I wanted to see Jack Delmar, but Ballantine told me that the district attorney had ordered that only Jack’s lawyer would be able to talk to him until further notice. I figured I’d hang around, anyway, but after a few hours of dodging newspaper reporters I got into my car and drove back to the city. I knew there was a good chance of reporters being in the lobby of my office building, so I used the fire stairs.
There was a lot of mail on the floor near the letter-drop. I went through it. Nothing required answering, at least not right away. The phone jangled. It was my answering service. A woman named Daisy Ransom had been trying to get in touch with me. Reporters, of course, had called. I took down the woman’s number, dialed it.
“This is Daisy Ransom speaking,” said the voice at the other end.
“Larry Kent here. I understand you’ve been trying to reach me.”
“Since ten o’clock this morning, Mr. Kent—ever since I learned that poor Eve was ... poor Eve ...”
Oh-oh, I thought, a crying drunk. But she didn’t reach the tearful stage. “I want to see you right away,” she said.
“What about?”
“About Eve, of course.”
“What’s your address?”
She gave me a West Side address.
“I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes,” I said.
“Bring some money,” she said.
“Oh?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
“What have you got to sell, Miss Ransom?”
“Plenty.”
“Information?”
“Words on paper.” She laughed. “Paper for paper.”
“All right, I’ll bring some money.”
“Not just some money, Mr. Kent. Five hundred dollars. That’s my price. Oh, and pick up a bottle of gin on your way, hm? Good gin. I’m just about out.”
“Beefeater all right?”
“That’ll be fine. ’Bye.”
I cradled the phone, went to the safe, opened it. The first thing I took out was my gun, then the money. My other gun was in my apartment. I didn’t take it with me to New Jersey because my license is good only for New York.
The address Daisy Ransom gave me was in Slum Alley. There was a liquor store on the corner. I parked the Corvette, bought a bottle of London Beefeater gin, walked down the street. I came to Daisy Ransom’s building, climbed three flights of stairs. My nose told me that someone was making tortillas, another was frying fish. There were other odors, too, and the usual screamings and cryings and laughings. Daisy’s apartment number was fourteen. I walked past apartment thirteen. This was interesting. Thirteen. You will not find an apartment thirteen in any of New York City’s luxury buildings. There will be an apartment twelve A, then twelve B, then fourteen. You won’t ever find a thirteenth floor either. But I guess that when you’re poor you can’t afford to be superstitious.
I rapped on the door, heard the patter of feet, then the door opened the length of a night-chain. A large brown eye peered out at me.
“I’m Larry Kent,” I said, then lifted the bottle of gin from the bag, and let her see it.
“Just a sec,” she said.
The door closed, the night-chain was pulled free, the door opened. I stepped into the apartment. The bottle of gin was snatched from my hand.
“Thanks,” Daisy Ransom said. I watched her tear off the seal and screw off the cap with a shaking hand. Then she put the bottle to her lips and took a big swallow. “Just couldn’t wait,” she said, coughing. “Good stuff, that. How about a drink?”
“No, thanks,” I said. “Gin isn’t my speed.”
She walked to the table, poured three fingers of gin into a glass, added ginger ale from a bottle. Gin and ginger ale. I shuddered.
“Make yourself comfy,” she said.
I sat on a rickety chair. She took a long sip at her drink, sighed appreciatively. She had brown hair that was tied under a gay bandana. Her face was thin. She had high cheekbones and her brown eyes were set wide apart and at a slight angle, suggesting that somewhere in her family tree there was Chinese blood. She had a long, graceful neck. Her nose was a thin line to her nostrils, which flared out. A makeup expert could do a lot of things with her face; when he was finished she might be beautiful.
But she needed no help with her figure. She had a high bosom, a very slim waist, flaring hips that gradually tapered into firm thighs and slim legs, a nice turn of ankle. All this was encased in a silk dressing gown that had seen a lot of wear. It was a wrap-around gown, belted loosely at the waist. The gown was not quite opaque. Where the silk touched her body, I could see the satiny sheen of her skin.
“I’m sorry you won’t have a drink,” she said. “Are you a whisky man?”
“Scotch and bourbon. Rye in a pinch.”
“You should have picked up a bottle of that, too.”
“I came here on business. Miss Ransom.”
“Miss Ransom!” She laughed. “Boy, I must be slipping. Hey, it’s awful dark in here, isn’t it? Well, I’ll fix that.”
She walked to the window, pulled at the shade, let it go all the way up. “There,” she said. “Much better, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said.
She took a few steps, keeping herself in line with the window. Now the silk gown was transparent. She turned and I had a profile view of her silhouette. She threw back her head and drained her glass. Her breasts reached up, straining at the silk. Then she looked at me and smiled.
“A woman has been murdered,” I reminded her.
She looked down. Her lower lip trembled. “Poor Eve,” she murmured. She took a deep breath. “I used to see a lot of her in the bars on Forty-Seventh Street.”
The B-girl bars, I thought.
“She told me about you,” Daisy said. “That was before she got married. She had a thing going for you, Larry; I guess you know that. Thought you were a real man.”
“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.
“Only a few weeks ago. She came here to see me. She was cold sober. Maybe that was why she was scared. When Eve had some drinks in her, which was most of the time, she wasn’t afraid of anything. But this time she was a nervous wreck. We killed a whole bottle together before she stopped shaking.”
