The Golden Gizmo Page 6

  “Keep our city clean,” he explained.

  More laughter, clapping, stamping feet.

  “Mi, mi, mi,” chortled the comic, tapping his chest and coughing. “With your kind indulgence, I shall now sing that touching old love song, a heart-rending melody entitled (pause) ‘If a Hen Lays a Cracked Egg Will the Chicken Be Nutty?’”

  Laughter. A chord from the piano.

  Toddy swung a foot to the pit rail and stepped across to the stage. The comic stared. He grasped Toddy’s hand and wrung it warmly.

  “Don’t tell me, sir! Don’t tell me. Mr. Addison Simms of Seattle, isn’t it?”

  No laughter. It was over their heads. Beneath the grease paint, the painted grin, the comic scowled. (“What you pullin’, you bastard?”) “Why, Mr. Simms,” he said aloud—simpering, twisting. “We can’t do that! Not with all these people watching.”

  Howling laughter; this was right up the audience’s alley. The scowl disappeared. The comedian released Toddy’s hand and flung both arms around him. Head cuddled against Toddy’s chest, he called coyly to the audience:

  “Isn’t he dar-ling?”

  (“How do I get out of here?”)

  “Don’t you just lah-ve big men?”

  (“Dammit, let go!”)

  “You won’t hurt me, will you, Mr. Simms?”

  Above the whistling roar of the crowd, Toddy heard another sound. In the back of the house a brief flash of light marked the opening of the door.…A shouted, distant curse; the stifled scream of a woman. Toddy tried to jerk free and was held more tightly than ever.

  “Kee-iss me, you brute! Take me in yo-ah ahms and—oof!”

  Toddy gave him another one in the guts for luck, then a stiff-arm in the face. The comedian stumbled backwards. Stumbling, waving his arms, he skidded across the top of the piano and fell into the audience.

  Over his shoulder, Toddy got a glimpse of people rising in their seats, milling into the aisle. He did not wait to see more. He darted into the wings, ducked a kick from a brawny man in an undershirt, and gave a blinding back-handed slap in return. A chorus girl tried to conk him with a wine bottle. He caught her upraised arm and whirled her around. He sent her sprawling into another girl—a big blonde with a pair of scissors. The third girl whizzed a jar of grease paint at him, then fled screaming onto the stage.

  The exit was locked. He had to give it two spine-rattling kicks before the latch snapped. He stumbled out into the night, wedged a loaded trash barrel against the door—that wouldn’t hold long—and ran on again.

  He came out of the alley onto another side street. And this was more hopeless than the first one. No lights shone. Several of the buildings were in the process of being razed. The others were boarded up.

  He started down it at a trot, panting, nervous sweat pouring into his eyes. He ran wearily, and then his head turned in an unbelieving stare and he staggered into a doorway. There was a double swinging door with small glass ports on either side. Through the ports drifted a dim, almost indiscernible glow. He went in.

  He was looking up a long dimly lit stairway, a very long stairway. What had once been the second floor was now boarded off. Except for the former second-floor landing, the stairs rose straight to the third floor.

  Gratefully, he saw that the swinging doors were bracketed for a bar; not only that, but the bar was there, a stout piece of two-by-four, leaning against the wall. He picked it up and slid it into the brackets. He put a foot on the steps. The boards gave slightly under his tread, and somewhere in the dimness above him a bell tinkled.

  He hesitated, then went on. A man was standing at the head of the stairs. He had a crew haircut and a mouthful of gum and a pair of pants that rose to his armpits. He also had a sawed-off baseball bat. He twiddled it at his side as he stared at Toddy with incurious eyes.

  “Yeah, Mac?”

  “Uh—I want to see Mable,” said Toddy.

  “Mable, huh? Sure, she’s here. Agnes and Becky, too.” The man chuckled. He waited, then jerked his head impatiently. “You can’t jump ’em on the stairs, Mac. That’s the only way they won’t do it, but they won’t do it that way.”

  Toddy ascended to the landing. He reached for his wallet, and the man moved his hand in a negative gesture. “Just pay the gal, Mac…Now, le’s see…”

  Doors, perhaps a dozen of them, extended the length of the hallway. Doorways with half-doors—summer doors—attached to the outer casing. The man nodded, pointed to a patch of light.

