The Gorgeous Murderer Page 4

  “Hello, Miss Moore,” Evangeline said.

  “How are you, Miss Ashley?” said Miss Moore in a cool voice.

  “Small world,” said Ken Burns. “You two know each other?”

  “We went to school together,” said Miss Moore.

  “Not quite,” said Evangeline. “You were a senior when I was a freshman.”

  “Well, naturally,” said Miss Moore, undisturbed. “I’m three years older than you.”

  Everybody laughed and Ken Burns said, “Adrienne Moore. Oscar Blinney.”

  “About time,” said Miss Moore.

  “You girls don’t give a guy a chance,” said Ken Burns.

  “How do you do?” said Miss Moore.

  “How do you do?” said Blinney and even through the spinning jollity of the alcohol he realized that she was a most attractive lady, poised and dark and serious, with black shining tumbled short-cut hair, and wondrously deep, luminous black eyes.

  “Do you live in Coral Gables?” said Blinney to Miss Moore.

  “No. I live and work in New York now. I just came down to visit my parents. I’ll be going back some time in April.”

  “Miss Moore is a painter,” said Ken Burns.

  “Are you that Adrienne Moore?” said Blinney.

  “Who’s that Adrienne Moore?” said Evangeline.

  “She’s quite famous,” confidentially whispered Ken Burns.

  “I’ve seen your pictures in the Hammer Galleries. Just wonderful. I’d imagined you much older,” said Blinney.

  “Well, thank you.”

  “So you’d like to do him,” said Evangeline.

  “Yes. Very much. Marvelous face.”

  “Maybe you ought to see the rest of him.”

  “Would I need your permission?”

  “Now, girls, girls,” said Ken Burns.

  “Really? I mean, you would like to paint me?” said Blinney.

  “The face,” said Miss Moore. “It appears that Miss Ashley has a vociferous vested interest in the remainder.”

  “And it looks like you’re trying to do a little trespassing on my vested interests, baby-doll,” said Miss Ashley.

  “Ha, ha,” said Ken Burns, nervously. He was tall, fat, and balding, and his voice was high-pitched.

  “What would you call it?” said Blinney.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Miss Moore.

  “The face” said Blinney. “You know. Paintings have names, don’t they?”

  “Not portraits,” she said, and then she smiled. “Passion and Passivity,” she said.

  “Oh no!” Evangeline rose. “That ties it! Come on, Passion and Passivity! Waiter, the check! Bye, all! It was nothing!”

  “Ha, ha,” said Ken Burns.

  VII

  IT WAS LATE WHEN they left the night club. The streets were hot, deserted. They walked in silence. Then she said, “That bambino was really on the make.”

  “Nonsense,” said Blinney. “I was kidding, and she kidded right back.”

  “Maybe you were kidding, but that chick was on the make.”

  He looked at her. “Don’t tell me you’re… you’re…”

  “Well, say it, goof.”

  “Jealous. I mean…”

  “I am.”

  “Well, that’s the first real nice darn thing—”

  “Haven’t you ever said damn?” said Evangeline.

  “Perhaps. I don’t really—”

  “You’re cute. You know? Cute. Really. Damned cute.”

  “Look, Evangeline, I want to say, about us…”

  And then he was there before them. On a dim unpeopled street, in the hot night, suddenly he loomed before them. He was very tall, with wide high shoulders, a square swarthy face, and bushy hair.

  “Miss Ashley,” he said. His voice was coarse, deep, a growl.

  “What?” she said. “What is it? What do you want?”

  “Do you know him?” said Blinney.

  “No,” she said.

  “Get away,” said Blinney.

  “Butt out, snotnose,” said the swarthy man.

  Blinney pushed at the man’s shoulder. “Get away, please.”

  “Oh oh, a wise guy” said the swarthy man. “You’ll catch a piece soon. After I finish with Miss Ashley. You I’ll come to. Nobody puts a hand on Ronald. Ronald is allergic to hands.”

  “Who’s Ronald?” said Evangeline.

  “I’m Ronald” said the swarthy man.

  “Do you know him?” said Blinney.

