after a shave I felt good.
I put on my silk dressing-gown and ran a comb through my hair, then I put my head round Mardi’s door and took a look at her. I could just see a small lump in the bed and I guessed she was still sleeping. I got a big kick out of thinking she was right there in my bed.
I telephoned downstairs for a double breakfast, and while I was waiting I smoked a cigarette.
The service waiter looked at me curiously when he wheeled the tray in, and he took a quick gander round the room. I gave him a dollar and he grinned at me. Maybe he’d been young once, and maybe he remembered using a double breakfast in a single room. Anyway, the dollar did the trick and he took himself off without any crack.
I knocked on the bedroom door. After the second try I heard her call out. I put my head round the door. “H’yah, pal,” I said. “Feel like puttin’ on the feed bag?”
She struggled up in bed and blinked at me. Some dames look like the wrath of God in the early morning; Mardi looked swell. Her hair was all curls and her eyes looked large and lazy. She stretched a little. The long sleeves of my pyjamas hid her hands.
“Give me two minutes,” she said, “and I’ll be right with you.”
She jumped out of bed and slipped on the woollen dressing-gown and flopped off to the bathroom. I wheeled the tray in and parked it beside the bed. Then I pulled up one of the blinds and left the other. Strong sunshine after a night out is apt to come tough.
She came back after five minutes and smiled at me. “Did you sleep well?” she asked, climbing into bed.
“Very well,” I said, feeling sappy. I guess no one had asked me that one since I’d been out in the world earning my first dollar. “How did you make out?”
She arranged the pillows and sat up; the dressing-gown spread over the sheet. “Oh, I feel grand right now,” she said. “I thought I’d’ve died last night, I was so tired.”
I brought the tray over to the bed. “I’m glad we were together on that,” I said, looking at her. “I’d’ve hated you to run into those guys on your own.”
She took the cup of coffee, but she didn’t take her eyes off my face. “I’m glad, too.”
“Do you want to talk about last night?” she said.
I shrugged. “What’s there to talk about ?”
“Will it be all right?”
Again I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said, “I’ve been puzzling my brains. I can’t see how we can worry Spencer. After all, we have no proof and we don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Somehow, I reckon it would be as well to leave the thing alone. How do you feel about it?”
She frowned a little. “I’m afraid we won’t get away with it as easily as all that. You see, there’s a lot you don’t know about it all, and I’m scared sick that you’re going to get yourself involved more than you think.”
I lit a cigarette. “Tell me,” I said, getting up to take the tray and to give her a cigarette also.
She relaxed back on the pillows. “It all begins some time ago,” she said. “I think I know who your mysterious lady is.”
I sat up. “You do?” I said.
She nodded. “Yes, I think it’s Sarah Spencer, Lu’s wife.”
“Well, for Pete’s sake.”
“It fits, once you know the inside story. You see, I was Mr. Spencer’s private secretary, and I used to spend a good bit of my time at his house. He worked late and he liked to have me around to straighten things out for him. Sarah Spencer was around a lot and I was always running into her. Spencer is crazy about her, but she two-times him from morning till night. How it is he hasn’t got wise to her beats me. You see, I do know that Vessi was one of her boy friends.”
I got to my feet and began to wander around the room. “I’d like you to expand on that,” I said.
“She was very fond of Vessi,” Mardi told me. “Really fond of him. Sarah is the type who likes them rough, and Vessi meant a lot to her. When he was executed she nearly went out of her mind. I had to work for two days right in the house, so I should know. She drove us all haywire. You have no idea. I think she hates Lu.”
I sat on the bed. “You’ve opened the door,” I said. “As you say, it fits. She wants to get Lu on trial. That evens things up with Vessi and it gets rid of him. She couldn’t come out in the open and accuse Lu of knocking Richmond off. The Vessi angle would come out in court and it wouldn’t be nice for her. So she hides behind a telephone, and makes me the goat.”
Mardi nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I think that’s what it all means.”
I thought some more. “It would have been easy for her to know what was going on,” I said. “All the things she knew to tell me over the ’phone came from keeping her ears open and listening in to Lu’s talk with his boys. I dare say she had ample opportunity of doing that. Then again she’s rich, I take it, and ten grand would have been peanut money for her to get rid of Lu.”
Mardi stubbed out her cigarette. “She’s crazy about the men. She’s running Curtis now. He’s working for Lu, as you know, and I guess he told her all she wanted to know.”
I suddenly thought of Kennedy. Was he an old flame of hers? I guessed I was getting near to the truth.
“Well,” I said, “this is going to get her nowhere. I’m through, so she can whistle for another goat.”
Mardi fixed her big eyes on me. “You don’t know Sarah Spencer,” she said quietly. “I’m scared. She won’t let you go as easily as that.”
I grinned at her. “Don’t you worry your head,” I said. “No dame’s goin’ to rush me into somethin’ I ain’t keen about.”
“Please don’t….” She looked so scared that I got up and went over to sit on the bed.
“Now take it easy,” I said, putting my hand on hers. “Just take it easy.”
She said, “But you don’t know her. She’s dangerous. She won’t stop at anything.”
I liked the feel of her hand in mine. I took each finger in turn between my finger and thumb and gently pressed her nails. “Suppose we wait an’ see,” I said. “It’s no good getting steamed up before anythin’ starts. Now forget about it, honey, we got other things to think about. I’ve gotta make plans. What are we goin’ to do with you?”
She was quite content to leave her hand in mine. We sat there looking at each other, and when she saw I wasn’t worrying she relaxed and smiled at me.
“You’re good to have around, Nick,” she said. “I guess I’d be in a bad spot without you.”
“I’d like you to be around always.”
She shook her head. “Don’t say that,” she said, taking her hand away. “You don’t have to say it.”
“I know. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t meant it. I’ve tried to get you out of my system, but you stick. I guess this sounds cock-eyed to you, but I want to go on with you.” I stopped because I just couldn’t get the words out.
She saw what I meant all right. She said very softly, “What about me? Do you think—”
“I’m thinking about you. I wouldn’t’ve started this if I hadn’t’ve been thinking about you. It’s because of you that I want you and me to go on. I think you and I could go on—”
I got up. It was no use. I couldn’t put it over. I guess I regretted being what I was for the first time in my life. I regretted all the other dames. I regretted almost everything.
I went over to the window and looked out. The silence in the room made me think of a church. Then she said, “Nick….” She Was crying.
I went over to her and put my arms round her. I didn’t say anything. I just put my arms round her and held her. She cried against my silk dressing-gown. I could feel her body trembling.
“Be kind to me,” she said. “We are going to have a strange life together.”
When she said that, I felt good. It was like coming through a bad storm, shutting the door on the wind and the rain and knowing that it was quiet inside.
I shifted my position so that I lay beside her, and she put her head on my shoulder. Her soft hair touched my face and I held both her hands in mine.
When she had stopped crying and was quite calm again, I said, “Suppose we go an’ get married quick? Would you like that?”
She stayed so still, after I had said that, that I thought she had not heard me, but I just waited, wondering how it would all come out and if she really wanted me. She sighed then, and relaxed.
“Would you say a thing like that if you didn’t really mean it?” she said at last, leaning away from me so that she could look up at my face. Her eyes were very bright and her lips were parted, and behind the brightness of her
