Kill Me, Darling Page 14

  “You got me. A dope maybe?”

  He finished off the whiskey sour with a gulp, then shook his head. “No. No, Mike, it may have something to do with dope… but no. You were staying at the Sea Breeze, Mike. You told me so.”

  I shrugged. “I was there a single night, Ben. Then I moved here to the Raleigh. Check with the desk.”

  “Why do I think I needn’t bother?” His eyes were narrow and his smile was wide. “You want me to believe that it’s just a coincidence that Mike Hammer, notorious conveyor of violence and frontier justice, checked into a motel where two violent deaths occurred shortly thereafter? Two deaths that just happened to happen when this self-same Hammer character is in town, rattling the cage of one of Miami Beach’s most notorious underworld figures?”

  “The way you say it,” I said, “it sounds like there might be a story in it.”

  “Doesn’t there just?”

  I had another sip of beer. “But if I were you, Ben, I wouldn’t waste my time on some smalltime robbery/homicide at the Sea Breeze.”

  “Oh you wouldn’t?”

  “No.” I grinned at him. “I’d try to stay on the good side of a guy who can deliver you an exclusive on something much bigger—as long as that guy doesn’t get sidetracked and dragged down because of that other, smaller story.”

  “Say a measly robbery/homicide.”

  “Say that.” I saluted him with the pilsner, then drank a little more. “But it’s up to you, chum. You might start by putting me in touch with that girl Erin.”

  “See what I can do.”

  “Another whiskey sour before you go?”

  He thought about that for a fraction of a second. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  * * *

  She was in a lime-green sundress with a yellow silk scarf at her throat and darker green wedgies that showed off her red-nailed toes. The colors went well with all that red hair. Her make-up was still a little heavy but her features retained a delicate prettiness in daylight, though the almond-shaped green eyes were hiding behind sunglasses.

  I had sunglasses on, too. I was in a blue seascape sport shirt and dark blue bathing trunks and leather sandals, all purchased in the Raleigh gift shop and charged to my room.

  We were seated poolside in deck chairs near a bar that resided under a squat white ersatz lighthouse that despite its hanging red life buoys looked more like a cement toadstool. We were near the diving board of an enormous curlicue-shaped pool, though no one was swimming right now, not even Esther Williams. A few loungers were after sun. Honeymooners again. The ubiquitous retiree couples lurked on the periphery at tables under umbrellas.

  Mostly, though, we were alone, just us and the carefully planted palm trees. Even the white sand beach beyond was uncluttered with humans, and the ocean and sky seemed just painted backdrops in a movie. The sun was hot but the humidity had backed off and the warmth felt oddly healing.

  She had called my room, where I was keeping my head down till dark, saying she’d heard I wanted to talk to her. And she offered to come to me. That’s what I call service.

  Now Erin Valen was next to me drinking a Sidecar and I was on my second beer of the day.

  “Sure, I talked to Nolly about both of those girls,” she said, her voice tinged with that improbable mix of naive and knowing. She shook her head. “Those poor dead girls. Nolly said they’d both been very nice kids and he was sorry they’d been… he put it so poetically… touched by tragedy.”

  There was nothing poetic about the way that hit-and-run driver had touched Kimberly Carter. Or how a razor blade had touched Dorothy Flynn’s wrists.

  I asked, “You broke up with him recently?”

  She nodded. Sullen resentment hardened her voice: “After he took up with that big dark-haired Viking.”

  I probed gently. “Were you around when he was doing business with people?”

  She shook her head vigorously but the red hair refused to tousle. “Not at all. We went to the club a lot, and to other nightspots. It was during the season and he took me to Copa City and the Latin Quarter and the Vagabonds. I got to see so many big-name stars.”

  “Sounds like he liked to show you off.”

  The thin lovely lips formed a smile of mildly chagrined pride. “I guess he must have. He did seem to like having me on his arm. But you know, we stayed in a lot, too. We were at his house much of the time. Beautiful place—have you seen it?”

  “Just from the outside.”

