Nothing to Lose But My Life (6 page)

I picked up the forty-five. “Yes?”

“Let me in.” The voice was low and soft, a woman’s.

I opened the door carefully. It was Tanya Mace. She came in quickly, shutting the door quickly and quietly. She looked at the gun and at me, started to smile, and stopped.

“What happened to you?”

She wore the same sheathe-like green evening gown but now with a light fur wrap over it. Her hair was slightly awry as if she hadn’t touched it for some time. There were circles under her eyes. She was tired and looked her age. She was still terrific.

I said, “A welcoming committee named Perly happened to me. I had to kick in his jaw for him.”

“That’s why Nikke was just here?”

“I called him to cart away his trash,” I said. I was terribly tired but not too tired to be mad, mad enough not to be very clear-headed. I remembered that Tanya knew which room was mine; she could have ordered this.

I said, “What can I do for you?”

It was a nasty remark, the way I said it. She didn’t seem in the least perturbed. She took my arm and led me toward the bed. “You can sit down. You look about out on your feet.” She maneuvered me and I sat, keeping a grip on the forty-five. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “You keep late hours.”

“I’ve been busy.” It sounded as if I was apologizing—and I was a little. I didn’t want to have her sore at me. But this was different from my reason for wanting to keep on the good side of Enid. This was because of a pair of magnificent green eyes. Tired as I was, suspicious as I was, they hit me and kept on hitting.

“You’re in trouble,” she said. “I told you that earlier. Now you can see what I meant.”

“What happened tonight doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “Did you wait up most of the night just to tell me I was in trouble?”

My vile mood didn’t seem to bother her. “I came for a lot of reasons,” she said.

I chose that moment to reach for my coat to get a cigarette. The coat lay at the foot of the bed and it was quite a reach. And because I held the forty-five in my left hand, I had to lean over and cross over myself with my right arm to get at the coat. I felt my side pulling and then, suddenly, someone shot a scatter gun filled with hot needles squarely into the sore place. I remember reaching, touching the coat, and then trying to hold myself back. I couldn’t. I went off balance, falling onto the coat. My temple came across the edge of the footboard. I was being very clever tonight. I chose to fall on the precise spot where Perly’s fist had landed against my head.

Later Tanya told me that it was one of the quickest and most thorough jobs of blacking out she had ever seen.

I wouldn’t know. I didn’t remember anything except the feel of the footboard against my skull.

I AWOKE
with my mouth full of rancid cotton. I opened my eyes, squinting against a line of sunlight that fell across them. I tried to turn away and my head hurt and my side hurt. The pain reminded me of what had happened. With an effort that momentarily took everything I had, I sat up.

I was in a bedroom that I didn’t recognize. The walls were papered a soft pastel green overlaid with delicate figures. The same motif was in the draperies. The bed I was in had a fancy headboard that held a radio, a number of books, and a telephone. All the furniture was very striking, with classic modern lines. I lay back and rested, letting the pains descend to a steady throbbing.

I was thirsty and I wanted a cigarette. I looked into the headboard. There was a carafe of water, cigarettes, a lighter; and a piece of paper. Someone had written on the paper. It read:

Lowry, if you wake up first, ring for me. There’s a bell by the phone. Tanya
.

I took a long drink from the carafe, pouring the water directly out of the spout into my mouth and so down my chin and onto my chest. The water felt good. I poured some into my hand and rubbed it over my face. I had to move carefully, using only my left arm to any extent, because when I tried using the right one, the pain in my side nearly sent me under again.

The water helped. So did the first drag on the cigarette. I reread the note. Lowry and Tanya. We were getting friendly. I decided to try to stand and threw back the covers. Cool air hit me all over. I had been sleeping in nothing at all. We
were
friendly. I hadn’t put myself to bed.

There was something familiar about the way the windows and doors were arranged. By the time I washed and brushed my teeth, I realized that I was in one of the duplexes on the Slope. A careful peek through the down-slatted Venetian blinds told me more. From the angle at which I saw the city and the harbor, I knew that I was upstairs above Enid. Again my suspicions of Tanya Mace rose.

