Ed Lacy - Blonde Bait

     “Who was calling?”

     “I'd answer and the phone would go dead. Finally I took the receiver out of its cradle, but every hour or so there would be a knock at my door and no answer when I asked who was there. I was terrified and didn't know who to turn to. Certainly not the police. Soon as it was light I went out for breakfast and knew I was being followed. Two clucks with dick stamped all over their beefy faces. They didn't even try to be clever about it, openly tailed me. Over coffee I read the morning papers. I expected headlines but there wasn't a word about the killing. Returning to the hotel, the room clerk told me I had to be out by noon, hinted I was whoring.

     “I tried hard to get a few hours sleep, but I was too jittery. I left at noon, still being shadowed by the flat-footed beef. I walked around, half nuts with worry. All these years I'd moved around so much, I didn't have any friends I could turn to. A swarthy little man brushed against me right out on the street, said something I couldn't understand. When I told him to beat it, he slapped me and ran. The two tons following me saw it all, didn't do a damn thing. But a woman being slapped on the street drew a curious crowd and a cop came along. When I told him what had happened, he took me to a police station. A few minutes later one of the Washington guys showed and had a private talk with the desk officer. The officer came back and told me if he ever saw me in the precinct again I'd be sent up for being drunk and disorderly. Then the Washington lad got me aside and asked when I was going to stop being stubborn and cooperate? I wanted to scream I'd told them all I knew, but instead I ran out of the station house. I went into the first lawyer's office I passed, started telling a shifty-looking little man what had happened. He thought I was crazy. While I was talking he had a phone call and then he told me to get out of his office.

     “My nerves were red hot wires. I tried to shake the men following me, but I'm easy to follow, being so big. Crossing a street a car deliberately tried to run me down—came right at me and I had to jump back on the sidewalk. It was a detective car, one of those plain Fords or Chevys they use. The two men in it sure looked like dicks. I kept walking. A big guy roughed me up, walked into me so hard I nearly fell. He didn't say a word, kept walking. I was out of my mind with fear. I went into a cafeteria to eat and couldn't hold my food down. I had to get some sleep. I tried several hotels but by this time I was looking pretty tacky. Also I was running out of money. I'd wasted ten bucks trying to lose my shadows by changing cabs. Then I purchased some fresh under-things, changed in the ladies room of a bar. The owner of the place where I'd been working owed me a week's pay but I didn't know how to reach him without first shaking the beef. A guy pretending to be drunk propositioned me—right on the street. Started following me. Then he got sore and threw a punch at me. I kicked him where it did the most good and ran. There was only one thing left. I knew I had one... uh... weapon they couldn't match.”

     “What was that?” I asked, stupidly.

     “Come on, don't be dumb,” Rose said, her voice hard. “I'd read in a detective story how a crook shook the guys following him by riding in the first car of a subway train. At each station he would step out and look down the length of the train to see if anybody else got off—then he jumped out as the doors closed at an empty station. I was going to try that but I finally got a break. I had a token in my bag and the two clowns tailing me were still coming down the stairs when I made a train closing its doors. As we pulled out of the station I saw them leaping the turnstiles, flashing badges at the token seller. I got off at the next station and hid in the ladies room for a time. The platform was empty when I came out. I....”

     “What's this have to do with your secret weapon?”

     Rose became mad. “You're the one wanted to hear all this, so damn it, listen! I went up to the street, only had to stand on the corner for a few seconds. A young fellow not twenty stopped his car. My luck held, he had his own room way up in the Bronx. I spent two nights and a day with him, managed to rest and catch up on my sleep. He must have thought he was in heaven, I didn't ask him for money or anything. He only left me to bring in food and the papers. There still wasn't a word about Josef. While this kid was in the bathtub I scrammed, used my last dollars to taxi down to the bar where I'd worked. I was shaking as I walked in.

     “The owner acted normal, wanted to know where I'd been, said the least I could have done was phoned. I told him I was sick and had to leave. He paid me the $35 I had coming. Almost as an afterthought, in fact the owner reminded me of it, I went down to the kitchen to pick up my suitcase. I used it to hold cosmetics, a wrapper, stockings, and an old dress. The bag was far too heavy. I opened it and saw all the money. I didn't know what to do.”

