The Case of the Violent Virgin Page 2

  I lit a Camel. “So you’re running away from college. I knew the husband story was a phony.”

  Her musical laugh charged out of her throat.

  “That’s a good one, Ed. The only college Dean would ever run would be the College of Strictly Hard Knocks.” She thought it was very funny. She kept right on laughing until she started to choke. I pounded her soft back until she stopped gagging. But I could feel the trembling of her body that the laughter hid.

  And pretty soon she had stopped laughing altogether. Her eyes widened like two moons taking shape and she was staring hard past my shoulder. And there was fear in the ever-changing eyes now. Real fear.

  I swiveled slowly on my stool until I was facing the door.

  We weren’t alone anymore. We had gotten company faster than a family with the only TV set in a small town. And even on such short notice, I could see the company was definitely unwelcome.

  Two men had eased quietly into the bar. And they hadn’t come for drinking. They were standing directly behind us, regarding Opal Trace with the sort of look doctors reserve for particularly tough mental cases. But my first impression was the goofy beret on the shorter man, and the snappy velour fedora on the taller one. That and their wet raincoats and dripping faces.

  And before the brief silence could be broken by introductions or somebody saying it was a great day for ducks, the short guy with the beret cleared his throat. Gold teeth flashed in a wide mouth and Opal Trace seemed to shrink against the rim of the bar like a scared kid.

  “My dear Opal,” the man in the beret said. “Your precipitous exodus from serene sanctuary propels me toward brobdingnagian measures. Spider and I mourn for your misdemeanors but your palpitating perignations induce no termination of our grief. You must bid this gentlemen rapid adieu and sojourn with us to more suitable environs. The hour of decision brooks no further procrastination. Ergo, make haste.”

  Nobody talks that way, or should, but this guy did. And he got it all out in one piece with flawless diction and the confidence of long-usage. I threw my head back and laughed, long and loud.

  But I was the only one who thought the man in the beret was funny. The taller, younger guy in the snappy valour suddenly showed me a lumpy bulge in the right hand pocket of his raincoat.

  “Knock it off, Dad. You think Dean is funny and you think like a dead man. Shut up and mind your own business.”

  I looked into his brown, good-looking kisser. Saw a strong jaw, even features and nice blue eyes. Nice blue, mean eyes. And his voice would have belonged to anybody who can eat nails and top it off with a diet of ground glass.

  “Dean is funny,” I said. “But Opal is beautiful and I don’t like guys who frighten beautiful girls. Look at her–you’ve got her shaking like clothes on the line. What goes with this routine?”

  I never got the answer.

  Dean said, “Spider” softly, almost gently. And Velour Hat closed in on me like chain lightning. Before I could do a thing about it, his hard, brown hand whipped across my throat and almost sliced my Adam’s apple in half.

  Opal Trace shrieked and Dean laughed.

  I toppled off the bar stool and hit the floor hard, my eyes filling with something else besides rainwater.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was an awful punch. And dirty besides. Something they teach Marines and cops and jungle fighters. Something that is the essence of close-in fighting where the main idea is to cripple and maim and put people out of commission for a long time.

  Well, Spider had gotten his wicked swipe at my throat off fast, and only the fact that I sucked in just a little saved me from permanent injury. But I had still gotten most of it.

  I was threshing on the floor trying to shake the crushed, jarring numbness out of my throat and paralyzed muscles, when Spider and Dean started for the door with Opal Trace in tow. I had an idea she was still scared and still tossing frightened looks over her beautiful shoulder to see how badly I’d been hurt.

  The beefy bartender was whining something about calling the cops and nobody should make trouble in his bar, but I heard Spider growl something back at him that must have been considerably worse than a threat of policeman. The bartender shut up.

  I was on my feet, wobbly and confused, but on my feet. I could still see them through the plate glass bar window trying to hail a cab. The rain was still pelting down. Spider was tall and ominous with the rain slashing at him, and the smaller Dean was short and somehow foolish-looking with his black beret. But there was nothing foolish or funny about Opal Trace. Her tall, regal figure shuddered in the wind and rain. Spider’s long right arm had her anchored to his side and she seemed to shift like a helpless boat at the mercy of a cruel sea.

