Blondes are Skin Deep (11 page)

“M
AYBE
,” I said, “we should talk this over.” I rubbed a hand over my face and decided I needed a shave badly. Raw daylight came in through the kitchen windows. It was ugly.

Nelle was seated in the breakfast nook, on the edge of a bench as if she were ready to bolt. She had not spoken for some time. Now she said, “What about her?”

“I was waiting,” I said. “Either she knew I’d stay and guard her against Peone coming back or she expected me to go so she could slip out. One way or the other I was waiting.” I had already told Nelle of Peone’s visit.

She had said nothing. I had also told her about the ten thousand dollar offer.

“What did she want you to do for the money?”

“Find Considine’s killer—for her.”

Nelle’s lips tried a sneer; they weren’t very good at it. There was a scuffling sound and Edna Loomis appeared at the kitchen door. She had her hair combed and her make-up on. Pale green mules and an equally pale green negligee seemed to be all she had on.

I looked at Nelle and she didn’t even grow dim. Edna Loomis was as pallid to me as the lighted lamp against the new daylight. If Nelle chose now to kill Edna Loomis, I wouldn’t lift a finger.

Edna Loomis said, “Quite a party.”

“Nelle came here to kill you,” I said. “I think she has a gun in her coat.” I knew she did. I had felt it when I swung against her on our way to the kitchen.

Edna Loomis sat on the bench opposite Nelle. She stifled a yawn. I said, “She claims that you’re making trouble for Johnny.”

“More trouble,” Nelle corrected. “I want to stop her from making more trouble.”

Her voice was without much emotion, telling me that she had lost her edge. She wouldn’t kill Edna Loomis now. She wasn’t the killing type and it would take a tremendous amount of steam to get her back into that gear again. I watched hopefully as they looked from one to the other. But there was nothing to see. Neither one was releasing anything for publication right now.

Edna Loomis broke the silence first. “Hurry up with that coffee, Mercer.”

I took the hint, set the pot on the stove, snapped on the heat, and moved back to where I could watch both women. Getting a cigaret from my pocket, I used it to point at Edna Loomis.

“If I take your job, do I get told anything?”

“Everything I know—what little there is.”

“And then I’m on your side?” I could see Nelle trying not to show anything. She was working hard at it.

“Yes,” Edna Loomis said.

“Against Johnny?” I asked her.

She smiled faintly and glanced at Nelle. “That would be his opinion probably. It isn’t mine. Not unless …”

She stopped. I waited. Finally I said, “Not unless he killed Considine?”

“That’s it.”

“You know he didn’t,” Nelle said with a show of anger. “You could prove it if you wanted to.”

I said, “Is that right?”

Edna Loomis’ smile implied that Nelle was such a simple child. “I don’t think he did,” she answered.

“If you don’t think he did,” I told her, “why don’t you three declare a truce? Maybe we can get somewhere if we all work together.”

She turned her amusement on me. “They don’t trust me.”

“Should they?”

She shrugged, as if it made no difference to her. “I have myself to look out for.”

“I’ll take the job,” I said.

Nelle looked for a moment as if she might cry. Then she got hold of herself. Standing up, she said, “I’ll leave you to it, Nick,” and walked out.

I wanted to follow her. I wanted to tell her it was all right. But I couldn’t. If I was ever to get any place, I had to play it this way. When she slammed the door shut I went into the foyer, threw over the lock and snapped the night chain into place. When I returned to the kitchen Edna Loomis was pouring the coffee. I took Nelle’s place.

Edna Loomis was much more careful about drawing her negligee tightly together now that Nelle was gone. My stock had obviously taken a drop.

I said, “I’ll want all the answers.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t,” I admitted. “Not any more than I can be sure you’re going to tell me the truth.”

She set the coffee pot back on the burner, turned and gave me a quick smile. “Go ahead.”

I watched her seat herself gracefully and tip cream into her coffee. “Why did Peone try to kill you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did you go down to the Oxnan?”

“You want to know a lot of things that don’t mean much,” she said. “After the police got through with me, I decided to take a rest. I knew they’d be back—and I was tired of them.”

