Peter Gunn

by Henry, Kane,

  “No, I mean who would have a special benefit if Bain were dead—right now?”

  The old man closed his eyes and rubbed gnarled fingers at the lids. He opened his eyes and smiled an upper-plate dentist’s smile. He pulled off the top of a humidor and extracted a cigar. Gunn lit it for him and lit a cigarette for himself. The old man puffed.

  “I can give you gossip, Mr. Gunn,” he said. “I have a keen ear for gossip and I admit I take delight in it. What else is left to an old man aside from eating, drinking a bit, and looking at young women with impotent envy?”

  “Oh, I hear you’re quite a bear with the chicks, Mr. Murphy.”

  “I look and I admire and I do a switch on Justice Holmes’s remark—ah, to be sixty again!”

  “I’ll settle for the gossip, Mr. Murphy.”

  “Two people can be eminently happy with the decease of Steve Bain right now, that is, according to the scuttlebutt. One is a guy by name Mike York and the other a gal by name Alexis McDuff.”

  “Give me one at a time, won’t you, sir?”

  “York is vice-president of Bain’s union, an opposing faction, as it were. York is as bad as Bain was, and has been terribly anxious to supplant Bain and take over the pinnacle. Bain held him off. They fought fiercely. But with Bain dead, York will come into his own. He’ll be boss-man of that union, no question.”

  “And Alexis McDuff?”

  “An affair of the heart.”

  “A sweetheart?” said Gunn.

  “A stripper,” said Murphy.

  “Alexis McDuff. Yeah.” Gunn blinked an eye and nodded. “Was a knocker-outer out Las Vegas way. Worked with tassels and a bugle.”

  “And little else. You go to the wrong clubs, Mr. Gunn. Do you take Miss Hart?”

  “Getting back to Alexis McDuff. So?”

  “So old man Bain flipped his wig and not for the bugle or the tassels.” The white-haired man puffed his cigar, smacked his lips. “There is much more to Miss McDuff than bugles and tassels.”

  “Verily,” quoth Peter Gunn.

  “Amen,” said Kevin Murphy. “Bain retired her from the tassels and bugles, bought her a little house out at the Palisades, bought her a couple of cars and all the fancy duds she could wear, let her travel and live it up.”

  “Where’s the rub?” said Gunn.

  “The scuttlebutt,” said Murphy. “Bain was on the shady side of the fifties, the chicken in her middle twenties. A chicken like that needs more than Bain could provide in… er, let us say, the physical areas. Scuttlebutt has it that the chicken was swinging her tassels and blowing her bugles whenever Bain’s back was turned which was often. Scuttlebutt has it that Bain found out and wouldn’t hold still for it. Scuttlebutt has it he threatened her.”

  “So?”

  “When you threaten, you automatically create an enemy, and an enemy who fears you wants you dead, that’s simple logic, isn’t it? Now the York business is factual, the McDuff business gossip, but there you have it, Mr. Gunn, to make of it what you will. Is there anything else?”

  “No, thank you, sir. That’s about it.”

  “Come again, Mr. Gunn. Any time.”

  The Truckers Union Building on Wilshire is an imposing structure of shining glass with a red dome, its interior lobbies cool and spacious, its elevator starters clad in sparkling green with more gold braid than Annapolis admirals, its elevators mirrored and silent, and its elevator operators cute girls in overseas caps and tight skirts. Gunn approached one of the admirals.

  “Administrative offices?” he said

  “Third floor,” said the admiral and pointed to an elevator.

  Gunn entered, the door slid silently shut, he specified his floor and had only begun his appreciation of the tight skirt when the girl said, “Three,” and he was strolling toward a prim-faced receptionist with black hair and red fingernails who looked up from her fingernails to him with the studied enthusiasm of a stuffed fish.

  “Mr. York,” said Gunn.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Well…”

  “Name, please.”

  “Gunn.”

  The stuffed fish came unmounted. “Peter Gunn?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Just one moment, Mr. Gunn. Mr. York is expecting you.”

  She pushed a button and the baffled Gunn was taken in tow by a swing-hipped blonde who led him through a maze of corridors to a door which she opened, let him pass through, announced, “Mr. Gunn,” and retired.

