Nothing to Lose But My Life, Page 2

  On his right was his wife, Sofia Proctor Conklin. A pretty woman of thirty, she was as I remembered her. Everything was correct—the dress, the hair, her way of eating and drinking, of inclining her head when she spoke to Conklin on one side or to her sister, Enid, on the other. She had been Jen’s maid of honor, her intimate friend, and I had come to know her and all the Proctors quite well. She had always seemed to me to represent the epitome of the Junior League; I had the feeling that she always would.

  Enid, at twenty-six, looked as if the world had given her everything it could muster and she had taken it all. She was not beautiful; her features were too irregular. But she had life and spirit in her face despite a drawn, nervous look. Dark hair fell in almost an unruly mass to her shoulders, contrasting sharply with Sofia’s precise hairdo. Her evening gown plunged just to the edge of good taste. She had changed more than any of them but she was still Enid, the harum-scarum kid. She had that look about her.

  When she reached for one of her wine glasses, I saw her sister’s hand reach out and touch hers, stopping her. Enid’s reaction was an expression that said she wanted to go to hell and why were they stopping her. But she drew her hand back and said nothing.

  The Colonel was the same as far as I could see. Gross in the belly and in the jowls, his gray hair a little thinner but no more wrinkles around his blue eyes. The smooth smile, the hearty laugh, all were as they had been. He sat as straight and stiff as he walked, his shoulders back as if fearing to lean forward would cause his stomach to drag him onto his face. His title came from some state militia in the Midwest. He clung to it, lived up to it, usually talked as if he were giving orders to a regiment. I was delighted to see him looking so healthy. I wanted nothing to happen to him until I had my chance at him.

  Enid Proctor interested me because she was one way of getting at Nikke. But Tanya Mace, who completed the circle, interested me most because she was the way of my getting at the Colonel. She represented the person with whom he was most deeply involved emotionally. I studied her carefully.

  The picture of her in my dossier failed to do her justice. She was almost beautiful. She was tall, a big woman, with a fine bosom and hips, and with a head of pale blond hair that looked like spun platinum. On anyone else it would have seemed artificial; on her, no one could dispute its genuineness. She wore it drawn back, revealing the sharp, bold outlines of her face, and knotted at the back of her neck.

  Only her mouth threatened to spoil the picture. It was heavy, almost but not quite out of proportion with the rest of her. Once she turned so that I saw her full face and the line of full, sensuous lips struck me as forcibly as did the light in her large, green eyes. It was a strange sensation. She saw that I was watching her, yet she gave no indication. She might have been looking at a wall decoration. But somehow I knew she was not. She was looking at me with the same intensity that I was using on her. And her interest came through to me as plainly as if she had spoken.

  The Hoop party was down to the dessert by the time my steak arrived. I had made a decision and so I ate more hurriedly than I liked, gave up the anticipated brandy and coffee, and made it to the lobby before they left the dining room. As they sailed through, I went directly up to the Colonel.

  “Colonel Hoop, sir?” I put a thread of Texas drawl I had deliberately cultivated into my voice. “I believe I recognize you from the newspaper pictures Cousin Malcolm used to send us.”

  Hoop was staring at me and having a hard time hiding the mixture of surprise and fear on his countenance. His reddish jowls took on a faint greenish tinge, and then that went away as what I had said seemed to penetrate.

  “Cousin Malcolm?”

  “Allow me to introduce myself, sir. Lowry Curtis.”

  “You’re related to Malcolm Lowry?” He didn’t sound as if he approved of the idea.

  “Kissing kin on my mother’s side,” I said modestly. “But we haven’t heard from Malcolm for some while, and since I was out this way, I thought I’d inquire. He mentioned you highly in his letters. I was planning to look you up when I saw you here.”

  I wasn’t sure that it wasn’t a foolish move. On the other hand, a bold stroke is sometimes the best defense. That was one reason I had decided to do this. The other was that I wanted the Colonel to start remembering Malcolm Lowry.

