The Delicate Darling

Jack Webb

• Editore: Prologue Books
• Anno: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781440541490
• Argomento: Literatur
• Categoria: Kriminal- & Mysterienliteratur

It started with a missing poet, a fire, and a half-strangled girl. But before it was over Sergeant Sammy Golden and his friend Father Shanley found themselves faced with the double headache of foreign intrigue and triple murder.

It was a tan day, hot and fetid, with the sun slow burning through the still, unhealthy air. Wrapped in a thin, almost colorless gown, the girl stood before the open window, staring out through the flimsy curtains at nothing. Her jet eyes were scarcely in focus for the weight of her fatigue and the feeling of panic growing within her.

The young man on the bed stirred, turned, coughed and returned to breathing heavily and unevenly, without waking. With his movement, she, too, had turned, the fright in her rising swiftly.

The beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead and at his temples and in clearly defined droplets above his full upper lip. There was little hair on his bare chest, and because of the softness of his milky flesh, the dark, damp tousle of his hair, he appeared angelic, almost feminine.

Her own body felt clammy and sick, and she wondered desperately if she dared to bathe, dared to leave him even for that little while in her own house.

“Mary, Mother of God,” she whispered softly, “Maria, Madre de Dios!”

She returned to staring at the drab, ugly day beyond the window. What a dirty thing it was! The sourness of last night’s sickness filled the room behind her and caught at her throat until she thought she would cry out.

Then, suddenly conscious of the silence, no longer hearing the uneven respiration of the young man behind her, she turned and saw that his eyes were open, were watching. More aware of the daylight shabbiness of her worn negligee than of its nothingness, she caught it up before her between both hands and the young man smiled. The transformation in his expression was amazing. Still pale, still soft in appearance, he had become a cherub, a Kewpie doll with a whimsical twinkle.

He said simply, “You are lovely. Do not be ashamed. Do you have any beer?”

“Por Dios!” she exclaimed, “you are crazy!”

“Por Dios!” His smile mocked her. “No. Please, some beer.”

“Yes.” She fled from the room.

At the refrigerator, she grasped frantically at the essentials. Tony knew she hated beer. It would be like Tony to have counted the bottles. She would have to replace this one. She would have to replace every bottle drunk this day. Carefully, she counted the bottles on the lower shelf. Then she took one and opened it at the sink. Before she returned to the bedroom, she found a clean glass.

He smiled again when she returned. Both of them pretended not to notice the chipped enamel basin beside the bed. She tilted the glass as she poured the beer.

Sipping slowly, he paused to press the moistness into his lips with his fingertips.

“What is your name?” he asked. He was sitting up with the pillows stuffed behind him.

“Anita.”

“Anita.” He thought about it. “Yes,” he said, “the pretty one with the long net stockings and the cigarettes. Is this your house?”

She nodded, her dark eyes perplexed.

“You are very lovely. I am sorry I have made you so much trouble.”

“Last night,” she told him, “you drank very much. Much too much. I saw.”

He shook his head. “No, it was not that.”

The girl studied him, not understanding. Last night they had spoken mostly in Spanish. Today they were speaking mostly English. Like his smile, his voice belonged to the angels. But it was more than that, the way he spoke each word, each phrase, fell a little differently than she ever had heard it before.

“You are a strange one,” she said finally.

“ ‘Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the devil’s foot …’”

Her black eyes dilated. “Are you a witch?”

He laughed at her.

“What was that?” she demanded.

“Poetry,” he said, “English poetry. Some of the best of it.”

“I do not understand.”

“Pues,” he was smiling again, “of course not. Is there a Don Anita?”

“A Don Anita?”

“Cigarette girls do not own houses.” His voice grew quickly hard, suspicious. “You have a husband?”

“Yes.”

He waited.

“My husband is a fisherman. He is at sea.”

“Is he a man with honor?” His fingers felt the damp edge of the sheet and moved it between them.

“As most men are.”

“Which is not at all….”

“A man is a man.”

He scowled. “Except for me.”

“Please, you are sick.”