  There was something awfully pathetic about her just then. Maybe it’s the nut in me or maybe I’m just a sucker for a damsel in distress. I don’t know.

  Maybe you’ll say I should have stayed in the nice dry bar. Maybe I should have just rubbed my throat until the pain stopped and forgotten the whole thing. Maybe you’ll say I was thinking about the fifty bucks I could earn if I got her safely to Grand Central. Say what you like–but I wasn’t going to let a tall mug and a short beer manhandle her like that. She had hired me and I was working for her.

  I was out of the bar like a runaway horse. I reached them just as fast. The leather of my size nine shoes made peculiar, slapping noises against the wet pavement. The three of them heard me coming. They all turned like a vaudeville act, or like three people wired the same way. With the rain pouring down, it looked funny.

  Spider saw me first. Spider with his handsome brown face and his ugly, mean-blue eyes. He ripped out an oath and his hand jumped out of his coat pocket closed around a particularly wicked-looking automatic. Then Dean saw me and a gold tooth shone in his surprise-widened mouth. Opal Trace squeaked like a mouse suddenly seeing the house cat. And the raindrops pattered down like a Max Steiner musical score.

  I went for Spider first because he had the gun. Dean bellowed something that sounded like a quotation from Shakespeare. I didn’t hear all of it.

  Spider’s gun was still pointing toward the sidewalk when I hit him. My balled right hand rammed into the base of his chin and swung upward in a neck-breaking arc. Wind and spittle flew out between his white teeth, the gun splashed on the sidewalk and he fell backwards over a fire hydrant. That did the rest of the work. He dropped into the gutter like a discarded newspaper, his arms and legs scattering like loose sheets. His fancy velour hat sailed off his head and a wash of rainwater carried it along the curb like a child’s crazy idea of a boat.

  Dean was almost on his hands and knees looking for Spider’s dropped artillery. His broad fanny was facing me and the beret was more ludicrous than ever. I used my foot on him. He might have been a football the way I punted his pudgy little body a good three yards. He howled in agony and rolled like a ball.

  Opal Trace swayed. Her teeth were chattering like castanets now and her dead-and-alive eyes were trying to show me their whites. I flung an arm around her trim waist, hugged her to me and cased the street. Nothing but street lights, neon-blazing store fronts and tall, quiet buildings. Not a pedestrian in sight. But I could see the familiar orange toplight of a taxi moving through the rain-darkened night. Cruising was more like it.

  I hailed it. Not with my arm because he might never have seen me. I whistled. Loud and piercingly between my lips and teeth. Opal Trace shuddered at the blasting sound of it, but she huddled closer to me. The cab swished up alongside us, its wheels cutting through the wash of rainwater like the hull of a long sleek cruiser.

  Swinging the door wide, I pushed Opal Trace into the warm, dry interior. The cabbie’s eyes goggled at sight of Spider and Dean spread out on the sidewalk. I didn’t waste a second. The guy started babbling about cops and trouble when I showed him the nose of my .45.

  “Grand Central Station, cowboy,” I snapped in my best Follow-That-Car voice. “And fast.”

  “But Mister–those two guys–if you�
��ve been fighting …”

  “F.B.I. agent,” I snarled, climbing in next to a totally bushed Opal Trace. “You don’t do like I say, I’ll report you …”

  That was enough for that particular cabbie. Gears meshed. The cab jumped. We shot away from the curb like a motorboat in high gear. Dean and Spider bobbed out of view in the rear window. The rain was beating down with a vengeance now. And the wailing wind scored over the roof of the cab.

  I looked at my watch. Seven thirty-five. Plenty of time to catch Opal Trace’s train. I looked at her. She was still trying to catch her breath.

  She was also crying. But it wasn’t like the rain. Her eyes had only filled.

  “Easy, lady,” I whispered softly. “The two bad men are gone now. You’ll be okay.”

  “Ed, I …” Her voice stalled. She sobbed.

  “Come on, now. The trick with these things is to look at them in their proper perspective. Otherwise you’ll just scare yourself silly. So they wanted you to go with them–I didn’t. So now you’re with me. It’s simple when you break it down.”

