Ed Lacy - Strip For Violence

“You don't like the bank?”

“They sucked my father's life dry. Oh, I suppose it wasn't all their fault. Pop was too... conservative.”

“You work?”

“I work damn hard—I'm a tennis bum.” She almost smiled and it did wonders to her face, made me realize Laurie was only a scared kid, made me want to reach over and hug her. “I'm not on the big time, but I will be. But there aren't too many women players, so I get an invite to most of the tournaments—with expense money.”

“Tennis must mean a lot to you. I never...”

“I'm sick and tired of it!” she said in that odd, explosive way she had of blurting out things. “Day after day, the same dull grind. But I'm twenty-two and tennis is all I really know, so I keep at it.”

She told me about playing tennis with her father when she was a youngster, becoming a star in high school. When I asked why she'd never gone to college, she said, “Couldn't afford it. Anyway, Father had old-fashioned ideas about education and women.”

“Couldn't your tennis bring you a scholarship?”

“Did get one offer, from a California university, but that meant I'd have to be away from Father and that... was that.”

“Poppa ever talk about retiring soon?”

“Will you please stop insinuating my father was a thief!”

“Laurie, detective work means running down each and every minor clue. There has to be a wad of dough in this, and I have to find it. That's why...”

What about those two girls you said were... were killed?” she asked, not so neatly changing the subject.

One of them was in the papers yesterday, Anita Rogers, my secretary. The other—police haven't found her body yet, but I did, and that's why I have to get this solved, but on the double.”

“You found the body...? Aren't you afraid I'll tell the police?”

I looked her square in the eyes, said, “No,” and wondered if I'd gone completely looney, trusting her and knowing she was lying to me!

She flushed, her sun-tanned face turning dark. “Stop staring at me like a kid. What do we do now?”

“I don't know. See what breaks in the next couple hours.” She stood up. “I'm going home to get some sleep, then back to the court.”

I paid the check. As we got into my car I asked, “Still feel you're being watched?” I looked around, casually. The street was too busy to make a tail.

“Yes. I've felt it all the time, since the... killing.”

“Yet you live alone. Sometimes being brave is the same as being stupid.”

“What else can I do?” Laurie said, almost desperately. “No family, no friends.”

I had to stop myself from going into a routine about the one friend she had now. It would have sounded very corny. I drove her home, didn't spot anybody following us. Outside her house I gave her my card, said, “Anything comes up, call me. Give me your phone number, I'll check with you around six.”

Driving downtown, I kept snaking in and out of streets, but if I was being tailed, the guy was damn good. I parked as near Margrita's hotel as I could, finding a space only three blocks away. When I asked the hotel clerk if she was in, he answered in that indifferent, chilly voice hotel clerks must be born with, “I'll see. Who shall I say is calling?”

I wrote on the back of one of my cards, “I've found Marion Lodge. She wants to see you. I'm in the lobby.” Handing the card to the clerk, I told him, “Send this message up.”

“I did not say Miss de Mayo was in.”

“And neither did you say she was out. Send this up.” He rang for a bellhop and I put half a buck on top of the card. I only had to hang around the lobby a few minutes before the desk phone rang and the clerk told me, “Kindly go up to Penthouse B. Front elevators.” He sounded as bored as ever.

Margrita opened the door herself, wearing a bright-red robe that clung to her fine body. I nodded and stepped inside. She had an expensive suite of rooms, all the furniture very modern and correct—and all of it the hotel's. Atop a wire and glass table there was a cheap china statue of a baby doll, kind of junk you win at Coney Island, and probably the only thing Margrita had added to the place.

She didn't have any make-up on and her face looked hard. Judging from the tiny balls of pus in the corners of her eyes, she must have just gotten up. She motioned toward a stuffed chair and I sat down. She squatted on a blue-leather hassock opposite me, her robe falling away, those wonderful legs pointing at me. I glanced at them once, comparing them with Laurie's muscular stems. Margrita lit a cigarette without offering me one, asked, “How's Marion?”

“I don't know, how are you?”

She blew out a dainty stream of smoke, asked, “Where did you get that dopey idea?”

“Cut it, baby. I stumbled on it, but if you want me to prove it the hard way, I can.”

“You're a lousy detective. Made a big mistake, I'm not..”

“Look, I'm tired, don't make me work. Marion was once pinched for hustling, her prints are in the police files. I can get yours any.... What's the point of going through that routine? All I want you to do is get in touch with my client, tell him what you want done with the farm.” I wrote Guy Moore's name and address on a card, dropped it in her lap and started for the door.

She ran over, grabbed my shoulder, spun me around like I was a toy top. “Stop the crap,” she said. “I'll pay you once, that's all!”

“Already been paid for locating you. Far as I'm concerned, the case is closed.”

“You think I'm simple? You have me over a barrel, with my past—”

“Look, your past is exactly that—past. Whoring is a crummy job and a person takes a crummy job only because they're hungry. I'm no Boy Scout, but neither do I set myself up as a judge of anybody's personal business. Only...”

“Come on, when does the shakedown start? Told you, I'll pay once, then...”

“Only personal feelings I have about all this.... I'm glad you made it, got out of the racket.”

“On the level?” Her eyes searched my face.

“So long, baby.” She still blocked the door. She stared at me for a long minute, then began to cry—hard, hoarse, jerky sobs. She suddenly leaned against me and I took her in my arms, only it was comical—my head hardly came up to her shoulders. I walked her over to the couch, said, “Take it easy, Margrita, that's all over.”

“You don't understand,” she mumbled. “My uncle was all the family I had. He was a gruff old man and I thought he hated me, yet—you don't know how much he loved the land, that was the only thing he really cared for, and he left that to me! This last year, I could have helped him with money, he always was poor as a church mouse, a few bucks would have made things easier for him... all I had for him was hate. That's why I didn't go home when I was on the verge of getting into the racket, thought he didn't want me. And here he left me his farm, not to his son in Chicago, or his sister up in Canada, but to me.”

“Hard to judge people, or even judge yourself,” I said, sounding like the hayseed philosopher.

“Now, I can't even claim the farm....”

“Nonsense. Dye your hair and you'll be Marion Lodge to the folks back there. Or write Moore that you'll take the farm, have him arrange to pay the taxes, rent it or sell it, and you don't have to go home. Use a P.O. box address for Marion Lodge, or my office, if you wish.”

She dried her face on my sleeve. “You know, I really believe you are on the level. Or I want to believe it... but never met a man yet who wasn't a selfish louse.”

“You merely haven't been around much,” I said softly, knowing I'd played my cards right—in a minute she'd pay off.

She stood up, bent down till her face was close to mine. “You're a strange little guy. I like you.”