CHAPTER SEVEN

  Downstairs the place was beginning to fill up with pleasure-hungry customers. I looked for Georgette but couldn’t find her, and stood for a moment figuring on what to do next. I still had some spare time, so I decided to hang around for an hour and see what cropped up.

  Susan cropped up.

  I spotted her as she came through the inner doors. She was dressed in a silver thing which hugged her like a second skin and, against all the time-worn beauties, she looked as fresh and as radiant as a breath of spring. A man was with her, some uptown playboy, and I watched them as he steered her towards a table.

  He didn’t like my joining them.

  ‘Miss Geeson?’ I sat down as she turned towards me. ‘Remember me?’

  ‘Mr. Lantry.’ She wasn’t pleased or annoyed or anything. She looked even more tired than when I had seen her last, and I wondered what it was about money that seemed to spoil everyone who touched it. Her escort, a smooth, well-dressed man fresh from Harvard, looked towards me.

  ‘Is this man bothering you, Susan?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘If he’s worrying you—’ He let his voice fade into silence as he gave me the eye. I didn’t let it bother me.

  ‘He’s not offending me, John.’ She sounded as if she was too tired to care.

  ‘May I have a word with you, Miss Geeson?’ I looked at her escort. ‘Privately?’

  ‘If you wish.’ She looked at John and he took the hint. I watched him go over to the bar.

  ‘Fiancé?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Playing tonight?’

  ‘That’s my business.’ She fumbled for a cigarette and I passed her one of my own. She hesitated before taking it, then shrugged and allowed me to give her a light. I snapped shut the lighter and became serious.

  ‘I’m not just making noises, Miss Geeson, or should it be Susan?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I hate being formal. Well, Susan, you know that Norma used to work here, don’t you?’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘You know she did.’ I dragged at my cigarette. ‘The point I’m making is this: do you come here to lose money because of that?’

  I’d startled her. I could tell it from the way she sucked in her breath and the fingers of the hand holding the cigarette tightened so that she crushed the paper. I waited for her to recover her calm.

  ‘I think that you’re a fool,’ she said deliberately. ‘An ill-mannered fool at that.’ The contempt in her voice could have been cut with a knife.

  ‘Thinking is your privilege,’ I said lightly. ‘But remember this, Susan. I’m employed to find your step-mother. I’m going to do that. If I can help you on the side, I’ll do it, but I’m not going to cover up for you unless you come clean.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I think that you do,’ I said. ‘I think that you’ve a pretty shrewd idea where your step-mother might be. Think me a fool if you like, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that Thornedyke’s a fool too. He isn’t, believe me he isn’t, and that boy plays for keeps.’

  ‘Do you have any idea of what you are saying?’ She crushed out the cigarette and rose to her feet. ‘Really, Mr. Lantry, I have a very poor opinion of your intelligence after what you have said. May I ask you to stop from bothering me?’

  ‘You may.’ I stood up and watched her rejoin her escort. He glared at me and I smiled back. I wasn’t worried; the more people who thought that I was a fool, the better I like it. People get careless when they think they are the only clever ones.

  But I didn’t like to think of Susan getting mixed up with a rat like Thornedyke.

  A glance at my watch told me that it was time to get moving, so I went to the hat-check girl to collect my hat and coat. She took her time finding them, so much time that I began to wonder whether or not she’d sold them or given them away to the deserving poor.

  Finally I collected my belongings and stepped out of the club into a swirling mass of snow.

  It was quite dark now and the glare of the neons made the falling flakes seem like something out of this world. I stamped my feet to keep them warm while the doorkeeper whistled for a cab.

  It slid to a halt before the doors, the doorkeeper opened the back door, and I ducked inside out of the storm. The door slammed shut behind me and the cab started with a jerk which threw me against something soft and yielding. Startled, I reached for the light switch.

  ‘Hold it!’ Something hard jabbed into my stomach. ‘We don’t need no lights.’

  I didn’t answer. Even before he spoke I’d started for my gun, realised that I couldn’t get it out in time, and dropped my hand. My companion chuckled.