  She didn’t want common sense. Or philosophy. Or my smiling sap goodness. There were certain hard facts staring her in the face that I couldn’t do anything about. Because I didn’t know what they were.

  “You don’t know them like I do, Ed,” she blurted. “They’re killers–they’re cruel–they’ll stop at nothing to get the …” She shut down like a switched-off radio. She started shivering all over again.

  I lit two cigarettes and gave her one.

  “To get what?” I asked. She didn’t answer me right away.

  We were turning down East Forty Second toward Park Avenue before she did. The monster gray stone arch of Pershing Square loomed through the rain-swept cab windows. The lighted entrance of Grand Central Terminal wavered and dribbled like a bad film through the windshield. The cabbie was still scared, but I told him to let us out at the Southwest corner of the block. Skipping the usual taxi depot on Vanderbilt Avenue. It might be covered. I didn’t know by who but it was better to play it according to the book.

  The cab slithered to a halt.

  “Well … ?” I prodded Opal Trace. “Aren’t you going to tell the nice young man what the two bad men wanted to get so badly?”

  She exhaled noisily and plucked a shred of tobacco away from her perfect red lips. Her violet-blue-green-mostly brown–all color eyes stared into mine.

  “Have you ever heard of The Violent Virgin?” Opal Trace asked.

  I grinned.

  “The only virgin I ever heard of was the impatient one. But I can understand why a virgin might be a violent one …”

  In the tiny interim of time that the cab stood halted in front of the terminal, she frowned at me. Her eyes were cold now. Dry and cold.

  “This isn’t something funny, Ed. This gets people killed. This could get you killed.”

  I shrugged, helped her out of the cab, paid off the driver who got away real fast because he remembered my .45 and F.B.I. talk. We raced into the stone entranceway. Rainwater pelted us all the way, and further conversation wouldn’t make much sense. The newsdealer, positioned in the doorway, hawked his evening papers at me but I ignored him. People jostled by, hurrying in and out of Grand Central, up and down the block long asphalt ramp leading into the heart of the station and its connecting subway lines. It was umbrella and galoshes night. The air reeked with the odor of damp bodies. But the interior was warm and close. And very dry.

  Opal Trace shuddered in her transparent raincoat and shook moisture from her smooth black hair. Her eyes were still cold. I chucked her under the chin.

  “Okay, I’m wrong. It is serious. Aren’t you going to tell me about The Violent Virgin?” Violent Virgin. I felt silly saying it.

  She said no violently. Her head wagged like a friendly dog’s tail. And she was being real friendly by her standards. She didn’t want a good samaritan to get hurt, obviously.

  “No,” she murmured. “You’ve done your good deed. No sense your getting mixed up in this. You brought me here like I wanted you to. So here’s your fifty dollars and say goodbye.”

  She had gone fishing again in her blue calf handbag for her wallet, when I took her elbow and guided her down the ramp.

  “My job isn’t finished yet, Opal. I said I’d put you on the train and I will. What track you leaving on?”

  She hesitated. But I could see she was still frightened. Still real scared. I was a crazy kind of comfort to her somehow. Somehow I wanted to keep on being just that. You don’t say goodbye to a classy doll like she was that easy. Something about her fresh rainwater smell and vibrant good looks made me want to hang around. Dope or no dope. Trouble or no trouble.

  “Ed, you ought to leave now …”

  “Where’s your ticket?”

  “Spider and Dean would kill you if they ever caught up with you again …”

  “What’s the name of your train?”

  We were heading down the ramp arguing like that all the way. Up ahead, bright lights and the shiny interior of the station hung poised like a Christmas tree waiting for the kids to dive right in. It was a good feeling. Warm and holidayish.

  “Ed, will you listen to me? I’m a no-good dame. I was born making trouble for people …”

  “I can see your lips moving but I can’t hear a word you’re saying, Miss Trace.”

  Suddenly, she stopped kidding herself. A noisy sigh of relief showed me her nice white teeth. She smiled.

  “Okay, Lover. Come on. Track Nine. The Mainliner. It leaves at eight fifteen. We can just make it.”

