Хал Эллсон - Masters of Noir - Volume 3

He told himself that maybe she wasn’t really trying to get rid of him. Maybe this was a more subtle play for his aid. She had adroitly taken the sex out of the situation; now she was appealing to his manhood. Angrily, he pushed away the thought. He was getting as bad as Ben Eglin.

“What kind of danger?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “But the man we worked for—”

She stopped when Bart came out of the kitchen.

“What is it, Bart?” asked Elsa.

“Nothing,” he said defiantly.

“Bart, I’ve got an idea,” said his sister. It was astonishing how soothing that husky voice could be. “Tomorrow you can start painting my room.”

Bart straightened up. Animation came into his face. “Can I, Sis?” he said. He suddenly seemed a lot younger than he actually was. “Swell! I’ll paint it that celadon green you like. I’ll need a—” He stopped, his face unaccountably stricken.

Jordan caught Bart’s tortured expression, wondered what Bart could possibly need that would affect him in this way.

Elsa hadn’t noticed. She explained to Jordan, “Bart loves house-painting. He’s good, too.” Her pride was very apparent. “The owner of the store where we worked bought him some supplies and was going to let him paint the entire store. But then the — the trouble came up.”

Jordan sat quite still, on the verge of discovery. Bart had been about to paint the store. Crider had bought him the supplies; they should have been in the store that night. But there was no word of painting supplies in those reports in the murder file. No listing of paint, or brushes... What else would a painter need? A ladder, a canvas to spread on the floor — That was it! A waterproofed canvas.

Elsa, Jordan saw, had not finished her speech extolling Bart. Bart was always making or fixing something. That cedar flower box, he’d put it together just out of scraps. By laying the living room carpet, he’d saved them the thirty-six dollars that the carpet men wanted to charge for the job. Just yesterday he was puttering with the carpet, hammering some nails in, though he’d finished with that job sometime ago. And there was a lamp shade that never—

Jordan got up, forcing himself to be casual as he took Elsa’s hand again and led her to the door.

“I’ll be back,” he said. “Won’t be long. Just a little while.”

He felt sorry for her because of Bart. He felt sorry for himself because of what his knowledge would now compel him to do to her and her brother. He could not leave her like this. He leaned forward to kiss her, but she turned her head aside.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said.

To do a complete Judas job, he thought bitterly, the kiss was called for. “We’ll save that for later then,” he said, knowing that there would be no later.

He closed the door and stood there until he heard both night lock and chain slip into place. In his own apartment he flicked on the light and strode to the front window. He beat a path between the window and the telephone, trying to decide what to do. He knew he had no choice. He must pass on to Eglin, at once, the discovery that he had made. Eglin would want to send men searching for a house painter’s drop cloth stained with the blood of Bob Garfield.

Jordan started back toward the telephone. What if Crider had burned the canvas? But that would not have been so easy. Anyway, if he had, the burning would have left traces — ash or smell — that Eglin’s men would never have missed. No, the canvas was hidden somewhere. If they could find it—

“Hello, Ron,” said Gloria Hume. She stood in the doorway, smiling. She walked on in. “Nobody answers at Elsa’s, but the lights were on when I came up the street. Do you know what’s the matter?”

“Hi, baby!” Jordan had to get her out and make his phone call. He took her arm and turned her around. “They’re home. Go knock again.”

She let him lead her only a couple of steps. “Am I getting the bum’s rush?”

“No, baby. I’ve got to talk on the telephone. Private talk.”

“You’re a strange one, Ron.” Her full, red, over-painted lips pouted. “I wouldn’t have come in, but I thought—”

She said the rest of it with her eyes. She said she thought he would like having a pretty girl walk into his apartment without knocking. She said something else with her eyes, too, that she didn’t intend him to see. She said she wouldn’t stand for a man not to rise to the lure she offered.

Standing there studying Gloria Hume, Jordan remembered how Eglin had ridden him, accusing him of trying to play detective. All he was in Eglin’s eyes was a lady killer with merely enough brains to be a traffic cop. If he told Eglin to pick Crider up again on the basis of what he knew, he’d really ride him.

“Didn’t I tell you that you were a pretty doll?” Ron put one arm around Gloria and pulled her to him. The pressure of her lips were not eager. “What’s this? Suddenly, you’re a marble statue.”

“Go on to your old telephone,” she said. “I’ll go and shut the door behind me.”

“Baby!” He drew it out so that it expressed hurt and pleading and had an underpinning of schmaltz. And at once he started nuzzling at her fleshy, powdered throat. “Who said anything about a phone?” He had to find that paint canvas on his own. No better starting place than with chubby, cuddly Gloria. “Am I forgiven? How about a drink?”

A smile came to her lips, seeped into them. She wriggled coyly. “You hurt my feelings, you did.”

“Like they say, you always hurt the one you love.”

She gave him a wet peck on the cheek for that. Before leaving her for the bottle he still had in his suitcase, he gave her a squeeze. If you’re playing the part of a lover boy, he told himself, you play it. He brought the drinks from the kitchen to the couch, where she sat waiting, obviously for more than a drink... The smooching and the hand-roaming was interspersed with tugs at the scotch. He tried to keep her drinking steadily, gambling that she had less tolerance for the scotch than he had.

Gloria cuddled to him. “St. Looie man,” she said.

“Rat killer.”

“No. You’re too damn sweet for that.”

“Let me freshen your drink.” He bent for the bottle on the floor in front of them, but her arms were around his neck. “Hey, baby, let me get to that bottle. Come on—”

She shook her head. She put her lips to his. Suction lips, Jordan thought. And he wondered how in the hell he was ever going to get any information out of her. Judging by the progress he was making, as a detective, he deserved to be in traffic.

“What’s between you and this Bart across the hall?” he asked. Pulling it cold out of the hat. “That young kid’s got it bad for you.”

She laughed; the soprano trill let him know she was flattered.

“Elsa told me. Said he tossed in his sleep. Gloria. Gloria. All through the night — out of his sleep — he keeps calling your name.”

“Men all over town do that,” Gloria said, making a wide, drunken gesture with her arm.

“He’s young, but he’s a handy man. You know. He can make anything. But you’re the one exception, baby.”

Gloria giggled.

“And he paints. Houses. Anything. Wants to paint a room for his sister, but he needs this big canvas thing that you put down on the floor—”

She reacted to that. A shot of electricity wouldn’t have had more of an effect. She sat poker-straight, her arms came from around Jordan’s neck. Alert, no longer drunk.

“What’s the matter, baby?” said Jordan.

She didn’t answer, didn’t move, sat glaring at him.

“Seems Bart lost this canvas,” he gripped Gloria’s wrist hard, thinking to hell with subtlety. “And he needs it now. Would you know where—?”