Knife at My Back Read online

  But what was the reason for the big gorilla in Mrs. Lasker’s boudoir? And why was he making his exit now and squinting down the lobby nervously and peering through the gloom of my personal corner to locate me?

  And why was he walking my way?

  He made the porch by the far door, a detour that afforded him enough time to light a cigarette and carefully case my location. Then he was striding toward me, as casual as a stroller in the park. He made a clicking noise with his hard heels, and when the Sound of the movement stopped, he was standing over me.

  “Outside,” he said.

  His voice was strangely nasal for a man of his girth—an almost whining tone, punctuated by a rapid breathing of the sinus variety, small grunts and sniffs that sounded like your pet dog snoring. In the electric moment of his arrival, he was almost humorous because of the odd pitch of his larynx. But there was nothing humorous about the small and stumpy automatic he held in his larded fist.

  “I like it here,” I said.

  “Look, mister,” he said, and scowled, adjusting his face to carry the proper menace. “Look—I don’t want any trouble with you, see?”

  “No trouble,” I said, and got up and let him prod me off the porch on the side, and down the steps and into a corner of the lawn protected by big trees.

  Here I paused, but the gun jabbed deeper into the tender bones of my back, pushing me ahead and in the general direction of the lake. He was grunting behind me, and the zany sound of his breathing made my collar stick to my neck. We had gone far enough. From where I stood, the front of the hotel was still in sight, a view I couldn’t afford to lose. Not while Mrs. H. M. Lasker might amble out that way, to disappear into the misted distances of the Catskill hills. The ape pricked at my curiosity, but he was also setting off high voltage stabs of annoyance in me. Fun is fun, but I didn’t care for it when a big man used me as his football. The size of him irked me, and I turned suddenly and pushed the gun back.

  “Keep walking,” he said. “Over there, to that car.”

  “I don’t want to ride,” I said. “Not now. Save it for after the show, will you?”

  “A little funny mans” he said. And pushed again.

  But I was ready for him now. Sometimes a word, can charge a man with fury. Sometimes a syllable can be as cutting as a cleaver. He had called me little again and he was laughing at me and he didn’t know what was coming because I gave him no warning. I stepped ahead and pretended to trip in the darkness. I fell forward and away from him, grabbing for the stump of a dead tree at my right hand. I caught the tree and held hard and turned my body as though stung by a snake, quick enough to hit him in his next stride my way. I kicked out at him, aiming my toe at his groin and catching him near the midsection, close to his beefy belt, but just far enough beneath it to double him up. He clawed at his gut and started down, growling and grumbling in pain. He had a hand on my neck when I ripped into him again and slid away, this time kicking lower. The gun dropped from his hand and I jumped for it and grabbed it. I massaged him behind the ear with it. He rolled over and down the hill and I followed him until his massive frame flipped and was still near the big rocks down there.

  Then I went down and looked him over. He was still breathing heavily and making the same noises as he did when he was conscious. There was a cluster of water lilies growing close to the bank. I plucked one and laid it gently on his chest.

  He would be asleep and dreaming for a long time.

  CHAPTER 2

  At fifteen minutes after seven, the light in Mrs. H. M. Lasker’s bedroom snapped out and she left The Branton and walked along the winding gravel path that led to the entrance to The Montord. In the gloom, she was a figure of pure delight ahead of me, the sort of woman who radiates charm simply by moving her body in a casual gesture. She was trim and curved in the right places, and the evening gown she wore had been designed to feature her rounded hips and the smooth soft line of her breasts. She paused to stoop and pluck a flower from the border, and in the small moment of her hesitation, I had the feeling that she was aware of me behind her. Then she was saying something.

  She was saying, “Don’t you ever give up?”

  The flower didn’t answer her. So I closed the distance between us and said, “I can’t give up, Mrs. Lasker.”

  “I know. You’re only doing your duty, is that it?”

  “But of course.”

  “And doesn’t The Montord make your job pleasant?”

  “I’m feeling no pain,” I said. “But your boyfriend is.”

  “My boyfriend?” she asked the flower.

  “The big gismo with the nasty lip. Remember him?”

  “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”

  “I can refresh your memory. Would you like to see him?”

  She measured me with her wild eyes and continued to smile her dialogue at the posy in her hand. “Why should I want to see him?”

  “He could use a nurse,” I said.

  “You hurt him?”

  Was she laughing at me? Her smile was a flickering thing, not permanent, not deep, but calculated to show only sly and feeble amusement. There was a sadness and softness about her that quieted my mounting blood pressure. What the hell sort-of pastime was she playing? Did the big ape come out and try for me of his own accord, or did she send him? Or did she know him?

  I said, “What did you want him to do to me?”

  “It was his idea, believe me. He wanted to take you away from here. Just for a while—until I was ready to go back to New York.”

  “But I like it here. Didn’t you know?”

  “I know,” she said. “I know all about you, Steve Conacher.”

  “That’s a switch.”