I went into the living room, moving slowly, and mulling over the fact that the toilet kit I had used in the bathroom and the robe I had found at the end of the bed were mine. I had left them in the motel. I wondered if Tanya had moved me out, bag and baggage.

The living room was classic modern like the bedroom. I went on through it and into the other bedroom. This was somewhat more frilly, more feminine. It was definitely a woman’s room and in it was Tanya Mace. She slept with one arm flung outside the covers, her face turned toward me, her pale silver-gold hair flowing over the pillow. She looked beautiful in sleep. I closed the door quietly on my way out.

I had to move slowly to keep the pain from hitting me too much but I managed to make it to the kitchen and find tomato Juice, doughnuts and equipment for coffee in a reasonable length of time. The tomato juice helped my stomach and the coffee I brewed would have put life into a statue. I began to feel better.

I had finished the last doughnut when I looked up and saw Tanya standing in the kitchen doorway. She was wearing tight-fitting green satin pajamas. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep and she had no make-up on. Her hair hung loose in thick waves halfway down her back. She looked wonderful. Just seeing her made me shake.

“You damned fool,” she said amiably.

“I was hungry.”

“Can I have a cup of your coffee?” She got herself a cup and poured the black bomb filler I had made into it. “You have no business up, Lowry. You took a bad bruising. You’re just lucky Perly didn’t cave your ribs in.”

“I’ll live,” I assured her.

She brought her cup to the table and sat down. She sipped without comment except to ask for a cigarette. I gave it to her and snapped on the lighter. She leaned toward me and her eyes met mine. I felt their impact like I had Perly’s foot. The lighter flame danced a little, and I drew my hand away as quickly as I could.

She didn’t seem to notice. I said, “How did I get here?”

“Fighting all the way,” she said dryly. “I got you on your feet with some cold water and a shot of your whiskey. You kept going rubber-legged on me.”

I could understand her trouble. She was a lot of woman but I weighed a hundred and ninety pounds. I said, “Why not just leave me there?”

“I told you, you’re in trouble. Would you rather I had left you so someone could come back and finish the job Perly started?”

“Thanks,” I said. “But if Nikke had wanted to finish it, he could have outmaneuvered me and the forty-five. He had two of his boys with him.”

“That kind of a job wasn’t like Nikke,” she said without any particular emphasis.

I shrugged. I wasn’t being too grateful for her help but I felt I had a good reason to act brusque. In the first place, I didn’t know that I could trust Tanya Mace. In the second, she bothered me more than I could afford to be bothered right now.

She got up and refilled our cups. “Let’s go in by the fire. It’s cozier.”

I didn’t want to be cozy. I hoped she remembered that I had sore ribs and a sore head. There was a lot of her to wrestle with—assuming she felt in the mood for wrestling. I followed her and we sat together on the divan. It was longer and wider than Enid’s.

“All right,” I said. “I’m in trouble. What’s that to you?”

“I know who you are,” she said. I couldn’t feel any particular surprise. Most of Puerto Bello seemed to know who I was.

“And why you came,” she added.

“Hoopy tell you?”

“No, not directly. I overheard him talking about it with Charles Conklin. You met him—”

“I know him,” I said. “Little Rollo’s junior clark.”

“Charles wouldn’t appreciate that,” she said. “Especially since they’re partners and he’s the money maker in the firm.”

“Okay, I’ll apologize to him,” I said. “Let’s get back. I’m in trouble. You know who I am and why I came. You know that the Colonel is aware of my identity. He won’t have any trouble figuring out why I’m here. And that means he’ll be scared. When he’s scared, Hoop can be vicious.”

“That’s right.”

“I still don’t know where your concern lies.”

“I can’t tell you that. Just accept the fact that I am concerned—and I’m on your side.”

“Against your own fiancé?”

“That’s something else I’d rather not discuss.”

I could see that I wasn’t going to get as far with her as I had with Enid. Thinking of Enid reminded me. I said, “Do you know who lives downstairs?”

Tanya stubbed out her cigarette and took another from a box on the coffee table. “Yes, I know. I’m one of the three who does know.” Her green eyes were on me again. “Or should I say four?”

