Хал Эллсон - Masters of Noir - Volume 3

He didn’t get up when she came back with it. “When you get caught up with your chores you can come over and fix up my living room like this.”

“There’s nothing to it,” she said. “Bart did the painting. I bought the slip covers. My kid brother’s awfully handy.”

He reached up with his right hand and after the briefest of hesitations she came down beside him.

“Gray eyes and red hair,” he said. “I’m a sucker for ’em.”

“You are? I like blue eyes in a man. Really dark blue. Yours are dark blue, aren’t they?”

He reached across her shoulders and pulled her to him. Eglin, you picked the right man. He put his mouth on hers. You sure did, Eglin. Then he was thinking, I ought to bite your lips until that cold blood of yours came and made them really red. That blood so cold you think of using your sex to pull in a perfect stranger and put him between a killer’s gun and your punk of a brother.

There was a quick knock at the door.

Elsa broke away and jumped to her feet. Jordan came up, too. The knock was repeated. Bart came out of his bedroom in pajamas and no robe, stood there looking scared.

“Elsa!”

That was a woman’s voice, coming distantly through the door.

“Oh,” said Elsa. She turned toward Jordan, giving a little laugh of nervous relief. She came to him, her handkerchief in her hand, and wiped her lipstick from his mouth. Bart shot a look of pure hatred at Jordan.

Elsa went to the door, calling through it, “Gloria, is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Are you alone?”

“I sure am, honey.”

As the door opened, a small, rounded figure burst in. “Oh, Elsa, I came just as soon as I heard they’d turned you—” She saw Jordan and stopped abruptly, her look of compassion turning to a bright, questioning smile.

“Miss Hume,” said Elsa. “Mr. Ron Jordan, our new neighbor.”

“Why, hello there,” said Gloria. She came to him and held up her hand for him to take. She was the cuddly type, curvy at bosom and hip. Brown eyes that were soft and round and innocent didn’t go at all with her opal earrings in their intricate gold setting. She saw Bart and said, “Oh, Bart, did I get you up? I’m awfully sorry.”

“Naw, I was awake,” said Bart.

He didn’t like Gloria, and didn’t mind showing it. Jordan thought, He hates everybody but his sister and himself.

Bart limped back into his bedroom slowly.

Elsa said hurriedly, “Ron just moved in today. He’s from St. Louis.”

“Today? Then he — does he—” Gloria stopped.

Elsa said, again quickly, “Let me get you a drink.”

“No, honey. I can only stay a minute. I just ran in to say hello and to hear about—” She stopped again, making heavy going of it, shooting quick little glances at Jordan. She tried a new direction, “Have you seen Joe since—”

“No,” said Elsa.

“But you’re going to, aren’t you? I mean, honey, you’ve got your job and all. You can’t let something like this get you down. Why, hundreds of innocent people have been locked up and pushed around by policemen! You’re not the—” She stopped and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Elsa,” she wailed. “Me and my big mouth.”

She was as deliberate about it, thought Jordan, as a cabbie jumping a signal light. And pretty good at acting, too. The eyes she showed Jordan swam with contrition and self-accusation, all but hiding the sharp curiosity behind them.

Elsa was watching him, too. She said to him defiantly, “A policeman was killed near the cigar store where my brother and I worked. Bart and I were arrested and — and put in jail for two days. They let us go this afternoon.”

Jordan tried for the casual touch. “It happens every day in St. Louis.”

“Let’s not talk about it,” said Elsa.

“That’s what she came for — to talk about it!”

It was Bart. He stood again at his bedroom door, a robe over his pajamas.

“Bard” said Elsa.

“I don’t care, Sis. Why did she have to come? She knows she’s got no business coming here.” His voice rose, riding out of control. “I didn’t tell them anything! I didn’t know anything! That’s what she came for. To find out for him! To find out what I told them.”

Elsa reached him just as his face twisted and the tears came. He backed away from her into his bedroom, pointing at Jordan. “Why is he here, too? Why does he have to be here?”

Elsa followed and closed the bedroom door behind them.

“Poor kid,” said Gloria. “Whatever did the police do to him?”

“Worked him over, I guess. Tough on his sister. We’d better go.”

“Uh-hm,” said Gloria absently, staring at the bedroom door. She took Jordan’s drink from his hand, downed a gulp and handed it back to him. “Say, you walked into something, didn’t you?”

“It beats killing rats.”

That startled her. She said, “Huh?”

Elsa came out. She looked suddenly spent. Yet an expression close to tenderness was on her face fleetingly before she closed Bart’s door behind her. Damn the woman! She wasn’t simple enough.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “He’s—”

“Forget it, kid,” said Gloria. “Your friend Jordan and I will run along.”

Jordan asked, “Is there a night drug store close? I need tooth paste.” It was true. He needed a brush and a razor, too. Always he forgot to pack things.

“The next block down on your right,” said Elsa. She threw a quick glance at Gloria. It was accusing. Hostile, even. She thought Gloria made a fast steal while she was in the bedroom with Bart.

Gloria got it, too. Jordan caught another under-the-eyelids appraisal from her. If it wasn’t in her mind before, it was now. But she said definitely, speaking of herself in the third person and to both of them, “Gloria needs her sleep. Gloria’s headed straight for bed.”

Jordan let Gloria make her goodbye small talk and go out ahead of him. From the hall she said to Elsa, “See you at work tomorrow.”

Elsa Berkey shook her head vaguely. It wasn’t quite no, and it wasn’t yes.

As Jordan passed Elsa he said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“No.” She hesitated, fixing her gaze on the knot of his tie. “Ron... I’m not...” She stopped, started again, “Come to dinner tomorrow night, will you?”

“Sure. I’ll bring steaks. Three filets,” he said, and smiled.

Walking down the hall he thought, You poor fish, what got into you? She would spend her last dime for the finest steaks in town just to get you back. All she was thinking of was little boy Bart’s future protection.

Gloria was waiting in front of the automatic elevator. It clanked up as Jordan arrived. They entered and he pushed the down button.

She said, “What did you mean by that rat-killing crack?”

“That’s the business I’m in, baby. Not human rats — the things that crawl. You got any you want killed?” He put a finger under her chin, lifting her face. “Pretty baby,” he said, and kissed her. All in line of duty, he thought, while his lips stayed on hers. Eglin wouldn’t mind. He’d okay his conning Gloria.

The elevator came to a stop. She said, “I’m not that easy.”

That was it. That was what Elsa had started to say just as he was leaving, then didn’t. She didn’t because she knew he wouldn’t swallow it. She had kissed him back. And Gloria had kissed him back. And Bart thought Joe Crider had sent Gloria. Things were whirling merrily.

Gloria left him at the drug store. And as Jordan made his purchases, he thought of the razor ads in which sexy gals ran their hands ecstatically over the freshly shaven faces of men. This assignment did require that he look his best, he told himself, and then felt annoyance that he should feel the need for this justification. The thought came and he couldn’t dismiss it, that dead men were shaved and lotioned before being deposited in their coffins.