Blondes are Skin Deep (3 page)

I
WENT
to work. Insofar as I could see, my only hope of finding Johnny was through his contact with Considine or someone who knew Considine. Hall might not appreciate the fact that I was spending my time hunting for Johnny, but I salved my conscience with the thought that I was doing so in connection with Considine—and just might turn up a lead for Hall.

I couldn’t get my mind off the one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Johnny Doane was a good detective and, as far as I knew, an honest man. I was certain he would have followed every lead; within a week he would have turned up something worth reporting to Hall. And yet there was no news at all.

I didn’t like to think it but Johnny just might have got greedy. The idea of money, lots of money, did strange things to people.

Since I couldn’t do anything with that idea, I let it lie and went to work. All I had was a telephone number and a note to send flowers to E. The E could be the Edna of the birthday card I had found in Considine’s desk. I called the number.

A voice answered, “DuMar’s Flowers.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I thought it was Brigg’s laundry.” Hanging up, I checked the phone book and got the address of DuMar’s.

I went downtown, located DuMar’s Flowers, and went inside. A young man whose voice matched the one that had answered the phone came up to me. He had the deferential air of a man about to show expensive jewelry. He wasn’t going to push anything.

“Something nice for a lady,” I said. “A special lady.”

“Roses, sir? Roses are always good.”

They should be, I thought, at ten dollars a dozen. I mumbled about thinking it over and prowled the shop. The young man followed me for a while and then retreated behind the counter.

I went to the counter. “Haven’t you anything really nice?” I asked. “Something just in this morning, perhaps?”

His eyebrows went up. “All of our flowers are fresh this morning, sir. But I’ll see.”

I wasn’t going to argue about the freshness of his or any other florist’s flowers; I wanted him out of the room for a minute and I had succeeded. When he had disappeared into a back room I made a quick grab for a file sitting beside the cash register. It was a small wooden box with plain three-by-five cards in it. I was lucky. Under the C’s was a card for Considine containing a number of charges to his account. The last was yesterday, one dozen red roses.

That was all, though. I wasn’t so lucky as I had thought.

The box was back in place when the young man returned. He was carrying a spotted green orchid that turned my stomach. I said hastily, “No thanks. I believe your suggestion about the roses is the best one.”

He set the orchid reverentially aside. I managed a feeble, embarrassed smile. “I have a problem, too. A friend of mine took me on a party last night. I thought it would be a nice gesture if I sent some flowers to my hostess.”

He looked polite and puzzled. It was lame. Brother, it was really lame, but it was the best I could do at the moment. I went on: “Only—well, I was a little high when I got there and—you know how it is … I lost the address.”

His expression told me that he knew how it was but in what manner he could help me was beyond him. I said, “I thought you might know. My friend recommended this shop to me once—that’s why I came here. Considine, Joseph Considine.”

I dropped the name casually and at the same time tried to look hopeful. I wanted him to start clicking on addresses, not on the fact that I could—obviously—call Mr. Considine for the information.

He clicked correctly. He knew Mr. Considine. He was effusive. The gentleman always sent red roses, long stemmed ones. It would be a nice gesture if I sent the same thing, perhaps?

I played it for all it was worth. I was grateful. I agreed to the tune of fifteen bucks for the roses he picked out. Then I was sad again. I thought the lady’s name had been Edna. He would know how it was—a few too many, a cab in a strange town …”

He knew; he would help. They would take care of everything. If I cared to write a card—

I did care. I wrote it out, slipped it into a tiny envelope and sealed it. He took the card and my money. The agreement was that the flowers would be delivered within an hour.

I was in my car, waiting, when the DuMar’s panel truck pulled away from the shop. I followed discreetly, keeping it in sight. We went over to Burnside and turned west. When the streetcar turned we kept going, up the hill.

The address turned out to be a large apartment building with a magnificent view of the city and Mount Hood towering out of the late spring clouds. I parked behind the truck and, after the delivery man had gone in, walked rapidly across the street to the entry. I hoped that this was the address. The flowers he had carried looked like roses if the box was any criteria.

There was an elevator in the lobby. The indicator rested on five. I checked the row of mailboxes. There were six apartments on the fifth floor. Four of them had Mr. and Mrs. on the identification cards. The fifth was a David Brewer. The last a Mrs. Edna Loomis. I felt like a man with a new gold mine at his feet.

The elevator came down and disgorged the delivery man. His hands were empty. Stepping into the elevator I punched the button for five. The hallway, when I got out, was subdued and tasteful. Edna Loomis, whoever she might be, was doing very well by herself.