     “That was the first you knew of the dough?”

     “Yes. I pulled out a bill and took another cab back to the kid's room, gave him a bull yarn about I'd gone for my things. I had him drive me to Boston the next day. Poor kid, he probably lost his job, taking off all that time—but he had what he wanted. We spent the night in a flea-bag and I gave him the slip, boarded a plane to Miami. I registered at a tourist house, bought clothes and dyed my hair. I kept reading the out-of-town papers carefully. Still not a peep about the killing. I rested up for a week. I had this money—knew this was what the police had been searching for—but I was afraid to go to the cops; they'd think I'd had it all the time because I hadn't said anything about working at the bar. I figured I'd stay put and later try to make it to Mexico. On the ninth day I was in Miami I saw a car waiting for a light—that evil-faced guy with an eaten-away nose at the wheel. I didn't know if he'd seen me or not. I got panicky.

     “I took the bus to Key West and changed my hair color again. I had a plan, a desperate one. I bought a boat and an outboard for $580. I made certain to give the boat yard owner my real name and Josef's address in New York. I told him I wanted to do a lot of fishing. He flirted with me, warned about going out too far. I had him paint ROSE MARIE on the bow and there was a metal plate with the name of his yard in the cockpit. I took the suitcase, some food, extra gas, and asked for fishing tips. I went out to an isolated key, turned the boat over and let it drift away. I figured in a few days the authorities would think I'd drowned and in the meantime I'd be picked up by a yacht or a fishing boat and...”

     “And talk the guy into taking you to Cuba,” I finished for her.

     She nodded. “There it is, the truth you wanted, Mickey.” Her hand played with the muscles of my right arm, a habit of hers. “I never lied to you. I mean when we started, I put things on the table, face up. I thought I'd leave you the first time you became curious, but you never did—until now. Sure, I hardly expected things to turn out as well as this, that I would fall for you. But I'm so very glad they have!”

     Rose kissed me hard and it took a small struggle to get my mind back to my spinning thoughts. Holding her close, I asked, “You think this Josef was an international crook wanted by the cops?”

     “I don't know what he was, but I'm sure the police weren't after him. He never seemed afraid of the law.”

     “At no time did they accuse you of the killing?”

     Rose sat up fast. “How many times do I have to tell you no? Change your record, you're getting me nervous.”

     “Honey, when I first picked you up, or you picked me up, I had to feel you were running from the law and I didn't give a damn. What I'm trying to do now is think the way the police must have thought. And we have to talk about this, so don't be touchy.”

     “Sorry I flew off the handle, Mickey. All the police and Washington wanted was to know where the money and his letters were. I didn't know he'd left it in my dressing room the night before. I told you, I only went there by chance.”

     “The letters must be all that writing you have with the money.”

     “I suppose so. I can't read them or.... How did you know about it?”

     “Come on, Rose, it was a breeze to open that lock on the old Sea Princess.”

     “That was almost a year ago. All this time... you could have taken off with the money any time you wished. You knew I couldn't yell for the cops?”

     “I didn't wish.”

     She let out a kind of shrill laugh and gave me a big kiss. “You're the boy for me, all right! This only proves how much we love each other.” She gave me another quick kiss, slipped out of bed, and said, “Are you hungry? Can I fix anything?”

     “No, but I'll buy a few hours of shut-eye. Tell me one last bit: it seemed the Feds didn't want you to go to a lawyer. They let you go when you mentioned calling one. Since you had nobody to turn to, why didn't you see what a mouthpiece could have done?”

     “I told you one lawyer threw me out.”

     “But there are others?”

     “I was flat, and lawyers mean money, especially if they're expected to fight City Hall. After, when I found the money, I was too scared to stop running. Now you get your sleep. I'm going to take a wash-swim, read some of the papers on the boat.”

     I watched her slip into an old red bathing suit, and put on her sneakers, blow me a kiss, and run out. I lay spread-eagled on the hot bed and tried to think. Was Rose handing me a snow job? It seemed that way. Still, the part about missing me, loving me, that had to be real: she'd said it before I'd asked about her past. The trouble was, her story sounded nutty—but so crazy I couldn't see her making it up. And she didn't have to tell me a word, could have let things stand as they were.

