CH04 - The Topless Tulip Caper

by Lawrence Block

  I saw it all again in slow motion. The finale of the act, Cherry shaking her breasts over the edge of the stage, straightening up, doing her spread, going coyly prim, then trying so desperately to reach her breast—

  “When we think of curare,” Haig said, “we think of savages in the jungle. We think of blow darts, we think of arrows tipped with the deadly elixir. And when we consider this crime, we assume that X must have employed such a device, that some projectile served to carry curare from X’s hand to Miss Abramowicz’s breast. No projectile remained stuck in the breast in question; hence we assume that the dart or arrow or whatever struck the breast, pierced the skin, and then fell away. Mr. Harrison was the first person to leap onto the stage after Miss Abramowicz fell. He had the presence of mind, after determining there was no office he could perform for the victim, to make a quick search for the projectile. And he—”

  “And he put it in his pocket.” This from my old friend Wallace Seidenwall. “I knew Harrison had it. I been saying so all along, and I been saying—”

  “You have been saying far too much, sir. Mr. Harrison did not find the projectile. Neither did the police, who may be presumed to have subjected the premises to an exhaustive search. Dismissing such preposterous theories as an arrow with an elastic band tied to it—and I trust we can dismiss such rot out of hand—it is quite inconceivable that X could have retrieved the projectile. Sherlock Holmes established the principle beyond doubt, and I reiterate it here and now: When all impossibilities have been eliminated, that which remains is all that is possible. There was no projectile.”

  I suppose everybody was supposed to gasp when he said this. That’s not what happened. Instead everybody just sat there staring. Maybe they had trouble following what he’d just said. Maybe they were confused about the difference between a weapon and a projectile. I’d already had a lesson in that department so I managed to stay on top of things, and at that moment I finally figured out who X was. Instead of feeling brilliant I sat there wondering how it had taken me so long.

  “There was no projectile,” Haig said again. “Miss Abramowicz was stabbed with some sort of pin. A hair pin, a hat pin, it scarcely matters. The pin was pressed into her breast and withdrawn. Then—”

  “Wait.” It was Gregorio. “Unless I’m off-base, she was all alone on that stage. How did someone stick a pin in her breast without anyone seeing it?”

  “Because she was bending over the edge of the stage. She did this at the conclusion of every performance, leaning forward almost parallel to the floor with her breasts suspended over the stage apron. This was X’s genius—it would have been simpler by far to inflict a wound in her foot, for example, but by waiting for the one perfect moment X could guarantee that everyone would assume that a nonexistent projectile had been employed.”

  I said, “How come she didn’t feel anything? She went right ahead and got up and danced around for a minute, and then there was suddenly blood on her breast and she started to crumble.”

  “Curare is not instantaneous. Poisons borne by the bloodstream need time to reach the heart. And small puncture wounds rarely begin bleeding immediately. Indeed they often fail to bleed at all. As for her failure to react, she was caught up in an intense dance routine. She might have been too involved to feel a pinprick. She might have assumed it was an insect bite and ignored it. For that matter, she might not have felt it at all. She had had silicone implants. The skin of her breasts was thus stretched to accommodate their enlargement, the nerve endings consequently far apart. Some nerves may even have been severed when the silicone was implanted.”

  Haig shrugged. “But it hardly matters. Once one knows how the murder was committed, the identity of X is instantly obvious. Indeed it has been obvious to me for some time that only one person was ideally situated to commit the murder. That same person was also ideally situated to receive consignments of drugs from Mr. Flatt and dispense them in the normal course of occupational routine.

  “Miss Remo. I suggest you keep your hands in plain sight and avoid sudden movements. Mr. Wong Fat has you within line of sight. He could plant his cleaver in your head before you could get your purse open. Yes, keep your hands right where they are, Miss Remo. Mr. Seidenwall, I trust you thought to bring a pair of handcuffs? I suggest you put them on Miss Remo. She is rather more dangerous than she looks.”

