Джеймс Чейз - You Never Know With Women

“Although you are still trying to operate as a private investigator, you can’t advertise, nor can you put your name on your door. The police are watching you, and if they find you are still taking commissions they’ll prosecute you. Up to now, although you have passed the word around amongst your saloon-keeper friends that you’ll accept a client without asking questions, no one has hired you, and you’re down to your last nickel. For the past five nights you have been trying to make up your mind whether to stay or quit. You have decided to quit. Am I right, Mr. Jackson?”

“Check,” I said, and eased myself further back in my chair.

I was curious. There was something about Fatso Gorman that got me. Maybe he was a phoney; maybe he was flashing the diamond to impress me, but there was a lot more to him than a cloak-and-dagger hat and a five-grand diamond. His little black eyes warned me he was geared for quick thinking. The shape of his mouth gave him away. Turn a sheet of paper edgeways on and that’ll give you an idea of how thick his lips were. I could picture him sitting in the sun, at a bull-fight. He’d be happy when the horse took the horn. That was the kind of guy he was. A horse with its belly ripped open would be his idea of fun. Although he was fat, he was immensely strong, and I had a feeling if ever he got his hand around my throat he could squeeze blood out of my ears.

“Don’t quit, Mr. Jackson,” he was saying. “I have a job for you.”

The night air, coming in through the open window on to the back of my neck, felt chilly. A moth appeared out of the darkness and fluttered aimlessly around the desk lamp. The diamond continued to make bright patterns on the ceiling. We looked at each other. There was a pause long enough for you to walk down the passage, and back.

Then I said, “What kind of a job?”

“A tricky job, Mr. Jackson. It should suit you.”

I chewed that over. Well, he knew what he was buying. He had only himself to blame.

“Why pick on me?”

He touched the hair-line moustache with a fat thumb.

“Because it’s that kind of a job.”

That seemed to take care of that.

“Go ahead and tell me,” I said. “I’m up for sale.”

Gorman let out a little puff of breath. Probably he thought he was going to have trouble with me, but he should have known I wouldn’t quarrel with a guy who owned a diamond that size.

“Let me tell you a story as I heard it today,” he said, “then I’ll tell you what I want you to do.” He puffed more breath at me, and went on, “I am a theatrical agent.”

He’d have to be something like that. No one would wear a cloak-and-dagger hat and an astrakhan collar in this heat for the fun of it.

“I look after the interests of a number of big stars and a host of little ones,” he told me. “Among the little stars is a young woman who specializes in Stag party entertainments. Her name is Veda Rux. She is what is known in the profession as a stripper. She has a good act, otherwise I wouldn’t handle her. It is art in its purest form.” He eyed me over the top of the diamond and I tried to look as if I believed him, but I didn’t think I convinced him. “Last night Miss Rux performed at a dinner given to a party of business men by Mr. Lindsay Brett.” The little black eyes suddenly jumped from the diamond to my face. “Perhaps you have heard of him?”

I nodded. I had made it my business to know something about everyone in San Luis Beach who had more than a five-figure income. Brett had a big place a few miles outside the city limits; the last big estate on Ocean Rise where the millionaires hide out. Ocean Rise is a twisting boulevard, lined on either side by palm trees and tropical flowering shrubs, and cut in the foothills that surround the city’s outskirts. The houses up there are set back in their own grounds and screened by twelve-foot walls. You needed money to live on that boulevard: plenty of money. Brett had money all right; as much as he could use. He had a yacht, three cars, five gardeners and a yen for fresh young blondes. When he wasn’t throwing parties, getting drunk or necking blondes he was making a pile of jack out of two oil companies and a string of chain stores that stretched from San Francisco to New York.

“After Miss Rux had given her performance, Brett invited her to join the party,” Gorman went on. “During the evening, he showed her and his guests some of his valuable antiques. It seems he had recently acquired a Cellini dagger. He opened the wall safe to show it to his guests. Miss Rux was sitting close to the safe, and as he spun the dial operating the lock, she memorized the combination without realizing what she was doing. She has, I may say, a remarkably retentive memory. The dagger made a great impression on her. She tells me it is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.”

So far I couldn’t figure where I came into any of this. I wanted a drink. I wanted to go to bed. But I was broke and stuck with Fatso and had to make the best of it. I began to think about his diamond again.

“Later, when the guests had retired, Brett showed Miss Rux to her room. It had been arranged for her to stop over at Brett’s place for the night as the party was expected to go on to the small hours of the morning. Alone with her, Brett reverted to type. He probably thought she would be an easy conquest. She repulsed him.”

“What did she expect?” I asked irritably. “When a dame entertains in a G-string the writing goes up on the wall.”

He ignored the interruption and went on: “Brett became angry and there was a struggle. He lost his temper, and anything might have happened had not two of his guests come in to see what the noise was about. Brett was viciously angry, and threatened Miss Rux. He told her he would get even with her for making him look a fool before his friends. He was in an ugly mood and he frightened her. There was no doubt he meant what he said.”

I shifted in my chair. For all I cared he could have kicked her humpbacked. A frail who takes off her clothes before a bunch of goggle-eyed drunks gets no sympathy from me.

“When she finally fell asleep she had a dream,” Gorman went on, then paused. He pulled out a gold cigarette-case, opened it and laid it on the desk. “I see you would like to smoke, Mr. Jackson.”

I thanked him. He certainly had his finger on my pulse. If there was one thing I wanted more than a drink it was a smoke.

“Do her dreams figure in this too?” I asked, dropping the match on the floor to keep other matches company.

“She dreamed she went downstairs, opened the safe, took the case containing the dagger, and in its place left her powder compact.”

A tingle ran up my spine into the roots of my hair. I didn’t move. The dead-pan expression I had hitched to my face didn’t change, but an alarm bell began to ring in my mind.

“She woke immediately after the dream. It was six o’clock. She decided to leave before Brett was up. She packed hurriedly and left. No one saw her leave. It wasn’t until late this afternoon when she was unpacking that she found at the bottom of the bag the Cellini dagger.”

I ran my fingers through my hair and yearned for a drink. The alarm bell kept ringing in my mind.

“And I bet she couldn’t find her compact,” I said to show him I was right on his heels.

He regarded me gravely.

“That is correct, Mr. Jackson. She realized immediately what had happened. Whenever she is worried or has something on her mind she walks in her sleep. She took the Cellini dagger in her sleep. The dream wasn’t a dream at all. It actually happened.”

He had taken a little time to get around to it, but now the body was on the table. We looked at each other. I could have said a number of things, but none of them would have got me anywhere. It was still his party, so I pulled at my nose and grunted. He could make what he liked of that.