  “There’s a fantastic pool, so much privacy.”

  “Do you mind my asking why you broke up?”

  She frowned and there was a quiver in her chin and her voice too when she said, “That woman broke us up. That damn Viking he brought back from Manhattan with him.”

  “You don’t like her much.”

  She shrugged with her face. “I never met her really. I just… hate her on general principles, I guess. But… I’m sorry. I forget. She was your girl, right?”

  “Far as I’m concerned, she still is.”

  A smile blossomed. “You gonna do the caveman bit and drag her back to Manhattan?”

  “It’s within the realm of possibility.”

  She sighed, the smile fading. “Wish I could help. I really wish I could help.”

  “Erin, would you answer a very personal question for me?”

  “Well… I don’t know. Maybe you better just ask and see.”

  I leaned over and touched her hand. Gently. I made my voice gentle, too. “You were intimate with Quinn, right? You slept with him?”

  She looked away. Drew her hand away, as well. I wished I could see the green eyes under the sunglasses right now because her face was otherwise as immobile as a porcelain doll’s.

  Now her voice drew tight. “That is very personal, isn’t it, Mike?”

  I thought it would be less than gallant of me to mention what her hand had done in my lap in the Nolly Q’s parking lot.

  “There’s a reason,” I said.

  She sipped the Sidecar. “Nolly has… a condition he’s taking medicine for.”

  “You mean V.D.”

  Her face swung to me sharply. “How do you know about that?”

  “I just do.”

  “We… we fooled around. He’s normal, if that’s what you mean. He’s a big handsome guy, and it’s no surprise some lowlife female gave him a, you know, a dose.” Her face clenched with sincerity. “But this isn’t about sex, Mike. It’s about love. You do know there’s a difference?”

  I shrugged. “They’re usually intertwined in a man and woman.”

  “You love that… what’s her name?”

  “Velda.”

  “Someday, if you marry Velda, you’ll be old. Her, too. You might not be interested in… doing it any more.”

  I grinned. “Erin, I doubt I’ll ever be that old.”

  She grinned back. “It happens to the best stallion on the stud farm, Mike. Don’t kid yourself. Someday the sex will be gone, but love needs to still be there. Love is so important, Mike. And I just know that Nolly is a good man at heart. A loving man at heart.”

  This was not an argument worth getting into, because I would never win. Reminding her, if she even knew, that Quinn had been a Murder Incorporated killer in his teens seemed unkind. But a man could do a lot worse than having a girl like Erin love him.

  She was studying me, squinting as if trying to bring me into focus. “You’re a detective, aren’t you? Police?”

  “No. Private. But I’m not on a case, really. This is personal, Erin.”

  Her face was as sad as it was pretty, and it was very pretty. “This is about your girl. Velda. Lovely name, I’ll give her that. You have a room here?”

  “I do.”

  Her smile went one-sided and wicked or anyway naughty. “I still think we should get back at them. You want to go up there and just… fool around a little?”

  “No, honey. I’ve got it too bad for that.”

  “Really carrying the torch for that
Viking, huh?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Pity.” She got up, gathered her little purse, and leaned over and kissed my cheek.

  “See, you big galoot,” she said, eyes sparkling. “I was right. It really is about love not sex.”

  And then she walked toward the hotel, getting yearning looks from guys on honeymoons with their beautiful unaware dolls on their tummies sunbathing.

  Sex was always in there somewhere.

  CHAPTER TEN

  With its mission lines and cathedral windows, the white two-story Five O’Clock Club might have been a chapel. But in the neon noon of night, on Twentieth just off the oceanfront hotel row of Collins Avenue, the glass-brick entryway under a rounded marquee said the worshipers here were late-night types not Sunday morning. Above it all loomed not God, but a big round neon sign with a clock set permanently to five encircled by glowing letters spelling out the club’s name.