“Why the Oxnan?”

“Joe worked for Kane Hall,” she said. “What better place was there?”

“Better place for what—hiding out?”

“Call it that,” she said indifferently.

I said, “You knew Considine’s connection with Hall?”

“Certainly. I used to work for Joe. When he first started.”

“But not for long?”

She shook her head slowly. “Not for long. My being around impaired his efficiency.”

“He paid for all this then?”

“Most of it.”

“And you never worked for him after you moved here?”

“Joe didn’t give things for nothing. I made a few contacts for him.”

Which was a nice way of saying that she had a part time job as a high class shill. Which, to me, meant that up to his death she had been in fairly close contact with the business.

“Then,” I said suddenly, “you were in a position to get the hundred and fifty thousand he cleaned up?”

She stopped lying. “I helped earn it. In fact, I did most of the work.”

“Hall was still supposed to get his cut.”

“He wanted too much of one,” she said shortly. “It was an off-the-cuff deal.” She was suspiciously frank. “A fix—and I did it.”

She stopped. I waited. She said defiantly, “Why should we take all the risks and he get most of the money?”

“His organization made it possible in the first place,” I said. But I didn’t feel much like arguing the ethics of it with her. I doubted if she had much conception of ethics. “It was foolish to flaunt the money at Hall.”

“The closer I was the better I could watch him.”

“It was a sucker’s trick,” I told her. “With Peone there. He turned on Considine.”

“Did he?” She made it sound very surprised. I had an idea that she was laughing at me. “Why?”

“Maybe he wanted dough. Maybe that’s why he killed Considine.”

She pushed that one aside with a wave of her hand. “He doesn’t care for money. Just so he has enough for his dope. And he didn’t kill Joe. Peone is afraid of guns.”

“Who did kill him then?”

She was definitely laughing at me. “Chimp, maybe.”

I blew on my coffee. “Let’s start over. It’s too early in the morning for jokes.”

“Chimp came down here to find out about Hall’s hundred thousand,” she said.

“Hall sent him,” I reminded her. “He does what Hall says.” It hit me, something I didn’t care to think about. Something preposterous. “You mean that Hall ordered Chimp to kill Considine?”

“Maybe,” she said. “And figured Johnny to take the rap.”

“All Hall’s idea,” I said sourly. I was getting a little sore at this run-around.

“You don’t think Hall is capable of it?”

“I think Hall is capable of almost anything,” I admitted. “But not of killing a sizable piece of his own income. And that’s exactly what Considine’s murder means. That and an ultimately nasty investigation if things don’t get hushed up pretty soon.”

She was silent, her eyes half closed. I said, “It’s a nice theory you have. After Johnny sees that he’s framed he tries to kill Hall. Only it doesn’t explain why you gave Johnny twenty-five thousand dollars and then Nelle gave ten of it back to you.”

“That’s their story,” Edna Loomis said. “It isn’t mine. The whole thing boils down to this, Mercer: Maretta hired Johnny to get that money away from me. After they got to know one another Johnny’s interest was even sharper.” Her smile was thin. “More personal.”

She rose, leaving half her coffee. “That’s all I know.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Find Joe’s murderer,” she said. She stopped in the doorway. “Find him and tell me.”

“So you can protect your money?”

She didn’t answer me. She walked on into the living room through it, and into the bedroom. I got up and plowed after her. When I got to her room she was in bed, the negligee lying across the foot of it, the mules sprawled where she had kicked them off her feet. The covers were tucked tightly around her neck; she lay facing me. Her eyes were wide open.

“You sure crave sleep,” I said disgustedly. “What if Peone comes?”

“He won’t come,” she said. “He likes darkness.”

“I can’t wait around,” I said. “Where do I find Johnny?”

“Try Joe’s place,” she answered.

I went out, slamming the door. I wondered if she would get up to slip the night chain back on after I left. Right then, I didn’t care. I almost wished that Peone would come back and stick a knife between her ribs.

B
Y
THE
TAG
END
of the afternoon I was ready to fold up. I lay on the hotel bed, stretched out, wondering if I had accomplished anything.

