Doug Allyn - The Best American Mystery Stories 2003

The MP started forward. Hammett waited for him with arms hanging loosely at his sides. The marshal stepped forward and put a hand on the MP’s chest.

“Maybe you’d better go cool off, fella,” he said. “Maybe go radio headquarters for instructions while I talk to these folks here.”

The MP hesitated, relaxed, said, “Right you are, Marshal,” and left the room.

“Maybe we should all go into the other room,” the marshal said. The others began to file out. Hammett crouched next to the corpse, which lay on its back, arms outflung, completely naked. He was a young, slim, sandy-haired fellow with blue eyes and full lips. His head lay over on his shoulder, the neck bent much farther than it should have been. Hammett laid a hand on the corpse’s chest.

“Give me a hand, Oscar, and we’ll roll him over,” he said.

The two men rolled the corpse onto its stomach. Hammett looked it up and down, grunted, and they rolled it back over.

“You might want to make sure a doctor examines that corpse,” he said as the two men walked toward the barroom. “I think you’ll find he was here to receive rather than give.”

The temporary blonde told a simple story. A soldier had come into her room, given her $2, and told her to get something to eat.

“He said don’t come back for an hour,” she said.

She’d gone out the back door, she said, shooting a nervous look at the black woman, so she wouldn’t have to answer any questions. When she returned, she’d found the soldier naked and dead.

“She told me,” the black woman said to the marshal, “and I sent someone for you.”

“What did you have to eat?” Hammett asked the temporary blonde.

“Leroy said it was beefsteak, but I think it was part of one of them moose,” she said. “And some mushy canned peas and a piece of chocolate cake. I think it give me the heartburn. That or the body.”

“That’s a story that should be easy enough to check out,” Hammett said.

“And what about you, Zulu?” the marshal asked.

“I was in the office or behind the bar all night, Mister Olson,” the black woman said. “That gentleman came in, had a drink, paid the usual fee, and asked for a girl. When I asked him which one, he said it didn’t matter. So I sent him back to Daphne.”

“Seen him before?” the marshal asked.

“Lots of men come through here,” Zulu said. “But I think he’d been here before.”

“He done the same thing with me maybe three, four times before,” the temporary blonde said. “With some a the other girls, too.” She shot another nervous look at the black woman. “We talk sometimes, ya know.”

“Notice anybody in particular in here tonight?” the marshal said.

“Quite a few people in here tonight,” Zulu said. “Some for the music, some for other things. Maybe thirty people in here when the body was found. I think maybe one of them is on the city council. And there was that banker...”

“That’s enough of that,” the marshal said.

“And he could have let anybody in through the back door,” Zulu said.

The red-haired MP came back into the barroom, chased by a blast of cold air.

“The major wants me to bring the whore in to the base,” he said to the marshal.

“I don’t think Daphne wants to go anywhere with you, young man,” Zulu said.

“I don’t care what a whore thinks,” the MP said.

Zulu leaned across the bar and very deliberately slapped the MP across the face. He lunged for her. Hammett stuck a shoulder into his chest, and the marshal grabbed his arm.

“You probably don’t remember me, Tobin,” Hammett said, leaning into the MP, “but I remember when you were just a kid on the black-and-blue squad in San Francisco. I heard you did something that got you thrown out of the cops just before the war. I don’t remember what. What was it you did to get tossed off the force?”

“Fuck you,” the MP said. “How do you know so much, anyway?”

“I was with the Pinks for a while,” Hammett said. “I know some people.”

“You can relax now, son,” the marshal said to the MP. “Nobody roughs up Zulu when I’m around. You go tell your major that if he wants to be involved in this investigation he should speak to me directly. Now beat it.”

“I’m too old for this nonsense,” Hammett said after the MP left, “but you can’t have people beating up your partner. It’s bad for business.”

“There ain’t going to be any business for a while,” the marshal said. “Until we get to the bottom of this, you’re closed, Zulu. I’ll roust somebody out and have ’em collect the body. Otherwise, keep people out of that room until I tell you different.”

With that, he left.

“I believe I’ll have a drink now, Zulu,” Hammett said.

“You heard the marshal,” the black woman said. “We’re closed.”

“But I’m your partner,” Hammett said, grinning.

“Silent partner,” she said. “I guess you forgot the silent part.”

“Now there’s gratitude for you, Clarence,” Hammett said. “She begs me for money to open this place, and now that she has my money she doesn’t want anything to do with me. Think what I’m risking. Why, if my friends in Hollywood knew I was half owner of a cathouse...”

“They’d all be lining up three deep for free booze and free nooky,” Zulu said. “Now you two skedaddle. I’ve got to get Daphne moved to another room, and I’ll have big, clumsy white folk tracking in and out of here all night. I’ll be speaking to you later, Mister Sam.”

The two men went back out into the cold.

“Little Sugar Delight?” the black man said. “Tony Zale? Why do you want to be telling such stories?”

“Why, Clarence,” Hammett said, “think how boring life would be if we didn’t all make up stories.”

The black man slid behind the wheel and punched the starter. The engine whirred and whined and exploded into life.

“You can drop me back at the Lido Gardens,” Hammett said. “I have a weekend pass, and I believe there’s a nurse who’s just about drunk enough by now.”

Hammett awoke the next morning alone, sprawled fully clothed on the bed of a small, spare hotel room. One boot lay on its side on the floor. The other was still on his left foot. He raised himself slowly to a sitting position. The steam radiator hissed, and somewhere outside the frosted-over window a horn honked. Hammett groaned loudly as he bent down to remove his boot. He pulled off both socks, then took two steps across the bare, cold floor to a small table, poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher, and drank it. Then another. He took the empty glass over to where his coat dangled from the back of a chair and rummaged around in the pockets until he came up with a small bottle of whiskey. He poured some into the glass, drank it, and shuddered.

“The beginning of another perfect day,” he said aloud.

He walked to the washstand and peered into the mirror. The face that looked back was pale and narrow, topped by crew-cut gray hair. He had baggy, hound-dog brown eyes and a full, salt-and-pepper mustache trimmed at the corners of a wide mouth. He took off his shirt and regarded his pipe-stem arms and sunken chest.

“Look out, Tojo,” he said.

He walked to the other side of the bed, opened a small leather valise, and took out a musette bag. Back at the washstand, he reached into his mouth and removed a full set of false teeth. His cheeks, already sunken, collapsed completely. He brushed the false teeth vigorously and replaced them in his mouth. He shaved. Then he took clean underwear from the valise, left the room, and walked down the hall toward the bathroom. About halfway down the hall, a small, dark-haired man lay snoring on the floor. He smelled of alcohol and vomit. Hammett stepped over him and continued to the bathroom.