  “I know quite a few detectives in the city, Steve. Quite a few.” Her smile was like a warm bath, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was off somewhere, she was climbing the mountain on the other side of the valley, her deep and greenish eyes lost out on the ridge. She was away up there on the summit, all alone and sad about it. This was my first chance for a close-up of her. I had followed her ail the way from Park Avenue, slowly and carefully, letting her have her head, watching her when she paused and remaining in the shadows behind her at all times. She came into the Catskills by way of a stopover in Philadelphia, where she holed up in a large hotel and waited for somebody or something. She left Philadelphia in a hired car and drove back toward New York and sidetracked into the hills and a small cottage on the outskirts of the next town. What was she waiting for there? Whatever it was, it came soon, because she lingered in the farmhouse for only a day and then drove on to The Montord. And now she was here beside me and telling me with her knowing smile that she had made up her mind about me a long time ago.

  “You’re pretty obvious,” she said. “After I left Philadelphia, you gave yourself away. When I drove up here, you were following much too close. It was almost humorous.”

  “Oh, I’m a comical fellow,” I said.

  “Are you, really?” She tossed the flower away and stared at me, the little smile still curling her full lips, the teasing, clouded eyes deep and mysterious in the pause. She was adding me up and finding the sum a challenge. But beyond her calculated inspection, something lost and helpless glowed and smoldered. What was it that bothered her? “You don’t seem to be that type,” she added. “If anybody asked me, I’d say that you take great pride in your work. Isn’t that so?”

  “A diligent comic,” I said.

  She laughed up at the stars. When she moved her head it was a gesture born of long years of training, like an actress on cue. How old was she? In the dim light, it was impossible to tell. Her face seemed smooth and fresh and unwrinkled, her body still youthful; not fat, not thin, but rounded and full where the fullness meant something. Her evening gown was a rapture in black, cut so low that the buxom lines of her breasts could paralyze a man in the
close-up. Twenty-five? Thirty-five? I gave up the guessing game when she put her hand on my wrist. It was as cold as a plucked chicken.

  “Who sent you after me?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t sent after you,” I said. “I was ordered to watch you, not get you.”

  “Of course. But who?”

  “I’m not at liberty to divulge the name of my client.”

  “Then I’ll guess. It was my husband, wasn’t it?”

  “Is that the sixty-four dollar question?”

  “It could be,” she smiled. “Or it could be worth a lot more.”

  It was a crazy game and she knew it. In my line of work it happened often, strange offers from strange people. The business itself inspires that kind of insanity. You sit at your desk and stare out of the window, counting the clouds circling around the Paramount Building. You are lost in a small and private fog when the phone rings and you find yourself talking to a character like Haskell M. Lasker. His office is on the top floor of a high office building and he sits you down and makes you welcome, giving you the full treatment, complete with a fifty-cent cigar. The job? There is a woman to be followed and found, and he shows you her picture. You can’t laugh because it would kill the deal. But this doll is much too young for Haskell M. Lasker. Even her photo stirs up the corpuscles. She is pretty as hell. She is on the lam from him, but only temporarily. He wants to know where she goes on her weekends. Why doesn’t he ask her? He shakes his head wearily and admits that she is a liar. And a clever one. Already, she has managed to skip away from two other private beagles.

  So here she was at The Montord in the Catskill Mountains, by way of a detour through Philadelphia. And there was nothing in it for me anymore but a phone call or a visit back to H. M. Lasker to collect my twenty-five a day and expense money. The game was over.

  But she didn’t know it. We stood together and watched the darkness roll in over the hills and the crescent moon climb into the sky. We went inside for a cocktail and she let me take her in to dinner, holding my arm as though we might have come up to this den together. She continued to drink her way through the delectable eight-course repast. She was hell-bent for alcoholic oblivion in a nice, refined way. She was pacing herself with the liquor, not rushing it, not pushing it, but sipping her way delicately through one potion after another. What were the drinks doing to her? Her sad eyes did not lose their deep and soulful glow. She had been through this routine before, many times. It would take half the bar to flatten her. She downed the stuff with seasoned poise, her voice smooth and quiet. Under the lights, she was prettier than ever, a striking beauty, rich and ripe enough to make the men nibble furtively at her with their eyes. She noticed none of this. Her soft smile belonged to me. She was pitching me something and I was in a mood for catching. She had won me with her quiet sadness, and I knew that she would break down soon.

  “My husband,” she said to the moon out under the trees. “Did he tell you why he wanted me followed?”

  “I didn’t ask questions.”

  “Oh, please, Steve.” She smiled. “You’ve found me. You’ve won your contest, haven’t you?”

  So now it was Steve. And I liked it. “Not until I phone it in.”

  “Must you?”

  “Business,” I said.

  “When will you do it?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Why not Monday?”

  She reached for my hand and found it, saying nothing, but squeezing hard. The ice was out of her palm now and she was telegraphing her purpose to me by way of her fingers. We were close. We were too close. In the pause, my inner man fought a quick bout with my conscience. My mind told me that Haskell M. Lasker would be lost with a woman like this. I began to reason like a Horatio Alger hero, overpowered by the richness of her personal perfume, the depth of her magnetic eyes, the soothing softness of her voice. What the hell, there was nothing to lose by playing it her way. And what I might gain sent hot needles skittering up and down my spine.

