Blackmailer Read online

  At first I thought I was frightened. I was. But I wasn’t shaking because I was frightened. I was shaking because I was angry.

  I opened the medicine chest. It was almost an electric shock when I saw the gun. Somehow, I had been sure that it would be gone too.

  I took the small, ugly-looking gun out of the cabinet and studied it. I found the safety catch and after a moment or two figured out how to open and close the magazine. It was loaded.

  I held the gun in front of me with the safety catch off as I left the bedroom.

  There was no one in the corridor. I rang for the elevator and got in.

  As the car wheezed to a stop and the doors opened, I could hear a babble of voices, among them Walter’s high-pitched giggle. I started to my left, down the long, thickly carpeted corridor.

  There were perhaps fifty people in the billiard room. Walter was standing near the double doors with a glass of champagne in his hand. He saw me and began to giggle. “Richard!” he said, and came bustling over to me. “Wherever have you been? Good God-did you fall into the john?”

  “Walter,” I began.

  “You’re just in time. We’re going to turn out all the lights. I’ve called downstairs and they are going to pull the master switch. That’s the only fair way.”

  “Walter, listen. I want to talk to you.”

  “Afterward, Richard. As a matter of fact, I want to talk to you. We’ll have brandy together upstairs. But the lights are going out any second!”

  “Why are the lights going out? What are you talking about?”

  “We’re going to play ring-a-leveo,” Walter said. “Someone said this house would be a wonderful place to play ring-a-leveo, so we’re going to play. To make it absolutely fair we’re going to turn out all the lights. Let me get you a partner.”

  “Walter, my God, this is important.”

  Walter reached out and caught the arm of a dark, exotic-looking girl who was starting past us out the door.

  For the second time in a week my first thought when I saw her was, What a beautiful girl.

  “Janis, dear,” Walter was saying. “This is Richard Sherman. He’s your partner and I want you to take good care of him. Richard has been dying to meet you all evening. He’s a fan of yours.”

  “Hello, Dick,” Janis Whitney said.

  “Her picture opens at the Music Hall this week,” Walter said. “It’s going to be ghastly, of course. But she’ll be divine.”

  I tried to get hold of Walter’s arm but he was already moving away. “Ready! Everyone ready!” he was shouting. “The lights will be out for exactly twenty minutes!”

  I turned to Janis. She was smiling. “Excuse me a minute,” I said. I turned angrily away and headed after Walter. From the corridor I could hear the wheezing sound of the elevator.

  The elevator was coming down from one of the upper floors. It was moving slowly and through the open grillework I could see the single passenger.

  “Jean! Jean Dahl!” I shouted.

  She was wearing a dark skirt. My jacket was still around her shoulders.

  She heard me and her mouth opened.

  Then, the lights went out.

  The entire house was pitch black.

  The place was in pandemonium. Laughter, excited shrieks from the young ladies, and Walter’s silly, high-pitched giggle.

  I started down the corridor toward the stairs on a dead run, and fell over a small table.

  Janis Whitney had me by the arm and was pulling me to my feet.

  “Wait a minute, Dick, Walter said we were supposed to be partners or something,” Janis Whitney said. Her appearance had suggested something mysterious, foreign. You might have guessed that she was from one of the Balkan countries and you would have expected her to speak with a trace of some interesting accent.

  Her accent was interesting. It was pure southern Texas, only slightly modified by a studio diction teacher.

  “That girl in the elevator-I’ve got to get to her,” I said.

  “She’s not going anywhere,” Janis Whitney said. “The power is off. That elevator’s not moving. And Walter’s supposed to be guarding the stairs. The stairs are out of bounds. Come on now. We’re partners.”

  “What are we supposed to do?” I asked desperately.

  “Hunt for people-I think,” Janis Whitney said. “I was in the ladies’ room when they were explaining the rules. But I think the idea is you hunt for people. Or they hunt for you. I’m not very good at these games.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said.

  I shook myself loose from Janis Whitney and started down the corridor in the dark.

  There was much noise and laughter and the sound of people scurrying around in the dark.

  I reached in my pocket, found a match, and lit it.

  “No fair! No fair!” a girl screamed, and slapped the match out of my hand.

  It was pitch black.

  I moved quickly down the corridor to the elevator. It was stopped and the gate was open.

  In the distance I heard Walter’s voice.

  “No one goes downstairs. Downstairs is off limits!”

  Apparently someone was giving him trouble. Someone wanted to get down those stairs. I had a pretty good idea who it might be.

  The stairs were wide and curving. They swooped down into the hall on the opposite side from the elevator.

  A few yards away I heard the sound of a scuffle and Walter’s voice saying, “Now, really! Now, really!”

  I followed her, taking the steps three at a time. I don’t know how I avoided breaking my neck.

  “Jean,” I called. “Damn it, I’ve got to talk to you.”

  As I figured, she was headed straight for the front door. But as I hadn’t figured, the door was locked. She hadn’t figured it either. I heard her swear and then I reached out and caught her wrist.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s talk.”

  “You’re hurting my wrist, baby,” Jean Dahl said.

