It was raining hard that night, hard enough to wash away the memory of that red dress, thread by thread, draining into the sewers. I hadn't heard from the chief in over a week and the landlord was giving me the shifty eye. I knew I had to go out and find a case on my own.
The rain beat heavily on my overcoat as I strolled down the block, looking for something, anything, to give my life purpose. That's when I saw her under an umbrella, just outside the bar in a silky black dress. She looked like the kind of gal that just found trouble wherever she went. I decided to talk her up. I approached her and said...
"Need a light?"
Her eyes widened slightly at the sound of my voice, and her hand instinctively fluttered to her bosom.
"You sure gave me a fright, Mister."
"I assure you, it was not my intention" I replied. "Now what's a dame such as yourself doin' on a night like this?"
She paused a moment, eyeing me. Assessing me. I've seen that look on a woman before. It meant she was in need of some help, and fast.
She said nothing, though, as she pulled out a cigarette and held it solemnly between her stark red lips. I fumbled for my lighter.
I held out my lighter and she smiled as she took a drag.
"You always this nervous?" she asked, her eyes twinkling with a soft charm.
"Only around good looking dames," I replied.
She threw her hair back and laughed, but as she looked away I caught a glimmer of pain in her eyes.
"If he could see me now..." she trailed off, and took another long drag from the cigarette.
The smell of her cigarette cut through the air. I tilted my head a bit to the side.
"Who do you mean, miss?"
She waved the lit cigarette before her dismissively. "It doesn't matter," She said, and then as if suddenly self-conscious of standing here in the rain with this stranger, blushed slightly and broke her gaze, staring down the dark street before her.
Her words told me that it was nothing to worry about, but her posture told me otherwise. As the cigarette burned short I knew to take advantage of the situation.
"Listen, you seem upset. Come inside the bar. If you haven't noticed it isn't exactly the right time of day to be wandering the streets."
The cigarette dropped to the sodden street.
"It's never the right time of day to be a girl like me down on her luck."
It explained nothing but I put my arm around her and she didn't shrug it off. Sometimes that's enough. I took her back into the bar and out of the rain, at least for a while.
The bar gave off the flavor of lavender-scented cigars and the jazz music set the mood for what came to be a night I would never forget. We took some places at the bar, in a corner.
"Bartender, I'd like a Manhattan please", her voice called like in a melody. She pulled out another cigarette and then turned to me, her long, silky hair softly brushing on the side of her naked shoulder. Those emerald eyes fixed me with a stare that cut my breath.
"And...and a whiskey on the rocks", I hesitantly added.
"Can I have another light, darling?", her soft voice whispered.
A thousand lines went through my head to answer her question, but I decided to play it cool, grabbed my lighter and offered her a light. She put her left hand on my right hand as to guide the flame to her cigarette. I still remember that soft touch, those fragile hands and that gaze she gave me as she looked at me and said:
"My name is Daphne."
Something was strange about the way she kept looking at me. Was I supposed to know her from somewhere? Daphne huh. It was useless. The only thing I could remember was a jumble of disjoint images from many cheap motels rooms across many towns. Without their clothes, they all look the same.
We sat in silence at the bar, with only the sounds of occasional clinks of the glasses and sip of drink. The light filtered through the smoke, casting shadows all around. I decided to let her break the ice. When I let the clients talk on their own, they end up telling more than they mean to.
"I never got your name, mister. . ." She whispered softly, inquisitive as to why I had not told her yet. A girl like her had no need to ask for a name, she usually got it without asking. "Cash, John Cash." I had never given a client my real name before, but something about her pulled the truth out from within.
"What's say you and me get out of here." As the corner of her lips raised ever so slightly she replied, "Oh, I don't know. I should probably be gettin' home." It was easy to tell by the fluttering of her eyes that she'd already made up her mind.
On the way to our hotel room we got to talkin'. Said she's up in it pretty thick and needs some help to get outta' town....
... And what she next was what got me into this whole mess to begin with...
She told me how she'd gotten messed up with this guy and how they'd both borrowed some money from the Bettinos. The guy promised to start his own car shop down the alley, marry her and use the money to take her on a honeymoon, but ended up spending most of the cash on gambling and booze. I've been walking these streets for so long that I heard this story a dozen times before. Simple kid, probably from the countryside, falls in love with a slick gambler, thinking she could change him for the better.