  Eighteen

  SEIDENWALL PUT THE cuffs on her. He may have been a witling but he knew how to follow orders. I didn’t take my eyes off her until the bracelets snapped shut. Then I let out a breath I hadn’t remembered taking and glanced at the doorway. Wong was standing there and he still had the cleaver raised. He wasn’t taking any chances.

  Gregorio lit a cigarette and blew out a lot of smoke. He said, “You don’t really have anything, do you? Just a theory. I’m not arguing with your theory. I have to hand it to you, you tied all the ends together and made it work. And if we put the jury in this room and let you put on a show for them they might bring in a conviction, but that’s not how the system works. Maybe it should be but it isn’t.”

  “You need proof.” “Right.”

  “And I told you earlier that proof is the world’s cheapest commodity. The contents of Miss Remo’s purse might prove interesting. Even if she has been bright enough to avoid bringing anything incriminating with her, you should have little trouble tying her to Flatt and to the drug operation. Once you know what to look for it’s a simple matter to find it. You might start by establishing a link between Mr. Flatt and the strychnine in this jar.” He tapped the jar of wheat germ. “Odd that this would be left accessible, but perhaps neither of them had an opportunity to retrieve it.”

  That was all Glenn Flatt needed. He whirled around and glared at Jan Remo. “You stupid ass-faced little bitch! You said you switched jars yesterday afternoon. What in the hell is the matter with you?”

  Jan Remo didn’t turn a hair. She just closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them she spoke in a calm and level voice.

  She said, “Now I know why you’re such a terrible gambler, Glenn. How many times do you let the same man bluff you out of a pot? There was nothing in that jar of wheat germ. He doctored it with something that would kill the fish.” She sighed. “I think it’s about time somebody advised me of my rights. I have the right to remain silent. I intend to remain silent. Glenn, I think you should remain silent, too. I really do.”

  Gregorio advised them both of their rights and put cuffs on Flatt, and he and Seidenwall led the two of them away. Wong closed the door after them and returned to the kitchen to hang up his cleaver. In the office everybody seemed to be waiting for somebody else to say something. When the silence got unbearable I broke it by asking how he knew Mallard had been killed.

  “I don’t,” he said. “I believe he was killed. A police investigation might establish that either Mr. Flatt or Miss Remo was at his apartment yesterday.”

  “And made him choke on his own vomit?”

  Haig nodded slowly. “A simple murder method,” he said, “and quite undetectable. It requires a victim who has had a lot to drink. When he has passed out or fallen asleep, one puts one’s hand over his mouth and drives one’s knee into the pit of his stomach. The victim regurgitates, cannot open his mouth, and the vomit is drawn into the lungs. One might find that Mr. Mallard’s abdomen is bruised. This would still prove nothing. It’s my guess that Miss Remo killed him, and it’s virtually certain that she will never be charged with the crime.”

  “Nobody could make it stick,” Leonard Danzig said.

  “Quite so. But both she and Mr. Flatt will serve long sentences for the murder of Miss Abramowicz. Perhaps that is sufficient.”

  There was some more conversation, and then they left, a few at a time. Leonard Danzig took me aside on his way out and handed me two envelopes. ‘The other half of what I gave you last night,” he said, “plus the bonus we agreed on. All in cash. If Haig wants to pay taxes on it that’s his business, but it won’t show up on my b
ooks so it’s strictly up to him. Your boss is everything you said he was. It was worth four grand to watch him operate. It was worth more than that to find out that Gus Leemy hasn’t been running as tight a ship as he should. No wonder the police were leaning on me. They thought I had a hand in a drug operation. I don’t touch drugs.” He smiled. “You’re okay yourself. Anytime you drop by the club, there won’t be any check.”

  Within half an hour they were all gone. Maeve O’Connor told me to hang onto her phone number even though the case was solved, and Rita Cubbage gave me her number, too. “In case you want to call me in the middle of the night,” she said, “if something should suddenly come up.” Simon Barckover asked Haig if he had ever thought of working up a nightclub routine. He started to sketch out what he had in mind but Haig glowered at him and he let it lie. Gus Leemy walked out looking very unhappy and Buddy Lippa trailed after him, looking very stupid. That left our client and her boyfriend, and I got rid of him myself.