  ‘Now you’re getting smart. Just sit down and take it nice and easy.’ His voice had a peculiar purring sound, as though he were a cat licking his chops over a bowl of cream. I tried to place it, but it was one I hadn’t heard before. I sat very still as he patted my clothing and lifted the Browning from the underarm holster.

  ‘Got it, Lefty?’ The driver, a dim shadow against the snow-covered windscreen, half-twisted his head as he tried to do two things at once. The man called Lefty snarled as the cab skidded.

  ‘Watch your driving. I’ve got his gat. Here.’ He dropped it over the front seat while I cursed myself for all sorts of a fool.

  It was so obvious that I could have kicked myself. The delay in getting my hat and coat, plenty of time for the hat-check girl to pass the word that I was on the way out. The whistled signal from the doorkeeper and the car, which in the snow I had mistaken for a cab.

  ‘Thornedyke put you boys up to this?’ I kept my voice as casual as though I was asking for a match.

  ‘Maybe.’ Lefty gave his purring chuckle and his eyes gleamed in the darkness with an unusual glitter.

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Don’t get lippy, pal. It ain’t healthy.’

  ‘So it was Thornedyke. What gives?’

  ‘Just a little ride, pal. We like your company so much that we want more.’ The purr whispered in the confines of the car like an animal noise of anticipation. ‘Nothing serious, so don’t get all upset and do anything to make me shoot you. I’d hate to do that. It would mess up the cushions something terrible.’ He chuckled again and I recognised his type.

  A goon. A trigger-happy gunsel out on a job and enjoying himself. A man as liable to pull the trigger of the gun pointed at my stomach as to blow his nose. I relaxed and grinned into the darkness.

  ‘That’s good news. Thornedyke must think more of me than I guessed.’

  A hand swept from out of the darkness. A big hand wearing a heavy ring. It dashed across my mouth and I tasted blood from my split lips. Instinctively I lunged at the dim shape, knotting my fist and slamming it towards where I thought his throat would be. I missed, bruising my knuckles against the side of the car, and the gun barrel jabbed into my stomach with enough force to make me gag.

  ‘Try that again, pal, and I’ll blow you wide open. This ain’t no stick of rock I’m holding.’

  ‘Cut the jabber, Lefty,’ snapped the driver. ‘Give it to him.’

  ‘And spoil the car covers?’

  ‘To hell with that. Get it over with.’

  ‘Pipe down, Spike,’ purred Lefty. ‘I’m enjoying this.’

  I wasn’t. I’d been held up before, slugged before, and even taken for a ride a couple of times, but I still hadn’t learned to like it. I never would learn to like it, not while my life hung on an idiot’s whim. And Lefty was an idiot, a gun-crazy moron. I’d met his type before.

  ‘How much are you boys getting for this?’ I kept my voice casual. Lefty sniggered.

  ‘Hear that, pike? The man wants to know how much we’re getting for this.’

  ‘I heard him,’ growled Spike. ‘Get on with it and cut the jabber.’

  ‘You cut your jabber,’ snarled Lefty with a sudden change of temper. ‘Your job is to drive this crate, not give me lip.’

  ‘Yes, Lefty,’ said the driver humbly, and I guessed that he was as scared of the moron as I was.

  That’s right. Scared.

  An idiot with a gun is the same as a hophead or a drunk—unpredictable. They’ll kill a man for the laughs or for a lift of an eyebrow, or just for the fun of hearing the gun go ‘bang’. My life was hanging by a thread and I knew it.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been offered, but I’ll double it. Is it a deal?’

  ‘Did you hear that, Spike?’ Lefty had recovered his good humour and his purr. ‘The man’s offering us money. He’s scared.’ The gun jabbed at me. ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘Sure he’s scared,’ said Spike hastily. ‘How much money have you got, pal?’

  ‘A hundred and fifty dollars. Will you take it and let me go?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Lefty quickly.’ He lied and I knew it. ‘Pass the coin and we’ll forget all about it. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  I twisted, wriggling on the seat as if I were trying to get out my wallet. While I wriggled I stared at Spike. As I’d hoped, he was more interested in what was going on behind him than on his job. Normally that wouldn’t have mattered, but things weren’t normal. The roads were a sheet of freezing snow, the windscreen was clogged with it, and vision was down to a few feet.

