2

 

 

I just couldn’t believe it had happened. One minute we were sitting there, talking and then … Then Lola was lying across the table, lying there quietly while something inside me was clamouring frantically to make me believe it was all a dream.

I reached out and touched Lola’s hand. It was limp. The feel of her was alien. I gagged and heard a voice I knew was mine screaming her name.

‘Lola, my god, Lola!’

I took her face between my hands and lifted her head so that I could look into her eyes. But her head was strangely heavy and her cheeks cool and white. I gently rested her head on the table again and felt her pulse – or rather, tried to feel her pulse. And when I couldn’t feel it, I went frantic, ripped at her blouse to feel her heartbeat. Instead I found an ugly little red hole in her soft white flesh from which a fine trickle of blood was beginning to run. Another smaller and neater hole in her back showed where the slug had entered.

It happened just like that.

I was dead myself, too. It was as though everything in me stopped working. I couldn’t feel. I couldn’t think. I was just numb from head to heels. I stood and stared and still couldn’t believe that Lola was dead. In some vague way I was conscious of the uproar around me, the shouts of men, the hysterical screams of women, the groans of wounded men, and somewhere outside the shrill screech of police whistles.

And then suddenly I wanted to get out of there. I didn’t reason about it. I couldn’t think straight anyway. I just felt that I wanted to get away before I went mad; get somewhere quiet where I could lie back and forget, stop thinking, stop feeling numb the way I was feeling.

Unsteadily I walked across the room towards the back door. It didn’t seem to matter about leaving Lola there. She wasn’t Lola anymore. She was just some poor dame that got shot up in a stick-up party. She wasn’t Lola anymore. Not the Lola I knew, who could laugh and dance and hold my hand meaningfully. Behind me, sprawled across the table, was all that was left of Lola. But it wasn’t the part of Lola that counted.

A man jostled against me. I pushed him to one side without giving him a second glance. A chair tipped over and fell in front of me and I kicked it to one side. Somebody got hold of my arm and shouted at me. I didn’t seem to notice what he was saying and tried to brush him off. But he clung to my arm and shouted and wouldn’t let go. It seemed all so senseless and unnecessary. I planted my fist in the middle of his pan and he slipped away out of my sight. Even then he bunched himself around my legs and tried to hold me. I just didn’t feel anything or care. I kicked out and my foot clumped against something soft and yielding.

That’s just how it was. Like a real dream. And all the time I was just wanting to get out of that place and knowing that there was a back entrance.

The door marked ‘Staff Only’ seemed to appear before my eyes. I don’t know whether I pushed it open or punched it open. And there, right the other side, was the Blonde who had been sitting up at the bar. Only she was a very frightened dame now. There was a wild look in her eyes and she was frantic. I’ve never seen a dame who looked so scared.

She rushed at me and grabbed me by the arm. It was just like it had been outside. People grabbing at me and shouting. I brushed her off. She grabbed me again and held tight. I placed my palm under her chin and levered, and not too gently at that. She went flying back and hit the ground with a bump, just a flying tangle of filmy underclothes and silk stockings.

I walked on, kinda mechanically I guess, and then a small but firm hand caught my shoulder and somehow managed to twist me around. That same hand slapped me hard across the face. And before I could think, I got three more hard slaps that brought me into focus.

I stood there limply looking at her. My face smarted so that I could still feel each and every finger of her hand. But that slap had been like a douche of cold water.

She was panting a little and her hair was all over her head. There was still that stark panic in her eyes.

‘Look, mister,’ she said. ‘ I’m sorry I had to do that, but I gotta get out of here.’

I was beginning to live again. The smart of my face was real, the things around me were real and the Blonde was real. I was even able to think again.

‘What’s holding you back?’ I said.

‘You know this joint. Gemme out, willya?’

‘Back door.’ I jerked my head in that direction.

‘That’s no good,’ she said. ‘There’s 20,000 rubbernecks outside.’

That made me think quickly.

‘Think of something, willya,’ she mouthed at me. ‘And don’t go crazy on me again, unless you want another slap.’

But I wasn’t going crazy again. That slap had brought me back to my senses. I was remembering things. And I wasn’t just remembering Lola sprawled over the table. I was remembering this Blonde’s face when those three gorillas came in. I remembered how she’d screamed and how she’d recognised them before any shooting started. And I knew right then that if there was any way to find the men who’d done for Lola, it was through this Blonde.

‘Okay, sister,’ I said, ‘follow me.’

I ran along the passage towards the back staircase. Her heels clip-clopped along behind me, and I found time to wonder that she could keep pace with me in those high-heeled shoes.

I ran up the stairs two at a time. At the end of the first flight she was still right behind me.

‘Is this a gag?’ she yelled. ‘ I wanna get out, not up.’

I didn’t answer and she followed me like I knew she would.

On the third floor I walked rapidly along the corridor to the end where the Gents’ toilet was. I opened the door and she kinda teetered on the threshold.