  I took old Haskell aside and told him he ought to divorce his wife, and he got into a riff about how he couldn’t leave her because she would never be able to get another man, so I figured the hell with it and told him how nicely she had done in that department just that morning. This rattled him, and then I told him that I didn’t think he should hang around Tulip anymore, and this rattled him a little too, and he went away.

  So Tulip was the only one left, and she went home after Haig gave back her check for five hundred dollars. When she refused to take it he tore it up and threw it in the wastebasket.

  “But that’s not fair,” she said. “I hired you to do a job and you did more than I hired you to do and now you won’t let me pay you for it.”

  “I have been amply paid by someone else,” he said. “And I am not refusing your payment. I am buying something in return. Use some of that five hundred to buy some good equipment and a group of breeder scats. Select a pair. Breed them. Then tell me exactly how you did it.”

  Nineteen

  WE SPENT PART of the evening Scotch-taping hundred-dollar bills together. This would have been easier if we’d kept them in order but I dropped the second batch and they got all jumbled up. We had to match serial numbers. It didn’t really take all that long, but the process kept getting interrupted by people calling from the newspapers and things like that.

  Then Haig made me play a few games of chess with him, which I won, and then I played a game with Wong and lost in ten moves. And finally I stood up and said, “I’m going home.”

  “Very well.”

  “Oh, hell. You were beautiful today and I can’t ruin things by not playing my part. I give up. How did you know to doctor the wheat germ?”

  “I gave some of it to some fish while you were seating our guests. They lived to tell the tale.” He examined a fingernail. “It was showmanship. I’ll admit that. Without it, the police could still turn up enough evidence to convict handily. Addicts who have bought drugs from Miss Remo. Witnesses who could place her and Mr. Flatt in various places at various times.” He straightened in his chair. “But I wanted to break them in public. The police dig harder when they know they’re digging for something that exists.”

  “And you got a kick out of the performance.”

  He grunted.

  “So how did you do it? I didn’t know we had any strychnine in the house.”

  “We don’t.”

  “What did you use?”

  “Those roach crystals Wong sprinkles around. I dissolved a handful in water and soaked the wheat germ with it.”

  “How did you know it would kill fish?”

  “I didn’t. I fed some to some fish and they died.”

  “I probably should have figured that part out myself. I guess I’m a little punchy. But that’s not the main point. How did you know they switched jars? How did you know the strychnine was in the wheat germ in the first place?”

  He just smiled.

  “Oh, hell,” I said. “Actually I’m taking some of the credit for this one. Do you remember the pipe dream I was spinning about Haskell Henderson? How he poisoned the fish because Tulip wouldn’t eat the health foods but gave them to the fish instead? And how he killed Cherry because she was eating the crap instead of passing it on to Tulip? Remember?”

  “That piffle,” he said. “How could I possibly forget it?”

  “Well, that’s what put the idea in your head. And the notion of Jan Remo stabbing Cherry with a pin, you even said hatpin, and you got that idea because I told you how Althea Henderson stuck a hatpin in her tit. For Pete’s sake, I’m the one who does all the work around here. Why is it that you get all the credit?”

  He petted his beard. “Surely you can make yourself look somewhat more intelligent when you write up this case, Chip. It’s only fair that you should have the opportunity.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “And don’t forget what Miss Swann advised you this morning,” he went on. “The book needs sex. Not nearly so much as you seem to need it, but it does need sex.” He gazed past my shoulder and got a very innocent look on his face. “I see no reason why you couldn’t embroider the truth somewhat in that department. In the interest of increasing the book’s marketability. You might, oh, fabricate an incident in which you had sexual relations with our client, for example.”

  I glared at him.

  “But that might not be enough in and of itself.” He played with his beard some more. “Perhaps you could enlarge this morning’s interview with Mrs. Henderson. Suggest that, after she bared her breast to you, you took her to bed. A bit farfetched, to be sure, but perhaps the circumstances warrant it.”

