Nothing to Lose But My Life (9 page)

It was going on ten when Charles Conklin entered. By that time we had consumed the ostensible purpose of the party—cheese cake and brandy. He came in full of apologies, pinker than usual, as if he had been hurrying, but still urbane, smiling with his face if not his eyes, the masculine match for Sofia.

“I’m sorry as hell,” he said to me. “Business. I’m afraid the Colonel won’t make it at all.”

“I called on him earlier,” I said. “His butler told me he was in an important conference. It was around seven,” I added.

Conklin didn’t blink. “I was the conference,” he said, “but the Colonel never showed up.”

Sofia had been busily giving Tanya an earful about a new dress style but now she turned casually and said, “Dear, the Colonel sent a message. He had to go to Los Angeles on business.”

“Ah,” Conklin said, looking as if it was the kind of business that pleased him. He glanced at Tanya. “Perhaps Mr. Curtis will substitute while the Colonel is gone. Then you won’t get lonesome.”

It didn’t sound malicious but there must have been something behind it from the way Tanya’s lips tightened up. Then she smiled and said easily, “Let’s ask Mr. Curtis.”

“Charmed,” I said. Conklin and I sat down, he beside Tanya and I by Enid, and Sofia steered the talk to general subjects. I was growing bored and I began to wonder if I hadn’t been wrong about Sofia’s reasons for inviting me here. If I was being probed, it was too subtle a job for me to follow.

But then I remembered that Charles Conklin was supposed to know who I was. Presumably he had passed the tidbit on to his wife. I guessed that they were at a loss for something to do with me since the Colonel wasn’t here.

I said, “I’m sorry to have missed Colonel Hoop.”

I got only polite murmurs of regret. And as the party had nowhere to go from there, it broke up. I got into the Lincoln and tooled off down the hill. Near the junction of the main Hill road with the highway, Tanya drew alongside me in her station wagon.

“Will I see you later, Lowry?”

“I hope so,” I said sincerely. “But I have a date tonight and I don’t know when it will end.”

“Enid?”

“Partly,” I admitted. “Maybe Nikke.”

“Be careful, Lowry. I want you back in one piece.”

I didn’t know whether she referred to Enid or Nikke. And it didn’t really matter because just then I got the full impact of her green eyes. I swallowed. “There’s nothing I’d rather do than oblige you, ma’am,” I drawled.

Laughing at me, she drove off south. I followed since my road to the Club was the same one. Within a mile I saw her station wagon parked before one of the more exclusive steak houses. I drove on to the Club, wondering if she really was hungry. Inside the Club I found Emmett bent over a photography magazine as usual.

“How’s Perly?”

“You bastard.”

“You shouldn’t talk to the guests that way, Emmett.”

I took off my hat and coat and started walking toward him. He took a step backward and I knew that he was going for the foot buzzer. By the time the door opened and one of the watchdogs appeared, I was on my way to the cloak room. I recognized the man as Jake, but I didn’t call his attention to the fact.

“Yeah?” He was looking at Emmett.

“It’s that Lowry bastard, Jake.”

I handed my hat and coat to the girl and returned to the room. I said, “I told him not to talk to the guests that way. Would you?”

Jake looked at me, frozen-faced. “Depends on the guest.”

“That’s right,” I agreed. I went up to Emmett and grabbed. I got a handful of starched shirtfront and pulled. Emmett was skinny and he came up and over the counter easily. I left him halfway across, belly down.

“Well, Jake?”

Jake looked at me and at Emmett who was wriggling under my hand that held down on the small of his back. “He ain’t much to look at but he throws a mean shiv,” Jake said.

I found the knife in Emmett’s pocket, switched it open and cut his suspender straps. I tossed the knife to the floor and left, walking past Jake into the gambling room. He came after me, shutting the door on Emmett.

“What did you want to do that for?”

“He was rude,” I said.

“You’re fooling with the wrong people, fellow.”

“Let’s ask Nikke,” I suggested.

He sneered at me and walked away. Nikke seemed to have a lot of drag around his own business. I looked back, hoping Emmett would come through the door. But he didn’t. I suspected that he was too busy pinning up his suspenders.