  The classy nightspot look held on inside, with nothing that immediately said it was Miami Beach’s longest-running strip joint—hatcheck stand, bouncers in tuxes playing greeter, a decor of cool greens and warm red-browns accented with white, a low-key ambience courtesy of hidden lighting. The fully stocked bar along one side was overseen by a bartender in white jacket and black tie, and bordered by walls bearing photos of Martha Raye and also of Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and other showbiz luminaries, although always with Raye in the shot.

  It was unlikely any but the comedienne co-owner of the place ever appeared on a stage where right now Joe E. Ross and Dave Starr were doing a very blue version of the old “Slowly I turned” routine.

  The crowd couldn’t really be called that, just a sprinkling of men alone and a couple of couples at linen-cloth-covered tables, mostly near the stage by a postage-stamp dance floor. As at the Pigalle, strippers between sets were circulating, operating as B-girls, though a shade more decorously dressed here in flowing sheer nightgowns over bras and g-strings.

  A waiter in a tux earned a buck for seating me in a booth, then an eye blink later a tawny-tressed cocktail waitress came over. She was a pug-nose cutie in a little ruffled sparkly blue thing that started half-way down her bosom and stopped where her mesh stockings began. She asked what I wanted.

  “Is that a trick question?” I grinned at her.

  “Would I trick you?” she said ambiguously, smiling back. Maybe she thought I was a card. Or maybe she had mouths to feed at home. A kid or two or probably some no-good louse.

  “I’ll have a beer,” I said.

  She gave me some options and I picked one, then asked, “Has Randi Storm been on yet?”

  “She’s about to start her last set,” she said, nodding toward the stage where Dave Starr was belting Joe E. Ross with a battered hat. “But don’t worry—she mixes with the customers for a while after that.”

  “Thanks, honey.”

  She scurried off.

  A small, formerly handsome M.C. in an obvious toupee came quickly out, grabbed the microphone like Sinatra at the Paramount and said, “You think those guys are crazy, you should see my brother! He thinks he’s a chicken. I’d talk him out of it, but I need the eggs.”

  Nobody laughed except himself, and a honeymooner-type couple got up and started out. He hollered at them, saying, “Wait a minute, kids, wait a minute!” The couple lingered as he rushed off stage and came back with a pair of black rubbers on a serving tray. “You might need these!”

  The couple made a face and went out, but there was a muffled laugh somewhere in back.

  In triumph, the M.C. tossed his props into the wings, gripped the mike and went on to say how proud the Five O’Clock Club was to present “the very stormy, oh so randy, Miss Randi Storm!”

  Soon the little upstage combo, drums, guitar, bass and sax, was belting out “Stormy Weather” as a tall doll hipped it on draped in a midnight blue gown so tight her belly button showed.

  Randi Storm née Miranda Storsky was, like a rose, a genuine beauty by any name. Honey-blonde hair, big blue eyes, a full lush mouth, the kind of farm girl good looks that Hollywood loves to remake as glamour. The distribution of her hourglass figure put plenty of sand up top, so much so that she made my cute waitress look like a boy.

  The doll kept time just fine but with a misstep here and there, never quite stumbling. Not that any man here would have given a damn, but Randi Storm seemed a little clumsy up there.

  No, not clumsy. Tipsy.

  It took her eight minutes plus increasingly up-tempo arrangements of “Moonglow,” “Harlem Nocturne” and “Temptation” to get down to the legal limit of sheer bra, pasties and g-string. I had already passed a fin to the waitress to direct Miss Storm in my direction when her B-girl duties began.

  Her act marked the end of the show and the M.C. said another would start in half an hour. The combo played dance music in case anybody was interested, which they weren’t.

  Before long Randi Storm came sashaying over to my booth in a sheer blue nightgown, overdoing the hip action, though there are worse sins. She had a little blue beaded purse along. I nodded and smiled, half-rising, and she got in on my side of the booth. She sat nice and close.

  Miss Storm wasn’t drunk but she sure wasn’t sober. And closer up, that farm-girl mug of hers showed lines around the eyes, a not-so milk-fed complexion, and vertical smoker’s creases above the lush lips. She was either older than she otherwise looked or had lived a very tough life for a kid from Minnesota.

