The Way You Die Tonight Read online

  ‘I’m curious,’ I said.

  ‘Kinky,’ she said. She took hold of my tie and pulled. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The talking room.’

  She lied.

  The talking room was not for talking.

  I woke up the next morning with a headache and a vague recollection of the things we did in that room. Or rather, the things she did to me.

  Like I said, I’m no prude. I’ve been with many women: showgirls, singers, dancers, hell, I had sex with Judith Campbell … with Ava Gardner. But the things that this girl did …

  ‘Mmmmm,’ somebody next to me moaned.

  I sat up in bed. Not my bed. Not my bedroom. I was wishing it wasn’t my head.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said again, and rolled over. As beautiful in the morning as she had been the night before in the club, even with the red lipstick gone – kissed off, I assumed, by me.

  She opened her eyes, looked up and smiled at me. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow behind her.

  ‘Wow,’ she said.

  ‘That’s what I was thinking,’ I said, although maybe for different reasons.

  ‘Tyrone, right?’ she asked. ‘Your club name?’

  ‘Uh, yeah.’

  ‘What’s your real name?’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, propping herself up on her elbow. One full breast popped into view from beneath the sheet, like a big, pink-tipped melon. ‘I’ve never brought anybody home from the club before. I think I deserve to know your name.’

  ‘Eddie,’ I said, ‘it’s Eddie … Gianelli.’

  ‘My real name is Emily,’ she said, making a face. ‘I know, ordinary. That’s why I picked Jewel.’

  ‘There’s nothing ordinary about you, Emily,’ I said. ‘As far as I can remember.’

  ‘And just how much do you remember, handsome?’ she asked.

  ‘More now than a few minutes ago,’ I said, ‘probably more later than now.’

  She reached out and put her hand on my chest. The heat of her skin was familiar.

  ‘You hungry?’

  I thought about it and said, with surprise, ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I can cook.’

  She got out of bed quickly, showing me acres of beautiful, smooth pale flesh as she grabbed a robe and pulled it on.

  ‘Bathroom’s there,’ she said, pointing. ‘Have a shower. We’ll talk over breakfast.’

  ‘Talk?’

  She turned at the door and looked at me, cocked her head. Without all the make-up and lipstick, she looked younger.

  ‘You want to know about the fight, right?’

  ‘We … didn’t talk about that, yet?’

  ‘Honey,’ she said, ‘we really haven’t had much time for talking.’

  FORTY-NINE

  I soaked in Emily’s shower, trying to shake the cobwebs loose and the night before back into focus. I remembered her tugging on my tie and taking me to the ‘talking room’, and not much after that. Apparently we never got around to talking about what had happened at the club, and that was what I’d gone there for. So maybe over breakfast I could salvage the trip.

  I put on the clothes I’d worn the night before, sans jacket, and went into the kitchen.

  ‘I hope you like burnt toast and burnt bacon,’ she said, putting plates on the table.

  I looked at the blackened toast and bacon and the wondrous, fluffy scrambled eggs that sat next to them.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she said, ‘I’m a whiz with eggs.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘I like bacon any way I can get it.’

  We sat down across from each other and she said, ‘Don’t be too nice to scrape the burnt part off that toast.’

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘that’s how I grew up eating toast.’

  I used a butter knife to scrape off as much of the black as I could, and then covered it with butter. I really did like bacon any old way, and the eggs were like eating clouds.

  And the coffee was hot.

  While we ate I learned her name was Emily Marcus, and she was a legal secretary at a law firm in town, Denby & Sloane. I told her what I did and where, and she thought it was very exciting.

  She ate with a hearty appetite. Jerry would have been proud.

  ‘OK,’ she said, halfway through our plates, ‘so you wanted to know about the fight.’

  ‘I came to the club because I heard something had happened a week or so ago, and it involved Helen Simms.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Helen – you know, I don’t know her club name.’

  ‘Well, there was a fight in the club,’ she said, ‘and it did involve a woman.’

  ‘Describe her to me.’

  She did. It was Helen to a T.

  ‘That’s her,’ I said. ‘What was the fight about?’

  ‘I saw and heard some of it. They were thrown off the club floor.’

  ‘By who?’

  The bouncers.’

  ‘And taken where?’

  ‘The manager’s office, I assumed.’

  ‘OK,’ I asked, ‘what did you hear? What was the fight about?’

  ‘Well, it seemed to be about … drugs.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said, ‘drugs?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And Helen was in the fight?’

  ‘She was one of the two people fighting,’ Emily said. ‘The other one was named Dante.’

  ‘Dante?’

  She nodded. ‘Club name.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Tall, sandy-haired, thirties.’

  ‘Is he a regular at the club?’

  ‘That was the first time I’d seen him.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘so the fight was about drugs, but … what, specifically?’

  ‘Well, he seemed to think she was moving in on his, uh, turf?’

  ‘Helen was selling drugs?’

  ‘Tina,’ Emily said, ‘that was her name – her club name. Tina. And yeah, that’s the impression I got.’

