The long black Dashiell Falcon carrying Damia Nyx pulled up outside the Cain Building right on the dot of eight forty-five. I could just make out the driver as a silhouette behind the wheel, sharp nose under a flat-billed chauffer’s cap. Something vaguely familiar about that profile, but I couldn’t place it.
The back door swung open and a familiar, delicate hand waved me toward the car.
I knew even as I climbed into that wide backseat that something here didn’t add up, that I might well be delivering myself up to the shadowy Mr. Menace like an early Christmas gift, but I yanked the door closed behind me anyway. I’d waited at the office all evening without a trace of my client, all my new information at the tip of my tongue and her nowhere around to tell it to. Risky a move as this was, it still figured to be my best shot at finding her. And, despite that nagging itch in the scar over my eye, I was keen to see exactly where Damia Nyx took me. I might finally get a look behind that door with the red circle. The big question was what it might cost me.
The driver pulled away from the curb without a word from Miss Nyx.
I couldn’t help looking her up and down more than once. She’d changed into another dress every bit as short as the earlier one, red with black fringe and a shiny black cord that pulled the bodice tight, the plunging neckline showing off her terrific figure. Gorgeous, but as out of date as her bob. She lit a cigarette on a long black holder and took a deep draw. A boxy little hat perched on that platinum blond coiffure. I figured she had to be the same age as my client, but with the bright twinkle in her eyes and that smile curled up on her dimple-framed ruby lips, Damia Nyx looked like the same debutante I’d seen in that old picture from the Trib. Even so—or maybe because of it—she seemed just right to fill up a man’s arms and work a man’s lips with hers and whisper breathless nonsense in his ear as his hands took her in. I couldn’t help thinking her flesh must be smooth as silk and twice as soft under that dress. I didn’t like the thought, but I couldn’t chase it away any more than a man standing on a high balcony can chase off the thought of what it would be like to jump.
“Mind if I ask where we’re going?” I said, trying to distract myself.
She tipped me a long-lashed wink. “You’ll see. It’s just a little place Evvie and I discovered a while back.”
“Hope it’s nothing too fancy,” I said, pointing a thumb at my ravaged mug. “I left my formal bandages back at home.”
“Oh, there’ll be plenty of people there odder looking than you,” Damia said, giggling smoke. “And anyway, they always keep the lights good and low.” She gave me a vulpine smile and giggled again, but whatever the joke was I didn’t get it. At least, not then.
Instead I nodded, trying not to stare at her. I’d worked my share of cases involving good-looking women—they’re usually the first ones men suspect of cheating, though in my experience they don’t play around anymore than their garden-variety sisters. And sure, a few of those lookers came on to me, either to get me to forget what I’d caught them at or because it was their nature to go after anyone with some stubble on his chin. But I’d never been much tempted by any of them—that kind of thing’s bad for business, and any half-decent detective quickly develops the strength to brush that stuff off before it clings. I did my job and if they were beautiful or homely, bright or dim, guilty or innocent, it was all the same to me. They were the elements of my profession, that was all.
So why couldn’t I keep my eyes off this bleached-blonde? Hell, why was I here at all? Why was I even still on this lousy case? I was letting something pretty low get the better of me, and even knowing that, and knowing it couldn’t lead anywhere good, I had a hard time caring, much less pulling back.
I tore my gaze off those slender legs and that splendid décolletage and gazed out the window as the city rolled past. Faceless people huddled under batwing umbrellas, drifting the sidewalks, looking as lost as souls in perdition. Even with my back to her I could feel Damia Nyx’s brilliant blue eyes on me. I wanted to turn and drink her in all over again, let my hands go wherever they chose. I knew dear sweet Damia wouldn’t object a bit. Raw sensuality hung around her in a sly but intoxicating perfume.
I watched my breath fog the window.
“You simply must tell me,” she said from behind me, “who on earth hired you to go looking for Evvie? Whoever thought she was missing? It’s all so very bizarre!” She said the last part with all the great relish of a practiced gossip.
“I can’t say, of course,” I told her, still gazing into darkness.
