Sugar Shannon Read online

  “Suppose he was jealous of George? Suppose George was winning Magda away from him?”

  “Passion?” Horace smiled at me condescendingly. “Hardly likely.”

  “Gwen tells me this Magda doll is quite a woman, quite a prize. But you wouldn’t understand, Horace darling. Some men get excited about women, don’t you see?” I leaned in closer to him and put a hand on his arm and squeezed a little. But it was like caressing a length of pipe for all the reaction I got.

  “Keck doesn’t appear to be that type of primitive,” said Horace.

  Evidently Boyer agreed with him. He told Keck he could leave, but advised him to remain in the city for the next few weeks.

  “Of course,” said the giant sculptor. “I’ve got plenty of work in my studio. I’ll be there if you need me.”

  After Keck departed, Boyer held us in his room for a while. He was annoyed by the newspaper coverage, griped by the face that two of the city’s largest dailies would be recording his progress and making sly investigations on their own.

  “Corny,” he said. “What’s in it for you writers? What’s in it if the case levels off into a big nothing? Suppose George DeBeers was slugged because somebody wanted to get his money?”

  “A possibility I’ve considered,” said Horace. “Any one of a thousand cheap thugs could have attacked DeBeers, of course. But you must remember, Boyer, that DeBeers was a big name in the field of painting, one of the finest young talents in the country. Newspaper readers will be interested in the story, no matter which angle develops. The murder of a genius is always excellent copy.”

  “The murder of an old friend is even more vital copy,” I added. “To me.”

  “What a brain,” smiled Boyer, nibbling at me with his eyes. “Why don’t you and I have a private meeting on this one, Sugar? Maybe I can use you.”

  “Watch your language,” said Gwen. “Your libido is showing, Boyer.”

  CHAPTER 5

  11:42 P.M. Friday

  “Bistro number nine,” said Gwen, “and still no dice.”

  “Any other beatnik dives where Marianne might be?” I asked.

  “A few more, here and there. You want to keep going?”

  “I want to cover them all. But there’s no need for you to stay with me, Gwen. Get on your pony and try to find a lead to her shack. I’ll meet you in Serena’s place in about an hour.”

  Gwen ran off toward Fifth Avenue and a taxi. We had made a quick tour of the Village, struggling to track down Marianne Fry. Gwen knew the area thoroughly and we were able to scoot from one drinking den to another with maximum efficiency. But Marianne was a flibbertigibbet doll, a quick-change artist in the business of shacking up. She had been known to change her bed as often as twice a day, depending upon the depth of her current flame’s passion. But her recent amours must have been strictly for mattress fun, because nobody had knowledge of a permanent pad for the odd-ball model.

  Now a slow-moving summer storm hung over the city far to the east. Thunder rumbled vaguely. I thought of Horace Gordon and wondered whether he had told us the truth in Boyer’s office. Horace promised to be home in bed now and the thought of him held me in a store window on Eighth Street, appraising my half-silhouetted figure. It looked good to me, trim enough to snag a normal man’s eye. Yet to Horace my maidenly charms were as dull as a burlap bag.

  “Dope,” I said to the atmosphere.

  Halfway down a dark alley sat the entrance to the Zen Den, an ebony awning punctured with dull lights. A door led through a narrow corridor that smelled of incense and garlic. At the far end, another door, painted bright red and opening into a square room that blossomed with smoke, noise and the inevitable twang of a remote guitar. Around the small tables, a group of mixed customers sipped expresso or sucked iced drinks. The bar lay to the right, a smallish counter featuring stools carved in the images of strange African deities, probably manufactured tycoon somewhere in the Bronx.

  I dropped my weary derrière on a stool and made little-girl eyes at the bartender. Was he familiar with a girl named Marianne Fry?

  “At my age?” he laughed, showing me two gold teeth in a commercial smile. “I can’t risk getting familiar with a character like Marianne. She’d do me in quicker’n I could pick my teeth.”

  “How funny,” I said.

  “You think I need a writer?”

  “I think you need a new head, daddy. But how about Marianne?”

  “She’ll be along.”

  “She likes it here?”

