Dead in a Bed

by Kane, Henry

  “Who is it?” I called.

  “Louis Parker.”

  I opened the door to him, Santee, Medford, and a spate of coppers. “Well, well,” I said. “What brings you?”

  “Purely a social call,” he said grimly affable.

  “Well, come in, come in. Your host is somewhat asleep.”

  Parker shunted off the cops, excused himself to Medford, and he and Santee entered. I closed the door behind them and flashed the brooch. The gleam brought a beam to Parker and a blast from Santee. “What’s that?” demanded Santee.

  “The brooch of the Lady Arlington, I’d say,” I said.

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Found it right here in your client’s drawer.”

  “You did, did you? You’re a trespasser here. You know that.”

  “Sandy, go pull your legal shenanigans somewhere else. I’m no trespasser, heaven forfend. Your comatose client practically dragged me in.”

  “I did like hell,” said the client crawling out from comatose and coming up to his knees.

  “A plant,” said Santee. “Smart-aleck clever but it won’t work. Chambers, you’re a cunning operator—my hat is off to you—but this gambado is as transparent as bad toilet paper. You get yourself caught in the switches so you try to straighten yourself out. The jig turns out to be a jag for you and Medford, so you try to work out a cute angle. You come here with that damned brooch, attack my client, plant the brooch, and so by implicating Peabody, you think you can extricate Medford and yourself.”

  “That’s it,” said the Pea from the floor. “He attacked me, slugged me from behind. Thanks for laying it out so neat, Counselor. Gimme a hand up, huh?” Santee helped him to his feet. The Pea came up sweetly grinning. He was not unintelligent. He caught on fast. “How do you like that phony bastard, huh? Trying to lay in a plant on me.”

  Parker looked baffled. I didn’t blame him.

  “It’s not going to work,” I said.

  “You bet it’s not going to work,” said Santee. “Lieutenant, I demand that you confiscate that brooch immediately.”

  I gave it to Parker and Parker confiscated.

  “Lieutenant,” said Santee. “I now demand that you arrest this man. Unless you do—right now at once—then I accuse you of being derelict in your duty and I assure you that I shall personally bring charges to that effect.”

  Parker, at long last, threw the weight of his badge against the burdensome legal badgering.

  “Sandy,” he said quietly and with all good manners, “kindly shut that big trap of yours and try to keep it shut.”

  “I object,” said Santee.

  Parker sighed. “Overruled.”

  I said, “May I make a statement in this courtroom?”

  “Sure. Make,” said Mike the Pea. “Make statements. See what good it’ll do you. Furthermore, I don’t know about anyone else, but I wouldn’t believe no statement of yours if it was stacked out on a set of bibles.”

  Petulantly I said, “But your statements are true-blue, Green Pea, aren’t they?” Parker frowned at me, uncomprehendingly. I disregarded him. “Aren’t they, Mike?” I said.

  “You bet your ass they are.”

  “Like the statement you made as to how your print got on the knob of that dresser drawer at Miss Arlington’s apartment?”

  “You bet your ass.”

  I turned to Parker. “You do have that statement?”

  “Signed, sealed, sworn, and delivered.”

  “Good. Because that statement together with the brooch you’re holding—they’re going to fry this pea in the electric chair.”

  “Now look, phony bastard,” said Peabody, “don’t try to mix me up because nothing will help you. I told my story and I swore to it and nothing will help you because nothing can mix me up. I told about them flowers and I told about how my print came on that drawer. I told how I cleaned up them petals from the orchids and gardenias. They was from last week, all wilted, you saw yourself. Some of them petals dropped in that drawer, I pulled the drawer to take them out, and that’s how that print got on there.”

  “Keep right on talking, pal,” I said. “You’re killing me. Better yet, you’re killing yourself.”

  Santee’s squint held utter incomprehension.

  Parkers squint held incomprehension but it also held hope.

  “I don’t quite get it, Pete,” he said.

  “Just talk to any florist and you’ll get it.”

