Макс Коллинз - True Crime

Standing away from the open doorway, now, Paula said, “Freddie’ll be tickled to death to get the bed Lulu and Candy been sleeping in — we ain’t had a double bed in a week. You’d be doing us a favor, and she isn’t going to mind, you in your separate bed and all. She shouldn’t be left alone, you know.”

I thought about that.

Paula put a hand on my shoulder; her breath was whiskey-scented, but she was sexy just the same. She said, “Let me tell you something. My husband Charlie was knocked off on a bank score, a year ago spring. Freddie picked me up on the rebound, within the week. It’s not that I’m such a floozie, understand. It’s just I needed a strong shoulder. And Freddie didn’t come out so bad on the deal, d’you think?” She smiled wryly and gestured to her navy dress with the white polka dots and the curves.

I smiled back at her. “I think he did just fine.”

She patted my cheek, sipped her glass. “You could get lucky, too, friend. Lulu’s a hell of a girl. What’s your name again?”

“Jimmy.”

“Nice name. Nice guy. Maybe Lulu’s the one who might strike it lucky. Who knows?”

Soon I’d moved myself into the little bedroom — all I had was one small overnight bag with a change of underwear and socks, and some toilet articles (the toilet was out back, incidentally — like the Auburn, a two-seater); but I decided it best to sleep in my pants and my undershirt on top of the covers. There was an open window by a small desk on which some Big Little Books were confined by horsehead bookends twice their size. On one wall were some shelves with a baseball glove or two and some toy guns and such. Despite the trappings being male, I couldn’t help but feel this child’s room was appropriate for the slip of a thing next to me, the farmer’s daughter who slept so deeply beside me.

I lay on my back, staring at the slanted ceiling, its starry sky visible above me; light from outside — not just the moon, but that well-lit farmyard — made that possible. The girl beside me seemed bathed in blue ivory.

I thought about waiting till everyone was asleep and spiriting her out to the Auburn. But how could I do that and get past this fellow Chase, in the barn? And surely somebody in the house kept a sort of guard; I hadn’t heard the details, but that seemed a safe assumption to make. And how was I to take this girl with me, without her making a fuss? Her emotions were on edge already, let alone a stranger grab her and try making off with her.

My thoughts careened from dead Dr. Moran to the pending kidnapping that I hoped to avoid being drawn into — though I knew I already was. Maybe if it had been a bank they were planning to rob, I could’ve let it pass. But kidnapping? No. Like every other red-blooded bozo in this country, the Lindbergh tragedy had got to me, and made the idea of kidnapping seem something abhorrent. It had me thinking in terms of children, too, which was ridiculous, because the Karpis-Barker specialty was a rich banker or brewer. Still, stealing money was one thing — stealing a person was quite another...

I should have been frightened, and I suppose I was, but too much was going on, too much was whirling through my brain, for me to feel the full impact of what I was caught up in.

More than anything, I missed Sally. Missed her and her silk sheets — how I wished this dinky kids’ bedroom was her white bedroom at the Drake — and I regretted our parting angry.

Angry. That was something else working at me: anger. Anger and my old friend frustration were knocking around with everything else in my head, vying for attention. I’d been suckered, I’d been used — Frank Nitti had made me pay for my trip to Outlaw Land with the Moran setup. And what could I do about it? Being angry with Nitti was like getting pissed off at God. You could do it, but it wouldn’t get you anywhere. Except hell maybe.

My fault — my own damn fault for dealing with Nitti, and expecting a fair shake. From his point of view this no doubt was a fair shake: tit for tat. He’d done a lot for me — he gave me a name and cover and backed it up, and now here I was, the girl I’d come to find lying right beside me.

I just had no idea how to get her the hell out of here.

That was the thought Louise — Lulu, if you will — interrupted when she woke up and saw me and screamed.

I placed a hand over her mouth as gently as I could; she continued to scream into it, but I’d stifled her enough for her to be able to hear me.

“Please,” I said. “Please don’t. I’m just here to keep you company.”

Her wide, wide-set brown eyes seemed to consider that, and beneath my palm she stopped screaming.

I took it away. That had been one hell of a piercing cry she’d let out, worthy of Fay Wray, but I didn’t hear footsteps rushing up the steps or down the hall — no one was hollering out, wondering what was wrong. Maybe women screaming in the night was standard stuff around these parts.

She looked at me, mouth open, lips trembling, eyes still wide, nostrils flared, like the distressed damsel on a pulp-magazine cover.

“Who... who are you?” she finally managed.

“You met me before,” I said. “Jimmy Lawrence. I drove Ma here from Chicago.”

The eyes narrowed a bit. “Oh.”

“They didn’t have a bed for me, and your friend Paula asked me to sleep in here, so somebody’d be with you through the night.”

The door cracked open and Paula, cigarette dangling from her red lips, said, “That’s right, sugar. Didn’t want you to be alone in your hour of need.”

Somebody’d heard the scream, after all.

I said to Louise, “I’ll leave if you like.”

She looked toward Paula. “Can’t you stay with me? You’re my friend. ”

“I’m your pal,” Paula said. “But I’m Freddie’s girl, and he wants the pleasure of my company, tonight. You understand, sugar. You going to be all right?”

I got off the bed, stood. “I’ll leave.”

Louise looked at me; she was a small thing, but she had eyes you could dive into and swim around in for a lifetime or two.

Paula said, “Why don’t you let him keep you company? You don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Louise thought about that for a moment, shook her head no, meaning she didn’t want to be alone, and Paula smiled and said, “That’s a good girl,” and shut the door on us.

I stood there looking down at the girl, in the blue-ivory semi-light. She looked up at me. She looked pretty pitiful.

I said, “Is it all right if I lay back down, there?”

She swallowed. Nodded. Then quickly added, “But keep your pants on.”

I smiled at her. “I don’t do anything in a hurry.”

Despite herself, despite her situation, she found a tiny smile for me. Said, “Well, keep ’em on, anyway.”

“I can pull these beds apart a ways, if you like.”

“No. No, that’s okay.”

I lay back down.

She turned her back to me.

A few minutes ticked by, and then I heard her sobbing. I thought about touching her shoulder, but let it go.

Then she turned to me and, a hanky clenched in her fist, face slick with tears, said, “This is all wet.” She meant the hanky. “You wouldn’t happen to...?”

“Sure,” I said, and dug out a handkerchief for her.

She patted her face dry; no new tears seemed on the way, at least not immediately. She said, “I must look a mess.”

“You look fine. But you got a right to feel that way.”

She shook her head despairingly. “He was alive one minute, and the next...” Her chin crinkled in anger; she looked like a little girl about to throw a tantrum. “I’d like to kill that damn doctor!”

“It’s been taken care of.”