Dagger of Flesh (12 page)

If I tried hard enough, I might make myself believe a lot of things about that girl, but not that she'd murder her own father.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Eleven

 

 

I DROVE to a neighborhood bar and ordered a rum and soda. While the bartender fixed it I used the phone to call Joseph Borden, but drew a blank. I tried both his office and apartment twice while I finished my drink, but all I got was the buzz of an unanswered phone.

In the next hour I called on Miss Stewart, the woman Hannibal had escorted to Jay's party, and Ann's long-underwear Arthur. I got nothing from them that I didn't already know, and frustration started growing inside me.

Miss Martha Stewart was a plain but pleasant woman in her early thirties. She was slim and well-groomed, with her nails freshly painted, and her hair set in neat waves close to her head. Yes, she'd known Hannibal for a year or so; they'd been to the theater two or three times, and to the party at the Weathers'. Lovely time. Parrot? Why, what are you talking about, Mr. Scott?

I told her good-by and headed for Arthur's. He reminded me of what is sometimes, in school, called a "grind." His chin was fine as far as it went, but it only went about halfway, and he appeared to be fond of biting gently on his lower lip. He was about nineteen or twenty, and he probably got straight A's at school. I didn't even go inside. He looked at me from behind his rimless glasses, nodding occasionally while I talked, answering me courteously and quickly. He thought it was fun talking to a "private eye" and he examined my credentials with great interest when I showed them to him. And, like I said, I got nothing.

 

This would be my last stop; then I was going back to the office and maybe throw myself out the window. I knocked on the door of Apartment Seven at 1458 Marathon Street. Nothing happened, so I knocked again and a door opened, but not the one I was banging on. Ten feet down the hall the door of Apartment Eight opened and Ayla Veichek looked out.

She looked different. The face was still mean, with pulled-back black hair and slanting eyebrows, but I had taken such a good look at Ayla last night that I knew her quite well indeed, and something about her appearance was different. Ah, yes, she had clothes on.

It was just as well. There was more I needed to know about that Saturday-night party at the Weathers', and I was here on business, not pleasure. Almost any business, though, would have been a pleasure with Ayla. She looked good, even dressed. She was wearing a bright print dress of thin cotton—or maybe it wasn't cotton, but it was thin—and she seemed to be wearing it with a good deal of reluctance. It might once have had a V-neck, but on Ayla the V became a U with the obvious result, and the results obvious. It looked as if one good wiggle would dislodge the narrow straps from her shoulders and allow the dress to slide eagerly down to her waist. At least.

She smiled slowly. "Hello, Shell."

"Hello. I was looking for you—"

"Oh?"

"And Peter. Where is he?"

"Out."

"In the garage?"

She was still smiling. "No. Downtown. I thought you might be back today."

"Well, that's not why I'm here. I mean I wanted to ask you some questions. Lots of questions. Both of you."

"Come in."

I went inside and she closed the door after me, then walked to another door standing ajar in the far wall. It led into Peter's apartment. She pushed the door shut, looked at me and shrugged.

"Sit down," she said.

I sat down and Ayla pulled another chair over close to me and relaxed in it, draping her long legs over one of its arms. "Have you found the parrot you were asking us about?" she said.

"Uh-uh. Maybe I won't. Have you heard about Jay Weather?"

"What about Mr. Weather?"

"Somebody killed him."

She swung her legs to the floor. "Killed—you mean he was murdered?"

"Didn't you know about it?"

"No. That's terrible!" She paused, then asked, "How did it happen?"

I gave her as little as I could. "The police found him. He'd been shot. Nobody seems to know who did it, or why."

She shook her head in disbelief. After a few moments she shrugged and threw her legs up over the arm of the chair again. A six-inch strip of white thigh blossomed under the hem of her dress, and suddenly seemed the brightest spot in the room. It was certainly the prettiest.

I cleared my throat and said vaguely, "Did Jay seem normal the night of the party?"

"I guess so. I didn't know him very well. I'd been there only once before, with Peter."

"Peter knew him, then?"

"He'd done some work for him. You know, posters, advertising things. That's how Peter makes his living—commercial art."

"Commercial?"