‘Get in, willya,’ I said and gave her a shove. There was probably all kinds of ideas chasing around in her head, but she relaxed when I levered back the catch and opened the window.

I looked out and she pushed alongside me. I could smell the scent of her hair and she was using some delicate and expensive perfume. For the first time since she’d got me by the arm downstairs I realised that she was a dame and an attractive dame at that ...

‘See that parapet there?’ I pointed down to a sloping roof about 12 feet beneath us. It was fringed by a wide, three feet parapet that ran along the rooftops for a good few blocks .

‘I can’t make it,’ she said, and there was a tremble in her voice.

‘Listen, lady, if you can’t make it, here’s where you and me part company.’ I swung one leg over the sill and she grabbed me by the arm.

‘You’ll have to help me,’ she said.

‘All you do, Blondie, is hang by your arms and drop. Only you’ve got to drop careful, because if you miss your footing you’ll likely roll over the edge.’

She shuddered. ‘I can’t do it,’ she moaned. She was trembling all over.

I looked around me. The cistern chain was long and strong. I unhooked it from its arm. It wasn’t long enough by half. But Blondie had an answer for that. For the second time in less than five minutes her skirts were way up above her knees. She was fumbling among a creamy froth of underclothes, loosening suspenders and peeling off skin-tight nylons.

I drew a deep breath.

‘Lady, you can book me for a front seat every night you care to repeat that performance.’

‘Hold that,’ she said, thrusting one of the stockings in my hand, while she knotted the other to it. I could still feel her warmth ensnared in the fine threads. I liked the feel of it.

She gave a tug to test the strength of our improvised rope. It held good and strong.

‘Now your belt,’ she snapped.

It was funny how she’d changed and become all efficient. I watched her fingers deftly securing the stockings to the buckle of my belt. She gave another tug to test its strength.

‘That’ll do.’

She stuck her head out of the window and looked down, and all at once she swayed. I saw her knuckles clenched tightly on the sill.

‘There’s nothing to it,’ I said.

She shuddered again. ‘I can’t do it,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t stand heights.’

It was my turn to slap her face. I didn’t hold anything in reserve, and her head snapped back with a click. While she was still trying to think that over, I wound one end of the stockings around her wrist and tied it tightly.

There wasn’t much time to lose. Somewhere downstairs I could hear the clamour of voices and the tramping of boots. Somehow I bundled her over the sill, and then all at once she was dangling by one arm. I lowered away.

I hated to think what that stocking was doing to her wrist. Every nerve in her arm must have been shrieking in agony. When she was halfway down, she was so quiet I realised she must have passed out. No dame could have stood that much pain without squawking. That made it more difficult, because I still had to get down myself and I daren’t release my end of the rope, because she’d roll.

And sure enough she did roll. I held tight to my end, and there she was lying half across the gutter with only the nylon around her wrist saving her from a 60-foot dive onto asphalt.

Fortunately it was one of those windows with sashes. I jammed the lower sash down hard and it held my end of the chain firmer than I could have held it myself. Then I pulled the upper sash right down as far as it would go. Then I climbed over the top of both sashes and lowered myself over the sill. For a few sickly seconds I hung by my fingertips before I breathed a prayer and let go. The next moment my feet hit the roof beneath and I was skidding and sliding, clawing frantically at the slates with my fingernails.

My foot lodging in the gutter saved me. I lay spreadeagled for some moments, getting back my wind and my confidence, and then I crawled along to Blondie. She was still out cold, which wasn’t very helpful but may have been the best way for her to be at the moment. I eased her back from over the gutter, wedged her so she shouldn’t start sliding and untied the stocking from the end of my belt. I still left one end of the stocking tied around her wrist, because we weren’t through yet.

It may sound easy to talk about crawling over a sloping roof, but anyone that’s tried knows how tricky it is. I know I found it difficult – and I wasn’t chancing anything. I crawled along as far as the length of stocking allowed, lay flat on my belly, dug in hard with toes and elbows and then pulled Blondie after me. By the time I got to the parapet she was just coming around.

She moaned a bit.

‘Take it easy, honey,’ I said.

Her eyes flickered open and she looked like she’d never seen me before. Then her eyes flicked down to her wrist.

She didn’t even whimper as I untied the stocking. It was difficult to get undone, because it was all mixed up with bits of loose skin and blood.

‘That doesn’t look pretty,’ she said, and I saw her small white teeth biting into her lip.

‘Maybe not,’ I said, ‘but it looks a lot healthier than a big red smear on a white asphalt pavement.’

I gave her a few minutes’ rest and then stood up. She got up, too, pretty shaky.

I led the way, and I knew where I was going. During prohibition, when the Florida had been a speakeasy, I’d used this exit a good many times.

The parapet finished at the end of the block. A fire-escape ran down the outside of the building to a narrow courtyard. Five minutes later we were on firm ground again.