Cat's Paw
A noir short story
This story is my submission for the monthly Symposium of the Soaring Twenties Social Club. This month’s theme is “Spring Cleaning,” the idea being to complete a draft that has been lingering uncompleted for some time. This story was a draft for only a short time but, with a break between starting and finishing, I think I’m complying with the spirit of the theme.
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Babysitting wasn’t my typical kind of job. I might work protection on occasion but looking after a friend’s kid sister wasn’t exactly in my wheelhouse. However, Richard Carlyle was an old friend of mine and although it’d been a couple years since I’d last seen him, I couldn’t say no.
Apparently Saturday nights had gotten increasingly wild and reckless for the younger sister who was enjoying her freedom courtesy of an inheritance and the likelihood of visiting one or more speakeasies this Saturday night was enough to make Richard nervous.
In the kitchen of my apartment, I put out a bowl of food on the floor for my cat, Melville. Hearing the bowl hit the floor, Melville appeared from wherever he had been hiding and slinked over, eyeing me disapprovingly.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’ll be back later tonight. Hopefully not too late, but it’s not up to me.”
I took my hat from the hook, gave Melville a parting glance, and left.
I parked my two-seater in front of the short, whitewashed apartment building, adjusted my hat in the mirror, and went in. The foyer was brightly lit against the dark of the night, spacious with tiles featuring an intricate swirling design. The kid in the elevator took me to the fifth floor and made sure to stick his hand out for a tip. I gave him a nickel and told him to hang around if he could. I’d be back shortly.
514 was just down the hall. I knocked.
I was still just trying to get my thoughts straight about why Richard asked me to take his kid sister, who had been not much more than fifteen the last time I saw her, out on the town and what was going to be involved, when the door opened.
She was thinner, older, shapelier than my memory of her, and exquisitely made up to look even older than she actually was. She was wearing fashionably short hair and a sleeveless black dress that ended just below the knees. To say she looked dangerous to any man alive would have been an understatement.
“Hi, Ruby.”
“Frankie, come in! It’s been ages. I’m almost ready. Make yourself at home,” she said, disappearing around a corner while I went into the sitting room. Her voice came drifting in from down the hall, “Pour yourself a drink. There’s some decent whisky on the table.”
She wasn’t wrong about the whisky. I sat down on the couch—wooden lion’s paw legs and richly upholstered in dark bronze velvet—and sipped the whisky without bothering with soda.
She came back a few minutes later looking no different but somehow better. Her hair was dark, almost black, and matched her bright round eyes. The cheeks that I had remembered being plump had thinned to reveal high cheekbones that angled down toward her pointed chin.
“Ready?”
I nodded and got up.
She walked over to the liquor and poured a quick drink which she downed in one then went out the door. I was left following behind her.
“This is so silly that my brother asked you to take me out, you know. I wish he wouldn’t interfere, he can be such a bore. He’s knows I can handle myself but when it was you taking me out I jumped at the chance. I haven’t seen you in years. Did he really tell you why he wants you to look after me?”
“More or less, I—”
“He thinks I get in to too much trouble already and that I’m going to get into even more trouble one of these nights but he doesn’t realize that I can take care of myself. It’s not that I’m ungrateful or that I’m not happy to see you—it’s been how many years?—I don’t think it’s necessary. He just can’t get over the fact that I’m grown now and I can take care of myself. So I go out alone at night sometimes and go to speaks and smoke. I’m twenty. What’s he got to say about it? I told Liz and Dory to meet us at Mugsy DuBois’ joint. It’s here on the west side. Let’s go.”
She had talked the whole way down the hall, down the elevator, and through the entrance hall. She started out into the night and turned down the street.
“Don’t you want me to drive?”
“It’s just a few blocks,” she said, twirling her dress as she twisted back around and sauntered down the street.
The heat from the day radiated off the pavement. Streetlights flickered overhead and the wind—a mere whisper—played with the fringes of Ruby’s dress around her bare calves. She didn’t seem to care if I was there or not, which was fine by me, but then every once and a while she’d look back, flash her lashes at me once, and keep going.