"Yes. I got the impression last night that you didn't think much of his portrait of me."

I grinned at her. "Hell, I hardly saw it." She chuckled. I said, "You and Peter weren't old friends of Jay's then?"

"No. Mr. Weather liked Peter, so he asked us over, that's all."

"Last night you told me you were hypnotized by Borden at the party. Do you remember anything about that?"

She frowned. "It's not really clear to me, but I can remember fairly well. He told me to do things, and I remembered his telling me—but I went ahead and did them anyway. It was—oh, as if I just didn't care. Borden said I didn't go really deep."

Her thigh gleamed. She swung her foot gently and it seemed as if there were nothing but that gorgeous thigh in the room. I said, "Those suggestions he gave—he removed them all, didn't he, before anybody left?"

"Yes. About twelve-thirty, I think it was. Just as we were all getting ready to go."

I swallowed. "Did you all leave together?"

"No. Peter and I were the first to leave."

"Borden was there when you left?" I swallowed again. My eyes were starting to water.

"No. He was the first to leave—just before Peter and me. All the others, except Borden, were still there when Peter and I left." She was quiet a moment, then said, "Do you like it?"

"Like what?"

"What you're looking at."

By George. I was still looking at it. I blinked and focused my eyes on her face. She was smiling, leaning against the back of the chair, her foot still swinging gently. It was a wicked smile, all right. From all that swinging, the hem of her dress had crept up a little more. And where it was creeping, a little was a lot.

I said, "Well, that about uncovers it, Ayla—covers it, I mean. The questions. For now." I had several other things I wanted to accomplish today, and I was becoming disorganized. I stood up. "So, thanks. I'd better be going."

She got up too, but by sliding forward over the chair arm, the dress riding up her thighs until it was soon doing her no good whatsoever. It was certainly doing me no good whatsoever. It seemed that whether Ayla was in a robe or a dress, that was all she was in. There was still nothing beneath the dress except Ayla and she didn't seem to mind at all that we both now shared that knowledge.

As she stood up, the dress rustled back down her thighs to her knees. "Must you go, Shell?"

"I have to go some time."

"Stay a while longer. You weren't anxious to leave last night."

"I'm not really anxious to leave now."

"Then don't leave, Shell. Stay a little while. With me." She stepped up close to me.

She wasn't smiling or trying to be funny now, and suddenly neither was I. I looked at her black eyes and slanting brows, the lips like blood, the mounds of white flesh caught at the neckline of the thin dress.

She stepped even closer and her arms went around me. I felt the long fingernails dig into my back as my hands brushed the skin of her arms and moved down to her waist. She slid up against my body like a fluid, her lips parted and her head thrown back as I found her mouth with mine and strained her to me.

We clung to each other, our bodies molding together until she pulled her lips from mine. For a moment she looked up into my face, silently, then her hand went behind my head and pulled it down to hers again.

Last night when I had looked at her she had seemed beautiful and cool, relaxed and almost lethargic in her movements. She was different now, close against me, her long body moving hungrily, her lips searching my mouth and her tongue darting and curling. I slid my hands over the swell of her hips, up the arching curve of her back and gripped the fragile straps at her shoulders.

In a moment she moved away from me, dropped her arms to her sides and let me ease the dress from her shoulders and down over her breasts while she looked at me, breathing through her mouth. When I let go of the cloth and pressed my hands against the smoothness of her, she moved her fingers briefly at the side of the dress, then slid it down over her hips, let it fall and stepped from it, naked, toward me.

I picked her up, carried her to the divan and lowered her to it, fumbled with my clothes and then sank to the divan to lie full-length beside her, reaching for her with my lips and my hands and my body. Ayla placed both her palms against my chest and whispered almost inaudibly, "Wait, Shell." For what seemed a long time she held me from her, then she smiled. Her eyes closed. "Hold me. Love me."

When I pulled her close her arms went around me and she pressed the length of her body almost violently against mine. Her lips were moist and clinging as they kissed me and pressed against my flesh and nibbled at my skin, and the long fingernails traced fire down my spine. Then she was softness, an incredible softness, every touch of her hands, her breasts, her thighs, a velvet softness and warmth that swallowed me, enveloped me, for an immeasurable time.

