The Brass Cupcake

by John D. MacDonald

  “I think you better tell me about Horace. I think there’s something to tell. It’s a hell of a long walk back.”

  “Then I’ll walk,” she said flatly.

  She turned away. I reached out and caught her by the wrist and yanked her back. “Did you ever think how silly you’re going to look, Letty, when he runs out with the dough?”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  I laughed. “Don’t give me that, Letty. Anything but that innocent act. He was afraid you might spoil something yesterday. That’s why he slugged you.”

  She snapped the cigarette into the surf. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I won’t try to ease you out of the cash, Letty. All I want is what they took from Miss Stegman’s safe. And if you don’t really know what I’m talking about, it’s clear proof that Horace is going to ditch you.”

  She stood very still and stared up at me. The line of her mouth in the moonlight was ugly. “What kind of a trick is this?”

  “Please, honey. I’m a big boy now. I know that what I’ve got on Horace won’t stand up in court, but it’s plenty good enough for me.”

  “Are you trying to tell me,” she said in a thin high voice, “that Horace was in on…”

  “As you damn well know,” I said.

  She was good. She stared out to sea and she covered Horace and all his ancestors in several hundred well-chosen words. When she was through she grabbed the front of my jacket and said, “Believe me! I didn’t know anything about it. But now I can see how stupid I’ve been.”

  “So fill in on Horace for me.”

  “He’s no good. He never has been any good. He’s always got another girl on the string, and when I object, he slaps me around. I don’t know why I stay with him. It hurts him to give me a dollar. He got a DD from the army in ’44. He’s never done time, but he should have. When we were hard up and I was a lot slimmer, he had me picking up men. Then he would bust in and shake them down. He got us the jobs with Miss Stegman by using faked papers and references. When all this happened, I should have guessed right away. I’m going to go back to him and I’m going to tell him that…”

  “No, you’re not,” I said firmly. “Use your head. He’ll deny everything. If you’ve been out of it so far, he doesn’t want you in on any part of it. The way it shapes up, he steered the thieves onto Miss Stegman for a cut of the proceeds. They haven’t been paid off yet by my company, and so Horace hasn’t got his cut yet. If he gets ten per cent, it will add up to forty thousand.”

  Even above the roar of the waves I heard her quick intake of breath.

  “And so, Letty,” I said, “the last thing I want you to do is to tip him off that I know. And if you go to him after the way we ran out together, he’ll guess immediately. I don’t want him to be on guard. I like you, Letty. I want to see you get a fair deal out of this.”

  “But I…”

  “Look. This is murder. Maybe you don’t know the law. If Horace steered them onto her and they killed her, he is just as much a murderer as they are. And don’t think he doesn’t know that.”

  That rocked her. I could see it. In a small voice she said, “He has been… awful nervous lately.”

  I had her nicely softened up now for my king-size question. I slipped it across casually. “Where did he go after I saw you people yesterday?”

  “Now, that’s a funny thing when you think of it, Cliff. He went out by himself. He wouldn’t let me come with him. There was gas in the Buick, but he didn’t take it. And he hates to walk, that one. He was gone a couple of hours, and when he came back he looked pretty smug about something.”

  “Letty, you keep an eye on him and you let me know if he does anything you can’t understand.”

  “You won’t get him arrested?”

  “How about if he runs out on you?”

  “Then he can rot!” she screamed.

  We walked back up to the car. As I held the door for her she said, “This was a dirty trick, Cliff.”

  “I know it. I’m in a dirty business.”

  I went around and got behind the wheel. Her fingers clamped down on my arm. “But you’re forgiven, you know.”

  “Am I?”

  “Of course you are.” She slid over very close to me, pressing warm against me, her cheek against my shoulder. “Sometimes you learn you’ve hooked up with the wrong guy, Cliff.”

  I turned the key and pressed the starter. She reached out and turned the key off again.

  “The joint will be closed,” I said. “It might be pretty awkward.”

  Her sigh came from the soles of her sandals. “All right. Let’s go.”