“Do you know DuBois?”
“Sure, we’ve been there loads of times. He’s a doll. They have a card game in the back I’ve been trying to get into.”
I asked her if she had money for a game like that but she just laughed.
We took an alley off the main street, the faint smell of garbage emanating from a pile next to the entrance. A man in a shabby coat slept on the ground next to it.
A single light burned over the door down a short flight of stairs. Ruby knocked a light rata-tat-tat. The door swung open and we were bathed in sea of noise and laughter and smoke. The doorman, a short guy in an olive suit motioned us in.
Ruby must have spotted her friends because she rushed over to the bar where there was a flurry of greetings amid squeals of delight. Surprisingly, she remembered me and brought the two girls over.
Liz and Dory (short for Dorothy) were dressed much like Ruby except Liz was blonde and Dory had longer brown hair.
Liz stuck her little upturned nose in my face and said, “Dick sent you to babysit us?”
“No, just her,” I said, inclining my head toward Ruby.
“How old does he think we are?”
I shrugged.
Dory slipped an arm through mine, pressing her chest against my elbow. “I don’t mind you keeping an eye on me.”
“What are we drinking?” I said.
“Whatever they got!” Liz said.
Ruby said, “Lizzy, don’t be so coarse. No need to shout. Mugsy’ll let us have whatever I want.”
The bar was along the left side of the room. Two thin guys who looked like twins were running back and forth opening bottles and tossing drinks in glasses. The rest of the place wasn’t small—probably a couple dozen tables—but there was hardly room to move with all the people and tables and beleaguered waiters running around with foaming bottles of champagne and haggard expressions.
The ladies’ dates—three young men in black-tie with perfectly combed hair—showed up and Dorothy abandoned me for a younger version of myself, which I didn’t mind.
I noticed Ruby’s demeanor change from girlish and high-spirited to slow and sensual, almost winding herself around her date as she led him from the bar.
The six of them found a table and I, not interested in whatever they were talking about as long as it didn’t involve Ruby getting in Dick’s version of trouble, went to the bar squeezed between a dark, slouching man with on one side and a chatty boisterous blonde on the other. I spent a few minutes flagging down one of the bartenders to get what was clearly a watered-down whisky, which I drank grudgingly with little enjoyment. The blonde on my left cackled at something that her date said and nearly put her hair in my drink, which might have been an improvement.
I leaned my back against the bar to keep an eye on Ruby and her group. She was seated next to one of the guys, one with broad shoulders and a square head, who looked particularly dopey as he tried to get in on the conversation Ruby was having with Elizabeth and Dorothy by leaning forward and craning his neck around Ruby. He’d grin and look interested and put a hand on her forearm which she would bat away with her other hand. Then he would go back to looking at the other two guys who were doing the same thing while also paying for round after round of drinks—champagne for the ladies, whisky for the gents—which the waiters were only too happy to bring as the boys were now competing for who could spend the most on the girls who were not even paying attention.
Once Ruby’s guy made a funny remark and she giggled and cozied up to him giving him just enough attention to keep him interested, keep him playing the game, though there was no real danger of him leaving, not while he was seated next to the prettiest girl in the place.
I was just finishing my whisky when Ruby got up and slinked over to me, her manner somewhere between the girl I’d met earlier in the night and the one that sat down at the table with her date.
“Got a light?” she said.
“You came over here just to ask that? One of your three boys didn’t have one?”
“I didn’t want to ask him.”
I took out the lighter and clicked it in front of the cigarette perched between her deep ruby lips, making her lean forward to ignite the end.
“Enjoying yourself?”
“Not really but I’m not one to complain. You and the kid pretty serious?”
“Who? Jim?” She laughed like I’d told an especially funny joke. “No way. He won’t last long.”
“Your brother know you’re seeing him?”
“It’s none of his business who I see.”
“He seems to think it is. Why else would he pay me to keep an eye on you tonight?”
“I don’t know. Why would he?”
I pressed my lips together in a thin grimace and lifted an eyebrow. I wasn’t much for her games.
