Kill Me, Darling Page 13

  This was the Raleigh Hotel on Collins Avenue, not one of the newer monoliths but another of those prewar modern affairs, seven floors of white wedding cake with the corners rounded off. The room was shades of yellow from sunflower to mustard with seaweed green drapes, with furnishings that were either coolly modern or coldly so, depending on your taste. To me it was icy, but I was glad to have any roof over my head that wasn’t the charnel house the Sea Breeze Motel had become.

  Sunshine filtered through filmy inner drapes, but I still had to switch on the nightstand lamp to see the phone and its list of in-house numbers better. I ordered up a room service breakfast of scrambled eggs, American fries, grits, pancakes and crisp bacon with a pitcher of coffee plus milk and sugar. Apparently I’d built up an appetite, thanks to last night’s fun and games.

  Waiting for the chow, I showered, the wheels and gears in my brain slowly starting to grind and whir, then quickly picking up speed. In this relentless mechanical way the pieces that I’d so rationally tried to put in place last night finally assembled themselves unbidden.

  Suddenly I understood why Nolly Quinn went through dolls like paper napkins. Knew at once why it was so important for him to seem like a cross between Casanova and Errol Flynn, always a stunning babe on his arm. Now I got why the women came and went, only maybe they didn’t come at all. Maybe they found out his secret.

  Nolly Quinn was queer!

  That had to be it. No guy with factory wiring could shack up with a sensuous female like Velda and not lay a glove on her. Emotions flowed through me in a rush, like fuel seeking an engine—relief, hope, even a giddy euphoria that had me laughing out loud as I toweled myself off.

  Nolly Quinn thought he’d found in Velda a woman not only beautiful but so very smart and shrewd that he could trust her with his secret. A woman as grasping as he was who would even marry him, becoming the ultimate beard, sharing with him the luxurious wealth and ease that his corrupt business dealings would bring.

  And marital union would be just another corrupt business deal. After all, the best way for a homosexual like Nolly to hide was in plain sight, with a beautiful woman beside him.

  But did Velda know?

  She’d shown no indication that she did. Of course lately she’d been holding her cards close to that lovely chest of hers. Maybe like Nolly, she was safeguarding the Big Secret—for now.

  What a burden he’d had, all these years, keeping his real self secret from the hard-case crowd he ran with. If those Italian and Sicilian mobsters had ever learned they had a “fanook” among them, doing business with them, dealing with their inner circle, Nolly Quinn would be instantly marked for murder. And his mentor Mandy Meyers—upon discovering that the gifted protégé he’d been backing for so many years was nothing but a dirty “fegelah”—would rush to take the sting off himself and rubber-stamp Nolly’s death warrant.

  The lousy hypocritical shits.

  Who were these bastards to sit in judgment of anybody? They lived and breathed and thrived on theft and murder, on the degradation of women, the intimidation of the weak, the marketing of human suffering. But what some guy did behind closed bedroom doors made them sick, offended their gentle sensitive souls, so he has got to die.

  And it wouldn’t be pretty.

  They’d torture him slowly with fist and fire and blade and blunt instrument and before breath left him they would wind up by cutting off his manhood and for public humiliation stuff the private parts in his mouth and leave his battered, carved-up, cigarette-burned body in the trunk of a stolen car somewhere. Unlocked, so that the terrible lesson they’d taught Nolly Quinn would spread far and wide among others of his reviled kind.

  The irony of course was that Quinn, for all his efforts to appear a man among men, had already angered his Mafia associates to the point where for all his successes, they wanted him dead right now, for their own venal reasons. None having a damn thing to do with his sexual bent.

  Had Nolly’s two dead ex-girl friends learned his secret, and paid the highest price? Had they seen past his blather about taking a V.D. cure or waiting till the honeymoon?

  It fit, it fit, every goddamn piece fit, finally slipping into place.

  Yet it was just a theory, wasn’t it? Nothing but a glorified hunch cooked up in the shower. But hell—that cigarette holder alone should have been enough! Or his name in pink neon. Come on! And that houseboy—was he a live-in lover, also hiding in plain sight? A wife to do the cleaning and dishes and laundry and provide other services, when Nolly’s current arm candy wasn’t around?