  My watch was a little off. When we got back the Bomb Run was dark and empty. Letty was getting more nervous every moment. Their place, the Belle-Anne Courts, was just a short distance away. I drove up there and parked outside. I reached across her and pressed the handle down to open the door. It swung open slowly and then there was a shadow outside the door and it swung hard the rest of the way.

  She didn’t make a sound as he dragged her out. I heard the harsh snuff as he breathed out, heard the slapping sound his fist made against her. I went out my side and around the back of the car. They made long shadows across the grass. The nearest street lamp was on the far side of the street.

  She did not cry out, merely tried to cover her face. He hit her hard in the belly and I heard the wind hiss out of her. As she doubled over he slammed her behind the ear and she fell to her hands and knees on the grass. He kicked her in the side just as I reached him. I grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

  Horace moved like dark oiled lightning. But there was a deep and tragic flaw in his philosophy of battle. He seemed to believe that a man who stayed on his toes and danced around and swung his fists hard could inflict the most damage. I had that same misconception until one day, in the training area in Scotland, they sent me out to fight a dried-up little sergeant major who must have been over fifty and who weighed not more than 130 in full uniform. By the time we left that area I knew most of his tricks. It’s hard to use them properly, as most of them were created with the idea of killing the opponent.

  I caught Horace’s fist in my cupped hand, turned it so that the back was toward me, and pressed both thumbs against it, my hands locked around it. He grunted and went up on his toes, his back arched. When he was in the proper position of strain, I took my right hand and jabbed him with two knuckles in the triangular opening between the ribs at the top of the solar plexus. As he slumped I caught him by the crotch and the nape of the neck and threw him onto the lawn. He hit heavily and rolled over twice. He wasn’t unconscious, but there was no atom of fight left in him.

  I helped Letty up. She was still cramped over by the pain in her stomach.

  “Remember,” I whispered, “it was just a joke, We got stuck in the sand or we’d have been back over an hour ago.”

  She nodded. When I looked back from the car she was kneeling beside Horace.

  I went to an all-night diner and phoned Harry Banson. I knew that if I didn’t do it right away, I wouldn’t do it at all. I got him at his house. His voice was rusty with sleep.

  “Damnit, Cliff, why can’t a man…”

  “Please shut up.” Through the glass of the booth door I could see a big table of high-school kids after a dance. They were lifting Cokes off the table and out of sight for the spike job. “Harry, I think this might be a pretty productive night to put a tail on Horace Franklin. If a woman keeps her mouth shut, it might not pan out into anything. But you can’t plan on it. And remember, I didn’t put you onto this.”

  “Cliff, is Franklin mixed up in…”

  “I won’t answer any questions, Harry. If you’re interested in making a showing, just do what I say. Do it yourself. That’ll be best all around. And another thing. No, never mind the second thing. I’ll handle that.” I hung up.

  I looked up the number and dialed Marty Mennick, our local Cadillac dealer. The phone rang a long t
ime. He answered sleepily.

  “Marty? Cliff Bartells.”

  “Oh,” he said. Marty’s a political wheel. I’m poison. “What’s on your mind?”

  “It’s none of my business, Marty, but your daughter is down at the Bay Diner with a gang of kids.”

  “So?” Very cold.

  “How old is she? Seventeen? She’s got half a load and the boys in the group have a full load. So I’m a snitch. I’ve unwound too many local kids from around trees and taken too many motors out of too many laps. Personally I think you’re a jerk, but that shouldn’t stop you from getting down here fast and breaking it up.”

  I slapped the phone back on the hook, had a cup of coffee at the counter, and then went out and sat in my car. The timing was excellent. Just as the gang came lurching out, Marty came roaring up in his demonstrator. Much loud talk. He shook them free of a set of car keys, loaded them all in, and took off.

