Never Street

by Loren D. Estleman

  “I’ve already seen this picture,” Gay Catalin said. “Is this what you dragged me down here for?”

  She looked as she had the night I first laid eyes on her in the house she’d shared with her husband in West Bloomfield: trim, blonde, beginning to show her age, but all the more attractive for refusing to fight it through heroic measures. Tonight, however, she had abandoned her customary yellow for a simple knee-length dress of deep purple that appeared black in the light reflecting from the screen, with shoes and a purse to match.

  “It seemed appropriate. It’s where I came in.”

  “You said you know what happened to Neil. I didn’t know you were still looking for him. Isn’t it enough that the police are looking? I’ve lost him whether he stays missing or he turns up to stand trial for murder.”

  “Catalin didn’t murder anyone. He couldn’t.”

  “That’s what I said, but the police didn’t believe me. What makes you think they’ll believe you?”

  “When his body turns up they won’t have any choice. Especially when the coroner tells them he’s been dead since before your brother was killed.”

  She remained unmoving. “Neil’s dead?”

  “He died the day he walked out on a meeting with Leo Webb at Gilda Productions. We’ll never know the reason he walked out, since Webb was the only other person present and what he said before he was killed can’t be relied on, because he was an accomplice after the fact. My guess is Webb told him that Webb and you and your brother were trying to blackmail Dr. Ashraf Naheen.”

  She flinched. Onscreen, Dick Powell had just shot the intruder, and she may have been startled by the muzzle flash. “Can you turn that off? I’m having a hard time understanding what it is you’re trying to say.”

  “You’re not that easily distracted,” I said. “You certainly weren’t the day a disgruntled former employee of Naheen’s sent a videotape of one of Neil’s psychiatric sessions to your home. I thought at first it was delivered to Gilda, where Webb intercepted it, watched it, realized what it meant, and sent a copy to Naheen anonymously, indicating that he had others and that he’d go public with them if the good doctor didn’t pony up fifty thousand dollars. He was greedy, but he wasn’t that devious. Only someone who had watched almost as many complex crime films as Catalin had could come up with a plan like that.”

  “Those plots aren’t plausible. Nothing ever works out like that in real life.”

  “You should know. You must have had some inkling of it when Catalin came home and confronted you with what Webb had let slip during their meeting. That was when you killed him.”

  “I explained why I terminated your services. If you’re trying to torment me—”

  “My guess is you used Neil’s own gun, the nine-millimeter Smith and Wesson he registered and that the cops didn’t find when they searched your house. The same one Leo Webb used to kill Brian. Or was that you?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I didn’t kill my husband. I certainly wouldn’t kill my brother. My own brother. I raised him myself.”

  “You did a rotten job. He was a sneak and a would-be blackmailer. Maybe his attempt to shake Neil down when he was running around with Vesta is what gave you the idea to put the bee on Naheen. Anyway, I don’t suppose Brian gave you any argument when you and Webb chose him to set up the ransom drop at Spee-D-A Couriers. The pay was okay: twenty thousand bucks’ worth of electronic equipment, just asking for anyone who had a key to carry it out the back door of the Gilda studio. That’s where Webb came in. He had a key.”

  The light quality changed onscreen. Jane Wyatt, playing Dick Powell’s wife, had come downstairs and switched on a lamp. She was listening to her husband telling her to call the police; that he’d just killed someone. Mouthing it silently, because there was still no soundtrack.

  I said, “Did Baby Brother change his mind about his end? Did he refuse to give up the Spee-D-A claim ticket unless you promised him a fatter slice, or did you just suspect he’d get a bright idea and fly with the cash as soon as he had his mitts on it? Doesn’t matter. The point is you couldn’t afford him, because sooner or later he was bound to screw up with the law and sell out both of you for a reduced plea. A thing like that plays hell with family. I still like you for that sloppy shoot-up on Ferry Park, a real duffer’s job; but Leo was even less of a hand at killing than you. You gave up your amateur status the day you snuffed Neil.

  “You trumped up a telephone call from Catalin offering to meet you at the old Michigan Theater to give you an alibi for Brian. Then you set me up with a ticket to the first night of the DIA film festival to keep me busy while Leo took care of Vesta. He was already in deep as an unsuspecting accomplice to Neil’s murder. Faking a tryst between Neil and Vesta using Neil’s car to explain his disappearance was minor. After that he was committed too far to balk at killing Brian and then doing Vesta to keep her from swearing under oath that it was Webb who came calling the night Catalin vanished. You probably made it clear to him he’d share the fall for the first murder. No one saw Neil come home that day, and Webb left the office shortly after his partner stalked out, plainly upset about something.”

  I stopped talking. There was an emergency exit on either side of the stage, marked with a neon sign. One of the arched doors was ajar.

  “It’s a theory,” Gay Catalin said. “But that’s all it is. As far as the police are concerned, Neil killed Leo at the Mannering slut’s apartment to eliminate the competition.”

  “Old news. Orvis Robinette shot Leo with the gun Leo planned to use on Vesta. He had the bad luck to interrupt Robinette while he was tearing the place apart looking for the ninety-two grand he and Ted Silvera, Vesta’s ex-husband, stole from several video stores downriver. They fought, of course. Robinette won; also of course.”

