The Quick Red Fox (22 page)

At midnight on Tuesday I was awakened by a phone call from an abjectly apologetic fellow telling me that Lysa Dean was in residence at the best hotel in town, and wanted to see me right away. I told him to tell Lysa Dean to go emote up a rope and hung up. I picked up my phone and told The Hallmark switchboard to leave me in peace until nine the next morning. The pinned bone made dressing too much of a problem. If she wanted me, she knew where I was.

Just as I got back to sleep, forty minutes later, there was a brisk knock at my door. Muttering various Anglo-Saxon expressions, I got up and adjusted my sling and went in my shorts to the door. A portly chap in a black suit entered, followed by a Hallmark porter carrying the luggage which Dana and I had checked on to New York and couldn’t retrieve in time.

“I’m Herm Louker,” he said with an air of imparting information any fool would know. When I looked blank he said, “From the agency.” It was supposed to explain everything.

He dipped two fingers into a breast pocket, pulled out two crisp dollars, crackled them very loudly as he handed them to the porter.

Herm looked somewhat like a penguin. He had the same walk. He wore a hairpiece, with a deep wave. His eyes were cigar holes in a hotel towel. He had gold jewelry. He settled himself into a chair, sliced the end off a cigar with a gold knife, lit it with a gold lighter.

“Let me make myself entirely clear, Mr. McGee. The client’s
interest is my interest. Aside from loving that little woman personally, because she is all doll, through and through, what I got in my mind is a maximum protection of her interests and mine and the industry’s.” He held up a fat warning hand. “In addition to that, before we go further, I’ve got also a nervous stomach, and I want to know no more than I already know. I have been with her in Miami, New York and Chicago, and she was a great little trouper, performing in every way. They love that girl all over America. She is all star.”

“So I’d better know how much you know.”

“Merely that there has been, we shall say, an indiscretion. Show business people, Mr. McGee, are high-spirited and hot-blooded, and some people can take advantage. What we have going is an unfortunate situation where some character wants to give her a rough time. What the little lady feels is that after you started to perform, then you went off on a tangent. Time has been wasted. We got certain information from you in New York. One Samuel Bogen wanted already by the cops. There is no picture. Fingerprints only. A complete description which could be ninety-five thousand guys including me, almost. So we laid on special guards with that description in mind. Nothing in New York. Nothing in Chicago. No contact. As I get it, certain financial inducements were offered. Our star gets nervous, Mr. McGee. What we need now is some way to bring this to a head. If you can solve that, the little lady says she will live up to her end of your deal. I do not want to know your deal, believe me.”

“I had one idea worked out.”

“So?”

“I wanted to be part of it. I’m not in top shape at the moment.”

“So I see.”

“It depends on several things. Could you set up a time for her arrival at Los Angeles by air and give it a lot of publicity around Los Angeles?”

“But naturally. It’s done every day.”

“The man who is after her is disturbed. I think that except for one trip to Vegas, he’s stayed in the Los Angeles area. He might come to the airport. He might be waiting at her house. He may want money. He may want to kill her. He might not even know which he wants.”

“Please. It gives me cramps.”

“You have to know a few things, Mr. Louker. We don’t want to endanger your star. You could arrange a reasonably good facsimile?”

“The right size, right dye job, right clothes, dark glasses, makeup, a quick study in the way she waves and walks. Sure. Ten minutes on the phone I’ve got one, believe me.”

“But she gets maximum protection too.”

“I would insist.”

“Now here is the delicate point, Mr. Louker. If this Bogen is picked up, the cops are going to know the name he is using and the address he is using in about three minutes. Somebody has to be ready to move very quickly. At that address are going to be some things which should be destroyed, or maybe your star’s career goes down the drain. Somebody has to be smart and quick.”

“Are you going to give me more cramps?”

“Photographs, Herm. Of your star in a circus. A mob scene. If they got out it might not dent her too badly as long as she stays big at the box office. But two dog pictures in a row could cook her.”

He got up and tiptoed about, patting his stomach, moaning
softly. There was a lot of stomach. It started under his chin and descended in a long penguin curve to his knees.