  The man who rose from behind the massive steel-topped desk was tall, dark, slender, handsome, straight-nosed, square-jawed, curly-haired and about forty. He extended a strong brown hand and shook Gunn’s vigorously.

  “Damn glad you could make it as quick as you did,” he said.

  “I hurried like hell,” said Gunn.

  “I appreciate that, Mr. Gunn.”

  “I hoped you would, Mr. York.”

  “And we show our appreciation in dollars and cents, you betcha.”

  “I was banking on that.”

  “I was disappointed when I called and you weren’t in. I left the message urgent with your Service.”

  “Oh,” said Gunn.

  “Sit down, won’t you, Mr. Gunn?”

  “Thank you.”

  Gunn sat in the chair indicated by York, a chair alongside the desk. York seated himself behind the desk, opened and offered a box of cigars which Gunn shook off. York lit a cigar, chewed on it, said, “You know why we called.”

  “Bain?” guessed Gunn.

  “Look, get this straight right off, Mr. Gunn. Steve Bain and yours truly, we didn’t see eye to eye for years, but we each appreciated our usefulness, if you know what I mean. It’s like a husband and wife who can’t live with each other and can’t live without each other, you know what I mean?”

  “Which one was the wife?” said Gunn.

  “Ha, ha,” said York, teeth clamped about the tube of tobacco, black eyes appraising Gunn. “I like a man with a sense of humor.”

  “I’m a very comical fella,” said Gunn.

  “For comical fellas I go to Billy’s Bandbox,” said York, dark eyes glittering, “for much cheaper than I expect to pay you.” Whether or not Mr. Michael York was attempting to impress his vis-a-vis, a total impression, nonetheless, came through to Mr. Peter Gunn. This was an assured, experienced, competent, capable executive, accustomed to power and accustomed to directing a conversation. “You have a big reputation in this town, and not as a comic, Mr. Gunn, which is why we decided to call you in.”

  Gunn could not restrain unwarranted exacerbation. “Do you always refer to yourself as we, Mr. York?”

  “Ha, ha,” said York. “No. This we is not the editorial we, Mr. Gunn, nor the we of a king or an emperor or any of that crap. This we is factual—we, us—the Board of Directors which was called into emergency meeting the minute we got news of Steve Bain’s murder. Understood now?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Gunn.

  “Okay. Bain was murdered. I can’t say I can cry about that. I’m a hard man in a hard racket and Bain was a guy I didn’t particularly like. But I’m also a realist, Mr. Gunn. I can’t cry about Steve Bain’s murder but I won’t stand for it either. Bain was a union chief and nobody murders a union chief and gets away with it. Am I coming in clear?”

  “Yes, indeed, Mr. York.”

  “Well, I came in clear to my Board of Directors too. I persuaded them that we needed the services of the best private eye in this town, and it was their decision that you were it, Mr. Gunn. Just between us, I never heard of you.”

  “Just to keep the atmosphere clear, I never heard of you either, Mr. York.”

  “Fine. This is not a matter of personalities, Mr. Gunn. We want the murderer of Steve Bain and we’re hiring you to find him for us.”

  “What’s wrong with the cops, Mr. York?”

  “Cops? Let’s both be realists, Mr. Gunn. Bain was a pretty much hated guy around these parts and there are plenty of
politicians going to church today and giving thanks for good riddance. We don’t think the cops figure to press too hard on this. But we want you to press, Mr. Gunn. Like about this much worth.”

  He opened a drawer of his desk, extracted a check and turned it over to Gunn. Gunn glanced at it and kept his eyes down. Steve Bain, dead or alive, was turning out to be a bonanza. Casually, Gunn folded a second check for $5,000 and placed it into a pocket.

  “Satisfactory?” said York.

  “Very liberal,” said Gunn.

  “We’ll have your best efforts?”

  “I’ll try,” said Gunn.

  “Let’s drink on that.” York came out from behind the desk, went to a liquor cabinet, inquired, “What’s your poison?”

  “Scotch. With water.”

  “Me too.”

  They drank and Gunn said, “Do you think this is a union matter, Mr. York?”

  “No, we don’t think that, Mr. Gunn.”

