Rather Cool for Mayhem, page 13
Yes, the round little man was Mr. Grossbeck. Yes, he knew Dr. Norman. Yes, Dr. Norman lived in the neighborhood, more or less; he lived on Christopher Street. Yes, Mr. Grossbeck had read about the murder, and was shocked by the news. No, he had no idea who might have done such a thing. Dr. Norman was a very nice man and an able doctor. Too bad.
I told Grossbeck that I was a private investigator. I didn’t show him my A.G.O. card, because he would have read it through, down to the last line of fine print. He was that sort of meticulous person. I tried to work on his sympathy as an avowed friend of Dr. Norman, by telling him I had a line on the murderer and was anxious to get whatever help I could from friends of the dead pathologist—friends like Mr. Grossbeck. I said I wanted to see the prescriptions of some of Dr. Norman’s patients. I had several names.…
When I stopped talking I got the silent Birdseye treatment for almost a full minute. Grossbeck gave me a complete going over with his cold blue eyes, which I am sure would have been sufficient to lay down a dozen mackerel, a side of beef, and six medium geese in the deep-freeze locker for the winter. Just as the numbness was extending to my extremities, Grossbeck asked:
“You got a court order?”
I admitted I had no order.
“Then it’s no use,” said Grossbeck, making a left-hand gesture like a seal’s flipper. “This is a pharmacy, not a drug store. I don’t sell ice cream or twenty-five cent books or electric irons or teddy bears. And I don’t betray professional secrets. It’s nobody’s business which of my customers take sleeping pills or who’s got what disease. People know they can buy blue ointment at Grossbeck’s, or neosalvarsan and penicillin, or testosterone—without the whole neighborhood gossiping. I can’t show you my confidential books unless you come back with a court order or a subpoena or a search warrant.”
“If you’d just let me glance through your prescription book to see if certain names are there, I’ll let you know whether I want to subpoena your book or not,” I said. “I just want to check a few names.”
“It wouldn’t do you no good,” said Grossbeck, with another gesture of his flipper. “Even if you got a court order, names wouldn’t help you. My prescription book goes by numbers, in chronological order. I got no crossindex of names, either patients or physicians. So you better get the prescription numbers if you want to check something, or the date.”
“Okay, I’ll get the legal papers,” I said. It began to look as though I might have to let Captain McKay in on this, although I didn’t see how without sticking my own neck into the noose. “I’ll be back in two hours.”
“It wouldn’t do you no good,” the pharmacist said. “Two hours is too late. I close early on Sundays. I close in half an hour. On Sundays I got to take my wife to the movies. Better come back tomorrow.”
I tried to argue, but it was no use. All I got in return was the refrigerating stare of the blue eyes. Even the gleam from his bald head had a hypnotic effect. Then I saw a phone booth at the back of the store and I asked if I could call my office for further instructions.
“Sure, phone,” Grossbeck said, “if you’ve got a nickel.”
I had a good look at the layout of the shop on my way to the phone booth. I particularly noted that there was a window at the back of the shop, just beyond the phone booth. Dimly, through the grimy window pane, I could see a courtyard, an ailanthus tree, two trash cans, a cat, and a fire-escape. I reached up and unlatched the window before I went into the booth.
I dialed Grace Boyd’s New York apartment. There would be no answer, of course, because Grace was probably at grips with the Blue Falls Gestapo at this moment. But I let the phone ring a few times because I had an idea that Grossbeck was listening to see if my call was legitimate or whether I was just planting stink-bombs in his establishment because he wouldn’t let me look at his prescription book. When somebody said “Hello” in my ear I almost dropped the receiver.
I was so surprised, that I could think of no quick comeback. It was a man’s voice, without the slightest trace of cultivation or voice training. It was a native New York voice, it was frayed at the edges, and it repeated, “Hello. Who is this?”
“Hello, Doctors’ Hospital?” I said when I caught my breath. “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Bizerte—Gertrude Bizerte in Maternity.”
“Save the comedy and sell it to television,” the voice said. “I was expecting your call, Lawrence. Will you come up here, or will we have to come after you?”