“How can we get the pictures?” he demanded, more of himself than of me.

“Get a very nimble lawyer, and charge Bogen with stealing them from her. Get them impounded for her identification, then returned to her for destruction, and give him some impressive pieces of cash to hand out if he has to. Hell, you people have given out little gifts other times.”

He studied me. “I know you from someplace, maybe? Like in Rome with Manny?”

“No.”

“It will come to me. We’ll work it out somehow.” He took a wad of currency out and counted out a thousand dollars. “She said expenses. You can sign the receipt okay?”

I managed. He wished me well and left, looking gastric.

Dana wasn’t very responsive the next morning. After I left her room the head nurse on the floor intercepted me. She was wearing a curious expression, as if she had just discovered that if she flapped her arms hard enough, she could fly.

“Lysa Dean came to see her.”

“Was she conscious then?”

“Oh no. Miss Dean was very shocked. She was very upset. I think she has a very warm heart.”

“She must have.”

“She left this for you, sir.”

I opened it with one hand on my way down the hall. Heavy blue paper, scented. Sprawling backhand in blue ink. “I must see you. Please. L.”

The cab took me there. The desk said sorry, she isn’t registered here, sir. I gave them my name. Oh. Go right up, sir. She has the west wing on the fourth floor. A cop type guarded the wing. He glanced at the sling and spoke my last name with a question mark after it. Last door on the right, he said.

She sat on a dressing table bench in a white robe. A man was saying rude words over a phone. A thin man was fixing her hair. A girl in glasses was reading her a script aloud in a nasal monotonous voice. She shooed them all out.

“Dear McGee,” she said. “Your poor arm, dear. Oh my God, the way Dana looked. It broke my heart. It really did. I actually wept.”

“That’s nice.”

“Please don’t be sullen. We’re going to do what you suggested to Herm. They’re going to fly a girl in. I’m going to hide out here like a thief, dear. God, things are going to get into the damnedest mess without Dana. They’re going to pot already. How could she?”

“I guess it was just thoughtlessness.”

She studied me, head cocked on the side. Then she laughed aloud. “Oh, no! Really? But when I kidded you in Miami, I never
really
thought you could actually
get
her. You must be very damned …”

“You would be doing me one of the world’s greatest favors to please shut your mouth, Lee. There’s been a lot of dying done. My shoulder aches. Dana is worth ten of you.”

She went back and sat on the bench. “At least I know why you two were futzing around out here on my expense money. Making the fun last, eh?”

“That’s right.”

“Damn you, tell me the real reason.”

“The man who took you for a hundred and twenty thousand was murdered. It looked as if M’Gruder might have done it and could be arrested for it sooner or later. Then that house party would have figured in the trial. I wanted to check it out.”

The quick red fox stared at me with foxy eyes, instantly aware of the implications. She fingered her throat. “Off the hook on that, eh?”

“Yes. And I have a hunch you’ll be in the clear on the other too. I wonder about you, Lee. Take a look at that house party list. Nancy Abbott is beyond hope. Vance and Patty and Sonny Catton are dead. The photographer is dead. Poor little Whippy is trade for the butch.”

“Really? What is all this? The hand of God? Punishment? Don’t be an ass, McGee. Sometimes the swingers go quicker. Maybe because they don’t have their feet braced. If that kind of little fun-party could kill, honey, lower California would be shrinking. You know, you do drag a little. Have you noticed it? Oh, hell, I don’t want to fight you. It’s going to be weeks and weeks before Dana can get back on the ball. That’s what they told me. I’ll keep her on salary, of course. And there’s a sick benefit thing she’s entitled to. Scotty will check that all out for her and take care of it. I think …”

Herm came to the door and beckoned to her. She excused herself and went to him. They talked a few moments in low tones. He left and she came slowly back to me. “There’s a meeting I don’t dare miss. Damn it. I did want to see Dana, at least once more. Herm is going to have to smuggle me into town and bring the stand-in along later. McGee, my darling, I’ve got a thousand things to do …”

“You sent for me. Remember?”