  I had to be right!

  But I didn’t have enough, and when I did have enough, what the hell would I do with it?

  No, for now Nolly’s secret had to be my secret, too. Until I knew without doubt it was true. And knew what to do when I did.

  * * *

  I was half-way through breakfast when Alberto Bonetti called. He would be at the hotel in fifteen minutes. Should I come down to him? No, he’d come up to me.

  So with my breakfast dishes on a tray in the hall, I dragged a metal-and-cushions chair over to face the metal-and-cushions couch that hugged a windowed wall and paralleled the nearby side of my bed. This was no suite, like that patriotic number at the Betsy. I had a hunch a lot of Miami Beach hotel rooms were like this—functional, modern, not spacious at all.

  I was dressed in a tan lightweight suit, jacket unbuttoned, my .45 under my arm, its weight oddly comforting.

  I wasn’t expecting anything—after all, wasn’t Bonetti in his way a captain of industry? But back in his salad days, he had “disappeared” people for Lucky Luciano, and even now he had a legion of modern-day Romans ready to kill at a nod or a thumbs-down glance.

  His knock came soft, almost tentative.

  When I answered the door, I again saw a future retiree in casual vacation dress, palm-pattern cream-colored sport shirt, baggy tan pants, and brown Italian loafers. No sandals with socks for Alberto Bonetti.

  Also no bodyguards. He had come alone, and I hadn’t even insisted on it. Really I couldn’t insist on anything, under the circumstances; as much as I hated it, I was in his debt. It started with this hotel that he’d directed me to last night, which he either had money in or did enough business with to order up no-questions-asked five-star service.

  “Good morning, Mr. Hammer,” Bonetti said through the mild smile forming in the mass of grooves and cracks that were his dark-eyed face.

  His slicked salt-and-pepper hair was immaculate, though the thick black eyebrows could use a trim. He smelled of Old Spice. So did I. We were brothers in aftershave.

  This time the mob boss did extend a hand, and it was like somebody handed me a ham. Yet he didn’t overdo the grip. Firm, no-nonsense, but that’s all.

  I stood to one side, gesturing him into my little temporary castle, and he said as he entered, “You look rested.”

  “Slept like a stone.”

  “Some people wouldn’t, after last night.”

  I shrugged. “Just another day at the office.”

  That seemed to amuse him a little. I waved to the couch and he sat. I plopped down opposite him, hands in my lap. Folding my arms would be a defensive gesture, and this was a man I had to meet head on, eye to eye.

  Still looking vaguely amused, he asked, “Do you feel you really need that hardware, Mr. Hammer?”

  He meant the .45. It wasn’t that my tailors had let me down—the gun was easily seen with my suit coat hanging open. I’d wanted it that way.

  I said, “Recent events indicate I just might.”

  He didn’t argue the point.

  As if the meeting had now come to order, he said, “You checked in here two days ago. You only stayed at the Sea Breeze one night.” He might have been filling in an amnesiac. “Just that first night—should anybody ask, which they might not.”

  “I paid cash when I checked in,” I said, “and ripped the page I signed from the guest registry on my way out.”

  “Good.” His
big thick hands were folded just above his slight paunch. “What happened at the Sea Breeze was one of these pointless, useless tragedies that you hear about sometimes. A lovely couple who ran a motel brutally slain by person or persons unknown, who also emptied the cash box. Mr. Duffy a war veteran who served in the European theater, and Mrs. Duffy a retired third-grade school teacher. Grown son and daughter. All of this will be in the Miami News this afternoon.”

  “What about the Herald?”

  He shook his head. “The information did not become available in time for the morning papers. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “I’ll check it out. I try to stay current with Little Orphan Annie, anyway.”

  This time no amusement registered. “You expressed a concern last night, about Captain Pell of the Detective Bureau. That he knows you were a guest at the Sea Breeze. Your stay there being limited to one night should take care of that. But it may not become an issue anyway, as it’s not a Miami P.D. case.”

  I frowned. “Why no Miami cops?”