“No, I of course you can’t,” she said, sounding only a little disappointed. “I suppose it’s always that way in your line of work.”
“Mmm,” I agreed. Then we were quiet a minute or two. Finally the feeling of her behind me—so damn close—won out, and I leaned back to look at her.
It was like gazing at an angel, a creature of unearthly beauty. Or perhaps staring into the eyes of the deep’s most seductive temptress. I could even almost forget about Evelyn Night, looking at that face.
Almost.
“How long have you and Miss Night been friends?”
I forced the question out of my mouth and felt it break the spell … or at least dim it down some.
“Oh it seems like forever!” Damia Nyx said with a flourish of her cigarette. “I can hardly remember a time when I didn’t know Evvie!”
I nodded, wondering which Evelyn Night she knew—the somber, haunted woman who’d visited my office, or the stranger who kept company with the likes of Radamanthus and Junior Dapper. Or was her Evvie some other woman entirely?
“You know any of Maurice Guilio’s cohorts?”
“Oh, a few,” Damia Nyx said, taking a drag and tapping ashes into a chrome tray in front of her. “He had us along to … well, a few of the places where they liked to gather. I think he liked to show off his connections, as if Evvie or I had any idea who his pals were!”
“It didn’t worry you, rubbing elbows with gangsters?”
“Why would it? What would fellas like that do to a couple of harmless girls like us?”
It was maybe a better question than Miss Nyx knew.
“I can think of a few things,” I answered, raising an eyebrow.
Damia Nyx waved a hand at me, dismissing my little provocation. “We were just out for a good time,” she said, as if that justified everything. I supposed for her it did.
My eyes had started wandering again, all on their own, taking full measure of that body, those lips … I turned away and gazed out into the rain just in time to see the huge gray spiderweb cables of the West River Narrows Bridge flashing past us. No surprise there. I hadn’t seen Miss Damia Nyx in that kinky harem that had fluttered around Radamanthus, but she looked the part. It was the same thought I’d shut out earlier, but now I couldn’t ignore it so easily. I was starting to wish I’d strapped my little derringer to my calf as well as packing the .38. Still, if this was some kind of trap, I couldn’t figure why they hadn’t sprung it right here in the car. Maybe Miss Nyx cared too much about her upholstery.
In any case, crossing that bridge made her claim that she was meeting Evelyn Night a bit easier to buy. I felt pretty sure this was the part of town where my client had been spending all her lost evenings. I settled back in the Falcon’s plush seat, feeling the cold press of my piece at my side. I wondered who else might be meeting us tonight, and whether or not I’d end up pulling the trigger. Maybe I’d get a chance to spit some lead in the face of whoever had tried to break mine, although I didn’t relish the thought of bloodshed. This whole thing still had the stink of a set-up. And here I was, intentionally sticking my neck in the snare.
I tried to get a better look at our chauffeur, but in the dark he’d turned into a shadow. I shook my head at myself, kept my mouth shut for now. I even resisted the urge to scratch that tiresome scar.
The car plunged into the labyrinthine streets on the far side of the bridge, made a left and another left, wending its way deep into the brick maze, past empty bars and locked-down shops and lonely tenements.
“So what’s a nice girl like you do in a place like this?” I asked. I couldn’t resist.
The smile Damia Nyx gave me, chin down, eyebrows up, touched me like cool fingers tickling an especially sensitive spot.
“You’ll see.”
I bet, I thought, but I was keen to get to it. Right then I think I would’ve done anything Damia Nyx asked without a thought. That smile wasn’t the kind a man could turn down, be he a priest or a president or a dollar-a-day gumshoe.
The car slipped up to a curb and Damia said, “Here we are!” and hopped out.
I got out after her.
The driver—I never had gotten a decent gander at his face, not even in the rearview mirror—pulled away. Then for a moment I stood all alone with that tantalizing woman on a dark street surrounded by dark buildings under a sky made of lead, and the safety of bright lights and other people felt a thousand miles away.
“Well, come on,” Damia said gaily, not waiting for me.
Naturally, I went.