Try it out, see how it feels.” He reached for her reluctant hand, passed the looped end of the leash over her fingers.

She still remained up on the table. She was giving in by unnoticeable degrees, however. Her skirts had fallen back to normal level. She was holding the leash by herself now; he’d taken leave of it.

“I’ll be right behind you in a taxi the whole way.”

On this one point she was adamant, however. “Oh, no, you won’t. You’ll be riding right in the front seat of the car with me, or I don’t leave here at all.”

He had saved his most potent argument to the last, the one he knew by experience would persuade her if anything could have; he must have been something of a shrewd psychologist. “You ought to see how it goes with that outfit you’ve got on. You ought to see what a picture the two of you make together. Come on down a minute, Kick, take a look at yourself in the glass, standing next to it. Zenobia, Cleopatra, weren’t in it!” He held his hands up, to help her down.

That seemed to do it. She continued to eye it askance, but she started pointing the tip of one foot warily downward, about to descend to floor level beside it once more.

“Jeezizz,” she said at the very last, a touch of her Detroit-era crassness cropping up as it did every now and then, “the things I do for my art!”

Her arrival at the Globo, if it was in the nature of a sensation at all other times, was nothing short of a galvanic shock this time. It was brimming to the very edge of its sidewalk awnings, and beyond, with the usual
aperitif
-hour crowd. Everyone who was anyone went there; it was a gallery worthy of any actress’ mettle.

Manning, who was in the front seat of the Packard beside the driver, had retained the leash surreptitiously across the top of it until the very last, at her insistence. He only passed it to her at the moment of arrival, in time for her to make her sortie. The livened driver jumped down, ran around, and held the door for her. She stood up in the car, held the stance just long enough for everyone to get a look at her, then prepared to step down. There was a momentary, and quickly covered-up, hitch at this point. It was between her and the door and it wouldn’t move for a second; she would have had to step over it to get out.

“Push it with your foot,” Manning said in an undertone.

She nudged its flank gingerly with the toe of her shoe. Then a second time. It rose reluctantly, wavered for a moment, then sluiced out upon the pavement like a suddenly released coil of black water, giving her arm an awkward jerk that she managed to cover up only with difficulty. She descended in its wake with the smiling grace of a VenUs.

It had come into full view of the café crowd for the first time. It had been hidden from sight until now on the floor of the car. One of those deep, somnolent hums rose that are created when dozens of throats all murmur in astonishment at one and the same time. Then a spray of excited comment was dashed up. “
Mira! Mira!
Look what she’s got with her!” was repeated on all sides, from chair to chair and from table to table. Those farther back stood up in their places to get a better look at it. Women gave little cries of synthetic fright and dismay. “
Ay, que horror! Que barbaridad!
Is she bringing it right in here?” And they prepared to jump up and get out of the way.

Passers-by along the sidwalk began to bunch up, keeping back at a respectful distance.

“Stay here, don’t let him take the car away,” she said tautly to Manning, from behind her smiling mask of composure and relaxation.

“He can’t stand right here in front of the place, we’re not allowed to park. We’ll be right down there at the end of the street. Nothing can happen to you, just go over to your table and sit down.” Then as the sound of the brakes being taken off seemed to freeze her where she was for a moment, he quickly warned: “Don’t stand here like that, Kick. You’re onstage. You’re on the air. They’re all looking at you.”

The car glided treacherously out from in back of her, and she was left to her own resources. She touched it lightly with the little toy whip he’d provided her with, and it moved forward docilely enough, perhaps attracted by the odors of food coming from the tables. Those seated nearest at hand edged their chairs cautiously back as it made its way down the narrow center lane left between the tables, its coat all but brushing their legs at times.

The distance she had to cover wasn’t far, fortunately. She reached her customary table, which had been held in reserve for her, paused, and managed to get it to halt also by reining in the leash slightly. Then she seated herself with an air of lordly indifference upon the reedy wire-backed chair the waiter had drawn out for her. He prudently took her order from that position, remaining behind her instead of coming out around to the other side of the table.

“A Martini
seco
,” she said. She crossed her legs and looked about her with that air of cool indifference fashionable ladies are wont to assume in fashionable places. A renewed tug or two at the leash, meanwhile, had caused it to sink down on the ground at her feet, after an undecided moment or two. The spool-like table, however, remained between the two of them. It remained that way, quiescent, as though overcome by supreme lassitude, only its ears twitching sensitively at each taxi-horn bleat that sounded in the street outside.

There was a concerted if tactful drawing away on the part of those in the immediate vicinity. They moved the adjoining tables wherever possible, or, if not, shifted their chairs around to the other side, so that they were facing it and not sitting with their backs to it. She was left seated in the midst of a small empty circle. Even the waiter, when he brought her order, approached circuitously from the rear and put it down over her shoulder.