‘It’s the wrong crowd for you.’
She grimaced.
‘An artist who is worth a damn can handle any crowd,’ she said and turned back to examine her face in the minor. She; picked up an eyelash brush and began to stroke up her eyelashes with quick, deft movements. ‘What were you doing down there this morning? I didn’t fall for that swim story.’
‘Looking the place over. What were you thinking about, marrying a cop?’
She put down the eyelash brush and turned her head slowly. Her glittering eyes were now more out of focus.
‘What’s it to you who I marry?’
‘Nothing much. It seemed odd to me a girl like you should want to marry a speed cop.’
Her lips curved into a smile.
‘But then he was a very special cop.’
‘Was he?’ I reached forward to drop ash into an empty tobacco tin that stood on the dressing-table. ‘How special?’
She put her hand to her mouth to cover a gentle belch.
‘He had money.’ She got to her feet and crossed over to the screen and went behind it. She moved unsteadily. ‘Have you any money, Mr. Scott?’
I edged my chair around so I could stare at the screen. I could just see the top of her head as she stripped off her wrap which she tossed on the floor beside the screen.
‘I have a little money,’ I said. ‘Not much.’
‘The only thing in this world that means anything, that has any importance, is money. Don’t let anyone kid you otherwise. They say health and religion are good things to have: but I’ll settle for money,’ she said from behind the screen. ‘If you haven’t got it, you might just as well buy a razor and slit your throat. Without money you’re nothing. You can’t get a decent job, you can’t go anywhere worth going to; you can’t live in a place worth living in; you can’t mix with the people who are worth mixing with. Without money, you’re just one of a crowd, and that’s the lowest form of life to my thinking—being one of the crowd.’
She came out from behind the screen. She now had on a red silk dress that showed off her curves to advantage. She moved unsteadily to the dressing-table to fix her dark hair.
‘I’ve been in this racket for ten years,’ she went on as she ran a comb through her hair. ‘I have a small talent. The words aren’t mine. They were dreamed up by my drunken agent who hangs on to me because he can’t find anyone else to bleed. But the small talent doesn’t bring me in any money worth speaking about. It provides me with a living if you can call it that, and that’s all. So when this redfaced cop started to work on me, I let him, because he had money. For the past ten years I have been in practically every nightclub along this lousy coast, and although I have been propositioned countless times, I have never had an offer of marriage. Then this cop comes on the scene. He is tough and crude and utterly horrible, but at least he wanted to marry me.’ She paused and finished the gin in her glass. ‘He had money. He gave me presents.’ She pulled open a drawer in her dressing-table and fished out a gold powder compact. She held it in her hand so I could see it. It was an expensive, impressive ornament. ‘He gave me this and he didn’t j expect me to throw my clothes off the moment I got it. He gave me a squirrel coat and I still had my clothes on. He said if I would marry him he’d give me a mink coat for a wedding present.’ She paused to pour more gin in her glass. She sipped and grimaced with disgust at its taste. I guessed she wouldn’t be talking like this if she hadn’t been three-quarters tight, but I was listening: listening as hard as I could. ‘He had a bungalow out at Palm Bay. It was nice. There was a terrace overlooking the sea and the rooms were tricky: one of them had a glass floor with lights under it. I would have married that man if he had stayed alive long enough, even though he was so crude he used to come in here with his hat on, put his feet up here on the dressing-table and call me 'Baby Doll'. But he had to be dumb enough to get killed.’ She finished the gin and put the glass down, shuddering. ‘He had to be dumb enough just when he and Art Galgano…’ She broke off, squinting at me, as if trying to get me in focus. ‘I guess I’m drunk,’ she said. ‘What am I talking like this to you for?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘People talk to get things out of their systems. You’re not boring me. He couldn’t help getting killed. You should feel sorry for him.’
‘Should I?’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘You mean I should feel sorry for myself.’ She splashed more gin into her glass. ‘Are you looking for a wife, Mr. Scott?’
‘I can’t say I am.’
‘What are you looking for?’
‘I’d like to find out how O’Brien got himself run over.’
She lifted the glass of gin and sniffed at it.
‘This is filthy stuff. It’s only when I’ve done my act and get the applause I got tonight, that I use it.’ She peered at me. ‘What’s O’Brien to you?’
‘Nothing. I’m just curious to find out how he got run over.’
‘No reason—just curious?’
‘Just curious.’
She studied me.
‘What did you say your name was again?’
‘Scott.’
‘And you want to know how Harry got himself run over?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I could tell you.’ She sipped the gin, then with a movement of disgust, she crossed the room and poured the gin into the small, grimy toilet basin. ‘I could tell you. How much is it worth to you, Mr. Scott?’
I dropped my cigarette into the tobacco tin.
‘You mean how much in money?’
She leaned her solid hips against the toilet basin and smiled at me: it wasn’t a nice smile, and it made her look as hard as if her face had been hacked out of stone.
‘Yes, I mean how much in money. Chester Scott—of course. I know who you are now. You’re the man Oscar is blackmailing.’
‘What makes you think that?’ I asked, keeping my face expressionless.
‘I hear things,’ she said. ‘I don’t approve of blackmail. I need money, Mr. Scott. I can give you information that can take you off Oscar’s hook, but it’ll cost you. I won’t rob you. I’ll put you wise for five hundred. It’s cheap. I know what Oscar’s asking. Five hundred is nothing.’
‘What information?’
‘Have you five hundred dollars, Mr. Scott?’
‘Not on me.’
‘Can you get it tonight?’
‘I might.’ I thought of the eight hundred dollars we kept in the safe at the office. I could borrow that and pay it back when the bank opened on Monday. ‘What makes you imagine the information you have would be worth all that to me?’
‘Give me another cigarette.’
I crossed over to her, gave her a cigarette and lit it. As she dipped the cigarette end into the flame of my lighter, she put her hand on mine. Her flesh felt hot and dry against mine.
I moved away from her, watching her draw in smoke, then let it out slowly down her nostrils.
‘I can get you off Oscar’s hook,’ she said. ‘I know the whole set-up. You can have it for five hundred. I’ve got to get out of this town and I want a get-away stake.’
‘How do you get me off the hook?’ I asked, wondering if she were taking me for a ride.
‘I’ll tell you when you produce the money and not before. When you get bitten by a snake, you use an antidote. I can give you the antidote to Oscar’s bite. If you don’t want to spend five hundred to save thirty thousand, then you’re a fool. Can you give me the money tonight?’
If she really knew how I could fix Oscar, five hundred would be a give-away price.
‘Yes, I can get it.’
‘I’ll be home just after two,’ she said. ‘You’ll find me at apartment 10 Maddox Arms. So you know where it is?’
I said I knew where it was.