  “More theory.”

  “Would you like her to say something else?” I asked.

  “No, I heard enough.”

  The new voice drew Gay’s attention away from the stage for the first time, to the emergency exit. The door opened the rest of the way and Robinette came in. His big right hand was wrapped around the butt of an automatic pistol.

  Thirty-nine

  THE BIG ROOM was as silent as only a room can be where the slightest sound is as loud as an explosion. The bandit’s great height and bright orange hair looked right at home in the dimensions and glitter of the aging movie house. The pistol was pointed at Gay Catalin.

  “I heard enough,” he said again. “That’s the voice from the phone.”

  “Who are you?” There was a thin edge of hysteria behind the question. She knew the answer.

  “You’ve spoken,” I said, “although not in person. Robinette came back to see Vesta last night. He brought his old partner with him. Silvera got out of Jackson yesterday, four years early for behaving himself. When Robinette told him his ex turned in the money he went to prison for— turned it in on my advice—he got upset and decided to take us both out. He bought a shotgun, violating his parole, and cut it down just like the one he used in the robberies, but he was out of practice. He’s in jail in Iroquois Heights.

  “The cops don’t know about Robinette just yet. I told them Silvera’s ride took off when things didn’t go as planned. I let him go when he agreed to come here tonight and identify you.”

  “I’ve never had any contact with this man in my life.”

  “Sure you did,” Robinette said. “You and me contacted Monday night. You called me at my dump and told me the money was in a locker at the YMCA and the key was hid at Vesta’s.”

  She was looking at me. “How would I know where to call him? I didn’t even know he existed.”

  I said, “You knew. He was following you around because he saw your husband’s car parked at Vesta’s. You got the license number off his Camaro, as I did, and ran it through channels. You recognized the name, because you saw the tape of Neil’s session with Naheen. He mentioned the whole affair with Vesta, including her ex-husband’s crimes and the ma
n he committed them with. Getting a telephone number is easy once you have the name.

  “That was smart, but it was also a mistake. You tipped Robinette anonymously about the money and then you sent Webb to Vesta’s place the same night. You knew I was beginning to suspect Webb. When I told you he’d ducked me at his office that day you knew he’d crack under questioning. Chances are you already suspected that and planned to set him up from the start. You knew he was no match for someone like Robinette, with or without a gun. So the only other person who could finger you for Catalin dropped out of the picture, and because he was shot with the same gun that killed Brian Elwood, the cops pinned it on Catalin. Smart. It was so neat it deserved a gold star. Mistake.

  “Because it was too neat. Things never tie up that sweet except in the movies Neil loved. What was Webb doing at Vesta’s place when she was working late? How did Robinette happen to pick that night to ransack the place? Robinette answered the second question last night when I braced him with his partner’s shotgun. As for the first, Vesta told me she left a message on Webb’s answering machine telling him she’d be hung up at the restaurant. How is it you got that message and Webb didn’t?”

  ‘Talk, lady!” Robinette gave the automatic a twitch. He’d been eager for this meeting ever since he learned he’d been set up as thoroughly as Leo Webb, and by the same person. “If your mouth ain’t big enough for the words to get out I can always make another hole.”

  She was as cool as the sapphire lights. “Clearly, this is duress. I was at Leo’s house that day, talking him out of a bad case of nerves. The phone rang while he was in the bathroom splashing water on his face. I let the machine get it. Afterwards I erased the tape. Of course I’m making all this up at gunpoint.”

  “There was more than fifty grand involved,” I said. “Gilda Productions is incorporated for tax purposes, and corporation documents are public record. Webb and Catalin were each insured for half a million dollars, the amount to go to the surviving partner in the event of death or inability to fulfill one’s obligations to the firm. That covers being wanted by the law, so you and Webb stood to split a chunk. Then when Webb got killed without leaving a legal heir, the whole amount went to you as Catalin’s next of kin. He must have really got your goat that time he strayed.”

  “You don’t know what it was like. How could you? You’re as bad as he was. Look at what you chose to get my attention.” She tilted her head toward the screen, where Dick Powell was walking the midnight streets, working up the courage to turn himself in to the police. The same shadows and light that were playing over his face slid a cargo net over hers.

  I said nothing.

  “I’ve been a widow for years, eating alone and watching television or reading a book, evening after evening, while he lived in the basement with those morbid films. Even when he wasn’t watching them he was talking about them: mise-en-scène, bitch goddess, automobile as weapon, telephone as instrument of intimidation; nattering away his life on trivia while the business he built to support us rotted from neglect. I invested my inheritance in Gilda to keep it from defaulting. I pawned my grandmother’s engagement ring. And all the time I was making these sacrifices, all those evenings I thought Neil was working late at the office to attract new customers, he was cheating on me with an actress. An actress. It was as if all the clichés and contrivances he put up with in his old movies had taken over his life.

  “That’s when I got the idea. He was already half crazy on the subject. What was to stop him from going the rest of the way?”

