Hard Case Crime: House Dick (5 page)

One hand lifted, her teeth sank into a knuckle. “I didn’t know Ben would get clemency. Three months ago he walked out. By then I’d had enough of the other guy, but Ben heard about him.”

“So he came here to beat you up.”

“Ben wanted a stake,” she said dully. “He figured I’d saved a pile from...from the guy. Well, I hadn’t. Life’s short, Pete. Why stick your green in a clay pig and watch life slip by?” One hand ran through her ash blonde hair. “I’ve got an apartment in Chicago, a car and the clothes on my back. Nothing more.”

Novak reached up and covered her right hand. It felt smooth and cool against his palm. “I don’t much care for the divorce part,” he said quietly, “but twisting your arm for money is worse. What made him think you had any?”

“I told him so. I told him I was collecting it here. In Washington.”

“Have you?”

“Not yet.” Her hand drew away from his. “If you didn’t like the other part, you’ll like this even less: I’m here for a shakedown, Novak. I’ve got something a guy wants. Something he has to pay for. A hunk of dough.” Her eyes found his and her chin lifted aggressively.

“How much?” Novak asked.

“Ninety grand.”

“Ninety grand,” Novak murmured and got up. From his coat he pulled a fresh cigarette, offered it to her. She shook her head.

Novak lighted the cigarette, dropped the lighter into his pocket. “That ought to keep Ben Barada in green baize for quite a while.”

Her eyes lifted slowly. “You don’t know Ben. All right, you’ve heard the Norton story. You asked for it. Any comment?”

Novak peered around the room. “Any whisky handy?”

“There’s a pint in the bedroom.”

He walked away from her, turned on the bedroom light and carried the pint into the bathroom. He broke the seals on two glasses, poured amber fluid into them and added ice cold water from the tap. He carried the drinks back to the sofa and handed one to her.

She brushed hair from her forehead and tossed off the drink. Novak sipped his slowly. She lowered the empty glass to the carpet. “I said any comments?”

“A couple. First, I think maybe you earned a poke on the jaw for the felony divorce. But nothing more. Second, you don’t owe Ben Barada ninety grand or any part of it. Third, I think I know where the dough’s coming from, and fourth, I’d forget about it if I were you.”

Her eyes had widened. “Why?”

“A shakedown’s equivalent to blackmail, sweetie, and this is federal territory. They don’t just let you off with a lecture and a slap on the wrist. They hang the book on you. It’s a federal rap and the payoff takes years. Why?” He leaned over, his face a foot from hers. “Because the game you’re playing is the sort of thing every Senator and Congressman is scared to death some hustler will pull on him. I’m not moralizing, beautiful. I’m telling you hard facts. If you’re going through with it, run, do not walk, from the District of Columbia. Try Baltimore or Delaware. The officials there are elected, not appointed, and there’s less flint in their stare. You’d stand a better chance of having something to show for your trouble.” He lifted his glass, drank again. “But if you’re doing it just so Barada can line his wallet you’re dumber than I think.”

Her face went white around the eyes. “I gave up charity when I quit the Brownies,” she said stonily. “Ben said he’d kill me if I didn’t come through.”

Novak laughed shortly. “I’ve seen this would-be killer and even his eyeballs are yellow.” He shook his head. “Don’t fall for it. You paid him off tonight when you poked your gun in my ribs. Next time he comes around talking tough, shove it in his.”

Her face turned away, her eyes closed and her breasts rose and fell. After a while her eyes opened and she said quietly, “I haven’t had a pep talk in quite a while, coach. I’ll think it over.”

Novak finished his drink and put down the glass beside the chromed pistol. He stared at it speculatively. The girl got up slowly, drew the dressing gown around her body and came to him. Her hands met behind his neck. “Novak,” she murmured. “What’s that, Hungarian?”

“Central Europe, anyway. The part that used to change names every two generations. How about Norton? Sounds English but you don’t look it.”

Her nose wrinkled. “A booking agent’s idea. If I don’t look it it’s because one grandmother was a full-blooded Osage. The family always called her a princess, but you know families. Oklahoma families, anyway.”

Her lips were a fraction of an inch away. Novak closed the gap, kissing the bruised lips lightly. Her body clung to his, her hand was doing something with the hair behind his head. Her eyelids fluttered and closed. Her tongue darted into his mouth, searched and withdrew. Under his hand the flesh of her back quivered like the flanks of a nervous filly. Finally she drew away and stared at him. “You’re all man,” she breathed. “As if I didn’t know.”

