Stone Cold Blonde Read online

  I was reaching out in my sleep.

  CHAPTER 9

  I was deep in a Technicolor dream, in which an energetic blonde dressed in her natural underwear chased me through a palm grove, swinging at me viciously with the side of a building. She was running fast, and I galloped over the edge of a small abyss and began to fall, gently, with the wind whistling in my ears. Then it began to ran, ice-cold drops, slapping at me with an eerie splat. I tried to pull the jacket of my dream suit up and over my head. I twisted and turned. But Abe Feldman shook me awake and stopped batting my face with the wet towel.

  “Don’t say ‘Where am I?’” Abe said. “You’re still in The DeGraw Hotel, room 509, and somebody tried to knock your head off your shoulders. Anyone I know?”

  “I didn’t see her. It was a woman with enough stuff in her right arm to fight a war. What did she hit me with?”

  Abe held up the small bronze lamp that had been sitting on the night table when I walked in. The bitch had swung it hard enough to murder me, but I had saved myself by falling. It was a blessing to be undersized at a moment like this. If I had been taller, she would have been able to level off at me; she would have opened my skull and left the meat splattered all over the floor. As it was, she had been forced to swing down, and the angle of her blows saved my aching head.

  “The time?” I asked.

  “You’ve been out for almost an hour, Steve. I made the locate on Hands Vincetti. He’s over at The Fan Club, drinking beer and talking to one of the strippers. He’ll be there for a while. I got worried when you didn’t show up and figured I’d better check. Did you get anything here?”

  I fished in my pocket and produced the razor blade. “Only this. But I wanted to make a real fix on Fred Morris. If Frank Masterson used a Gem razor, we can be sure he’s Morris. It isn’t much, but it’ll do.”

  “It wasn’t worth the headache you got,” Abe said. “Still, it gives you another angle to worry about. The woman who hit you, I mean.”

  “She made an impression on me, Abe.” I got up and waited for the marrow to harden in my knees and the small birds to stop their internal music up around my ears. She had knocked the starch out of me and it took a few moments to feel human again. I examined my head in the bathroom mirror. I was all right except for a broad welt on my chin and a growing lump behind my ear that hammered with violence and vigor. I sat down on the toilet bowl and meditated. “What was her angle, Abe? I can’t understand why she slugged me.”

  “The neighborhood is full of them,” Abe said. “Have you counted your dough? There are women on this street who would fracture their grandmothers for six bits. Or is that an element of feminine behavior you haven’t yet put down in your book, Steve?”

  I got off the john and fumbled through my pockets, taking a quick inventory. She hadn’t put a finger on me. My wallet was intact. “She didn’t touch anything but my head. She must have been looking for something in this room.”

  “The toilet?” Abe laughed. “Maybe she was caught short and this was the nearest one and you were in her way, so she slugged you and only moved her bowels?”

  “Very funny.”

  I found the wall switch in the tiny toilet. The bare bulb flooded the room with sharp and probing light, so that Abe and I blinked together.

  “You looking for something in here?” Abe asked.

  “Why the hell not? I went over the bedroom with my eye an inch from every stick of furniture in there, including the rug. If she wanted something in there, she could have taken it and gone home, without beating my brains in, because I wouldn’t have heard her. But she didn’t want anything in the bedroom, Abe. She saw me in the john and she got frantic with worry. She figured that I was about to lift whatever it was she came in here for. So she slugged me, hard. Then she danced over my body and took whatever it was brought her here.”

  We went back to the bedroom and I phoned Rickert. I asked him who had tenanted the room immediately after Morris. “A dame named Zelda. She’s got a snake act at Coney Island. She moved out this afternoon. Took her goddam snakes and beat it to Brooklyn, where she belongs.”

  I gave Abe the name and he made a note of it. He said, “Maybe we better see a doctor with that cheek of yours, Steve. It hurt?”

  “It’ll be all right. I keep thinking of this lousy toilet, Abe.”