  Hell.

  Was he just guessing? Did he know? Or was he really sincerely suggesting I make up something that he didn’t know actually happened?

  You tell me. I still can’t make up my mind.

  A New Afterword

  by the Author

  Chip Harrison is several things.

  Firstly, he’s the narrator and protagonist of four novels: No Score, Chip Harrison Scores Again, Make Out with Murder, and The Topless Tulip Caper.

  Secondly, he’s the credited author of those books, or was in their first appearance; more recently they’ve been republished in various editions under my name, Lawrence Block.

  And, finally, he’s also the series character in a series with an identity crisis. The first two books are lighthearted, sexy novels of a young man’s coming of age, and the third and fourth are deductive mystery novels. (They’re also lighthearted and sexy.)

  Here’s what happened: Sometime in the late 1960s, while I was still living in New Brunswick, New Jersey, I wrote a book I called Lecher in the Rye. The title says it all; it was a Salingeresque romp about a youth’s efforts to acquire sexual experience. A couple of publishers almost bought it, and then one did—Knox Burger at Gold Medal Books. Knox had bought several books from me over the years, but I don’t believe he knew at the time who Chip Harrison was. What did he care? He liked the book, improved the title to No Score, commissioned a great piece of cover art, and sent the book out into the world where it did remarkably well, going into two or three printings.

  It did well enough that Gold Medal might have asked for a sequel, but that idea didn’t occur to anyone there. It occurred to me, though, because I enjoyed writing in Chip’s voice and thought it might be interesting to see what he did next. By the time I wrote the second book, my family and I had moved to a farm a mile from the Delaware River where I found it impossible to get any work done. I took an apartment on West Thirty-fifth Street in Manhattan and wrote several books there over a period of a year or so. One of them was Chip Harrison Scores Again. (I don’t remember what I called it, but it wasn’t that.)

  I had fun with the book, and Gold Medal was happy with it. Knox Burger had left to set up shop as an agent—some years later I’d become one of his clients—and Walter Fultz took over, and enlisted the same artist to do the cover. But this artist worked from models, and the model she’d
used before was now too old for the role. But the guy she picked to replace him was far too tall and worldly to be Chip. It was the cover of No Score that had drawn all those young female readers, and the sequel didn’t sell nearly as well.

  Oh well.

  A few years later my marriage was over and I was living by myself on West Fifty-Eighth Street, around the corner from what would soon become Matthew Scudder’s hotel. And I remembered how I’d enjoyed writing as and of Chip Harrison, but how could he go on coming of age? One bildungsroman per character is generally enough. Two is really pushing it. Three is out of the question.

  And how could I let Chip age? His youth and naïveté were part of his charm. Without them he was just a gnarly guy who didn’t get laid as much as he’d have liked to, and if I wanted that all I had to do was look in the mirror.

  But suppose he went to work for a private detective. And suppose the guy was a poor man’s Nero Wolfe, a sort of road company Nero Wolfe. Suppose he was a great reader of mysteries who idolized Nero Wolfe and—yes!—believed that Wolfe really existed and that he might someday so distinguish himself as to be invited to dine at Wolfe’s table.

  And Chip, who had presumably actually written No Score and its sequel, would be hired not merely to play Archie Goodwin to this fellow, but to write up the cases and publish them.

  Worked like a charm. And it allowed Chip to remain the same age forever, because that’s what fictional private eyes do. They remain forever young. There’s a passage somewhere—it may be in one of the two Chip Harrison stories—in which Leo Haig tells young Chip to be grateful for his profession, as it’s as good as a dip in Ponce de Leon’s fountain.

  Or words to that effect.

  I called the first Chip Harrison mystery The Cornish Chicks Score. Gold Medal seemed to like having “score” in the title, and that would do it. The five sisters in the story were of Cornish descent, and this title would play on the Cornish game hen, that fancy chicken Victor Borge was raising for the American dinner table.