“Well?” Eddie scowled. “Is it serious? You think maybe I’m a lunger?” His mouth twitched nervously at one corner. Eddie was scared to death, and violence was the denial of his fears.
“No,” Charlotte said. “The cough is probably caused by a post-nasal drip. That is, when you’re sleeping phlegm accumulates at the back of your nose and drips into your throat. In the morning you cough it up.”
“What’s that word again, what I got?”
“Post-nasal drip.”
“How about that. Say, Voss, this dame knows her stuff, takes one look at me and says post-nasal drip, just like that.”
“Oh, shut up,” Voss said. “For Christ’s sake I got symptoms, too, only I don’t yap about them when there’s business to be done.”
Charlotte repeated, “Business?”
“Not business, exactly. You see, poor Violet didn’t have many friends, only Eddie and me and the wife, and you. Violet was one swell kid, she don’t deserve to have a pauper’s funeral, no flowers or nothing. Funerals come high nowadays. I was around pricing them this afternoon, and boy, those undertakers are sure raking in the coin. Though some of those caskets were real beautiful. Weren’t they, Eddie?”
“Sure.”
“We thought of a white satin casket with maybe a great big horseshoe made of purple violets.”
“Gee,” Eddie said, “that’d be pretty.” He touched his nose tenderly. He felt swell. Here, all this time he’d been worried about being a lunger and it was just his post-nasal drip.
“So,” Voss said, “that’s why Eddie and me came here. We figured Violet had a few friends, maybe we’d take up a little collection, buy a couple wreaths, stuff like that.”
“How much?” Charlotte said flatly.
“I hate to think about cold cash, with Violet where she is. Still”—he shrugged—“that’s what makes the world go round. Who am I to try stopping it?”
“How much?”
“Say $300”
There was a long silence before Charlotte spoke. “That would buy a great many wreaths.”
“Sure, but consider the casket.”
“I haven’t got three hundred dollars.”
“You can get it. You have a friend.”
“I have quite a few friends.”
“One special friend, though.”
“Several.”
“One
very
special.”
“Stop it,” Charlotte cried. “You must be crazy to think I…”
“Three hundred dollars wouldn’t mean a thing to him. Or to you. Think of poor Violet.”
“I only saw the girl once in my life.”
“But you helped kill her,” Voss said, quite pleasantly. “She came home yesterday and she says, I’ve been to the doctor only she won’t help me, I wish I was dead.”
“I think you’d better leave,” Charlotte said, trying to keep her voice steady. “This sounds like extortion.”
“Now
wait
a minute, that’s a nasty word. Ain’t it, Eddie?”
“It sure is. I don’t like it.”
Voss fingered the mourning band on his sleeve. “We came here as Violet’s friends because we wanted to give her a good send-off. Christ, we even got to pay a minister. How far do you think three hundred dollars will go?”
“I don’t know or care.”
“Don’t act so snotty or you will. You’ll end up caring plenty.” He turned to Eddie. “Extortion, she says. How about that?”
“How about it, that’s what I say.”
A mockingbird began to chatter from his perch on the lemon tree, abusing the invaders.
“You’d both better go home,” Charlotte said, “and start thinking up some new angles.”
“We don’t have to,” Voss said. “The angles are all there, and they ain’t nice, lady, they ain’t nice at all.”
“You’re very vague.”
“I don’t have to be vague. I can spell it out for you in straight ABC’s. There’s you, y-o-u, and there’s him, B-a-l-l-a-r-d. And then there’s my poor little Violet. Quite a threesome, eh? Eh?”
“Be more explicit,” Charlotte said. “You want me to pay you three hundred dollars because of Mr. Ballard and because you think I’m partly responsible for Violet’s suicide. Is that right?”
“Maybe. Maybe you haven’t figured the angles, though.”
“What angles?”
“Think about it.” Voss turned to his companion. “Come on, Eddie.”
“But she didn’t give us the money,” Eddie protested. “We didn’t get the three hundred…”
“You heard the lady. She don’t want to give us the money.”
“You said she would.”
“She will. She’s got to have time to figure, is all. Maybe she’s a little slow in the head. Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait,” Charlotte said. She was assailed by an obscure and terrifying feeling that the little moth of a man was threatening to eat away the fabric of her life. Already she felt naked, unprotected.
