The E. Hoffmann Price Spice Adventure MEGAPACK ™

by Price, E. Hoffmann

  Then he began frisking every cabinet and drawer in the place; he was looking for the certificate of registration. Morally, the chump had a right to the car. If Crawford faked Yvonne’s signature and peddled the bus he could make just that much more restitution. She was dead—who’d spill the beans?

  But Honest John found no trace of any certificate. He found no evidence of a safe deposit box. Yvonne lived from chump to chump and didn’t salt anything down. Not even a checking account.

  In the living room he found two glasses of Scotch, one with a lipstick smear, and empty; the other, half emptied and a clean edge. Both glasses had raffia jackets. Some of the cigarette butts wore smears matching Yvonne’s lip rouge. The others had been flicked out of a holder; a different brand. Some man had dropped in. He hoped it wasn’t Crawford.

  Then he saw the clipping from the advertising column:

  ’41 Packard 120 convertible, widow leaving town must sacrifice. Phone 2-2426.

  That was Yvonne’s number. It looked as if some fellow had come in to dicker with the “widow.”

  She wouldn’t take it to a used car lot. She’d bet on being able to high pressure a better price through a private sale. He eyed the blue mules lying at the foot of the lounging chair, the depressions in the cushions, the robe carelessly flung over the arm.

  “First she wore that glamor robe to get the guy dizzy, and then—” He shook his head. “Maybe he did offer her more’n it was worth…she always got more’n she was worth…”

  But when, after further search, he found a threatening letter, he could not be too sure that the private customer had put two slugs into her back, and a third behind her ear. Not after that letter.

  It was one for a postal inspector. But Yvonne hadn’t crumpled the letter. She’d kept it for two weeks. It was worn from reading and handling. He pictured her there, enjoying the lines; she wanted men to go for her, and she loved to have women hate her.

  Walt Crawford’s wife had signed the poisonous page.

  A woman’s sized gun had finished Yvonne.

  Honest John pocketed the letter. Maybe Linda Crawford was a sourpuss and pretty nearly deserved having Yvonne cutting in. But she didn’t deserve having her house sold over her at a whacking loss, when another thousand in cash would have fattened the kitty. Selling the house even at a forced sale would leave her with a few berries after the payoff, but it was the principle of the thing. So he kept the letter.

  Once on the street, he headed for the garage where Yvonne stabled the sleek red bus; the chump had told him where that was, in the ground floor of the building, which sat on a steep side hill. He barged in, found a young fellow in white coveralls polishing a big Cad. He had “Leo” worked on his coat in red letters.

  “Hi, Leo.” The young man looked up, and Honest John went on, “Miss Latour’s car in?” He grimaced ruefully. “She’s not answering.”

  Leo’s swarthy face crinkled in a knowing grin. “She often don’t. But this time, she’s really out.”

  Honest John slipped him a silver dollar. “Who with, pal? Tell me.”

  “Sorry, I can’t. She phoned, I drove it to the front and took the keys to her door.”

  “Didn’t get a look in?”

  Leo grinned. “A look, yeah. Man, man. Even if the door wasn’t open more than this much—” He held his hands a few inches apart. “It was a good look, but I couldn’t see past her.”

  “Past her what? Hell, keep the buck anyway.”

  * * * *

  Honest John stepped into a drug store and dialed Crawford. “This is Carmody, of the surety company, is Mr. Crawford in?”

  A sweet, weary voice answered, “No, he’s been out all day. Can’t you quit hounding him? He won’t run out.”

  “Now, Mrs. Crawford, I ain’t hounding him, honest, I’m all for helping him, I been at it the past couple days. Can I come out and talk to you? I been working on that Latour woman.”

  “Oh.…” Linda Crawford’s voice took on a peculiar lilt that Honest John could not quite make. “Yes, do. If there’s anything I could suggest—I know you’re just doing your duty.”

  Honest John kicked the starter a moment later and grinned. She wanted to get all the dirt on Yvonne, find out what the wench had. She wanted him to say Yvonne was a two-bit floozie. For pride’s sake.

