Dig My Grave Deep Read online

  She glared at him, because he was looking at her and there wasn't a thing she could do. She drew herself a coke and started to sip it. She leaned against the ice cream tank behind her, crossed her legs, and folded her arms.

  “When you get real impatient,” she said, “why don't you go out and find Kate. She'll take anything.”

  “Don't slam Kate. At least she knows what she's got.”

  Shelly felt like hiding. She recrossed her legs and her thoughts made her furious.

  “You know,” said Port, “right now I'm just sitting here, waiting for Simon to get back. I thought at first you and me could have a visit while I was waiting. But right now I'm just waiting for them to get back.”

  She was working her teeth into her lower lip, which made her look like an animal. Port massaged the palms of his hands. “When I first came in, I just wanted to give you this flower.”

  “All right, give it to me,” and she stepped up to the counter, She took her flower off and dropped it into the sink, but didn't reach for the new one. She had her arms by her side, leaned forward a little, and nodded down at herself. “Go ahead. You put it on.”

  Port got up, smiled at her, and said he was glad to do that.

  “No, not the lapel. Where the pocket is.”

  She said it with her eyes narrowed, and Port did the job with the flower carefully. Then he sat down.

  “You should appreciate this,” he said. “I've never done that before.”

  “I could tell.” She leaned back against the ice cream tank and took off the flower. She moved it up to pin it where it belonged. “But you learn fast. Just don't forget what you learn.”

  Port got up and paid his check.

  “The next lesson, I give,” and he walked out.

  Chapter Ten

  Port stood on the street for a while and looked across to the club. His car wasn't there any more so he walked down the block a short way to look into the empty lot. His car and a few others were there. He smoked a cigarette, and walked around for fifteen minutes. Simon didn't show. Port went into the lot. He figured by this time his bodyguard needed some saving.

  Simon was in the back. He was on his stomach, sprawled out limp, and the lump on the back of his head showed plainly. Kate wasn't there.

  Port got Simon into a sitting position, but Simon was still out. Port started to snap his finger under the limp man's nose, which woke Simon after a while.

  “You look exhausted, Simon. Let me tell you.”

  Simon groaned and took the cigarette Port handed to him.

  “As a matter of fact, Simon, I'm going to ask Fries to assign a man to you, somebody that'll follow you no matter what. Then, maybe...”

  “Danny, please. Don't yell so loud.”

  Port slid behind the wheel, then turned back again. “I'm going to start the motor. You think the vibration will be too much for you?”

  “Danny, what am I gonna say? What are you gonna tell Fries about this?”

  “Nothing. But you tell me something. How did she do it? How did that little bitty girl...”

  “Oh, Christ—” moaned Simon.

  “At least tell me this, Simon.”

  “I don't know. So help me I can't remember!”

  Simon looked down at his knees. “I know I was doing all right there. Just for a while.”

  “Then what did she do?”

  “I don't know. I thought that she was doing all right too.”

  “Anyway,” and Port turned to start the car, “at least she doesn't owe me anything any more.”

  “I don't know, Danny. I think she still does.”

  The rest of the day Port spent in different places. He dropped in on McFarlane, checked progress with Councilman Sump, spent some time at the club in Ward Nine when a local matter came up there, and he mailed the envelope with the sheets he had typed in the morning. He sent it, registered, to an address in New York, requesting a return receipt. When he got home at night he put the carbon copy into his trunk. He sat smoking for a while in the dark, because that way he could see out the window. He imagined he wouldn't see this view for much longer, because when the council voted down the slum resolution that would be that. Just a few days, maybe. He went to bed and was asleep m a very short time....

  He didn't think he had slept very long. He sat up, in the dark, and heard the knock on the door again. When he got out of bed the voice said, “It's me,” and it knocked again. Port switched on the lamp by his bed and put on a bathrobe. Then he opened the door.

  “You alone?” said Kate.

  “That's real delicate of you,” said Port. He stepped aside to let her in. “Where's your blackjack?”

  “I don't carry no blackjack.” She walked in and put her purse down on a chair. She put her hands on her hips and waited for Port to close the door. “What would I need a blackjack for?”

  Port looked at her in the light that was coming at her from one side and said, “Yeah. What for is right.” Then he sat down on the bed and fixed himself a cigarette.

  “Did Simon tell you?” she asked. There was an easy chair near the bed where she sat down.

  “No, but he showed me. He showed me the lump on the back of his head and to this moment I can't figure out just how you did it.” Port saw she was pushing one shoe off her foot with the other. “You going to show me how it's done?”

  “I didn't do it,” she said.

  Port didn't see her push off the other shoe because he was surprised and looked at her face.

  “I thought you were an honest whore, Kate. Dames that play badger games like this I don't like.”

  “I didn't know the guys did it to him.”

  Port frowned, and then he saw Kate unbutton her jacket.

  He said, “Hey—” but then he watched when she slipped it off. She paused after that and frowned back at him.

  “Katie, look. I know ifs hard as hell for a woman to just take it when I say no to her. So pull yourself together and...”

  “Whatsa matter with you? Didn't Simon tell you?”

