Hard Case Crime: Blackmailer Read online

  “Drinking?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m trying to think,” she said.

  I helped her up and guided her back to the bed. She stretched out and I spread a towel under her still wet hair.

  “I feel awful,” she said. “Let me have my lipstick.”

  I rummaged around in her purse looking for her lipstick. I found it and handed it to her. She started to use it but she couldn’t make it. She dropped it into the pocket of my coat. “I feel awful,” she said.

  “What were you drinking?”

  “I had one drink,” she said. “Just one drink.”

  I laughed. “In that case, lady, somebody fed you a mickey.”

  Jean Dahl gasped sharply and sat up on the bed. It seemed as if her head had suddenly cleared. “My God,” she said hoarsely, “they tried to kill me.”

  Then she began to sob hysterically.

  I didn’t touch her. I sat in a chair across from the bed and let her cry it out. After a while her sobs stopped. She lay with her head on the towel, her eyes closed, her breathing gradually becoming regular.

  “Jean,” I called. “Jean!”

  But she was asleep.

  My clothes were wet. I went back into the bathroom and got dried up as well as I could. I combed my hair. I had another one of her cigarettes. Then I took her gun out of my pants pocket and dried it off.

  It was a dainty and feminine kind of gun. I didn’t know enough about firearms to tell if it was a .22, a six-shooter, or some new kind of cigarette lighter. But it smelled like a gun. Oily.

  I held it gingerly with two fingers, and tried to think of some place to put it.

  I didn’t want to give it back to her. But I didn’t want to carry it around in my pocket, either.

  Finally I took it into the bathroom and put it in the medicine cabinet. I couldn’t think of anything else to do with it.

  I went back into the bedroom. Jean Dahl, I decided, had slept long enough. I reached down to shake her and as I did so, the telephone beside the bed began to ring.

  I froze.

  Walter’s house is hooked up with phone extensions in every room.

  I knew from the first sound of the phone that it wasn’t someone calling Walter. And it wasn’t a wrong extension. It was someone calling me.

  I let the phone ring three times before I decided to pick it up.

  I lifted the receiver very gently and held it to my ear. I didn’t say anything. I just lifted the phone and waited.

  The man’s voice on the other end of the phone was cold, harsh, and derisive.

  “Eagle Scout,” it said. “Hero. Why don’t you mind your own business?”

  “Who is this?” I said. “Whom do you want to speak to?”

  “You, Lone Ranger. I want to talk to you.”

  “Who is this?” I said.

  “You got your dry clothes on. You can come over now. I want to talk to you.”

  My heart began to beat rapidly.

  “Where are you calling from? What do you want? Tell me or I’ll hang up.”

  “Across the hall, Simon Templar,” he said. “The Saint. I’m calling you from across the hall.”

  “What?”

  “Falcon,” he said. “I’m right across from you. I think maybe we should talk. What kind of manners—to take a lady up to a bedroom in the middle of a party—”

  I felt angry and frightened and vulnerable.

  “Who is this?” I said. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you. Come over.”

  “If you have anything to say to me, say it.”

  “I thought we could have a little talk about books. Or anyway, one special book. I’ll be here in the room waiting for you. Come across.”

  The receiver clicked on the other end.

  I hung up the phone and started for the door. Then I stopped and turned back.

  Jean Dahl was still asleep on the bed.

  I was frightened, but I didn’t like to admit it.

  I thought, What can possibly happen at Walter Heinemann’s during a cocktail party?

  I looked again at Jean Dahl. On my way out, I took the key out of the door.

  In the corridor I stopped. I was taking no chances. I intended to lock Miss Dahl in. I had the key in the lock when I heard a faint sound.

  Then I realized that there was someone standing about two feet away from me.

  The explosion rocked the back of my head with a blinding flash and I slid to the floor.

  It was done as quickly and as simply as that.

  I could taste the dust from the carpet in my mouth. I was lying on the floor. I was not sure where I was or what had happened.

  I moved my hand along the carpet up to my face. My hand came away sticky with blood.

  I peered around and decided I was inside the bedroom. Lying on the floor.

  I lay there for a long time trying to understand what had happened. I had started out to meet the man with the nasty voice in the room across the hall—I had been out in the corridor, locking the door from the outside. There had been some reason why I wanted to lock the door from the outside.

  Jean Dahl.

  I rolled over.

  The bed was empty.

  I sat up. After a minute or two I got slowly to my feet. I could tell before I searched the place that I was alone. Jean Dahl was gone. The man who had hit me was gone.

  Jean Dahl’s wet clothes were gone. Her purse was gone.

  I made my way back into the bathroom. In the mirror I could see the cut on my cheek and above it, on the temple, the beginning of a swelling. I washed my face with cold water. I dried my face carefully.

  Gradually I became aware of the fact that my hands were shaking.

  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.”<
br />
  “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 ta
lking. 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.