Джеймс Чейз - You’re Lonely When You’re Dead

I was beginning to wonder if I hadn’t squandered my fifty bucks a little recklessly.

‘You haven’t seen her since her marriage?’

He shook his head.

‘I heard she and Thayler didn’t get on, and she left him. Anyway, she got a job with Simeon, the swank dress designer on 19th Avenue. I sent Julius down to see her, to try to persuade her to come back, but she wouldn’t. I guess being a mannequin sort of raised her social status. She was a girl to get on. Anyway, nothing I could offer her interested her. She left Simeon’s about a couple of months ago. I don’t know where she is now.’

I let him run on, but I was stiff with attention.

‘She and Thayler,’ I said. ‘Who’s Thayler?’

‘Her husband.’

‘You wouldn’t know when she married him?’

“Sure,’ he said complacently, and patted the book again. ‘I’m not likely to forget. Marrying him lost me a lot of money. They were married on 8th November last year.’

‘What happened to him? Did he die?’

‘Die?’ Nedick blinked. ‘No, he didn’t die. He’s right here in town. He and a guy named Louis run a photographer’s shop on Army Street.’

My head began to ache suddenly. Maybe I was thinking too hard. I pressed my fingertips to my temples and scowled at him.

‘Let’s talk about Thayler,’ I said. ‘Tell me about him. Tell me all about him.’

Nedick opened a cupboard in his desk and hoisted up a black bottle without a label and two glasses.

‘Would a drink be any good to you?’ he asked. ‘You look sort of pinched.’

“That’s the right word,’ I said. ‘Set them up and tell me about Thayler.’

He poured two shots of whisky into the glasses. We nodded to each other and drank.

While I was getting out the aspirin bottle, he said, ‘Lee Thayler was here when Anita came. He did a Buffalo Bill act. It wasn’t bad, and he kept changing his routine so we kept him on. The trouble with most of the hams we get here is they can’t vary their routine. After a week they’re through. But Thayler was different. He was smart, and kept working out new tricks.’

I swallowed a couple of aspirins and chased them down with whisky.

‘What kind of tricks?’ I asked.

‘Anything with a rifle. You know the kind of thing: shooting at pennies tossed in the air; firing at targets by sighting in a mirror; trick stuff. He had a very good trick with a Colt .45. He would throw the gun in the air, catch it and fire at the same time. He had a girl to help him in this trick. He shot cigarettes out of her mouth. It was a dangerous act, but he had plenty of confidence.’

‘And he married Anita?’

‘He did.’ Nedick scowled. ‘Both of them quit when they married. Thayler bought himself a piece in this photographer’s shop. He reckoned he was ready to settle down to a steady job when he married. It was hard to believe because Thayler wasn’t the type to settle down. But as far as I know he did settle down. Anyway, he seems to be doing all right. He knew a lot of people in the show business, and they all went to him to be photographed. Louis does the actual work. Thayler’s job is to drum up new business.’

‘And Anita left him?’

‘So I heard. I don’t know the details. Perhaps she got sick of sitting around doing nothing. Thayler was a mean sort of guy. I guess when the first bloom wore off they started fighting. He’d fight with anyone.’

‘Were they divorced?’

‘I never heard they were.’

He poured two more whiskies. We touched glasses before we drank. The whisky was good. It was only when it was down you realized what a kick it had.

‘Would you have a photograph of this guy?’

‘Sure.’ He pointed to one of the filing cabinets. ‘You’re younger than me. Open the top drawer of that file. Yeah, that one. There should be a folder of photographs... you got it? Bring it over here.’

I laid the folder on the desk and be began to paw over a collection of glossy prints. Finally he found one he was looking for and handed it to me.

‘That’s him.’

I looked at the tall lean cowboy who stood against a painted backcloth of cactus and open prairie land. He had on sheepskin chaps, a ten-gallon hat and a check shirt. His face was long and narrow, his lips were thin, and his eyes steady and dangerous. He looked as if he seldom smiled, and when he did the smile wouldn’t reach his eyes. It was the face of a man who would take risks; a gambler’s face; a man who would hold life cheap.

I said, ‘Can I keep this?’

Nedick nodded.

‘If you want it. I have a photograph of Anita somewhere. That fur glove routine of hers was a natural. It had the boys sitting on the edge of their chairs.’ His big hands pawed over more photographs and he found one similar to the one I had taken from George Barclay’s drawer. ‘That’s her. If you ever run into her tell her I’d like to do business with her again. I can’t let you have it; it’s the only one I have left.’ He fished out another photograph, tossed it over. ‘That’s Thayler doing his cigarette trick act. I didn’t like it. I was scared there’d be an accident. It was too dangerous. But the girl didn’t mind. She had nerves like steel.’

But I wasn’t listening. I was staring at the photograph. It showed Thayler in his cowboy dress shooting at a girl who faced the camera, her profile turned to Thayler. It was a good photograph. You could see the cigarette flying out of the girl’s mouth, and the smoke and flash of the gun. The girl was wearing a kind of bodice made out of pony skin, a G-string and a ten-gallon hat.

‘It wasn’t that he aimed at the cigarette,’ Nedick said. ‘He didn’t. He threw up the gun caught it and fired in one continuous movement. It made me sweat to watch him.’

It made me sweat to look at the photograph, for the girl in the G-string was Miss Bolus.

The door jerked open, and the man with the crinkly hair came in. He put some papers on the desk.

‘That’s Gardener’s contract,’ he said to Nedick. ‘You’d better sign it before the lug changes his mind.’

As Nedick reached for a pen, he asked. ‘What’s that girl like out there? We’re not missing anything, are we?’

‘She stinks,’ the man with’ the crinkly hair said contemptuously.

‘Then send her away. I can hear her bones creaking in here. It worries me.’

‘Everything worries you,’ the man with the crinkly hair said. ‘Do her good to get some exercise,’ and he gathered up the papers and went out.

Through the open door I could see the girl. She was sitting on a chair, her dress across her knees and she was crying.

The man with the crinkly hair said to her, ‘I’m going to give you some advice. The best thing you can do is to take the elevator to the top floor, pick a nice high window and jump out of it. Your act stinks and you stink. Now, beat it.’

He closed the door as the girl got slowly to her feet.

Nedick said, ‘Sometimes I think Julius is a little rude to people.’

I thought it would be nice to go into the outer office, pick up the typewriter and to try and smash it to bits on the top of Julius’s black, crinkly head. But it wasn’t my business how he treated people, so I said, ‘Tell me something about this girl: the one in this photograph. What’s her name?’

Nedick took the photograph, studied it, laid it down.

‘That’s Gail Bolus.’ He shot an inquisitive look at me. ‘Does she interest you?’

‘Any girl who dresses like that interests me,’ I said. ‘Is she still around?’

‘No. We never did know much about her. Thayler brought her with him: she was part of his act. He paid her out of his own pocket. Apart from her name, there’s not much I know about her. Except she had very strong nerves.’