“No regrets?”
“How do I look?”
“If I were a Frenchman, maybe I’d tell you with gestures.”
“Tell me later?”
“I’m glad you asked. I’ll be having dinner with you. I’ll be making my daily report, boss. But right now I’ve got to beat it. Paris can be a kick in the tail, professionally. I used to laugh at the fancy talk about this city. They told me that Paris knocks the props out from under any businessman. They told me I’d find moods and situations and people that might make me do funny things. I laughed, of course. But they were dead right. If this were New York, I’d tell you to get yourself another boy, Peggy.”
“I’m glad it’s Paris.”
She leaned my way and kissed me brazenly. In the little moment of contact, I didn’t give a damn for the crowd around us. Something happened to my inner man when she walked away. She turned at the exit, to look back at me, smiling. I felt like a hero for making her laugh again.
“What a hunk of woman,” Larry said. “Do I get one of those with my detective’s diploma?”
He must have been watching the byplay. He stared at her, lost in an obvious dream. He sat again, content to sip the remains of the coffeepot and make small talk for an hour or so. I allowed him one last demitasse.
“We’re going visiting,” I told him.
“Again? You’ll never change, chum. You’ll never learn the beautiful art of resting your butt at lunchtime. A French dick would take the full three hours.”
We took a cab to Jastro’s. Larry was puzzled by my move. I reminded him that Jastro was down in my book in connection with my business, the hunt for Judy Martin. The skip-tracer must explore the odd corners, the off-beat leads, forever on the alert for crumbs, the stray bits of information that only turn up after the long, hot hunts. The skip-tracer goes anywhere and everywhere in search of these crumbs. He sorts and sifts. In Jastro’s case, I’d be looking for the obvious tidbits, the items that could tie him up with Judy. If he had killed Velma, his type of brain might be worth a long detour. If he was mad enough to stab, he could be mad enough to butcher and slice, to use a knife and then lose the pieces.
“What a brain you have,” Larry said, showing me a face full of nausea. “You’re building the poor crud into some sort of bluebeard.”
“He built the idea himself. When he let himself be found crocked in Bowker’s closet.”
“Doesn’t fit. Jastro just isn’t the type.”
“You and your artistic type-casting again,” I said. “Killers don’t wear special faces.”
Jastro’s nest was something for the birds. Vultures. His studio belonged to a long-dead era, a time when fashion ordered an artist to live in filth. It was a large, square room overlooking a cheap yard loaded with the droppings from his binges. A variety of bottles festooned the dying grass. A scraggly tree struggled to breathe in the debris. But the alcoholic dregs had stunted its growth.
His work lay around the room and tacked on the walls in every available piece of space. He specialized in nudes. He seemed far gone on just one type of model—the big-breasted, heavy-hipped dames, the sculptured exaggerations of all womankind—Amazons and peasants. These he handled with the broad, sure strokes of a bold creative man. He swept his drawings with an angry rhythm. He drew hundreds of pictures, all of the same type. He couldn’t have found so many models of that structure. He had converted every woman into his own symbol of sex and sensuality.
“How does he rate, artistically?” I asked.
“Good,” said Larry, studying the walls. “Jastro’s no slouch. He sold off three of his croquis last night. Garr was nuts about them.”
“He pay much?”
“Jastro doesn’t sell himself down the river.”
“He must have been happy.”
“He was too drunk to care, really. And he was a bit miffed about not being able to produce his dancing gal. He sat over in that corner with his bottle, just slurping and saying nothing. He must have been in a coma. Nobody can watch Jadda dance and not emote. And when one of the boys got up—”
I called him over to my side of the room where a beat-up desk held the accumulated slop of Jastro’s creative life. Under a pile of sketches, hidden beneath a dirty green blotter, I had made a discovery.
“Money,” I said. “All American cabbage.”
Larry whistled. “Quite a bundle.”
I counted it out, more than three hundred bucks, in tens and twenties.
