One Lonely Night Read online

  I got a lot of unfriendly looks that night.

  When I stood in front of my door with the key in my hand it hit me just like that. My little love scene with Ethel Brighton had had repercussions. My wallet on the floor. It wasn’t in the same place in the morning. When she had gotten up for that blanket she had seen it, and my P.I. card in the holder. Tonight she passed the word.

  I was lucky to get out of there with a whole skin. Ethel, I thought, you’re a cute little devil. You looked so nice in your bare skin with the fire behind you. Maybe I’ll see you stripped again. Soon. When I do I’m going to take my belt off and lash your butt like it should have been lashed when you first broke into this game.

  In fact, I looked forward to doing it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I FINISHED A QUART bottle of beer before calling Velda. I got her at home and asked her what she’d found. She said, “There wasn’t much to find, Mike. His landlady said he was on the quiet side because he was too stupid to talk. He never complained about a thing and in all the time he was living there he never once had company.”

  No, he wouldn’t talk too much if he was an M.V.D. agent. And he wouldn’t have company for that matter, either. His kind of company was met at night and in the dark recesses of a building somewhere.

  “Did you try the pie factory where he worked?”

  “I did but I didn’t get anywhere. The last few months he had been on deliveries and most of the guys who knew him were out selling pies. The manager told me he was a stupid egg who had to write everything down in order to remember it, but he did his job fairly well. The only driver I did see said something nasty when I mentioned Moffit and tried to date me.”

  The boy put on a good act. People aren’t likely to get too friendly with somebody who’s pretty stupid. I said. “When do the drivers leave the plant?”

  “Eight A.M., Mike. Are you going back?”

  “I think I’d better. Supposing you come along with me. I’ll meet you on the street in front of the office about seven and that’ll give us time to get over there and see some of them.”

  “Mike ... what’s so important about Charlie Moffit?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  Velda grunted her displeasure and said good night. I had hardly hung up when I heard the feet in the hall and my doorbell started to yammer. Just in case, I yanked the .45 out and dropped it in my pocket where I could keep my hand around it.

  The gun wasn’t necessary at all. It was the boys from the papers, four of them. Three were on the police beat and the fourth was Marty Kooperman. He wore a faint, sardonic smile that was ready to disbelieve any lie I told.

  “Well, the Fourth Estate. Come on in and don’t stay too long.’ I threw the door open.

  Bill Cowan of the News grinned and pointed to my pocket “Nice way to greet old friends, Mike.”

  “Isn’t it. Come on in.”

  They made a straight line for the refrigerator, found it empty, but uncovered a fresh bottle of whisky that I had been saving and helped themselves. All but Marty. He closed the door himself and stood behind me.

  “We hear you got shot at, Mike.”

  “You heard right, friend. They missed.”

  “I’m thinking that I could say ‘too bad’ and mean it.”

  “What’s your bitch, Marty! I’ve been shot at before. How come you’re on the police run?”

  “I’m not. I came along for the ride when I heard what happened.” He paused. “Mike ... for once come clean. Has this got to do with Lee Deamer?”

  The boys in the kitchen were banging their first drinks down. I had that much time at least. I said, “Marty, don’t worry about your idol. Let’s say that this happened as a result of my poking into something that I thought was connected with Deamer. He doesn’t figure into it in any way.”

  Marty took in a breath and let it out slowly. He twisted his hat in his hands then flipped it on the coat rack. “Okay, Mike, I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Suppose it had to do with Lee, what then, chum?”

  His lips tightened over a soft foice. “We’d have to know. They’re out to get Lee any way they can and there aren’t many of us who can stop them.”

  I scowled at him. “Who’s us?”

  “Your Fourth Estate, Mike. Your neighbors. Maybe even you if you knew what we knew.”

  That was all we had time for. The boys came charging back with fresh drinks and pencils ready. I led them inside to the living room and sat down. “Shoot, laddies. What’s on your mind?”

  “The shooting, Mike. Good news item, ya know.”

  “Yeah, great news. Tomorrow the public gets my picture and another lurid account of how that Hammer character conducts a private war on a public thoroughfare and I’ll get an eviction notice from my landlord and a sudden lack of clients.”

  Bill laughed and polished his drink off. “Just the same, it’s news. We got some of it from headquarters but we want the story straight from you. Hell, man, look how lucky you are. You get to tell your side of it while the others can’t say a word. Come on, give.”

  “Sure, I’ll give.” I lit up a Lucky and took a deep drag on it. “I was walking home and ...”

  “Where were you?”

  “Movies. So just as I...”

  “What movie?”

  I showed him my teeth in a lopsided grin. That was an easy one. “Laurance Theatre. Bum show.”

  Marty showed me his teeth back. “What was playing, Mike? He was the only one not ready to take notes.

  I started in on as much of the picture as I had seen and he stopped me with his hand. “That’s enough. I saw it myself. Incidentally, have you still got your stub?”