  It was well after two and time for bed, but there was a restlessness in me. The case was beginning to display a few frayed edges. If I could grab the right thread and pull hard… I cruised the night streets. I drove across the causeway bridge to Florence Beach and saw the lights still on in the game rooms at the Kit-Kat, cars still standing in the parking area, glinting under the floods. When I came back off the beach I went by Stackson’s Funeral Home. Miss Stegman was in temporary residence there, as that is the only storage vault available to the local police. Even that had an angle. Stackson is a heavy contributor to the party in power, a lodge brother of Powy, a distant relative of Commissioner Guilfarr.

  I drove by the Coral Strand. A figure had just walked out of there. There was something familiar about it. As I cruised by I saw that it was Furny Trumbull. I looked back and saw that Melody’s light was still on.

  I went around a slow block, came back, and parked in the shadows. Aside from a thread of distant music, there was no sound in the night. I drifted across the patch of sand to where I could put a cautious eye to the gap between the Venetian blinds and the edge of the window frame. I could not see her. The bed was turned down, but unrumpled. There was a distant hissing sound.

  Just as I was about to turn away, the hissing sound stopped. In a moment she came out of the bath, tall and golden, beads of water standing on her body, a towel over her shoulders. I could hear her humming an old song. As she took a cigarette from the bedside table, I went over and tapped softly on the door.

  “It’s no use, Furny,” she said. “Go away.”

  “I don’t think he’s coming back,” I said.

  “Cliff?”

  “Forgive the hour.”

  “Wait just a moment, Cliff.”

  She had a thin robe belted around her when she opened the door. She was smoothing damp hair back from her forehead with the back of her hand and she was smiling at me. I looked at her and I thought of the Franklin woman and in some very devious and unexpected way I felt a deep shaft of regret, as though I had cut myself off from this girl on purpose.

  “I really won’t bite, Cliff. Come in. I’ve got something to tell you.”

  She left the door open. I sat on a straight frail chair and she sat on the bed. “The female has made up her mind,” she said.

  “About?”

  “About Furny. It wasn’t a fight, I suppose. Oh, we were very calm with each other, but it went on for hours. I feel sort of sorry for him. I guess he really did want to be married to me. But without Aunt Elizabeth backing him up, there doesn’t seem to be any point in trying to go through with it.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “Fine, right up to the end. And then he scared me a little. Look at my arm. It’s getting blue already.” She pulled her sleeve up. It was definitely a bruise that a man’s hand might make.

  “There was something odd in his eyes, Cliff. It scared me.”

  “Odd?”

  “All the way through he acted as though he were humoring me. You know. Like talking to a child. Telling me what a terrible shock this all was. And then he suddenly realized that I meant it, that I had really decided that I wouldn’t marry him, never would marry him. His voice went all funny and his hands shook so that he couldn’t light a cigarette. After he hurt my arm he stormed out of here.”

  She seemed more amazed than frightened. “I guess, Melody, he’s always had pretty much his own way. This is a shock to his system.”

  “Why did you stop by, Cliff?”

  “Restless. I didn’t like the way our evening ended yesterday.”

  “It was a good evening and a good ending to it. I wanted to see you anyway. I received a wire from the lawyers this afternoon. Their Mr. Rainey will be here tomorrow morning with all the papers. Maybe you’ll want to talk to him.”

  “I will. He’ll be representing you, I suppose. There’ll have to be a formal claim presented on the theft policy. What kind of a guy is he?”

  “I’ve never met him, Cliff. It’s a good firm. Old line. He’s a junior partner or something.” She yawned and then gave me a shamefaced smile. “The argument with Furny took a lot out of me, I guess.”

  She walked with me to the door. As I turned to say good night to her, she put her hand lightly on my shoulder, leaned up, and kissed me on the lips. “Stop looking as though all is lost, Cliff,” she whispered.

  I went back to my place, showered, and went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep for a long time. When I did I had a crazy dream. I was playing shuffleboard. Letty kept flooding the board with beer. Melody stood with Horace’s arm around her, laughing.