  “Get what?” said Santee. “Lieutenant, this man is obviously stalling. I don’t quite understand his game but—”

  “Get the facts,” I said, “that there’s a certain special feature about gardenias and orchids.”

  “Special feature?” said Parker.

  “Neither gardenias nor orchids shed their petals regardless of age.”

  “What?” said Parker.

  “What?” said Santee.

  “They wither—yes. They wilt—yes. But shed their petals?—they simply do not. Consult, if you please, any florist.”

  “Liar, liar, goddamned liar,” shouted Peabody but the fury was so manifestly the wrath of guilt that even Santee withdrew behind a rampart of defensive silence.

  “Come on,” said Parker and took Peabody’s arm.

  The party was over. The fight was finally out of him. He went as though being led on a leash but the exit march was marred by a new fanfare of trumpeting from the brassy Santee.

  “I object to these high-handed proceedings. I shall charge police brutality, connivance, Gestapo inquisition, Cossack cruelty, terrorizing tactics …” And he rotated the entire rote of shyster-demagogue disquisition, subsiding at last from sheer fatigue.

  “Are you finished?” said Parker.

  “Yes I’m finished,” said Santee.

  “So’s the Pea,” said I.

  “Die,” said the Pea.

  “Let’s go,” said Parker.

  The party was over.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THEY GAVE me Medford and I didn’t know what to do with him. He said he was hungry, so we went to eat. I congratulated him upon how things had worked out, and he congratulated me for having worked them out. He said nothing about his father, nothing about the hundred thousand dollars, nothing about the New York National. He said nothing. Silently, his dark eyes lowered, he ate —badly. He had said he was hungry but he picked on his food like a pigeon. I talked. I didn’t stop talking. I talked my damned head off. I told him about Peabody’s background; I told him about Hockin Chynik, Maximilian Bartlett, Angelina Pisk; I prattled like a college girl back at the sorority house after a date with the football captain, but I said not one word about Charles R. Medford. What could I say? How could I break it to him? And why me? Once a boy came through with newspapers and I grabbed wildly hoping the paper would do my job for me but the story had not yet broken. Then he put down his fork, pushed away his plate, looked at me steadily, said quietly, “My father’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Please tell me.”

  I told him, and I watched him grow up right there before my eyes. His early scrape with the police had yanked him out of a frivolous boyhood; now the death of his father released him into manhood. I told him, told him all of it, including the fact that I was overdue at Generoso’s. He listened gravely. He gulped once or twice but subdued any other sign of emotion. When I was finished he looked up, off somewhere, said tonelessly, “What a way to die.” Then his eyes came back to me, clear, without tears, and he said, “I want to thank you for everything, Mr. Chambers.” Before I could shake that off he said, “You’ve had it rough, sir. Real rough. Rough finding him. Rough having to tell me.” And before I could shake that off he said, “I’ll go with you to Lieutenant Generoso.”

  “It’s not necessary, kid. I can handle it.”

  “Thank you, but you’ve done enough. They want you there, they want your statement—all right. But after that—you’ve had it. I’m the son, there’s no one else, I’m
the only next of kin. There’ll be a million matters to attend to, and I’ll attend to them. It’s a hell of a deal, Mr. Chambers, a damned hell of a deal and it hurts like all hell, but somebody’s got to face up to it and there’s only me, and I want to be sure—dead sure—that nobody puts my father in a wrong light, not the police, not the newspapers. I thank you for everything that you’ve done, Mr. Chambers, but from here on in, I’m in charge.”

  I could not say “I’m proud of you, kid” because corn cloys at my throat but I wished I could although it would have embarrassed both of us. I said instead, “All right. You’re in charge. But if you need me you know where you can find me.”