 

Darkness was gathering when I got back to the Farnsworth Building, went up to the fourth floor and started walking down the dimly lighted hallway to my office. The other offices were dark and deserted now and my footsteps echoed hollowly down the length of the building. I was thinking that I didn't know where I went from here. All my leads were wavering around without purpose, leading nowhere. I still hadn't been able to get in touch with Borden again, and that was something I could work on, but outside of that I wasn't sure what I could do. I didn't have anything definite I could hang onto. As soon as I got the germ of an idea it flickered and vanished like Jay's parrot.

It surprised me when I saw my office door standing ajar, but then I remembered the goons who had broken in. I almost expected them to be waiting inside for me, but the office was empty when I switched on the lights. A good thing, too, because I still didn't have my gun.

It was warm and sticky in the office, and my shirt was clinging to me, so I hung my coat on the rack, then loosened my tie and rolled up my shirt sleeves. As I rolled the cloth over my biceps the dot of red at the bend of my arm caught my eye again. I still couldn't remember where the hell I'd picked that up.

I sat down behind the desk and looked at my watch. A few minutes to seven o'clock. Darkness outside, time to go home and go to bed, and I was ready for bed. I was tired and sleepy and disgusted. I thought about Jay, Ann, Gladys, Hannibal, Ayla and Peter, Arthur, and Martha Stewart, and Joseph Borden. And this whole miserable mess griped me.

Hypnotists! Parrots! The hell with everything. My eye fell on the two books Bruce Wilson had given me, books on hypnosis, and I was griped even at them. I picked them up and hurled them clear across the office. They banged into the door, the door jumped open wider, the books dropped to the floor.

That's it, Scott. Get it off your chest, act like a five-year-old. Well, maybe it was a good thing. It was time I stopped pussyfooting around and shook up a few people. Borden, particularly, if I could only find him. If I didn't like his answers I'd bend him around a little till I got some answers I did like.

I glanced at my watch. Seven on the nose. I might be able to catch Borden at either his office or his apartment by now. I grabbed the phone.

And then I remembered.

I had to go to the Phoenix Hotel. Room 524 at the Phoenix Hotel. I got up, rolled my sleeves down, got my coat off the rack and slipped it on.

Phoenix Hotel, I was thinking. Phoenix, Phoenix—yeah, a big place down Broadway. Have to hurry. It was important. Have to hurry. I switched off the lights, started out the door, started to shut it. Couldn't leave the place yawning wide open. And there were those damn books on the floor.

Haven't got time, Scott. Gotta make it snappy. Phoenix Hotel. The name loomed in my mind. I stopped, looking from the door to the books, and I felt a compelling urgency, almost a clamorous shouting inside me, urging me to get moving, hurry up, hurry up, get wherever I was going.

I shook my head. I was acting like an old maid. I bent over and picked the books off the floor and, in the faint light spilling from the hall behind me, the title of the top book leaped up at me; Hypnotism. Hypnotism, by G. H. Estabrooks, the brilliant professor of psychology at Colgate University. I'd got a kick out of the imaginary-but-real bear he'd created through self-hypnosis for amusement while he was in the hospital.

I was wasting time. I told myself to put the books on the desk, then get going. But that silly bear stuck in my mind. I had a picture of it frolicking over the beds, rambling through the hospital corridors. If Estabrooks had ever told the nurses that a bear was sitting on his bed, they'd probably have run screaming for a psychiatrist. That brought a chuckle out of me. And then I stopped chuckling fast.

It was too much like Jay's parrot. The parrot Jay could see and feel, but nobody else could see.

A trickle of cold climbed up my spine and touched the hairs on the back of my neck. Jay's parrot. I remembered Jay sitting across the desk from me, his face twisted and old, saying, "Right on the dot, Shell. Every damn noon, right on the dot."

Seven. Seven o'clock, and right on the dot. I put the books on the desk, anxious to get out of here, get on my way. Phrases, pictures, words danced through my mind. Bruce Wilson, relaxed and serious, talking ... phrases from the books ... Jay saying, "Felt like I had to." Right on the dot, right on the dot.