The Hardboiled Mystery Megapack

by John Roeburt

  He followed me in and sat down across the desk from me.

  “I need your help again, Mister Winters,” he began, nervously plucking at the creases in his pants. This was a different Alistair Neal. “You know that Bradley’s been arrested and charged with murder?”

  “I knew the police were looking for him.”

  “He gave himself up. He swears he didn’t do it.” He paused and looked damn sincere. “I believe him, Mister Winters.”

  I shrugged.

  “You’re his father,” I said. “Which reminds me, the last time I talked to you, you didn’t sound very doting. Change of heart, Mister Neal?”

  “Bradley’s in trouble. Serious trouble. Our differences of the past have necessarily become trivial compared to this new situation.”

  I had to give it to the old man. Even when desperate, he remained his stubborn, articulate self.

  “What does Bradley say?” I asked. “Have you talked to him?”

  “Yes. I was with him when he surrendered himself. He told me the whole story.”

  He pushed himself to the edge of the chair and leaned earnestly toward me.

  “The Parks girl called him this morning at his hotel and asked him to come to her apartment. She didn’t suggest any urgency in the request and Bradley stopped for breakfast before going. He got there an hour or so later and found her dead.”

  “Why didn’t he call the police?”

  “He was frightened. He knew the police were aware of their relationship, and feared they wouldn’t believe his story. He swears the girl was already dead when he got there. Will you help me?”

  He was crawling. Alistair Neal, crawling. “What would you like me to do?”

  “Find the real killer and clear my son. You name your own price.”

  He got out his checkbook and pen and held them expectantly over the desk.

  I got up and looked at him.

  “Put your money away,” I said. “You think that stuff can do anything, don’t you? Get out of this office before I forget myself and hit an old man.”

  He sat there, stunned. He couldn’t get it through his head that his money had goofed.

  “You-you won’t help?” he asked. “I’ll give you ten thousand dollars—fifty thousand—whatever you want.”

  “Get out of here!”

  “Please!” he said. “You’re the only one who can do it. You know the people involved. You must have some idea who killed her. Please, I’m begging you.”

  I walked around the desk and stood next to him.

  “I do. A very good idea. You can go see your son and tell him not to worry. Because I’ll get the killer. But I’ll be getting him for a kid named Ricky Parks and his butchered sister. Not for you or Bradley or any of your god-damned money.” I controlled the tension building inside me. “Now get out of here.”

  He watched me for a minute and then rose and walked to the door. He looked very old. At the door, he stopped and turned.

  “Mister Winters, I—” He saw my eyes and shut his mouth. With a quiet, un-Neal-like humbleness, he bowed slightly and left the office. I watched him walk through the reception room and close the outer door behind him. He didn’t look back.

  I sighed from my feet on up and went back around the desk. The over-charged drink I mixed on the little desk bar didn’t help much, but it was something to steady my hand with.

  I didn’t want any more of Neal or China or Bradley or Javitts or anybody else with a problem. All I wanted was Manny Zato. Before the day was over I was going to find him and make up for an awful lot of grief.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to.

  I was rubbing the bottom of the glass against my forehead, feeling the coolness of the ice, when I heard the mail slot push open in the reception room. I looked up. The afternoon mail delivery was dropping to the floor through the slot in the outside door.

  I watched the letters, idly, as they fell and scattered a little on the rug. Bills, I thought. Bills and advertisements for the big smart detective.

  Then my feet hit the floor and the glass went flying as I remembered Louise’s message to the girl at the answering service: “She said that you will have the proof today…”

  I scrambled out of the chair and ran out to the reception room, falling to my knees at the mail. It was the only envelope there without type-printed lettering on it.

  My name and address was the only writing on the envelope, and I felt a lump grow big in my throat as I read Louise’s even handwriting. My hands shook as I tore it open.

  Two people had been butchered for what I held in my hand.

