Then the light went out.
I said: “Who’s buying me off?”
“Does it matter? Money is money.”
“It matters.”
“Then I will tell you,” he said. “The money comes from Mademoiselle Judy herself. She wishes her sister to go away. She wishes you to go away. It is worth this much for her to be left alone.”
“Maybe it’s worth more.”
“Another thousand? That is the highest.”
“And if I say no?”
“You are much too intelligent to refuse,” laughed the fat man. “You are a clever man.”
“I’m not buying it, fatso.”
“You are quite sure?”
“I’ll draw you a diagram if you like.”
“Henri!”
Garlic came on the double. In the pause I wondered whether I could snake past Fatso. It would mean jumping now. But he must have read my mind.
The automatic bit into my side.
“Please,” said Fatso. “No foolishness? Let us see how Henri feels.”
He pushed the gun into my neck, edging me out of the little car. I walked ahead of him, into the black hole of the warehouse. The two figures ahead of me were vague gray shapes against a soupy sky. The driver took Garlic’s coat. Fatso’s cigarette glowed off and on in the dark. It was a silent movie pantomime. But the sound would come through soon enough. The personal smell of Garlic closed in on me. Then his hand was on me and the stench was strong, up under my nose. It was all very crazy. A bad dream with smells to match.
“You wish, perhaps, to change your mind?” Fatso asked.
“Go to hell,” I said.
“Henri will be very angry.”
“Henri makes your deal stink. He needs Sen-Sen.”
Fatso barked a staccato command. Then I was lofted in the ham hands of Garlic and swung off my feet like a stuffed doll. I kicked out at him, clipping him in the knee. There was the flat clap of leather against bone. He muttered a Gallic curse at me. His grip was as loose as a vice. He pushed me back against the warehouse wall. He held me there.
“Six thousand dollars,” Fatso said.
“Stuff them. One by one.”
“You must be a hero?”
“It’s something I learned in the Boy Scouts.”
“Encore,” said Fatso. “Encore, Henri.”
Garlic’s encore began with a slap. It was a great ball of pain, his open hand hard and heavy, like the flat side of an axe. He caught me unprepared. My cheek slammed up against the wet wall, kissing the muck. I went down, my knees on the concrete floor, a walloping flame of pain blossoming behind my eyes. From somewhere in the next arrondissement I heard the sound of Fatso’s dry chuckle.
Then Garlic was puffing me along the floor to the street.
“You are still the hero?” Fatso asked. “You Americans have a fantastic sense of values. And where is your imagination? You have seen what happened to the other one, to Monsieur Folger. You are not impressed? A foolish way for a young man to die, is it not?”
“Nuts. You had nothing to do with Folger’s death.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Methods, Fatso. You were hired to push me around, not kill me.”
He laughed again. He muttered a long monologue to his henchmen, who joined him in his glee. Garlic still had me by the jacket. It was useless to plan for slipping away from him. We were in close, all four of us, the last gasp of the conference. Fatso was probably readying himself to give up on me. They were voting on it, discussing it. It would have been good to break loose now, throwing my weight around, especially at Garlic. I yearned to try for one crack at him. But the breath was thin in me. He had slammed me around too much for heroics.
“You are a stubborn man,” said Fatso. “I will ask you only once more. You will change your mind?”
“How about you?” I countered.
“Me?”
“I can get you a fat bundle for spilling to me. I’ll get you a thousand bucks if you tell me who sent you after me.”
“Generous.” His laughter rose to echo in the warehouse. He took his time laughing at me. I had tickled him, suddenly. He relayed my idea to his boys. They joined him. After a while they quieted. “Very generous,” spluttered Fatso, coughing the dregs of his enjoyment. “But, unfortunately, it is impossible for me.”
“I’ll make it two grand. Two thousand.”
“Ridiculous.”
“A lot of francs, Fatso. Just for telling me who hired you.”