I saw Enid and drifted in her direction. She was at one of the smaller wheels and she had a pouch-jawed customer with Hollywood sport written all over him. I let her alone and got some chips. It took me a good half hour to contribute them to the house. I got some more.

I was playing the big wheel when Enid appeared at my side. “Finish shearing your lamb?” I asked.

She laughed. “All done.” Then louder, “What system are you playing tonight?”

“Just feeling things out,” I told her. “Don’t worry. I’ll get my system working when I’m ready. Then we’ll see something.”

I got some amused glances from the clientele, many of whom were repeats from last night, and a stony look from the croupier. I let him take me for fifty dollars and then, under pressure from Enid’s hand, went to a chuck-a-luck table.

I won and lost and won again, returned to the roulette wheel and lost what I’d won. It was edging midnight. I hid a yawn. It was time to see where I stood. I bet heavily and won. I did it twice, getting almost a thousand ahead, and then announced that I was quitting.

“Be here tomorrow,” I told Enid. “You’ll really see something. I’ve got this figured out now.”

“I can’t wait,” she said and walked away from me. I made a move as if to start after her, made a face as if trying to take her cold shoulder with good grace, at least in public, and cashed in my chips. After a drink at the bar, I left.

Emmett was at the desk as I got my hat and coat. We had a stare-down match. I said finally, “Perly isn’t on duty tonight?”

He opened his mouth, obviously ready to curse me again, and I reached into the inside of my coat. His hands splayed out on the table. He looked almost eager for me to see them there.

I brought out my wallet, took out the card he had given me the night before, and held it up for him to see. “Just wanted you to know that I’m a bona fide guest,” I said. I went out, but carefully, not giving him my full back to aim at.

I think he was half crying when I shut the door. I didn’t like Emmett nor Emmett’s type. I had met them before and I always found that unless you jumped first, you were done. They lived on filthy words and guns and knives and bravado put into them by heroin or cocaine. There was only one thing wrong in handling them the way I handled Emmett. It had to be done over again every time you met. With a snootful, that type tended to forget what went before.

I drove off, up to the Slope, and pulled off the road at a place where I could wait without being disturbed. While I waited, I thought about the way I’d been treated tonight. Jake, with every reason to get tough with me, had played a hands-off policy. Emmett had been no more than naturally vicious. And the croupier had handed me a fat pot, but cleverly, making it look good.

I wondered if maybe Nikke didn’t throw a little weight around after all.

Soon Enid tooled by in her Cadillac. I started up and dropped into place behind her. The garage took both cars snugly. I led the way into her kitchen.

She said, when we were inside, “And what did you do to Emmett, for heaven’s sake?”

I told her. She laughed and came close to me, her face tilted. I kissed her lightly and stepped back. She said, “You’re all well and in control again and now you don’t need me, do you?”

“I need you very much,” I assured her. I was thinking of the scene at Hoop’s. I wanted to know more about the relationship between Conklin and Hoop and Tanya Mace. But I had to be careful how I broached the subject. Conklin was her brother-in-law and when she spoke of him, she sounded as if there was strong affection there.

“Coffee?” I asked.

“How about a drink?”

“Coffee, thanks. For both of us.”

I left her to it and went into the guest room to hang up my coat and hat. The wall switch worked the wall lamp that shone down on the bed. I blinked when the light came on. There was a man under the spread, asleep in the bed.

“I’ll be damned!” I spoke louder than I realized.

Enid appeared at my elbow. “Look,” I said. “Hoop was in conference, I was told. In conference with a bottle maybe? He’s really pounding his ear.”

“That’s impossible,” Enid whispered. “He doesn’t even know I have this place, Lowry. What’s he doing here?” The last was on a rising note, half wail.

“Ask him,” I suggested.

She was almost whimpering. “His—his clothes are on that chair. He’s sleeping—in my house!”

I looked at the clothes. I said, “Does a drunk usually undress before he passes out?” I walked to the bed, blocking her view. I had begun to notice how quietly the Colonel slept. Much too quietly. I reached out a hand and drew back the spread.

Enid had stepped to my side. Her scream shattered in my ear. The Colonel was naked. There was an ugly reddish spot in the center of his chest. He was thoroughly dead.