The apartment turned out to be the southeast corner one. My knock was answered quickly.

My first impression was of glittering gold: her hair. Her eyes were dark, as dark as those of Maretta Considine. Her mouth was full and red. She was lovely in an enamelled way. She had the tall, smooth figure of a model, and when she moved she had the graceful walk of a model.

“I don’t know you,” she said.

I glanced at her hand. She was holding the white card that I had sent with the flowers. “I’m the dozen roses,” I told her.

She looked at the card. I watched her, catching the suspicion in her eyes when she raised them to mine. “Like hell you are!”

I grinned. On the card I had written, “I’ll swap these for a dozen kisses. Johnny D.”

She caught my grin and made an angry motion to shut the door. “I’m glad to find someone who knows Johnny,” I said and put my foot over the doorstep. “Maybe you can tell me where he is.”

“Johnny? I don’t know any Johnny.”

I laughed outright. The door was pushing on my foot but without much force. She said, “I’ll call the police!”

“Hardly,” I said. “They’ll probably call you first, anyway.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” Her voice was husky, but now there was a brittleness, a sharpness, to it.

“I want to talk,” I said. “I’m Nick Mercer.”

She said, surprisingly, “I’ve heard of you,” and stepped back to let me in. I went around her and she shut the door behind me, slipping the night chain.

My first impression of gold in connection with Edna Loomis repeated itself. She wore a robe of some gold cloth that, amazingly, did things for her hair. The room I entered was gold, too. Flamboyant as she was, with a lot of white mixed in. It startled, but around her I liked it.

“You are Mrs. Loomis,” I said.

“Yes.”

She went to a divan and sat down, letting me shift for myself. I offered her a cigaret. She preferred her own. She took one from a box beside her. The cigaret was monogrammed and when I leaned over to light it for her I could smell perfumed paper.

“Considine sent me,” I said suddenly.

“That’s a lie.”

“You know him, then?”

She looked at me as if had stepped on the Duchess’ toe at a State ball. “It’s no secret.” She wasn’t hiding anything. She waved her hand at the room, putting the apartment, Considine, and herself all in one bracket.

I said, “Does his daughter know?”

“Maretta?” Her laugh was brittle. “I never asked her.”

I rapped ash from my cigaret and looked around. “It must be nice to be rich and beautiful.”

“And intelligent, too.” She smiled at me. “I am intelligent, Mr. Mercer. Don’t try to fool me.”

“I have no intention of it,” I assured her. “I’ll just try to keep you from fooling me.” I was wishing right then that I had a share of Johnny Doane’s sex appeal. He seldom had trouble in fooling women—they actually seemed to enjoy being suckered by Johnny. But, obviously, I aroused about as much interest in Edna Loomis as I did in any other woman—nil.

She had highly arched eyebrows; I didn’t see how they could climb much farther up her forehead, but they managed. “Am I going to try to fool you?”

“You did,” I said. “You told me you didn’t know Johnny Doane.”

She still held the little card in her hand. Dropping it casually to the table beside her, she laughed again. “Do you expect me to blurt out all my affairs to a stranger?”

“I’m no longer a stranger,” I pointed out. I added, “By the way, have the cops been here yet?”

She was reaching to pick up her cigaret and her hand stayed, hovering over the ashtray. Her head turned and she looked carefully at me. There was surprise on her face. If, I thought, I could really tell the expression beneath that make-up.

“That’s twice you’ve mentioned the police. Why should they call?”

“To check on your whereabouts last night,” I said. Getting tired of standing, I lowered myself gingerly into a spindly looking chair. “Say, about midnight?”

“I was here—home.”

“Alone?”

She stopped being obliging. “Is that any of your business?” Her voice had bite to it.

“The police will want to know,” I said. I stood up again. The chair was uncomfortable and I thought better when I prowled. “Look,” I said, “you know Considine—you did know him. You know Johnny …”

I was facing her. She broke in on me. “I
did
what? Stop talking in circles or get out of here.”

“All right,” I said, “where’s Johnny Doane?”

“I don’t know.”

“When did you see him last?”

There was hesitation. “Two or three days ago at a party.”

“Then he isn’t your alibi for last night?”

“Do I need an alibi?”

“You do,” I said. “Considine was killed around midnight.”

She was good; her acting was smooth, professional. But it took a moment for her to get into high gear. She had expected me to say it but she hadn’t known just what line it would follow.