“Think,” I said. “How much did Garr pay him?”
“Not that much.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The current market on work of Jastro’s type. Artists live a low-down and mean existence, Steve. They sell off their sketches for dough, but not caviar dough. You’d better check with Garr on the price he paid. I couldn’t honestly say. I was pretty well loaded myself, remember?”
“This looks bad for Jastro.”
“The poor stinker.”
Jastro’s closets held nothing but dust and a working smock. His art library lay on the floor, piled in untidy heaps. His kitchen featured a small table, loaded with empties. Bottles sat in all odd corners. You tripped on them, kicked them, rolled them out of the way. Beyond the kitchen, Larry showed me where he had found Folger’s stuff. It was a dank hole, under the stairs, a catchall for a variety of keepsakes, a room almost large enough for tenancy. At the far end, a tiny window looked out over the yard.
“Thought this was the can,” said Larry. “Can’s next door.”
“Where was the stuff?”
“In this corner.” He pointed to the right. “I came in and groped for the throne. I upset that crate. Then I lit the light, saw the stuff and grabbed it.”
“Find anything else?”
“I found the john,” he laughed. “I was on my way there for business, remember?”
“But you didn’t come back?”
“Couldn’t. There were people out in the hall.”
“Jastro?”
“Not Jastro. He remained in the studio, he and his bottle.”
I pulled up the shade on the small window. A few neurotic spiders slid away, disturbed by the sudden invasion. Dust gagged us. I forced open the window, welcoming the small gust of fresh air. There was a pile of old canvases stacked back here. I jerked off the protective cloth. Artists are funny. Jastro could live in filth, he could neglect everything in his dump, including himself. But paintings? These were carefully covered and well protected from the surrounding dust and dirt. His collection consisted of contemporary stuff, the work of his friends, probably.
And one of his friends was Judy Martin.
He had a small square canvas, a nude of her blue period. This one was fine, a nice job, the nude posed gracefully, the modeling on the face delicate and loaded with character. But it wasn’t the art that gripped me.
I stared at her signature.
It read: To Edmund—with all my love—Judy.
The letters were finely drawn, done with a tiny brush in microscopic size. But the handwriting matched the other signatures. Larry whistled down at it over my shoulder.
“A love affair?” he asked. “The plot thickens.”
“Like lava, it thickens. This plot is lousy with shut mouths, dead memories. Why didn’t the punk tell me he knew her well? Why didn’t he tell Peggy? The drunken bum was hiding it for a reason. It begins to fit, all of it now. Jastro will have to think fast when he sobers up. I’d hate to be on his end of the stick when Malencourt gets after him.”
I was beginning to boil over about Jastro. He took on a new and slimy character now. What was he holding back? What was he burying under his buckets of liquor? A bad memory? A memory so evil that conscious thought of it would level him? If Jastro murdered Velma there might be other items for me to gather here. I backtracked into the studio, starting
at the door, cautioning Larry to pick up anything he thought at all unusual.
We worked in silence for a long time. We scoured the dirty dump, advanced into the kitchen, into the dusty closet, the john, and finally back into the big room again.
“A fine tooth comb,” Larry said. “Now I know what that bromide means. My mouth feels like a door mat. Why don’t we knock off for a quick beer?”
“Not yet.”
We had neglected Jastro’s library. I called Larry over to the pile of books. We started down the dusty stack, upturning each of them, riffling the pages, shaking the moldy bindings. Larry squatted beside me, no longer the wit, no longer the gag man. Some of my purpose had rubbed off on him. We worked silently, carefully, studiously.
Until I shook out an old letter.
It was an ancient piece of writing paper, light blue. The handwriting immediately set off a bell in my head. The message was short and simple:
EDMUND:
I write you this because we must say goodbye. There were many good moments together—but too many sad ones.
Please, you must not try to find me.
JUDY
We stared at the note for a long time. The sticky silence held us. This would be the last straw for Jastro, maybe the end of the line for his hopes. This was classic evidence, the type of letter all lawyers lick their legal chops over.
