Ed Lacy - Blonde Bait

     “Didn't you ever ask?”

     “Yes, One day, after we were married, I did ask. In his busted English he told me, 'Grosser blondine, I have done too much work in life already. I am retired from this crazy world.' Of course I asked what he used to do, what he had retired from? He knocked me down with an open hand slap. I flip when a man roughs me up. I went at him with a pair of scissors that happened to be on the table. The next thing I knew he'd dropped me hard on the floor and was holding the scissors. He was kneeling beside me, smiling kind of odd—like that time in the bar; he put the scissors near my throat. I was too scared to say a word. He said, 'You are brave, liebling, not a cry. I am an expert at slicing. Never make me angry again. I am not a beast unless I am pressed. As we all are.' I never asked again and that was the last and only time he hit me; I got that message to him. The weird part is, he was talking pretty good English then.”

     Rose stood to light a new cigarette. I watched her move in the faint light. “Why did you stay with him?”

     “I knew exactly what I was to Josef, merely a gal to have around. But what would I leave him for? For men to make big-eyes at my body in some filthy night club? Was that any different? And if Josef acted loony at times, living with him was easier than scratching for a job. He was a good thing.” She turned toward me. “Does it shock you to hear me say that?”

     “No.” I wondered if, in a sense, she was merely something very beautiful to have around for me too. But how many jokers ever have anything beautiful around?

     “Yes it does, Mickey, I see it on your face. I'm glad, I want it to shock you because that life is over for me. I have plenty of good years left for you.”

     “Okay, it does shock me,” I said, because she wanted to hear it. “Now tell me about Josef.”

     Rose sat on the foot of the bed, her figure in silhouette against the light of the doorway, slowly smoking the cigarette. “There isn't much to tell, I never was able to know him. He carried a gun at times, yet he wasn't any racketeer or punk. He was tough and had been through a lot... had scars all over his body of nasty looking wounds. On one shoulder there was a tattoo of a tiny blue and yellow bird. It was pretty. He told me it had been done in Indochina. Josef had an odd build. His legs and hips were nothing but he had a powerful chest and shoulders, arms bigger than yours. We slept in twin beds because he'd often get nightmares. In a whisper he would scream and curse, moan, punch the air, and wake up in a sweat. When he awoke he might start laughing, check the door lock, and maybe take a pill. I used to listen but most of what he said was in some foreign language. One name he'd repeat often was 'Sour the German.' Willie Sour. It was the only time he ever used a first name and I remember it because I kept thinking of sauerkraut. And there was a girl's name, probably some Oriental chippy. He used to say her name with a sigh, so she must have been a hot number. He'd say, 'Me-Lucy-Ah.' But I never asked him about these people. I didn't want to know.”

     Rose crushed the cigarette in the chair ashtray, stretched out on the bed next to me. For a few minutes she didn't speak and I thought she had dozed off. Then she said, “I want to be fair. Josef didn't give me a hard time. Mostly he left me alone. I'd cook for him and sleep with him, and that was it. The rest of the time he'd be reading his papers, often chuckling. He might talk aloud, but rarely in English. Once he roared with laughter at something in the papers and said, 'So they got Listro, that swine. The Devil will have a tough soul to roast now.' But as I said, mostly he'd read or fool around with his hunks of wood. In the evening if I wanted to go to a movie, he'd take me, but he was always laughing at the wrong places. Sometimes he took me to concerts, longhaired junk. If I wanted money, or seemed bored, he would pull out ten or twenty bucks—more if I asked— and say, 'Grosser blondine, you are restless. Buy yourself something.'

     “Often we would bar-hop, but he never drank anything but wine. I never saw him loaded. Josef didn't have any friends—neither did I—but in bars he would talk to strangers. He liked to argue about music. Once he met a guy who'd been an army officer and they talked all night in French, I guess, about wars, making diagrams on the napkins. When he was in the mood, he was a great cook. Especially in the summer. How he loved the sun! All summer we'd stay on a beach, even camp out for a night there. He couldn't swim and didn't care for fishing, but he loved the sun. Didn't seem to have nightmares in the summer either. That's when he cooked, knocking out fancy pastries like a chef.

