The Hundred Dollar Girl

by William Campbell Gault

  “With anger,” I said. “I’m not weak. I’ll meet him again. Maybe I can put him into the gas chamber.”

  A senseless, adolescent, loser’s remark. But, for some reason, it scored.

  Her bright eyes searched my face and there was a subtle apprehension in the air around us. She whispered, “What are you talking about?”

  “About Terry Lopez,” I said. “Who else?”

  There was no conviction in her voice. “You’re talking nonsense.

  The police know where he was when Gus was killed. I told them. He was with me, at home, in bed.”

  I gave her my knowing look #2A. “Sure he was. I’m not the police, Mrs. Lopez. I have informants who wouldn’t think of ever going to the police with anything.” I added a little coal. “And Al Martino has friends who can’t afford to even be seen by the police.” Which was no lie. Meaningless, but no lie.

  “Al Martino?” she asked hoarsely. “Bugsy’s brother?”

  “He handled the money. He found the suckers for Gus.”

  Her eyes continued to search my face.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it,” I commented, “how many things don’t find their way into the newspapers?” I stretched my neck and rubbed my jaw. “Well, I’d better get along. There must be a few people more cooperative than you’ve been. Thanks for nothing.”

  “Wait,” she said. She looked past me, her eyes fearful and thoughtful. She looked at me. “Sit down. There’s no hurry. He won’t be back for a while.”

  I sat down near the sliding glass door through which I could view the Village of Westwood.

  She sat near-by and stared thoughtfully at the carpeting. “Terry’s no killer,” she said quietly.

  “He certainly didn’t look like one last night,” I agreed.

  She flushed faintly. “He has an unreasonable temper. But I know he couldn’t — cold-bloodedly kill someone.”

  She was building up to something; I waited.

  “Don’t you believe that?” she asked me. “You have to believe that.”

  “I don’t know him well enough to believe anything,” I answered.

  A silence. In the village, far below, I could see the cars move with the traffic lights, clogging, unclogging, flowing, stopping.

  An intake of breath, and she said softly, “He wasn’t with me when Gus was killed.”

  I kept my face bland, like a good liar. “Is that supposed to be news?”

  “I thought you knew,” she said. “I thought that’s why you came here. How did you find it out?” I didn’t answer, staring at her. “And now you’ll tell the police?” she asked. “Have I, up to now?” “Why haven’t you?” she asked.

  To myself, I said, because I didn’t know it. To her, I said, “Where did he tell you he was?”

  “Out, alone, walking around, that’s what he told me. He probably wasn’t. He was probably with some — woman.” “Maybe,” I said, looking enigmatic.

  Her voice rose. “Do you know he wasn’t? Why can’t you tell me what you know?”

  “Because I’m not working for you any longer, Mrs. Lopez. And while we’re on that subject, why did you fire me?”

  She looked at her carpeting again. It was fine carpeting. “Because of your — insolence. About the bill, I — received it. I could pay it right now, if you want.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” I said. “It isn’t really due until the first of next month.”

  She chewed her lower lip. “I could pay — a little extra. I actually contracted to hire you for longer than — ”

  I raised a hand. “I’m not a blackmailer, Mrs. Lopez. I’ve been hired by a client to work with the police in finding the murderer of Gus Galbini. I’m not a scandalmonger or a keyhole-peeper and I sell nothing but my investigative service. You’ve got the wrong slant on me.” I paused. “From somebody.”

  “Then why didn’t you tell the police about Terry not being home last night?” she asked.

  The impulse to be honest was strong. But the impulse to find a killer was stronger. “I’ve explained that. I’m not in the scandal business.”

  “Then he was with a woman?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “Tell me about Gus and why you had me investigate him.”

  “Because I heard what the police know now, that Gus was betting on Mueller. Honestly, that’s the whole reason.” “And where did you hear that?”

  “From Terry,” she said. “I don’t know where he heard it.”

  “And that’s all you have to tell me?”

  She nodded. “But haven’t you something to tell me?”