  “Well, stop wriggling then,” I said. “You’re pretty lively for someone who was out cold an hour ago. Come on!”

  I dragged her across the hall and through a door. I kept us moving, bumping into things as we went but still moving. We were both breathing hard.

  “O.K.,” I said. “I guess this is all right.”

  I was still holding her by the wrist. I dug into my pocket and found my lighter. I snapped it on. It threw a tiny beam of light. I held it up close to her face. She looked terrible.

  Her blonde hair was disheveled and she was very pale.

  “Somebody slugged me,” I said. “I want to know who it was.”

  “Jay Jostyn. Mr. District Attorney. Don’t you ever give up?”

  It was the cold, nasty, derisive voice. And this time it was right at my elbow.

  I jumped and then my lighter went out.

  The man with the voice had a light of his own.

  A flashlight.

  He poked the beam into my face and I blinked, completely blinded. I let go of Jean Dahl’s wrist. “What do you want?” I said.

  The light was hitting me in the face and my mouth was dry.

  From behind the blinding light the voice said, “Don’t get mixed up in this, I told you. Mind your own business, I said. Have you noticed, there’s some people you can’t tell them anything. Right away they know it all. Give me the gun.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “The gun,” he said. “In your pants pocket. It makes an unsightly bulge.”

  I was a hero, all right. I’d forgotten I had the gun.

  I tried to get the gun out of my pocket, but it stuck. It didn’t fit the pocket very well. I couldn’t get it out.

  “Wild Bill Hickok,” he said. “Quick on the draw.”

  Along with everything else, it was embarrassing. Standing there with the light in my face, trying to get the gun out of my pocket.

  “Take my advice,” he said, “avoid the far West. Stay out of gun fights. You have no talent for
it.”

  My pocket tore and the gun came out. I had my finger on the trigger. It clicked.

  “Roy Rogers,” he said. “It’s lucky you got a safety catch. A man could lose a toe. Innocent bystanders could be shot down.”

  After that, everything happened very fast.

  First came the sound of a crash.

  Then the flashlight fell to the ground and went out.

  I felt someone grab my hand. “Come on, baby,” I said. I shoved the gun back in my pocket and, holding hands, we moved rapidly through the dark rooms. “What did you hit him with?” I asked, panting. “A lamp?”

  But she was too winded to answer.

  We kept moving, putting distance between us and the man with the voice who was likely to recover from his lamp, or whatever it was, to the head at any minute.

  When it seemed we had gone a safe distance, I stopped suddenly and twisted her arm around behind her. Not hurting her yet, but holding it up tight where I could hurt her very easily if I wanted to.

  She gasped.

  “Shut up,” I said. “Shut up and listen.”

  Then, with my lips close to her ear, I began to whisper.

  “Listen, listen to me,” I said. “I quit. I resign. I’ve had enough. I don’t care if you have a new Anstruther book or if you don’t. If you had an unpublished musical comedy libretto by William Shakespeare it wouldn’t be worth it.

  “I saved your life twice in one week. And you probably saved mine just now. So we’re even. We’re all square. This is a good time to quit.

  “I don’t want to have anything to do with this. I don’t want people wrecking my apartment. I don’t want to be beaten up. I don’t like lying on the floor while being kicked in the stomach. I don’t want to be called on the telephone by gorillas with nasty voices.

  “I don’t want to be slugged twice a week.

  “I don’t want to have anything to do with girls who carry guns in their purses and have friends who feed them mickeys. Even if they’re very pretty girls. I’m not interested.

  “You can tell your nasty-voiced friend for me that the only thing I want is to be left alone. That goes for you, too, baby. Just leave me alone. Take your big literary bargain to somebody else.”

  I kept talking. I wasn’t even really aware of what I was saying. I was letting off steam and pent-up emotion.

  “O.K.,” I said. “I’m leaving. If the door is locked, I’ll go out through a window. We’re all through.”

  I relaxed my grip on her arm. Then I thought of something else and tightened it again.

  “No, I’m not quite through either. Give me my coat. It’s part of my gabardine suit. It’s English gabardine and custom made. It cost one hundred bucks. The way you and your friends play you might spill something on it. Like blood. Where’s my coat?”

  She started to speak. I cut her off.

  “Never mind,” I said. “Forget it. I make you a present of it. O.K., Jeannie. I may see you again some time. But I hope not. Goodbye.”

  I let go of her arm and pulled her close to me. I leaned down and found her mouth. I kissed her very hard.

  Then she was kissing me and we were standing very close together in the dark, holding each other.

  Then, as suddenly as they had gone out, the lights came back on.

  We separated, dazed by the light and emotion.

  She looked up at me and smiled.

  “This is the damnedest game I ever got mixed up in,” Janis Whitney said.

  I looked at Janis Whitney for a minute or two thinking maybe I was losing my mind.

  Janis Whitney smiled. “Wrong girl?” she said.

  I looked helplessly around.

  We were standing in the big, empty entrance hall. I couldn’t understand that either. Unless we had circled through the house in the dark and come back to the hall again.

  “What are you doing here?” I said to Janis Whitney.

