The Thin Man (16 page)

Miriam came back and stood with her hands on her hips as before. “I’ve been thinking over what you said. You must think I’m pretty dumb.”

“No,” I said, not very truthfully.

“It’s a cinch I’m not dumb enough to fall for that song and dance you tried to give me. I can see things when they’re right in front of me.”

“All right.”

“It’s not all right. You killed Art and—”

“Not so loud, girlie.” Studsy rose and took her arm. His voice was soothing. “Come along. I want to talk to you.” He led her towards the bar.

Morelli winked again. “He likes that. Well, I was saying I looked her up when I moved here, and she told me she had this job with Wynant and he was nuts about her and she was sitting pretty. It seems they learned her shorthand in Ohio when she was doing her six months and she figures maybe it’ll be an in to something—you know, maybe she can get a job somewheres where they’ll go out and leave the safe open. A agency had sent her over to do a couple days’ work for Wynant and she figured maybe he’d be worth more for a long pull than for a quick tap and a get-away, so she give him the business and wound up with a steady connection. She was smart enough to tell him she had a record and was trying to go straight now and all that, so’s not to have the racket spoiled if he
found out anyhow, because she said his lawyer was a little leery of her and might have her looked up. I don’t know just what she was doing, you understand, because it’s her game and she don’t need my help, and even if we are pals in a way, there’s no sense in telling me anything I might want to go to her boss with. Understand, she wasn’t my girl or anything—we was just a couple old friends, been kids playing together. Well, I used to see her every once in a while—we used to come here a lot—till he kicked up too much of a fuss and then she said she was going to cut it out, she wasn’t going to lose a soft bed over a few drinks with me. So that was that. That was October, I guess, and she stuck to it. I haven’t seen her since.”

“Who else did she run around with?” I asked.

Morelli shook his head. “I don’t know. She don’t do much talking about people.”

“She was wearing a diamond engagement ring. Know anything about it?”

“Nothing except she didn’t get it from me. She wasn’t wearing it when I seen her.”

“Do you think she meant to throw in with Peppier again when he got out?”

“Maybe. She didn’t seem to worry much about him being in, but she liked to work with him all right and I guess they’d’ve teamed up again.”

“And how about the cousin of Dick O’Brien, the skinny dark-headed lush? What became of him?”

Morelli looked at me in surprise. “Search me.”

Studsy returned alone. “Maybe I’m wrong,” he said as he sat down, “but I think somebody could do something with that cluck if they took hold of her right.”

Morelli said: “By the throat.”

Studsy grinned good-naturedly. “No. She’s trying to get somewhere. She works hard at her singing lessons and—”

Morelli looked at his empty glass and said: “This tiger milk of yours must be doing her pipes a lot of good.” He turned his head
to yell at Pete: “Hey, you with the knapsack, some more of the same. We got to sing in the choir tomorrow.”

Pete said: “Coming up, Sheppy.” His lined gray face lost its dull apathy when Morelli spoke to him.

An immensely fat blond man—so blond he was nearly albino—who had been sitting at Miriam’s table came over and said to me in a thin, tremulous, effeminate voice: “So you’re the party who put it to little Art Nunhei—”

Morelli hit the fat man in his fat belly, as hard as he could without getting up. Studsy, suddenly on his feet, leaned over Morelli and smashed a big fist into the fat man’s face. I noticed, foolishly, that he still led with his right. Hunchbacked Pete came up behind the fat man and banged his empty tray down with full force on the fat man’s head. The fat man fell back, upsetting three people and a table. Both bar-tenders were with us by then. One of them hit the fat man with a blackjack as he tried to get up, knocking him forward on hands and knees, the other put a hand down inside the fat man’s collar in back, twisting the collar to choke him. With Morelli’s help they got the fat man to his feet and hustled him out.

Pete looked after them and sucked a tooth. “That god-damned Sparrow,” he explained to me, “you can’t take no chances on him when he’s drinking.”

