Dames Don’t Care (6 page)

I go in.

"Say, sister," I start, "I reckon that your boy friend got a raw deal. Maybe he ain't in fightin' trim tonight. He cerainly can take it."

She goes over to Maloney an' starts dabbin' his face with a towel.

"I wish I was a man," she says. "I'd kill Fernandez." She stops work an' turns round an' looks at me. Her eyes are flashin' an' she looks good. I always did like dames with tempers. "Jim here would have smashed him to bits," she goes on, "but he can't use his arm properly. He broke it two weeks ago and it's not working properly yet. It was easy for that moron to be tough."

Maloney starts comin' up for air. He struggles to get off the couch, but he can't make it. He falls back.

"Let me get at that..." he mutters.

I do a bit of quick thinkin'. I think that maybe I can do myself a good turn by gettin' next to this Henrietta in a big way. Maybe if I play my cards right she will talk, an' it looks as if this is the opportunity.

"Don't worry, Maloney," I say. "You never had a chance with that arm, an' he caught you off balance." I look at Henrietta. "I was feelin' pretty burned up myself when that lousy bum went over an' kissed you like that," I go on. "That was a pretty insultin' thing to do in a room full of guys."

"Oh, yes," she says. "Well, I didn't see you doing anything about it."

I smile.

"Listen, lady," I tell her. "When you got your friend here all fixed, just come along back to the card room, an' you an' me'll have a little talk with this Fernandez guy."

I scram.

I go back to the card room. They are waitin' for me. Fernandez grunts like he is impatient to begin, an' I sit down an' ante up.

We start to play poker. They are playin' ten dollar rises which is quite big enough for me, but I am not doing badly in the first coupla hands. I win. I look at Fernandez an' grin like I was sorta pleased with myself. He gives me a big scowl.

We go on. There is a round of jackpots an' finally Fernandez opens it. He opens it for fifty dollars an' everybody plays. There is about two hundred an' fifty dollars in the pot. While we are drawin' cards I hear Henrietta come into the room. She comes an' stands just by where I am sittin'.

Fernandez bets. He bets a hundred. The other guys throw their cards in. I stay in. I reckon he is bluffin' an' I am goin' all out on my two pairs.

I see him. I was right. He has got two pairs sixes high an' I am tens high.

I scoop in the pool.

"You oughta learn to play this game, sucker," I tell him.

He looks up.

"An' what did you call me?" he says.

I get up. I put my hands under the table ledge an' I throw the table over, sideways. This leaves a space between me an' Fernandez. I jump in. As he puts his arms up I drop my head an' give it to him under the chin. As he goes back I follow with a left an' right an' I connect on each side of his jaw. I stand off an' wait for him to come in. He does, but he is a bit shook an' I sidestep an' smash him one on the nose that busts the works properly. He goes down, an' while he is goin' I call him by an old-fashioned name. This sorta riles him. He gets up, an' he comes for me like a bull. I sink my head an' he gets it in the guts. He brings his knee up but I miss it an' hit him again in the stomach. This hurts him plenty, an' he goes up against the wall. I go after him an' I paste him. I get to work on this guy like I have never worked on anybody before. Once or twice he tries to make a comeback, but he is not so good. The one I gave him on the mark has finished him for a bit.

Eventually he is just leaning up against the wall an' I smack him down. He stays put on the floor I look at Periera. He don't look so pleased now.

"Listen, Periera," I say. "You take this punk tough guy outa here before he gets me really annoyed. Because I am a guy who is liable to hurt somebody some time. But maybe I will do the job myself."

Periera don't say nothin'. I get hold of Fernandez by The collar. I yank him up an' I take him over to Henrietta.

"Tell the lady you're sorry, punk," I say, "because if you don't I'm goin' to smack it out of you. Get busy."

Just to help him along I flatten his nose - which is not so well anyhow, with my thumb.

He comes across, an' says his stuff.

I take him outside to the top of the stair leadin' down to the dance floor an' I kick him down. He bounces considerable. When he gets to the bottom he sits up like he was tryin' to remember what his first name was.

I go back.

"Listen, Periera," I say. "Where does this guy Maloney live?"