“Amusing,” he said gruffly, “but nonsensical.”
He barked at Garlic, who let me fall from his grip. I leaned against the outer wall now, as lively as a wounded duck. Fatso ordered the boys back to the car. He watched them move off, pushing the automatic to my throat.
“I suggest that you do not try to follow us, Monsieur Conacher. I also suggest that you abandon the search for Mademoiselle Judy Martin. Since you will take neither suggestion, I will advise you to go directly to the Route des Petits Points, the avenue from which we turned. There you will find a taxi, I am quite sure. You are a brave man, Monsieur Conacher. But you are also a stupid man.”
He delivered his little speech with dignity. Then he turned on his heel and walked quickly to the car. In the next second it was moving away, too fast to be caught. I watched the tail light swing to the right, far off at the end of the dismal alley.
“Fat slob,” I said to the night.
CHAPTER 18
Préfecture de Police—7 Boulevard du Palais
Malencourt waited for me outside the washroom in the police station. He escorted me back to his office and made me comfortable. He was a good host, anxious to please.
“You wish a doctor, perhaps?” he asked.
“You’re very kind,” I told him. “I feel much better now. No doctor can help me, anyhow. What I need is the low-down on my fat friend. Any idea who he was?”
“It is impossible to say. You have given me little, Monsieur Conacher.” He closed his eyes and roiled back in his chair. “A stout man who smokes American cigarettes and has a small moustache? It would take many hours in the photography file to locate such a man. And even then, it is my guess that we would not find this person.”
“How about Henri?”
A slow shrug. A slower laugh. “The man who smells from too much garlic? There is no catalogue for such a person, my friend. Let me tell you this. These three do not seem to be professional criminals. Shall I tell you why? It is because they did not damage you much. They bungled the job, as it were. If they were hired to frighten you, did they succeed?”
“Not quite.”
“You see? If we compare them with the group who attacked Monsieur Folger, what do we find? On the one hand, Folger was truly brutalized, no? He was subjected to great pain at first. Our medical examination indicates such a possibility. And after the torture? Folger was finally killed.”
“I’m with you, all the way,” I said. “But I’d still like to have a crack at Garlic and his fat boss.”
“An understandable wish,” smiled Malencourt. He spoke into his intercom. He rambled and rattled a barrage of French, his eyes closed as he talked. When it was all over, he sucked at his cigar stub hopelessly. “I have tried to determine if anybody knows such a fat man from our Paris records. I have failed. There are in our city many such types, men who would take on an assignment of this sort for a good fee. But these could be men without police records, do you understand?”
He was apologetic about his efforts to help me. But he was leveling, all the way. It would be much the same in any big city in the States. You can’t build a dossier on every potential thug in town.
Malencourt’s desk phone buzzed. He listened for only a flick of time. Then he was off, galloping into a long inquiry in his native tongue. He shrugged and swayed i
n his chair. The French unleash their emotions, even in telephone talks. He barked and cough at the phone. Then he hung up and went through the same routine by way of the intercom. “Fleury,” he said. “Fleury, vite, vite, vite!” He beat a fancy tattoo on his desk blotter, staring at the door until a knock sounded. It was Fleury, a plain-clothes man of Malencourt’s build and age.
Malencourt introduced him. “One of my older lieutenants,” he winked. “Fleury has been with me for many years.”
They exchanged more patter.
“This fat man,” said Fleury. “He spoke good the English?”
“Very good,” I said.
“His age?”
“About forty-five. Maybe fifty.”
“His face? You perhaps notice any marks?”
“A scar. Up high on the right side, near the ear. A cross.”
Fleury digested my facts. But he made up his mind a minute ago, as soon as I gave him the scar. He mulled it over with Malencourt again. They shrugged in unison.
