Death of a Hooker Read online

  “Okay. But what about Mrs. Lund? I don’t expect you want to talk about this in front of her.”

  “She’ll be out. Theatre party. Big charity. She won’t be home until about eleven-thirty.” She drew out a new cigarette, snapped her bag shut, held the matches, and talked with the cigarette in her lips. “All right, you have your orders. I’ll see you tonight.”

  I saluted. “Yes ma’am, Your Highness.”

  She lit the cigarette, blew smoke at my face again, and left.

  TWO

  I arrived at Beverly Crystal’s at 11:30. Beverly Crystal held sway in a stylish five-room domicile at 18 West 58th Street, a tall, old, once-fashionable apartment house with an automatic elevator. Beverly Crystal’s well-furnished five rooms were departmentalized in peculiar manner. One room was a kitchen. (Of course, there was a bathroom done in gold.) The other four rooms consisted of two bedrooms and two living rooms. One living room was done in quiet, deep-toned, mahogany, period furniture; and one living room was done in sprightly, modern, light-wood walnut. One bedroom was severe, dour, and antique (with a canopied bed); the other was frilly and contemporary (with a mirrored ceiling). I suppose dear Beverly knew what she was doing; after all, her apartment was also her place of business. It was entirely possible that certain of her antique customers were more comfortable in staid surroundings while her more frivolous customers preferred an atmosphere more gay.

  I touched her bell and the door was opened by a smiling Beverly, ice-tinkling glass in hand.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Dutifully I intoned the dutiful greeting of our day. “Hi.”

  “Good to see you,” she said. “I’ve got company.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” I remained in the doorway. “But didn’t you tell me to come—”

  “I said company, sweetie, not clients. Come in. Come in.”

  Beverly Crystal looked more like a post-debutante than a prostitute, although there does not appear to be much difference in these days of our times except that the post-deb does not insist upon monetary compensation in exchange for her favors. Beverly Crystal was about thirty, petite and smooth-skinned, with round-brown innocent eyes and short-cut auburn hair. She was wearing expensive conservative black velvet slacks and a sleeveless beige blouse which was also conservative but frightfully daring by reason of the fact that there was no brassiere underneath it. Upright nipples, like two accusing fingers, pointed at me from excellent breasts in full mold revealed.

  “Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Come in, come in. Nobody’s going to bite you.”

  She was entertaining in the modern living room and there she led me. Her company was comprised of two gentlemen both of whom I knew but one of them did not know that I knew him. One gentleman was tiny, sandy-haired, grinning, and weather-beaten. The other was tall, dark, pale, slender, and exceedingly handsome. Both held tall glasses of jiggling iced highballs.

  “You know Earl Dunbar,” said Beverly Crystal.

  “You bet,” I said, cheerfully you-betting.

  “Hi, Pete,” said Earl Dunbar.

  “Hi, Earl,” said Pete Chambers.

  Earl Dunbar was the tiny one. Earl Dunbar was a jockey. Earl Dunbar was under exclusive contract to the Lund Stables. The Lund Stables were owned by Mrs. Barbara Lund.

  “And the good-looking guy is Danny,” said Beverly Crystal. “Meet Danny. Danny—Peter Chambers.” That was all. Danny. Just Danny.

  “Hi,” said Danny.

  “Hi,” said I.

  “Danny’s from Chicago,” said Beverly Crystal.

  “Uh huh,” I said.

  Danny did not know me but I knew Danny. Danny had been pointed out to me while he was in a spotlight performing and I was at a ringside table. Danny was Danny Danzig, known as The Dancer, a talented young guy from Chicago, with noodles in his head instead of brains. Danny was a gifted dancer who could have made it the hard way but Danny insisted upon trying to make it the easy way. The easy way was running with the racket boys and trying to promote himself into a slot as a big shot, which he never did. The hard way would have been to stick to dancing until somebody picked him up for Hollywood and changed his name to Tab Torn and put him in a picture from a one-act play by Tennessee Billingsgate and at once he would have been a star because Danny Danzig was a gorgeous hunk of man. But Danny worked the short cuts looking for his rainbow and, though Danny had got in and out of trouble, he had never been arrested. Danny’s brother, Jerry Danzig, owned a successful nightclub in Chicago, The Copa Danzig, and whenever the heat got too hot for Danny, brother Jerry welcomed him back to dance at the club. Pity poor Danny. The guy was a marvelously graceful dancer, a personality on stage, and a favorite with the regulars, but he was always in and out of The Copa Danzig, because for people like Danny the heat always gets too hot. He was reputed to be slick, smooth, vicious and ugly-tempered, a bad actor when aroused, and a tough conscienceless guy to tangle with. Danny had watched too many late-late shows starring the early George Raft, and he had listened to too many records and too many legends starring Frank Sinatra. He had taken on the least attractive mannerisms of each, he dressed like a combination of both, and he was younger than either. Danny was about thirty.

