Gilded Canary (7 page)

“This his?” Brannigan had picked up Toomey’s jacket, shooting the question to Lockwood.

At The Hook’s nod, he dropped the jacket on Toomey. “Okay, Vernon, me bucko, time to get dressed. School’s over, and you can
go home. Remember, I’m expecting you to be a star pupil.”

Toomey, pale, shaken, dressed hurriedly, giving a flut-. tering hand signal to his boys to follow him, too ashamed to look
at them. The cops made way for them, and by the time they reached the hall and the threat was over, Toomey went back to George
Raft. “You surprised me that time, Brannigan! I’ll get you yet! You—and that goddamned Hook!”

Brannigan feinted at them, and they hustled away like frightened barnyard fowl as the detective broke into a deep, wry chuckle.

“Thanks, Jimbo,” Lockwood said.

“Looks like they had you foxed pretty good,” Brannigan said, disinterestedly straightening his perennially rumpled suit a
bit.

“Better than that.”

“Ah well, I owe you a few, don’t I?” Brannigan turned toward his men, indicating they could leave. “You’re all right now,
I guess?”

“Yes. Fine now.”

“That’s all very well then. Goodbye, Miss,” he said to Stephanie. Then, straightening his tie, so that it was even more askew
than before, he left.

“Quite a man,” Lockwood said.

“Yes,” Stephanie agreed. “But not, I think, your equal.”

The Hook said nothing, silently offering her a Camel. She shook her head no, and he took one for himself. He inhaled deeply
and felt himself relax for the first time since he’d entered the apartment.

“Can I make you a drink?” he asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Canadian?”

“That—that would be good. A little water, please.”

He went into the kitchen and fixed two drinks. This one would taste particularly sweet, he knew. Good old Brannigan. Okay,
there were some who said he was a cop who didn’t play by the rules, but sometimes, perhaps, there were occasions when rules
no longer applied.

Stephanie had removed her jacket when he returned. She was wearing a short-sleeved silk blouse, open at the neck. In the fading
light of the day, she looked fine, just fine.

He gave her the drink, then sat beside her on the couch and took a pull on his own. “Okay, now what’s it all about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you really here?”

“I told you—to protect you,” she protested, earnestly, then smiled a small smile. “I have not done so well though thus far,
have I?”

“I don’t buy your story.”

Her eyes widened and misted with sudden tears. “I—I am sorry.”

“Yes?”

“I am sorry you don’t believe me. I have told you the truth. But of course there is nothing that says you must believe me.
It hurts, your disbelief, but I must accept it.”

“What do you know about the theft of the jewels?”

“Nothing.” The thunderhead-color of her eyes never cleared. “I am only a maid. Was.” She corrected herself.

“You’re too bright for that. Too beautiful. Why were you Muffy Dearborn’s maid?”

Stephanie smiled at him ruefully, the merest hint of a line forming in her flawless facial skin. “The Depression. Many of
us were—are—too bright, too beautiful for many things. But we have had to do them.”

Lockwood shrugged. She won on that one.

“What about the people surrounding Muffy? Could any of them have had anything to do with it?”

“I don’t understand.” Stephanie’s face clouded. “I thought it was already decided that that Toomey man had done it.”

“Could be. Probably so. But my guess is he had inside help. Why else put a bullet through poor Jabber-Jabber’s skull?”

“I see.” Her eyes dropped, and she folded her hands in her lap. “I wish I could help somehow. But I know nothing.”

Her perfume was doing the same job on him that it had in the hospital. “You’re really very beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you,” she answered, a kind of physical silence hanging over her.

“Do you plan to stay here?”

She looked at him, inquiringly.

“In this apartment with me?”

“I have told you I would,” she said simply.

“You’re asking a lot of me.”

“I can pay my way.”

“I don’t mean that,” he laughed, surprised. Then, “You’re a woman—a very attractive woman. And I’m—” he shrugged, “human.”

Her face was serious. “I understand. After all, in my country we feel differently about these things.”

“More sophisticated, you mean?”

“However you wish to put it.”

“Come here.” He extended an arm toward her.

