Go, Honeylou by Thomas B. Dewey

Author:Thomas B. Dewey [Dewey, Thomas B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery, detective, crime, sleuth, murder
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2015-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Gin Rickey lived in a three-story rooming house in the beatnik section. A switchback stairway led to her apartment on the third floor. I made it up there and stood around for a couple of minutes, resting. I didn’t want to come on her in a panting condition.

If I ever get back to that hotel, I thought, I’ll never leave it. I’ll be a hotel dick, even a Turkish bath attendant.

I knocked on the door. Nothing happened, so I knocked again. I heard bedsprings creak lazily.

“Who is it?” a muffled voice said.

“Pete Schofield,” I said.

“Who?”

“Pete Schofield. Got to see you.”

“Go away,” she said.

“I can’t. My beard is stuck in your mail drop. I’ve been here all night.”

Silence. Then a lock slid inside the door. It opened about three inches and a thin, olive-shaped face looked out at me. It was framed in long, black, disorderly hair. Her lips were thin and scarlet, her eyes black slits.

“Who the hell are you?” she said.

There was a chain on the door. I grinned.

“Schofield,” I said, “the beardless prophet.”

She took me in with her eyes, slowly, from head to toe. Her face was inscrutable. It wasn’t what you would call a pretty face, but it was—interesting.

“I don’t want any,” she said.

“It’s free.”

She said a dirty word.

“No,” I said, “not that.”

Annoyance crept into her voice.

“Look, I’m trying to get some sleep. Go the hell away.”

Downstairs, I had heard the front door open and close. Now we both heard footsteps ascending heavily.

“Oh, God,” she sighed.

It told me something about her sense of status. There were half a dozen other pads on this floor and she immediately assumed the call was for her. Whom else?

She closed the door enough to unhook the chain, opened it and stood back against the door jamb.

“I can give you five minutes,” she said.

Her eyes shifted to look down the steps. Her hand went to her throat. It dropped right away, as if she were trying to deny the gesture, but her body remained tense. I glanced around and saw a guy mounting the last flight. He was at the moment about twelve steps down. It was Fallon.

“Expecting company?” I whispered.

“No,” she said.

I swung to the head of the stairs and looked down. Fallon saw me and stopped. He came up one more step and stopped again. I beckoned with both hands.

“Come on, Fallon,” I said. “Right up here.”

I balled my right hand into a fist. Fallon gazed at me for about thirty seconds, stony, silent. Then he turned and started down the steps. I looked at the girl, who, still rigid, was staring down. She stared till he had made the landing and the turn and then her eyes swiveled to meet mine.

“Come on in,” she said.

I went in past her and she closed the door.

“He’s chicken with you, huh?” she said.

“Not necessarily. Just smart enough to take a pass on fighting his way up the steps. Matter of percentages. I’m working for the house.”

She ran a pink tongue over wide, thin lips.

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