A short man with a thin mustache in a pinstripe suit sidled up to Ruby and kissed her on the cheek.
“Well hello, Mugsy,” Ruby said.
“I wondered when you’d be back. Always a pleasure to see a gal like you in my place,” said Mugsy DuBois.
“Frank Winters,” I said, holding out my hand.
He shook it dismissively without taking his eyes off Ruby.
“Did the guys bring you the good stuff?”
“It wasn’t bad,” Ruby said. “Why don’t you come sit with us?”
“Sorry, hon, I got things to see to but I’ll be around.”
“Okay. See you around,” Ruby said, her eyes half-lidded, the girl gone, replaced by the sly woman.
Mugsy disappeared and Ruby, leaning in, said, “You want to come sit with me?”
“Sure, why not.”
“Guys, this is Frank. He’s an old friend of my brother’s,” Ruby said as I pulled up a chair. Polite greetings went around the table and I was promptly ignored, each of the black-tie youths absorbed in whatever their dates were saying.
Ruby got up and said in my ear, “I’m just going to powder my nose.”
I grunted and watched her slink across the room toward the far end of the bar where she, with her back to me, exchanged a few words with Mugsy then disappeared into the back corner of the place where a sign indicated the presence of the WC.
Mugsy went to the big gorilla guarding a door in the rear wall and spoke to him for a few seconds.
A few minutes later Ruby came out of the washroom but instead of coming back to the table she stopped in front of the the door at the back of the room. I watched as she had a brief conversation with the big doorman and disappeared through the door.
I was on my feet before the door closed and across the room before the doorman had resumed his post.
“Where’s that go?” I said to the gorilla.
He looked down at me with his jaw stuck out and said, “If you don’t know, I ain’t tellin’.”
“I need to see the girl that just went in there. I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on her.”
“Not my problem.”
I pulled a five from my wallet and held it out to him. “How about now?”
He shook his head.
“Mugsy knows his guys, huh?”
He nodded slowly.
I gave up and went to stand by the bar to wait. The night wore on, ten, fifteen minutes at a time. The noise level rose as the crowd became more and more inebriated. The air grew thicker, so thick I didn’t need to smoke my own cigarettes. Ruby’s date had all but given up looking around the room for her and instead was trying to compete with his friend for Dorothy’s attention when Ruby emerged from the back room.
I hurried over to her. “Enjoy yourself? How am I supposed to keep an eye on you if you’re going off where I can’t follow.”
“Frank, you sound like my mother. And yes, I did enjoy myself.”
“Did you at least win?”
“Broke even, more or less.”
“Why’d DuBois let you in on the game?”
“I showed him these.” She opened her purse to reveal a string of pearls and a diamond necklace. “When he saw I had collateral he put up the cash for me to join the game.” She giggled. “They’re paste.”
“Oh, that’s good. Fake jewels. Gangsters like DuBois don’t like it when someone makes a fool of them.”
“I’m pretty. He likes me. I’m in no danger.”
“No?”
She leaned in to whisper, her breath playing on my ear. “Besides, I lost a little bit so they’ll be sure to have me back. Then I’ll hit them next time. They don’t know I know how to play cards. Those tough guys in that room think I’m just some pretty broad they can ogle while they fleece me.” She looked pleased with herself.
“Your brother teach you to play cards?”
“Ahuh.”
“Why doesn’t he come out and watch you?”
She ignored the question and went back to the table, looking even more dangerous as I discovered new depths to her. I didn’t like feeling that I was being toyed with—unsuspecting prey caught and not put out of its misery—and the sooner the night was over the sooner I could be done with her. And yet, I couldn’t help but watch her go with more than a shred of interest and curiosity.
Like a magnet drawing me in I followed Ruby through the smoke and din to the table. I grabbed the first waiter that passed and ordered a double whisky, hold the water. The three guys were growing increasingly red in the face, as were Liz and Dorothy, and all of them, except for Ruby, were showing their liquor, eyes bright, expressions exaggerated, unfunny jokes receiving roars of laughter.
