Robert Bloch - Michael Shayne Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 1. September 1956

“Not really.” He shook his head. “I’m here to see a few people on business.”

The voice bothered her a little. She said, “Where are you from, Michael?”

“Mike,” he told her gravely, but with a nice light in his eyes. “I’m not exactly the Michael type — too formal.”

“Okay, Mike — where are you from? Your voice isn’t New York.”

He smiled again — this time ruefully. It made him look about fifteen years old. He said, “I didn’t know it showed. I’m from the Middle West — Cincinnati, to be exact. By the way, you haven’t told me your name.”

“I know it.” She almost snapped the words. Then, relenting because he was so polite and looked hurt, she added, “My name is Carla — Carla White.” That was what she’d signed in as on the hotel card. She’d heard it somewhere on a teevee show.

“Okay, Carla.” His eyes were smiling. “How about another drink?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” she told him, smiling back for the first time...

A couple of hours later, back in the cell that was her room, Wanda took off her clothes. She started to throw them on the floor, as if she was still at home, with Ruby coming in every morning to clean and pick up. Then she remembered she hadn’t any closetful of things, any bureau drawers full of lingerie — she pronounced it lawngeray even in her thoughts. She folded them neatly over the chair.

In the mirror, she looked at her body — she still had a figure, thank God — though how, she sometimes wondered, considering the abuse it had taken. Maybe she could get a job modeling in the garment district — but that meant a return to hairy bellies and bald heads, and she wasn’t ready to face that — not yet, anyway.

She sat on the lumpy, unmade bed and scratched herself and realized it was hot. It was funny, meeting Mike that way, with him living just down the hall, beyond the semi-private bath. She could hear the shower running through the biscuit-thin walls. He had told her he was going to take a bath. That was another thing she liked about Mike — he was clean. He hadn’t even propositioned her, just thanked her, very solemnly, for giving him a pleasant evening.

Still, she had to be careful. She didn’t really know a damned thing about Mike, except that he’d bought her some drinks and talked to her pleasantly in his out-of-town voice and had moved into a room only a couple of doors removed from hers. She lit a cigarette and lay back on the rumpled sheet and tried to figure things out.

Mike was polite — in that he reminded her of Peter. But his politeness was a sincere, middle-class politeness, not the high-class mockery that Peter’s was — had been. Funny, she found it hard to think of Peter as dead. She wondered if she had been in love with Peter. She had certainly acted crazy enough — giving him all that money and that elephant. She turned her head to look at it, as it stood, its trunk uplifted, green and defiant by the ashtray.

Silly thing for a grown man to do — collect green jade toy elephants. Peter had had forty-nine of them, all in different positions, all green jade. When he showed them to her, he had said, “Believe it or not, they’re hard to get and they cost a lot. Almost as much as women.” She had been angry at that, until she saw he couldn’t mean it about her. Peter was always mocking himself.

She had been surprised when he made the pitch for her — why Wanda, she couldn’t help wondering, after some of the women he had had — countesses, society girls, movie actresses. After the men she had known from girlhood on, even Danny, he had been something very new and very different. Wanda had gone overboard. And now Peter was dead, murdered by Danny, and she and Danny were on the lam.

She thought about Danny. He was almost Peter’s opposite number. He was tough and not handsome with his busted nose, and not a talker. But Danny was smart. She never had been too sure about what he did, but he’d had to be smart, or he never could have set her up the way he had. Of course, if he hadn’t had dough, she’d never have spit on him — he was too much her own kind.

She wondered how he ever got associated with a guy like Peter Corell, a guy who made his living promoting funds for big charities. Danny wasn’t exactly charitable — except where she was concerned. He’d been real goofed about her. He’d told her so a hundred times.

“You’re a very classy doll for a mug like me — stay that way, and we’ll get on.” Those had been his words. And she had stayed that way until Peter came along and made his pitch. Sure, she’d given him money these last three months. Guys like Peter Corell came high. High class, high cash. That was the way of the world as she knew it.

She looked at the elephant again, and it reminded her of the afternoon four days ago, before Peter was murdered. Danny had come to see her, the way he always did afternoons unless he had a daytime deal on. Danny worked nights mostly, so they had their times together afternoons. Sometimes she’d gone out with him evenings, when he wanted to show her off or needed a girl on his arm — that was how she had met Peter. But mostly, the nights were lonely, like right now. She wasn’t a girl who could ever get used to being really alone. Maybe that was why she had fallen for Peter’s pitch.

Danny had been in a good mood for him that afternoon. He had shaved before he got there, for a change. “Hadda see a character for lunch — got a deal on,” he had said, yawning and revealing the gold teeth in the back of his mouth. “This gettin’ up in the middle of the night kills me. But it’s worth it.” He had given her a hug and said, “Big deal on, baby.”

Wanda had been pleased. She had gone into the bedroom to get ready. But Danny hadn’t followed. After a while, she had gone out, and Danny had been gone. She hadn’t been able to figure it out at first. She was planning to ask Peter about it on the date that had never come off because of the murder. But he must have seen the elephant.

She put out her cigarette and decided she was crazy to let her thoughts wander when she ought to be concentrating on a safe way to get in touch with Danny. She had an idea of the place to call — but she didn’t feel safe about doing it. Not with a murder involved, and the cops sniffing around for Peter’s friends and connections. She remembered as if it was yesterday the time Peter had told her, laughing at her question, “You might say Danny’s on my payroll.”

She didn’t want to get Danny into any more trouble — and she couldn’t afford to get in trouble herself. She thought about the cops and felt nausea grip her. All those smells... She hated being alone like this, at a time like this. Almost, she wished Mike would rap on the door. She listened, but the water had stopped running. Mike must have turned in. What a lousy break to meet a gentleman right now, she thought...

She stuck it out as long as she could the next day. It was rainy, damp and hot, and she had a hangover. About three o’clock, her stomach was getting bigger and emptier inside her, and the walls were closing in, the dirty grey walls with their cracks and splotches made by God knew what. She felt sticky all over and took a shower and still felt sticky when she was done. Lord, she was tired of wearing the same crummy clothes. They hadn’t been crummy when she went into hiding — they had been new and crisp and expensive, from a store on Fifty-seventh Street. She had wanted to look nice for Peter, he always ignored her clothes, as if they weren’t worth talking about...

Charlie got her a bowl of mangy chili — she needed something powerful that she could taste over her hangover — and a beer, and let her look at the tabloid someone had left. They were still playing Peter’s murder up big, she saw. It scared her a little — she hadn’t realized Peter was so important. You’d think he was Sergei Rubenstein or something, the fuss they were making. In a way, it made her proud to have been one of his girls. At least, when it was all over, she’d have something to talk about. She got the green jade elephant out of her bag and looked at it, then put it away. A hundred and ninety dollars it had cost her — and all she had was a lousy eleven dollars and seven cents!