“Like Chinese food?”

“Uh huh.”

“I know a place on H Street that’s open all night.”

“And me looking the way I do?”

“We can char a cork and go blackface.”

Paula giggled.

Just then the telephone shrilled. Gaiety drained from her face and her body tensed. Novak growled, “I’ll take it.”

“No.” One hand held him. She moved away toward the phone. Novak ran one hand through his rumpled hair and watched her pick up the receiver. “Yes?” she said tautly.

As she listened her face hardened. Finally the rasp of the other voice stopped and she said, “I haven’t made up my mind. I’ll let you know tomorrow.” The other voice said something. She said, “No, nothing definite. I’ll get in touch with you. Yes—before noon. All right.”

The receiver clicked down hard and she turned back to Novak.

“The psychological moment,” she said thinly. “Thanks for the dinner invitation, but it will have to be another night.”

“You’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Am I?” She laughed brittlely. “Yes, I’d forgotten that. Well, I’ll write you a letter.”

“You and every other girl,” he said, turned and strode toward the door. When he looked back she was sitting on the sofa, her face toward the wall.

“Keep the payoff in small bills,” he rasped. “Banks record anything bigger than a yard.”

Opening the door, he went out.

No Ben Barada lurking in the corridor. No Doc Bikel slinking down the hall. It must have been the mark calling Paula, not her ex-husband. She’d said she hadn’t made up her mind yet, that she wasn’t sure. But she’d go through with it. A dame gets a case of conscience and nothing can shrive her. The shucker and the big-time gambler. He could see her in the smoky arc of a purple spot, rolling her hips, flipping her rouged nipples, bumping and grinding, socking it at the wet-lipped customers—and hating it.

As Novak walked along the corridor he remembered the warm, sensual pressure of her nearly naked body, the hotness of her mouth, the tilt of her breasts and the taper of her thighs. He swallowed hard, stopped in front of the elevator doors and punched the Down button savagely. Ben Barada’s ex-wife and still his girl.

He rode the elevator moodily to the lobby and made his way through a noisy crowd of new arrivals waiting to register.

K Street was cool, the sidewalk slick with condensed moisture. A silver Alfa Romeo shot past, glowing like the tail of a comet. The big money. You got it any way you could and thumbed your nose at the peasants. Conspicuous Consumption, Veblen had called it. Like Mrs. Julia Boyd’s ninety-thousand dollar loss that didn’t even ruffle a hair.

Novak pushed through a doorway, slid his frame onto a bar stool and scraped a dollar bill from his pocket. The bartender moved over to him. “What’ll it be, Pete? The usual?”

“Yeah, Irish.” He shook out a cigarette, lighted it and looked around. Names changed but never the faces. The lush at the far end of the bar gravely building unsuccessful houses from glossy match folders. The hatless woman in the booth, strained white face and an ashtray heaped with half-smoked cigarettes; waiting for a man to come. The kid staring at her from the bar stool, working up enough whisky courage to go over and slide into the booth beside her. Lonely people. Washington was full of them. Government workers, clerks, stenos and middle-grade bureaucrats. A town of anonymous, rootless people. Transients. The only city in the U.S. permanently dedicated to sightseeing and conventions. L’Enfant’s town, designed after Paris, with streets converging at circles where grapeshot gunners could make a clean sweep.

He sipped his drink, stared at the TV screen on a ledge above the bottle shelves, watched a comedian getting a big laugh from a studio audience by wearing a funnel for a hat and a hula skirt over his shorts. Heap big fun, Novak thought, and finished his drink.

The bartender came over and lifted the empty glass. “Do it again?”

“Not tonight, Alex.” He slid off the stool and took a deep breath. “I’m for the pads.”

Alex ironed the dollar bill between two fingers and said, “Don’t feel too good myself. Change of seasons, maybe. Cool and wet, air’s too heavy.”

“Yeah. One of those nights you think you got to chew your way home.”

Alex nodded.

Novak gave him a crooked grin, then headed for the door. He had a car but he garaged it near his apartment four blocks away. He walked up Seventeenth Street, crossed and turned at N. The elms were heavy with spring leaves, obscuring the sidewalk light from street lamps. Set back from the walk were graystone houses with spiral steps and barred basement windows. Once a fashionable residential neighborhood, the area was now given over largely to rooming houses. A few of the larger ones had been divided into three and four apartments. This year Novak lived in one of them.

