Dames Don’t Care (13 page)

"Then, quite suddenly, he made this quarter of a million. And he seemed to take a pull at himself. He told me that he was giving me the two hundred thousand Dollar Bonds so that I should know that there was something for our future. He said he was going to start over again; that he was going to think ahead and maybe we could string along together like we had in the old days when we were first married. He seemed so sincere that I almost believed him."

I light myself a cigarette.

"If you knew that he was runnin' around with dames," I say, "then why was you so burned up when you got this unsigned letter from this guy who said that Granworth was runnin' around with a dame, an' that he was goin' to get nasty about it? Didn't it look a bit funny to you that this guy should write you about it. Didn't you wonder why he didn't write an' tell Granworth to lay off?"

She turns around.

"The answer to both those questions is the same," she says. "Granworth knew that whilst his love affairs were confined to people who didn't matter, that I wasn't fearfully interested in either him or them, but I had told him that if he made any scandal or caused any more annoyance or bother to me that I would divorce him.

"He didn't like the idea of divorce and so he kept his so-called love affairs out of my existence. It seemed to me that the man who wrote me that unsigned letter might have told Granworth that if he didn't stop fooling around with his wife he would write to me.

"When I got the letter I was furious. I was even more furious when I telephoned Granworth about it from Conneticut and he seemed quite disinterested in what I had to say.

I was amazed at the change in his attitude after all the protestations I had heard such a short while before. I made up my mind that either he would give up this woman or I would divorce him."

She smiles as if she was rememberin' somethin'.

"I suppose that I'm like most women," she says. "In the first place I thought I could make something of Granworth. I suppose every woman who marries a weak type of man thinks that she can improve him. We are all would-be reformers."

I grin.

"You're tellin' me," I crack at her. "That's why the bad guys get such a break. If a guy is a good sorta guy women ain't interested in him much. If he's a bad egg then they think that they oughta get out an' start reformin' him.

"I'm tellin' you dames are the funniest things," I tell her. "I once knew a dame in Illinois an' she was for reformin' some guy that she was stuck on. This guy usta drink a coupla bottles of rye every day an' she reckoned that she'd gotta stop this before she married him. She said she wasn't goin' to marry no rye vat.

"OK. Welt I met this dame two years later. She had got so interested in reformin' this guy that she'd taken up drinkin' rye an' she could drink him under the table any day. He was sore because he said if she'd only left him alone in the first place he woulda been dead through drinkin' hooch by now an' out of trouble, but he'd got so fed up with watchin' his wife drink that he was considerin' turnin' prohibitionist. It just showed me that the reformin' gag don't always work out the way it seems to the reformers."

I give myself another cigarette.

"So you don't like Granworth," I say. "That's what it boils down to, don't it? Say, Henrietta, what sorta guy do you like? Are you sure that you wasn't stuck on some other guy yourself? This eternal triangle bezusus can be played two ways you know!"

The smile goes off her face. She looks durn serious at me, an' she walks over an' stands lookin' down at me where I am sittin'.

"You listen to this, Mr 'G' man," she says. "I've never been really interested in any man in my life until now - just when it's not likely to be of the slightest use to me."

I grin.

"I don't get you, lady," I tell her. "This Maloney is a good guy. He'd probably make you a swell husband."

She smiles at me.

"I wasn't thinking of Maloney," she says. "I was thinking of you."

I am hit for a home run. I get up an' stand there lookin' at her. She don't bat an eyelid. She just stands there lookin' at me smilin'.

"You're the only sort of person in the man line who's ever meant a thing to me," she says. "If I ever thought about Jim Maloney, it was because I know he's straight and a good friend."

She steps a little bit closer.

"I think that you're a swell man," she goes on, "and you're tough and very much cleverer than you allow people to believe. If you want to know exactly what I think about you, here it is!"

She takes a step forward an' she puts both her arms around my neck an' she kisses me, an' boy, can that dame kiss or can she? I stand there like I was poleaxed. I am wonderin' to myself whether this is a pipe dream or whether it is really happenin', an' all the while at the back of all this comes the idea that this Henrietta is puttin' on one big act because she thinks that I am workin' up to a pinch an' she imagines maybe that she can play me for a mug.