  We really flew after that. I glanced at my watch. It was five of the hour. And we had left Spider and Dean sprawled in the rain a city mile away. But I wasn’t thinking about anything but the lovely girl on my arm. The one who was on dope, was mixed up with bad, nasty people, who had to catch an all-important train. The girl who kept throwing scared glances over her shoulder to see if we were being followed.

  We were.

  Even as we ploughed into the stomach of the station; past the book stores and clothing stores and candy counters and barber shops, down the stone steps to the lower level where the mammoth picture of Grand Central dominated the railroad world, I could tell we were being followed. Don’t ask me how I knew. But when you’ve been in my dizzy profession as long as I have, it’s a sixth sense. Or maybe a seventh, eighth or ninth. I would have bet my office and .45 on it.

  Sure, there were about a million people, all shapes and ages and sizes, scurrying back and forth. And red caps by the score. And so many trunks and suitcases and traveling bags. People leaving Manhattan and arriving in Manhattan, or just people in out of the rain and torturing themselves thinking about places like Florida and Los Angeles and New Mexico. But there was somebody in the crowd thinking about Opal Trace and the tall bodyguard in the damp cadet-gray suit tagging along with her. Grimly, I hurried her along, my fingers real close to the butt of the man-destroyer strapped under my left arm.

  Grand Central was noisy, humming and historic. It’s always like being in a museum. The only things missing are the great paintings and the draped statues.

  But the feeling is there. The size is there. The huge, vaulted height of the place. The gigantic masonry that is as carefully and cleverly put together as the Notre Dame de Paris. The vast marble flooring that can house thousands of persons with luggage–as well as service them, expedite them, send them on their merry way with instructions. There are row upon rows of ticket windows and stairs and doors. All of this and the Information Booth stuck in the center like the cherry on top of a seven layer cake.

  The whole effect of the place is one of an enormous beehive with millions of drones buzzing back and forth. Well, I was a drone too. And my Queen Bee was Opal Trace.

  We were puffing through the human pack, past the Luggage Department and Western Union and the Flower Shop when a thought struck me.

  “Some detective I am,” I said to Opal Trace. “You going to Chicago without
taking even a toothbrush?”

  She was breathing hard from our fast walking. “My bags are already in. I shipped them this morning from my hotel. I wasn’t taking any chances.”

  “Well, maybe I ought to get you a toothbrush anyway. I could hop into this drug store here …”

  “For Pete’s sake, Ed. There isn’t time. First, you’re rushing my nylons off and now you want to stop to buy me a doodad …”

  There wasn’t time was right. But I was stalling for a good reason. I’d spotted our tail out of the corner of my eye. When more innocent looking tails are made, this guy would still be in a class by himself.

  He sure would have confused the What’s My Line panel. He was the fattest six feet to come down the pike since Sydney Greenstreet. The same forward type fat that pushes at you, the arms hung back like two independent rods, the bulk of the body all round and huge like a mountain of lard, smooth lard. Added to that was a pencil-striped suit that was more tent than suit, and a rakish bowler that perched like a sparrow on a dome-shaped skull. Put that all together and you have a tail to end all tails. He would have looked more at home in a circus or on a billboard diet ad.

  He’d been following us all right. He’d stumbled self-consciously and tried to tie a shoelace while I’d been haggling with Opal Trace about the toothbrush. It was a dead giveaway because he couldn’t even see his shoes much less reach them.

  I took her by the shoulders and twisted her toward me so that she was facing past my shoulders.

  “Forget the toothbrush, Opal. Do you know our fat friend?”

  She winced in my fingers but her deep eyes mirrored my meaning.

  “Oh, I get you. No. I’ve never seen him before.”

  “You wouldn’t have forgotten him if you had either. Well, he knows you. Come on. Let’s beat it before Peter Lorre shows up and makes it complete.”

  I moved her on again toward Track Nine. The gate was off to our right, flanked by seven and eight. People were bustling through, flashing tickets at the blue-uniformed train men posted in the entrance to answer questions and help things along. The heavy iron gates with their spear-tipped metal bars stood cold and grim. The train platform lay neat and orderly beyond the gates. The placard over the stanchion in the entrance proclaimed CHICAGO-LOS ANGELES in large, easy-to-read gold letters against a black background. The round, trellised clock showed eight-ten, Eastern Standard Time. Five minutes to go.