  It was a clipping. Nothing else. No letter or note. Just a newspaper clipping. A little wrinkled and aged, with a faded picture above the heading.

  I squatted there reading it and feeling sick to the core of my soul.

  I read it through twice from top to bottom and stared with fascination at the picture. I’d been wrong all along. Javitts and I both had figured the killing backward. The fact that the killer was a sadist wasn’t merely an unfortunate sidelight to the murders as we had assumed. It was the reason for the murders themselves.

  Louise’s mutilated body projected itself in stark detail through my mind, and I shuddered. She had seen this same clipping and still had convinced herself that she would be able to stall the killer. I shook my head and said a short prayer for all the naive of the world.

  Including myself.

  No one could’ve endured what Louise had been exposed to without telling all. The killer had to know that I now had the clipping.

  Then the phone rang sharply.

  I brought my eyes up slowly from the clipping and stared at it through the open doorway. It rang some more. I felt calm, suddenly, as I straightened up and went back inside. I knew who it was before I picked the phone up.

  “Hello,” I said.

  Manny Zato’s low, resonant voice smiled at me over the wire.

  “Mister Winters,” he said. “I believe your mail as arrived by now?”

  “That’s right, Zato. It arrived.”

  He sighed pleasantly.

  “Fine, fine. The—ah—little present from Miss Parks—you opened it?”

  “I opened it.”

  His voice lost its smoothness and became hard.

  “Hold the line,” he ordered.

  I waited, afraid to breathe. The next voice to come over the wire was cracked with fright.

  “Cole!” it cried in my ear. “Cole, help me!”

  “Toni! Are you all right?”

  She broke into sobs that tore straight through my heart.

  “Oh, darling,” she sobbed, “they said they’ll kill me if you don’t come. They said they’ll—oh, Cole, it’s horrible!”

  “Easy, kitten,” I choked. My fists were clenched so hard they hurt. “I’ll come. Just—be good and don’t do anything to upset them.”

  “Please hurry, darling.”

  “Right away. Put Zato back on.”

  The phone was silent for a second, then Zato’s voice came over the line again.

  “Winters?” he said. “You know what happens to your girl friend if you don’t show?”

  “I know,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

  His voice became smooth again. He was enjoying this.

  “Come immediately. Alone and unarmed. And bring the clipping. If you’re not here right away or if I even smell a cop in the neighborhood, your girl gets cut. Understand?”

  “I understand. Where are you?”

  He laughed in my ear.

  “The Brass Monkey. Where else? Start now, shamus. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  He hung up.

  I dropped the phone and felt my knees go soft. I took off my coat and unhooked the .38, dropping it on the desk. Zato was calling the shots and I was going to follow them to the letter. Toni’s position in this thing scared me silly.

  It was the “they” Toni had referred to that frightened me. The second half of the “they” who waited with
Zato—the killer.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I parked the T-bird directly in front of The Brass Monkey, making damn sure Zato could see for himself that I was alone. I got out and slammed the door.

  Silence pulsed at me from inside the dirty windows of the tavern. Silence and a weird sense of quiet expectancy. I tried the outside door and it opened easily. My heart hammered in my ears as I went inside.

  “Close it, shamus.”

  It was Zato. He was standing at the far end of the bar with his .45 leveled in my direction.

  I closed the door.

  “Walk over here nice and slow. I want to hear your heels and toes all the way.”

  “Where’s Toni?” I rasped.

  “Just walk, shamus.”

  I crossed the room, moving the way he ordered, until I was ten feet from the gun.

  “Far enough,” he said. “Now get up against the wall. On your toes. You know how.”

  I walked to the wall and climbed it, putting my fingers against the surface over my head, with my body at an angle away from it, on tiptoe.

  Zato moved up behind me.

  “You follow orders nicely,” he said. “A real smart boy.”

  His hands shook me down for a weapon and, finding none, went under my coat and got my wallet.

  “In here?” he asked, still behind me.

  “In there.”

