Dames Don’t Care (12 page)

I pull up around the back of the Hacienda, an' walk around to the front entrance. It is a lovely night, hot as hell, but there is a moonlight that is making the old adobe walls look like silver an' castin' shadows all around the place like it was some sorta fairyland.

I go in the entrance an' I see that some of the lights are out. When I get on to the main floor I see that the band is just packin' up an' that all the tables are deserted. I look up the stairs an' I see a guy an' a dame disappearin' into the room where the play is held so I think that maybe Periera has fixed a game for tonight.

Just then I see him. He comes outa the storeroom behind the bar, an' he opens the flap in the counter an' walks across to me.

"Meester Caution," he says. "There ees a little game tonight - not very beeg. I know that ect ces not legal, but 1 theenk that you don't mind, eb? Eet don' matter to you?"

"You bet it don't," I tell him. "I'm a Federal Agent not a Palm Springs dick, an' it ain't my business to worry about people breakin' the State gamblin' laws. Maybe I'll come up an' take a look."

He says thank you very much an' looks as pleased as if I had given him a thousand bucks. I have already told you that I do not like this guy Periera one bit. He is a nasty bit of business an' I personally would like to take a sock at him any time, but right now I am feelin' like playin' anybody around here along. I want 'em all to think that they're gettin' away with everything, that I am just a big dumb cluck with no brains, because I reckon that this way, sooner or later, somebody is goin' to do something that is goin' to give me an idea to get goin' with.

So I ease up the stairs an' go into the gamin' room. There are a bunch of people there. Maloney is there an' Henrietta an' about six or seven other guys an' a few dames. One of the waiters is servin' liquor around an' there is a faro game goin' on at the top table an' they are just startin' to play poker at the centre table.

I stick around an' take a straight rye an' just look. Henrietta is playin' at the poker table - she is evidently playin' on the house, an' Maloney is sittin' behind a stack of chips an' lookin' pleased. Maybe he is winnin' for once. Periera is just hangin' around lookin' nice an' benevolent. In fact it is a nice quiet evenin' for all concerned. Fernandez ain't there an' I reckon that he is sittin' way back in that swell cabin of his doin' a spot of quiet thinkin'.

An' what will he be thinkin' about? I reckon that he will be thinkin' about this dame Paulette Benito that he has told me about.

First of all you gotta realise that he only told me about this jane because he was good an' scared an' because he thought that if he hadn't come across I was goin' to give him the heat. I reckon that when I pulled that gun on him he was scared plenty. An' the reason I pulled it was just this: I knew that there was some dame besides Henrietta in this business. I always had that sorta idea an' I had it just because Burdell, who had always talked plenty, had never even mentioned about there bein' another dame or not. Even when he was suggestin' to me that Henrietta took the letters she had wrote from Granworth Aymes' desk just so's nobody would know that she had written 'em, he never said whether she had been justified in writin' them.

If she hadn't been, that is if he'd known there wasn't another dame in the business, he coulda said so then. But he didn't say a word about the dame that brought Henrietta to New York an' that is one of the reasons why I thought that Henrietta was tellin' the truth.

An' I reckoned to take Fernandez by surprise an it came off. You gotta understand that the last thing that Fernandez heard from Burdell was on that phone call, that I had been along to the Burdell office an' heard all tat stuff he pulled on me an' believed it. Neither of 'em guessed that I had their telephone conversation plugged in an' listened to.

Now here is another thing: Fernandez tells me that he thoughta marryin' Henrietta but that he has changed his mind. Yet when Burdell telephoned through he tells Fernandez to go ahead with this marryin' business. Fernandez makes out that he has changed his mind about it an' tells me so because it looks to him that I am goin' to pinch Henrietta, but just when he gets this idea into head'n thinks that everything is hunky dory I pull a fast one an' a gun an' bust the story about this other' dame outa him.

So I can certainly rely on one thing, an' that is that when I go an' see this Paulette Benito-an' I am certainly goin' to contact that dame-she is goin' to be all ready for me. It is a whisky sour to all the beer in Brooklyn that Fernandez or somebody is goin' to tip her off that her name has been mentioned to me an' that she can expect little Lemmy to come gumshoein' around. Well, they'll be right about that, only maybe I will do the gumshoein' in a way that they won't expect.

