No Orchids for Miss Blandish, James Hadley Chase [most read book in the world .txt] 📗

Miss Blandish laid down the nail file and dropped her hands in her lap. There was a blank, hypnotized expression on her face that now constantly irritated Slim.

“It cost a lot of money,” Slim said, watching her closely to see if she was listening. “But money means nothing to me now. I can buy you anything I want. I have all the money in the world. Look—what do you think this is?” He pushed the parcel toward her, but Miss Blandish ignored it. Muttering, Slim put his cold, damp hand on her arm and pinched her flesh. She didn’t move. She grimaced and closed her eyes. “Wake up!” Slim said angrily. “What’s the matter with you? Here, open the parcel.”

The drugged girl made a feeble attempt to untie the string, but seeing her fumbling, Slim snatched the parcel away from her.

“I’ll do it! I like opening packages.” He began to unknot the string. “You seen Ma today?”

“No.” Miss Blandish spoke hesitatingly. “I haven’t seen her.”

“She doesn’t like you. She wants to get rid of you. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be at the bottom of the river by now. You don’t know how well off you are. When I was a kid, I saw them take a woman out of the river. She was all blown up. One of the cops vomited. I didn’t. I wanted to see, but they drove me away. She had hair just like yours.” He suddenly lost patience with the string and pulling out his knife, he cut the string, tearing off the paper. “It’s a picture. It’s pretty. When I saw it, I thought of you.” He examined the small oil painting, smiling at it. There was no form to the picture, but the colors were hard and violent. “Do you like it?” He thrust the picture at Miss Blandish who stared sightlessly at it and then looked away.

There was a long pause while Slim stared at her. There were moments, Slim found himself thinking, when he wished this girl wasn’t a puppet. Now after three months when he had done everything his perverted mind could devise to her, her drugged lack of resistance began to pall. He would have liked some opposition. He would have liked her to struggle against his advances so that he could exercise his talent for cruelty.

“Don’t you like it?” he demanded, glaring at her. “It cost a lot of money. Say something, can’t you? Don’t sit there staring like a goddamn dummy! Say something!”

Miss Blandish shuddered. She got up and went over to the bed. She lay down, covering her face with her hands.

Slim looked at the picture. He suddenly hated it.

“It cost a hundred bucks,” he said viciously. “Do you think I care? If you don’t like it—say so! I can buy you something else!” He suddenly slashed the canvas with his knife, hacking and slashing while he poured out a stream of filthy curses. “Now you’re not having it!” he shouted, flinging the ruined picture across the room. “I’m too good to you. You want to suffer! People who have never suffered, never appreciate anything!” He got up and went over to her. “You hear me? You ought to suffer!”

Miss Blandish lay still, her eyes closed. She might have been dead.

Slim bent over her. He pricked her throat with the tip of his knife.

“I could kill you,” he snarled. “Do you hear? I could kill you.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him. A spot of blood appeared on her white skin where the knife had cut her. Her dazed, enlarged pupils sickened him. He drew away. She wasn’t his, he was thinking; he was kidding himself. She was nothing—a dead body. His mind switched to Ma and Doc. They were responsible. He fingered his knife. They had spoiled his pleasure. They had turned his beautiful picture-book dream into a lifeless nightmare.

Muttering to himself, he went into the sitting room. He turned on the television. In a few seconds he was staring with fixed attention at the picture of a man and a woman passionately embracing.

Among the customers who came in a steady stream into the reception lobby was a short, stockily built man wearing a tuxedo that didn’t quite fit him.

Eddie, lounging by the cloakroom, eyed this man suspiciously. Eddie thought he looked like a cop and as soon the man had entered the restaurant, Eddie went down the doorman, a husky bouncer named MacGowan.

“Who was that bird?” Eddie asked. “He looked like a cop.

“He’s been in here before,” MacGowan said. “Mr. Williams brought him in. Mr. Williams said if he came alone, we could let him in.”

Harry Williams was one of the club’s biggest spenders. All the same Eddie decided he’d better have a word with Ma.

He found her in her office, busy as usual with a mass of papers.

“What is it?” she demanded. “I’m busy.”

“Guy just came in who looks like a cop,” Eddie said. “He signed in as Jay Doyle. Mac says he’s been here before as H.W.‘s guest.”

“Don’t tell me, tell the boys,” she said impatiently. “Don’t be so goddamn helpless. You know what to do. Make sure he doesn’t get into the gambling room or upstairs.”

Eddie hurried down to the restaurant. He entered as the band leader was introducing the first cabaret act. Eddie spotted Doyle sitting alone in one of the dark corners. He couldn’t see Flynn so he decided he would watch Doyle himself.

“Well, folks,” the bandleader was saying, “this is the moment you have all been waiting for. Once again Miss Anna Borg presents yet another of her famous—or should I say infamous—passion dances. A big hand for Miss Borg, if you please.”

