Nightmare Town: Stories (56 page)

Elsa Fremont was finishing her song.

Guild asked Deep Kee: “You know Wynant?”

“Please, no.”

“A thin man, tall, used to have whiskers before he cut them off,” Guild went on. “Killed a woman up at Hell Bend.”

The Chinese, smiling, shook his head from side to side.

“Ever been in Hell Bend?”

The smiling Chinese head continued to move from side to side.

Kearny said humorously: “He’s a high-class murderer, Guild. He wouldn’t take a job in the country.”

Deep Kee laughed delightedly.

Elsa Fremont came to the table and sat down. She seemed tired and drank thirstily from her glass.

The Chinese, smiling, bowing, leaving his drink barely tasted, went away. Kearny, looking after him, told Guild: “That’s a good guy to have liking you.”

“Tong gunman?”

“I don’t know. I know him pretty well, but I don’t know that. You know how they are.”

“I don’t know,” Guild said.

A quarrel had started in the other end of the room. Two men were standing cursing each other over a table. Kearny screwed himself around in his chair to stare at them for a moment. Then, grumbling, “Where do these bums think they are?” he got up and went over to them.

Elsa Fremont stared moodily at her glass. Guild watched Kearny go to the table where the two men were cursing, quiet them, and sit down with them.

The woman who had talked about the skin tightening on her forehead was now saying in the same tone: “Character actress – that’s the old stall. She’s just exactly the same kind of character actress I was. She’s doing bits – when she can get them.”

Elsa Fremont, still staring at her glass, whispered: “I’m scared.”

“Of what?” Guild asked as if only moderately interested.

“Of Wynant, of what he might – “ She raised her eyes, dark and harried. “Has he done anything to Charley, Mr. Guild?”

“I don’t know.”

She put a tight fist on the table and cried angrily: “Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you find Wynant? Why don’t you find Charley? Haven’t you got any blood, any heart, any guts? Can’t you do anything but sit there like a -“ She broke off with a sob. Anger went out of her face and the fingers that had been clenched opened in appeal. “I – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean – But, oh, Mr. Guild, I’m so -“ She put her head down and bit her lower lip.

Guild, impassive, said: “That’s all right.”

A man rose drunkenly from a nearby table and came up behind Elsa’s chair. He put a fat hand on her shoulder and said: “There, there, darling.” He said to Guild: “You cannot annoy this girl in this way. You cannot. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man of your complexion.” He leaned forward sharply, peering into Guild’s face. “By Jesus, I believe you’re a mulatto. I really do.”

Elsa, squirming from under the fat drunken hand, flung a “Let me alone” up at the man. Guild said nothing. The fat man looked uncertainly from one to the other of them until a hardly less drunken man, mumbling unintelligible apologies, came and led him away.

Elsa looked humbly at the dark man. “I’m going to tell Frank I’m going,” she said in a small tired voice. “Will you take me home?”

“Sure.”

They rose and moved toward the door. Kearny was standing by the elevator.

“I don’t feel like working tonight, Frank,” the girl told him. “I’m going to knock off.”

“Oke,” he said. “Give yourself a hot drink and some aspirin.” He held his hand out to Guild. “Glad I met you. Drop in any time. Anything I can ever do for you, let me know. You going to take the kid home? Swell! Be good.”

Ten

Elsa Fremont was a dusky figure beside Guild in a taxicab riding west up Nob Hill. Her eyes glittered in a splash of light from a street-lamp. She drew breath in and asked: “You think Charley’s run away, don’t you?”

“It’s likely,” Guild said, “but maybe he’ll be home when we get there.”

“I hope so,” she said earnestly. “I do hope so, but – I’m afraid.”

He looked obliquely at her. “You’ve said that before. Mean you’re afraid something’s happened to him or will happen to you?”

She shivered. “I don’t know. I’m just afraid.” She put a hand in his, asking plaintively: “Aren’t you ever going to catch Wynant?”

“Your hand’s cold,” he said.

