Solomon's Vineyard (11 page)

I had left the keys in Pug Banta's car so he could take it, but it
was still sitting in front of the hotel. I figured that was nice of
him. I drove around to Carmel's house, but the Negro maid said she
wasn't there.

“Where is she?”

“I don't know.”

“Somebody inside must know.”

“No. Nobody know.”

“Like hell they don't,” I told her. “They don't run a joint like this
that way.”

A voice said: “Let me talk to the gentleman, Agnes.” A big woman in a
purple evening gown came to the door. She had been fat, but had
recently got thin. The skin on her face hung in folds. She wore a
diamond bracelet.

“Carmel is not here,” the woman said.

“Where is she?”

“If she wanted you to know, she would have left word.”

“All right,” I said. “Will you take a message for her?”

“Certainly not.”

“For God's sake, why not?”

“We don't do favours for ill-mannered people.”

She shut the door. I thought for a minute about kicking it in, and
then I went to the car. To hell with it.

I drove around town until dusk, stopping at the bar once for a
whisky, and then I went to the Vineyard. I went past the main gate to
the lane and turned in and parked by the bushes at the end. I took the
keys out of the car this time. I began to feel ticklish in the pit of
my stomach. I didn't know if it was fear or excitement. I guess it was
excitement; I kept remembering what the Princess looked like lying
naked on the floor of Pug's fishing shack. I went down the path to the
women's building. Somewhere people were singing; I could just hear the
voices. They were singing a hymn. The path ended by a flight of steps.
I looked around for the door on the ground level. After I found it I
didn't go in, but walked around the building wondering what would be a
good way to get hold of Penelope Grayson in case I ever wanted to.
There were doors at the top o£ the front and back stairs but the
windows were all out of reach. I thought the doors would probably be
locked at night. It didn't look so good. I walked around to the lower
door and knocked. The Princess smiled when she saw me. “Come in, honey.
I went in. She led me up two flights of stairs and into a room lit with
indirect lights. It was a hell of a room. There was a thick blue carpet
over the whole floor, and a silken divan as big as an ordinary double
bed. The windows had black silk drapes. There was a fireplace and some
tables and big chairs.

“Like it, honey?”

“It's swell.”

I looked at her. She had on a crimson robe, something like a hostess
gown, I think, with a gold belt and gold bracelets and gold slippers.
She looked smaller in the robe, but I could still see the curve of her
hips. I felt warm in the pit of my stomach.. “Sit down.”

I sat by her on the divan. It was like sitting on feathers. It seemed
as though I sank down to my hips. I could smell her perfume; heavy and
sweet, like the jasmine they have down in New Orleans. “Are you going
to play?”

“What else can I do?”

“You're smart.” She patted my leg with a hand that flashed a square
cut diamond as big as a lump of sugar. “But, honey, you'll have to give
up trying to take the Gray-son girl away.”

I wasn't surprised she knew about that. Penelope Grayson would have
told her. That was probably another reason why she hadn't let Pug kill
me.

“I got to make a pretence,” I said. “That's what I was hired for.”

“Sure.” She rubbed my leg. “But don't go any further.”

“All right.”

“Be sure,” she said. “They want her for the Ceremony of the Bride.”

“What's that?”

“Never mind. Only, get this. They aren't people you can cross.”

She smiled. She had me, and she knew it. She liked the idea. In a
way, I did, too.

“What do I do?”

“Let's have a drink, honey. Then I'll tell you.”

She got a decanter and a couple of tall wine glasses. She filled the
glasses and we drank. It was brandy. “Not bad,” I said.

“We make it.”

I could feel it mix with that other burn in my stomach. I moved so
her shoulder touched my arm. I began to like the perfume.

She said: “I'm so sick of this joint.”

“Why?”

“No freedom. I can't go out. I can't get drunk or gamble or wear
swell clothes. . . .”

“They look swell to me.”

“Shut up, honey. I'm trying to tell you something. I like to dance. I
like good restaurants and night clubs, and movies. Here all I'm
supposed to do is think about God. It's getting me down.”

“You don't like God?”

“I can take him or leave him.”

I laughed.