Not very damned much. Routine digging had got me exactly nothing. I still didn’t know where Nelle was, where Johnny was, nor why Less Peone had tried to slip a knife into Edna Loomis.

It seemed to me that the key to everything I wanted to know lay in the hands of two persons: Johnny Doane and Kane Hall. Both of them were holding out on me in a way that made Edna Loomis look frank.

It was understandable, but I still didn’t like it. Johnny had obviously stacked my loyalty to Hall against the game he was playing. Hall had stacked my affection for Johnny and Nelle against my loyalty to him. Everyone wanted my assistance but no one was willing to trust me with any information.

The more I thought about it the madder I got. Finally I reached out and hauled the telephone to me. I put in a call to Kane Hall.

He was awake. I said, “I’m closing in down here and I need some help.”

“Get Johnny,” Hall said.

“You’re paying for these three minutes,” I said. “Let’s not waste them in wisecracks.”

“All I can offer is Chimp.” Hall said. Like Edna Loomis, he sounded as if he were laughing at me.

“Or Peone,” I said.

“Peone is sick,” Hall said. “Do you want Chimp?”

Chimp was exactly what I wanted, but I made it sound reluctant. “All right, send him down. I need someone. I’m at the usual place.”

“Anything to tell me, Nick?”

“Nothing concrete,” I said cautiously. “Give me twenty-four hours.”

“You haven’t got twenty-four hours. Lieutenant Powers just left here.”

“He isn’t after me,” I said.

“You want to make book on that?”

My mouth started to go dry. I said, “Why?”

“He didn’t tell me why. He didn’t even come out and say that he was after you. I just got the feeling, that’s all.”

When Hall got a feeling and admitted having it, there was something in the wind. I said, “Lovely,” and hung up.

I set the phone back on the stand, rolled over, and stretched out. Powers, I thought, and started to wonder exactly how he would close in. I was in the middle of getting nowhere when I fell asleep.

I awoke to a sharp rapping on the door. It was full dark outside. A flashing neon sign threw spatters of red and green through the window, giving me enough light so that I could fumble my way to the door.

“Yeh?”

“Chimp.”

I snapped on the center light and opened the door. Chimp came in. For once he didn’t have a cigar in his face. He looked politely inquiring.

“Hall said you needed help.”

I watched him cross into the room and drop into a chair. It was the one easy chair. I took the edge of the bed and tried to yawn the sleep out of my brain.

“I need everything,” I said. “Lieutenant Powers is after me.”

Chimp nodded cheerfully. “Yeh, I saw him at the Portland airport,” he said in his soft voice.

“What’d he say?”

“Nothing to me,” Chimp said. “He’s traveling incognito, I guess.”

I ignored his humor. “You mean he cut you all the way down here?”

“I came by charter,” Chimp said. “The plane was full up. I just ran into him at the airport. Maybe he didn’t even see me.”

The hell he hadn’t. I wasn’t glad to know that Powers was here. But it was better than not knowing where he was at all.

I lit a cigaret. “I hear,” I said casually, “a theory that you killed Considine.”

Chimp felt in the outside upper pocket of his coat and brought out a cigar. “Why?”

I watched him unravel the cellophane from the cigar. I said, “On Hall’s orders.”

Chimp put the cigar between his teeth and bit down hard. He made no effort to find a match. “Hall wanted his dough, not Considine’s hide.”

“Edna Loomis has the money.”

“I know,” Chimp said. “She probably gave you the theory. She doesn’t like me.”

It was my turn. “Why?”

He grinned around the cold cigar. “I roughed her Joe up a little.”

“There weren’t any marks on the body.”

“You can rough a man without marking him,” Chimp said. I said, “You did this just before you killed him?”

“The way I heard it would be, just before
you
killed him, Nick.”

I stared at him. He wasn’t grinning. I said, “Whose theory was that?”

“A few of the questions Powers asked me made it sound as if he’s working on it.”

“Hell,” I said. “They didn’t even know I was here when it happened.”

Chimp shrugged. “What they know that you don’t think they know would surprise some people.”