I hung up. I leaned against the back of the booth for a moment until I was sure my heart was not going to hammer its way through the constricted tightness of my chest. McKay was a smarter operator than I had thought.
When I had regained control of my knees and was fairly sure my face did not look like something by Picasso, I left the booth, said goodnight to Mr. Grossbeck, with thanks, and walked bravely out of the pharmacy.
It was beginning to get dark, and I looked up and down the street for the sight of a neon sign. I needed a drink badly. I spotted a bilious green arrangement of five shamrocks doing a jig around the word “Bar” and I started across the street.
I had almost reached the opposite curb when a car bore down on me with brakes squealing, tires whining, klaxon cursing, and a woman shouting. I jumped for the curb and turned around, ready to do a little shouting myself.
Then I noticed that the car was a bright red convertible and that the woman behind the wheel was laughing as she shouted, “Jim! Jim!”
It was Conchita.
Chapter Fifteen
The bright red scarf around Conchita’s throat ceased to flutter as the car came to a stop. The red—a perfect match with the color of the car—awoke glowing echoes in the dark golden velvet of Conchita’s skin, made her eyes and hair seem even darker than they were. Her eyes and lips were laughing as she motioned me to get in beside her.
“Jump in, Jim,” she said. “I’ll rush you to the hospital. Are you hurt?”
“Not physically. Just morally and spiritually. I’m crushed by the thought that you wanted to run me down like a stray cat.”
“How can you say such things? You were the last person in the world I expected to see barking his shins on my bumper. What are you doing in this neck of the woods, Jim?”
That, I was sure, was a purely rhetorical question. I could have sworn that Conchita not only saw me emerge from Grossbeck’s Pharmacy, but that she had been parked down the block waiting for just such a contingency.
“I used to live in the Village before the war,” I said. “I was looking for some old friends.”
“I hear that some of your new friends are looking for you” Conchita said. “McKay was furious that you left Blindman’s Lake without even a word.”
“I didn’t realize that McKay felt that way about me,” I said. “If I’d known he cared, I certainly wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.”
“You sure made a neat getaway,” Conchita said. “You sure got down here in a hurry. How did you manage it?”
“It’s a trick they taught us overseas,” I said. “Extrasensory deception. It’s extra-sensational. I understand the Duponts have the patents tied up and are keeping it off the market, so as not to ruin General Motors. It would revolutionize transportation. You just think of some place you’d like to be, you close your eyes, you count to 1492 by tens, and when you open your eyes you discover yourself in the new place.”
“Oh, you!” Conchita said. “Get in. I’ll give you a lift—so you won’t have to close your eyes. You might miss something.”
“It isn’t far to walk,” I said, holding back.
“I thought maybe you were going to Grace’s apartment,” she said. “It’s quite near here.”
“I know.”
“I thought maybe Grace sent you down for some clean pajamas or a spare toothbrush or something,” Conchita said. “She might have to stay up in the country longer than she planned.”
“I don’t collect toothbrushes,” I said, boring in with my most omniscient gimlet stare. It didn’t seem to penetrate very deep.
“You!” Conchita repeated. She leaned over to open the door. “Better get in. I passed two green prowl cars in Greenwich Avenue just now. We’d better get you off the streets.”
Her eyes weren’t laughing now. The same hard, steely, determined glint I had seen in the garden by the lake was back. She was making no threats to alert the police cars she had seen, but there was blackmail in her voice. It was polite blackmail, true, and I was not quite sure of the motive. But I got into the car.
Conchita’s smile reappeared, as big as it was enigmatic. I wanted very much to know what she was so pleased about, and I knew I would find out soon enough.
“Where to?” she asked, as the clutch took hold and we began to move.
“I was on my way to Peewee Burnley’s,” I said, grabbing a name out of the air. “I always used to find a few kindred souls taking the waters at Burnley’s at this time of day.”
“Burnley’s is closed on Sundays now,” Conchita said. She swung the car around a corner. “Tell you what. We’ll go up to my place for a drink.”
