James Chase - Figure It Out for Yourself

As I began to mount the second flight, a lean, hard-faced man appeared at the head of the stairs. He wore a fawn flannel suit, a white felt hat and sun-glasses. He gave a nervous start when he saw me, hesitated as if in two minds whether to retreat or not, then came down the stairs with a studied air of nonchalance.

I waited for him.

He scratched his unshaven jaw with a thumb-nail as he passed me. I had an idea the eyes behind the sun-glasses were uneasy.

‘No animals and positively no men,’ I said softly as he walked across the landing to the lower flight of stairs.

He looked hastily over his shoulder, paused, said aggressively, ‘Ug-huh?’

I shook my head.

‘If you heard anything, it was probably the voice of your conscience.’

I went on up the stairs, leaving him to stare after me, pivoting slowly on his heels until we lost sight of each other.

The second floor was a replica of the lower floor, even to the bottles of milk and the newspapers. I walked along the corri- dor, treading softly, studying the numbers on the doors. Room 23 was half-way down and on the right-hand side. I paused before it, wondering what I was going to say to her. If what Maxie had told me was true, and it probably was, then the girl could clear Perelli if she wanted to. It now depended whether or not I could persuade her to throw Barratt to the wolves.

As I raised my knuckles to knock on the door I heard a quiet cough behind me. I looked furtively over my shoulder. There was something in the atmosphere of the place that would have made an archbishop feel furtive.

Behind and opposite me a door had opened. A tall, languorous redhead lolled against the doorway and surveyed me with a smile that was both inviting and suggestive. She wore a green silk wrap that outlined a nice, undulating hip, her legs were bare and her feet were in swan’sdown mules. She touched her red-gold hair with slender fingers that had never done a day’s work in their lives, and her neat, fair eyebrows lifted in a signal that is as old as it is obvious.

‘Hello, Big Man,’ she said. ‘Looking for someone?’

‘Huh-uh,’ I said. ‘And I’ve found her. Don’t let me keep you from your breakfast.’

The smile widened.

‘Don’t bother with her. She’s not even up, but I am, and the safety catch’s off too. I’m all ready to fire.’

I raised my hat and gave her a courteous bow.

‘Madam, nothing would please me more than to pull the trigger, but I am committed elsewhere. Perhaps some other time? Regard me as food for your dreams, as I most certainly will regard you. Bear your disappointment as I am bearing mine, remembering that tomorrow is another day, and we too can have fun even if it is fun postponed.’

The smile went away and the green eyes hardened.

‘Awe hell, just another nut,’ she said, disgusted, and shut the door sharply in my face.

I blew out a little air, rapped on Gracie’s door and waited. A half a minute later I rapped again; this time much louder. Still nothing happened. No one opened the door.

I looked to right and left, put my hand on the doorknob and turned it gently. The door moved away from me as I pushed.

I looked into a room that was big enough to hold a bed, two armchairs, a wardrobe and a dressing-table fitted with a swinging mirror. There was no one in the room. The bed hadn’t been made, and the sheets hadn’t been changed, by the look of them, for probably six months. They were grey and crumpled and as uninviting as only dirty sheets can be. There was a film of dust on the mirror and cigarette ash on the carpet. From where I stood I could see bits of fluff under the bed. Not a clean room: a room that gave me an itchy feeling down my spine as I looked at it.

At the head of the bed was another door that probably led to the bathroom. I stared at it, wondering if she was in there and knocked sharply on the panel of the open bedroom door to see if anything happened. Nothing did, so I stepped inside, and in case the redhead opposite became curious, I closed the door.

On one of the armchairs was a pile of clothes: a frock, stockings, a grey-pink girdle and a greyer pink brassiere.

There was a distinct smell of marijuana smoke in the room. Not new, but of many months’ standing. It had seeped into the walls and the curtains and the bed and hung over the room like a muted memory of sin.

I moved silently past the bed to the closed door, rapped sharply and listened. I heard nothing. No one called out, and I was suddenly aware of a drop or two of sweat running down my face from inside my hat.

I turned the handle and pushed. The door opened heavily and sluggishly, but it opened. Something behind the door jumped against the panels and sent my heart jumping like a frog on a hot stove. I looked into the empty bathroom, saw the soiled pink bath, the mussed-up towels, the loofah, the cake of toilet soap and the half-squeezed tube of toothpaste.

I knew she was behind the door. She had to be.

I stepped into the bathroom, my nerves creeping up my spine. She was there all right: hanging from a hook in the door, in a blue, crumpled nightdress, her knees drawn up, her head on one side, the knot of her dressing-gown cord carefully under her right ear, the cord imbedded in the flesh of her neck.

I touched her hand.

It was cold and hard and lifeless.

I LOOKED up and down the corridor. There was no one in sight. A faint and far-off sound of movement told me that at least some of the occupants behind the many doors were beginning to greet the day; even if they went no farther than rolling over in bed.

I moved cautiously out of Room 23 and closed the door. Then I took off my hat and wiped my face with my handker-chief. I lit a cigarette and drew in a lungful of smoke. That helped a little, but not much. What I needed was a large whisky, neat, and in a hurry.

I stepped across the corridor to the redhead’s door. On the left-hand panel with a card that read: Miss Joy Dreadon. At home weekdays after five.

I tapped with my finger-nails on the door, making no more noise than a mouse makes when it is nibbling at die wainscot-ting, but it was loud enough.

The door opened about eight inches and Miss Dreadon peered at me through the opening. She seemed to have lost her bonhomie and her trustful air of welcome.

‘Well?’

Her big green eyes were suspicious and watchful.

I decided to waste no time and to talk to her in a language she would understand and appreciate.

‘I want to buy a little information,’ I said, and pushed my card at her. ‘Twenty dollars buys ten minutes at my rates: nice clean bills and secrecy guaranteed.’

She read the card with that pained expression people usually wear who don’t read a great deal and are still bothered by long words. She had to make an obvious effort not to move her lips while she spelt out the letters to herself.

Then she opened the door a couple more notches and push-ed the card back at me.

‘Let’s see die money.’

A simple, direct soul, I thought, who gets straight to the point of interest and doesn’t bother to ask unnecessary questions.

I took out my bill-fold and showed her two crisp clean ten-dollar bills. I didn’t give them to her. I just showed them to her.

She eyed them the way a small child eyes Santa Claus’s sack, and opened the door.

‘Come on in. I don’t care who you are, but those berries certainly make my palms itch. Sure it’s information you want?’

I stepped past her into a room a little larger than 23, and much more pleasant and comfortable. There was a divan, a settee, two armchairs, a couple of expensive Chinese rugs on the grey fitted carpet and a bowl of red-and-yellow begonias on a table in the window recess.