  I was taking a lonely walk now, into the can again on my own, and I couldn’t blame Abe for staying out in the bedroom, where the air was more palatable. I flipped the light switch again and looked around. The medicine cabinet yielded the same goose egg I found there before. On the right, the bathtub, grimy, and sporting a dirt ring that had been graven into the enamel over a fifty-year period. I stared hard at the toilet itself, the seat, the tank; the stains along the bowl.

  Then I saw it.

  There were drops of water, only a few of them, along the edge of the tank. I rubbed my hand along the side, and when I brought it away, my fingers were wet.

  “Abe!” I yelled.

  He came in and I showed him the dampness. He ran his hand where my hand had been, but most of the drippage was gone now.

  “Thought it might just be sweating,” Abe said.

  I lifted the oblong lid off the tank and looked inside. I lit a match and groped around, but my search yielded nothing more than a small length of whitish string. I held it up to the light and we glowered at it.

  Abe took it. “I’ll give it the treatment, Steve. It may be something. Something you can use later.”

  “The old can deal. She came back because somebody had hidden something in the squat room.”

  “Don’t set it up so strong. You’ve got other possibilities. She could have been a whack. Or she might have been one of the women who tries a stickup for the first time, gets scared, and runs from fright. Let’s not go on the deep end, Steve. Let it simmer.”

  “It’s simmering,” I said. “Now suppose we get out of this cesspool, before I spill a small segment of my guts.”

  We stopped at a convenient bar on the way to The Fan Club. I felt better after a double Scotch, but I stayed on for an encore, until the throbbing behind my ear faded to a dull drumbeat. We made small talk with the bartender, asking him cute questions about the little man we knew was Frank Masterson. Inquiries sometimes pay off. You never know where a lead will pop up. But the bartender was a sturdy and senseless man, who had a memory that reached back only as far as the last clang of his cash register.

  We walked down the street and paused across from the orange and purple canopy of The Fan Club.

  “I’m going in, Abe. You do a search on this street. Maybe you can pick up a lead on Masterson from the restaurants, the local gentry or the corner saloons.”

  “You feeling all right?”

  “I’m ripe now. I feel fine.”

  “You going to stay with Vincetti?”

  “Whither he goes, there go I.”

  “Where do you think Vincetti will take you?”

  “I can’t wait to find out,” I said. “But I don’t quite see him having fun in a dump like The Fan Club. It’s a culture group hangout, Abe, a nest for musicians, really.”

  “Maybe Vincetti plays the piccolo.”

  “This I’ve got to hear.” The cool fall air was doing me good, and the little drums behind my ear were fading to a duller beat. The sting was gone now and nothing hurt too much except my chin, an intermittent flash of pain high on the jaw. A little too much had happened too soon, but I tried for the sifting and sorting of the vagrant ideas that buzzed around under my hat. I backtracked to the start of it, remembering the figure on my office rug, the intimate details of her delightful body. And the memory of her clawed at my guts, reviving the sudden anger I had felt less than twelve hours ago.

  Abe was in tune with my intellect.

  “I was thinking maybe you don’t need me here, Steve,” he said. “I
could be doing something back in your office. I could be following up a couple of ideas I have, about the blonde. Erlock, for instance. I’d like to talk to this Max Erlock character. A few questions, perhaps. Or did you see him down at Biberman’s?”

  “I didn’t see him, Abe. And you won’t find him in his office this late.”

  “Naturally.” Abe laughed gently. “I don’t expect to find him in his office. But his files, Steve. He doesn’t take his files out of the building when he goes home, does he?”

  “Where will his files get you? If he had her picture in his cabinets, he probably ripped it up.”

  “An office is an office. There might be other little things laying around up there. Odds and ends.”

  “Where will you go after Max Erlock’s?”

  “You have a soft couch in your office, Steve. Maybe I’ll take myself a small nap for a while. I do some good thinking on office furniture, sometimes my very best. You’ll call me there?”

  “Later,” I said. “After I finish with Vincetti.”

  “Be careful,” Abe said and waved me goodbye and walked slowly off toward The DeGraw, the picture of a middle-aged businessman, taking a casual stroll.

