CHAPTER 20

I went on the prowl for Jorgenson.

The night was hot, but my head burned hotter as I started my trek at Repp’s room. Nobody home. No corpse, no cop on duty, no stiff from the hotel staff to hold me back. The room was clean and respectable, Repp’s personal belongings gone. A wandering bellhop saw me in the hall and told me that they had taken the body down to the county morgue, along with all the last worldly goods of the little sex merchant. I skipped back across the garden and entered the office by way of the side door. One of the lesser hotel police sat at a desk and laughing up at me when I asked for Jorgenson.

“He’s been looking for you, too,” the man said.

“Not locally?”

“Oh, he’s around. Outside, probably.”

“Outside where?”

“He didn’t tell me where he was going, peeper.”

“He couldn’t be in The Champagne Room?”

“Jorgenson?” said the peasant policeman, laughing out loud. “Jorgenson don’t go for them fancy shows.”

“Jorgenson is pretty selective,” I said. “A man of good taste and refinement. I’ll bet he has a wife and ten kids somewhere in these hills, all wrapped up in a neat little ivy-covered cottage. Am I right?”

“Wrong. Jorgenson has a wife, that’s all. But he’s not home much. And he don’t live in a cottage. Lives in an apartment.”

I stalked out of there, muttering hot words at Jorgenson, his men, his wife, and all the local constabulary. Is there anything more maggoty man a dirty cop? The thought of the big country dick waiting for me somewhere in the night, the image of his nasty face rose up to challenge me, to drive me stumbling across the garden, not knowing where I ran, really, but headed for the one small corner of The Montord that might hand him to me. But the foolishness of my maneuver caught up with me and brought me to a halt alongside the golf course. It was much too hot for this kind of horseplay. There was another way out of this particular mania, a detour, a road that could bring me to him by a roundabout course.

I mopped my brow and headed back to The Montord. I hesitated in the narrow path skirting the garden, staring back and the gray and ghostly shape of the main building, asking my inner man for another direction now. Around the hills and through the sticky air, a sudden burst of sound filled my ears, and I turned to face the direction of its flow, fascinated by the prickling effect of the noise on my fevered spine.

It was laughter that moved me toward the terrace to the bar.

Laughter shook the walls of The Champagne Room and billowed out through the open windows and across the garden and down the valley, an intermittent cacophony of merriment, a surge of uninhibited joy. Buddy Binns was murdering them in there. He would stay with them for almost an hour of continuous clowning, his normal stint for a night club engagement. He would woo them and shake them with his buffoonery, building the laughs with masterful skill, uncorking the yaks so that the room would rock and roll with his humor. I had seen him go through this sort of stand often, in some of the more intimate rooms along the beat on Broadway. Buddy would stay on and on, just as long as they wanted him. And they would want him there for a few dozen encores, if the present level of enjoyment was any clue to what would follow. The grounds of The Montord were as empty as Jones Beach during a blizzard. Even the boys at the front door were gone, to linger near the entrance to The Champagne Room inside. The garden before me held only a few vagrant crickets, singing their lonely songs into the sticky air. It was hot. It was too hot for laughter, too hot for movement.

So I moved toward the terrace near the bar where the big broad sat. She did not hear me approach. She sat at one of the tiny tables, her long fingers encircling a tall glass of something alcoholic. She was staring toward the door to the bar, and the light from in there sharpened her, illuminating her profile into a picture of high tension. Against the wall, her features stood out as clearly as a chalk drawing on a blackboard, with variations. Because chalk drawings do not register emotion. And Darlene was obviously as tight and skittish as a young bride kept waiting at the altar. She seemed lost in a concentrated scrutiny of the framed area through the doorway into the bar. Yet nobody moved in there.

And when I slipped through the hedge and sat quietly beside her, she almost dropped her glass in a reflex of surprise.

“You scared me,” she whispered.

“You scared me, too,” I told her. “Why aren’t you inside, laughing it up for Buddy Binns?”

“He leaves me cold. I like it out here.”

“You’re not waiting for anybody?”

“Waiting?” she asked herself. “Why should I be waiting?”

She looked at me out of tired eyes, the dry and sleepless expression no amount of fancy make-up can hide. Her attempts at projecting the spirit of carefree and youthful exuberance fell flat and sour. There was a thin and silken fuzz of dark hair on her upper lip, obvious now in the sharp light from the bar. And so were the tiny bubbles of sweat on that area. She wiped her face delicately, but nothing she might do could ever wipe away her obvious distress.

I said, “You shouldn’t be waiting. Let’s go, Darlene.”

“Go? Where?” She froze under my hand, her body tight and hard, her whole being steeled against me, not wanting to go with me.

“Come on—I’ll show you my etchings.”

