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

THIS BUSINESS IS CLOSED FOR THE DAY.

Kerman said blankly, ‘You mean we don’t do any more work?’

‘Not us, you dope. We’re going across the way and we’re seeing Louis. We’ll stick this on the shop door as we go in.’

Kerman hurriedly finished his beer.

‘This is the moment I’ve been waiting for,’ he said, and reached for his hat.

As I pushed open the shop door a concealed bell went ping! Harsh electric lights lit up the outer room of the shop: a room smothered in glossy prints more or less on the same pattern as those decorating the outside of the Brass Rail. A short counter divided the outer from the inner room. The inner room, from what I could see of it between the gap in the two shabby curtains that had only been half-drawn, consisted of a number of chairs, a couple of partitions with curtains hanging before them and two big mirrors. Beyond the inner room was a narrow passage that led, I assumed, to the studio.

We had decided that if anyone happened to be in the shop they would have to be taken care of, and Kerman had brought along his gun. He was a little self-conscious of it as he had never shot with it nor did he have any cartridges for it. I said it didn’t matter so long as Louis didn’t produce a gun of his own. Kerman’s gun looked all right: it looked vicious No one, unless they were out of their minds, would argue with it.

Kerman said bitterly that we would look a couple of suckers if Thayler turned up and started some trick shooting.

I guess he was right, but I didn’t tell him so.

As soon as we were in the shop, Kerman stuck the notice on the door, and as he shot the two bolts a girl in a slinky black dress and with a figure like an hour-glass came down the passage, through the changing-room into the outer room. She was hard and blonde and brassy, and switched on a mechanical smile when she saw us, although her eyes looked bored.

‘Was there something?’ she asked, resting her hands on the counter. She had bright scarlet nails, and her fingers were grubby. When you looked closer the rest of her was grubby too.

‘Why, sure,’ I said, tipping my hat. ‘We thought it would be nice to be photographed. Can you fix it?’

Kerman said, ‘I’ll let you have a copy of mine to keep you warm nights if it’s a good likeness.’

The blonde’s bored eye blinked and she looked questioningly from Kerman to me.

‘I’m afraid Mr. Louis is engaged right now. I can make an appointment,’ she said, and languidly patted her back curls.

‘We’re in a hurry,’ I said, looked at Kerman and nodded.

Kerman produced his gun with a flourish and pointed it at the blonde.

‘Don’t squawk, sister,’ he said in a voice that sounded like someone ripping calico. ‘This is a stick-up!’

The blonde recoiled, her eyes popping and her mouth opened to scream. I poked her hard with my index finger in her midriff and the breath came out of her with a hiss like a punctured tyre. She doubled up over the counter.

It took us about a minute and a half to tie her hands and feet and gag her with the cords and gag we had brought with us. Then we put her under the counter, found a pillow for her head and told her to take it easy. Her eyes weren’t bored any more: they were black explosions of fury.

‘Come on,’ I said to Kerman. ‘You’re doing fine.’

‘What really excites me,’ he said, as he moved after me, ‘is the thought a copper might crash in here and mistake me for a gunman. I guess a little thing like that hadn’t crossed your mind?’

I motioned him to silence, crept down the passage to a door at the far end, opened it and looked in.

The studio was fair sized and workmanlike. The usual portrait camera stood on its wooden tripod facing a backcloth of grey-painted canvas. Two big arc lamps on wheels stood on either side of the camera. There was a table with a raised drawing-board against the wall and a man in a white smock and a blue beret sat at the table, working on a collection of glossy prints. He was tall, weedy, effeminate, and had a black chin beard. His complexion was the colour of old parchment, and his lips were thick and red against the black-ness of his beard and moustache: not a pleasant specimen.

When he saw us he dropped the paint brush he was working with and his hand shot into a drawer of the table.

‘Hold it!’ Kerman snarled, threatening him with his gun.

The hand hovered above the drawer. The bearded face turned a greenish tinge. I went over and took a small automatic from the drawer and shoved it into my hip pocket.

‘Hello,’ I said, and brought my fist down as hard as I could into the hollow between his neck and right shoulder. The blow drove him off his chair on to the floor. I bent over him, gathered him up and stood him on his feet, then I hauled off and hit him on the bridge of his nose. He went shooting across the studio, collided with the camera and landed up on the floor with the camera on top of him.

Kerman sat on the edge of the table.

‘Be careful you don’t hurt him,’ he said.

‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t got any feelings. Have you, you heel?’

Louis made no effort to get up so I went over to him, picked the camera up, and holding it by its tripod, slammed it down on his chest. He gave a gurgling scream as the camera flew off the head of the tripod and went whizzing across the room. One of the tripod’s legs came off. I threw the other bits away, took the leg in both hands and hit him with it as he tried to get up.

Kerman slid off the table

‘Do you think he wants his camera?’ he asked.

‘He won’t want anything when I’m through with him,’ I said breathlessly, and bashed Louis again.

Kerman went over and stamped on the camera until it was in small pieces.

‘I don’t see why you should have all the fun,’ he said.

We drew off to recover our breath.

Louis cowered on the floor, his hands covering his face, scarcely breathing. He looked like a man waiting for a bomb to drop on him.

While I was getting my second wind I examined the prints he had been working on. They weren’t nice pictures. They confirmed Nedick’s theory that Louis was a blackmailer.

As nothing more happened to him, Louis began to crawl to his feet, but when I turned, he flopped back on to the floor again. He had as much spine as a plate of porridge.

‘Why’d you kill Benny?’ I asked, standing over to him.

The small eyes twitched. Breath made a rattling sound in the long scraggy throat.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The voice came in a whisper: like an echo in a tunnel.

‘I kicked the white smock. It was a good kick. It moved the weedy figure about three yards.

‘Why did you kill Benny?’ I repeated.

He didn’t say anything. He groaned instead.

I kicked him again.

‘Maybe he thinks we’re fooling,’ Kerman said, coming over to watch. ‘Some guys need an awful lot of persuasion before they talk.’

‘This one won’t,’ I said, reached down and pulled Louis to his feet. His legs were rubbery and he started to fall, but I managed to keep him upright long enough for Kerman to take a sock at him. He went flying across the room and smashed through the grey painted backcloth.

Kerman said, ‘Hey! Do you see what I see?’

He reached under the table and produced a blow-lamp.

‘Now that is something,’ I said. ‘Get it going.’

I ripped the rest of the backcloth out of its frame, collected Louis and dragged him back to the middle of the studio by his ankles.

There was a property couch at the back of the studio. I pushed that alongside Louis.

‘Let’s get him on here,’ I said.

Kerman gave the blow-lamp a few quick pumps until the flame began to roar out of the spout, then he came over and caught hold of Louis. We got him on the couch and I sat on his chest.