  “Ruthie’s free. Go right on down, Mac.”

  He gave Toddy’s elbow a cordial push; then his arm tightened on it in a viselike grip. “What the hell’s that racket?”

  “Racket?” said Toddy.

  “You heard me. You bar that door down there?”

  “Why the hell would I do that?…Wait a minute!” said Toddy. “I had to boot a wino out of the doorway to get in. He must have come back again.”

  The man cursed. “Them winos! And the goddam cops won’t do a thing about them!” He headed down the stairs scowling, twirling the sawed-off bat. Toddy moved away from the stairwell.

  There was no window at either end of the hall. There was nothing to indicate which of the rooms opened on the fire escape. There’d be one, surely, even in a whorehouse. But he’d have to hunt for it.

  Come on, gizmo, he thought. Be good to me.

  He rapped once, then entered the room the man had indicated. He hooked the summer door behind him. He grinned pleasantly as he closed and locked the other door.

  “Hi, Ruthie,” he said. “How’ve you been?”

  “How you, honey?” She made a pretense of recognizing him. “Ain’t seen you in a long time.”

  She might have been twenty-five or ten years older, depending on how long she’d been at it. Red-haired. Piled together pretty good. She wore sheer silk stockings, high-heeled black pumps and a black nylon brassière. That was all she wore.

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed, shaving her calves.

  “You mind waitin’ a second honey? I kinda hate to stop an’ start all over again.”

  “Let me help you,” said Toddy promptly.

  He took the razor from her hand and pushed her gently back on the bed. He said, “Sorry, kid,” and snapped his free fist against the point of her chin.

  Her eyes closed and her arms went limp. Her feet slipped from the mattress, and he caught and lowered them to the floor.

  Stepping to the window, he ducked under the shade and looked out. Wrong room. The fire escape opened on the next one. He might—but, no, it was too far. He could barely see the damned thing. Trying to jump that far in the dark would be suicide.

  Ducking back into the room, he stepped to the tall Japanese screen and moved it aside. There was a low door behind it, a door blocked by a small bureau. Toddy almost laughed aloud at the sight of it. A bureau joint, for God’s sake! He’d thought that gimmick had gone out with “Dardanella.” Probably it had, too. This one probably wasn’t used any more…but it might still be working.

  In this little frammis, one of the oldest, you were persuaded to leave your clothes on the bureau…You see, honey? No one can touch ’em. The door swings in this way, and the bureau’s in front of it. You can see for yourself, honey…

  Toddy pulled out the top drawer and laid it on the bed. Reaching into the opening, he found the doorknob. Would the dodge work from this side, that was the question. If it didn’t—

  The knob turned slowly. There was a quiet click. Then, a little above the level of the bureau, the mortised panels of the door parted and the upper half swung toward him.

  The head of a brass bedstead blocked the doorway on the other side. The man in it stared stupidly through the rails at Toddy. He was a young man, but he had a thick platinum blond beard. Or so it seemed. Then, he raised his head, bewilderedly, and Toddy saw that the hair spread out on the pillow beneath him was a woman’s.

  “F-for gosh sake!” the man gasped indignantly. “What kind of a whorehouse is—”

  Toddy’s hand shot out. He caught the guy by the back of the head and jerked it between the bedrails.

  The man grunted. The platinum hair stirred frantically on the pillow to an accompaniment of smothered groans. Toddy gave the bed a push. It slid forward a few inches, and he entered the room.

  He stepped out the window, and stared down the fire escape. He took two steps, a third. The fourth was into space. Except for his grip on the handrail, he would have plunged into the alley.

  He drew himself back, stood hugging the metal breathlessly.…Should have expected this, he thought. Building’s probably been condemned for years. Now…He looked upward. No telling what was up there, but it was the only way to go.

  All hell was breaking loose as he started up again. Doors were slamming, women screaming, men cursing. There was the thunder of overturning furniture—of heavy objects swung wickedly. And with it all, of course, the fearsome threatening snarl of the talking dog.