  “Peter here is a private eye,” said Beverly Crystal.

  “Thrilling,” said Danny.

  Beverly took another shot at convivial conversation. “Danny’s called The Dancer,” she said. “Cute, huh?”

  “Thrilling,” I said.

  “Would you like to make something out of it, punk?” said Danny the Dancer.

  “Slow waltz or fast ballet?” I inquired.

  “There’s a new number called Smack In The Puss. Wanna dance it, pal?”

  “Always willing to oblige, although you’re probably more accustomed to dancing with boys than I am. Who’ll lead?”

  “Me,” he said and started coming, an ugly expression on his mouth, but Earl Dunbar grabbed his wrist. “Cut,” said Earl Dunbar.

  “Leggo,” said Danny the Dancer.

  “You’re company, Dancer. You got a hostess, you know?”

  That seemed to hold him. George Raft and Frank Sinatra and Allan Ladd and Dean Martin and even Marlon Brando—they all had company manners and they were all gallant to a lady. “A punk is a punk,” said Danny the Dancer, now stationary, “and this punk is a punk and I’m allergic to punks.”

  “Now, Dancer, you started with the remarks,” said Earl Dunbar.

  “But she said the guy was an eye, didn’t she?” said The Dancer in an aggrieved tone of seemingly apparent logic.

  “So he’s an eye,” said Earl Dunbar. “So what? Happens he’s a right guy, even if an eye.”

  “You got rocks, pal. An eye is a fink, period.”

  And now Miss Crystal interposed the balm of charming drawing-room chitchat. “Danny’s staying here with me for a couple of days,” she said brightly. “He’s like visiting from the Windy City.”

  “Shortage of hotels?” I said. “Or shortage of money?”

  “See what I mean by a fink?” said The Dancer.

  “Honey,” I said to my hostess, “if I belt this beautiful guest you’re harboring, you’re liable to have blood all over your pretty rug—so if you want to talk to me, there must be another room where the stink isn’t so bad.”

  The Dancer churned into gear, but Earl Dunbar got in his way.

  “Now, boys, boys, please, please,” said Beverly, somewhat firmly.

  “Who served this cat buckshot for breakfast?” I said.

  Earl Dunbar stayed in his way, although I was now ready to enjoy.

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen, please, please,” said Beverly Crystal and took me to the antique living room and closed the door. “What the hell?” she said. She put her drink away and flung up her hands as though shooting a basketball. “Now what the hell went on in there?”

  “Clash of personalities,” I said. “Or something. I come bearing roses and the guy spits in my eye.”

  “Man, you’
re really burning,” she said and grinned in delight.

  “No more,” I said.

  “All simmered down?”

  “Purring like a pussy cat. Now what am I doing here, please?”

  “I asked you here, remember?”

  “I have a faint recollection. Why?”

  “Would you like a drink?”

  “Thanks. Too early for me.”

  “I’ve known you to drink earlier.”

  “Honey, please. Let’s say I don’t feel gala.”

  “Why, baby? You know Beverly loves you like mad.”

  “Let’s say I didn’t cotton to the reception.”

  “Don’t let that throw you. You’re a big boy now, Peter.”

  “Sweetie, I’ve just about had it with the small talk. You want to make with the big words, or do you want me to get the hell out of here?”

  She sat down. I sat down.

  “I’m in trouble,” she said.

  “Those are big words,” I said. “Who’s your trouble?”

  “Mickey Bokino.”