     “The January before I—saw you—we moved to New York. For no reason I knew of. I suppose he liked to be on the go and always in a big city where he could buy all those foreign papers. We rented a furnished apartment— Josef never spent money for clothes or decent rooms. In New York he started muttering to himself a great deal. Once he looked up from a paper and mumbled, 'Ah, mila, the world is very sick. There is no peace. Sakiet makes me sad.' I said, 'Just tell this Sac-it-guy to leave you alone.' Josef gave me a sad look and told me I was sick, too. About this time he started writing every night, studying maps in a cheap atlas he bought. He told me he was writing letters. I thought maybe to his Oriental chippy. He'd scratch away all night, often staring at the wall for a long time, then writing like mad. He didn't give a damn if I was around or not. One afternoon, I ran into a small-time booking agent I knew. He had a singing job for me in a mid-town bar. I took it for something to do.

     “Josef didn't mind. He'd usually come around at about two in the morning, to sip his wine, and take me home when I'd finished. This was strictly a small time joint, no names out front or anything. I didn't have a police work permit for New York, but the owner didn't care. Only me and a kid who played a good organ. Josef even gave me money to buy a couple of dresses, never asked for a dime of what I made. This went on for a few months. He was writing all the time, or going to the library.

     “I guess it was in May—I know it was getting warm— when I came home from shopping one afternoon and there was this little man with a completely bald head and an evil face—part of his nose had been eaten away at one time—having tea with Josef. I gathered this was Willie Sour. I also knew Josef was upset that I'd returned so soon. Sauerkraut looked like the original creep and he gave me the once-over, made some laughing crack. I didn't have to understand the language to know what he was saying. He left a few minutes later. Josef seemed on edge. He was packing his gun again and strapped an ugly knife up his sleeve. I didn't ask what it was about but he told me, 'Liebling, soon I have much money. We travel far. There is nothing to worry over.'

     “When I finished my midnight number I found him waiting in my dressing room—which was a part of the greasy kitchen screened off from the wino cook. Josef seemed gay but when he put his arms around me I felt the sleeve knife. He stayed in the kitchen while I went on, yakking with the cook in Italian, or something. When he took me home that night in a cab—usually he liked to walk—he asked what I was doing the next day. I told him I was going to have my hair done.” Rose paused. “I'm going into details because this is the important part.”

     “Go ahead,” I said, wondering how much of what she was telling me was the truth.

     “Josef asked what time I had to be at the hairdresser's. I told him at one. You see, I think even then he was trying to make sure I'd be out of it. In the morning, he...”

     “Out of what?”

     “I'm coming to it—listen. He was up early the next morning. Everything seemed okay except I noticed he had packed his carving tools. He was very fond of them. He told me to leave the flat by eleven and wait at the beauty parlor for him. No matter how long it took, I was to wait there. I didn't ask any questions. I used an hour window-shopping and having a bite. I was in the hairdresser's by noon and read the magazines. They were done with my hair at about two and I sat around. I was bored. I'd already finished the magazines. At three-thirty I phoned the super. He had an office on the ground floor since he rented flats by the week. When I asked him to see if Josef was home, he wanted to know where I was. I told him, not realizing what a queer question it was. He said to hold the phone while he went up to look. I waited a few minutes and this radio car sirened to a stop in front of the beauty parlor and two cops came in—for me. They rushed me to a police station. Josef had been stabbed to death. I...”

     “They hung it on you?” I'd always figured she was running from a murder rap.

     “No! Why are you always accusing me of something?” “I just thought... it would add that way.” “The police knew exactly when Josef died—at twenty-two minutes after one in the afternoon. The super had seen a man with a deformed nose go up to our flat at a few minutes after noon when he was polishing the door brass. Then at twenty after one, as the super was talking to the mailman, they heard this brawl going on in the flat and two minutes later Josef opened the door and fell down the stairs, practically landed at their feet. He was bleeding like a pig and died as they were bending over him. A cop came a few seconds later, but the guy who did it had left by the fire-escape. Naturally the first thing they checked on was me. I could prove I was in the beauty parlor between twelve-thirty and three-thirty; a half a dozen women saw me...”

     I sat up. “Then you're in the clear! What are you running from?”

     “I told you I hadn't done anything,” Rose said coldly. “But I'm on the run. From the law. The law wants to kill me.”

     “What do you mean the law wants to kill you?” “Exactly what I said. I don't know why, but they've tried to murder me several times. By 'they' I mean the police, Johns with badges.”