  “Nothing you should know, Mrs. Lopez. I swear it. I have no idea if your husband was with a woman last night, or not.” I stood up. “The fact that you lied about his being with you last night is something I won’t tell the police right now.”

  “Right now?”

  “Never, unless it’s concerned with the murder.”

  “It isn’t,” she said. “I know it isn’t. I’ll mail you that check tomorrow.”

  I thanked her in advance and left. I had tricked her into an admission and I wasn’t proud of my tactics, but how else could I function? Double talk and luck, those were my weapons. And my sturdy Latin intuition.

  Sergeant Marty Dugan wasn’t working this afternoon, nor Apoyan. But another detective sergeant gave me what they had at the Purdue Street Station.

  The apartment where Gus had been shot last night was in a building he owned, an apartment house of six one-bedroom units. It was a furnished apartment and so far as the Department had been able to learn, had never been rented.

  “Love nest, maybe?” the sergeant said. “Would he need it? Hell, he was at least fifty.” He shuffled through some papers. “Fifty-one.”

  He was young for a sergeant. I smiled. “Maybe he used it for poker.”

  “Then why that king-sized bed?”

  I shrugged and riffled through the statements of the principals and the occupants of neighboring apartments in Gus’s building. They were all carbons.

  “The originals have been sent downtown,” the sergeant told me. “It will be handled from there, of course.”

  “How about Sergeant Dugan?”

  “He’ll work on it. And Captain Apoyan will help. He used to be in Homicide, before he was sent out here.”

  I nodded and continued to read the reports. Two of the tenants in the building had heard the report of a gun at about two o’clock; it had been loud enough to get them out of bed and prompt one to phone the police.

  Nobody had seen the killer. One tenant, who had not heard the shot, had earlier seen an unfamiliar car in the neighborhood, a gray Bentley sedan.

  I read through the rest of it and told the sergeant, “I guess Gus didn’t use the place for poker, after all.”

  “How come you figure that?”

  I showed him the inventory sheet. “Five bottles of cologne up there and not a single deck of cards.”

  The sergeant shook his head wonderingly. “Fifty-one years old — He probably played spin-the-bottle.”

  I left him lost in wonder and went out into a dying day. I thought of the cardboard clock on the door of Mary Loper and steered the Plymouth toward Cheviot Hills.

  It was only five-thirty when I got there; she wasn’t home. I sat on her red brick patio.

  It wasn’t long before I heard the grate of a footstep on concrete and looked up to see Mary Loper coming along the sidewalk that led to the alley. She had a bag of groceries in one arm.

  I watched her approach, slim and fairly tall, with a chin-high, erect, model’s walk, dressed in the chic copy of a much more expensive Irish linen suit.

  “You?” she said. “Who asked for you?” She stopped walking and stared at me without rancor. “And at dinnertime, too.”

  “I didn’t come for dinner,” I told her. “I came for an address.” “Whose?”

  “Al Martino’s.”

  A pause, and then, “I don’
t know it.” “Have you seen him lately?”

  “This morning,” she said. “He was waiting for me when I left the police station. I was questioned this morning.” “Will you be seeing him again?” “I hope not.” Her face was grave. “Will I?”

  I shrugged.

  We stood there silently for a few seconds, and then she said, “Will you take the key out of my purse and open the door?”

  The purse was under her arm. I took the key out and opened the door and stood aside for her to enter. She went into the kitchen, and I didn’t follow.

  In a second, she asked, “Aren’t you coming in?”

  I came in and stood near the doorway. She put her groceries down and turned to me. “There’s enough steak. I’ve had a good week and I bought extra steak for the freezer.”

  “I wouldn’t think of imposing,” I protested.

  “Like hell you wouldn’t,” she said mildly. “I wish you’d stay. I’m — frightened.”

  “It’s about time,” I told her. “Are you going to broil the steaks outside?”

  “I’m no good with charcoal,” she said. “I can’t seem to get it glowing right.”

  “I’m good at it,” I said.