  Neither Robinette nor I moved. The last reel was playing itself out, and nobody was paying any attention to what was happening on the screen.

  “Neil thought it was his decision to check himself into Balfour House,” she said, “but I’m the one who brought it up when I read an article about it in a Sunday magazine. He was just stressed out enough over what was happening downtown to give it serious consideration. Believe me, there are a thousand little things one spouse can do at home to make the other spouse decide to slip away to a picturesque island for a long rest cure. I was laying the groundwork for an incompetency hearing and a conservatorship, but just taking away his business and his bank account wasn’t enough. I stewed over it for a year and a half after he got back. Then that videotape came in the mail. I watched it—on Neil’s personal altar, the big screen in the basement—and I saw the whole plan, just as clearly as if it were playing out in front of me instead of Neil’s mewlings about his grotesque childhood.”

  “That’s cold.” Robinette was grinning broadly; one pro appreciating the performance of a peer. “You are one cold bitch. Run.”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  “I said run. I was going to dice you right where you stand. Slavery’s done ended, or didn’t you get the memo? We don’t gots to sit still for getting used by no rich white women, not no more. But I like the way you think, so I’m giving you a one-two-three lead. If you can get through that door behind you before I finish counting, I won’t shoot you in the back.”

  She looked at me. “Is he serious?”

  I said, “That’s not the plan, Orvis.”

  “You the man with the plan. I’m the man with the gun. Go, lady. One!”

  “Drop it!” I shouted.

  Robinette turned and shot me.

  At the same instant, Lizabeth Scott shot Raymond Burr onscreen. The muzzle flashes were simultaneous. Burr fell. I didn’t. A round hole opened in the middle of my double-breasted jacket, through which light showed. My hands stayed in my pockets and my lips continued moving, even though nothing was coming out: mouthing the Preamble to the Constitution over and over, a dozen miles away in a studio in Southfield that had been closed for five hours.

  Gay Catalin turned and ran.

  Robinette forgot about counting to three and fired. But he was rattled by what had happened and the bullet went high, nicking the railing of the balcony six feet above her head. She hit the door running and pushed on through to the lobby.

  I stepped out of the shadows inside the emergency exit opposite the one Robinette had entered by and shot him in the side. He staggered and turned to shoot back, but he was still confused. The barrel of his automatic wavered between the image on the screen and the exit. I fired again. He doubled over and sank to the floor.

  The echoes of the reports racketed around the auditorium for a long time. For all I know they’re still going. I looked up at the projection booth. “All right, Professor?”

  A hatch opened next to the beam from the projector and Asa Portman leaned out. “Ready when you are, C.B. And don’t call me Professor.”

  I crossed to the other exit with my gun out and looked down at Orvis Robinette. He was lying on his side with his knees drawn into his chest, clutching his abdomen with both hands. He squinted up at me, outlined against the flickering screen. For a moment he wasn’t sure which image of me to focus on. “How?” It came out in a gasp.

  “Judy Yin. Leo Webb’s secretary at Gilda Productions. She liked him. When I told her my plan to snare the man who killed her boss, she offered me full use of the studio facilities. A fellow named Portman got me a print of Pitfall. You wouldn’t know him; he never did time. I spent all afternoon talking in front of a camera with the last reel of the film playing behind me. No microphone, just my mouth moving so you and Gay Catalin would think my voice was coming from the stage. That’s one of the miracles of the Fox, the way sound carries. From a little distance you couldn’t tell that I wasn’t just standing in front of the screen.” I shrugged. “It bought me two seconds.”

  His eyes closed. I didn’t know if he’d heard anything I’d said. He was going into deep shock.

  All the doors at the back of the auditorium opened simultaneously and twenty uniformed Detroit police officers streamed up the aisles, some of them carrying riot guns. I laid my revolver on a theater seat and clasped my hands on top of my head.

  John Alderdyce strolled in while I was being frisked. He said I was ok
ay and the officer let me push myself away from the wall. The officer bending over Robinette straightened.

  “This one’s pretty bad, Inspector. I’ll radio EMS.”

  “If you like.” The inspector watched Lizabeth Scott, the movie’s only authentic victim, being escorted to her cell by a city matron. Dick Powell, the source of most of her grief, rode away with loyal Jane Wyatt at the wheel, free to live whatever remained of the respectable life he had been leading when the story began. The reel ran out. The screen went white.

  “Good picture?” he asked me.

  “I thought so the first couple of times I saw it. I’ve seen it so many times now I don’t even see it anymore. Did you get Mrs. Catalin?”

  He nodded. “Mary Ann Thaler’s checking her for weapons.”

  “The kind she carries won’t turn up in a frisk.” I looked around, spotted the checked butt of the automatic poking out from under a seat, and used my handkerchief to pick it up by the barrel. “The serial number on this ought to check out with the gun Neil Catalin registered. The prints are Robinette’s. Meet Robinette.” I waved the butt at the man on the floor.

  “Thanks. We’ve met a time or two.”

  “You may not have to meet him again, even if he survives. If the slugs that killed Brian Elwood and Leo Webb didn’t come from this piece, I’ll retire and write my memoirs.”