She looked at him for a moment, seemed to hang back, and then slowly moved to him, allowing him to hold her.

They sat like that for a while, relaxing against each other. Then, “I think you may be out to kill me,” Lockwood said flatly.

She stiffened, but his arm brought her back to him. “How can you say this?”

“Because that’s what I think. What I feel. But not,” he took a deep whiff of her perfume, “what I smell.”

“You frighten me,” she said.

“Me? Why?”

“I—I don’t know. Because—because, I think, there is something relentless about you. Indomitable.”

“At the moment I feel very domitable.” He ran his hand over her arm. It was warm and smooth, and she shivered as he did it.

He turned her toward him and looked down at her lips. They were slightly parted, lush and full, and rich with promise. “You’re
frightened by me, and I in turn wonder just when you’ll do me in. We’re quite a pair.”

Her lids half-closed as she looked up at him. The storm clouds that were her eyes were darker than ever, and he could feel
her breath deepen as he bent down to kiss her.

Her lips were all they had seemed, as he placed his own lightly on them, and then more firmly. He felt her body tense, and
then relax, as she gave herself up. He pulled his head back and stared down at her, and her mouth was half-open, glistening
teeth showing, as if every last bit of her were hungry for more.

He obliged her desire, kissing her again, feeling as if he had been drawn into a whirlpool, sinking more and more deeply into
the vortex of her passion. His strong hands began to caress her back, working up and down, each stroke bringing an accompanying
sigh from her.

His hand was under her blouse now, running up along the spine, reveling in the velvet of her skin, stroking, massaging, pressing
her closer to him. He could feel the beating of her heart, rapid and urgent.

He pushed her gently away from him and deftly undid the clasp of her brassiere. In her passion she seemed almost not to see
him, lost in her sensuality. Slowly he unbuttoned the front of her blouse, until it fell open, exposing her breasts, nipples
erect in their excitation.

He removed her blouse and drew her back to him, running his hands over her as they kissed, their tongues working feverishly
together.

“I want you,” she breathed, barely able to get out the words.

“I want you,” he answered, and stood, and lifted her, and walked into the bedroom with her, her body tremulous against him.

He put her down. She was standing now, facing him, and he began removing his shirt. She was already pushing up his undershirt,
eagerly stripping him, before he had the shirt half off, and when both had been dropped to the floor, she drew him against
her, her swelling breasts tight against his chest, her open mouth frantically moving against his.

His hands dropped to her waist, and he unfastened the button at the top of her skirt, then pulled down the zipper. The skirt
hung for a moment, then descended, and he saw she was wearing no slip. She was standing there now, quivering, naked but for
black silk panties.

Her hands snaked to his belt and tugged, and the belt opened. Now she was unbuttoning his fly, small hands straining at the
roughness of the cloth, the tightness of each hole around each button. As if accidentally, one hand dropped for a moment,
lightly brushing the bulge that was pushing toward her. He gripped her tightly again, and she responded, while unfastening
the final button.

Now she slid her body down against him, sinking from neck to shoulder to chest to stomach, down until she had a cheek against
his shorts, her head twisting back and forth, pushing her face against him, then slowly uncovering the rest of him.

She was kissing him now, mouth hungry against his inflamed organ, kissing it, licking it, then forcing her lips over it and
down, down, down, then up and then back down again.

He lifted her, and the bit of black silk that had clung to her was removed, urgently, as, in the same motion, he swept her
to the bed. He lay her down on it and drank the whole of her in, every part of her tense with anticipation, yet pliant, ready
to be done to in any way he saw fit. His eye traced the line of her thighs, along her legs, down to the delicacy of her feet,
then back up again, to the inviting curve that was her belly, up the young promise of her skin to her breasts, feverish-looking
around the areolae, the nipples trembling. His gaze swept up to the grace of her neck, to her face, and he saw a great wanting
there. Her arms reached up to him, imploring, and he sank down onto the bed and pulled her to him.

His hands explored her now, every part of her, and it was all his, an unstated gift from her, as she sighed, and moaned, and
rubbed against him.