  “It’s a matter for the sheriff’s department. The Sea Breeze rests in a strip of unincorporated land. Of course, the different police departments exchange information, and there’s some inter-departmental discussion. That’s to be expected in this case, since the murdering thieves got away.”

  “Oh they did?”

  “Yes, and I have my doubts that they’ll ever turn up.” He shifted on the couch; it didn’t look any more comfortable than my chair. “And as for those two friends of yours, Mr. Hammer, from that party of yours that got out of hand? Those gentlemen from Tampa? They were anxious to go deep sea fishing in the moonlight. Wanting to be accommodating, my people took them out a very long way. They had the time of their lives and in fact are still out there now.”

  “Thoughtful of you.”

  “As for the after-party mess in your motel room, it really didn’t amount to much. Some routine clean-up. Soap and water. Patch and paint two small holes in facing walls. The car the gents from Tampa left behind should be spare parts by now. And you’ll be glad to know your festivities didn’t disturb any of the neighbors. No one in the area called the police with a noise complaint. Nice of them, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Swell.” I shifted in my uncomfy seat. “I, uh… I appreciate this, Mr. Bonetti.”

  His smile was small but there was something sinister in it, and his eyes had disappeared into slits that lived in pouches of flesh, like a lizard’s.

  “Do you, Mr. Hammer? That’s generous of you to say, considering how you obviously feel about my ‘line of business,’ as you put it the other day. You remember—when you were turning down our money?”

  I’d had just about enough of this bastard but I did my best not to show it. “I do appreciate it.”

  He smiled like an Italian Buddha. “Good. I know you hate having to come to us, Mr. Hammer, to me… but the truth is, we’re not that different, you and I.”

  The smile vanished, the well-grooved face blank yet somehow threatening.

  “You think, Mr. Hammer, that you’re on some kind of higher moral plain than we are, but you’re not. Not by some distance. You use the very same kind of methods that we do.”

  I gave him an Irish Buddha grin. “I think of it as fighting fire with fire.”

  His eyes were half-placid, half-dead. “Think of it how you like, Mr. Hammer. You said you’d handle the Nolly Quinn matter for us without remuneration… ‘on the house.’ But if you are under the impression that this gives you the leeway to walk away should the mood strike you, let me remind you—what I did for you last night, and today, changes that. Cleaning up at the Sea Breeze, and finding you a room in another hotel, a discreet hotel, that is your down payment for the Quinn contract. Never mind that briefcase you turned your nose up at. Got that, Mr. Hammer?”

  Part of me admired the old mobster for how he’d handled this. Part of me wanted to throw him out the window. We were on the sixth floor so that would have done the trick.

  But all I said was, “Got it, Mr. Bonetti.”

  “Good.” He patted his knees like a department store Santa summoning another kid. “By the way, you’re comped here at the Raleigh, meals and parking and dry cleaning and whatever.” He got up, turned to go, but then looked back at me. Right at me. “Any time-table on handling the Quinn thing?”

  “No,” I said. “But I won’t try your patience.”

  He flashed a crocodile grin. “I don’t care what anybody says, Mr. Hammer—you’re a smart man.”

  We did not shake hands a second time, but he nodded a little on his way out. I didn’t.

  I went over and used the phone.

  I needed to deal with another problem: Ben Sauer at the Herald knew I’d been staying at the Sea Breeze, too.

  And I would hate for him to put that in his paper…

  * * *

  Even at its opening time of eleven a.m., the Raleigh bar was an intimate, wood-paneled study in subdued lighting. Just beyond the curve of the bar and its white-jacketed black-tie bartender, under a wall of signed celebrity photos, were a couple of red leather booths.

  I was in one of them, sitting across from the Miami Herald’s city editor. When I ordered his namesake whiskey sour for him, he warned me he only had fifteen minutes to spare. And then later, when a second whiskey sour went on my tab, he reminded me again.

  I sipped at my pilsner of beer and said, “I talked to a stripper pal of Dorothy Flynn’s. She didn’t think much of the suicide angle.”

  Today Sauer’s suspenders were orange. Fitting for a Florida newsman giving a Bronx cheer. “Both those deaths smell to high heaven, Mike, and you damn well know it.”

  But for the bartender, we had the place to ourselves.

