Brett Halliday - At the Point of a. 38

The shock of finding a strange man in her kitchen had drained most of the color from her face. Even her lips were white. She held out both hands to him and said desperately, “Please! You don’t know what he’ll do to me.”

“Your father? What will he do?”

“Beat me to a pulp. Do you think I’m kidding? You know how he does with the pot-heads. He comes home with scabs on his knuckles. Why do you think I kept dropping out of school? Because I was bruised up! Give me a break, Mr. Shayne?”

“Let’s find out what the situation is first. Where’s Gold?”

She stared. “She- it,” she said in disgust. “I hoped you didn’t know about that.” She came closer and picked at his sling. “I can’t offer you money because I don’t have any. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in-” She gave him a look. “No, I didn’t think so. But I’ve heard about you. You’re supposed to be halfway fair. I don’t care about Murray, I don’t care about anybody in the goddamn fucking world. I’ll confess every little sin I ever committed, if you won’t make me go home.”

“You still haven’t told me where Gold is.”

A calculating look fled across her face. “I’ll make a deal. I’ll tell you the whole thing, from the time I first went down on him, if you’ll say you won’t make me go back. You don’t know what it’s like there.”

“I’m beginning to get a pretty good idea. Maybe you can persuade me.”

She gave a relieved laugh. “Then come on in and have a beer or a smoke. Are you a pot-man, by any chance?”

“Sometimes, when I’m not working.”

The kitchen had a table and chairs, but the only furniture in the living room were two mattresses and a folding beach chair. Helen sat down cross-legged on a mattress.

“You’re the guest, you can sit in the chair.” She waved around. “Ghoulish, yes? And if I told you what they charge for this place!”

Shayne sat on the footrest of the long chair. Helen popped a beer can and offered it. When he declined, she took a quick pull at the beer herself.

“Luke,” she complained. Setting it down, she began taking out curlers. “I must look like a singed cat. Not too irresistibly attractive, huh? I know where you want me to start, and I’m not going to start any place until you give me your oath. If I answer all your questions to the best of my ability, so help me God, will you bug off and tell my old man you couldn’t find me?”

After considering for a moment, Shayne nodded. “Unless you’ve done something you can be arrested for.”

“You could probably get me for conspiracy, but that’s the shittiest law there is, and besides I’m a juvenile.”

“Conspiracy to do what?”

She said sincerely, leaning forward, “Mr. Shayne, I honestly don’t know! Murray kept telling me it would be better if I didn’t. The idea I had at first, he was bringing in a shipment of hash. But considering how nervous everybody’s getting, I think it may be something a little stronger. A little more illegal. Anyway, I had nothing to do with that part, and I know Murray will bear me out if you can find him.”

Shayne lit one of his own cigarettes, the kind containing tobacco. “How did he get in touch with you?”

“Oh, I wrote him a silly letter. I was feeling moody that day. I didn’t expect anything to come of it, but what did it cost me? I sort of exaggerated how much I missed him. I like Murray, he’s sweet, and he’s not too enterprising sex-wise any more. It’s been practically all oral on my part. I told you I wasn’t going to keep anything back.”

As the curlers came out and the dark hair fell around her face she looked younger and prettier. “I’m supposed to be kind of good at that, as a matter of fact. I can make almost anybody squeal. Be that as it may, I drew him some X-rated pictures to get that old tingle going. I had this nutty idea, that if he ever came back it would change my luck. And that’s the way it happened! But I don’t see why I owe him a hell of a lot of gratitude, considering I have to think of my own self, don’t I?”

“Yeah.” Her mother had said much the same thing.

“Well, I do! He called from New York. I was so thrilled! He told me to rent a place, and then he came down, looking just like all the other tourists. He told me he rented a car, but what he really did, he stole it at the airport. So all the time I’ve been hurrying here and there, I was driving a hot car, and if some nosy trooper had picked me up, wouldn’t that have been marvelous, though?”

“Where does Artie Constable come in?”

She gave a high laugh and took some more beer. “You’ve been talking to dear old mom. He’s this friend of mine from school. Murray needed somebody who looked sort of tough and I suggested Artie and we contacted him, and he said sure. He’s been staying here, and the less said about that, the better. Murray doesn’t mind, he’s so out of it himself.”

“Now about the heroin, Helen.”

“I never said it was heroin. All I know is, some Arabs brought it in for him.”

“What kind of Arabs?”

She went into a handbag on the floor beside her. “I’ve got a clipping. I cut it out when Murray broke jail. I’ve been reading everything, all that stuff about the citizenship, keeping my fingers crossed that he wouldn’t get it and he’d have to come back. Well, I know it’s here somewhere, but take my word for it. It had the name of one of the Arabs, Rashid whatever. Murray sent me to this certain mansion in Boca Raton to ask for somebody with that same identical name, and don’t tell me that was a coincidence. And to bring him down here. A neat guy, but he looked right through me. He could be a fag-I wondered about that. He and Murray had a lot to chew over. Do you mind if we pick up the beat a little, Mr. Shayne? I was about to split when you walked in. I’m going to try and make it in Southern California.”

“Without your two friends?”

“Seriously! Artie’s O.K., but all he likes to do is smoke dope and float. And Murray I said goodbye to this morning. He gave me two hundred for a going-away present, which wasn’t too bad. That was no permanent thing. To begin with, how long would he last? All I wanted was travelling money, and I got that. So.”

She poured down more beer. “I bought a few things for him. You may not believe this one-ping-pong balls and a hypo. I know! Don’t ask for an explanation. And there was a sergeant here from the airbase one night.” She giggled, sounding for an instant like her mother. “He put his hand on my ass in the kitchen, which I appreciated because he knew it was risky, with Artie and Murray in the next room. Am I helping?”

“Some. What happened this morning?”

“He packed his bag. So long, kid, thanks a million. I didn’t ask any questions! Artie was so wound up he had to keep going to the bathroom. Before they left he hopped himself up with some jumpers. Murray told him to take three. He took five. I popped a couple myself, does it show?”

She sneaked a look at her watch.

“How are you travelling?” Shayne said.

“By thumb, natch.”

“What do you think they’re doing now?”

“What I think they’re doing now-I could have wormed it out of Artie, but I decided not to-is picking up a package and taking it somewhere and turning it into cash. And then they’ll go their separate ways. Murray did some phoning last night. Plane reservations? Maybe. He’s got a wonderful Lebanese passport, it looks just exactly like him. He grew a beard, did I tell you? And he has this creepy hairpiece that looks about as real as Astroturf. Well.” She looked at her watch again. “The thing is, I want to be out by the time Artie gets back. He thinks we’re going to stay through the month. What he doesn’t know is, I already got back the deposit. If you want to, you can drop me on the highway. And gee-I certainly want to thank you, Mr. Shayne. It shows there are nice people in the world, after all.”