  Suddenly, arms shot out of the window and clutched at Toddy’s feet. He kicked blindly and heard a yell of pain. He raced up the remaining steps to the roof.

  Stepping over the parapet, his hand dislodged a brick, and he flung it downward, heard it shatter on the steel landing. He pushed mightily with his foot, and a whole section of the wall went tumbling down. That, he thought, would give them something to think about.

  Slowly, picking his way in the darkness, he started across the roof. There was no way out on either of the side streets he had been on. That meant he’d have to try for something on the parallel thoroughfare—up at this end, naturally, as far as he could get from the burly house.

  He bumped painfully into a chimney, stumbled over an abandoned tar pot. He paused to flex his agonized toes and shake the sweat from h
is eyes. Unknotting his tie, he stuffed it into the pocket of his coat and swung the coat over his arm.

  He was almost to the street now, and the majority of the buildings should be occupied. At any moment, he should be coming to a roof-trap or a skylight where—Ooof!

  Glass shattered under his feet; there was a flash of light. He tried to throw himself backward and knew sickeningly that it was too late. He shot downward.

  With a groaning wirish whree something caught his body in a sagging embrace. It hugged, then shoved him away. Upward. He landed on his side, unhurt but badly shaken. He opened his eyes cautiously.

  He was lying on the floor beside a metal cot—a cot which, obviously, would never be slept in again. Down this side of the room and along the other were rows of other cots. At one end of the room, easily identifiable despite the half-partitions around them, were shower stalls and a line of toilets.

  A flophouse, Toddy thought. Then he noticed the multitudinous chromos on the walls—GOD IS LOVE…JESUS SAVES…THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD…and he amended the opinion. A mission flophouse. Heb. 13:8.

  He got up and brushed the glass from his clothes. Picking up his coat, he crossed to the other side of the room and looked out a window. The stale air and the almost complete absence of light told him what he could not see. An air shaft. He’d have to go out through the door at the end of the room, and, if he knew his missions, there’d be plenty of people to pass.

  Pondering drearily, desperately, a hope born of utter hopelessness entered and teased at his mind. Maybe Chinless hadn’t got to Elaine. Maybe he didn’t want to get Toddy. He might not have missed the watch. He might—uh—just want to talk to him.

  Oh, hell. Why kid himself? Still, the idea wasn’t completely crazy, was it? Elaine’s murder had taken careful timing, a complete disregard for danger on the part of the murderer. Anyone as ruthless and resourceful as that would not waste time with dogs. Not if they wanted to bump you.

  Chinless must have missed the watch. He’d missed it and he was holding off on killing him, Toddy, until he got it back. He—but wait a minute! If Chinless had got to Elaine, he already had the watch! Why else would he have killed—

  “Is this right, brother?” said a severe voice. “Is this how we live in God’s way?”

  The man wore that look of puffed elation which seems to be the trademark of do-gooders, an expression born of a conscious constipation of goodness; of great deeds and wondrous wisdom held painfully in check; a resigned look, a martyred look, a determinedly sad look—a perpetual bitterness at the world’s unawareness of their worth, at the fact that men born of clay take no joy in excrement, regardless of its purveyor. The man had a thick, sturdy body, a bull neck, a size six and five eighths head.

  He gripped Toddy’s arm and marched him swiftly toward the door. “Don’t do this again, brother,” he warned. “The physical man must be provided for, yes. We recognize the fact. But before that comes our duty to God.”

  Toddy made sounds of acquiescence. This guy obviously wasn’t used to having his authority questioned.

  They went down a short flight of stairs which opened abruptly into a small sweat-and-urine-scented auditorium. Tight rows of wooden camp chairs were packed with the usual crowd of mission stiffs—birds who were too low, lazy or incapacitated to get their grub and flop by other means.

  The man shoved Toddy into a chair in the front row, gave him a menacing glare, and stepped to the rostrum.

  “I apologize for this slight delay, brethren,” he said, with no trace of apology. “For your sakes, I hope there will be no more. You are not entitled to the comfortable beds and nourishing food which you find here. They are gifts—something given you out of God’s mercy and goodness. Remember that and conduct yourselves accordingly.…We will rise now and Praise Him from Whom All Blessings Flow.”