  I grunted, swept down my hand and felt the cold metal of the gun barrel smack against my palm. With my shoulder I hit the light switch and while the light blazed on, I wrenched at the automatic. Lefty squealed as the trigger guard scraped his fingers, and then the weapon came free. I swung at him just as the car skidded and left the road.

  The motion ruined my aim so that I dug a hole in the cushion, the impact jarring the gun from my hand. Lefty yelled as I struck at him, kicking and chopping for his throat, then the car jolted to a halt and Spike joined in the fight.

  He grabbed up the Browning and swung at me, leaning over the back seat. I saw his eyes, wild with fear and terror, and I saw the little round hole which would soon be spitting lead and flame. With fifteen shots in the magazine, with me tangled in the back of the car and with only two feet between us, he couldn’t miss.

  I jerked at the door handle and fell out into the snow as lead whined through the space where my head had been.

  Almost I made it. Almost I got free into the snow and darkness. Then I tripped over something, fell head-first against a tree, and by the time I had shaken the stars out of my eyes they were all over me.

  Through a red haze of pain I felt the impact of blows on my head and shoulders and, coupled with the soggy impact, the sound of a snarling purr, which was Lefty getting his own back. I doubled, shoved my head into my lap, locked the fingers of both hands over the back of my neck, and brought my heels up behind my buttocks. Like a ball I rolled towards an incline I had noticed when leaving the car. It had stopped on the verge of a slope and I hoped to be able to roll down it before I was beaten to a jelly.

  It was a close thing.

  They could hurt me, but not too seriously, my arms and legs protected the weaker portions of my body. I felt the slam of blows against my kidneys, the thrust of feet against my sides, and the pounding of something hard against the top of my head. Then, as if they had grown tired and wanted to get it over, I heard the whistle of air as something cut through it towards me. I jerked, felt myself begin to fall, then the top of my head seemed to split wide open into a great, black, star-lined hole.

  I fell into it and kept on falling.

  I never did reach the bottom.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I was lying on something soft and cold, wet and chilling. I rested there, feeling the cold seep into my bones. It didn’t seem so much cold as numbing. I lay there for a long while, just resting, just trying to get the throbbing out of my head and the sickness out of my stomach. Resting didn’t help, so I decided to open my eyes.

  It took a long time.

  Finally I prised them open and stared up at the snow-covered branches of a tree. They hung above me, very beautiful with their covering of fleecy-white snow, then, as I looked, a clot of the white stuff fell towards me and hit me in the face. It was time to move.

  The base of my stomach was sore, my legs were sore, my kidneys hurt like hell, and it was painful to move. The backs of my hands were swollen and I had a bruised cheek. The top of my head carried a couple of lumps the size of eggs, and I was so cold that my teeth chattered like the castanets of some Mexican dancing girl.

  Other than that I was quite all right.

  I looked around me. The goons had probably left me after I had rolled down the slope. They had gone, and so had their car. Thinking hurt my head and the pain made my thoughts all fuzzy, as though they were wrapped in cotton. I fell flat on my face as I tried to walk up the slope and, before trying again, I grabbed hold of a double handful of the white stuff and rubbed it over my face.

  It stung and the cold was something I wanted to get away from, but it helped, and by the time I had crawled to the top my brain was functioning again. I stood on the verge of a road and waited for the traffic which wasn’t there. While waiting I walked. I like to think of it as walking, though my trail in the snow was something only a drunk would have emulated. I didn’t know where I was or which direction to take, but I knew that if I didn’t keep moving I would freeze.

  So I kept moving.

  I waited for a long time before a car came humming towards me. I waved, even tried to yell, but it did not do any good. The red tail lights seemed to sneer at me as they vanished into the distance. A second car came, then two together, then nothing for a long, long time. I could have wept.

  The next pair of headlights to show themselves found me swaying in the middle of the road. The car could stop or not, as the driver chose. If it stopped, I was going to ask for help. If it didn’t, I’d be in no condition to do any asking, anyway.