“You know damned well I didn’t kill Considine.”

Chimp took the cigar from his mouth and licked a bit of loose leaf back into place. “Why not?”

I quoted, “Hall wanted his dough, not Considine’s hide.”

“Okay,” Chimp said. “Then stop picking on me. I work for Hall, too.”

We were even. Getting up, I went to the mirror and adjusted my tie. I tested my face with my fingertips. It was rough.

“To hell with it,” I said.

“You need a shave,” Chimp said.

“Thanks,” I told him. “I’m glad to get some advice and help from you guys. I didn’t get very damned much of anything before now.”

“Hall didn’t say to.”

“Is that all you ever do, what Hall says?”

“I get paid by him, the same as you,” Chimp pointed out.

I said, “Did he tell you to rough Considine?”

“He just said for me to find out where the money was,” Chimp answered. He crossed his legs, uncrossed them, crossed them again. He wasn’t nervous; he was restless. Chimp was accustomed to being on his feet in the lobby of the Oxnan. I knew he wanted to get started at whatever I had cooked up.

“Did you find out?”

Chimp said aggrievedly, “The guy was too big a shot to put much pressure on.”

I saw what he meant. With Considine’s connections, Chimp had had to be careful. I didn’t know whether or not it meant much, but I had a pretty good idea that Considine had put the money in Edna Loomis’ hands for safekeeping. Now that I knew her, I suspected that she had talked him into the deal of trying to hold out on Hall.

I said, “Why did Peone turn on Considine and tip Hall that he was short his cut of the hundred and fifty thousand?”

“He gets paid by Hall, too.”

“Now he does,” I said.

Chimp made a snorting sound. “You think Hall runs that organization without any more protection than you and I can give him?” He waggled his massive head. “Hell, Nick, he’s got little guys in every branch. Guys we don’t even know are alive.’

“Why tell me now?” I was beginning to realize that there were a lot of things about Hall’s organization I was unaware of. And I had been in the heart of it for five years. It made me wonder just how far Hall could go before I even started to wake up to danger. The thought wasn’t pleasant.

Chimp said, in answer to my question, “Hall said to help you out. I thought maybe it’d give you some ideas on Peone.”

“It does,” I said. “Did Hall pay Peone to try and slip a knife into Edna Loomis?”

I could see mild surprise on his face. “He hasn’t used a knife but that once in the hotel—on you. Not that I know of.”

“It wasn’t at the hotel,” I said. “It was last night. In her apartment.”

Chimp studied his cigar. “Hall might,” he admitted. “But I heard Peone was sick.’

“With what?”

“Nerves,” Chimp said. His delicate voice was tinged with amusement at the idea. “He’s got nerves. He gets upset and things bother him.” He stood up, stretching. “Hall said you were ready to clamp down, Nick.”

I worked my coat on and looked into the mirror while I smoothed down the lapels. “I’m trying to locate Johnny.”

“That’s not news.”

I got my hat and adjusted it a little forward, hoping to shadow the whiskers I was too lazy to shave off. “I spent the night at Edna Loomis’ place,” I said. I shook my head a little at Chimp’s expression. “We just made a deal,” I explained. “I get ten grand if I turn up Considine’s killer—for her.”

Chimp made an ‘O’ with his lips. “Nice dough.”

I got the door open and waited for him to go through. “Not for Hall, not for the cops, just for her.”

Chimp was ahead, going toward the elevator. He paused in mid-stride and looked over his shoulder. His face was questioning. “You taking it?”

I came abreast of him and we walked on slowly. “I already did,” I said. “Providing she has a few more answers.”

“On what?”

“On Considine, on the money, on why she was at the Oxnan.”

“You stayed all night and didn’t even learn that much?”

I grinned a little. “I learned something. When I okay the deal, she’ll tell me the rest.” I was trying to play Chimp like I would play a big fish. He was wary; I had to be careful.

He said, “So you’re taking it.”

“Why not?”

He didn’t answer my question. “And you’re calling
me
in to help?”

I paused at the elevator and pressed the call button. “I thought together we might find a way to get more than ten grand out of her.”