Voss turned his indeterminate eyes on her, squinting against the light that shone above the door. “You changed your mind?”
“No.” She reached her decision suddenly. “I’ve had enough of this. Get out of here or I’ll call the police.”
Eddie began to edge towards the steps, but Voss still faced her: “I don’t think so. You pore over what I said, and when you change your mind you know where I live. Only you better make it soon. I got lots of important business on the fire, see? Maybe I don’t look it but I’m a big shot, I’m a very important…”
“You’re a cheap crook,” Charlotte said. “Get out of here.”
She slammed and bolted the door and stood with her back against it until she heard the squeaking of the gate as it opened and closed again. Then she picked up the phone and dialed police headquarters. She acted on impulse, without planning what she would say or thinking of the consequences.
“Police headquarters. Valerio speaking.”
“H—hello?”
“What’s your trouble?”
“I need some kind of—protection.”
There was a voice in the background, a whining voice made harsh by whisky—“lost every damn cent of it, and then comes crying to me about it…”
“Oh, can it for a minute,” Valerio said. “I’m talking on the phone. Hello? What’s your name and address?”
“Charl…” Her throat constricted, pressing back the words: Charlotte Keating, 1026 Mountain Drive. I’m being blackmailed. The men involved are potentially dangerous, they should be arrested. No, I can’t give evidence. No, I can’t tell you why I’m being blackmailed, but it’s nothing criminal, nothing bad. I’ve been seeing a married man…
She could picture the two of them grinning knowingly if she told them, Valerio and the man with the whine, snickering together:
“Seeing
a married man, that’s a hot one, that’s a lulu…”
“I didn’t get the name,” Valerio said.
She hung up quietly.
She switched on the floodlights in the yard and went out to her car.
She phoned Lewis from a small café at the foot of the breakwater where they sometimes met.
I’m down at Sam’s, Lewis. I have to see you.”
“Aren’t you the same person who phoned here before? You still have the wrong number.”
How quick-witted of Lewis, Charlotte thought. Gwen might be suspicious of two wrong numbers so close together. Pretending the calls were from the same blunderer was clever of Lewis. Too clever. It suggested practice in easy deceptions.
“Please hurry, it’s important for both of us,” she said quickly and hung up before he could reply.
She waited outside in her car, watching the boats at anchor inside the breakwater. A whole city of boats, like a city of people, all lands, all classes; sleek and lavish yachts with their riding lights twinkling, sturdy fishing sloops, spruce little starboats fast as arrows, flatties and snowbirds, and weathered dinghies barely afloat.
A car drove past slowly and pulled to a stop a few yards ahead of her. Lewis got out, his shoulders hunched against the wind. She hardly recognized him. He wore a topcoat and a fedora and he had a scarf drawn high around his neck.
They walked in silence towards the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater.
“I didn’t even know you owned a hat,” she said at last.
“Now you do.”
“It’s quite a—disguise, isn’t it?”
“I couldn’t find my false whiskers. The hat will have to do.”
“Oh
Lewis
.”
There was no one else on the breakwater, and the only lights were feeble, from the three-quarter moon and the green signal that flashed off and on from the top of the lighthouse.
She clung to his arm, hiding her face against his sleeve.
“Lewis.”
“What is it, darling? Here. Here, sit down.”
He drew her down to one of the stone benches that lined the breakwater. The bench was wet from the spray of the tide that was now ebbing, but neither of them noticed.
“Let’s have it,” he said, smoothing back her hair with his hand. “What’s the matter, Charley?”
“I’m in trouble.”
“Sorry.”
“So—are you.”
“That’s nothing new,” he said wryly. “I’ve been in trouble ever since I met you a year ago.”
“This is worse.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know how to begin.”
“Begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end.”
Her smile was faint, sad. “That’s from
Alice in Wonderland
, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I wish I were Alice.”
“Why?”
“Then I could wake up and find it was all a nightmare, that I never really met…” She lapsed into silence, listening to the cruel crash of the water on the rocks below. “I’m being blackmailed.”
“Why?”
“Someone knows about you and me.”
