Erle Gardner - Beware the Curves

I knew damn well it had been carefully rehearsed, but if it was effect she was after, the rehearsal was worth it.

She got slowly to her feet and came toward me.

She was wearing a semi-formal creation that left her shoulders bare and showed her figure to great advantage.

Seeing her dolled up, I became increasingly aware of her curves, of her cool, competent eyes with their long lashes, the supple way in which she moved, the long, artistic fingers which rested lightly on my arm.

“Donald, you’ll forgive me, won’t you?”

“For what?”

“For thinking you were the local law sent to chaperone me across the state line and make sure I didn’t turn back. I was so damn mad... well, I thought I’d pull that torn clothing act on you and panic you into a disorderly retreat.”

“That,” I told her, “was taking an unfair advantage of your sex.”

“Everything about sex is unfair,” she said. “Even nature is unfair about sex. Sex gives both sides an unfair advantage — otherwise I wouldn’t be with you right now.”

“I think you need a drink,” I told her.

“I think I do, too.” She gave me a wrap. I held it for her and we went out on the town. I bought her two cocktails before dinner, and she insisted on a third, watching me to see whether she could loosen me up that way. We had a nice dinner. We played roulette. We played twenty-one. We shot craps. We played the slot machines. I was about eight dollars ahead, and she’d cleaned up something over a hundred and fifty, all without any great trace of excitement.

It was about one-thirty when I drove her back to the motel.

“Coming in?” she asked.

“It’s late,” I said.

“What are you afraid of?”

“You.”

“How come?”

“You have such a delightful habit of tearing your clothes off and calling the law.”

“Oh,” she said, “I only do that with my cheaper working clothes. When I’m wearing these clothes, you’re perfectly safe.”

I went in.

She sat on the davenport. I sat down beside her.

“All right,” I told her. “This is the showdown. I know your name. I know your license number. I’m a detective. I can look you up. That takes time. It takes money. Why don’t you tell me?”

She said, “I know your name. I have your business card. I know your address. I know your telephone number. Look, Donald, is there any chance that you’re in this thing investigating the murder of Karl Carver Endicott?”

“I told you I couldn’t discuss my reasons for being up here.”

She looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Drude Nickerson is crooked.”

“The whole city’s crooked,” I told her.

“Susanville?”

“Citrus Grove.”

“Donald, if your interest is in the Endicott murder case, we might be able to help each other.”

“In my work, I’m not allowed to give help. I can only accept it.”

“That makes it nice,” she said.

“Doesn’t it?”

“For you.”

We were silent for a little while.

“Are you working on the Endicott case, Donald?”

“No comment.”

“I could help you.”

“Many comments, but quite inaudible.”

She swept her long, dark lashes down on her cheeks, held her eyes closed for half a second so that the darkness of the eyelashes showed against the smooth skin of her cheeks. Then she slowly raised her eyes to mine. She said suddenly, “All right, Donald. Here are the cards face up on the table. I’m twenty-three. I’ve been married. I’m a hell of a business woman. Aunt Martha died and left me the works. Most of it was property in Citrus Grove. I was an artist, not a real good one, just fair, advertising illustrations, things like that.

“A factory wants to come to Citrus Grove. I have the land the factory wants. At one time the land was residential property. I need to get a zoning ordinance changed. Any other city would change the ordinance just as a matter of course. Citrus Grove doesn’t do things that way.”

“How does Citrus Grove do things?” I asked.

“Citrus Grove,” she said, “is under the dominance of the mayor.”

“And who is the mayor?”

“Charles Franklin Taber. They had a reasonably honest government. They had a chief of police who was on the square. Taber made speeches. He gave interviews to the press.

“Somebody’s behind Taber. I don’t know who it is, but there are too many brains being used to have everything originate with that lunk of a Taber.

“Anyway a fairly competent mayor was defeated at the polls. Charles Franklin Taber was swept in on what he called a ‘wave of reform.’ He found an officer who was taking something on the side, and made it look like the whole police force was corrupt. The honest chief of police was fired. A new chief of police was imported so that he would be ‘free of local politics and free from local pressures.’ That was put in quotes.”

“Drude Nickerson?” I asked.

“Drude Nickerson was a cabdriver. He is a cousin of the mayor. Now Drude Nickerson goes in for bigger things. Drude Nickerson came to call on me. Nickerson knew about a lot of things. He knew all about the secret negotiations for the factory. He knew all about the property I had inherited.

“I told Drude Nickerson about how much good the factory would do the city, about the payroll it would bring in, and the people who would come, the increase in building and all of that.”

“And what did Nickerson say?” I asked.

“Nickerson laughed. Nickerson told me not to be naïve. He told me that if I waited for the zoning ordinance to be changed I would wait a long, long time. He said business wasn’t being done on that kind of a basis.”

“On what kind of a basis was it being done?”

“On a cash basis.”

“You donated?”

“Eventually, yes.”

“How much?”

“Fifteen thousand, three payments of five thousand each.”

I whistled.

“Was I a sucker, Donald?”

“Was the zoning ordinance changed?”

“Not yet. I only gave him the money two weeks ago. He said he would only keep about a thousand for himself, that the rest of it had to be handled to build up political pressures, lobbying and things of that sort.”

“And then?”

“Then he went and got himself killed in a traffic accident.”

“And what was your interest in the body?”

“Not in the body. In the clothes the body was wearing at the time of the accident. He told me that he wouldn’t actually let go of the money until he was assured the ordinance would pass and that to protect me in case anything should happen to him he’d leave the cash in a safe-deposit box and the key to that box and a note saying the money was my property would be in his wallet.”

“You believed that?”

“I did at the time.”

“ Was the note in his wallet?”

“I don’t know. They gave me a regular bum’s rush out of Susanville. They said I’d have to take up my claim with the administrator of the estate.”

“You didn’t see his wallet?”

“They didn’t even let me get to first base.

“Now then, Donald, I’ve put my cards on the table. I’ve tried to play it smart. I’ve tried to outwit you. I’ve tried to be seductive. I’ve tried to... shucks, I don’t know, I guess I’ve been doing business with crooks for so long I thought everyone was crooked. You’re square, and you... you’re decent.”

“I can’t help you,” I told her.

“Why?”

“Because I’m working on something else for someone else. I can get information, but I can’t give it out. I’ll tell you one thing.”

“What?”

“Don’t shed any tears over Drude Nickerson’s unfortunate demise.”