“There was a petty swindler,” said Malencourt, “during the time of the black market in France. Not really a gangster, you understand? We have nothing in our file to justify calling him a criminal. But he grew fat and rich on the black market. Because of his operations we soon found ourselves calling him in for examinations. A fat man, a Frenchman who spoke good English. His name, Fleury?”
“Tomaselli,” said Fleury. “The first name; escapes me. But of Tomaselli, I am sure.”
“An odd name,” I said. “Italian, isn’t it?”
“Not necessarily. There are many citizens with such names. Paris is a metropolitan city, mon ami.”
I let it pass, warming it up inside me as Malencourt went into a recap of the Velma Weston case. He was talking slowly now, letting Fleury in on the facts. We spent a half hour breaking down what Malencourt considered the important aspects of the murder. Throughout it all he retained his basic calm, as impersonal and unemotional as a plumber talking about washers. Fleury only listened, shaking his head wisely. They were sold on Jastro, but wouldn’t push it.
I said: “I think you’re making a big mistake with Jastro and Bowker.”
“Mistake? But how?”
“Let them both out. They may lead us somewhere.”
“An interesting idea,” said Malencourt, exchanging a wise nod with Fleury. “And where do you think they will lead us?”
“Who can tell? But they’re worthless in jail, aren’t they?”
“I understand what you mean. But Jastro, of course, must remain where he is. The doctor reports that he will be completely useless for another day. He is really a sick man. When one drinks in such quantities, it is a disease.”
“He hasn’t talked at all?”
“He is not yet awake.”
“But you’ll release Bowker?”
“At once. I will assign one of my best men to follow him. Monsieur Bowker stoutly maintains his innocence, of course. He tells us that he returned to his studio to find you there. He thought you an intruder and proceeded to attack you, for which we cannot honestly blame him. He maintains that he came in from a walk after attending a gallery. We have checked with the gallery and find that he was present for some time. But he had sufficient opportunity to return to his studio and kill the girl, do you understand? Yet, your idea is a good one.”
“You’ll let me know when your man reports?”
“He will telephone every three hours. I shall release Monsieur Bowker at once.”
“Thanks, Inspector. I hope it pays off.”
“We can only try.”
Malencourt smiled at me wisely. I went out of his office feeling that I had a friend in the French policeman. It was a shot in the arm for me. Too often fiction stamps these work horse officials as dopes and sluggards. Yet they were all sharp brains, every one I ever met. I thought of Feininger in New York, the bigshot youth of the brain brigade, a man who looked like a college cutup but had the insight of a psychiatrist. Malencourt filled his official pants with middle-aged sloppiness. He was dull-looking and slow-moving. But he was as clever as all the rest. He was clever enough to put a tail on me.
I spotted the tail behind me on the busy street. He was a nondescript frog, dressed in the typical French outfit, all black and as obvious as a smack in the jaw.
I let him follow, laughing at his bag of tricks. Malencourt had pulled a switch. The pot was boiling and he wanted a firsthand sampling of the brew. He was alive and alert to my possibilities in the case, anxious to hold me in focus along with the others. I couldn’t blame him for his curiosity. I couldn’t hate him for his slyness.
I slowed my steps. I dawdled in shop windows, letting the tail crawl closer. It would be important to see him, to know him, to tab him for future reference. On a busy corner, I studied a display of perfumes and toiletries, watching the window for a reflected close-up of the character behind me. He came in at a casual stroll. He paused at a neighboring store, putting on a big show of interest in ladies’ underwear. He was an average-sized Parisian. He wore a light blue tie and had a cleft in his chin the ladies would love. From that moment on, I thought of him as Gaston. He looked like a Gaston, a typically French juvenile.
“On your horse, Gaston,” I said to my shadow. “We’re off to the races.”
I dawdled a while on the big boulevards. Then I hopped a cab and watched Gaston pursue me, all the way across Paris to Bowker’s studio.