Ruby looked bored as if she’d gotten what she came for and now just wanted to be moving on. She took small sips from the fresh champagne glass one of the guys set in front of her but merely toyed with it between sips, watching the bubbles fizz and pop.
Not liking my line of thinking focused on the elusive Ruby, I sucked down my double whisky to try to quash the feeling.
Suddenly she stood up. “It’s stuffy in here. We’re going somewhere else.”
There was a momentary pause.
Liz started whining. “Aw, Ruby, why?”
“How about your place?” Ruby’s big-shouldered guy friend said.
The other guys grinned.
“We’ll see,” Ruby said and headed for the door, wending her way slowly and deliberately through the crowd
Liz and Dorothy sighed and got up to follow the three guys who were already on their way out.
Outside it was much easier to breathe, the cool air refreshing on my face, almost stinging with the intensified sensations that went hand-in-hand with a double.
Ruby led the small crowd out of the alley and around the corner. I checked my watch. It was after midnight. I caught up to her and said, “Where are we going? I should probably be getting you home.”
“Aw, you’re so sweet, but I’m not going home yet.”
“Your brother—”
“Can mind his own business.” Her eyes flashed yellow. “I’m older than he thinks I am, if that makes sense. I’m old enough to do what I want, Frank, so mind your own business.”
“Are you going to let that kid take you home tonight?”
She laughed. “Maybe. Probably not. We’ll see.”
“I don’t think your brother would like that.”
“He doesn’t get to dictate what I do or who I do it with.”
She looked defiantly down the street toward the corner where a cop on his beat was just coming around.
She showed her teeth, less smiling than baring them at me and danced forward a few steps.
“Officer! Officer! This man is chasing me. He won’t leave me alone. Please, help me!”
At the sound of her voice the cop, a stout young man with black hair and deep-set eyes, leaped forward to rescue the damsel. She pointed at me and the cop, reassuring her, hailed me and commanded me to stop where I was.
There was going to be no talking my way out of whatever conversation we were about to have and I was not interested in getting frisked.
Ruby looked at me with a mix of pity and triumph and thinly-veiled attraction. I turned and ran.
I led the cop on a merry chase down past the alley that led to DuBois’ place, around the corner, and through a park where I hid in a thicket of bushes until he went past, then I doubled back and walked all the way back to Ruby’s place. I had no idea where Ruby and the others had gone and I was starting to feel that this job had paid too little for a PI of my caliber.
I got there and even though I was certain that she was not back yet, I went up to check.
The elevator boy pointed out a twig that was stuck in my lapel and I thanked him with a dollar.
In front of 514 again I knocked and waited and knocked some more. No answer, not that I had figured there would be.
Feeling more than a little sore about Ruby’s double-cross, and also increasingly attracted to her because of it—a sure sign of trouble if ever there was one—I went home with the windows open and the engine purring through city streets, past raucous groups of men and women similarly inebriated as Liz and Dorothy and their male companions had been, the women leading, the men trying to keep up and being led along as if an invisible leash tied them to the girls.
I was looking forward to a quiet drink at home, to Melville’s muted but warm greeting, and, on Monday, a return to regular cases, regular jobs that did not involve the spoiled impetuous younger sisters of old friends.
My apartment was on the third floor of a slightly dirtier, slightly more run down building than Ruby’s. No bright foyer. No guy in the elevator.
I opened my door and went in. The lights were on and stuff was tossed everywhere and among the tossed stuff in my living room, digging in the couch, was none other than Richard Carlyle, my friend.
“What are you doing, Dick?”
He jumped out of his skin and whipped around. He let out the sort of sound you’d expect from someone just caught breaking into his now former friend’s apartment.
“Frank.”
Just my name. Unadorned. He didn’t add anything on top.
“What are you looking for, Dick?”
Carlyle tried to look cool, which he did pretty effortlessly. He was tall with high swept dark hair, a chiseled chin and high cheekbones, in many ways the spitting image of his younger sister.
“Oh, this and that.”