  “When she can’t make it anywhere else.”

  “At about this time of night?” I asked. “Or am I wasting my time?”

  “Behind you,” he winked. “Marianne just walked in. And she’s playing a new angle. The goon she’s with is Timothy Cantrell, as nice a girl as you’ll find hereabouts.”

  I blinked through the smoky gloom. The girl called Marianne was a fantasy, a personality out of the pages of the sex magazines. She minced across the room, rolling her ample buttocks in a provocative rhythm. She had a large figure, large all over. Her great breasts bobbled and rocked, unfettered by any halter under the red silk blouse. She moved casually, allowing the male denizens of The Zen Den enough time to caress her with their beady eyes. She had a sharp, theatrical face, thin-nosed and broad-mouthed, like a burlesque stripper on the loose. She looked out at the world through half-closed eyes, as though scanning her personal horizon for a goal she alone understood.

  And right behind her, his figure moving in the same feminine tempo, walked Timothy Cantrell. He was a medium-sized troll, as masculine as an A-cup bra. He ambled along with one delicate hand on a delicate hip, swaying and bouncing in a womanly stride. His face was thin and loaded with a strange emptiness, his pretty blue eyes alert only to the surrounding males, plucking and picking among them for a mate who might adore him. He was as handsome as a degenerate’s dream. And bald as an egg.

  When I reached their table, Marianne welcomed me with a surly scowl.

  “Beat it, tourist,” she drawled.

  “Don’t be rude, darling,” said Timothy. “Maybe I can help the dear girl.”

  “Not a chance,” I advised him. “But I’ll buy you both a drink for a few kind words.”

  “Drink, shmink,” said Marianne drowsily. She was on the short end of an alcoholic spree, just coming out of a liquored fog. The words hung on her tongue and she burbled her dialogue. “And I don’t need charity, sister.”

  “Don’t mind Marianne,” lisped Timothy. “She’s always desperately impolite when she’s had a few. But underneath beats a heart of gold.”

  “I’ll buy the drinks,” said Marianne, snapping her long fingers for a vagrant waiter. She opened a large yellow bag and produced a wad of bills. She dropped a twenty dollar bill on the table with careless abandon. “What’ll you have, sister?”

  “I’ll have a few bills,” said the nance with a sudden clutching motion at her money. His hand made the bag before Marianne could stop him. He peeled off a few twenties and pocketed them. It was a smooth and expert performance, a gesture that infuriated Marianne.

  “My money, pansy,” she hissed and grabbed for his throat.

  “Darling, remember your temper.”

  “I want my dough, schmo.”

  “Temper, temper, temper.”

  “My money!” Marianne had closed her fist on his shirt and began to squeeze. She moved with the sure strength of an Amazon. And Timothy began to fold, clutching madly at her iron fists. His face turned the color of stale wax and he gasped and coughed. Holding him with one hand, she reached into his pants and recovered her money. It was a delightful performance, as easy as blowing her nose. She stuffed the greenbacks into her purse and sat back laughing at him, her humor a deep and throaty chuckle. The entire scene was played only in the immediate aura of our table. Nobody in the place paused to notice her gymnastics. />
  “You are a beast,” said Timothy, now massaging his throat with a lily-white hand. He leaned in and aimed his sharp eyes at her. In that pose a trace of masculinity shone through. He was openly angry and anxious to level her. “I thought we made a deal, Marianne darling. I thought, you would be clever enough to advance me a few dollars.”

  “Drop dead,” said Marianne.

  “How unkind. You have a bad memory, sweetheart.”

  “Blow.”

  “Do you really mean it?” Timothy put a hand on her arm and squeezed gently. “Want me to sell my little short story, Marianne dear? I know a customer, remember. I know a little man who’ll take notes on what I tell him. A cute little policeman—”

  “Shut your pansy mouth!”

  “How cruel you are.”

  “I’ll kill you, crud.”

  “I do believe you would,” said Timothy. He was enjoying the byplay now, watching her carefully, weighing her, appraising the depth of her reactions. What he saw pleased him and fortified him. He leaned in again, her master at last. “You drink too much, Marianne darling. Now you’ve threatened me before a witness. That isn’t clever, my dear.”