He says he lives in some dump near Indio, so I tell him to get out a car an' drive Maloney home. He looks like he is goin' to object but he thinks better of it. I tell him that he had better take the Fernandez bird off as well, an' he says all right.

I turn around to Henrietta. There is a little smile in her eye. I give her a big wink.

"Get your wrap, sister," I tell her. "You an' me is goin' to do a little drivin'. I wanna talk to you."

She looks at me an' she laughs.

"You've got your nerve, Mr Frayme," she says.

CHAPTER 4

PORTRAIT OF A 'G' MAN

S
ITTIN' IN the car, drivin' easy with Henrietta smokin' a cigarette an' lookin' straight ahead in front of her, I was feelin' pretty good. I was thinkin' that if there wasn't so much crime mixed up with this 'G' business it would he a swell sorta job.

After a bit I ask her if she wants to go any place in particular, an' she says no, but that if we keep ahead an' take a turn right pretty soon we will come to some dump where they are open all night an' that she reckons that we might as well drink some coffee while we are talkin'.

I take a peek at her sideways, an' I'm tellin' you that this dame is certainly the goods. She has got that peculiar sort of way of talkin' an' doin' everything that gets you guessin'. Most dames woulda been hot to know what I wanted to talk to 'em about, but this Henrietta just don't ask a thing. She sits there lookin' straight ahead with them sapphire blue eyes of hers, an' a little smile playin' around her mouth. She gets me curious because she don't seem very interested in anything much - not even herself-an' there ain't many dames like that.

Pretty soon we come to the intersection that she has talked about an' we turn right. Away ahead I can see the lights of this place where we are goin' to get coffee. I slow down a bit because I want to put in a spot of thinkin' myself about what spiel I am goin' to pull on this Henrietta. I reckon that I have gotta tell her some sorta stuff that is liable to make her open up an' yet I have also got to keep who I am an' what I am doin' around here under cover. However, I have always found that if you are goin' to tell a fairy story you might as well make it a good one, so I get busy thinkin' about the idea that I am goin' to pull on her, after which I step on the gas an' we travel plenty.

Suddenly she starts talkin'.

"I think that was a swell job you did on Fernandez, Mr Frayme," she says, lookin' at me outa the corner of her eye. "He thinks he's tough. But maybe he'll alter his opinion after that little session he had with you."

"That wasn't nothin'," I tell her. "Anyhow, I don't like this Fernandez. He looks to me like a punk, an' I didn't like to see him bustin' your boy friend about. lHe looks a regular guy that Maloney bird."

"He's pretty good," she says, "I like him."

I pull up an' she stops talkin'.

We go in this place. It is the usual one story adobe building with a few tables stuck around an' a wop who is half asleep takin' coffee to a coupla old guys who are sittin' at a table. Besides these there ain't any one else there.

We sit down an' I order some coffee. I give her a cigarette, an' when I have lit it she holds it up an' looks at the smoke curlin' up.

"I'm afraid that you won't be very popular with Fernandez after this, Mr Frayme," she says, "and what he is going to do about me I don't know.

I ask her what she means by that crack.

She laughs, an' I can see her little teeth gleamin'.

"Fernandez wants me to marry him," she says. "He thinks he's madly in love with me, but what he'll think tomorrow after he's had a little facial treatinent and got rid of some of the black eyes and bruises, I don't know."

"Well, well, well," I say, "an' here was I thinkin' that you was stuck on this Maloney. You don't really mean to say that you would consider hitchin' up with a bird like that Fernandez," I tell her.

She smiles again. She certainly is a mysterious dame.

"I don't know what I think," she says. "Maybe I'll have to marry Fernandez." She looks at me an' she gives a little laugh. "Don't let's worry about him just now," she says. "You tell me what you want to talk to me about."

The wop brings the coffee an' it smells good to me. When she lifts up her cup her wrap falls off her shoulders an' I see that she has gotta pair of shoulders that mighta been copied off this dame Venus that you probably heard about, an' who seems to have started plenty trouble in her time. Henrietta sees me lookin' an' she gives me a sorta whimsical look like you would give a kid who was bein' naughty, an' I begin thinkin' that this dame has gotta way with her that I could go nuts about if I was a guy who went nuts about the shape of dames' shoulders, which is a thing I would probably do, only just when I am getting good an' interested in things like that I get sent off to the other end of the country on some bum case or other.

