Killer's Payoff полностью

“I’m not sure I’m following you, Blier. Suppose we start from the beginning.”

“Oh my God, I’m busy. How can I go way back to the beginning?”

“By going there,” Hawes said. “I’m busy, too, Blier. I’m busy investigating a homicide.”

“That’s murder?”

“That’s murder.”

“She done it?”

“Start from the beginning, Blier.”

“The beginning was about ten, twelve years ago. Maybe longer. Let me think a minute.” He thought a moment. “The war was just over. When was that?”

“1945.”

“Yeah. No, wait a minute, the war wasn’t over yet. The first war, the one with the bastard. That was over.”

“You mean Hitler?”

“Who else? That one was over. We still had to clean up the Pacific. Anyway, it was around then-1944,1945. Around then. I was sitting in the office alone. I didn’t even have a receptionist at the time. Just me. I had an office, I wanted to change my mind I had to go outside to do it. That’s how big it was.” Blier laughed at his own devastating humor. “I was eating a sandwich. Pastrami on rye, from Cohen’s. Delicious pastrami. In walks this doll. An absolute doll. A doll you could die with. With this doll, you could put me on a desert island for the rest of my natural life without food and water, so help me. Just her alone, and I’m a happy man. That’s the kind of a doll she was.”

“Lucy Mitchell?” Hawes asked.

“Who else? With straw sticking out of her ears. Straight from the farm, and milk-fed. Oh mister please, I get weak. These big blue eyes, and this body, this body sings, it plays sonatas, it’s an orchestra with strings, Jesus I get weak. She wants to model. She says she wants to model. I say did you ever model? She says no she never modeled but she wants her picture in magazines. I visualize a fortune in pinups. I can see this doll decorating barracks from here to Tokyo. I can even see her decorating Japanese barracks! Her I wouldn’t even deny the enemy, the bastards. But her I wouldn’t deny them. I send her up to see Jason Poole. He takes a string of pictures. He can’t stop the shutter from clicking. Click, click, he shoots away all night long.”

“Go on,” Hawes said.

“He gets these marvelous pictures of this marvelous doll with this body that makes concrete limp. I can visualize a fortune. So what happens?”

“What happens?” Hawes asked.

“Next week I’m out of business. Some snotty underage dame sues me for selling cheesecake for which she gave me permission to sell. How was I supposed to know she’s underage? I’ve got these lovely pictures of Lucy Mitchell, but I ain’t got no office any more because this other snotty dame sued me out of existence.”

“What happened to the pictures?”

“I don’t know. Things got shuffled around. When I opened the new office, the pictures were gone. I never seen them in a magazine, either, so I know they ain’t been published.”

“How many pictures were there?”

“About three dozen.”

“Sexy?”

“Mister,” Blier said softly.

“And Lucy Mitchell came to you today to get those pictures?”

“You could’ve knocked me over with a ten-ton truck. Man, has she changed. She looked like she just got out of a monastery for women. I told her I ain’t got the pictures. She told me I was working in cahoots with a guy named Sy Kramer. I told her she was nuts. I don’t know any Kramers except a guy named Dean Kramer who runs one of the girlie books. She wanted to know if this Dean Kramer was related to her Sy Kramer. I told her for all I know he could be related to Martha Kramer for all I know, does she think I’m the Library of Congress?”

“What did she say?”

“She wanted Kramer’s name and address. I gave it to her. What I don’t understand is this: why, after all these years, she suddenly wants the pictures back? This I don’t understand.”

“And you don’t know anyone named Sy Kramer, is that right?”

“What? Are you starting on me, too?”

“Do you or don’t you?”

“I don’t. I don’t even know Dean Kramer so hot. I sold him maybe half a dozen shots since the magazine started. He’s a very literary-type guy. He likes literary cheesecake.”

“What kind of cheesecake is that?”

“It’s got to have a story with it. A beautiful doll ain’t enough for Kramer. He needs a story, too. He thinks this way he fools his readers into thinking they ain’t looking at a beautiful doll, they’re reading maybe War and Peace, instead. Man, what a comedown this Lucy Mitchell was today. Why’s she wearing that old circus tent? Is she afraid somebody’s gonna whistle at her?”

“Maybe she is,” Hawes said thoughtfully.

“In the old days…” Blier paused, lost in his reminiscence. Then, very softly, almost reverently, he said, “Mister.”

THE MAGAZINE HAD A very virile name.

It occurred to Hawes as he stepped into the office that there was not a single virile word in the dictionary that had not been affixed to the front cover of some men’s magazine. He wondered when they would begin choosing titles like:

COWARD, the magazine for you and me.

SLOB, for men who don’t care.

HE-HE, the magazine of togetherness.