He needs some money, she loves him and gives him whatever she's got, still thinking he could change, until it's too late for her to realize that she's stuck, all alone...poor gal.
She told me that she had left him a long time ago, but after he died the Bettinos are asking her for the rest of the money. She'd gone and paid the debt with all that she had, but they just kept on coming back for more, saying she'd paid the loan, but not the interest.
Something about her honesty and character got me hooked up on her. Seemed like this was another one of those adventures I'd regret later, but I was tired of losing, I was tired of feeling helpless and I was tired of doing the same dead-end detective job I've been doing for the last 20 years.
She didn't know what to do and feared ending mixed up even more in this whole business. Said she needed to get out of town, but she didn't know where...she didn't have anybody. Maybe it was the whiskey talking or just the fact that I was empty inside and needed something to fill that void, but as I lay next to her in bed that night, I promised her I'd help her and we'd both get out of this rotten town and find a new place to start something...I just didn't know where or what then...all I knew is that I fell in love with this girl and I was sick of living in this rotting town.
The next morning she was gone, all that was left was a single note, I didn't care to read it just then. I lit a cigarette and just laid there for a while. Visions of the girl in the red still haunted my memories.
Moments later, after my last drag I got up and dressed myself. I checked for my possessions, and headed towards the door... I swear; I almost left without reading the god-dammed note.
I decided that I would at least let her explain herself
I reached for it, and it read:
"Hey, mister,
I don't mean to get nobody in trouble. What with all I've been mixed up in lately, if you get too close... You'll get hurt, darlin'.
I'll be around for the next few days. After that, I'll disappear. In the mean time, I'm sure you know how to track a lady down.
-Daph"
My eyes skimmed the page once, twice, maybe twenty times. I knew what I had to do.
I got up and put on my sweaty drawers, wife-beater, and socks. My pants and shirt and jacket had been strewn across the thin-carpeted floor of the shanty motel room.
My wallet: missing.
My badge: gone.
My gun: goddamnit.
I threw on my shirt and pants, not caring to button or buckle either. I slung my coat over my shoulder and sauntered towards the bare door, not caring to look through the peephole.
I swung the door open and caught Daphne's crescent eyes glaring into mine, the barrel of my gun cocked at me.
It wasn't the first time I had been eye-to-eye with a nine millimeter, and staying cool came with the experience. I focused my gaze on her eyes. I knew she wouldn't shoot. She was scared, was all. For all I knew, she thought I was one of them.
"Where'd a lady like you learn to hold a gun like that?" I spoke, as I noticed her hands surrounded the grip like an expert marksman.
"Where's a man like you learn to hold a lady like that?" she replied.
"If we're going into this thing together, I've gotta know your mettle, what kind of stuff you're made of." She continued. "You stayed with me last night because you saw I needed help, and that could mean you're trying to help a girl out or that you've got use for a girl in need. I gotta know which, 'cause- " As her demeanor grew in the frenzy and disappointment that comes from working too hard to not make it in this damn city, I pushed the gun aside, grabbed her close and kissed her like she needed to be kissed.
The gun dropped to the floor while the rising sun illuminated the fog still enveloping the balcony. We didn't realize it then, but that kiss sealed our fates together, for better or worse, until the end. What I did realize, but didn't give a damn about, was that it would also hurry that end toward us like a loose-cannon jockey gunning his thoroughbred for the Triple Crown.
-----Part 2-----
It was Wednesday. Daphne hadn't left the room since Friday. She didn't want to show her face in this deviltown if she could avoid it.
"I can't live like this..." she said, twisting her blonde wig around -- little bits of her dark hair falling out from under it, framing her doe-like eyes, and finally throwing the wig in the corner of the room, as if disgusted by it, she said "How do I look?"
With the wig she looked like any old beautiful blonde dame in this town, without it she looked like a portrait by Modigliani, strange and alluring.
"Just fine." I said, putting out my cigarette on a spoon and picking up the wig. She smiled. "Yeah, just fine" I said again, laying the wig on the table, avoiding the sticky spot where she had spilled a drink a few nights ago, something sweet and brown. You had to drink them that way anymore, sweet that is, the liquor was all rotgut ever since the prohibition started. Couldn't find a decent, affordable drink anywhere in this town anymore.
There was a knock at the door, her smile disappeared. I held my gun out of sight with my right hand and reached for the knob with my left.