Well, here we go, I think to myself, an' I start in on the spiel I have thought up in the car while I was drivin' to this dump.

"Look, lady," I tell her, "this is the way it is: I work for a firm of New York attorneys who have got a branch office in Magdalena, Mexico, that I run for 'em. Well, a month or so ago I am in New York on some business an' I get around with a guy who is workin' in the District Attorney's office there. This guy starts tellin' me about your husband Granworth Aymes bumpin' himself off last January an' he tells me that they have got some interestin' new evidence an' that they reckon they may re-open this case."

I stop talkin' an' start drinkin' my coffee. Over the top of the cup I am watchin' her. I can see that her fingers holdin' the cigarette are tremblin' an' she has gone plenty white round the mouth. It don't look to me that what I have just said has pleased her any.

She takes a pull at herself but when she begins to talk her voice ain't so low as it was before. There is a spot of excitement in it

"That's very interesting," she says. "What new evidence could they find? I didn't know there was any question about my husband's suicide. I thought it was all over and finished with."

She stubs out the cigarette end on an ashtray. By this time she has got hold of herself. I put my cup down an' give her another cigarette an' light one for myself.

"You see it's this way," I go on. "A coroner's inquest don't matter very much if the DA in charge of the case thinks that he's found some new stuff that means something. Anyhow this guy in the DA's office tells me that they have discovered that you wasn't in Connecticut on the night that Granworth Aymes is supposed to have bumped himself off. They have found out that you was in New York an' another thing is that they have gotta big idea that the last person to see Granworth Aymes before he died was you, see?"

"I see," she says. Her voice is sorta dull, the life has gone out of it.

"These guys get all sorts of funny ideas in their heads," I say, "but you know what coppers an' district attorneys are. They just gotta try an' hang something on somebody. They wouldn't be doin' the job they do if they didn't like pullin' people in.

"You see it looks like somebody has dropped a hint around there that Granworth Aymes didn't commit suicide. That he was bumped off."

She flicks the ash off her cigarette.

"That seems ridiculous to me, Mr Frayme," she says. "The watchman on Cotton's Wharf testified that he saw Granworth drive the car over the wharf. That looks like suicide doesn't it?"

"Yeah," I tell her, "that's OK, but I gotta tell you what happened. This guy in the DA's office tells me that they got information that you slipped a counterfeit Registered Dollar Bond over at the bank here, an' of course that was reported to the Federal Government. The Feds evidently put a 'G' man on the job, an' this guy gets around in New York an' he grills this watchman on Cotton's Wharf an' after a bit he gets the whole truth about this business. What the watchman said he saw an' what he really saw is two different things, believe me, lady, because the watchman tells this 'G' man that he saw Granworth Aymes' car drive slowly down the wharf, an' that when it was half way down an' in the shadow the off-side door opens an' somebody gets out. He can't see who it is, but he can see it's a woman. He sees her turn around an' lean inside the car an' then shut the door. The car starts off again, gathers speed, bounces off a wooden pile an' goes right over the edge into the river.

"I see," she says. "And why doesn't this watchman tell this story at the coroner's inquest?"

I grin.

"He had a reason, lady," I tell her. "A durn good reason. He kept his mouth shut about that little incident because a certain guy by the name of Langdon Burdell - a guy who was your husband's secretary - gave him one thousand dollars to forget everything except seeing the car bounce off the pile an' go over the edge."

She looks at me as if she has been struck by lightning.

"It looks like this Burdell guy is pretty friendly towards you," I tell her, "because when this 'G' man had seen him previously he said that you wasn't in New York that night, you was in Connecticut, an' it looks as if he not only said that but that the night after the death he had scrammed down and bribed the watchman good an' plenty to keep his mouth shut about that woman."

"Well, what does that look like?" I say. "It looks like Granworth Aymes mighta been dead an' stuck in that car. It looks like the woman mighta been drivin' it, don't it?"

She don't say anything for a minute. I see her wet her lips with her tongue. She is takin' this stuff pretty well, but she is frightened, I reckon. But she soon gets hold of herself again.