The flics were long gone here. The garden was open and inside nothing stirred under the scraggly trees. I closed the gate behind me. Gaston stood across the street in the shadow of a doorway. He leaned in deep, almost hidden from view. He whistled softly as he watched. In the dull stillness of the street, his notes were off key.
Bowker’s place worked at my guts. The darkness seemed thick and deep and ominous. I felt my way across the big studio working toward the door to the room where I had found Jastro. A chair knocked at me. It fell to the floor with a flat clap of sound. In the pause, crazy laughter bubbled in my throat. I was too tense for this kind of play. It would be best to get to a seat quickly. It might be a long wait until Bowker arrived.
In the little room, my muscles found some peace. I sat on the edge of the cot, close to the door. It was open only a crack. It gave me a view of great seas of black space. It took time for my eyes to find focus in such darkness. Then I began to see the vague surface of the window across the studio, a gray mass that slowly took shape against the film of murky light from the garden. From somewhere in another room a clock ticked. I took a deep breath and settled down to wait. A generation later, the first important sound rapped at my ears.
It was only a small noise, the shuffling of feet in Bowker’s little hall, the turning of a key in the lock.
Then sudden light burned the studio into reality.
He came in slowly, his movements limited to the side of the room I couldn’t see. He was walking with a shuffling step. He was tired and unambitious. I heard the vague noise of the cane against the far wall. Then his feet marched slowly away, into the kitchen.
A pause? He did nothing in the kitchen but stand and wait. Or was he looking beyond the little hall? Into the room where Velma’s body had lain? My mind raced with the stupid project of imagining his actions back there. What was he doing now? The silence hung around me, so still that my heart banged strong and loud in my ears.
Then a tinkle of glass and the sound of liquid pouring. He was having a drink for himself.
But his impulse died in a shattering crash. There was no mistaking his purpose now. He had smashed the bottle and the glass against the wall. Drunk? The next minute made me freeze where I sat, caught up in the hysteria of a drama I couldn’t see. But the mechanics of the lonely one-man show soon came alive for me.
Because he began to cry.
He returned slowly to the studio, his feet dragging. He crossed
the lighted room, his back to me, his figure strangely bent and beaten.
It was Bowker, all right.
And he was sobbing his heart out, his big frame doubled in grief, head in hands, a sorrowing, slobbering mourner. His heavy, racking sadness filled the room, so loud, so intense that I found myself stiffening under the impact of his emotion. He sat there, shaking his head hopelessly He gave himself to tears completely, leaving the chair for the couch.
“Velma, Velma, Velma,” he said, over and over again.
The sound of Bowker’s wailing made me regret my plans. I had come here to corner him, to question him. Of all the leads to Velma Weston, he was the biggest, the closest to her. Close? The poor sucker was in love with her. I had caught him off guard, deep in an embarrassing sorrow. For a long minute I debated the idea of just slipping out and away, through the window into the alley.
But reason held me at the door. I stepped inside and waited for him to alert himself.
“Sorry to intrude, Bowker,” I said.
He barely lifted his head to me. His eyes were red and dull, the eyes of a sick animal. All life was out of them. His face showed me no important reaction to my presence. His stupor seemed almost alcoholic. He mopped at his eyes slowly
“What do you want?” he asked.
“You were in love with her?”
“Is that what you came to find out?”
“It’s a beginning,” I said. “I’m going to catch the maniac who murdered her, Bowker. I need your help. She was afraid of a man. Any idea who he was?”
“Would I be sitting here if I knew?”
“He was the man who drank with her when she was with Folger,” I said.
“Folger? Who is he?” His words dropped slowly and sadly. He was making a great effort for composure. The hiccupping sobs of grief still hung in his throat. It would be hours before they wore away. “Velma never mentioned him to me. Maybe she thought I’d fly off the handle. I was jealous of her, don’t you see? I was crazy about her, but I couldn’t stop her from doing the things she wanted, seeing the men she seemed to need. Still, I loved her. Does that sound idiotic? It’s true.”
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