ENID WAS
so still as she stared down at Hoop’s body that for a moment fear had choked up her breathing. Then she drew a deep, shuddering gulp of air. “Oh, no! It isn’t fair!”

I had never heard such desperation from anyone. I reached out to touch her, to calm her, but she pushed me away and began to run.

I went after her, suddenly afraid. She got into her bedroom and I couldn’t catch her until she tried to crawl over her bed. That slowed her down. Her expression was wild, witless. The last thing I wanted right now was an hysterical woman. I held on to her, muffling her sobs against my chest. Short of slugging her, I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

She began to choke and I let loose enough for her to draw in some air. That was almost a mistake. She writhed like a snake and broke free of me. But she didn’t try to run. Instead she fell back on the bed and lay staring up at me. I could tell by her expression that she was fighting something inside herself and that she was losing the fight.

Suddenly she began to talk. It poured out of her, a stream, half coherent, half gibberish. I was afraid to stop her. And I hoped that somewhere in that rush of words I might hear something I needed to know.

“Only three people know about this place—Charles, Tanya, and Nikke. Sis doesn’t know. We won’t tell Sis. She would take it away from me. She hates me. She’s jealous of me. She hates me. She knows Charles likes me and she hates me. She’s jealous of everything I have. Everything I have she gets. I had Charles when he first came and she took him from me. She takes everything I have. Even if she doesn’t want what I have, she takes it. She hates me. She’s afraid of me. She’s afraid I’ll ruin the name of Proctor and she hates me. She hates it because I have fun and she can’t. She’s jealous of what I have and she takes it away from me. She’s afraid that I’ll hurt …”

It began to get under my skin. She kept repeating herself, saying the same things over and over. She said other things too, but they were so many wordless noises. Finally she was just gabbling with every now and then the phrase “she hates me” coming out clearly. Her voice began to rise until it was almost a scream.

I had the willies. I grabbed her shoulder and shook her. I had to do something. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to see where Enid’s trouble lay. But it needed one to do something about it. All I could do was grab her and shake her.

When I did it was like turning off a tap. The gush of words stopped. She just sat there, looking at me but not seeing me. A peculiar glaze had come over her opaque eyes and it told me that wherever she had gone, she had gone all the way.

The only remedy I could think of was a stiff drink. I got up and went to the bar in the living room. I had a stiff shot for myself, poured one for her and returned to the bedroom. She lay with her eyes wide open, staring. Her breathing came fast and hard through a mouth so slack that the rush of air made her lips wobble loosely. She had no use for the drink; she was out.

I gulped down the whiskey myself and went out the door fast. My first thought was to call a doctor. Then I drew rein on myself. I couldn’t bring anyone in, not with Hoop dead here. But I had to do something, call somebody.

The thought of calling gave me an idea. I went to the phone book, leafed through it, and found a number. I dialed. As late as it was, I got an almost immediate answer. Sofia Conklin herself picked up the phone on the second ring as if she might have been waiting for someone to call her.

“This is Lowry Curtis.” I kept my voice low.

She sounded a little irritated but thoroughly awake. “Yes?”

I said, “Your sister is in a kind of trance.”

She seemed to know what I meant. “Oh, no!” Then, “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough,” I said. “She did a lot of gabbling and then went off into nowhere.”

She said quickly, as if wanting to make sure that I wouldn’t call anyone and risk exposing the Proctor name to public gaze, “There’s nothing to be done, Mr. Curtis. It’s a kind of hysteria followed by a sort of catalepsy. It wears off.”

“When?” I demanded.

“She should go to sleep now that she’s stopped talking,” she said. For the first time there was some genuine concern in her tone. “Did she talk much?”

Wouldn’t it have been terrible if I had learned about some of the Proctor family skeletons! I almost swore at her. Enid could have fits all over the place and it wouldn’t bother Sofia as long as Enid didn’t say anything she shouldn’t. That was the impression I got.

I tried to keep my voice calm. “No, she babbled mostly.” I added, “Have you tried a psychiatrist?”

I said it nastily but she took it in stride. “Of course, but it didn’t help. She doesn’t do this very often, Mr. Curtis. Was she drinking?”

“Not much,” I said. “Is that what does it?”

“Sometimes. That and shock. Was there shock, Mr. Curtis?”