Even so she did a beautiful job: the surprise, the disbelief, the final acceptance of the fact, the subsequent shock, all extremely well done. I wished I had the time to appreciate it.

“Not Joe,” she whispered. “Who would kill Joe?”

“You,” I said. “That will be the first theory. Jilted mistress clips boy friend. The cops go for that almost as much as they go for the wife-is-the-main-suspect idea.”

Evidently she was tired of emoting. She spoke again without trying to impress me as to her shock. “Don’t be a fool. I told you I was here last night.”

“So you did. Who did you say you were with?”

Her expression was defiant. “They can’t make me say.”

“They can haul you to the clink,” I said.

She looked as if she were swearing inside, at me and at the cops. It was obvious that for all of her vaunted intelligence she hadn’t thought the cops would get rough with her. I repeated myself, and added a little more as a convincer.

She said, “Damn you. It
was
Johnny Doane.”

“At midnight? Was he here at midnight?”

“Around that time.” She shrugged casually. “I didn’t notice exactly.”

I said, “Where is he? You haven’t any alibi unless you can turn him up, too.”

“Ask Maretta Considine,” she said. “He’s been living there for three days now.”

M
Y FRUSTRATION
grew in proportion to the time I had to spend doing nothing. After nearly three days of beating my head against the stone wall of people’s secrecy I gave up, retiring to my room with a bowl of ice and my pint of whiskey.

I sat with my feet propped on the softly hissing radiator and stared moodily out the window at a gentle Portland rain. Even the whiskey tasted like hell, like the dull gray of the day outside. Three days and I had accomplished a half hour’s actual work—no more.

A lot of that time, I had to admit, was wasted because of the police. When they moved in I moved out. They were thorough, those Portland cops, and it looked to me as if their checking would go on forever.

My first visit to Edna Loomis had been my last; my first call to Maretta Considine, the last. There was no point in trying to run a gauntlet of cops and thus call attention to myself and to Kane Hall. His orders were always to keep out of the papers, away from the cops if possible. This case swarmed with both cops and reporters. So far I had not been bothered; I wanted things to remain that way.

I did what I should have done some time before. I left the radiator and my view of Portland and called Kane Hall. When the connection was made I said, “You heard?”

“I read the papers.” He sounded unhappy.

“I can’t get through the artillery. No Johnny, no dough, no anything.”

His answer was a grunt. I hung onto the telephone, there was nothing else to do. Finally Hall said, “Mail a full report and hang on for a while.”

I said I would and hung up. Pouring a fresh drink, I sat down at the writing desk. The drawer was filled with nice, blank stationery. The inkstand was full. I had no excuse at all, so I wrote the report.

I was halfway through when another idea came to me. The pen sputtered out. The idea was there, ready, and I couldn’t quite grab it. I looked at the report; there was nothing to remind me of what I was trying to think of. I let my mind go back over the newspaper stories—which, without pipelines, were all that I had to go on myself.

The one that stuck the most completely was the report that around the hour set for Considine’s murder a small, red-haired man in a green suit had been seen near the building. The report had grown until the small man had been seen running out of the building. The informant’s identity was not given.

The description was Johnny. All but the green suit. And yet, that was like him. It would appeal to his romantic nature to think he was disguising himself. He was a fashionplate; a green suit was the last thing he would ordinarily wear.

This morning the paper had come out with the statement that the small man in the green suit had been tentatively identified as one Johnny Doane, a former private detective. I could see Maretta’s fine hand in that “former” part. It was good.

But Johnny Doane had disappeared.

As if I didn’t know! I was still reaching for the idea when the phone rang. It was long distance and I took it cautiously. No one but Kane Hall should be calling me. But the voice over the wire wasn’t Kane’s. My heart had never thumped that way for him, my stomach had never flipped itself over like it did now.

This was Nelle Doane.

“Nick?”

My mouth was cotton; she always made me feel that way. “Yes,” I said.

“I called Hall,” she said. “He told me you were here.” She sounded excited, her full, warm voice quick and a little breathless.

“Is he home?” I asked. She would know, whom I meant.

“No, Nick.”

“Have you heard? A call, a letter …?” I had not wanted Nelle mixed in this but since she had called first and the identification of Johnny was in the open, it could do no harm to ask.

“That’s why I called,” she said. “There was a package—express. He sent up a suit to be cleaned.” She didn’t sound puzzled, so she must have read the papers, too.

“The cops bothered you?”

“No.”

“Tell them nothing,” I said. “That will be the truth. And get rid of that thing.”