  I groaned. “Oh no. Don’t tell me you want an extension on a loan.”

  Her round eyes grew rounder. “How do you know?”

  “I’m telepathic.”

  “No, really.”

  “It’s an epidemic.”

  “Did he tell you?”

  “How much?” I said.

  “Did he tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “I guessed. How much?”

  “Thirty thousand dollars.”

  Now my round eyes grew rounder. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “I wish I was.”

  “I’ll have that drink now.”

  She remained seated. “Help yourself.”

  I helped myself from an antique cabinet. I said, “Thirty big ones? What are you smoking these days?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Now look, Bev. This isn’t a very sensible morning, but let’s try. Thirty thousand dollars from Bokino to you—that’s ridiculous. For a small loan, sure, okay, but for thirty gees, you’re a bad risk. Now let’s try to make a little sense here, huh?”

  “Please listen,” she said.

  “Damn, I’m listening, but so far I haven’t heard anything around here except short rehearsals for fast lunacy.”

  “Please sit down.”

  Once more I sat but I clung to my drink as tenaciously as a politician clings to God, Mother, and Sanctity during a Presidential election year. “Shoot,” I said, feeling profane.

  “Nobody knows this, but the Lund Stables are being put up for sale.”

  “What the hell does that have to do with thirty thousand dollars from Mickey Bokino to Beverly Crystal?”

  “Sit quiet,” she said. “Drink. Don’t get impatient.”

  I sat quiet. I drank. But I was impatient.

  “The old lady is selling out,” she said. “It’s not yet open-up public stuff, you know? She likes Earl Dunbar. He’s been her contract jock for thirteen years now. She offered him King Fleet for sixty thousand bucks. Sixty thousand for King Fleet—that’s like giving you an option on the mint for a half a buck. Dig?”

  “I dig, I dig,” I said. The Lund Stables had some of the best thoroughbreds in the country, the finest of which was King Fleet. The King was four years old and he had lost only four races in his lifetime. When he was three, the King had been even money in the winter book for the Kentucky Derby, but he had pulled up lame two weeks before the Run for the Roses and he had been scratched. King Fleet was as sweet a hunk of horseflesh as had ever been bred in the United States and he would have been worth sixty thousand dollars merely as a stud stallion had he been fourteen years old and grown bored with mares and poor in matters of equine love and constant production of progeny. But the King was four, campaigning at his prime, winning stake after stake, dramatically dawdling at the outset, beginning to jump in the turn at the stretch, and then eating up horse after horse in the last two furlongs, and invariably shoving his nose under the wire as the Number One that he was.

  “Why?” I said.

  “Why what?” said Beverly Crystal.

  “Why the bargain for Earl Dunbar?”

  “Like I said, the old lady liked him. One day they were talking and she said she’d give him the champ for sixty gees, like for a present. Earl held her to it, and the old lady said sure, you get up the sixty gees, and you got the King. Now follow me. Earl don’t want to spread this around. Earl can get up thirty, and then he comes to me.”

  “Hold it,” I said.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Why does he come to you?”

  She smiled, a woman’s smile, which is a difficult smile to put into words. “It’s like Earl has an appreciation, if you know what I mean. It’s like Earl would like to do me a good turn—like one good turn deserves another—if you know what I mean. Earl is a jockey, a little one, a midget, and Earl is a midget in all departments. Earl knows me for a long time—a lot of chicks might laugh at the sample he can produce—which has made him a bashful feller in matters of such production—but I never laughed at Earl—I made him feel like a big man—I’m not saying I did nothing for nothing—but I never laughed at the guy, I never kidded the guy, like I know other chicks did kid the guy—and he’s stayed along with me for a long time—I think I’m the only woman he ever goes with—and so he likes me, you know, real way deep down, and if he can do me a good turn, he wants to do me the good turn. Do you capture what I’m trying to say?”

  “I capture,” I said.

  “So he comes to me and he says if I can get up the thirty we can be partners in the buy because the old lady is willing to stick along with the chance remark that she made to him. She loves the horse, and he’s sold her on the idea that he loves the horse, and he tells her that the horse is going to be his whole life to him, and she goes for this like the horse goes for hay. Earl has no such idea. He’s a jock, not an owner. He knows we can turn that steed over for a quick and sizable buck, get double or more fast for our dough. So now the problem is for me to raise the thirty gees.”