  Helen Simms was not only a member of a sex club, but she was selling drugs? As hard as that was to believe, it certainly supplied a motive for murder. Even that dim-wit Hargrove would have to admit that.

  If I told him.

  ‘More coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She went to the stove for the pot, filled my cup and hers, and then set it down on a metal tray on the table.

  ‘Tell me,’ she asked, ‘what is this about?’

  I realized she still didn’t know that Helen was dead.

  ‘Well … Helen … I mean Tina … worked at the Sands, for my boss,’ I said. ‘She was his secretary.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘lots of secretaries go to that club.’

  ‘Four days ago Tina was killed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It looked like she hung herself, but I think it was murder. And now you’ve given me a motive.’

  ‘You mean … Dante killed her?’

  ‘Maybe. I’ve been looking for someone who might have a motive.’

  ‘My God,’ she said, ‘what are you going to do? Tell the police?’

  ‘Well, that’s a problem – see, the police believe she killed herself.’

  ‘But … they’re the experts. If they say she killed herself … wouldn’t they be right?’ She looked confused about why I’d question the experts.

  ‘Yeah, you’d think they were the experts and they’d be right, but … not so much.’

  She sat back in her chair and stared at me.

  ‘This is amazing,’ she said.

  ‘Kinda, yeah,’ I said. ‘Listen, when we left the club last night did you see a Cadillac outside with a great big guy in it?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘but then … I wasn’t really looking, you know?’

  ‘And how’d we get here? Did you drive?’

  ‘Oh, no, I never drive to the club,’ she said. ‘I’m never in any shape to drive home. We took a ca
b.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, ‘then I’ll have to call Jerry to pick me up.’

  ‘Jerry?’

  ‘The really big guy.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Can I use your phone?’

  ‘Why not?’ she said, with a smile. ‘You’ve used everything else I have.’

  FIFTY

  Jerry got there half an hour after I called. During that time I was tempted to use everything Emily had again, just so I’d remember doing it, but she said she had to get ready for work.

  ‘Maybe another night,’ she said, patting my cheek.

  She moved around her apartment as if I wasn’t there, most of the time in a bra and slip. I felt like a piece of the furniture. She got dressed faster than any woman I’d ever known before. Certainly quicker than any woman I’d ever watched before.

  When she was ready to leave she stood at the door in a blouse, a tight skirt, holding her purse and her keys.

  ‘Gotta go,’ she said, looking at me expectantly. She even jingled her keys at me.

  I was sitting on the sofa, waiting, when suddenly I realized what she was saying. She had to leave and she wasn’t about to leave me in her home, alone.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, getting to my feet, ‘OK. I’ll wait for Jerry downstairs.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, opening the door.

  We stepped into the hall and I waited while she locked her door. We took the elevator from her floor – the fourth – to the lobby, where I walked her to the front door. There was no doorman, no guard in the lobby.

  She hastily kissed me on the cheek and said, ‘Maybe we’ll see each other again.’

  If I needed to go to that club to do that, I doubted it, but I said, ‘Sure, maybe. Thanks, Emily.’

  ‘For what?’

  I smiled.

  ‘Best burnt bacon I ever had.’

  She laughed and walked off, I assumed, to get her car. I waited in front of the building – a block of apartment buildings not far from Fremont Street – until Jerry pulled up in front, in the Caddy.

  He leaped over the door into the passenger seat.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He pulled away from the curb.

  ‘What? You’re mad at me?’ I said, instantly detecting a chill.

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘What did I do?’

  He intended to give me the cold shoulder, but he couldn’t.

  ‘You shoulda sent Lily home last night, right away.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ I said. ‘I tried. As soon as I saw her I tried to get her to leave. But she wanted to show me around first. I got her out of there as soon as I could.’

  ‘And I had to drive her home,’ he said. ‘By the time I got back, I didn’t know what happened to you. You never came out.’

  ‘You didn’t try to go in, did you?’

  ‘I thought about it,’ he said, ‘but no, I didn’t.’

  ‘Good. I was fine, Jerry. I … left with someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A woman.’

  ‘Mr G.,’ he said, ‘that ain’t exactly what you went there to do.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said, ‘but it turns out she gave me the information I was looking for.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Helen Simms had a fight at the club with a man who might have been a drug dealer.’

  ‘So he killed her?’

  ‘Apparently, she was moving in on his territory.’

  ‘Wait, she was dealin’?’

  ‘She was, or she intended to,’ I said. ‘At least, that’s the feeling Emily got.’

  ‘Emily’s the broad you left with? Who lived in that building?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How do you know she was tellin’ you the truth?’ A very simple question from a very simple man. One I should have asked myself.

  ‘What reason would she have to lie?’ I asked. ‘I only met her last night.’

  ‘Did she know Helen?’

  ‘She says no, just that she saw her there. At least, that’s what she said when I asked her.’

  ‘We should have a picture of her to show people.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘I’ll try to find one. We might have to go to her apartment.’

  ‘Maybe the dick took one when he was there.’

  ‘I’ll ask him. Did you hear from him this morning?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Take me home. I’ll change, and then call him.’

  ‘And then we eat?’

  ‘You haven’t had breakfast?’