  “I guess you know I’m Randi,” she purred throatily. Double entendre seemed to be the preferred strategy of babes here at the Five O’Clock.

  “I’m Mike,” I said and we shook hands, hers angled at the wrist in somebody’s idea of elegance. “Shall we order some champagne?”

  She beamed so broad she cracked her make-up. “Why, you must be a mind-reader, Mike.”

  The waitress came over and suddenly the brandy and chaser routine at the Pigalle seemed like a bargain. Champagne was thirty-six bucks for a bottle with a “Don” Pérignon label. Our pug-nosed server poured us both a glass and stuffed the bottle back in the ice bucket beside Miss Storm.

  “Bottoms up,” she said, naturally, and we toasted, but I didn’t drink mine. Just set it down. She emptied her glass and handed me the bottle to pour her some more.

  Sticking to her script, she said, “You know why this place is called the Five O’Clock, sweetie? There’s a free round served at five p.m. Used to be one at five a.m., too, till the blue laws came in.”

  This girl had a problem that I knew all too well. The standard B-girl routine with champagne was to pour most if not all of each glass into the ice bucket when the male who bought it was busy looking at her tits. Like the spitting routine with the brandy and Coke chaser, this kept the doll sober and got the guy lubricated to a proper fool-and-his-money condition.

  Unless I missed my guess, Randi Storm had been drinking through her entire shift. That she wasn’t drunk on her pretty behind only meant that her champagne guzzling had been periodically interrupted by dance sets where on stage she sweat out some of the alcohol.

  Damn. Ever since I went off the sauce, it seemed like everybody around me was a lush. But at this point I had no desire for the stuff, and felt pity for this bosomy babe who was letting booze and cheap champagne speed up her aging process.

  She got in the purse and withdrew a deck of Luckies, selected one and I took her lighter from her and fired her up, my hand shaking just slightly. Smoke was drifting in here like San Francisco fog before dawn, making me a little nauseous; so was the smoke of her Lucky.

  “So, Mike,” she said, with a boozer’s compensating over-enunciation, “you sound like an East Coast boy. Are you an East Coast boy?”

  “New York. Manhattan born and bred, dollface.”

  She sucked at her cigarette, leaving red in her wake. “I woulda bet Brooklyn. What brings you to town, handsome?”

  Time to cut through the mundane chatter.

  “Which do you prefer, baby,” I said, sm
iling at her through the blue-gray cloud she was making, “Miranda or Randi?”

  She frowned and thought about sliding out of the booth, but I grabbed her arm. Not hard. She started to protest and I said, “Stick around. There might be some dough in it.”

  She thought about that.

  I encouraged her some more: “I’m not a hood, baby.”

  “Then… then you’re a cop.”

  I nodded, adding, “But the private variety.”

  Still frowning, she said, “For real? Not some New York snowbird working on one of these candy-ass departments around here? Didn’t transfer or anything?”

  “No. I’m in town on a job.”

  She shook her head hard enough to rattle. “You have the wrong gal, pal. I don’t hook on the side or anything, so if it’s a wife looking to get the goods on her—”

  “I don’t handle divorce cases.”

  “All private dicks handle divorce cases.”

  I didn’t argue the point. “I want to talk to you about Nolly Quinn. A contact at the Herald said you know things.”

  For a moment it froze her. Then a grin grew that had been revamped in recent years from an innocent farm girl’s into a hardened city broad’s.

  “Did your guy at the Herald tell you,” she said, lowering her voice, “that I’m not some lending library? That you gotta pay premium rates for what I know?”

  I nodded. “Like I said, there’s some dough in it.”

  She wasn’t whispering exactly but I had to work to hear over the combo. “You said ‘might’ be some dough, Mike. There could be no ‘might’ about this. Nolly Quinn is a dangerous dude. You better know that, if you’re sniffing around about him. Don’t let his slick front fool you.”

  “You were with Quinn for how long?”

  “Around two months. That’s a good long time for our wandering boy.”

  I looked at her hard. “Time enough maybe, for you to see things, and learn things?”