Noir (15 page)

At the water’s edge, you passed huge coils of black cable on massive bobbins like giant spools of thread, beached buoys and floats, old concrete gas tanks standing together like benumbed sentries, wreathed by wisps of fog as if they were smoking (you could have used one). You proceeded warily, stopping whenever the steps stopped. They backtracked sometimes, suggesting the guy you were following didn’t know where he was going either. Or maybe he had heard you behind him and was checking or else was just pacing. Forced you to flatten yourself against shed walls from time to time. Then their sound changed. They were walking on wood, growing fainter. Then they stopped. You crept forward, found the wooden pier, stepped out on it stealthily. Foghorns in the distance. The squawking gulls. Buoy bells. The black water lapping. Otherwise a thick misty silence. If the guy knew you were there, he could be on you before you could see him. Blackness at first, but then a hollow glow ahead, which eventually revealed itself as a ghostly white yacht, rearing up in the fog. There was something nightmarish about it, but you didn’t hesitate. You boarded it, .22 in hand.

Was there someone else on the yacht? There was. Through a small window, you could see a light moving about down in the main cabin. Probably that tough you were tailing. The light was picking out leather sofas, teak tables and cabinets, navigation charts, fish tackle, step boxes. And then he saw it, you saw it, in the adjoining bunkroom, half obscured by a bead curtain: a body. He moved toward it (there was something glinting in his free hand), and you moved toward the cabin door. It was ajar. As you slipped through it, the guy doused his flashlight and turned on the bedside lamp and you saw then who he was. The bum you’d met the night before in Loui’s. The suit. The Hammer. And by the hothouse aroma you knew whose body it was. It also belonged to someone you’d seen the night before. She’d helped you escape Blue’s goons at Skipper’s. You’d heard her scream. You thought about just backing out and leaving them to it, but then you saw the Hammer raise a knife, and you stepped quietly forward, tapped him on the shoulder, and when he spun around, met him with a roundhouse, gat in hand. He crumpled like a sack of shit. You grabbed up the shiv, tossed it out the porthole, and while he was still groggy, you lifted him by his collar and slugged him again. And again. Did this palooka work for Mister Big? Take that, Mister Big!
Wham!
Was he responsible for Michiko’s death? Take that—
pow!
—for Michiko. The widow’s disappearance?
Biff! Bam!
There was a telephone on the bedside table. You ripped it out of the wall and hit him over the head with it, then clobbered him with a brass telescope. You were having a great time. You lifted him for one last blow to the gut (his jaw was hurting your knuckles) and threw what was left of the rube to the floor, went over to kiss the “4” on Michiko’s cold forehead. Goodnight, sweetheart, you said. Phil-san gonna miss you, baby. You strode off the yacht, lighting up, feeling pretty good about yourself. Until he caught up with you.

YOU CAME AROUND, STRETCHED OUT IN YOUR BRUISED skin on your office sofa, Blanche applying ice packs and iodine and spooning in a bit of what she called cough medicine. Something you’d picked up from Rats for moments like this. There was nothing that did not hurt. Every time we get up, something comes along and knocks us on our ass again. As someone said. One of your clients maybe. Laughing probably. Just before he got knocked down for good.

Lift your leg, Mr. Noir.

Ow!

Now the other one.

Oh shit. What happened?

You tell me, Mr. Noir. They fished you out of the water down at the docks, badly damaged. Your friend Officer Snark saw the light on and dropped you off up here rather than hand you over to Captain Blue, who I believe harbors bad feelings toward you.

It was the goddamned Hammer, you groaned. He hit me when I wasn’t looking.

The Hammer?

A guy I ran into last night. The one who told me to lay off the search for the body. I should have killed the bastard. I don’t know if I’m tough enough for this racket, Blanche. But what are you doing here? It’s after midnight.

After the new advertisement, the calls just kept coming in. Some of them were not nice. I have finally had to take the phone off the hook. Either we cancel that ad, Mr. Noir, or I quit.

Sure, sweetheart. Kill it. I don’t think I want to find that evil fat-assed sonuvabitch anyway. Or the body either. Leave it lie. Wherever.

I am pleased to hear it, Mr. Noir. If you had listened to me in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. Your clothes were drenched and filthy and in dire need of mending. I’ll bring them back in the morning. Then we’ll close this case once and for all. Is there anything more I can . . . ?

Well, I could use a good brandy, but—

There’s a bottle on the table beside you, Mr. Noir. I took the precaution . . .

Beautiful. You’re an angel, angel.

She blushed, took her glasses off for a moment, put them on again. I try to do my best, Mr. Noir. Now get some rest and take care of yourself. You shouldn’t be disturbed. The phone is disconnected and I’ll doublelock the door.

Thanks, kid. And hit the lightswitch when you go.