Me - I think that the guys who are playin' this business along are makin' one big mistake an' I'll tell you what it is.

They are concentratin' too much on the Granworth Aymes death. They evidently think that if this death can be pinned onta somebody as a killin' that I am goin' to think that whoever did the killin' was also responsible for the counterfeitin'. They will think that this idea will be the easiest way outa the business. But they got me wrong. I never take the easiest ways out an' the reason I have scored a bull in some tough cases before was because I just play along an' talk to people without gettin' excited about things. I have discovered that talkin' to people who may be crooks is a swell thing to do, especially if you tell 'em the truth. Sooner or later they are goin' to pull a very fast one, that don't check up, an' then you got somethin'.

An' as I have told you before, the main thing that I am workin' on is the counterfeit job. The death don't matter one jig to me. I'll tell you why. Guys are always dyin' an' gettin' themselves killed some way or other, an' it is a very good thing to grab the people who do it. At the same time a guy like Aymes more or less don't make very much difference, but a big counterfeitin' organisation does, an' I reckon that somebody who was organised enough to print off two hundred thousand bucks worth of phoney Registered Dollar Bonds is good enough to get a little attention from Uncle Sam. Even if Henrietta bought them phoney bonds off some counterfeitin' set-up, or ordered 'em to be made, the thing still stands. We gotta get 'em because their work is a durn sight too good. Why it nearly took in the bank manager an' Metts told me he'd never seen such a swell job.

I look over at Henrietta an' grin. She has just won a hand an' cleaned up about fifty dollars. She smiles back at me friendly like an' when I look at this dame sittin' there smilin' with her pretty little fingers pickin' up the chips I certainly get one swell kick out of it.

I'm tellin' you that she is a swell number. She is wearin' a little filmy sorta cloak over her shoulders. It is made of chiffon or somethin', an' every time she moves her arm it is worth lookin' at.

She gets up. Then she hands her chips to Periera who pays her out of some bills he pulls outa his pocket an' she looks over at Maloney. Maloney looks up at her sort of inquirin' as if he was askin' if she wanted somethin' an' she shakes her head a little bit an' sorta glances quickly at me, as if she was sayin' that she wanted him to lay off because she was goin' to pull one on me or somethin'. I pretend to be lookin' at the game an' that I have not noticed anything.

Then she walks around to me.

"I wonder if Mr Lemuel H. Caution, the ace 'G' man, is going to do a forlorn woman a good turn and drive her home," she says. "Or maybe he's too busy?"

I get it. when Maloney looked up he had meant should he drive her home, an' she had signalled back no she was goin' to ask me. I reckon that she is goin' to try somethin'.

I give her a big grin.

"OK, Henrietta," I say, "an' I won't even make you walk. Do you want me to drive you to that rancho where you live?"

She says yes, an' I say goodnight to everybody an' follow her down the stairs. She waits on the front entrance while I drive the car around an' then gets in an' we go off.

There is a swell moon, an' when there is a current of air caused by the car startin' up I get a whiff of perfume that she is wearin' - carnation, an' I always did go for carnation. Only it is not that heavy sorta perfume, but nice an' mild, you know what I mean. It makes me remember the night when I went over her room an' sniffed that scent for the first time. I remember all her shoes an' ridin' boots standin' in a row, an' I suddenly get a big idea. I get the idea that I am becomin' much too interested in this dame, an' that I had better watch my step otherwise I may be fallin' for her just around the time when I am goin' to be makin' a pinch.

Which, I oughta tell you, is one of the loads of grief that a dick has to bear. Any sorta copper, no matter whether he is Federal, State, or local, is always comin' up against swell dames. Why? Well, because it is always swell lookin' dames who get in jams. You never heard of a dame with a face like the elevated railway startin' anything, did you? Well, if a guy has gotta eye for a swell shape, a nice voice an' a well-cut pair of ankles, it stands to reason that if he don't watch out his mind is goin' to stray from the business in hand.

She starts talkin'.

"Jim Maloney was going to drive me home," she says, "but I thought that I'd like you to do it I 'wanted to drive back with you."