  “Anybody have any ideas?”

  “We kicked that around plenty at our meeting. We came up with what we thought are two leads. They may both turn out to be busts, of course. This thing is entirely in your hands, Mr. Gunn. We believe in delegation of authority. That’s the way we work. You’re authorized.”

  “I appreciate that. Let’s discuss the alleged leads.”

  York finished his drink, returned to his cigar and paced as he talked. “Bain was involved in two private hassles either one of which could turn out to be deadly. You know how it is with steamed-up emotions, Mr. Gunn.”

  “Two hassles,” said Gunn.

  “We don’t know too much about the first one, except we know about it.”

  “Yes, Mr. York?”

  “Bain has a daughter, an only child. Name of Alice. Lives alone up in Beverly Hills, I’ll give you the address later.”

  “Yes, Mr. York.”

  “Seems the kid has been running around with some guy Bain didn’t approve of and Bain let him know he didn’t approve. The guy was hot on Alice and was bugged that Bain was blasting at him.”

  “What guy, Mr. York?”

  “We don’t know. That’s your job. You’ll tackle the girl. But easy. She’s a kid, a nice kid.”

  “And the other lead?”

  “We know more about that. A gal. I know her personally. A doll. A beaut. A chick named Alexis McDuff. I’d like a piece of that myself, as you will too, Gunn, when you meet her, if you’re half a man. Used to be a stripper until Bain yanked her off the wheel and set her up.”

  “Mistress?”

  “He was gone on her, all the way, might even have married her. But she started giving him the runaround and he was heated up about that. She’s a drinker, kind of a drunko, and who knows what can happen when you’re fiddling with an alcoholic? Anyway, there’s been bad blood between them, a lot of bad blood. You can take it from there, Mr. Gunn. That’s all I’ve got for you.”

  “Except the addresses.”

  York smiled, nodded, went to a filing cabinet and delivered two addresses to Peter Gunn: the address of Miss Alice Bain and the address of Miss Alexis McDuff. The address of Miss Alexis McDuff was 15 Bryant Drive, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California.

  chapter 10

  Peter Gunn in the sun made his second satisfactory (deposit) trip of the day to his bank where he inscribed an additional five thousand dollars to his swelling account; and then he eased behind the wheel of his latest model but always obsolescent motor car and hied westward-ho, light of heart but heavy with paid-up burden, toward the high, green, grand, verdant jumping-off place to the sea called Pacific Palisades. There he found number fifteen to be a ranchhouse without cowboys but with a gleaming gold knocker set in its door. He resolutely knocked with gold knocker which produced confrontation by an elderly, wizened Japanese butler nattily attired in white jacket, who produced without a spigot being turned a stream as follows: “Hello, mister, what you want, lady not buying, lady very busy, go away please, thank you very much, kindly, it was a pleasure, sorry, thank you.”

  Gunn interposed a well-shod, large-sized foot between door and jamb. “Hold everything, kindly,” he announced. “I wish to flash a thing for you.”

  “Thing?” said the Japanese.

  “This,” said Gunn and flashed his potsy which means showed his badge, a rarely displayed item, shiny and glittering like a false eye. The Japanese, Gunn had somewhere heard, are impressed by all matters official, and the spectacular badge looked official if nothing else.

  “Police?” said the Japanese, eyebrows soaring.

  “Somewhat,” said Gunn, putting away his blinding disk of authority. He pushed at the door and it yielded and in the entrance hallway he said, “Where’s Miss McDuff?”

  “It is not, please, no trouble, I hope.”

  “No trouble unless you get cagey. Dig?”

  “I dig, dig,” said the Japanese. “Dig like hell. No trouble, please, I hope, policeman.”

  “Where’s the lady?”

  “Lady taking sunbath.”

  “Where?”

  “On patio. In rear.”

  Gunn could not resist it. “She taking her sunbath all over or only on her rear patio?”

  “Taking sunbath all over on patio in rear.”

  “Is she dressed?”

  “A little.”

  “Okay. Thank you. Now you go about your business.”

  “You want me to announce, please?”

  Gunn glared the best policeman’s glare he could manage. “I don’t want you to do a thing except go about your business. No trouble. Remember?”