“All right, Nick.” I could hear the relief working through her voice. I knew how she felt about Johnny: as I did, protective. And with him in this latest mess, she wanted guidance. I was glad she had turned to me, though I was little help.

“Only, Nick …”

“Still here,” I said.

“There was a note in the vest pocket.” She was talking quickly again. I told her to go ahead. “It isn’t much, but I thought—anyway, it reads,
‘Loomis, twenty-five thousand.’
That’s all. Does it mean anything?”

I could feel sweat breaking out on me. It could mean plenty. Yet, specifically, it didn’t mean anything at the moment. But the way it churned ideas in my head was not pleasant.

“Mail it to me,” I said. “And thanks.”

“Do you think …?”

I interrupted quickly. “No connection. It’s just one of those things again. He’ll be okay.”

“Thanks,” she said and hung up.

I hooked the receiver and swore a little. Returning to the desk I wound up the report. I did not mention Nelle’s call. “Loomis, twenty-five thousand,” I said aloud.

Maybe I was wrong about Johnny. Maybe for once a woman had suckered him. Whichever way it was, I would have to chance the cops: I couldn’t stall around any longer.

• • •

Two weeks from the time I had left home I was back again. A less lucrative two weeks I had never spent. What began as a determined effort to locate either Johnny or Edna Loomis turned into a fiasco. As far as I was concerned the earth had opened up and swallowed Johnny Doane. And Edna Loomis, on being released from questioning, had taken a trip. She left no forwarding address.

A call to Nelle and a plea for more information caught her before she disposed of the green suit. Nelle came up with another clue, a card tucked in a pocket with an address in Los Angeles on it. I received the card and the note by mail and took off.

A flying trip down, a flying trip back, and a week in Los Angeles netted exactly nothing. When I parked the car by Hall’s hotel I was no further forward than the day I left.

It wasn’t the kind of thinking to make a man feel good, not when he is pretty sure of his own abilities. I felt like a good chess player who has just watched a seven-year-old kid beat him.

That was my excuse; I was ornery. I walked into the Oxnan looking for trouble—and I got it.

There was a new clerk on duty, a guy I had never seen before. “Mercer to see Kane Hall,” I told him.

He drew away from me fastidiously. I might have had b.o. in the worst way. “Mr. Hall is not to be disturbed,” he said frigidly.

On top of everything else, that did it. “He is to be disturbed,” I corrected. “Call and see.”

The guy was obviously nervous. His hands twitched a little. He was small and slender to the point of being grotesque. He had one of those little round heads with pallid hair plastered thinly sideways over the top and a nauseating complexion that resembled a fresh exhumation. I wondered where Hall had dug this one up.

And he looked stubborn. I judged the set of his thin lips and his bony jaw and decided that he was definitely going to be stubborn. He made no move to call Kane Hall.

I reached for him and got a piece of coat lapel. He tried to back out of the way but the row of mailboxes on the rear wall stopped him. When I had a good grip I leaned over the desk a little more and made a pass with my other hand.

The clerk whimpered like a baby. His voice came out in a high bleat: “Chimp!”

“Call Kane Hall for me, chum.”

“Chimp, please!”

A hand fell on my shoulder. Turning my head carefully I saw Chimp’s Neanderthal face. “Hi,” I said. “Where did you get this specimen?”

Chimp ignored me. He was looking at the clerk, and even though his voice was light and soft it got results. “This is Mercer,” he told the clerk. “Call Hall for him.”

I let loose of the coat lapel and backed a little away from the desk so the guy would have room to maneuver. I could see that the name Mercer was beginning to mean something to him.

He plugged in the switchboard and his mouth was hidden behind the mouthpiece, but his eyes were visible and I got their full impact. They were large, peculiarly flat eyes, and of such a faint blue as to be almost colorless. It wasn’t just the color that bothered me; it was the hatred. I almost wished the name Mercer wasn’t going to mean anything to him.

I said to Chimp, “Who is he?”

Chimp was unwrapping another stinking cigar. When he had it between his teeth he said, “Don’t do that again, Nick. It isn’t safe.”

I couldn’t help a skeptical grin. “Safe? When he scares that easily? He doesn’t belong here. He couldn’t handle anything tough.”

“You got Les by surprise, that’s all,” Chimp said.

I looked around. He was still at the switchboard. I got the impact of the eyes again and they hadn’t changed a bit. I repeated, “Who is he?”

“Les Peone,” Chimp said.

It meant nothing to me. “Chimp, please,” I mocked. “Like he was calling to mama.”