  “He got conked. What could he tell me?”

  “I still owe you. At least he shoulda knowed what he didn't get.”

  “No,” said Port. He closed his eyes when he said it so Kate was half done by the time he looked back. She had her blouse open and was flapping it back. She did all this with no ado, without doing any more than removing her clothes.

  Port got up and took a few steps. Kate looked after him.

  “I also come to tell you about them two guys. Something you might have a use for.”

  “What in hell you going to do? Sit there naked?”

  “You don't wear nothing under that robe.” She used his tone of voice.

  He controlled himself. “What was that, an argument?”

  “Who's arguing?” and she unhooked her brassiere in the back.

  He stopped arguing and watched what she did. Then he remembered about Simon.

  “You were going to tell me something about those two guys.”

  “Well, they tore open the door and Simon and me were in the back. Simon is kind of slow anyway, so before he got adjusted one of the guys, the short one, gave him a belt.”

  “On the back of the head?”

  “I thought it was coming off.”

  “Simon wasn't out cold right then?”

  “You arguing or listening? Simon tries getting up when the short guy says, 'Just a sample, lamebrain, of what we think of Port and his bodyguard.' Then he slams Simon on the head again. They shut the door and I try getting up from underneath Simon.”

  She stood up and undid the zipper on the side of her skirt.

  “That's it?” said Port.

  “Then they came back. 'Might as well,' says one of them and tells me to get out of the car. And they take me to this place.”

  She dropped the skirt and stepped out of it. “You know the apartment house on Birch. Twelve hundred Birch?”

  “I know where it is.”

  “Well, they take m
e up on the second floor and they got a layout there. What I mean is, not like an apartment, but with phones and bunks and a messy kitchen like there hasn't been a woman in the house—I mean a housewife in the house—for ages.”

  “So they live there like pigs.”

  “No. It's like your club. Like some rooms in your club, you know?”

  “Who were they, you know?”

  “They were none of your ward men. And these had suntans.”

  Port remembered, and perhaps Kate had told him something. They lived in the ward, and the way Kate had told it, these two weren't the only ones. Not a bad notion for Bellamy to put his hoods down close to the center of things. If he was going to use his new crew, the likeliest place would be Ward Nine. Trouble in Stoker's notorious Ward Nine. Gangsterism and Crime, etc.

  “Did you get their names?”

  “One was Kirby, the short mean one.”

  “And George?”

  “Maybe. I didn't call them by name.”

  It made Port smile. Then he said, “Did they pay you?”

  She shook her head.

  “How much are you?”

  “Nothing, to you.”

  “I mean them.”

  “On my own, I wouldn't have anything to do with them for fifty bucks.”

  He saw she meant it. He also saw she was kicking her panties off and stood there naked. She stood there as if she didn't know about clothes and no clothes, as if it were all the same. That wasn't the way Port felt when she stepped closer and put her head to one side.

  Port tried to speak, but nothing much came of it. Kate noticed and put her hands up to reach for his neck when she suddenly found there was no more distance between them. He didn't have time to turn off the light.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ten-thirty a.m. Simon was still waiting in front of the building. He figured three hours' waiting would be long enough; he would wait till eleven and then go upstairs. He looked down the length of the block to the diner, because he hadn't eaten that day. Then he looked back at the building entrance because that's what he was supposed to do. When he saw Kate come out, it confused him and failed to connect with his mission. She said, “Hi, Simon,” and it immediately brought back the past to him. He ran up to her and grabbed her arm.

  “How did you do it?” he wanted to know. “I can't figure out, and Port can't either.”

  “Do what?”

  “Yesterday. In the car.”

  “I didn't do anything,” she said. “And you didn't either.”

  Simon held on to her arm and started to think. It made his face sullen. “You know, that makes me mad.”

  Kate pulled her arm out of his hand. “All right. You had a good time. Now you feel better?”

  He kept looking at her, then took her arm again. “There's something here ain't kosher. I had such a good time I got a bump on the back of my head?”

  “That wasn't me. I was in front of you.”

  It connected Simon with the past, and when Kate tried to pull away again Simon held on. His thumb started to rub the soft of her arm.

  “No,” she said. “I'm tired.”

  “Hell, it's ten in the morning.”

  “That's why. Ten in the morning isn't nice,” and she pulled her arm out of his hand.

  He felt like going after her when Port came out of the door and tapped Simon on the back. “Had your breakfast yet?”

  “Where were you?” said Simon. “I been standing here without breakfast or anything.”

  “I thought you might, and that's why I got up to take you to breakfast.” Port took Simon by the arm and they went to the diner. After they ate they had to sit for a while longer because Port's coffee was still too hot.

  “You know something?” said Simon. “That hooker, she come outta your building.”.

  “You mean that, Simon?”

  “Sure enough. You know, she still owes you that thank you, and I'm going to see to it she pays up.”

  “Don't bother, Simon. I made an arrangement with her so she won't have to pay.”

  “What you do that for?”

  Port gave a soothing pat to Simon's arm and handed him a cigarette. Then they went for the car and drove toward Ward Nine.