  I heard him open the wallet and paw through it. He had me in the same position cops use when shaking down suspects, and I’d be dead before I could possibly spin around from the awkward stance. Not that I would try it. Toni was still inside with the killer.

  I felt the wallet drop into the pocket of my coat.

  “You’re a good boy, shamus,” he said. “You do what you’re told.”

  He stepped back away from me.

  “All right. Move off the wall slowly and lead the way. The girl’s waiting for you in my office.”

  I came down off my toes and turned slowly. The .45 was pointed at my head. I walked over to the inside door and opened it.

  The little room was empty.

  “Keep moving,” he ordered.

  “This room is unoccupied.”

  He chuckled softly behind me. “You put a couple of bullets in the former occupant this afternoon, remember?” He nudged me in the back with the gun. “You’re real rough on my boys, shamus.”

  I led the way across the little room to the door of his office. My hand went to the knob and hesitated.

  I was afraid of what I might find.

  “Open it,” he ordered. “Open the door.”

  I opened it.

  As the door swung open under my hand my eyes darted across the room to the desk at the left, but no one was there. Zato nudged me again with the gun and I took another step, swinging the door all the way open.

  They were to the right of the door, against the far wall. Toni was crouched against the wall, crying softly. Her dress had been torn from her shoulders and hung loosely from her hips as if someone had tried to rip it off her. One shoulder strap on her slip was broken and the torn silk hung down, half exposing her breast. A dark, ugly looking bruise discolored her left cheek, puffing the black, terror-stricken eye that stared helplessly at the door.

  I tensed and Zato jabbed me again with the gun.

  “Easy does it,” he grunted. “She’s not hurt.”

  Toni cried out something unintelligible when she saw me and tore across the room to my waiting arms. I kissed her hair over and over again and held her trembling body.

  “It’s all right, kitten,” I whispered. “It’s all right now.”

  I stroked her back softly and stared over her shoulder into the cold gray amusement of Valerie Coe’s eyes.

  She was sitting in a deep-cushioned armchair with her beautiful legs crossed demurely beneath a yellow silk sheath. Her white hair was upswept and caught at the side by an ebony comb encased with diamonds. She was staring at me; as meticulous and as beautiful as ever.

  And just as deadly.

  Zato closed the door and covered us.

  “Move against the wall,” he ordered.

  I kept my arm around Toni’s shoulders and walked her across the room. Valerie smiled at me from the chair.

  “Did he bring the clipping?” she asked. She was talking to Zato, but her eyes stayed on me. They looked a little like they had on her rug the night before.

  Zato took the clipping out of his pocket and tapped it on the gun barrel.

  “Right here,” he said.

  “Burn it,” she told him.

  He nodded and walked over to his desk, keeping the .45 in line with Toni’s head.

  “Don’t get brave, shamus,” he said. “The broad’ll get it first.”

  He dropped the clipping into an ashtray on the desk and lit it with his cigarette lighter.

  In less than a minute it was reduced to ashes.

  Valerie sighed from the chair.

  “I should’ve done that a long time ago,” she said. “I don’t know why I kept it so long.” Her eyes sparkled as she smiled up at me. “Memories, I suppose.”

  I watched her beautiful, sick face, and shuddered inside. She was like a warped nightmare out of a horror story. ‘Beauty and the Beast’, personified.

  The clipping, a one column cut from a Canadian newspaper, had told the story of one Vera Calvet, a hunted escapee from a Canadian hospital for the criminally insane. Vera was the young widow of a prominent Quebec lawyer; widowed by her own hand at the end of an axe. The clipping described Mrs. Calvet as mentally unbalanced, sadistic, and an extremely dangerous psychopath when aroused.

  My hand was moist on Toni’s back as I stroked her. Last night in Valerie’s apartment came back like a bad dream.