  “The paper and the kindling are out there,” she told me. “I’ll mix us a drink in the meanwhile. Martini okay?”

  “On the rocks,” I told her, and went out to the patio.

  I had the charcoal started when she brought my drink out. She had taken off the jacket to the suit and thrown a cashmere sweater over her shoulders.

  We sat on the chaise longues and she asked, “What did you mean when you said it was about time I was frightened?”

  “I shouldn’t have said it,” I answered. “I’m too — mouthy.”

  “You meant I should have been frightened all the time I was a friend of Sal’s, didn’t you?”

  “I guess.” I sipped my drink. Too much vermouth.

  “He never gave me reason to be frightened,” she said evenly. “Not once.”

  “And who has given you reason now?”

  “The murder.” She took a breath. “And then Al waiting for me — I never liked him. He’s not at all like Sal.”

  “What did he want this morning?”

  “He wanted to know what the police had asked me. He wanted to know if they knew the fight had been fixed, if they’d said anything like that. I told him they hadn’t.” She stared at me. “Was it crooked?”

  I hesitated and said, “There’s a strong rumor around that Gus Galbini bet on Mueller.” I paused. “And that Al Martino handled the bet.”

  “Gus?” She shook her head. “Does Terry know Gus bet on Mueller?”

  “So I’ve heard. But Terry’s covered for the time that Gus was killed. His wife is his alibi.”

  “Terry?” she said, startled. “Surely the police can’t think of Terry as a murderer?”

  “With his temper?”

  “But a gun?” she said. “I can see him hitting someone in anger, but not using a gun. Oh, no — that’s impossible.”

  I said nothing.

  “Are you working with the police?” she asked me. “You’re not a policeman, are you?”

  “I’m working with the police,” I said. “But for a client. For Mrs. Gus Galbini. She’s not my original client.”

  Silence. In the west, the sun was turning the clouds pink and the mountains purple. On the lee side of the ridges, the foothills were black.

  For minutes, neither of us said a word.

  Then she asked, “How do you like your steak?”

  “Practically raw.”

  “I’ll put mine on now,” she said. “I like it well done.”

  She put one on and came back to sip her drink again. “Quiet, aren’t we?”

  “I’m relaxing. I’m — recovering.” I told her about Terry’s lucky punch.

  “It isn’t the first time,” she said. “That sort of thing he’s done since he was twelve. But a gun? Never, never, never — ”

  She could be wrong, even if it was her brother. She had been way wrong on Bugsy Martin. I withheld comment.

  Another few minutes of peace and she set her drink on a low table near-by and said, “We should have a salad, too.” She rose and went into the kitchen.

  There was a tension in the air.

  Sex, some call it. Ultimate communication is closer to the truth. Supreme ecstacy? Put it down as a drive second only to self-preservation, a drive that has put men into outer space eons before the birth of the rocket.

  Was it a personal awareness, limited to one? My practiced intuition told me it was shared. Had I invited myself to dinner? And Bugsy Martin had been dead a long time. She was human.

  She came out again and asked, “What are you thinking about?”

  “Salvadore Peter Martino,” I answered.

  “Bugsy?” she said lightly. “He’s dead.”

  In the wind, a straw, a pretty big straw. “Anything I can do to help?” I asked.

  “Just sit there,” she said, “calm, strong, and personable. You have no idea how comforting your presence is.”

  She bent over to turn her steak, and I thought I noticed tension in the movement. In the hills, the purple had blended with the black, but the pink and white clouds still rode the rim of the horizon. The smell of steak and charcoal and burning fat drifted down my way.

  She sat down again and sipped her drink and we talked and later we ate. The sun went down; we went into the house. We were friends by this time; we had mutual friends.

  The aura of awareness was mutual now, I felt sure. All I needed was a trigger.

  It happened in the kitchen. I was putting glasses away and she was right next to me, putting the clean silverware in a drawer. I turned away from the cupboard as she turned away from the drawer, and there we were, face to face.