  So he drove out to a section where white houses stood on terraces overlooking China Beach; not ritzy, but a damn sight better than he had ever afforded. Life was funny. With a little sense and honesty, Crawford would still be dug in solid in this swell little place. But Carmody, refusing to play ball with crooks, had been edged out of the police force; the fat boys winked, called him Honest John, and settled him.

  So here he was, trying to give Crawford a chance. The man hadn’t meant to be a crook. Probably Yvonne hadn’t, either. Just two chumps. All this as he prodded the door bell.

  He was prepared for something faded, perhaps washed-out pretty. But not this woman. She’d be swell if she took off that gingham house dress and put on wine-colored velvet to hug that creamy bosom and those round hips. She was no doll; there was too much character in that mouth, though not enough to spoil the kissing. But most of Linda Crawford was in her eyes.

  This was while she was saying, “Come in, Mr. Carmody.”

  “Honest John,” he corrected and got dizzy from trying to guess what was going on behind the dark eyes that sized up his pie-shaped mug. “Honest John, madam.”

  He followed her into a living room with ten-year-old furniture; good but old fashioned upholstery. When she faced him again, those eyes thrilled him and they puzzled him. But he could understand why they gave her something that Yvonne didn’t have, couldn’t ever have had; why her nicely rounded figure and her legs looked better every second; why she didn’t need a fluffy robe to advertise nearly everything she had.

  He fumbled for the letter. “You wrote this to that tramp. Sure you ought to cut out her heart and stuff it…ah, down her throat. Sure she’s a…ah…ought to wear a brass collar and a license plate. But you hadn’t oughta written that, Mrs. Crawford. Once she gets tired of feeling happy over it, she might put the bee on you for sending threats through the U. S. Mail.”

  As far as he could see, Linda’s face hadn’t changed a bit when he spoke of Yvonne as of a living person. Maybe Linda hadn’t killed any one, yet, and was just full of murder inside.

  She patted the chesterfield and moved over, saying, “Sit here and tell me why you’ve really come. I know that letter was foolish. I’ve never seen her. Tell me.”

  * * * *

  There was no sense-tickling bouquet about this dame, but she was exciting. He wanted to get ahold of her, and he had a funny hunch that she wouldn’t mind; but that idea was crazy. She was a one-man woman, if ever there was one.

  “Uh…you want me to tell you about Yvonne? You already know, don’t you?”

  She laughed softly. “Only what Walt told me, when he broke down, all stuttering and red and calling himself a fool, and telling me he really didn’t care for her, it was all in fun.”

  “She’s a hot number, built for modeling imported nightgowns, frilly and helpless-acting, and she’d act up for a cigar Indian if nothing else was around. People fall for it; I used to myself. Walt got a run for our money.”

  “Your company’s, and—” She waved that slim olive colored hand. “And mine, too. I’ll bet I have no clothes like she has.”

  “I ain’t seen all your clothes. Now look here. Yvonne’s sold that car. She stampeded, figuring maybe we could grab it. You game to help me try for the money? It’ll be strictly unlegitimate. I wouldn’t do it on my own account, that’s why they call me Honest John. But I’ll help you. It takes a woman playing the cards, I can’t do it single-handed. I tell you again, it’s risky.”

  “Am I game?” Sh
e drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Tell me how and when!”

  She twisted, caught his upper arm, leaned closer. She couldn’t have killed Yvonne, because if she had, she could not possibly look so eager now.

  * * * *

  Honest John had to stall. First he had to find Yvonne’s car. Already he was willing to bet that some slicker had asked for a demonstration and then knocked her off. Next, the slicker’d take the certificate of ownership, which Yvonne would have signed, and peddled the bus quick. That game had been played before, and the effort to prevent immediate identification clinched it. A professional touch; Honest John needed Linda Crawford to help him trap the crook and get the money.

  He did not want to tell her about Yvonne’s death. Not yet. He asked, “Where’s Walt?”