  7

  I WOKE UP and the sheets were sodden with perspiration. The hot spell was still continuing. It was strange February weather. Saturday morning. Wednesday morning Arthur had told me of the Stegman death. Wednesday evening I had seen Tony Lavery. Thursday evening in Tampa with Melody. And last night… I found that I didn’t want to think about last night.

  I took a morning shower, and as I turned the water to cold I invented a new race of men. There would be a little trap door over the right ear. On mornings after the people could open the little doors, take out their souls, and scrub them clean under the shower. It would be handy. A world full of smiling faces and shining souls…

  The bathroom radio warned me in stentorian tones of the state of the world as I shaved. It’s odd that there are so few radios in bathrooms. I won’t have one anywhere else. Most of the advertising is on that level to start with.

  “… inability to find any common points of agreement with the Russian representatives…” he said. “… Midwest caught in the grip of a new blizzard. Three deaths so far. Railroads running behind schedules, roads blocked, air liner feared lost…” he said.

  I finished the last dark patch under the chin and held the razor under the cold water.

  “… and on the local front a flash has just come in to the studio of a new development in the Stegman murder. The body of Horace Franklin, chauffeur to the late Miss Stegman, was found at a quarter to nine this morning in the bay caught in the pilings of the municipal pier. The body was discovered by two small boys fishing from the pier. Though no statement has yet been made by Chief Powy, it is believed that Franklin was killed by repeated blows on the head with a blunt instrument. Keep tuned to this station for the latest local and world-wide news, brought to you through the courtesy of…”

  I found that I was still holding the razor under the cold water. I clicked off the radio. It sat on the shelf, ivory-white and complacent. I cursed it and then I cursed Harry Banson and then I cursed Horace Franklin for being dead. When I got my breath I cursed myself for being right in my hunch.

  The alcohol in the lotion stung the invisible nicks in my face. I picked my watch off the shelf. Ten after nine. The local station had picked the news up quickly. By now it had been fed into the national news services, and in afternoon papers all over the country Florence City would be receiving another chunk of unwanted publicity. The local heat would be more searing than ever. The real-estate gents and the property owners would
be recoiling in righteous horror. To have the public press implant in the average man’s mind a thought pattern whereby Florence City was synonymous with sudden death… Public servants, feeling the rake of the spurs, would be bucking and plunging desperately.

  I suddenly realized that I had to get to Banson and I had to get to him quickly. With somewhat the feeling of an animal trainer entering a cage full of strange cats, I dressed hurriedly, wolfed a hasty breakfast in the diner, and walked the five familiar blocks to police headquarters.

  In the Traffic Bureau somebody was complaining loudly and bitterly about a broken meter, and why did he have to pay if the city couldn’t keep the meters fixed? Old Sam was lethargically sweeping down the corridor with a wide brush and green compound. He gave me a white-toothed grin.

  “Sam, you seen Sergeant Banson?”

  “Yassuh. He been in and out all moanin’. Upstairs now, maybe.”

  I held out a dollar. “Can you tell him to come down to the men’s room?”

  Sam gave me a hurt look. “I’ll tell ’im, Lieutenan’, but I doan want no buck.”

  “Sorry, Sam. You’re the only friend I got left in this place.”

  I shut myself in one of the cubicles in the men’s room. Somebody came in and went out. Then another pair of feet came in.

  “Cliff?”

  I pushed the door open and he stared in at me. He was in uniform for a change. The pale gray shirt was black at the armpits. His mouth had a nervous squeezed-up look, and his sharp Adam’s apple kept running up and down his yellow leathery throat.

  “Jesus, Cliff! Jesus!” he said.

  “Take it easy, Harry. If anybody comes in, you turn and wash your hands and I’ll let this door swing shut. First, have you told anybody?”

  “I’m going to have to tell somebody, Cliff. Jesus! You don’t know. Sooner or later they’re going to find out that I was…”

  “Get this, Harry. You don’t have to tell anybody anything. If you do, Harry, I’m going to cross you up good. So help me. I advise you to tail a guy and he turns up dead. How are you going to look? They need a suspect in the can. It can be you as well as me.”