  It stopped.

  I hobbled towards it and a flashlight beam hit me straight between the eyes.

  ‘You in trouble, mister?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I clung to the edge of the door panel and tried to make my voice sound like a voice. The flashlight beam bothered me, I couldn’t see past it, and the driver bothered me too. The voice had been too high-pitched for a man and too resonant for that of a boy. I must have been still pretty fogged from the beating up, because I didn’t think of a woman.

  She chuckled and lowered the flashlight.

  ‘Why, Mr. Lantry, fancy meeting you!’

  ‘You know me?’ I clawed at the door handle.

  ‘Mike!’ This time she wasn’t trying to be funny. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘You could say that.’ Now I recognised her, Constance Young of the New York Tribune. I could have kissed her.

  ‘Get in, Mike, you’ll freeze out there.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I dragged open the door and almost fell into the vacant seat. I sat, my head between my hands, and the bottle she passed me was what I needed most. It was Scotch, good Scotch at that, and it took me and shook me and warmed me all over. After the third drink, I remembered my manners and passed her a cigarette.

  ‘Trouble, Mike?’ She lit the cigarettes with the dashlighter, and in the glow I could see her eyes, soft and concerned and not a bit afraid. I squinted at myself in the rear-view mirror and was surprised to find that I still looked human.

  ‘Just a little friendly roughhouse.’ I felt myself over, not surprised to find that my wallet and gun were among the missing. I took another sip at the bottle.

  ‘Want to tell me about it?’

  ‘No.’

  She wasn’t annoyed.

  ‘Private business.’ I explained. ‘I may get around to telling you later.’

  ‘As you wish.’ She started the car and drove with easy skill. I stared out of the windows.

  ‘Which way are we going?’

  ‘To town. Why?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I’d been walking in the wrong direction. ‘What brought you out here?’

  ‘I’ve been to the Purple Orchid.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘No. My escort got drunk, so I ditched him.’ She chuckled as she handled the wheel, the tyres humming as they spun through the snow. ‘Some men never learn.’

  ‘That’s right.’ I winced as I touched the bumps on my head. ‘You don’t look the gambling type to me, Constance. Why the Purple Orchid?’

  ‘No reasons,’ she said, and I knew that she was lying. Why I didn’t know. I didn’t care either.

  I finished the cigarette and lit another. In the dim glow of the instrument panel the hand of the speedometer hovered around a nice, safe thirty. I looked at the clock: it had its hands pointing almost to midnight, and sight of it reminded me of the old butler. I shrugged. He would keep.

  Half an hour later we swept into town, and Constance looked questioningly at me.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Drop me anywhere.’

  ‘Are you crazy? Where shall I take you?’

  ‘Drop me at the office then,’ I said. I felt too weak to argue. She shrugged.

  ‘You are crazy. What you need is a hot bath and a good sleep.’

  ‘What I need is a new body and ten million dollars,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to get either, so I’ll have to make do with what I’ve got. The office.’

  ‘You’re a stubborn fool,’ she said without emotion. She spun the wheel and headed towards the section of the town where I hang out my shingle. Softly the car pulled up before the tall building in which I hire a single room. She sat, not speaking, her hands resting lightly on the wheel as she waited for me to get out.

  ‘Thanks, Constance,’ I said, and I meant it. ‘I’ll make this up to you some day.’

  ‘Forget it.’ She trod on the gas and the engine roared as she slammed the door after me. ‘Be seeing you.’

  The car droned down the street with a smooth hum of power, and I stood watching it as it swung around a corner. Nice girl, Constance. A very nice girl. She had saved my life.

  I turned towards the building and let myself in with my key.

  Inside it was dark and I pressed the automatic stairlights. I couldn’t face the long climb up to the tenth floor so I rested my thumb on the elevator call-button and leaned on it. I could hear the bell ringing somewhere down in the basement. It rang for a long, long time and I was almost asleep when I heard the doors clang and the creaking old cage come wheezing up towards me. I took my finger off the button and waited.