Studsy was at the next table, the one that had been upset, helping people pick up themselves and their possessions. “That’s bad,” he was saying, “bad for business, but where you going to draw the line? I ain’t running a dive, but I ain’t trying to run a young ladies’ seminary neither.”

Dorothy was pale, frightened; Nora wide-eyed and amazed. “It’s a madhouse,” she said. “What’d they do that for?”

“You know as much about it as I do,” I told her.

Morelli and the bar-tenders came in again, looking pretty pleased with themselves. Morelli and Studsy returned to their seats at our table. “You boys are impulsive,” I said.

Studsy repeated, “Impulsive,” and laughed, “Ha-ha-ha.”

Morelli was serious. “Any time that guy starts anything, you
got to start it first. It’s too late when he gets going. We seen him like that before, ain’t we, Studsy?”

“Like what?” I asked. “He hadn’t done anything.”

“He hadn’t, all right,” Morelli said slowly, “but it’s a kind of feeling you get about him sometimes. Ain’t that right, Studsy?”

Studsy said: “Uh-huh, he’s hysterical.”

It was about two o’clock when we said goodnight to Studsy and Morelli and left the Pigiron Club. Dorothy slumped down in her corner of the taxicab and said: “I’m going to be sick. I know I am.” She sounded as if she was telling the truth.

Nora said: “That booze.” She put her head on my shoulder. “Your wife is drunk, Nicky. Listen, you’ve got to tell me what happened—everything. Not now, tomorrow. I don’t understand a thing that was said or a thing that was done. They’re marvelous.”

Dorothy said: “Listen, I can’t go to Aunt Alice’s like this. She’d have a fit.”

Nora said: “They oughtn’t’ve hit that fat man like that, though it must’ve been funny in a cruel way.”

Dorothy said: “I suppose I’d better go to Mamma’s.”

Nora said: “Erysipelas hasn’t got anything to do with ears. What’s a lug, Nicky?”

“An ear.”

Dorothy said: “Aunt Alice would have to see me because I forgot the key and I’d have to wake her up.”

Nora said: “I love you, Nicky, because you smell nice and know such fascinating people.”

Dorothy said: “It’s not much out of your way to drop me at Mamma’s, is it?”

I said, “No,” and gave the driver Mimi’s address.

Nora said: “Come home with us.”

Dorothy said: “No—o, I’d better not.”

Nora asked, “Why not?” and Dorothy said, “Well, I don’t think I ought to,” and that kind of thing went on until the taxicab stopped at the Courtland.

I got out and helped Dorothy out. She leaned heavily on my arm. “Please come up, just for a minute.”

Nora said, “Just for a minute,” and got out of the taxicab.

I told the driver to wait. We went upstairs. Dorothy rang the bell. Gilbert, in pyjamas and bathrobe, opened the door. He raised one hand in a warning gesture and said in a low voice: “The police are here.”

Mimi’s voice came from the living-room: “Who is it, Gil?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Charles and Dorothy.”

Mimi came to meet us as we went in. “I never was so glad to see anybody. I just didn’t know which way to turn.” She had on a pinkish satin robe over a pinkish silk nightgown, and her face was pink, and by no means unhappy. She ignored Dorothy, squeezed one of Nora’s hands, one of mine. “Now I’m going to stop worrying and leave it all up to you, Nick. You’ll have to tell the foolish little woman what to do.”

Dorothy, behind me, said, “Balls!” under her breath, but with a lot of feeling.

Mimi did not show that she had heard her daughter. Still holding our hands, she drew us back towards the living-room, chattering: “You know Lieutenant Guild. He’s been very nice, but I’m sure I must have tried his patience. I’ve been so—well—I mean I’ve been so bewildered. But now you’re here and—” We went into the living-room.