I grin.

"I know," I tell her. "I saw you two signallin' to each other, an' I thought somethin' was boilin' up."

She laughs.

"There isn't much you don't see, is there, Mr Caution?"

"Not very much, lady," I tell her. "There have been times when I have been caught off base. There was a dame in a garage flat near Baker Street, London, England, named Lottie Frisch, who once shot me through the bottom of her handbag when I thought she was lookin' for a letter. I never knew what she was at until I got a.22 bullet through the arm, which just shows that you gotta keep your eyes skinned, don't it?"

She gives a little sigh.

"I expect you've seen some real life," she says.

I look at her sideways.

"Yeah," I tell her, "an' I've seen a spot of real death too. There ain't really a lotta difference between the two. Life comes slow an' death comes pronto sometimes. Take for instance Granworth," I go on, takin' a peek at her, "I bet that guy didn't have any idea on the mornin' of the 12th January that he was goin' to be fished outa the river on the mornin' of the 13th. That's the way it goes, ain't it?"

She don't say nothin'. She just looks straight ahead.

Pretty soon I pull up outside the little rancho where she lives. There is some fat Mexican dame sittin' on the front porch, an' she gets up an' goes in as the car stops. This is the hired girl who is lookin' after the place an' cleanin' up I guess.

Henrietta gets outa the car an' walks around, an' stands lookin' at me as I am sittin' in the drivin' seat. Her eyes are shinin' an' she looks as if she was happy.

"I enjoyed that ride," she said, "and if you'd like to come in and drink one glass of straight bourbon, you'd be welcome."

I jump out.

"You said it, Henrietta," I tell her. "That is just the thing I feel like, besides which I wanta ask you a question."

She laughs as we start walkin' up towards the porch.

"Don't you ever stop working?" she says. "Are you always trying to find out something about somebody?"

"Most of the time," I say. "But the thing I wanted to ask you is quite a simple little thing. I wanted to ask you what sort of a guy Granworth was."

We go inside. She shuts the wire door on the porch an' leads the way into the livin' room. Her face looks pretty serious.

I don't wonder at it, because, if you are a woman you will realise that I have asked her a sweet question. I have asked her to tell me wbat she thinks about her own life, because if you ask a woman about a man she is or was in love with you are really askin' her about herself, an' the way she thinks.

She slips off her little cape, an' she goes over to the sideboard an' brings a bottle of Kentucky straight whisky an' a glass, with another glass for a chaser. She musta been watchin' me at the Hacienda to know that I like it that way. Then she opens the shades on one side of the room so that the air an' the moon can come in, an' she sits down in a rocker chair an' looks at me.

"What did I think of Granworth," she says. "I think that's a question that would take some thinking over. I don't even know why I married him, except that I was bored and unhappy and thought that in any event marriage could not be more annoying than my life at home.

"But I liked Granworth. I suppose that I didn't believe in love very much and I thought that it was one of those things that arrived after marriage. It didn't take me long to find out about Granworth. He was the type of man who would find it impossible to be faithful to anything or anyone. He imagined that he was a good sportsman, but he would cheat rather than lose a game. He even thought that he was an idealist and yet I've never known any one with less ideals.

"He had two main troubles - money and women. He had to have both, and I don't think that he was awfully particular about either. He was spasmodic in his business - one week he would be very industrious and the next let everything go.

"He got tired quickly. He couldn't stick, and if anything needed concentration or real thinking he would quit.

"I believe he had a good business organisation. Burdell was the clever, efficient one as regards work. I believe that he was the one who made the money when it was made. Granworth was a gambler. He had to try for bigger and bigger money all the time, and the result was that very often we were broke and then, suddenly, he'd make some money and all would be well."

She gets up outa the chair, and walks over to the french windows. She stands there lookin' out. She looked as miserable as hell.

"He was weak, nervous, and excitable," she went on, "and he was untrustworthy. I had ideas for a long while that he had been running around with women, but I thought that they were the usual sort of women that men like Granworth went for - chorines and such like. It didn't matter to me anyhow because during the last three years of our married life we were practically strangers to each other. I saw him occasionally and as often as not he was drunk.