“The poor, stupid stinker,” Larry said.
I folded the note away and we went out of there.
CHAPTER 15
Maison Garr—Rue Boissy D’Anglas
Lester Garr’s terrace was a cool retreat, a neat and pretty garden in the sun. His butler let me squat in one of the rattan chairs facing the fountain. The grass was green and the fountain gushed and burbled. A few birds twittered in the shrubs. Nothing remained of last night’s party. Behind me, the big stone house lay quiet and dignified. From somewhere deep in a hidden room a clock chimed the hour. I got up and walked to the fountain, my mind too tight for this sudden peace.
I was throwing pebbles in the water when Garr came out on the terrace.
“Well.” He held out a hand for me to pump. I passed it up. He turned his head to call: “George!” to his butler. “Now, my friend,” he said. “I can share that drink with you.”
“Skip it, Garr. I didn’t come here to socialize.”
“Oh, come now,” he said, trying for the role of gay good host. “A drink is always fine at this time of day.”
“Sit down. Maybe you’ll need one.”
“I don’t understand.”
But he sat obediently, like a small boy ready for discipline. His old nervousness twitched his face again. He took a brandy from his butler and gulped it. Then he took another.
“What’s eating you, Garr?”
“You. You look like a messenger of doom.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Frankly,” he continued, “I’ve been kicking myself all day, ever since I met you near Bowker’s. Made a damned fool of myself. Man hates to be caught with his emotional pants down.”
“Was that all?”
“That was all, of course.” He eyed me with the inquisitive stare of a man watching a lit fuse. “What else?”
“You still stick to your story about the dancing broad?”
“Story? That was the truth, Conacher.”
“Jastro phoned you?”
He reached for another brandy. But the glass never made the trip to his lips. He put it down, meditating. Something was building a bad headache in him. “I’m quite sure it was Jastro.”
“You know his voice?”
“Who else has his perpetual drunken speech?”
“I’ll ask the questions. So you beat it down to Bowker’s and rang the bell and went home, is that your story?”
“Why should I change it?”
“Don’t. If it’s the truth, you’d better memorize it, Garr. Because they found your dancing broad butchered in Bowker’s bed. And they’re looking for the stinker who did the job.”
He went to pieces for me. He had no method for hiding his upset now. The brandy went down in a foolish gulp, but it did him no good at all. He began to pace the terrace. He would flip completely in a few minutes.
“They know I was there?” His voice was high and tinny, his face whiter than the pavement marble. “You haven’t told them you saw me? I’d be ruined, Conacher, absolutely ruined.”
“I haven’t told them—yet.”
“You won’t,” he pleaded. “You mustn’t.”
“I’ll think about it. If you level with me, Garr.”
“Anything,” he gasped. “I have nothing to hide. But for me to be called in, even for questioning in a thing like this, would be ruinous. My business, Conacher. The scandal would kill me.”
“Relax,” I said. “Have another brandy.”
“You’ve got to believe me.”
“The brandy, Garr. Take a double dose.”
He poured, the liquor spilling over to the tabletop. He was a man caught in a big squeeze. His behavior would have put him in the jug in any police forum in the land. He would have been booked and ironed with this kind of upset. He was an easy mark for any rap in the ledger, a jittery, bug-eyed suspect. But the signal flags were flying too hard for me, the nervousness too intense to spell anything but stark fear. Garr was a coward and nothing more.
“Let’s take it from the beginning,” I said. “You didn’t know the girl?”
“I still don’t know her. Jastro didn’t tell us her name last night.”
“I’ll tell it to you. It was Velma Weston.”
“Velma,” he whispered. “But I knew Velma.”
“How well?”
“She got around, Conacher.”
“Here?”
“She’s been here, of course.”
“For breakfast?”
“Twice,” he said. The shock held him in a sweat. He kept a handkerchief at his face all the time now. “Quite a girl.”