Chimp said carefully, “It’s worth a lot more than that to cross Hall, Nick.”

I gave him a sideways look. “Who said we were crossing Hall?”

The elevator came up and we got in. I leaned against the wall, looking straight ahead, letting the whole thing simmer around in his mind.

From the lobby we went into the dining room. Chimp said he’d eaten but he was willing to watch while I had a meal. He didn’t say much until we got up to go.

Then he said, “I still don’t see how I fit in, Nick.”

“Edna Loomis is the kind a guy can’t be sure of,” I said. “I never know when she’s lying.”

I paid the check and we went outside. There was a cab at the stand in front of the hotel and we climbed in. I gave the address of Considine’s office.

“See what I mean?” I said.

“No.” Chimp shifted the cigar in his mouth and got out a match. He struck it on the sole of his shoe and lit the cigar. I rolled down the window on my side.

“You were down here when Considine was killed,” I said.

“So were you—but we weren’t supposed to advertise it.”

I said, “You were at the Oxnan again when she checked in.”

“So what?”

“You knew her,” I pointed out.

“Yeh.”

I leaned back in the seat. This was a delicate operation. I could feel myself sweating over it. I said, “Then you should be able to tell me what she was doing there.”

“Trying to hang onto the dough.”

The taxi driver broke in suddenly. “You guys want to be followed?”

I looked out the rear window. We were on a dark side street. Headlights were coming around a corner behind us. I hadn’t wanted to be followed but I had wanted to know if Powers was closing in on me. The Considine address was no more than a blind, to test the possibility.

I said, “Hell, no. Try and shake him.”

The driver started to show us how well he could handle a cab. His first turn threw me hard against Chimp. I sat up, rubbing my knuckles. They had struck hard against his shoulder holster.

Chimp seemed unconcerned. His cigar glowed briefly as he drew on it. “You’ve got a lot of guts, wanting me to cross Hall.”

“You crossed him before,” I said. “And for what?”

“The hell I did,” Chimp said. He sounded puzzled and a little worried.

I figured I had the hook in and I gave a little twist, trying to set it more solidly. “You knew who Edna Loomis was when she checked into the hotel. But Hall didn’t find out for some time.”

“I knew when I got news of her,” Chimp said. “Quist checked her in—and held out on us.”

“He was taking an awful chance,” I said. “How did he work it?”

“He was drunk,” Chimp said, as if that explained everything. He added, “He didn’t even register her for a while.”

“So you didn’t keep that back from Hall in the hope of getting some of her hundred odd thousand?”

He made a laughing sound. “No.”

“Half of a hundred thousand is a lot of rocks.”

He got the idea. “Is that what we’re after?”

“We’re after all of it,” I said. “Half to each of us.”

Chimp was chewing his cigar again rather than smoking it. The taxi drew to a stop before Considine’s ratty office building. It was as dark and gloomy as ever. Chimp was evidently still thinking it over. We got out of the cab. I gave the driver a dollar.

“Dont wait,” I said.

A car came around a corner and pulled up not ten feet behind us. There was a taxi sign glowing on its top. Our driver made a face. “Sorry, boss.”

I gave him another dollar. “You tried,” I said. He waved his hand and drove off.

Chimp looked at the cab that had driven up and then at me. “You got an angle, Nick? An angle good enough to take a chance on crossing Hall?”

“Not one that I can work alone,” I said. I teetered on my toes. A foot and leg showed from the parked cab. Then a man in a gray topcoat appeared. He walked up to us, into the radiance of the cab’s headlights.

“You looking for me?”

“I’m looking for you,” Lieutenant Powers said. “You and Johnny Doane.”

“This is Chimp,” I said.

“I don’t want Chimp. I want you—and I’ve got a warrant.”

That was something I hadn’t expected, something I couldn’t figure. “A warrant—for me?”

“And for Johnny.”

“What charge?” I demanded. “Stop horsing me, Powers. I’ve got work to do.”

“Work on the rock pile is the work you’ll do,” Powers said with slow emphasis. “The charge is kidnapping.”