She said: “I was a kid when Solomon picked me up. Eighteen. I
wouldn't join the Vineyard as a regular Daughter so he made me
Princess. Soly wasn't so bad.” She looked at me. “He was a big man,
too.”

“You like them big, don't you?”

“The bigger the better.” She was smiling now. “Soly let me run
certain things, and when he died I just kept running them.”

“Where'd he find you?”

“In New York.”

“In what chorus?”

She looked mad, and then she laughed.

“Wise guy.”

“Sure.” I reached across her and got the decanter and filled both
glasses. I was getting a buzz from the brand “Why don't you leave the
Vineyard?” I asked. “I'm going to.” She got up and went to a desk. The
silk robe clung to her buttocks. She didn't have much on under the
robe. She came back with a small leather book.

“Look.”

It was a deposit book and in it was a folded bank statement. It was
the
account of Bethine Gleason. She had a balance of $87,567.46. I
blinked at the figures.

“When it says one hundred grand, I scram.” She put the book away. She
sat down by me and drank her drink. I drank mine, too.

“Now, what do I do?”

“You're to work for me.”

“Okay.”

Her eyes narrowed. “On the surface you're to take Pug's place—work
for the Vineyard. The Elders want to get rid of him.”

“What do I do for you?”

“You hand over part of the take.”

“To build up mat hundred grand?”

“Yes.”

“What do I get out of it?”

“Well, for one thing, you don't get knocked off by Pug Banta.”

“That's certainly something.”

“And a salary.”

“How much?”

“A couple of grand a month.”

“That sounds good.”

She said: “And when I've got my dough, honey, you can come along with
me if you want.”

I poured the last of the decanter into the glasses. “How do you know
I haven't got a wife and five brats?”

“I know.”

“Don't give me that mystery stuff.”

“You're a private dick,” she said. “You live at the Bellair Apartment
Hotel in St Louis. Apartment 912. Your office is in the Hawthorne
Building. You've been in business three years with a man named Johnson.
Before that you were a strike-breaker in Detroit, working for a New
York firm. Before that you worked for Burns and before that you were in
the army. You've got three thousand dollars in the bank and you went to
Notre Dame for two and a half years You . . .”

“My God!” I said. “It's like hearing your own obituary.”

She went for more brandy. I was shaken. It didn't seem possible. Even
if they knew about Oke Johnson. They were smart, all right. Too smart.
I wondered which one of them had killed Oke.

She came back with the brandy. I poured myself one and put it down.
We sat in the divan.

“Did you know Johnson had been killed?” I asked.

“I read it in the paper.”

“Have you got any ideas about it?”

She touched my leg. “Come on, honey. Let's don't talk business.”

Her robe had fallen open a little. “What'll we talk about?”

“Do we have to talk?”

I put an arm around her and tried to kiss her lips. She wouldn't let
me. Anywhere else, but not her lips. It was damn queer. I tried again,
and we struggled. She began to pant.

“Hit me,” she said. “Hit me!”

WHEN I walked to the lane by the Vineyard road, Pug's car was gone.
It meant he was getting tough again. But I was too tired to be scared.
I caught the two o'clock inter-urban back to town. The motorman stared
at me when I gave him my dime, but he didn't say anything. I took a
seat in the back of the car and closed my eyes. I thought, Jesus, I'm
tired! What a woman! I wasn't good for anything. I wouldn't be any good
for days.

“Far as we go, buddy.”

It was the motorman, shaking me awake in the town square. I walked to
the Arkady and dragged myself up the front steps. Incense almost
strangled me as I walked across the lobby. Nobody was at the reception
desk. A paper lay on the counter. There was a long story about the
shooting. I read down the first column and found one new thing: Pug
Banta had been questioned by the DA, but he had an alibi. It made me
laugh. Chief Piper had provided it. He declared Pug had been in jail
all night, on a speeding violation. “I arrested him myself,” he was
quoted as saying.

That was a good one! I could see the chief arresting Pug. The clerk
came to the desk. He was a new one.

“Anything for Craven?” I asked.

“Oh, yes.” He was a fat man with the bread-dough face of a night
worker. “Someone in St Louis has been trying to get you.”