“It’s been a long time, Dick, and this is the welcome home I get?”
He smiled ruefully. “What can I say, Frank, I needed the money. You always were pretty flush with the stuff.”
“That was years ago. I went straight. You know that.”
“Yeah, well, I figured you might have kept something lying around for insurance.”
“Does your sister know you involved her in this scheme?”
He shook his head and frowned. “I doubt she’d have gone along with it. I couldn’t get her to give me the time of day if I asked.”
“Women are like that, especially when they’re tired of lending you money.”
He went to the side bar. “Drink?”
It was like Dick to offer me my own whisky.
“No, thanks.”
When he turned around, he had a revolver leveled at me.
“Is that supposed to make me let you leave?”
“I figured it might…after you tell me where the money is.”
“There is no money.”
“Oh, come on, Frank. There’s no way I’m going to believe that. You were minting it hand over fist and I know you’ve got some stashed here. Maybe the rest is in the bank but you’ve got to have something here. Tell me where it is.”
“I can’t because there isn’t any.”
I felt something against my leg and looked down to see Melville depositing a lion’s worth of fur onto my pant leg. He scratched my ankle with a claw to let me know that he was displeased with me, then rubbed his face against the spot to say he forgave me. Or so I figured.
“Come on, Frank. Where’s the money?”
I watched Melville pick his way through the disheveled contents of the living room.
Dick grabbed a poker from the fireplace and brandished it. “I don’t want to shoot you but I’ll do it.”
“Are you going to shoot me or hit me with that? You always were a confused young man, Dick. Make up your mind.”
“And you couldn’t stop making dumb jokes, Frank.” He advanced a step, poker and gun pointed at me.
“Could you at least let me know which to expect? It’s been a while since I’ve been shot.”
“Stop stalling!” Dick swung the poker and smashed the decanter of whisky.
I’d never known Melville to be a high-strung cat but the sound of the shattering glass might as well have been a cattle prod to his nethers. From his position on the couch, he jumped six feet in the air and landed directly on Dick’s head. Dick, scratching and clawing at Melville who was scratching and clawing at his face, dropped the poker and let off two rounds before I got over and wrested the gun from his hand. I backed against the wall looking around for the cat but he’d disappeared. Seeing the gun in my hand, Dick’s expression withered.
“Please, Frank, I—”
“If you think I’m going to murder a man in my own living room, you’re as dumb as you look. Get out and don’t come back.”
I’d never seen a man move so fast. The door slammed behind him. He was one old friend I hoped never to see again, otherwise I’d have to resurrect the old Frank to deal with him.
Melville reappeared. I scratched his head. “Thanks, buddy. Didn’t know you had it in you.”
It was after midnight but I went to the phone anyway and gave the operator the address for Ruby’s apartment and she put me through.
I didn’t expect her to answer but to my surprise she did.
“Yes?” she purred.
“It’s Frank. I didn’t think you’d be home already.”
“I got bored.”
“What’s his name didn’t do it for you?”
“Jim is quite the dullard.”
I held the mouthpiece closer so she’d hear. “Did you know what your brother was up to tonight?”
“Why would I? I don’t care one bit what he does.”
“Then why’d you let me take you out?”
“Curiosity.”
“Well how’s this for curiosity? I caught your brother robbing my place. He nearly shot me.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“Bit of a rough patch?”
“You could say that. Did he shoot you?”
“Nearly. Put two in the ceiling.”
She sounded excited. “How thrilling.”
“When will I see you again?”
“Why don’t you tell me all about it over dinner tomorrow.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight.”
“I have to warn you, I get bored easily.”
Her honesty surprised me. “Yeah, I noticed, but you know what? So do I.”
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, strictly a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance, perceived resemblance, or similarity to any other fictional works, to actual events or persons, living or dead, and any perceived slights of people, places, or organizations are products of the reader’s imagination. This fiction is the result of a partnership between a human writer and the character(s) he accessed with his creative subconscious as he raced through the story with them. No AI of any kind, generative or otherwise, was used in any way to write this story.
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