     I went to the John and through the window screen saw Rose sunning herself on the deck of the Sea Princess, reading a newspaper. I moved the bed and raised a cracked floor board. She had the money in a fireproof metal box under the floor. Naturally I knew the combination. I took out the letters. There were about a hundred pages of ruled paper, the writing precise and stingy. Old Josef sure must have a steady hand. I couldn't make out a word—the pages seemed to be a combination of German and some other language. I could show a single page to Ansel, he knew a few languages, see what the letters were all about. But that was risky. I thumbed through the papers and didn't see any diagrams or figures. I had an idea it might be stuff about an invention, a new atom bomb, or something. I wrapped them back in oilskin and put the box away.

     I started a cigar and went back to bed. Weird as the story was, somehow seeing the letters again clinched things. I had to go along with the idea Rose was leveling with me.

     I concentrated on my cigar for a few minutes, waiting for my alleged brains to settle down. I told myself, “You have to read between her lines. Maybe she really went for this Josef and became hysterical, thought the whole world was after her. Or if she didn't care for him, she was hysterical because it meant the end of her meal ticket. But what was Josef's real racket? He had to be doing something beside reading foreign papers all day. All this dough. Suppose he had cased and held up a bank? And how come not a line about Josef's death in the papers? But you never know what the cops want to keep under wraps. Could be Josef and this Sauerkraut did the bank job and the cops were afraid Sauerkraut would hole up if the papers had it?

     “Hell with all this guessing, let's stick to Rose. They didn't have a thing on her or they wouldn't have released her. She's shocked, broke, bewildered... and then she finds the loot Josef stashed in her dressing room. Rose has only one idea—to run. Suppose the cops do get her— if they're even looking for her now. What could they charge her with? The money was her husband's and he's stiff, so it's hers. And if it was stolen loot, Rose had no way of knowing that. They didn't tell her a thing. Worst could happen to us would be she'd have to return the rest of the money. Little chance of even that. All this was over a year ago, longer, and she's Rose Whalen now, a boat bum. And the trick she pulled in the Keys—wasn't so corny as it sounded— after all these months they might think she drowned, close the case. We're safe. That's the big deal—we're safe.”

     I killed my cigar and stood up and flapped the sheets to cool them off. Then I jumped back in the sack and went to sleep.

     I awoke late in the afternoon and felt so good I took a shave. I swam out to the boat, the salt water a bracer on my face. Ansel was sitting with Rose, both of them busy reading the magazines and papers I'd brought. Ansel's pot-belly was hanging over an old worn pair of khaki trunks almost the color of his skin.

     Rose looked great, her big body relaxed, hair blowing slightly with the little breeze. She had this habit of moving her lips as she read. I was swimming out to a great boat—which was mine—and to a babe who was also mine, and probably one of the most beautiful women in the world. What more could I ask of life?

     I went below for a sandwich and cold beer. The trouble was I did want something else. I wanted to know if Rose's story was true. I told myself I had to know because of the way she'd acted on my return, all the tender mush. I'd probably be living with her for the rest of my life. Before I'd figured Rose would run out on me, sooner or later. But if she wanted to make it forever, that was fine, except I had to know the truth. Of course I was aware I was kidding myself. All this was mixed with my yen to see New York with Rose. It would be a rugged deal to ask of her, and her terror, but the answer was too simple: I'd insist we go. If she was lying she'd flatly refuse. But if she'd told me the truth, I could convince her she had nothing to fear or...

     I went on deck. Rose grinned at me from behind the fashion mag she was reading. Ansel cut open the last of the drinking nuts I'd tied to the rigging in Haiti. In his usual talkative mood he slipped off into a lecture on how history books under-rated the poor coconut. They called bread the staff of life while the coconut not only provided food for a good portion of the peoples of the world, but also clothing, plates, oil, boats, mats and building material.

     Ansel was knocking himself out. I wasn't listening; I was watching Rose.... my favorite hobby. Not studying her directly but staring at her reflection in the calm water. Schools of tiny chrome colored anchovies raced by now and then, making it a cracked mirror. Rose was in a happy mood, commenting on the new movies —which should reach the island theatres in about ten years—laughing at the fashion news.