She snapped her fingers. “Of course. Darling, you got the thousand expenses? You understand that our deal was to get me completely free and clear. Right? It’s all or nothing, you understand. If your plan works, you come to see me and we’ll settle up. All right? Darling, I do love Dana like a sister, but sick people depress me so. Could you find some nice little dude ranch or something for her, and a woman to take care. I’ll have Victor Scott work out the money end with you. Would you mind terribly? After all, you
must
find each other attractive. I’m entirely clear publicity-wise on this end because, thank God, there isn’t a shred to link me to Vance in any way.” She patted my face. “Be a dear and take care of our girl. Give her my love, and bring her back to me when she’s truly healthy again.”

On Thursday afternoon the improvement in Dana was astonishing. The puffiness was gone, but there were saffron marks of the bruises. She wore lipstick. She was propped up. Her smile of greeting was shy.

They let me have an hour with her. She was anxious to know what had happened. I knew it might tire her, but I had to brief her before some official visited her and asked questions. I caught her up to date, including the plan to trap Bogen.

When I got back to The Hallmark at four that afternoon, there was a message to call a Los Angeles operator. When it went through, Lysa came on the phone, yapping with glee and relief. “McGee, darling? It worked, you shrewd, shrewd man! Our own people got him, and took away the nasty little gun he was going to shoot me with. Shoot the stand-in, I mean. And
they went to his nasty little rooms and got all the photographs, and then they turned him and his nasty little gun over to the law. My God, I didn’t even know the terrible tension I was under. It’s
such
a relief.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you asked about Dana?”

“Give me
time
, for God’s sake! All right. How is she?”

“Much, much better.”

“That’s fine. That’s good to hear.”

“You and I have a little accounting to do.”

“I
know
that. Damn it, what makes you so sour? Give me a chance. What’s today? Thursday. Let me look at my book.” I waited five minutes and she came back on the line. “Darling, I’ll be home Monday afternoon. You fly in and come talk to me about it.”

“Talk to you about it?”

“Darling, you don’t exactly have a contract, you know. And a frightened person can make some
very
rash promises. Technically, you really weren’t in at the kill, were you?”

“Monday afternoon,” I said and hung up. I did not know why I had been sour with her. Something was wrong, and I did not know what it was.

On Sunday afternoon I found out what my instincts had been trying to tell me. The nurse and I helped Dana into the wheelchair and I rolled her to the big sun room, to a private corner.

“Here’s the way I have it lined up,” I told her. I sat holding her hand. “Ten days before they spring you, then say a week or so more before you can travel, honey. So I tote you east, get you settled aboard, and after a few days we can go cruising. How does that sound?”

She gently, firmly pulled her hand away from mine. She looked away from me. “Travis, you have been very good to me.”

“What’s the matter?”

“It was all … mixed up and crazy. It wasn’t me, really. I don’t know how to tell you. I’m not like that. I’m married. I don’t even know how I could have been so … so silly. I think it was because of working for her, maybe. I’m not going back to her.”

I put my fingertips under her chin and turned her head and made her look at me. I looked at her until she flushed and twisted her head away. She meant it. A new conception. You could get a hit on the head that could knock love out of you for good and all. When their eyes go that dead for you, there’s no way to ever get back. I knew what my instincts had been trying to tell me.

“You don’t have to stay around,” she said. “I mean, I’m used to looking after myself. I’ll be fine, really. I do want to thank you for everything. I feel so sorry about … giving you the wrong idea and a lot of false hopes and …”

“You can still be honest, can’t you?”

“Of course.”

“How do you feel about my coming to see you here, Dana?”

She hesitated, then lifted her chin a half inch. “I d-dread it, Travis. I’m terribly sorry. It just keeps reminding me of something I’d rather forget.”

Then all that was left us was the goodby ritual, which was, after the details of what to do with her belongings, and my promise to send a nurse to wheel her back to her room, a handshake. McGee, the great lover. This was one I wanted to keep. No, not this one. I didn’t even know this one. The one I wanted
to keep was the one Ullie had bashed on her way to go kill herself. This Dana wanted to forget that Dana. And damn well soon would. So shake hands with your darling and say goodby and try not to see the evident relief she tries to hide.