  I was feinting lightly with my conscience when a little man at a neighboring table stood up and came our way. He paused while passing us. He stared down and started away and then came back again. He beamed down at Mrs. Lasker.

  “Excuse me,” he mumbled humbly, “but aren’t you Grace Borden?”

  “Not tonight,” said Mrs. Lasker, showing him her clean white smile. “Tonight I’m Mrs. George Washington.”

  “You’re kidding,” said the little man. “I never forget a face.”

  “Really? Concentrate a little. Force yourself to forget mine, will you?”

  “I didn’t mean to offend,” said the little man politely. But he still squinted at her curiously, shaking his head and making an insect noise with his tongue and teeth. “I could have sworn you were Grace Borden, lady.”

  “You’re half right,” she said. “I’m Grace Lasker.”

  “In that case, I apologize.”

  “No hard feelings,” said Grace. She laughed at him as he moved away. She had a soft and velvety laugh. “Funny little man,” she said, her voice low and tired. She was looking far beyond him now, into some dark comer of her own devising. “I could have kissed him.”

  Were her eyes wet now? Was her grip stronger on my hand? The dining room was almost empty and we were sitting far back in the shadows, but the way she stared out into the night, we might have been lovers in a solitary canoe, drifting to a secret place. We might have been old friends, warming each other over the fires of a mutual memory. We might have been anything but what we were, two strangers in the Catskills, almost alone in a giant dining room. Grace was coming alive to me quickly now, the sort of woman untouched by age, the type of siren who can boil the blood of a man at will. She was regal when she stood and let me lead her away, through the lobby and down on the lawn and across to the lake.

  “He knew me,” she said, under the trees. “Because I used to be Grace Borden, you know. Once in a while somebody recognizes me, Steve, and it’s a heartwarming thing. You’ve got to remember that I haven’t been a performer in almost twenty years. That’s a long time. That’s an awfully long time to be remembered. My career ended in the early thirties, don’t you see? Back in those days, there were a lot of people in New York who thought I was a star. But I suppose you were too young then to recall Grace Borden at the old Olympic?”

  “I’m a Long Island boy,” I said. She was confusing me with her background, starting the gears in my mental machinery to work her over and set her into her proper place. How old was she? Sitting alongside her on the grass, she radiated youth and quiet fire. The old Olympic was not strange to me. I had visited the celebrated burlesque den as a callow youth, to watch the expert bump and grind queens titillate avid audiences. In 1930 Grace Borden must have been no older than eighteen when she trod the boards and shook her handsome derriere in the faces of bald pate row. That would make her about thirty-eight years old now. But she was incredibly well preserved for that age, actually ten years younger in appearance and manner. She had the soft and sensitive bearing that comes to all beautiful women who live right and watch their frames for the bad bulges. Her personal perfume filled the air now, close to me, so close that she could run her hand over mine. What was she playing for? I leaned back against the convenient tree and let her make her pitch. And it came almost immediately.

  “You can help me, Steve,” she said.

  “I wonder.”

  “It only means working for me during the next few days.”

  “You need a detective?”

  “Not yet but soon.”

  “Why me? I’m on your husband’s payroll. A private investigator can’t play both ends.”

  She turned my way slowly, telegraphing her purpose in the way she regarded me, her cat eyes intense, her hand on my arm and the pressure meaningful. “You’ve finished with the dull end, Steve. You’ve done what Haskell wanted of you. You found me.” />
  “But he doesn’t know it. My job ends when I phone it in.”

  “I’m only asking you to wait. Today is Saturday. If you phone Haskell, he’ll be up here tomorrow. I don’t want him here. I don’t want him here at all. The next two days are very important to me. All I ask is that you hold off calling Haskell until Monday. Is that asking too much?”

  Too much? She was selling me on playing potsy with a customer, something a detective doesn’t relish. A customer pays off for honesty and loyalty and confidence. From where I sat, it added up to the usual case. Haskell M. Lasker was old enough to be her father, so she skipped town on weekends, to make the trek into the woods and meet her boyfriend under the tall trees. She was ripe and ready for a lover, a woman who would crave masculinity and go out of her way to get what she wanted. She was a shadow of delight and the edges of her seductive figure were moving closer to me now. Much closer. Close enough so I could feel her alongside me. She sighed and looked up at the stars, letting me see the profile of her elegant torso, a silhouette calculated to turn a man’s bones to water. Then she snaked her hand over mine, and it was wet with the early dew and tight against mine, the pressure accented by her little sharp nails. She eased herself toward me, close enough to let me feel the heart of her breath. And then she was in my arms, her ripe lips burning, her sensuous body melting into mine so that the silhouette became a part of me and she whispered a word to me and I knew that he was sobbing gently. If it was an act, she was worth an academy Award. She trembled under my touch and did not move away.

  “Will you promise to help me?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know you needed this kind of help.”

  “Will you, Steve?”

  “You’re selling me.” Beyond the grassy knoll, the lake was a grayish flickering blob under the dim moon. The air was still and the night a pocket of gloom, but there was flame and fire in the touch of her and there was nothing I could do about getting out of this. Because I liked her and wanted to help her. “What’s the gimmick?”