“Well,” he said quietly. “Well. Who is it?”
“Two men.”
“Strangers?”
“Not exactly. I knew one of them before. I met him last night.”
“On that ‘call’ you made after I left?”
“Yes. Partly.”
“It wasn’t actually a call, was it…? No, don’t turn away. Answer me. Was it, Charley?”
“I went down to see if I could find the girl who was pregnant, the one I told you about last night.”
She had to tell him everything then, about Voss and the old man Tiddles, and Violet and Eddie; about Easter’s visit to her office with Violets sea-stained purse, and the ugly scene on her veranda when Voss asked for the money for Violet’s funeral.
When she had finished Lewis said, “The girl killed herself?”
“The police think so.”
“Don’t they
know?”
“It’s too early for an autopsy report. She was only found this morning.”
“I see.” He took his cigarette lighter out of his pocket and began playing with it absently, flicking it off and on in unconscious rhythm with the lighthouse signal. “That’s quite a group of characters you’re messing around with.”
“I guess.”
“I’ve warned you before about that informal way you have of picking people up. Well.” He sighed. “I suppose it’s too late for one of my maiden-aunt talks. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s illegal to pay blackmail.”
“I know. I—in a way I’d like to give him the money and get it over with. Three hundred dollars isn’t very much to pay for my peace of mind. If I could only be sure that it would end there…”
“You’re talking crazy, Charley.” He peered down at her, half-muzzled, half-angry. “You’re afraid of this man. Aren’t you?”
“A little, I guess.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure.” Though candor was her habit, she felt unable to speak out, to voice her doubts. The moving sea, which she had always loved, had become a threat to her, and the concrete breakwater seemed insecure, adrift.
Lewis’ hand on her shoulder was strong and steady, but it wasn’t a strength she could lean on, it was a strength that could be used against her.
“Listen to me,” he said harshly. “If you’re willing to pay three hundred dollars to everyone who finds out about us you’re going to end up broke. At least a dozen people already know. It’s not a criminal act…”
“You wore a hat and scarf tonight.”
“It’s windy, it’s cold.”
“Not that cold.”
She turned her face away. The rocks below the seawall were slimy with eel-grass exposed by the ebbing tide. She couldn’t see it in the dark but she could smell its presence. The smell reminded her of Violet’s purse and of death.
“You haven’t told me everything,” he said. “What else has Voss got on you?”
“Nothing definite.”
“But he implied something?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“He…” She watched his face while she spoke. It was white and blurred. “He said I’d better think over the angles, that Violet and you and I made—a threesome.”
“A threesome?” His jaw dropped in genuine astonishment. “What in God’s name did he mean by that?”
“I don’t know. I thought perhaps he meant that you—that you knew Violet in some way.”
“I never even heard of the girl until you mentioned her last night.”
She knew he was telling the truth. She felt suddenly light-headed, as if a physical pressure had been removed from a section of her brain. “I wanted to be sure, Lewis. Don’t get angry.”
“How can I help it,” he said simply. “This Voss must be crazy. He’s got to be stopped.” He rose from the stone bench and pulled his coat collar up around his neck. “Where does he live?”
“Olive Street, 916. What are you going to do?”
“See him. Talk to him. I won’t stand for him bothering you like this. I’ll scare the bejesus out of him if I have to.”
“There won’t be any trouble, will there?”
He looked down at her grimly. “Of course there’ll be trouble. What do you expect? The man’s blackmailing you and I’m going to stop him.”
The breath caught in her throat. “I’d rather pay him the money than have you get into a brawl.”
“Going soft on me, Charley?” His smile was uglier than a frown. “That’s your trouble. You get involved with people like Voss and O’Gorman, and then you don’t know how to deal with them. You haven’t any defenses because they don’t fight with your weapons.”
In spite of the brisk onshore wind, he was sweating. His face was streaked with moisture, and when Charlotte reached for his hand to be pulled to her feet, his palm was clammy. She knew that he was nervous, perhaps even afraid. His legal practice had nothing to do with crime or criminals; it was confined to wills and trusts and estates, and an occasional discreet and very expensive divorce. She realized what a great effort it had been for him to undertake to go and see Voss himself.