“He’s not sure of his ground yet,” Chimp said persistently. His voice carried a warning and it was in his dark eyes, too. “He’s only been here a little over a week, Nick. And you got him by surprise. When he’s surprised he gets nervous.” He pushed back the stained brown hat he always wore when on duty and gave himself the scalp test with a fingernail. “There’s something screwy about the guy.”

“For instance?”

Chimp was examining his findings. “Need a shampoo,” he said. “Ask Kane about the guy.” He wandered away, still gnawing on his cold cigar.

Les Peone’s voice came at me. It sounded under control, with the high, absurd bleat gone from it. “Mr. Hall said for you to come up.”

Those eyes bothered me. I had the feeling I was letting them push me around. Walking to the desk I laid both hands on the top and leaned forward, trying to stare the guy down. But his eyes were veiled now. There was only that opaque, almost colorless blue.

“Next time,” I said, “remember me.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, and stepped sideways. I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t see anything but the flick of his coat sleeve. My ears caught a minute singing sound like a gnat going away. It was a good ten seconds before my mind registered what had happened.

I looked down at the thin sliver of steel that quivered in the desk top. It had gone into the wood where the thumb and forefinger of my right hand were splayed apart. It stood upright, the yellow ivory of the handle catching faint glints of light as the shiver of the blade swung it gently back and forth. I raised my head and stared at Peone.

“And I’ll remember you,” I said.

He pulled an inch of knife blade from the wood and the whole thing disappeared into a coat pocket. “Mr. Hall is waiting,” he said.

I looked back just once as I stepped into the elevator. And got the full impact of those strange eyes as a beam of sunlight struggled in and touched his face. I couldn’t help it; when I closed the door I was shivering.

At the top floor I stepped from the grubby elevator into that pale blue and white that was so startling. Tien was waiting with the door open and I still had no hat to hand her. I offered a grin instead but she had no answering smile for me. It was the first time that had happened and I didn’t like it.

“Anything wrong?”

Tien shook her head and indicated I should go on in. Hall, I thought. He’d been nasty to her again. And yet I had seen her on the verge of tears from his treatment without failing to give me a welcoming smile. No, I didn’t like it at all.

I found Hall at his desk, ramrod straight in his wheelchair. It was his lunch time and he was eating an omelette again. Tien brought coffee for me and wheeled her little cart from the room, and it was a repetition of two weeks ago. Right down to the staring session between Hall and myself. He won again, as usual.

“Hear you had a little trouble downstairs,” he commented.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” I said.

Hall’s mouth under his gray military mustache quirked up and then smoothed out again. He took a bite of omelette. I said, “I got your wire when I hit Portland. Why the rush?”

“I’ve got another angle for you,” he said. “Your lead wasn’t panning out.”

“No.” I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to wipe off some of the weariness. It did no good. It was still there, and so was the bitter taste of defeat still in my mouth. “I’m a hell of a detective.”

“Moody Irish,” he said. “Ready to quit?”

“No more than you are.”

“No sign of Johnny?”

“No sign,” I said. “No smell. No nothing.”

“Seen the papers lately?” he asked. I shook my head. I was sick of papers. “Considine’s back to page seven,” Hall said. “They still haven’t found Johnny. But his identification is practically certain.”

“They’ve been bothering Nelle, then,” I said.

“She phoned here and said so.”

I didn’t like having Nelle mixed in this. Johnny and I always kept her strictly away from the business.

“You’ve spent a lot of time,” Hall said.

I began to see what was eating him and if anything bothered Hall it would be transmitted to Tien. Bluntly I said, “You know damned well why I’m still on this case. I’m trying to help Johnny. I’m not sticking for your dough. I’m sticking for Johnny.”

“And Nelle,” Kane Hall said. “Don’t forget Nelle.”

“All right, and for Nelle.”

“You must think a lot of Nelle,” Hall said. “Letting her talk you into a ten-day snipe hunt in L. A.” He looked away from me and cut a bite of omelette. I lit a cigaret; I was surprised that my hand didn’t shake. I should have been sore at a crack like that. I should have been except that I was afraid he might have something.

“Nelle isn’t like that—not with me.”

“We didn’t think Johnny was like that,” Hall said. “But I sent him down to see about my hundred grand and what happened? Considine got a bullet in the head and the money still doesn’t show. The money’s gone and so is Johnny Doane.”

He looked at me again and his eyes were bleak; Hall hated being crossed above all things. He paid most of his men well and he expected to be able to trust them. He had to trust them, stuck for life as he was in that wheelchair.