  Marty should have been a cop. He knows damn well that most men have an unconscious habit of dropping the things in their pockets. I pulled out an assortment and handed him one. He took it while the other boys watched, wondering what the hell it was all about. He picked up the phone, called the theatre and gave them the number on the ticket, asking if it had been sold that day. They said it had been and Marty hung up sheepishly. I let go my breath, glad that he hadn’t asked what time. He wasn’t such a good detective after all.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “That’s all. I was coming home when the punks in the car started to blast. I didn’t get a look at any of ’em.”

  Bill said, “You on a case now?”

  “If I was I wouldn’t say so anyhow. What else?”

  One of the boys from a tabloid wrinkled his nose at my story. “Come on, Mike, break down. Nobody took a shot at you without a reason.”

  “Look, pal, I have more enemies than I have friends. The kind of enemies I make go around loaded. Take a check on most known criminals and you’ll find people who don’t like me.”

  “In other words, we don’t get a story,” Bill said.

  “In other words,” I told him, “... yes. Want another drink?”

  At least that was satisfactory. When they had the bottom of the bottle showing I whistled to stop their jabbering and got them together so I could get in a last word. “Don’t any of you guys try tagging me around hoping for a lead about this. I’m not taking anything without paying it back. If a story crops up I’ll let you in on it, meantime stick to chasing ambulances.”

  “Aw, Mike.”

  “No, ‘Aw,’ pally. I’m not kidding around about it, so stay out of my way.”

  As long as the bottle was empty and I wouldn’t give with a yarn, they decided that there wasn’t much sense in sticking around. They went out the door in a bunch with Marty trailing along in the rear. He said so long ruefully, his eyes warning me to be careful.

  I spread the slats of the blinds apart and watched them all climb into a beat-up coupé and when I was sure they were gone for the night I took off my clothes and climbed into the shower.

  I took a hot and a cold, brushed my teeth, started to put away my tools and the bell rang again. I damned a few things in general and the Fourth Estate in p
articular for not making sure all the boys were there when they started their inquisition. Probably a lone reporter who got the flash late and wanted to know all about it. I wrapped a towel around my lower half and made wet tracks from the bathroom to the front door.

  She stood there in the dim light of the hall not knowing whether to be startled, surprised or shocked. I said, “Goddamn!”

  She smiled hesitantly until I told her to come in and made a quick trip back for a bathrobe. Something had happened to Linda Holbright since the last time I had seen her and I didn’t want to stand there in a towel while I found out what it was.

  When I got back to the living room she was sitting in the big chair with her coat thrown over the back. This time she didn’t have on a sack suit and you knew what was underneath it. It wasn’t “probably nothing” either. It was a whole lot of something that showed and she wasn’t making any bones about it. The angles seemed to be gone from her face and her hair was different. Before it was hair. Now it was a smooth wavy mass that trailed across her shoulders. She still wasn’t pretty, but a guy didn’t give a damn about that when there was a body like hers under her face.

  Because of a smile she had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble. She must have taken her one asset to a perfectionist and let him build a dress around it. I think it was a dress. Paint would have done the same thing. There wasn’t anything on underneath to spoil the effect and that showed. She was excited as hell and that showed too.

  I was thinking that it could be very nice if she had only come a little sooner before I knew that Ethel had told what she had found in my wallet. Linda smiled at me tentatively as I sat down opposite her and lit up a smoke. I smiled back and started thinking again. This time there was a different answer. Maybe they were playing real cute and sent her in for the kicker. Maybe they had figured that their little shooting deal might get messed up and sent her around to get the score on me.

  It made nice thinking because that was the way they worked and I didn’t feel sorry for her any more. I got up and moved to the couch and told her to come over. I made her a drink and it must have been her first drink because she choked on it.

  I kissed her and it must have been her first kiss, but she didn’t choke on it. She grabbed me like the devil was inside her, bit me twice on the neck then pushed back to look at me to be sure this was happening to her.

  There was no softness to her body. It was tense with the pain that was pleasure, oddly resilient under my hands. She closed her eyes, smothering the leaping fire to glowing coals. She fought to open them halfway and when she saw that I had been burnt by their flame she smiled a twisted smile as if she was laughing at herself.

  If she was going to, she should have asked me then. Any woman should know when a man is nothing but a man and when he’ll promise or tell anything. I knew all those things too and it didn’t do me any good because I was still a man.

  She asked nothing. She said, “This ... is the first time ... I ever ...” and stopped there with the words choking to a hoarse whisper in her throat. She made me feel like a goddam heel. She hadn’t known about Ethel’s little stunt because she had been too busy getting prettied up for me.

  I was going to make her put her coat on and tell her to get the hell out of there and learn more about being a woman before she tried to act like one. I would have done just that until I thought a little further and remembered that she was new to the game and didn’t know when to ask the questions but figured on trying anyway. So I didn’t say a damn thing.

  Her hand did something at her back and the dress that looked like paint peeled off like paint with a deliberate slowness that made me go warm all over.

  And she still asked nothing except to be shown how to be a woman.

  She wouldn’t let me go to the door with her later. She wanted to be part of the darkness and alone. Her feet were a soft whisper against the carpet and the closing of the door an almost inaudible click.

  I made myself a drink, had half of it and threw the rest away. I had been right the first time and went back to feeling like a heel. Then it occurred to me that now that she had a little taste of life maybe she’d go out and seek some different company for a change.