  And she looked up, smiling, and her chin lifted and her voice was a little hoarse. “Hello,” she said.

  And I pulled her close; there was no resistance. She came eagerly, her lips open, her body pressing fiercely.

  chapter five

  ON THE LOW WIDE BED SHE LAY QUIETLY, STARING OUT THE window at the yellow moon. I lay basked in remembrance of her wiry agility, her soaring cooperation, her murmurs, and her kisses.

  Her brown, taut body was outlined in the moonlight, her brown hair was awry on the pillow.

  “It’s been a long time,” she said, without looking at me. “I hope I didn’t startle you.”

  I said nothing.

  “Were you ever married?” she asked. “Never. Were you?”

  She sighed. “Never. Do you think it would stay this way, wild and wonderful, after the wedding?”

  “For a year, maybe. Six months. I don’t know. With all the infidelity in the world, something must be wrong with marriage.”

  “Maybe it’s just that there’s something wrong with people.” She turned over to face me. “You’re gentle for a man so big.”

  Wasn’t Bugsy? I thought, but said only, “Thank you.” She inhaled audibly, and said again in a whisper, “It’s been a long time.”

  Again, I said nothing.

  Until she added, “Am I crowding you? Am I a glutton?”

  It wasn’t until then I realized what she meant by a long time. “You’re not crowding me,” I said. “Two glasses of milk, and I’ll be a new man.”

  I wasn’t new but I was adequate, which was quite an accomplishment considering it hadn’t been a long time for me. And there had been only a glass and a half of milk in the refrigerator.

  At three o’clock, a sound pulled me to consciousness and I listened carefully but heard nothing. Until just as I was falling back to sleep again, I heard her murmur, “Bugsy, Bugsy, Bugsy — ”

  In the morning when I wakened she was gone. She had left a note on the drainboard in the kitchen:

  Gentle One:

  An early appointment and you looked too peaceful to disturb. There is plenty of food — make your own damned breakfast!

  Mary />
  There was certainly plenty of food. Her refrigerator was a two-door monster and it was crammed. A psychiatrist could probably find some symbolism there.

  The eggs were extra large and the bacon a premium brand. The coffee percolator was more than half full. I fed my depleted strength and then phoned my answering service.

  I was informed that a Mr. Snip Caster had phoned and would expect a return call.

  I went out to the Plymouth and saw the Department car parked across the street. There was no one in it. I waited for a few seconds, wondering if they were looking for me, but nobody appeared. I climbed into my car and headed for Venice.

  Snip was outside again, on the gray lawn getting the sun. “A little while ago,” he said, “you were here asking about Gus Galbini. And now he’s dead, huh?”

  “That’s right. Don’t be cryptic. If you have something to tell me, spill it.”

  “Why tell it,” he asked, “when I can sell it?”

  I shook my head. “I happen to be a poor man.”

  “So you’re poor,” he said. “The people you usually work for aren’t poor. And I’ll bet you’re working on the Galbini kill.”

  I nodded.

  “For some rich guy,” he added.

  “No. But maybe my client would stand still for a little padding on the expense account. That is, if you’ve got anything I can use.”

  “You can use it,” he said. “It’s about Mueller and somebody else.”

  Hans Mueller…. I’d never thought of this case from his

  angle. I asked, “Is it important? Do you think what you know would help me?” He nodded.

  “I think,” I said, “my client will stand still for a twenty-five-buck item on the swindle sheet. I can’t go any higher than that, Snip.”

  He was silent, thinking. He was probably translating the dollars into terms he understood, pints and fifths and quarts. Finally, he said, “There was a meeting three nights ago in Barney Delamater’s office. Around midnight. Mueller, Doc Golde, Barney, Galbini, and Al Martino. How’s that for a combination? And midnight, yet!”

  “Who’s Doc Golde?” I asked.

  “Mueller’s manager, his brain, his financial noodle.”

  “Some combination,” I agreed, “and what could it mean?”

  “One thing I heard it meant is that Galbini got a piece of Mueller. Did the police find anything that makes that true?”