“Sick!” He shouted the word. “The world is sick and I am in your country to hunt the girls like pouter pigeons, the big-breasted girls, the long-legged girls, the strutting girls!” He began to laugh and, laughing, choked, and she saw the wrenching knot tie in his shoulders and ran to kneel beside him and to hold the basin.

The Cadillac was almost as long as a hearse and the color of pink which is sometimes seen in the wings of doves. Its top was down and, in the candid light of the brassy day, the color of the woman’s hair was nearer blue than black. She wheeled the big car expertly into the loading zone before the moss green and gold front of the Chino Soy Club.

Though she was pushing forty in all directions, Reba Manning’s long legs as she slid from the white leather seat onto the walk gave several passers-by a run for their hormones as did the elegant shape she was in. The pale blue sheath of cotton she was wearing did nothing to spoil the illusion.

The green, plastic-padded door of the club was propped open with a stilt-legged chair. Back someplace inside, drums were talking. As she passed through the door, a voice from the semidarkness said softly, “Sorry, Miss, we ain’t open until five thirty.”

She paused, glancing about the interior of the club, shabby and patchy without glamour in the gray light. The owner of the voice stood among the small tables. He had a mop in his hand and all the chairs were upside down on the tables. In the background, the drums kept working.

Mrs. Manning raised her voice. “I’m looking for a person called Esmeralda.”

The janitor stared at the expensive woman with interest. “Are you a friend of Miss Esmeralda’s?”

“I hardly think one should call it that.”

The drums were quiet.

Reba Manning felt the second glance, knew the eyes were in the shadow behind the drums on the unlighted bandstand. She said, “I am most anxious to contact this Esmeralda. Perhaps you could tell me where to find her.”

“Oh, yes,” the janitor said, “I walk Miss Esmeralda home most every night.”

The shadow on the bandstand laughed.

Mrs. Manning felt the rush of sudden anger and controlled it. As she found the reason for their insolence, she managed a smile. “Come, now,” and her voice was quite gay, “you don’t suppose I am the jealous wife, do you?” She paused and shared their delicious joke. “Really, let me tell you, I’ve heard a young Latin gentleman came here last night to see the lady in question. Presumably he’s our house guest. He’s not been home yet.” She smiled and the smile grew wistful. “If Juan were well, it would make little difference.” The smile vanished completely. “The point is that Juan is not well. The point is that if anything should happen to him both our State Department and his own Embassy would be vitally concerned. Now, do we understand each other?”

The janitor stared at Mrs. Manning, worried and beyond his depth. The shadow behind the drums moved between chairs, stepped off the platform and came forward. He was a pale young man with too much hair and enormous eyes. He walked very carelessly until he stood before the woman. He appreciated every bit of what he saw.

He said, “I’m Barnaby. I push the band around here. I remember your sick young man. He looks like an angel by Rubens and has the manners of a devil. He was sick as hell in here last night. Sloppy sick.”

Mrs. Manning nodded. “That would be Juan.” She waited. If the pale young man had hoped to shock her, he had not succeeded.

“So he was thrown out,” Barnaby told her. “The way anybody is handled who can not handle himself.”

“I see.” She turned to leave.

The young man’s voice followed her. “And now?”

“The city jail,” she said coldly. “They’ve an infirmary so I’ve heard.”

He followed her silently on soft-soled shoes with black suede tops. When she reached the door, he spoke, “Then you don’t want to hear the rest of it?”

She swung. “What’s your game, Mr. Barnaby?”

He smiled. “Just Barnaby. Only to tell you. You didn’t let me finish. When he was sick, one of our girls went with him. Anita. I’m afraid it may have cost her her job.”

“I can make that up to her. Where would I find her, them?”

Outside the door, he saw the long, long convertible. He said carefully, “I don’t know for certain.”

“Look, Mr. Barnaby, either you know or you don’t know.”

He leaned against the propped-open door and smiled at her. The corners of his too-perfect mouth mocked her. “Of concern to the State Department,” he said, “of concern to his Embassy.”

“I dislike smart young men. Do you have s...