  He seemed to take in all I said and swallow it. “Uh—Malcolm Lowry left some years ago, Mr. Curtis. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  The others were looking at me with a good deal of interest and, I thought, speculation. Charles Conklin stepped forward. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Curtis, your cousin left here with a rather unsavory reputation.”

  I let my eyebrows crawl up. “A fact? I didn’t know he had spunk enough to get any kind of reputation.”

  Tanya Mace gave a low, soft laugh. “You might introduce us, Colonel.” So she flattered him by calling him Colonel instead of John.

  He made the introductions, obviously without much enthusiasm. I think he was afraid I would attach myself to the party. I got a perfunctory handshake from Charles Conklin and a boring look from those hard, pale blue eyes. I met it equably and then turned to his wife. She gave me her fingertips. I bowed over them, repeated the process with Enid, who was measuring me openly, and then accepted Tanya Mace’s long, strong hand.

  “Tanya?” I said. “Russian, Mrs. Mace?”

  Her green eyes mocked me. “Just kissing kin on my mother’s side,” she said. “White Russian.”

  I turned almost rudely away from her. The woman bothered me, and I could not afford to be bothered at a time like this. I excused myself for intruding and let them go on out. Then I took myself to the bar and grill for my delayed brandy and coffee. I stayed there, killing time until it would be late enough to go to Nikke’s. I felt good now; I had started things moving.

  Shortly before ten, Tanya Mace came in alone. She walked directly to me as if she had been hunting me. I rose and asked her to sit down. She was wearing a magnificent sheath-tight green dress that was molded to her handsomely proportioned figure. When she threw back the small fur she was wearing and reached her arms up to adjust her knot of hair, I looked hastily around for a waiter. She was the first woman since Jen that I was afraid of. Jen, I had loved. I had given her my self-possession willingly. Tanya Mace was different. She threatened to take my self-possession by force.

  “Whiskey and water,” she said. She had a husky, rounded voice. When the drink came, she took half of it before setting down the glass. “I came looking for you, Mr. Curtis.”

  “Because we both have kissing kin?”

  Her full mouth curved up in a smile. “Because we both have problems.” She reached for her fur. “I’ll have to go or I’ll be missed. Are you staying here?”

  “Bungalow eight,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. We rose and she turned to leave. “I want to talk to you very much.”

  “I’m always glad to be of aid to a lady,” I said in my best Texan.

  “This may be the other way around,” she said. “Good night, Lowry Curtis.”

  I watched her go, sat down until I stopped shaking inside, and then went to my bungalow. I put on my tuxedo, took a black coat and hat, and went out to find a taxicab. Settled, I said casually, “Nikke’s.”

  “Which one?”

  I had to think that one over. To me Nikke’s meant just the one place—on the Hill. Tonight I wanted Enid Proctor, not Nikke himself, so I said, “The big one, south.”

  “That’s a long way, mister.”

  I showed him a bill. “I can cover.”

  We went.

  • • •

  This wasn’t Nikke’s. There was none of his stamp on the place. This was cold and chromed and hard without any of the soft charm that was reminiscent of a time of gracious living, the charm Nikke had imbued his own place with. I entered a small dining-room bar where there was no one but a bored-looking barman. Behind him was a door and I started for it.

  He jerked
a thumb toward another door on my left. “Through there, bud.”

  I went through. There was a small lobby, the kind you see in a middle-class hotel. There was a counter at one side and a cloak room opposite. Between them was another door. A man was behind the counter, his elbows on it, his chin propped in his hands. He was intent on a photography magazine that was mostly pictures of girls pretending to be nude.

  “Do I go through here?” I said.

  He lifted his head, letting me see little brown eyes set in a greasy face. He had a toothpick in one corner of his mouth. “What you after?”

  No, this wasn’t Nikke’s. I got sore. If this outfit wanted to play it rude, I would too. I had learned in the last five years that there were times and places where throwing my weight around was useful. This looked like one of the times and one of the places.

  I said, “I’m lonesome and thirsty and ready to howl. And I’m loaded, bub.”

  He shifted his toothpick. “That a fact?”