A FEW BRANDIES LATER, YOU WERE STILL ON YOUR BACK, but back on the case again, thinking about your client, her story. On the one hand, she seemed to have been a ruthless schemer who twisted men and truths around her little finger like taffy, and on the other, a sweet kid from a nice town with a weakness for older guys. You, for instance. Not Blanche’s view, but then Blanche trusted no one. Made her a useful assistant in a detective agency but blinded her to life’s tenderer side. That night, lying there in pain and darkness (this is a tough life), the cough medicine just beginning to take a numbing grip, was when you first started thinking about the way the widow might have been using her old-guys stories as a way of coming on to you. I was strangely flattered by the heartrending ardor of his gaze when he looked at me, she said of her grandfather, or else her father. While gazing steadily at you through her veil (you supposed), her thighs whispering. I felt an eager affection coming from him, melting my resolve. My heart jolted and my pulse pounded. I knew it wasn’t right, but I was powerless to resist. It was the most important experience of my life, Mr. Noir. But not always older guys. There was that football player in her home town, her first sweetheart, the stud she romped with on the village bandstand. You once asked her whatever happened to him. It is unkind of you, Mr. Noir, to keep bringing up embarrassing moments from the past, she said. If you continue, I will have to be less candid with you. But if you must know, my father had a man-to-man talk with him over a new drink he had concocted in his laboratory. My father was always a great experimenter. Perhaps my sweetheart overindulged. He awoke several hours later less a man than he was before.

When was it she told you this? In the Shed? Here in the office? Maybe the night she picked you up on the street when you were in trouble. You’d just come out of the Vendome after meeting with that guy in the goatee who wanted to buy the toy soldiers, Marle, one of Mister Big’s lieutenants, you’d assumed, and had started down the mostly empty street. You’d paused to light up, and noticed there was a little cluster of men huddled in the shadows just beyond the next streetlamp. Others, you sensed, were gathering behind you. You touched your rod, looking around for some place to throw yourself if the bullets started to fly, when a limousine screeched up to the curb. The back door flew open: it was the widow. Get in, Mr. Noir. Quickly. You needed no second invitation. Bullets were zinging off the limo’s roof even as you sped away. What was that all about? she asked as though somewhat exasperated. I think I’m on to something, you said. You couldn’t help but notice that her black skirt had hiked up a bit when she leaned over to open the door, revealing a tiny patch of pale flesh just above the gartered black stocking. Since she didn’t pull the skirt back down you thought tonight might be the night. The driver was a hulk who didn’t talk, though there was something stiff-necked about him that suggested an inner rage, or else a humorless stupidity. You filled her in on the miniature soldiers scheme, she told you family stories. You remembered that at some point she said: My body melted against his and the world was filled with him. A golden wave of passion and love flowed between us. Was that the football player? Her husband? Or maybe she was defending her father after some disparaging remark you’d made. The sacredness of family: one of her themes. Might even have been her brother. Any of whom other than the dead husband may have been driving the limo. My body began to vibrate with liquid fire, she said. You figured this was an open invitation but knew better than to throw yourself on her and rip her clothes off, as was your wont. Even trying to touch her knee or that bare patch which you couldn’t stop staring at would be rebuffed, you knew. You had to hope you were headed to her place where all would be revealed. But she dropped you off in front of your office building and said good night, the liquid fire abruptly quenched. Or dammed. What do you do with liquid fire? You were in some pain and about to slam the door in reply, when she reached out her hand, took yours, and squeezed it gently in her warm moist palm. Had the same effect as if she’d squeezed your dick. When all this is over, she said, her voice trailing off into some limitless future. And then she was gone. That was the last night you saw her alive.

You were still hurting, but the edge was off, blunted by Rats’ prescription, the brandy, and the flow of blood to other parts. Recalling the widow’s stories had filled your dick with a bit of liquid fire of its own and, lying there on the office sofa, you had taken it in hand. You were changing the story. You weren’t ripping her clothes off, she was. She was mad with desire, couldn’t wait. Neither could you. Nevertheless you fell asleep. You don’t remember what you dreamt, but when you woke you thought you were locked in that fishbait hut at the docks and couldn’t get out. There was someone in the office. Over near the hall door. More than one. Where’s the fucking flashlight, one of them asked. I forgot it, Marle. Shall I turn on the lights? No, you goddamn idiot. Light a match. Seemed to be several of them, all bumping into each other, cursing softly. Your heater was in your trenchcoat pocket, hanging from a clothes tree near the door. What you still held in your hand was useless. Fishbait. Where do you think the snoop’s stowed them little fuckers, Marle? Start with the desk. I’ll look for a wall safe. Dibs on one a them camp followers if we find them. You slid softly off the sofa onto the floor for maximum cover. The only thing close at hand was the brandy bottle. You took a final slug, hating to waste it, then pitched it toward one of the struck matches. He hit me, Marle! one of them screamed. They started shooting. Bullets were flying. One struck the sofa where you’d been lying with a muffled thud. Oh shit! He got me! It’s an ambush, Marle! There’s hundreds of ’em! They—
aaargh!
All their guns were blazing at once. It was like the finale of a fireworks display. There were screams, curses, crashing bodies. The shattering of glass.

When silence had fallen, you crept over to get your rod, throw on the lights. There were five dead guys in leather jackets. May have been more. The door was open and there was a trail of blood out into the hallway. Was Marle among the late departed? Probably. Three of them had goatees, more than you’d seen before in the whole city. You felt good. It was as if you’d accomplished something. It relaxed you and you locked the door and doused the lights and crashed to the sofa again, falling almost immediately into the sweetest deepest sleep you’d enjoyed since the widow first turned up. Certainly nothing like it since.