His hand went down to the crease between her legs, and she stiffened with excitement, then opened up to him, and his fingers
drowned in the wetness of her, plunging in and then up toward her clitoris, stroking up and down, in and out, until her whole
body vibrated against his, her nails digging into his back, teeth hard against his shoulder.

“Put it in me,” she moaned, “put it in me,” and she grabbed for him with both hands, hungrily pulling him toward her and inside.

Now she ground against him, fluid working out of her, trickling down along her inner thighs, as he thrust back and forth,
filling her. He placed his hands under her buttocks, pulling her closer to him, and she moaned, as he felt the end of her,
grazing it with each thrust. “More, more,” she begged, and he gave her more.

The sweat was running down him, and their bodies slid back and forth, glistening in the muted light of the room. Now they
seemed to be in a giant ocean, slipping against each other, sliding against each other, rocking in an eternity of hot, throbbing
wetness.

She began to quiver, slowly at first, then more, and more, and her body grew more desperate, thrusting harder and harder against
him, faster and faster, every bit of her shaking, the flow between her legs near-gushing around his plunging tool.

She was gasping now, and he allowed himself full freedom, no longer trying to stop his own coursing fluids, as the whole of
the two of them meshed in one giant orgasm, he exploding, she breaking up into individually shattering areas, as if each part
of her body was having its own individual climax.

They cried out and strained together for one last moment, then collapsed, he on top of her for a moment, his tensed arms keeping
most of the weight off her. Then he rolled over on his back and drew her toward him. “If you do plan to kill me,” he told
her, “please do it that way.”

She had coffee ready for him when he awoke the next morning, and she stood there by the side of the bed, regarding him silently
as he drank. There seemed to be a quiet sadness about her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, putting down the cup.

“Nothing,” she said. “I feel so—Nothing,” she finally said, closing the door on the subject.

“Last night it seemed as if it had been a long time for you,” he told her, arising. “A very long time.”

“Yes,” she said. “Please, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right,” he agreed. “Do you still plan to stay here, to—protect me?”

“Here, yes, or wherever you are. You will not be leaving this place today, I hope? You will stay here with me, and we can
again—hold one another?”

“That’s tempting,” he smiled gently, “more tempting than you can imagine. But I’ve a job to do.”

“Where are you going? Who will you see?”

“A prince of a fellow. A fine, handsome man by the name of Stymie.”

“Stymie?”

“Not too princely a name, eh? Of course, this is a prince who’s been turned into a frog—or closer yet, a toad,” Lockwood decided,
unpleasant memories of Stymie crowding into his mind.

“Who is this—prince? What does he do?” she asked, uncertainly.

“He’s a fence,” Hook said, shortly. “You know what a fence is?”

“I’m not sure…” she answered.

“A crook with no guts, that’s what a fence is. Other people do the work for him—steal jewels, paintings, furs, whatever, and
then they go to Stymie. And he gives them some money for what they’ve stolen. As little money as he possibly can.”

“And then—?”

Lockwood was puzzled for a moment. “Oh,” he said, “and then—and then he resells it for as huge a profit as he can make. All
fences are loathesome creeps,” he added, as he walked to the shower, “but no one is as coated with slime as Stymie the Fence.
And under that coating of slime—more slime!” and he turned on the shower, as if anxious to wash off even the idea of that
trafficker in stolen goods.

Stymie the Fence had his shop in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan, on 42nd Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues.
Cars drawing up and parking were a rarity in this neighborhood, especially a car as sleek and expensive as the Cord, and Lockwood
and Stephanie drew stares as they alighted. He hadn’t wanted to take her, but she’d insisted. “I am your good luck talisman,”
she told him. “I have decided that if I had not been along, your friend Brannigan would never have turned up.” The Hook had
shrugged, and accepted her companionship. There would be no danger at Stymie’s, so he had no compunctions.

Reaching the store, he pulled at the dirt-encrusted handle of the door, the soot-blackened, paint-chipped portal opening uncertainly
on its sagging hinges, a discordant sound of bells echoing throughout the shop as it opened.