  He nodded to the woman on the platform, and her hands struck the keys of the upright piano. Everyone rose and began to sing.

  There was a comedian immediately behind Toddy. He liked the melody to the hymn, apparently, but not the lyrics; and he improvised his own. Instead of “Praise Him from Whom All Blessings Flow,” he sang something about raisin skins and holy Joe.

  The next song was “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” which the comedian turned into a panegyric on rocks and boulders, the padding, in his opinion, of mission mattresses.

  Toward the end of the hymn, the preacher cocked his head to one side and sharply extended his hand. The pianist stopped playing; the bums lapsed into silence.

  “Someone here—” he said, staring hard at Toddy, “someone thinks he is pretty funny. If he persists, if he commits any further disturbance, I am going to take stern measures with him. Let him be warned!”

  Toddy stared intently at the song book. There was a heavy silence, and then another song was struck up—“Nearer My God to Thee.”

  The comedian behaved himself this time, but some guy in the back of the house was sure giving out with the corn. He was gargling the words; he seemed to be trying to sing and swallow hot mush at the same time.

  The preacher looked at Toddy. He stood on tiptoe and stared out over the congregation. They went on singing fearfully, afraid to stop, and the corny guy seemed to edge closer.

  Toddy stole a glance up from his book. The preacher’s mouth had dropped open. He was no longer singing, but his hand continued to move through the air, unconsciously waving time to the hymn.

  Then, at last, the owner of the preposterous voice came into Toddy’s view. He sat down at his side, on the floor, and laid his great pear-shaped head against Toddy’s hip. Having thus established proprietorship, he faced the rostrum, opened his great jaws to their widest, and “sang”:

  “Nrrahhhh me-odd t’eeeee…”

  He was best on the high notes, and he knew it. He held them far beyond their nominal worth, disregarding the faltering guidance of the piano and the bums’ fear-inspired determination to forge ahead with the song.

  “Nrrahhh t’eee,” he howled. “Neee-rroww t’EEEE…”

  There was a crash as the preacher hurled his hymnal to the floor. Purple with rage, he pointed a quivering finger at Toddy.

  “Get that animal out of here! Get him out instantly!”

  “He’s not mine,” said Toddy.

  “Don’t lie to me! You sneaked him in here tonight! That’s why you were skulking upstairs! Of course he’s yours! Anyone can see he’s yours. Now get him OUT!”

  Toddy gave up. He had to. The guy would be blowing the whistle on him in a minute.

  He turned and started for the door. The dog hesitated, obviously torn between desire and training. Then, with a surly I-never-have-any-fun look, he followed.

  Toddy paused on the sidewalk and put on his coat. The dog nudged him brusquely in the buttocks. He walked toward the curb, and the front door of the convertible swung open.

  Toddy climbed in, heard the dog thump into the back seat, and leaned back wearily.

  “What the hell’s it all about?” he demanded. “What do you want with me?”

  “You will know very soon,” the girl said, and she would say no more than that.

  10

  Up until he met and married Elaine Ives, Toddy’s world, despite its superficially complex appearance, was remarkably uncomplicated. Sound and practical motives guided every action; whims, if you were unfortunate to have them, were kept to yourself. Given a certain situation, you could safely depend upon certain actions and reactions. You might get killed for the change in your pocket. You would never get hurt, however, simply because someone felt like dishing it out.

  Thus, on his wedding night, as he pushed himself up from the floor and slowly massaged his aching head, he couldn’t accept the thing that had been done to him. He couldn’t see it for what it was.

  She’d been playing, putting on a show for him. Obviously, she’d just carried the act a little too far. She couldn’t have meant what she’d said, what she’d done. She just couldn’t have!

  “Gosh, honey,” he said, with a rueful smile. “Let’s not play so rough, huh? Now what kind of whiskey would you like?”

  “I’m sorry, T-Toddy. I—” She choked and tears filled her eyes.

  “Forget it,” he said. “You’ve just had a little more excitement than you can take. I should have seen it. I shouldn’t have made you beg for a drink after all you’ve been through.”