The drowning pool

I kicked the film out of her reach, picked it up, replaced it in the can. She cried out and flung herself at me. Her gloved hands beat on my chest.

I dropped the can in my pocket and took her wrists. “That stuff explodes sometimes. You’ll burn the house down and you with it.”

“What do I care? Let me go.”

“If you make velvet paws. Besides, you need these pictures. So long as we have them, Rico will keep his mouth shut.”

“We?” she said.

“I’m keeping them.”

“No!”

“You asked for my help. This is it. I can keep Rico quiet, and you can’t.”

“Who will keep you quiet?”

“You will. By being a good girl and doing what I say.”

“I don’t trust you. I don’t trust any man.”

“Women, on the other hand, are extremely trustworthy.”

“All right,” she said after a while. “You win.”

“Good girl.” I released her hands. “Who is this Rico?”

“I don’t know much about him. His real name is Enrico Murratti, I think he’s from Chicago. He did some work for my husband, when they put two-way radios in the cabs.”

“And you husband?”

“Let’s just talk about human beings for now.”

“There are things I want to know about him.”

“Not from me.” Her mouth set firmly.

“Reavis, then.”

“Who’s he?”

“You were with him in the Hunt Club.”

“Oh,” she said. “Pat Ryan.” And bit her lip.

“Do you know where he’s gone?”

“No. I know where he’ll go eventually, and I’ll dance at his funeral.”

“You’re close-mouthed for a woman.”

“I have things to be close-mouthed about.”

“One more question. Where are we? It feels like Glendale to me.”

“It’s Glendale.” She managed a smile. “You know, I like you. You’re kind of sharp.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I always use my brains to save my brawn. That’s how I got this bump on the cerebellum.”

His long minutes in the dark had aged and mellowed Rico. The knuckle-taut youthfulness had sagged out of his face. He looked like what he was: and insecure middle-aged man sweating with fear and discomfort.

I pulled him under the hall light and talked down at him: “You said something a while ago about making trouble for my client.” I nodded at the woman by the door. “Any trouble you make will be for yourself. You’re going to forget you saw her tonight. You’re not going to tell her husband or anybody else that she was here. Nobody. And she’s not going to set eyes on your pan for the rest of her natural life.”

“You can cut the spiel,” he said tiredly. “I know where I stand.”

I took the can of film out of my pocket, tossed it in the air and caught it a couple of times. His eye followed it up and down. He licked his lips and sighed.

“Flat on your back,” I said. “But I’m going to give you a break. I’m not going to beat you, though that would give me pleasure. I’m not going to turn you and the film over to the D.A., though that is what you deserve.”

“It wouldn’t do Mrs. Kilbourne a lot of good.”

“Worry about yourself, Rico. This film is solid evidence of blackmail. Mrs. Kilbourne would never have to take the stand.”

“Blackmail, crap! I never took no money from Mrs. Kilbourne.” He rolled his eyes, seeking the woman’s glance, but she was fixedly watching the film in my hand. I put it back in my pocket.

“No judge or jury would ever believe it,” I said. “You’re in a box. You want me to nail down the lid?”

He lay still for fifteen or twenty seconds, his lean brown forehead corrugated by thought. “A box is right,” he admitted finally. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Just keep your nose clean and stay away from my client. A young boy like you deserves a second chance, after all.”

He showed vari-colored teeth in a shamed grin: so far gone that he was smiling at my jokes. I unwound the wire from his wrists and let him stand up. All his joints were stiff.

“You’re letting him off easy,” the woman said.

“What do you want to do to him?”

She turned her eyes on him, gray and lethal under the heavy curtains of her lashes. Instinctively he moved away from her, keeping his back to the wall. He looked willing to be put back into the closet.

“Nothing,” she said at last. It was one of her favorite words. But on the way to the door she stepped on the black hairpiece and ground it under her gold heel. The last I saw of Rico, he had his right hand flat on top of his scalp, utter humiliation on his face.

We walked in silence to the nearest boulevard and caught a cruising cab. She told the driver to take her to The Flamenco.

“Why there?” I said, when the cab was under way. “It’s close by now.”

“Not for me. I have to go back there anyway. I borrowed taxi-fare from the powder-room girl, and left her my bag for security.”

“That’s quite a situation you have there. A diamond-studded bag, and nothing in it.”

“Tell it to my husband.”

“I’d be glad to.”

“Oh no!” She moved against me. “You wouldn’t really?”

“He’s got you frightened out of your wits. Why?”

“You won’t ask me any questions, will you? I’m so tired. This business has taken more out of me than you think.”

Her head touched my shoulder tentatively, and rested there. I leaned sideways, looking down into her face. Her gray eyes were crepuscular. The lashes came down over them like sudden night. Her mouth was dark and glistening. I kissed her, felt her toe press on my instep, her hand move on my body. I drew back from the whirling vortex that had opened, the drowning pool. She wriggled and sighed, and went to sleep in my arms.

I dropped her half a block from The Flamenco, and asked the driver to take me to Graham Court. He needed directions. It was all I could do to give them to him. My brain and body had gone into a champagne hangover. Through the long ride back, the wearing business of retrieving my car, driving it home, opening and shutting the garage, unlocking the door of house and locking it behind me. I stayed awake with difficulty. I told my brain to tell my body to do what had to be done, and watched my body do it.

It was twenty after four by the electric alarm on the table beside my bed. Taking off my jacket, I felt for the can of film in the pocket. It was gone. I sat on the edge of the bed and shivered for two minutes by the clock. That made it four-twenty-two.

I said: “Goodnight to you, Mavis.” Rolled over in my clothes, and went to sleep.

Chapter 13

The alarm made a noise which reminded me of dentists, which reminded me of optometrists, which reminded me of thick-lensed spectacles, which reminded me of Morris Cramm: the man I had been trying to think about when I woke up.

Hilda met me on the third-floor landing with her finger to her lips. “Be quiet now, Morris is sleeping, and he had a hard night.” She was blonde and fat and doe-eyed, radiating through her housecoat the warmth and gentleness of Jewish women who are happily married.

“Wake him up for me, will you? Just a minute?”

“No, I couldn’t do that.” She looked at me more closely. The only light came from a burlap-curtained French door that opened on a fire escape at the end of the hall. “What happened to you, Lew? You look God-awful.”

“You look swell. It’s wonderful to see nice people again.”

“Where have you been?”

“To hell and back. Glendale, that is. But I’ll never leave you again.” I kissed her on the cheek, which smelt of Palmolive soap.

She gave me a friendly little push that almost sent me backwards over the rail. “Don’t do that. Morris might hear you, and he’s awful jealous. Anyway, I’m not nice people. I’m a sloppy housekeeper, and I haven’t done my nails for two whole weeks. Why? Because I’m lazy.”

“I’m crazy about your nails. They never scratch.”

“They will if you don’t quiet down. And don’t think you’re going to flatter me into waking him up. Morris needs his sleep.”