I don't say a word. She turns around an' goes to the table an' pours out another shot of the Kentucky. She brings it over an' she hands it to me. Her eyes are smilin', an' she can hardly keep herself from laughin' outright.

"That scared you, didn't it?" she says. "I guess I'm the first woman to ever scare the great Lemmy Caution. Well, here's your drink and after you've had it, you can be on your way."

I sink the whisky.

"I'm goin'," I tell her, "but before I get outa here I wanta tell you somethin', an' it's this. I think you're a swell baby. You got everything an' you know all the answers. I could go for a dame like you in a big way, an' maybe forget where I was while I was doin' it. But if you think that a big kissin' act is goin' to get you outa this jam you're in, you're wrong. I been kissed before - plenty, an' I like it. I am also very fond of dames in general, but, lady, if I make up my mind to pinch you in this business then all the kissin' in the world ain't goin' to save you. So get that behind them sweet eyes of yours."

She laughs.

"You're telling me," she says, imitating the way I talk. "That's what I like about you. Well, goodnight, Lemmy. Come around some more when you've got the handcuffs ready."

An' with this crack she walks outa the room an' leaves me there with a glass in my hand.

I scram. I go outside an' start up the car, an' ease off towards Palm Springs. I am doin' a lotta heavy thinkin', but believe it or not the way that dame kissed me has got me in a spin.

There is another thing that is stickin' out a coupla feet an' that is that this Henrietta is a clever number. She tells me that I am clever but believe me she knows her onions an' maybe she is tryin' to play me for a sucker.

I put my foot on the gas an' whiz. I have made up my mind about somethin'. I am goin' to see Metts an' fix a little thing with him. I am sorta sick of all these people takin' me for a ride. I am goin' to start somethin', an' I am goin' to start it pronto.

Work it out for yourself. I been kickin' around here talkin' to people till I'm sick. I been back to New York an' heard a lotta phoney stuff from Burdell. The only time I got anything worth while was when I pulled a gun on Fernandez an' he told me about Paulette.

Every time I get nice with people they give me the ha-ha, an' it looks to me that all there is left for me to do is to get myself some silk shirts an' go in for bein' a sissy.

Whoever is behind this bezusus has got one helluva nerve. They have only kept me kickin' around findin' out sweet nothin', but they have also ironed out Sagers an' are kiddin' themselves that they got away with that too.

OK. Well, if they want it tough they can have it tough.

So here we go!

CHAPTER 8

A FAST ONE

I
NEVER did like mornin's after. They get in my hair. You always think about the one you oughta have pulled the night before, the one you didn't think of.

When I wake up the sun is shinin' through the window curtains an' I feel that I am goin' to get movin' so fast that some of these guys are goin' to think they was bein' chased by lightnin'. Me-I'm a patient sorta cuss, but there is a time when you gotta do somethin' an' it looks to me like the time is right now.

I get up an' I take a shower an' drink some coffee. While I am drinkin' it I am thinkin' of all the things that I oughta have pulled on Henrietta last night that I never did. Work it out for yourself that this dame is doin' one of two things. She is either stuck on me so much that she will tell me anything I want, or else she is twicin' me an' has gotta put up a front that she will tell me anythin' I want. So either way I reckon that I missed a lotta opportunities.

Sittin' on the edge of the bed I start rememberin' when I was back at the Federal school learnin' my stuff. I remember some old guy who used to give us lectures on this an' that:

"Do somethin'," this old palooka usta say. "Don't stick around an' think too much. If you ain't gotta lead, make one. If you don't know what to do start measurin' up the room or talkin' to people, or creatin' situations in which guys who are tryin' to hide a fact you want, will get scared an' blow it."

Was he right or was he. OK. This is where I start.