  “Louse,” murmured Marianne. Her alcoholic fog seemed to lift suddenly. There was fear in her empty eyes now. She regarded him for a flickering pause and then made up her mind. She opened her bag and counted off five twenties for him.

  “Louse,” she said with disgust. “Vermin. Get off my back, gutless.”

  Marianne arose in righteous impatience. She withered him with a final, murderous glance. For a small moment she turned her sleepy eyes my way and I thought I saw a fresh emotion there, a groping, fumbling plea for pity, for sympathy. But the impulse passed quickly. She started away from the table, still unsteady on her elegant legs. In the quick pause, I groped for direction. Would it be best to follow her now? Or might I gain more ground by dallying a while with the girlish Timothy Cantrell?

  I did not move.

  “A bad-tempered woman,” remarked Timothy. “And much too dedicated to the demon rum. And now, my dear, perhaps I can buy you a drink?”

  “You’re sweet, Timothy.”

  “Not sweet,” he said airily. “But cautious, Sugar.”

  “You know me?”

  “I have a sensationally accurate memory for pixy females of your type, my dear. I’ve seen your face in the public prints. Sugar Shannon, girl reporter, no?”

  “Sugar Shannon, yes.”

  “And from the glint in your eye, you’re hard at work tonight? A newspaper vixen in pursuit of Marianne Fry, I ask myself. And why? Are you doing a series of articles on whoredom, my sweet?”

  “Could be,” I said. “Or I could be working on the death of my good friend George DeBeers.”

  “George DeBeers—dead?” Timothy Cantrell sucked in a feminine gasp of astonishment, opening his eyes wide and pursing his lips in the manner of a girl who has just seen a small mouse. “How perfectly awful. So young—and so talented.”

  “You knew George?”

  “Only casually, of course. He was well known to all art lovers in the Village, my dear.” He went on at great length, describing George’s art to me. Timothy knew his way around in the world of painting. He went off on a verbal detour, explaining his own talents, his lust for greatness in the area of bead work. He was on a giant project for a local decorator—a bead mural for a penthouse uptown. I cut into his monologue.

  “And are you doing anything for Marianne?” I asked.

  “Marianne?” Timothy giggled, amused by my interruption. “Why in heaven’s name do you suggest such a thing? Me work for that little whore?”

  “You collected money from her.”

  “Oh, that. Only a personal debt.”

  “She seemed reluctant to pay off.”

  “A whorish habit. They’re all alike—stingy little maggots.”

  “Not so,” I said. “Some of my best friends are generous whores.”

  “Really?” Timothy’s eyebrows arched in a ladylike show of annoyance. He began to drum his well-manicured nails on the table top. A restless wind was stirring him now, jerking his eyes away from mine in a quick and nervous perusal of the room. He was looking for an out, a way to end our little conversation. He waved suddenly, a delicate toss of the wrist at a youth who sat at the bar.

  “There’s Philip,” he gushed, on his feet. “Time to toddle off, Sugar. See you around.”

  “Not yet, Timothy.”

  I held his arm with as much strength as I could muster. He stiffened and turned, looking down at me with a haughty, nervous air. But he allowed himself to drop slowly back into the chair, measuring me with his fragile eyes.

  “I forgot,” I said, “an important piece of news, Timothy. George DeBeers was murdered, you see.”

  “Indeed?” He gasped the word, working hard to make it register honest horror. “And what has that got to do with me?”

  “Plenty. Because you were talking to Marianne Fry.”

  “I don’t quite follow you.”

  “I’ll make it easy. Marianne was seen with George before he was killed.”

  “So?”

  “The police are after her.”

  “And?”

  “They’ll be interested in you, Timothy. If I tell them you took some of Marianne’s money a few minutes ago.”

  “No.” His spindly body sagged and went limp. His face lost much of its animation. Stark fear rode him now, probably inspired by his memories of past contacts with the police. He whispered when he spoke again. “Listen, darling. I can’t abide the police. You mustn’t involve me, do you understand? I’ll help you with your story. I’ll do anything—but you must promise to keep me clean. Will you, darling? Will you?”