  “You’ll never get away with this,” I said, just mouthing words and trying to stall. She’d already gotten away with it twice. “You kill us and you’ve had it, Valerie.” I pressed my cheek against the softness of Toni’s hair, “or Vera, I mean.”

  She shrugged, lazily, letting the low neckline of her dress droop on purpose. Her breasts rose heavily beneath it, deepening the soft, dark valley between them.

  “You know better than that, Cole. After all, I’ve had practice. And yes, my name is Vera, as the clipping said. But not Vera Calvet. I’ve been Mrs. Vera Zato for some time now.”

  I let that sink in slowly and glanced over at Manny. He didn’t look pleased at all.

  “That’s not my fault,” he grunted. “You can believe that, Winters.”

  Valerie chuckled softly.

  “No, my dear disillusioned husband, it’s not your fault.” She turned to me with a tolerant smile on her moist lips. You see, Cole, Manny would like nothing better than to see me divorced—or dead, for that matter. He just doesn’t love me any more.”

  She settled comfortably in the chair, doing things under the silk, and I hoped she was getting ready for a real spiel. I needed all the time I could get.

  “When I escaped from the hospital,” she continued, “I met Manny in Montreal and let him talk me into coming back to the States with him. We were married here, after he’d enjoyed a week or two of trial testing, of course, and settled down to marital bliss.” She eyed Zato contemptuously. “Until my manly husband over there got queasy, all of a sudden, about sharing my bed.”

  “Some bed,” Manny grunted. “You just don’t know, shamus.”

  He was wrong. I knew.

  Valerie’s face glowed excitedly as she went on.

  “I have certain—tastes—that Manny found disagreeable. Tastes that have to be gratified, Cole. You don’t know. I wanted to show you last night but I couldn’t. Because then you’d know and I didn’t want that.

  “I could have killed you, you know. It would have been simple when we were in bed. Your gun was on the chair right next to us.”

  I felt Toni stiffen in my arms, but I couldn’t do anything about that. Maybe it was better that she knew, anyway.

  “Why didn’t you?” I
asked.

  “Too many people saw us leaving the Pit together.” She tensed and sat up at the edge of the cushion. “Besides, I wouldn’t have enjoyed killing you with a gun. Do you know how I’d like to kill you, Cole? With a knife. With a very sharp knife, while you’re making love to me.”

  She fell back against the cushion and smiled. Her eyes were staring at me with a warped intensity that chilled my blood.

  “If Manny’s so eager to see you dead,” I said, trying to change the subject, “what’s stopping him?”

  She laughed again.

  “He can’t. He can’t do anything but humor his sick wife. Can you, darling?”

  Manny didn’t answer. The look on his handsome face spoke for him.

  “You see, Manny and I have an agreement. I stay alive and married, with adequate support, of course, and he and his friends stay free. I spent three long months living with him as his wife and I’ve got enough evidence in writing and tapes to send him and all his connections to Sing-Sing for twenty years.

  “Why do you think he sent his men to kill you? Manny doesn’t like violence, you know.” She smiled, sardonically at some private memory. “He doesn’t like violence at all. Not in his business or his women. I told him to have you killed. You were much too involved with Louise Parks and her brother. To tell you the truth, Cole, you scared me.”

  I scared her.

  “Ricky found the clipping?” I asked.

  “Yes. The sneaky, little junkie stole my purse one night in the Id. He read the clipping, recognized my picture and tried to blackmail me.” She frowned gravely. “He was very weak and he died too soon. He was high when I killed him. Did you know that? Very easy to handle. I don’t think it even hurt him very much until the end.”

  Her breath was coming in pants now, as she stared at the past on the wall.

  “He bled much more than his sister. But she screamed more than him, so it was all right. She found the clipping—I don’t know where—I couldn’t find it. She called me this morning and told me. She thought she was sage because she had mailed it to you.”

  She looked at me again and giggled.

  “Did you guess it was me, Cole?”

  I shook my head, watching her.

  “Javitts had a circular on you, but we didn’t connect it.”