“What was she afraid of?”
Daisy walked to the table, her hips swinging provocatively. “That, Larry dear, is what the five hundred dollars is all about.” She poured gin into her glass. “Did you bring the money with you?”
“Yes.”
She half-sat, half-leaned against the table. The movement loosened the belt. The wrap-around silk began to slide. The inside of her thigh was a creamy flash of skin. She said, “Eve gave me a letter. She said I was to pass it on to you if something happened to her. She said you’d be willing to pay five hundred for it if she was murdered.”
I didn’t believe the last part. Daisy was simply promoting herself a gin fund. But I wasn’t concerned about that. If Eve’s letter pointed in the direction of her killer, five hundred was a bargain price.
“Eve told me you could be trusted,” Daisy said. “I think so, too. But maybe it’s a good idea if we keep things on a businesslike basis ... for the time being, anyhow.”
“You want to see the money first,” I said.
“That would be a good start, Larry.”
The money was in my breast pocket. I took it out, got to my feet, walked to her. She pushed herself erect. The silk slid some more, moved a few inches beyond her cleavage. I saw deep ivory, the suggestion of pink ... Her eyes were on the money, hot and greedy. She reached for it. I let her take the money from me.
“I won’t even count it,” she said, her voice quivering. “I’m sure it’s all there.”
I said, “I expect to get something worth five hundred.”
“With maybe a bonus thrown in,” she smiled.
“I’d like to see what I’m buying,” I said.
“You will.” She moved her hand and the belt fell completely away.
“Not that,” I said.
She laughed, throatily. “Who said anything about selling?”
“You mentioned a letter.”
“I’ll get it.”
She walked to the wall, the silk wrap-around billowing behind her. She knelt on her left knee. I saw all of her right leg, to the hip. She lifted the linoleum, reached under, brought out a long, smudged white envelope. She arose, came to me. Now the silk robe was more like a train than a covering. The only thing she wore under the silk was a narrow black V and a tiny bra. I took the envelope from her, held it to the light.
“You steamed it open,” I said.
“Well, I wouldn’t know it was worth five hundred if I didn’t look at it,” she smiled.
I opened the envelope, took out a small square of folded paper. I unfolded the paper, saw two lines of handwriting and a signature: Eve Delmar.
The two lines were:
Earl Salem’s name in Virginia was John
Bray.
In Virginia, John Bray is wanted for murder.
Daisy said, “Well? Is it worth five hundred? I think it could be worth a lot more than that, Larry.”
“We made a deal.” I said. “Five hundred is all you get.”
She looked as though I had hurt her feelings. “Oh, please don’t get me wrong, honey. I’m not trying to shake you down. I was thinking about Earl Salem. That place he runs takes in a lot of money. He must be worth plenty. Maybe he didn’t kill Eve. There were other men in her life.”
“What if he didn’t kill her?”
“Then we’ve got no real reason for turning him in. And if we don’t turn him in ... well, that letter could be worth a small fortune.”
I shook the piece of paper in her face. “Do you know what this could be worth, Daisy? A bullet in the back, or a knife across the throat, or a massage under the wheels of a car.”
Her face paled. “It doesn’t have to be like that. A smart fellow like you could sell the letter without letting him know who you are.”
“That’s blackmail,”
She shrugged. “That’s just a word. In this world, you take what you can get.”
“If you feel like this, Daisy, why didn’t you sell the letter to Salem?”
“I promised Eve I’d give the letter to you if something happened to her. But I didn’t make any other promises. Listen to me. If Earl Salem killed Eve, then I want him to get what’s coming to him. Eve was my friend. I’m loyal to my friends. But that murder in Virginia doesn’t mean a thing to me. What about her husband? I heard on the radio that he’s being held for the murder.”
“Jack didn’t kill her,” I said.
“Can you prove he didn’t?”
“This letter may help prove it.”
“All that letter says is that Earl Salem’s real name is John Bray, and that he killed somebody in the state of Virginia. What motive did Salem have?”
“That’s what I’ll be working on.”
“What if you learn that Salem didn’t kill Eve? What then?”
“I’ll think about that when I come to it.”
“Just do me a favor,” she said. “If you find out that Salem didn’t kill Eve, let me know, eh?”
“Why?”
“Well, Eve was my friend. I think I have a right to know, don’t you?”
“Let me give you some advice, Daisy. Leave Earl Salem alone.”
She poured another drink. “You can stop worrying about that, honey. I’d be too scared to try to work it on my own. I’d be afraid of making a mistake somewhere along the line. I like money, sure, but money’s not worth a damn to you when they put you in the box.”
“You just remember that.”
“I will, don’t worry. I like living too much.” She peered at me over the rim of the glass. “There’s a lot of fun ahead of me yet, and I don’t want to miss any of it. For instance ...”
She placed the glass on the table, moved the silk away from her body with an outward movement of her hands, walked to me, slowly, hips swaying. When she came to a stop against me, there was no silk between us.
“If you have any feelings,” she whispered, “you hide them well. In fact, you’re doing a very good imitation of a cigar-store Indian right now. Well, let’s see what we can do to fix that ...”
She grasped my wrist, guided my hand. I thought about Eve, remembered my feeling of guilt as I left her suite. But then Daisy’s free hand slid around the back of my neck, pulled me down to her lips, which were parted, waiting, hungry.
And that, as they say, was that.