  “Let’s have a little chat,” I said.

  CHAPTER 6

  12:42 A.M. Saturday

  Timothy Cantrell’s information sounded like the truth. It took me out of The Zen Den in a hurry, on my way for another try at Marianne Fry.

  “I’ll tell you everything, darling,” Timothy had said, prodded by my threat of the police. “I was on my way to see a friend of mine, a dear boy named Lester Chisolm, who lives across the street from George DeBeers. I can tell you with great accuracy that the time was just eight-thirty because Lester insists that his guests be punctual. Do you know the street? It’s a horribly black alley, a place that always frightens me silly. But on the way to Lester’s door I saw Marianne and George stumbling down the street, both of them disgustingly drunk. She went up to his studio, of course, whore that she is. And later, I saw her running from his place as though chased by rats. She stumbled up the alley at a great speed, an unusual pace for Marianne, who generally proceeds with the energy of an oversexed snail. This led me to believe that she might have rolled the lad. And that’s why I hit her for a small payoff a while ago. Do you believe me? You must. Check my story with her. She lives at Eight-seventy-five Mardall Lane.”

  Mardall Lane was a tiny street on the southern outskirts of the Village, an area of old storefronts and older warehouses. Here and there an occasional tenement sat, a giant box of stench and gloom. The neighborhood was a mixture of commerce and decay, abounding in filth and housing only derelicts, the small world of faceless people who feed on the garbage of their richer neighbors to the north. In occasional doorways slept the wastrel drunks and strays, prone on the curbing or coiled in fitful sleep in the deeper and deadlier shadows.

  Once I found myself marching into this sea of horror, caution pricked at me. A woman could be murdered here, quietly and efficiently. A girl could be waylaid by any one of the slithering characters alive on these festered streets. I walked purposefully ahead, gaining some small confidence from my past experience in the art of judo, plus the small weapon I carried for such ventures as this: several long and sturdy hairpins for stunning and slowing any male with d
egenerate ideas.

  But nobody approached me and I made the entrance to 875 Mardall Lane with nothing worse than a hammering heart. In the airless hallway I lit my cigarette lighter and scanned the name plates. The name FRY was written in spidery letters on a dirtied scrap of paper over the buzzer marked 2C. I pushed open the ancient door and started up the sagging stairs.

  The ancient hovel closed in on me. There was no light in the hall. Up above a pale blue globe flickered against the dirty wall, just enough to throw a murky aura against the door marked 2C.

  “Beat it!” A tired, husky voice answered my knock.

  “Marianne?”

  “Who in hell are you?”

  “Open up. I’m a friend of yours.”

  “The hell you are.”

  “I just had a drink with you at The Zen Den, remember?”

  “Drink?” The voice rose on a sharper note. Then there was a husky laugh and the door opened a crack. Marianne squinted at me through the gloom. “Now what in hell would you want here, sister?”

  “A few words.” I pushed at the door and she let me come in. “A few friendly words, Marianne.”

  The room was deceptively large. No lamp, no bulb burned here. The place was lit from the street, an intermittent, flashing radiance from the Hotel Winton across the street. My eyes squinted for some direction, some clue to the layout of the furniture. Marianne stood at the far window, an Amazon silhouette against the blinking sign. To the right, the shadow of a Victorian settee. To the left, a large studio couch and an overstuffed chair. There would be another room behind this, probably a kitchen. Vaguely, through the door, I caught the occasional highlight of the refrigerator. Beyond, was there a fire escape?

  “Got anything?” Marianne asked. “A drink, I mean?”

  “Sorry. You want to go down for one?”

  “No.” The word came sharp and knifed with tension. “No more out for me, sister. I’m in, in for the night.”

  “I can run out and get a bottle.”

  “Forget it.” I saw her head turn from the window and study me in the erratic light. And suddenly her figure came into focus for me. She was nude, as naked as a plucked duck. She shivered and reached out for a gown and put it on. But no robe on earth could hide the provocative bulk of her great figure. She was rigged for her business, as lush and ripe as a pasha’s concubine.