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Автор Корнелл Вулрич
BLACK ALIBI
by Cornell Woolrich
Copyright 1942 by Cornell Woolrich
Published by Simon and Schuster, Inc.
Rockefeller Center, 1230 Sixth Avenue, New York, N. Y.
All rights reserved.
I. The Alibi
She was sitting there at her glass, at the fashionable going-out hour, trying to decide between a cluster of crystal grapes and a live gardenia as a shoulder decoration, when someone knocked at the suite door, outside across the adjoining reception room.
Whatever her decision was in the matter, she knew it would have a city-wide effect. It meant that for the next few weeks hundreds of young women would either all be wearing clusters of crystal grapes or live gardenias.
It was hard to believe that just a couple of brief years ago no one had cared a rap what she stuck on her shoulder. Nor anything else about her, for that matter. She’d been wearing her heels down to the quick and getting consistently laid off in an endless string of third-rate Detroit roadhouses. And now— She turned her head and gave it another look through the windows; she couldn’t resist it. That was the testimonial, the badge, of her importance, however transitory it might turn out to be; that out there.
CASINO EXCELSIOR
KIKI WALKER
“TRIC-TRAC”
The biggest spectacular in the city, rearing against the cobalt late-afternoon sky. And when the current was shot into it next week, for the opening, you”d be able to read her name after dark all the way up at the other end of the Alameda.
They were already naming perfumes and nail polishes after her, and of course paying for the privilege, and the newest concoction at the smart Inglaterra Bar was the Kiki Walker Cocktail (fiery-red at the top and stunning, the barman explained to everyone). For the whole of the last “winter” (June-September) she’d been queening it over the third largest city south of the Panama Canal, with her own car and chauffeur, personal maid, hotel suite.
Not bad for a run-of-the-mill roadhouse entertainer from Detroit, stranded down here when a traveling show blew up. Not bad at all.She still wasn’t quite sure how it had come about herself. A little dancing talent, a little singing talent, and a great deal of luck had done it for her. It was mostly a case of happening to be in the right place at the right time, and of having no competition to speak of. In Detroit her lyrics had been shoddy; down here they couldn’t be understood, so they sounded witty. In Detroit her red hair had been a commonplace; down here it was a rarity. And then Manning and his crazy stunts might, just might, she was willing to admit, have played some small part in attracting the public eye to her.
Their first meeting was not a thing she cared to be reminded of. He’d been sitting at a table at a sidewalk café, needing a shave and a clean collar, and she’d stopped in to find out if they couldn’t use a cashier—or even a waitress. He’d bought her a cup of coffee, because he was still good for a cup of coffee at that partic. ular place and she looked as if she needed one. When they got up from the table half an hour later, he was her press agent. Two weeks later she had her first job and he had a clean collar.
