Nathan Heller was not as young as he used to be.
In a personality-free hallway, Hagan — some clothes draped over his arm and a bottle of I.W. Harper in one hand — knocked at 49-A.
“It’s Johnny!” he said.
The door opened on a tall, surprisingly good-looking chippie in low heels. She wore a white blouse and brown skirt and there was nothing sexy about that wardrobe except the voluptuous body it hugged. Her hair was big and blonde and phony, but who cared? Her eyes were big, too, and gray-blue, her nose pert and her mouth too wide and too red and too full and still nobody cared. She looked like Cleo Moore in the B-movies, only tall — five ten easy.
“Sandy, this is Nate Heller,” Johnny said. We were out in the hall. “He’s from Chicago.”
“Remind me to be impressed,” she said. “Here, give me those clothes. You pick out something good? Hope you didn’t ask my aunt’s help. Her taste is in her fucking ass.”
We went in.
Sandy stepped aside, examining her share of the clothes — Hagan had provided several options. A guy only in his white-and-black polka-dot boxer shorts, a sleeveless sweaty white undershirt, and the black socks/shoes combo you see in stag films rolled off the bed and came over in a clumsy, hurried stagger. He was maybe five nine and not fat exactly, more a fruit-gone-bad softness, his legs short and stocky and nearly hairless.
He had dark thinning hair swept back, a receding hairline that emphasized a widow’s peak, and a short, wide nose and dull light blue eyes, like somebody who couldn’t remember where he put his car keys. No, his car. His mouth was a rosebud thing, and he had the kind of five o’clock shadow that just makes a face look dirty. A cigarette with an ash about to fall off drooped from the small, plump lips.
Like a greedy kid, he grabbed from Hagan the bottle of Harper’s and the remainder of the clothing — a silk shirt and fresh boxers — then beamed at him. “You are really on the ball, Johnny!”
“Aim to please, Steve.”
Steve put the shirt on over the grubby t-shirt and turned his back to us as he dropped his drawers and got into the new ones, giving us a look at a flabby ass that made Hagan and me share a cringe. Sandy was off to one side paying no attention to anything but the selection of clothes, which seemed to satisfy but not thrill her. Like her life. She took her fresh things into the bathroom and shut herself in. Nice to know she had a sense of decorum.
Then Steve turned and his face went as blank as a baby’s. He pointed at me. “Who’s this? Chicago?”
Steve’s voice was husky, low, smarter than the face.
I offered my hand. “Nate Heller. You must be Steve Strand.”
He stuck something out that proved to be a clammy excuse for an appendage.
Just looking at him, I knew he’d done this evil thing. Over against the wall was the metal luggage from the pawnshop — a green footlocker and black suitcase, likely filled with the money Letterman and I had dropped off by that covered bridge last night.
“That’s who I am, I’m Steve Strand,” he said, as if reminding himself, and went over and sat on the edge of the bed as he stuck his stubby legs into some trousers he’d plucked off a chair. “Thanks for making time. It’ll be worth your while, I promise.”
The voice might have been M’s. It seemed lower here, but a phone voice can sound higher. And he could have been disguising it on the calls.
Or wasn’t M.
I sat next to Steve. On the Beautyrest. “Well, I promise you I’ll be fair. We want you to feel like you can do business with us the next time you have a windfall.”
The dull eyes tightened. “We ever met?”
I shook my head. “I’d remember.”
Maybe he recognized my voice.
“Well, we’ll get to know each other,” he said with a shrug. He looked at me the way a dog does a hydrant. “We’re just gettin’ ready to go out on the town. You’re coming along, right? What’s your name again?”
“Nate.”
“Nate, you won’t be sorry you met me.”
“I’m damn near giddy already.”
Steve laughed at that. So did I. Neither of us meant it.
Sandy came out in a four-alarm fire of a red pencil cocktail dress with a square-neck that showed off at least a third of her breasts. Once a man got past thinking contemptuously, “She’s for sale,” his next thought was, “How much?”
“Take me to the Hill,” she said to nobody in particular. That was the Italian-American enclave of St. Louis famed for toasted ravioli and roasted gangsters. “Ruggieri’s.”
“No,” Steve said, getting into a new-looking houndstooth sport coat that had been slung over a chair. “We’ll just get sandwiches somewhere.”
She gestured to herself and her screaming red sexuality. “You’re not gonna buy this a goddamn sandwich.”
He waved her off like they were married. “Okay, okay. But it’s getting late. Not everything’s open. I’ll take you for a nice dinner, but someplace near here.” He looked at Hagan, who was leaning against the wall near the door. “Know anyplace?”
“Harbor Inn is close,” he said with a shrug. “It’s all right. You can get a full meal, if the kitchen’s still open.”
“Harbor Inn it is,” Steve said, and Sandy rolled her eyes, hands on hips.
I said, “I’m not that hungry. I’ll wait for you folks to get back.” I was thinking about that footlocker and suitcase against the wall; I still carried lock picks.
Steve came over and put a pudgy hand on my sleeve; he smelled like Old Spice and desperation. “No, you come along, Nate. We’ll have a chance to talk. Get to know each other. Can you hold onto this for me?”
He reached in his pocket and got out a .38 revolver. He held it in his hand like this was a stick-up. For a moment I weighed diving for him, as death seemed a possibility and I’d rather it be his; but he shifted it to his palm and held it out like a gift.
“Ain’t it a little beaut?” he asked.
“I’m not licensed in this state,” I said, which was a lie. The nine mil was under my left arm. Thank you, Richard Bennett.
Steve swung toward Hagan. “How about you, Johnny?”
“No can do, buddy,” handsome Johnny said through a stiff smile. “I’m on parole.”
Sandy came over in a lightning flash of red and plucked the gun from Steve’s palm, startling him. “Cute,” she said. “Just what we need, going out to dinner, case the waitress is a bitch.” Efficiently she emptied the bullets into her hand. “What’s an insurance agent doing with a gun?”
“Protection,” Steve said defensively, “what do you think? I carry around considerable sums of money, you know.”
She closed her fingers around the cartridges and swayed back to her purse, a black leather clutch, and dumped the slugs into it. Then she sashayed back and returned the gun.
Under the five o’clock shadow, Steve’s cheeks were as red as Sandy’s dress. “You think I don’t have more slugs?” Proving his point, he dipped a hand into a sport coat pocket and showed off his own handful of bullets.
But they were .25 caliber. Whose gun did they belong to? A female partner, maybe? That blowsy dame he seemed to have ditched?
Steve left the .38 under a pillow and we set out for the Harbor Inn. I did not suggest using my car, tucked away in one of the garages below, because Steve — if he was M — might recognize the Caddy from the ransom drop last night; Letterman and I had not been sure we hadn’t been watched.
We went in Hagan’s taxi and I sat in front with him, keeping an eye on the couple in the backseat. Looking out opposite windows, they had less chemistry than oil and water. Steve was smoking again, and it soon became clear he was a chain-smoker. Hagan had a cigarette going, too, and so did Sandy, and a nicotine cloud formed inside the cab.