  “No. No.” She shook her head emphatically.

  Blinney pushed at Ronald’s chest. “Now please let us alone,” he said.

  “That’s twice, snotnose. Hang around. Don’t go away. First, Miss Ashley.”

  “What is it?” she said sharply.

  “I got a message for you.”

  “From whom?”

  “From someone who knew Senor. He’s got a finger in the pie, and he has to safeguard his interests.” Ronald’s voice hardened. “Now this is the message. The message is that you are an embarrassment. This friend of Senor’s don’t have nothing against you personal, but he don’t want you around to stir up trouble. Senor left behind a very nice setup. This friend says you get out of the state by April First, you know, like April Fool’s Day. That’s the message. You get out, and everything’s nice, and the whole thing’s a closed up deal.

  “You don’t get out, and you’re asking for trouble. This friend of Senor’s is a kind man. He don’t want you should have trouble. Who needs trouble? He knows what really happened. And is also a friend of Little Dee. So get out, go someplace, period, by April One. He’s giving you a little time like to pack up. So be a nice little broad and scram.”

  “Now see here,” said Blinney.

  “You I’m coming to,” said Ronald.

  “Do you know what he’s talking about?” said Blinney.

  “Not at all,” said Evangeline.

  “Like hell she don’t,” said Ronald.

  “He must be mistaking me for someone else,” said Evangeline.

  “If that’s the way you want it, sweetie”—Ronald looked knowingly at Blinney—“so that’s the way it is. I’m mistaking you for some one else.”

  “And even if I were the person, is this the best place you could pick to talk to me?”

  “Sweetie, I been tailing you around all over town. I wanted to talk to you alone. Figured this was the best place to talk, even though you got snotnose with you.”

  “Have you talked?” said Blinney.

  “I have talked,” said Ronald.

  “Then get away, if you please. Go away.”

  “Not yet, shmuck. Now I come to you. With the chick I got orders to be nice. But I got no orders to be nice with a shmuck with a big mouth and easy with the hands. It is a pleasure I did not expect. Okay, snotnose, now I come to you.”

  And he swung, without further warning, a vicious, massive fist to Blinney’s mouth. It did not land. Blinney moved his head, just enough. The blow grazed by and Blinney returned a perfect one-two. The jolt of a left jab caught Ronald beneath the heart and as he gasped and straightened, chin exposed, Blinney’s right fist, with shoulder and back behind it, thundered at the point of the jaw. Ronald stiffened to his toes, hung, spun around in one rigid mass, and fell like a plank, his forehead striking the sidewalk. He lay still.

  “Oh my,” breathed Evangeline, eyes big, transfixed, fingers at her lips. “My God, I never saw anything like that, not even in a prize ring. My God, that was beautiful.”

  Blinney was trembling. He stooped to Ronald.

  “No,” said Evangeline, pulling at his arm.

  “He’s hurt,” said Blinney.

  “That was the general idea, wasn’t it. He tried to hurt you—so you hurt him. Come on. Let’s get away from here.”

  “But I mean—”

  “Look. He hit and you hit back. He’s some kind of a gangster or something and he certainly deserves whatever happened to him. Now let’s get out of here. W
hat’s the sense in getting into trouble over this? I’ve had enough trouble, haven’t I?”

  Her final words convinced him. She led him away and he went. They turned a corner.

  “Wow, but that was beautiful,” she said. “Exquisite. I never saw anything like it. You’re really something, aren’t you?”

  “Do you have any idea who he is?”

  “None.”

  “Who’s Little Dee?”

  “I haven’t the faintest.”

  “But what the devil was he talking about?”

  “I wish I knew. But I don’t. It must be one of those mistaken identity things.”

  “Look,” Blinney said. “He mentioned Senor—Pedro Orgaz. I couldn’t hear all he said, but I caught the name. It might be trouble for you.”

  “Nonsense. They’ll find out their mistake soon enough.”

  “But—”

  “Please forget the whole thing. I want you to.”

  Blinney shrugged. He waved down a passing cab, and they tooled toward home. Evangeline held his arm, and she said, “It’s all over. Why are you trembling again?”