  CHAPTER 10

  I crossed the street and entered The Fan Club. It was a smoke-filled trap, built in the usual style for night clubs of the intimate, or belch-over-my shoulder type. Which meant that it was small and crowded and reeking of the smell of tired and perfumed bodies, combined with the stale stench of bar slops and dead cigarettes.

  The Fan Club was a popular bistro, however, brought about by Jeff Eames, a colored youth, who had all the charm of a virtuoso and the versatility of a genius at the keyboard. His boogie-woogie was well known in town, ever since a wandering reporter from The New Yorker had happened along, listened and looked, and promoted the fact that all the music-making maestros in the jump and jive industry congregated at The Fan Club regularly to hear Jeff Eames beat out his improvised rhythms.

  Eames was a tall, spare young man, who closed his eyes and flashed his enamel-white smile at the audience as he played. He was playing now, a tinkling adaptation of The Third Man Theme. I slid inside the entrance, past the crowded bar, and toward the wall, where the little tables were lined. There was an empty one near the Exit door. I sneaked my way toward it, careful to avoid knocking drinks out of the customers’ hands on the way. I was about midway to my destination when I felt a tug on my arm and heard a familiar voice.

  “The cute little detective,” the voice said. “Come over to mamma, Stevie boy.”

  Mamma was Alice V. Christie, and she was as tight as the seams on a ballerina’s leotards. There was a man with her, only he wasn’t working at it too much. The man was Ashforth, and he almost spilled his Daiquiri on the uptake as he arose to greet me. His little eyes danced with delight and he reached out a fleshy hand to clutch mine. I didn’t see it, and he sat down with a jolt and a growing pout.

  “What a charming, charming surprise,” he said tenderly.

  “What are you drinking, dream boy?” Alice V. asked.

  “Sheep dip,” I said.

  “Domestic or imported?”

  “Pure grain, Kentucky sheep dip.”

  “Isn’t he just too mad?” Ashforth asked himself, clapping his hands in unfettered merriment and rolling and bobbing on his chair.

  Alice V. was leaning my way and she had her arm over mine, so that I was locked close to her. She was wearing an evening gown, of the latest fashion, designed to evoke male hoots and hollers.

  She whispered at me, her eyes no duller than when I had seen her last. If she was drunk, she was pushing it hard. The only sign of it came through in her voice, a little less sharp now, a little deeper and huskier. I managed to pull my arm away when the waiter brought my drink, but she still kept in close touch with me, her fingers on, my sleeve, her eyes as hungry as a snake over a rabbit.

  “This is Ashforth’s idea of a good time,” she whispered. “He was having a heavy romance with that fat man at the bar when you walked in. Let’s you and I leave.”

  “I like it here.” Over her shoulder there was a small knot of people gathering around Jeff Eames, an assortment of gals and guys who were pressing him for their favorite numbers. I caught the heads of several popular bandleaders. The girls were all worth a second look, but I eased my eyes away from them, making a grand tour of the club, prowling slowly for a sight of Hands Vincetti. I found him just beyond the corner of the bar. He was sitting with an underclad chorus girl, who must have been a particular friend of his. They were folded up together in a private huddle and he had an arm over her shoulder. Even from where I sat, a good forty feet from him, it was possible to appreciate the reason for his name. He had giant hands, square and hairy hands, hands that were all out of proportion. They were out of place on his body. He wasn’t a big man. He was short and muscular, thick-necked and bull-faced. He had a broken nose under bushed black brows. And when he smiled, two or three of his uppers glistened and gleamed with a golden glow.

  “I know better places,” Alice V. was saying.

  “Snob,” said Ashforth, bending our way with pursed lips. “I think this club is simply divine, don’t you, Mr. Conacher?”

  “Peachy,” I said.

  “Have you done anything for Grace Masterson yet?” Alice V. asked.

  “Nothing much.”

  “She’s very fond of you.”

  “I manage to keep my clients happy.”

  “She trusts you,” Alice V. said. “Implicitly. Grace is convinced you’ll locate her husband soon.”

  “She’s whistling in the dark. I didn’t make any promises.”

  “But you’re on the job. I’ll bet you came here on a lead, didn’t you?”