  “So you talk to Bokino.”

  “I give him straight goods. You know Mickey. He’s a crazy man for dames, and he likes crazy tricks, and I know more tricks than even Mickey can dream up, and that boy’s been nuts for me for a long time—nuts for plenty other chicks too—but when he needs an ace in the hole, I have never refused him, even though that jealous old bag, that Astrid, hates my guts, but she gives him trouble with all the chicks he digs, even the legit chicks, and that boy never stops. Are you with me?”

  “Right alongside you, baby.”

  “So I talk to Bokino.”

  “When was this?”

  “Couple of months ago.”

  “And he delivered?”

  “First he thought I was conning him. He could swing it for me, but only if he knew it was legit. He wanted convincing.”

  I drank, put the glass away, and lit a cigarette. “Did you convince him?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Mrs. Lund set up a meeting at her lawyer’s office, you know, that Roy Paxton. Mrs. Lund came with Earl and I brought Mickey. Mrs. Lund explained to Paxton how she was going to dispose of the stables and how she was going to give the King to Earl for sixty gees in appreciation for the long time he has been with her. Paxton asks—so how come she don’t give the King to Earl as an outright gift? The old lady smiles and says—that long Earl ain’t been with her, and futhermore, at sixty gees, King Fleet is an outright gift. Everybody laughs, including Mickey. Then the old lady tells Paxton to set up the contract, and when it was ready to let us know, and we would all come in to close the deal. The party breaks up with Mickey convinced. The next day he delivers the loot.”

  “For how much?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “How much bonus?” I said. “What terms?”

  “No bonus. No terms. I was to return the
money within six weeks, which figured to be enough time for the buy and the resale at a real pretty little profit.”

  “Did you sign a note to Gotham Loan?”

  “No. This was no loan from Gotham Loan. This was a loan from Mickey-boy to Bevvie-girl. I signed a note to Mickey Bokino.”

  I rubbed out the cigarette. I said, “Mickey Bokino can’t afford that kind of loan on his own.”

  “He afforded it, pal. He produced it.”

  “Everybody has his own kind of vanity,” I said. “Everybody wants to show everybody how big a man he is. Mickey Bokino was able to help you out on a quick sure-pop deal, so he showed you what a big man he was. All right. So what happened?”

  “A little trouble.”

  “It always happens, doesn’t it? Though on a cinch deal like this, I can’t see how.”

  “Well, Earl lays in his thirty gees with the barrister, and the barrister gives him a receipt, but the contract takes time because the barrister has other matters, and he also has Kiki Kalmar.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  “Kiki’s been working the clubs from Chicago to Philly and Barrister Paxton, who is only like a little bit mad about her, though I cannot say that she returns the compliment—he flies out to squire her around in whatever town she’s working at. This contract deal is not the most important deal in the world, and there’s been no rush put on it, and you know how lawyers they stall just naturally.”

  “She’s back in town now, isn’t she?”

  “Who?”

  “Kiki.”

  “Yeah. But she only just got back.”

  “So?”

  “Where were we, man?”

  “Contract for the sale of King Fleet.”

  “So the contract kind of gets itself stalled off. Meanwhile Earl makes a beauty deal for the resale, for one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, exactly three times what we pay—an option contract, you know, that legal jabber—but the deal sets and we get paid the minute we get title to the King. The purchaser is Hughie Paar, a millionaire, but pretty shrewd, and he kind of starts asking around, and it gets back to the old lady, and she blows her cork. Earl conned her like he wants to own the horse till the day he dies, and run the horse, and practically hand-feed the horse, and spend his life making love to the goddamned horse—and now she hears that he’s planning to sell the bloody steed practically the minute he gets title. Of course, Earl denies, and cries, and hollers it’s a lot of bull, and states that if he was a horse he’d marry the damn horse, and that he’d rather sell his soul than sell King Fleet, but the old lady is shook up now, and the whole bit is up in the air. And all this time, me—me!—I got thirty gees, and I’m going to the race track every day.”