  “That man,” he said.

  “What man?” she said.

  “That Ronald. I never hit anybody like that.”

  “Now, Ozzie, don’t kid a kidder. I’ve seen guys flattened in my time, but nobody ever got flattened more expertly than friend Ronald. You’ve hit before.”

  “I was a fighter.”

  “You? A fighter? A prize-fighter? Oh no. Now we’re on the other side. Now we’re way out. I don’t believe it.”

  “Amateur.”

  “Oh.”

  “Boxer.”

  “Oh.”

  “Intercollegiate champ.”

  She squeezed his arm. “Man, you’re a character. In your own way, you’re a character. There’s a lot I don’t know about you. You’re just not a talker. Do you like me, Oz?”

  “I… I love you.”

  “Hotel Cascade,” said the cab-driver.

  And upstairs, outside of 203, he said quickly, “Good night.”

  “Good night,” she said.

  And in 202 he paced and paced and rubbed his hands together and wondered whether the trembling has all been because of the guilt of the violence. He tried to justify. Even for one as himself, there must be a time, a moment, when violence is justified. But then, instantly, his reason protested. Even if he granted to himself that there could be a moment when violence is justified—had that been such a moment?

  He knew that he could have ducked and weaved and dodged and jabbed and made an exhausted spectacle of that blundering muscle-bound would-be strong man. Was it that he had wanted to impress her?

  He removed his dinner jacket and cast it upon a chair. And so in patent-leather shoes, dress-pants, cummerbund, collar open, tie loose, he bent to a suitcase, flapped up the cover, and brought out a sealed bottle of Scotch. He opened it, poured into a glass, and gulped whiskey burning, and when the knock came at the door, he went to it and opened it without asking who was there, and there was no one there, and he stood, hand on knob, querulous and squinting blankly.

  And the knock came again. And he shut the door of 202 and went quickly to the door between 202 and 203 and there he stood, as though in fear, trembling again. And the knock came again, softly. And he twisted the lock and turned the knob and opened the door, and she was there, and he crossed over.

  VIII

  BLINNEY HAD EXPERIENCED love-making in his life but he had never experienced love-making as performed by Evangeline Ashley giving expression to her one incontestable talent. He suffered no pang of conscience; at the beginning there is no distinction between infatuation and love; and now, at the beginning, Oscar Blinney was proudly, fiercely, blindly, and overwhelmingly in love.

  The door between 202 and 203 was open every night; closed and locked temporarily each morning for the practical reason of propriety involving chambermaids. Blinney expanded with love, and, under the proddings of an already-bored vis-a-vis, he even talked about himself, reluctantly, but then with gradual growing confidence.

  And, for the first time since he met her, he told her about his boyhood, his mother, his father, and the six-room house he had inherited in an old quiet section of Mount Vernon. He told her about his nest-egg of $17,000, a portion of which was savings but most of which, like the house, was part of his inheritance. He told her about the First National Mercantile Bank situated at 34th Street and 6th Avenue, and about his job as teller.

  He told her about Alfred Hodges, now seventy-three years of age, but spry and spirited and capable, president of the bank since he was thirty-four. He told her of the liberal salary standards instituted by Alfred Hodges all of which pertained right up to the present. He told her, as an instance, of the teller’s job. The starting salary was one hundred dollars a week with yearly increases of ten dollars per week until the individual attained a weekly salary of two hundred dollars.

  He was now in his seventh year in his teller’s job; his salary was one hundred and sixty dollars a week. And he told her about Robert Allan McKnish’s job as Credit Manager; a job he hoped to get some day, that the job started at two hundred dollars a week with yearly increases of twenty-five dollars a week until a maximum of three hundred and fifty dollars a week was attained.

  And she asked, “Does this sort of thing apply in all banks?”

  “No,” he said. “Ours is quite special. Mr. Hodges, in his way, is an executive genius. He made these rules, and the Board approved, and he’s stayed with them.”

  “What Board?”

  “The Board of Directors.”

  “Oh, Board of Directors.”

  “Are you interested?”

  “Sure. Of course. Are you kidding? Go on.”