  “I was sticking close to you,” she said. “I followed you down the stairs. Everything was fine till this other character comes along. He seemed to be giving you some kind of trouble so I bopped him on the head with a lamp. I wonder where the other dame went.”

  I looked around in a bewildered fashion. That’s when I saw where the other dame went.

  Jean Dahl was lying by the locked front door.

  She was lying there in a crumpled heap.

  They’d tried to get her once before.

  This time they’d succeeded.

  One look was enough. You didn’t have to examine the body. I bent down and slipped my coat off her shoulders. She didn’t need it any more. I noticed her hair was still damp.

  Janis Whitney’s face was white. She caught my arm for support.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Five

  I was afraid for a moment that I was going to be sick.

  I held Janis’ arm and pulled her into the elevator. I pushed a button at random. I didn’t care particularly where we were going. I just wanted to get away from the sight of Jean Dahl’s body on the floor by the door.

  In a moment the elevator began to move. Downward. I could hear voices at the top of the stairs as the hall disappeared.

  “They killed her,” I said. “My God, they killed her.”

  “The poor kid,” Janis Whitney whispered.

  The elevator came to a stop at the basement floor, and the doors opened.

  “What are we going to do?” Janis Whitney asked.

  “Come on,” I said. I led her out of the elevator. “Look, there’s no reason for us to get involved in this. A thing like this could be bad for you and bad for your studio. What could we do if we stayed? We were together when it happened. We both know we didn’t do it…” I couldn’t bring myself to use the words kill her. “Let’s just stay out of it.”

  “How?”

  I looked around. “There must be a service entrance for deliveries down here. We just leave, that’s all. It’s as simple as that. Nobody in that madhouse upstairs can tell who was there and who wasn’t. Come on, let’s go. If anybody should happen to ask us, we left together the minute the lights went out. Let someone try to prove different. Come on. I think the service door is over this way.”

  It was so easy.

  The service door opened onto the side street, around the corner from Fifth Avenue. We walked east to Madison and then to Park and over to Lexington. And we walked four or five blocks down Lexington before we hailed a cab.

  We walked rapidly all that time. We spoke very little.

  In the cab, I reached over and took her hand. It was icy cold.

  I gave the driver my address. It was force of habit. I wasn’t thinking very clearly.

  Beside me Janis shivered.

  I put my arm around her. We huddled together in the back of the cab.

  When the cab came to a stop, I said mechanically, “Here we are.”

  We got out and I paid the driver. I guided Janis into the building.

  I had not been back home since the night of my visitors.

  It was a shock to see the place when I unlocked the door. In addition to the damage the two men had done, the police had smudged the walls with their fingerprint powder.

  Janis looked blankly around the room.

  “I should have warned you,” I said. “I had a robbery a couple of days ago. The place is a little bit messed up.”

  “My God,” Janis said.

  I pulled two of the foam rubber cushions down to the floor and then I poured a couple of inches of whisky into two glasses and handed one to her. We sat on the rubber cushions in the middle of the debris and sipped it.

  “I was pretty sure we’d meet sometime again,” Janis said. “I didn’t think it was going to be anything like this.”

  “I’ve seen you in pictures a few times,” I said. “I didn’t go to many of them. I couldn’t take it.”

  We were quiet for a while. We finished the whisky and I refilled the glasses.

 
; “That poor girl,” Janis said.

  “I don’t know what it’s all about,” I said. “She showed up in my office about a week ago. With a book she said she had and wanted to sell. Since I met her I’ve been beaten up once and slugged once. And now she’s been killed. What was it? What kind of mess was she mixed up in?”

  “It happens,” Janis said. “A person can get in over her head.”

  “Janis?”

  “Yes?”

  “You know something?”

  “What, Dick?”

  “I still love you.”

  “That’s not possible, darling.”

  “I didn’t think it was either.”

  “Ten years.”

  “Nine and a half. Ten in March.”

  “Things change. People change.”

  “Not so much. I love you, darling.”

  I reached over and, very gently, ran my hand up the back of her neck and through her hair. She reached out and took my other hand and squeezed it. Then I kissed her.

  “Things don’t change,” I said. “They get worse sometimes. Or better. But they don’t change.”

  Janis put her hands on my shoulders and boosted herself to her feet.

  “Have you got an old shirt and some dungarees?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Let’s fix this place up.”

  “What?”

  “I haven’t done anything like housework in years. Come on. I need the exercise.”

  I found her a T-shirt and a pair of army pants. When she came back out of the bedroom she had them on, with the pants rolled to the knees. She was barefoot, and her lovely hair was tied up in a scarf.

  “You better put something on your feet. There’s a lot of broken glass.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “No, really. You’ll lose a toe.”

  I found her a pair of loafers. They were too big, of course, but she put on two pairs of heavy wool socks and that filled them out a little.

  It was a brilliant idea. The hard work was a release.

  For two hours we labored. It was real physical labor. Shoving furniture around. Sweeping, hauling, dumping.

  “No, wait a minute. Don’t fool with that couch. You’ll kill yourself.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m a dancer now. I’m rugged. Feel my muscle.”

  Her arm was slim, but hard as a rock.