“I’m really not thirsty,” I lied.
“Eddie won’t be home for an hour or so. He goes on the air in half an hour, and we can catch his show while we’re refueling.”
“I’d like to hear Eddie’s show,” I said, “but I’m sort of hungry. Can’t I entice you into some Greasy Spoon? I’d ply you with hamburgers.”
“Much too public,” Conchita said. She paused just enough for me to read into her pronouncement any implication I wanted. Then, “You ought to lead a very private life, Jim, as long as you’re such tempting cop bait. If you’re really hungry, I can knock a couple of eggs together.”
I said nothing. Comment seemed useless. We were obviously heading back to Perry Street, come what may. I was resigned. I had half an hour to kill anyhow, until Grossbeck closed up his pharmacy and set off to take his wife to the movies. Spending the time with Conchita seemed a much more sensible and pleasant prospect than jumping out of the car at the next traffic fight and making a break for it. Conchita didn’t scare me.
She stopped her car in front of the Perry Street address, which was a brownstone house like a thousand other brownstone houses in the Village, with a high stoop, a wrought-iron gate under the stairs leading to a basement apartment that had probably been a speakeasy in Prohibition days, and a recessed front door painted blood red. There was an Italian restaurant on one side and a nursery school on the other.
As Conchita leaned over to shut off the ignition, her shoulder brushed against me and lingered for a warm, tingling moment. It was not an accidental gesture. On the contrary, it was pulsing with promise. I contemplated the immediate future and found the prospect not unpleasant, even though the thoughts of Grace and the police and Grossbeck’s Pharmacy were milling about with mild insistence at the back of my mind.
Conchita twisted herself from under the wheel and pressed her knees against my thigh. I didn’t move. Her knees nudged me tenderly.
“We’ll get out on your side, Jim,” she said. “Can you unwind those long legs of yours?”
“I’m very comfortable right here,”
“Go on. Unwind. One, at least.”
“I’ll try,” I said, moving one leg.
Conchita started to climb over me. I caught her calves in a quick, gentle scissors. They were agreeably soft between my knees.
“Jim.” She gave a brief, throaty laugh. I squeezed a little harder, then released her. She opened the door and we got out.
We went up the brownstone steps and I looked at the names on the brass mailboxes beside the door. I stood right behind her as she bent her head over her bag, looking for her keys. The back of her neck was smooth and tempting. I tugged playfully at a wisp of dark hair that strayed down along the nape. Conchita did not turn around. She opened the street door.
The place was a walk-up. Conchita hooked her arm in mine as we climbed one flight of rickety stairs. I was glad there was no more than one flight, because the stairway swayed like a suspension bridge, and I noted that the outer edge was guyed up with occasional strands of twisted piano wire. Looking over the worm-eaten banisters into the stair well, I reflected that people who live in the Village must not suffer from acrophobia.
The hall light was out on the first landing. It was always out, Conchita said. The superintendent was a part-time poet and paid no attention to such mundane details.
“Strike a match, Jim.”
I snapped a flame from my utility lighter and held it above Conchita’s head. She took quite a while finding the key hole—as though her hand were trembling. When she pushed the door in, I let the lighter go out and followed her. The door clicked shut behind me, and we were in utter darkness. I felt my heart-beat quicken, partly in anticipation, perhaps partly in apprehension.
“Conchita, where are you?” I stretched out a groping hand and touched the warm softness of her cheek. Instantly she was in my arms, her lips thrust avidly against mine, her hands clasped tightly behind my head, pulling me closer, ever closer—as if it were possible.
The tempest was not altogether unexpected. There had been plenty of scudding clouds and preliminary rumblings. Yet I was still surprised by the fury of the storm when it broke, by the burning ardor of her lips, the hungry fervor of her embrace. I lost track of my heartbeat, and of everything else except the fragrance of her hair, the sinuous nearness of her body against mine, and the wanton sweetness of her kiss.