  “Well, whoever comes to work at First National Mercantile knows just what he’s doing and just where he’s going. We have eighty-two employees and it’s a real happy family. And there are long waiting lists of job-applicants. The bank has a wonderful reputation, and so has its personnel. Of course, Mr. Hodges has set very high basic qualifications for each employee—higher standards than in other banks—and the more important the job, the tougher the qualifications for the applicant. But it isn’t all sweetness and light either. Dear Mr. Hodges insists on certain intramural activities that other banks don’t.”

  “Like what?”

  He told her, as an instance, about the Gun Club. In every bank, certain employees have the use of pistols. They obtain licenses from the Police Department for such use, they are instructed in the mechanics of pistol operation, and that is that. Not so at First National Mercantile. If a teller or a cashier or a vice-president has a gun in his drawer, he must, at the insistence of Mr. Hodges, become proficient in its use. Each one who has a license must be a member of the New York Gun Club, must attend target practice every Thursday evening, and must compete in the pistol shoot every fourth Thursday.

  “Did you ever win?” she said.

  “I always win,” he said.

  “You?”

  He chuckled. “I admit I’m not the type. I’m scared to death of a gun. Perhaps that’s why I’m so good. I respect the darned thing”—chuckle again—“with a deadly respect.”

  “And what else does your Mr. Hodges insist on?”

  “That we go to school, night courses; that is, those of us who want to improve ourselves, who want to move up to higher positions in the bank. And he actually checks the courses, talks with the various instructors, finds out how each of us is doing.”

  “Do you go to night school?”

  “Yes. Every Monday and Wednesday. Post graduate stuff.”

  “Why, are you ambitious?”

  “In a way. I have no big dreams. I don’t want to rise very high. Credit Manager, and there I’ll stay. I believe Old Man McKnish is going to retire this year, and I sure have been aiming for that job, right since I went to work there.”

  “Any chance, do you think?”

  “Yes, I do. Mr.
Hodges knows of my dream and desire; and he knows me since I was a little boy. The Board does the appointing, but Mr. Hodges has influence, of course. I have the background and the education, I’ve never been in trouble, I’ve never been in any scandal, I’m practically the head-teller right now, and I am in charge of the most important payrolls.”

  “Payrolls?” she said. “Don’t most firms pay by check?”

  “A great many do. A great many don’t. There are matters of policy. Anyway, Thursdays and Fridays are my payroll days; when I prepare payrolls.”

  “Two days?”

  “Fridays there are a lot of little ones. Thursdays, there are five big ones: Martin Aircraft, Hughes Construction, Fairfax Electronics, North American Builders, and Marshall Contractors Corp. They all have plants throughout the Metropolitan area, and on Long Island. They have part-time workers, and over-time, aside from regular employees. It gets quite complicated. They call in their payrolls on Thursday mornings. By then, they have an approximation. They make up the rest from their own office safes.

  “It mounts up. By one o’clock in the afternoon, I’ve probably packaged up to three hundred thousand dollars, mostly in hundreds and fifties, and then down to twenties, tens, fives, and ones. They pick up at about one or two in the afternoon, each, of course, separately. Their own cashiers distribute the money into pay-envelopes and their own guards do the distributing to the various plants on Friday.”

  “Pretty important,” she said, “aren’t you?”

  “Not really. Accurate, or let’s call it dependable. I’m glad I have the job because it shows that they depend on me, and that I’m in excellent standing, and that I’m in fairly good shape in my bid for the job I want. Of course, Mr. Hodges says—perhaps he’s kidding—that for the Board of Directors I may be lacking in just one thing.”

  “And that?” she said.

  “A wife,” he said.

  “That all?” she said.

  “According to Mr. Hodges, it would add to my stature, stability, something. In the opinion of the Board of directors.”

  “And being a bachelor? That would be fatal?”

  “I hope not,” he said, and flushed, and changed the subject and told her about the banquet each year on the fifteenth of December at the Grand Ballroom of The Commodore when the speeches were made and the bonuses declared and another thousand dollars added to the First National Mercantile Heroism Award.