She pulled her hand away. Her voice was not loud: intensity made it shrill. “Aren’t you ever human?” she demanded. “Are you always like this? Or is it a pose?” She drew herself far back in a corner of the taxicab. “Are you a damned corpse?”

“I don’t know,” the dark man said. He seemed mildly puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She did not speak again, but sulked in her corner until they reached her house. Guild sat at ease and smoked until the taxicab stopped. Then he got out, saying: “I’ll stop long enough to see if he’s home.”

The girl crossed the sidewalk and unlocked the door while he was paying the chauffeur. She had gone indoors leaving the door open when he mounted the front steps. He followed her in. She had turned on ground-floor lights and was calling upstairs: “Charley!” There was no answer.

She uttered an impatient exclamation and ran upstairs. When she came down again she moved wearily. “He’s not in,” she said. “He hasn’t come.”

Guild nodded without apparent disappointment. “I’ll give you a ring when I wake up,” he said, stepping back toward the street door, “or if I get any news of him.”

She said quickly: “Don’t go yet, please, unless you have to. I don’t – I wish you’d stay a little while.”

He said, “Sure,” and they went into the living-room.

When she had taken off her coat she left him for a few minutes, going into the kitchen, returning with Scotch whisky, ice, lemons, glasses, and a siphon of water. They sat on the sofa with drinks in their hands.

Presently, looking inquisitively at him, she said: “I really meant what I said in the cab. Aren’t you actually human? Isn’t there any way anybody can get to you, get to the real inside you? I think you’re the most” – she frowned, selecting words – “most untouchable, unreal person I’ve ever known. Trying to – to really come in contact with you is just like trying to hold a handful of smoke.”

Guild, who had listened attentively, now nodded. “I think I know what you’re trying to say. It’s an advantage when I’m working.”

“I didn’t ask you that,” she protested, moving the glass in her hand impatiently. “I asked you if that’s the way you really are or if you just do it.”

He smiled and shook his head noncommittally.

“That isn’t a smile,” she said. “It’s painted on.” She leaned to him swiftly and kissed him, holding her mouth to his mouth for an appreciable time. When she took her mouth from his her narrow green eyes examined his face carefully. She made a moue. “You’re not even a corpse – you’re a ghost.”

Guild said pleasantly, “I’m working,” and drank from his glass.

Her face flushed. “Do you think I’m trying to make you?” she asked hotly.

He laughed at her. “I’d like it if you were, but I didn’t mean it that way.”

“You wouldn’t like it,” she said. “You’d be scared.”

“Uh-uh,” he explained blandly. “I’m working. It’d make you easier for me to handle.”

Nothing in her face responded to his bantering. She said, with patient earnestness: “If you’d only listen to me and believe me when I tell you I don’t know any more what it’s all about than you do, if that much. You’re just wasting your time when you ought to be finding Wynant. I don’t know anything. Charley doesn’t. We’d both tell you if we did. We’ve both already told you all we know. Why can’t you believe me when I tell you that?”

“Sorry,” Guild said lightly. “It don’t make sense.” He looked at his watch. “It’s after five. I’d better run along.”

She put a hand out to detain him, but instead of speaking she stared thoughtfully at her dangling wrist-scarf and worked her lips together.

Guild lit another cigarette and waited with no appearance of impatience.

Presently she shrugged her bare shoulders and said: “It doesn’t make any difference.” She turned her head to look uneasily behind her. “But will you – will you do something for me before you go? Go through the house and see that everything is all right. I’m – I’m nervous, upset.”

“Sure,” he said readily, and then, suggestively: “If you’ve got anything to tell me, the sooner the better for both of us.”

“No, no, there’s nothing,” she said. “I’ve told you everything.”

“All right. Have you got a flashlight?”

She nodded and brought him one from the next room.

When Guild returned to the living-room Elsa Fremont was standing where he had left her. She looked at his face and anxiety went out of her eyes. “It was silly of me,” she said, “but I do thank you.”