The entrance to his apartment stairway was down what had been a service alley in the era when the owner had been able to afford servants. Now it was only a narrow concrete access-way with a garage door at the far end, tree-laden and dark.

There were two concrete risers to the doorway. Novak stepped up and felt in his pocket for the key.

At that moment arms circled him and tightened.

He jerked up his legs putting all his weight on the other’s arms. He heard a grunt. Then he stamped the man’s arches viciously and heard a breathy yelp. The pinioning arms burst apart and Novak lurched free. He was grabbing for his shoulder holster when another shape came at him from the side. The cosh smashed his right shoulder and the arm went numb. As he spun around, the first man tried to tackle him. Novak’s knee crunched into his attacker’s face. The body dropped aside, rolling, white hands clawing at a bubbling nose.

He had lost track of the other man. His left hand fumbled for the .38 but things were happening too fast. From behind him the cosh made a fast purring sound and the back of Novak’s head exploded. As he dropped forward he managed to spin sideways, protecting his face. He felt the impact distantly. His world filled with spinning lights. Something was thudding into his ribs with the relentless power of rubber mallets. A voice shrilled, “Jesus, Tags, Ben didn’t say kill him!”

Then darkness.

He floated in astral darkness, feeling the lifeless cold of outer space, hearing the brittle chiming of icy bells. He drifted back slowly; gray haze formed, whirled like windblown fog and threaded away. Pain blew its paralyzing breath through his mouth, giggled and chipped at his frozen brain.

Groaning he rolled over and opened his eyes.

The darkness stayed silent. He was alone.

His right arm felt like splintered ice. He sat up slowly, groped for his revolver, felt its bulk and tried to get up. The effort made him gnaw his lip; pointed shoes had kicked his ribs. The bruises were like ripe boils.

Using his left hand he levered himself off the pavement to his knees, then staggered upright. In the distance the honk of a lonely horn. No sound of running feet. The heavies were long gone.

Leaning against the doorway he studied the dial of his watch and tried to focus his mind. Unless he had walked more slowly than usual he had been unconscious nearly a quarter of an hour.

He could hardly lift his hand to fit the key into the lock.

Door open, he felt for the light switch and saw the staircase materialize before him like a slide thrown on a wall. His head throbbed like a deep Brazilian drum. Half pulling himself with his left arm, he made it to the top of the stairs, found the key to his apartment door and opened it.

He tottered into the room, pulling off his coat, loosening the leather shoulder strap and opening his collar. The revolver dropped to the sofa and he angled dizzily toward the bathroom.

No marks on his face. He leaned against the washbasin and unbuttoned his shirt with the fingers of his left hand, cursing their clumsiness.

Blue-black welts marred his chest. His back ached. The way his right shoulder looked he was lucky the cosh hadn’t snapped the collarbone. Turning, he ran hot water into the tub, stripped and swallowed two codeine tablets.

The bathwater was so hot he could barely stand it. Wincing, he entered it slowly and when it covered him entirely he closed his eyes and felt a wave of nausea surge over him. Shock and pain, old friends, both. His lips twisted and then the codeine began to take hold.

He opened his eyes and studied a bruise on his left thigh. The hoods had done their work well, but he had given one of them a bloody souvenir. Barada’s boys. Cheap alley muggers. One named Tags. Just a warning this time, no knife at the gullet, no throttle-cord tightening around the throat. He smiled grimly. Lucky I didn’t really get Barada mad at me.

His left hand massaged his right shoulder tenderly. The pain was bearable. He’d caught plenty of slashing hockey sticks on both arms, how many years ago was it? No trainer now to bake out the pain and strap his ribs. Maybe Doc Bikel would know a remedy. Possibly a dram of cherry-pepsin syrup from an unlabeled brown bottle. Not a natural substance, Doc. Smelled highly artificial. Don’t let the Nature brotherhood know, they might call it unethical.

In the living room the telephone rasped. Novak felt his scalp hairs rise. It buzzed again like a rattler under a forked stick. Barada probably. Yeah, Barada. Calling to hiss out another warning. Well, pal, I read you loud and clear. I get the message.