I told him to put the call in the phone booth. I lifted the receiver
and said “Hello.” The operator said: “Here's your party, St Louis.”

“This is Grayson.”

“Oh, hello, Mr. Grayson.”

“What are you bastards doing down there?”

“We're making progress.”

“Baloney I They told me you and Johnson could deliver, but I've seen
no signs of it.”

I took a long breath. He sounded as though he was going to fire us. I
said: “We'll have her out in three days.”

“Is that a promise?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, that's better.” He was silent for a couple of seconds. “You
need more money?”

“We could use some.”

“All right. I'll send a thousand down in the morning.”

He hung up. I came out of the booth. I rode up in the elevator with
the fat clerk.

“Still hot,” he said.

“Yeah.”

I went to my room. I was sweating. I wondered how the hell I was
going to get Penelope Grayson out in three, days. Or in three years for
that matter.

In the morning I lay in heel for n long time. I was still bushed, I
sent down for coffee and six raw eggs. I dropped the eggs into a glass
of bourbon and drank the mixture. Then I drank the coffee. I felt bad
that it was the wrong month for oysters.

I propped myself up in bed with pillows and thought about Oke
Johnson. He was a big, dumb Swede who thought he was smart. But I had
to get the guy who shot him. It would be swell to have people point me
out as the private detective who wasn't bright enough to find his
partner's murderer. Oke would have had to revenge me for the same
reason. I certainly had a great start; a guy carrying a staff. McGee
seemed to be the only one who might fit. McGee! I got out of bed.

The Vineyard didn't look like a place where there could ever be
trouble. Women were working in the fields, their costumes bright
against the rows of green vegetables. Birds looked for insects on the
big lawn. I went to the women's building and climbed the wooden stairs
and knocked on the door. A faded woman in a black outfit came out.

“I want Miss Grayson.”

“Have you been to the office?”

“Yes. They sent me over here.”

She looked dubious, but she went inside. I waited on the steps.
Pretty soon Penelope Grayson came out. She was in a white costume. She
looked more awake than she had last time. She had a good skin. Her
ash-blonde hair hung over her shoulders.

“Oh, it's you.”

“I came to see if you'd changed your mind.”

“You're just wasting your time.”

I said: “This is what your uncle hired me to do.”

“Why doesn't he let me alone?”

“He wants to help you.”

“I don't want any help.” She moved closer to me. “Tell him that. Now
please go.”

“I want to ask you one thing.”

“What?”

“Did you tell anyone I spoke to you about Mr. Johnson
?”

“No.”

I watched her face. Her brown eyes were calm. I was sure she wasn't
lying. “Please go,” she said. “I must prepare my bridal garments.”

“Your bridal garments?”

“I am to be Solomon's bride.”

She turned and went in the building. Solomon's bride, I thought, must
be what they called them when they were initiated into the Vineyard. I
stood on the steps for a minute, thinking, and then I walked to the
car-line. I was just where I'd been.

I got off the street-car and went to the house where I'd seen Carmel.
It was hot and the walking made me sweat. I wondered if it ever got
cloudy in Paulton. The blinds were drawn in the house, and it looked as
though everyone was still asleep. I rang the doorbell.

After a long time the fat woman I'd had trouble with opened the door.
She had on a pink wrapper. She wasn't friendly. “What do you want?”

“Is Carmel there?”

“You've got nerve, coming around at this time of the morning.”

She would have slammed the door, but I stuck my foot in it. “Is she
there?”

“Get your foot back or I'll call for help.”

“Go ahead.”

She kicked my ankle. I put my shoulder to the door and shoved. She
went over backwards on the floor. “You bastard!”

I came inside and closed the door. She had a silk nightgown under the
pink wrapper. She yelled: “Jim! Oh, Jim!” She got up and started for
the stairs. I grabbed her arm and jerked her into a chair. Her hair
hung over her eyes.

“You get out of here,” she said furiously. “This is a respectable
house. I've got a permit.”

“Listen; all I want is a civil answer to my question.”

A couple of girls came to the top of the stairs. They were both
blondes. The fat dame saw them. “Greta, where's Jim?”