  “They stink,” I agreed. “But that’s an opinion. I’d rather know it. Can you help me out?”

  The horsey face formed a rumpled grin. “How would you like to talk to another stripper?”

  “Beats city editors.” Particularly whiskey-for-breakfast ones.

  He leaned closer, as if afraid non-existent fellow patrons might hear. “Turns out the hit-and-run victim, Kimberly Carter—before her affair with Nolly Quinn—was employed at the Five O’Clock Club.”

  I frowned. “Think I’ve heard of that place.”

  “You probably have. The Five is the classiest and longest running of the Beach stripperies. Martha Raye owns the joint, but she doesn’t appear there off-season.”

  “Since when is Martha Raye a stripteaser?”

  He chuckled. “Well, of course she’s not… but neither was the Carter girl. The Five O’Clock is an old-fashioned burly-cue show straight out of Minsky. A blackout sketch or musical number between every strip artiste.”

  “Kim Carter didn’t peel?”

  “No, Mike—gal was strictly a songbird, although a genuine beauty, features like Gene Tierney, body like Jane Russell.”

  “The kind of female who just might attract Nolly Quinn’s attention.”

  “No ‘might’ about it. Anyway, one of my guys tracked down a pal of the Carter girl’s at the Five, Miranda Storsky from Minnesota, stripping under the name Randi Storm. She even bunked with Carter for a while, back when they were both working there.”

  “Is Randi Storm still at the Five?”

  “Still at the Five.” He gulped a little whiskey sour and then grinned, eyes glittering. “And this is where Jolson says, ‘You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.’ Get this—Miss Storm was hooked up with Nolly Quinn for a time herself.”

  The back of my neck prickled and I sat forward. “We already knew one of Quinn’s cast-off’s was a stripper. Did the Storm girl come before or after Kim Carter on the Quinn roster?”

  He turned up his hands. “No idea. What I gave you is what I got, Mike. Which is as far as my guy could take it.”

  “Why?”

  He raised a finger for me to wait, took a slow sip of whiskey sour. “Because Miss Storm wanted dough to talk. A paper like the Herald doesn’t pay for stories, Mike.
You know that. Once you set that precedent, you’re screwed.”

  He leaned over confidentially again.

  “But,” he said, “there’s no reason a private snoop can’t slip a little cash to a source. I mean, that’s a time-honored tradition, right? And, Mike? From what I hear about Miss Randi Storm, you might want to slip her more than cash.”

  I shook my head, smiled in a give-me-a-break way. “I’m not looking for a new girl, Ben. I’m trying to get my old one back.”

  He gestured around him with two hands, one with the drink in it. “Well, that’s all well and good, Michael, but in the meantime, there are plenty of substitute sweethearts in Miami Beach.”

  Even though the bar was empty.

  I bulled on. “What about that ex of Quinn’s who’s supposed to be working as a waitress somewhere?”

  He nodded quickly. “A little redhead named Erin Valen. Fashion magazine type, supposed to be a real stunner, sometime model, sometime chorus girl. Used to wait tables at Leon and Eddie’s, former gay spot now strip joint, post-Kefauver. But she’s not there now.”

  The delicate green-eyed face flashed into my mind. “Ben, that’s the girl I told you about—the one who confronted Nolly at his club. The doll he slapped and got himself belted by me.”

  His eyebrows were up. “She’d sure as hell be worth talking to.”

  “You got a number or address on her?”

  “Might be I could get that for you.” The corners of his mouth went up and so did his eyebrows. “If you have something for me.”

  Till now, he’d seemed a little drunk—unlikely for a gentleman drinker who knew how to imbibe all day and not show it. Playing me maybe. This time when he leaned forward, he seemed stone-cold sober.

  He said, “Listen, Mike. I’ve unloaded for you. Now how about unloading for me?”

  I gave him my best innocent look, which isn’t great. “Any particular subject, Ben?”

  He raised his chin as if tempting me to tag him. “There was a double homicide at the Sea Breeze Motel last night. The proprietor and his old lady. The till was empty, drawer open. Let me ask you something, if you’re not too much of a big-city boy to know such esoteric things… who bothers sticking up a motel in the boondocks during the off-season?”