He put the flashlight on the table and felt for his cigarettes. “Why’d you ask me to look?”

She smiled in embarrassment and murmured: “It was a silly notion.”

“Why’d you bring me home with you?” he asked.

She stared at him with eyes in which fear was awakening. “Wh – what do you mean? Is there -?”

He nodded.

“What is it?” she cried. “What did you find?”

He said: “I found something wrong down in the cellar.”

Her hand went to her mouth.

“Your brother,” he said.

She screamed: “What?”

“Dead.”

The hand over her mouth muffled her voice: “K – killed?”

He nodded. “Suicide, from the looks of it. The gun could be the one the girl was killed with. The -“ He broke off and caught her arm as she tried to run past him toward the door. “Wait. There’s plenty of time for you to look at him. I want to talk to you.”

She stood motionless, staring at him with open, blank eyes.

He said: “And I want you to talk to me.”

She did not show she had heard him.

He said: “Your brother did kill Columbia Forrest, didn’t he?”

Her eyes held their blank stare. Her lips barely moved. “You fool, you fool,” she muttered in a tired, flat voice.

He was still holding her arm. He ran the tip of his tongue over his lips and asked in a low, persuasive tone: “How do you know he didn’t?”

She began to tremble. “He couldn’t’ve,” she cried. Life had come back to her voice and face now. “He couldn’t’ve.”

“Why?”

She jerked her arm out of his hand and thrust her face up toward his. “He couldn’t’ve, you idiot. He wasn’t there. You can find out where he was easily enough. You’d’ve found out long before this if you’d had any brains. He was at a meeting of the Boxing Commission that afternoon, seeing about a permit or something for Sammy. They’ll tell you that. They’ll have a record of it.”

The dark man did not seem surprised. His blue eyes were meditative under brows drawn a little together. “He didn’t kill her, but he committed suicide,” he said slowly and with an air of listening to himself say it. “That don’t make sense too.”

The End

We are also grateful to our good and patient agents, Kassandra Duane and Joy Harris; and to New York bookseller Jon White for his knowledgeable assistance in locating individual stories in rare old magazines and books.

We are indebted as well to Martin Asher of Vintage Books and Sonny Mehta of Alfred A. Knopf for their continued support of this book over the rather lengthy period of time from agreement to publication. Edward Kastenmeier gave the best kind of editing one could ask for: exacting, insightful, and replete with good critiques and suggestions.

Finally, a salute to Ellery Queen is very much in order. He was a great connoisseur of the art of the mystery and the detective short story, and his belief in and publishing of Dashiell Hammett’s short works for almost twenty years is a lasting achievement.

The Editors

Who Killed Bob Teal?:
copyright 1924 by New Metropolitan Fiction, Inc. Renewed 1952 by Dashiell Hammett. Originally appeared in True Detective Stories.

Nightmare Town:
copyright 1924 by Frank A. Munsey Publications; copyright renewed 1952 by Popular Publications, Inc., and assigned to Lillian Hellman as successor to Dashiell Hammett. Originally appeared in Argosy All-Story Weekly.

“Ruffian’s Wife”: copyright 1925 by Dashiell Hammett; copyright renewed 1953 by Dashiell Hammett. Originally appeared in Sunset magazine.

A Man Called Spade, Too Many Have Lived,
and
They Can Only Hang You Once:
copyright 1932 by P. F. Collier; copyrights renewed 1960 by Dashiell Hammett. Originally appeared in The American Magazine.

Two Sharp Knives
and
His Brother’s Keeper:
copyright 1934 by P. F. Collier; copyrights renewed 1962 by Josephine Marshall and Mary Jane Miller. Originally appeared in Collier’s magazine.

A Man Called Thin
: copyright 1961 by Davis Publications, Inc.; copyright renewed 1989 by Davis Publications,.Inc. Originally appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

The First Thin Man:
copyright 1975 by City Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted here by permission of Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents, Inc., and the Literary Property Trustees under the Will of Lillian Hellman. Originally appeared in City Magazine.