“Don’t be funny, Steve. It’s too hot for games.”

I pulled her out of the seat and felt good when her body trembled under my fingers. She reacted to my muscular blandishments with too much fire. She tugged at my arm and tried to hold me where I stood and we began a quiet little battle out on the terrace. It was corny and weird, the struggle and the protagonists, a semi-Spanish bundle of womanhood against a private detective with one burning idea. She let herself be piloted as far as the last concrete square on the terrace, and there she stood firm and really got tough with me. She clawed into me with her long nails, so that my wrist stung with the bite of them. She shoved her great wealth of torso against me and struggled to worm free of me.

“Why not talk here?” she asked, finally. We were now mincing down the lawn, away from the main house.

“The Rhumba Hut,” I said.

“It’s closed.”

“I like it down there, Darlene. You can show me the fandango.”

“I’m going to scream,” she warned, her body tight again, braced against me, so that she resembled an overgrown kid, on the way to the woodshed for a spanking from Daddy. “I’m going to yell if you keep dragging me around.”

“Open your pretty little mouth,” I warned her, “and I’ll stuff my fist down it!”

We went down the incline to the Rhumba Hut at a zany pace, Darlene’s figure still stiff and tense against my arm, her body slipping and sliding and hopping and halting because of the height of her heels on the dewy grass. She breathed hard and I thought I caught the tremor of a sob shaking her as we neared the base of the little hill. The closeness of the Rhumba Hut worked to freeze her, to ice her, to harden her curves into a bundle of trembling torment, so that she seemed suddenly hysterical as we moved toward the front door of her dancing dormitory. She sat down on the grass. Hard.

“Can’t we talk here?” she pleaded.

“Why not inside the Rhumba Hut?”

“I’d rather not, Steve.”

“Tell me why.”

She took her shoes off. She rubbed at her toes and made soft and sibilant noises, the weak and melting sounds of femininity, the little signs of a softening mood. She was playing me now, working her wiles with me, letting me see that she could be had at bargain rates. She looked up at me and smiled at me and went through the motions of adjusting the low cut of her neckline, fiddling and fussing with her dress in the coy and kittenish manner of an ingénue on the make for a good contract. Her hand came up to mine and she tugged at me timidly. Around us, the night was a great cave of darkness. We faced the hills beyond the edge of the little rise of ground and from this spot The Montord seemed a thousand miles behind us. We were alone in our own pocket of silence.

“Tell me why,” I said again.

“I hate the stinking place, Steve.”

“Because of the dough you tried to hide there.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

But she understood. I was beside her on the grass and all the tricks in her feminine kitbag of histrionics couldn’t kill the effect of my simple declarative sentence. Darlene was really running her motor now. She rocked and rolled with anxiety, her whole body atremble. She might explode into hysteria, she might scream and bite, if she went out of control now. I moved in closer and clamped my hands on her wrists and dragged her around so that she could observe my sweating brow.

“Let’s have it, Darlene,” I said. “You and Jorgenson have been playing games, isn’t that right? You grabbed the bundle of bills in Repp’s room after I went out of there. Jorgenson saw you and you worked a deal. Then you hid the loot in your rhumba shack, in the locker, under your stuff. You figured a poke like that was worth the gamble. Twenty-five grand, wasn’t it? Or thirty? You and Jorgenson must have split a gut when you found the dough missing. Jorgenson probably accused you of the theft.”

“You’re out of your mind,” she said nastily.

“I haven’t got time for stalling, Darlene.”

“You’re talking through your nose. You can’t prove a thing.”

“Maybe I can. Maybe I’ve got that bundle of loot.”

“You’d have to show it, darling.”

“Would I?” I asked, pulling her closer to me so that her face almost touched mine, yanking her into position so that the side of her body rubbed my arm. “I’ve got that money, Darlene. The party with Jorgenson is all over. Either you spill for me or I’m going to take you down to the county seat personally, and have you booked for murder—in duplicate.”

“Murder?” Her voice dropped an octave. “You don’t think that I had anything to do with Repp?”

“I don’t think anything. Period. But you can be softened up for a rap, Darlene. And I’m the boy to do it. Because you’re holding me up with your double talk. You’re trying to jerk me around when I’m almost home. Either you talk fast, or we take a ride together, over the hills and down to the jug.”

“Murder?” she asked herself again. Her voice lost all its recent challenge and sagged into a new pattern of hopelessness. Something had snapped inside her and she seemed suddenly alert to her own involvement with Jorgenson, and what it might mean to her. Her body loosened under my fingers and she slipped back into a softer pose. She was beaten and she knew it. “No, not me, Steve. You’ve got to believe me.”

“Whose idea was the Repp thievery?”

