I got a crawling feeling up my spine. Supposing Ronny Chernow, when he heard from his gun-goons – Vivian and Smitty – that I’d escaped, had anticipated me, come straight here. He could be hiding in that room, right now, waiting to kill me himself, not trusting to hirelings this time.
I took a big, gulping breath and without waiting, or giving myself a chance to get really scared, I whirled around Liz Tremayne and walked to that room. While I was fumbling inside the door for the light switch, Liz leaped at me, tried to yank me away. But she was too late. My fingers found the wall switch and the room flooded with light. Liz stood trying to pull me away from the doorway.
It was a bedroom, furnished with cheap maple furniture. There was nobody hiding there. But on the bed were two expensive alligator leather suitcases and a woman’s purse. I started toward them and Liz grabbed my shoulder, wheeled me around, got in front of me, blocking me off.
“You have no right!” she half screamed. “This is my apartment. Get out of here! Get out! I’ll call the police – have you thrown out!”
She was strong. She kept pushing me back toward the doorway to the living room, away from those bags on the bed. She was so strong, she kept throwing me off balance, gradually forcing me out of the room. It was no time to be gentlemanly. I grabbed her by the wrists and flung her with every bit of strength in me, away from me. She went spinning and hit the wall with her back, jarring her, so that hair fell down over one eye. She leaned back against the wall, her head forward and lowered a little, her beautiful eyes, frightened, angry, blurred with tears, looking up at me through the thick black lashes. She was half sobbing.
“Call the police?” I said. “Go ahead. I’m going to do it, anyhow, when I get through here. Now, stay away from me. If you interfere, I’ll have to knock you out.” Big, tough Kip Morgan, a real rough cookie – when he was up against an unarmed girl. But I had to do it.
I went over to the bed and snapped open one of the suitcases. It was filled with women’s clothing. On the top, lying face down, was a framed photograph. I turned it over and looked down into a portrait of smirking, handsome Ronny Chernow, dressed like Mr John K. Rockabilt. I put it back down, shut the suitcase. I picked up the purse, opened it. Along with all the usual feminine junk, there was an airlines envelope, containing two one-way flight tickets to Mexico City. I put them back, then tossed the purse back onto the bed.
“You and Ronny were running out on the whole thing, eh?” I said. “To Mexico.”
She was still leaning against the wall. The tears had finally squeezed out of her eyes and were running down her cheeks. She pushed the hair back from her forehead and shook her head. Her gaze dropped away from mine, fell to the floor.
“How did you find out about it, Kip? We – we thought we had plenty of time. Until Monday, at least, maybe longer. Where’s Ronny? Have the police got him?”
She could have been acting, but I didn’t think so. There was a whipped tone to her voice. And the packed bags and the airline tickets told of her innocence. She was getting the big double-deal from Chernow and didn’t even know it. Yet. She was being made a patsy, too, right along with me.
“I don’t know where Ronny is!” I told her. “How’d I find out about this? Because Chernow paid a guy and a girl to lure me to a hotel room. They beat me into signing a confession that I’d been the one taking the money, pulling that phoney check racket for the past year. Then they were going to throw me out of the window. It would look as though I’d committed suicide. You and Ronny Chernow would have been beautifully cleared. Neither of you would have had a thing to worry about Monday morning.”
Her eyes widened. “But – but I don’t understand. Why didn’t Ronny tell me about all this? He told me that because I was implicated there wasn’t any way of framing it on anyone else. We – we talked about that. We discussed trying to put it all onto you. Kip. But Ronny said we couldn’t – not and keep in the clear. He still had over five thousand left when he sold out what was left of his stocks. He said with just a few thousand we could live well for a few months in Mexico and that he had some connections down there, that there was plenty of money to be made down there for a man with brains and looks and personality. So we were going to run for it. By now, I didn’t care. I–I was just glad that it was over . . . I–I guess he must have made a last minute change in plans and figured some way to put it onto you and still keep me in the—”
“No,” I cut in on her. “He didn’t. He planned it this way right from the beginning, Liz. I forgot to tell you. Your name was mentioned in that confession letter I was forced to sign. It fully implicated you. The only one Ronny Chernow kept in the clear was himself. The way he was going to do that was to kill you, too. Another suicide. That would tie it all up.”
She shook her head violently from side to side. Her mouth was slack, her eyes wild, trapped-looking. “No!” she cried. “You’re wrong! It couldn’t be that. Ronny wouldn’t do that to me!” Her voice broke. “He loves me. We were going to be married in Mexico! You’re wrong, wrong, all wrong!”
“He never loved you,” I told her. “Or he wouldn’t have gotten you into this in the first place. A guy like Chernow isn’t capable of love, not real love. He liked you – he went for you – big, maybe. But not any more, Liz. He got tired of you. He was through with you. He wanted to get rid of you. This gave him an out on that, too.”
She had her face in her hands, now. Her soft, silky, honey-colored hair hung over her hands as she bent her head. I couldn’t hear her sobbing but I could see her shoulders shaking. I could see a vein standing out in her throat. She was pitiful. I felt a little sorry for her.
“Liz,” I said softly. “How could you get mixed up in a thing like this – with a big-mouthed, phoney louse like Chernow? How do these things happen?”
After a moment she got control of herself. She looked at me, her eyes raw-red from crying, her makeup smeared. “How?” she said. Her voice was ragged, bitter. “All right, I’ll tell you how. Maybe you’ll feel sorry for me. Maybe you’ll figure some way to give me a break.”
She told me. The beginning was an old story. Ronny Chernow was her boss. They worked late together a couple of nights. He bought her dinner. They had some drinks. It went on from there. She’d never known a man like Chernow, before. She was impressed, awed, overwhelmed by the way he dressed and the way he spent money, the places he took her.
“Places girls who work for a living, who are drab and plain, dream about, see in the movies, read about in the papers and that’s all,” she said. “The most expensive nightclubs. The clubhouse at Belmont. Flashy gambling places over in New Jersey. And Ronny – he was so smart about everything. He taught me how to fix myself up, how to dress. He made me – pretty! So that I felt as good as any of the women in those places. He drove me around in a Cadillac – a Caddy, Kip!”
“Didn’t you wonder where he got the money, how he did all that on his salary?” I asked.
“He told me he was very lucky at gambling and played the market shrewdly,” she said. “Listen, every night I was in such a dream world, I didn’t think, didn’t care how it was happening. Do you question miracles? Of course, in the daytime, at the office, I’d go back to my old personality. Ronny said it would be better that way, wouldn’t cause any talk.”