  Less than halfway there Simon spotted the girl on the street. “Kate!” he said, and when Port pulled up next to her Simon had the door already open.

  “I'm going your way,” said Port. “You want a lift?”

  She said yes and Simon flipped the back rest forward so she could get in the rear.

  “Simon,” said Port. “You sit in front.”

  Simon obeyed but made clear how sore he was by looking out of the window and not talking to anybody.

  When Port started the car again Kate caught his eye in the rear-view mirror. She grinned at him and said, “Thank you, Port.”

  Port stopped the car. He turned around to the back and said, “That's perfectly all right, Kate. It's a common courtesy, and please don't think that you now owe me anything.”

  She grinned at him again and Port started driving.

  When they got to the old streets of Ward Nine, Kate told them where she lived. When they reached her house Simon got out of the car and waited for Kate to pass.

  “Now you know where I live,” she said to Simon, “come over some time.”

  She was gone into the house before Simon could answer.

  They drove down to the club and Simon went to the room with the easy chairs to toss the volley ball with the two guys that were sitting there. Port went upstairs. At twelve-fifteen he got a call from a gray-haired mailman who for ten minutes repeated for Port all that Ramon had told him that morning. Then he waited while Port didn't say a thing. After a while Port said, “You sure you got all of it?”

  “I'm sure, Dan. Anything in it?”

  “I don't know yet.”

  “In case you're interested, Dan, I got some Special Delivery for that street. You want me to drop in on the boy again?”

  Port thought for a moment and then, “It might help. Tell him to come to his house tonight.”

  “After work?”

  “After his real job. I figure there won't be anything after twelve midnight, so I'll expect him around two. At his house.”

  “I'll tell him,” said the mailman and hung up.

  There hadn't been much to put your finger on, but Port wrote it all down, because his memory wasn't as good as some. The main thing that struck him was an address, and he would have to ask Ramon how it was mentioned, just what the connection was. The address was 1200 Birch.

  This time Port was glad to have Simon along. They walked the few blocks to the apartment building, and in the entrance hall Port checked the names of the tenants. The place was valuable. Three floors with two apartments, each apartment divided in half and half the apartments rented per room. And rent went per person. The place was built of brick, so the upkeep hadn't been very much. The plumbing was galvanized iron or lead, very old, and the upkeep on that was charged to the tenants. With the rents, they didn't have much to complain about.

  “I can't find the super,” said Port.

  They went through the list of twenty-nine people again. This time Port found the name with the gold star behind it. “We'll try her,” said Port, and at the end of the ground-floor hall found the door with another gold star pasted on the wood. A sign said: HOURS FROM 11 TO 12 A.M. AND 2 TO 3 P.M.

  “She don't leave much room for business,” said Simon.

  “Her tenants don't have much to complain about.” Then Port checked his watch. He was in luck, the time being just after two, and knocked on the door.

  A buzzer sounded which made the door spring open a crack. They walked in.

  “Pick up your form as you pass that table,” said the voice. Port couldn't tell whether it was a hoarse woman or a cantankerous man, but it turned out to be a woman, a large one, half hidden by the chintz wing chair by the window in back. Port and Simon each picked up a printed form, reading Tenant Application
Form and Waiver of Liability.

  “Step around,” said the woman, and they did.

  There was a strong odor of roses in the air, the kind that came in cakes of crystal, sold at the five and dime. Port was sure that the use of the perfume was no affectation; it masked plumbing odors.

  “Fill out both sides of each page and sign in my presence,” said the woman.

  “Are you Mrs. Fragonard?” Port asked her.

  “I am. And the super.”

  Simon said, “Gee.” Her face looked ageless under rose powder, and her hair was blue except for the white roots. But what added the real excitement was the orange robe. Port saw no lapdog, no parrot, not even a cat. Fish, then, he thought, but the basin on the window sill at her side was a terrarium, and the pet inside was a large bullfrog. He seemed asleep, breathing quickly in and out a few times and then not at all for several minutes.

  “Before we fill this thing out,” Port started.

  “You better hurry it up. I don't see nobody after three.”

  “I understand. But...”

  “I get just overrun with chores and demands if I don't stick to a regular working day.”

  “Of course—”

  “No time to myself at all, elsewise.”

  She sat with hands folded in her lap and looked at her bullfrog.

  “You got a room for the two of us?”

  “No.”

  “That's a shame,” said Port.

  “Fill that out anyways. Come vacancy time you'll be all set to move in.”

  “What about this waiver thing, Mrs. Fragonard. Who...”

  “That means I don't owe you nothing. I can't be bothered all day long and have my time taken up with chores.”

  “About paying in cash, Mrs. Fragonard, the fact is, when I move in I want to pay you by check. The reason...”

  “Can't do it.”

  “I don't want to mess with your routine, Mrs. Fragonard, but isn't it dangerous taking that much cash out of here to the bank every week?”

  “No trouble to me. They pick it up and...”

  “Who picks it up?”

  She looked away from the bullfrog and gave Port a cold look. It didn't go with the rose powder. “If you think you're casing yourself a caper, young man, let me tell you I work for a big outfit. They don't...”