First of all you are goin' to agree with me that I am entitled to think that everybody connected with this set-up is playin' me like I was a mug who is so dumb that he has got moss growin' out of his ears through not thinkin'. Everybody in this bezusus is tryin' to two-time somebody else. Start with Burdell; this guy, after doin' a big kind friend act with Henrietta an' gettin' the Aymes servants to say that she wasn't in New York on the night of the death, is now doin' everything he can to get the idea in my head that she bumped Granworth. Fernandez is helpin' him along. He pretends that he wanted to marry Henrietta until he got the idea that she was responsible for this counterfeitin' stuff an' then he changes his mind. Burdell helps along in this idea by sayin' that he only started to blow the works after he thought that Henrietta was in on the counterfeitin'.

An' what about Henrietta?

She just sticks around an' she don't say a durn thing that matters except to make a big play for me an' tell me that I am the cat's lingerie; that she could fall for me like a son of old coke an' that generally I have only gotta go for her an' I am right in the front row with bells on.

Me - I could go for Henrietta all right. But I do not make a play for dames that are suspects in murder cases. I think that it would interfere with business. Anyway she knows what my job is an' therefore she must not blame me if I kinda think she is tryin' to pull something very fast.

Maybe some of these guys are goin' to get surprised an' that goes for Henrietta too, because I am goin' to start somethin' an' I am goin' to start it right now.

An' I am not being side-tracked. If Burdell or Henrietta or anybody else think that I am the sorta guy who can be locoed off the job then they have gotta think some more.

There is only two angles on this job that interest me right now, an' I reckon you will agree with me when I say what they are. First of all I am very interested in the state of mind of this guy Granworth Aymes just before he died. It's stickin' out a mile that this palooka ain't got any cause to commit suicide. He has got dough; he has got health - because the Insurance Company passed him as fit-an' I am certainly not goin' to believe that he was goin' to commit suicide just because Henrietta tells him that she is goin' to take a run-out powder on him an' get a divorce. Why should he? A guy who is chasm' around with a lotta other dames - like Fernandez said he was-ain't goin' to get burned up just because his wife gets wise an jibs. The fact that he tried to commit suicide once before don't cut any ice. When he tried it before he was so drunk that he didn't know a thing.

When he said that he was goin' to start over again an' be a good guy maybe he meant it. It certainly looks like he did, because no guy is goin' to be mug enough to take out a big insurance policy an' pay a helluva down premium if he is goin' to bump himself off knowin' that the company have barred payment over suicide.

The fact that Granworth took out this policy stands out as bein' important to me.

The other thing is this Paulette Benito. The first idea that bumps into anybody's head is that maybe this dame has got somethin' to do with it. But I don't reckon that this is so because you gotta realise that if Burdell and Fernandez had wanted to get her in bad they coulda blown this woman stuff before and dragged her into it. No, I reckon that nobody thought that she was important in this thing an' that they didn't mention her because they wanted to concentrate attention on Henrietta.

But it is a cinch that this Paulette dame has got to know somethin'. If she was aces high with Granworth then I bet he woulda spoke to her about his wife; more so if he an' Henrietta was in bad with each other, an' maybe this Paulette can tell me somethin' about Henrietta that will shed a spotta light on the counterfeitin' job. I reckon I am goin' to see this Paulette just as soon as I have pulled a coupla other things around here, an' that dame is goin' to talk, an' talk plenty, even if she is in Mexico an' outa US jurisdiction; because you gotta realise that this dump Sonoyta where she is stayin' is right on the Mexican side of the Arizona state line an' if I have to get her into US territory to make her talk I am goin' to do it, an' I am not goin' to wait for any extradition either, even if I haveta take her over the line by her back hair.

An' all of this stuff will make it plain to you that I am gettin' good an' burned up about this business. Somebody is tryin' to take me for a ride an' I don't like it.

I put a call through to Metts, the Police Chief in Palm Springs, an' I have a little talk with him an' we fix things up.

Metts is a good guy an' has got intelligence. Also he is good at co-operatin', which is more than you can say about some coppers I have known.

We fix it this way. He is goin' to get two highway cops to run out to the Hacienda an' pick up Henrietta. They will bring her into Metts' office at eleven o'clock. At half past twelve, just when Periera an' Fernandez are wonderin' what it is all about, the cops will go back an' pull in those two heroes an' bring them along. After which I reckon that we will get goin'.