  “He’s down on the Peninsula trying to raise money.” That gave Honest John a chill; maybe Walt had knocked the blonde off. He shivered, glanced over his shoulder. Then he got a real shock. Linda pulled herself closer, still holding to him, and said, “Don’t worry, he won’t be back for quite a while; he phoned me.”

  He still couldn’t believe it. Not this woman, telling him that her husband wouldn’t be back for quite a while. He said, “Huh?”

  She smiled at his amazement, and that made her lovely.

  “I’ve been a fool long enough. I’ve been broadminded with him, and now he’s given away the house, my house, mine even if he did earn the money. So for once I’m going to be broadminded with myself—don’t stare at me that way—I mean it—I believe you will help me against her—so—”

  When she kissed him, he had to believe her. He knew that he was only an accomplice, an ally to help her save her pride as well as her house. He caught her in both arms and said, “Lady, if this is your idea—”

  “It wasn’t, at the start. But when you told me about her—”

  Then the forgotten woman told him to turn out the lights.

  * * * *

  When Honest John left, long after midnight, Linda understood the play he proposed; except that she believed that they would put the slug on Yvonne. Just a detail wrong, for the principle remained the same: get the price of the car before the seller had shot the roll.

  In the morning, he made his rounds. For all the used car lots in San Francisco, the task was not as great as it seemed. Some dealt only in jalopies. Some worked on a shoestring and couldn’t dish out a thousand bucks for one number. Others specialized in quick turnover items. And he knew enough insurance men to get all the angles to round out his own knowledge. So after a day’s hoofing, he found that iridescent red bus.

  His feet ached, and he was sweating. He stood there looking at the long, lean hood and narrow radiator shell. “Luck,” he muttered. “If they’d kept it or caravanned it, I’d been outa luck. But not many ’41 convertibles on the lots, so far.”

  A fat little man with a cigar and a smile came up and said cheerily, “Lots of class, real zip, only two thousand miles. Three hundred bucks down, twenty-four months for the rest.”

  “Too new to be full of cork dust.”

  The salesman laughed. He touched the starter. He beamed as Honest John listened to the silken whispering under the hood.

  “Ain’t many of these, how’d you pick it up?”

  “Widow leaving town. Sure you’ve heard that one before, but it’s a fact this time.”

  Honest John grinned. “Huh. Maybe I’d rather have the widow. Say, I’ve seen this bus before. Blond girl—” He made cupping gestures with both hands. “But streamlined, and legs. Mmmmm—and would she look swell in Bali, with a basket on her head.” He looked at the registration slip on the steering column; he frowned. “You mean this is Yvonne Latour’s bus?”

  “Well, what does it say, friend?”

  “I don’t care what it says, how come she’s selling this, last time I saw her, she had a Ford.”

  “You don’t keep in touch. It was Yvonne Latour, in person. I gave her my check, then drove her to the bank so she could cash it, and—”

  “Nuts! This belonged—”

  “Yeah, to a blonde, you said.” The trader was now pretty sure with the knowledge of his kind, that Honest John was not buying and didn’t intend to buy. He cut the ignition and said, “Sorry, old home week doesn’t click, this gal was a brunette.”

  Honest John swung around in the seat. He dug up his credentials.

  “Tell me more, pal. I couldn’t kid you long, you can’t kid me long. I’m a surety dick, and I got an angle on this.”

  “All right, wise guy. I sent the certificate through, and if the registry bureau says the signature is okay, it is okay.”

  “Pal, it is okay by me, anyway. It probably was when the cops made their morning inspection for hot iron.”

  “Sure it was, so what are you interested in?”

  “All you know about the dame. Play ball, or the cops may be back before you get rid of this baby.”

  That softened the salesman. He described the brunette woman; not Linda Crawford. At least, in her indignant display of her scanty wardrobe the night before, Linda had shown him neither hat or coat of the kind the man mentioned.

  “Who was she with?”

  “She was alone. I offered to drive her from the bank to her house, but she said never mind, she was shopping.”

  “I want to look a bit.”

  “Help yourself.”