“I’m not going to broadcast it.”

“I didn’t think you would. You stayed quite a while with her last night. Did you sleep with her, Lowry?”

“No,” I said.

She picked a fleck of tobacco from her tongue. “You probably will,” she said. “You’ll probably have to.”

Her casual attitude jolted me. “For God’s sake, why?”

“I presume you want information from her. That means you’ll have to play the game Enid’s way. And all the way.”

I already knew that, but I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t even want to think about it. Not with Tanya Mace sitting beside me. We were good inches apart but I could feel the heat she generated. She lifted her arms and threw back her shoulders, stretching. It caused quite a sensation.

I said, looking into the fire, “Is Enid’s information worth having?” I chanced looking back at her. She was settled again.

She shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

I began to wonder about this woman. I thought I had her pretty well pegged from the dossier as a calculating woman who knew what she had and what price it would bring. But now I wasn’t sure. She wasn’t exactly frank with me but in one sense she was franker than she needed to be. And certainly she had done me a good turn. I tried probing a little more.

“Anything else you can tell me?”

She drank some coffee and smoked a little. Then she shook her head. “Nothing except that you be careful. But you know that.”

“And you waited for me last night to tell me that—only that?”

She grinned at my persistence. “And to tell you that the Colonel and Charles know about you.”

“And?”

“And to let you know I wanted to help—but on my own terms.”

“And the terms?”

She said, “Don’t ask me the why of everything I do. Just take me as I am—and trust me.”

“With my health, yes. And right now I don’t feel so sharp.” I didn’t. The pain had returned and my head felt light.

Without a word, Tanya rose and left me. I could hear her in my bedroom and bath. She was running water. After a while she came back and helped me to the bathroom. The steam from the tub had a medicinal smell.

“Soak in that for a while,” she ordered.

I soaked until I began to get drowsy. Hoisting myself awkwardly out of the tub, I wrapped myself in a big towel and hobbled into the bedroom. Tanya was there, busily laying out a collection of bottles and pots.

“Here, lie down on the bed.”

I did what she ordered this time too. I had the feeling that she knew what she was about, and besides I was in no shape to argue. Once she had me face down on the bed, she patted me dry, pulled the towel down to my waist and went to work, rubbing various kinds of goo into my skin. She gave special attention to my sore side and ended by wrapping it tightly with an elastic bandage.

I said, “Thanks.” My eyes were so heavy I could barely see her. It was just as well; having her that near me was disturbing, puny as I felt at the moment. She took her bottles and pots and went away.

I felt myself going off to sleep. Something tugged at my memory, something I had to do. But it was too much effort to remember right then. I went to sleep instead.

I awoke abruptly with the remembrance of what I had to do clear in my mind. It was a jolt to awaken that way and for a moment I was shaken.

I got up, put on my robe, and went into the living room. Tanya had drawn the blinds and it was dark except for the dim glow from the electric fire turned on low. I snapped on a light and yawned at it. Tanya’s bedroom door stood open. The bed was made. The house had a deserted feeling about it.

It took me only a moment to make sure that she was not there. It took another moment for me to find the note she had left. It was propped conveniently against the coffee pot:

Lowry, I had to go out. Don’t do anything foolish. Rest that side until I get hack
. She left it unsigned.

I was just as glad that she had gone. I had the idea that Tanya Mace was not the kind one could argue with, especially if the argument advanced lacked logic. And mine certainly would—to her at least.

The kitchen clock said that it was four-thirty. I was relieved that it was no later. I had a good many things to do and at the speed I was forced to move, I needed all the time I could get. My head felt almost well and my ribs were surprisingly free from pain. Whatever Tanya had done with her lotions and salve had helped a great deal. There was nothing now but a dull throbbing and a certain soreness when I moved too quickly.

Going to the telephone, I called the motel and ordered a car to be rented for me. I also explained in answer to the clerk’s inquiry that my business took me in and out and that whether or not I spent the night in my bungalow, I wanted it kept for me. That done, I got the telephone book and started hunting.