  I stopped feeling like a heel, made another drink, finished it and went to bed.

  The alarm woke me up at six, giving me time to shower and shave before getting dressed. I grabbed a plate of bacon and eggs in a diner around the comer then hopped in my car and drove downtown to pick up Velda. She was standing in front of the building tucked inside a dark gray business suit, holding her coat open with her hand on her hip.

  A newsboy was having trouble trying to watch her and hawk his editions too. I pulled in at the curb and tooted the horn. “Let’s go, sugar.”

  When she climbed in next to me the newsboy sighed. “Early, isn’t it?” she grinned.

  “Too damned.”

  “You were going to tell me something today, Mike.”

  “I didn’t say when.”

  “One of those deals. You’re a fine one.” She turned her head and looked out the window.

  I tugged at her arm and made her look back at me. “I’m sorry, Velda. It doesn’t make nice conversation. I’ll give it to you all at once when we get back. It’s important to me not to talk about it right now. Mind?”

  Maybe she saw the seriousness in my eyes. She smiled and said all right, then turned on the radio so we could have some music on our way across the bridge to Brooklyn where Mother Switcher had her pie factory.

  Mother Switcher turned out to be a short, squat guy with long handlebar whiskers and eyebrows that went up and down like window shades. I asked him if I could speak to a few of his drivers and he said, “If you’re a union organizer it’s no good. All my boys already belong to a union and get paid better’n union wages besides.”

  I said I was no organizer. “So what is it then?”

  “I want to find out about a guy named Moffit. He worked for you.”

  “That dope! He owe you money?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Sure. Go talk to the boys, only don’t stop their work.”

  I said thanks and took Velda with me when I went around behind the building where the trucks were lined up for their quota of pies. We waited until the first truck was filled then buttonholed the driver. He gave Velda a big smile and tipped his cap.

  She took it from there. “You knew Charlie Moffit, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, sure, lady. What’s he done now, crawled out of his grave?”

  “I imagine he’s still there, but tell me, what was he like?” The guy frowned and looked at me for the first time. “I don’t get it,” he grunted.

  I flashed my buzzer. So did Velda. “Now I get it,” he said. “Was he in trouble?”

  “That’s what we want to find out. What was he like?”

  He leaned against his truck and chewed on a match. “Well, I’ll tell ya. Charlie was a queer duck.” He tapped his head and made a screwy face. “Not all there, ya know. We were forever playing all kinds of gags on him. The dope would fall for ’em too. He was always losing something. Once it was his change bag and once it was a whole load of pies. He said some kids got him in a ball game and while he played they swiped his pies. Ever hear of anything like that?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Velda laughed.

  “That wasn’t all, either. He was a mean bast ... son-of-a-gun. Once we caught him trying to set fire to a cat. One of the boys slugged him.”

  It didn’t sound right, that picture of Charlie Moffit. I was thinking while Velda popped the questions. Some of the other men came over and added a little something that distorted the picture even more. Charlie liked women and booze. Charlie molested kids in the street. Charlie was real bright for long periods then he’d get drunk and seem to fall into a conscious coma when he’d act like a kid. He wasn’t right in his dome. He had rocks in his head. He sure liked the women, though.

  I took Velda out of there and started back to Manhattan,
my head aching from thoughts that were too big for it. I had to squint to watch the traffic and hunch over the wheel to be sure I knew where I was going. Away in the back of my mind that devilish unseen conductor was warming up his orchestra for another of those wild symphonies. I must be mad, I thought, I must be mad. I don’t think like I used to. The little things won’t come through anymore and it was the little things falling into place that made big things.

  My mind rambled on until Velda said, “We’re here.”

  The attendant was waving me into the parking lot. I took my ticket and handed him the keys while she flagged a cab. All the way to the office I sat with my eyes closed and kept the curtains down on the orchestra that was trying so hard to play. Whoever was at the drums wouldn’t give up. He kept up a steady beat, thumping his drum with a muted stick, trying to make me open the curtain.

  Velda brought out the bottle and handed it to me. I stared at the glass, filled it and drank it down. She offered me another and I shook my head. I had to sit down. I wanted to sit down and pull something over my head to shut out the light and the sound.

  “Mike.” Velda ran her fingers through my hair.

  “What is it, kid?” My voice didn’t sound right.

  “If you tell me I might be able to help you.” I opened my eyes and looked at her. She had her coat off and her breasts rose high against the folds of the blouse. She pulled up the big chair and sat down, her legs flashing in the light that streamed through the window. They were beautiful legs, long, alive with smooth muscles that played through the tight fabric of her dress as she moved. It was so easy to love that woman. I ought to try it more often. It was mine whenever I wanted it.

  I closed my eyes again.

  There wasn’t any answer or any special way to tell her. I sat there with my eyes closed and gave it to her as it happened, bit by bit. I told her how I killed on the bridge. I told her about Marty and almost all about Ethel. I told her everything that happened and waited to see what she would say.

  A minute went by. I opened my eyes and saw that Velda was watching me and there was no shame, no terror in her face. She believed in me. She said, “It doesn’t make sense, Mike.”