  I walked up until I was pressed against the counter. “You hear me.”

  He laid out one hand, palm up. He was expecting a bill. I gave him the edge of my hand down across his nose and lips so that the toothpick broke off short. He ducked back, his foot going for a button on the floor and his hand reaching under the counter. I reached, got his wrist, and threw him off balance. A knife dropped from his fingers. With my grip on his wrist, I held him forward, out of reach of the floor button.

  “Just tell me the procedure,” I said.

  “You register,” he said. “Name, address, fifty bucks initiation fee. This is a club.” He didn’t like saying it but I still had his wrist in my hand. I let it go. He rubbed the wrist and then his nose. He hated me.

  I saw a half-pint girl staring at me from the checkroom. I said, “Is that right?”

  “Yes, sir.” She whispered it.

  I took fifty dollars from my wallet. I let my friend see that I had a lot more, enough more to make even his eyes widen. “Name, Lowry Curtis. Portview Motel.” I laid the fifty down and watched him fill out a card in duplicate, I got the top half.

  “Let’s remember that name after this,” I said.

  He pressed a button on the desk top, not answering me. The door opened and one of the biggest and strangest-looking men I had ever seen appeared. He stood close to seven feet and had a miniscule head perched on narrow, sloping shoulders and almost no neck in between. He went down to wide, womanish hips, thin shanks and too-small feet. When he walked, his balance was bad. His arms were long and his hands massive. He had blue eyes and tallow-colored hair, and he simpered when he spoke to me.

  “This way.” His hair oil had a powerful “masculine” scent.

  The man behind the desk said, “This is Curtis and—”

  I picked up his magazine and slapped him across the mouth with it. “Mr. Curtis.”

  “This is Mr. Curtis, Perly.” He was almost crying. “He’s lonesome and thirsty and ready to howl. And he’s loaded.”

  “My,” Perly said.

  “Take him in.”

  Perly inclined his head. He looked at the man behind the desk and then at me. He was hating me too. I followed him through the door, giving up my hat and coat to the little girl on the way. We passed into a tinsel-and-glitter gambling room with harsh overhead lighting. A mixed and motley crowd was gathered around slot machines, roulette wheels, and chuck-a-luck tables. It was noisy and thick with smoke.

  I said, “What’s his name?”

  He knew who I meant. “Emmett,” he said. He rolled the word over his lips.

  “My,” I said, and looked around for Enid Proctor as Perly left me.

  Chapter III

  THIS WAS A far cry from Nikke’s place. There was nothing about it that recalled him to me—no sign of the old personal touch. That touch had been the kind to make even a deadbeat owing him ten thousand feel welcome. I had the feeling that a deadbeat would leave this place in a sack. There were hard-eyed, bent-faced men in tuxedos wandering around just looking for the would-be welcher.

  I recognized just one of them, a character named Jake. He had been a two-bit hoodlum when I left, and despite his tuxedo, he looked about the same, scar on his cheek, bent nose, scowling mouth. I caught him looking at me a couple of times, but I couldn’t feel anything personal in the look. If he recognized me, he was keeping the fact out of his expression.

  I got tired of wondering where Enid Proctor might be and bought a hundred in chips. I dallied over one of the roulette wheels while I hunted for the gimmick. The setup looked smooth and open, but I was sure there was a gimmick in it somewhere. This didn’t feel like the kind of place to be satisfied with a mere house percentage.

  I lost most of my hundred and turned away. Enid Proctor was standing so close to me that I almost kissed her hairline. She held out her hand. “Play these. Maybe they’ll change your luck.”

  I said, “Hello, there. Remember me?”

  “Of course. Do you think I’d talk to a stranger?”

  I gave her a grin for an answer and took the three chips she had in her hand. I added them to my eight and dropped the whole thing on eleven. She moved to my side and we watched the little ball slide into thirteen.

  “You held out two,” I said.

  “Why, so I did.” Her voice was low, with nice timbre. She gave me two chips.

  “I’m flat—zeroed,” I said. “So two and zero are twenty.” I tried it and it paid.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Twenty-five.”