  * * * *

  Honest John did just that. He found no bloodstains on the ivory upholstery, but wedged under the rear floor mat, he did find a .32 automatic cartridge. He pocketed it. In the front locker, on the driver’s side, was a traffic citation made for Yvonne Latour. The time: 8:30 A.M., ten hours after Honest John had found the blonde’s corpse. That meant that some dame had handed Yvonne’s license to the cop. A dead woman was taking the rap for doing fifty in a forty-five mile zone, between the airport and South San Francisco.

  “Huh. That stinking speed trap. And this smooth job, she’d not notice she was hitting fifty. And the cop didn’t notice the dame’s hair was black; those guys never notice anything but a chance to rook someone.”

  He walked away whistling. He drank a couple beers, ate a bowl of chili, and bought a handful of cigars. Then he headed down Van Ness to the used car department of a big dealer and spent an hour dickering for a late model. Since he knew the boys, he laid twenty bucks on the line and got the bus on three days’ driving trial. The exchange of winks meant that they knew he wasn’t buying; that if he wanted a joyride and was willing to forfeit his deposit when he returned it as “unsuitable,” they wished him luck.

  “Is she blond, John?” the friend asked.

  “Nuh-uh. Dark and hot, Van. Red leather upholstery’s just the stuff for a complexion like that.”

  So Honest John put an ad in every paper:

  ’38 Cad sedan. Widow leaving Pacific Coast, closing house, sacrifice.

  If he didn’t hook them in two-three days, he’d chisel another bus and try again. The ’Frisco papers barely mentioned the murdered blonde near the artichoke patch.

  * * * *

  That evening, he drove out to Crawford’s house. The chump was in; big, blond, good-looking and worried; he had the face of a hurt child. He still couldn’t understand why the world had kicked him. Honest John felt a bit squeamish about shaking his hand, and not because that hand had dipped into the company’s till. But Linda was very smooth and without any of that fierce glitter in her eyes.

  He knew that he’d never again kiss her. Her pride had been restored.

  “I was telling Walt,” she began, “that you came over last night to figure out a final chance to save the house.”

  “What is it, Carmody? God, I’ve gone around in circles.”

  “You keep circulating, nicking every friend who’ll ante in a buck, f
ive, or fifty. Keep away from this house. Mrs. Crawford is for the time being a widow.”

  “Eh? Widow?”

  “Yeah.” Honest John stepped to the window, pulled a drape, and pointed. “See that zippy big Cad? Your wife is selling that.”

  “I—I don’t get it. How the hell can she?”

  “It sounds unlegitimate, but it ain’t. You be out of this house before the ad gets into circulation. Me, I got to stick around till someone comes to buy. To buy for the amount you’re still short.”

  Crawford spent a moment perplexedly eyeing the beefy mug who didn’t look too brilliant; the round faced man in box-car shoes; the kind of man anyone would leave alone with any woman.

  “I still can’t figure it out; you’re not selling your car to help me.”

  “Me, a bus like that? No, it ain’t hot, and I ain’t really selling it. Listen, Crawford. Did you hear about a blonde woman being found dead around Half Moon Bay? A blonde girl, peeled down to the buff, with three .32s in her frame?”

  “My God—” He jerked around. “Linda—Good Lord—”

  His wife’s color faded, her hands opened and closed. “Our gun is a .25, Walt.”

  He stuttered, “Get it—let’s see—”

  Linda wasn’t any too steady when she went for the heater. Crawford said to Honest John, “I didn’t know—I didn’t—I stayed away from her—like I told Linda—and you—I would. Was it—Yvonne?”

  “It was, and I found her. Keep your trap shut. If anyone should get a hunch and make you look at the stiff, say you never saw her before. If she’s identified, you’re sunk, your shack’s gone!”

  Then Linda came back with the gun. It was dusty inside and out. Honest John pulled the slide, jacked out a couple of tiny slugs. He said, “This gat didn’t do it. All right, Crawford, move out before that ad gets a rise in the morning. Get a room.”

  “You mean, whoever killed her did it to sell—uh—that car?”

  Honest John nodded. Crawford headed to the rear to pack a bag. When he came back, Honest John said, “Call the company and tell ’em you’re moving out, blame it on your wife.”