  I paid the check and took him with me to Generoso and Generoso was a new man. It had finally come home to roost with him that roasting me was foul ingratitude. Not only had I personally presented him with a sensational murder case—which was certain to hit all the wire services with attendant publicity adhering to him (all cops, loving, pretend to hate it)—but I had also delivered the murderers to him without desire or claim for credit (all of which would accrue to him). Mulling that must have dulled the edge of his innate acrimony. And now with a good portion of his staff out looking for Jack Medford, I arrived with Medford in tow.

  So, once again, I was a mild hero, milder than earlier that day but sufficient for a small show of cordiality, a saving from insult, and a granting of attention without the dispiriting hitch of undue delay. I dictated a full affidavit, answered some innocuous questions while it was being typed, signed it when it was returned to me in neat typescript, and received a welcome “Thank you” of dismissal from Generoso. Once more I told Medford not to hesitate to get in touch with me if he needed me, and then I got out of there and started shaking it off.

  In my business, if you stay with tragedy you yourself must become a victim. Nervous breakdown is part of the occupational hazard. Battle fatigue is the peacetime ailment of the private richard because in his racket, of necessity, he is always at war. I learned early to shake it off, to turn away, to block it out, to shunt it off, to pull the shade, to have done with it, and thus far my system had kept me from rattling in and out of the loony bin. Case finished. Next case. To hell with death. We all must die. Early in my career it had been tough but in time I had learned and patterns had formed habit and habit, of course, inhabiting all of us, is the rudder that steers our way.

  First step in the shaking off was a whack at wassail. I chose a fancy tavern because I was ordering a fancy drink—champagne cocktail. I was to be a wine drinker this night—I hoped—and I don’t believe in mixing the marriage of drinks. A second cocktail chased down the first and then I chased out of that fancy saloon and bolted for home in the next step of the shaking off, or the taking off. I showered and prettied and rolled on all the deoderants and sprayed on all the colognes and pulled on a lover’s uniform of tight black slacks, slim black loafers, and a white silk sports shirt with flowing collar, puffy sleeves, and pearl buttons (but sporting, man). I dredged up two tall silver ice-firkins for champagne (Christmas presents, what else?) and slipped in the cubes and laid in two imported bottles of the giggle-water and bubbled with hope that the giggle wasn’t on me. Oh, I would know soon enough. If she was wearing my purple orchid, I was in. If not, my six red roses had delivered no message and my orchid was cold in her icy box. I turned off the harsh white lights and turned on the rosy encouraging lights. I set out graceful long-stemmed drinking glasses. I heated up the stereo and I had just about laid the needle to the groove for lush music, when the bell rang. She was early—good! She was anxious—so was I! It was a quarter to nine! And so to the rhythm of the music I danced to the door, flung it open, and got stuck in the middle of my bow of welcome.

  I was host to Alfred Surf.

  I groaned. “What are you, a poltergeist?”

  Pushily he pushed in. “A what?”

  “Look, did you pay me five thousand dollars for an option to haunt me?”

  “Oh, a poltergeist.” He grinned. He was flushed with whiskey or excitement or both. He looked about at the encouraging lights. They didn’t mean a thing to him. He was encouraged without the encouraging lights. “Pete,” he said, “I’ve just come from a conference with my lawyer.”

  “What happened to your party?”

  “The hell with my party. Pete, do you think that Barry Howard is going to get out of that felony-murder rap?”

  “Like hell he will.”

  “Exactly. Exactly what my lawyer said. That felony wasn’t over when Mr. Medford appeared at the office of the Nigle Realty Company. That felony was right in the middle of its being committed. The fact that Howard wasn’t present when the girl killed Medford doesn’t mean a thing. He’s as guilty as she—”

  “Alfred, did you come here to give me a lecture on law? Lectures on law I don’t need.”

  “But you told Howard you weren’t sure.”

  “What did you want me to tell him? That they’re going to sit his ass down in the electric chair? Let his lawyer tell him. He’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Pete, do you realize what we’ve got here?”

  “Alfred, some other time. Please go away.”