  “Yes, sir, please, policeman. I dig, dig.” And he pattered away.

  Gunn went through many rooms to a cool, pine-paneled den featuring an enormous zebra-striped bar and sliding glass doors which opened upon a flagstoned patio. The flagstoned patio bore a slightly stoned lady in a marvelous state of undress. She lay, vast surfaces of epidermis tinted pink by the sun, upon a soft tufted lounge chair. She wore a red Bikini but there was not enough red to draw a snort from a bull. The upper section of the Bikini was a laughably narrow strip of gauze, a modicum of red bangle fitfully encircling huge, upright, perfectly shaped breasts, entirely exposed. The lower section of the Bikini was an infant’s diaper but a diaper so tiny any self-respecting infant would have preferred a fig-leaf. The lady was large but beautifully constructed right from the tips of her vermilion toenails to the top of her vermilion hair caught in an engaging pony-tail: long and lovely legs, smoothly arched pelvic region, convex pubic mound, narrow waist, concave dell of perfect navel, wondrous shoulders, round arms and graceful hands one of which was holding a tall frosty glass of orange liquid. Upon a near-by wrought-iron table sat a pitcher of orange liquid, ice floating. The lady wore red-framed, harlequin, smoke-lensed glasses which she unceremoniously ripped from her eyes with her free hand and laid glass and glasses upon the wrought-iron table.

  “Are you real?” she inquired in a slow murmur which brought a sensation of prickles to Gunn’s scalp.

  “Pardon?” he countered.

  “Or heaven-sent?” And she stretched which caused further prickles for Gunn.

  Defensively he croaked again, “Pardon?”

  “I’m lying around like lonely and alone getting heated up here by the sun,” she said, “and sopping up screwdrivers and the mind gets to wandering, you know, and I’m thinking like tall, dark and handsome, it would be heaven-sent, and all of a sudden, there you are standing there, and are you a mirage, man? Like something I dreamed up?”

  “I’m no mirage,” said Gunn.

  “Prove it,” she said.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Do nothing. I’ll do.”

  She uncoiled from the lounge and stood up and she was something to see, tall, almost as tall as Gunn, and she moved toward him, to him, upon him, her arms enclasping him and her body pressing upon him, and she kissed him, long and tenderly and then savagely, and then she broke from him and said, “You’re rea
l. Man, are you ever real!”

  “But are you for real?” gasped Gunn.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Gunn.”

  “Sounds like an explosion. I’m Al.”

  “Hi, Al.”

  “Hi, Gunn.” She took his hand. “Come out of the sun. Into the shade. I want to see you clear.” And she led him into the den where it was dim and cool, so cool in contrast he shivered, and she peered at him and smiled and said, “Hallucination? D.T.’s? Did I dream you up? Like all of a sudden there you are?”

  “We’ve already gone into that.”

  “But not deep enough, man.”

  And she was upon him again, her lips open and fragrant, and later, much later, after she had left the room and returned, cool and showered and her red hair combed out and her feet in high-heeled silver sandals and her proud body encased in a silver flare-skirted housegown, she said, “Have a drink, Gunn. Have a lot of drinks.”

  “I’ve had a drink, Al, lots of drinks. I helped myself.”

  “Good boy.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Sure. Now you want to talk. You’re all alike.”

  “That’s why I came here.”

  “Is that why you came?”

  “Maybe you ought to have a drink, Al. I want you sober.”

  “Reverse switch, hey? I’m sober, pal. You made me sober.”

  “This is business.”

  “You’ve had the business. Any complaints?”

  “Steve Bain,” Gunn said.

  “He sent you? Is that the bit? Why, the miserable son of a bitch!”

  “He didn’t send me.”

  “He didn’t, hey?”

  “Sit down.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  “Steve Bain.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “No!”

  “Murdered.”

  “No!”

  “He was shot, killed. This afternoon, twelve o’clock noon. I’m Gunn, Peter Gunn. I’m an eye, a private eye, retained to work this out. That’s why I’m here. That’s why this mirage showed up. Now sit down, Al. Sit down, McDuff. Let’s talk this out, you and me. Please?”

  She looked at him, peered intently, and her lips went white. “Liar,” she said.