While the clapping started up, the drummer ran off a roll and the lights went out. A white spotlight centered on the middle of the dance floor. Out of the darkness, Anna appeared.

Eddie grinned. He had certainly been smart when he had picked Anna for his sidekick. He had had a lot of trouble with her, grooming her, helping her work up her act, but now it was paying off. Even Ma had admitted Anna was the big attraction at the club.

Anna swept into the glare of the spotlight. She had on a gold lame dress with a long zipper down the front. The band started the old favorite “Can’t help lovin’ that Man.” Anna’s voice was hard and loud. As she sang she slowly pulled down the zipper, then suddenly stepped out of the dress, tossing it to a waiting page boy who was leering at her and winking into the darkness.

Dressed now in white bra and panties, she continued to sing. The customers didn’t bother about her singing: they feasted their eyes on her body contortions.

At the end of the first chorus, she discarded her bra. At the end of the second chorus she took off her panties. Wearing only a G-string, she began to circle the tables, while the spotlight chased her.

She’s hot, Eddie thought, watching her bowing and blowing kisses at the end of her song. The customers loved her. She had slid into her dress now and the lights had come up.

Eddie glanced across the room to where Doyle had been sitting. He stiffened. Under cover of the darkness, Doyle had disappeared.

Fenner was having his morning coffee when the front door bell rang. Wondering who it could be at this hour, he went to the door.

A short stockily built man grinned cheerfully at him.

“I’m Jay Doyle,” he said. “City police. Too early for you?”

“Come on in. I’m just having coffee,” Fenner said.

“The Captain told me to call on you,” Doyle said, tossing his hat on a chair and sitting down. “He tells me you are representing Blandish now.”

Fenner poured a second cup of coffee.

“That’s the idea. Sugar?”

“No, thanks.” Doyle lit a cigarette. “For the past two months I’ve been tailing the Borg girl. There was just a chance Riley would have got in touch with her, but the Captain reckons I’m wasting my time. So I’m quitting from today. I’ve brought the copies of my daily reports. I don’t reckon you’ll find anything of interest, but you never know.” He hauled from his pocket a fat envelope which he gave to Fenner.

“I’m planning to see the girl this morning,” Fenner said. “She’s my only link with Riley. I can’t believe he left her flat. I have a hunch he must have told her something before he went underground.”

“You’re wasting your time,” Doyle said. “We had her in and we questioned her for hours. Riley did walk out on her all right. The fact she’s taken up with Eddie Schultz proves it. If she thought she had a chance of helping Riley spend the Blandish ransom money, she wouldn’t have looked at Schultz.”

“Well, I’m going to talk to her. I’ve got nothing else to work on.”

“Watch your step,” Doyle said. “Make sure Schultz isn’t there when you call. That guy’s dangerous.”

“I’ll watch it.”

“I was in the Paradise Club last night,” Doyle said. “I thought, before I quit watching the girl, I should see what her act was like. It’s some act. I don’t reckon she’ll stay much longer with Schultz. She’s got enough talent to hit Broadway.”

“It beats me that a wild gang like the Grissons should have opened a club. Schulberg must have found a lot of dough all of a sudden.”

“Yeah. I knew the club when Rocco ran it. You should see it now. You should see those hoods too: all got up in tuxedos, except Slim: he’s the same as ever.”

Fenner grimaced.

“There’s a bad one if ever there was one.”

“Yeah.” Doyle grinned ruefully. “He nearly scared the life out of me last night. While the Borg girl was doing her act, I thought it might be an idea to get a closer look at the club. The opportunity came when they turned off the lights. I wanted to take a look upstairs. There was a hat check girl on guard, but I had a bit of luck. A couple of guys came in and checked their hats. One of them knocked over the bowl the girl keeps her tips in. The money fell behind the counter. She and the two guys were scrabbling for the money and I nipped up the stairs. There are seven rooms up there. Six of them bedrooms. The door at the end of the passage is fitted with a lock and a bolt outside which struck me as strange. Why a bolt outside? There was a TV set on. The door was locked from the inside. I didn’t have long to look around when the Borg girl’s act finished. I had just got to the head of the stairs when I heard a sound behind me. I looked around. The locked door was open. Slim Grisson was standing in the doorway. He had a knife in his hand. The sight of him certainly sent up my blood pressure. I didn’t wait. I went down the stairs three at a time. The hat check girl looked at me as if I were a ghost. I kept going. When I got to the exit, I heard a shout. Schultz was coming after me. The bouncer at the door made a grab at me, but I socked him, got the door open and ran for my life. Schultz followed me as far as the main road, then he turned back.”

“I’d like to have seen you on the run,” Fenner said grinning. “Sounds like Ma Grisson’s running a brothel up there. Did you tell Brennan?”

“Sure, but we can’t do a thing. Nearly all the members are big