A. Fair - The Bigger They Come

‘What stopped her?’

‘I did.’

‘What happened to the boy friend?’

‘He was frightened. I talked him into going home. He wasn’t a friend, just an acquaintance.’

‘All right. Go on.’

‘Well, Sandra acts as though she were keeping something back from me, and I’m afraid she is. I think she’s trying to take some advantage of Morgan. I don’t know just how or what, and — well, I want you to find out and see what you can do to make her — well, be reasonable.’

‘And that’s all?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘How about you? Wasn’t there something you wanted?’

She looked at me appraisingly for a moment, then slowly shook her head and said, ‘No.’

I finished my coffee. ‘Go right ahead,’ I said. ‘Keep on thinking that I’m a babe in the woods who shouldn’t be trusted out alone after dark. You know damn well that if I’d told you I had two or three years as a detective back of me, you’d have told me what’s really on your mind. The way it is now, you figure I can’t be trusted.’

She started to say something then, but checked herself just as she started to speak.

‘Go ahead,’ I said. ‘Pay the check, and let’s go meet the brother, and see what he has to say.’

‘And you won’t tell anyone what I’ve told you?’

‘You haven’t told me anything — what did you say the brother’s name was?’

‘Thorns.’

‘His first name?’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard it. It’s B. Lee Thorns. That’s the way he signs his name. Sandra calls him Bleatie. She always has.’

I motioned to the German woman to bring us the check, and said, ‘Let’s go see Bleatie.’

If Alma Hunter had a key to the apartment, she didn’t use it. She stood in the hallway and jabbed her gloved thumb against the buzzer at the side of the door. The young woman who opened the door and stood looking out at us was in the late twenties. She was slender around the waist, but had curves, and her dress showed the curves. Her hair was black. Her eyes were big, dark, and expressive. She had high cheekbones and very red, full lips. Her eyes veered away from Alma Hunter to study me, as though I’d been a new horse brought home from the fair.

Alma Hunter said, ‘Sandra, this is Donald Lam. He works for Bertha Cool’s agency. And he’s going to find Morgan and serve the papers on him. Tell me about the accident. Was it bad?’

Sandra Birks looked at me with surprised eyes. ‘You don’t look like a detective,’ she said, and gave me her hand.

She didn’t just extend her hand. She didn’t shake hands, but she gave me her hand just exactly as though she were turning over a part of her body to me.

As I closed my fingers around her hand, it surrendered in mine. ‘I try to look innocent,’ I said.

‘I’m so glad you came, Mr. Lam,’ she said, laughing nervously. ‘It’s imperative that we find Morgan at once. I think you understand why— Come in.’

I stood to one side and let Alma Hunter walk in first. It was a big room, with dark beams across the ceiling, heavy drapes across the windows, thick carpets underfoot. Lounging chairs were scattered about, with cigarettes and ash trays handy. It was a place that reeked with the feeling of having been lived in, a sensual, human, warm existence.

Sandra Birks said, ‘Archie’s here. I was fortunate to get him — I don’t think you’ve ever met Archie, have you, Alma?’

‘Archie?’ Alma repeated with the rising inflection of one who asks a question.

‘Archie Holoman. You know, Dr. Holoman. He was just graduating when I was married. He’s in a hospital and isn’t supposed to take outside cases, but of course Bleatie is different. It’s all part of the family.’

I saw from the way Alma smiled and nodded that she’d never heard of Archie before, and gathered that Sandra had a trick of producing intimate men friends just as a magician takes rabbits out of a hat.

‘Do sit down,’ Sandra Birks said to me. ‘I’m going to see if Bleatie can talk. It was the most awful thing! That car swung around the corner and banged into me before I had an opportunity to do anything. Bleatie swears the driver did it on purpose. It was a big, old car, and it got away. I hung onto the steering wheel. Bleatie lunged forward and went right through the windshield. The doctor says his nose is broken. I didn’t know that when I telephoned you, Alma... Do sit down, Mr. Lam. Pick a comfortable chair, stretch out, and have a cigarette. I want to talk with Alma for a minute.’

I dropped into a chair, put my feet up on an ottoman, lit a cigarette, and blew smoke rings at the ceiling. Bertha Cool was getting twenty dollars a day for my time. My stomach had food.

From a bedroom I could hear the sounds of motion, the rumble of a masculine voice, then a ripping sound as adhesive tape was torn in strips. I could hear Sandra Birks talk rapidly in a low monotone. Occasionally Alma interrupted with a question. After a while, they came back and Mrs. Birks said, ‘I want you to talk with my brother.’

I ground out my cigarette, followed them on into the bedroom. A young chap with a triangular face, broad across the forehead and eyes, coming down to a weak point at the chin, was putting on bandages with a professional touch. A man lay on the bed, cursing every now and then in a low voice. His nose was built up with splints, bandage, and adhesive tape. His long black hair was parted in the middle and hung down on either side of a sloping forehead. There was a bald spot about two inches in diameter on the top of his head. The adhesive tape, radiating out from the bandages on his nose made it seem as though his eyes were peering out from behind a white, coarse spiderweb.

The man’s body was heavier than one would have gathered from looking at his face. His stomach bulged prominently against his vest. His hands were small, the fingers long and tapering. I judged that he was probably five or six years older than his sister.

Sandra Birks said, ‘This is the man who’s going to serve the papers on Morgan, Bleatie.’

He looked at me then, a peculiarly disconcerting stare from cat-green eyes on either side of the bandaged beak. ‘For Christ’s sake!’ he said, and then, after a moment, ‘What’s his name?’ And the way his voice came through the bandages made it sound as though he’d said, ‘Whad’s hid nabe?’

‘Donald Lam,’ I told him.

‘I want to talk with you,’ he said.

‘I wish you would,’ Sandra chimed in. ‘You know time’s precious. Morgan may leave the country any time.’

‘He won’t leave the country without me knowing it,’ Bleatie said. ‘Look here, Doctor, how about it? Are you finished?’

The young doctor cocked his head on one side as a sculptor might survey a finished masterpiece.

‘You’ll get by now,’ he said, ‘but no sudden exertion, nothing which will run up a quick blood pressure and start a hemorrhage. For three or four days take a mild laxative. Take your temperature every four hours. If you start running a fever, get in touch with me at once.’

‘All right,’ Bleatie said. ‘Get out, the whole outfit of you. I’ve got something to say to Lam. Go on, Sandra, and you too, Alma. Go have a drink. Beat it.’

They went out like a bunch of chickens being shooed out of a garden patch. Before the blast of that dominating personality, the doctor lost his paternal sick-room manner and scuttled out through the door along with the rest. When the door was closed, the green eyes turned once more to me. ‘Are you with a lawyer?’ he asked.

I had some difficulty understanding his conversation at first. He talked like a man with a clothespin clamped over his nose. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m with a bureau of investigation.’