“You were one of her close friends?”
“Please. Velma was public property. She was a fantastic girl. A nymphomaniac. The fact that she stayed with me is meaningless. You couldn’t count the number of men she’s favored.”
“Let’s try,” I said. “Who was her big heartburn?”
“I can’t say.”
“Jastro?”
“Maybe. I wouldn’t swear to it, Conacher. How can you make sense out of a woman like Velma? To look at her you’d think her something special, a movie kid or a young student or a model or something like that. How can you tell the queers? She almost bowled me over when she stayed with me that first night. She was fantastic—absolutely incredible, I tell you. Yet, the next morning she was gone. And I didn’t see her again until my next party—maybe three months later.”
The words were spilling out of him now, the by-product of his panic. More than anything else, he wanted me to believe him. All the way.
“You’d have to question every American male in Paris,” he burbled on. “She’s taken them all, believe me.”
“She must have had favorites. Who were they?”
“Anybody,” he said “Everybody but me.”
In the afternoon sun, Garr looked out of place in the cool, quiet garden. He had worked himself into a flurry of desperation. He faced me now, quivering as he waited for my judgment of him. He was a sick boy, unaccustomed to this sort of drama. He would be the type to buy himself service and elegance, flunkies and tail-kissers. He could surround himself with everything in the luxury line, from caviar to dancing girls. He would be making the college try any minute now. H would be dropping cash on the line for my silence.
But the sight of him did my stomach no good.
I got up and said: “Stop chewing your lip, Garr. I’m not going to snitch. Your little trip to
Velma is safe with me.”
“You won’t regret it, Conacher. I’ll take care of you.”
“No you won’t. I’m not grubbing for your lousy money.” I grabbed him where his collar pinched his skinny throat. “If you’re telling me the truth, I’m with you, Garr, all the way. But if you’re lying, I’m coming back. And I’ll be walking in with a quiet frog named Monsieur Malencourt. He’s the head of the Paris Police.”
He walked me out to the edge of the parking lot. He sent a lackey into the avenue to bring me a cab. While we waited, he continued his nervous monologue, assuring me that I had earned his warmest thanks.
He was still standing at the curb, his mouth open in chagrin, when I rolled away from him. Against the background of his great garden, his lavish home, Garr hit me as only a bit player in the hunt for Judy Martin, a little man with big ideas, a junior tycoon who would never stop trying to make a celebrity of himself. He would continue to seduce the great names to his parties. He would toast them and titillate them. But when the soirees ended, Garr would stand alone, a maggot in a mansion.
CHAPTER 16
Chez Tomaselli—Rue de Duras
The Bar Genête sat at the free end of Tomaselli’s dead-end street, a small dump with an outdoor drinking section big enough for a conference of midgets. I sat at the hedge side, drinking Pernod, a national habit that tasted like old licorice stick drippings. I nursed my glass. In Paris, nobody resents the custom. You can slurp the cheapest drink and hold your table for hours. The management welcomes you without rushing you.
Diagonally across the street was the entrance to Tomaselli’s fashion emporium.
I had called Loretta. She was glad to hear from me and happy to inform me that Tomaselli would see me. She emphasized the hour of my appointment.
“You must be punctual for Vincent,” she had advised. “Remember, please, that he is a busy now. Often his entire day is taken up with the seeing of people. Be at his place exactly at five, mon petit?”
At 4:30 P.M. the doorway to Tomaselli’s suddenly filled with humanity. A cluster of girls appeared on the curb. They were all young, all willowy, all well dressed. They chattered gaily in falsetto French, a pretty covey of quail. Models? Their figures sold them off to me. French high fashion dolls own no seductive bumps. They eat air to preserve their matchstick slimness. They moved gracefully, chattering up a small storm but setting off no internal yen in me. Their lack of fleshy curves in the upper torso made me wonder about Dior’s last publicity stunt. He could have been serious about designing fashions for these lumpless, sexless babes.
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