  “You flatter me. I came here to listen to Jeff Eames.”

  “You’re not listening. You’re looking.”

  “Who can fool a lawyer?” I asked.

  “Are you really hunting for him here?” Ashforth asked, jumping with excitement. “What a dreadfully obvious place for a man to hide.”

  “Men hide in much more obvious places,” I said. “I once knew a character who worked for a lawyer and tried to hide in a client’s living room. But he queered himself by leaving a big clue behind. He dropped his cigar ashes all over the rug.”

  Ashforth was all atremble. He sipped his drink but it didn’t go down smoothly. He began to cough and splutter, holding a handkerchief to his dainty lips.

  Alice V. said, “Oh, no. Not you, Ashforth? Not you.”

  “What were you doing up there?” I asked. “You got a yen for Grace Masterson?”

  “I only went up to return her lipstick and her cigarette case. She had left them in the office, you see. But I’m dreadfully confused. Really I am.” He mopped his brow and blew a sigh at us. “I honestly can’t remember smoking a cigar up there. Did I? You are clever, Mr. Conacher. How terribly, terribly clever you detectives are.”

  “You do smoke cigars?”

  “Indeed I do. Antony and Cleopatra, a delightful smoke.”

  “How the hell can you smoke such dandy cigars and fail to remember when you puff them?”

  “Oh, my. You confuse me now. Can you remember every time you smoke a cigarette? Answer me that.”

  I let it pass. Ashforth was too rich for my blood, worse than a woman when it came to an exchange of words. He continued to discuss the relative merits of cigars versus cigarettes with Alice V. Their voices were easy to lose under the steady upbeat from Jeff Eames’s piano. Somebody began to add words to his orchestration and the chorus of drunks and fools around him picked it up and converted it into a symphony of discord. I watched Hands Vincetti.

  “There’s a much cuter dive over on Lexington Avenue,” Alice V. said. “Less noise and a cozier atmosphere.”

  “I like it fine here,” I said.

  “The
other place is near my apartment.”

  “That should make it convenient for you.”

  “It makes it convenient for all my friends. You’d love my flat, detective. Ever been to Sutton Place?”

  “I have no social life. I live in a cave.”

  “I like cave men,” she said. “I have a terrace, with a view of the river and an outdoor garden. There’s a new kind of hammock I’ve got there, just built for lying around—”

  Hands Vincetti was whispering a message into the girl’s pink ear. She giggled, throwing her head back and giving herself up to laughter. He put his large paw under her chin and waggled it. She said something pleasant to him and he waggled it again. It was a chin made for waggling, a girlish chin, a chin too soft and youthful for the unhealthy paw of Hands Vincetti.

  Jeff Eames was playing a duet with the drummer, and I caught the familiar head of Monk Fleming, sweating over his skins as he riffled a triple beat against the boogie-woogie melody.

  Monk was an old friend of mine, a boyhood chum out of my youthful hunting expeditions in the upper reaches of New York State. He had left the farm to beat his drums in the county fairs, a hayseed with a talent for upbeat. I had seen him come into the big town ten years ago, a rawboned kid from the pine forests who yearned to add his talents to a jive combine. I had helped him join the Eddie Leck group, where he killed the customers in the minor downtown bistros.

  Monk Fleming started to climb the ladder, but he stumbled on the second rung, the day somebody introduced him to a rye highball. He would have been great if he hadn’t married Old Lady Rum. Now there were rumors around town that Monk was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. The rumors might be true, from the way he was backing up Jeff Fames. I got off my tail and excused myself. I crossed the room and passed Hands Vincetti and his girl. Up close, she was a choice morsel. They were an incongruous couple—beauty and the baboon. But Beauty was laughing it up for Mr. Baboon.

  Monk Fleming finished the duet with a burst of fancy rifflery and an underbeat on the big drum. He was sweating beautifully as he rose to acknowledge the big hand from the audience. He saw me and greeted me with his usual sad smile, tugging me over to a small table behind the bandstand. He waved me into a seat and then sat down himself and began to gnaw on a mangled straw set in a Pepsi-Cola bottle.