  That wasn’t what my dossier said. “I’m putting our take on it,” I warned her.

  She made a face. “Twenty-seven then.”

  It won. I asked for the number of letters in her name. I bet and covered and collected. I was talking loudly enough so that people around us began to watch with interest and a certain amount of amusement. I bet on Enid Proctor’s shoe size, glove size, the number of fillings in her teeth, and on an estimate of the length of her nose in centimeters. When even the last one paid off, I was sure I had the gimmick. It was Enid.

  I quit. No one objected. No one seemed concerned that I was walking away with over four hundred dollars of the club’s money. That meant I was being led carefully to the picking chamber. There one gamble would be whether I would come back to the tables or not. This was guesswork but as I took Enid’s arm to steer her toward the cashier’s cage, I knew I was right. The contact between her eyes and those of the croupier was faint but not faint enough. Anyway, I was watching for it.

  I took my money and Enid to the far end of a small bar and ordered two drinks. She took what I had, rye and water. Half the money I put in my pocket. The other half I laid on the bar and placed my hand over it. I decided to work the role I had used on Emmett. But first I had a good look at Enid.

  Close up she was even more interesting than she had been in the dining-room mirror. The irregularity of her features was more pronounced, and the simple black evening gown she wore showed off a well-proportioned figure. She had changed her hairdo. Now it was drawn back so that I could see what a pretty neck she had. I approved of everything except her eyes. They bothered me, and the more I looked at them, the more I was bothered.

  I had known Enid fairly well before. But as she had spent most of her time away at college, our acquaintanceship was one of those hello-goodbye-wave-when-you-see-each-other type of things. I couldn’t remember her eyes from before at all.

  They were a deep brown, wide and fringed with dark lashes. They should have been beautiful; they weren’t. There was no depth to them. Nothing of Enid Proctor showed through. She wasn’t hiding anything. Back, deep in, where the real she should have been revealed, there was just nothing but blank opaqueness. It was disconcerting.

  I said, “When can you leave?”

  She took her drink and gulped half of it. “Anytime. I came alone.”

  I took my hand from the two hundred dollars. “Let’s not make a game of it. A drink, a steak. We go out together, we st
ay together for a while. None of this ‘Thanks for a wonderful time’ from your front porch.”

  Nicely arched eyebrows went up. “From your porch, maybe?”

  “I have no front porch,” I said. “Just a motel room.”

  She laughed. “You’re so grim,” she murmured. “And not at all subtle.” She took the money, folded it neatly and put it into her bag.

  I decided to stick to the role I had begun. It might pay dividends. “Need I be subtle?”

  She didn’t answer but emptied her glass and set it down. When I finished my drink, she took both glasses and pushed them away. I knew then that I had won. And I doubted if I could have reached a Proctor by any of the more common approaches.

  She said, “I could do with that steak now.”

  I checked out my hat and her fur wrap. It was expensive fur, the kind a Proctor would have. Perly opened the door and followed us into the lobby as if to protect Emmett from me. As I went past, I put my foot down on Perly’s instep to let him feel nearly one hundred and ninety pounds. I wanted him to know that in my opinion he was only a cheap gunsel. His mouth made a round O but he didn’t say anything.

  Emmett was staring at us. I took a half step in his direction and he ducked away. Perly’s voice fluted up: “Look what he won, Emmett.”

  Beside me Enid Proctor took my arm as if to hurry me along. She needn’t have worried. I didn’t like Perly and I didn’t like Emmett, but I wasn’t sure that I needed Enid badly enough to start a hassle over her with two-second rate Syndicate boys.

  She drove a maroon Cadillac with all the extras. I sank back in the seat and let her drive south along the highway to a steak house. It was a good one and neither of us had much to say while we ate. On leaving, she turned north.

  I was letting her carry the affair along. I wanted to see what she would do, where she would go. It didn’t take me long to find out. We went on into the city and turned up the Slope. We turned along a road lined with eucalyptus, jacaranda, and little houses laden with bougainvillia. I wished some of it were in bloom.