"Yes?", I asked, slowly opening the door to a crack.
"You need clean sheets sir?" It was the chambermaid. Daphne nodded yes, but instinctively I knew something was wrong.
The chambermaid looked too familiar. But then again, everyone in this town has started to look familiar to my weary and now tired eyes. She was stunning, and in my line of work a chambermaid with such glamor is surely someone to be suspicious of. I asked the maid her name, hoping to get a read on Daphne as the maid announced her name. "Marie" she said softly. Daphne was glancing at a magazine left on the foor as if to distract herself from the strange tension in the air. They knew each other and did not want me to be aware of such relations, that I was sure of, but with gun in hand I wasn't worried just yet. More curious than anything.
She stepped in gingerly, never making eye contact with me. Daphne, however... the chambermaid had her eyes trained on Daphne whenever she thought I wasn't looking. Daph was getting more and more nervous; there was something that she hadn't told me, that she couldn't tell me.
Hoping to learn more, I said, "Say, Miss, you don't look like you're from around here. You look like you've got a story. What brings you to a place like this?"
"Oh, I'm from here sir -- west side, cold water flats. Would you like me to come back at a better time?" she said as she edged towards the door.
"No", I said, stepping between her and the door, "What's going on?" I continued, "You two seem awfully interested in one another's presence."
The two of them looked at me with eyes wide, both let out little chicken peeps; I couldn't help but smile.
"So, you two were saying?", I asked, brows cocked, slipping the gun in the back of my pants, "What is going on here?"
The chambermaid shifted nervously and threw a glance at Daphne, letting out an awkward laugh. "Oh gee, I--" "It's kinda silly" Daphne cut her off.
"How do I put this... a while back both of us were having relations with the same fella ... you know how it is with some of the scumbags in this town"
I nodded. I was one of those scumbags, honey. Good thing in a town like this reputations can disappear as fast as starry eyed dreams, if you know the right hole to disappear into. I should know.
"Pardon me for being so rude ma'am, I kinda forgot my manners for a second. I gotta habit of doing that. So I figure you dames aint the best of friends?"
"No, I got over that damn scumbag a long time ago. I wanted to raise a family with him. I kept putting it off 'cause he was a drinker, and no child of mine is going to have drunk for a father. He kept saying that he'd shape up, get a job, and quit drinking, but he never did, he just lived off of me and my family. I still owe my mother money. Then, we started fighting. I would not know where he was for hours at a time-" the maid droned while absentmindedly changing the sheets.
"That was when me and Jake had started seeing each other," Daphne interjected.
"Yes, I screamed and cursed at you for doing that, but I suppose I ought to be thanking you. I was with him for a month and already my life was in the toilet. Thank the lord I put off having kids."
"But what I want to know is, who's this bloke? Another fix-him-upper?"
"His name's Jack Florigne," Daphne uttered.
I had heard that name before, but I had thought I would never have to hear it again. Jack was a Capo for the infamous Florigne family, who ruled the Lower-East Side of this great city, New York, New York. The Florigne family was run by Jonathan "Big Man" Florigne, who immigrated to this fine city from their home in Cicily. When Jon came here, he was penniless and without a home, but with the help of the Bettino family, he was rising up to the top of the crime world in New York with great speed. Eventually, he broke off from the Bettinos and started his own Mafia, and those two have been sworn enemies ever since.
"Jack Florigne, eh?" I said, taking another drag from my cigarette, "I've heard of 'im."
"Well then you must know what happened to him", said the Chambermaid. Of course I knew, I had heard the story a thousand times. He got shot up by a couple of his own boys, right after coming out of the john. Didn't think much of it at the time, someone's always getting killed in this town. "Yeah", was all I could say.
"Well now what's left of his gang is trying to track down whoever paid them to do it", Daphne said, almost trembling, "and they've payed a few visits to the both of us."
The thought of anyone beating on a dame made me mad as hell. I didn't want to get mixed up with the Big Man's gang, but I wasn't going to let this slide either. I took her by the arm and said, "When's the last time you saw Jake, hon?"
Her eyes welled up and she cried out, "That's why I'm here! I don't know what to do. He's been gone for so long and I'm scared!" She threw herself into me and sobbed against my chest.
"Don't worry sweetheart, I'm here for you, but there's something you need to understand."