“Jorgenson’s. He saw me up there, out in the hall, just after you left Repp’s room. I was down in the ladies’ johnny, at the end of the hall after I left you with him. When I came out, I saw you leaving. I had heard the shot and I was curious, so I hung around, looking in. I was too scared to move, once I saw the body. Then Jorgenson came running up. He saw me and took me inside. He found the money and we made the deal. That was all, Steve. That was the whole business. I hid the money in my locker. Jorgenson promised to cover for me. The way he explained it, we couldn’t get caught. Who could prove that Repp was loaded with money?”

She had herself in control now and was giving it to me straight and clean, out of the deep and disturbing thrust of her inner discomfort. She leaned into me and sold me the yarn, talking fast and talking soft. She continued her salesmanship for quite a while, explaining her great need for money, her efforts to start a school of the rhumba in Flatbush, her great yen for personal fame and fortune.

“It was Jorgenson conned me into it,” she went on. “He threatened to jerk me into the case if I didn’t cooperate. Do you believe me? You’ve got to, Steve. I was forced into the deal with Jorgenson, the louse. But murder? Not little Darlene.”

“You didn’t know Repp?”

“I never saw him before he came up here.”

“You taught him the rhumba?”

“I was beginning to teach him when you walked in.”

“How was he doing?” I asked.

“Doing?” Darlene shrugged away the memory, shivering under the impact of the pressures it built in her. “He was a filthy little character, Steve. He was rich and ripe for a contract, that was all. I thought I’d sell him the routine.”

“What gave you the idea?”

“He was pointed out to me. They’re always pointed out to me.”

“Through the office?”

“Sometimes Paul Forstenburg, sometimes some other member of the staff.”

“And who told you about Repp?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Squeeze,” I said. “It may be important to me.”

She made an effort. “It might have been Manny.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I guess it was Manny.”

“He knew Repp?”

“He knew his reputation in New York,” Darlene said quietly. “Manny’s a good guy, Steve. He always tries to help me. You know how I feel about him?”

“We’ve been through it before,” I said, and released her. She didn’t move when I got off the damp and sticky grass. She said nothing at all. The little handkerchief was flicking across her face, wiping away the added moisture my talk had inspired. She shook her head sadly and held her hands up to me and I lifted her to her feet. Without her shoes on, she was geared to my size, suddenly and deceptively in the right proportion for me. She might have guessed what was bubbling in my mind, because she stood close to me and continued to hold my hand, rubbing my wrist and letting her fingers speak for her.

“I’ve got the mixings in my room,” she suggested. “And I can get some ice, Steve. How about a drink with me? A nightcap?”

“I’ll take a raincheck, Darlene. Too much to do.”

“In this heat? It’s almost midnight.”

“I’ve got to see a man,” I said. “Character named Jorgenson. Any idea where I can find him?”

“Why don’t you forget him, Steve?”

“I can’t. I’ve got to tell him who murdered Repp and Grace Lasker.”

She stiffened again as she pulled away from me, but only for a tick of time, only for a heartbeat, a sigh, a breath. Then she was back, easing herself close to me.

“You really know, Steve?”

“The person who killed Repp murdered Grace Lasker.”

She reacted again, but this time I didn’t pause to watch her emotional heave-ho. I turned on my heel and walked away from her, taking the easy way up the hill, around the base of the little hillock and toward The Branton. But I watched her as I rounded the turn and faded into the sweaty night. She paused only long enough to put on her shoes. Then she ran haltingly up the hill. She continued her graceless climb until she reached the summit of the hill and after that she moved with more measured strides. She was walking fast, almost running, a silhouette aimed at the main entrance, threading her way through the clots of people who had just emerged from Buddy Binns’ performance. They were still laughing and sparking from the after effects of his comedy. They were pausing in groups to retell some of his gags, and in these small congestions, through the crawling knots of humanity, Darlene struggled toward The Montord. I skirted the garden and came up behind the row of hedges adjoining the bar. She avoided the lobby and wheeled to the right, running down the pathway toward the bar terrace.

Here she paused, deliberating her next move. I was angled in a position to see the doorway to the bar itself. The place was crowding up with activity, the usual mob of alcoholic revelers who hang near the hot bottles after a performance. I could see them all clearly, and among the heated group a few familiar faces. Buddy Binns sat on a stool, shaking hands in his bored way with a fair sprinkling of enthusiastic fans. Margo Lewis stood near him, her theatrical smile spread wide for the surrounding public. In the milling throng I saw Lili and Paul Forstenburg and Archy Funk. And in the middle distance, Don Trask, already well on the way into an alcoholic stupor, weaving and gesticulating at Darlene. But she paid him no mind.

She did not move until Manny Erlich appeared in the doorway.

Then Darlene rushed across the terrace and almost fell into his arms.