I was dizzy when I finally came up for air. I suppose it was the natural need of the blood stream for oxygen which provoked the hiatus, although at the moment I was convinced that my red corpuscles were doing very well on the neurotropic stimuli on which they were being gorged. Conchita continued to cling tightly to me, her cheek against the hollow of my shoulder, her breath quick and feverish against my neck.
“Jim!” she whispered. “This is so wonderful. I knew it would be—from the first minute I saw you.”
I made some small, inarticulate purring sounds. I was out of breath myself, and could think of no appropriate words. Besides, I had a sudden surge of uneasiness, probably caused by my gradual awareness of a fusty, shut-in odor that pervaded the darkness, a blend of forgotten tobacco smoke and the ghost of some dead perfume, with animal overtones. Then, over Conchita’s shoulder, I saw a pair of luminous, greenish eyes staring at me out of the blackness. I blinked. The shining eyes still looked at me.
“Kiss me,” Conchita murmured.
I kissed her again, with something less than my initial enthusiasm. Conchita’s fine, glowing frenzy was undiminished, it seemed, but my own responsiveness was caught in the cross-current of uneasiness. I found myself wondering why Conchita had not put on the light and whether she intended spending the rest of the evening in the dark. It was not that I had never kissed a girl in the dark before, or that it was likely that kissing Conchita would be any more enjoyable in the full glare of electric lights. I certainly made no attempt to analyze my feelings at the time, and I am sure that it never occurred to me that those luminous green eyes could be my conscience or a psychic projection of my better nature trying to stare me down. Subconsciously I guess I attributed the twin points of light to some trick of reflection, probably from an unseen street light. Yet the impression was so strong in me that the darkness around me was charged with unseen menace that I raised my head again, looking over Conchita’s shoulder for those glowing eyes.
The eyes were gone.
I wound my arms around Conchita and kissed her violently, as though to dispel the uneasiness by sheer vehemence, a flood of passion that would sweep away all extraneous thoughts and feelings.
This time it was Conchita who broke the spell. Her lips moved across my cheek and then back along my jaw, coming to rest below my chin. Her warm contralto was vibrant against my throat as she said:
“You do want me, don’t you, Jim? You’ve felt like this from the first, just as I have.”
Before I could reply, I felt a sharp, burning pain in my left leg. It was as though a dozen red-hot knife points had been suddenly plunged into my calf. The pain was so unexpected that I loosed an involuntary yelp.
“Jim darling! What’s the matter?”
“I think something bit me,” I said.
Conchita slid out from my embrace.
“It must be Othello,” her voice said in the darkness. “Stop that, Othello. Where are your manners?”
She touched the electric switch and the ceiling lights blazed.
When I stopped blinking at the glare, I saw a large, sleek, coal-black cat sitting on its haunches across the room, staring at me complacently.
“Bad kitty,” Conchita said. “Othello’s getting revenge for being left alone. He hates being left alone. It makes him neurasthenic and introspective. Where did he hurt you, Jim?”
“It’s nothing much, I guess,” I said. “Probably just multiple lacerations, secondary hemorrhage, and shock.”
I sat down in the nearest chair, which was a startling contraption of chrome-plated gas pipes and two turquoise cushions. I pulled up my trouser leg and examined my wounds. The cat’s claws had gashed out symmetrical crimson marks, shaped like fish forks, which bled quietly on each side of my calf.
“You poor darling!” Conchita bent over me to examine the damage. “Let me give you first aid.”
She disappeared into the adjoining bathroom while I pulled out a few shreds of wool that had been imbedded in my leg by Othello’s playful talons. She returned with cotton and iodine with which she painted stinging brown designs on my manly calf. Then she covered up her handiwork with adhesive bandages, taking care to affix the adhesive firmly to the hairs on my leg.
“You poor darling!” she repeated. “You need a drink after that. I should have warned you that Othello has a persecution complex.”
She kissed my knee, pulled my trouser leg back into place, and departed with her first-aid equipment. On her way to the bathroom, she extinguished the ceiling lights and turned on a bridge lamp in the corner. The soft glow revealed a pair of nylon stockings draped over the pink lamp shade to dry.