Guild said, “Hello,” to me and, “Good evening, ma’am,” to Nora. The man with him, the one he had called Andy and who
had helped him search our rooms the morning of Morelli’s visit, nodded and grunted at us.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Guild looked at Mimi out of the corners of his eyes, then at me, and said: “The Boston police found Jorgensen or Rosewater or whatever you want to call him at his first wife’s place and asked him some questions for us. The chief answer seems to be he don’t have anything to do with Julia Wolf getting killed or not getting killed and Mrs. Jorgensen can prove it because she’s been holding out what amounts to the goods on Wynant.” His eyes slid sidewise in their sockets to focus on Mimi again. “The lady kind of don’t want to say yes and kind of don’t want to say no. To tell you the truth, Mr. Charles, I don’t know what to make of her in a lot of ways.”

I could understand that. I said, “She’s probably frightened,” and Mimi tried to look frightened. “Has he been divorced from the first wife?”

“Not according to the first wife.”

Mimi said: “She’s lying, I bet.”

I said: “Sh-h-h. Is he coming back to New York?”

“It looks like he’s going to make us extradite him if we want him. Boston says he’s squawking his head off for a lawyer.”

“Do you want him that bad?”

Guild moved his big shoulders. “If bringing him back’ll help us on this murder. I don’t care much about any of the old charges or the bigamy. I never believe in hounding a man over things that are none of my business.”

I asked Mimi: “Well?”

“Can I talk to you alone?”

I looked at Guild, who said: “Anything that’ll help.”

Dorothy touched my arm. “Nick, listen to me first. I—” She broke off. Everybody was staring at her.

“What?” I asked.

“I—I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Go ahead.”

“I mean alone,” she said.

I patted her hand. “Afterwards.”

Mimi led me into her bedroom and carefully shut the door. I sat on the bed and lit a cigarette. Mimi leaned back against the door and smiled at me very gently and trustingly. Half a minute passed that way.

Then she said, “You do like me, Nick,” and when I said nothing she asked, “Don’t you?”

“No.”

She laughed and came away from the door. “You mean you don’t approve of me.” She sat on the bed beside me. “But you do like me well enough to help me?”

“That depends.”

“Depends on wha—”

The door opened and Dorothy came in: “Nick, I’ve got to—”

Mimi jumped up and confronted her daughter. “Get out of here,” she said through her teeth.

Dorothy flinched, but she said: “I won’t. You’re not going to make a—”

Mimi slashed Dorothy across the mouth with the back of her right hand. “Get out of here.”

Dorothy screamed and put a hand to her mouth. Holding it there, holding her wide frightened eyes on Mimi’s face, she backed out of the room. Mimi shut the door again.

I said: “You must come over to our place some time and bring your little white whips.”

She did not seem to hear me. Her eyes were heavy, brooding, and her lips were thrust out a little in a half-smile, and when she spoke, her voice seemed heavier, throatier, than usual. “My daughter’s in love with you.”

“Nonsense.”

“She is and she’s jealous of me. She had absolute spasms whenever
I get within ten feet of you.” She spoke as if thinking of something else.

“Nonsense. Maybe she’s got a little hangover from that crush she had on me when she was twelve, but that’s all it is.”

Mimi shook her head. “You’re wrong, but never mind.” She sat down on the bed beside me again. “You’ve got to help me out of this. I—”

“Sure,” I said. “You’re a delicate
fleur
that needs a great big man’s protection.”

“Oh, that?” She waved a hand at the door through which Dorothy had gone. “You’re surely not getting—Why, it’s nothing you haven’t heard about before—and seen and done, for that matter. It’s nothing to worry you.” She smiled as before with heavy, brooding eyes, and lips thrust out a little. “If you want Dorry, take her, but don’t get sentimental about it. But never mind that. Of course I’m not a delicate
fleur.
You never thought I was.”

“No,” I agreed.

“Well, then,” she said with an air of finality.

“Well then what?”

“Stop being so damned coquettish,” she said. “You know what I mean. You understand me as well as I understand you.”

“Just about, but you’ve been doing the coquetting ever since—”

“I know. That was a game. I’m not playing now. That son of a bitch made a fool of me, Nick, an out and out fool, and now he’s in trouble and expects me to help him. I’ll help him.” She put a hand on my knee and her pointed nails dug into my flesh. “The police, they don’t believe me. How can I make them believe that he’s lying, that I know nothing more than I’ve told them about the murder?”