     “But you said they checked your alibi, knew you couldn't have done it?”

     “I keep telling you, they're not after me for the killing. I don't know what they want of me. You asked what I'm running from. Let me finish telling you. The cops didn't get rough with me—at first. They not only had my alibi, but they also knew a man had done the knifing; the super hadn't seen this guy leave our flat. The police started asking me about boyfriends, thought jealousy might be the motive. I told them how I'd met Josef, why I'd married him. Everything. All this took a couple of hours. When I thought they were finished with me, there was a good deal of whispered conversations among them, as if something entirely new had turned up. I was left alone in a dusty little room, merely a chair and me. Soon some new detectives came in, younger and better dressed than the police. They said they were from Washington. They...”

     “Washington? Were they FBI?”

     Rose shook her head. “I don't know. They were just from Washington. They didn't ask a single question about the killing, but where we'd lived, who Josef's friends had been, even the restaurants we ate in, and what we did all day. I told them all I could, which was about what I've told you. When I mentioned his writing these letters the past few months they wanted to know what was in the letters and where did he keep them? Did he have much money? I gave it to them straight; that most of the time I had no idea what he was reading, saying, or writing, because it was all in this foreign tongue. I tried to help, told them about hearing Sauerkraut's name, and this Oriental babe Josef yelled in his sleep. But these fellows kept grilling me. I became frightened. I had a headache. I knew they thought I was holding out on them. But I was telling them all I knew —or almost.”

     “What do you mean, almost?” I asked.

     “Well, one thing I didn't tell anybody was about my working. Since I didn't have a permit, why get the bar owner and myself in a jam? The job had nothing to do with Josef's dying and once an entertainer is on the wrong police list—she's had it. These Washington men kept hammering away at me to remember names, places. They simply refused to believe I didn't know a thing. They drove me back to the flat and it was a bloody mess. Everything was ransacked. Then they started searching; going through the torn mattresses, pillows, even tore up the lousy flower wallpaper. The weird bit was, they never told me what they were hunting for. Finally they hauled me downtown—not to a police station but to a regular office, a big office. Without names on the doors. By this time it was night and I was so hungry I was sick. And I was mad. They started questioning me all over again about money, his friends. When I said I was starved they told me to talk and I could eat. Some of the men were tough with me, calling me a dumb blonde, a whore. Others tried to be friendly, letting me have a smoke, saying I was in a jam and to tell them everything I knew. I did, but I didn't know whatever it was they wanted. Again, I told them the addresses we'd lived at in other cities, tried to convince them I didn't have any friends, never saw any of Josef's except that Sauerkraut character.

     “When I said Josef carried his dough in a money belt, never had a bank account that I knew of, they told me he only had a hundred bucks on him when he died. After a time I became plain angry and kept asking if I was under arrest. Then I said I wouldn't say another word, demanded the right to call a lawyer. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes later they suddenly said I could go. Said it like we'd just been passing the time of day. That was the start of it.”

     “The start of what?”

     “Of my being followed, hounded, attempts on my life. When I left their office, which was far downtown, the first thing I did was stop in a bar for a shot and a sandwich. You know how it is with a blonde, she can't go into a bar alone without a dozen jokers thinking it's an invitation to a rumba. I left there and took a cab back to the flat to get my clothes. A guy there flashed a fast identification card at me, or maybe it was a badge, said I couldn't touch a thing. He was a tall, handsome guy, well set-up, but with a thin-mouthed, mean face. Seemed to me I'd seen him for a second in the offices downtown. He told me to stop acting dumb, start getting smart and work with him, that I was in real trouble. I asked what trouble I was in, how could I work with him? He pointed around the ransacked room, asked if it could still be hidden there. When I asked what was hidden, he said to cut the dumb act and yanked out a gun. He was going to shoot me, he told me so: said he'd kill me if I didn't come clean. I was alone in the flat with him and I was scared crazy. I said it was someplace inside the kitchen oven. While he was kneeling and poking around the stove, I busted a chair over his head and ran. It was about eleven at night and I had twenty-seven dollars on me. I took a cab downtown, checked in at a small hotel. Along with the room key I got the usual stares from the slob of a clerk—a flashy blonde without baggage asking for a room for the night. I was dead tired and went right to sleep. But I kept having phone calls all night. I couldn't sleep and was a nervous wreck by morning, so I...”