  ‘No. I was worried about you.’

  ‘And it affected your appetite?’

  He didn’t answer. Instead he said, ‘Did you eat?’

  ‘I had some burnt bacon.’

  ‘I like burnt bacon,’ he said. ‘Do you want to eat again?’

  ‘I could eat,’ I said.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Jerry took me to my house and waited while I changed into a more casual sport coat, this time with a blue T-shirt underneath, and grey slacks. Then we drove to a nearby diner for breakfast. I decided not to call Danny to join us.

  ‘We’ll see him in his office,’ I said to Jerry, ‘if we can find him.’

  Jerry was carving his way through a stack of pancakes, slathered with butter and syrup. I never ate pancakes when I was with him. I tried it once, and felt inadequate. So I stuck to eggs and ham, or bacon, with home fries and toast.

  ‘If the lady was killed by this drug dealer,’ Jerry said, ‘why would he do it in the Sands? And how would he get in and out?’

  ‘That’s what we have to find out.’

  ‘So how do we find out who the drug dealer is?’

  ‘I have his club name,’ I said.

  ‘But we can’t walk into that place and ask what his real name is.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ I said, ‘but that doesn’t mean we can’t ask outside the club.’

  ‘Ask who?’

  ‘The manager.’

  ‘Outside the club?’

  ‘He’s got to leave the building sometime, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Jerry said, ‘and when he does, we grab him.’

  ‘Unless you have a better idea.’

  ‘Nope,’ he said, spearing a huge hunk of pancakes with his fork, ‘I like that one. We can squeeze him for what he did to the shamus.’

  ‘You can do the squeezing.’

  ‘That’s what I figured.’

  After we left the diner I called Danny’s office from a pay phone, Penny answered, said he was in his office. I told her to keep him there, we’d be right over.

  On the way Jerry asked, ‘Are you gonna tell the cop about this drug dealer?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but not yet. Not until we know more.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinkin’.’

  ‘I’ve also got to check in with Robinson,’ I said, ‘see what he wants to do today.’

  ‘Ain’t he done?’ Jerry asked. ‘He watched a game, right?’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t come to Vegas just to watch once,’ I said. ‘I might have to set him up with another one.’

  ‘What if he actually wants to play?’

  I thought about that and said, ‘Yeah, what if he does.’

  ‘He’s still in his office,’ Penny said, as we entered the offices of Bardini Investigations.

  ‘Thanks, doll,’ I said.

  ‘Hello, Jerry.’

  ‘Hi, Penny,’ he mumbled, still shy around her even though he’d known her for a few years, now. I always thought it was because she was such a nice girl.

  ‘Hey, guys,’ Danny said, as we entered. ‘Got something?’

  ‘We do,’ I said. ‘You?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I talked with the guy, Walter Spires.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The guy’s a nerd, Eddie,’ Danny said. ‘The kind of guy we used to beat up in school every day, remember?’

  ‘What did he have to say?’
r />   ‘He said Helen Simms was a mean, nasty bitch who got him fired for no reason at all.’

  ‘I don’t know if that’s a motive for murder,’ I said, ‘but it would explain how he got in and out.’

  ‘Anybody seeing him there might assume he still worked there,’ Danny said.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, what did you guys get from the sex club?’

  ‘Mr G. got laid,’ Jerry said.

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Danny asked, gleefully. ‘Couldn’t stay out of those rooms, huh?’

  ‘There was a woman who had some information,’ I said.

  ‘So you had to sleep with her to get it?’

  ‘It was a dirty job …’ I said.

  ‘How’d you get in?’ Danny asked. ‘I mean, into the club. Did you use somebody’s club name?’

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘somebody was there to help me.’ I told him about Lily, the waitress at the Sands.

  ‘Whoa,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Did she have anything against Helen?’

  ‘She said she hardly knew her,’ I said.

  ‘Eddie,’ he said, ‘what are the chances that two people from the Sands would belong to that club?’

  ‘I didn’t think of that.’

  ‘She didn’t lie,’ Jerry said.

  We both looked at him.

  ‘How do you know?’ Danny asked.

  ‘I just do,’ Jerry said.

  I tried to give Danny the high sign so he’d leave the subject alone. Jerry was obviously sensitive when it came to Lily.

  ‘OK, big guy,’ Danny said, getting my message. ‘Whatever you say.’ He looked at me. ‘So we’ve got to find this drug dealer.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘For that we need his name.’

  ‘Jerry and I have a plan for that.’

  ‘Lemme hear it,’ Danny said, sitting back. He listened without saying a word, then commented, ‘That’ll work. And I’ll come along.’

  ‘For a little revenge?’ Jerry asked.

  ‘Nah,’ Danny said, ‘I can point him out. I don’t need revenge. I’m a pro, I can take my lumps. When do we wanna do this?’

  ‘I need some time,’ I said, ‘to get things at the Sands straightened out. What about tomorrow night?’

  ‘Why don’t you both meet me here?’ Danny said.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘We’ll need someplace to take him once we snatch him.’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ Danny said. ‘You go and take care of your business at the Sands.’