  “We’ve got a real major best seller! We’ve got a Last Chapter that wraps it up better than any thriller I’ve ever heard of, and it’s fact, fact, man, not fiction. We’ve got the collaborator bringing the protagonist to book and all unwittingly—”

  Professional pride piqued, I said, “All unwittingly, hey?”

  “No no. No offense. I only mean that you didn’t actually know that he was the protagonist. Kid, we’ve got something big here, big; we’ve got a sensational book that’s also actually a parable, a morality tale; sin gets it in the behind in the end. Oh, I intend to go all the way on this one. I’m going to budget it with the largest budget that I’ve ever budgeted any advertising campaign. I’ve got big plans, baby, immense plans. And oh by the way, look what I brought you.”

  “Not now, Alfred.”

  He produced a check. I didn’t fight it. Paramount rule of my profession (and all other professions): you don’t fight checks. The amount was precisely the amount of the check earlier in the day—five thousand bucks. He produced some kind of receipt. I didn’t read it. I signed it. Funny, from morning till now I had worked at my business with a good amount of success and I had not earned a quarter, yet I had acquired ten thousand fish because of two flukes: the fluke that Surf had chosen me as collaborator and the fluke that Howard had turned out to be the guy who had batted me on the head at Nigle Realty

  “Peter,” crashed the Surf in crushing enthusiasm, “we’re going to rock ‘em, we’re going to sock ‘em, we’re going to knock them dead. But now, first, we’re going to talk about that Last Chapter, the creme de la creme, the piece de resistance. We’re going to work on that with the utmost of care; together we’re going to build that, we’re going to build.”

  “Alfred, please, not now. Pick up your blocks and go away. We’ll build another day.”

  Suddenly he saw the champagne, firkin-chilling. Suddenly he saw my attire, pansylike adagio-type. Suddenly he heard the music. And suddenly he made a modicum of sense. “Peter,” he inquired, “did I bust in on something?”

  “Topsy Twits …” I began but he misunderstood.

  He was back at his stint snorting again on the runaway steed of business. “Look, I’ll throw her into the deal. You’re hot for her? Okay, you’ve got her. Never let it be said that Surf didn’t toss in, or toss up, or toss, a woman in the interests of a best seller. Look, I’ll tell her that you’re her collaborator, and that you have all the say, and that I do or I don’t do her book depending upon your decision. There’s no book to do, of course, but what the hell, her attentions will be transferred entirely to you …”

  The bell rang. I opened the door.

  I did not bow. I stood erect but irresolute.

  Topsy Twits swept in and bestowed a smile upon Alfred Surf. Surf tried to return the smile which gave
him the peculiar expression of a gargoyle because his mouth was already open in a bewildered gape. Always the gallant host and never at a loss I said something like “Hi” but it came out so low it was unheard.

  Topsy Twits wore her hair braided in a new Oriental do. Her black eyes were burning. Her white teeth were glistening. Her red lips were shining. Her feet were encased in high-heeled silver pumps and her body was covered by a billowing silver cape tied at the neck. She gave off a whiff of a strange musky perfume which kept me erect but turned me more resolute.

  “Oh Mr. Surf,” she trilled, “I’m so glad that you could take the time to be here so that we can all discuss together …”

  “Mr. Surf,” I said, “was just leaving.”

  “Ah, er, ee, yes, eh, yes, yes, just leaving, just leaving, my dear. I have an appointment, ah, er, ee, with my lawyer, eh, yes with my lawyer, must go, you know, so good to see you, my dear, so good indeed.” And then a mumble that almost killed it: “Oh that Peter Chambers …”

  Sharply I said, “What?” He had done so well, I couldn’t let him spoil it.

  “Must go, must go, must go indeed. Then I’ll see you tomorrow, Peter, old Peter, old Machiavellian Peter.”

  “Mack the who?” said Topsy Twits.

  “Mack the Vellian,” I said. “Like Mack the Knife. Mr. Surf composes songs among his other accomplishments.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow about the lyrics,” he said. “Yes? Early.”

  “Late.”